Reichskristalnacht- This is not Gaza
This is not Gaza
This is not Gaza
This is not Gaza
The on-going Israel-Palestinian conflict continues to rear its head on University of California campuses. This time the furor is at UC Santa Barbara, where sociology professor William I Robinson (who is Jewish) recently sent an email to his students containing images of Nazi atrocities against Jews compared with images of "Israeli crimes" against Palestinians.
At least two students were offended by the images, with which they did not agree. They have taken the step of formally complaining to the administration. As a result, an investigation by the university is on-going into whether Robinson violated his academic role or whether he was simply exercising his academic freedom. Predictably, his professorial colleagues are rallying behind Robinson, who states that his academic freedom is under attack.
How this plays out at UCSB is anybody's guess. To me, it is just another case of a liberal university professor trying to shove his personal views down the throats of his students. It is also another example of why so many Jewish students feel under siege on UC campuses as a result of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. (I myself teach at UC-Irvine, and as I write this, we are gearing up for another week of attacks against Israel-as well as America and "Zionist" Jews- being sponsored by the Muslim Student Union at UCI.)
Here is what I would say to Professor Robinson:
First of all, my students (English as a second language) have no idea what I think about the world and its issues. My job is to teach them English-not teach them what they should think. You can teach sociology without injecting your personal views. You could remain neutral and present both sides of an issue.
Be that as it may, you are entitled to your opinions. If you sympathize with the Palestinian cause, I can respect that, and certainly, there are valid points to be made on their behalf. Moreover, Israel is not immune from criticism. Where I take issue with you is comparing Israel's policies to those of Nazi Germany, a practice that is currently popular-but outrageously false. I respect the fact that you are Jewish, but I also have extensive knowledge of Nazi Germany. I have spent three years of my life in Germany and return regularly. I also have written a history of a small town in Germany, which includes an account of the Nazi era and the fate of its Jewish residents.
First of all, Nazi Germany was never under external threat of attack from its neighbors. Jews were not undermining the country's security, nor were they engaging in acts of terror against the German state or people. Nobody was launching rockets into Germany from neighboring countries. Jews were not blowing themselves up in crowded marketplaces or on buses. In fact, with few exceptions (like the Warsaw ghetto) Jews went to their fate submissively. Israel is, indeed, under attack from the Palestinians and from its neighbors ever since its creation in 1948. They are entitled to defend themselves from their enemies who are determined to wipe them out.
Where can you point to an orchestrated government campaign against Palestinians as sub-humans? Where is the Reichskristalnacht against Palestinians? Where can you find a deliberate attempt by Israel to literally extinguish the Palestinian people?
Gaza is not, as you have claimed, comparable to the Warsaw ghetto. The Warsaw ghetto was only a step to the Final Solution, and the Nazi intent was to destroy the Jews. That is not the intent of Israel vis-vis the Gazans/Palestinians. Gazans today are living under Gazan rule. There are no Jews in Gaza. They left. Unless I am mistaken, there is a border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. Is it fair to condemn Israel for shutting off its border with Gaza when under rocket attack and not criticize Egypt when they shut down their border? Why is it that the Arab countries in the region want to keep the Palestinians confined to this small area living as refugees and in squalor rather than let them assimilate into their countries? I think you know the answer.
If Israelis are to be compared to Nazis, where are the gas chambers? How can you compare the sad fact that Gazan/Palestinian and Lebanese civilians are killed because they were caught in the cross-fire (Hamas and Hizbollah are notorious for setting up their combat operations in populated areas)or killed by air strikes when the targets were Hamas/Hizbollah fighters with the deliberate genocide that took place in World War II? Where are the cases of Israeli troops rounding up Palestinians, marching them to pits and shooting them(men, women and children) by the hundreds?
If this sounds like a history lesson directed toward Professor Robinson, it is not. I am sure Robinson knows his German/Jewish history quite well. Rather, it is directed toward those students who have to have his distorted version of history shoved down their throats.
University students are entitled to an education-not an indoctrination.
4 comments:
Thank you, Findalis. What is happening at UCSB is a deliberate attempt by a professor who knows better to twist history to suit his own agenda.
The Jewish expansion is the systematic slaughter of people. A system designed to murder people deemed undesirable non-jews.
The Israelis have not even come close to even thinking about such QUICK horror. Instead they have slowly over time practice ethnic cleansing in Gaza. To compare the two as the same idea REASONABLE - when your dead your dead regardless of how you were killed.
Over 6,000,000 Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis, and even many more millions of Jews suffered from persecution short-of-death from the Nazis. Approximately 5,000,000 "Non-Jews" were also slaughtered by the Nazis, including 100,000 homosexuals, 200,000 gypsies, and 200,000 disabled persons.
Compare those "millions" of victims with the "handful" of Jehovah's Witnesses. There were only approximately 6000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany during the 1930s-40s. While many of those 6000 German JWs were repeatedly arrested during the 1930s and 1940s, only a fraction were jailed or imprisoned for any significant length of time. Only about 200-300 German JWs lost their lives, and the majority of those died from any number of causes other than having been executed. Approximately 1000 JWs from other European countries lost their lives while incarcerated by the Nazis.
During that same time period, there were more Jehovah's Witnesses arrested and jailed in the United States than in Germany. In fact, from 1941 until 1945, approximately 4500 American Jehovah's Witnesses "elected" to go to prison rather than serve in the U.S. Military and go fight against those same Nazis who were committing those atrocities.
Approximately 3000 of those 4500 American JWs were even offered "conscientious objector" status, in which they were offered "non-combatant" work as a substitute, but 99% of those JWs refused to even help out that much.
In fact, it is an insult to mention Jehovah's Witnesses alongside Jewish Holocaust victims given that Jehovah's Witnesses view the Jews much as did the Nazis.
The WatchTower Society teaches its own version of "replacement theology", which says that GOD rejected the Jews as His "chosen people", and replaced them with today's "Jehovah's Witnesses". In fact, the title "Jehovah's Witnesses" was originally applied to the Jews by the Prophet Isaiah, and is even quoted on the wall at the entrance to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.
The WatchTower Society, in calling its own members "Jehovah's Witnesses" is attempting to steal that designation away from the Jews. The WatchTower Society even teaches that all of the Bible's promises of restoration for the Jewish people now belongs to the followers of the WatchTower Society.
Anonymous,
Regarding the Jehovah's Witnesses, I am not sure what your point is, and I don't know much at all about the Jehovah's Witnesses, so I won't add any more in the way of comment to what you said.
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