Today more than ever — we must talk about Gaza.
And I say this as a human being. And as the daughter of Holocaust survivors.
The following was posted in Hebrew by Rona Sela on Israeli Holocaust memorial day, 23 Apr. 2025. Here is a rough translation:
The “Memory in the Living Room” (Zikaron Basalon) event is part of the Israeli mechanism of denial. Today, for the first time, I went to this hypocritical gathering, in Tel Aviv, at the Mesila Park. I thought, what could be more appropriate, in the context of the Holocaust, than to talk about what Israel is doing in Gaza? Especially given that they brought a genocide scholar from the University of Haifa to speak on the subject.
He talked about the Armenian genocide, and the genocide of the Herero and Nama tribes in early 20th-century Africa, and about the genocide of Jews and Roma during World War II. He explained that genocide typically occurs in a wartime climate, and described how ordinary people become part of the extermination mechanism — even liberals who were previously light-years away from murderous ideologies. How, in a short period, during a war, ordinary people become part of the machinery of genocide.
He also spoke about a German company, Battalion 101, which was sent to murder Jews in a Polish town in 1942. The commander of the battalion said that the order to kill Jews seemed unreasonable to him and allowed those who wanted to, to opt out of the mission. He asked the audience: how many of the 500 refused? And then, to illustrate how genocide becomes normalized, he shared that only 12 refused — 12 out of 500.
Throughout the learned lecture, I kept thinking how precisely he was describing what is happening here — while meticulously avoiding addressing what is happening here.
The lecture ended. I thanked him and said how skillful he was at dancing around the elephant in the room, and that I would be happy if he would speak about it — about what Israel is doing in Gaza.
Of course, there was immediate uproar against me, and the organizer asked, “out of respect for this day,” not to talk about the subject. The lecturer’s response quickly followed: he said he did not hint at anything she (I) was saying and did not seek to make any such comparison.
The blindness, the denial, and the collaboration with the atrocities Israel is committing in Gaza — by ordinary people — the normalization of horrors, and the indifference of the perpetrators and of society: these are the poison seeping into Israeli society. It will poison it for decades to come, across many areas of life. And everyone will pay the price.
And against this blindness, I denounce what is happening there. And I ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness from the women and men of Gaza, from its children, its women, its infants, who are experiencing the worst horrors.
This apology, unfortunately, changes nothing about the reality.
And if you know a genocide scholar from the University of Haifa — tell him he should consider becoming one of the 12 who refused, or change his field of research.
And the picture, which I have already posted, is an image of the degradation and decay to which Israeli society has fallen under a fascist, corrupt, and messianic regime.
And the grave will be covered, and on its soil a settlement will rise — perhaps a kindergarten, perhaps a flourishing vegetable garden on “rich” and fertile ground, or perhaps just a park.
And Israeli soldiers will escort settler children to school and guard the beautiful and well-maintained greenhouse as a sort of nature reserve in the heart of what remains after the chaos, destruction, and killing;
And from it, marauders — protected by soldiers — will emerge, to intimidate and expel the local residents, to prevent grazing or the cultivation of olives, to seize more land.
And the cycle will repeat itself.
Update: The photo is by Mohammed Dahman / AP.
Here is the link to the article: https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/29/gaza-s-death-toll-now-exceeds-30000-here-s-why-it-s-an-incomplete-count/
This is a response on Rona’s facebook post, by Holocaust scholar Dr. Nira Feldman:
I read your words. Harsh, but not surprising: a testimony to the rapidly multiplying herd of rhinoceroses in the darkness. For years I have lectured about Holocaust denial… What always played into the hands of the deniers from the beginning was the unfortunate fact that no written order by Hitler was ever found… The denial of the murder of the Jews occurred immediately, even as it was being carried out: secrecy, deception, coded language (Arendt defined it as “regulating the language”), covering the tracks — burning the bodies, and more.
I will pause here to shout out loud that the killing being carried out in our name is visible. Declared openly into microphones with a resolute and proud voice. The bodies pile up and are photographed, and the images of destruction and death are immediately published in the international media — just not on our television screens, so as not to disturb the peace of mind of viewers drugged by the poison of vengeance, intoxicated by the cries: they deserve it, they’re all doomed, wipe out Gaza… This is not denial — this is disavowal! You wrote about blindness — it is not blindness but wide-eyed glee: schadenfreude! Already in the Book of Books we learned: Do not rejoice when your enemy falls!
I do not ignore, not even for a second, the total murderous character of Hamas against us — against the Jewish state and against Jews wherever they are. But we must not resemble them or look with indifference upon the mass killing of civilians: women, children, infants, the elderly — the erasure of entire families with the press of a bomb-release button — even if they do not all love us! Have we become like Sodom? Have we come to resemble Gomorrah?
[emphasis added]
