History is full of wholesale
massacres and horrendous acts of brutality. During the
same war that killed so many European jews, the cities
of Dresden and Tokyo were reduced to ashes in firestorms
that killed tens of thousands of people in a matter of
minutes. These poor souls were indeed, burned alive, and
there was no need to deliver them to death camps or
crematoria; the crematoria were delivered to them.
The Holocaust,
Palestine and Israel:
Revision, Denial
and Myth
by Frank Scott
The murderous treatment of European
Jews during the Second World War has become almost
legendary in its depiction as a unique and singularly
important example of bigoted inhumanity, carried to
barbarous extremes. No other experience from among the
overwhelming number of historic cases of mass brutality
has ever achieved such status in western consciousness,
partly because most of the other slaughters were of
third world, non - white people. But despite this
specific outrage being portrayed as an unparalleled
tragedy, injustice, bigotry and mass murder have been
practiced and gone relatively unquestioned since its
occurrence, contrary to the lessons supposedly learned
from its example. Given this contradictory impact, it
should be permissible to look, as clearly as evidence
will allow, at exactly what took place, what its moral
lesson could be, what its political use has been, and
how it has helped perpetuate rather than end notions of
racial superiority and division that have dogged the
world for millennia.
The patriarchal belief systems on
which Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all based
depend on faith, far more than material evidence. What
historic evidence exists is subject to human
interpretation, and as an example of how varied that
interpretation can be, we have these three religions.
All are founded on the same original story, with similar
scriptures, prophets, and the alleged word of god. God’s
words apparently say different things to different
people at different times. Religious history, in which
faith and interpretation loom large, is really not that
different from secular history.
The original story of the United
States, for instance, was one of European discovery,
heroic conquest, incredible development and national
triumph. That was from the standpoint of the official
historians, before the revisionists had their say. A
more modern interpretation of that story includes the
near physical and cultural genocide of the native
populations of the continents which Europe discovered,
even though people had been living on them for thousands
of years. A newer view of American history also saw
chattel slavery as something beyond an unfortunate
economic arrangement which led to civil war and racial
misunderstanding, and more as an experience of murderous
human degradation carried to inhuman marketing extremes,
with social repercussions still apparent and still not
fully understood.
Historic views and re-views of the
past are taken by those with possible preconceptions
based on their education, training and belief systems;
historians can find selective truth in the material
evidence at hand, while creating immaterial evidence as
well, often doing so unconsciously, without any balance,
and even stressing extremes. In doing this they are not
substantially different from religious believers who
pick and choose from what material evidence exists, if
any, to fit into the belief system.
God and the accepted prophets are
sited to back up whatever is seen as good, righteous and
just, and a Satan, with demonic assistants, is created
to account for the evil, craven brutality that is the
darker side of human development. Substitute us for god,
and them for Satan, and we have much secular history.
The religious or scientific system
produces its historians, who are responsible not only
for interpreting the evidence according to the
preconceived rules of faith and politics, but in many
cases, for the creation of evidence to fit within the
mental structure that thereby strengthens and reinforces
the systems foundation.
This is not unique to one religious
or national group, but is common to all which have an
established story of origin, and a following
interpretation of history to neatly fit into the
original premise. Given the dualism of western religious
science, logical materialists who claim physical
objectivity as their basis supposedly have nothing in
common with the magical immaterialism of religion. But
despite age old battles between secularists and deists,
neither side in this either-or conflict really knows any
more than what is believed, accepted, and verified by
the evidence that solidifies the foundation of its
system of belief. Anyone who contradicts that evidence
is either disregarded, or tossed out of the realm of
accepted reality. In the most extreme cases, the
contradictor is either imprisoned, or burned at the
stake.
It is in the serious questioning of
rigidly held belief systems that humanity - sometimes -
advances beyond simple duality, arriving at a relatively
reasoned interpretation based on objective study of
material evidence, free of previously learned bias. In
these cases, divine good and demonic evil are left to
the immaterialist community, and the attempt is made to
learn from previous experience and hope for a better
future that does not repeat past mistakes.
That hope is nonexistent when free
thought and critical appraisal are denied. It is in
particular danger today, more so than in the darkest
ages of our past, when wanton slaughter may have been
the order of the day, but the weapons to affect it were
infinitely more primitive.
In the aftermath of the Nazi assault
on European Judaism, we have seen a modern form of
biblical interpretation evolve out of an historic event.
This interpretation is based almost
as much on faith as on verifiable fact. What should be
at least fairly conclusive according to examined
evidence has become a religious belief system in which
no examination or question of evidence is allowed unless
it strengthens the already existing and accepted story.
The event is not only treated as unquestioned as the
word of god, but if dared to be questioned at all,
punishable as blasphemy.
Such is the modern burden of what is
called The Holocaust, having even its name reflect a
biblical sounding event, like The Creation.
A terrible price was paid by the Jews
of Europe in the experience of this awful episode of
history, but a heavy price is still being paid, in some
sense by the whole world, but mostly by Palestinians,
who played no role in these atrocities, though they have
paid dearly, and unconscionably, in their aftermath.
The affect of the holocaust on 21st
century life continues to be as profound, and dangerous,
as its impact on the previous century. What is
euphemistically called The Middle East Problem was
really created by the western holocaust, and dumped on
the people of the Middle East. The solution to this
problem involves the West confronting its own
responsibility, and ending its punishment of the Arab
world, especially the Palestinians, who have absorbed
generations of abuse and had a horrific, biblical
vengeance visited upon them for something they never
did.
Further, the accepted story of the
event, seemingly free of any material forces or
consequences save depravity and hatred of age old
origin, invites a fatalism which accepts ancient beliefs
in a natural evil at the core of humanity.
Or at least, a majority of humanity,
which seems historically predisposed to persecute and
murder a specific minority.
There might be no better place to
begin seeking a solution than at the very event that has
served to help create the problem. But any attempt at
reconsideration of this particular tragedy in a way that
questions some of the accepted story is treated as
sacrilegious, insane, unthinkable anti-Semitism, and in
the most extreme cases, as a crime punishable by jail or
deportation. This was the case with Ernest Zundel, one
among many Holocaust Revisionists who dare to challenge
religious and political orthodoxy by questioning our
understanding of a human disaster which has helped
perpetuate human disaster.
Zundel and other revisionists are
called ‘holocaust deniers’ by those who label them in
discriminatory fashion in order to remove them from any
serious consideration. The denigrating label makes it
seem as though they deny that any Jews were murdered, or
that Jews did not suffer terribly at the hands of Nazis
and their supporters. Calling these people names in
order to reduce them as beings is bigotry no different,
in essence, from using derogatory labels like nigger,
spic, kike or redneck. The label's purpose is to
belittle and deform, reducing people to caricatures and
worse; beings outside the realm of acceptability and not
worthy of consideration by normal people.
There may be unsavoury and bigoted
types among those who call themselves holocaust
revisionists, but such people exist in business,
government and religion; do we entirely dismiss those
worlds because some of their practitioners may not meet
our standards for acceptability? Some who claim to be
revisionists simply change the pejorative Nazi to the
pejorative communist and charge the same wholesale
slaughters and incredible death tolls, only with
different victims and different murderers. Far more
important are the revisionists unmotivated by anything
more than a sense of human inquiry , who simply attempt
to confront and question accepted history with as much
or as little bias as the official historians.
Zundel should be free to present his
viewpoint and entertain his beliefs, however unpopular
they may be to those who often know nothing more than
what they have been told. This biased telling of the
story of individuals and events is a problem not only of
the historic past, but what we experience in everyday
life. We are fed tales which provoke bloody warfare and
are devoutly believed and supported by some, and just as
devoutly disbelieved and opposed by others. But neither
school of thought is, as yet, proposing that all
opposition to its belief system be completely silenced,
totally disregarded or jailed. Some have indeed suffered
such a fate, but they are still the exception and not
the rule. Unfortunately, among holocaust revisionists,
the rule is persecution; first, of the very idea, and
next, of the person expressing the very idea.
Our political economy of religious
science depends on the double standards of dualism, but
the issue of free speech tends to be revered by people
from all sides of the political and social spectrum. It
would be better for us all if we were less selective
about where, when, and on what subjects such freedom
could be exercised.
Revisionists try to make the
murderous history of the holocaust an aspect of reality,
rather than a religious experience of unquestioned
worship and sorrow. This is their sin, but it is not
only they who suffer; all who profess a belief in
freedom of expression, speech and thought pay a price.
Yet, the attack on Zundel’s free speech was barely
noticed by the general public. Even though it took place
in Canada, it received no criticism from an American
civil liberties community which would be totally aroused
if such blatant suppression occurred in almost any other
area of life, and in any country. But that is not the
case in the area dubbed holocaust denial, where any
outrage against free speech and free thought is not only
allowed, but righteously supported and even vindictively
applauded, wherever it occurs.
The double standard regarding this
issue is among the most troubling of our social
hypocrisies. One can easily imagine those depicted as
demons, like Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic, being
regarded as heroes, had they persecuted alleged
holocaust deniers instead of operating against Israeli
and American interests, for which they now face trial as
war criminals.
Zundel may be the best known among
many who are critical of the holocaust story, but who
hardly deny that Jews were viciously persecuted and
murdered by the Nazis. He has been dogged for years
because of his expressed doubts regarding many aspects
of the accepted history, and as a result suffered
physical attacks, the firebombing of his home, and
costly court cases finally leading to his imprisonment.
Among his blasphemous thought crimes
he dares to believe that all Germans were not uniquely
evil, inhuman monsters, as they are depicted in much of
the holocaust story. Germany has been the main financial
backer of Israel, contributing billions of dollars in
retribution payments, and has been most fierce in
smothering free speech when it comes to this issue. But
there are still many who believe that Germans should be
judged as unparalleled among humans for their collective
sin, and this has been internalized by its government.
In keeping with its guilt driven policies, Germany
locked Zundel in jail as soon as Canada expelled him for
his crime. And what was this offence? Under cover of
visa problems and alleged influence on potentially
violent groups, Zundel was really guilty of daring to
express doubt in the official story of the holocaust,
that doubt usually being not only about the number of
dead, but also concerning the plan and method of
carrying out mass murder . His is only the most serious
and recent attack on a revisionist. Many others have
suffered loss of their jobs, physical attacks, and been
imprisoned. In several nations, it is a punishable,
criminal offence to dare question the holocaust in any
ways that displease the keepers of its official history.
The horrendous treatment of European
Jews, their forced exodus from national homelands to
concentration and slave labour camps, and their further
brutalization and murders, are believed part of a
centrally planned process of annihilation. This
historically unique crime was industrialized, with an
around the clock production line of transport, gas
chambers, crematoria and almost unimaginable cruelty.
That is the brief outline generally accepted by most of
the world, or at least the western world, which might as
well be the whole world given the power balance. Of
course, gas chambers were not alleged to be the only
method employed for these mass murders, and the basic
crimes were known of before that aspect of the story was
established. But though official records and scholarship
account for many deaths attributable to other causes and
methods, the popular acceptance of the phrase ‘six
million died in the gas chambers’ is hardly ever
discussed as being impossible. In fact, there is almost
as much use of the dreadful sounding ‘six million died
in the ovens’, with many believing that six million
living human beings were actually thrown into mass fiery
pits. The world was witness to the awful films of the
liberated camps, the emaciated survivors, and the piles
of skin and bone corpses. It is as if these sickening
images were not enough, and even more ghastly ones have
to be created in order to identify this as history’s
most terrible crime.
That such an incredible murderous
deed, of such massive proportions, was concealed from
the world until long after it took place is barely
acknowledged as worthy of any question. Several
histories of the war were written at its end which made
no mention of this particular horrendous crime. Some
survivors of the concentration camps wrote of their
terrible experiences, with no mention of gas chambers.
Are we to believe that all these writers, including
Eisenhower and Churchill, were simply anti-Semites? This
awful scheme for exterminating an entire people was
ordered by passionate zealots who were motivated by
irrational hatred. Yet, conversely, it was organized by
a core of dispassionate, bureaucratic clones, and then
carried out by a stoic force of robotic killers. And
this hideous production was performed while Germany
suffered devastation in the war, with many of its people
going hungry, its economy sorely lacking industrial
supplies and its imminent defeat looming. Might there be
legitimate cause for questioning at least some parts of
the generally accepted story? Should critical
reappraisal be completely forbidden, given that this
insane act of collective murder was the major rationale
for the displacement and destruction of another people,
the Palestinians, far removed from any connection to
Europe save for their domination by its colonial power?
And considering the depiction of Germans as a collection
of homicidal monsters, couldn't one of these satanic
sadists have considered a photograph of his, and their,
horrendous work with gas chambers? Is there any wonder
that the same bureaucratic number crunchers who
tabulated every single person rounded up and sent to a
camp, were unable to tabulate the actual murders? And
since all gas chambers were allegedly destroyed by the
Germans - who seemed anxious to get rid of all evidence
of the crime, but were extremely careless about leaving
alive participants in committing the crime - isn't it
worthy of question that their existence is based on
stories and confessions after the fact, with no one
actually witnessing these mass murder machines in
action? It should not be a crime to wonder why not one
actual photo of a gas chamber exists, that all were
destroyed and only reproductions of them are offered as
evidence. The only photos are of doors or passages
leading to such chambers, and showers said to have
served as gas chambers, but these all defy logic and
only serve belief. Would we accept explanation for the
atomic bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki by being
presented with photos of roads leading into town? Or the
testimony of survivors and participants in the bombings,
but with no other evidence except their testimony that
the cities were devastated by such a weapon? Given the
overwhelming evidence that clearly verifies the
persecution and murder of so many, why is it that this
major part of the story is so reliant on after the fact
memories or detective work? That several million people
were killed this way and that not one photo exists is
certainly worthy of questioning, given that so much else
was recorded in photos and film. We have abundant
pictorial evidence of the dreadful conditions of the
camps, the horrible images that have been imprinted on
us over the years. Yet, none of these showed a gas
chamber, its ruins, or recorded comments about its
existence. How can it be a sin and why should it be a
crime to question this story? Is it odd that some might
see the denial of that freedom as part of a political
program to insure that Israel is above any criticism and
kept a safe place for world Jewry, even though its
reality has been quite the opposite? The historical
record of an earlier episode of inhuman brutality in the
United States offers an uncomfortable contrast.
During the wretched historical
period of American lynching, more than two thousand
blacks were dragged from their homes or prison cells and
publicly hanged, often having their bodies literally
torn apart after killing. These bestial events were
sometimes viewed by hundreds of people in an often
festive atmosphere of collective madness. Countless
photographs exist of these bizarre, barbaric affairs,
with families proudly posing, even smiling, in front of
a brutalized black body hanging from a tree. There may
be legend and myth surrounding much of this period, but
there is undeniable evidence of the bloody deeds in
these photos, some of which were made into postcards and
mailed to friends and families, later becoming exhibits
at museums and galleries.
Should this terrible episode of
American history be offered as proof that we were the
most beastly race on earth? Far worse than later
Germans, who didn't gleefully photograph their
atrocities and happily share those photos with friends?
Why not try to learn more about this sordid past, rather
than simply see the atrocities as acts of a deranged
people, having no basis in material history save as a
description of mass psychosis, based on age old biblical
hatred of...Africans? After all, we have no historic
verification for how many Africans were murdered during
what was called, less biblically, the passages, when
slaves were stuffed onto ships like animals, and beaten,
starved and drowned while crossing the Atlantic Ocean,
with death toll estimates ranging from a few to many
millions. Has it been blasphemy to examine that history,
as closely as evidence will allow, in order to arrive at
something approximating what actually took place? Does
any re-examination of this brutal period, including a
revisionist pointing out that some slaves lived in more
material security than some workers, indicate a form of
slavery denial? We certainly cannot change the fact of
inhuman chattel slavery in our past, nor the tremendous
impact it has had on our national development. But
confronting our past might help us change the present.
Nearly half the prison population of the USA is black,
and ghettos and poverty wracked communities still number
black residents in the hundreds of thousands. That
should be reason enough to want to learn more about that
past and how it affects our society today. Really
confronting such questions and seeking answers based on
social justice and humanitarian values could mean social
revolution, but even if we don't go that far, knowing
more can at least help us mythologize less.
We would not make the crimes
committed by the Nazis any less horrid by removing
myths, legends and emotional slander from the very real
pain and suffering they caused. What of the many alleged
tales of their ghastly practices, like making soap from
the body fat of dead jews, stuffing pillows with their
hair or making lamp shades from their skin? Some of
these are still repeated by those who simply accepted
any tale of German degeneracy, no matter how mindless
sounding or lacking any basis in fact. The generally
accepted and horrendous enough toll of a million deaths
at Auschwitz was once believed to be more than four
million. These inflated death toll figures and tales of
bizarre brutality are no longer tolerated by anyone with
claims to serious scholarship, with agreement here
between revisionists and the official historians of
holocaust studies.
Survivors are no less cursed with
memories of an awful reality when these kinds of
exaggerations are faced as fabrications born of panic,
gullibility, and retaliatory hatred. This at one time
unquestioned parade of inhuman horrors became part of
accepted history and helped lead to the birth of a new
nation, Israel, established as a haven for the
persecuted survivors of this bloodcurdling, genocidal
campaign conducted by the Nazis.
Israel’s existence since its origin
in 1948 has remained critically unquestioned by the
mainstream west and its officially sanctioned political
opposition, mainly because of the horrors the world
learned about the holocaust. And learned, and learned,
and relearned. Hardly a day passes that some TV program,
film, workshop, museum display, lecture or school
curriculum is not dealing with what took place, in
horrifying detail. People are gripped and shaken by the
vicarious experience of this tragedy, recreated in
veritable theme parks of misery and suffering.
They are compelled to wonder how
people could perform such contemptible violence, and how
it could have happened without outside intervention.
But these same people still support
doctrines of racial supremacy and the mass murder of war
; they draw no connection to the lesson supposedly
learned from the holocaust tragedy, since that lesson
seems specific only to that single experience and its
relation to the unquestioned need for Israel as a haven
for Jews.
State organized violence, human
persecution and bigotry continue, and civilized
populations still tolerate racial and colonial policies
that treat people and their homelands as worthless,
unless owned, occupied or exploited by superior beings.
These matters are relatively
unquestioned by many who are moved to tears by the story
of the holocaust, since that event is treated as an
almost separate reality from human history, let alone
the sub category of Jewish history, whose thousands of
years seem reduced to about five during the war. And
Israel is still perceived by many as a home for people
rejected by the world, with no place else to go. This is
a gross simplification, but so is the larger story.
Israel did not just happen in 1948, though that might as
well be the case given popular ignorance of its history.
In the late 19th century, when the
European Zionist movement for a Jewish homeland was
established, most Jews wanted no such home. They were
content being citizens in the nations where they had
become part of the fabric of life, having worked hard to
overcome bigotry that saw them as Other. Many of them
took serious issue with Zionism, which existed long
before most Nazis were born, let alone in power. This
historic fact is not just overlooked, but is unknown to
people who think of Zionism only in its modern
socialistic form of the kibbutz, and see Israel as
something that happened purely because of the Nazi
assault on European jews.
Among several proposed sites,
Palestine was the biblical real estate most desired by
many Zionists as a national homeland, since it was
believed to be their source, even by allegedly secular
jews who claimed to be atheists. That contradiction
still prevails; one can strongly assert no belief in
god, while accepting a homeland for jews in Israel,
because that land was promised to them by...god. The
holocaust helps make it possible to overlook this
contradiction by citing the Jewish tragedy at the hands
of the Nazis as verification for the need to create
Israel. And even though most of the worlds jews are
moved to at least psychologically support Israel’s
existence, they have never been there and have no plan
to even visit, let alone become settlers.
The fact that as late as 1942, some
Zionists and Nazis were discussing the island nation of
Madagascar as a possible homeland for Jews - with as
little concern for the native people there as in
Palestine - is another little known aspect of the
relationships between two groups proposing the same
alienating idea, along decidedly different lines; that
Jews did not belong with others and should be living in
their own, separate country.
With no consideration for some of
these matters, we inherit a history with little if any
context, negating any awareness of events that lead to
or connect from one to the other in any understandable,
if occasionally mind boggling way.
Things suddenly happen, with no
explanation for events other than their being caused or
provoked by saintly angels or demonic monsters. Are
their material, worldly reasons for these events? Where
do these situations and creatures come from? We are not
to ask once the story, the gods and the demons have been
established. That is, if we wish to remain helpless
creatures shaped by history, rather than active beings
who play a conscious role in its creation.
The revision of all history,
literally to look at it again, is necessary if we wish
to create a future without repeating past mistakes. The
maligned school of holocaust revision could make a
contribution towards understanding and peace, rather
than represent a criminal assault against political
religious belief, as it is portrayed.
Taking a new look at any part of
history, recent or past, may lead to greater awareness
of material forces which are controllable by humans.
This contradicts the fatalistic view of humanity as
inherently beastly and in need of control by elites,
which are usually working for god. This biblical notion
at the core of many human acts of mass murder flies in
the face of real human experience and calls for more,
not less questioning of what we are told about anything.
Whether it is fed to us as legend,
myth or alleged fact, nothing should be treated as
unquestionable.
Facts are too often based on as
little proof as the legendary and mythological. For a
recent, obvious example, we need look no further than
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Thousands of
people are dead and a government was destroyed because
of those alleged weapons, which do not, and did not,
exist.
The suffering of the Jews in Europe
during the Second World War would not become less tragic
under critical appraisal, though its political impact
might change, and this is the major reason for its being
kept an untouchable topic. In order to maintain Israel’s
position as a special nation, the myth of the Jewish
people as a forever endangered species is perpetuated.
The holocaust is seen as the culmination of a long
history of murderous persecution of Jews by the rest of
the gentile world, with no allowance for anything but
continued misery and eternal threat. This incredibly
negative and narrow view estranges people from humanity,
and in so doing helps create a warped history of
isolation. A contradictory ideological need to be
separate and different from them, while humanistically
desiring similarity and equality with them, can only
prolong the problem of what is called anti-semitism,
despite that language confusion which so labels
Europeans who are no more Semites than are people from
Finland or Nigeria.
Given the verifiable history of
Jewish persecution in the past, can that possibly
justify the persecution of Palestinians in the present?
Assuming that there was indeed a plot by European
gentiles to murder all the Jews of the continent, why
should people who have no real or fictional connection
to such a sin be the ones to pay the awful price of its
atonement? And even if it is necessary to insist that
one inhuman episode was unique and different from
others, that one suffering was more painful than
another, how can any benefit be gained by causing still
more suffering? No horror experienced in Europe should
serve as rationale for punishment inflicted on people
other than Europeans, if any at all are to still be
paying for this experience of inhuman slaughter among,
sadly, many such historic experiences. A more recent
human disaster can offer several comparisons, even if
only in the treatment of the story.
As an example of how closer
examination of events which take on near legendary
proportions can lead to better understanding, consider
the disastrous day Americans remember as ‘9/11’. It did
not become less tragic when investigation revealed that
the original estimated death toll of nearly 10,000 was
actually just over 3,000. The bereaved were no less
saddened, the nation no less shocked. Nor,
unfortunately, were political forces swayed to change
their policies based on this lowered figure. But history
was served in moving the story from exaggeration,
arrived at during chaotic moments when all matters were
barely verifiable, to the actual human cost and impact
of all those deaths. Lowering the death toll was not a
form of 911 ‘denial’, and it did nothing to change the
essence of the event.
Many still believe it was the worst
thing to ever happen, if limiting the area of events to
the USA. But far more people have been killed in
bombings in other countries than died that day in
America, and to acknowledge that fact - still generally
unacknowledged - might help to better understand why
this act of terrorism might have taken place, rather
than viewing it as a gesture of sadistic madmen who
didn't like our style of dress, our democracy, or our
social behaviour patterns. Were they simply
‘anti-Americans’, for some ancient, irrational biblical
reason? Or were there social and political as well as
religious motivations for their murderous attack? Would
it hurt us to move beyond simplistic, reductionist
explanations in order to arrive at some understanding of
material reality that might help our relations with the
rest of the world? The re-examination of 911 did not
overlook the enormous cost in death benefits and the
number of hustlers who rushed to claim money, posing as
kin of those who allegedly perished. In this, it bore a
relation to what some call the ‘holocaust industry’,
referring to the money making aspects of that tragedy
that entice scam artists as well as legitimate victims.
Finding an actual, verifiable death toll saved money for
insurers, but the material evidence was examined not
only to save money, nor to hurt the memory of survivors,
but to help see the disaster from a more reality based
perspective. We are still learning about the poorly
reported and even more poorly explained 9/11 events, and
the wars and further terrors they have unleashed in
Afghanistan and especially Iraq. Many still believe that
Arabs had nothing to do with them, and that they were
organized and executed by the U.S. government. Others
claim it was the Israeli Mossad, and some believe it was
the act of a vengeful god, punishing us for whatever
sins these divinely oriented conspiracy freaks perceive.
But none of these theories, though they may be argued,
laughed at or ridiculed, are forbidden. Nor are those
who entertain them threatened with jail . This is as it
should be, but isn't, where the holocaust is concerned.
Israel's seemingly spontaneous
‘immaculate conception’ in 1948 is no more materially
verifiable than the older religious legend, but is as
devoutly believed by a community of the faith. The
Palestinian people who lived in what later became Israel
were conveniently removed from material or critical
consideration. They were denied as a people and never
considered as humans of any importance, so it was easy
to buy them out, kick them out, or wipe them out if they
resisted. Their painful history of injustice has
outraged most of the world, as evidenced by countless
votes in the United Nations which go against continued
theft of Palestinian land and brutalization of the
Palestinian people. But the nature of their suffering
receives hardly a blink from the center of global power
in the USA, where real Palestinian deniers are an
infinitely greater problem than any alleged holocaust
deniers.
The American government and major
opinion shaping institutions have participated in the
creation of Israel as a lily-white land of suffering
inhabitants, first escaping the horror of the Nazis, and
then preyed upon by the dreadful Arabs, portrayed as
bloodthirsty demons anxious to ‘push Israel into the
sea’, as one of the favoured slogans has it. This
colourful defiance of geography and politics may have
actually been expressed as a desire by some witless
opponent; more likely, it came from an Israeli and has
become useful to repeat in provoking fear and anxiety
among Jews all over the world, as the horrible holocaust
story is rerun in their imaginations each time a threat
to jews is perceived or alleged. And these threats
usually seem to happen in a social vacuum, occupied by
an innocent people in a rarefied world befitting a fairy
tale as much as a physical reality.
The contradictory notion of jews as a
historically blessed, special, privileged sector of
humanity, and at the same time as a historically
scorned, hated and brutalized group as well, is
reinforced by the conflicting histories of Israel,
Palestine, the holocaust experience and the status of
Judaism in the world today. To say that a people hated
and persecuted by the gentile world - which means just
about everyone else - for thousands of years, and then
slaughtered in the worst pogrom of them all, could
become powerful enough to hold sway over governments and
public opinion is dismissed as just another form of
anti-Semitism.
The mere mention of Jewish power,
exercised in obvious fashion and so acknowledged by many
Jewish groups and publications, reduces not only
Zionists but large segments of the gentile world,
including its left wing, to screeching charges of
anti-Semitism at those who defiantly refer to ‘the power
that dare not speak its name’. But the U.S. government
and media and their global subordinates do not hesitate
to follow the story so outlined, perpetuating the myth
that becomes reality when so many not only believe it,
but act on that belief.
Jewish ethnic and cultural gifts to
the arts and sciences have made incredible contributions
toward making the human community whole. Biblical and
ideological Judaism contradicts that wholeness by
treating the rest of the world as Other and insisting on
its own uniqueness. Much of the world is drawn to the
warm, humanistic culture, while it is repelled by the
cold, alienating ideology. Just as mainstream science
and much non-biblical religion reject difference and see
humanity as one race with common origins, a biblical
fundamentalist view holds to an ancient notion that
divides us into a deity’s less or more favoured races.
The political, economic and psychological burdens of
maintaining such older belief systems are at the root of
a global crisis.
In an all too real sense, we continue
struggles with believers in immaterial legend and fable,
while reality demands that we wake up and face a
material world threatened by our wasteful and
destructive divisions. These ancient belief systems
might be beneficial if their humanitarian messages of
equality for all took precedence over their patriarchal
teachings of the godly superiority of only some. We face
failure as long as we continue to pay only half-hearted
lip service to the wise words of their most loving
prophets, while we pay wholehearted debt service to the
false words of their most hateful profiteers.
Human suffering and brutality are a
sad part of our history, but we needn’t mythologize
their experience or make them special; rather, we need
to understand that they impede our development.
We can learn from our most terrible
mistakes, but not if we fetishize and treat them as
unique, almost divorced from history rather than
representing a terrible example of our worst behaviours,
practiced in the selfish, short sighted ignorance that
continues to rule our relations.
Our bloody past and present make it
clear that it is possible to slaughter hundreds,
thousands, even millions of people, without an
extermination plan or gas chambers. History is full of
wholesale massacres, of people being regarded as worse
than insects or rodents, and barbarically murdered in
horrendous acts of brutality. Some of these were
perpetrated over many years, some over a few weeks, some
a few days, and some, instantly. During the same war
that killed so many European jews, the cities of Dresden
and Tokyo, among many others, were reduced to ashes in
firestorms that killed tens of thousands of people in a
matter of minutes. These poor souls were indeed, burned
alive, and there was no need to deliver them to death
camps or crematoria; the crematoria were delivered to
them.
Yet these and other brutal acts of
mass murder were written off as excusable acts of war
that killed ‘the enemy’, said enemy deserving such a
fate for being part and parcel of the war. Had the
outcome of that war been different, how many allied
generals would have been tried for these mass murders,
and been executed as war criminals? Why does one
horrible slaughter receive an unending stream of
commemorations and reparations, while hundreds of others
are barely a drip in the brain pan of humanity? Why does
the holocaust loom so large, and yet serve as a
rationale for the brutalization of a people who had
absolutely nothing to do with Nazis or Europe? And who
can certainly not be guilty of anti-Semitism, in as much
as they are, unlike the Ashkenazi jews of Europe,
Semites themselves? Could a better understanding of what
happened to the Jews of Europe, and of the underlying
causes that brought about fascism, help the world to
better understand itself? It can’t possibly hurt us to
learn what was at the root of the Nazis blind hatred of
communism, democracy and Judaism, and why they linked
those hatreds, rather than continue accepting ridiculous
notions that reduce world history to perverse
psychosomatic disorders.
What role did material events play in
the creation of national socialism in Germany, and how
widely was it supported by other nations? Contrary to
simplistic belief, which has it that the world instantly
opposed the demonic evil of the Nazis, many western
powers were quite fond of the Nazis rabid anti-communism
and their strengthening of German finance capital. It is
possible to learn more about a terrible episode of
history without denigrating those who suffered, but also
by not making a totally different kind of human out of
them, thereby perpetuating a dangerous myth of original
difference when we most need to acknowledge that we are
all members of the same human race.
Fear of present victimization because
of past history, whether based on fact or fiction, is
not healthy for any individual or group of human beings.
Rising above our past mistakes, our legends and our
superstitions in order to deal with real problems can
contribute to growth in knowledge and assurance of a
future possibility for all of humanity. That assurance
is a necessity for the success of the human race, and
not just one nation, sect, religion or clan.
Seeing the rest of humanity as
historically bent on persecuting and eventually
murdering all jews is hardly the healthiest way to
sustain religious, ethnic, national or personal
survival. One has to major in the inhumanities to
entertain such dreadful thoughts. When carried for
generations, they cannot help but lead to more
suspicion, misunderstanding and divisions which help
create the inhuman mental and physical horror that was
the reality of the Jews in Europe, and is the reality of
the Palestinian people now. Bigotry and murder do not
need commemorative death tolls or special killing
machine techniques to make them worse or better; they
need to stop.
The revision of the holocaust might
help Israel, Palestine and Judaism itself by confronting
contradictions based on ancient beliefs which have no
place in the modern world, and which help create
misunderstanding and murder the longer they are
accepted. Controversies involving which war, which mass
murder or which act of totalitarian brutality was worse
than another can only make it seem that some were better
than others. But it is all acts of brutality that must
be seen as the problem , and not just one in isolation,
if we are to arrive at a solution.
If we do not learn from history, it
is said that we are condemned to repeat it, and that has
been the case with the Jewish experience of one war, and
the resultant Palestinian suffering that could lead to a
greater war . Coming to grips with what was called the
final solution could bring about confrontation with what
could be humanity’s final problem of racial and ethnic
hatreds which are used to help perpetuate ideologies of
domination.
We need a peaceful ‘final solution’
in confronting the greatest problem humanity has ever
faced.
Nuclear and biological weapons have
replaced the more primitive bloody tools of the old
political testaments and while we have seen what those
weapons could do, we have not yet fully realized the
lesson of their creation. They are products of age old
biblical inhumanity, brought to modern technological
perfection in exercising mass murder in post biblical
fashion. We have to become a civilized people and learn
to work together, before we revert to primitive savagery
and literally blow ourselves apart.
The holocaust was representative of
the darkest side of humanity, but unfortunately, it
still covers many with its shadow. Bringing light to
such darkness involves much more than rethinking one
episode of history, but given its enormous impact on
collective consciousness, this one issue could have an
affect on many more. They may seem an unlikely source,
but holocaust revisionists could help bring about an
enlightenment that enables us to see through inherited
doctrines of ignorance and bigotry, kept alive by
political and biblical systems of superstition which
contribute to furthering the danger to humanity.
Confronting the real tragedy of what
was done in the past, and the role it has played in
furthering human suffering and injustice in the present,
will be necessary for us to end such suffering in the
future. The hateful anti-Semitism that was at the core
of Nazi treatment of jews cannot be forgotten, but it
shouldn't be remembered by developing a ridiculous
philo-semitism that places one event, nation or people
above critical reproach. Like the Zionists and Nazis who
agreed that Jews were different from everyone else, this
is either/or dualism at its worst. Just as past bigotry
and brutalizing of Jews has scarred humanity, so does
present bigotry and brutalizing of Palestinians
disfigure us all. And just as we demythologize the
American story and create a more hopeful future by doing
so, we need to demythologize the mass injustice in
Europe, and the mass injustice it brought about in the
Middle East. Two wrongs do not make a right, any more
than two lies can make a truth. And while the truth may
not set us absolutely free, it could certainly help us
move closer to relative freedom.
Copyright (c) 2005 by Frank Scott.
All rights reserved.
This text may be used and shared in
accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S.
copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed
in electronic form, provided that the author is notified
and no fee is charged for access.
Archiving, redistribution, or
republication of this text on other terms, in any
medium, requires the consent of the author frank scott,
email:
frank@marin.cc.ca.us
225 laurel place, san rafael ca.
94901
Responses
From Larry Hochman:
If you read Frank Scott's piece
carefully, it is a sneaky way to propagate the "ideas"
of Zundel by intermingling them with correct commentary
on Palestinian suffering because of the European
holocaust with which they had nothing to do, and correct
comments about Zionist monopoly of and tactical use of
the holocaust for their own nefarious ends.
Scott urges that Zundel be taken
seriously as some investigator for truth. Then Scott
ignores Zundel for many paragraphs, then sneaks him in
again.
If Scott were merely saying that
Zundel should have a right to speak and write his
horseshit, I agree. (Similarly with Faurrison, although
why Chomsky found it necessary to write a preface to his
book in order to uphold freedom of speech escapes me.)
If Scott were merely condemning
the Canadian law on "hate speech", I agree. I similarly
condemn the French libel laws.
But Scott, whoever he may be, is
clearly promoting the ideas of Zundel.
Zundel is no seeker of truth trying to discover the
correct number of Jewish victims of the Nazis. He is
not merely claiming that not all Germans were pro-Nazi.
(Something Norman Finkelstein, a true scholar, has done
impressively.) Zundel is a Jew-hater, a denier that
there ever was any holocaust. He is a prick who hired
some phoney engineer with a hammer an chisel to go to
Auschwitz and "prove" that no Zyklon B or any other gas
was ever used there. Zundel passed out leaflets at
Auschwitz to visitors claiming the Nazi extermination of
Jews was a hoax, that the missing European Jews went to
Miami Beach, etc.
Mr. Shamir, you do a disservice
by disseminating crap like that of Frank Scott.
Larry Hochman
Shamir responded:
Mr Hochman,
I disagree with you totally and find
the tone of your response unacceptable, indeed,
bordering with bullying. Frank is our comrade, and he
deserves full respect. Save such expressions as
"disingenuous diatribe" for our Zionist adversaries.
Frank did not "promote Zundel's ideas", but even if he
were, I would not ban it. Ernst Zundel is in jail for
his views, and we have a duty to offset the barbarous
punishment of the man by letting his views into
discourse. I know that you are against his imprisonment;
but it is not enough - by our actions, we should make
his imprisonment unprofitable for his jailers.
You are mistaken if you think that a
Norm Finkelstein can offset the massive H propaganda
with its hundreds of films and endless flow of
reminiscences. This propaganda is a runaway train, and
it calls for a hard man to stop it, not for a gentle
persuasion. Joe Public looks for a golden mean between
two statements, and Norm Finkelstein is just not
sufficient for the second pole to Wiesel and Bauer.
You seem to be upset by 'a man with
hammer and chisel'. I do not need him, for I am against
the concept of H, against the H theology, against H
museums and the whole H discourse - and I am not
interested in facts. But if an inquisitive person wants
to know some facts - why not? Why are you so horrified
by a normal forensic procedure? Recently, Katyn victims
were exhumed; Kosovo was excavated all over in vain
search for bodies - and I did not hear your complaints.
Many war atrocity stories are just
stories - from Srebrenica to Kosovo 'killing fields',
from Saddam Hussein's WMD to Belgian babies on German
bayonets of the WWI, from Kuwait's incubator to
anti-communist inventions of the Black Book. (By the
way, Frank Scott dealt with the last subject, too). Are
you sure that the remaining stories are to stay forever?
Our past teaches us that Jewish
reports of atrocities are not reliable: starting from
Josephus Flavius with his million victims in Jerusalem
AD 70 to Chmielnicki chronics, to depictions of pogroms
in Russia. So many of them were debunked; and many H
horror stories were laid to rest - we may mention the
soap, pits belching fire, incredible numbers abandoned
by Yad va-Shem. So your semi-religious fervour is out of
place.
You exclaim: "Zundel is a Jew-hater".
Nobody has to love Jews. It is not a precondition for
investigating the events of WWII, or of events in
Palestine etc, not even for writing on this listserve.
Jews love themselves well enough.
Frank is right: "denier" is just a
swear word. Many people (maybe even you) deny Immaculate
Conception - this is a horrible insult for every
Christian and Muslim, but these deniers are not locked
up.
You conclude with a standard "you do
a disservice by disseminating etc". Disservice to whom,
I pray? To our cause? Let us imagine that Zundel's views
will become acceptable and universally shared - will it
be good or bad for the Palestinian cause? I am sure you
know the answer. It may be bad for truth, but it won't
be bad for the cause. And if you think that it can never
happen, I would not bet my last shirt on it.
Calm down, Larry, we have been here
before, when you attacked Jeff Blankfort with a similar
vehemence and retreated soon enough. We are always ready
for a Socratic discussion, but bullying is no-go.
Shamir
From Jeff Blankfort:
While I wrote Frank earlier that I
had problems with his article and with the ongoing
discussion/debate on the Holocaust altogether--being
literally holoexhausted--since I think it plays
into the hands of the Zionists who wish to portray
criticism of Israel as some part of a continuing Jewish
conspiracy and thus, aided and abetted by the media
which is either in their hands or performs as if it is,
are able to shift attention away from Israeli crimes
which are not debatable.
That being said, Hochman, at least in the few times he
has written me, has proven himself to be a Zionist to
the core and a pretty nasty one at that as this message
to another list regarding my Chomsky article indicates.
In a fashion, typical of those who have criticized me in
the past, he doesn't write to me directly, ignoring my
email at the end of the article.