Lessons of disaster

On the fourth anniversary of "9/11", the worst terrorist attack in US
history, we should speculate on the consequences of man-made and natural
disasters. The natural disaster in New Orleans has been followed by a
man-made disaster, that resulted from inadequate preparation for what could
have been predicted and was predicted. I see everything in Jewish terms, so
the tragedies wrought by Hurricane Katrina and the suicide bombings of 9/11
have for me a certain similarity to the Holocaust of Jews in WWII Europe.
There have been detailed hearings and reports regarding 9/11 that have
revealed that it was predicted and predictable. But, Government
bureaucracies are programmed to do nothing until disaster strikes and then
they wait for their orders. This is what happened with the until now worst
natural disaster in US history, the Galveston hurricane of 1900, when 10,000
were killed, and similarly with Katrina. If 20,000 people were to be
gathered in a stadium for a sports event there would be more security than
there was at the Superdome in New Orleans after Katrina struck. Similarly
the Jewish communities of Europe knew that there was a war coming, the
"gathering storm" as Churchill called it, they were warned that the Nazis
intended to kill Jews (that's why many thousands escaped) and that the
populations of Europe hated them, yet they did almost nothing in their own
defense. They were paralyzed and passive, like deer caught in the
headlights of a speeding car.
I know that hindsight is 20/20, but in each of these cases, those alive
afterwards are duty bound to do a post-mortem, especially when the people
involved had been hit by the same phenomenon before, are supposedly
intelligent and had been advised previously to make preparations for the
predicted onslaught. I don't mean to imply that either 9/11 or Katrina have
nearly such disastrous consequences as the Holocaust, which dwarfs them in
its scale. But, they are nevertheless disasters that could have been at
least ameliorated by taking appropriate action in time.
In NO the effects of a category 4 hurricane had been predicted, including
breakages of the dykes, cutting off of electricity and drinking water, and
the need for emergency rations and beds. Although there was a mandatory
evacuation of the city, no provision was made to get the poor out in time by
buses etc. They were concentrated in the Superdome without power, water,
food, toilet facilities and security. A group of ca. 20 British youths
survived the ordeal together, and said that the man-made part of the
disaster was far worse than the natural part.
Gangs of men with (looted) guns roamed the blacked out Superdome and
Convention Center, taking women and raping them at will. There were many
murders, and afterwards the police found several mutilated bodies. This
British group survived because one of them had been a sergeant in the
British Army and he organized a 24 hr security watch. They were among the
few whites in the Superdome, and when interviewed they carefully avoided
saying that they were attacked because they were white, but said instead
that they were "intimidated" constantly, but in fact they survived black
racism. After 3 days this group managed to get out of the Superdome and
move to a nearby hospital and from there to a hotel on their own without
help from any authorities. Then 5-6 days after the storm struck they were
evacuated to Baton Rouge or Dallas. Why did it take that long?
A doctor who went voluntarily to the Superdome started treating sick people
who were sent there without medical supervision. He was joined by a few
nurses, and they established a make-shift clinic with stolen material (drugs
from looted pharmacies). But, one of the nurses was stabbed, and he could
not find any security (a policeman outside refused to enter), so he had to
stop treatment until security arrived. Anyway the worst has not been fully
reported. Dead bodies are being found all over NO, although the total toll
may not be as high as expected, and most of them are from the later human
consequences of Katrina.
What made the Jews of Europe so vulnerable to the Holocaust? One reason was
that the majority communities around them openly hated them, and at the time
it was "politically correct" to do so. This was like a gathering storm.
The Jews adapted to this by adopting three stratagems, (i) they converted
(literally) and joined the "enemy", often becoming anti-Semitic themselves
(from Germany to the US, influential individual Jews, such as Walter
Lippman, the American political commentator and philosopher, openly
described Jews in anti-Semitic terms, that his biographer said he would
never have applied to Blacks, Italians or other minority groups); (ii) they
became as much like their local populations as possible, thus in Germany
Jews adopted the camouflage of middle class Germans (but this only
exacerbated the hatred, since it was seen by them as an attempt to avoid the
consequences of their distinctness); (iii) they opted for international,
liberal, leftist solutions that put them in sympathy with the poor,
downtrodden peoples of their surrounding culture, but still allowed them to
criticize (other) Jews for not dropping their own particulariness (thus
cultured liberal German Jews could blame uncouth orthodox Polish and Russian
Jews for the anti-Semitism directed against themselves). These all led to
denial, "waiting out the storm" or "waiting for it to pass over," similar to
strategies adopted in the case of natural storms.
How one can learn lessons from these disparate disasters is not clear.
Maybe it is a case of thrashing around seeking answers where there are none,
at least none that are common. But, real people died and real people are
still suffering the consequences, and it is mandatory that answers be
sought. In any case, from all the responses to the Holocaust that were
available, denial, assimilation, escape, acquiescence, rebellion, the only
one that provided a potential ideological solution, that most Jews opposed
until too late, was Zionism.