You have to remember who this guy is. He fought in the army before there was
an Israel, and he was involved in the original ethnic cleansing of the
Palestinians.
Miriam
avnery // on lieberman
--------------------------------------
Uri Avnery
May 21, 2016
I Was There
"PLEASE DON'T write about Ya'ir Golan!" a friend begged me, "Anything a
leftist like you writes will only harm him!"
So I abstained for some weeks. But I can't keep quiet any longer.
General Ya'ir Golan, the deputy Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, made a
speech on Holocaust Memorial Day.
Wearing his uniform, he read a prepared, well-considered text that triggered
an uproar which has not yet died down.
Dozens of articles have been published in its wake, some condemning him,
some lauding him. Seems that nobody could stay indifferent.
The main sentence was: "If there is something that frightens me about the
memories of the Holocaust, it is the knowledge of the awful processes which
happened in Europe in general, and in Germany in particular, 70, 80, 90
years ago, and finding traces of them here in our midst, today, in 2016."
All hell broke loose. What!!! Traces of Nazism in Israel? A resemblance
between what the Nazis did to us with what we are doing to the Palestinians?
90 years ago was 1926, one of the last years of the German republic. 80
years ago was 1936, three years after the Nazis came to power. 70 years ago
was 1946, on the morrow of Hitler's suicide and the end of the Nazi Reich.
I FEEL compelled to write about the general's speech after all, because I
was there.
As a child I was an eye-witness to the last years of the Weimar Republic (so
called because its constitution was shaped in Weimar, the town of Goethe and
Schiller). As a politically alert boy I witnessed the Nazi Machtergreifung
("taking power") and the first half a year of Nazi rule.
I know what Golan was speaking about. Though we belong to two different
generations, we share the same background.
Both our families come from small towns in Western Germany.
His father and I must have had a lot in common.
There is a strict moral commandment in Israel: nothing can be compared to
the Holocaust. The Holocaust is unique. It happened to us, the Jews, because
we are unique. (Religious Jews would add: "Because God has chosen us".)
I have broken this commandment. Just before Golan was born, I published (in
Hebrew) a book called "The Swastika", in which I recounted my childhood
memories and tried to draw conclusions from them. It was on the eve of the
Eichmann trial, and I was shocked by the lack of knowledge about the Nazi
era among young Israelis then.
My book did not deal with the Holocaust, which took place when I was already
living in Palestine, but with a question which troubled me throughout the
years, and even today: how could it happen that Germany, perhaps the most
cultured nation on earth at the time, the homeland of Goethe, Beethoven and
Kant, could democratically elect a raving psychopath like Adolf Hitler as
its leader?
The last chapter of the book was entitled "It Can Happen Here!" The title
was drawn from a book by the American novelist Sinclair Lewis, called
ironically "It Can't Happen Here", in which he described a Nazi take-over of
the United
States.
In this chapter I discussed the possibility of a Jewish Nazi-like party
coming to power in Israel. My conclusion was that a Nazi party can come to
power in any country on earth, if the conditions are right. Yes, in Israel,
too.
The book was largely ignored by the Israeli public, which at the time was
overwhelmed by the storm of emotions evoked by the terrible disclosures of
the Eichmann trial.
Now comes General Golan, an esteemed professional soldier, and says the same
thing.
And not as an improvised remark, but on an official occasion, wearing his
general's uniform, reading from a prepared, well thought-out text.
The storm broke out, and has not passed yet.
ISRAELIS HAVE a self-protective habit: when confronted with inconvenient
truths, they evade its essence and deal with a secondary, unimportant
aspect. Of all the dozens and dozens of reactions in the written press, on
TV and on political platforms, almost none confronted the general's painful
contention.
No, the furious debate that broke out concerns the
questions: Is a high-ranking army officer allowed to voice an opinion about
matters that concern the civilian establishment? And do so in army uniform?
On an official occasion?
Should an army officer keep quiet about his political convictions? Or voice
them only in closed sessions - "in relevant forums", as a furious Binyamin
Netanyahu phrased it?
General Golan enjoys a very high degree of respect in the army. As Deputy
Chief of Staff he was until now almost certainly a candidate for Chief of
Staff, when the incumbent leaves the office after the customary four years.
The fulfillment of this dream shared by every General Staff officer is now
very remote. In practice, Golan has sacrificed his further advancement in
order to utter his warning and giving it the widest possible resonance.
One can only respect such courage. I have never met General Golan, I
believe, and I don't know his political views. But I admire his act.
(Somehow I recall an article published by the British magazine Punch before
World War I, when a group of junior army officers issued a statement
opposing the government's policy in Ireland. The magazine said that while
disapproving the opinion expressed by the mutinous officers, it took pride
in the fact that such youthful officers were ready to sacrifice their
careers for their
convictions.)
THE NAZI march to power started in 1929, when a terrible world-wide economic
crisis hit Germany. A tiny, ridiculous far-right party suddenly became a
political force to be reckoned with. From there it took them four years to
become the largest party in the country and to take over power (though it
still needed a coalition).
I was there when it happened, a boy in a family in which politics became the
main topic at the dinner table. I saw how the republic broke down,
gradually, slowly, step by step. I saw our family friends hoisting the
swastika flag.
I saw my high-school teacher raising his arm when entering the class and
saying "Heil Hitler" for the first time (and then reassuring me in private
that nothing had changed.)
I was the only Jew in the entire gymnasium (high school.) When the hundreds
of boys - all taller than I - raised their arms to sing the Nazi anthem, and
I did not, they threatened to break my bones if it happened again. A few
days later we left Germany for good.
General Golan was accused of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. Nothing of
the sort. A careful reading of his text shows that he compared developments
in Israel to the events that led to the disintegration of the Weimar
Republic. And that is a valid comparison.
Things happening in Israel, especially since the last election, bear a
frightening similarity to those events.
True, the process is quite different. German fascism arose from the
humiliation of surrender in World War I, the occupation of the Ruhr by
France and Belgium from 1923-25, the terrible economic crisis of 1929, the
misery of millions of unemployed. Israel is victorious in its frequent
military actions, we live comfortable lives. The dangers threatening us are
of a quite different nature.
They stem from our victories, not from our defeats.
Indeed, the differences between Israel today and Germany then are far
greater than the similarities. But those similarities do exist, and the
general was right to point them out.
The discrimination against the Palestinians in practically all spheres of
life can be compared to the treatment of the Jews in the first phase of Nazi
Germany. (The oppression of the Palestinians in the occupied territories
resembles more the treatment of the Czechs in the "protectorate" after the
Munich betrayal.)
The rain of racist bills in the Knesset, those already adopted and those in
the works, strongly resembles the laws adopted by the Reichstag in the early
days of the Nazi regime. Some rabbis call for a boycott of Arab shops. Like
then. The call "Death to the Arabs" ("Judah verrecke"?) is regularly heard
at soccer matches. A member of parliament has called for the separation
between Jewish and Arab newborns in hospital. A Chief Rabbi has declared
that Goyim
(non-Jews) were created by God to serve the Jews. Our Ministers of Education
and Culture are busy subduing the schools, theater and arts to the extreme
rightist line, something known in German as Gleichschaltung. The Supreme
Court, the pride of Israel, is being relentlessly attacked by the Minister
of Justice. The Gaza Strip is a huge ghetto.
Of course, no one in their right mind would even remotely compare Netanyahu
to the Fuehrer, but there are political
parties here which do 0 emit a strong
fascist smell. The political riffraff peopling the present Netanyahu
government could easily have found their place in the first Nazi government.
One of the main slogans of our present government is to replace the "old
elite", considered too liberal, with a new one. One of the main Nazi slogans
was to replace "das System".
BY THE WAY, when the Nazis came to power, almost all high-ranking officers
of the German army were staunch anti-Nazis. They were even considering a
putsch against Hitler . Their political leader was summarily executed a year
later, when Hitler liquidated his opponents in his own party. We are told
that General Golan is now protected by a personal bodyguard, something that
has never happened to a general in the annals of Israel.
The general did not mention the occupation and the settlements, which are
under army rule. But he did mention the episode which occurred shortly
before he gave this speech, and which is still shaking Israel now: in
occupied Hebron, under army rule, a soldier saw a seriously wounded
Palestinian lying helplessly on the ground, approached him and killed him
with a shot to the head. The victim had tried to attack some soldiers with a
knife, but did not constitute a threat to anyone any more. This was a clear
contravention of army standing orders, and the soldier has been hauled
before a court martial.
A cry went up around the country: the soldier is a hero! He should be
decorated! Netanyahu called his father to assure him of his support. Avigdor
Lieberman entered the crowded courtroom in order to express his solidarity
with the soldier. A few days later Netanyahu appointed Lieberman as Minister
of Defense, the second most important office in Israel.
Before that, General Golan received robust support both from the Minister of
Defense, Moshe Ya'alon, and the Chief of Staff, Gadi Eisenkot. Probably this
was the immediate reason for the kicking out of Ya'alon and the appointment
of Lieberman in his place. It resembled a putsch.
It seems that Golan is not only a courageous officer, but a prophet, too.
The inclusion of Lieberman's party in the government coalition confirms
Golan's blackest fears. This is another fatal blow to the Israeli democracy.
Am I condemned to witness the same process for the second time in my life?
