The Holocaust was a myth

Great Debates
1

What?! I can’t find the quote on the [Washington"]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26919-2000Feb8.html]Washington]( [url="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26919-2000Feb8.html) Post’s web page, but in the print edition there was a small, captioned photo series at the top of the same article. One of the photos was of an elderly man reading a state run newspaper that said that the Holocaust was a myth. A state run newspaper? Did I read that right? I was waiting for my morning coffee, so I could have misread it. Is this the ‘official’ party line throughout the Middle East? Do they claim that the entire incident never happened or that it did not happen to such a magnitude as it did? Does Israel have a similar take, such as the Palestinians never occupied Jerusalem? Gadzooks… I expected as much from some neo-Nazis, but a state run newspaper in a country that is negotiating peace with Israle?

Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…

2

Oops… sorry about the link. Lemme try that again. Here is the Washington Post Article.

3

There’s a thread over in Great Debates about this right now, although it got a bit off track for a while. It’s here.

Never attribute to malice anything that can be attributed to stupidity.
– Unknown

4

I assume you are talking about a story in a Syrian newspaper that calls the Holocaust a myth?

Sadly, dictatorships always think that they can control thought by controlling the press. The official Syrian line on Holocaust denial changes every so often; at one point, they denied it completely… then they said it was only a small number… then they said most of the deaths were due to disease… They will say whatever the government tells them to say, regardless of how reasonable or consistent it may be.

Israel has a free press. This means that if the government lies about something, there would be swarms of reporters trying to find out the truth. Like with the U.S., having a free press doesn’t seem to stop government officials from lying, but it does reduce the likelihood of them getting away with it.

I have been in Israel, and the daily newspapers present almost every perspective on issues that you can imagine, including very pro-Palestinian anti-Israeli views.

Of course, dictatorships always consider free debate and open expression of views to be a weakness, reflecting a lack of national unity. If everyone is only allowed to have one opinion on a topic, then there is national unity. It’s an interesting mindset.

5

That reminds me of 1984. IIRC, one idea was that if words for things that the government didn’t want talked about were suppressed, the ideas they represented would disappear. Doesn’t seem to work too well.

That sentence is a little incoherent, but I think it works.

6

The above linked thread in Great Debates provides ample existing discussion of this topic. I’ll forward this thread there as well.

Nickrz
7

To Rhythmdvl: Have you ever been in the Los Angeles area? On the 9700 block of Pico Boulevard, near the southwest corner of the City of Beverly Hills, is the Simon Wiesenthal Center, including the Museum of Tolerance. If you visit this museum you will most likely be convinced that the Holocaust was not a myth, anything in a Syrian newspaper to the contrary notwithstanding.
Many people have found the theme of the Museum of Tolerance overwhelming.