Shalom family and friends.

Exactly as expected Jews reacted to Ahamadinajad's denial of the holocaust by denouncing him as a liar and a criminal, because there is ample proof that the holocaust happened and there are laws making holocaust denial a criminal offense in many countries.

Most Jews do this naturally, but unfortunately, it's a trap and we tend to fall right into it.

The trap is hidden, as every good trap should be, by truth. This truth that hides the trap is that the suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust had a powerful effect in the vote in favor of the Partition Plan for Palestine in the United Nations in 1947, as a result of which the State of Israel was established.

On the basis of this truth many Jews and non Jews (Ahmadinajad follows their lead) make the mistake in thinking that had there been no Holocaust the Jews wouldn't have returned to Palestine and the Palestinians would have had a state today.

This is a lie, but as a result of believing this lie many people, certainly our enemies, but also many Jews, tend to think that the Jews used their suffering in the holocaust as a pretext for expelling Arabs from Israel to make way for Jewish settlement.

This is therefore another lie, but it has become one of the bases of Palestinian bitterness towards Israel. As a result of this misconception Palestinians see themselves as having to pay the price which should be paid by the Germans and the rest of Europe for the suffering endured by the Jews. They say "why should we suffer for what the Germans did to the Jews?"

The UN partition plan, which is true and the expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine, which is a lie, are combined and have become the basis for Ahmadinajad's accusation, and much of the Arab world that the holocaust is a diabolical fiction conceived by the Jews to convince the UN to support the partition plan of November 1947 which lead to the establishment of Israel.

In this way by denying the Holocaust he's saying that the member nations of the UN in 1948 made a decision based on a lie and so the decision was a mistake and should be reversed. So he's justifying his statement that Israel should be "wiped off the face of the earth" and turning his murderous plans into pious deeds.

Ahmadinajad and other holocaust deniers are involved in a dangerous political exercise of turning back the clock of history. He's playing the game of "as if". He's saying "let's make as if the holocaust didn't happen" and so take away the justification of Israel's existence. Then he can proceed to annihilate Israel.

Playing games with reality is bringing real disaster on the Arabs, the Jews and the rest of the world. Jews must not play this game by getting into a discussion of whether or not the holocaust happened.

It's about time that we understood that theories of whether the holocaust happened or not or whether the state of Israel would or would not have come into existence if the holocaust had not happened are totally irrelevant and belong to story books

The fact is that the Jewish People planned the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine the moment the Romans destroyed Jerusalem 2000 years ago. Israel never stopped being a center of Jewish life, religion and culture for even one solitary day since then.

The Holocaust was the result of the Jewish dream to return to their land, not the cause of it. We remained united as a nation and so faced anti-Semitism because we held on to our dream of returning to our homeland.

The State of Israel came into existence in spite of anti-Semitism of 2000 years and in spite of the holocaust.

Saying that the Holocaust is the cause of the Jewish return to their land is a lie and is a denial of our inviolable historic right to this land.

The establishment of the State of Israel, in my opinion is one of the best things that happened to the world in the last 2000 years. The holocaust is one of the worst. Nothing good came out of the holocaust. The State of Israel was not born out of the Holocaust. That is a terrible accusation and makes the disastrous and deceitful inference that one bad thing (the State of Israel) came into existence from another bad thing (the holocaust). This is Arab political thought at its worst and Jews must desist from being trapped in this deceit.

It's about time Zionists stood up to this accusation, inherent in Ahmadinajad's holocaust denial, and make it clear to the nations of the world, especially at the UN that Israel is the land of the Jewish People by historic right. Even Moslem rulers of previous centuries were well aware of this and recognized the right of the Jews to return to their land.

So please let us leave the holocaust out of the discussion about the Jewish right to a state in Palestine.

The holocaust is a reason for all the world, including Moslems to bow their heads in mourning and shame.

The State of Israel is a reason for all the world, Moslems included to rejoice.

Wishing you a great no news day. Leon.