Hogging the Holocaust
Weaponizing Perversions of History
No group of people has a monopoly on suffering.
I was watching the November 1st debate between Norman Finkelstein and Eli Lake. Eli Lake took issue with Finkelstein’s analogy, where he had compared Gaza to a concentration camp. Lake stated that “Hamas are the 21st century Nazis, not Israel.” He continued, arguing “they do what the Nazis do: just kill the Jews.” This isn’t a unique claim. It’s a common claim by Zionists. And it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what Nazis are.
Despite producing them, the western world doesn’t truly understand what Nazis are. This creates precisely the environment we have now — one that enables Zionists to weaponize the term “Nazi” to vilify Palestinians and punish them for defending themselves against settler colonialism and genocide. A lot of this fundamental misunderstanding is born of two perversions: the erasure of non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the conflation of Judaism and Zionism.
Holocaust education in the west — if you can even call it education — has continuously erased histories. Attempts to recognize non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust are often met with allegations of Holocaust denial. In reality, while Jews were one of the primary targets, the erasure of other victims is in itself a form of Holocaust denial. There can be no understanding of the Holocaust nor its perpetrators without acknowledging the Roma, Black, queer, disabled, and communist victims.
The conflation of Judaism and Zionism additionally helps twist history in ways that serve empire. Zionism is a European settler-colonial ideology born in the late 1800s. It may use a perversion of Judaism as a vehicle to engage in settler colonialism in Palestine, but it is in no way synonymous with Judaism.
However, when people are taught that Judaism and Zionism are one and the same, and they aren’t taught about the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, then reductionist takes like Lake’s “they do what the Nazis do: just kill the Jews” gain traction more easily. They gain traction despite the overwhelming similarities between Zionism and Nazism. It allows people to cling to these soundbites and ignore the actual context.
Lake’s claim, which is echoed by countless other Zionists, completely ignores the reality of the situation. Palestinian resistance fighters have more in common with the Jewish resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto than any Zionist would feel comfortable admitting.
Which group is a heavily militarized state locking people into concentration camps? Which one keeps registries to track the subjugated population? Which group is forcibly malnourishing a group of people based on ethnicity and restricting their movement inside of a camp surrounded by barbed wire? All these examples perfectly represent both Nazi Germany and the Zionist occupation.
It is important to additionally recognize that this comparison between Nazism and Zionism isn’t new. Even prior to the Nakba, the comparison was being made. In 1943, the British Defense Security Officer in Palestine, Henry Hunloke, took note of the nationalistic indoctrination of children in Zionism. He stated that the Zionist system was “closely akin to that adopted by the Nazis.” (Saurze, T. (2016). How Terrorism Created Modern Israel. Oxon. Olive Branch Press.)
Even American intelligence reports from the early 1940s directly made the analogy. A 1943 report characterized Zionism as “a type of nationalism which in any other country would be stigmatized as retrograde Nazism.” (Saurze) The report continued, stating that Zionism had “a spirit closely akin to Nazism, namely, an attempt to regiment the community, even by force, and to resort to force to get what they want.” (Saurze)
When looking at the roots of both Zionism and Nazism, it isn’t surprising that the two share so much. Zionism “…adopted a German version of European Enlightenment thought…German nationalist principles such as biology, racial purity, historical roots, and blood and soil [], and a mystical attitude to the land….” (Masalha, N. (2012). The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory. London. Zed Books.)
Zionism and Nazism are kindred ideologies. The fact that the Zionist occupation is rooted in a specifically Jewish form of settler colonialism doesn’t make anti-Zionism antisemitic. Nor does it make resistance against the occupation comparable in any conceivable way to Nazism.
As Mohammed El-Kurd stated, evoking the late James Baldwin, “Jewish settlers stole my house. It’s not my fault they’re Jewish.” When Palestinian resistance fighters fight back, it isn’t because the settlers are Jewish. It’s because the settlers are violently colonizing the Palestinian land and the Palestinian people. When Nazis targeted a group of people, it was because of that group’s identity. Identity was never incidental. Similarly, the Zionist occupation’s repeated violence against Palestinians is because of their identity. Like many other settler colonial projects, Indigenous peoples are targeted on the basis of their indigeneity. In this case, their existence directly undermines claims of universal Jewish indigeneity to the land of Palestine.
We’ve all heard the phrase “Never Again.” But how can we learn the lessons of the Holocaust if we ignore its reality? Without an understanding of the perpetrators, how can future holocausts be prevented? If “never again” is anything other than a universal call to prevent future genocides everywhere, then it’s worse than meaningless as a phrase. It becomes instead a phrase groups can use to shield themselves while committing genocide on other populations.
Zionism is fascism. There is no denying that reality.