WARSAW GHETTOS v/s GAZA DEATHTRAP
The Disappearance Of Freedom Fighters
I well remember the Warsaw Ghettos. Along with millions around the world I cheered the heroic resistance put up by the brave Jews holed up there. We were inspired by their courage and the spirit that refused to surrender even when faced with certain death. And we marveled at and praised their ingenuity in using the underground sewers as a supply line to smuggle in food, medicine and ammunition to the besieged freedom fighters and rescue the dying, the sick and the critically injured from that hellhole.
And we shed buckets of tears when that symbol of resistance against brute force was finally snuffed out.
Even years later, when a movie depicting the resistance in the Warsaw Ghettos was screened in a cinema theatre in Bombay, I remember the audience breaking into thunderous applause at the deeds of those valiant men. I applauded with them.
When we heard of the Nazis gassing the Jews in Germany we were shocked, outraged and saddened beyond imagination. We rightly condemned it as a vile act of genocide.
Today it is a different scene. The roles have been reversed. Not unlike the bullied becoming a bullier in time, the descendants of those who fought back against their oppressors in the Warsaw Ghettos have themselves become the oppressors.
Failing to bring to their knees the Palestinians they have imprisoned in Gaza, even after depriving them of fuel, medicine and food, they are now raining death and destruction on the corralled population that has all escape routes closed. According to a news report, when some panic stricken Gazans attempted to escape into neighboring Egypt through the only Egyptian gate at the Egypt-Gaza border, the Egyptian security forces pushed them back into the cauldron in Gaza to be massacred.
At the date of writing, the Israelis have killed over 300 Palestinians, including innocent men, women and children, injured thousands more, more than 30% critically, and are reducing to rubble whole neighborhoods. And they say, this is only the beginning.
All because the Gazans persist in their acts of resistance to the brutal occupation of more than 40 years by the Israelis.
This time around there are no cheers for the indomitable and brave Gazans. No one honors their resistance. No tears are shed for their dead. No condemnation is forthcoming of the brutal warfare launched by the occupiers against the occupied.
Instead, the resistors, the freedom fighters, the victims of what has been described as a war crime, of what in truth is a genocidal act, go unrecognized, their brave resistance unsung, their dead un-mourned – all by the simple strategy of labeling them as “terrorists”.
And those carrying out the barbaric war to snuff out the resistance are hailed as a bulwark against “terrorism”, the front line in the “war on terrorism” dreamed up by neoconservative members of President Bush’s administration and launched with much fanfare by the President himself.
Thanks to this new order, there are no resistors left. No freedom fighters. Only “terrorists”.
This suits the occupiers, the colonizers and superpowers seeking to establish commanding positions in strategic regions – it suits them fine. After all they were
the officiating priests at the re-baptism service.
It is so much easier and simpler to “eliminate” (take out, in their language) thousands of troublesome “terrorists”, even hundreds of them in a single strike, than to kill a handful of resistors to oppression or occupation or dominance.
Dead freedom fighters are mourned and honored and go on to become heroes, martyrs and legends. They remain a force to be reckoned with years after their death.
“Eliminated terrorists” invite no tears, are dumped on the dung heap of history and soon forgotten.
So the powerful believe. Fortunately there remain a few who can see through the game. And those for whom the so called terrorists gave their lives will not forget them. Nor will the40of the wanton destruction, of body parts of their loved ones strewn all over be easily forgotten by those who saw them. They will remain seared in their brains and in their psyches for generation to come.
A price will have to be paid. Nothing is free in this world. As we sow so shall we reap. Chickens do come home to roost.
It is for us to prevent this happening, by preventing the massacres taking place, stopping them when they start and by trying to heal when they do occur.
Gulamhusein A. Abba,
Danbury, CT 06810,
USA
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" …Martin Luther King
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