Why do the Iranians deny that there was a ever a holocaust?

Answer 1

Well, first of all, it's not really "The Iranians" - it's most of the governments of the Arab/Farsi Middle Eastern states.
And the reason is - they don't want any world sympathy for the Jewish people, especially since it was the guilt that the much of the West felt about the Holocaust that played a large part in the creation of the state of Israel.

Here's a longer, more detailed explanation:

"7. The Holocaust denial conference was condemned by the West. The White House called it “an affront to the entire civilized world;” the State Department spokesman called the statements made by the Iranian regime's leaders denying the Holocaust as “flabbergasting;” German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the French foreign minister condemned the conference; Pope Benedictus XVI stated that the Holocaust was “an immense tragedy… [which] must remain as a warning for people's consciences.”

8. Despite the Arab world's widespread support of Holocaust denial 6 and the conference, there were also reservations. As expected, the Palestinian terrorist organizations, especially Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, supported the conference, Ahmadinejad's policy and Holocaust denial. Some of the Arab media gave the conference brief coverage and some of them ignored it completely. On December 13 Al-Jazeera TV gave factual coverage of remarks made by Ahmadinejad, who claimed that the Holocaust was a Jewish invention and that the State of Israel would soon vanish. It reported that most of the participants, led by Robert Faurisson from France and Frederick T ö ben from Australia , had expressed doubts as to whether or not the Holocaust had actually occurred or as to its dimensions.

9. Nevertheless, some of the Arab newspapers reported clear criticism of the conference and its Iranian organizers, either by stating that the Holocaust had in fact occurred or by calling the conference a political ploy by the Iranian regime which was harmful to the Muslim-Arab cause. For example:

A. On December 16 the Arabic version of Al-Sharq al-Awsat, the popular Arab newspaper issued in London , published an editorial article called “The Holocaust: What is its imminent danger to Muslims from its recognition?” The article called the conference “a festival of hate,” and blamed Ahmadinejad for harming Muslims by brainwashing them with hatred, exploiting the “hate TV channels” to increase his popularity, although the Holocaust is a historical fact which cannot be ignored. The article also expressed reservations regarding the conference's participants, who were not scholars but merely racists. Reactions to the article were mixed. 7

B. On December 18 an op-ed article in the Egyptian daily Al-Akhbar attacked the conference and Ahmadinejad's statement that Israel would cease to exist, but with a clearly anti-Israeli approach. The Holocaust was not a myth, stated the article, and even worse, Iranian policy was playing into Israel 's hands (giving it a “life-preserver,” according to the article). It stated that the conference and remarks made by the Iranian president renewed international sympathy for Israel, convinced the world (which does not distinguish between Iranians and Arabs) that Muslims were in fact racists, gave Israel an excuse to maintain nuclear weapons to be able to deal with the Iranian threat, and harmed the Arabs in their attempts to deal with the “holocausts” currently taking place in Palestine and Iraq (“Aren't we victims of a holocaust now, in both Palestine and Iraq? … The Arabs are involved in a bloody confrontation with the neo-Nazis [ Israel ], so what's the point of defending the old Nazis?)

C. On December 14 Al-Sapir, the Lebanese daily newspaper, published an article criticizing Iran and the Arab world for likening Zionism to Nazism on the one hand, while on the other copying Nazism and trying to fulfill its mission, i.e., the annihilation of the Jewish people. The article advised the Arabs to remember that according to Nazi racist theories, the Arabs were considered even more inferior than the Jews. In addition, Holocaust denial would do nothing to help the Arabs deal with Israel , and provided support for the Israeli claim that it needed superior force to protect its existence.

D. On December 14 the Saudi Arabian Internet site Elaph criticized the conference, claiming that a conference whose objective was to deny the Holocaust would have the opposite effect, it would only strengthen Israel 's claims for the need of a Jewish state which would protect the Jews from persecution. In addition, the conference reinforced European solidarity with Israel and the perception that Israel was a modern state which had joined Europe in the struggle against radical Islam. 8

10. Syria , Iran 's ally, has avoided taking an active part in Iran 's campaign and its media gave the conference only modest coverage. On December 15, in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica , Bashad Assad was asked to comment on the conference. He answered that the Europeans had a Holocaust complex and that it had not been caused by Arabs. He defended the conference, saying that there was freedom of expression and that doubt could be cast on anything related to human history. As an example he gave The Da Vinci Code , which questioned generally-accepted truths relating to Jesus.

The background of Holocaust denial policy and undermining the legitimacy of Israel 's existence: the Iranian regime's anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli worldview

11. The Iranian Islamic regime's anti-Semitic worldview is built into the ideology of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Iranian Islamic Republic, and his successors. Khomeini wanted to restore the Islamic Caliphate, in which all Muslims would live as a single community ruled by Muslim law (the Shai'ah). Like the prophet Muhammad, who waged a holy war against the infidels, the Iranian Islamic regime led by Khomeini set out to wage a war to the death against contemporary infidels, central among them “the great Satan,” the United States, and “the little Satan,” Israel.

12. In the perceptions of both Khomeini and the heads of the Iranian regime, no real distinction is made between Israel and the Jewish, and their virulent anti-Israeli ideology is laced with anti-Semitism and a fundamental hatred for the West, particularly the United States . Both Shi'ite religious law and the teaching of Khomeini define the Jews, like the followers of all religions which are not Islam, as infidels and unclean. Khomeini regarded the Jews as the enemies of Islam, and that perception was strengthened by the fact that the Jews and “world Zionism” were identified as allies of the Shah (whose regime was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution). Furthermore the Jews, he claimed, deprived the Palestinians of their rights and land and established a country in the middle of the Muslim world. The “liberation” of Palestine and Jerusalem were and are the cornerstones of the Iranian regime's internal and inter-Arab legitimacy, and the justification for its negative stance toward Israel , the Jewish people, the United States , the West and the peace process in the Middle East .

13. In addition, Khomeini and his successors view the Jews as plotting to take over the world, and that image is rooted in the minds of the heads of the Iranian Islamic regime. For them, the Jews play an overt or covert role in every international event or crisis, they control global media (including the film industry, especially in America), founded the Freemasons to carry out their plots to rule the world and prevent the spread of Islam, exert pressure on the decision-makers of the United States and Europe, and are even accused of supporting terrorist organizations around the world to create crises. Therefore they are a threat and danger to the world. One of the “proofs” is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , which have a central place in the anti-Semitic publications issued in Iran9 .

14. The Iranian aspiration to destroy the State of Israel is also political. According to the ruling clerics in Iran , Judaism is considered a religion, not a nationality, and thus the Jews are not necessarily deserving of a state of their own. Thus there is no place for a Jewish state, and certainly not on what the Iranians consider Muslim land (Palestine), while violating what they consider the legal rights of Muslims (Palestinians), and certainly not one with control and sovereignty over Jerusalem, sacred to all Muslims.

15. As a result, the lessening of the Holocaust's dimensions is central to the political worldview of the heads of the Iranian regime, according to which the Jews use a variety of strategies in their striving to control the world and justification for the “occupation” of Palestine . One of the more successful ones, in Iranian opinion, is an exaggeration of the dimensions of the Holocaust which is meant, claimed Khomeini and his successors, the current Iranian leaders, to deflect world attention from the Jews' real goals. The Iranian regime does not deny the loss of Jewish lives during the Second World War, but attempts to minimize the magnitude of the Holocaust, and to that end gives broad coverage to Holocaust deniers or individuals who cast doubt on the Holocaust.

Why does the Iranian regime stress Holocaust denial?

16. Contemporary Iran is the only country which has openly adopted a strategy aimed at the elimination of the State of Israel, of which Holocaust denial is one component. That strategy also includes the ambition to acquire nuclear capabilities (which will enable Iran to carry out its policy). The almost universal international criticism for the Iranian regime's statements about the Holocaust and its calls for the destruction of Israel have done nothing to weaken it, quite the opposite. During the past months the Iranians have stepped up their anti-Israel campaign, pointedly ignoring world protest.

17. Despite the loathing for the Jewish people and the State of Israel deeply rooted in Khomeini's ideology and those upon whom the Iranian regime rests, until recent years the Iranians were careful about making anti-Semitic remarks, especially because of the international criticism they caused. To a great extent, Ahmadinejad's intensive Holocaust denial campaign reflects the regime's growing self-confidence and its readiness to undertake a defiant and even provocative stance toward the United States , the West and Israel , and the Holocaust denial campaign is but one aspect of that.

18. Since August 2005, when he was appointed president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has aligned himself with Iran 's ultra-conservative camp in a propaganda campaign, as have other senior members of the Iranian regime. Its goal is to indoctrinate the public, in Iran and beyond, with the notion that Israel has no right to exist and that it should be wiped off the map. At the same time, Iran , under his leadership, has been waging a campaign to undermine the legitimacy of Israel 's existence, at whose the center is a denial of the Holocaust. In that context, Ahmadinejad organized the international Holocaust cartoon competition, was behind the international Holocaust denial conference and has plans to continue airing his views on the subject.


Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in cartoons: a page of cartoons from the Iranian Website
of Al-Quds TV, devoted to Holocaust denial and the likening of Jews and Nazis.

19. The Holocaust denial campaign, as a main component of the Iranian regime's anti-Israeli policy, is not only an expression of the hatred for Jews which is rooted in Iranian politics and society, but also a clever and well-planned strategy which the Iranian regime under Ahmadinejad's presidency seeks, in our opinion, to achieve three main goals:

A . To delegitimize the Zionist movement and the State of Israel as ideological and moral preparation for Israel's destruction : Ahmadinejad considers that Holocaust denial or at least minimizing its magnitude will relieve the European and American sense of guilt which led to the establishment of the State of Israel and thus prepare the ground for its eventual destruction. The Jewish problem, according to Ahmadinejad, is European and should be solved by Europeans in such a fashion that Jews will be able to live there as European protégés, while the state of Palestine will rise on the ruins of the State of Israel (with the implication that anyone who stays in Israel will be fair game.) In fact, throughout the Tehran conference the connection was made between Holocaust denial and the destruction of the State of Israel:

1) Iranian foreign minister Mamuchehr Mottaki stated that “…an official study of the Holocaust will also lead to the nature of the Zionist regime's existence being questioned. And if the Holocaust is proved to be a historical fact, then an answer will have to be provided for the question why the Muslims in the region and the Palestinians have to pay the price for the Nazis' crimes” (ISNA News Agency, December 11).

2) Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exploited the conference to repeat his stated objective of the destruction of the State of Israel: “ Israel is temporary and will vanish like the Soviet Union . When I said that that regime [i.e., the “Zionist regime”] would disappear, I was expressing the hidden thoughts of nations… Just as the Soviet Union was erased from [the map of] the world, so will the Zionist entity soon disappear…” (Al-‘Alam, December 13).

3) Iranian ambassador to Syria , Muhammad Hassan Akhtari , was interviewed in Damascus by a reporter for the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Serra on December 14. He claimed that there were no gas chambers, that the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Treblinka did not exist, and that six million Jews were not murdered. He claimed that the Holocaust was nothing more than a Zionist “invention” intended to persecute the Palestinians and justify the establishment of the State of Israel. He stated that there was no legitimacy for Israel 's existence, not even within the 1967 borders, and that the Jewish immigrants and their descendents living in Israel had to leave and let the Palestinians return.

B. To increase Iran 's influence among the Palestinians by representing Iran as the spearhead of the Palestinian “struggle,” they present the Palestinians as the Holocaust's real victims and themselves as the defenders of the Palestinian cause, and in the forefront of the “struggle” to destroy the State of Israel. Their anti-Israel campaign, accompanied by Holocaust denial, is also intended to reinforce Iran 's influence in the Palestinian arena. The campaign supports Palestinian terrorism and a strengthening of bonds with the Hamas government, whose extremist ideology identifies with Iran 's extremist Islamic ideology. It should be remembered that on the eve of the Holocaust denial conference Hamas government prime minister Ismail Haniya visited Tehran , where he was promised an unprecedented $250 million in aid. 10


A cartoon published by the Iranian News Agency FARS.
The Holocaust serves as a guillotine for the Palestinian people.

C. The Iranian regime views Holocaust denial as an effective tool for advancing Iran 's aspirations for regional hegemony and strengthening its position in the Arab-Muslim world . As opposed to its first years, the Islamic regime in Tehran is currently carrying out an offensive to broaden its influence in the Middle East . The anti-Israel campaign, centering as it does around Holocaust denial, is perceived by the regime as an effective weapon which can be used to gain support in the Arab-Muslim “street” and to harm pro-Western regimes which have peaceful relations with Israel and oppose Iranian policy. 11 That is achieved by exploiting hatred for Israel , the Jewish people and the West. Such a perception is not new, since hatred for Israel and the Jewish people have served as an effective tool for the dictatorial regimes in the Middle East to enlist popular support. Those regimes prefer to manipulate the bitterness and frustration caused by the poverty and hardship prevalent in their countries and channel them against Israel . They use anti-Semitism and opposition to Israel to produce the desired results whenever they want to enlist popular support, since Israel has always been perceived as representing the Jewish people and as the advance guard of the United States and the West.

20. Beyond those basic goals, in our assessment the Holocaust denial campaign may also be the product of the personality of Iranian president Ahmadinejad, who belongs to his country's ultra-conservative camp. Despite his remarks and comments about the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad echoes previous statements made by other sources within the Islamic Republic, and it seems as though his more extreme rhetoric, uttered with total disdain for the world sensitivity (especially in the West), spring from his religious beliefs and social and political background, and are not only rhetoric.

21. It is possible that his membership in the extremist Jamkaran group, 12 his belief in the coming of the Hidden Imam (Imam Mahdi) 13 who will arrive after the battle of Armageddon with Israel and the West, may be a possible explanation for his extreme statements (such as the destruction of Israel and Holocaust denial), and even behind his stubborn desire for nuclear technology.

22. There are also extremist clerics in Iran who are laying the groundwork for an atmosphere leading to the battle of Armageddon. For example, in April 2005 the Ayatollah and “source of authority” Hussein Nuri Hamdani claimed that “the Jews should be fought against and forced to surrender to prepare the way for the coming of the Hidden Imam [the Mahdi]…”

Answer 2

Iranians , at least some of my friends who are Iranians do not deny it at all. The leadership of Iran which isan Arab country does so for political reason. Of course, the President of Iran makes it an issue to divert attention from the economic problems of his own country. Iran has a large poor population and he has promised betterdays. Those better days are not forthcoming, so now he blames of Course Israel and he has advocated the destruction of Israel. He thinks Israel exists a only because of the Holocaust, yet in the same vein he denies it. He wantsit both ways and he as well as the epople who object to him, do not seem to think through his logic. That is he advocates the eradivation of Israel because in his mind he assertsit was created by the West because of the Holocaust, but then goes on to deny it ever happened!!! And, the pundits do not see that he contradicts himself. His acolytes and him had even a conferenc elast December to maj ke headlines. Because it is all about keeping his name in the headlines.. He will say the most absurdf things tyo play on the news business and keep his name up front for better or ill, as long as he is in the headlins e he will say the most unsuspected things. That is psychologically , he is like the guy who shot 32 people at Virginai tech and kill himself to make headl;ines. To sday I am somebody. The President of Iran , a country among over 200 others , would not even be mentionned if he did not make the out;andish assertoions , he is psychologically as delusional, it seem s to me,as the the person at Virginia Tech. The President of Iran as I see it is a manic depressive, meaning he goes opn high telling people aboutythe forthcoming apolocalypse when the hidden Iman will com,e back and put an end to the world in a balll of fire.. or then goes downhill and goes in his low stage when he rattles abbout the evil; zionists resposnible for ll ills o in the world. Imagine the power of 6 million Isralis vers billions of muslims..There fore, an israeli is worth a lot of muslims! Right lol~!

Answer 3

it is not only Iran but most of the terrorist organization... they deny the Holocaust because they feel that there is too much sympathy toward the Jews

Answer 4

It's not the Iranians, but the Iranian government. The rest of the answer is as simple as : Ahmadinejad is anti-semitic.

Answer 5

Because those and other historical facts do not suit their islamofascist cultural delusions about jews.

Answer 6

Their ruler hates Israel.

Answer 7

probably because islamic leaders and their actions influenced and cheerled the "final solution" in germany...

http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/33Rlg/Islm/Islm&Hitlr.htm
http://www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com/gallery/

Answer 8

beats me