Excelente libro que describe los chantajes de las organizaciones sionistas. ¿cómo?

- Omitiendo hechos y exagerando otros. Inflando los números de los prisioneros en los campos de concnetración.

- Sangrándole a Alemania y Suiza cantidades millonarias que van a parar NO TANTO a los judíos que padecieron la guerra sino a la cartera de los dirigentes de estas organizaciones. ¿cómo? Un ejemplo es la madre del autor que le dieron una migaja tras haber sobrevivido a varios campos durante años

- Escritores sionistas que escribieron libros sobre los campos de exterminio sin haber estado ahí . Dichas organizaciones lo justifican pues "su dolor es auténtico".

- Un ejemplo más es el buque San Luis que huye de Europa con muchos judíos a bordo. En EUA (el auto-proclamado país de la libertad) les niegan el asilo. ¿porqué no han demandado cantidades millonarias a Washington?

- En la guerra murieron también 20 millones de soviéticos, de hecho el triple que por cada judío. Esto sin mencionar a los gitanos. Curiosamente, el Museo del Holocausto se basa mayoritariamente en judíos.....

- ¿los negros seguirán siendo ciudadanos de segunda o de tercera? También muchos de ellos fueron esclavizados y no tienen tantos museos.....

En fin, es un buen libro que descubre los chantajes del gobierno de Israel y las organizaciones afines a Tel-Aviv.

Esta vez no pueden acusar de "antisemita" al autor pues es judío también.

a brutally honest account of the palestinian intifada experience as written by a jewish american. exposes fallacies in the representation of the case as well as in foreign policy. very necessary in understanding the israel-palestine conflict

As a Jewish woman living in the U.S. it was difficult for me to hear but one side of the story in the Israeli-Arab conflict. That side was the Zionist perspective. It wasn't until I spent time in Israel (ironic as this is) that I began to understand the fallacies in the arguments I grew up hearing. I read this book after picking it up at a friend's house, and now I'm feeling brave enough to buy a copy of my own. That courage comes from Finkelstein. I feel like I'm in good company. There ARE other Jews who can see and dare to shed some light on the OTHER SIDE--the Palestinian viewpoint. Finkelstein presents us with the Palestinian perspective in the context of the Israel-Arab conflict with such integrity and simplicity. As descendents of a terribly oppressed group of people, I whole-heartedly support all efforts to stop dehumanizing the "enemy." Finkelstien shows us the humanness of Palestinians.

Finkelstein's book is that rare gem of a monumental work housed within a slim volume. What makes his ideas so astonishing, in addition to their being meticulously researched and footnoted, is that his parents were survivors of the Nazi holocaust. Based on encounters with Elie Wiesel and the like, one would not expect a Jew of this background to have such a profound understanding of the Palestinian people and of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This book is a must-read in that it convincingly defies, with powerfully sculpted arguments and towering research, the tired and frequently hypocritical views of the New York Times and other news authorities.

Finkelstein will convince you.

This book is subtitled "Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering." The holocaust is the most exploited event of recent history and a book on this topic is needed; however, I'm not sure Mr. Finkelstein has written the definitive study. The book covers a lot of territory in only 150 pages (with extensive footnotes) and its conclusions can be as overdrawn as some of those in the holocaust industry. Mr. Finkelstein travels at breakneck speed giving a barrage of quotes, making broad and unsupported statements, and then skipping to a new subject just when some qualification is in order.

The Holocaust Industry is divided into three chapters: (1) Capitalizing On The Holocaust, on the uses of the holocaust; (2) Hoaxers, Hucksters, and History, on various holocaust frauds and historical revisionists; and (3) The Double Shakedown, on reparations. Since I know next to nothing about the reparation issue, I'll restrict my comments to the first two chapters.

Chapter 1 contains some interesting discussion on how groups have capitalized on the holocaust for political and financial gain. But just when the reader expects to get a discussion of this, we are given an account of Jewish involvement in American politics which doesn't seem to have much to do with the central theme of the book, or at the least isn't tied in. While it's true that "evoking historic persecution deflected present-day criticism", I don't see how the opposition of certain Jews to quotas is connected with exploiting the holocaust. [pps. 36-37.] Mr. Finkelstein could have made his point better if he gave examples (of which there are many) of right-wingers being falsely accused of anti-semitism; however, he appears to be rather left of center (to put it mildly).

Chapter 2 is the most interesting. We are often told that the holocaust is a "unique event." Yet few are willing to draw the obvious conclusion, that "[t]he 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 Jacob Neusner, not only sets Jews apart from others, but also gives Jews a 'claim upon those others.'" [p. 47.] (It isn't clear from this quote whether Rabbi Neusner in fact believes in the uniqueness of the holocaust.) We might then expect a discussion of those historical events on a par with the holocaust, but instead we have to wait to the Conclusion, and we get a litany of real and imagined offenses of the United States. While Mr. Finkelstein mentions the Cambodian genocide, I don't think he refers even in passing to perhaps the most evil event of the Twentieth Century: Stalin's murder of 5 to 10 million Ukrainians, an event that dwarfs the holocaust. Nor does he mention the millions killed directly or indirectly by Mao in the Cultural Revolution, a number which some historians place as high as 40 million. The Armenian genocide is only mentioned in passing. [pps. 69-70.] (There is no index, so I could be wrong.) These events strike me as a little bit worse than the U.S. support for the Guatemalan government in the 1980's. [p. 146.] There is also a curious discussion of the (alleged) belief in the "total blamelessness [of] Jews . . . ." [p. 52.] While Mr. Finkelstein implies that Jews have provoked justifiable hostility in gentiles, nowhere are we told just what they done to incite anger.

While I promised not to comment on Chapter 3, Mr. Finkelstein makes a point that strikes me as worthy of mention: it is generally conceded that there were approximately 100,000 holocaust survivors at the end of World War II. How is it then that so many more people have claimed to be holocaust survivors?

This book asks many interesting questions and presents much useful information. It certainly isn't the last word.

Norman Finkelstein is to be commended for tackling such a divisive issue as this one. The holocaust is an event that has the capacity for causing heated emotions. With a word, a phrase or a smirk, one can be branded an anti-Semite or worse. Finkelstein takes his chances and charges into the fray. As a Jew, Finkelstein seems to have even more to lose than most, although criticism of Jewish issues by a Jew seems to be more acceptable than if the criticism came from a non-Jew.

Finkelstein targets what he calls the "holocaust industry." This industry is made up of writers, lawyers and others who benefit from appropriating Hitler's campaign of genocide against the Jews for their own monetary gain. Writers such as Jerzy Kosinski, Finkelstein reveals, are frauds that try and make a buck off legitimate suffering. The lawyers are even worse. These legal attack dogs sue companies that are supposedly responsible for aiding or abetting the Third Reich. These same lawyers have gone after Swiss banks that supposedly have hidden funds deposited by Jews who subsequently died in the concentration camps. The damages sought by these lawyers are astronomical and have no direct relation to actual events. If the companies or banks don't give in, media systems are used to intimidate and threaten, with hysterical cries of anti-Semitism thrown about with seeming indifference. Even worse, the lawyers end up pocketing most of the awards.

No one, Finkelstein included, denies a holocaust against Jews. It is important to remember that many others died in the camps, such as Gypsies, Slavs and others. The death of Jews in no way elevates their suffering over any other people. Finkelstein's concern seems to be that these blackmail schemes will ultimately cheapen the holocaust and open the way for the deniers. Anyway you cut it, the tactics used by the holocaust industry are shameful and should be condemned as such.

I am an American Jew, and no, I don't "hate myself" or hate my ethnic heritage. I am proud of my Jewish heritage. I feel all Jews should read this book and give serious thought to it. Contary to what his critics say, Finkelstein does not deny and never has denied that European Jews suffered one of the most terrible atrocities in human history under the Nazi holocaust. (He does, however, argue persuasively that Jews are not the only people in history to have suffered genocide. This is NOT the same as holocaust denial.) What Finkelstein argues, and the critics of this book refuse to consider, is that many Jews unfortunately feel that this tremendous suffering confers upon them some kind of moral blank-check for whatever political or financial purposes they see fit--kicking Palestinians out of their homes, for example. It is a controversial statement in the current political climate, but Finkelstein presents a tight, devastating argument in favor of it, and all morally serious people should at least evaluate the argument in terms of facts and logic, rather than dismissing it off-hand with ad hominem attacks against the author. (I am not suggesting, by the way, that ad hominem attacks are never admissable in the course of argument--Finkelstein loves to pepper his argument with stinging, and often quite comic, insults to his opponents. However, Finkelstein realizes that these attacks must be an addition to, not a substitute for, reasoned argument. His opponents, in turn, don't seem to care much for reasoned argument at all, and prefer instead to employ ad hominem attacks exclusively.)

It is sad, though I suppose inevitable, that some anti-Semitic elements have latched on to this book as providing "support" for their prejudice. What is even more sad, however, is that many Jews somehow seem to think that this fact alone is enough to condemn the book. If some racist bigot latched on to a tightly-argued, well-reasoned book criticizing, say, Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan, and used this book to justify their prejudice towards African-Americans, would that fact in and of itself negate the conclusions of the book? Criticism is not the same thing as prejudice or hatred, even if that criticism is exploited by the purveyors of prejudice and hatred. Unfortunately, those who dismiss this book just can't seem to grasp this elementary distinction.

Did any of the people who gave this book good ratings even bother to read Goldhagen's book? I sincerely doubt it. 'A Nation on Trial' is simply a collection of lies and falsifications, false quotations and appalling misrepresentations.
Let me give you one example, out of the innumerable cases, and I challenge any of the fans of Finkelstein and Birn to come up with any justification whatsoever for this.
In one of her delirious critical outbursts, on page 204 of 'A Nation on Trial', Birn writes, referring to Goldhagen: "He also overlooks the fact that millions of Soviet POWs were starved to death before it dawned on the German authorities that they had a problem with a labor shortage."
On page 290 of 'Hitler's willing Executioners', Goldhagen writes: "Despite the ardent and until then decisive ideological opposition to the employment of Russian 'sub-humans' within Germany - a purely ideological stance that had led the Germans to kill, mainly by starvation, 2.8 million young, healthy Soviet POWs in less than eight months - the policy was reversed during this period. In 1942, owing to ever more pressing economic need, the Germans stopped the decimation of Soviet POWs through starvation and began to use them as laborers, leading by 1944 to the presence of over 2.7 million Soviet citizens (many were not POWs) working in the German economy."
Did Birn even read the book she was supposed to be 'reviewing'? Or, just like her fans, she doesn't bother to read the books she talks about? And this is only one out of dozens of cases where the authors (I must suppose willingly, unless they really cannot read) ignore, distort, falsify and manipulate Goldhagen's work to fit their preconceived destructive agenda.
Throughout the pages of this book, all principles of scholarly critique are torn to pieces, humiliated, and annihilated. This book cannot be taken seriously.

Like the reader in the customer review above , I came to this book after having read Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners", a little uncomfortable about quite a few of the points he made. I was keen to see what the authors of this book had to say in refutation. In the event, I was somewhat disappointed.

The book comprises two separate parts, each written by one of the authors. About Finkelstein's part of the book, the less said the better. He fails to address any of the central issues raised by the Goldhagen book, and instead makes a series of tangential points. He intersperses personal attacks on Goldhagen with a scattershot technique of refutation: many of the arguments he raises either support Goldhagen or are totally irrelevant. The words juvenile, badly-written and scatterbrained pretty much sum up his part of the book!

Ruth Bettina Birn's part of the book makes for much better reading. Using a more restrained tone of voice, she faults Goldhagen primarily on this major point: that his data does not support his conclusions. Citing his selective interpretation of German legal transcripts and his heavy reliance on secondary sources, she demonstrates Goldhagen's retrofitting of data to support his conclusions. In the case of Police Battalion 101, this is especially telling. Goldhagen bases a large part of his conclusions on selective interpretations of another book (Christopher Browning's "Ordinary men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland"), while in the same breath, discrediting the author of the book whenever his conclusions differ from Goldhagen's.

In the end, I would judge the debate a draw. Goldhagen's book, while thought- provoking, seems fraught with misinterpretations. (Personally, I find his monocausal "eliminationist antisemitism" theory a little wild-eyed). On the other hand, if you're looking for an incisive criticism of "Hitler's Willing Executioners", and a more believable explanation of *motive* in the Holocaust, then this book doesn't quite fit the bill, either!

Two means are primary in infuriating a critic: (1) stating facts that the critic doesn't want to admit and (2) a style that feels like salt in a wound even if the facts comply with the critic's need. Unfortunately--though sometimes amusingly too--Professor Finkelstein practices both.

The book is a response to Goldhagen's Harvard dissertation--which certainly challenges Harvard's academic credibility in my book--which asserts that the "ordinary Germans," a phrase frequently used by Goldhagen, though not defined by him, knew of and actively endorsed the mass slaughter of particularly Jews throughout the Third Reich. It consists of two separate essays, the first by Finkelstein and the second by Birn, the former the son of concentration camp survivors and the latter a professional in investigating crimes against humanity.

Both authors challenge Goldhagen's use of evidence. Finkelstein offers more "commentary," some essentially calling Goldhagen silly and inept. Finkelstein himself offers reams of contradictory evidence to the meager claims suggested as proof of Goldhagen's thesis. Many even of the Nazi officers were perfect bureaucrats more than they were ideologues. Anyone who has worked in a partisan political environment knows the tendency of many a staffer to do that. It's how promotions are allocated more than on the basis of competence or capability! So, because such and such an officer did what the Fuehrer said, didn't make him an inherent anti-Semitic, mass murderer.

And both authors criticize Goldhagen's contention that the "Holocaust" was unique in human history, and particularly suited to German brutality. Both offer several examples of similar activities undertaken throughout history.

As for the average German, there is more evidence of their helping out victims of the Reich than of their active complicity in the slaughter. Of course, these are petty items Goldhagen didn't use because they would have contradicted his angle.

Finkelstein has had a bone to pick with Goldhagen, and to some other hyper-Zionists for some time. His "The Holocaust Industry" showed something he reiterates more briefly in this text that "The Holocaust," while of less major political note before then became a veritable industry after the 1967 war. At that point to challenge anything about the Israeli state or about Judaism in general--even by Jews!--was proclaimed to have an anti-Semitic motive. Finkelstein, offering countless examples of that by "writers" such as Elie Wiesel, accuses Goldhagen of capitalizing off that sentiment and blatantly political motive.

Birn's is a very sober analysis of Goldhagen's selective use of evidence--pieces chosen simply because they fit his thesis. She even credited an earlier critique of Goldhagen of her work in which Goldhagen disputed her statements; apparently the quotation marks weren't in the right places. Her fine summary comments on the "trivialization" of the holocaust, which seems to be happening now that the number of actual survivors of that catastrophe dwindles.

I have a weakness for Finkelstein's matter-of-fact style. But if I were to be in a privileged enough position to have my work criticized by either Finkelstein or Birn, I would prefer Birn's criticism. My ego would be less bruised.

This book is important for those who have read Goldhagen's book and wonder about Goldhagen's--or Harvard's--integrity. It is important for those interested in the critical thinking process, and how someone of ostensible credibility, an Ivy League doctoral student, can make some awfully weak arguments in defense of his claims. And it is very important for those who want to keep contemporary politico-Zionism in context. Read it. But don't expect any soft pedaling by Finkelstein.

By the way, I would not have granted Goldhagen his Ph.D. for the sloppy, ideological work in his book. As Birn points out, his thesis is fit for those who want a simple answer to a more complex situation. I add that it resembles hate literature, that "those Germans" were like that. It is, therefore, a mirror image of what Goldhagen claims to despise: propaganda. I would not enroll in a course he teaches, or spend a minute reading anything he'd written.

Norman Finkelstein practices the worst type of historiography. He uses each chapter to selectively pick out quotes from single authors and state them out their proper and greater historical context thereby distorting the record. He selectively ignores or severly downplays any evidence against his arguments. For example he never mentions the vitriolic hatred coming out of the greater Arab world during this time period, severly downplays terrorism and its effects on Israel and never mentions directly the cold war context during the years of the conflict. His comparisons and extensive quotations of Hitler and Himmler with Israeli officials and soldiers was obviously written for effect and was a revolting abuse of the written word. He seems to me to be an author with no real first hand experience or feel for this area of history. The incredibly one sided bulk of his narrative discredits any legitmate points he tries to make throughout the work.
The history of the Arab-Israeli conflict is complex and there are legitmate grieviences on both sides with some very good impartial books and sources of information. Mr Finkelstein's is not one of them.

Norman Finkelstein is a brave man who has received a lot of flak for writing this book. One response that authors who criticise Israel always have to contend with is the accusation that they are motivated by anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism. Jewish authors (Finkelstein is the son of Holocaust survivors)are additionally accused of being 'self hating' Jews. It's almost as if, in the eyes of Israel's unquestioning supporters, there can be no legitimate reason to criticise anything that Israel does. Maybe Israel, unlike any other country which has ever existed on Earth, is a perfect society which is completely above criticism - or is it?

The aim of this brilliant book is to ask questions about the view of Israel's history that Zionists would like the rest of us to believe. Many aspects of this history are hotly disputed so it's a perfectly legitimate area of study. Reading the book will probably challenge your preconceptions of the Arab-Israeli conflict and will make some people feel distinctly uncomfortable. But like nasty tasting medicine that ultimately does you good, it's essential reading for anyone who really wants to understand what's going on in that tragic part of the world. And the fact that all Finkelstein's opponents can do to counter his arguments is come out with the same old knee-jerk reactions says it all. Buy it!

Excellent background on Zionism and the Israeli - Palestine conflict. Very thorough and well written. Good insights into the nature and rationale of Zionism placed in the context of other, similar mindsets. Good background on Israel's various wars and the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem.