The Holocaust Memory and Israel

Once again, this theme is mentioned but at least, in this instance, in a more presentable fashion.

From a book review:-

His book vividly depicts the life of East European Jews before the war, and chronicles his experiences without sentimentality. It may seem ungenerous to suggest that this does not represent an important addition to Holocaust literature. Yet it fulfils a certain purpose, in helping to explain the mindset of modern Israel. If Israeli governments seem implacable in their determination to place their own perceived interests first, second and last, this is surely because their state was founded in the horrors described by Halter and his contemporaries.

While the "before the war" period refers to the few years prior to World War II, he doesn't realize the anamoly of the Jewish existence in an exilic mode.

Israel is ours because it is our homeland and we are a national group - with our own language, our own culture, our own religion and our own historic narrative that is all vastly different then any of the countries around us.

Even if there had been no antisemitism and no Nazis and no Holocaust, but only some simple case of exile - the Land belongs to us and we belong to the Land.