Lies, Distortions and Dissemination: A Bully’s Road to Statehood

The more I hear of the Palestinian people suffering from a holocaust-like occupation under Nazi-like occupiers, namely, not Hamas but Israel, the more I am struck by parallels in the wording used to describe the “suffering” and the “atrocities” endured by the Palestinians, in the “Ghetto” of Gaza and the actual Holocaust experienced by the Jewish people.

I am astounded because my parents survived the holocaust. My grandparents starved to death. One of my aunts was killed after trying to escape from a concentration camp, when her would be “rescuers” actually became her informers. Her hair was tied to horses and she was dragged to her death, serving as an example to others. My mother, who was fourteen years old, one of many children alone during the holocaust, managed to survive, while the rest of her family perished.

6,000,000 Jews were systematically exterminated during the holocaust. My parents’ story is not unique. It is only one of many similar accounts. Six million Jews were killed in less than four years. It is reported that as many as 15,000 to 20,000 Jews were gassed per day in 1942. An estimated 1.1 million children were murdered in the Holocaust.

The Palestinians living in Israel and in Gaza are not living through a holocaust. The Israelis are not Nazis as some would like to call them. There is no “systematic slaying” of Palestinians as some would have us believe. There is no “Palestinian genocide.” It is an insult to the Jews and to others who have died as a result of an actual genocide, to use this term misleadingly and falsely and for political purposes, in order to perpetrate a lie on a grand scheme.

Abbas is trying to form parallels between the circumstances leading up to the Proclamation of the State of Israel, on May 14^th, 1948 when the Jewish people by lawful mandate returned to their homeland following the holocaust, and the Palestinian quest for statehood. (It should be noted that the Palestinians turned down an offer of Palestinian statehood in 1948, and   many other offers since then, refusing to live side by side with the Jews; choosing to start war after war instead, in their never ending efforts to banish the Jews from Israel.)

By systematically working to establish themselves as victims of a holocaust atrocity, they are trying to garner worldwide sympathy for the “Palestinian cause,” while simultaneously attempting to isolate, denigrate and demonize the Jews and Israel, in order to pave the way for unanimous approval as they seek Palestinian statehood.

The fact that the circumstances are totally different, since the Palestinians were never a people with a “Palestinian homeland,” but rather associated themselves with their true homeland of Jordan, is irrelevant to their agenda. The fact that Palestinians living in Israel are given equal rights and opportunities, owning their own homes and businesses, having voting rights and serving in the Israeli Parliament, is not mentioned.

What is being skillfully implied is that the “Israeli occupation” is comparable to Nazi Germany. Jews living under German occupation were stripped of their rights, and forced to give up their homes, businesses and possessions, which the Nazis pilfered, and destroyed, before deporting all Jews to labor or concentration camps. Nothing remotely similar is occurring in Israel where Israeli Arabs enjoy more rights, freedom and opportunities than they would have living in any other Arab country.

Even the term “ghetto” used to describe the living conditions of the Palestinians in Gaza, is a term borrowed from Jewish history. The word “ghetto” originated in 1516 in Venice. It was the place where the Jews of that city were compelled to live. At the time of Nazi Germany, Jews living under German occupation were forced to live in ghettos under horrific conditions, where they were humiliated and segregated until they could be rounded up and herded off in cattle cars to concentration camps and to their deaths.

Gaza, which Israel gave up voluntarily, hoping that this gesture would lead to peace, is not a Palestinian ghetto occupied by Israel.   The Palestinians in Gaza now live under the totalitarian regime of Hamas, which gained control of Gaza by popular vote, and which unabashedly seeks Israel’s destruction.

Hamas, not Israel has become the occupier of the Palestinians in Gaza and has turned what could have been a beautiful, flourishing resort into a murderous regime, replete with rockets and tunnels designed for kidnappings and killings.

The latest move by Abbas is to accuse Israel of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” and to present a case against Israel at the International Criminal Court, just as Israel and the United States brought Nazi murderers to trial for war crimes at the Hague Criminal Court after World War 11. Again, the not so subtle implication of Israelis being compared to Nazi war criminals is hard to overlook.

Abbas accuses Israel, of “crimes against humanity” for being forced to defend itself from Hamas’ constant barrage of rockets raining down at Israeli civilians, and launched from civilian population sites in Gaza during this past summer’s war. The only ones guilty of war crimes are the murderous terrorist gang controlling Gaza, namely Hamas.

By inciting violence with inflammatory rhetoric, accusing Israel, rather than Hamas, of war crimes, Abbas proves himself to be no less culpable than Hamas. To quote Benjamin Netanyahu, “If the Palestinians were to lay down their guns tomorrow, there would be no war. If Israel were to lay down theirs, there would be no Israel.”

Through sweat toil and tears, Israel has flourished and survived. It has built an oasis in the desert. It has become a hub of modern technology and has contributed to mankind with its many technological and scientific inventions. It has been in the forefront of providing humanitarian aide worldwide, sending its doctors and second to none field hospitals to help with international catastrophic occurrences, such as the earthquake in Haiti.

What have the Palestinians done for themselves or for humanity to earn the right to statehood? Instead of accepting the mandate in 1948 to live side by side with Israel as a separate state, they chose to go to war with Israel, planning to win the war and banish all Jews from the land.   Things did not work out as planned and ever since then, their main goal and unflinching purpose has not been to build themselves up, but rather to destroy Israel. They have not ever deviated from this mindset.

Practically from birth, their children are taught to hate, kill and destroy. And specifically who is the target of their hate? Israel and the Jews. Knowing this in their heart of hearts, the Palestinians want to seek immediate statehood and skip the negotiations and the peace talks. For peace is not what they truly aspire to.

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was so right when she said, “Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.” Sadly, that day has not yet arrived.