IRAN IS NOT NAZI GERMANY, AND "SIR WINSTON PERES" IS A DISASTER
By Uri Avnery
Coastal Post
June 4 2009
CA
May 2009: First of all, I want to apologize to all the good women
who are engaged in the world’s oldest profession.
I recently described Shimon Peres as a political prostitute. One of
my female readers has protested vigorously. Prostitutes, she pointed
out, earn their money honestly. They deliver what they promise.
Our president, on the other hand, only tells the truth by
accident. He is a political impostor and a political sham. To him,
too, apply Winston Churchill’s words about a former Prime Minister:
"The Right Honorable gentleman sometimes stumbles upon the truth,
but he always hurries on as if nothing has happened." Or the words
of former minister Amnon Rubinstein about Ariel Sharon: "He blushes
when he tells the truth."
Like a traveling salesman offering a counterfeit product, Peres is now
peddling the merchandise called Binyamin Netanyahu. He presents to the
world a Netanyahu we have never known: a peacemaker, the epitome of
truthfulness, a man with no other ambition than to go down in history
as the founder of the State of Palestine. A Righteous Jew to outshine
all Righteous Gentiles.
HOWEVER, ALL these lies are nothing compared to trivializing the
Holocaust.
In some countries, that is a criminal offense, punishable by
prison. The trivializing has many guises. For example: the assertion
that the gas chambers never existed. Or: that not six million Jews
were killed, but only six hundred thousand. But the most dangerous
form of minimizing is the comparison of the Holocaust to passing
events, thus turning it into "a detail of history", as Jean-Marie
Le-Pen infamously put it.
This week, Shimon Peres committed exactly this crime.
Like a lackey walking in front of the king, strewing flowers on the
road, Peres flew to the US to prepare the ground for Netanyahu’s
coming visit. He imposed himself on a reluctant Barack Obama, who
had no choice but to receive him.
Posing as a new Winston Churchill, the man who warned the world against
the rise of Nazi Germany, he informed Obama with solemn bombast:
"As Jews we cannot but compare Iran to Nazi Germany."
About this sentence at least three things must be said: (a) it is
untrue, (b) it trivializes the Holocaust, and (c) it reflects a
catastrophic policy.
DOES IRAN really resemble Nazi Germany?
I don’t like the regime there. As a committed atheist who insists
on total separation between state and religion, I oppose any regime
based on religion – in Iran, in Israel or in any other country.
Also, I don’t like politicians like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I am allergic
to leaders who stand on balconies and declaim to the masses below. I
detest demagogues who appeal to the base instincts of hatred and fear.
Alas, Ahmadinejad is not the only leader of this type. Indeed, the
world is full of them, some are among the staunchest supporters of
the Israeli government. In Israel, too, we do not lack this sort.
But Iran is not a fascist state. According to the evidence,
there is quite a lot of freedom there, including freedom of
expression. Ahmadinejad is not the only candidate for president in
the present election campaign. There are a number of others, some
more radical, some less.
Nor is Iran an anti-Semitic state. A Jewish community, whose members
are refusing to emigrate, is living there comfortably enough. It enjoys
religious freedom and has a representative in parliament. Even if we
take such reports with a grain of salt, it is clear that the Jews in
Iran are not being persecuted like the Jews in Nazi Germany.
And, most important: Iran is not an aggressive country. It has not
attacked its neighbors for centuries. The long and bloody Iraq-Iran war
was started by Saddam Hussein. It may be remembered that at the time
Israel (contrary to the US) supported the Iranian side and supplied
it with arms. (One such transaction was accidentally disclosed in
the Irangate affair.) Before the Khomeini revolution, Iran was our
most important ally in the region.
Ahmadinejad hates Israel. But it has been denied that he has threatened
to annihilate Israel. It appears that the crucial sentence in his
famous speech was mistranslated: he did not declare his determination
to wipe Israel off the map, but expressed the opinion that Israel
will disappear from the map.
Frankly, I don’t think that there is such a great difference between
the two versions. When the leader of a big country predicts that my
state will disappear, that makes me worry. When that country appears
to do everything possible to produce a nuclear bomb that worries me
even more. I draw conclusions, but about that later.
Moreover, Ahmadinejad – unlike Hitler – is not the supreme leader
of his country. He is subject to the real leadership, composed
of clerics. All the signs indicate that this is not a group of
adventurers. On the contrary, they are very balanced, sophisticated and
prudent. Now they are cautiously feeling their way towards dialogue
with the US, trying to reach an accord without sacrificing their
regional ambitions, which are quite normal.
In brief, the speeches of one demagogic leader do not turn a country
into Nazi Germany. Iran is not a mad country. It has no real interests
in Israel/Palestine. Its interests are focused on the Persian Gulf
area, and it wants to increase its influence throughout the Arab
and Muslim world. Its relations with Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas
mostly serve this purpose, and so does the anti-Israeli incitement
of Ahmadinejad.
In brief, the comparison of Iran to Nazi Germany lacks a factual basis.
FROM THE Jewish point of view, the comparison is even more
objectionable.
The Holocaust was a unique crime. True, the 20th century has seen other
terrible acts of genocide, but they did not resemble the Shoa. In
the Ottoman Empire, a horrifying massacre of the Armenian citizens
took place, which amounted to genocide. Hitler himself mentioned
it, saying that the annihilation of the Jews would similarly be
forgotten. Stalin killed millions of Soviet citizens in the name of a
monstrous ideology, which had started as a humanist creed. So did Pot
Pol, who killed millions in order to change society for the better. In
Rwanda, members of one tribe slaughtered the members of another. And,
alas, the list goes on.
But Nazi Germany was unique in employing the instruments of a modern
industrial society in order to eliminate helpless minorities (let’s
not forget the Roma, those with disabilities and the homosexuals)
in a prolonged, planned and highly organized process, with the
participation of all the organs of the state. If the Nazi regime
had not been overthrown by war, Hitler would have continued with the
annihilation of many more millions of Poles, Ukrainians and Russians.
Nothing like that can reasonably be expected to happen in Iran. Neither
the ideology, nor the composition of the regime nor any other
indication leads in that direction. As far as its growing nuclear
capabilities are concerned – the Israeli deterrent power will prevent
any such thought from arising. (Let’s not forget that the only country
ever to use nuclear bombs in war was our friend, the USA.)
Nothing that is happening in the world today resembles the Shoa,
in which six million Jews were wiped out. The Palestinians did
not kill six million Israelis, and we did not kill six million
Palestinians. Comparing the Arabs to the Nazis is no less odious than
comparing the Israelis to the Nazis. Many terrible things have been
and are being committed in our name – but they are as far from the
deeds of the Nazis as the earth is from distant galaxies.
Any such comparison for the sake of some fleeting propaganda advantage
is trivializing the Holocaust and its perpetrators. If the Nazis were
not worse than the Ayatollahs, then the Shoa was not so terrible,
after all.
In all my contacts with Palestinian leaders, including Yasser Arafat,
I have always advised them to avoid this upsetting comparison. This
would also be good advice for our own leaders.
DOES THE comparison of Iran to Nazi Germany serve Israeli interests?
Iran is there. It was our ally in the past, and may be our ally again
in the future. Leaders come and go, but geopolitical interests are
more or less constant. Ahmadinejad may be replaced by a leader who
will see Iranian interests in a different light.
The nuclear threat to Israel will not disappear – not after a (bad)
speech by Peres nor after a (good) speech by Netanyahu. All over
the region, nuclear installations will pop up. This process cannot
be stopped. We all need nuclear energy to desalinate water and to
produce electricity without destroying the environment. As an Israeli
professor, a former employee in the nuclear center at Dimona, said
this week: we must reconsider our nuclear policy. It may well be to our
advantage to accept the demand of the American spokeswoman that Israel
(as well as India and Pakistan) join the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty and a regime of strict supervision.
President Barack Obama is now saying to Israel: Put an end to
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That is a precondition for the
elimination of the threat to Israel. When the Palestinians, and the
entire Arab world, make peace with Israel – Iran will not be able
to exploit the conflict for the furthering of its interests. We were
saying this, by the way, many years ago.
The refusal of Netanyahu-Lieberman-Barak to accept this demand
shows the insincerity of their arguments about Iran. If they really
believed that Iran posed an existential menace, they would hurry to
dismantle the settlements, demolish the outposts and make peace. That
would, after all, be a small price to pay for the elimination of an
existential danger. Their refusal proves that the entire existential
story is a bluff.
And concerning the comparison of Iran to Nazi Germany – it is as
convincing as the comparison of Shimon Peres to Sir Winston.
Want to help us spread these kinds of messages? Then
Join the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives
(a free sub to Tikkun comes along with membership). Join at
You can also tell young people we are
seeking interns for Sept 09-June 2010 to help us build our national
conference and do public education around our message and vision. Info
on how to apply at
?topic=jobs. Or you
can volunteer at your own home–if you are willing to use your
computer and/or telephone to help spread our message, let us know
([email protected]).