We have reached a point where a photograph of Palestinians lining up to receive parcels of aid is used as evidence that Israel has created a new Auschwitz.
To you and me, the difference is obvious. At Auschwitz, the inmates were forced to queue for the gas, not for boxes containing food and basic hygiene items. In the eyes of much of the world, however, there is little difference. The neatness of the victim-to-oppressor narrative is irresistible.
An old saying has it that an antisemite only accuses a Jew of theft for the joy of seeing him turn out his pockets. It is worth bearing this in mind as we are bombarded with Israelophobic propaganda.
Last week, the UN told us that 14,000 Palestinian babies would die within two days. When those two days came and went, was there a reckoning for those who had made the false claim? Or for those who amplified it, whether in Parliament, on television or on social media?
There was not. They had seen us turn out our pockets; they had had their fun, and that was enough. It was time for the next claim.
On some level, they know it’s rubbish; we know it’s rubbish; they know we know it’s rubbish; and we know they know we know it’s rubbish. There comes a point, therefore, when we must stop playing their game.
In his 1911 essay Instead of Excessive Apology, the Revisionist Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote: “Instead of turning our backs to the accusers, as there is nothing to apologise for, and nobody to apologise to, we swear again and again that it is not our fault.
“Isn’t it long overdue to respond to all these and all future accusations, reproaches, suspicions, slanders and denunciations by simply folding our arms and loudly, clearly, coldly and calmly answer with the only argument that is understandable and accessible to this public: ‘Go to Hell!’?
“Who are we, to make excuses to them; who are they to interrogate us? What is the purpose of this mock trial over the entire people where the sentence is known in advance?” Perhaps this is a better response, the next time someone compares Gaza to Auschwitz. Go to hell. Go to hell.
Consider Sudan. It has a population of 50 million, compared to the two million in Gaza. Yet over the last two years of war in the African state, was there a war there? Who knew? – it has received just 1,277 truckloads of humanitarian aid. More than half a million Sudanese children under the age of five have perished from malnutrition in that time.
Gaza, by contrast, has received 92,000 truckloads in the past year and a half alone, with 10,000 further vehicles apparently on the stocks. That’s roughly 72 times more food for 25 times fewer people. Go on Snapchat and see what people in the Strip are posting. Auschwitz it ain’t.
Or consider Yemen. After a decade of conflict – again, who knew? – half of all children under the age of five, and 1.4 million pregnant and lactating women, are acutely malnourished. Of these, 537,000 children suffer from “severe acute malnutrition”, a condition described by Unicef as “agonising, life-threatening, and entirely preventable”. Yet where are the activists marching for them?
In Gaza, there have been more rallies against Hamas in the last week than we have seen on the streets of our capitals since the war began. A couple of days ago, a journalist for an Arabic channel stopped a man on his way to the aid station.
“Aren’t you afraid?” the reporter asked. (Hamas has threatened those who take these handouts. Who knew?)
“Yes, but we want to eat,” the man replied. “We want to eat. Bravo Trump and the IDF!” This led to a great deal of stammering by the journalist, who had been expecting something rather less honest.
Are we really to believe that those who compare the Jews to the Nazis are doing so completely innocently?
Enough with the self-debasement of arguing with these people. As Jabotinsky concluded, “We do not have to account to anybody, we are not to sit for anybody’s examination, and nobody is old enough to call on us to answer. We came before them and will leave after them. We are what we are, we are good for ourselves, we will not change and we do not want to.”
Don’t let them search your pockets.
