AP Archive 📤 2 years ago 2015-07-23
1. Guests outside conference hall
2. Orthodox Jews arriving at conference
3. Iranian flag
4. Close up of badge depicting Israeli flag crossed out
5. Wide of guests inside hall
6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, Member of Jews United Against Zionism
"The Zionists are taking this terrible, horrific tragedy that happened by (to) Jews and they're using it to further their rebellion against God; to use it for the political end to build, as I said, a state, something that is the antithesis, the contradiction to everything that is Godly."
7. Jewish guests in conference hall
8. Wide of conference
9. Cutaway of press
10. SOUNDBITE: (Farsi) Manouchehr Mottaki, Iranian Foreign Minister:
"I bluntly announce that anti-Semitism is a Western phenomenon and belongs exclusively to the Western countries. In the Islamic lands, there has never been such a phenomenon as anti-Semitism."
11. Hands writing
12. SOUNDBITE (Farsi) Manouchehr Mottaki, Iranian Foreign Minister:
"The Zionist regime (refers to Israel) is aware that if the conventional interpretation and picture of the Holocaust is questioned, the essence and identity of the Zionist regime will be questioned"
13. Mottaki leaving stage
STORYLINE:
Iran on Monday opened a conference on the Holocaust, saying it would not be an attempt to deny the World War II genocide, but merely to discuss it in an unrestricted atmosphere.
However, the conference was initiated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has described the Holocaust as a "myth" and called for Israel to be wiped off the map.
The organisers, the Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), said the two-day conference has drawn 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries.
Among the conference guests were several Orthodox Jews. One of them, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a member of the group, 'Jews United Against Zionism' claimed that the holocaust was being used for political purposes.
"The Zionists are taking this terrible, horrific tragedy that happened by (to) Jews and they're using it to further their rebellion against God; to use it for a political end to build, as I said, a state, something that is the antithesis, the contradiction to everything that is Godly,'' he said.
President Ahmadinejad has repeatedly downplayed the Holocaust, questioning why it has been used to justify the creation of Israel at the cost of Palestinian lands, a view popular among Iranian hard-liners.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki however claimed that anti-Semitism was a purely western phenomenon.
''In the Islamic lands, there has never been such phenomenon as anti-Semitism',' Mottaki said.
"The Zionist regime (refers to Israel) is aware that if the conventional interpretation and picture of the Holocaust is questioned, the essence and identity of the Zionist regime will be questioned,'' Mottaki added.
Iran has spent months preparing for the conference, even publicising it during the September visit to Tehran of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who contradicted his hosts by saying the Holocaust was a historical fact and that an exhibition of anti-Holocausts cartoons, then on display in the city, promoted hatred.
The conference has been condemned by Germany, where denying the Holocaust is illegal, as well as by Israel and the United States.
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