Yossi Klein Halevi:
Yeah, it’s interesting because my father raised me with the consciousness that the non-Jewish world is divided into two kinds of people. There are those who actively want to kill us and there are those who are glad that someone else is doing the job. And my maturation process was learning to break from that survivor mind-set that my father really tried to impose on me. And I understand why, given his experience.
But in the 1990s, parts of Israeli society were beginning to distance ourselves — and I was certainly very much part of that — from an excessive dependence on the Holocaust as a framing for Israeli and Jewish identity. And there was a very positive, a really healthy conversation that was beginning.
And then the second intifada happens. And all of the trauma returns. And the Jewish survival button was pushed. And that’s a very dangerous thing for the enemies of Israel to do because when that button is pushed, you can’t win.