Yad Vashem is embroiled in a deep controversy over .the choice of Dr. Dan Sachor for a senior post, head administrator of the library, at the Holocaust Memorial and museum in Jerusalem.
Sachor is a "post-Zionist". Politically, he is on the extreme Left fringe of Israeli politics.
What earns him this title?
-Comparing Israeli pilots to terrorist suicide bombers is an example.
-Another is refusing service in the Israeli army of "occupation" and accusing Israel of purposely and regularly killing Palestinian Arab children.
-Still another is calling for the end of American support for Israel.
-Add to that, supporting the BDS boycott of Israel, insisting that Hamas is a movement interested in peace and that Israel should just talk. with them and ask for nothing more...
-And being proud of the fact that his organization includes terrorists with Jewish blood on their hands.
-Joining protests in NY together with other anti-Israel groups against Israel's actions in Gaza
The above is a partial portrait of a person on the very edge of Israeli politics. It is where the border between Arab Jew-haters and Jewish self-haters becomes very blurred.
These accusations and more were brought to the attention of Yad Vashem's top man, Danny Dayan by the NGO "Im Tirtzu" and were featured in Hebrew on israel's Channel 14.
Dayan refused their request to not hire Dr. Sachor. He explained that in the Holocaust there were Jewish victims who were not Zionists as well.
It seems Dayan felt it was preferable to seek an Israel-bashing Israeli for Yad Vashem rather than an Israeli who loves the country that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust.
As he often says, "he is not political" He is careful not to mix Israeli politics with the Holocaust he says.
It is conceivable to learn about the Holocaust and never hear the word Israel, but it is not possible to learn about Israel without an understanding of the Holocaust and the link between the two.
This latest outrage at Yad Vashem comes on the heels of the "Hitler - Husseini" cover-up.
Haj Amin Husseini was the " father of the Palestinian people " as Yassar Arafat called him.
He made a career of hating and killing Jews. He and Hitler were close allies and Husseini while spending the holocaust years in Berlin, vigorously and unrelentingly made sure that no Jew was saved from death.
He and Himmler readied plans for death camps in Israel as Rommel was expected to defeat the British in Egypt. The local Arabs would assist the Nazis as did the Ukrainians, Latvians, Poles, etc.
The model worked well in Europe where Husseini visited the death camps on many occasions and urged their use in Israel.
Numerous books, articles, and lately an Israeli television documentary shed very clear light on the close cooperation between the Nazis and Husseini in killing Jews.
As a tour guide, I and many others clearly remember the very large photo of the famous Hitler- Husseini meeting in Berlin.
In 2005 Yad Vashem expanded and the photo was not included. In its stead is a far smaller photo of Husseini and Himmler. It is placed in a dark corner which I had trouble finding. The Husseini - Nazi story is hidden away in the new Yad Vashem.
When people like me demanded that the Hitler- Husseini photo be restored for the sake of setting the record straight, Dayan publicly denied that there ever was the photo in the old Yad Vashem. (!)
Dayan also insisted that Yad Vashem is "not a museum of the Israel - Arab conflict" and that explains the tiny hidden photo of Husseini and a Nazi (Why is the Himmler photo preferred over the Hitler - Husseini one?)
Mr. Efraim Kaye, a recently retired Yad Vashem official, wrote to me and told a media outlet that he remembers it. He later retracted his statement. What does that signify?
Why does Dayan feel it so necessary to deny the truth about the photo?
Why does he recruit post-Zionist for top positions?
What is happening at Yad Vashem?
It is useful to note that Dayan was one of the breakaways from the Likud who joined the malcontents and career seekers of the `New Hope '' party. It did not garner enough seats in the Knesset to offer Dayan a political career. That is when they arranged his job at Yad Vashem. "New Hope" presented an ostensibly Right wing face but willingly joined the first coalition that included an anti-Israel Arab party, thus betraying their electorate..
All claims of being Right-wing after that betrayal leave Dayan with no political base on the Right, but maybe elsewhere. Perhaps he is using his Yad Vashem position to gain the attention of another constituency that will offer him a political career after all. Speculation, but maybe?
Shalom Pollack is a well known, veteran tour guide based in Jerusalem and the author of the book "Jews, Israelis, and Arabs: An observer's view of Israel's shifting society" which can be purchased at Amazon. He can be reached at shalompollack613@gmail.com
2 comments:
yes, there are only protests when Yad vaShem hires a right wingers who believes Israel is Jewish land.
I despise people who try to pass themselves off as Jew lovers by saying that Hitler was bad, and have nothing to say about Jews today, and Israel, the Jew among nations. A lot of people in my family were murdered by the Nazis. Their memory means too much to me to desecrate it with a visit to Yad Vashem as long as Dan Sachor or those of his ilk have anything to do with it. If he gets his way, he will become the curator of the Museum of an Extinct Race that the Germans established in Prague. A true Kapo Dan Sachor.
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