On the exploitation of suffering. posted by Richard Seymour

Some commentators (Matt Drudge, Norman Geras and others) took exception to the way in which a leftist commentator linked the disaster emanating from the Indian Ocean to the catastrophic imperialist intervention in Iraq and the occupation of Palestine. This article in particular was criticised for allegedly exploiting a natural disaster for political ends.

I don't need to tell you how to think about such judgements or about the thoughts which prompted them, but I will place a generous portion of my earnings on the idea that few of those scandalised by the piece linked to above will be as indignant about this or this . The first, a spurious attempt by Michael Howard MP to argue the merits of the free market on the basis of its alleged ameliorative effects on those suffering its most obviously baleful effects, at least attempts to elevate itself above party advocacy (although not very far). The second, a straightforward government press release which Hilary Benn MP may or may not have written, passes itself off as a column. It is nothing of the kind. Beyond the pedantries and pieties so typical of this government's way of selling itself to the British public, it contains nothing but white noise. It is simply a standard affirmation that the government is in touch with "the British public" and that the golden gloriole which had been scuffled and knocked askance during the Iraq misadventure is firmly back in position atop the Prime Minister's ample skull.

Forgive me for straying into the obvious, but it is in the nature of such things that media outlets and political leaders will seek to capitalise on them, and some may even see aspects in these events which appear to support their perspective on the world. Jo Moore wasn't merely taking the piss when she suggested that 9/11 was a good day to bury bad news (although her subsequent 'apology' obviously was a piss-take).

Still, one hopes that even a 'New Labour' spin-doctor would lack the chutzpah to exploit the Nazi holocaust . When Norman Finkelstein first accused the World Jewish Congress, among others, of exploiting the expropriation of the Jews by the Nazis for its own political and financial gain, he was howled down by its executive director Elan Steinberg as a phoney whose views were "warped". On a Channel 4 documentary, The Battle for the Holocaust, Steinberg asserted that Finkelstein's claim that the World Jewish Congress had amassed $7bn for its coffers was false. Further, Steinberg had been so outraged that he phoned the author and demand to know the source for his claim. (The source, of course, was footnoted on page 108 of the book, so the effort was unnecessary). "And he told me," Steinberg recounts, his voice dripping with contempt, "that the source for his claim was a German newspaper that said that. And this man thinks he is a scholar?"

True enough, the source was a report on the Stockholm Holocaust Conference in 2000 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, of which I cite the relevant passage:

On Tuesday, the executive committee of the WJC met in Stockholm to discuss the disposition of the accumulated funds for persecuted or murdered Jews. In recent years, the WJC has primarily confronted Swiss banks with claims on relevant accounts that had long been dormant. Part of the deposits also consisted of fortunes resulting from gold looted by the Nazis from occupied territories and Jews, and which had been used for payments abroad, again primarily in Switzerland. The president of the WJC, Bronfman, said that the sum of the funds to repay and compensate survivors and dependents so far amounted to about $7 billion. A large part was supposed to go to living survivors or their heirs, and the rest for educational purposes.

The FAZ could be lying, and - being a German newspaper - could have sinister ulterior motives for doing so. On the other hand, Steinberg offered no good reason for assuming the story to be false, and did not rebut Bronfman's alleged claim with hard evidence although he had the opportunity to do so. Still, at least we know from the Independent's report that:

The World Jewish Congress, which has wrung billions of dollars in Holocaust restitution from European governments and companies, is being investigated by the authorities in New York following a series of unusual money transfers of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Allegedly, Rabbi Israel Singer - who is president of the WJC - has been ordering unusual payments to a numbered bank account in Geneva. His long-time colleague and chief patron of the WJC, Edgar Bronfman, has ordered an internal enquiry. There is still a threat from Elliot Spitzer, the New York attorney-general, that the organisation could come under a full-scale formal enquiry if the sums don't add up.

It is pretty rank that any group might extract financial gain from the expropriation and extermination of 6 million Jews. Surely it is odious enough, already, the obscene amounts of money that lawyers and political associates negotiating and pressing these claims have made. And just as insulting, too, must be the ceaseless invocation of the Nazi holocaust to justify the construction and conduct of Israel, "the only democracy in the Middle East".