[Peace-discuss] Holocaust Industry

[David Gehrig]

Once again, I have removed Occupy CU from the reply list, as
it is not a discussion list.

What follows is, among other things, not just a big lazy
slab of cut-and-paste from Wikipedia.

Finkelstein is in many ways deeply flawed academic -- his
tendentious take on Lipstadt is, frankly, too removed from
reality to take seriously -- but he did hit on something
that needed to be said: anti-Zionism is not, per se, always
a form of antisemitism, and bogus claims of antisemitism are
indeed used as a weapon against anti-Zionism.

Too bad he stopped there.

Unfortunately, it soon became clear that all too many people
-- including ones on this list -- extrapolated Finkelstein's
statement into a much broader one: that every claim that any
anti-Zionist is also an antisemite as well must be by
definition false, cannot possibly be true, and should be
shouted down as loudly and derisively as possible. It is no
more possible to be an antisemitic anti-Zionist than it is
to be a square circle, they said; other than a few
curiousities and freakazoids here and there, it just can't
happen.

Well, as any student of Jewish history can tell you, what
happens when you red-line an area in which people are
politically committed a priori to seeing no antisemitism? Up
come the charlatans -- antisemites who see an audience ripe
for the plucking. All these guys have to do is just
substitute the word "Zionist" every time they would have
previously used the word "Jew," and at least some uncritical
anti-Zionists will just slurp it up, every last anti-Jewish
stereotype in it, and beg for more, convinced that it's not
antisemitism but anti-Zionism.

After the catastrophic defeat of Holocaust denier David
Irving in the London courtroom in 2000 (a trial in which, as
it happens, every one of Stephen's ridiculous
neo-Nazi-originated claims about the Holocaust gas chambers
were addressed and decisively refuted), the Holocaust denial
movement made a conscious decision to repaint themselves as
not anti-Jewish but "anti-Zionist *wink wink*".

As you can see, that was a surprisingly successful move for
them.

What did it take to get Stephen quoting neo-Fascist
publishers like the IHR and neo-Nazis like Zündel? All they
had to do is call themselves "anti-Zionist," and suddenly
people like Stephen couldn't wait to carry their water, oh
boy oh boy.

All through this discussion, people like the Johnsons and
Stephen have tried to force everything into the tiny little
box in which everything is determined by the circa-2000
Finkelstein reflex. In doing so, they have all along missed
what the discussion is actually about.

Is anti-Zionism antisemitic? Relying solely on the
Finkelstein-2000 reflex demands you answer "no." But
thirteen years after Finkelstein, we've seen that this snap
answer isn't really quite sufficient. The answer is neither
"yes" nor "no," but "depends on the individual case."
Holocaust denial isn't anti-Zionism, it's antisemitism
trying to pass itself off as anti-Zionism. If you have no
room in your mental framework for that distinction, then
your mental framework is inadequate, and you are ripe for
picking by the Zündels of the world.

As we have seen.

Combatting Holocaust denial is something everyone should
agree on. Most anti-Zionists know that they have nothing to
gain from neo-Nazi Ernst Zündel videos. But, as you can see
here, there are those who haven't gotten to that point yet
-- and will apparently fight screaming every step along the
road to enlightenment.

I have tried to get a few people here another step down the
path. Only time will tell if they take it.

@%<

On Jul 27, 2013, at 11:34 AM, "David Johnson" <dlj725 at hughes.net> wrote:

> The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering is a 2000 book by Norman G. Finkelstein that argues that the American Jewish establishment exploits the memory of the Nazi Holocaust for political and financial gain, as well as to further the interests of Israel.[1] According to Finkelstein, this "Holocaust industry" has corrupted Jewish culture and the authentic memory of the Holocaust.
> 
>  
> 
> Finkelstein states that his consciousness of "the Nazi holocaust" is rooted in his parents' experiences in the Warsaw ghetto; with the exception of his parents themselves, "every family member on both sides was exterminated by the Nazis".[2] 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."[2] It was only after the establishment of "the Holocaust industry", he suggests, that outpourings of anguish over the plight of the Jews in World War II began. This ideology in turn served to endow Israel with a status as "'victim' state" despite its "horrendous" human rights record.[2]
> 
> 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".[3]
> 
> In the foreword to the first paperback 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 The New York Times 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 Africa.
> 
> Chapters
> 
> Chapter 1: Capitalizing The Holocaust - 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)
> Chapter 2: Hoaxers, Hucksters and History - 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 anti-Semitic 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)
> Chapter 3: The Double Shakedown - in this chapter, Finkelstein claims that the number of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust recognized by relief groups increased from c. 100,000 in 1945[4] to nearly 1 million[5] 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.
> 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".
> 
> Other topics
> 
> Fraudulent writings on the Holocaust
> 
> Finkelstein describes two known frauds, that of The Painted Bird by Polish writer Jerzy Kosinski and Fragments by Binjamin Wilkomirski, 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. Elie Wiesel supported Kosinski; Israel Gutman and Daniel Goldhagen (see below) supported Wilkomirski; Wiesel and Gutman support Goldhagen.
> 
> Holocaust Industry defends itself
> 
> Finkelstein has published heavy criticisms of several books in his career, as he did to Hitler's Willing Executioners 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 A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth. 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 German-born), prompting an official investigation of her.(p. 66)
> 
> Other genocides
> 
> Finkelstein scathingly compared the media treatment of the Holocaust and the media treatment of other genocides such as the Holodomor and the Armenian Genocide, 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 World War I, or refusal to accept there were deaths). In 2001, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres 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 Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem.[6]
> 
> In August 2007, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity produced a letter signed by 53 Nobel Laureates re-affirming the Genocide Scholars' conclusion that the 1915 killings of Armenians constituted genocide.[7] 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. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League announced: "Upon reflection, the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide".[8]
> 
> Other forms of Holocaust denial
> 
> According to Finkelstein, Elie Wiesel characterizes any suggestion that he has profited from the "Holocaust Industry", or even any criticism at all, as Holocaust denial.[9] Questioning a survivor's testimony, denouncing the role of Jewish collaborators, suggesting that Germans suffered during the bombing of Dresden or that any state except Germany committed crimes in World War II are all evidence of Holocaust denial – according to Deborah Lipstadt[10] – and the most "insidious" forms of Holocaust denial are "immoral equivalencies", denying the uniqueness of The Holocaust.[11] Finkelstein examines the implications of applying this standard to another member of the "Holocaust Industry", Daniel Goldhagen, who argued that Serbian actions in Kosovo "are, in their essence, different from those of Nazi Germany only in scale".[12]
> 
> Holocaust deniers in real life
> 
> Further information: Armenian Genocide recognition and Holocaust denial
> According to Finkelstein, Deborah Lipstadt claims there is widespread Holocaust denial - yet in "Denying the Holocaust" her prime example is Arthur Butz, author of The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. 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 Flat Earth Society (p. 69). Finkelstein believes there to be only one "truly mainstream" holocaust denier—Bernard Lewis, who was convicted in France of denying the Armenian genocide.[13] Since Lewis is pro-Israel, "this instance ... raises no hackles in the United States."
> 
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