Helena Cobban comments

In her blog, Just World News, Helena Cobban takes an overview of the Gaza situation, writing:

“Haaretz’s Amos Harel describes the ‘dizzying’ pace of events between Israel and Gaza in the past week:

‘On Sunday, the media were busy with the IDF’s intensive preparations for the possibility that Hamas would march thousands of Gazan Palestinians into Israel. Furloughs were canceled, units were sent forward from training bases and senior commanders stayed in the field to supervise the preparations. By Monday, it became clear that Hamas had chosen to avoid a confrontation. Only a few thousand people attended the rally in Gaza and only a few dozen bothered showing up at the Erez crossing. Hamas made up for its disappointment with the poor turnout by firing rockets at Sderot, injuring Yossi Haimov, 10, in an incident that was chillingly televised. On Wednesday, the IDF and the Shin Bet security service killed five Hamas activists who had returned to the Gaza Strip from training in Iran and Syria. Hamas retaliated with almost 50 rockets, one of which killed Roni Yihye at Sapir College, adjacent to Sderot. Ashkelon was also hit‘.

“… But as Harel notes, the options of what this ‘decisive’ thing might be run from the radically de-escalatory (move into negotiating a ceasefire with Hamas) to the radically escalatory (a big ground operation into Gaza accompanied by, as Vilnai wants, some elements of ‘Shoah’.)
…
“Condi Rice is to be in Israel next week. Will she be promoting the cause of escalation or de-escalation? Up until now, she and the Bush administration have favored or perhaps even pushed for just about every escalatory move the Israeli government has ever made against its neighbors. But it would be great if this time around she could take a calm look round and see the dangers for all involved in the region– who now certainly include the US– if she gives the nod to an escalation against Gaza.
…
“Finally, I can’t stop this post before commenting on the horror and the complete inappropriateness of deputy minister Vilnai using the term ‘Shoah’ to refer to what he was threatening in Gaza. He later backtracked some and said all he meant was ‘a disaster’ (which is bad enough, especially if threatened against a highly populated territory in which non-combatants far outnumber combatants. But in Israel, is the term ‘Shoah’ commonly used to refer to relatively banal events? I thought it was used, like the term capital-H Holocaust in English, to refer to a single, extremely horrific episode of evil”. Helena’s thoughts are posted today here.

It seems that Vilna’i said exactly what he said. Israelis understand it exactly the same way as everybody else does. Of course all these threats are horrible and disgraceful. I would only ask Helena: is a disaster a relatively banal event?