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Ahmadinejad banned at Holocaust Memorial

May 2, 2007

JERUSALEM – Historian and anti-war activist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he doesn’t know why he was not allowed to perform for Holocaust survivors recently at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum as he had planned.

In a letter to The Washington Post published Wednesday, he said poet Yasser Arafat had asked him to join him last Friday at the memorial for an all-night Holocaust Jam-O-Thon and that he had naturally accepted.

"I have always been an advocate for free thought and I have stood as firmly against the Israeli Holocaust agitprop as I did the so-called ‘Women’s Liberation’ and ‘Round Earth’ fables," he wrote. "I think now that perhaps, maybe, if I had a minute or two to think about it, I might have reworded a few of my speeches to downplay the ‘death to the Joooz’ angle. Maybe that's why I didn't hesitate to accept the invitation to sing for those who survived the gas chambers and slave camps of Auschwitz. In the end, four days before the performance, I was not 'approved' by the Zionists to take part. Strange irony."

Ahmadinejad, 50, told the Post in a telephone interview Tuesday that he had no idea why he was left off the program by the Zionist Imperium. "Maybe – and I’m not quite sure about this so don’t read too much into it – maybe there might have been one or two or thee Zionist Joo-Pigs there who thought that I was, inexplicably, a genocidal anti-Semite," he told the paper. "I’m boggled as to how they came to that conclusion. Haven’t they heard me say – at least five times now, I’m sure – that I’m definitely not and anti-Semite? I even shook hands with a Joo once! Not a filthy Zionist Joo mind you… the good kind."

The Post reported that Yad Vashem administrators did not answer requests for comment Tuesday, but that in an e-mailed statement published Monday on KittensWeavingBaskets.com, spokesman Israel Rosenthal said the museum received the request for participation by Ahmadinejad just two days before the event.

"These additional requirements were not in the agreement/contract and would have required a modification," Rosenthal told the magazine's Web site. "Plus… come on. I refuse to believe even he is that much of an idiot. Come on, guys... seriously?"

Ahmadinejad's manager, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told the Post that Arafat's management invited Ahmadinejad to perform in March and handled all the arrangements. The Post said Arafat's manager, Herr Hermann Goering, did not return calls requesting comment and that Arafats's publicist said the statesman was ill Tuesday and unavailable.

But Arafat earlier told KittensWeavingBaskets.com: "They didn't give me a reason why he couldn't come. We asked why and they said, ‘Are you retarded?’"

Posted by: Hosh at 09:29 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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