To celebrate “Love Without Borders” in a city ringed with checkpoints to keep its natives divided and exiled is ludicrous! This event makes it appear that LGBTI people support the occupation and we should do our best to show this support does not represent our entire community.
I’m the grandson of German Jews, raised on stories of how relatives were stripped of their citizenship, denied their professions, driven from homes to relocation camps, badgered and humiliated. The Shoah overshadows the horrors that Jews suffered in Germany before the Wansee conference that initiated the Holocaust, but Palestinians now endure the same treatment that our families endured in Germany in the late 1930’s. As long as there is no organized, massive genocide on the scale of the Shoah, and children and other innocents are “only” killed as “collateral damage” or from malnutrition and lack of medical care due to the many checkpoints and curfews and other forms of economic strangulation, yes, the Israeli government can honestly claim that they are better than the Nazis. But since when is “better than the Nazis” an adequate standard?
That people are so abused in the name of Judaism disgusts and horrifies me. We must oppose the abuse of Palestinians and support the boycott of Israel. As GLBT people who seek justice in the world we must then support the boycott of World Pride in the occupied city of Jerusalem.
"Never Again!" is an important assertion. We can never tolerate bigotry or genocide. But what happened to us we should be making sure it never happens again -- not just to us, but to anyone.
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Eloquently said, Jack. Here's what my friend Hedy Epstein said in a July 31, 2005, letter to the Veterans for Peace Board of Directors:
The phrase "Never Again"—the motto of Holocaust survivors—should be about protecting every person from ethnic cleansing and genocide. Unfortunately, the Arab Palestinians have not been afforded these protections. ... I visited Palestine in 2003 and 2004 and saw with my own eyes the impact of the military occupation of Palestine, the cost in human lives and the suffering. Yes, Israeli Jews have suffered, too, but, by far, Palestinians have born the brunt of a worthy dream—a safe place for Jews—which became a catastrophe or al-Naqba ... for Palestinians. ... It is time to end the catastrophe, and the killing and the suffering. ... Now is the time for more drastic steps. I therefore support the call for "Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights."
Thanks, Bernie, for highlighting the similarity of thought between Nazis and ultra-Zionists who believe that a people whom they want to deprive of land and livelihood just "deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth."
The Nazis railed against the "liberal idiots and self-loathing Germans" who "lost" WWI.
Thank you for your anger, hatred, and name calling.
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