[Dryerase] The Alarm!--Book Review

[The Alarm!Newswire]

Reviewing the Reviews:
Finkelstein and The Holocaust Industry

by Graham Parsons
The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor

When Norman Finkelstein’s latest book The Holocaust Industry: 
Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering was first published 
two years ago, the major American and Israeli press took notice only to 
resoundingly condemn and dismiss it.  Three examples are illustrative: 
Omer Bartov in The New York Times Book Review, Adam Bresnick in The Los 
Angeles Times Book Review, and Yair Sheleg in Haaretz Magazine.  Each 
of these reviews offers at least one of the following two types of 
responses:

The first type is personal attack of the author, Norman Finkelstein.  
Bartov calls Finkelstein “sad,” “smug,” “paranoid,” “indecent,” 
“juvenile,” “self-righteous,” “arrogant,” “stupid,” “fanatic” and 
“ruthless and reckless.” Sheleg describes him as a “lone wolf,” and 
suggests that Finkelstein’s childhood in, as he describes it, “…a 
bitter and distrustful home” is the “root cause” of some of the 
assertions in his book.

Taking this attack further, both Bartov and Sheleg agree that 
Finkelstein lacks integrity because, while chastising those who use the 
Holocaust as a tool for personal and political gains, he is himself 
exploiting it in similar ways.  “As ironic and paradoxical as it may 
seem, Finkelstein is also sustained today by the Holocaust,” writes 
Sheleg.  And Bartov adds that “…his sensational ‘revelations’ and 
outrageous accusations draw a great deal of public and media 
attention…” which “…serve[s] his own ends.”  In fact, Finkelstein was 
released from his position at Hunter College of the City University of 
New York—where he taught political theory—-not long after the 
publication of The Holocaust Industry.

The second type of response in the reviews is an association of the 
book with anti-Semitism.  Bresnick opines that Finkelstein’s tone is 
“…often redolent of that used by virulent anti-Semites.”  Bartov 
compares The Holocaust Industry with the standard anti-Semitic work—The 
Protocols of the Elders of Zion—and claims that the book will “…serve 
anti-Semites around the world.”  Similarly, Sheleg remarks that, in 
Germany, Finkelstein is “…a darling of the extreme right (which only by 
dint of strict German law does not call itself by the more explicit 
term of ‘neo-Nazis’).”  Sheleg also quotes an array of intellectuals 
including journalist David Witztum (“The most conspicuous fact in the 
book is the hatred”), Professor Israel Guttman (“We should consider it 
nothing more than an anti-Semitic lampoon”) and Professor Hans Momsen 
(“a most trivial book, which appeals to easily aroused anti-Semitic 
prejudices”) to help make the attack against Finkelstein’s alleged 
anti-Semitism.  One wonders how these authors find no noteworthy 
conflict in branding a Jewish scholar, himself the son of holocaust 
survivors, an anti-Semite.

Aside from occasionally attacking statements peripheral to 
Finkelstein’s central arguments and questioning things like the book’s 
novelty, these reviewers do not take their criticisms much further.  In 
fact, in the case of Bartov’s review, it is basically limited to the 
above accusations.  Without knowing anything about Finkelstein’s book, 
except that it actually contains a central thesis and argument, what we 
should note after observing these responses is that the basic question, 
“What do you think of the book?”—as opposed to the insignificant 
question “What do you think of Finkelstein?”—remains not only 
unanswered, but unaddressed.  The fact that these reviewers chose to 
express their fear and anger about Finkelstein suggests their inability 
to think critically about the matters presented in his book, and the 
fact that these hysterical reviews were the only comments published in 
these major resources of the American and Israeli print media suggests 
more ominous trends.

So, allow me to respond to the standing question, “What do you think of 
the book?”

In my view, The Holocaust Industry is an intelligent, extraordinarily 
provocative, bitterly passionate critique of Jewish elites and 
organizations in the United States.  Like Finkelstein’s previous three 
books—The Rise and Fall of Palestine, Image and Reality of the 
Israel-Palestine Conflict, and A Nation on Trial—it is erudite and 
delightfully iconoclastic literature.

One of Finkelstein’s central contentions in The Holocaust Industry is 
that the Nazi holocaust—the actual historical event—is, for many, no 
longer an object of rational historical inquiry.  It is now an 
ideological construction; it has become The Holocaust.  For 
Finkelstein, The Holocaust can be identified by two claims: “The 
Holocaust marks a categorically unique historical event,” and “The 
Holocaust marks the climax of an irrational, eternal Gentile hatred of 
Jews.”  With his typical combination of wryness and reason, Finkelstein 
convincingly argues that both of these dogmas are untenable, and 
therefore, The Holocaust is a bankrupt concept.  A quick look at 
existing commentary demonstrates that The Holocaust is indeed regularly 
discussed as Finkelstein describes it, and, for serious scholars of the 
Nazi holocaust, his critique should be welcomed and relatively 
uncontroversial.

The real debate ought to surround Finkelstein’s explanation for the 
existence of The Holocaust.  Finkelstein claims that The Holocaust was 
created and persists today because of its utility.  He notes that the 
above two tenets of The Holocaust are each crucial justifications of 
the Zionist enterprise, and that The Holocaust was not politically 
prominent in American Jewish life until after the 1967 Israel-Arab war, 
when Israel demonstrated its vast military superiority in the region, 
and hence became the recipient of wholehearted US support.  It was at 
this time, Finkelstein argues, that American Jewish elites seized the 
opportunity to advance their project of assimilation by inventing and 
wielding The Holocaust.  Thus they began to curry favor with American 
power by identifying themselves with Israel, the new US ally, and to 
deflect all criticism of the Jewish state with their “indispensable 
ideological weapon,” The Holocaust.

This is all certainly ambitious, but still fascinating and cogently 
presented.  And there’s more.  More recently, Finkelstein continues, 
Jewish elites have used The Holocaust as a weapon for extorting 
reparations from Switzerland, Germany and Poland.  He alleges that with 
vicious spoken and published attacks, and threats of economic 
sanctions, the Jewish Claims Conference has extorted billions of 
dollars from these European countries.  In the process, Finkelstein 
asserts, they distorted the number of living holocaust survivors in 
order to inflate the reparations sums, and later insisted on earmarking 
portions for their own agencies instead of providing for actual 
holocaust survivors.  He also thoroughly demonstrates the glaring 
contradictions in the rhetoric employed by these organizations and the 
US government over the issue of reparations.  Specifically, their 
simultaneous lack of concern over the American record of compensation 
for seized holocaust-era assets, and their expressed disregard for 
African-American claims to slave labor compensation.  Finkelstein 
proposes, “The Holocaust may yet turn out to be the ‘greatest robbery 
in the history of mankind.’”

At this point, we can begin to see the real reason why Finkelstein 
might be so disliked.  He is merciless in his attacks of specific 
organizations and individuals.  For example, he unremittingly lambasts 
the sanctimonious figure of holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel.  
“Elie Wiesel is The Holocaust,” he writes, and, like it, his 
“…prominence is a function of his ideological utility.”

Ultimately, I agree with historian Raul Hilberg, who has expressed his 
sympathy to central claims in The Holocaust Industry, but adds, “I wish 
it were longer.”  Indeed, some of Finkelstein’s judgements seem facile. 
  For instance, in accounting for the existence of The Holocaust, he 
ignores the emergence of robust identity politics in American political 
discourse in recent decades.  We have seen numerous minority groups, 
including women and homosexuals, view themselves as distinct social 
groups, identified by their shared victimization, and with their own 
“unique” interests.  Although Finkelstein pays it no attention, it is 
sensible to think that the persistence of The Holocaust within some 
circles of the American Jewish community ought to be viewed, at least 
partly, in the context of this broader sociopolitical development.

Still, The Holocaust Industry is a wonderful polemic.  If we treat it 
honestly, it should consolidate Finkelstein’s career as an astute 
critic of US-Israel relations.  If, prior to reading this review, you 
had not yet heard the name Norman Finkelstein, I trust you will again 
soon.

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