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Ha'aretz on The Holocaust Industry Ha'aretz Magazine. Friday, March 30, 2001 The Finkelstein polemic 'The Holocaust Industry,' Norman Finkelstein's controversial book, has quickly achieved best-seller status in Germany. Finkelstein, who denounces the Jewish establishment for extorting billions of dollars from Swiss banks, tells Ha'aretz: 'You can't accuse me of inciting anti-Semitism. I'm only the messenger.' By Yair Sheleg When "The Holocaust Industry," by Prof. Norman Finkelstein was released in the United States and Great Britain some nine months ago, representatives of the Jewish establishment evidently decided that killing it with kindness was their best strategy. The book viciously attacks them for exploiting the Holocaust for their own needs, and in order to establish a line of defense for Israel. But they decided against responding too strongly to the accusations, hoping that the storm would soon abate. The fact that the author was Jewish and a child son of Holocaust survivors undoubtedly contributed to their decision.Nevertheless, this low-profile approach is changing in the face of the book's immense success in Germany since its release there two months ago. In a telephone interview with Ha'aretz from his home in New York, Finkelstein claims that 130,000 copies were sold in the first four weeks after the book's German-language translation arrived in the bookshops. For comparison's sake, after nine months on sale in the U.S. and Britain, "The Holocaust Industry" notched sales of 18,000 and 12,000, respectively. Just what is Finkelstein claiming in the book? First, as he already makes clear in the first few paragraphs of the introduction, he differentiates between the "Nazi holocaust" - in which millions of Jews and other victims were exterminated - and "The Holocaust" - the well-known public "persona" of the event, the image that he alleges is nothing but the product of propaganda of the Jewish establishment. Second, Finkelstein claims that the interest in the Holocaust by the Jewish-American establishment dates only to the aftermath of the Six-Day War, and in any case is not rooted in authentic Jewish motives, but from the Jewish establishment's collaboration with the interests of the American administration. As soon as the American administration started to consider Israel a strategic asset, the Jewish establishment in the U.S. seized on the Holocaust as a line of defense for the Israeli occupation. Not coincidentally, in the introduction to the book Finkelstein thanks Prof. Noam Chomsky, one of the world's most famous linguistics experts and an anti-Zionist Jewish intellectual, who has similar beliefs. Third, Finkelstein analyzes and sharply criticizes the exploitation of the Holocaust for financial profit. He singles out the author Elie Wiesel as having reaped personal benefit. But Finkelstein also assails the general Jewish campaign to restore property and/or to arrange compensation for assets stolen during the Nazi period. He views the campaign and its methods as "those of extortionist gangsters." Who was murdered? "The Jewish establishment," he tells the interviewer, "was in a rush to shake down the Swiss on the banks issue, and used pressure exerted by agencies of the American government - [saying] that if they didn't pay up, they would be boycotted in the U.S. There is an extortion racket at work here, and for this alone the extortionists should have been thrown out of public life. "They also put the pressure on to reach an agreement with Switzerland before the Volcker Committee [the international committee that investigated the dormant bank accounts] released its report, because the agreement gave them $1.25 billion, even though it later turned out - according to the Volcker Committee - that the maximum value of the dormant accounts came to a few hundred million dollars." Finkelstein even alleges that the Jewish establishment is exaggerating the numbers of survivors. "How is it possible that in 1997, when they started talking with the Swiss humanitarian fund for destitute survivors, they put the number of survivors around the world at a quarter-million, and now they're talking about close to a million?" Someone who frequently quotes his mother, both in the book and the interview, Finkelstein quotes her now, and asks, "If there are so many survivors, who exactly was murdered in the Holocaust?" Not surprisingly, Finkelstein's book has recorded notable commercial success in Germany. A public-opinion poll held by the newsweekly Der Spiegel found that 50 percent of the public "partially agrees" with the allegations made in the book, 15 percent "completely agree" with them, and only 24 percent "are opposed" to the claims. Criticism about people exploiting the Holocaust for purposes of personal publicity or monetary gain has been voiced for years, as has the somewhat coarse statement (which Finkelstein attributes to Abba Eban) that "there's no business like Shoah business." Nor is there anything new about how the Holocaust has taken on a disproportionate role in shaping the identity and agenda of the American Jewish establishment. Finkelstein's book was published only a year after Jewish-American historian Peter Novick's "The Holocaust in American Life," in which Novick aired some similar accusations, but his book was received rather warmly, even by representatives of the Jewish establishment. In the introduction to his book, Norman Finkelstein mentions Novick as having influenced his own writings. But Novick is not at all pleased to be on the receiving end of Finkelstein's bear hug. He wrote an article about Finkelstein's book for the German newspaper Die Welt, which was entitled "Hate Campaign of a Zealot." In an interview with a Polish newspaper, Novick stated that Finkelstein is distorting the facts, was anti-Zionist and "displays a paranoid belief in some sort of global conspiracy of the Jewish elites in the U.S." Perhaps as a result of Novick's harsh criticism, in the current interview Finkelstein opted not to cite Novick's contribution to his own work. Instead, Finkelstein mentioned Holocaust researcher Raul Hilberg as someone who has influenced him. Although the subject of some controversy himself, Hilberg has earned a great deal more respect in Holocaust history circles than Finkelstein. Overriding hatred Finkelstein's detractors seem to be disturbed mostly and foremost by his style. "The most conspicuous fact in the book is the hatred," says David Witztum, the Channel One journalist who was the first member of the press in Israel to interview Finkelstein. "Hatred for every establishment Jewish organization, be it the State of Israel or the Jewish establishment in the United States." "This is not research; it isn't even political literature," says Prof. Israel Guttman, formerly the chief historian of Yad Vashem. "This is a lampoon, which takes a serious subject and distorts it for improper purposes. I don't even think it should be reviewed or critiqued as a legitimate book. We should consider it nothing more than an anti-Semitic lampoon." In a similar vein, the German historian Prof. Hans Momsen called it "a most trivial book, which appeals to easily aroused anti-Semitic prejudices." As for Finkelstein's allegations themselves, opinions are divided. There are some critics who reject them out of hand. Ilan Steinberg, the executive director of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) who spearheaded the campaign to have Jewish assets restored, scorns Finkelstein's claim that the organization pocketed funds that had been intended for Holocaust survivors: "Not only is the claim itself an out-and-out lie, the source on which it is ostensibly based is distorted. Finkelstein quotes an interview with Edgar Bronfman, the president of the Congress, that appeared in the German newspaper Die Zeit. According to Finkelstein's quote, Bronfman said that from all its various campaigns, the WJC had received a sum of $7 billion. "First of all, it is unusual for an academic researcher to use a quote from a newspaper interview as a reliable source. But aside from that, he quotes him incorrectly: Bronfman has said that the public campaign on this issue yielded compensation totaling $7 billion - and that not a single penny of it was going to the WJC. If he can't even quote accurately, how is anyone supposed to take his book seriously?" Raul Teitelbaum, a member of the board of directors of the umbrella organization of Holocaust survivors in Israel, also vehemently rejects Finkelstein's claims that the WJC pocketed money that was supposed to go to the Holocaust survivors, leaving them only a few crumbs. To bolster his claim, Finkelstein once again brings up his mother's name, noting that for all her years of suffering in the Holocaust, she received only $3,500. Teitelbaum: "The Swiss banks and the other organizations who negotiated over the indemnity payments dragged out the discussions for a long time, which is why the money has not yet begun to be paid out, even though some of the agreements were signed a long time ago. So how can he talk about thievery by the Jews? "As for the money that Finkelstein's mother received, he should blame the Germans for that. In the original reparations agreement, they insisted on paying only 'members of the German culture,' and gave a German test to anyone who asked for compensation. It was only about 10 years ago, in the wake of the struggle waged by our organization in conjunction with the Jewish establishment, that they agreed to grant a small amount of compensation to the other survivors, as well. So he should be thanking the Jewish organizations for the money his mother got, and not abusing them." Teitelbaum also rejects Finkelstein's claim that the Jewish establishment extorted the Swiss. He feels the opposite is the case - that the Swiss paid much less than they should be paying: "The agreement with the Swiss banks essentially compensates the Jews only for the dormant accounts held in commercial banks in Switzerland. Nevertheless, the Swiss stipulated that their signature on the agreement absolved them of any additional payments in the future - including any compensation for the sale of gold by the Nazis to the Swiss government and the central bank, and the artworks that were stolen and found their way to Switzerland." Read Kant in Yiddish Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, took the time to write an article in Yedioth Ahronoth in response to Finkelstein's claim that he has gotten rich from his lectures about the Holocaust. Wiesel claimed that most of his lectures are not even about the Holocaust, but rather culture and literature, and that when he does lecture on the Holocaust he either waives his speaker's fee or transfers it directly to a charitable institution. The row between Finkelstein and Wiesel has deteriorated to personal mudslinging, with Finkelstein seeking to prove Wiesel's "cheating" with his written claim that he had read Kant in Yiddish in his youth. Finkelstein says Wiesel is lying, since Kant was never translated into Yiddish. Wiesel has responded by citing the exact name of the book and the publishing house, so as to prove that it is Finkelstein who is the liar. But Finkelstein is not ready to give in yet, and told Ha'aretz that he had looked into the matter and found that Kant's book "The Critique of Practical Reason" was indeed translated into Yiddish, but that his book "The Critique of Pure Reason," was not. Splitting hairs notwithstanding, some scholars are saying that even if Finkelstein's style is indeed unendurable, there is a kernel of truth behind some of his claims. Prof. Michael Brenner, who teaches Jewish history and culture at Munich University, is one. "There is a nucleus of justified claims in the book, including the stuff about the compensation issue, the lack of transparency of the Jewish organizations that are handling the matter, and the Holocaust obsession of the American Jewish establishment. Nevertheless, in order to gain a proper understanding of these claims, Novick's book was definitely enough. Finkelstein's style only makes it harder to accept these claims," says Brenner. David Witztum joins the chorus: "The book has a core, a nucleus of allegations of real substance, but I would put it this way: That which is interesting in the book is not original, and that which is original is worthless - it is a heap of distortions and facts taken out of context." Prof. Moshe Zimmerman of Hebrew University's German history department, who has himself been the target of some criticism about style, argues that Finkelstein's biggest problem is not the content of his claims, but the style in which they are written: "What is irritating about him is his caustic style and choice of words. The claims themselves, both those that attack the centrality of the Holocaust in Jewish-American identity and the compensation affair, contain at least a kernel of truth." The lone wolf Brooklyn-born Finkelstein, 48, is the third and last child of parents who survived the Holocaust. Both spent the initial war years in the Warsaw ghetto. His father, Zacharias, was subsequently sent to Auschwitz, while his mother, Maryla, went to Majdanek. After the war they met in a displaced persons camp in Austria. His parents always struggled to earn a living. Zacharias Finkelstein was a factory worker and his wife raised the children while they were young, and then worked as a bookkeeper in a bank. All their lives, they continued to yearn for the Jewish world of Warsaw from which they had been forcibly torn away. Evidently, both parents, but especially his mother, had communist leanings, although Norman Finkelstein states that they did not officially belong to any ideological movement. David Witztum is convinced that the family is the root cause of Finkelstein's hatred for the Jewish establishment and Israel. "As I see it, this book is not research. It is the cry of pain of a wounded person, and as such it is absolutely authentic." In the course of the interview, Finkelstein describes growing up in a bitter and distrustful home: "My parents didn't trust anyone else in the world - only themselves." So much so that even after they separated relatively late in life, his mother - although herself dying of cancer - cared for his father, who had Alzheimer's. "Despite the fact that they were already living separately, she wouldn't agree to have him institutionalized, and took care of him at home until the last moment. She also made us children visit him every day. She said that after everything he had gone through in his life, she wasn't going to let him die like a dog." Both parents died in 1995. As ironic and paradoxical as it may seem, Finkelstein is also sustained today by the Holocaust - or at least by the public debate over it. His academic career previously never had anything to do with the Holocaust: Finkelstein teaches political theory at Hunter College of the City University of New York, and specializes in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Prof. Benny Morris of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev claims that Finkelstein has not made any unique contributions in his field of academic expertise. "He has not published any research to date that might be called a ground-breaking contribution. Essentially, the only book he published in the field is a collection of articles he wrote over the years, which do not make any unique contribution either, except for an interesting analysis of some research studies by other scholars," says Morris. "Incidentally, in one article he also critiques my book 'Birth of the Refugee Problem,' claiming that I did not draw all of the appropriate conclusions regarding the State of Israel from the facts that I myself reveal in my book. My impression is that he is more of a pro-Palestinian propagandist than a serious scholar." Finkelstein bridles at his depiction as an anti-Zionist: "It's a superficial term. I am opposed to any state with an ethnic character, not only to Israel." Anti-Semitic label Four years ago, Finkelstein made his first appearance on the Holocaust scene. This was after the big controversy that broke out in Germany surrounding publication of "Hitler's Willing Executioners," the book by Prof. Daniel Goldhagen - another Jewish scholar whose parents are Holocaust survivors. Goldhagen alleged that the entire German people, and not only "the Nazi regime," were accomplices in the destruction of the Jews. Finkelstein wrote a caustic attack on Goldhagen (which eventually spawned an entire book), even accusing him of racism against the German people. It was Finkelstein's first taste of publicity in Germany. Finkelstein's book has made big waves elsewhere in Europe. A media debate has sprung up in connection to the book in Britain, where The Guardian published excerpts in installments. Finkelstein says that the recently released French edition was showcased in a two-page spread and editorial in Le Monde. So far, he says, the book has been or is being published in 13 languages, including Portuguese, Polish, Swedish, Danish, Romanian, Japanese, Dutch, Turkish and Arabic. At this stage, at least, no one is talking about a Hebrew translation: "The publisher doesn't have an agent in Israel, and he told me the publishing houses there have shown no interest." Israel Guttman says it is not coincidental that the book has been relatively well received in European countries. "These are the countries that are being required in recent years to pay out large sums of money as compensation for assets stolen during the Holocaust, so Finkelstein's allegations are falling on fertile ground." Finkelstein attributes the book's flop in the U.S. to a lethal book review by Israeli scholar Omer Bartov that appeared in the New York Times Book Review. "The New York Times Book Review has two dominant social functions: identifying for other book supplements which books should be reviewed, and indicating to librarians around the country which books are worth purchasing. As soon as my book was labeled as being anti-Semitic, the editors of the other book supplements and the librarians knew that it wasn't worth it for them to even get close to the book." In any event, the "Finkelstein Polemic" has made the author, originally a leftist radical, into a darling of the extreme right (which only by dint of the strict German law does not call itself by the more explicit term of "neo-Nazis"). The book was not very well received by critics in the mainstream German media. In parallel with its publication a "competing" book appeared, containing articles that counter Finkelstein's claims. How does it feel for him to be a favorite of the radical right in Germany? "At first I was very puzzled by it," says Finkelstein, "and then I realized I wasn't responsible for it. It was the actions of the Jewish establishment. You can't accuse me of encouraging anti-Semitism. I am only the messenger who reports on the actions of the Jewish establishment, actions that are encouraging anti-Semitism." Many people familiar with the subject believe that the tremendous popularity of the book in Germany derives from the fact that the "simple" German masses are fed up with apologizing for the Holocaust, and even more so for paying for it. Moshe Zimmerman, however, thinks there is no link between this sentiment and Finkelstein's popularity. "The reason his book is successful has to do with the immense sensitivity to the entire subject of the Holocaust in Germany. This helps to explain why more books about the Holocaust are sold in Germany than in any other country, Israel included. And it also explains why Goldhagen's book, which raises completely different, if not diametrically opposed, allegations, was even more popular than Finkelstein's." The book's huge success nevertheless raises questions about the policies of the Jewish establishment. Is it not responsible for some big blunders that caused the book - distorted and problematic as it may be - to be received so enthusiastically? "The Jewish establishment made a few big mistakes, not out of the malevolence that Finkelstein attributes to it, but some difficult mistakes, nonetheless," says Raul Teitelbaum. "The first mistake was to consent in the original reparations agreement to the German demand to compensate only 'members of the German culture.'" Only in Israel were other survivors compensated, through the Finance Ministry, from reparations funds that were transferred by Germany to Israel, but this was not the case elsewhere in the world. "This left the majority of Holocaust survivors living outside Israel incredibly frustrated," he adds. "Second, the establishment erred when it took the Holocaust survivors out of the negotiating picture. And third, there is a problem with the huge gap between the billions of dollars that have been bandied about in recent years and the fact that the survivors haven't yet received a thing, and when they do get something, each will receive only a small amount. This gap is the cause of frustration and generates rumors that the Jewish establishment is profiting at the expense of the survivors." But the most disturbing question has to do with the wide-scale campaign in recent years over the restoration of Jewish property in Europe. Hasn't this been a Pyrrhic victory, as some people in the know had cautioned, because of which remembrance of the Holocaust will eventually be identified with large-scale monetary demands - justified though they may be - rather than with the ethical and moral implications? Guttman, who from the outset opposed the compensation campaign, is convinced that the answer is yes: "I have no doubt that if not for the property campaign, no one would be willing to pay even half-a-cent for this book. It was a big mistake. At most, an effort should have been made to see if compensation could have been secured through quiet discussions. It shouldn't have been made into a dramatic public struggle, as if it was the ultimate redress for the Holocaust. It only reinforced the feeling that the Holocaust is simply a means of extorting money and status." Conversely, Ilan Steinberg, as one of the leaders of that struggle, is equally convinced and resolute that in spite of it all, it was a battle that had to be waged: "The philosophy of our organization is unequivocal: After the Holocaust and the wars of Israel, we will no longer be silent. We will not continue to be the silent Jews only so that others shouldn't say bad things about us. We will fight for our justice, and we will constantly remember that anti-Semitism should be blamed on anti-Semites, not on the legitimate struggles of Holocaust survivors and heirs of the victims." The father, the son and Prof. Guttman Concealed within the larger ideological drama of the conflict between Finkelstein and "the Holocaust establishment," is another, more personal drama. One of his father's closest friends was Prof. Israel Guttman, the former chief historian at Yad Vashem (in his book, Finkelstein mistakenly calls him the director of Yad Vashem), who is now one of Finkelstein Jr.'s arch-critics. Guttman and Zacharias Finkelstein met in the Warsaw Ghetto, and formed a deep friendship while being held in the Auschwitz death camp. Guttman relates that after the war they were in the same displaced persons camp in Austria, and were involved in the illegal effort to smuggle Holocaust survivors to Palestine. "We planned to immigrate together to Israel and settle on a kibbutz," he recalls. The plan went awry after Guttman was sent to Italy one day. By the time he returned to Austria, his close friend had fallen in love with a woman with a visa for the United States, and had gone with her to America. Guttman had a hard time finding forgiveness: "As an ardent Zionist, I had no contact with him for many years. I only decided to renew contact when I made my first visit to America. After that, I stayed with him whenever I visited the United States." In the course of these visits, Guttman also met Norman Finkelstein (who lived with his mother following his parents' break-up). He remembers the arguments between father and son about the father's Zionist friend. In the introduction to his book, Finkelstein mentions the relationship, without noting Guttman's name. "With bitter disappointment, my father eventually admitted that this man had also been corrupted by the Holocaust industry, selling his beliefs for power and profit." Today, the strained personal relationship between these two antagonists prevents either from publicly speaking about the complex relationship between Israel Guttman and Zacharias Finkelstein. "I've already said as much as I am going to say about it," says Norman Finkelstein. "Practically to the end of his life, my father admired Guttman as a very idealistic person, a belief that was shattered at the end of his life. Out of respect to my father's memory and his feelings for Guttman, I do not want to say any more about it." © copyright 2001 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved SHARE THIS POST:     |
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Video: On the place of civility in academic life (10.18.2007) Finkelstein's talk at the academic freedom conference Tenure Denial Letters (June - November, 2007) On How Actual Survivors Were Cheated by Jewish Organizations:
Communication for Middle East Journal. (02.19.2006) Alleged Errors in Beyond Chutzpah. (2005) MEMRI NAZIS (again) (10.23.2006)  New evidence of old lies (2005) Under the heading DIABOLICAL PLOTS, I stated in Beyond Chutzpah...    Articles and Reviews Related to The Holocaust Industry  Preface to German edition of The Rise and Fall of Palestine Postscript to German edition of The Rise and Fall of Palestine The Dershowitz File:
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