Benny Avni of The New York Sun reports an American proposal at the United Nations, to which 72 other nations wanted to co-sponsor the bill, would draft into law an automatic condemnation to nations who deny the Holocaust.  The bill, Avni reports, is “largely seen as aimed at increasing Iran’s diplomatic isolation.”

Diplomats from nations in the Group of 77 voting bloc, which represents the world’s poorer countries, said yesterday that while many diplomats are aware the resolution is aimed at isolating Iran, Tehran’s envoys have made little effort so far to lobby against it. While Iran may make a late attempt to scuttle the American-led resolution, such an effort is not expected to gain much traction.

“I don’t think many will support the opposition to this resolution,” the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations, Munir Akram, who heads the Group of 77, told The New York Sun.

The Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, who is among the resolution’s co-sponsors, noted yesterday that the document does not mention Iran by name.

According to the proposed resolution, the assembly would condemn “without any reservation any denial of the Holocaust” and would urge its 192 member states “unreservedly to reject any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part.”

That’s all fine and good as far as placing Iran further into diplomatic isolation, but should there be a law against lunacy?  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m certainly not among those who deny the Holocaust, but I don’t believe there should be a law to condemn anyone for making an outrageous statement or conducting an exercise in futility, such as the Holocaust Conference in Iran late last year.

Iran has stepped up the ante regarding denying or questioning the Holocaust for one purpose and one purpose only.  It gets the nation publicity and diverts attention away from other Iranian issues, such as a rancid human rights record, a tyranical regime, a nuclear program and the many, many state-sponsored terrorist organizations operating throughout the world.  It’s a diversion, and it appears the UN has falled hook, line and sinker for it.

A friend who lives in Jordan once told me that if an Arab does not question the Holocaust then they are part of a fractional minority.  I replied, “it sucks to live in a nation filled with idiots.”  And that’s what those who deny the Holocaust are, but they are not criminals.

When the Danish cartoons of Muhammad came out, or at least three months later after the manufactured outcry, we were treated to soundbites proclaiming denying the Holocaust is illegal yet ‘desecration’ of the Islamic prophet is not.  It was hypocrisy we were told.  I fail to see it, but ask yourself what is next if the UN decides to openly condemn the simple and asinine chore of denying the Holocaust.  Will those who deny Muhammad was a prophet also be condemned in the future?  It’s a historical event, admittedly with more questions than whether or not the Holocaust came to be, but I can’t help but be rather cynical when I’ve been told denying the Holocaust is in the majority in the Middle East yet Avni reports Arab members of the Group of 77 voting block intend to vote for the measure.