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Rebel British Rabbi at Iran Holocaust Conference
A British rabbi took centre stage yesterday at a controversial conference in Iran which questioned the reality of the Holocaust.
Rabbi Ahron Cohen appeared in Tehran alongside a former Ku Klux Klan leader and European writers who argue that the systematic annihilation of six million Jews during the Second World War never happened.
The presence of the Manchesterbased Orthodox Jew added a bizarre twist to the conference inspired by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The Iranian leader has described the Holocaust as a ‘myth’ and made repeated calls for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’.
Iran’s campaign condemned by Israel’s prime minister and Israeli peace activists has also attracted public condemnation from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Mr Cohen, 83, arrived in Tehran declaring his support for the event, entitled Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision.
‘We came here to put the Orthodox Jewish viewpoint,’ he said.
‘We certainly say there was a Holoismcaust. But in no way can it be used as a justification for perpetrating unjust acts against the Palestinians.’
French writer Georges Thiel, who has been convicted in France for spreading revisionist theories about the mass extermination of Jews, claimed the Holocaust was ‘an enormous lie’.
‘Jewish people have been persecuted, that is true, they have been deported, that is true, but there was no machinery of murder in any camp no gas chambers,’ he said in Tehran.
Mr Cohen’s claim to speak for Orthodox Jews was greeted with anger by Jewish leaders yesterday.
They described his views as ‘a warped form of religious extremdrove-The rabbi is a prominent spokesman for a sect known as Neturei Karta, a group which believes it is wrong for Jews to set up their own state.
The sect, named Guardians of the City in the ancient Middle Eastern Aramaic language, believes Jews should wait for the Messiah and that it is sinful to set up a Jewish political organisation.
Despite their tiny number there are thought to be around 300 supporters in Britain the group has been cheered on by Islamic anti- Israel organisations and by extreme Right-wingers.
It formed close links with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation under the leadership of Yasser Arafat and took money from Arafat before his death in British Jewish leaders were contemptuous of Mr Cohen’s appearance yesterday.
Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: ‘It is not surprising that a bunch of outcasts promoting a warped form of religious extremism have become Ahmadinejad’s favourite Jews.’ A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: ‘The Government’s views on the previous statements of Iranian leaders about the Holocaust are well known. We described them at the time as unacceptable and outside civilised political debate.’
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