Chris Arnot’s Gaza Concentration Camp Masterclass
IN “The stuff of nightmares” the Guardian’s Chris Arnot wonders:
“Can trips to Auschwitz help tackle racism and hate crime among troubled young people? Chris Arnot talks to three youths who have visited the former Nazi concentration camp.”
It’s an interesting notion, told in 1431 words - teenagers from Coventry journey to the lager and wonder.
They also went to Krakow, saw the old Jewish quarter and the ghetto where Schindler’s List was filmed.
A place to where Jews are returning.
So what do we make of the anti-Semitism, kids? Sykes is on the trip. He is a former BNP member and “freelance anti-racist worker”:
Meanwhile, in Bradford, Sykes is being called upon to teach lessons of history to Muslim youths in danger of being pushed into extremism by Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
Did you see that? Did you make the link between Auschwitz and a war in the Gaza Strip between “unconventional” Hamas and Israel?
Because Israel is to blame for Islamofacism, or, the more apt term, Islam Supremacy? Arnott shows signs of having read this man’s work.
Idiots on both sides in the latest Arab-Isreali war. But is Israel “pushing” Muslims into extremism? Is that a rational view? What say the protocols? And when did Muslims become one big unified group, regardless of creed, country, politics and colour? Is unity to be found in finding a common enemy.
Or can it be that the Holocaust helps someone understand what shapes the Israeli mind?
And what of this queasy link between the Holocaust and Israel’s attitude to Gaza? Is it a contest for victimhood? The comparrison diminishes and trivialises what really happened then. Is it really genocide in Gaza? Does victimhood permit suicide bombers and - irony of ironies - calls for genocide against all Jews?
Everyone is supposed to have an opinion on Israel, and Anorak says this:
Let women have a go at running things; let the men have more sex; let the millions of Muslims and Jews who are not nutters be heard; satirise the Islam supremacists; expose and condemn the lunatics; be an individual.
And if any lazy hack wants an easy essay that will chime with all too many readers who need their prejudices refreshed, they can blame the Jews…
Image: Spot the difference - Jews and Muslims in Yemen
Posted: 21st, January 2009 | In: Media Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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January 23rd, 2009 at 1:23 am
dear mr. anorak…
that picture caught my eye and made me read this whole article… i am a yemenite… and i was shocked to see a picture with the traditional yemeni clothing and the long hair on those men… jews have been banned from yemen for years, i remember at a very young age when me and my family were watching Ali Abdallah Salih giving a speach about the ban he put on them from yemen… saying there is no such thing as yemeni jew! and how outraged my family was about the racism. because surprisingly not all arabs are anti jews… as the media these days make believe! but any how there just a very very veeeeeeeeery few jews living in yemen, most of them imigrated yeaaaaars ago. and those few cannot walk around like that on the streets of yemen! Britain is one of the most open countries i have ever been in and saw jewish people walking around with their garment like that - in golders green, north london precisely. Not that i have anything against jews or anything… but
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:32 am
Muslims do gain a kind of unity through a common enemy - which is why every shit leader is using Israel as a diversion - although hatred is always popular - so it’s a brave Arab leader that would try and play it down.
Just like Europeans could, if they wanted, get some unity by slagging off Islam.
The best book on understanding the Israeli mind is ‘A Psychology of Zionism’ by Jay Y. Gonen.
The Israelis aren’t using the Holocaust - they’re driven by it.
It would be great if moderate voices got heard in the Middle-East - but moderation isn’t going to get either side what it currently wants (a secure Jewish State or the Jews out).
So we either get each side into negotiations for a 2-state solution or we occupy the region and force them into a 2-state solution or we let them fight it out regardless of who dies or Israel dies slowly as it’s demographic/and or morale declines, or the Arab league actually wins a war against Israel and it’s gone - or Israel gives up being Jewish and integrates with the Arabs (which would either leave them powerless under a crap regime or could lead to the first fully functioning first world middle-Eastern democracy).
Although probably it will stay the same as it is now. Israel will be hated but protected. The Palestinians will be pitied but will live as 2nd-class citizens. Governments will do realpolitik. Protesters will take to the streets. Hacks will write about dead children and everybody will secretly be getting exactly what they want (except for any poor sod accidentally born in Israel/Palestine who’d rather be at peace).