Focus 580; The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering

In the first hour today we'll be talking with Norman Finkelstein from DePaul University he's professor of political science there and he's someone with who within the Among people who follow very closely in politics in the Middle East someone who is very well known and also a very controversial figure for his writing about the policies of the government of Israel and about the Holocaust. He is the author of a number of books including The Rise and Fall of Palestine a personal account of the intifada years based on some of his experiences living with Palestinian people in the occupied territories. The nation on a nation of trial Goldhagen thesis and historical truth a book that takes on what was a very popular well received kind of book that was written a few years ago making the argument that all of the German people were somehow complicit in the Holocaust. And his most recent The Holocaust Industry reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering that makes the argument that institutions organizations individuals have used Jewish suffering for political and financial gain. He has certainly many

supporters and also many perhaps more detractors. And I think it's fair to say that the criticism of him and his work has been playing right down right out and out vicious. Over the years he has taught in addition to teaching now at DePaul he's been at Hunter College at New York University at Brooklyn College. He's joining us this morning by telephone as we talk. Questions comments of course are welcome as always we just ask people to try to be brief in their comments so that we can get in as many people as possible and keep the program moving along but of course anybody listening is welcome to call the number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us. Randy Illinois Indiana in fact if you were listening on the internet as long as you're in the United States you may use the toll free line 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 3 3 3 W L and toll free 800 1:58 WLM.

Fessor Finkelstein Hello. How are you. I'm fine thanks and yourself are you. Thanks for talking with us today we appreciate it. You know on this program over the years we have tried to follow up on listener requests when people have asked for particular topics or guests and there has been a very long standing request from listener to have you on the program. And it was renewed again. Well now probably maybe three weeks ago when we were having had a guest here on the program we were talking about anti-Semitism and maybe I might start there and ask you if you can talk a little bit about anti-Semitism today particularly whether or not it is somehow different because there are people and this this particular gas that we had honor among them who do make the argument that there has been some sort of fundamental change not that anti-Semitism is new but there has been some sort of fundamental change in its nature and that in fact now we're seeing something that has certainly been called the new anti-Semitism. Well the first point to make that happen is that this is not. Intended to toot my own horn just as a matter of information I've just completed the book on the

topic. The first point to make is roughly about every 16 years the same Jewish organizations and their supporters make the claim about the new anti-Semitism. So if you go back to 1974 there was a book by the head of the ADL the Anti-Defamation League main Arnold fluster and his friend and his colleague Benjamin Epstein. The title of the book was the new anti-Semitism even go to 1982 and the head of the ADL at that time was an this fellow named Nathan Perlmutter and his wife Ruth and Perlmutter. They put out a book called The real anti-Semitism. The scene was there's a new anti-Semitism and now we have the third round of this media orchestrated extravaganza about a new anti-Semitism. These. Organized these orchestrated campaigns have little to do in fact they have nothing to do with

anti-Semitism and they have everything to do with deflecting criticism of Israel. So in 1974 it was the time of the Arab oil boycott and pressure was put on Israel to withdraw its troops from the Egyptian occupied Sinai. That was after the October 1973 war. Pressure was put on Israel to withdraw. They organized a new anti-Semitism and in 1982 when pressure was put on Israel to recognize the PLO and accept a two state settlement of the Israel Palestine conflict they again brought out the new anti-Semitism production and they're doing the same thing again now because of pressures on Israel due to the brutal. The repression of the Second Intifada. So I think the bottom line is is a sort of moment ago these campaigns have nothing to do with new anti-Semitism and have everything to do with uniting Israel from criticism.

That is if we reduce the essential arguments I think that you made a lot of your work and that have drawn so much criticism from the American Jewish community as I understand it it would be that it would be that discussion in in some cases discussion of anti-Semitism or discussion of the Holocaust is intended to deflect criticism from the government of Israel its treatment of the Palestinians. Well I think that's basically correct and also I would want to. I commend the statement you made a moment ago. I can't really judge with American Jews generally thought of my work I suspect very few have read it. It's American Jewish organizations which object to the work because I have a rather unpleasant pleasant things to say about American Jewish organizations and so-called American Jewish leaders. But I think it's a mistake to assume that one necessarily represents the other. If you take the case for example of the last war against Iraq

American Jewish opinion main namely America Jews generally they were pretty much in line with American public opinion generally as a whole. It was about the estimate was about fifty nine point fifty seven percent of Americans support the war in Iraq and it was roughly the same maybe a little a slight bit less among American Jews generally. However when you get to American Jewish organizations. There the support for the war was roughly about 100 to 105 percent. They were just supporting it. They were urging it on acting at Israel's behest. So I think there's a certain danger in extrapolating from what American Jewish organizations believe in American Jewish so-called leaders believe extrapolating from that to the opinion of American Jews generally. I have a I am a old fashioned First Amendment fundamentalist a great admirer of John Stuart Mill on liberty and all that sort of stuff.

And so I post on my website every letter I receive every e-mail I receive regarding my writing. And if you if you look at the website you'll see yeah there are very there are some pretty vicious letters there but on the whole I think the sentiments of my readers many of whom are Jewish are quite positive. Well indeed I have looked at some of those and only you would be a position to know if you counted up how many were basic. I don't think it was a ok. I was I was a only only you would know how it runs whether there is more on one side or another. Just and also because some of your critics have been critical of your work because they would say that it provides ammunition for people on the extreme right Holocaust deniers and so forth just just to be clear for people who are listening you know you might be rather difficult either as a point of personal biography or as a point of my point of my own writing to find any evidence there of

Holocaust denial that's quite preposterous. I'm not blaming you of course those are the claims of the usual professionals and the ever and slanderous and the ADL the so-called anti defamation league which specializes in defamation of character. That's the kinds of slanders and smear that they exploit. But it's impossible to find Holocaust denial in the book it's totally ludicrous. The whole point of my book is to affirm the Nazi Holocaust and to affirm it against those who cheaply meretricious Lee exploited for political and financial gain. That's not Holocaust denial. The real Holocaust deniers in the world today are the American Jewish organizations because they're the ones who go around saying there are a million holocaust survivors a million and a half Holocaust survivors. Well you know audience use a moment's reflection. How is it possible 60 years after World War 2 for there to be a million and a half

Holocaust survivors. But that's what they claim. If you claim that there are a million and a half Holocaust survivors then you're a Holocaust denier because as my late mother used to say and she was a Holocaust survivor. She was in the ghetto. She was in the Warsaw ghetto until the uprising and then was in my Donna concentration camp and then into slave labor camps. She was an authentic survivor and she used to say as everybody walked around claiming they were Holocaust survivors. Now when they do it mostly for getting so-called Holocaust reparations which is another racket by my late mother used to say if everybody who claims to be a holocaust survivor actually is one who did Hitler kill I'm not the holocaust denier. They have turned the Nazi Holocaust into a financial shakedown to get what they call Holocaust reparations. And in order to get the reparations they inflate the figures of the

numbers of people who survived. Well you keep inflating the figure for the number who survived. You end up deflating the figure of the number who were killed. There are no Holocaust deniers not me. My guest in this part of focus 580 is Norman Finkelstein. He's assistant professor of political science at DePaul University and has written quite a lot about. Politics in the Middle East really specifically the conflict between Palestinians and the government of Israel has also written the book The most recent It's entitled The Holocaust Industry making in further depth some of the points that he's already made here. It is now available in paperback as published by verse. So if your interest in reading the book you can certainly find it questions and comments are also welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. Do I have it also correct that the this book that we have talked about the holocaust industry and the controversy generated by it it essentially cost you your job at Hunter College.

You know academia is a very peculiar place. Henry Kissinger probably the only true statement he ever made in his life was he once reflecting on his own experience at Harvard. He said the battles are so vicious because the stakes are so puny. And thats really what academic academia is about. You know you loose friends over misspelling a colleague's name in the footnote. So I say that all by way of wanting to be clear that its very hard in academic life to distinguish where principle and its an eagle begins. I think I would like to be able to say it was all politics that cost me my job hunt. I would say it was partly that I don't doubt but I also think there are still usually petty academic envy in the petty academic jealousy. For those of your listeners who have any illusions about academia allow me allow me to allow me to dispel them. Academia has very little to do with

intellectual pursuit and has a lot to do with ego aggrandizement. Well this is after all a university community there. I'm sure there are a lot of people listening who are attached to the university they can make this for themselves I'm sure there are. Back to for a moment to the to the holocaust industry I guess I'm just interested in it because of your criticisms of the ways in which you feel that the Holocaust has been used. How what how does one arrive at a at an appropriate kind of way to talk about it that on the one hand acknowledges as you have and again you certainly are not. Denying the Holocaust but on the other hand not exploiting it. How does one walk that line. Well you know those are both you know those are. I'm not sure if this is the right way to phrase it and I think that's a perfectly fair question. I guess I have to start out by saying I don't want to claim to be an arbiter on these questions.

I don't have you know such a refined and static sensibility that I can claim or I can pretend to claim to know where it's just right and where it crosses the line and becomes vulgar gross meretricious And you know cheap. I don't want I don't think I have the capacity for that and even if I did have a personal capacity it still becomes a little bit arrogant for me to be the arbiter of those questions. As I said in mine at the very end of my book. My own view is that the Nazi holocaust now its physical dimension has to be reduced which is simply a fancy way of saying it's too much already. There are no more holocaust museums in the United States than there are Burger Kings and the current rate will soon be more holocaust museums than the Donald. It's enough already. The point's been made.

It's time now to open up our hearts and our minds to the sufferings of other peoples not just Jews. So it's a physical dimension in my view. It's time to reduce it and its moral dimension needs to be expanded which is simply a fancy way of saying it's enough already with JEWS JEWS JEWS. The way my parents imparted to me the lessons of the Nazi Holocaust. It was about human suffering generally and they never saw it never tried never did. Differentiate the suffering they experience they endured from the sufferings of other people. Rather the contrary. They always used their some for a suffering as a point of departure for reaching out and trying to understand the suffering of others. The whole of the Montreaux of the holocaust industry in the United States is rather than reaching out. The mantra is do not compare. That is to

say oh yes their suffering. Oh yes that's terrible. But it doesn't compare to our suffering never to compare ours is unique. Ours is special ours surpasses all others. Nothing in the history of humankind has ever approached the suffering that we endured. I think it's that's just a form. Well it's a politically loaded form of ethnic aggrandizement and I as I say I think it's time to morally expand the meaning of the Nazi Holocaust. So those would be my two Kathy had a physical dimension reduced enough already with the museums and not to mention movies books etc. and to morally expend it. You don't think that the attention that has been paid to the Holocaust already. In terms of popular culture in terms of museums that somehow that

for people is a starting point for them to consider other cases of genocide in China where I know growing up in my own home it was but I don't think that's the way it's projected. I think the starting point is the starting point is really love. Regrettably it's the ending point. It's that nobody has suffered like the Jews do not compare eally Weisel is always we you know wheeled out and with his long face an anguished heart and cinematic eyes he always says Oh do not compare. I beg your pardon. I think you should compare. Otherwise if you don't want to compare what's the point of it. What are you going to learn from it. If you simply lifted out of history and say as elite likes to say that you can't understand it. There are no words for it. You're entering the zone of darkness. You can't

speak about it. That's one of his favorite lines that imbecile. You can't speak about that. You can't speak about it. Why are you charging $25000 as a lecture. What are you talking about. If you can speak about it he says the only thing we can do before the Nazi Holocaust is silence. Well Silence is the only answer why are you charging $25000 as a lecture. And what are you going to learn from silence. I mean this is sheer nonsense. It's ethnic you know it's ethnic slur subsystem on a cosmic scale. We have come some callers here let's bring them into the conversation. Start with someone in Champaign. Number one. Hello. Yes. Yeah I'm an American Jewish woman listening to this show because I always seek to augment my understanding of the Jewish experience with many perspectives. So I started listening this show with a very open mind. But so I'm just going to react from a personal point of view first of all my mother in law was an Auschwitz survivor

she's now deceased had a tattoo on her arm. She never got a cent from anybody and I think that you need to acknowledge that there's many survivors out there who did not get reparations did not seek reparations were not invited to get reparations and when there was that occasional news flurry of reparations are available that the process of obtaining or seeking that was so arduous as to be off putting. So that's another hope going forward. Our American Ricco remarked to her and I want to make another point. You know I. It's when you talk about you go you go is I'm in academia because I'm finding that a lot of your statements are opinions which you're entitled to but they're not based on fact. You know I work in a high school I work in a local high school with young people who really know nothing about the Holocaust. And I think in a personal interest and how they're taught it by bringing in authentic survivors of that they just get a personalized perspective and it is very

much with the goal of teaching them that this can happen anywhere. And in this particular case that it's white people against white people because so much of young people's understanding of you know warring factions are along racial lines and so forth. So it is very much with the idea of teaching about intolerance and really how easily these things can happen. And I went to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and it was very much about simply using the Holocaust as a starting point to teach about discrimination racism. And they brought in examples from all over the world so I really find offensive your broad broad brushstroke of anybody who talks about the Holocaust is doing a poor me number because you know I really find that offensive and I just simply think it's not true. And you know there might be some cases of that but I don't find educators like Elie Weisel and people like that out there doing poor me poor me. And I think you don't show respect for. True educational

goals that a lot of Jewish people are trying to put out there and terms of understanding the suffering of people around the world. I think you are not really acknowledging that properly. Mary respond. Yes go ahead please OK first of all I genuinely welcome the phone call from your listener because I can understand the things I say offend people but I think the response was very lucid and calm which are you know are obviously I deeply appreciate regarding the first point. I totally agree. I think many of the survivors of Nazi Holocaust didn't get any money. My late mother as I said she survived the Warsaw Ghetto the uprising my Dama concentration camp and two slave labor camps. She got three thousand dollars. That was the toggle she received. I write about it in the book. And the question is nobody disputes. It's not a matter of dispute that the German

government has taken it out since the 1950s. Paid out between 60 and 80 billion dollars in Holocaust reparations that we know for certain. We also have reasonable ballpark figures for the number of people that survive the Nazi Holocaust. The figure usually given by people like respected historians like Henry Freelander Raul Hilberg they all give roughly the same figure about 100000 Jews survived the death camps the labor camps the ghettos 100000 in May 1945 and now the question is if the Germans gave up between 60 and 80 billion dollars which nobody disputes and there were only about 100000 survivors and many of those like this caller's mother in law and like my late mother never received any money. Where did the money go. And that's where half of my book is about.

It's about how the American Jewish organizations in the name of the survivors collected for themselves billions of dollars. That's the shakedown racket. They didn't just shake down the European government. They didn't just shake down the Swiss banks the French banks and so forth. They didn't just shake down the governments. That's half the story. The other half is they shut down the survivors. They took the money in the name of the survivors and the survivors never got anything. Anyone who follows the Jewish press I don't know of your caller does would know that there's a story literally every week about the efforts of the Holocaust survivors the real ones to get money from these organizations which collected in their name and now are keeping the money for themselves or what for they or for what they call Holocaust education.

So I totally agree that's sort of half of my book is about the holocaust industry shakedown of the survivors. Regarding the second question namely how the Nazi Holocaust is taught. I don't want to take you I want to give our other callers a chance. I want to just say briefly that the caller began by saying that her high school students know next to nothing about the Holocaust or young people she said. The fact of the matter is young people know next to nothing about anything. That's simply the state of our education. But if you were to ask what they know anything about my experience not been teaching now for 30 years my experience is just about the only historical event they have any knowledge of is the Nazi Holocaust. They certainly know more about the Nazi Holocaust and they do about the American civil war let alone the American Revolution.

So I don't think it's accurate to say that somehow they have been deprived or denied knowledge of the Nazi Holocaust as against other historical events. Relatively speaking. Let me tell you a simple fact or allow me to present a simple fact. You ask any typical high school student from the Jews died during World War 2. I would say most of those 6 million or something like 6 million. Ask them how many South East Asians died during the war in Vietnam or the war in Southeast Asia. How many of them would know three to four million Vietnamese were killed. I'd say the answer is probably close to zero. Incidentally there are teachers as well. OK well I do I do have another caller but I just want to give the the

caller here with us an opportunity if you wanted to do a quick. Well yeah you know but you're missing my other point which is that I think that you're not acknowledging that the way the holocaust is being treated by educators is not just. Yeah everyone knows that happen everyone knows the 6 million figure but that's not what I want people to understand I want people to understand how these events could be replicated in today's life and how they are being replicated are deliberately lowering. So I totally agree and I think that Jewish educators are you know the ones that I know and certainly that I've talked to are trying to get that message across and that your statements enough already with the Holocaust museums and so forth isn't acknowledging the efforts including the one in Washington of not just making it about Jews but trying to get across that this can happen anywhere I think that they've all done that. And I think that it hasn't been about you know pretty poor me. Are you going to do that selectively. I would give you an example.

During the buildup to the war in Iraq all of a sudden all of the Jewish organizations started to say Saddam is like Hitler. We have to stop him no appeasement. If you read Bob Woodward's book the last book on the rock I can't recall the title right now it just slipped my mind. You have. This dramatic scene of how Elie Weisel goes to the White House is talking to Congolese Rice and he goes into Bush's office and he tells them how we have to attack Iraq how we have to go after Iraq. Saddam is Hitler. You know they use it for other prefer expanding its meaning they expand its meaning in ways which are useful to the United States and Israel. I appreciate that you bring out how you know I appreciate that you're looking at things things critically because I think that we need that type of information

to make our own judgments. And but I also think that if as an educator what I would appreciate is if you also differentiate between which American Jewish organizations are doing what so that we have a better understanding of it. I appreciate you differentiate between American Jewish organizations and American Jewish people and research along those lines and the histories of these organizations and what they're doing I think is good critical thinking. So I'll hang up now thank you both thank you and let me tell you like I always enjoy having your personal disagrees with me and we can talk to reflect. We are a bit past the midpoint here. We have some of the callers will get on too but I do again want to reintroduce the guest. Anyone who might have been here in the last five or 10 or 15 minutes or guest of the program is Norman Finkelstein. He's professor of political science at DePaul University has also taught at Hunter College in New York University Brooklyn College. He's written a lot about Israel and its policies in the occupied territories and in regard to the Palestinians. And also we've been talking here mostly about his most recent book

which is titled The Holocaust Industry. The subtitle reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering it's now available in paperback edition and is a book that makes this fundamental argument that we have been discussing that he argues that that individuals institutions organizations have used Jewish suffering on the Holocaust for both political and financial gain. Questions and comments are certainly welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4. Thought we have next caller in Belgium that is near Danville before. Well good morning to you and get off topic for just half a second here. Nice to hear you can experience. Thank you. And Mr. Brighton did a fabulous job. I really enjoyed his two weeks to the point I'd like to get to it with the guest you have can you expound on the relationship between this administration and the government. There seems to be something very close going on here

in Iraq and with the Palestinian intifada. Thank you very much Alison. Well you know I'm the one I'm not I'm not. I don't find the conspiracy theory appealing. But on the other hand I also find unappealing the efforts to dismiss every time every kind of argument that people don't like as to the conspiracy theory. Some bold anti EMP. Can Spend the fifties or I'm neutral. Let's put it this way I'm neutral on conspiracy theories on the relationship between the US government and Israel certainly since the United States exploited the events of 9/11 to launch what they call an international war on terrorism. At that point there was a major confluence of confluence of interests between the United States and Israel. To the point that they

now are virtually indistinguishable one from the other. They both use the war on terrorism to carry out you know policies which have very little to do with terrorism. I have a long a lot to do with their long term political agendas so I don't think it's so much that Israel or in this case the tail is wagging the dog Israel is telling the United States what to do. I don't believe there is a cabal of you know Jewish neo conservatives who are shipping Israel American policy to serve Israel's interests. I think there is a confluence of interests between the United States and Israel. I should say that a confluence of ideological exploitation between the United States and Israel. Each of which pursues its own individual agenda and that agenda often overlaps the United States wanted to. You know for a long time wanted to occupy Iraq. They found their pretext and Israel was you know happy to go along with that I don't think Israel incidentally was particularly

concerned about Iraq. Iraq opposed Iraq posed exactly zero security threat to anyone in the region let alone to the United States or to Israel. But Israel was certainly found wanted to deal another devastating blow to the Arab world to bring it to its knees to psychologically shatter it with the most immediate purpose being to force a settlement on the Palestinians. Helping they would be so psychologically devastated by the quote unquote shock and awe of the second war that they would concede and that Israel is also hoping that the destruction of Iraq would be used as a stepping stone to attacking Iran and Syria. As it happened the ward the aftermath of the war didn't go as planned and Iran and Syria seemed to be though there is now talk again about attacking Iran seem to be off the agenda. But I don't think we have a case here of

wire pullers behind the wire pullers behind the curtain. There is a confluence of interests. There is a common ideological agenda or a common exploitation of an ideological theme this war on terrorism. Beyond that it's pretty much I think business as usual. Let's go to Chicago next line number two. Hello. I just wanted to repeat repeat that gentleman from Belgium. Welcome back Mr. Inge and Mr. Bryant did do a good job. I have a comment and a question. One is that I agree with your analysis of when claims that the new end to cinema TISM comes out because earlier this year there were cries of a new anti-Semitism because of a poll taken in Europe where 72 percent said that Israel was the greatest danger to world security. But nobody talked about the fact that the poll was taken a week after Israel had bombed the Syrian border and

Syria had gone to the UN and called a special session of the Security Council which makes that poll very logical. But instead you know when they mention and everyone kept screaming the new anti-Semitism and I don't know who puts that into motion but I've noticed that in our news media the state doesn't analyze anything they simply repeat and so they were repeating the new anti-Semitism. My question is this a gentleman I can't remember the last name he wrote the book The American axis. He asserted was the Merican axis. He had said that President Bush was the banker to the Nazis and there's no reason to doubt his documentation. What I find puzzling is that given the Bush's long standing relationship with Israel why hasn't anyone answered reparations from the Bush family and in fact no one ever discusses and I would have thought that especially those in as you call it the holocaust industry would have

attacked that at. Think of the Bush legacy. Well I don't know the details on Prescott Bush and the Nazis. There is a new book that just came out in Germany called America and the Holocaust by a woman named even Shrike. And there are excerpts not excerpts it was an article on her book in the British Guardian and apparently there were considerable financial relationship there was a considerable financial relationship between. Bush's grandfather or George Bush Sr. is father Prescott Bush and the Nazis. But I don't want to. I'm one of those old fashioned people who believes you should know facts before you speak. And I've not read Eva Schweitzer's book so I don't want to comment on it. On the on the second question namely why didn't go after Prescott Bush one of the more interesting I think a more interesting question than that namely most of your listeners will have remembered the big to do over the Swiss

banks and how the Swiss banks kept the money of Holocaust survivors after the war and so on and so forth and it made a huge. There was a huge issue in Cry in the press but there were two footnotes to that story which never get reported. Number one it is true that Jews between 1933 and 45 during the Hitler years. It is true that Jews in Eastern Europe did it to protect their money not just the center of central Europe as well to protect their money. They did deposit it in Swiss banks. But you have to remember that Switzerland is in Europe and there was the fear that Switzerland would be overrun by the Nazis. And so a lot of the money was deposited not in Swiss banks it was deposited in American banks and the big question is what happened to that money. Now the we imposed on Switzerland a 700 million

dollar audit of all of the accounts in the banks and Elisabet largest eleven in the history of the world. A 700 million dollars is no law that ever imposed on American banks. Nobody knows what ever happened to the money that was deposited here. We have we meaning American Jewish organizations and the U.S. government held Switzerland to one spender but didn't apply the standard to itself. That's one the footnote. The second footnote is you know where a large amount of money went it went to Jewish banks in Palestine because Jews do it that they were going to emigrate there or for emotional reasons deposited their money there. What happened to the money in the Israeli bank. Well we know now there was a lot of money deposited there. In fact probably more than was deposited in the Swiss bank. And here's the

footnote you can go look at your website for Haaretz because Israel's main newspaper has Haaretz has a story about it roughly every two weeks. The Israeli banks won't give back the money. Switzerland is held to one standard and Israel in the United States which will lead to international He will cry against Switzerland. They hold themselves to an altogether different standard a zero standard. But what you're saying is basically that the Merican Jewish organizations are complicit in that because of course they are complicit in it because they look for they know that without the backing of the US government they can't do anything. And so the US Government Clinton administration and the Clinton administration basically did it for financial reasons. The Each one of if not the leading contributor to the Clinton campaign and to the Democratic National Committee one of if not the leading.

Was that good Bronfman who's the head of the World Jewish Congress. So it was a kind of payoff for what's called in the Jewish literature which is kind of a kind of payoff for Jewish money. The Jewish contributions to the Democratic National Committee and to the Clinton campaign in particular the U.S. government went along with the shakedown of the Swiss bank. And ever our bank let's go on to another caller next in line as in Pan. Line 1 Hello 0 0 0 0 for some time now I've been thinking about Israel and I think that the Israelis are doing the same thing to the Palestinians. They're perpetrating a holocaust on Palestinians just as Hitler did the Holocaust on the Jews and they just they and the Israelis want the Palestinians out of there so they can take over and. So

I just feel very upset about that. You know I don't think everything has to be the Nazi Holocaust to be horrible. What Israel is doing to the Poste Indians is terrible it's awful. And at that point to my thinking it's more useful to simply describe what's going on and let people use their moral judgment about whether what's going on deserves to be condemned and whether we should use all or mobilize all of our efforts to prevent it. The systematic destruction literally this NIE this is not a metaphor the systematic destruction of HAUST Indian life from the confiscation of the lands to the brutalizing of the homes by the systematic torture of Palestinian detainees. Right. All of those things ought to be condemned. And frankly it's women it's women within our power.

The power of the American people to turn everything around. Because if you look at the voting record of the rest of the world. The rest of the world stands on one side and the United States and Israel on the other. You know typical resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly calling for example for a two state settlement. If you look at the voting record a typical vote will be a hundred and sixty for the four dissenters will be the United States and Israel. And depending on which resolution we're talking about it's going to be Micronesia the Marshall Islands and the three South Pacific eight tolls cooled Palu Naru and Paro and Tuvalu. That's it possible routes of Micronesia Marshall Islands the United States and Israel on one side. The rest of the world on the other. And the challenge now is to get the United States on the side of the rest of the world.

I agree with the fact that I just think that the Israelis don't get it they don't get that that during a very similar thing to the Palestinians that Hitler did to them. I think many Israelis do get it. You know I think we should you know we should sort of first of all. I think there are many who do get it. And second of all we have to I think always look I'm I don't like what Israel is doing I think what Israel is doing is really it's criminal. There's no doubt in my mind about that it's criminal by you know international law standards what they're committing is humanitarian crimes crimes against humanity and war crimes. Those are the legal distinctions and if you read the reports of Human Rights Watch Amnesty International the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in occupied territories it's called but seldom if you look at the reports they typically describe what Israel is doing whether it's to you know demolition of homes the bulldozing of homes

the torture of house Tinian detainees the confiscation of land they typically describe. This war crimes breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention war crimes are crimes against humanity for the snow the spitting the Mac the fact that they're engaging in what by international standards of humanitarian human humanitarian human rights law constitute crimes. But we also have to always I think can keep in mind or not be blinded to ourselves. So let me just give you a simple example. When the nights when Israel during what was called Operation Defensive Shield in March and April of 2002 when they went into the occupied territories they went into Janine's some of your listeners may recall and they killed about the estimate is about 59 or 61 people in ginning. They then went into novelists and they killed about 70 people and nobla. That's terrible no question about it. However compared to what the U.S. does when the U.S. went into full Lucia it killed about

500 people. That's 10 times what happened in Janine. It then went into the job and the estimates are killed seven to eight hundred people. That's 10 times what was done in novelists. Basically what goes on is you know the amount of. Murder and mayhem that's inflicted is proportional to the amount of force you have at your disposal. And the United States says you know 10 times and many more than 10 times the force at its disposal is Israel and sold the murder and mayhem it's inflicting on Iraq on the scale ten times about Israel. We're coming to the point where we have maybe about five minutes left and some other callers want to try to get at least one other in. We'll go next to Terre Haute line for. Hello. Oh yes. Yes OK my question is I'd like his comment on the following. I'm in academia so I

know what he means by me when I back up even you know and I's month. And and when you say enough with the whole a cost I'm Gentile and if I had and I thought that for years and years and if I'd said that in any form I would have been written out of the academic community quite easily. But what I wanted to ask you are. Opinion on earth it seems to me that the emphasis on the Jewish Holocaust blocks out emphasis our knowledge of other holy cost. And I refer specifically to the Soviet hole. Now it's believed by most scholars that 20 million people were killed by Stalin during the 30s and the 40s and nobody seems to know that. But like you pointed out if

there is you know the six and everybody knows six million Jews were killed. So I'd like your comment on that and also how many if you know how many people did the Turks kill in Armenia during the Armenian Holocaust. These are important facts. The Soviet Holocaust was way worse. And yet. And I think that danger is worse worse then people like Hitler that that communism socialism is what. Who was the cause of that. But I'd like your comments on that. Well I guess to begin with we were in different sides of the ideological divide but that shouldn't mean that we necessarily disagree on the facts because you can be in different sides of the ideological divide because you interpret the facts differently or you put them in a different. You organize them

differently. But that doesn't mean the facts change because of ideology. I don't want to dispute your figures about Stalin I don't think really any. I don't think I used to be a student of Soviet history that was my field of expertise but I stopped reading about it about 25 years ago about 20 years ago. And so I haven't really followed the literature and I don't know what the current figures are for the number of current reliable figures or the numbers killed during the Stalin era. I would just say as a point of. More I guess a point of moral principle that the crimes we should be most concerned about are not the ones that are committed in the Soviet Union heinous as they may be and not the ones committed by the Nazis heinous as they may be with the morally responsible I think morally responsible position is to first be concerned about and privy to and knowledgeable of the crimes committed by our own

government not just historically but as we speak today. And I am more concerned about how many young people know that you know the United States killed about 30000 Nicaraguans during the so-called contra war in the nineteen nineteen eighties that about 100000 Guatemalan Mayans were killed in the genocide between 1054 and 19. 90 in the US a succession of U.S. backed regimes and they go on and on. I think it's more important that we know those facts about our government our history before we learn about other people and other governments in the same way. It certainly is morally appropriate that we should have had on the Washington whatever they call it there. We should have had a museum acknowledging the extermination of Native Americans and the slave and of African-Americans

before we had a museum of the Nazi Holocaust for reasons which are you know perfectly obvious to anyone in a moment's reflection. What would we think if Germany had erected a museum in Berlin to commemorate the extermination of the Native Americans. They had no museum to commemorate the extermination of the Jews. We would think my God what hypocrites. Well isn't it the same sort of hypocrisy when we have a museum to commemorate the crimes that Germany committed but not to commemorate the crimes that we committed. We're going to have to stop here and my apologies we have some people we can't say but we've simply exhausted our time. People who are interested in reading more the thoughts of our guest Norman Finkelstein certainly can go and seek out his books and in particular the most recent the holocaust industry it's now available in paperback now with incl Steen is professor of political science at DePaul University and Professor Finkelstein thanks very much for talking with us today. My pleasure.