’Whoever saves one life’ applies to Palestinians too

MICHAEL CHAITOW finds parallels between the Holocaust refugees portrayed in the film 'One Life' and the need to help Palestinians in Gaza today.

There is a scene in One Life, the new Anthony Hopkins film portraying the life of British humanitarian Nicholas Winton, where he attempts to garner media interest in his Second World War rescue story to raise awareness about the plight of refugees in modern day Britain. Winton, who saved the lives of 669 Jews during the Holocaust, fails to gain a receptive ear from the editor, who rejects his pitch because he doesn’t see what refugees in contemporary England have to do with the refugee children Winton saved, decades earlier.

The film, and this scene in particular, is even more compelling today, because of its resonance with the current crisis in Israel-Palestine. Just as the plight of refugees was ignored in the 20th century, so too is the plight of many living in Israel-Palestine, being overlooked once again today.

Growing up as a Jew in Australia, I was taught that “Never Again” meant working tirelessly to ensure that no peoples ever faced the fate that six million Jews faced between 1939 and 1945. However, I’m afraid that “Never Again” has happened, time and again. The international community continues to fail to protect the lives of innocent civilians. On October 7, we saw the single greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. Since then, we have also seen the tragic loss of over 20,000 Palestinian lives.

There is absolutely no justification for what took place on October 7. The use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon, the indiscriminate killing of Israeli civilians and children, and the taking of hostage are all war crimes that must be investigated by the International Criminal Court and its perpetrators, prosectuted. Yet, at the same time, there can be no justification for the disproportionate killing of Palestinian civilians that continues today.

While we do not know how many of those 20,000+ lives were Hamas fighters, per the Israeli military’s stated objective of dismantling Hamas, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, our only source for Gazan figures, at least two-thirds of those killed have been women and children. We also know that the assault on Gaza has displaced over 85% of its residents and that there is no end in sight to this horrific bloodshed and violence.

Although there is vigorous disagreement in the region and, indeed, across the world about the military aims of the Israeli government, what is clear is that too many civilians have already paid the highest price.

As a Jewish Australian, this concerns me deeply. It concerns me because I believe that every civilian killed during this war is a tragedy, and because I believe that the preservation of innocent life is the highest order mitzvah (or “good deed”) according to my own religious tradition. Indeed, as the Talmud teaches (and as is quoted in the film, One Life), "Whosoever destroys one soul, it is as though he had destroyed the entire world. And whosoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the entire world.”

Unfortunately, as we enter the fourth month of this horrific conflict, there are countless worlds being lost each day. We must heed the warnings of One Life and return to treasuring each life as sacred and we must work to secure a lasting and enduring peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

We, in the Jewish community, have a responsibility to hold Israel to account and to call for it to behave to its highest ideals, one consistent with the liberal, democratic values upon which it was founded. At the New Israel Fund, we continue to support the civil society organisastions that have been building a better Israel for decades. We must continue to invest in a world built by these organisations, organisations like the Tzedek Centres working in tandem, Jews and Arabs to build a better Israel, even in times of crisis.

As in 1938, where the actions of a few individuals saved the lives of hundreds, so too can we act today to save the lives of others. It may seem fanciful to believe that the Israelis and Palestinians could ever make peace after such devastation, but it once also seemed impossible for Israelis and Egyptians.

May 2024 be the year where we see the beginning of a new peace process between Israelis and Palestinians once and for all, may it be the year where we learn that we cannot continue the same cycles of violence and expect new results as we have no other choice but to work together for a lasting and enduring peace.