NIDDERAU, GERMANY: This is with reference to Ayesha Siddiqa’s article “Reading and explaining history” (November 1). It is a well-written article with the writer giving some excellent insights. But then she spoils it all by stating: “We may try to justify such sympathy for Hitler on the basis of our anger for how the Israelis treat innocent Palestinians.”
There is nothing decent about Hitler and if anybody has sympathy with him because he killed Jews, that person cannot be a liberal human being. In fact, it is shameful to follow the aforementioned logic. Let us reread history. Hitler killed as many as six million Jews. Jews were not opposing the Nazis or Hitler. They were butchered because they happened to belong to another faith and because many of them were financially successful. The police would take them into captivity and transport them to concentration camps where they were exposed to a deadly gas.
Compare it with the plight of the Palestinians. It is true that Israel has not done anything about giving Palestinians their right to live decent lives and their country the right to exist as an independent neighbour. But it does not kill Palestinians just because they are Muslims or Christians. I may add that there are many Jews within and outside Israel who oppose Israeli policies towards Palestinians. There are nearly three million Palestinians living in Israel itself and they seem to be satisfied living as Israeli citizens as few have any intention of leaving Israel. Compare this with the conduct of Arab and other Muslim countries. The number of Jews who lived in these countries for thousands of years has now dwindled to a negligible one. In Iran, there were over 100,000 Jews at the time of the Iranian Revolution. Now, the number is less than 10,000 and there are restrictions imposed on them regarding how they can lead their lives.
Hitler was evil and anybody who sympathises with him or the Nazis needs to study history with an open mind and not with a mind that is full of religious hate.
Sharif Lone
Published in The Express Tribune, November 3rd, 2012.
