Photo composition showing old photos of the Nakba and a young girl playing in front of the map of Palestine. Photo: Al Mayadeen.
By Susana Kahlil – Aug 19, 2024
The imposition, in 1948, of the Zionist colonial regime in Palestine made the Zionists worse than the Nazis.
Since I was a child, I felt and saw Zionism as worse than the Nazi horror. I saw the movies on TV and pictures in my elementary and high school library books of the European Holocaust against their own European Jewish brethren.
I saw the pain, the suffering, the Nazi cruelty against Europeans of Jewish religion, but at the same time I was disturbed, shocked, and hurt. Why are the Jews now doing the same to us Palestinians?
I was in another dimension of sadness and pain. That wound was also suffered by other Arab children. It is not in vain that today, this colonial regime is eager to murder children… Kill the children, Zionist colonizers…
Intellectuals and non-intellectuals, before I could read, before my alphabet, I already knew that the Zionists were and are worse than the Nazis. And I felt this because of the very fact that this colonial entity named “Israel” was created. That confined and catapulted them to all evil and inhumanity.
Scholars, I was born listening to the testimonies and groans of my parents who survived Al Nakba. My whole family was a victim of Al Nakba, and later, part of my family was a victim of Al Naksa. Today, I have relatives in Gaza. I was born listening to the stories of Arab men and women in Lebanon and Syria who were traumatized and frightened by the Zionist horror.
Experts, my Palestinian peasant mother fled the horror and fear; today, she is covered by the dust of distant lands of Palestine in my beloved Venezuela. She was trapped by a nervous disposition; I detested her nervous disposition, which I inherited, and I do not thank you, my most beloved, Fauziah Khalil.
From the universe of my childhood, I used to say to myself, “the confessors of the Jewish religion should be the noblest people, since they had suffered so much. Those people of the Jewish religion should be the most generous because they had suffered so much.” From my childhood, I imagined that the Jews must be the most good, the most kind, and the most just people because they had suffered so much. From childhood.
Zionism hijacked everything that was possibly noble.
I used to say to my father, “Yavah, they are worse than Hitler.” Actually, we all said that due to the pain and injury. However, we could not say it to other people, as it was not only incomprehensible, but it was seen as something negative. That was also another difficulty, another regret. I would tell some children at school that the Jews (Zionists) were killing the Palestinians, and the children would say to me, “you are bad, you Arabs hate the Jews.” I would reply that this was not true, and I did not know what else to say, which made me sad, and sometimes I would start crying. That solitary cry of childhood was a refuge. How politicized a child’s soul can be. It is a soul of love, and as many have already explained, politics is the purest expression of love. Kill children in Gaza, Zionist colonizers.
Once, my mother was praying (at that time, almost nobody prayed), and I heard her say: ‘Beni Israel.’ I could not understand, and I was upset. I asked her why do you say “Israel.” She did not answer me. She continued praying, I insisted, and my father saw that scene and yelled at me, very upset. I knew he was going to hit me, I could run, but that was worse because it was a serious disobedience. He hit me, and in the middle of the beating, I told him that she said “Israel.” He told me to never interrupt a prayer. My mom, when she finished her prayer, jumped up like a demon and jumped up to hit me too, for interrupting her prayer. They both hit me, they didn’t listen to me, and they didn’t explain about Israel.
I went to cry at the furniture store of Uncle Samir, a Lebanese man, and I went under a bed that was for sale (I used to hide under the beds). I started to cry, but more than because of the beating, I cried because I didn’t understand my parents, and at the same time, I condemned them in my moral tribunal. “Why does my mom say ‘Israel’? They are killing us.” Under the bed, where sometimes there was a cat, in that childish shelter and in my crying, I was certain that the Zionists were worse than Hitler.
Uncle Samir saw me and said, “come on, get out of there,” and he asked me why was I crying. I told him that my dad and mom were bad. I shouldn’t have told him that because he got upset. He said, “saying that is haram (sin).” I said to myself, “Uncle Samir is going to beat me too.” Immediately, I told him that my mother was praying, and she said “Israel” (I was accusing my parents of being traitors). He started to laugh. I was saved, I thought, he is not going to hit me; but I was more confused, and I told him that Israel is killing us. He answered me, “God is going to punish them.”
The factory town of San Felix is my beloved hometown (San Felix is a colonial name, it should be called Chirica). It is in Bolivar State, Venezuela and is the dormitory of the working class of the basic companies of Guayana City. In their very humble neighborhoods, there are parties where some drugs and alcohol are consumed. My mother did not allow us to go to those places. In contrast, there were effervescent evangelical cults in the streets. They were good people, with good values, from their humility, well dressed, decent, disciplined. Many people who were in drug hell were saved by embracing the gospel. Many women came out of prostitution through the gospel. Our parents were very careful that their children did not fall into drugs, I do not remember any son or daughter of evangelicals using drugs. I would go to those cults and sometimes they would worship Israel and that affected me and I wanted to talk to them and tell them that Israel was killing the Palestinians, that they took our land.
I once told my school teacher that the Jews (Zionists) were worse than Hitler. She was scandalized and alarmed and went and told my dad: “Mohamed, Susana told me that the Jews are worse than Hitler.” My father replied, “yes, the Zionists are worse than the Nazis.” My father explained to her that he had to flee Palestine and she, without letting him finish, replied that that is Israel, that it was written in the Bible. My father told her, shouting angrily, that those Europeans have nothing to do with the Israel of the Bible, they are all the damned criminals of the British and the United States. The discussion was long and I was focused, listening to everything.
Since my childhood, I told myself the Jews (at that time, they did not say Zionists), are worse than Hitler, I repeat, for the very fact of having created, fabricated that “state” of Israel.
Today, faced with the slaughter of Palestinian children, I turn to my childhood, and I gather from that childish purity that the Zionists are worse than the Nazis. That colonial entity should never have been created. I seek refuge in my childhood…
Zionism is a European mutation of Nazism, but worse. That colonial regime should never have been created, and today, although there are pro-Palestinians, there are almost no people who dare to promote an end to the existence of that colonial regime. That is where the justice and liberation of our historical time is.
(Al Mayadeen) with additional translation by Orinoco Tribune
Susana Khalil
Susana Khalil is a politologist and researcher. Founder of the Canaán Association. Conductor and producer of the radio program "Palestine 11 thousand years of history".
