[Peace-discuss] Letter in N-G

[David Green]

Since my letter yesterday was subject to reverse editing by Jim Dey (not for the first time), and therefore ended up being confusing, here is what I actually submitted:

In a recent commentary a local professor claimed, in so many words, that the lesson that Jews should draw from the Holocaust is that when Israel feels threatened it has a right to kill first and ask questions later. Based on a European genocide, Israel ’s leaders are entitled to the powers of judge, jury, and executioner against Palestinians. As it was in invading Gaza , so it may be in attacking Iran .
 
But it’s not quite that simple; Israel needs at least the lack of a red light from the U.S. But how can we refuse? Whenever we need to devastate a country, we also pull our own Hitler out of a bag, from Panama to Serbia to Iraq . But our leaders will indeed refuse, if their understanding of American interests in relation to Middle Eastern energy resources conflicts with Israel ’s alleged fear of annihilation. At that point, the lesson of the Holocaust will suddenly become that Israel ’s possession of hundreds of nuclear weapons ought to somehow deter attack from a country that has perhaps one.
 
Out of World War II and the Holocaust came international laws designed to prevent unilateral action on the basis of self-professed exceptionalism—actions such as Hitler’s. Since World War II such claims to exceptionalism—often invoking the Holocaust—have been repeatedly used by the U.S. and Israel in order to justify military aggression. It is hardly surprising that the historical, political, and moral meaning of the Holocaust has become trivialized as a result.


      
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