Jonathan P. Baird lives in Wilmot.
May 6th was Holocaust Remembrance Day. Both before and during World War II, the world betrayed the Jewish people with devastating consequences. Six million Jews died in concentration camps. As early as 1933, Western media was reporting on the national boycott of Jews in Germany carried out by the Nazis. In November 1938, Nazi mobs attacked hundreds of synagogues and thousands of Jewish-owned stores. This event became known as Kristallnacht, the night the glass broke.
In December 1942, the New Republic published a feature article titled “The Genocide of the Jews.” The article by Varian Frei described the Nazi genocide plan and how it was carried out. As news of the genocide spread, the United States and other allies did not take it seriously, denied it, and largely turned a blind eye. Responsibility for this most extensive human rights upheaval was minimized.
After the war, the scale of industrialized murder became even more widely known. The phrase “never again” became a common response to the Holocaust.
But the words “never again” did not apply equally to everyone. You might think that “never again” means “never again to anyone.” That’s not the case.
While there is no denying the shocking and despicable Hamas attack of October 7, we are all witnessing Israel’s disproportionate counterattack. Whether you call it ethnic cleansing or genocide, Israel has completely failed to protect the civilian population of the Gaza Strip in its military operations.
At least 34,943 Palestinians have been killed and 78,572 injured since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas attacks stands at 1,139, with an estimated 132 people still in Hamas custody. More than 14,500 of the victims in Gaza are children and more than 9,500 are women. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has described Gaza as a “graveyard of children”. More than 1,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both legs, often undergoing amputations without anesthesia.
Vast areas of Gaza were destroyed and left in ruins. An unknown number lay beneath the rubble. According to the United Nations, 69,000 homes were destroyed and another 290,000 were damaged. Seventy-five percent of Gaza’s residents have been forced to evacuate.
Israel imposed a blockade on food, clean water, and medicine. The United Nations has announced that there is a full-scale famine in northern Gaza. Human Rights Watch said Israel used hunger as a weapon of war. Many hospitals in Gaza have been bombed, and only 10 of 36 hospitals are partially functional. All 12 universities in Gaza were also bombed and destroyed by Israeli forces, leaving 80 percent of Gaza’s schools damaged or in ruins.
Israeli military action has forced Gaza’s civilian population south. There are currently one million civilian refugees in Rafah who are told they will have to leave due to Israel’s impending military action. There appears to be no safe place for civilians. It is unclear whether Israel’s ultimate goal is to eliminate and forcibly remove all Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
In the West Bank, messianic far-right Jewish settlers are carrying out pogroms against Palestinians, forcing them from their homes. These Jewish settlers, like Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, are ideologically racist and fascist. They carry on the Meir Kahane tradition.
The world is a complex place, and not all Israeli governments are the same. Netanyahu’s government is by far the worst government in Israel’s history. Its leaders deserve to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court for the war crimes committed by the Israeli state against Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Sadly, any nation, including Israel, can commit war crimes. Confusing criticism of war crimes with anti-Semitism is a disingenuous evasion.
Under international law, Israel has an obligation to mitigate civilian casualties in its military operations. This has clearly failed. Saying that Hamas is hiding behind civilians in no way justifies the extreme brutality of the way Israel has conducted this war. Dropping 2000-pound bombs combined with relentless artillery bombardment in populated areas is sure to cause large numbers of casualties, and has done so.
Although perpetrators of genocide usually do not explicitly state their intentions, Israelis with command authority have repeatedly issued statements regarding genocide. Israeli Defense Minister Job Gallant described Palestinians as “human animals”. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likened the Palestinians to the Amalekites from the Bible. Smotrich called for the “total destruction” of Gaza.
Diana Butu, a Palestinian lawyer living in Haifa, talks about the genocidal fever in Israel. She writes: “For seven months, Israeli politicians and pundits have been spouting statements about genocide on Israeli television and social media almost every day. The Israeli far-right said early in the war that nuking Gaza was an option. The Minister of Cultural Heritage recently said that Israel “must find a way” [to deal with] Worse than death for Gazans. ”
Words precede actions, and a culture of dehumanization of the Palestinian people laid the foundation for this war. Israelis have proven that they are not exempt from vicious racism. Being a victim of genocide in one historical period does not preclude one from becoming a perpetrator in another historical period. To paraphrase Albert Camus’ words, “Neither the victim nor the executioner,” the victim can also be the executioner.
Protesting Israeli war crimes is definitely not anti-Semitism. I argue that the college students protesting this war are continuing the honorable anti-war tradition pioneered by my generation in the 1960s. Blaming the students for protesting is simply a way to distract attention from the horrific crimes that the Israeli state is currently committing. The need for an immediate ceasefire has never been clearer.
