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Dr. Mads Gilbert of Norwac, one of the doctors allowed into Gaza to give emergency medical aid, described conditions to the world inside Gaza as of December 31. Things have only gotten worse since then. Meanwhile the world dissembles and pontificates to a large degree, while the United States blocks UN resolutions to stop the slaughter.
I am reminded of the S.S. St Louis and The Voyage of the Damned. Will Israel render the world impotent and complicit in its criminal assault upon the hapless Palestinians, just as the Nazis did in regard to the Jews in 1939, exposing the anti-semitism of the world? This is the new anti-semitism we see today, the demonization of the Palestinian people and their religion as a way to enable their oppression and slow destruction.
By the way, Arabian peoples are considered Semites anthropologically. Coincidently, some of the Palestinian population is Christian, not merely Moslem. In fact, thousands of Christian "Arabs" were driven from their traditional lands in Palestine alongside their Moslem brethren in 1947-48 by the Israelis (click here for that history). At least the Pope has spoken out this time, compared to 1939. What countries will speak out and take action to stop this tragedy?
In case you don't know the history of the S.S. St Louis, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_St._Louis
Hitler's propaganda ministry and the Nazi party conceived a propaganda exercise which would demonstrate that Germany was not alone in its territorial exclusionary hostility towards Jews as a permanent minority within the political economy of their nation[citation needed]. The Nazis wanted to prove the “civilized world” agreed with their assertion that Jews constituted a “hidden-hand” of influence on national and economic affairs. They meant to show that no other Western country would receive Jews as refugees.
On the surface, it would appear that the Nazis were allowing the Jewish refugees a new life in Havana. However, the Nazis were aware of rising western antisemitism
Boarding at Hamburg Harbour
Jewish refugees aboard the SS St. Louis while the ship was docked in the port of Havana.
St. Louis Captain Gustav Schroeder negotiates landing permits for the passengers with Belgian officials in the Port of Antwerpand correctly surmised that Jews traveling on tourist visas (not immigrant visas, which none of the potential host countries would likely have issued them) would not be able to enter Cuba, since they were clearly political and social refugees. Furthermore, once they had been refused entry by Cuba and other Atlantic nations, the world would be forced to admit that there was, as the Nazis claimed, a “Jewish problem”, which Germany was trying to resolve “humanely.”[citation needed]
Since not one of the countries of the North Atlantic basin would allow the Jewish refugees entry, these countries could not morally object when Nazi Germany dealt with its own Jewish population as it saw fit.[citation needed]
St. Louis sailed from Hamburg in May 1939., carrying one non-Jewish and 936 (mainly German) Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution. [1][2]
As expected, on the ship’s arrival in Cuba, the Cuban government under Federico Laredo Brú refused the passengers both entry as tourists or political asylum. This prompted a near mutiny. Two passengers attempted suicide and dozens more threatened to do the same. However, 29 of the refugees did manage to disembark at Havana. [3]
On 4 June 1939, the St. Louis was also refused permission to land her passengers under orders from President Roosevelt as the ship waited between Florida and Cuba. Initially, Roosevelt showed limited willingness to take some of those on board despite the Immigration Act of 1924, but vehement opposition came from Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, and from Southern Democrats—some of whom went so far as to threaten to withhold their support of Roosevelt in the 1940 Presidential election if he allowed it.[citation needed]
The St. Louis then tried to enter Canada but was denied permission as well. [4]
The ship returned to Europe, first stopping in the United Kingdom, where 288 of the passengers disembarked. The remaining 619 passengers disembarked at Antwerp; 224 were accepted by France, 214 by Belgium by 181 into the Netherlands. They were thus safe from Hitler’s persecution until the German invasions of these countries. [5][6] The ship without any passengers returned to Hamburg and amazingly survived the war.
By using the survival rates for Jews in the various countries, Thomas and Morgan-Witts estimated that about 180 of the St. Louis refugees in France, plus 152 of those in Belgium and 60 of those in Holland survived the Holocaust, giving a total of roughly 709 survivors and 227 slain of the original 936 Jewish refugees. [7][8]
Later, more detailed research by Scott Miller and Sarah Ogilvie of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has given a slightly higher total of deaths:
Of the 620 St. Louis passengers who returned to continental Europe, we determined that eighty-seven were able to emigrate before Germany invaded western Europe on May 10, 1940. Two hundred and fifty-four passengers in Belgium, France and the Netherlands after that date died during the Holocaust. Most of these people were murdered in the killing centers of Auschwitz and Sóbibor; the rest died in internment camps, in hiding or attempting to evade the Nazis. Three hundred sixty-five of the 620 passengers who returned to continental Europe survived the war. [9]
