Sunday, July 27, 2014

Final Solution to Gaza

I typed that deliberately provocative phrase into Google, not knowing what I would find. What I found was this shocking manifesto.
Warsaw Ghetto, April 1943
The author is Moshe Feiglin, member of the ruling Likud Party and Deputy Speaker of the Knesset. His proposal, published in Israel July 15, 2014, reads like a memo Martin Bormann might have sent to Heinrich Himmler.
Gaza, July 2014
Ethnic Cleansing
Feiglin would issue an ultimatum ordering Palestinians to leave Gaza. Anyone staying behind would be subject to attack by the full might of the Israel Defense Force. The Israeli government has implemented this step.
Warsaw, April 1943
He believes the passage from Gaza into Egypt would be easy.
Egypt (left) and Gaza border
The truth is that Egypt has closed its border with Gaza and has no intention of opening it to a flood of refugees. Civilians in Gaza are trapped.

Attack
Feiglin wants Israel to attack Gaza with the full might if the Israeli military with no concern for the lives of children or other non-combatants.
Warsaw, 1943
On July 24, Israel attacked a UN school, killing 15 and wounding over 200.
Gaza, 2014
Siege
Step three in Feiglin's master plan is a total siege of Gaza. There has been an ongoing blockade of all but food and medicine into Gaza for the past seven years. Feiglin wants to stop the food, too, and starve the occupants.
Warsaw, 1943 - Child died of starvation
In the past, Israel has used food as a weapon against Gaza. They have not yet tried full on starvation as a weapon.

Retaliation
Feiglin uses the word "defense" but he is really talking about retaliation. He wants any attack on Israel or Israeli soldiers to be repaid with a devastating retaliation with no concern for civilian casualties.
Execution of Polish hostages in retaliation for an attack on a Nazi police station.
When Germany invaded Poland, civilian deaths exceeded military deaths by a ratio of 10 to 1. Israel claims half the Gaza casualties are combatants while the UN sets the ratio at about 3 civilians for each combatant.

Conquer
Feiglin's next step is the invasion and conquest of Gaza. Again, civilian casualties be damned.

Elimination
This is Feiglin's own terrifying word. He tries to soften things a little but he describes the removal of the entire Palestinian population of Gaza either through death or deportation.
Deportation of Jews from the Lodz Ghetto, 1941.
 Absorption
Feiglin's final step in his final solution of the Gaza problem is the absorb the now depopulated Gaza into Israel. He calls this "Sovereignty."
Warsaw Ghetto wall.

Wall between Gaza and Israel.

I am not saying that Israel's treatment of Gaza is as bad as the Nazi's. It is not. But I have to add, not yet. If the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset gets his way the only difference would be the ovens and death camps.

The current leadership of Israel has learned the wrong lesson from World War II. They somehow learned that walling off an ethnic group they fear and hate to be followed by the forced deportation of that group is, somehow, a viable policy option.

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