Appointing Yad Vashem chair a national issue, not Eitam’s private battle
Underlying the attempt to thwart his appointment is the attempt in some sectors of society to compare the Holocaust with the issue of purity of arms and morality of war.
By MEIR INDORHolocaust survivors are seen in Jerusalem protesting the potential appointing of Effi Eitam as Yad Vashem chairman.(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Underlying the attempt to thwart the appointment of Effi Eitam as chairman of Yad Vashem is the attempt to compare between the Holocaust and the issue in Israeli society of purity of arms and the morality of waging war – processes that must be uprooted.During the Peace for Galilee campaign in 1982 when Lt.-Col. Effi Eitam camped with the infantry cadet battalion under his command in the eastern sector against the Syrians and waited for approval to advance, he had a conversation with us, the reserve officers. His leadership talk accompanied us throughout the war, mainly his personal confession: “I enlisted to serve the country and the IDF with the clear knowledge that this has a price that also includes personal risk. I am a soldier of the nation.”Eitam’s name is already synonymous for being a brave commander. As a young officer in a battle against the Syrians in the Yom Kippur War, he stopped a column of tanks with only one RPG and a machine gun and rescued the wounded. For this he was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service.During that war he was a secular kibbutznik, a member of the Fine family, who were among the founders of Kibbutz Ein Gev on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The bold and brilliant officer’s path was paved for promotion: “the role of chief of staff” rested on his shoulders, they said of him, until he became a newly religious Jew together with his wife, Ilit, from Kibbutz Sde Boker.He did not prepare himself for the battle that was awaiting him in the media. As his beard grew, as a Givati brigadier general, the personal attacks against him by some military reporters grew, including a military reporter who said she could not stand his large, purple skullcap.It was reported that a Palestinian had been beaten by him, even though this has never been proved.Eitam has been falsely quoted about the expulsion of Arabs while he spoke of the expulsion of inciters.His promotion was halted despite the fact that he graduated with distinction from the prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst near London.The media and the deep state won!When he was appointed commander of the elite Galilee Division on the Lebanese front against Hezbollah in 1997, it was too late for him, which allowed others, like Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, to overtake him on the way to the position of chief of staff.This is reminiscent of the thwarting of the promotion of Givati’s brigadier general, Ofer Winter, because he wrote to his troops before going into battle at the start of Operation Protective Edge in 2014: “With the help of the G-d of Israel...”NOW WE have reached Chapter Two of Eitam’s fight. The appointment of Eitam as chairman of Yad Vashem is being thwarted, using the same methods.Opposition leader Yair Lapid has opposed the appointment due to “extreme statements’’ made by Eitam, although his father, Tommy Lapid, was appointed to the same position at Yad Vashem even though he spoke out routinely against Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews.At the same time and as part of an orchestrated effort, Colette Avital, a former Labor MK, joined the campaign against Eitam’s appointment. She is currently the chair of the Center Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel and who in the past was caught and punished for passing on lists of Holocaust survivors to be used in an election campaign by Lapid and his Yesh Atid Party.Her argument against Eitam is unfounded and also false: Eitam has no suitable background because he is not from a family of Holocaust survivors.Tell this to Eitam’s mother, whose family was murdered in the Holocaust.And who appointed Avital to speak on behalf of Holocaust survivors? Not my parents – the survivors of Auschwitz and the ghettos, whose whole humble lives passed by without them knowing either Ms. Avital or her organization.She also does not speak for me and many of the second generation like me.In general, what is the organization that “centers” 60 organizations for Holocaust survivors, with most of the survivors already deceased? And on what money does Avital’s organization feed? In the heat of the fight, a “professor of the Holocaust” was recruited and explained that “Eitam does not understand the Holocaust.”And there is also a Jewish organization from abroad whose leaders vehemently opposed the then-appointment of Brig.-Gen. Eitam to a ministerial cabinet position but some of whose representatives went to the Mukata in Ramallah to meet with Yasser Arafat.Arafat yes but Eitam no?The appointment of the chairman of Yad Vashem is not the private battle of Eitam, but a national issue, because underlying the attempt to thwart his appointment is the attempt in some sectors of society to compare the Holocaust with the issue of purity of arms and morality of war.When the former deputy chief of staff “identifies processes just like in Germany 70, 80, 90 years ago,” this statement indicates processes that are taking place in parts of society and which should be uprooted.When soldiers receive questionnaires from instructors at Yad Vashem where they are asked to answer if we too can degenerate into a situation similar to the Holocaust and become murderers, it is a contribution to the Holocaust denial narrative that is gaining momentum worldwide.A retreat from the fact that the Holocaust stemmed from antisemitism and the desire to exterminate our people, to a kind of “universal mishap” that can happen to any nation and needs to be rectified now by apologizing for our actions in war, in the face of the enemy, must be uprooted.All this is another reason for the appointment of Effi Eitam as chairman of Yad Vashem.I am not sure that Eitam’s appointment will stem this dangerous tide, but his non-appointment will definitely encourage this losing trend.The writer is a retired IDF lieutenant-colonel and a second-generation Holocaust survivor.
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