Philosopher Ted Honderich Hit with "Anti-Semitism" Slur

http://www.counterpunch.com/cockburn08132003.html

The distinguished British philosopher Ted Honderich, is threatening to sue the head of the Holocaust museum in Frankfort for calling him an anti-Semite. The director, Micha Brumlik , levelled the charge last week after Honderich's book "After The Terror" was published in Germany in July.

The book was published in a German translation as Nach dem Terror: Ein Traktat, in July 2003, by Suhrkamp in Frankfurt on Main, as one of their 40th anniversary books. Micha Brumlik is director of a centre for the history and effects of the Holocaust in Frankfurt, and a professor of science-education, at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt on Main.

On August 5, in the liberal paper Frankfurter Rundschau, Brumlik published an open letter to the publisher Suhrkamp denouncing the book and Honderich as anti-Semitic, and demanding that it be taken off the market.

Honderich says, " I have come to realize fully, mainly from German journalists, German emotions about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, 60 years after the event, remain very strong indeed, guilt, resolution, and probably other things.

"That I am anti-Semitic is certainly a falsehood, probably a lie. The neo-Zionist use of the libel and slander of anti-Semitism is very well-known, at any rate outside of Germany, and recorded in the Englishliberal press. It is dirty politics and dirty morals. In Germany, it isoperating in a circumstance that does honour to the Germans: their guilt etc. 60 years after the Holocaust. The banning of this book is sad for Germany.

The fellow sees rights and morality in folks that I see as evil.

but I think anti-semite is a stretch. Not a very large one, however.

Sad to say I don't think he is an extremist, just a new left idiot with his head up his.... I agree, he is not really an anti-semite, but a sneeze away. I don't know which parts of his book bothers me most, his blatent anti-Americanism, his blatent pro-terrorist stance, or his general stupidity.

America has many problems and has caused tremendous problems throughout the world. It is his pro-terrorist stance that bothers ne.

Has done more good than harm. Shame on you!

Ever heard of a little thing called globalization, rini? Do you know which corporations harm the most people with help from that? Yes, that's right-American corporations. Where are our regulations on American companies that go abroad? Why do we still promote free trade and allow our corporations to essentially do whatever they wish to gain money as long as it's out of our country?

Not to mention the Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan, America's ignorance of cases of genocide around the world, and America's ignorance of epidemics away from the US. Aidoneous has a lot to say about this topic.

This is not to say that no progress has been made on these issues. Some has been made, but far from enough.

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what the offensive passages are. Saying it is morally responsible to carry out a policy of killing as many Jews as possible may be what caused offense but since the person who wrote the letter was not contacted for comment one can assume the truth was not the point of the article. Other than that it is impossible to formulate an opinion.

The reviews of the book give me no sense as to where the antisemitic charge is coming from, but that perhaps the author understands the cause of the Palestinians (who are hardly evil), and their resistance. Beyond that conjecture, the article tells me very little, but that once again comes perhaps a banning of something persumed to be antisemitic because of sympathy for a people on the other side of the fence.

Page 51 (in the translation): the claim that 400000 soviet Jews were settled in Arabic nations.
Page 53: the allegation that the UN has ruled Zionism being racist.
Page 236: Claiming that the Palestinians have a moral right to attack Israel with terrorist means , even promoting such action.

The Suhrkamp publishing group is highly respected, but was under fire for another anti-Semitic slur lately: the notorious author Walser wrote a novel implicitly attacking the late German Jewish Statesman and chair of the Jewish council, Ignaz Bubis and the highly respected critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki. Not only for personal faults, but bordering on outright anti-semitism. Suhrkamp published the novel, disregarding mass protests.
Fallout of the debate made it into the 2002 campaign of the free democratic party, turning this party borderline anti-Semitic. Especially the deceased politician Möllemann tried to get votes with anti-Semitic statements. It is a tragedy, as the FDP had some of Germany’s greatest Statesmen in the 80s and was the party of Ignaz Bubis.


The novel is one of the most pirated German novels, as nobody wants to give the author a cent for it.