Four Letter Word

Warning: This entry is emotional and highly subjective. If you don't like politics, I suggest you stop here.

For me, Nazi is a four letter word.

One of the things which never ceases to frustrate me is the struggle for legitimacy via usage of other nation's tragedies to coin one's own experiences, as if you could compare and equate the suffering. I find it infuriating when the Palestinians use the term "Holocaust" when they discuss nakba. I don't like it when the term "apartheid" is bandied about, as it deligitimizes their experience by making it common, unconsciously minimizingthe pain, suffering and humiliation of the South African's who initially had the term applied to them.

But what really gets me is when the term Nazi is used. It is so ridiculously overused and has lost its meaning over the years. I think the all-time low was the Seinfeld "Soup Nazi" episode. I realize that it was not meant to minimize the Holocaust, but never the less, it degrades the term and softens the severity which accompanies the mental image which the terminology invokes. My sensitivity to the issue has been heightened due to my work at Yad Vashem, and I have respect for the complex issues and meanings which certain terms contain, especially after spending the past year working with students who span the Jewish denominational board. The word nazi is short for Nationalsocializmus, the National Socialists party, whose doctrine was based on Hitler's Mein Kampf, a vicious political ideology emphasising the necessity to eliminate the Jewish people. When I hear nazi, the image that comes to mind is of an individual who is a small, hateful person, whose intentions were compelled by racial motivation and hatred of non-aryans, especially and specifically Jews.

I write all of this as a reaction to the Ynet article, when a Machsom Watch activist called an IDF soldier a nazi:

Soldiers told Ynet the incident occurred at the beginning of the month at a checkpoint near Tul Karm. A Machsom Watch activist approached the soldier as he asked two Palestinians to queue for inspection and launched a verbal attack against him. "She promptly approached him and swore at him, told him he is a 'Nazi' and a 'beast'," soldiers told Ynet. Soldiers who were present at the checkpoint at the time said their comrade acted according to IDF regulations and the activist's reaction was inexplicable and "degrading." "There are a lot of situations where we carry on as usual and don't respond, but this was too much and he was offended," soldiers said.
Police said they are currently searching for the activist who is wanted for interrogation. In the written apology sent to the soldier's commander the Machsom Watch activist wrote that hearing the soldier giving instructions to the Palestinian was "unbearable."

How dare this woman equate the men and women who risk their lives defending Israel with the monsters who tried their hardest to annihilate the Jewish people. Is it difficult and at times degrading for Palestinians to go through checkpoints? Absolutely. Is it a necessity for the safety of Israeli citizens, whether they be Jewish, Muslim or Chrisitian? Absolutely, for suicide bombers don't discriminate. I would love to see a peaceful border, where people could pass freely and safely from side to side, be they Israeli or Palestinian, without worry. But it's simply not reality. Galgalaz (Israeli radio) reported today that there has been a sharp rise in the number of attempted terror attempts. The checkpoints serve the purpose of keeping all Israelis safe, and put our boys, my brothers, in harms way as they are the ones which physically prevent tragedy and terror.

Our army is one of the most humanitarian in the world. IDF officers have even met with Machsom Watch activists, to speak with them regarding ways of improving checkpoint conditions. There are even checkpoints being set up which allow Palestinians to pass through without ever being in contact with an Israeli soldier. What other country would go to such lengths for a people who wish to destroy them?

Instead of harrasing our boys, the Machsom Watch activists should be thanking them for keeping their ungrateful, sorry asses alive.