Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial

last updated 8 January 2015

Mahmoud Ahmadinejed must crave international criticism, said Alan Cowell in The New York Times. The Iranian president "on Friday called the Holocaust a myth as his country marked an annual pro-Palestinian demonstration." Ahmadinejad also said confronting Israel was a national and religious duty. His latest Holocaust denial, coming just days before talks between his government and Western powers, "seemed likely to cast a cloud" on hopes for reining in Iran's nuclear program.

"I think it’s pretty clear that those talks won’t go anywhere," said Doug Mataconis in Below the Beltway, "don’t you?" Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial revealed his "true character," and you can't reason with somebody like that.

What Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed, said Al Jazeera, was that the Holocaust was a "false pretext" for creating the "Zionist regime" in Israel. That's old news—he made similar remarks in 2005 and the international community critized him for his views. This time around, though, Ahmadinejad spoke as police cracked down on opposition protesters convinced he cheated to win re-election, so he was probably trying to muster support by emphasizing his anti-West, anti-Israel bona fides.