The false premise of the Holocaust deniers

TigerHawk:

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The Holocaust is generally accepted as the most thoroughly organized and documented genocide in history. There are those who argue it did not happen, or did not happen in the scale described; but those claims succumb to the remarkably detailed German accounts of the genocide.

So what does the Holocaust have to with with Israel?

With the passage of time and the legend that poor journalism and historical ignorance can create, Israel's formation, Zionism and its war for independence is today viewed as directly and politically linked to the Holocaust. Well, that's actually not true. Israel's legitimacy and Zionism predate the Holocaust by a large amount.

The Zionism which culminated in the formation of Israel began in the late 1880's. There were a series of immigration waves of Jews to the region which became Israel long before WWII. At the time, they were immigrating to the Turkish, or Ottoman, Empire. After WWI, this became part of the British Mandate, so called due to the British defeat of the Turks and resulting sovereignty over much of Arabia. As the British imposed their rule, they promised the locals their own deal - an Arabia for Arabs under Hashemite rule (generally) and a Jewish Homeland for the local Jews. This is the "promise" that emerged from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and the Treaty of Versailles, which ended WWI. The British empire, in other words, supplanted the Turkish Empire, and promised all the locals a better deal - self-determination for Arabs and Jews. That tends to get lost in the leftist political discussion about imperialism and zionism being linked - the Jews immigrated. They were local. They bought their property. They were first ruled by the Turks and then the British. So were the Arabs. They had every right to want their own land, their own nation - having nothing to do with the Old Testament, by the way.

Eventually, as history unfolded, the Jews fought the British to expel them, feeling that the British had failed to live up to the Balfour Declaration's promise....

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As I have said before the importance of the holocaust is not to the legitimacy of Israel, but it is the reason why they Israelis are determined to keep it from happening again. That is something the religious bigots in Tehran seem incapable of comprehending. They will never be able to persuade the victims and their descendants that it did not happen. They are the ones whose opinion matters the most.