The Israelis tried to dehumanize thePalestinians, just like the Nazis tried to dehumanize me." -- Dr. HajoMeyer, Holocaust Survivor
 
"My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town. AGerman soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to providecover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza." --Sir Gerald Kaufman, MP
 
"The world said we would never allow that to happen again. The uprising ofthe Warsaw Ghetto -- the Intifada of the Jewish prisoners in Poland in 1943 --actually inspires us here in Gaza." -- Dr. Haidar Eid, Al-Aqsa University,Gaza
                                                                                                    
For more than six decades, Zionists have dominated global discussion of theNazi genocide. By their account, the Holocaust unleashed a level of sufferingunmatched by any other event in history.
 
The lesson, they claim, is that Jews require a separate state in which they area demographic majority and exercise legalized supremacy over the non-Jewishindigenous population.
 
This Zionist narrative withstands neither historical nor moral scrutiny.
 
Far from being the unique tragedy Zionists have proclaimed it, Jewish sufferingunder the Nazis has numerous historical parallels. The Holocaust itselftargeted and massacred not only Jews, but also millions of others whom Nazislikewise regarded as "subhuman," including Roma, Slavs, gay people,and people with disabilities.
 
Rather than standing outside of history, Nazi crimes against these variouspopulations reflect a much longer trajectory of violence, colonialism,dispossession, slavery, and genocide -- the systematic decimation of national,religious, racial, political or ethnic groups -- that accompanied the rise ofWestern imperialism.
 
Thus, it is no accident that, in pursuing lebensraum ("living space") in theEast, Hitler was inspired by the U.S. government's extermination of NativeAmericans, even referring to Russians as "Redskins."
 
Yet, Zionists have distorted or ignored this history, covering up the fact thattheir goal of a "Jewish state" in Palestine preceded the Naziatrocities by decades. Jewish statehood as a method of achieving politicalpower was born out of the same nineteenth century European ideal of a"racially pure" nation and Western "civilization" of whichNazism was the most pernicious expression. In pursuit of this goal, Zionistleaders made "transfer" agreements with the Nazis, but only for Jews willing to settle in Palestine.

As part of this collaboration, Zionists refused to observe the internationalboycott of Nazi Germany initiated by Jewish labor groups, and even kept silentabout impending plans to deport Jews into Nazi death camps.
 
These decisions reflected the anti-Semitic premises at the core of the Zionistworld-view: that landless life in the Jewish Diaspora led to physical, moral,and spiritual decline, and that the genocide was made possible by Jewish"weakness." However, the state they sought to redress this"problem" could only be achieved by forcibly expelling enough of theindigenous Palestinian population to ensure Jewish control over the land andits resources.
 
To this end, Zionism both exploited and hinged upon the rise of Nazism, andlater, the Holocaust, to transform what had been a small nationalist movementwith little support (even among Jews) into one capable of achieving statehood,based on support from the United States and other imperial powers.
 
The Zionist state that emerged from this project has been an ongoingcatastrophe for the indigenous people of historic Palestine: driven from theirland and refused their internationally recognized right to return, thoseallowed to remain in 1948 Occupied Palestine ("Israel") are treatedas third-class citizens on the basis they are the "wrong" ethnicity;those in the 1967 Occupied Territories of East Jerusalem, the West Bank andGaza are living under brutal military rule.
 
As Jews of conscience, we reject the claim that the Nazi Holocaust, or the longhistory of Jewish persecution in Europe, justifies such a state and thesystematized oppression of Palestinians necessary to establish and maintain it.Self-segregation, political control and the persecution of others is never ananswer to oppression and persecution.
 
"From Auschwitz came, symbolically, two peoples," wrote Israeliacademic Yehuda Elkana. "A minority that proclaims this will never happenagain and a scared and anxious majority who proclaims that this will neverhappen to us again."
 
The Israeli state and its supporters assert the latter, claiming"special" status for Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust. We assertthe former, and, along with the majority of humanity, stand in solidarity withall communities that resist dispossession and genocide.
 
There is no hierarchy of suffering. Oppression based on any identity is wrong.We stand with those who resist that oppression -- whether in Warsaw 1943,Soweto 1976, or Gaza 2011.
 
Join us in declaring: Never Again for Anyone.

For details on the upcoming Never Againfor Anyone tour, featuring Auschwitz survivor Dr. Hayo Meyer and Palestinianactivist Dr. Hatem Bazian, please visit: www.neveragainforanyone.com.