"The Americanization of the Holocaust"

Regarding "The Americanization of the Holocaust" (October 21, 2001) by Detlef Junker:
The essay is a brilliant gloss on a troubled and troubling subject. The increasing visibility of the Holocaust is partly the result of the same factors that have led to an astonishingly disproportionate representation of American Jews in, say, the federal government and the U.S. Senate: They are very capable and motivated to succeed. That is why they also exert such a disproportionate influence on American foreign policy, especially in favor of Israel.

If one objects in print one is subjected to a torrent of abuse.

The "Never Again" mentality motivates American Jews as a group to circle their wagons and just shout down any and all criticism. What that leads to is the current mess in the Middle East. I have been a pious and contrite visitor to the major Holocaust memorials in the United States, but I am increasingly convinced that their covert agenda is the consolidation of a more and more secular American Jewry for the protection of Israel.

I, too, want to protect Israel, a small country in which Jewish brilliance has blossomed. But if the Israelis and American Jews do not understand and ultimately sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians, then they haven't truly learned what an evil the Holocaust was. How will future generations read the history of Jewish helicopter gunships versus Palestinian rocks and Molotov cocktails?

Patrick D. Hazard, Weimar

This letter does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editors of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung – English Edition.