Jabotinsky planned Hitler assassination in 1939

from Ynet: Jabotinsky had Hitler in crosshairs:

In December 1939, four months after the beginning of World War II, Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky paid a visit to a retired 61-year-old British colonel.

The colonel, Richard Henry Meinertzhagen, served as an advisor at the War Office in London and knew Jabotinsky from his service in the British army in the Land of Israel after the Ottoman era in 1918.

The colonel documented his conversation with the Zionist leader in his private diary, which was published in London in 1959 as a book titled, "Middle East Diary, 1917-1956." Here is a short segment from the conversation:


Jabotinsky: I have brought a plan to bomb Hitler and the entire Nazi leadership.

Meinertzhagen: An ambitious plot.

Jabotinsky: An attainable one.

Meinertzhagen: Do elaborate.

Jabotinsky: A number of high-ranking Nazis in Munich must be assassinated. Their funeral will require the arrival of their senior comrades, including Hitler. Bombs containing 100 kilograms of explosives will be concealed in one of the coffins. As all the Nazis gather around the grave, 100 kilograms of bombs will explode and they'll all move on to the next world.

Meinertzhagen: Who will activatethe bomb system?

Jabotinsky: The Jewish gravedigger in Munich. He's a friend of mine.


The colonel, who was impressed by the plan, presented it to the Foreign Office in London. He concluded this chapter in one short line in his diary: The Foreign Office frowned and the Nazis were saved.

Ron Paul Forum: "Netanyahu behind Obama birth rumors"

Ron Paul's official 2008 presidential campaign forum, which is still operating, has picked up a bizarre conspiracy theory from the Iranian regime's English language TV station Press TV. (Read here.) Senior forum members now blame Bibi Netanyahu for the whole "birther" phenomenon, claiming that he is running a covert disinformation op through AIPAC and that Orly Taitz is in its employ. (Evidence, a la Press TV: "just after this fake birth certificate came out, she [Taitz] pops up in Tel Aviv two days later." The source? PressTV's sole source for this story is conspiracy theorist Wayne Madsen. Read here and here. First link has died; try this one instead.)

Yup. That sounds like grist for Ron Paul's mill.

Hey, wait a minute! Aren't these the same people who were advocating the whole birther thing yesterday? Yes, but that was yesterday.

You can read the thread at the Ron Paul Forum here: Netanyahu behind Obama birth Rumors: Report (cached version here)

The thread was started by a Senior Member of the forum (1,948 posts) who calls himself RonPaulFanInGA and whose avatar looks a great deal like Wolf Blitzer. I love the first response the post of the Press TV link got:

"One thing the progressives know how to do very well is to use scare tactics, and point the people to a 'external enemy'."

OK. Who are "the progressives" in this story and who is the "external enemy"? Do these conspiracy nuts get some kind of road map or flow chart when they sign up at the Ron Paul Forum? To the uninitiated it seems just a bit, well, incoherent, ineffable, farmisht, farblondzhet, farfolen, mishuga, "unusual", "obscure" and hallucinatory.

Further explanations of the conspiracy lead deeper into a well of confusion so deep even Yiddish words for fuzzy thinking fail me. They claim that the plot had, as its goal, the replacement of the purportedly anti-Israel Obama with the pro-Israel Biden.

A post by a very senior member of the forum (3,834 posts) named "max" has found a way to both embrace this conspiracy and maintain his god-given right to be a madman, I mean birther (read here):

"I am a proud birther, and I want the truth exposed....but not for the same reasons as certain Zionists do...

"Having just learned that Orly Taitz is a Zionist, I now see that the BC issue is a neo-con op....just as Monica Lewinsky scandal was...

"Consider that Taitz is a Zionist, Phil Berg is a Zionist, Alan Keyes is a neo-con, Lou Dobbs is a warmonger, and Joe Farah at World Net Daily is a fanatic Christian Zionist...and that certain elements in MSM are leaking stuff....and the pattern is clear.

"The Zionists want Obama to hit Iran, but Obama and his Trilateralist handlers are focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan and are willing to deal with Iran.

"The game here is to expose the Birth issue just enough that Obama will need a distraction and give in to an Iranian war. THEN...and only then, will the birther issue go away."

Where else could intrepid conspiracy buffs both embrace the truth of a conspiracy theory and claim at the same time that it is disinformation connected to a covert push for war? Thanks Ron Paul for providing such a useful forum!

UPDATE: August 15, 2009 10:45 pm

Some weird paranoia on the Ron Paul Forum concerning yours truly. Two Senior Members of the forum are convinced that a) I'm some sort of Israeli agent and b) I'm secretly a member of their forum. Here's what they're saying:

#31 Today, 06:30 PM

revolutionisnow Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 559

Quote: Originally Posted by Sandra Does this blog belong to anyone here? Or is he just wanting attention. http://h ttp://adamholland.blogspot....ind-obama.html Judging from the rest of the content on his site he looks to be a megaphone user h ttp://adamholland.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&updated-max=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=50

#32 Today, 07:59 PM

Sandra Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana Posts: 4,807

I just stumbled across it on a search. Hi, Mr Holland. What's your sockpuppet moniker? We know you're here. Last edited by Sandra; Today at 08:02 PM.

#32

Senior forum member "revolutionisnow" says:

"Judging from the rest of the content on his site he looks to be a megaphone user

http://adamholland.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&updated-max=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=50"

Senior forum member "Sandra" replies:

"I just stumbled across it on a search.

Hi, Mr Holland. What's your sockpuppet moniker? We know you're here."

I didn't know what the "megaphone" referred to, so, of course, I googled it. Wikipedia says it's a tool to facilitate response to negative news stories and blog posts about Israel. Googling megaphone + "ron paul" led me to an article on the Prison Planet website, which I believe is associated with conspiracy theory entrepreneur Alex Jones. The argument that the Prison Planet article puts forward, that an Israeli disinformation campaign is behind negative stories about Ron Paul, is so paranoid and ridiculous that its a perfect encapsulation of the ronpaulian, John Birch Society, mindset. Do these people really believe that the Israeli government, with all their concerns, devotes resources to monitoring the activities of the Ron Paul Forum? I think not.

Sorry to disappoint them, but I am not now, nor have I ever been, a "megaphone" user or associated with any such group. The proof that "revolutionisnow" offers of my participation in the megaphone program is a link to my blog for the month of January 2008. I guess I should feel complemented that he feels that my solo efforts are the result of some computerized Zionist conspiracy (but, on the other hand, look at the source). The belief that a Jew and a supporter of Israel would automatically be part of a conspiracy is so obviously false and offensive that I am not surprised he has it.

With respect to senior Ron Paul Forum member Sandra's comment that I am covertly a member of their forum: that is equally paranoid and absurd. What on earth would lead a sane person to such a conclusion?

Never mind...

UPDATE: August 16, 2009 8:30 pm

A Ron Paul Forum Senior Member called "devil21" has chimed in, saying:

"I guess he expects us to believe that he just happened to come across some obscure thread on a forum with hundreds of thousands of posts that just happened to be blog worthy."

I seem to remember that google was how they found my website, but somehow, when they're discovered, it can only be through the use of some nefarious, Zionist superpower. Of course, "devil21" has a history of brilliant ideas about the evils of Israel. For one, he believes that the Mossad was behind the Mumbai massacre. (Read here.) After accusing a fellow forum member of using the "megaphone" application (I see a pattern developing) he writes:

"Here's something to chew on. Why has there been tons upon tons of "news articles" focusing on the....what...5(?)...Jews killed in Mumbai? Nevermind the other few HUNDRED goyim that died right? Was Mossad involved?"

Nice crowd at the Ron Paul Forum.

*McKinney on hate radio again

I recently wrote about former U.S. Representative and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney having been interviewed on a radio program largely devoted to hate speech against Jews. (Read here.) That interview, conducted by someone calling himself "Ognir", included an allegation that Rahm Emanuel, who was described as being of "Jew nationality and Jew loyalties", actually controlled President Obama on behalf of an international "Zionist" conspiracy. During the interview, "Zionists" were also blamed for promoting illegal drugs, medical marijuana and homosexual marriage in order to weaken American society and make it more malleable to their evil designs. McKinney cheerfully allowed her host to make these claims without disagreeing, responding only with her allegations that "Zionist" spies had infiltrated her campaign for congress (comparing herself to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King in the process) and agreeing with the host, at great length, that "Zionists" control the president and congress. McKinney enjoyed this hourlong interview so much, she returned for a second one.

To get further insight into the character of that program, read the post I wrote about it. It includes extensive quotes. That program is done by a group associated with a website called InfoUnderground. You can see for yourself who they are by reading their forum here. The member with the "Deathflag" website -- the one sometimes featuring a death's head banner, sometimes a mushroom cloud -- posted some hate-filled comments on this blog, all the while protesting that he's an "anti-racist". After a forum member named "Shiksa Rage" posted that she "bet dollars to doughnuts that this guy is one of the Self Chosen masquerading under a WASPish name", InfoUnderground conducted an investigation into whether my name been changed to hide a Jewish identity. That's here. One of them went so far as to search a website called avotaynu.com and found 20 Jewish names related to "Holland". Who knew? Based on that, I was found out as a "Zionist agent". Read here. I thought it was the Star of David hood ornament on my Aston Martin that gave me away.

Now McKinney has done several more interviews on another racist radio show with far-right links -- this time with a better-known, and much more widely read, internet hate monger called Daryl Bradford Smith. You can read an archived version of his website's homepage here: Zionism Research - The French Connection - Fighting Criminal Zionism. (Has McKinney read it? How did she find these people?) This webpage, on which recordings of the programs featuring McKinney can be found, features a banner headline endorsing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It reads:

The Protocols are sometimes criticized as containing nothing that had not been said previously by philosophers or statesmen; but even if that were true, it would detract little from their interest. For their importance does not lie in the aim, world domination, nor in the theory by which it is attained, exploitation of man's baser instincts, but in the extraordinary astuteness with which the practical application of the plan has been suited to existing conditions.

Smith's homepage links to other pages on his website devoted to the works of infamous bigots such as Charles Coughlin, Denis Fahey, Nesta Webster, and Douglas Reed. The page devoted to Fahey deals with what Smith calls the "Judeo-Bolshevist plot against Christianity". (Read here.) In fact, the vast majority of the authors published by Smith on his website come from the extreme far-right of the political spectrum, and promote, as did the Nazis, the view that communism was a Jewish conspiracy. However, Smith's website also promotes the Stalinist Doctors' Plot myth. It seems that Smith is happy to cross ideological lines and promote myths of czarist, fascist or Stalinist origin, so long as they support his anti-Jewish agenda. Now he's interviewed Cynthia McKinney and added her socialism of fools to the mix.

The mp3 of a June 16 interview posted on Smith's website starts with McKinney waiting on the line as Smith gives a disjointed, grammar-defying introduction to a hate-fest.

"How (is it that) organizations affiliated with a single group of people -- this is important stuff -- we have to define terms. The people we'll be discussing tonight, have, in my view and in the view of research, been involved in activities that are against the republic of the United States and, in many instances, of the world at large. Now they -- many of them -- come from the Jewish community -- not all of them. And many of them are declared Jews -- not all of them. The conspiracy itself -- at the top -- is predominantly a Zionist political ideology. It is important to make these distinction because all Jews are not involved in this . . . The people that are doing this are powerful enough to silence the world's press . . ."

Having thus clarified that he and McKinney will discuss an powerful, international Jewish conspiracy in which not all Jews are culpable, Smith gives the bill of particulars of the crimes of this imaginary conspiracy (i.e. the "crimes against the republic ... and the world"): the Lavon Affair, the U.S.S. Liberty attack, 9/11, and the campaign against McKinney's reelection to congress.

With that, Smith asks McKinney's impressions of the wonderful hospitality she encountered in Gaza. McKinney replies that "has to make a correction". By this she doesn't refer to her host's conspiracy theories connecting Jews to 9/11 or any of the rest of it. She just let's him know that she never actually made it to Gaza.

Smith goes on to compare Israel's accidental attack on the U.S.S. Liberty in 1967 to the interception of a boat on which McKinney attempted to travel from Cyprus to Gaza as part of a propaganda campaign against Israel's blockade. McKinney alleges that the Israelis and the international news media lied about what happened. She goes on to agree with Smith's comparison of her attempted Gaza voyage to the Liberty incident, claiming that the Liberty attack was deliberate and that Israel lied about it.

"The Israelis will lie to cover up an action they carry out which they deem to be in their national interest. It's nothing new . . . The case of the U.S.S. Liberty -- the Israelis were murdering people in Egypt. So they were afraid there were going to be some witnesses to the murder . . . The leaders of Israel have, for the most part, been war criminals."

Smith replies by blaming this on an attitude of Israeli superiority based on a belief that they are "God's chosen people", a biblical phrase which clearly refers not to Israelis, but to Jews in general. (Note: this English translation of a biblical phrase clearly does not refer to a political doctrine of superiority, but to a religious belief connecting Jews to God. I have literally never heard this phrase used in support of Zionism, only against it.)

At this point in his exchange with McKinney, Smith unloads a string of conspiracy theories which may set the record for the most attempts to blame Jews for 9/11 in the least amount of time. McKinney's response is instructive.

Smith: "Mr. (Ron) Lauder -- he donated lots of money for the founding of the Mossad University in Herzliya -- a very important spy center. He was also very important in getting the head of the Port Authority, Lewis Eisenberg, to make the sale to Mr. Lowy and Mr. Silverstein. What about the collusion between these groups? But it doesn't stop there. It goes on to a companies that are watching our airports in Boston and Newark, named ICTS Company International (and) owned by former Mossad active spies -- by the children of the founder of Mossad -- a woman . . . It goes on to Daniel Lewin, Jules Carl (?), and Jerome Hauer, Indigo Systems, and Goldman Sachs making money on it. In other words, we can go down the list of one thing after another. Mohamed Atta -- his apartment in Florida -- both sides had Israelis living in it. The moving company with bombs inside its vans. How about the three Israelis who go back to Israel -- the dancing Israelis -- that they were there to document the event. How did they know that there would be an event to document? And go on and on and on -- and we find people like Dov Zakeheim, a Chabad Lubavitch rabbi, and Ari Fleischer, and Faith Wurmser (Douglas Feith and David Wurmser?). All of these people are actually a fifth column that has invaded our control structure of our government. And they are involved in strong-arming Congress, and they are in complete control of the Executive Branch. Now, how do we get this kind of crime gang from unclenching from their control?"

McKinney: "Well... people have to stand up! One of the things you said -- I do have to say -- I heard an extraordinary (speech) given by Lord Levy, who is, I believe, in the U.K. House of Lords. And the language that he used was absolutely incredible! Basically he said that only 3% of the Israeli people voted for peace and . . . he called Israel an indefensible state . . . Being in the United States, we don't hear that kind of talk at all. It was a Jewish member of the House of Lords who was saying this."

This follows McKinney's pattern of allowing her interviewers make extremist, bigoted comments for her. She then offers her tacit agreement, saying nothing to correct the record. Instead, she launches into an attack on Israel and finds a Jewish ally for her attack. As the comments to this blog have proven, this is good enough for her supporters to defend her from charges of anti-Semitism, and to argue that she does not claim that Israel was behind 9/11. As should be clear by the above exchange, she gives precisely those views her support with her response to Smith's outrageous charges. If she disagreed with him, she would have said so. Anyone with knowledge of the facts and an ounce of decency would have responded by telling Smith exactly what he is.

A litte background

In case you haven't been following McKinney's career of late, she's become a professional anti-Zionist, travelling the world to attend several conferences sponsored by the foundation led by Malaysia's former Prime Minister Mahathir. Mahathir has been spreading some money around to burnish his claims to be a leader of an international anti-Zionist movement: sponsoring several conferences and funding anti-Israel groups. He has also made a point of very publicly linking himself to Ahmadinejad and the Iranian dictatorship. Considering that Mahathir, his chief advisor Matthias Chang and Cynthia McKinney (like Ahmadinejad) all promote anti-Zionism as a form of anti-globalization, maybe I should refer to their ideology as the anti-globalization of fools.

Speaking of Ahmadinejad and Iran, on the night that much of the world were glued to news channels watching the power of the Iranian people risking their lives to voice their outrage at having their votes stolen, viewers of Iran's English-language propaganda channel, Press TV, were treated to several hours of Cynthia McKinney hosting a talk show on racism and the failure of democracy in Obama's America. (Read here . Video of program here.) The timing of that pathetic spectacle does not seem at all coincidental.

McKinney broadcasting on Press TV the night of Iran's elections

Also in June, McKinney announced her founding a political party seemingly modeled after one founded in the U.K. by George Galloway. (Read here or here.) Galloway's was called "Respect"; McKinney's is called "Dignity". Galloway and McKinney have much in common. Galloway, like McKinney, went from serving as a legislator with a major party, to a career devoted to endless self-promotion on the political fringes. Like Galloway before her, McKinney seeks to bring together an anti-Israel coalition of the far-left and Muslim communities. Like Galloway, she appears ready to do business with those who oppose democratic values in their own countries while decrying Israel and the U.S. as undemocratic.

Armed with mailing lists most fringe politicians would envy, McKinney is hoping to draw supporters for her party from the anti-Zionist far-left and far-right and to build a sort of coalition of extremes. Remember that she raised a lot of money for her failed congressional bid in 2006, largely based on anti-Israel fundraising. That built up her mailing list considerably. She presumably has the mailing lists from the several "9/11 truth" groups she' s led. Having been the 2008 Green Party presidential candidate, she must have their mailing list as well. For that reason alone, however absurd her statements and her affiliations are, she is still worth watching. She seems intent on maintaining her position as the United States' most vocal opponent of Israel. As odd and apparently self-destructive as her decision to work with the far-right appears, it may be part of a deliberate strategy to attract attention. She may be banking on the idea that there's no such thing as bad anti-Israel publicity.

As for Daryl Bradford Smith, he has had extensive connections with the Holocaust-denial publication American Free Press, although he appears to have burned his bridges with them by claiming that they too are somehow part of the international "Zionist" conspiracy. (Read here.) In response, some of his former friends have claimed that he is a "Zionist agent", a crypto-Jew or even a"Talmudist". (Read here and here and here and here and here and here.) Like many in the U.S. neo-fascist far-right, Smith spends as much time fighting fellow fascists as he does Jews and other supposed enemies.

My previous posts about McKinney's affiliations with the far-right are available here. Harry's Place covered this story here, the anti-conspiracy theory website Screw Loose Change here, JTA covered it here, Little Green Footballs here and History News Network reposted my one of my posts on McKinney here.

And while I'm on the subject of McKinney's supporters on the extreme right, there's this odd fellow.

The following links go straight to mp3's of McKinney's interviews posted on Smith's website. The first of these interviews, done on June 16, is available here. The second, done June 17, is here. The third, done on June 24, is here. A fourth, done on June 25, is here. I intend to continue digesting these interviews in the upcoming days in order to to continue to put McKinney's ties to the far-right on the record. Stay tuned.

As always, if anyone wishes to correct any factual errors in this or any other post, feel free to post a comment. Also feel free to offer your opinions. I am debating whether to allow the sort of hostile invective previous posts about McKinney have elicited from her supporters, including gross obscenities, bigotry, misogyny, and threats of and allusions to acts of violence. While it's useful to see exactly who is supporting McKinney, I hate to expose readers to that sort of material. McKinney supporters: when commenting, remember that readers are judging your views by how you choose to express yourself.

UPDATE: Is Ron Paul's son Rand Paul, candidate for U.S. Senate from Kentucky, really a Facebook friend of McKinney? Search her name here.

Shimon Peres on Zionism, the "one-state solution", and hope

Jeffrey Goldberg's interview with Shimon Peres is well worth reading for a number of reasons. Here are three excerpts:


from Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic: Shimon Peres on Iran: Overreaction Is Better Than Underreaction

Zionism started, in fact, at the Dreyfus trial, 100 years ago. And in the Dreyfus trial you had Herzl as a journalist. You had two different reactions to Dreyfus. Jewish journalists asked questions: "Why is that? Why are they hating the Jewish people? What are the reasons?" And there were two different answers: One is, the world is wrong, the other is the Jews are wrong. The ones that say the world was wrong became Communists or revolutionaries. They said, we have to change the world to one without nations, without classes, without religion. They say if there won't be those differences, the Jews won't be different. The others said: "There's not a chance to change to the world. The right thing we have to do is change ourselves." They became Zionists. Let's go back to our land, let's return to our history. Let's go to normalcy. And this is the real lessons of Jewish history in the last 100 years.

In connection with this blog, I spend far too much time reading the sort of anti-Israel propaganda that conflates Zionism (frequently a code-word for Jews) with a variety of real or imagined ideologies or interests which share a common feature: a desire for a one-world government. (Is Zionism the only national movement condemned for being excessively nationalist and anti-nationalist?) As Peres so clearly articulates, Zionism at its core is really an ideological opposite to radical anti-nationalism.

With respect to the so-called "one-state solution" being pushed on the left by Tony Judt, Rashid Khalidi and others, Peres points out that the name is misleading:

There is not a one-state solution; there is only one-state conflict instead of two-people conflict. Look, you have a conflict in Iraq; it's one state. You have a conflict in Lebanon; it's one state. You have a conflict in Sudan; it's one state. Who says that one state puts an end to the conflict? On the contrary, it makes it more dangerous. You have one state in Pakistan. You have one state in Afghanistan.

On his hopes for the future, Peres says:

You know, there is an Arab poet that I admire very much, Nizar Qabbani. He said, "The time has come for the Arabs to get rid of the yoke of imperialism. Thousands of years we live under the imperialism of words. We are victims of our words." So I wouldn't understand the Arab position by words alone. So I think, to be fair, I wouldn't judge everything said as though it is everything they think. I think many of them are sick and tired of war, of backwardness, of stagnation. I think there is a young generation, that watches television -- even their television -- and they see there is a different world.

You know, today, we have in Israel close to 1.1 million Arab citizens. Sixty thousand of them are university graduates. Where are they? Many of them are doctors. There is no hospital today in Israel that doesn't have Arab doctors and Arab nurses. Now look, an Israeli who would be reluctant to employ an Arab is not reluctant to enter the hospital, to lay on the bed and an Arab doctor will come with his knife and open his stomach. And he'll say, "Thank you." My hope is that what happens in a hospital with sick people will happen in the land with healthy people.

Republican Blasts Israel's Kibbutz Roots

Republicans have been throwing everything at Barack Obama in the hope that something will stick. The facts that many of the charges are contradictory and absurd on their face have not served to deter this assault on reason. Here's an attack you may find interesting. Republican blogger Mark Finkelstein has claimed that Obama's support for Israel's historic commitment to social justice as exemplified by the kibbutz movement indicates a secret affinity for Marxism! Finkelstein, in his ardor to paint Obama red, has applied a very broad brush to Israel's founders as well.

Finkelstein has a problem with the following excerpt of a speech Obama gave in a Boca Raton, Florida synagogue in May, which he quotes as follows:

I found I had a deep affinity with the idea of social justice that was embodied in the Jewish faith. There was a notion–tikkun–that you could repair the breach of the past. There was a notion, embodied in the kibbutz, that we all had a responsibility to each other. That we're all in this together. That hope can persevere even against the longest odds.

For one Republican, this is just too much. Clearly, "social justice", "tikkun" and "kibbutz" are just code words for Communism! Here's what Finkelstein has to say:

Let's deconstruct. "Social justice": classic left-wing code for redistributive economics. Tikkun, or tikkun olam, is the favorite term of the Jewish left. It means "repairing the world," and is interpreted by liberal Jews as a mandate for big government. Ironically, it was Hillary Clinton who brought the phrase into American political currency via her erstwhile spiritual advisor Michael Lerner, he of "the politics of meaning," and publisher of a left-wing journal named . . . Tikkun.

Finally, just what is the kibbutz, with which notion Obama claims "deep affinity?" It was nothing less than an explicit experiment in utopian socialism, of communal living in which not only property, but also child-rearing, were shared. Kids were raised in communal dorms, with parents granted only a limited number of hours per week of individual interaction with their children. Recent years have seen a crisis for the kibbutzim, in which they have been forced to embrace some market reforms in order to survive. But Obama clearly seemed to be referring to the original, romanticized version of the collectivist kibbutz in which "we're all in this together."

Will the MSM pick up on Obama's salute to socialism? Not holding breath...

Catching his breath, Finkelstein then gives his thumbnail sketch of an essential part of Israel's history:

The kibbutz movement has its roots in the fertile soil of nineteenth century Eastern European socialism, inspired by the ideas of Karl Marx (1818-1883), aligned with the notion of righting the inverted pyramid of European Jewish society, top-heavy as it was with luftmenschen and lacking a significant working class at its base. The early kibbutzim that followed the establishment of Degania Alef in 1909 had in common a collective approach to decision making, an economy based on agriculture and a co-operative attitude to work. Working the land was ... elevated to a quasi-religion...

Since those days, the kibbutzim ... lost their ideological reference point with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991...

It seems that some among the Republicans are more than happy to smear Obama as a crypto-communist, even if that involves characterizing Israel's Labor Zionist roots, as well as Judaism's view of tzedakah, as communist. I feel sorry for anyone who, in their ideological fervor, sees Lenin lurking behind terms like social justice, tikkun olam and kibbutz.

Read more here: Oy Vey: Obama's Salute to Israeli Socialism | NewsBusters.org

Robert Kennedy's 1948 Reports from Palestine

Forgotten (until now) eyewitness to history dispatches from Palestine by the 22-year old RFK...

from Solomonia: Robert Kennedy's 1948 Reports from Palestine

Here's some fascinating forgotten history unearthed at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Lengthy quote, much much more at the link:

Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, brother of slain U.S. President John F. Kennedy and former U.S. Attorney General, was the leading Democratic candidate for president when he was gunned down at a primary victory celebration in California on June 5, 1968. His Palestinian assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, said he killed Kennedy due to his vocal support for Israel.

In April 1948, one month before Israel declared independence, Robert Kennedy, then 22, traveled to Palestine to report on the conflict for the Boston Post. His four dispatches from the scene were published in June 1948. The newspaper closed in 1956, and for decades the reports were virtually forgotten.

Kennedy arrived in a chaotic and dangerous land on the eve of the British departure. Jewish Jerusalem and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City were under Arab siege and regular Arab armies were pouring into the territory. The British authorities were hampering Jews' efforts to defend themselves and were even countenancing Arab attacks against Jews.

Kennedy was liberal in his praise of the Palestinian Jews (only one month later did the name "Israel" and the term "Israelis" come into being). "The Jewish people in Palestine who believe in and have been working toward this national state have become an immensely proud and determined people," Kennedy wrote. "It is already a truly great modern example of the birth of a nation with the primary ingredients of dignity and self-respect."

One of his dispatches was headlined, "Jews Make Up for Lack of Arms with Undying Spirit, Unparalleled Courage." In one of his accounts, Kennedy describes his traveling with Haganah fighters in a convoy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The young reporter was critical of a temporary slippage of the American government's support for Jewish statehood. He feared that the U.S. was shifting towards Britain's negative policies and its aim "to crush" the Zionist cause. "If the American people knew the true facts," Kennedy wrote, "I am certain a more honest and forthright policy would be substituted for the benefit of all."...

• "Unfortunately for [the Jews, Jerusalem's water] reservoir is situated in the mountains and it and the whole pipeline are controlled by the Arabs. The British would not let them cut the water off until after May 15th but an Arab told me they would not even do it then. First they would poison it."
• The Arab responsible for the blowing up of the Jewish Agency on March 11, 1948, said "that after the explosion, upon reaching the British post which separated the Jewish section from a small neutral zone set up in the middle of Jerusalem, he was questioned by the British officers in charge. He quite freely admitted what he had done and was given immediate passage with the remark, ‘Nice going.'"
• "The Jews informed the British government that 600 Iraqi troops were going to cross into Palestine from Trans-Jordan by the Allenby Bridge on a certain date and requested the British to take appropriate action to prevent this passage. The troops crossed unmolested....I saw several thousand non-Palestinian Arab troops in Palestine, including many of the famed British-trained and equipped Arab legionnaires of King Abdullah [of Trans-Jordan]. There were also soldiers from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq."
• "The Arabs in command believe that eventually victory must be theirs. It is against all law and nature that this Jewish state should exist. They...promise that if it does become a reality it will never have as neighbors anything but hostile countries, which will continue the fight militarily and economically until victory is achieved."
• "The Jews on the other hand believe that in a few more years, if a Jewish state is formed, it will be the only stabilizing factor remaining in the Near and Middle East. The Arab world is made up of many disgruntled factions which would have been at each other's throats long ago if it had not been for the common war against Zionism."

Arun Gandhi appears on Rense Radio

from Harry’s Place » Stop making Rense

by Judeosphere

In January, Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, who blogs at the Washington Post site, “On Faith,” stunned readers with a rant on the topic of Jewish identity: “We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity.”

He hastily issued a pseudo-apology, saying that he didn’t mean to imply “all Jewish people” (apparently, only supporters of Israel are going to destroy the human race). Not surprisingly, he was unable to quell the controversy, and he resigned from his position of president of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence at the University of Rochester.

But Arun did not go quietly, and his growing bitterness at you-know-who has become apparent with each subsequent interview he has given to the press. He lashed out against the “Zionist Nazis” who criticized him; he said his resignation reflected a desire to “sacrifice himself” so that the institute did not suffer the ire of the all-powerful “Jewish Lobby”; claimed that the same “Jewish Lobby” wields tremendous influence over politics in India; and, in an interview with the Rochester City Newspaper, he declared that Jews are indifferent to any genocide other than their own: “They say this will never happen again, but what they really mean is this will never happen to them again. They do not seem to be very concerned about this kind of violence taking place in other parts of the world.”

Recently, Arun found an audience that is guaranteed to be sympathetic to his worldview. According to this article on Rense.com, he was a guest on Rense Radio on April 30th.

For those unfamiliar with Rense.com, it is a website maintained by U.S. conspiracy theorist Jeff Rense who, in addition to his obsession with UFOs, frequently posts anti-semitic articles and denials of the Holocaust.

Did Arun Gandhi have a clue who he was speaking with? What do his supporters, who call him a “man of peace,” have to say about this?

A footnote: In February, the Washington Post ombudsman had this to say about the affair:

“The piece should not have been published. The apologies should have come sooner. The archived piece should have links to the apologies….It’s a risk to run a site on religion and faith that encourages robust dialogue among diverse panelists. But it is a risk worth taking in a world fractured by belief. Should Gandhi stay on the panel? Let’s wait to read what he writes about what he has learned.”

As of today, the archived piece does not have links to any of the apologies issued by Mr. Gandhi or the editors of the blog. As for what he has “learned” from the controversy, I would say, not much.

Aspen Times continues to publish anti-Semitic letters

Two days ago, I posted concerning an anti-Semitic propagandist who's found a forum in the Aspen, Colorado Times, (read here and here). It turns out that he's not alone. The Aspen Times has also seen fit to publish a diatribe by Arthur Topham, a Canadian who has made Holocaust denial into a sort of cottage industry.

Taking a step back for a moment, let's remember what allegedly precipitated the Aspen Times decent into hate speech. It was the following innocuous letter to the editor from a local resident (online version here):

This past Tuesday, April 29, I had the fortunate opportunity to address the Glenwood Springs Sunrise Rotary Club with a program titled, “The Holocaust: A View of Humanity and Inhumanity,” in recognition of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Commemoration Day on May 1.

I have conducted similar programs in the past for the Aspen and Snowmass Rotary Clubs, Colorado Mountain College, Aspen Jewish Congregation Young Leadership Group, and Aspen Middle School (as well as in Miami and New Orleans).

Today, I anxiously opened both our local papers in anticipation of some sort of program, commemoration or memorial to the 6 million Jews and more than 11 million people total who were exterminated at the hands of an evil Nazi regime, which focused more of its efforts on a Final Solution, than winning World War II.

To my dismay, the only mention of Holocaust in either paper was that the Denver legislature had compared (rightfully) the slaughter of the American Indians to the Holocaust.

But, with three (or more) Jewish congregations in Aspen, a learned organization such as the Aspen Institute, and one of the highest educational levels among a population in the United States, it is truly disconcerting that we did not have a community Holocaust memorial.

Amongst my other activities, I now have two new missions in life, which I hope others will step up to join me in fulfilling:

1). Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley should have an annual community Holocaust commemoration on Yom Hashoah (unless on Shabbat), which I will gladly organize and serve as presenter, moderator or facilitator (at no cost), and;

2). We need to raise the money for a community Holocaust Memorial.
Nobel Prize winning author Elie Wiesel once said of the Holocaust: “Not all the victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims.”

In the face of relevant issues like parking, curves, straight-shots and downtown fire pits, we might try not to forget the words: Never again!

Bennett A. Bramson
Snowmass

In response to that admirable letter, the editor of the Aspen Times has seen fit to publish two letters. First, the overtly anti-Semitic screed by local "peace activist" Steve Campbell (read here); and second, the following equally hateful letter from Arthur Topham (online here):


"A deception"

Mr. Bramson’s letter (May 2) regarding the alleged “Jewish Holocaust” of “6 million” caught my eye

and the attention of my mind.

I am constantly “disconcerted,” like Mr. Bramson, to see these falsifications of history perpetuated and perpetrated upon generations of Americans (and Canadians and people in general) by those of Jewish descent who, being obviously firmly believers in this massive deception, continue to force their false figures and blatant misconceptions upon a public grown weary of the endless repetition of lies that permeate the modern-day holocaust industry.

Possibly even the majority of diaspora are awaking to this reality and that is the reason for the growing disinterest in building monuments to events that never occurred on the scale that the Zionist Jews want the rest of the world to believe.

It’s time to stop blaming and robbing the German people for events and actions that the Zionists orchestrated solely to act as propaganda tools for the exploitation of others and to justify their claims for the false state they created in stolen territory belonging to the Arab Palestinian people.

If we truly require another analogy to what Israel is doing today to its Arab citizens then we only need look at the example of the U.S. government’s genocidal policies toward America’s indigenous population to find an apt comparison. The Nazis are not our problem today. The Zionists have superseded them in myriad ways and it is they who are the new threat to global peace.

Mr. Bramson’s preoccupation with the “6 million” holocaust myth is nothing but subterfuge designed to take people’s minds off the real genocide that is taking place in Palestine today.

And so, as for the alleged “Jewish Holocaust of 6 million” deception I too must say, “Never again!”

Arthur Topham
Cottonwood, British Columbia

The editors of the Aspen Times apparently believe that it is acceptable to publish hate speech of this sort and package it as legitimate debate. But their placing an imprimatur of acceptability on blatantly unacceptable distortions of history serves no purpose except to generate attention. Topham has the right to publish his hate literature. He already has a website devoted to this sort of material (read here). But he is not entitled to an unfettered forum in the legitimate press. By giving him that forum, a newspaper like the Aspen Times reveals such poor judgment, and so seriously breaches their responsibility to public, their legitimacy as a news source is called into question.

If you believe that thie Aspen Times' promotion of Holocaust denial as legitimate debate is unacceptable, you can let the editor and publisher of the Aspen Times know. The editor of the paper, the person directly responsible for deciding what to publish, is named Rick Carroll. His email address is mail@aspentimes.com and his phone number is (970) 925-3414 ext. 17601. The publisher of the paper, Mr. Carroll's boss, is Jenna Weatherred. Her email address is jweatherred@aspentimes.com and her phone number is (970) 925-3414 ext. 17100. Please be polite and concise if you email or call. The idea is to remind the Aspen Times of its journalistic responsibility, not to be irresponsible in our response.

By the way, the notorious hate website maintained by Curt Maynard copied the letter from the Aspen Times website and published it (read here CAUTION: HATE WEBSITE). A reader commented in response:

That this was published in "The Aspen Times" is SHOCKING and encouraging...Only conclusion is it HAS to be outside the purview of Jewish ownership.

Outstanding letter, and laudable courage on the part of the "Aspen Times." Kudos to both.

May the shackles continue to be shorn...

Voir Dire

Marcy Winograd: Hates Israel, "Loves to Hava Nagilah"

Charter school teacher and long-time political activist Marcy Winograd is the founder of L.A. Jews for Peace. Winograd is an executive board member of the California Democratic Party and president of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles. She is also on the list of potential Obama delegates to the Democratic convention, after having been removed from the list, complaining about it in her blog on the Huffington Post (read here and here), and subsequently being returned by the Obama campaign to their list of delegates (read here).

Winograd ran against Rep. Jane Harmon for the Democratic nomination in California's 36th District in 2006, as an opponent of the Patriot Act, Iraq War enabling acts, bankruptcy bill and other Bush initiatives which Harmon supported. She got endorsements from Tom Hayden, Gore Vidal, Ed Asner, Ed Begley Jr. and Daniel Ellsberg. Although she had campaigned on behalf of Senator Barbara Boxer and Congressman Henry Waxman, both endorsed Harmon over Winograd, who ended up losing the primary with about 1/3 of the vote.

Winograd is also an ardent opponent of Israel and a member of Friends of Sabeel. Sabeel is the Liberation Theology-based organization largely responsible for promoting anti-Israel divestment and spreading bigoted anti-Israel propaganda within the mainline Protestant churches. Their view of Jews and Judaism is sometimes called Replacement Theology, sometimes supercessionism. This theology maintains that Judaism is obsolete -- an oppressive regime against which Christianity rebelled as a liberation movement. (Read here and here and here and here and here. Christians for Fair Witness analyzes Sabeel’s opposition to the existence of Israel here. Sabeel uses the deicide trope as a spur for the second intifada here. For more on Liberation Theology's use of Jews as symbolic of oppressors see Amy-Jill Levine's The Misunderstood Jew.)

Winograd participated in Febraury's Sabeel conference at All Saint's Episcopal Church in Pasadena. (Read about that conference here.) According to the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles (read here), on February 16, Winograd promoted the following views to the Friends of Sabeel:

She explained her advocacy for a single Arab-Jewish state by saying, "We are not talking about 'destroying' Israel, but about a transformation to a one-state solution."

Among Winograd's targets is the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance, and she urged pressure on school boards to stop transporting students there on educational trips.

She claimed that the museum's Holocaust exhibits are used for pro-Israel lobbying and demanded exhibit space for the Palestinian nakba.

Winograd posts her text version of her speech in Pasadena on her organization's website, (read here) including the following:

LA Jews for Peace was born in the midst of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon two summers ago, almost immediately following my congressional challenge to Jane Harman in the 36^th District. During my campaign, I prayed no one would ask me to clarify my position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. On my candidate web site, I said I supported the Geneva Accord, a two-state solution....

Personally, I think it is too late for a two-state solution...

Not only do I think a two-state solution is unrealistic, but also fundamentally wrong because it only reinforces heightened nationalism.

In her speech, Winograd also pointedly recounts her refusal to answer a CNN interviewer who had the temerity to ask her whether she believes that Israel has a right to exist. She stonewalled that question. Clearly, she's a candidate who feels she has something to hide from the general public, even as she touts it to her anti-Israel allies.

The hypocrisy of sometimes claiming not to oppose the existence of Israel and sometimes actively opposing its existence and advocating a "single-state solution" is so obvious that it should require no elucidation. This hypocrisy is entirely consistent with that of Sabeel which has both advocated land-for-peace and opposed it, and supported the second intifada as it opposed violence.

Concluding her speech, Winograd claimed (in poetry no less) to oppose all nationalism. It appears that she would like to put this opposition into action only against the existence of Israel.

To compound the hypocrisy of her purported "peace" proposal, Winograd opposes Holocaust education because it denies equal time for dissemination of pro-Palestinian propaganda. Moreover, she is organizing those who oppose Holocaust education to pressure local school boards to cease support for public school students visiting L.A.'s Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance. (Click here for the museum's website.) Below (from the LA Jews for peace website) is a photo of their demonstration outside the museum on October 19. Six protesters and one pedestrian. That may be Winograd on the left in shades holding an illegible sign.

Blogger Ami Isseroff was emailed the following:

Marcy Winograd is the co-founder of the LA Jews for Peace collective and a long-time anti-war activist in Los Angeles. Inspired by author Joel Kovel's book Overcoming Zionism, she is interested in assembling and publishing an anthology entitled: From Zionism to Humanism: Personal Stories of Jews Who Dare to Speak Out...If you know of Jews who might be interested in contributing to her anthology, please encourage them to submit their story to Marcy at Winogradcoach@aol.com.

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Though I identify with persecuted Jews, I grow up longing to be part of the dominant culture. I hang little red and green lights on plastic Christmas trees and rarely visit temple except to hava nagila at the boys' bar mitzvahs or to pray on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when we never atone for the sin of theft, slaughter, or occupation.

In response, Isseroff wrote, in part (from Zionism-Israel Web Log: "A Jew who dares to speak out about Zionism")

It is no secret that I am what is usually called a "leftist." I cofounded a dialogue group of Jews and Arabs and I am director of an NGO that promotes peace education and dialogue. I am committed to rights for the Arabs of Palestine, as I am committed to rights for the Jews of Israel and the Arabs of Israel.

I am a leftist from a family of leftists. My great uncle Noteh (Nathan) was a Bolshevik. He fled Russia in 1905 for the safety of Poland. I am told that he was known as "The angel of the Warsaw Ghetto." Being a citizen of the world, he was killed along with all the other Jewish citizens of the world, who happened to be in the way of the Nazis, and discovered that "the world" would not grant passports to anybody. Had he stayed in Russia and survived, there is no doubt that along with many other "citizens of the world" of the Yevsektsia, the Jewish Communists, he would have found himself in Lyubjanka prison or Siberia. That's what the progressive forces did to Jews who were not afraid to speak out. My great uncle was not afraid to speak out, you see.

I noticed that there were several segments of public opinion that were actively working against peace and dialogue, and in favor of genocide and denial of the right of self determination to one side or another in the conflict. There are the extremists of the Kahana Hai movement, who call themselves Zionists, and there are also extremists on the other side. There are those who blacken and distort Islam and Arabs, and there are those who blacken and distort Judaism and Zionism.

Understandably, there are groups like Stormfront who have no use for "Zionists" because they are Nazis. We all know what Nazis are, don't we? We all know that not long ago, American fascist white supremacist racists coined the acronym ZOG - Zionist Occupied government for example. The typical fascist argument features the Jew as a sly, greedy and evil creature out to control the world through the International Jewish Conspiracy. Until recently, this was the property of a tiny, benighted, reactionary minority, spurned by all decent folks.

But about three or four years ago, I became painfully aware of a new phenomenon. The racist arguments of the fascists against Jews were now being used against "Zionists" and the "Israel Lobby" and were indistinguishable from the old fascist claims. Searching the Web, I found hundreds of sites telling the world about Zionist plots, all about Zionism and its pernicious influence, explaining that the Zionists started World War II, the Zionists started World War I, and even that the "Zionists" were responsible for the French revolution. The Zionists are also responsible, according to them, for the Holocaust Myth, created for the financial and political benefit of Israel. And on Yom Kippur, the "Zionists" do not ask forgiveness for the French Revolution. Indeed, as Ziopedia notes, the "Zionists" say the Kol Nidre prayer on Yom Kippur. According to the progressive and peace-loving citizens of the world edit Ziopedia, Kol Nidre is the sneaky "Zionist" way of getting out of their obligations to non-Jews.

More bizarrely, it seems that a great number of Jews have joined in this campaign. Many of them call themselves "Jews for Peace" and similar names. They do not realize apparently, that when people say that "the Jews" are responsible for the war in Iraq, the accusers mean them,

I don't know if Marcy Winograd has read Ami Isseroffs' reply to her request for the testimony of Jews who promote human rights. I'm pretty sure that she won't publish it.

If you happen to see her demonstrating against Holocaust education outside the Wiesnthal Center's Museum of Tolerance, maybe you can read it to her.

A couple of notes on Winograd's organizations views of Israel

• Winograd's Progressive Democrats of L.A. website accuses AIPAC of interfering with a resolution against the Iraq War which was under consideration by the California Democratic Party (read here under the headline "Anti-War Resolution Passes California Democratic Party Convention"), alleging "severe pressures to water down or derail the resolution by more hawkish Democrats, including delegates associated with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)." They offer no evidence of this purported AIPAC intrusion into the agenda of the state Democratic party, and no basis for the purported connection to Israel at all. Did someone say "conspiracy theory"?

• Winograd's L.A. Jews for Peace website includes their endorsement of a fire-breathing anti-Israel screed by Scott Ritter reposted from the paleoconservative isolationist website Antiwar.com. (The Jews for Peace website links to a politically neutral website to avoid the taint of association with the paleo-conservatives, read here.) Here's a taste of Ritter's writing:

Israel's current policies, rooted in ethnic and religious hatred, are the antithesis of tolerance. Israel at present can have no friends, because Israel does not know how to be a friend. Driven by xenophobic paranoia and historical grievances, Israel is embarked on a path that can only lead to death and destruction...Israel has been drunk on arrogance and power.

More to follow on this...

Antiwar left historical revistionism: Britain to blame for WW2; Nazis just wanted to deport Jews

Fresh on the heels of Nicholson Baker (whose book Human Smoke blames the allies for starting World War II) and Rev. Jeremiah Wright (who claimed repeatedly that the U.S. government was aware of Japanese plans to bomb Pearl Harbor and deliberately allowed it to happen in order to justify our entry into the war), here's a piece from Harry's Place critiquing Peter Wilby's contention that Britain was to blame for the war, and that Germany would have happily deported "the Jews" to Madagascar where they could have lived in peace.

There must be something in the zeitgeist that is drawing the anti-war left to this form of historical revisionism -- a form previously reserved for the loony right. It has been my contention for years that leftist anti-Zionism is, at least in part, motivated by an unconscious desire for absolution for anti-Semitism in general and Europe's crimes against the Jewish people in particular. In essence, the idea that Jews are equivalent to Nazis acts as a balm for European guilt. For Americans, an apt analogy might be made between this and the demonization of American Indians and African Americans. It is impossible to extricate the guilt of the American people for crimes against American Indians and African Americans from the fear mongering manner in which they have been represented in our culture. This imagery works to sooth the guilty conscience of the racist mind.

by Marko from Harry’s Place » Antiwar ad absurdum - the Madagascar Plan as an alternative to the Holocaust:

Anyone who follows the politics of the ‘anti-war’ left will long ago have learned that the Iraq War is The Most Evil Thing That Ever Happened. The Nazi Holocaust; Stalin’s terror-famine and mass purges; Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution; the Rwandan and Darfurian genocides - all are viewed as fairly minor misdemeanors in comparison to the US’s invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein without UN Security Council authorisation. Even the former Most Evil Thing That Ever Happened - the US intervention in Indochina - is now sometimes viewed in a relatively rosy light, as Lindsey Hilsum made clear when, in the pages of the New Statesman, she favourably compared Henry Kissinger’s brand of foreign policy to that of George Bush and the neocons.

Now, however, the New Statesman’s former editor, Peter Wilby, has taken the anti-war reinterpretation of history to new levels in his article, on the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’, entitled ‘The last excuse for the Iraq war is founded on a myth: Seeing the Second World War as a pure struggle to defeat an evil dictator has led us into foreign policy traps ever since’. Wilby’s main argument is that Britain’s decision to go to war with Nazi Germany in 1939 should not be seen in such a positive light, because it was taken for reasons of self-interest rather than morality: ‘Britain fought Germany for the same reason it had always fought wars in Europe: to maintain the balance of power and prevent a single state dominating the continent.’

This argument is tedious even to summarise. Partly because everybody already knows that Britain went to war with Nazi Germany for reasons of self-interest; the existence of the ‘myth’ that Wilby describes is what some would call a ’straw man’. And partly because, whether you believe Britain went to war with Germany for altruistic or for selfish motives, this has absolutely no bearing on whether the war was worthy of support. Perhaps one day someone will write their PhD dissertation on the reasons why stoppers and other ‘anti-war’ types are so repetitive in making the point that Western leaders are motivated by self-interest rather than altruism. I think it has something to do with the moral legacy of Protestantism, whereby what matters is purity of inner belief rather than outwardly appearing to do good: salvation through faith alone, rather than salvation through good works.

So far, so mind-numbingly, nob-shrinkingly, bed-wettingly boring, as Rick out of the Young Ones might have said. What makes Wilby’s article stand out is his attempt to square his rejection of the case for Britain’s war against Nazi Germany with the fact of the Holocaust:

Would the Holocaust have happened if there had been no war or if the western democracies had acted against Nazi Germany earlier? We can never know - though it is likely that, if Britain had made peace in 1940 after the fall of France, the Jews would have been sent to Madagascar. What is certain is that the war prevented any concerted attempt at rescue.

Resources used to help Jews would be diverted from the war. Any mass movement of refugees ran the risk of the Germans planting agents among them. Oil supplies were too vital to Britain to risk upsetting Arabs by evacuating them to Palestine. Any of the suggested swaps - Jews for German PoWs, for example - might suggest allied weakness. Besides, why should the allies assist Hitler to rid Europe of Jewry? The best we could do, as Anthony Eden, the British foreign secretary, observed in 1944, was to “hope that the German government will refrain from exterminating these unfortunate people”.

Wilby appears to be saying that the outbreak of World War II ensured that nothing could be done to help Europe’s Jews; and that once the war had broken out, they would have been better off had it ended in mid-1940, as they might have got off with simply being deported by the Nazis to Madagascar. This, of course, presupposes British collaboration with the deportation, since as the dominant world naval power, Britain controlled the sea route to Madagascar. So Wilby is essentially arguing that Britain should have made peace with Nazi Germany, or avoided fighting it altogether, so as to allow the Nazis to deport Europe’s Jews to Madagascar.

Wilby does not, of course, consider just how many of the Jews would have perished on the voyage to Madagascar or after arriving there. Holocaust historian Laurence Rees writes of the Madagascar Plan in his book Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution, that ‘it is important to remember that this plan, like all the other wartime solutions to the “Jewish problem”, would have meant widespread death and suffering for the Jews. A Nazi governor of Madagascar would most likely have presided over the gradual elimination of the Jews within a generation or two.’

However, Wilby’s real error is to assume that it was Britain and France that were the cause of World War II, and that Nazi Germany wanted nothing more than to live in peace with the rest of Europe. This is what left-wing ‘anti-war’ types, in fact, think: war is always the fault of the democratic West; Hitler, Stalin, Galtieri, Saddam and Milosevic wanted nothing more than to live in peace.

In reality, had Britain made peace in 1940 after the fall of France, Hitler would undoubtedly have gone on to attack the Soviet Union. And the Holocaust, it should not be forgotten, properly began with the mass slaughter of Soviet Jews by the SS Einsatzgruppen. In two orders issued by the SS leadership in July 1941, the Einsatzgruppen were ordered to execute all those behind the German lines who might have organised resistance, including Communist officials and Jews, and to execute certain categories of Soviet POWs, including Jews. The executions initially targeted only adult male Jews, but from about mid-August 1941, the genocide encompassed women and children as well. Some Holocaust historians, such as Rees, have suggested that the mass murder of the Soviet Jewish women and children was motivated by the desire to free the Reich from the burden represented by a section of the population that, after the elimination of its menfolk, had no means of support of its own. Others, such as Christopher Browning, have suggested that the Nazis took increasingly murderous measures against the Jews in response to their triumphs on the Eastern Front; thus, the huge German battlefield victory over the Soviets at Kiev in September 1941 was followed by the infamous Babi Yar massacre of Kiev’s Jews.

What is certain is that the genocide of the Soviet Jews was an integral part of the Nazi war against the Soviet Union, and was linked to genocidal crimes against other sections of the population. Millions of Soviet POWs were starved to death in Nazi captivity. Millions of non-Jewish Poles, Ukrainians and others were killed by the Nazis in order to pacify the conquered territories of the Slavic east, with the ultimate aim being to clear vast areas of their inhabitants so that they might provide lebensraum for German settlers.

In other words, if the British had made their peace with the Nazis in mid-1940, it would not have meant that the Nazi genocide would not have happened, merely that it might have taken a slightly different form. In all likelihood, it would have made the eventual Nazi genocide in the East more likely to have succeeded, and on a bigger scale - involving up to tens of millions of assorted untermenschen.

I wonder just how many of these victims would have been saved by the ‘concerted programme of rescue’ that Wilby imagines might have happened had Britain not declared war on Germany ? I wonder also if today’s ‘anti-war’ types would be looking back and praising Neville Chamberlain for peacefully colluding in the Nazi genocide instead of declaring war ?

That is, in the unlikely event that freedom of speech still existed in Britain two-thirds of a century after the Nazi victory.