What, I ask, has come of us? "There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza," say Israeli leaders Simon Peres and Tzipi Livni. Have we, who historically have been subjected to such horrific prejudice, persecution and even genocide, become so callous that we are now morally blind to the violence and oppression that Israel is inflicting on the people of Palestine, a large number of whom are innocent civilians?
We, who once were the victims of the Nazi genocide, which murdered six million Jews while the world was silent, have now become the perpetrators of violence. After the experience of the Holocaust, "never again" quite understandably meant that we Jews would never again allow ourselves to be so vulnerable tythat we would go to the slaughter like lambs to the kill.

But "never again" must never be the sole possession of the Jewish people. That cry belongs to the world-to all who suffer under the boot of an oppressor who visits violence and death upon them.

It is the great tragedy of the Palestinian people that they are the victims of victims. Consequently the crimes and suffering they have endured have gone unacknowledged by all those who disingenuously use the Holocaust to justify whatever Israel does as self-defense. That manipulative use of the Holocaust desecrates the memory of all those who perished in the ghastly inferno of that Nazi hell.

The killing of innocent civilians is deplorable, whether by Hamas rockets or Israeli fighter planes and helicopter gunships. But let's be honest. Enough of the lies and self-deceptions. Israel's aggression against Gaza is not a legitimate act of self-defense. The rockets being fired upon Israel are an understandable, if regrettable, act of resistance born of the despair of an ongoing illegal occupation that is at the heart of the conflict.

Israel argues that it evacuated Gaza two years ago only to have Hamas rockets rain down upon its civilian population. But let's be honest. Israel imposed a ruthless siege on Gaza after Hamas, like it or not, won a fair and honest election monitored by international observers. In response Israel turned Gaza into a virtual open-air prison by totally sealing off its borders and cutting off supplies of food, water, medicine and electricity. Israel's current bombing and invasion have magnified that crisis into what the UN has called a humanitarian disaster with a dreadful loss of life and limb among Palestinians, with more casualties mounting daily. As of this writing, the dead include13 Israeli soldiers and over 984 Palestinians, most of whom are innocent civilians, including over 320 children. In addition over 4500 Palestinians have been seriously wounded, again the vast majority innocent women and children.

Israel's collective punishment of the people of Gaza, its excessive, disproportionate use of force, and its indiscriminate bombing of civilians are war crimes under the Geneva Convention.

It is high time that we Jews reach back and embrace our proud tradition of social justice and honestly admit to ourselves that the Zionist enterprise, in its urgency to find a sanctuary, made the Palestinians pay the price for Europe's anti-Semitism and the horrible crimes committed against us prior to and during the Holocaust.

Palestinians could not understand why they had to give up their homeland to remedy something for which they were not responsible. And so one tragedy was heaped upon another. Let us be big enough to acknowledge this reality and ask the Palestinians for their understanding and forgiveness and in return genuinely commit to seek as just a remedy as possible.

To that end there are only two realistic solutions to this terrible tragedy. One is for Israel to completely end the occupation and evacuate all settlements, return to the pre-1967 armistice lines and support the formation of a truly viable and independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza along with a negotiated settlement of the right of return. The other option is to agree to one secular state in all of Israel/Palestine, with equal rights for all its citizens.

Let no more children die, whether Israeli or Palestinian, when the solutions are apparent to all people of good will.

David Glick is a psychotherapist in Marin County and a member of the Marin Peace and Justice Coalition and Jewish Voice for Peace.