Israeli Holocaust Commemoration Marred by Political Infighting by Richard Silverstein

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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/

Israeli military chief backtracks from 1930s Germany comparison

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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

Israeli president urges UN to set ‘red lines’ for genocide

Reuven Rivlin Israel Genocide

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called on the United Nations Wednesday to define red lines beyond which an intervention would be necessary to stop acts of genocide. “Cynical” accusations of genocide and war crimes against Israel harm the UN’s ability to fight the real thing, he said at the assembly’s annual ceremony marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day. He then added “at the same time we must remember that the setting of red lines requires us to stop diluting and cynically exploiting them in the name of pseudo objectivity, as is done in the rhetoric of human rights with the use of terms such as ‘genocide’ for political purposes.”…

Citing the “shameful” UN resolution 3379, that equated Zionism with “its greatest enemy” racism, Rivlin said that “nonetheless, absurd comparisons such as this one, which we as Israelis are exposed to constantly… not only confuse the ally with the enemy, but they undermine this house’s ability to effectively fight the phenomenon of genocide.”

Continue watching at http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/59290-150129-israeli-president-urges-un-to-set-red-lines-for-genocide the article has been taken down.

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