Hasan Musa has set up a museum dedicated to the Holocaust.
He is surely correct in stating, via Al Jazeera:
“The world is shamefully silent about what is happening in Palestine as a way of expressing their sorrow for the death of six million Jews, but in the meantime, they are supporting the state of occupation,” he said.
Same world, same shameful silence about what was happening to Jews and other minorities in Nazi Germany. I suspect that the Israelis do not care or want to know about the Holocaust otherwise they would not behave as they do.
The remorseless dispossession of the Palestinians continues apace. The injures are significant:
People in the village also accused the Israeli military of killing four Ni’lin residents since protests against land confiscation began in May 2008.
Among those was Musa’s 10-year-old nephew, Ahmad, who died on July 29, 2008 from a bullet wound to the head; a number of residents and activists have also been injured in the protests.
In March, Tristan Anderson, a 38-year-old American activist acting as an observer with the International Solidarity Movement, was shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas canister, leaving him in critical condition.
These were the handiwork of the most moral army in the world.
So given this special history, what is to be made of the new Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman. A person from Moldavia who arrived in Israel in 1968.
Uri Avnery anguishes over the implications, observing that any country might turn to fascism. He has a broad description:
Fascism is a unique phenomenon and has unique traits: the notion of being a “superior nation”, the denial of the humanity of other nations and national minorities, a cult of the leader, a cult of violence, disdain for democracy, an adoration of war, contempt for accepted morality. All these attributes together create the phenomenon, which has no agreed scientific definition.
Perhaps he is too forgiving of Israel’s wrongs, but he concludes:
In our present situation there are some dangerous indications. The last war showed a further decline in our moral standards. The hatred towards Israel’s Arab minority is on the rise, and so is the hatred towards the occupied Palestinian people who are suffering a slow strangulation. In some circles, the cult of brute force is gaining strength. The democratic regime is in a never-ending crisis. The economic situation may descend into chaos, so that the masses will long for a “strongman”. And the belief that we are a “chosen people” is already deeply rooted.
These indications may not necessarily lead to disaster. Absolutely not. History is full of nations in crisis that recovered and returned to normalcy. Besides the real Hitler, who rose to historic heights, there were probably hundreds of other Hitlers, no less crazy and no less talented, who ended their life as bank tellers or frustrated writers, because they did not meet a historic opportunity.
I have a strong faith in the resilience of Israeli society and Israeli democracy. I believe that we have hidden strengths that will come to the fore in an hour of need.
I suppose if Uri Avnery can be heard there is always hope.
Postscript:
The horror of the Holocaust is not that it can happen to others, but that it can happen to anybody. I am reminded – or perhaps I did not know – that disabled people were among those condemned.