David Seaton's News LinksGideon Rachman writes in his first class blog in the Financial Times, "Mr. Ahmadinejad is a rather sinister figure. Or a complete clown." Sinister he may be, but in my opinion, crazy he isn't. What Ahmadinejad is doing by publicity stunts like the "cartoon contest" and the "Holocaust conference", with its endless shocking headlines and photo-ops with rabbis included, is to get lots of media exposure for the central idea he is peddling, which is the question: "Why should the Palestinians be the ones to pay the price for Europe's persecution of the Jews?" The idea that the Holocaust has been thus hijacked has quite a lot of resonance in the 3rd world and even among westerners who don't question in any way the tragic reality of the Holocaust itself. Drilling by repetition the idea that the Holocaust is merely being used to justify the suppression of the Palestinians and that this misappropriation is central to Israeli hasbara or PR machinery. Ahmadinejad is successfully using the headline hungry western media as a sounding box to propagate and repeat the question over and over again. The bait has been taken hook line and sinker. As P.T. Barnum said, "there is one born every minute". DS
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It may not sound like it, but some further interesting reading on this subject can be found in Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem". Notes from her coverage of Eichmann's trial; fascinating on revealing Nazi Germany's role in the establishment of "Israel" - but also a clearer picture on the extent and motivations behind the holocaust - without the hollywood clutter.
I'm surprised no mention here so far of Olmert's "we have a bomb...oops did I say that out loud?" comment. Would like to hear your take. But well so much news, so little time.
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