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Shalom Freedman is an American-born writer on Jewish subjects who has lived and worked in Israel for many years. His book, , was recently been published by Urim Books.
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By Shalom Freedman
August 26, 2004
One of the most significant elements in enabling the Holocaust (the murder of over one- third of the Jewish people, the great majority of the Jews of Europe) was the silence of the world. A great share of the Jewish people who were murdered might have been saved had there been resistance and outcry on the part of the major Allied Powers, and on the part of many governments and individuals who could have done something to stop the murder. One of the most difficult aspects of the Shoah for the Jewish people is this sense of having been abandoned and betrayed by humanity as a whole, and most especially by those who fought for the freedom of mankind against the Nazi evil.
Now today a portion of the Jewish people, more than one third of the Jewish people, the heart of the Jewish people, is being threatened with another 'Shoah'. And again the world is by and large silent.
This time the threat is not made directly against the people themselves, but against the state in which they live. But the threat is such - the threat of using weapons of mass-destruction to destroy the state - that its translation into reality would mean in effect the murder of hundreds of thousands perhaps even millions of Jews.
This threat is openly made every Friday in the central mosque of Tehran where it is proclaimed that the 'Zionist state' must and will be eliminated. This threat has been made frequently by various leaders of Iran especially over the past three years. In early August of 2004 both the Iranian Defense Minister, and the head of the political wing of the organization that militarily controls Iran - the Islamic Revolutionary Guard - proclaimed that Iran had the capacity to hit with its missiles every place in Israel, and to destroy the Jewish state. True, in these instances they promised to launch the Iranian missiles in response to any effort by Israel to attack Iranian nuclear sites. But their threats have behind them the openly proclaimed ideology of the Islamic Revolutionary State, and that ideology clearly states that the goal is "to completely wipe the Zionist entity from the face of the earth."
These threats are frequently reported by the world media, and ignored by world- leaders. One of course does not expect the leaders of the Islamic bloc to object to these statements since many of them undoubtedly share the Iranian goal. One does not even so much expect third- or - fourth world dictatorships to respond to them for they do not themselves exemplify values in which human life and dignity are respected. But one does expect that the democracies of the world would respond to them with outrage and anger, and even counter-threat. But that does not come. France and Germany - the leaders of the New Europe - are more worried about their energy supplies and trade relations with Iran than contending with genocidal threats. More difficult to comprehend is the lack of outrage from the U.S. at this threat to one of America's most loyal allies. For even though the President and some of his associates have taken note of, and warned against the Iranian threat they have not picked up upon the specific threat made against Israel, the genocidal language Iran has used against Israel alone.
The free world's silence at this genocidal threat to Israel must be understood not simply in relation to Jews and Israel, as their abandonment for expediency's sake. It must be understood as fundamental violation of their own ideals of justice and respect for human life and dignity. It is the free world betraying itself in its silence.
It is time for leaders of the free world to act with courage and decency. Instead of hiding behind vague general statements they must come out and openly declare that a threat such as this against Israel, is a threat against the free world as a whole. And that any Iranian attack on Israel will be regarded as an attack on the free world itself.
Nothing less than this can be a true sign that the world, or at least the free world has learned something from its failings during the Shoah, and is determined to see that it does not in a new form happen again to the heart and soul of the Jewish people that is the State of Israel.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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