My friend Alec was really impressed. I completely spaced out the fact that Josh and I told him to come by sometime so I was a pleasantly surprised to see him there. Does anybody have any problems if he comes around once in a while to contribute? I think he's pretty great.
I guess I won't go into the whole Holocaust comparison right now because I'm in too good of a mood. I'll just say a few things. The Holocaust was unique for a million (eleven million?) reasons and really cannot compare to the situation in Israel. As a socially-minded Jew I want so desperately to see a peaceful resolution to this whole conflict, but as a pragmatist, Israel has a right to protect her civilians and to exist in peace with her neighbors, with secure borders. It's an ambiguous claim to make, I did that on purpose. But that's all Israel has been fittin' to accomplish since May 14th, 1948 when David Ben Gurion declared independence...
WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.Hitler was an insane despot, hellbent on destroying the world in order to eradicate the Jewish "race," who were only trying to fit in. If you think that conditions today are vastly different than those of 1948, you would be right. But you still would be wrong if you think what's going on in the Middle East is another holocaust.
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Hello, I'm not in this class/ I doubt many people will read this comment, but I'd like to re-emphasize the point that the Holocaust which happened less than 70 years ago is incomparable to anything in the history of mankind, in response to Ben's brief mentioning of it.
I generally find that people who attempt to draw a comparison between the way the Israelis treat Palestinians and the way the Nazis once treated the Jewish people are ignorant of the realities of both situations (no offense, although I know that by saying no offense, offense is naturally taken by the people who that would be offensive to).
The Holocaust was an attrocity that literally came from no where. The Jewish people living in Western Europe (as well as the other minorities brutally prosecuted) were as properous and happy and influencial in society as the Jewish people living in the United States of America today. The most horrifying aspect of the situation is that everything happened so quickly and that was why Hitler was so effective in killing 11 million people - no one expected such huge-scale-systematic-murder. The Jews had done nothing to warrant such hatred.
I could go into details about the difference of conditions and resources but that's not really my point. Here are a few reaons why there's really no comparison (though this doesn't begin to scratch the surface):
1) The Jewish people never sent rockets into innocent Germans homes, never strapped bombs to themselves and rode buses in public places for the purpose of murder, and they certainly never said that Germany or Poland should be wiped off the map and their people thrown into the sea.
2) The conditions of the Ghetto verse conditions of Palestinian territories inside of the new barrier being built is just absolutely incomparable. The Germans didn't attempt to bring fuel tanks, food, health care, etc. and there was certainly no passage way out. If people attempted to escape they were shot on the spot. There were frequent shipments of masses of people to death camps daily and it was the intention of the Nazis to ultimately kill everyone inside of those walls. That's NOT the intention of the Israelis. They don't want to have to patrol Gaza forever, trust me (even though you don't know me so I'd imagine that would be difficult) I have friends in the army and they don't want to be there at all. They just also don't want rockets and suicide bombers hurting their people, so they are trying to come up with a strategy to prevent that from happening.
3) The last time I checked, people weren't branded like cattle with tattoos to number them to their deaths, their heads weren't shaved along with their dignity, they still have their clothing, their valuables, their families. They may not be in the best situation in the world - I could not deny that, but they have all of those things.
4) The fact that people are even discussing this situation the way this class does is an extreme difference in the situation. People - including Israelis - are constantly examining what is going on and holding their government accountable, even though they don't have to. That's amazing. People aren't standing idly by and nothing is every permenant in this conflict. Case and point: even thirty years ago the Jews in Israel were the victims of the entire situation because they went from the depths of the Holocaust to a land that served as a safe haven. The world cried for them. Now the Jewish people living in Israel are seen as the aggressors (by some people) despite the fact that there are 21 surrounding Arab countries that should be held equally accountable for not providing the Palestinians with resources. Seriously - where are they?
There's my long rant. Honestly though as the grand daughter of Holocaust survivors it literally makes me ill when people attempt to draw any comparisons to Hitler's Holocaust and other situations. Every tragedy is unique, every situation and to attempt to pull out random comparisons to try to make a situation seem like the Holocaust that took the lives of 1.5 million innocent children and 11 million innocent souls is wrong. Totally wrong.
There is ABSOLUTLY no possible way we could compare the Holocaust to the current Israeli/Palestinian situation, in terms of number of innocent lives lost thus far. (The key to that sentence being “numbers” and “thus far”) Also, there is ABSOLUTLY no possible way we could compare the Holocaust to the current Israeli/Palestinian situation, in terms of severity, yet. (The key to that sentence being “yet”)
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