Valid point, although I think that "irrational" reaction (though it seems quite rational from certain perspectives) only explains why a certain percentage of "nice folks turn irrational where Israel is concerned."

Btw, I know this isn't a open comment thread, but what's up with the lack of postings? Fans are being left hanging.

Sigh…the irrationality re: the Holocaust and its aftermath isn’t restricted to Israel/Palestine, sadly. I am reminded of visiting my grandparents and putting a lovely Bach cassette on for my grandmother, a huge music lover. First reaction: “This is lovely. Who is it?” “Bach. You like it? I’ve got more.” “GET THAT FILTHY GERMAN OFF MY TAPE DECK!” “Ummm, Grandmom, he’s been dead for more than 200 years, certainly well before Hitler. And Hitler was Austrian, anyway…and for that matter, your family is from Austria.”

There was no point to that discussion, suffice it to say.

(As for me, sorry for the lack of posting lately. I blame, in part, the seasonal nature of U.S. immigration policy, plus an upcoming move. I kep forwarding myself links on U.S. policy toward Iraqi refugees and such, hoping to write about them, but then coming home and keeling over.)

"It is close to being all that simple."

Except that it isn't. Not at all.

Zionists, particularly when appealing to a US audience, like to draw a direct line between the Holocaust and the state of Israel, arguing that the latter was the inevitable outcome of the former, and that the former excuses any and all crimes committed by Israelis against any non-Jews.

And yet, the relationship between Israel and the Holocaust is nowhere near as straightforward as many imagine. Quite apart from the fact that Zionism long preceeded the Holocaust, and was arguably as much concerned with combating assimilation as persecution (Hertzl himself having seriously flirted with the idea of converting to Christianity). In any case, at no time did Zionism have the approval of anything other than a small minority of Jews, most of whom would take their chances with discrimination and possible persecution in Europe than take up residence in Palestine. Though who chose to emigrate, then as now, much preferred the US than Palestine, provided they could get a visa (but that's a whole other story, and one which has much to do with the initial 'success' of Israel). Also, however un PC it might be to raise it in contemporary Israel, back in the 1940s, most Zionist leaders had little interest in or sympathy for Holocaust survivers, and found them, if anything, to be vaguely embarrassing reminders of the 'old' weak, passive Jew which had nothing to do with the macho 'new' Jew of Zionist myth. Read Tom Segev for a fuller account.

Besides, one has to ask how much of the 'irrationality' you describe is real, and how much of it is contrived. As writers such as Peter Novick have pointed out, both the Holocaust and Israel serve as 'unifying' factors in an American Jewish population which, like many of the sophisticated European Jews of Herzl's day, is strongly tempted by assimilation. Plenty of groups have suffered persecution over centuries, but they don't wear it as a badge of honour. Besides, as Novick again has said, American (and Israeli) Jews were not always preoccupied with the Holocaust, nor were they always proud of their 'victim' status. So there's nothing inevitable about the kind of 'irrationality' you describe, nor should it ever be allowed as an excuse to inflict suffering on a people who had nothing to do with the crimes committed against European Jews.

In any case, if 'diaspora' Jews feel such a strong need for the Israel to exist as some sort of haven for them, no matter what the cost to the Palestinians, then why is that immigration to Israel is at a near all time low?

Plenty of groups have suffered persecution over centuries, but they don't wear it as a badge of honour.

Huh? Having been persecuted, and certainly having had one's ancestors be persecuted, is neither a badge of honor nor a free pass to abuse others. But have you ever met, say, an Armenian?

"But have you ever met, say, an Armenian?"

Yes, I have indeed. But I'm at a loss to guess what point you are trying to make.

I'm saying that if you are saying that opersecuted groups other than Jews have not worn said persecution as a badge of honor, then you are wrong, and that Armenians are but one example. I'm NOT saying that having been persecuted gives a group any special moral authority or excuse to abuse others.

"persecuted groups other than Jews have not worn said persecution as a badge of honor, then you are wrong"

Firstly, I said 'plenty' of groups, not 'all' groups. More importantly, with the Armenians, I find that their main concern is to have their suffering recognised in the same way as the suffering of other ethnic groups are. The same government that spends tax payers' money on a museum about the Holocaust of the Jews - a tragedy which had almost nothing to do with the US - at the same time denies the Holocaust of the Armenians. I think it is this feeling - that some genocides are more worthy of commemoration than others - that bothers Armenians, at least those living in the US, a land where the Jewish Holocaust has become almost sacralised.

I'm curious to hear, then, your thoughts on an example of a persecuted minority that should stand out as a shining example to others (dare I say “model minority”?) in terms of how they have behaved during and/or after the fact. The Palestinians? The Chechens? The Kurds? The Roma? The Native Americans of various stripes? Ethnic Chinese in the rest of Asia? Seriously, what do you want?

(And for the record, even as a member of the group whose members you are lambasting, I think the fate of European Jews in WWII has been given disproportionate attention in the U.S., and would have no problem with proportionate funds being devoted to education about other instances of persecution. In my home state, for example, it is a required part of the grade school and high school history curriculum. Not that it should be left out, by any means, but lip service is barely paid even to the other groups who were targeted by the Nazis, and I don’t remember so much as a sentence about civilian casualties in Poland or the Soviet Union, for that matter. But then my general position on how U.S. public education ignores anything east of Germany or south of the Equator is a rant for another day. And part of the reason we had such comprehensive programming on the Jewish side of the Holocaust is that a) Jews were a vocal presence in development of the curriculum, and other persecuted groups in WWII didn’t have any survivors to speak of among the local population, which meant that b) every year, an actual concentration camp survivor or two would come to speak to the entire school about his/her experiences. If any other survivors volunteered their services and were turned around, I sure never heard about it.)

the Holocaust of the Jews - a tragedy which had almost nothing to do with the US

Almost missed that - how the hell do you figure that the fate of the Jews has nothing to do with the U.S.? Plenty of survivors ended up in the U.S., plenty of people whose families were wiped out lived in the U.S. at the time (including all 4 branches of my own family - all my grandparents were either U.S.-born or immigrated as children, but plenty of aunts and uncles and cousins, etc. were totally wiped out; one grandmother's family is from a town within an hour's train ride of Auschwitz).

Or are you saying that the U.S. had nothing to do with the outcome of the war, and couldn't have affected the course of events if it had paid attention earliler? That the U.S. didn't turn away Jewish refugees? That the U.S. bears zero responsibility for any Jewish WWII-era deaths? And that's even without going into some of the loonier conspiracy theories out there.

Dude, I fully sympathize with the Armenians, but I think you're out of line here.

"I'm curious to hear, then, your thoughts on an example of a persecuted minority that should stand out as a shining example to others (dare I say “model minority”?) in terms of how they have behaved during and/or after the fact."

I'm not in the business of telling 'persecuted minorities' how to behave. What I have said - and continue to say - is that the Jews are by no means the only ethnic group to have suffered, but yet, at least in the last few decades, many of their number have chosen (yes, I do use that word advisedly) to emphasise that collective suffering and all too often to trivialise the suffering of non-Jews. Elie Wiesel - who once said that non Jewish victims of the Nazis 'died differently' than Jews - is a case in point. None of this narcissism would really matter were it not for the fact that it is used to justify any and all crimes committed by the state of Israel against any and all non-Jews. I know you don't agree with this behaviour yourself, but that does not make it any less prevalent.

"a member of the group whose members you are lambasting, "

QED.

"other persecuted groups in WWII didn’t have any survivors to speak of among the local population,"

Since only a very small proportion of the 2-3% of the US population who is Jewish had any direct connection to the Holocaust, there simply can't be very many survivors living in the US. There are large numbers of Poles, Russians and members of other groups who suffered under the Nazis living in the US, though, as with the case of US Jews, most of them emigrated to the US long before WWll.

In any case, if you've read any accounts of the foundation of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, for example, you'll know that a deliberate attempt was made to emphasise Jewish victimhood, and downplay that of all other groups. Of course it was not always thus: the notion of The Holocaust as a discrete event somehow separate from the other atrocities of WWll, only really came about in the 60s. Until then, most Americans - including most American Jews - saw it as a particularly horrific part of the overall horror of the war. The term "Holocaust" was not even used in this context until at least two decades after the events themselves - as Novick writes, emphasis on the Holocaust and "Jewish suffering" coincided rather neatly with Israel's emergence as a powerful occupying state in 1967. So I think a case can certainly be made that the 'irrational' attachment to Israel described in the OP is in fact quite rational, and quite calculated. There is nothing at all inevitable or natural about it.

"Or are you saying that the U.S. had nothing to do with the outcome of the war, and couldn't have affected the course of events if it had paid attention earliler? That the U.S. didn't turn away Jewish refugees? That the U.S. bears zero responsibility for any Jewish WWII-era deaths? "

I'm not getting into the complex subject of whether or not the allies could have somehow prevented the Holocaust, but certainly the US and other countries could have taken in more Jewish refugees (as I've said before, the Zionists were of course delighted that they did not. AS a supporter of Israel, you should be too). But that does not change my point: Which is that the US has been responsible for many terrible things in its history - slavery, the bombing of Hiroshima, the deaths of more than a million Vietnamese - to name but a few. Its supposed failure to intervene more forcefully in atrocities committed by a hostile nation in a time of war is hardly top of the list, or anywhere even close. And while I appreciate that you may feel some personal connection to the Holocaust, the fact remains that the number of Americans with any such connection is tiny when compared, say, to the number of Americans who suffered because of slavery. What makes it even more strange is that the US was not responsible for the former crime, while it most certainly was responsible for the latter. And yet, the victims of the Holocaust are honoured in a federally funded museum, while the victims of slavery are not. Personally, however, I suspect that that may be the whole point - getting self-righteous about the Holocaust costs nothing, in emotional or political terms. It involves no self-examination, no recrimination. Which is probably why it's become almost a national pastime in the US.

AS a supporter of Israel, you should be too

More later - I may be done with my April 1 H-1Bs, but there are still others to crank out.

But you really shouldn't call me a supporter of Israel; generally speaking, and in particular in the context you are discussing, I'm not.

Hmm, speaking of minorities wearing their persecution as a badge of honor (and relatives of victims of slavery, for that matter).

"certainly the US and other countries could have taken in more Jewish refugees"

Hardly. There were very few jews left in Germany or German-occupied Europe in 1939. They had all fled, mainly to other European countries, and been taken in. However, the nazis followed them.

Eva Luna: your grandmother had a point with Bach; parts of his chotal works are vilely antijewish.

"There were very few jews left in Germany or German-occupied Europe in 1939"

Can't speak for Eva, but I was referring to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in immediately postwar Europe. There were plenty of these, and although very many of them would love to have gone to the US, only a few succeeded in so doing. (Of course, the same could be said for war refugees of other ethnicities as well). As I've also pointed out, prominent Zionists in Palestine were delighted by this, because they knew that most Jewish refugees would have no choice but to go to Palestine. Then, as always, Zionism (in practice if not in theory) has held very little appeal for the vast majority of Jews.

In any case, your statement is false. There were millions of Jews in Nazi occupied Europe in 1939. Even if they had been able to leave (which the vast majority were not) only a very small number of them had any idea of the catastrophe which was about to befall them, and would have seen no more reason to leave than others in occupied Europe.

Here are some actual statistics on displaced persons in Europe, Israel, and the U.S.; hopefuill nobody has issues with the source"

"On May 14, 1948, the United States and the Soviet Union recognized the state of Israel. Congress also passed the Displaced Persons Act in 1948, authorizing 200,000 DPs to enter the United States. The law's stipulations made it unfavorable at first to the Jewish DPs, but Congress amended the bill with the DP Act of 1950. By 1952, over 80,000 Jewish DPs had immigrated to the United States under the terms of the DP Act and with the aid of Jewish agencies.

With over 80,000 Jewish DPs in the United States, about 136,000 in Israel, and another 20,000 in other nations, including Canada and South Africa, the DP emigration crisis came to an end. Almost all of the DP camps were closed by 1952."

The U.S. is still dealing with the unwanted baggage of the Displaced Persons Act; some of those who were resettled in the U.S. have turned out to be Nazi war criminals, who were stautorily ineligible for resettlement as displaced persons for having engaged in the persecution of others. Every once in a while one turns up, particularly as former East Bloc archives are opened up to researchers.

And the point you are trying to make is.... what, exactly?

"I was referring to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in immediately postwar Europe. "
My apologies. I thought you were repeaating the common and mistaken claim that jews were not allowed to leave Germany and occupied countries before WWII.
"There were millions of Jews in Nazi occupied Europe in 1939."
Only after the German invasion of Poland. Before that most of the jews in Germany, Austria and what had been Czechoslovakia had left. After that it was too late for other countries' policies on immigration to have any effect.
" only a very small number of them had any idea of the catastrophe which was about to befall them, and would have seen no more reason to leave than others in occupied Europe."
Precisely. The same applies- as you say- to others and- as you also point out- there were many other people with equally good reasons to want to leave Europe after WWII.

"Before that most of the jews in Germany, Austria and what had been Czechoslovakia had left."

Yes, but these countries had relatively small Jewish populations, when compared with the numbers in Poland and the former Soviet Union.

Murph - my immediate point is that I like concrete, specific information when discussing issues such as this. It's not terribly productive to discuss how "lots of Jewish displaced persons wanted to come to the U.S., but few managed to" or "there were few Jews left in Europe after WWII" or "few Jews actually immigrated to Palestine" without some figures.

Fair enough, but I still don't see how quoting statistics from the official Holocaust Memorial site in any way moves our discussion forward. You still have not used these stats to make any point that might add to our debate.

Are you debating the truthfulness of the stats? If so, then feel free to post something from a source you feel is more reliable. Those were just the first ones I found online, and I am not aware of any reason to disbelieve those actual numbers.

What point of the discussion do you feel needs to be moved forward? Apparently I'm not seeing what you're trying to prove by all this. Are you implying that there is some nefarious motivation in refugees' desire to move to the relatively peaceful and prosperous U.S., vs. to a country that was in a state of upheaval?

"Are you debating the truthfulness of the stats"

More the point of them -which you are still refusing to divulge - than the truth of them. My main quibble would be with what exactly is meant by "Holocaust survivor". It seems most unlikely to me that there were hundreds of thousands of Jews still alive in the camps at the time of liberation, so I would say that the term "Holocaust survivor" in reality means any Jew who lived in occupied Europe.

"Apparently I'm not seeing what you're trying to prove by all this. "

Huh? I made several points in my previous posts, and you said you would respond when you had time. All you have done is cut and paste some stats, with no commentary or link to any of the points I had made earlier. So, as I've said, the onus is on you to make your cut and pasted stats relevant to our discussion.

"Are you implying that there is some nefarious motivation in refugees' desire to move to the relatively peaceful and prosperous U.S., vs. to a country that was in a state of upheaval?"

Not at all. Then as now, few Jews would actually choose to take up residence in Palestine when other options are available. And who could blame them? But I refer you to the point I made in my very first post: Even those most directly affected by the Holocaust, who, according to the thesis put forward in the OP, should be the very ones who would want to live in, and only in, a Jewish state, for the most part did NOT want to live there. So the notion, again put forward in the OP, that Zionism ins the natural and inevitable response to Jewish suffering, is manifestly false. Whether we are talking about the traumatised Jews of post war Europe, or the prosperous Jews of contemporary New York, life in the 'diaspora' is far more attractive than life in a Jewish ethnocracy.

Have you ever heard the phrase "two Jews, three opinions"? Not all people, even similarly situated ones, have the same response to a set of events. Some Holocaust survivors saw the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state to be their best chance for survival of themselves, and of the Jewish people as a whole. Some saw any solution that would get them the hell out of Europe and to a more peaceful place with less history of encoded and institutionalized antisemitism as the best solution. Some became more religious as a result of what they had been through; some, seeing that a supposedly just and merciful God had allowed them to very nearly be wiped out, decided "fuck it, I don't believe this crap anymore" and abandoned their faith and/or assimilated. Still others have varying degrees of adhesion to traditional religious beliefs and cultural practices at different stages of their lives, or depending on teh environment that they are in. And still others don't give a damn about the theology of it all, but are in favor of cultural preservation of their heritage (I pretty much fall into this category), and of seeing what the expereinces of the Jewish people can teach the rest of the planet about persecution of minority groups overall.

In short: my people come in many flavors, and I think it's vastly inaccurate to ascribe to any large group a single set of motivations. And frankly, I'm not sure that the Internet is the best medium for this discussion; it requires too many words to do it justice, and I don't have the time to type them all myself. Maybe more later...but keep in mind that the prosperous Jews of contemporary New York are often only a egneration or two removed from the traumatized Jews of postwar Europe.

More the point of them -which you are still refusing to divulge - than the truth of them.

I'm refusing to divulge anything whatsoever. Whether I'm getting my point across is another matter.

My main quibble would be with what exactly is meant by "Holocaust survivor". It seems most unlikely to me that there were hundreds of thousands of Jews still alive in the camps at the time of liberation, so I would say that the term "Holocaust survivor" in reality means any Jew who lived in occupied Europe.

This is hair-splitting in my opinion. Regardless of how many Jews were left alive in camps at the end of the war, if the Jews of Nazi-occupied Europe lived through a quite concerted attempt to extermine them entirely, then why shouldn't they all be considered Holocaust survivors? And what exactly does your quibble over the definition of "Holocaust survivor" have to do with anything?

"if the Jews of Nazi-occupied Europe lived through a quite concerted attempt to extermine them entirely, then why shouldn't they all be considered Holocaust survivors?"

Well, in a sense they are, though I'm not sure that they should be put in a category separate from all the other millions of people, of various ethnic/religious/political backgrounds, whom the Nazis were after. I think it all comes back to the whole "Holocaust uniqueness' thesis, which I find distasteful. Why is a Jew who had to hide from the Nazis more worthy of attention than, say, a Polish intellectual or a Ukranian communist? I'm not saying that you subscribe to such views, but I don't think you can deny that they do exist.

"And what exactly does your quibble over the definition of "Holocaust survivor" have to do with anything?"

It has to do with your earlier post about how "every year, an actual concentration camp survivor or two would come to speak to the entire school about his/her experience", and about how the disproportionate attention given to the Jewish Holocaust is (in your view)partly due to the supposedly large numbers of Holocaust survivors as opposed to non-Jewish war survivors. I don't know how old you are, but I just can't see how there could have been enough camp survivors still alive in the US in the last few decades to make their presence felt in schools across the US. That is why the distinction between those refugees who actually survived the camps, and those who survived the war in a more general sense - as did millions of others of many ethnic groups - is relevant here.

Re: Holocaust education/assemblies: I was speaking only of my extremely specific experience in my Midwestern suburban school district - I graduated high school in the mid-1980s. In addition to those who presented at assemblies, I've known a few camp survivors personally; a (Jewish) Polish interpreter at a former job was one, and my ex-BF's father escaped the camps as a child in Ukraine, after seeing his mother (who had bribed a guard to let her children escape) shot her to death in front of his face. He was 11 years old at the time, and is now living, in part, on German government compensation. The survivors are still around if you look, though obviously their numbers are rapidly decreasing. And I'm certainly not someone who only has Jewish friends and acquaintances.

For that matter, there are tons of Poles in the area; I currently live in the city with the largest concentration of ethnic Poles in the world outside Warsaw, and some of them must have lived through the war. But because they were mostly not in my school district, I have no idea whether any Poles, just to name one example, ever made the effort to educate others about their experiences, and what the official reception might have been to any of their efforts. I'd be happy to ask around the office, though, if anyone is curious.

Frankly, I'd love to have heard what a Polish intellectual or Ukrainian communist would have had to say to my school assembly. Are you saying that such people were refused the opportunity to tell their stories, or is it that they just haven't tried?

"Are you saying that such people were refused the opportunity to tell their stories, or is it that they just haven't tried?"

I'm saying that basing an education system on the number of 'survivors' who happen to be living in your home town is pretty lousy. Are they teaching history by anecdote? Not that personal recollections dont' have a role to play, especially for young people, but they should not dictate what will or will not be emphasised in a curriculum. I've never heard of 'victims' going around offering their services to schools, but maybe that's just me. In any case, I would say that US over-emphasis on Jewish suffering goes far beyond the number of Jewish "Holocaust survivors' available to any particular school board. I can't imagine that history curricula differ much from state to state, and the disproportionate prominence of the Holocaust in US public life goes far beyond the education system.

Nobody based the education system on the number of survivors in my hometown; they based one annual assembly on survivor's personal experiences, lasting an hour.

And there is a HUGE disparity in the quality of education among school districts in the U.S., even within single states, or among schools in the same local district; that's why my parents chose to live in our particular suburb to begin with, in fact. In my home state, for example, there is a huge budgetary disparity of dollars expended per student; the poorest schools in the state spend 1/3 the amount per student that the richest distrcits do, because public education is funded primarily by local property taxes.

There are cetain basic curriculum items that are required at the state level, but districts, and individual schools and teachers, still have a certain amount of latitude in how they choose to present the required material.

So if you were King of the U.S., how would you remedy the situation?

"Nobody based the education system on the number of survivors in my hometown; they based one annual assembly on survivor's personal experiences, lasting an hour."

Again, I'm referring to your own previous post where you said that the disproportionate amount of attention given to the Jewish holocaust was in part due to the number of 'survivors' who came to speak in schools. Check out your own words if you don't believe me.

"And there is a HUGE disparity in the quality of education among school districts in the U.S"

I'm not talking about quality of education, I'm talking about curriculum. As were you.

"So if you were King of the U.S., how would you remedy the situation?"

What situation? Seems we have strayed quite far from the original post.

Again, I'm referring to your own previous post where you said that the disproportionate amount of attention given to the Jewish holocaust was in part due to the number of 'survivors' who came to speak in schools.

IN PART being the operative phrase.

WWII, and the Jewish experience in WWII, are a required part of my home state public school history curriculum. How schools choose to present that portion of the curriculum, and the resources available them to do so, vary hugely among schools, states, and regions. Obviously the outcome is going to vary if the input varies. Lots of factors influence the input, community response among them; for all I know, the Armenian experience in WWI is a huge part of history teaching in southern California, where there is a large Armenian immigrant population, and I wouldn't expect otherwise.

What situation?

To recap: you seem to be driving at the idea that the Jewish persecution experience in WWII is given disproportionate experience in American public life in terms of the persecution experienced by other ethnic/religious minorities. I agree that other instances of persecution should be given more atetntion and have greater public resources devoted to them than is currently the case, and raised the example of my experience with the public educaiton system. As nobody seems to have chimed in with other examples, that's what we're talking about.

Throughout, your tone has hinted that I am somehow being dishonest or disingenuous in my responses, which I assure you is utter crap. Or am I missing something? If you want have an actual productive discussion of some other aspect of WWII, you and everyone else here are certainly free to do so, but as for myself, I am really reminded why Matthew says so many regular Aqoul contributors are reluctant to delve into Israel/Palestine and related issues.

Maybe I should go back to my nice North Caucasus/Central Asia and refugee policy den, where nobody splits hairs on me.

"Maybe I should go back to my nice North Caucasus/Central Asia and refugee policy den, where nobody splits hairs on me."

That, or work on removing that chip from your shoulder.

"Maybe I should go back to my nice North Caucasus/Central Asia and refugee policy den, where nobody splits hairs on me."

That, or work on removing that chip from your shoulder.

Ummmm, whose chip?

From this end it seems I am somehow being held responsible for U.S. Israel policy and WWII curriculum policy, while all I am doing is trying to share my personal insights into general U.S. and American Jewish culture on the subject. Frankly, I don't think this is productive, and I don't care to waste much time on it.

Among the reasons I typically dont go to this issue here too often is that -- among scads of other reasons -- it often can generate reckless allegations or insinuations of bad faith (why? for another thread another time), that by comparison make Mr. L's typically (though not universally) accurate abusive anti-moron vituperation seem restrained, refreshing, and even benevolent, if occasionally misdirected.

Dear MH,

For every one of those stories you'd cited in our post there is a similar story about a Palestinian at an Israeli checkpoint.

And until you GET THAT, you don't get the Israel/Palestine issue.

Or ... I cold be even more drastic and say: Why should the Arabs pay the price for something the Germans & other Europeans have done to the Jews?

Peacelove&allthat,

--MSK*

"I typically dont go to this issue here too often".

Seems to me you haven't 'gone into' the issue here either. You've simply thrown out a typical piece of Zionist emotional blackmail using the sacrosanct figure of a holocaust survivor,and shown yourself unwilling to engage with anyone who wanted to actually discuss any of the many issues your post raises.

Murphy - isn't the weight of that chip giving you a backache?

MSK - I hope that unlike many, you realize that there are tons of Jews, and even Israeli Jews, who GET THAT, and I dare say Matthew gets it, too - it simply isn't what he chose to post about on that particular day. Sadly, those in the Jewish community who do "get that" all too often aren't the vocal ones, and/or are less likely to publicly self-identify as Jewish.

Hmm. Interesting. A few comments.

"Most" Jews -who numbered roughly 500,000 in 1933 - did not flee the Reich by 1939; the actually figure is approximately a little above 50%. German Jews, ironically, had higher rates of survival under the Nazis than Jews from other nationalities, particularly Polish and other "Eastern" Jewry. Almost all of Poland's 3 milion Jews were exterminated, for example.

Some of the Young Turk architects of the Armenian Genocide were sheltered in exile by Germany, though one was assassinated there ( Talaat, I believe). Hitler himself used the Armenian precedent as an example to his inner circle during his table talk.

The Holocaust, whatever Murphy's feelings to the contrary, is a signal historical event even in the context of an exceptionally bloody 20th century. A modern, bureaucratic state set about a centrally planned, industrial scale, extermination program of millions of people based upon crackpot racialist eugenics and anti-semitic conspiracy theories. A killing machine that also managed to draw in additional 5.5 million non-Jewish "untermenschen", including 500,000 gypsies, 700,000 Serbians and 2 million Russian POWs. Quite an achievment considering the SS did not go into high gear until 1942.

What makes the Holocaust remarkable is not that Jewish lives are worth "more" than the lives of others, but the methodical extremes to which the Nazis were willing to go to assure the total annihilation of European Jewry. An exterminationist ambition no other genocidaire state has attempted to match until the radical Hutu militias, using far more primitive means, struck at the Tutsi in 1992.

"What makes the Holocaust remarkable is not that Jewish lives are worth "more" than the lives of others, but the methodical extremes to which the Nazis were willing to go to assure the total annihilation of European Jewry."

I don't think anyone would - or reasonably could - deny that the Holocaust is 'remarkable' in the most gruesome sense of the word. However, what I and many others take issue with is the oft-propagated notion that the holocaust is somehow 'unique' and if it is to be seriously analysed at all, must be done so outside the normal historical context. This of course, is willful nonsense. Certain aspects of the holocaust of the Jews were unique, of course, but then, it's possible to find certain aspects of any and all historical events which were unique. That does not in itself mean that the event as a whole was unique - like all historical events, the holocaust had aspects which were similar to other comparable events, and aspects which were different. One might just as well say the Rwandan genocide was 'unique' becuase of the 'unique' (so far as I know) use of radio broadcasts as an instrument of genocide.

In any case, the discussion is in a sense moot: to the victims of any atrocity, that atrocity is unique to THEM. It's crass to suggest (as all too many people do, not neccessarily on this forum) that the alleged 'uniqueness' of the holocaust gives its survivors - or, worse, the Jewish people as a whole - a 'unique' right to regard themselves as blameless victims in perpetuity, and to use this as a means of excusing any and all crimes committed by the Jewish state.

Dear EvaLuna,

Of course I "get" what MH was talking about. I got that since I could think.

What I don't get is the point of his post here.

A lot "folks, especially y'all from MENA" also GET THAT - but it doesn't address any of their concerns, and they, rightfully, ask why they have to pay the price for a crime committed by someone else.

Also, and I think that's what Murphy is GETTING AT, the Holocaust was & continues to be as a tool, and rather cynically so, to tarnish any critic of Israeli policies as, at the bare minimum, a heartless bastard who doesn't GET the suffering endured by the Jewish people.

Tom Segev's "The Seventh Million" comes to mind ...

--MSK*

I'm not sure Matthew realizes just how often people perceived as advocates for Arab causes get the kindergarten version of Holocaust Studies. It always comes across as condescending.

Further:

I think where Murphy goes badly wrong is in mistaking causes for effects; in mistaking the true basis on which right-wing pro-Israel nationalism has been built for another aspect of its justification.

The reason that the Holocaust and holocaust memorials, etc have been instrumentalized to the degree they have in support of Israel, et cetera, is that they tap into a real felt experience. The experience has been coopted to some degree to serve the propaganda; it was not invented to support the propaganda. People can feel that Jews have suffered prejudice and an attempted annihilation, because they have, without buying in to the whole nationalist narrative that's been built on top of that.

Now, there's a strong desire among those familiar with Palestinian perspectives to throw out the whole narrative; to say that the ideology has had such horrible results that everything it's touched is tainted. The only problem with that is that there are parts of the narrative that are true, and that are shared by people who don't buy the whole package.

A real deconstruction of the Israeli nationalist narrative has to work with the logic which ties the basis in Jewish suffering to the conclusion that therefore Palestinian suffering is immaterial. But that requires extensive, detailed argument, which is hard to carry out at the top of one's lungs.

There's an obvious parallel in the right-wing argument that people shouldn't pass on stories of Palestinian suffering, because those stories are used to justify suicide bombings of Israeli civilians, and Islamic radicalism in general.

Also: more Muppet ethnocentrism.

"The experience has been coopted to some degree to serve the propaganda; it was not invented to support the propaganda."

I never said the experience was 'invented'. What I have said - and it's hardly an original thought - is that it has been exploited to serve the Zionist cause. It goes without saying that those Jews directly affected by the Holocaust were deeply traumatised by it, and also that other Jews, even if not themselves involved, were often psychologically affected too. What I am doing is rejecting the implication of the OP: that post-Holocaust trauma made support for Zionism inevitable. I just don't believe that is the case at all.

If you read the work of Novick, Finkelstein, Segev and others, it becomes clear that for the Jewish population of the 'diaspora' (principally the US), the Holocaust - and the history of Jewish persecution in general - did not become a major focus until the 1960s - which, of course, was also the time that Israel's power as an occupying nation became most difficult to ignore. Of course, other factors were involved too: the fact that Jews had finally 'made it' in the US and were accepted as part of mainstream society (often, indeed, as part of the elite) allowed Jews to focus on what made them 'different' as a group. But the fact remains that by no means all US Jews were 'truamatised' by the Holocaust, and that its elevation to central importance in US Jewish society was by no means inevitable.

Anyway, the whole complex history of how and why 'diaspora' Jews chose the Holocaust - and Israel - as their major rallying cries are beyond the scope of this discussion. Like MSK, I question the whole point of the OP: So, some Jews become 'irrational' about Israel because of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust and before? Yes, and....? Some Arabs become 'irrational' about Palestine because of Arab suffering at the hands of Zionists since 1948 and before. And yes, I of course know that the Palestinian catastrophe does not compare - certainly not in numerical terms - to the Holocaust, but as I've also said, that is irrelevant here. If you have lost your home and your homeland, and seen members of your family killed by a foreign army, you're not going to run to the history books to check where your national tragedy rates on a historic scale of 1 to 10. You are going to respond, perhaps by an implacable - and possibly 'irrational' desire for revenge, perhaps by sinking into helplessness and depression, perhaps by any of the myriad ways human beings have of dealing with trauma. Such reactions are not limited to Jews, nor is the Holocaust the only tragedy to have given rise to deep emotions and feelings of 'irrationality' on the part of the victims.

That is what I wanted to say.

tom -- I think where Murphy goes badly wrong is in mistaking causes for effects; in mistaking the true basis on which right-wing pro-Israel nationalism has been built for another aspect of its justification.

Spot on.

murphy -- It's hardly fair to say that the Holocaust became an issue for US Jews in the mid-60s, since Jews in the US were the only ones to be really acutely aware of it, and in large part, traumatized by it. What happened was that the rest of society caught up, for a myriad reasons -- some of which were indeed related to Israel's new place in US politics, but hardly all. Generational shifts, freshly opened archives, some remarkable books and movies, the rise of the Holocaust denier phenomenon, resurgent anti-Semitism along with anti-Zionism (and no, they're not the same thing), as well as organized campaigning on the part of Jewish groups, and other things, all had a share in that.

As for the point of MH's post, isn't it obvious? That one would need more than that to get a full picture is another matter entirely; he doesn't claim this is the final explanation for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he just points out that emotional baggage like this is one very important explanation for some behavior on the Israeli side. Which it is, Palestinian and other Israeli motivations aside. That bears repeating, and the more so in milieus generally sympathetic to the Palestinian argument, which I believe the major part of 'Aqoul's readership is, since that's where it is most often conveniently forgotten. Goes without saying that some opposite version involving rusted Palestinian keys and dead children in Gaza should be brought more often to more Israel-focused audiences, but that hardly invalidates MH's point.

"since Jews in the US were the only ones to be really acutely aware of it, and in large part, traumatized by it."

I take it you've not read Finkelstein or Novick's books? Both writers (who btw strongly dislike each other) grew up in US Jewish families after the war. Both say that the Holocaust was rarely spoken of in their environments and add that, although such matters are hard to prove one way or the other, the evidence suggests that the holocaust was not a matter of great interest to most US Jews until around the 1960s.

"Generational shifts, freshly opened archives, some remarkable books and movies, the rise of the Holocaust denier phenomenon, resurgent anti-Semitism along with anti-Zionism"

AS I've said, the causes for US Jewish 'discovery' of the Holocaust are complex. However, I disagree with some of your alleged causes. Why the need for 'freshly opened archives' in the immediate aftermath of the events, especially when, we are told, there were many people in the US who had directly experienced the holocaust? As for those 'remarkable books and movies', what was the motivation to make them, and why were they not made earlier on, as was the case with other works of art dealing with the war? Those books which were written on the holocaust - notably Hilberg's famous study (far more 'remarkable' than much of the schlock that was to follow) gained little attention at the time.

As for "Holocaust denial" the term holocaust was not coined, in this context, until the early 60s, so you can't deny something which has not even been recognised in the first place. I also draw exactly the opposite conclusion to you regarding 'anti-semitism" - all the evidence is that anti-semitism in the US had dropped to an all-time low in the 60s (and remained there since, propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding). It was precisely this favourable environment which made it possible for Jews to draw attention to themselves as a distinct group with a 'victim' status.

"That one would need more than that to get a full picture is another matter entirely; he doesn't claim this is the final explanation for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,"

No? So what exactly did he mean when he said:

"It is close to being all that simple."

Sounds pretty close to a 'final explanation' to me. Otherwise, I still really can't see the point of the post. As others have said, it's extremely patronising to suggest that supporters of the Palestinians don't 'get' the fact that Jewish suffering has led to irrational (sometimes spontaneous, sometimes contrived) support for Zionism on the part of some Jews (and other 'folks'). Of course we 'get' it, we just don't think it's anything close to being an adequate explanation of the situation. Particularly when, as you yourself have said, the same arguments can just as easily be made in reverse.

As for the point of MH's post, isn't it obvious?

I hoped it was, you see it. Thank you.

That one would need more than that to get a full picture is another matter entirely;

yep.

. . he doesn't claim this is the final explanation for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he just points out that emotional baggage like this is one very important explanation for some behavior on the Israeli side.

Yep. Essential to understand and it is usually cast aside by those sympathetic to Palestinians.

Which it is, Palestinian and other Israeli motivations aside. That bears repeating, and the more so in milieus generally sympathetic to the Palestinian argument, which I believe the major part of 'Aqoul's readership is . . . .

By George I think you got it all, alle, 5 gold stars.

Real-life activities have made me too busy to respond. But I think I pre-emptively responded in the OP.

To the "So...?" point: if knowledge of motives don't matter in human conflict, then everything is "So...."

PS -- The point was really not especially about the Holocaust (that was the context of the story presented and it is the best illustrator) but the KIND of experience described, which was not genocide at all, but public humiliation for no decent reason which has been a far more common experience (hint: most of the stuff that created this happened chronically in Eastern Europe, before Hitler had a moustache, and lesser versions all over the place). And when you get the impact of that kind of experience, you also get why, say, Palestinians might blow themselves murderously up to avenge their chronic ill-treatment, while not wanting to hear dirt about the experiences of their ill-treators. Without it in any way being a justification.

The final focus is that those who go through it may merit some slack, but PRO-Palestinians and PRO-Israelis have less excuse for overlooking the actual impact of real history of chronic humiliation both groups carry around.

Whatever manipulations and abuses the Holocaust or anti-Semitism are put to by Zionist nationalists (and they are, intensely so at times), the emotional roots are real. The sense of an unsated need for self-assertion or safety is raw and real, and comes, not from manipulation by Zionist ideologues but the actual life experiences of a broad group of people.

The sense is not a CONTRIVANCE, and the sense that it is one is a problem of many Arabs, other MENA-ites, and others with a justified pro-Palestinians sympathy, especially. And that sense of contrivance needs to be slain like a stake through Dracula's heart, especially as the 60 year anniversary of both the State of Israel and the related Nakba and public discussions are coming up. (A more direct answer to the "so?" question.)

Support for creating or sustaining Israel isn't all about stealing land and searching out an excuse in genocide. Or ideological expansionism and supremacism. It's about the odd contortions of human morality that follow chronic abuse and alienation. The other bad stuff is made possible from that. (And war and genocide).

And I coaxed a 50-comment post on our sleepifying site!!!

Well done, sir, well done. And your argument reminds me of Obama's recent race speech, in which he pursued the novel idea of trying to make people understand both sides of the race issues. Can't be a bad thing.

I understood Matt to be pointing out something that, while otherwise obvious, is something that those generally sympathetic to Palestinians are often willing to step over ('Yeah, the Jews suffered during the Holocaust -' [and what follows is generally unsympathetic, if not condemnatory]) - when it's a necessary understanding, and one that those Jews who are otherwise sympathetic to human rights causes, precisely because of their background of suffering, are aware of.

I attended a Jewish/ Muslim dialogue at University, one that started when a young friend of mine went on a sponsored trip to Auschwitz with Jewish friends. When she was confronted (she wore hijab, and niqab at the time) at Auschwitz by a Jewish IDF member who asked "Why are you here? Don't you know that Jews come here, that this space is for Jews to remember?" She answered: "Yes, but I think all humanity has to learn it's lessons..."

It's not to lift one suffering over another, not to elevate ourselves through discourse or pretending we know someone else's suffering or even to (falsehood) relativize or quantize suffering; but to recognize that someone else has a real cause for sympathy, and we can't be so arrogant as to ignore the reality of others.

But in the end, I think there's a good reason why 'Aqoul writers generally don't wade into Israel/Palestinian matters, more heat than light is generated, especially over the internet, where emotional comprehension is at it's lowest, and random comments are taken at face (or text) value...

Good job, all above, for generally not taking this discussion in the direction either electronicintifada or LGF would have taken it.

"To the "So...?" point: if knowledge of motives don't matter in human conflict, then everything is "So....""

Well, you say that now, but the thing is you did NOT say that in your OP, where you only mentioned the possible motives of Zionists, and, in a rather patronising manner, told 'folks' that basically it was 'that simple'. You are now acknowledging that of course, it certainly is NOT 'that simple' and that the roles could easily be reversed and made to support the Palestinian cause too.

Fair enough - but the reason I took issue with your OP is that it seemed to be yet another attempt to silence all debate on Israel/Palestine through the use of yet more aging-Holocaust-survivor blackmail. As if we needed more of that.... Because, as I and others have pointed out, and despite what has been said on this thread, supporters of the Palestinians (at least in the "West") ARE very much aware of Jewish suffering and DO understand the impact it has had on support for Zionism. Really, we do. We just don't accept that 'it's close to being that simple'. Nowhere near.

Besides, has it ever occurred to you that, if some advocates for the Palestinians do get a bit defensive when faced with the link between Jewish suffering and Zionism, it might perhaps be because they are tired of being endlessly bludgeoned with the powerful weapon which The Holocaust has become?

murphy -- I take it you've not read Finkelstein or Novick's books?

I've read Finkelstein's Holocaust Industry, which I found pretty mediocre. It's not a hate-screed, as the loony right wants to frame it, and it deserves credit for bringing up actual important issues, that are of concern not least to American Jews. I would tend to agree with him on many points. But he suffers from Chomsky's Disease, in that he is determined to frame everything in one grand mega-system of Hegemonic Western Evil; details are blown out of proportions, chosen selectively, etc, to fit that larger narrative. As a hardball argument in a debate, it's fine, as research it is not very convincing.

Anyway, in the book, if I remember correctly -- this was a couple of years ago -- he says his family didn't speak much of the Holocaust, but also that his parents were Holocaust survivors (one or both), and the no speaking was connected to trauma, social stigmas and shame. That's slightly different from your point.

Why the need for 'freshly opened archives' in the immediate aftermath of the events, especially when, we are told, there were many people in the US who had directly experienced the holocaust?

Come on now. The mid/late-1960s is not in the immediate aftermath of 1945, and the overwhelming majority of Americans and Europeans were not Holocaust survivors -- not even Jews.

As for those 'remarkable books and movies', what was the motivation to make them, and why were they not made earlier on, as was the case with other works of art dealing with the war?

Well, perhaps because of the increasing interest in and awareness of the Holocaust? More studies, new archives, more info, more interest, more TV, more high-impact images, more public awareness, yet more demand for info, etc, along with the general opening-up of race issues and critique of Western history that emerged in academia and gained a wider following with the civil rights movement, and so on ad nauseam. And somewhere in there, also Israel, as one cause among the many. It's an interconnecting process ("complex" was the word you used), and you won't find a Patient Zero cause -- some guy who awoke one day and decided to start a movement for bringing light to the Holocaust, an otherwise forgotten sideshow of WW2.

Those books which were written on the holocaust - notably Hilberg's famous study [...] gained little attention at the time.

Hilberg still hasn't got exactly a mass readership, but that doesn't prevent his study from having had a huge impact in academic circles, and from there on. And yes, it too was published in the 60s.

As for "Holocaust denial" the term holocaust was not coined, in this context, until the early 60s, so you can't deny something which has not even been recognised in the first place.

Neo-Nazis and other anti-Jewish loons have the advantage of not caring much for epistemology, so they somehow managed.

- - -

matthew h -- I'm not sure what to make of you handing out yellow stars, but thanks.

"the no speaking was connected to trauma, social stigmas and shame. That's slightly different from your point."

Not at all. Since holocaust survivors are virtually secular saints (not my phrase) today, just why is it that, in the years during which they would presumably have been most in need of counselling and talking about their experiences, they would, according to you, have not done so due to 'shame' and 'social stigma'? If US Jews were, as you say 'in large part traumatised' by the Holocaust, just why were those most directly affected by it shunned in this way?

"The mid/late-1960s is not in the immediate aftermath of 1945, "

Actually, a period of 20 years IS rather short in the historical context, and it usually takes several decades before archives are opened - archives from the war are still closed in many countries. In any case, I'll have to ask you to be specific. Precisely which 'archives' were 'opened' in the 1960s and what specific impact did they have on discussion of the holocaust in the US?

"Neo-Nazis and other anti-Jewish loons have the advantage of not caring much for epistemology, so they somehow managed."

I'm one of the many who believe that Holocaust denial - while it certainly exists - is mostly confined to a lunatic fringe and is grossly exaggerated by certain people (for reasons which should be obvious). In any case, my point still stands: If the holocaust did not feature in any major way in US public consciousness before the 1960s (and I think we both agree that it did not) then how could there have been any major backlash against it? My reference to the fact that the term 'holocaust' did not even exist then is not mere 'epistemology', it's an indication of how little the geoncide of European Jews featured in general US consciousness.

"his study from having had a huge impact in academic circles, and from there on. And yes, it too was published in the 60s."

It finally found a publisher (after much difficulty) in 1961, a few years before the Holocaust even began to feature prominently in US public life. And while it may now be regarded as a classic, the fact is that at the time of publication the book was greeted with at best indifference, at worst outright hostility (and, no, not from 'holocaust deniers' who as I've said, barely existed at the time, but from mainstream US and Israeli academia).

"Well, perhaps because of the increasing interest in and awareness of the Holocaust? "

Which does not answer my question: Why the relatively belated interest in the Holocaust, and why then? I also think you may be confusing cause and effect: were "Holocaust" and "Exodus" made because of a public clamouring for films and TV series about the holocaust, or was the interest generated BY the new-found high public profile of the event?

murphy -- Not at all. Since holocaust survivors are virtually secular saints (not my phrase) today, just why is it that, in the years during which they would presumably have been most in need of counselling and talking about their experiences, they would, according to you, have not done so due to 'shame' and 'social stigma'?

I think you might need to dwell for a moment on what the Holocaust meant to survivors. People didn't step off the ships into New York harbor with a healthy smile and start giving interviews to the press, they hunkered down and tried to hold together. Finkelstein makes precisely that point in his book (or in some interview, I don't remember), that his parents were not interested in making a big deal out of what they'd gone through, simply because it hurt too much. And who to talk to, your kids? If you want that argument with pictures, Art Spiegelman has drawn a good illustrated novel about it.

After that, have a look at your general tone, and try to see why it may come across as offensive.

Actually, a period of 20 years IS rather short in the historical context, and it usually takes several decades before archives are opened - archives from the war are still closed in many countries.

Short or long in a historical context depends on what you mean by "historical", doesn't it? Either way, it's pretty long for the people who lived through the events. Pick anything to compare: the Algerian war didn't get its finest studies in 1963, the Palestinian Nakba or Israel's creation didn't get good research in 1949, and the Vietnam War didn't exactly vanish from popular culture in 1975.

And so with the Holocaust. It took a while for people to digest it, to start treating it as a separate event from the overall WW2 mayhem, to start building up a scientific community around it, cultural codes and symbols for it, publish general materials and establish the groundwork for further studies, and then finally start delving deep. Same thing for witnesses and survivors who will grow old and want to unload their memories on someone, start talking and treating their wounds. And then memoirs begin to be published, old diaries are dug up after deaths, grown children -- like Finkelstein -- get interested, etc.

In any case, I'll have to ask you to be specific. Precisely which 'archives' were 'opened' in the 1960s and what specific impact did they have on discussion of the holocaust in the US?

I have no idea what archives were opened when, and please realize that my argument doesn't hinge on one single archive being opened in precisely ... 1964, or whenever. Things keep filtering out all the time, and it's one of many things that have affected this issue. One example is the (semi-)opening of Soviet archives in the 1990s, which pushed a whole lot of new material into Holocaust studies (which was then already a reasonably big field, but grew even more). Apart from that, you have eg. the whole Albert Speer circus in the 60-70s, Sereny's interviews with him and Kurt Stangl, Eichmann's capture and interrogations, Anne Frank's diary, the Historikerstreit in Germany, the Hitler diary scam, lots of books published year after year by survivors (Kertesz to name one), certainly Israeli-Palestinian issues (including some concerted propaganda and fetischization on the part of Israel & its fans), the battles over compensation, and other things that bit by bit, in different periods, hammered the Holocaust into public conscience as the seminal event it is considered today. (And deserves to be.)

If the holocaust did not feature in any major way in US public consciousness before the 1960s (and I think we both agree that it did not) then how could there have been any major backlash against it?

No one said "major backlash". Combating Holocaust denial was an insignificant issue for everyone except for historians, survivors & families, various anti-Fascists and the German and Israeli governments, but it certainly prodded them into action.

...while [The Destruction of the European Jews] may now be regarded as a classic, the fact is that at the time of publication the book was greeted with at best indifference, at worst outright hostility ...

Outright hostility would do just fine to stimulate academic interest. Look, you can try to take this apart piece by piece, and deny that every single thing I mentioned was the main cause of today's interest in the Holocaust, until you're left with nothing but Israel and the Zionist menace, but then you're profoundly missing the point.

I also think you may be confusing cause and effect: were "Holocaust" and "Exodus" made because of a public clamouring for films and TV series about the holocaust, or was the interest generated BY the new-found high public profile of the event?

And I think you may not be understanding the word "interconnecting".

can of worms

diet of worms

I'm just here to say that I found Murphy's contention that only a small number of Holocaust survivors made it to the US to be, frankly, stunning.
I grew up in the Bronx, which in my childhood was probably still the most Jewish place on the planet. Did not lack for Holocaust survivors. Among Jewish old folks, and there were plenty, it was almost common to see the blue tattooed numbers on the arm. By the time I was 12 or 13 I didn't even think of it as a remarkable thing to see anymore.
Anecdotal? Maybe. I'd like to think of it as real life, lived by real people.

"Finkelstein makes precisely that point in his book (or in some interview, I don't remember), that his parents were not interested in making a big deal out of what they'd gone through, simply because it hurt too much."

That of course is true. But Finkelstein and others also point out that there was a general lack of interest in the holocaust among US Jews, and Novick remarks that those who DID want to talk about it (and according to him, many did) were discouraged from doing so. These writers also maintain - however 'offensive' and unPC you may find it - that most US Jews (obviouly I'm not talking about those directly affected) at the time simply did NOT want to know about the holocaust. This may seem incredible given the central role the holocaust now playes in US Jewish psychology, but the evidence - such as it is - indicates that it was indeed the case.

"If you want that argument with pictures, Art Spiegelman has drawn a good illustrated novel about it."

What was that somebody said about the kindergarten version of holocaust studies?

"After that, have a look at your general tone, and try to see why it may come across as offensive."

i've not heard anyone call my 'tone' offensive, though I am of course aware that some (not neccessarily on this board) will contrive offense towards anyone who dares deviate from the Elie Wiesel line.

"Short or long in a historical context depends on what you mean by "historical", doesn't it?"

Please. My point was very specific, and referred to the opening of archives, in this context 20 years IS a very short time.

"I have no idea what archives were opened when, and please realize that my argument doesn't hinge on one single archive being opened in precisely ... 1964, or whenever."

So basically you made up the point about 'archives'

"the Palestinian Nakba or Israel's creation didn't get good research in 1949, "

Absolutely. Israel's 'new historians' published their groundbreaking works on this period in the 80s and 90s, when archives were first opened. A lot longer than 15-20 years.

In any case, the plethora of holocaust schlock which began to hit the bookshelves and screens in hte '60s hardly constitute 'fine studies'.

"Outright hostility would do just fine to stimulate academic interest."
Maybe - but the fact is that Hilberg's book passed almost unnoticed at the time.

"Combating Holocaust denial was an insignificant issue for everyone except for historians, survivors & families, various anti-Fascists and the German and Israeli governments, but it certainly prodded them into action."

Again, if you could provide evidence of significant denial (in hte 1960s) of an event which did not figure prominently in the public consciousness, and did not yet even have a name, I'd be more than willing to entertain your point.

", you can try to take this apart piece by piece, and deny that every single thing I mentioned was the main cause of today's interest in the Holocaust, until you're left with nothing but Israel and the Zionist menace,"

If you're not prepared to have your points challenged, don't make them. And please read back to my earlier post when I said that the causes for the rathr sudden interest in the Holocaust were 'complex'. I never once said Israel was the only cause, though it certainly is one.

"I'm just here to say that I found Murphy's contention that only a small number of Holocaust survivors made it to the US to be, frankly, stunning."

It's not my contention by any means. The numbers of Holocaust survivors were, sadly, very small full stop. Of these, only a small minority went to the US. What might seem like a large number in the context of one NY community does not translate into large numbers on a national scale. Again, statistics are fairly easy to find in this regard, if you choose to look.

Dear Alle & MH,

Alle said:

As for the point of MH's post, isn't it obvious? That one would need more than that to get a full picture is another matter entirely; he doesn't claim this is the final explanation for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he just points out that emotional baggage like this is one very important explanation for some behavior on the Israeli side. Which it is, Palestinian and other Israeli motivations aside. That bears repeating, and the more so in milieus generally sympathetic to the Palestinian argument, which I believe the major part of 'Aqoul's readership is, since that's where it is most often conveniently forgotten.

MH said:

Essential to understand and it is usually cast aside by those sympathetic to Palestinians.

So ... basically you're saying that Aqoul's readership, being sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, needs to remember the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust a bit more than they/we usually do.

Do you have any idea how presumptuous (how would you know what Aqoul's readership thinks?) and patronizing this is?

Is April now "sermonizing month" on Aqoul?

And please, I would really like to get an answer to the question: What does the Holocaust have to do with Palestinians & why do they have to pay the price for a suffering that they didn't cause?

I still don't get why this post is relevant or necessary for Aqoul. Does anyone here seriously think that what MH so valiantly pointed out wasn't understood beforehand? If so, please do provide evidence from previous Aqoul posts.

--MSK*

I'm just here to say that I found Murphy's contention that only a small number of Holocaust survivors made it to the US to be, frankly, stunning.

And keep in mind that many who survived the Holocaust didn't show up in the U.S. until long after the fact, and via immigration mechanisms other than the Displaced Persons Act, such as via the normal family-sponsored route, or (as in the case of my ex's parents) as refugees in the late 1970s, when Soviet Jews (and other Soviets) were finally allowed to depart in significant numbers.

Dear MH,

Addendum: What is your point in practical terms?

I've been thinking all day about your post & it still escapes me.

Why did you post this specific post on Aqoul? Was it something we said?

--MSK*

MSK - I don’t pretend to speak for Matthew. However, one practical point a person might take away from his post, which applies both to a certain segment of Israelis, as well as to a certain segment of Palestinians, is that the persecution experience leaves people with all sorts of emotional baggage that makes it difficult in some circumstances for the persecuted people, or even for their descendants, to approach rationally certain issues related to the persecution. And that if one actually wants to resolve said issues, one is more likely to have a productive interchange if one keeps that fact in mind in dealing with emotionally charged people and emotionally charged issues.
Why post on Aqoul? Well, why not? To date, the bulk of Aqoul content has been devoted to addressing issues that affect Islam, Muslims, and/or Arabs. There are two significant anniversaries coming up in May that have not only fundamentally affected the welfare of a large group of Arabs and Muslims, but also involve large numbers of Israelis and Jews, some of whom were Holocaust survivors. Are you saying that Matthew should have addressed the Palestinian side first? Are you taking issue with his tone in addressing the Israeli side? What’s your specific beef here? I’ve always thought the beauty of Aqoul was that authors were free to address whatever relevant issues struck them on any given day. If someone wants to post about the issue from a Palestinian perspective, I don’t think anyone would have a problem with that. Heck, go right ahead, for that matter, if you think you have something to add.

P.S. This is not at all directed to MSK, but just as an Arab or Muslim might get incredibly annoyed at the assumption that he/she supported a radical viewpoint simply by being Arab or Muslim, I, as someone who happens to give a damn about human rights and who does not in the slightest support Israeli government policy toward Palestinians, get pretty pissed off at the automatic assumption that I “support Israel “ because I was raised Jewish (though as an adult, the extent of my religious observance has pretty much been to show up at weddings, funerals, the occasional Bar/Bat Mitzvah, and Mom’s house for holiday dinners). It’s annoying, erroneous, and singularly unproductive to blame all Jews, or even all Israelis, for Israeli government actions. And besides that, it’s highly unproductive; in a democracy, if one wants to change policy, one should appeal to the majority, no? And those American Jews who are hard-line right-wingers on Israel/Palestine issues may be the squeakiest wheels, but they aren’t the only ones capable of providing the grease – it would be a mistake to ignore the large numbers of moderates. That is, if you actually want to change anything rather than just whine about the situation.

Eva,

Like you, I can't speak for others, but I don't think your post answers MSK's questions at all. As I've said - the OP adds absolutely nothing to the discussion on Israel/Palestine. Nor does it - contrary to what some here have assumed - tell anybody anything they did not already know. It was just a paraphrased account of one elderly Jewish man's experience of discrimination, supplemented by an extremely patronising - not to mention nonsensical - note to 'folks' that 'it really is close to being that simple'.

AS to your other point: Sure, I accept that it's wrong to assume all Jews support Israel (although the vast majority do, at least in a general sense) and I accept that I was wrong to assume you were a Zionist. However, I hope you will also understand that it's exceedingly annoying to read an OP like the one above, with the strong implication that just because someone is a supporter of the Palestinians - even if they have been raised in a society where references to the holocaust are a part of the cultural background - they must somehow be insufficiently aware of Jewish suffering. If the OP did NOT believe this, it's very hard to see why he would have made such a banal and pointless OP.

Dear Eva,

Nothing that Matthew wrote wasn't already known before, but by saying "you better get this before y'all continue to whine about the fact that many Jews seemingly irrationally support Israel regardless what it's doing" he basically accused those "MENA folks" of never having "got that" in the first place.

And I find that quite ... errr ... presumptuous, to say the least.

Palestinians and other Arabs DO "get that". But to them the Holocaust is entirely disconnected to the Israel/Palestine problem, as they have had nothing to do with it. But it is precisely the connection of the Holocaust with the State of Israel that is problematic here. Many Israelis & supporters use the Holocaust to justify what according to int'l law are crimes: expulsions, ethnic cleansing, occupation without taking responsibility for the welfare of the population under occupation, denial of medical services/food/water, expropriation of land and resources, etc.

Re: Why post on Aqoul? Usually posts have a point & I'm (still) wondering what Matthew's is.

So far, it seems like a low-blow accusation thrown at others, including myself. Is he working for the Clinton campaign? If so, I'm not working for Obama, just in case he thought so.

--MSK*

it's wrong to assume all Jews support Israel (although the vast majority do, at least in a general sense)

Depends on how you define "in a general sense." Do most Jews support the idea that Israel has a right to exist? Probably. But when pressed, I've never met a Jew who agreed with the way Palestinians are currently treated in areas under Israeli government control. (Admittedly my sample is highly skewed, as my family and friends tend to be a bunch of semi-observant moderate lefties even at our most traditionalist, but still.)

To alle --

5 gold stars

I was thinking of Amazon reviews and grade school, not yellow stars and Nuremberg Laws.

Though come to think of it there is a very good underappreciated movie called Lucky Star that manages a twist on the latter theme and justice represented by a Western sheriff's star.

Here's the thing (I skipped about 10 comments to make my comment...hopefully, I'm not repeating someone else's point)

The most powerful propaganda is always the truth. Holocaust propaganda is powerful precisely because it is based on a piece of truth that also happense to be especially gruesome and traumatic.

The trouble starts when ppl downplay this for whatever reason: for many, especially those to whom the experience is central (whether they were "directly" affected or not), downplaying this is an assault on their past and identity. They will use whatever they can to shout them down.

Tony Karon (Time Reporter who is also a South African Jew--a most interesting combination of perspective) had an interesting comment on this long time on his blog--I'm too lazy to track it down. He thought the most brilliant thing that Nelson Mandela did rhetorically was to invoke the historical suffering of the Afrikaners in the early history of South Africa to make his case for the black Africans, rather than dismiss centuries of hardship that shaped their oppressors' identity. He felt that that should be the winning rhetorical strategy for the Palestinian cause. It might be worth looking up for those interested.

Murphy -- What was that somebody said about the kindergarten version of holocaust studies?

No, really, great book. I seriously recommend it if you haven't read it, and if you're the least bit into comics -- or the Holocaust, and I think the latter may apply.

So basically you made up the point about 'archives'

No, but I somehow got suckered into defending the claim that this must have happened precisely 20 years after the Holocaust ended. I stand by the point, that opened archives, new discoveries and such has had a sort of a drip effect in keeping the subject in the news and in stimulating academic interest.

If you're not prepared to have your points challenged, don't make them.

No, I'm happy to have you challenge my points, and you're doing it pretty well too (meaning this is an interesting debate, if a bit time-consuming). What I meant was that you dig into each specific when what I was trying to point out by throwing up that long list of examples was the sheer number of different causes that kicked in about 1960-1980. There's no master reason and no point of departure for it, and trying to pin down the exact reasons will be futile. Was Jewish sensibilities in the US among the major causes? Yes. But you could also say that, for example, cheaper TV:s was The Cause, since it was WW2 documentaries that helped brand the watch towers and body piles as a modern cultural icon of racism, to kids growing up in every living room across the Western world. Had private television arrived in the 1920s, I'm sure that trench warfare could have become just as potent as a symbol of modern Evil.

Point: it's primarily a cultural phenomenon, not a political campaign.

I never once said Israel was the only cause, though it certainly is one.

Yes, it is one, and a major one for various reasons. The difference here seems to be that you want to view the modern moral/media centrality of the Holocaust as a mostly artificially created interest, while I think that, even if it has certainly been actively pushed for a number of reasons (incl. political), there's nothing very surprising about the level of interest today. It would have grown sooner or later anyway, given the scale of the event, that it offers a clear-cut moral story from WW2 (and the rest of that lousy century), its role in the demise of anti-Semitism and other racisms (a whole current of thought in Western debate just imploded), and, perhaps most of all, that it happened just as we entered the media age.

MSK -- So ... basically you're saying that Aqoul's readership, being sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, needs to remember the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust a bit more than they/we usually do./ Do you have any idea how presumptuous (how would you know what Aqoul's readership thinks?) and patronizing this is?

I don't see how it's any more patronising than writing a post about any other subject, from the one angle that he'd like to share at that moment. The odd thing, really, is the violent reaction when MH points out something rather obvious in an interesting way. Perhaps it's patronising again, but may it not be that people are a bit raw after years or decades of anti-Semitism being brought up as an argument in this debate?

Is April now "sermonizing month" on Aqoul?

Well, for lack of the New Sermonizing Month Thread.

What does the Holocaust have to do with Palestinians...

Jews.

... & why do they have to pay the price for a suffering that they didn't cause?

Because the world is a crappy place and so on. But now you're the one making presumptions -- who said it is RIGHT that Palestinians take the hit for Israeli & European historical traumas? The original post and all debate since have said that this has been a (doubly) sad fact of life, not that it is the way things should be.

K. Hs -- He felt that that [comparing their suffering to that of Jews] should be the winning rhetorical strategy for the Palestinian cause.

I think that strategy has been tried ... and condemned to death without appeal. Palestinians trying to draw parallels between their suffering and that of Israeli Jews are without exception labeled as diminishing the scope of the Holocaust, and by extension, as vile anti-Semitites in anti-racist disguise. With Western audiences, Israel wins that argument hands down, thanks to Hitler -- again, a sad and unfair fact of life that Palestinians would do better to try and work around than to keep banging their heads on.

Dear alle,

And I quote MH's post:

Folks, especially y'all from MENA, if you want to understand why nice folks turn irrational where Israel is concerned, and refuse to hear, or just shout down, plain logic and facts, and if you want also to understand why Zionism evokes such (yes, quite absurd at times) passion, then you do not have to go much beyond the above and its emotional legacy.

...

And no, don't go on and tell us in the inevitable more-heat-than-light comments the issue generates that the above incident doesn't justify, or doesn't excuse, or that the Arabs-didn't-do-that, etc., blah blah blah. You're certainly right, but that's not the point.

Because if you want to know The Big Why, and if the issue engages you for any reason, then you need to have the above down. Because the answer is found in the legacy,repetition, and memory of actual moments like the above, which actually occurred over a far wider time and area than just the period of Nazi Germany.

And yet again, I'm saying:

(1) The "pro-Palestinian" faction, including Edward Said, GETS that point and always have.

(2) That point is irrelevant to the Israel/Palestine issue. Yes, IRRELEVANT. The Israel/Palestine issue is about two people fighting over the same land. Period. It's NOT about the holocaust. The holocaust may explain the emotionalism attached to the Israel/Palestine issue, but that's extraneous to the actual conflict.

So, there is quite a difference between us Aqoulites being patronizingly smug about, say, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Matthew saying "You guys need to understand what the holocaust means for the Jews" as if we don't already.

It seems to me that Matthew has no clue about what the "other side" actually thinks and knows and GETS. And I'm very sorry to see that.

I would also like to see Matthew actually engaging me & Murphy, and answer our questions.

--MSK*

"The trouble starts when ppl downplay this for whatever reason: for many, especially those to whom the experience is central (whether they were "directly" affected or not), downplaying this is an assault on their past and identity."

Well, yes, sure and yes, many Palestinians do downplay or even ignore Jewish suffering. However there are a number of problems with such a simple statement. The first, as MSK has already pointed out, is that it assumes the holocaust is the central event in the Israel-Palestine 'confict'. It isn't, though many try to pretend that it is.

Secondly, you have to see this from the point of view of the Palestinians. As far as they are concerned, the holocaust was a crime committed by and against Europeans, and now those same Europeans want to expiate their guilt by the formation of a Jewish state on Arab land. I'm not saying you have to agree with this version of history, just that this is how it looks from an Arab perspective. Now Palestinians are the victim of an ideology which implicitally says "we Jews suffered more than anybody, therefore we can do what we like to anyone else and nobody has a right to complain and if they do they are no better than Hitler." So for them, the holocaust was not only the event which led to the population of their land by foreign refugees, as well as to much international support for that crime, but is also the rhetorical weaon used against them. This was not the same in the Aparheid struggle in RSA: sure Afrikaners themselves may have been acutely aware of their 'history of suffering' but it was hardly a major factor in international consciousness.

"The most powerful propaganda is always the truth. Holocaust propaganda is powerful precisely because it is based on a piece of truth that also happense to be especially gruesome and traumatic. "

The experiences of millions of Palestinians at the hands of Zionism were and are gruesome and traumatic. of course, at least in numberical terms they don't compare to the holocaust but as I've said before, people don't respond to personal and national trauma by doing a historical headcount. But my point is this: while the holocaust is constantly evoked as a central plank in Israeli propaganda, and certainly, despite what MH thinks, most supporters of Palestine in the "West" are very much aware of it, no parallel demand for Israeli understanding of the crimes inflicted by Zionism exists. Given that Israel was without a doubt responsible for these crimes, surely it should be more incumbent on Israelis to recognise these crimes, rather than constantly demand that the palestinians show 'understanding' of crimes which had nothing to do with them? It's perfectly acceptable for Israelis to keep to the now thoroughly discredited line about how the Palestinian refugee problem was caused by Palestinians obeying orders from Arab radio stations, rather than by a deliberate Zionist plan to 'cleanse' the land. Israel's daily crimes against Palestinians are ignored or justified with the also discredited line about how 'Israel does not target civilians'. It's almost as though Israelis, having been indoctrinated in the "Jews as eternal victims" line that has been quasi official in Israel over recent decades, simply cannot accept that Jews can also cause others to be victims too.

So yes, while i is certainly the case that Palestinaians should understand the broader context of Jewish suffering, I think to demand that of a people who are suffering NOW, is a little unrealistic. Particularly as things are getting worse for them, not better. In any case, reconciliation and understanding normally FOLLOW a peace agreement, they should not be a precondition to one which does not in any case exist.

I am puzzled.

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