Putting out the fire
How we all came to see Israel, as Israel would wish to be seen
This week I’ve been conducting a little research. People I know en passant - in the butcher’s shop, at the swimming pool, in the pub have each been asked the same question, prefaced by the same remarks “I mean nothing by this and there’s no “right” answer”. Each reply has been met by my response “that’s the perfect answer, thank you”. If only I believed my own words in that moment, then I truly believe that the world would be a better, kinder, more humane place.
The question? If I ask you to define the word “holocaust”, what would your answer be?
I am now fully aware of the multiple definitions of the word … thanks this morning to a quick review of the Oxford English Dictionary entry for the word. I will go through them in the order in which they are dealt by the world’s foremost catalogue of word meanings:
1a. A sacrifice, an offering. (Obsolete) …
… followed by examples, which I will not repeat since they have no relevance for a modern audience. This was not a definition of which I was aware.
1b. spec. Something which is burned whole as a sacrifice or offering to a god; a religious sacrifice involving consumption by fire. historical in later use. …
… followed by examples, the last of which was cited in 2002 and so some might’ve known (although I admit I did not):
“At a Thysia, only the non-edible parts of the victim were burnt and the rest of the meat was available for consumption by the worshippers. The complete opposite to such a sacrifice was a holocaust, meaning that the whole victim was destroyed in the fire.”
G. Ekroth, Sacrificial Rituals of Greek Hero-cults iii. 217
A destructive burning of something; a large destructive fire, a conflagration. Also: †something consumed or destroyed by fire (Obsolete). …
… followed by examples, the last of which was cited in 2016:
“No attempt was made to try to quell the blazing holocaust, the flames had too strong a grip on the building.”
N. Allsup, Thresher: Winter Grip 91
This is the first definition with which I can associate the word … it is the combination of fire and complete destruction, with which I associate something being a “holocaust”.
The complete destruction of something (esp. a large number of people); a mass slaughter, a massacre. Cf. nuclear holocaust.
(In later use often influenced by sense 4.)
… followed by examples, the last of which was cited in 2019:
Our world is precariously balanced on a stockpile of nuclear arsenals that can trigger a holocaust of unimaginable magnitude.
Pioneer (India) (Nexis) 2 September
historical. Usually with capital initial and with the. The systematic mass killing of Jews under the German Nazi regime in Nazi-controlled areas of Europe between 1941 and 1945. Later also in extended use with reference to other victims of Nazi genocide, such as Romani people, gay people, or people with disabilities …
… then, in addition:
More than six million Jews, around two thirds of Europe's Jewish population, were killed in the Holocaust through forced labour in concentration camps and at extermination camps such as those at Auschwitz and Treblinka.
The term The Holocaust began to be applied specifically in this sense by Jewish historians in the 1950s, though some earlier contemporary references to the Nazi atrocities used holocaust in sense 3 (see e.g. quots. 1942, 1944). Originally chiefly in Jewish use, the term became more widely used from the late 1970s onwards. Some Jews prefer the Hebrew term Shoah n.
… followed by examples.
© Oxford University Press 2024
The final substantive paragraph of the OED definition above in many senses hints at the subject of this article.
Perhaps unsurprisingly to many, I received a very limited response to my question. Some identified “genocide” as a discrete element of their definition of “holocaust”. This apart, everyone I asked, defined “holocaust” as having a meaning limited to that which was coined most recently as “The Holocaust” but not in the “later”, “extended” use with reference to other victims of Nazi genocide, but solely to the extermination of more than 6,000,000 Jews. Several actually mentioned “everything the Germans did to the poor Jews”. This ignores the fact that the total number of victims of the Nazi’s between 1939 and 1945 was in the order of 35,000,000 and included anyone associated with any form of resistance and gentile Germans themselves to the extent that they failed to live up to a Nazi, Arian ideal or lived with any form of disability.
I cut a frustrated figure in the face of such studied acceptance of a single, received wisdom as to the meaning of “holocaust”. I then thought about how my own feelings have developed and have grown.
I recall recent experiences of listening to and watching Gabor Maté and his sons, Simone Zimmerman and others describing how thoroughly conditioned and programmed they had been as children to accept the State of Israel as the sole, necessary, invaluable, inextinguishable and yet constantly threatened home to all Jews. They then describe how necessary and invaluable was also the path towards realisation that such conditioning was not in their interests, not a religious or philosophical need and in no way contributes to their safety. Finally they describe how coming to the realisation that the goal of all that “hasbara” or “explanation” that they’d been force-fed during “Judaism” classes and Jewish summer camps as children had been political instruction in a racist ideology, no better than that of the Nazis’ efforts to indoctrinate German youth (“Hitler Youth”) to believe in the importance of their ethnic purity. The unintended outcome of this inculcation of a belief in the importance of cleansing the land described by Ze’ev Jabotinsky and his followers, as “Eretz” or “Greater” Israel, of arab peoples, is that it has created something truly antisemitic. In its effect it makes political Zionists of all Jews who have studied, and come to believe in “the necessity of Israel” and stains even those who are unwilling to go along with the ideology of Zionism with racism towards those arab peoples.
Zionists in Israel have become consummate deal brokers since they offered Hitler the chance to expel Jews, but only if the forced migration they proposed, had been to Palestine. Instead, the Third Reich presented Zionism with its most effective argument for the indispensability of a safe home for all Jews in Palestine in the form of what, since the late 1970’s, has become known as THE Holocaust.
Jewish children from not particularly orthodox households as mentioned are treated to a diet of Zionist thinking and settler-colonialism positivism from their early years. Christian evangelists drum into their congregations the importance of Eretz Israel as “the Promised Land” to Christians everywhere and ultimately to their chances of ascending to heaven. To prevent the rest of us from falling out of step with this raft of vested interests … the US government, other Western governments dependent on Israel for weapons development, intelligence and means of population control and on the USA for geo-political power, Christian and Jewish Zionists, Zionists throughout the West have weaponised the Nazi’s genocide of 6,000,000 jews.
Hollywood and the Western cultural establishment as a whole has, since the 1960’s, sought to reinforce Israel’s right not only to exist but to expand in accordance with the Eretz ambitions of early Zionism. The movie “Exodus” in 1960 began the process of making ersatz-Zionists of us all, just as its stars, Paul Newman and Lee J Cobb had been miscast as an Israeli freedom fighters.
We have been subjected to an unceasing diet of pro-Israel, pro-Zionist cultural depictions of Jews, 20th and 21st Century history. It has been noticeable the extent to which the incidence of positive affirmation of Israel, Israeli and Jewish culture and the reminders of what the Nazi’s did to 6,000,000 Jews increase whenever Israel embarks on a campaign of expansion or when the severity of its oppression of Palestinian residents of the occupied territories of the West Bank, Golan Heights or East Jerusalem increases.
Even in movies and television programmes which have nothing plot-wise to do with Israel or The Holocaust, during the 21st Century particularly, I cannot remember seeing a negative depiction of a Jew, Jews in general, or Israel and Israelis. I can’t think of another ethnic group which has received such a universally benign portrayal during a similar period showing them as heroic, powerful, sympathetic or pathetic (as in deserving of sympathy).
The UK is home to approximately 271,000 Jews. Many orthodox Jewish families don’t believe that Israel should exist. The Jewish population of the UK is inexorably divided over Israel and its right to conduct itself as it does and has done for over seventy-six years. Thousands therefore do not espouse Zionism. In the past two or three years in particular these individuals have been accused of being antisemites and “self-hating Jews”. Such a ridiculous assertion is as loathsome as genocide-denial, in the form of denying that the slaughter of Jews by the Nazi’s never took place. No person with an ounce of humanity would suggest that the extermination camps were a fiction.
But equally then, when Zionists (whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim) or corporations, the religious or cultural establishment, or governments whose interests align with those of Israel do wrong; and particularly when their actions are an affront to humanity (no less than examples of the actions of the British Empire, the French in Algeria or the Dutch East India Company or the present day acts of the factions in Sudan or the military government in Myanmar) then we should not expect to be assailed with contrary depictions of the perpetrators of those crimes, or an obfuscation in the form of sympathetic distractions (although in the UK, the Empire is still viewed, wrongly in my opinion, and (less often) portrayed as a golden age).
Soon after 7 October 2023, Sky TV released “The Tatooist of Auschwitz”. The extent of on screen promotions aired ahead of the release made very clear the fact that this was “the one to watch this Autumn”. A starry cast with Drew Barrymore and Harvey Keitel promised a quality product … but the timing of its release was nevertheless, convenient to the cause of Zionism and reminded us of the reasons why Jews fled to the Middle East in such numbers after the war. There is never any consideration given to the way in which the UK government declined to take survivors of the genocide after the War, and the use of Israel as a convenient alternative to settling more Jews in the UK or the USA.
I have recently watched the BBC (which some are now referring to as “BiBiC”) series, “A House Through Time” which I can only imagine was commissioned after 7 October 2023 and which, unlike any of the previous seasons, featured not a single house throughout the existence of that house (which makes for a fascinating series as you see tenancy evolve and successive owner’s lives studied) but two blocks of flats, on in London, the other in Berlin, beginning after the First World War and ending after the Second World War. Amongst the eleven families whose lives were featured, three were Jewish. The BBC clearly followed the western media’s agenda to keep “The Holocaust” front and centre of society’s conscience. Those Jewish subjects of the series who weren’t killed in extermination camps were identified as heroic figures evading extermination or pillars of English society.
Channel Four meanwhile aired “Undercover: Exposing the Far Right”. An undercover reporter, Harry Shukman infiltrated Britain First on behalf of the anti-Nazi-league descendant “Hope Not Hate” group. It was a view which focussed on far right activists’ publications and eugenic research into racial differences and suggestions that there is a hierarchy in terms of intellect which is determined by race. Shukman identified himself is Jewish and whilst in Germany visited holocaust memorials, which seemed an incongruous five-minute segment shoehorned into a programme about neo-fascism. The glaring exclusion in my view however and something which looked like it had purposely been excluded from the video and from the subject matter of the investigation was any reference to the the close links forged since 2006 between Zionist groups and lobbyists and the far-right.
Earlier this year I became interested to understand how the far-right had turned from the ultimate anti-semites to committed supporters of Israel. I found my answers in an unlikely source. In 2012 Nick Griffin (former leader of the British National Party and ultra-right MEP) wrote an article “What Lies Behind the English Defence League? Neo-Cons, Ultra-Zionists and Their Useful Idiots” which details how the Neo-Conservative Zionist right wing in the USA, through their ultra right Zionst admirers and a cipher, Alan Ayling (a.k.a. “Alan Lake”) had first engaged with and then courted a group of football hooligans who ostensibly supported Luton Town and their leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (a.k.a. Tommy Robinson). The trans-Atlantic association of the groups produced the English Defence League, which Griffin suggests was modelled on the earlier Jewish Defence League. Griffin writes that the former leadership and backers of the JDL were instrumental in the establishment and backing of the EDL under Robinson and that US Zionists made use of the football mob, which rapidly expanded as a vehicle for advertising Zionism and Islamophobic messaging, paying for the EDL to carry the Israeli flag at right wing rallies. Most had no idea that the Israeli Flag Flying Fund was a paid advertising deal … they were told that “Jewish businessmen” would fund all their ultra-right activities if they continued to carry the flags and show support for Israel.
Many years have passed, and it would seem that the admiration of the far-right has developed a more ideological admiration of Israel’s crushing occupation of Muslim peoples to complement the financial incentives offered by Zionist Americans. When an incoming UK prime minister announces that his government will stop pursuing the spurious argument, promulgated by the Tories, that the ICC has no jurisdiction in Palestine, this means those Zionist Americans can use an event such as the Southport stabbings to pull the trigger and release its far-right “dogs of war” to show the UK just how much chaos can be created here if you have the dollars to afford it. You will note that thereafter the UK Foreign Minister David Lammy apologised to Israel for revoking 8% of the arms export licences to Israel, whilst continuing the supply of 15% of every F35 required by Israel’s Occupation Forces, maintaining two recognisance flights out of RAF Akrotiri daily (feeding targeting information to the IDF) and the quartering of whatever US Airbase facilities are established there. England also hosts three Israeli-owned Elbit Systems factories, making the lethal quadcopter gunships and other drones which have been so much in use during the genocide in Gaza.
So Channel Four produces an exposé of the far right without finding the funding and control links, without permitting Israeli flags to be seen in any videos of demonstrations, but which (misleadingly) includes a non-sequitur to remind its western audience that the far right remain enemies of Jews, since the 1940’s as opposed to being the tool by which Zionism achieves its Islamophobic aims in Europe and manipulates government policy and ignorant populations.
Zionist manipulation of the message is widespread and was ever subtle. Over twenty-years ago, the BBC began the excellent documentary series “Who Do You Think You Are?” During 21 seasons ten percent of the episodes have featured those with Jewish ancestry or with ancestry whose lives were ended by the Nazi Party in Germany and elsewhere as part of its programme of eugenics. Many of these stories have been deeply moving but equally moving are many of the episodes which cover the crimes perpetrated by the British but (unlike the tales of Jewry’s suffering under the Nazi’s) these rarely condemn the British Empire’s settler colonial project for everything which occured and those events which touch the viewer the most.
Hollywood of course has a long history of pro-Israel, anti-Muslim, anti-Nazi output. Netflix currently presents long running series “Fauda”, together with “The Angel”, “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem” and “Camp Confidential” portraying Israel as a powerful, influential and beautiful country amongst eleven current film and TV productions. Major theatrical movie releases since 1967 featuring Mossad operations internationally include “Operation Finale”, “The Debt”, “Munich”, “Raid on Entebbe”, “The Red Sea Diving Resort”, “The Patriots” and “The Little Drummer Girl”. The latter was recreated as a major AMC drama series in 2018.
Holocaust remembrance series down the years have included “Uprising”, “War and Remembrance” and “Holocaust” (see later) together with the more recent “The Boat” and more recently on the BBC “My Family, the Holocaust and Me”.
In the past year in the cinema “One Life”, “Lee” and “Zone of Interest” have swelled the coffers of Zionist production companies and the serried ranks of cinematic reminders that nothing was ever as bad as The Holocaust and that therefore the settler colonialists are entitled to the “land without a people” (… which never was a land without a people) including “Shoah” “Marathon Man”, “The Reader”, “The Woman in Gold”, “The Debt” “Exodus” and modern classic “Schindler’s List” which the BBC aired once more on 26 September 2024, conveniently ahead of the first anniversary of the 7 October attacks and then made available on its iPlayer streaming platform for the rest of October.
Amongst depictions of Muslims on the other hand, I can recall only “The Mauritanian” recently portraying a Muslim character in a positive light and even in that case he was shown to be an innocent man, wrongly accused of terrorism. This apart, Muslims and arab peoples are depicted as being disingenuous, sophisticated, deceptive, dangerous and “terrorist” by nature.
True arab or Muslim voices are given scant attention or credit in the West. Netflix has gone as far last month as to remove several items of content from the platform … content which had only been recently added in celebration of the unique voice of Palestinian filmmakers; and which included the superb, award winning “A World Not Ours” about the life of a quarter of a million Palestinian refugees in the Ein el-Helweh refugee camp south of Sidon in Lebanon, recently the focus of an IDF incursion, as Israel carries its obsessive pursuit of Palestinians at home and abroad. It’s so clear that Israel believes that if it can exterminate all proximate diasporic Palestinian refugees its goal to prevent any possibility of “Return” by Palestinians will be within its avaricious grasp.
The Zionist project, since the foundation of the State of Israel has maintained a steady assault on western media which has frequently been called into action in order to distract, deflect or disinform. But the volume of output, together with the manner in which sympathetic producers have subtly ensured Israel, the Holocaust and sympathetic Jewry are depicted positively, in all programming produced for the entertainment or information of a media-hungry western audience, is what has created the overwhelmingly positive reception in the West for any message the Israeli regime might wish to promote. Think only of the plucky and funny characters played by Barbra Streisand throughout an illustrious career; or the hoopla that surrounded every new Woody Allen movie production (and his relentlessly positive presentation of Jews as either fascinating, quick witted, or both) until the darker side of his nature came to the public’s attention.
That people can no longer dredge up an alternative meaning of the word Holocaust from their memories is no coincidence. I was speaking to a friend in Canada last weekend who told me that a programme on the CBC state radio station there had addressed the same question as I do here and that the conclusion that they’d reached was that the term Holocaust had only been associated with the genocide of the Jews of Europe following the airing in 1978 of an eponymous NBC mini-series (to which I referred earlier) which was seen as the first TV or Film explanation of the events of 1941-44 to penetrate US group consciousness. It had been a revelation to millions of Americans who had previously had no knowledge or appreciation for what had occurred. I recently read an article in which it was clearly stated that the allies - Russia, the USA and the UK (under Churchill) did everything in their powers to prevent the Nazi genocide becoming common knowledge after the war … an effort which was successful until 1960 or later. Why was that, we must ask, if the clarion call across Western, so-called democracy now, is “Never Again” and the extent to which the media goes to ensure that we demonstrate an elephantine capacity never to forget is so utterly overwhelming and trained into the collective subconscious from such an early age?
No one with a conscience, who has followed the Israel / Palestine (and now Lebanon) conflict can fail to have been impressed (negatively) by the coverage it has received in mainstream media: the negative representation of Hamas and Hezbollah and the contrary positive treatment of Israel and the IDF; the complete dedication to perpetuating tales of unconscionable atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October 2023, baked babies, beheaded babies, “systematic” rape of Israeli women, the 1200 killed on the day by Hamas … despite there having been no evidence (beyond “eyewitness” accounts … often by one or two unsupported “eyewitnesses”) and well-established arguments to the contrary, supported by the official Israeli records of what actually took place. The unwillingness of Western media to shift the narrative from characterising Hamas as a terrorist group, or that before 7 October there had been “peace”; that Israel took retaliatory actions in defence of its people; that THE (Israeli) hostages must be released, together with the humanisation of Israeli victims … both the dead and the captured. The near denial of the number of Palestinians captured and held without charge by the Israelis. The presentation of IDF combatants’ deaths as those of innocent young Israeli men and women; and when an Israeli atrocity is reported it is ALWAYS qualified by a statement of what “Israel” would want to be believed (i.e. “Israel says it was targeting Hamas / Hezbollah leaders using civilians as human shields …” in an area of land no larger than an airport with 2 million inhabitants). This degree of disinformation is the reason why audiences for Western news media are increasingly “switching off” cognitively or physically, those like myself turning instead to “alternative” news sources on YouTube (which itself is becoming a hostile environment for left-wing, pro-Palestine messaging).
A week or so back, I heard that Al Pacino’s favourite song is “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” from Rogers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. In this video, https://rodgersandhammerstein.com/song/south-pacific/youve-got-to-be-carefully-taught/ Oscar Hammerstein III succinctly describes the reason why no-one can put their finger on any alternative definition of the word Holocaust anymore and, how the abuse of the word (not in terms of its reference to the genocide of the Jews, because it is right that we should endeavour to ensure that such a thing never happens to Jews, as a faith group, or to any group, ever again) by those who would instil a prejudicial fear of and hatred of “the other” is a crime against all humanity. Listen to the words; then consider the motives of those who write, film, stage, produce and publish carefully manicured storylines and who market the Holocaust and Israel to the world.