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MISERABLE APOLOGETICS
Jason McQuinn,
Regarding, once again, your miserable apologetics for holocaust revisionism (sorry, but that is what you are doing, like it or not): Your response to J.R. of North Hollywood only confirms my earlier observation that your understanding of history is severely one-sided and lacking. You obviously know nothing of the socialist Zionist tradition represented by Martin Buber and the Jewish anti- fascist partisans who gave their lives resisting the Nazis throughout Eastern Europe. Chomsky's The Fateful Triangle and Brenner's Zionism in the Age of Dictators are well worth reading, but don't kid yourself into thinking that you've got the straight poop on Zionism after flipping through two books. I consider myself an anti-Zionist, but I believe in historical accuracy. Like all too many "leftists," you seem to be allowing anti-Semitic mythology to slip into your anti-Zionism. In Palestine, those Zionist guerrillas which cut a deal with Fascism were a marginalized minority, contrary to the impression one would get from reading Brenner's book alone. Lehi (the so-called Stern Gang) considered Fascism to be less of an enemy than British imperialism, and did in fact seek Axis support=FEwhich resulted in a bitter (and sometimes violent) split between the Lehi faction and the main Zionist guerrilla army, Haganah. It was Haganah's leadership, including Ben-Gurion, who founded the state of Israel. The extremist tendency represented by Lehi was actually persecuted by the Ben Gurion government, later found a shadowy niche in Mossad and the police apparatus, and did not achieve state power until the 1980s, when former Lehi militant Yitzak Shamir became Prime Minister. In Europe, Zionists were deeply divided over the proper response to Nazism, rather than being the monolithic "Nazi collaborators" you simplistically portray. Once again, spend some time inn a library before you dig yourself any deeper into your hole. You can start with They Fought Back: The Story of the Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe, edited by Yuri Suhl, a highly revealing collection of documents and personal accounts from the anti-fascist Jewish underground groups which functioned even within the death camps themselves=FEand were invariably either Communist or Zionist, or both.
The grain of truth behind your repugnant statement that "`The Holocaust' has been magnified into a larger-than-life tale of historical persecution" is that the Holocaust has, in fact, been reified, removed from political context, and inaccurately portrayed as history's only example of genocide. The mainstream media and (mainstream) Zionism have allowed the Holocaust to serve as an excuse for pompous and deluding self-congratulations on the supposed niceties of our "democratic" system, rather than a warning of where racism and militarism can lead unless resisted everywhere. The Holocaust has been exploited by a propaganda system which leads us to ignore, rather than resist, the death-squad terror in Central America, or the repression and disenfranchisement of the Palestinians. However, merely going to the opposite extreme by claiming that the Holocaust has been "exaggerated" (your word), and equating it with virtually every example of state terror in the history of the twentieth century, is equally abhorrent.
Maybe my last letter arrived too late to be printed. I trust that this one will arrive with sufficient lead time. Please spare your poor readers a self-righteous diatribe of "response" such as that which you unleashed on J.R. until you've done a little reading.
Finally, sincere kudos for your review of The Other Israel, an important newsletter. You should also check out Israel-Palestine Political Report, BP 130, 75463 Paris Cedex 10, France. It provides an example of the kind of intelligent and rational anti-Zionism which the left in this country is in dire need of.
Yours,
Bill Weinberg, New York, NY.
Jason comments again: Another clarification
I'm glad to see that you at least agree that there is an immense "grain of truth behind (my) repugnant statement that `"The Holo- caust" has been magnified into a larger-than-life tale of histori- cal persecution,'" even if you seem to have missed the major intention of the statement by leaving off the rest of my original words qualifying its application to those using it "largely in order to justify the continuing atrocities by Zionists in the racist state of Israel." (And I have to assume that the statement is "repugnant" simply because you find it an unpleasant truth.)
I have no desire to minimize the abhorrent persecution of Jews and others by the German Nazi regime. And I would have less concern about the Holocaust story being "magnified," if it was "largely" by people who were primarily interested in exploiting it for anti-fas- cist and genuinely humanitarian purposes. What I do find extremely distasteful and frightening is the persistent and very successful abuse of the Holocaust story in defense of the historical and cur- rent crimes of the state of Israel. In my experience (and even you confirm this with your letters), every time one criticizes the Israeli state and the (overt or covert) racism of the huge majority of current Zionists, one is automatically and vehemently labelled as an anti-Semite, attacked for any number of imaginary crimes and generally slandered.
It is this type of overkill rhetoric, in my opinion, which is fueling whatever sincere interest in Holocaust revisionism current- ly exists (i.e. that part which isn't genuinely anti-Semitic). An increasing minority of North Americans are finally becoming aware that the huge, wealthy (and at times proto-fascist) pro-Israeli lobby is and has been a major reactionary influence on U.S., Middle Eastern, and international affairs. More and more of these people realize that much of the most vociferous Holocaust rhetoric comes from quarters which unflinchingly support even the most heinous Zionist practices, from the brutal murder of children in the Pal- estinian Intifada to the training of death squads in Latin America, from the massive support for South African apartheid to political abductions and torture (for example, the kidnapping and torture of the Israeli nuclear whistleblower Vannanu), from international as- sassinations (probably Alex Odeh=FEby the JDL=FEin Los Angeles, cer- tainly many PLO representatives in Tunisia and Europe) to character assassinations in the U.S. media.
Until the climate has finally changed and people are no longer automatically (and deceitfully) denounced as anti-Semites for sin- cerely criticizing the inhuman practices of the Israeli state and its powerful international Zionist supporters, discussion of the subject will remain subject to immense misunderstandings. For my part, I'm willing to assume you have valid intentions in this debate only if you'll assume mine. Anything less means you've made a vastly erroneous prejudgment for which I will not sit still.