Our Only Claim
A recent poll by Keevoon Research Institute in Israel found that 76% of Jewish Israelis choose Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum over Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery, where the nation's founders are buried, for visiting VIPs. Every visiting foreign dignitary is given a tour of the Holocaust museum.
The reason behind this is that Israel is trying to project to the world the fact that the Holocaust was made possible since the Jews during WWII had no state to take them in and without a Jewish country, we have no protection. It is to show the fact that since the Jews have suffered so much and for so long, they deserve a land of their.
There are a few signifigant flaws with this idea. Support for Israel over guilt for the Holocaust will only last so long before people become apathetic. People will continue to support Israel only while it is portrayed as the victim, the eternally weak defenseless Jew. Any display on strength on the part of the Jewish People is condemned. That explains the fact that the Left's favourite Jew is Anne Frank and their second favourite is non-existent. For Israel to exist, it must continue to be the long-suffering ghetto Jew who seeks to appease his gentile masters to avoid a pogrom, rather than a strong, fighting free Jew. It is evident from the condemnations that were thrown against Israel last summer for being 'disproportionate' in defending itself from an enemy that the world resents Jews that stand up for themselves. The only good Jew is not necessarily a dead one, just a weak one.
Another flaw in this thinking is that if Germany committed genocide against the Jews, why should the 'innocent' people of 'Palestine' be made to pay for their crimes? (The Arabs are hardly innocence. Google Haj Amin-al-Husseini) According to that logic, Germany should give up some land for a Jewish homeland in Europe. Our enemies recognize the fallacy of basing Israel's right to exist on the Holocaust. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may he be accursed, said in his 2005 conference, The World Without Zionism, :
They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets. The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets, (it) deals very severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to those who deny God, religion, and the prophet. If you have burned the Jews, why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel? Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime? 
I actually do agree with him. If Israel's only right to exist comes from the Holocaust, then why shouldn't Israel be in Europe? That view is exactly what Israel reinforces every time that it brings foreign dignitaries to Yad Vashem. I don't mean to G-d forbid minimize the Holocaust or its role in the creation of the State. What I mean to say is that while the Holocaust is more proof as to the need of the Jewish State, it is not what gives us our right to exist. Ahamdinejad's Holocaust Denial Conference is the gives us the best explanation as to why anti-Zionists also tend to deny or minimize the Holocaust. It really helps us understand as to why the Islamic world, which is rooting for the next Holocaust is denying the last one.
Another excerpt from Ahmadinejad's, may he be accursed, speech:
If the Europeans are telling the truth in their claim that they have killed six million Jews in the Holocaust during the World War II - which seems they are right in their claim because they insist on it and arrest and imprison those who oppose it, why should the Palestinian nation pay for the crime. Why have they come to the very heart of the Islamic world and are committing crimes against the dear Palestine using their bombs, rockets, missiles and sanctions. [...] The same European countries have imposed the illegally-established Zionist regime on the oppressed nation of Palestine. If you have committed the crimes so give a piece of your land somewhere in Europe or America and Canada or Alaska to them to set up their own state there. Then the Iranian nation will have no objections, will stage no rallies on the Qods Day and will support your decision.
He is absolutely correct when he says that if Israel is simply European atonement, then it is illegal and criminal- and Israel reinforces his mad rantings by showing all foreign ambassadors Yad Vashem. Israel is the only country that is constantly saying 'we have no choice but to exist. Look at what would happen otherwise'.
Instead of being shown Yad Vashem, foreign dignitaries should be shown the Kotel, the yeshivot, all of the Jewish sites. Drive home to them the fact that the Jewish People has finally come home to the only land where it belongs, Holocaust or no Holocaust. There is only one reason why Israel exists- because G-d promised the Land to our Forefather Avraham, Yitzhak and Yaakov. This is our most important claim, one that not even Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah or Haniyeh can argue with.
'In that day HaShem made a covenant with Abram, saying: 'Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite,
and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim,
and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.'(Bereshit 15: 19)
9 comments:
Concerning:
“foreign dignitaries should be shown the Kotel, the yeshivot, all of the Jewish sites. Drive home to them the fact that the Jewish People has finally come home to the only land where it belongs”
If foreign dignitaries are shown the Kosel HaMaaravi [the Western Wall] (and presumably they are), it is actually an image of defeat being displayed. The “weak powerless Jew” via the hand of HaShem received an amazing and beautiful gift in 1967. It was a golden opportunity to destroy and remove that abomination sitting atop Har HaBayis... Instead it was handed over to the vanquished Jordanian’s Waqf. To this day in an attitude of subjugation and ghetto-like fear, Israeli State law prohibits Jews from praying at the most holy site in the world, whilst simultaneously permitting Muslim Arabs to excavate and destroy archaeological evidence of the last Beis HaMikdash [Temple]. Instead of defending this monumentally holy and historical site, the State has rolled over so that an enemy whose religious scripture does not even mention Jerusalem once can look down at the Jews in the Kosel plaza and laugh. Yes, the Jewish people has finally begun to come home – but we are so very far from the full realization of the process… and it is in large part due to a fear of the larger gentile world (which consequently as you’ve noted leads to attempts at elicitation of guilt, and I would add further that attempts at mimicking secular Westernized culture to our own detriment is pursued as well, in order to establish affinities).
As much as I may agree in large part to the sentiments you’ve expressed, it is still kind of hard to swallow anyone agreeing on any level with that scum Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ben Ahmad ben Haman ben Agag Melech Amalek, Yemach Shemo.
By the way you may find this article entitled Bikini-Brand or Holy Land to be of interest...
Sad is the world where a people needs to justify its right to exist.
Interesting, too, that you find something in Adminijihad's views to agree with. Only with Satan have we nothing in common.
Good post.
Thank you for visiting my blog.
I don't agree with your post. I appreciate the spirit of it. It was well written and heart felt.
I'm a non-Zionist and internationalist Jew aware of anti-Semitism. At my blog are two recent posts about the Middle East. Being against nationalism and Islamism, puts me in everyone's crosshairs.
Great post, Bar Kochba.
Personally, I think that Yad Vashem should be only one of several sites. I'd also drag dignitaries to the Wall, to the ancient synagogue at Tzippori, and to the Dubrovin Farm. Maybe also to the Armor Museum, or a development town like Karmiel.
The point is, they should see Israel as a vibrant society with deep roots.
Brooklyn habiru:
I don't think that showing people the Wall is entirely a message of defeat.
It's part of our history, and we are still here. We never left. It's also an incredible message of survival.
Michael,
The Kosel is oft referred to as the "Wailing Wall." It is not nothing that we are mourning over. We are mourning over our degraded state, we are mourning over our disunity, we are mourning over the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, we are mourning defeat. The fact that we've beautified the Kosel with marble plazas and turned it into a symbol of our resilience, still does not testify against the fact that we are sorely missing the other three retaining walls. OK, so we've survived... great! Now on to a renaissance, a resurrection, a rebuilding, a complete transformation - but no, instead we cry defeated, saying that its all right for our enemy to destroy our inheritance... Heaven forbid we should pursue justice and consequently be perceived as being the bad guys.
Imagine that a Jewish Beis Din was given sovereignty over the Kaaba in Mecca, then built a Shul on top of it, and slowly removed all evidence of what was previously there... Muslims, and the larger gentile world would be screaming bloody murder.
On the flip side if we repair a pedestrian ramp under scrupulous supervision anywhere remotely within the vicinity of our very own most sacred location, this leads to riots (and they riot because they know they can get away with it). Yes the Kosel is a symbol of resilience... but is that truly enough? Rather than just surviving, we need to be thriving. The fact that there is only 1 Wall means we still have a long way to go…
You've made an excellent point in this post:
Support for Israel over guilt for the Holocaust will only last so long before people become apathetic. People will continue to support Israel only while it is portrayed as the victim, the eternally weak defenseless Jew. Any display on strength on the part of the Jewish People is condemned.
Recently, I've been thinking along those lines.
I've noted that many enjoy studying about the Holocaust, and you've delineated one reason in the citation above. Also, people want to believe that there will never be another Holocaust and self-congratulate themselves in that type of self-righteousness. Just today, one of my friends at the local pool was doing just that--and in the same breath saying how we need to pull out of Iraq immediately. No amount of citing facts or dissuading from me could convince her of her error in logic. **sigh**
Excellent!! I suppose for the left in the West to support Israel's right to exist in the Holy Land based the promise of G*d would mean that, first, they would have to admit to the fact that there is a higher being.They do not want to accept that.
Great post... The point that AOW quoted was spot-on!
Great points Graet post
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