JONATHAN OFIR<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember how our Israeli Prime Minster, Benjamin Netanyahu, told Holocaust survivors at an elderly home, \u201cThe Holocaust happened because there was no State of Israel. If there had been a Jewish state before, there would have been no Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later, he would tell the whole world while speaking from the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum that \u201cthe Jewish state has learned the lessons of the Holocaust. Has the world learned the lessons of the Holocaust?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What lesson has the Jewish state learned?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That we, ourselves, can commit a Holocaust in Gaza in 2024, and then deny that it exists. Indeed, we have even decried sober UN appraisals of our genocide as an \u201cobscene inversion of reality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We haven\u2019t even seen the worst of it. As Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa reports from her visit to Gaza, \u201cthe reality on the ground is infinitely worse than the worst videos and photos that we\u2019re seeing in the West.\u201d Israelis generally avoid seeing any of it \u2014 what do we care?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople first resorted to eating horse and donkey feed, but that\u2019s gone. Now they\u2019re eating the donkeys and horses,\u201d Abulhawa writes. \u201cSome are eating stray cats and dogs, which are themselves starving and sometimes feeding on human remains that litter streets where Israeli snipers picked off people who dared to venture within the sight of their scopes. The old and weak have already died of hunger and thirst.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat I see is a holocaust.\u201d she summarizes. \u201cThe incomprehensible culmination of 75 years of Israeli impunity for persistent war crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I second that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But most Israelis are holocaust deniers. Oh, how we hate the Holocaust deniers, so oblivious to the total destruction of European Jewry. How could they be so utterly callous in questioning the numbers, saying that it was \u201cjust a war?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s what we do. We downplay it, call it a war of self-defense, and erase history \u2014 it all started on October 7. Over 13,000 dead children, some starved to death, do not seem to alter our perception. It\u2019s just collateral damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is possible because the Palestinians are Nazis now. If you ask about \u201ccivilians,\u201d Israelis will, in the words of former Prime Minister Naftali Bennet, say: \u201cWhat is wrong with you?!\u201d Or, like Israeli President Isaac Herzog, they would assert that there are no \u201cuninvolved\u201d in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They\u2019re all Nazis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But you know what? We are the Judeo-Nazis now. It\u2019s never been so clear. Oh, yes, there are right-wing Judeo-Nazis, who have spoken of \u201cwiping out\u201d Huwwara before October 7, but now there are the many kibbutzniks who openly speak of wiping out Gaza. Two-thirds of us, including nearly 40% of the \u201cleft wing,\u201d literally want to deprive Gazans of the most basic humanitarian aid (it\u2019s 80% on the right wing, by the way, and they constitute about two-thirds of Israeli voters).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other words, most of us literally want to starve Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Others opt for a more \u201cproportionate\u201d genocide, simply bombing them by the hundreds, ostensibly for the purpose of killing one Hamas leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have learned nothing. Our morality is dust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Should I be more nuanced? Yes, perhaps there were some more sensible Nazis. I hear Hitler was generally quite polite in his familiar circles. But not to the human animals. They could be exterminated, and the world would be a better place without such vermin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now the Palestinians are the \u201chuman animals,\u201d in the words of our Defense Minister, Yoav Galant. I haven\u2019t heard many Israelis rebuff his words. After all, he\u2019s been critical of Netanyahu from inside the government \u2014 he\u2019s nuanced!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The depths to which we have sunk leave me wondering how there still are countries on our side. What the hell is wrong with them? Don\u2019t they see that, by supporting Israel economically and militarily, they are abetting a genocide?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clearly, Israelis aren\u2019t the only ones who haven\u2019t learned the lessons of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Source: Mondoweiss)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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