How to Understand And Confront Holocaust Denial

[solace]

This one gets at some of the very real ways Holocaust Denial and related shit hurts- not helps:


London BDS, Racism And Press TV

This is a good one and deserves a full print

London BDS, Racism And Press TV
by soupyone

London BDS & Jim Dean

Anti-Israeli boycott, disinvestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigners often claim they against antisemitism and racism, yet their actions tell another story.

London BDS as an unfortunate habit of using material from the racist, Press TV.

Recently, they praised an article by Jim W. Dean.

Astute readers will know that Dean is intimately connected to the terrible Veterans Today, not only that but any cursory reading of the article would ring alarm bells amongst any antiracist, where he argues:

“Real historians like David Irving were attacked for printing the forbidden truth and made examples of to cower the rest of the sheep. And yes, Jewish lobbies had their fingerprints all over the dirty deed. “

If London BDS and other Western pro-Palestinian activists wish to be more convincing than they should stop digesting the racist filth that Press TV puts out.

Anyone ignorant of David Irving should read Holocaust Denial on Trial and the Guardian’s special report.

The SPLC on Veterans Today.

Update 1: The PSC have put out a statement distancing themselves from the @LondonBDS account:

“Palestine Solidarity Campaign is shocked and disgusted that a twitter account @londonbds tweeted an article with clearly anti-Semitic content. We oppose all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Anti-racism is a core value of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and the broader Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality. Palestinians face systematic discrimination and building opposition to all forms of racism is a key part of our campaigning.

Supporting Palestine is supporting an anti-racist struggle and we shall continue to make clear that there is no place for any form of racism in our movement.

PSC has been informed that this is not the twitter account of London BDS group, whose account is @londonbdsgroup, but an apparently lone individual. We have reported this to twitter as hate speech. “

All very laudable, however, the PSC is not adverse to the racist Press TV, as a matter of principle, any simple search shows that.

The rest of their statement is decidedly implausible, as anyone with access to Google can see.

Readers will remember how long it took the PSC to kick out a self-proclaimed Holocaust denier, Francis Clark-Lowes, from their ranks. Even then about 1/5 of the conference delegates did not think Holocaust denial was antisemitic and wanted to keep him as a member.

Moreover, the notorious Ben White saw no problem with the @LondonBDS as can be seen.

My bet is their next gambit will be “Some of our best friends are….”

[seemslikeadream]

but AD love BDS

[Wombaticus Rex]

Devil is in the details because you and others support things that 99% of people I know of would surely term "bigotry"- at best...

Jesus, AD, you post shit like this and you're wondering why people are angry with you? You're not naive.

come on be a man and name the bigots on this board....we all need to know who they are

And you're just as bad!

Seriously, I'm just going to suspend you both for a week. This is pathetic. Peace: feel free to pick up exactly where you two mutual victims left off in seven (count 'em!) days.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Leaving the thread open because obviously there is a conversation to be had here, many good contributions have been made -- many by AD -- big thanks to the many folks who have been discussing this earnestly & distinctly like grown adults.

[BrandonD]

Attempting to return to the original subject of the thread, I think the terminology needs to be agreed upon.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that the term "holocaust denial" applies to the entire spectrum of beliefs that differ from the established historical narrative of the Nazi genocide of Jewish people in WWII. This means the term applies to people who believe the holocaust did not happen at all, as well as people who believe it happened but the number of victims was, say, 1 million Jewish people rather than 6 million.

According to the above definition of holocaust denial and in the spirit of the thread's title, I would think that the best way to confront such beliefs it is to compile and present the strongest existing evidence supporting the established historical narrative. Make this information available and very easily accessible. At that point, no one who is a denier can claim to be unaware of the supporting evidence.

This seems a bit of a no-brainer to me. Am I missing something?

[Searcher08]

Attempting to return to the original subject of the thread, I think the terminology needs to be agreed upon.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that the term "holocaust denial" applies to the entire spectrum of beliefs that differ from the established historical narrative of the Nazi genocide of Jewish people in WWII. This means the term applies to people who believe the holocaust did not happen at all, as well as people who believe it happened but the number of victims was, say, 1 million Jewish people rather than 6 million.

According to the above definition of holocaust denial and in the spirit of the thread's title, I would think that the best way to confront such beliefs it is to compile and present the strongest existing evidence supporting the established historical narrative. Make this information available and very easily accessible. At that point, no one who is a denier can claim to be unaware of the supporting evidence.

This seems a bit of a no-brainer to me. Am I missing something?

Please would you consider looking back at my responses to AD about this in the last few pages
?
I agree that it is a no-brainer, however the issue is that some people see questioning as proof of being a Holocaust Denier, because that is what some Deniers do.

I think if one was to sit down and design a system to perpetuate Holocaust Denial, it would be hard to improve on those approaches.

Aside:
I searched through the document that AD referenced and found (amongst lots of anti-Iranian racism and anti-Israel = Anti-Semitism) few characters I had heard of apart from David Irving and... Gilad Atzmon.
Jeff Rense, Ken o Keefe and David Icke did not feature once

[solace]

Attempting to return to the original subject of the thread, I think the terminology needs to be agreed upon.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that the term "holocaust denial" applies to the entire spectrum of beliefs that differ from the established historical narrative of the Nazi genocide of Jewish people in WWII. This means the term applies to people who believe the holocaust did not happen at all, as well as people who believe it happened but the number of victims was, say, 1 million Jewish people rather than 6 million.

According to the above definition of holocaust denial and in the spirit of the thread's title, I would think that the best way to confront such beliefs it is to compile and present the strongest existing evidence supporting the established historical narrative. Make this information available and very easily accessible. At that point, no one who is a denier can claim to be unaware of the supporting evidence.

This seems a bit of a no-brainer to me. Am I missing something?

The compilations of evidence you propose exist already. They really don't need to be reinvented. And even if they were, the deniers wouldn't benefit from them because their goal is not good data but something else: antisemitism, rehabilitation of Nazis, Germany, other European countries, various politics, even antizionism etc

[BrandonD]

Well in that case, if Jewishness is neither ethnic, nor genetic, what is the rationale of anyone for hating, by youre definition what is essentially a social construct ?

Because if Jewishness is a social construct, then judging by its success in producing highly intelligent, very "successful" ( by most peoples definition ) humans, then it sounds as much like the green monster, namely envy, as much as anything.

And if that sounds about right, then surely, whilst envy will breed hatred in some, hatred is surely not the operative term, is it?

It appears that you want to confront and eliminate feelings of anti-Semitism, and so I feel the need to call attention to your choice of words, because I don't think they are beneficial towards your goal.

If we start with the presumption that we are all equal, that is the best starting point, agreed? All people are the same, there exists no evidence to support the idea that one race or social category is in any way superior to the others.

But the idea you have presented above is essentially that Jewish people are on average more successful and intelligent than non-Jewish people - which is the only reasonable conclusion from your statement, if Jewish people are exactly as intelligent and successful as everyone else then you couldn't really call that a "success" and there would be no cause for this presumed envy, correct?

Your statements seem to be teetering fairly close to a sense of "racial superiority", which in other instances you seem very keen to decry. In fact, what you stated only promotes false stereotypes, which in my opinion accomplishes nothing but to increase feelings of animosity between different groups.

Jewish people have exactly the same number of intelligent and dumb and successful and unsuccessful people as everyone else. Or would you disagree with this statement?

Once again, in this instance I would make a comparison to the term "American", a division which is essentially a social construct like "Jewish" and which also has carries some negative stereotypes in the world.

There is a common belief outside of the US that Americans think they are superior to everyone else in the world. This contributes to a feeling of animosity towards that group, regardless of how accurately this stereotype reflects the genuine feelings of Americans.

Now imagine an American saying to a foreigner, "Perhaps you are just jealous of us, considering how successful Americans have been in producing highly intelligent, very successful people." - I wonder, would you think this statement would increase or decrease the negative stereotype of Americans as people who consider themselves to be "racially" superior to everyone else?

This also answers your question about why someone would hate what is essentially a social construct. It is because people tend to jump to conclusions and think in stereotypes. Unfortunately.

[BrandonD]

The compilations of evidence you propose exist already. They really don't need to be reinvented. And even if they were, the deniers wouldn't benefit from them because their goal is not good data but something else: antisemitism, rehabilitation of Nazis, Germany, other European countries, various politics, even antizionism etc

That is great, and I believe you

This subject is much too convoluted for me to even pretend that I know anything about it one way or the other. However, I made the mistake of interposing myself in the conversation because I like to think that principles of civility and mediation can be applied to absolutely anything with good results.

If the evidence exists and is all compiled and stuff, then at that point I would restate my earlier question: what is the desired goal, to reach a common understanding or silence opinions that make us uncomfortable?

If people are aware of the evidence but don't agree with the interpretation, then there is not much else you can do for them except be a decent person and hope they come around.

[BrandonD]

Please would you consider looking back at my responses to AD about this in the last few pages
?
I agree that it is a no-brainer, however the issue is that some people see questioning as proof of being a Holocaust Denier, because that is what some Deniers do.

I think if one was to sit down and design a system to perpetuate Holocaust Denial, it would be hard to improve on those approaches.

Aside:
I searched through the document that AD referenced and found (amongst lots of anti-Iranian racism and anti-Israel = Anti-Semitism) few characters I had heard of apart from David Irving and... Gilad Atzmon.
Jeff Rense, Ken o Keefe and David Icke did not feature once

My apologies if I missed some crucial info.

There will always be questioning as long as people are capable of lying. I can't see how to eliminate questioning, so if questioning upsets someone then they are in for a rough life I think.

I mean, questioning established norms is almost the crux of this forum.

But I agree that some people can pose their already formed conclusions as "hey I'm just questioning!", when in reality they are not questioning at all.

I think, especially in a forum of thoughtful people such as this, there would most likely be a reasonable consensus on whether someone's questioning was sincere or meant to stir animosities. That's sort of what moderation is about, right?

So personally, I just can't agree with the blanket idea that questioning something is the equivalent of denying it. This is another instance where I feel we need to have just a little faith in people, that there are other decent people out there trying to spread a common understanding/brotherhood and not just secretly pushing their own agenda.

[solace]

The compilations of evidence you propose exist already. They really don't need to be reinvented. And even if they were, the deniers wouldn't benefit from them because their goal is not good data but something else: antisemitism, rehabilitation of Nazis, Germany, other European countries, various politics, even antizionism etc

That is great, and I believe you

This subject is much too convoluted for me to even pretend that I know anything about it one way or the other. However, I made the mistake of interposing myself in the conversation because I like to think that principles of civility and mediation can be applied to absolutely anything with good results.

If the evidence exists and is all compiled and stuff, then at that point I would restate my earlier question: what is the desired goal, to reach a common understanding or silence opinions that make us uncomfortable?

If people are aware of the evidence but don't agree with the interpretation, then there is not much else you can do for them except be a decent person and hope they come around.

It's never a mistake to add one's voice to an interesting topic. Desired goal? Well my desired goal would be to name and shame antisemites and racist liars. Ditto for the mindless fools who support or apologize for them. Waiting for them to come around is like getting on the boxcar bound for Auschwitz hoping you really ARE bound for some water polo.

[BrandonD]

It's never a mistake to add one's voice to an interesting topic. Desired goal? Well my desired goal would be to name and shame antisemites and racist liars. Ditto for the mindless fools who support or apologize for them. Waiting for them to come around is like getting on the boxcar bound for Auschwitz hoping you really ARE bound for some water polo.

I personally would have a difficult time feeling ok with an aim of shaming a particular group of people, but I can definitely understand the motivation.

There are 2 reasons why I think that shaming may not be the best approach.

1) Fighting fire with fire with public shaming or negative talk generally only inflames animosities, rather than assuaging them. People's opinions are reinforced with intellectual rationalizations and supported by others in their social group, so when faced with direct antagonism and opposition, peoples' opinions tend to just become more radical.

Then again, one could always just lock people up who are saying things we don't like, but I'd really think at that point we are in danger of becoming the monster that we're trying to slay.

2) Even racist liars are human beings. I live in the south and there are several people in my family who are openly racist against blacks and hispanics. And yet I know them as people and still love them, even though they have some pretty abhorrent beliefs.

It is my experience that crystallized beliefs like racism and such are only changed through emotional experiences, rather than through the prevailing myth that we demolish unpleasant opinions with our sword of flawless logic.

And in my experience it is absolutely impossible for someone to have that sort of perspective-changing emotional experience when they believe that the person on the other side is their enemy whom they must defend against. You must present yourself as a friend.

This is just my opinion on the matter, I certainly don't have all the answers and appreciate all the input here.

[solace]

It's never a mistake to add one's voice to an interesting topic. Desired goal? Well my desired goal would be to name and shame antisemites and racist liars. Ditto for the mindless fools who support or apologize for them. Waiting for them to come around is like getting on the boxcar bound for Auschwitz hoping you really ARE bound for some water polo.

I personally would have a difficult time feeling ok with an aim of shaming a particular group of people, but I can definitely understand the motivation.

There are 2 reasons why I think that shaming may not be the best approach.

1) Fighting fire with fire with public shaming or negative talk generally only inflames animosities, rather than assuaging them. People's opinions are reinforced with intellectual rationalizations and supported by others in their social group, so when faced with direct antagonism and opposition, peoples' opinions tend to just become more radical.

Then again, one could always just lock people up who are saying things we don't like, but I'd really think at that point we are in danger of becoming the monster that we're trying to slay.

2) Even racist liars are human beings. I live in the south and there are several people in my family who are openly racist against blacks and hispanics. And yet I know them as people and still love them, even though they have some pretty abhorrent beliefs.

It is my experience that crystallized beliefs like racism and such are only changed through emotional experiences, rather than through the prevailing myth that we demolish unpleasant opinions with our sword of flawless logic.

And in my experience it is absolutely impossible for someone to have that sort of perspective-changing emotional experience when they believe that the person on the other side is their enemy whom they must defend against. You must present yourself as a friend.

This is just my opinion on the matter, I certainly don't have all the answers and appreciate all the input here.

Well, different strokes for different folks. I admire your positivity even if I think it is not applicable with denier types and those who attach to them.

[BrandonD]

Well, different strokes for different folks. I admire your positivity even if I think it is not applicable with denier types and those who attach to them.

Well I can pat myself on the back, but then again I'm a white male who isn't subject to a lot of discrimination and such. If I was on the other side of the fence then I might feel a little differently.

Either way, I raise my glass in the hopes that we are all sitting together at the table eventually.

[Wombaticus Rex]

I live in the south and there are several people in my family who are openly racist against blacks and hispanics. And yet I know them as people and still love them, even though they have some pretty abhorrent beliefs.

Cheers and quite so, but: I have a lot of family members who I would ban from posting here.

The world is huge, billions big, and we don't have to reflect it. I think one common foundational fact most mammals here can agree on is Hate Speech Is Not Cool. For instance -- no sarcasm -- I do cringe when slim endorses hatred against the rich, which has led to some (Lenin) very questionable (Mao) outcomes to date (Pol Pot). Not a great track record on any front.

As a "moderator" I hate to do anything, anything at all -- I'd rather not intervene, and I am deeply wary of the consequences I've invoked, long-term, by suspending two of the best contributors here. Still, I do think it is worth intervening over this: casual insinuations of racism and bigotry are just as destructive to our conversations as actual racism and bigotry.

For better or worse (spoiler alert "better") this is a forum that has room for parapolitics and the paranormal and we're too weird for average trolls to survive. So I think the biggest, and hopefully only, real boundary a moderator here would have to defend is personal attacks and angry post drama. It is noise we don't need, and I hope folks still feel there is room for a broad spectrum of thought at RI.