Part-time memory: the strange January 27 syndrome
We are nearing the Day of Remembrance, a painful event in memory of the victims of the Holocaust which occurs every year on January 27th. Striving to keep alive the memory of the millions of Jews exterminated by the Nazi brutality is a duty for all political parties, which at least on this solemn occasion should put aside any daily division.
However, with the passing of the years, the inconsistency of those who on January 27 flaunted their condolences and indignation for the victims of anti-Semitism, only to forget about it during the rest of the year towards the living Jews and the state of Israel. Irresponsible is the levity with which too many embrace the commemoration of the dead Jews, forgetting at the same time the need to defend the living. A hypocrisy that we have seen at work many times, including recently, in May 2021, when a hasty condemnation of Israel's response to attacks by Palestinian Hamas terrorists found too much support in the political debate. A substantial portion of the world left took the opportunity to discredit the figure of the then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, considered as an Israeli Trump to be marginalized in the circle of political deplorables .
At the same time – it must be denounced with equal clarity – some members of the right have not taken the opportunity to show themselves really in step with the times, enthusiastic about democracy and individual freedom, of which Israel is a bulwark in the Middle East. On their part, too, there is a fundamental inconsistency, which risks undermining the credibility of the shared criticism of Islamic fundamentalism. The hope is that the future can lead to a common awareness of Israel as a bulwark of democracy and human rights in an area where they are denied. Until then, every rhetoric and circumstantial phrase expressed on January 27 will appear as inconsistent and distant from a real feeling of pain in memory of the Shoah and towards those who are still struggling today not to have to relive the tragedies of the past.
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL https://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/memoria-part-time-la-strana-sindrome-del-27-gennaio/ on Wed, 26 Jan 2022 03:40:00 +0000.