Finkelstein and the far left
Posted on Monday 28 December, 2009
Filed Under History
BACK in 2000 – the year in which ‘The Holocaust Industry’ was first published – I can plausibly claim to have been too preoccupied with the arrival of my first child to have kept up to speed with then-current controversies.
But to allow almost a decade to elapse without picking up on what must rank as the most important polemic of the twenty-first century so far was clearly a bad call on my part, which I have rectified in the last few days.
Norman Finkelstein’s work remains of sufficient first-rank import that all educated people should feel themselves obliged to read it and then take a position on the issues it raises.
The book is based on the premise that the historical reality of the Nazi holocaust has since 1967 been hijacked by ‘Jewish elites’ in the US, and transformed into an ‘indispensable ideological weapon’, used to justify unquestioning Washington support for the actions of the state of Israel.
It also details the way in which the memory of the murder of up to 6m Jews has been used to ‘shake down’ both Switzerland and Germany for large sums of money in respect of their real or alleged complicity or culpability in these events.
The standard charge against Finkelstein is that his account dovetails neatly in the narratives of the neo-Nazi far right, resurrecting the Shylock stereotype of Jewish hucksters out to extract a pound of gentile flesh.
Yet serious scholarship – much of it undertaken by Jewish men and women – has for many years undermined key aspects of the authorised version of what happened in the holocaust.
The work of Raul Hilberg and Hannah Arendt, for instance, highlighted uncomfortable but undeniable findings that bourgeois elements within some Jewish communities in Nazi-occupied Europe sought to save their own skins by various degrees of collaboration with the SS.
The facts of the Rudolf Kastner case are a matter of historical record. Aware that by 1944, Hungarian Jews were being shipped to Auschwitz at the rate of 12,000 a day, Budapest-based Zionist leader Kastner negotiated with Adolf Eichmann the passage to Switzerland of 1,685 wealthy Jews, in exchange for money, gold and diamonds.
An Israeli court, ruling on a libel action brought by the Israeli government against a critic of Kastner in 1955, found that he had effectively damned the many to save the few. He was subsequently assassinated, after which the verdict was overturned by the supreme court.
Morally speaking, it is possible to put a number of constructions on Kastner’s actions. Perhaps, it might be maintained, he preserved the lives of those whose lives it was possible to preserve, and nothing he could have done would have prevented the deaths of the others. Which of us, had we found ourselves in his circumstances, would not at least have been tempted to do as he did?
But another obvious reading is that he cynically acted in the narrow interests of his own class, to the fatal detriment of the impoverished majority of Hungarian Jewry.
Finkelstein’s book effectively charges that today’s American Jewish elite, motivated once again by class interests, have advanced their own political ideas and bankrolled the projects that instantiate these positions by using the holocaust to delegitimise criticism of their goals.
That is not an accusation to be made lightly, and Finkelstein’s pervasive rhetorical flourishes do him no favours. But if you are going to engage in polemic, there is no point in not stating your stance as aggressively as our media-dominated age requires.
Ultimately the documentation is sufficiently meticulous to seem to me persuasive; Finkelstein’s thesis only falls if the underlying evidence used to buttress it can be refuted, and as far as I am aware, nobody has been able to achieve that.
Yet looking at some of the reviews from the time, I remain a little puzzled by the reaction to publication of ‘The Holocaust Industry’ in some quarters of the British left. You can read what Alex Callinicos, a leader of the Socialist Workers’ Party, had to say about it back in 2000 here.
Amid the somewhat forced praise – ‘Finkelstein … has raised legitimate questions’ – Callinicos compares some of the author’s formulations with the ‘rantings’ of holocaust denier David Irving. He concludes:
But so exaggerated is his polemic that at times [Finkelstein] comes, quite contrary to his own intentions, dangerously close to giving comfort to those who dream of new holocausts.
That, I think, is an unfortunate way to characterise the writings of an academic who has done his best to set down the truth as he sees it, much as that will discomfit many. That no more damns the work of Finkelstein than it discredited the work of Hilberg or Arendt. If there are any guilty parties here, they are those whose actions Finkelstein simply documents.
Yet in more recent years, Callinicos himself has reportedly been ready to mount a qualified defence of the ‘Thermidorian’ regime in Iran, a government that really is headed by a holocaust denier who does indeed dream of wiping Israel off the map.
Finally, you will notice that the link to the Callinicos article leads to the archive of a US-based Marxist discussion list. This is because the piece appears to have been taken down from the website of Socialist Worker, the journal in which it was originally published.
Hopefully someone will be able to let me know the technical reason for this step, and reassure me that the removal was not purposely undertaken as a gesture of friendship between the SWP and their Islamist allies of convenience a few years back. Surely that could not be enough to justify an about face on an issue of such monumental impact on recent history?
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81 Responses to “Finkelstein and the far left”
Predictably perhaps, Coates the Ipswich Pabloite resorts to personal abuse, well aware that his arguments are threadbare.
His website expresses bitterness about the shortcomings of Ipswich councillors but at least – for all their faults – rthey’re IN the political process. Why isn’t Coates a member of a non-nutcase political party and a councillor himself rather than being a carping critic yelling from a soapbox?
PERSONAL DISCLOSURE: I was a Lancaster City councillor for over two years [and refused as a point of quixotic pride to claim for a single penny in expenses, despite being scornfully and contemptuously aware that a great many people in the 'Labour Movement' saw - and see - it first and foremost as a vehicle for personal advancement, much like an ambitious Leitrim gombeen sees Fianna Fail.] Back in those days I was the councillor who took the initiative to get books in Gujerati into the public library; so much for “racism”.
Coates the Ipswich Pabloite is in good company, of course; one of the joyless sectarians on ‘Socialist Unity’ grimly quoted the vile butcher Lenin: “Some arguments can only be countered by rifle fire.”
Of Finkelstein it can be said that the limitations of his scholarship can be summed up by the quote *modernity* gives, but the same can be said about a great deal of what passes for scholarship about the subjects which make rational people furious.
To give a single example, Edward Said’s execrable ‘Orientalism’ is studded with schoolboy howlers – simple errors of fact – of the kind any competent editor should have caught long before the text went to press.
Incidentally, Evelyn Waugh’s father claimed that the standard of proofreading went down when clergymen ceased to be unfrocked for sodomy with their choristers, thus depriving the publishing trade of literate proofreaders and sub-editors.
A dreadful truth about the publishing trade is that wages are so low and prospects are so unappealling that it attracts the sort of people who would leap at the chance to publish “Reading Your Cat’s Horoscope.”
The problem I get with Norman Finkelstein, as I have with some other anti-Zionist campaigners, for example, Lenni Brenner, is that the language used can play into the hands of our enemies, however accurate the details in his books. As Modernity showed, Toby Abse points this out in his review of Finkelstein.
In his book The Lesser Evil, Brenner describes with some glee how the political inconsistencies on the Middle East of some US Democrat was pointed out by an Israeli journalist, and adds that it’s nice to know that there are still Jews around who know how to persecute a Christian. Now, how many of us would ever dream of using such a quip?
Brenner has a decades-long record of staunch opposition to all forms of racism, yet uses a phrase that left me speechless upon my reading it. I get the feeling that his predilection for the bon mot (or ‘the irrepressible style his readers have come to expect’, as the back cover of his Jews in America Today says) leads him to use phrases that I feel shouldn’t be employed.
He says that the promotion of his works by the Holocaust-denying far-right just shows that cockroaches like gourmet food, a neat enough riposte, but one which doesn’t acknowledge how he and Finkelstein can play into the hands of their and our enemies by their style of writing.
Finally, re Finkelstein’s accusations about money intended for Holocaust survivors being diverted into less deserving hands; has anyone actually disproved what he wrote? If what he alleges is accurate — and it is very damning — then it is a pity that the phraseology of the book has shifted attention away from it.
On Irshad Manji: I happen to think she is a shameless self-publicist whose knowledge of her religion would fit without difficulty on the back of a postage stamp.
She has attracted widespread media coverage (and a lot of money – she reportedly charges £4,000 an hour for her speeches) because she tells her audiences what they want to hear about “the trouble with Islam”. She is particularly popular among people like Melanie Phillips and Daniel Pipes because of her pro-Israel stand. Her position on this issue is itself an indication of how utterly untypical she is of the Muslim community, and how little support she enjoys among her co-religionists.
Manji was a signatory to the so-called “Manifesto Against a New Totalitarianism” which began: “After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global totalitarian threat: Islamism.” Predictably, nowhere in the manifesto was “Islamism” actually defined.
A threat against the manifesto’s signatories was then posted on an internet discussion forum. Manji’s response was to launch a “petition against death threats” on her website. Some might think this gave an indication of the seriousness of the threat. I mean, since when have would-be assassins been deterred by petitions? On the other hand, it did serve the aim of self-promotion.
Manji claimed that someone named Norman Finkelstein had emailed her to ask, “Is there a petition supporting the death threats?” If it was Finkelstein, he was presumably taking the piss out of Manji’s self-dramatising petition. It was certainly tasteless, but is Denham seriously arguing that Finkelstein was calling for Manji to be killed? In any case, there is no proof that it was in fact Finkelstein, and Denham provides none.
Is that Lenni Brenner a rather-too-close-to-the-bone comedian or what?
Jews persecuting Christians, eh?
By robbing the goyim of their life savings or what?
Anon’s contribution is brilliant if intended as satire and very, very funny even if not.
“Is there a petition against death threats?” – spiffy!
And, in the same spirit, it’s certainly time that someone of Manji’s moral authority earnestly counselled the adherents of the EDL NOT – under any circumstances – NOT to burn copies of the Holy Quran on their next public outing.
If there ARE – improbably – adherents of the EDL puzzling their way through the difficult long words on this blog I’d say it to THEM, too
DON’T RISK CAUSING OFFENCE BY BURNING A QURAN IN PUBLIC!
There, THAT ought to do the trick!
McTrousers: you want to know what a holocaust deniar and unacceptable friend of fascism looks like?
Try the mirror.
Anon. Maybe you should become the Stasi censor of public opinion. The gospel according to Anon has a certain ring.
jock mctoursers. One million five million why hold a count. I did know a man that entered a camp. He did witness it. He is not a liar. It was not as suggested by some as just a fabricated Holywood movie.
I think we (we know who we are) should leave this site to the rabid filth of Denham, SueR, Bill Corr, Jimmy Glesga et al.
This place has rapidly turned into Harry’s place.
Melanie Phillips will have a link to this site very soon I am sure.
Richard Littlejohn will praise it for ditching it’s leftist studentism etc etc (Yawn Yawn)
jimmy glesga – Have you seen the saucers, dude? I did know a man that entered a UFO. He did witness it. He is not a liar. It was not as suggested by some as just a fabricated Holywood movie.
More reviews of Finkelstein’s book:
Still more:
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=11
McTrousers: “I think we (we know who we are) should leave this site to the rabid filth of Denham, SueR, Bill Corr, Jimmy Glesga et al.”
Please let us know who “we” are, Mc Trousers: so that anti-fascists can expose you and hunt you all down.
Jock McTrousers = Nazi. QED.
“Manji claimed that someone named Norman Finkelstein had emailed her to ask, “Is there a petition supporting the death threats?” If it was Finkelstein, he was presumably taking the piss out of Manji’s self-dramatising petition. It was certainly tasteless, but is Denham seriously arguing that Finkelstein was calling for Manji to be killed? In any case, there is no proof that it was in fact Finkelstein, and Denham provides none.”
No, “Anon”: I don’t know for sure that it was Finkelstein, but what I *do* know for sure is that:
1/ I emailed Finkelstein and asked him to confirm that the person wanting to *support* death threats wasn’t him;
2/ He replied ambigiously…
His ambigous, ‘humourous’ reply convinced me that he *was*, indeed, the author of the original comment. ZSure ir was a “joke”: but the fact that he could make such a “joke” about a young woman under serious threat to her lifetells you a great deal about this character: thatn he’s a sick fuck, basically.
‘Jock McTrousers’ – I’ve seen misspellings of that name, are they variants the same person?
I hope not.
Lobby. Maybe Mr Pants! The lefties are bitchy tonight.
Jim Denham. If your list of undesirables gets any longer you could have us all in a hut in a Gulag.
“Finkelstein and the far left”
Fair enough, that’s what you are reading, but you know that first thoughts on complex issues can be mistaken.
It is not as if Finkelstein is somebody new, is it?
No-one has commented on what I said:
“I would say about this is that to describe the desperate actions of people forced to make terrible choices at the point of a gun (*literally* at the point of a gun in many cases)as “collaboration” in the Vichy sense of the word strikes me as at best simplistic and at worst (ie in its Stalinist “Zionist-Nazi collaboration” form) as a vile, anti-semitic conspiracy theory.”
…I’d be really interested to have some comments – especially from anti-”Zionists”.
” Jock McTrousers’ – I’ve seen misspellings of that name, are they variants the same person?
I hope not.
Posted by Lobby Ludd ”
WHY? Why do you hope not? No, I’m not the vicious nazi Jock McTrousers, but I hold much the same views – he’s cool – so why do you think it better that there are more than one of us?
So I’m to be hunted down by that drunk guy and his anti-fascist pals? What will they do when they find me – hit me with a flower?
Even here, among the enlightened, it’s surprising – and a weeny bit disquieting – that issues surface, are chewed over furiously but briefly, and then briskly discarded. One thinks of puppies and carpet slippers.
On other blogs, which need not be named, there was a great deal of sound and fury not so long ago about the wickedness of the Tories snuggling up to some rather dodgy characters in the European Parliament. It ought to be added that this particular issue is capable of holding the attention of – at most – 2% of the electorate.
And another thing, there are people here gibbering and raving about being hunted down by death squads or energetically doing the hunting. As it happens, I live in a place with armed guards on the gate, but a determined squad of Girl Guides – recruited from the Rupert annuals – could stun then with hockey sticks in a matter of seconds so I’m no safer than I’d be in a squat in Finsbury Park.
I think if I was emailed by an obviously deranged stranger claiming to speak on behalf of the international working class, and doubtless making the usual dark threats about hunting me down and destroying me, I would be inclined to reply th him ambiguously.
” I think if I was emailed by an obviously deranged stranger claiming to speak on behalf of the international working class, and doubtless making the usual dark threats about hunting me down and destroying me, I would be inclined to reply th him ambiguously.”
That’s interesting. WHY? Why would you reply to him ‘ambiguously’? Do you think ‘ambiguity’ might help you avoid his ‘hit team’? There’s a lot of this cryptic shit going down here.
I think I should reply to him that I’m complaining to the Blog author, the Blog facilitator (Blogger or whatever), the ISP and the police – I’ve a feeling that Denham has form, is a serial stalker/threatener. But I just can’t take him seriously, of course.
While I’m at it, I’d like to completely dissociate myself from the vicious nazi jock mctoursers. We are completely different people, posters ect. although I do agree with everything he says, and I too think HE is cool.
“the fact that he could make such a ‘joke’ about a young woman under serious threat to her life tells you a great deal about this character”
But that’s what’s in dispute isn’t it? Denham may swallow Manji’s claim that she’s “under serious threat to her life”. Others might suspect that it’s just a lot of self-dramatising crap from a publicity-hungry egotist.
Are you claiming that there are two Jock McTrousers? A nice one and a nasty (Nazi) one? How do we tell the difference? Also, does any self respecting Scotsman wear trousers? I thought they wore skirts (kilts)?(joke).
I’m not surprised Pharisee goes for evasion. I think we’ve seen enough to knowd he would never give a straight answer when challenged about anything.
. Its all about chasing shadows.
By that I mean latching on to this or that latest, most innovative idea that some self styled money making guru has put out in the hope it’ll go viral and make them a lot of money off the backs of all the headless chickens who will follow them blindly down a blind alley. Its a shame but a truism nonetheless that people will follow where someone they see as an expert leads. Even if they lead them to certain disaster, which is what most of the gurus tend to do to their flocks.
The trick is to recognize a shadow when you see it!
homebased
Returning to the substance of the post, astute readers who will have perused Yair Sheleg’s article will surely have noticed a comment from two historians on the intellectual merits of Finkelstein’s book:
[my emphasis]
Hi there guys, all woman’s situations have their ups and downs. We feel those of the present but never see or feel those of the future
Having read Finkelstein only “in the last few days,” I suggest you have been hasty in concluding that the quality of his scholarship has not been effectively refuted. One work worth reading is:
Hasia R. Diner, We Remember with Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth of Silence After the Holocaust, 1945-1962 (New York University Press 2009).
Jim Denham says: “I would say about this is that to describe the desperate actions of people forced to make terrible choices at the point of a gun (*literally* at the point of a gun in many cases)as “collaboration” in the Vichy sense of the word strikes me as at best simplistic and at worst (ie in its Stalinist “Zionist-Nazi collaboration” form) as a vile, anti-semitic conspiracy theory.”
…I’d be really interested to have some comments – especially from anti-”Zionists”.
The political actions of any Jews, whatever their ideological convictions, under nazi occupation were obviously very constrained by their circumstances but it is nevertheless true that some people had more room for manouevre than others, and the choices they made affected others.
This is reflected in comments from principled anti-Zionists at the time. The Bund which had the largest political support on the Jewish street in Poland on the eve of the Nazi invasion (see municipal elections 1938/39), was at the heart of resistance activity during the Holocaust and was decimated by the Nazis. Bundist survivors gathered for policy conferences in Belgium in 1947 and New York in 1948 and among other things condemned the behaviour of political Zionism which prioritised refuge exclusively in Palestine
the war (and just after) as “shameful”.
Yet it is clear that many left wing Zionists had played a courageous part in the anti-nazi resistance movement (alongside Bundists and communists).They were not the ones the Bund was talking about – it was more the Kastners etc.
The period under Nazi occupation was an extaordinary time, and to try and read simplistic lessons from it as Finkelstien does is wrong.
Perhaps the 1930s is more clear cut than the 1940s, especially in the period around 1936 when Jewish and non-Jewish workers in Poland were cooperating on joint strikes and protests against antisemitism (political, economic and physical). Zionists left, centre and right abandoned and undermined this joint struggle. When antisemitic Polish politicians said there were a million superflous Jews in Poland, Zionist leaders publicly agreed with them and not suprisingly were heartily congratulated in the most right wing Polish political press.
Finkelstein would have been on far stronger ground if he focused on this period. But I think for tabloid-style impact he prefers attempting to couple the holocaust period and Zionism today.
And the weaknesses in his approach means that defenders of Zionism can reject him wholesale without having to deal with the more sound political points which are contained within his work surrounded by hyperbole.
Readers with a sense of history will no doubt remember the problem in the postwar period, masses of displaced people, few willing to take them and when they did return to their homes, in say Poland, they were often attacked, killed.
Postwar pogroms occurred, in places like Kielce, etc
Not forgetting that a fair few Bundists eventually made their way to Israel, etc etc.
So a sense of history is really required to understand the complex events that went on, and the omission of the postwar pogroms paints an entirely different picture.
See also:
http://www.thejudeosphere.com/?p=680