IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS. EVEN WITH A THOUSAND WORDS, HOW CAN ONE DESCRIBE THE LOOK IN THE EYES OF A 13 YEAR OLD PALESTINIAN BOY BEING USED BY ISRAEL’S IDF AS A “HUMAN SHIELD” ?

THE SIMPLE ANSWER IS THAT THERE IS SOME STORIES & TRUTH THAT CAN ONLY TOLD WITH PICTURES.

Take a look & read the TRUTH of this story:

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11& ar=1018

Reply to #69913 by Bob Griffin on 5/14 at 11:42 am

Amen, brother.

Reply to #69835 by PatrickHenry on 5/14 at 4:14 am

“Alot of political hay is made with the mere mention of “the holocaust” infering special status and laws, exemption from human rights because someones ancestors died in it is not right either.”

PH,

Have you ever read Norman Finkelstein? He is one of the finest scholars in the country, right up there with Noam Chomsky. He is brilliant and rock solid.  He has written two books that deal with this subject, “The Holocaust Industry” and “Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History”. I highly recommend them. You can also check Finkelstein out at:

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com.

Persons who were abused as children typically grow up to abuse their children.

There are many other races, religions and ethnic minorities which have suffered as much as the jews and now at the hands of the jews.

While 6 million jews were tragically killed in the holocaust, little mention is made of the 20 million non jews, i.e. Russians, Poles, gypsies.

Throughout the millenia, all people, races and cultures have suffered at the hands of others.  In my lifetime its been the Cambodians and Ugandians, the Ethiopians and the Serb/Croations to name a few.

Alot of political hay is made with the mere mention of “the holocaust” infering special status and laws, exemption from human rights because someones ancestors died in it is not right either.

Hey, Hondo, it’s been more than sixty years. You are stepping on the Palestinians already. Time to rejoin the human race, don’t you think?

Reply to #69640 by Hondo on 5/12 at 9:26 pm

You hate people very easily, don’t you? That is because the trauma of the Holocaust in your past is making you afraid it will happen again. So what do you do, but go around with a chip on your shoulder. It’s natural, it’s what people who have been traumatized do, but unfortunately it’s self-destructive. Keep it up, and of course people will start hating you. That’s how it works. That is what is happening now.

Get over it.

Hey Tony...don’t let this “IDF JOE” get under your skin. I am appalled at the hatred & fanatic zionist comment.

Hang in there Tony. You are a caring human being and one who deeply cares for humanity on this earth.

All the best.

Reply #69317 by PatrickHenry on 5/11 at 3:52 am

The sad thing is that this type of hate and fear is going to cause the very thing Jews are afraid of. When they say “Never again!”, what this really means is that they are unable to get beyond the shock of the Holocaust, and their inablility to get over it will ultimately make it happen again. Freud calls it “the compulsion to repeat” the traumatic experience. What they cannot forget will happen again. This is so tragic.

Gee Tony, I don’t think G.I.Joe likes you very much.

I don’t think “Joe” favors Carters book.

So much for the Jewish (ADL) position on “hate speech”.

Mr. Wicher,

Yes sir I do support HR333.

I support cutting off funding for Iraq operations.

I endorse Paul, Kucinich and Gravel as worthy to be candidates for President and could vote for any of them.  I like Gravel’s position on term limits.

Reply to comment#69044 by PatrickHenry on 5/09 at 3:15 pm

Hey there, PH my friend. Somewhat off the topic, but just out of curiosity, do you support the impeachment of Bush-Cheney. I want them tried for crimes of state by the Senate before the International Criminal Court does it. That way the American people will still be able to hold up their heads again in the eyes of the world. If these rats are allowed to finish out their terms and slink off into the night, what does that say about us?  We must rise in defense of our Constitution. We must show the world that democracy still means something in this county.

I advocate that all Americans call and email their their congressment to voice support for HR 333, the resolution to impeach Richard B. Cheney.

This Iraq war does have an Israel connection. It is true that Israel has many influential Jewish supporters in this country and that they work though AIPAC, the ADL, etc. to influence U.S. policy in ways favorable to Israel. This sympathy of American Jews towards Israel is understandable, but it is not rational and not good for Americans or even Israelis because it enables their immoral behavior. I therefore call on all American Jews to go on record by signing a statement dissociating themselves from Israel’s current apartheid, anti-democratic government.

I see the same old knuckleheads are still at this post.  Sort of an Arab/Israeli blog war which has detracted greatly from what the issue was, Carter and his critique of Israeli politics.

I for one want Israel out of U.S. politics by way of AIPAC registering as a foreign agent with its minions of sub-lobbys.  I want the US government to shed itself of dual nationals i.e. Perle, Feith, Dov Zakim and the rest of the neo-morons who have gotten us in this mess in Iraq.

Finally I want a formal apology for the attack on the USS Liberty from Israel and a more independent investigation of 9/11 bringing in all information concerning the movement of Israeli nationals and their supposed foreknowledge of events.

Alot is comming out now about JFK and the obvious hand Johnson had in his death with those polititians involved still around today.  9/11 smells like the same rat and I don’t want to wait 40+ years to find out we’ve all been spoon fed bullshit once again.

In the NIV Study Bible, New International Version, Zondervan Publishing House, Michigan, 1985; Matthew: 23:15, page 1477, I read the following:

“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How would you escape being condemned to hell?! Therefore, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flag in your synagogues and purse from town to town…”

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you! How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”
=======================================
In this quoted passage of the Christian Bible, it’s obvious that God is speaking and condemning the Jews in the strongest possible language. If I were a Jew I would be greatly offended and do my best to censor or have this removed from the Bible! However, I am neither a Jew nor a Christian, and I am wondering what kind of reaction a Jew or a Christian would have upon reading this passage. I know there are many passionate Christians, Jews and even atheists on this thread, and I am deadly curious to know what’s your take or comment on this. Any comments would be appreciated for I need this to do some research.

Fadel said:

Well, Mad As Hell, I am not surprised that in your Zionist fanatic and screwed up mentality you have the audacity to attribute to people what they don’t say. This talk about “Jews are inherently evil” and that I “want EVERY Jew in the world killed” are your own words and the figment of your sick and insecure imagination, and your evil desire to mark me up as a Jew hater and anti-Semitic.

Now mark my words! I cannot be anti-Semitic because I am possibly more pure Semitic than yourself. I actually believe that there are so many good and noble Jews, in whom I place a great hope in helping the Palestinians get justice, while, at the same time, helping rescue Jews and Judaism from evil fanatic Zionists like you. In fact, I have a good number of close Jewish friends who are noble, sincere and the best human beings. Those are Jews I am willing to defend with my own life if they face persecution or harm. In doing this, I will be acting in the best tradition of my noble coreligionists, such as Saladin and many others before and after him who rescued the Jews from the persecution of the Inquisition, the Crusaders and lately the Jewish survivors of the Nazis. There is well-documented history about this, but I know you’re no reader seeking enlightenment to suggest references for you.

Moreover, your insistence on equating fanatic Zionism with Judaism is another indication that you’re ill informed and have a screwed up mentality. You should know by now that there are more Jews than you can count who are against Zionism as a racist and secular colonialist enterprise.

By way of conclusion, it’s not Jews or Judaism; it’s fanatic Zionism, stupid!

=======================

Fadel,

Damn right! The problem begins with Zionism, not Judaism. Non-Zionist Jews are among the finest people in the world and always have been. The problem began when certain Jews developed an ideology which said that Jews would always be persecuted unless they had a national state of their own. The persecution was real and getting worse, so their idea had some plausibility. Then they negotiated with the British and got the Balfour Delaration. Jews began to migrate there and tensions in Palestine from this immigration became steadily worse. Then the Holocaust convinced millions of surviving Jews that the Zionists were right, and they stampeded to Palestine. Now they are sitting there on top of the Palestinians. The Palestinians hate their guts and who can blame them? What a mess!The problem is that a Jewish state cannot really be a democracy. Citizenship in a democracy cannot depend on race, creed, color or national origen. This is something you don’t think about when you are running away from Hitler. It is sixty years later, and past time to re-think their position.

Kindly read these words by Rachel Corrie (the 23-year-old American peace activist who was crushed to death by a bulldozer paid for by US taxpayers as she tried to prevent the Israeli army from destroying homes in the Gaza Strip) - she tells us in her own words - through her emails to her mother - why she was in Gaza, protecting Palestinian families from the Israeli army that was bulldozing their homes and green houses:

“Love you. Really miss you. I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers outside our house and you and me inside…. I am really scared for the people here. Yesterday, I watched a father lead his two tiny children, holding his hands, out into the sight of tanks and a sniper tower and bulldozers and Jeeps because he thought his house was going to be exploded….This is in the area where Sunday about 150 men were rounded up and contained outside the settlement with gunfire over their heads and around them, while tanks and bulldozers destroyed 25 greenhouses - the livelihoods for 300 people….I was terrified to think that this man felt it was less of a risk to walk out in view of the tanks with his kids than to stay in his house. I was really scared that they were all going to be shot and I tried to stand between them and the tank. This happens every day, but just this father walking out with his two little kids just looking very sad, just happened to get my attention more at this particular moment”, probably because I felt it was our translation problems that made him leave.”

- Rachel Corrie

Source: Guardian

Hey Fadel...Its that same ole zionist attack dogs, but under different names.

Its the same synchronized fanatic zionist comments on this forum/thread & others. These guys are NO strangers to each other. Just take a look at the time that each comment was posted. Just a few minutes apart. ITS THAT FAMILIAR AIPAC/ISRAEL “INTERNET MEGAPHONE”!

The TRUTH hurts these ill willed zionists. Their loyalty is for Israel’s Apartheid policies. They don’t care about other people, universal Human Rights, equality and justice for all; they ONLY care if its ONLY good for Israel and/or Jews.

As for that “MFH” fellow, he keeps threatening TRUTHDIG with his tantrums about anti-semitism and his permanent boycott and last visit on TRUTHDIG.

Oh what a great loss its going to be for humanity!

DEMOCRACY, JUSTICE, HUMAN RIGHTS & EQUALITY FOR ALL PEOPLE ARE THE FOUNDATION FOR PEACE IN PALESTINE/ISRAEL.

Here is a recent link on the main topic of this thread:

“The Looming Challenges”

“Palestine and Peace”

By Hanan Ashrawi (04/28/2007)

http://www.counterpunch.org/ashrawi04282007.html

To: Mad As Hell,"Jehovah" be Praised, Johnny, George and Righty:

While I continue to post hard facts, mostly from Jewish sources, you continue to dig out all the filth of the English dictionary thinking this would hurt me. In fact, I carry these curses as badges of honor, because they’re proof that I really managed to get under your thick skins. I am actually collecting and saving these curses hopefully to publish them in a future book.

Just for your knowledge, I can equally curse and insult you in five languages if I were to descend down to your lowly levels.

An Arabic proverb speaks to your types by saying:

“Each earthen-pot oozes the liquid it contains.”

I don’t blame you for displaying openly the types of miserable creators that you’re. I just feel so sorry for the sickness of your hearts and souls!

Read the following short articles from different sources and reach your own enlightened conclusions!
=============================
5. Irish Peace Laureate Shot By Israeli Troops at Non-Violent Protest - Why Isn’t This News?
By Robert Naiman (Source: MyDD)

Those who blame the Palestinian people for their fate, attributing it to Palestinian violence, and faulting the Palestinians for not emulating Gandhi, King, or Mandela (whose role in the “armed struggle” is always conveniently elided for the purpose of this comparison) should periodically ask themselves, when Palestinians do engage in nonviolent protest, and are subjected to brutal repression as a result, how come the mainstream U.S. media don’t pay any attention?

Wouldn’t this be a precondition for a successful nonviolent protest strategy? That people find out about it? Imagine if U.S. news organizations had not reported on lunch counter sit-ins in the South, Freedom Rides, or the Montgomery bus boycott - and the repression that resulted. What if no-one reported on the deaths of Evers, Goodman, Schwerner, Chaney. Would these protests have been as effective?

That U.S. political, diplomatic, and financial support for the Israeli government’s policies in the West Bank provide crucial support for these policies should be beyond debate. Don’t the American people have a right to know what’s going on?

6. Prisoners in Israel
By MWC NEWS

Tamimi, 46, was jailed in 1993 for killing an Israeli settler in the West Bank. His own background is also bloody – two of his brothers were killed by Israeli troops, as well as his wife’s father and sister.

His case has sparked controversy in Israel, where a judge and a member of the Israeli Knesset have opposed giving him the US $90,000 operation because he was convicted of killing an Israeli.

Overall, the 10,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel are not significantly discriminated against when it comes to medical care because all prisoners in Israel receive poor treatment regardless of background, claims NGO Physicians for Human Rights, Israel (PHR).

7. What cease-fire?
By Amira Hass (Source: Ha’aretz)

“Cease-fire” is yet another hollow term, showing that the Palestinian representatives - elected or not, Hamas or Fatah or Palestine Liberation Organization-Tunis, from Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to the last spokesman of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ “Brigades” - keep falling into the traps set for them by the politics of Israeli occupation.

On the Saturday and Sunday before the Palestinians “broke the cease-fire,” Israel Defense Forces soldiers killed nine Palestinians. Among them was a 17-year-old girl, a 15-year-old boy and a policeman who was on the roof of his house and was not involved in any “battle.”

Read the following short articles from different sources and reach your own enlightened conclusions!

3. Let Taibeh go to Palestine
By Gilad Sharon (Source: Ha’aretz)

Change the citizenship of Israel’s Arabs

On the issue of a Jewish state versus a state of all its citizens, it must be said without embarrassment and without apology: Of course we want to live in a democratic country, but at the same time we want to live in a Jewish country. Israel was not established to bring a democratic regime to a benighted region. Israel was established as a national home for the Jewish people.

Representatives of the Arab sector and Knesset members from the Arab parties are discriminated against; this is a fact. It is possible to try to whitewash this. It is possible to appoint someone as deputy Knesset speaker, or bring a representative into the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, but then it is impossible to talk about security matters, and all the reports are moved to the subcommittees.

Therefore, as I see it, the goal has to be a significant Jewish majority among the citizens of Israel, forever. Minorities have to be totally loyal to the state, to fulfill all the obligations and enjoy all the rights, like the Druze, some of the Bedouins and the Circassians. An example of action in this direction is changing the citizenship of the Arabs of Umm al Fahm, Taibeh, Jaljulya, Kafr Bara and so on - as far as and including Kafr Qasem. After all, there is no real reason why Qalqilyah and Tul Karm should be Palestinian and Taibeh Israeli. This is a mistake and nothing more.

4. U.S. eyes potential $65 million bomb sale to Israel
By Jim Wolf (Source: Reuters)

What happened to Peace?

The Bush administration announced on Friday what would be the first officially disclosed sale of U.S. military equipment to Israel since the end of Israel’s armed conflict with Lebanon in 2006.

In a notice to Congress, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Israel had requested as many as 3,500 MK-84 “general purpose” bombs, spares and repair parts plus U.S. government technical assistance in a deal worth up to $65 million if all options are exercised.

Read the following short articles from different news sources and get an education that will make you see the light!
========================================
1. Will I hang the flag?
By Gideon Levy (Source: Ha’aretz)

There is a flagholder installed in my garden. The previous residents used it to fly the flag of their favorite soccer team. Since they left, the holder has remained orphaned. During my childhood, there was no question about it: My parents would take the national flag out of the cupboard each year, proudly display it on the balcony, and it would drown in the street’s sea of blue and white. I would look with excitement at our decorated balcony: I was proud of the flag…

I clearly remember when I stopped hanging the flag. It was after I saw the settlers dashing through Palestinian villages, fearsome flags waving from their cars to confront and provoke the residents of the land they had invaded. I said to myself that a flag intended for provocation and confrontation is not my flag. I later saw the flag as a land marker, establishing ownership that is not ours. In every settlement and outpost they hung the flag that was my flag as well to “establish facts on the ground.”

2. When an Anti-Semite is Not an Anti-Semite
By Arthur Neslen (Source: CounterPunch)

What do Einstein, Mahatma Ghandi, Ehud Olmert and, yes, me all have in common? We could each be censured for racism according to the European Union Monitoring Centre’s ‘working definition of anti-Semitism’ which was last week adopted by the UK’s National Union of Students as official policy.

This definition has lately been sweeping all before it, taking endorsements everywhere from the All Party Parliamentary Report on anti-Semitism to the US state department’s special envoy for combating anti-Semitism. The British government has pledged to re-examine its own definition of anti-Semitism if the EUMC’s successor body, the Fundamental Rights Agency, ratifies the new lingua franca…

By the new standard though, it might be an anti-Semitic ‘double standard’ to single him out for criticism when the hateful words of the former Indian leader, Mahatma Ghandi, are still being taught in British schools. In 1938, Ghandi said he believed that ‘Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.’ Thus might he disbar himself from speaking at a British college today.

Einstein though would really bomb. After the Deir Yassin massacre that killed more than 250 Palestinian civilians in 1948, he signed a letter to the New York Times describing the Herut Party (a.k.a Likud) as ‘closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties’. Its then-leader (and Israel’s future prime minister) Menachem Begin, represented ‘fascist elements’ in Israel, and his party had ‘openly preached the doctrine of the fascist state’. So Einstein, would flunk the EUMC’s ‘comparing Israeli policy to the Nazis’ test.

If you think you heard it all about the evil Israeli connection to all the evil in the world just listen to this:

A report I just heard on Chicago Public Radio about the Guantanamo prisoners reveals that one of the torture techniques interrogators use against the Muslim detainees is to strip them naked and drape them up with the Israeli flag, forcing them to kiss the cross, forcing them to drink their own urine, besides other unheard of methods of torture. But the most interesting of all these is to use of the Israeli flag as a weapon of torture!

Another piece of information from free independent sources indicate that between 8 thousand and 10 thousand Israeli Mossad agents entered Iraq with the American occupying army. They are the ones mostly planning suicide bombing in Sunni and Shia areas to inflame the passions and the civil war among Iraqis.

American military in the service of Israel and evil Israelis in the service of U.S. military will leave us with a legacy which will be the cause for a thousand year hatred between these two in their unholy alliance and the Arab and Muslim world!

The Israeli apartheid wall was built with American taxpayers’ money and with the full blessing of Bush and his gang. In light of this it’s almost naive of ask evil Bush to tear down this wall, as two other pieces on Truthdig ask. It is also inappropriate to address Bush as “Mr. Bush”; he should be addressed as, “Evil, Liar Bush” instead.

#65957 by Righty on 4/23 at 7:47 pm
(Unregistered commenter)

I really got under your skin, kido! Enjoy your eternal Hell!

Fadel,

You are right. You can find some of the best articles against Zionism in Haaretz. That does mean that you do have to give Israel that much credit - they do allow such articles to be published, and that means they do respect freedom of speech. They do have a “Jews-only” democracy; now if we could only persuade them to get rid of the “Jews only” part, and include everyone!
The most hopeful thing I have read lately is this article from the Nation online posted in my ODS:
posted April 17, 2007. Is Asmi Bishara the Mandela, the democratic leader Palestinians need?

Israel’s Strategic Threat

by Neve Gordon

In early April the rumors about Dr. Azmi Bishara, the most famous Arab Knesset member, began circulating on the Internet: Bishara is afraid
to return to Israel; Bishara intends to resign from the Knesset; the Israeli Security Agency has decided to accuse Bishara of treason and espionage. The gag order preventing the publication of any information
about Bishara’s actions made the rumors all the more intriguing. What did Bishara, in fact, do?

Bishara, a Christian Palestinian citizen of Israel from Nazareth, established the National Democratic Assembly known as Balad in 1995 and became a Knesset member in 1996. Since then he has been interrogated several times by the Israeli Security Agency, and has
been charged and found not guilty twice: once for organizing visits to Syria for Israeli Arabs who wished to visit family members and a second time for speeches he gave in Syria and Israel praising Hezbollah’s resistance in southern Lebanon and Palestinian opposition in the occupied territories. His visit to Beirut following last year’s Lebanon war, alongside his claim that Israel was committing war crimes in Lebanon and carrying out genocide against Shiite Muslims, was, for many Israelis, yet another indication that Bishara has been using his
parliamentary immunity to harm Israel. Many Jewish members of the Knesset have argued for years that Bishara is a fifth column and that Israeli democracy has a right and indeed an obligation to defend
itself against the Bishara threat.

(continued below)

The Nation article, continued from above

But what, one might ask, are Bishara’s new offenses? It is, after all, highly unlikely that he is a spy on the payroll of a foreign entity.  And while one may not like his uncompromising opposition to Israeli
and American regional policies and his admiration for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s militancy and strategic intelligence, expressing such views does not in and of itself jeopardize Israel’s existence. Bishara, it seems, is a threat not because of any particular action or
statement but because he has become a symbol of a new kind of opposition within Israel.

During the past few months, political activists and members of the Palestinian intellectual elite within Israel, all of whom are Israeli
citizens, have drafted four documents that articulate how they conceive the state’s future. The underlying assumption of all of these documents is that as long as Israel is defined as a Jewish state, its laws will always fall short of basic democratic principles and, more particularly, the right of all its citizens to full equality.

The authors of the documentcalled “The Democratic Constitution” maintain that the Arab citizens of Israel should be considered a “homeland minority” with national rights. The idea is to transform
> Israel into a bilingual and multicultural democracy for all its citizens, rather than a Jewish democracy, which they argue is an oxymoron. Such transformation would inevitably mean changing the laws of citizenship and immigration so that citizenship would no longer be granted automatically to any Jew wishing to immigrate but rather to
anyone born within Israel’s territory or whose parent or spouse is a citizen, or to people persecuted due to their political beliefs.

Not long after the documents’ publication, Israel’s second-largest newspaper, Ma’ariv, reported a meeting between the head of the security agency, Yuval Diskin, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. During
> the meeting Diskin warned Olmert that the radicalization of Israel’s Arab citizens constitutes a “strategic threat to the state’s existence.” Diskin added that “the proliferation of the visionary
documents published by the different Arab elites in Israel is particularly worrisome, [since] the documents are united by their conception of Israel as a state for all its citizens and not a Jewish
state.” The head of the security services concluded that “the separatist and subversive patterns represented by the elites might engender a new direction and mobilize the masses.”

Balad sent a letter protesting Diskin’s assertions, arguing that legitimate political activity whose aim is to change the state’s character should not be considered subversive or dangerous. According
to Ha’aretz, the Israeli Security Agency replied that it “would foil the activity of anyone seeking to harm Israel’s Jewish or democratic character, even if that activity was carried out by legal means.”

Diskin’s words are telling. He admits not only that anyone who strives to alter the Jewish character of the state is considered an enemy and will be treated as such but that the secret service has no respect for democratic practices and procedures. It is precisely within the context of the four historic documents that one should understand the recent accusations against Bishara. More than anything else, Bishara constitutes a symbolic threat, since he personifies the recent demand of the Palestinian elite to transform Israel from a Jewish democracy
to a democracy for all its citizens.

A good reading on how Israel and the Zionists use the tragic event of the Holocaust as a political asset to justify their own Holocaust against the Palestinians! I strongly believe that Ha’aretz better serves the Palestinian cause than all Arabs and Muslims combined. It must be the ultimate source of choice for all truth and peace seekers.
================================
The Holocaust as political asset
By Amira Hass (Source: Ha’aretz)

Turning the Holocaust into a political asset serves Israel primarily in its fight against the Palestinians. When the Holocaust is on one side of the scale, along with the guilty (and rightly so) conscience of the West, the dispossession of the Palestinian people from their homeland in 1948 is minimized and blurred.

The phrase “security for the Jews” has been consecrated as an exclusive synonym for “the lessons of the Holocaust.” It is what allows Israel to systematically discriminate against its Arab citizens. For 40 years, “security” has been justifying control of the West Bank and Gaza and of subjects who have been dispossessed of their rights living alongside Jewish residents, Israeli citizens laden with privileges.

Security serves the creation of a regime of separation and discrimination on an ethnic basis, Israeli style, under the auspices of “peace talks” that go on forever. Turning the Holocaust into an asset allows Israel to present all the methods of the Palestinian struggle (even the unarmed ones) as another link in the anti-Semitic chain whose culmination is Auschwitz. Israel provides itself with the license to come up with more kinds of fences, walls and military guard towers around Palestinian enclaves.

Separating the genocide of the Jewish people from the historical context of Nazism and from its aims of murder and subjugation, and its separation from the series of genocides perpetrated by the white man outside of Europe, has created a hierarchy of victims, at whose head we stand. Holocaust and anti-Semitism researchers fumble for words when in Hebron the state carries out ethnic cleansing via its emissaries, the settlers, and ignore the enclaves and regime of separation it is setting up. Whoever criticizes Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians is denounced as an anti-Semite, if not a Holocaust denier. Absurdly, the delegitimization of any criticism of Israel only makes it harder to refute the futile equations that are being made between the Nazi murder machine and the Israeli regime of discrimination and occupation.

The institutional abandonment of the survivors is rightly denounced across the board. The transformation of the Holocaust into a political asset for use in the struggle against the Palestinians feed on those same stores of official cynicism, but it is part of the consensus.