Holocaust denials hot, but are they legit?

There are always interesting and thought provoking emails coming across my screen. I received one today that begged an investigation into its validity. I was fascinated by what I found, and reassured when I put the issue into logical focus.

It read:

In Memoriam: Recently this week, the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it "offended" the Moslem population which claims it never occurred. This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it. It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian peoples looking the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be "a myth," it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide. Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world. Please don't just delete this email, send it to the people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain. It will only take you a minute to pass it along - Thanks! >

Anti-Semite Rationale
Now it is not an unnatural idea to grasp, but Palestinians and Arabs, in turn are generally anti-Semetic groups. They hate the Jews. So, is it logical that they would resent the global attention given to The Holocaust. It's a natural progression to understand that they would deny any harm done to Jews throughout the world. And with this in mind, it then makes sense that they would draw resentment over the fact that genocides around the globe - Armenia, Durfur and Rwanda as examples - are drawing such limited response or concern from the global community in general and the Western world in specific.

Muslim Rationale
Muslims in general can't be labeled as universal Holocaust deniers. And we must remember most Muslims are not anti-Semetic. Radio Islam did a piece on this very issue and concluded: "For purposes of their own, powerful special interest groups desperately seek to keep substantive discussion of the Holocaust story taboo. One of the ways they do this is by purposely mis-characterizing revisionist scholars as 'deniers.' But the truth can't be suppressed forever: There is a very real and growing controversy about what actually happened to Europe's Jews during World War II. Let this issue be settled as all great historical controversies are resolved: through free inquiry and open debate in our journals, newspapers and classrooms."

They did not embrace the statements of the deniers, and they agreed that this is a topic which needs to be examined through open-minded and academic means.

So the removal of The Holocaust from United Kingdom curriculi cannot be directly attributed to the Mulim community.

Radical Islamic Rationale
Radical Islamic leadership, however, have embraced this idea of Holocaust denial. In April of 2000, a senior member of Hamas issued the following statement in Stockholm:

This conference bears a clear Zionist goal, aimed at forging history by hiding the truth about the so-called Holocaust, which is an alleged and invented story with no basis. . . . The invention of these grand illusions of an alleged crime that never occurred, ignoring the millions of dead European victims of Nazism during the war, clearly reveals the racist Zionist face, which believes in the superiority of the Jewish race over the rest of the nations.

Not only does this attempt to focus on an alleged story ignore the suffering of our people and disregard the massacres committed by the Zionists against them, such as Dir Yasin, Kafr Qasem, Tanturah, Jerusalem, Hebron and Sabra and Shatila...

The Zionist entity is using psychological and ideological terrorism through the Stockholm conference and the alleged Nazi Holocaust...

We call the free scholars of the world and its vital forces to expose the crimes of global Zionism against our people, our nation, and against all human civilization, and to refute them and not to fear the hostility of the Jews and their ideological terrorism or their influence through which they shut mouths and prevent objective, unbiased scholars from revealing the Zionist claims as lies. By these methods, the Jews in the world flout scientific methods of research whenever that research contradicts their racist interests.

From their perspective, this position makes absolute sense. By taking a hard-line stance, they draw attention to the issues that effect their people directly and also expose Western Zionism as self-serving.

Ahmedinajad and the Iranian Rationale
As for Mohamed Ahmendinajad, it is important to realize that the man may be the president of Iran, but according to the constitution of Iran he is powerless for all intents and purposes. He is a figure-head with less power than Prince Charles of Wales. While he is a public figure, and a representative of the government, his statements often differ from the official line of the Iranian government and he is often denounced for being too outlandish and a showman to the point of self-indulgence.

Though he never specifically denied the Holocaust, quotes I found from President Ahmedinajad implied that he feels the number of Jews reported to be killed as part of the Holocaust was inflated to gain sympathy throughout the world for the Jewish cause. For example but that it was unconfirmed and therefore untrue. He used the reaction of the press and the people to draw attention to a new agenda he is promoting: encouraging the European states to create a Zionist homeland in Europe rather than continuing to for the Arab nations to endure the Jews.

I could find no material in which Ahmedinajad's statements are were endorsed by the Iranian government. But there is no real benefit to Iran in denying The Holocaust. There will be no revision of Israeli territories, nor will there by any additional aid or clemency awarded to Iran as a result. A public denial of the Holocaust only positions Iran even more in conflict with the West and reinforced the image being painted of the country as backward, confrontational, ignorant and irrational.

But, in a Boston Globe article from December 2006, discussed the preparations being made for a Holocaust denial conference in Iran. It said "Last week, as he prepared for the conference [Khaled Mahameed, an Arab citizen of Israel] told the Globe that his message to Ahmadinejad would be: "Do not deny or even argue about the authenticity of the Holocaust. By doing this, you are not helping the Palestinian people. You are hurting their cause.'"

Perhaps this is a more official stance for the Iranian people.

UPDATE
As for the Jewish / Israeli Rationale, (neccessary to provide balance as I was informed by the person who sent the original email)
Ummm.... I think they were there.