March 3, 2008
SMH.com.au
JERUSALEM: The Hebrew word "shoah", or holocaust, is not used casually in Israeli society. Occasionally it is employed to denote a huge disaster.
On the weekend, though, Arab politicians and international pro-Palestinian activists seized on a comment by an Israeli minister to declare the bloody incursion in the Gaza Strip a shoah.
In what could prove to be a significant miscalculation, the Deputy Defence Minister, Matan Vilnai, on Friday invoked the Holocaust in warning of an impending Israeli move into Gaza.
By allowing constant rocket barrages from Gaza on nearby Israeli cities, the Palestinians, Mr Vilnai said, were "bringing upon themselves a greater shoah because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate, whether in air strikes or on the ground".
As the three-day death toll in Gaza climbed towards 100, a Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal, accused Israel of "implementing a real holocaust against the Palestinian people for the past 60 years. What is happening today in Gaza is a new holocaust."Given the Arab reaction and the rising Palestinian death toll, Mr Vilnai's use of the word is proving controversial in Israel as well.
The non-governmental Palestinian Information Centre issued a statement calling Mr Vilnai's words, "the first indirect admission by an Israeli official that what Israel is conducting against the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is a holocaust, albeit a slow motion one".
As one Israeli blog commentator put it: "This is a disastrous case of the foot-in-mouth disease, all too common among the contemporary breed of Israeli politicians. Terrible timing, too."
.
.
.
Related Material:
Israel Threatens Gazans With "HOLOCAUST"
No comments:
Post a Comment