Editor,
A number of articles were published recently in the Daily Lobo concerning the Israeli-Arab conflict.
While the majority of them, if not all, were superficial and misleading, the last one, by Richard M. Berthold, was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was shallow, deceptive and full of hatred.
Berthold equates today's Israel to Nazi Germany and Palestinians to Jews who endured the Holocaust. In his equation, the IDF is similar to the German Wehrmacht, and the Russian partisans who fought against the Nazis are compared to the Palestinian suicide bombers.
Distortions of historical facts are to be found in almost every premise. For instance, Berthold argues that Israel has acted in contradiction of U.N. resolutions, claiming that "the land granted the Palestinians by the same U.N. resolution that created Israel has been extensively colonized," but omits that it was the Palestinians and the Arab world that opposed the resolutions and attempted to eliminate Israel.
In addition, Berthold's use of language is interesting. The thousands of Qassam rockets being fired daily from Gaza for almost five years now into Israeli cities kill and injure people and disrupt normal living. They are described as "homemade" rockets, as if we were discussing homemade cookies. In fact, those homemade rockets are manufactured in advanced turneries and have already killed people and emptied cities.
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Furthermore, Berthold uses quotation marks around the word terrorists, as if to say they aren't real terrorists but only so-called terrorists, because only when enlightened Europeans or Americans are murdered can the word terrorist be appropriated. The column contains many deceptions, but detailing all will take too long.
Behind the repetitive comparisons of Nazi Germany and Israel, and behind the attempts to present the Israelis as the new Nazis, stands a clear goal. Berthold, and those who use this propaganda, try to remove, in Berthold's words, the "collective guilt of Europe and America" and to wipe out any responsibility toward Israel's security and welfare.
In other words, if Israel is indeed the new Nazi state, then the attitude toward Israel should be in accordance with it, and there isn't any need to regret the Holocaust anymore. On the contrary, such a Nazi state should be exterminated.
Berthold also conceals the identity of leaders who resemble Nazi leaders. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who preaches the eradication of Israel, denies the Holocaust and leads everyone astray in his way to the atomic bomb; the Hamas government that encourages suicide bombers and massive rocket attacks into Israeli cities; and the Syrians who fund Hezbollah and assassinate Lebanese leaders for their lack of support of the Syrian takeover of Lebanon - all of these are meaningless for Berthold.
He cares about the occupation and that Israel controls all access to Gaza, although Israel retreated from Gaza a few years ago, and Gaza has a border with Egypt.
Instead of seeing history repeat itself, owing to the massive arming of radical regimes and their increasing ambition to exterminate the Jews of Israel, Berthold fabricates stories and tries to distract us from the real problems of the region: the strengthening and spreading of radical Islam and the danger of Israel ceasing to exist.
Fortunately, Berthold acknowledges that his ideas are considered anti-Semitic but tries to clear himself by introducing us to Jews suffering self-hatred.
To Berthold's disappointment, Israel will stay a secular democracy and a Jewish state, exactly like Germany, which has a Turkish minority, is still the state of the German people.
Yuval Gila
Daily Lobo reader
