[ QUOTE ]
"The establishment of full diplomatic relations between Israel and the Holy See ... in December 1993 ..."
[/ QUOTE ]A bit late, wouldn't you say ? That was the point Peter666 was making.
As to the other point he is making, yes, as I believe George Steiner put it,
Hitler begat Israel.
Not that the Holocaust was purposefully used by the Jews to start the chain of events leading up to Israel's creation. But, yes, they did take advantage of the huge (and quite justified) wave of sympathy that engulfed civilised humanity after the plight of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis became fully known to the world.
- Yes, there were probably exaggerations (and possibly
huge exaggerations, given a persecuted people's propensity to exaggerate their danger and misery).
- Yes, the number
"Six million dead" is possibly an exaggeration.
- Yes, the state of Israel, from 1948 onwards, could have followed a radically different path than that chosen by the extreme nationalist ruling faction of Reformed Zionists that led the new state towards a status of permanent confrontation againsth both the indigenous people and the neighbors.
- Yes, the Israeli State has used the Holocaust for devious and sometimes odious purposes. And so have many, many Jews, as well. (See
The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering by Norman G. Finkelstein.)
Yes to all the above, yes, and yes again. SO WHAT ? The holocaust of the Jews and other unfortunates at the hands of Nazism remains a momentous, colossal crime in human history, possibly quite unique in its diabolic combination of supremacists ideology, systematic murder and use of technology. *
Once more, it doesn't matter what the exact purpose of Gas Machine Nr 10 in Buchenwald was. It doesn't matter if the typhus epidemic was caused by the Nazis (it wasn't, as far as we know) or if it happened because of the prevailing conditions in the camps. It doesn't matter if the little girl was separated from her mother because the Nazis needed to work the mother to death or use the child in a "medical experiment". It was a holocaust. It was mass murder to the degree of a crime against humanity.
Every Nazi fugitive that remains alive should be captured, tried and punished under the World War II's laws and agreements.
--Cyrus
* : The holocaust is also notable for the extent of the civilian population's participation in Germany as well as in other countries, a subject which still remains a taboo, and NOT discussed amongst polite company... The Poles, the French, the Austrians, the Dutch, the Ukrainians, the Latvians --ah, the Latvians!-- and many other nations have still not atoned nor apologized for their progeny's crimes against humanity during WWII.