Israel is betraying the Holocaust lessons

ON July 20, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on a US television show and accused Hamas of a “double war crime.” He said the Palestinian organization was targeting Israeli civilians while its militants were hiding behind Palestinian civilians. What Netanyahu didn't mention is that the state of Israel is guilty of double standard. It has been defending one mockery of truth while hiding behind another. Perhaps Netanyahu would like the world to forget that the creation of Israel is a Western charity at Arab expense. The persecution of Jews in Europe had eventually caught up with the Western conscience, and it was shoved down the Arab throat. Many lighthearted Palestinians joke today that they're paying the price for the sins Germany committed in the Second World War.

In the shifting sands of time, much of the world has forgotten that original injustice and the Palestinians are misunderstood as intruders in their own homes. Many people don't remember these people have a genuine grievance; their homeland for over a thousand years was forcibly taken from them. The Palestinians have been driven out of their homes so that the Jews could have a homeland.  The Zionists justified that imposition claiming that Palestine was their Promised Land. They argued that this was the land God had promised to the Israelites. The promise was first made to Abraham and then renewed to his son Isaac, and to Isaac's son Jacob.

God's promise proved bunkum until the British got involved. The Balfour Declaration initiated the creation of the Jewish state when British foreign secretary Arthur James Balfour wrote to British Jewish community leader Baron Walter Rothschild in 1917. The Zionists also wanted the Palestinian land because their ancestors lived there some 2,000 years ago!

King Abdullah of Jordan had made an impassioned appeal against this “historic claim” in an article he wrote in The American Magazine in November 1947.  He eloquently argued that “if such fantasy were allowed” then Italians might claim England because the Romans held country for a long time. For the same reason, England might claim France, "homeland" of the conquering Normans. And the French Normans might claim Norway, where their ancestors originated. The Arabs also should claim Spain, which they ruled for 700 years.

The king went on in the same vein that Mexicans might claim Spain, "homeland" of their forefathers. They might even claim Texas, which was Mexican until 100 years ago. He then asked the American readers what would happen if the American Indians wanted to get back the "homeland" of which they were the sole, native, and ancient occupants until only some 450Thus Israel, a contradiction in conception, has thrived on double standard. And it has called the rightful claimants of the land terrorists and terrorized them every time they vowed to fight against it. If Hamas is targeting the Israelis hiding behind the Palestinians, Israel is also waging an unjust war hiding behind its superior firepower. Nearly 2,000 Palestinians have been killed already during the ongoing incursions by Israel and Netanyahu has declared that his army wouldn't stop unless the “mission” was accomplished.

The Jordanian king in his essay had also tried to convince the western countries to relocate the Jews to their own soils. He wrote that some of the Jews still living in the concentration camps had opted for their original countries in Europe instead of going to Israel. But the Jewish Agency for Palestine had hoodwinked them to change their minds. It had even severely beaten and tortured the dissenters.

It's already a moral failure for Israel that the former victim has turned into a ferocious victimizer. The sound of its missiles, armored vehicles and purported propaganda can't drown out the voice of conscience that the Zionists are taking out the frustration of Holocaust on the people, who historically had nothing to do with it. Impervious to the sufferings and sacrifice of its victims, Israel is now recreating in them the anguish of Jews, who were picked up from their homes, transported to concentration camps and, in all innocence, incinerated in Nazi gas chambers.

Late Israeli premier Ariel Sharon, known as the Butcher of Beirut, said that the Jewish lesson of the Holocaust was that nobody cared Jews were being murdered. That lesson should have made Israel a more considerate and compassionate nation. Instead, Israel is following the Holocaust masterminds in their footsteps. It doesn't care that innocent Palestinian men, women and children are getting killed to satisfy its lust for land.

Israel has lost the high moral ground on which it stands, as Benjamin Netanyahu's “mission” is resonating the horror of Hitler's “final solution.” By undermining the Holocaust lessons, Israel has reduced itself into a pathetic question: How long exactly does it think it can exist under false pretense?

The writer is the Editor of weekly First News and an opinion writer for The Daily Star. Email: badrul151@yahoo.com