Bob Schwartz

It has been six months since my last post about Gaza.

I think I am weary of watching the situation daily devolve and yet seeing little change in the attitudes of many in the Jewish communities or of many Americans, including those in power. Among other things, we still hear those labeling this a humanitarian tragedy being called antisemitic, even if Jewish.

The following article in the Guardian moves me to post again.

‘Humanitarian city’ would be concentration camp for Palestinians, says former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert

Ehud Olmert says forcing people into camp would be ethnic cleansing, and anger at Israel over Gaza war is not all down to antisemitism

“When they build a camp where they [plan to] ‘clean’ more than half of Gaza, then the inevitable understanding of the strategy of this [is that] it is not to save [Palestinians]. It is to deport them, to push them and to throw them away. There is no other understanding that I have, at least.”…

“It is a concentration camp. I am sorry,” he said, when asked about the plans laid out by Israel Katz last week. Once inside, Palestinians would not be allowed to leave, except to go to other countries, Katz said.

Katz has ordered the military to start drawing up operational plans for construction of the “humanitarian city” on the ruins of southern Gaza, to house initially 600,000 people and eventually the entire Palestinian population.

“If they [Palestinians] will be deported into the new ‘humanitarian city’, then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing. It hasn’t yet happened,” Olmert said. That would be “the inevitable interpretation” of any attempt to create a camp for hundreds of thousands of people, he said.

Whoever you are and whatever communities you are in, please consider what is going on and what is planned in Gaza, please consider Olmert’s thoughts, and please consider a donation to the International Rescue Committee.