[veronica]

Your need to attack me for merely posting an article by a respected Conservative writer like Steven Plaut, which confirms that the evil Leftist and Holocaust denier Finkelstein is indeed who I said he was, AND who is a sock puppet for Jewhaters everywhere, makes me wonder about your agenda.

I suggest you transfer your support of the Holocaust denier Finkelstein to Elie Weisel, a true hero of the Holocaust, who was by President Bush's side on Holocaust Commemoration Day. And try not to call names.

[Zviadist]

makes me wonder about your agenda.

My agenda is love.

And I calls 'em as I sees 'em. Finkelstein makes some very good points. Sorry, but only in a very twisted mind does that make me a Nazi. If you are getting confused about what Nazis really are, perhaps you might like to take a trip over to Stormfront.org. That will refresh your memory.

[Southern Federalist]

As neither a Catholic or a Jew, but as I think you know a friend of Israel, don't damn the Catholic Church or Pius XII on grounds of guilt by association with these defenders. They can only talk about Catholicism's innate "anti-Judaism" by rejecting Vatican II. They are far more bitterly anti-Jewish than the pre-Vatican II popes. All the documentation they cite on Pius should just provoke one answer: "So why haven't YOU learned anything from this?"

I am neither an admirer nor a hater of Pius 12. Protestants don't typically warm to him. But I think the record of WWII is that he knew what was happening was wrong and did what he thought was possible. If he had been a different kind of man he might have thought more was possible. But don't play along when these people use him to absolve themselves of their own anti-Semitism.

[aristeides]

I have read Finkelstein's book The Holocaust Industry. To say that he denies the Holocaust seems to me a grotesque distortion of his position. He does criticize the ways in which the concept of "the Holocaust" has been used, but the whole work presupposes that what is called the "Holocaust" really took place. This is clear from the first page of the book. A footnote says: "In this text, Nazi holocaust signals the actual historical event, The Holocaust its ideological representation." And the text on that page says: "In the pages that follow, I will argue that 'the Holocaust' is an ideological representation of the Nazi holocaust. Like most ideologies, it bears a connection, if tenuous, with reality." So Finkelstein is obviously critical of how the term "the Holocaust" has been used, but he equally obviously does not deny that what he calls "the Nazi holocaust" occurred. "Holocaust denier", as the term is used, is understood to mean someone who denies the fact that the Holocaust occurred, or at least someone who minimizes it. That is simply not an accurate description of Finkelstein.

Personally, I found his book quite moving. Finkelstein is obviously quite deeply affected by his parents' suffering, and is trying to be loyal to them in reacting to that suffering in what he regards as an ethical way.

As for Goldhagen, I think his latest screed unmasks him as an academic operator. His unbalanced thesis in his book -- making German nationalism the moral equivalent of Nazism, and average Germans the moral equivalent of Nazis -- was basically more false than true, but it was open to the explanation that Goldhagen was just doing his best to legitimize the state of Israel. It may have been bad history, but it could be understood as springing from basically creditable motives. His current attack on Catholicism, however, can do no good to Israel, and, as Andrew Sullivan observes, has the same problem of unbalance as his book: Goldhagen not only asserts, with some truth, that Catholicism helped to cause Nazism, but he makes Catholicism basically the moral equivalent of Nazism. That thesis is more false than true, it can only embitter Jewish-Christian relations, and, by weakening one of the chief Christian churches, it will weaken morality in the West and serve to empower the left.

Goldhagen is much more of an enemy to Western civilization than the basically honest Finkelstein.

[Castlebar]

The Forward is Liberal. The Jewish Press is conservative. The Forward was for Clinton. The Jewish Press endorsed BUSH...............I suggest you transfer your support of the Holocaust denier Finkelstein to Elie Weisel, a true hero of the Holocaust, who was by President Bush's side on Holocaust Commemoration Day. And try not to call names.

Excuse me, but Elie Weisel was also a big Clinton supporters as well.