Against Denial, and Self-Denial

Deborah Lipstadt takes stock today in Tablet Magazine of what she has learned both in the course of studying Holocaust denial—she wrote a book on the subject, and later successfully defended a libel lawsuit brought in Britain by denier David Irving—and of writing her newest book, Nextbook Press’s The Eichmann Trial. What has she learned? That where Holocaust denial has legitimacy and has subscribers who include people with the ability to inflict real harm to Jews, we have no choice but to take it deadly seriously. Today, she finds this confluence in Iran: “It would be a form of denial—that is, willful blindness—not to recognize the nexus of Iranian leaders’ overt Holocaust denial, threats to destroy Israel, unquestionable anti-Semitism, and possession of nuclear weapons.”

Trial and Error