The Holocaust: Israel’s “raison d’être”?
Who said it:
1. “Accordingly, denying the Holocaust not only deprives Israel of its raison d’être, but, more nefariously still, it invalidates the Jews’ need to defend themselves.”
2. ”America’s strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied…. Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful.”
3. ”A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!”
a. President Barack Obama
b. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
c. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren
Answer: 1:c, 2:a, 3:b.
Essentially, Obama, Oren and Netanyahu said something similar: Our understanding of Israel’s current legitimacy and security needs is predicated on an understanding of the Holocaust and the near destruction of the Jewish people.
Yet when Obama said it in his Cairo speech, Jewish leaders piled on, saying stuff like, “the President implied that the Holocaust was the primary reason for Israel’s creation. That is unfortunate – and factually incorrect.”
But Obama was only saying what Jews have been saying for years, and what Oren said in a New Republic article today, and Netanyahu said in his speech this month to the U.N. General Assembly. Namely, the Holocaust is hardly the only justification for Israel’s existence (was Obama obligated to list them all?), but those who deny the Holocaust deny Israel an essential justification for its existence — namely, the evidence of historical vulnerability and the need for Jewish autonomy.
Or, as Oren put it:
Many factors contributed to the Holocaust–European anti-Semitism, mass murder technologies, and Allied indifference–but none more elemental than the Jews’ inability to defend themselves. Israel and its citizen Defense Forces represent the most palpable means for redressing that incapacity.
Now you may not like “Holocaust” and “Israel” in the same sentence, since it implies cause and effect. But if you are going to criticize Obama, then you should be willing to criticize Oren and Netanyahu.
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JustASC is written by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of the 
October 12th, 2009 at 5:10 am
i don’t think that was the purpose or implication of netanyahu’s remarks at the u.n. he was responding to a speech given the previous day by ahmadenijad denying the shoah, and he was speaking to set the record straight that a) it was a lie, and b) it was a disgrace for the u.n. to have harbored such lies. the shoah is not the raison d’être of israel’s existance, and the continued linkage – as was done by obama – is evil. they now want to teach the shoah in gaza? don’t do me any favors! i don;t need you to teach the shoah to gaza children because i don’t care if they know and remember it, any more than anyone remembers, say, the spanish inquisition, or the chmelnitzky massacres. I’LL remember it because i’m a jew, just as i remember the inquisition. i don’t need anyone else remembering it, because frankly, in 50 years it will be relatively forgotten anyway. if you want to teach something to the children of gaza, teach them about the jewish temples that once stood on the temple mount. temple mount denial is much much worse than shoah denial.