Final update (good news):
The BBC's Katya Adler in Jerusalem says many of Mr Vilnai's colleagues have quickly distanced themselves from his comments and also tried to downplay them saying he did not mean genocide.
"We're getting close to using our full strength. Until now, we've used a small percentage of the army's power because of the nature of the territory," he added.
********** Original diary below :
Unbelievable news currently on the BBC:
Israel warns of Gaza 'holocaust'(Note: BBC has since changed their title, see update above)
"The more [rocket] fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves," Matan Vilnai told Israeli army radio.
Correspondents say the "holocaust" is a term rarely used in Israel outside discussions of the Nazi genocide during World War II.
I simply cannot make myself believe that Israel would "wish" anything even remotely resembling a holocaust on another people. I do hope this is all another case of "mistaken translation".
Update: Comment by dfb1968:
I just read the Hebrew version on Ynet, and he said the following:
ככל שירי הרקטות גובר, הפלסטינים מביאים על עצמם שואה יותר גדולה
("as all the rocket fire increases, the Palestinians are bringing on themselves a much bigger holocaust")
BTW, about the Hebrew word for holocaust, it is "shoah", which is in this quote. As for The Holocaust, in Hebrew, it is "HaShoah" (since we don't have capital letters, we use "Ha" as in "The").
I can't defend this. Especially since I just HR'ed someone earlier today for making a joke of the word Kristallnacht.
Update II: Diary title changed from
Israel uses the word "holocaust" to describe what it may do in Gaza
to
Israel politician uses the word "holocaust" to describe what it may do in Gaza
*******
Excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on The Holocaust
The term holocaust originally derived from the Greek word holókauston, meaning a "completely (holos) burnt (kaustos)" sacrificial offering to a god. Since the late 19th century, it has been used primarily to refer to disasters or catastrophes.
The biblical word Shoa (שואה) (also spelled Shoah and Sho'ah), meaning "calamity," became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the 1940s.[8] Shoa is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of "holocaust."
Last week, I wrote a short diary entitled It's not Terrorism when they do it..
A passage from that diary reads:
When are people going to wake up and see that, apart from the current U.S. occupation of Arab lands, there are two main sources for the recruitment of terrorists in the Middle East:
- Bias for and against Israel
- Israeli actions towards Palestinians and vice versa.
I just read the currently featured article on the BBC Police feared 'airport stand-off' explaining why Israeli Major General Doron Almog avoided arrest of war crimes while in London in 2005.
Israel has the right to defend itself, but it is defending itself from a Frankenstein that it not only helped to create, but apparently still wants to feed on a daily basis (in the metaphorical sense!). That Frankenstein is also includes Gaza, better known as the World's largest prison