Israel has created a system of numbering Palestinians in the occupied West Bank which echoes the system applied by the Third Reich against concentration camp detainees.
As
Al Jazeera reports:
The Israeli army introduced a new system of identification numbers for the 30,000 Palestinian residents of the cordoned-off H2 district which encompasses about 20 percent of Hebron and includes Shuhada Street and a number of Israeli settlements.The remaining 80 percent of the city is under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.
These numbers are assigned to all Palestinians, regardless of age or gender.
“Even the little kids have numbers,” said Anas Murakatan, 27, who lives in an apartment near a checkpoint at the entrance to Shuhada Street. “I am 58; she is 59,” Anas said, pointing to his pregnant wife, Fadwa Murakatan. His children are 60 and 61.
“When the baby is born, she will get one too.”
These numbers are used to enforce a system called “
closure,” in which the Israeli state effectively shuts down Palestinian life at will. Any Palestinian found outside of their home during a closure is subject to arrest and indefinite detention in an Israeli military prison. Closures can last for days, or even weeks, and are deployed routinely.
The networks of internal checkpoints, and the sealed
Apartheid Wall, have turned Palestine’s West Bank cities and towns into concentration camps. If you imagine each village, town, and city sealed by a 30 foot high concrete security wall which Israel controls.
This giant wall seals the inhabitants of Qalandiya away from the world. It also cut them off from their own farmland. (Image via
Electronic Intifada)
Then, behind that wall inside the town, lies a network of internal security checkpoints which break the town into tiny bantustans.
This is an internal checkpoint in Hebron. There is no human interaction. The light (top left) either goes green to let a person through, or red, meaning they are not permitted to pass through the checkpoint. (Image via
International Blvd)
This is how every movement of Palestinians is controlled, every day of their lives in the West Bank. In order to move anywhere outside of a person’s own street, they are likely to require the permission of the Israeli army. Imagine how many of your friends, family, and movements take you outside of your street — then imagine if you had to wait in a line, awaiting the red/green light every time you wanted to go. That is life as a Palestinian.
But this level of control is now deemed insufficient by Israel. On top of the wall, the checkpoints, and the ID cards already implemented against Palestinians — a new system of numbering has been introduced. This move seemingly confirms what even the UN have been stating for some time — Gaza and the West Bank have been turned into
open air prisons.
The same numbering system was used against the Jewish, LGBT and other untermenschen that Nazi Germany interned and/or annihilated in the 1930s and 40s. As
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website states:
During the
Holocaust, concentration camp prisoners received tattoos only at one location, the
Auschwitz concentration camp complex, which consisted of Auschwitz I (Main Camp), Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau), and Auschwitz III (Monowitz and the subcamps). Incoming prisoners were assigned a camp serial number which was sewn to their prison uniforms. Only those prisoners selected for work were issued serial numbers; those prisoners sent directly to the gas chambers were not registered and received no tattoos.
It is truly horrific to see Israel become the monster so many of its early inhabitants sought to escape. The situation has become so egregious that 327 Holocaust survivors and their descendants wrote an open letter to Israel last year calling its treatment of Palestinians by its proper name — genocide.
These people, who survived the worst of the Nazi regime, say clearly:
“Genocide begins with the silence of the world.
‘Never again’ must mean NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE!”
So how did Israelis react to this letter? Here are just a sample of the responses from Jewish Israelis on
Facebook:
Translation:
Katy Morali: Holocaust survivors who think like this are invited to go die in the gas chambers.
Shmulik Halphon: He’s invited to go back to Auschwitz.
Meir Dahan: No wonder Hitler murdered 6 million Jews because of people like you you’re not even Jews you’re disgusting people a disgrace to humanity and so are your offspring you are trash.
Asher Solomon: It’s a shame Hitler didn’t finish the job.
The harsh truth is this: those people turning their heads and disowning the rights of Palestinians today would have done exactly the same to Europe’s Jews during the Holocaust. They would have believed the propaganda, they would have absorbed and espoused the same bigotry, they would have tacitly or overtly gifted their complicity. “Never again” means never again for anyone, or it means nothing.
________________________________________________________
Israel Is Now Numbering Palestinians, Echoing The Horrors Of The Holocaust (IMAGES)
NUMBERING PALESTINIANS
This is getting literally no media recognition. I'm not on my anti-Semitic tip, but hmm I wonder why. People are afraid to criticize Israel cause they're afraid that they'll be labeled Jew-haters or whatever, but the reality is that their government and the things they do to Palestine are straight up evil.
The ironic thing is that Right wing cac Christian Americans support Israel as Gods people when yhe founders of Israel and many of Israel's top govt leaders are atheist.
a catholic has no say in this issue at all tho
and yes, Hitler was a real person. However he wasn't the chief perpetrator of the holocaust, there were thousands of people involved.
