Masha GessenRussian-American Jewish writer, has seen the award disappear Hanna Arendt of political thought that I was going to receive. The reason: an essay that he published in the ‘New Yorker’ magazine on December 9. In the long article he reflects on the Holocaust memory and how the policy applied to it “obscures what we see today in Israel and Gaza.”
The suspected antisemitism It looms over all criticism of Israel. Gessen’s complaint is thoughtful and documented, also firm. The comparison between life in Gaza over the last sixteen years – overcrowded, impoverished and between walls – with that of a Jewish ghetto in Nazi Germany It has not been digestible for the organizers of the award. That the retired award is in honor of Arendt, the German Jewish intellectual who fled the Nazis, adds a sad irony to the decision.
As Gessen mentions in her essay, Arendt wrote a letter in 1948 on the occasion of Menachem Begin’s visit to the United States, in which she warned about a disturbing phenomenon that had arisen in the newly created state of Israel: “a political party very similar in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and fascist parties”. That was the party of Begin, the one who thirty years later would become prime minister of Israel.
It is possible that, with today’s eyes, Arendt would not have been awarded the prize that bears her name. Let’s speculate, already Josep Borrell? The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs has recently denounced “the appalling lack of distinction (between military and civilian objectives) in Israel’s military operation in Gaza.” He has also warned of EU inaction: “we are losing our moral stature in the rest of the world, including Middle East”.
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While one simplistic, perverse and interested reading of memory Also apart from Europe, Donald Trump has once again insisted that irregular immigrants “poison the blood of our country.” Hitler compared Jews to germs and justified ghettos as a measure to protect Aryans from diseases transmitted by Jews. He also Netanyahu’s policy locks up Palestinianss as a defense measure. And yes, infectious diseases were unleashed in the ghettos and desperation in Gaza has become lethal. Was it not foreseeable?
We end 2023 with new and old hatreds exacerbated. May 2024 bring us, at least, the ability to be critical with the causes we defend.