In word and deed.
After Israeli minister Matan Vilnai threatened the Palestinians with a holocaust a few days ago, it seems like they are now following through. 70 dead in the Gaza strip within 48 hours, more than a hundred in the last week – even the German press is admitting that this is the biggest attack on Gaza since 1967.
(this cartoon, by the way, was published before the ’shoah’ comment)
For me, this is an example of reality overtaking even the imagination. Unlike some others, I’ve always shyed back from comparing the Israeli government to Nazis – perhaps because as a German I was afraid of seeming hypocritical, perhaps because of the implications of that word. After all, the Nazis killed so many more people than Israel. The second world war claimed 60 million lives. In the concentration camps, it was about 11 million, 6 million of them Jews. But you don’t recognise Nazis by the number of people they kill but by their methods and the way they justify their actions.
Well, this denial is over now. How can it be that the same people who always tell us not to compare the Nazi holocaust to anything else not only make this comparison but threaten other people with it and then proceed to do just that?
“The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger ’shoah’ because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.”, Matan Vilnai said. Now they are attacking Gaza because of the Qassam fire. So by Vilnais own admission, they are commiting a ’shoah’ against the Palestinians. Thanks for destroying my qualms of conscience, my doubts concerning the use of this comparion.
What’s almost as appalling as this genocide itself is the international silence that ensues. The UN “urged Israel and Palestinian militants to cease all violence in Gaza”. How courageous. Are they afraid to take sides? If someone was attacked by a killer and desperately fought for her life, would they also condemn “both sides of the conflict”?
Of course this is nothing new. But this “neutrality” which in the end of course serves only the aggressor – if you can’t win a moral agrument, see that you can weaken the other side and call it a draw – is becoming more and more grotesque as Israeli aggression continues to spiral upwards to dimensions no Nazi would have to be ashamed of.
