In a situtation where you had a choice between a second holocaust and the destruction of the rest of the human race I think the second holocaust would be considered morally excusable.
I suppose you recognize that you have created a false dichotomy.
Nevertheless, please allow me to address what I find to be a troubling inference I am making from your remark. It almost sounds as if you might find allowing bullies to exterminate the Jewish people simplying for being Jewish morally excusable under the right circumstances. I realize that is not exactly what you said, as you said it was morally excusable when the only alternative is the destruction of the human race. I suspect Americans as a whole probably do not agree with your implication that under the right circumstances wiping the Jewish people off the face of the earth simply for being Jewish is ever morally acceptable. Do not underestimate the American spirit of "live free or die" and "better dead than red." The American servicemen dying in Iraq today are volunteers.
This is only my opinion, but I think the US as a whole would in fact prefer a nuclear war to the wholesale extermination of Jews the world over.
We just might get one, too, as just last night former CIA agent Robert Baer, the man on whom George Clooney's character in Syriana is based, said on CNN that he has no doubt that World War Three has begun. The stage is set for the major world powers to pick sides, as they are already doing publicly, and the Middle East crisis will likely escalate, drawing in more players, and more support from the bigger players.
Eventually, if it continues, nations will formally declare war on each other and we would have a third world war. Remember that the first world war started over the simple assassination of an heir to the throne of a minor (in military and political terms) European country. The stage was already set for nations to align with or against each other, however, much like today. Oh, and that war was supposed to be the "war to end all wars." Sure.
A third world war would, in my opinion, likely result in at least someone using a moderate to large nuclear weapon, or at least tactical nukes (China has plenty of these). That someone may or may not be a sovereign nation, but instead some other radical band of guerillas or "freedom fighters" or whatever. I doubt it would result in large, global nuclear strikes using thousands of nuclear weapons in the world's collective stockpile, a la that contemplated during the Cold War between the US and the USSR.
The predictions of extermination of the human race using nuclear weapons are likely hyperbolic. There is no doubt that the detonation of hundreds or even dozens of large nukes in a short period of time would profoundly affect lifeforms the world over, and the modern, fast-paced, ultra-techno and affluent lifestyle as we in the West know it would end for now. The earth would recover in due time, however, and humans and their civilization would as well.
AS
