It is possible—as I and a number of commenters have done below—to respond to Iranian Holocaust incitement with talk about indictments and deterrent strategies, to treat it as an urgent military, strategic and political problem. Which it is, of course. As something that is either preventable or not preventable. Which suggests that the damage is something in the future.

But a case could be made that damage has already been done, is being done every day by these evil clowns who make a murderous mockery of religion, the Holocaust denier/promoters.

I was prompted to think of this—the damage already done— by this despairing sentence in a comment to the last post by “Shmuel, Jerusalem”: “As long as Iran can make realistic but unanswered annihilationist threats, even without following through, Zionism is dead. Let me tell you this is no way to live.”.

“This is no way to live.”

No way to live with daily threats of extermination, with extermination written into the charter of the Hamas entitiy now ruling Palestiine, with Islamic bombs and loose nukes rattling around central Asia and many pledged to die to “wipe Israel off the map”.

This puts in perspective doesn’t it, those pollyanna American Jews who are always talking about how “lucky” American Jews are. “The luckiest Jews in history” was I believe the now notoriously foolish quote of one self styled writer/ sage.

Yes, lucky—if you isolate the American situation entirely and pay no attention to—feel nothing for, no kinship to— those who have to live with realistic exterminationist threats every hour of every day. No it won’t happen here, but it might happen there.

Luckier still if you believe that the euphemism “wipe Israel off the map” refers only to eliminating a geographical distinction. Another all too easy excuse to ignore the theat, the exterminationist context in which those words are uttered. The real world conseqences of a “binational state” Hey, nothing to worry about, it’s just a policy proposal. Again, read the Hamas charter.

Perhaps we will turn out to be extremely lucky and a second Holocaust will be averted, and the regional nuclear war that escalates beyond the region will not ensue. But meanwhile damage is being done every day to the innocents, by the loathsome Holocaust denier-promoters (and their defenders) who make the threats.

“This is no way to live”.