THE HANDSTAND

February 2005



Artist, Otto Dix

Dr. Chaim Weizmann refers to 6 Million for the first time in 1937

In the Zionist Congress which took place in London in 1937, Dr. Weizmann established the line of policy with his words:

"The hopes of Europe's six million Jews are centered on emigration. I was asked, 'Can you bring six million Jews to Palestine?'I replied, 'No'....From the depths of the tragedy I want to save two million young people...The old ones will pass. They will bear their fate or they will not. They were dust, economic and moral dust in a cruel world...Only the branch of the young shall survive...They have to accept it."

The Open Society And Its Enemies - The Story Of Auschwitz
by Gilad Atzmon

Sixty years after liberation, Auschwitz becomes an international political event. It is no coincidence, and I feel that we should spare a moment asking ourselves: why now, why Auschwitz?

Living in a scientific technological environment, it is natural for most commentators to judge any given narrative reflecting on its positive contents, i.e. the story it tells, the facts it picks up on, and the message it conveys. When it comes to Auschwitz, it is always the terrifying numbers; Mengele and the selection; the clinical mass murder; the Gas Chambers; the trains; the famous Arbeit Macht Frei above the front gate; the death march just before liberation etc. And yet, I would argue that it is at least as enlightening to expose that which the Auschwitz narrative is there to conceal. Every historical tale can operate as a smoke screen; narratives are very effective in encouraging collective blindness. Auschwitz and the Holocaust narrative, in this sense, are no different.

As it seems, without engaging ourselves with the many questions, concerning the validity of the widely accepted holocaust narrative, we can safely ask what purpose the Auschwitz Narrative is there to serve. Who benefits from the Auschwitz account? We are entitled to ask why the official holocaust narrative is so widely promoted by different and opposing political institutions. Is it the result of a highly sophisticated orchestrated Jewish propaganda? I am not so sure anymore.

On the surface, the answer to these questions is simple, the devastating image of Auschwitz and the Nazi Judeocide is a self-sufficient argument against nationalism, racism and totalitarianism. Within the state of acceptance of the holocaust tale, any of these three is regarded as an enemy of humanity. But then, one must admit that it neither nationalism, racism, nor totalitarianism that killed so many innocent human beings in Auschwitz. Ideologies do not kill, it is always people who kill, regardless of their ideologies.


But it goes a bit further, with the image of Auschwitz in the back of our minds, our western liberal thinkers and politicians are enthusiastically depicting a naive vision of our social reality, presenting us with a simplistic binary division. On the one hand, we find the open society, on the other, we find its many enemies. Following this world view, there is only one open society, but many different enemies; and yet, it is important to mention that the open society is an empty signifier, in practice it means very little, not to say nothing. As it seems, in order to become a member in the exclusive open club, one simply must join the right wars. President Bush, a man who is far from being eloquent where verbal capabilities are concerned, was unexpectedly articulate in presenting that very post Auschwitz western axiom: you are either with us or against us.


Being with us, namely being amongst the open, means that you believe that it was us who liberated Europe, it was us who liberated Auschwitz, it was us who saved the Jews, and it is us who still bring the notion of democracy to the most remote corners of this boiling planet. Being with us means that you accept the fact that we are the voice of the free world. It means as well that you know that you are unconditionally free. It is basically a new form of tautology: you are free even if you aren’t. Being with us means that you believe that the world is rapidly progressing towards a greater divide, namely a cultural clash, in which you are a good innocent Judeo-Christian enlightened being, and the rest are dark fundamentalist evils or at least potentially evil. Being with us means that you are not supposed to ask too many questions about our own immoral conduct. For instance, you don’t ask why Bomber Harris & Co. murdered 850,000 German civilians, targeting German cities rather than the Nazi industrial infrastructure.

Being a free being in an open society means that you should never raise questions about Hiroshima. In case you are stupid enough to raise the issue, you had better be clever enough to accept the official lie: it was the best way to bring this horrible war to an end. Being a free being you won’t raise questions regarding the morality behind leaving 2,000,000 fatalities in Vietnam. Being with us means that you don’t have to ask all those silly annoying questions because Auschwitz is the ultimate in evil. Auschwitz is the bedrock of human wickedness and don’t you ever forget that it was us who put it to an end.

Let us put the truth in place, Auschwitz was beyond doubt a horrible place, but unfortunately it isn’t the ultimate evil, just because evil has neither limit nor scale. But,first of all, to be historically accurate, it wasn’t even us who liberated Auschwitz. As it appears, it was Stalin, the other evil. It was Stalin who gave so many Jewish, POWs, political prisoners, gypsies and inmates the chance to see daylight. But again, being a free being in an open society you don’t really have to pay attention to minor historical details.


Le 27 janvier 1945, les troupes soviétiques entrent dans les camps où survivent 7000 détenus.
  It would seem that the history of Auschwitz is essential within our righteous western self image. When Iraqi oil is in demand, the American president will equate Saddam with Hitler. Next we will learn that the Iraqi people should be liberated from their ‘Auschwitz’. We already know the inevitable consequences.

Since Auschwitz is so crucial for the American policy makers, it isn’t surprising that not too far from the residency of the American president, there is a big Holocaust museum dedicated to the memory of the Jewish people and their heroic liberators. This museum is not about people or even about crimes against humanity, it is about the maintenance of the illusion of the open society. It is about the maintenance of a very specific narrative. It is all about how we are right, and they, who ever they are, are categorically wrong.

This museum is not really about Jewish suffering. I assume that there will be some basic facts that the museum won’t share with its visitors: for instance, it will not tell the passing crowd that the American government adopted a highly restrictive immigration policy that was never modified between 1933-1944, in order to block Jewish immigration. It will avoid the fact that the American government refused or obstructed German offers of negotiation to remove Jews from Nazi controlled territories. Mostly important, it will hide the clear fact that the US air force was not instructed to disrupt the Nazi killing machine. Neither railways to Auschwitz nor Auschwitz itself was ever bombed either by the RAF nor by the American Air Force. It seems as if a real murderous negligence was involved in this American decision making on the issue, along side the war. For instance, on 20 August 1944, 127 flying fortress escorted by one hundred Mustang fighters successfully dropped their bombs on a factory less than five miles from Auschwitz. Not a single plane was diverted to attack the death camp.(aerial photo Auschwitz)


These stories won’t appear in the American Holocaust museum. They simply don’t fit into the heroic and righteous American self-image. The story of Auschwitz is in fact a story of brutal Anglo American negligence. The acceptable Auschwitz narrative is basically a myth that is there to support the American expansionist practice. Auschwitz is the moral pillar of American ideology.


The Holocaust museum is there to tell Americans what may happen when everything goes wrong. As sad as it may sound, in contemporary America everything is going wrong, despite of the museum. The reason is simple, when the image of evil is brewed within your cultural heritage as the discourse of the other, you may as well become blind to the fact that you yourself are already evil. Like their Israeli brothers, the Americans have forgotten how to look at themselves.


In the case of America, the Holocaust narrative serves the right wing expansionist philosophy. In order to prevent another Auschwitz, the Americans will send their armies to Vietnam, Korea, Iraq. They are always the liberators. Till the end of the cold war, there were communists to fight with, a real concrete evil; but now the evil is becoming more and more abstract. In fact, the only way to materialise the vague enemy is to equate it with Hitler.


Europe’s case is slightly different. As strange as it may sound, in Europe it is the parliamentary Left that is capitalising on Auschwitz. As long as Auschwitz is there, deeply entrenched within the daily discourse, the Right-wing can never raise their heads. The European mainstream Left is totally dependent on the Holocaust narrative and the Auschwitz tale. As it seems, Auschwitz is the last Left barricade against the possibility of Right-wing revival. In Europe, any sense of national aspiration, or even just a demographic concern that may sound like xenophobia is immediately addressed as an awakening of Nazism. Within this oppressive world view, people are not allowed to express any affection towards their land. Furthermore, being politically dependent on the image of the Jewish innocent victim, the European mainstream Left can never fully support the Palestinian cause.
As it seems, Auschwitz stands as a symbol of partnership between the
European parliamentary Left and the American expansionist Right. For both, Auschwitz stands as an icon of threat against the image of open society, and within the prospect of this fatal bond, any European genuine Left is destined to be pushed to the margin. Any form of genuine Left inspired by Red aspirations is doomed to be presented as a subversive and radical outlook. In March 1998, Robin Cook, then the British foreign minister, paid a diplomatic visit to Israel. While there, Cook rightly refused to visit Yad Vashem, claiming that he was concerned with the future rather than with the past. It wasn’t long before Cook lost his job. The refusal to bow to the Auschwitz tale cost Cook his job. It wasn’t the Jews who ousted him out of the foreign ministry. It was the Labour party that kicked him out, a parliamentary European Left institute.

So, Auschwitz is there to maintain the myth of open society; it is there to present an illusion of liberated Western identity. As long as Auschwitz is there, in the core of our discourse, we are everything but liberated. There is life after Auschwitz and this life belongs to us. We had better do something with it. If there is something we should never do, then that is taking other people’s lives in the name of Auschwitz. And apparently, this is exactly what we are doing.

www.gilad.co.uk
artist George Grosz

INSIDE THE "NAZI" STATE,
A COMMUNITY OF ARTISTS
... does a community of artists, the community which is at the heart of Hollywood, always have to address the intentional killing of civilians from the perspective of money?
OutlawHistory Newsletter
Bradley R. Smith, Editor

Night before last I watched the first two installments of Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State (we get PBS in Baja). Three matters caught my attention.

First, I was truly surprised by how utterly conventional the film is. I suppose I had expected something new. Foolish me. There are claims that new documents are referenced here and there, but the absolute ordinariness of the film is breathtaking. It has exactly the same perspective as that promoted by the Holocaust Industry for half a century now. It has the same moral tone as that promoted by the Industry. And it expresses the same contempt for Germans that the Industry and the tag-along professorial class have expressed since the beginning.

Second, I expected the press yesterday to be full of articles discussing this allegedly important documentary. There was very little. The “critical” reviews of the material were written in the days before the film was shown. It was as if our pundit-journalists, being a good deal smarter that I am, knew what to write about this Hollywood film before they saw it, wrote it, and had done with it. I appear to still be learning how this works when it comes to Holocaust movies.

But three, I was reminded once again of the truly horrible outcome of the German decision to clear the Jews out of eastern and central Europe, against their will. When you work with revisionism, over a period of time your understanding of the Holocaust story becomes so saturated with Holocaust fraud, Holocaust lying, and the intentional, hypocritical charges of “unique monstrosity” against the Germans, exploited by so many Jews for the benefit of so many Jews, that you are at risk, not of forgetting exactly, but of ignoring, what did happen to Europe’s Jews.

Hollywood has no interest in “documenting,” even in the ethically stupid manner it so often “documents” the crimes of the Germans, the crimes of others. Not the Soviets, for example (too many Jews involved with that one). Or the Americans (too many Jews involved with that one). Or the Israelis (too many Jews involved with that one). It’s always the Germans. Follow the money. Follow the politics, follow the land grabbing. Most of all, follow the immense amount of money.

What the Germans and the German Nazis did is a problem for the Germans to sort out. Hollywood is a town, a business, in America. Most of those who work in Hollywood are Americans. If you are going to document the fact that Germans intentionally killed unarmed civilians, and you believe that that is not right, you are responsible as an artist to turn you attention once in a while to how your own people intentionally killed civilians.

Of course, that’s not where the money is. I understand that. But does a community of artists, the community which is at the heart of Hollywood, always have to address the intentional killing of civilians from the perspective of money? Always? Does it always have to be for the benefit of its own people at the cost of the other? Isn’t it the responsibility of the community of artists to address human life without always putting your own life above all else?

The great majority of “classic” American films, from the 1930s on through to today, were created and produced by Hollywood Jews. Those who claim that Hollywood is run largely by Jews are noting the obvious. Living in Baja I am privileged to be able to watch the Mexican soaps. I can watch Mexican movies. With the exception of news and sports broadcasts, American (largely Jewish) television is so superior to Mexican television that they can’t even be compared. G-d bless Hollywood.

One problem with success is that it tends to lead to even more success, as Winston once pointed out. Jewish Zionists, other Jewish politicos, Jewish writers, Jewish movie makers, were so successful with their Holocaust story, it earns them so much political clout, so much land, so much cultural influence, so much money, that they just can’t give it up. They don’t have to give it up. They only have to begin to be honest with themselves, and generous toward others, when they produce their Jewish Holocaust movies.

The Jews who were torn from their homes and put into camps were only human, not angels. The Germans who created the camps and put the Jews into them were only human, not monsters. The men who fought for the administrations of Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler were only human. The men who served the British and American administrations were only human when they coolly bombed innocent, unarmed German civilians.

One irony here is that Americans were intentionally killing innocent, unarmed German and Japanese civilians via mass terror bombings at the very moment that Germans were (allegedly) intentionally killing innocent, unarmed Jewish civilians. No one questions the weapons of mass destruction used by the Americans and their allies, great fleets of heavy bombers. Everyone with good sense and a little relevant information questions the German weapons of mass destruction (the “gas chambers”).

We’re all in this together. It isn’t the Jews, and it isn’t the Germans. Real artists know that. Hollywood understands the concept, but has traded it in for money and clout. When you watch Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State, look for the Germans who are only human, like the Jews in this make-believe, computer generated film, are only human. When you find one, drop me a line and tell me who he is.

The artists who work in Hollywood do understand the concept of what it is to be human. A great part of their artistic output proves that. But the Hollywood community of artists makes exceptions for Germans and for Jews. And for Americans. That’s one reason why Hollywood, which produces wonderful work on the one hand, is so spiritually (forgive my use of the term in this vulgar context) corrupt on the other. Hollywood artists are unable, and are not brave enough, to see Jews and Germans and Americans as just folk.

Americans who intentionally participated in the mass killings of innocent, unarmed civilians, are our “greatest generation.” If there is anyone who should address the—very human—irony here, should it not be the “community of artists” that for sixty years has devoted itself to promoting the real, deeply human, qualities of these folk? Our folk?

Or how about one Hollywood artist, one Hollywood producer? Is that too much to ask?

One?

E-mail: bradley@telnor.net

ENQUIRY BY HANDSTAND EDITOR, JOCELYN BRADDELL
REPLY to:jocelynbraddell@eircom.net
Is there any explanation in Holocaust literature that "gassing" of victims, in Auschwitz,only occurred for one year in 1944. From 1941, when killing victims became institutionalised, until end 1943, all deaths were brought about by injections of phenol.In 1944 huge numbers of Hungarian Jews arrived that seems to have caused chaos, deaths until that time had each been issued with a death certificate specifying disease outcome.
Nazi Doctors RJ.Lifton, Papermac publication.

The Tsunami of Penitence

By Israel Shamir

Israel is a good place to watch the giant wave of gentile penitence, the Auschwitz Remembrance Day that lasts for a week. Sure, you can observe it around the globe like solar eclipse, this colossal Canossa: the entire world from Alaska to Antarctica stands still listening to the Jewish prayer and begs forgiveness. Chirac promised to remember the Jews France failed to save; he acknowledged the French guilt, something de Gaulle never did. German Chancellor was contrite even more than always; he has a good reason – the holocaust monument of unbelievable ugliness straddles Berlin as an eternal punishment. Slapping the weird Columbia Professors who try to distinguish between the Jews and Israel, Israeli national anthem Hatikwa was played in the UN for the memorial occasion.

If you have thought the remembrance had nothing to do with Israel, think again. Or, better, watch Kofi Annan atoning for his sins: he sacked Hanson, his Gaza rep, for he annoyed Sharon; he promised to fight antisemitism to the last antisemite; arranged for a special session of the UN General Assembly, pledged to Israel his word that the UN will be more attentive to her needs in future. Next to Annan stood his wife – we were told that she is a Wallenberg, and Raul Wallenberg was a royal Swede who saved many Jews and was killed by the Russians. There was another royal Swede who saved many Jews and was killed by the Jews – Folke Bernadotte – but he is forgotten even in Stockholm, where a Jewish millionaire bought a new TV channel this week to ensure this forgetfulness.

Count Folke Bernadotte af Wisborg (1895–1948) was a grandson of Oscar II, king of Sweden and Norway. In 1943, Folke Bernadotte became vice chairman and, in practice, head of the Swedish Red Cross. In this capacity, during the final months of World War II in 1945, he led a Swedish relief expedition to Germany with the famous “white buses.” Bernadotte’s expedition succeeded in saving about 30,000 concentration camp prisoners and bringing them to freedom in Sweden. At the very end of the war, he also passed Himmler’s surrender offer to the Western powers. On May 20, 1948, Folke Bernadotte was appointed the United Nations mediator in Palestine. This made him the first official mediator in the history of the world organization. In this capacity, he succeeded in achieving a truce in the first Palestine war and laid the groundwork for the UN relief organization for Palestinian refugees. His two plans for a political solution to the Palestine question were rejected by both sides in the conflict, however. On September 17, 1948, a few days before his second plan was to be presented to the UN, Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem by Jewish extremists.

The headlines of Israeli newspapers enquire: “Did they learn the lesson?” Who are “they”? What lesson? The Jews won the war; that is the lesson for goyim, they implied. In order to deliver this lesson, some forty million men and women were killed, but anyway only Jews are remembered, so it was worth it. Nobody mentions the Russian soldiers who died at Stalingrador the German civilians killed by Bomber Harris. The Japanese burned by the A-bomb are forgotten. As for American soldiers, there was Private Ryan, but he was saved.

But if it seen everywhere, why Israel is such a good place to watch the Penitence Day? Because only here you won’t have an illusion that ‘the lesson’ refers to unacceptability of racism or of ethnic cleansing or of cold-blooded murder. Straight after the news, Israel TV Channel One started a Round Table discussion: what should be done with goyim who think that the commandment “be fruitful and multiply” refers to them, too? The biggest danger for Israel, said the American favourite, Bibi Netanyahu, is not the Palestinians beyond the wall – it is the Israeli Arab citizens. They multiply too fast. They bring in their wives and husbands from the occupied territories and from abroad – this privilege should be granted for Jews only.

The Shas leader, Eli Yeshai, proposed to take them off National Insurance, so they won’t receive any financial help for their children. Professor Soffer fumed: the demographic bomb of non-Jews is ticking! There are too many of them. This is a Jewish country, the only one we have, while goyim have hundreds of countries to live in.

There are a few Arabs around the round table: a young student and a Member of Knesset. They try to speak of racism, but their fluent Hebrew was not understood: racism is something done to Jews, not by Jews. We have only one country, and we should plan what to do with the others, with non-Jews, so they won’t multiply.

On another channel, a speaker condemns Russian nationalists: they dare to say that they have only one country and they do not want their country run by the organised Jews. They do not plan to cut Jewish birth rate; they do not intend to expel Jews. The Russian nationalists quote the infamous rulings of Shulkhan Aruch now translated into Russian for indoctrination of the Russian Jews. They say that these rulings promote hatred of a goy among Jews. They want to use the hate laws against the Jewish hate-mongers. They say that the Jewish organisations in Russia openly support racist Israel. They and their fathers fought Nazi Germany not for benefit of some other racists, they say. The Jewish organisations in Russia know better what the hate laws are for; they demand from the Russian court to arrest the racists. Maybe they are racists, and maybe they are not; but they can’t be more racist than Dr Soffer, Bibi Netanyahu and Eli Yeshay.

The TV set brings in more news: three-year old Palestinian girl Rahma Abu Shamas, was killed Wednesday morning by Israeli army, thus defusing somewhat the demographic threat. The Supreme Court decided to approve the nomination of General Dan Halutz at the position of the deputy chief of General Staff. When the Air Force commander Dan Halutz was asked what does the pilot feel releasing a one ton bomb over densely populated Gaza refugee camp and killing fifteen children, he replied: “A slight bump. I sleep well”. The judges warned him to be more careful while giving an interview.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Wednesday that the world "didn't lift a finger" to stop the Holocaust. That was interesting news: I did not know Nazi Germany was stopped by the IDF. But indeed, death of millions of Russian soldiers and thousands of American and British ones is not the same as ‘lifting a finger’. This Sharon’s statement was an open, brazen insult to the vets; it was an insult to the families of the fallen soldiers; it was an insult to Russia, England and America. But they learned their lesson and quietly kneeled.

Faking it

Thursday January 20, 2005
The Guardian

It all started with the pomegranate. On Christmas Eve, the Israel museum in West Jerusalem made an announcement about a tiny ivory pomegranate that had been on display at the museum since 1988, believed to have come from the First Temple of Israel. The pomegranate, the museum sheepishly revealed, was actually a fake. It was still a very old and beautiful carving, but the inscription denoting its First Temple origins had been forged.

Five days later, the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) declared that it had uncovered a sophisticated forgery ring, based in Israel, which had produced a stash of fake Bible-era artefacts. In addition to the pomegranate, it revealed that two other objects, both similarly revered, had also been rumbled as bogus. One was a limestone ossuary box said to have held the bones of James, the brother of Jesus, and supposedly the oldest physical link to the New Testament. The other was a stone tablet, from the ninth century BC, inscribed in ancient Hebrew with instructions by King Joash for maintaining Solomon's Temple.

The revelation sent shockwaves around the world of antiquities, as museums were warned to expect more precious relics to be revealed as fakes. "We only discovered the tip of the iceberg. This spans the globe. It generated millions of dollars," warned Shuka Dorfman, director of the IAA. Museums were urged to examine all objects of suspicious origin; the forgery ring, the IAA cautioned, spanned 20 years.

So what tipped off the investigators? "We got some information in September 2002 about a stone with an inscription about the third temple of Joash in Jerusalem," says Amir Ganor, head of investigations at the IAA. "This stone would be very important to the Jewish people and to the antiquities community." At that point the investigators were looking for a rumoured relic, not a forgery. Informers said that it had been offered to several institutions, including the Israel museum. "We heard that some guy, ex-Shin Bet [the Israeli security service], had been showing the stone, but we didn't know anything more," says Ganor.

The IAA eventually discovered the identity of the former security service man (How? "Using our methods," says Ganor), who in turn led them to Oded Golan, a leading Israeli collector and one of the five men alleged by the IAA to be part of the forgery ring. Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper describes Golan as a 51-year-old production engineer, based in Tel Aviv, who has worked in engineering, tourism, real estate, and who now describes himself as the "head of a of a hi-tech company". He told the IAA that he collects antiquities as a hobby, and has been doing so since the age of 14. A search of Golan's home took place in February 2003. "We found a lot of documents about the stone, and pictures, but not the stone itself," says Ganor. "Oded said that he was not the owner, but was representing some Arab guy." One month later, threatened with another search warrant for another of his premises, Golan handed over the stone.

It was not the first time he had come in contact with the IAA. Back in October 2002, the authority had issued Golan with a licence to take an ossuary ("just an ossuary, not an important ossuary," says Ganor) to the Montreal museum in Canada. Soon after giving him approval, the IAA got a phone call from CNN asking about the remarkable inscription on top of the stone, apparently reading: "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."

The IAA, realising that it had granted an approval licence for a potentially very special artefact, requested that Golan hand over the relic upon its return from Canada, which he did in March 2003. Now the authority had the stone and the ossuary, both of which were checked and found to be fakes. What's more, the method of forgery in both cases was the same - the patina on each object had been artificially contrived. At this point, the authority launched its fraud investigation with the police, having for some time heard rumours of more fakes on the market.

The IAA paid another visit to Golan, who had been given back his ossuary. This time, says Ganor, the IAA "found all the evidence for the fraud process, all the materials, all the patinas, some artefacts in the process of being forged". The ossuary was found on the flat rooftop of Golan's rented apartment, in the toilet. "He said it was the safest place to put it," says Ganor. "This is the ossuary that millions of Christians have been speaking about ... and that was insured for $1m when it was sent to Canada."

The investigation has so far named four men, in addition to Golan, whom it alleges were involved, among them Robert Deutsch, an inscriptions expert who teaches at Haifa University, and Rafael Braun, former head of the antiquities laboratories at the Israel museum. "We have found a key witness who told us that [he was asked] to prepare thousands of artefacts," says Ganor. He adds that witnesses have mentioned possible fakes at British, American and German institutions. Golan, meanwhile, has insisted: "There is not one grain of truth in the fantastic allegations related to me," while Deutsch has pronounced the indictment "ridiculous".

The story gets cloudy where the pomegranate enters. The Israel museum bought this relic in 1988, paying $550,000 (£287,000) into a numbered Swiss bank account. For more than 20 years, it has been hailed as the only surviving physical evidence of the First Temple. This temple is the holiest of holies in Jewish tradition; it is said to be where Abraham, the father of the Hebrew people, prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac to God. (The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is the western wall of the Second Temple, built on the site of the first in the sixth century BC). Scholars thought that the thumbnail-sized fruit, which has a hole in the bottom, was used as the top of a temple priest's sceptre.

The pomegranate is a high-profile example of a relic acquired "through the market", meaning that it was not uncovered during a licensed excavation. Such objects carry no official documentation denoting their origin. The theory is that they come from looted sites. "The pomegranate surfaced a number of years before it was acquired and displayed here," says James Snyder, director at the Israel museum. "It was examined by a lot of scholars, and it wasn't accepted into our collection until ithad the consensus of all available experts that it was authentic." Snyder says that there is always a question mark over the authenticity of an object acquired through the market, but none the less, some 10% of the museum's 70,000 antiquities come from this channel. Why? "Because the objects are very special, and so they can be placed in a museum setting and benefit the public. You wouldn't want to miss that opportunity."

Unless, of course, the object is a fake. The museum insists that the pomegranate was found to be a forgery through its own investigation, independent of the IAA. However, one source, speaking on condition of anonymity, says that this is rubbish. "The authority heard about the pomegranate from a witness in the investigation," he says, adding that the museum was asked to take the relic to the IAA but refused, negotiating instead to conduct its own analysis. Such analysis revealed that the pomegranate dates from the Bronze period - 3,400 years ago and long before the First Temple period. The temple-specific inscription was added to the fruit recently but it was the relic's patina - older than the first temple period - that gave the game away.

Commentators have suggested that the museum might not have been sufficiently scrupulous with the fruit relic over the years but Snyder insists that analysis methods have recently developed in one significant direction: "Until a few years ago, we would have had to remove a piece of the pomegranate in order to scan it," he says. "We did not want to do that."

What this episode shows is the extent to which the antiquities community has laid itself open to abuse. According to Israel Finkelstein, archaeology professor at Tel Aviv university, most biblical land has been officially and rigorously excavated and produced few relics. "Do you want me to believe that robbers are then going with a flashlight at night and managing to find 50 inscriptions? Of course I don't believe it."

Still, the sale of marketplace antiquities is booming. Aren Maeir, archaeology professor at Bar Ilan university in Ramat Gan, describes it as "an astounding market, particularly among private collectors with millions of dollars at their disposal". Objects can sell for $1m apiece, and academics say that top forgers hunt academic journals for the objects that would be considered significant if unearthed, and then sneak fake finds into the market - giving the antiquity community exactly what it wants. "There is an eagerness all over the world, in museums, to display antiquities of great value," says Finkelstein, "and there is no question that some of them were not careful enough in their [evaluation] methods. It was some sort of naivety, something about wanting to believe."

The discovery of a Temple-era pomegranate, in particular, was always going to provoke excitement. The pomegranate is a deeply resonant fruit in Judaism that, according to the Bible, was used as a decorative motif in Solomon's temple. There is a Rabbinic reference to its seeds, which in legend always number 613 - one for each of the commandments of the Bible. One Israel museum press officer explains the effect of seeing such relics: "It is very exciting, very emotional, very Jewish feelings," she says. "Any time you see something like this, it feels very special because you can see your roots."

It underlines the intense political significance that antiquities, particularly Biblical-era artefacts, attain in Israel, where discoveries of ancient sites or relics can be claimed by particular groups as proof of their historic claim to a particular piece of land. Early Zionism was enthusiastic in promoting Bible-era relics - they cemented the Jewish connection to the land, and were seen to give credence to the new state of Israel: ancient facts on the ground, if you like. It is telling, suggests Dr Shimon Gibson, archaeology professor at the Albright Institute, Jerusalem, that the Joash stone emerged at around the same time - early 2003 - that Palestinian leaders were becoming more vociferous over the "alleged" Jewish connection to the Temple Mount. The stone's inscription describes repair works to the Jewish temple at Jerusalem. "Those who forged, if that is what they did, would be trying to identify key spots of interest to Israel at that moment," he says. "One of those is, of course, the Temple Mount, because in any deal made with the Palestinians, the status of Jerusalem and who controls the holy places is one of the key things that will be on the table."

Some have argued that the only way to stop antiquity fraud is to properly ban the sale of objects with unknown provenance. Others, such as Snyder, counter that this would serve only to bury precious artefacts in the hands of private collectors, not evaluated by experts and not appreciated by the public.

Meanwhile, no one can say how many more relics from the world's great museums will be rumbled as fakes. Snyder says that the Israel museum is alert to the investigation, but it clearly wants to move on, celebrate its 40th birthday and show off its other collections - including the Dead Sea scrolls. The museum plans to turn its misfortune with the pomegranate into an opportunity to mount a display on antiquity dating methods. On my way out of his office, Snyder hands me a lemon, from a basket on his desk. He tells me that they come from his own garden; he also grows pomegranates.