Refining the Nazi dream

Arab radicals make Jew-killing rather than Palestinian statehood their top priority.

By TUVIA BRODIE
Palestinian terrorist 311 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Palestinian terrorist 311
(photo credit: REUTERS)
When Lucy Dawidowicz wrote, The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945,  her point of view ultimately earned her the label “intentionalist”- one who believes that the Holocaust was a top-down plan formulated, or "intentioned," by Hitler. Some Holocaust historians disagree with her, arguing that she placed too much focus on the Nazi leader as the cause of the Holocaust, and did not pay enough attention to the Nazi bureaucrats who operated below Hitler.
Historians such as Christopher Browning tend to believe that the Holocaust grew out of the Nazi state's anarchistic character, and its internal rivalries and chaotic decision-making. Those who believe that the Holocaust was top-down (intentionalists) still agree with those who say it was bottom-up (functionalists): the horror of the Holocaust was real; their dispute is, who was responsible for it—leader or bureaucrat?
This question of responsibility for a state-mandated killing of Jews has relevance today. In Israel, we regularly hear Hamas or Fatah (proto-state rulers) rhetoric praising those who kill Jews.  Does the Arab attitude to the "Jewish problem" compare to that of the Nazis?
On two counts, the approaches seem to differ. First, Arab leaders and bureaucrats accept the "kill-the-Jew/destroy Zionism" agenda contained within PA/Fatah and Hamas founding documents. "Intention" and "function" thus unite; leader and bureaucrat passionately embrace the same goal.
The second reason concerns the priorities of Arab and Nazi leaders' respective agendas. The primary focus of Nazism was a xenophobic nationalism based on Aryan supremacy and a primal instinct to defend Germany against subversion and foreigners. For the Nazis, the principles of National Socialism came first; Jew-hate was only secondary.  In the case of radical Arabs, the opposite is true: Jew-hate first, then nationalism.
From 1945-50, the global media made no mention of an Arab versus Jewish battle for statehood on the same piece of land. The issue of the day was simply that Jews wanted their own state and that the Arabs wanted to kill those Jews. Muslim leadership in Palestine, the Waqf, was rabidly anti-Jew, and made repeated calls to kill Jews while simultaneously praising Hitler’s genocide. Statehood was not even a part of the Arab leadership's lexicon, nor was it heard on the Arab street.
Since before the creation of the Jewish State, Jew-hate has been an integral component of the Palestinian cause. Late PLO leader Yasser Arafat began his "Palestinian people" campaign in the 1960s, yet despite the transition towards a national identity, Jew-hate remained the primary focus.
In the 1930s, the world largely ignored the Nazi threat.Some continued to admire German accomplishments while others proposed appeasement. The offer of land for peace (in this case, Czechoslovakia) was even put on the table.
They were all wrong. Even though the Nazi state may not have had Jew-killing as its top priority, it still went on to murder six million. The world should not wait to find out what the consequences will be if it fails to act against those who readily admit that Jew-killing is their top priority.