Comments on Rochester Scholar Says Jews 'Overplay' Holocaust

• Same old same old
• Posted by Abbott Katz on January 14, 2008 at 6:35am EST

• "Would it not be better to befriend those who hate you?", Gandhi asks of a country surrounded by its enemies. It's more of the usual double standard applied to Israel - accompanied by the just-as-usual post-hoc, sorry-if-I-offended backtracking. It's a sinister bit of coreography, and the routine gets old.

• On the other hand ...
• Posted by R. Martin on January 14, 2008 at 7:55am EST

• The post was badly worded. The apology, even more so. But the fact remains that for every Israeli killed by Arabs, some ten Arabs are killed by Israelis (and US media under-report this fact rather significantly). Arabs are not occupying Israeli lands, Israel has been occupying Arab lands for decades. The Arab countries are not a threat to Israel, which has probably the most advanced military on the planet (the USA included). There is a double standard at work here, and it's not necessarily the one Abbott Katz complains of.

• Axis of Evil
• Posted by sue on January 14, 2008 at 8:15am EST

• In particular I vehemently disagree with his singling out (fill in the blank) as to blame for the ‘Culture of Violence’ that he believes is eventually going to destroy humanity. This kind of stereotyping is inconsistent with our core values and would be inappropriate when applied to any race, any religion, any nationality, or either gender

• Posted by Nathan Carter on January 14, 2008 at 8:20am EST

• I agree with the observation that Israel is a player in some of the violence abroad, especially in their oppression of the Palestinians. However, to assert that Israel is central to this is ludicrous, in that a great deal of the terror they pursue is American-bred and funded. Additionally, the assertion that Jews "overplay" the Holocaust is a travesty; I agree that Israelis are so bound to the idea of Palestinian oppression because of their fear of it all happening again. However, simply because their safeguards may be misguided, does not mean that it has been overstated or overplayed. To say so is to ignore the significance of Jewish history and is intellectually irresponsible.

• Beg to disagree
• Posted by Abbott Katz on January 14, 2008 at 8:55am EST

• Re R. Martin's post, declaring

  "The Arab countries are not a threat to Israel..."

  Isn't that precisely how Hamas positions itself? See
  http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2790

  and that's just for starters.

• Most of us are mentally trapped to think Jewish
• Posted by Michael Santomauro , Publisher at TADP.org on January 14, 2008 at 12:15pm EST

• Actually, it is safe to say that virtually every mainstream publication or or other type of media organ is "nothing more than a screen to present chosen views." The great battle over the last century has been a battle for the mind of the Western peoples, i.e., non-Jewish Euros. The chosen won it by acquiring control over essentially the complete mainstream news, information, education and entertainment media of every type, and using that control to infuse and disseminate their message, agenda and worldview, their way of thinking, or rather the way they want us to think. Since at least the 1960s this campaign has been effectively complete. Since then they have shaped and controlled the minds of all but a seeming few of us in varying degree with almost no opposition or competition from any alternative worldview. So now most of us are mentally trapped in the box the chosen have made for us, which we have lived in all our lives. Only a few have managed to avoid it or escape it, or to even sometimes see outside of it, and so actually "think outside of the (Jewish) box."

• Ghandi Flap
• Posted by David , PhD, MFA on January 14, 2008 at 12:15pm EST

• Re: The Ghandi flap at Rochester.

  The Zionists in occupied Palestine have the nukes and the Hasadist mentality to trigger a 'nuclear winter'. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/943902.html

  The identification of all Jews with the Zionist project, despite the strenuous efforts of Zionists themselves to bring this identity about through its many organs, connections and devices, is indeed unjustified. Many Jews do not support the project in Palestine.http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/944235.html

  The Holocaust card is indeed overplayed, and is generating an effect that diminishes the appreciation of that historical event.

  Hamas' home-made rockets are no match for the Israeli war machine, and simply offer pretext for the incremental holocaust being carried out against Palestinians. While Israel does not build and operate death camps, it is creating a walled-off Palestininan Ghetto/ South African style Bantustans, controlling access to electrical power and water therein and access to work outside of them. What will be the next step toward the 'final solution' of the Palestininan question?

• Israel threatened?
• Posted by questioner on January 14, 2008 at 12:25pm EST

• R. Martin writes, "for every Israeli killed by Arabs, some ten Arabs are killed by Israelis (and US media under-report this fact rather significantly). Arabs are not occupying Israeli lands, Israel has been occupying Arab lands for decades. . . .Israel . . . has probably the most advanced military on the planet (the USA included)." Taken on their face, these facts compel the conclusion that Israel is a wantonly belligerent country that is savagely brutalizing its Arabic neighbors. But isn't their a significant historical context that casts these facts and what they entail in a very different light? Doesn't Israel have a powerful military because it is surrounded by countries that have regularly tried to exterminate Israel and its citizens and have often articulated their continued desire to do so? Hasn't Israel held Arab lands because they believed it was difficult to defend themselves without such occupation. Finally, isn't it possible that Israel has killed more Arabs than vice-versa because some Arabs are conducting a guerrilla war against Israel, and guerrillas regularly fire from within crowds of their own kind in the hopes that their opponents will kill innocents in their attempts at defense and thereby earn a black eye? If this is an accurate depiction of the context, don't the Arab militants come off as not only savagely and wantonly belligerent toward Israel, but bereft of regard even for the lives of non-militant Arabs?

• Posted by kh on January 14, 2008 at 12:45pm EST

• How do you "overplay" the systematic extermination of 6 million men, women, and children? More if you add those who weren't Jewish, who were also exterminated.

  It was 60 years ago, but to imagine that it will not, and should not have an effect today is ludicrous.

  In the US, we are still dealing with the wrong that was slavery, and it ended almost 150 years ago.

• The Holocaust card
• Posted by david , PhD, MFH on January 14, 2008 at 3:25pm EST

• A discussant in the Ghandi flap writes:

  "How do you “overplay” the systematic extermination of 6 million men, women, and children? More if you add those who weren’t Jewish, who were also exterminated."

  By using that historical, and tragic, fact to justify the current holocaust being perpetrated in Palestine, by ostracizing, expelling, firing, blocking tenure for, etc. anyone who questions the media/academic/political machine that mechanically deals the card, by refusing to count the 'other' six million as victims of the tragedy, as Elie Weisel does as head of Holocaust Inc., (the questioner, to their credit, mentions the 'other' six million), by playing a numbers game that discounts the atomic holocaust victims of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, by sensationalizing and trivializing the suffering and death of the twelve million by incessant re-dramatizations of real and fictional narratives about the events----

  To paraphrase an infamous aphorism:

  If you repeat the truth often enough, people will stop believing it.

  And that is the great danger of the appropriation of the tragedy of the wwII holocause perpetrated by the Nazi regime for ideological/political/racial ends, or, in other words, for justifying Israel's theft of Palestinian lands, continuous murder of Palestinians, and imposition of a theocratic/racial/neo-colonial regime in the middle east.

• Posted by Stan Blostein on January 14, 2008 at 5:25pm EST

• The Israelis "occupy" lands following the 1967 war in which all of their Arab "neighbors" attempted to destroy Israel (Hamas officially continues to maintain this position.)The comments to what are called "unfortunate comments" by Mr. Gandhi along with the neo-pathological statement by Mr. Santamauro are evidence of the need by civilized society to remember the Holocaust.

• Michael Santomauro's comment
• Posted by George Gollin , Professor of Physics at University of Illinois on January 14, 2008 at 6:45pm EST

• Michael Santomauro wrote "[t]he chosen won it [the battle for the mind of western peoples] by acquiring control over essentially the complete mainstream news, information, education and entertainment media of every type, and using that control to infuse and disseminate their message, agenda and worldview, their way of thinking, or rather the way they want us to think."

  Let me make sure I understand Mr. Santomauro's use of the language. Correct me if I am wrong.

  "the chosen" = Jewish people
  "they" = Jews
  "their" = Jewish.

  Wow.

  The entry page to Mr. Santomauro's site, TADP.org, is a notice that TADP will not extrude its products into Germany or France, or, for that matter, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain or Switzerland, or (of course) Israel.

  Printed material for sale includes "Unmasking the Holocaust Hoax (3,000 sold so far!)" and other musings.

  I don't remember coming across a letter like Mr. Santomauro's for some time, but perhaps that is because "they" don't ever print them.

• Occupation
• Posted by david , PhD, MFA on January 15, 2008 at 11:20am EST

• The discussant who submitted the following: "The Israelis “occupy” lands following the 1967 war..." practices a typical historical revisionism of Zionists and those influenced by them. The "Israelis" became "Israelis" through the occupation of Palestinian land beginning in the post WWII period, when survivors of the holocaust were transported to Palestine. Terrorist organizations like "Irgun" began a systematic campaign against Palestinians that evolved into the first war of colonization of Palestine, culminating in the 1948 proclamation of the state of Israel.
  Good night and good luck.

• Posted by Madelyn on January 16, 2008 at 10:20am EST

• It never fails to shock me when presumably intelligent people, e.g., like "David, Ph.D., MFA," above, write negatively about Israel but base their opinion on inaccuracies. The truth is Jews have lived in Palestine throughout history, with many more arriving in the early 20th century, not since WWII, as he indicates. He also is wrong about the origin of Israel, refusing to mention that both Jews and Arabs in Palestine were invited to share the land in 1946 or 1947, through the "two state solution," but only the Jews agreed. The Palestinian Arabs refused the deal, and, instead, the entire Arab world declared war on the new Jewish state Israel, which Israel won. Over and over since then, Arabs have fought Israel, and Palestinians have refused to engage seriously in peace talks.

• Not interested in refighting the war
• Posted by Hoosier Prof on January 16, 2008 at 11:15am EST

• People, people! When I read these posts, I'm always reminded of kids who point fingers to claim "HE started it!". Are you really planning on rehashing the war? There is plenty of blame to share on all sides.

  So back to the point. What's at stake with Gandhi's comments is the public's willingness to entertain opinions that conflict with their own. We need to talk about this as a challenge to the terms of civil discourse in a world with more than one definition of reality. And as Miss Manners would remind us, civil discourse has its own simple rules.

• Why not Peace from the Arabs.
• Posted by APS on January 17, 2008 at 11:05am EST

• It seems we're forgetting one thing. No one ever calls on the Arab countries to just declare Peace with Israel and work to resolve their issues amicably. Think about it. Many countries are involved in ethnic conflicts, often involving Muslims; Russia/Chechnya, Thailand, Turkey/Kurdistan, and even Ghandi's own India fighting over the Kashmir.

  But does Ghandi or anyone think it would help matters to declare war on these countries or deny their right ot exist?

  Of course not, it would only inflame tensions and intensify the conflict. So why is it okay for the Arabs to take that extremely militant stand towards Israel? Where is the outcry from Mr. Ghandi about that? There is none, and that's the double standard.

• Gollin vs. Sanomauro
• Posted by L.M. Purifoy at Emory and Henry College on January 18, 2008 at 2:20pm EST

• George Gollin writes about Michael Santomauro’s comment:

  "The entry page to Mr. Santomauro’s site, TADP.org, is a notice that TADP will not extrude its products into Germany or France, or, for that matter, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain or Switzerland, or (of course) Israel.

  I don’t remember coming across a letter like Mr. Santomauro’s for some time, but perhaps that is because “they” don’t ever print them."

  I agree with Mr. Gollin's interpretation of Mr. Santomauro's assertion. He is indeed talking about the Jewish "They".

  Mr. Gollin fails to consider the fact that the reason Mr. Santomauro's products are not sold in the listed countries is because such material- and the thought behind them- has been criminalized. That's right- Orwellian laws designed to criminalize incorrect opinions.

  Most would agree that any depiction of history that has to be protected by the force of law is innately suspect. Most would also agree that there is no room in a free country for the criminalization of opinion. Yet that is what has happened in many countries and appears likely to happen here, at the behest of "them". And yes, Mr. Gollin, suppression of opinions like Mr. Santomauro's is already underway here, due to- as you recognize- the failure of "them" to allow publication.

  I suggest a thorough reading of Dr. Kevin MacDonald's masterful trilogy on Jews and Judaism, especially the central work *Culture of Critique*. Perhaps the scales will fall.