Holocaust Ok, Gaza!
By Marwan Asmar
03 March,
2008
Countercurrents.org
At last Israelis are coming out of their military-chauvinistic closet and having no qualms about using such words as the Holocaust to describe what they are doing or want to do to the Palestinians.
While many
in Israel are saying it was unfortunate for the Israeli deputy defense
minister to use such a word, only attributed to what the Nazis did
to the Jews, such semantics can only describe the real feelings of
many Israelis and their political-military masters and establishments
who are prepared to create another Holocaust to deal with the people
of Gaza.
Although such term has never been used in public, Israel has always
stated Gaza was a problem that it wished it would go away, maybe thrown
in the sea. But the Gaza Strip is a reality that exists and no amount
of destruction, would wither away the 1.7 million people living there.
It is facile to say ‘shame on you Israelis’ and would
probably be of little consequence because of the effective current
war that is being waged on the people of Gaza with the use of such
a word by Matan Vilani, an outspoken army-general, is chilling because
of its transparency and the business-as-usual attitude it carries
with it.
It is also
facile to say that Israel has become a callous state because of its
careless attitude that has been brought on by its military doggedness,
and this is in spite of the fact many in the international community
would call its murderous actions in Gaza as no more than bloody massacres
that either is bordering on the Holocaust or could well become one.
The idea of Israeli defending itself against Al Qassam rockets is
small talk and doesn’t compare to the hell it is inflicting
on the people of Gaza, and its encroachment into the Strip with its
tanks, armory and soldiers, that speak of one more massacre in a series
of wars it has inflicted on the Palestinian people.
What Israel is doing today is akin to that of a superpower fighting defenseless people it has occupied and subjugated soon after it was created in 1948. Then the Zionists where posing themselves as the defenseless lambs, in reality however, they were as militarily obtrusive as they are now, a war-mongering pack of wolves who still seek to portray themselves as the innocents in a sheep clothing.
Today, the term Holocaust is being used by the Israelis themselves and there does not seem to be any compunction in that. Sadly Jews and Israelis do not appear to have learned anything from their bloody history nor care, practicing the abcs of their forgotten past on other people who had no role in the Nazi-Jews debacle.
Statistics
against those Palestinian killed this time around including women,
children and the old are two difficult to pin point because they keep
going up on an hourly basis at the bludgeon of military machines strike
and as supplied by the American tax-payer.
Within two days of gunship battles on Gaza, 32 people were killed,
and then it doubled in the next 48 hours, whilst other figures included
62, 80 and 100 continue to take their tole. According to a UICEF report,
and only four days into the bombardment, 17 children were killed,
including a six-month-old baby.
This is not to count the hundreds of injuries as a result of Israeli bombings, shootings and general mayhem.
Nearly everyone, including the Arab countries, look with horror and bewilderment but other than mild rebukes, which are hard to come bye, Israel is left to its own devices to do what it will regarding the Palestinian people, and which is a very dangerous situation because it means many countries in the world believe in their hearts of hearts, the Palestinian territories are disputed lands, if not lands belonging to Israel, an entity that is only 60 years old, a novice in international politics but has managed to use the “Jewish aura” to influence western states far beyond its size. Thus what it is doing in the occupied territories is an exercise of right or it is thought.
And so
Israel’s Holocaust has become ours, used on us by them and repeated
time and again in a series of bloody mini-Holocausts to break the
Palestinian will and desire and instill fear in them to make them
submit to Israeli army dictates but as Palestinians would say: No
chance!
The situation has become illusive for the people of Gaza; they have
become used to Israeli killings and pure acts of vandalism. They have
been under an Israeli-imposed embargo since last June, effective hostages
to Israeli vindictiveness but with no consequence. For them what is
being done to Gaza and to them has become a battle of wills over land,
territory, rights and existence.
Israel has dealt with the Palestinians worst than the Apartheid South African regime and even worse because of the inherent racism and the occupation that accompanied her entity and existence, a state on the land of other people.
This is why Israel will continue to fight the people of Gaza and their leaders; this is why they will continue to fight Hamas, Al Jahad Al Islami, Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and numerous other factions who will continue to be a thorn in their sides as the issue will never be solved as long as long-term solutions remain mere figments of the imagination as Israelis are treating them to be.
Marwan Asmar is the Responsible Editor of Jo Magazine, a monthly produced in Amman that mainly deals in local affairs and writes frequently on Palestinian-Israeli and Arab issues. From 1993 till 2003 he was previously the Managing Editor of the Star, an English, political, cultural and economic weekly, also in Amman.
