Lest We Remember

I dislike the use of "UK" as an adjective. And of course the UK Holocaust Memorial would be a target for terrorists, both Islamist and Far Right. That is why the Government wants it. Every time that there were an attack, then the Prime Minister of the day could do his Poundshop Churchill act. 

He could also do so whenever a plot to attack it had been foiled. Or whenever it were useful to pretend that such a plot had been foiled. For example, to give political cover to a Bill to authorise Police and MI5 informants to commit any crime that they pleased, or to a Bill to detain people for 90 days without charge, or to a Bill to introduce compulsory identity cards.

The Holocaust did not happen in Britain, and the British State was not a direct perpetrator of it, although, like the Americans and many others, our hands are far less clean than we like to pretend. We certainly did not fight the War because of the persecution of the Jews or of anyone else, although that does now seem to be believed almost universally.

This Memorial would become a focus for enforced expressions of allegiance to a State that did not exist at the time of the Holocaust, and the anti-British terrorist attempt to create which long predated the Holocaust. Within living memory, that terrorist campaign was prosecuted in London as well as other places, and its leaders are the revered Founding Fathers of that State. They spent the Second World War fighting against Britain, meaning that for all practical purposes they were on the other side, as surely as were others with similar motivations, such as Aung San and Subhas Chandra Bose.

In 2018, when Prince William stayed at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, then he made no recognition of its history. Just as there is no monument to those, mostly young conscripts, who fell in and for the British Mandate of Palestine. Just as no one ever mentions the USS Liberty. And just as no one ever mentions Israel's arming of Argentina during the Falklands War, which was an explicit act of anti-British revenge by Menachem Begin.

My friend Hernán Dobry is the author of a groundbreaking book, Operation Israel: The Rearming of Argentina During the Dictatorship, 1976-1983. He owns all of the rights, because his publisher in Argentina has decided against a second edition. But he has updated it based on new research. Its publication in Britain would significantly alter the debate on Israel.

Hernán maintains that his English is not up to translating his text, and my Spanish is certainly nowhere near that good, so we do need to find someone. A major London publishing house is interested, but the question is that of the translation costs, which would be in the region of £5000. Anyone in a position to help in any way, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.

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