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| Iranian President Softens Condemnation of Holocaust | Iranian President Softens Condemnation of Holocaust |
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| President Hassan Rouhani of Iran appeared to walk his condemnation of the Holocaust back a notch on Thursday, one day after he provoked a politically fraught uproar in the United States and at home with a qualified castigation of one of history’s best-documented genocides. | President Hassan Rouhani of Iran appeared to walk his condemnation of the Holocaust back a notch on Thursday, one day after he provoked a politically fraught uproar in the United States and at home with a qualified castigation of one of history’s best-documented genocides. |
| Mr. Rouhani, who has energetically sought to differentiate himself from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his predecessor known for bombastic anti-Semitism that included Holocaust denial, said in American television interviews this week that he considered the Nazi mass murder of Jews reprehensible. But he immediately added that the Nazis had killed many people, not just Jews, which was also reprehensible. He also said that the consequence of the Holocaust should not have been the displacement of Palestinians from their lands — a reference to Israel. | Mr. Rouhani, who has energetically sought to differentiate himself from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his predecessor known for bombastic anti-Semitism that included Holocaust denial, said in American television interviews this week that he considered the Nazi mass murder of Jews reprehensible. But he immediately added that the Nazis had killed many people, not just Jews, which was also reprehensible. He also said that the consequence of the Holocaust should not have been the displacement of Palestinians from their lands — a reference to Israel. |
| While Mr. Rouhani may have succeeded in at least acknowledging and condemning the Holocaust, a subject that resonates with Jews and others around the world, his words did little to advance his publicly stated message of friendship. If anything, the ambiguously translated language of his condemnation — which was challenged by some in Iran, including the Fars news agency, run by the Revolutionary Guards — only seemed to entangle him in a dispute he had hoped to avoid. | While Mr. Rouhani may have succeeded in at least acknowledging and condemning the Holocaust, a subject that resonates with Jews and others around the world, his words did little to advance his publicly stated message of friendship. If anything, the ambiguously translated language of his condemnation — which was challenged by some in Iran, including the Fars news agency, run by the Revolutionary Guards — only seemed to entangle him in a dispute he had hoped to avoid. |
| Presented with the opportunity clarify his position on Thursday, Mr. Rouhani seemed to soften his condemnation further, at a forum sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society in New York. Asked if he could clearly state his stand on the Holocaust, he said through an interpreter that he had responded to that question in earlier interviews. “We condemn the crimes by the Nazis during World War II,” he said, but added that many people had been killed, including “a group of Jewish people.” This did not mean, he said, “that the price paid for it should be done by other people elsewhere.” |