Anti-Israeli Graffiti Spraypainted in the Warsaw Ghetto
There are some things you just don’t do. It doesn’t matter how unconventional you may think you are or how desperate you are to get a message out there. Some lines are simply not meant to be crossed.
Last week, a group of pro-Palestinian Israeli activists chose to demonstrate against Israeli policy in Gaza by spraying graffiti on one of the last remaining walls of Poland’s Warsaw Ghetto. The group, without a doubt, crossed that line.
The left-leaning protestors held a rally near the wall and then sprayed graffiti in Hebrew and English calling for all ghettos — including Gaza — to be liberated. The words “Free Gaza and Palestine” and “Liberate all ghettos” were displayed in Hebrew and English beside Palestinian flags that the group hung from the wall.
As an aside — or not — the timing gives pause for contemplation considering this week’s death of 90-year-old Nazi war crimes suspect Adolf Storm, who perished before being brought to trial. Storm was suspected of massacring dozens of Jewish laborers in Austria at the end of WWII and was the number four man on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of most-wanted Nazi suspects.
The graffiti incident caused a stir in Israel’s press, as it would, and a group spokesman of sorts attempted to validate his and his colleagues’ actions by comparing his family’s plight to that of the Palestinians.
“Most of my family came from Poland and many of my relatives were killed in the death camps during the Holocaust. When I walk in what was left of the Warsaw Ghetto, I can’t stop thinking about the people of Gaza who are not only locked in an open air prison but are also being bombarded by fighter jets, attack helicopters and drones, flown by people whom I used to serve with before my refusal in 2003,” Yonatan Shapira was quoted by Haaretz, referring to his decision to publicly opt out of military duty earlier in the decade.
Shapira is no stranger to controversial acts. A former Israel Air Force pilot, he authored the 2003 “pilots’ letter“: a statement signed by 27 Israeli pilots who publicly refused to fly missions over the Palestinian territories. As a result, Shapira was ousted from reserve duty and lost his job as a commercial airline pilot.
Defending his actions in Warsaw, Shapira attempted to justify himself this week on Israel’s Army Radio.
“My action is not controversial,” he said on-air Monday. “I am not saying there is a comparison with the monstrosity of Nazi death camps, but I am saying we must talk about the silence in Israel and the world when people are confined in a ghetto-like place.”
We would like to thank Europe for bringing developed forms of anti semitism that originally grew out of the Catholic Church. The Arabs inherited Euro style anti semestism
Your ignorance is unbelievable.
Do you honestly believe that in 600AD, Mohammed, who had never lived more than a few miles from where he was born, was being influenced by European beliefs when he wrote the Koran???????
Perhaps you might want to look at cartoons in the Arab press or refer to the translatioin of the Elders of Zion in Egypt. Heck, years ago Bashir Assad stood right beside the pope and reminded the crowd that Jews killed Jesus. There is plenty of material to draw from in that old timey Europe
David, is there no subject on which you are not willing to display your mind numbing ignorance?
Anti-semitism is built into Islam. It wasn’t taught to them.
Look up what Europe was like in 600Ad, the time of Mohammed.
Then feel the shame of everyone laughing at you.
It is ingrained in Europe as well. Blood libals, pogroms, and finally the Holocaust. It took the 2nd Vatican to finally obsolve jews form being Christ killers. te Arabs very wuillingly picked up on European anti semitic themes starting with Iraq’s bloody pogrom inspired by the raise on Nazi Germany in the 1930′s.
Never said it wasn’t. I was just ridiculing your claim that the Muslims learned it from the Europeans.
David, shut the frell up until you have actually done the RESEARCH to know what you are talking about.
Organized Anti-Semetism in Arabia predates Islam AND Christianity by centuries at the very least, and certainly existed well before almost anybody in mainland Europe heard anything about it.
We KNOW for a fact that as early as 1,000 BC pogroms against Jews (mainly merchants) took place in what is now Yemen, Iraq, and the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. We have deduced from the written and archeological records that both Assyrian and Babylonian conquerers of Israel hired Arab mercenaries, some of whom were noted for acting out of hate against “those who worship untruths.”
In short, Arab Anti-Semetism was well entrenched over A MILLENIA before Mohammed founded Islam.
To say nothing of the fact that the Pagan Selucid, Egyptian, and Roman leadership erected anti-Jewish institutions that far outlived their Christian counterparts.
To say nothing of the extreme lack of a Christian populace or even influence in Arabia when Muhummad emerged and conducted his campaigns including those against the Jews (the Persians blocked the overland routes East from Byzantium due to their near-neverending wars with the Eastern Roman Empire).
In short, you are talking out of your bunghole.
I am no Christian and I am no fan of the Roman Catholic Church, but I AM a historian, and even Hitler and his ilk do not deserve to be blamed for crimes they did not commit.
Study history before making a fool of yourself.
One does not have to be a non-Jew to be antisemitic.
Always there have been people born within the Nation of Israel who hated their own, who hated themselves. Is it a syndrome, the Stockholm syndrome? Whatever it is, to be a Jew (without really feeling and thinking as one) is not enough to love Israel, Land en people.
How shocking. How terrible. Jews perished from hunger, exposure, and hardly any Jewish babies were born in the Hitler-time. And the so called Palestinians? They greatly multiplied, their birth rate is among the highest in the world. Especially in Gaza.
“One does not have to be a non-Jew to be antisemitic.”
Yes. Some of the most intense purveyors of anti-Americanism are Americans. Some of the most virulent anti-Catholic bigots were born into Catholicism. And so it goes.
I would like this poor confused young man to consider just one thing; If the Palestinians would put down their weapons, would accept Israel as their neighbor state and cease and desist in the killing of Israeli citizens then I believe that peace between the Israeli’s and the Palestinians would break out almost immediately. However if the Israeli’s were to put down their weapons, stop defending their borders and citizens and cease and desist ridding the world of Palestinian terrorists and murderers then the State of Israel would then be a thing of the past. Which would he choose?
This poor young man, meaning me, had spent 7 years in a combat unit of the IDF. Now back to this subject. The Palestinains and Arab workld learned from the best anti semites of all time and the Warsaw Ghetto is a testament to that. The protocols of the Elders of Zion, authored in Eastern Europe was reprinted in Arabic. I am hardly a passivist and support many of the policies of the current Israeli govt, but the Warsaw Ghetto would not be such a tragic landmark if somthing did not happen there at the hands of civilized Europe.
This does not answer the point about the anti-semite Mohammed.
As an Israeli whose son hopes to join the air force when he is inducted into the army next year, I am appalled by the action taken by this mis-guided ex-pilot. “No one is comparing Israel to the Nazis…” he say? Pu-LEEESE! That’s quite obviously what he’s doing.
It’s a slap in the face to holocaust survivors as well as the victims of the holocaust, who were slaughtered simply because they were JEWISH. The Palestinians living under Hamas control in Gaza owe their “imprisonment” to the their own islamo-fascist leadership, who insist that the death of Israeli civilians – and the destruction of the entire Zionist enterprise – is far more important than any Palestinian “state building.”
Shame on him.
“No one is comparing Israel to the Nazis…”
Miriam does it all the time. In fact she claims that Israel is many times worse than the Nazis.
Ghettos come in all shapes and sizes. So do idiots. Shapira, yer an idiot. Do you think even for one second, that had the ‘fine people of Gaza’ had the weaponry in 1948 that they would have thought twice about locking every remaining Jewish individual into a ghetto? Or if the USA was to withdraw their open support of Israel, that the ‘paece-long Islamic nations’ would not hesitate to invade Israel and slaughter every last man, woman and child?
My diagnosis: Mr. Shapira suffers from severe terminal optic rectumbosis. His head is up his backside and he can’t see the truth.
Logic won’t take out of a person’s brain what logic did not put there. This fellow is sick, he needs help. Let’s hope he does NOT get it.
what next, a memorial for the Nazi victims of the Warsaw uprising. where exactly are the death camps? and who are the camp guards? i thought Hamas was in charge there. no sympathy for self inflicted stupidity.
Shapira and his gang of misanthropes are certainly entitled to their inane opinions. But, when they picked up that spray can and defaced the memorial, they clearly crossed the line. Shapira the recalcitrant is now Shapria the criminal.
Markthegreat: isee that you brouhgt me in this conversation. let me try one last time to see if i can make you understnd.
go look at my blogs from the past. no where will you that I said Israelis.
but you will see that I said Israeli govrnment. you can not judge a nation by its government. am I anti Israeli government? yes I am, I am anti Israelis: NO I AM NOT. let’s take this a little further and let me ask you a question:
do you hate the Iranian government? it is a yes or no answer and do you hate Iranians? you see wher I am going with this? and again the fact that most of you here thinking that critisizing the Israeli government makes one anti semite, or anti jews, and or self hating jews, you are a in a f….ing dream land
miriam, there is a reason why you constantly lie about the Israeli govt.
There is a reason why you condemn Israel, while excusing it’s neighbors of doing even worse.
There is a reason why, no matter what the discussion, you try to bring up Isreal.
It’s because you are a flaming anti-semite.
I’m sure that in what passes for your brain, you have convinced yourself that your hatred of Isreal is because of their actions, and not because the fact that it is run by Jews.
However, your posts reveal you for who you are.
In your case, the truth is ugly.
Another future Sonderkommando Capo is born, Capo Shapira I bet they let him run the showers this holocaust.
Markthegreat: shouldn’t David Stein be labeld a “self Hating Jew”? I was wondering
From the self-hating human, that’s saying something.
They did, all you have to do is look the Arab press
So all was love and peace between muslims and jews until the Europeans taught the muslims about hate.
You David are so delusional that you can’t even see it anymore.
As for David Stein, people like him live in the past. I guess I should still be hating Jews for stoning St. Stephen (even though he, too, was a Jew who believed in Christ as all early believers). Or perhaps I should take David Stein to task for the evil things the Torah says about Jesus and Mary (and don’t protest it’s not in there, David). That is going to get us nowhere. We, in the 3rd Millennium, face a common uncivilized sick enemy in islam and throwing stones at Christians is not going to help your people, David. In fact, if it weren’t for Christians you might not have a nation or any people to populate it with. So get off your high IDF horse and attack those who attack your people today; stop using the sins of individuals who used their institutional power to subject many people, not just Jews. Remember, David, vengeance is mine saith the Lord and those people who have unjustly done things in the Name of God do not get away with it. The reverse, those who do not exercise forgiveness, like you, are in danger of being judged more severely by the God of Justice. Let’s play the David blame game: I contend that moslems learned their anti-Christian bias from reading the Torah and talking to Jews.
” Or perhaps I should take David Stein to task for the evil things the Torah says about Jesus and Mary (and don’t protest it’s not in there, David). ”
What the heck are you talking about? The Torah predates the birth of Jesus by more than one thousand five hundred years.
” So get off your high IDF horse and attack those who attack your people today…”
I have a bridge for sale…..
… in other words the poster ” david stein ” didn’t spend seven years in an IDF unit, combat or otherwise.
My better half distracted me and I hit the button before attaching my name. Sorry.
” I contend that moslems learned their anti-Christian bias from reading the Torah and talking to Jews.”
I don’t like to repeat myself but what the heck are you talking about?
Anonymous: “In rabbinic literature, the word “Torah” denotes both the written text, ‘Torah Shebichtav’ (תורה שבכתב, ‘Torah that is written’), as well as an oral tradition, ‘Torah Shebe’al Peh’ (תורה שבעל פה, ‘Torah that is oral’). The oral portion consists of the ‘traditional interpretations and amplifications handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation,’ now embodied in the Talmud and Midrash.”
“The Talmud (Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד talmūd ‘instruction, learning,’ from a root lmd ‘teach, study’) is a central text of mainstream Judaism, in the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history.
“The Talmud has two components: the Mishnah (c. 200 CE), the first written compendium of Judaism’s Oral Law; and the Gemara (c. 500 CE), a discussion of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Tanakh.”
As for David’s service in the IDF, I will give him the benefit of the doubt, but not an inch on his anti-Christian bias that stems from the Talmud, which is part and parcel of the Torah and is post the life of Christ.
Menachem: it is a sarcastic comment. It is a false claim that has about as much validity as David’s that European, i.e., Christian anti-Semitic acts, influenced moslems and their behavior toward Jews, just as making the claim that any anti-Christian bias by Jews influenced moslems to hate Christians.
Steve, I now understand your sarcasm. I think the following may be of interest.
http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/the_talmud.pdf
You were saying
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/html/final/eng/sib/egypt/peoz_1_04.htm
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/salim_mansur/2010/02/12/12859576.html
The Arabs learned well from Europeans, and please don’t tell me that anti semitism is dead in Europe.
David,
Do you enjoy embarrasing yourself?
I stated above that I recognize that many Europeans are anti-semitic. That point has been a topic of conversation on this site for a long time.
What I was ridiculing was your claim that the Muslims learned their anti-semitism from the Europeans.
The Muslims were anti-semitic from the get go. Long before they even knew there were Europeans.
chickens come home to roost!