by Dan Margalit
Distortion in all its forms is part of the overall effort -- if not necessarily an organized effort -- to question the justness of Israel's existence.
Israel was not
established as a response to, compensation for or absolution of Europe's
sins during the Holocaust. It is the realization of the biblical deed
to sovereignty over the land of our forefathers, which is backed by the
right to self-determination in the spirit of late U.S. President Woodrow
Wilson and by decisions reached by the League of Nations. All of this
was before the Holocaust.
Israel is not the fruit
of the most horrific tragedy in the history of mankind, rather, in a
sense, that of its failure. The state was too late to save the 6 million
heartbeats that were silenced at Babi Yar, Auschwitz and each of the
other gates to hell.
The Holocaust is the
worst of all the persecution and pogroms faced by the Jews throughout
history, as they were helpless and defenseless. It does not stand alone,
but it is unique in its proportions. It is anchored into day-to-day
Israeli life in one crucial sense: The main role of the Jewish state is
to prevent the recurrence of unilateral harassment.
If everything that
happened earlier clarifies and justifies the Jewish people's need to
defend itself, the Holocaust takes that need up a level. It allows for
nuclear weapons to become a part of the Jewish flak jacket.
Therefore, Holocaust
denial is not a topic for academic discussion, just as the repeated
claims doubting the historical narrative of the Bible are not simply
part of a legitimate discussion between historians and archeologists
(for example, what were the dimensions of David's kingdom? And when did
the Nazis decide on the Final Solution?). The core purpose of these
discussions, which are designed to dwarf the injustice done to the Jews,
is to undermine Israel's right to exist as a strong sovereign entity
with secure and recognized borders.
Distortion in all its
forms is part of the overall effort -- if not necessarily an organized
effort -- to question the justness of Israel's existence. This is the
malicious formula behind the claim that Zionism and Nazism stem from the
same foundation. The standard argument relies on the Haavara Agreement
-- which was in effect the expulsion of German Jews from their country
and the seizure of most of their property in exchange for their
immigration to other countries. Is that cooperation? It is a temporary
arrangement between enemies.
Few sought further
proof for their opinions. In Dr. Rudolf Israel Kastner's trial before
Judge Benjamin Halevy during Israel's sixth year of independence,
attorney Shmuel Tamir revealed chilling information: Kastner cooperated
with Adolf Eichmann and his henchmen to calm down a million Hungarian
Jews that the Nazis sent to be killed at Auschwitz. In return, the Nazis
agreed to release a train carrying 1,600 Jews. Kastner then admitted to
Tamir that he asked Eichmann if some of those Jews could be sent to
Israel, and the mass murderer responded that he couldn't do that because
when he visited Jerusalem in 1937, he promised Grand Mufti Haj Amin
al-Husseini that Germany would not send any more Jews to Israel. What
Jewish-Nazi collaboration are these evildoers talking about?
All these arguments -- from
questioning the archeological and historical truth in the Bible to the
attempts to undermine the Jewish people's unique victimhood in the
Holocaust and the Holocaust's status as a singular crime -- are not
designed to determine the boundaries of justice in a past event, rather
the boundaries of injustice to be done to today's Jews. Danger is on our
doorstep.
Dan Margalit
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=15979
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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