XPost: uk.legal, soc.culture.jewish, comp.misc   
   XPost: alt.politics.democrats   
   From: void@invalid.noy   
      
   BY STEPHEN F. EISENMAN   
      
      
   For many people, the question is inflammatory. The crimes of the   
   German Nazis were of such magnitude that comparison with any other   
   historical violence is invidious. The genocide of the Jews was   
   deliberate and methodical and intended to eliminate every last one.   
   The goal was the same with the Romani and Sinti people. By comparison,   
   the Israelis – currently accused of genocide — are rank amateurs. They   
   have so far killed some 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza out of a   
   population of 2.3 million.   
      
   But the question, “Can Jews be Nazis?” is nevertheless important for   
   challenging claims of moral inoculation by virtue of the Jewish   
   experience of the Holocaust. If Israeli leaders are indeed committing   
   a genocide in Gaza – as seems the case — they inhabit the same moral   
   universe as the German Nazis, regardless of the suffering of past   
   generations. In addition to the 35,000 killed, the war in Gaza has   
   injured another 75,000 and displaced 2 million. Most of the victims   
   are women and children – how can their deaths be justified? Israeli   
   cabinet ministers, Knesset members, military personnel, and police   
   have all freely spoken of their wish to force Palestinians into Egypt,   
   establish Jewish-only settlements in Gaza, and even use an atomic bomb   
   to kill everyone in the Gaza strip. (U.S. senator Lindsay Graham   
   recently also suggested using a nuclear weapon against Gaza.)   
      
   Last week, the Israeli government suspended food and fuel deliveries   
   to Gaza as collective punishment for a Hamas rocket attack that killed   
   four soldiers. Such retribution is banned under Article 33 of the   
   Fourth Geneva Convention, by which Israel is bound. It also violates   
   the teaching of the Hebrew prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel – “The person   
   who sins; only he shall die.” One of the Hebrew sages, Hillel the   
   Elder, reiterated the point in the Mishna, the “oral” Torah: “Each by   
   his own sin will die’.   
      
   The 1948 U.N. Convention on the Crime of Genocide, describes it as   
   “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic,   
   racial, or religious group.” By that definition, Israel has joined the   
   club of violators and is subject to international sanction. When the   
   International Criminal Court levels charges of genocide against Prime   
   Minister Netanyahu, National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, Defense   
   Minister Gallant, IDF Chief of Staff Halevi, and Finance Minister   
   Smotrich – indictments could be announced any day — the men will be   
   subject to arrest by all convention signatories, including the U.S.   
   (Genocide is also prohibited under U.S. law, but to be prosecutable,   
   the crime must be committed in the U.S. or by U.S. nationals.) The   
   punishment for genocide is 30 years imprisonment, or in exceptional   
   circumstances, life in prison. If Netanyahu manages to avoid trial for   
   corruption in Israel, and if he lives long enough (he’s 74), he could   
   be arrested and held in detention at an ICC facility outside the Hague   
   in Scheveningen. His jailers there are unlikely to let him to indulge   
   his taste for pink champagne and Cuban cigars.   
      
   Jewish Nazis in Nazi Germany   
      
   “Can jews be Nazis?” is also an historical question. To that, the   
   answer is yes. Though membership in the German Nazi party was barred   
   to Jews, thousands joined the Luftwaffe, Wehrmacht, and Kriegsmarine   
   in the 1930s. They did so for the same reasons as other Germans: To   
   serve the fatherland, forge a career, and continue a family tradition   
   of military service. After passage of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, Jews   
   were barred from enlistment, but some managed to hide their ethnic   
   origins (and lack of a foreskin), or else obtain papers from Nazi   
   Party officials attesting to their deutschblütigkeit. One colonel in   
   the Wehrmacht, Ernst Bloch, a Mischlinge (half-Jewish person) received   
   the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross for bravery, the highest award   
   given to military and paramilitary officers in Nazi Germany. His   
   Judaism remained undetected until 1944, when he came to the attention   
   of SS chief Henrich Himmler. A few weeks later, he received the   
   following letter from his superior, major general Wilhelm Burgdorf,   
   deputy chief of the Wehrmacht personnel office: “The Führer has   
   decided as of 31 January 1945 to discharge you from active duty. It is   
   an honor to thank you on behalf of the Führer for your service   
   rendered during war and peace for our people and fatherland. I wish   
   you all the best for the future. Heil Hitler.” The wonder is not that   
   Bloch was detected after so long, but that he was apparently surprised   
   at his dismissal. A few weeks later, he joined the Volkssturm   
   (people’s militia) and was killed during the Soviet invasion of   
   Berlin. There were thousand of other Jews, not all Mischlinge who   
   attained high roles in the German military. Twenty of them were   
   awarded the Iron Cross.   
      
   In all, thousands of Jews in Germany and occupied Europe – out of a   
   population of about 9.5 million — assisted the Nazi regime in some   
   way. Most did so under duress. Jewish ghetto councils, or Judenräte,   
   established by Nazi officials in Poland, Lithuania and elsewhere, were   
   tasked with distributing limited provisions of food and medicine,   
   recruiting forced laborers, confiscating Jewish property, and   
   supervising the Jewish ghetto police. By 1942 or ’43, some Judenräte   
   and ghetto police were directly assisting local Nazis by identifying   
   resistance leaders and organizing Jews for deportation to the death   
   camps. The Jewish police could be cruel, especially the “13 Group,”   
   established in Warsaw in 1940. They ran their own prison and reported   
   directly to the Gestapo. Nevertheless, given the threats and ambient   
   violence – refusal to comply with Gestapo orders usually meant death —   
   it’s difficult to cast judgement on cooperating Jews. By the end of   
   the war, the vast majority of them were dead.   
      
   Similar moral and legal complexity concerns Kapos and Sonderkommandos.   
   The former were concentration or death-camp prisoners recruited to   
   supervise and direct other prisoners. They were generally, but not   
   always, selected from criminal-inmates to reduce the likelihood that   
   they would feel solidarity with their charges. Kapos were accorded   
   privileges in exchange for their services and their brutality:   
   separate quarters, better food, and civilian clothes. If someone   
   selected to be Kapo refused service, he would generally be returned to   
   the ranks of regular prisoners, and somebody else appointed to take   
   his place. Thus, it’s easy to see why so few resisted recruitment – if   
   there was always someone available for the job, a prisoner would ask   
   himself: “Why shouldn’t it be me, why shouldn’t I survive?”?   
      
   Sonderkommandos were death-camp workers, such as at   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)