Monday 13 July 2009

Greenstein to review Nicosia's latest book

In his latest blog post, Tony Greenstein informs his readers that he is to review the following book:


Francis R. Nicosia, Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2008)


Greenstein informs us in his blog post that he found the book, "extremely disappointing." This is not surprising because Greenstein regularly tries to link Zionism with Nazism. Aware of such claims, Nicosia is very clear in dispelling any notion of such an absurd linkage. Below I provide some short quotations from the book; no doubt these explain why Greenstein finds the book "disappointing."


:

"lest the reader imagine that the purpose of study such as this to somehow equate Zionism with National Socialism, Zionists with Nazis, or to portray their relationship as a willing and collaborative one between moral and political equals. The research, analysis and conclusions, do not in any way support such notions. The existence of certain common assumptions on the part of Zionists on the one hand, and nationalist and anti-Semitic Germans on the other, does not in any way connote moral and/or political equivalency." (pp. 2-3)


"The dominant Zionist approach, like that of most non-Jews at the time, shared a reliance on the idea of an ethno-nationalist state, an idea that was the societal norm in Central Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their embrace of that norm does not make the Zionists the moral equivalent of the Nazis. Nor does the willingness of the Zionist or any other Jewish organisation in the Third Reich to cooperate with the state make them willing collaborators in the Nazi destruction of Jewish life in Germany; to suppose that any Jewish organisation in Hitler's Germany prior to the 'final solution' had the option of refusing to work on some level with the state is fantasy." (p. 3)

Nicosia specifically states that it is a-historical and simplistic to"

dismiss Zionism as yet another of racism, the substance of which has not been very different from German National Socialism." (P. 8)


He adds:


"Most anti-Semites could never embrace Zionism and its institutions as partners in a common quest because Zionists were, after all, still part of what they believed to be a monolithic world Jewry." (P. 9)

"For most anti-Semites in Germany, therefore, including the Nazis prior to 1941, their willingness to use Zionism and the Zionist movement was never based on an acceptance of the Zionist view itself." (p. 10)

"the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the Zionist movement in general recognized the critical link between its own survival and the survival and well-being of all Jews in the Diaspora. Even on a practical level, the Zionist view was that if the Nazis succeeded in murdering the great majority of Jews in Europe, a Jewish majority and state in Palestine might never be achieved." (pp.8-9n15)

Finally, I enclose one factually accurate quote from Nicosia

"Of Course, the Nazis opposed a Jewish state, in any form, in any part of Palestine or anywhere else in the world." (P. 197)



These quotes simply refute Greenstein's analogies. Disappointing for him, indeed.



7 comments:

Fabián said...

Thanks, Mikey.

Mikey said...

A pleasure. If interested in the general subject of the title, Nicosia's book is well worth a read. It is quite expensive so in the first instance you may wish to borrow it from a library, but for me the book is indespesnible and hence I ordered my own copy before it was even published.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Mikey, that's helpful

Anonymous said...

Dear Mikey,
I respect you for exposing that slug TG's lies, and am happy you do so here. But also be aware that this man thrives on dissent and argument. Your writing in on his blog only serves to encourage him.
That he moderates all posts means he will only post something if (he thinks) it is to your detriment.

Please, by all means expose his slander on your blog, but don't argue with him. That is how he gets his kicks. The worst thing for him is to be ignored. I believe half of his 'work' is so that he will be noticed. At least please don't dignify him on his blog. That is just to help him.

By the way, a little nugget that came my way is that his family are physically sick of him. He was not invited to a recent simchah in the family. As far as i know he is not invited to anything any more. They have cut him off.

Mikey said...

Dear anonymous,

I do not know who you are but I am very familiar with the antics of Tony Greenstein and much of what he has written over the last 30 years in relation to Zionism.

I have previously challenged Greenstein to a debate on Zionism, Nazism and the Holocaust, his favoured subject of writing about, and he has turned me down. I am quite sure that he is aware that he would lose.

The problem that he has is not just that he is wrong but that he does not have a command of the source material.

It is a shame for him that he is boycotting Israeli universities. If he were not doing so, he would find that they have the the best collections of Zionist material and produce academically rigorous journals such as The Journal of Israeli History which are very interesting to read.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Tony Greenstein reviewing a book? Who would have believed that? His ability to review anything beyond a porn magazine is doubtful indeed.

Anonymous said...

Some might think that the pages on any porn magazines after they have been in his hands for a few minutes are all stuck together and hence his ability to carry out such a review is severely reduced.