Two Historians Rap Begin for Over-using the Term ‘holocaust’

Two noted historians today sharply attacked Premier Menachem Begin for what they said was his excessive use of the term “Holocaust” for political purposes.

Shmuel Ettinger of the Hebrew University and Prof. Yisrael Guttman of the Yad Vashem Institute held a press conference here in front of Yad Vashem to protest Begin’s frequent use of the term. The press conference coincided with the end of a one-week hunger strike by Holocaust survivor Dr. Shlomo Schmeltzman who was protesting the war in Lebanon. He conducted his hunger strike outside the gates of Yad Vashem.

“I am deeply ashamed of myself for not having the power to do the same thing and sharply protest the actions of our government,” Ettinger said. “Those acts are in total conflict with the moral and historical tradition of the nation and of the Zionist movement.”

CITES ‘CRIMINAL DEVIATION FROM JUDAISM’

Continuing, Ettinger said: “Our father Abraham asked to save Sodom and Gomorrah for only 10 just people. Our government, in order to kill several hundred terrorists, is ready to kill thousands of women and children and innocent citizens. Never before has there been such a far-reaching and criminal deviation from Judaism. No other person has desecrated the memory of the Holocaust as that Premier (Begin.)”

Guttman said that a trend had developed several years before the war in Lebanon to misapply the term Holocaust by over-using it, frequently for political ends. At the same time, he added, government spokesmen often criticized opponents of government policies as being anti-Semitic. “In that case, we are also anti-Semites,” Guttman said.

Schmeltzman told the press conference that “It is time for us to take off our blinders and look at reality and see that our society is sick. There are symptoms of a malignant illness, which I used to feel as a child in Poland and Germany. It is time for us to take up and renounce the worship of power.”