Another way of putting it: the fact that we are descendants of a generation of Jewish people who suffered a terrible crime -- the Holocaust -- does not give us a license to ignore the human rights of other people today.
It's ironic that next victim of this extermination is the normalization of the term "genocide". Not because the terminology has been wrongly used, but because most of us jews (unfortunately) are hoping the term gets less impact, instead of trying to stop the act itself. I won't bee surprise if by this rate "holocaust" will be also normalized - once this war on children is over what will become clear that something analogous to a final solution is in play in Gaza at this very moment: instead of gas chambers we have hospitals, schools, tents... being systematically bombed to oblivion.
As always a brilliant analysis, Peter. I'd just like to suggest one more reason for the hypersensitivity. The frightening battle line of the AIPAC-inspired thought police now is that now the term "holocaust" is starting to alternate with "genocide" in Gaza discourse.
It's always been an article of faith that the German Holocaust doesn't have and can't ever even remotely have a parallel. Its total uniqueness in public opinion has to remain sacrosanct at all cost. The Elie Wiesel line.
That firewall helps justify Israeli exceptionalism and unequalled Euro-American military and diplomatic protection of Israel as our 51st state! And the insistence to smear all criticism of Israel as "antisemitism".
None of that is new. What IS new in the past year is that more voices for peace, including a number of Jewish activists here and there, have begun to describe Israeli savagery as holocaust. Not just a genocide - a well worn stigma used and misused all over. No, it's the holocaust accusation that boils the blood in some quarters now! Hence the massive organized effort to hold the line at "genocide". Because the new absolute red line is naming Gaza a holocaust!
To me the most important statement was "All human beings and all countries are capable of terrible, terrible crimes."
I was visiting the Wannsee museum in Berlin, where the "final solution" was developed. There was a German school class also visiting, and they were clearly being told about their special responsibility as Germans to acknowledge this history.
It occurred to me that the point should not be to make school children feel guilt for what their ancestors did, not to emphasize responsibility as much as opportunity: People all over the world are capable of terrible acts; Germans, by their history, have the opportunity to educate others on what can happen and why.
Guilt is often fully justified, but usually not a very effective motivator. Might this somehow apply to our critique of Israeli supporters who deny genocide?
My experience with many Israelis (mainly in the 80s, 90s, and 00s) was that their "exceptional victim" identity existed simultaneously with the identity of muscular Jew. In a faceoff between an Israeli soldier with a rifle and a Gazan teenager with a rock, the soldier was David and the Gazan was Goliath, and David was going to win! Pride at one's own strength coexisted impossibly with victimhood. It seemed like a state very hard to wake somebody up out of.
1) Western societies are the most self-critical societies in the world. This whole complaint about Western exceptionalism is totally obsolete (unless one is obsessively anti-Western, which is not unusual within Peter Beinart’s new political family).
2) By Beinart’s standards, the Allies perpetrated a genocide against the Germans in 1945. Mosul was destroyed in 2016-17 and no one calls it a genocide.
3)The proportion of civilians killed in Gaza (60%) is slightly above the average of other wars (50%). This is certainly disproportionate but if one calls it a genocide, all wars in which 60% of casualties happen to be civilians should be deemed genocidal as well…
4)Peter Beinart doesn’t seem to know where the genocide charge comes from. It was developed by Soviet propaganda back in the 1960s.
5) Regarding China, a cultural genocide is not a mass extermination. BTW, in 2019, Beinart called on the West to abandon Taiwan…
What you overlook is not only the 1948 Convention definition of genocide and the level of death, destruction, denial of aid, and forced displacement in Gaza, but also the annihilation statements by Israeli government and military leaders. This is in addition to the opinions of genocide experts and scholars that what is happening in Gaza is, could be, or could because a genocide. I'll add that, given U.S. support of Israel's conduct in Gaza, reflexive denial of the possibility of genocide amounts to indifference or even tacit support.
Another way of putting it: the fact that we are descendants of a generation of Jewish people who suffered a terrible crime -- the Holocaust -- does not give us a license to ignore the human rights of other people today.
It's ironic that next victim of this extermination is the normalization of the term "genocide". Not because the terminology has been wrongly used, but because most of us jews (unfortunately) are hoping the term gets less impact, instead of trying to stop the act itself. I won't bee surprise if by this rate "holocaust" will be also normalized - once this war on children is over what will become clear that something analogous to a final solution is in play in Gaza at this very moment: instead of gas chambers we have hospitals, schools, tents... being systematically bombed to oblivion.
As always a brilliant analysis, Peter. I'd just like to suggest one more reason for the hypersensitivity. The frightening battle line of the AIPAC-inspired thought police now is that now the term "holocaust" is starting to alternate with "genocide" in Gaza discourse.
It's always been an article of faith that the German Holocaust doesn't have and can't ever even remotely have a parallel. Its total uniqueness in public opinion has to remain sacrosanct at all cost. The Elie Wiesel line.
That firewall helps justify Israeli exceptionalism and unequalled Euro-American military and diplomatic protection of Israel as our 51st state! And the insistence to smear all criticism of Israel as "antisemitism".
None of that is new. What IS new in the past year is that more voices for peace, including a number of Jewish activists here and there, have begun to describe Israeli savagery as holocaust. Not just a genocide - a well worn stigma used and misused all over. No, it's the holocaust accusation that boils the blood in some quarters now! Hence the massive organized effort to hold the line at "genocide". Because the new absolute red line is naming Gaza a holocaust!
To me the most important statement was "All human beings and all countries are capable of terrible, terrible crimes."
I was visiting the Wannsee museum in Berlin, where the "final solution" was developed. There was a German school class also visiting, and they were clearly being told about their special responsibility as Germans to acknowledge this history.
It occurred to me that the point should not be to make school children feel guilt for what their ancestors did, not to emphasize responsibility as much as opportunity: People all over the world are capable of terrible acts; Germans, by their history, have the opportunity to educate others on what can happen and why.
Guilt is often fully justified, but usually not a very effective motivator. Might this somehow apply to our critique of Israeli supporters who deny genocide?
My experience with many Israelis (mainly in the 80s, 90s, and 00s) was that their "exceptional victim" identity existed simultaneously with the identity of muscular Jew. In a faceoff between an Israeli soldier with a rifle and a Gazan teenager with a rock, the soldier was David and the Gazan was Goliath, and David was going to win! Pride at one's own strength coexisted impossibly with victimhood. It seemed like a state very hard to wake somebody up out of.
1) Western societies are the most self-critical societies in the world. This whole complaint about Western exceptionalism is totally obsolete (unless one is obsessively anti-Western, which is not unusual within Peter Beinart’s new political family).
2) By Beinart’s standards, the Allies perpetrated a genocide against the Germans in 1945. Mosul was destroyed in 2016-17 and no one calls it a genocide.
3)The proportion of civilians killed in Gaza (60%) is slightly above the average of other wars (50%). This is certainly disproportionate but if one calls it a genocide, all wars in which 60% of casualties happen to be civilians should be deemed genocidal as well…
4)Peter Beinart doesn’t seem to know where the genocide charge comes from. It was developed by Soviet propaganda back in the 1960s.
5) Regarding China, a cultural genocide is not a mass extermination. BTW, in 2019, Beinart called on the West to abandon Taiwan…
What you overlook is not only the 1948 Convention definition of genocide and the level of death, destruction, denial of aid, and forced displacement in Gaza, but also the annihilation statements by Israeli government and military leaders. This is in addition to the opinions of genocide experts and scholars that what is happening in Gaza is, could be, or could because a genocide. I'll add that, given U.S. support of Israel's conduct in Gaza, reflexive denial of the possibility of genocide amounts to indifference or even tacit support.
The "because" in the middle sentence of my comment should have been "become". An autofill error, but I apologize for any confusion.
In the very least, you would need to cite your sources before trying to engage in any sort of meaningful debate...
The same people are not complaining about the word "genocide" being used against China, because the same people are not closely following China's treatment of the Uyghurs. Amnesty International does not use the word "genocide" to describe China's treatment of Uyghurs, see https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/china/report-china/. Human Rights Watch is also unconvinced the treatment of Uyghurs is genocide. https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/19/break-their-lineage-break-their-roots/chinas-crimes-against-humanity-targeting