Eleven years ago, I wrote a long article drawing comparisons between the Warsaw ghetto of the 1940s with the open-air prison of Gaza in current times. The similarities between the different occupations, and the response of the entrapped Palestinians in Gaza with their Jewish counterparts in the Warsaw Ghetto, is not just a figment of my imagination.

I did not invent this for rhetorical purposes, or as a kind of literary flourish designed to provoke emotional reactions. Any kind of comparison between the Warsaw Ghetto and Gazan Palestinians is bound to provoke a furious overreaction from Zionism’s supporters. While I have changed my mind about lots of issues in the intervening years since 2014, I still believe that the parallels between those two ghettoised populations, and the tactics used by the respective occupiers, remains a valid exercise.

As Michelle Weinroth stated, we still have to make the Jewish Ghetto comparison. She is a member of Independent Jewish Voices in Canada.

No, this exercise is not aimed at earning more likes or dislikes on social media. Your feelings do not matter to me. It is one thing to be sensitive to the plight of others, it is quite another to deploy ‘hurt feelings’ as a rhetorical distraction, derailing conversations about the genocidal violence directed at the Palestinians. I do not care about placating manufactured anxieties.

The Warsaw Ghetto uprising, in 1943, was the largest act of armed resistance by Jewish groups against the Nazi occupation. Since October of 1940, Warsaw’s Polish Jewish population were forcibly confined to a ghetto, given starvation rations, and compelled to live in unsanitary and squalid conditions. Hundreds of thousands died of malnutrition and disease.

Multiple underground Jewish organisations formed a coordinated resistance committee, and began preparations for an uprising. Starting in April 1943, the outgunned and outnumbered Jewish resistance fighters courageously fought against the more powerful and mechanised German army. They waged a guerrilla type campaign, for as long as they could hold out.

The Nazis eventually razed the entire ghetto, street by street and building by building. Tanks, aerial bombardment, flame throwers – all kinds of weapons were used against the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto. By May 1943, the armed resistance was crushed.

While the uprising was ultimately defeated by overwhelming force, the Jewish fighters are hailed as heroes today. But that lionisation of Jewish resistance was not always the case.

Poland in the interwar years was a deeply antisemitic society, and statements denouncing the Jews as vermin, bloodsuckers and parasites was not uncommon. While the Nazi army was systematically destroying the Warsaw Ghetto, Polish Catholics outside the ghetto cheered on the Germans, maintaining a festive atmosphere. Music, dances and merry-go-rounds from outside the ghetto accompanied the screams of anguish and horror from within.

Dehumanising the Palestinians, and Arabs more generally, has a long ideological pedigree among Zionist leaders. Since 1948, the Israeli authorities have cynically manipulated the trauma of the Holocaust, demonising Palestinians and the wider Arab society as modern day antisemites and equivalents of Nazis.

As the Israeli military uses mass starvation as a weapon of war, bombing hospitals and schools, and forcibly displacing millions of Gazan Palestinians, one cannot fail to notice the striking parallels with the suffering inflicted on the Warsaw ghetto. Much like the celebrating Poles of Warsaw, Israelis the town of Sderot, in 2014, danced and cheered while the Israeli military hit Gaza with missiles and bombs.

Cheering for Somaliland in 1991

I remember seeing on the news, in 1991, the crowds of cheering Somalis as they celebrated their nation’s Declaration of Independence. Somaliland was politically and economically separated from the main united Somalia, and the crowds were jumping with joy at the flag-raising ceremony for their new nation.

I remember thinking, gee, my fellow Australians cheer loudly only for the rugby league or AFL. The celebratory crowds, jumping with joy in their new homeland, are cheering for something important.

Another aspect of the new Somaliland made an impression on me at the time – the clear and distinct inclusion of the Shahada on the new nation’s flag. What is the Shahada?

The Islamic oath, which declares “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God”. That text is on the top horizontal stripe of the Somaliland flag.

Weren’t we supposed to be fighting the Muslim enemy, the existentially threatening fanatics determined to bring down our way of life? Why are we in the allegedly ‘good’ West covering the emergence of an Islamist statelet positively?

To date, Somaliland remains unrecognised by the international community.

Why am I talking about Somaliland? That statelet is the proposed site of a projected Palestinian concentration camp. Forcibly relocating the entire Palestinian population of Gaza is a long term goal of West Jerusalem and its American backers. The Somaliland proposal will create a new ghetto, reminiscent of Warsaw, by using that territory as a dumping ground for the unwanted Palestinians.

Scratch beneath the surface of the Somaliland flag, and you will find the symbol of the real powerbroker in that statelet, the Union Jack.

Since the early 1990s, Britain has ensured that its economic, political and cultural resources gain unfettered access to Somaliland. The latter is basically an economic colony of London, even though it maintains formal political independence. The Somaliland military, intelligence and police services are trained by, and heavily integrated with, Britain.

Located on the strategically important Red Sea coast, Somaliland is in close proximity to Yemen. The Ansar Allah forces, commonly called Houthis, are waging a military campaign against Israeli shipping. Washington and London have sounded out the Somaliland government about the plausibility of using the Somaliland statelet as an open-air prison for millions of forcibly displaced Palestinians.

The US administration of Donald Trump has loudly stated its intention to facilitate such a mass deportation, fantasising about turning Gaza into a Mar-a-Lago-type resort complex.

Mass deportation requires dutiful subcontractors, such as Somaliland, to perform their role in the repression of the imperialist empire’s unwanted people. Such deplorable schemes as the proposed ghettoisation of Palestinians are bound to fail, and generate resistance. Somaliland’s own population has repeatedly risen up against the repressive state apparatus in that statelet. Shining a spotlight on the parallels between the Warsaw Ghetto and Gaza equips us with the resources to combat the sinister intrigues of empire.