Response to the Guardian and Observer opinion-piece by Howard Jacobson: 'Charging Jews with genocide is to declare them guilty of precisely what was done to them'
My comprehensive response to the Guardian and Observer opinion-piece by Howard Jacobson: 'Charging Jews with genocide is to declare them guilty of precisely what was done to them'
I strongly believe that this Guardian opinion piece by Howard Jacobson is highly misleading and potentially dangerous rhetoric.
I believe it is a harmful form of passive-aggressive and manipulative deflection from accepting the full reality of the horrific persecution and attempted annihilation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Despite it wanting to be being seen as an insightful and measured opinion; as well as claiming to be a statement of the reality of what is happening on both the ground and in both Gaza and Israel, as well as around the world.
I maintain and will reason, that the author of this news opinion makes three very important and major errors in his alleged logic and reasoning. I hope this was purely unintentional. Sadly I currently do not think so. At best, his writing is inherently biased and offensively opinionated.
This opinion piece is, in my opinion, clearly written by a Zionist apologist.
I realised this as soon as I read the very first paragraph; also, before I had checked the name of the author. I currently know nothing about them, other than that they work for The Guardian.
I humbly suggest that his commentary exposes that he has serious issues with the Palestinian people as a whole and, therefore, also supporters of the Palestinian cause. Pre-empting that alleged inherent bias is again - I submit and suggest - an indoctrinated, skewed and unbalanced position. It is very clearly an opinion from someone who was almost certainly brought up as a Jew. And there is nothing anti-Semitic whatsoever in stating that.
The title of his opinion piece is entitled 'Charging Jews with genocide is declare them guilty of precisely what was done to them.'
In reality, you do not even need to read the whole of what he has written to expose the highly misleading false logic and potentially dangerous rhetoric of what he is trying to convince us of and therefore make us unwittingly believe.
Indeed, as of writing this very sentence, I have yet to read beyond his first paragraph. The title and first paragraph have already told me more than enough to respond to his main premises.
He is very clearly and quite brazenly claiming that 'Jews' should not - indeed, cannot - rightly be charged with genocide, simply because this would allegedly make them effectively guilty of doing similar or closely related things to what Hitler and the Nazis carried out during the absolutely disgusting and extremely horrific Holocaust.
But, and it's a huge but, no one is, to my knowledge, proposing that Jews as such should be charged with committing genocide and terrorism of many thousands - if not tens of thousands - of Gazan Palestinian civilians, most of whom were babies, young children and women.
Let us dissect his premise further:
1. Very large numbers of people, from a massive range of academic and varying privilege levels of society, and all backgrounds of society in general, including thousands of top-ranking officials, are currently proposing and insisting that Netanyahu and the Israel government be held to account for the war crimes being committed by Israel in the name of self-defence and, by extension, also in the Name of God (and this is according to the publicly spoken words of Benjamin Netanyahu himself.)
2. No one or, at the most, extremely few people, are suggesting or demanding that only Jews should be arrested and put on Trial for allegedly Nazi-like war crimes and greatly extreme, brutal breaches of Palestinian human rights.
If it is only Jews to blame, then it would be purely coincidental that there would only be Jews on Trial. It would have nothing whatsoever to do with anti-Semitism.
Indeed, even the term 'anti-Semitism' has somewhat unfairly been appropriated solely by Jews to refer only to themselves.
That was not always so. It originally referred to Arabs, Palestinians, Christians, Jews and Africans from a much wider area of the Middle East and North East Africa.
Despite the majority of Israeli government leaders and officials being Jews of one persuasion or another (and mostly predominantly right-wing Zionists), it is also highly likely that at least some, or even perhaps many, non-Jews (Gentiles or Westerners or those with different faiths) would also be accused, and then found directly guilty or otherwise complicit in the strongly alleged war crimes perpetrated by the predominantly Zionist Jewish Israeli government.
So, Mr Howard Jacobson is sadly, unintentionally or not, wrongly misleading us into believing that Jews, and Jews alone, are being - once again - wrongly accused of all manner of heinous crimes.
3. i. It is important to note that Mr Jacobson is defending the fact that many people are claiming Israel is guilty of the same or similar war crimes to the extremely cruel and brutal commands of the psychopath Hitler and the blind allegiance of his Nazi regime, supporters and followers, to either carry out or enable horrific acts of terrorism, extreme harassment and displacement.
ii. This comparison is simply reversed by mostly Zionist Jews, who claim that it is the Arabs, namely mostly Palestinians, who are beginning to commit genocide and attempting to annihilate or displace the Jewish people from their Land.
This suggestion is not only highly paranoid, it almost completely contradicts both the previous and current reality of the conflict.
Despite Hamas' attacks of terror and hostage-taking on 7th October, it is not the Palestinians committing any form of genocide in Israel, but rather Israel themselves who are attempting to either annihilate or displace the Palestinian people!
4. It is Mr Jacobson who uses the word "precisely" to remind us that he is claiming that arresting and charging people - solely Jews, he submits - for the alleged extreme acts and crimes of genocide, is "precisely", to wit, the same as - or, at least, very similar to - the crimes the Nazis and collaborators were accused of and mostly also convicted of after the end of the Second World War.
I humbly and politely submit that Mr Jacobson's comparison between the war crimes of Hitler and the Nazis (and also those who were complicit in their highly immoral, utterly repulsive and illegal actions) is a deliberate attempt (or unintentionally flawed logic) to falsely claim that we should not dare to accuse Jewish people of the same or similar crimes (to those which "they themselves" were the wholly innocent victims of during the Second World War).
These two suggestions are frankly highly misleading and, indeed, repulsive to me and most others.
Firstly, the extreme genocide, and other war crimes of Hitler and the Nazis, are not either fully equivalent or identical to those of the Israeli Government and their Armed Forces to date.
Yes, there are some similarities.
However, there is a blatant and ruthless form of genocide and racist ethnic cleansing currently being commanded and carried out by Israel in Gaza City as we speak.
Quite bizarrely and very worryingly, some continue to insist on strongly or otherwise disputing this.
They claim Israel's actions are not either acts of terrorism, genocide or ethnic cleansing!
Let me speak plainly. They are either lying or have been hugely deceived by others around them!
To some, that will probably sound very presumptive and arrogant of me.
Yet I am simply going by both the legal and dictionary definition of what genocide is.
It is not necessarily the complete destruction of a nation, people or religion.
Indeed, in reality, it never has been.
It was not even so in World War Two. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis never actually succeeded in eliminating the Jewish people.
What occurred was an outrageously cruel and evil mass slaughter of Jewish people, and also millions of others along with them. Yet, thankfully, they did not complete their genocide of the Jewish people. Indeed, whilst they murdered millions of Jews, there were many who either escaped or survived. Had they not, we would not have any further generations of Jews to this day.
So what key point am I making?
I am, using the same historical events that Mr Howard Jacobson is referencing, clearly demonstrating and logically reasoning that genocide, not only by both its dictionary definition and legal standing, extremely rarely - if ever - leads to the complete destruction of any one nation, people, race or religion.
Indeed, the actual definition of, and legal standing of the crime of genocide, is specifically both officially and otherwise documented and stated over and over again as "either the partial or complete destruction of a national, people, race or religion" (please excuse my paraphrasing.)
In other words, I have just proven that it is indeed indisputable that Israel is carrying out a genocide of the Palestinian people.
It cannot and will not, even by the very nature of the conflict, ever be a complete genocidal annihilation of the Gazan Palestinian people, but it is still a genocide nonetheless.
Mr Jacobson's originally seemingly factual opinion piece is, in fact, simply somewhat eloquent, deceptive and manipulative Zionist reasoning which simply strongly encourages the continued and repeated claims by many Zionists and other Jews of anti-Semitism against very large numbers of people around the world. To wit, anyone who defends or supports the Palestinian cause, and dares to either vocalise, object in writing, and/or march against the mass bombing of mostly very young civilians, is an anti-Jewish person who hates all of the Jewish people. In other words, an anti-Semite.
This, therefore, is simply a bizarre claim and attempt by certain nearly-always Zionist Jewish Israelis - and an unknown number of Jews elsewhere - to claim that they are genuinely worried about beginning to experience a Second Holocaust like their grandparents went through.
They cite the huge and growing support for Palestinians, plus attacks against Jewish people in Israel and around the world, as clear evidence of the distinct and imminent possibility of Arabs and other nations wishing to remove Israel from off the map.
There is a huge and perplexing irony here.
They are claiming that, beyond the horrific and terrifying resistance attacks and hostage-taking by Hamas and some civilian Palestinians on 7th October 2023, Israel is the primary, if not sole, victim in this conflict. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
Israel's perfectly moral and legal right to self-defence is not disputed, at least not by most. Furthermore, by claim that repeatedly carpet bombing and shooting missiles into Gaza City, and beyond, thereby killing, maiming and bereaving hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians, are simply acts of self-defence by Israel and also, they claim, the best way to eliminate Hamas.
But that patently is not true on either count.
There is no legal or moral justification or defence for carrying out genocide. It is indefensible. It is also utterly repugnant to any right-thinking person with a heart, who has even just a shred of compassion for people of a different origin or background to themselves.
So what is happening in this highly alarming and horrifically shocking conflict between Israel and Gaza and the West Bank?
Beyond 7th October’s invasive attacks and hostage-taking by Hamas, are Israel the real victims here?
Was it somewhat of a 9/11-style attack against Israel by suicidal, highly trained anti-Semitic or Israeli-hating terrorists?
Or was it simply the result of many decades of dehumanisation, oppression, victimisation, violence, harassment and virtual or literal imprisonment (often without either charge or conviction)?
Or is it perhaps both?
Is Israel right to blame the Gazan and West Bank Palestinians for their own horrific and desperate situation?
Are all current-day Gazan Palestinians responsible, and to blame, for Hamas being their de facto governing body, despite their election being held eighteen years earlier, when nearly half of their population wasn't even born and Hamas got just 41% of the vote?
Is Israel simply victim-blaming?
Do they want the world to turn a blind eye to Netanyahu and his Israeli government's blatant and repeatedly openly admitted prejudice, racism and clear utter contempt for the Palestinian people (irrespective of whether they are members or supporters of Hamas.)
I will not write my conclusions or force my conclusions on you as readers.
I do not need to.
I can but just hope that Israel turns from darkness to light, and also from their often blatant lies and propaganda to a place of truth and peace, reconciliation and reparations.
I regret I am very sad to say that I am not currently optimistic - to say the most - that the Israel government, its supporters and funders, have enough compassion and humility to take a huge step back and begin a swift redirection (repentance) from what I and many others consider to be the likely start of a highly regrettable, bloody and economically ruinous Third World War...
I therefore urge Israel as a whole, in particular Benjamin Netanyahu, his war cabinet and the rest of the Israeli government, their funders and supporters; together with all Zionists and Jews, of whatever belief and practice they may be (be it religious, agnostic or atheistic), wherever they may live, and whoever are their neighbours, to examine both their hearts and minds clearly and carefully with both logic, reason, wisdom and compassion for their fellow humans.
Whenever we start to act like animals, we simply make animals embarrassed to be so unfairly compared to humans.
But it is not animals who are to blame for wars, starvation, thirst and economic ruin around our only World, IT IS US!
For we are not many races.
We are, in reality, one race.
We are the human race.
Let us not only be human, let us also be humane.
Adrian Paul, London, England - 3rd December 2023
[ last updated: 4:27 am GMT, 24th December 2023 ]
in response to 'Charging Jews with genocide is to declare them guilty of precisely what was done to them' - Howard Jacobson, The Guardian
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