Pearls and Irritations

In the past 5 years both the Morrison and Albanese governments have provided funding to enable each state and territory to build, or expand on an existing, Holocaust museums or education centres. The Tasmanian government announced last year it had secured $2m in Commonwealth funding to build a centre at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart.

Email from Greg Barns SC to the Board of Trustees and Director, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery concerning  the proposed Holocaust Education and Interpretation Centre 

30 SEPTEMBER 2024

I was told last week the Holocaust Education and Interpretation Centre (Centre), announced last year and in respect of which the Tasmanian government has received $2 million from the Commonwealth, is proceeding.

To proceed with the Centre, with a dominant focus on the horror of the Holocaust, is, in view of the genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of terrorism being committed by Israel in Gaza and now in Lebanon, deeply disturbing to many of us. It is grossly insensitive to the Palestinian people who are the victims of Israel’s current genocide and who have suffered since their land was stolen from them in 1947.

To proceed with the Centre while the world watches a nation, Israel, misuse the Holocaust to justify its genocidal intent and actions would be to damage the reputation of TMAG for many years.

That invoking the Holocaust to justify the slaughter of Palestinian people in Gaza is occurring has led to many Jewish and other Holocaust and antisemitism to condemn it. For example, in a letter published in the New York Review of Books on 20 November 2023, 16 such scholars signed a letter in which they said;

“…scholars of the Holocaust and antisemitism from different institutions. We write to express our dismay and disappointment at political leaders and notable public figures invoking Holocaust memory to explain the current crisis in Gaza and Israel.”; Omer Bartov, Christopher R. Browning, Jane Caplan, Debórah Dwork, Michael Rothberg, David Feldman, Atina Grossmann, et al.

I would ask you to consider the following facts so that you think again about support for the Centre in its current form. Unless the Centre includes a focus on the Genocide of Palestinians then it will be seen as missing the point in a deliberate way.

The appalling acts committed by Hamas on October 7 last year have been used by Israel to destroy the lives of those who live in Gaza and, at the time of writing, thousands in Lebanon. As you are all aware the loss of life and the devastation caused by Israel is being condemned by nations across the world, even those that have been unwavering supporters of Israel. In short, Israel has become a rogue state.

I now set out some facts and informed views which must be taken into account by you in making decisions about the Centre.

Gaza conflict facts

As of 23 September 2024, 41,431 Palestinian people have been killed in the Gaza conflict; ‘Humanitarian Situation Update #221 – Gaza Strip’, UN OCHA, 23 September 2024.

Over 93,000 Palestinians have been injured; ‘Briefing by the UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, to the Security Council’, 14 September 2024.

127 Palestinian media personnel have been killed; ‘War in Gaza’, International Federation of Journalists, 9 September 2024.

“At least 289 aid workers including 207 UNRWA team members and 885 health workers lost.”; Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA quoted in ‘Aid worker deaths soared after Israel launched latest war on Gaza: UN’, Al-Jazeera, 19 August 2024.

The United Nations latest humanitarian update facts, released last week, includes the following:

• The health crisis in Gaza deepens as only 17 out of 36 hospitals remain functional – all partially – and just 57 out of 132 primary health-care facilities are functional, all amid crippling shortages of fuel, medicine, and essential supplies.
• In August, 46 per cent of coordinated humanitarian movements in Gaza were denied or impeded; making it the most challenging month for humanitarian access since January 2024.

On 27 September the UN reported ;

• At least 1.9 million people (or nine in ten people) across the Gaza Strip are internally displaced, including people who have been repeatedly displaced (some, up to 10 times or more).
• Since January to 9 August 2024, around 237,000 children were screened for acute malnutrition: 14,692 were admitted for treatment due to malnutrition, including 1.3% with SAM and 4.8% with moderate acute malnutrition (MAM). Despite the dire situation, humanitarian food assistance deliveries declined further in July 2024 and were among the lowest levels observed since October 2023.
• Between 7 October 2023 and 19 September 2024, there have been 492 attacks against healthcare services in Gaza (747 individuals killed) and 520 in the West Bank (23 individuals killed). Every single hospital in Gaza has been affected, and no hospital remains fully functioning in Gaza and the healthcare system is now close to collapse. As of 11 September 2024, there are 17 hospitals partially functional (3 in North Gaza, 7 in Gaza, 3 in Deir al Balah, 4 in Khan Younis) and 19 out of 36 hospitals out of service. Medical evacuations of critically ill and injured patients outside Gaza remain generally suspended since the closure of the Rafah crossing on 7 May, with few exceptions allowed in recent months. An estimated 12,000 patients have been unable to leave and receive urgently needed medical care abroad since then.
• The war has inflicted further devastation, crippled vital waste collection infrastructure and exacerbated an already dire situation. The ongoing constraints on the entry of sufficient fuel supplies continue to severely reduce people’s access to water and sanitation services. This is significantly contributing to the spread of diseases, highlighting concerning spikes in the number of adults and children suffering from waterborne diseases such as hepatitis A, diarrhoea, skin conditions and others. Destruction of health infrastructure, attacks on hospitals and health workers and severe restrictions on the entrance of medical supplies have devastated Gaza’s health, water and sanitation infrastructure, driving the current public health crisis in Gaza.
• The dire situation was recently highlighted by the detection of circulating variant poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) in Gaza, after 25 years of being polio-free. Humanitarian pauses across specific areas of the Gaza Strip have enabled the first round of the emergency polio vaccination campaign.
• It is estimated that 20 km of essential water, sewage, electricity, and communication networks have been bulldozed. All residents of Jenin refugee camp are experiencing water cut-offs, while approximately 80% of Jenin City is facing similar conditions.

Genocide

The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect has issued, on 1 September 2024, the following summary of international law issues concerning Israel’s actions:

“The ICJ issued legally binding provisional measures on 26 January ordering Israel to prevent the commission of all acts within Article II of the Genocide Convention, to ensure that Israeli military forces do not commit any of these acts, to prevent and punish direct and public incitement to commit genocide against Palestinians, and to provide basic services, including humanitarian aid, to address adverse conditions of life in Gaza.

Following an urgent request by South Africa, the ICJ issued additional provisional measures on 28 March and 24 May, requesting Israel take all measures to ensure the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance and to immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah, as well as maintain open the Rafah crossing for the unhindered provision of humanitarian assistance. Israeli forces seized and closed the Rafah aid crossing into Gaza on 7 May, resulting in a more than two-thirds decrease in the flow of humanitarian aid into southern Gaza and forcing aid facilities to shut down. Meanwhile, humanitarian agencies report there is a continued lack of safe and logistically viable access to the Kerem Shalom crossing. Prior to these closings, famine was already imminent or likely underway.

On 20 May, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced the filing of applications for arrest warrants against three Hamas officials and two Israeli government officials – including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – that bear responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

UN Special Rapporteur

On 26 March, 2024 Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967 found:

“Specifically, Israel has committed three acts of genocide with the requisite intent: causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group.”

University Network for Human Rights (UNHR) report

This is consistent with the report of the University Network for Human Rights (UNHR) report Genocide in Gaza: Analysis of International Law and its Application to Israel’s Military Actions since October 7, 2023, published May 2, 2024;

“As set forth in the Genocide Convention of 1948,” the report reads, “the crime of genocide requires that a perpetrator kill, seriously harm, or inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of a group, in whole or in part, with the intent to destroy the group as such.” The report continues: “after reviewing the facts established by independent human rights monitors, journalists, and United Nations agencies, we conclude that Israel’s actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate the Genocide Convention.”

Conclusion

These facts and views are not, as the powerful Israel lobby in this country would have you believe, lies and misinformation. This is fact. This is the view of international law scholars. This is what the vast majority of nations think and are talking about when it comes to Israel.  Note particularly those nations which have suffered under colonial oppression and genocide, attempted and actual – South Africa, Brazil and Ireland to name but three.

In that context, I note the work of eminent Tasmanian historians Henry Reynolds and Greg Lehmann who have written about the genocide of Tasmanian Aborigines by the British in the 19th century. I would ask that you reflect, as guardians of Tasmanian culture, on that close-to-home evil when contemplating why it is that the Centre is to have such a narrow focus.

You might think that the Centre stands on its own as a reminder of what happened in World War 2 must never happen again. This is not a legitimate view to hold unless you are prepared to commission a Centre which reminds us of the suffering of the Palestinian people since they were driven off their land in 1947 and which has led to the current genocide.

Further, if one of the major functions of the Centre is to be an educative centre for children, surely context is essential to understanding what a holocaust is , how it comes about and where in the world genocide has happened and continues to happen.

Surely to put the Centre in a contemporary museum is a project to be approached to reflect our understanding of history now and the world as it is today.

To finish where I began, I urge you to exercise your humanitarian obligation to reconsider the Centre and/or to ensure that it reflects on the horror of the plight of the Palestinian people for nearly 80 years, and most particularly today where the violence against this people by Israel is unprecedented.

If the Commonwealth government refuses to acknowledge the need for a Centre that reflects the horror of genocide in Palestine then you should refuse to accept the $2 million. This would be to put conscience first.