THE NEW HOLOCAUST

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

Centuries of persecution of the Jewish people by Europeans and Russians culminated in the most horrible modern genocide in modern times committed by the Germans in the 1930s. The systematic murder of six million Jews and the ethnic cleansing of millions of Europeans of “impure blood”, bear repetition only as background to the present crisis in Israel.

As are the actions of the Americans who, with the its European allies, won World War II, and began the process of the illegal establishment of a Jewish State of Israel, stealing the homeland of centuries of the Palestinian people. A largely Arab, Muslim state is now facing the threat of extinction through a modern-day Holocaust, as inhumane as the German version.

Since the end of WWII, American aggression throughout the world in the pursuit of its own interests, their unquenchable thirst for the vast reserves of oil in the Middle-East, has brought the region into the cusp of yet another Arab-Israeli war. The military strength of Iran, covertly backed by Russia, threatens the extension of the arena of hostility, even the possibility of nuclear warfare.

These near 200 words make for a truncated and possibly prejudiced attempt at an introduction to the crisis that exists in the Holy Land today. There are many other contributory factors, like the emergence of China as a Superpower, Russian aggression in Ukraine, and the revival of the evil movement of white supremacy in America and Europe. Extraneous factors which could further muddy the waters.

Today, we are faced by the consequences of the brutal onslaught by 500 Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) specially trained terrorists, who ran amok at an Israeli settlement (kibbutz) near the Israeli- Gaza border on October 7. Over 1,400 innocent Israeli civilians, men, women and children, were savagely butchered in a gruesome terrorist act.

The Israelis, consumed by grief and fury, immediately went into revenge mode against the entire population of nearly two million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, for the despicable acts of a group of Hamas and PIJ terrorists. The attacks have now escalated to include Palestinian settlements in the West Bank, home to 1.8 million Palestinians. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank live in fear of losing their homes, and their lives, at any moment during the relentless Israeli airstrikes. They live in terror, as the Jews did in Germany in the 1930s, guilty of no crime other than their ethnic identity.

Rather like the war waged by the Americans after the atrocity of 9/11, consumed by rage after the worst terrorist attack on the American mainland in history. A brutal attack, carried out by 19 terrorists (15 Saudis) of the Al Qaeda terrorists, led by Saudi Arabian Osama Bin Laden, based mainly in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, in their thirst for revenge, Americans waged war on Iraq, which had absolutely nothing to do with the tragedy of 9/11. In an illegal, 15-year war against the wrong enemy, which claimed 4,431 lives of American soldiers, in which over 600,000 Iraqi military and civilians, men, women and children, lost their lives. Representing approximately 140 Iraqis, who bore no responsibility for the tragedy of 9/11, to one precious life of an American soldier.

Which begs the questions: how deep is the thirst for revenge of the Israelis for the October 7 massacre? How many more innocent Palestinians must be slaughtered, how many more billions of dollars must Americans pump in, before the Israeli hunger for revenge is entirely sated? When will, in Israeli and American eyes, the punishment on innocent Palestinians be deemed to adequately fit the October 7 crime committed by Hamas?

In other words, when will the Israeli-American aggressor achieve the compassion, the maturity, to recast the concept of vengeance into the quality of justice?

Simply put, what is the going conversion rate for massacred human beings, Jews to Arabs? How many killings of Palestinians will justify the loss of 1,400 Israelis butchered on October 7. Palestinian civilian deaths currently stand at 6,000+ Palestinian deaths, representing nearly five Palestinian civilians to one Israeli civilian. What is the final count that will satisfy Israeli revenge? Some 30,000 Palestinians, representing 15 Palestinians to one Israeli? Or are they going for a new Holocaust of 3.5 million Palestinians, representing ethnic cleansing and genocide? Which the despicable Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said recently is “coming”, with the imminent ground invasion of Northern Gaza.

The historic and current war waged by the American-Israeli military machine against the Palestinian people is not without precedent.

The Nazis blamed the Jews for stabbing Germany in the back, betraying the Vaterland, for their loss in World War I. They accused the Jews of supporting communism in Germany in 1918, for promoting banking and finance in Western countries and America at enormous cost to Germany’s economy. Killing innocent Jews by the millions was not a crime, the Holocaust was considered by the Third Reich to be an act of self- defense. Seriously.

The 2010 best seller of Timothy Snyder “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin” offers a more credible explanation why Hitler and the Nazis wanted to exterminate European Jews.

Hitler admired America’s rapid industrialization and growth, made possible by the free labour provided by slaves imported from Africa in the 17th century. Hitler could not, in the 1930s, emulate the Americans by importing slaves with impunity, as the Americans did four centuries ago. So he took the next best option. He seized productive lands belonging to neighbouring indigenous Europeans of “impure blood”, including Jews. If they resisted, they were killed. The survivors provided the slave labour to sustain the German economy in the concentration camps, just as the Americans had done centuries ago in the cotton plantations of southern states.

Remember the historically inspiring slogan, “Arbeit Macht Free” (Work Sets You Free) blazoned on top of the gates of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps, which greeted Jewish prisoners? A particularly appropriate symbol, as these camps worked their Jewish and other prisoners, men, women and children to near death, and murdered those who survived in the ovens when they were no longer able to function.

According to Edgar E. Baptist, in his analysis of American slavery: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, “The institution of slavery, the commodification and suffering and forced labour of African-Americans is what made the United States powerful and rich”.

Hitler also had the ultimate dream of returning Germany to its former glory as Europe’s dominant pure-blooded Christian nation. His model was in fact the Holocaust against African slaves in 17th century United States of America.

As is Netanyahu’s model of seizing land of the Palestinians with the help of the Americans, eliminating Arab terrorists and civilians. In spite of American and Israeli sanctimonious hypocrisy, there’s no difference in their minds between terrorists and civilians, they are all Arabs, and coincidentally, they also are brown-skinned, of impure blood, expendable “collateral damage”.

Like the lands of native American tribes slaughtered by white “settlers” are just mythical names on an obsolete map of the United States, so will Palestine cease to exist, a mere asterisk on future maps of the Middle-East.

Not an exact parallel, though. The native Indians were murdered by the marauding Europeans out of greed. The Palestinians were slaughtered in the divine realization of God’s Plan.

The involvement of the United States in the ultimate ambition of an exclusively Jewish State of Israel, having eliminated the owners of the land by genocide or displacement, is unconscionable. In fact, during his first speech after his appointment as the Speaker of the Republican majority House of Representatives last Wednesday, Mike Johnson (a Trump supporter, who played a major role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election), said, “The first bill I’m going to bring to this floor will be in support of our dear friend Israel, and we are overdue in getting that done”. Meaning that they have been overdue in helping the Israelis to establish a one-state solution of a Jewish state in Palestine.

America currently faces four major adversaries, in China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. Three of these adversaries have a direct interest in the situation in Palestine. How the Americans deal with this conflict, whether they, with the Israelis, will opt for short-term revenge or seek a long-term solution of a problem which has been festering in violence for over half a century, will determine the immediate future of the region.

China’s position on the conflict has been consistent. Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in a recent press conference, stated that “China condemns all acts of violence and opposes any violation of international law…. Israel has the right to statehood. So does Palestine…. The Jewish nation is no longer homeless in the world, but when will the Palestinian nation return to its home?”

Peace in the Middle-East is vital to China’s huge energy demand. The region accounts for nearly half of China’s oil imports, making it vital to China’s energy security.

Russia has long been a critic of the United States’ complicity with Israel in the marginalization of the Palestinians. Russia values its ties with Arab states, especially its growing alignment with Iran, the arch-foe of Israel and the United States. President Putin has emphasized that his country “adheres to a two-state solution, but “the problem must be solved on an equitable basis that takes into account the interests of all people living in the region”.

Iran has warned that any Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip “could expand the scope of the conflict elsewhere in the Middle-East”, as the Israeli airstrikes and blockade of essential supplies to northern Gaza continue to bring dreadful suffering to Palestinians. An offensive, with the complicity of the United States, that constitutes a war crime against international law.

North Korea, has no direct interest, but its media accuses Israel of “ceaseless criminal actions against the people of Palestine, with the United States escalating the conflict”, adding that “the fundamental solution is an independent Palestinian state”.

The role of the United States in the Israeli-Palestine conflict, in which they have tried to broker a solution is, to put it diplomatically, untenable. How would it be possible for the United States to presume to mediate in a conflict when their stand with Israel has always been “rock solid”, as President Biden affirmed after his recent visit to Tel Aviv? How can they be they so arrogant as to offer to act as a “peacemaker”, when they have been providing military funding to Israel, from $1.8 billion per year in 1987, progressively increasing to $3.8 billion in 2022? With another 20 billion in the works subsequent to the October 7 attacks.

Thousands of protests and demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza have erupted in major cities throughout the world, and not just in Muslim countries. They call for an end to the relentless and continuing Israeli blockage and airstrikes on Gaza, demanding an immediate ceasefire and the beginning of negotiations for a two-party solution to the decades-long conflict.

There also have been protests against Hamas holding captive nearly 220 hostages in Gaza, including 20 Americans, demanding their immediate and unconditional release. To date, four American ladies have been released, unharmed.

The self-acclaimed stance of the United States as a benign Superpower, the Leader of the Free World, the Bastion of Democracy, the Shining City on the Hill, is proving to be spurious, at least in the current Israeli-Palestine conflict. I never imagined the day would dawn when I am in complete agreement with the positions taken by China, Russia, North Korea and Iran on an international conflict.