Sakharov to Obama: Notes on the First Anniversary of the Crushed Iranian Protest Movement

Elihu D Richter

Two years ago, strolling down Jerusalem‘s Aza Street, I picked up a worn yellowed thin paperback copy of Sakharov Speaks, a collection of the writings of the nuclear scientist who founded the Human Rights Committee in the Soviet Union in 1970. The pages may be yellowed but the words come to life decades later. The first anniversary of the Iranian government's brutal suppression and crackdown of protests against the rigged results of its national elections has come and gone. The protesters, it appears, have been cowed, for the time being, and the outside world still appears, for the most part indifferent. What Sakharov had to say back then about the Western world’s response to Soviet repression is a striking indictment of the world’s response to the Iranian crackdown and repression now.

In the 1950’s, Andrei Sakharov was awarded the Stalin Prize for his theoretical work on the hydrogen bomb. Appalled by the dangers of nuclear arms race and the heavy handedness of the Soviet regime, he became a dissident devoted to human rights. He and his wife Elena Bonner were later exiled to Siberia. To show support for Sakharov, the Nobel Committee awarded him the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1975. In an interview with a foreign correspondent, Sakharov was asked if what was then called rapprochement would lead to democratization of Soviet Society, and what would happen if there was rapprochement without democratization.

Here is what Sakharov had to say, somewhat paraphrased and edited. “Rapprochement in which the West, in effect accepts the Soviet Union rules of the game would be dangerous, because it would not really solve any of the world's problems and would mean simply capitulating to real or exaggerated Soviet power. It would mean an attempt to trade with the Soviet Union, buying its gas and oil, while ignoring all other aspects. Such a development would be dangerous because it would have serious repercussions inside the Soviet Union."

Furthermore, “It would contaminate the whole world with the anti -democratic peculiarities of Soviet society….As a result,..,the world would become disarmed and helpless while facing our uncontrollable bureaucratic apparatus.”

Here is his punch line: “Rapprochement, were it to proceed totally without qualifications on Soviet terms, … would pose a serious threat to the world as a whole.”

Now let’s do a simple thought experiment in history and current events. Take the word rapprochement and replace it with engagement. Do the same for Soviet Union and Iran.

Back then, Western governments listened to several resolute individuals, notably Senator Henry Jackson, and the world stood up to threats posed by Soviet tyranny, repression and mischief making. Sakharov called for adoption of the Jackson Amendment which linked trade to unrestricted emigration -later Basket 4 of the Helsinki Accords. The Soviets, desperate for Western technology, accepted the accords. The emigration triggered by Helsinki Accords started the ball rolling towards the loosening up and eventual break-up of the Soviet system in the late 1980's and early 1990’s.

And we see the results. Just a few weeks ago, as I was writing this piece, a Russian student (in our program for international students) came in to browse through Sakhavov’s book as I dug up some references for her work on air pollution in Ashkelon, an Israeli city. Another Russian student is doing a project on air pollution in Bet Shemesh, a satellite city outside Jerusalem. A third is doing a PhD on road injury epidemiology in Vladimir, the first capital of old Russia, where Raul Wallenberg was imprisoned. Today, world leaders continue to ignore groups standing up for human rights of dissidents in Iran. They fail to invoke the existing tools of international law to indict Ahamadinejad for incitement to genocide, and have done little to stop the spread of metastasis of genocidal Islamic jihadist incitement, now, dangerously becoming embedded in Turkey. (A complete text of the updated version of the Cotler Responsibility to Prevent Petition is published in this issue of GPN. Professor Irwin Cotler, MP of the Canadian Parliament and former Attorney General, was the human rights lawyer who defended Sharansky against his Soviet persecutors.)

So if we substitute Iran and fundamentalist Islamist society in general for the Soviet Union in Sakharov's statement this is what we could get for our era:
'It would contaminate the whole world with the anti-democratic peculiarities of Iranian and Islamist society. As a result, the world would become disarmed and helpless. If engagement were to proceed totally without qualifications, on Iranian or Islamist terms, it would pose a serious threat to the world as a whole.'

Many Western elites, academics, and intellectuals appear to be succumbing to the assault on the core values of respect for life and human dignity. In the name of multiculturalism, they condone such assaults on these values. Last November, over dinner in an elegant restaurant in Lodz, an epidemiologist, the holder of a prestigious chair in a major Scottish university, after holding forth on Israel’s evils, declared that the values of multiculturalism led him to excuse stoning in Iran. This remark, made over wine and pasta, came just after he described in detail his Holocaust tour of the Lodz ghetto. Despite his declared commitment to positivism as a basis for prioritization and decision making in public health, he was uninterested in the statistic that 614 of every 615 Muslims killed since WW2 fell in wars, genocidal conflicts, massacres, and terror attacks between Muslims.

So far, the policies of the recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, President Obama.seem to represent everything Sakharov warned against. The clenched fist has become a limp wrist. Obama so far has projected a sense of distance, himself from those who are democratic and free, and has continued to appease tyrants and rogue states who assault life and respect for life, the most basic of all human rights.

Sakharov was clairvoyantly prophetic about what he called rapprochement-aka engagement-- without democracy resulting in the contamination of the West with the peculiarities of those opposing its values. The contamination has reached into the Nobel Committee - and I suggest President Obama himself.

Sakharov was a lonely prisoner of conscience exiled to Siberia when the Nobel Committee awarded him for protesting repression. It continued the tradition in 1989, when it awarded the prize to the Dalai Lama. Last year, the Committee awarded Obama the same prize, even though his messages have telegraphed a high degree of indifference to state repression, brutality and evil in Iran, North Korea and other members of what I call the Axis of Genocide and Genocidal Terror. So far, Obama appears to have been a minimizer of threats of genocide who shadowboxes with evil.

So the first year anniversary of the Tehran crackdown is the time to heed the quiet words of fire on the yellowed pages of the book I bought on Aza Street. They hold ever more today. Today Iran continues to brutally suppress dissidents and members of non-Islamic religious groups. It executes minors, imprisons homosexuals, and tortures and harasses political dissidents, whose gallantry were saluted in a conference on Iran hosted by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East last November in Cleveland. Its leaders incite to genocide, equip and train genocidal terrorists, and illegally pursue the development of nuclear weaponry. Iran has become the epicenter of an axis of incitement to genocide, genocidal massacres and genocidal terror. The members of this axis are North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Gaza, with Turkey teetering on the brink and Hamas and Hezbollah serving as satellite subcontractors. The West, notably Europe, averting its gaze, now seems to lack the will to confront the Islamist threat, and bows and kowtows to the cults of death, darkness and medievalism, perhaps more sinister than the threats posed by the Soviets. It has become hesitant in standing up for its core values: respect for life, the dignity of the individual, democracy and unfettered inquiry, and the rights of women.

Failure to counter the epicenters of jihadist suppression of human rights, incitement to genocide, genocidal massacres and genocidal terror has already, to paraphrase Sakharov’s words, contaminated the whole world with the anti -democratic peculiarities of [Iranian Islamist] society.

Will we wake up? The clock is ticking.

Elihu D. Richter MD MPH (Jerusalem Israel) was director of the Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and its Injury Prevention Center until retirement. He now is Head of the Genocide Prevention Program at Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine, and is Associate Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem and head of the World Genocide Situation Room of GPN Genocide Prevention Now.

I thank Drs. Yael Stein, Ed Beck, and Joel Fishman for comments and encouragement.

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Pontic Greeks and the Greek Genocide

Editors Introduction: I have just returned from an inspiring conference in Athens, "Three Genocides - One Strategy" which focused on the interlocking genocides of the Armenian, Assyrians and Greeks by the Ottoman Turks. See in this issue a news release summarizing the conference in HGR Information Resources, World Genocide Bulletin Board. My paper at the conference was on the psychology of denial of other victims alongside one's own people - and referred to the subject of the above three victim peoples, as well as to denials of other victims alongside the Jews in the Holocaust. Actually, it turns out that there were still additional victims of the Ottoman Turks, such as approximately 300,000 Yezedis -- about whom GPN will also be presenting more information in a future issue. And, as we shall read in the intriguing article by Nikolaos Hlamides, it turns out that there are strains within the Greek community and among genocide scholars as well, to recognize the genocide of Pontic Greeks but not of other Greeks. In the following article the author argues factually and eloquently for recognition of all Greek victims. (The author himself has conveyed to us that he is personally a Pontic Greek). This paper was not presented at the Athens conference.

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In the early twentieth century Greek and other minority communities across the Ottoman Empire were targeted in a campaign of physical extermination. In recent years some descendants of these communities have adopted an exclusive and segregated narrative of this genocide. In particular, a hierarchy of victims has been constructed by relaying an account of the historical events addressing solely the fate of one community and wholly ignoring the persecutory history of their co-victims. Here the case of the Pontic Greek community is discussed. This paper has two goals. The first is to explain the illegitimacy of this approach and the second is to communicate how such myopia, apart from conflicting with the historical record, can considerably undermine the case for genocide history altogether.

In March of this year the Swedish Parliament passed a motion affirming the genocide perpetrated against certain minority groups in the late Ottoman Empire; in particular, “the killing of Armenians, Assyrians/Syriacs/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks” is now recognized as an act of genocide. While many hailed the motion’s passing a great victory, to those more familiar with the historical record it came as a surprise that this outwardly inclusive motion excluded all Ottoman Greeks bar the Greeks of the Pontus region.

The vast majority of Pontic Greeks appreciate the genocidal experience of other Ottoman Greeks but many still prefer to consider the fate of their own people separately. Over the years I have encountered several arguments explaining why a distinction should be made between the experiences of Pontic Greeks and the other Greeks of the Empire during the Genocide.

The arguments which seem most common are:

1. The Pontic Greeks have a unique history, culture, way of life and dialect, which distinguishes them from other Ottoman Greek communities;

2. Many Pontic Greeks, unlike Greeks elsewhere in the Empire, raised arms against their persecutors and, as such, the history of persecution in the region is deserving of special consideration;

3. Unlike Pontus, western Asia Minor was a zone of war where Greek and Turkish military forces were engaged in warfare. Atrocities committed in the context of the Greco-Turkish war cannot be considered as part of the genocide;

4. For two decades the Pontic Greek Diaspora has worked relentlessly to achieve recognition of the genocide and, as such, it is not an unnatural expectation for Pontic Greeks to approach the issue exclusively.

A response to the aforementioned will be offered but first let it be stated that the author fully acknowledges that Pontic Greeks did experience genocide and in everything that follows he in no way seeks to undermine the factuality and severity of the persecutory campaign in the Pontus region.

1. This uniqueness claim is somewhat simplistic because it overlooks the very rich cultural diversity of the region’s Greek communities. The Centre for Asia Minor Studies in Athens has identified as many as 1,500 distinct Greek Orthodox settlements in the Pontus region, each with their own unique culture, traditions, and way of life. The claim of a unique Pontian dialect also deserves some clarification. The truth is that there is no single Pontic Greek dialect—we should speak of dialects, plural. The work of Richard M. Dawkins highlights the very many differences between the very many dialects, not only in Pontus but across Asia Minor. Pronunciation differed from place to place while some words were peculiar to one locality and completely unknown elsewhere. Of course, regardless of the influence of local phraseology and pronunciation, the community language of the Pontic Greeks was Greek. And although the physical isolation of Pontus from Greece resulted in the development of a character in the region that was distinct from mainland Greece, the Greek communities in Pontus shared a common identity in terms of ethnicity and religion with Greek communities elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, Greeks in Pontus did not identify themselves differently from Greeks elsewhere in the Empire; referring to themselves not as Pontians but as Έλληνες (Greeks) or Ρωμιοί (Romioi), stemming from their view of being descendants of the Eastern Roman Empire. Like Greeks across Asia Minor, they considered their ancestors to be ancient Greeks who had colonised the shores of Asia Minor many centuries earlier. Neither did the Ottoman Turks differentiate between the various Greek communities, who were all considered as members of the Ottoman Rum Millet.

2. The premise of this claim is simply false. While it is true that there were several pockets of armed resistance in the Pontus region in response to the genocide, it is untrue to claim that communities subject to massacres and deportations elsewhere did not offer any resistance. Although there are many instances to choose from, one counterexample suffices: Greek resistance in the area of Nicomedia/İzmit, several hundred kilometres from Pontus. This puts the claim to rest but, for a moment, let us assume the premise were true. The act of genocide is not a variable dependent on armed resistance but on target group, which in the case of the Greek Genocide was the entire Ottoman Greek population. If the historiography of the Jewish Holocaust focused solely on the resistance in the ghettos or the Armenian Genocide on, say, the resistance at Van then those two genocides would be grossly misrepresented. In any case, because the Ottoman Greeks were an unarmed civilian minority population scattered across the entirety of the Ottoman Empire, in the overwhelming number of cases—including those in Pontus—Greek communities were in no position to offer any organised armed resistance whatsoever.

3. Ιn the case of the Greco-Turkish War, sporadic atrocities committed by one military force engaged in warfare against another military force in a zone of war, cannot be considered as a chapter in the history of the Greek Genocide. Indeed, the Greek Genocide is unconnected to any form of war activity. After all, the Greek Genocide saw the physical destruction of unarmed civilian populations, consisting of men, women and children, at times of peace and outside zones of war.
Between May 1919 and September 1922, Greece maintained a military presence in certain areas of western Anatolia. It is important to remember that their presence was partly determined by the treatment of Greeks in the five years prior to the Allied-mandate over Smyrna: “With a view to avoiding disorders and massacres of Christians in Smyrna and its environs, the occupation of the town and forts by Allied Forces has been decided upon by President [Wilson], Prime Minister [Lloyd George] and M. Clemenceau,” disclosed the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a few days prior to the arrival of Hellenic troops in Smyrna. So ignoring this region altogether erases a five year history (1914-1919) of systematic deportations and massacres against hundreds of Greek communities at a time of no foreign military presence. Similarly, it overlooks the period following the evacuation of Greek and other Allied military forces from Asia Minor which was succeeded by the Smyrna Holocaust and the final phase in the destruction and eradication of Ottoman Christian communities. More concerning is that this argument seems to reflect a misguided belief that the only communities targeted were those in Pontus and the Smyrna district of western Anatolia and that the choice is simply between including Smyrna or not. What is left unexplained is why the many hundreds of thousands of Ottoman Greeks who lived along Turkey’s complete coastline, those who lived in remote villages in the interior, those who lived on the islands as well as the vast numbers who inhabited Thrace have also been excluded? These communities were no less a victim than the Greeks of Pontus and the Greeks of Smyrna.

One historian explained in an interview that the reason he excludes the persecution of other Ottoman Greeks from the genocide equation is because “there is an alibi for their slaughter and in the Pontus region there is no alibi.” In fact, things are not so simple for Pontus, which experienced a Russian military occupation, a British military presence, a Hellenic naval bombardment and a sporadic armed resistance movement, as already noted, among other things. It simply remains to point out that it is the duty of historians to be exact, truthful and dispassionate. To manipulate the historical record in order to further one position over another, regardless of one’s motivations, constitutes an act of serious professional misconduct.

4. Genocide recognition should not be viewed as a title bestowed on those who make the most noise. Recognition must serve to affirm history in a way which accurately reflects the historical record and should in no way be susceptible to individual demands. The historical record—including documentation from international archives; newspaper reports; survivor and eyewitness testimonies—affirms that Greek communities across the entire span of the Ottoman Empire were targeted in the Genocide. Unfortunately, to date, most Genocide resolutions have been the product of intense lobbying on the part of Pontic Greek organisations and, as such, seem to be focused on the “Pontian Genocide” and the fate of Pontic Greeks alone. But a quick review of resolutions does reveal some positives to draw on. For instance, a resolution passed in Ohio in May 2005 speaks of a “tragic genocide of the Greeks of Pontus and Asia Minor”. And last year the Parliament of South Australia passed a motion which, although focused on the Pontic Greeks, did hint at the genocidal experiences of other Greeks in Asia Minor. These attempts at inclusiveness are a step in the right direction but, without meaning to be cynical, there are still two remarks that need to be made: First, Pontus is part of Asia Minor and so expressions such as “Pontus and Asia Minor”, while not logically incorrect, are no less redundant and misleading than one saying “I’ll be spending the weekend in Bavaria followed by a week in Germany”. Second, Ottoman Greek communities throughout the length and breadth of the country were targeted in the Genocide and simply referring to this region as Asia Minor is inadequate. Asia Minor is an historical term which denotes the Anatolian plateau but excludes the whole of Thrace including European Constantinople, the islands as well as land east of the Euphrates.

Incidentally, it might be added that recognition by third parties would be far less necessary if it were not for brazen denial by Turkish officialdom. On the other hand, the goals of the Diaspora should not be focused on securing recognition and recognition alone. Efforts might be better spent contributing to our collective understanding of the period through research and serious scholarship. Recognition could then adopt the far more fitting role of being predicated on a vast and established body of scholarly literature.

So why shouldn’t scholars and other interested parties focus on one region in particular? In the historiography of the Armenian Genocide, for instance, scholars have contributed papers which focus on the Genocide against the Armenians in a particular district, so why can’t others do the same for the Greek Genocide? Regional case studies are incredibly important contributions to our collective understanding of the genocide and we should not discourage such works. On the other hand, I am not convinced that a regional case study isolated to “Pontus” is at all viable. Pontus is a historical word for an ancient region whose boundaries have fluctuated considerably over the ages and defining Pontus or the homeland of Pontic Greeks in the early 20th century is problematic if one needs to be precise. More crucially, the issue here is not one of regional case studies but pertains to defining genocidal campaigns in their own right and, as such, the argument pivots on whether or not this accurately reflects the historical record. The so-called “Pontian Genocide” thesis fails to incorporate the broader history and the magnitude of the campaign against the Ottoman Greek population as a whole. It is a thesis which has sought to define a unique genocide in that region without even passing reference to the existence of other Ottoman Greeks, let alone their shared fate. To this end, I hope readers will agree that there is a world of difference between that term and, say, the expression “Pontus: a regional case study of the Greek Genocide”.

To those who still disagree, I should like to make one final point: failing to incorporate the broader history can even threaten individual Pontic Greek interests. Consider for a moment the following characteristics peculiar to the Pontus region: (1) The noted resistance movement; (2) The Russian occupation between 1916 and 1918; (3) The British military presence; (4) The Hellenic naval bombardment of Black Sea ports; (5) The territorial claims made to the Pontus region and the attempts to establish a Pontic state. Revisionists, who seek to discredit the factuality of the genocide, have seized on all these circumstances unique to the region to discredit the history of persecutions in Pontus. For example, publications such as The Pontus Issue and the Policy of Greece published by the Atatürk Research Center and the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ memorandum Setting the Record Straight on Pontus Propaganda against Turkey have exploited—I hasten to add, quite effectively—these very circumstances. Without taking into account the fate of Greeks elsewhere in the Empire, it becomes almost impossible to effectively lay down the arguments for genocide but as soon as one is prepared to broaden the context of the genocide campaign, the denialist thesis immediately disintegrates. To give but one example, being able to point to the deportation of Greek men, women and children from, say, Konya in central Turkey completely undermines revisionist narratives which suggest that deportations were conducted on the grounds of military necessity. In light of the above, attempts to define a detached and localized genocide in the Pontus region are morally and historically untenable and all parties should be encouraged to attach precedence, first and foremost, to the historical record.

Nikolaos Hlamides is based in London, England, and is a descendent of genocide survivors. His research interests pertain to the destruction of Greek communities in the Ottoman Empire. His last contribution was a paper titled "The Greek Relief Committee: America’s Response to the Greek Genocide" published in the journal Genocide Studies and Prevention. Correspondence should be addressed to hlamides@gmail.com

See in this issue of GPN the news release by the conference organizers in HGR Information Resources World Genocide Bulletin Board

Click here for fully referenced article

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What If: Obama and Biden against Hitler, or….Chamberlain and Halifax against Ahmadinejad?

Elihu Richter

The parallels to the run-up to WWII are striking. During this period, Hitler bullied and bluffed as the world cringed. Suppose Obama and Biden had been in power in the US at the time. What would they have done?

As Ahmadinejad struts into the UN Non-Proliferation Treaty meeting, Obama and his Administration continue to dither. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards are racing towards nuclear capacity and ever more potent missile delivery systems, stepping up their genocidal incitement and support for terror proxies, and suppressing dissidents. Obama's clenched fist has withered into a limp wrist.

The parallels to the run-up to WWII are striking. During this period, Hitler bullied and bluffed as the world cringed. There was the Anschuss of Austria in March 1938, the Munich Agreement in Sept 1938, and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on Aug 23 1939, one week before Hitler invaded Poland and Chamberlain’s UK declared war.

Let’s do a little counterfactual history to examine the roles of yesterday’s appeasers and today’s engagers. Then the actors were Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, who were pitted against Hitler and his Axis. Today they are Barack Obama and Joseph BIden, his all influential Vice President, and formerly the powerful chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Today's Hitler wannabe is Ahmadinejad, along with his Axis of Genocide and Genocidal Terror.

Fact and counterfact
Counterfactual history is the academic buzz term for playing “what if."

The idea is to simulate how the big players in past crises would act in current crises, or conversely, to simulate how players in current crises would have -- or should have --acted in past crises. Because we know the results of decisions in past crises, we can make some educated guesses about the results of such decisions in similar crises today. Counterfactual history implies there are lessons from yesterday's then and there to today’s here and now ---, and vice versa. As a medical doctor with history as a hobby, I think it would be interesting if historians were to diagnose prognose, prescribe, make house calls, and tell us when our leaders could be sued for malpractice.

Hitler and Ahmadinejad:
Both Hitler and Ahmadinejad mobilized hate language to dehumanize, demonize and delegitimize. A copy of Mein Kampf in Iranian is the centerpiece of the show window in the bookstore alongside the entrance of Iran's Foreign Ministry, but Ahmadinejad's explicit calls for destruction of Israel surpass Hitler's euphemisms. Hitler annexed Austria, forged alliances with Italy and Japan, and then signed the notorious non-aggression pact with Russia, while discreetly supporting indigenous Nazi front movements in Norway, the Netherlands and France. Ahmadinejad’s diplomats have shrewdly built an axis of genocidal and genocidal terror, which now includes Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, with Venezuela as a possible enabler, protector and accomplices, and they are drawing Turkey into Iran's orbit. Ahamadinejad, like Hitler, disarms appeasers and doubters, by making eloquent and moving peace speeches every now and then--while intimidating the world.

In the meantime, the clock on Iran is ticking. (Today the two big US players are Barack Obama and Joe Biden, now as powerful as Cheney was in Bush Jr's first term.)

Obama and Chamberlain
Google gives more than 600,000 hits for the phrase “Obama and Chamberlain.” Obama sees himself as a mediator healing the rift between clashing civilizations---Christian and Muslim; Chamberlain saw himself as saving the world from war. Like Chamberlain, he has been socially progressive, humane and enlightened, but does not support groups subject to conquest, (Tibet), and projects a low profile towards human rights abuses of repressive regimes (the state orchestrated political starvation campaigns in North Korea and the repression of the Falun Gong in China, and the protestors of a stolen election in Iran). Some historians say he appeased to buy time for a weak England to get ready. He has backed away from supporting dissidents in Iran---e.g., his famously closing the New Haven Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. I would not be surprised to discover that he sees himself as a future Secretary General of the UN, as the Grand Conciliator.

Obama’s administration has even turned a blind eye to Iran’s support, equipping and training of groups attacking civilians and US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. This prolonged dithering in response to loss of American lives goes far beyond Chamberlain’s appeasement, which abruptly came to an end on Sept 1 1939, when Nazi Germany attacked Poland, a faraway place for Brits. Chamberlain then declared war on Germany--to honor the UK's treaty with Poland. Would Obama have done so, had he been the UK’s Prime Minister, and if so how long it would have taken him to decide?

We have forgotten Chamberlain's progressive domestic policies, but remember his appeasement and its disastrous consequences. But Chamberlain was a faster learner than Obama has been until now. Right after returning from Munich, he ordered increases in the British defense budget, manufacture of aircraft and heavy weaponry, and distribution of gas masks to the population for the war he knew was coming. And after all, he went to war immediately in response to Hitler's invasion of Poland. This was the very war which appeasement sought to avoid, but in fact brought on. By contrast, Obama's dithering has bought time for an originally weak Iran to raise the ante against the U.S.



Biden and Halifax
Many know about Chamberlain, but few remember Lord Halifax, his Foreign Secretary, and perhaps the strongest proponent of appeasement. Halifax was a pillar of British society and a deacon in the Anglican Church. After replacing Anthony Eden, who resigned in February 1938 in protest against Chamberlain’s appeasement, he supported the Munich Agreement with Hitler to destroy Czechoslovakia. Halifax also meddled in French politics, toppling Leon Blum, who had his doubts about appeasement. Daladier, Blum’s replacement, was a more compliant type, who went along with Chamberlain's Munich deal.. During the 5 days of Dunkirk, when Hitler was sending out generous peace feelers, Halifax wanted to take England out of the war.

Just before Dunkirk, after backbenchers led a rebellion to force Chamberlain to resign, there was a touch-and-go period in which Halifax could have become Prime Minister instead of Churchill. Had he been the man, one shudders to think what would have happened to Europe, and Western Civilization. Thanks to Churchill, all the rest is history.

Is Joseph Biden today’s Lord Halifax as it were? A liberal Democrat on domestic issues when in the Senate, as the powerful Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he voted against sanctions against Iran. Most notably, he blocked the Senate from considering a 2007 House of Representatives Resolution calling upon the US Government to use the tools of international law to indict Ahmadinejad for his incitement to genocide, support for terror, and illegal development of nuclear weapons. He has called for dividing up Iraq, which would have turned over its western side to Syria and its eastern side to Iran. Biden is said to be the Iranian Mullah’s favorite senator. He has been silent on their brutal repression of dissidents.

What would Chamberlain and Halifax have done to confront the Iranian threat? They probably would have appeased. What would Obama and Biden have done against the Nazi threat had they been in charge of the UK? They might have engaged, endorsed the Munich agreement, and wobbled on the UK treaty to join Poland when Germany attacked it. Would Biden, had he been in the US Senate in the dark days of the Battle of Britain, have advised FDR, to go along with Joe Kennedy to abandon the UK?

Joe Biden’s influence may be one reason why President Obama’s clenched fist has withered into a limp wrist. JB Kelley has used the term “preemptive cringe” to describe “engagement.” In fairness to Chamberlain and Halifax, some historians say their appeasement during the mid 1930’s right up to Sept 1939 and even after, was based on a realistic perception of the UK’s military weakness and unpreparedness and the need to buy time.

Furthermore, the world then lacked a coherent body of historical experience on the furious evil energy which drives modern megalomaniac totalitarian genocidal regimes. The tools of international law to counter genocidal threats did not exist yet. There was no UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, or a body of cases in criminal international aw, Universal Jurisdiction, or a Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court specifying that incitement to genocide is a crime against humanity.

Today, Obama and Biden would expected to know what happens when such regimes are appeased, a.k.a. engaged. Yet the two have been distinguished by their failure so far to make use of the tools of international law against genocide and its incitement. The world developed these tools precisely to prevent such threats. There can be no more compelling case for applying these tools than Iran's incitement to genocide, its support of genocidal terror and its suppression of human rights. Since incitement to genocide leads to genocide, Obama and Biden's indifference to the dehumanizing hate language of Ahmadinejad and his associates means they have become complicit bystanders.

I suggest that the foregoing counterfactual comparisons suggest a harsh counterintuitive conclusion: Obama and Biden deserve lower ratings than Chamberlain and Halifax.



What if: The bit players
Others have bit roles in this exercise in What If's. William Shirer, in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich writes about how Geoffrey Dawson, the editor in chief of the London Times, killed reports from his correspondent in Berlin on the Nazi brutality inside Germany. He was protecting Chamberlain’s appeasement policies. I was reminded of Dawson’s role by the postures of the editors of the NY Times in US and Haaretz in Israel, both the Daily Bibles of the liberal classes. Recall the NY Times Roger Cohen’s description of the vibrancy of Islamic democracy in his pre-election reports on Iran just before the regime's brutal crackdown on dissidents. David Landau, the former editor of Haaretz, suppressed reports of the investigation of Sharon’s corruption so as to not to jeopardize the withdrawal from Gaza. He remains notorious for telling Condoleeza Rice that Israel needed to be raped for its own good.

Let’s get back to Anthony Eden, who quit in protest against Chamberlain’s appeasement. Is Robert Gates trying to play Obama’s Eden? As John Bolton has pointed out on Fox News, Gates’ leaked memo to Obama warning that the US government has no Iran policy is the classic Washington DC CYA maneuver for paving the way for a resignation.

Is there a Churchill in the House?
Churchill towers over all, but only in hindsight. In real time, he was regarded by his peers as a failed military strategist after the Dardanelles disaster in World War I. A political opportunist who ditched the Liberals for the Conservatives, he had been on the outs for some 20 years, having the reputation of a brilliant, witty, boozing loose cannon. A non-apologetic imperialist, he was hated by Indians for calling Gandhi a dirty little Indian. An opponent of the socialists, he was hated by trade unionists for crushing the strike of coal workers. But he instinctively sized up Hitler as a monster of apocalyptic evil.



As the genocide scholar Robert Melson has written, had Churchill been Prime Minister in 1938, he might have’ gone to war to protect Czechoslovakia, and perhaps would have toppled Hitler. But thousands of British soldiers would have been killed. He would have been hauled before a Parliamentary Commission of Investigation, and hounded out of office. Opponents would have said he had no business pursuing a reckless military adventure so far away from home.

Suppose Obama and Biden had been in power in the US at the time. Would they have distanced themselves from Churchill? There were plenty of reasons to do so. The US had not recovered from the effects of the Depression’s second hit in 1937. Anti-Semitism was endemic. The US population was isolationist. Would Obama and Biden have orchestrated some backchannel moves to topple Churchill, perhaps with the help of Joe Kennedy. I infer this “what if" scenario” from their failure to counter Iranian terror raids in Iraq, Syrian support for terror, their lukewarm support for the dissidents in Iran, their shutting off of funding for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and the cold reception for the Dalai Lama. Add to this list the appeasement of Syria as well as Iran, the wobbliness on North Korea, and their attempts to bludgeon Netanyahu and destabilize his government.

Today’s Joe Kennedy could be Martin Indyk. And John Bolton may be today’s John Kennedy, who later wrote the book, Why England Slept.

Back then, the air was thick with appeasement, Now it is thick with engagement. But appeasement produced a chain reaction, ending with the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, after Stalin panicked, and felt that the Western allies would do nothing if Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. Churchill would have thundered against the dangers of the United States pandering to the enemies of freedom and democracy and dumping its friends.

I thank Professors Israel Charny and Elliot Berry, Gregory Stanton and Jacob Neusner and Dr. Yael Stein, Richard Hellman and David Bedein for encouragement, criticisms' and feedback, and Dr. Joel Fishman and Professor Richard Landes for incisive editorial comments.

Professor Elihu D Richter MD MPH, an environmental epidemiologist, is Editor and Director of the GPN World Genocide Situation Room and Associate Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. He is also Head of the Genocide Prevention Program at Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine and former head of the Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. He has published and lectured on the use of public health models for the prediction and prevention of genocide.

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The Laws Banning Holocaust Denial

Jacqueline Lechtholz-Zey

I. INTRODUCTION
A survey of the sixteen countries that have enacted laws that either directly criminalize Holocaust denial or can be used to prosecute individuals who deny the Holocaust: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Switzerland.

II. DISCUSSION
A. Laws that explicitly ban Holocaust denial
Austria
The Verbotsgesetz 1945 (The Prohibition Act 1945) is an Austrian constitutional law that provided the legal framework for denazification and aimed to suppress any potential of revival of Nazism in Austria. Yet the law did not clearly state that Holocaust denial was a Nazi activity, although the Austrian courts interpreted the act in this way. Because it was becoming more and more difficult to apply the law to neo-Nazi endeavors, particularly when “revisionism” became part and parcel of the neo-Nazi message, the law was finally amended in February of 1992. Among the changes to the law was a section that explicitly bans the denial or gross minimization of Nazi genocide or other Nazi crimes against humanity, thus making it easier to address Nazi propaganda and historical “revisionism.” The text of this law is as follows:

National Socialism Prohibition Law (1945, Amendments of 1992)
§3g. He who operates in a manner characterized other than that in § § 3a – 3f will be punished (revitalizing of the NSDAP or identification with), with imprisonment from one to up to ten years, and in cases of particularly dangerous suspects or activity, be punished with up to twenty years imprisonment.

§3h. As an amendment to § 3 g., whoever denies, grossly plays down, approves or tries to excuse the National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against humanity in a print publication, in broadcast or other media.

Belgium
The Holocaust denial law in Belgium was passed on March 23, 1995. This law makes it a crime to deny, grossly minimize, attempt to justify, or approve of the genocide committed by the Nazis during WWII. The offense is punishable by imprisonment of up to one year and a fine of up to 124 EUR, and prosecution is carried out by the Belgian Centre for Equal Opportunities.

Negationism Law (1995, Amendments of 1999)
Art. 1 Whoever, in the circumstances given in article 444 of the Penal Code denies, grossly minimizes, attempts to justify, or approves the genocide committed by the German National Socialist Regime during the Second World War shall be punished by a prison sentence of eight days to one year, and by a fine of twenty six francs to five thousand francs. For the application of the previous paragraph, the term genocide is meant in the sense of article 2 of the International Treaty of 9 December 1948 on preventing and combating genocide. In the event of repetitions, the guilty party may in addition have his civic rights suspended in accordance with article 33 of the Penal Code.

Art.2 In the event of a conviction on account of a violation under this Act, it may be ordered that the judgment, in its entity or an excerpt of it, is published in one of more newspapers, and is displayed, to the charge of the guilty party.

Art.3. Chapter VII of the First Book of the Penal Code and Article 85 of the same Code are also applicable to this Act.

Art. 4. The Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism, as well as any association that at the time of the facts had a legal personality for at least five years, and which, on the grounds of its statutes, has the objective of defending moral interests and the honor of the resistance or the deported, may act in law in all legal disputes arising from the application of this Act.

Czech Republic
The Czech Republic has made denial of the Holocaust as well as negationism of communist atrocities illegal.

Law Against Support and Dissemination of Movements Oppressing Human Rights and Freedoms (2001)
§ 260 (1) The person who supports or spreads movements oppressing human rights and freedoms or declares national, race, religious or class hatred or hatred against other group of persons will be punished by prison from 1 to 5 years. (2) The person will be imprisoned from 3 to 8 years if: a) he/she commits the crime mentioned in paragraph (1) in print, film, radio, television or other similarly effective manner, b) he/she commits the crime as a member of an organized group c) he/she commits the crime in a state of national emergency or state of war

§ 261 The person who publicly declares sympathies with such a movement mentioned in § 260, will be punished by prison from 6 months to 3 years.

§ 261a The person who publicly denies, puts in doubt, approves or tries to justify Nazi or communist genocide or other crimes of Nazis or communists will be punished by prison of 6 months to 3 years.

France
The Gayssot Act was passed in France on July 13, 1990. The Act criminalizes questioning the existence of crimes of humanity as defined in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which was used at Nuremberg in 1945 to 1946 to convict Nazi leaders. Robert Faurisson, an infamous Holocaust denier, challenged the Act but the Human Rights Commission upheld it as a necessary means to counter possible antisemitism.

Law No. 90-615 to repress acts of racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia (1990)
Art 9. – As an amendment to Article 24 of the law of July 29, 1881 on the freedom of the press, article 24 (a) is as follows written: Art. 24 (a). - those who have disputed the existence of one or more crimes against humanity such as they are defined by Article 6 of the statute of the international tribunal military annexed in the agreement of London of August 8, 1945 and which were a carried out either by the members of an organization declared criminal pursuant to Article 9 of the aforementioned statute, or by a person found guilty such crimes by a French or international jurisdiction shall be punished by one month to one years imprisonment or a fine.

Art 13. - It is inserted, after article 48-1 of the law of July 29, 1881 on the freedom of the press, article 48-2 thus written: Art. 48-2. - publication or publicly expressed opinion encouraging those to whom it is addressed to pass a favorable moral judgment on one or more crimes against humanity and tending to justify these crimes (including collaboration) or vindicate their perpetrators shall be punished by one to five years imprisonment or a fine.

Germany
Volksverhetzung (“incitement of the people”) is a concept under German criminal law that prohibits the incitement of hatred against a particular group of people.

§130 Public Incitement (1985, Revised 1992, 2002, 2005)
(1) Whoever, in a manner that is capable of disturbing the public peace:

1.incites hatred against segments of the population or calls for violent or arbitrary measures against them; or
2. assaults the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously maligning, or defaming segments of the population,
shall be punished with imprisonment from three months to five years.

(3) Whoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or belittles an act committed under the rule of National Socialism of the type indicated in Section 6 subsection (1) of the Code of Crimes against International Law, in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace shall be punished with imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine.

(4) Whoever publicly or in a meeting disturbs the public peace in a manner that assaults the human dignity of the victims by approving of, denying or rendering harmless the violent and arbitrary National Socialist rule shall be punished with imprisonment for not more than three years or a fine.

Section 3 above refers to the following crimes:

§ 6 Genocide
(1) Whoever with the intent of destroying as such, in whole or in part, a national, racial, religious or ethnic group:
1. kills a member of the group,
2. causes serious bodily or mental harm to a member of the group, especially of the kind referred to in section 226 of the Criminal Code,
3. inflicts on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part,
4. imposes measures intended to prevent births within the group,
5. forcibly transfers a child of the group to another group,
shall be punished with imprisonment for life.

Hungary
In 1992, The Hungarian Constitutional Court struck down an existing law against Holocaust denial on the grounds that criminalizing it was incompatible with the right to free speech. However, on February 22, 2010, the Hungarian Parliament again passed legislation that criminalizes the minimization or denial of the Holocaust, and President Laszlo Solyom signed the bill into law on March 3, 2010. According to a spokesperson, the current President does not believe that this legislation contravenes the Hungarian constitutional right to free speech.

The reform was passed with a 197-1 vote, with 142 abstentions. The new law will come into effect in early April. The text reads:

Those who publicly hurt the dignity of a victim of the Holocaust by denying or questioning the Holocaust itself, or claim it insignificant, infringe the law and can be punished by prison sentence of up to three years.

Israel
The Knesset (the Supreme Court in Israel) passed a law to criminalize the denial of the Holocaust on July 8, 1986.

Denial of Holocaust (Prohibition) Law, 5746-1986
Definitions
1. In this Law, "crime against the Jewish people" and "crime against humanity" have the same respective meanings as in the "Nazis and Nazi Collaborators Law, 5710-1950.

Prohibition of Denial of Holocaust
2. A person who, in writing or by word of mouth, publishes any statement denying or diminishing the proportions of acts committed in the period of the Nazi regime, which are crimes against the Jewish people or crimes against humanity, with intent to defend the perpetrators of those acts or to express sympathy or identification with them, shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.

Prohibition of publication of expression for sympathy for Nazi crimes
3. A person who, in writing or by word of mouth, publishes any statement expressing praise or sympathy for or identification with acts done in the period of the Nazi regime, which are crimes against the Jewish people or crimes against humanity, shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.

Permitted publication
4. The publication of a correct and fair report of a publication prohibited by this Law shall not be regarded as an offence thereunder so long as it is not made with intent to express sympathy or identification with the perpetrators of crimes against the Jewish people or against humanity.

Filing of charge
5. An indictment for offences under this Law shall only be filed by or with the consent of the Attorney-General.

Luxembourg
Article 457-3 of the Criminal Code, Act of 19 July 1997 outlaws Holocaust denial in addition to the denial of other genocides. Punishment for violating this Act is imprisonment up to 6 months and/or a fine. The offense of “negationism and revisionism” applies to

...anyone who has contested, minimized, justified or denied the existence of war crimes or crimes against humanity as defined in the statutes of the International Military Tribunal of 8 August 1945 or the existence of a genocide as defined by the Act of 8 August 1985. A complaint must be lodged by the person against whom the offence was committed (victim or association) in order for proceedings to be brought, Article 450 of the Criminal Code, Act of 19 July 1997.

Poland
Poland criminalizes both Holocaust denial and the denial of crimes perpetrated by communists.

Act of 18 December 1998 on the Institute of National Remembrance - Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation

Article 55
He who publicly and contrary to facts contradicts the crimes mentioned in Article 1, clause 1 shall be subject to a fine or a penalty of deprivation of liberty of up to three years. The judgment shall be made publicly known.

Article 1
This Act shall govern:
1. the registration, collection, access, management and use of the documents of the organs of state security created and collected between 22 July 1944 and 31 December 1989, and the documents of the organs of security of the Third Reich and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics concerning:
a) crimes perpetrated against persons of Polish nationality and Polish citizens of other ethnicity, nationalities in the period between 1 September 1939 and 31 December 1989:

- Nazi crimes,
- communist crimes,
- other crimes constituting crimes against peace, crimes against humanity or war crimes

b) other politically motivated repressive measures committed by functionaries of Polish prosecution bodies or the judiciary or persons acting upon their orders, and disclosed in the content of the rulings given pursuant to the Act of 23 February 1991 on the Acknowledgement as Null and Void Decisions Delivered on Persons Repressed for Activities for the Benefit of the Independent Polish State (Journal of Laws of 1993 No. 34, item 149, of 1995 No. 36, item 159, No. 28, item 143, and of 1998 No. 97, item 604),
2. the rules of procedure as regards the prosecution of crimes specified in point 1 letter a),
3. the protection of the personal data of grieved parties, and
4. the conduct of activities as regards public education.

Romania
Romania proposed an Emergency Ordinance on March 13, 2002 to prohibit Holocaust denial. The law was ratified on May 6, 2006, and also bans racist, fascist, xenophobic symbols, uniforms and gestures. Violations are punishable by up to five years in prison.

Emergency Ordinance No. 31 of March 13, 2002
Article 3. – (1) Establishing a fascist, racist or xenophobic organization is punishable by imprisonment from 5 to 15 years and the loss of certain rights.

Article 4. – (1) The dissemination, sale or manufacture of symbols either fascist, racist or xenophobic, and possession of such symbols is punished with imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years and the loss of certain rights.

Article 5. – Promoting the culture of persons guilty of committing a crime against peace and humanity or promoting fascist, racist or xenophobic ideology, through propaganda, committed by any means, in public, is punishable by imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years and the loss of certain rights.

Article 6. – Denial of the Holocaust in public, or to the effects thereof is punishable by imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years and the loss of certain rights.

B. Laws that prohibit genocide denial generally
Several countries do not ban Holocaust denial specifically but instead have passed legislation criminalizing the denial of any genocide, which clearly can be enforced against Holocaust deniers as well.

Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein’s criminal code prohibits the denial of genocide:

§ 283 Race discrimination
5. Whoever publicly denies, coarsely trivializes, or tries to justify genocide or other crimes against humanity via word, writing, pictures, electronically transmitted signs, gestures, violent acts or by other means shall be punished with imprisonment for up to two years.

Portugal

Article 240: Religious, racial, or sexual discrimination
2 - Whoever in a public meeting, in writing intended for dissemination, or by any means of media:

a) incites violence against an individual or group of individuals because of race, color, ethnic or national origin or religion, or

b) defames or slanders an individual or group of individuals because of race, color, ethnic or national origin or religion, particularly through the denial of war crimes or against peace and humanity;

with intent to encourage or incite to racial or religious discrimination, shall be punished with imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years.

Switzerland
The denial of genocide and other crimes against humanity is an imprisonable offense under Swiss law.

SR 311.0 Swiss Penal Code, Article 261 Racial Discrimination

Whoever publicly, by word, writing, image, gesture, acts of violence or any other manner, demeans or discriminates against an individual or a group of individuals because of their race, their ethnicity or their religion in a way which undermines human dignity, or on those bases, denies, coarsely minimizes or seeks to justify a genocide or other crimes against humanity ... shall be punished with up to three years imprisonment or a fine.

C. Rejections of laws criminalizing Holocaust denial
Because of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, Holocaust denial has not been criminalized in the United States. Freedom of expression is also a cornerstone of British society, therefore Holocaust denial has not been prohibited in the United Kingdom either. Italy approved a draft law that imposes jail terms for racially motivated crimes, but does not go so far as to prohibit Holocaust denial specifically, although this was Justice Minister Mastella’s initial aim. Italy has also rejected measures proposed by the European Union to impose EU-wide bans on Holocaust denial, on the basis of protecting freedom of speech. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Bosniak member of the Parliament proposed a draft law in 2007 to criminalize Holocaust denial and the denial of genocide and other crimes against humanity. However, Bosnian Serb MPs have been repeatedly opposed to such legislation. There is concern that such a law might be used as a weapon against their community. As one delegate explains, “[w]ar crimes are a sensitive issue in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I am not sure this law would actually lead to reconciliation and justice fulfillment.” He continues on to say that Bosnian Serbs “consider that [the law’s] adoption would cause disagreement and even animosity.”

Several countries formally banned Holocaust denial in the past but the denial has since been decriminalized. As discussed, the Hungarian Constitutional Court formerly struck down a law against Holocaust denial in 1992 on the grounds that doing so was incompatible with the right to free speech. Spain banned genocide denial in general until the Constitutional Court of Spain ruled that prohibiting denial was unconstitutional. Thus, as of November 7, 2007, Holocaust denial is legal, but justification of the Holocaust (or any other genocide, for that matter) is still an imprisonable offense.

Jacqueline Lechtholz-Zey graduated from the Early Entrance Program at California State University Los Angeles at age 19 in 2007. She earned her B.S. in Business Administration with an option in Business Arts-Prelegal. She also minored in Economics and Law and Society. In her year off before starting law school, she had the opportunity to travel to Israel. Her Birthright experience had a tremendous impact on her, and from then on she became even more dedicated to finding meaningful work and a way to preserve human life and dignity. Jackie began her legal studies at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, in Fall of 2008, and in her second year she took Law and Genocide with Professors Michael Bazyler and Stan Goldman. In this course, she wrote her final paper on the propriety of Holocaust denial laws, a portion of which is published here. She is also Chief Articles Editor of the Entertainment Law Review at Loyola, and her article on extending copyright protection to fashion designs will be published in Vol. 30, Issue III.

Currently, Jackie is continuing her work in the field of Holocaust and genocide law by working for Professors Bazyler and Goldman as a research assistant. She is working on a book chapter about the kapo trials, as well as a piece on societal reactions to the Nuremberg trials. While very passionate about genocide prevention, Jackie is also a lover of art and has translated that interest into pursuing fashion law. Though vastly different fields of study, she hopes to find a way to reconcile these passions and ultimately make a meaningful contribution to society. She will graduate from Loyola Law School in May 2011.

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Armenian Jews and Israelis - Remembering and Denial

Yair Auron Lecture in Paris, 2010

The State of Israel continues to struggle against Holocaust denial on one hand, but participates in the denial of another genocide on the other. This most likely will damage the struggle against Holocaust denial in the future. The recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Israel is crucial since the denial of the Armenian Genocide is very similar to the denial of the Holocaust of the Jews. One might view this attitude as a moral failure. I am sure, a great many Jews, in Israel and in the world, will continue the struggle for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Israel and by the world. This is our obligation to ourselves as human beings; this is our obligation as Jews and as Israelis.

I will speak about the special connections between our two peoples, about Jewish memory and Armenian memory, about the attitudes of the State of Israel to the Armenian Genocide, and then conclude with some general comments about our common responsibilities, Jews and Armenians alike, regarding moral issues.

There are similar characteristics in the history of the Armenian and the Jewish peoples, who for long periods lived as ethno-religious minorities among majorities, different from and hostile to them. The genocides we, Jews and Armenians alike, have suffered have created another similarity and connection between us.

Let me demonstrate the special connections between our two peoples by recalling two examples which appear in my first book:.

In 1918, Shmuel Talkowsky, the secretary of Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader who became the first president of the State of Israel, wrote with the approval of Weizmann, an important article entitled "The Armenian Question from a Zionist Point of View."

"We Zionists look upon the fate of the Armenian people with a deep and sincere sympathy; we do so as men as Jews and as Zionists. As men our motto is "Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." "I am a human being. Whatever affects another human being affects me." As Jews our exile from our ancestral home and our centuries of suffering in all parts of the globe have made us, I would fain say specialists in martyrdom; our humanitarian feelings have been refined to an incomparable degree, so much so that the sufferings of other people – even alien to us in blood and remote from us in distance – cannot but strike the deeper chords of our soul and weave between us and our fellow-sufferers that deep bond of sympathy which one might call solidarity of sorrow.

And among all those who suffer around us, is there a people whose record of martyrdom is more akin to ours than that of the Armenians? As Zionists we have a peculiar question of principle. Zionism being in its essence nothing else than the Jewish expression of the demand for national justice, it is natural and logical for us to be deeply interested in the struggle for emancipation of any other living nation. … In our opinion, a free and happy Armenia, a free and happy Arabia, and a free and happy Jewish Palestine, are the three pillars on which will rest the future peace and welfare of the Middle East." This was written, I remind you in 1918. Unfortunately the policy of the State of Israel is very far from the principle raised by the Zionist movement 92 years ago.

Jewish memory and Armenian memory

Jewish history in the post-Holocaust era cannot be understood without an awareness of the profound and lasting influence of the Holocaust. The Second World War and the Holocaust on one hand, and the establishment of the State of Israel on the other, fundamentally changed the history of the Jews. Within a period of only a few years the Jewish People experienced its greatest disaster and witnessed the birth of the Jewish State and Jewish sovereignty.

In spite of the passage of time, Jewish attitudes to the Holocaust and its implications remain a crucial element in contemporary Jewish identity. From the point of view of Jewish and Israeli identity, and from an educational point of view, this raises a substantive question, which is relevant in my opinion also to the Armenians: Is it possible in the long term to foster an identity on the basis of elements which are fundamentally negative? Is not a balance called for in terms of positive Jewish elements?

Similarly, Armenian history in the post-genocide era cannot be understood without an awareness of the profound and lasting influence of the genocide on the first, second, third and now even fourth generation. In spite of the passage of time, and even maybe because of it, Armenian attitudes toward the genocide and its implications remain a crucial element in contemporary Armenian identity in Armenia and, even more, in Armenian communities all over the world. The genocide is a central component today in the attitudes of young Armenians – the third and the forth generation – when viewing themselves as Armenians, be it the U.S, Canada, Armenia, Australia, Israel or elsewhere.

Furthermore, for you Armenians, there is also the painful fact that your genocide is unfortunately not recognized. By denial you have been victimized twice. There is something sad, even depressing in the ongoing efforts of the Armenians and their supporters over 95 years to gain recognition from the international community and the many states where they are living in diasporas as a direct consequence, very often, of the genocide. During the past 20 years I have seen your struggle in Israel, as well as in many other Armenian communities across the world.

The attitudes of the State of Israel

I know how important for the Armenians is the attitude of the Jews, especially the attitude of the State of Israel, to their genocide. Concern with that position is raised again and again, I believe, because the State of Israel was populated by people who were victims of a similar genocide.

The State of Israel has officially refrained from relating to the Armenian Genocide. A combination of factors connected to Israel's relations with Turkey and concepts of the uniqueness of the Shoah have brought about an almost total absence of its mention by Israeli representatives. Government ministers - apart from a few such as Yair Tzaban, Yossi Sarid, Yossi Beilin and Haim Oron [all members of the same liberal party, Meretz - Ed.] - have systematically avoided the issue altogether by declining to participate in Armenian Memorial Day ceremonies.

Public debates and argument about that official attitude towards the Armenian genocide has erupted several times due to a number of events. In 1978, a film on the Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem was banned from being screened. In 1982, the Israeli Government intervened unsuccessfully to bar an International Congress on the subject of the Shoah and Genocide, pressing the organizers to eliminate lectures on the Armenian Genocide. In 1989, Israel was involved in preventing Congress from recognizing the Armenian genocide in the American calendar. In one way or another Israel and Jews were involved in the debate in the State also in1985,1987,1989, 2000, and 2007' and eventually in 2010. In 1990, the showing of "Armenian Journey", a TV film produced in U.S., was banned.

In this context I would like to mention two statements. One was made by Yossi Sarid, at that time the Minister of Education, on April 24, 2000 at the memorial gathering of the Armenian community in Jerusalem. Sarid sympathized with the pain of the Armenians over the denial of the genocide. He concluded his statement with a commitment to ensure that the Armenian Genocide be included in the Israeli secondary school history curriculum.

He stated:

"I would like to see a central chapter on genocide, on this huge and inhuman atrocity. The Armenian genocide should occupy a prominent place in this program, which does justice to the national and personal memory of every one of you, to the memory of all the members of your nation. This is our obligation to you, this is our obligation to ourselves."

Sadly nothing resulted from this courageous statement.

About a year later, on April 10, 2001, the Foreign Minster of Israel (now the president) Shimon Peres was quoted as saying "We regret attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. It is a tragedy but not a genocide". This statement was repeated by the Israeli Ambassador to Armenia Rivka Cohen in February 2002. These statements may be regarded as Israel's escalation from passive to active denial, from moderate denial to hard-line denial. An Armenian friend told me, rightly so, "I do not know of any enlightened politician in a democratic state that has ever made remarks such as these; You, the Jews, of all people."

The Armenian Genocide was raised in the Israeli Parliament around the month of April (the Armenian Memorial day) in 2007, 2008, and 2009 by a member of the Knesset, Haim Oron, who asked the Knesset to debate the issue, but the government opposed his request. The issue will be raised by Oron another time in the next weeks, without any chance to gain the majority.

Jewish and Israeli responsibility

It is clear to all those who are involved overtly and covertly in the controversies regarding Israel’s attitude to the Armenian Genocide – Jews, Turks, Armenians – and also to the rest of the world, that the issue has special moral significance. The fact that the country in question is of a people that was the victim of the Holocaust, and the unique problems that resulted, come to the fore .

The recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Israel is crucial in this regard, since the denial of the Armenian Genocide is very similar to the denial of the Holocaust of the Jews.

The State of Israel continues to struggle against Holocaust denial on one hand, but participates in the denial of another genocide on the other. This most likely will damage the struggle against Holocaust denial in the future. One might view this attitude as a moral failure. We have to remember that moral claims can have influence only if they are consistent.

Many observers estimate, in the case of the Armenians, that one act could radically change the long-standing denial of their Genocide: recognition of the Genocide by the United States or Israel. These are the pivotal countries that could bring about a Turkish recognition of the Genocide. There is a connection or even interdependence between the decisions of the two states. If one of them recognized the Genocide, sooner or later the second would do the same.

There is no doubt that morally speaking, Israel should be the first. Sadly, however, taking a realistic view of Israeli society and policy, this is not likely to happen in the near future.

Everyone would agree that Israel has no right to bargain with the memory of the Holocaust. But, even more, it has no right – by no means, in any circumstances, and much less so than any other country – to bargain with the memory of another victim group. And yet Israel did just that with the Armenian Genocide. Israel is contributing to the process of genocide denial and by doing so, it also betrays the memory and the legacy of the Holocaust, at least from my point of view.

The attitudes of Israel and its society towards the Armenian genocide and towards other cases of genocide have a unique significance. It is because of the unique history of our people: the victim during the Nazi period, we, Israelis are, unique third parties. Our attitudes towards Genocides – the attitudes towards genocides of the present and towards genocides of the past, is in many ways an example to the rest of the world that finds itself regarding the Israeli attitudes as a moral reference point.

Our common struggle for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide bears, at least for me, a major moral significance, and in our joint moral struggle we must be consistent. That should mean that every human and every people, but in my opinion especially we, Jews and Armenians, have a continuing obligation never again to be victims, of course never to be perpetrators, but also never to be bystanders.

I can assure you that I, and I am sure, a great many Jews, in Israel and in the world, will continue the struggle for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Israel and by the world. This is our obligation to ourselves as human beings; this is our obligation as Jews and as Israelis.

This lecture was delivered in Paris to the International Colloquiem of the Bureau Francais de la Cause Armeniénne - Armenia-Turkey: How to normalize relations? on April 14, 2010.

Yair Auron is a professor in the field of genocide and contemporary Judaism at the Open University of Israel and the Kibbutzim College of Education.

Professor Auron has published numerous books and essays, mainly on genocide and on Jewish identity in Israel and Europe. He is the author of books in Hebrew such as Between Paris and Jerusalem (Selected Passages of Contemporary Jewish Thought in France); Jewish-Israeli Identity; Sensitivity to World Suffering: Genocide in the 20th Century; and We Are All German Jews: Jewish Radicals in France During the 60s and 70s (also in French). His book The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide was published in both Hebrew and English (Transaction Publishers, 2000). His book, The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide was published in Hebrew and English (Transaction Publishers 2003).

Most recently, Auron is co-author of A Perfect Injustice: Genocide and the Theft of Armenian Wealth (Transaction Publishers, 2009) with Hrayr S. Karagueuzian. He is currently editing for the Open University a series of twelve books in Hebrew entitled Genocide, which includes theoretical volumes concerning the phenomenon of genocide as well as an analysis of case studies such as the Holocaust, the genocide of the Gypsies, the Armenian genocide and other historical and contemporary genocides such as Rwanda, Tibet and Indian population of the Americas. In this series, he published in 2009 Reflections on the Inconceivable: Theoretical Aspects of Genocide Studies, and in 2007 The Armenian Genocide: Forgetting and Denying. In 2006, his book Genocide: So That I Will Not Be among the Silent, was also published in this series. His book Israeli Identities: Jews and Arabs Facing Mirror and the Other in 2010 is published in Israel by Resling and in a few months will be published in English in the United States by Berghahn Books.

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Irwin Cotler Releases Petition to Act Against Iran's Genocidal Incitement

  
The Danger of a Nuclear, Genocidal and Rights-Violating Iran:
The Responsibility to Prevent Petition

On January 6 2010, Irwin Cotler released a new international resolution that calls on governments and the UN to take immediate and massive diplomatic and economic action against Iran. The petition is entitled The Danger of a Nuclear, Genocidal and Rights-Violating Iran. Cotler presents the case for indicting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, for his incitement to genocide, human rights abuses, promotion of terror, and development of nuclear weapons in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions.

At a press conference in Jerusalm, Cotler accused the Iranian government of violating international law regarding nuclear weapons development, incitement to genocide, state-sponsored terrorism and human rights. Other speakers at the press conference included Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz, who spoke from the US, British MP Denis MacShane who spoke from London, Bassam Eid, executive director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, and Prof. Suzanne Stone of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. The petition includes a "road map" of sanctions and remedies that the world should apply against the Iranian government to force it to cease its alleged violations of international law.

Professor Irwin Cotler, a member of the Canadian Parliament and a former Attorney General of Canada, is one of the world’s leading experts and practitioners of human rights law. He has served on the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and its Sub-Committee on Human Rights and International Development, as well as on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. In 2000, he was appointed Special Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the International Criminal Court.

He has defended dissidents and prisoners of conscience, most notably Andrei Sakharov and Natan Sharansky, Jacobo Timmerman, Said-Eddin Ibrahim from Egypt, Nelson Mandela from South Africa, Maher Arar and others. In Israel, he has been a spokesman for the immigration rights of the Falashamura.

"For sanctions to be effective," Cotler said, "What is needed is the will to act, and what has been absent so far has been political will with respect to each of the threats." Dershowitz warned that "today is a true test of whether international law will survive and whether the rule of law will prevail... This is the time. This is the moment in which the international community must act to prevent genocide." The speakers stressed that taking action against Iran was not an option but an obligation of the international community. Neither Cotler nor Dershowitz ruled out the possibility of military action against Iran, but said that, before reaching that point, all peaceful attempts to curb the Iranian government must first be tried.

"Iran has already committed the crime of incitement to genocide," said Cotler. "We do not have to wait and should never wait for the actual beginning of atrocities before taking action."

Cotler is travelling all over the world to discuss his call for sanctions with various world leaders. Recently, he has visited Austria and Germany, and he said he planned to put special emphasis on 13 countries, including South Africa, the US and Canada, which have a special connection to the issue. He said his own political party in Canada, the Liberal Party, had endorsed the petition and that the Canadian parliament was due to release a statement on the matter. Others who have signed the petition to date include Per Ahlmark, former deputy prime minister of Sweden; Kamal Hossain, former minister of justice and minister of foreign affairs of Bangladesh; John Turner, former Canadian prime minister; author Elie Wiesel; Romeo Dallaire who was the UN Commander in Rwanda; Gregory Stanton, former president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars; and Sein Win, prime minister of the Burmese government in exile. A full list of signators will be found in the linked pdf text of the resolution. GPN will be reporting on further signators to the petition in coming issues.

The Cotler petition extends and expands previous briefs prepared by Justus Weiner of the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs and Gregory Gordon of University of North Dakota. GPN believes that the petition serves as a template for advancing the temporal locus of action based in genocide law from proof of intent after the event to deterrence based on predict and prevent before the event. The petition draws on the Genocide Convention, the Nuremberg Trials, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the Rwandan precedents for prosecuting incitement to genocide.

The Cotler resolution was widely reported in the world press.

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Holocaust Denial Laws and Other Legislation Criminalizing Promotion of Nazism

Michael J. Bazyler
Professor of Law
Professional affiliation at time of original work:
von Oppenheim Research Fellow International Institute for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem
and Whittier Law School, California, USA.
Currently at Chapman University Law School, California, USA.

This paper was originally presented at a lecture to Yad Vashem. The original version appears on the Yad Vashem website.

I. Introduction

As a result of the enormous suffering inflicted upon the world by the Nazi regime, and especially Europe, a number of European countries have enacted laws criminalizing both the denial of the Holocaust and the promotion of Nazi ideology.

The aim of these laws is to prevent the resurrection of Nazism in Europe by stamping out at the earliest opportunity – or to use the phrase “to nip it in the bud” – any public reemergence of Nazi views, whether through speech, symbols, or public association.

Individuals and groups today promoting Nazism, often called neo-Nazis, do not limit their ideology to just anti-Semitism. Part and parcel of their message also involves hatred of other minority groups, most often individuals of African, Arab and Asian descent, and immigrants from non-European nations.

As a result, a number of the European laws banning neo-Nazi messages also ban racist and hate speech. Some also criminalize the denial of other genocides, most prominently the genocide of the Armenians.

The anti-Nazi laws do not exist in every European country. Presently, the following European countries have some legislation criminalizing the Nazi message, including denial of the Holocaust: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland. Holocaust denial is also illegal in Israel.

Some of these countries, like Germany and Austria, take these laws very seriously and vigilantly prosecute both speech and behavior having any reference to Nazis and Nazism. Others, like Lithuania and Romania, despite laws on the books, enforce them sporadically.

A last set of countries put a higher value on free speech over suppression of neo-Nazism and freely allow promotion of the Nazi message. In these countries, freedom of the press and freedom of speech are vehemently upheld even to the detriment of other rights. These countries include the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Scandinavian nations.

In 2005, the European Union considered enacting common rules banning or restricting the use of Nazi symbols and promotion of Nazi ideology, including Holocaust denial. However, the EU’s Executive Commission eventually recommended against such EU-wide legislation, noting that it would be "unwise" to seek a ban across the 25-nation bloc, citing the differing views in the countries involved.

One example of the disparity in European laws dealing with promotion of Nazi ideology concerns the availability of Hitler’s notorious autobiography, Mein Kampf [My Struggle]. Officially, Mein Kampf cannot be purchased in Germany, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland, but the book is readily available in Russia, Romania, the United States and the U.K.

In the United States, the First Amendment protects the freedoms of speech, press and association; such guarantees prohibit suppression of the Nazi message. As a result, neo-Nazi parties are completely legal (just like during the Cold War years, the Communist Party of the United States was allowed to exist) and their anti-Semitic and racist messages are protected by the Constitution. The only limitation on such speech, according to the Supreme Court, are calls for immediate violence.

It should also be noted that a multilateral human rights treaty to which 160 countries are parties, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, obliges member nations to pass domestic legislation prohibiting advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred. As a result, countries that do not specifically criminalize denial of the Holocaust do prosecute individuals who promote hate speech. The line dividing these two types of conduct – Holocaust denial and hate speech – is murky and individuals engaging in Holocaust denial usually do so in the context of making Jew-hating statements. These individuals are then prosecuted for violating hate speech prohibitions.

II. Western European nations with laws banning denial of the Holocaust and promotion of anti-Semitic and racist speech

Let me discuss two representative Western European countries with Holocaust denial laws – Germany and France – and set out how these laws are applied in these two countries.

A. Germany

1. The Law

In the aftermath of World War II, the National Socialist Party (the Nazi party) of Germany was considered a criminal organization and therefore banned. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946 likewise ruled that the Nazi Party was a criminal organization.

German law, however, does not just stop at banning the Nazi Party. As part of efforts to overcome its Nazi past, Germany has criminalized denial of the Holocaust and also banned the use of insignia related to Hitler's regime and, as mentioned above, written materials or images promoting the Nazi message.

Section 130 of the German Penal Code prohibits denial or playing down of the genocide committed under the National Socialist regime (§ 130.3), including through dissemination of publications (§ 130.4). This includes public denial or gross trivialization of international crimes, especially genocide/the Holocaust.

The law has been amended a number of times since its initial passage in 1985.

In 1985, Holocaust denial was outlawed as an ‘insult’ to personal honor (i.e. an ‘insult’ to every Jew in Germany) and a penalty was set under the 1985 law of up to one year in prison or a fine.

In 1994, Holocaust denial became a criminal offense under a general anti-incitement law. The law states that incitement, denial, approval of Nazism, trivialization or approval, in public or in an assembly, of actions of the National Socialist regime, is a criminal offense. The 1994 amendment increased the penalty to up to five years imprisonment.

It also extended the ban on Nazi symbols and anything that might resemble Nazi slogans.

A special clause in Article 130 provides for community service for offenders under eighteen years of age.

The sale of Hitler’s notorious autobiography, Mein Kampf [My Struggle], is also banned in Germany and in a number of other European countries occupied by Nazi Germany, as will be discussed later.

2. Recent applications

The German anti-Nazi law is strictly interpreted. For example, a German man went on trial in September 2006 for displaying Nazi symbols including swastikas even though he was campaigning against far-right extremism - the swastikas had lines drawn through them representing rejection.

State Prosecutor Bernhardt Häussler urged a Stuttgart state court to fine Jürgen Kamm, owner of a mail order company that sells anti-Nazi t-shirts and badges. 6,000 Euros [$7,610] for selling merchandise that carry the swastikas and other Nazi symbols through his mail-order business. "Swastikas shouldn't be displayed in such a striking way," Häussler said, adding that he hopes the outcome of this trial will bring about a complete ban of Nazi symbols in public spaces.

Defense attorney Michael Wolff argued that Kamm was using the symbols to fight against neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists. Kamm explained: "It should not be illegal to use the symbols against Nazis."

The prosecutor disagreed. He argued that German law strictly forbids the use of symbols associated with the Nazi regime, no matter in what context they are used. He contended that it is irrelevant what the intent of the wearer is, and also that it did not matter that the symbol had been altered. The symbol should simply not be used publicly.

Perhaps such a literal interpretation of the law seems to be going too far. Several politicians, including the head of the Green party Claudia Roth, in reaction reported themselves to prosecutors in Stuttgart for wearing anti-Nazi t-shirts and buttons that include the banned symbols. Roth called the trial “a gift to the far-right.” Moreover, Germany's federal court of justice ruled in 1973 that it was not illegal to produce a swastika providing it had clearly been altered for the purposes of protesting against Nazism.

Nevertheless, the judge found Kamm guilty and fined him 3,600 Euros [$4,500]. The case is presently on appeal.

A much more serious case of Holocaust denial prosecution involves the notorious denier Ernst Zundel. German-born Zundel, now in his 60’s, emigrated in 1958 to Canada, from where he began disseminating in print form a substantial amount of material denying the Holocaust. In 1974, Zundel published a booklet penned by a British Holocaust denier entitled Did Six Million Really Die? His audience became much larger with the rise of the Internet and through the reach of a website created by his now wife and webmaster, Ingrid Rimland, , which includes references to such books as Truth at Last–Exposed. Because of free speech guarantees in the United States allowing Zundel to freely disseminate his views, however vile, the Zundelsite uses a U. S. based Internet service provider.

An excerpt from an article penned by Zundel in 1977 titled "Our New Emblem: The Best of Two Worlds" (referring to a design that merged a swastika and the American flag) and published in the magazine White Power is representative of his message:

Wherever we look, we White people find ourselves besieged by peoples of other races who compete aggressively against us for jobs, food, housing, education and above all -- power! The Jews are particularly adept at seizing or insinuating themselves into strategic positions in our society where they wield power far beyond the extent of their numbers....Through us, the White majority of Europe and America, the Jewish minority have obtained their advantages, including their Israel, their Federal Reserve, their World Bank and their International Monetary Fund. In exchange for these advantages, the Jews give us -- their White hosts -- wars, depressions, inflation, unemployment, energy shortages, higher and higher taxes and air piracy. Like sheep, they expect us to go down the road with them -- all the way to the kosher slaughterhouse. We White people of America have done nothing so far which would frustrate the Jews' expectations or their ambitions of becoming the world's slave masters.

Canada twice tried to prosecute him for his activities under their laws criminalizing intentional dissemination of false news. Even though he was twice convicted, Zundel’s convictions were overturned by Canadian appellate courts. On appeal of his second conviction, the Supreme Court of Canada in 1992 declared the “spreading of false news” criminal statute as incompatible with Canada’s free speech guarantees and therefore unconstitutional.

In 2005, Canadian immigration officials succeeded, after Zundel exhausted his judicial appeals process, to deport Zundel back to Germany. In November 2005, he was brought to trial before a state court in Mannheim, Germany to face charges of incitement, libel and disparaging the dead. As of this presentation, the trial still continues.

3. Growing Problem of Neo-Nazism in Germany and Need for Such Criminal Legislation

Despite this strict interpretation of the German so-called “Auschwitz lie” law, promotion of Nazi ideology is growing in two important areas: (1) music and (2) on the Internet.

a. Skinhead music

Germany's neo-Nazis are increasingly using music to spread their message, particularly among the unemployed youth of the former communist East Germany, according to experts on extremism in Germany.

In 2004, neo-Nazis applied for permission to hold 137 concerts, mostly in the poor eastern provinces of the former East Germany. Figures released by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution show that from January to September 2005, the authorities had received 100 such requests and the "trend shows no sign of slowing down." The official added that the amount of racist audio and video material seized by German authorities had also increased.

Recently, the extreme right National Democratic Party (NPD) in Germany began using music as part of its strategy to spread racist, anti-Semitic and anti-capitalist messages to German youth by distributing thousands of free CDs in front of schools. A rap group called Dissau Crime released a song called "Zyklon D," named after the type of gas used by the Nazis in their gas chambers during the Holocaust.

The impact of these messages cannot be ignored. In 2004, the NDP claimed its first regional success when it obtained 9.2 percent of the votes in a regional election in the German state of Saxony. According to Patrick Moreau, a French researcher who studies extremist groups in Germany, "In the new states, where unemployment stands at up to 40 percent, the NPD offers the youth a haven where they feel they are among friends, where they can drink beer and listen to music….It is a slow politicization through music.”

German authorities have tried to clamp down on the spread of racist music. In 2005, the lead singer of the German extremist band "Landser"-- Michael Regener – was sentenced to three years in prison for belonging to a criminal organization. In a symbolic defiance of authorities, Regener gave a performance on the evening before he was going to enter prison.

b. The Internet

The main purveyor of neo-Nazi hate speech (including music), however, is still the Internet. For music, the neo-Nazi websites offer free downloading of their antisemtic and racist songs. These sites are set up outside Germany, such as in the United States and Denmark, where their existence is not prohibited (see further discussion below).

B. France

1. The Law

French law does not explicitly criminalize denial of the Holocaust. Rather, “Law No 90-615 of 13 July 1990 tending to repress any racist, anti-Semitic or xenophobic acts,” commonly known in France as the Gayssot Law (Loi Gayssot) after its author, makes it an offense to question the existence of “crimes against humanity” as they are defined in the Nuremberg Charter.

Article R645-1 of the French Penal Code prohibits the public display of Nazi uniforms, insignias and emblems.

In October 2006, the French National Assembly also adopted a bill making it a crime to contest that the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 constituted genocide. The bill, yet to become law in France as of the time of this presentation, was heavily debated both in France and abroad. In retaliation for the National Assembly’s vote, Turkey suspended military relations with France. In 2007, the bill will be considered by the French Senate and then, if passed by that chamber, by French President Jacques Chirac who must sign it into law.

2. Application

In October 2006, French judicial authorities opened a judicial investigation to determine whether French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen should be tried for comments denying the brutality of the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. As a result, a French investigating magistrate is presently considering whether to recommend prosecution of Le Pen for "justifying war crimes" and "complicity in contesting crimes against humanity." Le Pen has a history of making statements disparaging the Holocaust. His most infamous statement, for which he was not prosecuted, was to label the gas chambers a mere “detail of the history of World War II.”

The most notoroius Holocaust denier in France, however, is Robert Faurisson, a former professor of literature at the University of Lyon. Faurisson has been prosecuted on several occasions for his public statements and publications denying the Holocaust. In 1983, Faurisson was fined and given a three month suspended sentence for "racial defamation" after making remarks on a radio show supporting Holocaust denial. In 1990, Faurisson gave an interview to a far-right magazine where he described the gas chambers as a "myth" and was thereupon charged under the Gayssot Law. He was convicted and sentenced to a 250,000 franc ($50,000) fine of which 100,000 francs ($20,000) was suspended. Faurisson appealed his conviction all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, which upheld the Gayssot Law as not being incompatible with European guarantees of freedom of expression, and dismissed Faurisson’s appeal.

France was also the forum for another famous Holocaust denial-related case. In LICRA v.Yahoo! Inc., a French Jewish student group, Ligue contre le racisme et l'antisemitisme et Union des etudiants juifs de France, obtained a court order in 2000 ordering Yahoo! to modify its website so that users in France are denied access to that portion of the site listing auction sales of memorabilia from the Nazi period. The French court found that the availability of such items in France through the Internet, even though the sales were conducted in the United States, to be in violation of the French law cited above, Article R645-1, banning the public display of Nazi symbols.

Yahoo! did not appeal the French court decision but instead brought a separate action in the United States seeking to bar its application in the United States on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment. The lower court granted Yahoo!’s application, but a federal appellate court in 2006 reversed and dismissed the case on the ground that American law cannot regulate French criminal legislation when it is applied in France.

III. Eastern Europe

Western European nations are not the only ones to criminalize denial of the Holocaust. Eastern European nations after their liberation from Communism have also followed suit, but with a wrinkle. For example, in November 2006, the Estonian government approved a draft law making it a crime to display Nazi-era symbols in public. Because of its history of Soviet occupation, Estonia also added a prohibition against the public display of Soviet-era symbols, such as the hammer and sickle. Current legislation bans inciting hatred on the grounds of political views or ethnic or social status, but does not specifically mention symbols. The maximum penalty under the new law would be three years in prison. "It will be decided case-by-case if an act of displaying the symbols of the occupying regimes incites hatred and thus constitutes violation of the law or not," said Justice Minister Rein Lang. "Nobody is going to ban the Soviet and Nazi symbols from being used in a theatrical performance or in research."

Historians remain divided over whether Soviet-era crimes should be equated with Nazi ones, including the Holocaust. Eastern European governments are also split over restrictions on symbols because of concerns about freedom of speech. Estonia, however, was not the first one to take the step of banning both Nazi and Communist-era symbols. Other former communist nations enacting similar bans since the fall of the Iron Curtain include Latvia, Hungary, and Poland. Latvia, Estonia's neighbor, which suffered a similar fate, has a law banning the use of both Soviet and Nazi symbols at public meetings. Hungary also bars use of the Arrow Cross symbol of its WWII pro-Nazi regime, plus the swastika, as well as Soviet symbols. Poland, one of the most serious victims of Nazi barbarity, in article 55 of the Polish Criminal Code criminalizes denial of both Nazi-era and Communist-era crimes.

IV. European nations without laws banning denial of the Holocaust and promotion of anti-Semitic and racist

The Scandinavian countries to date have put a higher premium on free speech over criminalizing Holocaust denial or hate speech. For example, in Denmark a private radio station -- Radio Oasis -- broadcasts uncensored, right-wing extremist propaganda and does so with the support of state funds under a Danish law guaranteeing state funds for non-commercial radio and television stations. Under that law, Radio Oasis receives a yearly subsidy from the state totaling nearly 50 percent of the station’s yearly expenses. Among its offerings, Radio Oasis features songs by neo-Nazi bands and messages guarding what the station perceives to be “the pure, white race of Danes.”

A. Great Britain

Great Britain likewise does not criminalize Holocaust denial or the public display of Nazi symbols. When Prince Harry, for instance, appeared at a costume party wearing a Nazi uniform, he was roundly criticized for his insensitivity, but it was clear that no British laws were broken. In contrast, when years earlier a partygoer in Germany appeared wearing a Hitler mask, criminal charges were brought against him.

Despite the absence of Holocaust denial laws, Great Britain was the scene of one the most publicized legal events involving Holocaust denial. In 1996, self-described British historian David Irving brought a civil defamation suit against American professor Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books stemming from a book on Holocaust deniers written by Lipstadt and published in 1994 by Penguin. In the book, Lipstadt named Irving as a Holocaust denier. Irving’s suit claimed that the allegation damaged his reputation.

While Irving began his writing career as a mainstream historian of World War II, his views over the years became more bizarre and he began to ally himself with groups denying the Holocaust, before whom he has made numerous appearances. In 1985, Irving appeared as a defense witness in Ernst Zundel’s second trial in Canada. While Irving in the past promulgated the controversial thesis that Hitler had not known about or ordered the destruction of European Jewry, at the Zundel trial he went a step further by nothing that he now was convinced that no gas chambers had been present at Auschwitz. At rally of Holocaust deniers in Calgary, Canada in 1991, Irving announced: “I don’t see any reasons to be tasteful about Auschwitz. It’s baloney. It’s a legend. . . . I say quite tastelessly, in fact, that more women died in the back seat of Edward Kennedy’s car . . . than ever died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz.”

By the time Irving filed his suit against Lipstadt he was already notorious on the Holocaust denial scene. What made him different from others calling the Holocaust a lie was that he was an author whose works were published by prominent publishing houses. Despite his bizarre pronouncements, he was still viewed by some as a respected military historian. This, according to Lipstadt, made Irving “one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial.” He was “familiar with historical evidence,” she wrote in her book, and “bends it until it conforms with his ideological leanings and political agenda.” Lipstadt went on to describe Irving as a “Hitler partisan wearing blinkers” and an “ardent admirer of Hitler.”

After a two-month trial in London, the trial judge issued a 333-page opinion ruling decisively against Irving. The opinion concludes with the following finding:

My conclusion [is] that Irving displays all the characteristics of a Holocaust denier. He repeatedly makes assertions about the Holocaust which are offensive to Jews in their terms and unsupported by or contrary to the historical record…. Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti Semitic and racist and that he associates with right wing extremists who promote neo Nazism.

In February, 2006, Irving was jailed in Austria for three years for Holocaust denial. His arrest and trial were based on speeches he made in Austria during a 1989 visit and lecture series when he stated there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz and no extermination camps in the Third Reich. He also called Adolf Hitler a protector of Europe's Jews. During his trial, Irving claimed that he had again changed his views on gas chambers. He told the judge that he is now convinced, contrary to his earlier assertions in the London defamation trial, at the Zundel trial and in 1989, that gas chambers did in fact exist. However, he continued to doubt the figure of 6 million Jews killed. The Austrian judge nevertheless found him guilty of violating Austrian law. As of this presentation, he is still in prison and appealing his conviction.

V. North America

A. Canada

Section 281 of the Canadian federal criminal code prohibits the promotion of hatred against any "identifiable group," but the statute is notoriously difficult to prosecute. For this reason, for example, it was not used against Ernst Zundel during his trials in Canada. The previous discussion noted the difficulty of trying someone for Holocaust denial in Canada in light of the decision of the Canadian Supreme Court that laws attempting to criminalize such denial are incompatible with Canadian guarantees of free speech.

B. The United States

Broad interpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court of the First Amendment guarantees in its constitution has made denial of the Holocaust, promotion of Nazi ideology and dissemination of racist and anti-Semitic speech completely legal under American law.

As a result, most of the Internet websites with neo-Nazi content originate in the United States but are available to anyone in the world with access to the Internet.

One of the most infamous cases confirming this right was the march by the neo-Nazis in the 1970’s in the Chicago neighborhood of Skokie, home to many Holocaust survivors. The organizers specifically chose Skokie because of the large survivor population. Despite governmental attempts to stop the march as an affront to the dignity to the survivors and the trauma to be inflicted upon them of seeing Nazis march in their neighborhood, the federal courts allowed the march to proceed.

NGOs in the U.S., such as the ACLU, vigorously defend neo-Nazis whenever their activities are aimed to be curtailed, and the ACLU has been heavily criticized for its work on behalf of neo-Nazis. The ACLU’s response is that it will defend anyone’s right to free speech, whatever their political affiliation and regardless of the vile content of the speech, since the ACLU only represents one client: The First Amendment.

Since the First Amendment allows Holocaust deniers to disseminate their views with impunity, notorious deniers have found safe refuge in the United States. Ernst Zundel temporarily lived in the United States until he was deported back to Canada for visa violations. In April 2004, an international conference of Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis convened in honor of Zundel was held in Sacramento.

Home-grown deniers also abound in the United States. Arthur Butz, an engineering professor at Northwestern University in Chicago, has for many years issued texts denying the Holocaust, including the book The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. The scholarly-sounding Institute of Historical Review, based in Southern California, likewise freely disseminates materials both in print and on the Internet denying the Holocaust. Its website reproduces the entire text of the booklet Did Six Million Really Die? by British Holocaust denier Richard Verrall, (written under the pseudonym Richard E. Harwood), and published by Ernst Zündel in 1974.

VI. Muslim World

While every part of the world seems to have some individual or group espousing Holocaust denial – Australia, for example, has Frederick Toben and his scholarly-sounding Adelaide Institute –a major region from where Holocaust denial is regularly emanated is the Muslim world.

This includes Holocaust denial not only coming from countries with majority Muslim populations like the Arab states, Iran, Indonesia and Malaysia, but also pronouncements from Muslim leaders in the West. In July 2006, Sheikh Taj Aldin Alhilali, the mufti of Australia and a member of Prime Minister John Howard's Muslim Community Reference Group, dismissed the Holocaust as a "Zionist lie" in a series of fiery sermons.

Muslim-majority countries, however, seem to have the most frequent and most consistent pattern of Holocaust denial pronouncements, using statements first made by Holocaust deniers in the West. The most frequent assertion questions the number of Jews killed during World War II, and books such as The Hoax of the Twentieth Century and Did Six Million Really Die? have been translated into Arabic and are widely sold.

In 2005, the rhetoric acquired a new spokesperson: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In a speech made that December, Ahmadinejad labeled the Holocaust a “myth” and a "fairy tale." In a March 2006 speech he again denied the Holocaust, adding this time:

They have fabricated a legend under the name Massacre of the Jews, and they hold it higher than God himself, religion itself and the prophets themselves. If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything, but if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will start to scream.

These statements, coming in the aftermath of his earlier statement in October 2005 calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map” caused a large outry in the West, with political leaders and parties loudly condemming Ahmadinejad’s remarks.

Ahmadinejad’s speeches were followed by a Holocaust cartoon contest held in Tehran seeking to mock the Holocaust. The contest, launched by an Iranian newspaper, was publicized as a response to the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked rage among Muslims worldwide.

On December 11, 2006, Iran held a a conference questioning the Holocaust. As reported by the International Herald Tribune, set to attend the conference was an Israeli Arab Muslim lawyer from Nazareth, Khaled Kasab Mahameed, who aimed to directly confront the phenomena of Muslim Holocaust denial. According to Mahameed,

Instead of trying to understand the Holocaust and learn something from it, they choose to deny it. . . . I'm going to tell them that there is no argument about the facts, and that they must try to understand how the Holocaust has shaped the positions of the Jews, of Europe, of America. I will tell them they must internalize its meaning and not say it didn't happen.

Iran refused to grant Mahameed a visa to attend the conference to present his point of view. The speaker of rosters did include former American Klan leader David Duke, French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson and Australian denier Frederick Toben.

The Tehran conference was roundly condemned worldwide. The European Union's top justice official described the conference as "an unacceptable affront" to victims of the World War II genocide. British Prime Minister Tony Blair denounced it as "shocking beyond belief." French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called the conference "quite simply not acceptable.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country repudiated it "with all our strength. . . ."We absolutely reject this. Germany will never accept this and will act against it with all the means that we have." The last statement is particularly important, since it came from the nation most responsible for the Holocaust.

VII. Which way is best?

Proponents of vigorous prosecution of neo-Nazis, racist and Holocaust deniers argue that such laws and their strict enforcement is necessary to prevent the reemergence of Nazism, which, in a repeat of the events in pre-war Germany, is particularly attractive to individuals living in countries where unemployment and social dissatisfaction is high. Transitional societies are particularly vulnerable, and the post-Communist societies face the most acute problems. For example, even though 20 million Soviets perished during World War II following the Nazi invasion of 1941, neo-Nazi groups are rampant in today’s Russia and especially attractive to the disaffected youth.

Referring both to denial of the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide, Hilda Tchoboian, president of the European Armenian Federation, explained that "the hydra of denial is a tumor on freedom of expression."

Supporters of Holocaust denial laws also contend that these laws are necessary more than ever as the number of Holocaust survivors, eyewitnesses to the events, dwindles and the events recede into history. As a result, supporters contend, denial of the Holocaust is growing and such views are becoming more mainstream. Such supporters even argue for expansion of such laws to criminalize trans-border dissemination through the Internet, since the reach of Holocaust denier message in the current era of globalization has increased exponentially.

Opponents argue that such laws are incompatible with a democratic society. The hallmark of a true democracy, they argue, is not just protection of speech one agrees with but speech is which most hateful and despicable.

Like proponents, those opposed to such laws also make use of the slippery slope argument by contenting that criminal prosecution of Holocaust deniers, neo-Nazis and other racists can lead to prosecution of more benign activities and speech. Armenian-American student activist Garin K. Hovannisian, in direct response to Hilda Tchoboian’s statement above, argues:

Genocide denial might be a tumor on truth, memory, or even human dignity, but it's not even a pimple on the freedom of expression. It's an exercise - however false or disgusting - of that freedom,. . .A government that has the power to punish lies also has the power to punish truth (consider Turkey's law that punishes those who denigrate "Turkishness") and, really, to punish anything it pleases.

Some critics oppose such laws on practical grounds, arguing that prosecution of such individuals gives them a forum to disseminate their vile views and, since such trials are covered by the media, tons of free publicity.

For example, in the aftermath of his 1985 conviction in Canada, Zundel appeared for sentencing in black-face (indicating that white men could not receive justice in Canada), and carrying a cross, also inscribed with a "Freedom of Speech" motto. At a well-covered news conference, Zundel noted that the trial “cost me $40,000 in lost work -- but I got $1 million worth of publicity for my cause. It was well worth it."

Deborah Lipstadt, in reaction the jailing of David Irving in Austria, explained that even though she abhors Irving’s message, she is opposed to his imprisonment since it makes him, in some eyes, a hero of free speech and a martyr to fellow deniers.

Ultimately, such laws must be examined in their context. In the United States, the display of Nazi symbols may not need to be criminalized since the Holocaust did not take place on American soil. However, public display of a hate symbol exclusive to the United States – cross burning – can in certain instances be criminalized, according to a 2003 decision of the U.S Supreme Court (Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003)), because of the potent symbol which a burning cross has played in the persecution of African-Americans since the end of the American Civil War and abolition of slavery.

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Professor Michael Bazyler is a leading authority on the use of American and European courts to redress genocide and other historical wrongs.

Bazyler is the author of the book Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America’s Courts (New York University Press, 2003, soft cover 2005), contributor of chapters to various books on genocide and the law, and the co-editor with Roger Alford of Holocaust Restitution: Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy.

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