Anshel Pfeffer / Israel suffers from evoking Holocaust to justify militant policies

Which Holocaust is he talking about? Is it the one where no Hitler order exists to gas the Jews? Or the one where the gas chambers of Auschwitz were built by the Russians after the war? Or maybe the one where there was an alleged ramp selection even though the camp had a modern hospital to take care of sick inmates? Or the one where the Nazis tatooed the Jews before having them killed?

According to the author, "There are good and valid reasons for and against attacking Iran". I'm sure many Iranians and Arabs think they have a better reason to attack Israel. You're losing your support around the world and every time you carry out another massacre, you lose more support. If you keep it up, in 20 years you won't even have the USA as an ally.

most jews, be it in israel or not, consider the shoa to be the defininng moment of their history. pfeffer does not own the shoa.

What an intelligent article. Because of the way the Holocaust has been used, it has lost its potency for me. Some Israelis are misusing the memory of the dead to defend undefensible policies.

When the holocaust denying, Israeli-threatening man in Iran ceases his ignorant and bellicose rants, then, perhaps, there will be no need to invoke Auschwitz. However, history should not be ignored.

The way the right wing constantly used the Holocaust to push forward its own political agenda is simply obscene. The Holocaust is something that should never, ever be used for political means.

His writings are just a waste of space. Let someone with something to say write here.

Now even our own people want to forget the Holocaust. How dare this author say that we suffer from evoking the Holocaust to justify militant policies (like trying to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon). The author of this article is a disgrace to himself, to the People of Israel, to the State of Israel, and to people of good will the world over.

The Holocaust should always remind us of the prejudices, injustices and scapegoats that are invoked in the name of security. German Nazism aroused theirrational fears and passions of a whole people. This goes on today under many disguises, some of which affects us directly.

Jews are not the only people who experienced a slaughter in history, but they were rooted out for slaughter to be entirely wiped out. Not because they were opposing some government or other people or because they had some kind of land conflict or were involved in a war..Simply because they were Jews. Which other people lost some 50% of its population with entire communities wiped out.....simply because of who they were ore even who their great great grandparents... A drop of 'Jewish blood' was enough. They were compared to rats and cockroaches to be eradicated. All killing is not the same...Jews have been at the forefornt of protests against racism or other mass killing...Certainly they have not been less sensitive than other people...

why should Mr Pfeffer have felt just as traumatised bat the sight of Mao's Little Red Book? Is it not natural for a person to have more feeling for their own people.? maybe I am wrong about it but our forefathers who died in the Holocaust were our grandparents , uncles, aunts cousins. why is wrong to feel more sadness for them ?

The author thinks Israel is nothing more than a "safe haven"? Israel has a vibrant economy, is a leader in many fields, and transcended the limits of a "safe haven" decades ago. To trivialize both Israel and the Holocaust by claiming one is merely a response does a disservice to both.

Someone asked him how that could happen with the wire shield around the fan. Easy, the moron said, like this -- and he proceeded to stick another finger through the wire basket into the spinning fan blades. Isn't that right Anshel Pfeffer? Isn't that how you lost 2 fingers?

What is incomprehensible to most non Jews is that many Jews/Israelis feel a deep sense of insecurity as a result of what happened during WWII. Many non Jews mock Jews for this, but that doesn't mean the feelling aren't real

as much as the Jews. To their credit the European nations are the ones who have passed laws against holocaust denial, who have made a point of remembering - it is their history; they know what happened.

The basic reason for Europe's concern with the Holocaust is that Europe never admitted the simple and true reason for its occurrence. Europe is so much afraid to deal with it, that it blames secondary causes such as racism, the Nazi party, and others. The truth is that most Europeans were not Nazis, nor racists, yet most Europeans supported the Holocaust. The basic reason for the Holocaust is deeply rooted in Europe's Christianity. It is the fabricated story that blames the Jews for a murder committed by Romans on a Jew called Jesus. This story was concocted in order to let Emperor Constantine to formally embrace Christianity (which was then a part of Judaism) by the Roman empire. The purpose was to explain how Rome can be Christian after it murdered Jesus, and the solution was to blame the Jews themselves. This was done in Nicea (Nicene) conference in 325 century. This politically convenient story is the real basis for antisemitism. The only way to correct this is to go back to the ways of original Christians which were actually Jews. In the USA Christianity move in the direction of returning to the roots of early Christianity. In Europe they don't. Europe prefers to create the EU walls around them (saying religion is not constitutional yet rejecting Turkey out). This wont save Europe's conscience. A young European child will not believe that Christianity had nothing to do with the Holocaust, and honest European Christians must be ashamed of their latest history. You can go and check by yourself how well is the Christian religion doing in the youth of Europe. In the Holocaust, Europe managed to kill its own Christianity, and to revive the Jewish people.

...and did nothing (except of course when it directly affected them) as the European jews were being led to their deaths is finding it hard to understand why Israel sometimes acts the way it does. I find that very interesting, and disturbing.

It is essential that the Holocaust is never forgotten. But does it need to be invoked always as a warning? In the sphere of films and books it is now refreshing to see that instead of being the core theme the Holocaust is 'slipped in' to the story lines as just background fact! This is probably the better way to keep it alive. Most people do not want to hear about it all the time but are happy to ingest it as part of some wider context. That is a healthier way of keeping the memory going to the next generations and almost without realising it it is serving still as a warning!

a thought-provoking piece. Israel has used the Holocaust for 60 years to bolster support and it has worked. The world has changed. Using the Holocaust this way cannot be a long term strategy: it is too expensive (not just in cash) and won't succeed. Demonising Islam, as Europe demonised Jews, is not a recipe for peace with justice.

As a victim's nephew and namesake I have to say that I am tired of our constant excuse, justification, for whatever we do - that we were victims of the holocaust. We were history's victims. But even though that is true, we cannot also be victimisers. We abuse ourselves and others when we refuse to be accountable for our actions. Until we mature enough to accept responsibility for what we do, we will remain a blighted nation. Until we are able to step out from the shadows of our past, stop pandering to our innate paranoia often tapped into by our political leaders, we will continue to fail to fulfill our fullest potential. War and violence will be the future we pass on to our children. We have to learn finally what are the responsibilities that come with nation statehood, and not excuse our defiance of the values we hoped we would reflect in creating Israel, by invoking the Holocaust.

The "alleged"nuclear capability developed by Israel gives Israel a strategic advantage,first and foremost. It does not require any historical justification any more than does the development of a strong army. Although the Shoah is considered by many, learned and unlearned, to be an event sui generis, there are Jewish religious thinkers whose view it as part of a series of cataclysmic event commencing with destruction of the Two Temples and the exile of the tribes. Since the knowledge of Jewish history of the deligitimizers of Zionism, the Jewish state and its people are limited to their familiarity with the 20th century, they tend to focus exclusively on the recent holocaust, ignoring 3000 years of history. The currebt use of the holocaust by our military and educational leadership is cynical and unworthy of this generation, displaying a poverty of profound thinking.

This reacting to everything as if it's an existential threat has made Israel a psycho state. God help your neighbours.

Forget the fact that every several months or so Anshel comes out with another article which sounds word for word like a Neo-Nazi attack against holocaust remembrence. Anshel has obviously not learned the lessons of the holocaust. Even the tiny fact that it was a planned extermination of a people based on their religion or "race". Perhaps if he had compared it to the Armenian genocide, or to the genocide in Rwanda he would not come out sounding so ignorant. Amazingly, he was "touched" by one woman's red sandal, but all the other shoes didn't seem to register with him at all. Perhaps Anshel could have taken a moment to realize that every shoe over there belonged to an individual, not just the pretty red sandal. Perhaps then the other "identical footwear" would not have "blurred into each other" for him. Perhaps then it wouldn't seem to him like a "national fetish".

i wish we would have taken other consequences than just defend israel. the shoa is over. and we dont care over the little genocides over the world. where r the multinational peace troops to prevent any of them ? for my oppinion the grandchildren of the victims r as sellfish as the grandchildren of the nazis. our responsibility is just a farce. we prevent nothin. we r just glad that it wouldnt happen to us.

Any government's trick or polemics to use the sad event of holocaus for their own politics is a big disrespect of the memory of the victims of the holocaust.

Israel is an embattled country. They rely very heavily on U.S. support. So they have developed a very sophisticated system of propaganda. They don't call it propaganda. They call it hasbarah. It is the only country I know of in the world that refers to propaganda as explanation. The Ministry of Propaganda is the Ministry of Explanation. The idea being that our position on everything is so obviously correct that if we only explain it to people, they will see that it is right.

if only we would Justify our existence on our religious and Historic Connection like "The Cave of the Patriarchs, The Temple Mount and all the uncountable sites and historic proofs of our relation to the land, then our actions to defend our rites (be it forceful on the attacker) will be accepted by us the world and especially the Arabs. Only When the Jewish State has that consciousness will True Peace Reign!!!

I second that

Germans killed one third of population in Poland and 20 million russians as well but Poles and Russians never try to use atrocities commited by germans against them for justifying their actions and raise sympathy.

The jews will always have the mindset to say.. Never Again...how sad !

Nuking Japan with 2 nuclear bombs was the biggest Holocaust. Killing more than 60 million people in which Jews were a small part is a Holocaust not only of Jews but the whole world. Recently American made Holocausts are plenty. Vietnam and Iraq being the biggest Holocausts. And as far as Muslims are concerned the biggest Holocaust of the century is the Palestinian Holocaust in the hands of Zionists.

Cries of Pfeffer being a Self-Hating Jew will soon follow ...

Mao killed millions too. But being born Chinese was not a death sentence-being a political dissident could be. Being a Jewish political dissident was never the issue. Just being a Jew was an automatic death sentence in the Holocaust. You obviously did not learn or understand your history.

Anshel you use the same logic which neo nazi's, anti semites, Muslims and extreme lefties use!! They Jews should shut up as more people died in other conflicts but genocide means the extermination of a people and by that definition Mao did not commit genocide on his people nor Stalin on the Russian nor Hitler on the Russians nor Poles!!As a university professor Anshel I thought you would know that!! A pity you have to offend your people in such a manner and one last thing tell your Palestinian friends to stop abusing linking the conflict to the holocaust!! The few thousand deaths does not compare to the holocaust nor to what happens in Darfur!!

apart from America itself, Israel still stands as the world's brightest model of national self-liberation based on ideals of individual responsibility and human freedom. Israel's ability to withstand Arab attempts to destroy it in one of the longest and most lopsided wars ever fought serves as an indelible testimony to the strength of democratic culture. Israel has to be gritty; otherwise it would not exist. Nevertheless, in the 1990's it too began to tire under the perpetual assault. In systematic and sustained terrorism, the Arabs discovered the first weapon that really works against a democracy, destroying the trust, the openness, of an open society, and exploiting its precious freedoms to expose its acute vulnerability. Here once again Israel has served as a test case. How well can democracies withstand this new form of all-out foreign aggression? We know from the past that the West paid dearly for ignoring Hitler's war against the Jews. One can only hope it will not pay as dearly for having ignored or underestimated for so long the Arab war against Israel and the Jews.

Mr Pfeffer gets it all wrong. My entire family was massacred in Auschwitz. The Shoah could take place, because there was an ideology (as outlined by Mein Kampf) and there was available technology to carry it out. Clearly, the ideology is there in Teheran. Now they are just trying to get the technology. For us Jews, Mr. Pfeffer (and that includes you too) this is an existential threat- nothing less. There are no second chances!

I think your article is very relevant in today's world. As a Jew in the U.S. I get very frustrated when I see Israel use the memory of the Holocaust as a political tool to acheive some end goal. Even though Israel is home of the Jewish people does not mean the state holds a monopoly on the Shoah and the results of it. Netenyahu or any Israeli politician does not have a hold on the memory of this massive genocide any more than I do, and is no more allowed to capitalize on it anymore than I am.

As Anshel Pfeffer describes, the holocaust is often invoked by Jews as an excuse for them to do something that they want to do but don't have a good excuse to do otherwise. It is like a default excuse for any Jew to take any action not covered by a better excuse. Everybody knows this, especially the readers of Haaretz. Anshel Pfeffer is preaching to the choir

Could this mean that it isn't proper to use the Nazis to justify the same kind of nationalism and racism the Nazi's practiced? Clearly there is nothing that justifies Israel's policies towards Palestinians more than the policies of Nazis towards Jews. Everyone understands the position and actions of the Nazis. Is it not the best practice to pick a conspicuous minority and target them as the entire threat to the nation? Is it not proper to target a minority so that their assets may be transfered to the majority? The Nazis were monsters, vicious anti-Semites, persons who viewed their 'race' as being superior and deserving of the right to 'living room' which they needed to the east. How can this be confused with God's Chosen Race, which is thus superior and deserving of the right to take the lands God gave them from the inferior people living to the east? Clearly we all understand that the dreams of racial superiority, justified by the need to preserve that race, are something that only Germans could engage in. Americans could never wage race war in the Philippines against the Gooks, so that Americans could have a fashionable empire in 1900. Nor could the British bomb children in Iraqi villages with White Phosphorous bombs in 1920 to put those WOGs in their place. Vicious and brutal racial arrogance only occurs to Germans, right? It could never intrude upon morally superior nations like the United States, Great Britain, or Israel. Could it?

Given what happened in the past I would do everything that I needed to do to prevent a second Holocaust. In this regard, I feel sorry for Israel's leaders because of their awesome responsibility. On the other hand, they could be handling things with respect to fairness to disinherited Palestinians and Syrians (http://www.haaretz.com/magazine/friday-supplement/the-disinherited-1.304959) who lost property.

Surely he cannot have missed the obvious. More than the minds of the victim-obsessed is at risk. The retaliation for any bombing of Iran will wipe out Israeli cities. Has everyone in Israel lost their sense of proportion. Recent articles have pointed out that the net effect of Israel having a ( barely ) concealed nuclear weapon is to guarantee that other countries will want one. Having goaded the enemy, the paranoia has provided its object with a perceived cause. So then you bomb them, not ever being able to use the useless nuclear deterrent, and get blown off the map for your hubris.