‘If you care about democracy, you must fight antisemitism with all your might’
Holocaust academic and US envoy Deborah Lipstadt says Jew hate undermines western values
When it comes to Holocaust denial, academic Deborah Lipstadt is one of the world’s leading authorities tackling those who say the murder of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazis never took place.
But now President Biden’s special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism is finding herself up against “a new denial” over the Hamas atrocities of 7 October, and all the evidence in the world will never be enough to convince those who disbelieve, she says.
“Nothing will change their minds,” says Lipstadt emphatically in her native New Yorker tones, shaking her head. “There is even among them those who deny there are hostages, even if hostages are released. I’ve seen evidence that has not been made public from the official police investigation.
“We saw picture after picture of mutilated bodies, burnt bodies. At one point they contrasted a woman who had been at the rave who sent a selfie home, and then what her body looked like on 8 October.
“But it’s like Holocaust denial all over again. If you can believe there was no Holocaust, when the Holocaust is the best-documented genocide in history, when you have bystanders who lived in the towns and the villages near the shooting sites and saw what happened, people who worked in the death camps who gave testimony, and Germans themselves who said, ‘we did it’ – and yet you still deny, then nothing’s going to convince you.
“It’s the same thing with these people. There is such a deep-seated antisemitism and hatred of Israel, one and the same, that they choose not to believe even though that’s completely irrational and completely illogical.”
Lipstadt, who in 2000 defended herself against a libel claim brought by the author and Holocaust revisionist David Irving, which later inspired the film Denial, spoke to Jewish News during a brief visit to London last week.
The 76-year-old historian was invited to deliver a special lecture at the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism and did not hide her disdain for either the Hamas deniers or the gender advocates that remained silent in the wake of sexual violence against women.
She says: “Gender-based violence is an antiseptic term for rape, mutilation of genitalia, cutting off of breasts and more, and I’ve seen the evidence, pictures more numerous and more horrible than I ever imagined. There’s been denial that this happened, and I’ve been appalled by the abysmally slow response of international organisations, governments and civil society, particularly for those on the left – feminists and the human rights community – to these horrific occurrences.
“When other groups have been subjected to gender-based violence, feminist leaders, women’s groups, UN bodies, including independent experts, move swiftly, in some cases within two days to speak out.”
As an example, she cites the rapid reaction to the “brutal” crackdown on Iranian girls and women for taking off their head coverings, the Yazidi women who were subjected to horrific treatment by Isis, or the hundreds of Nigerian girls kidnapped by the Islamist organisation Boko Haram.
“The feminist groups, the women’s groups, the human rights groups, did not wait more than two months to speak out about it or to demand evidence,” she adds.
Even when presented with hard evidence of the atrocities that took place on 7 October, including footage taken from the bodycams of Hamas terrorists themselves, there are still those who disbelieve – and do so because of latent antisemitism, she says.
During her lecture, Lipstadt prompted audible gasps as she related how at one screening of the 45-minute footage of the attacks, painstakingly pieced together by the IDF, one audience member cried out, “Show us the rapes.”
She commented: “The pictures of the dead women and the mutilated women with their underwear down around their knees, picture after picture of this was not sufficient. I wondered did the same person demand to see the rapes of women who came forth as part of the Me Too movement, when their watchword was simply ‘believe women’.
“The feminist groups, the women’s groups, the human rights groups, did not wait more than two months to speak out about it or to demand evidence,” she adds.
“My stance is clear. The voices of all women must be heard. Any woman’s experience of gender-based violence should not be silenced or discredited.”
She added that it was “wrong” for people to remain silent “in the face of such horrific violence”, but for those who advocate human rights and protection of women, “it is more than wrong. It is hypocrisy of the first order, it calls into question their larger agenda and it is antisemitic.”
On the question of whether lines have been blurred between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, Lipstadt acknowledges “there is certainly room to be critical of Israel”.
“As many Israelis will tell you, the national sport of Israel is not football, it’s criticism of the government,” she quipped. “But I’ve also been asked that question in recent days and weeks over the difference between the two and I would say it has already been answered by those presenting themselves as opponents of Israel.
“Just a few days after the attacks in front of the Sydney Opera House, people marched shouting, ‘F*** the Jews. If you listen to the tape, it certainly sounds like ‘gas the Jews’. Synagogues in Montreal and Philadelphia were torched, Jews wearing a Star of David or speaking Hebrew were harassed, including here in London and kosher restaurants were vandalised in New York and Toronto.
“There was even the horrific accusation of Israelis harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians, a revival of the antisemitic canard of the blood libel.”
She added: “Based on the behaviour of those who have done the things they’ve done, there is no difference. They are the ones who have made the connection [between Jews and Israel], not me. So why should I twist myself into trying to parse the two, when the others are saying it’s one and the same?”
“There was even the horrific accusation of Israelis harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians, a revival of the antisemitic canard of the blood libel.”
Lipstadt paints a bleak picture of antisemitism on the rise, especially after 7 October, and says the spread of hatred presents “a threat to democracy”, but remains optimistic as long as there are still those who speak out against it. “If you care about the Jews, then of course you’re going to care about antisemitism,” she explains.
“But if you don’t particularly care about the Jews, if you care about democracy and hate autocracy, then you can do no less than fight this evil hatred – with all your soul, your power and your minds.”
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