Last Straw

Henry Sieg­man, writ­ing for Haaretz:

When I man­aged to get over the shock of that exchange, it struck me that the invoc­a­tion of the Hitler era was actu­ally a fright­en­ingly apt and sear­ing ana­logy, although not the one my friend inten­ded. A mil­lion and a half civil­ians have been forced to live in an open-air prison in inhu­man con­di­tions for over three years now, but unlike the Hitler years, they are not Jews but Palestini­ans. Their jail­ers, incred­ibly, are sur­viv­ors of the Holo­caust, or their des­cend­ants. Of course, the inmates of Gaza are not destined for gas cham­bers, as the Jews were, but they have been reduced to a debased and hope­less existence.

Fully 80% of Gaza’s pop­u­la­tion lives on the edge of mal­nu­tri­tion, depend­ing on inter­na­tional char­it­ies for their daily nour­ish­ment. Accord­ing to the UN and World Health author­it­ies, Gaza’s chil­dren suf­fer from dra­mat­ic­ally increased mor­bid­ity that will affect and shorten the lives of many of them. This obscen­ity is a con­sequence of a delib­er­ate and care­fully cal­cu­lated Israeli policy aimed at de-developing Gaza by des­troy­ing not only its eco­nomy but its phys­ical and social infra­struc­ture while seal­ing it her­mit­ic­ally from the out­side world.

Par­tic­u­larly appalling is that this policy has been the source of amuse­ment for some Israeli lead­ers, who accord­ing to Israeli press reports have jok­ingly described it as “put­ting Palestini­ans on a diet.” That, too, is remin­is­cent of the Hitler years, when Jew­ish suf­fer­ing amused the Nazis.