It’s no longer a joke. No longer something that can be dismissed as the folly of dimwit clowns. This story–about the beating of Elie Wiesel by a Holocaust denier–is horrifying in itself. A 81 year old Holocaust survivor beaten by a moronic Holocaust denier.

But it’s a metaphor too. For the way Holocaust denial is being used to pave the way to a second Holocaust by delegitimizing the first, and demonizing Jews as liars. A metaphor for the way that the insidious evil of Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial conference, however much ridiculed and condemned by the world, empowered certain vicious morons. This particular one had the only the courage to attack an 81 year old man. But there is an entire nation armed with weapons of genocidal power, indeed more than one where Holocaust denial is regarded as a legitimate position–and a reason to wipe the Jewish state off the map and “leave nothing on the ground”.

The story is from the San Francisco Examiner online. Read it and weep:

Author attacked in S.F. hotel  An unidentified person attacked author and Jewish scholar Elie Wiesel in a San Francisco hotel on Feb. 1. 

Adam Martin, The Examiner, Feb 9, 2007 6:00 AM

SAN FRANCISCO - In a bizarre attack, a well-known author and Holocaust scholar was dragged out of a San Francisco hotel elevator by an apparent Holocaust denier who reportedly had been trailing him for weeks. 

Police escorted Elie Wiesel to San Francisco International Airport on Feb. 1 after a man accosted Wiesel in the elevator at the Argent Hotel, at 50 Third St., after Wiesel participated in a panel discussion at a peace conference and before Wiesel was scheduled to catch a flight back to New York.

Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and author of more than 40 books, including the memoir “Night,” about his experiences at Auschwitz, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Last fall, the Boston University professor was suggested as a possible replacement for Israeli President Moshe Katsav, who faces sexual assault charges.

Police confirmed this week that the attack took place and that officers escorted Wiesel to the airport following the attack. According to police, the suspect accosted Wiesel in the hotel elevator at around 6:30 p.m., saying he wanted to interview him. Wiesel said he would do the interview in the lobby. That’s when the attacker pulled him out of the elevator, police reported.

In a posting Tuesday on the anti-Zionist Web site ZioPedia, a writer using the name Eric Hunt takes credit for the attack: “After ensuring no women would be traumatized by what I had to do (I had been trailing Wiesel for weeks), I stopped the elevator at the sixth floor. I pulled Wiesel out of the elevator. I said I wanted to interview him.”

Wiesel grabbed at his chest and yelled for help, according to the posting. “I told him, ‘Why don’t you want people to know the truth?’ His expression changed, and he began screaming again.’” the posting reads. Police reported that the suspect tried to force Wiesel into one of the rooms, but ran away when Wiesel started yelling.

The online posting states that the writer intended to “bring Wiesel to my hotel room where he would truthfully answer my questions regarding the fact that his non-fiction Holocaust memoir, Night, is almost entirely fictitious.” Later in the posting, the Holocaust is portrayed as a “myth.”

I wonder if this makes the proud brave “anti-Zionists” among us flattered to have such courageous allies. I hope we will soon hear all the “anti-Zionists” in the academy dissociate themselves from this disgusting act and explain why their belief that the erasure of the Jewish state is a good idea is different from the position of “ZioPedia”, and doesn’t enable its thugs.

I don’t believe the the academic anti-Zionists with their plans to put the Jews of Israel in peril of genocide with their bold plans for a “binational state” (NYU Professor Tony Judt’s panglossian euphemism for wiping Israel off the map) should bear responsibility for this particular attack by a self-proclaimed “anti-Zionist”, but I wonder if they will remain silent about it.

Professor Judt–any response to this version of anti-Zionism? Any expression of outrage? Or just silence because Wiesel is one of those Zionist Jews who embarasses you at dinner parties?