The (Insert Name Here) Ghetto Uprising

Compared to the abuse that is heaped on Israeli policy these days, this is nothing more than a gentle chiding.



A little while ago I wrote concerning the quite horrific mess that is Israel in the 21st century. I made a parallel between child whom is abused becoming an abuser, and Israelites having suffered oppression at the hands of the Nazi's becoming oppressors themselves. I was accused of oversimplifying the case to the point of distortion. To an extent I'll accept that. Not a very big extent though as I still think it's a valid comparison, the more so since a particular historical parallel has been brought to my attention. Allow me to explain...

In the spring of 1943 things were looking bleak for the Jews who had found themselves confined to the Warsaw Ghetto, an area won through conquest that was being used to contain the Jews. 300,000 of them had been deported to Treblinka in the previous summer, and they had heard dark rumours of mass killings taking place there. This was of course a comparatively late stage in their persecution by the Nazi's. They had endured what must have seemed like endless suffering; numerous racial laws had clearly defined them as a sub-class of people and so the state tacitly condoned, not to say encouraged anyone who struck against them. Kristalnacht saw the destruction of much of their property. Those goods and properties that escaped this were confiscated by the state. Jews outside of Germany had been forcibly removed from their land to make way for German settlers as part of Hitler’s "Lebensraum" policy. Those who remained in German held territory were treated as second class citizens in their own country, finding that the only work available to them was unskilled labour at best, and no work at all at worst. Initially they were all packed into ghettos such as the one in Warsaw. Even these grotesque and crowded places could not be thought of as their own as the Nazi's kept them on a tight leash with any perceived disobedience being met with lethal and indiscriminate force.

By this time there had been murmuring and discontent throughout the Jewish ghettos. The mass deportation and subsequent tales of horror during the summer of 1942 led to the formation of the ZOB, an organisation that had resistance to the Nazi oppressors as it's sole purpose. It's methods were crude; by January 1943 they had managed to acquire some weapons and used them on the German soldiers who came to round up Jews for deportation. It was a small victory as it only drove the Germans away for a few days, but it was cause for celebration amongst a people so crushed that any act of defiance brought hope and a certain freedom from the grim inevitability of their lives.

On April 19th 1943, the German's entered the Warsaw ghetto with the intention of liquidating it and deporting all inhabitants to the various death camps set up around Poland. 750 members of ZOB fought the heavily armed, better-trained and numerically superior German forces off for almost a month. The fact that they were doomed to lose is an irrelevance here; they knew that they were making martyrs of themselves but they felt that the treatment that they were receiving was so bad, so inhuman that it was better to obey the dictates of their conscience even though it would cost them their lives. They were martyred as free men and women as well as Jews. Their actions were of course utterly condemned by the Nazi's and used as an excuse for even more savage brutality (if that were possible...) toward the Jews. Despite this and despite the inherent futility of the ZOB led uprising, this incident is (rightly) recorded in history as an heroic stand against oppression and evil. Time has led us to forget whatever condemnations the Nazi's and their sympathizers put forward and to remember only the heroism of those incredibly brave men and women.

I would say that one of the reasons the uprising happened in the first place was that the Nazi's had put the Jews through so much, heaping indignity upon indignity, that the members of ZOB (which, by the way, stands for Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa which in turn means Jewish Fighting Organisation) felt that they had nothing else to lose. A man or woman with nothing to lose is capable of doing things that would have been considered either out of character or suicidally stupid depending upon your point of view. Which leads me back to Israel circa 2001...
Summer 2001 would seem to hold the promise of still darker days ahead for the Palestinian people of Israel. They have found themselves confined to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, area's that were won by conquest, and have endured suffering that must seem endless to them. They have been displaced from their land, firstly by the creation of Israel itself (although I should clarify at this point that I continue to believe that the creation of Israel was both a good and necessary thing) and then by the creation of Israeli settlements in the aforementioned conquered areas. They are treated as second class citizens; the Israeli police have admitted to tribunals investigating the events of the recent troubles that they use a mix of live ammunition and rubber bullets when controlling Arab-Israeli and Palestinian riots, and rubber bullets only when the Jewish Israeli's rise in anger.
The Israeli policy of assassination further reminds the Palestinians that any perceived disobedience on their part will be met with lethal and sometimes indiscriminate force. Far from boasting the pinpoint accuracy that made the Israeli secret service Mossad so feared in the 70's and 80's, these attacks can come at any time and have no guarantee of leaving innocent bystanders untouched. How many people have died at the hands of an Israeli assassin? How many of those were the actual targets? Do the Israeli government even care? It would appear not as they show no signs of abandoning this policy.
Today finds many more moderate Palestinians and Arab Israeli's supporting the actions of organisations such as Hamas. Indeed, 3 out of 4 Palestinians support the recent wave of suicide bombings. More people seem to be coming out in support of meeting Israeli force and intimidation with force of their own. They reason that they have nothing else left to lose. The more radical amongst them would rather become a martyr to the cause of freedom for the Palestinian people than be battered and abused by the Israelis. This is despite the fact that the Israeli army and Security forces are numerically superior, far better trained, and in possession of superior equipment. All the Palestinians have is some small arms and bomb making equipment. Every time they do strike at Israel, it is used as an excuse for even more brutal and savage reprisals against the Palestinians.

I think it's pretty obvious what I'm getting at here. One can see the many similarities between the actions of the Jews of Warsaw in 1943 and those of the Palestinians of Israel in 2001 without much prompting. It would appear that the Jews have forgotten an extremely important lesson from their own history. Either that or they simply don't care enough about the Palestinians to think much about it.


As a final point, it has also been pointed out to me that the Palestinians have been a lot more active and violent in their efforts against the Jews than the Jews were against the Nazi's. In truth, I no longer recall or care whom it was that committed the first atrocity against citizens of the other side. The fact is it doesn't matter any more because when one side commits what the other calls an atrocity, it is used as an excuse to commit another one in reprisal. What does matter, regardless of how one views the Palestinians and their cause, is that they are fighting for their freedom against the most appalling odds. Whether the Israelis like it or not, this makes them martyr's of equal weight to those in Warsaw.