THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

members repeatedly attempted to raise the subject, and the government repeatedlyevaded it. The government was “shocked” to the depth of its soul, notacknowledging that the murderous Serbs were Israel’s partners. Alain Finkielkraut,the prominent Jewish French philosopher and intellectual and an expert on anti-Semitism, racism, and Judeophobia, stated that the Serbs had launched the first racewar since Hitler. Why, then, did Israel did not take a public stand against them onevery possible stage? Yair Oron provides an explanation by Professor Igor Primorekof the Hebrew University. He argues that the long war in Yugoslavia was perceived inIsrael as a direct extension of World War II, when the Croatians and Muslimssupported the Nazis, aiding and abetting them in exterminating the Jews. The Serbs,on the other hand, fought the Nazis, aided the Jews, and protected them. Accordingto this rationale, “Jews are historically obliged to understand and support the Serbianinterest . . .”This is horrifying and disgusting. When the world opened its eyes and took on thefight for a better future, we were stuck deep in the depths of the Shoah and we wereunwilling to acknowledge that our allies of the past had become actively Nazi-like inthe present. We were (and still are) willing to look the other way as long as theypassed the test of the Israeli ethic: Were they on our side during the Holocaust?This test is wrong. It may suit someone who thinks that the Shoah is all there is andnothing else is like it. It manifests the failure of a state that expropriated the Shoah,including the right and duty to speak for the victims and the survivors, “our” victimsand survivors. None of the other victims are our business. Our Serb partners orRwandan clients may slaughter them. Had we broadened the jurisdiction of Israelilaw, Israeli collaborators, elected and appointed officials who supported Milošević’sregime and assisted in doing unto others as they would not have others do unto them,would not have stood alongside him. Milošević died during his trial at the InternationalCriminal Court in the Hague, which Israel, naturally, opposed.Can our looking the other way in the face of ethnic cleansing in Serbia explainEurope’s disregard of the Armenian Holocaust? Hitler’s words regarding theArmenian Holocaust are more easily understood in the context of the Germanexperiment farm in Namibia. Imperial Germany could not stay behind when France,Belgium, and Britain seized territories far from their borders. German colonial energy,late to emerge, was directed at the very few territories that remained free, one ofwhich was the spacious land in south west Africa that would be known as Namibia.