Here's my article from The First Post on how European reticence to criticise Israel- a reticence based on feelings of guilt over the Holocaust is fading- and why there is nothing anti-semitic about the strong anti-Israel feelings sweeping the continent.
UPDATE: Since my article was written, the Vatican's Justice Minister, representing an institution which, in the past, has felt inhibited about criticising Israel too strongly, has said that Israel's bombardment of Gaza has turned the area into a "big concentration camp".
“As a Jew, it's very moving to see so many people who are so outraged at Israel's actions," said the comedian Alexei Sayle after Saturday's 10,000-strong anti-war protest in London. He would certainly be moved by the reaction of the people of Europe to Israel's military aggression.
Last weekend thousands of Europeans took part in anti-Israel demonstrations. In Paris, around 25,0000 demonstrators, many wearing Palestinian headscarves, marched through the city chanting slogans such as "Israel killers" and "We are all Palestinians". In the Netherlands, thousands marched through Amsterdam, criticising the Israeli attacks and the Dutch government's failure to condemn them. One banner declared: "Anne Frank is turning in her grave. Oh Israel!"
Protestors have not been afraid to compare Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazis' treatment of the Jews. In Stockholm, protestors set fire to an Israeli flag painted with a swastika. In Madrid more than 1,000 people marched, many carrying banners equating Zionism with Nazism. One banner declared: "This is not a war but a genocide".
Some of the biggest demonstrations were in countries where for historical reasons, people have previously felt particularly inhibited about expressing criticism of the Jewish state. In Salzburg in Austria around 2,500 people took to the streets. In Germany there were sizeable demonstrations in several cities: around 10,000 people protested in Frankfurt, a further 7,000 in Berlin. In Dusseldorf protestors held up a doll representing a bleeding baby with the placard "Made in Israel".
The significance of these protests cannot be underestimated. For most of the first 60years of its existence, Israel got an easy ride from Europeans due to European guilt over the Holocaust. But as revulsion over Israel's treatment of the Palestinians grows, the 'Holocaust card' - long used by Zionists in order to stifle legitimate debate over Israel's actions - no longer has the same impact.
Zionists will, of course, claim that the growing European opposition to Israel is a sign that the continent is reverting to anti-semitism; the staunchly pro-Israel commentator Melanie Phillips has already dismissed the anti-Israel protestors as "leftists, Jew-haters, Muslims and useful idiots".
But the most striking thing about the demonstrations to date has been the absence of anti-semitism. Anger is rising across Europe, but it is anger directed against the state of Israel - not Jews in general; in fact in some demonstrations, such as the one in London, Jewish groups themselves took part.
"Everybody is somebody's Jew. And the Palestinians are the Jews of the Israelis", the Jewish writer and holocaust survivor Primo Levi once famously remarked. It seems an increasing number of people across Europe are coming to the same conclusion.
UPDATE: For a shocking example of a Zionist playing the 'Holocaust card' to defend/apologise for Israel's actions in 2009 in Gaza, take a look at this piece by The Times' Chief Leader writer and tireless Israel propagandist Daniel Finkelstein.
They say that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel- in 2009 it's using The Holocaust to defend/apologise for Israel's war crimes.
Hat tip: The Exile.
27 comments:
The fact is that Israel is not engaged in a Holocaust or even ethnic cleansing though they could have at any time in the last 40 years. They are attempting to stop 8 years of rocket attacks on them - attacks which while not as "successful" as the Holocaust were of the same purpose ie to kill as many civilians as possible.
You may say that they should not make war to prevent this, though I think then you should say how they can legitimately stop it, but to compare this intrusion into Gaza with the Holocaust is wrong.
The comparison with the Holocause could, should & still can be made over the genocide & ethnic cleansing of Krajina & Kosovo. One could even suggest that the perpetrators of the Kosovo massacres, genocide, dissections & child sex slavery were worse than Hitler because the NATO powers were not under the pressure of war, let alone what appeared to be Germany's war to the death.
The problem is, of course, that these Holocaust perpetrators are the same western Nazi monsters now attacking Israel. That includes the Vatican. And yes such murdering Nazis are racist.
Neil while your position on the Yugoslav wars has been brave you will have seen how it is infinitely easier to get newspapers to publish what you say against Israel than to write anything about the atrocities our own country has perpetrated in Kosovo & Krajina or balanced report on Srebrenica (where the only certain massacre was of Serbs). As an inveterate letter writer I can confirm that, with the single honourable exception of the Morning Star, it is literally impossible to get any British newspaper to publish even a letter alluding to the disections, the real Srebrinca massacre or (with 1 exceoption) the Dragodan Massacre. That fact alone, as these media wallow in dubious tales from Gaza, should give you pause.
I follow all of your articles about this terrible war. I think that the German have more sympathy for Israel because of the Holocaust. Later on I will try to write more about it.
What I find completely sickening is the way that the Zionist lobby likes to use the historical persecution of Jews as a kind of carte blanche for the thuggish behaviour of the modern Israeli state. As we have seen from some of the recent comments on this blog, there is a strong tendency to claim that political anti-Zionism equates to racist anti-Semitism. The reality is (to put it mildly!) very much more complicated than that.
Of course we all need to remember that many (and hopefully most) British Jews are entirely decent and upright people who are just as horrified by the criminal actions of the Israelis in Gaza as everyone else is!
It shouldn't therefore be assumed that the Zionist bigots whose voices are most loudly heard are in any way representative of the views held by most ordinary Jews. (If, for example, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle has crankish pieces on his blog defending the bombing of homes and mosques, and urging his readers to donate take-away pizzas to the IDF thugs responsible, then that just means that he is an ugly morally corrupt bastard. It obviously DOES NOT mean that Jews are generally like him!)
As far as 'the Jews' are concerned, you always have to look at the individual person (just exactly like you would for a person of any other race). But when it comes to 'political Zionists' (as opposed to people who are ethnically Jewish) that is where you can generalise, and view them ALL as being vile child-murdering scumbags.
Excellent article Neil.
I'm really surprised how Zionists used the Holocaust welly-nelly to generate sympathy and stifle criticism.
An example: In 1992 after the US suspended load guarantee to Israel, Netanyahu denounced the move as an American effort to force Israel back within the “Auschwitz borders.”e “Auschwitz borders".
The world is not using the word Holocaust to generate sympathy for palestinians. but to describe the ongoing massacre in Gaza..
Two days ago, the NY times, reported about one family in Gaza, Israelis evacuated them from their home to another building, then bombed it killing 11 and wounding 26. simple as that.
If this is not a holocaust in the making.. I don't know what is.
Interesting red herrings from Neil Craig.
This is about Palestine, not Kosovo, Bosnia or the Krajina, but what could we expect from someone who thinks only Serbs were massacred in Srebrenica?
The Gaza Strip exists because of the ethnic cleansing of south-western Palestine to create Israel. Do you think all those people moved to Gaza in 1948 because it was such a nice place to live?
Further to the earlier comment, I've just re-read what the pro-Zionist editor of the JC had to say on his blog. In all fairness to him, it should be stated that his defence for the bombing of mosques, homes, etc, is based on the premise that these are being used by terrorists.
He says:
"And what, in any case, is a civilian? Is someone who stores rocket launchers or ammunition a civilian? Not in my book. If you aid terrorists, then you too are a terrorist and have to suffer the consequences of your behaviour."
It just makes you wonder whether ALL of the civilian buildings being targeted (or otherwise destroyed) by Israel were being used to 'aid terrorists'?
Somehow I think not...
The IDF are committing and have committed unspeakable crimes. But I have to say, the Holocaust comparison isn't helpful at all. It isn't accurate in either aims, scale, scope, methods. I think by throwing the Holocaust in as a parable, people opposed to state terrorism often do themselves a disservice since it does make the claim look bombastic and causes others to switch off.
Rwanda, there's something comparable to the Holocaust. Absolutely. Short space of time with one aim only.
What's happening and has been happening in Gaza is state terrorism, war crimes, ethnic cleansing etc...but feel uncomfortable with the Holocaust comparison, because historically speaking it's a nonsense claim.
But anyway, if you want to read a parody of a torture apologist, click here. Health warning: I think Dershowitz is being serious.
There isn't a holocaust going on in Gaza but I think the point people are making is about the way israel has invoked teh Shoah for generations to justify its oppression of the palestinians and to make itself immune from criticism.
However, it would be quite reasonable to describe the Gaza Strip as a ghetto or even a concentration camp.
Olching - " Rwanda, there's something comparable to the Holocaust. Absolutely. Short space of time with one aim only."
JURIST Commentary, December 23, 2008:
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2008/12/rwanda-no-conspiracy-no-genocide.php
Rwanda: No Conspiracy, No Genocide Planning ... No Genocide?
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JURIST Guest Columnist Peter Erlinder of William Mitchell College of Law and a Lead Defense Counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), says that if - as the ICTR recently ruled in the "Military I" trial - alleged "masterminds" Colonel Theoneste Bagosora and fellow top Rwandan military officers engaged in no conspiracy and no planning to kill ethnic civilians, the tragedy that engulfed Rwanda in 1994 may not properly be called a "genocide" at all...
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The media reports of the December 18 judgment of Chamber-1 at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda focused primarily on the convictions of three of four former top military leaders, who were the supposed “masterminds” of the Rwandan genocide. But, as those who have followed the ICTR closely know, convictions of members of the former Rwandan government and military are scarcely newsworthy.
Ever since former ICTR Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and ICTR Chief Investigative Prosecutor Michael Hourigan went public in 2007-8 exposing US-UK manipulations to grant de facto impunity to current Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his henchmen, between 1997 and the present, convictions of the vanquished in the Rwanda war are a given.
The real news was that ALL of the top Rwandan military officers, including the supposedly infamous Colonel Bagosora, were found not guilty of conspiracy or planning to commit genocide. And Gen. Gratien Kabiligi, a senior member of the general staff was acquitted of all charges! The others were found guilty of specific acts committed by subordinates, in specific places, at specific times - not an overall conspiracy to kill civilians, much less Rwandan-Tutsi civilians.
This raises the more profound question: If there was no conspiracy and no planning to kill ethnic (i.e., Tutsi) civilians, can the tragedy that engulfed Rwanda properly be called “a genocide” at all? Or, was it closer to a case of civilians being caught up in war-time violence, like the Eastern Front in WWII, rather than the planned behind-the-lines killings in Nazi death camps? The ICTR judgment found the former.
The Court specifically found that the actions of Rwandan military leaders, both before and after the April 6, 1994, assassination of former-Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarima ('sic'--he was the seated head of state at the time of his murder--nb), were consistent with war-time conditions and the massive chaos brought about by the four-year war of invasion from Uganda by Gen. Paul Kagame's RPF army, which seized power in July 1994.
Although the Chamber did not specifically mention more recent events, it is worth noting that this is the same government that was named in a UN Security Council-commissioned report on December 12, 2008, as having invaded (with Uganda) the eastern Congo in 1996 and again in 1998 and having occupied an area 15-times the size of Rwanda since then. Similar UN Security Council reports in 2001, 2002 and 2003, make clear that Rwanda and Uganda's economic rape of the eastern Congo, and the resulting 6 million-plus civilian deaths, have long been an “open secret".
As Lead Defense Counsel for Major Aloys Ntabakuze, who was convicted of three specific crimes committed by troops without evidence they were acting under his authority, I would say the judgment was actually a victory. Our defense was based on previously suppressed contemporaneous UN and declassified US documents that showed Kagame's RPF to be the war-time aggressor responsible for the assassination of the former (sic) President and for preventing military intervention to end the predicted civilian massacres.
The ICTR oral judgment specifically refers to this “alternative” explanation of the tragic events in Rwanda as being a basis for rejecting the conspiracy and planning charges against the former military leaders. But the documents show more.
As early as May 17, 1994, UNHCR was receiving reports of massive civilian killings by Kagame's RPF in the 1/3 of Rwanda they had occupied since April 22. Other documents from August, September and October 1994, describe a conscious attempt by UN and US government officials to “cover-up” reports of RPF killings, including memos to Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Apparently, US policy to create “impunity” for Kagame began nearly as soon as he took power.
Had the US “impunity policy” not been in place, Kagame might well have been prosecuted along with Military-1 defendants Bagosora and Nsengiumva, as ICTR Prosecutor Michael Hourigan recommended in early 1997. Kagame's responsibility for the assassination of Habyarimana has been known to the ICTR Prosecutor since at least that time, if not early.
Had the US “impunity policy” not been in place, Kagame might well have spent the last decade awaiting trial at the ICTR, rather than getting rich from the resources of the Congo, and the blood of millions of Africans.
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Peter Erlinder is a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, MN. He is a past-President of the National Lawyers Guild, a Lead Defense Counsel-UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the President of the ICTR-ADAD (Association des Avocats de la Defense).
E-mail peter.erlinder@wmitchell.edu
Just like the Partition of India, thank you glorious Britannia for the Mandate of Palestine. Oh and the Suez Crisis. Cheers.
'The fact is that Israel is not engaged in a Holocaust or even ethnic cleansing though they could have at any time in the last 40 years'
Put a sock in it Neil...your Holocaust denial only persists because the Law hasnt made it an offence yet.
I accept the last anonymice's claim that Israel have killed all or close to all 1.5 milion Gazans (that being the definition of "holocaust") as repre4snting the very highest standard of honesty of which most anti-Israelis are capable (subject to there not being masses of comments here from anti-Israelis saying mous is a lying Nazi).
It is equally obviously a complete & total lie. It is possible that at least some of what our corrupt & genocide supporting media claim is accurate but to be believed they must produce evidence of a change of heart.
Bock I accept you have distanced yourself from such racist lunatics. Nonetheless the comparison with what our government did & the lies our media told to assist in genocide in Yugoslavia is important. At the very least it means that those who have a record of practicing genocide or lying to encourage it (the overwhelming majority of British politicians & journalists) on an enormously larger scale than anything Israel is doing simply cannot be motivated by a disapproval of killing in their attacks on Israel. It also means they cannot be trusted to be telling the truth. Since the common thread in their support of genocide against Serbs & their opposition to Jews defending themselves is Nazism that, or something very close to it, simply must be their motivation.
You also said that I had denied that anybody but Serbs had been massacred at Srebrenica. In fact I think that is quite possible but it is not what I said. What I said was that the primary & only undisputed massacre was of Serbs. That is undeniably true - our Moslem Nazi friends certainly murdered at least 3,800 named Serb civilians in surrounding villages, with the active support of Dutch NATO troops. Obviously this could only remain unreported by the same media which denigrates the Jews if they were wholly corrupt. I suggest you check for any newspaper in Britain which is not thus proven a wholly corrupt instrument of genocidal Nazis.
Whether there actually was a subsequent massacre of the Moslem soldiers has not been proven & by definition cannot be disproven though elements of the story have been disproven & subsequently changed.
Right. I'll try again.
This has nothing to do with Yugoslavia.
This is about Israel's bombardment of 1.5 million people trapped inside an open-air prison without food, water or heating.
Yes it has. It has to do with the ethical standards applied elsewhere. In particular whether the Jews are being denigrated by people (Hamas, NATO, Short, Livingston, the UK media) who themselves reach a far lower ethical standard.
If they are & clearly that is the case, their opponents simply cannot be sincere in what they say & must be motivated by something other than a concern for human beings.
You're a disgrace.
chas: you may be "in awe of the Jewish people"- to use your own phrase-
http://www.totallyjewish.com/news/special_reports/?content_id=4480
but that shouldn't blind you to Israeli war crimes.
It's about the murder of Palestinians by Israel, today, as we speak.
I notice a lot of attempts by Israeli apologists to cloud the issue, just as Neil Craig is attempting here, but the issue is quite simple: 1.5 million dispossessed people, crammed into a ghetto, are being bombed by the people who ethnically cleansed them in the first place.
neil craig:
'I accept the last anonymice's claim that Israel have killed all or close to all 1.5 milion Gazans '
Neil will finally recognise a holocaust by the zionists when gaza has been wiped out. Zionists use that reasoning in atwisted fashion to justify invaing Iran and Lebanon as well as Gaza.
I seem to recall the jews said 'never again'. Not: 'lets wait until its happened'.
N Craig is still the nearest thing this site has to a holocaust denialist.
Neil Craig:
'It has to do with the ethical standards applied elsewhere'
Right: lets not apply ethical standards to israel....Thats your reasoning, neil
'It is equally obviously a complete & total lie'
Yes, Neil Craig: you know all about lies!
Brian
I do not care anymore. The good Lord did not gift me with a creasing wit or the ability to debate. My passions tie my tongue. I see a people who call for Israel's destruction every day. I see a people who throw their sons and daughters away via suicide. I see a people that hand their children guns and explosives and then wail when those children are killed.
On the other hand, I see a people hounded for thousands of years simply because they are Jewish. I see a people that created a homeland where their ancestors lived and many still did in 1948. I see a people who devastated the armies of their neighbors, neighbors who still to this day advocate the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of Her people. I see a people who lost their first war because people like you believed the propaganda that was being spoon-fed them.
Please tell me what your solution to this problem should be. Is it a second Diaspora?
to respond to bock the wrong...gaza is 360 km, about twice the size of Washington D.C., whose population est is 600,000. That, doofus, is not a ghetto. Warsaw was a ghetto. And do remember, there is an 11 km border with Egypt, that Egypt keeps closed.
Anonymous Brian (?) says that we should denounce Israel for the genocide of the entire population of Gaza even though they haven't currently done so.
Presumably, not being a complete & total hypocrit he has asked to be arrested for his murdering & eating of a dozen small children even if he hasn't done it yet.
Anybody think Brian isn't a wholly hypocritical lying Nazi who could never have any place in the anti-Israeli movement if they entire movement were not riddled with such scum?
the issue is quite simple: 1.5 million dispossessed people, crammed into a ghetto, are being bombed by the people who ethnically cleansed them in the first place.
So the Egyptians are bombing them too? This is a major scoop - why is the mainstream media being so quiet about it?
No. The Israelis are bombing them.
Read the newspapers in case you missed this, and then come back for a short exam.
neil craig (?)
'Anonymous Brian (?) says that we should denounce Israel for the genocide of the entire population of Gaza even though they haven't currently done so.'
they are doing so, and are being aided by your defence of their blitzkrieg.
'Anybody think Brian isn't a wholly hypocritical lying Nazi who could never have any place in the anti-Israeli movement if they entire movement were not riddled with such scum?
Thanks for showing all of us in the anti-israel movement your thorough going support for neonazi israel.
Your hypocrisy comes in denying israel is doing anything wrong. Lately they lied about Hams firing from a UN school: guess what:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1870087,00.html
'UN: No Hamas Fighters in Bombed Gaza School'
NOW WHY WOULD ISRAEL LIE LIKE THAT?
The last Anonymous on this post is bonkers! And I wish the host would not publish any comments unless a name has been given as there are so many ('brave')anonymouses on here.
It is also a shame that such blogs can't be set up to exclude ignorant anti semitic fact hating dumbos like that last Anonymous. I'm certainly not one for censorship but really !!
Does it make you feel good to write 'neonazi' and Israel in the same breath? Why do people believe such nonsense.
I'm afraid that standards in the education of the teaching of history and methodology of history must have declined greatly.
It is pitiful and pathetic to suggest Israel wishes to wipe out the Gazan population. I would be interested if the host Neil Clark would post something specifically on this point. The Holocaust in Germany was by Nazis wishing to exterminate a whole people - the Jews - whereas the Israelis wish to live in peace with their Arab neighbours and have done so for years. Of course there are issues about dispossession of land 60 years ago and the status of Jerusalem etc that would need to be resolved in a final peace deal.
But for criss sakes people, don't you realise that if Hamas (an organisation constrained by reactionary theology) had not been firing rockets into Israel over the past 8 years or so then there would not have been any military action taken by Israel at the present time.
The anon claim that Israel are currently killing all 1.5 million Gazans is something which absolutely no temotely honest person could possible say or fail to disagree with. It is not only an obscene Nazi lie it is an obvious obscene Nazi lie. I trust when the fighting stops every single supporter of the anti-Jewish movement who has not publicly dissociated themselves fron such filth will publicly apologise for being a corrupt obscene Nazi liar whose sworn word on the subject can never be trusted by any decent person.
Alternately if it turns out to be true I will unreservedly apologise here.
Looks like I have no reason to apologise for a word I said.
Also looks like only those members of the anti-Israel movement who are in some way not corrupt lying Nazi filth have felt the need to apologise here for or distance themselves from the lie that the Israelis were killing all 1.5 million Gazans.
And clearly that includes none of them.
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