Mr. Guignion, while I respect the stand you’re taking regarding Zionism, Antisemitism and the Jewish state, I don’t appreciate the implied way you’re connecting Zionism and Nazism together like in some twisted way those movements “evolved” from each other. As an Israeli scholar I’m completely aware of my own racist and Jewish-supremacist government. I’m in the streets every day fighting against it and against this horrible war. The suffering of all Palestinians must end, and Palestinian country must rise and flourish next to a Jewish state. Every sane Zionist around the planet knows it’s the only way for peace, although unfortunately, the people in power in my country today aren’t zionists, but are Jewish fundamentalists who believe in a holy war. With that being said, I cannot accept your general thesis, just like I can’t accept the puritist rhetoric Arendt used in her writing on the Eichmann trial. First of all, no - Eichmann was NOT a zionist. As an efficient nazi he considered using the British mandate of Palastine as a more effective way of “getting rid of the Jews”. There was another famous trial in Israel known as the Ketzner Trial, regarding a famous Jewish-Hungarian leader named Israel Ketzner, that was charged with negotiating with Eichmann in 1941 about sending Jews to Israel instead of the gas chambers. Many accused Ketzner for working with the nazis, but he stated that he wanted to save lives at any costs, even if it means to abandon other Jews so others groups could live. He was assassinated by a holocaust survivor after the trial, but he wasn’t the only Jewish-Zionist figure who tried to “reason with the devil” during the war. The point of all of that, is that making this horrible dialogue between Eichmann and some Zionist leaders as some kind of proof of condemnation of Zionism is simply a folly. Yes, the Eichmann’s trial was farce - he was kidnapped by the Mosad and sent to Israel for the sole purpose of demonstrating the political power the Jewish state has against those who wished to turn our people into soaps. Was it moral by the dry aspects of a proper western justice system? No. Was it necessary, and this point of time? I believe it was. In 75 years of independence, the justice system of Israel used capital punishment only once, against Eichmann, because beyond his personal crimes, he was the high-ranking nazi who studied and dissected the Jewish people in order to lead them into genoside. A real genoside, unlike the horror the Palestinians are experiencing now. This was an anomaly that never happened before or after, so you can disagree - but I believe it was necessity, just like Hiroshima, to demonstrate policial power. And in a personal note Mr. Guignion, yes, I despise this horrible war and fight daily for it to end and for a Palestinian state, but I feel this condemnation of Zionism entirely doesn’t help this cause. Was Arendt wrong factually in her review? No. But this so called “rational” take is too one-sided and simply unfair. I’m sorry, but your look on Zionism history is completely wrong. Zionism saved more Jewish lives then any movement in the 20th century (including my own grandparents - they ran into Israel not because they wanted to usurp and take control of resources, but because they didn’t want to die in the gas chambers). So now, in the present, you can rightfully judge us and condemn our government for its terrible crimes (like we do ourselves), but never presume to judge those who came out of hell on earth and understood that in this world, the violent, unjust, unfair world, you need to be strong in order to survive. And if that means to make a “farce” trail, or that philosophers like Arendt will condemn us as “not moral enough”, they had to live with it. They had to survive with your criticism then to die with your praises…
Thanks for these!
You know Eichmann was a zionist, right?
You know that. Riight?
Mr. Guignion, while I respect the stand you’re taking regarding Zionism, Antisemitism and the Jewish state, I don’t appreciate the implied way you’re connecting Zionism and Nazism together like in some twisted way those movements “evolved” from each other. As an Israeli scholar I’m completely aware of my own racist and Jewish-supremacist government. I’m in the streets every day fighting against it and against this horrible war. The suffering of all Palestinians must end, and Palestinian country must rise and flourish next to a Jewish state. Every sane Zionist around the planet knows it’s the only way for peace, although unfortunately, the people in power in my country today aren’t zionists, but are Jewish fundamentalists who believe in a holy war.
With that being said, I cannot accept your general thesis, just like I can’t accept the puritist rhetoric Arendt used in her writing on the Eichmann trial.
First of all, no - Eichmann was NOT a zionist. As an efficient nazi he considered using the British mandate of Palastine as a more effective way of “getting rid of the Jews”. There was another famous trial in Israel known as the Ketzner Trial, regarding a famous Jewish-Hungarian leader named Israel Ketzner, that was charged with negotiating with Eichmann in 1941 about sending Jews to Israel instead of the gas chambers. Many accused Ketzner for working with the nazis, but he stated that he wanted to save lives at any costs, even if it means to abandon other Jews so others groups could live. He was assassinated by a holocaust survivor after the trial, but he wasn’t the only Jewish-Zionist figure who tried to “reason with the devil” during the war.
The point of all of that, is that making this horrible dialogue between Eichmann and some Zionist leaders as some kind of proof of condemnation of Zionism is simply a folly. Yes, the Eichmann’s trial was farce - he was kidnapped by the Mosad and sent to Israel for the sole purpose of demonstrating the political power the Jewish state has against those who wished to turn our people into soaps. Was it moral by the dry aspects of a proper western justice system? No. Was it necessary, and this point of time? I believe it was. In 75 years of independence, the justice system of Israel used capital punishment only once, against Eichmann, because beyond his personal crimes, he was the high-ranking nazi who studied and dissected the Jewish people in order to lead them into genoside. A real genoside, unlike the horror the Palestinians are experiencing now. This was an anomaly that never happened before or after, so you can disagree - but I believe it was necessity, just like Hiroshima, to demonstrate policial power.
And in a personal note Mr. Guignion, yes, I despise this horrible war and fight daily for it to end and for a Palestinian state, but I feel this condemnation of Zionism entirely doesn’t help this cause. Was Arendt wrong factually in her review? No. But this so called “rational” take is too one-sided and simply unfair. I’m sorry, but your look on Zionism history is completely wrong. Zionism saved more Jewish lives then any movement in the 20th century (including my own grandparents - they ran into Israel not because they wanted to usurp and take control of resources, but because they didn’t want to die in the gas chambers). So now, in the present, you can rightfully judge us and condemn our government for its terrible crimes (like we do ourselves), but never presume to judge those who came out of hell on earth and understood that in this world, the violent, unjust, unfair world, you need to be strong in order to survive. And if that means to make a “farce” trail, or that philosophers like Arendt will condemn us as “not moral enough”, they had to live with it. They had to survive with your criticism then to die with your praises…