Testifying against genocide

SOME 250 people turned out to Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., on January 29 to hear the testimonies of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust as well survivors of the Nakba, the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine, who are touring the country together as part of the "Never Again for Anyone" (NAFA) speaking tour.

The tour brings together Jewish and Muslim panelists to attest to the inhumanity of genocide and to put a focus on the dehumanizing treatment of the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, about 100 Zionists, organized by Hillel at Rutgers and a local synagogue, protested and disrupted the event.

The "Never Again for Anyone" tour is sponsored by American Muslims for Palestine, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and the Middle East Children's Alliance. The event at Rutgers was endorsed by BAKA: Students United for Middle Eastern Justice, which is an affiliate of Students for Justice in Palestine, and a number of other campus groups.

BAKA spokesperson and Rutgers student Hoda Mitwally introduced the event's message of solidarity: "Whenever we see injustice, we must speak out no matter how small or large it may be. All human suffering is equally unjust and unacceptable, and that is the purpose of tonight to say, never again to all forms of oppression."

Featured at the meeting were Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer; Osamah Abu-Irshaid, editor-in-chief of Al-Meezan newspaper; Hedy Epstein, an anti-Zionist Jew whose family died in Auschwitz; and Dawud Assad, a survivor of the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre in Palestine. It was an honor to hear the stories of Holocaust survivors and survivors of the Nakba together.

One of the most chilling moments was when Hedy Epstein described her elementary school experience in 1939 Nazi Germany. Epstein, the only Jewish child in her class, was regularly harassed by her SS teacher. One day, he asked her a question while holding a gun to her head to humiliate her in front of the class. She was 8 years old.

Decades later, she experienced a similar trauma in an Israeli airport when she returned from a solidarity trip to Gaza. She was detained, strip-searched and called a terrorist by an armed Israeli soldier.

The event was an eye-opener, challenging Zionist narratives of the Holocaust and the formation of the state of Israel, and bore witness to the plight of Palestinians and Jews. NAFA speakers countered the specification of the term "Never Again" to refer only to Jews killed in the Holocaust. Speakers condemned the racist ideology of Zionism and the dispossession of the Palestinians in the name of the Holocaust victims. They attested to the shared humanity of all people and the necessity of opposing oppression in all its manifestations.

IN AN attempt to portray the NAFA meeting as "excluding" Jews, the Jerusalem Post reported, "The student-sponsored event was announced as an open invitation event, however the sponsoring organizations of 'Never Again for Anyone,' according to the reports, asked campus police to bar students wearing kippas from the event. The organizers eventually limited the attendance to supporters only."

These accusations are absolutely false. Anyone who paid the minimum entrance fee or who was a volunteer was allowed into the event regardless of their religious beliefs, political affiliation or views on the event. Several Zionists paid to enter the event and were allowed to bring their signs, one of which falsely accused the speakers of "Holocaust Denial."

The admission charge of $5, which was announced at the event, has become a source of controversy at Rutgers. BAKA in particular has been targeted with accusations that they changed the entrance fee from "suggested," as posted on the Facebook page, to "required" in order to prevent protesters from entering the event. This is not the case.

The event was not sponsored by Rutgers University or its student groups, such as BAKA. Because this was an outside event, it was within Rutgers' policy for the sponsors of the "Never Again for Anyone" tour to charge an entrance fee. Rutgers University has issued a press release on the issue.

The protesters called the event "anti-Semitic" because it allegedly trivialized the Holocaust by comparing it to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. But in Mitwally's introduction to the event and the other participants' testimonies, it was clearly stated that the goal of the event was not to formally compare the Holocaust to the Nakba or the current Palestinian situation, but to look at the similarities of these oppressions--a perfectly legitimate task.

The protesters' claims of anti-Semitism rest on their equating being Jewish with Zionism and the state of Israel--thus, any discussion of the atrocities of the Israeli state becomes an attack on all Jews. The speakers disproved this rhetoric by speaking about the history of Zionism in Europe, its lack of support before Second World War and the racist nature of the established Israeli state.

The racist nature of the Zionist ideology was on display when the pro-Israel protesters used Islamophobic slurs against some of the organizers and attendees, calling them "terrorists" and even calling a veiled woman a "suicide bomber." The YouTube video "Another Lie from BAKA" gives a sense of the attempt by protesters to disrupt the event.

The message of solidarity of "Never Again for Anyone" stood in stark contrast to the Zionist protesters. The tour is a much-needed testament of shared humanity and solidarity with the Palestinians and all the oppressed.