Sublime

encouraged Palestinian terrorists to commit acts of violence in order to provoke overreaction by Israel and secure one-sided condemnation of Israel by the international community.

pour se décharger de toute responsabilité historique, les nationalistes contemporains pratiquent volontiers la reductio ad hitlerum qu’ils reprochent à leurs adversaires. Ils font mine d’oublier qu’il existe beaucoup de variétés historiques de leur doctrine et autant de manières de vouloir la retraduire dans les coordonnées du présent.

On the other hand, something different is expected from Israelis. This is cultural relativism bordering on racism. To expect less of Palestinians, regardless of their grievances, is to diminish their humanity.

Hitler rebooted eugenics. Armed with statistical data courtesy of IBM equipment and engineers, Nazis went in pursuit of a master Aryan race: tall, strong, blond-haired, blue-eyed, intellectually and physically superior.

He would openly insist that saving lives was more important than anything else. He would repeat over and over that it was better to save one Jew than to kill twenty Germans.

Je le sais bien ; de l’autre côté de la frontière, un homo alpinus brun, de moyenne taille, flanqué pour principal porte-voix d’un petit bossu châtain, a pu fonder son despotisme sur la mythique suprématie des « grands Aryens blonds ».

But modern tolerance is deafer than intolerance.

The fact is that the ordinary short-term case for pacifism, the claim that you can best frustrate the Nazis by not resisting them, cannot be sustained. If you don’t resist the Nazis you are helping them, and ought to admit it. For then the long-term case for pacifism can be made out. You can say: “Yes, I know I am helping Hitler, and I want to help