The BBC has on new report on Child deaths in Gaza for which, like so much that has happened in Gaza, to Gaza, to the Palestinians living in Gaza, I have no adequate response. But two slogans keep repeating in my mind: "Never Again" and "Hamas".
On the jump are my thoughts about each.
NEVER AGAIN
If the slogan 'NEVER AGAIN' is to retain its power, it must be understood clearly in relation to the Holocaust. It refers to it all. Not only those killed in the camps, but those killed in their towns and cities, those old women the Nazis shot and killed in their beds. And not only those killed, but also their parents and siblings and children and cousins, who are permanently marked by the Holocaust. And not only the Jews, but also the gypsies and the homosexuals and the communists who died in the camps. And their children and their families. And the cripples and mentally retarded who were killed in the name of eugenics. And those who showed their solidarity and were killed for doing so. And those who resisted – Germans and Austrians, the French Maqui, and the Italian partisans and the bloodied and defeated heroes of Spain – both the resistants who were captured, tortured and killed, and those who survived. And their families and friends and communities.
If it is true that the Holocaust is best comprehended not with numbers and statistics, but with specific images and stories, it is necessarily true that the boundaries of the holocaust are not distinct – does this story count, but not that one? Does this image or this event count as part of the Holocaust, but not that one? At the margins the answers are never clear, and this is not a problem.
If this slogan - NEVER AGAIN - is to retain its meaning and its power, then people of good will, people of honor can not be silent. We must speak out against what the state Israel has done and continues to do. This would be true in any case, but it is doubly true because the actions of Israel are often justified in the name of the Holocaust.
HAMAS
A friend and I had been debating on a listserv. I sent him this about the use of the word - the slogan - Hamas:
I would like to question the use of the word "Hamas" - sometimes it seems as if it used to mean "Gaza" or "those who live in Gaza" or "Palestinians"
You keep talking about Hamas as if Hamas' rejectionist stance against recognizing Israel's "right to exist" (and/or the rockets it fires) in ANY way justifies Israeli war crimes. Collective punishment is a war crime and you and others obscure that truth by chanting Hamas, Hamas, Hamas. Just as before the chant was PLO PLO PLO.
What is important now and for some long time are the crimes against humanity of the occupation and, in the case of Gaza, the crime of imprisoning and starving 1.5 million people (not all even voted for Hamas) and raining bombs on them. (Gaza is almost exactly the size of Philadelphia in terms of population and square miles. Think - little water, food, electricity, medicine, etc etc for this population which literally imprisoned.)
And who precisely do you have in mind when you use the word Hamas????????
Those who were elected in a fair election and shortly thereafter put into - Israeli jails?
- All who voted for Hamas?
- Their children? Their cousins?
- The policemen of Gaza?
- The bicycle riders?
- Do you mean the Hamas leadership?
- The military leadership?
- Those who are soldiers?
- Those who fire rockets?
These last listed have killed about 20 Israelis over the past 8 years with their rockets. Israel killed more than that each month (?each week) by limiting food and electricity etc. They killed more children than that on first two days of the attack.
Hamas is a signifier you use to justify - or at least to suggest that reasonable people could justify - the crimes against the rule of law, the laws of war, international law, crimes against humanity.
Your buddy,
Jonathan