IDF objector sprays 'Free Gaza' graffiti on Warsaw Ghetto wall
A group of left-wing activists last week sprayed graffiti on remnants of a Warsaw Ghetto wall calling for all ghettos to be liberated.
By Anshel Pfeffer and Haaretz Service Tags: Israel news Gaza Jewish world HolocaustA group of Israeli left-wing activists and pro-Palestinian demonstrators last week sprayed graffiti on remnants of the Warsaw Ghetto, calling for all ghettos to be liberated, including Gaza.
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Activists spray graffiti on the Warsaw Ghetto wall reading 'Free Gaza' and 'Liberate all the ghettos' on June 28, 2010 |
| Photo by: Channel 10 |
One of the activists was conscientious objector Yonatan Shapira, an Israel Air Force pilot who authored the Pilot’s Letter – a 2003 statement signed by 27 Israeli pilots who publicly refused to fly missions over the Palestinian territories. Shapira was subsequently ousted from reserve duty and also lost his job as a commercial pilot.
Last week Shapira joined a group of Israeli, Palestinian and Polish activists at a demonstration near the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, where they sprayed graffiti on one of the walls saying "Liberate all ghettos" in Hebrew and "Free Gaza and Palestine" in English.
The activists' rally took place near the last fragment of the perimeter wall of the Ghetto. They also hung Palestinian flags from the wall.
Shapira on Monday defended his actions, saying, "The Holocaust cannot be appropriated only by Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu], [Avigdor] Lieberman or anyone else in the Israeli government.
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IDF conscientious objector and peace activist Yonatan Shapira |
| Photo by: Yanai Yehiel |
"My action is not controversial," Shapira told Army Radio on Monday. "I am not saying there is a comparison with the monstrosity of Nazi death camps, but I am saying we must talk about the silence in Israel and the world when people are confined in a ghetto-like place."
Shapira went on to call the Israeli public indifferent and said "we will do everything to wake it up, even spray graffiti on an abandoned ghetto wall."
During last week's protest, Shapira said, "Most of my family came from Poland and many of my relatives were killed in the death camps during the Holocaust. When I walk in what was left from the Warsaw Ghetto, I can’t stop thinking about the people of Gaza who are not only locked in an open air prison but are also being bombarded by fighter jets, attack helicopters and drones, flown by people whom I used to serve with before my refusal in 2003."
He continued, "I am also thinking about the delegations of young Israelis that are coming to see the history of our people but also are subjected to militaristic and nationalistic brainwashing on a daily basis. Maybe if they see what we wrote here today they will remember that oppression is oppression, occupation is occupation and crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity, whether they have been committed here in Warsaw or in Gaza."
Shapira said he feels it is important to express these views as Israelis and Jews and as offspring of Holocaust survivors.
"It may be difficult for Israelis to hear these things," Shapira told Haaretz, "but that is no reason not to say them. No one is saying Israelis are Nazis. The message is that people are imprisoned in a ghetto, and a ghetto can take different shape – and this is something that cannot be."
David Zonstein, another IDF objector, said he disagrees with Shapira's tactics at the Warsaw Ghetto protest. "The Holocaust doesn't need to be a part of this discussion, but rather in the background. I wouldn’t have done this in his place."
Yad Vashem also issued a statement on Monday condemning Shapira's actions.
"Yad Vashem is repulsed by Yonatan Shapira’s actions and statements," the statement said. "We see in his actions a provocation that perverts the history both of the Holocaust and of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. These actions, tainted with anti-Semitism, point to a person who has lost all factual and moral judgment. The use of the Holocaust in the way that Shapira has chosen to do so is a crass manipulation that warps the historical truth."
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I am a big believer in free speech and I am very sad about the situation in Gaza - on many levels - but this guy is really misguided if he thinks he is making an intelligent statement. See, I could have called him an idiot but decided not to. ooOOps
This disgusting abomination, which makes a mockery of the lives of the 6 million Jews who were murdered should be removed asap. THere are methods for removing graffiti.
well done, Mr. Shapira! This takes more courage than killing peace activists
Mr. Shapiro is a liar and he knows it. In fact he is Holocaust denier.
Even as Jews we do not speak for those who experienced terrible suffering in the Warsaw ghetto - We do not own the memories of the ghetto and it is certainly not our place to use it for political purposes. It will serve us best not to trivialise and exploit the holocaust for current political or moral ends. Human suffering deserves to be remembered and apologised for in its own way. Confusing the holocaust with other struggles today is unhelpful and opportunistic.
First honest fellow! Thanks in the name of silent jewish minority and humanity
The right-wing policies of the current and recent Israeli governments are war crimes, so it's not hard to make comparisons with other historical injustices.
If Israel survives - it will be thank to heroes such as you - Mr. Yonatan Shapira and other IDF conscientious objectors as well as all those, who are against the slaughter of innocent Palestinians!! The psycho-zio-killers are making their best to bring Israel to its end!!
Yonatan Shapira is a true Semite hero! He does not cower or cringe in the face of a vast majority of Israeli oppressors! He stands up to them!
Gaza does need to be freed. Not from israel ,which left the territory years ago, but from Hamas, which is preventing the Gazans from enjoying the peace and security they deserve.Does shapira have the courage to confront the Hamas bullies, or is it just easier to attack and undermine his own people?
Brave and conscious Israeli . How can a people who suffered so much inflict so much suffering . Wake up your people Shapiro !
O Senieur, forgive him, h's not knowing what h's speaking about.
Israel needs more people of conscience, rather than the enablers of the criminal settlers and their ilk.
"I am not saying there is a comparison with the monstrosity of Nazi death camps," Actually that is exactly what its saying whether you like it or not.
What Shapira has done is both repulsive and disgusting How low can one stoop. He has lost all the support he hoped for.......
I'm sorry, but are you ignorant? If you spray paint Place A saying, hey, this should remind you of Place B -- then it's quite deceitful to then say that you were not making a comparison between Place A and Place B, isn't it? Mr. Shapira does not, it would appear, have the courage of his convictions. From a man who trades on his past career as a soldier, there is some irony in this cowardice.
We, the Poles, are waiting for good example on the reparations matter. We'll follow the extent of reparations awarded by Israel to the expelled Palestinians. Let me remind, that Poles of Jewish origin, were Polish citizens, obliged to honor their homeland and fight for its independancy and freedoms.
Polish activists protesting the Gaza ghetto. Perhaps Poland should admit its own involvement and guilt in the WW2 slaughter...including reparations and the return of Jewish property...before going out to vandalize and politicize the Warsaw ghetto. How do people get so confused and misdirected? Personally I blame the internet...
Any Poles involved in this incident are probably anti-Semites who happened upon Shapira-the-self-hater and were only too happy to use his "protest" as an excuse to deface the Ghetto Monument and publicly spit on the memory of the Jewish victims. Two birds with one stone:: they can attack Jews and blame an Israeli at the same time. Disgusting.
Let me remind you, that Poles of Jewish origin were citizens of Poland, obliged to honor their homeland, fight for its independence and share hardships. As for return of property, Poles of Jewish origin have equal rights to the rights of present day Poles of Polish origin. They will have no better, or special rights. This anti-Polish smear (involvement and guilt in the WW2 slaugter) is horrendous, outright defamation.
before you start your insinuations, let me remind you that in 2nd WW, Poland lost 6 millions of her population (3 million ethnic Poles and 3 million of Jewish Poles), Poland was the first country attacked by Nazi Germany (with Soviet assistance) and one of the few without collaborating regime or volunteers serving in SS, occupied Poland had the most numerous resistance with its own judges and executors eliminating traitors and collaborators (including schmalzowniks) what kind of reparations are you talking about?
one of the most disgraceful and shameless acts of self publicity
I wonder how Palestinians would react if we justly would spray grafiti on Arafats grave and calling him justly a Jewish children, women and elderly murderer!! Disrespecting the holocaust = anti semitism. I do not think Shapira's dead relatives would have supported his act and he does not speak for them so let him be silent in shame as this is what he should feel. Gaza is not a getto and certainly not because of Israel, but simply because of Hamas. So Shapira shame on you I think your dead Polish relatives would have felt so ashamed of your disrespectful behaviour.
Such traitors should be punished. What this traitor did is unacceptable, immoral and disgusting. His rights as an Israeli citizen should be revoked, any pensions, any health benefits and deportation should be considered with his Israeli passport being stripped permanently.
a few years back, and I'm so proud of your doings -- and bravery in this Israel of yours that has become so fully blind and deaf about the suffering of others (that is the suffering of non-Jews!) and the recurring mess it creates worldwide. Thanks!
You lodge a freeloading self-hater and feel giddy that you were touched by celebrity. Shallow people like you are a cancer on the civilized world. You delude yourselves into believing a self-absorbed attention seeker like Shapira is some sort of savior for a people you know nothing about and for a situation you do not understand. If you believe that Israel is blind, then you are the one whose eyes are closed.
Dallam?
Freedom of expression should be valued.
Freedom of expression should be valued, but not when it is designed for shameless self-promotion; not when it defaces public property and not when it includes desecrating the memory of murder victims. Shapira's brand of self-hating expression belongs in a psychiatric hospital, not a public venue.
Carry on the good job and let's oust those rogues : Bibi, "Lieber"man and others, among them those sinister black-hatted portents of doom.
...as far as you are concerned. They are all saints
we unfortunately don't see or hear many people like shapira in israel. this must change for peace to happen!
but that doesn't seem to bother you
This man has accepted being condemed with the worst curses to make his statement. A Palestinian doing the same would get the same plus also be killed. They are the more primitive society, lets face it, but judging by some of the comments here, we're not too far ahead of them. It pains me to bring this up but Rabin was killed by a Jew who accused him of being anti-Israel.
If this abomination doesn't know the distinction between organized murder based upon ethnicity/religion and self-defense, he is a fool. More significantly, he is an embarassment and traitor to his people and his country. To seek notoriety on a sacred place where tens of thousands of Jews were systematically starved and transported to certain death, and comparing that to a place where the Gazans have made their own hell by firing rockets into Israel and electing a government sworn to the violent destruction of his country is more than obscene. I wish I was there to offer my own version of suffering to this slimeball, but I hope Israel will simply take away his citizenship as a traitorous enemy within to be reviled by the Jewish people.
It is because of Jews like this traitor that the Warsaw ghetto existed to begin with. This man would be the first person to report the Warsaw ghetto resistance to the Nazis.
Gosh, doesn't the truth smart. Kind of like noticing the mote in your neighbors eye, while ignoring the beam in your own.
Comparing the organized war crimes in Gaza to self defense is a shameful sneer to those who died and suffered in the Warsaw Ghetto. Get a grip
Thank you Shapira for seeing the similarity between the two ghetttos. It is people like you who will eventually make peace possible between Israelis and Palestinians.
Your phony "peace" act is pretty unconvincing given all your other posts
There is something very wrong with the Israeli education system. I have heard too often remarks from young Israelis that I find shocking and if it came from non Jews I would consider anti-Semitic. It is very hard to criticize American leaders that are not sympathetic to Israel when there are many Israelis that are so anti-Israel.
these are spoiled , silver spoon in the mouth kids who have no sense of morals and no connection to their Jewishness. Aliens are a good description, from inner space moving around in mental weightlessness not connecting any dots other than images they see from the outside world. The growing up process has been retarded thanks to the de-education they had.
He committed his crimes while on Polish soil.Then extradite him for his next trial to Israel.
This man accuses Israel of appropriating the Holocaust?? He has done so himself with this obscenity. I recommend a good psychiatrist who specializes in self-hatred.
If you are so imbued with the idea that the Jews are colonists trampling on other people's rights and property, why don't you do the logical thing and go back to Poland (and stay there!). You're nothing but a hypocrite who wants to have the best of both worlds. Not only that, you evoke images that have nothing to do with reality. Go study a little history to see how far off base you are. How many sports cars, lions and tigers, were available to the few Jews who were not gassed on arrival in Auschwitz?
Because the Hamas and other terrorists are not allowed to leave the territory and enter Israel to murder innocents? Or because Israel does not allow the entry of guns and war material for the same purpose? Or may be because the creation of a terrorist basis of Iran is not allowed? Or maybe because Christians, Gays , lesbians and women in general do NOT have equal rights to men? Where are all the human rights objectors (IHH, turkish , Arabs , europeans, un)?
People should be free to do as they please as long as they do not harm others. My American government has committed more harm on the world then a few graffiti writers painting a relic that it seems a lot of Israelis don't see the irony in. But thats your countries business. I would rather the American government stay out of your business.
maybe you think graffiti is pish-posh, which in most cases it is, but on the Warsaw Ghetto wall? Are you kidding me? That is so disrespectful to those who died there and were held there. As the grandson of Holocaust survivors (and many in my family didn't survive), I find this offensive and hurtful. Non-violence is the right way, but not like this.
Israel isnt Paris, if Gaza is a ghetto then it is only the fault of the terrorists that run it and of the people who voted for them. If they were ready for peace, gaza would grow into a very prosperous city, unfortunately they spend their time educating their childrent in hatred and war rather than understanding and peace.
reflects stupidity on the part of a grown man (?) who should know better. A cultivated, spoiled leftist, he looks for ways of getting attention to drive his point home and in the process cares not for any repurcussions. You can be sure this spoiled product of leftist elitism will soon enough crash into a wall of reality. If the poles are smart, they should give him a wire brush and be sure every bit of paint is removed.
As a grandson of a holocaust survivor I approve of this action.The inhumanity practiced in Israel has been going on for way too long. Even in Israeli society, some jews believe they are better than other jews. That is pish posh.
Shapira calls himself a "patriot", but true patriots work for constructive changes at home, they do not promote the cause of terror groups that cry out for the destruction of their nation and the deaths of their fellow citizens, and they do not desecrate foreign monuments to victims of mass murder. Shapira is a shameless self-promoter whose agenda is twisted, destructive and full of hate. He is no patriot, he's a disgrace!
Shapira your romantic marrage with the Palestinians is nothing but idealism Sad that you have backed the wrong horse because in the end you going to be left high and dry leaving you stranded, like a boat out of water. Come back home where you belong.
Some nerve, now Jews are buying the Palestinians' nonsense and doing their jobs for them. Simply chutzpah.
congrats to brave pilot
can you please explain why disrespecting the memory of Jews slaughtered in WW2 (and in this location specifically, the most symbolically heroic of them) is any sign of heroism? Of course you will choose to draw an easy but grossly flawed comparison between the Nazi regime and modern day Israel! How does this relate to victims that died in this location well before the State of Israel even existed? Would you also praise the defacing of WW2 memorials in France/US/UK by those protesting the war in Iraq? If you are a bigger fool than i expected.
such a brave pilot eh? probably harder to drop your payload than it is to operate a spray can.
have your political opinions but don't vandalize historical sites...
Do you think you would have even seen that wall if they didn't paint it? At least they made it relevant in bringing up a discussion on Ghettos.
the yad vashem statement sums it up perfectly.
I am sickened by this action....you have defiled the memory and the actions of those who fought in the ghetto. whatever your feelings are on serving your country or the occupation, you have no right to do what you did. a sad day for jews all over the world
Stupidity is not assigned to one of the nation. The political ignorance can be found in both Tel'Aviv and Warsaw. Achieved nothing, and my city has become uglier.
spitting on the graves of our parents! SHAME ON YOU!
Real ghettos: Palestinian people in Lebanon-no jobs-no passports West Sahara people in Morocco Kurdish people in Turkey Immigrants from India in the EMIRATES Christian or gay people in Saudi-Arabia
It is with men of this calibre that jews, no Israel, still get my admiration and respect.
"oppression is oppression, occupation is occupation and crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity, whether they have been committed here in Warsaw or in Gaza." Who on Earth can disagree with these words? Mr. Shapira is a true Righteous Among Nations because he paid a high price for his beliefs! If he was looking for "his 15min of fame" he would've remained silent and enjoyed his life as a military or a civilian pilot. Why do we demand from others to recognize, and not deny, the crimes that have been committed against European Jews then we turn around and silence a Jew and the son of a Holcaust surviving family when he speaks up and demands justice for others? Mr. Shapira is a brave man.
Mr Shapira has drawn the same flawed conclusion as many other well intentioned liberal minded left wingers. I'm not a rightist by any means, but i can appreciate the fact that the Jews who died in this particular ghetto are owed a higher level of respect than to be pulled into the modern day quagmire that is Israel, Palestine and all those who claim to support either. If you are reading this Mr Shapira, well done you have managed to get your point accross, but you have committed a shameful deed in the process. Such acts can not make up for the fact that you were a pilot and that you did regrettable things during your time in the army. Whatever guilt you feel can not be washed away through such an act of vandalism.
And by doing so you just hurt yourself and any message you try to bring. I hope you're brought to justice for vandalizing such a place.
I think it could have been designed better. But perhaps graffiti is not that practiced in Israel as it seems self expression is looked down on bt some people in their area.
We should be proud of our Jewish fellows who speak their minds in no uncertain way
You are a hero Mr. Yonatan Shapira - Israel should be very proud of you, and other IDF conscientious objectors as well as all those, who do protest against the slaughter of innocent Palestinians!! Those, who criticise you, are still not a part of Humanity!
The Israeli policy on Gaza is a catastrophy, but I'm not sure meddling it with the Warsaw ghetto is healthy.
Good to see some Israelis can still see that the current policy of the government on Gaza is driving the country to disaster.
But you don't take busses ,what do you care
Lama lo?
I can also understand shapira's position. For me also is very dificult not to be aware of the similarities of some events between the 2 places. In the other hand, true, the ghetto was not a Nazi creation, but nowadays this association for us jews is very difficult to swalow. I would prefer not to mix the things as it will be used by the real antisemites as a kind of victory and proof of God knows what. I am second generation, and this issue is... anyway, I don't know, there are other means of protest we can use against this silence.
with the huge rallies of hundreds of thousands people , waving machine guns and Hamas flags, with the well fed Hamas leaders dressed in Versache suits, vowing to put an end to Israel? Besides, Gaza has a common border with Egypt, the most important arab state, is there any problem between Egypt and Gaza that Egypt is blocking the border with the beloved palestinian brethren? Did the jews in the ghettos fire rockets on german towns and villages, did they blow up german buses and markets, did they kill german children and women?
Of the present inhabitants of the Gaza Strip two thirds are refugees from Palestine in 1948. They were uprooted from their villages and towns in southern Palestine. The people from Majdal (present day Ashkelon), were initially herded together in Majdal behind barbed wire and over a period of two years 'transferred' (i.e. ethnically cleansed) to the Gaza Strip. The last group of 229 Palestinians were loaded onto trucks in October 1950, more than a year after the war had ended and were mercilessly dumped over the border in the Gaza Strip, which has become - quite appropriately named - Gaza Ghetto. Just as the Jews were dumped and concentrated in the ghetto of Warsaw, so were the Palestinians - after having been robbed of their land - dumped into the Strip. Some old Palestinian farmers can still see the lands they worked, stolen by Zionist colonists. I have lived and worked in the Gaza Strip and know it well. The Palestinians do what any self respecting nation does: fight a colonial settler state that has stolen the land of the indigenous people.
they should say thanks to their leaders , headed by the mufti Amin al Husseini, Hitler's close friend, who rejected UN res 181 which gave them an independent state they never had before and incited them to go to war to destroy Israel and throw the jews into the sea. And as the jews refused to die and fought back they invented the "ethnical cleansing" and started to yell and scream how bad the jews are... The fact is that only jews were ethnically cleansed from Palestine! When the war ended in 1949, not even one was left in the Palestinian territories occupied by Jordan and Egypt, they were either killed , as those in Kfar Ezion or fled to Israel to save their lives. While many arabs who were smart and didn't flee ,stayed in Israel, are more than a million now, and are citizens with full rights, and 50% of them are even voting for the jewish zionist parties.
shame on you for not making a distinction between supremacist racial policies and small country fighting for its very survival. people like you, who remain to "fight a colonial state" will always find a justification to continue violence. this is what it essentially is, hidden behind a guise of resistance and "self-respect"? if these people had any self-respect they'd notice that their very willingess to drive the Jews out of their homeland resulted in the "refugee crisis" which is going until this day. Talking about deluding yourself and living in the past...
Those people that signed The Pilots Letter are true heroes and deserves the respect as such!
This is an absolute disgrace and has nothing to do with peace activism. This is provocation of the ugliest sort merely meant to have his 15min of fame. A jew desecrating the reminders of the nazi monstrosity against his own people is beyond words. He says himself there is no comparison, so why spitting on the innocent victims of nazi barbarity? Absolutely shocked.
How do you spell treators ?
It's spelled "traitor". If you are not literate, then maybe you should not be trying to post your nonsense here.
You're like a brick wall.. really... try to read his comment again and maybe you'll see the misspelling was intentional. I suppose you follow the 'If you can't answer a man's argument, you can still call him vile names" tactic. Perhaps you should spare us your nonsense.
Traitors are those who commit treason, like this pro-Hamas terrorist traitor.