Wednesday 14 January 2009

A History Lesson

- A ghetto established by an occupying power.
- Hundreds of thousands funnelled into an unbearably cramped area.
- Closed to the outside world by a 3.5m high wall with checkpoints guarded by armed soldiers.
- Disease, unemployment and starvation kept the inhabitants in a state of malnutrition and poverty.
- Raw goods smuggled in through tunnels often the only source of subsistence who would otherwise have died of starvation.
- Hospitals, orphanages and refugee centers formed.
- Thousands die from frequent incursions into the ghetto by the occupiers.
- Inhabitants used smuggled in weapons to organise armed resistance against the occupiers.
- A resistance organisation take control, build shelters and kill collaborators.
- In one massive attack, the occupiers systematically burn and blow up the ghetto buildings, killing thousands.

Palestine? Nope, the Warsaw Ghetto occupied Poland 1940s.
The Israeli's should be careful when using Nazi references to describe Hamas. It is an incredibly cheap shot but it does let us look back to how your ancestors reacted to being herded into a ghetto, starved, subjected to military incursions, killings and kept behind a large wall by heavily armed soldiers.
Weapons smuggling and armed resistance sounds eerily familiar doesn't it. Not so different after all then.

3 comments:

Don said...

Advance apologies for being such a contrarian, but it never ceases to amaze me when folks find comparisons such as this to be at all apt. The Germans were not surrounded by Jewish nations that wanted their destruction, and their Jewish internal refugees were not firing rockets into random neighborhoods as funded by those nations. Not to excuse any actual atrocities the Israelis may commit, but their situation is unique in that if they only respond with half-measures, or don't respond at all, they will in time cease to exist. They do not have a back country to retreat into.

That said I'm appalled at any religious state, Israel being one, and would as soon see real democracy take root. This would result in the eventual dilution of Israel's Jewish element. That doesn't bother me at all. But it would be a peaceful process. The intent of Muslims has been to fix things by the sword since the very beginning.

OK, nuff outa me. There are undoubtedly many, many Israelis who don't buy the needs for retaliation. They need to keep dismantling the settlements.

Falling on a bruise said...

The point was to show how eerily similar the reaction was by the Jews then and by the Palestinians now. The wall, the smuggling through tunnels, the armed resistance, the massive destruction in response by the occupier.
Not to compare the whys and hows of the Jews then and the Palestinians now, both tragic, but the ancestors of the previous victims reacting the exact same way as Hamas in almost the exact same situation. You don't find that interesting and very, very apt?

Anne said...

I do.

'Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it' comes to mind