Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
The Zone of Interest is a film directed by Jonathan Glazer, who has said, “This is not about the past, it’s about now”. The film’s story mirrors the current story in Gaza, even though the film is set next door to the gas chambers at Auschwitz in the WW2 era.
A German family with children live in a lovely home and garden right on the walls of Auschwitz. The father of the family is a Nazi officer, and the wife and children live a seemingly normal life while ignoring the deaths of thousands of Jews next door.
The German wife enjoys wearing a lovely fur coat taken off a wealthy Jew who is murdered by her husband’s military unit. This reminded me of Laila Jardali, a Palestinian refugee in Fresno, California. She and her family were driven from their home in Palestine in 1948. She recalled seeing Jewish immigrants fresh off the refugee boats from Europe, living in Palestinian homes they had confiscated, and wearing the homeowners clothing, while eating on their China dishes.
Having the garden plays a significant role in the family home, as the German father was a follower of the Artaman League, a German anti-urban, back-to-the-land movement that advocated for family farms and living off the land. Many Jews live in a Kibbutz in Israel, which are communal farms. The farm houses living on the walls of Gaza are full of families who chose to live within sight of the Palestinians living in Gaza because they lied farming.
Jews in Europe were rounded up by the Nazis and forcibly displaced to concentration camps, like Auschwitz. The UN and other human rights organizations have labeled Gaza the largest open-air concentration camp on earth, which had housed about 3 million people prior to the Israeli attack which has killed about 28,000 people, mainly women and children, with another 65,000 injured.
The Jews live in freedom just yards away from 3 million Palestinians who are denied all human rights. Gaza has been under siege since 2007, and life had deteriorated there prior to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Now, the last remaining Palestinians in Gaza are huddled in the extreme southern portion of Gaza, with nowhere to hide. 1.2 million people are just hours away from the promised Israeli ground invasion of Rafah which will likely end in a bloodbath of civilians.
The Jewish farm-kids can grow up with the opportunity to go to any University abroad for higher degrees, while having the right to return home to Israel and work. The Palestinian children have no opportunity to study abroad, or to return home if they leave. Studies abroad result in a lifetime of exile.
In the film, the Nazi family lived a normal life just yards away from the gas chambers, and yet were seemingly oblivious to their neighbors suffering. This is a mirror image of Gaza; faced on two sides by Israeli homes, schools and farms full of seemingly educated and sophisticated Jews who are well aware of their neighbors plight, but chose to ignore it. Their self-absorption and self-isolation turns them into unfeeling narcissists, who only feel their own pain acutely. The inability to feel the pain of others is a sign of mental illness, as the ability to feel empathy is the foundation to having a healthy mind.
But, the Jews are not alone in their lack of empathy. The US, UK, France, Germany and Italy all have sent weapons to Israel to use to commit genocide in Gaza.
In WW2, the Germans were taking over land, and expanding the Nazi state. It was this expansion and occupation which brought the US government into the war. While the Nazis were marching through Europe, the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt declined to step in to stop the genocide of Jews. Roosevelt ignored the obvious and allowed the gas chambers to keep functioning until the British PM Winston Churchill begged FDR to save Great Britain from invasion and occupation. The holocaust did not sway F.D.R., it was only the land-grab by Hitler’s regime that got the US to enter the war.
Just as the American newspapers in WW2 were publishing the articles of incredible suffering in Europe, and the American Jewish groups were speaking out in an effort to save the Jews in the concentration camps, the US and European media, and social media, today carry the news of the genocide unfolding in Gaza. The whole world is well aware of what atrocities are being carried out by the IDF in Gaza, but no one takes action today, and in WW2 no one took action until the US stood up to Hitler.
Only the US President Joe Biden can stop the genocide in Gaza. Pleading, and begging Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich to stop the war crimes will not have any affect. Biden needs to play his hand, as he holds all the weapons and cash promised to Israel in his hand. Biden simply needs to say, “Ceasefire now, or no more weapons and cash.”
The German Nazi officer was following an unquestioning commitment to National Socialism, which made it acceptable to murder millions of Jews. This parallels with the Israeli dedication to Zionism, which also is a political ideology, which makes it acceptable, and necessary, to kill and displace millions of Palestinians. Israeli ministers in the Netanyahu government,
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on October 9, “We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly,” and added, “there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed”.
“My right, my wife’s, my children’s, to roam the roads of Judea and Samaria are more important than the right of movement of the Arabs,” said Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, that there is “no such thing as Palestinians” and they are a “fictitious nation invented only to battle against the Zionist movement.”
The Nazi party was based on a racist view that German “Aryan” blood was pure, and Jews were inferior and deserved to be exterminated because of their race. The Zionist political ideology of the Jewish State of Israel is the same, but with a twist. In their view, Jews are the exalted race, and all non-Jews are inferior and sub-human.
The reviews written about this shocking, and chilling film are describing it a film which will change the viewer forever. There are some films which stick in your mind a lifetime, and this film is branded a hard film to watch. It has secured Oscar nominations in the category of best screenplay, best picture, best director and others.
What happens when you deny your neighbors of their human rights? Israelis, Americans and Europeans all live in freedom. The Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank are asking for their rights which for 75 years have been denied from them. Jews refer to the holocaust and like to say, “Never again”, but it is happening once again, and the Zone of Interest makes us all come to face the ugly truth.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist
