I just quoted Tony Judt’s piece on the uses of the Holocaust in the NYRB, let me do it again:
Students today do not need to be reminded of the genocide of the
Jews, the historical consequences of anti-Semitism, or the problem of
evil. They know all about these—in ways their parents never did. And
that is as it should be. But I have been struck lately by the frequency
with which new questions are surfacing: "Why do we focus so on the
Holocaust?" "Why is it illegal [in certain countries] to deny the
Holocaust but not other genocides?" "Is the threat of anti-Semitism not
exaggerated?" And, increasingly, "Doesn’t Israel use the Holocaust as
an excuse?" I do not recall hearing those questions in the past.
My fear is that two things have happened. By emphasizing the
historical uniqueness of the Holocaust while at the same time invoking
it constantly with reference to contemporary affairs, we have confused
young people. And by shouting "anti-Semitism" every time someone
attacks Israel or defends the Palestinians, we are breeding cynics….We have attached the memory of the Holocaust so firmly to the defense
of a single country—Israel—that we are in danger of provincializing its
moral significance.
Judt may be deflecting some of his own views on to those students. But who doesn’t question the emphasis on the Holocaust above all other genocides? The Holocaust Memorial’s annual funding from the U.S. government just went from $44 to $46 million, under Bush’s latest budget. A lot more than the Kennedy Center, which loses funding, from $42 million to $33 million. As Janet McMahon wrote some time back in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, the Holocaust Memorial has had higher priority in Washington than the WW II monument, the Native American museum, and a museum to African Americans—"the latter two groups
having suffered here, at the hands of this country," as distinct from "the victims and
survivors of a European horror."
The issue is the use of the Holocaust as a blackmail against anyone who politically questions our relationship to the Jewish state, let alone our claim of an "axis of evil." Just now on MSNBC the eloquent Peggy Noonan said that conservative
Republicans are not going to get riled up about Islamic terrorism to
the point of going to war again. It’s time to chill, she says. Even the conservatives are feeling "manipulated" around the Iraq war. And Jacob Heilbrunn has said that the Holocaust was a "driving" force behind the plans for the Iraq war among neocons and neolibs. A false understanding. That is the issue here, separating the veils of myth and history from the real problems that face us.
