THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

and Romanians. We would have shut our border like the Swiss. If weact with such cynicism with a country such as Turkey, which is not thatimportant to us, what would have we done with Germany . . . Perhapsthere is another reason: we who speak Shoah all day, we do not allowanyone else any part of our Shoah. This is our main asset nowadays.This is the only thing by which we try to unify the Jews. This is the onlyway to scare Israelis into not emigrating. This is the only thing by whichthey try to silence the gentiles. 7We are certainly not as bad as the murderers and exterminators but we are as bad asthe apathetic bystanders, if not worse. Have we not sworn “never again”? Then whydo we not engage when there is more of the same evil perpetrated against others andwe do not engage? Did the million innocent Rwandans walk to their slaughter saying,“Never mind, our holocaust is not as important as the Jewish Holocaust”? Morelikely they wondered why the world was silent as machetes cut their throats.The indifferent bystander who does not prevent a crime is also a criminal; at least aminor one, an accomplice. An apathetic Israel and a passive Jewish people are moreresponsible than the other perpetrators of inaction. We have been there; we knowwhat it is like. Well-filmed rescue missions, field hospitals, and air force transports areno more than public relations stunts. They do not substitute a national moral stand anddiplomacy in the face of human distress. I assume that other post-traumatic peoplesinsist that their own genocide is the ultimate one and other massacres are just ahorrible crime, a tragedy but not more. But we should have known that. The Shoahcan remain locked in a gated Jewish ghetto, but it can also be a world heritage. Wewho rose from the ashes should be the best friends of the persecuted everywhere.How can this be translated into practice? We can start with the law. Early in the1950s the Knesset passed the Law for Trying Nazis and Their Collaborators. Thiswas the law used to convict Adolf Eichmann. He was charged with crimes against theJewish people, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The Knesset should strikedown the exclusive clause of “crimes against the Jewish people.” There are no morereal Nazis. Our people should return to be part of the family of nations. We have asection on crimes against humanity, and it should suffice. Are the Jewish people not apart of humanity?After deleting this section we should consider a fundamental change in foreign