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>From http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/id74.htm
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Tom Segev in Ha'aretz
Ha'aretz Feature
May 15, 1998
Opinion Feature by Tom Segev, Historian and Journalist
Dr. Goldhagen and Mr. Holocaust Daniel Goldhagen has made a mint from his
bestseller about the Holocaust, "Hitler’s Willing Executioners," his name is now a
household word all over the globe, and the number of Internet sites passed 2,000 a
long time ago. Academic recognition, however, is still far off. Goldhagen did not win
the Holocaust Studies chair at Harvard (which was never formally established
because the right candidate was not found), and his bid for tenure is still under
consideration. It hasn’t been easy. Many scholars have attacked his thesis, which
boils down to this: All the Germans took part in the murder of the Jews because all of
them are anti-Semitic.
And now Goldhagen has set up his own Internet site to refute the claims of two of his
harshest critics: Ruth Bettina Birn of Canada and Norman J. Finkelstein of Hunter
College, University of New York. Both of them have done the unthinkable: They have
checked his references, one by one, and reached the conclusion that "Hitler’s Willing
Executioners" is not worthy of being called an academic text.It is a tiresome task,
requiring a comparison of texts and a careful examination of sources. What is
interesting about it, though, is that the debate has veered off track. It has become a
political debate, and at its core surprise, surprise is Zionism, the State of Israel
and
the Palestinian problem. As things stand now, anyone who criticizes Goldhagen is an
anti-Semite, possibly a Holocaust-denier, and certainly an opponent of the State of
Israel. And it goes the other way, too. Anyone who supports Israel must support
Goldhagen and fight those who attack him.
It is hard to say how the ball started rolling. Norman Finkelstein, a vociferous
critic of
Zionism and the author of several pro-Palestinian books, put Goldhagen in the
category of those who utilize the Holocaust to justify the aims of the Zionist
movement. A few years back, Finkelstein made news when he debunked the false
research claims of Joan Peters. At the urging of Yitzhak Shamir, who was then the
Foreign Minister, Peters wrote a book which tried to show that the Arabs had settled
in Palestine only in the last few decades, meaning that they had no historical claim
over the country. Finkelstein proved it was a lot of hogwash.
Goldhagen does not respond to Finkelstein’s arguments; he responds to Finkelstein.
He is a well-known anti-Zionist provocateur, Goldhagen states in his Internet site.
Now Finkelstein has a site, too, where he points out that he is the son of survivors
from the Warsaw Ghetto. His two brothers, Richard and Henry, support him in the
name of the family.
Ruth Bettina Birn does not exactly fit into this argument. A German living in Toronto,
she is recognized as an international expert on Nazi war crimes. All she said is that
Goldhagen’s book is not a serious piece of research. Goldhagen lets us in on the
truth: In Germany she makes statements about him that she would never dare to
make anywhere else. He implies that she is anti-Semitic.
Metropolitan Books in New York published a slim volume this week containing Birn
and
Finkelstein’s critiques of Goldhagen’s book. All the claims are backed up. A worthy
contribution to the debate. But the main claim to fame of "The Nation on Trial," as it
is called, is the tremendous pressure exerted on the publishing company to keep it
from coming out.
At a certain point, it bordered on cultural terrorism. "The issue is not whether
Goldhagen’s thesis is right or wrong, but what is legitimate criticism and what goes
beyond the pale," states one letter received by the publishers. The undersigned:
Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Foxman
bemoans the opportunity Metropolitan Books gave Finkelstein to open his trap.
Liberalism can only go so far.
None of this scares Sara Bershtel, Metropolitan’s associate publisher and the
daughter of Holocaust survivors. Unlike Foxman, she does believes that the question
is whether Goldhagen’s thesis is right or wrong, and she has done her best to fend
off pressure from those who believe that Goldhagen’s critics should not be
supported. The Jewish establishment has embraced Goldhagen as if he were Mr.
Holocaust himself. The whole issue has become a debate over the Holocaust: pro or
con.
All this is absurd, because the criticism against Goldhagen is backed up so well.
Historians all over the world, including Israel, agree that he has written a bad book.
Few have praised him, and those who did were motivated by public relations and
politics. But the way the Jewish establishment has rushed to Goldhagen’s defense, in
the name of Zionist interests, as it were, is also absurd because the culture of the
Holocaust in America is so utterly non-Zionist in orientation.
This is true of the new Jewish Heritage Museum in New York, where Israel is only
given a passing mention. It is true of the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and it
is true of the Holocaust Museum in Washington.
None of this is accidental. American Holocaust culture nourishes local Jewish
patriotism and seriously competes with the Zionist Holocaust culture disseminated in
Israel. In an odd, paradoxical way, Finkelstein should make American Holocaust
activists happy, for what he does is attack the "Zionist character" of Goldhagen’s
thesis. But to add paradox to paradox, the formula goes like this: Not only the
Germans, but all the gentiles hate the Jews. Hence the need for Jewish unity and
solidarity. Hence the need for more and more books about Jewish hatred, and the
simpler and shallower they are, the better.
Understanding the way these people think is no mean feat. And if you keep stacking
up the paradoxes, it appears that they really do think he is good for Israel.
Goldhagen, that is.
© copyright 1998 Ha’aretz. All Rights Reserved
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