2023/10/09

Ted Rall: Clueless on Gaza

Ted Rall discusses how Americans are Clueless on Gaza

Gazans faced a choice.

They could obey Israel and its supporters. They could suffer, chafe under occupation, dodge bombs and bullets, starve, watch their friends and neighbors die, with no end in sight as the world keeps ignoring them.

They could stage protest marches that no important media outlet would cover, write firm-but-polite letters to the editor no one would publish and post to social media accounts no one would read. As they engaged in peaceful protest, they would keep starving and dying.

Or they could confront the Israelis with violence.

You can argue that violence is never the answer. You can claim that you’d be docile, that you’d live under blockade and occupation, never taking up arms or cheering those who do.

Go on, judge the Gazans. We both know you’d do the same exact thing if you were them.

Emphasis Mine

Back in 1943, there was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising:

The uprising started on 19 April when the ghetto refused to surrender to the police commander SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, who ordered the destruction of the ghetto, block by block, ending on 16 May. A total of 13,000 Jews were killed, about half of them burnt alive or suffocated.

Stroop reported 110 German casualties, including 17 killed.

The uprising was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II. The Jews knew that victory was impossible and survival unlikely. Marek Edelman, the only surviving ŻOB commander, said their inspiration to fight was "not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths". According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the uprising was "one of the most significant occurrences in the history of the Jewish people".

Emphasis Mine

One ghetto uprising is celebrated, while the other ongoing one is condemned.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Poland) - Photo from Jürgen Stroop Report to Heinrich Himmler from May 1943. One of the most iconic pictures of World War II.

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