I recently watched a DW documentary, "The Warsaw Ghetto," which depicts the kind of life Jewish people were forced to live in a ghetto created by the Nazis. The Jewish residents lived under fences and basic supplies of life like food and clean water were not allowed. Anyone who watched this documentary can feel the pain and humiliation the Jewish population had to go through. There is a scene in the documentary where a child is beaten up by the Nazi police perhaps for smuggling food. I thought how could children be treated this way and how can a bunch of humans “not allow” the food and water to another group of humans?
With this thought, the visuals of children dying in Gaza due to Israeli bombings captured my mind. The dead newborn babies in the arms of their mothers, the father carrying his baby’s dismembered body in a plastic bag, the children shivering and looking helplessly for their parents, the grandfather kissing his granddaughter for the last time and saying, “She was the soul of my soul” was all I was thinking about. I paused and held back myself. After watching the documentary, I struggled to sleep but when I did, I saw Gaza in my dreams. Bombs dropped everywhere and I screamed out of immense fear, sweating in the freezing morning of Istanbul. When I woke up, I realized that it was “just” a dream.
I also watched "Jojo Rabbit" a few months ago. It is about the propaganda by the Nazis and the hatred filled among the Germans against the Jews. The film leaves an important message that the most vulnerable victims of any war are children. It is a comic drama and shows painful moments, yet helps us smile at the same time. We can appreciate a film for spreading a good message but what about the people who have suffered the ugliest forms of hatred and oppression? I wonder if the DW or the director of "Jojo Rabbit" will dare to make a film on Gaza.
Many people make the mistake of calling Gaza an open-air “prison” because Palestinians have not committed any crime to be in the "prison.”
Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling referred to Gaza as the largest concentration camp ever to exist in his 2003 book "Politicide: Ariel Sharon’s War Against the Palestinians."
In his “controversial” book, he quotes the Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld, who said in an interview with Australian television, “(the only solution is) building a wall between us and the other side, so tall that even the birds cannot fly over it ... to avoid any friction for a long, long time in the future ... Unfortunately, the Israeli army insists against all military logic on being present on both sides of the wall. We could formally finish the problem, at least in Gaza, in 48 hours, by getting out and building a proper wall. And then of course, if anybody tries to climb over the wall, we kill him.”
This statement is enough to comprehend the criminal mindset of the Israeli military if someone wants to understand, unlike Piers Morgan. After 20 years of Kimmerling’s analysis, the situation in Gaza has become more deadly.
When Morgan asks Bassem Youssef repeatedly in the viral interview what would be the “proportionate response” of Israel to what happened on Oct. 7, I would have asked him what would be the “proportionate response” of the Palestinians to what the British government did in the Balfour declaration? I would also ask him if he “condemned” the occupation of Palestinians’ land for the last 75 years.
Morgan also maintains that the Oct. 7 attack on Israel was the biggest after the Holocaust ... But has not the casualties in Gaza transgressed even the horrors of the Holocaust? Every human having a heart would believe that it was horrible that Jews had to go through the Holocaust. However, back then there was no United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Gaza massacre is taking place in the 21st century. Should this world, after a century, not have evolved as a better place to live in?
The New York Times (NYT) journalist A.M. Rosenthal wrote in 1965 in favor of the Jews who fought back against the Nazis under the title “Forgive Them Not, For They Knew What They Did.” He wrote that the Jews that were left alive in 1943 fought back and died but “took Germans with them into death.”
Expecting the NYT now to praise the Palestinian resistance is a dream that cannot be true but they do not even use a neutral language.
The stories of how the Jews would smuggle weapons into the Warsaw ghetto were quite famous during their resistance. It was commonsensical that those Jews were fighting for dignity and freedom. Now, the entire world has witnessed the war crimes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other ministers calling openly for the mass killing of Palestinians. Yet, why does it not occur to the common sense of the people that Palestinians too have the right to defend themselves?
When I look at the pile of dead bodies of children in Gaza, the optimist inside me often thinks about the ending of the film "Jojo Rabbit." Jojo feels relieved in knowing about the Allied victory that could end the terror of the Nazis. The scene shows the Jewish girl Elsa smiling when she sees the American army waving the flag of America. At present, can we dream of any “savior” to protect the Palestinians? The best thing about a film is that it has an end but what about the horrible reality surrounding us that never appears to be ending?
