The Simon Wiesenthal Center: A House Built On Lies

By Jackie Muhammad -Guest Columnist- | Last updated: Oct 12, 2010 - 6:48:26 PM

(FinalCall.com) - The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), one of the most powerful Jewish organizations in the world, has portrayed itself as an international "human rights" organization but is in reality an apologist for the Zionist State of Israel. The Wiesenthal Center has now targeted the Honorable Minister Louis

Farrakhan because of his publication of the, The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews, Vol. 2 (TSRV2) and the two landmark speeches entitled "Who are the Real Children of Israel?"

The Minister's powerful initiative marked a turning point in American race relations that has upset the enemies of the rise of Black America. Minister Farrakhan has now challenged the very identity of those who have called themselves the "Chosen People of God." His exegesis of the Old Testament, backed by documentation of how the involvement of Jews in the slave system destroyed Blacks while building astronomical Jewish wealth, has caused anger and resentment among the Jewish elite.

As the national bestseller goes into its second printing, the SWC, under the leadership of Rabbis Marvin Hier, and Abraham Cooper, and Dr. Harold Brackman, have launched a classic disinformation campaign to discredit the book and the Minister.

They penned a tepid 16-page "rebuttal" to the 512-page TSRV2, that avoids all the NOI book's important themes, inserts, extraneous issues that are not even in the book, and arrogantly refuses to acknowledge the central role that the Jews played in the enslavement, dehumanization, emasculation, and psychological destruction of Black people for over 400 years. In graphic detail, and well-documented fashion TSRV2 describes the How and Why Black people endured the worst form of slavery ever recorded, and further demonstrates exactly how the Jews profited from it.

What is generally unknown is that the SWC has a well-documented history of lies, distortions, and exaggerations, and they are moving against the Minister to deflect attention away from the ugly controversies that have surrounded the Center. Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, as well as members of the Jewish community itself have condemned the Center and the poor quality of its research. This universal condemnation has led to its being ridiculed internationally as an organization built on lies.

Among their many documented ruses, they doctored a WWII photograph of concentration camp prisoners, painting in smoke billowing from chimneys intending to make viewers believe that it was from Jews who were being incinerated. After it was disclosed that the Center had inserted the smoke, the Center removed it from the photograph, and eventually removed the picture from its web site.

Incredibly, the Center tried to explain away the embarrassment claiming that the smoke was the result of a "smudge"—an explanation no one believed (The original photo and the SWC airbrushed version can be seen at http://goo.gl/Vuah.)

Mark Weber, director of the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) wrote that the SWC's "record of exaggerating anti-Jewish sentiment to raise money is no secret. Even the Anti-Defamation League … has acknowledged that the Center makes ‘inaccurate' and ‘exaggerated claims' about anti-Semitism to raise money. It found, for example, that a Center fundraising letter is ‘replete with factual misstatements and exaggerations' about anti-Jewish sentiment in the United States and Europe."

The fabrication or suppression of information by the Center appears to be their mainstay. Indeed, Simon Wiesenthal himself has come under fire for his sordid history of flagrant lying, and bold faced exaggerations. The famed Austrian Nazi hunter, now confirmed by newly found documents to have been an Israeli Mossad agent, was said to "never let the facts get in the way of a good story."

"Hunting Evil" author Guy Walters depicts Wiesenthal as "a liar-and a bad one at that." He relates how Wiesenthal concocted outrageous stories about his war years and made fictitious claims concerning his academic achievements. Walters found "so many inconsistencies between [Wiesenthal's] three main memoirs … and contemporaneous documents, that it is impossible to establish a reliable narrative from them. Wiesenthal‘s scant regard for truth makes it possible to doubt everything he ever wrote or said."

The same disregard for truth plagues the center named after Mr. Wiesenthal. In his article "Deconstructing Simon Wiesenthal," Lawrence Swain draws an analogy between the truth-challenged "Nazi hunter" and the falsehoods that spew forth from the SWC. He points to the Center's 1998 report, "The Unwanted Guests: Swiss Forced labor Camps 1940-1944," in which they falsely accuse Switzerland of wartime crimes demanding compensation for the Jewish "victims." But an Austrian Jewish researcher found survivors that not only contradicted the report but were thankful for the refuge they found in Switzerland. The inaccuracies of the report infuriated Simon Wiesenthal so much that he disavowed the Center and its report.

Another individual who is Jewish, in fact, he is the son of Holocaust survivors, Prof. Norman Finkelstein, author of the critically acclaimed book The Holocaust Industry, refers to the SWC's leaders as a "gang of heartless and immoral crooks, whose hallmark is that they will do anything for a dollar." And he is not alone. Rabbi Michael Lerner, who co-wrote a book with Black Prof. Cornel West, wrote that the SWC "has a professional stake in exaggerating the dangers, and sometimes allows existing racial or political prejudices in the Jewish world to influence how it will portray the potential dangers."

When California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a gubernatorial candidate, the SWC discovered that his father was a member of the infamous Nazi "brown shirts." In an article written by Ernesto Cienfuegos of La Voz de Aztlan he alleges that the Center suppressed this information in exchange for a $750,000 contribution from the candidate. The Center's "Museum of Tolerance" is now a line item in the California budget for $5 million a year. And even while teachers, policemen and firemen were being laid off in record numbers, the city of Los Angeles found $18 million for Rabbi Abraham Cooper. Many Angelinos have voiced their outrage about the huge sums of money that have been earmarked for the Wiesenthal Center, particularly in light of California‘s desperate budget plight.

But despite the state's budget woes, finances are not a concern at the SWC. Weber reports that according to records from 2002-2003, Rabbi Hier paid himself more than $482,000 in salary and benefits. In addition, the rabbi pays his wife $312,000, and his sons Alan and Aron receive $151,000, and $95,000 respectively. Rabbi Abraham Cooper received $397,000 in salary and benefits.

The Wiesenthal Center's record of recklessly abandoning truth for sleazy propaganda extends to international affairs as well. Rabbi Hier penned an article in the November 26, 1990 Newsweek titled "Crisis in the Gulf" in which he pressed the United States to invade Iraq claiming that they had nuclear weapons. Hier makes no mention of Israel's well-known nuclear arsenal, nor of how that rogue state shared its nuclear knowledge and hardware with the racist apartheid state of South Africa. Hier's Newsweek lies clearly contributed to a disgraceful war that cost the United States over $750 billion dollars, 4,427 American soldier lives, 35,000 wounded, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths and millions of displaced citizens, all apparently to benefit the state of Israel.

Given this dubious history, is there any reason to question the SWC's veracity when it comes to the Nation of Islam and The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan? The Center's consistent record of lies and distortions to justify its political and fundraising agenda is well documented. To question the scholarship of The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews, Vol. 2 and the truthfulness of the Champion of Black America is foolhardy. TSRV2 is one of the most well-researched books on the market. It leaves it to the reader to do his/her own research to draw their own conclusions based on the truth of the facts presented.

The Honorable Minister Farrakhan has stated that the "Real Children of Israel" are the Black man and woman, and not those who have falsely claimed to be the "Chosen" of the Bible. He is so committed to this truth that he has offered his life if anyone can prove what he is teaching is false. Are the leaders of the SWC prepared to do the same? Based on their track record, do not count on it.

(Jackie Muhammad is a former presidential appointee, member of the Oxford Round Table, educator, youth-trainer and businessman. He can be reached at jacrb519@aol [dot] com. For more information on the subject, visit http://www.BlacksandJews.com and join the conversation on Twitter @BlacksandJews.)

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