Gaza is a concentration camp, and it’s an American delusion not to recognize that — Weschler

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/concentration-delusion-recognize.html

I know, I know, and I am bone tired of being told it, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is plenty of blame to go around, but by this point after coming on almost 50 years of Israeli stemwinding and procrastinatory obfuscation, I’d put the proportionate distribution of blame at about the same level as the mortality figures—which is, where are we today (what with Wednesday morning’s four children killed while out playing on a Gaza beach)? What, 280 to 2?

For the single overriding fact defining the Israeli-Palestinian impasse at this point is that if the Palestinians are quiescent and not engaged in any overt rebellion, the Israelis (and here I am speaking of the vast majority of the population who somehow go along with the antics of their leaders, year after year) manage to tell themselves that things are fine and there’s no urgent need to address the situation; and if, as a result, the endlessly put-upon Palestinians do finally rise up in any sort of armed resistance (rocks to rockets), the same Israelis exasperate, “How are we supposed to negotiate with monsters like this?” A wonderfully convenient formula, since it allows the Israelis to go blithely on, systematically stealing Palestinian land in the West Bank, and continuing to confine 1.8 million Gazans within what might well be described as a concentration camp.

Note, incidentally, I say “concentration camp” and not “death camp.” I am not comparing Gaza to Auschwitz-Birkenau, but one cannot help but liken the conditions today in Gaza to the sorts of conditions once faced by Japanese-Americans during World War II, or the Boers in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War, or the black South Africans years later in such besieged townships as Soweto, or for that matter Jews and gays and gypsies at Dachau and Theresienstadt in the years before the Nazis themselves settled on their Final Solution.

And it is quite simply massively self-serving delusion that Israelis (and their enablers and abettors here in America, among whom incidentally I count a steadily declining number of American Jews) refuse to recognize that fact.

Wow.

[montanacowboy]

1. Excellent Article

puts it all in perspective

[awoke_in_2003]

2. They have them fenced in like so much cattle...

and wonder why they are upset.

[awoke_in_2003]

30. and one more thing Israel didn't do

was allow the people of Gaza to have a home. They would rather kill them or put them in concentration camps.

[pscot]

3. I must be nuts

There's no other possible explanation for my posting in this forum.




http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Maps/Story573.html

There's a lot to think about at this website.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. I've met people who claim there's no such thing as a "Palestinian".....

Like the name was invented by "Arabs" just to stir up trouble.

[aquart]

12. Well, lessee. They speak Arabic.

They're Muslims. The holiest sites of their religion are Mecca and Medina which are in Arabia...

Okay, I'm stumped. How are they different? Food, I bet! And national anthem! And the way they treat women!

Of course, if the Saudis called them home...would that mean sharing the oil money?

[jeff47]

16. What a monumentally stupid argument.

Race isn't religion.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. "Race isn't religion."

Tell that to the American Right.

They can't conceive of a brown skinned Palestinian Christian.

[jeff47]

21. Is that supposed to not make it monumentally stupid?

'cause those aren't the people you should be citing to indicate intelligence.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

25. Actually, I was using them for the opposite....

ESPECIALLY when you consider the centuries of missionary work to convert the world and dumbass Teabaggers think "Christian" = "White".

On Edit:

Wanna have some fun some time? Get them into full out White Christian Mode and then mention Christianity started in Rome and they will agree Romans were white.

Then ask them about Italians and they'll say they aren't REALLY "white".

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. Lots of people over the years have asked why a neighboring country doesn't welcome them....

You know, carve out somewhere and homestead them. There are lots of fertile valleys around.

There are those that also say the PROBLEM with doing that is that they would no longer have the issue to argue about.

This is why I have hope.

When things get like this convoluted it's time to realize it's all a game.

[cvoogt]

26. But they already have a homestead

... Palestine. Many were in camps in Jordan, others are in Egypt and elsewhere in the region, but who wants to be re-settled away from their home country? But the thing is, those same countries believe in Palestine's right to exist as a country (two-state solution or otherwise), and if they take in 100% of Palestinians (which wouldn't happen anyway), there'd be no Palestine, i.e. no issue to argue about. It's more than an issue though ... it's a people's native land... people that lived alongside Christians, Jews, Druze and others for hundreds of years, before there was a notion of nationhood in this region. The Onion has a solution though; http://www.theonion.com/articles/everyone-in-middle-east-given-own-country-in-31700,36484/

[Spitfire of ATJ]

27. It's like Republicans teasing Cuban exiles in Miami for votes.

[eridani]

34. 10% of Palestinians are Christian n/t

[aquart]

9. I keep thinking of Transjordan as Brigadoon.

The lion's share of the Palestinian Mandate set aside wholly for the Arabs while the Jews got that tiny postage stamp of land... Whatever magical thing happened to Transjordan?

[JDPriestly]

13. The Palestinian part was originally larger, but every time the Palestinians fight with Israel,

the Palestinians lose and lose land. The Palestinians need to negotiate land for peace.

There were many, many more Jews across North Africa and the Middle East prior to WWII. Many of the Jews from Morocco, Iraq, etc. emigrated to other countries including, but not limited to Israel. The British Protectorate that was established at the end of the Ottoman Empire included at the very least Jordan. And when the area was divided after WWII, it is my understanding that Jordan was considered to be part of Palestine in determining who would get what.

AMALLAH (Ma'an) -- As Palestinians prepare to mark Nakba Day, statisticians released figures Thursday showing the world-wide Palestinian population is eight times that of 1948, the period commemorated Sunday.

The Nakba, or catastrophe, refers to fighting which saw an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from or fled their homes in fighting that would lead to the establishment of the state of Israel.

The population that year was 1.4 million, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said, while at the end of 2010 it was estimated at 11 million globally, and 5.5 million in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, while 5.7 million Jews reside in the area.

At current growth rates, the bureau said, Jewish and Palestinian populations are predicted to equal at 6.1 million at end of 2014, and reach 7.2 million Palestinians and 6.7 million Jews at the end of 2020.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=386989

Considered the main source of independent news from Palestine, MNA has become the first choice for online information for many Palestinians, and is also attracting a growing international readership and interest from prominent international news organizations and agencies.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewContent.aspx?PAGE=AboutUs

Birth rate for Palestinians:

Birth rate

Palestinians

24.56 births/1,000 population (2011 est.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Palestinian_territories#Birth_rate

Israelis

21.4 births/1,000 population (May 2013)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel#Birth_rate

I have to ask critics of Israel whether they think that the Allies should have simply left the Jewish refugees in the prison camps after WWII. What do you think? Would that have been better?

Or where should the Jews who had been robbed of everything and had somehow managed to survive the work and death camps have gone?

Many came to the US and Canada or went to Australia and South America, but there were millions. Would the critics of Israel have preferred that the Jewish people stay in the concentration camps? They could not take back their homes because German people were living in them and the Jews would not have been safe in them. What would you have done differently?

[magical thyme]

24. so it was possible and acceptable to throw the Palestinians out of their homes

But not possible or acceptable to throw the Germans -- the aggressors who created the whole mess -- out of the homes they stole from the Jews?

"They could not take back their homes because German people were living in them"

Germany created the problem. Germany should have been carved up and a nice chunk given to them.

[MH1]

36. I dunno and it seems kind of ridiculous to play this game but what the hell.

Or where should the Jews who had been robbed of everything and had somehow managed to survive the work and death camps have gone?

Many came to the US and Canada or went to Australia and South America, but there were millions. Would the critics of Israel have preferred that the Jewish people stay in the concentration camps? They could not take back their homes because German people were living in them and the Jews would not have been safe in them. What would you have done differently?

Maybe annexed some prime real estate in Germany and expelled any Germans living there, so that the Jews could live there safely, while protecting the new state of Eur-Israel until the Jews got their own defenses up to snuff?

Makes about as much sense as annexing part of another land for a Jewish religious state. It was the Germans that caused the problem, why didn't they have to give up their land to solve it?

(Note: I am by no means an expert on this subject and am only speaking out of the puzzlement that many of us have about this situation. Hamas sucks but so does Netanyahu. I get the retaliation for rocket fire but not the imprisonment in Gaza or the stealing of land in the West Bank. Now I am going off to do other things because I will probably get lambasted from all sides here and I have better things to do.)

[aquart]

14. Now that is practical, useful information. Excellent!

So you wouldn't have carved out a square centimeter for the Jews based on this? I can see your point.

But l'm an American. A map of the Americas before 1776 would have been even more daunting. Don't you think?

I was even taught that the real reason for the Revolution was the British refused to let us expand beyond the Appalachians. Should we give it all back? Will we?

[pscot]

35. Are you seriously arguing

that what we did to Native Americans somehow justifies what the Jews have done to the Arabs in Palestine?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

4. I didn't know much until I watched this speech by Israeli peace activist

I didn't know much about conflict in #Gaza so I watched this speech by Israeli peace activist..

Miko Peled is an Israeli, son of an Israel General and he speaks out AGAINST the
apartheid in Israel, against the attacks, and he explains why the strife.

&feature=youtu.be

FYI, his niece was killed by a suicide bomber but his family did not call for revenge.

This is a good video to share with folks who don't get it or only watch corporate media.

[aquart]

10. A living peace activist!

Find any in Gaza? How about the West Bank? What about dead ones?

[enid602]

29. peace activists

There were peace activists in Nazi Germany as well, but they were drowned out. I would think there weren't so many in the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe, though given the constraints of ghetto life. Ghetto life breeds contempt and hostility.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. I thought it was a ghetto....

And not the cool kind.

[JDPriestly]

7. J have never heard of a concentration camp from which the inmates sent rockets into the

streets and communities of their neighbors.

When the Palestinians stop sending their rockets, stones, shells, etc., they will slowly but surely be able to negotiate peace. But if the Palestinians cannot keep a cease-fire??? What can they expect?

[w4rma]

11. Ghetto is a more appropriate term, I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghettos_in_Nazi-occupied_Europe

[JDPriestly]

22. I never heard of the residents of a ghetto sending rockets into the surrrounding community

either. I'm pretty familiar with the history of Nazi Germany. Thanks for the link. I lived in Germany and Austria for some years. That's when I became very pro-Israel. I realized what the Jews were escaping when they went to Palestine and why the United Nations partitioned Palestine to give Jews a refuge, a safe place.

The three major religions of the west, Islam, Christianity and Judaism all claim spiritual origins in Israel. The great books of the people of Israel, those that were mostly written in Israel, were written by Jews. It is understandable that with no other place to safely relocate Jews from the NAZI prison camp (including orphans), the Allies chose Israel.

It seems odd to me that DUers who advocate so enthusiastically and compassionately for making room in the US fpr refugees from Central America do not understand that Israel was created out of compassion for homeless people, the Jews, not just from Europe but from other parts of North Africa and the Middle East. That seems so inconsistent to me.

I was born during WWII. After the war, even though we had a housing shortage and many problems, we Americans made room for many, many refugees after WWII. My school had enough classrooms for the children of my age,but not enough for the baby boomers. The baby boomers had to double up. Half-day sessions in some instances. An addition to the school had to be built. Now that was at a time when Americans had done without and been on rationing during the war. Yet we found the compassion to welcome refugees. The Palestinians did not do that. Had they shown more compassion, they would not be suffering now. Had they been willing to respect the needs of Israel, more Palestinians would be living side by side with Israelis now.

Very sad. I hope the two sides can find peace, but I think the Palestinians need to take the initiative before it is too late.

[w4rma]

31. Warsaw ghetto uprising inspired other revolts in extermination camps and ghettos throughout Germany

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/warsaw-ghetto-uprising

[JDPriestly]

32. It was short-lived. The Israelis have been putting up with the annoying and dangerous

attacks from the Palestinians for years now. Attempts to negotiate peace have failed on both sides. Unless one side takes the initiative to respect a cease-fire and negotiate in good faith with the other, they will fight until one of them is destroyed -- most likely, based on the results of their past fights, the Palestinians will suffer the most. The Palestinians are less well organized and disciplined than Israel's soldiers. That is the reason I would predict that the Palestinians are most likely to lose.

The US tried to negotiate peace. The Palestinians united under Hamas instead of negotiating in good faith.

Egypt tried to negotiate at least a cease-fire. The Palestinians broke it.

The Palestinians have to prove that they can enforce at the minimum a cease-fire on their own people. If they can't do that, then there cannot be a serious peace negotiation. That is because what the Israelis want from the Palestinians is peace.

The Palestinians want land. They can only get land if they give Israel peace. But Israel would be foolish to give the Palestinians land in exchange for a promise of peace if the Palestinians refuse to or cannot enforce peace on their on population.

This is the significance of the fact that the Israelis arrested their own for attacking and killing a Palestinian outside of a battleground -- without orders from the Israeli military. The Israelis with that gesture demonstrated that a nation, to be one of a community of nations, must be able to enforce law and order within its borders and control those who are within its borders and act aggressively toward neighboring countries.

Israel has also demonstrated that it can and will destroy its settlements to obtain peace.

So, in my view, the solution to this problem lies not in counting deaths and rejoicing in martyrdom but in demonstrating the capacity to act responsibly as a neighbor, to negotiate rationally, to achieve peace and a fair distribution of the land. The essential issue is whether Palestine wants peace. I have the impression that Palestinians are intelligent. I do not understand why they cannot figure out what it is that they have to do and demonstrate to get what they want and give in exchange to Israel what it wants. That baffles me.

[ellenrr]

33. ++

[aquart]

8. Yeah. So few realize that claiming genocide

For a population explosion is sorta silly. They sure don't fit in Gaza anymore. Where would you like to put them instead?

[DeSwiss]

17. A concentration camp that gets smaller and smaller.....

...as the inmates are slowly tortured and maimed and finally, mercifully killed.



- Israel has become the very MONSTER that they claim to hate the most.

[JDPriestly]

23. Every time the Palestinians fight Israel, the Palestinians lose land.

You'd think the Palestinians would wise up, hold a cease-fire for long enough to prove their peaceful intent to Israel and then try to negotiate a durable peace for land. That is what an intelligent person would do in that situation. The Palestinians are smart enough. Why don't htey see the light?

[Igel]

19. All the "refugee" camps are ghettos.

The refugees can't own land and are second in line for jobs.

That's true in Gaza, as well, where the local Palestinians have lots of land and live all over but there are still Palestinian refugee camps. Sort of a ghetto inside a ghetto.

It's where they ran to. Some ran further. But once there, when peace broke out Egypt penned them in. And they penned in the refugees.

Things weren't so bad. They had freedom of movement between Gaza and the West Bank for a while. Trade with Europe and other places was looking up. Their standard of living was increasing. Unemployment was coming down.

Then things went to pieces. Militants started having more say. People were getting too prosperous and realized they didn't have to feel wronged and humiliated, they could move on. So rockets started, Hamas took over, Israel pulled out and things generally went from improving to shitty.

Hamas was pleased. Israel, not so much.

[magical thyme]

28. Auschwitz survivor Dr. Hajo Meyer on Gaza

"Auschwitz existed within history, not outside of it. The main lesson I learned there is simple: We Jews should never, ever become like our tormentors -- not even to save our lives. Even at Auschwitz, I sensed that such a moral downfall would render my survival meaningless.

Like most German Jews, I was raised in a secular and humanist tradition that was more antagonistic than sympathetic towards the Zionist enterprise. Since 1967 it has become obvious that political Zionism has one monolithic aim: Maximum land in Palestine with a minimum of Palestinians on it. This aim is pursued with an inexcusable cruelty as demonstrated during the assault on Gaza. The cruelty is explicitly formulated in the Dahiye doctrine of the military and morally supported by the Holocaust religion.

I am pained by the parallels I observe between my experiences in Germany prior to 1939 and those suffered by Palestinians today. I cannot help but hear echoes of the Nazi mythos of "blood and soil" in the rhetoric of settler fundamentalism which claims a sacred right to all the lands of biblical Judea and Samaria. The various forms of collective punishment visited upon the Palestinian people -- coerced ghettoization behind a "security wall"; the bulldozing of homes and destruction of fields; the bombing of schools, mosques, and government buildings; an economic blockade that deprives people of the water, food, medicine, education and the basic necessities for dignified survival -- force me to recall the deprivations and humiliations that I experienced in my youth. This century-long process of oppression means unimaginable suffering for Palestinians."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hajo-meyer/an-ethical-tradition-betr_b_438660.html

[WhiteTara]

37. Thanks for that post Magical Thyme!

I am happy to see that there are Israeli Jews who still have humanity.