Sanctions on Iraq continue to reap a grim harvest. Cook and Hain beware: you might face a war crimes tribunal
Published 24 July 2000
In Blackburn for Radio Four's Any Questions, Rabbi Julia Neuberger, a warm-hearted liberal, enlightens us during the course of an inedible buffet as to why she is so angry with Norman Finkelstein and his new book The Holocaust Industry. "It's a complete rant. Did you see my piece in the Evening Standard?" On returning to London, I read her article of 12 July which began thus: "The enormous outrage in the United States about Norman Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry has been largely justified." Now, I'm a regular reader of the Herald Tribune, the Nation and the New York Review of Books. I had not read or heard of any controversy surrounding this book. I trawl the internet. Nothing. I ring Roane Carey at the Nation in New York, who edited the book. "Not a word so far," he tells me. "I think they're trying to drown it in silence." So the only sign of "enormous outrage" is that expressed by Neuberger in the London Evening Standard and Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian. He, too, refers to the book as "a rant" and proceeds to present Finkelstein as a self- hating Jew who "issues the same call as David Irving" - that is, accuses Jews of being authors of their own suffering. Thus, according to the liberal Freedland, the author of The Holocaust Industry is closer to the Nazis than the Jews who perished in the judeocide.
I sat down and read Finkelstein's book-essay. It is undoubtedly a ferocious polemic. Finkelstein, the Jewish son of parents who survived the camps, is angry at those Jews and non-Jews who exploit the memory of the judeocide for political and financial reasons of their own. This case reminds me of the arguments I used to have with liberal and fundamentalist Muslims over the Rushdie affair. Where feelings are hurt and emotions high, rational debate becomes impossible. Fortunately, an attempt is being made to engage with the arguments that inform this provocative critique. On 21 July, Finkelstein debates his opponents at the Saatchi Synagogue. I trust that both Freedland and Neuberger will be present.
Who did brief the Observer journalist Andrew Rawnsley against Gordon Brown's "character flaws"? The culprit must surely be the Master of the Black Arts himself, our old friend Peter Mandelson, who has briefed Rawnsley many a time, starting with the campaign to make Tony Blair the leader of the Labour Party. This view is confirmed when an Anglo-Irish friend tells me that, a few weekends ago, he heard Mandelson bad-mouthing the Chancellor of the Exchequer over a meal at Lindy Dufferin's country house in Ireland. He probably thought he was safe on traditional Tory territory.
Mandelson being the proud grandson of his grandfather reminds me of Michael Foot's biography of Nye Bevan. I wipe away the dust and extract the following description of the late Herbert Morrison: "A soft-hearted suburban Stalin, forever suspecting others of conspiracies in which he was engaged himself." Sounds familiar?
Leafing through recent back copies of Hansard, as is my wont, the following exchange between the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, Menzies Campbell, and Geoff Hoon, new Labour's apologist for the defence industry, on 24 May this year, captures my attention:
Mr Menzies Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the total tonnage of ordnance released by coalition aircraft in operations to maintain a) the southern and b) the northern no-fly zones in Iraq between i) 1 August 1992 and 16 December 1998 and ii) 20 December 1998 to date . . .
Mr Hoon (holding answer 23 May 2000): I am withholding detailed information on the activities of other allies in accordance with Part II Section 1c of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information. Between 1 August 1992 and 16 December 1998, UK aircraft released 2.5 tons of ordnance over the southern no-fly zone at an average of 5 tons per month . . . Between 20 December 1998 and 17 May 2000, UK aircraft released 78 tons of ordnance over the southern no-fly zones, at an average of 5 tons per month.
In other words, over the past two years, the "coalition" (the United States and Britain) has rained down nearly 400 tons of bombs and missiles on this antique land. The Pentagon has spent over a billion dollars to sustain 200 planes, 19 battleships and 22,000 troops as part of the operation. It is the most sustained bombing campaign against a single country since the war in Vietnam. And the sanctions continue, reaping a grim harvest of dead children and the living poor, denied the basic necessities of life. Robin Cook and Peter Hain beware. One day, you might face a war crimes tribunal.
For the past ten years, I have been working on a series of historical novels depicting the confrontations between Christian and Islamic civilisations. The third in the series, The Stone Woman, has just been published. I soon leave for Weimar to attend a literature conference. It reminds me that virtually every German city, big and small, has a writers' club and a cultural centre with opera houses, concert halls and theatres. Until now, these activities have been funded by the state and local government. Prices are reasonable and the audiences are usually mixed in every sense of the word. With Chancellor Gerhard Schroder reducing corporate and income taxes, I fear that culture will be the first victim. Given that German citizens have not been steamrollered by a Reagan-Thatcher figure, perhaps there will be a strong resistance. Perhaps . . .
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