A bit late to this. Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance day, was April 8.
Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors has twenty questions for American Jews:
Do you believe that the lesson we should learn from the Holocaust is one of tolerance?
Do you believe that the mainstream media reports fairly about Middle East issues?
Do you believe that Israel practices apartheid?
Do you favor the two-state solution?
Do you believe that the unrest in the Middle East would end if a Palestinian state were established?
Do you believe that Israel should compromise more for the so-called peace process?
Do you believe the settlements in Israel are an obstacle to peace?
Do you doubt that Islam desires to establish global dominance?
Do you believe that continued sanctions and negotiations will deter a nuclear Iran?
Do you believe that the international community has the right to dictate Israel’s appropriate response to terrorism in defense of its citizens?
Do you believe that you can be anti-Israel and not anti-Semitic?
Do you believe that the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe is caused by Israel?
Do you believe that Islamophobia in America is far worse than anti-Semitism?
Do you believe there would have been no Holocaust if a Jewish state had existed in Hitler’s time?
Do you believe Franklin D. Roosevelt was a hero to the Jews during the Holocaust?
Do you believe that American Jewry did all they could to stop the slaughter during the Holocaust?
Do you believe your life as a Jew would be unaffected if there were no Jewish state?
Do you believe social justice should be taught in public schools?
Do you believe that you are safer if only the government is armed?
Do you believe that another Holocaust can’t happen?
Good questions.
Jonathan Tobin writes on the Commentary blog:
What must be understood on this day, as on every other day of the year, is that sympathy for the six million is meaningless, even counter-productive, if it is not accompanied by a resolve to resist those who threaten the lives and the right to self-determination of the six million Jews who live in Israel today. The phrase “never again,” is a mere cliché if it is not attached to a commitment that Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear program that threatens Israel’s existence as well as the security of the entire world. Rhetoric about the million Jewish children slaughtered by Hitler’s minions is useless if it is not connected to a promise to fight back against boycott campaigns that are part of the economic war on the life of the Jewish state.
Tobin’s post is worth reading in full, as is this post by Rick Richman.
As Richman puts it, “The slogan ‘Never Again’ is meaningless if it does not have operational significance.”
Glenn Reynolds occasionally posts a quote that I can’t find now, from a Holocaust survivor, to the effect that if someone says he is going to kill you you should believe him. I would say that the same point holds for nations. If the leaders of another country threaten to wipe out your country you should take them at their word and take action to protect your country. Certainly this applies to Israel vs. Iran. I would suggest that it applies also to the USA vs. Iran, North Korea and radical Islam.
“Good questions” understates the discerning power of the questions, the difficulty of giving them defensible answers.
I would add a 21st: Do you think a nation that has (to date) legally taken the lives of about 7 times those killed in the Holocaust has any understanding of what defines a holocaust or concern about it happening?
The Jews now have guns, tanks, jets, artillery and nuclear weapons.
Never again means NEVER AGAIN.
The Palestinians had nothing to do with the holocaust.
“The phrase “never again,” is a mere cliché if it is not attached to a commitment that Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear program that threatens Israel’s existence as well as the security of the entire world.”
Nice … I see what he did there.
I do believe it is quite possible to oppose Zionism for it’s many faults while having no hatred for Jews.
I do believe it is quite possible to oppose Zionism for it’s many faults while having no hatred for Jews.
Oh, that’s nice, but just a tad irrelevant.
Do you believe that Israeli would be condemned of civil rights abuses if subject to scrutiny in a US Court?
Good questions that – among the Jews who habitually vote Democrat – would be uncomfortable to answer – I doubt many would want to even face the questions.
I do believe it is quite possible to oppose Zionism for it’s many faults while having no hatred for Jews.
Zionism is nothing more than Jewish nationalism. People who make a point of finding fault with Jewish nationalism tend to be relatively unconcerned about the faults of other nationalisms. But of course they have nothing against Jews. How could we even suggest it. No doubt some of their best friends…
White racists in the Jim Crow South often had no hatred for black people who knew their place and didn’t cause trouble. Those were useful blacks. It was those other blacks, the uppity ones who asserted civil and legal equality, who were the problem. Who did those blacks think they were, not accepting second-class citizenship?
The double standard is the tell. Who do those Jews think they are, expecting their shitty little country to be evaluated by the same metrics as France, Cuba and Pakistan?
As the man said, the Jews now have nuclear weapons. Thank God for that.
“As the man said, the Jews now have nuclear weapons. Thank God for that.”
Now what could go wrong, we are heavily armed?
A good illustration as to why I don’t much like nationalism anywhere.
Now what could go wrong, we are heavily armed?
Yeah, someone other than the Jews might get killed this time. No wonder you’re upset.
One of the moments when my whole vision shifted was when I saw the tables on deaths from democide versus those from war in the twentieth century (a century with some rather hrrific wars). Such thinking leads us to applaud the increase of weaponry in Israel
And perhaps to wonder if the sin was not entering but leaving countries which had not assimilated he idea of the rule of law into the bones of not only the government but the people.
“Yeah, someone other than the Jews might get killed this time. No wonder you’re upset.”
That was uncalled for. I would rather no one gets killed, hence my attitude towards nationalism.
“The Palestinians had nothing to do with the holocaust.”
And al-Husseini didn’t know Hitler. Of course not !
During World War II he actively collaborated with both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, meeting Adolf Hitler personally and asking him to back Arab independence. He requested, as part of the Pan-Arab struggle, Hitler’s support to oppose the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish national home. He was promised the leadership of the Arabs after German troops had driven out the British. He helped recruit Muslims for the Waffen-SS. At war’s end, he came under French protection, and went to Cairo to avoid prosecution.
The Jews have a track record of not being armed, and getting massacred as a result.
It would be nice if no one got killed.
But to say “I give up nationalism, I abandon my identity, I abandon others like me, I live as an individual” won’t get you anywhere you want to go. It’s suicide.
The Jews tried something like that in Germany. They said, we are good Germans, we speak impeccable German, we make an outsized contribution to Germany, we have built it up as the industrial and scientific powerhouse of Europe, we built factories and businesses that employee millions of Germans, we have paid for museums and orchestras and enriched the civic life of Germany, we serve in Germany’s army, we are proud of its uniform, we laid down our lives and won medals for courage for Germany, we love its culture and we want to share in it.
The answer from the Germans: “Get into the train to the gas chamber, you filthy Jew.”
Your enemies keep their group identities, and they remember who you are, they don’t forget who you are no matter what you say or do.
They just care that you are easier to kill if you are isolated.
And it will never, ever be any different.
The only peace there will ever be with the Jews’ enemies will be based on credible death threats.
Strength and only strength brings peace.
That was uncalled for. I would rather no one gets killed, hence my attitude towards nationalism.
You prefer an alternative that doesn’t exist. For the Jews the choice is to be armed or to disappear. The day of reckoning may not come immediately, hence the preference of so many people to avert their gaze from ugly realities. But it always comes eventually, even in North America.
Pen Gun tap dancing: He has better, higher, motives for what he says, he just forgets to mention those good values until after he’s called on a knee-jerk, liberal, comment.
Pen-Gun,
It seems to me that American, British, New Zealand and Australian nationalism served us just fine during WW II. Nationalism, properly defined and practiced, means doing what is best for one’s country and people, not pretending that national characteristics and system of government don’t matter, as leftists would have you believe. Leftists prefer the fiction that all countries cultural values are equally valid, forcing us to adopt or excuse vile cultural practices in the name of “multiculturalism”.
Jonathan “White racists in the Jim Crow South often had no hatred for black people who knew their place and didn’t cause trouble.”
Which is directly relevant to the situation of Jews in Arab lands: The longstanding mistreatment of Jews is well documented*, regardless of the determination of so many bien pensant progressives to remain ignorant of it.
* As is the origin of current Jew-hatred in the failure of Jews to be properly submissive to Massa, and worse to prosper where Arabs remain ignorant and poor, and worst of all to defeat Arab armies bent on their annihilation.
Yes.