THE [email protected] THREAD ON THE RISE OF HITLER
X-From_: [email protected] Thu Apr 23 20:34:07 1998
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected] (Denis Hoppe)
Subject: Benny Morris Citation on Deir Yassin
Sender: [email protected]
Precedence: bulk
I think it is important for those of us with experience to cite what we
know about the tolerance that exists and has always existed in the Arabic
Speaking --and Farsi-speaking--countries. Too many young people will be
totally disoriented if we don't.
Although, at first glance, it seems that stating the facts on the
European Holocaust are scientific way of coming to grips with racism and
anti-semitism, the opposite is the case. It SEEMS like "Holocaust Studies"
are similar to a classroom situation of stating only Darwin's scientific
theory and not Creationism; but the opposite is the case. Holocaust
Studies are the Creationism of Academia and the Secondary School
Curriculum: but with the difference that Holocaust Studies have become
established dogma. That does not mean academics should not point out the
facts of the matter.
One fact is that the European Jews, and their co-citizens in
Germany had a chance to vote on whether they wanted Hitler or not.
(But the big Socialist And Communist Parties of Germany fought each other
instead of uniting to fight Hitler: that, briefly put is what caused the
Hitlerian Holocaust, not some mystic psyche of the German people, which, by
the way, apologists for the State of Israel claim to find in the
Arabic-speaking people, even though every Arab Leader and writer and
general guy or gal on the street will tell you they understand the plight
of the Jews(the European Holocaust), and welcome European Jews in
distress!) The Palestinians were never given a chance to vote on whether
they wanted to live as refugees next to a Jewish-only state.
Another fact is that the Palestinians did not have guns in any
meaningful way: so it was a holocaust in the same way Africans were forced
into slavery by the Portuguese, British, etc. to bring to the American
colonies. The same people who use "holocaust" as a bludgeon against the
Palestinian resistance, are likewise saying that Africans sold each other
into Plantation Slavery; overlooking the role of the European cannons and
guns.
The Pro-Israeli line of the 1950's (now disproved) is that the new
Jewish state was being threatened by invading Arab Armies, who urged the
Palestinians to leave and that the land would then be liberated.
Scholarship--I think actually Israeli scholars, but perhaps it was an
Englishman-- in the mid 1980's, using the British Intelligence Radio
monitoring documents from Cyprus found no evidence of any broadcast from
the Arab countries telling the Palestinians temporarily to leave.
The other part of the Pro-Israeli line, that Massacres like Deir
Yassin, and terrorism like the assassination of mediator Count Bernadotte,
were aberrations, has also been disproved. Israeli and British documents
showing that Deir Yassin and the Israeli loud speaker trucks forcing people
to flee, are documented in Benny Morris, "The Birth of the Palestinian
Refugee Problem, 1947-1949," Campridge University Press, NY. 1989 ($22.95
Toll Free Order # 800-872-7423, or 800-221-4512)
In 1998 the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC is celebrating one
event that happened 50 years ago, and they do not want people making the
connection between the kind of violence Israel brought to the area and the
kind of violence of Institutionalized Apartheid in South Africa, which the
United States brought to THAT area, to the south, also in 1948. Holocaust
is used as a bludgeon to stifle the facts of 1948. I think we should bring
out the facts when it is brought up, and I hope the reminder of the Israeli
scholarship of the 1980's on the matter, like the Benny Morris citation
above, will help others tackle this debate in the classroom, or in the
media.
Denis Hoppe
visit my web site to help me with an idea, under construction, to bring
more unbiased visitors to Palestine--through the Peace Corps!
http://www.tln.org.Gaza.html
[email protected]_______signature________
Facts on the Beshar Saidi Case, quoting from a Dearborn, Michigan, USA
community paper, and a brochure of the "Free Beshar" Defense Committee.
"INKSTER" - Bashar and Sawsan Saidi - both Christians - took their vacation
time last year at Christmas so they could celebrate the holidays with her
family overseas...
...While gathered with the family around the table at Christmas
dinner in the home of Sawsan's parents in the West Bank village of Sesamer,
near Haifa, the Israelis burst in and arrested Bashar...
the couple had planned to begin the return trip later that day,
December 25...
...Bashar, a Lebanese-born US citizen, was held without charge in
Israel for 30 days...His wife and newly hired attorney tried unsuccessfully
to get him released...
...On January 20, 1998 Bashar was officially charged by the Israeli
government with membership in an outlawed Syrian political party and with
having contacted a "foreign agent" while visiting his own family in Lebanon
just proir to joining his wife in Palestine. The Israelis claim Bashar was
an activist in the Syrian party from 1982 to 1986, the year he came to
America.
...Bashar deniew the charges, but he could be in prison and
subjected to the infamous Israeli torture for several years trying to prove
his innocence.
...Sawsan returned to the US this week(January 24-30) she must
return to work to keep her job."
quotation from Vol. XIII Issue No. 642, January 24-30, "The Arab American
News," 5461 Schaefer Rd., Dearborn MI 48126. FAX: (313) 582-7870, Tel.
(313) 582-4888
update on the case in a brochure distributed April 4 by the "Free Beshar
Comittee," 4564 Gunther Dr., Sterling Heights, MI 48310:
". . .
*Beshar has been in an Israeli jail since December 25
*Beshar was falsely charged more than a month later with "Providing
service to an illegal organization" No evidence was presented. Trial
dates were set for May 7 and June 2.
*So far efforts by the U.S. government have succeeded in just
stopping the torture while in jail.
. . . "
Beshar has by now lost his job at North Star Steel, in Monroe, where he was
a Plant Engineer. Sawsan, his wife is a teller (Customer Service
Representative at Comerica Bank, a local Michigan Bank.
In the brochure the committe seeks contributions, and has a form letter to
send to:
President Bill clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC, 20500
cc: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20520
REPLY FROM MICHAEL SELLS
X-From_: [email protected] Thu Apr 23 21:35:41 1998
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected] (Michael Sells)
Subject: Re: Benny Morris Citation on Deir Yassin
Sender: [email protected]
Precedence: bulk
> One fact is that the European Jews, and their co-citizens in
>Germany had a chance to vote on whether they wanted Hitler or not.
The European Jews had a chance to vote on Hitler? Well, what a revelation!
When did the 90% of the three million (try counting from 1 up to
3,000,000, and tell me when you are finished) Polish Jews liquidated in the
Holocaust vote for Hitler? Was this a special referendum? Likewise for
Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Hungarian, Yugoslavian, Rumanian, French,
Russian, Italian, Ukranian, Greek, Jews, etc, ad 6,000,000. We look
forward to Mr. Hoppe's account of such votes.
Presumably the minority of Germans who were Jews had a vote and presumably
few of them voted for the man who considered them filth and the enemy of
humankind, but the above statement by Mr. Hoppe is truly a perfect example
the brutality of insensivity that has been built up around the issue of the
holocaust. It is hard to even describe how survivors of the holocaust must
feel to hear that their loved ones had a vote for Hitler and were
electorally responsible for Auschwitz and the other death camps.
The ugliness of those who manipulate the holocaust to blame and demonize
Palestinians and Muslims who have already been far more tolerant of Jews
than Christian Europe (a manipulation which has been denounced clearly
already in this discussion) in no way excuses the above effort to make Jews
the electoral authors of their own extermination.
Indeed, such suggestions that Jews voted for their own holocaust, made on
the behalf of Palestinians without their "vote", are deeply injurious to
efforts for peace in the Middle East. The last kind of friend Palestinians
need is a Mr. Hoppe claiming on their behalf that Jews voted to have
themselves exterminated during the Holocaust.
For Mr. Hoppe's benefit, of the several millions Jews exterminated in the
Holocaust, only a tiny minority had voting rights in Germany and even if
they did, that does nothing to justify what was done to them.
Yassir Arafat's recent actions and Ghassan Kanafani's writings offer a hope
for some kind of true understanding between Jews and Palestinians. The
statements of Mr. Hoppe offer nothing but deeper pain and horror. In my
last posting, I mentioned three ways of manipulation of the Holocaust. The
revisionsm and callous disregard for the victims of that crime that
culminated 1000 years of European Christian anti-semitic persecution of
Jews is a clear example of category number 3.
Michael Sells
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
MY REPLY TO MICHAEL SELLS
X-From_: [email protected] Fri Apr 24 22:41:52 1998
>From dhoppe Fri Apr 24 22:41:52 1998
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 22:54:06 -0500
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected] (Denis Hoppe)
Subject: Re Benny Morris (or do we want Protectionism of Stalin?)
Cc: [email protected]
Far below--about 73 lines below-- is an early morning reply to the, "Are
you saying the Jews of Europe voted in the Hoocaust?" post in response to
my "Benny Morris Citation on Deir Yassin" post.
Of course I didn't say European Jews voted in the Holocaust. I
tried to provide facts on Deir Yassin in order to clarify what is happening
in history. Benny Morris, "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Probem,
1947-1949" is just some of the good Israeli scholarship that came out in
the late 1980's on how the "precipited Exodus" of the Palestinians from the
1948 Israel took place.
I put it in this Holocaust discussion because the in popular media
the horrors of the Holocaust are used to minimize the dispossesion of the
Palestinians. Rather than perpetrate this obfuscation, we can present
certain points of discussion, as teachers in a High School Social Studies,
or civics class would. Students are always told that Democracies with
elections are better than a country just imposing its will without holding
an election. In the case of the Holocaust, however, we are brought up
short. How could a democracy vote in Hitler? The answer has only recently
been available, thanks to the published writings of Lenin on the building
the Communist International in the 4 years after 1917, which present his
Joint-Theses on Democracy, --jointly with Rey, an Indian, Frumkina, a
Jewish Asian, and the Muslim men and women(Turkish) of the freedom
movements of the East.
What was wrong with Democracies, according to these gatherings of
delegates from all over the world? --Democracies were always supporting
their county's war on the colonial peoples. These writings themselves were
only able to see the light of publication, owing,indirectly, to the
openings given to humanity by the Cuban Revolution of 1959 the first
socialist revolution on this hemisphere. And, in a direct way, this
revolution itself was the result of the Arabic speaking Moroccans--many of
whom were and are Jews, who taught guerilla warfare to their Spanish enemy
soldiers, and which soldiers, later, as veterans of the Spanish Civil War
met Fidel and Che, inter alia, in Mexico and taught them what they had
learned from those pesky Moroccans about guerilla warfare.(see Fidel's
Interview on the Third World Debt in the Mexican Daily, The Excesior,
(Arabic version available)
So, I don't mean to say that the European Jews, who were unable to
see through the jungle of politics--a jungle that Stalinism was responsible
for and voted with their respective democracies in Europe--were voting for
being exterminated. The big working class parties gave them no choice but
to vote FOR war against colonial peoples. They were chauvinist parties,
but that very chauvinism was what Hitler played on. Buchanan is playing on
that same chauvinism today. The good news is that, althouth we still have
Stalinists, and people who choose not to point out the history of
European Democracy, or the evolution of the Barbarism of Mussolini on the
Lybians or of Hitler on the Ethnic minorities in Europe, we have the Cuban
Revolution next door, Apartheid overthrown in South Africa, and the workers
of the world still at center stage.
But should we take a know-nothing attitued toward European culture
and politics? If that is helpful on the Academic circuit today, for one's
preservation. So be it. The Lenin, Trotsky, Che Guevara and Stalin stuff
my be still too "hot," even though the Soviet Union is no longer bugaboo
number one.
On the Arabic Sensitivity Kits made for High School teachers,
however, at least Lenny Brenner's Zionism in the Age of Dictators, a
Jewish-religioned American scholar's study of the WW II war period are
suggested reading for discussion.
>Subject: Re Benny Morris (or do we want Protectionism of Stalin?)
>
>> Dear Michael,
>> When I looked at your Haverford address, I wondered, are you the
>>same guy who had an Arabic love poem translated on the U-VA virtual
>>library, with that nice introduction? I've been looking all over for
>>that.
>> Here's my post back on the European Jews had the right to vote,
>>the Palestinians didn't:"When I said, in my post, briefly, put, the Jews
>>of Europe WITH their German co-citizens had a chance to vote, I meant the
>>whole of Europe had a chance to participate in Stopping the rise of
>>Hitler. Stalin directed to German Communist Party not to pay attention to
>>Hitler, but to brand the equally large German social democratic party as
>>the bigger threat of Fascism. Even the liberal US Diplomat, Kennan, I
>>bellieve, in his diaries, says he was outraged that a few Jews were able
>>to pull strings to get out of Germany to the US with his freinds in the
>>German Embassy. This part if history Michael Sells, as an attempt to
>>recover the Holocaust as a bludgeon against looking into the facts of the
>>rise of World War II, is, without intending to do so perhaps, not
>>clarifying minds in today's era, when, in the US we have Buchanan running
>>in the official US Party system, and many displaced people caused by the
>>Iraq war --over a million Yemenis displaced from Saudi Arabia, Kurds
>>displaced and refused by NATO Turkey, Palestinians re-displaced from
>>Kuwait. Are we going to continue to blame tham for not understanding the
>>Holocaust, which was a European thing? Or start helping people look at
>>the facts?"
>>Hastily,
>>Denis Hoppe http://www.tln.org/~dhoppe/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ANOTHER OF MY REPLIES
X-From_: [email protected] Sat Apr 25 00:30:14 1998
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected] (Denis Hoppe)
Subject: Re: Benny Morris Citation on Deir Yassin
Sender: [email protected]
Precedence: bulk
At the moment I cannot find my post, "Benny Morris Citation on Deir Yassin"
The main facts were:
1. The expulsion of 100,000,000 "1948" Muslim, Christian, and
Jewish inhabitants of Palestine is documented from Israeli sources in Benny
Morris' The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949.
2. The claim that the native inhabitants left because "the Arab
Regimes broadcast to them to leave and they would later be liberated," has
been disproved after statute of limitations on the radio broadcast
monitoring reports of British Intelligence from Cyprus ran out and
scholars--I think you will find this in Benny Morris--discovered not a
single broadcast to this effect.
3. I made the unfortunate statement that the Europeans got a
chance to vote on Fascism, the Palestinians did not.
Granted this topic makes me nervous, --I even get nervous when
some ultra-leftist starts boarding a bus carrying
Billy-clubs-to-hit-the-KKK- just to go walk in Boston with black parents
and children who want bussing in Boston--because what was needed, in
Germany, was not just to vote against Hitler when he was just a demagogue,
but form defense guards, politically within the democratic electoral
system, but able to defend against Hitler's thugs, and take power. It would
have taken a political party of the caliber of the Cuban Communist Party,
today, which threw everything it had into helping Angola defeat the
invading South African Apartheid Army. . . so much did it see Apartheid as
a blight on humanity.
So it would have taken a vote and leadership; and granted it makes
me nervous because I am not currently a member of any sort of group
studying the history in order to be prepared to lead. I would have done
better to simply cite the only source readily available on the topic
"Zionism Without Dictators"
I apologize for putting it so briefly, which led to this, uncalled
for reply. I will not back down, however on the importance of non-Jews or
Palestinians, or Jews, or anyone to look into how the Holocaust came about,
and to go into the records. Thousands of GI's visit Aushwitz, and there's
nothing wrong with that. We are beginning to become a mixed society,
particularly in the Americas and Europe, --but we have a long way to go
before we are like the mixed societies of Africa and Asia--hence we are
meeting other non Jewish victims--Communists, Albanian Muslims, etc., of
the Holocaust.
I trust that no Israeli commando today, will come and assassinate
us for talking about it, as was was done to Ghassan Kanafani in Beirut, in
1973. His writing, particularly his semi-colloquial style that caught the
flavor of the Palestinian dialect, were way ahead of his time--too
Palestinian--too Arab--for the Israel of then, or of today.
Denis Hoppe
3319 Greenfield Rd. #192
Dearborn, Michigan 48120
USA
> One fact is that the European Jews, and their co-citizens in Germany
> had a chance to vote on whether they wanted Hitler or not.
The European Jews had a chance to vote on Hitler? Well, what a revelation!
When did the 90% of the three million (try counting from 1 up to
3,000,000, and tell me when you are finished) Polish Jews liquidated in the
Holocaust vote for Hitler? Was this a special referendum? Likewise for
Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Hungarian, Yugoslavian, Rumanian, French,
Russian, Italian, Ukrainian, Greek, Jews, etc., ad 6,000,000. We look
forward to Mr. Hoppe's account of such votes.
Presumably the minority of Germans who were Jews had a vote and presumably
few of them voted for the man who considered them filth and the enemy of
humankind, but the above statement by Mr. Hoppe is truly a perfect example
the brutality of insensivity that has been built up around the issue of the
holocaust. It is hard to even describe how survivors of the holocaust must
feel to hear that their loved ones had a vote for Hitler and were
electorally responsible for Auschwitz and the other death camps.
The ugliness of those who manipulate the holocaust to blame and demonize
Palestinians and Muslims who have already been far more tolerant of Jews
than Christian Europe (a manipulation which has been denounced clearly
already in this discussion) in no way excuses the above effort to make Jews
the electoral authors of their own extermination.
Indeed, such suggestions that Jews voted for their own holocaust, made on
the behalf of Palestinians without their "vote", are deeply injurious to
efforts for peace in the Middle East. The last kind of friend Palestinians
need is a Mr. Hoppe claiming on their behalf that Jews voted to have
themselves exterminated during the Holocaust.
For Mr. Hoppe's benefit, of the several millions Jews exterminated in the
Holocaust, only a tiny minority had voting rights in Germany and even if
they did, that does nothing to justify what was done to them.
Yassir Arafat's recent actions and Ghassan Kanafani's writings offer a hope
for some kind of true understanding between Jews and Palestinians. The
statements of Mr. Hoppe offer nothing but deeper pain and horror. In my
last posting, I mentioned three ways of manipulation of the Holocaust. The
revisionsm and callous disregard for the victims of that crime that
culminated 1000 years of European Christian anti-semitic persecution of
Jews is a clear example of category number 3.
Michael Sells