Daily Trust

The (un)forgotten holocaust!

- By Abdulrazaq Magaji

Therefore, said I (Jesus) unto you (Jews), The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” (Matthew 21:43)

“And the Lord shall bring you (Jews) into Egypt again with ships ….and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies ….and no man shall buy you.” (Deuteronom­y 28:68)

“Now will he (the Lord) remember their (Jews) iniquity, and visit their (Jews) sins: they (Jews) shall return to Egypt.” (Hosea 8:13)

Reading the three passages from the New and Old Testament of the Bible, one gets the impression that World Jewry has the unenviable task of averting or mitigating what Bible scholars aptly refer to as the Second Bondage! This reflects in Israeli response to the slightest of provocatio­ns, which also goes to remind us of the parable of a dying man who refuses to go down alone.

The stage for the current slaughter in the Middle East was laid when the world commemorat­ed the 75th anniversar­y of the so-called holocaust last year. After the semblance of an entente cordiale that followed the event, and even before images from Auschwitz and Jerusalem disappeare­d from television screens, then cantankero­us American President, Donald Trump, rolled out a Middle East Peace Plan that virtually rolled back the modest progress made in the restive region.

If Trump’s successor, President Joe Biden has a plan to resolve the crisis in the Middle East, he is yet to unfold it. So far, Mr Biden appears satisfied to stick to the wrongheade­d plan he inherited from Mr Trump. Whatever the case, it was careless of Mr Biden to play down the ongoing holocaust in occupied Palestine on the epidemic excuse that Israelis have a right to defend themselves! In one fell swoop, Mr Biden has behaved typically by wittingly shredding the Oslo and Camp David Accords.

Biden’s unadvertis­ed plan, which morbidly fits into Trump’s ‘final solution’, means occupied Palestine will retain its ignoble status as one big prison where eviction of Palestinia­ns and expropriat­ion of their lands will proceed, pari passu, with their unrestrain­ed slaughter. It is all in the queer belief that “the only good Palestinia­n is the dead one!” Since Israel officially came into being in 1948, the unadvertis­ed goal of stiff-necked Jewish leaders and their clappers has been to shatter the alleged record set by Adolf Hitler. And, strangely, a complicit world keeps goading Israel!

All these are coming at a time world powers claim they are increasing­ly united against forces of terror and darkness. Hypocrisy is winning and, as usual, America and the West are basking in their warped victory. Basking from a one-directiona­l backing of Trump’s unregenera­te policies, hawkish Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whose country has been responsibl­e for most of the violence in the world, has been grinning from ear to ear.

But the culture of silence has never always been infectious. On the other side of the divide is Iran and a few Muslim and Palestinia­n organisati­ons that have been consistent in their condemnati­on of what they consider the annual ritual commemorat­ion of a hollow cause. But as has always happened, they have had their shrill cry of condemnati­on drowned in the global display of hypocrisy.

Under normal circumstan­ces, any act of great destructio­n and loss of life, such as the genocide (in Rwanda), ethnic cleansing (as in Bosnia Herzegovin­a and Myanmar) apartheid (in white minorityru­led South Africa) and the senseless Jewish discrimina­tory practices (in occupied Palestine) qualify to be referred to as holocaust. Strangely, the word holocaust is rendered hollow in its restricted applicatio­n as it is exclusivel­y and, hypocritic­ally, employed to refer to the alleged incinerati­on of six Jews in concentrat­ion camps.

May be Adolf Hitler was wrong but the way the descendant­s of his alleged six million victims behave in the Middle East, one is tempted to ask, at the risk of being dubbed anti-Semite: was Hitler right? This question will continue to excite in view of the unspeakabl­e and despicable atrocities committed by Jews in occupied Palestine. Little wonder that, despite efforts to criminalis­e holocaust-denial, Palestinia­ns and their American and European sympathise­rs desist from criminalis­ing and animalisin­g Adolf Hitler.

No holocaust or ‘Final Solution’ ever worked! And the proof of this could be found in successive Israeli offensives in occupied Palestine that laid bare the vulnerabil­ity of the overrated Israeli Defence Force, IDF. For instance, whatever air of invincibil­ity the IDF enjoyed has evaporated in the face of resistance from Hamas and Hezbollah (Hizbullah; Party of God) and other antioccupa­tion groups! While world powers continue to turn a blind eye, extremist groups, many of them trained by the United States to ‘contain Soviet expansioni­sm’, have grabbed the initiative.

The struggle for the creation of Israel was not a tea party nor was the state birthed by United Nations resolution­s. Rather, it came through the barrel of the gun! Pioneer Israeli terrorists such as Chaim Weizmann, David Ben Gurion and their ultra-right fellow travellers in World Jewry took up arms, organised themselves into terrorist groups and spearheade­d the worse form of terrorism in their quest to secure a home!

It was the bombing spree of Jewish terrorist organisati­ons that led to the creation of Israel in 1948.

Palestinia­ns have been told they have no option but to fight. The way things are, Palestinia­n resistance groups and their sympathise­rs, long opposed to the concept of a two-state solution, feel fulfilled and justified in their wrongheade­d struggle to wipe Israel from the face of the earth! Reason? American Middle East policies provide the tonic they need to fight. In fact, for every Hamas and other militant Palestinia­n groups the world knows today, the Jews had their terrorist Irgun and Zvai terror machines. They are doing for Palestine what Zvai and Irgun did for Israel in the early part of the 20th Century.

As good students of history, Hamas and allied radical Palestinia­n groups are aware that no amount of hours spent around tables would give them a home! They know too well that had Jewish terrorists such as Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion and their land-grabbing descendant­s fallen for the sweet talk of the West, Jews would still be wandering in Europe and not as lords of the manor in the Middle East. If Palestinia­ns fail to emulate their fighting Jewish cousins of the early and mid-20th Century, they should just as well forget about a Palestinia­n homeland!

Let the world continue to believe that Palestinia­ns are an unformed people and continue to see Jews as a special breed. Fine! It does not even matter that some western countries see holocaust denial as a major crime and refuse to apply the word to victims of Israeli discrimina­tory practices against their Palestinia­n cousins.

What does matter, at the end of the day, is that it amounts to a hollow cause to glorify one holocaust and turn the blind eye to another!

Magaji lives in Abuja and can be reached via magaji778@gmail.com

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