The nation and death is history, memory and politics
Tom Segev
Illustration: Shirley Agozi
Adit Zartal. Dvir Publishing, 315 pages, NIS 81
This is a book about the exploitation of death and exploitation
The Holocaust for the purposes of ideology
And the politics in Israel, mainly by me
David Ben-Gurion and the right-wing circles.
When I finished reading it I concluded to myself
that this book is essentially correct and even important,
Interesting and well written, and therefore worthy
very readable.
When I returned a few weeks later to
The notes I took while reading
In the margins of the pages, I found that they mostly express disagreement, especially with a choice
The words of Adit Zartal. Some of her arguments are too one-sided in my opinion, to the point where you missed it
Some of the main points of the story.
As someone who has been attacked many times for his views on this matter, I have a somewhat strange feeling
When I come to claim, as they argued against me, that Zartel exaggerated the presentation of things unnecessarily,
Among other things in wordings that can indeed filter into a manuscript but should not reach it
to the final edition of a book.
Again and again I wrote in the margins of the pages the words "Why do you go?" For example: Why are you writing?
Auschwitz was "Israel's ultimate trump card in its relations with the world" (p
17)? Why do you write "the six days" in double quotation marks, as if the name expressed it
A myth invented by some governmental propaganda apparatus. The words "Six Day War"
Quite neutral, and no more mythological than the words "June War," 1967
Shazartal prefers (p. 137). And why do you say that Israel sends its sons to "tourist"
At the sites of the extermination camps? (p. 130).
On page 231 it is written: "In general, it can be said that while Ben-Gurion blamed the Holocaust on
The Arabs, Gilgal began the Holocaust on Ben-Gurion." This is true at most
In the level of blasphemy, not in a deeper layer. Ben-Gurion's attitude towards the Holocaust
requires a discussion that goes beyond the scope of the propagandistic use he made of it. By the way, not Begin
Compare Ben-Gurion to Hitler but vice versa: Ben-Gurion is a lot to compare to Begin
to Hitler "Why do you go?" I therefore wrote down in this case as well, and in one place I wrote down:
"Why do you, especially when you have something to say?" because she has
In the first episode, Zartel wrote about Tel Hai, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the refugee ship
"Exodus" - three historical failures that were legends of heroism and success,
Foundation stones in the national myth of Israel. Zartal herself dealt with this in the past and like her
Others: Yael Zerubal who published the book - for now only in English
The ultimate on the myth of Tel Hai, she also placed the myth of Masada alongside it.
These are all examples of the use that the Zionist movement made of history for its needs
the ideological and the political. Additional note: every national movement does this,
And the Zionist movement has a special reason to do so, since its main argument is well-founded
On a certain interpretation of Jewish history.
From here to the Holocaust. In Zartel's opinion, the Holocaust played a "crucial part" in the establishment of the State of Israel
(p. 229). This is true at most in terms of the diplomatic efforts she made
The Zionist movement mainly after 1945. In fact, the State of Israel arose as a result
From the Zionist enterprise in the 30 years before the Holocaust, there is nothing that landed Zionism a blow
Harder than exterminating the Jews of Europe.
Zartel's main argument is this: Israel made a laborious, mass use of the Holocaust
and disconnected from its context, thus causing the devaluation of the Holocaust and its cheapening, "a phenomenon that also
Signs of a different, paradoxical type of Holocaust denial" (p. 17).
There is something in this, if not to the extent of "denying the Holocaust" (why would you?). Zartal reasoned the
Her opinion is full of examples, which justify her claim that the Holocaust was used in a cynical way
and righteous for the promotion of Zionist ideology and Israel's policy, externally
and towards the face as well.
In the meantime, Zertal reviewed the history of the law for prosecuting Nazis and their aides:
When it was enacted, no one thought that Israel would ever succeed in getting its hands on Nazi criminals
real. The intention was to create a legal basis that would allow Jews to be prosecuted
who were employed in the service of the Nazis as members of the "Judenrats", ghetto policemen, administrators
Work in the concentration camps and the like.
Zartal critically reviewed the trials held in Israel against men and women
who played "capo" positions. Her sympathies are clearly with the defendants, and indeed they are also included
with the victims of the Nazis. According to Zertal, these sentences expressed the ambition of
Israeli society "to be cleansed and purified and to uproot from it the malignant obsession of
The Holocaust" (p. 100). In fact, these sentences were conducted with apparent reluctance, in retaliation
to demands for revenge from the Holocaust survivors themselves. More than that they reflect intent
Ideologically and politically they illustrate the real difficulty of living not only with a male
The Holocaust, but mainly with its survivors.
In a similar way, Zartel erred - in my opinion - in her questioning of the motives that brought the consultant
Attorney General, Haim Cohen, to prosecute Malchiel Grinwald, who published
Serious accusations against a Hungarian Jewish businessman and a candidate from Pai for the Knesset, Israel
Kastner. In my opinion, one should not look for his motives in Israel's attitude towards the Holocaust, and not in which one
A hidden and malicious conspiracy that must be exposed, if in the trouble of a jurist's mind,
Born in Germany, he did not know how to foresee the pitfalls this sentence could lead to
To drag the state and the ruling party in whose service he worked. Cohen was simply wrong. You
The important book in this regard was written by Yehiam Weitz; Also the memories of Shmuel Tamir,
which came out recently, are worthy of reading in this context. They prove not a lawyer
The state was the main demagogue in this trial, but rather the defense attorney. The Holocaust was used
You are converting to condemning the same establishment that Zartal is attacking for its use in the Holocaust.
Zertal rightly described the Eichmann trial as a show production. It is designed for needs
Political, political, propaganda and ideological. Hana Yablonka's book on
The case ("The State of Israel v. Adolf Eichmann", 2001) is more helpful in this regard
According to Zartel, because it has more information. Zertal did not properly appreciate its importance
of the trial as the beginning of an authentic process of group therapy for an entire society, that
So she found it very difficult to live with the memory of the Holocaust.
The chapters on the Eichmann trial brought Zertel to a very sympathetic treatment of Hanna's thought
Arendt and her famous book on the trial. Meanwhile, Zertal contributed an important document to the subject:
Arendt's reply to the letter sent to her by Professor Gershom Shalom regretting her book.
It was a painful correspondence between two of the German Jews, one of whom chose
in Jerusalem and the other chose New York. Hello, not really a Zionist propagandist, he wrote
Larndt in a patronizing, almost pained tone scolds her wayward daughter. Hello anger mostly
On the cold tone he attributed to Arendt, as if her Jewish origin obliged her to some compassion
tribal This is a very well-known letter, which is often cited when writing about this affair.
Arendt replied peace, but her reply has not been published in Hebrew until now. Zartal included
In her book, excerpts from Arendt's letter are quoted. Arendt sheds light on the movement
Zionism to "some of the terrible characteristics of German nationalism", that is
Basically to Nazism (p. 228). In such a sympathetic display of her worldview,
I lack an explicit reference by Zartel to this position. Arendt's book on trial
Eichmann is not free of unfortunate concepts and formulations, but Zertel Arendt is
The positive, while Ben-Gurion is the negative. Between the black and the white there is a gray truth,
And that's what I lack in this book.
Zartel resents the use of the Holocaust to justify the policies of
Israel is in conflict with the Arabs. This is a correct claim: the Arabs were identified with the Nazis,
Israel was identified as a victim without any responsibility. This was done on purpose, to recruit the
the public around the government and justify its fundamental positions in the conflict. It was comfortable
for the country and its governments to give the impression that Israel is facing a second holocaust.
"The Holocaust," Zartel wrote, "also served Ben-Gurion in his secret enterprise for the development
The final weapon - an Israeli nuclear bomb" (p. 143). Balancing Note: Project
Dimona was indeed developed, among other things, under the influence of the Holocaust, but the trauma of the Holocaust was not needed
The propaganda machine of the Ben-Gurion government to force positions on the Israelis
Politics in the spirit of Zionism and the government, as well as anxieties and hatreds: these are anchored in my mother
The Holocaust itself, not only in its exploitation for ideological and political needs.
Later Zertal tried to build a bridge between the Eichmann trial and the Six Day War, and again
As if she wanted to reveal some dark connection that the government had against the truth. The war did break out
Against the background of the annihilation anxiety that gripped many Israelis in June 1967. This anxiety
It was covered on the radio and in the newspapers, also in the "Haaretz" newspaper. The results of the war proved not
There was a rational basis for this anxiety. But even here a supplementary note is requested:
The anxiety was real, its roots were not only in propaganda manipulation, because
If in the trauma of the Holocaust itself. Over the years, the Holocaust became a central component among my components
Israeli identity. It is very difficult to distinguish between authentic Holocaust feelings and
Manipulative Holocaust reasons - these exist alongside others, and those who manage to distinguish
Among them he holds in his hand a master key to understanding Israeli society.
Zartal focused on exploiting the Holocaust for the needs of uncompromising Zionism, in the Israel of
Ben-Gurion and his successors and also in the hands of the political right. The truth is that the Holocaust was a people
The years for an agreed code of ultimate evil and a source of inspiration for human moral values
(not only in Israel); Many take advantage of it, even in Israel. On the walls of houses in Maa
Gates in Jerusalem swastikas are smeared in protest against the Zionists. I will cascade at all
In his book "From Tarzan to Zabang" (Babel Publishing) there is an instructive chapter on the commercial exploitation of
The Holocaust as popular pornography in the Israeli Stalag books. And there is more
Holocaust exploiters.
In Zartel's book, I lack, above all, a discussion of the use made of the Holocaust for promotion
The "Ionian" position, the resistance to the occupation of the territories and also the refusal to serve in the territories. what
What Isaiah Leibovitz did with the Holocaust when he insulted the "Judeo-Nazis" is no different
The settler town "Punkta" makes a point when it compares the terrorists to the Nazis.
Zartal unfolds her story about the nation and death until Rabin's murder. But this story
is not reduced by the fact that the opponents of the Oslo policy compared Rabin to the Klegs SS, because
If also continues in that the left has appropriated this murder to promote the political view
His. Meanwhile, Rabin's myth completely upends everything that brought the left
to attack Rabin while he was still alive, including the oppression of the Palestinian population
In the territories.
The Rabin myth also expresses more than once the tendency to dismiss in a sweeping and all-inclusive way
What the "peace camp" identifies with the "national camp", and especially the accused rabbis,
In a very inclusive way, in "incitement". This is reminiscent of the use that Mapai made of murder
Haim Arlozorov, in the thirties. Since Rabin's murder, a new myth has been born, centered on him
Rehavam Zeevi. It is different from the Rabin myth in us, not in its essence.
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