In Tuesday morning’s New York Daily News, Menachem Rosensaft asked why MSNBC political commentator Pat Buchanan’s web site hosted a discussion forum for Holocaust deniers. By Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., that discussion forum had suddenly and mysteriously vanished from Buchanan’s Web site.
Rosensaft, the son of Holocaust survivors and general counsel for the World Jewish Congress, wrote:
Buchanan.org, his official Web site, hosts, on a "Buchanan Brigade Forum" for registered members of the site, a long discussion thread in which Holocaust revisionists compare notes with each other and heap venom and vitriol on Jews. It’s titled "Discussion about ‘The Holocaust’ " (with The Holocaust in quotes, of course).
In 2009, when the international community is busy excoriating Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for doubting whether 6 million Jews did in fact perish at the hands of the Third Reich, Buchanan’s Web site is encouraging this very conversation.
He also provides some excerpts from the forum "which is replete with references to the ‘Holohoax" and "Holocaustianity.’"
Among the gems featured there are the following:
—Most historians believe it was LOGISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO GAS 6 MILLION JEWS AND REDUCE THEIR BODIES TO ASHES."
—"I would like to see some rebuttal from Holocaust believers. Let’s see some pictures of those gas chambers or those big cremation ovens. I’ll tell you right now – THEY DON’T EXIST. The same blinded people that believe that the Germans intentionally killed Jews – also believe the myth of the Anne Frank Diary."
—"As anyone reads the various articles that have been posted here, they will have to realize that there simply were not gas chambers or mass crematoriums at any of the German internment camps."
Rosensaft points out that MSNBC’s employment of Buchanan in light of this revelation doesn’t seem consistent with its past decisions:
Two years ago, Don Imus was unceremoniously dumped by MSNBC after making racially insensitive remarks about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.
Buchanan’s sponsorship of a Holocaust denial forum is at least as offensive. Isn’t it?
Late today, I tried to find the Buchanan forum on the commentator’s website and was unable to locate it. Rosensaft checked it out, and discovered that the entire discussion forum section of the website — including the non-Holocaust related discussions — were gone. Visitors to the link get the message "Error 404 — Sorry we can’t find that!"
Rosensaft said he was glad to see the forum had been taken down, but would still like "an explanation from MSNBC as to why they keep someone on the air" that "has been aiding and abetting Holocaust deniers on his web site."
