US Guilt

Max Sawicky sawicky at bellatlantic.net
Thu Apr 25 09:06:54 PDT 2002


It sounds like we are arguing about two different things, or I misunderstood your point originally. Nothing you say below conflicts with my confidence that the Holocaust loomed hugely in Israeli-jewish consciousness in the 1950's and 60's.

I was reacting to this: "It's by now pretty well established that the holocaust narrative was hardly of much concern in the 1950s and 1960s, when people were indeed much closer to the events and there were any number of living witnesses, from survivors to soldiers who entered the death camps at the end of the war. Indeed, the narrative itself was not much present even within Israel itself. "

Maybe we define the narrative differently. I would define it as a memory of horror, suffering, vulnerability, and defeat. None of the bravado you allude to contradicts this, as far as I can tell. Bravado can clearly be a compensating mechanism for a feeling of vulnerability.

What you say jives well with the aforementioned Benny Morris on the pre-Holocaust settlers, who were also at pains to construct a new macho identity after the humiliations of the Pale, and in light of a desire to master the indigenous population.

In any event, I appreciate this exchange. And just who the hell are you?

mbs


> Max B. Sawicky wrote:
> >That last bit about Israel is ridiculous.
>
> Is it?
>
> Maybe Karsh, Shapira, etc are right and Tom Segev is a liar, but that
> bit about the Nazi holocaust and 1950s Israel comes from Segev's
> Seventh Million. But even before Segev, I recall having read about it
> elsewhere, in other writings -- Arendt?
>
> It also appears to have support from Daim Hasberg, an Israeli
> psychiatrist. The concluding paragraphs of a lecture he gave in 1999,
> available at http://www.holocaustechoes.com/dasberg.html, read in
> part:
>
> "With the Exodus, "Massada," and the Warsaw insurrection as
> background myths, the early Israeli society, defending itself with
> its back against the wall, had no place for nonheroes. It turned its



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