[Blog] Open letter to the PM of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu

If you had to forecast which leader of any of the 194 countries of the world could be the new 21st-century HITLER, would you have thought of the Jewish leader of Israel?

·        A few months after Hitler formally declared  the Shoah (Holocaust), the arrest and putting to death of  all Jews, a number of leaders and others in Germany realising the depth of the incoming genocide, voiced (or out of fear, did not voice) their objections. Nothing doing, Hitler and other Nazi leaders pursued their elimination policy.

Brazil’s president, Lula da Silva, speaking at the 37th African Union Summit, compared Israel’s actions in the war against Hamas to the Holocaust, in which Nazis killed six million Jews. “What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has no parallel in other historical moments,” but  “it did exist when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”  The UN Security council, the ICJ,  the EU, Egypt and other Arab states voiced their concern about a possible coming genocide of the people of Gaza by Israel.  After almost 30,000 deaths. Nothing doing, Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders pursue their elimination policy.

·        Hitler gave as reason the need for more space for his people (Lebensraum). Israel specifically wants the West bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. If necessary by first destroying all housing infrastructure, hospitals, schools, water and food supplies, thereby starting the elimination of the people of Gaza, men, women and children.

Like the most infamous “n’oubliez pas les femmes et les enfants” instruction to the killing teams given on Radio Mille Collines during the Rwanda genocide, Israel targets children and women and certainly has destroyed all schools and educational facilities as well as MOST hospital facilities for births and medical treatment for Palestinians in Gaza.

Netanyahu : “Humanitarianism is the expression of stupidity and cowardice”; “Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong”; “When we have won the war, who will question our methods?”.

 ·        Hitler : “The Jews are definitely a race, but they are not human”; “I don't see much future for the Americans ... it's a decayed country. They have their racial problem, and the problem of social inequalities ...  everything about the behaviour of American society reveals that it's half Judaised, and the other half negrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together?”

In the above statement, Hitler defined the Jews as a race and not a religious community, characterized the effect of a Jewish presence as a “race-tuberculosis of the peoples,” and identified the initial goal of a German government to be discriminatory legislation against Jews. The “ultimate goal must definitely be the removal of the Jew altogether.”

Earlier, Hitler compared the Jews to germs. He stated, “that diseases cannot be controlled unless you destroy their causes. The influence of the Jew would never disappear without removing its cause, the Jew, from our midst”, he said. These radical ideas paved the way for the mass murder of the Jews in the 1940s. 

Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the Nation-State Law passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people—and them alone. Key areas of the conflict include the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, borders, security and water rights, as well as Palestinian freedom of movement and the Palestinian right of return.

How is Netanyahu responding to these basic human rights of the Palestinians?  Newspaper Israel Hayom  revealed  that the Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer is “preparing a plan requested by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, aimed at reducing the number of Palestinian citizens in the Gaza Strip to the minimum possible”.

Tamir Pardo says Israeli government is in the grip of 'extreme lunatics' and 'horrible racists'. Pardo, who served  Netanyahu as head of Mossad from 2011 to 2016, said that by inviting Ben Gvir, Smotrich and other far-right politicians to join his coalition, Netanyahu had taken the Israeli equivalent of the "Ku Klux Klan” and brought it into the government". Pardo said that Netanyahu is responsible for Israel's current polarization, adding that the prime minister is leading a coalition government made up of "extreme lunatics".

The world must wake up and stop this terrible war crime. And shame on Biden’s  USA, who vetoed key UN resolutions for a ceasefire and is the chief provider of money and arms to Israel.

 Dr Michael ATCHIA

(Former United Nations Programme Director)

22nd February 2024