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Petra Marquardt-Bigman is a German/Israel citizen with a Ph.D. in contemporary history with a focus on European public opinion relating to the Middle East, Islamic Terrorism, the US and Israel.
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By Petra Marquardt-Bigman
January 27, 2007
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Two years ago, the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was marked in a special UN General Assembly session which, for the first time in the organization's history, suspended UN protocol by allowing the recitation of a prayer -- El Malei Rachamim, a Jewish hymn for the dead -- followed by the Israeli national anthem. Later that year, the UN designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Israeli and Jewish officials at the time expressed hopes that these events signaled a turning point for the UN's pronounced anti-Israel bias. These hopes have not been fulfilled.
Perhaps only those who can genuinely identify with the victims of the Holocaust could ever have entertained such hopes. For them, it is hard to comprehend that Holocaust remembrance is often taken to confer an entitlement on those who remember -- an entitlement to judge those who live knowing that Auschwitz was meant for them according to an imaginary standard of morality that is claimed to reflect the legacy of those who perished.
In the wake of last summer's war between Israel and Lebanon, this sense of entitlement was reinvigorated. The perhaps most perceptive analysis of the dynamics at work was offered in an article written by Navid Kermani, a well-known Iranian-German intellectual, in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (English version). Kermani argued that Israel was facing a dilemma. The Jewish state had "two constants to thank for its survival: the support of the West, and its strength over its neighbors." But the support of the West reflected what Kermani characterized as the "specific morality of the atonement" which was derived from "the awareness of the suffering imposed upon the Jews," and implicitly, this view trapped Israel in the role of the victim.
Kermani noted that "Israel only wants normality, which means, in case of an existential conflict: the use of power and military resources with just as much decisiveness and as few scruples as any other state." But when the Jewish state claims this normality and demonstrates "its strength over its neighbors," it will no longer be seen as the victim, but as the perpetrator. And the condemnation will be all the more harsh; as Kermani observed correctly, "this is the source of the hastiness with which anti-Semites -- trying to denounce the historical position of Jews as victims -- suggest that Israel is imitating Nazi crimes."
The analysis presented by Kermani is applicable also when critics of Israel choose more insidious ways to accuse Israel of "Nazi crimes", as a group of German academics did in a "Manifesto" published in mid-November of last year under the title "Friendship and Criticism." The manifesto's central demand is a re-evaluation of the "special" relationship between Germany and Israel, and while the authors reject the notion that Germany's past requires them to uncritically support Israel, they repeatedly assure readers of their friendship for Israel and invoke the need, even the duty, to show "special sensitivity."
Unfortunately, there is precious little evidence of this "special sensitivity" in statements that assert: "It is the Holocaust that has, for six decades, caused the continuous, and currently even unbearable, suffering of the Palestinians.... countless dead, families torn apart, expulsion, and life in makeshift housing up to today have been the consequence." The text continues to argue that, without the Holocaust, Israel would not feel justified to ignore so intransigently the human rights of Palestinians and Lebanese, and without the Holocaust, Israel would not be backed in this -- materially and politically -- by the US.
The manifesto also emphasizes that the UN decision to "accept" the establishment of the State of Israel was taken still under the "shock" of the Holocaust and "against the Arab states". In this context, the Middle East conflict is depicted as having German and European roots, because "a part of the European problems was transferred to the Middle East".
While there are unequivocal condemnations of suicide attacks and the launching of Kassams, the manifesto leaves little doubt that it is the suffering inflicted by Israel on Palestinians and Lebanese that is "unbearable". Notwithstanding all the reaffirmations of friendship for Israel, the manifesto portrays Israel as the victims' state that has become a cruel perpetrator, cynically trampling human rights and dignity in its lust for land, a mighty militaristic monster, propped up by 20 percent of America's foreign aid budget, oppressing, terrorizing and killing Palestinians and Lebanese at will.
It might be hard to find a more drastic illustration of the sense of righteousness that imbues many critics of the Jewish state who claim a keen awareness of the "morality of atonement" described by Kermani. As the manifesto of the German academics illustrates, a little intellectual sophistication can go a long way if you want to accuse Israel of "Nazi crimes" without really saying so: if you describe the establishment of Israel -- and Israeli policies ever since -- as another truly terrible consequence of the Holocaust, the Palestinians become somehow victims of the Holocaust, and Israelis become somehow co-perpetrators.
This twisted view reflects a misunderstood "morality of atonement" that is quite common in Europe, because for the continent that allowed the Holocaust to happen, remembrance still evokes complex and conflicting emotions: for many Europeans, the sense of complicity and guilt gives the pledge "never again" a peculiar meaning that is expressed in a dogmatic pacifism and a reflexive identification with the victims of "militarism". Europe is resolved to never again cheer a victorious army, because Europe remembers itself as the victim of Hitler's victorious Wehrmacht, and Europe remembers with ambivalence that it had to depend on the victorious US Army for its liberation. For a dogmatically pacifist Europe, a victorious army is always suspect, and the IDF is no exception. For a dogmatically pacifist Europe, those vanquished by a victorious army are deserving of sympathy -- no matter that they were vanquished because they had embarked on a war of aggression.
For the descendants of the perpetrators of the Holocaust, remembrance is ultimately about avoiding becoming perpetrators again; for the descendants of the victims, remembrance is about avoiding becoming victims again. But until a second Holocaust happens, the descendants of the victims can always be blamed for being hysterical, while the descendants of the perpetrators claim the moral high ground by standing up for those who suffered defeat in their repeated attempts to deny the descendants of the victims a state of their own, and a life in peace and security.
It is not illegitimate to criticize Israeli policies, but if the memory of the Holocaust is invoked in a most righteous tone to imply that the plight of Palestinians is comparable to the suffering of those who perished in the Nazi death camps, and to insinuate that Israel has betrayed the legacy of the Holocaust's victims, then remembrance is reduced to a hollow ritual.
Views expressed by the author do not
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