We have met the propagandist

JihadWatch takes on "Holocaust"-revisionism:

The only controversy over the number of people who were killed in World War II is over how many people were killed in the Holocaust. There is a place for careful historical inquiry into this. Historical investigation is always to be encouraged. Malkin was not, however, speaking to a historians’ conference. The minimization of the number of people who were killed in the Holocaust has become a political tool. The claim that Jews have exaggerated the number of people who were murdered in the Holocaust in order to claim victim status, and victim privileges, has long circulated among anti-Semites, whether they’re on the Left or on the Right, or are Islamic supremacists. It is a basis of efforts to discredit and destroy the U.S.-Israel alliance, and ultimately the State of Israel itself. Holocaust denial, as well as Holocaust minimization, thus aids the global jihad, which both the U.S. and Israel face.

That’s why I thought it important, and consistent with our mission at Jihad Watch, to make a statement by running Jones’ article: because politicized and ahistorical Holocaust minimization abets the jihad ...

To get this out of the way: Nick Fuentes as of December(!) "was" a clown and a coward. There is no reason for anyone to self-involve with this sideshow until the barker grows up. Not Michelle Malkin, not Robert Spencer; not Vox Day.

I also allow that The Jihad - the Islamic Wille-zur-Macht - is integral to Islam as it stands today. The Qurân itself is largely Allâh's internal debate over whither and how to direct His Muslim soldiers. (I mainly "question the timing", so to speak.)

Unfortunately JihadWatch got into the mud with the pig and now Spencer has some schmutz on him.

Whether from anger or frustration, Spencer let out a small confession, about the First Law of his work. Namely: Thou Shalt Not Support Nor, Through Inaction, Permit The Jihad. I disagree with this.

First and foremost, "but it helps the Jihad!" is weak as an argument against a proposition. If your argument falls down elsewhere, all you've done is make the audience wonder if the Jihad has a point.

The argument is the same argument which Herschel Shanks made two decades ago, against Biblical minimalism. Shanks argued that questioning the Torah narrative was Problematic on account that Palestinian activists might make hay with the scholars' doubt. I was already coding HTML webpages (remember them?); Shanks' argument gave me a raison. I argued that when you mix an argument over history with a discussion of motive, the propagandist in the room is you.

Shanks' article has knock-on effects, by the way: it shows that Israel-based archaeology is mired in politics on Israel's own part... and on the part of the Israelid peoples (Samaritans too). For that, we can get into Spencer's statement: The oft-repeated claim that “the Jews” are behind the push for these things ignores the fact that many Jews dissent from the Leftist agenda, and that the Jews who do support such things are doing so because they’re Leftists, not because of their Jewish identity or Jewish principles. Fuentes' circle will respond to that with citations from Kevin MacDonald which argue that Jews go to the Left precisely because they view the Left as Good For The Jews. If they're smarter they might cite Yuri Slezkine's The Jewish Century... or defer to Rabbi Waskow and innumerable other in-house "influencers" for the Jewish Left. These Jews might not have a Bible but they do retain a Tribe.

These are unhappy facts but they remain facts. If responsible historians won't say a thing, then irresponsible hucksters like Fuentes will. And the latter will say it in the way they say it, for whatever purposes they say it.

And again, when you mix an argument over history with a discussion of motive, the propagandist in the room is you.