Likening Rafah to the Holocaust

An Israeli cabinet member is drawing fire for likening the Israeli Army actions against Palestinians in Gaza to what he remembers of the devastation of the Holocaust in his own childhood.

Yet it's not the first time I have heard such. While still a college student, I had the pleasure of knowing this lovely older non-trad student, a woman named Molly, Jewish herself and with a daughter at the time living in a kibbutz. Molly had visited Israel several times, and whenever the topic of the Israel-Palestine issue would come up, her face would turn sad. A few times she spoke of what she saw as a comparison between the treatment of Jews in parts of Europe in the 30s and 40s to what some hawkish Jews like the then-younger Sharon were doing.

I remember clearly her telling us, "It wasn't right then. It's not right now. Of all people, we know that descrimination, bloodshed, and hatred only begets something worse."

Yes, those words have framed some of my thinking since then and Molly's sage words have come back to me several times since I learned of the more than 17,000 Palestinian homes destroyed recently, the terror in Rafah last week when guns opened fire on Palestinian protestors who were largely children and bore no arms.

Both sides need to recognize the right of each to exist and both sides must stop killing one another. Too many innocent lives have been taken, too much blood shed.

So forgive me if I don't join the chorus jumping on the bandwagon to shout down this cabinet minister. Based on what Molly said, I think his words may be apt. What's more, considering sentiment right now in parts of the US and Israel, I think the man was both wise and brave.