After years of hearing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad deny that the Holocaust ever happened and threaten to “wipe Israel off the map,” it was startling, in a good way, when Iranian officials started saying nice things about the Jews a couple of weeks ago.
“I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah,” the new Iranian president, moderate Hassan Rouhani, tweeted in English. (Update: Maybe? Kind of?)
His foreign minister, Javad Zarif, also wished the Jews a happy new year, and distanced Iran from crazy old Ahmadinejad and his crazy notions about the Holocaust:
Ahmadinejad? That guy? Come one, nobody took that seriously.
It seemed like a new page had been turned. And then President Rouhani did an interview with NBC’s Ann Curry and could not bring himself to admit that the Holocaust was a real thing.
Rouhani doesn’t explicitly deny the Holocaust. But he refuses to acknowledge its existence, which isn’t much better. You do not need to be a historian to know that the Holocaust happened any more than you need to be a barber to believe in Rouhani’s beard. It’s almost as if Rouhani’s higher-ups in Iran pulled him aside and told him, Sooo, great job on those Rosh Hashanah tweets, but maybe just dial it back a little bit?
