shrinking the Holocaust

Likud activist Itzik Zarka last night lost control and screamed at protestors (near his house I think) that he is proud that 6 million ashkenazim were burned in the Holocaust..

Shocking, unacceptable.

After some initial tepid criticism by people in the Likud, as the criticism was starting to pick up Zarka apologized for what he said. ok, whatever. Netanyahu has even given orders to kick him out of the Likud for what he said (Zarka has close ties with Netanyahu and has been seen in the past visiting with Netanyahu and even hugging together) so we'll see if that happens on the surface but in the next elections he continues to work for the Likud, or not. And if the Likud does kick him out, I do not think he will get the same level of inexplicable support from the Left that Yoav Galant and Ami Eshed got...to put it mildly...

I have no doubt that he didnt mean it. I dont know him personally, but I have no doubt. He lost control of his mind and his mouth. He might be an idiot but I do not believe he is proud 6 million Jews, Ashkenazi or not, were murdered in the Holocaust. He was able to say what he said, it came to mind and was able to come out of his mouth, only because we have demeaned the Holocaust in today's generation. When all sorts of groups protest, it is all too common to hear screams of "Nazi" directed at policemen and policewomen. In the political sphere it is all too common to hear comparisons of the other side to senior Nazi officials or Nazi policies. 

When we treat our own common debates and conflicts as equivalent to the Nazi regime it is no surprise that people have lost the concept of the enormity of the Holocaust and how much worse it was than anything we can even imagine happening today.

The Holocaust has shrunk. We use it in every day terminology in all the wrong ways. With all the Holocaust education Israel employs, with all the museums and ceremonies and days of commemorations.. with all the trips to Auschwitz and other concentration camps and Poland and bringing foreign dignitaries to Yad Vashem... with all that, we have successfully brought the Holocaust down to being a symbol of anyone we dont like.

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