MISUSING ANTISEMITISM COURSE OUTLINE

WHAT IS MISUSING ANYWAY?

READING AND PRESENTATION DAVID HIRSH

TWO PERSPECTIVES ROBERT WISTRICH OMER BARTOV

MISUSING ANTISEMITISM

Using antisemitism (and the Holocaust) for political purposes

Using antisemitism as a trump card to score political points / avoid criticism

Deliberately stretching the term (most usually as epithets to ultimate evil) 7OTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE

The Israeli government has the right, duty and capability to prevent the elimination of the Jewish people and the Jewish state. “There is no lack of bitter enemies today,” Netanyahu said. “The will to destroy the Jewish people has not changed. What has changed is our ability to defend ourselves and our determination to do so.” NORMAN FINKELSTEIN

doctorate from the in 1988; focus on political theory and the - Palestine conflict

author of (among others): Beyond Chutzpah: On The Misuse Of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse Of History; The Holocaust Industry: Reflections On The Exploitation of Jewish Suffering; Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict; A Nation On Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth; The Rise And Fall Of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Year

READING

“new anti-Semitism” is the latest production of Israel’s apologists

“the allegation of a new anti-Semitism is neither new nor about anti-Semitism”

“the main purpose behind these periodic, meticulously orchestrated media extragavanzas is not to fight anti-Semitism but rather to exploit the historical suffering of in order to immunize Israel against criticism” AVRAHAM BURG

“The Holocaust is a kind of credit account. And we’re already over-drafting. In the 20th century, more than 160 million were killed in genocides and crimes against humanity. That’s a large number. We remember only six million out of them.”

PERSPECTIVE (1): ROBERT WISTRICH

“[W]e are living in a time where we’re surrounded in so many parts of the world, including Europe, by a growing desire to obliterate the memory of the Holocaust, or to trivialize, relativize, devalue and/or invert the meaning of the Holocaust and even use it against the state of Israel.” PERSPECTIVE (2):

OMER BARTOV

“The gist of his argument is simple: Had the Jews and the Zionists not had the Holocaust already, they would have had to invent it. Indeed, for all intents and purposes, this is precisely what they have done, in the form of ‘The Holocaust,’ despite the distracting fact that, once upon a time, such an event actually took place. And why was ‘The Holocaust’ fabricated? Because it legitimizes ‘one of the world's most formidable military powers,’ Israel, allowing it to ‘cast itself as a ‘victim’ state,’ and because it provides ‘the most successful ethnic group in the United States,’ the Jews, with ‘immunity to criticism,’ leading to ‘the moral corruptions that typically attend’ such immunity.” “Like any conspiracy theory, it contains several grains of truth; and like any such theory, it is both irrational and insidious. Finkelstein can now be said to have founded a Holocaust industry of his own.”