The Holocaust Industry Read Online Free PDF Page A

the Nazi holocaust after the June war. Once ideologically recast, The
    Holocaust (capitalized as I have previously noted) proved to be the perfect weapon for deflecting
    criticism of Israel. Exactly how I will illustrate presently. What deserves emphasis here, however, is
    that for American Jewish elites The Holocaust performed the same function as Israel: another
    invaluable chip in a high-stakes power game. The avowed concern for Holocaust memory was as
    contrived as the avowed concern for Israel's fate. 44 Thus, organized American Jewry quickly forgave
    and forgot Ronald Reagan's demented 1985 declaration at Bitburg cemetery that the German soldiers
    (including Waffen SS members) buried there were victims of the Nazis just as surely as the victims in
    the concentration camps." In 1988, Reagan was honored with the "Humanitarian of the Year" award
    by one of the most prominent Holocaust institutions, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, for his "staunch
    support of Israel," and in 1994 with the "Torch of Liberty" award by the pro-lsrael ADL. 45
    The Reverend Jesse Jackson's earlier outburst in 1979 that he was "sick and tired of hearing about the
    Holocaust" was not so quickly forgiven or forgotten, however. Indeed, the attacks by American
    Jewish elites on Jackson never let up, although not for his "anti-Semitic remarks" but rather for his
    "espousal of the Palestinian position" (Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab). 46 In Jackson's case, an
    additional factor was at work: he represented domestic constituencies with which organized American
    Jewry had been at loggerheads since the late 1960s. In these conflicts, too, The Holocaust proved to be
    a potent ideological weapon.
    It was not Israel's alleged weakness and isolation, not the fear of a "second Holocaust," but rather its
    proven strength and strategic alliance with the United States that led Jewish elites to gear up the
    Holocaust industry after June 1967. However unwittingly, Novick provides the best evidence to
    support that conclusion. To prove that power considerations, not the Nazi Final Solution, determined
    American policy toward Israel, he writes: "It was when the Holocaust was freshest in the mind of
    The Holocaust Industry: CAPITALIZING THE HOLOCAUST
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    American leaders — the first twenty-five years after the end of the war - that the United States was
    least supportive of Israel.... It was not when Israel was perceived as weak and vulnerable, but after it
    demonstrated its strength, in the Six Day War, that American aid to Israel changed from a trickle to a
    flood" (emphasis in original). 47 That argument applies with equal force to American Jewish elites.
    There are also domestic sources of the Holocaust industry. Mainstream interpretations point to the
    recent emergence of "identity politics," on the one hand, and the "culture of victimization," on the
    other. In effect, each identity was grounded in a particular history of oppression; Jews accordingly
    sought their own ethnic identity in the Holocaust.
    Yet, among groups decrying their victimization, including Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans,
    women, gays and lesbians, Jews alone are not disadvantaged in American society. In fact, identity
    politics and The Holocaust have taken hold among American Jews not because of victim status but
    because they are not victims.
    As anti-Semitic barriers quickly fell away after World War 11, Jews rose to preeminence in the United
    States. According to Lipset and Raab, per capita Jewish income is almost double that of non-Jews;
    sixteen of the forty wealthiest Americans are Jews; 40 percent of American Nobel Prize winners in
    science and economics are Jewish, as are 20 Percent of professors at major universities; and 40
    percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington.
    The list goes on. 48 Far from constituting an obstacle to success, Jewish identity has become