GAZA - Dutch 'Righteous Among the Nation' Returns Award in Protest

"Dutch Nonagenarian Returns ‘Righteous Gentile’ Medal to Protest IDF Killing of Gaza Relatives" by Boruch Shubert, Jewish Political News 8/15/2014

As reported in Ha’aretz, a 91-year-old Dutch man who was honored with the special status of Righteous Among the Nations for going out of his way to rescue a Jew during the Nazi takeover of his country returned his medal and certificate on Thursday to protest the killing of six of his relatives by an Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip last month.

In 2011, Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust museum declared Henk Zanoli and his late mother, Johana Zanoli-Smit, as members of the elite group known as Righteous Among the Nations for having saved a Jewish child, Elhanan Pinto, during the Nazi occupation of Holland.  Pinto, who was born in 1932, was hidden by the Zanoli family from the spring of 1943 until the Allies finally liberated Holland in 1945.  The boy’s parents perished in Nazi death camps.

In hiding a Jewish child, the Zanoli family knowingly took a double risk, because it was already being closely watched by the Nazi authorities for having opposed the German occupation.  Zanoli’s father was sent to the Dachau concentration camp in 1941 because of his opposition to the occupation, and he eventually died at the Mauthausen concentration camp in February 1945.  The Nazis executed Henk Zanoli’s brother-in-law because of his participation in the Dutch resistance, and one of his brothers had a Jewish fiancée, who was also murdered by the Nazis.

Zanoli’s great-niece, Angelique Eijpe, is a Dutch diplomat who currently works as deputy head of the Netherlands’ diplomatic mission in Oman.  Eijpe’s husband, economist Isma’il Ziadah, was born in the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza; the couple has three children.  Ziadah’s parents were born in Fallujah, the area that now hosts the town of Kiryat Gat.

On Sunday, July 20, during its ongoing military action against Hamas targets, an Israeli fighter jet dropped a bomb on the Ziadah family’s home in al-Bureij.  The bomb killed the family matriarch, Muftiyah, age 70; three of her sons, Jamil, Omar and Youssef; Jamil’s wife, Bayan; and their 12-year-old son, Shaaban.  The bombing thereby orphaned Jamal and Bayan’s other five children, four daughters and a son, while orphaning Omar’s two sons, and Youssef’s three sons and a daughter, of their fathers.  The bombing additionally killed Mohammed Maqadmeh, who was visiting the family that day.

Zanoli, an attorney, learned of the killing of the Ziadah family from his niece.  As a means of expressing his shock and anguish, he decided to return the medal and certificate that honored him and his mother (posthumously) as Righteous Among the Nations.  Due to his age and poor health, Zanoli did not do so in person, but instead sent them by messenger to the Israeli Embassy in The Hague – the same place where he had been presented with them in an official ceremony three years ago.

In the accompanying letter, addressed to Israeli Ambassador Haim Davon, Zanoli began by describing the price his family paid for resisting the Nazis and their successful attempt to save a Jewish child.  “Against this background it is particularly shocking and tragic that today, four generations on, our family is faced with the murder of our kin in Gaza.  Murder carried out by the State of Israel,” the elderly Dutchman wrote.

“The great- great grandchildren of my mother have lost their [Palestinian] grandmother, three uncles, an aunt and a cousin at the hands of the Israeli army,” he further stated.  “For me to hold on to the honor granted by the State of Israel, under these circumstances, will be both an insult to the memory of my courageous mother who risked her life and that of her children fighting against suppression and for the preservation of human life as well as an insult to those in my family, four generations on, who lost no less than six of their relatives in Gaza at the hands of the State of Israel.”

Commenting that Israel’s actions in Gaza “have already resulted in serious accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he went on, “as a retired lawyer it would be no surprise to me that these accusations could lead to possible convictions if true and unpoliticized justice is able to have its course.  What happened to our kin in Gaza will no doubt be brought to the table at such a time as well.”

The Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit did not respond to Haaretz’s questions about whether the Ziadah home was bombed in error, or if not, who in the house was considered a target and whether the IDF’s legal department considers the death of six civilians to be legitimate collateral damage.  The unit’s response said only that the IDF invests great efforts in trying to avoid civilian casualties, is currently working to investigate all allegations of irregular incidents and will publish its conclusions after this investigation has been completed.