The Holocaust Industry by Norman Finkelstein Read Free Book Online Page A

rationally apprehended. If The Holocaust is unprecedented in history, it must stand above
    and hence cannot be grasped by history. Indeed, The Holocaust is unique because it is inexplicable,
    and it is inexplicable because it is unique.
    Dubbed by Novick the "sacralization of the Holocaust," this mystifications's most practiced purveyor
    The Holocaust Industry: HOAXERS, HUCKSTERS AND HISTORY
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    is Elie Wiesel. For Wiesel, Novick rightly observes, The Holocaust is effectively a "mystery" religion.
    Thus Wiesel intones that the Holocaust "leads into darkness," "negates all answers," "lies outside, if
    not beyond, history," "defies both knowledge and description," "cannot be explained nor visualized,"
    is "never to be comprehended or transmitted," marks a "destruction of history" and a "mutation on a
    cosmic scale." Only the survivor-priest (read: only Wiesel) is qualified to divine its mystery. And yet,
    The Holocaust's mystery, Wiesel avows, is "noncommunicable"; "we cannot even talk about it." Thus,
    for his standard fee of $25,000 (plus chauffeured limousine), Wiesel lectures that the "secret" of
    Auschwitz's "truth lies in silence." 8
    Rationally comprehending The Holocaust amounts, in this view, to denying it. For rationality denies
    The Holocaust's uniqueness and mystery. And to compare The Holocaust with the sufferings of others
    constitutes, for Wiesel, a "total betrayal of Jewish history." 9 Some years back, the parody of a New
    York tabloid was headlined: "Michael Jackson, 60 Million Others, Die in Nuclear Holocaust." The
    letters page carried an irate protest from Wiesel: "How dare people refer to what happened yesterday
    as a Holocaust? There was only one Holocaust...." In his new memoir Wiesel, proving that life can
    also imitate spoof, reprimands Shimon Peres for speaking "without hesitation of 'the two holocausts'
    of the twentieth century: Auschwitz and Hiroshima. He shouldn't have." 10 A favorite Wiesel tag line
    declares that «the universality of the Holocaust lies in its uniqueness." 11 But if it is incomparably and
    incomprehensibly unique, how can The Holocaust have a universal dimension?
    The Holocaust uniqueness debate is sterile. Indeed, the claims of Holocaust uniqueness have come to
    constitute a form of "intellectual terrorism" (Chaumont). Those practicing the normal comparative
    procedures of scholarly inquiry must first enter a thousand and one caveats to ward off the accusation
    of "trivializing The Holocaust." 12
    A subtext of the Holocaust uniqueness claim is that The Holocaust was uniquely evil. However
    terrible, the suffering of others simply does not compare. Proponents of Holocaust uniqueness
    typically disclaim this implication, but such demurrals are disingenuous. 13
    The claims of Holocaust uniqueness are intellectually barren and morally discreditable, yet they
    persist. The question is, Why? In the first place, unique suffering confers unique entitlement. The
    unique evil of the Holocaust, according to Jacob Neusner, not only sets Jews apart from others, but
    also gives Jews a "claim upon those others."
    For Edward Alexander, the uniqueness of The Holocaust is "moral capital"; Jews must "claim
    sovereignty" over this «valuable property." 14
    In effect, Holocaust uniqueness - this "claim" upon others, this "moral capital" - serves as Israel's prize
    alibi. "The singularity of the Jewish suffering," historian Peter Baldwin suggests, "adds to the moral
    and emotional claims that Israel can make . . . on other nations." 15 Thus, according to Nathan Glazer,
    The Holocaust, which pointed to the "peculiar distinctiveness of the Jews," gave Jews "the right to
    consider themselves specially threatened and specially worthy of whatever efforts were necessary for
    survival." 16 (emphasis in original) To cite one typical example, every account of Israel's decision to
    develop nuclear weapons evokes the specter