>He pointed out, for example, that someone who had never heard of the Holocaust, then was told of it, and simply didn't believe that people could do such things, could be a denier.

Yeah, except he's wrong also. The vast majority of Holocaust deniers know exactly what happened and are willfully denying it because of their underlying ideology.

>Other people doubt aspects of the official Holocaust narrative because they are prone to conspiracy theories. 

To a person, those people who give credence to Holocaust denial as part of a larger conspiracy theory are anti-Semites at heart.

>There are dozens of reasons for doubting the current official story, which itself has been subject to endless revisions. There is no logical connection between hating members of an ethnic group and doubting the scale of a particular example of violence against them.

That's only true if the doubt is genuine. Conversely, denial has been identified as the final step in genocide as an historical process (see Gregory Stanton's work in this field).

{snip}

>You are wrong to say "Holocaust denial exists as a continuation of anti-Semitism before 1945. It's no more complicated than that".

Well, you're entitled to your opinion.

You ask me to tell you the 'other side of the story' of the oppression of Jews throughout history.

>I'm not telling you 'the other side of the story'. I'm arguing for it to be possible to tell it. When there were riots against the Chinese in Malaysia, these riots were partly driven by resentment of the poor against the middlemen. This does not mean they were justified. One can write about this without being called a Sinophobe. Similarly, Indians in Fiji and East Africa, or Korean shopkeepers in South Central LA. There are numerous examples of an 'ethno-economic entity' (my neologism) being on the receiving end of hate from the oppressed - an unpleasant mixture of class and race conflict. Try writing about Jews in Russia, or Spain, or anywhere, in similar terms, and your head of department will be hauled up before the ADL. It's much worse in Canada than in the USA. In Western Europe it varies, but it's mostly pretty bad.

Literally countless scholars have written on the topic of Jewish middlemen in medieval and modern economies. Go to Google Scholar and have a look.

>Your comment about "drinking babies' blood" is so predictable.

Gee, sorry.

>It's like Baron Sasha Cohen (Borat) but not as funny.

I wasn't trying to be funny.

>The idea is, you take criticism of Jewish power. Multiply by ten. Add some hate. Exaggerate a bit. Then you get something like 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'. No-one actually thinks that people in Arizona believe this Tsarist forgery, but Cohen gives the impression that this is an exaggerated picture of what they do believe. Thus he smears them as haters. You're doing the same thing (maybe not consciously).

No, I'll tell you what I'm doing: I'm making a very logical and truth-based allegation. Don't believe me? Call up Billy Marr and ask him if the blood libel is true.

Once you do that, then we can discuss that particular issue further.

>'Anti-semitism' simply isn't a valid term of classification. When UC Berkeley researched Israeli organ theft, they were told it was anti-semitic, and reminiscent of ancient calumnies. That observation is simply irrelevant. What matters is whether it is true. Do you think the Department of Anthropology at Berkeley is a hotbed of neo-Nazis?

No, I don't, and I agree that inquiry on that topic and many others is squelched by fear-mongering. You should read my essay here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20090116023903/http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2525.shtml

My point is this: It is both necessary to stop people from being silenced by false allegations of anti-Semitism and to demonstrate solidarity with Palestine. However, it is not necessary to tolerate Jew-hating knuckle dragging to express that solidarity. Where it is obvious, it needs to be identified because of the historical body count such things have racked up.

Holocaust denial is knuckle-dragging Jew hatred. Plain and simple. Trust me when I tell you that I have way more experience on the topic than most people.