Is Ramallah like Warsaw?

This story from the NYTimes.

A group of German Catholic bishops went to Israel on a goodwill tour to deepen ties with Israel. The Catholic Church and Israel have a long (and mostly negative) historical connection. The Vatican for a long period of time did not recognize the existence of the State of Israel. Not to mention the Papacy's treaties with Franco, Hitler, and Mussolini.

By all accounts the trip was successful, but on the way back 3 of the 27 Bishops made comments that angered the Israelis and (some? many?) Jews in Germany.

Here are the comments (quoting article):

“In the morning, we see the photos of the inhuman Warsaw Ghetto, and this evening we travel to the ghetto in Ramallah; that makes you angry,” Bishop Hanke was quoted as saying by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany’s largest newspapers. Bishop Mixa described the situation in Ramallah as “ghettolike” and said it was “almost racism.”...A third member of the delegation, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the archbishop of Cologne, was quoted by the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine as likening the separation barrier in the West Bank to the Berlin Wall. “I never thought I would have to see something like this ever again in my life,” said Cardinal Meisner, who is from the former East Germany.

And this as a response:

“If one uses terms like Warsaw Ghetto or racism in connection with Israeli or Palestinian politics, then one has forgotten everything, or learned nothing,” the Israeli ambassador, Shimon Stein, said in a statement this week.

The article also quotes German Jewish groups writing in German newspapers to the effect that the comments were "verging on racism."

The racial issue is of course a hot button one. But politically I do not disagree with the statements of the Bishops. The West Bank is a ghetto. The policies are brutal. The bishops made the comments after visiting with Palestinian Catholic Leaders and hospitals where they heard from nurses who complained about the hardships endured by mothers due to Israeli checkpoints.

I've never been to the place, so I'll say that. Every person I've ever met who has actually gone to the other side of the wall, even ones who support the state of Israeli's existence (I would count myself in this category) have noted how brutal the policies are.

The argument is made that such brutality is necessary to protect the Israelis. That may be true, I'm not going to debate that point pro or con here, but everyone should be able to recognize the brutality. Unless they are ideological. Otherwise statements like the Israeli's ambassador's come about--if one makes a comparison between Warsaw and Ramallah one has learned nothing.

That is psychologically a profound statement. I see in the ambassador's remarks the very thing he fears so much, that haunts this element of the Israeli psyche in my mind: there is a connection. True the Israelis (except for a very fringe minority) are not out to exterminate the Palestinians. The policy is certainly not to have a united country nor more practically a strong Palestinian state. Again not without some reason, but it is a brutal policy nonetheless. Maybe the statement could be reversed: if one does not make a connection between the two then one has learned very little and forgotten much.

There is Jewish racism against Arabs and vice versa. I would not be surprised that there is some lingering racism filtered through the Bishops statements, the second one that is. The first and last make political statements: the wall is like the Berlin Wall (from a man who lived through that) and that ghettos anywhere are ghettos and destroy the humanity of those oppressed.

In Christianity we call such actions sin. The wages of sin are death and death reigns supreme, like a cloud, in the ghettos not only of Palestine but the world over.

What I do not like is any criticism of Israeli governmental policies as being immediately charged with racism, either overtly or covertly. Because of the horrific history of the Holocaust, certain pro-Israeli groups will use that cover as a shield and can attack any critical statement as racist. And once the "r" bomb is out, with our hyper-sensitive PC culture, the bishops were made to apologize.

It is certainly true that all manner of one-sided anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian comments are funneled through the so-called liberal press, more so in Europe than the US. But Jewish groups (some) use the same mechanism, more so in the US, than elsewhere. Once the racial charge comes up the conversation dies.

No actual reference in the article to whether the statements were accurate or not. Is the West Bank like the Warsaw ghetto? Is the wall like Berlin?

What angers me is both sides using the PC multicultural racism-victim card in order to bypass actual self-criticism. Liberals only recognize it in regards to Israel, conservatives to Palestinians.