Admittedly, such grand title should be reserved for a political commentator well versed in West Asia conflicts. After all I didn't live through the Nazi occupation nor have I been on the ground inside Gaza Strip. Thus far I have lived a life relatively free from persecution, starvation and despair. Most days when I wake up I am greeted with a clear blue sky and always with the hustle and bustle of the streets. This is a far cry from what the Gazans have been subjected to every day for the past month - deafening bombs, sleepless nights and piercing cries. Not to mention streets filled with the stench emanating from torn corpses.
Why does one dare to make a comparison between
Gaza and Auschwitz? Obviously, we can't escape the irony of history
that the persecuted has now become the persecutor. But what about
scale? Certainly the death toll in Gaza Strip ever since the beginning
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems paltry to the degree of
insignificance compared to the approximately one-million Jewish deaths
occurred in Auschwitz. Some might also challenge the comparison between
the events that have taken place in Gaza with those inside
Auschwitz-Birkenau. It's a "military conflict" after all rather than a
genocide committed by a lopsidedly stronger party. Or is it?
Secondly, when Adolf Hitler was conducting his symphony of death, there was no global media conglomerates with field reporters scrutinising his every directive. The very nature of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was not ascertained by the Allied until late into the War. This is in sharp contrast with the situation the Israeli government has found itself in. Fresh photographs of Palestinian casualties are coming out of Gaza Strip by the minute, which effectively force the Israeli government into massive cover-ups and ban on reporting in certain areas of Gaza Strip. Imagine an Israeli military operation sans media scrutiny. It's not for the faint-hearted to even begin to fathom the devastation then.
Lastly, and perhaps most disturbingly, people tend to overlook that Hamas is a democratically elected body. By attacking Hamas, the state of Israel, itself a democracy, is attacking the will of the Palestinian people and the fundamental value of the Occident, which it claims to be a member of. Many Israelis like to invoke the rhetorical question: what would a Western country do if rockets are falling on its cites? Implicit in the question is the denial and distortion of the cause and effect of history. Robert Fisk pointed out in his article : "most of the people of Gaza don't come from Gaza."
Why is Gaza our Auschwitz? Rockets are being launched out of Gaza Strip out of exasperation and despondency. The Israeli government has managed to turn the whole strip into a concentration camp by systematically wresting human dignity away from the Palestinian people. Undoubtedly we should condemn all wanton acts of murder, be it from Hamas or Israel but it's also incumbent upon us to know the facts. When you uproot a whole generation of people from their homes, force them into becoming refugees, raze down their apartments, deny them basic necessities of life, and then degrade them to the level of animals by constantly subjecting them to blood and toil, you will have suicide bombers, not as martyrs, but as desperate human beings trying to salvage their last scrap of dignity with a retaliatory act of blowing themselves up into pieces against their tormentors.

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