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Holocaust Religion and Holocaust Industry in the service of Israel

Shraga Elam*

February 2001

There can be no argument that Judeocide during World War II played and continues to play a major role in the Arab/Israeli conflict.

On the one hand, it is a commonly held Arab position that Judeocide is merely one of many bogus Zionist postures to manipulate world public opinion. On the other hand, most Zionists believe that this catastrophe (in Hebrew, 'Shoa') demonstrates beyond a doubt the necessity of a Jewish state; and had there been one during WWII, this genocide would not have taken place.

Moreover, it is claimed that only a militarily strong Israel can prevent such a catastrophe from recurring.

Each of the above positions is the result of the same distorted mode of processing the past. This mode can be called religious, even though the usual definition of religion includes a God concept - one that is absent in this discussion. In all other ways, the necessary religious characteristics are in place: dogmas, commandments, rituals, shrines, prophets and priests and, of course, economic/financial structures.

One can, therefore, speak of a "Holocaust Religion" and its "Satanic" arch enemy, "Holocaust Denial". A third way to deal with the Judeocide, which should be defined as secular and scientific, is often identified with the "Holocaust Denial." The use of the term "Holocaust", which means "A burnt- sacrifice or offering, the whole of which was consumed by fire" , reflects the religious character of the dominant historiography of Judeocide.

Using the designation "Holocaust" for the extermination of the Jews implies accordingly the absurdity that the Nazis scarified the Jews in a kind of a religious ritual.

History of the Holocaust Religion
The birth of the Holocaust Religion is considered to have been triggered by the trial in Jerusalem of the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1961. This show-trial was a spectacle meant to get the Jewish Israeli public, mainly the then youngest generation, acquainted with the Judeocide.

The trial did not succeed in achieving this aim not because this middle-ranking SS officer, Eichman, was not adequate to represent the whole extermination machinery. Nor was the failure due to the impossibility of reducing the Nazi monstrous system to a single individual. The fundamental reason for the failure must be attributed to the central Zionist tenet: the "Negation of the Diaspora" a recurrent theme which made it very difficult for the young Jewish-Israelis to identify themselves with European Jewry.

Several generations of Israeli Jews were brought up to loathe Jewish existence abroad. In fact, Jewish way of life in Europe, for example, was viewed as sick and to be overcome through Zionism. Young Jewish-Israelis were brain-washed up to the late '70's, to internalize typical Christian European prejudices against Jews and thus did not want to identify themselves with their own grandparents or even their parents, who had not resisted oppression in Europe.

Even though Eichmann's trial did not achieve the desired effect inside Israel, its impact abroad was enormous. Elie Wiesel, a former concentration camp inmate who came to Jerusalem to report on the process, subsequently initiated a religious modality for handling the Judeocide. This religion was to become very dominant in the ensuing years. It came to be accepted by not only most Jews but also many non-Jews, especially in the industrialized countries. It was to become one of the most important tools of Israeli propaganda machinery.

The relevancy of the Holocaust Religion to the Middle East conflict indeed cannot be overlooked. Its real breakthrough according to the Jewish theologian Marc Ellis, (who defines it rather as a theology), came through the Israeli victory in 1967:

"Holocaust theology yields three themes that exist in dialectical tension: suffering and empowerment, innocence and redemption, specialness and normalization ". After the '67 war there was according to this analysis a kind of a religious messianic salvation. The Judeocide and the big 'threat' to Israel in 1967 are 'the suffering'. The building of the State of Israel and especially the victory of 1967 are 'the redemption'.

Of course Zionism lost its innocence long before 1967. Already in the 1930's, David Ben Gurion, the most important Zionist leader, realized the huge potential in Judeocide[if this term equels the "holocaust" It can't be used regardin Bi Gurion who probbably meant Sufferings etc.] as he brought these religious elements together into a simple direct political motto for the instrumentalization of the Jewish sufferings in Europe.

He declared: "Catastrophe is Power." Which means the Zionist movement should find ways to profit politically and financially from the agony. Yet the catastrophe became a real source of political power only after Israel became a military success in 1967. Which means, a catastrophe as such is not necessarily a source of power. One must be powerful in order to be able to use and abuse a disaster.

In their book "Dangerous Liasion" , Andrew and Leslie Cockburn describe how only after 1967 did Israel become attractive to the US military establishment. Though Israel had, before that time, a burning desire to work for Washington, the US was not enthusiastic until Israel demonstrated its strength on the battlefield.

he journalist J.J. Goldberg argues that the Jewish lobby became strong only after 1967. AIPAC the most known lobby became influential through the Israeli importance for US foreign policy and not the other way around.

Zionist Role In Rescuing Jews In WW2
This claim [of Israels'increased importance to the U.S after 1967]sounds very plausible when one considers that the American Jewish organizations were not able to convince the Roosevelt administration to be more helpful towards European Jewry during the Nazi era.

Although, for example, the New York Times was at that time in Jewish ownership it did not dare just like the mainstream US Jewish organizations, to oppose the anti-Jewish policy of the State Department.

The lobby to establish a Zionist state in Palestine was anyway more effective than the one to save the Jews. This was the line dictated by Ben Gurion and executed by his delegate in the US Abba Hillel Silver.

Co oporation With The Nazis
Still the leadership of the Jewish agency (JA), i.e., the government-in-formation, headed by the Zionist Labor movement, started very early to cash in on the Nazi persecutions of the Jews. This "Holocaust Industry" had been founded even before the Judeocide was really launched. In the mid 30's the Jewish Agency reached a deal with the Nazis, the so-called Ha'avara agreement, which helped the Zionist movement not only to attract to Palestine very wealthy investors, but to get direct control of some of their money. According to the this arrangement, rich Jews could get some of their properties out of Germany if they immigrated to Palestine and the Jewish Agency received a nice commission from these deals. This arrangement was, among others, the result of strong Nazi support for the Zionist project, since corresponding with the Zionist aims, the main German objective at that time was to expel the Jews from Europe.

The collaboration with the Nazis brought the Zionists the much-needed capital for the colonization of Palestine ($40 million, which totalled "60% of capital invested in Palestine between 1933 and the war" ). This agreement practically saved the Zionist movement in Palestine from bankruptcy argues the journalist Lenni Brenner. The JA thus came to be the largest agent for German goods in the Middle East and sabotaged Jewish efforts to declare a boycott against the Nazis.

This fruitful cooperation between the Nazis and the Zionists came to an end in 1938 following Arab insurrections after which the British tried to stop Jewish Immigration into Palestine. Besides, the German faction, which sought an anti-British alliance with the Arabs got stronger and blocked the export to Palestine of goods so needed at home. Still the pro-Zionist Nazi factions (Eichmann was a part of them) kept their contacts with the Jewish Agency. According to the coordinator of the Zionist activities in occupied Europe, Nathan Dror-Schwalb, his people were working together with Eichmann in 1938 as he expelled the Austrian Jews . Zionist delegates, according to Schwalb, could operate without disturbance in Germany throughout the war and organize their cells of the youth movement Hehalutz .

Zionist Role in Rescueing Jews
According to the Israeli historian S. Beit-Zvi, the JA-leadership did not hesitate to sabotage rescue efforts. This happened after it became clear, that the British would not allow a Jewish mass immigration to Palestine.

Beit-Zvi argues that the JA-leadership was afraid that a large number of Jews would be saved and sent to some other destinations rather than Palestine. This development was considered a political and economic danger (!) to the Zionist project, as it would absorb resources needed to establish the state and would weaken the Zionist claim that Palestine is the only possible refuge for Jews. According to Beit-Zvi, Golda Meir was responsible for sabotaging the concrete chances of rescue of the refugees which was discussed at conference of Evian in 1938. Beit-Zvi claims that this was the real reason why this famous conference actually failed.

In a very famous speech Ben Gurion formulated the JA rescue policy as follow: "If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel." Ben-Gurion's apologists have tried to explain away this quotation. But an objective examination of the following activities of the JA, the protocols of JA-leadership and the factual low priority it gave to rescue operations, can only confirm the claim that this speech was emblematic of this attitude and that it basically never changed even after the scope of the catastrophe became clear .

Another Israeli historian, Idith Zertal, claims that Ben Gurion was already before WWII mainly interested in the rescue operations only for the national purposes. The saving of persecuted Jews was to be used primarily as means of pressure on the British Empire to abolish its restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine.

But even for these purposes, there were hardly any meaningful rescue activities during the war. There were very few Zionist delegates to coordinate such operations and they had hardly any financial resources to be effective. According to Zertal the spectacular actions of the illegal immigration after the war, like the famous trip of the "Exodus", were mainly part of a very effective propaganda campaign. The Jewish organization "Joint" claimed at that time, that the total number of immigrants including the illegal ones was smaller than British quota. This means that if the Jewish refugees would have been transported to Palestine legally, under normal conditions, it would have been cheaper, more comfortable and safer for them than using the shaky illegal ships and their number would not necessarily have been lower. But by using this legal way, the JA would have lost the propaganda effects of the pictures of British soldiers using excessive amount of force against Jewish survivors.

Abusing Restitution Rights Of Holocaust Victims
Though the Zionist leadership was not very active in saving Jews (to say the least), it started already during WWII to prepare a restitution campaign. The JA felt itself empowered to make claims on Jewish properties without being bothered by such trivialities like whether or not the legitimate owners or their heirs were still alive . The Zionist project needed a lot of money and therefore it is not surprising that the JA did not have too many ethical considerations when they endeavored to save Nazi war criminals, that is, if the Nazis could pay enough for it. Thus the SS officer responsible for the robbery of the Hungarian Jewry, Kurt Becher, and some of his friends were saved.

Israel Kastner [the Zionist representative in Hungery in WW2 who was accused later of collaborating with the Nazis in rescuing a few thousands Jews] was sent in 1948 by the Israeli finance minister to Germany to save these Nazis from trial. In return, Becher gave orders to his Swiss trustee to transfer money to the Jewish Agency .

This was also the case of the important Nazi agent, Jaac van Harten, whose money financed in 1945/46 the illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine and acquisitions of weapons [by the JA]. Van Harten was crucial for the flight of Nazis out of Europe, but the agents of the Mossad Le'Aliyah Beth who protected him, could not care less. He himself found refuge later in Tel Aviv, where he got the protection of no less than Golda Meir, the de-facto foreign minister at that time (1947). Till the 60's Van Harten kept contacts with his former Nazi boss, Friedrich Schwend, who was then working in Peru with other famous Nazis like Josef Mengele and Klaus Barbie. Schwend was considered to be a kind of finance minister of the planned Fourth Reich.

The Zionist movement succeeded after WWII in getting restitution illegitimately in the name of the Nazi victims. At the last stages of the war, representatives of the Jewish Agency gathered Jewish properties and were nominated as recipients for such assets at the Paris Reparation Conference (1945/46). The large amount of money that began to flow to Israel in the 50's increased as the USA intensified its efforts to reintegrate West Germany in its Cold War strategy. A German researcher reports about a meeting in Switzerland between the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the Israeli President Haim Weizmann. In this meeting Adenauer agreed to pay compensations if Israel would give it consent for the rearmament of West Germany . These restitution monies were very crucial for building the Israeli economy and military. Most probably the victory of 1967 would not have been possible without this support.

As said, after 1967 the influence of the Holocaust Industry and the Holocaust Religion increased as a result of the ever-growing importance of Israel in terms of US interests. The Holocaust Religion was able to achieve a growing control over the public opinion in Western countries. Its influence over public opinion in the Western countries reached an unexpected climax in the 90's. Steven Spielberg's film "Schindler's list" and the ceremonies commemorating the Jubilee of the end of WWII functioned like a trigger for this outburst. As an outcome of this memory-explosion the Holocaust Industry was in position to launch in 1995 a very effective restitution campaign against the Swiss banks, which now has been expanded to include other countries.

It was a mixture of a just claim, presented by the wrong organizations for the wrong purposes, but fed through a fear of the mythological 'Jewish Power' and its overestimated influence on the US government. Of course the Jewish organizations got the support of Clinton's administration in this campaign, but it is not clear how far the US would have gone on this issue against the Swiss banks. Thus the Swiss became 'victims' of their own prejudices against the Jews.

From a rather unimportant organization looking for an issue, with this Swiss help, the World Jewish Congress and the affiliated organizations came to be a very influential factor. The undertaking has brought till now some $9 billion and the story is not yet over.

Israel itself tries not to be involved directly in this campaign, in order not to get into any diplomatic complications with friendly countries like Switzerland. Instead the World Jewish Congress (WJC), the Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) and some other organizations are leading the activities. Israel just hopes in one way or another to get its share in any eventual booty.

For example, after a certain compensation for survivors was paid by Switzerland, the Israeli government tried to cut the social security support to the Israeli recipients commensurate with what they'd receive from Switzerland. A step which means, that actually the money from Switzerland would have gone to state of Israel and not to the victims. In the meantime there is much more money in the restitution funds, but its distribution is delayed (Israel belongs to the slowest distributors) and the survivors have the feeling that the Jewish organizations 'representing' them, are just waiting for more of them to die, so that the funds will be distributed for other purposes.

The survivors and the legitimate owners of robbed properties realized too late that their interests are being abused by the leading Jewish organizations (all of them with a strong Zionist influence). These survivors are too weak and too old to fight effectively against the mighty jet-setters of organized Jewry.

In a web-site entitled "The Survivors vs. the Holocaust Industry" , several old survivors have tried to initiate the struggle against the JCC, but they are not very optimistic, as they do not have funds to finance the fight against the mighty organizations. They protest against the injustices and demand that they should be able to decide how the money should be allocated. They also claim that the Jewish organizations are very slow in distributing the monies and that they are just waiting until all of the survivors die. They note that actually each and every month 1,000 survivors around the world die. The survivor Gerhard Maschkowski who is among the leaders of this struggle writes:

"After the war ended in 1945, Holocaust survivors were treated shabbily; most were forced to live in Displaced Persons Camps in Europe as the world was forced to deal with stateless character of the Jewish people until the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. [He seems to forget to mention explicitly the role of the Jewish Agency in this postponement. The JA used once again the sufferings of the survivors as a political instrument - S.E.]. Later, the "reparations and restitution" efforts established ostensibly for the benefit of Holocaust survivors in the United States, were inadequate and arbitrarily administered, resulting in a legacy of frustration and humiliation for American survivors.

Today's abandonment is occurring in the context of settlements of class actions and disputes over Swiss bank accounts, looted Nazi gold, Nazi use of Jewish slave laborers, and European insurers' theft of Jews' insurance policies. While the headlines cry with large dollar figures purporting to represent compensation for Holocaust victims, and the box quotes are full of lavish praise and gratitude for the settlements "as we enter a new millennium," the truth is, the interests of Holocaust survivors have received the lowest priority in these negotiations. From every perspective, the deals fall short of rendering meaningful justice or dignity to those who were victimized. [...] The agreements were struck to provide immunity for vast numbers of European corporations that profited from the Holocaust, in most cases, without a true accounting for their World War II actions".

This last point is demonstrated perfectly by the Interhandel affair, the scandal of the foreign assets of the largest Nazi chemical combine IG Farben, who among other things produced the gas for the extermination of the Jews. These assets should have been confiscated already during WWII and be used for the rehabilitation of war refugees, for example. This did not happen, because Corporate America was interested in protecting these funds and the Swiss authorities and some banks were willing to help. This money, estimated to be of a present value of at least $5 billion, was in the '60's after a long legal fight (mis)appropriated by the largest Swiss bank, Union Bank of Switzerland, (today United Bank of Switzerland - UBS) and the US government under Kennedy. In 1995 I discovered in the Swiss federal archives highly classified documents proving clearly the dubious role of the UBS and the Swiss government in this affair.

The Jewish organizations leading the restitution campaigns show an ostensive disinterest in this large amount of money stemming from the most important Nazi combine, whose direct involvement in the crimes in Auschwitz is well known. Recently an employee of the JCC confirmed my suspicions and said that the organizations do not want to raise the issue in order not to hurt US interests involved.

It is safe to argue that neither the Holocaust Industry nor Israel have ever really represented the interests of the Judeocide victims, although they keep trying to create this impression that they do. This lie serves Israel in many ways. It guarantees today the support of most of the Jews, who feel that Israel is their redemption in the possible hour of their need, a kind of insurance against possible dangers. With the Holocaust Religion, its institutions and priests it is possible to block an all too radical critique against Israel and its crimes against the Palestinians. Thus the Palestinians actually become indirectly victims of the Nazis. The Holocaust Industry helps to finance the aggressions against them and the Holocaust Religion assists in creating a negative public opinion of them.

Thus the Palestinians have to pay the price for German crimes and Western hypocrisy. The exposure of the Zionist abuse of Judeocide, is therefore an important element in the efforts to reach a real and just peace in the Middle East.

Similar to the formulations of Israeli philosopher Adi Ophir the dogmas of this Holocaust Religion can usefully be articulated as religious commandments:

? Remember what Amalek has done to thee!

This compulsory directive is meant to cultivate and preserve for ever and ever the memory of all the wrongdoings of Amalek against the Jews. Amalek is the biblical collective designation for all the enemies of the Jews, who, in the 20th century became to be mainly the Nazis and the Arabs. It is in this sense not only a command to remember but also to distrust and hate the non-Jews, the gentiles. This attitude is based on the concept that the hate of the Jews, Judeophobia , is inherent in all other cultures. Any questioning of the real danger for the Jews in Europe or North America, for example, is considered blasphemy. Another consequence of this commandment is that the Jews are to be considered as the eternal victims. So even if they are the victimizers they are still to be conceived as victims.

? Thou shall never compare The Holocaust with any other Genocide!

The uniqueness of the Judeocide is a modern version of the old judeocentric concept of "choseness". Jewish sufferings are special, cannot and must never be compared with other miseries. This commandment is very important for the mythologizing of the Judeocide and for preventing a normal historical analysis, as one of the common and important scientific method is the comparison.

This commandment is very successful in the Western countries where the Judeophobia has a very long tradition and is still common. The contemporary manifestation of the prejudices against Jews is sometimes very ingenious. It camouflages itself in an allegedly opposite attitude, "Judeophilia", a kind of 'positive' racism. The transformation from one to the other is often seamless.

? Thou shall never compare the nazi crimes with those of Israel!

Though on the whole, Israeli crimes are not yet comparable to nazi crimes, there are certain tendencies that must be recognized before they become full-fledged reality. Parallels therefore should not, a-priori, be ignored. For example, the potential for technocrats, officers etc. to commit crimes is not some specific Nazi characteristic but is endemic to all modern system.

? No causal relationships between the Judeocide and the Palestinian tragedy are allowed

Every attempt to point out such a connection is considered to be a kind of Holocaust-denial.

? Thou shall never doubt the number of 6 million Jewish victims!

There is no real logical explanation for this figure's being defended so desperately. The source of this statistic, the SS officer Wilhelm Hoettl , was certainly not the most reliable informant. If the number of the slaughtered Jews were 500,000 less, would the Nazi crimes be less dreadful?