After World War II and the Holocaust, “Never Again!” was a solemn pledge not to allow mass murder of a minority group. Especially with the exclamation point, the mantra was a way to say, “Next time we will do better to protect our Jews.”
The meaning was perhaps best expressed by a European anti-Semite who had rescued Jews, at the risk of his life, during the Holocaust. He was asked, “You obviously don’t like Jews; why did you save them?” He replied, “No, I don’t like them, but I don’t think they should be killed.”
Is that too much to ask of what is laughingly called “the world community”? You don’t have to like us. All you are required to do is stop killing us.
But no, it is too much to ask. Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, continues to be wracked by anti-Semitic riots merging into actual pogroms. Jews are chased through the streets, beaten, stabbed, even thrown in the river. That is a real pogrom, enough to make an old czarist proud, even enough to make Hitler smile.
Meanwhile, “Gas the Jews” appears as graffiti in Australia, on the other side of the globe. Now that is a true world-wide movement. All done by Middle Eastern immigrants? Most, perhaps, but all? We can wonder.
And we can set down our beers and our snacks, turn off the TV, get our flabby behinds up off the couch, and do something.
In the docudrama “The 15.17 to Paris,” three Americans stop a terrorist attack on a train. When the president of France asks one of the heroes why they acted, the young man replies, “We had to do something.” There it is in one brief sentence. Before our own safety is threatened, will we recognize the danger and do something? Or will we remain on the couch, getting fatter and flabbier, while the world smolders?
Will we replace the exclamation point with a question mark?