When 'never again' becomes again and again (3)

No, Nicole, no and no again. The very people who have built that Holocaust Museum that they proudly show to visitors like yourself, are today killing, destroying and dispersing another people. So what is the meaning of that Museum? What is it there to say? Is it to say “It should never happen again to Jews” but I don't care if it happens to others?

Read Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's "When 'never again' becomes again and again" (Pambazuka News 152). Do you want me to believe that for Israel to exist and Israelis to live in peace and commemorate the Jewish holocaust, Palestine should disappear and Palestinians continue to be refugees in their own land?

In the name of what can you take away the dream of a Palestinian child for a home or for a country? When Jews were forced to become Christians or were burnt at the stake in the kingdom of the very Catholic Queen Isabel of Spain, they found asylum and refuge in Arab lands. Christian Europe chased them away and then to redeem itself, gave them a “homeland” at the expense of the Palestinians. Let's not forget history.

You talk about awareness, yes I agree. Like the American public should be told about Iraq and should see on their television screens the destruction of that country, Israelis should also see how their soldiers shoot and kill children and women. How their tanks uproot olive trees, how Palestinian water wells are blocked and how cement is poured into Palestinian homes so that they become inhabitable. In retaliation…

Try to find that young Israeli girl who convinced you to visit the museum and ask her if she knows what is happening on the other side of the Wall of Shame her country is building?

Awareness, Yes, Yes and Yes again. Let's build awareness and see with two eyes wide open, not just one. Let's listen with two ears, not just one!

(This letter is in response to Nicole Venter, Letters section, Pambazuka News 152.)