The conflicts in what was once Yugoslavia have been festering
for years with recurring horrors and atrocities. It is an
area that is hard to understand because of the many different
ethnic groups interacting in one area. Current events are
difficult and confusing, and their historic roots are
obscure.
The dominant story in the news for the past month or so has
been the conflict between the central government run by the
Christian Serbs and the Moslem Albanians who have been living
in their province of Kosovo. The problem is that Kosovo is an
area to which the Serbs have a deep historic attachment, yet
it is currently populated by an Albanian majority that wants
to be independent of the Serbs. The Serbs have murdered
thousands of Albanians and driven many more into exile in an
attempt to get them out of Kosovo.
The Western world is not standing idly by while this happens,
and a NATO task force led by the United States has been
bombing Serb targets for more than a month, with the avowed
goal of preventing the Serbs from carrying out any massacres
or expulsions of the ethnic Albanians. The Serbs' army is the
strongest force in the area, but it can do nothing against
the NATO attack, and the country has simply absorbed the
attacks while going about its grisly business on the ground.
NATO has -- so far -- insisted that it will not send combat
troops in.
The suffering in the area is terrible. The Albanians are
being massacred and exiled; the Serbs are being heavily
bombed and many civilians are suffering from their difficult
leadership. The Israeli government is certainly to be
commended for its efforts to relieve the suffering of the
Albanians. The United States is certainly to be commended for
its sincere efforts to do good by stopping the horrors.
At the same time, we must remember that this is not a
conflict that directly involves us, and we should resist any
thought of becoming involved.
Some publicity-seeking Israeli leaders feel compelled to
speak out forcefully, drawing analogies from the Holocaust of
World War II to the parties in the former Yugoslavia.
Unfortunate comparisons have been made, for example, calling
the leader of the Serbs the Hitler of the 90's, and comparing
the Albanians to the Jews and so on.
All these analogies are superficial and inaccurate. They
trivialize the Jewish Holocaust, and they can certainly do
damage in the long run.
Drawing the analogy suggests, in the other direction, that
the Jewish Holocaust was "something like" a local ethnic war
between a majority and a minority.
In fact, the Jews of Europe were no threat at all to Hitler
or the German country. They wanted to be loyal citizens and
did not even think about independence. In fact, most of the
Jews who were murdered were not even residents of Germany.
There was no attempt to exile them, just an organized,
systematic attempt to destroy them. They were not murdered by
the regular fighting forces, but by a special force whose
only purpose was to destroy Jews with no ulterior motive. It
was an effort that had no financial, territorial or national
goals, but rather was driven by an ideology of genocide and
destruction.
It is not to minimize the tragedy of Kosovo that we object to
the analogy to the Jewish Holocaust. What is happening there
is bad enough, but it follows the parameters of so many wars
and violent episodes that are long-festering and two-
sided.
The crimes should stop; the suffering should be relieved. But
let us keep our ancestors out of it.
