We don’t have to give up on the Holocaust – it is our history and holds central lessons for all human beings – but we have to stop using it as a justification for Israeli policies. As this week draws thankfully to a close, we are all suffering from a severe Bibiobamal overdose. Before we allow ourselves to switch off and hopefully begin to forget these historical speeches, just one question: What did we learn over the past week? Four speeches in Washington sought to redefine the history, present and future of the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the strategic alliance between Israel and the United States and the Jewish People as a whole – but aside from marveling once again at the rhetorical brilliance of Barak Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, which we knew about anyway, everything is still depressingly the same: Two failed messiahs delivering empty promises and no chance of deliverance from the cycle of violence, which is turning to another round of almost inevitable bloodshed come September. Netanyahu and Obama are more eloquent and telegenic than their predecessors, Yitzhak Shamir and George Bush the elder, but it is as if we are back in 1991 and Shamir is saying on the eve of the pointless Madrid Conference, “the sea is the same sea and … >>>
