The Weeks Review

Iran leader asks Germany for help on Zionism

Sometimes you run across news that appears to have been written by Mel Brooks, then you find out that it's real. This is one of those times. Following, is an article from ynet news with some added commentary that I simply could not resist:

A German government official said on Thursday that letter written by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to German Chancellor Angela Merkel asks her to help solve the Palestinian problem and deal with Zionism.

"There's nothing about the nuclear issue (in the letter)," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the extreme sensitivity of the issue for the German government.

Ah yes, I would guess that would be an area of "extreme sensitivity". It continues:

"It's all related to Germany and how we have to find a solution to the Palestinian problems and Zionism and so on. It's rather weird" The official, who has seen the letter, said.

Rather weird?

Iranian students news agency said on Wednesday that Ahmadinejad had written to Merkel, but until Thursday officials had not spoken about the contents.

Zionism is a political movement that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, now the state of Israel. The fate of Palestinian Arab refugees is one of the world's largest and most long-lasting refugee problems.

Berlin's relations with Ahmadinejad have been complicated by his denial of the Holocaust, in which Germany's Nazi regime killed six million Jews, and his call for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany punishable with up to five years in prison.

It's extremely touchy (for the German government)," said the official, adding that the government did not yet know if or how it would respond. "There are a lot of propaganda phrases about Israel and the Jews inside."

Yes, "touchy" extremely "touchy", we get the picture. That whole Nazi thing and all.

In May Ahmadinejad wrote US President George W. Bush an 18-page letter discussing religious values, history and international relations.

In it, he took swipes at Israel and at the United States.

He sharply criticized Bush on many fronts, implying that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, abuses of detainees in US prisons in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib "and his staunch support for Israel" were somehow inconsistent with Bush's Christian beliefs.

But the letter to Merkel was different and was not confrontational in tone, the official said. "It's not negative like Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush. He is not criticizing Germany," he said. "it's basically about how we have to work together and solve the problems of the world together."

Oh yes, he wants to "solve the problems of the world together", so why not start with the Jewish problem? And who knows more about the Jewish problem than the Germans?

In February, Merkel compared Ahmadinejad's statements and stance to Adolf Hitler's rise to power when he and his Nazi party began threatening to exterminate European Jewry.

"Remember that in 1933 many people said it was just rhetoric," Merkel said.

The German official said it was interesting that the letter did not discuss Iran's nuclear standoff with the United States, European Union and other countries.

Iran is facing possible action at the UN Security Council over suspicions that it is developing nuclear arms. Tehran denies the charge, saying it is working on nuclear fuel only to run power stations.

Why doesn't Merkel release the entire text of the letter and then, publicly, tell Ahmadinejad and his cadre of mullahs to go straight to hell? In February, she saw the eerie similarity between what Ahmadinejad is saying now and what Hitler said more than 70 years ago, why is she reticent now that he is actively soliciting Germany's help in his own version of the "final solution"? If Merkel wants to show that Germany circa 2006 has learned a positive lesson from Germany circa 1936, she should tell this cut rate Muslim furher to go to hell and then publicly state Germany' support for Israel in the current conflict.

Yes, I know. That's just not going to happen.

The reason that this is such a "touchy subject" in Germany is that many Germans have simply failed to acknowledge the culpability of many of the German people during the Nazi regime. What allowed this hideous atrocity was the tendency to "look the other way" and there were plenty of Germans who did just that. I know that it wasn't that a majority of Germans that actually participated in the Holocaust, but it was a majority that allowed it to happen. They tried to appease the evil in their midst in the hopes that it would go away, or at the very least not affect them. The people's crime was one of silence in the face of unspeakable evil.

Now, more than 70 years later, joined by most of Europe, they are still trying to appease the evil by remaining silent.