Merged General Holocaust denial discussion Part IV

[Pacal]

I have noticed that Holocaust deniers almost invariably turn out to be very anti-Israeli, which casts doubt on their claim that Holocaust denial is not anti-Semitic.

What turns out to be the case is that the great majority of Holocaust Deniers are anti-Semitic idiots even without the the anti-Israeli stuff.

Of course some of them do in fact deny that anti-Semitism has anything to do with Holocaust Denial, which is a simple lie.

Among themselves and when they are with the "like-minded" they let their hair down so to speak and the crap pours out of their mouths. Further even with the denial of anti-Semitic motivation , again and again, we see the hatred and vitriol pour out sooner or later. Just look at the past Holocaust Denial threads on this forum for massive examples of hatred and bile.

Thus we hear about the all powerful "Jew", who for purposes of conquest and filthy lucre has concocted the "lie" of the Holocaust. We hear about "their" control of media, academia etc., that enables this all powerful cabal to foist on the world the "lie" of the Holocaust. Hoilocaust Deniers all too frequently see themselves has brave fighters against an all powerful, even Satanic, foe and many do not even try to hide their adoration etc., of National Socialism and Hitler.

Holocaust Denial emerged shortly after World War II from the pens and mouths of Anti-Semites who were desiring to restore respectability to their paranoid fantasies and hate. Needless to say this didn't look very good so later Deniers have been trying in a half assed manner to hide their, the great majority of the time, real motivations. Thus Holocaust Deniers, explicitly and implicity accept the paranoid, hateful nonsense in the the infamous forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that view Jews has a sinster, evil group out by subversion and treachery to try to conquer the world and rule it through their alleged control of media, finance etc.

Thus Denier's almost always view themselves has the Sons of Light fighting the Sons of Darkness and the "Jew" is the evil "other". They view, most of the time, Holocaust Denial has part of the fight against the evil "other" that is the "Jew".

 

[dudalb]

And of course The Denirers use the old 'I am not Anti Semitic, just Anti Zionist" excuse.

 

[Susheel]

And of course The Denirers use the old 'I am not Anti Semitic, just Anti Zionist" excuse.

...and also, of course, there are those who would prefer to label any criticism of the Israeli state as anti-semitism.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

...and also, of course, there are those who would prefer to label any criticism of the Israeli state as anti-semitism.

The only time I hear this is when anti-semites are defending their anti-semitism.
I have not yet seen an examples of legitimate criticism of Israel being labelled as anti-semitism. In fact, the definition of anti-semitism specifically excludes such criticism. Do you have any examples?

 

[ferd burfle]

The only time I hear this is when anti-semites are defending their anti-semitism.
I have not yet seen an examples of legitimate criticism of Israel being labelled as anti-semitism. In fact, the definition of anti-semitism specifically excludes such criticism. Do you have any examples?

I found one quite easily

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harshly criticized the International Criminal Court prosecutor's statement on Wednesday that her office will open a formal investigation into war crimes in the Palestinian Territories, blasting the move as "the essence of antisemitism."

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...semitism/0000017f-db9c-df62-a9ff-dfdf9ccc0000

 

[Nessie]

Holocaust denial is in itself anti-Semitic, as it appeals to the tropes of manipulative, all powerful Jews, who will act together, especially when there is an opportunity to make money.

The sheer size of the hoax they allege, is something deniers ignore. If c2.5 million people were not gassed, then they saw what did happen inside the AR camps, Chelmno and A-B Kremas and yet not one single witness has ever come forward to tell the truth. That would need an incredible amount of cooperation, which appeals to the all Jews act together trope.

When asked about the Nazis, deneirs suggest they were all coerced into admitting to something they did not do, which appeals to the all powerful trope.

Then there is the issue of compensation. Ask a denier to evidence people claiming compensation for the property that had stolen at the AR camps, Chelmno and A-B. If they had not been gassed, why are there not hundreds of thousands of claims for that, since they allege it is all about money, so appealing to that trope.

 

[mikegriffith1]

It aired on the telly over here a few weeks ago, and I agree with your sentiment.

There were a few things I thought were a bit overdramatized for effect, and try as he might, Timothy Spall just reminds me too much of his other roles to make it as a convincing David Irving.

Although I ardently disagree with David Irving on many issues, especially just about everything involving Israel, I think the movie Denial is very misleading and biased. As chance would have it, I recently wrote a review of the movie, after taking almost a year to read the Irving-Lipstadt libel trial transcript and six of Irving's books. Here's my review:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tbhC8C1xvfFLsuDnoGwiPUC0aLrFsCIy/view

 

[Andy_Ross]

Although I ardently disagree with David Irving on many issues, especially just about everything involving Israel, I think the movie Denial is very misleading and biased. As chance would have it, I recently wrote a review of the movie, after taking almost a year to read the Irving-Lipstadt libel trial transcript and six of Irving's books. Here's my review:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tbhC8C1xvfFLsuDnoGwiPUC0aLrFsCIy/view

Irving is a ****.

 

[Pacal]

Irving is a ****.

I have no respect for Irving. Who is quite clearly a racist.

In a previous posting I posted this:

But for fun see John Lukas' The Hitler of History, Vintage Books, New York, 1997. On pages 26-29 & 229-232. At p. 229-230 Lukas says:

Few reviewers and critics of Irving's books including professional historians, have bothered to examine them carefully enough. Had they done so, they would have found that many of Irving's references and quotations are not verifiable. In his Hitler's War, for example there are many errata in names and dates; more important, unverifiable and unconvincing assertions abound.

And Lukas gives examples in the main text and footnotes: At page 230 we read:

Thus Hitler, in Irving's breathless prose, "evidently made some promise about the Jews" (there is no evidence); General Schorner in April 1945 fought "a convincing victory" (it was not a victory, and it convinced no one);...

And so on and on. And on page 231 we learn in the footnote that Hitler's War, "...has many references to 'Hungarian archives in Budapest' without dates, places, or file or page numbers."

David Irving helped make his living by appearing at Holcaust Denial events and confrences over and over again and made repeated comments about Holocaust survivors being liars.

Even before David Irving got involved with Denial bull he was not a good historian. And bluntly David Irving has had and still has a very bad case of shock the middle classes.

 

[Susheel]

The only time I hear this is when anti-semites are defending their anti-semitism.
I have not yet seen an examples of legitimate criticism of Israel being labelled as anti-semitism. In fact, the definition of anti-semitism specifically excludes such criticism. Do you have any examples?

That's funny.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

I found one quite easily



https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...semitism/0000017f-db9c-df62-a9ff-dfdf9ccc0000

That one's behind a paywall, but there's more detail here.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-an-icc-investigation-of-israel-would-be-pure-anti-semitism/
Now, Netanyahu was a nightmare, and a major obstacle to any kind of resolution in the Middle East, but his full remarks are worth reading:

'When the ICC investigates Israel for fake war crimes, this is pure anti-Semitism'.
He further asserted that the ICC is “outrageously” claiming “that when Jews live in our homeland, this is a war crime” — a reference to the court potentially probing Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank.

And, he added, “it claims that when democratic Israel defends itself against terrorists who murder our children, rocket our cities, we’re committing another war crime.”

The definition of anti-semitism includes the idea that holding Israel to a different standard from other countries is anti-semitic. Self-defence is the right of any country, and Israeli retaliation against attacks from the Palestinian Arabs, albeit heavy-handed, is just that: self-defence.
Palestinian Arab allegations of Israeli war crimes are sometimes justified, but they also engage in a great deal of grandstanding, and I think this appeal to the ICC could be considered to be part of that.
So, not, I don't think that's a clear example at all, even one coming from a scumbag like Netanyahu.

 

[mikegriffith1]

I have no respect for Irving. Who is quite clearly a racist.

In a previous posting I posted this:

David Irving helped make his living by appearing at Holcaust Denial events and confrences over and over again and made repeated comments about Holocaust survivors being liars.

Even before David Irving got involved with Denial bull he was not a good historian. And bluntly David Irving has had and still has a very bad case of shock the middle classes.

I'm guessing you didn't read my review of Denial.

You should read the Irving-Lipstadt libel trial transcript. Irving's scholarship held up extremely well under the most withering, exhaustive scrutiny that money could buy. Out of the 20-some alleged instances of distortion/error that Lipstadt's experts claimed to have found in Irving's writings, Judge Gray rejected over half of them as invalid, i.e., he concluded they were not errant or misleading.

As for your comments about Irving's public statements at events/conferences, at several such events he has challenged extreme revisionists over their Holocaust denialism and has confronted them with documentary evidence that up to 4 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Irving's critics have done some very dishonest editing of some of Irving's public appearances, so we need to be careful about relying on clips of those appearances and make sure they haven't been deceptively edited, as I discuss in my review.

I agree with you about Irving's comments regarding Holocaust survivors, and I criticize him for this in my review. The problem is that some Holocaust survivors have clearly fabricated their stories, and even some Israeli scholars have acknowledged this. But on some occasions Irving has gone too far by condemning all Holocaust survivors as liars. As my review makes clear, I cut him no slack on this issue. That being said, Irving's views on survivors have softened over the years as he has become aware of information that confirms many of their accounts.

As for his being a racist, this is murky, complex territory. There are racists and there are racists. Winston Churchill was patently, ardently racist, and had no qualms about ordering or approving violence against minorities in some cases. By today's standards, Abraham Lincoln was a racist, even in his later years, but he was not nearly as strident or virulent as Churchill was about it. We now know that JFK, RFK, and LBJ held views about blacks, and made private statements about them, that would definitely qualify as racist today. I would call Irving a mild racist. I don't think he would ever condone violence against minorities, much less order it. Also, Irving hired several people of color to work for him for many years, which is not something a staunch, hateful racist will usually do.

 

[dudalb]

The only time I hear this is when anti-semites are defending their anti-semitism.
I have not yet seen an examples of legitimate criticism of Israel being labelled as anti-semitism. In fact, the definition of anti-semitism specifically excludes such criticism. Do you have any examples?

Depends on definitions. I think calling or the "destruction of the Zionist Entity "
is sort of defacto Anti Semitism; since that would involve such massive killing of Jews as to be sort of indistinguishable.
I have yet to see anybody advocating the end of Israel give a good solid explanation of what would happen to the Five Million Jews living in Israel, except for ritualistic chanting of the magic words "Secular Palestnian State" which has about as much chance of happening as a snowball in hell.
And, yes, Virginia, I think a lot of Israeli policies toward the occurpied territories are incredibly dumb and stupid.

 

[dudalb]

I'm guessing you didn't read my review of Denial.

You should read the Irving-Lipstadt libel trial transcript. Irving's scholarship held up extremely well under the most withering, exhaustive scrutiny that money could buy. Out of the 20-some alleged instances of distortion/error that Lipstadt's experts claimed to have found in Irving's writings, Judge Gray rejected over half of them as invalid, i.e., he concluded they were not errant or misleading.

As for your comments about Irving's public statements at events/conferences, at several such events he has challenged extreme revisionists over their Holocaust denialism and has confronted them with documentary evidence that up to 4 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Irving's critics have done some very dishonest editing of some of Irving's public appearances, so we need to be careful about relying on clips of those appearances and make sure they haven't been deceptively edited, as I discuss in my review.

I agree with you about Irving's comments regarding Holocaust survivors, and I criticize him for this in my review. The problem is that some Holocaust survivors have clearly fabricated their stories, and even some Israeli scholars have acknowledged this. But on some occasions Irving has gone too far by condemning all Holocaust survivors as liars. As my review makes clear, I cut him no slack on this issue. That being said, Irving's views on survivors have softened over the years as he has become aware of information that confirms many of their accounts.

As for his being a racist, this is murky, complex territory. There are racists and there are racists. Winston Churchill was patently, ardently racist, and had no qualms about ordering or approving violence against minorities in some cases. By today's standards, Abraham Lincoln was a racist, even in his later years, but he was not nearly as strident or virulent as Churchill was about it. We now know that JFK, RFK, and LBJ held views about blacks, and made private statements about them, that would definitely qualify as racist today. I would call Irving a mild racist. I don't think he would ever condone violence against minorities, much less order it. Also, Irving hired several people of color to work for him for many years, which is not something a staunch, hateful racist will usually do.

Your attempt at a "reasonable defense" of Irving as a historian is a huge fail.
The man is an antisemite and a Hitler Hugger, period.
I don't see why you attempt this, except I you seem to think that because he is on the political right, Irving can't be as bad as the "rogressives" say.

 

[ferd burfle]

That one's behind a paywall, but there's more detail here.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-an-icc-investigation-of-israel-would-be-pure-anti-semitism/
Now, Netanyahu was a nightmare, and a major obstacle to any kind of resolution in the Middle East, but his full remarks are worth reading:


The definition of anti-semitism includes the idea that holding Israel to a different standard from other countries is anti-semitic. Self-defence is the right of any country, and Israeli retaliation against attacks from the Palestinian Arabs, albeit heavy-handed, is just that: self-defence.
Palestinian Arab allegations of Israeli war crimes are sometimes justified, but they also engage in a great deal of grandstanding, and I think this appeal to the ICC could be considered to be part of that.
So, not, I don't think that's a clear example at all, even one coming from a scumbag like Netanyahu.

I had to be sure of my understanding of the term so I looked and found two dictionaries and Wiki defined it as predjudice or bigotry against Jews/Judaism and no mention of the state of Israel. So while I don't accept your broader definition, I very much agree with your take on Netanyahu.

Cheers

 

[Cosmic Yak]

I had to be sure of my understanding of the term so I looked and found two dictionaries and Wiki defined it as predjudice or bigotry against Jews/Judaism and no mention of the state of Israel. So while I don't accept your broader definition, I very much agree with your take on Netanyahu.

Cheers

There are better definitions than those in the dictionary.
One of the internationally accepted definitions was drafted by the IHRA.

It contains the following:

Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.

Included in the definition are these examples:

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.

It was these that I had in mind.

 

[EtienneSC]

I don't think anyone has ever really claimed 3 million died instead of 5-6 million, there's really no middle ground. The deniers who 'accept' more mass shootings and ghetto deaths but deny gassing tend to come in under 2 million.

David Cole of Taki's Magazine seems to think around 3 million died (give or take half a million). He adds around 1.5 million Aktion Reinhard deaths, relying on the Korherr report for numbers and Himmler's Posen and Sondhoven speeches, to the deaths in camps and some shootings, but "denies" Auschwitz and Maijdanek. He claims a few others of the old IHR agree with him.

 

[Nick Terry]

David Cole of Taki's Magazine seems to think around 3 million died (give or take half a million). He adds around 1.5 million Aktion Reinhard deaths, relying on the Korherr report for numbers and Himmler's Posen and Sondhoven speeches, to the deaths in camps and some shootings, but "denies" Auschwitz and Maijdanek. He claims a few others of the old IHR agree with him.

Cole and Irving are basically the only ones who deny Auschwitz while accepting the Reinhard camps, which will strike both hardline deniers as well as normal people as weird, given how well evidenced Auschwitz is (despite denier attempts to pretend otherwise).

 

[Hercules56]

And of course The Denirers use the old 'I am not Anti Semitic, just Anti Zionist" excuse.

Actually there are some Holocaust Deniers who argue that the Jews were in fact a collective enemy of Germany and the world, as they were a collective Communist entity.

The old "Judea declares war on Germany" trope is frequently spewed.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Timothy Spall just reminds me too much of his other roles to make it as a convincing David Irving.

"Hey look! It's that Mikado guy, Sir Winston Pettigrew!"