Reply #86: Regarding

[Jefferson23]

this statement: The *main* fomenters? Not just that they could help to foment antisemitism, but that they are the main cause today? And this idea that it all stems from 'power' and sense of 'superiority' seems rather nasty.

An excerpt is not going to give you much context, and the Jewish organizations he exposed were elites, and had the illusion
of legitimacy and trust. The main fomenter of anti-semitism as he sees it imo, is the result of their nefarious enterprise, the pretense they were acting sincerely on behalf of the survivors and how many. They most certainly were arrogant and imo, self serving and with a sense of superiority. When you couple their behavior(caught red handed) with the stereotypical bigotry already assigned to Jews this unfortunately can fuel further bigotry. You may not agree on the emphasis of "most", but I would think you appreciate his point at the causation.

I don't think he is misguided here, and this is one reason he had serious concerns about the book, how some would abuse it, but to ignore it and pretend it was of minor significance would be wrong. His findings go much deeper than the excerpts you read, to deny that the Holocaust has been politicized by various groups and political leaders would be a mistake. Looking at who benefits is important.

I always find it remarkable that there is more suspicion leveled at Finkelstein than those he exposed because he documents with such precision, his outward style of unpleasantness is irrelevant. What he exposed was not a minor matter, not at all. Even today I occasionally see one of the men responsible held in high regard on this forum, they likely do not know or perhaps do not accept the findings.



Professor Raul Hilberg on Slave Laborers and Swiss Banks

Interview with Mr. Raul Hilberg, April 22, 2002

At the University of Vermont, Robert Hull Fleming Museum
"The Landscape of Loss" Photo Exhibit by Jeff Gusky
Burlington, Vermont

Interview conducted by David Ridgen
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

RIDGEN: So Mr. Hilberg, we've spoken before on the phone, at length about various issues pertaining to the numbers of survivors after the Holocaust and the term, the definition of survivors is a little bit difficult, depending on who you talk to. What's your definition of survivor and what have your findings suggested with regards the numbers of survivors at the end of the war, with regards to slave laborers and concentration camps?

HILBERG: I myself can offer several definitions of the term, depending upon the purpose of the question. If it is an assessment of all the Jews who remained alive at the end of the war and had been under German domination, the number is close to a million, because one would have to include Bulgarian Jews, Romanian Jews and so on. On the other hand, if the question is how many survived in hiding, or else as laborers, or concentration camps, then the number is much, much smaller. If it is narrowed down to the question of how many performed slave labor, then that number is well under 100,000, so great was the attrition, especially at the end of the war with lack of food and severe conditions in the camps.

RIDGEN: Okay, how do your figures compare with the numbers used in gaining restitution, or obtaining money from European governments by the World Jewish Congress and the Jewish Claims Conference?

HILBERG: According to the testimony that I've read, sworn testimony before the Congress of the United States, the working figure was 240,000 roughly, May 1945, with the assumption that one half of that number would still be alive now, aggregating 120,000. To me this is a number from the thin air.

RIDGEN: And, I'm sorry, if you can repeat the answer, and whose testimony was it?

HILBERG: This was testimony by a number of people including Stu Eizenstat who was a very high-ranking member of the United States government, authorized and directed to pursue negotiations with the German government for payment to these people for the work that they had done. Again I have to emphasize that the number he used must have been given to him by people who had no basis for the statistics they offered.

RIDGEN: And what's the upshot of that, what's the implication?

HILBERG: The implication is that the number is much too high, and that particularly in a matter of the Swiss claims, which were pursued by lawyers in the World Jewish Congress against banks in Switzerland, the problem is that there aren't enough bank accounts to justify the billion, 250 million that the Swiss banks paid. And the balance, which presumably would go to those who performed slave labor for companies that had deposits in Switzerland, would be not nearly as great, as assumed in all of these calculations. So there's a Swiss overpayment and there is from German sources an overpayment, not in the dollars per person, but in the number of persons that are assumed to be eligible for that payment.

http://normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=50


You: Note that this is *not* a conversation with an American or Israeli interviewer, pointing out the case for the other side. It's a conversation with a Lebanese interviewer, promoting hawkishness over dovishness. and frankly to me reminiscent of the Israeli hawks who criticize Israeli governments for 'appeasement' and not being sufficiently tough.


I fail to see this is indicative of a hawk, but as I said earlier, he is no pacifist. He is speaking respectfully to the very real
choices and the consequences of their decisons..what they are faced with. The alternatives are to lay down and submit or not, it is
a choice. I would ask you to consider the writings of Ghandi on these matters, I think you might be very surprised at what you find.

Of course even Ghandi may not measure up to the label of liberal for some upon close examination of his beliefs/positions regarding
submission in certain situations.

Your statement: The reason for this, is that I think that the political right wing is causing a lot of problems in the world.

The point I was trying to express and used the example with Albright's, labels can be quite unreliable...politics carries many contradictions.