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The Past is Prologue
September 9, 2007
Many Holocaust survivors told their children very little about their birthplaces and about what happened to them during the war. Their life stories had been buried deep inside them before the scars had a chance to heal. The survivors did not know how to open the gate so as to allow some light into the darkness of their lives. Instead, a wall was slowly erected between them and their children. It is true that in recent years the survivors have tried to breach the wall of their own making, but their efforts are relatively weak and the barrier is solid. Yes, it was unbelievable. Whenever you speak about those days, you are gripped by a sense of how unbelievable it all was. And Yet…
Today, we are spending precious moments expressing both surprise and alarm concerning the hatred manifested in today’s current events. On a daily basis, our newspapers are filled with references to suicide bombings. That is important; but not what is most important right now. What we need to understand is that the hatred being spewed is once again being used both shrewdly and methodically to obtain certain results.
We have all have spent too much time talking about the widespread anti-Semitism in the Muslim world and discovering to our surprise and chagrin that many people in the western part of the globe either share this feeling or couldn’t care less. Instead of trying to understand "why they hate us" and why they (and many others) hate the Jews (something I hope we’ll be discussing for several generations), what we have to understand right now is: what benefit does anti-Semitism hold and furthermore what are the practical uses of anti-Semitism?
The historical roots of the hatred, its psychology and its followers are not questions we have the time to analyze, dissect, and discuss endlessly. Besides being anti-Semitic themselves, the Nazis used anti-Semitism brilliantly and systematically to subvert other countries and societies. Although Nazism was (among other things) a form of German expansionism, wherever there were anti-Semites the Germans would also find collaborators. Anti-Semitism was used by the Germans to undermine the stability of countries, societies and armies that could or would stand up to them.
The Nazis managed to convince millions of Frenchmen, Poles, Belgians, Norwegians and, yes, British and Americans that they were fighting a common enemy: the Jews. The Nazi regime purported that the Germans were not really their mortal enemy. Untold millions were eager to believe that Germany wasn’t really threatening them and their countries. The Germans did not really want to conquer, exploit and kill them. Why? Because they either thought that they could join the common cause with the Nazis against the Jews, or remain indifferent, neutral and defenseless because, being indifferent to the fate was deemed by some an appropriate response. They were convinced that it was not their problem. Many of these citizens even turned against their own countrymen who wanted to fight the Nazis. They were blamed for putting everyone else in danger just to "protect the Jews".
In short: if the Jews were used in the beginning as scapegoats, their main use throughout the war was as a tool to "divide and conquer". Thanks to their deep-seated or opportunistic ant-Semitism the Germans were able to paralyze important forces in the countries that they wanted to defeat and subjugate.
History is repeating itself once again. Although the Jihadists have their own clear, even megalomaniac goals, including their dreams of nationalistic expansion, and while they have killed thousands in the United States, while they complain about East Timor or fight for Kashmir; it is enough for them to involve the Jews - particularly Israel in their struggle or their declared agenda to get the active support or at least the indifference of those in Europe, the United States and elsewhere. There are people who would like to believe that these complaints, grievances and goals are restricted to or only motivated by Israel. Of course, they also declare they’re fighting against America, but then, for those who hate America, coupling the United States with the Jews and/or Israel fuels their logic.
The Jihadists have shown us how brilliantly they can manipulate for their own purposes something as irrelevant as half-a-dozen cartoons in a Danish newspaper. Thus, it is rather unimportant whether Israel’s destruction is or isn’t their main goal. They seem to have discovered through trial and error that the hatred of Jews is alive and well in the West and, as the Nazis did before, they are using it not only to further their own different goals, but to recruit collaborators and to paralyze whole countries and societies as well. It goes without saying how terrible this is for the Jews themselves, but it is at least as dangerous to the rest of the West that is allowing anti-Semitism to be used again. Hatred of the Jews and of Israel is the loaded weapon of the Jihadists. It is truly astounding that in 2007 we are allowing Western civilization to be held hostage to a civilization that values suicide bombing as a viable solution for eliminating the enemy. What is happening today is unbelievable.
Greta Brewer
Vice President of Education,
NEXT GENERATIONS
NEXT GENERATIONS is under the auspices of LEAH, League for Educational Awareness of the Holocaust.
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