From the London Times.

"As even embarrassed Iranians realise, the conference is a disgrace, a grotesque attempt to relativise, if not deny, a crime against humanity. Far from giving those in the Middle East a chance to discuss this historical event (a chance all too rarely given in their own countries), the organisers have already censored the proceedings by denying a visa to an outspoken Palestin-ian lawyer who said that denials of the “monstrous horror” harmed the Palestinian cause.

He is right. For it is not simply that the denial or playing down of the Holocaust will, as Amos Oz, the liberal Israeli writer, said, “be received with revulsion and disgust everywhere in the world”; it makes the terrible mistake of justifying criticism of Israel by denying the historical fact so crucial to the state’s founding. The more thoughtful Palestinians have already understood that the refusal to acknowledge the wartime persecution of the Jews gives credibility to the assertion that critics of Israel are motivated by anti-Semitism. Iran’s President simply proves the point. He has labelled Israel a “tumour” that should be “wiped from the face of the Earth”."