Three statements for Holocaust Memorial Day
JVL Introduction
For Holocaust Memorial Day 2024, we read that some schools and workplaces have scaled back or even cancelled events to mark the day amid tensions over Gaza. We think that this is disappointing because the victims of the horrendous, murderous Nazi regime should be honoured, remembered with dignity and respect. As we have argued elsewhere, the best way to honour their memory is to take seriously the demand that this should never happen again. Jews were the main but not the only victims of the Nazi genocidal intents. Our eyes today are on the atrocities being carried out on the people of Gaza, on the recognition today (26.01.24) by the International Court of Justice that the claim by South Africa that Israel is guilty of genocide is plausible. But there are also other genocides that have happened or that are ongoing; some recognised as part of Holocaust Memorial Day such as Rwanda and Cambodia but others not (or not yet) included, such as in Congo. And, of course, genocides before the Nazi period are excluded altogether, possibly because that would expose the worst atrocities of the European Colonial powers.
This year tensions have particularly arisen because of the erroneous conflation of Israel and Jewish people which leads to the notion that including what is happening in Gaza and what happened in the Nakba in 1948 would be considered antisemitic. It is not.
We are pleased to publish three different but powerful statements made by Jewish organisations that have long opposed the occupation, siege and the bombardments of Palestine. All have written on the theme of “Never Again – for anybody”.
Jewish Voice for Peace focuses on the situation in Gaza nearly four months in to the terrible attacks and suggests some actions Americans can take that are easily transferable to the British and other contexts. The Jewish Socialist Group statement also reminds us also who those non Jewish victims were and describes the dangers of the rise of the Alternative für Deutschland Party in today’s Germany and of similar rises in other European countries and demands that the Tories break their links with these parties.
The final statement is from the International Jewish Antizionist Network (IJAN), which focuses on the current appalling pulverisation of the Gaza Strip. They invite further endorsement. Their statement starts with a quote from a survivor of the Budapest Ghetto who concludes: I will not remain silent in the face of the attempted annihilation of the Palestinians; the sale of arms to repressive regimes around the world; the attempt to stifle criticism of Israel in the media worldwide… I will not allow the confounding of the terms ‘anti-Semitic’ and ‘anti-Zionist’ to go unchallenged.”~ Dr. Marika Sherwood
Links to the originals are at the end of each post.
LL
This Holocaust Remembrance Day, ‘never again’ is now.
As we approach International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are confronted with a devastating truth: What we vowed never to allow to happen again is happening, right now.
Today, Gaza is a shell of its former self. Entire neighborhoods have been wiped from the face of the Earth, replaced by a gray wasteland unfit for human life: bustling markets and crowded cafes, libraries home to thousands of precious books, bakeries filled with the smell of fresh bread — all of it turned to ash.
This Saturday, Israel and the U.S. will share solemn words about the Holocaust. They will tell us that we must never again allow this kind of evil to occur — even as both countries stand trial, respectively, for carrying out and complicity in the genocide of Palestinians.
One of the worst truths of the Holocaust is that such horrors can happen. It is entirely possible for a genocide to be carried out while the world watches, and it’s happened more than once since the world vowed “never again.”
Nearly four months into the genocide in Gaza, this is what we know.
1. The Israeli military has killed over 1 percent of Gaza’s population. Far more could die of disease and starvation.
In a matter of months, the Israeli military has killed over 25,000 Palestinians, including more than 10,000 children. Thousands more are buried under the rubble, presumed dead.
Nothing has been left untouched. The Israeli military has carried out hundreds of attacks on hospitals and essential medical infrastructure, leaving Gaza’s healthcare system in ruins. It has bombed schools, heritage sites, universities, libraries, and places of worship. Nearly two million people — 85 percent of Gaza’s population — have been forced to flee their homes.
But far more Palestinians could die of disease and starvation than have been killed by Israeli bombs. That’s because the Israeli military has destroyed Gaza’s healthcare system, turned access to clean drinking water into a “weapon of war” and restricted aid to a trickle. Today, miscarriages are up 300% and a quarter of Gaza’s population is starving — and half a million people could die within a year if these conditions persist.
2. The Israeli government’s indiscriminate bombing campaign explains the scale and scope of the devastation in Gaza — and the massive civilian death toll.
The Israeli state is waging a war against the entire civilian population of Gaza. The evidence is clear: Almost half of the 29,000 Israeli munitions used in Gaza have been imprecise “dumb bombs,” according to a U.S. intelligence assessment from mid-December, and it has also dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs on Gaza, which are capable of injuring or killing someone over 1,000 feet away. For reference, the U.S. military used only one of these bombs during its war against ISIS.
Over 70 percent of homes in Gaza and over half of all of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble. The Israeli military’s onslaught has made Gaza uninhabitable.
3. Violence against Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank has reached a fever pitch.
More Palestinians in the West Bank were killed by the Israeli military in 2023 — at least 492 people — than were killed in any year since the U.N. began keeping records in 2005. Over half of them were killed in the period following October 7. Settler violence is also on the rise: At least 17 Palestinians were murdered by Israeli settlers in 2023, compared with two such killings in 2022, according to the U.N.
Now, as Israeli troops are gradually pulled out of Gaza, they’ll be relocated to the Occupied West Bank — and we can expect violence against Palestinians there to get even worse.
It’s clearer now than it’s ever been: Zionism’s end-game is the total destruction of Palestinian life. But this mountain of statistics only tells part of the story.
For Palestinians, this is what Zionism looks like. It is armed settlers, flanked by the Israeli military, gunning down a 17-year-old Palestinian American because they can. It is starving Palestinians in Gaza grinding animal fodder for food, children searching the rubble for something to eat, a teenage girl using scraps of tent in place of menstrual products. It is a lone baby boy, born at the beginning of the genocide, who today is the sole survivor of his entire family. His future, like so many others’ in Gaza, hangs in the balance.
This is where we go from here.
Palestinians are taking Biden to federal court for abetting genocide.
In November, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit accusing President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Austin of not only failing to prevent, but also complicity in, the Israeli government’s genocide. The first hearing in the lawsuit is taking place this Friday, January 26. You can watch the livestream here.
CCR’s lawsuit is separate from South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, which is currently being heard at the Hague. Amid decades of impunity for Israeli state crimes, both of these cases represent welcome steps towards justice for Palestinians.
We’re not slowing down now.
CCR’s lawsuit and the historic genocide case against the Israeli government aren’t just pathways to legal accountability; they’re tools the movement for Palestinian liberation can use to escalate our organizing beyond a ceasefire, which is the bare minimum demand. We want to end all U.S. support for Israel’s apartheid regime — and the Israeli government being on trial for genocide makes the case for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) that much stronger.
Call your members of Congress.
Palestinians in Gaza desperately need a ceasefire now. Take a few minutes to call your members of Congress and urge them to support a permanent ceasefire and vote NO on more weapons to Israel’s genocidal military.
Link to the original post from 24th January 2024: JVP/gaza-genocide-four-months/
Never again – to anyone!
Jewish Socialist Group Statement on Holocaust Memorial Day 2024
Photo: David Rosenberg
Holocaust Memorial Day, on 27th January, marks the day in 1945 that the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, the largest of six extermination centres the Nazis established in Poland, was liberated by the Red Army. Around 900,000 Jews and 21,000 Roma were gassed to death there. Thousands of Soviet prisoners of war were also killed there. Tens of thousands of Polish political prisoners, trade unionists, communists, gays, and others died from mistreatment in Auschwitz prison camp or as slave labourers, alongside Jewish and Roma slaves.
The first victims of Nazi experiments in mass killing, two years before Auschwitz was built, were disabled people murdered at Brandenburg in gas chambers disguised as shower rooms.
In 2024, though, this day cannot be about remembrance alone, because those who promote racist, fascist and ethno-nationalist ideologies are all too present and dangerous right now.
The Jewish Socialists’ Group expresses its solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of people in German cities who took to the streets to protest against the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) – polling high among the German public – after its plans for mass deportation of migrants and minorities were exposed.
British governments continue to treat fascism as something that happens elsewhere. They congratulate themselves on Britain’s role in defeating Nazism. Yet the Conservative Party are closely connected with the AfD.
The Tories form the largest section within the Council of Europe Conservatives’ group that unites them with the AfD and a host of other hard-right and far-right parties across Europe, such as Le Pen’s National Rally in France, Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, Vox in Spain, the Freedom Party in Austria and Orban’s Fidesz party in Hungary. The Tory Party’s vicious policies against refugees increasingly align with those of these other parties.
It is scandalous that the Tories suffer no pressure on this from the mainstream media, nor from the Labour opposition, nor indeed from Jewish establishment bodies in Britain over those formal connections. Jewish “leaders” instead continue to praise the government’s pro-Israel stance that allows Israel’s far-right government a free hand to commit war crimes in Gaza in defiance of international law; as a result they seem unwilling to challenge the Tories on anything.
We demand that the Conservative Party cut its links with the AfD now. We call on those bodies that claim to lead the Jewish community in Britain to strongly and publicly echo this demand, and express their solidarity with all the minorities targeted by the AfD.
The far-right fringe in Britain are being emboldened by the Conservative government’s further lurch to the right. Small wonder that Tommy Robinson feels able to call on his supporters to march in Telford this weekend, on Holocaust Memorial Day, exploiting instances of sexual exploitation of girls to push his longstanding Islamophobic agenda. We stand with victims of sexual exploitation seeking justice but, as both Islamophobia and antisemitism are rising, we will give no ground to racism.
On Holocaust Memorial Day we mourn the lives and celebrate the incredible cultural creativity of the communities that were destroyed by Nazism. We affirm our commitment to fighting racism, fascism, ethnic cleansing and authoritarianism everywhere. The Jewish Socialists’ Group commits itself to building a world of equality, where the rights of minorities are respected and enhanced, and where all cultures can flourish and interact freely.
We remember those who resisted antisemitism and fascism in Poland in the 1930s, Europe’s largest Jewish community, and in the ghettoes under Nazi occupation. And we affirm our commitment: Never Again – to anyone!
Link to original: Never again – to anyone! | Jewish Socialists’ Group
International Jewish Antizionist Network say:
No Final Solution in Our Name
Never Again For Anyone.
Sometime after [1956] I heard a news item about Israelis herding Palestinians into settlement camps. I just could not believe this. Weren’t the Israelis also Jews? Hadn’t we – they – just survived the greatest pogrom of our history? Weren’t [concentration] camps – often euphemistically called ‘settlement camps’ by the Nazis – the main feature of this pogrom? How could Jews in any measure do unto others what had been done to them? How could these Israeli Jews oppress and imprison other people? I have to say to the Israeli government, which claims to speak in the name of all Jews, that it is not speaking in my name. I will not remain silent in the face of the attempted annihilation of the Palestinians; the sale of arms to repressive regimes around the world; the attempt to stifle criticism of Israel in the media worldwide… I will not allow the confounding of the terms ‘anti-Semitic’ and ‘anti-Zionist’ to go unchallenged.”~ Dr. Marika Sherwood is a survivor of the Budapest ghetto.
The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network calls on all Jews of Conscience to stand and act against Netanyahu’s goal of a “final solution” for “the Palestinian problem.” We are a diversity of Jewish people who carry the intergenerational trauma of genocide, ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, political persecution, ghettoization, colonization, and ethnic and religious persecution and discrimination.We will not allow these histories to be used for the massacre of Palestinians. We say never again for anyone.This latest assault on Gaza is consistent with the violent colonization of Palestine that imposed the State of Israel on the Palestinians and has maintained it for over 75 years: its ongoing apartheid policies, military occupation and siege, ethnic cleansing, ghettoization, and forced displacement.
After the 2006 siege on Gaza, Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer warned:
“What is happening in Gaza is a slow-motion genocide. At first the Nazis put us in ghettos, then they moved us to work camps and concentration camps. The final solution came later in their efforts. It is painful to witness the parallels I observe between my own experience in Germany and those suffered by Palestinians today.”“The various forms of collective punishment visited upon the Palestinian people – coerced ghettoization behind a ‘security wall’; the bulldozing of homes and destruction of fields; the bombing of schools, mosques, and government buildings; an economic blockade that deprives people of the water, food, medicine, education and the basic necessities for dignified survival – force me to recall the deprivations and humiliations that I experienced in my youth. This century-long process of oppression means unimaginable suffering for Palestinians.”
Gaza is a concentration camp and rapidly becoming a death camp. Gas chambers and firing lines have been replaced with bombs, tanks, and white phosphorous. We say never again for anyone.Talli Gotliv, an Israeli lawmaker, demanded that Israel “Shoot powerful missiles without limit. Not flattening a neighborhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza,” she continued… “Otherwise, we would have done nothing. Not with passwords, with penetrating bombs. Without mercy! Without mercy!” A wish Netanyahu is fulfilling. Israel is bombing neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, places of worship, tunnels through which people are trying to escape, without regard for civilian life. Half of Gaza is children. The intention is clear. The intention is genocide. Depriving people of food, water, electricity and basic needs, is not just collective punishment, it is an act of genocide.As we offer solidarity with Palestinian resistance, we are reminded of the Warsaw and Vilna Ghetto and concentration camp uprisings against the Nazis. Both are acts of resistance against fascist regimes. In both cases, there is a struggle for freedom from genocide and ethnic cleansing and the right to exist as a free people.
Since 1948, Palestinians have had to flee while resisting so that they could stay as much as possible in their own homes on their own land, and for their own self-determination.Dr Meyer called for a return of Palestine to Palestinians and a return of Judaism to the ethics of “do unto others.” We stand on the history of Jewish participation in struggles for our collective liberation. We stand with the right of Palestinians to their collective self-defense. We stand against genocide, whether the genocide that killed many of our families, or the genocide we are witnessing. The majority of the world is against this genocide. Internationally, many are showing up and protesting, calling out the US, UK, and EU, who are backing Israel’s genocidal plan with their arms, propaganda, and censorship. We stand with the majority. No genocide in our name.We say never again for anyone.We invite other Jews of Conscience to join us in demanding an immediate end to the escalating genocide in Palestine.
To show your support for this statement, please sign here.
Link to the original: IJAN no-final-solution-in-our-name-never-again-for-anyone/
Other articles on our blog for HMD 2024
- Remembering is easy: acting to prevent future genocides seems less so – Mike Cushman
- If I am only for myself, what am I? – Robert Cohen
- Rabbis say Remember the Holocaust: stop the genocide in Gaza – Rabbi Brant Rosen