[rad-green] Yad Vashem Holocaust commemoration desecrated by list of invitees

*https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-as-descendant-of-auschwitz-victims-i-ve-no-interest-in-the-yad-vashem-laundromat-1.8436623
<https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-as-descendant-of-auschwitz-victims-i-ve-no-interest-in-the-yad-vashem-laundromat-1.8436623>Haaretz
         Jan 22, 2020 As Descendant of Auschwitz Victims, I've No Interest
in the Yad Vashem Laundromat*
*By Eitay Mack  *

[image: Philippine President Duterte lays a wreath at Israel's Holocaust
Memorial, Yad Vashem. September 2, 2018]*Philippine President Duterte lays
a wreath at Israel's Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem. September 2, 2018.Emil
Salman*Yad Vashem will be holding an event on Thursday to mark the 75th
anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. The list of
those invited who have confirmed their attendance – heads of state and
senior representatives of most European countries, Canada, Australia, the
United States and even representatives of European royal families – is the
fulfillment of Viktor Orban and Jair Bolsonaro’s racist dream of a world
that is white and based on Judeo-Christian identity. It is not by
happenstance that there won’t be a single participant from Latin America,
Africa or East Asia at the conference.

After World War II, and as a lesson from the Holocaust in which six million
Jews were exterminated, the international community agreed to a list of
charters aimed at protecting the recognition and defense of basic human
rights, preventing genocide and discrimination, and protecting refugees.
These charters weren’t perfect but provided some hope that the term “never
again” would become more than a hollow slogan.

In effect, from the standpoint of Israel and a large number of Western
countries whose representatives will attend the Yad Vashem event, citizens
of the Southern Hemisphere were not intended to be fully protected by these
post-Holocaust charters and human rights protections. For decades since the
liberation of Auschwitz, not only have most of these countries remained
silent in the face of a long list of massacres, rapes, disappearances and
torture of masses, but have actively aided in the commission of such
crimes. Some Western countries have continued to be ruled by colonialist
and neocolonialist regimes. For economic reasons and as part of the Cold
War and the war against communism, most Western nations sold weapons to and
supported military regimes that perpetrated crimes against humanity and
genocide.

With U.S. consent, Israel quickly became a central weapons supplier to a
list of murderous regimes in Central and South America, Africa and
Southeast Asia. For example, Israel’s important support for a 1951 charter
against genocide was replaced by support for military regimes in Guatemala,
and genocide was perpetrated against natives through the use of Israeli
weapons. Israel’s support for a charter to eliminate all forms of racial
discrimination and significant civilian projects for the independence of
African nations transformed into massive military support for the apartheid
regime in South Africa.

As opposed to the Holocaust Museum in Washington which for years offered
universal interpretations for lessons of the Holocaust, documented
destruction and crimes against humanity against other peoples and even
established an institute to prevent genocide, Yad Vashem (with the
exception of some of its researchers) refrained from dealing with anything
deviating from the Jewish issue. For decades, Yad Vashem even became a
compulsory place to visit for dictators, murderers, racists and fascists
who visit Israel to close weapons deals and win the U.S. ally’s mantle of
legitimacy and moral kashrut. Therefore, there’s no more appropriate place
to collectively launder all the crimes of these countries against
substantial parts of the world population than at the Yad Vashem museum.

At Thursday’s event, nobody will speak about the lessons of Auschwitz and
the processes that took place in the 1930s, in view of the hatred of
foreigners and Islamophobia in Western nations, the world refugee crisis
and the continuing wars in South Sudan and Syria, the Rohingya stuck in
refugee camps in Bangladesh, the fear of genocide in Burundi and the
scorched opposition zones in Cameroon or Honduras.

Nor will they speak about the situation of the Palestinian people in
occupied territories, France’s responsibility for the genocide in Rwanda,
Britain’s responsibility for the disaster of partitioning India, and the
detention camps where members of Kenya’s freedom movement were tortured,
the American responsibility for the mass slaughter of communists and
leftists in Indonesia, or the genocide against natives in Canada, the U.S.
and Australia.

Presumably the president of Armenia will not dare to raise any discussion
about Israel’s refraining from recognition of the Armenian genocide and the
president of Bosnia won’t dare to raise any discussion about Israeli
military aid to the Serbs and the Bosnian Serbs during the war and genocide
that took place there.

As a descendant of Auschwitz victims and survivors, there’s nothing of
interest for me in this event.

*Attorney Mack is a human rights activist specializing in the issue of
Israel’s arms trade.*

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