I have just listened to a BBC podcast about the horrors, the lives, the resilience, and the bravery of Jews in the Warsaw Getto. I was aware of this crime against humanity but was not aware of how this horror was recorded. The horrors of this period were chronicled in numerous documents and memoirs called the Oyneg Shabes telling the story of” life in a prison city within a prison city.” The Oyneg Shabes were coordinated by Emanuel Ringelblum a secular Marxist Zionist who wanted to create a Palestine shared with Arab citizens (sounds like a single-state solution). His principles which he conveyed to others who supported his endeavour, was to chronicle a comprehensive and objective truth about the casual brutality of Germans towards the almost 500,000 Jews that were crammed into an area of 1.5 sq. miles. Of the 500,000 almost 300,000 were shot or shipped off to the Treblinka death camp and almost 100,000 died of starvation. Nazi officials allowed Jews in the ghetto food totalling 200 calories per day. The holocaust will remain a stain on the humanity of our species forever and highlights the ability of our species to plumb the depths of inhumanity.
Look, I am not conflating or drawing an equivalence between the Warsaw Ghetto and Gaza but what I am saying, is Gaza has been rightly called an internment camp and an open prison for years. UN and other aid agencies in Gaza are saying that well over 1.0 million innocent Palestinian civilians including 500,000 children are on the verge of starvation. There are 1.5 million Gazans on the fringes of Rafah, a city that had 280,000 people before the current conflict started so, in hindsight on one level, drawing an equivalence with Warsaw is not completely ridiculous.
It seems that the strategy of the current Israeli government (called by former Prime Minister Olmert as a far-right messianic coalition) is comfortable with the collective punishment strategy as the only way to mitigate their failures, in the eyes of the Israeli people. Currently, still over 75% of Israelis support the war regardless of the humanitarian toll. It seems to me that moral cataracts have come over the eyes of the 75%. As someone who believes in a democratic and pluralist Israel, the word shame does not do justice to the war crimes being perpetrated by the IDF. Likud spokespersons seem to have exorcised themselves of any sense of humanity, like the exorcism of any sense of humanity by the Nazis that took place in Warsaw. I hope I am wrong when I suggest that the new mantra in Israel is, “From the river to the sea, not a Palestinian will be seen.” This mantra makes a two-state solution a pipe dream, let alone Ringleblum’s Palestinian state where Jews and Arabs would embrace a secular democracy. In addition, as China and Russia corral nations from the Global South in an anti-Israeli coalition, Netanyahu and his messianic right-wing coalition are alienating their most important friend and ally, the United States. I say again to the Israeli people, remove Netanyahu’s dangerous coalition because what is happening in your name is a stain on your country and your moral foundation. My final question is, what is the ratio of Gazan civilians, women and children that need to be killed, to appease the pain of the massacre perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th?
The deaths of many innocent Gazans and the wasteland left by the IDF offensive will not make Israel secure but breed the hatred that will create Hamas 2.0,3.0,4.0 and on and on. Please do not mention the few hundred Tik Toker’s and other idiot’s that came out and celebrated October 7th.
My final suggestion for a metaphorical 6 steps to political heaven for both Israelis and Palestinians is:
- Israelis should relentlessly demand from their government, an immediate and permanent end to the IDF offensive in Gaza.
- Within hours Hamas should announce the release of all Israeli hostages.
- Israel should announce the release of all Palestinians held without charge.
- Israelis should get on to streets and call for an election to remove Netanyahu and the likes of Ben Gavir. A government acting only in the interest of those Israelis who believe” from the river to the sea, not a Palestinian will be seen” and in addition want to undermine Israeli democracy.
- Hamas and its associates should recognise Israel’s right to exist and stop cosying up to Putin’s Russia.
- A new Israeli government signs up to a “credible” time-limited road map to a two-state solution as Olmert says, recognising the rights of Palestinians to self-determination.
Read my November 2023 blog https://grumpyoldbastard870122708.wordpress.com/2023/11/03/the-tragedy-continues-2/ for further details on my thoughts on a way forward. Just an update, an additional 25000 Gazan men, women and children have been killed since my November 2023 blog.
Suneil Sharma
31st March 2024
The Gob 
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