Tag: Holocaust Memorial Day

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Israeli Holocaust Commemoration Marred by Political Infighting by Richard Silverstein

Please TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW and send your letter to the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the International Criminal Court Prosecutor.

Returning to Yad Vashem, the western portion of its current site was the Palestinian site, Hirbat al-Hamama.  It was the agricultural fields of the adjacent village of Ayn Karem.  All of the Palestinian settlements were occupied by the Palmach in July 1948.  Their inhabitants were driven out.   The hill immediately adjacent to the current museum site is where Deir Yassin once sat.  And on another nearby hill in the Jerusalem Forest, Mohammed Abu Khdeir was brutally murdered in an incident portrayed in the HBO series, Our Boys. As conference-goers discuss weighty subjects of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Europe, they ought not to lose sight of the fact of Israeli Nakba and ethnic cleansing.  As the Jewish people recovered from the Holocaust, the Yishuv repeated a similar crime against the Palestinian people.

Continue reading at https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2020/01/27/israeli-holocaust-commemoration-marred-by-political-infighting/

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Israeli military chief backtracks from 1930s Germany comparison

Please TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW and send your letter to the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the International Criminal Court Prosecutor.

We usually only post articles that explicitly contain the word “genocide” in them, as we try to provide analysis rather than news items. However, we find that this particular statement, despite the Deputy Chief of Staff’s backtrack and lack of personal accountability in his professional capacity, is indisputably a warning that Israel is going the way of genocide against the Palestinian people:

“The Holocaust must lead us to think about our public lives, and even more than that, it must guide anyone who has the ability, not only those who wish to bear public responsibility. Because if there is anything that frightens me in the remembrance of the Holocaust, it is discerning nauseating trends that took place in Europe in general, and in Germany specifically back then, 70, 80 and 90 years ago, and seeing evidence of them here among us in the year 2016. After all, there is nothing simpler and easier than hating the foreigner*, there is nothing easier and simpler than arousing fears and intimidating, there is nothing easier and simpler than becoming bestial, forgoing principles and becoming smug.”

*Translation note: The word זר (zar)-“foreigner”- would have better been translated in this case to “the other”.

Continue reading at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/05/israeli-military-chief-yair-golan-nazi-germany-comparison

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David Ward MP helps mark Holocaust Memorial Day in Bradford

Tuesday 27th January marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, the site of the largest mass murder in history. The service in Bradford was a very inclusive event involving members of all faith groups with community representatives from the Gypsy Roma and LGBT communities. Seventy candles will be lit across the UK to mark the occasion and this year’s theme is “Keep the memory alive”. Commenting David Ward MP said:

“On Holocaust Memorial Day it’s imperative that we share the memory of the millions who have been murdered in the Holocaust and subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Palestine, Bosnia and Darfur in order to challenge hatred and persecution wherever it resides today.

The commemoration provides an opportunity for everyone to pause and take a moment to really think about lessons from the Holocaust, and subsequent genocides in order to ensure, where possible that such atrocities cannot happen again and help create a safer, better future for us all.”

Continue reading at http://davidward.org.uk/en/article/2015/1001219/david-ward-mp-helps-mark-holocaust-memorial-day-in-bradford

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