No room for reason

The absurdity of our hopes for a peaceful reconciliation of the conflict between Islam and civilization grows more apparent each time Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opens his mouth. The president of Iran has picked up the mantle of former Malaysian Prime Minister Mathahir Mohammed, who during his prolonged tenure couldn't seem to walk by a microphone without blurting out some anti-Semitic slur. At a press conference in Mecca, Ahmadinejad has reiterated that Holocaust denial is official Iranian policy: "Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces ... Although we don't accept this claim."

Strangely, Holocaust denial squeezed its wormy way into the media from another angle today as well. Apparently, Mel Gibson will soon begin filming a mini-series about the Holocaust. [NOTE: I've removed a reference to Jews and Nazis rushing each other across an open field that is included in the above-linked article but which apparently is another blogger's joke gone mainstream. Gibson does in fact have a holocaust mini-series in the works. An attentive reader caught my error. Thanks.] Gibson deserves to be vilified, and not just for making us learn how you say, "You've got a piece of flesh on your tunic" in Aramaic. After his father claimed that the millions of Jews supposedly killed by the Nazis had actually just decided to move to the Bronx, Gibson was asked to state his views on the topic. His answer was basically, Shit Happens: "Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine, several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933." (Unless there was a beta version of the year 1933, this claim seems in itself rather unlikely.) In any event, to make it easier to cull the lunatics from the sane, like minds shave alike:




Ahmadinejad's outlook on the future is even more distressing than his interpretation of the past.

"The omission of the potentials of the world of Islam and the absence of its decisive role in the international community should be discussed in the upcoming event." He referred to the OIC summit in Mecca as a suitable opportunity for assessment of the problems encountered by the Muslim world and said that the Islamic states should attempt to work on an equal basis and hand in hand to achieve the desired goal.

From another speech he gave:

He referred to the usurper Israel regime in the occupied Palestine as the main obstacle on the way of Muslim Ummah and said wise removal of the anxiety will give Islam a strong share in administration of global affairs.

"To achieve the desired goal"? "Wise removal of the anxiety"? Giving Islam "a strong share in the administration of global affairs"? Yikes. Oh, but don't worry, Ahmadinejad has a plan to keep your human rights as secure as can be, just like back home in Tehran. He's proposed an "Islamic human rights organization to verify behavior of different countries and publish its annual report in a bid to help restoration of the rights of human beings." Oh, good. That removes my anxiety.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Ahmadinejad called for formation of the Muslim world union of radios and TVs ...

"Radios and TVs of the world, Unite!" What a moron. So while the World of Islam "administers" global affairs by achieving the mysterious "desired goal," the Islamic human rights organization will reassure us that all is fine through unified Islamic radio and television services. Count me out, Muhammed.

I'm relying on Iranian news reports for these accounts of Ahmadinejad's speeches, since my desire to attend the press conference was hampered by the widely overlooked fact that non-Muslims are banned from entering the city. How 'bout the next time a Saudi prince touches his 727 down on the tarmac at IAH looking to take a little hand-in-hand stroll with our president, we tell him we've changed the rules and he can get out or get arrested. No Muslims allowed. I wonder how long the press would overlook that.

Ahmadinejad also took time out from his visit to the Disneyland of Islam to clarify his earlier "Wipe Israel off the face of the earth" statement. He declared that the Jews in Israel should pull up stakes and move to Europe, which will be wiped off the face of the earth at a later date, one apparently to be determined by Mohammed El Baradei.

In other news, in Miami yesterday, two air marshalls hired in 2002 to defend America against Muslim insanity accidently killed a regular insane person. At least they can't be accused of racial profiling.

UPDATE: A reader pointed out that Mel Gibson was a little more direct in supporting evident historical truth about the holocaust in an interview with Diane Sawyer. His words are not very convincing. In the interest of total disclosure, I once lost a friend because I defended David Irving's right to publish whatever idiocy popped into his head, and though I miss the friend I still stand firmly against the censorship of ideas. If Gibson wants to dispute the numbers, let him. And let society and moviegoers judge him. Here's the relevant excerpt from the interview. Judge for yourself.

MEL GIBSON: Do I believe that there were concentration camps where defenceless and innocent Jews died cruelly under the Nazi regime? Of course I do, absolutely. It was an atrocity of monumental proportion.

DIANE SAWYER: And you believe there were millions, six million, millions?

MEL GIBSON: Sure.