2 Days to Go – September 23rd is Speech Day

By Sherwin Pomerantz

“The Occupation is Over” was the headline in Washington DC on September 23 1922 as Charles Evans Hughes signed the Hughes-Peynado Agreement that ended the occupation of the Dominican Republic by the United States. No doubt the Palestinian Arab leadership has hope that this Friday, when Chairman Abbas rises to speak to the General Assembly that a similar headline is in the offing for the territories on which his compatriots reside.

But when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu gets up to speak sometime later in the day, no doubt he will be aware of the fact that on the same September 23rd, but 19 years later, in 1941, the very first gas chamber experiments were conducted at Auschwitz putting into place the planned elimination of the Jews of Europe. While thankfully not 100% successful, six million of our brethren lost their lives in the resulting insanity.

History is capable of teaching us great lessons if only we are prepared to listen. I am always reminded of one of my high school history teachers, Louis Ellenoff (who is most likely no longer around) and the frustration he felt when he sensed that the class was not listening. Not more than 5 feet, 5 inches tall, he would often turn to the blackboard with this back to the class, throw up his hands and exclaim “And the law says: Teach them!” The question remains: Is the world listening now?

The failure of humanity to internalize the lessons of history dooms us to repeat the mistakes of the past. George Santayana first understood this when he coined the phrase “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We know that ruling over another people is not sustainable, but we also know that attempts to eradicate a people are immoral. Yet the attempts to do so continue.

Those of us who have been arguing against the Palestinian Arab leadership’s move to gain UN recognition for statehood rather than engaging in face-to-face negotiations with Israel to achieve the same purpose, are doing so in the face of the experience of 4,000 years of Jewish history, much of which has been detrimental to our continued existence on this earth.

And our fears are amplified further when we see in the press that over the past weekend Mojtaba Amani, Iran’s Ambassador to Egypt justified the bid for UN recognition of Palestinian statehood in the most heinous way. In an interview with Al-Watan al-Arabi, the weekly Lebanese news magazine, Amani said that the Palestinian Authority’s push for full membership as a UN member state “is a step towards wiping out Israel” and that “the Palestinians must follow a correct example and complete all the measures to prevent the Zionist entity from depriving them their rights.” No doubt when Iranian president Ahmadinejad speaks at the General Assembly this week he will echo these thoughts as he did last year when he called for the elimination of Israel from the Middle East.

So no one should be surprised to hear words of caution and concern coming from Israel’s leadership when one member of the United Nations openly calls for the elimination of another member and the forum of the world body itself is used as the platform to make such a call. No one should be surprised to hear words of caution and concern coming from our leadership when Hamas in Gaza, with whom Abbas and his associates recently signed an agreement to join forces, openly says they will never recognize Israel nor will they ever agree to any understanding between Fatah and Israel. And no one should be surprised to hear words of caution from us when Abbas himself says to the world that no Jews will be allowed to reside in the new state of Palestine, when it is created.

One occupation was ended on September 23rd and the systematic destruction of the Jewish people began on the same day, albeit 19 years apart. None of us want to be witness to the end of another occupation that carries with it the potential of yet another attempt to eliminate the Jewish people from this land which we have built so successfully over the past 63 years. The conscience of the world will be on trial beginning this week. Let’s hope that it is up to the challenge.