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Or Just the First Palestinian Terrorists
In September 1939 Armed forces of the National Socialist Republic invaded and occupied approximately 60% of Poland. The Germans claimed the Poles were committing terrorists act across the border into Germany. Under the terms of a secret protocol the Soviet Union invades Poland from the east and occupies the other 40% of the country. This was only the latest of German aggressive actions and despite Germany’s protest the nations allied with Poland declared war on Germany.
The League of Nations now but a fading memory but under existing conventions the Germans as occupiers had certain responsibilities and as well legal rights. It is important to make the distinction between lawful and just, the Germans imposed certain laws and ordinances on a claim of maintaining domestic security and order. In no way do I claim that these were good or fair laws only that they were law and those that violated them were criminals under German law.
In October 1939 German troops enter Warsaw, on orders of Heinrich Himmler lands that are planned for eventual resettlement by German settlers are expropriated from Poles and Jews and emphasizes that the Jews be brought to Warsaw and kept in a central location. In November the establishment of the ghetto begins in earnest most schools are not allowed to reopen under the pretext of an epidemic and Germans seize Jewish assets in Polish banks as well as Jewish businesses. January 1940 the Germans issued ration cards to Poles and Jews alike but Jews must now request written permission to change residences and are banned from public transportation.
By March 1940 Jewish shops and homes are looted by Polish thugs inspired by the new media, Jews are beaten in the streets and anti Jewish slogans begin to appear on walls. The message is simple, all the problems in Poland are the fault of the Jews, the war was the fault of the Jews with the subtext of if we were to isolate and then remove them everything would get better for Poles and Germans alike. Notices begin to appear in restaurants and café’s banning Jews placed there not by the Germans but by Poles.
The Germans begin in April to construct walls to segregate Jews from the general Warsaw population to provide security. It was called a sanitary blockade to prevent the spread of a typhoid fever outbreak by August Jews were forbidden to live outside Jewish districts. Jews are forbidden to leave the Ghetto without a pass and are officially banned from using any public transportation. A curfew is put in place banning Jews from being out side of their houses between the hours of eight pm and eight am.
The Jews begin to establish underground organizations to collect intelligence on German activities as well as to smuggle food and arms into the ghetto. These are violations of German law and the Gestapo with their usual thoroughness use terror and torture to try and break their ranks for they were the lawful law enforcement agency. In September 1942 the Germans discover an illegal weapons cache in the ghetto. On the 27th Izrael Kanal makes an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Joseph Szerynski commander of the Jewish Police force. The Germans begin mass deportations to labor and concentration camps.
October the underground organization ZOB passes a death sentence on a Jewish police officer Jakob Lejkin for assisting the Germans and brutality against the ghetto residents.
In January 1943 the first armed resistance begins against the lawful law enforcement authorities by April the Germans enter the Ghetto in force and the uprising begins and continues for almost five weeks. The Germans discover the Jewish command bunker and the resistance leaders commit suicide in retaliation the Germans blow up the great Synagogue on Tlomackie Street.
A horrible chapter in human history, mans inhumanity to man. The Germans intention was not to just liquidate the Jews but also up to two thirds of the Polish population to make (Lebensraum) living space for Germans to resettle the land for new German settlements. Was that not an obscene goal?
In 1948 the state of Israel was born an idealistic goal and a practical solution for European politicians. The Jews fought and established their homeland not unlike the American west and to the winner belongs the spoils but? When is enough, enough?
The Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were fighting for survival against extermination, what of the Palestinians? Do they just go quietly? Just fade away? Or do they fight for survival against extermination as well?
In Jaffa prior to the 1948 war there were 120,000 residence after the war only 3,000 Palestinians remain the state of Israel bars their return to their homes. Today there are 20,000 Palestinians living in Jaffa and any Jew living anywhere on planet Earth may claim Jewish citizenship and move to Jaffa but Palestinians are barred from returning home to their families. How is that any different than the Germans stripping Jews of their German citizenship? The Germans passed racial laws making it illegal for non-Jews to marry Jews while in Israel a Palestinian Israeli who marries a Palestinian who is not an Israeli citizen may not live in Israel. Are racial laws wrong? Or just wrong sometimes?
In 1948 four hundred Arab villages were destroyed and 800,000 legal residents were relocated to refugee camps another quarter million were declared, “Internally displaced”
Even though they are present in Israel they are considered absent from their original homes and their land and property is declared as belonging to the Jewish state. How is this different from what the Germans did in Poland ordering people at gunpoint off their property taking without just compensation. Taking for the purpose of resettlement.
Before people start jumping up and down screaming racist and anti Semitic, I’m not.
I have studied the Holocaust for over thirty years because I was shocked by the depravity human beings could sink to, to build factories of death and extermination because of ethnicity or religion. However one holocaust does not justify another one, it cannot be rationalized or justified on any grounds. The Jews fought for the return of their homeland for thousands of years do they honestly expect the Palestinians not to do the same? The Jews are an ancient race they have seen the fickle nature of history. The have a choice then, extermination our accommodation.
The Israeli’s can continue to build security barriers but it is a fool’s paradise, is the reason for these fences security or to avert their eyes? Could it be that they also see the irony of the situation? The two state solution? The state of Israel for the Jews and the state of Mortis for the Palestinians a Swiss cheese state honeycombed with Jewish settlements after all possession is 9/10ths of the law. And who is in charge of the law in Israel? Is Israel a land where justice is blind or injustice is blind? To be a citizen you must swear an affidavit to your racial history just like you did in Germany.
If you are a Palestinian you must carry travel documents just like the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto you must pass through check points and if your papers are not in order you go to jail. You are not allowed on certain roads or in certain neighborhoods just like the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. If you live in a village the Israeli government can declare it not official making you ineligible for government services like paving the streets or even piping in water and sanitation making it eligible for resettlement.
So as a Palestinian what can you do? Write a letter to the editor? What did the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto do? What did the Native Americans do? What did the blacks in South Africa do? But to fight against oppression makes them terrorists in the eyes of the law and these terrorists acts makes them viewed unkindly especially when fanned by the media by the Israeli public just like the Poles in Warsaw. Israeli attacks against Palestinians are legal actions its perfectly legal to bulldoze a Palestinian home just like the actions taken by the Germans against the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Deaths of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis outnumber the deaths of Israelis at the hands of Palestinians almost ten to one yet listening to the media you would think it the other way around.
Are the Jews just bad people? Are the Palestinians just bad people? Were the Poles just bad People? Were the Germans just bad people? Or the South Africans or the Americans? No we are all just people flawed, bigoted, misguided poorly lead people. Even today in America you will still find right wing publications taking a swipe at Martin Luther King yet to look around at the conflicts in the world that don’t have a Martin Luther King is to see what could have happened in America.
It takes two sides to make a conflict or a war and fanning the flames of war is so easy it is difficult to fan the flames of peace. War does not require remorse until after the fact Peace and conciliation requires remorse before the fact and must swallow the bitter pill of our pride, our tears at the injustices done to us makes lighting the tinder difficult and the winds of media are quick to extinguish any flame for there are no banner headlines for Peace. The side that is down that is throttled by its oppressor be it Jew, German, Black, Native American or Palestinian can only cry uncle and that they will never do for it is to accept the extinction of their children. Only the victor can be magnanimous, can say we are releasing as a sign of good will 10% of the almost 9,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails the men over 60 the women and children under 18 honestly can’t 900 be found who are no threat if they look.
The political forces in Israel seem in lock step with the Neo cons in America they think they can win the peace with force. With a few more bombs and planes and missiles and jails we can build a paradise. How stupid is humanity? After how many wars? And how many centuries of war? If a child after twelve years of education still gets the same question wrong every time it was put to him would he not be labeled retarded? The choice is simple the implementation is not; the solution can be given in one word Justice. Justice for all regardless of race creed color or national origin.
We cannot escape our history in 1948 when the Jews established Israel most of the world admired their pluck and indomitable spirit. In 1967 again the world admired their proficiency and the liberation of Jerusalem for it was wrong to deny access to anyone.
But now things are changing there is no more talk of giving back captured lands the 67 boundary has become a permanent boundary and Israel isn’t seen as the little guy fighting for its life it is seen as the military power dropping laser guided bombs on civilian neighborhoods from jet fighters as quick to the draw and slow to negotiate.
You must either work for peace or prepare for war and after that war begin preparation for the war after that. Is that what the Jewish people strived for so many generations to have a homeland so that they might be the oppressor? To live in a perpetual state of war?
Forever? If so perhaps the destination was not worth the journey to fight for generations to establish your homeland so your children can fight for generations. If you do not work to build an Israel on the rock solid foundation of justice for all you shall have peace for none.
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