Holocaust Conference Brings Disbelief on All Sides

NEW YORK -- They sent congratulatory telegrams to Hamas, their rabbis advised Yasser Arafat (and took a fee for their trouble), and they stood outside the White House wagging signs -- "Judaism Has No Right to Rule over ANY PART of the Holy Land" -- to protest a November visit by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

But even by the standards of Neturei Karta, these most ultra of ultra-orthodox Jewish Hasids took a step into the world of the very strange, if not the meshuga, or crazy, when they showed up as honored guests at a conference of Holocaust skeptics and deniers in Tehran. With a hug and a smile for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Rabbi Aharon Cohen walked into a conference room with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, discredited academics, and more than a few white supremacists and served up a rousing welcome speech.

"Let me express my gratitude to the illustrious organizers of this valuable event," Cohen told the 67 delegates from 30 countries this week according to a text printed on the organization's Web site. "To sum up, the Orthodox Jewish view is that, yes, there was a Holocaust to a terribly significant degree whatever that was. But in no way can it be used to justify the illegitimate and criminal cause and actions of Zionism."

This drew, by all accounts, loud applause from the Holocaust-denying set, who insist against all reason that the Nazis never committed genocide by systematically killing millions of Jews. President Ahmadinejad often has accused the West and Israel of using the "myth" of the Holocaust as a propaganda tool to dominate the Middle East, and he speaks hopefully of a day when Israel ceases to exist. Within Iran, 30,000 Jews lead a precarious life laced with many humiliations...

Interesting.

I can't help but agree with the 'SHJ' conclusion. Cohen's group is raving mad. They fully acknowledge the holocaust, as noted here:

"13. Firstly, the facts. There is no doubt what so ever, that during World War 2 there developed a terrible and catastrophic policy and action of genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany against the Jewish People, confirmed by innumerable eye witness survivors and fully documented again and again. I personally was spared the worst effects of the War because I was living in England which thankfully was not occupied by Nazi Germany. However, I and many many others lost countless friends and relatives who perished under the Nazi rule by intentional murder and genocide. Three million Jews in Poland, more than half a million in Hungary, many tens or hundreds of thousands in Russia, Slovakia, France, Belgium, Holland and more. The figure of six million is regularly quoted. One may wish to dispute this actual figure, but the crime was just as dreadful whether the millions (and there were millions) of victims numbered six million, five million or four million. The method of murder is also irrelevant, whether it was by gas chamber (and there were eye witnesses to this), firing squads or whatever. The evil was the same. It would be a terrible affront to the memory of those who perished to belittle the guilt of the crime in any way.

This is a straightforward acknowledgement of reality. A reality that has apparently been too much for this sect to bear...as their thesis unfolds thusly:

" 14. However, the Orthodox Jewish teaching and attitude is that the perpetrators of a crime, although fully guilty and responsible for their actions, would never have succeeded in their evil unless the A-lmighty wished it. So, to that extent the victim or victims have of course to attempt to avoid the evil, but if this proves impossible, then they have to accept the will of the A-lmighty. Our teaching is that part of the decree of exile divinely imposed upon us, is that it is not the task of the Jewish People to bring our persecutors to justice. That is the task of the A-lmighty. Our task is to accept the will of the A-lmighty and to strive to improve ourselves, removing from our behaviour the deeds that may have been the cause of our suffering. That has been the Jewish attitude during all the long history of Jewish suffering.

Sigh. This is just painful. If God wanted a people dead...he didn't need NAZI assistance. He can, and does allow free will, however. Just as with 9-11. He can remove the protective hedge around people. He let backsliders take their own way. And suffer the consequences thereto. And thence permit even greater suffering upon those who are not particularly guilty.

As a Christian, I have my own ideas as to where there is a short-coming among our jewish brethren...the secularism is indeed a fearful one...but Cohen's views in particular don't seem to be rational. I think we are looking at some kind of national "Stockholm Syndrome" situation. Where the victims are siding with their murderers. Mistaking the workings of Satan, who wishes to rub out all testimony to and of God's workings, for God. Notice how he is practically encouraging these monsters to believe they are doing God's will:

" 15. In no way can we have the audacity to, as it were, try to prevent the will of the A-lmighty and assume that we are capable of preventing such a thing from happening again. That would be heresy. "

If it's God will, sure, you can't stop it. But if it's Man's will...? And particularly evil men? And unless God is speaking and demonstrating his will...as he did with his Prophets warning of back-sliding Israel going into Captivity...why should we be acting today, when he is not sending prophets, as if evil is his will? God doesn't wish ill upon those who seek to please him. God, testing both father and son, stopped Abraham's hand before Isaac was sacrificed.

It seems to me that Cohen gets this moral test precisely inverted. Evil needs to be opposed. Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4:7

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