AHRP April Newsletter – Part 1
Dear Lovers of Freedom,
T.S. Elliot, in his epic poem, The Waste Land, turned the natural cycle of death and rebirth on its head, declaring: “April is the Cruelest Month”.
April happens to be the month I was born … but also, the month in which my beloved husband died in 2020.
I have been bearing witness to man’s inhumanity to man for more than eighty five years….and can say in all honesty, that the world is NOT a better place after the establishment of dozens of international so-called peace keeping institutions! Quite the contrary: we have had more wars — and more large-scale human carnage since.
Taking seriously the admonition of the German theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whom the Nazis executed on April 9, 1945:
“Silence in the face of evil, is evil”.
I embarked on a mission to speak out against tyranny at every opportunity.
The current, multi-pronged assault on humanity prompted me to write multiple newsletters this month. The first of four, focuses on the relentless, calibrated, genocidal war clearly aimed at eliminating the Palestinian people.
I cannot avert my eyes from the heartless assault on the children of Gaza, whose agony moves me to tears.
April Newsletter – Pt. 1: Never Again? Gaza in Genocide
The human catastrophe in Gaza is occurring in plain sight. It is financed and supplied with genocidal weapons by the world superpowers. The massacre of thousands of civilians – babies, children, and their mothers – is tacitly approved by the silent majority.
I’ve lived through that playbook before. I cannot, therefore, avert my eyes or my conscience from the ongoing orgy of violence that the Palestinian people in Gaza are subjected to.
The objective of the Israeli government is to eliminate the Palestinian people entirely. That objective constitutes genocide.
Lee Mordechai, an Israeli Professor of History at Hebrew University, has compiled – and regularly updates – a massive, detailed database: BearingWitness to the Israel-Gaza Warwhich contains thousands of reports, videos, photos, testimonies, and investigations that document in detail the horrors committed by Israel in Gaza.
In his introduction Prof. Mordechai notes: “The enormous amount of evidence I have seen, much of it referenced later in this document, has been enough for me to believe that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza… Israel’s campaign is ostensibly its reaction to the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, in which war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed within the context of the longstanding conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that can be dated back to 1917 or 1948 (or other dates).
In all cases, historical grievances and atrocities do not justify additional atrocities in the present. Therefore, I consider Israel’s response to Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7 utterly disproportionate and criminal.”
That assessment is based on the documented evidence and the visible reality that everyone pretends not to see. It happened during the Nazi execution of the Final Solution in 1941-1945.
And it is happening again. This time, the perpetrators are radical Zionists; some of who are the grandchildren and great grandchildren of Holocaust survivors!
The complicit governments of the U.S., U.K and Germany are not only financing and providing weapons of mass destruction, they raise the specter of anti-Semitism as an odious political maneuver against those who protest the genocide.
I regard those who equate demonstrators against genocide in Gaza with anti-Semitism as morally appalling. They are trying to cover-up their endorsement of crimes against humanity – by silencing people who exercise their right to speak out and to assemble.
Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14188 “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism” penalizes universities financially for allowing student demonstrations against the unfolding Genocide in Gaza, and facilitates the deportation of foreign students – by declaring them Anti-Semitic pro-Hamas – without due process.
Anti-Semitism is not combated by suppressing speech!
Holocaust survivors whose experience has sensitized them to recognize a genocide in the making – as do I – want to demonstrate that Israeli actions against the Palestinian people do NOT have the “solid support” of all Jews—as Netanyahu falsely claims.
“Holocaust survivor descendants against Gaza genocide!”
In London, demonstrators are at risk of arrest for protesting against the Israeli Genocide in Gaza. The London police repeatedly harass a group of Jewish Holocaust survivors and sons and daughters of survivors – some of who are Israeli.
At the very least, this demonstrates an appalling lack of sensitivity and disrespect for those who care enough to demonstrate – in the cold of winter – their support for fellow human beings.
Stephen Kapos, 87, laid flowers at Trafalgar Square during a Gaza protest to commemorate the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in the Israel -Hamas war.
Mr. Kapos lived in hiding under the Nazi regime as a child in Budapest, Hungary, after he lost touch with his mother, and his father was taken to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
He was among nine other elderly demonstrators who were interrogated by the police. Echoes of 1984? Brave New World? Gestapo?
After his interrogation, Mr. Kapos spoke surrounded by around 100 supporters: “All that should be stopped immediately because there’s no doubt about this being an atrocity and international crime…perpetrated by Israel. So how can you hesitate in the face of that?”
Dr. Agnes Kory said: “In the name of a Holocaust survivor, which is me, and a Holocaust researcher, which is also me, I say no, not in our names, and I have to be at the forefront of peace for Palestine movements.” The crowd chanted: “We are all Palestinians”
The obscenity of using the police to intimidate Holocaust survivors and their children for supporting today’s victims of a Holocaust is what in Jewish is called “Chutzpah” (unmitigated gall)!
The mainstream press in Western “democracies” transmit Israeli propaganda, steadfastly avoiding the truth.
Ironically, I find Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper of record, published daily in Hebrew and English a reliable source of information about what is transpiring in GAZA.
What’s more the English comments provide a sense of how Israel’s actions are perceived by (mostly) Jews inside and outside of Israel. The consensus is overwhelmingly highly critical.
March 2, 2025: Haaretz reported: “Israel has shut off all sources of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies for the Gaza Strip’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians. It’s the longest blockade yet of Israel’s 17-month-old campaign against Hamas, with no sign of it ending. Many Gazans went hungry during the normally festive Eid al-Fitr, a major Muslim holiday.”
Historically, famine and starvation have been used as a form of depopulation.
Between 1900 and 1940 more than twenty famines are recorded in One Page in the History of Starvation and Refeeding, Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal, 2024
The Soviets inflicted Holodomor in 1930-33 by closing the borders of Ukraine and other grain growing regions to eliminate independent farmers. As many as 4.5 million Ukrainians and many millions more of Russian farmers were starved to death in Holodomor.
Starvation and denial of medical supplies were Nazi methods for eliminating tens of millions of Poles, Jews and other Slavic Untermenschen in Eastern Europe. The objective was to “cleanse the land” –i.e., “ethnic cleansing”– to create lebensraum for German settlers.
Israel has an identical objective; namely to “cleanse the land” of Palestinians; to facilitate Israeli expansion to incorporate “Greater Israel” – “From the River to the Sea.”
Netanyahu speech at the U.N. Assembly in Sept. 2023
From Mount Hermon’s Peaks, Netanyahu Plots His Vision of a Greater Israel
The Times of India, Associated Press, and Haaretz reported that
Gaza will Run Out of Flour for Bread Within a Week:
Having suffered from the pain of hunger during three years in a concentration camp, I know what no bread means!
Aid workers warn of a catastrophic surge in severe hunger and malnutrition. Eventually, food will run out completely if the flow of aid is not restored, as almost all local food production in Gaza has been destroyed by the war. The people in Gaza are starving while food is rotting, and Medical Supplies are Stuck at Israel Border.
A stark example of the propaganda reported by the government-controlled Israeli media and what transpired on March 17, 2025:
“One of the greatest preemptive operations in military history… more than 300 terrorists were liquidated within a few minutes… thanks to extraordinary cooperation between the Shin Bet [security service] and the air force…”
Haaretz reporters who investigated confirmed that March 17th was:
One of the Gaza War’s Most Horrifying Nights, the Israeli Army Killed Nearly 300 Women and Children
Gaza Child Casualties March 17, 2025
Haaretz reported:
Announcement that death toll surpassed 50,000 didn’t faze anyone, not even in Gaza
This isn’t our war: Israel is waging a far-right offensive to expel Gazans
‘Stop turning Gaza into rubble’: Fed up with war and Hamas, Gazans ramp up their protest
This is the Palestinian people’s response to “Greater Israel” – a land grab plan that calls for Palestinian expulsion from THEIR homeland.
Israeli HOSTAGES are for CEASE-FIRE:
Released hostage Yarden Bibas, whose wife and two young children were murdered in Hamas captivity gave his first interview since being freed from Gaza to CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
Israel’s Released Hostages Have No Faith in Netanyahu
He stated that he chose a U.S. network to directly implore U.S. President Trump to “Please stop this war and help bring all the hostages back.”
Asked if he thinks Trump can help, Bibas said that “I know he can. I’m here because of Trump, only because of him.”
“A huge majority of Israelis actually supports the position of the released hostages. A poll published on Friday night by Israel’s Channel 12 showed that 69 percent of Israelis support ending the Gaza war in return for the release of all hostages, while only 21 percent oppose this idea. Yet the Netanyahu government is in the hands of those 21 percent, and the demand of most Israelis to first of all save the hostages, and then deal with the future of Gaza, is being ignored.
The hostages’ interviews will also pose a major challenge to leading American Jewish groups. Many of those groups have chosen the cynical path of using the hostages for hasbara purposes, but ignoring the call of those very same hostages, and their families, to end the war and save those left behind.
The abandonment of Israeli hostages by the Israeli government has also resulted in a crisis for the military.
“Several senior reservists warned of a 50 percent fall in the rate of reporting for duty. One senior reservist said that brigade and battalion commanders are dealing with scores of cases in which reservists have announced they will not report for duty, in most cases due to the violation of the hostage deal…”
April 1, 2025: Haaretz reported a war crime atrocity:
UN Recovers 15 Aid Workers’ Bodies in Gaza, Say Some Found Bound and Shot
Rescue teams say some victims had their hands tied and were shot at close range, suggesting they were executed. Nir Hasson, Liza Rozovsky, Jack Khoury
“One rescuer on site told Haaretz that one of the bodies was found with its legs bound, reinforcing suspicions that some of the aid workers may have been executed…Members of the rescue team say an IDF official directed them to the exact location where the bodies were buried and instructed them to bring digging tools. UN teams received approval to recover the bodies five days after submitting their request.”
In Gaza, almost every IDF platoon keeps a human shield, a sub-army of Palestinian slaves
On Apil 7, 2025 a cell phone video taken by one of the medics in the vehicle, who was subsequently killed and buried in a mass grave, was shown on Democracy Now. It confirms that Israeli soldiers shot the 15 Gaza Medics and Rescue Workers at point blank. “Some of the victims were found with their hands or legs tied and multiple gunshot wounds to the head and chest…”
The Lead Editorial, Haaretz (April 1, 2025): Israelis Will Have to Look in the Mirror and See the Gaza Atrocities Committed in Our Name
My heart goes out to the children…remembering as I do…my own terror as a child during that other Holocaust. I weep for the children of Gaza…And you, dear readers, should too!
On April 6, 2025: CBC 60 Minutes interviewed a group of children from Gaza: The children were in Qatar to be treated for their injuries:
A 16-year-old girl named Sara, when asked about life in Gaza before the war: “Life was good. Even though it wasn’t luxurious, we were content. We could go out and about, and family gatherings were something special.”
Her younger sister, Lama, agreed. “Gaza was more than just a city. It was our little paradise.“
“When will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn” as sung by Marlene Dietrich
Pete Seger was a genuine, unwavering, committed, anti-War, a real environmental protection advocate, who wrote the words and lyrics to “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” in 1958. He acknowledged his gratitude – during a performance in 1968 – to Marlene Dietrich –for having popularized the song. Marlene Dietrich was a staunch anti-Nazi who relinquished her German citizenship in 1939. Her rendition of the song evokes the forgotten Nazi.
She sang the song in three languages: German: “Sag Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind,” English and French: “Qui peut dir où vont les fleurs?” https://www.indeepmusicarchive.net/2016/11/21116-sag-mir-wo-die-blumen-sind-flowers-gone-qui-peut-dire-ou-vont-les-fleurs-marlene-dietrich-1963-1965/
He noted that “the song was too vague, not specific as it should be…” In 1968, he meant Vietnam of course.
Having met Pete Seger, I think that he would agree that today, the specificity should be GAZA!
Never Give In, Never Give Up,
Vera
April 15, 2025
