The Palestinians are the Jews of the Israelis

It would later turn out that Primo Levi, whose memoirs on Auschwitz have achieved enormous influence among U.S. Intellectuals, would make clear his break with Zionism in 1982, after the assault on Beirut. It was on the eve of Primo Levi’s departure to return to Auschwitz to commemorate the dead that he signed the petition, with other survivors, to demand the recognition of the rights of all peoples of the region, published in La Repubblica. In his views, the Israeli bombers in 1982 were not fighting for freedom, but had become the new oppressors, fighting to deprive another minority of their freedoms. He wrote,

Everybody is somebody’s Jew. And today the Palestinians are the Jews of the Israelis.

nl06073000.pngclaiming that the Israeli state had become morally unacceptable to anyone who survived the Nazi genocide; after Sabra and Shatilla, he publically asked Sharon and Begin to resign. And though he was told that he needed to remain silent, that in times of war, his open and public criticism could only hearten the enemies of Israel, he stood firm, and deepened his public criticism in 1984, three years before his death, calling upon Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.

Judith Butler (Jews and the Bi-National State)

See also Israeli settler abuse compared to pre-Holocaust Europe » [23.01.2007]