Author, political scientist, and Jewish Israel critic Norman Finkelstein claimed that there were not huge levels of antisemitism in Europe because “Hitler solved the Jewish question,” during an interview on Briahna Joy Gray’s podcast Bad Faith on Thursday.
Finkelstein made this point during an explanation as to the original rationale of Zionism being an attempt to avoid persecution and assimilation.
“The reason we don’t have huge levels of antisemitism in Europe now, it’s because Hitler solved the Jewish question,” Finkelstein claimed. “Six million Jews were exterminated. That solved the Jewish question.”
Finkelstein added that he suspected that if those Jews had remained in Europe, he believed levels of antisemitism would “still be quite high.”
UK Green Party votes on ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion
The discussion on the rationale behind Zionism stemmed from a question as to its definition following a motion adopted by the United Kingdom’s Green Party claiming that “Zionism is Racism.”
The motion recognizes Zionism as Israel’s foundational ideology that has created and maintains an apartheid regime between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
It further affirms the right to self-determination and liberation of the Palestinian people and supports the establishment of a “single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital.” This would effectively eradicate the State of Israel.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that, with the vote, the Green Party in Britain has “ceased to act as a political party and became a body that gives legitimacy to terrorism.”
Mathilda Heller contributed to this report.
