Israeli Society after the Holocaust - Essay Example

Yvonne Marie Leyson Academia-Research Israeli Society c.1960 30 May 2006 Throughout history, the sweet and obsessive desire for revenge has been culturally accepted despite the fact that revenge keeps the old wounds from healing according to Francis Bacon. Human revenge however is more concerned with dominance and an animalistic sense to punish and ingrained in the culprit the wrong that he has done. Acts committed that degrades an individual is ultimately cruel but acts that allows the other to do the same as punishment for the wrong that he has done is inhumane and has no social bearings in a civilized society who is concerned with imparting the righteous morals to the younger generation. Revenge as an act, occupies one’s time, effort and emotions in finding ways and means to get even and may impede development. Yet, revenge has given man a momentary justice for an injustice committed without knowing that such short-lived contentment cannot actually assuage the initial pain. In tribal societies revenge approaches warfare that supposedly do not seemingly concern developed societies whose laws evolved from the balance of justice with humanitarianism. Israeli society after the Holocaust was more concerned with the role of retribution than allowing the old wounds to heal and patch up wartime atrocities. Many Jews and other victims of the Holocaust all over the world were dedicated in finding the Nazi war criminals. In Harel’s personal account, Eichmann’s settlement in Buenos Aires with his family gave his identity away as a Jewish worker identified him after his daughter got romantically involved with Eichmann’s oldest son. The Israeli’s and equally one of the worlds’ recognized elite military started the conspicuous manhunt for Eichmann under the Argentinean name of Ricardo Klement. In a covert operation, the Mossad was able to smuggle Eichmann out of Argentina (who has no diplomatic extradition treaties with Israel) into Jerusalem to stand trial for the Holocaust. Right after his capture, the Israeli government denied any direct involvement, claiming that Eichmann was taken by Jewish volunteers. When Eichmann’s trial started in 1961, the world saw a mock trial that has prejudged the alleged acts of the captive. Eichmann’s insistence that he “was only following orders”, the same defense used by the Nuremberg Trials fell on deaf ears and Israeli society was out for Eichmann’s blood and gore. Understandably, the military rules of obedience were what every military officer would do. If one were to look into the fate of General Erwin Rommel whose better conscience allowed him to think against the Nazi government of Hitler, he wouldn’t have been allowed personally by Hitler to take the ridiculous fate of taking in cyanide or face a humiliating sham trial before the German People’s Court and the murder of his family and staff. In the forty years since Eichmann’s death, we begin to see his direct involvement and responsibility on the implementation of the Holocaust. Harel justified that Eichmann indeed knew what he was doing during the Holocaust however we question the fairness of the judgment which has not properly taken into account his duty as a German soldier which any soldier can attest to the demands of obedience being part and parcel of a soldier’s training. Eichmann, during his trial has not shown any anti-Semitic attitude but an ardent ambition to improve his career without display of guilt or hatred which totally creates an ambiguity with claims that Nazi criminals were psychopathic. Harel’s mention on the hunt for Mengele reveals their hopes of showing to the world Israel’s solidarity thereby giving a fair warning to all that Jewish Israelites are indeed a force to reckon with. We actually abhor the Holocaust; we despise the Nazis for inflicting and isolating minorities for their genocidal warfare. The affirmation of the anti-Semitism is not merely an isolated case; other non-Jewish groups were placed in interment camps. We may never begin to see the pain that every Jewish individual felt during that time and in particular to those individuals who have lost friends or relatives in the hands of the Nazi soldiers. We actually and predominantly sympathize with the Jewish cause and denounce racial discrimination and genocide but Eichmann’s assertions of apology should have made them see the true nature of the crime committed. Soldier’s are under the command of the officer with the highest rank who is at the same time answerable for his own actions to his higher superior, in “res ipsa major” and no amount of sympathy was ever afforded to Eichmann from hanging. Clearly, the Israeli’s main reason was its national pride after being downtrodden and humiliated, deported, expelled and murdered en masse by the German Gestapo. Morris’ controversial work against the Israeli society satirized the motives of the government after the Holocaust has in fact offended many Israelites. The “Nokem” groups or avengers roamed about Europe in search for possible ways and means to exact retribution to the German POW’s with the rallying calls that “vengeance has no boundaries” and “no one has the right to take justice into their own hands” as popularly known. The Israeli government as a collective group allowed and even reinforced retribution, the same attitude that stereotyped the Jews during the Holocaust. With some influence in the world, no other government is making any investigation thereby letting this form of retributive justice slip by unaccounted for. Even Germany was unwilling to say anything as the Israelis painted the Germans as the biggest living culprits in the world. In this manner, there would still be some groups in Israel willing to think that two wrongs can make a right at the expense of innocent lives. Harel’s claim that Nazi Germany’s genocidal mechanism has a logic of its own that stems from their own racist ideology simplified in their unacceptable actual actions. Under the same conclusion of ideology, “Nokem” cannot justify the belief that taking the matter into their hands would appease the deaths of their fellowmen. If we recall Israel’s economic situation right after WWII, the difficult times in 1945 allow Weizmann and others to demand compensation for the properties of the murdered European Jews in the amount of $ 8billion to consolidate the Jewish state. Such claim was however made to the Allied countries which occupied Germany right after the war and came up with $25 million allocation to the Jewish relief organizations. No contact was ever made directly towards the German state which was considered morally unacceptable. Harel’s account of Eichmann’s capture expressly admits that any physical or verbal contact with the Germans was abhorred. The Israeli government even made note that Israelis choosing to remain in Germany permanently would not be allowed to return despite private properties and businesses that required regularization. The Western acceptance into diplomatic, economic and political relations became awkward for Israel to maintain a degree of fierce ostracism. By the 1950’s the importance of using Germany’s economic resources was vital for Israel’s development. Sizeable German payments as reparations were accepted with the public declaration of contrition and acknowledgement of sorrow and suffering and condemnation of Nazi policies as explained in Morris which does not require any words of “forgiveness from the Jewish end”. Mechanisms of payment were arranged after the declaration on the German government in behalf of its people at the World Jewish Congress. The Nazi regime was destroyed by a war of its own making. The Israeli government arises as products of the regime that destroyed the Nazis yet under this same concept we begin to see the injustice afforded on the Nazi “criminals” that actually maintain the same hatred and vengeance that was committed upon them. Committing murder does not actually sanitized; it does however open the old wounds and hatred begets more hate. We then begin to ask, when will hatred end? Murder has added the ensuing debate about the Israel and Palestinian conflict on territories. Both ends strive to inflict the greatest amount of pain it could inflict on the other that takes us back into the Holocaust times and the fair amount of vengeance to avenge the deaths of ones beloved. But at the very least, murder and conflict in this sense is open to interpretation. As neighboring countries, both Israel and Palestine should work with each other rather than fight. Exacting retribution over a conflict of sovereignty leads to the loss of innocent lives forcing upon an ideology that commends barbarity. Our civilized society has no room for the inhumane treatment of individuals; it died down with the victims of Holocaust. The Jewish Israelites as righteous individuals who’s first hand experience under the cruel Nazi regime should teach its neighbors the good that came out of the experience rather than imparting the adherence to cruelty that has claimed millions of human lives. Works Cited Harel, Isser. The House on Garibaldi Street. New York: Viking, 1995. Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999. USA: Random House.2001. Read More