Miru: You see, the problem with Jews and Poles back then was that the general line of thinking for both was "us or them". Jews saw Soviets as allies while Poles saw them as enemies. For Poles collaboration with Soviets was treachery since they had killed or deported millions of polish people. Jews had no reason to fear Soviets and I understand that.... ...It's simply IMPOSSIBLE for Poles and Jews to compare their situation during war because it was completely different. Why do we have to fight for the title of a blameless victim? Why can't we agree that BOTH nations suffered horribly, BOTH nations had their heroes and murderers, BOTH nations simply wanted to survive? Your analysis is interesting and informative. I have no argument with it. Jews and Poles had conflicting interests and their struggle for survival called for different strategies, putting them in conflict with each other.
The Jews did not see Russians as allies because of any sympathy for Communism but simple because the alternative was Germany and the Einzatzgruppen. Even the US was an ally of Russia then. Would Sokrates say it's because they were communists too?
With your clear analysis of the situation then it should be clear to anyone why so many Jews saw Zionism as the only feasible way for the Jewish people to survive. Staying in European or Arab countries put them in the same hopeless situation you describe, where their survival instinct put them in inevitable conflict with the non-Jews around them. The only answer is to leave those places and return to the Jewish homeland and rebuild an independent Jewish state. Instead of all the conflicts described by Sokrates over whether a Jew can or can not be a Pole/Hungarian/Frenchman/Russian, the Zionist idea is to screw all that (pardon the language) and be what we are – Jews, with no hyphen, in the full ethnic, national and religious sense.
|