Are We Jews Now Creating a Ghetto for Others?  

Matshona Dhliwayo is a Canadian-based philosopher, entrepreneur, and author known for his inspirational and motivational writings. He has authored books such as The Art of Winning, Dinner with King Solomon, and Lalibela’s Wise Man. He was born in Zimbabwe but is now based in Canada.

His name came to mind in reading and hearing about the “Humanitarian City” our government is planning to construct near Rafah in the Gaza Strip to initially house 600,000 local residents.  In his poem “Prince of the Ghetto” (excerpted here), he opines…..

“At birth, our portion is pain.
At birth, our portion is sorrow.
At birth, our portion is death.

We see what others do not.
We hear what others do not.
We feel what others do not.
We experience what others do not.

We laugh but there is pain in our laughter.
We sing but there is distress in our songs.
We dance but there is agony in our steps.

We are sons.
We are daughters.
We are mothers.
We are fathers.

We are the poor.
We are the wretched.
We are your problem.
We are the ghetto.”

While the poem was written from a North American perspective about minority challenges there, it could as well be the voices of Gazans speaking out, whose leadership has betrayed them and forced many of them to live lives of desperation (even though we often get blamed for all of it).

After 21 months of incessant bombings by our magnificent IDF (bless them for that), where we have rightly made every attempt to vanquish the Hamas threat, although simultaneously creating a moonscape of the land of our next-door neighbor, our government is now planning to create a ghetto there with the deceptive name of “Humanitarian City.”

How quaint. Remember that in the propaganda of the times, Theresienstadt was cynically described as a “spa town” where elderly German Jews could “retire” in safety.  “Humanitarian City” it was not for sure…..nor will what we create in Gaza be able to be honestly called that either.

Israel’s Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, said publicly last week that he had told the military to advance the plans for the project, which would eventually contain the entire population of Gaza. He added, without any seeming concern for the concept of free movement critical to maintaining a free society, that once Palestinians enter the zone, they would not be allowed to leave.  Seriously?

In an interview on CNN, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert remarked that a planned “humanitarian city” inside Gaza intended to hold hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would be a “concentration camp.”

In a separate interview with the UK’s Guardian newspaper, he added, “It is a concentration camp. I am sorry. If they (Palestinians) will be deported into the new ‘humanitarian city’, then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing.”

Of course it is easy to dismiss Olmert’s comments, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did last week when he called Olmert a “convicted felon disgracing Israel on CNN.” In an official statement, the PM’s office said: “We evacuate civilians. Hamas blocks them. He calls that a war crime?”  Truth be told it would be a real challenge to classify our moving an entire population into a fenced area where they could not leave at will as simply an evacuation, rather than what it really is: Substituting Hamas’ denial of personal freedom to their people with similar constraints, but now by the Government of Israel.

Does no one in our government find it unconscionable that we, Jews in our own land and in control of our own destiny, with a 2,000-year history of being persecuted, should resort to herding a people into a fenced enclave which they cannot leave at will?  Are there no religious leaders, some of whom even sit as members of the Knesset and are always concerned about the observance of the minutiae of Jewish law, not at all concerned about how they will explain to the One above how they could sit by and let this happen?

Cicero in his tirades against Cataline in ancient Rome often used the Latin phrase, “O tempora, O mores” ….shame on the times and its values. Indeed.

Truth be told, we need leadership who will admit that we have been successful in our efforts in Gaza in response to the massacre of October 7^th; That there is probably nothing more to be gained by further military action; That it is time to get all our hostages back and withdraw our troops; That to live in this part of the world, permanent peace with those political entities who religious belief is built on the concept that it is a sin for us to be here, is impossible to achieve as long as the religious zealots are in power; That intermittent war is the reality of life here; and that our security is in our hands, and only in our hands.

We have expended enough of our resources on this war, let’s end it and start making sure we are better prepared to prevent the next one as best we can and, if we need to fight again, that we are well positioned to do so.  Herding Gazans into a ghetto of our own making is not going to add to our security at all.  We need not give our detractors yet another reason to be critical.