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I think that this post shows the true complexity of this issue.  I think that it is absolutely appropriate to challenge and even vehemently disagree with what Israel is doing.  However, I don’t understand people needing to put this into historical context by comparing it to anything at all…let alone the Nazi invasion and actions in Europe.

If you want to say that Israel is enacting genocide or a form of ethnic cleansing…then say that.  Why connect this to the Nazis?  Inappropriate.

Also, we need to be able to see the difference between disagreeing with Israel’s actions and anti-semitism.  If I think my Madoff is one of the worst people in the world…that shouldn’t make me anti-semite…it should say that I am a good judge of character and can spot a pariah regardless of race/color/religion/etc.

Comment by ethan on 1/18/09 at 6:44 pm

The Accusation: “Israel was borne out of Jewish terrorism.”

The Reality: While terrorism was a tactic used by certain groups in the 1930s and 1940s Yishuv (Jewish community of Mandatory Palestine), the extent to which this tactic was successful in the creation of an independent Jewish state is HIGHLY debatable.  I personally agree with the historians who analyze the evidence and come to the conclusion that attacks such as the King David Hotel bombing may have hastened the departure of the British, the British were on their way out anyway.  “Jewish terrorism” is not responsible for the independent Jewish state.  It was the Jews’ victory against 5 Arab armies plus a ragtag group of Palestinian Arab combatants as well as the United Nations Partitian Plan that led to the creation of the State of Israel.

Comment by Guy Handelman on 1/18/09 at 11:06 pm

Good point, Guy.

Comment by Brad A. Greenberg on 1/18/09 at 11:38 pm

Thank heavens for righteous Jews like Gerald Kaufman!!

Comment by J. Azz on 1/19/09 at 8:18 pm

The Accusation: “The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among Gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.”

The Reality: I challenge anybody in the world to find me even one case of the Israeli government using “the Holocaust as justification for” its often violent relationship with the Palestinians.  The justification I hear most often is that it is a response to Palestinian terrorism.  I have never ever ever heard the Israeli government say something along the lines of “We are continuing military operations in the Gaza Strip because Jews were murdered by Nazis during the Holocaust.” It has NEVER happened and it will never happen.  Kaufman is guilty of repeating a canard that unfortunately (like the “criticism of Israel=antisemitism” canard) is believed by many uninformed people.

Comment by Guy Handelman on 1/19/09 at 8:52 pm

Whether or not a particular Israeli politician invoked the Holocaust to condone its current policy against Gazans, it was largely the reason for usurping someone else’s homeland and driving so many of them out.

From: “As the Arabs see the Jews”
His Majesty King Abdullah,
The American Magazine
November, 1947

We are told that we are inhumane and heartless because do not accept with open arms the perhaps 200,000 Jews in Europe who suffered so frightfully under Nazi cruelty, and who even now—almost three years after war’s end—still languish in cold, depressing camps.

Let me underline several facts. The unimaginable persecution of the Jews was not done by the Arabs: it was done by a Christian nation in the West. The war which ruined Europe and made it almost impossible for these Jews to rehabilitate themselves was fought by the Christian nations of the West. The rich and empty portions of the earth belong, not to the Arabs, but to the Christian nations of the West.

And yet, to ease their consciences, these Christian nations of the West are asking Palestine—a poor and tiny Moslem country of the East—to accept the entire burden. “We have hurt these people terribly,” cries the West to the East. “Won’t you please take care of them for us?”

We find neither logic nor justice in this. Are we therefore “cruel and heartless nationalists”?

We are a generous people: we are proud that “Arab hospitality” is a phrase famous throughout the world. We are a humane people: no one was shocked more than we by the Hitlerite terror. No one pities the present plight of the desperate European Jews more than we.

But we say that Palestine has already sheltered 600,000 refugees. We believe that is enough to expect of us—even too much. We believe it is now the turn of the rest of the world to accept some of them.

I will be entirely frank with you. There is one thing the Arab world simply cannot understand. Of all the nations of the earth, America is most insistent that something be done for these suffering Jews of Europe. This feeling does credit to the humanity for which America is famous, and to that glorious inscription on your Statue of Liberty.

And yet this same America—the richest, greatest, most powerful nation the world has ever known—refuses to accept more than a token handful of these same Jews herself!

I hope you will not think I am being bitter about this. I have tried hard to understand that mysterious paradox, and I confess I cannot. Nor can any other Arab.

[snip]

I have the impression that many Americans believe the trouble in Palestine is very remote from them, that America had little to do with it, and that your only interest now is that of a humane bystander.

I believe that you do not realise how directly you are, as a nation, responsible in general for the whole Zionist move and specifically for the present terrorism. I call this to your attention because I am certain that if you realise your responsibility you will act fairly to admit it and assume it.

Quite aside from official American support for the “National Home” of the Balfour Declaration, the Zionist settlements in Palestine would have been almost impossible, on anything like the current scale, without American money. This was contributed by American Jewry in an idealistic effort to help their fellows.

The motive was worthy: the result were disastrous. The contributions were by private individuals, but they were almost entirely Americans, and, as a nation, only America can answer for it.

The present catastrophe may be laid almost entirely at your door. Your government, almost alone in the world, is insisting on the immediate admission of 100,000 more Jews into Palestine—to be followed by countless additional ones. This will have the most frightful consequences in bloody chaos beyond anything ever hinted at in Palestine before.

This man seemed to foresee the continuing anguish the region suffers from today.

Additionally, who but someone from a group who suffered terribly during the Holocaust, feel secure enough to threaten a similar fate on someone else. He only made the clarification when the statement created such controversy.

An Israeli minister gave warning yesterday that the Gaza faces a “holocaust” if Islamist militants there do not end their daily barrages of home-made Qassam rockets, and their increasing use of Iranian-built Grad missiles.

“The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves,” Matan Vilnai, the Deputy Defence Minister said.

The use of the term “holocaust” is usually restricted to descriptions of the Nazi genocide of the Jews in Europe in the Second World War, and many Israelis resent its use in any other context. Mr Vilnai’s deployment of the word appeared to show Israel’s growing frustration that Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza refuse to curb their attacks, despite heavy tolls inflicted in Israeli air strikes and tank raids.

As Israeli media relayed his controversial comments, Mr Vilnai’s spokesman was forced to issue a clarification. “The minister used the Hebrew term ‘shoah’ which means ‘catastrophe’ and in this context does not refer to the ‘the Shoah’ - the Holocaust,” he said.

Comment by LanceThruster on 1/20/09 at 11:52 pm

LanceThruster is mistaken when he claims that the Holocaust “was largely the reason for usurping someone else’s homeland and driving so many of them out” on multiple levels.  Firstly, anti-Semitism has been a constant in Europe long before the Holocaust and the movement toward the establishment of an independent Jewish state in Palestine preceded the Holocaust by decades. 

Secondly, to categorize the Jewish settlement in Palestine from 1882-1948 as a “usurpation” (i.e. taking the land illegally) is an exaggeration.  Much of the land was bought legally from absentee land lords in the Ottoman Empire by wealthy Jews such as the Rothschilds.  Much more land was conquered later in battle during the 1948 War of Independence. 

Thirdly, the claim that the Yishuv (Jewish population of Mandatory Palestine) “drove out” the Palestinian Arabs is only half true.  Most moderate historians make the case that the Palestinian Arab economic and social structure was extremely weak in the 1940s and the intelligentsia in the larger cities of Haifa and Jaffa left seeking better opportunities in other Arab countries (and some Western countries).  During the war, the Yishuv used psychological warfare tactics to drive the remaining Palestinian Arabs out of the country for fear for their lives.  Most Palestinian Arabs who fled had never seen a Jew with a gun at all; rather, they heard rumors in the neighborhood that the Jews have guns and that they are pissed after decades of Arab terrorism.

Comment by Guy Handelman on 1/21/09 at 3:06 am

Gerald Kaufman is an mentally ill, lying, evil, old fool, no matter how many ‘friends’ he claims among Israelis.

His claim that “Israel was borne out of Jewish terrorism” is not[/true], as that label was put upon them by the British themselves who had imposed illegal restraints upon legitimate Jewish institutional resistance to colonialism and Arab terrorism. The British officers were hanged in response to the illegal hangings of Dov Gruner, Yehiel Dresner, Mordechai Alkahi and Eliezer Kashani. Gruner was offered his life in exchange for an admission of ‘guilt’, instead his statement to the British Court stand among the most moving in such literature:

I do not recognize your authority to try me. This court has no legal foundation, since it was appointed by a regime without legal foundation.

  You came to Palestine because of the commitment you undertook at the behest of all the nations of the world to rectify the greatest wrong caused to any nation in the history of mankind, namely the expulsion of Israel from their land, which transformed them into victims of persecution and incessant slaughter throughout the world. It was this commitment - and this commitment alone - which constituted the legal and moral basis for your presence in this country. But you betrayed it wilfully, brutally and with satanic cunning. You turned your commitment into a mere scrap of paper…

  When the prevailing government in any country is not legal, when it becomes a regime of oppression and tyranny, it is the right of its citizens - more than that, it is their duty - to fight this regime and to topple it. This is what Jewish youth are doing and will continue to do until you quit this land, and hand it over to its rightful owners: the Jewish people. For you should know this: there is no power in the world which can sever the tie between the Jewish people and their one and only land. Whosoever tries to sever it - his hand will be cut off and the curse of God will rest on him for ever.

Gerald Kaufman is a typical traitorous weasel hoping that the Jews he throws to the beasts will satisfy their appetites before they get to him.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 1/25/09 at 3:15 am

Some great stuff here: LRB contributors react to events in Gaza

Comment by LanceThruster on 1/25/09 at 8:37 pm

Mr. Handleman,

Here is a different perspective on the situation by Israeli historian Tom Segev:

——-

“During the war and afterwards PLUNDERING AND LOOTING were very common. “The only thing that surprised me,” said David Ben-Gurion at a Cabinet meeting, “and surprised me bitterly, was the discovery of such moral failings among us, which I had never suspected. I mean the mass robbery in which all parts of the population participated.” Soldiers who entered abandoned houses in the towns and villages they occupied grabbed whatever they could. Some took the stuff for themselves, others “for the boys” or for the kibbutz. They stole household effects, cash, heavy equipment, trucks and whole flocks of cattle. Behor Shitrit told his colleagues of the Ministerial Committee for Abandoned Property that he had visited some of the occupied areas and saw the looting with his own eyes. “From Lydda alone,” he said, “the army took out 1,800 truck-loads of property.” Minister of Finance Kaplan admitted: ” As a matter of fact, neither the Ministry of Finance nor the Custodian of Abandoned Property is in control of the situation, and the army does what it wants.” The Custodian, Dov Shafrir, told the ministers that the regional commanders and their adjutants wanted to stop the looting, “but not the storekeepers of the various companies and squads.”

[snip]

A secret report, written by the Custodian of Abandoned Property tried to explain how people “succumb to the grave temptation of looting,” and why. First there was the massive flight of panic-stricken Arabs who abandoned thousands of apartments, stores and workshops as well as crops and orchards. Second, the property concerned was in the midst of the front-line combat area during the transition from mandatory to Israeli rule. This meant there was no stable authority with which to be reckoned. ” ...The moral sense of the few who were attacked by the many and managed to survive, justified the looting of the enemy’s property,” reported the Custodian. “passions of revenge and temptation overcame great numbers of people. Under those conditions only an extremely firm action by the military I administrative civil and judiciary authorities might have saved, not only the property I but also many people, from moral bankruptcy. Such firm action did not take place, and perhaps could not, given the circumstances, and so things continued to go downhill without restraint.” Years later the Custodian removed the veil of secrecy: “The inspectors found most of the houses broken into, and rarely was there any furniture left,” he wrote in his memoirs. “Clothes, household effects, jewelry I bedding-other than mattresses-never reached the warehouses of the Custodial authority. ...” More than 50,000 Arab homes had been abandoned, but only 509 carpets reached the Custodian’s warehouses. The Custodian attributed it all to the “weak ness and greed of many Israelis, who in normal circumstances would never have permitted themselves to act thus with regard, to other people’s property.”

[snip]

Starting in the latter half of 1948, the Ministry of Justice worked on the drafting of an Absentees’ Property Law, giving the Custodian a share in the ownership of the property he had hitherto controlled as a trustee, and authorizing him to transfer it to a newly established “Development Authority.” The Ministry’s draft proposed a literal definition of the term “absentee,” namely, one who was no longer present in the territory of the state. When the draft was brought before the Ministerial Committee, Moshe Sharett demanded that the definition be changed to designate anyone who had left his home after a certain date (November 29, 1947), regardless of where he might have lived thereafter. He drew attention to thousands of refugees who had left their villages and settled in Nazareth. If they were not defined as absentees, it would be necessary to let them return to their homes. Sharett also raised the possibility that Israel might one day seize Nablus on the West Bank, which was a “reasonable likelihood,” he thought. In that case thousands of refugees would come within Israel’s jurisdiction and they would demand to return to their homes and take back the properties they had abandoned. Sharett’s reservation was accepted. Consequently, the definition in the law was changed to embrace all who had abandoned their “usual place of residence,” even if they were still living in Israel. Some time after, the Custodian was authorized to sell the abandoned property to the development authority, and the Government of Israel authorized the latter to sell it to the Jewish National Fund. More than half a million acres were thus expropriated from their owners. A few thousand of these owners were actually living in Israel, yet the law defined them as absentees, even if they had only left their homes for a few days and stayed with relatives in a nearby village or town, waiting for the fighting to end. Later they came to be referred to as “present absentees.” The majority of them were not allowed to return to their homes. Those refugees who were permitted to return to Israel after the war were also formally absentees and their property was not restored to them.”

Looting, Looting, and More Looting - By the Israeli historian-journalist Tom Segev.

As quoted from “1949, The First Israelis” (p. 68-91)

Comment by LanceThruster on 1/25/09 at 8:46 pm

Segev’s book (which isn’t bad, btw) doesn’t refute the claims I gave above.  It just elaborates on the immediate aftermath of the war.  I’m not the type to get into a partisan website quoting war in which a PalestineRemembered.com article is answered with a Jewish Virtual Library article ad nauseum.

(P.S. Jewish Virtual Library is actually an excellent, although partisan.)

Comment by Guy Handelman on 1/26/09 at 12:39 am

If one wants to put this issue in proper perspective a good place to start is the community wide Arab rioting in 1929 where hundreds of defenseless Jews (the British had prior to the outbreak of the riots disarmed all Jews) were killed and wounded.  Further perspective can be gained by looking at the growth in Arab population west of the Jordan River as the result of the improvement in public health Zionists brought to the land and in the immigration of tens of thousands of Arabs into the area as a result of the economic growth the Zionists caused.

The most singular omission in this subject is that the Arabs have been killing Jews since 1920, have fought numerous wars, have engaged in terrorism against Jewish civilians for decades and their two principal political groups, Hamas and the PLO, both favor the destruction of Israel.  In contrast, the Jews of Europe were law-abiding citizens of their respective countries, who posed no threat to their non-Jewish neighbors (were in fact by many measures more patriotic then their neighbors) and yet were slaughtered by the Nazis and often with the help of the non-Jews in the various countries in which the Jews lived.

Also worth an honorable mention:  Approximately 12,000 Jews were expelled from Gaza simply because they were Jews.  Whether Israel was motivated by international pressure, a desire to appease the Arabs, or the cost in soldiers time and lives in protecting the Jewish communities in Gaza, the fact remains the Jews of Gaza, particularly Gush Katif, took a forsaken, unpopulated wasteland and created both beautiful communities for themselves and thousands of jobs for their Arab neighbors, yet were subject to constant murder by Arabs and international vilification simply because they were Jews.

I fear that Jews like Kaufman operate according to a fantasy, perhaps subconscious, that if they join a mob throwing rocks at the Jews, the mob will not regard them as Jews.  Of course presenting their wormy cowardice for what it is is quite undignified, so Jews of Kaufman’s ilk present their pathetic spinelessness as high moral courage.

Comment by michael's comments on 4/30/09 at 12:46 pm

“if they join a mob throwing rocks at the Jews, the mob will not regard them as Jews.” Well said.

“Gerald Kaufman is a typical traitorous weasel hoping that the Jews he throws to the beasts will satisfy their appetites before they get to him.” Me, too.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/30/09 at 11:41 pm

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