“Gazacaust”: The Name of the New Shame of the World

Share

The word “holocaust” is derived from the Greek “holos,” which means “whole,” and “Kaustos,” which means “burnt.” It has rightly entered every language to remind all nations of the horror that the Jews suffered and to make the world learn an extremely important lesson. It is also a reminder of how the big powers of the time allowed this shameful large-scale massacre to take place over years.

But would there be much point in remembering history if people do not learn from it? The scale of the irony and terrifying nature of the human failure to learn from the holocaust only starts to become clear when we remember that descendants of the victims of the holocaust have been launching a brutal war on another, much weaker people.

Israel has not openly advocated a policy of exterminating the Palestinians, but its actions are not falling short of taking the Palestinians down that route if they insist on staying on their occupied land or demand the return of the land that has already gone. In the meatime, the living conditions of the resisting Palestinians are horrific.

But there is an even more evil aspect to the burning of Gaza. While the big powers can claim to have been asleep when the Jews were being gassed, today’s connected world and global communication systems can give them no such excuse. Everyone can follow in real time the gruesome details of the ongoing massacre. The ease and speed with which facts become available today is also the reason why numerous people around the round, including some politicians in the West, have come out condemning what Israel and its supporters are doing.

But that knowledge of what is happening is still not the worst side of the role of the big powers and their callous politicians, because they are not merely turning a blind eye to Israel’s actions in Gaza. They are coming out publicly justifying and supporting the savagery of Israel’s action. The USA, whose Christian Zionist policymakers decide what the world should be like and effectively who should live or die and how, has even announced that it is replenishing Israel’s stock of ammunition, i.e. the very ammunition that Israel has been using to burn Gaza and its children, women, and elderly. As the Palestinian politician and scholar Hanan Ashrawi most eloquently put it in a speech in London in 2003: “We are the only people on Earth asked to guarantee the security of our occupier … while Israel is the only country that calls for defense from its victims.” This is why the shame of the world is even bigger in the case of the “Gazacaust” than it was at the time of the holocaust.

What is happening today in Gaza is only a continuation of what has been taking place for many decades, although the Israeli brutality and its support in the West seem to go to a new low with every new assault. One very painful yet important fact that this ongoing extreme violation of the human rights of the Palestinians has highlighted is that no lessons have been learned from the holocaust. If what has been happening in Gaza is not acknowledged as a “Gazacaust” then there is no hope for the world to learn from the holocaust. I have noticed some people have started using the term “Gazacaust.” In my view, until “Gazacaust” becomes as established a cross-language word as “holocaust,” the world cannot claim to have learned anything from the massacre of the Jewish people early in the last century. This is why I think those who are against the horror of the holocaust and any deliberate murder and torture of any people by another should advocate the use of the term “Gazacaust.”

As happened with the holocaust, many of those who supported the “Gazacaust” will come out in the future, cowardly and expediently, to deny their roles. They will try to distance themselves from the bloodshed, disown things they said or did, and find excuses for their inaction. But the world cannot wait until this cycle of pathetic behaviour repeats itself. It has to accept today that “Gazacaust” is now the name of the new shame of the world — a world that stubbornly refuses to learn.

Copyright © 2014 Louay Fatoohi
Blog: http://www.louayfatoohi.com
 http://www.facebook.com/LouayFatoohiAuthor
 http://twitter.com/louayfatoohi
 http://www.instagram.com/Louayfatoohi
Website: http://www.quranicstudies.com
All Rights Reserved.

Share

10 thoughts on ““Gazacaust”: The Name of the New Shame of the World

  1. I know this isn’t perhaps the right time to say that some conflicts seem more newsworthy than others. I hope that doesn’t mean that we consider some human life more valuable than others. Does it?

    But consider this……not too long ago more than 250 school girls were kidnapped by Salafis in north eastern Nigeria…that is 250 school girls…i have not seen one single protest in any Arab or South East Asian country about this…absolutely none…to date those girls are still missing.

    Yet when another evil afflicts Palestinian children untold amounts of Muslims everywhere start crying and overcome with emotion and everyone somehow feels that something has to be done to stop it…tears for Palestinian children but no tears for Africans?

    Or is it because the perpetrators are so-called Muslims while the masses remain silent? Is that not HYPOCRISY?

    Another group of Salafis calling themselves ISIS committed some of the most evil atrocities captured on film when they invaded Northern Iraq ( yes they had the audacity to record it themselves )…in one day alone they murdered more than 500 people…yet where was the mass global Muslim protest over that? Tears for Palestinians but no tears for Iraqis?

    Related to Female infanticide, according to one estimate from the end of 20th century, about 3.1 million girls are missing in Pakistan….yes 3.1 million
    ​!!!!​ …..in the same Pakistan in 1998, 391 infant girls were found dead, about 68 in 1999, 59 in 2000, 51 in 2001, and 39 in 2002.

    Khair Mohammad, a Police Commander commented on the current situation, he figured that “The number of infanticides of girls has substantially increased.”

    According to Edhi Foundation, 890 in 2008 newborns were killed, 999 in 2009 and in 2010, about 1,210 in 2010!!!!!!!

    Now i ask you why is there no worldwide protest from Muslims over this EVIL in Pakistan?????.

    These are real facts you know…..tears for Palestinian children but no tears for little Pakistani girls?.

    if Muslims feel compelled to protest and overcome with emotion for the brutal slaying of Palestinians because it is somehow Islamic does that mean the atrocities committed by Muslims all over the world against each other in a number of regions and far out numbering the casualties in Palestine…does that mean that they are less Islamic or not Islamic at all?

  2. Great article.

    Actually there are some in Israel who are calling out for total extermination of the Palestinians.

    An op-ed suggesting that genocide might be permissible was published in the widely read Times of Israel yesterday but then quickly removed.

    Thanks for writing this. We all need to tell our neighbors and others about this. I call to all to speak out. Don’t be extremist and don’t hurt the innocent as that only supports the aggressors. But don’t be lazy anymore. We have to speak out everyday. Talk to at least two people every day. If we all do that, then the nations we will in will not allow our leaders support aggression by Israel.

    It is our laziness that is partly to blame for Gazacaust.

  3. Greetings Ibrahim,

    Thank you for sharing your thoughts. This argument is used quite a lot these days. There is a fundamental difference between all other instances of appalling crimes you mention and what is happening to the Palestinians and, may I say, the difference is not that difficult to see. It is simply this: no government supports these crimes in public, let alone proudly and and publicly provide the perpetrators with the weapons they use.  Let me pick up the examples you mention. Of course it is appalling what happened to those innocent Nigerian girls, and a lot of people did condemn it and protest against it. But can you name a single government that came out to declare its support for the abduction of those girls, let alone provide the terrorists with the means to continue this practice? Take your other example of ISIS. Such extremist Salafi groups get support from some states, but none on of these states would dare coming out publicly to declare their pride in arming ISIS. And which state supports infanticide or provide the criminals with the means to commit those murders? Do you see now the difference between the American and Western support for Israel’s atrocities and the response of the world to other large scale crimes? You could have extended your argument by asking why Muslims do not protest against “crime” in general. They do, as everyone does, because everyone agrees that crime is unacceptable and must be fought against. You do not ask your new friends whether they are against crimes or terrorism or not. You simply presume and know they are. 

    Furthermore, when the USA and other Western countries come out in support of large scale terrorist acts like these, this support will have wide implications about the criteria with which state terrorism is identified and judged. This is not the case of one small Salafi group in country X supporting another in country Y. This is the USA and other Western democracies publicly supporting state terrorism. This is a danger to international peace and to how people in general deal with armed conflicts. It does nothing to bring people closer and does everything to sow differences, hatred, and double-standards in the world.  

    I agree with you that there is so much hypocrisy involved. I hope it is now clear where it is shamefully on display.

  4. So you are saying that since Muslims, according to you, did not protest on other issues should let go this one and pretend nothing has happened to the Palestinians and be “fair” and up to your expectations. What about non-Muslims protesting against the Israeli aggression, well I assume you have checked their previous activities and discovered that that they did protest on other issues? So it seems that you are more annoyed with the Muslims protests “only” more than the kids, women and complete families who have vanished.

    You have forgotten that this is a state terror practiced by Israel, and sponsored by “democracy and human rights propagating” state of US.

    You feel sorry for Muslims who suffer from the evil of other Muslims but you have no problem when this evil comes from non-Muslims. This is quite impressive.

    But I have to admit that you unwillingly placed Israel in its right rank with other terror groups such as, Boko Haram, ISIS ….. etc

    shalom

  5. Salam Louay
    We should protest against open and major Crime and oppression whether it be state sponsored or not…I can not see ANY difference between ISIS and the actions of he current Israeli occupation of Gaza
    وَمَا لَكُمۡ لَا تُقَـٰتِلُونَ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ وَٱلۡمُسۡتَضۡعَفِينَ مِنَ ٱلرِّجَالِ وَٱلنِّسَآءِ وَٱلۡوِلۡدَٲنِ ٱلَّذِينَ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَآ أَخۡرِجۡنَا مِنۡ هَـٰذِهِ ٱلۡقَرۡيَةِ ٱلظَّالِمِ أَهۡلُهَا وَٱجۡعَل لَّنَا مِن لَّدُنكَ وَلِيًّ۬ا وَٱجۡعَل لَّنَا مِن لَّدُنكَ نَصِيرًا (٧٥)

  6. Demonstrate for everything or nothing at all, this is a new logic. This is similar to not giving charity to poor people on the pretext of having many of them, so either you give everyone or none.
    People are so concerned with cleaning Israel filthy face and for that they have been trying their best to shut people’s mouth and justify Israel’s actions for the systematic killing of the Palestinians over decades of oppression, causing complete generations to be wiped out from Palestine and the rest to beg for a home land since 1948. Hamas was founded in 1987, and won the election in 2006, but what about the Palestinians before this time and in other places in Palestine apart from Gaza, they have been living in misery since 1948, much more before many conflicts or terror groups came to existence. But it is right that the suffering of the Palestinians has become part of our daily life that we do not feel the need to protest on.
    Let us see how many more Palestinians need to die and land to be snatched so that the “Great Israel” is established and Jesus comes back, and hell with the rest of the world.

  7. Salam Ibrahim,

    I completely agree that there is no difference between Israel and ISIS when it comes to the savagery of their actions, but while almost everyone in the world takes pride in condemning ISIS, there are among those who condemn ISIS some who take pride in supporting what Israel is doing. This is terrible in so many ways, some of which have already been discussed. I personally have condemned sectarianism of any form let alone sectarian violence, whether it is the ISIS version or any other. The problem we have with Israel is that religious fanaticism, represented in Zionism, is being celebrated and supported. Standing up against the extreme violence of the Israelis and their allies against the Palestinians is not only about politics and land, but about so many values that most people believe in and are necessary for harmony and peace, let alone personal spiritual progress and development.  

  8. Salam Louay

    You know something? I actually agree with everything you said. The article echoes my own thoughts EXACTLY. We could easily change the dynamics around and talk of US, NATO and UN Hypocrisy in light of not just Palestine but all over the Muslim and developing world. My issue is that in general Muslims tend to favour the Palestinian issue above any other issue even if those issues involve far mar dead and suffering at the hands of other Muslims. The extremist Zionist are aware of the double standards, corruption and disunity amongst the Arab and Muslim nations so they use this to their advantage. I simply cannot understand that because State sponsored violence is taking place in Gaza that this somehow is a priority concern over what ISIS have done/are doing. Evil is Evil…Oppression is Oppression. No doubt the current situation in Gaza will soon come to an end…then the media will focus their attention somewhere else…meanwhile bombs planted in market places, mosques and public gatherings in Afghanistan, Somalia, Nigeria, Syria and Iraq will continue….ISIS will continue to execute other Muslims publicly in the most barbaric manner and then post the videos on YouTube and we’ll all continue with our lives as per normal until Netanyahoo and co decide to do it all over again

  9. in this same week that hundreds and thousands of people protested about the massacre in Gaza ISIS slaughter up to 500 people in Northern Iraq and kidnap non-Muslims women….yes in the same week…just last week…smh

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *