May 2016

 

Last week in Israel a day was set aside for the country to stop and remember those who perished during the Nazi Holocaust.  

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At the appointed hour a siren was heard thought-out the major cities....all cars stopped on the street, people halted in their tracks, each to think their own silent rememberance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was among them and I wondered if any of those around me, not of Palestinian decent, were thinking of the women, men and children of Gaza and the West Bank; those who have died in the past days, months and years.

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To observe the day, pay my respects, and better understand the mindset of those around me I made a journey to Yad Vashem, the national Jewish Holocaust Museum.  It's an impressive exhibition of "man's inhumanity toward man"

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I left the museum with a startling and profound 

realization, a realization that would be difficult, if not impossible for any Jewish Israeli to understand.  

Isreali citizens are forbidden by law to enter Gaza or the West Bank cities.  I think I am only one of a few who have spent an equal amount of time on both sides of the separation barrier over the past six years.  

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The discovery...simply stated..

 

The art work created in the ghettos of the Nazi occupied territories, where the Jewish population was segregated, is identical in may disturbing ways to the art work being produced today in Gaza and the West Bank.

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This leads to very critical questions that go to the core of the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict.

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Is this a primal case of the "abused becoming the abuser".  Or simply a matter of historical coincidence.  Or is it that we all basically are one, all sharing common emotions, fears and aspirations, no matter that we are of Jewish, Arabic, Asian or European decent.  

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The questions raised call for much deeper analysis and discussion. They thus

become an integral piece of  the We All Live in Gaza story.

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Please stay tuned.