Why Does St. Louis Holocaust Museum Ignore Palestinians?

Brainwashing by Israel is pervasive in the U.S. through its control of the mass media, the Congress and Senate.

From: 'Daniel’s Story' at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. With the recent killing of nearly 400 children in Gaza, it strikes a nerve to know how lessons of the Jewish children's suffering carried no apparent weight.

(EUGENE, Ore.) - Hypocrisy never is more obvious than when given a stage to look like something it isn't. That happened in mid-May in St. Louis, and it raised a question: Why is the world's longest ongoing persecution-- that of the Palestinian people-- ignored when the St. Louis Holocaust Museum chooses to recognize victims other than Jews?

In its 15th anniversary year, the museum and its Learning Center have announced plans for an expanded permanent exhibit. It is to "shine its light," according to the Associated Press, on victims of other holocausts: Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, Myanmar and the Congo. It is a surprising new approach for a group of people who for the past six decades have kept proprietary possession of the holocaust concept, reserving for only themselves horrors they suffered as victims of the Nazis in World War II.

Now they seem ready to share-- but only partway. As descendants of Nazi victims, they today have taken the role of victimizers of the Palestinian people they have brutalized since Israel illegally was established in Palestine in 1948. But they feel it necessary to cover up that fallacy, and tried to do so May 15 at the Frontenac Hilton in St. Louis, where they unveiled the concept of bringing light to the trials of other suffering peoples. On that light extended a massive shadow that grew from the hypocrisy they perpetuate by staying silent about Palestine's travail under the Israeli boot.

Behind this falsely altruistic project is a brainwashing effort by Jewish-Americans to help AIPAC and other Israeli lobbies hide the effects of what has become known as "the holocaust industry." A book by that title mortified and angered Jews who have worked to expand the industry. It was written by a Jewish-American, son of parents who survived the Nazi concentration camps. Norman Finkelstein wrote with indignation about the way he felt the horrible experience of World War II has been exploited and commercialized by those who seek to profit from the tragedy.

These are the images of the children, and people of Gaza. They were murdered en mass by Israel and the Jewish state specifically targeted dozens of schools and hospitals. It is a fact, it is not anti-Semitic to talk about Israel's military nature.

Webster University of St. Louis-- perhaps unwittingly-- is complicit with the museum in this exploitation. It co-sponsors the expansion that becomes an empty gesture when it fails to acknowledge suffering of Palestinians. It is to have a world map identifying hotspots of conflict and human rights violations, with suggestions of how to combat these crimes.

Not to be included is any suggestion that Israel cease its terrorism toward Palestinians, a refugee people who apparently do not exist in the minds of Israelis and the many non-Jews in the United States whom they have misled. Curator Daniel Reich commented that "the bystander mentality of the rest of the world, and indifference, persist to this day." Israel, he failed to mention, is not a "bystander," but a participant.

Lack of awareness among Americans is no accident. It is the result of massive Israeli propaganda through the mass media, much of which is either operated by Israel sympathizers, or intimidated by the threat of major advertisers withdrawing their accounts if information is used critical of Israel. In addition, many members of Congress and the Senate, according to former Republican Congressman Paul Findley (Ill.), have been threatened with losing financial help from Jewish-Americans who helped place them in office, if they suggest anything negative about Israel.

Illinois appears to be one of the rare locations where Israeli control of U.S. foreign policy sometimes is openly reviewed. Findley soon will have published his second book on the situation. The first was "They Dare to Speak Out." Finkelstein was a professor at Chicago's DePaul University before rabid criticism from Jewish Chicagoans deprived him of tenure. Leading that attack was an outsider, Harvard Prof. Alan Dershowitz, a self-proclaimed Israeli operative who gave DePaul administrators false charges against Finkelstein.

Another Illinoisan, Prof. John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, admitted being targeted by Israeli sympathizers after he co-authored the book, "The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy." I went to his talk and news conference at the Portland Hilton where I was the only reporter attending. "This is nothing new," he told me, "Reporters elsewhere also have been warned against writing about me." He first realized how potent the Zionist influence was when their complaints resulted in the Chicago Council of Global Affairs canceling his public talk.

Brainwashing by Israel is pervasive in the U.S. through its control of the mass media, the Congress and Senate. How can one offset that? By using one's brain, and being alert to who is "washing" it.

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George Beres has been a resident of Eugene, Oregon, since moving here from Chicago (Evanston) in 1976. He was manager of the Speakers Bureau before retirement. George is a Journalism graduate of Northwestern University. Carrying on the journalistic tradition, his two sons are television newsmen in Nashville, Tennessee, and Madison, Wisconsin.