The Holocaust Industry

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A scathing argument against those who exploit the Holocaust to shield Israel from criticism—by a major figure at the center of the Israel-Palestine debate “The most controversial book of the year.” —Guardian In his iconoclastic and controversial study, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an interrogation of the place the Holocaust has come to occupy in global culture to a disturbing examination of Holocaust compensation settlements. It was not until the Arab–Israeli War of 1967, when Israel’s evident strength brought it into line with US foreign policy, that memory of the Holocaust began to acquire the exceptional prominence it has today. Leaders of America’s Jewish community were delighted Israel was deemed a major strategic asset and, Finkelstein contends, exploited the Holocaust to enhance this new-found status. Recalling Holocaust fraudsters, Finkelstein contends the main danger posed to the memory of Nazism’s victims comes not from the distortions of deniers—but from prominent ‘guardians’ of Holocaust memory, who deploy it as a shield against any criticism. He exposes the double shakedown of European countries as well as legitimate Jewish claimants, concluding the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket. Thoroughly researched and closely argued, The Holocaust Industry is all the more disturbing and powerful because the issues it addresses are so rarely discussed.