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The Holocaust of the Palestinians: Root Causes and Parallels

What is a Holocaust? I believe a Holocaust occurs when one group of people (superiors, rulers, conquerors, the "chosen few," etc.) strips another group of people (slaves, serfs, untouchables, inferiors, etc.) of their human rights and dignity, leaving them the defenseless prey of anyone willing to take advantage of them. In a Holocaust, innocent members of an "inferior" group lose their land, homes, property, freedom, and often their lives, because they have little or no defense against the people who rule over and despise them. In a Holocaust, the abuse of the "inferior" group by the "superior" group becomes systematic, with the "superior" group blaming most or all its problems on its victims, until a culture of impunity evolves. The "superior" group creates excuses for its increasingly brutal behavior—excuses centered around the unworthiness and untrustworthiness of the "inferior" group—and raises its own "superior" children to believe a concoction of half-truths and outright lies. The children of the "superior" group grow up knowing or at least sensing something is terribly wrong, but often find themselves unable to break free from the racism their parents and society indoctrinated them into.

Let me give you an example. Thomas Jefferson was the main author of the American Declaration of Independence. It seems he believed in the creed that "all men are created equal." But he owned hundreds of slaves. In a case curiouser than that of Alice and the Looking Glass, one of his slaves was caught stealing nails. Jefferson had the slave whipped while being administered a lecture on Christian morality. Now, isn't it passing strange for a white slavemaster to have a slave beaten for a petty theft, while lecturing him on morals? What do we suppose Jesus Christ would have said to Jefferson? What would we say to him, ourselves? To us Jefferson's hypocrisy seems as self evident as the rights he so eloquently expounded upon. But Jefferson had been raised on a plantation. Although he said himself that slavery was evil, it was an evil he lived with every day of his life. And although he believed miscegenation was also evil, he had sex with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings, and fathered children by her. Incredibly, he raised those children as slaves under his own roof. Jefferson was a highly intelligent man, an intellectual, and a man of culture and refinement. But even he was unable to, as Robert Frost so aptly put it, "go beyond his father's saying."

Jefferson lived in the shadow of an Abomination: the Holocaust of American slavery. He could not extract himself from the mire he was born into. He constantly violated what seem to be his most sacred principles, and in the process he became one of the greatest hypocrites to ever walk the earth. Why? In all probability, Jefferson couldn't tell us himself. He knew slavery was an abomination, and he was right. He believed miscegenation was evil, but he was wrong, because there is hardly an iota of difference between the genes of blacks and whites. But of course he shouldn't have had sex with any woman who wasn't free to choose him (or not choose him), nor should he have allowed his own children to be raised as slaves, much less raise them as slaves himself, under his own roof.

If you find it hard to believe that highly intelligent, highly educated Jews can be responsible for a Holocaust, I sympathize with you. I have always admired the accomplishments of the Jews. I hold men like Einstein, Spinoza and Freud, just to name a few, in great esteem. But in my own dealings with Jewish poets, translators and Holocaust survivors, I came to sense what I can only call a "dead spot." They would speak of Tikkun Olam, of "healing/repairing/perfecting the world." But if I asked them about the fates of innocent Palestinian women and children who are being collectively punished for crimes they never committed, other than being born to non-Jewish parents, it was as if I were asking about the fates of Martians. How can I account for this? I might call this strange attitude the "Jefferson syndrome," a blindness to the suffering of an oppressed people because of a presumed natural superiority. Jefferson knew slavery was evil, but he also presumed that whites were superior to blacks. He was right on the first count, wrong on the second. He never was able to resolve his personal dilemma. He owned slaves until the day he died, and only freed his children by Sally Hemmings upon his death. In his will Jefferson freed, of all his slaves, only the ones he sired. Did Jefferson in his own mind believe his "thoroughbred" blood somehow made his children alone worthy of freedom? Is it possible that some Jews have considered themselves the "Chosen Few" for such a long time that they now believe their own press clippings?

In the realm of human rights, Jefferson was not an iota better than any of his slaves. Nor is any Jew one iota better than any Palestinian. We are all human beings. Our genes are virtually identical. But as I intend to demonstrate, many Israeli Jews seem to have become modern Thomas Jeffersons. They live in the shadow of an Abomination of their own creation, seemingly unable to respond to the suffering of the people they oppress on a daily basis. If one of their serfs "acts up," they beat him with righteous indignation, and his wife, and his children, and all his kind, collectively, for not "obeying" the laws that degrade and enslave them. But think about it: were American slaves "wrong" to disobey the racist "laws" of their "masters"? Of course not. And the laws of Israel are also racist and therefore illegal. And so everything Americans have been told about the Palestinians is wrong, horribly wrong. It is not a crime to break racist, illegal laws. But it is a crime to create racist, illegal laws which strip even innocent children of their human rights and dignity.

To put it simply, until Israel stops treating the Palestinians the way Jefferson treated his slaves, the Jewish hue and cry over "terrorism" is morally the same as Jefferson preaching a sermon about "morality" to one of his slaves, while having him whipped mercilessly. Jefferson had all power over his slaves. The only way he could have possibly been in the right was to free them, give them their self-evident rights and human dignity, and then punish them if they broke legal laws and were found guilty in a fair court. Today Israel has all power over the Palestinians. The only way Israel can possibly be in the right is to free them, give them their self-evident rights and human dignity, and only punish them if they are found guilty of breaking legal laws in a fair court. 

How do you feel about men like Jefferson lecturing black children on morality while beating them black and blue? How then should you feel about Palestinian children suffering under the racist, illegal laws of their  Jewish overlords? You already know the answer. It has always been self-evident.

Signs of a Holocaust

Perhaps the most terrible aspect of a Holocaust is that innocents, even women and children, are punished collectively for the crime of being born into an "inferior" race, or for being members of the "wrong" religion. When we see women and children being collectively abused and killed because of their race or religious beliefs, this is a clear indication that we are seeing a Holocaust. And this is exactly what we are seeing in Israel/Palestine today.

Another clear sign of a Holocaust is the failure of laws and courts to protect the rights of the "inferior" people. Justice, in order to be just, must be individual, not collective. In a just society, with fair laws and fair courts for everyone, only individuals who have been convicted of crimes via due process of law can be deprived of their liberty, and even then the sentence must fit the crime. In a Holocaust, a child of the favored race who throws a stone will be, at worst, convicted of a misdemeanor, and probably not even that, but a child of the disfavored race who throws a stone in return may be tried as an adult in a military court, or perhaps even killed. In a Holocaust, there is an extreme distortion of "justice," to such an extent than an unbiased observer would think there was no justice at all. I am an unbiased observer of what is transpiring in present-day Israel/Palestine, and in my eyes there is no justice for the Palestinians. If an eighteen-year-old Jewish young man throws a rock at a much younger Palestinian boy, and the boy retaliates, the "justice" system is rigged entirely in favor of the young Jewish man. The young Jewish man will probably get off with no more than a scolding, while the Palestinian boy may well end up in a prison cell without the right to see a lawyer or even his own parents. The Israeli Jews have created a culture of impunity, in which Palestinian children are being lured into throwing rocks so that they can be tried as "adults" in military courts, or detained indefinitely.  Some children have even been shot for throwing rocks. And in some instances the family homes of the children have been demolished for "harboring terrorists." This, in my opinion, is clearly a Holocaust.

Another sign of a Holocaust is the ability of members of the "superior" class to move with complete freedom, to live anywhere they can afford to live, to buy any land that comes up for pubic sale, and to marry and raise children as they please, while members of the "inferior" class cannot move with any degree of freedom, or live anywhere they prefer, or buy any land that comes up for public sale, and they may not be able to marry and raise children as they please (because the "ruling class" does not want its superior blood to be "diluted" or "fouled" by intermarriage).

And so, when we look for signs of a Holocaust, we will expect to see: (1) innocent women and children being punished collectively, (2) one set of laws and courts for the "ruling class," but another set of laws and courts for the "inferior class", and (3) the "ruling class" denying the "inferior class" the right to move freely, to live anywhere they can afford, to buy any land they can afford, or even to marry and raise children as they please.

When a system of government infringes on the rights of men and women to marry as they please, and to keep their families together, something is horribly amiss. And so we will examine this aspect of Holocausts closely.

Here are three examples of Holocausts most readers will be familiar with:

(1) Feudal Europe, in which small groups of "royals" and "nobles" subjugated millions of serfs. Serfs had far fewer rights than their overlords. Serfs could not sell the land they "owned," nor could they leave it. A serf had to obtain his lord's permission to marry, and in some forms of serfdom the lord had "the right of the first night" to sleep with a serf's bride before he did.

(2) American slavery, in which multitudes of Africans were bartered and sold like animals. Slaves had virtually no rights. The marriages of slaves would either be arranged or have to be approved by their masters. The marriages and families of slaves were not sacrosanct, as husbands, wives and children could be separated and sold to different masters.

(3) The Holocaust of World War II, in which multitudes of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, communists and other people disenfranchised by the Nazis were herded into ghettos and concentration camps, where they suffered and, all too often, died. The victims of the Holocaust had no rights. Marriages and families were not sacrosanct, as husbands, wives and children were routinely separated, often so that the healthier family members could do slave labor, while the less healthy ones were exterminated.

Now, let us examine what has happened to the Palestinians, to see if it qualifies as a Holocaust.

First, let's apply the test of fair laws and fair courts. Do the Israeli Jews and Palestinians have the same rights under the law? No. Palestinians are not allowed to buy most of the land in present-day Israel/Palestine. A Jewish boy who throws a rock will not be tried as an adult until he is eighteen years old, and then he will be tried in a civil court. A younger Palestinian boy who throws a rock can be tried as an "adult" in a military court. A Jewish family whose ancestors left Palestine 2,000 years ago has the right to return to Palestine and buy any land that comes up for sale. But a Palestinian family whose ancestors stayed in Palestine and farmed the land until 1948, and who only left their land temporarily to avoid bloodshed and did not fight themselves, cannot return to their legally owned property, to this day. These are just three of many possible examples of the lack of justice for the Palestinians. Israel is not a democracy, but an oligarchy, with the ruling class inheriting vastly superior rights at birth. A Jewish baby is born with vastly superior rights to a Palestinian baby. This is clearly the stuff of serfdom, slavery and Holocausts.

Second, let's apply the test of freedom of movement. Are the Jews able to move about as they please? Yes. Are the Palestinians? No. The people of Gaza have been herded like cattle into a huge box, a walled ghetto. In Hebron, for the sake of the security and freedom of movement of around 500 Jewish settlers, over 100,000 Palestinians are prevented from walking their own main streets. In the West Bank, Israel has constructed "Jewish only" highways on Palestinian land outside the borders of Israel. It would abysmal to have "Jewish only" roads inside the borders of Israel, but to construct "Jewish only" roads on the ever-diminishing land left to the Palestinians is doubly an abomination.  This is clearly the stuff of serfdom, slavery and Holocausts.

Third, let's apply the test of buying land. Are Jews able to buy land if they can afford it, and it's up for sale to the public? Yes. What about the Palestinians? They are barred from buying most of the land up for sale. Even if a home that was stolen from a man's family comes up for sale, and he is willing to pay to get it back, in most cases he is barred from buying it. This is clearly the stuff of serfdom, slavery and Holocausts.

Fourth, let's apply the test of marriage and family laws. Surely the Palestinians can marry whomever they please, and live together as they choose! No, even in this regard, the Palestinians are serfs whose lives are micromanaged by the government of Israel. Why? Because the government of Israel does not want non-Jews to become citizens of Israel. Should a government be able to decide who can marry whom, or under what circumstances a family can live together? This is clearly the stuff of serfdom, slavery and Holocausts.

These are just a few examples of the terrible injustices of Israel. I could go on, but there is no need. Just consider the examples I've given and do a little research on your own, if you prefer. The laws and courts of Israel are matters of public record. Just ask yourself if you would like to live in Israel or Palestine, if you were not Jewish. If the answer is "No!" then you have your answer . . .

Root Causes of the Holocausts of the Jews and the Palestinians

What were the root causes of the Holocaust of the Jews? I submit that there were three primary causes:

Hitler and his goons wanted "living space" for his "Aryan super-race."
Hitler and his goons didn't want to pay for the land they craved.
Hitler and his goons withdrew the protection of fair laws and fair courts from the Jews so they could steal land and other property from the Jews.

In effect, Hitler financed his dreams of expansion by stealing from the Jews, who were defenseless without the protection of fair laws and fair courts.

Now look at what has happened to the Palestinians:

The Zionist leaders wanted "living space" for "Chosen Few."
The Zionist leaders didn't want to pay for the land they craved.
The Zionist leaders withdrew the protection of fair laws and fair courts from the Palestinians so they could steal land and other property from the Palestinians, which they have been doing since 1948 and continue to do to this day.

In effect, the Zionists financed their dreams of expansion by stealing from the Palestinians, who are defenseless without the protection of fair laws and fair courts.

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