Finkelstein's a Holocaust denier? His parents are survivors...
Ethnocentric critics might call him that.
Speaking of Finkelstein...
In his book, Finkelstein quotes Israeli writer Boas Evron, "Holocaust awareness is actually an official, propagandistic indoctrination, a churning out of slogans and a false view of the world, the real aim of which is not at all an understanding of the past, but a manipulation of the present."
Former Israeli Foreign Secretary Abba Eban once observed: "There's no business like Shoah business." Two important books can help us better understand the prominent position the Holocaust has captured in the American consciousness.
The first book is Peter Novick's The Holocaust in American Life, and the second is Norman Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry. Novick's more scholarly work caused quite a stir, but Finkelstein has been called a "self-hating Jew" by many of his critics. Finkelstein's more provocative work heavily cites Novick's book, yet Novick has called it "trash." I'd recommend reading Novick's book first, followed by Finkelstein's. You can decide if Finkelstein's interpretation of Novick's work is really off the mark.
Novick's main points are that the promotion of the Holocaust has served several specifically Jewish interests: particularly support for Israel, combating anti-Semitism and now promoting multi-culturalism. Finkelstein's point is that it's not about money, it's about more money, and the real victims aren't getting it. Both books are also very critical of Elie Weisel's role in the promotion of the Holocaust as a unique event "beyond understanding."
Well, genocide and violent ethnic conflict have been a part of human history from the beginning of time. Just look back at the last century- the Holocaust, Rwanda, Armenia, and the tens of millions killed in the name of communism- the killing fields of Cambodia, China, the Ukraine and Russia…
Back to the media…
In her October 25, 2000 column for Salon, an online magazine, feminist author Camille Paglia stated, "At any rate, much more open debate is necessary about the history of American alliance with Israel. Too often, criticism of Israeli policy is punitively policed and treated as if it were rank anti-Semitism."
Of course, no one dares talk about the ethnic interests of people like Richard Perle or Paul Wolfowitz or the countless Jewish media figures who frame this issue for Americans. There is far more criticism of Sharon's policy in Israel than in the U.S.
In addition to Paglia's suggestion, I would add that much more open dialogue is also necessary about Jewish media hegemony, the prominent position the Holocaust plays in American life, and anti-Semitism. However, these are extremely emotionally charged issues. Currently, there seems to be no "meaningful" dialogue occurring in this country. If anything, there is only a monologue.
Again, considering the history Jews and Gentiles have shared, combating anti-Semitism seems to be a rather logical and noble endeavor. However, I would argue that the methods being used to combat anti-Semitism are based in a belief that gentile Americans pose a real threat to American Jews. This type of paranoia was exemplified in the August 21, 2000 issue of New York magazine. The magazine featured a roundtable discussion of a "diverse minyan of the city's Jewish opinion leaders" discussing Jewish issues "in the wake of Joseph Liebermann's historic run." During the discussion, Bust magazine editor, Marcelle Karp, stated, "Things might be different in New York and in L.A., but in many parts of America, they still hate us. They, of course, are gentile Americans. Another participant, filmmaker Ben Younger, likened pre-war Nazi Germany to the United States circa 2000.
Americans are clamoring for diversity in the highest levels of corporate America, academia, the government, and we even want more diversity on TV, but we're not suppose to care that Jews (approximately 3% of the population) fill the majority of positions of power in many areas of the media. We're told that they are just Americans, who happen to be Jewish, acting as individuals, "pursuing the American dream."
From ADL website:
"Even a reputable British magazine in 1994 revived the stereotype of Hollywood in which an alleged "Jewish cabal" controls the industry. The article, in The Spectator, authored by William Cash, a Hollywood correspondent for the conservative British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, contended that Jews have created an "invidious and protective culture" that denies employment to non-Jews."
"The Anti-Defamation League expressed outrage at the article, saying that it raised the age-old canard of Jewish control and conspiracy and was reminiscent of classic anti-Semitic propaganda of the past hundred years. "Those Jews who enter the movie industry have done so as individuals pursuing the American dream, not as representatives of their religious group," commented ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman."
The National Review's John Derbyshire recently wrote the following on the Cash issue- "…recall the Spectator incident of 1994. In October of that year, the London Spectator - a literary and political magazine of impeccable gentility - published an article titled "Kings of the Deal", analyzing, in a thoughtful and entirely unthreatening way, the dominance of Jews like Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg in Hollywood. To the amazement of the Spectator's editor (who was Dominic Lawson - a Jew!) this innocuous article caused a storm of outrage in the U.S.A. The young author, William Cash, was denounced from the pulpits of political correctness - that is, from the Op-Ed pages of the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. Prominent American Jews like Leon Wieseltier went into high-hysterical mode, denouncing Cash as the new Julius Streicher and so on. The storm went on for weeks, led by a howling mob of buffoons - Barbra Streisand, for example - who had certainly never read, nor probably even heard of the Spectator up to that point…It was a display of arrogance, cruelty, ignorance, stupidity and sheer bad manners by rich and powerful people towards a harmless, helpless young writer, and the Jews who whipped up this preposterous storm should all be thoroughly ashamed of themselves."
Bedtime.
Which makes him even more evil...Steven Plaut - National Review contributor - on Finklestein.
Here is the crucial passage at the opening of his excellent book The Holocaust Industry:
This book is both an anatomy and an indictment of the Holocaust industry. 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.
And Finkelstein also has a footnote to this passage:
In this text, "Nazi holocaust" signals the actual historical event, "The Holocaust" its ideological representation.
Thus, it should be clear that Finkelstein is certainly not a Holocaust denier in the sense that that phrase is conventionally used in English.