The roots of Israeli exceptionalism

[ellenr]

An editorial from Al Jazeera:

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010 ... 13751.html

"Professor Judt writes that: "What Israel lost by its continuing occupation of Arab lands it gained through its close identification with the recovered memory of Europe's dead Jews." But he knows well that the memory of the dead is the worse moral justification for murdering innocents: "In the eyes of a watching world, the fact that the great-grandmother of an Israeli soldier died in Treblinka is no excuse for his own abusive treatment of a Palestinian woman waiting to cross a checkpoint. 'Remember Auschwitz' is not an acceptable response."

But that is exactly the kind of moral justification we have from the Israelis today."

[Amos]

But that is exactly the kind of moral justification we have from the Israelis today.

No it isn't. Since when does any Israeli soldier or politician justify brutality at a checkpoint by bringing up the holocaust?
The holocaust is brought up to make several valid points, but not that one. These points include:
1. The holocaust proved the need for an independent Jewish state where persecuted Jews can find a haven.
2. The holocaust proved that Jews can't rely on anyone to save them when they are threatened with extermination.
3. The holocaust gave the Jews the right to take charge of their own destiny.
...and other points which I'm sure you're familiar with.

You can argue for or against the need for checkpoints. You can criticize the behavior of some Israeli soldiers at checkpoints. But to say that "the memory of the dead is the worse moral justification for murdering innocents" is a meaningless argument because no one says it is. And lumping the abuse of a palestinian woman waiting to cross a checkpoint (as wrong as that may be) with "murdering innocents" is outrageous.