There are two sides to a coin

When we talk about the persecution of the Jews we always only look at Nazi Germany. Do you know that the Jews were persecuted since Roman times? Entire Jewish communities were exterminated and the survivors taken as slaves.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

When I was in Kamunting in September 2008, my wife sent me a book that was about 1,400 pages thick, which took me a whole week to finish. It was about all the wars since before the First World War and the atrocities humankind inflicted on fellow humankind.

It was a tragic book and many times I had to wipe a tear from my eyes. I just could not believe that humankind could be so heartless and cruel. Women, children, old men, and defenceless non-combatant civilians perished by the millions in many acts of ethnic cleansing.

The thing is, most went unreported. I suppose, because of the primitive communications system at that time, such things could be done hidden from public view. Today, you have real time reporting and embedded journalists and other media means to bring the news into your living room through television or to your PC or mobile phone. So now you can see it as it happens and there is no way you can commit atrocities without the world witnessing it as it happens.

When I read what happened over the last 100 years alone (no need to go back 1,000 years), it is clear that today’s victims were yesterday’s aggressors and vice versa. Is this is a case of poetic justice? Is it what goes around comes around and today you suffer what you inflicted on others in the past: karma? Or is it a case of revenge: in the past you did this to me so now I am going to do it back to you?

Look at one issue: the Serbian-Bosnian issue. Today, one is seen as the aggressor and the other the victim. In the past it was the other way around. I am not saying that two wrongs make a right. I am not even acting as an apologist for the aggressor and trying to justify what they are doing today. But not that long ago they suffered worse as the victim of ethnic cleansing.

Today, Israel is seen as a violent regime. Okay, how did Israel even exist in the first place? Who created Israel? Who is defending Israel’s existence and is ensuring that it remains?

When the Jews suffered, not only at the hands of Germany during the Second World War, but even hundreds of years before that, who came to their defence?

When we talk about the persecution of the Jews we always only look at Nazi Germany. Do you know that the Jews were persecuted since Roman times? Entire Jewish communities were exterminated and the survivors taken as slaves.

Most of us know about the Crusades. But do you know that at the height of the First Crusade in 1096, the Jews in Germany were exterminated by the Crusaders? Yes, we have been led to believe that the Crusades were about Christians versus Muslims. How many people talk about the fact that more Jews than Muslims were exterminated in the Crusades?

In the Second Crusade in 1147, this time the Jews in France were targeted for extermination. And in the following Crusades in 1251 and 1320, the Jews, again, suffered ethnic cleansing.

In 1290, the Jews were expelled from England. In 1396, they were expelled from France. In 1421, they were expelled from Austria. Many of these expelled Jews fled to Poland where they were then exterminated by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

The good news is that the Jews in India did not suffer persecution by the Hindus. Maybe that says a lot about Hinduism compared to Christianity where the persecution of the Jews had the endorsement of the Pope and the churches.

We have seen movies such as Schindler’s List where Jews were made to wear a star on their chest. Do you know it was the English who first started this back in the 1200s? Jews in England had to wear stars on their chest more than 600 years before Nazi Germany implemented the same.

No, I am not defending the action of Israel. I am not justifying what they did. But if I were a Jew and considering the 2,000 years of persecution they suffered at the hands of ‘civilised societies’ I would not act any differently.

The Jews have learned from 2,000 years of history that they will always suffer persecution unless they have a nation of their own. The Jews can no longer trust the world, even the ‘civilised’ world. History has proven this. So, to the Jews, Israel is very crucial. Israel is their survival. They can no longer find security by living in someone else’s nation. So they will defend Israel to the last drop of their blood.

The Muslim world, of course, is not happy with Israel. They do not recognise the existence of Israel. That is fine with me. That is their choice. But would Israel have existed if not because of the western world? Can Israel continue to exist if not because of the western world? If we are so angry about Israel then we should also be angry with the promoters of Israel. Why are we not?

How many million Israelis are there compared to the 1 billion so-called ‘outraged’ Muslims? If these 1 billion Muslims are so outraged then why is the western world their number one business partner?

Do you know how much money the Arab world has invested in the west? Without all this money the western economy would have collapsed a long time ago. Why are they trading their oil in US$? Those who buy and sell oil need to also buy and sell the US$. That is giving value to the US$ which would otherwise have no value.

The Muslim world entrusts their money with the Jewish bankers. All these so-called anti-Israel Muslims deal with Jews when it comes to making money.

There is so much hypocrisy in the issue of Israel. The Muslims say one thing but do the opposite. Do you really think the Muslim world, in particular the Arab world, is that upset with Israel? To be upset with Israel they need to also be upset with the western world, in particular with the United States. And they do not want to be upset with the western world because they profit by doing business with the western world.

Yes, condemn atrocities, atrocities against any community. The Jews too suffered many atrocities through the ages. And if atrocities upset us then we should also be upset with what the Jews had suffered. If we are outraged with what the Jews suffered then we have every right to also be upset with whatever atrocities the Jews commit. And if the Jews are wrong and should be punished then those propping up Israel must also be shunned.

Are we prepared to do that? I guess not.

Anyway, read the following article by Yvonne Ridley published on 1 June 2010 in the Information Clearing House. This is, in a way, ‘my response’ to Israel’s recent attack on the Freedom Flotilla.

I wonder how many of you remember the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, way back in October 1985? Four members of the Palestine Liberation Front took control of the liner off Egypt as she was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said.

It was a bungled operation in which the hijackers killed disabled Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer and then threw his body overboard. The incident created headlines around the world and polarised people over the Palestinian cause. It also prompted the lawmakers to create new legislation making it an international crime for anyone to take a ship by force.

And this is the reason for the brief history lesson – under article 3 of the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation of 1988, it is an international crime for any person to seize or exercise control over a ship by force, and also a crime to injure or kill any person in the process.

The treaty necessarily adopts a strict approach. One cannot attack a ship and then claim self-defence if the people on board resist the unlawful use of violence.

In other words, according to international law, the actions of the Israeli military were beyond the law and those involved should be treated no differently than, say, the Somali pirates who are also in the habit of boarding ships by force.

Any rights to self-defence in such dramatic circumstances rests purely with the passengers and crew on board. Under international maritime law you are legally entitled to resist unlawful capture, abduction and detention.

What those on board the Freedom Flotilla did was perfectly legal. I believe they acted with great courage in the face of heavily armed IDF commandos, while others might have thought their actions reckless. Whatever your view, a number paid the ultimate price for their international right to resist.

Israel now stands virtually alone having exposed itself as a pariah state. I wrote an article last year calling them the Pirates of the Mediterranean after they had illegally boarded other aid ships, kidnapping crew and passengers.

Now I want you to ask yourself this question: if a group of Somali pirates had forced their way onto half a dozen humanitarian aid ships from the West, slaughtering around nine or 10 people and injuring scores more, what do you think the international reaction would have been?

Let me tell you. A NATO task force would by now be steaming towards the Horn of Africa accompanied by a couple of drones and various members of the press to record the occasion. (On a point of interest the Achille Lauro sank in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia in 1994.)

So why is Israel allowed to get away with murder? In a pre-meditated act the Zionist State showed once again its total disregard for human life and international law.

There were pensioners, women and children on board those ships which were carrying bags of cement, electric wheelchairs, toys, medicines and water purifiers for Gaza’s people.

Realising Israel had shot itself in the foot, the vile state’s leader Binyamin Netanyahu then started shooting from the lip. He asked us to believe that his troops were acting in self-defence. And then, 24 hours later, given time to come up with more lies he told the world that the soldiers were armed with paintballs and had not expected to use their weapons.

Not content with insulting our intelligence he said his nice, cuddly IDF folk had only boarded the boats to carry out an inspection and inventory. Then backing him up was Mark Regev, the Zionist State’s political Pinocchio. He reckons these evildoers on board the boats grabbed the IDF’s real guns and used them to fire on the soldiers.

These are the same soldiers that come from an elite, highly trained, crack squad…hmm Mr Regev, if that’s the case why would you send in the A-Team if they were just going to do an inventory? And if they were such a hot squad how did a bunch of civilians manage to overpower them and give them a good slap? Either Israeli soldiers fight like a bunch of old women — which Hizbullah says they do — or they intended to massacre those on board to make sure that no other peace activists get involved in trying to help the Palestinian people of Gaza.

Well if that was the aim then it has failed. As I write this some heroic friends of mine from the Free Gaza Movement are bound for Gaza now onboard the appropriately named ship Rachel Corrie. In our thousands in our millions — today we are all Palestinians.

Journalist Yvonne Ridley is the European President of the International Muslim Women’s Union, and a committed peace activist who was on the first boat to break the siege of Gaza in 2008.