Finkelstein: Antisemitic Stereotypes, Jewish Behavior

Finkelstein's Jewish Lobby vs. M&W's Israel Lobby
by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)

Does Dr. Finkelstein disagree with himself?

Please compare Finkelstein gives Israeli-American relations lecture with the following quoted paragraph. Note especially the footnote, which mentions both the Holocaust Industry and also the Jewish lobby, which seems for the most part equivalent to the Israel Lobby that Mearsheimer and Walt describe.

In his discussion, Finkelstein questions whether Israel even has interests autonomous from the USA anymore. One could invert the question and ask whether the USA is still capable of expressing interests autonomous from Israel, the Israel lobby or the Jewish lobby with regard to the Middle East.

In any case, Holocaust lobbying and advocacy has a lot of similarity to Israel lobbying and advocacy. Finkelstein has no problem with the concept of a Holocaust Industry. Why shouldn't there be an Israel Industry, which I prefer to call Judonia for reasons of Polish history? The Holocaust Industry is in fact an important project within Judonia or the Israel Industry.

From Beyond Chutzpah by Norman G. Finkelstein, pp. 82-4:

Just as it's too simple (and convenient) to label accusations of Jewish responsibility for Israeli policy anti-Semitic, so it's too simple (and convenient) to label the notion of Jewish power anti-Semitic. Jews now rank as the wealthiest ethnic group in the United States; with this economic power has accrued substantial political power. Their leaders have wielded this power, often crudely, to mold U.S. policy regarding Israel. These leaders have also utilized this power in other realms. Under the guise of seeking "Holocaust reparations," American Jewish organizations and individuals at all levels of government and in all sectors of American society entered into a conspiracy – this is the correct word – to blackmail Europe. It was on account of "Jewish money" that the Clinton administration went along with this shakedown operation, providing – even to the detriment of U.S. national interests – crucial support for it at every juncture. And who can seriously believe that the pro-Jewish bias of the corporate media has nothing whatever to do with the influential Jewish presence at all levels of it? "It's undoubtedly true that there are prominent Jews among the producers, directors, studio executives, and stars in Hollywood," Foxman concedes. "It's even true that, proportionately, there has always been a relatively prominent Jewish presence in the movie, TV, and record industries." But, he continues, "[t]he Jews who work in Hollywood are there not as Jews but as actors, directors, writers, business executives, or what have you," concerned only with "the bottom line" (his emphasis). His proof? "This explains the paradox that no anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist has ever tackled – how it is that the supposedly Jewish-controlled movie industry has produced so few films dealing with overtly Jewish characters or themes." Is that why Hollywood has produced a mere 175 films on the Nazi holocaust since 1989? Legitimate questions can surely be posed regarding when and if Jews are acting as people who happen to be Jewish or acting as Jews, and, on the latter occasions (which plainly do arise), regarding the actual breadth and limits of this "Jewish power," but these questions can only be answered empirically, not a priori with politically correct formulae. To foreclose inquiry on this topic as anti-Semitic is, intentionally or not, to shield Jews from legitimate scrutiny of their uses and abuses of formidable power. In an otherwise sensible treatment of the new anti-Semitism, Brian Klug maintains that "it is a form of anti-Semitism" if an accusation against Jews mimics an anti-Semitic stereotype such as the idea of Jews being "powerful, wealthy ... pursuing [their] own selfish ends." Yet if Jews act out a Jewish stereotype, it plainly doesn't follow that they can't be committing the stereotypical act. Can't they commit a vile act even if conforms to a Jewish stereotype? It is perhaps politically incorrect to recall but nonetheless a commonplace that potent stereotypes, like good propaganda, acquire their force from containing a kernel – and sometimes even more than a kernel – of truth. Should people like Abraham Foxman, Edgar Bronfman, and Rabbi Israel Singer get a free ride because they resemble stereotypes straight out of Der Stürmer?²⁵

25. For blackmailing Europe, see esp. Finkelstein, Holocaust Industry, chap. 3; for the impact of "Jewish money" on Clinton, see the appendix to Holocaust Industry. Foxman, Never Again? pp. 2459-50. David Sterritt, "The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid," Christian Science Monitor (22 November 2002) (Holocaust films); Brian Klug, "The collective Jew: Israel and the new anti-Semitism," Patterns of Prejudice (June 2003) (an adaptation of this essay appeared in the 2 February 2004 issue of The Nation under the title "The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism"). The question of the extent of Jewish power comes up most often in regard to U.S. policy toward Israel. Those believing that U.S. national interests ultimately trump the power of the Jewish lobby typically point to Eisenhower's decision in 1956, despite an impending election, to rein in Israel. Yet it's also possible to adduce contrary evidence. For example, it's difficult to peruse the Foreign Relations of the United States volumes form the 1960s without concluding that the United States considered Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons as in fundamental conflict with American national interests. The fear was that once Israel acquired an atomic bomb, Egypt would demand that the Soviet Union supply it with one, setting off an unconventional arms buildup in the Middle East that would culminate in a nuclear conflagration. The main leverage that successive U.S. administrations had was to deny Israel conventional weaponry unless it ceased nuclear development. But whenever the United States tried to apply this pressure, the Jewish lobby brought to bear overwhelming pressure of its own, the arms transfer going through without Israeli concessions. In recent years it has become nearly impossible to empirically test the hypothesis that U.S. national interest trumps the Jewish lobby or vice versa. This is because the degree of interpenetration, or revolving door, of personnel between the Jewish lobby and U.S. administrations effectively precludes such a test. Looking at older documents, one could see the U.S. government "here" and the Jewish lobby "there," and watch how they interacted. But now it's hard to know where "here" ends and "there" begins. How can one really know on what interest or at whose behest a Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, Paul Wolfowitz, or Richard Perle is acting when he argues policy on the Middle East? Of course, a case can also be made that this whole question is moot: Israel has become so integral to, as well as dependent on, U.S. policy that it has ceased to exist as an autonomous actor having autonomous interests, anymore than Texas has autonomous interests (does anyone ask whose interests Bush is serving?); and the interpenetration of the Jewish lobby and U.S. administrations is more symptom than cause of this wholly internalized relationship.

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