THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

In 1994 a million Tutsi died at the hands of the Hutu militia, armed with machetesand light arms, during just one hundred days. It was the fastest genocide ever. Then,again in Yugoslavia, East Timor, and Darfur. In none of these places was the worldquick to react. Why did the 1995 tsunami stir worldwide empathy, but outrightmurder inevitably meets inaction?When it comes to humans killing humans, people—namely you and I—must take astand beside one of the parties. Who is right? Who is our ally? Who is the enemy?Very often people do not have a clear position on their immediate reality, so how canhumans be expected to form an opinion regarding the reality of other people sodistant from their hearts and minds? When we must take a position in other people’spolitics, we must also be introspective, look honestly at ourselves and take the samemoral stand regarding the evil among us. This proves to be too much. Our evil, itturns out, is at the very base of our convenient lives. It has taken years for us to reachthis state of comfort and we are not going to give it up just like that. Thus ourindifference becomes our complacency: Let’s not take sides and let them die. Wecannot hear their sobbing and crying where we are, anyway—whether we’re inManhattan’s high-rises, London’s subways, or Tel Aviv’s shopping malls. The millionsof people who were slaughtered in the twentieth century are victims of those whostood and watched or looked the other way. And we are at the top of the list ofguilty ones. Yes, we the Jews are again to be blamed. How is this possible?We have taken the Shoah from its position of sanctity and turned it into aninstrument of common and even trite politics. We turned the Shoah into a tool at theservice of the Jewish people. A weapon, indeed; mightier than the Israeli DefenseForce itself. The Shoah has become our exclusive property. We also expendenormous amounts of energy to make sure that no one else enters “our” holiest sites.The Jewish state stood time after time beside the Turkish government in denying theArmenian Holocaust. Except for a few politicians like Yossi Beilin and Yossi Sarid, allIsraeli officials adhered to the Turkish propaganda lines. It seems that the reason wasstrategic: to maintain good relations with Israel’s only Islamic ally in the region. Buteveryone close enough to the Israeli psyche knows that we deny the ArmenianHolocaust to ensure that the Jewish Holocaust stays our own. We have taken theoath that there will be no more Shoah. Never again is our mantra, and never again isour obsession. “The Eskimo and the Armenians do not interest us, only the Jews do,”the Prime Minister’s Office chief of staff once said. 4