Re: U.S. National Security, Auschwitz and Israel — An Open Letter to Pelosi
An open letter addressed to House Speaker Pelosi regarding her remarks (quoted below the letter) on national security, Auschwitz and Israel during the press conference she gave on Jan 15, 2021:
To House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
By linking the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp in your speech today to Israel and thus implicitly legitimizing the dehumanization of Palestinians at the hands of the Jewish state, you are in fact defiling the invocation of the Holocaust “never again”, which has been expanded since to call for peace and justice honoring the full humanity of all people, not only Jews. The Zionist colonization of Palestine was planned long before the Holocaust. Your precious Israeli state is an apartheid state perpetrating a crime against humanity on a daily basis and as you speak. Your government’s so-called “peace process” spits in the face of the liberated pieties you tearfully quote: “If you want peace, work for justice.”
Please read:
A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid [ B’Tselem בצלם ]
What This Nation Under God Will Or Will Not Tolerate [ Rima Najjar ]
Israel: “A Regime Of Jewish Supremacy” [ Rima Najjar ]
Cc: Joe Biden
Kamala Harris
Antony John Blinken
Following is an excerpt of Nancy Pelosi’s remarks:
“Today is actually Martin Luther King’s birthday and as we observe it in this extraordinary time, it is important to remember his words. All of them felt appropriate at one time or another. Today, I remember him saying, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” I am particularly drawn to that phrase, one of my favorites that I have in my office is Pope Paul the 6th; he said, “If you want peace, work for justice.” The connection is very clear … I find this to be a very emotional time … this assault on our democracy … we are very passionate about our reaction, but we must be dispassionate in how we make decisions to go forward for security, security, security … as you see the film of the incitement of the president of the United States, one figure, so many disgusting images, but one figure of the man in a shirt with Auschwitz on it, work=freedom, Auschwitz… In January one year ago I had the privilege of bringing a delegation in January to Yad Vashem, the museum of the Holocaust in Israel to join heads of states … to observe the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. On the way to Israel, I brought a delegation to Auschwitz-Birkenau, probably one of the most transformative national security visits that we had made. All of our visits outside the country are about national security and so was that. To see the dehumanizing of people that was perpetrated there was so, so overwhelming, to see this punk with his shirt on to be part of an antisemitic raid on this Capitol that he has bragged about … requires us to have an after-action review to assign responsibility to those who incentivized it and organized it.”
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Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.
