Gaza - the New Holocaust

At the current time, February 14, 2024 it has been reported that over 27000 Gazans, mostly ordinary citizens, have perished – victims of the Israeli onslaught mostly from the air and the remainder murdered by Israeli soldiers. This ongoing war was waged in response to the attack of Hamas fighters on Isreali citizens killing an estimated 1200 indiviuals and the taking 0f hostages.

Although this terrifying attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians is deserving of a response, it must be remembered that the people of Gaza are essentially defenseless except for the Hamas fighters that are themselves no match against Israeli military power. In addition, the majority of Gazans are children and as a result, a staggering proportion of the dead have been children.

It is important to note that for 16 years the Israeli government with the help of the Egyptian government created a horrific situation in which over 2 million individuals were forced to live in a veritable prison in which they could not leave and a living environment in which the supply of power, medications, foodstuffs and water were arbitrarily rationed.

Many of the victims in Gaza perished as the result of bombardment from the air. Repeatedly the Israelis dropped 2000 pound bombs, weapons supplied by the United States, in the midst of densely populated neighborhoods. The level of destruction from these weapons resulted in the total collapse of many residential structures crushing men, women and children to death and leaving many victims with grievous injuries.

Eighty percent of the entire population of over 2 million Gazans were forced to abandon their homes and relocate attempting to find some safe haven within the Gazan ghetto. The Israelis imposed a prolonged siege on the entire population resulting in the forced scarcity of adequate nutrition, decimated water treatment facilities, diminished availability of a safe water supply and severely diminished access to fuel and therefore power.

Currently the Israeli government plans to forcefully evacuate over a million people from the last bit of Gazan territory that was considered safe. In addition, spokespersons for the ultra conservative wing of the Israeli government have begun to propose forcefully expelling Palestinian residents of Ganza and subsequently bringing in Jewish settlers with the aim of permanently occupying Gaza – reminiscent of what occurred in 1948 during the aftermath of Israeli-Arab War and creation of the Jewish State. This idea regarding future plans for Gaza might also explain the ruthless decimation of the Palestinian infrastructure in Gaza that is currently underway with no plans to restore what has been destroyed.

The saddest aspect of this current historic reality is that the methods employed by the Israeli government against Hamas and the people of Gaza reflects many of the techniques used by Nazi Germany during World War II including that of harsh and horrific collective punishment using overwhelming force against an essentially defenseless civilian population. This behavior also underlies the strongly held belief that Palestinians are somehow less than human and can certainly be imprisoned in such a dehumanizing environment over a prolonged period of time with no regard for the immeasurable harm that this does to the human spirit.

It is terribly ironic, that the Israeli people who had suffered grievously from the inhumane and reprehensible impact of the Holocaust are now responsible for a Holocaust of their very own making.