Thin Ice:
Jewish Power in a Changing World, Part 2
An interview with historian and thinker Mark Weber.
American Dissident Voices broadcast for March 26, 2006
by Kevin Alfred Strom
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ON TODAY'S PROGRAM, we continue our interview with the Director of the Institute for Historical Review, Mr. Mark Weber (pictured). When we left our talk last week,
we were discussing the laws in Germany that make it a crime to doubt
the Jewish Holocaust story. Let's rejoin that discussion now.
WEBER: The German law is also very bizarre in another way. A
German court has ruled that statements that violate the German law
against "Holocaust denial" are actionable even if they're made in a country where such statements are legal -- as in the United States -- if those statements can be downloaded on the Internet in Germany. That's
the first count in the indictment brief against Ernst Z�ndel. He's
alleged to have broken Germany's law on the basis of statements posted
on his Web site, which is based in the United States and is maintained
by his wife, who is an American citizen. This is very dangerous because
if people can be put in prison for making statements that are legal in
the countries where they are made, but which violate the laws of some
other country, a kind of international chaos could ensue. It could
mean, for example, that someone who makes a statement on a Web site
based in Sweden or Argentina that calls for the end of Communism in
China could be considered to have violated Chinese law and therefore be
subject to Chinese prosecution for having made the statement.
KAS: Do you mean that right now an American historian who questions aspects
of the Holocaust story could be arrested if he were to set foot in
Austria, Germany, Switzerland, or any of these other countries that
have Holocaust denial laws?
WEBER: The only country that considers such statements
illegal even when made in a foreign country is Germany. A German court
has made a ruling to that effect. There's never been a similar ruling
in any of the other countries we've talked about.
KAS: But what about the next step, which would be extradition even if the person doesn't set foot in Germany?
WEBER: Normally extradition treaties only apply if the same
or very similar laws exist in both of the countries involved. So, at
least for the time being or at least in theory, a person would not be
extradited from say, the United States to Germany for violating Germany's Holocaust denial law -- because the United States has no similar law. However, this is not the case if the person charged is a German national. Ernst Z�ndel, for
example, is a citizen of Germany. Because of this, he was deported from
Canada to Germany for having violated German law. Doing things this way
opens a real Pandora's box and it sets a dangerous precedent.
KAS: Do you think we are seeing the high tide of these laws -- these attempts at thought control by the Jewish power structure?
WEBER: I know a lot of people have pointed to the events of
the last several months and said that they represent a new crackdown. I
don't think that's really accurate. David Irving's
so-called crime was committed sixteen years ago. He imprudently decided
to visit Austria knowing that there was an outstanding warrant for his
arrest there, so it's only a coincidence that he was arrested in
Austria and sentenced right now. He could have avoided arrest if he had
just stayed out of Austria.
In the case of Ernst Z�ndel, the German authorities and Jewish organizations wanted him deported to Germany immediately after he was taken into custody in Tennessee in February of 2003.
Instead he was sent to Canada, where he had lived for more than forty
years. So Jewish organizations were hoping to have him jailed in
Germany three years ago. It's only a coincidence that he finally ended
up in Germany when he did, and his case is being tried right now.
Similarly, in the case of Germar Rudolf,
the authorities had been playing cat-and-mouse with him for some months
and he had exhausted all sorts of legal avenues of appeal and was
finally deported.
Nevertheless, I think there is a kind of high tide that's been
reached because these laws are so unjust that they can only be applied
and only survive when there's a lot of deceit and propaganda
surrounding them. The more people know about these laws and the more
they know about the case of Ernst Zundel or David Irving, the more they
see the injustice that's being done and they dislike it. So in that sense, the Irving sentencing has actually done a service to the cause of freedom by highlighting the
existence of these laws and their character. So, in general, I think
that a high tide has been reached.
Now, having said that, the Holocaust campaign, as a propaganda
campaign and as a feature of society, is still being promoted as
aggressively as Jewish organizations and Hollywood can promote it. But
it's harder and harder to really see it having an effect, because time
keeps passing and World War II is a more and more distant part of
history for many people.
Also, it's very difficult to for Jews to uphold an image of
themselves as perpetually weak and innocent and victimized, when the
people whom the public actually sees being persecuted are people like Ernst Zundel and David Irving.
At the same time, the country that pushes most eagerly for laws to
punish people like them -- Israel -- is itself a country that the whole
world knows is guilty of blatant oppression and criminal behavior.
KAS: This brings me to another question. The so-called War
on Terror has -- to some extent, at least -- been a tool of the Jewish
power structure, particularly the Zionist power structure. Who is a
terrorist is often defined by which side he's on -- and clearly the
Jewish power structure wants to define itself in terms of
victimization, and define its enemies with terms like "evil," "hater,"
and "terrorist." How do you view the "War on Terror," Mark?
WEBER: It's occurred to me that if, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Roosevelt had gone before Congress and announced
that the United States was going to declare war on war, everybody would
have thought he was nuts. But, after September 11, George Bush told the
American public that he was declaring war on terrorism. Terrorism is a
tactic; it's not something that one can eradicate.
Terrorism is used -- and has been used throughout history -- by
virtually every people that does not possess state power. It's the poor
man's weapon, so to speak. By the definition of terrorism that the
United States government uses, the patriots of 1775 were terrorists.
Most Americans know that the opening shots of the American war for
independence from Britain were fired at Lexington and Concord. What
really happened in that exchange was that the British soldiers
stationed in Boston marched to nearby Lexington and Concord to seize
illegal caches of weapons in those places. As they were going back and
forth, American patriots fired on the British soldiers who were trying
to do their job.
Virtually every nationalist movement in history has been
characterized by what the opponents of the nationalists call terrorism.
The leaders of Irish independence in the twentieth century -- Eamon de
Valera, Michael Collins, and others -- were considered terrorists and
murderers by the British. When the United States opposed the Soviet
incursion into Afghanistan, our government gave weapons to the Afghan
rebels who were fighting the Soviets. The Soviets called the rebels
"terrorists." One of the most famous of the Afghan leaders fighting
against the Soviet occupation -- although he was originally from Saudi
Arabia -- was Osama bin Laden. He may not have been a great commander,
but the United States government considered him a "good guy" when he
was fighting against the Soviet occupation, blowing up Soviet tanks,
and killing Soviet soldiers.
Throughout history this is how it has gone. Two or three Prime
Ministers of Israel have well-documented records as terrorists.
Menachem Begin was the head of the Irgun terrorist organization in the
years before Israel became a state. Yitzhak Shamir, who was a leader in
the so-called Stern gang, had a price on his head that the British
authorities were willing to pay to anyone who could turn him over to
them, because the Stern gang murdered British subjects and other
people. And of course, even an Israeli commission found Ariel Sharon
responsible for the terrible massacres at Sabra and Shatila during the
1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The United States has rolled out the
red carpet on numerous occasions for these men who have well documented
records as terrorists, criminals, murderers or whatever you may want to
call them.
Now we have a government that, in the name of a war against
terrorism, has proclaimed an open-ended war against whomever the
leaders in Washington think we ought to oppose. This included Iraq, of
course, and now they're gearing up for a war against Iran. But the more
the American people know about history, the more they should be able to
see just how threadbare and deceitful these slogans like "war on
terrorism" really are.
It's very understandable that people were furious after the
terrible 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center. What the Bush
administration did, however, was use that tragedy as a pretext for a
war against Iraq that has neither served American interests nor reduced
terrorism, but has instead served only Israeli and Zionist interests
and in the process made the threat of terrorism around the world far
greater. More and more Americans are coming to understand this with
each passing month, just as other people around the world do.
KAS: Some wag said that George W. Bush is the greatest-ever recruiter for al-Qaeda.
WEBER: Yes, I heard that too. This sounds cynical, I know,
but for those people who were pushing for this war, it was already a
success right on its very first day. It shattered the Middle East, it
brought death and destruction and suffering to so many people, and it
helped foment ever-greater strife and discord in that part of the
world. That's been useful for Israeli and Zionist interests because
Israel's security depends upon discord, strife, and disunity among its
neighbors.
KAS: Well, those were the unstated objectives of the war. In terms of its stated objective -- bringing the war to those who were responsible for 9-11 --
it's been very unsuccessful. We did manage to install a new government
in Afghanistan -- however, al-Qaeda is still fully operational and very
dangerous. We did manage to install a new government, although an
unstable one, in Iraq, but Iraq really had nothing to do with the 9-11
attacks; so in terms of the stated objective, it's gone nowhere.
WEBER: In the immediate aftermath of the 9-11 attack, George
Bush announced that "Job One" was to get Osama bin Laden. Well, the
years have gone by and Osama bin Laden is still doing what he does.
Instead of "getting" him, we've had this immense detour, this attack on
Iraq, which has cost the lives of some twenty-three hundred American
servicemen, two or three hundred billion dollars, and the lives of tens
of thousands of Iraqis. It has severely hurt America's security and its
place in the world.
There's probably never been such a blow to America's credibility as
the attack on Iraq, which was condemned around the world and is
increasingly condemned even here. But what's astonishing is that in the
face of all this opposition, the same people who brought us this fiasco
are now propagandistically preparing Americans for a new war -- against Iran,
another country that has not threatened the United States and that
poses no threat to us, and they're doing it using similar deceits and
lies.
KAS: I remember Wolfowitz saying this would be a 90-day war. Well, instead it's a more than three-year war.
WEBER: That's right, and any war against Iran would be a
catastrophe. It's not merely that it would be an illegal and
destructive war. It would be a war that all of the other nations of the
world would understand is not in their interests. Our government has
said a lot about Iran in recent months, and the rank hypocrisy of the Bush administration in this matter is just amazing. Bush
denounces Iran for not being a democratic country, while he himself
came to office in an election in which his opponent got more votes than
he did. Iran has not attacked another country in more than two
centuries, although it has been attacked by other countries repeatedly
over the last hundred years. In 1941 two allies of the United States --
the Soviet Union and Britain -- attacked, invaded, and occupied Iran.
In the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution, Iraq attacked Iran with the
connivance and support of the United States. To denounce Iran as a
great threat to world peace is not only untrue, it's amazing hypocrisy
coming from an administration with the record that this one has.
KAS: Well, I think Americans are weary of war, and clearly
the so-called coalition of allies which brought war to Iraq is very,
very shaky -- if it even exists at all anymore. It seems almost insane
for the Zionist power structure to want to shake things up further, to
take more risk, and launch another, much larger war under those circumstances. It has occurred to me that the only way that
they could be considering something like this is if they were hoping
for, or planning, or had foreknowledge of some Pearl Harbor-like event
-- something like 9-11 -- that could galvanize the flagging support of
the American people for such a war.
WEBER: Yes, it is very hard to believe. I've talked with
many people about this. Of course it's all speculation, but you'd think
that, given the fiasco of the Iraq invasion and occupation,
it would be impossible to get the requisite support for an invasion of
Iran. But, incidents can also be created or can be exploited to try to
engineer such support.
One of the scenarios that's been talked about is that Israel may
strike Iran. In that case, Iran would retaliate against Israel and then
the United States would then claim that it has to protect its ally and
is only getting involved in order to help Israel. That intervention
would then escalate into a full-scale war. That's one scenario that's
been talked about quite a few times, but there are many others.
Incidents can be created, and these are very, very dangerous times we live in. What's essential is to increase awareness among Americans
about the origins of these conflicts, so that they do not merely oppose
war, but can oppose those who are responsible for such wars and understand why they push for them. It's not enough to be for peace; it's also necessary to oppose those who try to foment war.
KAS: Well, let me play the devil's advocate for a moment. If
the contention is that the Jewish power structure wants this war in the
Middle East, isn't that almost incredible, considering that the Jewish
power structure is the richest and most powerful leadership stratum of
any ethnic group on planet earth? They dominate the financial
infrastructure of the West; they dominate the media; and they have
influence over governments far beyond that of any other ethnic group in
the world today. Why would they want to shake things up?
WEBER: That's a good question and it's an important one. The
answer is because -- as great as Jewish power is in the West and in the
United States particularly -- Israel itself is not a secure state.
Throughout its entire existence, its security has always been a
precarious one. From the very first day of existence all the way up to
today, it's continually required huge infusions of money and weapons
from the United States, along with money from Germany and from world
Jewry, merely to survive.
This is the Achilles' heel, so to speak, of world Jewry: that the
Jews are committed to a country that is so inherently unstable, whose
status is so precarious. This is a country that does not have a
constitution, does not say what its borders are, and tries to uphold
its status as a Jewish state, even as demography works against it. The
birth rate of its non-Jewish population is much higher than that of the
Jewish population. Jews here in the United States who support Israel
are willing to tax Americans and let Americans die to support the state
of Israel, but very few American Jews actually want to go live in
Israel. They want other Jews to go live there, but very few American
Jews -- for understandable reasons -- want to live there themselves.
Jewish interests would be in many ways better served if there were
no state of Israel, because such tremendous sacrifices of blood and
money are needed maintain it.
KAS: And tremendous risk-taking, it seems to me.
WEBER: Tremendous risk-taking, yes. The state of Israel also
demonstrates in a very dramatic way the double standard that Jews push
everywhere in the world. In every country where they live, they insist
on breaking down racial, cultural, and religious cohesion and they
insist that people be regarded merely as individuals. In Israel,
however, they insist that the specifically Jewish ethnic character of
the state be maintained at all costs.
KAS: Yes, and that hypocrisy is beginning to show. Those who
hate racial nationalism are calling Israel a hypocritical nation, and
those who embrace racial nationalism are calling Israel hypocritical
also.
WEBER: Exactly. If a White nationalist says, "We want in our
country the same fervent championing and support of White racial
interests that Israel has for Jewish ethnic and national interests,"
such a person is considered a "Nazi," or a "racist." This double
standard isn't just dangerous for international Jewry, either. It's
really dangerous for the United States, because in supporting Israel we
are supporting a state whose policies are exactly the opposite of the
ideals that we claim to uphold -- ideals that we are even willing to
kill for and to impose by force in other parts of the world. It makes a
mockery of everything that the United States claims to stand for and it
makes for a confused, disastrous foreign policy. The world increasingly
understands this, and that's why American credibility has never been
lower, and it's why it will sink even more in the years ahead.
KAS: What do you make of the statements and actions of the President of Iran?
WEBER: I think that his predecessor, Khatami, was a more
adroit and skillful leader. He understood the weight that his words
carried when he spoke; that is, he understood the impact of his words
outside of his own country. Ahmadinejad, the new President, was the
mayor of Teheran. He was a popular man, and he's considered a man of
the people and incorruptible, but he does not seem as measured or as
prudent in the statements that he makes. One of the best examples of
this is the remark he made that Israel should be wiped off the map.
That statement was construed by many around the world as meaning that
he wanted to kill all the Jews in Israel. That's not what he meant.
There is, in fact, a thriving Jewish community in Iran itself, and the
Iranian constitution guarantees that one seat in the Iranian parliament
shall be reserved for a Jewish deputy.
KAS: I did not know that.
WEBER: There's a reserved seat for a Christian deputy and
one for a Zoroastrian deputy as well, because those are traditional
religions there. But saying "Israel should be wiped off the map" does
mean that Ahmadinejad wants to kill everybody in Israel. After all,
many countries have been "wiped off the map" over the years.
KAS: Nevertheless, it was probably not the best choice of words.
WEBER: It was not prudent for him to express himself in that
way. President Khatami of Iran lived for some years outside of his
country. He lived in Hamburg, Germany, and he could speak German. I
think he understood much better than does the current President the
effects that these kinds of statements can have on the rest of the
world. Iran should be judged more by its policies and by what it does than by sentences taken out of
speeches that seem to be directed mainly at the Iranian population
itself and not intended for the world at large.
KAS: Ahmadinejad is one of the few world leaders who has openly questioned the Holocaust story.
WEBER: Yes. He went so far as to call the Holocaust "a
myth," and again, that's a statement that he should explain, otherwise
it's just going to be just dismissed by much of the world as the
ravings of a madman. When somebody says "The Holocaust is a myth," most
people think that the person is dismissing the fact that concentration
camps existed and that the well-known pictures taken in the camps after
the war are not real -- things of that nature. Certainly that's not
what President Ahmadinejad meant. Presumably what he had in mind was
the orthodox Holocaust story that we've heard of the systematic killing
of six million Jews. He didn't explain his statement, however, and a
statement that is that sweeping or that categorical is very easily
misinterpreted and misunderstood, and can be very alarming to many
people outside of the Middle East.
KAS: His main action with regard to the subject of the Holocaust seems to have been to call for a conference to research the issue.
WEBER: The Iranian government has called for a conference on
the Holocaust and Iranian leaders have asked permission from Poland to
carry out an investigation of Holocaust claims in Poland. The Polish
government's immediate reaction was to say that the archives and sites
of the former camps in Poland would not be opened to independent
researchers from Iran, which says something, I guess.
It's a very dangerous thing when political leaders presume to make
pronouncements on history. I think that denouncing the hypocrisy of
other countries on the Holocaust issue and stressing the way in which
the Holocaust story and the Holocaust campaign are used to support and
bolster Jewish Zionist interests is a more effective thing for the
Iranian President to do. It's more effective, certainly, than making
statements that many people around the world will just dismiss as
raving.
KAS: Was it adroit -- or a foolish provocation -- to call for a cartoon contest on the subject of the Holocaust?
WEBER: An Iranian newspaper called for the Holocaust cartoon
contest. It's not a official government measure, and just one Iranian
newspaper suggested it. Of course, what Iranians are upset about and
what they want to highlight through the contest is the double standard
that says that cartoons that are insulting to Muslims or even
Christians are permissible, but images that Jews find objectionable
should be banned. That, I believe, is the point of the campaign, but it
should be remembered that very often statements made by individuals or
newspapers in a particular country will not necessarily reflect the
policy of that country's government.
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Be sure to join us again next week for the third and final part of
Thin Ice, as Mark Weber and I discuss the new world we are entering. Is it the dawn of a post-Jewish supremacist age?
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the Battle of Cowpens, S. Carolina, 1781