Tikum Olam, November 9, 2010
Israeli Diplomat Calls Holocaust
Survivor
‘Immoral,’ ‘Self-Hating’
Alfred
Grosser (left), a Holocaust survivor, is accused of "immoral" criticism
of the Israeli occupation.
There
are some practices of the Israeli government which I find merely offensive.
Then there are some that go far beyond that. Like the denunciation by an Israeli
diplomat in Germany of Holocaust survivor, Alfred Grosser, who is due to keynote
the dedication of a Kristallnacht memorial in Frankfurt. What is Grosser’s
crime? He apparently is a little to sympathetic to Palestinian suffering and
a little too critical of the Israeli Occupation for the Israeli foreign ministry’s
comfort. Which is why they issued this odious statement: Israel’s deputy
chief of mission in Germany, Emmanuel Nahshon, said that Frankfurt’s decision
to invite Mr. Grosser to speak at the memorial “casts an unfortunate and
unnecessary shadow on the event.” He also said that Mr. Grosser’s
criticism of Israel was “illegitimate and immoral,” and suggested
that his “extreme opinions are tainted by self-hatred.”
Excuse me, but where does a two-bit Israeli underling get off smearing an 85
year-old Jewish victim one of history’s deepest injustices? Where does
he get the chutzpah to do such a thing, the twerp? Since when is criticizing
Israel “immoral?” And how in God’s name can anyone with a brain
in their head accuse a survivor of “self-hatred?” The very thought
is odious. This man hates suffering and injustice because of what he himself
suffered. He doesn’t hate himself.
Before we go slinging mud at Grosser, let’s consider that he’s a retired
professor of political science and generally considered the architect of postwar
German-French reconciliation. Which should give him a small amount of credit
in judging the bona fides of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians in that
regard.
The Israeli MFA has managed to get the German Jewish communal leadership to
carry water for it as well. Keep in mind once again, that the words below are
being used to describe a Holocaust survivor:
Germany’s Central Council of Jews condemned the invitation to Mr. Grosser,
saying that he “does not tire [of] equating the situation of the Palestinian
population with the fate of millions of Jewish men, women and children during
the Shoah… and for this reason plays down the Holocaust and the unspeakable
suffering of the victims of National Socialism.”
How does a Holocaust survivor “play down the Holocaust?” This is an
event that is at the core of their existence, one they think of every day, probably
more than anything else in their life? And yet because Grosser disagrees with
the Council’s views of the Israeli Occupation he is somehow cheapening
the Holocaust? To her credit, Frankfurt’s mayor has not yet buckled to
the unseemly pressure of the Council or Israeli apparatchik. I hope she stands
her ground. Holocaust survivors owe no explanation to anyone for the moral code
they espouse. When Emmanuel Nachshon has walked for a step, let alone a mile
in the shoes of Alfred Grosser, then he can criticize. Till then, stom et ha-peh
(“shut your mouth”).
And lest anyone argue that Grosser is in the minority as a survivor in his criticism
of Israeli policy, there are a long line of such distinguished Jewish figures
including Pierre Mendes France, Nahum Goldman, Saul Friedlander, Martin Buber,
and Albert Einstein.
For any German speakers, his book From Auschwitz to Jerusalem is available at
Amazon.