Meet Daniel A. McGowan, a professor of economics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He is an outspoken critic of Israel and the founder of Deir Yassin Remembered. A press release from Hobart and William Smith Colleges informs us that Professor McGowan was recently in Germany, where he gave a lecture, sponsored by the Palestine Committee, praising Jimmy Carter’s new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
What the press release doesn’t mention is that, while in Germany, Professor McGowan paid a visit to Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, who is currently serving time in prison. Back in 1977, Zundel founded a small press publishing house called Samisdat Publishers, which issued such pamphlets as The Hitler We Loved and Why and Did Six Million Really Die?– both prominent documents of the Holocaust denial movement. While living in Canada, Zundel campaigned to ban the movie Schindler’s List on the grounds that it “generates hatred against Germans”, and it should be possible to ban it under “hate laws” in Canada, Germany, and other countries. Zundel also contributed articles to the now-defunct West Virginia-based neo-Nazi magazine, Liberty Bell and was listed on the editorial staff of White Power Report.
So, what does Professor McGowan think of Zundel? He just penned an article about his meeting in Dissident Voice, the self-described “Radical Newsletter in the Struggle for Peace and Social Justice”:
Contrary to the warning given to people who currently tour Auschwitz, “Holocaust denial” is not infectious. In many ways the term is used as an epithet to discredit and demean those who question facts surrounding the Holocaust. Nor is Holocaust denial anti-Semitic; there are many Jews who question facts about the Holocaust and many more who object to its being used to elevate Jewish suffering above that of others. (Of the 63 participants at the recent conference in Tehran, six were Orthodox rabbis.)Treating those who question the Holocaust as heretics reveals the degree to which the Holocaust itself has become a religion, a faith to be accepted and worshiped with spectacular memorials, best-selling books, and mandatory curricula for school children. Ernst believes that Jewish groups have wanted him jailed for promoting views that the Jewish-Zionist lobby considers harmful to its interests.
Ernst Zuendel is neither a monster nor a heretic. He is a man with strong convictions and the courage to express them. He views himself not as a Holocaust “denier,” but rather as a Holocaust revisionist….Those who would incarcerate revisionists like Ernst Zuendel and hold them, without bail, for years on end to drain them of their resources and to silence them as “Prisoners of Zion” could well be labeled as “justice deniers.”
Can I throw up now? I shouldn’t be surprised that far-left hatred of Israel continues to yield sympathy pains for neo-Nazi, Holocaust revisionists. What truly disgusts me is how open it has become.
Ugh. This is so disheartening. I get so depressed when academics, who should know better, dive into the swamp of anti-semitic insanity. He highlights the participation of the members of Neturei Karta – who since their visit to Tehran have been anathematized by even groups such as the Satmar Hasidim, who are virulently anti-Zionist – and ignores the mountains of research, documents, and personal testimony about the Holocaust. Thanks for letting the rest of us know about him. I wonder what will happen to him at Hobart once his colleagues find out he’s been consorting with Ernst Zundel.
At least you’re doing something about it, writing about it. I’ll link over here and try to do the same. Thanks, Linda
Apparently he’s not a left-winger – a friend of mine at Hobart tells me he’s a free-market economist, and not leftist at all.
A free-market economist? The editors at Dissident Voice would be aghast if they knew…
He unabashedly wants to get rid of Israel as a “racist state,” and on his “board” has some luminaries as Norman Finkelstein, Israel Shamir, and Mordechai Vanunu, convicted of treason against Israel. When reminded about the Arab atrocities that took place in 1948, he doesn’t want to hear about them, or disingenuously says that “Deir Yassin came first.”
[...] Fourthly, there is nothing on the main Australians for Palestine site, but there is a certain shared taste for some web material, Alan Hart’s, the well known racist, Steve Lendman, Jonathan Cook and Deir Yassin Remembered (which readers will remember is run by a Holocaust denier, Daniel A. McGowan). [...]