Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is finding at least one holocaust-denying ally in academia: Professor Arthur Butz of Northwestern University. The Chicago Tribune reports:
Butz, a tenured Northwestern professor since 1974, is known for denying that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews during World War II. He promotes his views through his Northwestern-affiliated Web site, including a link to his 1976 book, "The Hoax of the 20th Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry."
Butz told the Tribune last week that he e-mailed comments to the Mehr News Agency after he was approached by an Iranian journalist.
Butz wrote that the Holocaust didn't happen, that it is a "deliberately contrived falsehood" and that its promulgation was motivated by the desire to create a Jewish state in the Middle East. About Ahmadinejad, he wrote: "I congratulate him on becoming the first head of state to speak out clearly on these issues and regret only that it was not a Western head of state."
Professor Butz's comments have been getting traction in Iran:
Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency and the English-language Tehran Times have published Butz's comments, promoting the Northwestern professor as one of the world scholars who support the Iranian president. Ahmadinejad, who also has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," recently ordered the restart of uranium enrichment, raising fears that Tehran could try to build a nuclear weapon.
Butz's comments did not address the Iranian president's statements about present-day Israel or nuclear issues.
No need to comment on those sticky issues, Professor Butz. It's best to focus on the positive, like congratulating Ahmadinejad for his fine scholarship on the holocaust.
16 Feb 2006 @ 11:20am