Holocaust Religion and Holocaust Industry in the Service of Israel
Holocaust Religion and Holocaust Industry in the Service of Israel
http://stateofnature.org/holocaustReligion.html
Revised version of an article first published in Between the Lines, February 2001
State of Nature, Autumn 2005 (12th September 2005)
The Nazi Judeocide [1] played and continues to play a major role in the Arab/Israeli conflict. On the one hand, it is unfortunately a commonly held Arab position that this Judeocide is merely one of many bogus Zionist postures to manipulate world public opinion. On the other hand, not less sadly, many Jews insist upon the uniqueness of this catastrophe (in Hebrew, ‘shoa’) and believe that it demonstrates beyond doubt the necessity of a Jewish state; and had there been one during WWII, this genocide would not have taken place. Moreover, it is claimed that only a militarily strong Israel can prevent such a catastrophe from recurring. Accordingly anybody not accepting these beliefs is considered to be Anti-Jewish.
Each of the above positions is the result of the same distorted mode of processing the past. This mode can be called religious, even though the usual definition of religion includes a god concept – one which is absent in this discussion. In all other ways, the necessary religious characteristics are in place: dogmas, commandments, rituals, shrines, prophets and priests and, of course, economic/financial structures.
One can, therefore, speak of a "Holocaust Religion" and its "Satanic" arch enemy or twin, "Holocaust Denial". A third way to deal with the Judeocide, which should be defined as secular and scientific, is often identified with "Holocaust Denial." The use of the term "Holocaust", which means "A burnt- sacrifice or offering, the whole of which was consumed by fire," [2] reflects the religious character of the dominant historiography of Judeocide. [3] Using the designation "Holocaust" for the extermination of the Jews implies accordingly the absurdity that the Nazis sacrificed Jews in a kind of a religious ritual.
The birth of the Holocaust Religion is considered to have been triggered by the trial in Jerusalem of the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1961. This show-trial was a spectacle meant to get the broader Jewish Israeli public, mainly the youngest generation, acquainted with the Judeocide. The trial did not succeed in the short run in achieving this aim not because this middle-ranking SS-officer, Eichman, was not adequate to represent the whole extermination machinery. Nor was the failure due to the impossibility of reducing the Nazi monstrous system to a single individual. The fundamental reason for the failure must be attributed to the central Zionist tenet: the "Negation of the Diaspora", a recurrent theme which made it thence very difficult for the young Jewish-Israelis to identify themselves with European Jewry.
Several generations of Israeli Jews were brought up to loathe Jewish existence abroad. In fact, the Jewish way of life in Europe was viewed as sick and to be overcome through Zionism. Young Jewish-Israelis were brain-washed, throughout the late 70s, to internalize typical Christian European prejudices against Jews and thus did not want to identify themselves with their own grandparents or even their parents, who had allegedly not resisted oppression in Europe.
It is precisely owing to their role as victimizers that, even now, makes it is easier for Israeli soldiers to identify with the Nazis than with their own ancestors – the victims. Example: in 1982 after the bombing of Beirut and putting the city under siege, Israeli soldiers disgusted at what they had just done, told an excited and adoring German journalist who wanted to know how they were feeling: "we have just created a Warsaw ghetto."
Even though Eichmann’s trial did not achieve the desired effect inside Israel, its impact abroad was enormous. Elie Wiesel, a former concentration camp inmate, who came to Jerusalem to report on the process, subsequently initiated a religious modality for handling the Judeocide. This religion was to become very dominant in the ensuing years. It came to be accepted not only by most Jews but also many non-Jews, especially in the industrialized countries. It was to become one of the most important tools of the Israeli propaganda machinery. The relevancy of the Holocaust Religion to the Middle East conflict cannot therefore be overlooked.
Its real breakthrough according to the Jewish theologian Marc Ellis, who defines it rather as a theology, came through the Israeli victory in 1967. [4] "Holocaust theology yields three themes that exist in dialectical tension: suffering and empowerment, innocence and redemption, specialness and normalization." [5] This war therefore was, according to this analysis, a kind of a religious messianic salvation. The Judeocide and the big ‘threat’ to Israel in 1967 is the suffering. The building of the State of Israel and especially the victory of 1967 is the redemption.
Of course Zionism lost its innocence long before 1967. Already in the 1930s, David Ben Gurion, the most important Zionist leader, realized the huge potential in Judeocide as he brought these religious elements together into a simple direct political motto for the instrumentalization of the Jewish sufferings in Europe. He declared: "Catastrophe is Power." Which means the Zionist movement should find ways to profit politically and financially from the agony. Yet the catastrophe became a real source of political power only after Israel became a military success in 1967, which means, a catastrophe as such is not necessarily a source of power. One must be powerful in order to be able to use and abuse a disaster.
In their book "Dangerous Liaison", [6] Andrew and Leslie Cockburn describe how only after 1967 did Israel become attractive to the US military establishment. Though Israel had, before that time, a burning desire to work for Washington, the US was not very enthusiastic until Israel demonstrated its strength on the battlefield.
The journalist J.J. Goldberg [7] argues that the Jewish lobby became strong only after 1967. AIPAC, the best known lobby, became influential through the Israeli importance for the US foreign policy and not the other way around.
This claim sounds very plausible when one considers that American Jewish organizations were not able to convince the Roosevelt administration to be more helpful towards European Jewry during the Nazi era. [8] Although, for example, the New York Times was in Jewish ownership it did not dare, just like the mainstream US Jewish organizations, to oppose the anti-Jewish policy of the State Department. The lobby to establish a Zionist state in Palestine was anyway more effective than the one to save the Jews. This was the line dictated by Ben Gurion and executed by his delegate Abba Hillel Silver.
The Zionist influence at that period was less strong than perceived through the Arab lens. Still the leadership of the Jewish agency (JA), i.e., the government-in-formation, headed by the Zionist Labor movement, started very early to cash in on the Nazi persecution of the Jews. This "Holocaust Industry" [9] had been founded even before the Judeocide was really launched. In the mid 30s the JA reached a deal with the Nazis, the so called Ha’avara (Transfer) agreement, which helped the Zionist movement not only to attract to Palestine very wealthy investors, but to get direct control of some of their money. According to the this arrangement, rich Jews could get some of their properties out of Germany if they immigrated to Palestine and the Jewish Agency received a nice commission from these deals. This arrangement was, among others, the result of strong Nazi support for the Zionist project, since corresponding with the Zionist aims the main German objective at that time was "just" to expel the Jews from Europe. This policy coincided with the Zionist goals. [10] The collaboration with the Nazis brought the Zionists the much needed capital for the colonization of Palestine ($40 million), which was "60% of capital invested in Palestine between 1933 and the war." [11] This agreement practically saved the Zionist movement in Palestine from bankruptcy argues the journalist Lenni Brenner.
The JA came thus to be the largest agent for German goods in the Middle East and sabotaged Jewish efforts to declare an effective boycott against the Nazis, of which they were very afraid. This fruitful cooperation between Nazis and Zionists came to an end in 1938 following Arab insurrections. After which the British tried to stop Jewish Immigration into Palestine. Besides, the German faction, which sought an anti-British alliance with the Arabs got stronger and blocked the export to Palestine of goods so needed at home. Still the pro-Zionist Nazi factions (Eichmann was a part of them) kept their contacts with the Jewish Agency. According to the coordinator of the Zionist activities in occupied Europe, Nathan Dror-Schwalb, his people were working together with Eichmann in 1938 as he expelled the Austrian Jews. [12] This is also documented by Jon and David Kimche. [13] Zionist delegates, according to Schwalb, could operate without disturbance in Germany throughout the war and organize their cells of the youth movement Hehalutz. [14] According to the Israeli historian S.B. Beit-Zvi, the JA-leadership did not hesitate to sabotage rescue efforts. This happened after it became clear that the British would not allow a Jewish mass immigration to Palestine. Beit-Zvi argues that the JA-leadership was afraid that a large number of Jews would be saved and sent to some other destinations rather than Palestine. This development was considered a political and economic danger (!) to the Zionist project, as it would absorb resources needed to establish the state and would weaken the Zionist claim that Palestine is the only possible refuge for Jews. [15]
According to Beit-Zvi, Golda Meir was responsible for sabotaging the concrete chances of rescue of the refugees which were discussed at the conference of Evian in 1938. Beit-Zvi claims that this was the real reason why this famous conference actually failed. In a very famous speech Ben Gurion formulated the JA rescue policy as follows: "If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the lives of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel." [16]
Ben-Gurion’s apologists have tried to explain away this quotation. But an objective examination of the following activities of the JA, the protocols of JA-leadership and the factual low priority it gave to rescue operations, can only confirm the claim that this speech was emblematic of this attitude and that it basically never changed even after the scope of the catastrophe became clear. [17]
In the case of the Hungarian Jews, the charge of direct collaboration of the Labor party controlled JA leadership with the Nazis is raised by both Jewish Anti-Zionists and Ultra-Zionists (Likud and more radical parties). The Labor party representative, Israel Kastner is accused of making possible the efficient deportation of half a million Jews to Auschwitz through the cooperation of his committee with Eichmann. The defenders of Kastner argue that he actually tried to save the Hungarian Jews through negotiating with the Nazis. This last claim is probably basically true, but it is beyond discussion that these negotiations were sabotaged by the JA-leadership, the mainstream Jewish organizations in the USA and also by the Allies. The JA-leadership had the same considerations as formulated by S.B. Beth Tzvi; it knew that there was no chance that if a large number of Jews were to be rescued by Kastner and his committee that they would be able to immigrate to Palestine. The sabotaging of this realistic rescue attempt by the JA got in return the British consent to build a Jewish brigade in the British army.
The Israeli historian, Idith Zertal, claims that Ben Gurion was already before WWII mainly interested in the rescue operations only for national purposes. The saving of persecuted Jews was to be used primarily as a means of pressure on the British Empire to abolish its restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine. But even for these purposes, there were hardly any meaningful rescue activities during the war. There were very few Zionist delegates to coordinate such operations and they had hardly any financial resources to be effective. According to Zertal, the spectacular actions of the illegal immigration after the war, like the famous trip of the "Exodus", were mainly part of a very effective propaganda campaign. She quotes the Jewish welfare organization "Joint" that claimed at that time, that the total number of immigrants including the illegal ones was smaller than the British quota. This means that if the Jewish refugees had been transported to Palestine legally, under normal conditions, it would have been cheaper, more comfortable and safer for them than using the shaky illegal ships and their number would not necessarily have been lower. But by using this legal way, the JA would have lost the propaganda effects of the pictures of British soldiers using excessive amounts of force against Jewish survivors. [18]
Though the Zionist leadership was not very active in saving Jews (to say the least), it had already started during WWII to prepare a restitution campaign. The JA felt itself empowered to make claims on Jewish properties without being bothered by such trivialities like whether or not the legitimate owners or their heirs were still alive. [19] The Zionist project needed a lot of money and therefore it is not surprising that the JA did not have too many ethical considerations when they endeavored to save Nazi war criminals, that is, if the Nazis could pay enough for it. Thus the SS officer responsible for the robbery of the Hungarian Jewry, Kurt Becher, and some of his friends were saved. The aforementioned Israel Kastner was sent in 1947 by the Israeli finance minister to Germany to save these Nazis from trial. In return, Becher gave orders to his Swiss trustee to transfer money to the Jewish Agency. [20]
This was also the case of the important Nazi agent Jaac van Harten, whose money financed in 1945/46 the illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine and acquisitions of weapons. Van Harten was crucial for the flight of Nazis out of Europe, but the agents of the Mossad Le’Aliyah Beth [21] who protected him, could not care less. He himself found refuge later in Tel Aviv, where he got the protection of no less than Golda Meir, the de-facto foreign minister at that time (1947). Till the 60s Van Harten kept contacts with his former Nazi boss, Friedrich Schwend, who was then working in Peru with other famous Nazis like Josef Mengele and Klaus Barbie. Schwend was considered to be a kind of finance minister of the planned Fourth Reich. [22]
The Zionist movement succeeded after WWII in getting restitution illegitimately in the name of the Nazi victims. At the last stages of the war representatives of the Jewish Agency gathered Jewish properties and were nominated as recipient for such assets at the Paris Reparation Conference (1945/46).
The larger amount of money began to flow in the 50s as the USA intensified its efforts to reintegrate West Germany in its Cold War strategy. A German researcher reports about a meeting in Switzerland between the German chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the Israeli President Haim Weizmann. In this meeting Adenauer agreed to pay compensations if Israel gave it consent for the rearmament of West Germany. [23]
These restitution and compensation monies were very crucial for building the Israeli economy and military. Some Israeli experts claim that without the German reparations the Israeli economy would have collapsed in the ’50s. There is no doubt that the victory of 1967 would not have been possible without this support. Thus the suffering of the Jewish Nazi victims was used to finance Israeli military aggressions. After 1967 the influence of the Holocaust Industry and the Holocaust Religion increased as a result of the ever growing importance of Israel in terms of US interests. The Holocaust Religion was able to achieve a growing control over public opinion in Western countries. Its influence in the 90s reached an unexpected climax. Steven Spielberg’s film "Schindler’s List" and the ceremonies commemorating the Jubilee of the end of WWII functioned like a trigger for this outburst.
As an outcome of this memory-explosion the Holocaust Industry was in position to launch in 1995 a very effective restitution campaign against the Swiss banks, which has been expanded to include other countries. It was a mixture of a just claim, presented by the wrong organizations for the wrong purposes, fed through the fear of Judeophobes of the mythological ‘Jewish Power’ and its overestimated influence on the US government.
Of course the Jewish organizations got the support of Clinton’s administration in this campaign, but it is not clear how far the US would have gone on this issue against the Swiss banks. Thus the Swiss became ‘victims’ of their own prejudices against the Jews. From a rather unimportant organization looking rather helplessly for an issue, with this Swiss help, the World Jewish Congress and the affiliated organizations came to be a very influential factor. The undertaking has brought many billions of dollars and the story is not yet over.
Israel itself tries not to be involved directly in this campaign, in order not to get into any diplomatic complications with friendly countries like Switzerland. Instead the World Jewish Congress (WJC), the Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) and some other organizations are leading the activities.
Israel just hopes in one way or another to get its share in any eventual booty. For example, after a certain compensation for survivors was paid by Switzerland, the Israeli government tried to cut the social security support to the Israeli recipients commensurate with what they’d receive from Switzerland. A step which means, that actually the money from Switzerland would have gone to the state of Israel and not to the victims.
In the meantime there is much more money in the restitution funds, but its distribution is delayed (Israel belongs to the slowest distributors) and the survivors have the feeling that the Jewish organizations ‘representing’ them, are just waiting for more of them to die, so that the funds will be distributed for other purposes. The survivors and the legitimate owners of robbed properties realized too late that their interests are being abused by the leading Jewish organizations (all of them with a strong Zionist influence). These survivors are too weak and too old to fight effectively against the mighty jet-setters of organized Jewry.
There was a series of articles in various papers in Israel, Switzerland, Germany and the USA demonstrating how the most important restitution organization, the Jewish Claims Conference, is robbing the legitimate heirs, as Joseph Wolff describes. Wolff, a former director of the Israeli oil firm Paz, after learning about the cruelty of the JCC, decided to try to help the twice victimized people.
The efforts of this influential and well connected person did not help much and still today there is not much clarity regarding the activities of the JCC. No outsider knows how much money it controls, how much is distributed, who are the recipients etc.
The attacks of the US political scientist Norman Finkelstein against the JCC in his book "The Holocaust Industry" [24] irritate the organized Jewry but in the short run do no more than that. This is because Finkelstein did not invest enough energy in the complicated investigations needed to prove his claims.
In a web-site "The Survivors vs. the Holocaust Industry", [25] several old survivors tried to initiate the struggle against the JCC, but they did not get very far, as they did not have the necessary funds and power to finance the fight against the mighty organizations. They protested against the injustices and demanded that they should be able to decide how the money should be allocated. The protesting survivors claimed that the Jewish organizations were very slow in distributing the monies and that they are just waiting till all of them die. They noted that actually each and every month 1,000 survivors around the world die.
The survivor Gerhard Maschkowski, who was among the leaders of this struggle wrote: "After the war ended in 1945, Holocaust survivors were treated shabbily; most were forced to live in Displaced Persons Camps in Europe as the world was forced to deal with the stateless character of the Jewish people until the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 [he seems to forget to mention explicitly the role of the Jewish Agency in this postponement. The JA used once again the sufferings of the survivors as a political instrument – se]. Later, the "reparations and restitution" efforts established ostensibly for the benefit of Holocaust survivors in the United States, were inadequate and arbitrarily administered, resulting in a legacy of frustration and humiliation for American survivors. Today’s abandonment is occurring in the context of settlements of class actions and disputes over Swiss bank accounts, looted Nazi gold, Nazi use of Jewish slave laborers, and European insurers’ theft of Jews’ insurance policies.
While the headlines cry with large dollar figures purporting to represent compensation for Holocaust victims, and the box quotes are full of lavish praise and gratitude for the settlements "as we enter a new millennium," the truth is, the interests of Holocaust survivors have received the lowest priority in these negotiations. From every perspective, the deals fall short of rendering meaningful justice or dignity to those who were victimized. "[…] the agreements were struck to provide immunity for vast numbers of European corporations that profited from the Holocaust, in most cases, without a true accounting for their World War II actions." [26]
This last point is demonstrated perfectly by the Interhandel affair, the scandal of the foreign assets of the largest Nazi chemical combine I.G. Farben, who among other things produced the gas for the extermination of the Jews. These assets should have been confiscated during WWII and be used for the rehabilitation of war refugees. This did not happen, because Corporate America was interested in protecting these funds and the Swiss authorities and some banks were willing to help. This money, estimated to be of a present value of at least $5 billion, was in the 60s after a long legal fight misappropriated by the largest Swiss bank, Union Bank of Switzerland, (today United Bank of Switzerland – UBS) and the US government under Kennedy. [27]
In 1995 I discovered in the Swiss federal archives highly classified documents proving clearly the dubious role of the UBS and the Swiss government in this affair. [28] The Jewish organizations leading the restitution campaigns show an ostensive disinterest in this large amount of money stemming from the most important Nazi combine, whose direct involvement in the crimes in Auschwitz is well known. Recently an employee of the JCC confirmed my suspicions and said that the organizations do not want to raise the issue in order not to hurt the US interests involved.
The state of Israel itself refuses till today to return assets belonging to Jewish Nazi victims. These properties, mainly real estates in some very central locations, are worth according to estimations around $US 20 billion. Still the Holocaust Industry is hardly active on this issue, though it is obvious that the sum is much higher than in Switzerland and that the Israeli government, the institutions and corporations holding these possessions are more callous towards the victims and their heirs than their equivalents in Europe.
It is safe to argue that neither the Holocaust Industry nor Israel have ever represented the real interests of the Judeocide victims, although they keep trying to create the impression that they do. This lie serves Israel in many ways. It guarantees today the support of most of the Jews, who feel that Israel might be their redemption in the hour of an eventual need, a kind of an insurance against possible dangers paid by the blood and suffering of the Palestinians. With the Holocaust Religion, its institutions and priests it is possible to block an all too strong critique against Israel and its crimes against the Palestinians. Thus the Palestinians actually become indirectly victims of the Nazis and actually of the Judaeophobia. The Holocaust Industry helps to finance the aggressions against them and the Holocaust Religion assists in creating a negative public opinion of them and block the critique against the Israeli crimes. Thus the Palestinians have to pay the price for German crimes and Western hypocrisy. The exposure of the Zionist abuse of Judeocide is therefore an important element in the efforts to reach a real and just peace in the Middle East.
Beside the fact that such peace is also in the interest of many Jews, the dismantling of the Holocaust Religion due to their own efforts will benefit most of the Jews. Because as history teaches, the downfall of every power is bound to happen sooner or later. In this case one can reckon with a fierce Anti-Jewish black lash, which should be considered as a direct result of the arrogance and immorality of the pro-Israel lobbies propagating the Holocaust Religion. As the main sources of the extraordinary and abnormal influence of the Holocaust Industry are clearly the special relationships between the U.S. and Israel, once they come to an end, the situation will change dramatically for sure.
Already now there is a growing popular discomfort with the Holocaust Religion & Industry and their constant and inflammatory swinging of the Auschwitz and/or Judeophobia bludgeon. This strong irritation is canalized in many countries primarily by the radical right wing, who are not too afraid to formulate loudly a critique against this disproportional and hypocritical Zionist influence mixed with fiery Judaephobia.
Thus the Holocaust Religion, with its constant display of power, causes among other factors, the rise of the extreme right wing movements.
…………..
Similar to the formulations of Israeli philosopher Adi Ophir, [29] the dogmas of this Holocaust Religion can be articulated as religious commandments:
a.. Remember what Amalek has done to thee!
This compulsory directive is meant to cultivate and preserve for ever and ever the memory of all the wrongdoings of Amalek against the Jews. Amalek is the biblical collective designation for all the enemies of the Jews, who, in the 20th century came to be mainly the Nazis and the Arabs. It is in this sense not only a command to remember but also to distrust and hate all the non-Jews, the gentiles, who are potential or active Amalekites.
This attitude is based on the concept that the hate of the Jews, Judeophobia, [30] is inherent in all other cultures. Any questioning of the real danger for the Jews in Europe or North America, for example, is considered blasphemy. Organizations like the Anti Defamation League (ADL) are zealously pursuing the supposed and the real sinners.
Activities like that of the ADL together with the everlasting commemorations of Judeocide are important elements for building the modern Jewish identity, especially for the secular Jews.
Another consequence of this commandment is that the Jews are to be considered as the eternal victims. So even if they are the victimizers they are still to be conceived as victims.
a.. Thou shall never compare The Holocaust with any other Genocide!
The uniqueness of the Nazi Judeocide is a modern version of the old judeocentric concept of "choseness". Jewish sufferings are accordingly special and cannot and must never be compared with other miseries. Those who do it are accused of playing down this genocide.
This commandment is very important for the mythologizing of the Judeocide and for preventing a normal historical analysis, as one of the most common and important scientific methods is comparison.
Comparison is also important if the Nazi Judeocide is to serve as a point of reference for every crime against humanity.
It is vital to note that while no two occasions are identical still they might possess certain structural similarities. The most chilling and deadly aspect of the Nazi crimes is the usage of modern technocratic methods in order to pursue immoral goals. The potential for technocrats, officers etc. to commit crimes is not some specific Nazi characteristic but is endemic to all modern systems.
The comparison can be partially or fully correct or can be completely wrong, but should not be forbidden.
This commandment is very successful in the Western countries where the Judeophobia has a very long tradition and is still present. Contemporary manifestation of the prejudices against Jews is sometimes very ingenious. It now camouflages itself commonly in an allegedly opposite attitude, "Judeophilia", a kind of ‘positive’ racism. The transformation from one to the other might happen often seamlessly.
a.. Thou shall never compare the Nazi crimes with those of Israel!
This prohibition is stronger outside Israel than inside. Even Israeli public figures dare from time to time to invade this taboo zone. The last example was given by Israeli right wing radicals who compared the evacuation of settlements from the Gaza strip with the deportation of Jews by the Nazis.
Some of them pointed out correctly that though in the broader public the Nazi crimes are identified with the extermination in concentration camps, the Nazis started their anti-Jewish politics with the aim "just" to deport Jews. In the years 1933-38 they tried to encourage the "voluntary" immigration (transfer or Ha’avara) and as of 1938 went over to mass expulsion. In 1941 the Nazis started with the systematic annihilation.
The comparison of the right wingers is absurd, but should not be forbidden. On the other hand there are more founded reasons to compare the present Israeli policy and measures towards the Palestinians with those of the Nazis. It is obvious that at least as of the beginning of the second Intifada in 2000, Israel, through its siege and frequent incursions, tries to induce a "voluntary" transfer of the Palestinians and looks for pretext to go over to mass expulsion. Several Israeli ministers declared openly that if there was a so called mega terrorist attack, i.e., a Palestinian attack with a high number of Jewish casualties, Israel would react with a second Naqba, which means, another mass expulsion respectively ethnic cleansing like in 1948. Actually we are already experiencing a "silent" and ever escalating ethnic cleansing.
There is no need to wait till a mass extermination in any form is initiated. Even before that the comparison is, with all the specific differences, valid and legitimate.
Besides, there are obvious and strong anti-democratic tendencies in Israeli society not dissimilar to the situation in the Weimar Republic. The right wing radicals are very strong and getting stronger. Though they could not prevent the evacuation of settlements, they are bound sooner or later to try to take a complete control of the state.
a.. Thou shall never doubt the number of 6 million Jewish victims!
There is no real logical explanation for this figure being defended so desperately. The source of this statistic, the SS officer Wilhelm Hoettl, [31] was certainly not the most reliable informant. If the number of the slaughtered Jews were lesser, would the Nazi crimes be less dreadful?
Actually in the Jewish victims database by Yad Vashem there are only 3 millions names registered and many of them even appear several times.
a.. Thou shall never doubt the Nazi Judeocide!
This is one of the strongest prohibitions. While there is no convincing reason to doubt that the gassing of Jews took place, there is no compelling argument to forbid people from questioning the validity of the widely accepted historical description. Considering the widespread abuse of the Judeocide by Zionists and their followers and the obvious hypocrisy of many of these persons and organizations, it is understandable that their claims are mistrusted. On the other hand it cannot be overlooked that practically all the Holocaust deniers are racists. The problem is therefore not the denial as such but the racism and it is very doubtful if prohibition is the right means to fight against racism.
Scepticism towards any narrative or interpretation is legitimate as such and does not require hysterical reactions. The main problem with the Holocaust Denial is that it is accompanied by conspiracy theories and other anti-Jewish prejudices. These phenomena pose for the time being hardly a threat to Jews but rather to the propagators of these contents, who thus disqualify themselves to take part in the mainstream discourse. Of course once the Holocaust Religion becomes weaker, as mentioned before, the situation will change dramatically for sure. To prevent the racists from profiting from this development it is the duty of democratic forces to do work towards the abolishment of this religion.
For the time being the deniers and the Holocaust Religion followers and disseminators feed and need each other in order to catch more publicity in an effort to strengthen their own racist aims.
a.. Thou shall never doubt the right of Israel to exist as the Jewish state!
It is believed that as the Judeophobia will persist everywhere for ever, the Jews will need from now to eternity a secure refuge. Therefore so many Jews, though living in a greater security outside Israel, still believe that this country should function as a kind of anti-Judeocide insurance. Many of them are not very disturbed by the fact that this insurance is paid with Palestinian blood and suffering. Every anti-Zionist per this definition is a-priori a supporter of a potential Judeocide and is a Judeophobe.
This is a myth. Israel has hardly served as a refuge and is not likely to become a real one. Today it endangers Jews all over the world more than it protects them.
a.. Thou shall not criticize the leading Jewish organizations and the Israeli government!
This commandment is reasoned by the above arguments. A career oriented politician, journalist or artist in Western countries will usually prefer to remain silent on these issues in public, as the potential punishment is viewed as very painful. This commandment, like some others on this list, applies mainly to non-Jews, but radical Jewish critics risk being branded as "self-haters", "Jewish Anti-Semites" etc.
a.. Thou must never criticize Jewish organizations and the Zionist leadership for abandoning the European Jewry in the Nazi era!
Most of the attempts to raise this issue are blocked by the argument that it will strengthen the Judephobes, who claim that the Jews alone bear the guilt for their fate in WWII. Without trying to minimize the responsibility of the Nazis for their crimes, one should take into account the behavior of a segment of the Jewish communities, most especially certain leaderships, inside and outside occupied Europe.
The victims also have a duty and responsibility and the tragedy is always greater if a leadership betrays its own people. For all practical purposes, the Zionist leadership in Palestine and in the USA abandoned European Jewry, [32] and in certain cases sabotaged rescue attempts [33] and in some other cases even collaborated with the Nazis. [34]
a.. Thou shall not doubt the central Role of Hitler in the industrialization of the extermination of the Jews!
The fact that there is no proof of a Hitler’s order to build Auschwitz is one of the most emotional historical disputes. Even logical non-Hitler-centric descriptions are sometimes labelled as Holocaust Denial. This is one of the methods of preventing a political secular explanation of the Judeocide. One of the reasons for this commandment is that any other explanation implies that there might be some logical explanation for the Judeocide, there was a real possibility of saving the Jews and therefore the Zionist movement and the Allies are guilty of abandoning them.
Revised version of an article first published in Between the Lines, February 2001.
——————————————————————————–
Endnotes
1. "Judeocide" was coined by Prof. Arno Mayer instead of "Holocaust" because of the religious character of the latter. Arno J. Mayer, Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? (New York: Pantheon, 1988).
2. Webster’s 1828 Dictionary.
3. This is basically Mayer’s argument.
4. Marc H. Ellis, Beyond Innocence & Redemption – Confronting The Holocaust And Israeli Power, Creating a Moral Future for the Jewish People (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990).
5. Ellis, Beyond, 2.
6. Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship (New York: Harper Collins, l991).
7. J.J. Goldberg, JEWISH POWER – Inside the American Establishment (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1996).
8. See e.g., David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews, America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984).
9. The phrase "Holocaust Industry" was not invented but popularized by Norman Finkelstein through his book, The Holocaust Industry Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (New York: Verso, 2000).
10. See e.g. Francis R. Nicosia, The Third Reich and the Palestine Question (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985).
11. Lenni Brenner, ‘Zionism and Rescue’, in Jim Allen, Perdition (Ithaca Press, 1987), 74.
12. Interview of the author with Schwalb in 1993.
13. Jon and David Kimche, The Secret Roads: The ‘Illegal’ Migration of a People, 1938-1948 (London: Secker and Warburg, 1954).
14. See Nathan Dror-Schwalb’s archives and Ferdinand Kroh, David kämpft: Vom jüdischen Widerstand gegen Hitler (Reinbek: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1988).
15. S.B. Beit-Zvi, Post-Ugandian Zionism in the Crisis of the Holocaust (Tel Aviv: 1977 (Heb.), 1991 (Eng.)).
16. Out of a Ben-Gurion speech in London in 1938, Brenner, Perdition, 76.
17. See Tom Segev, but also the Israeli historian Yechiam Weitz who tries to defend the JA in his book, Aware but Helpless: Mapai and the Holocaust, 1943-1945 (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, 1994 (Heb.)), but proves the opposite of his claim.
18. Idith Zertal, From Catastrophe to Power: Holocaust survivors and the emergence of Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
19. For a description of the restitution campaign see Nana Sagi, German Reparations – A History of the Negotiations (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986).
20. Shraga Elam, Hitlers Faelscher – Wie Juedische, Amerikanische und Schweizer Agented der SS Beim Falschgeldwaschen Halfen [Hitler’s Forgers – how Jewish, US and Swiss Agents helped the SS to launder forged money] (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2000).
21. The organization for illegal immigration.
22. See Elam, Hitlers Faelscher and Ha’aretz, 28.4.2000 and 19.5.2000.
23. Rudolf Jungnickel, Kabale am Rhein -Der Kanzler und sein Monsignore (Weimar: Wartburg Verlag, 1994), 451 ff.
24. Finkelstein, Holocaust Industry.
25. http://home.att.net/~gerhardm/compensation.html (the content is now blocked).
26. http://home.att.net/~gerhardm/abandonment.txt (the content is now blocked).
27. See e.g. Joseph Borkin, The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben: The Startling Account of the Unholy Alliance of Adolf Hitler and Germany’s Great Chemical Combine (New York: The Free Press, 1978).
28. Shraga Elam, ”Interhandel’ – eine Saga ohne Ende – Wie das Auslandsvermoegen der ‘I.G. Farben’ ins Eigenkapital der ‘Schweizerischen Bankgesellschaft’ kam’, in Sebastian Speich, ed., Die Schweiz am Pranger (Vienna/Zurich: Ueberreuter/Cash, 1997).
29. Adi Ophir, ‘On Sanctifying the Holocaust: An Anti-Theological Treatise’, Tikkun 2, 1987.
30. The term "Judeophobia" is to be preferred to "anti-Semitism", as anti-Semitism is in itself a racist designation which was created by one of the inventors of the Nazi ideology, Wilhelm Marr, in 1879. The Jews might be many things but for sure they are not a race and in so far that there is something like a Semitic race, the Arabs belong to it as well.
31. The figures were contained in an affidavit made by Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl and presented in the Nuremberg Trial (Document 2738-PS, Exhibit USA-296). Hoettl quoted Eichmann as the source of the information and saved his own life through this testimony.
32. See e.g. Wyman, Abandonment and Tom Segev, The Seventh Million – Israel Confronts the Holocaust (Hill & Wang, 1993).
33/34. See e.g. S.B. Beit-Zvi, Post-Ugandian, 31; See e.g. Lenni Brenner, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators: A Reappraisal (London: Croom Helm, 1983) and Elam, Hitlers Fälscher.