ROBERT S. WISTRICH
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than forty years acquired a healthy modicum of power through the
State of Israel, without which national survival would have proven
very problematic in the modern world. This power, if used wisely,
can forge the basis for coexistence with the Arab nations and the
Palestinians in the Middle East. For such a
modus vivendi
to take
place, it is incumbent on Israeli leaders as well as the Arabs to free
themselves from the traumas of the past, from the mythologizing of
history and the "demonologizing" of the enemy.
It
is no less the
duty of the Western world to atone for its long history of racist
oppression against Jews and Arabs by building confidence between
the two sides instead of abjectly succumbing to anti-Zionist myths
and unforgivably legitimizing a new wave of anti-Jewish violence on
European soil.
The connection between the Holocaust and the Arab-Israeli
conflict is a complex one that has not yet reached its conclusion. But
unless the correct conclusions are drawn and the parties concerned
succeed in extricating themselves from its shadow, we are likely in
this age of thermonuclear war to arrive at a final solution to end all
final solutions-one in which there are no victors and no vanquished .
