Upon my return from my two-week trip, I was more than eager to find out how Finkelstein fared in Germany where he was on his lecture tour. I am more than happy to report that, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung of February 9, 2001 approximately 200 journalists attended his press conference in Berlin.
His book has twice sold out, and there are long waiting lists for copies. He has totally eclipsed Peter Novick who draws 150 attendants at his lectures compared to Finkelstein's more than 1,000.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center are featured in a March 8, 2000 Gannett/USA Today release where they take John Sack to task for having penned a mild and generally magnanimous picture of those pesky Holocaust Deniers in the February issue of Esquire.
"Though not denying the Holocaust," the article goes on, "Sack dismisses the deniers as no more dangerous than devotees of flying-saucer cults. Pictured as harmless Germanophiles, they emerge through Sack's prose as heroic martyrs to the cause of free speech, allegedly under assault by organized Jews."
The article quotes the following:
* "Palestinian intellectual Abdallah Horani ". . . instead of talking about the so-called Holocaust, (we) should have followed the doubts (about it) that are gaining momentum in the international arena and among leading European intellectuals."
* Sheik Nafez Azzam of the "Palestinian Jihad": ". . . intention to teach the Holocaust in the Palestinian schools contradicts the natural order of the universe."
* Columnist Anis Mansour of Egypt's official Al-Ahram: (It should) ". . . become clear to the world that what happened to the Jews of Germany, Poland and Russia was justified."
And then the Simon Wiesenthal Center officials make a very serious charge: "Holocaust deniers, whatever their nationality or religion, are trying to complete the work of SS storm troopers. . . "
It is this kind of exaggerated hyperbole which makes everything else they say unbelievable to normal, thinking people.
The Agence France Presse of March 8, 2001 reports that Austria's enfant terrible, Jörg Haider, has misspoken himself again.
"I don't understand how someone called Ariel can have such dirty hands," the rabble-rousing leader told a rally of over 2,000 party supporters. That remark has been labeled anti-Semitic, and Haider may once again face charges. His reply is that Jewish origin does not translate into immunity from criticism.
Phi Beta Kappa, a US liberal arts honor society, has honored Peter Novick's "Holocaust in American Life" with its Ralph Waldo Emerson Award. Revisionist reporter, Michael Hoffman, <http://www.hoffman-info.com/> wrote that he received a personal note awhile back from one of the society's directors ". . . astounded at the intolerance, whining, hatred and even threats of destruction they had received from many self-chosenites and self-selected...given the extremely mild nature of this book."
Andrew Osborn of the Guardian tells an interesting story dated March 9, 2001.
(Subtext) "Belgium's anti-immigration Vlaams Blok party was supposed to be the far right's Trojan horse into European politics. But controversial statements on the Holocaust have done long-term damage."
In October of last year, Vlamms Blok in Antwerp, Belgium's second largest city, commanded an impressive 33% of the vote. But a controversial TV interview by Roeland Rael, vice president and ideologue-in-chief, ". . . has rocked the nation and may have dealt a mortal blow to its voracious electoral ambition."
What was his cardinal sin? The Guardian says this, and I quote: "He said what he really thought in public on the Holocaust." When asked if he doubted the gas chambers, Raes replied: "Yes I dare to doubt that. I think that what we've been given to believe on certain points has been very exaggerated.
"The persecution and the deportation of the Jews did take place in a systematic way. But whether it was planned that everyone was going to die - well that's another question."
To make matters worse, he also cast doubt on the proverbial Six Million figure, and he questioned the authenticity of the Anne Frank Diary.
The price of honesty? Rae was forced to resign from his senior post in the party and to step down as a Belgian senator. He also had to relinquish his post as a member of the governing board of Ghent University.
A UPI release of March 4, 2001 speaks of ". . . a continually growing rapprochement between Israel and the supplier of its three submarines and important intelligence about the Arab world, Germany, (which) began when some World War II reparations were paid with industrial materials. . . "
Quoting the most recent New York Sunday Times issue, ". . . there is indifference, even irritation, in Israel about the push by American Jews for over $50 billion in reparations from Germany that would go to individual Israelis and the state of Israel."
Germany is described as ". . . Israel's most important military partner after the United States and also sends more tourists to Israel than any country other than the United States. The relationship between the two countries' intelligence services, the newspaper said, is particularly intense, with Germany providing extensive information on the Arab world, while Israel provides intelligence on Eastern Europe and Russia."
Both Amnesty International and the latest US State Department's Annual Report deplore what Israel does to the Arabs. As of the date of these reports, Israeli forces killed 307 civilians and wounded more than 11,300, ". . . of whom most are protesting Arab children."
According to Britain's Final Conflict, an Internet news source, "Israeli Security Forces (use) American-supplied rifles and sniper sights to randomly kill protesting children as a warning to stone-throwing youths. Avoiding the words genocide or holocaust but coming very close to it, the internationally respected human rights organisation demanded that Israel 'put an end to its liquidation policy'."
It seems that in Israel, it is still Business As Usual. For a short while, the Supreme Court of Israel, after intense pressure from the world community, ruled that torture of political prisoners was illegal. The Sunday Times of London, in an article dated today and headlined "Sharon set to legalise torture", says this in its first two paragraphs:
"THE government of Ariel Sharon, meeting today for the first time, is to urge Israel's parliament to approve a law that would allow the security service to torture Arab detainees.
"The use of 'moderate physical pressure' during interrogation has been oulawed by the high court and Yossi Beilin, the former Labour justice minister, resisted demands by Shin Bet, the domestic security service, for its reintroduction."
What will that mean? Here is a partial answer:
"We interrogate hundreds of Palestinians every day, all suspected of terrorism," said one Shin Bet source.