Dare
To Compare - Israel
By Ghali Hassan
25 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Few
days ago, I had a long e-mail message from someone with the “Jews
for Peace” group. The message starts: “I am very annoyed
by your comparison of Israel with Nazi Germany … There is no Auschwitz
in Palestine, and the Palestinians have not experienced a holocaust.
Palestinians are free to leave any time they wish.” I do not know
anything about the group, but a response is in order:
Thank you for your e-mail.
I take it you have never been in Occupied Palestine to see the facts
on the ground. Or you are ignorant of Israel’s policies against
innocent and virtually defenceless Palestinians with nowhere to go to.
I do not compare Israel with
Nazi Germany. Israel is a Zionist settlers’ colony founded on
land theft and terror against the Palestinian people; Nazi Germany was
not. However, I do – like most people – compare Israeli
policies in Palestine with those of the Nazis. If you deny what happened
in Palestine in 1948 (Nakba) when thousands of Palestinians were murdered,
and an estimated 800,000 Palestinians were terrorised and ethnically
cleansed from their homeland in a deliberate and systematic policy of
mass expulsion by Jewish terrorist organisations, you deny “the
holocaust” ever took place.
Honest Jews who experienced
and survived the holocaust have often made the comparison between Israel’s
brutal treatment of the Palestinian people and the Nazis’ brutal
treatments of Jews and others. I am reminded of a letter to the Israeli
Press twenty-five years ago in which Shlomo Shmelzman wrote: “In
my childhood I have suffered fear, hunger and humiliation when I passed
from the Warsaw Ghetto, through labour camps, to Buchenwald. I hear
too many familiar sounds today, sounds which are being amplified by
the war. I hear about ‘closed areas’ and I remember ghettos
and camps. I hear ‘two-legged beasts’ and I remember ‘Untermenschen’
[subhumans]. I hear about tightening the siege, clearing the area, pounding
the city into submission, and I remember suffering, destruction, death,
blood and murder … Too many things in Israel remind me of too
many things from my childhood”. (Ha’aretz, August 11, 1982).
Israel is consciously matching all of Hitler’s crimes, killing
and depriving Palestinians of basic human rights. Only the methods are
different.
Furthermore, various Israeli
politicians today, including the hardcore Fascist Deputy Prime Minister
Avigdor Lieberman, who migrated from Moldova to Israel in 1978are advocating
a harsher policy of ethnic cleansing and mass murder of Arabs in Palestine
as a conclusion to Israel’s conquest of Palestine. In fact, a
majority of Israeli Jews (64%) advocates this Fascist form of thinking.
(Ha’aretz, 22 June 2004).
You write: “Gaza is
free”. I am sure you learned this fraud from at least four sources
of Zionist propaganda: the pro-Israel Jewish Lobby; the deranged ignoramus
American Zionist, Alan Dershowitz; U.S. mainstream media; and the BBC.
Gaza is not “free”. Gaza is a large fortified Concentration
Camp. Since 2000, the entire population of Gaza (1.5 million) has been
under total blockade with disastrous consequences. Anyone who tries
to get out risks being murdered.
As a result of this premeditated
collective punishment, Gaza has run out of food and medicine. Palestinians,
children and infants in particular, are dying of starvation, malnutrition
and preventable diseases. Without electricity, hospital and emergency
centres operate infrequently, depriving the sick and injured of medical
care. So, Gaza is a Camp not much different from the Nazi’s Camps.
Indeed, Israelis have started to call Gaza the “Ghetto”.
The criminal blockade of
Gaza was tightened after the democratic elections of January 2006. The
Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) won the elections in exactly the
manner U.S. and the EU (the West) had called upon them to do –
free and fair democratic voting. Unfortunately, “democracy”
for the U.S. is only if the elected government serves U.S. interests.
The criminal blockade is tightened on daily basis in violation of international
law and civilised norms.
You are being naïve
about the hyped evacuation of a few thousand illegal Jewish settlers
from Gaza. I repeat: This was another Israeli fraud designed for mass
propaganda aimed at diverting public attention away from Israel’s
terror. As one Israeli Labor politician wrote recently: "The goal
is to perpetuate Israeli control in most of the West Bank, and to repel
any internal or external pressure for a different political solution.
The Palestinians will be left with seven enclaves connected by special
highways for their use."
The building of illegal colonies
(the so-called "settlements") has accelerated dramatically,
along with the illegal Apartheid Wall – described by some as ‘much
worse’ than the Berlin Wall – confiscating Palestinian land
and water resources and tearing Palestinian communities into small enclaves,
dividing them from each other. With the completion of the Wall, some
1.6 million Palestinians will have access to no more than 12 per cent
of historic Palestine which makes it impossible to establish a viable
Palestinian state. In addition, the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) is
carrying out Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing, emptying Hebron
of its original Arab inhabitants and Judaising the Jordan Valley, building
illegal colonies, and making the so-called “Two-State” solution
impossible. (See: Régis Debray, Le Monde Diplomatique, August
2007).
Take a look at the new map
of the Palestinian Occupied Territories produced by the UN Office for
the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). More than 45 per
cent of the West Bank is now off limits to Palestinians. East Jerusalem
has been systematically Judaised, its borders inflated, and the Arab
Palestinians there have become prisoners in their homes. They are harassed
on a daily basis by illegal armed extremist settlers and the IOF. According
to IMEMC News, some 1,835 Palestinian families have been forced to move
from their homes and at least 15, 000 Palestinians will be denied access
to the City when the illegal Wall is completed. All over the Occupied
Territories, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians “is in progress”
and has been since 1948. (See: Victoria Buch, Occupation Magazine, September
2007).
The Occupied Territories of the West Bank, including major population
centres such as Nablus and Jericho, are split into enclaves. Palestinians’
movement between them is restricted by more than 572 roadblocks, an
increase of 52 per cent compared to 376 in August 2005. These include
96 manned Israeli checkpoints and 476 unmanned barriers (OCHA). At these
roadblocks, increasing numbers of desperately ill Palestinians and newborn
babies have died because Israeli soldiers and armed settlers prevent
people from reaching hospitals. Israel has already formalised the de
facto Ghettoisation of the West Bank through a network of Jews-only
highways that bypass and isolate Palestinian towns and villages. Israel
has created a system of control the Nazis could only dream of.
You allege that: “Israel
offered the Palestinians ‘land for peace’ and a separate
state, but the Palestinians refused the offer”. First, peace for
Israel, writes Henry Siegman, is a “cover for [Israel’s]
systematic confiscation of Palestinian land” and premeditated
violence against defenceless Palestinians. Peace without justice is
an empty rhetoric. That is why Israeli leaders love all these countless
“peace” conferences. That was what the Oslo “Peace
Process” was for. (Henry Siegman, LRB, 16 August 2007). That is
why Israeli leaders love all these countless “peace” conferences.
Second, you are being very
naïve to believe Israel’s manufactured propaganda. The “offer”
was a scam. Israel offered the Palestinians nothing. In fact most of
Israel’s criminal policies are designed to destroy any chance
of a viable Palestinian state. The opportunity of a viable Palestinian
state has passed and it is no longer a possibility unless Israel completely
withdraws to pre-1967 boarders and implements all UN Security Council
resolutions. (See: Hussein Agha & Robert Malley, NYR Books, 09 August
2001).
You also wrote: “Palestinians
are free to leave any time they wish”. Where to? Israelis can
go where they come from, and most Israelis are dual citizens, and have
no problem returning to their homes in the U.S. and Europe. Palestinians
have nowhere to go except to their homes in Palestine. Remember the
common saying: ‘Jews have always demanded rights when they were
in the minority, but they denied others the rights when they are in
the majority and exercise power’. Palestinians have an inalienable
right to return to their homeland.
Furthermore, you ignored
the numerous diplomatic options offered by Arab nations and rebuffed
by Israel. Indeed, all Muslim nations have offered Israel peace and
recognition if Israel will renounce violence and accept a just peace.
Instead, Israel has rejected every peace offer and continues to perpetuate
violence, because violence is the foundation of the “State of
Israel”.
According to the Palestinian
Centre for Human Rights, PCHR, Israeli Occupation Forces (the Israeli
Army) crimes against the Palestinians during the period of 16 -22 August,
2007 were:
· 16 Palestinians,
including 3 children, were murdered by IOF in the Gaza Strip and the
West Bank.
· 10 of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF.
· 18 Palestinians were wounded by IOF gunfire in the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip.
· IOF conducted 30 incursions into Palestinian communities in
the West Bank and two ones into the Gaza Strip.
· IOF arrested 44 Palestinian civilians, including a child, in
the West Bank.
· IOF shelled fishing boats and arrested 8 Palestinian fishermen
in Rafah.
Of course, Israel’s
terror and war crimes continue uninterrupted. Innocent Palestinian civilians,
including children, are murdered every day. Israel’s blockade
of Gaza (as mentioned above) continues with an international flavour
that is causing a humanitarian crisis. The Palestinians are defenceless
and unable to effectively retaliate against illegal and brutal occupiers.
It’s preposterous to compare Palestinian “violence”
with Israeli violence. Israeli Gestapo-like death squads are murdering
innocent Palestinian civilians and prominent politicians with ease and
impunity.
Israeli war planes continue
to fly ‘sonic boom’ raids, terrorising the civilian population
and causing mental damage to children and infants, and premature birth
and miscarriage among pregnant women. The deliberate murder of Palestinian
children (with impunity) for sport, and the use of Palestinian children
as human shields by the Israeli soldiers, is war crimes worse than the
Nazis’ crimes.
As I write these words, Israeli
soldiers killed five Palestinian boys and girls, aged between 10 and
12, in cold blood. The children had only been playing ‘tag’
in the backyard of their home. Two days earlier, Israeli soldiers killed
three boys while they were collecting carob fruits. The Israeli alleged:
“the children approached the security fence”, Israel’s
routine pretext to justify murder. Then the Israeli Army admitted that
the killing occurred “by mistake”. Do you remember; when
was the last Israeli killed by Palestinians?
Furthermore, at least 11,000
Palestinians, including women and children, are imprisoned without charge
or due process in notorious Israeli prisons. Palestinian prisoners are
enduring torture and abuse – justified by the Israeli Supreme
Court as a ‘necessity’ – not dissimilar from those
practiced by the Nazis with complete disregard to human rights and human
dignity.
Israel has used, and continues
to use, all kinds of weapons to kill Palestinians, including cluster
bombs, napalms, and a new “super-weapon” that uses heat
and pressure to kill people targeted across a wide area by sucking the
air out of people’s lungs and rupturing their internal organs.
In addition, Israel’s uninterrupted house demolitions of Palestinian
homes and destruction of agricultural land constitute war crimes.
It’s worth noting that
Israel’s violence found unconditional military support within
the U.S. and European power establishments. The recent $30 billion “aid
package” to Israel – paid by U.S. taxpayers – is a
case in point, although “Washington’s blind support for
Israel exceeds by many times the amount of direct U.S. aid to Israel”
(Shirl McArthur, WRMEA, July 2006). Israel’s usefulness is that
it justifies U.S. violence and military presence in the region.
Let’s not forget that
Israel is a rogue state in possession of the fourth largest military
force in the world. Israel amasses an arsenal that includes biological
and chemical weapons and more than 200 nuclear warheads. Israel is rightly
considered by the overwhelming majority of people around the world as
the biggest threat to world peace.
All the above mentioned Israeli
war crimes against the Palestinian people are so horrendous that they
could be easily pass for Nazis’ war crimes against Jews. The whole
idea of purely “Jewish State” in Palestine is based on the
concept of the “Master Race” adopted in the Nazis’
ideology of Herrenvolk. Indeed, Jews consider non-Jews (Gentiles) as
Untermenschen, or lesser humans. In Israel, the 20 per cent Palestinians
are despised and denied equal rights in a deliberate discriminatory
policy considered worse than South Africa’s Apartheid. Unlike
South Africa’s Apartheid, Israel’s Apartheid is a real Apartheid.
(See: Chris McGreal, Guardian, 16 February 2006). This racist policy
led some Jews to stop associating themselves with Israel in order to
deflect criticism away from Jews.
Despite the criminal nature
of Israel’s policies, few people dare criticise Israel for fear
of being labelled “anti-Semitists”. Israel uses the cliché
of “anti-Semitism” and the holocaust to silence its critics.
People who are falsely accused of “anti-Semitism” pay dearly,
losing their jobs and livelihoods for daring to legitimately criticise
Israel. Indeed, anyone who criticises Israel's terror or rationally
argues that the pro-Israel Jewish Lobby in the U.S. has a significant
influence over U.S. policy is automatically labelled “anti-Semitic”.
The holocaust has been turned from a human tragedy into a political
tool and a multi-business industry. In addition, Zionist Jews have succeeded
in making the holocaust unique and exclusive, belittling countless other
genocide. Zionist Jews have mastered the art of ‘religion manipulation’
to justify violence and perpetuate a slow genocide in Palestine.
It should be acknowledged
that there is a widespread anti-Semitism campaign directed not against
Jews, but against Arabs and Muslims. Pro-Israel Christian Zionists,
including the Christian Right and pro-Israel lobbies in the U.S. and
Europe, have declared war not only on the Palestinians and Arabs in
the Middle East, but also on all Arabs and Muslims around the world.
With the bulk of Western media inherently pro-Israel and anti-Muslim,
Israel is portrayed as a “victim” defending itself from
the Palestinians who are often depicted as “militants” and
“terrorists”. In reality, the opposite is true.
In his last article in the
Los Angeles Times (16 July 2007), the deputy of HAMAS political bureau,
Mousa Abu Marzook, put the Movement’s view like this: “Why
should anyone concede Israel’s ‘right’ to exist, when
it has never even acknowledged the foundational crimes of murder and
ethnic cleansing by means of which Israel to our towns and villages,
our farms and orchards, and made us a nation of refugees? … I
look forward to the day when Israel can say to me, and millions of other
Palestinians: ‘Here, here is your family's house by the sea, here
are your lemon trees, the olive grove your father tended: Come home
and be whole again’. Then we can speak of a future together.”
Finally, Israel’s existence
as a “civilised” nation depends on Israel’s willingness
to renounce violence, stop dispossessing and murdering Palestinians,
and resume the path of a peaceful democratic coexistence.
I encourage you to carefully
read the sources I refer to in this letter and reflect on the long history
of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people before you blindly
attack me again for daring to compare Israel’s policies in Palestine
with those of the Nazis.
Ghali Hassan is an independent
writer living in Australia.
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