ZGram - 12/21/2004 - "Israelis Compare Gaza Pullout to Holocaust"
zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org
zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org
Wed Dec 22 09:12:33 EST 2004
ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny: Now more than ever!
December 21, 2004
Good Morning from the Zundelsite:
Is there no end to the use of using the Holocaust politically?
There are times when one really wants to despair! These days, when
millions all over the world know the so-called Holocaust is an
extortion racket based on no evidence, the yammering proceeds
unabated, untouched by common sense and scientifically verifable
facts.
Once more, ad nauseam:
[START]
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041221/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_inv
oking_the_holocaust_2
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Israelis Compare Gaza Israelis Compare Gaza Pullout to Holocaust
Tue Dec 21, 2004
By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - Igniting a public uproar, some Jewish settlers said
Tuesday they will soon start wearing orange stars on their shirts in
a provocative campaign comparing the government's Gaza withdrawal
plan to the Nazi Holocaust.
The announcement was the latest escalation in the settlers' drive to
block the pullout. On Monday, settler leaders called for mass
resistance against the withdrawal - even if it means going to jail.
Settler activists in Gaza said they would distribute the orange
stars - reminiscent of the yellow stars that Jews living under Nazi
rule were forced to wear - this weekend.
"I want to raise my voice to show that this is illegitimate, to
shake the people of Israel to their core," Arieh Tzur, a resident of
the Ganei Tal settlement, told Israel Army Radio. Tsur, the son of a
Holocaust survivor, said survivors who live in the Gaza settlements
support the effort.
Even so, the campaign touched a raw nerve in Israel, which gained
independence in 1948 in the wake of the Nazi genocide that killed 6
million Jews. An estimated 250,000 survivors live in Israel, and any
mention of the Holocaust in a public forum remains an extremely
sensitive subject.
The comparison dominated public debate Tuesday. Images of a Gaza
woman wearing the star on her lapel ran on the front page of one
Israeli newspaper, and Israeli radio shows discussed the settler
campaign nonstop.
"This is a very troubling comparison," Shevah Weiss, a Holocaust
survivor and former parliament speaker, told Israel's Army Radio.
The Nazis put Jews "into gas chambers, killing them, crushing their
bones, spreading the remains in great piles all over Europe," he
said. "What is going on here?"
The settler campaign was condemned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a
human rights group that focuses on Holocaust issues, and the Yad
Vashem Holocaust memorial center.
"The plan to wear orange stars perverts the historical facts and
damages the memory of the Shoah," said Yad Vashem's director Avner
Shalev, using the Hebrew word for the Holocaust. He urged the
settlers to refrain from using the stars.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon plans to withdraw from Gaza and small
parts of the West Bank next year. After spearheading the settlement
movement for decades, Sharon says the continued occupation of Gaza,
where 8,000 settlers live amid 1.3 million Palestinians, is
untenable.
For months, the settlers tried to fight the plan through political
means. However, Sharon has outflanked them, forcing them to turn to
tougher tactics.
On Monday, settler leaders endorsed a call by a prominent leader to
resist the withdrawal - even if it means going to jail.
"The proposal to expel Jews from their homes is an immoral decision
and a breach of human rights," said Bentsi Lieberman, head of the
Yesha Settlers Council.
It was the first time the settler leaders have publicly advocated
breaking the law. The withdrawal plan includes jail sentences for
settlers who refuse to leave their homes.
Lieberman said the settlers oppose violence and would not use force
against soldiers involved in the evacuation. But others, including
President Moshe Katsav, worried the resistance could turn violent.
In 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an
ultra-nationalist Jew opposed to his peace efforts with the
Palestinians.
Israeli security officials have warned of the likelihood of
violence, and believe there are several dozen settler activists who
could carry out attacks.
Israel's police chief, Moshe Karadi, said Monday the Gaza evacuation
will be much harder than Israel's pullout from the Sinai peninsula
two decades ago. That pullout, part of Israel's peace accord with
Egypt, led to violent clashes between Israeli soldiers and settlers
in the Sinai.
"This greater difficulty is because the settlement in Gush Katif is
completely ideological, based on faith," Karadi said in a speech.
"The evacuation will be hard to execute, but if it is not (done),
this will be dangerous for Israeli democracy."
Many analysts said the settlers are growing increasingly desperate
as their options for blocking the withdrawal dry up.
"This is what we can expect to see in the coming months: a furious
hurt community, some of which has despaired and is prepared to take
any violent action, and a leadership that is forced to line up
behind the threats of the militants," commentator Nahum Barnea wrote
in the Yediot Ahronot daily.
"This is a dangerous game of brinksmanship, and judging by past
experience, is liable to end in disaster," he said.
[END]
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