semitism.net

Quick game of word (well, news report) association. How do you respond when I tell you that the Simon Weisenthal Center condemned the outrageous exploitation of the Holocaust by some of the Gaza settlers during the disengagement process (or how did you respond if you read the news yourself)? Glad to see the Simon Weisenthal Center standing up to the extreme Jewish right, even when Elie Wiesel and so many others didn’t? Vindicated that the extreme Jewish right can also get criticized once in awhile by a mainstream Jewish organization? Upset because such intra-Jewish criticisms should not be done in public? Depressed that the Holocaust is, for some, on all sides of the conflict, just another propaganda tool? Does your response change the longer you think about it? (It seems the Simon Weisenthal Center’s did, as you will see no reference to disengagement at all on its website.) So what does all of this mean – your reaction, my reaction and the Simon Weisenthal Center’s initial reaction/apparent change of heart – for debate of the occupation going forward, specifically when anyone tries to bring the Holocaust into the discussion?

For Jews in the 21st century, the Holocaust defines, or at least pervades deeply, much of our existence as Jews. We hear and learn about it constantly in our synagogues and Jewish community centers. Many of our homes are filled with it – either with the memory of family members who were killed, or with commemorations for all of the 6 million Jews and close to 5 million others who were systematically executed. We experience it through the media in so many ways – whether news reports of a world leader paying respects at a concentration camp site or the Pope’s service in the Hitler youth, or in myriad films and plays and novels.

So it should not be surprising that I remember, painfully, each and every time I have been compared to one of the Jews who collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust when speaking out, or standing in a protest, against the occupation (let me be clear — I was never comparing the occupation to the Holocaust, but rather advocating that Israel end the occupation and withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza). How can I forget them — can there be any accusation or allegation as harsh or damning? And I know full well that for each of the handful of times this has happened to me, it has happened innumerable times to others, particularly the more public figures, in the anti-occupation movement. After all, now it even happens to Ariel Sharon.

But it should not be surprising to anyone to hear that I and many others who have worked against the occupation have been the target of such accusations. Nor should it, in a theoretical sense, be surprising that the Simon Weisenthal Center would condemn the improper use of Holocaust imagery or outrageous accusations that IDF soldiers were akin to the SS. (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124850020755) But I would say, also sadly, that it is, in fact, somewhat surprising that they did so at all, anywhere, in the case of the settlers during disengagement. Maybe officials at the Center did, too, as despite my searching the website high and low, I can find no mention of it anywhere on their website. (If anyone else can find something on the website, http://www.wiesenthal.com, please let me know and I will update this post).

Regardless, the bottom line question we must ask is whether the Holocaust can/should be “used” at all in a discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by any side of the issue. And I ask this question not because I have an answer, but because I have been rethinking what I thought my answer was.

What has happened to our community when it is surprising, in any way, that the institution considered by many to be the authoritative source for “preserving the memory of the Holocaust” would say anything negative in a public forum about the Gaza settlers? Is the Holocaust now just like any other symbol or issue that has, at least within the mainstream discourse, become one that tends to support a center/right viewpoint on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? I mentioned in a previous post that I sometimes find myself shrinking from requests to donate to Israeli victims of terrorism because of the frequent couching of such requests in such anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab ways. Is the Holocaust now becoming the same type of thing – an issue that should, and does, mean so much to me as an individual Jew, but that in a communal sense, has somehow been lost to politics?

(Or am I being completely paranoid and self-defeating for thinking any of this?)

Maybe the answer lies in looking to the lessons of the Holocaust. What are the lessons? Well, the rote, automatic response is “Never Again.” But is that really all? And what does “never again” even mean? Never again to the Jews? Never again should the Jewish people be without a home, and we must defend that home to every possible end? Never again should killing, or even the preparations for killing, go on for years on end without intervention? Never again should the world witness the organized and systematic attempt to exterminate (a) people? Never again should we see anything even resembling such horror, or only something at that level? Worst of all, what will we do if/when it does happen again?

For me, the lesson has been that a people who have suffered such great tragedy and oppression should never participate in, let alone be responsible for, policies and actions that result in the oppression of others. No exceptions.

But is that a/the correct lesson anymore? Even if correct, which I believe it still is, is it enough? Is it somehow too simplistic? It has always been my feeling that this lesson is one of the keys to the entire anti-occupation framework. Not that the occupation of Palestine = Holocaust, but that the occupation leads to oppression, and the Jewish community should not abide that in any way. And to get through to the Jewish community, I have always believed that connecting back to this Holocaust lesson needs to be a part of the argument, as simply presenting the “facts” about occupation just is not enough. In order to change people’s minds and move them to a place (opposing the Israeli government) that may, in its own right, be unbearably painful, the “facts” of the occupation must play into each person’s sense of Judaism, of humanity. This almost inevitably connects back, even if only in the subconscious, to the Holocaust.

It is too much to try to unpack all of the different aspects to the connection between the Holocaust, Israel and the occupation in this, or any other, post. But I would love to hear from readers of this about your own experiences, your own lessons, your own ways for dealing with the Holocaust when it comes to discussing Israel and the occupation. How do you interact with the communal institutions and markers we have for remembering the Holocaust and its lessons? If you are a non-Jewish reader, what has been your experience of trying to engage with members of the Jewish community around the Holocaust and Israeli policies?

In the end, the Holocaust is too painful and tragic a memory in and of itself to be used as a virtual weapon in the debate about Israel and Palestine. Let us all work to a day when the use of the Holocaust’s memory as a weapon is reserved only for its perpetrators.