* The glorious news is the sweep of the Finkelstein book across Europe and the Middle East.
In terms of bestseller status, according to Amazon, "The Holocaust Industry" is now # 2 in Switzerland, # 5 in Austria, # 14 in Germany (!) and # 17 in Egypt. And these are not English-speaking countries! Just wait what will happen once the translations begin!
* On Dr. Finkelstein's website, we also find an excerpt from a Swiss National Radio interview (8/31/2000) with none other than Raoul Hilberg whom many will remember as one of the "star witnesses" against Ernst Zundel in the 1985 Great Holocaust Trial.
Professor Hilberg is now on record with the following:
Q: Professor Hilberg, generally speaking would you agree with Professor Finkelstein when he denounces the American Jewish organizations and some class action suit lawyers for "extorting" money from Europe in order to let's say "make a killing"?
Raoul Hilberg: I would in substance agree with what he says because I have said much the same thing myself and the methods of the World Jewish Congress and some other organizations or people allied with it in this campaign I feel are detestable. I don't subscribe to them. In sum and substance I agree with what Finkelstein says.
Q: Don't you believe that this book could be dangerous, that it could be used by some anti-Semitic extremists, by some neo-Nazi groups for anti-Semitic purposes?
Raoul Hilberg: Well, even if they do use it in that fashion, I'm afraid that when it comes to the truth, it has to be said openly, without regard to any consequences that would be undesirable, embarrassing. ***The fact is that we have now crossed a line***, (emphasis added) we have seen an action that I personally cannot defend in terms of the tactics and also of the sums of money involved in the claims against not only the Swiss Banks but now extensively in other matters as well.
* It's Finkelstein Fall-out time, and ever more visible is this: Jews fighting Jews, disowning each other and distancing themselves from those who most blatantly told lying atrocity tales.
For instance, Rabbi David Goldberg, writing for the Independent of August 31, 2000, had this to say about Elie Wiesel's writing - which he calls "overblown, metaphorical fables."
Reviewing "And the Sea is Never Full", a Harper Collins title, Goldberg writes: ". . . (the book) is a long list of self-congratulatory pages from Wiesel's engagements diary. How I saved Abba Eban's career; how Golda Meir confided in me; why Kissinger was grateful to me; if only Gorbachev had listened to me; how mine was the only voice of sweet reason in the controversy surrounding the Washington Holocaust Museum. . . the conceit is breathtaking. . . Wiesel reveals himself as vain, arrogant, gullible and naive about international affairs."
* And speaking of Jews fighting Jews, the Jewish Telegraph Agency very neatly spells it out for us, palavering about how to divvy up the enormous Holocaust loot:
". . . the clash that promises to be particularly wrenching will actually pit Jew against Jew; what to do with the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in "residual" funds, or those without direct heirs or claimants."
Now they are telling us? And all the while we thought that there were Holocaust survivors in direst needs imaginable?
The entire article is worth reading for its millions here and billions there...The date of this article in the JTA is August 29, subsection Focus on Issues.
* "It's their turn,'' said Elan Steinberg, according to an Associated Press release last week. "American companies were collaborating with Nazi Germany at a time when we were at war, because there was an ethos that demanded huge profits at the expense of everything else."
THEIR turn? That is a remark that will haunt Steinberg!
* Food Giant Nestle's of Switzerland agreed to pay
14.6 Million Toward Swiss Banks' Holocaust Settlement, according to the Associated Press.
"It is either certain or it may be assumed that some corporations of the Nestle Group that were active in countries controlled by the National Socialist (Nazi) regime employed forced laborers," the group said in a statement. "Nestle expects this contribution to cover all possible legal claims that might be raised against it both in Switzerland and abroad," the statement added.
In other words: We're paying the ransom - now leave us alone!
* And since we are talking numbers - (and please consider the source...)
* An estimated 9 billion has been pledged for a variety of funds to benefit victims of Nazi persecution, according to the World Jewish Congress, broken down as follows:
-5 billion from German government and industry to be paid largely to former forced and slave laborers.
-1.2 billion from Swiss banks to pay for dormant accounts never returned to victims or heirs.
-700 million from France for pensions for Holocaust orphans and other issues.
-500 million from insurance companies for claims never paid on policyholders who died.
-400 million from Holland's government, banks, stock exchange and insurance companies.
-200 million from the Swiss in a humanitarian fund for needy survivors.
-60 million from looted gold, agreed to by more than a dozen participating countries.
* Germany's German Far-Right Party, the NDP, routinely decried as "Holocaust Deniers", has had its membership jump dramatically after a government attempt to ban it.
''In the last few weeks we have 500 new members,'' its leader, Mr. Voigt, said in an interview at party headquarters in a residential neighborhood in East Berlin. ''And we have had 6,000 inquiries from people looking for information.''
Heady numbers for a party described as having only 6,000 members and no seats in either the federal or state Parliaments.
* Titled "WWII Expelled Germans Lay Wreaths", this Associated press article describes a group representing some of the millions of ethnic Germans driven out of neighboring countries after World War II honoring the memory of those who died during the expulsions.
Chancellor German Schroeder addressed this meeting - but told them he was sticking by his refusal to push their claims for compensation.
''The federal government will not encumber its relations with these countries with political and legal questions that come from the past,'' Schroeder told the Federation of Expellees. "'The former eastern territories belong to our cultural inheritance, but not to our country.''
Traitor!
* The Zundelsite was in the news again, this time in a CNN blip. It seems that some lowly bureaucrat thought he might get some brownie points by writing an open letter to various ISPs, complaining of the Zundelsite and other revisionist websites.
To our knowledge, that request went straight into the waste basket, which it where it belonged. Incidentally, in Germany to host a politically incorrect website can lead to fines as high as 500,000 marks, which translates to US 231,000.
How they must fear the truth!
* Germany's Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who is Jewish, has let the cat out of the bag. "I am a radical supporter of free speech," he gushed. "But freedom of speech is one thing in America, and another here in Germany.''
In other words: All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others?