Dear Mr.
Dennis Prager,
Holocaust
is a major crime committed by a monster.
Comparing something to Holocaust is, therefore, not a small thing. It has especially grave meaning for those who
share familial ties with those who were slaughtered, that is Jews.
By saying
that during WWII there was another Holocaust in Asia that was committed by
Japan, you are doing very thing that you denounce all the time. That is, cheapening the magnitude of
Holocaust. And, you are, as a Jew
yourself, cheapening Nazi crime against humanity.
Nazi act
of war was not a crime. Nazi act of
"murdering Jews" was the crime.
And, that was a horrendous crime.
Anybody who denies existing of holocaust is a part of the crime. Anybody who cheapens its criminality by
comparing it with miniscule wrong-doing or non-existing event is also a part of
the crime. Person who compares Israel to
Nazi is a part of the crime. Person who
says barbecue is a kind of holocaust is a part of the crime. I denounce all these crimes.
Therefore,
I hereby would like to challenge you that you must prove what you said yourself
on the air - "Japan did its holocaust in Asia". As a Jew yourself, it is your morale
responsibility to prove your allegation that we Japanese did something
comparable to what Nazi did to your brothers and sisters, not only interviewing
some obscure writers and citing some dubious journalists. You, yourself, as an heir of Judaism must
make complete case against us with historically proven rock solid
evidences. Or, you take it back.
Otherwise,
you are cheapening the deaths of 6 million of your families. You are disgracing your own heritage. As a friend of Israel who visited this
honorable country three times and also as a Japanese, I cannot turn blind eyes
to your comment.
You
renounce your comment on air to the millions of your listeners within a week
upon receipt of this message, or I will begin to send out message about your
act of holocaust denial (denial of its significance) to various Jewish
organization and Christian Zionist organization all over the world.
For your
reference, I would like to urge you to read a column written by a conservative
Japanese commentator as attached. After
issuance, he received a lot of comments.
A lot of bad-mouths, but non of the concrete, substantial, direct
rebuttal.
While
your act of crossing the line saddens me gravely, I always admire your deep
wisdom and clarity. Thank you for your
service and God bless.
Conservative Blog
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The Use
and Abuse of the Past By Hideaki Kase
The Use
and Abuse of the Past By Hideaki Kase Newsweek International History is a hot
topic in Japan these days, with the country's wartime behavior returning to
haunt its citizens. Many Japanese are dismayed by the possibility that the U.S.
House of Representatives will soon demand a formal apology from Tokyo for the
imperial military's alleged use of "comfort women," or sex slaves,
during World War II. This talk has taken the Japanese government by surprise,
especially given its unprecedented support for Washington in Iraq and the war
onterrorism.
The world
can't comprehend why Japan is reluctant to say sorry once more. But most
Japanese can't understand why issues like the comfort women or the Nanking
Massacre have resurfaced at all. Since World War II, the country has abided by
the pacifism forced on it by the U.S. occupation. To promote such peacefulness,
the Japanese media and intellectuals created an image of Japan as a warlike
place that had to be prevented from rearming at all costs. To heighten the
danger, the media also exaggerated or even invented wretched acts supposedly
committed by Japan's imperial forces.
In the
first years after the nation's surrender in 1945, many of its citizens found
this imposed meekness hard to take. In 1952, for example, the Diet unanimously
called for the men convicted by the Allied war-criminal trials to be treated
the same as those honorably killed or injured on the battlefield. Half of
Japan's then population signed petitions calling for the immediate release of
incarcerated war criminals, and the major political parties of the day refused
to accept any war guilt.
By the
1970s, however, this resistance began to diminish as memories of the war faded
and the economy began to boom. Intoxicated by its unprecedented affluence,
Japan was willing to ask forgiveness of its neighbors if this proved good for
business. In 1993, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono apologized for Japan's
having coerced women into prostitution during the war. Three years later, on
the 50th anniversary of Japan's surrender, the Socialist Prime Minister
Tomiichi Murayama acknowledged that Japanese aggression during the war had
caused "tremendous damage and suffering" to many Asian countries.
In recent
years, however, long-dormant nationalism has begun to rise again due to several
factors. First, during the economic slump that extended into the early part of
this decade, the benefits of apologizing became less clear. Second, the
conservative prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is 53, and the bulk of his cabinet and
aides are in their 40s and 50s. Most don't understand why they should do
penance for events that occurred before they were born.
Japanese
nationalism has also been revived by China's alarming military buildup and
North Korea's nascent nuclear threat. And it has spiked in response to the way
Japan's neighbors seem to be exploiting bad history for present gain. Seoul did
not even raise the comfort-women issue, for example, when it normalized
relations with Tokyo in 1965; it was Japanese leftists who finally broached the
topic in the 1980s. The fact is that the
brothels were commercial establishments. U.S. Army records explicitly declare
that the comfort women were prostitutes, and found no instances of
"kidnapping" by the Japanese authorities. It's also worth noting that
some 40 percent of these women were of Japanese origin.
Many
Japanese politicians have also come to believe that the Nanking Massacre was a
fabrication of the Chinese, who are using it to pressure Japan into granting
concessions in other areas. More than 60 Diet members conducted several study
sessions in February and March. Much evidence disproving the massacre was
presented; for example, although the Chinese Nationalist Ministry of
Information conducted more than 300 press conferences over 11 months after the
fall of Nanking, it never breathed a word about any massacre. Nor did Chiang
Kai-shek or Mao Zedong refer to it in statements on the first anniversary of
the war.
Diet
members are now forming a new caucus to study the facts. Whatever they find,
further apologies are unlikely. The country's attitude has changed dramatically
since the 1970s. In recent decades, for example, many Japanese history
textbooks blamed Japanese forces for massacring 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese
civilians in Nanking. Only one textbook mentions such events today. Saluting
the rising-sun flag and singing the national anthem (the title of which
translates as "Your Noble Reign") have become mandatory in public
schools. These are small but telling signs of how Japan's sentiments have
changed. The country is eager to resume its place in the world as a normal
nation, with a normal defense and foreign policy. The harder its neighbors or
the United States push it for apologies, the harder Japan may start pushing
back.
Kase is a
historian and author who served as an adviser to Prime Ministers Takeo Fukuda
and Yasuhiro Nakasone.
© 2007
Newsweek, Inc.