Lest we forget: 'The St. Louis'

[populistdriven]

Too bad Israel is now treating the Palestinians similarly. The sad cycle of human hatred continues.

Part 1: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005267

~snip~

On May 13, 1939, the German transatlantic liner "St. Louis" sailed from Hamburg, Germany, for Havana, Cuba. On the voyage were 937 passengers. Almost all were Jews fleeing from the Third Reich. Most were German citizens, some were from eastern Europe, and a few were officially "stateless."

~snip~

(On June 2) Sailing so close to Florida that they could see the lights of Miami, passengers on the "St. Louis" cabled President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking for refuge. Roosevelt never answered the cable. The State Department and the White House had already decided not to let them enter the United States.

~snip~

Few politicians were willing to challenge the mood of the nation. At about the same time that the "St. Louis" passengers were seeking a haven, the Wagner-Rogers bill, which would have permitted the admission of 20,000 Jewish children from Germany outside the existing quota, was allowed to die in committee. On the Wagner-Rogers bill and the admittance of the "St. Louis" passengers, President Roosevelt remained silent. Following the U.S. government's refusal to permit the passengers to disembark, the "St. Louis" sailed back to Europe on June 6, 1939. Jewish organizations (particularly the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) negotiated with European governments to allow the passengers to be admitted to Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Many of the passengers in continental Europe later found themselves under Nazi rule.

Part 2: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005393

The "St. Louis" docked at Antwerp, Belgium, on June 17, after more than a month at sea. Less than three months later, World War II broke out. Within the year, all of western Europe would be under German occupation, and the former "St. Louis" passengers who were on the Continent would again be threatened by Nazi terror.

~snip~

[Ian David]

1. I see no similarity whatsoever.

Nobody gave the passengers on The St. Louis huge tracts of land in the name of peace, from which they then shelled and bombed their host countries.

Get a fucking clue.

[populistdriven]

2. I have more clues than you think

under international law every Palestinian, roughly five to six million, has the right to return, not to some little parcels, 1% of Israel, which Israel is about -- which Israel would swap, return to their homes or the environs of their homes in Israel. That's the law. Now, Dr. Ben-Ami will surely agree that the Palestinians were not demanding and never demanded the full return of six million refugees. He gives a figure of 4-800,000. In fact – I’m not going to get into the numbers, because it’s very hard to pin it down -- other authors have given figures of the tens of thousands to 200,000 refugees returning. That's well short of six million.

Norman Finkelstein

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/14/1518235&tid=25

[Biernuts]

3. Got some nice sand in Western Iraq they can settle n/t