Preparing for a not far-off age when we will not have living testimony of the Holocaust means also thinking about it in new ways. For those of us descended from survivors, and for Israelis and Jews who feel the Holocaust is somehow "ours," it inevitably means part of our personal and national connection to it will be lost in the universalization of the Holocaust as a historical symbol of dehumanization. [...]
Not only against the callousness of his remark, and the implications for the policy of the IDF in the coming clashes on the border. But because Lieberman feels he can say that about the 1.8 million people living in Gaza because they are being denied any rights, not just by Israel and Egypt who maintain the blockade, but by Hamas as well. He wouldn’t have said that about Palestinians living in the West Bank, living under the Palestinian Authority, or the citizens of a neighboring country. [...]
Just as we have a duty to point out the fact that the government’s (hopefully) failed forcible deportation plan, was only aimed at refugees from war-torn Sudan and ultra-repressive Eritrea - countries which have long ago stopped treating its citizens as such. Not against more than double the number of migrants from functioning countries currently living illegally in Israel. Because it is much easier to treat people as unwanted packages and ship them off to a "third country" when they have already been denied the protection of their homelands. [...]
It is our duty, as descendants and heirs of all those generations of Jews who were denied their basic rights to live. A duty not just of Israelis, but of all Jews in whose name Israel was founded and who can and should bring their influence, experience and knowledge to bear in this project. Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which brought Zionism to its successful end 70 years ago, still needs to be fulfilled.
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