Settlers To Start "Yad Vashem" For Gaza "Holocaust"

Settlers disgrace themselves again. The Jerusalem Post reports:

In a new initiative by the far-right, a group calling itself "The International Headquarters for Saving the People and Land of Israel" have decided to found an institution dedicated to the memory of communities evacuated during the disengagement.

According to the group's plan, the memorial center will be built in Jerusalem in the coming months.

The center will exhibit videos and photographs of the former settlements, miniaturized models of the settlements, and photographs of the evacuating security forces. Evacuees will be guiding tours of the center.

Rabbi Shalom Wolfa, one of the center's initiators, justified the necessity for the institution by asserting, "There are families that have actually experienced a Holocaust [as a result of disengagement], and God forbid that the people of Israel should experience another Holocaust."

Yosef Lapid, head of Shinui, attacked Wolfa's statements, "It is sad that people are manipulating the name of the Holocaust to forward their political agenda. They say that the IDF is the SS, and that the evacuees sent to hotels are actually in gas chambers."

In response to the initiative, a Yad Vashem spokesperson told The Jerusalem Post, "The repeated use of Holocaust imagery in political conflicts is infuriating and completely unjustified. Such use induces baseless comparisons that disrespect the memory of the Holocaust, and constitutes Holocaust denial that harms both survivors and our common values."

Anti-pullout activists speckled Holocaust imagery at various points throughout the Gaza and northern Samaria evacuations. Some called Prime Minister Ariel Sharon or members of the security forces 'Nazis', or reminded the public that the Holocaust was the last time Jews were forcibly expelled from their homes.

A number of activists, and many of their children, wore yellow or orange Stars of David bearing the letter "J" on their shirts. In Atzmona, children wearing yellow stars marched to buses with their hands in the air, drawing comparisons to the infamous Holocaust photograph of a Polish child with his hands in the air.

Comments

[Rowan Berkeley]

Curiously, the draft of the article that you have reproduced, Shmarya, is not the same as the version currently at that URL, which stresses the Chabad aspect much more than the version you have does, and also spells Wolpe's name in the more usual way.

[Shmarya]

Thanks! I posted the – heavily revised! – article in a new post.

[anona]

You fucking idiot.