Today, as everyone who reads this blog knows, has been the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.I heard that some people are questioning whether the world should continue to mark the anniversaries, whether the world should continue to hold public memorials, whether the Holocaust should remain part of today's dialogue. I'm afraid that, in my opinion, people who ask/raise that question are highly questionable themselves. They are either out and out antisemites or they can't see what is glaringly obvious, the relationship between the Holocaust, the world today and the world since 1945. For a start, we must never put genocide to the back of our minds: if we do that, we are throwing the memory of the victims in the bin. Secondly, I think the idea that we could leave the Holocaust in the past, 'move on', as people seem to suggest, it implies that the world has learnt the lessons of the Holocaust, that evil is now only a thing of history and that it could never happen again. Evil is alive and well, its agents, representatives, ambassadors and henchmen are running amok and leaving death and destruction in their wake. The lessons have not been learnt and examples and evidence of that litter history between 1945 and now - a few examples but we could all name many, many more...the murder of Jews in the immediate aftermath of the liberation of the camps, Tiananmen Square, Rwanda, US slavery, persecution of gays, up to 3,000 murdered in a single attack by Boko Haram in Nigeria a few days ago...tragically, the list goes on and on and on...the Holocaust is the biggest example of the depths to which mankind can drop and we must keep it in front of our eyes to make sure that we are always on our guard, that all of us who value our freedom and that of our fellow man (person) are always conscious of what mankind is capable of doing. The various sayings come to mind but I regard them as 'truisms', e.g. "all that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing" and "those who fail to learn from history are defined to repeat it" (and there are many others).There are millions of people around the world who would jump at the opportunity, given quarter of a chance, to carry on where Hitler left off...if we didn't have Israel, we would be in a very precarious position today...never has the importance of Israel been as great (in modern times, i.e. between '48 and now) as it is today...and the world doesn't realise that we, Israel, are at the vanguard of the fight against evil, democracy and human rights...we aren't just fighting for Israel's existence, we aren't just fighting for the safety and survival of the Jewish people but we are fighting against evil and tyranny on behalf of all people who value the freedom they and their fellow persons have and on behalf of all people who dream of having freedom, democracy and human rights. Israel is seen by our enemies as the West's proxy, as the proxy of all the countries and people they want to destroy - when they attack Israel, they see the attacks as being against 'the West'. Furthermore, if Israel were to fall, if the haters were to get their way and destroy Israel G-d Forbid, that would just be the start...then they'd really get their teeth into the US and the rest of the West. It's in the interests of all people who value freedom, democracy, human rights and the Rule of Law that Israel survives and goes from strength to strength B''H.
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