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Holocaust consciousness-raising = harming Palestinians

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Netanyahu at AIPAC, with letters debating attack on Auschwitz, 1944

Akiva Eldar has written a very important piece–on Netanyahu’s use of the Auschwitz letters at the AIPAC conference earlier this month–not so much because it highlights Netanyahu’s manipulation of the Holocaust (which is old news) but rather for its succinct summary of scholarly studies that show Holocaust consciousness-raising continues to affect younger people exposed to it.

The studies show that even though they were born long after the Holocaust, the young are susceptible to the sort of manipulation Netanyahu and other hard liners count on to perpetuate a state of “existential panic” among Jews in Israel and the Diaspora that justifies so many problematic things from the continuing occupation to preventive war against Iran.  Some people thought that the Holocaust might be a passing generational phenomenon, but this piece shows how it can continue to have historical legs. 

Eldar:

…even after 67 years, the Holocaust works on Jews. 

Associations with the Holocaust help ease digestion of the injustices of the occupation and increase support for Israel. Thoughts of Auschwitz blur the images of the bodies of Palestinian children killed in the Jewish air force’s bombing of Gaza. It is scientific. 

A 2010 article published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin that surveyed a sampling of Jews aged 17-81 from three communities in Canada showed a clear connection between Holocaust exposure and awareness, and the intensity of Jews’ fear of extinction. The researchers, Prof. Michael Wohl, Prof. Stephen Reysen and Prof. Nyla Branscombe, found that interviewees asked to write a composition on the Holocaust displayed greater angst and more collective solidarity than those who were not asked to write anything.

The researchers estimate that one of the effects of increased collective angst over extinction is the justification of violent acts against a rival group. They rely, among others, on a 2008 study by Wohl and Branscombe that found the Jewish subjects who were reminded of the Holocaust and of the Jewish people having been victims in the past tended to see the Palestinians as the root of the conflict more than other subjects did. In other words, the researchers concluded, in order to protect itself from extinction, the group legitimizes harming others.

It can be assumed that investing in the Holocaust assures Netanyahu political benefits in the Israeli political scene as well. In contrast, friends in Germany related that the calls for war uttered by Netanyahu from every Washington platform sparked anti-Semitic cries against the Jewish warmongers. For a generation that did not live through the Holocaust, the scent of increasingly more expensive oil is more powerful than the scent of the gas chambers.

And it ties in with the death recently of Peter Novick, and the discussion of his book, The Holocaust in American Life. Peter’s brilliant argument about the salience of the Holocaust in American Jewish identity is not likely to wane soon either

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RE: “Netanyahu’s manipulation of the Holocaust (which is old
news)” ~ Desch

MY SNARK: Netanyahu is an extremely cynical demagogue. I suppose we should very reluctantly give him a little credit for being consistent in that he is willing to demagogue everything and anything that will benefit him.

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>> … the researchers concluded, in order to protect itself from extinction, the group [of Jewish subjects] legitimizes harming others.

Aggressor-victimhood is a tough gig, but with just a little more fear and a little more “protection from extinction”, the Jewish state should be able to legitimize wiping Palestinians completely off the map and into the sea.

Kudos to the Jewish state and its Jewish citizens for “staying the course”.

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Media has their bread and butter topics that always bring in a steady stream of revenue, a’ la Chomsky.

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Propaganda_model

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This constant use of the holocaust desensitizes people to the holocaust imo. Except for the Jews Netanyahu wishes to influence, now a third generation from the holocaust, I think it’s been ridden as far as it can go for everyone else in political terms. Particulary the current non Jewish young won’t accord it the importance or be as emotional about it as my generation was, it’s too far removed from them.

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not to get too far off topic but everytime i see a photo of those letters i am reminded of a comment of americans in the second link in your opening.

https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2012/03/netanyahu-says-you-also-refused-to-bomb-auschwitz.html/comment-page-1#comment-430944

This book was inspired by a visit to the Boston Holocaust Memorial near Quincy Market. My daughter, Ali, then a student at Phillips Academy, and I visited that Holocaust Memorial, and we read these words:
“By late 1942, the United States and its Allies were aware of the death camps, but did nothing to destroy them.”
I told Ali that this statement could not possibly be true. The United States was not even a belligerent in World War II until December 7, 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. How could we have saved the Jews of Europe in 1942?

(Excerpt)

“The Holocaust Museum takes one of Kubowitzki’s numerous letters to John McCloy, assistant Secretary of War and enlarged it to make it appear that he was requesting the bombing of Auschwitz. Not True. This letter, the centerpiece of the Museum’s display on the bombing of Auschwitz, merely passed on a message from the Czechoslovakian government in exile and McCloy was well aware that Kubowitzki and the World Jewish Congress adamantly opposed the bombing of Auschwitz. View First Letter View Second Letter (I have written the Holocaust Museum about this blatant error, but have yet to hear back from their Chief Historian.)”

these are excerpts from american’s link which include the links to the letters:

A. Leon Kubowitzki, himself a refugee from Nazi-occupied Europe and head of the rescue department of the World Jewish Congress, wrote the director of the War Refugee Board, John Pehle, and underlined it for emphasis: View Letter ” The destruction of the death installations cannot be done by bombing from the air, as the first victims would be the Jews who are gathered in these camps, and such a bombing would be a welcome pretext for the Germans to assert that their Jewish victims have been massacred not by their killers, but by the allied bombings.”

Despite erroneous assertions by many historians and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Jewish leaders overwhelmingly opposed the bombing of Auschwitz. Kubowitzki wrote to one Jewish leader, “I think you know that we are not in favor of the bombing of the extermination installations….Because we believe in hayei shaa [literally, “life of the hour,” meaning saving those currently living] and we are afraid for the Jewish victims of such bombings and giving the Germans an alibi.” View Letter

The Holocaust Museum takes one of Kubowitzki’s numerous letters to John McCloy, assistant Secretary of War and enlarged it to make it appear that he was requesting the bombing of Auschwitz. Not True. This letter, the centerpiece of the Museum’s display on the bombing of Auschwitz, merely passed on a message from the Czechoslovakian government in exile and McCloy was well aware that Kubowitzki and the World Jewish Congress adamantly opposed the bombing of Auschwitz. View First Letter ….. View Second Letter (I have written the Holocaust Museum about this blatant error, but have yet to hear back from their Chief Historian.)

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