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DENIAL

In one of the oddest moments of 21st century history, the German Government has strongly laid claim to total responsibility for The Shoah (the Holocaust) as a rupture in human civilisation and argued it must continue to teach and defend this historical reading of German guilt. The gut-wrenching irony which is almost beyond my ability to comprehend is that the denial of this official history was presented by the leader of the Jewish state of Israel. Germany it seems is laying claim to its modern existential identity as the post-Holocaust nation as guardian of both guilt and solemn reparation. Whereas for Netanyahu the Holocaust seems to be a more free-floating thing capable of new definitions and even origins. For him the victims remain undeniably the same but the causation can be shifted without existential damage to Israel because in this new foundation story of the Holocaust the chief villain is not a slain ghost like Hitlerism but the current foe - Palestinism. Fascinating and worrying.
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