U.C. Berkeley Jews opening up the Daily Californian were not surprised to read a pro-Palestinian opinion piece in last Friday’s edition. They were, however, shocked at the op-ed’s author — Bradley R. Smith, perhaps the nation’s foremost Holocaust denier.
Titled “Memory: Should We Forget It,” the meandering, hazy op-ed accuses Jews of “re-conquering” and “cleans[ing] the land of most of its indigenous population.”
Jews “remember when they ruled all of Palestine,” the op-ed begins. “They don’t really remember, but that’s what it says in their tribal anthology, and many believe it. They remember what happened to the Jews of Europe during Hitler’s regime, among many other things. Like the rest of us, Jews remember what is most profitable for them to remember. As for the rest, they forget it.”
He concludes: “It is in the subjective life of memory where anger, violence and the justification of greed are nourished. Memory is where jealousy, bitterness and the lust for revenge hang out…Let’s forget it.”
Jewish campus leaders said Smith’s notion of discarding the past would be all too convenient for a Holocaust denier, expressing anger with the student paper for running the piece.