Our Wednesday News Analysis | Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponization of Memory in the Service of State and Nation – Book Review

Source: Palestine Chronicle
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/zionism-during-the-holocaust-the-weaponization-of-memory-in-the-service-of-state-and-nation-book-review/

By Jim Miles
Published October 3, 2022

"Israel needs to motivate antisemitism globally in order to distract as much of the world as possible from its military violence and validate the settler colonialism of Palestine and the labeling of Arabs as the evil ‘other’."

"The Jewish leaders of the ghettos were more concerned about trying to save the lives of established, wealthy, and pro-Zionist Jews – making deals with the Germans that traded the lives of the top echelons of Jews for the lives of the masses to be exterminated."

The current Israeli government promotes the idea that it speaks for the Jewish people of the world. It equates any criticism of Israel and any criticism of Zionism as being antisemitic, the two being fully conflated in the eyes of ardent nationalist Jews.

Tony Greenstein’s new book “Zionism During the Holocaust” examines a critical period in the development of the Israeli national narrative and exposes the history behind the development of Zionism and specifically the role Zionism played in the Holocaust in World War II.

To be clear, Greenstein in no way denies the Holocaust and provides much information detailing how many Jews were sent to the various concentration/extermination camps from the areas occupied or allied to Wehrmacht Germany. The book is highly detailed, well referenced, and written in what I call encyclopedic style: it is not an anecdotal history but is packed full of information taken from numerous sources – most of them Jewish – detailing the names, dates, and numbers so critical to the Holocaust history.

It is bound to bring up accusations of antisemitism against the author, already considerably well experienced with those accusations, but it also highlights one of the main points summarized in the book: Israel needs to motivate antisemitism globally in order to distract as much of the world as possible from its military violence and validate the settler colonialism of Palestine and the labeling of Arabs as the evil ‘other’...

Read more: Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponization of Memory in the Service of State and Nation – Book Review

OPINION | IT’S BECOME TABOO TO SPEAK OF HOPE

Source: Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2022-10-03/ty-article/.premium/its-become-taboo-to-speak-of-hope/00000183-99c7-d206-adcb-9fcf00540000

By Yossi Klein
Published October 3, 2022

“"‘Jewish' with 5 million Arabs? ‘ Democratic' with apartheid that is not discussed? … there is hope for a better future, and hope is the thing we now need most.

"Ambiguity works. You only have to know how to talk in a convoluted manner."

In my family they didn’t talk about divorce, cancer or death. The official excuse was: “Careful, the children are listening!” But there was something more profound in that statement.

               There was in it a belief that if you don’t talk about something, it will be forgotten, dry up, wilt and dissipate.

               If we don’t talk about nuclear bombs, then we don’t have any, if we don’t talk about apartheid, it doesn’t exist.

               When you don’t talk about the Green Line, then there is no line, and it wasn’t green.

Soon it will also be impossible to talk about “processes,” because if we talk about processes in the Germany of 1938, people will immediately realize that the reference is to what is happening here now, and they’ll be angry because there is no comparison. And if we don’t talk about a Palestinian state, it won’t be established. There are topics that aren’t discussed, because when we bring them up we are placing a forgotten issue on the agenda. In so doing we are taking a risk that Joe Biden will hear Yair Lapid talking about Palestinians, and then he will be reminded, smack his forehead in astonishment, and shout: Palestinians! How could I forget?

To combat this airing of forgotten issues, we invented “ambiguity.” Ambiguity safeguards us from painful reminders. Ambiguity sweeps everything under the rug. The truth is hiding there, but it’s not as painful as if it were standing before our eyes. More than ambiguity was meant to conceal the truth from our enemies, it was meant to hide it from ourselves.

Ambiguity is also wrapped in a sealed package bearing the words: “sensitive security reasons.” You hear “security reasons” and jump to attention. Security reasons are an insurance policy. For “sensitive security reasons” you can buy submarines for your cousin, and nobody will ask you why...

Read more: Opinion | It’s Become Taboo to Speak of Hope

PALESTINE NEEDS TO BE BACKED BY A VISION

Source: The National
https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2022/09/14/palestine-needs-to-be-backed-by-a-vision/

By James Zogby
Published September 19, 2022

"As the brilliant and witty Israeli Palestinian leader Tawfiq Zayyed once replied to a group that had denounced him, claiming that he had denied the Palestinian right to 'armed resistance': 'You may have that right, but when you use it as badly as you do, you forfeit that right.'”

Here’s a story I’ve never told before: I traveled to Tunisia in late 1993 to meet Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. At the time I was serving as co-chair of Builders for Peace, a project launched by then US vice president Al Gore to help create employment and promote economic growth in the Occupied Palestinian lands. I was sent to Tunis first to meet Arafat, and then speak to the PLO executive committee to explain our mission and receive their support. I had met with Arafat several times before; we knew each other and often had frank exchanges.

I was told that my initial meeting with the chairman would be at 2am and arrived at his office to find him engaged in an animated phone conversation. When he finally hung up, he turned to tell me that he had been speaking to “my people in Lebanon” through a connection in Cyprus. He boasted that he spoke with them daily and had now succeeded in rearming his fighters in Lebanon – something that I felt he knew would provoke disagreement as I had argued with him before about what I believed had been the provocative and counterproductive nature of their armed presence in Lebanon.

At the end of his comments, he said: “You see, Jimmy,” – that’s what he called me – “these are the keys to leadership: communication and power in reserve.”...

Read more: Palestine needs to be backed by a vision