Despite The Zionists Best Efforts, Holocaust Education Has Backfired on Them - Jewish Children Are Drawing the Lessons that Never Again Applies to Everyone!
Tony Greenstein on Hidden Link between Zionism and Antisemitism - Palestine Chronicle Podcast
I
was invited by the Palestine Chronicle to
do a podcast on my book Zionism During
the Holocaust and to talk about the relationship between Zionism and
Anti-Semitism, both today and historically.
Zionism in its origins was a reaction to anti-Semitism and in particular the 1881 pogroms in Odessa that occurred because of the assassination of Czar Alexander II.
Echoes of the Holocaust - Holocaust Survivors
Speak of their Anguish at Israel's Nazi-like Genocide
Zionism
however was a reaction with a difference. Unlike most Jewish political currents
it ‘understood’ anti-Semitism as the understandable reaction of non-Jews to the
Jewish stranger in their midst. Zionism began with the belief that
anti-Semitism could not be fought as it was inherent in the non-Jew. This was summed
up by Leon Pinsker, the founder of the Lovers
of Zion group in 1882 that
‘Judeophobia
is then a mental disease, and as a mental disease it is hereditary, and having
been inherited for 2,000 years, it is incurable
Budapest Deak Square Sculpture to the memory of Pastor Sztehlo Gábor (1909-1974) of the Lutheran Church who saved around 2000 Jewish children and adults during the rule of the fascist Arrow Cross Party
Pinsker
was a doctor so he saw anti-Semitism as a phobia. If it was incurable why fight
it? At best you should need a
palliative. The Zionist solution to anti-Semitism was a state of their own. It
soon realised that the anti-Semites would be only too willing to help them. Their
best friends became the very anti-Semites who had been staging the pogroms.
Both
the Zionists and the anti-Semites agreed that Jews did not belong where they
lived and both agreed that Jews should emigrate and form their own state. As
the founder of Political Zionism Theodor Herzl noted
in his Diaries in 1895:
The
anti-Semites will be our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our
allies.
And
he was correct. There is no greater friend of Israel than Victor Orban, Hungary’s
Prime Minister. Orban described
the wartime ruler of Hungary, Admiral Horthy, as an ‘exceptional statesman’, despite having presided over the
deportation of nearly half a million Jews to Auschwitz. Orban waged an openly anti-Semitic election
campaign in 2017 using George Soros, the Jewish billionaire as his
scapegoat. Yet there is no European leader who is closer
to Netanyahu and more supportive of the genocide in Gaza than Orban.
Budapest Deak Square Sculpture to the memory of Pastor Sztehlo Gábor (1909-1974) of the Lutheran Church who saved around 2000 Jewish children and adults during the rule of the fascist Arrow Cross Party
Throughout
the two years of genocide the
most ardent supporters of Zionism and the genocide have been the
Islamaphobic right. People like Tommy Robinson and Geert Wilders. They may not
like Jews but they love Israel. Donald Trump personifies this with his talk
of American Jews not being loyal enough to Israel which is ‘their country’.
What
is interesting is what my interviewer, Robert Inlakesh, brought up, about the
dilemma expressed by Sarah Hurwitz, the former Obama speechwriter, member of
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council and dedicated Zionist
activist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcRk3sQJbbA
Former Obama speechwriter faces backlash for
pro-Israel comments | MEE Explains
Hurwitz’s
speech on November 16, 2025, at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of
North America in Washington set off a firestorm
because she said out aloud what has been troubling Zionists privately, namely
the contrast between holocaust education that teaches that the extermination of
Europe’s Jews is wrong and the Holocaust in Gaza which Zionists believe is
right.
Of
course this wouldn’t be a problem if holocaust education was about how all
racism, ethnic cleansing and genocide is wrong. The problem is that Holocaust education
tries to combine two messages – exterminating people is bad but supporting Israel
is good. Except that Israel is also
exterminating Palestinians, hence the dilemma.
Israel
is seen as compensation for the holocaust. How to square this with the
holocaust in Gaza perpetrated by that very same state? This is the ‘problem’
that Hurwitz tackled, admitting that her hasbara attempts to bridge the gap are
making her seem ‘obscene’ to Jewish kids.
Budapest Deak Square Sculpture to the memory of Pastor Sztehlo Gábor (1909-1974) of the Lutheran Church who saved around 2000 Jewish children and adults during the rule of the fascist Arrow Cross Party
In her short rant she accepted that coming to young people with her data, facts and arguments when all they could see on their phones was carnage made her look obscene. Her solution was to confiscate the phones of young people!
This
is exemplified by the fact that not one Holocaust Remembrance institution has
condemned the Holocaust in Gaza. Indeed the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum
actually apologised
for suggesting that ‘Never Again’ applied to everyone, with the implication
that Palestinians might be included.
The
LA Holocaust Museum’s anodyne statement merely said “Never Again’ Can't Only Mean Never Again
For Jews.” This produced an avalanche of protest from racist Zionists
who believed that ‘Never Again’ only meant
Jews.
The
Los Angeles holocaust museum’s pathetic
apology read:
“We recently posted an item on social media that was
part of a pre-planned campaign intended to promote inclusivity and community
that was easily open to misinterpretation by some to be a political statement
reflecting the ongoing situation in the Middle East. That was not our intent,”
Hurwitz
achieved her moment of fame when she articulated
the problems that Zionists like herself face.
How to portray Israelis in a good light when the lesson that most young
people draw from holocaust education is equating strong Nazis persecuting emaciated
Jews with strong Israelis persecuting skinny Palestinians.
The family of Stephen Kapos, a holocaust survivor active in Palestine Solidarity politics, as they entered the Columbus Street camp
Sarah
Hurwitz Explaining Why She Sounds Obscene
"So you
have TikTok just smashing our young
people's brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza. And this is why so many of
us can't have a sane conversation with younger Jews because anything that we
try to say to them, they are hearing it through this wall of carnage. So I want
to give data and information and facts and arguments and they are just seeing
in their minds carnage and I sound obscene... Holocaust education is absolutely essential. But I think it may be confusing some of our
young people about antisemitism, because they learn about big, strong Nazis
hurting weak, emaciated Jews, and they think, 'Oh, antisemitism is like anti-black racism, right? Powerful white
people against powerless black people.' So when on TikTok, all day long, they
see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it's not surprising
that they think, 'Oh, I know the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel.
You fight the big, powerful people hurting the weak people."
The family of Stephen Kapos, a holocaust survivor active in Palestine Solidarity politics, as they entered the Columbus Street camp
My
book deals in some detail with the Zionist attitude to the holocaust. Zionism holds
that the holocaust is unique. Nothing
like it has ever happened before nor will it happen again. The Holocaust is sui generis.
It cannot be compared. And if the holocaust is unique then one
cannot draw any lessons from it, certainly no anti-racist lessons. The only conclusion that one is permitted to
draw is the one conclusion that is demonstrably false, namely that Israel was
given to the Jews as compensation for 6 million dead.
The
Nazi holocaust only happened to one people, the Jews, in Zionist eyes. The Roma,
Russians, gays etc. suffered genocide maybe but certainly not holocaust. That
is reserved for the Jews. Holocaust education is therefore formulated with
those lessons in mind. Holocaust education is designed with the legitimation of
Israel in mind. Holocaust memorial institutions have this as their main goal.
Yad Vashem serves as the focus of this Holocaust State Worship.
The head of Yad Vashem, Israel's renowned Holocaust museum, rejects a letter from 50 Holocaust experts calling on him to condemn the rash of statements from senior Israeli figures calling for genocide in Gaza.
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) January 18, 2024
Yad Vashem, he says, is not interested in the universal lessons of…
In
the Gaza Holocaust Yad Vashem has refused
the entreaties of holocaust and genocide scholars to condemn the genocide in
Gaza. Yad Vashem itself is presided over by a fascist settler, Dani Dayan, who
Brazil refused
to accept as Ambassador because of his racism and right-wing views.
In April 1976 John Vorster, South Africa's PM, Who was Interned as a Nazi Supporter, Visited Israel
Yad
Vashem has entertained a bevy of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites beginning with the visit
of Prime Minister of Apartheid South Africa, John Vorster in April 1976.
Vorster was interned during the war because of his Nazi sympathies. Other visitors
include Hungary’s far-right Prime Minister Orban, the Hitler loving Presidents
of the Philippines and Brazil, Rodrigo
Duterte and Jair
Bolsanaro and assorted far rightists.
Zionism
and Anti-Semitism go together like a hand and a glove. They make perfect
partners.
Tony
Greenstein
