Holocaust as Metaphor:
Arab and Israeli Use of the Same Symbol
Ruth Linn and Ilan Gur-Ze'ev
Haifa University, School of Education
Abstract
This paper describes the use and function of
Holocaust symbols in the ongoing circumstances of the
Middle East. The struggle between the Palestinian and
Israeli communities is presented as emerging within a
simple metaphoric framework, and the present paper
suggests that each community uses Holocaust symbols for
its own purposes.
From the Arab position, Holocaust metaphors are
primarily used to define the Jews as Nazis. Concomitant
with the Palestinian conflict against the Israeli
occupation, however, there is also a struggle against the
identity of the Jews combined with an attempt to
construct a Palestinian identity. Since the Palestinians
have inherited the Jewish ideology of justice in regard
to victimhood, they aspire to becoming the David of the
Holocaust with a stone in their hand. They also wish to
demonstrate the mutation of the "Jew" as victim. Being
in exile has created the Palestinian collective
consciousness and they see themselves as the real Jews,
victims in exile. This percept manifests itself in all
spheres of life, both concrete and symbolic.
The Holocaust is traditionally marked as a tragedy
unique to the Jewish people, an event in the history of
Jewish suffering and a narrative of death from which
moral conclusions are to be drawn. With its six million
Jewish victims, the Holocaust is an experience over which
the Jewish people, both in Israel and the Diaspora, claim
ownership (Segev, 1990). Within the same Jewish-Israeli
communities, some view the Holocaust as an unprecedented
phenomenon, whereas others regard it as an unfortunate
circumstance that might have overtaken any individual or
community (Eilam, 1989; Kelman & Hamilton, 1989; Milgram,
1974).
While claiming ownership, Jews are not the only
community to use the Holocaust as a metaphor. Perusing
the modern political world we find that many are quick to
equate evil with the Holocaust. When the Bush
administration, for example, referred to Saddam Hussein
as "worse than Hitler", or compared the invasion of
Kuwait on August 2, 1990, to the Nazi invasion of Poland
on September 1, 1939, or likened the atrocities committed
by the Iraqi forces in Kuwait to the actions of the
Gestapo, the intentions were clear. Most intriguing is
the use of Holocaust rhetoric against Israelis and Jews
by various international forums. In 1977 Menachem Begin
was accused by a Los Angeles Times journalist of speaking
"the language of Hitler" and, in 1975, a UN resolution
defined Zionism as racism.
There are various ways to approach the widespread
use of Holocaust metaphors and symbols. Edwards (1988),
for example, calls the phenomenon "stealing the
Holocaust". Among his examples are the feminist placards
stating that "Pornography is to Women what Nazism is to
Jews", anti-nuclear protesters who painted "USS
Auschwitz" on a Trident submarine, and civil rights
activists who referred to Watts as a concentration camp.
Such use of Holocaust metaphors and symbols aims
to create new implications for the meaning of the
Holocaust and have become a powerful means of structuring
and restructuring reality. They offer bridges between
reason and imagination; what Lakoff and Johnson (1980)
call "imaginative rationality." The focus on Holocaust
metaphors and symbols as imaginative rationality in times
of war and within the Jewish-Israeli context is most
revealing, given the centrality of the Holocaust in the
collective consciousness of this community. An inquiry
into the moral dilemmas of Israeli soldiers during the
Intifada suggested that such metaphors and symbols often
were used to provide moral guidelines for Israeli
soldiers in various activities of moral conflict (Linn,
1991, 1996).
No study, as yet, has addressed the Arab use of
Holocaust metaphors and symbols. This line of inquiry is
unique if we assume that military struggles are also to
be viewed as symbolic struggles. We would argue that in
the context of a war, the use of Holocaust metaphors
reflects certain dimensions of the collective perception
of the combatants and becomes part of the military
struggle against the relevant enemy. Bourdie and
Passeron (1978) put it this way: "The specific form taken
by the conflicts between the legitimacy-claiming agencies
in a given field is always the symbolic expression more
or less transfigured by the relations of force which are
set up in this field between these agencies and which are
never independent of the relations of force external to
the field" (p.19).
Following the Israeli use of the Hebrew word shoah
(Holocaust) to refer to the annihilation of the Jews by
the Nazis, the Arabs employ the Arabic word karita
(Holocaust) to convey the magnitude of their disaster and
suffering following the establishment of the Jewish
state. Though both communities view the Holocaust as a
manifestation of evil and rely on the Holocaust as a
moral guideline, they date the event and its meanings
differently. For the Arab community, the Holocaust is
not a joint German-European-Christian product but
originated in the Middle East. Its roots do not date
from the rise of the Third Reich but from renewed Jewish
efforts to resettle Israel at the beginning of this
century.
The mass post-Holocaust immigration of Jewish
refugees to the British Mandate in Palestine and the 1948
creation of the State of Israel following the UN
resolution, mark the peak of the Arab Holocaust, although
it has only been since the 1967 war that Holocaust
metaphors have assumed a central role in both nations for
similar yet opposite purposes. We suggest that the way
each community constructs the collective consciousness of
the Holocaust defines a dialectic of negation of the
Holocaust in the other community. It also marks an
interpretative struggle over the "true meaning" of the
Holocaust as well as a struggle over what symbolizes the
life-and-death aspirations of the two nations. In the
process of becoming a nation, each community has
attempted to deconstruct the other's symbolic power and
to reconstruct its own unique narrative of suffering.
Following a previous documentation of the use of
Holocaust metaphors among Israelis (Linn, 1991), this
paper will present and interpret such use among Arabs.
In so doing we hope to illustrate that the military
struggle between these two nations is also a struggle
between two narratives as well as one of the construction
and creation of these narratives. As conceptualized by
Benjamin (1974), this struggle concerns voicing and
silencing the collective memories of each community in
order to marginalize the other's symbols and metaphors of
strength, and thereby to accomplish the liquidation of
the other as a national entity. Until victory is
achieved (and symbolic victory is not valid without
military conquest) there will be endless confrontations
between the two narratives. The Arab-Israeli struggle
thus seems not to imply equal space for each community
but an attempt to seize of the other's cultural and
symbolic resources. In this way each community hopes to
empower itself to face its rival.
Arab Use of Holocaust Metaphors
For the average Israeli, the Holocaust implies that
a massive liquidation of another nation can be easily
constructed, and executed, by laymen as well as by
intellectuals (Lifton, 1983). Simply encountering a
German person over the age of 65, the average Israeli may
wonder about his possible participation in the Nazi
enterprise. A phrase such as to "CLEAN" Europe (of Jews)
did not remain empty words. It is quite easy to recall
that millions of individuals and governments were ready
to follow the Third Reich in its phased plan ("the Final
Solution"), and often preceded the demand by showing
independent local initiative in the service of a global
implementation of this "solution" (Eilam, 1991; Lifton,
1983; Segev, 1990; Zukerman, 1996).
The history of the Palestinian instrumentalization
of the Holocaust mirrors the same logic of discourse.
The most vocal use of Holocaust metaphors and symbols has
been made by the Palestinian Liberation Organization
(PLO). Since its establishment in 1962, this
organization has followed three key strategies for
achieving the annihilation of Israel: a rejection of
Israel's "right to exist", a "demand to return" all Arab
refugees to the State of Israel, and an attempt to use
the Palestinian state as a step in a "phased program" to
conquer the entire state.
Few Israelis missed the force of Holocaust symbols
on hearing the PLO chairman, just days after signing the
1995 peace treaty, declare a renewed jihad, a "phased
plan", to culminate with the conquest of Jerusalem The
"phased plan" represents not only a concrete fear for the
Israelis; it carries with it strong memories of the
Holocaust. Numerous verbal statements by PLO leaders
regarding phased plans, annihilations, and a Final
Solution have been made which relate to the narrative of
Holocaust. Here are a few examples:
1. "No right to exist": Sala Khalaf (Abu Iyad), Arafat's
closest associate: "There was no PLO recognition of
Israel, not in the Palestinian National Council decisions
in Algiers nor in Arafat's address to the UN in Geneva"
(Al-Watan, Kuwait, February 11, 1989).
2. "The phased plan": Rafik Al-Natshe, Fatah Central
Committee Member and representative to Saudi Arabia,
said: "The PLO covenant is the basis of the political
and military activity of the PLO. Our present political
approach is rooted in the Phased Plan" (Al-Watan,
Kuwait, January 8, 1989). "The next phase," said Sheikh
Abd Al-Hamid Al-Sayegh, Speaker of the Palestinian
National Council, "is dependent upon the elimination of
the other (Zionist) culture" (Al-Shawq Al-Awsat, Saudi
newspaper published in London, January 13, 1989). The
"phased plan" was presented figuratively by Farouk
Kaddoumi, head of PLO's political department, in an
interview with the BBC Arabic Service (April 5, 1989):
"The recovery of but a part of our soil will not cause
us to forsake our Palestinian land... we shall pitch our
tents in those places our bullets can reach... These
tents shall then form the base from which we shall later
pursue the next phase".
3. The "right to return": in the words of Abd Al-Hamid
Al-Sayegh: "The PLO is following the path which it must
pursue until the return (of all Palestinian refugees) is
achieved... We want the soil of Palestine" (Okaz, Saudi
Arabia, January 29, 1989).
In addition to the use of these Holocuast metaphors,
a search for a Final Solution to the problem of Israel's
existence had been voiced by the Egyptian President
Nasser, who promised his fellow Arabs in 1967 that he
would liquidate the Jewish State with the use of gas
bombs. He moved to substantiate his promise with a naval
blockade in the Gulf of Aqaba; he also demanded the
removal of the UN peace forces along the Egyptian borders
with Israel. Many referred to these events as a
Holocaust in the making (Shapira, 1972; Linn, 1991).
Shoah and Karita
The dialectic between Shoah and Karita assumed a
special moral weight following the wars of 1948 and the
1967. The Israelis tend to view the creation of the
Jewish state at 1948 as the logical and just resolution
adopted by the UN to compensate for the injustice
inflicted on Jews during the Second World War. It
further symbolizes the (world's) guarantee that Jews will
continue to exist: the State of Israel prevents the
possibility of Jews having nowhere to go in a second
Holocaust. This guarantee also defines the Holocaust for
the Palestinians. Like some Jews, many Palestinians
believe that the State of Israel would not have been
created but for the calamity of the Holocaust. When we
examine the shoah/karita discourses within and between
the two communities we note three major characteristics:
a. The extent to which the realm of discourse is self-
evident; that is, it is regarded as a given by both
communities.
b. The extent to which there is a dialogue between the
two communities as to which things are self-evident or
given.
c. The extent to which each metaphoric system creates
and activates communities of discourse which clash over
the interpretation of symbols and metaphors and attempt
to turn them to their own advantage. This symbolic
confrontation is the cornerstone for the armed struggle
between these rival communities. We argue that the
apparent autonomy experienced by each community is being
constructed unconsciously by the metaphoric system. Each
community views itself as the most authentic interpreter
and fighter for "its own" own interpretation of events.
This interpretation is the product of a metaphoric system
as well.
These three points are evident in the writings of
the poet El Martukal Taha, the general secretary of the
Palestinian association of writers: "Many years ago you
knelt under the butchers of Dachau/ Your father was
slaughtered in the Warsaw ghetto/ You cried over your
sister who was consumed by the inferno of Auschwitz/ Have
you forgotten? How come you have reconstructed another
Auschwitz in the middle of the desert?/ How could you
have deported the land owners? How could you have burned
the children? Have your forgotten? Or do you think that
the world goes backward?" (Yediot Acharonot, Nov. 25,
1991).
In an essay entitled "Your Holocaust, our
catastrophe" published in 1987 in the Tel Aviv Review, an
Israeli Arab, Emile Habibi, an intellectual and ideologue
of the Israel Communist party, argued:
.M:1
Certainly, it is impossible to compare the
suffering experienced by the Jews of Europe and the
suffering of the Palestinian people. But the latter are
still suffering and the existence of the Palestinian
people in their homeland is still threatened. In the
eyes of the Arabs, the Holocaust is seen as the original
sin which enabled the Zionist movement to convince
millions of Jews of the rightness of its course... if not
for your - and all of humanity's - Holocaust in World War
II, the catastrophe that is still the lot of my people
would not have been possible (Jerusalem Post, April 28,
1989).
.M:2
Both Jews and Palestinians are worried that as
time passes other atrocities taking place throughout the
world will overtake "their" Holocausts as symbolic
representations of consummate evil. A Palestinian writes:
.M:1
Upon arriving in Israel last month, Secretary of State
James Baker went straight from the airport to Jerusalem,
where he laid a wreath at Yad Vashem, a memorial to
Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Inadvertently, he was
signaling to the Palestinians, up front, that their voice
was going to remain inaudible, not only because their
dialect lacks what a language has (an army, a navy, an
air force) but because their pain is deemed to be forever
filtered through the dark, larger-than-life muffler of
the Holocaust, forever insignificant in juxtaposition
(New York Times Magazine, 1991 p.48 ).
.M:2
The Holocaust carries a special moral weight for
each community: in both there are those who think that
the best audience they can have are people who have
experienced the Holocaust. Wherever and whenever it is
likely that a large percentage of Jews in a given
audience has some connection to the Holocaust, this
situation is used in Palestinian rhetoric. For example,
on December 13, 1989, Arafat at UN General Assembly in
Geneva addressed his remarks to all people of the world,
especially those who had been "afflicted by the Nazi
occupation and who considered it their duty to close the
chapter of coercion and oppression by one people against
another and to extend a willing hand to all the victims
of terrorism." to see clearly today the responsibilities
cast upon them by history toward our downtrodden
people...(Joe Franklin, Jerusalem Post, February 6,
1989).
The reference to the Holocaust is sometimes also
expanded to include long-standing antisemitic concepts.
This is reflected by Araf al-Sayed the newspaper al-
Mukhtar al-Islami (July, 1987), who announced that "every
single Jew is a member of one of those secret
associations conspiring for control of all aspects of the
lie. Their efforts reached a point where Jews were
cleared of crucifying Jesus." Such characterizations did
not change after the peace treaty with Egypt, or after
initial attempts towards peace during the Intifada. On
February 7, 1993, the Israeli daily Maariv reported that
PLO representatives who attended a Human Rights meeting
in Geneva argued that "the Israelis are not happy if
their religious holidays are not soaked with Palestinian
blood". The PLO, vying with the Hamas (an organization
that advocates Muslim theocracy), now no longer views
only Israel as its enemy but has extended this role to
include Jews everywhere.
Both communities lay claim to Holocaust
references. The original 700,000 Palestinian refugees of
the 1948 War were confined by fellow Muslims to refugee
camps on the West Bank as a living collective memory.
They were retained as the only legitimate storytellers
and were meant to become the sole and living keepers of
the communities' collective memory. The Jews claim at
least double this number of Holocaust survivors in
Europe, who were not given refuge in any other state in
the world, and were denied access to Palestine by means
of a British blockade. Those who managed to be smuggled
into the country were accepted by the small Jewish
community and were never exploited as a living memorial.
Neither Palestinians nor Israelis are indifferent to
the ongoing process of denial of the Holocaust; Jews
reject the Arab assertions of their own Holocuast and the
Arabs deny the existence of the Holocaust or censure
Jewish exaggeration of this event. Both emphasize that
they must /??NOT??/ speak the "language of silence" to
which the Jewish people have always been sensitive; yet
the Palestinian seeks to make the Jew echo his/her
suffering. An example is found in the writing by a
Palestinian in the New York Times: "The Intifada has
given the Palestinians for the first time in their mute
history, a voice within the language of the conflict"
(The New York Times Magazine, April 28, 1991, p.48).
Polemics between the two communities also involve
a discourse concerning the nature of who exactly are the
"Holocaust refugees". Both Jewish and Arab communities
approach the refugee problem as a collective memory and
as a painful present. Israelis view themselves as post-
Holocaust refugees. Over three million Jewish refugees
fled to Palestine from pogroms and massacres in Europe;
other groups of refugees escaped atrocities in Arab
countries. All of these refugees left their possessions
behind and often left unwillingly as they had been
constructive citizens. Some Jews in Arab countries,
despite being granted full citizenship in the new Jewish
land, never became refugees since they were held in
ghettos and were not allowed to leave with the Arab
states (for example, Syria).
Unintentionally, Israeli soldiers found themselves
living their nation's memories when serving in large
occupied Arab areas crowded with 1948 Arab refugees.
Thus, refugees were preserved as living memories in
refugee camps by their fighting brothers. These
encounters revived the Israeli soldier's memories of the
attempt made by Israel to ease the mark of the refugee
from its Holocaust survivors by absorbing them as quickly
as possible into the community. Service in the army
became a living metaphor of this absorption for the
Jewish refugees.
The emergence of speech communities
Observing the discourse concerning the Holocaust
in each community, we may identify the following themes:
(1) The discourse within each speech community offers
only a one-dimensional description of the world in
conjunction with a demand for interpretative dominance.
There is no dialogue between the two communities because
there is no legitimate interpreter, only a struggle for
hegemony. This type of discourse leaves little room for
reflection, and focuses on naming and categorizing the
experience of the other. As such, this perspective
stands in contradiction to Habermas' (1974) concept of an
"ideal speech situation" capable of leading to rational
consensus. In the present political discourse between
Israel and the PLO, the only story allowed is one's own.
(2) For useful ideas to emerge, the two communities and
their interpretations must meet in dialogue. In this
dialogue neither participant tries to replicate himself
through controlling and reproducing subjects and stories
strictly in his or her own terms. In such an ideal
dialogue there is an acceptance of the other and his/her
stories as legitimate. This is part of a process by
which each community reconstructs its interpretation abd
can only be accomplished by accepting certain elements of
the other's narrative so as to create a new story. The
deconstruction of one's own tradition becomes a non-
violent reconstruction of other's interpretations (or
stories) as well as a construction of a joint story.
(3) Each community strives to transform its narrative
into the sole relevant and true interpretation. The
symbolic and physical struggle regarding the hegemonic
interpretation a discourse at a junction where two rivals
meet. Accordingly, the discourse is transformed into an
all-out war against the community. Despite this, it also
entails a positive and productive dimension; as being the
foundation for social change.
In the days of the 1995-6 peace process, discourse
in the two communities was aimed at transcending polemics
and moving into a new phase. The two communities,
however, fear each other's mode of interpretation when it
comes to a discourse concerning the problem of the
refugees. The discourse now is being played out jointly
by Israeli soldiers --- who are sons of Holocaust
refugees (Linn, 1996) --- and by civilian Palestinians
who are sons of refugees perceived as a living memory.
As post-1967 victors, the Israeli soldier became a victim
in the dialectic of oppression: a dialectic that was not
part of their preservation throughout Jewish history in
the diaspora. Since Jewish life in the diaspora was
outside political history, without physical victories and
territorial gains and losses, Jews tended to adhere to
their spiritual strength and progress. As such, they
always were the symbol of universal suffering and the
quest for justice. This quest became transformed once
Jews returned to "their homeland". For a moment, they
could believe that they were creating not only a new form
of Jew (the Sabra) but also a new form of political
entity, capable of controlling their own territories,
wars and history. Denying the other's identity and
memory thus became an integral part of their collective
new Israeli identity. By the same token, we may argue,
the Palestinians inherited the symbol of suffering and
justice traditionally held by the Jews and over which
they claimed ownership. The Jewish dialectic seem to
dominate the Palestinian entity as well: The Palestinians
believe that visible presentation of victimhood (such as
the preservation of refugee camps as a living symbol both
of Israeli oppression and universal injustice and
aggression) justifies unlimited (counter) violence. In
this way, the Palestinians hope to negate their state of
"Jewishness". Not for nothing are both communities still
obsessed with the denial of the other's memory for its
own purposes. Most sensitive and central in this struggle
is the ownership of one's own Holocaust and its
interpretation. Such ownership guarantees permanent
approval for any political praxis with no moral
inhibitions.
Since the outbreak of the Intifada, in December
1987, Israelis have found themselves systematically
questioning Palestinian symbols of nationhood and
independence, which no doubt has contributed to the
Palestinians' sense of victimhood. The Intifada created
a renewed wave of consciousness among Israelis from all
walks of life regarding the Palestinian problem to the
point where they often identify with the victims on the
other side (Linn, 1991). Since the creation of the State
of Israel, an ideology of self-defense among Israelis in
terms of "few against many" has been associated with
Jewish suffering. Such suffering was traditionally
associated with the toll Israelis had to pay for the sake
of survival. Since the Intifada, however, another
dimension of oppression was added to the Israeli's
consciousness: that of becoming a victim in the dialectic
of his fate as an victor, a position resented by Jews
throughout their history (Shapira, 1971).
At the present time the Israeli citizen, particularly as
an Israeli soldier, has become a victim of his own
success (his productive oppression of others). This has
been interpreted as the only way to preserve the very
existence of the nation and its Jewish identity; such a
view, however, totally negates its essence and nurtures
the success of the Palestinian uprising.
The interpretative struggle between these two communities
seems inevitable due to the fact that each community has
its own Holocaust. The struggle over the interpretation
of one's own and the other's Holocaust is inevitable
precisely because the Holocaust of the Jews did occur.
The Holocaust could not emerge without a spiritual
struggle between speech communities.
In a novel by the Israeli writer Avi Valentine
(1989), a Palestinian prison camp is portrayed in the
shape and spirit of a concentration camp. Valentine
calls his book, and his hero, Shahid (meaning a national
martyr). Shahid is on his way to Palestine and says:
.M:1
I will not escape. I have returned in order to
stay... I came as if I was a Jew, by ship. I have
been smuggled over the border, and I was an
illegal immigrant. I have come out of Europe as
well and had to make my way over the sea in order
to return to my homeland, the one and the only one
that I have, to my parent's house in Shati refugee
camp. I was cheating the border patrols as
well... I came like a Jew and I still exist like a
Jew, just the same way they were when they came.
(p.31).
.M:2
Each political crisis seems to provide a new set
of metaphors and symbols. Shahid, Valentine's authentic
Palestinian whose experiences can be understood only if
portrayed within the "metaphor of the Jew", utilizes a
Jewish phrase to describe his people's misery: "Our
people are being slaughtered by everyone and the world is
quiet and does not even whisper". A similar metaphor is
followed in other Arab sectors. When the UN Security
Council Resolution called for Hamas members to be
permitted to return following a brutal kidnapping, their
spokesman said: "We are protesting in response to the
silence of the United Nations in face of the Nazi
Zionistic crimes in the occupied territories" (Haaretz,
February 8, 1993).
For Palestinians, perhaps the real danger of
attributing a Nazi character to the Jewish state lies in
the dynamic it can trigger within Palestinian rhetoric
and consciousness. If Palestinians fully believe the
accusation, and its latent meaning of evil incarnate, how
can they remain content within the new state of Palestine
without seeking to destroy the adjoining "Nazi-Zionist
entity"? To achieve less would be to leave their battle
unfinished. Unlike European countries, no book has been
published in Arabic dealing specifically with the
Holocaust. Israeli Arabs have only become aware of the
significance of the Holocaust to the Jewish people by
witnessing its commemoration in Israel; yet their
knowledge remains limited. Since they themselves are
exposed to a rhetorical attempt to hold a hegemonic view
of the Holocaust, they are driven to a one-dimensional
view of both the Jewish and Palestinian Holocausts.
This conception may be seen in the case of Mohammad
Bachari, an Arab actor, who wrote the following letter to
the press, following the Holocaust memorial day in
Israel:
.M:1
The Warsaw Ghetto is not the last rebellion...
After I visited Dachau I could better encompass
the magnitude of the evil and horror... When the
Warsaw Ghetto started the fear disappeared... but
the fear grew following this revolt... What the
Germans did to the Jews and other minorities - and
I do intend to compare - Croats are doing to
Bosnians, Iraqis to Kurds, Turks to Armenians, and
other nations to other nations... and the world is
standing by and we are included. Why go so far?
Who else is holding two million Palestinians in
repeated curfew in confined ghettos surrounded by
barbed wires and iron railings...? (Chadashot,
April 21, 1993).
.M:2
Where to draw the line separating one thing from another
has always been a cultural decision although, once
learned, such decisions regarding the rights of another
nation become second nature. The ontological status of
how we learn this is a symbolic/linguistic one. At the
macro level, symbolic tension is manifested in friction
between the communities involving two sets of passions
and two sets of national rivalries. This tension is also
reflected in the wording of this Palestinian writer after
the Gulf War:
.M:1
Israelis, on the left and right alike, were
shocked at the alleged sight of Palestinians on
their roof tops, fiddling out their jubilation at
the misfortune of a Scud striking Tel Aviv.
Though nobody actually saw any Palestinians
dancing on their roofs, the metaphor was too
catchy to be dismissed by the Israeli public. The
heart of the matter in this ongoing dispute is
over territory, and the willingness on both sides
to share the territory... but the real dispute has
always been over speech, over the language of
discourse, and not over the identity of the
speakers. (The New York Times Magazine, 1991 p.
48)
.M:2
Implications and Conclusions
This paper sought to describe the use and function of
Holocaust symbols and metaphors in the Palestinian
struggle for Independence. The struggle between the
Palestinian and Israeli communities has been presented as
emerging within a single metaphoric framework (Lakoff &
Johnson, 1980). What this suggests is that each community
seeks to use Holocaust symbols for its own purposes. It
has been further suggested that both communities are
manipulated by their own metaphoric systems, denying the
other's use of the Holocaust metaphor. This denial of
the other's symbol marks the preliminary stage of moral
anger or of the attempt to define one's own moral
boundaries.
For the Jewish community, Holocaust metaphors and
symbols have been translated into ideology and practice
by the construction of moral guidelines and limits to
action (Zukermann, 1993, p. ix). An Israeli soldier in
the position of occupier might interpret this position in
two main ways: The first is the universal fear of being
transformed into a pawn/German Nazi executor when placed
in a morally unjustified situation. To prevent himself
from being thrown into such a situation the Israeli
soldier is guided by his moral resolution and uses
Holocaust metaphors (Linn, 1991). The second way concerns
the belief that after this collective experience
Holocaust metaphors are moral guidelines for each
individual and should prevent each jew from being like
all (possible evil) others (Straschnov, 1994). Both
interpretations seem to guide the participants toward
respect for (universal or particular) moral obligation.
From either position, the other is referred to as "a
Nazi".
From the Arab position, Holocaust metaphors are
primarily used to define the Jew as Nazi and this use,
then is no hesitation or doubt as to who is the Nazi.
Concomitant with the Palestinians' conflict against the
Israeli occupation, however, there is also a struggle
against the identity of the Jews along with the
construction of a Palestinian identity. Since the
Palestinians have inherited the Jewish ideology of
justice in regard to victimhood, they aspire to become
the David of the Holocaust with a stone in their hand.
References
.M:1
Abu-Laban, Baha. (1989). The Intifada One Year Later: A
Palestinian View. MIDDLE EAST fOCUS, Winter, 1989,
pp.11-13.
Adorno, T. (1977). KULTURKRITIK UND GESELLSCHAFT 10.1
Frankfurt a.M Suhrkamp, s. 30.
Bar Tal, E. (1994). Patriotism. POLITICS AND THE
INDIVIDUAL.
Benjamin, W. (1974). UEBER DEN BEGRIFF DER GESCHICHTE,
Gesammelte Schriften, 1.2 Frankfurt a.M, 694-695.
Bourdie, P. & Passeron, J.C. (1978). REPRODUCTION IN
EDUCATION, SOCIETY AND CULTURE. London: Sage
Publication.
Edwards, . (1988).
Eilam, Y. (1991). THE EXECUTORS. Jerusalem: Keter
Publishing House.
Fackenheim, E. (1992). THE JEWISH BiBLE AFTER THE
HOLOCAUST: A READING. Manchester and Indiana University
Press.
Foucault, M. (1980). POWER/KNOWLEDGE. New York: Pantheon
Books.
Habermas, J. (1974). THEORY AND PRACTICE. London:
Heinemann Educational Books.
Hall, T. E. (1981). BEYOND CULTURE. New York: Anchor
Books.
Hochheimer, M. (1978). DOWN AND DECLINE. New York:
Seabury Press.
Kelman, H. & Hamilton, V.L. (1989). SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF
AUTHORITY AND RESPONSIBILITY. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, P. (1980). METAPHORS WE LIVE BY.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lifton, R.J. (1986). THE NAZI DOCTORS: MEDICINE, KILLING
AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GENOCIDE. New York: Basic Books.
Linn, R. & Gilligan, C. (1990). One action, two moral
orientations: The tension between justice and care voices
in Israeli selective conscientious objectors. NEW IDEAS
IN PSYCHOLOGY, 8, 2, 189-203.
Linn, R. (1989). NOT SHOOTING AND NOT CRYING:
Psychological Inquiry into Moral Disobedience. Westport
CT: Greenwood Press.
Linn, R. (1991). HOLOCAUST METAPHORS AND SYMBOLS IN THE
MORAL DILEMMAS OF CONTEMPORARY ISRAELI SOLDIERS.
Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 6, 2, 61-86.
Linn, R. (1996). CONSCIENCE AT WAR: THE ISRAELI SOLDIER
AS A MORAL CRITIC. Albany: State University of New York
Press.
Milgram, S. (1974). OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY. New York:
Harper and Row.
Morris, B. (1989). THE BIRTH OF THE PALESTINIAN REFUGEE
PROBLEM, 1947-1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Shamas, A. (1991). A LOST VOICE. The New York Time
Magazine, April 28, pp.34- 64.
Shamir, M. & Sullivan J.L. (1985). Jews and Arabs in
Israel, Everybody hates somebody, sometime. JOURNAL OF
CONFLICT RESOLUTION, 29,2,283-305
Shapira, A. (ed.) (1971). THE SEVENTH DAY: SOLDIERS TALK
ABOUT THE SIX DAY WaR. New York: Penguin Books.
Straschnov, A. (1994). JUSTICE UNDER FIRE. Tel Aviv:
Yediot Acharonot Books.
Valentine, A. (1989). SHAHID. Tel Aviv: Am Oved.
Walzer, M. (1977). JUST AND UNJUST WARS. New York: Basic
Books.
Walzer, M. (1988). THE COMPANY OF CRITIC. New York: Basic
Books.
Zukerman, M. (1993). SHOAH IN THE SEALED ROOM: THE
"Holocaust" in the Israeli Press during the Gulf War.
Tel Aviv: Huberman Press.