                                                           B"sd

                      A Voice from Hebron
                     by Gary M. Cooperberg
          Have we Learned Anything from the Holocaust?
                         April 13, 1999
                                
     It is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Day, in Israel.  The national television and radio reflect the
somber mood of the day.  Survivors are interviewed and the entire country is reflective of the
most horrible era of Jewish history which saw a full third of the Jewish people annihilated in the
most recent and brutal attempt by mankind to destroy the Chosen People of G-d.  
     Pondering the holocaust is a necessity.  It was an event which cannot be fathomed, even
today.  It will forever baffle the human mind to try to comprehend how such stupendous cruelty
could have actually been the national policy of one of the world's major powers in modern times.
Perhaps by constantly trying to understand and examine those horrible events we may succeed in
preventing it from recurring.  What we seem to miss, however, is the clear historical fact that the
holocaust, more than any other event since our redemption from Egypt, singled out the Jewish
People as the Chosen of G-d.  Since our creation the nations of the world, either in jealousy of
our status, or in defiance of our G-d, attempted to prove that G-d is not real, or that He cannot
fulfill his prophesies, by degrading and even attempting to destroy the Jewish People.
     The battle against the Jewish People is truly a battle against the G-d of Creation. 
Christians, and later Moslems, felt the need to prove that their theology overruled that of the
Jews.  What better way to prove that the Jewish People is not the Chosen of G-d than to humiliate
or, better yet, destroy them?  The Crusaders mounted a holy effort to remove the Jewish people
from their homeland. . . for religious reasons.  And today, the Moslem world is presently engaged
in a unified program to accomplish the same goal, and also for religious reasons.  When Arafat
and Mubarak speak of their quest for peace, they envision the elimination of Israel. . . out of
religious principle.
     I will not attempt to analyze or offer an opinion on the situation today in Yugoslavia. 
What I will say is that any attempt to equate what is happening there with the Nazi attempt to
destroy the Jewish people is a futile one.  There is no comparison.  In this case, with all of the
cruelty pertaining to it, we are dealing with a war in which factions are fighting over land.  In the
case of the holocaust there simply is no precedent or similarity of a case in which one or more
nations simply wanted to destroy a people out of pure hatred.  No German Jew ever suggested
making Germany a Jewish State.  The Nazis wanted to destroy them simply because they were
Jews.  And the real reason was to "prove" that G-d does not exist, or, if He did exist, that the
Jewish People were not His Chosen.  Only by destroying the Jewish people could they prove their
claim of Aryan superiority.
     It is noble to seek to help any innocent people who are oppressed.  It is also legitimate,
having been victims in a world which turned its back on human suffering, that we feel a special
responsibility never to close our eyes to the suffering of others.  But it is wrong to equate the
brutal reality of war to the unique historical hatred of the Jewish People which saw its most
devastating expression in history by Hitler's attempt to wipe the Jewish People off the face of the
Earth.

     The enormity of human debasement displayed during the holocaust defies explanation. 
We cannot help but try to understand it, but our efforts are fruitless.  We cannot deny that this
was the most monumental effort in history to destroy the Jewish People and that no serious effort
was made on the part of "moral" nations to interfere with that effort.  In view of this fact it also
defies explanation how the Jewish People could have survived such a meticulously executed
program of extermination by one of the most powerful nations in the world.  But what is most
difficult to explain logically, is how such a humiliated, battered and decimated people, which had
been scattered all over the world for over two thousand years and now reached its lowest ebb,
seeing a full third of its population wiped out, could pick up and come home to its ancient
homeland and reestablish Jewish sovereignty there under such conditions.
     If, historically, the nations of the world could barely tolerate the concept of the existence
of even a scattered remnant of the Jewish People, how could they accept the renewal of Jewish
nationhood in the Land of Israel?   The answer is that they couldn't.   It was only with G-d's
intervention that such an event could have taken place.  The British certainly did not want the
Jews to have a state.  They encouraged the local Arab population to attack the Jews in the hope
that the Jews would thus become dependent upon British colonial rule to protect them, and,
indeed, many Jewish leaders would have preferred that arrangement rather than statehood. 
     When the League of Nations decided upon the partition plan, it was clearly designed to
pacify the Arabs.  The Jews were so overjoyed at having even a small portion of their ancient
homeland that they never considered the ominous repercussions resulting from indefensible
borders.  Thus, despite the celebrations of the "world recognition" of a sovereign Jewish State,
the likelihood of its ability to endure was extremely small.  The very fact of this precarious
situation, in and of itself, encouraged our Arab enemies to attempt, once again, to destroy the
Jewish people.  It was only by the direct Hand of G-d that the tiny reborn Jewish State not only
survived, but enlarged her borders; an event which was repeated in the miracle of 1967.
     What we must remember today, more than anything else, is the fact that the holocaust was
not merely an isolated incident.  It was the culmination of thousands of years of  hatred of the
Jewish People, which has still not come to an end.  The same factors which have always caused
the nations of the world to try to eliminate the Jewish People still exist.  The real meaning of the
concept of "Land for Peace" suggests that the Jewish People give up their sovereignty for some
nebulous promise by their enemies not to try to destroy them.  It is absurd to even ponder such a
concept.  To entertain the hope that by relinquishing parts of our homeland we will achieve peace
with those who seek our destruction is an act of self-deception.  The only lesson to be learned
from this darkest moment in Jewish history is the fact that if we will not fight for ourselves, no
one else will fight for us.  And no one wants to see us as a proud independent nation.
     So while it is certainly a good deed to offer food and medical aid to any suffering people,
it is folly to as much as consider an act of surrender as a peace process.  If we have learned
anything from the holocaust, we should have learned that when someone comes to destroy us and
throw us out of our homeland, it is not proper to enter into negotiations.  Those who demand
Jewish Land should be summarily thrust out of our homeland.  The question of when Arafat will
declare his state should not be an item for discussion.  Arafat and his thugs should be immediately
expelled from Jewish Land.  Anything less is an invitation for another attempt at a holocaust.