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  

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
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]  


More information about the Zgrams mailing list