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Sunday, December 17, 2006

Speechless in Gaza

We were discussing the Holocaust Conference in Teheran.

That is, we were in Jenny's Coney Coffee Clutch ( I know, I know. Jenny says 'clutch' is more correct than 'klatsch'...as in 'in the clutches of caffeine'.)
We were not in Teheran. The Conference was.
We said everything that had already been said and pretty much re-established ourselves as Liberal Conservatives, or Conservative Liberals. It was not clear which. This we ascribed to the difficulty Reason has with the infinite detail of human life, and the myriad of different shades of meaning that results. In such discussion, the only people who are precise are Right Wingers and Left Wingers...or radicals of any ilk. They are quite precise. That is why they are insane.

Life is the infinite detail, not a homogeneity of the witless and mad, staring with vacant eyes. Anyhow, let me see whether I may find the trail of breadcrumbs I was supposed to have left for myself before taking off on that side trip...ah, yes. Teheran. One of the round table members is quiet and rarely says anything. He is the most valuable member of our discussion group, since he smiles at our opinions and usually indicates we have hit the venerable two-penny right smack on the head. Consequently, we all love him. When he is not present, we shake our heads at the nonsense we hear each other spout. This is Levine the silent. (It goes without saying that he is also courteous and polite, even to Hanaan the Hideous who is the scourge of the diner to which we have been exiled.)

 Today, he spoke. He said that it was his understanding that Amadinejad considers the Holocaust to be a 'mole' - as in 'spy'- of the West. It is a subterfuge to continue Western dominance spiritually in an area of the world where they no longer have physical dominance. Silence. Befuddled looks. Run that by us again, would ya? He said that there had been the Age of Imperialism. There had been physical dominion over the lands of the Middle East and Asia. Now there was no physical dominion.

The Holocaust was strictly a Western European genocide. It had nothing to do with the Middle East; the people there did not commit the crimes, nor were they the victims of those crimes. Thus, the Middle Eastern peoples view the Holocaust as strictly a Western and Jewish event; it has nothing to do with them.

However, since the establishment of Israel, they see the Holocaust as an attempt to force them to see "with Western eyes", as if were. Even they themselves do not understand. President Amadinejad do not clearly know why he has to deny. He only knows he must deny. To accept the Holocaust would be to accept a totally Western world view. To accept the Holocaust would be to accept Western dominance in the spiritual realm; to accept the morality of the Western crime and punishment and penance.
So when they speak of Israel as a tool of the West, they mean that this is another attempt at limited physical dominance ( min An-Nili ila al-Furati ; from the Nile to the Euphrates ) and an unlimited spiritual dominance.

We sat speechless. Furthermore, I had previously discussed Elie Wiesel at these meetings. http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2006/11/holocaust.html
So now this guy starts talking about the extent in time of theological events, the point being that they do not go on forever. The original covenant was modified greatly by the destruction of the Temple. Things do not go on forever. So, too, with the Holocaust. Five hundred years from now, the Jewish people will have had other events, possibly some even more horrendous than those that had gone before. We will all experience great and terrible things.
He said...a thousand years from now, our age may be but a footnote. Here he smiled, for he knew that a thousand years from now we would indeed be a footnote. We were immobile. We could not think of anything to say. This went on for a time that became uncomfortable. Finally, I decided to end our stupor. " Now that we have heard from Levine, the angel, is there anything else?"
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