Sunday, February 11, 2007

The Christian Century also gets it wrong

In an article in the recent edition of The Chrisitan Century, the Rev. James Wall gets it completely wrong.

The article, which deals with Jimmy Carter's book, says that "In her book History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving, Lipstadt describes her successful suit against Irving as a "Holocaust denier." Someone might point out to the good Reverend that David Irving sued me.

Given that he cannot get this basic fact right, it is not surprising that he gets my argument in my Washington Post oped on Carter wrong too. He claims that I insist that the “Jewish narrative must always dominate the current dialogue.” That is a simple invention on his part. What I observed was that Carter simply ignores the Holocaust in his book. If he wants to promote dialogue than he cannot ignore – as he does -- this aspect of the Jewish experience which has so greatly shaped Israel’s worldview.

One cannot ignore it anymore than one can ignore the suffering experienced by Palestinians as a result of the current situation.

James Wall should learn to read before he launches into criticism. It would be a good beginning.

1 comment:

Clampett said...

Thanks for posting this, Dr. Lipstadt.

I see Wall's strawman argument regarding what you wrote on Carter....Wall should be ashamed of himself.


But I see something else:

James Wall is using an inconsistant approach that showcases his pro-palestinian, anti-Isreali bias..... He places holocaust denial in scare quotes while not only failing to place his charges of aperthied denial in such scare quotes, but also proceeding to *actually* quote the turgid prattle of Shulamit Aloni "The state of Israel practices its own, quite violent, form of apartheid with the native Palestinian population".

Now here's where i'm confused/I hesitate to b/c I think I could be incorrect:

Does Wall expect such an arrangement to make the misimpression that holocaust denial is an orwellian phrase while aperthied denial is not?

If so, how is such a move not paramount to apologa for holocaust denial?