'Holocaust Conference' taking place in Tehran

“I’m bitterly disappointed,” Mr Mahameed, who studied at a British university, told The Times. He was seeking a personal audience with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, to tell him that denials or questioning of “such huge, monstrous horror” harmed the Palestinian cause.My guess is that Mahameed was denied a visa because he knows that the Holocaust did happen, and because he is one of those rare people known as a 'moderate Muslim,' who actually truly believes in reconciliation between Israel and the 'Palestinians.' We could probably make real peace with him in half an hour.
Mr Mahameed lives in Israel, where he has established the Arab Institute for Holocaust Research and Education, the Arab world’s first Holocaust museum, in Nazareth. He believes that the “study, analysis and acknowledgement” of the Holocaust by Arabs is important for a durable peace between the Palestinians and Israel. “It’s not enough to curse these Holocaust deniers as foolish. We have to convince them the Holocaust did happen,” Mr Mahameed said.
On the other hand, look at the cast of characters that is attending the 'Holocaust Conference':
Figures such as Fredrick Toben, a German-born Holocaust denier who lives in Australia, had little trouble getting a visa to attend the conference. There were reports that Lady Michele Renouf, an Australian-born model and socialite, was also on her way to Tehran. She was ejected from the Reform Club in London three years ago after attempting to get David Irving, the right-wing British historian, to speak there.
Irving was understood to be on the original invitation list to the Tehran conference when Mr Ahmadinejad first proposed the gathering last January. But a month later Irving was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in Austria after disputing the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz.
By the admission of Manouchehr Mohammadi, the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister, the conference will address issues such as “whether the gas chambers were actually used by the Nazis”.
...
Tehran claims that 67 “intellectuals and researchers” from 30 countries, including Britain, Germany and France, will attend but has refused to name them. Iran is portraying the gathering as an exercise in free speech, claiming that open discussion of the Holocaust is denied in the West, where some countries make Holocaust denial a crime.
“For 60 years talking about the Holocaust was a crime in the West, but now there is a serious debate about the Holocaust in the media and also in political and popular meetings,” Mr Ahmadinejad said at the weekend. “Even some Western politicians have declared that the original foundation of the Zionist regime was a mistake,” he added.

Here's the Jerusalem Post's report on the 'Conference's' opening session:
The organizers, the Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), said the two-day conference has drawn 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries.There are no words for this treachery. No words. And for those who call themselves religious Jews who participate in it there is nothing but complete and utter contempt.
In his opening speech, the institute's chief, Rasoul Mousavi, said the conference "seeks neither to deny or prove the Holocaust.
"It is just to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue," Mousavi said.
He said the conference provided an opportunity to discuss "questions" about the Holocaust away from Western taboos and the restrictions imposed on scholars in Europe.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki dismissed the foreign criticism as "predictable," telling conference delegates in a speech that there was "no logical reason for opposing this conference."
"The objective for organizing this conference is to create an atmosphere to raise various opinions about a historical issue. We are not seeking to deny or prove the Holocaust," Mottaki said.
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