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Cambridge Middle East Studies #21
الأمة والموت: صناعة الهولوكست - صناعة دولة اسرائيل
كيف خلقت إسرائيل أسطورة ضحاياها؟
يفكك هذا الكتاب أسطورة الهولوكست عبر فكرة واحدة: الموت، كيف يمكن للموت العادي أن يتحول إلى موت مقدس، إلى استشهاد، إذا استخدمنا المصطلح الديني، وكيف يمكن للضحية العادية أن تتحول إلى مفهوم طوباوي عن اﻷمة المضطهدة على طول عصور التاريخ.
نعرف من الكتاب كيف استُخدم الهولوكست ليصبح هو الذخيرة البﻻغية اﻷساسية ﻹسرائيل في حربها مع العرب: عبد الناصر هو "هتلر على ضفاف النيل"، والمفتي أمين الحسيني يحظى في موسوعة الهولوكست بمساحة تقارب تلك المساحة الممنوحة لهتلر، وجميع الحروب اﻹسرائيلية يتم تبريرها واﻻستيﻻء على أراضي الفلسطينيين باستخدام مصطلحات مثل النازيين والمحرقة ومعسكرات اﻻعتقال.
هذا الكتاب يجعلنا نقرأ إسرائيل بعين جديدة، يجعلنا نفكك الصهيونية من داخلها، من داخل لغتها وتاريخها ومقدساتها
يفكك هذا الكتاب أسطورة الهولوكست عبر فكرة واحدة: الموت، كيف يمكن للموت العادي أن يتحول إلى موت مقدس، إلى استشهاد، إذا استخدمنا المصطلح الديني، وكيف يمكن للضحية العادية أن تتحول إلى مفهوم طوباوي عن اﻷمة المضطهدة على طول عصور التاريخ.
نعرف من الكتاب كيف استُخدم الهولوكست ليصبح هو الذخيرة البﻻغية اﻷساسية ﻹسرائيل في حربها مع العرب: عبد الناصر هو "هتلر على ضفاف النيل"، والمفتي أمين الحسيني يحظى في موسوعة الهولوكست بمساحة تقارب تلك المساحة الممنوحة لهتلر، وجميع الحروب اﻹسرائيلية يتم تبريرها واﻻستيﻻء على أراضي الفلسطينيين باستخدام مصطلحات مثل النازيين والمحرقة ومعسكرات اﻻعتقال.
هذا الكتاب يجعلنا نقرأ إسرائيل بعين جديدة، يجعلنا نفكك الصهيونية من داخلها، من داخل لغتها وتاريخها ومقدساتها
363 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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351 people want to read
About the author
Idith Zertal
12 books8 followersIdith Zertal is an Israeli historian and essayist, the author of many books and articles on Jewish, Zionist and Israeli history. She is currently teaching at the Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Her works include From Catastrophe to Power: Holocaust Survivors and the Emergence of Israel (1998), and Lords of the Land: The War over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967–2007 (co-authored with Akiva Eldar, 2007). Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood has been published in eight languages.
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January 5, 2018
Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, by Idith Zertal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Cambridge Middle East Studies 21. 208 pages. Biographies to p. 216. Glossary to p. 222. Bibliography to p. 230. Index to p. 236. $30.00 cloth. Published in Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 35, no. 3 (139), Spring 2006. p. 123.
In late summer of 2005 on the order of Ariel Sharon’s government, several thousand Israeli settlers departed the Gaza Strip. In protest, some settlers donned Star of David patches, which Jews had been forced to wear under Nazi domination. Settlers, among them Holocaust survivors and their children, contended that withdrawal would lead to another Holocaust.
Such an assertion of persecution and victimization in terms of the Holocaust has a long history, according to Israeli writer, Idith Zertal, in her recently translated book from Hebrew, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood. Zertal’s work explores the growing reliance upon Holocaust discourse in Israel, as she candidly states, “Politicians, journalists, and historians let themselves speak out in the name of the Holocaust dead. They/we all use Holocaust images for their/our purposes. Some of these images are threatening, others are trivial, all are distorting” (197).
Because, as Zertal says, the Holocaust period provides “inexhaustible reservoirs of images, arguments, and assertions,” Israeli political groups have battled one another to monopolize control of interpretation of those reservoirs, thereby gaining an inestimable symbolic power to advance their own agendas (42).
And in seeking to speak for the murdered millions and interpret the significance of their deaths, Israelis have been ready to remember aspects of the European Jewish story and ignore other aspects, which do not suit their purposes. One example of how the Holocaust was deployed in the 1940s and 1950s was the “Zionization” of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters, Zertal argues, “by cloaking the rebels in the mantle of Zionism and transforming them into Palmach fighters, accidentally snared in the spheres of the Diaspora” (30-31).
In the 1950s, the remembrance of the Holocaust gradually became institutionalized in Israel. But it was the Jerusalem trial in 1961 of Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann that laid the groundwork for the prevalence of Holocaust discourse in Israel. Prime Minster David Ben-Gurion sought a most dramatic pedagogic goal from the spectacle of the trial: to teach the younger generation of Israelis and the world what the Nazi persecution was and, consequently, to establish the legitimacy of the necessity for the Jewish state. At the time of the trial, Moshe Dayan, then Minister of Agriculture, spoke frankly about the connection between the Nazi genocide and Israel: “what is becoming clear at the Eichmann trial is the active passivity of the world in the face of the murder of the six million. There can be no doubt that only this country and only this people can protect the Jews again against a second Holocaust. And hence every inch of Israeli soil is intended for Jews only” (109).
Zertal links that watershed trial with the 1967 war, especially the weeks preceding Israel’s attack, as “the first test and application of this Holocaust discourse in the context of Israel’s wars” (92). Because of the bellicosity of threats coming from Arab leaders in the weeks before the war began, Israelis and many Jews worldwide feared an imminent catastrophe. Israeli commentators regularly equated Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser with Hitler. There was also growing opposition from some Israeli elites to Prime Minister Levi Eshkohl’s seeming vacillation before the threat. Then out of power, Ben-Gurion zeroed in on the neuralgic issue facing the Israelis: “A war of annihilation. None of us can forget the Holocaust that the Nazis inflicted on us. And if some Arab rulers declare day and night that Israel must be annihilated—this time referring not to the entire Jewish people in the world, but to the Jews living in their land—it is our duty not to take these statements lightly” (119-120).
With regularity, the Holocaust horrors from European geography will be transposed to the Middle East conflict, and Israeli leaders will characterize perceived security threats from Arabs and Palestinians as tantamount to the possibility of utter destruction, Nazi-style.
Zertal identifies two different Israeli camps mobilizing the Holocaust for political ends: “Whereas the central, hegemonic Holocaust discourse of the labor movement applied the images of the Holocaust and Nazism in particular to external enemies—mainly for purposes of fostering Israeli power and the ethos of its justice—Holocaust images employed by the opposing right wing were applied to the adversary within, the political rival” (168-169). Israeli settlers mounted furious rhetorical campaigns against any negotiation with their enemies, whether that involved Begin’s departure from Sinai, or Rabin’s participation in the Oslo process after 1993. Rabin’s assassin was seen by some supporters as cut from heroic cloth like the Warsaw Ghetto fighters. About the settlers, Zertal astutely observes, “In their world, where meaning is turned inside out, which projects on to others, the conquerors become the conquered, the persecutor are turned into the persecuted, wrongdoer into the victim, and this inverted order received the supreme seal of Auschwitz” (193).
The book ends with the aftermath of the Rabin murder, as the book was published in Israel in 2002. One hopes for an additional chapter in any future second edition to chronicle the ongoing use of the Holocaust vis-à-vis the Palestinians under the administrations of Netanyahu, Barak, and Sharon.
In a separate chapter, Zertal examines the legacy of Hannah Arendt, who wrote a controversial book on the Eichmann trial. In fact, Zertal sees her own book as a kind of homage to Arendt, whose critical thinking and universalistic ethics were so unwelcome in Jerusalem during the trial and elsewhere thereafter. While Zertal wrote the following in reference to the Rabin assassination, her challenge can be applied to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land as well: “In order to confront evil and overcome it, it was necessary, first and foremost, to be capable of looking it in the eye, and not to stand before it in dazzled awe, nor to fall silent in shame or to invest energies in a search for consoling myths” (206).
In late summer of 2005 on the order of Ariel Sharon’s government, several thousand Israeli settlers departed the Gaza Strip. In protest, some settlers donned Star of David patches, which Jews had been forced to wear under Nazi domination. Settlers, among them Holocaust survivors and their children, contended that withdrawal would lead to another Holocaust.
Such an assertion of persecution and victimization in terms of the Holocaust has a long history, according to Israeli writer, Idith Zertal, in her recently translated book from Hebrew, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood. Zertal’s work explores the growing reliance upon Holocaust discourse in Israel, as she candidly states, “Politicians, journalists, and historians let themselves speak out in the name of the Holocaust dead. They/we all use Holocaust images for their/our purposes. Some of these images are threatening, others are trivial, all are distorting” (197).
Because, as Zertal says, the Holocaust period provides “inexhaustible reservoirs of images, arguments, and assertions,” Israeli political groups have battled one another to monopolize control of interpretation of those reservoirs, thereby gaining an inestimable symbolic power to advance their own agendas (42).
And in seeking to speak for the murdered millions and interpret the significance of their deaths, Israelis have been ready to remember aspects of the European Jewish story and ignore other aspects, which do not suit their purposes. One example of how the Holocaust was deployed in the 1940s and 1950s was the “Zionization” of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters, Zertal argues, “by cloaking the rebels in the mantle of Zionism and transforming them into Palmach fighters, accidentally snared in the spheres of the Diaspora” (30-31).
In the 1950s, the remembrance of the Holocaust gradually became institutionalized in Israel. But it was the Jerusalem trial in 1961 of Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann that laid the groundwork for the prevalence of Holocaust discourse in Israel. Prime Minster David Ben-Gurion sought a most dramatic pedagogic goal from the spectacle of the trial: to teach the younger generation of Israelis and the world what the Nazi persecution was and, consequently, to establish the legitimacy of the necessity for the Jewish state. At the time of the trial, Moshe Dayan, then Minister of Agriculture, spoke frankly about the connection between the Nazi genocide and Israel: “what is becoming clear at the Eichmann trial is the active passivity of the world in the face of the murder of the six million. There can be no doubt that only this country and only this people can protect the Jews again against a second Holocaust. And hence every inch of Israeli soil is intended for Jews only” (109).
Zertal links that watershed trial with the 1967 war, especially the weeks preceding Israel’s attack, as “the first test and application of this Holocaust discourse in the context of Israel’s wars” (92). Because of the bellicosity of threats coming from Arab leaders in the weeks before the war began, Israelis and many Jews worldwide feared an imminent catastrophe. Israeli commentators regularly equated Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser with Hitler. There was also growing opposition from some Israeli elites to Prime Minister Levi Eshkohl’s seeming vacillation before the threat. Then out of power, Ben-Gurion zeroed in on the neuralgic issue facing the Israelis: “A war of annihilation. None of us can forget the Holocaust that the Nazis inflicted on us. And if some Arab rulers declare day and night that Israel must be annihilated—this time referring not to the entire Jewish people in the world, but to the Jews living in their land—it is our duty not to take these statements lightly” (119-120).
With regularity, the Holocaust horrors from European geography will be transposed to the Middle East conflict, and Israeli leaders will characterize perceived security threats from Arabs and Palestinians as tantamount to the possibility of utter destruction, Nazi-style.
Zertal identifies two different Israeli camps mobilizing the Holocaust for political ends: “Whereas the central, hegemonic Holocaust discourse of the labor movement applied the images of the Holocaust and Nazism in particular to external enemies—mainly for purposes of fostering Israeli power and the ethos of its justice—Holocaust images employed by the opposing right wing were applied to the adversary within, the political rival” (168-169). Israeli settlers mounted furious rhetorical campaigns against any negotiation with their enemies, whether that involved Begin’s departure from Sinai, or Rabin’s participation in the Oslo process after 1993. Rabin’s assassin was seen by some supporters as cut from heroic cloth like the Warsaw Ghetto fighters. About the settlers, Zertal astutely observes, “In their world, where meaning is turned inside out, which projects on to others, the conquerors become the conquered, the persecutor are turned into the persecuted, wrongdoer into the victim, and this inverted order received the supreme seal of Auschwitz” (193).
The book ends with the aftermath of the Rabin murder, as the book was published in Israel in 2002. One hopes for an additional chapter in any future second edition to chronicle the ongoing use of the Holocaust vis-à-vis the Palestinians under the administrations of Netanyahu, Barak, and Sharon.
In a separate chapter, Zertal examines the legacy of Hannah Arendt, who wrote a controversial book on the Eichmann trial. In fact, Zertal sees her own book as a kind of homage to Arendt, whose critical thinking and universalistic ethics were so unwelcome in Jerusalem during the trial and elsewhere thereafter. While Zertal wrote the following in reference to the Rabin assassination, her challenge can be applied to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land as well: “In order to confront evil and overcome it, it was necessary, first and foremost, to be capable of looking it in the eye, and not to stand before it in dazzled awe, nor to fall silent in shame or to invest energies in a search for consoling myths” (206).
July 19, 2011
Incredible. Zertal manages to show how political coin was minted from "the experience" of the Holocaust which was cashed by conservative leaders (both religious and political) to bolster the raison d'État for the expansion and conquest of Israel.
"The experience" of the Holocaust included various desperate and trouble threads as Jewish passivity, collaboration, and survival strategies which after the War took on whole new meanings for those who lived through the Camps as well as for those who were seeking to control and centralize "the memory industry."
In the first chapter, Zertal begins, "Where memory and national identity meet, there is a grave, there lies death." The rest of the chapter is devoted to illustrating how the Holocaust became linked to other sites of Jewish defeat and death within the Holy Land. And how those sites transformed into locations of bravery, martyrdom, and heroic refusal. Beginning with the folklore of the defeat of Tel Hai in 1920, Zertal establishes a model by which the marriage of blood and land and memory all become united to elevate the calling for settlement, defense and stubborn heroics. It straight line, she says to how the Holocaust will be recast in such re-imaginings of Jewish Resistance and rebellion against the Nazis. And the institution of Israeli national celebrations like "Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Day" in the 1950s.
Chapter two expands on this theme by taking a closer look at the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law and the trials that followed its passage. In particular, the Kastner case is examined as a means to illustrate the complicated and treacherous waters the Israeli courts waded through during these purges. In order to consolidate and unify the Holocaust memorial narrative, collaboration and survival compromises needed to be labeled and exposed. Zertal, also, shows how these trials lead to the final great national undertaking of Ben-Gurion - that of the trial of Eichmann.
Chapter three, demonstrates how the use of the Holocaust would be adapted as a means of justification and excuse for any policy the Israeli government wished to take. Especially examining the events leading to the 1967 War, Zertal looks at how existential threats begin to crop up everywhere. And how the surrounding Arab nations come to be painted as Nazis. There is even the fallacy that the Holocaust was originated, not in Germany by the Nazis, but with former Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin El-Hussenin. The victory over Auschwitz would come only after the defeat of the Egyptians, when the nation proved to itself and the world that another Holocaust was impossible
because this time the Jews would fight with an unprecedented force and vigor to defend themselves.
Chapter Four is a wonderful expose on Hannah Arendt and the way in which Eichmann in Jerusalem was sidelined in Israel. Arendt was ridiculed and her work never translated, for it was thought she challenged the hegemony of the emerging national narrative of state creation and rebirth after the Holocaust.
Chapter five, brings the narrative up to the present day's struggles with the "palestianian question" and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. How the Rabin murder solidified the eternal present of Jewish victory in death. How the Messianic threads of Zionism blinded a Nation to the complications of displacing populations and integrating variant belief of its own people. How the Holocaust became a trope for nation building and survival. An excuse to justify even the most outlandish political polices. And how that trend further degrades the memory of the dead.
"The experience" of the Holocaust included various desperate and trouble threads as Jewish passivity, collaboration, and survival strategies which after the War took on whole new meanings for those who lived through the Camps as well as for those who were seeking to control and centralize "the memory industry."
In the first chapter, Zertal begins, "Where memory and national identity meet, there is a grave, there lies death." The rest of the chapter is devoted to illustrating how the Holocaust became linked to other sites of Jewish defeat and death within the Holy Land. And how those sites transformed into locations of bravery, martyrdom, and heroic refusal. Beginning with the folklore of the defeat of Tel Hai in 1920, Zertal establishes a model by which the marriage of blood and land and memory all become united to elevate the calling for settlement, defense and stubborn heroics. It straight line, she says to how the Holocaust will be recast in such re-imaginings of Jewish Resistance and rebellion against the Nazis. And the institution of Israeli national celebrations like "Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Day" in the 1950s.
Chapter two expands on this theme by taking a closer look at the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law and the trials that followed its passage. In particular, the Kastner case is examined as a means to illustrate the complicated and treacherous waters the Israeli courts waded through during these purges. In order to consolidate and unify the Holocaust memorial narrative, collaboration and survival compromises needed to be labeled and exposed. Zertal, also, shows how these trials lead to the final great national undertaking of Ben-Gurion - that of the trial of Eichmann.
Chapter three, demonstrates how the use of the Holocaust would be adapted as a means of justification and excuse for any policy the Israeli government wished to take. Especially examining the events leading to the 1967 War, Zertal looks at how existential threats begin to crop up everywhere. And how the surrounding Arab nations come to be painted as Nazis. There is even the fallacy that the Holocaust was originated, not in Germany by the Nazis, but with former Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin El-Hussenin. The victory over Auschwitz would come only after the defeat of the Egyptians, when the nation proved to itself and the world that another Holocaust was impossible
because this time the Jews would fight with an unprecedented force and vigor to defend themselves.
Chapter Four is a wonderful expose on Hannah Arendt and the way in which Eichmann in Jerusalem was sidelined in Israel. Arendt was ridiculed and her work never translated, for it was thought she challenged the hegemony of the emerging national narrative of state creation and rebirth after the Holocaust.
Chapter five, brings the narrative up to the present day's struggles with the "palestianian question" and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. How the Rabin murder solidified the eternal present of Jewish victory in death. How the Messianic threads of Zionism blinded a Nation to the complications of displacing populations and integrating variant belief of its own people. How the Holocaust became a trope for nation building and survival. An excuse to justify even the most outlandish political polices. And how that trend further degrades the memory of the dead.
November 25, 2024
Por fin he logrado terminar este libro! Me ha tomado tiempo pq es muy denso. Creo que usa un lenguaje innecesariamente complejo, muchas veces con palabras en desuso o en un contexto muy ¿? Pero algo me hace pensar que es tema de la traducción más que nada. De cualquier forma, creo que debió ser más accesible debido al poderoso mensaje que da y como incentiva el pensamiento crítico sobre la mentalidad israeli
Aunque recomiendo el libro, debo advertir dos cosas:
El libro no tiene su eje principal en los hechos perpetrados por Israel hacia los palestinos, aunque si lo menciona dentro del tema que abarca
Esta escrito de una perspectiva israeli. Aunque es muy crítico, no existe una postura desde el lado palestino (ya que muchas de las políticas descritas los afectan a ellos). Sin embargo, es comprensible por el contexto de la autora y el enfoque que se nota que quizo darle al libro.
Pese a esto, les aconsejo leerlo, pq al menos a mi, me permitió enterarme de muchas cosas interesantes y analizar profundamente la instrumentalizacion de la Shoa en el discurso de Israel.
Para ayudarme a mi a recordar todo, y para ir opinando parte por parte, haré un breve comentario de cada capítulo.
Capítulo 1: la autora cita tres ejemplos históricos: el asesinato de los miembros de una de las colonias agrícolas en palestina, la subversión del gueto de Varsovia, y los inmigrantes judíos que querían entrar a Israel en barco pero que estuvieron a la deriva durante un largo tiempo debido a cuestiones políticas. Aquí se nos retrata la figura de la "muerte bella" presente en el discurso israeli, donde se enaltece el morir por la patria y se embellece la pérdida de la vida, aunque sea innecesaria, en base a la necesidad de crear un símbolo. Muchas veces veces se destaca ciertos aspectos de la Shoa, las revoluciones aisladas, pero se condenaba la actitud pasiva de los judíos. Es decir, se enaltece el sufrimiento: pero solo si la víctima ha intentado revelarse contra su agresor. Por lo tanto, no se considera los hechos sufridos por los individuos, sino su utilidad para el discurso imperante.
Capítulo 2: se nos habla de la ley impuesta para condenar a los "colaboradores" de los nazis. Aunque la versión oficial lo niegue, es evidente que esta ley apuntaba hacia los mismos judíos que habían sobrevivido, buscando condenar a algunas de las víctimas en pos de una paz general. Para los israelís, aunque se vanagloriaban del ejemplo de subervesion de partisanos y otros casos, los inmigrantes sobrevivientes eran una carga. Traían consigo los traumas y eran la muestra viva de que Israel no hizo todo lo que estaba en sus manos para detener el genocidio. La hipocresía llego a tal nivel de que se acuso a Arendt de nazi por señalar la figura de las Judenrate como colaboradores, pero ellos buscaban perseguir a simples judíos que solo habían sobrevivido. El caso del político israeli de origen Húngaro que fue enjuiciado por salvar solo a unos pocos judíos cercanos, implicando la muerte de muchos más, llamó mi atención. Un golpe duro para su narrativa
Capítulo 3: se analiza el paralelismo que se teje en el dicurso israeli entre los nazis y los árabes. Básicamente, se expande el mito de que grandes figuras como el "mufti" colaboraron con los nazis en la instauración de la solución final. Esto con el objetivo de sembrar en la población un odio hacia los palestinos, al visualizarlos como los nazis 2.0, aquellos que buscan volver a ejecutar una Shoa contra ellos. Se nos destapa la cruda y triste realidad de la deshumanizacio n en base a las mentiras y de como los israelís han sido adoctrinados brutalmente.
Capítulo 4: se habla del juicio de eichman y el subsecuente libro publicado por Hannah Arendt. Se aborda la polémica sobre uno de sus puntos en específico: la colaboración de los Judenrate en la Shoa . Como dije en el comentario del capítulo 2, esto es super hipócrita. De esta forma, se censura a una autora que era, de hecho, judía, por tener una opinión disidiente, lo que demuestra la falta total de libertad de expresión más allá del ambito "formal". Además de la explotación que se hace de la polemica: libros y cartas en respuesta que sospechosamente son publicitados SIN haberse traducido los trabajos de Arendt al hebreo. La narrativa se manipula, mostrándose una única versión.
Capítulo 5: la utilización de la Shoa en el discurso militarista y la delimitacion de fronteras . Se justifican los excesos militares con una nueva Shoa inminente, se insiste en ese relato de que los judíos deben sostener las armas y dejar de ser pasivos frente al odio, osea, el concepto de la muerte bella. Esto es promovido por sectores politico que iban en contra de la búsqueda de paz que en algún momento Isaac Rabin persiguió. Así se engrenda su asesino, en base a la feroz adoctrinación, una consecuencia natural de la demonizacion de la paz. Además, las fronteras son, a propósito, dejadas sin delimitar, para poder avanzar sobre territorios justificando que les pertenecen, y anexar nuevos pasando más desapercibidos. Si no hay límites claros, nadie sabe cuando se transgreden. Es la búsqueda de la tierra original que se merecen, y repiten la misma justificación: si no se logra, se provocará una nueva shoa.
En conclusión, Idith Zertal elabora una fuerte crítica que pretende abrir los ojos a la sociedad israeli, mostrandole su hipocresía y el sufrimiento que la misma causa. Busca hacer dudar de que la instauración de un estado judío en las condiciones que se han dado realmente sean una salvación para los judíos.
Aunque recomiendo el libro, debo advertir dos cosas:
El libro no tiene su eje principal en los hechos perpetrados por Israel hacia los palestinos, aunque si lo menciona dentro del tema que abarca
Esta escrito de una perspectiva israeli. Aunque es muy crítico, no existe una postura desde el lado palestino (ya que muchas de las políticas descritas los afectan a ellos). Sin embargo, es comprensible por el contexto de la autora y el enfoque que se nota que quizo darle al libro.
Pese a esto, les aconsejo leerlo, pq al menos a mi, me permitió enterarme de muchas cosas interesantes y analizar profundamente la instrumentalizacion de la Shoa en el discurso de Israel.
Para ayudarme a mi a recordar todo, y para ir opinando parte por parte, haré un breve comentario de cada capítulo.
Capítulo 1: la autora cita tres ejemplos históricos: el asesinato de los miembros de una de las colonias agrícolas en palestina, la subversión del gueto de Varsovia, y los inmigrantes judíos que querían entrar a Israel en barco pero que estuvieron a la deriva durante un largo tiempo debido a cuestiones políticas. Aquí se nos retrata la figura de la "muerte bella" presente en el discurso israeli, donde se enaltece el morir por la patria y se embellece la pérdida de la vida, aunque sea innecesaria, en base a la necesidad de crear un símbolo. Muchas veces veces se destaca ciertos aspectos de la Shoa, las revoluciones aisladas, pero se condenaba la actitud pasiva de los judíos. Es decir, se enaltece el sufrimiento: pero solo si la víctima ha intentado revelarse contra su agresor. Por lo tanto, no se considera los hechos sufridos por los individuos, sino su utilidad para el discurso imperante.
Capítulo 2: se nos habla de la ley impuesta para condenar a los "colaboradores" de los nazis. Aunque la versión oficial lo niegue, es evidente que esta ley apuntaba hacia los mismos judíos que habían sobrevivido, buscando condenar a algunas de las víctimas en pos de una paz general. Para los israelís, aunque se vanagloriaban del ejemplo de subervesion de partisanos y otros casos, los inmigrantes sobrevivientes eran una carga. Traían consigo los traumas y eran la muestra viva de que Israel no hizo todo lo que estaba en sus manos para detener el genocidio. La hipocresía llego a tal nivel de que se acuso a Arendt de nazi por señalar la figura de las Judenrate como colaboradores, pero ellos buscaban perseguir a simples judíos que solo habían sobrevivido. El caso del político israeli de origen Húngaro que fue enjuiciado por salvar solo a unos pocos judíos cercanos, implicando la muerte de muchos más, llamó mi atención. Un golpe duro para su narrativa
Capítulo 3: se analiza el paralelismo que se teje en el dicurso israeli entre los nazis y los árabes. Básicamente, se expande el mito de que grandes figuras como el "mufti" colaboraron con los nazis en la instauración de la solución final. Esto con el objetivo de sembrar en la población un odio hacia los palestinos, al visualizarlos como los nazis 2.0, aquellos que buscan volver a ejecutar una Shoa contra ellos. Se nos destapa la cruda y triste realidad de la deshumanizacio n en base a las mentiras y de como los israelís han sido adoctrinados brutalmente.
Capítulo 4: se habla del juicio de eichman y el subsecuente libro publicado por Hannah Arendt. Se aborda la polémica sobre uno de sus puntos en específico: la colaboración de los Judenrate en la Shoa . Como dije en el comentario del capítulo 2, esto es super hipócrita. De esta forma, se censura a una autora que era, de hecho, judía, por tener una opinión disidiente, lo que demuestra la falta total de libertad de expresión más allá del ambito "formal". Además de la explotación que se hace de la polemica: libros y cartas en respuesta que sospechosamente son publicitados SIN haberse traducido los trabajos de Arendt al hebreo. La narrativa se manipula, mostrándose una única versión.
Capítulo 5: la utilización de la Shoa en el discurso militarista y la delimitacion de fronteras . Se justifican los excesos militares con una nueva Shoa inminente, se insiste en ese relato de que los judíos deben sostener las armas y dejar de ser pasivos frente al odio, osea, el concepto de la muerte bella. Esto es promovido por sectores politico que iban en contra de la búsqueda de paz que en algún momento Isaac Rabin persiguió. Así se engrenda su asesino, en base a la feroz adoctrinación, una consecuencia natural de la demonizacion de la paz. Además, las fronteras son, a propósito, dejadas sin delimitar, para poder avanzar sobre territorios justificando que les pertenecen, y anexar nuevos pasando más desapercibidos. Si no hay límites claros, nadie sabe cuando se transgreden. Es la búsqueda de la tierra original que se merecen, y repiten la misma justificación: si no se logra, se provocará una nueva shoa.
En conclusión, Idith Zertal elabora una fuerte crítica que pretende abrir los ojos a la sociedad israeli, mostrandole su hipocresía y el sufrimiento que la misma causa. Busca hacer dudar de que la instauración de un estado judío en las condiciones que se han dado realmente sean una salvación para los judíos.
December 7, 2025
A good book overall, although a very dense one. The author’s dissection of the use and abuse of the Holocaust in the name of Zionism and of Israel is very well done. The chapter on Hannah Arendt is much too long, half of it is essentially a hagiographic digression. I can only wonder what a revised version would look like today, after the widespread description of the events of October 7, 2023 as a second Holocaust and of Hamas as being worse than the Nazis, with the subsequent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Overall, this is an interesting book and worth your time, although I personally found it surprising just how slow going it was. If her prose is more your style, you may find it a smoother read.
Overall, this is an interesting book and worth your time, although I personally found it surprising just how slow going it was. If her prose is more your style, you may find it a smoother read.
September 1, 2021
One of the only books on Israel/Palestine that didn't make me want to kill myself.
Zertal's unflinching critique of Zionism, the Zionist project, and the psychology of a country build around and defined by genocide is spectacular and worth its weight in gold. A must-read for anyone interested in the subject.
Zertal's unflinching critique of Zionism, the Zionist project, and the psychology of a country build around and defined by genocide is spectacular and worth its weight in gold. A must-read for anyone interested in the subject.
March 9, 2025
4⭐️
Densísimo como el solo pero muy bueno.
Densísimo como el solo pero muy bueno.
September 6, 2025
“la conmemoración de la shoá, instituida como ley por el estado israelí, era una memoria sin sujetos”
August 16, 2009
Fascinating, controversial and well researched.
December 17, 2016
Phenomenal book about the impact of the Holocaust upon the sociopolitical dimensions of Israel
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