- In 1983, Croom Helm Ltd. published my 1st book, Zionism
in the Age of the Dictators. American writers don't expect favorable reviews
from the London Times, but editorialist Edward Mortimer declared that "Brenner
is able to cite numerous cases where Zionists collaborated with anti-Semitic
regimes, including Hitler's."
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- Still less could a Trotskyist dream of a review from
Izvestia, the Soviet government gazette, but they hailed it. "During
the world war, Brenner points out, Zionism showed its real meaning: for
the sake of its ambitions, it sacrificed the blood of millions of Jews."
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- Louis Rapoport, a failed Berkeley radical, denounced
the book in the Jerusalem Post as "leftist babble." Nevertheless,
he conceded, there were "very real charges that will continue to haunt"
Zionism "until they are dealt with honestly."
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- In 1987, Jim Allen, the celebrated British movie/TV writer,
based Perdition, a stage play, on the book. When intense pressure on the
Royal Court Theatre canceled production, we debated Sir Martin Gilbert,
the Churchill family's private historian, and Stephen Roth, head of the
British Zionist Federation, nationwide, prime-time on ITV. The London Review
of Books said the Zionist scheme "made it one of the most famous plays
of the decade." Indeed, unless the Queen was sick on the crapper,
every politically or theatrically interested person in Britain watched
us win, thanks to director Ken Loach's strategic instructions.
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- Extraordinary world interest wasn't matched in America's
media. Alex Cockburn championed the book in the Village Voice and in the
Nation. But the Voice refused to review it. The Nation sent it out to someone,
but, sorry, "he never sent in the review."
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- Walter Laqueur had to bark in the Zionist New Republic
after their Perdition debacle: "Some of Brenner's book is invented,
some is exaggerated or drawn out of context." Yet even he admits that
"German Zionists did not fully understand the meaning of Hitler when
he came to power in 1933. Some of their comments and declarations make
embarrassing reading 50 years later."
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- Despite Zionism's best efforts, over 5,000 copies sold
in 18 years before being put on the web: www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/index.htm
Then Lyle Stuart of Barricade Books discovered that a friend, a Zionist
propagandist, had never read the complete proposal of the "Stern Gang,"
1940s Zionist terrorists, to go to war on Hitler's side. 51 Documents was
born. Now Americans and others can read the evidence and judge for themselves.
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- There are six selections re Zionism's relationship to
anti-Semitism and racism prior to Hitler. The 51 documents, including 35
letters, memos, articles, and reports by Zionists, are from the Hitler
era and after. Seven are by Nazis, most notably Eichmann's memoir, written
in Argentina, on Hungarian collaborator Rezso Kasztner. Five of the six
and 43 of the 51 are complete. The rest are extensive excerpts from important
reports. There are four first-time full translations of articles from German,
Hebrew, Italian and Russian.
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- Zionism convicts itself. On June 21, 1933, the German
Zionist Federation sent a secret memorandum to the Nazis:
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- "Zionism has no illusions about the difficulty of
the Jewish condition, which consists above all in an abnormal occupational
pattern and in the fault of an intellectual and moral posture not rooted
in one's own tradition. Zionism recognized decades ago that as a result
of the assimilationist trend, symptoms of deterioration were bound to appear,
which it seeks to overcome by carrying out its challenge to transform Jewish
life completely.
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- "It is our opinion that an answer to the Jewish
question truly satisfying to the national state can be brought about only
with the collaboration of the Jewish movement that aims at a social, cultural
and moral renewal of Jewry--indeed, that such a national renewal must first
create the decisive social and spiritual premises for all solutions.
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- "Zionism believes that a rebirth of national life,
such as is occurring in German life through adhesion to Christian and national
values, must also take place in the Jewish national group. For the Jew,
too, origin, religion, community of fate and group consciousness must be
of decisive significance in the shaping of his life. This means that the
egotistic individualism which arose in the liberal era must be overcome
by public spiritedness and by willingness to accept responsibility."
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- By 1936, the Post ran a news flash, "German Zionists
Seek Recognition":
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- "A bold demand that the German Zionist Federation
be given recognition by the Government as the only instrument for the exclusive
control of German Jewish life was made by the Executive of that body in
a proclamation today. All German Jewish organizations, it was declared,
should be dominated by the Zionist spirit."
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- Zionist factions competed for the honor of allying to
Hitler. By 1940-41, the "Stern Gang," among them Yitzhak Shamir,
later Prime Minister of Israel, presented the Nazis with the "Fundamental
Features of the Proposal of the National Military Organization in Palestine
(Irgun Zvai Leumi) Concerning the Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe
and the Participation of the NMO in the War on the Side of Germany."
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- Avraham Stern and his followers announced that
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- "The NMO, which is well-acquainted with the goodwill
of the German Reich government and its authorities towards Zionist activity
inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, is of the opinion
that:
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- 1. Common interests could exist between the establishment
of a new order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the
true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by
the NMO. 2. Cooperation between the new Germany and a renewed folkish-national
Hebraium would be possible and, 3. The establishment of the historic Jewish
state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the
German Reich, would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened
future German position of power in the Near East.
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- Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in Palestine,
under the condition the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli
freedom movement are recognized on the side of the German Reich, offers
to actively take part in the war on Germany's side."
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- They hanged people all over Europe after WW II for notes
to the Nazis like these. But these treasons against the Jews were virtually
unknown in the run up to the creation of the Zionist state in May 1948.
Ninety percent of America's Jews suddenly became emotional pro-Zionists.
With Democrats, Republicans and even the Communist-organized Progressive
Party competing for Jewish votes in the November Presidential election,
Harry Truman's monetary aid bought arms from pro-Soviet Czechoslovakia,
and an Israel was born, run by the German Zionists' cothinkers in Jerusalem.
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- Jews and other Americans still know little of Zionism's
sordid past. But today only programed fanatics can come away pro-Zionist
after reading plain facts. Indeed, according to a 1995 American Jewish
Committee survey, less than 22% of all Jews declare themselves Zionist.
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- Opposition to Zionism also grows among liberal educated
gentiles, every time their declared enemy, Pat Robertson, howls in favor
of Orthodox Israel.
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- For complex historical reasons, the Vietnam anti-war
movement and anti-apartheid campaign emphasized demonstrations over sustained
education. Even in victory, little was left behind in the way of attention
to foreign affairs among the broad masses. Even after 9/11, the ultimate
attention getter, US public knowledge about the Arab world, Islam, the
oil industry, Zionism, and Washington's involvement with them, is minimal.
But the present anti-Iraq war movement has no choice but to systematically
educate itself and the public. The issues are too complex for anything
less. Ignorance or illusions about any of the players, here or there, means
certain death for X number of Arabs, Israelis, Kurds, Muslims and Americans.
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- 51 Documents can play a major role in making serious
study a priority concern for an anti-war movement that will stay solidly
in place until the present bipartisan power structure is destroyed and
replaced.
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- A check to me, for $22.00 + $1.84 media mail postage,
gets a signed book back, anywhere in the US. Folks in other countries,
and people wanting rates for bulk orders, should also write
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- Lenni Brenner Park West Finance Station POB 20598 NY,
NY 10025
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- Lenni Brenner can be reached at: BrennerL21@aol.com
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