<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Once again, I have removed Occupy CU from the reply list, as<br>it is not a discussion list.<br><br>What follows is, among other things, not just a big lazy<br>slab of cut-and-paste from Wikipedia.<br><br>Finkelstein is in many ways deeply flawed academic -- his<br>tendentious take on Lipstadt is, frankly, too removed from<br>reality to take seriously -- but he did hit on something<br>that needed to be said: anti-Zionism is not, per se, always<br>a form of antisemitism, and bogus claims of antisemitism are<br>indeed used as a weapon against anti-Zionism.<br><br>Too bad he stopped there.<br><br>Unfortunately, it soon became clear that all too many people<br>-- including ones on this list -- extrapolated Finkelstein's<br>statement into a much broader one: that every claim that any<br>anti-Zionist is also an antisemite as well must be by<br>definition false, cannot possibly be true, and should be<br>shouted down as loudly and derisively as possible. It is no<br>more possible to be an antisemitic anti-Zionist than it is<br>to be a square circle, they said; other than a few<br>curiousities and freakazoids here and there, it just can't<br>happen.<br><br>Well, as any student of Jewish history can tell you, what<br>happens when you red-line an area in which people are<br>politically committed a priori to seeing no antisemitism? Up<br>come the charlatans -- antisemites who see an audience ripe<br>for the plucking. All these guys have to do is just<br>substitute the word "Zionist" every time they would have<br>previously used the word "Jew," and at least some uncritical<br>anti-Zionists will just slurp it up, every last anti-Jewish<br>stereotype in it, and beg for more, convinced that it's not<br>antisemitism but anti-Zionism.<br><br>After the catastrophic defeat of Holocaust denier David<br>Irving in the London courtroom in 2000 (a trial in which, as<br>it happens, every one of Stephen's ridiculous<br>neo-Nazi-originated claims about the Holocaust gas chambers<br>were addressed and decisively refuted), the Holocaust denial<br>movement made a conscious decision to repaint themselves as<br>not anti-Jewish but "anti-Zionist *wink wink*".<br><br>As you can see, that was a surprisingly successful move for<br>them.<br><br>What did it take to get Stephen quoting neo-Fascist<br>publishers like the IHR and neo-Nazis like Zündel? All they<br>had to do is call themselves "anti-Zionist," and suddenly<br>people like Stephen couldn't wait to carry their water, oh<br>boy oh boy.<br><br>All through this discussion, people like the Johnsons and<br>Stephen have tried to force everything into the tiny little<br>box in which everything is determined by the circa-2000<br>Finkelstein reflex. In doing so, they have all along missed<br>what the discussion is actually about.<br><br>Is anti-Zionism antisemitic? Relying solely on the<br>Finkelstein-2000 reflex demands you answer "no." But<br>thirteen years after Finkelstein, we've seen that this snap<br>answer isn't really quite sufficient. The answer is neither<br>"yes" nor "no," but "depends on the individual case."<br>Holocaust denial isn't anti-Zionism, it's antisemitism<br>trying to pass itself off as anti-Zionism. If you have no<br>room in your mental framework for that distinction, then<br>your mental framework is inadequate, and you are ripe for<br>picking by the Zündels of the world.<br><br>As we have seen.<br><br>Combatting Holocaust denial is something everyone should<br>agree on. Most anti-Zionists know that they have nothing to<br>gain from neo-Nazi Ernst Zündel videos. But, as you can see<br>here, there are those who haven't gotten to that point yet<br>-- and will apparently fight screaming every step along the<br>road to enlightenment.<br><br>I have tried to get a few people here another step down the<br>path. Only time will tell if they take it.</span><br><br><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">@%<</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br>On Jul 27, 2013, at 11:34 AM, "David Johnson" <<a href="mailto:dlj725@hughes.net">dlj725@hughes.net</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div>
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<p><i><b>The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish
Suffering</b></i> is a 2000 book by <a class="mw-redirect" title="Norman G. Finkelstein" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_G._Finkelstein">Norman G.
Finkelstein</a> that argues that the <a title="American Jews" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews">American Jewish</a>
establishment exploits the memory of the <a class="mw-redirect" title="Nazi" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi">Nazi</a> <a class="mw-redirect" title="The Holocaust" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust">Holocaust</a> for political
and financial gain, as well as to further the interests of <a title="Israel" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel">Israel</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-1"><span>[</span>1<span>]</span></a></sup>
According to Finkelstein, this "Holocaust industry" has corrupted <a title="Jewish culture" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_culture">Jewish
culture</a> and the authentic memory of the Holocaust.</p>
<table id="toc" class="toc">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<div id="toctitle">
<h2> </h2></div></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>Finkelstein states that his consciousness of "the Nazi holocaust" is rooted
in his parents' experiences in the <a class="mw-redirect" title="Warsaw ghetto" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_ghetto">Warsaw ghetto</a>; with the
exception of his parents themselves, "every family member on both sides was
exterminated by the Nazis".<sup id="cite_ref-h5_2-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-h5-2"><span>[</span>2<span>]</span></a></sup>
Nonetheless, during his childhood, no one ever asked any questions about what
his mother and father had suffered. He suggests, "This was not a respectful
silence. It was indifference."<sup id="cite_ref-h5_2-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-h5-2"><span>[</span>2<span>]</span></a></sup>
It was only after the establishment of "the Holocaust industry", he suggests,
that outpourings of anguish over the plight of the Jews in <a title="World War II" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II">World War
II</a> began. This ideology in turn served to endow Israel with a status as
"'victim' state" despite its "horrendous" human rights record.<sup id="cite_ref-h5_2-2" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-h5-2"><span>[</span>2<span>]</span></a></sup></p>
<p>According to Finkelstein, his book is "an anatomy and an indictment of the
Holocaust industry". He argues that "'The Holocaust' is an ideological
representation of the Nazi holocaust".<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-3"><span>[</span>3<span>]</span></a></sup></p>
<p>In the foreword to the first <a title="Paperback" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperback">paperback</a> edition, Finkelstein
notes that the first hardback edition had been a considerable hit in several
European countries and many languages, but had been panned in the US. He sees
<i><a title="The New York Times" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times">The New York
Times</a></i> as the main promotional vehicle of the "Holocaust industry", and
notes that the 1999 Index listed 273 entries for the Holocaust and just 32
entries for the entire continent of <a title="Africa" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa">Africa</a>.</p>
<h2><span id="Chapters" class="mw-headline">Chapters</span></h2>
<ul>
<li>Chapter 1: <i>Capitalizing The Holocaust</i> - by the 1980s, Finkelstein
states, the "War against the Jews" had become more important to American
cultural life than the "War Between the States".(p. 11)</li>
<li>Chapter 2: <i>Hoaxers, Hucksters and History</i> - in 1967, Finkelstein
claims that two concepts appeared in public discourse: The uniqueness of the
Holocaust, and the concept of the Holocaust as climax of a historical
irrational <a class="mw-redirect" title="Anti-Semitism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semitism">anti-Semitic</a> tendency in
Europe. Finkelstein asserts that these concepts became central to the
"Holocaust Industry", but that neither figures in scholarship of the Nazi
Holocaust.(p. 13)</li>
<li>Chapter 3: <i>The Double Shakedown</i> - in this chapter, Finkelstein
claims that the number of Jewish <a class="mw-redirect" title="Holocaust survivors" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_survivors">survivors of the
Holocaust</a> recognized by relief groups increased from c. 100,000 in
1945<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-4"><span>[</span>4<span>]</span></a></sup>
to nearly 1 million<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-5"><span>[</span>5<span>]</span></a></sup>
owing to definitional changes in who was considered to be a survivor. Because
of this, Finkelstein repeatedly asserts that "fraudulent" claims were made on
Switzerland, while accounts and assets in the US and Israel were ignored.
Payments were made to the wrong people and real survivors lost out.</li></ul>
<p>The second (2003) edition contained 100 pages of new material, primarily in
chapter 3 on the Swiss Banks lawsuit. Finkelstein set out to provide a guide to
the relevant sections of the case. He feels that the presiding judge elected not
to docket crucial documents, and that the Claims Resolution Tribunal could no
longer be trusted. Finkelstein claims the CRT was on course to vindicate the
Swiss banks before it changed tack in order to "protect the blackmailers'
reputation".</p>
<h2><span id="Other_topics" class="mw-headline">Other topics</span></h2>
<h3><span id="Fraudulent_writings_on_the_Holocaust" class="mw-headline">Fraudulent
writings on the Holocaust</span></h3>
<p>Finkelstein describes two known frauds, that of <i><a title="The Painted Bird" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Painted_Bird">The Painted Bird</a></i> by
Polish writer <a class="mw-redirect" title="Jerzy Kosinski" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Kosinski">Jerzy Kosinski</a> and
<i>Fragments</i> by <a title="Binjamin Wilkomirski" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binjamin_Wilkomirski">Binjamin
Wilkomirski</a>, and how they were defended by people even after they'd been
exposed. He identifies some of these people as members of the "Holocaust
Industry", and notes that they also support each other. <a title="Elie Wiesel" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elie_Wiesel">Elie Wiesel</a> supported
Kosinski; <a title="Israel Gutman" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Gutman">Israel Gutman</a> and <a title="Daniel Goldhagen" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Goldhagen">Daniel Goldhagen</a> (see
below) supported Wilkomirski; Wiesel and Gutman support Goldhagen.</p>
<h3><span id="Holocaust_Industry_defends_itself" class="mw-headline">Holocaust
Industry defends itself</span></h3>
<p>Finkelstein has published heavy criticisms of several books in his career, as
he did to <i><a title="Hitler's Willing Executioners" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Willing_Executioners">Hitler's
Willing Executioners</a></i> by Daniel Johnah Goldhagen, which he calls "replete
with gross misinterpretations of source material and internal contradictions",
and says "the book is devoid of scholarly value". Independently, Ruth Bettina
Birn (the world's leading authority on the archives that Goldhagen had consulted
and chief historian for War Crimes with the Canadian Department of Justice) did
the same - she and Finkelstein worked together on <i>A Nation on Trial: The
Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth</i>. Goldhagen refused the journal's
invitation for a full rebuttal, and instead enlisted a London law firm to sue
Birn and the Cambridge University Press. Protests were made to Birn's employer,
calling her "a member of the perpetrator race" (she is <a title="Germany" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany">German</a>-born), prompting an
official investigation of her.(p. 66)</p>
<h3><span id="Other_genocides" class="mw-headline">Other genocides</span></h3>
<p>Finkelstein scathingly compared the media treatment of the Holocaust and the
media treatment of other genocides such as the <a title="Holodomor" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor">Holodomor</a> and the <a title="Armenian Genocide" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide">Armenian Genocide</a>,
particularly by members of what he calls "The Holocaust Industry". (1 to 1.5
million Armenians died in the years between 1915 and 1917/1923 - denial includes
the claim that they were the result of a Civil War within <a title="World War I" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I">World War I</a>, or refusal to
accept there were deaths). In 2001, Israeli Foreign Minister <a title="Shimon Peres" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres">Shimon
Peres</a> went so far as to dismiss it as "allegations". However, by this time
historical consensus was changing, and he was "angrily compared ... to a
holocaust denier" by Dr Charny, executive director of the <a title="Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_on_the_Holocaust_and_Genocide">Institute
on the Holocaust and Genocide</a> in <a title="Jerusalem" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem">Jerusalem</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-6"><span>[</span>6<span>]</span></a></sup></p>
<p>In August 2007, the <a class="mw-redirect" title="Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elie_Wiesel_Foundation_for_Humanity">Elie
Wiesel Foundation for Humanity</a> produced a letter signed by 53 <a class="mw-redirect" title="Nobel Laureate" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Laureate">Nobel Laureates</a>
re-affirming the Genocide Scholars' conclusion that the 1915 killings of
Armenians <a title="Armenian Genocide recognition" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide_recognition">constituted
genocide</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-7"><span>[</span>7<span>]</span></a></sup>
However, Wiesel's organization asserted there would be no legal "basis for
reparations or territorial claims", anticipating Turkish anxieties that it could
prompt financial or property claims. <a title="Abraham Foxman" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Foxman">Abraham Foxman</a> of
the <a title="Anti-Defamation League" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League">Anti-Defamation
League</a> announced: "Upon reflection, the consequences of those actions were
indeed tantamount to <a title="Genocide" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide">genocide</a>".<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-8"><span>[</span>8<span>]</span></a></sup></p>
<h3><span id="Other_forms_of_Holocaust_denial" class="mw-headline">Other forms of
Holocaust denial</span></h3>
<p>According to Finkelstein, Elie Wiesel characterizes any suggestion that he
has profited from the "Holocaust Industry", or even any criticism at all, as <a title="Holocaust denial" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial">Holocaust denial</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-9"><span>[</span>9<span>]</span></a></sup>
Questioning a survivor's testimony, denouncing the role of Jewish collaborators,
suggesting that Germans suffered during the <a class="mw-redirect" title="Bombing of Dresden" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden">bombing of Dresden</a> or
that any state except Germany committed crimes in World War II are all evidence
of Holocaust denial – according to Deborah Lipstadt<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-10"><span>[</span>10<span>]</span></a></sup>
– and the most "insidious" forms of Holocaust denial are "immoral
equivalencies", denying the <a class="mw-redirect" title="Uniqueness of The Holocaust" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniqueness_of_The_Holocaust">uniqueness of
The Holocaust</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-11" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-11"><span>[</span>11<span>]</span></a></sup>
Finkelstein examines the implications of applying this standard to another
member of the "Holocaust Industry", Daniel Goldhagen, who argued that <a title="Serbia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia">Serbian</a> actions in
<a title="Kosovo" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo">Kosovo</a> "are, in
their essence, different from those of Nazi Germany only in scale".<sup id="cite_ref-12" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-12"><span>[</span>12<span>]</span></a></sup></p>
<h3><span id="Holocaust_deniers_in_real_life" class="mw-headline">Holocaust deniers
in real life</span></h3>
<div class="rellink">Further information: <a title="Armenian Genocide recognition" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide_recognition">Armenian
Genocide recognition</a> and <a title="Holocaust denial" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial">Holocaust denial</a></div>
<p>According to Finkelstein, <a title="Deborah Lipstadt" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Lipstadt">Deborah Lipstadt</a> claims
there is widespread Holocaust denial - yet in "Denying the Holocaust" her prime
example is <a title="Arthur Butz" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Butz">Arthur Butz</a>, author of <i><a title="The Hoax of the Twentieth Century" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hoax_of_the_Twentieth_Century">The Hoax
of the Twentieth Century</a></i>. The chapter on him is entitled "Entering the
Mainstream" - but Finkelstein considers that, were it not for the likes of
Lipstadt, no one would ever have heard of Arthur Butz. Holocaust deniers have as
much influence in the US as the <a title="Flat Earth Society" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society">Flat Earth Society</a>
(p. 69). Finkelstein believes there to be only one "truly mainstream"
holocaust denier—<a title="Bernard Lewis" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis">Bernard Lewis</a>, who was
convicted in <a title="France" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France">France</a> of denying the Armenian
genocide.<sup id="cite_ref-13" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry#cite_note-13"><span>[</span>13<span>]</span></a></sup>
Since Lewis is pro-Israel, "this instance ... raises no hackles in the United
States."</p></font></div>
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