Remembering Genocide
On the Holocaust Memorial Day
I'm a Palestinian; I'm also a Human, and thus I care for people like me, whether Muslims, Christians, Jews, followers of other religions, or atheists.
I'm a Palestinian; I can be a Muslim Palestinian, a Christian Palestinian, a Jewish Palestinian, or an atheist Palestinian.
I don't hate the Jews, simply because they are humans like me. Yet I oppose Zionists because they stole or supported the theft of my homeland. And my ultimate aim will remian the freedom of my land, Palestine, and my people, the Palestinians.
I don't deny the Holocaust that was committed seven decades ago by the Nazis and their collaborators and in which many Gypsies, Poles (Catholic/Christian, and Jewish), Serbs, Soviet military prisoners of war, civilians on occupied territories including Russians and other East Slavs, mentally or physically disabled, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists and political dissidents, trade unionists, Freemasons, Eastern Christians, and Catholic and Protestant clergy were persecuted and killed. I totally condemn this crime and I'm disgusted by its savagery and severity. For me a crime is a crime whether ten or ten million innocent people were killed.
I do condemn the 1930s' Holocaust, but I also condemn, even more, the apathy and the silence of the whole world on the 58-year-old still ongoing Holocaust committed against the Palestinians by the Zionists in the name of the victims of the first Holocaust. It is the support and approval -even by silence- to this current Holocaust that should be considered illegal and it is today’s Genocide that is now more demanding to be remembered and stopped immediately.
I condemn the 1930s’ Holocaust, but I also condemn the cheap exploitation of that horrific crime to justify the displacement of the Palestinian nation, the occupation of their homeland, and the continuous killing of innocent Palestinians. Likewise, I denounce the cheap use of the 11th of September’s massacre and its innocent victims to justify the occupation of
Finally, this year Bolton Council decided to replace the Holocaust Memorial Day with a more inclusive Genocide Memorial Day which will include among its activities both the Nazi Holocaust and the ongoing genocide and human rights abuses of Palestinians by Israelis. I strongly encourage you to campaign for a similar action in your own locality. Remembering the cruelty of the past must be enough of a motivation to make us work hard to stop today’s cruelty from taking more innocent lives around the world.
14 comments:
As there is no 'holocaust' occuring in the disputed territories, your point is rather vacant.
However, the Palestinian People have declared their intent on committing genocidal crimes against the Jews.
Yet, there is no protest from your lips.
Does this mean your definition of humanity stops when it comes to the Jews?
Questioning certain logistic equations concerning the actual Genocidal crimes commited against the Jews by Nazi Germany during the actual Holocaust is no crime.
Questioning specific factual events, among which are the actual Genocidal crimes commited against the Jews by Nazi Germany during the actual Holocaust, with the intent of suggesting the Holocaust never occured is evil.
Moderation suggests you fear the truth.
While what is happening to the Palestinians is terrible, it's not Genocide.
If there was an attempt at Genocide, it would be over by now. Israeli would try to make peace or give land to the Palestinian Authority.
Using the terms Genocide and Holocaust just cheapens the palestinian plight.
ibrahamav,
"As there is no 'holocaust' occurring in the disputed territories, your point is rather vacant."
We already disagreed. You are talking about the "disputed territories", I'm talking about PALESTINE. You don't have to physically kill a whole nation to call it genocide. By scattering that nation around the world, stealing their homeland, heritage, culture, identity and even food and by not recognizing them you are effectively eliminating Palestinians from existence.
In regard to the WEST BANK and GAZA STRIP, A couple of months ago Jan Egeland, the UN Assistant Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Coordinator of Emergency Aid and Jan Eliasson, Sweden's Foreign Affairs Minister and former (1992-1994) UN Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, wrote:
"Gaza constitutes a time bomb. Some 1.4 million people, mostly children, are piled up in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with no freedom of movement, no place to run, and no space to hide. Virtually without external access since June, Gaza is experiencing a rise in poverty, unemployment, penury, and despair. Sadly, that which Gaza most needs today is precisely what it lacks the most: hope."
Adding the above to the apartheid wall in the WEST BANK and its consequences on the lives of the Palestinians, they are left with one of two options: the first is to voluntarily escape the intolerable life conditions and leave PALESTINE (and don't ever think of this as a choice, not even in your dreams), the second is to face the apartheid regime and die where they are with honour and dignity. Now this Is GENOCIDE.
I fully agree that suggesting the Nazi Holocaust never occurred is evil. I advise you though to be a universal citizen and care not only about the Jews killed in that terrible crime but rather about all its victims, who include -but are not limited to- the Jews.
In regard to moderation, I didn't have moderation enabled until some uncivilized zionists started placing extremely offensive comments against faiths, races and sacred figures. You don't have to play this game of twisting my hand with such a closing, because you know that your comments would have been published anyway.
tomer,
It is Genocide, and you are helping in that genocide by not admitting that "Rishon LeZiyyon" where you live is build on the rubble of a number of Palestinian villages including "Sarafand Al Amar", "Sarafand Al Kharab", and "Al-Ssawmariyya", which themselves were among more than 500 PALESTINIAN villages which were depopulated and flattened in 1948. For you to live where you are now a massacre had to be committed somewhere around and many PALESTINIANS had to flee hearing the horrifying news. This Is Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing.
"Israel would try to make peace" I won't comment on this. The daily crimes of "Israel" are enough to show who aspires to peace and who destroys any hope for peace.
well done on the post jabal. i think the people killed and abused (Jews, gypsies, etc alike) in the Holocaust would be horrified that they are being used as an excuse to do the same to others.
ibrahamav, your generalisation about the palestinian people declaring intent on committing genocidal crimes against Jews is a dangerous and to be honest, offensive one, and it was in response to a very moderate article. jabal didnt't condemn israelis, just zionists, he didn't deny the holocaust, he condemned it.
'Moderation suggests you fear the truth.' are you promoting extremism?!
'no protests from your lips'? most palestinians condemn any act of violence, including that of the state of israel and the israeli army, but also by the few palestinian extremists that i as a palestinian, and all the palestinians i know, condemn because they do our cause no favours and unlike the israli government and army, we do not support collective punishment (ie the suffering of innocent people).
i am also sick of people being accused of being Holocaust deniers just because they remind people that it wasn't just Jews but pretty much anyone the Nazis didn't like at the time that suffered. is it these people that are Holocaust deniers, rejecting that not all the millions that were killed were Jews?
tomer, if you don't like the use of genocide or holocaust with reference to the palestinian people (i too don't think they describe what is happening accurately), what word would you suggest? what word describes over 60 years of massacres, forced exile, humiliation, degradation, starvation, child mortality, phiysical abuse, restriction of mobility anf livelihood, Apartheid (please don't bother trying to dispute this, there's a wall now, remember), and any other deprivation of human right you can think of?
Anyone who thinks that what is going on in Palestine is not a crime is a holocaust denier. The existence of a 'Jews only state' is a crime in itself, but when that state sets out to starve Palestinians into submission, to deprive them of their land, water, any means to survive, whilst at the same time subjecting them to arbitrary extra judicial assassination and daily humiliation, that crime is multiplied on a daily basis. Ibrahamav is living proof of the fact that Zionists can be fascists.
excellent post!
and it is genocide- its all about demographics and ethnic cleansing. plain and simple.
Yes, this memorial day (or as I observe its actual duration at least here, in Italy, memorial fortnight) is very trendy.
Because it ìs very easy!!!
We have a politician, right-wing, leader called Fini. Nowadays he is the strongest supporter of any policy whatsoever israel "applies" to the palestinians, lately also lebanese, tomorrow maybe iran ? morgen die ganze welt ?
anyway, they're always justified. israel has the right to its complete, undisputed, bulletproof security.
if the rest of the world should drown for it, so be it !
This guy Fini, is the leader of the ex-fascist party - long-time admirer of b.mussolini.
Today he super-strongly condemns the evil & unparalleled crimes of the nazis (the fascists, also were somehow involved in them).
So, by this crooked logic, he therefore super-strongly supports anything israel does, as i mentioned.
But ask him; no! better ask somebody else, to get true answers ;-)
When it was happening, what was your party supporting ? What did your party stand for, for decades until it saw fit to turn the back and get into a more profitable stand, pro israel, that is.
Does this thing of solely concentrating on what happened decades before help to not make something else bad happen today ?
we see it doesn't, it is the equivalent of the nazis that today celebrate and exploit this hipocritical memorial, these people (the politicians) are the same that will let the power (wherever it resides at the time) take its steps , choose its required degree of violence, apply it to the number of people it sees fit, without prejudicial limits.
then maybe 60 years later they'll tell, that was a hooorrrible thing !! you must rememmberr !! but don't look at what i do today, right ?
Mohammed
Not genocide!
425 PRCS and Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC) Emergency Medical Technicians and first aid workers injured (including 2 physicians). 121 ambulances were attacked and damaged.
991 incidents of denial of access to PRCS ambulances at roadblocks were reported.
2,859 deaths including 527, or 19% children (below 18 years).
At least 82% civilian. 600 killed by heavy weapons. 1,728 killed by live ammunition. 308 in assassination attacks/extrajudicial killings (grave breach of the 4th Geneva Convention and as such considered war crimes).
167 journalists attacked by Israeli soldiers.
94 attacks on press and media establishments.
12 Journalists killed by Israeli forces, (1 Italian, 1 British).
295 journalists wounded as a result of gun shots, physical assault or other means of attack.
Bullets: 5.56 mm (223 caliber), 7.02 mm, 9 mm, 50 caliber, 500 mm, 800 mm, rubber coated steel, plastic. Missiles. Tank Fire. F-16 fighter jets.
It is estimated that since the 29th of March 2002, 15,000 Palestinians have been detained,
6,000 of who remain in prison. Of these, 1,700 Palestinians are under administrative detention meaning they have not had a trial, and are imprisoned without charges being brought against them. 350 Palestinian children currently held in Israeli prisons and detention centres inside Israel and in the West Bank.
8 schools turned into military barracks.
185 schools were shelled and fired upon by Israeli soldiers.
11 schools completely destroyed.
9 vandalized.
15 schools used as detention centres and army barracks.
132 Palestinian students killed and 2,500 injured on their way to or from school.
Never again!
Well said views in this post Jabal. Keep up the good work!
Peace/ Nadia
I am very sorry for ibahamav's talk. Who, seriously, in the arab world, said he wanted to kill all Jews?
It is nonsence do refere ones talk on the words of an Egyption General, in time of war.
Ibrahamav, doesn't he know how the Nazi-attrocities startet - and went on for years, until the beginning of WWII? They made it impossible for Jews to live in their own country, they forbid young Jews higher education a.s.o...
Isn't this just what Israel does to the Palestinians, in their own country? ibrahamav seems to forget, who are the invadors, the colonizers and who are the victims. The zionist genocide isn't Auschwitz, it is a more alike the one of geman Nazis until 1939. ibahamav should think about this. It wouldn't harm the ethics of his Jewishness, if he understood. Just the contrary!
Well done Jabal, and thank you for the well written concise post.
You're replies to ibrahamav and tomer, and the replies of the others, have left no space for me to comment since you've said it all.
One day will come when the 'good' Jews will come ogether to set up a memorial day for all the Palestinians the Israeli's massacred in their name, and they would come together with the Palestinians to celebrate their freedom from Israeli occupation and opression, the return of the land to its rightful owners, the destruction of the aparthied regiem and its wall that it built, the return of the 5.5 million Palestinians waiting at the boarders to return. They will come together to celebrate peace in the Holy Land.. the land of the prophets.
In a time where nearly all witnesses of the second world war have died (or will soon), it is morally wrong that people use the crimes against their forefathers as an argument when battling out their own disputes.
Equally wrong is telling lies about a peoples history, with the sole intent to discredit them and spread hate against them.
Soon, no one will remember the holocaust anymore. Not having learned that hating a human being because he is born elsewhere, geographically or spiritually is wrong, we are bound to make the same mistakes.
We are one race. The human race.
This is the 21st century.
I am just like you.
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