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Tue 06 Jun 2010Israel losing its memory in pursuit of security
Post-Holocaust taboos of humiliation and collective punishment have now withered to nothing, writes FINTAN O'TOOLE
PERHAPS THE most haunting opening sequence in cinematic history is that of Claude Lanzmann’s epic documentary, Shoah, released in 1985. We see a moment of verdant serenity. A flat-bottomed boat is being punted down a slow, tree-lined river. A handsome, middle-aged man with curly grey hair is standing in the prow, singing, in a lithely melodic tenor voice, a plaintively nostalgic Polish folk song about a lovely white house.
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