Happy Anniversary! Jewish uprising
(By Lia Tarachansky) Exactly 65 years ago this Sunday 70,000 Jews stood up to their Nazi murderers in the Warsaw Ghetto by staging an armed revolt in one of history’s most remarkable moments of self-defense and liberation. I imagine today, the Palestinians feel much the same, and see any uprising as a sign that they have not lost their hope, that one day they will be free from living in a prison, guarded by masked soldiers.
The most significant part of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is that more Jews survived as a result of their empowering act. Even the ones who thought they were sacrificing themselves, had a higher rate of survival. Instead of a planned 8000 person deportation to an extermination camp, 5000 were deported.
Yes, this means 5000 people were killed then, but 3000 were saved. This is not the only case of the Jewish resistance, there were literally dozens of Jewish resistance organizations that were created throughout the Nazi concentration camps, and this revolt is but one of the most famous.
Many critics say that celebrating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising suggests that the Jews in other ghettos who did not revolt were somehow weak. This argument is based on a false assumption that only nationalized armies have a right to use violent, even righteously violent actions. It assumes that only politicians have the right to defend their people. Anyone who knows the history of anti-Judaism, and Jewish-targeted violence, racism, and oppression knows that this argument is in itself presumptuous and racist as it prefers the continuation of oppression towards the Jews at the time.
Breaking out of the cycle of oppression though is the only path the oppressed can take to fight against their oppressors, and I thank them for having given all oppressed, imprisoned, and occupied peoples hope.
I therefore, leave you with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js2kuhUQSfk&feature=PlayList&p=98BE47BADA78D556&p laynext=1&index=14 >
Declaration Published in Ha’aretz (22 September 1967): Our right to defend ourselves from extermination does not give us the right to oppress others. Occupation entails foreign rule. Foreign rule entails resistance. Resistance entails repression. Repression entails terror and counter-terror. The victims of terror are mostly innocent people. Holding on to the occupied territories will turn us into a nation of murderers and murder victims. Let us get out of the occupied territories immediately.
