Part Three: Can the Holocaust be used to justify Israel's response to the attacks by Hamas

Introduction: We are perhaps fast moving toward a tipping point where unless some form of strong intervention from the global community, including the United States, takes place, further escalation is likely. This article explores how the history of the holocaust has been a constant reference point and even rationale for what is happening now and how Israel is reacting to the attacks by Hamas. The fourth article that will follow will explore if in fact there are other agendas afoot, with the war being used as pretext for another agenda entirely.

PART THREE

Constant accusations of antisemitism against any criticism of Israel tends to weaken the real issues of antisemitism. As described by the American Jewish playwright, David Mamet, all liberals in the USA are basically antisemitic and seek the destruction of the Jewish people. It is an extreme position, one that polarizes Jews against the whole world. But it is an easy accusation to make and it is being made now in some of the Western media when anyone questions Israel’s retaliation against the recent attacks. As mentioned in the last article it is being used by some politicians, including the Home Secretary in the UK, Suella Braverman, to demonize legitimate and legal demonstrators in solidarity with the Palestinians as a “Hate March”. There has even been talk of banning such marches. The same has been happening in Germany.

 Referencing the holocaust whenever any questioning of Israel’s policy takes place also ultimately diminishes it as this article in Unherd did, (provocatively entitled “Do Israel’s critics understand evil) and as the leader of the labour party did. Some people have called the horrendous attacks in Israel by Hamas, a genocide. It was not a genocide. Recently the U.N. Ambassador to Israel and other Israelis wore a yellow star at the U.N., similar to what Jews in Germany had to wear in Nazi Germany. The use of some form of badge to identify Jews had been used by many kingdoms and countries for hundreds of years as part of an anti-Jewish agenda and part of the segregation of the Jewish people. But this led to them being criticized by other Jews, for dishonoring the Holocaust and what it was also saying is that everyone else is guilty by default for what happened to the Jewish people and by doing so now, equated the attacks by Hamas as the same as what the Nazis and others have done to Jews before. This is a gross distortion and misrepresentation and as even Jewish critics said, dishonors the victims of the holocaust and also makes Jewish suffering more important than that of others. We are seeing that now even in the media and also in Israel, where in the same sentence, it has been stated that so many Jewish people were killed while so many Palestinians died. The words killed were used here only for Jewish deaths. In other words, Palestinians deaths are not as important.

The journalist Diana Johnstone, in her book, Circle in the Darkness, discusses this when describing how in France, a law was passed in July 1990, called “Gayssot Law,” after a French academic questioned one fact of the gas chambers in the concentration camps. This led to a “vigorous” debate about Freedom of Speech, which even involved Noam Chomsky, who defended the academic’s right to freedom of expression even if he did not agree with it. Johnstone knew Chomsky, and wondered at the time, whether Chomsky’s decision to defend the individual was the best use of his energy, as it brought a ton of opprobrium on him and did it really matter as the fact of the deaths of millions of Jews was not being disputed. The law though, defined as a crime any challenge to existence of crimes against humanity as defined in Article 6 (c) of the Statute of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal.

In the long list of what constitutes a Crime Against Humanity, she makes the point that the law has only really been used to the alleged denial of gas chambers in Auschwitz, and where people can be sued if any comment is made that implies denial. Her more important point though is what she sees as the ideological function of the law. To quote: “it legally establishes the Holocaust as a sacred event above ordinary human history – not so much the event as a whole (as nobody questions the persecution and murder of Jews by the Nazis) but specifically the use of homicidal gas chambers. Instead of Holocaust, the French have adopted the term Shoah, with even more religious connotations with even more religious connotations. In all of history, this is the only version of events which is protected by law from revision or even questioning. This amounts to a religious dogma. It distinguishes the massacre of Jews during World War 2 as belonging to a category apart from other genocides, which is perfectly appropriate for the Jewish religion, but which clashes drastically with French “laicite”, meaning the absence of government support for any religion. The Shoah is celebrated officially and unofficially, not only in the annual Shoah commemoration but almost constantly in school rooms, trips to Auschwitz, radio and television programs, books and films. It has de facto replaced Christianity, which indeed had succumbed to laicite over a century ago, as the state religion. It has its martyrs and saints, its holy scripture, its rituals, its pilgrimages, everything that Christianity had except redemption…… The proof that a doctrine is a religion is when any questioning of it is regarded as heresy. Any challenge to the Shoah faith is blasphemy and can be punished.”

 For some defenders of Israel, the same law applies now to Gaza. No criticism of Israel is acceptable, especially if non-Jewish. As Mamet would state, nearly everybody is antisemitic and as the same article in  Unherd explores, any criticism is simply unthinkable given the history of the holocaust and as is quoted, “The worst moral and artistic crime that can be committed in producing a work dedicated to the Holocaust is to consider the Holocaust as past.” The article further makes the theological, Manichean argument of good v. evil and in this way, justifies Israel’s response as well as Israel’s right to take whatever action it needs to take a result of what has happened.

There is something absurd about the demand that Israel exercise proportionality in the face of Evil. As Douglas Murray has observed, that would mean that “Israel should try to locate a music festival in Gaza and rape precisely the number of women that Hamas raped… kill precisely the number of young people that Hamas killed.… [They should] go door to door and kill precisely the correct number of babies that Hamas killed.”

The revulsion this suggestion elicits in decent human beings underscores the literal impossibility of reckoning with Evil. If Good is transcendent, Evil is negatively transcendent, exceeding measurement as it exceeds explanation. To try to measure or explain either Good or Evil is like trying to capture mathematical infinity in a finite sequence of numerals. It simply cannot be done.

We must not forget this when we hear “reasonable” people at the UN, The New York Times or the US State Department urge Israel not to go too far in its attempt to eradicate Hamas, or when they condemn the country — as is inevitable — for having done so. Such judgments pose as clarity, but are in fact moral and intellectual obfuscation. They can only encourage antisemites everywhere, and give Hezbollah and other agents of Iran’s theological tyranny a pretext for opening up more fronts in their effort to effect a Final Solution: to finish, once and for all, the work of the Holocaust.

Indeed, Hamas and its Islamist allies are counting on exactly this. They have set a trap for Israel, baited by their Evil. They want the IDF to grind Gaza to a pulp. They hope that publicising images of suffering in Gaza (including fake ones, if past performance is any indication) will stimulate world outcry and justify a wider war — one that Israel may not be able to win. This violence might seem to be “useful,” but if so, it is useful only in the cause of Evil.

If we are to speak of Evil at all — and now is no time for decent people to be silent — we cannot rely on ordinary frameworks of evaluation. The only language that can hope to do justice to Evil is theological. Perhaps all that can be said of Hamas and the worldwide gang of Islamists is that their crimes and plans are Satanic: absolutely and completely demonic.

So here we have the justification of Israel’s response based on the need to destroy evil, with the threat of the Holocaust yet again to be used as a rationale. Does the terrible attack on Israelis make it OK to kill 10,000 civilians in 4 weeks, including over 4,000 children in indiscriminate bombing and slaughter. Some of the articles recently in Unherd and elsewhere are saying, yes, absolutely, because of the inherent evil done to the people of Israel, any response is justified. But the vast majority of the world does not agree with the Israeli government and those supporting it, including virtually all Western governments. It is now polarizing North America and Western Europe (and Israel) against the rest of the world. Using the Holocaust once again to justify yet more violence against innocent people is not something that a huge majority of non-Jewish people can accept and also for a large number of Jewish people too. For most people, what Hamas did was not justified as so many innocents died, BUT, at the same time, Gazans have lived in a virtual prison for 17 years, many thousands have been killed deliberately and indiscriminately during this time, as well as in the West Bank. Peaceful demonstrations by Palestinians over the years have only been met with lethal response. It seems clear that the collective experience of the Holocaust is very much alive today for most Jewish people, but that fact is now being used to justify a terrible cost on millions of Palestinians, and threatens to drag the whole world into a global military confrontation.

However, if you watch this talk with Gabor Mate, a holocaust survivor himself, he is speaking for many Jewish people who do not believe Israel has a moral and theological right to punish innocent people disproportionately and Israel does not have a right to deny millions of Palestinians a home and does not have a right to keep 2 million of them in a “concentration camp”, that is Gaza. Mate references Jewish writers and academics like Ilan Pappe and Norman Finkelstein who have been saying the same thing for years. Israel has a right to exist but there must be justice for the Palestinians and Israel has also committed horrendous crimes against humanity, just as bad as anything Hamas has done.

There was an extraordinary speech recently by Prime Minister Netanyahu a few days ago, which is discussed in the video here. In his speech he makes a biblical reference to “Amalek” the enemy of the Jews in the Old Testament in the context of how Israel needs to defend itself now. It says this: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” The video also quotes from the former head of Israel’s National Security Council on Y Net News, which may not be official policy of Israel, but perhaps is the intention:

Israel needs to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, compelling tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to seek refuge in Egypt or the Gulf. In order for this to happen, Israel needs to demand four key points with greater determination than ever before:

1.       The entire population of Gaza will either move to Egypt or move to the Gulf. From our perspective, every building in Gaza known to have Hamas headquarters underneath, including schools and hospitals is considered a military target.

2.       Every vehicle in Gaza is considered a military vehicle transporting combatants. Therefore, there is no vehicular traffic, and it does not matter whether it is transporting water or other critical supplies.

3.       The U.N. Secretary General has initiated humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Israeli condition for any aid should be a visit by the Red Cross to Israeli hostages and especially the civilians among them. Until this happens, no aid of any kind will be permitted to enter into Gaza.

4.       Intermediators with both diplomatic and military experience will be required to explain in detail these concepts to the rest of the world. It will not be possible to remove Hamas without exerting pressure and if the Americans do not receive a clear and detailed explanation from Israeli officials and understand that Israel has no choice. It is comparable to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour which led to the launch of an atomic bomb in Japan.

As a result Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist and I say this as a means rather than an end. I say this because there is no other option for ensuring the security of the State of Israel. We are fighting an existential war.

What can one say in response to this. The word genocide is easily abused but this is what this person is advocating and what many of the political and military leaders in Israel are now saying. They are openly talking about ethnic cleansing and genocide and yet Western leaders say nothing. But if anything remotely similar is said in the West about Israel’s scorched earth policy (a term Mowing the Lawn has been used by Israeli military over the years to describe routine bombing and assassinations in Gaza to keep the people down) then one is condemned as antisemitic and promoting hate speech.

Another analysis was given by Scott Ritter, a U.S. former UN weapons inspector and analyst, who thinks that this will not happen but that because of Israel’s position now, it will eventually be forced to the negotiating table by the United States and a two-state solution will have to be worked out. He thinks the United States does not want a wider regional, if not global war and it will sooner than later force Israel’s hand. Right now, Netanyahu is not playing ball and is continuing the onslaught. At the same time, Russia is now warning the United States and NATO allies not to intensify the war with continuing attacks on Syria. He said it is “inadmissible” for this to happen. Read this article here to explore what this could mean as it seems to be warning Israel and the United States to not escalate things in the region.

American academic Mark Crispin Miller based in New York and an active critic of the Covid agenda has a substack column which states the following: More Evidence that those who stand with Israel or Palestine are being played. It is worth reading the article, which although provocative asks very important questions as to what is really going on. Amongst the topics discussed, it looks at the evidence that in the chaos of the initial  attack at the Kibbutz many Israelis were killed in the crossfire by Israeli troops and again, serious questions about the security failure of the military etc. There is much to think about, but Miller’s big point is not to be duped into identifying with any extreme position or seek to excuse either the Israeli government or Hamas. At the same time, the challenge to know what is really happening continues. As in all “war” scenarios, the truth is the first victim. As explored here , can we really believe what we are reading or watching. There is propaganda on all sides. In the end, all humans suffer, whether Jewish, Palestinian, Christian, Arab, Sunni or Shiite. I will finish by referencing the following article by Dennis Kucinich, former Congressman from the United States, who very much implicates the foreign policy of the USA and Israel, while not justifying the horrors of Hamas’ attack and suffering on all sides.

The final article in this series will ask questions of possible underlying motives and agendas, including economic ones that could be factors in what is happening now.