Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran of attacking Israeli embassies in India and Georgia. Earlier this month, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei vowed to help "cut out the cancer" of Israel from the Middle East.
The Iranian government is zealous in its contempt for the Jewish state, and cheerily calls upon European antisemites as allies. Robert Faurisson is a long-time ally of the Iranian government, and has admired their policy on Holocaust denial since 2000. Faurisson appeared at the outrageous 2006 Iranian conference questioning the Holocaust, where he asked for "one document" of proof of the Holocaust.
Robert Faurisson has argued since the 1970s that no genocide of Jews in the Second World War, nor any command from Hitler to exterminate the Jews. Faurisson was eventually convicted of Holocaust denial following France's introduction of the 1990 Gaysott Act.
Since 2008, Faurisson has appeared in public alongside French "comic" Dieudonne. Dieudonne writes vile songs mocking the Holocaust, and includes a character dressed in striped clothing, in his sketches, called "Jackie". In this video shot in 2009, Dieudonne presents Faurisson with an award for "unfrequentability and insolence".
And so to the events of this week. In a surreal and perverse way, life has imitated art, and President Ahmadinejad has awarded Robert Faurisson with 1st prize for "courage, strength and force" at the 30th International Film Festival in Tehran. Photos of Faurisson's appearance in Iran have appeared on the French website Street Press.
According to Street Press, 2nd prize in this category went to French revisionist, the openly pro-Nazi Vincent Reynard. Also invited to the film festival, was the conspiracy theorist Webster Tarpley, Cuban Holocaust denier Maria Poumier, and of course, Dieudonne himself. These alliances are deliberate. Iran is sending an unambiguous message to Jews around the world, that even the Jewish affirmation of a tragic history, is a political statement.
The Holocaust is a Jewish and universal tragedy on an unprecedented scale, and an event of unspeakable evil, that we will never fully comprehend. Iran is seeking to undermine and challenge Western collective memory of the Holocaust, whilst attempting to justify a new Holocaust against Israel's Jews.