Rabbis say Remember the Holocaust: stop the genocide in Gaza
JVL Introduction
It is Holocaust Memorial Day and we are pleased to publish several articles and statements. We remember and honour those 6 million Jews and millions of other peoples murdered by the Nazi regime. But this year it is important to emphasise that lessons have not been learned, that “Never Again” has too often been a hollow cry; that the institutions set up to ensure “Never Again” have failed to prevent genocide, eg in Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Congo; that the laws created about occupation have been violated by Israel for decades. But one of those institutions, the International Court of Justice has acted to try to stop Israel’s war on Gaza and Rabbi Brant Rosen writes in that context.
He writes movingly of the importance of remembering the Holocaust. He is writing while the destruction of Gaza continues and just as the International Court of Justice declared the Interim Measures that Israel needs to take. He writes: “International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2024 is arriving just as Israel and the US government are literally being judged on the world stage for an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.” We can add that the UK government to that statement as under the Genocide Convention all signatories are required to act to prevent genocide whereas alongside the USA, the UK government (disgracefully backed by the so called Leader of the Opposition) has also helped to facilitate Israel’s actions.
The Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council has written to President Biden demanding that he “honor the word and spirit of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day by using (his) office to bring a ceasefire to this tragic violence — and to broker a truly just peace that will bring freedom and security for all who live between the river and the sea..”
We can and must ask the same of the UK government too.
LL
This article was originally published by Shalom Rav on Fri 26 Jan 2024. Read the original here.
On Gaza, Genocide and International Holocaust Remembrance Day
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Excellent
Thank you JVP
A deeply-moving clarion call, thank you Rabbi.
Those who plan / do evil often hide behind useful, self-serving lies.
LESS THAN 48 HOURS after the ICJ decided Israel had a plausible case of genocide to answer, we SUDDENLY hear about an Israeli allegation – only an unevidenced allegation – that 12 members of UNRWA staff had been involved in the 7 October Hamas attack.
CNN reported 6 hours ago that information about this allegation is “scanty”. It’s conceivably based on nothing more solid than a CLAIM by a single Israeli journalist in NOVEMBER on “the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that one of the hostage takers in Gaza was a teacher at an UNRWA-run school”.
We all know the completely debunked allegations about Hamas beheading 40 babies and putting one in an oven – and that they were launched the same way. A single Israeli journalist started the story running on the basis of what she claimed one IDF soldier had said. Has the same journalist been responsible for both stories?
Given that the Israeli journalist is unlikely to have visited UNWRA schools in Gaza often enough to recognise any of their staff, HOW did he / she identify this teacher as one of the hostage takers? There were no photos of the actual hostage takers, I think. As a minimum, ANY secure identification that the hostage taker and the teacher are the same person requires the forensic review of good clear images of them both That review needs to be done by wholly independent sources who can rule whether either or both of the images have been doctored.
The allegation is so shocking that IF it had a good evidence basis the claims would have been passed on to many nations’ and international bodies’ intelligence services. So how come an allegation first made 2 months ago has only just come to light NOW? How come journalists across the western media still know almost nothing about the allegation beyond the fact it’s been made?
I leave the last words to CNN “That report [of the allegation] was picked up by Israeli news outlets, prompting the UN agency to issue a statement calling for an “immediate stop” to the spreading of “unsubstantiated claims” about the organization, saying they amounted to “misinformation.”