The orange star worn by many Gush Katif residents in protest of their planned expulsion by the government continues to make major waves.
Channel Ten's political talk-show host Mordechai Kirshenbaum, ex-director of the Israel Broadcasting Authority, was unable to conceal his rage at Gush Katif spokesman Eran Sternberg last night when the two were "discussing" the issue on the air. Kirshenbaum yelled at Sternberg and barely allowed him to complete a sentence. Sternberg's office announced afterwards that its representatives would no longer appear on Kirshenbaum's program.
At the Knesset today, a group of Holocaust survivors who live in Gush Katif met with Knesset Members – while wearing the self-made orange stars. "The direct association that is aroused in connection with the plans to uproot us are the experiences we went through in the Holocaust," one of them said in a broken voice. Some reporters on hand attacked them for their views.
The visitors said that they are in no way likening the Israeli government or its soldiers to Nazis, yet emphasized that the planned expulsion brings up Holocaust associations.
Ida Ackerman, a survivor whose children and grandchildren also live in N'vei Dekalim, said that the orange star itself is an unimportant symbol: "When I see and hear what they're planning to do to them, my Holocaust experiences come to mind. It's not the same thing, but what people feel in their heart is the same. They took us from our home and put us in camps. Now too, they're cruelly taking us from our home, with our children and grandchildren."
Another woman took a different approach: "This orange star is meant to shock people. People are in despair, and no one is reacting to what they want to do to us. We want to shock them."
A reporter asked, "But this is a Jewish government, not a German one; how can you compare?" The women answered, "That makes it even worse!" – and several of them burst into tears.
The stormy meeting took place in the National Religious Party faction office. NRP head MK Effie Eitam, a strong opponent of the expulsion plan, expressed great sympathy with the visitors - but asked them to remove the orange star. "Here is an 82-year-old Jew who was deported from Germany and later from Hungary," Eitam said, "and now he is about to be expelled once again... No one can know how an elderly person makes associations when he sees, once again, his home and property and dreams being destroyed... My parents were hanged in a butcher shop in a village in the Diaspora, and that's how they ended their lives. Your unrest is real and terrible, and I understand you – but I ask you to remove the star. You have made your statement, continue the struggle, but remove the star."
Dr. Abraham P. of Jerusalem, a Holocaust survivor who lived in the Lodz Ghetto, said he is not offended by the use of the orange star to protest the expulsion plan. "Sharon talks about it as if it is just a mere 'disengagement,'" he told IsraelNationalRadio yesterday, "but the Arabs view it as the transfer of Jews."
Minister of Diaspora Affairs Natan Sharansky objects to the use of the Holocaust imagery because of the damage it does to the struggle against anti-Semitism: "Our ongoing struggle against anti-Semitic elements in Europe and Arab nations, who frequently compare Nazis and the State of Israel, has received a great blow from within," Sharansky said in a statement released yesterday. "I understand the fear and pain of the Gush Katif residents, but the ends do not justify the means." Sharansky opposes the disengagement plan.
Beit El Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, head of Yeshivat Ateret Cohanim in Jerusalem's Old City, says the issue is not the Holocaust, but rather the uprooting of Jewish communities.
"It is self-evident," Rabbi Aviner wrote yesterday, "that nothing in history, neither before the Holocaust or afterwards, can be compared to that terrible event. However, it is peculiar that serious-minded people evade dealing with the problematic issue of uprooting Jewish communities, hiding behind the question of whether the Holocaust should be compared to it or not. This is a cheap demagogic trick, known as 'negating the middle ground' – i.e., defining a problem by its extremes while avoiding the problematic middle area. After all, there could be something very grave, something that is a national and human tragedy, even if it is not as grave as the Holocaust."
Rabbi Aviner added another point: "Just as individuals who mercifully survived the Holocaust were left with terrible emotional scars, so too the nation can be left with scars of this nature – and in fact our nation was left with these. The main scar is the lack of boldness and strength to declare before the entire world that we have full national rights to our entire Land. The Holocaust meant to negate our national existence, and other nations joined in, to varying extents. The British, for instance, did not allow us to actualize our right and obligation to establish a State, and the Arabs, to one extent or another, want to negate or reduce the validity of our existence in our Land. These are ongoing side-effects of the Holocaust. This is the time, then, to stand nationally erect, to grasp firmly onto our Land, and to protect our communities."
Channel Ten's political talk-show host Mordechai Kirshenbaum, ex-director of the Israel Broadcasting Authority, was unable to conceal his rage at Gush Katif spokesman Eran Sternberg last night when the two were "discussing" the issue on the air. Kirshenbaum yelled at Sternberg and barely allowed him to complete a sentence. Sternberg's office announced afterwards that its representatives would no longer appear on Kirshenbaum's program.
At the Knesset today, a group of Holocaust survivors who live in Gush Katif met with Knesset Members – while wearing the self-made orange stars. "The direct association that is aroused in connection with the plans to uproot us are the experiences we went through in the Holocaust," one of them said in a broken voice. Some reporters on hand attacked them for their views.
The visitors said that they are in no way likening the Israeli government or its soldiers to Nazis, yet emphasized that the planned expulsion brings up Holocaust associations.
Ida Ackerman, a survivor whose children and grandchildren also live in N'vei Dekalim, said that the orange star itself is an unimportant symbol: "When I see and hear what they're planning to do to them, my Holocaust experiences come to mind. It's not the same thing, but what people feel in their heart is the same. They took us from our home and put us in camps. Now too, they're cruelly taking us from our home, with our children and grandchildren."
Another woman took a different approach: "This orange star is meant to shock people. People are in despair, and no one is reacting to what they want to do to us. We want to shock them."
A reporter asked, "But this is a Jewish government, not a German one; how can you compare?" The women answered, "That makes it even worse!" – and several of them burst into tears.
The stormy meeting took place in the National Religious Party faction office. NRP head MK Effie Eitam, a strong opponent of the expulsion plan, expressed great sympathy with the visitors - but asked them to remove the orange star. "Here is an 82-year-old Jew who was deported from Germany and later from Hungary," Eitam said, "and now he is about to be expelled once again... No one can know how an elderly person makes associations when he sees, once again, his home and property and dreams being destroyed... My parents were hanged in a butcher shop in a village in the Diaspora, and that's how they ended their lives. Your unrest is real and terrible, and I understand you – but I ask you to remove the star. You have made your statement, continue the struggle, but remove the star."
Dr. Abraham P. of Jerusalem, a Holocaust survivor who lived in the Lodz Ghetto, said he is not offended by the use of the orange star to protest the expulsion plan. "Sharon talks about it as if it is just a mere 'disengagement,'" he told IsraelNationalRadio yesterday, "but the Arabs view it as the transfer of Jews."
Minister of Diaspora Affairs Natan Sharansky objects to the use of the Holocaust imagery because of the damage it does to the struggle against anti-Semitism: "Our ongoing struggle against anti-Semitic elements in Europe and Arab nations, who frequently compare Nazis and the State of Israel, has received a great blow from within," Sharansky said in a statement released yesterday. "I understand the fear and pain of the Gush Katif residents, but the ends do not justify the means." Sharansky opposes the disengagement plan.
Beit El Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, head of Yeshivat Ateret Cohanim in Jerusalem's Old City, says the issue is not the Holocaust, but rather the uprooting of Jewish communities.
"It is self-evident," Rabbi Aviner wrote yesterday, "that nothing in history, neither before the Holocaust or afterwards, can be compared to that terrible event. However, it is peculiar that serious-minded people evade dealing with the problematic issue of uprooting Jewish communities, hiding behind the question of whether the Holocaust should be compared to it or not. This is a cheap demagogic trick, known as 'negating the middle ground' – i.e., defining a problem by its extremes while avoiding the problematic middle area. After all, there could be something very grave, something that is a national and human tragedy, even if it is not as grave as the Holocaust."
Rabbi Aviner added another point: "Just as individuals who mercifully survived the Holocaust were left with terrible emotional scars, so too the nation can be left with scars of this nature – and in fact our nation was left with these. The main scar is the lack of boldness and strength to declare before the entire world that we have full national rights to our entire Land. The Holocaust meant to negate our national existence, and other nations joined in, to varying extents. The British, for instance, did not allow us to actualize our right and obligation to establish a State, and the Arabs, to one extent or another, want to negate or reduce the validity of our existence in our Land. These are ongoing side-effects of the Holocaust. This is the time, then, to stand nationally erect, to grasp firmly onto our Land, and to protect our communities."