There is a Holocaust abuse tactic that is really only available to Jewish anti-Zionists. Norman Finkelstein, the author of the “The Holocaust Industry,” often uses it. Gerald Kaufman, a British Member of Parliament, has started using it. Basically, it works like this: if your parents or grandparents perished in or survived the Holocaust, you invoke them when venting anger against Israel.
For Finkelstein, the “Holocaust Industry” generates enough gentile guilt to enable Israel to get away with oppressing the Palestinians. The trick, though, is to take it personally: “My parents had fairly recently passed away in 1995 and I felt that it was time to settle accounts of the Holocaust Industry, in my view, both as a perversion and falsification of my parents’ experience,” Finkelstein has said. Kaufman, meanwhile, told the House of Commons: “My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town… a German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.”
I’m going to say it: this is really shameful exploitation. Sure, it’s a tactic which appeals to the well-known vanity of Jewish anti-Zionists, and particularly the sense that they are morally superior to other Jews, and no doubt it elicits misty-eyed praise from the sympathetic non-Jews listening (”Bravo, Gerald, you said what needed to be said,”) but it is nevertheless shameful. Apart from anything, it means that those of us who might have a different interpretation of our parents and grandparents experiences during the Holocaust - such as concluding that we need a secure Jewish state - are stigmatized as warmongers and racists. Our emotional foundations are angrily dismissed; those of Kaufman and Finkelstein solemnly elevated.
It is a ridiculous and undignified spectacle which trashes the complex truth of history. To co-opt those who lost their lives in the Shoah into a narrative which also includes signs equating Zionism with Nazism and the flags of antisemitic terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas is astonishing - to use another of Finkelstein’s favorite words - chutzpah.
I certainly wouldn’t pronounce on what my own Jewish family in Bosnia died or didn’t die for. My late grandfather was a Zionist in his youth and so I imagine, though I’m not certain, that his father - who was murdered by the Nazis, along with his wife - was also sympathetic, or at least didn’t object. All I can be sure of is why my great-grandparents were killed in their prime: because they were Jews.
Like you, I found Gerald Kaufman’s comment comparing the Holocaust with Israeli action very troubling.
There some people like Kaufman whose parents or grandparents suffered in the Holocaust and have taken an anti-Israel stance in this conflict. However, there are many more people like me whose parents and grandparents also suffered through the Holocaust and have come to a very different conclusion about the conflict; among the latter are more than a million “children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors” who reside in Israel.
The most troublesome aspect of Kaufman’s comments, aside from its sheer brutality (comparing the wanton murder of his grandmother with the attempt by Israel to defend itself from rocket attacks, is the way Kaufman while accusing those who support Israel of “exploiting” the Shoah for political purposes goes ahead and exploits the Shoah for his own political purposes.
This has been the unspoken cynical assumption of people like Finkelstein and Kaufman: it is legitimate to compare Israel to the Nazis but it is “manipulative” to compare Hamas and Hezbollah, not to mention Iran, to the Nazis.
Kaufman’s tantrum is the latest in such manipulative attacks on Israel. His comparison was wrong as well as vile and we are obligated to say so.
Bravo, Ben.
So a guy who wears his ancestors persecution on his sleeve condemns anyone else who refers to their own ancestor’s persecution? But only if their Jewish?
Does he have senile dementia?
Ben,
If I got a dollar, no, even a shekel, for every case of an article starting with the words “As a Jew” (or, for short, “AssaJew”, I would… you know…
As for Sir Gerald, as Empress here says, this is definitely a case of dementia, but not related to the age of this fine gentleman. He was born this way, you may consider it another ad hominem, but there’s nothing to do about this, it’s the simple truth of this case.
As expected, antisemitic attacks are up throughout the world, synagogues are attacked, and Jews on every campus are subject to increasingly fierce hostility. We have been here before. Justified or unjustified, the entire Jewish world pays the price of Israel’s actions, however legitimate they may be.
Our question is this: Does the Israeli government ever take this into account when making its decisions?
If the diaspora is expected to take the rap for Israel’s actions, and to come out in support, shouldn’t it also be consulted at some point?
If there is ‘taxation’, shouldn’t there also be representation?
Israel excites, alienates and compels. How are we as Jews implicated in Israel’s achievements, mistakes, and challenges? MAKOM invites you to join an ongoing conversation about hugging and wrestling with Israel.
http://makom.haaretz.com
So David Finkelstein is a disgusting exploiter as well, right?
Quite possibly. I’ve no idea who David Finkelstein is.
Wikipedia says that Gerald Kaufman was born in Leeds in 1930.
“Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman (born 21 June 1930) is a British Labour Member of Parliament who was a government minister during the 1970s.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Kaufman
!930 was a couple of years before Hitler took over Germany.
In what way, then, is he connected to the Holocaust?
His speech made it seem that he himself was a witness to the Holocaust.
Can someone enlighten me on this?
“Justified or unjustified, the entire Jewish world pays the price of Israel’s actions, however legitimate they may be.”
Makom, conversely, the actions of Diaspora Jews reflect on people’s attitudes towards Israel and other Jews.
Shouldn’t Israelis and all Jews have a say in how every single Jewish community, or even every Jew behaves?
The recent Madoff scandal reflects badly on all Jews and has been responsible for a spike in antisemitism world wide.
My point Makoff is that you are only responsible for your own actions. Jews outside Israel are not legitimate targets and more than all Muslims are legitimate targets when Islamic murderers kill innocent people in the name of their faith. This is called antisemitism and racism.
This is something the world needs to learn anew. The holding of all members of a group responsible for what some people do will lead to deadly world wide anarchy.
In the New South Wales Parliament building there will soon be a meeting “sponsored” by the Government. It’s being set up by fans of Hamas and other Left/Muslim anti-Israel haters to have a think-tank over recent events in Gaza. Kaufman’s words are being used in their mailouts for the obvious propaganda reasons. What I can’t understand about these self-loathing Jews is that their words add support to Hamas belief, as per its Charter, that, for example, Jews are behind the drug and alcohol trade, that they control the world’s media, that all Muslims should unite to rid the world of Israel and that Jews should return to their Allah-ordained dhimmi status. Is Kaufman aware that his words lend support for another potential Holocaust?