This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
So what if for one day at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a Jew spoke about the aftermath of the Holocaust and how it has affected Palestinians?
Whether there have been similar discussions before or after my appearance I don’t know. Either way, little seems to have changed in the presentation of the Holocaust – at least with regard to Palestinians.
Even if the Holocaust discussion changed to include Palestinians, the real issue is the facts on the Israel/Palestine ground. Would a changed Holocaust narrative have political consequences for Israeli policies toward Palestinians and American foreign policy toward Israel?
We know that the changing understanding of Israel’s history, which emphasizes the ethnic cleansing accompanying its birth, hasn’t changed Israeli policies or American foreign policy. Why place our bets on a changed Holocaust narrative?
Interestingly, my experience of the staff at the Holocaust museum – at least in the 1990s – is that they knew the Palestinian score. Talking with the museum staff was like talking to American military personnel before the invasion of Iraq: most soldiers and officers were against the war. The military knows what war is like.
The staff at the Holocaust museum was quite aware of the Palestinian issue. Nonetheless they served in the Holocaust ranks. Though aware and sympathetic toward the plight of the Palestinians, it was difficult for the museum staff to recognize the link between the history of the Holocaust, the birth of Israel and the Palestinian struggle for freedom.
When I spoke to the museum staff about the use of the Holocaust narrative as a lever of power against the Palestinians, they showed some understanding of what I was talking about. However, they couldn’t see why the museum itself should address the issue.
Though shying away from any direct political conclusions, the staff wasn’t in favor of the Holocaust being used to justify injustice toward Palestinians. They also didn’t comprehend how doing their work at the museum was enabling that use. If the Holocaust museum was being used in such a way, it was above their pay grade. They couldn’t do anything about it.
On the staff level, their mission is simple: preserve, research and educate the nation and beyond about the Holocaust. They aren’t ideological warriors. They are against anyone using the Holocaust against another people. That includes Israel and its policies toward Palestinians.
Could the staff really be that naïve? Was their response a cop-out, a deflection of their responsibility to speak Holocaust memory to power? Certainly the staff has little understanding that the museum might be Israel’s and the Jewish establishment’s enablers. After all, they are paid by the government not Jewish groups. The museum has been mandated by the American government.
My point here is the Holocaust museum – the Holocaust narrative itself – not only excludes Palestinians. It also projects an American innocence – and a political innocence in general – which makes the inclusion of the Palestinians in the Holocaust narrative and in the American political discussion almost impossible.
In many ways, the Holocaust has become a guiding element in American foreign policy discussions. And if it’s not in the forefront, it lurks in the shadow. The Holocaust has become the hidden wild card when the discussion about America’s global reach gets tough.
So with Iraq and also Iran, but as well with Libya, wherever there are vital resources at risk, the memory of the Holocaust is regularly invoked. It so happens that much of the Holocaust talk is with reference to Israel, demonstrating once again the bonding of America and Israel. Yet the question of whether protecting Israel is foremost or America’s – and Europe and increasingly China’s – resource needs is worth thinking about.
Does instability in the Middle East threaten Israel or the supply of oil? It’s interesting why the genocide in Rwanda, the Sudan and the Congo doesn’t typically garner Holocaust images. After all, there are vital resources there, too. Perhaps the Holocaust can’t be invoked for the African continent because the people there are considered unworthy of Western concern. In Africa, it’s on a resources-only basis when even that much is admitted.
So it goes as the New Year approaches. No doubt the Israel election cycle will accelerate the verbal sparring with Palestinians, Hezbollah and Iran. The Holocaust will be invoked as a possible future for the Jewish people.
Thinking about the Holocaust museum these last days, I wonder what it would be like to have a Nakba museum in Washington, D. C. Let’s call it the United States Nakba Memorial Museum. Should it be located right next to the Holocaust museum?
The narrative of the Nakba museum is fascinating to think about. Narrating the Nakba has to include a Palestinian narration of the Holocaust and its aftermath, doesn’t it?
Perhaps as controversial, how would the Nakba museum narrate the history of Palestine and Palestinians regarding the Arab world? How would the British, Soviet, and American presence in Palestinian history be handled?
Would the President of the United States visit and speak at the United States Nakba Memorial Museum as all the Presidents have at the Holocaust museum over the past twenty years?
What would the Nakba museum staff be like? Would they recognize and speak about the direct relationship of Israeli and American power or would they be content to simply narrate the historical story of the Palestinian people in an apolitical way.
Of course, like the Holocaust museum the Nakba museum would have to market its story. It would be interesting to think what the Nakba brand might be like.
It seems every people needs to a museum today simply to validate their presence. But museums are tricky. Don’t think the United States Nakba Memorial Museum would be without its own – Palestinian – critics.
2013: Is this the year to begin the push for the establishment of the United States Nakba Memorial Museum?
Though aware and sympathetic toward the plight of the Palestinians, it was difficult for the museum staff to recognize the link between the history of the Holocaust, the birth of Israel and the Palestinian struggle for freedom.
What is this link between the Holocaust and “the birth of Israel”, anyway? I know that even raising this point elicits only howls of outrage, but I’m sorry I cannot see any rational cause and effect link between these 2 historical events. I’ve made this point before and other than protestations, did not see any halfway logical argument that shows the existence of such a causal link in any realm outside that of PR–which for want of challenge has been passing off as conventional wisdom for decades. In that same thread, this flimsy “connexion” is passed off as a “simply incontestable” assertion (search for “connexion” to reach the relevant spot on previous link). This time I’ll post the entire paragraph where Perry Anderson calls BS on this seemingly “incontestable” cause and effect relationship between what the Nazis did in Europe and the “birth of Israel” on the Mediterranean several years later:
um the holocaust is the only reason the conquest of palestine was successful. without the influx of resources from countries like the UK and US. the direct military support the UK incidently gave to zionist forces as well as the trained military member who in some cases flat out deserted when located in palestine the conquest would have failed miserablely,
Norman Finkelstein among other has demonstrated how little the Holocaust affected postwar decision-making which was guided by cynicism of high order (google Churchill Stalin percentages agreement) and general awareness of tens of millions of deaths in which the Holocaust was not regarded as being quite so sui generis as it later came to be seen. The Brits had been fomenting Jewish nationalism for generations by the late 30s when they hoped to create a “loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism” near the Suez Canal and other holdings. Their priorities changed after the war and in fact Attlee who succeeded Churchill opposed the creation of a Jewish state, but this was for purely power political reasons (e.g. discovery of oil in Arabia and loss of India for the British Empire). The decision-making process in US at the highest level has been discussed in depth (google:’George Marshall’, Forrestal, Truman) and nowhere was the Holocaust mentioned. The Russians under Stalin had their own paranoid Realpolitik reasons for supplying Jewish fighters in Palestine with weapons via their Czechoslovak client state.
But, to return to the original point there is absolutely no visible link between what happened via a standard recalcitrant settler-colonial militia led rebellion (as happened in many other colonies from the American colonies to Boer South Africa to Rhodesia over nearly 2 centuries) and the Holocaust except in purely rhetorical terms (after all, there was a pattern of persecution of Puritans in England as well and it’s no coincidence that many a fiery white nationalist in South Africa had French Protestant background).
The constant invocation of the Holocaust and consequent “birth of Israel” is just another leg of the stool of Zionist apologia and needs to be dismantled in the manner of other fables that used to percolate in public consciousness but are no longer taken seriously (e.g. the myth of Arab armies attacking the Jewish colony in ’48, “radio broadcasts” that caused Palestinians to leave, etc.).
I didn’t say the holocaust is the reason the zionists tried to conqueror palestine I said it was the reason they succeded
Zionists would have succeeded anyway after WWII as Anderson wrote “even if every compatriot had been saved” given the balance of power in the region. If anything, it was WWII which was far more important for Zionists in that it led to weakening of the British colonial regime after ’45. Again, what is the clear link between the Holocaust and founding of Israel when only 220,000 European Jews went to Palestine (under enormous prodding and shunting off of all other alternatives) after the war was over in Europe and before the Jewish militias began their nacht und nebel operations to “spirit away” the indigenous people of Palestine?
so the influx of a thousand or 2 highly trained soldiers from the polish second corps had no bearing on the outcome. all the weaponary the brits turned over to them out of guilt. this had no effect. no the holocaust was very important to the conquest of palestine success
Surely the increasingly powerful mixture of indignation and guilt over the dark events of WW2 greatly consolidated acceptance in the West of the Zionist claims that Jewish people could achieve security only by taking over Palestine. These sentiments must have helped greatly to consolidate the position of Israel after 48.
Certainly it is a millennia old pattern that those who are trained by Mighty Empires often turn out to be those who lead rebellions against them, or end up utilizing those skills in wars against the proclaimed ethnic/tribal “enemy” du jour. Some of the founders of Jewish militias were the first Jewish officers in the Czar’s Army also. The British decision to give up the “Crown of the Jewel” of the Empire in a matter of months after centuries of rule was due not to Gandhi’s ineffective non-violent tactics but due to loss of faith in loyalty of WWII battle-hardened Indian Army. As an Indian jurist wrote:
Shortly before WWII ended, millions had starved to death in British India, but the event was mostly forgotten and not many knew about it. Books written about the event are news to most people, even in India. Memory of suppression of the Kenyan “Emergency” which led to perhaps 100,000 deaths in Nazi-style concentration camps was conveniently swept under the rug in UK, but also downplayed in independent Kenya under Joma Kenyatta for political reasons. Possibly 10 million perished in Central Africa under Belgian rule, yet few outside of Belgium knew of this enormity carried out by their beloved King Leopold, something whose after-effects are still being felt in the bloodiest war since 1945 in which more than 5 million have perished.
Benedict Anderson called a nation an “imagined community” and skillful manipulation of memory lies at the core of this enterprise. Israeli establishment’s abuse of actual Holocaust victims and their memories is “a pretty cynical story” as someone who has seen the entire ugly saga from the 30′s till now observed in previous link.
Again, I find no link other than crass emotion-mongering and special pleading that shows a direct link between the Holocaust and “spiriting away” of Palestinians later in the same decade (the phrase comes from Herzl’s 1896 diary when Hitler and Nazis were barely conceivable in European subconscious). The longer this millstone of Holocaust memory is reflexively invoked the more reactionary and asinine the understanding of anyone looking at this issue will remain.
MIURA- “What is this link between the Holocaust and “the birth of Israel”, anyway?”
The Holocaust was, in my view, absolutely essential to the success of Zionism and the founding of Israel as a Jewish state. I concur with Israel Shahak that Zionism is in many ways a throwback to Classical Judaism, albeit in secular form, which unites the various groupings of Jews, which religious Judaism is no longer capable of doing. The Nazis gave the notion of being born a Jew, always to be a Jew and suffering a uniquely Jewish fate a certain “Holocaust legitimacy,” which reinforced tribal solidarity and Zionist appeal. You have misinterpreted Finkelstein’s writings, which do not deal with the founding of Israel. I provide three relevant quotes followed by a concluding comment.
“When they come to us with two plans–the rescue of the masses of Jews in Europe or the redemption of the land–I vote, without a second thought, for the redemption of the land. The more said about the slaughter of our people, the greater the minimization of our efforts to strengthen and promote the Hebraisation of the land.” (Yitzhak Gruenbaum, Zionist official, quoted in “The Hidden History of Zionism” by Ralph Schoenman)
“It is the Jewish connection, the tribal solidarity among themselves and the amazing pull on non-Jews, that has molded this unprecedented power. Although many Jews were initially opposed to the creation of Israel, the Zionists were able to use the Hitler tragedy to obliterate anti-Zionist opposition and non-Zionist indifference to capture every aspect of organized Jewish life.” (p206, “The Zionist Connection,” Alfred Lilienthal, 1978)
“The Shoah did not determine the inner drive and logic of Zionism, but it had the highly important result of allowing this to be shown outwardly in a benign light that drew in vast degrees of support for what had hitherto been considered a marginal and dubious idea. Both the Jewish community and world opinion were greatly affected….The Shoah, in other words, allowed the perception of a highly evolved Zionist aggression, which dated before the war, to become eclipsed, turned around, and seen as defensive and therefore necessary.” (p69, “Overcoming Zionism,” Joel Kovel, 2007)
Miura, in my view, the Holocaust was essential to the success of the Zionist project, which was going nowhere prior to the Holocaust, because it provided both justification and motivation for providing the considerable outside support so essential for Zionist success. I close with a final quote from Joel Kovel (p66): “From a purely instrumental standpoint, the Shoah proved the greatest asset ever acquired by Zionism, one sedulously cultivated over the years.”
- I don’t think I’ve misinterpreted that part of Finkelstein’s writings in which he goes over the absolute non-existence of the Holocaust in both American and Israeli Foreign Policy until the mid-60s. He is a sedulous researcher and found hardly any mention of it in the archives of Dissent or Commentary until the ’67 War.
- I have provided many examples of nations that suffered calamitous losses (the history of Armenians who moved to the Levant just 30 years before Israel was founded is particularly instructive) which shows that use of such tragedies is purely instrumental and the very acceptance of a move to posit a logical cause and effect relationship is to fall for this fallacious line of “reasoning”.
- Both the Lilienthal and Kovel quotes unfortunately remain caught up in Eurocentric (read “white”) view which confuses “world opinion” with what is conventional wisdom in places like London and DC. The vast majority of the world’s population, and specifically Arab peoples of the region where Israel is located, never bought this faulty reasoning and despite being in sympathy with European Jews (see Gilbert Achcar’s The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives), have never accepted the founding of Israel (it is diplomatically unrecognized by 95% of Arab/Islamic states to this day).
- Even with the shutting off of all alternatives that were available to European Jews after WWII, only 220,000 went to Palestine, so the widespread notion that Israel is somehow a haven for escaping Holocaust victims is simply untrue.
MIURA- “…so the widespread notion that Israel is somehow a haven for escaping Holocaust victims is simply untrue.”
For some reason you seem to continually misconstrue what other Mondoweiss commenters are saying regarding the Holocaust and Israel. For starters, I and others are not saying that Israel is a haven for Jews, quite the contrary. Neither is Lilienthal nor Kovel. What we are saying, and which I thought I made clear, is that the Holocaust enabled the Zionists to implement their plan, which would have been unlikely without the Holocaust. It was the skillful exploitation of the Holocaust which enabled the Zionists to harness the considerable power of American organized Jewry in support of their agenda. We are not saying that the Holocaust justified Israel, we are saying that the Holocaust empowered Zionism and facilitated the creation of Israel. Your continued insistence that recognition of the importance of the Holocaust in the creation of Israel is tantamount to a defense of Israel as a Jewish state is, in my opinion, a willful misreading of what I and others are saying. For example, I completely agree that the “use of such tragedies is purely instrumental,” however, you seem determined not to acknowledge just how effective the Holocaust was as an instrument of Zionism, which, after all, is all that we are saying. So effective, in fact, that it enabled the Zionists to implement a plan which heretofore had been largely unpopular, at least the political Zionist version.
Getting back to Finkelstein whose books I have, he is concerned with the development of the Holocaust industry which took off after 1967, something not in dispute. The period between 1948 and 1967 is as he depicts. He doesn’t delve into Zionist history leading up to the creation of Israel in 1948. A lot occurred, a lot has been written, the Holocaust was critical to Zionist efforts. Finkelstein has a website and a means to contact him. Suggest you e-mail him asking if he thinks the Holocaust played a key role in empowering Zionism and the creation of Israel. By all means post his response. I would be astonished if he downplays the significance of the Holocaust in Israel’s creation, even though he, like me, like Kovel, like Lilienthal, like other Mondoweiss commenters disapprove of Israel as a Jewish state engaged in slow motion ethnic cleansing. I and others do not feel that the Holocaust justified the creation of the Jewish state, quite the contrary. The mystery is why you keep inferring that we do.
- …the Holocaust enabled the Zionists to implement their plan, which would have been unlikely without the Holocaust.
WWII enabled the Zionists to implement their plan as it enabled the decolonization of most of Africa and Asia within 15 years of ending of that war. “Guilt” by the ruthless pilots of pitiless Empires had nothing to do with it. John Newsinger’s account of the counter-insurgency fought by the British against Jewish militias is particularly instructive in this regard (link to amazon.co.uk).
- It was the skillful exploitation of the Holocaust which enabled the Zionists to harness the considerable power of American organized Jewry in support of their agenda.
Agreed, but this exploitation only had effect in US and to a lesser extent Western Europe. The venality of politicians like Truman and the geopolitical services Israel could provide to it’s Western patrons were the reason why they went out of their way to implant Israel in the Middle East (Brits had been attempting this for centuries).
Here is a nice footnote from Perry Anderson’s article linked above which shows that tear-jerking from the Holocaust was less effective than suitcases of cash in winning votes at the UN for the partition plan (only country from Africa that could vote was Apartheid South Africa):
RE: “In many ways, the Holocaust has become a guiding element in American foreign policy discussions. And if it’s not in the forefront, it lurks in the shadow. The Holocaust has become the hidden wild card when the discussion about America’s global reach gets tough. So with Iraq and also Iran, but as well with Libya, wherever there are vital resources at risk, the memory of the Holocaust is regularly invoked.” ~ Marc Ellis
MY COMMENT: I initially supported our (so-called) “humanitarian intervention” in Libya, but very soon afterwards I began to very much regret it after seeing the way the U.S. and its allies flagrantly, grotesquely, and shamelessly abused the UN Security Council resolution on Libya (authorizing member states to establish and enforce a no-fly zone) in order to instead pursue their own “regime change” agenda.
Frankly, it was disturbingly reminiscent of Israel’s “intervention” in Lebanon in the summer of 1982.*
Consequently, as I see it, the U.S. and its NATO allies absolutely cannot be trusted to intervene in Syria in a responsible manner.
Because the U.S and its NATO allies so badly abused “responsibility to protect” (R2P or RtoP) in regards to Libya (much like they abused the right to defend themselves by invading Iraq), I simply cannot support any intervention under any circumstances on their part no matter how seemingly deserving the purported beneficiaries of such intervention might be.
* FROM WIKIPEDIA [Lebanese Civil War]:
SOURCE – link to en.wikipedia.org
RE – “2013: Is this the year to begin the push for the establishment of the United States Nakba Memorial Museum?” ~ Marc Ellis
MY COMMENT: I wonder how Israel would respond to plans for a big, new Nakba Memorial Museum in Ramallah (Area A, of the West Bank)?
At a minimum, they would surely consider it to be yet another example of “Palestinian incitement”! ! !
● Israel takes aim at Palestinian ‘incitement’ – link to washingtonpost.com
● Palestinian incitement; Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs – link to mfa.gov.il
Odd that the Jewish state is in breach of the Laws and UN Charter written in large part because of the fate that befell our fellows under the Nazis.
Odder still that anyone can believe in a G-d who was AWOL during the Holocaust. A wild eyed and spittle laden counter argument I faced recently went “G-d exists you self-hating fool, he gave us the land”.
Unfortunately I didn’t have a mouthful of coffee at the time …
For a Jew- or any person – who believes in God, He is never AWOL, not before, during, or after the Holocaust.
” “G-d exists you self-hating fool, he gave us the land”.
I must admit, that is a more positive outlook than: “God is dead, but before He expired He gave us this land”
That contains the posibility, now that God is dead, that they will have to give it back.