HOLOCAUST as a power word

I was watching CNN just now, their report on the protests in front of the Israeli embassy in London against Israel's air strikes on Gaza.

Among the assorted - not very many different - signs the protesters were carrying two were predominant: Free Palestine and Stop the holocaust in Gaza.

In the news "ticker" running at the bottom of the screen CNN chose to highlight the slogan Free Palestine - which is indeed the most all-encompassing and essential message of these protests. That is, in fact, the ultimate goal of most politically active Palestinians - certainly of the Hamas.

The eye of the camera, however, lingered on another one: Stop the holocaust in Gaza.
(N.B. It may have "lingered" on it simply because the group displaying it was the most vocal and visually agitated one.)

In the past thirty years or so, the term holocaust has become synonymous with the most unfortunate chapters in the history of Jewish people.
Furthermore, it has been elevated to a sort of "trademark" of the Jewish people and culture. This statement may sound cynical (even though its intention is far from it), but it is the truth.
(Should you need proof, you can prove it to yourself quite easily. When you hear it, do you think of, say, Rwanda? Armenia in 1916? The Nuba? The Roma - AKA Gypsies - in Nazi Germany? Do you?)

And it was the EYE - not history books or articles - which elevated it to such a status. The eye of the camera - of Hollywood, to be more precise. (Of Steven Spielberg's cameras, to be painfully precise.) The public in the TV era think with their eye.

And so, if you are going to use it - or any "power word" - for your own purposes, you'd better do it by harnessing the power of the camera. Articles, editorials and so on will only get you so far - which, in this day and age, with functional illiteracy rampant, isn't very far. To be seen at all, you have to be seen on TV.

Which brings us to today's protests in London.

If the protesters are using the word "holocaust" as a premeditated attempt to succinctly represent the extent and human suffering, the horror (perceived or real) of what the Israeli government is doing, they have jumped the gun.

To have its presumed intended effect, such a powerful "power word" should only be used in conjunction with much more spectacular protests - or as a consequence of much more (you're going to hate me for this, but your hatred will be misplaced) "dramatic" carnage.

For the media, a few hundred dead - unless it's in the USA or a European capital - is simply not "striking" enough. Worrying - yes, breaking news - most definitely. But at this stage - which, admittedly, may escalate, and quickly - those protests don't seem compelling enough to command "the world's" - i.e. the media - undivided attention.

Now imagine this scene. The air strikes continue, the number of dead rises, the media reports become much more alarming, until there is an ocean of people willing to take center stage in one or more prominent European and USA cities - all displaying just two signs: Free Palestine and (as an example) Stop the Holocaust in Palestine.

The message you want picked by the media and the world's public must be clear and concise (and should not contain too many - more than four - words) - and, of course, in direct correlation with the events that triggered the protests.

And so, you choose a clear and concise wording of your ultimate aim - in this case, - complemented by a message the force of which is directly borrowed from the force of your adversary.
In martial arts terms: you use your adversary's own weight and strength against him. The use of the word holocaust in these specific circumstances is such a message.

What happens?
By seemingly (I said seemingly) mis-using the term usually "reserved" for the Jewish (hence, by implication - whether justifiably or not is another question - Israel) it triggers a brief pause: it makes people stop and think, evaluate what the term really means (we're talking of an extremely fast thought process here: of seconds, perhaps tenths of seconds).

The final conclusion regarding its validity (most reasonably educated people would, of course, agree that the term cannot be justifiably applied to just one group of the world's population) is almost irrelevant.

Because the power of the "power word" - holocaust - is still there.
The emotional and intellectual power it has accumulated - via books and, most especially, the media - from the countless tragedies associated with it is intact. Only, now it has been transfered onto another group.
Furthermore, when it is associated with bloody events - on a large scale - that everyone can witness it potentially harnesses the haunting shadow of historic collective guilt expressed (if not necessarily heart-felt) by parts of the intellectual public - including politicians - regarding the world's lack of reaction to the mistreatment of Jews (and not just them, by the way) 70 years ago.

We're not talking of necessarily very profound emotions on the part of the viewing public; and even the rage - i.e. the direction of the emotions - of those who may oppose its use by the Palestinians is more or less irrelevant. (And BTW, the less the public knows about history, the better.)

What matters is that the transfer of such a powerful and long-lasting "power word" effectively attracts attention; and when it's done on a very large, visually overwhelming scale - and consistently - the process of empathy, emotional adoption (on the part of the viewing public), begins.

And so does the increase of the protesters' bargaining power.
In the eye of the public, of course.
What goes on behind the scenes... ah well, that is another matter.
"History-makers" aren't always the fastest thinking lot around. And they seem to be blood-powered or something: they don't budge unless X-number of gallons of blood have been spilled.
But that is another story.

Or is it?



* This is a slightly longer version of the article published here.