ZGram - 12/18/2001 - "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" - Part II

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

December 18, 2001

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Continuing now with the Finkelstein interview by  Don Atapattu as posted on
www.counterpunch.com

Q:  What is your position on the comparison between Israel and the Occupied
Territories and South Africa under apartheid (as raised during the recent
UN convention on racism in Durban)?

Finkelstein:  I don't think the comparison with South Africa is exactly
precise for a  number of reasons. Israel proper - pre June `67 Israel, is a
fairly lively  democracy, Palestinian Arabs do enjoy rights of citizenship
(as) second  class citizens, it is probably similar to the situation to
Blacks in the  American South before the civil rights movement. The
difference is that in  the US South, Blacks did not have the right to vote,
but that question is  due to numbers, where American Blacks were the
majority in several states  in the South and that is why they were
disenfranchised, whereas Israel's  unstated official policy is that they
will tolerate a minority of  approximately 15%, so long as the Arabs remain
around this percentage its  OK to give them the right to vote because it
won't affect the Jewish  majority. In addition to the second-class
citizenship of the Israeli Arabs,  there is also the occupation in the West
Bank and Gaza, and that too is not  really comparable to South Africa
because I think it is much worse.

Q:  Dr David Rabeeya (Iraqi born American rabbi), talks of a caste system
in  Israeli society, where the Arabs are clearly at the bottom, but also
the  non-European Jews are considered to be of lesser value. He claims that
the  wholesale importation of Russian Jews was to ensure the demographic
majority of secular European Jews over their Sephardic countrymen for
generations to come.

Finkelstein:  There is some truth to that, because a large percentage of
the so-called  'Russian Jews' are not Jewish. In recent years, it has been
more than 50%,  and the reason why is because the Israeli establishment
likes the blue  eyed, blonde haired Aryan types as a racial group. The
Russians look right  even if they are not Jewish, and they preserve the
Ashkenazi elite's dominance.

Q:  You argue in The Holocaust Industry that if it were no longer in
America's  interest to support Israel, the Jewish elites would quickly
forget about  the Jewish state. Is this really tenably considering the huge
emotional  attachment American Jewry has to Israel?

Finkelstein:  Generations of Americans Jews have not been brought up on
Zionism. Before  1967, Israel barely figured at all in American Jewish
life, as anyone who  goes back and reads the publications of the US Jews
before then will tell  you. Even nowadays people are not Zionist by
conviction, they are Zionist  because it is useful for their political and
more recently financial  self-interest. The guiding light is what serves
their self-interest, not  ideological commitment.

Q:  Raul Hilberg (leading Holocaust academic) says that he hopes you will
expand on your work in The Holocaust Industry. Are you currently working on
anything?

Finkelstein:  No. I suffered the blow of losing my job so I have to make
ends meet to  survive.

Q:  Did you not receive a substantial sum from the spectacular success of
The  Holocaust Industry in Germany and elsewhere?

Finkelstein:  No, that is science fiction. You don't receive substantial
sums. I received  a $5000 advance for the book, and in total I have
received about $50 000.  You are not going to get rich out of this...I mean
$50 000 is the average  annual salary in the United States, I have never
made more than $22,000 in  a year, so it is about two years salary. OK, I
am not a kid anymore, but I  expect to be living more than two more years.

Q:  I noticed that the publication of the paperback of The Holocaust
Industry  has been delayed in the UK

Finkelstein:  (Interrupts) No, no it's been published but I don't expect it
to get any  kind of publicity. It's not a bad paperback. There is a lot of
new material  in it.

Q:  You dismiss entirely Professor Daniel Goldhagen's argument that the
German  public were collectively responsibility for the crimes of the
Nazis, yet  you seem to hold the Jewish people collectively responsible for
the  policies of Israel. Is this not a case of double standards?

Finkelstein:  Collective responsibility is not a term that is devoid of any
meaning,  whether or not it's true depends on the circumstances. In the
case of  Germany you were dealing with a fascist, terrorist state in which
the  population had relatively speaking no say in the making of policy and
no  say in the crimes committed. In other circumstances depending on which
a  collectivity influences policy and shapes criminal actions, it does bear
a  responsibility, so you have to examine each individual case for how much
collective responsibility is applicable.

Q:  Following the tragedy on September 11, left-wing writer Christopher
Hitchens, criticised people like yourself and Noam Chomsky for their
'masochistic' response to the 'Islamic fascism' practised by Bin Laden and
his followers. What do you think an appropriate response would be to the
destruction of the World Trade Center?

Finkelstein:  (Incredulously) Well, my views are so conventional it is hard
to understand  why Christopher Hitchens would point to me at all, and
frankly what Noam  Chomsky had to say on the topic was interesting in its
insights, but his  general view was utterly banal. You have to look to the
social and  political roots of what happened, because if we were just
dealing with a  bunch of lunatics on the loose, then the whole question
would be just a  psychiatric and security question. We would bring [it] to
psychiatrists to  explain what is the source of this lunacy, and we would
rely on our  security services to correct the problem. But plainly, no one
really  believes this is strictly a psychiatric or a policing problem,
because  there has been massive social and political commentary trying to
explain  it. The moment you have massive social and political commentary
trying to  explain a phenomenon, then you know we are no longer dealing
with a  strictly psychiatric question. When there were the Jim Jones mass
suicides  there was no such commentary, as everyone knew they are a
socially and  politically marginal cult, but nobody in their right mind
would say the Bin  Laden phenomenon is something marginal. Everyone
understands that this is  rooted in a deeper problem.

The next question is what are the sources of the problem? If you are a
mainstream conservative the usual answer is that the fundamental source of
the problem can be located in the Arab--Islamic world loathing of
modernity, freedom and all the virtues of enlightenment and capitalist
industry that the US stands for. If you are off the mainstream, or on the
Left end of the political system, you say the main source of the problem is
US foreign policy in the Middle East which has evoked hatred among
Arab-Islamic society because of US crimes in Iraq, the US backed Israel
crimes against the Palestinians, and so forth. (Angrily) My point is that
everyone, from whatever end of the political spectrum, tries to locate the
Bin Laden phenomenon in some deeper social and political current, so for
Mr. Hitchens to come along and say that to explain (the attacks) is a form
of rationalisation--this is sheer idiocy! There is literally not a single
person, apart from Mr. Hitchens who tries to explain it in a deeper social
and political current, we may disagree on what this current is, but we all
realise that this is not Jim Jones, or the Branch Dravidians.

Q:  What do you think of America's moral authority to spearhead a crusade
against terrorism?

Finkelstein:  If you understand terrorism to mean the targeting of civilian
populations  in order to achieve political goals, then plainly the US
qualifies as the  main terrorist government in the world today, if only
because of the sheer  force it has at its disposal. I am not claiming that
another government  were it to be in the position of the US would act
better, but given the  predominant material and political weight of the US
today, means that they  are going to be the main terrorist state in the
World today, and I think  that's true.

Q:  I think I can safely assume that you are not a supporter of George
Bush, so  did you vote for Ralph Nader or Al Gore in the last election?

 Finkelstein:  I voted for Nader, and I have no doubts at all that it was
the right thing  to do because the Nader candidacy was extremely energising
and a terrific  phenomenon in American life, and I hope he continues.

Q:  What do you think of the prospects for the Green Party to become a
genuine  Third Force in US Politics?

 Finkelstein:  I think we are now heading for very dismal time. It seems
like Bush is  launching a perpetual war. We endured the nightmare of the
destruction of  Iraq, but at least that had a beginning and an end. This
current 'war' does  not seem to have an end, and I think it is even
conceivable that it going  to endure the remainder of my lifetime and in
this political climate it is  very speculative to make any meaningful
predictions for the future.

Q:  How democratic is America given the enormous financial and media powers
with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo?

Finkelstein:  There are contradictory tendencies in American society.
There's a huge  range of activities that one can engage in that mark it as
a quite free  society. It's also true to say that the powers that be have
so much control  over how people think that there are fewer and fewer
people make use of the  rights and information available to them. So I
think that both are true.  The amount of control exercised by the ruling
elites over the decisions,  choices, lifestyles, and so forth of American
society mean that many of the  rights and information that is available are
not accessed. I can say what I  want - the worst that is going to happen to
me is that I lose my job. I am not  going to get shot or put in a
psychiatric hospital...though it is also true  to say that if a movement
developed which actually tried to use on a mass  level the rights
available, I suspect there would be substantial repression.

If you attended Nader's rallies and speeches as I did, he was delivering a
very hard-hitting critique of US capitalism, I mean it is as tough as you
can really get and he was able to pull it off. No one prevented him from
holding his mass rallies. They prevented him from appearing on TV, they
excluded him from appearing on the (presidential candidates) debate, but he
was able to organise in constituencies around the country. If it ever
became a bigger phenomenon, what would have happened?  I don't know.

Q:  The Pro Israeli lobby has had spectacular success in getting its
version of  events picked up by the media, with even the openly anti Arab /
pro Israel  polemic 'Exodus' on the US school curriculum. Noam Chomsky has
even  criticised liberal publications such as the New Republic for being
openly  racist toward Arabs, and Rana Kabbani has said that hating Arabs
(and  Muslims in particular) is the last acceptable form of racism, would
you agree?

Finkelstein:  I think that they are openly racist in that they say things
about Arabs  that would not be permitted about other ethnic groups. These
people are not  pro-Israel, but Israel serves an interest to the US ruling
elites and by  that fact it serves a useful interest to American Jewish
organisations. The  moment that Israel ceases to be an interest, Israel
will no longer be a  concern of these organisations.

Q:  You said in your second book that one small Palestinian boy asked you
if it  was true that Americans believed all Palestinians to be animals, and
you  didn't answer - not having the heart to tell him it was. Yet you also
said  that Arabs should reach out to America to try and build a counter
consensus  to Hollywood demonisations. Is this really plausible given the
perceptions  in American of Arabs and Muslims?

Finkelstein:  Nowadays nothing is possible with the events of September 11,
a lot of hard  work over many years to try to build a counter consensus
disappeared in the  rubble of the World Trade Center. I am utterly
pessimistic about the  prospects now, but I did not think it was impossible
(before). Israel was  suffering quite a number of major public relations
disasters, beginning  with the Lebanon War, the first Intifadah, and then
the second Intifadah.  As much as the mainstream media tries to depict the
reality in a manner  that suits US-Israeli interests, enough of the truth
was coming through  that Israel was suffering a public relations disaster.
There were some  prospects, how significant the prospects were we don't
know, because not  enough effort was made in trying to exploit those
prospects, but after  September 11 I don't think there is much hope.

Q:  I get the impression that you think that the West was in some way
responsible for the tragedy of September 11.

Finkelstein:  Lets put it this way: The so-called West, and really we're
talking about  the United States, and to a lesser extent its pathetic puppy
dog in  England, have a real problem on their hands. Regrettably, it's
payback time  for the Americans and they have a problem because all the
other enemies  since the end of World War Two that they pretended to
contend with .. were  basically fabricated enemies. The Soviet Union was a
conservative  bureaucracy by the end of World War Two, which apart from the
sphere of  influence it carved out--mostly for defensive reasons--was
plainly in  retrospect a stabilising force in international affairs. Then
the enemies  that the US conjured up as the Soviet Union fell into decline
beginning in  the early 1980`s - enemies like Libya, Iraq, narco-terrorists
and so  forth - these were basically enemies created by the United States
to--among  other things--justify repressive policies around the world, and
to inflate  its military budget. Now they do have a problem on their hands,
and its  going to exact a cost from Americans. The American elites can talk
about  honour and creativity until the cows come home, but it's not going
to be  like the Iraq shooting fish in a barrel situation, like they did
when they  destroyed Iraq in 1991.

Frankly, part of me says - even though everything  since September 11 has
been a nightmare--'you know what, we deserve the  problem on our hands
because some things Bin Laden says are true'. One of  the things he said on
that last tape was that 'until we live in security,  you're not going to
live in security', and there is a certain amount of  rightness in that. Why
should Americans go on with their lives as normal,  worrying about calories
and hair loss, while other people are worrying  about where they are going
to get their next piece of bread? Why should we  go on merrily with our
lives while so much of the world is suffering, and  suffering incidentally
not with us merely as bystanders, but with us as the  indirect and direct
perpetrators. So that I think that you can summon up  all the heroic and
self-aggrandizing rhetoric you want, but there is a  problem facing all of
us now, and maybe it's about time that the United  States starts having to
confront the same sort of problems that much of  humanity has had to
confront on a daily basis for God knows how long.

 Don Atapattu lives in Manchester, England.

 (Source:  http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein1.html)

=====

Thought for the Day"

"My grandparents, my aunts and uncles died in the WWII. But I swear by
their memory, if I thought that guilt feelings over the Holocaust cult
caused the death of a single Palestinian child, I would turn the Holocaust
memorial into a public urinaire."

(Israel Shamir)