Thoughts on Israel, Iran, Daesh, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Racism(Opinion)

To those who pay attention to current events, it should be obvious that there is a widening rift between the United States and Israel.  The rhetoric between the Israel Administration and the US Administration has grown to a fevered pitch as the prospect of a nuclear deal with Iran in March 2015 becomes more possible. Behind all of the rhetoric lies a legitimate policy difference.

Israel

Israel rightly perceives Iran and its proxies (Hezbollah, Hamas) to be an existential threat.  Certainly the thought of Iran developing a nuclear warfare capability is frightening to Israel and its partisans.  Such a capability could blunt Israel's strategic military advantage.  It is not hard to imagine a skirmish with Hezbollah leading to nuclear blackmail or worse.  If I were an Israeli citizen, I would be worried about such eventualities.  I am, however, a US Citizen and my only national loyalty is to the United States.

The United States

The interests of the United States are often in concert with those of Israel; so it is no coincidence that the two countries cooperate in a very dangerous neighborhood.  It is possible, however, for those interests to diverge and at this point in time (2015), I believe that they are divergent.  The United States and its allies face a global threat from a loosely affiliated and sometimes competing array of Sunni groups that are either influenced by or closely in agreement with Wahhabism and or Salafism.  These groups include Al Qaida, Daesh (ISIS), Al Shabab, and Boko Haram.  Obviously, these groups also pose a threat to Israeli interests. All of these groups are blatantly Antisemitic.  It is equally obvious that Iran and its proxies are a potential threat to US Interests (Consider the Khobar Towers incident, for example).  I do not mean to make absolutist claims one way or the other.

In the current climate, however, detente between the US and Iran may be possible.  Assuming that my enemy's enemy is my friend is a strategy that can backfire too often, but strategic non-aggression for the short term is very likely to be in US interests in fighting Daesh in Syria and Iraq.  The nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers must be seen in that light.  While such non-aggression is in the short-term interests of the United States, it is not at all in the interest of Israel.  To the United States, Iran and its proxies are a regional threat.  Israel happens to be in the region, and to Israel, Iran and its proxies are an existential threat.  I suggest that this is a rational policy difference between the two countries, one that can and should be responsibly debated, but unfortunately that debate has taken a darker turn.

Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard

From the earliest days of their movement, Holocaust deniers have largely centred their arguments on the Auschwitz death camp. Surveying the literature which makes up so-called Holocaust Revisionism,  the obsession with Auschwitz is undoubtedly one of its defining features. Since the early 1990s, with the advent of the modern world-wide web, Holocaust deniers have taken to the internet to try and argue their case. Until recently, the ensuing online debates between advocates of Holocaust denial and their critics have likewise focused on Auschwitz.


My friends at the Holocaust Controversies Blog have written an article that focuses on the Operation Reinhard camps, Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor, and the attempts to deny the reality of the murder at those camps by Holocaust deniers, Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf, and Thomas Kues. They dedicated this work to the memory of Harry W. Mazal OBE.


The work is entitled, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard: A Critique of the Falsehoods of, Mattogno, Graf, and Kues. 

The Holocaust History Project: Pamphlet on David Irving

The Holocaust History Project Blog of The Holocaust History Project has announced an updated pamphlet on Holocaust denier David Irving.

The British court found that Irving's

misrepresentation of history was

"deliberate in the sense that he was motivated by a

desire borne of his own ideological beliefs to

present Hitler in a favourable light."

OPINION: Don't Call Climate Doubters Deniers

I am friendly with  and love people who doubt the reality of climate change.  The same cannot be said for those who "doubt" the reality of the Final Solution.  Lately it has become commonplace to refer to the former as "deniers," but the implicit connection to the latter offends me.  To understand why, I think it is useful to look at these groups of people.

The Chemistry of Holocaust Denial

This post is an opportunity to collect in one place some of the articles I've written on Holocaust Denial. I have not been actively involved with this topic in years. The deniers may have additional pseudo-arguments of which I am not aware, but I think as a whole the articles stand.

In 2001, I wrote an Expert Report to support the defense of Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books against the libel accusations of David Irving.

David Irving had sued Deborah Lipstadt in the UK for libel because of the fact that she identified him as a Holocaust denier, Hitler apologist, distorter of history, antisemite and racist in her book Denying the Holocaust. It should be noted that Lipstadt did not choose the legal system as the place to fight this battle. By suing her for libel, Irving threatened her right of free speech as well as the accuracy of the historical record. As a US citizen, Lipstadt could have conveniently ignored the suit and relied on the protections of the US First Amendment. Instead, she courageously rose to the challenge, deciding that UK legal precedent is of historical importance. She defended herself using the defense of justification. Her book was not libel because it was true. She won the suit, Mr. Justice Gray found that the defense of justification was in fact a valid one.

Irving appealed the decision and Lipstadt won again.