Haviv Rettig Gur on Jewish American and Israeli views about the Holocaust

Last edited Fri May 17, 2024, 02:53 PM - Edit history (1)

He's replying to a post that claims Israeli Jews think "never again" applies only to Jews, not the rest of humanity.

This is not true, but it does hint at a deep truth.

Yes, the American Jewish lesson from the Holocaust is to double down on tolerance and liberalism for all, because American Jews believe they were saved from the 20th century by these features of America.

But Israeli Jews didn’t have that privilege. They couldn’t avoid the cataclysm by relying on the great kindnesses and strengths of America. No one saved the Jews who would become Israel. No one would even take them in after the genocide. So their lesson was the opposite of the American Jewish one. They became obsessed with self-reliance.

In the Israeli Jewish experience, the world is uncaring and hypocritical at best, viciously evil at worst, and it can move from one to the other at the drop of a hat. The only real safety available to a small people is whatever power it can wield in its own defense by its own exertions. Any western elite that claims otherwise knows it will never itself face the consequences of being wrong.

Before you moralize your way out of grappling with this point, dear westerners, here’s one way to show Israelis they’re wrong: Stop the Assads of the world, in realtime, when it matters; meaningfully protect the Uyghurs, even when it means bucking a superpower. Until you can actually do what it takes to bring safety to small and vulnerable peoples, the Israelis will be right and your great moral vocabularies will be no more than undeserved self-adulation.

The Israeli message to Palestinians, then, isn’t that “only Jews get to be safe” - it’s that Palestinians need their own Zionism because only self-reliance brings safety.

The world’s love and concern for them is a mirage, a western elite’s self-validating moral cartoon about itself, not a willingness to actually protect and sacrifice for Palestinians. The very fact that the world is invested in Palestinians more than in any other conflict or suffering population combined is a sign that its concern isn’t the actual suffering but rather western elite narrative-making. True morality and real law would swing into action for others too.

Or put another way, the whirlwind of moralism that is so often described as “anti-Israel” is actually, in the Israeli understanding of history, anti-Palestinian, a vast and cruel political trap Palestinians have not yet seen for what it is.

Palestinians cannot claw back some imagined idyllic Palestine of yesteryear anymore than Jews can reverse the erasure of the ancient communities of Poland or Iraq. The only path available to any of us is to build a new future on the solid foundation of endogenous strength.

The only salvation available to Palestinians will come by Palestinian hands, Palestinian strategy and wisdom, and internal Palestinian solidarity.

That’s the Israeli “claim,” such as it is, and not just for Palestinians. For all small peoples.

Link to tweet

He makes some very salient points.