Don't say Jews when you mean Israel

The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, told the British "Guardian" that for the Jews "the worst time since the Nazi era has come" and explains that the slogans "Jews should be gassed!" and "Jews should be burned!" as well as the lyrics which in free translation read: "Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out of your hole and fight live."

A bomb was thrown at a synagogue in Wuppertal, Germany. Hundreds of Jewish families subsequently sought advice on whether to move out. After the anti-Jewish riots, Interior Minister Bernard Kazev came to the French city of Sarcel and threatened: "Everyone in our republic can protest, but whoever damages a synagogue or sets fire to a bakery just because it belongs to a Jew commits an anti-Semitic act." Problems related to "criticism of Judaism" " are also shaking the politics of Great Britain. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sajida Warsi, the first Muslim woman in the Kingdom to serve as a member of the government, has resigned because she "can no longer bear to remain silent about the government's policy towards Gaza". And the head of the opposition Labor Party, Ed Miliband, harshly criticized Prime Minister Cameron "for the government's incomprehensible silence on the suffering of Palestinian civilians." Since some would reduce Sajida Warsi's protest to the fact that she is a Muslim, it should be noted that Labor leader Edward Samuel Miliband was a Jew born in Brussels, that his parents lived in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw before moving to Belgium, which means that his family is only through luck or wisdom she escaped the holocaust.

The example of "Muslim" Warsi and "Jewish" Miliband in moderate England indicates the complexity of the issue. The United Nations warns that "a new anti-Semitism is emerging" in Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said they were "concerned" about "the flare-up of anti-Jewish resentment in Germany, France and other European countries."

In this context, I thought it necessary to emphasize the origin of mrs. Varsi and mr. Miliband, then I have to ask myself if my background has anything to do with what I think and what I will say. According to the so-called "Nuremberg Laws" of the Nazi regime, I am a "full-blooded Jew", but I also consider many other laws passed by Hitler's government as evil and sinister, and I do not agree with them, that is, even with the fact that they consider me a member of a certain race. If those laws had not taken me to Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps, today I would not have a different attitude towards Judaism than towards Christianity, Islam or Buddhism.

LATENT ANTISEMITISM: It has nothing to do with what I think about the state of Israel. I believe that Israel was born on the wrong foundations, that the founder of Zionism, the Austrian journalist and writer Theodor Herzl, imagined the "Jewish State" differently - that is also the title of his most important book.

Grauman exaggerates when he compares new disturbing anti-Jewish phenomena in Germany to the time of Nazism, because then the state made a decision first to exclude German Jews from the economy and social life, then to exterminate them, and today state authorities in the Federal Republic of Germany condemn anti-Semitic outbursts, which undoubtedly there is, but in democratic countries it is a delicate question of what kind of demonstrations or public protests should be banned, where is the red line that must not be crossed.

It is also a fact that rallies and processions directed against the policies of today's Israeli government are often aimed not so much at Israel's way of waging war against the Palestinian organization Hamas, but at Jews in general. It is strange that people of various orientations gather at them - leftists, neo-Nazis, representatives of Muslims...

Latent anti-Semitism is deeply embedded in the essence of Europe. The skillful idea of ​​the Nazi ideology to portray Jews as carriers of capitalism, powerful people who play with fate for their own profit, guilty of the misery of others, lives on even today. At that time, attention was diverted from large German capital, but that seems to have been forgotten. Latent Russian and above all Ukrainian anti-Semitism was transferred to Stalin as well. The Nazi mass extermination of Jews overshadowed the earlier pogroms, and afterwards it was no longer possible to manifest anti-Semitism in such a public manner.

THE HOLOCAUST AND THE SHOA: The Jews use the Hebrew word for that act of German industrial killing shoah, which originally means disaster. I accept it, because I think that the term "holocaust" means the deliberate and organized destruction of a certain group of people on any basis - for example, the Armenians in Turkey during the First World War - while shoah it specifically denotes the crimes committed by Hitler's Germany against the Jews.

The problem is that the public mixed up two topics that should not be connected, but they are: on the one hand, Jews are Jews regardless of how and where they live, and on the other, the policies and actions of the State of Israel. Israel is not innocent in this regard, it does not behave like any other, normal state, but still referring to show considers that he speaks and acts in the name and in favor of all Jews, and calls any criticism of the Israeli state and its leadership anti-Semitism.

"Vreme" dealt with that topic several times. Back in March 2011, I quoted about Stefan Essel's book "Revolt", which had a million circulation: "As for the Gaza Strip, it is an open-air prison for one and a half million Palestinians." Elsewhere, Essel wrote: " Is it useful for Hamas to fire rockets? Certainly not. It even harms the Hamas cause, but that is unfortunately understandable, because it stems from the desperation of the people living in the Gaza Strip. Desperate violence is deplorable, but it is a short circuit in a situation that is unbearable for those affected by it. Seen this way, terrorism is a manifestation of despair..." As if it was published today on the occasion of the latest Israeli offensive in Gaza, and not more than three years ago. He was then fiercely attacked as anti-Semitic, which is absurd, because Essel, who died in February 2013, was Jewish.

In December 2012, "Vreme" also dealt with the text of the German Nobel laureate Günther Grass, who in his prose poem "What Must Be Said" accused Israel of endangering world peace. He was just attacked from all sides. Israel called him "an enemy of the Jewish people" and officially declared him persona non grata, a person who is not allowed to set foot on the soil of that state. Then the German publicist Jakob Augstein wrote: "There is that one sentence after which there is no turning back: 'Nuclear power Israel threatens the otherwise fragile world peace.' That sentence caused shouts. Because it is correct. And because it is said by a German, writer, Nobel laureate, because it is said by Günther Grass. We have Gras to thank for that. He took it upon himself to say that sentence on behalf of all of us."

For me, Grass is by no means anti-Semitic. Although he never hid the fact that he believed in Hitler as a boy, he admitted very late that he served in an SS unit in which he was mobilized, he did not volunteer for it, but he was criticized for concealing this part of his biography and because he behaved like the moral leader of the Germans. Many were reminded of this when he harshly criticized the Israeli government, which was elected by a relatively thin majority of Israeli citizens, but among its critics are some of Israel's most intelligent writers and artists. I deliberately avoid writing "Jewish state" in that context.

IMAGES OF SUFFERING AND DEATH: Are these days, July and August 2014, about "new" or "old", about "eternal" anti-Semitism? The question can be asked differently: what specifically caused new waves, not only criticism, but insults against Jews and deadly threats that were publicly expressed in many Western democratic countries, where it was least expected?

There is no doubt that the cause is in the media, and above all, television coverage of the events in the narrow area that we call the Gaza Strip. It is a territory 40 long, six to 14 kilometers wide, with a total area of ​​360 km² with 1,82 million inhabitants, which means that with 5045 inhabitants per kilometer it is one of the most densely populated territories in the world. (For the sake of comparison: the most densely populated country in the world is considered to be Monaco, actually the city of Monte Carlo with its immediate surroundings, where 17.889 inhabitants live per square kilometer, but on the "ranking list" of the most densely populated countries in the world, Malta follows with 1321 inhabitants per square kilometer, which means that the Gaza Strip is four times more densely populated.)

The reason for the escalation in this particular case is completely clear. Unknown executioners, whom the Israeli authorities identified without valid evidence as members of Hamas, brutally killed three Israeli students. This was followed by an offensive by the Israeli Air Force and Ground Forces on the Gaza Strip. Numerous rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza. Nearly 2000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and probably 67 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed. It is up to us here to sadly assess what has caused the images of horror on the Palestinian side, dead and wounded children, corpses, bearded women shouting, swearing, wailing and settlements razed to the ground. Most of those 1,8 million people live under constant fire, on the ground scorched by the summer sun, without food, water, electricity, or even the ability to bury their dead.

The territory of Gaza has turned into a hopeless place, a place not for living, but for dying, although one dies more slowly than in the gas chamber of Auschwitz. Benjamin Netanyahu's government considered the thousands of dead and wounded Palestinians acceptable collateral damage, as Hamas fighters used their own civilians as "shields" from Israeli attacks, which is undoubtedly also true.

Facts aside, the effect, above all, of television images on public opinion is well known, but can these images be manipulated? I can do that too. Fresh impressions suppress old ones, push them into oblivion, especially if the vocabulary is slightly changed.

Although there is no direct connection with the issue of new anti-Semitism - there are indirect ones, because we are talking about extreme Islamists, potential allies, and soon competitors of Hamas - I remind you what is happening in Iraq and Syria.

AFTER THE BAD THING: Since the other day, US military planes and drones in Iraq have been bombing fighters who change their name every hour, currently calling themselves the Army of Islam and advocating a caliphate whose borders they do not mention. Endangered, innocent civilians are saved, in this case mostly Kurdish Yesidis, whom almost no one even knew existed on our meridians until recently. US President Barack Obama stated that Islamic forces threaten "American diplomats and American interests".

No one in the world condemned the new US action, not even Russia, although the US president, explaining his order, said loud and clear: "We are Americans!" We act! We lead!"

The same "rebels", fighters for the Islamic State, who are now the "bad guys" for almost the whole world, until recently, as part of the rebellion against Bashar al-Assad in Syria, were the much-lauded "fighters against the dictatorship" on whose side the same American administration of President Obama she almost did not enter the war. Although I follow a lot of media in our country and in the world, I haven't noticed a single voice reminding me that these are the same fighters who had the same pro-Islam goals even then. The so-called public has either forgotten it or simply does not know that it is "the same".

Whether it's jihadists, Al Qaeda, the Taliban or someone else, they are movements with the same goal. Now they are spreading their actions not only against the hated Assad, but also against the American disobedient protege, former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom Washington would now like to wrestle with, so it appoints a new prime minister, but the current one will not leave office... How are we to understand problems in Iraq, when even the Iraqi president and the Constitutional Court in Baghdad do not agree on them?

The Western world applauded or actively helped overthrow Ben Ali in Tunisia, Gaddafi in Libya, Mubarak in Egypt, and more directly Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In all those countries today it is significantly worse than before the changes, in Egypt it has somewhat returned to the old ways with Sisi.

Do I root for dictators? Just work! I am pointing out the facts. Regarding the new situation in the Gaza Strip, I believe that after Hamas, an even more extreme and dangerous group will take the lead in the fight against the hated Jewish state.

At the end of April this year, television all over the world showed pictures of two hundred Nigerian girls who were kidnapped by the Boko Haram sect from a Christian school. These days, we are horrified by the footage of old men, women and children who, like the Yesidis, were chased into the mountains of Iraq and die of hunger and thirst. These scenes are as terrible as those from Gaza, but it is easy to point out the culprits, it is clear that in both cases they are certain extreme Islamic sects, not states and nations. However, when the events from Gaza shook the world, not only the Israeli army and government were accused as the culprits, but the Jews in general. How is that possible? The problem is that Israel claims to represent all Jews in the world, not just its own citizens. It is forgotten that the Jews as such, not as members of a certain religion, but as a race, are united only by Hitler's laws.

DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHERS: Religious Jews consider themselves the chosen people of God. There is an old joke according to which a Jew turns to God and prays: Lord, may you be blessed, how about you choose another people for yourself, and finally leave us alone for a while.

Repulsion and hostility towards the Jews dates back to the Christian belief that "they" rejected, rejected and killed Christ. However, according to Christian belief, the God-man Jesus was born as a Jew from a Jewish mother. That is why once a Jew could be freed from the old curse by converting to Christianity and thereby remove all threats. Only later does the pseudo-scientific, pseudo-Darwinist belief about the uniqueness of Jewishness arise due to a negative genetic inheritance, which cannot be overcome by assimilation or Christianization.

At the very least, anti-Semitism was facilitated by the fact that religious Jews considered themselves different, better, the "chosen people", and emphasized this with special costumes, men with their zulufs, beards, caps, and marked their habitats with a special sign, the mezuzah, all of which made it easier that, especially in more primitive environments, they are easily recognized as "special", as different. Whenever the masses are frightened, they fixate fear and hatred on those who are "different", because everything different is "hostile".

Based on the extermination of European Jews, Israel was created as the "Jewish State". Defending his existence, he participated in wars for survival, which there is no place to talk about here, so there was a new escalation and our topic of "new anti-Semitism".

SPEED WHEEL: There is indeed a danger to Israel's existence - in another context Njegoš said "the sea of ​​Arabil drowns everything" - but by what means can the Israelis defend themselves?

Would there have been demonstrations, protests and fairly widespread anti-Israel, or anti-Jewish opinion, predominantly in Western Europe, if so many videos of the death, misery and misery of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip had not been published? It wouldn't. Have the Israeli government and army solved the problem that probably caused them to consciously accept that wave of hatred directed not only against the state they represent, but also against Jews in general? They are not at all. The tunnels, through which the Palestinians smuggle food and other scarce goods and weapons, may have been buried, but they did not prevent the rocketing of their territory, there is no benefit from the current weakening of Hamas, because more militant and dangerous Muslim groups will appear in its place, a source of new recruits who they grow up in despair, misery and injustice is inexhaustible.

The majority of Palestinians are not anti-Jewish, as regular public opinion polls prove, they are in favor of a peaceful solution with the establishment of two state unions, but for more than half a century they have been living in the conviction that the Israelis rule over them. The third and fourth generation of Palestinians live without hope for a normal life. Israel fears them, and they fear Israel even more. Anti-Semitism of the Palestinians cannot be talked about, but also because they are also Semites, according to tradition the descendants of Abraham's older, but illegitimate son, Ishmael, from the beautiful Egyptian slave Hagar, who was driven into the desert by his father when his married son from Sarah was born. , Isaac.

Herzl dreamed of a multicultural, multinational, peace-loving, rich common state of the natives - the Palestinians - and the "ancestors" - the Jews. I am afraid that the realization of his idea is far less conceivable today than almost seventy years ago, when the liberators opened the gates of the concentration camps of Hitler's bloody empire.