The HyperTexts

Herzl, Hitler and Israel's Final Solution for the Children of Gaza

In an interview with the Sunday Times published on June 15, 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said, "It is not as though there was a Palestinian people ... and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them ... they did not exist." (Also reported in the Washington Post, June 16, 1969)

A few months earlier Meir (known as "Mother Israel") had asked rhetorically, "How can we return the held territories? There is nobody to return them to." (March 8, 1969). Her incredibly racist comment has recently been repeated by American presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. But please suppose that you were a Palestinian child, facing the accumulated might, hypocrisy and zealous fury of Israel and the United States: how would you feel? Wouldn't it be terrifying to hear the leaders of nuclear-armed nations calmly suggesting that you don't exist, or at least not in the same way that other people exist?

Perhaps now we can understand why so many Palestinian children feel a sense of overwhelming despair, and why some of them blow themselves and other people to pieces.

We can also understand why great humanitarians like Albert Einstein (a Jew), Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, Noam Chomsky (a Jew), and Norman Finkelstein (a Jew) have been harshly and publicly critical of Israeli racism against Palestinians. Why do the leaders of Israel sound like the Grand Wizards of the KKK when they talk about Palestinian children?

Do Palestinian children exist and have human rights, or are they "nobodies"?

I hope you will consider the terrible implications of Mother Israel's blatantly racist statements for the children of Gaza and Occupied Palestine. I assure you that these children are people, and that many of them of them are very small, very vulnerable, very frightened, very miserable, very endangered human beings. I know because I have published their stories, and those stories are very, very hard to read. If you're a compassionate human being, I doubt that you could read their stories without becoming very, very angry that innocent children are once again being collectively punished for the "crime" of having been "born wrong." It happened to Native American children who walked the Trail of Tears. It happened to black children who huddled in slave hovels while white plantation owners raped their mothers and flayed the flesh from their fathers' backs. It happened to Jewish and Gypsy children who perished during the Holocaust while German Christians sang paeans to Christ from the pews of their white-washed churches. Now it is happening again to Palestinian children because two of the world's richest, most powerful nations ― Israel and the United States ― refuse to consider them human beings with rights fully equal to those of Jews and Christians.

Do Palestinian children exist, or are they "nobodies" whose rights can be conveniently ignored because the Bible says God "gave" the land of Palestine to the ancient Hebrews? Well, here are a few other things the Bible says. Perhaps we should consider them before we blithely assume that every word in the Bible is of divine origin. The Bible clearly says that girls who have been raped should be either murdered or sold to their rapists (Deuteronomy 22); that fathers can sell their own daughters as sex slaves, with the option to buy them back if they don't "please" their masters (Exodus 21); and that captured women and male infants should be slaughtered, with only virgin girls being kept alive, obviously as sex slaves (Numbers 31). Can we safely assume that the Old Testament is an oracle of divine wisdom, when it literally overflows with such heinous "commandments"? If not, then why not be honest about the highly dubious verses about God "giving" land to Moses, Joshua, Caleb, King David & Co.? After all, according to the Bible they didn't receive the land as a gift, but took it in an orgy of ethnic cleansing and genocide, "the slaying of everything that breathes." If a wise, just God "gave" the land to men, would they have to murder women and children to take it?

Should Palestinian children be forced to suffer and die today, because Jews and Christians refuse to be honest about the Bible? What good are religions that callously accept such terrible injustices?

Bigotry, the Sacred Disease

The problem with Golda Meir's hideous statements above, and with hundreds of similar statements by high-ranking Israelis to follow, if you continue reading on this page, is obvious: bigotry. Heraclitus called bigotry the "sacred disease." Israel has turned bigotry into a state religion which now threatens not only Palestinian children, but Jewish and American children as well. Americans, by acquiescing to demands that they consider only the rights of Jews while ignoring the self-evident rights of Palestinians, have endangered American children. If you care about all the children of the world, and the future of the world they are destined to live in, I hope you will bear with me for a few minutes and allow me to explain why Golda Meir said what she said, why she was wrong, and what we can do about it.

Why American children are endangered, and all the children of the world

But first, please consider what Golda Meir's racism, fascism and fanaticism may mean for the world's children, as evidenced in this exchange with Alan Hart, the author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews:

Hart: "I recall the words spoken to me many years ago by Golda Meir, Mother Israel, when she was prime minister. At a point during an interview I did with her for the BBC’s Panorama programme, I interrupted her to ask, “Prime Minister, I want to be sure I understand what you’re saying … You are saying that if Israel was ever in danger of being defeated on the battlefield, it would be prepared to take the region and the whole world down with it?"

Meir "without the shortest of pauses for reflection, and in the gravel voice that could charm or intimidate American Presidents according to need" replied: “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Hart: "Within an hour of that interview being transmitted at eight o’clock on a Monday evening, The Times (pre-Murdoch and not then a cheerleader for Zionism) had changed its lead editorial. Its new editorial quoted what Golda had said to me, [adding] its own opinion: 'We had better believe her.' I did, and still do."

Should we believe Alan Hart? I, for one, do. I remember reading Robert Fisk's book The Great War for Civilisation with a sense of growing horror. In it, Fisk mentioned seeing high-ranking American diplomats like Colin Powell and Madeline Albright acting deferentially, even fearfully, around Israeli politicians. Considering the normal operating mode of American politicians—hubris—that seems hard to believe, unless Israel has been threatening to use nuclear weapons. When I put two and two together, it seems to me that Israel has told the United States, "Unless we are allowed to have our way with Palestinians, and the world acquiesces to our brutal, unjust treatment of them, we are willing to unleash a nuclear Armageddon on the world."

Does this mean Israel can hold the entire world hostage? No, I believe there is a peaceful, nonviolent solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Please allow me to explain ...

How soon they forget

"Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation?
Have they forgotten the collective punishment,
the home demolitions,
in their own history so soon?
Have they turned their backs
on their profound and noble religious traditions?"
—Desmond Tutu

A Simple Program for Peace

All too often the people on one side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict bitterly criticize people on the other side, and nothing good results. My goal is not to condemn anyone for the sake of condemnation, nor is it to win an argument; my goal is to find a positive, peaceful solution. Yes, I believe Israel and the United States need to cure themselves of the sacred disease of bigotry, and I convinced that doing so requires honesty rather than hypocrisy. But I believe positive change is possible, so please allow me to present my "simple program for peace." Hopefully this will persuade you that, while I strongly oppose what Israel and the United States have done in the past, and continue to do in the present, I am not here to merely vent. And please keep in mind that "simple" does not mean "easy." Here's the plan:

•Israelis and Americans need to be honest about what really happened to the Palestinians: the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba. The Nakba (Arabic for "Catastrophe") has been ongoing since 1948; thus entire generations of Palestinian children have been born and lived (and now many of those children have died) without having ever drawn a free breath. How would we feel, if this was the case for our children?

• Israel needs to unconditionally grant Palestinians equal rights and the protection of fair (nonracist) laws and courts. Why? Because every human child is self-evidently entitled to equal rights and justice, and on this planet justice requires fair laws and courts. There can never be racial peace where there is racial injustice, so establishing fair laws and courts is absolutely necessary if Israel wants peace, and if Americans want to avoid more events like 9-11 and more unwinnable wars abroad.

• Americans must understand that it is not "unfair" to require Israeli Jews to do what Americans did themselves, when the United States finally abandoned government-sanctioned racism in the form of Jim Crow laws and kangaroo courts.

• Because Israel's leader seem to be either unwilling or unable to "pull the trigger" and treat Palestinians as human beings with fully equal rights, they need encouragement from the United States and the world to start moving in the right direction. Fortunately, there is a simple way for the world to encourage Israel to take the all-important first step of treating everyone as equals. The solution is a new UN resolution based on the American Creed of equal rights and justice for all human beings. No American president can veto the American Creed, so this new UN resolution should pass, where so many others have been short-circuited. Such a resolution backed by economic sanctions (which will hopefully not be needed, once Israel reads "the writing on the wall") will force Israel to either make the Palestinians full citizens of a single state, or grant them independence. If you don't understand why this plan will work, please check out the Burch-Elberry Peace Initiative for more details.

Hopefully I have persuaded you that my intentions are good. Yes, I am about to be highly critical of Israeli and American bigotry and hypocrisy. Yes, I am about to say that it is wrong to treat innocent children like pariahs on their native land, or anywhere else on earth. Does this make me a racist, or someone who strongly opposes racism? You will have to decide whether to join me, side with the bigots, or stake out your own position of action or inaction. If you're not sure yet whether I have my facts straight, I invite you to read further on this page and to check out my Index of Nakba Articles, which contains the comments of Elders of the human race like Mohandas Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, Sitting Bull and Jewish Holocaust survivors, poets, songwriters and peace activists. Also in the Nakba Index you can find links to over 200 Jewish organizations that oppose the Nakba and support equal rights for Palestinians. Some of these groups send "human shields" to Gaza and Occupied Palestine in an attempt to protect Palestinian farmers and their families from government-sanctioned racism. Let's be honest: what sort of nation creates the need for "human shields"? Sometimes we only have to mull over basic facts to figure out that what we've been told to believe makes no sense. Or, if you prefer to study these matter independently, you can find a wealth of information online. I recommend studying the laws and courts of Israel, which are matters of public record, and Israel's so-called "security walls," which are, in fact, highly offensive devices designed to divide and conquer Palestinians (and which all too often kill them, as ambulances are detained in their immense shadows). I had only to study the real-world facts for a short time to understand why people like Mandela and Tutu, who know apartheid intimately, oppose Israeli apartheid so vocally, and why the men who attacked Americans on 9-11 opposed us so violently. While I don't agree with the tactics of terrorists who target civilians, I can certainly understand their anger and their despair, because I feel the same anger and despair when I think of the suffering of their children.

What does the Bible say?

Many Jews and Christians cite a few verses in the Bible that say God "gave" the land of Palestine to the ancient Hebrews as if that somehow settles the matter. However, there are several important questions raised by the Bible which are discussed extensively at this link: What does the Bible say about the Nakba? I believe there are a number of very good reasons not to use the Bible to condone atrocities perpetrated on women and children. For instance:

•No sane human being would surrender his house because someone else said God wanted him to have it.

• To claim that God wants me to rob you and leave your family homeless and destitute either makes God unjust or me a liar.

• If God "gave" the land of Palestine to the ancient Hebrews, why does the Bible say that men like Moses, Joshua, Caleb and King David took it via ethnic cleansing and genocide? Why does the Bible say Moses ordered the slaughter of women and male infants, and the taking of virgin girls as sex slaves? Why does the Bible say King David slaughtered every woman when he "smote the land"? Why does the Bible say that David ordered the slaughter of the lame and blind when Jerusalem was taken from the Jebusites? How can anyone believe that a loving, compassionate, wise, just God commanded the slaughter of women, children and the handicapped?

• How can the verses that commanded the Israelites to enslave and murder their own children be explained? In Exodus 21, Moses permitted fathers to sell their daughters as sex slaves, with the option (but not the obligation) to buy them back if they didn't "please" their masters. In Deuteronomy 22, Moses commanded the Israelites to murder girls who had been raped, or to sell them to their rapists (meaning they could be raped legally for the rest of their lives). According to Moses, rape victims should only be spared if they were raped in a field where no one could see or hear them. In Numbers 31, Moses commanded that captured women and male infants be slaughtered, with only virgin girls being kept alive (obviously as sex slaves). Is this the wisdom of God or the evil machinations of barbaric men who pretended to speak for God because doing so gave them power?

• The Hebrew prophets spoke of the need for chesed (mercy, compassion, lovingkindness) and social justice. But obviously there is nothing "compassionate" or "just" about ethnic cleansing and genocide. The prophets criticized the Levites (the priests and scribes who created and copied the texts that eventually became the Bible), calling them liars and saying they had changed the word of God to the point that the Israelites no longer knew what God had said. Since the Bible contains contradictory statements which cannot be reconciled (for instance the book of Judges says God hardened David's heart to take a census, while the book of Chronicles says Satan hardened his heart to take the same census), people who look to the Bible for guidance must still listen to their own hearts, minds and consciences. What do your heart, mind and conscience tell you about the adults of one race crushing the bodies and spirits of the children of another race?

• What would Jesus do? Would Jesus evict multitudes of people from their homes, many of them women and children and the elderly, knowing they would suffer terribly and that many of them would die on a new Trail of Tears? Would Jesus praise Christians for supporting such injustices in his name, or would he call them hypocrites and fools, like the Pharisees?

• In the past, Christians used the Bible to condone slavery, witch hunts, Inquisitions, Crusades, torture, "holy wars" and the burning of "heretics" at the stake. Millions of people have been tortured, enslaved and killed in the name of Jesus Christ. Isn't it time to start doing what Jesus did himself, or at the very least stop using his name in vain? Jesus praised the Good Samaritan, a man who ignored the dictates of religion in order to act with compassion toward someone who despised him. Shouldn't we put highly dubious theology aside (how can we possibly know whose house goes to whom, based on ancient religious texts) and act with compassion and justice?

The "logic" of racism, fascism and fanaticism

Now, getting back to Golda Meir's idea that Palestinians are nobodies who never really existed: something is obviously wrong with her "logic," if we can call it that. If the Palestinians didn't exist, it makes no sense to say that they weren't thrown out and that their country wasn't taken from them. If there never were beings called Martians, would it make any sense for me to say, "Martians never did exist, and by the way I didn't throw them out in order to steal their planet"? Of course not. Golda Meir was obviously lying, for a specific purpose, or she was trying to rationalize something that seems utterly alien to those of us who believe that all earth's children are created equal. Having read her autobiography, a book written about her by her son, a number of other books in which she played important roles, and hundreds of other books and articles about Israel, Palestine, Zionism and the history of the Middle East, I believe I know enough to suggest that she was rationalizing. What she really meant probably goes something like this: "We Jews have a long, glorious history as a civilization with a superior culture. But the Palestinians are just a disorganized rabble with an inferior culture, so we don't consider them to be our equals, or even close. Therefore, because they are not really a 'people' compared to us, we have the right to take their land by force, evict them, and keep them from ever returning. Their suffering means little or nothing, compared to our achievements, since we are a 'people' and they are not."

In other words, she was a fascist.

And unfortunately most of the other leaders of Israel since its rebirth as a nation in 1948 have also been fascists. I can prove this quite easily, simply by quoting what they said, discussing what they did, and showing how their words and deeds meshed, and betrayed them. How do know that Hitler was a fascist? All we have to do is read what he said and consider what he did. Hitler was a fascist because he believed Aryans were "superior" to all other races, and that because they were "superior" they were entitled to seize lebensraum ("living room") from other races, using any degree of force and brutality necessary, even against women and children. Although Hitler did not plan to commit genocide at first, in the end he realized that the Jews had nowhere to go, and that it was going to be very expensive to keep millions of them alive perpetually. Hence, his horrendous "final solution." But it all began with the same utterly alien idea that Golda Meir expressed above: that people of other races were "nobodies" who didn't really "exist" or "matter" because they fell far short of the "glory" of the "Master Race."

What does Israeli fascism mean, for the Children of Gaza?

What does Israeli fascism mean for the children of Gaza and Occupied Palestine, as Israel takes more and more of their land and they, too, have nowhere else to go? I believe the end result will inevitably be the same: genocide, extermination ... unless the world acts to keep it from happening.

Does this mean that Israel is beyond hope? No. Please consider Germany at the end of World War II. Millions of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and other "undesirables" had been murdered during the Holocaust. Perhaps 70 million people had died worldwide. Much of Germany lay in smoldering ruins. But after the Allies forced Germany to establish fair laws and courts, a new Germany soon emerged from the rubble. The people were the same. Many Jews continued to live in Germany, and there was no sudden outpouring of affection between them and Germans. Far from it. (Most of the Jewish Holocaust survivors I've talked to have great disdain for the Germans, to this day.) What saved Germany and allowed a new Germany to emerge was not a sudden change of human hearts, but a far better and fairer form of government based on the idea that all human beings are equal, and thus deserve the protections of fair laws and courts.

Does it bother me that Golda Meir spoke like a fascist? Yes, it does. Does it bother me that so many other high-ranking Israelis sound and act like fascists? Yes, it does. But I know that America has its share of fascists, and yet they are virtually powerless. Why? Because if they break the law, they go to jail and/or pay fines and civil damages. While no one can change the prejudices of another person's heart, a decent system of government can protect people from those prejudices.

And I also know something else that I consider very promising: when Golda Meir lived in the United States she was a firm believer in democracy; furthermore, when Israeli Jews come to the United States they almost invariably become firm, even devout, believers in equal rights for all human beings. While they may seem terribly hypocritical today, there is hope. The hope is that Israel will adopt a far better, fairer form of government. The day Israel establishes fair laws and courts, its terrible problems with racial injustice and violence will begin to ameliorate, as was the case in Germany after WWII and in the United States once its Jim Crow laws and kangaroo courts were finally laid to rest by the reforms of the American Civil Rights Movement.

And finally, not being a racist, I know there are many Jews of good conscience who do not support the racism, fascism and fanaticism of Israel's current government. We have to remember that the United States was far from a true democracy for most of its existence, as it denied equal rights to women, blacks and other minorities. Even today the United States still has not granted fully equal rights to non-heterosexuals. But the United States has made considerable progress since the American Civil Rights Movement of the mid 1900s. This implies that Israel can also make considerable progress in a relatively short period of time, if only it will establish equal rights and the protection of fair laws and courts for everyone. The Burch-Elberry Peace Initiative explains how this can be accomplished.

But what about Israel today, and this modern Trail of Tears?

"I equated the ejection of Palestinians
from their previous homes within the State of Israel
to the forcing of Lower Creek Indians
from the Georgia land where our family farm was now located;
they had been moved west to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears
to make room for our white ancestors."
—Jimmy Carter

Israel's hypocrisy is a very real problem. According to Golda Meir's reprehensible "logic," Germans had the right to confiscate the land, houses and property of Jews, to sweep them into squalid ghettos and concentration camps, and to keep them from ever returning to "polite society," simply by claiming that German civilization and culture were "superior" to Jewish civilization and culture.

"As to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza ...
the so-called 'Palestinian autonomous areas' are bantustans.
These are restricted entities
within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system."
—Nelson Mandela

Of course Jews insist that what the Nazis did to them during the Holocaust was wrong, and of course they are absolutely correct to do so. But it seems that many Jews want to have their cake and eat it too. Whenever anti-Semitism is practiced against Jews, they insist that anti-Semitism is wrong. (I agree.) But whenever they practice anti-Semitism against Arabs, they try to justify their reprehensible behavior by falling back on the grotesque logic of Hitler and the Nazis. (I disagree.) Obviously Hitler was either wrong or right, and today everyone who's not a fascist knows he was wrong. But isn't it passing strange that enough Jews agree with Hitler to keep Palestinians in chains, and the world on the brink of World War III?

On a Christmas visit to Jerusalem in 1989,
Desmond Tutu said that if the colors and names were changed
"a description of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank
could describe events in South Africa."
He also said that he was "very deeply distressed"
by his visit to the Holy Land,
because "it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa."
He made similar comments in 2002,
speaking of "the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks,
suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about."
—Desmond Tutu

If a Jewish professor anywhere in the world is slighted, legions of Jewish activists fire off aggrieved emails about the evils and dangers of anti-Semitism. (Well and good.) But if Jewish "settlers" and the Israeli military practice anti-Semitism against little Palestinian schoolgirls, spitting on them and jeering at them as they trudge their way to kindergarten, somehow that doesn't "count." (Why?)

It bothers me greatly to think of little children being shamed and humiliated by adults. My business partner is a fine young black man. When I made him a partner in the business I own, he told me an illuminating story. He said that when his father was a little boy growing up in Mississippi, he was commanded to call little white boys "Sir." I have never forgotten that story, and I think about it often. When I learned that Jewish robber barons were insulting, spitting on and sometimes abusing Palestinian children on their way to school, I thought of the dark days of racism in the South, when little black boys and girls had to face the bigotry of white adults. How do such things make you feel?

If such things don't bother you, I fear we are of two different species. If they do bother you ― if they bother you a lot, as they do me ― then please keep in mind my idea about a new UN resolution based on the American Creed of equal rights and justice for all human beings. All children who are abused, shamed and humiliated by adult bigots need and deserve the protections of fair laws and courts.

Don't you agree?

Israeli racism and hypocrisy

Here's another racist remark by Golda Meir: "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us." (As quoted in Media Bias and the Middle East by Paul Carlson, p. 10, and The Agony of the Promised Land by Joshua Levy, p. 187)

The racist assumptions here are that Jews love their children, that Palestinians don't, and that Palestinian resistance to Jewish domination is based on racial "hatred" rather than on the honest, loving desire of Palestinians for their children to experience the freedom Americans value so highly. But of course the American Founding Fathers rebelled against and forcefully resisted the British monarchy, imperiling their children. Did this mean the American Founding Fathers were inferior beings who didn't love their children? Or does it suggest that imperialist regimes like those of King George and Golda Meir make it very difficult for parents to raise their children, since they force them to choose between raising their children as serfs or imperiling their lives?

Once again Golda Meir's words betray her racism, her fascism and her fanaticism. And once again they also betray her hypocrisy, and Israel's hypocrisy, because Meir and other high-ranking Zionists clearly ascribed a much higher value to creating a Jewish state than they did to the welfare and happiness of the children of Israel. Please consider the evidence below, which I turned up during my research for this article. I was born in 1958, so on a whim I decided to see what Golda Meir was up to in 1958. To my surprise, when I did a Google search for "Golda Meir 1958" the top four stories, according to Google, were about Golda Meir preventing sick and disabled Jews from emigrating to Israel! Like Hitler, it seems she only valued Jews who were able to work for a fascist state that valued their productivity over their humanity. The Jews who unable to work, including children, could either languish, rot, or die. Here's an article on the subject, by one of Israel's leading newspapers, followed by commentary from other sources:

Golda Meir told Poland: Don't send sick or disabled Jews to Israel!

Haaretz
December 9, 2009
by Lily Galili, Haaretz Correspondent

In 1958, then-foreign minister Golda Meir raised the possibility of preventing handicapped and sick Polish Jews from immigrating to Israel, a recently discovered Foreign Ministry document has revealed.

"A proposal was raised in the coordination committee to inform the Polish government that we want to institute selection in aliyah [the immigration of Jews to Palestine], because we cannot continue accepting sick and handicapped people. Please give your opinion as to whether this can be explained to the Poles without hurting immigration," read the document, written by Meir to Israel's ambassador to Poland, Katriel Katz.

The letter, marked "top secret" and written in April 1958, shortly after Meir became foreign minister, was uncovered by Prof. Szymon Rudnicki, a Polish historian at the University of Warsaw. In recent years, Rudnicki has been researching documents shedding light on Israeli-Polish relations between 1945 and 1967.

The document had not been known to exist before this time, and scholars of the mass immigration from Poland to Israel that took place from 1956 to 1958 were unaware of Israel's intent to impose a selection process on Jews leaving Poland [most of whom were] survivors of the Holocaust and its death camps.

The "coordination committee" Meir refers to was a joint panel consisting of representatives of the government and the Jewish Agency.

Rudnicki's study, undertaken together with Israeli scholars headed by Prof. Marcos Silber of the University of Haifa, has already been published in a book in Polish.

The Hebrew version of the book will be published in a few months. However, the document containing the suggestion about the selection process does not appear in the book because it did not impact relations between the two countries.

"Although there are numerous documents on the issue of immigration, we did not find in the archives of Israel or Poland—where they also opened the party archive for us—any response to this request by Golda to the ambassador in Poland," Rudnicki told Haaretz. "In this respect, the document remains an internal matter of Israel," he said. However, Rudnicki concedes that the content of the document surprised him as a scholar and a Jew.

"This is a very cynical document," he said. "It is known that Golda was a brutal politician who defended interests more than people."

[But as we shall see, this fascist, Stalinist preference for the needs of the state over the happiness of individuals lies at the core of Zionism.]

Commentary from other sources

Israel's George Washington, David Ben-Gurion, also ranked the goals of Zionism and a fascist state far above the lives and happiness of Jewish children, saying: "If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel." (Quoted on pp 855-56 of Shabtai Teveth's Ben-Gurion)

"Golda Meir struck me as a very impressive and persuasive personality, though she has shown little or no understanding for the Arabs of Palestine or for the justice of their demands. She has always talked a great deal about the 'historical and spiritual rights of the Jews', but it is difficult to accept the validity of 'historic rights' which can only be achieved at the expense of people who have been living in the same place for 2,000 years. The principle which she applies on behalf of the Jews, and by which she justifies the expulsion of the Palestinians, would, if applied elsewhere, reduce the world to a state of total chaos." (General Odd Bull, former Chief of Staff of UNTSO, War and Peace in the Middle East, p.42)

There will be those who are shocked at the revelation that Golda Meir, whose grandmotherly appearance belied a cold and cynical persona, told Poland under the Stalinists not to send sick or disabled Jews to the 'Jewish State'. My friend Mark Elf, of Jews sans frontieres [Jews without borders] attributes this to eugenicism and he is right. But that is not the whole story. Throughout the Nazi era a policy of selectivity operated. Rescuing the elite at the expense of the masses. Israel only wanted, as Arthur Ruppin put it, the cream of the Jewish Diaspora. 'Good human material' no less. Golda Meir's attitude to the sick and disabled was little different from that of Hitler, who described them as being 'useless mouths' who were to be 'awarded' a merciful death ... [it was] Meir who launched the Zionist counteroffensive at the 1938 Evian Conference. This conference was designed to put a gloss and halo around the Western countries in their refusal to admit the Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. The Zionists were outraged that they weren't invited as representatives of the Jews, despite being a tiny minority at that time. They were also worried—what if countries do accept refugees: won't that negate the need for a Jewish State? They needn't have worried because no country bar tiny San Domingo agreed to accept any more refugees. San Domingo agreed to admit 100,000 Jews and that sent the Zionists into a panic. Their 'logic' being that if countries other than Palestine could save Jews from Hitler, why bother building up a Jewish state. Good question, so they set about ensuring that no country would take Jewish refugees! They call it 'cruel Zionism' because they can be as cruel to Jews as to Arabs when the mood takes them. And just as in Argentina they didn't want the 'wrong sort' of Jews, so too in Israel. (Tony Greenstein, writing on his blog, December 10, 2009)

Israeli Prime Ministers constantly mislead the American public

In her autobiography, Golda Meir paints herself as a "mother" to the Palestinian people, never mentioning the destruction of their homes and villages. But of course she knew the terrible truth, having said in a rare moment of clarity:

"It is a dreadful thing to see the dead city. Next to the port I found children, women, the old, waiting for a way to leave. I entered the houses, there were houses where the coffee and pita bread were left on the table, and I could not avoid [thinking] that this, indeed, had been the picture in many Jewish towns [i.e., in Europe, during World War II]'. (As acting head of the Jewish Agency Political Department, she had visited Arab Haifa and reported back to the Jewish Agency Executive on May 6, 1948; from "The birth of the Palestinian Refuge problem revisited" by Benny Morris, p. 309)

The American public has been deceived, over and over again, by the Prime Ministers of Israel and other high-ranking Israelis. They tell us they want "peace" when what they really want is the American money, weapons and influence that allow them to continue the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, the theft of their land, and the creation of a fascist state that puts "achievements" above human happiness.

Serfs and slaves always rebel: hence, 9-11

But why are we are seeing the same sort of racism at work in Israel today that once caused so much suffering for Jewish children during the Holocaust? According to pro-Israeli propagandists, I should say "Never again!" to every act of anti-Semitism against Jews, but I should either wink at or turn my back on acts of Jewish anti-Semitism against Palestinians. (Why?)

" . . . if you follow the polls in Israel for the last 30 or 40 years,
you clearly find a vulgar racism that includes a third of the population
who openly declare themselves to be racist.
This racism is of the nature of "I hate Arabs" and "I wish Arabs would be dead".
If you also follow the judicial system in Israel
you will see there is discrimination against Palestinians,
and if you further consider the 1967 occupied territories
you will find there are already two judicial systems in operation
that represent two different approaches to human life:
one for Palestinian life and the other for Jewish life.
Additionally there are two different approaches to property and to land.
Palestinian property is not recognised as private property
because it can be confiscated.
—Nelson Mandela

The leaders of Israel and their legions of apologists and propagandists helped bring about 9-11 and two terrible wars, by constantly demanding that Americans support Israel, when Israel is literally crushing the life from millions of Palestinians. Have some Muslim men reacted with violence? Yes, they have. But what would we say about a slave who saw his wife and children being treated like animals, if he rose up against his "masters"? Would we be shocked if he resorted to violence? Of course not. And we must keep in mind that, according to the American Declaration of Independence, it is not a crime to break an illegal law created by an unjust government; rather, it is the right and duty of men to rise up and forcefully overthrow anyone who deprives them of their self-evident rights. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were rich aristocrats whose living conditions were far better than those of most Palestinians today. They claimed the right to rise up and kill their English overlords, as long as those overlords denied them equal rights and representative government. So according to the American Founding Fathers, unless Israel grants Palestinians either fully equal rights or independence, they have the right and duty to rebel.

Israel's racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinians.
Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are able to accrue special rights
which non-Jews cannot do.
Palestinian Arabs have no place in a "Jewish" state.
Apartheid is a crime against humanity.
Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property.
It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality.
It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians,
contrary to the rules of international law.
It has, in particular, waged war against a civilian population,
in particular children.
—Nelson Mandela

The Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up against their Nazi overlords. The Nazis had created "laws" they expected the Jews to obey, but those laws were racist and therefore illegal. Americans understand the right of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto to rise up against their Nazi overlords. Americans also understand the right of black slaves to disobey the racist, illegal "laws" of their white "masters." Americans also understand that it was the racist, illegal "laws" of the white settlers that caused Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse to go on the warpath. Today Americans freely admit that it was Andrew Jackson who was wrong, and Sitting Bull who was right when he hoped for peace but chose the path of war when a racist white government proved it didn't want "peace," but to continually steal land from Indians, by breaking treaty after treaty.

So Americans should be able to understand the predicament of the Palestinians today, since they are experiencing very similar injustices at the hands of the governments of Israel and the United States.

American hypocrisy compounds Israeli hypocrisy

In their slavish obedience to Israel's demands for "support," Americans have also become raging hypocrites, by claiming rights for themselves which they deny to Palestinians. What would George Washington & Co. have done, if they were Palestinians and Americans were trying to dictate their fates from across a vast ocean? I have no doubt that Washington & Co. would have fired salvo after salvo at the agents of the distant tyrannical government attempting to rule them from afar. If we had asked them why they were attacking us, they would have said, "Because you either have to give us equal rights and representative government, or you have to grant us independence. Until you do, you are imperialists and we have the right and duty to kill you."

If we believe our Founding Fathers, and have no wish to be imperialists because being imperialists brings down the wrath of other people on our hubristic heads, we need to avoid repeating the mistakes of the British monarchy. And Israel also needs to stop constantly repeating King George's mistake. King George could have avoided fighting the Revolutionary War by doing one of two eminently sensible things: (1) He could have treated the Americans as equals, or (2) he could have granted them independence.

King George's mistake was electing to employ force because he wanted to impose his will on people who refused to be his lapdogs. Now Palestinians have informed Israel and the United States that they are no one's lapdogs. According to our own Declaration of Independence, we should inform Israel that it's time to make the Palestinians fully equal citizens, or to grant them their independence. The only other possibility is war, but why should the United States participate in a war in which it has nothing to gain and everything to lose?

Washington and Jefferson advised Americans to avoid costly entanglements with other nations. The costliest entanglement of all time would no doubt be a major war in the Middle East, since there are 1.5 billion Muslims today and it would be mind-bogglingly expensive to defeat them. But why should we try? We have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Is there any doubt what Washington and Jefferson would advise? Why are we fighting on the side of the imperialists, against the democrats? It makes no sense.

But then there is no reason for Israel to fight, either. Israel has simply refused to do what everyone knows must be done. Why? Because it has decided to steal land it doesn't even need, for ideological (fascist) purposes. But why should Americans pay for such a program with our money and lives? The cost to date has been beyond enormous: 9-11, two wars, multitudes of lives lost, huge sums of money flushed down the drain, with nothing at all to show for any of it. How did this come about? Let's go back to the origins of the crisis ...

"There could be no greater calamity
than a permanent discord between us and the Arab people.
Despite the great wrong that has been done us,
we must strive for a just and lasting compromise with the Arab people ...
Let us recall that in former times
no people lived in greater friendship with us
than the ancestors of these Arabs."
—Albert Einstein

The origin of the conflict: Jewish racism against Palestinians

Golda Meir was wrong. Obviously, there was a Palestinian people, and today there undeniably still are millions of Palestinians, many of them innocent children living in very dire straits inside the walled ghetto of Gaza, under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank, and in squalid refugee camps scattered across the Middle East (to understand the horror, younger readers might conjure up images of the movie District 9). And of course today almost no one who knows anything about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict denies that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their land during the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of 1948, to Jews intent on creating a Jewish state in Palestine.

"Israel should withdraw from all the areas
which it won from the Arabs in 1967,
and in particular Israel should withdraw completely
from the Golan Heights,
from south Lebanon
and from the West Bank."
—Nelson Mandela,

But how did it start? How did someone like Golda Meir, a mother as well as a Prime Minister, come to dehumanize Palestinian children? Why did she lie, or seem to lie, to the British and American publics? And what was her purpose, since no sane person lies without a reason? And how is it possible that so many other high-ranking Israeli Jews have said things just as horrible, and worse? If American politicians utter ethnic slurs, they get reprimanded or fired. Hell, sportscasters get fired in the United States for making racist remarks. So how is it possible that Israeli politicians get away with calling Palestinians "nonexistent," "grasshoppers," "cockroaches," etc.? Can the old saw that "where's there smoke, there's fire" apply in this case? Is Israel is a bastion of racial prejudice, like Nazi Germany?

Israel must "strive for peace based on justice,
based on withdrawal from all the occupied territories,
and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state
on those territories side by side with Israel,
both with secure borders."
—Desmond Tutu

Unfortunately, the answer seems to be "yes." If you continue reading this page, you will find hundreds of quotations that will back up my assertion that racism has been a driving force behind Zionism for at least a century. Here are just a few quick examples, from leading Israelis, as quoted in books, Jewish publications and major American newspapers like The New York Times:

"They [the Palestinians who oppose us] are as grasshoppers in our sight." - Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir
"We shall reduce the Palestinians to a community of woodcutters and waiters." - Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
"We shall use the ultimate force until Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." - Deputy Prime Minister Rafael Eitan
"[When we build settlements] Arabs will only be able to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." - Raphael Eitan
"The killing [of Palestinians] is a good deed, and Jews should have no compunction about it." - Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg
"We must give them missiles with relish, annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones." - Rabbi Ovadia Yosef
"Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment." - Theodore Herzl
"The removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." - Theodore Herzl
"It is our right to transfer [ethnically cleanse] the Palestinians!" - Jewish National Fund Director Yossef Weitz
"We must do everything to ensure they [Palestinian refugees] never return." - Prime Minister Menachem Begin
"We [Zionists] all applaud, day and night, the IRON WALL." - Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Spiritual Father of the Likud
This IRON WALL is our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy. - Ze'ev Jabotinsky
"[Gaza will suffer] a bigger Shoah [Holocaust]" - Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai
"There is a huge gap between us and our enemies not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. - President Moshe Katsav

But what sort of superior "culture" directs a "bigger Shoah" at women and children? Are we seeing the type of virulent racism that once flourished in Nazi Germany? Are we seeing the same horrendous three-step program the Nazis once employed against Jews:

(1) Blame every problem known to man on the people of another race.
(2) Dehumanize the scapegoats to the point that even women and children no longer matter.
(3) Then, when they won't submit or flee or die fast enough, lash out at them in frustration and rage.

Unfortunately, this seems to be the "program" in Israel today. Since there are millions of completely innocent Palestinian women and children who have never done anything to harm anyone, the racist statements above are incredibly offensive. Please pardon my French, but who the fuck are these fascists, and why does it sound as if the Grand Wizards of the KKK are running Israel? When have we ever heard an American President say that, because we have a dispute with some Afghanis, that all Afghanis are "nonexistent," "grasshoppers," "cockroaches," etc.? People of good conscience know better than to lump millions of other people together and damn them collectively for the circumstances of their birth. But, incredibly, it seems the leaders of Israel don't know better than to damn innocent Palestinian children for not being born Jewish.

But then why is the government of the United States providing Israel with hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of financial aid and advanced weapons? Shouldn't we tell Israeli Jews to act like civilized human beings, if they want our friendship, support, money, political influence and military hardware?

As Ron Paul has pointed out, Americans are morally responsible for what we do with our money. We are also morally responsible for what we do with our weapons. If I give a gun to a known pedophile and he uses it to rape a child, I am at best an idiot, if not his accomplice. If we give money and weapons to racists intent on inflicting massive suffering on the people they despise ― millions of them women and children who have never hurt a fly ― what does that say about us as a nation and as a people?

The study of history can be both fascinating and frightening, especially when we see history repeating itself in terrible ways. Today we all understand Adolf Hitler's horrendous "final solution" for the children of Auschwitz: extermination. But have we ever bothered to ask ourselves about the likely fate of the children of Gaza, unless the world acts to save them? And how many people are aware of the many disturbing parallels between Adolf Hitler and Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism and thus of the modern nation of Israel? Does what Golda Meir said about Palestinian children ― that they don't exist ― relate to the twisted "logic" of Hitler and Herzl?

Yes, I believe it does. This letter by Albert Einstein and other Jewish intellectuals to the New York Times, published on December 4, 1948, discusses the fascist leanings of the nascent state of Israel. Einstein pointed out that Menachem Begin, a future prime minister of Israel, was the leader of a racist, terrorist right-wing organization similar in disturbing ways to the Nazi party:

"Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the 'Freedom Party' ... a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy, and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist right-wing chauvinist organization in Palestine.

The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who opposed fascism throughout the world, if currently informed as to Mr. Begin's political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents ... A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin ... this incident exemplified the character and actions of the Freedom Party. Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultra-nationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other fascist parties, they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions.

The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine, bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike) and misrepresentation are means, and a 'Leader State' is the goal.

In the light of the foregoing consideration, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin's efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel of support to Begin. The undersigned therefore take the means publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party, and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism." [pp. 352-353]

A scanned image of this letter is available at this link.

Einstein's support for a Jewish presence in Palestine clearly did not extend to Jews seizing control of the region and subduing or displacing Arabs. His dream was always of a form of Judaism based on the teachings of Hebrew prophets who called for chesed [mercy, compassion, lovingkindness] and social justice. As he saw the nature of the Jewish state that emerged, Einstein distanced himself from the racism, nationalism and militarism which soon became its watchwords.

Einstein considered the message of the prophets to be the living, beating heart of Judaism, saying: "The Zionist goal gives us an actual opportunity to put into practice, through a viable solution of the Jewish-Arab problem, those principles of tolerance and justice that we owe primarily to our prophets. I am convinced that the living transmission of those principles is the most important thing in Judaism." He also said: "To be a Jew, after all, means first of all, to acknowledge and follow in practice those fundamentals in humaneness laid down in the Bible: fundamentals without which no sound and happy community of men can exist."

He also said: "I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from practical consideration, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the ideas of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain, especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state. We are no longer the Jews of the Maccabee period. A return to a nation in the political sense of the word would be equivalent to turning away from the spiritualization of our community which we owe to the genius of our prophets."

The Elders

Here are the opinions of the Elders of the human race:

"What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct." - Mahatma Gandhi
"I have no doubt that they [the Jews] are going about it the wrong way." - Mahatma Gandhi
"... they are ... despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them." - Mahatma Gandhi
"I wish they had chosen non-violence ... but according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds." - Mahatma Gandhi
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." - Thomas Jefferson
"Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"The cause of unrest in Palestine, the only cause, arises from the Zionist movement ..." - Winston Churchill
"A Zionist state in Palestine can only be installed and maintained by force and we should not be a party to it." - Franklin Roosevelt
"I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state." - Albert Einstein

Voices of Reason: an Eye for an Eyelash?

Before we study the origins of the Jewish anti-Semitism against Arabs, let's first consider these voices of reason:

Israeli historian, Avi Shlaim, professor of international relations at the University of Oxford: "The Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye is savage enough. But Israel's insane offensive against Gaza seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash." ("How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe," The Guardian, January 7, 2009)

Shlaim again: "It is difficult to see how starving and freezing the civilians of Gaza could protect the people on the Israeli side of the border. But even if it did, it would still be immoral, a form of collective punishment that is strictly forbidden by international humanitarian law." ("How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe," The Guardian, January 7, 2009)

Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert, one of two foreign doctors working at Gaza's biggest hospital, al-Shifa, told CBS News: "I've seen one military person among the hundreds that we have seen and treated. So anyone who tries to portray this as sort of a 'clean war' against another army are lying. This is an all-out war against the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza and we can prove that with the numbers." (CBS News, January 5, 2009)

[I have read a number of reports by Israeli soldiers who said they never saw an enemy combatant during the invasion of Gaza. If there had been any major resistance, there would have been large numbers of dead Israeli soldiers. But there were only 13 Israeli deaths, compared to around 1,400 Palestinian deaths. More than 300 of the Palestinian dead were children. Once again the numbers don't lie: it was a massacre.]

Al Haq, a Palestinian legal rights group, reports that 80 per cent of Palestinian fatalities have been civilians. According to figures cited by the World Health Organization, at least 40 per cent have been children. (Jonathan Cook, "Civilian death toll spurs legal action," The National, January 9, 2009)

"Even the death toll cited above does little to communicate the true one-sidedness of the wider violence, injustice and cruelty. One hardly knows where to begin. For example, largely unmentioned by the media, prior to the latest invasion, 14 Israelis had been killed by mostly homemade rockets fired from Gaza over the last seven years as against 5,000 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks." (Seumas Milne, "Israel's onslaught on Gaza is a crime that cannot succeed," The Guardian, December 30, 2008)

[Also, it's important to note that the rocket firings are not entirely without reason. For more than sixty years Israel has denied Palestinians their self-evident rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If Israel had treated American women and children with such disregard, and had inflicted so much suffering on them, American men would be raining down missiles on Tel Aviv. So why not be honest, and admit that men of all races and creeds will "fight fire with fire" when their loved ones are made to suffer unjustly?]

Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) characterized the death toll as reaching "alarming proportions" and indicative of "extreme violence indiscriminately affecting civilians."

But don't the Jews own all the land and have the right to impose their will on Palestinians?

In the midst of so much carnage is there any rational, legal or moral basis for Jews to claim they "own" all the land? Here are comments on the matter by H. G. Wells, Gandhi, Churchill, FDR, and other luminaries:

"If it is proper to 'reconstitute' a Jewish State which has not existed for two thousand years, why not go back another thousand years and reconstitute the Canaanite state? The Canaanites, unlike the Jews, are still there." (H. G. Wells, quoted by Frank C. Sakran in Palestine Dilemma, p. 204)

"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English, or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct." (Mahatma Gandhi, Tendulkar, Mahatma, Vol. IV, 1938, p. 312)

"The Arabs of Palestine used to have the same rights over Palestinian territory as the French exercise in France and the English in England. These rights have been violated without any provocation on their part. There is no evading this simple fact." (Maxime Rodinson, Israel and the Arabs, 1968)

"We Germans feel that the Palestinian people are entitled to self-determination as much as any other people in the world, as much as we Germans." (Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, speaking at a press conference in Cairo on December 28, 1977)

"The cause of unrest in Palestine, and the only cause, arises from the Zionist movement, and from our promises and pledges in regard to it." (Winston Churchill, House of Commons, June 14, 1921)

"A Zionist state in Palestine can only be installed and maintained by force and we should not be a party to it..." (President Franklin Roosevelt, 5 March 1945, Department of State's Foreign Relations, Volume III)

"Because we took the land this gives us the image of being bad, of being aggressive. The Jews always considered that the land belonged to them, but in fact it belonged to the Arabs. I would go further: I would say the original source of this conflict lies with Israel, with the Jews—and you can quote me." (Yehoshofat Harkabi, former Israeli Chief of Military Intelligence, in "Peace Won't be a Plane Ticket to Cairo," International Armed Forces Journal, October 1973, p.30)

"The Palestinians had lived in the country since the dawn of history ... They are the earliest and the original inhabitants of Palestine. The Palestinians of today are the descendants of the Canaanites, the Philistines, and the other early tribes which inhabited the country." (Henry Cattan, Palestine and International Law, p. 13)

"If the views of the advanced Zionists prevail there is trouble ahead. Many, very many, intelligent and informed Jews admit this. It is conceded that the present inhabitants of Palestine have occupied their lands for centuries; indeed, some of the Syrian communities claim descent from the Hittites who were in possession at the dawn of history. Be that as it may, all who know the situation from actual contact and not from propaganda leaflets admit that these people have dwelt in their present homes for two thousand years, that the occupancy of the Jews does not go back to immemorial times, and that their sojourn before the Dispersion was brief. Why should these 'old settlers' be expelled, they ask, to make room for newcomers?" (Stephen Bonsal, Suitors and Suppliants at Versailles, p. 45)

"...the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a 'right' to Palestine based on an occupation of two thousand years ago, can hardly be seriously considered." (Report of the King-Crane Commission, August, 1919)

"Palestine is not the original home of the Jews. It was acquired by them after a ruthless conquest, and they have never occupied the whole of it, which they now openly demand. They have no more valid claim to Palestine than the descendants of the ancient Romans have to this country. The Romans occupied Britain as long as the Israelites occupied Palestine, and they left behind them in this country far more valuable and useful work. "If we are going to admit claims based on conquest thousands of years ago, the whole world will have to be turned upside down..." (Lord Sydenham, Hansard, House of Lords, June 21, 1922)

"I believe it was the intention of the Zionists, right from the beginning, to dispossess the Palestinians from their homes, and I believe the British Government was aware of this." (Arnold Toynbee, in the introduction to an address by Sir John Richmond at a meeting in the House of Commons, London, May 27, 1971)

"...the extent to which the refugees were savagely driven out by the Israelis as a part of a deliberate master plan has been insufficiently recognized." (John H. Davis, Commissioner-General of UNRWA 1959-63, The Evasive Peace, p. 57)

"Jewish terrorism ... in such savage massacres as Deir Yassin ... 'encouraged' Arabs to leave the areas the Jews wished to take over for strategic or demographic reasons. They tried to make as much of Israel as free of Arabs as possible." (I. F. Stone, New York Review of Books, August 3, 1967)

"The Jewish combatants there and elsewhere made skillful use of psychological warfare to break their opponents' morale, and the effect upon the civilians was only what was to be expected. At a later stage, the Israeli armed forces did not confine their pressure on the Arab civilian population to playing upon their fears. They forcibly expelled them: for example, the population of 'Akka (including refugees from Haifa) in May; the population of Lydda and Ramleh (including refugees from Jaff) in July; and the population of Beersheba and Western Galilée in October." (George Kirk, The Middle East 1945-50, p. 264)

"The Zionist version of the Palestinian exodus is a myth manufactured after the cataclysm took place. If the Zionists could show that the refugees had really fled without cause, at the express instructions of their own politicians, they would greatly erode the world's sympathy for their plight—and, in consequence, the pressure on themselves to allow them to return. Thus in public speeches and scholarly-looking pamphlets they peddled this myth the world over. It was not until 1959 that the Palestinian scholar Walid Khalidi, exposed it for what it is. His painstaking researches were independently corroborated by an Irish scholar, Erskine Childers, two years later. Together, they demonstrated that the myth was not just a gross misrepresentation of accepted or even plausible facts; the very 'facts' themselves had been invented. Orders for the evacuation of the civilian population had not simply been issued, the Zionists said, they had been broadcast over Arab radio stations. One had come from the Mufti himself. This was the cornerstone of the Zionist case. Yet when these two scholars took the trouble to examine the record—to go through the specially opened archives of Arab governments, contemporary Arabic newspapers and the radio monitoring reports of both the BBC and the CIA—they found that no such orders had been issued, let alone broadcast, and that when challenged to produce chapter-and-verse evidence, the date and origin of just one such order, the Zionists, with all the apparatus of the State of Israel now at their disposal, were quite unable to do so. They found, on the contrary, that Arab and Palestinian authorities had repeatedly called on the people to stay put and the Arab radio services had consistently belittled the true extent of Zionist atrocities." (David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, pp. 136-7)

But even if Palestinians fled their homes voluntarily, there still was no reason non-combatants should have been prevented from returning once the hostilities were over. And there was certainly no "need" for their homes and villages to be destroyed. It takes a considerable amount of planning and execution to destroy hundreds of villages, so the best argument that this was the plan is the fact that it happened.

"It seemed to me to be symptomatic of a certain blindness to the human reactions of others that so many Israelis professed not to understand why the Arabs who had been driven from their lands should continue to hate and try to injure those who had driven them out." (General E.L.M. Burns, Chief of Staff of UNTSO, Between Arab and Israeli, p. 162)

"It is my considered opinion that the State of Israel is a racist state in the full meaning of this term: In this state people are discriminated against, in the most permanent and legal way and in the most important areas of life, only because of their origin. This racist discrimination began in Zionism and is carried out today mainly in co-operation with the institutions of the Zionist movement." (Dr. Israel Shahak, "The Racist Nature of Zionism and of the Zionist State of Israel", Pi-Ha'aton (the weekly newspaper of the students of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem), November 5, 1975)

"Israel has gradually become a more and more openly racist country. Anyone not Jewish is at best second-class in Israel." (Maxim Ghilan, 1974, How Israel Lost Its Soul, Pelican Books, London)
 
"...Now in the State of Israel, those who are tempted along the hallucinatory path of power and conquest have to justify their course by calling on the same devils who, in the Diaspora, were directed against themselves." (Maxim Ghilan, 1974, How Israel Lost Its Soul, Pelican Books, London)
 
"---The State of Israel is presented, both at home and abroad, as the embodiment of social democracy, a mixture of all that is good in capitalism and in socialism, the original, the archetypal Welfare State. This suggestion is, of course, a lie." (Maxim Ghilan, 1974, How Israel Lost Its Soul, Pelican Books, London)
 
"...Israeli society is basically a settlers' society. It does not primarily concern itself with the "Indians" or "Niggers" of the land. Its first priority is the creation of a united economic establishment for the Jewish Israelis. Only then does it concern itself (almost as an afterthought) with the captive Palestinians." (Maxim Ghilan, 1974, How Israel Lost Its Soul, Pelican Books, London)

Whence Such Virulent Racism?

It has been quite some time since the United States had a full-throttle racist at the helm. Perhaps the last one really bad one was Andrew Jackson, who forced Native American women and children to walk the Trail of Tears. Before him, there were any number of Presidents who spoke glowingly of the glories of "equality" and "democracy" while owning slaves themselves, including Thomas Jefferson, the coiner of the ringing phrase, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" and the father of our country, George Washington. But truth be told, Washington and Jefferson considered themselves to be "more equal" than blacks and Native Americans. Jefferson raised his children by Sally Hemmings as slaves in his own (admittedly very expensive) home, and once had a slave whipped for stealing nails, while a sermon on Christian ethics was read to him. If the irony of that escapes you, God help you, but hopefully it didn't.

My point is simple and hopefully obvious by now: the hypocrisy of people like Washington, Jefferson and Golda Meir can result in devastating suffering for innocent children. Fortunately for the United States, it's been awhile since we had a Grand Wizard of the KKK running the show. Unfortunately for the children of Gaza, Israel has had nothing but Grand Wizards of the KKK running the show.

As you read this page, please keep in mind that I am an editor and publisher of Holocaust poetry ― not a racist and certainly not an anti-Semite. I am for the Jewish people, not against them. But to not be a racist, I must also be for the Palestinian people, most of whom are Semites. If I oppose what Nazi Germany did to the Jews during the Shoah (Hebrew for "Catastrophe"), then I must also oppose Zionism when it inflicts similar suffering on Palestinians, at it has during the Nakba (Arabic for "Catastrophe"). If I criticize Nazi Germany, that doesn't make me anti-German. If I criticize my own government, as I often do, that doesn't make me anti-American. And if I criticize the government of Israel for allowing Jewish racists to abuse and humiliate Palestinian children on a daily basis, the same way an American "democracy" once allowed white racists to abuse and humiliate black children on a daily basis, that certainly doesn't make me an anti-Semite. In all three cases, my criticism is aimed at the policies and actions of governments and individuals fully capable of changing their boorish, brutal, reprehensible behavior. It is not "wrong" to criticize brutes and boors, and it is not "unfair" to suggest that Israel needs to do what the United States did, when it finally abandoned Jim Crow laws and kangaroo courts during the days of the American Civil Rights Movement.

And please keep in mind that I am not opposed to the dream of Zionism. If any family or extended family wants to live together in peace and security, I can certainly understand and sympathize, because I feel the same way about my family. But I understand that if I want my family to live together in peace and security, we can't steal my neighbors' land and abuse their children, or we'll have a war on our hands. This is, of course, the dilemma Israeli Jews face today, because the government of Israel keeps stealing Palestinian land and allowing the abuse of Palestinian children. To their eternal shame, many Jews and Christians use the Bible to excuse the inexcusable, while turning blind eyes and deaf ears to the cries of multitudes of innocent women and children. Of course German Christians once sat in the pews of their tidy, white-washed churches and sang hymns of praise to God and Jesus, while Jewish children suffered unimaginable torments and despair just a few yards away. And of course white American Christians once sat in the pews of their tidy, white-washed churches and sang hymns of praise to God and Jesus, while black children suffered and died in slave hovels and Native American children walked the Trail of Tears. Was it really the "divine plan" for Christians to live out their "manifest destiny" at the expense of the people of other races and creeds? One would hope Jesus had higher standards. But then why do American Christians insist that it is the "manifest destiny" of Jews to trample Palestinian children underfoot, when there is plenty of land for everyone, if only Israeli Jews would learn to share and share alike? Much of the land Israel stole from Palestinians in 1948 lies fallow to this day, inside the borders of Israel, because most Israeli Jews prefer to live in urban areas. Obviously, it makes no sense to steal land one doesn't even need, from children who are perishing and their families, especially when in so doing one brings the world to the brink of World War III.

How can such incomprehensible things happen, in the modern world? I hope you will bear with me for a few minutes, because I believe I can make a strong case that the children of Gaza face the same ominous demon that the children of Auschwitz once faced: a virulent, fanatical, unreasoning strain of anti-Semitism. But I think I can also make a strong case for what the world clearly needs to do, to save the children of Gaza. The solution is simpler than almost anyone believes, although "simple" does not mean "easy." I will quickly summarize my main points, then provide a wealth of facts to back up my main assertions. Most of these facts will come in the form of direct quotations from the diaries and other writings of the leading Zionists: Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Menachem Begin, et al. As with Hitler, these men's words both reveal and betray them. They repeatedly, often arrogantly, announced what they were doing, and why, in no uncertain terms. If you take the time to read this page in its entirety, I believe you may agree that I have a strong case when I say that:

(1) Adolf Hitler and Theodor Herzl began with the same "solution" to the "Jewish problem"
(2) Like Hitler, Herzl, the founder of political Zionism and the modern state of Israel, was an anti-Semite
(3) The founders of the modern state of Israel practiced anti-Semitism, directed at Palestinians
(4) The early Zionists did not merely seek a safe haven for Jews, but to ethnically cleanse Palestine of Arabs
(5) This plan was in place and being implemented long before the Holocaust
(6) The Palestinians understood what the Zionists intended and had every right to resist
(7) The solution today is for Israel to establish equal human rights, fair laws and fair courts for everyone
(8) This can be accomplished via a new UN resolution based on the American Creed, backed by economic sanctions (which will probably not be necessary once the government of Israel sees the "handwriting on the wall")

Please keep in mind that I am offering facts and arguments for a specific purpose, which is peace and the protection of innocent women and children on both sides of the conflict, including the children of Gaza but also Israeli and American children. Why I say this will become clear, if you continue to read.

While at times I may seem to be "against" Israel, it is not my goal to attack or harm anyone, but only to help make peace possible. I simply believe that it is necessary at this time for Israeli Jews, American Jews and other Americans to admit what really happened to the Palestinians, confess that what happened cannot be justified, then do what must be done to establish peace through justice, in the form of equal rights, fair laws and fair courts for everyone in the region, without excuses or exceptions. White Americans once did very similar things to African Americans and Native Americans. But today most white Americans freely admit that what happened in the past was wrong, and we don't continue to treat blacks and Indians as "inferior beings" or third-class citizens. If we can't or won't correct all the injustices of the past, we can at the very least stop heaping new injustices on the heads of innocent women and children. The first step is to stop trying to justify the unjustifiable and excuse the inexcusable. The next step is to immediately and unconditionally grant Palestinians equal rights and the protections of fair laws and courts. This is only just, and history has proven that fair laws and courts can lead to racial peace, even in the wake of the most terrible atrocities. Soon after post-WWII Germany established fair laws and courts, Jews were able to live in relative peace there, despite the recent and still-fresh horrors of the Holocaust. Soon after the United States finally granted minorities the protections of fair laws and courts, the grandchildren of black slaves were able to attend integrated schools, and today we have a black president, black senators, black judges and black generals. The myth of white "superiority" was always a myth; so too is the myth of Jewish "superiority" to Palestinians. If we want to avoid World War III, we need to learn the hard lessons of the Holocaust and say "Never again!" to such things happening to other people's children, or there will inevitably be hell to pay.

Herzl, Hitler and the terrible implications of Jewish anti-Semitism for the children of Gaza

Was Theodor Herzl an anti-Semite who, like Adolf Hitler, directed intense self-loathing at people who looked like him: short, dark, non-Aryan? Is the modern state of Israel running on the same sort of high-octane anti-Semitic racism that fueled the boilers of Nazi Germany? If so, what does this mean for the children of Gaza and for the Palestinians as a people, since they are not Aryan in appearance?

What sort of world do we inhabit, if 65 years after the end of the Holocaust the children of Gaza must live in abject misery and peril of their lives because they "look wrong"? Why have rich, powerful Jewish Overlords herded them into giant holding pens to keep them from "getting out of line," when they haven't done anything to harm anyone? This was the modus operandi of the Nazis: to collectively punish all Jews for the crimes of a few. But if it was wrong for Hitler's disciples to herd innocent Jewish children into giant corrals, how can it be right for Herzl's disciples to do the same thing to innocent Palestinian children?

The parallels are indeed fascinating, frightening and disturbing ... especially when we consider that another event like 9-11 or even World War III could be triggered by Israel's horrendous treatment of the Palestinians. What if a plague breaks out in Gaza and the Muslim world blames Israel and the United States for the deaths of multitudes of innocents? World War III might be the result. So it is not only wrong for Israel to deny Palestinians human rights and freedom, but it is very dangerous for Israeli and American children as well, because once people have been stripped of their ability to care for themselves, whatever happens to them becomes the responsibility of the people in power. If a Jewish child died due to poor medical care in a Nazi concentration camp, who was responsible: the child, his parents, or the Nazis? The answer is obvious. But then who is responsible for the deaths of Palestinians who die in the shadows of Israel's so-called "security walls" because ambulances were help up at the gates? Who built the walls? Israel. Who supplied hundreds of billions of dollars in financial aid and advanced weapons to Israel, without ever requiring an accounting of how the money was spent or how the weapons were used? The United States. While Israeli Jews and American Christians constantly harp on "Islamic terrorism," in reality the governments of Israel and the United States have inflicted far more terror on far more people over a much longer period of time. If we want to avoid another 9-11, World War III and a nuclear Armageddon, it's past time to confront the truth and stop harming other men's women and children and causing them to die prematurely, because to cause the premature death of an innocent person is murder. If my child needs a doctor and you deliberately keep my child's ambulance from reaching a hospital, and my child dies, what does that make you, and how should you expect me to feel about you? If we want peace with the Muslim world, we must understand that we cannot afford to give money and weapons to anyone who chooses to deny Muslim children the things we cherish for our own children: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (or, at the very least, not living in abject misery for the sake of robber barons).

Herzl and Hitler: twin sons of different mothers?

How can such terrible things happen, in the first place? Did the father of Zionism and Israel, Theodor Herzl, agree with Adolf Hitler that there was a "Jewish problem" simply because most Jews were not tall, fair-skinned, fair-haired, blue-eyed Nordic demigods? Was Herzl's "solution" to the Jewish problem exactly the same as Hitler’s original "solution" (i.e., exporting Jews to some distant, remote hinterland where they could not offend Aryans by being seen and heard)? If so, how should the civilized world, which has determined racism to be an abomination, deal with Israeli anti-Semitism against Palestinians? Has Israel erected walls twice as high as the Berlin Wall throughout Palestine because most Jews decline to see or hear the suffering of the Semites their government and military persecute so terribly: the Palestinian Arabs? If it was wrong for Germans to refuse to see and hear the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust, how can Jews justify closing their eyes and ears to the suffering of Palestinians today? (Of course pro-Israel propagandists routinely claim that the walls are for "security" purposes only, but this is patently untrue, an obvious lie. Security walls are built along borders, on one's own side of the land. But Israel's "security walls" snake deep inside the West Bank, stealing valuable land and water resources from the Palestinians. If I build a wall halfway across my neighbor's yard, using armed men to keep him at bay, it's obvious that I'm trying to steal his land, so if I claim to want "peace" with him, of course he knows I'm lying. If Israel wants true peace and real security, obviously it has to stop stealing Palestinian land.)

Adolf Hitler, the prophet-evangelist-father of Nazism, didn’t set out to exterminate the Jews. The first use of the term "final solution" by the Nazis may have been in a Nazi party document published in 1931, which said: "... for the final solution of the Jewish question it is proposed to use the Jews in Germany for slave labor or for cultivation of the German swamps administered by a special SS division." While that document is chilling enough, there is no mention of deliberate genocide.

Theodor Herzl, the prophet-evangelist-father of Zionism, didn’t set out to exterminate the Palestinians. Just as Hitler saw Jews merely as obstacles in the way of German nationalism, so Herzl saw Arabs merely as obstacles in the way of Jewish nationalism. It seems possible that Hitler never fully considered what his various solutions to the "Jewish problem" would mean for millions of completely innocent Jewish women and children. It seems possible that Herzl never fully considered what his various solutions to the "Jewish problem" would mean for millions of completely innocent Arab women and children. But Hitler’s "solutions" led to the suffering and premature deaths (i.e., murders) of multitudes of Jews, and Herzl’s "solutions" led to the suffering and premature deaths (also murders) of multitudes of Palestinians. Hitler was the single person most responsible for World War II. Herzl could be the single person most responsible for World War III. And the two seem very similar in a number of ways:

They both had loving, doting mothers who encouraged their artistic pursuits.
They were both extremely close to their mothers.
They were both intelligent but often indifferent students.
They were both daydreamers and loners who were intolerant of criticism.
The were both narcissists who suffered bouts of depression, envy, self-disgust and self-pity.
They both read poetry and wrote poetry.
Mussolini called Hitler a sentimentalist; Herzl's biographer Amos Elon called him an "absurd sentimentalist."
They both moved to Vienna, where they were frustrated artists (Herzl a playwright, Hitler a painter).
They were both rejected repeatedly in their chosen fields of artistic endeavor.
Their artistic failures and non-Aryan looks drove them both to self-loathing, perhaps to self-hatred.
Hitler came to loathe the "alien face" of the Jew: perhaps because he despised his own?
Herzl spoke of finding a land where Jews with "hooked noses" and "bow legs" could live apart.
They were both great admirers of German Kultur (culture) and detested Eastern/Oriental culture.
They both considered Slavs and other non-Aryans to be inferior, "servant peoples."
The were both obsessed with "the Jewish problem."
They both spoke and wrote extensively about the "Jewish problem."
They both came up with multiple highly implausible "solutions" to the "Jewish problem."
Hitler's "solutions" including exporting Jews to other nations, enslavement, and genocide.
Herzl's "solutions" included fighting duels, mass conversion, intermarriage and ethnic cleansing of Arabs.
They both were avid admirers of Wagner, an anti-Semite who called Jews "a colony of worms."
They both wrote glowingly of Martin Luther, an anti-Semite who advocated robbing and killing Jews.
Although being short (around 5' 8") and dark, they both admired tall, blue-eyed, fair-skinned people.
They were both infatuated with women with "golden" hair and blue eyes.
Hitler married Eva Braun, a golden-haired, blue-eyed woman.
Herzl married Julie Naschauer, a "petite, blond, blue-eyed" woman.
They both despised the physical characteristics of Jews, Arabs and other "Orientals" (i.e., Semites).
They both had "crazy dreams" which they made come true, against all odds.
They were both charismatics; people compared Herzl to the Hebrew prophets and Christ.
They both acquired infatuated disciples who considered them to be "the Messiah."
They both spoke of being prophets and instruments or helpers of the Messiah.
They both believed they were meant to personally intervene in human history.
Like Hitler, Herzl was convinced that he personally would "save" his people.
Like Hitler, Herzl was fascinated by the "phenomenon of the mob" and mob manipulation and control.
Hitler was a Nazi; Herzl was an Ashkenazi Jew.

Herzl left a detailed record of his thoughts, in the form of his own "massive notes, diaries and letters." Readers interested in verifying my facts above should read Herzl, by Amos Elon, because Elon's biography is based on the written record Herzl left us himself. Few lives have been as extensively and thoroughly documented as those of Herzl and Hitler ― yet another parallel.

Et Tu Brute? Jewish anti-Semitism

Hitler and Herzl seemed to loathe the people who looked the most like themselves. Is this not symptomatic of some deep-seated disease, which needs to be cured once and for good? Why hasn't Israel received the message the Jews waited long centuries to hear: that there is nothing wrong with being short, dark, "different" or non-Aryan. Hitler is dead. The Nazis were defeated. The Holocaust is over. Why has Israel become a bastion of racism, when Jews should prize racial equality like the proverbial pearl of great price?

Why do so many Israelis favor Jews with Germanic origins over Jews of oriental extraction? Isn't there something terribly wrong with a society that sees one person as "good/clean/superior" and another person as a "bad/unclean/inferior" based on skin tone and some strip of dirt where their ancestors originated? What sort of nation would the United States be, if we had to know a young girl's ethnic and geographical origins, in order to properly value her as a human being?

The genesis and evolution of Hitler's final solution

Hitler’s "final solution" evolved over time and only became genocide when he realized that feeding and caring for millions of Jews who could no longer feed and care for themselves (because the Nazis had stolen their land, homes and property) was incredibly expensive. In the cold calculations of fascism, there is a limit to how much money superior beings are willing to invest in keeping inferior beings alive and in good health. Now that Israel is faced with feeding and caring for millions of despised Palestinians, will its leaders come to the same chilling conclusion? Is genocide inevitable for the children of Gaza, unless the world persuades Israel that Hitler and Herzl were wrong?

Will the world stand by and allow Israel to do to the children of Gaza what Nazi Germany did to the children of Auschwitz?

Hitler tried to "export" his "Jewish problem" to other countries for years. It was not until 1940-1941 that he junked the last of his hare-brained schemes (to export the Jews to Madagascar) and decided that the final "final solution" would be genocide. This decision seems to have been reached during the time that Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia, was being planned. Russia had millions of Jews who were spread out across a huge geographical area. It would have been incredibly expensive and a logistical nightmare to round them up and transport them to concentration camps, in the middle of a war between two military titans. So the decision was made for Nazi assassins to accompany the regular German troops and shoot Jews and other "undesirables" on sight. The assassins would kill women and children, not just men. Once this horrendous decision had been made, it was only "logical" for the Nazis to start killing women and children in the European concentration camps as well, along with any men unable to provide slave labor.

It seems inconceivable that modern human beings could be so coldly, so inhumanly "logical." But of course white American Christians once made Native American women and children walk the Trail of Tears, and many of them died horrible deaths along the way. And of course white American Christians once forced black women and children to serve as slaves, and many of them died exquisitely horrible deaths — including those who perished in the dark, dank, festering holds of slave ships. So if today's "people of the book" are willing and able to consign Palestinian women and children to this new Trail of Tears, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. Perhaps the ethics of Jews and Christians — like beauty and racism — are only skin deep.

The kind of racism that allows one human being to consider another human being completely and utterly insignificant is obviously the stuff of nightmares. It led to the Shoah ("Catastrophe") of the Jews. Has it now led to the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of the Palestinians? I, for one, am convinced that it has. But why take my word for it? Let’s take a look at what the leading Jewish Zionists said themselves. Then you can draw your own conclusions ...

Israeli Apartheid: did it "just happen" or was it planned, from the start?

The following quotes are drawn from the published books and personal diaries of leading Zionists, and from declassified Israeli government and military documents. They often read like the of Hitler and his Nazi goons, as they plotted the ethnic cleansing of the Jews in the days before their "final solution." What do these quotes mean for the children of Gaza and Occupied Palestine?

Theodor Herzl

Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) is the person primarily responsible for the invention of Zionism as a political movement and international force. Born into a prosperous Budapest family, he was secular (not religious), cosmopolitan, an intellectual, a doctor of law, a minor play writer, and the founder of the World Zionist Organization. Herzl observed the "Dreyfus affair" in France with an understandable sense of dread (Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French military, was wrongfully convicted of treason and sent to Devil's Island). The wave of French anti-Semitism produced (or perhaps exposed) by the Dreyfus trial led Herzl to write Der Judenstaat ("The Jewish State"). The book was published in 1896 with the subtitle "An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question." (Righteous Victims, p. 20)

On June 12, 1895 Herzl wrote of the Palestinians in his diary:

"We must expropriate gently the private property on the state assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discretely and circumspectly. Let the owners of the immoveable property believe that they are cheating us, selling us things for more than they are worth. But we are not going to sell them anything back." (Complete Diaries and America And The Founding Of Israel, p. 49 and Righteous Victims, p. 21-22)

Of course there is nothing "gentle" about taking what little penniless people have, denying them employment, and leaving them homeless and destitute. But that is exactly what happened to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, and there was nothing at all "gentle" about the methods employed against them at that time, or since. And please note that Herzl's plan was formed nearly a half century before the Holocaust. The Palestinians played no role in European anti-Semitism, which was largely a Christian phenomenon. Their fate was sealed by a conspiracy between European Jews and Christian Zionists like Lord Balfour and Winston Churchill, long before the Nazis rose to power. The Holocaust accelerated the rate at which Jews emigrated to Palestine, but the Zionists were not merely looking for a safe place to land and take shelter in a storm. They came with the intent, from the beginning, of evicting the Palestinians, which meant leaving them landless, homeless and destitute, which in turn meant them suffering and dying in large numbers. This ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, with all the suffering and death it produced, would eventually lead to 9-11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why? Because the United States would eventually replace Great Britain as Israel's "rich uncle" and benefactor, supplying Israel with hundreds of billions of dollars in financial aid and advanced weapons, while vetoing one UN resolution after another that could have helped the Palestinians become a free, independent nation. The Muslim men who opposed the Nakba did not have the military capacity to take on Israel and the United States directly, so some of them resorted to terrorism. But what about the large-scale, systematic terrorism that had been practiced against completely innocent Muslim women and children for more than fifty years? In this case the egg (Israeli and US terrorism against Palestinians) clearly preceded the chicken (Muslim terrorism against the US).

In 1897 Herzl outlined a major goal of Zionism during the first Zionist Congress convention held in Bessel, Switzerland:

"We have an important task before us. We have met here to lay the foundation-stone of the house that will someday shelter the Jewish people ... We have to aim at securing legal, international guarantees for our work." (Israel: A History, p. 14)

But what was required was only the guise of legality because there is nothing "legal" about stealing someone else's land and freedom, while denying them basic human rights and dignity.

On September 3rd, 1897 he wrote:

"Were I to sum up the Basle Congress in a word—which I shall GUARD AGAINST PRONOUNCING PUBLICLY—it would be this: At Basle I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, and certainly in fifty, everyone will know it." (Israel: A History, p. 15)

This policy of saying one thing publicly and another thing privately would become a hallmark of Zionist leaders like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir. They would spoon-feed tidbits of information palatable to the American public, using words like "democracy" and "equal rights," while always intending to create a racist state with as many Jews and as few Palestinians as possible, regardless of the suffering and deaths inflicted on the Arab majority. In other words, their basic tactics were identical to Hitler's, since Hitler demanded "living room" for "superior" Aryans and was willing to take it by hook and crook (force and robbery) at the expense of "inferior" races.

At the same time Herzl was keeping his true intentions close to the vest, he was also advocating the use of "tremendous propaganda" to woo the Jewish masses into providing the warm bodies a Jewish state would require. Twice in his book The Jewish State, Herzl spoke of using propaganda to further the Zionist cause.

Benny Morris (a Jewish historian), describes Herzl's "game plan":

"Herzl regarded Zionism's triumph as inevitable, not only because life in Europe was ever more untenable for Jews, but also because it was in Europe's interests to rid [itself of] Jews and [relieve itself] of anti-Semitism: the European political establishment would eventually be persuaded to promote Zionism. Herzl recognized that anti-Semitism would be harnessed to his own—Zionist—purposes." (Righteous Victims, p. 21)

Herzl clearly saw the Zionist enterprise as being colonial. On July 7, 1902, he told the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration in London:

I am not speaking of artificially made colonies, but self-helping colonies, which have that great national idea." (Israel: A History, p. 21)

Thus, while the United States was firmly opposing European colonialism, and while Britain and France were in the process of granting their colonies abroad independence, European Jews were in the process of creating the world's last (or at least hopefully its last) colony. And what is colonization, but foreigners exerting their will by force on weaker natives, resulting in massive suffering and premature deaths (i.e., murders) among the indigenous majority?

The Jewish state in Palestine, Theodor Herzl wrote, would be Europe's bulwark against the "inferior" races, among them the detested Palestinian Arabs:

"We can be the vanguard of culture against barbarianism." (One Palestine Complete, p. 150)

What he failed to admit to the unsuspecting general public was the tremendous degree of barbarianism that would be required for Jews to dispossess Palestinians and drive them from their land, farms and homes. His "vanguard of culture" would become like Hitler's vanguard of superior culture annexing Eastern Europe and Russia.

Like Hitler, Herzl was a fanatic inspired by the racist and nationalistic fervors of his time. Before he arrived at the idea of ethnically cleansing Palestinians in order to create a Jewish state in Palestine, he had proposed such bizarre schemes as:

(1) Personally presenting all Jews to the Pope, for a mass conversion.
(2) Intermarrying all Jews with non-Jews.
(3) Ridding the world of the Jewish race through mass conversion and intermarriage.
(3) Having Jews fight duels with non-Jews in order to raise their "social position" and "prestige."
(4) Fighting duels with well-known anti-Semites himself.

While the Zionist movement he founded would hail him as a prophet, Herzl was indifferent to God and religion and failed to have his son Hans circumcised (although ironically Herzl's disciples would persuade Hans to have himself circumcised as an adult). Herzl was infatuated with girls and women who were "blond, blue-eyed, fairy-tale creatures." His idea of masculinity, as with Hitler, was the antithesis of himself: a "blond, mustached, dapper ... lady-killer." Like Hitler, he fixated on the ugly and grotesque, saying, "Seeing makes me unhappy. For whenever I see, I see something ugly or vulgar." Like Hitler, he was prey to self-loathing, self-disgust, self-hatred and self-pity. His fear of women was "real and deep."

Herzl was a severe critic of European anti-Semitism who wrote "There is no good deed that excuses a bad one." He was appalled by "the recklessness of pseudointellectuals who enthused over anarchist crimes with "Never mind the victims if it is a beautiful gesture." And yet he would calmly propose the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, being sure not to let the general public know the suffering his plans were sure to produce. In the end, he and Hitler had the same purpose, the same tactics and the same methods: ethnic cleansing, racist propaganda, mob control, etc. Thus, the foundations of Nazi Germany and the modern state of Israel are eerily similar.

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