Why Israel should not be compared to the Nazis

 

Since my article on Israel in last week's paper I have received a huge number of emails. And I am very grateful for the large majority who wrote in agreement with what I had to say.

Understandably, however, I also received a large postbag from those who didn't agree with me.

One theme of the critics was that I had misrepresented the offer made by the Israelis at Camp David.

These correspondents suggested that what Israel had offered (that I respresented as an offer of a state in Gaza and the West Bank) was completely unacceptable because it did not offer a proper state - merely a whole series of cantons.

I am going to respond to this only by providing a link to an interview in 2002 with Dennis Ross, Bill Clinton's Middle East envoy, who helped conduct the negotiatations. It is worth reading in full, but for the moment I just quote this:

So the Palestinians would have in the West Bank an area that was contiguous. Those who say there were cantons, completely untrue. It was contiguous.

And to connect Gaza with the West Bank, there would have been an elevated highway, an elevated railroad, to ensure that there would be not just safe passage for the Palestinians, but free passage.

An even more common theme was to object to my having mentioned the Holocaust.

The objection came in two forms, often intertwined. The first is that the suffering of Jews in the Holocaust did not justify all Israeli behaviour and that it was deeply wrong to suggest that it did.

The second is that the only relevance of the Holocaust was that it was being repeated. What Israel is doing in Gaza is directly comparable to the behaviour of the Nazis.

Where do I start?

My article did not use the Holocaust as a justification for all Israeli behaviour. It mentioned it as a justification for the existence of the state of Israel. Actions taken by the state have then to be justified on their own terms.

Those emailers (a goodly proportion) who argue that the Holocaust is now a tedious cliche and basically irrelevant (an argument that, I must say, took me aback) were therefore missing my point.

The comparison with the Holocaust has only ceased surprising me because it is now so common.

It is, nevertheless, shameful.

The Nazis were attempting to exterminate all Jews. They established death camps to achieve their objectives, gassing men women and children simply to be rid of them. However strongly someone may dislike Israeli policy in Gaza, however cruel or unpleasant they may feel it is, the comparison with the Nazis is not a good one.

And if the critics wish to make the argument that Jews are oppressing others as they were once oppressed, they need not make reference to the Nazis. There are plenty of other examples of Jews being oppressed.

Why not call it a pogrom? Or argue that the Jews are behaving just like the Arabs behaved to them in the first half of the century. I would reject this comparison too, but I am intrigued that it is never used.

I conclude therefore, that my critics are not searching for an appropriate analogy.

They were simply desirous of being monumentally offensive. They succeed only in being morally frivolous.