In 1948, the State of Israel was founded, and immediately began to absorb refugees from Europe. The holocaust, and especially the spirit of the ghetto fighters, has become ingrained in the national identity of the Jewish people, and of the State of Israel. The best excuse any Jew can give for living is to carry on the memory of the Holocaust and the spirit of the fighters.
But what is happening to Israel now? Where have the spirit and the memory gone? How is today's Jewish state carrying on the memory of the Holocaust? The regime of Rabin and Peres denies its importance and ignores its existence. Observe.
In 1992, then-Minister of Education Shulamit Aloni remarked that Holocaust education was now irrelevant and should be removed from the curriculum of Israeli schools. In 1993, the Chairman of the Knesset Education Committee, and number three on the Labour list, Avraham Burg, released a fabricated poll indicating that most Israelis felt that Israeli authorities were more racist in their treatment of Palestinian Arabs than the Nazis had been in their treatment of the Jews. Aloni was forced to resign her position; Burg was not.
We continue our examination with a comparison between various policies surrounding the Holocaust and those surrounding the Israeli abdication to the PLO. In 1938, the allies forced Czechoslovakia to cede one third of its territory to Germany in the interests of "Peace in our time". In 1993-4, the current allies, the United States, Europe, and Russia, have convinced Israel to cede roughly one third of its territory to the PLO on the same reasoning. In both cases, hegemonic rhetoric on the part of the beneficiaries grew only more vicious.
The most important comparison, however, lies in the treatment of minority populations. During the Holocaust, Nazi policy was to concentrate the Jews in urban ghettos and rural concentration camps for the purposes of later transporting them to their deaths in the death camps. Currently, it seems to be that Israeli policy is leaning in similar directions. Israeli officials such as Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin have already mentioned that the Jewish villages and towns in Judea and Samaria will be kept under the control of Israeli military authorities temporarily until the residents are removed to what is left of Israel. Thus, Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria and Gaza will now live in ghettos under the watchful eyes of military authorities whose orders come from a government that is opposed to the existence of these people.
Rest assured that the PLO will not allow this state of affairs to continue indefinitely. Arafat rightly recognizes these villages as impediments to a Palestinian state, which he already proclaims with every utterance of his mouth. It is therefore not unreasonable to expect that the PLO might take the initiative in "re-locating" the Jews of the villages. And here we come to our last comparison.
Adolf Hitler is the man singly responsible for more Jewish death and suffering than any other person in history. This is unchallenged -- for now. What was, perhaps, most disturbing at that time was the apparent willingness of the rest of the world to allow Hitler the opportunities he had to kill so many innocent people.
Hitler's position may soon be challenged though. Yasser Arafat is the man singly responsible for more Jewish death and suffering than any other person alive today. This is plain and common knowledge, and is also unchallenged. There is one important difference between Hitler and Arafat, though. Arafat is still alive.
Prior to 1948, there was no government to assume responsibility to Jewish defense. There was no State of Israel, and no Jewish army. Today, there is such a government, and there is such an army. That these institutions are so willing to give the modern Hitler the opportunity to accomplish that which his predecessor could only dream of is unimaginable. That they are doing so is inexcusable.
The ghettoization of the Jews in Israel is just the first step, just as it was in Europe. The next step is the transport and liquidation of whole Jewish populations. In Europe they died fighting in the ghettos or concentrated in Auschwitz. In Israel, the PLO would kill them fighting in the villages, or concentrated in the "Auschwitz borders". In the 1940's the British government of Israel wouldn't allow refugees into Israel to escape the Nazis. In the 1990's the Jewish government of Israel is willing to give these Jews into the hands of the successors to the Nazi legacy.
I feel I must ask the world: What would you do if Hitler were alive today? Likely you would try and convict him as an enemy of humanity. Yet, what do you do to Arafat -- a man with the same aims, and similar methodology, as Hitler? You elevate him to a statesman, leader of a nation, and heir apparent to the land of Israel. After all, if Rabin and Peres and their comrades are so willing and able to give Israel away to the arch enemies of the Jews, and the Jewish people doesn't stop them, then perhaps the Jewish people doesn't deserve Israel in the first place.
Copyright 1994. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
