Khatami: No one can deny Holocaust

JERUSALEM — She is an Israeli student. He was a president of Iran. They sat opposite each other at a gathering in a Scottish university this month. When he learned her identity, he hastened to affirm the tragic reality of the Holocaust and to invite her to Iran.

The Iranian was not the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly termed the Holocaust a myth and called for Israel’s destruction, but his immediate predecessor, Mohammed Khatami.

The warm exchange with the 18-year-old Israeli student, Hila Yashar, occurred at St. Andrews University, where Mr. Khatami received an honorary doctor of law degree.

After the ceremony, he met with a selected group of students, whom he addressed in Farsi through an interpreter. When the floor was opened to questions, Miss Yashar raised her hand. A biochemistry student at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., she was spending a semester at St. Andrews on an exchange program.

“I’m Israeli,” she began, “and my grandparents emigrated from Iran to Israel almost 60 years ago.” Mr. Khatami broke into a broad smile and addressed her directly in English, for the first time on his visit not speaking through his interpreter.

“Were you born in Israel?” he asked, according to an account in the Tel Aviv newspaper, Yediot Ahronot.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Do you speak Farsi?” he asked.

Miss Yashar didn’t speak the Persian tongue.

“Not even one word?” he persisted.

“Where did your grandparents live in Iran?” he asked.

“Shiraz,” she replied.

He asked whether she had ever visited Iran. Miss Yashar said she did not think it possible for her, an Israeli, to do so.

“I am inviting you to Iran,” he said.

At this point, Miss Yashar asked her question — why was the 25,000-person Jewish community in Iran subject to discrimination? “In my view,” he responded, “the Jews are content and protected in Iran.” He had personally attended events in the Jewish community, he said, “and even enjoyed one of your holidays.”

At his own initiative, he brought up the subject of the Holocaust. “No one can deny the Holocaust because it clearly did happen.” He mentioned a friend, “Dr. Schneider,” who lost seven members of his family in the death camps. “So how can you say it never happened?”

Mr. Khatami, the most moderate Iranian president since the Islamic revolution, had a reformist program when elected in 1997 but it was blocked by the hard-line religious hierarchy in Iran. He is now director of the International Institute for Dialogue among Civilizations and Cultures in Tehran.

When the meeting ended and participants came up to shake Mr. Khatami’s hand, he stopped Miss Yashar and asked that a photographer take their picture.

As they waited, he asked whether she knew Israeli President Moshe Katsav, who was born in Iran. She didn’t. “He comes from near Shiraz,” said Mr. Khatami. Before they parted, he insisted on teaching her the Farsi word for farewell and had her repeat it several times.

As she left the hall, one of the Iranian cleric’s aides came up to her and asked whether her passport was British or Israeli. When she said it was Israeli, he indicated that a way would be found to get around the fact that Israeli passports are not recognized in Iran.