Guardian UK: President without shame

[marmar]

President without shame
George Bush's suggestion of a moral equivalence between appeasing Nazi Germany and negotiating with Palestinians is an outrage
Richard Silverstein

May 16, 2008 8:30 PM | Printable version


Malvina Schwartz survived Auschwitz as a young girl. She managed to make her way to America and eventually came to Los Angeles where I published her oral history in 1977 in the Los Angeles Times. I am certain that Malvina is no longer alive. But if she had managed to survive to today, I'd like to think she would have something to say about George Bush's misuse of the Holocaust for political gain in his speech to the Israeli Knesset.

Mark Klempner, in his book The Heart Has Reasons, profiles five Dutch Righteous Gentiles who saved Jews. One of them, Mieke Vermeer, speaks of historical analogies between the Holocaust and contemporary society and how the errors of one era can be repeated in another:

People say "Never again," but just because they say that doesn't mean that they're any more aware than the Germans were when Hitler was making his debut. How many people who read the newspaper can tell the difference between propaganda and fact? How many can see through bad politicians? There's such a lot of dirty politics.

(Klempner) So you're saying we mustn't underestimate our capacity to be misled...

Yes, or to do the wrong thing when we think we're doing the right thing...
Some Dutch ... will call racist names. They fall silent when I say, "I have a black son-in-law." I tell them, there's no us and them - we're all part of the same human family.

My husband suffered terribly at the hands of the Germans, but he didn't hate all of them - he hated the people who had caused the suffering.

When we educate our children about the Holocaust, it's not enough to tell them about the horrors - we have to tell them that it should not happen that way again. That hate doesn't bring peace, and that you need to be strong in mind and think things over before you get a weapon to use against the one you call your enemy.

George Bush would surely benefit from reading this book. Well maybe not, but it couldn't hurt.

I can't pretend to know how my friend, Malvina, would react to Bush's speech. But as a Jew who studied this era and did historical research, and prepared oral histories of survivors, I am offended that George Bush has likened the Arab states which have engaged with Israel in a territorial dispute since 1948 as Nazis. I am angry that Bush made a moral equivalence between Hitler Germany and the Palestinian national movement. On Malvina's behalf, I am hurt that George Bush seems to believe that America and Israel are the two most righteous nations in the world while the Arab world represents little short of barbarism. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_silverstein/2008/05/president_without_shame.html

[Old Codger]

1. Huh?

He can read?????