by
Gilad Atzmon
David Cameron, the Tory leader, struggles these days. He faces demands for an apology, after he called government funding for school visits to the former Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz a "gimmick".
Cameron accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government in a speech on Friday of being "obsessed with short-term gimmicks", including a recommendation to schools to make "trips to Poland".
The British government announced this month it would give 4.65 million pounds to the Holocaust Educational Trust set up in 1988 to educate young people about the Holocaust.
It wouldn't take a genius to guess that the Jewish political institutions in Britain were very quick to tear Cameron apart. Henry
Grunwald, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews said:
- "We do not want to be involved in party politics. But you should not
use visits to Auschwitz to score political points."
Seemingly,
both Pollock and Grunwald do not like to get involved in 'party
politics'. For that purpose they have some very dedicated agents such
as Lord Levy, David Abrahams, the Tory Friends of Israel and the Labour
Friends of Israel.
The Conservative party was very quick to
understand the message. It immediately surrendered to the
'non-political' pressure. Within hours, the Tory spokesman said:
- "Cameron was not
criticising the visits, but rather the fact that the government funding
did not cover their entire cost."
Very much like Grunwald and
Pollock, I would refrain from interfering with British politics, yet I
may suggest that Cameron was absolutely correct. The trips to Auschwitz
are indeed a gimmick. As far as I can see, the educational value of
these trips is counter effective.
Unlike Karen Pollock from
the Holocaust Educational Trust, who said that "Students use their
experience to raise awareness of the lessons of the Holocaust in their
schools and local communities, challenging prejudice and racism today,"
I am convinced that trips to Auschwitz are there to divert the
attention from crimes that are committed daily in front of our eyes
and in our names. The trips to Auschwitz are there to silence ethical
awareness. They are there to shutter the possibility of self-reflection.
It
is indeed rather easy for the British government to spend some money
trying to teach young students how bad the Nazis were 63 years ago.
Yet, it is somehow far more challenging for the British government and
British educational institutes to confront British wrongdoing in the
past and in the present.
Instead of sending British
youngsters to Auschwitz, I would suggest spending governmental funds on
student trips to Gaza concentration camp. This would have a far greater
educational value as far as challenging 'racism and prejudice' goes.
Clearly it is in Gaza where millions of Palestinians are starved by the
Jewish state, while the West keeps silent.
Britain bears some
direct responsibility for the Palestinian tragedy. Firstly, the
Palestinian disaster was set by the British Empire. It may have started
with the Balfour Declaration, but it matured into a devastating ethnic
cleansing in 1948, three years after the liberation of Auschwitz.
Secondly, whichever way we decide to look at the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, the Palestinians are the last victims of Hitler and the
genocide in Gaza is a Shoa in its making.
If Karen Pollock is
truly concerned with 'racism and prejudice', Gaza is the place to send
the British kids to, so they can come home and ask their grandparents:
'Grandpa, what did you do when it all happened 60 years ago?' We have
to send our kids to Gaza so they come home and ask their parents: 'Mum,
what can we do to help the Palestinians?'
If Karen Pollock
still wants to increase our kid's ethical awareness, yet she isn't
convinced that Gaza is the place to do so, she may also want to
consider sending our young followers to Basra or Baghdad. At the end of
the day, the genocide of the Iraqi people, in which one and a half
million Iraqis have died so far, is a war crime committed by the
current British Government.
But on second thought, there is no
point in sending young British students to Baghdad; they can go there
as soon they finish school. They can then participate and contribute to
this very contemporary Holocaust that is being committed by Britain and
America in the name of democracy and neo-conservative ideology, all
they have to do is just join the British armed forces.
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