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My post refuting Ahmadinejad’s argument about the Holocaust attracted a freakshow in the comment thread.
I hate the comments environment at Beliefnet. TI is like a oasis. I’ve simply no patience to prune the threads at COB, especially when I can just come here.
love him: hate him
He is always an interesting and provocative politician. And who worse to interview him than news lightweight Katie Couric. He might just as well been interviewed on Regis or The View. Anyway….
When asked about the elections, Couric showed a picture of Neda dying graphically on the streets of Teheran. An embarassing and awkward moment for some. For Mahmood, an opportunity. He apologized for the death, expressed his regret and then said western media had provoked people in Iran to protest. Then he showed Couric a picture of Marwa El Sherbini, the woman in Germany who was stabbed and killed in court over a hijab issue. He summed up saying the western politicians do not want American people to see what goes on around the world.
He also responded to the holocaust denial saying 60 million people in WWII were killed. Why do we focus just on these people? Aren’t they all human beings? He’s got a point.
Can’t wait for tonight. Should be interesting.
CBSNEWS has video and transcript of the Couric interview.
He’s at it again. I really don’t mind either. While Israel has a right to exist in peace in my book, sans expansion, they are a pain in the ass. Who else gives them this much attitude? Can’t wait til Weds.
ps. love the woman in the front with the “burcappa” on. An alternative to the burqa, it is a cap with a brim so big, it covers all immodest areas of a woman’s body. Or maybe she is going trout fishing after the protest.
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s president said Monday he is proud to stoke international outrage with his latest remarks denying the Holocaust as he heads for the United Nations this week — showing he is as defiant as ever while his country comes under greater pressure to curtail its nuclear program.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad takes the world stage with a speech Wednesday to the U.N. General Assembly. He appears intent on showing he has not been weakened by three months of turmoil at home, where the pro-reform opposition has staged dramatic protests claiming Ahmadinejad’s victory in June presidential elections was fraudulent.
Richard Bartholomew has discovered compelling evidence that Adnan Oktar who writes under the pen name Harun Yahya is the author of a Holocaust denial book. Later, Oktar cut-and-pasted anti-evolution tracks in the place of the Holocaust denial material, but left the rest of the book much the same (including the covers above).
Holocaust Violence takes a different position from Holocaust Deception; here, Yahya indeed asserts that the Holocaust is true – apparently Charles Darwin is to blame for it. However, the covers of the two books are very similar, and there is some overlap of content. Chapter One of Holocaust Deception is entitled “The Untold Story of the Nazi-Zionist Collaboration”, while Chapter One of Holocaust Violence is “The Untold Story of the Nazi-Radical Zionist Collaboration”; most of the sub-headings are the same, although “Zionism” has throughout become “Radical Zionism”, and some other sections are the same. The Holocaust denial material has been replaced with anti-evolutionist screeds, but clearly parts of both books have a common authorship.
Bartholomew has been contacted by Oktar’s lawyer with a claim that the book was actually penned by a “friend,” a slippery assertion that seems to lose credibility on close inspection.
Anybody who has attended a national Islamic conference in the US in recent years has seen Harun Yahya’s extravagant displays and materials.
Act of stupidity: Two people shot at Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.
I’ve never been to the museum, but it was described to me once by someone who did as an incredibly disturbing and moving experience. What a place to do something stupid…
Not surprisingly the Vatican was unimpressed by Richard Williamson’s non-apology for his rampant antisemitism (Holocaust denial is only the beginning).
On a related note, Williamson apparently approached David Irving for advice in how to present his conspiracy theories to the public in a manner that would not cause such an uproar. Irving suggested that he admit the extermination of Jews in three camps (without mentioning any numbers, because those “need to be checked”), but went on to say that Williamson was the target of a Jewish plot designed to distract from the attacks on Gaza:
Israel set off this storm against the church, led by a German pope, to distract the world from the massacre in Gaza.
To round out the insanity, upon his arrival in London, Williamson was met by Michele Renouf. Renouf had previously supported Irving during his trial for Holocaust-denial in Austria. Renouf claimed that Williamson was the victim of an unreasonable persecution by the adherents of a new religion: “Holocaustianity”.
So Algerians will have to wait another twenty years or so?
In a meeting with Jewish leaders today, the Pope called the Holocaust a crime against God and humanity and said any denial of its reality or magnitude was untenable. This was an attempt to mend fences after the whole debacle surrounding the Pope lifting the excommunications of four SSPX bishops, including the Holocaust-denying Richard Williamson.
The SSPX has fired Bp. Richard Williamson from his post as head of a seminary in Argentina because of his Holocaust denial. The Pope had demanded that Williamson recant his views if he wished to continue his service to the Church. The SSPX, a fringe group by any measure, has tried to distance themselves from Williamson on the Holocaust, saying that his opinions were private beliefs and did not represent the organization as whole. Unfortunately, other opinions of Williamson — misogyny, Islamophobia, some conspiracy involving Oklahoma City bombing, etc., etc. — do apparently represent the SSPX, though they are doing their best to hide it by scrubbing their website of his writings.
They haven’t finished scrubbing yet. A picture of Williamson can be found on the top right of the page, here.
[sadly, the links that rely on Google's cache of old web pages are slowly expiring. The misogyny link has been lost for now. -LoA, 25 Feb 09]
The NYTimes gives a summary of the whole sordid Pope-unexcommunicates-Holocaust-denying-Bishop-without-consulting-or-telling-anyone-and-starts-a-public-relations-nightmare affair.
Meanwhile, in Austria, the Pope has decided to appoint a man to the post of bishop, that thinks Harry Potter promotes Satanism and that God had it in for New Orleans because of the loose sexual morals promoted by the city. Needless to say, Austrians seem unimpressed, and it is just another case where one wonders what B16’s priorities are and who he is taking advice from, if anyone.
Across the border in Germany Angela Merkel has said that the Pope’s decisions regarding Bp Richard Williamson “cannot pass without consequences”. At the same time, a German theologian has suggested that it might be best if the Pope resign.
American Archbishop and Cardinal Sean O’Malley, tried to offer a bit of a defense for the Pope’s actions with regard to SSPX, arguing that it was beneficial to have this group back under the control of the Papacy instead of letting them run free while speaking for Catholicism. But the American Conference of Catholic Bishops, headed by Cardinal George, spoke as a whole today, issuing a statement that condemned Richard Williamson’s claims concerning the Holocaust.
The Pope now claims that he did not know about the views of Bp Richard Williamson on the Holocaust at the time he lifted the excommunications against the bishops associated with the fringe Catholic group, the SSPX. It is hard to know whether such a statement is absurd or absurd. It is absurd if he really didn’t know. Ratzinger-turned-Benny16 has a long history with the SSPX, first as JP2’s point in the negotiations around their excommunication in the 1980s, and now, again taking it upon himself to begin normalizing relations with that same group. But it is likewise absurd to believe that he did not know, when they turned out to be exactly who everyone knew they were. How is it credible to say that you didn’t know, when only a passing familiarity with the SSPX makes it obvious.
In any case, the Papacy of Benedict XVI has severely damaged its own credibility and its voice in the international sphere.
there was the Holocaust we all know about, but there was also a part II in Russia, with bullets instead of gas chambers. No less horrifying, and equally important to remind us about just what genocide really means.
Catholic bishop, Richard Williamson, apologizes for making his Holocaust-denying-views known to the media and the embarrassment it has caused the Church, but does not repudiate those views or apologize for holding them. See the NYTimes story here.
The Vatican’s Holocaust-Denying-Bishop PR nightmare that just won’t end.
The Pope tries to normalize the Vatican’s relationship with Judaism after last weeks fiasco. I am not sure the words are going to offset the action quite so easily.
In the process of trying to recuperate a fringe conservative group that broke away from the Catholic Church in 1988, the Vatican has landed itself in an even bigger mess. In the process of bringing the SSPX into the fold, the Papacy has also reinstated a Holocaust denier as a bishop. The leaders of the Jewish community in Israel have reacted in precisely the manner one would expect.