French Study of Israel's 'Founding Myths' Provokes Furious Attack
Les mythes fondateurs de la politique israelienne ("The
Founding Myths of Israeli Politics"), by Roger Garaudy. Paris: La Vieille
taupe (B.P. 98, 75224 Paris-Cedex 05, France), 1995. 277 pages. Softcover.
[Available from La Librairie du Savoir, 5, rue Malebranche, 75005 Paris,
France.]
Reviewed by Robert Martello
Even as independent thinking is being suppressed in "politically correct"
America, and erased in today's national-masochist Germany, happily some
remnants of traditional Gallic nonconformism are still alive in France.
If a Frenchman asks you the rhetorical question "Do you think I am
a fool?," it means he is irritated by your naive assumption that he
may be naive.
Roger Garaudy obviously does not want to be taken for a fool. In admirably
scholarly fashion, fortified with an impressive bibliography and endless
source citations, he (possibly with help from anonymous assistants) has
delivered a powerful blow to the greatest historical-political myth of our
time: the transcendent victimology of Jews for the benefit of Israel. For
financial gain, as an alibi for indefensible policies, and for other reasons,
Jews have used what Garaudy calls "theological myths" to arrogate
for themselves a "right of theological divine chosenness." He
is right on target, although readers familiar with the work of other revisionist
scholars will recognize many of the arguments presented in this well researched
and very readable work.
Referring to the myth of "antifascist Zionism," Garaudy for example
cites the secret collaboration of prominent Jews with the young Nazi regime,
and the 1941 offer by some Zionists, including Israel's future prime minister
Yitzhak Shamir, to join with Hitler's Germany in a military alliance against
Britain. [See: M. Weber, "Zionism and the Third Reich," July-August
1993 Journal.] The farce of the Nuremberg victors' show trial is also well
documented by Garaudy, who cites German, Israeli, Soviet and American sources,
including the memoir of chief US prosecutor Robert Jackson.
Garaudy examines the deceitful ex nihilo establishment of the Jewish state
through the dispossession and mass expulsion of Palestine's Arabs, and debunks
the legend of the "Israeli miracle." He writes frankly of the
powerful Zionist lobby in North America, which effectively controls US policy
regarding Israel and plays a critical role in shaping public opinion.
"Founding Myths" offers hundreds of interesting quotations, often
by prominent Jewish scholars. For example, it quotes Jewish scholar Michael
Bar-Zohar, who points out that during the Second World War "the rescuing
of European Jewry was not first on the list of priorities of the ruling
class. The foundation of the [Jewish] state was primary ..."
Holocaust Sacred Cows
Taking on that most sacred of sacred cows, Garaudy writes that the Holocaust
story, as a whole, is a "myth." The wartime suffering of Europe's
Jews, he contends, has been elevated to the status of a secular religion,
and is now treated with sacrosanct historical uniqueness.
Tracing the origin of the notorious term "final solution" ("Endlosung"),
Garaudy shows the circumstances in which the German leaders employed it.
The phrase first appeared in a letter by Heydrich of June 24, 1940 (after
the German victory over France). He wrote of "a territorial final solution"
("eine territoriale Endlosung"), referring to a proposal
to deport Europe's Jews to Madagascar that was widely and seriously discussed
at the time in German circles.
"There is no document signed by Hitler, Himmler or Heydrich speaking
about the extermination of Jews," Garaudy points out. He also deftly
tears down mythical exterminationist mathematics (such as the exaggerated
Auschwitz body count), and debunks stories of gassing of Jews. Claude Lanzmann's
much-praised "Shoah" film he dismisses as "an endless turkey,"
and refers to Anne Frank's diary as part of the "Shoah business."
Furious Attacks
If one accepts the old saying that everyone scratches himself where it itches
most, then the furious attacks against this book and its author show that
many in France are itching badly.
The country's supposedly independent press, from Le Figaro to Le Monde to
Liberation, along with the main television channels, immediately
went after Garaudy in an intense smear campaign. Although France's media
traditionally prides itself on its independent, freewheeling spirit, it
has displayed a patent bias in heaping scorn on Garaudy and his most prominent
public supporter, Abbe Pierre. Each is loudly accused of the worst
of all possible sins in today's France: "inveterate anti-Semitism,"
"denial," and "revisionism."
Along with the media smears, lawsuits have been brought against Garaudy
and his publisher. Each may also be subject to heavy fines or even imprisonment
for violating France's 1990 Fabius-Gayssot anti-revisionist law. One cannot
rule out that the octogenarian Garaudy will end his days in jail as a notorious
thought criminal.
The entire Garaudy affair has received enormous attention in French academic,
journalistic and public life, and shows no signs of dying. But in spite
of all the media howling, "Founding Myths" is selling well.
'Red-Brown' Alliance?
If Garaudy were a right-winger or a neo-Nazi, he would have been dismissed
long ago as lacking any intellectual credibility. But his establishment
credentials are impeccable. During the war, he was one of the first to join
the French anti-fascist Resistance, and he later played a prominent
role in the French Communist Party. Later, after breaking with the Party,
he converted to Islam. Garaudy's most prominent supporter and friend of
many years, Abbe Pierre, is a world-renowned Catholic priest who
likewise worked in the anti-German Resistance. Since the war he has
devoted himself to helping the poor. Moreover, "Founding Myths"
was published by the leftist writer Pierre Guillaume under the imprint of
his "Old Mole" firm, a small and relatively unknown publisher
that has brought out works of Holocaust revisionism, including some by Robert
Faurisson.
Citing the leftist credentials of this book's author and publisher, many
French opinion makers have been railing about the looming danger of a "red-brown"
(Communist-Nazi) alliance. As silly as it is, such talk points up the complete
bankruptcy of the traditional "left-right" categories of intellectual
and political life. The Garaudy affair shows that the significant contending
political and intellectual groupings today (and not just in France) are
not "leftists" and "rightists," but rather the "politically
correct" or "taboo-affirming," and the "politically
incorrect" or "taboo-defying."
"The most effective indictment against Hitlerism," Garaudy writes
in the final words of his book, "is the establishment of historical
truth. It is for this purpose that we have wished to make our contribution
with this dossier."
In France the century was ushered in with an intense public debate over
a Jewish army officer who had been accused of selling military secrets to
Germany. For a time the Dreyfus affair sharply divided French society into
radically hostile intellectual and political camps, a split that portended
the country's division during the Second World War. As we approach a new
century, it cannot be ruled out that the Garaudy case and historical revisionism
will similarly split French public life, but in an ultimately even more
profound way.
Robert Martello is the pen name of an American scholar who lives in France.
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Last modified on: 2/20/97
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