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The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,    but because of the people who don't do anything about it

Occupation magazine - Commentary Home page  back Print  Send To friend Kaddish for Gaza Rolf Verleger My father had survived Auschwitz, and my mother survived concentration camps in Estonia. When rearing me they made clear to me that there is the choice between good and bad and that people are responsible for what they have done: They educated me within the ethics of Jewish religion. Today, alternative ethics apply to many of nowadays Jews. One of these ethics, the one that is most compatible to Germany, reads: We Jews are above all: victims. Today, the state of Israel is victim of eruptions of incomprehensible hate from Arabs and anti-Semites. I would like to ask the following questions to all those people who say things like that. The fact that none of my grandparents had survived the Third Reich – did this entitle the Jewish partisans and the Israeli army in 1947/48 to expel hundreds of thousands of Arabs out of Israel? Die `Aryanization` of my great-grandfather’s Berlin parcel of land – did this entitle the state of Israel to confiscate land and property of the Arab expatriates in the early 1950s? The killing of my father’s brothers and sisters by the SS – does this entitle the state of Israel to exert the dictate of an occupational regime since 47 years? The shooting of my grandmother Hanna because she went to the barber’s in Berlin having taken off the yellow star – does this presently entitle the state of Israel to starve and massacre Gaza`s population? Generally: Does the fact that we European Jews had become victims of a big wrongdoing entitle the Jewish state in God`s and mankind`s eyes to do wrong to others? I would like to close by saying two things: First I would like to direct your attention to a manifestation taking place at Heinrichplatz at 6 pm, organized by Israelis. One of their demands reads: to put an end to automatically guaranteed German support for the Israeli side, be it military or political. Second, I would like to say the Kaddish, which is the traditional prayer by Jewish mourners. I will say it for the dead people of Gaza and – because in death everybody is alike – for the dead Israeli soldiers even though they have died for an unjust case. Jitgadal weJitkadasch schmej-raba ... Links to the latest articles in this section The US and nuclear programs in the Middle East How can Israel, Palestine return to a two-state solution? A matter of concrete debate