Ariel Sharon was recently in Poland to attend the march for the living at the site of two Nazi concentration camps. To commemorate the occasion, two minutes of silence was also observed in Israel, where Sharon later said, “Jews will never again be without protection, a home, and refuge.”
That’s all fine and dandy when looking back at the historical events that led to millions of Poles, Russians, Jews and other minorities being led to their deaths at the hands of the Nazis. But let’s pay closer attention to another holocaust that has been in the making for the past fifty years against a different people and in their own land. And orchestrated by none other than Sharon and his ilk.
The world could be forgiven back during World War II days for the crimes Hitler committed against the various groups. News did not travel very fast in those days, and neither were there instantaneous broadcasts of live pictures and films illustrating the viciousness of the Nazi occupation.
Israeli occupation forces have been systematically murdering and maiming the innocent in Palestine for over five decades now. The viciousness they have demonstrated mirrors that of their Nazi predecessors. They have invaded, murdered and looted, and continue to do so until this day.
And we should not forgive ourselves for keeping quiet. For we have been witnessing these events as they have unfolded. Who can forget the tragic image of a father shielding his 8-year-old son, as Israeli forces callously shot him dead while the cameras were running? Or the image of Rachel Corrie, an American from Seattle who defiantly stood in the face of Israeli bulldozers out gorging for more land, only to be violently crushed to death by the Caterpillar’s blades.
Or the images of an 8-year-old girl shot in the head by an Israeli sniper out for target practice. Or fields of Palestinian farms torched and flattened to deprive their rightful owners of a living. Or more recently, of two children, one an 8-year-old and the other 10-year-old, who were slaughtered as they were playing outside their homes. And all this at the hands of Sharon, a man with war crimes coursing through his soul, and with no intention toward peace.
And in a further twist, what about this monstrous and illegitimate wall being built in and around Palestinian lands. In the face of objections from many quarters around the world, Israel continues to go ahead. Is this what you expect as a peaceful overture from a government who does not hesitate to remind the world of Holocaust 1, but continues to disregard most international calls for restraint?
From the killing fields of Sabra and Shatilla back in the ’80s, to the documented cases of ethnic cleansing in Jericho, in Jenin, in Bethlehem, and a host of towns and villages in Palestine, the cries for justice ring hollow in the minds of Sharon and his henchmen, as they continue to remind the world of the first Holocaust and demand collective guilt.
I am not swayed by pathetic arguments that these actions are in response to suicide bombings. And please don’t use that as an argument for what is unquestionably an illegal and immoral crusade. You invade someone’s property, you murder their family, then by God be prepared for whatever consequences that are to follow.
Holocaust 2 has been displayed more graphically during our generation through an expansive medium. And it is no less ugly and revolting. Let us erect monuments in every town and village in Palestine and in major cities around the world to honor the dead who have fallen in the face of this ugly aggression. Let us pay annual homage, and publicly recognize this aberration amidst us. Let the current holocaust demand the same wide audience and through a larger medium.
And finally let the right for “protection, a home, and refuge” apply equally to Palestinians and Jews. Holocaust 1 was then, but this is now. And it’s real.
