‘Comment is Free’ is no stranger to Holocaust denial. We recently reported how on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the Guardianistas were running amok denying the Holocaust when the Guardian reported Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial at the Al Quds day events.
And Holocaust denial is not confined to “below the line” in the comment threads. Seumas Milne, the former Comment Editor, and regular contributor to Comment is Free is on record for shamelessly defending Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial and the Guardian regularly publishes articles by Ben White who has in the past flirted with Holocaust denial and whose antisemitic book, “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide”, includes an essay on Zionism by Holocaust denier, Roger Garaudy, in its ‘select bibliography’.
So when the Guardian published on Comment is Free “I knew the day of ‘Holocaust” debate would come. Just not in my lifetime” by Jonathan Freedland it should come as no surprise that the comment thread devolved into Holocaust denial. As an aside this begs the question as to why such a misleading title was chosen given the real substance of the article was about the Conservative Party’s purported alliances with far-right groups in Europe.
Before examining some of the comments, a word or two about Holocaust denial is in order. Holocaust denial is defined as the “assert[ion] that the murder of approximately six million Jews during World War II never occurred and that the Germans are victims of a Zionist plot to extort vast sums of money from them on the basis of a hoax.” Holocaust denial is insidiously antisemitic and takes many forms. It includes claims that the six million number is grossly exaggerated, genocide was never carried out using tools of mass murder, survivor testimony is unreliable, the Holocaust is a myth spread by the Jews to enable the creation of a Jewish homeland and the fate of the Jews was no different to that of other people that suffered during World War II. The goal of Holocaust denial is to rehabilitate Nazi ideology and in the context of Israel (and most relevant to ‘Comment is Free’) to delegitimize one of the powerful justifications for its existence.
As Holocaust Denial on Trial succinctly puts it “[u]nder the guise of a reasonable person’s search for truth, Holocaust deniers spread falsehoods and misinformation that appears reasonable to the uninformed reader.” It is in comment threads of ‘Comment is Free’ where commenters find fertile ground to spread the lies and falsehoods of Holocaust denial safe in the knowledge that other than the most blatant forms of Holocaust denial such comments will evade the delete button of the moderators.
Turning to the Freedland thread. Let me start off with this interesting observation from chiefwiley, one of the earlier commenters.
chiefwiley
20 Oct 09, 8:42pm
It should be interesting to see who is lurking out there to “revisit” the holocaust right here at the Guardian. Are the moderators ready for it?
Indeed so and as chiefwiley was typing away his comment the first one to come out of the woodwork was by IllegalCombatAnt that literally set the tone for the entire thread, surviving deletion for at least 16 hours and garnering at least 70 recommendations:
IllegalCombatAnt
20 Oct 09, 8:42pm
Why is it that we are not allowed to debate the Holocaust?
Why is it that academics who try to do so have their funding cut off or lose their tenures?
Who came up with the 6 million figure?
Then you have this undeleted comment with 33 recommendations:
RepublicanStones
20 Oct 09, 11:41pm
How come the ADL are so ready to criticise the Tories on this, but there were rather muted back in the late 80s when real anti-semites who were active in WW2 were found to be employed by Bush the first in his Ethnic Outreach Committee? They referred to the anti-semitism espoused by those guys as ‘antique and anemic’. But the Tories align themselves with people less unsavoury and the ADL are up in arms.
Furthermore, why do some insist on preventing freedom of speech regarding this horrific event? There is no question, millions of jews, romanies, poles and thousands of homosexuals and handicapped people perished, but unless you allow freedom of speech surrounding this event, you’re never going to know who the loony bins are. Also the continued inflation of holocaust survivors by the likes of the Israeli Prime Ministers Office, does not do anything to dispel the revisionists.
And there is this undeleted comment with 108 recommendations:
MMeister
20 Oct 09, 11:51pm
It shouldnt be a ‘crime’ to deny anything. What is this 1984? Thought crime?
Why is it that we are not allowed to debate the Holocaust?
To this day people still debate whether evolution still exists. But they’re never sent to jail for it. Its all rather fishy. A bit like the Red Cross Report from 1947 which had a much smaller figure in the ‘tragedic deaths’ column.
And then there is this one, also undeleted receiving a whopping 116 recommendations:
PhilipD
21 Oct 09, 12:20am
Great article, and I agree with most of it but…. well, I have a problem with your last paragraph:
The strange thing is, I always knew that one day, when every last survivor was gone, there would be “debate” about the Holocaust. Claims that were once deemed shameful – questioning the veracity of documented events – would become somehow acceptable. But I never imagined that I would live to see that grim day for myself. Yet here it is: right here, right now.
Of course the nutcases and bigots who deny the historical reality of the murder of millions of jews must be rejected and marginalised in any civilized society. But I do have a problem with the notion that any topic, even one as loaded as the Holocaust must be immune from serious discussion. As this terrific article in the New York Review of Books indicates, the slaughter that took place in eastern Europe was indeed a very complex phenomenon, with many peoples (including those of Latvia) subject to repeated waves of genocide from both Nazis and Communists. Even the notion that the Holocaust was somehow uniquely a Jewish tragedy should be subject to historical inquiry – by some measures, the Roma suffered an even greater loss of life (as a proportion of the pre war population). The genocides that took place in the Carpathians of islamic peoples by Stalin were also on a near Holocaust scale. It is a serious subject, and we must make a clear distinction between Holocaust denial and its roots in anti-semitism, while allowing historians and others to seriously debate the issue without fear of being labeled a Nazi if they say something which doesn’t quite follow the established narrative.
And here’s yet another. Also undeleted with only 39 recommendations this time.
sherlock001
21 Oct 09, 1:55am
If we are going to charge the Germans with the unique monstrosity of using homicidal gassing chambers to kill millions of innocent victims, we should be willing to allow examination of the history of that monstrosity in the routine way that all other historical issues are examined. But taboo, censorship, prosecution and imprisonment are routinely used to prevent such a historical examination. How could a case buttressed by hard facts possibly be endangered by kooks and anti-Semites? Most of Europe has already criminalized doubting the Holocaust. It is a crime even to confirm that it happened but to conclude that less than 6 million Jews were murdered. Why is the Holocaust a subject that is off limits to examination?
Then we have Teacup, a well-known antisemitic commenter (as we established here), with the strangest justification of Holocaust denial that I’ve ever come across:
Teacup
21 Oct 09, 5:27am (about 7 hours ago)
Jonathan,
While I appreciate how painful a debate on the Holocaust can be to survivours and their families, surely you are not advocating the criminalisation of debate? If nothing else, open debate can help identify the cranks and the prejudiced, and provide a relatively harmless outlet for anti-Jewish sentiments. Before I get e-mud thrown at me for that last sentence, there is a big gap between bad-mouthing a community and actually harming them.
There is nothing new or strange about politics bringing about strange bedfellows. The recourse is obvious – campaign to ensure that they do not ascend to office until they have seen the error of their ways. Your article has set that ball rolling.
It really does take a sick and twisted mind to think that open debate about Holocaust denial is a “relatively harmless outlet for anti-Jewish sentiments”. Then again this is one of the Guardian’s protected and this is ‘Comment is Free’. Needless to say this comment was not deleted.
We then have this gem from FelixKrull, again undeleted.
FelixKrull
21 Oct 09, 7:14am
Why is it that we are not allowed to debate the Holocaust?
I second that question.
As for the Holocaust, a German crime againsrthumanity, sure it happened , but why is any attempt to review the accuracy of the official, jewish-sponsored version immediately labelled as “Holocaust denial”?
And that one too.
Why do you want to re-examine the Holocaust?
Because the examination has so far been based largely on wartime propaganda. Largely, mind you, before you cry ‘denier’.
What do you think the motive is that lies behind Holocaust denial?
Brain damage, probably. But we’re not talking about Holocaust denial, are we, rather than revisionism, a re-examination of history based upon the wealth of information about the matter that has come to light since the Standard Model of the Holocaust was written sometimes in the early seventies.
And if IllegalComabatAnt’s antisemitic bona fides were not clear from his first comment on the thread, there’s this undeleted comment:
IllegalCombatAnt
21 Oct 09, 8:30am
Teacup 21 Oct 09, 7:39am
Anybody,
What is an “anorak issue”?
Teacup, I assume you know that an anorak is an item of apparel. They are commonly associated with trainspotters, people who meticulously record details of trains.
An anorak is therefore a person immersed in the minutiae of any issue – the subtext is that they are boring and pedantic. A bit like many of the unwelcome visitors to CiF from Giyus and other such places.
And for those not fluent in Guardianspeak, “Giyus” is a deeply offensive slur against Jewish supporters of Israel suggesting that they are propagandists (a slur that is encouraged by none other than the Guardian’s very own commissioning editor of ‘Comment is Free’, Brian Whitaker).
And the Holocaust denial continues with these two comments, again both undeleted:
Weeper
21 Oct 09, 8:39am
We are allowed to discuss the Armenian holocaust, the native American Indian holocaust, the Bengal famine (holocaust), and every other one, but not THE Holocaust.
-
Why not?
-
For example, if those who allege that gas could not have been used at Auschwitz could be disproved, then they would shut up for all time. If not, then we need to know why this “fact” was broadcast in the first place.
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Also, I’d like to know where the figure of 6 million came from, just as I’d like to know how many people have died since Iraq was invaded in 2003.
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All this is healthy enquiry, I don’t see why people cry “holocaust denier” if I want to find out more.duppyconqueror
21 Oct 09, 9:54am
I was educated on the holocaust with stories of jews being made into bars of soap by the Nazis.
However concentration camp inmates were not made into bars of soap.
even the holocaust museum in israel now accepts this.but to claim so in the past would have raised accusations of holocaust denial.
Then there is this one that provides an interesting insight into the utter ignorance of the Guardianista:
newone
21 Oct 09, 6:41pm
I have to agree with the comment that anyone who dares to even question the “Holocaust” is a anti-semitic and is to be hounded out of existence.
The real problem is they want to hijack the word “holocaust”. You could describe the murder and slaughter of the millions of Russians as a “holocaust” but because in a sense it has been copyrighted by the Holocaust people, you are not allowed to have a Russian Holocaust.
And what would a Holocaust denial thread be without mention of the great hero of the Guardianistas, Norman Finkelstein:
david119
21 Oct 09, 10:14am
On the face of it I can’t disagree with Jonathan Freedland.
But Jonathan is also a well know Zionist and I sense another agenda lurking beneath a literal reading of his text.
I have to agree with Norman Finkelstein, whose parents were both Holocaust survivors, that the “Holocaust industry” has corrupted Jewish culture and the authentic memory of the Holocaust.
So I have to wonder what was the real reason for this piece.
David Cameron is a leading member of “Conservative Friends of Israel”, not a very likely candidate for a closet anti-Semite.
If Jonathan Freedland came out strongly in favour of the Goldstone report, I might take his concerns about “anti-Semitism” in Eastern Europe a bit more seriously.
In fact the thread was dripping with so much Holocaust denial/revisionism that Jonathan Freedland felt compellled to make the following comment:
“Several posters here seem to be under the impression that I want to “criminalise” debate on the Holocaust. Wrong. I am not calling for debate on any topic to be banned; for the record, I have always opposed laws outlawing Holocaust denial.
But while I don’t believe in making such things illegal, I do deplore the notion — supported in several comments here — that the documented facts of the Holocaust should have their veracity questioned.”
Yet Freedland is clearly oblivious to the fact that he created this mess in the first place because of his ill thought out and reckless choice of title for his article: “I knew the day of ‘Holocaust” debate would come. Just not in my lifetime”.
And what would a Guardian Holocaust denial thread be without strict enforcement of the Guardian World View. Here’s an on the money comment from Duballiland:
Duballiland
21 Oct 09, 9:09am
What amazes me is that this paper which spends so much time vilifying Israel making endless attempts to undermine it is so ready to play the J card when it might help them stop a Conservative Government coming to power.
It would appear that the left does love and will stand by Jews, but only dead ones.
Let me leave you with this parting comment from josecher:
josecher
21 Oct 09, 12:09pm
Why is it that we are not allowed to debate the Holocaust?
Why is it that academics who try to do so have their funding cut off or lose their tenures?
Who came up with the 6 million figure?
At what point exactly did cif start to become infested with nazis?
When I last looked, the above comment had received 70 recommendations – 70 holocaust deniers/apologists on the Guardian’s forum? What the hell is going on?
So Georgina, Matt and Brian, for the umpteenth time what are you going to do about this? The above is just a sampling of the Holocaust denial on ‘Comment is Free’. As I said yesterday in my post, you should be utterly ashamed of yourselves for having created this and what is worse you do absolutely nothing about this.
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
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October 22, 2009 at 3:27 am
MindTheCrap
To be honest, this explicit type of holocaust denial doesn’t bother me that much as I feel it is destined to remain in the fringes of society along with various other blood libels, conspiracy theories, etc, etc.
What really bothers me is the subtle Guardian version of holocaust denial, the version that does not deny the death of six million but instead denies the causes and effects of the Holocaust. The message that is subtly and repeatedly projected is that there was no real anti-semitism in pre-war Europe, hence the Holocaust was an abberation and an isolated incident of German (and only German) temporary insanity. And as such it should have had no effect on the collective Jewish psyche; the survivors (and I include all Jews who were not in Europe during the war) should have shrugged off the event and gone back to their homes and jobs and picked up their lives as if nothing had happened.
This subtle Holocaust denial is necessary for those who wish to deligitimize Zionism and prove that it was not necessary for European Jews to seek a solution to the discrimination that they faced. The holocaust – the ultimate proof – is the one fact that cannot be denied in their rewriting of history, hence the need to disconnect it from its true historical context.
This message is the dangerous one because unlike the ludicrous claims of Ahmedinajad or David Irving, it has the potential to be absorbed and accepted by the educated middle class of the Western democracies.
October 22, 2009 at 3:40 am
Ariadne
MindTheCrap
How would the educated middle class explain Mein Kampf and the fraudulent Protocols?
October 22, 2009 at 3:48 am
Ariadne
I was wondering what Teacup’s “provide a relatively harmless outlet for anti-Jewish sentiments” made me feel as sick as and it is indeed as reading portions of Mein Kampf which were as sickening as I can stomach.
To what kind of human being is hating Jews as natural as breathing?
October 22, 2009 at 4:48 am
FoolMeOnce
Oh, but it’s all so very academic, don’t you see?
Its’ not holocaust denial- it’s a “legitimate debate” about freedom of speech, and about the freedom of questioning historical research. It’s all very subtle- nobody is saying it didn’t happen. What’s wrong with a fellow being allowed to argue about some trivial historical figures? “Is this 1984″?
You see- Because in Guardianistan, in la-la-land of acute liberalism turned on its ear, everything is allowed under the sacred notion of “freedom of speech”- that is, freedom of libel, freedom of holocaust denial, freedom of inciting to violence, freedom of rejecting a people’s right for self determination.
The Guardian is not just _hosting_ anti-Semitism- once a comment is left undeleted after a single complaint- the Guardian is _publishing_ anti-Semitism, and legally it is equivalent to the Guardian writing the comment “_above_ the line”.
Good job, Hawkeye and CiFWatch, for putting the heat on the Guardian.
October 22, 2009 at 5:06 am
Chas N-B
The CiF editors should be ashamed.
Have they shown any remorse for the monster they’ve created, or their willingness to allow racists to use CiF to spread anti-Jewish hatred?
October 22, 2009 at 5:14 am
Yohoho
Chas N-B, I agree but let’s face it if the CiF editors were capable of feeling ashamed then CiF would have disappeared without trace long ago because they would have done the equivalent of falling on their swords.
Hawkeye, this is excellent. You hold up a “true” mirror which reflects the twisted and distorted, psychologically projecting and paranoid world of CiF and its editors, and with the selection of comments you show how CiF cynically and deliberately opens the door to the spewing of such filth.
CiFWatch is an excellent site.
CiF needs this constant “hair shirt” to erode its air of utter belief in its own rectitude, however hateful the rhetoric it allows.
October 22, 2009 at 5:14 am
Biodegradable
“Teacup declares; “… there is a big gap between bad-mouthing a community and actually harming them.”
Really?
Like “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never harm me”?
Before Jews were loaded onto cattle trains for transport to the death camps under the eyes of “normal” Germans there were many years of “bad-mouthing” and demonisation. It was that very “bad-mouthing” that permitted a situation to come about in which the German people said and did nothing while their neighbours were arrested, stripped of their possessions, and carted off to be murdered in the most inhuman manner.
It is this same constant “bad-mouthing” of Jews and Israel at The Guardian which creates an atmosphere of hatred in which, in the event of actual harm befalling Jews, yet again, the attitude of the CiF commenters would be one of quiet (or not-so-quiet) approval.
October 22, 2009 at 5:16 am
Ariadne
Honorable mention from Melanie, thanks to John in the Henry thread:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5458606/the-intolerable-provocation-of-the-truth-at-the-guardian.thtml
October 22, 2009 at 5:19 am
Chas N-B
“CiFWatch is an excellent site.
“CiF needs this constant “hair shirt” to erode its air of utter belief in its own rectitude, however hateful the rhetoric it allows.”
I agree on both points. My only experience of the CiF editorial team is that they throw what can only be described as tantrums if anyone questions them. I hope one day they turn the corner and begin to accept and address this monster they have created. It’s a cliche to say this, but really: how do they sleep at night?
October 22, 2009 at 5:19 am
Ariadne
Yohoho
Rectitude? I can think of another word beginning with “rect…” which really describes Ci(F).
October 22, 2009 at 5:26 am
MITNAGED
MindTheCrap, all holocaust denial bothers me. When it comes under the aegis of a once-respectable newspaper then the Big Lie aspect of it – mentioned here before – comes into play and that is the most pernicious, given the lack of critical thinking capability of most of the contributors there.
You are right that the “drip, drip, drip” of subtle denial is reprehensible and potentially more dangerous and I agree with your rationale for arguing that.
Antisemitism or any sort race hatred is evidence of psychological projection on the part of the haters, who needsa scapegoat onto which they can put all that is bad and uncomfortable about themselves, so as to be able to feel more comfortable. This psychological splitting can be a protective device, but somehow I can’t bring myself to feel sorry for CiF Editors or Guardianistas because of their potential to spoil and destroy as a result of it.
When the Editorial staff buy into this paranoid projection wholesale, when it becomes a shared delusion on their parts and affects their behaviour on such a scale, then one has to start asking some serious questions of the likes of Alan Rusbridger, who must know what is going on and turns a blind eye to it.
October 22, 2009 at 5:41 am
SilverTrees
Biodegradable, your quote from Teacup actually sums up the behaviour linked with the sort of paranoid projection which MITNAGED describes above.
Teacup is known for her antisemitism. This is her trying to justify, in effect, that “It’s only a bit of fun….”
The CiF editors and moderators cannot “do” complexity, which means that they need to be hit over the head by anything which is not startlingly obvious – ie that what people actually write there may well be an indication of their intent if they were given the chance.
In this way they are enabling the normalisation of antisemitism
Thus, whereas Teacup would probably not herself initiate, say, an antisemitic riot, given what she has written in the past, I can well imagine her bystanding if anti-Jewish rioting kicked off, and/or following the herd, or justifying such behaviour along the lines of “Well, they had it coming….”
She has posted little to CiF to make me think otherwise or which hasn’t been undermined by what she has posted subsequently.
October 22, 2009 at 5:43 am
peterthehungarian
Freedland’s criticism of the Tories regarding their alleged alliance with far-right groups/parties in the EP must be the text-book example of hypocrisy.
Part of the British left – and certainly the paymaster of Freedland the Guardian – support the much more significant and powerful religiofascists and Holocaust deniers of Iran and the openly anti-semite and murderous Hamas and Hezb’allah. Their alliance is undeniable.
Freedland must be totally blind not to see that the majority of the Holocaust deniers in Europe apart from the neo-Nazis, some frothing Muslim preachers are mostly on the far-left and the members of his own fan club on CIF.
October 22, 2009 at 5:43 am
MindTheCrap
Mitnaged:
I don’t disagree with you. However the world has been, is, and will be infected with a range of fringe lunatic grups and conspiracy theorists. No amount of logical argument will ever convince them. Fortunately the bulk of the population in western countries uses common sense when faced with these ludicrous assaults on logic and truth. But are they immune to the subtle and long-term manipulations used by the Guardian and its hacks?
October 22, 2009 at 6:15 am
FoolMeOnce
I have to share with you an especially lyrical and entertaining comment made by our dear friend, the Orientalist Moeron:
“Hebron; a city so tragic and so central to the Palestinian experience of dispossession, brutality and injustice that Blair had some nerve showing his face there.
Like Mr Freedman no doubt, I’ve walked those streets many times and observed the shuttered shops, closed by military order at the whim of the fundamentalist settlers and reached up to touch the netting that (almost) protects the shoppers from the missiles that are hurled at them as they try to live their ordinary lives.
How dare this apologist and perpetrator of war-crimes try to associate with the generous, decent and welcoming people of Hebron.
On my first visit, years ago, when I was apparently the only Christian there apart from the brave Christian Peacemakers, they- young and old- shouted to me, “Salaam alaikum! Welcome to Hebron!” and shared their coffee, their hopes and their tragedies with a foreigner who knew almost-almost- as little as Tony Blair.
I wonder why he wasn’t so well-received?
God be with them.”
Well watch out Nobel candidates for literature- there’s a new Garcia Marquez in town! The colors, the smells, the hurling of rockets at shoppers- how very evocative!
Moeron has apparently decided, that since he’s been writing fiction all along, he might as well delve into full-fledged magical-realism prose. With hurled rockets at quaint bazaars and everything.
October 22, 2009 at 6:18 am
MITNAGED
MindtheCrap, yes indeed. The function that such blinkered hatred serves is protective and the methods by which such people release it will not be given up easily by them. We would be wasting our time and energies by trying to impact on the delusional nature of that, since delusions are not amenable to reason.
My concerns, like yours, lie around the long term effects of what I have called the steady “drip, drip, drip” by which such hatred enters public discourse and becomes normalised, and my perception that Georgina Henry and her coven are deliberately manipulating that for whatever ends.
The mindless idiots (by and large) who have volunteered for the Guardianista army because it gives them licence to hate Israel and Jews, have little or no insight, lack the capability to think critically or reality test what they are told, and therefore tend to knee-jerk react without thinking, tend to be impulse driven and as a result, lack the common sense you refer to.
They are therefore ideal (very) raw material for the sort of hatred CiF encourages.
October 22, 2009 at 6:28 am
Yohoho
“… When the Editorial staff buy into this paranoid projection wholesale, when it becomes a shared delusion on their parts and affects their behaviour on such a scale, then one has to start asking some serious questions of the likes of Alan Rusbridger, who must know what is going on and turns a blind eye to it.
But what if he is similarly afflicted?
October 22, 2009 at 7:37 am
peterthehungarian
Off topic warning!
Now that the troll has been sent back to his warm and loving home he displays his brilliance again:
———————————————————————————————–
Berchmans
22 Oct 09, 8:16am (about 4 hours ago)
Ian
## Rafiq al-Hariri, .. later murdered in Beirut (many assume by Syrian agents, ). The Hariri killing sent Syria straight back into the cold.##
This is well put Ian …(many assume) … whilst I criticise Syria for her anti people policies..you have to consider cui bono and who has the best agents in the world.
B
———————————————————————————————-
Clear. Hariri has been murdered by Israeli agents in according to the voice of the striking workers of the Royal Mail.
October 22, 2009 at 8:18 am
MITNAGED
“…I hope one day they turn the corner and begin to accept and address this monster they have created. It’s a cliche to say this, but really: how do they sleep at night?
Chas, so do I but Henry’s coven has far too much invested publicly in being right for them ever to change. If Georgina Henry was ever forced to admit in public that she was wrong about anything, she would also be forced to examine every other aspect of her negative conduct. Her psyche isn’t strong or grown up enough for her to be able do that, hence the off-the-wall excuse for Lerner’s reprehensible behaviour. The attitude of the CiF editors is rigid and cognitively distorted as well as delusional in order to protect themselves from the emotional discomfort of being shown, time and time again, to be in the wrong. The mere idea of anything being amiss with their approach is reacted against in a draconian manner.
My prescription for action is to continue to hold up the “true” mirror to CiF’s distortions as Yohoho describes above.
October 22, 2009 at 8:31 am
AKUS
The Guardian is comfortably in bed with Ahmedinajad and other holocaust deniers.
One of the key strategies employed by those who really want to deny the Holocaust, but realize that its not true to do so, is to start asking about why “only” the murder of 6 million Jews is is ever mentioned.
They then go on to list the acknowledged horrors and deaths of millions of others, with the explicit or implied attempt to make the case that “it wasn’t so bad – others were affected equally/worse.” E.g., from the article above:
Newone
The real problem is they want to hijack the word “holocaust”. You could describe the murder and slaughter of the millions of Russians as a “holocaust” but because in a sense it has been copyrighted by the Holocaust people, you are not allowed to have a Russian Holocaust.
Well, no thinking person fails to realize the full scope of the deaths in WW II (though many of the Guardian’s favorites would prefer to overlook the murderous nature of Stalin and Mao, who, even without Hitler, would go down as the greatest mass-murderers of all time). I have never heard someone try to gloss over these horrors.
But what is going on here is an attempt to whitewash the planned and executed genocide of the Jews by the Nazis – the word “genocide” had to be invented to describe it by claiming – “see, its not so bad, and only those whining Jews make a big deal out of it”. Followed up by a health dose of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist invective and some crocodile tears for the poor Palestinians, and the claim that this growing population is being subjected to genocide (see the link to Ahmadinajad below – he has this approach down perfectly).
Another Holocaust denying strategy is, of course, the old favorite of questioning whether it really was 6 million Jews, followed up by the line that Ahmadinajad is parroting now at every appearance – why aren’t we “allowed” to discuss or investigate the Holocaust?
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2247.htm
Four or five years after World War II, they suddenly claimed that during that war, the Holocaust affair had taken place. In other words, according to their claims, several million Jews were burned in the crematoria. ….
…I have said some things in the past four years. …We asked them the following question: If the Holocaust that you talk about was real, why don’t you allow the subject to be studied? One can freely research any issue, except for this issue, which is sealed. It is a black box, which they do not allow to be opened or reexamined. They do this in order to exploit it.
There is no event in history that has been more exhaustively documented, in large part by the perpetrators themselves, than the Holocaust – but more and more frequently we are seeing this line – why can’t we allowed to question the Holocaust?
Hence, “Weeper”, above:
Also, I’d like to know where the figure of 6 million came from…All this is healthy enquiry, I don’t see why people cry “holocaust denier” if I want to find out more.
as if there are not libraries full of the figures, including the names, ages, addresses of millions murdered by the Nazis if “weeper” only wanted to “find out more”.
October 22, 2009 at 8:55 am
AKUS
As if the Freedland thread wasn’t enough, on a new article by Lerman not even connected directly to the Holocaust we have the following from ONeill70 which has preserved the deleted comment made by “IllegalCombatant”:
ONeill70
IllegalCombatant
“Why are we not allowed to debate the Holocaust?”
We are, you eejit! Holocaust scholars and academics across a range of fields do it every day. But here’s the thing – you’ve got to know something about it first. Debate is kind of predicated upon that.
————-
IllegalCombatant clearly finds the CiF board a convenient place to express his Holocaust-denying views.
October 22, 2009 at 9:13 am
MindTheCrap
Here is what must be today’s winning comment, on the Ian Black thread about Syria (removed after 1 hour):
Subsea
22 Oct 09, 1:10pm (56 minutes ago)
Here goes the anti-Semitic terrorists slogan again. Wait until I get my violin out.
Hitler wanted a country for straight white Germans and straight white Germans only. Israel wants a country for the Jew and the Jew only. What is the difference?
October 22, 2009 at 9:39 am
peterthehungarian
An other form of Hlocaust denial is comparing Israel to the Nazis as we can see here:
Subsea
22 Oct 09, 1:10pm (38 minutes ago)
Here goes the anti-Semitic terrorists slogan again. Wait until I get my violin out.
Hitler wanted a country for straight white Germans and straight white Germans only. Israel wants a country for the Jew and the Jew only. What is the difference?
Back to the main subject: Syria, single handed, has managed to change to change the politics of the region the influence decisions on the world stage. There is no denying that it is the most influential country in the region and be assured that when Asad called Arab leader half men, he received the support of almost of every single Arab in the region.
With respect to human rights issues, have heard of Abu Gareeb, Gaza, Sabra & Shatela, Guantanamo bay, etc…
The real problem is that no man can handle the extreme external pressure exerted on Syria by foreign policies (unfair foreign policies) and maintain complete freedom internally; we would have half of the Mossad in Syria steering trouble, and a government that will serve the purpose of the nig international financial institutions such as the world bank, have heard of the Jackals and the economical hit men?. President Asad is slowly but surely moving Syria in the right direction and keeping the country on the world stage.
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An other intersting point of the GWV in this post is the explanation why Syria is a dictature. If you wouldn’t know already – it is because of the Mossad.
October 22, 2009 at 9:40 am
peterthehungarian
MindTheCrap
Sorry for the crossposting.
October 22, 2009 at 9:55 am
Chas N-B
I would be very interested to read a post outling the history of what the CiF team has said in reaction to complaints about the antisemitism on their site.
October 22, 2009 at 10:45 am
JerusalemMite
Chas-N-B – I would be very interested to read a post outling the history of what the CiF team has said in reaction to complaints about the antisemitism on their site.
Where would one find it?
Let’s be frank. Anything that they have in print would be fun to read and apply it to what actually happens on the threads,
But their community standards – http://www.guardian.co.uk/community-standard, is good enough. They say:We acknowledge criticism of the articles we publish, but will not allow persistent misrepresentation of the Guardian and our journalists to be published on our website.
In other words, if you link to a site about Bungle and his duplicity, it will be deleted.
http://www.spittoon.org/archives/2908
October 22, 2009 at 10:54 am
Yohoho
People are allowed to question the Holocaust are they not? It’s just that these people are almost pathologically averse to having their arguments taken to bits therefore after a while they seethe but don’t continue.
And then they blame the vastly more intelligent human beings who have torn their arguments to shreds for “stifling” them
October 22, 2009 at 11:34 am
Augie
The Holocaust is a historical and in my case personal family fact.
Here in the US we don’t have Holocaust denial laws. People who deny the Holocaust are treated with contempt as ignorant and bigoted.
I suppose Europeans where the Holcaust took place are more senstive on the topic.
Still it may actually do some good to see how a Freedlander would react if these laws were lifted and he was found at the Guardian having to face open holocaust denial by his colleagues.
How would other “good Jews” react to this?
The laws it seems to me protect not only sane Jews from open antisemitism it also unfortunaley shields these “house Jews” from having to experience such antisemitism themselves.
October 22, 2009 at 11:57 am
NormanF
In the Guardian’s world, night is day, the lie is the truth and slavery is freedom. The Holocaust is a historical fact not open to debate. But for those who hate Jews, the shortest route to justifying the hate against them is to call for leaving the Holocaust open to question.
October 22, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Topogigio
The Guardian itself has its own ideological reason for owning up to the holocaust. The Guardian, along with Roger Cohen and Bashir Assad, continously say that the Arabs paid the price of the holocaust. Roger Cohen is the chief proponent of the view that Israel is a European implant imposed on the Arab world. That is also the view of Lerman, Freedman and Ahmedinejad. They ignore the 3000 year old ties between Israel and the Jewish people, all the archeological evidence and also the fact that in the first modern census of Jerusalem, there was a Jewish majority and distinct Arab minority. Nor do they pay attention to fact that there was a mass Arab immigration from Egypt to the British Mandate of Palestine in the years after 1920. Most Palestinian Arabs can trace their lineage to Egypt, if they wanted to do that. So acknowleding the holocaust is not difficult for The Guardian’s stable of ideologues. They can twist into their Manichean view of the Arab-Israeli conflcut being one of wiley and conniving Jews arriving in 1948 and stealing the land from its real owners. Actually The Guardian is more stridently antiIsrael than is the Tehran Times.
October 22, 2009 at 1:53 pm
LicketySplit
Toppogigio you make interesting points.
“..Actually The Guardian is more stridently antiIsrael than is the Tehran Times.”
True and it’s possessed of the identical bees in its bonnet about alleged Jewish/Zionist world domination and the same imperviousness to reason and logical argument as the Iranian government and the Mahdi’s mad precursor.
Holocaust denial is a staple of Islamist/Arab thinking (in spite of the connection with Hitler of Haj Amin al Husseini, who wanted to extend the holocaust to the Jews of the Middle East) so as to undermine Jewish connection with what was Palestine (ie no holocaust of Jews = the Jews have no need of their own country).
October 22, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Proud Zionist
Cifwatch, I love you guys, but I always come away from your site feeling sick, I don’t know how you stomach trawling through all that poison!
Seriously amazing work you’re doing, keep it up. Hopefully the stuff you’ve found will be publicised sometime.
October 22, 2009 at 2:48 pm
StickyMickey
The figure of “six million” is the only figure that seems to be consensually bandied about as “true” however this represents only the Jewish component of those exterminated. The actual number of people systematically exterminated is thought to be considerably higher (11-17 million). Why do we only get to hear the figure “six million”? After all the years of research and funds spent when are we going to get a definitive figure of ALL that were exterminated?
October 22, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Augie
StickyMickey: the Holocaust refers to the programmed and industrial extermination of a people.
Yes, other people were killed but you have to break down the causalty list to make sense of the whole thing.
Also about 6-7 million Germans also perished. Do you want to include them in the list of “victims?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Human_losses_by_country
October 22, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Augie
Also countries like Poland used to claim that six million Poles were murdered when the number was closer to one and a half million. They also claimed that Jews living in Poland, and who had been oppressed by the Poles, as “Polish victims.”
October 22, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Peter Jackson
I’ve been troubled by Cif’s antisemitism for a while, and read the (bowdlerised) Freedland thread today. There’s still plenty of dodgy stuff on there…
When I commented on a bizarre ‘antizionist’ post by MilesSmiles on the Kahn Harris thread, we ended up in a conversation where he/she conceded much ground. Yet a couple of days later, he/she is back in the same groove. At least I didn’t get deleted.
Does argument do any good with such idees fixes?
October 22, 2009 at 3:54 pm
StickyMickey
Augie-
I am referring specifically to the “programmed and industrial extermination of people” as opposed to casualties of war. From wikipedia-
“Some scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the Nazis’ systematic murder of millions of people in other groups, including ethnic Poles, the Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other political and religious opponents.By this definition, the total number of Holocaust victims would be between 11 million and 17 million people.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust
To exclude these victims of systematic industrial slaughter is just another form of denial.
October 22, 2009 at 4:01 pm
peterthehungarian
There is a new thread on CIF from Tisdall about the deterioration of the Turkish-Israeli relations. Naturally not a word about the Turkish TV film debicting Israeli soldiers as baby killers.
The unmoderated bile is verhelming. I quote only one example:
Arshavinslittlelegs
22 Oct 09, 7:56pm (47 minutes ago)
The zionist trolls sent by the ministry of disinformation are out in force it seems.
Good on Turkey for finally doing what it should have done a long time ago. It is quite a comedic twist how the warmongers occupying Palestine turn to each other in bafflement as to why one by one their former allies and friends turn their backs on them in disgust. This is the beginning of the end for Israel and it’s single-minded, blind, barbaric ways and I along with the majority of humanity will rejoice.
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October 22, 2009 at 5:28 pm
sababa
FoolMeOnce, you praise Moron’s poetic Hebron prose: doesn’t it sound like inspired by Master Freedman?
October 22, 2009 at 6:03 pm
FoolMeOnce
Peter Jackson
“Does argument do any good with such ideas fixes?”
No, I have yet to come across a single instance where someone on CiF changed his mind about something. Not once.
sababa
I think you are, about who the authoritative figure on West-bank-genre-fiction is. They both get a lot of traveling and writing done- all without leaving their comfy chairs. Freedman while sipping his latte in Rotchild avenue, and Moeron sipping his protein juice in his comfy retirement home in quaint little Stratford-upon-f@#king-moron.
October 22, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Augie
“To exclude these victims of systematic industrial slaughter is just another form of denial.”
Sticky, your link doesn’t tell me anything.
What specifically did you want to say with that link?
October 22, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Conrad Kurtz
Tisdall is deliriously happy about the deterioration in Turkish-Israeli relations. Whenever there is a Turkish-Arab rift, such as the rift a few years ago between Syria and Turkey, Tisdall is totally on the Arab side. Tisdall has a view of the Arabs that there is nothing the Arabs ever do that is anything other than a reaction to imperialism. But when Turkey disagreed with Israel, then suddenly Tisdall is sure that Israel is 100% to blame. Tisdall is a bore as a person and even more so as a writer so only a few aged leftists from Ernest Bevins era bother to read Tisdall, He is utterly predictable and has not had an original column in 35 years.
October 22, 2009 at 8:49 pm
AKUS
The new Tisdall article, weirdly worrying about whether Israel is in denial about Turkeuy (who the hell cares???) has a couple of real beauties.
————
This may take the cake both for the moniker, the words, and the sentiment:
Aha – one of “their” own …
—————
Then we have the more traditional “Jews control the media assertion in the following weird comment:
I always knew the Guardian is a Mossad false flag operations and Jeish controlled…
October 22, 2009 at 9:07 pm
peterjjackson
That comment in the original post from RepublicanStones is interesting – I called him/her out on something almost identical on another thread, and was asked what was antisemitic about it. So I did a bit of research, and found that his/her contention comes almost word for word from Noam Chomsky, based on a misreading of a New Republic editorial. The contention that the ADL was soft on Bush Senior’s antisemites is false; I found this quote pretty easily:
++++++++++++++
ADL’s Boston director Leonard Zakim is concerned about the situation. Zakim says that if in fact the Bush campaign has never completely investigated the charges concerning the Republican ethnic advisors as requested by ADL, then he is “extremely unsatisfied with that response.”
“The ADL is very clear in demanding a full explanation take place, these charges are extremely serious and we expect the response to be equally serious. We are very disturbed that spokespersons for the Bush camp did not see fit to repudiate in full those individuals whose stateed views are offensive,” says Zakim. “We don’t see this as a Jewish issue. When charges like these are raised, all people should be concerned. It shouldn’t only be Jewish organizations calling on the political campaigns to deal with issues of racism and anti-Semitism, but all persons of good conscience.”
+++++++++++++++++++
Also, interestingly, RepublicanStones has been posting pretty much identical stuff all over the web, as well as multiple times on Cif.
The encyclopaedia of comments by this user also makes interesting reading. And not been banned yet…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/search/users?search=republicanstones&searchType=user
October 22, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Holocaust Denial on CiF « ModernityBlog
[...] on October 23, 2009 3:05 am In light of Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time, CiFwatch’s look at Holocaust denial on CiF is rather [...]
October 22, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Orly
StickyMicky @3:54 pm
“I am referring specifically to the “programmed and industrial extermination of people” as opposed to casualties of war. From wikipedia-
“Some scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the Nazis’ systematic murder of millions of people in other groups, including ethnic Poles, the Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other political and religious opponents.By this definition, the total number of Holocaust victims would be between 11 million and 17 million people.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust
To exclude these victims of systematic industrial slaughter is just another form of denial.”
Nobody denies the murder of an unknown number of people from the above groups. But the jews where not “people exterminated”, they where “a People” in the sense of a nation- exterminated. And the nazis went to the greatest lengths to get and exterminate every jew under their control, in a way unparalleled in their persecution of other “cathegories” of people. For example: They collected all the jews of Crete to be sent away to death’ and upon hearing about ONE jew living in a tiny island off Crete, they sent a small boat to that island to get him.
Plus “jew” for them included non- jews who had even one jewish grandparent. They so jewishness as a biological fact’ not as a religious persuation as in some of those other cathegories.
Even in their persecution of Roma they sought out and murdered the traveling ones, not the settled ones.
This is not to minimaze the suffering and loss of all human beings who where persecuted by the nazis. I am a daughter of Holocaust survivors, and believe me’ I grieve for them as well.
October 22, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Guardian Hates Jews
The scholar Emil Fackenheim has thoroughly analysed the elements which make the Holocausr unique. Here is a summary.
October 23, 2009 at 5:05 am
FoolMeOnce
sababa
I meant to say “I think you are RIGHT”, not “I think you are”.
October 23, 2009 at 6:23 am
MITNAGED
StickeyMickey, I know that the six million figure does not include those permanently damaged by incarceration in the death camps but who somehow survived, whose lives were blighted in ways you could not possibly imagine, who were used for experimentation and therefore, even if they did live, they could not have full lives. This is not an exaggeration. It happened. I have met some of these people and have worked with them.
Those of that generation who did manage to marry and have families sometimes left them with a legacy which affected them emotionally for the rest of their lives too.
Jews primarily, but also Russians, Gypsies and other “untermenschen” were the targets of deliberately planned killing on a mass scale and the evidence remains to prove that. That came about because hatred of such people was normalised in the years before the steps were taken actually to destroy them and that hatred paved the way to the behaviour which followed/
The German people and others in the German-occupied countries were exposed to propaganda which told them that exterminating these people was a “good thing” for those societies.
The propaganda was initially published in newspapers like Der Sturmer.
CiF publishes such hate-filled propaganda too. Given the thrust of some of the below the line comments, aren’t you in the least concerned about the normalisation of this hatred by its constant repetition and reiteration there? I am. Very much.
October 23, 2009 at 11:35 am
StickyMickey
Orly
“Even in their persecution of Roma they sought out and murdered the traveling ones, not the settled ones.”
This is simply not true. The Gypsies were exterminated for being Gypsies (not for travelling). As I said earlier, the much touted figure of “six million” is simply another subtler form of denial. You will notice that the Fackenheim link provided by “Guardian Hates Jews” recognizes that the Jewish experience of extermination “as a people” was unique “with the possible exception of the Gypsies”.