Lisa, I've taught the Holocaust, and your question reminds me of a debate among historians: Did Hitler and the Nazis always plan to kill all the Jews, or was it the result of ad hoc decisions over time? Scholars still debate this.
Perhaps the debate is somewhat artificial in the sense that Hitler and the Nazis vilified the Jews, demeaning them, attacking them, dehumanizing them, establishing the conditions for genocide, which were linked to the need to win a war (Jews as an existential enemy that had to be destroyed, even Jewish children, i.e. they were all "guilty").
Something similar is happening with Palestinians in Gaza. I don't think Israel and the U.S. had a plan all along to concentrate them in Gaza and kill them. But all that's gone before this has created the preconditions for a final solution to the Gaza question.
When you vilify Palestinians, demean them, attack them, incarcerate them, dehumanize them, you establish the conditions for a genocide. Then you use the excuse of a "war" to drive the most radical solution--elimination--just as the Nazis used the excuse of World War II to eliminate the Jews (who, of course, posed no existential threat to Germany).
Within the Nazi government (and now within the Israeli government), extremists always come to the forefront. Many officials in Nazi Germany wanted to relocate the Jews, not kill them all, or they wanted to exploit them as slave labor before killing them. But the extremists--the ones who just wanted to kill them all--tended to win the argument. They were the most committed, most sure of themselves, the most radical. They tended to win the argument.
So, what's happening in Gaza has been the result of long-term dehumanization and propaganda coupled with ad hoc decisions that have run to extremes, because those who are most radical tend to win these "arguments." What is truly unconscionable is the eagerness of the U.S. government to provide Israel with all the weapons and diplomatic cover it needs to implement its final solution in Gaza. Whether the president is Biden or Trump, whether Congress is controlled by the Democratic or Republican parties, the policy and result is the same: a blank check to Israel to kill as many Palestinians as they want, justified falsely in "defending" Israel from Hamas.
The Nazis thought or said the Jews were out to destroy them (obviously the Jews were totally incapable of threatening the German war machine) so they tried to destroy the Jews.
The Israeli government says Hamas is out to destroy them (obviously Hamas is totally incapable of threatening the IDF war machine) so they're trying to destroy the Palestinians.
Genocide is sold as "defensive" and "necessary."
The parallels are there, yet few people want to see them.
What could have stopped this months ago is for some countries, working together to provide an armed escort for the flotillas of humanitarian aid to break the blockade, including anti-aircraft missiles. But no countries did. And we see he result. What happened to "NEVER AGAIN?"
If only we could somehow unite all the people against the genocide in some way that made us effective in stopping it... Thanks for this timeline. I appreciate your awesome ability to confront all of this head-on.
Are the parallels similar between the two entities you discuss here (the Nazis, the Zionists) and the entity that genocided the peoples of North "America"?
My quick take: Definitely some similarities. Dehumanization. The portrayal of indigenous people as "savages" who can't be negotiated with. The mass killing of said peoples or efforts to push them off the land, resettle them in "reservations" (concentration camps) and reeducate them. The tendency to define it all in war terms. The tendency for "Indian killers" to rise to the fore of policy.
A critical difference is the time span, as the subjugation/elimination of indigenous peoples occurred over centuries, in fits and starts, and some of it occurred by accident, so to speak: the diseases that Europeans brought with them that, more than anything else, ripped the fabric of native societies.
It's hard to summarize centuries of history in a couple of paragraphs. Certainly, the intent of many settlers in the New World was to eliminate rivals (including, for that matter, animals seen as rivals and "enemies"). There is a blood-soaked methodology here that is horrible to contemplate, let alone explain--perhaps one might start with Barbara Ehrenreich's book, "Blood Rites."
A lesson, perhaps: When one set of people defines another as "savage," as "terrorists," watch out. The "non-savage" people are about to prove who the real savages are; they've met the enemy, and they are them.
Lisa, I've taught the Holocaust, and your question reminds me of a debate among historians: Did Hitler and the Nazis always plan to kill all the Jews, or was it the result of ad hoc decisions over time? Scholars still debate this.
Perhaps the debate is somewhat artificial in the sense that Hitler and the Nazis vilified the Jews, demeaning them, attacking them, dehumanizing them, establishing the conditions for genocide, which were linked to the need to win a war (Jews as an existential enemy that had to be destroyed, even Jewish children, i.e. they were all "guilty").
Something similar is happening with Palestinians in Gaza. I don't think Israel and the U.S. had a plan all along to concentrate them in Gaza and kill them. But all that's gone before this has created the preconditions for a final solution to the Gaza question.
When you vilify Palestinians, demean them, attack them, incarcerate them, dehumanize them, you establish the conditions for a genocide. Then you use the excuse of a "war" to drive the most radical solution--elimination--just as the Nazis used the excuse of World War II to eliminate the Jews (who, of course, posed no existential threat to Germany).
Within the Nazi government (and now within the Israeli government), extremists always come to the forefront. Many officials in Nazi Germany wanted to relocate the Jews, not kill them all, or they wanted to exploit them as slave labor before killing them. But the extremists--the ones who just wanted to kill them all--tended to win the argument. They were the most committed, most sure of themselves, the most radical. They tended to win the argument.
So, what's happening in Gaza has been the result of long-term dehumanization and propaganda coupled with ad hoc decisions that have run to extremes, because those who are most radical tend to win these "arguments." What is truly unconscionable is the eagerness of the U.S. government to provide Israel with all the weapons and diplomatic cover it needs to implement its final solution in Gaza. Whether the president is Biden or Trump, whether Congress is controlled by the Democratic or Republican parties, the policy and result is the same: a blank check to Israel to kill as many Palestinians as they want, justified falsely in "defending" Israel from Hamas.
The Nazis thought or said the Jews were out to destroy them (obviously the Jews were totally incapable of threatening the German war machine) so they tried to destroy the Jews.
The Israeli government says Hamas is out to destroy them (obviously Hamas is totally incapable of threatening the IDF war machine) so they're trying to destroy the Palestinians.
Genocide is sold as "defensive" and "necessary."
The parallels are there, yet few people want to see them.
What could have stopped this months ago is for some countries, working together to provide an armed escort for the flotillas of humanitarian aid to break the blockade, including anti-aircraft missiles. But no countries did. And we see he result. What happened to "NEVER AGAIN?"
If only we could somehow unite all the people against the genocide in some way that made us effective in stopping it... Thanks for this timeline. I appreciate your awesome ability to confront all of this head-on.
Are the parallels similar between the two entities you discuss here (the Nazis, the Zionists) and the entity that genocided the peoples of North "America"?
My quick take: Definitely some similarities. Dehumanization. The portrayal of indigenous people as "savages" who can't be negotiated with. The mass killing of said peoples or efforts to push them off the land, resettle them in "reservations" (concentration camps) and reeducate them. The tendency to define it all in war terms. The tendency for "Indian killers" to rise to the fore of policy.
A critical difference is the time span, as the subjugation/elimination of indigenous peoples occurred over centuries, in fits and starts, and some of it occurred by accident, so to speak: the diseases that Europeans brought with them that, more than anything else, ripped the fabric of native societies.
It's hard to summarize centuries of history in a couple of paragraphs. Certainly, the intent of many settlers in the New World was to eliminate rivals (including, for that matter, animals seen as rivals and "enemies"). There is a blood-soaked methodology here that is horrible to contemplate, let alone explain--perhaps one might start with Barbara Ehrenreich's book, "Blood Rites."
A lesson, perhaps: When one set of people defines another as "savage," as "terrorists," watch out. The "non-savage" people are about to prove who the real savages are; they've met the enemy, and they are them.
100%
There are no words anymore for this horror.
Thank you Lisa for being there and persisting.
Shared.
No one can prove you wrong.
THANK YOU for your excellent piece this morning. (your posts are always excellent)
Profound indictment. Complete indictment. Undeniable indictment.