Polish Jewish Leader Compares Palestine to the Warsaw Ghetto

Roman Frister wrote a sobering article in Haaretz this week entitled Polish-Jewish sociologist compares West Bank separation fence to Warsaw Ghetto walls.

 Sygmunt Bauman, the Jewish sociologist and one of the greatest philosophers of our time, castigated Israel harshly this week, saying it did not want peace and was afraid of it.

Bauman said Israel was "taking advantage of the Holocaust to legitimize unconscionable acts," and compared the separation fence to the walls surrounding the Warsaw Ghetto, in which hundreds of thousands of Jews perished in the Holocaust.

In a long interview to the important Polish weekly "Politika," Bauman said Israel was not interested in peace. "Israeli politicians are terrified of peace, they tremble with fear from the possibility of peace, because without war and without general mobilization they don't know how to live," he said.  

Frister concludes,

He is seen as one of the greatest sociologists of our time and has dealt extensively with the ties between the Holocaust and modernism, globalization and consumer culture in the postmodern era.

When a Polish Jewish leader compares Palestine to the Warsaw Ghetto, its time to do something to avoid history repeating itself.

Bauman's views remind me of the statement made by Sir Yehudi Menuhin in the Knesset in 1991 when we was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize by the Israeli Government. He gave an acceptance speech in which he criticised Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank with these words,

This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the awful significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It is unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a code of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and achieve a society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet deny the sharing of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling amongst them.

When asked why he had made such a provocative speech he said "That is why I have come."

You can experience the checkpoint at Bethlehem here

Christ at the Checkpoint from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.