I was involved in the organisation of the 50th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz, while First Secretary at the British Embassy in Warsaw. The 50th did not receive anything like the media coverage given to the 70th, of which more later.
Senior British visitors to Poland invariably included a concentration camp on their itinerary, and from escorting people around I visited camps a great deal more often than I would have wished. I found the experience appalling and desolate. The first I ever saw was Majdanek and I recall that I just had to sit helpless and shivering for some time. One thing the experience left me with – including meeting survivors and both Polish and German eye-witnesses, and seeing the architects’ plans for camps – was a contempt for those who claim the whole thing did not happen, or was an accident, or was small scale.
It in no way diminishes the genocidal attack on the Jews to remember that a vast number of Poles also died in the camps, as well as gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled and disparate political prisoners. I tried sometimes to diminish the horror I felt at involvement with the camps, with attempts at humour. I was present at a meeting listing the guests of honour; the President of Lithuania was included. I whispered that he was coming to represent the camp guards. That was offensive, and I apologise. But there is a real problem that to this day Eastern Europe – including Poland itself – has not come to terms with historical truth about collaboration with anti-Jewish genocide and other attacks on minorities. I recommend this website, which tackles these issues very honestly and is well worth a lengthy browse.
It requires bigotry not to be able to understand why nationalist resistance movements against Russian occupation became allied with Germany during World War II. That would be reprehensible only in the same sense that allied collaboration with Stalin might be reprehensible, but for the added factor of enthusiastic collaboration with genocidal and master race programmes and fascist ideology. That is what makes the glorification of Eastern European nationalist figures from this period generally inappropriate.
I fear however that the real reason that the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz received so much more coverage than the 50th is a media desire to reinforce the narrative of the War on Terror and Western policy in the Middle East by invoking the spectre of massive anti-Semitism. There have been isolated but deplorable, apparently anti-Semitic attacks of a small-scale terrorist nature in France and Belgium in recent years. But to conflate this into stories of a wave of popular anti-Semitism in Europe is a nonsense. Maureen Lipman’s claim that she may have to leave the UK is not just silly but disingenuous. I do not believe she feels in personal danger of attack – there is absolutely no reason why she should – she is rather making a political point.
There are two factors which could exacerbate anti-Semitism at present. One is the appalling behaviour of Israel and its indefensible action in continually seizing Palestinian land and using its military superiority to dominate and occasionally massacre Palestinians. Regrettably, there are a very small minority of people who wrongly blame Jews in general for the actions of Israel.
The second factor is of course the terrible economic hardship wrought across the whole world by irresponsible banking practices, and the fact that the bankers luxury lifestyles were maintained at the cost of everybody else. There are still a tiny minority of people stuck in the medieval mindset associating banking with the Jewish community. There is in fact a very plausible argument that if any “race” has a disproportionate influence on the development and character of international banking since the mid eighteenth century, it is the Scots! But those who see banking as a racial issue are nutters.
You could construct an argument from these factors, and you could identify that anti-Semitic people do exist. They certainly do. They dominate the very small category of people who get banned even from this free speech blog. But are their opinions intellectually respectable, promoted in the mainstream or able to be expressed openly without fear of either social or legal consequences? No, no and no. Anti-semites are fortunately a tiny and strange minority. I might add that in my numerous and frequent social contacts in the British Muslim community, I have never encountered anti-Semitism (unlike, say, Poland and Russia where I encountered casual anti-Semitism quite frequently).
The final point, is of course, the conflation of anti-zionism with anti-Semitism. That seems to me the fundamental design of the media campaign exaggerating the scale of anti-Semitism at the moment. Yes, we must always remember the terrible warnings from history and it is right to remember those who died in the concentration camps, Jewish, Polish, Romany, Gay, Communist or any other category. But we should be aware of those who wish to manipulate the powerful emotions of horror thus evoked, for present objectives of the powerful.
I don’t know about Jews in the uk, I think there was some about in uni. But as said, never recalled issues. However for me personally, I met a couple from Israel while traveling, and I felt the same unease I do around most solders. And hearing about the society from him, how it all is, made me even less easy.
It’s not individual brutality that bothers me, it’s the collective conformity.
…..Grrr.
Look everyone, everyone who is English, we NEED English computers, English programs, JUST English. Clearly no programmers from the states get’s what should happen when you select UK spelling.
Do we have no cultural self respect? Can’t we do this? Is it racist or shutting ourselves off? NO, No it’s not.
Someone think of the money.
Syria, Syria, Syria…
Zionist will do anything to drive us to WAR.
The Zionist needs to demonize everything, with the only exception being Israel.
Anytime the Main Stream Media broadcast a supposed act of Terrorism. Extremism, Fanaticism, Radicalism, or Racism; Chances are that it’s directly linked with Zionism.
The Zionist Main Stream Media and the Government are working hand in hand, in duping the public with ‘Manufactured Terrorism’ aka ‘False Flag Attacks’
Zionist organizations like AIPAC were dealt a devastating blow when they couldn’t get the US to bomb Syria.
Simon Elliot (Elliot Shimon) the leader of the ISIL, aka Al-Baghdadi was born of two Jewish parents and is a Mossad agent.
Source: Veterans Today the Military & Foreign Affairs Journal.
Norman Finkelstein on Dershowitz. Apparently 38 Harvard professors have described the latter as ‘courageous’.
‘Of particular relevance to your website, no single person in the U.S. was more responsible than Dershowitz for whitewashing Israel’s brutal torture of Palestinian detainees. When Israel’s torture first came under public scrutiny, Dershowitz wrote (with attorney Monroe Freedman) in the New York Times, “Allegations of systematic torture and allegations of systematic violations of human rights by Israel must be viewed with more than a little skepticism.”
Dershowitz repeated his egregious apologetics during the first intifada (beginning 1987) when, according to B’Tselem, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, Israel was “systematically” torturing Palestinian detainees, deploying methods similar to those recently recounted in the Senate Report on Torture, but on a vastly greater scale. The Torture Report documents 39-44 cases of CIA use of torture, whereas HRW estimated that during the first intifada alone, Israel tortured and ill-treated “tens of thousands” of Palestinian detainees.
Indeed, Dershowitz misrepresented Israeli torture practices in testimony sworn to under oath in a U.S. extradition hearing of a Palestinian resident, Mahmoud el-Abed Ahmad, fearing torture in Israel. For example, he said that Israel’s “toughest methodology for eliciting statements” from Palestinian detainees “is to frighten the person being interrogated into believing that the situation is actually going to be worse than it would become.” Israel was at most guilty, according to Dershowitz, of “occasional pushing and shoving…physical touching.” (I go through the sordid record in detail in my book Beyond Chutzpah.)
Is this what the Harvard Law School professors had in mind when they praised Dershowitz’s “courageous” and “outspoken” defense of “the despised”?’
Norman Finkelstein on Joan Peters legacy (and Dershowitz’s legal troubles)
January 28th, 2015
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/finkelstein-dershowitzs-troubles
Two Israeli Soldiers Killed In Convoy Attack
Israel’s leader evokes the country’s bombardment of Gaza – which left 2,200 dead – as he warns against assaults on his forces.
http://news.sky.com/story/1416605/two-israeli-soldiers-killed-in-convoy-attack
No mention of the Israelis killing a Spanish UN peacekeeper. Imagine if one of the enemies of the USUKIsNATO axis had done the same.
Some glossing over of the back story by Sky here
‘The attack on the convoy in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms area was in response to an Israeli rocket attack in Syria, a source familiar with details of the operation told AFP.’
The actuality on 18 January 2015 –
Iran general died in ‘Israeli strike’ in Syrian Golan
Mohammad Ali Allah-Dadi (file) The Revolutionary Guards said Gen Allah-Dadi had been killed while defending the people of Syria
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have confirmed that a general was killed in a suspected Israeli air strike in the Syrian Golan Heights on Sunday.
Mohammad Ali Allah-Dadi was in Syria to advise forces supporting President Bashar al-Assad, a statement said.
The Lebanese Shia Islamist movement Hezbollah said six of its fighters also died when a helicopter fired missiles at a convoy in Quneitra province.
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-30882935
CanSpeccy
“If you measure military effort by casualties, the assertion you mock seems justified:”
_________________
Certainly.
If.
But there are other, perhaps better, measures of military effort (and efficiency!), are there not?
Mary
“Two Israeli Soldiers Killed In Convoy Attack
Israel’s leader evokes the country’s bombardment of Gaza – which left 2,200 dead – as he warns against assaults on his forces.
http://news.sky.com/story/1416605/two-israeli-soldiers-killed-in-convoy-attack
No mention of the Israelis killing a Spanish UN peacekeeper. Imagine if one of the enemies of the USUKIsNATO axis had done the same.”
___________________
Yet another lie from you, Mary. Either that or you have very selective hearing.
Every BBC news item I have heard on that incident has mentioned the death of the Spanish soldier.
Other commenters on here might moght loke to conform.
Retraction, please!
Well spoken. Perhaps you should write a book on history one day containing this!
“I am allowed to question any aspect of any war except the second world war.
I am allowed to question any aspect of any genocide except the Shoah/Holocaust.
Would anyone here care to justify this limitation on my freedom of speech?”
Question away, loads of people already have, just don’t complain when people assume you’re an anti-Semitic Neo-Nazi.
If someone on this blog kept on whining that they should be allowed to download pictures of young children people would assume it was because they were a paedophile wouldn’t they?
Heebijeebs
I did not hear anything about a Spanish peacekeeper being shot by the IDF on Radio 4’s Today program. There was a lot of ageist tripe against John Humphries, to make him lose his confidence so one of your hasbara team can take his place.
Why do you attack co-contibutors on line and why do they attack co-presenters on air? Why does Hasbara agenda dominate everything and why does the whole of the English countryside stink of pig-shit?
Re: Spanish peacekeeper
I have only heard one news item regarding this tragic incident. It was either on LBC (I think) or on Magic at about 4:00 pm yesterday, I heard it while driving home from work.
I mention this because the precise wording of the news item intrigued me. It’s been said on this blog that the Spanish peacekeeper was killed by Israeli forces. I don’t know of my own knowledge at this moment if that is true, even after having heard the news item. As I recall, the wording was something like “a Spanish peacekeeper was also killed”, or “a Spanish peacekeeper also died”. It was unclear whether the peacekeeper had been killed by Israeli or anti-Israeli forces, or whether anyone even knew. I remember muttering to myself “who by?”
Kind regards,
John
I don’t think that partial belief, or lack of belief in a generally accepted narrative quite equates with paedophilia as a social evil, Fred. I mean, I don’t really believe in the central tenets of Christianity…and that, in this Christian country, carries no stigma at all. Denying the occurrence of the Battle of Bosworth Field might lay me open to charges of eccentricity, but it doesn’t make me a criminal. Does it?
CanSpeccy
28/01/15 11:50 pm
Many thanks for this. I will try to respond by the end of today.
Kind regards,
John
“I don’t think that partial belief, or lack of belief in a generally accepted narrative quite equates with paedophilia as a social evil, Fred. I mean, I don’t really believe in the central tenets of Christianity…and that, in this Christian country, carries no stigma at all. Denying the occurrence of the Battle of Bosworth Field might lay me open to charges of eccentricity, but it doesn’t make me a criminal. Does it?”
I haven’t seen anyone questioning the numbers of Native Americans killed or Irish in the famine or any of the other atrocities. We all seem in total agreement when it comes to the killing of innocents.
It’s just the murder of Jews some people are so desperate to mitigate.
@ fred
Me:
“I am allowed to question any aspect of any war except the second world war.
I am allowed to question any aspect of any genocide except the Shoah/Holocaust.
Would anyone here care to justify this limitation on my freedom of speech?”
Fred:
Question away, loads of people already have, just don’t complain when people assume you’re an anti-Semitic Neo-Nazi.
If someone on this blog kept on whining that they should be allowed to download pictures of young children people would assume it was because they were a paedophile wouldn’t they?
But you’ve ignored my question. To put it in your terms :
I am allowed to question the Rwanda genocide without people assuming I’m an anti-Tutsi Neo-Nazi.
Why can’t I question the Holocaust without people (like you) assuming I am an anti-Semitic Neo-Nazi?
Mary
29/01/2015 8:41 am
“Two Israeli Soldiers Killed In Convoy Attack
Israel’s leader evokes the country’s bombardment of Gaza – which left 2,200 dead – as he warns against assaults on his forces.
http://news.sky.com/story/1416605/two-israeli-soldiers-killed-in-convoy-attack
No mention of the Israelis killing a Spanish UN peacekeeper. Imagine if one of the enemies of the USUKIsNATO axis had done the same.”
Mary does not refer to the BBC in this posting, and her posting is perfectly accurate. I have just read the report from Sky News she links to, and there is no mention of the Israelis killing a Spanish peacekeeper. No mention of the death of a Spanish peacekeeper at all. Whether or not the death of the Spanish peacekeeper is in fact attributable to Israeli forces is not something I myself know at the moment, I haven’t read any news items saying so.
Kind regards,
John
I haven’t seen anyone questioning the numbers of Native Americans killed or Irish in the famine or any of the other atrocities. We all seem in total agreement when it comes to the killing of innocents.
@Fred Off course they have not and that is why those, who at every convenient moment open the drawer to pull out the term anti Semitism, are the greatest deniers of Holocausts, they are the biggest anti Semites today.
I do not deny or question what happened in any gas chamber and eradication-camp the NAZI’s operated, but I question the fact that we are ruled and lead astray by anti semities in the world today.
In the recent revisionist re-writing of history, with the prime minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, claiming that it was Russia that invaded Germany (left out of Reuters report), the exclusion of Russia from the liberation celebrations, and the Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna’s wild statement that it was the Ukrainians alone that liberated Auschwitz, to prevent history from being presented as inaccurately as the mainstream news it is as well to keep at least one eye on the truth. In this article the author looks at Polish collaboration with the Nazis in the death camps.
http://orientalreview.org/2015/01/24/auschwitz-where-is-the-root-of-the-polish-guilt/
Ba’al liz
The battle of Ian Duncan-Smith’s jobsworths against bona-fide claimants has been exposed as have the bones of Richard III. The very existence of Worker’s rights, freedom of speech, freedom of belief, is what is being attacked by the neo-cons.
Jewish people have been at the forefront of socialist values and Ed Miliband is in that mainstream core of egalitarianism which has undoubtedly come from persecution experienced by the Jewish race.
It is a very strange phenomenon of human nature that humility lasts so long as people are in need, but as soon as they have a couple of houses and a mercedes under their belts, they are open to any chance to inflict harm on their fellow human beings.
Do politicians sit down and plan peace, but subsequently when in office end up bombing innocents? Or do they sit down and plan war, issuing peaceful slogans and platitudes to get in power so they can execute their evil plans?
Power corrupts. May Allah make us of those who do not get sucked into this terrible malice and the power to act on it.
“Other commenters on here might moght loke to conform.”
I thoght I moght loke to conform bit nood mire diteils please.
“I am allowed to question the Rwanda genocide without people assuming I’m an anti-Tutsi Neo-Nazi.”
But people don’t question the Rwanda genocide for some reason.
Hutu are no threat to us but jack boots could very easily tramp the streets of European cities once again.
“Other commenters on here might moght loke to conform.”
Will Reuters do?
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/israel-says-hezbollah-not-interested-escalating-violence-074932509.html#TKDP8N6
Hutu are no threat to us
And Jews are? Don’t quite follow your logic, there…
but jack boots could very easily tramp the streets of European cities once again.
All it would take would be a major economic crisis, the desire on some country’s part to get a larger share of the global cake, and a political climate wholeheartedly censorious of anything resembling socialism. Hmmmm. I see where you’re going with that one.
The persecution of German Jews didn’t cause the Nazis. The Jews were simply an easily identifiable outgroup around which xenophobes and racial-purists could gather with evil intent. If something similar were to happen here, again in the current media climate, to which you obviously subscribe, I very much doubt the Jews would be the targets at all. Think Muslim Asians.
All it would take…
Sorry, forgot the weak, elitist government in hock to the usurers. Nothing like today, obviously.
Node: “Why can’t I question the Holocaust without people (like you) assuming I am an anti-Semitic Neo-Nazi?”
Oh you poor chap. What is a Holocaust denier to do these days?
Were 100 million Russian Orthodox Christians killed by Bolshovik Jews in the Holodomor?
This is obviously a very sensitive hasbara topic, understandably. Playing up the importance of the small minority of deniers will both aid their struggle for publicity and increase the market for aliyeh. Making the denial of this historic event and no other, illegal, was a masterstroke, wasn’t it?
PS Most of Genesis didn’t happen. Legal.
It may be pedantic but some 98 per cent of present Jews/Israelis are Kazars, a Caucasian people and not Semites. Present day Arabs are Semites.Thus anti-semitism should be addressed as anti-Jewish (the religion). The figure of six million goes back to the 1800s and is on a par with forty days and nights, the three little pigs. Where is the documentary proof that it was six million? Is it holocaust denial to claim it was only three million, or one million? To murder six million people in the five years of the war would require 2000 people every day be killed, and buried. Difficult when the ground is frozen hard. As a certain TV judge often comments, if it doesn’t make sense it is probably not true.
“The persecution of German Jews didn’t cause the Nazis. The Jews were simply an easily identifiable outgroup around which xenophobes and racial-purists could gather with evil intent. If something similar were to happen here, again in the current media climate, to which you obviously subscribe, I very much doubt the Jews would be the targets at all. Think Muslim Asians.”
Precisely.
If someone were to post here saying “it’s not torture it’s enhanced interrogation” I would oppose them not because I support Muslims but because I oppose torture.
‘I have just read the report from Sky News she links to, and there is no mention of the Israelis killing a Spanish peacekeeper. No mention of the death of a Spanish peacekeeper at all. Whether or not the death of the Spanish peacekeeper is in fact attributable to Israeli forces is not something I myself know at the moment, I haven’t read any news items saying so.’
John Spencer Davis- the Spanish are clearly attributing blame for this incident to the IDF. Perhaps you should ask yourself why most UK news outlets are either ignoring this incident completely (Sky) or are otherwise reporting it as if this were a ‘fog of war’ event, with blame implicitly shared between the respective warring parties.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/un-security-council-meet-israel-lebanon-flare-205431096.html#RkUpVaT
To murder six million people in the five years of the war would require 2000 people every day be killed, and buried. Difficult when the ground is frozen hard.
Incineration of the bodies gets over that difficulty Fitzwalter – or are you one of those deluded persons who doubts the existence of crematoria in the camps ?