ZGram - 7/29/2004 - "Ha'aretz: The fifth Holocaust"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

Zgram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

July 29, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

I didn't know a fifth Holocaust is pending -according to the Ha'aretz 
article below;  revisionists are still busy contesting the alleged 
first. But here is the prediction, right from the horse's mouth. 
Read it for what it's worth:

[Start]

The fifth Holocaust

By Gideon Samet - Ha'aretz, July 28, 2004

[START]

Unbridled Israeli hysteria has, over the years, attached the term 
Holocaust to traffic accidents, the Oslo accords and stock market 
collapses; during one water crisis, there was even talk about the 
Holocaust level of the Kinneret. Yesterday, two genuine Israeli 
Holocausts were marked, the first two out of four.

Not since the Yom Kippur War, when Moshe Dayan feared the destruction 
of the Third Commonwealth, has there been so much terrible talk about 
the path to the fifth Holocaust. That catastrophic path already has 
all the necessary extreme zealotry and messianic longing for some 
vague Jewish sainthood. There's a sizable audience that shares those 
feelings, and then there's the chronic blindness of the rest. But as 
opposed to all the previous Holocausts, this time the captains of 
security are waving around very specific warnings about the tangible 
danger.

The third Holocaust was of course the results of the insane rebellion 
against the Romans, some 60 years after the destruction in the year 
70. It was led by a dangerous zealot in the eyes of many and a 
miracle working messiah in the eyes of others. Bar Kochba, with the 
encouragement of the greatest Torah sages of his time, led to their 
deaths the majority of Jews in the country, some 600,000 people. 
Nonetheless, he has been preserved in Israeli folklore as a hero to 
be admired. "He was a hero," sang generations of gullible, 
brainwashed children, "he set me free/and all the people loved him." 
Only a few of those people who loved him so much survived to see what 
he wrought. That hasn't prevented a twisted tradition being 
reincarnated nowadays into preaching behavior as mad as destroying 
the mosque on the Temple Mount in the name of Israel's redemption.

Yehuda Etzion, a member of the Jewish Underground who was convicted 
of attempting just such deeds in the 1980s, explained this week to 
Yaron London and Mordechai Kirshenbaum of Channel 10 that building 
the Temple instead of the Al Aqsa mosque is "the point of our 
existence." The man who spent seven years in prison said that there 
were also obstacles on the way to the establishment of the state and 
there's no reason to be afraid. The interviewers related to him as if 
he were a curiosity. With the gallows humor of a talk show, they 
proposed that the next destruction fall on the ninth of Av, so we 
don't end up with yet another fast day.

The joke would have been amusing if not for the danger that a serious 
national disaster is written deeply into the cards of legitimate 
Israeli politics. The former secretary general of Bnei Akiva, Amnon 
Shapira, lashed out at his comrade in the religious Zionist movement, 
Yonatan Bassi, for agreeing to head the disengagement administration. 
"There were clerks during the Holocaust who also only dealt with 
technical matters," Shapira said, hinting at what he might be ready 
to sacrifice to prevent the disengagement.

There are no comparisons more despicable than those made with the 
Holocaust for ephemeral political needs. But the broad dimensions of 
the right and religious politics does worse. Perhaps without even 
noticing, they have spoken for years in terms that are reminiscent of 
the classical fascist lexicon of that period. From Effi Eitam to Uzi 
Landau, we hear about the sanctity of land, the spine of the nation, 
the weakness of the regime, the need for spiritual redemption, a 
romantic return by the people to its holy values, and the knife the 
government is stabbing into the back of the settlers.

Such talk would have been left in the ditches of the national road if 
not for the fact that alongside that rhetoric grew significant 
political strength, such as that demonstrated by the Likud referendum 
that rejected the disengagement program. It might have been possible 
to continue entertaining viewers on memorial days for past 
Holocausts, if not for the head of the Shin Bet and others warning 
about the worst kind of scenarios - blowing up the Temple Mount, the 
murder of a prime minister, a new Jewish Underground.

The danger is real and chilling and maybe even present. If 
Palestinians were making lesser threats they would already have been 
shot and their homes demolished. The lucky among them would have been 
thrown into administrative detention. The High Court of Justice would 
have approved moderate physical pressure, or maybe not so moderate, 
according to the Landau Commission's permissions. When the extremists 
of the land insist on speaking about a fifth Holocaust, it's best to 
pay close attention. It is very possible that they, under the nose of 
a complacent nation, will be the ones who make it happen.

[END]