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40 Holocaust survivors condemn ‘massacre’ of Palestinians, call for BDS against Israel

 | Original post on August 26, 2014
A dispatch from MONDOWEISS • The War of Ideas in the Middle East

israel-JewishSurvivorsLetter-2

Holocaust survivors printed an ad in the New York Times condemning Israel’s attacks on Gaza. (Photo: Alex Kane) PLEASE CLICK TO ENLARGE. REPEATED CLICKS YIELD A MUCH LARGER PICTURE.

[A] group of Holocaust survivors and descendants of those targeted by Nazi Germany have harshly criticized Israeli actions in Gaza and called for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

Following a letter from survivors of the Holocaust printed in the New York Times on Saturday, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, which helped coordinate the letter, organized a press call Monday, where some of those who signed the letter spoke out against the assault on Gaza.

Participants in the press call included Edith Bell, whose parents died in concentration camps and who was taken to four camps herself; Suzanne Weiss, whose mother was murdered in Auschwitz and who was hidden by French peasants; and Liliane Kaczerginski, whose father Schmerke was a Jewish fighter against the Nazis in Lithuania. Also joining the call were Monadel Herzallah and Hani Jamah, two Palestinians with family in Gaza who expressed appreciation at the descendants’ and survivors’ efforts.

Forty survivors of the Holocaust signed the letter and 287 descendants of victims also added their names.

“I resent anybody who will use those events as an excuse to exterminate Palestinians,” said Bell, who said she survived concentration camps by “pure luck.”

The letter printed in the New York Times has garnered international media attention from the likes of the BBC and Ha’aretz. “As Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors and victims of the Nazi genocide we unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing occupation and colonization of historic Palestine,” the letter says. “We call for an immediate end to the siege against and blockade of Gaza. We call for the full economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel. ‘Never again’ must mean NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE!”

The advertisement cost $18,000. The funds were raised by some of the signatories.

“I applaud your courage for doing such a statement like that, that speaks from the heart,” said Herzallah, a member of the US Palestinian Community Network whose family was expelled from what is now Israel into Gaza. “I’m not surprised when I see these courageous statements by Holocaust survivors and their families…Our children and grandchildren will learn together in Gaza and all over Palestine that never again truly means never again for anyone.

The impetus for the letter came from Holocaust survivors and descendants of victims of the Nazis who were outraged that Israel used their histories to justify assaults on Palestinians. One of the signatories who helped organize the letter was Dr. Hajo Meyer, a German-Dutch physicist who survived Auschwitz and who died the day before the letter was printed in the Times. Meyer was an outspoken critic of Israel, telling the Electronic Intifada that he “had to quit grammar school in Bielefeld after the Kristallnacht…Therefore, I can fully identify with the Palestinian youth that are hampered in their education. And I can in no way identify with the criminals who make it impossible for Palestinian youth to be educated.”

The letter calls out Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who was the author of another advertisement that ran in the New York Times calling on Hamas to reject “child sacrifice” and casting the Israel/Palestine conflict as a “battle of civilization against barbarism.”

“Reading the Elie Wiesel ad made me literally sick to my stomach,” said Maia Ettinger, whose mother and grandmother survived the Holocaust by escaping the Warsaw ghetto. “The ad is an act of towering and transparent projection because what is barbaric is collective punishment, and what is barbaric is indiscriminate bombing.”

The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network says that much of the response they have received has been positive, though there have been violent messages sent to their e-mail address. +972 Magazine’s Ami Kaufman reported that some Israelis have expressed revulsion at the letter on Facebook.

“It’s a shame Hitler didn’t finish the job,” one Israeli named Asher Solomon said, while another, Katy Morali, added that “Holocaust survivors who think like this are invited to go die in the gas chambers.”

Correction: This article originally reported 47 Holocaust survivors had signed the letter. The actual number is 40.

About Alex Kane

THE INTERCEPT / Liberal fraud exposed: Liz Warren’s mask finally falls off

DISPATCHES BY GLENN GREENWALD

Surprise! Elizabeth Warren’s views on Israel are the same as Hillary’s. Sometimes worse. Great Liberal Hope voices mainstream zionist boilerplate. 

CFPB Director Richard Cordray Testifies At Senate Banking Committee Hearing

Liz Warren. (Getty)

Aaah…the pleasure of using the “I told you so!” to the perennial historical amnesiacs that comprise so much of the sheeple in the Democratic party.  Liberals are people who never learn because they simply refuse to accept the reality that the center is no solution to systemic problems. Why? Simply  because the world crisis is radical in nature and needs radical solutions.  Thus, at best, liberals are like somnambulists in a landscape filled with mines…applying superficial pomades on ghastly wounds.—PG

Robin A. Altman
Robin A. Altman, LUV News 28 August 22:14
It’s not like we didn’t know this already.
Warren and Sanders (and Hillary, Obama, McCain, etc.):
Same bullshit, different war hawk.The man in the green Hawaiian shirt, regarding Warren’s “vote to send $225 million to Israel in its ongoing conflict with Hamas:
‘We are disagreeing with Israel using their guns against innocents. It’s true in Ferguson, Missouri, and it’s true in Israel,’ said Harwich resident John Bangert, who identified himself as a Warren supporter but said the $225 million could have been spent on infrastructure or helping immigrants fleeing Central America. ‘The vote was wrong, I believe…'”Elizabeth Warren: “‘We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I think the vote was right, and I’ll tell you why I think the vote was right…America has a very special relationship with Israel. Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world, and a part of the world where there aren’t many liberal democracies and democracies that are controlled by the rule of law. And we very much need an ally in that part of the world.’ …Even as conservative Democratic Senate candidates from red states such as Nebraska’s Bob Kerrey were vehemently condemning the threat of war against Iran during their campaigns, Warren was claiming (contrary to the U.S. Government’s own assessment) that ‘Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons’, adding: ‘I support strong sanctions against Iran and believe that the United States must also continue to take a leadership role in pushing other countries to implement strong sanctions as well.’ Those claims about Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons remained her position even after she was told that they squarely contradict the U.S. intelligence community’s clear assessment of Iran’s actions.”

Elizabeth Warren Finally Speaks on Israel/Gaza, Sounds Like Netanyahu

[T]he last time Elizabeth Warren was asked about her views on the Israeli attack on Gaza – on July 17 – she, as Rania Khalek put it, “literally ran away” without answering. But last week, the liberal Senator appeared for one of her regularly scheduled “office hours” with her Massachusetts constituents, this one in Hyannis, and, as a local paper reported, she had nowhere to run.

One voter who identified himself as a Warren supporter, John Bangert, stood up and objected to her recent vote, in the middle of the horrific attack on Gaza, to send yet another $225 million of American taxpayer money to Israel for its “Iron Dome” system. Banger told his Senator: “We are disagreeing with Israel using their guns against innocents. It’s true in Ferguson, Missouri, and it’s true in Israel . . .  The vote was wrong, I believe.” To crowd applause, Bangert told Warren that the money “could have been spent on infrastructure or helping immigrants fleeing Central America.”

But Warren steadfastly defended her “pro-Israel” vote, invoking the politician’s platitude: “We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one.” According to the account in the Cape Cod Times by reporter C. Ryan Barber, flagged by Zaid Jilani, Warren was also asked about her Israel position by other voters who were at the gathering, and she went on to explain:

“I think the vote was right, and I’ll tell you why I think the vote was right. America has a very special relationship with Israel. Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world, and a part of the world where there aren’t many liberal democracies and democracies that are controlled by the rule of law. And we very much need an ally in that part of the world.”

Warren said Hamas has attacked Israel “indiscriminately,” but with the Iron Dome defense system, the missiles have “not had the terrorist effect Hamas hoped for.” When pressed by another member of the crowd about civilian casualties from Israel’s attacks, Warren said she believes those casualties are the “last thing Israel wants.”

“But when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals, next to schools, they’re using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at that point, to defend itself,” Warren said, drawing applause.

Warren even rejected a different voter’s suggestion that the U.S. force Israel to at least cease building illegal settlements by withholding further aid: “Noreen Thompsen, of Eastham, proposed that Israel should be prevented from building any more settlements as a condition of future U.S. funding, but Warren said, ‘I think there’s a question of whether we should go that far.’”

In her defense, Warren has long been clear that this is what she would do. Her Senate campaign website still contains statements such as “it is a moral imperative to support and defend Israel” and ”as a United States Senator, I will work to ensure Israel’s security and success.”

During her time in the national spotlight, Warren has focused overwhelmingly on domestic issues, rarely venturing into foreign policy discussions. Many of those domestic views, particularly herstrident-for-D.C. opposition to banks, have been admirable, elevating her to hero status for many progressives.

But when Warren has spoken on national security, she has invariably spouted warmed-over, banal Democratic hawk tripe of the kind that she just recited about Israel and Gaza. During her Senate campaign, for instance, she issued wildly militaristic – and in some cases clearly false – statementsabout Iran and its nuclear program that would have been comfortable on the pages of The Weekly Standard. 

Even as conservative Democratic Senate candidates from red states such as Nebraska’s Bob Kerrey were vehemently condemning the threat of war against Iran during their campaigns, Warren was claiming (contrary to the U.S. Government’s own assessment) that “Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons”, adding: “I support strong sanctions against Iran and believe that the United States must also continue to take a leadership role in pushing other countries to implement strong sanctions as well.” Those claims about Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons remained her position even after she was told that they squarely contradict the U.S. intelligence community’s clear assessment of Iran’s actions.

In related news, the British newspaper The Telegraph yesterday published the names of all 504 children who were killed in Gaza over the last 50 days by Israel. In the last week, Israel deliberately destroyed an entire large residential apartment building after giving its residents less than an hour to vacate, leaving more than 40 families homeless, and also destroyed a seven-story office building and two-story shopping center (the video of the apartment building destruction is online and ugly to watch).

Echoing Benjamin Nentayahu (and Hillary Clinton), Elizabeth Warren’s clear position is that Israel bears none of the blame for any of this. Or, to use her words, “when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals, next to schools, they’re using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at that point, to defend itself.” Such carnage is the ”last thing Israel wants.” The last thing. That, ladies and gentlemen, is your inspiring left-wing icon of the Democratic Party.

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Select Original Comments

  1. Shes’s a US Senator… and they are all owned by the Zionists… if she so much as says anything critical and she never wins another election!

    Yes America, 2% of your population runs your government and there’s not a thing you can do about it… now back to fear mongering about a few thousand kids crossing the border!

    Reply

  2. The N.S.A. has stalked this 74 year old nobody for 3.5 years and nobody knows why. This government has poured Billions into other parts of the world and nobody knows why. This government can’t afford DENTAL in it’s medicare program and nobody knows why. John Bertotto

    Reply
  3. Winski

Bibi’s clone ??? This is the side of Warren that will 86 her aspirations for any form of ‘national’ office. Blatantly backing WAR CRIMINALS and an Apartheid government will tear a hole in the heart of her support. Sorry Ms. Warren, this position WILL BE your undoing.

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Many of those domestic views, particularly her strident-for-D.C. opposition to banks, have been admirable, elevating her to hero status for many progressives.

I’ll take a safe chance of being correct to say her opposition to banks is for show and any opposition she mounts in future critical opportunities will be constructed in such a way as to be easily overcome, saving both the Banks and her superficial anti-bank face.

when Warren has spoken on national security, she has invariably spouted warmed-over, banal Democratic hawk tripe

Undoubtedly, hawk tripe of all kinds is essential to the health of the banks. Do you expect her, Glenn, to jeopardize her nice salary, her very nice retirement plan, and those cushy health benefits that she’ll receive on the backs of her voters who cannot afford the Gold and Diamond plans, or whatever they’re called, that Congress gets?

That, ladies and gentlemen, is your inspiring left-wing icon of the Democratic Party.

It’s pointless to expect anything resembling Rule of Law to come from either wing of the vulture.

Time for a new and better party! Whoops, don’t bother. As RP’s attempts to change the order of things political were met with intense ridicule, Ross Perot’s were met with threats against his daughter’s life. Truth is a worthless currency in the Halls of Power.

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  1. Elizabeth Warren has been typecast as a flaming leftist recently due to her moderate, mid-century populism. Most of her positions would have been considered centrist in ~1974, and they are still centrist today.

    We tend to forget this, because half our media & government has been hijacked by ultra-ultra-rightwing grifters. Their “opposition” — our self-dealing Democratic establishment — ceased working on behalf of the greater American community >30 years ago. Today they are mainly fixers and facilitators, who believe in tossing a few bones to the little guys in order to secure their own place at the top of the heap.

    If you recognize that she is a bit of a throwback to our populist but martial Cold War past………… the entire package makes sense. She’s immensely valuable, given the vicious “libertarianism” that rules today. She’s aware of the interests of the average man*, and is less in hock to aggressive special interests than most of the clowns in D.C.

    However, she seems to regard the way we used to do things, c. 1974, as the ideal to strive for. I think the population of both America and the greater world has changed too much in the past 40 years for that to be so. We’d like less economic devastation sure, well paved roads, libraries with new chairs and rugs, properly staffed municipal government offices, etc. We’d like a lot of what typified that era, including jobs that can support a man’s family.

    But, running the whole damned world has gotten too costly. In every way. It’s been a stunning failure too. I’m not a great devotee of failure, no matter how nostalgic it may be.

    *(moreso than Glenn, from all evidence.)

    Reply


Fascism Grips Israel

The inevitable culmination of fundamentalist Zionism.
israeliflag62055

by Stephen Lendman

[Z]eev Sternhell is an Israeli historian, political scientist and outspoken critic of emerging Israeli fascism.  Signs reached a peak during Operation Protective Edge, he says. Democracy granting equality to everyone is nonexistent.

Sternhell deplores Israel’s settlement project. He supports Palestinian self-determination. He believes establishing a Palestinian state is essential. What passes for Israeli democracy “reached a new nadir in the current war,” he stresses. Fascist “indicators…definitely exist here.”

He’s greatly concerned about “absolute conformism” among Israeli intellectuals. “They just followed the herd,” he says. “By intellectuals I mean professors and journalists. The intellectual bankruptcy of the mass media in this war is total.”

“It’s not easy to go against the herd. You can easily be trampled. But the role of the intellectual and the journalist is not to applaud the government. Democracy crumbles when the intellectuals, the educated classes, toe the line of the thugs or look at them with a smile.”

“People here say, ‘(i)t’s not so terrible. It’s nothing like fascism. We have free elections and parties and a parliament.’   Yet, we reached a crisis in this war, in which, without anyone asking them to do so, all kinds of university bodies are suddenly demanding that the entire academic community roll back its criticism.”

Bar-Ilan University’s law school dean threatened sanctions against a colleague. He did so for expressing sorrow over lost lives on both sides. He called grieving for enemy losses a treasonous subversive act. According to Sternhell:

“We are arriving at a situation of purely formal democracy (similar to that which exists in the U.S.), which keeps sinking to ever lower levels.”

In Israel, “one sees the gradual erosion of enlightenment values.” Consider Netanyahu’s “demand that (Palestinians) recognize Israel as the Jewish state.”

Doing so forces them “to acknowledge that they are historically inferior…The Arabs are citizens, but it’s not their country.  (A) distinction is made between nationhood and citizenship. Anyone can be a citizen, but we are the masters.”

The potential for annulling citizenship always exists. Arabs have no power to demand rights everyone deserves. Democracy isn’t about voting every few years, says Sternhell. It’s tested daily “in terms of human rights.”

Everything else is secondary because “dictatorial regimes” can be established through the ballot box. Democracy in occupied Palestine never existed. “Palestinians have no human rights.”

“You rule them by force, and after three (Jewish) boys are murdered, you can” collectively punish an entire population. It’s always been this way, “and it corrupts,” says Sternhell. “Democracies don’t collapse suddenly. They encounter a serious crisis. We could find ourselves in (one) in which the whole shebang (goes) up in smoke.”

A Knesset majority can legislate “segregation between Jews and non-Jews, impos(e) censorship, intimidat(e) dissidents, (as well as) the media and universities…(I)t’s happening now, but it could reach a boiling point. The water is already very hot…It’s on the brink of boiling over.”

Sternhall calls Operation Protective Edge “a war of complete choice…” There’s no justification for blaming an entire population for killing three Jews.  Israel must change its relationship with Palestinians and with Arabs “as a whole.”

“The first thing is to stop deepening the Jewish presence in the territories.” Then support a two-state solution, lift Gaza’s siege, “let the population breathe,” and treat Palestinians “as human beings on an equal footing with us.”

Sternhall calls settlements “a cancer. If Israel can’t muster sufficient strength, political power and mental fortitude to remove some of the settlements, that will signal that the Israeli story is finished…”

Israel is the last remaining colonial country. It can’t continue this way much longer.

If not for the myth of unique Jewish suffering and fear of being called anti-Semitic, “Europe would have long (ago) boycotted the settlements.”

European business and industry are already beginning to do it.  Sternhall calls Naftali Bennett, Uri Ariel, Avigdor Lieberman and other Israeli right-wing extremists “truly dangerous people.”

They deplore democracy and human rights. They deeply hate Arabs. They don’t tolerate coexistence.  Asked if he’s afraid to criticize Israel in today’s charged atmosphere, Sternhell replied:

“If I need to be afraid to (speak freely), and to say it publicly to people’s faces, then our story here is over.”

Israel was never a democracy. For sure it’s not one now.  Its “story” reflects decades of institutionalized racism, apartheid worse than South Africa’s, militarized occupation, control over virtually all aspects of Palestinian lives, ruthless repression, contempt for rule of law principles, and belligerence in lieu of peace and stability.

Operation Protective Edge is the latest example. Netanyahu vows to continue mass slaughter and destruction until his goals are reached.

Perhaps he means exterminating an entire population one war at a time and by other means.  Operation Protective Edge has been ongoing for 49 days. The death and injury toll is horrific.  Palestinian casualties mount daily. The vast majority are non-combatant men, women and children.

Israel willfully targets them. Its aggression has nothing to do with Hamas rockets. It has everything to do with preventing Palestinian self-determination, continuing its settlement project, stealing Palestinian land and resources, scuttling Fatah/Hamas unity, maintaining occupation harshness, and prioritizing belligerence over peace and security.

It’s unclear what happens next. Ceasefires come and go. They don’t hold. Israel obstructed Cairo talks. It did so by making outrageous demands. It offered little or nothing in return.

Its agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Violations occur straightaway. Peace is fantasy. Conflict persists. Here we go again. On August 25, Israeli and Palestinian news organizations said Egyptian mediators proposed a new ceasefire.

It includes opening border crossings, letting in construction materials and other aid, extending Gazan fishing from three to six miles and later 12. Tough issues will be discussed a month from now.

Both sides were contacted. According to the Israeli news web portal Wallal!, Israel is ready to accept an open-ended ceasefire. A PA official responded positively.  Hamas wants any agreement to end Israel’s eight year blockade unconditionally. Israel wants Gaza demilitarized.

It wants Gazans left defenseless. It wants the right to wage future aggressive wars for any reason or none at all unchallenged. Another ceasefire is no more likely to succeed than previous ones. Israel doesn’t negotiate in good faith.

Gazans are tired of being treated like subhumans. They know Israel can’t be trusted. It doesn’t negotiate in good faith.  It takes a giant leap of faith to believe this time may be different. It never was before. It won’t be now.

Business as usual continues. It’s official Israeli policy. Nothing suggests positive change.  Not when Netanyahu lies saying “Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas.”

“They simply work in the same way. They are branches of the same poisonous tree.”  Not when other Israeli hardliners want Hamas entirely destroyed. Not when former Israeli US ambassador Moshe Arens wants the same thing.

“You have to defeat (Hamas) and disarm” it, he says. A ceasefire won’t work. Not when Israel bears full responsibility for breaking them. Not when it prioritizes conflict over peace and stability.  Not when it spurns rule of law principles. Not when it maintains militarized occupation. Not when it holds 1.7 million Gazans hostage under suffocating siege. Not when it attacks them for any reason or none at all.  Not when it terrorizes Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem communities multiple times daily. Not when it denies all Palestinians fundamental rights everyone deserves. Not when it spurns positive change. Not when Washington backs and encourages its killing machine. Not when Western leaders support its genocide.

Not while Palestinians are isolated on their own. Not while their liberating struggle remains unfulfilled. Not when on Monday, Israel murdered seven more Palestinians, wounded 92 others, and destroyed 15 residential houses, a shopping center and a mosque.

Not when creeping fascism threatens Jews and non-Jews alike. So does the scourge of Zionism.  It made Israel a killing machine. Palestinians bear the brunt of its barbarism. Nothing suggests positive change. It bears repeating. Business as usual continues.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 



A chronology of disproportionate attacks on Gaza

GAZA UNDER ATTACK
PREPARED BY ALJAZEERA

PALESTINIANYOUTHFIGHTINGBACK

Palestinian youth fights back, not exactly with high tech weaponry. Indomitable spirit reinforced by desperation.

CLICK HERE to enter. 

“The latest Israeli military operation in Gaza, dubbed Operation Protective Edge, is the third major offensive on the Gaza Strip in six years.

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Before the July 2014 offensive, the last large-scale escalation was in November 2012, when the Israeli military bombarded the Gaza Strip with air strikes for eight days.

Known as Operation Pillar of Defence, the strikes killed 171 Palestinians, including more than 100 civilians. In 2008-2009, Israeli soldiers launched a 22-day military operation in Gaza, dubbed Operation Cast Lead. About 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the offensive.”