Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Gideon Levy: Self-Hating Jew

If you're unfamiliar with the term "self-hating Jew" then read this article by Gideon Levy in Haaretz about Holocaust Remembrance Day. Then you will understand. Here is but a sample:

In his speech yesterday, Netanyahu's equating Nazi Germany with fundamentalist Iran was no more than cheap propaganda. Talk about "degrading the Holocaust." Iran isn't Germany. Ahmadinejad isn't Hitler and equating them is no less spurious than equating Israeli soldiers with Nazis.

The Holocaust must not be forgotten, and there is no need to compare it with anything. Israel must take part in the efforts to keep its memory alive, but in doing so it must show up with clean hands, clean of evil of their own doing. And it must not arouse suspicion that it is cynically using the memory of the Holocaust to obliterate and blur other things. Regrettably, this is not the case.

So reminding people that Ahmadinejad considers the Holocaust "a myth" is cheap propaganda but Ahmadinejad's words aren't? No Ahmadinejad isn't Hitler. But he wants to be. Ahmadinejad seeks a world without Israel. Given that most Israelis don't think like Gideon Levy it is not likely that Israel will just voluntarily cease to be a Jewish state. The only way for Ahmadinejad to achieve his goal is by force. Hence the development of a nuclear weapon.

But in Levy's book, it is a spurious to compare Ahmadinejad to Hitler as it is to compare the IDF to the S.S. Yet Levy lambastes Israel for "evil of its own doing." What evil? Apparently putting up a fence to keep out both illegal immigrants and terrorists constitutes an act of evil in Levy's mind. Nothing Israel has done comes close to approaching evil. The things Israel has done for Ethiopians, Bosnian Muslims and now Haitans merits no mention. By pretending Israel isn't a force for good Levy is engaging in defamation. Thus it is Levy, not Netanyahu, who is "using the memory of the Holocaust to obliterate and blur other things."

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