The Holocaust: Israel's excuse

79 years after the Holocaust, the systematic mass persecution and murder of six million Jews and other ethnic groups - the exact number is unknown - organized by the Nazi regime and its fascist followers. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire". By 1933, Europe's Jewish population numbered more than nine million, and most European Jews lived in countries occupied or dominated by Nazi Germany during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators had murdered about two out of three European Jews as part of the "Final Solution," Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe.

Without a doubt, the Holocaust marked a turning point not only in Germany, but throughout the world. It was after the Holocaust and the Second World War that new concepts were introduced in the field of international relations such as human rights and crimes against humanity under the creation of the United Nations (UN), whose purpose was and is to prevent a conflict of international scale such as the Second World War and genocides such as the Holocaust through dialogue and concerted action by different international actors.

At the time of the creation of the international organization, it had as its first duty to eliminate any kind of imperial subjugation and therefore asked the countries belonging to the Security Council - the winners of the war - to cede all their colonies, it was at this time when Israel, a Jewish nation, was created as a state. This new state created by the war-winning countries was imposed under British territory, what we knew at the time as Palestine. At first it meant dividing this territory in two, one side for the Israelis and the other for the Palestinians, this imposed decision generated a rejection in the whole Middle East, which generated a great number of conflicts and wars since then, to the point that most Arab states do not recognize Israel as a sovereign and legitimate state, they call them usurpers of the Palestinian territory.

There are undoubtedly different reasons why there are close relations between these two countries. As I said earlier, the Second World War changed the focus of the powers and paradigms in the field of international politics. From this point on, international politics can be seen from two different interpretations. A realistic perspective and another idealistic perspective.

International politics can be read in two ways: from the realistic perspective, put forward by Hans Morgenthaum, who stated that international relations are naturally conflictive and their purpose is to obtain power, and from the idealistic perspective, put forward by Woodrow Wilson, who stated that obtaining peace and cooperation from all the nations of the world is the end of international relations, and the means of obtaining them are peaceful means.

However, knowing this, relations between these two countries may still seem ambiguous - what is the real interest?

There are many reasons for this, but I will propose two. The first is the geopolitical position that the United States obtains by having Israel as an ally state. During the Cold War, having influence in the Middle East was part of U.S. interests, so having close relations with the Israeli state allowed it. Since then, Israel has worked for common interests with the power, this can be seen in its actions to neutralize groups like ISIS, overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad or put an end to the radical Palestinian, Jordanian and Lebanese movements.

In addition, Israel has served as an intermediary in the US arms supply to movements that are little accepted by public opinion, and the constant wars in which Israel has been involved have served as a testing ground for improving US military effectiveness. In exchange for Israel's support in the Middle East, the US represents the greatest support for its security, to the point of turning it into a military power in the region, after signing the largest military aid agreement in US history.

The second reason would be the influence of Jewish lobbies in the United States. As a small nation surrounded by enemies, it functions as an argument of moral support until this nation directly attacks, harms or generates more inconveniences than politically positive responses to its benefactor, such as espionage operations, qualified as the most aggressive by allied countries, direct military attacks, international conflicts or consequences with insurgent groups that have no link with the United States. And why does the United States continue with Israel?

The trip that President Richard Nixon made to Israel a few days before he resigned as a result of the Watergate case. Nixon, who made a series of recordings that were made public, branded as anti-Semitic, Nixon talks about the power of Jews in the United States, especially the political influence they exerted. In these same influences we could understand the actions of the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, who appointed three Zionist Jews to lead the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, these Zionists have not only made exasperating donations to the state of Israel but have also donated to the most radical Jewish sectors of the occupied West Bank, such as Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law.

This case was not the only one; in the early 1990s, George Bush Sr. appointed a team of six American mediators to consolidate the Madrid and Oslo peace process; it was purely by chance that all six were Jews and recognized Zionists. This may help to understand why the peace process has never moved forward.

Not only has the peace process made no progress since the Madrid Conference in 1991, but it has also made a huge step backward. Today it is practically impossible to imagine a solution to the conflict. Israel has been creating fait accompli on the ground with the blessing of the United States and in the face of the passivity of the European Union, which has acted as a necessary accomplice.

The influence of the Jewish lobby in the United States has paralyzed any action in the United Nations Security Council, a body that is flagrantly ineffective in all matters concerning Israel, with resolutions that have not been implemented for more than half a century due to the relationship between the United States and Israel.

Israel has marked the direction and the lobby has simply carried out the orders. Israel has not been afraid to defend its interests, even in a risky manner when needed, which has been the case on more than one occasion.

For example, in the 1950s, bombing American and British cultural centers in Cairo in the well-known Lavon Case, from which the Jewish state emerged unscathed despite having publicly acknowledged Mossad's direct involvement in the bombing. Or by sinking the American ship Liberty in the eastern Mediterranean, an action for which the Americans never called him to account.

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Pro-Israel lobbies, such as AIPAC, or CUFI, are powerful organizations, made up of businessmen, politicians, or members of civil society with a high level of influence in U.S. decision-making regarding the Middle East or the well-being of the Israeli community, resulting from congressional and executive branch campaign funding, presence in the political spectrum, and ongoing negotiations with government leaders.

This influence is reflected especially in the economic privileges of US loans to Israel or the unconditional political support given by the US to the Israeli nation, which has forced it to take decisions that isolate it from the rest of the world and generate frequent consequences such as international conflicts and the hindering of its relations with the other countries of the Middle East.

The special relationship of friendship between the two countries, which contributes to maintaining permanent instability in the Middle East, has wounded the peace process to the death. And there's nothing to indicate that things are going to change.

Even knowing all this, how is it possible that the state of Israel is not being penalized?

Returning to what was said at the beginning, everything is due to the Holocaust. The Holocaust is the preferred support and deadly weapon to reject any kind of criticism of Israel. The Holocaust is the sword and shield of the State of Israel since it legitimizes the military occupation of Palestine, it is used as a political rhetorical strategy to exonerate Israel for its human rights violations and all its bad practices. The holocaust that the Israeli state preaches is nothing more than an ideological construction to justify U.S. aid to Israel. Thanks to the brilliant propaganda campaign this is the human tragedy that shines brighter than any other in history even when this was not the greatest genocide in history - Stalin's Great Purge or the Chinese genocide killed far more people than Hitler.

The Holocaust, from the point of view of international relations, is a valid argument for both war and peace. On the one hand, we have the European approach of looking passively at Israeli actions, the message of the Second World War and the Holocaust is to avoid illegal, aggressive wars based on lies, because these can bring out the worst in each country to the point of leading it to commit genocide of such magnitude. On the other hand, there is the American approach, which is based on the teachings of Munich (There was an opportunity to end the war and avoid the Holocaust), the message is that if we do not confront the aggression, terrible things will happen to innocent people. Therefore Munich is applicable to any scenario of new paradigms and international conflicts. That is why everything must be done to prevent a repetition of a Holocaust-like situation.

According to Munich, the war in Iraq had a great impact on the suffering of the Jews. Saddam Hussein was an enemy of the Israelis who swore death to the state of Israel, therefore - and in order not to repeat history - the US was called upon to act against it, while the state of Israel supported and confirmed the version of weapons of mass destruction to promote the invasion of Iraq for its own interests. And so Israel continues to manipulate both the European states and the United States. It is the perfect alibi that Zionism brings to light when it commits horrific massacres such as those of Sabra and Chatila, the extermination operations in Gaza or the West Bank.

The truth is that the Holocaust has been exploited as a moral resource by many of its politicians, since the rule of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, the Israeli state has insisted that Israel remains prone to live a new holocaust. But let's face it, neither the Israelis nor the Jews face an imminent threat of extermination like the Holocaust or something like that. The state is making political propaganda using guilt and exploiting people's ignorance.

Tony Judt, a Zionist and intellectual of the 20th century, claimed that

One only needs to question it and ask the right questions to realize the media's use of the Holocaust to exonerate Israel from its actions.

Even a spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy, Tzipora Menache, acknowledged that the state of Israel cultivates and exploits German guilt.

Ruth Amir, Head of the Multidisciplinary Studies Department at jezreel's Academic Faculty, stated that

The Israeli state has managed through rhetoric to deactivate the link between an action and its consequences and for this reason they are able to absolve themselves of any responsibility after committing an atrocity.

Prime Minister Golda Meir, after the Eichmann trial, the following words:

Meir commented at the same time that he would never forgive his enemies for forcing them to kill them. More unbridled victimhood.

Another comment that highlights this use of victim rhetoric is Prime Minister Menachem Begin, before the bombing of Beirut in the first Lebanon war, he said:

Victimism allows the individual in this case - the Israeli state - to be free from all blame and to have the support of the entire international community. That is precisely why Israeli leaders have managed to put the peoples of the world at their feet.

To return to what had been said before, the problem would be that since the Second World War the language of human rights has been taking the place of the Holocaust in diplomatic and moral discourse.

The hypocrisy of international bodies when it comes to Israel is truly incredible. How far will Israeli victimhood and the use of the Holocaust to continue committing acts of rape go? For the time being, as long as it continues to be supported by European countries and the United States, there is no positive picture of this. However, more and more people are becoming aware of the use and manipulation of this historical fact, so I would venture to say that it will take years until the value of the holocaust and the victimizing rhetoric really stops working.

I understand that there are many things to be said on this subject, and many things that are not yet conclusive, therefore I will probably continue to talk about them in the future.