Just Asking

So then, it was all an unfortunate delusion. We got the message wrong. What might possibly have led us to the impression that the Islamic Republic of Iran after all held no illusions that the Holocaust had actually occurred? The country that hosted Holocaust-denial summits inviting honoured guests who held similar views, where all concerned could trumpet their scholarly interpretations of the Third Reich's Final Solution to rid the world of Jews as falsely incoherent, now sees fit to recant.

It was, they piously fold their hands in alter-denial, merely a sad figment of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's twisted mind. Done to torment Jews in the denial of their never-ending sorrow. Official Iran, the Iran of the commanding Ayatollahs felt the issue so insignificant and beyond their notice that there was never any need to bring Ahmadinejad to heel.

Perhaps because he vented their malign hatred so effusively affectingly?

And, as it happens, in so doing, since there was never anything resembling a global response of indignation over the sullying of the memory of those millions who perished, why bother? The world left with the impression, a completely erroneous one, that the Iranian Republic viewed the Jews with loathing for impressing upon the world their tragic annihilation that never in fact occurred.

Just for the purpose of exacting sympathy.

An enabling tactic to ensure that in their guilt over having done nothing whatever to ease the existential plight of an entire people, all those who stood by complacently while Jews were gassed to death, their mortal remains burnt in giant ovens, ashes darkening the sky and falling to fertilize the soil below, simply looked away. The expiation of conscience resulting in assent to a land of their own.

Insulting, infuriating, enraging the Arab world of Islamic ownership of the Middle East. Degrading Islam by the presence of a Jewish homeland. And where once it was seen as disreputable, uncivil and uncouth to speak too loudly of one's anti-Semitic thought processes, now it is impolitic and impolite to speak rudely of Islamism, of jihadis, of terrorists.

And, most particularly, of a theocratic Islamist government pining for nuclear weapons.

A change of tactics is always seen as a solution to poor optics. Now, not only has Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, sent New Year greetings to Jews, but so too has the newly elevated foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif wished Jews  "Happy Rosh Hashanah". Both sending messages through their Twitter accounts.

So much has a medieval mentality swivelled itself into the 21st Century and Internet social messaging. Complete with a picture of an Iranian Jew in a Tehran-located synagogue; Arab Jews living in the Middle East as they have done for millennia. Acceptable, as long as they consent to live under Islamic rule, prepared not to disrupt custom and heritage.


As for Holocaust denial as the world saw events unfolding in Iran: "Iran never denied it. The man who was perceived to be denying it is now gone. Happy New Year", wrote Zarif who as former ambassador to the UN, never flinched when his then-president promised that his country was prepared to annihilate the Zionist entity.

The messages tweeted on those two accounts of fraternal concern for the happiness of Jews could not conceivably be interpreted as a public relations gambit, not really, certainly not. Even while official Iran instructs its proxy terror groups to prepare for assaults against the State of Israel should its ally Syria be the subject of military censure.

As for the tweets, ostensibly sent out in benevolent regard to Iran's Jewish community, one wonders how many have possession of Internet use...?