JANE Haining, a farmer’s daughter from Dunscore, Dumfriesshire, is a name that has become well-known in recent years. She was the only known Scot to have died in Auschwitz, having been taken by the Gestapo in 1944 when she was matron in charge of girls at the Scottish Mission in Budapest. She refused to leave the girls, most of whom were Jewish, even after receiving instructions from Edinburgh to leave Hungary.
Posthumously, one of the commemorations awarded to Jane was “Righteous Among The Nations” – an honorific used by the state of Israel to describe all of the non-Jews who, for purely altruistic reasons, risked their lives in order to save Jews from being exterminated by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.
READ MORE: Protest to be held over Scottish Labour MP's stance on Gaza ceasefire
The Righteous Among the Nations comprise people from diverse background. There are Christians from all denominations, as well as Muslims and atheists. As at August 10 2023, the award has been made to 28,217 people, including 22 from the UK, and is still being made as new cases come to light.
I have some questions.
If alive today, how would those people who have been awarded, including Jane, feel about what is happening in Gaza? I am sure that Jane, for example, would offer her love, courage and devotion to the people of Gaza as she did to the Jewish girls in Hungary, and the same could probably be said about the others. I do not imagine, however, that she would use the word “proportionate” or agree with the phrase “right to defend itself” given the extent of Israel’s reaction since that shocking event on October 7.
READ MORE: Major combat operations in north Gaza are over, Israeli military says
How can the state of Israel live with itself given that it is now “doing to others as they had done to themselves” during the Holocaust? Do two wrongs make a right? Is the Israeli government so far detached from the will of those who are still awarding “Righteous Among The Nations” medals to people who were altruistic towards Jews, when they themselves are effectively doing to the people of Gaza what the Nazis did to them?
Why is the UK Government not calling for a ceasefire? Can they explain to us why the reasons for being an ally to Israel rank higher than the urgent need to call a halt to the genocide that is taking place right now?
Would Jane and the other recipients of the medal see the sheer hypocrisy of continuing to issue Righteous Among The Nations medals, on one hand, whilst carrying out genocide, starving tens of thousands of people, talking about Israeli settlements replacing the population of Gaza (ethnic cleansing) and ignoring UN calls for a ceasefire, on the other?
I have no doubt that they would.
Dennis White
Blackwood
I HAVE been asked, as have many other Sunday National readers, to ask my MP to write to the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister (in addition to the First Minister through my MSP) asking if HM Government is in support of South Africa’s action against Israel.
This “action” is South Africa’s application to the International Court of Justice in the Hague seeking evidence that Israel has discharged its obligations under the Genocide Convention of 1948.
READ MORE: South Africa's 'genocide' case against Israel offers glimmer of hope
Given Rishi Sunak’s response on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, where he stated that he would not allow any “foreign court” to interfere with whatever his government decides (referring to the Rwanda saga), I have my doubts. He will ignore anything to do with the Israel/Gaza war. Except, that is, while following the path of the American government, and continuing to support Israel on a subjective and political level.
However, we must do what we can if we in Scotland have any respect for the violations being committed against the Palestinian people and the Gaza Strip they have been assigned to live in by the Israeli government.
The original attack on Israel by the Hamas regime has been recognised the world over as a horrific action, and equally condemned the world over.
Now, and equally, the continuous destruction of Palestinian homes, its people of all ages, to what must now amount to 23,000, has passed well beyond the original horrors committed by Hamas.
A ceasefire must be the only answer in order for Palestine to remain a recognisable state by the world, as it was for centuries before 1947.
Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife
IF there is any true justice possible in this Tory UK, there is surely one minimum settlement due to those whose lives were destroyed by the Post Office, even before compensation is agreed.
READ MORE: Post Office scandal inquiry still to hear key evidence, SNP MP says
Each and every victim should immediately receive the amount that was taken from them originally, plus the relevant interest at the rates pertaining which these sums would have accrued if saved since then. All legal costs should also be refunded in full, and only then should compensation be agreed for the dire destruction of lives.
Sadly, no-one has yet seen pigs flying through pink hail.
P Davidson
Falkirk
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