The Holocaust Industry (25 page)

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Authors: Norman Finkelstein

Tags: #History, #Holocaust

BOOK: The Holocaust Industry
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newcastle upon tyne

______________________________________________________________________

To: [email protected]

Subject: Truth is the work of every intellectual

Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 22:26:06 -0500

Wow,

You must get some hate mail, ..... but as for me and my house,

we love anyone who seeks the truth. When I think of the Trail of

Tears and the "great man" on the $20 bill, or Mount Rushmore and the treaty

of 1868 between the Lakotah Nation and our own government, I am glad

there are those who speak the truth as they see it. Keep the faith. The

greatest enemy of Israel are those Jews with no morality whatsoever.

WB

_______________________________________________________________________

From: A.E. Quarles van Ufford

To: Norman Finkelstein

Concerns: The Holocaust Industry

Date: The Hague/Netherlands, August 5th 2000

Dear Mr. Finkelstein,

I greatly appreciate your taking of your responsibility as a Jew to tell the truth. Jezus Christ was also a Jew and

we all know how he was treated by his own people! The same feeling of irritation also strikes me when the Dutch

press approve of the "New Version"of the Holocaust-story. I was very shocked when Yasser Arafat on visiting the

Netherlands was shown Ann Frank's home. It was an incredible stupidity. I am so glad when I see him beaming

on pictures of late. Something is changing for the poor Palestinians for the better.

The tragedy of the Jewish people consists of their being "Gods people". It has brought them blessings, but alas

also distress.

Stay loyal to your principles of objective science. After all it is what science ought to be! You show as much

courage as a soldier in the field, when you dare to oppose public opinion. I can advise you to read "Profiles in

courage" written by John F. Kennedy who admired moral courage as much as I and you do! Very often politics

and science look much alike! Time will bring justice!

Yours truly,

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A.E. Quarles van Ufford

______________________________________________________________________

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re: The Critical Reception of "The Holocaust Industry"

Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 16:36:43 -0500

Professor Finkelstein,

I'll be buying your book shortly. I read the review in the "New York

Times Book Review" which called to mind a quote of Schopenhauer's:

All truth goes through three steps:

First, it is ridiculed.

Second, it is violently opposed.

Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

I look forward to reading your book in entirety.

Thank you for having the courage to challenge the conventional wisdom.

Sincerely,

William

______________________________________________________________________

[name withheld at request of the author]

Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 00:50:43 +0100

Dear Norman

thought you might be interested in seeing this note I sent in response

to a query from Jack [not his real name] because his is probably a typical

response to the NYTimes book review. My response of course is just my own

words but you know my view fundamentally jives with yours on this matter. After

the line comes the relevant part of Jack's note, then my reply to him:

------------------------------------

At 10:07 09-08-2000 -0400, you wrote:

Steve--Opened up my NYTimes on Sunday and found a review of Norman's

book, "The Holocaust Industry" in the Book Review. Would you like a

copy of the review? Haven't read the book, but based on what the reviewer

says, I think Norman is living on the same planet as those who say the

Holocaust never happened!!!

Hi Jack

Norman is not a Holocaust denier. He does however believe that the story

of the holocaust has been illegitimately used and manipulated in the recent

past for purposes other than educational, humanistic and ethical.

Primarily,the Holocaust story has transformed into a one-sided justification for

the Zionist project to expand Israel at the expense of Palestinian human and

national rights. You see, if you treat the Jewish Holocaust by the Nazis

as a uniquely unique event in modern history you attribute a moral

superiority to the current jewish people and the powers that speak in its name, that

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is, the Israeli state, the pro-Zionist Jewish lobbies in the US, Jewish

organizations. To the extent that such a perspective becomes convincing

and hegemonic it tends to over-ride the claims of a people oppressed by the

Israeli state to their human and national rights. Palestinian claims are

made to be seen as chicken feed in comparison to the unique devastation

of European Jewry. Now the near liquidation of European Jewry was massive

and tragic but it was NOT unique. Norman talks about other genocides in his

book. For example, you may not be aware of the hundreds of thousands of

Gypsies were also murdered by the Nazis. Although anti-semitism was core to

Nazi ideology and politics, the memory of the murdered Jews is no more holy

(and I would add - if I were not an atheist but as someone raised as a

religious Jew - before the Jewish God) than that of the murdered Gypsies. Have you

any idea of how many Chinese were slaughtered by the Japanese in their

invasion of China - long before the start of the Final Solution (200,000 just in

a few days in Nanking! multiply that by four years and you get a lot more

than 6 million). Norman also refers to slavery and the genocide of Native

Americans, etc.

Actually I read the review since my parents sent it to me. I don't think

the reviewer was completely fair to Norman. It's NOT to be expected. Norman

has taken a BIG risk to criticize the SUCCESSFUL mythologizing and

ideologizing of the Shoah by forces which over the last 3 decades have achieved a

record-breaking contribution of the USA for the existence of the Israeli

military industrial complex and Zionist colonialism. (From among these

forces are the owners and editors of the NYTimes as well as the most

influential elements in the Clinton administration! That's just fact.)

From the defense of Israel in 1973, to the campaign to undermine the Soviet

Union and over-populate Israel through the transfer of Soviet Jewry, through

the devastation of Lebanon, through the settlements which have involved the

immoral expropriation of Palestinian Arabs from their land against all

accepted conventions of occupation, to the so-called "Peace Process"

which seeks to limit a Palestinian state to what in South Africa were called

"Bantustans". These are all campaigns which require a convincing

justification through a "white-washing" myth. It is the irony of history

and a shame that the Shoah has served as such a legitimatory myth.

i suppose you're having a pretty hot summer. how did London go?

Steve

______________________________________________________________________

Subj: Holocaust Industry

Date: 8/11/00 1:17:03 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: RenoDeCaro

To: [email protected]

Dear Professor Finkelstein:

I have included below a review of your courageous book, The Holocaust Industry

, which I have just sent to Amazon.com, Amazon.de, and Amazon.uk. I hope I

have done justice to you and your important book.

Sincerely,

Reno de Caro

The thrust of Professor Finkelstein's unsettling book is that powerful

interests (Israel and Jewish organizations in America) have hijacked what has

become known as the holocaust. And while Israel has exploited the holocaust

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as a weapon to deflect criticism, regardless how justified, American Jewish

organizations have used the plight of supposedly needy survivors to extort

staggering sums of money from the rest of the world. This was done not for

the benefit of survivors, but for the financial advantage of these

organizations.

There are no conclusions reached in Professor Finkelstein's book that a

careful reader of daily newspapers could not have reached, assuming the

reader could read between the lines and base his judgment on evidence and

common sense rather than the politically correct slant of the media reporting.

Finkelstein has infuriated his critics not by ranting or raving or

misrepresenting the evidence, as they have accused him, but by painstakingly

supporting his arguments with irrefutable documentation. The first line of

defense of the mass media in America, one of the holocaust industry's most

effective and compliant tools (second only to the Clinton administration),

was to pretend Finkelstein's book did not exist. Once this tactic became

ineffective due to an outpouring of Internet exposure, the mass media

launched scathing attacks on the author and his book. Read the New York

Times book review for one such "hit piece" and compare that review with your

own reading of the book. Naturally, reading the book is something the review

is designed to discourage.

A zealous supporter of the holocaust industry, Professor Zweig from Tel Aviv,

posted a negative "one star" review of Dr. Finkelstein's book on Amazon.com

before the book was even available to the American public (July 19). This was

no doubt a preemptive Internet strike to discourage potential readers without

giving the book the publicity even a negative not-.com media review would

have had. After Finkelstein was invited for a radio interview in the U.S.,

the holocaust industry enlisted Professor Zweig, who they doubtless consider

a "heavy hitter," to put the heretic Finkelstein in his place. An

alternative explanation would be that Professor Zweig was given an

opportunity to do penance and rehabilitate himself by debunking Finkelstein

on the airwaves after it was discovered that the latter had cited information

in Zweig's own book which blackens the holocaust industry.

In the ensuing debate, the best Zweig could do was claim that Finkelstein had

taken statements made in his book out of context. This is the standard

damage control employed by any public figure who said or wrote something he

subsequently discovered was not in his best interest.

The bottom line of Finkelstein's book is that it says what was very long

overdue to be said. But few academics have the courage or intellectual

fortitude to weather the defamation campaign that will predictably descend on

anyone who challenges this multi -billion dollar industry. Historically

speaking, it has seldom been the politically correct Professor Zweigs of a

given time that brought us closer to the truth, but the defiant and

much-maligned "heretics" such as Norman Finkelstein.

I recommend the advice Nietzsche gave his readers 130 years ago: "If you want

to know something about a book or its author, read what HE wrote rather than

what his critics or enemies say about him." In addition to reading the book,

I highly recommend listening to the radio debate between Professor

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