[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [HumanRights] Zinn, WEF, abuse of the Jewish holocaust..

Sat Jan 30 17:36:13 CST 2010

It's useful to to read Mazin. He praises Zinn here, but thinks he could have been stronger in criticizing Israeli policy and its apologists. I'm not sure that I agree with him in this. It's useful in this regard to read what Zinn said about the holocausts, cited below by Qumsiyeh.  [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1145670.html]

--mkb

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Mazin Qumsiyeh" <mazin at qumsiyeh.org>
> Date: January 30, 2010 3:21:27 PM CST
> To: brussel at uiuc.edu
> Cc: Human Rights Newsletter <humanrights at lists.qumsiyeh.org>
> Subject: [HumanRights] Zinn, WEF, abuse of the Jewish holocaust..
> 
> We lost the good voice of historian, intellectual and activist, Prof. Howard
> Zinn.  I met Zinn twice while in the US.  I read two of his books and hope
> to have time some day to read the others.  Zinn was not happy with Zionism
> and frequently criticized the Zionist atrocities, from massacres in Lebanon
> in 1982 to those in Gaza last year.  But, like many leftists, prefererd to
> challenge US imperialism over challenging the destructive Israel-first lobby
> in the US.  In this, I disagreed with him because I believe Zionism sits at
> the table of power in Washington DC and is not merely a tool of "US
> Imperialism". His statements about the misuse of the Nazi atrocities (e.g. 
> <http://www.tokyoprogressive.org/~tpgn/japan/10zinn.htm>
> http://www.tokyoprogressive.org/~tpgn/japan/10zinn.htm) were not as strong
> as those of other Jews who addressed the issue (e.g. Joel Kovel, Lenni
> Brenner, Norman Finkelstein, Gilad Azmon etc). But Zinn was so perceptive on
> so many areas, it is hard to quibble about these points.  Zinn's intellect,
> activism, honesty and positive spirit have  inspired three generations.  He
> cut short his last lecture when he retired and urged his students to join
> him in the demonstration and 100 of them did so.  I always thought thatthis
> is how I hope to end my last lecture too.  In my 2004 book "Sharing the Land
> of Canaan", I cited the following statement from Zinn which I also shared
> two times with listserves:
> 
> "To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on
> the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of
> compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in
> this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it
> destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places
> - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this
> gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this
> spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in
> however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future.
> The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we
> think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is
> itself a marvelous victory." You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A
> personal history of our times, p. 208. (More on Zinn at
> http://www.howardzinn.org <http://www.howardzinn.org/> )
> 
> The World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos is still going on.  This time it is
> subtitled "Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild".  I guess the elites in attendance
> will talk about rebuilding what they destroyed (Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan,
> world economies, the value of the US dollar etc), redesigning the systems of
> corruption, control, domination that they created, and rethink idiotic ideas
> like ethnocentric chauvinistic nationalism (e.g. Zionism, giving
> corporations more righst to move around and settle anywhere they want whiel
> denying these righst to tehir citizens).  But then again, these elites have
> been meeting for four decades in Davos, enjoying the good ski resort, the
> beautifully decorated hotel expensive hotel rooms, great food, shopping, and
> more while getting us deeper in trouble.  They keep trying to get new ideas
> from the same folks who prosper and profit from recycling old ideas.  Does
> anyone think new ideas to "enhance security and promote world economy" will
> come from the likes of Larry Summers (Zionist economist who has racist
> ideologies and ideologies of rich can design strategies to help alleviate
> unemployment) or Shimon Peres (Zionist politicians well known for Israel's
> atomic weapon arsenal and for massacres and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
> over six decades)?  But over the years, the WEF has started to invite token
> progressives to provide "balance" to politicians and rich CEOs of big
> multinational corporations.  But my inside information tells me those guys
> are under threat of exclusion if they step over known boundaries (like
> questioning privilege or power or colonialism or occupation etc).  While I
> never attended the WEF meetings and would not attend if invited, I did
> manage to get an article titled "Boycott Israel" in the WEF official
> magazine which caused uproar four years ago). The official magazine has not
> been published since! see
> <http://www.qumsiyeh.org/theworldeconomicsforumcontroversy/>
> http://www.qumsiyeh.org/theworldeconomicsforumcontroversy/ 
> 
> Holocaust remembrance is a boon for Israeli propaganda By Gideon Levy,
> Haaretz
> <http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1145670.html>
> http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1145670.html
> 
> Worth watching Video on Anti-Semitism: Defamation by Yoav Shamir
> <http://pulsemedia.org/2010/01/26/yoav-shamirs-defamation/>
> http://pulsemedia.org/2010/01/26/yoav-shamirs-defamation/ 
> 
> [There is little media coverage of the fact that two of the five on the
> Chilcot inquiry team are Israeli-apologists/Israel-firsters who will ensure
> that no mention of the fact that Zionists are the ones who pushed Blair and
> Bush to go to war on Iraq]
> Israel's voice on Britain's Iraq Inquiry accuses critics of "anti-Semitism" 
> <http://www.redress.cc/stooges/redress20100129>
> http://www.redress.cc/stooges/redress20100129
> 
> Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
> A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home
> <http://www.qumsiyeh.org/> http://www.qumsiyeh.org  
> http://www.pcr.ps <http://www.pcr.ps/>   
> 
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