Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The Nazis of our time
20 March, 2006
By Khalid Amayreh
I don’t have the slightest doubt that the Israeli military-political establishment and those backing it politically, financially and militarily, represent the Nazis of our time.
I know the word “Nazi” is a loaded term that shouldn’t be used arbitrarily to describe evil actions or evil people. I am also mindful of the fact that ascribing the “Nazi” epithet to Jews and Jewish behavior is a tightly-guarded taboo in many western countries.
However, the truth must be told regarding what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Indeed, when Jews, or anybody else, think, behave and act like Nazis, they become Nazis.
Which begs the question: Does Israel think, behave and act in a Nazi-like manner toward the helpless and unprotected Palestinians in the streets and hills of the West Bank and Gaza Strip?
You bet, it does.
In the past few days and weeks, the Nazi nature of Israeli behavior was amply conspicuous. Last week, the Israeli army, acting like the Nazi Gestapo, forced Palestinian policemen to take off their clothes at gunpoint and then paraded them before the cameras naked, very much like the Nazis did in Europe more than sixty years ago.
The disgraceful act, which was meant to humiliate, debase, and hurt, served no logical purpose, other than satisfying sadistic tendencies, using the words of veteran Israeli writer Uri Avnery.
Why do Israeli leaders and army generals do these things to the Palestinians? Are we talking about a subconscious or probably conscious urge to emulate their former tormentors? Do Israeli leaders and generals think that humiliating their victims is the ultimate test of their virility? Do some Jews in Israel subconsciously admire the Nazis?
Moreover, why did Jewish leaders and public figures, who move quickly to condemn the slightest censure of Israeli behavior, remain silent about this abominable act? Just imagine how these hypocritical Jewish leaders would have reacted had Jews, not Palestinians, been paraded naked before the eyes of the world.
The second Nazi-like act, carried out by the Zionist child killers, took place at the village of el-Yamon near Jenin in the northern West Bank on 17 March. There, the Israeli army dispatched a death squad of undercover soldiers, who disguised themselves as Palestinians, to assassinate Palestinians the Israeli army suspects were involved in the resistance.
However, after milling around for more than an hour, and the person or persons to be murdered didn’t show up, the soldiers, worried that they would return to base “empty- handed,” decided to murder an 8-year-old child, named Akaber Zayed.
The child was sitting in the backseat of a taxi cab when a bullet pierced her tender head, killing her instantly. Having carried out their mission, the soldiers returned to base, probably receiving a citation for valor from their superiors.
The Israeli army, adding insult to injury (in this case to murder), initially claimed the soldiers acted in accordance with outstanding instructions and violated no laws. Well, the Gestapo and SS and Wehrmacht were also acting in accordance with outstanding and violated no laws.
The cold-blooded murder of Akaber Zayed is another stark reminder, if one were needed, of the phantasmagoric murder of Iman al-Hams in Rafah in southern Gaza three years ago. Then an Israeli army soldier shot the 9-year-old child while on her way to school, seriously wounding her in the upper part of her body. However, instead of trying to save her life, the beast, using the words of an Israeli newspaper, emptied his entire magazine of bullets into her body to make sure that she was dead and posed no risk to the Israeli “defense” forces in the area. In the Israeli army jargon, they call this “verification of the killing.” (This author witnessed a barbaric act as such in Hebron several years ago).
We are not talking about two or ten or even a hundred cases of deliberate murder of Palestinian children. We are talking about as many as 1400 Palestinian minors and children, murdered knowingly and deliberately by the Israeli occupation army and paramilitary Jewish terrorists, also known as settlers, in less than six years by the Nazis of our time.
The Israeli state, along with its parroting mouthpieces in the capitals of North America and Europe, claim, mendaciously, of course, that Israeli soldiers don’t deliberately target Palestinian children and that the estimated 1400 Palestinian kids were killed by mistake.
Well, mistakes happen once, twice, even ten times. But when children are killed nearly on a daily basis, it means the killing is institutionalized state policy.
And, now, we are entering the era of a new Nazi-like policy adopted by the government of Israel and designed to starve the Palestinian people through hermetic blockades and closures of Palestinian population centers in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
On 19 March, aljazeera.net correspondent in Gaza, Laila el-Haddad, reported that flour supplies had already been exhausted and that bakeries were consequently closing. This has not happened by coincidence. Two months ago, Dov Weisglass, Advisor of the now-comatose Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told the Israeli public radio that “the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not make them die of hunger.” Other Israeli officials made similar virulent statements, which, unfortunately, failed to draw any reactions from western capitals.
Mass starvation is nothing short of mass genocide, pure and simple. And Israel is only doing it gradually in order to predict and pre-gauge western reactions. Israel has done it for two months this time, and must be very pleased with the absence of any angry reactions from the capitals of Europe and North America.
Next time, the blockade will last longer, and the prospects of real hunger will grow accordingly. This is not exaggerations or hysteria. This is simply the honest impression that one, anyone, would receive after objectively examining facts on the ground.
We, Palestinians, will not appeal to the US to rein in Israeli Nazism. America has been more cruel to us than Israel itself. America, whose policies are controlled by right-wing Jewish circles such as AIPAC, is our tormentor, par excellance.
But how about Europe? Should European peoples and European governments atone for one holocaust by allowing Israel to commit another, though a silent and quiet one?
This is the urgent question that the Old Continent must face now.
By Khalid Amayreh
I don’t have the slightest doubt that the Israeli military-political establishment and those backing it politically, financially and militarily, represent the Nazis of our time.
I know the word “Nazi” is a loaded term that shouldn’t be used arbitrarily to describe evil actions or evil people. I am also mindful of the fact that ascribing the “Nazi” epithet to Jews and Jewish behavior is a tightly-guarded taboo in many western countries.
However, the truth must be told regarding what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Indeed, when Jews, or anybody else, think, behave and act like Nazis, they become Nazis.
Which begs the question: Does Israel think, behave and act in a Nazi-like manner toward the helpless and unprotected Palestinians in the streets and hills of the West Bank and Gaza Strip?
You bet, it does.
In the past few days and weeks, the Nazi nature of Israeli behavior was amply conspicuous. Last week, the Israeli army, acting like the Nazi Gestapo, forced Palestinian policemen to take off their clothes at gunpoint and then paraded them before the cameras naked, very much like the Nazis did in Europe more than sixty years ago.
The disgraceful act, which was meant to humiliate, debase, and hurt, served no logical purpose, other than satisfying sadistic tendencies, using the words of veteran Israeli writer Uri Avnery.
Why do Israeli leaders and army generals do these things to the Palestinians? Are we talking about a subconscious or probably conscious urge to emulate their former tormentors? Do Israeli leaders and generals think that humiliating their victims is the ultimate test of their virility? Do some Jews in Israel subconsciously admire the Nazis?
Moreover, why did Jewish leaders and public figures, who move quickly to condemn the slightest censure of Israeli behavior, remain silent about this abominable act? Just imagine how these hypocritical Jewish leaders would have reacted had Jews, not Palestinians, been paraded naked before the eyes of the world.
The second Nazi-like act, carried out by the Zionist child killers, took place at the village of el-Yamon near Jenin in the northern West Bank on 17 March. There, the Israeli army dispatched a death squad of undercover soldiers, who disguised themselves as Palestinians, to assassinate Palestinians the Israeli army suspects were involved in the resistance.
However, after milling around for more than an hour, and the person or persons to be murdered didn’t show up, the soldiers, worried that they would return to base “empty- handed,” decided to murder an 8-year-old child, named Akaber Zayed.
The child was sitting in the backseat of a taxi cab when a bullet pierced her tender head, killing her instantly. Having carried out their mission, the soldiers returned to base, probably receiving a citation for valor from their superiors.
The Israeli army, adding insult to injury (in this case to murder), initially claimed the soldiers acted in accordance with outstanding instructions and violated no laws. Well, the Gestapo and SS and Wehrmacht were also acting in accordance with outstanding and violated no laws.
The cold-blooded murder of Akaber Zayed is another stark reminder, if one were needed, of the phantasmagoric murder of Iman al-Hams in Rafah in southern Gaza three years ago. Then an Israeli army soldier shot the 9-year-old child while on her way to school, seriously wounding her in the upper part of her body. However, instead of trying to save her life, the beast, using the words of an Israeli newspaper, emptied his entire magazine of bullets into her body to make sure that she was dead and posed no risk to the Israeli “defense” forces in the area. In the Israeli army jargon, they call this “verification of the killing.” (This author witnessed a barbaric act as such in Hebron several years ago).
We are not talking about two or ten or even a hundred cases of deliberate murder of Palestinian children. We are talking about as many as 1400 Palestinian minors and children, murdered knowingly and deliberately by the Israeli occupation army and paramilitary Jewish terrorists, also known as settlers, in less than six years by the Nazis of our time.
The Israeli state, along with its parroting mouthpieces in the capitals of North America and Europe, claim, mendaciously, of course, that Israeli soldiers don’t deliberately target Palestinian children and that the estimated 1400 Palestinian kids were killed by mistake.
Well, mistakes happen once, twice, even ten times. But when children are killed nearly on a daily basis, it means the killing is institutionalized state policy.
And, now, we are entering the era of a new Nazi-like policy adopted by the government of Israel and designed to starve the Palestinian people through hermetic blockades and closures of Palestinian population centers in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
On 19 March, aljazeera.net correspondent in Gaza, Laila el-Haddad, reported that flour supplies had already been exhausted and that bakeries were consequently closing. This has not happened by coincidence. Two months ago, Dov Weisglass, Advisor of the now-comatose Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told the Israeli public radio that “the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not make them die of hunger.” Other Israeli officials made similar virulent statements, which, unfortunately, failed to draw any reactions from western capitals.
Mass starvation is nothing short of mass genocide, pure and simple. And Israel is only doing it gradually in order to predict and pre-gauge western reactions. Israel has done it for two months this time, and must be very pleased with the absence of any angry reactions from the capitals of Europe and North America.
Next time, the blockade will last longer, and the prospects of real hunger will grow accordingly. This is not exaggerations or hysteria. This is simply the honest impression that one, anyone, would receive after objectively examining facts on the ground.
We, Palestinians, will not appeal to the US to rein in Israeli Nazism. America has been more cruel to us than Israel itself. America, whose policies are controlled by right-wing Jewish circles such as AIPAC, is our tormentor, par excellance.
But how about Europe? Should European peoples and European governments atone for one holocaust by allowing Israel to commit another, though a silent and quiet one?
This is the urgent question that the Old Continent must face now.
