Dodaj nową odpowiedź

Golda Bushkanietz and her Polish rescuer, Irena Walulewicz, meet for the first time since 1943

Beautiful pictures arise every now and again depicting how humanitarian we can be when we bravely and nonviolently confront tyranny. Activists, including myself, have a tendency to whine about the world's woes a bit more than celebrate the good things humans do. So I find it healthy for me and I believe us all to remember the good we have done and continue to do, to celebrate our humanitarianism and learn valuable lessons from past protagonists of human resistance to oppression.

Take the above Jerusalem Post's Friday article and photo of Nazi holocaust survivor Golda Bushkanietz and her Polish rescuer, Irena Walulewicz, reuniting after 64 years apart. A fine example of mutual aid and not turning a blind eye in the face of tyranny and persecution.

I just hope that Bushkaneitz's two children, seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren would do the same in her adapted home of Israel for the many innocent, defenseless Palestinians facing daily persecution from the Israeli army in the Occupied Territories.

Of course, I am not making a comparison between the Nazi Germany and the current conflict in the Mid-East. Only a fool would. I have had the misfortune of witnessing racist graffiti in Hebron which included the swastika symbol (in a heavily brutalised Palestinian area) and 'Gas the Arabs' in Jewish settlement areas of the West Bank. These responses are testimony to the hatred brewed by the ongoing occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Yet despite all the animosity, there exists in the Middle East groups such as Combatants for Peace, Rabbis for Peace, the International Solidarity Movement, Gush Shalom, the Anarchists Against the Wall, and the Campaign Against House Demolitions that carry on the ancient tradition of human peacemaking and solidarity, walking in the footsteps of people like Irena Walulewicz.

Long may it continue!