Exchange: Tony Greenstein on Mass Murder and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion NB: The following originally appeared on the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty website. For background on Tony Greenstein, see here, here and here. For previous exchanges with Greenstein, see here and here. In his comments below, Greenstein admits to “wishful thinking” about the mass murder of these groups:- – The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – The White House and its inhabitants – The Republican Party leadership – The Christian Coalition – Britain’s Prime Minister and his predecessor – Britain’s New Labour cabinet – Most Arab leaders – Neoconservatives – “any other warmongers I can think of.” I also point out that Greenstein supported the attempted massacre of the British cabinet in a Brighton hotel by the Provisional IRA. During this exchange, Greenstein commented elsewhere on the massacre of teenagers in a Jerusalem yeshiva, which he called “a veritable centre of neo-Nazi or Judaeo Nazi ideas.” Apart from approving the mass murder of political opponents, in this discussion Greenstein shamelessly invokes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion:-           If Zionist groups call themselves the Jewish Lobby, and act in conspiratorial ways to defeat candidates,           channel money to certain other candidates, seek to demonise and witchhunt people on campus under           various bogus names and do all this undercover... then one can indeed say that they are seeking to           replicate what the Protocols described. According to Greenstein,           because the Protocols allege there was an international Jewish conspiracy doesn’t mean that conspiracies           don’t exist or don’t take place... So yes, Zionist politics are a caricature of the Protocols. I’ve corrected Greenstein’s spelling errors and added relevant links. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greenstein = Atzmon Submitted by Paul Bogdanor on 17 February, 2008 - 00:49. Martin Thomas wrote: “We’re not talking mass murderers or totalitarian dictators here!” Judging by their intentions rather than their actions, this is not so obvious. Let’s compare the two:- – Both legitimise violence against Jews. Atzmon reportedly suggested (he disputes the quotation) that “to burn down a synagogue... is a rational act” (The Observer, April 17 2005). Greenstein wrote (he does not dispute it) that he “wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep” if masses of American Jewish activists were “vaporised” (Alef list, April 19, 2007). – Both employ antisemitic conspiracy theories. Atzmon claims that “American Jews (in fact Zionists) do control the world,” as in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (“On Anti-Semitism,” www.gilad.co.uk). Greenstein denounced American Jewish activists as an “anti-Semitic caricature” whose “naked conspiracies” seem “to act out the lines prepared in the Protocols of Elders of Zion” (Alef list, April 19, 2007). – Both equate Zionists with Nazis. Atzmon wrote: “we compare Israel to the Third Reich, we equate the IDF to the Wehrmacht” (Aljazeerah.info, August 11, 2006). Greenstein linked Zionism to “the anti-Semitic movements whose activities led directly to the Holocaust” (Return Magazine, March 1990) and stated that “Israel represents Hitler’s triumph” (Socialist Unity blog, February 8, 2008). – Both blame Jews for Nazism. Atzmon claimed that Israelis are “as unpopular in the Middle East as their grandparents were in Europe just six decades ago” (PeacePalestine blog, August 13, 2007). Greenstein wrote that “without a Zionist movement... it is hard to believe that anything like 6 million would have been allowed to die” (Zionism: Anti Semitism’s Twin in Jewish Garb, 1982). – Both falsify Holocaust history. Atzmon claimed that “many Jews do not take the ‘six’ figure and the Zionist Holocaust narrative very seriously” (CounterPunch, May 1, 2006). Greenstein denies that the Nazi-Soviet Pact led to the mass murder of Jews and insists that Stalin “save[d] up to 2 millions if not more” from Hitler (Socialist Unity blog, February 10, 2008). If the editors of Indymedia are at fault for publishing Atzmon while pretending to be anti-racist, then the editors of Socialist Unity are at fault for publishing Greenstein while professing concern about leftist antisemitism. Not even their hypocrisy is original. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defending Tony Greenstein? Submitted by tonyg on 20 February, 2008 - 02:56. I’m not sure what the purpose of this article is, since I’m not aware that I have ever asked to be defended. My purpose in writing to Indymedia UK last October was to protest about their publishing Atzmon’s ‘Hunters of Goliath’ article. It is, to say the least, unfortunate that instead of dealing with the problem of an open anti-Semite being able to publish non-news items on IM UK without let or hindrance, they fell in behind criticisms of those who had objected to Atzmon, myself included. Whether I am able to post to Indymedia myself is a matter of supreme indifference. I objected to a site which sees itself as anti-racist, publishing articles from a holocaust denier and anti-Semite. http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2008/01/gilad-atzmon-now-open-holocaust-denier.html http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1559#comment-35911 Unfortunately the IM UK collective was unable to form a collective view on an article which justifies the Nazi holocaust. That it does exactly that is hardly open to dispute. It suggested that it was the Jews’ ‘unpopularity’ in Europe, ahistorical and wrong anyway, that led to their extermination. As if the ‘unpopularity’ of the victims of racism has any relevance to what the racists do. It then equated that with what the Israeli state does to the Palestinians, when the obvious comparison would be with what the Nazis did to the Jews. And yes, I’m well aware that extermination camps haven’t been set up in Israel, but that doesn’t mean that political projects which have as their central aim ethnic cleansing don’t share common characteristics with Nazism. [...] I have indeed been a vocal critic, not a traducer, of the AWL’s support for Zionism over a number of years and that will not change, nor would you expect it to, which is why I suspect that the purpose behind this article is not as transparent as is being made out. I take a very simple political position and that is that racism is wrong, whether it is the Israeli state or local anti-Semites who carry it out. But I don’t accept the argument that either Ian Donovan or your criticism of him is correct. There is a world of difference between solidarity with the Palestinians, Hamas included, and including anti-Semites in the solidarity movement outside Palestine. For a start there is no evidence that the motivation behind Hamas is anti-Semitism. Their motivation is primarily the genocidal attacks on the Palestinians of Gaza, the hunger and the bombing and the siege. I can quite understand that when someone demolishes your home and shoots your children in the name of ‘the Jews’ that they will react by cursing Jews. This not at all the same as European anti-Semitism who are the product of an entirely different social and political milieu. And if Hamas are that bad then the Israeli state, which consciously helped bring them into existence in the early 1980’s, bears the responsibility. Andy Newman is quite right. Anti-semites should be excluded from the Palestine solidarity movement and of course we should express solidarity with the Palestinians, Hamas or non-Hamas, in their struggle against the Israeli state. I have never argued that Israel is a ‘bad’ nation. I don’t recognise the terms ‘bad’ or ‘good’ when it comes to nations because this is to adapt to a nationalist mentality, not a class analysis. I argue that Zionism, in its goal of a Jewish state, allied with imperialism, first British and then American, to create an ethnically pure state and that the consequences of this carry on to this day. Rhodri Evans is however wrong to fail to recognise that bogus accusations of anti-Semitism have not helped in the acceptance of people like Atzmon and ftp, his most trenchant supporter in Indymedia. Accusations of anti-Semitism against supporters of the Palestinians and opponents of Zionism are a universal tactic of Zionism’s supporters. One example I gave was when Marks and Spencers rejected a takeover bid from Philip Green, the latter accused their chairman, Paul Myners, of anti-semitism! (JC 6.8.04.) Do I really need to cite others? Even Yizhak Rabin was dressed up in Nazi uniform by his opponents, prior to his assasination. The examples are legion. See http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tony_greenstein/2007/04/an_attack_on_free_speech.html With the benefit of 30 years hindsight, I can see how these accusations, and Paul Bogdanor is a good example of this type of practitioner, have genuinely confused and misled people who genuinely support the Palestinians into adopting the belief that all accusations of anti-Semitism are bogus. To fail to recognise this fact, when people like myself have regularly been the target of Zionist accusations of anti-Semitism, is politically dishonest. The Zionist movement bears the primary responsibility for the spread of Atzmon and his ideas that it is Jews or ‘Jewishness,’ not Zionism, that is the problem. As Anthony Lerman, Director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and no anti-Zionist, noted, ‘anti-Semitism’ has been drained of all meaning. http://thepcaa.org/writtenevidence.pdf Mikey and Paul Bogdanor sing from the same songsheet. To Mr Bogdanor I am equal to Atzmon and from his perspective, of course, he is right. Indeed, if he is honest, I am worse than Atzmon, because despite his anti-Semitism Atzmon is at heart still a Zionist and operates within that framework. I will not dignify most of Bogdanor’s hysterical rant with a response other than to say that of course hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved because of the existence of the Soviet Union and the fact is that Soviet troops took many with them and others fled with them. Menachem Begin’s The Revolt testifies to this, hardly an unbiased source! This is not to justify in any way Stalin’s counter-revolutionary policy which led to the Nazi-Hitler pact. However the Soviet Union, despite its political degeneration, was a place where Jews could and did escape. This is recognised by Holocaust historians such as Gerald Reitlinger but Bogdanor’s anti-communism is such that he is unable to understand that the Soviet Union, even under Stalin, represented a different type of society from Hitler’s Germany. [...] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Greenstein Submitted by Paul Bogdanor on 22 February, 2008 - 08:40. Tony Greenstein’s reply to my documentation of his ideological resemblance to Gilad Atzmon is instructive. Does Greenstein deny that like Atzmon he has legitimised violence against Jews? No. Does Greenstein deny that like Atzmon he has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories while invoking the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? No. Does Greenstein deny that like Atzmon he equates Zionists with Nazis? No. Does Greenstein deny that like Atzmon he has blamed Jewish groups for Nazi crimes? No. Does Greenstein deny that like Atzmon he is guilty of falsifying the history of the Holocaust? No. Indeed, Greenstein seems eager to contribute items to my list: he tries to convince himself that “despite his anti-Semitism Atzmon is at heart still a Zionist,” he finds “common characteristics with Nazism” in the movement that introduced democratic elections to the Middle East, and he identifies the “universal tactic of Zionism’s supporters” in the negative publicity surrounding a Marks & Spencer takeover bid! Where Greenstein does attempt to defend his record, he proves less than reliable. He insists that “I have never argued that Israel is a ‘bad’ nation. I don’t recognise the terms ‘bad’ or ‘good’ when it comes to nations.” Really? Less than 18 months ago he avowed that “what constitutes the Israeli Jewish ‘nation’ is the quest for racial purity” (Letter, Weekly Worker, October 12, 2006) and he declared that “Israeli Jews as a collective can only be oppressors because that is the political form that their identity takes” (Letter, Weekly Worker, November 9, 2006). Perhaps this explains why Greenstein supports Hamas. He argues that “there is no evidence that the motivation behind Hamas is anti-Semitism” and so “we should express solidarity with the Palestinians, Hamas or non-Hamas, in their struggle against the Israeli state.” No evidence? According to Hamas, “there is no blood better than the blood of Jews” (Jerusalem Post, February 17, 2006), Israel is “a cancer that should be eradicated” (BBC, November 8, 2006), and the Holocaust is just an “exaggeration” (Al-Jazeera TV, July 16, 2007)! These examples tell us how far Greenstein can be trusted when he asserts that “hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved” from the Nazis by Soviet troops. The truth is that hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from the Nazis were deported to concentration camps by Soviet troops. I have repeatedly alerted him to the scholarly research on these deportations, in which “old people, cripples, and mothers of children” were sent to “speedy annihilation” by “hunger, cold and disease” (Yosef Litvak, “The Plight of Refugees From the German-Occupied Territories,” in Keith Sword, ed., The Soviet Takeover of the Polish Eastern Provinces, 1939-41, St. Martin’s Press, 1991, pp66-9). That Greenstein is dissembling on these matters can be seen in his reference to Begin’s Revolt. On Socialist Unity he adduced this source for his claim that Stalin had rescued 2 million Jews. When I exposed his falsehood, he cited Begin’s remark that “hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved from Nazi hands.” I then pointed out that he had amputated the sentence: “hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved from Nazi hands – though some of them suffered greatly and some of them died in prison, in exile, or as refugees.” Caught red-handed, what could Greenstein do? After all, Begin had been describing his own experiences as a Jew in Stalin’s concentration camps! Greenstein thinks that I’m “unable to understand that the Soviet Union, even under Stalin, represented a different type of society from Hitler’s Germany.” Actually, I consider that obvious. Just as it’s obvious that Hitler’s Germany represented a different type of society from its equally genocidal ally in Tojo’s Japan. Just as it’s obvious to everyone but Greenstein that without Stalin’s alliance with Hitler, there would have been no WW2 and no Holocaust. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defending Tony Greenstein? Submitted by tonyg on 2 March, 2008 - 00:59. Just for the record, I am not on record as wishing ‘masses of American Jewish activists were “vaporised.”’ What I said is I would lose no sleep if Aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee were vaporised. A throwaway line it is true but I am referring to an organisation whose sole purpose is to legitimise the murder and dispossesion of the Palestinians and is widely recognised as representing the far-right of Zionist politics. I would equally lose no sleep if the inhabitants of the White House were vaporised or the leaders of the Christian Coalition. However I doubt anyone could then go on to say that being oblivious as to whether these mass murderers were liquidated is akin to wishing millions of Christian Americans or indeed Republicans eliminated. [...] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greenstein on Murder Submitted by Paul Bogdanor on 4 March, 2008 - 02:11. Greenstein wrote on the Alef list: “If every staffer in AIPAC were to be vaporised tomorrow, alongside Bush, Blair and Cheney, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.” AIPAC has 100,000 members. Greenstein tells us that he “would equally lose no sleep if the inhabitants of the White House were vaporised [sic].” In addition to the President and his family, the White House has 90 permanent staff and 5,000 visitors a day. Readers may wish to compare these examples with Greenstein’s previous endorsement of the Brighton hotel bombing: “The attack on Thatcher by the IRA was obviously legitimate.” http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2005/06/10/racist_scum_off_our_streets.php In that atrocity, 5 innocent people were murdered, and others left disabled for life. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Right, I’m not interested in Submitted by Tom on 4 March, 2008 - 10:12. Right, I’m not interested in this debate particularly, but that post from Bogdanor was a stunning example of dishonest argument. Quotes from Paul in Italics. Greenstein wrote on the Alef list: “If every staffer in AIPAC were to be vaporised tomorrow, alongside Bush, Blair and Cheney, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.” AIPAC has 100,000 members. Are members the same as staff? No, obviously not. Greenstein tells us that he “would equally lose no sleep if the inhabitants of the White House were vaporised [sic].” In addition to the President and his family, the White House has 90 permanent staff and 5,000 visitors a day. Are visitors ‘inhabitants’? Obviously not. Are permanent staff ‘inhabitants’? Obviously not. (I’m sure that some staff live there, and I’m sure the President doesn’t always live there, but whatever, it’s clear what Greenstein means.) To an onlooker, your post looks pretty absurd. I personally ‘wouldn’t lose any sleep’ if the AIPAC staff were vaporised either. I mean, it’s obviously be sad for them and their families etc., but next to all the shit that goes down in the world, some of which they support, I really don’t care about a few ruling class hawks being ‘vaporised.’ Neither would most people. It’s a perfectly normal reaction. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Murder Submitted by Paul Bogdanor on 4 March, 2008 - 11:59. There’s no point debating with someone who thinks that AIPAC members do not staff AIPAC’s offices, or that you could vaporise the inhabitants of the White House without killing everyone in the building. This is about as plausible as the notion that the IRA “only” intended to kill Thatcher when they bombed that hotel in Brighton. More significant is the assumption that the murder of Jewish lobbyists and democratically elected leaders is unobjectionable, with numbers alone up for discussion. It’s like listening to some neo-Nazi “explain” that Hitler should have stuck to his demand in Mein Kampf for the gassing of thousands of “Hebrew corrupters of the nation” rather than aiming at the entire Jewish population of Europe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vaporisation of AIPAC Submitted by tonyg on 9 March, 2008 - 22:46. Bogdanor is a total reactionary. Hence he will put any off the cuff comment by anyone to this right (which means most people) under the spotlight, distort it and then draw his own preconceived conclusions. Do I ADVOCATE vaporisation of anyone? No. Am I suggesting only vaporising Jewish leaders of Aipac? No. What I said was, and let’s be clear, given the support of that organisation’s leadership for the Iraq war, for a new war on Iran, for ‘full spectrum dominance’ by the US in accord with the New American Century they advocate, regardless of who dies i the process, I would lose no sleep if they, the Bush White House, the leadership of the Republican Party, New Labour’s cabinet and any other warmongers I can think of, were vaporised. Of course this is anarchist wishful thinking! I can’t however see a connection with Mein Kampf though! Other examples of Bogdanor’s reactionary and dishonest nature abound. Apparently           ‘Perhaps this explains why Greenstein supports Hamas. He argues that “there is no evidence that the           motivation behind Hamas is anti-Semitism” and so “we should express solidarity with the Palestinians,           Hamas or non-Hamas, in their struggle against the Israeli state.” No evidence? According to Hamas,           “there is no blood better than the blood of Jews” (Jerusalem Post, February 17, 2006), Israel is “a cancer           that should be eradicated” (BBC, November 8, 2006), and the Holocaust is just an “exaggeration” (Al-           Jazeera TV, July 16, 2007)!’ Agree it is a complicated argument, certainly too complex for Bogdanor. I don’t support Hamas politically. I believe it is politically reactionary, but in the fight against the far more powerful and equally reactionary Israeli state I support all Palestinians, including Hamas, who stand up against that power. You may agree or disagree with such a stance but that is not political support. Likewise its ‘anti-Semitism.’ Now assuming the quotes Bogdanor repeats are correct, then all that tells me is that Hamas are reflecting the anti-Semitism of others. And since the Israeli state in the 1980’s play a pivotal role in bringing Hamas into being, just as the US did with the Taliban, then a simple question would be why Israel helped an anti-Semitic organisation come into existence? Why did they fear secular Palestinian nationalism so much? I would argue that its rhetorical anti-Semitism has nothing to do with real Jews and in fact people like Uri Avneri have held meetings in Gaza supported by Hamas. This is playground yah boo politics of the Right. And then Bogdanor waxes lyrical. Apparently I am totally untrustworthy for asserting that           “hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved” from the Nazis by Soviet troops. The truth is that hundreds           of thousands of Jewish refugees from the Nazis were deported to concentration camps by Soviet troops. Even assuming his sources are correct and not motivated by anti-communism, then I was quoting Begin’s Revolt. There is no doubt whatsoever that hundreds of thousands, probably well over a million were saved by the Soviets. I distinguish between Stalin and his monstrous system and ordinary Russian people who extended the hand of friendship or the Red Army which went out of its way on occasions to rescue whole villages of Jews. Does that excuse the gulags and Soviet camps? Of course not. I just happen to hold to that old Trotskyist view that despite the counter-revolutionary nature of the Soviet leadership the system itself was nonetheless not capitalist and indeed progressive in certain ways. Don’t take my word for it. One of the main difficulties as Raul Hilberg, who is not a hack polemicist, explained in his book Destruction of European Jewry (the key work for anyone who wishes to understand the mechanism of the Holocaust) is the numbers who managed to take advantage of the Soviet occupation to escape from the Nazis. That the Soviets committed many crimes, not least sending back Communists to the Nazis under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is undisputed. I suspect Bogdanor is so vehemently anti-communist that he will happily quote any anti-communist to prove that it wasn’t Hitler but Stalin who was the real enemy in world war 2. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greenstein on Mass Murder Submitted by Paul Bogdanor on 26 March, 2008 - 19:30. Greenstein will be pleased to know that he is not the first to argue that “Bogdanor is a total reactionary.” Chomsky’s neo-Nazi allies in France have already accused me of embracing “the most reactionary point of views [sic] of the last 40 years.” While they deny the mass murder of Jews by Hitler, Greenstein denies the mass murder of Jews by Stalin. It would be flattering to be condemned by either party, and I’m honoured to have been insulted by both. Previously I exposed Greenstein’s thoughts on vaporising as many as 100,000 American Jews in AIPAC, along with the inhabitants of the White House, as well as his endorsement of the IRA atrocity at the Brighton hotel. Greenstein now extends the list to the leadership of the Republican Party, New Labour’s cabinet “and any other warmongers I can think of.” Thus Greenstein’s “anarchist wishful thinking” encompasses the mass murder of the entire democratically elected leadership of America and Britain, and, apparently, anyone at all who supported the Iraq war. That would presumably include everyone from Iraqi voters who support Coalition forces to those he has elsewhere described as “the racist warmongers of Harry’s Place”! The implementation of such “anarchist wishful thinking” would entail a bloodbath rivalling the death tolls in Dachau and Buchenwald. I do wonder why Greenstein chose to reply by widening his list of potential victims. Perhaps he wanted to distract attention from his equally outrageous statement that AIPAC’s “naked conspiracies” seem “to act out the lines prepared in the Protocols of Elders of Zion”? Explaining his views on another case of mass murder, Greenstein draws a “complex” distinction: in the war against Israel – i.e., the killing of Israeli Jews – he supports “all Palestinians, including Hamas... but that is not political support.” The possibilities for such “complex” argumentative techniques are limitless. One can well imagine Stalinists protesting that their “support” for Hitler at the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact was not “political support.” Or the SWP pretending that its “support” for Atzmon during the Oslo intifada was not “political support.” Does Greenstein really expect to convince anyone with this sort of nonsense? Does he even believe it himself? Greenstein considers it an excuse that “Hamas are reflecting the anti-Semitism of others.” Apologists for the antisemitism of Hitler and Stalin would say the same. More interesting is his suggestion that Hamas can’t really be antisemitic because they played host to Uri Avneri. Google Tony Greenstein’s name and you will find his essays on the website of the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH). Elsewhere you will find Greenstein’s admission that he met “one of the leaders of the NF, Stephen Brady.” Thus Greenstein’s excuses for the genocidal Hamas fanatics he supports (but not “politically”!) would exonerate all manner of fascists. Passing from atrocious logic to historical fiction, Greenstein alleges that Israel played “a pivotal role in bringing Hamas into being, just as the US did with the Taliban.” Of course, Hamas is the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was created in 1928, two decades before Israel even existed. As for the Taliban, Greenstein tells us (The Argus, November 16, 2001) that it was “armed, trained and even created by the US and its client, the Pakistani government, in order to destroy a progressive Afghani regime.” But even a minimally attentive undergraduate knows that, far from being armed, trained and created by the US, the Taliban overthrew the US-backed Jamiat-e-Islami government in Afghanistan. Like many of Greenstein’s tales, this last falsehood has been exposed before. And still he repeats it. The conclusion is obvious. The same holds when he cites Begin’s The Revolt to prove that “hundreds of thousands, probably well over a million” Jews were saved by Stalin. To reiterate what I said above, Greenstein is referring to Begin’s remark that “hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved from Nazi hands.” And he is deliberately suppressing the rest of Begin’s sentence: “some of them suffered greatly and some of them died in prison, in exile, or as refugees.” Apparently being caught red-handed once, twice, three times, just isn’t enough for Greenstein. He continues to falsify Begin’s words, just as he manipulates Hilberg to conflate the number of Jews who fled the Nazi advance with non-existent humanitarian rescue efforts by the Stalinist dictatorship. And then he adds a new fabrication: that the Red Army “went out of its way on occasions to rescue whole villages of Jews,” when in fact hundreds of thousands of refugees from Nazism were sent to die in the Gulag! Are there no limits to chutzpah? I began with Greenstein’s “wishful thinking” about mass murder, and I’ll end on the same note. Stalin, says Greenstein, was “monstrous,” but “the system itself was nonetheless not capitalist and indeed progressive in certain ways.” In what respect was Stalinism progressive? In the construction of totalitarian state monopolies? In the violent enslavement of the peasant population? In the manufacture of famines? In the genocidal deportations of national minorities - including Jews? In perpetrating the greatest peacetime mass murders in European history? The latest demographic evidence shows that by 1939, the Stalinist dictatorship had murdered 10 million innocent people, including 4 million children. This is what Greenstein calls “progressive.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bogdanor - another reactionary rant Submitted by tonyg on 2 April, 2008 - 15:04. Since Chomsky doesn’t have any neo-Nazi allies the rest of Bogdanor’s diatribe is pretty irrelvant. However the ‘democratically elected’ leadership of the West is the same one that has perpetrated a bloodbath of 1 million plus in Iraq and to wish that the inhabitants of the White House (who were not elected by Iraqis and therefore had no democratic mandate to invade that or any other country) had perished instead seems quite reasonable. Whatever Stalin’s horrendous crimes he did not single out the Jews for genocide or extermination, although of course many died as did many Russians and others. I suggest that Bogdanor jnr. stops shouting and ranting and looks to his father, a model of prevarication and hesitation before coming to a conclusion (albeit the wrong one being a constitutional theoretician) and shouting at everyone. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greenstein and Denial Submitted by Paul Bogdanor on 3 April, 2008 - 16:02. If Greenstein reads this translation to the end he will see French Holocaust deniers boasting of Chomsky’s support and Chomsky openly collaborating with them:- http://www.paulbogdanor.com/guillaume.html He will also find that these neo-Nazis denounced me in precisely the terms that he is using. But this isn’t the first time Greenstein has defended an ally of Holocaust deniers:- http://www.paulbogdanor.com/greenstein.html Above and elsewhere I have quoted the historians on Stalin’s antisemitic mass murders. Greenstein openly denies those atrocities, while falsifying sources to portray the murderers as rescuers. His denial of antisemitic mass murder is on the same moral level as his “wishful thinking” about the annihilation of Jewish lobbyists. Greenstein apparently thinks he can save any argument by calling his opponent a reactionary. He has yet to explain his statement that AIPAC’s “naked conspiracies” seem “to act out the lines prepared in the Protocols of Elders of Zion.” Does Greenstein pretend that invoking the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is anything other than reactionary and antisemitic? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tony Greenstein: Stalin’s Apologist Submitted by MikeyMikey on 3 April, 2008 - 17:17. I find it incredible that Greenstein can claim that Stalin “did not single out the Jews for genocide or extermination.” If Greenstein knew anything about Stalin’s antisemitism he would know that by the mid-1940s quotas were effectively established for Jews in prominent positions in the party, for admission to universities and that Jews were also barred from obtaining a position in the Soviet foreign service. Confidential instructions were sent to factory directors to remove Jews from positions of responsibility. The culmination of this was that by 1946, Stalin could boast “in our Central Committee there are no Jews!” All of this and more can be seen in William Korey’s excellent article, “The Origins and Development of Soviet Anti-Semitism: An Analysis” published in the March 1972 issue of Slavic Review. Specifically in relation to genocide, Tony Greenstein ignores the fabricated Doctors’ Plot that appeared in Pravda in January 1953. According to a number of sources the purpose of this fabrication was that a show trial could be staged and used as a pretext for deporting all Soviet Jews to Siberia “for their own safety.” The idea was that approximately sixty famous Soviet Jews would denounce the traitorous “doctor-murderers” in a letter that would be published in Pravda. The signatories would propose that the entire Soviet Jewish community would be “voluntarily” deported to protect them from “the Russian people’s righteous wrath.” This act would have been a virtual death sentence for the entire Russian Jewish population. Fortunately Stalin died and the matter could be dropped before this plan was carried out. For more on this genocidal plan of Stalin’s, particularly aimed at Jews, I direct Tony Greenstein to the following source material: David Brandenberger, “Stalin’s Last Crime? Recent Scholarship on Postwar Soviet Antisemitism and the Doctor’s Plot,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Vol 6, No. 1, Winter 2005, pp. 187-204, A. Mark Clarfield, The Soviet Doctors’ Plot – 50 Years On, BMJ, Vol. 325, December 21-28, 2002, pp. 1,487-1,489 and Simon Madievski, “The Doctors’ Plot,” Midstream, September-October 2003. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More nonsense from Mikey and Bogdanor Submitted by tonyg on 10 April, 2008 - 17:41. I’m well aware of the Doctor’s Plot but Stalin died before it could be put into operation. Clearly Stalin was anti-Semitic but to compare what might have happened had the Doctor’s Plot transpired with what did happen in Nazi Germany just demonstrates how the extermination of European Jewry is merely a political device for smearing the left as far as right-wing Zionists like Bogdanor are concerned. Bogdanor goes on at length about the Soviet Union and the Jews. The fact remains that up to 2 million Jews owe their lives to the fact that the USSR was in existence and that they were able to take shelter when the Nazi storm erupted in Poland and the areas of the USSR that the Nazis occupied. As I have already cited, even Menachem Begin estimated that 3/4 million Soviet Jews survived, somewhat more than the Zionist project saved. But then the Zionist leaders saw the Holocaust as a bargaining chip at the negotiating table, an opportunity to help in the building of the State rather than a priority that necessitated dropping all else. And if Bogdanor stops shouting and starts reading he could try Raul Hilberg’s Destruction of European Jewry which estimates that about 1.5 million Jews were saved as a result of the Soviet Union. Again somewhat more than the Zionist movement managed with its policy of ‘selectivity.’ As for the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Bogdanor says that ‘Does Greenstein pretend that invoking the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is anything other than reactionary and antisemitic?’ No I don’t agree. It depends on what the context is. If Zionist groups call themselves the Jewish Lobby, and act in conspiratorial ways to defeat candidates, channel money to certain other candidates, seek to demonise and witchhunt people on campus under various bogus names and do all this undercover, as the ADL did when it got found out spying on left-wing groups a few decades ago, then one can indeed say that they are seeking to replicate what the Protocols described. That isn’t to sanctify the Protocols but to condemn the disgusting war-mongers and genocide supporters in AIPAC. AIPAC seek to legitimate the oppression of the Palestinians, the denial of the most basic land and water rights to the indigenous of that area, in the name of American Jewry. They are not better than the worst anti-Semite. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greenstein, Stalin and the Protocols Submitted by Paul Bogdanor on 10 April, 2008 - 23:15. Here and elsewhere I’ve repeatedly exposed Greenstein’s preposterous campaign to rehabilitate Stalin as a mass rescuer of Jews. I’ve cited the historical research proving that Stalin did nothing to help Jews but much to kill them. I’ve also exposed Greenstein’s hoax that Begin credited Stalin with saving 2 million lives. Greenstein now reduces his claim to 3/4 million, but a fabrication remains a fabrication, no matter what number he plucks out of thin air. And since Greenstein continues to invoke Hilberg, let me put an end to his fakery by quoting the historian’s final verdict:-           there is little evidence of any Soviet attempts to evacuate Jews as such… in most invaded regions Jews           were often on their own. Soviet Jews, directly threatened but effectively muted, could not pressure the           Soviet government to do anything, and that government was not going to take any overt steps to assist           Jews as Jews. (Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders, HarperCollins, 1992, pp251-2) Why does Greenstein embarrass himself with lies about Stalin’s humanitarianism? He knows that Stalin had murdered 4 million children in peacetime before Hitler built the first gas chamber. He knows that without Stalin’s collaboration with Hitler, there would have been no WW2 and no Holocaust. He knows that far from trying to save Jews, Stalin had the refugees from Hitler’s terror sent to “speedy annihilation” in the Gulag. So why does Greenstein persist? The reason, of course, is his tortured effort to persuade himself that Stalin was better than the hated Zionists who “saw the Holocaust as a bargaining chip at the negotiating table” and not as “a priority that necessitated dropping all else.” Contrast Greenstein’s malevolent fantasy with the minutes of the Jewish Agency executive on November 29, 1942:-           We must limit ourselves to focusing on a few issues which can be adapted to demands for the Jewish           people as a whole, and to gaining for them the support of the enlightened world. They are: (a) cessation           of the slaughter and rescue of the Jews; (b) enabling the Jewish people to fight as Jews against Hitler. It           is also our duty to request that the Allies threaten the Nazis with individual and collective retribution for           massacres of Jews… We must particularly stress the rescue of children, but we ought not to be satisfied           with children alone: every Jew who can possibly be rescued must be saved. (Yad Vashem Studies 13,           1979, p195) I won’t respond to Greenstein’s claim that for me “the extermination of European Jewry is merely a political device for smearing the left” since his psychological projection must be obvious to everyone. Far more serious is his reliance on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. When I quoted his views on the subject, I expected a denial but hoped for a retraction. I hardly anticipated a shameless defence of the antisemitic lie that became infamous as the “warrant for genocide.” But then Greenstein has also confessed to “wishful thinking” about the extermination of Jewish activists, democratically elected leaders, the Labour cabinet and “any other warmongers I can think of.” Fantasies about mass murder, support for Hamas, apologetics for Stalin and now endorsement of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – can Greenstein possibly sink any lower? It’s difficult to imagine, but no doubt he’ll try. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tony Greenstein and Genocide Denial Submitted by MikeyMikey on 11 April, 2008 – 08:51. I see that Tony Greenstein continues to deny that Stalin had plans to kill Jews en masse. Louis Rapoport (Stalin’s War Against The Jews: The Doctors’ Plot And The Soviet Solution, New York: Free Press, 1990) has written a detailed account of the Stalin’s actions against the Jews. He states that after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact “one of Stalin’s first gifts to the Nazis was to turn over some 600 German Communists, most of them Jews, to the Gestapo at Brest-Litovsk in German-occupied Poland.” He continues, “Beginning in February 1940 in the Soviet-occupied zone of Poland, Beria’s NKVD arrested and deported about one million Polish refugees, half of them Jews. Many died en route to Siberia.” In relation to the 1953 Doctors’ Plot, Rapoport states that the plan was to first execute the doctors under the fictitious charges and           Then ‘incidents’ would follow: attacks on Jews orchestrated by the secret police, the publication of the           statement by the prominent Jews, and a flood of other letters demanding that action be taken. A three­stage           program of genocide would be followed. First, almost all Soviet Jews… would be shipped to camps east           of the Urals… Second, the authorities would set Jewish leaders at all levels against one another… Also the           MGB [Secret Police] would start killing the elites in the camps, just as they had killed the Yiddish writers           … the previous year. The… final stage would be to “get rid of the rest.” It is chilling to read Greenstein’s denial of all this. He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself although I suspect he has no shame. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bogdanor Rants & Mikey Wails Submitted by tonyg on 11 April, 2008 – 17:57. I defend nothing about Stalin. But Stalin wasn’t the sole actor in respect of the Soviet Union’s defence against fascism in the second world war. The Red Army defeated Nazi Germany (something Bogdanor clearly regrets) despite not because of Stalin. If Bogdanor were to actually read Destruction of European Jewry he would also find references to whole Jewish communities evacuated by the Soviet Army in the wake of Operation Barbarossa. But being a died in the wool anti-communist but a louder version of his father he cannot bring himself to admit what anyone to the left of Atilla the Hun does, viz. that between 1 and 2 million Jews survived the war because of the existence of the Soviet Union (not Stalin – if the ignorant Bogdanor can make that differentiate). And yes it was one of the great crimes of Stalin and Stalinism that they handed back to Hitler German communists. I have written about this but they were handed back NOT BECAUSE THEY WERE JEWISH BUT BECAUSE THEY WERE COMMUNISTS! Simple – even Bogdanor and Mikey should understand. Unfortunately Bogdanor is like a rabid dog. He reads what he reads what he wants to read and disregards all commonly accepted meanings. Nowhere have I suggested rehabilitating Stalin. Why should I? The record of the Jewish Agency and the Zionist Executive is best judged not by pious declarations that never saw the light of day but by the decision of Stephen Wise, ably supported by the Jewish Agency to keep secret for 3 months news of the Final Solution, following the Riegner telegram delivered via the British, at the request of the US State Dept. This of course was in the middle of the most intensive period of the Final Solution – Autumn 1942. Paper declarations mean nothing in this regard. One example of a little Bogdanor lie is his statement that ‘I’ve also exposed Greenstein’s hoax that Begin credited Stalin with saving 2 million lives.’ I never credited Stalin with saving anyone. I referred to the Red Army and Soviet citizens who did what they did despite Stalin. Nor have I reduced the figure of those saved to 3/4 million. I was quoting Begin, as Bogdanor knows, but Bogdanor knows nothing else other than how to lie. I have said I don’t know, nor did Hilberg or Reitlinger or other reputable historians. But it is accepted by most people that between 1-2 million Jews did escape, not only with the Red Army but by joining Soviet partisans in the forests (whereas the Polish and other partisans were often anti-Semitic and turned them away or worse). It’s also the case that many Polish Jews preferred not to escape with the Soviets because they believed that the rumours of what the Nazis would do was just propaganda. Tragically they were to learn that these were not the cultured Germans they had believed them to be. Since I’ve not actually read the Protocols quite how I can rely on them I’ll leave to someone who is a bit saner than Bogdanor. As for endorsing them well this is another leap of Bogdanor’s febrile imagination. As I’ve told him before, ask your dad before you put pen to paper and then you won’t make such an ass of yourself. I have also not wished for the extermination of Jewish activists but I have also said I would lose no sleep if AIPAC and the other warmongers, who are responsible for the extermination of others, were to be vaporised alongside the Bush Whitehouse. Those who advocate genocidal war should indeed be prepared to face the consequences, not because they are Jewish but because they are warmongers. The fact that some in AIPAC are Jewish or Christian fundamentalist is irrelevant but this is an example of the malicious and deliberate lying of this cretin. As for Gilad Atzmon’s friend and collaborator (did he pay you or did you do ‘research’ on me for him for free?) Well at least he thanked you for it demonstrating that collaboration with anti-Semites is as much a part of Zionism as eating haggis is a Scottish custom. I’m aware of the Doctor’s Plot and no amount of speculation will uncover whether or not it was the precursor to something else. The Slansky trial in Czechoslovakia didn’t lead to a generalised attack on Jews and nor did the Doctor’s Plot. As I wrote in an early pamphlet:           Following the Stalinisation of the USSR anti-Semitism did become more and more tolerated (with the           exception of the 2nd World War) and no-one should be in any doubt as to the anti-Semitic nature of the           Slansky trial of the Czech communist and resistance leader who was framed and shot after the War, and           the notorious Doctors Plot which was fortunately brought to an end by Stalin’s death or the attacks on           Trotsky and other old Bolsheviks by virtue of their Jewish origins. Anyway it’s nice to know that the 2 rabid anti-communists are up to their old tricks of distortion and plain lying. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tony Greenstein’s Doublethink Submitted by MikeyMikey on 13 April, 2008 – 00:41. I find it amusing that Tony Greenstein is reduced to attempts at dehumanisation by comparing Paul Bogdanor to a “rabid dog.” His insistence that he is not a Stalinist is hardly convincing when he uses the language of Andrey Vyshinsky, the prosecutor at Stalin’s show trials in the Great Purge, who would say about the suspects, “Shoot these rabid dogs.” The twists and turns in Greenstein’s latest outburst are exposed for all to see. He told members of the Alef List that those who run AIPAC “seem determined to act out the lines prepared in the Protocols of Elders of Zion.” Now he forgets his own words and claims that he has “not actually read the Protocols.” Earlier he argued that Stalin “did not single out the Jews for genocide or extermination”; after being reminded of the Doctors’ Plot which he claims he is “well aware of,” he changes his tune to argue that “no amount of speculation will uncover whether or not [the Doctors’ Plot] was the precursor to something else.” He also claims he has “not wished for the extermination of Jewish activists” as members of AIPAC that he wants “vaporised” could be Jewish or Christian. It would be like arguing that if Neo-Nazis attacked a Kosher restaurant it would not be antisemitic because the victims might include non-Jews. He believes “Those who advocate genocidal war should indeed be prepared to face the consequences… because they are warmongers,” but at the same time he believes that people should “express solidarity” with Hamas. Maybe I should remind Tony Greenstein that Article 13 of the Hamas Charter states: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.” George Orwell defined in part doublethink as “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” Greenstein accuses me again of being “Gilad Atzmon’s friend and collaborator.” He ignores the fact that I totally refuted this scurrilous allegation earlier on this thread. (See my contribution of February 22, 2008.) Orwell provided a further part-definition of doublethink as “to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed.” How convenient that Greenstein forgets his meeting with one of the leaders of the fascist National Front.* *See comment from Tony Greenstein on March 26, 2007 at 06:01:26 AM on the following post: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=934 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greenstein Caught Red-Handed Submitted by Paul Bogdanor on 12 April, 2008 – 22:47. “I defend nothing about Stalin,” says Greenstein. “Nowhere have I suggested rehabilitating Stalin,” insists Greenstein. His misattribution to Begin of 2 million Jews saved by Stalin is a “Bogdanor lie,” claims Greenstein. “I referred to the Red Army and Soviet citizens who did what they did despite Stalin,” adds Greenstein. And here, for the record, are the exact words of Greenstein:-           Just to say that the figure of 2 million Jews who would otherwise have died is cited in Menachem Begin’s           The Revolt… There were many things to say about the Stalinist regime [emphasis added] in the USSR but           they didn’t embark on an attempt to liquidate the Jews, quite the contrary, the USSR was one of the few           places of refuge for Jews from Poland. And even Begin owes his life to that fact. (Socialist Unity,           February 11, 2008) Greenstein’s attribution of the 2 million figure to Begin was a hoax, as he was immediately forced to admit. Greenstein was caught red-handed fabricating humanitarian achievements by the Stalinist regime, and now he has been caught red-handed denying that his hoax had anything to do with the Stalinist regime. Greenstein was equally unfortunate when he repeatedly invoked Hilberg and I responded by actually quoting Hilberg. But Greenstein simply will not admit defeat: it isn’t that Greenstein has been contradicted by Hilberg. Not at all: his defence is that Hilberg has been contradicted by Hilberg! As I’ve written before, “being caught red-handed once, twice, three times, just isn’t enough for Greenstein.” And this litany of polemical disasters arises not from some trivial matter but from Greenstein’s apologetics for the regime that murdered 4 million children in peacetime, the regime that sent Jewish refugees to die in concentration camps, the regime whose collaboration with Nazism led to the Holocaust. Greenstein’s historical revisionism extends to his own writings, even on this page. He dismisses evidence of Zionist efforts to combat the Final Solution, having previously asserted that Zionists saw the murder of millions of Jews as a “bargaining chip.” He inveighs against “genocidal war,” disregarding his own support for the genocidal fanatics of Hamas. He denies that he “wished for the extermination of Jewish activists,” having boasted of his “wishful thinking” about the mass murder of “every staffer in AIPAC.” He even expects us to believe that his endorsement of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a leap of my “febrile imagination,” when he has just accused “Zionist groups” of “seeking to replicate what the Protocols described.” Greenstein makes excuses for Stalinism and then pretends that he hasn’t, he falsifies sources and pretends that he hasn’t, he fantasises about mass murder and pretends that he hasn’t, he endorses the Protocols and pretends that he hasn’t. I predicted that he would find it difficult to sink any lower, but clearly he has made the effort: calling me a “rabid dog,” he actually claims that I regret the defeat of Nazism, implying that I welcome the murder of my own relatives in the Holocaust. Will Greenstein’s next message deny making that statement as well? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Attempts of Bogdanor & Mikey to Relativise Nazi Crimes Submitted by tonyg on 1 May, 2008 - 00:50. Mikey finds it difficult to believe I haven’t read the Protocols. But I haven’t. I have read ABOUT them, e.g. Norman Cohn’s Warrant 4 Genocide and on that basis I say yes, definitively, that AIPAC and other Zionist lobby organisations behave just like cardboard caricatures out of that work. They plot, plan, conspire to unseat election candidates in the US, prevent people from speaking on campuses, invent false allegations against academics like Joseph Massad to deny them tenure (except they got it wrong in that case). No contradiction there. As for vaporising AIPAC’s leadership I stand by my comments. These are people whose sole raison d’etre is the waging and creation of wars. It’s called reaping what you sow. The Doctor’s Plot came at the fag end of Stalinism. It never got off the ground and it is, I would have thought, significant that Stalin’s successors did not carry out this plot. Mikey and Bogdanor seem to regret it. What we really have here is an attempt, along the lines of German historical revisionists, Ernst Nolte in particular, to play down if not legitimise the Nazi regime by seeing it as a reaction to Bolshevist class terror. Hence the desperate attempts of Mikey and Bogdanor to paint the Soviet Union as equally guilty of the genocide and murder of Jews as the Nazis. It’s no wonder that Mikey is such good friends with, and even a collaborator with, holocaust denier Gilad Atzmon. Calling Bodganor a ‘rabid dog’ is merely a reaction to his hysterical rants and modus operandi. What Vyshinski said about the victims of the purges is neither here nor there since the same comparisons and epithets are made in countless different situations so it is another example of the McCarthyite guilt-by-association technique. If Bogdanor were to actually read, not a short book but Hilberg’s magnum opus, The Destruction of European Jewry, he would find all the evidence he needs for the assertion that possibly 1.5 million Jews survived by escaping into the Soviet Union, many perhaps the majority taken there with the Soviet troops. Begin mentions a figure of about 3/4 million, which is not inconsiderable but since it defeats Bogdanor’s thesis that the Soviet Union was no different from Nazi Germany (indeed worse possibly) he makes no reference to the figure that Begin does mention. I cited, from memory, a figure of 2 million. That was mistaken. So what? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tony Greenstein: Stalinism’s Twin in Trotskyist Garb Submitted by MikeyMikey on 2 May, 2008 - 00:07. It is astonishing that Tony Greenstein accuses AIPAC of being part of a Zionist conspiracy. Norman Cohn described the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a Warrant for Genocide – and Greenstein proves it when he boasts that he would be happy if “every staffer in AIPAC were to be vaporised tomorrow.” Greenstein defends Stalin’s successors because they chose not to commit antisemitic genocide, ignoring the fact that they shared Stalin’s antisemitic ideology. For example V. Vysotsky made the extraordinary claim that that there had been a secret meeting of Zionist lobbyists where they plotted via the use of “force, bribery, slyness, perfidy, subversion, and espionage” to achieve “mastery over mankind.” (Sovetskaia Belorussiia, May 1969) V. Bolshakov argued that the “international Zionist body” is “a well-organised propaganda and slander service” dedicated to “bellicose chauvinism, anti-communism and anti-Sovietism.” (Anti-Communism: The Main Line of Zionism, Novosti, 1972, pp4-5) And L. Korneyev wrote that Zionism operates “Mafia-like on a world-wide scale” in its “espionage and subversion.” (Ogonyok, No. 5, 1977) All this seems remarkably similar to Greenstein’s ranting about “Zionist lobby organisations” which “plot, plan, conspire to unseat election candidates...” Following the maxim “never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” Greenstein reiterates his libel that I am “good friends” with Atzmon the “holocaust denier.” Alas, Greenstein has yet to provide a decent explanation of his own grovelling message to Atzmon in which Greenstein praised Atzmon’s views on the Holocaust. Readers who want to check this for themselves can see it here: http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%20files/tony%27semail.htm As the AWL itself has stated (Workers’ Liberty, May 1988), “much of what many British and international leftists – even Trotskyists – say about Israel is an indirect and unwitting copy of the Stalinists’ efforts at constructing a Marxist-sounding gloss on old anti-semitic themes.” Greenstein’s conspiracy theories about Zionists are a case in point. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greenstein’s Politics Lessons Submitted by Paul Bogdanor on 2 May, 2008 - 00:28. Since Greenstein views the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a reliable guide to Zionist politics, readers may be inclined to distrust his pretended expertise on the history of the Holocaust. With good reason. Greenstein accuses his critics of trying to “relativise” Nazi crimes and attacks those such as Nolte who “play down if not legitimise the Nazi regime.” Of course, Nolte’s thesis that Hitler “originated the State of Israel” is identical to Greenstein’s own verdict that “Israel represents Hitler’s triumph.” Greenstein pretends that 1.5 million Jews were rescued by the Stalinists, “many perhaps the majority taken there with the Soviet troops.” For this claim he relies on Hilberg, who actually wrote that “there is little evidence of any Soviet attempts to evacuate Jews as such… in most invaded regions Jews were often on their own.” Greenstein cited Begin for the statement that Stalin saved 2 million Jews, his hoax was exposed and so he reduces it to 3/4 million. Begin did not mention that number either – but he did say that Jews who fled to the Soviet Union “died in prison, in exile, or as refugees.” Is it surprising that Greenstein sees nothing wrong with this type of hoax, when he boasts of taking his politics lessons from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Zionist Politics of Distortion Submitted by tonyg on 3 May, 2008 - 15:06. I agree that there is little purpose in this continued ‘debate.’ However it is illustrative of the way the more wacky Zionists distort their opponents. E.g. I cited, from memory, Begin’s statement about Jews finding refuge from Nazis in the Soviet Union DESPITE Stalin (which becomes in Bogdanor’s jumble ‘Greenstein pretends that 1.5 million Jews were rescued by the Stalinists’). No I didn’t say ‘the Stalinists’ rescued Jews but that: a. Many Jews sought refuge on their own account, and Hilberg and Reitlinger go into this in some depth. b. The Red Army evacuated whole communities as the Nazis advanced. Again that is in Hilberg’s Destruction of European Jewry. Being 3 volumes and some 1300 pages long I wouldn’t expect Bogdanor to have read it, let alone digested it. Begin, who was himself an example of someone who sought sanctuary in the Soviet Union as he states in his biography that he would have otherwise have been executed if he had remained in Poland (which Brenner doubts in Zionism in the Age of the Dictators) states that ‘hundreds of thousands’ of Jews were saved because of the Soviet Union. That is quite compatible with 2 million or 1.5 million for that matter, since it is a matter of dispute just how many Jews died in the Nazi holocaust. The most widely quoted figure is 6 million, however Hilberg, who is the most authorative historian on the Nazi holocaust uses the lower figure of 5.1 million precisely because of the no. of Jews he estimates escaped to the Soviet Union. However to Bogdanor the Stalinists were as bad as, if not worse than, the Hitler regime and therefore yes Bogdanor relativises the Nazi crimes. How else can you describe it? I cited Nolte in this respect not on the origination of the Israeli state, although of course Zionists regularly use the Holocaust as justification for the establishment of the Israeli state. Mikey, who to be fair plays 2nd fiddle to Bogdanor, cites one V. Bolshakov, who I’ve never heard of before. But if he talks about an “international Zionist body” is that wrong? Isn’t there a World Zionist Organisation? Do tell us if this is wrong? And if he talks about “a well-organised propaganda and slander service” is that wrong? Mikey and Bogdanor are good examples of just that or the ritual libel/slander of anti-Semitism/self-hater or the most virulent anti-Semitism that Zionists have used to e.g. attack the signatories of the recent letter to the Guardian by 105 British Jews. Or maybe Mikey hasn’t seen the e-mail distributed by Haim Beresheeth which calls him a ‘kike.’ Does Mikey and Bogdanor agree with attacking anti-Zionists using the most filthy anti-Semitic slurs? As for Zionism being “bellicose chauvinism, anti-communism and anti-Sovietism,” what is untrue in that? Zionist politics have become steadily more overtly right-wing and Aipac has aligned itself with the most right-wing and anti-semitic elements in the US, viz. the fundamentalist Christian Zionists who want a Jewish State to encourage Rapture and the return of Christ, whence all Jews who don’t convert will be slain. I would be happy to see Aipac, Bush, the neo-cons, Blair & Brown, to say nothing of Putin and most of the Arab leaders, including Ahmedinajad vaporised. What objection can there possibly be to that?!!!!!!!!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Protocols of the Elders Submitted by tonyg on 3 May, 2008 - 15:11. I forgot to add that because the Protocols allege there was an international Jewish conspiracy doesn’t mean that conspiracies don’t exist or don’t take place. E.g. the Iraq war was clearly the result of a conspiracy to manipulate intelligence and mislead people. Likewise the Jonathan Pollard spy case and the more recent case of Israel spying on the US would seem to be a conspiracy (spies tend not to do things openly!) It is one of the ironies that the Zionist movement does operate, not in an open manner debating its differences with its opponents, but by means of dirty tricks, libelling (as per Bogdanor/Mikey), trying to get its opponents banned and to prevent them speaking, denying tenure, manufacturing incidents that don’t occur (Prof. Joseph Massad) etc. So yes, Zionist politics are a caricature of the Protocols but the Zionism has always sought to justify the main claim of anti-Semites that Jews don’t belong in the Diaspora. So reaffirming the Protocols is just one more string to the bow. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greenstein Unmasked Submitted by Paul Bogdanor on 5 May, 2008 - 17:08. What do we learn from Greenstein’s latest communications? Greenstein announced on Socialist Unity that “the Stalinist regime” had granted refuge to Polish Jews. I demonstrated that the Stalinist regime had sent them to die in the Gulag. Greenstein then angrily protested on this page that “I never credited Stalin with saving anyone” and “I didn’t say ‘the Stalinists’ rescued Jews.” Greenstein has lied about his statement. Greenstein writes that Begin was “an example of someone who sought sanctuary in the Soviet Union.” Begin sought sanctuary in Lithuania, which he called “anti-Communist through and through” (White Nights, Steimatzky, 2008, p21). Far from seeking “sanctuary in the Soviet Union,” Begin fled to a country that was later attacked by the Soviet Union, whereupon he was sent to a concentration camp in the Soviet Union. Greenstein has lied about these facts. Greenstein announced on Socialist Unity that Begin had credited the Soviets with saving “2 million Jews.” When I challenged his hoax, Greenstein admitted that Begin gave no such number. Greenstein then claimed on this page that “Begin mentions a figure of about 3/4 million” and “Begin estimated that 3/4 million Soviet Jews survived.” Now that I have challenged his hoax, Greenstein admits that Begin gave no such number. Greenstein has lied about these statistics. According to Greenstein, Begin “states that ‘hundreds of thousands’ of Jews were saved because of the Soviet Union” which is “quite compatible with 2 million or 1.5 million.” But according to Begin, out of “hundreds of thousands” saved from the Nazis, “some of them died in prison, in exile, or as refugees” under the Soviets. And contrary to Greenstein, Begin gave no hint of “2 million or 1.5 million” rescued because of the Soviet Union. Greenstein has lied about this statement. Greenstein invokes the authority of “Hilberg’s Destruction of European Jewry. Being 3 volumes and some 1300 pages long I wouldn’t expect Bogdanor to have read it.” Alas, Greenstein hasn’t read it. That’s why he keeps getting the title wrong – it is The Destruction of the European Jews – and that’s why, on Socialist Unity, he referred to the abridged 1-volume “student edition.” Greenstein has not read the book he accuses me of not having read. Greenstein has asserted that if I read the book he hasn’t read, I’ll “find all the evidence” that out of 1.5 million Soviet Jewish refugees, “many perhaps the majority” were “taken there with the Soviet troops.” In the 3-volume edition Hilberg writes that they “fled before the Germans arrived” (Holmes & Meier, 1985, p291). Nowhere does he say or imply that 750,000+ Jews were “taken there with the Soviet troops.” Greenstein has lied about this source. Greenstein cites Hilberg to prove that the Red Army “evacuated whole communities as the Nazis advanced.” In the 3-volume edition the sole reference to evacuation of whole communities is a Nazi allegation contradicted by research stating that “there is no evidence” of such an evacuation plan (p295). As Hilberg’s subsequent book confirms, “there is little evidence of any Soviet attempts to evacuate Jews as such.” Greenstein has lied about this source. Greenstein omits that Hilberg provides no evidence that 1.5 million fled. As it happens, the figure came from a Soviet spokesman (Morgen-Frayheyt, October 21, 1946). And as historians concluded decades ago, “There is simply no proof to justify such a sweeping statement” and Hilberg’s escape estimates turned out to be “wildly wrong” (Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1986, p301). Greenstein has repeated discredited nonsense about the Holocaust. Greenstein argues that “to Bogdanor the Stalinists were as bad as, if not worse than, the Hitler regime and therefore yes Bogdanor relativises the Nazi crimes.” But Greenstein has compared the Zionists to “the anti-Semitic movements whose activities led directly to the Holocaust.” Greenstein thinks that Orthodox Judaism has “Judaeo-Nazi views” and Greenstein condemns the Israelis as “Judaeo-Nazis.” Greenstein will not compare Stalin with Hitler but he accuses other Jews of being Nazis. In this exchange, Greenstein has falsified the Holocaust, boasted of supporting Hamas, defended Soviet antisemitic incitement and invoked the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He has justified the murder of Jewish activists, democratic politicians and people who disagree with him on Iraq. He has lied about facts, lied about statistics, lied about sources and lied about his own lies. It is all rather depressing. But Greenstein has now lightened the burden: he has described Ahmadinejad as an Arab leader. At least I can thank him for that moment of hilarity! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tony Greenstein - Genocidal Thinking and Other Matters Submitted by MikeyMikey on 6 May, 2008 - 08:45. Just over a year ago, Tony Greenstein wrote to the Alef list and said, “If every staffer in AIPAC were to be vaporised tomorrow, alongside Bush, Blair and Cheney, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.” On this thread he widened his target list to include “the inhabitants of the White House” and “the leaders of the Christian Coalition” (March 2). As the thread progressed, his “anarchist wishful thinking” extended further to include “the leadership of the Republican Party, New Labour’s cabinet and any other warmongers I can think of” (March 9). In his latest message Greenstein’s genocidal dream targets have extended still further to include “the neo-cons,” “Blair & Brown,” “Putin,” “most of the Arab leaders” and “Ahmedinajad” who he mistakenly refers to as an Arab leader. Martin Ohr has suggested this thread has gone on long enough, maybe he is right because the longer it goes on the more people Tony Greenstein seems to want killed. Not only does Greenstein have this extended list of people he wants killed, he cannot see anything wrong with it and is perplexed that anyone else can. Paul Bogdanor has already cited many lies in Greenstein’s words but I wish to add one more: in order to justify his wish for “vaporising Aipac’s leadership,” Greenstein argues: “These are people whose sole raison d’etre is the waging and creation of wars” (May 1). This is a blatant lie. The purpose of AIPAC is to help ensure that American support for Israel remains strong. On “trying to get its opponents banned and to prevent them speaking,” this is the exact technique that some in the boycott Israel movement that Greenstein has placed himself at the forefront of have carried out. For examples there was the case of Andrew Wilkie who banned an Israeli student from working in his laboratory and the case of Mona Baker who sacked two Israelis from the boards of her journal because they were connected to Israeli universities. Finally, with his talk of conspiracies and his agreement with hard-line Stalinist propagandists one wonders whether Tony Greenstein has gone completely mad. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NB: Other exchanges with Tony Greenstein can be found here and here.