Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany
This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany occur frequently in the political discourse of anti-Zionism.[6]German-Jewish linguist and anti-fascist Victor Klemperer, who survived the Holocaust and chose not to move to Israel but stay in Germany after 1945, wrote in his LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii (The Language of the Third Reich) that both Zionism and Nazism are essentially neo-Romantic nationalist ideologies.The seizure of the houses, lands, and property of the 900,000 Palestinian Arabs who are now refugees is on a moral level with the worst crimes and injustices committed, during the last four or five centuries, by gentile Western European conquerors and colonists overseas.He argued that continued military occupation of the Palestinian territories would lead to the moral degradation of Israeli Defense Force (IDF), with individuals committing atrocities for state security interests.[28][29] In 1988, Holocaust survivor Yehuda Elkana warned that the tendency in Israel to see all potential threats as existential and all opponents as Nazis would lead to Nazi-like behavior by Jews.[35] Later, Golan retracted and said that he did not intend to compare Israel to Nazi Germany, releasing a statement in which he said "It is an absurd and baseless comparison and I had no intention whatsoever to draw any sort of parallel or to criticize the national leadership.[37] In 2024, Israeli-American Holocaust historian Omer Bartov spoke with Israelis who had fought in Gaza and compared their attitudes to those he had found in his research on German soldiers during World War II: Having internalised certain views of the enemy – the Bolsheviks as Untermenschen; Hamas as human animals – and of the wider population as less than human and undeserving of rights, soldiers observing or perpetrating atrocities tend to ascribe them not to their own military, or to themselves, but to the enemy.[45] On 18 February 2024, the President of Brazil Lula da Silva stirred up controversy due to his statement comparing the actions of Israel in the Israel–Hamas war to the Holocaust.[19] In the United Kingdom, erstwhile Member of Parliament for Bradford East, the Liberal Democrat politician David Ward, created controversy after signing the ceremonial Book of Remembrance in the Houses of Parliament on Holocaust Memorial Day, with him writing: "I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new state of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza."[11] Kenneth L. Marcus says that Holocaust inversion aims to "shock, silence, threaten, insulate, and legitimize", which has "a chilling effect on Jewish supporters of Israel".[16] Eyal Levin suggests that Holocaust inversion is becoming part of the iconography of a new antisemitism which has spread globally – particularly in the Arab and Muslim world and in Western Europe and America – often appearing in demonstrations and media portrayals.[57] Historian Bernard Lewis suggests that the belief that the Nazis were no worse than Israel also provides "welcome relief to many who had long borne a burden of guilt for the role which they, their families, their nations, or their churches had played in Hitler's crimes against the Jews, whether by participation or complicity, acquiescence or indifference".[35] Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov has drawn an analogy between the German army's dehumanization of its enemies under Nazism and the attitudes displayed by young Israeli troops in the 2024 Israel-Hamas war.[59] British scholar David Feldman suggests that comparisons in relation to the 2014 Gaza War have not been motivated by a broader anti-Jewish subjectivity but by targeted criticism of Israeli policy in military actions.
Columbus, OhioIsrael–Hamas war protests in the United StatesIsraelNazi Germanyanti-Zionismthe HolocaustantisemitismNazismHolocaust denialthe leftZionismRecep Tayyip ErdoğanLula da SilvaHugo ChávezGustavo PetroBritish ArmyEdward SpearsHitlerPalestineHerrenvolkLebensraumVictor KlempererHolocaustLTI - Lingua Tertii Imperiineo-Romantic nationalistAdolf HitlerTheodor HerzlWilhelm IIHannah ArendtAlbert EinsteinTnuat HaherutArnold J. ToynbeesicariusA Study of HistoryJacob TalmonEliezer BerkovitsChosen peopleSix-Day WarSoviet Union1977 Israeli legislative electionYeshayahu Leibowitzmilitary occupationPalestinian territoriesIsraeli Defense ForceYehuda ElkanaFirst IntifadaOmer BartovYitzhak RabinPalestiniansGerman ArmyAmos OzNoam ChomskyIan LustickUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of BridgeportMoshe ArensIsraeli settlementCarlos LatuffIsraeli disengagement from GazaYair GolanYom HaShoahBenjamin NetanyahuUntermenschenPresident of the State of PalestineMahmoud AbbasBerlinGermanyMunich massacreBlack SeptemberFatah PartyOlaf ScholzChancellor of Germanyrelativization of the HolocaustGrand National AssemblyAnkaraa pure raceZionistfascistracistErdoğan's rulemassacring SyriansKais SaedTunisiansPinchas GoldschmidtTunisian JewsIsrael–Hamas warMember of ParliamentBradford EastLiberal DemocratDavid WardHolocaust Memorial Daydeath campsWest BankRoger WatersPink Floydthe Jewish lobbyShmuley BoteachantisemiticThe ObserverFacebookBernard-Henri LévyYossi Klein HaleviHolocaust trivializationDeborah LipstadtU.S. Special Envoy for Combating AntisemitismDavid IrvingKenneth L. MarcusracismMoney JewsThey Killed ChristWorking Definition of AntisemitismInternational Holocaust Remembrance AllianceU.S. Department of StateJerusalem Declaration on AntisemitismEyal Levinnew antisemitismBernard LewisFreedom Party of AustriaIsrael-Hamas warDavid Feldman2014 Gaza WarRelations between Nazi Germany and the Arab worldWeaponization of antisemitismNazi analogiesCriticism of the Israeli governmentDouble genocide