Israel’s Gaza genocide has provoked a savage backlash within broader Zionist circles. They’ve enlisted governments, universities, and NGOs to police, suppress and punish critics of the genocide. In the case of nation states like the UK and Germany, their full power has been unleashed against those who defy such prohibitions, including arrest and even imprisonment.
The premise of this backlash campaign is a false, contrived claim concerning anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. What I call the Anti-Semitism Industry (in this case, the American Jewish Committee), devised the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and succeeded it inscribing in national and state legislatures as the normative narrative regarding this subject. It weaponized anti-Semitism, proscribing any discourse that strayed outside these parameters. This rendered legitimate speech, including activism against genocide and on behalf of its Palestinian victims, as tainted.
This enabled right-wing factions in western countries to exploit so-called anti-Semitism for political advantage. For example, Republicans desperate to divert political discourse away from Trump barreling toward dictatorship, have used this as a cudgel to beat Democrats and the Palestine solidarity movement. Along with manufactured claims about election fraud, the anti-Semitism canard has become the go-to political meme.
I marvel that even senators who’ve never previously said a word on the subject, whose districts are hundreds, if not thousands of miles from any Jewish population, and who have few if any Jews among their constituents, have taken up the call. It’s worse than virtue-signalling. It’s the exploitation of real, historic Jewish suffering on behalf of looming dictatorship.
It’s bad enough when Jews themselves exceptionalize their suffering. But when senators and presidents reinforce it through political grandstanding and punitive legislation, it becomes not only offensive, but toxic to other minorities targeted for their alleged anti-Semitism. We don’t need such advocates. Most of all, we don’t need anyone policing speech concerning Israel and the Holocaust. Criticism of Israel and opposing genocide must not have parameters defining what is permissible and what isn’t.
In fact, before they barrel into this subject uninvited, these poseurs might want to study the discourse, the diversity of thought, and understand the history. As it is, their statements are performative, a robotic repetition of talking points peddled by the Israel Lobby.
Here is Sen. Cassidy of Louisiana demanding answers to gotcha questions aimed at New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. He threatens to drag the mayor before a Senate committee to explain why he voided the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. Imagine, the US Senate reviewing New York City’s municipal regulations:
.@NYCMayor, I’m asking that you answer the following questions by February 19th:
(1) How, if at all, does revoking the executive order adopting the IHRA working definition of antisemitism and the executive order barring boycotts of Israel protect Jewish students?
(2) Will your… https://t.co/z5VwczNV5x
— U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) February 6, 2026
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There is a false premise inherent in such attitudes: that Jews are under attack today; their safety is imperiled; they want to kill us; only extreme vigilance can prevent another Holocaust. Such obsessive fears have even infected Jews themselves. Tender young Zionist college students shudder on campuses because other students criticize Israel and call Gaza a genocide. Even though none of these protesters direct their anger at Jews, the Zionists among them consider it an attack on their Jewish identity.
This in itself is a common claim by neo-Nazis: that Jews are no different than Israelis; that Zionism represents Jews and Judaism; that Israeli crimes are Jewish crimes.
In truth, Zionist Jews embraces Zionism as their Jewish identity. If they have any religious identity, it is one that places Israel at the forefront. All despite decades of Diaspora history rejecting Zionist nationalism; and despite a long history of disaporism, which embraced secular Jewish identity and the centrality of Diaspora to it.
This centering of Zionism is a recent phenomenon of the past 75 years. Nevertheless, Israel has constructed a narrative which co-opts Jewish history and transforms it into a fable of nationalism, going all the way back to the Bible itself; to transform Zionism into an inevitable historical phenomenon.
Exceptionalism and our Holocaust
The exceptionalists believe this Holocaust is ours, not theirs; that Jews are the only ones to define it and parse its historical meaning. Among the false historical contrivances is a claim that conveniently links Zionism to the Holocaust. The latter proved that Jewish existence in the Diaspora is endangered; that Jews had no power to control their fate, leaving them at the mercy of their murderers. Thus, Zionism became the answer to the ‘Jewish Question.’ Only a state could guarantee safety for the Jewish people. This conferred on Zionism an inevitability, making it the only legitimate response to the Holocaust.
Yet, this was never true. Almost from the moment the first European Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine, they came into conflict with the indigenous Palestinians. Though there were some efforts at cooperation and co-existence, there were exchanges of mass violence between the communities from the early 20th century. They never ceased. Despite the tenth most powerful military force in the world, Jews are not now, nor have they ever been safe in Israel. They are constantly in danger, beset by enemies. Enemies they themselves have created.
Israel has become a garrison state whose existence is secured through force and domination. This Spartan-like mentality is inculcated into children trained to become its warriors. As adults, they offer their lives on the sacrificial altar of nationhood.
This was not our grandfather’s Zionism; not the vision of a prosperous Jewish nation and a people taking its rightful place on the global stage.
Gaza as Refutation of Holocaust Exceptionalism
The Gaza genocide has disturbed what was once a consensus among Jews, and most Holocaust scholars: that the Holocaust was a unqiue historical event. One suffered by Jews and exclusive to them. No other event could compare to it in severity. The causes of it were unique to this particular tragedy. It’s known as Holocaust exceptionalism. I wrote about it a few months after 10/7: Gaza, Genocide and Holocaust Exceptionalism.
Raz Segal notes in Gaza as Twilight of Israel Exceptionalism that there is a conflict within the fields of Holocaust and genocide studies regarding Gaza regarding:
The very different ways in which Holocaust scholars, on the one hand, and those working in Genocide Studies, on the other, have responded to the unfolding mass violence in Israel and Palestine after 7 October, point to an unprecedented crisis in Holocaust and Genocide Studies…The crisis stems from the significant evidence for genocide in Israel’s attack on Gaza, which has exposed the exceptional status accorded to Israel as a foundational element in the field, that is, the idea that Israel, the state of Holocaust survivors, can never perpetrate genocide.
Many in the field of Holocaust studies refuse to see it in the context of other genocides. In fact, a number of Holocaust museums have removed or modified any such references in their exhibits. They have chosen parochialism and particularism over universalism. The US Holocaust and Memorial Museum has a highly restrictive criteria for genocide, which limits the term to a few historical events widely acknowledged as such (Armenia, Rwanda). For others, it uses the terms “mass killing” or “mass atrocities,” which hardly does justice to such tragedies:
In addition to genocide, there are a number of other large-scale, systematic crimes committed against civilian populations that fall under the category of “mass atrocities.” These crimes include crimes against humanity, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and mass killing.
4-million dead in the Congo, 300,000 dead in East Timor, 2-million in Cambodia, 550,000 in South Sudan. Yet none are genocides. It goes without saying that Gaza is not mentioned at all. This constitutes genocide denialism.
Genocide scholars, on the other hand focus on the broader picture. They view the Holocaust as one genocide in the context of many others. Segal straddles both worlds as an academic, an Israeli, and a critic of the exceptionalist school.
The claim that Jews in effect own the Holocaust is accompanied by converse denial that Israel is committing a Holocaust in Gaza. It offends Zionists that a people who suffered the ultimate tragic fate would be accused of perpetrating it on another people. If the Holocaust is exceptional, then it is impermissible to compare it to any other. Anyone making such a claim has themselves desecrated the memories of the Jewish victims and survivors.
The contention of uniqueness conceals an unarticulated western bias. The enormity of the Holocaust compared to other genocides lies in its Europeanness: the horror of such a catastrophe happening in the supposedly civilized western world. Genocides on other continents are far away. The victims are not ‘like us.’ Our media insulates us from news and images, and thus from the suffering.
Since the Enlightenment, Jews have considered themselves part of this western civilization. The Holocaust induces not only a sense of trauma, but a deep sense of betrayal. As for non-western genocides, we don’t feel or understand the civilizations that bred such hatreds. This only feeds the false sense of the Holocaust as a unique historical event.
Recognition of the Gaza genocide also suffers from the same western supremacist attitudes. Palestinians are alien: Muslim, Arab. They don’t look like Europeans. They speak a different language. Their suffering is relatively undocumented thanks to Israel’s prohibition against western journalists entering the enclave.
There is a profound difference between a Palestinian stringer reporting on the violence, and Anderson Cooper or Jake Tapper. This otherness plays to Israel’s advantage. The less the world knows, the less credible the charge of genocide will be. The easier for Israel to rebut it.
Genocide denial and blood libel
Genocide deniers use various phrases freighted with anti-Semitic connotations to smear those who call Gaza a genocide. Among them, one of the oldest is the “blood libel” claim. Here tweeted by former JDL leader, Yossi Klein Halevi:
“Israeli genocide” is the new blood libel of our time. It will haunt Jewish life for years to come.
Together with several friends, I’ve written an open letter expressing “outrage and contempt” for the accusation.
Please sign and circulate. Here’s the link:https://t.co/5mfScRy9i5
— Yossi Klein Halevi (@YKleinHalevi) February 13, 2026
It’s telling that Klein Halevi recounts his years as a disciple of Meir Kahane, Yossi Klein Halevi Remembers Meir Kahane and the JDL, under the headline: The Ecstasy of Rage. That is what much of pro-Israel rhetoric is: performative outrage. Exploitation of ancient suffering on behalf of Israel and political interests. There are no more blood libels. Jews are not under threat. If anything, it is Israel which poses a threat to Palestinians. Israelis have become the perpetrators, the latter-day Nazis.
Of course, he feels outrage and contempt for the accusation. It is a slap in the face to everything he holds dear including the notion of Holocaust exceptionalism. Not only can there be no other Holocaust like our Holocaust–their “Holocaust” cannot be a Holocaust because they are our killers. They hate us. They are evil. Not us. We are victims. They forced us to do this. We had no choice. It was us or them. In other words, playing the Eternal Victim card.
The UN Commissioner for Human Rights placed the misuse of the term in the context of the Gaza genocide:
Regrettably, some Israeli officials have responded by trying to discredit human rights concerns…by claiming that they constitute “blood libel” – the most poisonous and murderous form of antisemitism.
…But it is not antisemitic to urge respect for the law, and to condemn its gross violations.
It is not a blood libel to deplore the failure to hold to account Israeli soldiers and armed settlers who have killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, or the prolongation of a war whose conduct has raised grave international humanitarian and human rights law concerns.
Political instrumentalization of the very real scourge of antisemitism must end…We will continue to insist on the equal rights of Palestinians and Israelis to live…free from the permanent threat…of extreme violence…fed by a fortress mentality, severe discrimination and incitement to hatred.
As for other genocides–Rwanda, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bosnia, Armenia–acknowledging them as comparable diminishes the enormity of the Jewish Holocaust. Thus, Israel, along with Israel Lobby groups like the ADL, has for decades refused to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. The ADL finally relented officially in 2016. This was, in part, because of Israel’s then-close relations with Turkey, which adamantly rejects any such claims. But the most critical reason was to maintain Jewish exceptionalism.
There is critical problem with exceptionalist approach: it severs a vital connection between Jews and non-Jews. It demands that the latter acknowledge Jewish suffering is unique; and the suffering of others is, by definition, lesser or in a different category. This denies our common humanity. It insults the memory of all non-Jewish victims:
…The insistence on the uniqueness of the Holocaust is a counsel of despair, not least about the nature of human beings and our capacity to make the world a better place. The Holocaust is indelibly part of human history: it consisted in human actions, and so is open to understanding, however limited, complex and difficult.
Despite all this posturing, let’s call it what it is: Holocaust denialism. It’s no different than Holocaust revisionism. The identity of the deniers may be different, but their motives and methods are the same. They ignore evidence, they propound theories and “facts” without foundation, they barely conceal an underlying hatred of the victims. They advance their arguments with vehemence, even outrage; but without scientific or historical basis.
Genocide: laying the groundwork
Genocide doesn’t just happen. Humans don’t naturally or innately hate each other. Attitudes leading to genocide must be nurtured and shaped in the minds of those who will be the perpetrators. The Other must be dehumanized, demonized; transformed into the personification of evil. Israel planted the seeds of genocide in children from a young age. They are taught to hate what they call “Arabs.” That the only good Arab is a dead Arab. That Palestinians are the latter-day personificaton of ancient Israelite enemies.
The Israeli media, generals and university presidents exhorted Israelis to view Palestinians as Amalek: the tribe which “harried” the Israelites as they left Egypt. Its punishment was divinely-commanded genocide at the hands of King Saul. An Israeli rabbi wrote a book approving the murder of Palestinian children because they supposedly would grow up to kill Jews. A retired general wrote in a leading newspaper that Palestinian women should be murdered because they will produce the terrorists of the future.
Israelis were conditioned to hate Palestinians. They were taught it with their mother’s milk. Once these attitudes were instilled deeply within Israeli consciousness, it became easy to implement the actual genocide.
The Nazis followed the same process in rendering the Jews subhuman. They used similar language describing them as thieves, murderers, vermin, conniving, ruthless, etc. Goebbels and Streicher were its masters. I’m fact, the death penalty he received noted:
The judgment against him, delivered on 1 October 1946, stated: “In his speeches and articles, week after week, month after month, he infected the German mind with the virus of anti-Semitism, and incited the German people to acti
Once they normalized such hatred, pogroms followed, then mass murder. It was a slow, carefully orchestrated series of escalating hatreds.
Nazi genocide=Gaza genocide. They are two sides of the same coin. The only difference is the scale: while the Nazis murdered 6-million Jews, the Israelis have “only” murdered hundreds of thousands (the Guardian published a 2024 projection by a UK public health expert of 330,000 deaths).
link to timesofisrael.com
So many times, I have raised the question, “Why fight “Antisemitism? why not fight bigotry and racism so ALL minorities can join against such actions and not feel resentful because they have been left out in a fight only against selective discrimination?”
I have yet to receive any response to this question which in itself, is baffling.
25 years ago a young Aussie journalist helped a Palestinian refugee trapped on a New Guinea island alone and going mad, I helped him get the man off the island and to Australia. At the same time two Palestinian refugees argues in the high court that indefinite detention of them was illegal because they were stateless refugees – the high court ruled against them 4-3, 20 years later the same court with different judges deemed their own ruling was wrong.
That young journalist wrote a book My Israel with a list of authors in the back – Tom Segev, Akiva Eldar, Ilan Pappe, Gideon Levy, Gershon Gorenberg, Uri Avnery and others and I started reading them all, moved on to Shlomo Sand and Avi Shlaim and realised Israel is a myth and as my veteran Grandpa told me the country he was based in for WW11 was Palestine and the jewish terrorists were the most vicious people he had ever seen.
How on earth people can believe their own myths and racist exceptionalism if beyond me – or would be if I wasn’t an old white woman who grew up in an Aboriginal land and was never taught one word of their existence till I was 33 years old.
I am so thankful for Richard as another author with truths to tell while Israeli holocaust scholars write the genocide reports and the more reports and orders against Israel the more deranged they get and the more sadistic.
One can truly despair of humanity. Technologically, development is advancing at such a breakneck pace—but morally? Why do people like you, Richard, seem somewhat like lonely voices crying in the wilderness?
Most people really ought to end up on a psychologist’s couch. Too many cling to omnipotence fantasies well into mature adulthood. The wrong conclusions are drawn from history, as you so aptly demonstrate in your article. Instead of combating the principles and methods that once victimized them, people prefer to reverse roles and employ the very tactics that once made their own group victims.
In fact, Jews today are not better protected because Israel exists, but rather because Jews, through their experiences in the Diaspora, were exceptionally well-prepared for the globalized world—and because they found a powerful patron in the United States, which, ironically, resembles the Roman Empire not only in its symbolism.
@ Josh: So true.