International Holocaust Remembrance Day Jan.27/09

[doglips]

From the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network http://www.ijsn.net/home/ some thoughts on the meaning and remembering of holocaust:

"How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow!...
She weeps sore into the night, and her tears are on her cheeks:
among all who loved her she has none to comfort her. "
(Book of Lamentations)

Last week, after murdering 1400 people – of whom 400 were children – after bombing hospitals and mosques, schools, universities and humanitarian supplies, and tens of thousand of homes, Israel declared a cease-fire. A shameful parade of European leaders immediately went to Jerusalem to embrace the mass murderers and to pledge their support for the continuing siege of Gaza.

The primary purpose of this massacre was to break the spirit of the Palestinian people until they surrender and accept their fate as lesser human beings. As former Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon said in 2002, "The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people." European leaders' support this goal, as did previous U.S. administrations, as do the ruling elites of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi-Arabia, despite the fury of their peoples. We wait to see if the freshly inaugurated Obama Administration will break with sixty long years of attack on the Palestinian people armed and financed by the U.S. and Europe.

We grieve with the people of Gaza. We see the faces of the children, of the women and the men; we hear their voices. We also hear the silence of the leaders of Western countries, intermittently broken by evasive platitudes. And we are reminded of the time when the world turned a blind eye while our forebears, our families, were slaughtered.

100,000 Palestinians were made homeless in Gaza this month. Most of them became refugees in 1948 when they were expelled at gunpoint from their towns and villages. Now they are homeless again, even in their land of exile, and at risk of being driven out from Palestine altogether.

Yet on January 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day, the leaders of the U.S. and Europe will be joined in honoring the memory of our dead. Even as we seek to remember and to honor the immensity of that loss, we struggle to find words to convey the hypocrisy of these ceremonies, in which those who are silent today pay homage to the victims of yesterday’s silence.

The radical Jewish writer Walter Benjamin, who died while fleeing the Nazis, wrote, "not even the dead will be safe from the enemy, if he is victorious. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious." The Third Reich was defeated, and yet, "the enemy has not ceased to be victorious." Racism, mass murder, and genocide continue to be accepted tools of statecraft. Even our dead are not safe. They have been called up, disturbed, dredged from their mass graves and forced to testify against their fellow human beings in pain, to confess a hatred that was alien to them and to offer themselves up as justification for a new cycle of suffering in Palestine. Their ghosts have been enlisted to help displace fellow Jews from Arab homelands, and to bequeath to them that same alien hatred, conscripting those of us descending from Arab lands to become enemies of our own memory and past.

The Jewish British MP Gerald Kaufman spoke in anguish while the massacres in Gaza were taking place: "My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza." We share and echo that refusal. Let not the memory of Jews murdered by the Nazi regime serve as cover for the attempted destruction of the Palestinian people!

Although the guns are relatively silent, this genocidal assault on the Palestinian people isn’t over. The siege, the lack of food and fresh water, the disease-threatening broken sewage system, and economic collapse and humanitarian crisis persist in Gaza with the full support of the U.S., Europe and the Egyptian government. As the siege of Gaza continues, so does the slow ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the home demolitions, the building of the apartheid wall, the settlement build-up, the economic devastation of the towns and villages strangled by checkpoints, the assault on Palestinian neighborhoods in Jaffa, Akka, Lydda, the Galilee and the Negev, the mass imprisonment of Palestinians (over 11,000), and all the large and small ways by which Israel is seeking to crush the spirit and erase the presence of the Palestinian people in their homeland.

Faced with the threat of annihilation in Europe, Jews resisted. From ghettos to concentration camps and within countries under occupation, Jews led resistance to the Nazi regime. Today, from the ghetto of Gaza to the Bantustans of the West Bank and from the neighborhoods of Jaffa and Akka to cities across the globe, Palestinians resist Israel’s attempt to destroy them as a people. On January 27th, honoring the memory of our dead is for us inseparable from honoring more than sixty years of Palestinian survival and resistance. Only when the Palestinian people regain their freedom will the dead rest safely. Then we will all celebrate another victory for life.

 

[PatB5678]

Great find and post Doglips. Thanks. It is at least a bit relieving that some Jewish people understand the immense injustice Israel is carrying out against the Palestinians.

 

[doglips]

Many jews dispute the notion that Israel speaks for all jews and are not supportive of it's policies, but their voices are usually drowned out by the pro-zionist chorus which has the ear of the North American and English mass media, for the obvious reason that Israel serves the west's interests in the Middle East and it's treasure of black gold.

There is a thought that the gaza massacres may have finally broken the zionist (near) monopoly of mainstream jewish opinion. This could be Israel's "Sharpesville" to use an apartheid analogy. The analogy to South African apartheid is IMHO a very useful one in assessing Israel's actions toward the palestinian people.

 

[zaig]

Many jews dispute the notion that Israel speaks for all jews and are not supportive of it's policies, but their voices are usually drowned out by the pro-zionist chorus which has the ear of the North American and English mass media, for the obvious reason that Israel serves the west's interests in the Middle East and it's treasure of black gold.

There is a thought that the gaza massacres may have finally broken the zionist (near) monopoly of mainstream jewish opinion. This could be Israel's "Sharpesville" to use an apartheid analogy. The analogy to South African apartheid is IMHO a very useful one in assessing Israel's actions toward the palestinian people.

Do us all a favor and take this to TERB. They have many more of your Hamas apologists and supporters, as well as 100% certified anti-semites to hang with.

You must have swallowed all the pro Hamas garbage verbeitum. I will not debate with you, because you have shown absoulutely no understanding of the situation at all. While I sincerely feel bad about the Palastinian people, no one should have to endure their plight, it is their leaders Hamas, who have brought death and destruction to them. Until their leadership acknowledges Israel's right to exist, there really is nothing to talk about.

I realize that this is such a complex issue that is way beyond your means to comprehend, so I suggest you research the issue with an open mind (although that is also highly unlikely).

I do have a question for you. Have you or one of your friends ever picked a fight with someone you thought you could easily take, only to find out that the 140lb weekling turned out to have a black belt in martial arts, and he kicked your butt, and you ran home crying like a little girl. Well that in a nutshell is what the Hamas do on a daily basis. They do not want peace. They only know hate and killing and of course 72 virgins. They have never offered a plan on how to rebuild Gaza, only on how to kill. When Israel left Gaza 3 almost 4 years ago, it left a very viable infrastructure, that Hamas proceeded to destroy. They hide behind civilians, in schools, mosques, even UN building firing away, but when the IDF retalliate, they cry murder, war crimes.

You are aware that Hamas is considered a terrorist group by every western country and the UN as well.

You are also seriously mistaken on so many points in your posting it's absoulutely useless. Really, think about it, if all that was at stake was Oil, wouldn't every western nation including the US just suck up more to the Oil producing countries, or even more than they already do. The last time I checked, Israel does not have an oil well in their country.Ask yourself how being friends with Israel serves their interest if their interest was only oil. I know, too much for you to comprehend.

If I actually thought you had only 1 interesting comment, I would take up the challange, but you seem to be void of any intelligence.

Also keep in mind, that with a democratic country, there are many viewpoints and opinions. Not every Jew in the world agrees with all Israeli policy, whether they live in Israel or not, but don't ever think that they don't support Israel..

We Jews, have been kicked around for over 2000 years, expelled from more countries than you have ever been to, have had inquisitions thrown at us, pogroms, systematic killing of men, women, and children. Hell even in civilized countries such as Canada, US, England there were for many years either quotas for Jews, or simple exclusion from schools, courts, organizations. Why I bet you didn't know that the British Properties (West Vancouver) had in its original charter a NO JEW POLICY.

I will leave you with a quote from Golda Meir, and hopefully I can replicate it properly.

She said, "While we (Israel) can forgive the Arabs for killing Israeli children, she cannot forgive them that Israel has unfortunatly had to kill theirs. That in a nutshell really does define the two sides of the coin. Hamas lives to fight, Israel fights to live.

Now go home, take all your warped, cancerous opinions, and let this board have some decorum.

 

[Thatotherguy]

From my posts in that other thread about Israel and Gaza, it should be pretty clear what my opinion is on that whole mess. I hope that on International Holocaust Remembrance Day people did truly take the time to remember the horrors that were visited on the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and others in the concentration camps. While I agree that there is a certain hypocrisy in supporting the slaughter of civilians in Gaza at the same time as honouring the dead of the Holocaust, the reality is that the two cannot be compared. The shear scale and utter lack of any sort of justification for the Holocaust sets it apart from the situation in Gaza. As far as I'm concerned, Israel's actions in Gaza are unconscionable, but simply cannot be compared to the greatest crime against humanity in history.

 

[zaig]

From my posts in that other thread about Israel and Gaza, it should be pretty clear what my opinion is on that whole mess. I hope that on International Holocaust Remembrance Day people did truly take the time to remember the horrors that were visited on the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and others in the concentration camps. While I agree that there is a certain hypocrisy in supporting the slaughter of civilians in Gaza at the same time as honouring the dead of the Holocaust, the reality is that the two cannot be compared. The shear scale and utter lack of any sort of justification for the Holocaust sets it apart from the situation in Gaza. As far as I'm concerned, Israel's actions in Gaza are unconscionable, but simply cannot be compared to the greatest crime against humanity in history.

While I do not hold the same views as you on this situation, I can appreciate an intelligent, well thought out post.
Once all the acrimony is removed from posting, there can be a civil discussion of ideas. Well done.

 

[myselftheother]

While I do not hold the same views as you on this situation, I can appreciate an intelligent, well thought out post.
Once all the acrimony is removed from posting, there can be a civil discussion of ideas. Well done.

So you do support the killing of people in defense of another people....killing 100's of 'civilians' in order to get a few nuts firing missiles. Stop it at any cost. I guess in your mind it doesn't matter who is getting killed at least it ain't Jews. Does that balance the books for you? Now for the next 2,000 years it should be ok for Israel to just slaughter whomever it feels might be a threat, real or imagined?

Jews suffered horribly in the last century. You'd think they learned what they suffered ought not be inflicted on others on any kind of scale. Hamas rule is a mistake, brought on by the Israeli gov't policy of bulldozing houses, assassinations, sanctions...list goes on. It's all about planted seeds that come to fruition. It goes both ways, surely the blame for this goes back in time to things that just escalate, tit for tat, we hit you, you hit us....No matter who or what this is just fucking horrible. If anything, why the hell hasn't the UN sent a major peacekeeping force in Gaza and Israel to stop this shit, and whoever fires a shot over anybody's border gets slapped big time with economic sanctions and criminal charges.

Ok.. this is very simply put, and really way to naively thought considering all the bullshit that has happened since Moses said...'Hey let's go this way'. But what I'm trying to say is that the powers that be posture and bristle, it's people that are paying the real price. They have lives as real and meaningful as you and me. The Holocaust was horrible, as horrible as Stalin slaughtering millions of his own people, as horrible as slavery was. This is the 21st century, barbarism, tribalism....it's got to stop.

 

[Thatotherguy]

While I do not hold the same views as you on this situation, I can appreciate an intelligent, well thought out post.
Once all the acrimony is removed from posting, there can be a civil discussion of ideas. Well done.

Well thank you! If you read the other thread about Israel and Gaza, you'll see that while I don't support Israel's actions, I certainly don't support Hamas either. You could say that I'm pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, anti-Hamas OK, that's not quite accurate (and it's a mouthful to boot!), but the bottom line IMO is that both sides are in the wrong, and it's the civilians on both sides who suffer because of it.

On the flip side, it's nice to see a pro-Israel poster who doesn't assume that if you don't support all of Israel's policies you're antisemitic. It makes it a lot easier to have an intelligent conversation.

 

[uncleg]

We Jews, have been kicked around for over 2000 years, expelled from more countries than you have ever been to, have had inquisitions thrown at us, pogroms, systematic killing of men, women, and children. Hell even in civilized countries such as Canada, US, England there were for many years either quotas for Jews, or simple exclusion from schools, courts, organizations. Why I bet you didn't know that the British Properties (West Vancouver) had in its original charter a NO JEW POLICY.

And have you ever tried to figure out, why?

 

[Yman]

And have you ever tried to figure out, why?

Certainly the Jews are not alone in being the target of discrimination, hatred and genocide. In the context of this thread and your question posed to a person who has admitted to being JEWISH your question seems to imply there is a reason for the JEWS being systematically killed and why they've been discriminated against for the last 2000 years. So, please do share your thoughts.

 

[doglips]

Here's Israel Shahak, who came to Israel in 1945 after surviving the concentration camp in Belsen during the Holocaust, in his book "Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years"

http://www.amazon.ca/Jewish-History...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233281433&sr=1-1

talking about shocking connections between zionism and anti-semitism:

In fact, close relations have always existed between Zionists and antisemites: exactly like some of the European conservatives, the Zionists thought they could ignore the 'demonic' character of antisemitism and use the antisemites for their own purposes. Many examples of such alliances are well known. Herzl allied himself with the notorious Count von Plehve, the antisemitic minister of Tsar Nicholas II; Jabotinsky made a pact with Petlyura, the reactionary Ukrainian leader whose forces massacred some 100,000 Jews in 1918-21; Ben-Gurion's allies among the French extreme right during the Algerian war included some notorious antisemites who were, however, careful to explain that they were only against the Jews in France, not in Israel.

Perhaps the most shocking example of this type is the delight with which some Zionist leaders in Germany welcomed Hitler's rise to power, because they shared his belief in the primacy of 'race' and his hostility to the assimilation of Jews among 'Aryans'. They congratulated Hitler on his triumph over the common enemy - the forces of liberalism. Dr Joachim Prinz, a Zionist rabbi who subsequently emigrated to the USA, where he rose to be vice-chairman of the World Jewish Congress and a leading light in the World Zionist Organization (as well as a great friend of Golda Meir), published in 1934 a special book, Wir Juden (We, Jews), to celebrate Hitler's so- called German Revolution and the defeat of liberalism:

"The meaning of the German Revolution for the German nation will eventually be clear to those who have created it and formed its image. Its meaning for us must be set forth here: the fortunes of liberalism are lost. The only form of political life which has helped Jewish assimilation is sunk.
The victory of Nazism rules out assimilation and mixed marriages as an option for Jews. 'We are not unhappy about this," said Dr Prinz. In the fact that Jews are being forced to identify them- selves as Jews, he sees 'the fulfillment of our desires'. And further:

"We want assimilation to be replaced by a new law: the declaration of belonging to the Jewish nation and Jewish race. A state built upon the principle of the purity of nation and race can only honored and respected by a Jew who declares his belonging to his own kind. Having so declared himself, he will never be capable of faulty loyalty towards a state. The state cannot want other Jews but such as declare themselves as belonging to their nation. It will not want Jewish flatterers and crawlers. It must demand of us faith and loyalty to our own interest. For only he who honors his own breed and his own blood can have an attitude of honor towards the national will of other nations."

The whole book is full of similar crude flatteries of Nazi ideology, glee at the defeat of liberalism and particularly of the ideas of the French Revolution and great expectations that, in the congenial atmosphere of the myth of the Aryan race, Zionism and the myth of the Jewish race will also thrive.

Of course, Dr Prinz, like many other early sympathizers and allies of Nazism, did not realize where that movement (and modern antisemitism generally) was leading. Equally, many people at present do not realize where zionism - the movement in which Dr Prinz was an honored figure - is tending: to a combination of all the old hates of classical Judaism towards Gentiles and to the indiscriminate and ahistorical use of all the persecutions of Jews throughout history in order to justify the zionist persecution of the Palestinians.

 

[zaig]

Here's Israel Shahak, who came to Israel in 1945 after surviving the concentration camp in Belsen during the Holocaust, in his book "Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years"

http://www.amazon.ca/Jewish-History...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233281433&sr=1-1

talking about shocking connections between zionism and anti-semitism:

In reaction to his writings about Judaism and the Talmud, Shahak has been accused of antisemitism.[18] The Anti-Defamation League listed Shahak as one of four authors of polemics in its paper The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics, while Paul Bogdanor accused Shahak of "recycling Soviet antisemitic propaganda".[35]

This is exactly what I mean. Just because a self hating Jew becomes an anti-semite it legitimizes people like doglips and the uncleclegs of this world to think nothing of it.
I could go on forever on the subject of Israel and Palastine, and how this situation has evolved, but it would serve no purpose.
Just keep in mind what I said before, what have the Hamas and Hezbollah ever contributed to any society, other than to tear them down. Yes the Palastinians are suffering, but maybe just maybe if they ever looked at reason and logic things would be different.

Oh, and by the way, when Hamas was taking out Fatah in Gaza, killing anyone who just might be Hamas, where was the world indignation then.

Hamas is the only guilty party in this equation. They are neither brave nor smart, on murderous executioners of anyone who doesn't support their terror.

In 1995 Werner Cohn wrote of Shahak:

Without question, he is the world's most conspicuous Jewish antisemite... Like the Nazis before him, Shahak specialized in defaming the Talmud. In fact, he has made it his life's work to popularize the anti-Talmud ruminations of the 18th century German antisemite, Johann Eisenmenger."[36]

Emanuele Ottolenghi argues that Jews like Shahak act as enablers for antisemites, stating that their rhetoric plays a "crucial role... in excusing, condoning, and — in effect — abetting anti-Semitism." In his view:

Anti-Semites rely on Jews to confirm their prejudice: If Jews recur to such language and advocate such policies, how can anyone be accused of anti-Semitism for making the same arguments? [...] The mechanism through which an anti-Semitic accusation becomes respectable once a Jew endorses it is not limited to Israel’s new historians... Israel Shahak made the comparison between Israel and Nazism respectable — all the while describing Judaism according to the medieval canons of the blood libel


I always find it amazing that most anti-semites always seem to find some self hating Jewish anti-semite to quote.