It’s not uncommon to hear statements like this when talking about the Holocaust. Of course we need to educate ourselves on how and why it happened. We need to understand the early stages, everything that came before concentration camps and gas chambers. The Holocaust didn’t start with Auschwitz and Dachau. It started with scapegoating an entire minority population, blaming them for the country’s problems. It started with discriminatory laws that restricted how Jews could live, work, and move in their own country. We have to educate ourselves on how the Holocaust happened so we can see the warning signs.
But I find it ironic to say “we have to educate ourselves so that it won’t happen again,” when we consider what is happening today. No, there are not concentration camps where people of certain ethnic or religious minorities are being systematically murdered. But those early stages that I mentioned, the vilifying of minorities, the laws that restrict movement and the ability to work and live a normal life, the seizure and destruction of property, those things which happened to Jews in the 1930s, before the concentration camps and gas chambers were built, those things are happening in our world today. They have been happening for decades already while the world turns a blind eye. I’m speaking of course, of Palestine (read more on the situation in Gaza and Israel’s human rights violations here).
A big part of the reason that so many turn a blind eye to what’s happening to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, is that any criticism of the modern state of Israel is immediately labeled as anti-Semitism. The irony is that I have encountered far more anti-Semitism among those who support Israel than among those who demand that Israel be held accountable for its treatment of Palestinians (read more on anti-Semitism among Israel supporters here). If you are still tempted to shout anti-Semitism at me, I encourage you to first read statements by Jews who also criticize Israel for the occupation (you can find a few here and here). Check out this link for a good explanation of how to tell when criticism of Israel DOES cross over into anti-Semitism.
It would be wrong to say that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is the Holocaust part 2. I’m not trying to say that it is. The Holocaust was a unique horror in the history of the world. Nothing comes close to the scale of the atrocities committed by the Nazis. Israel is not Nazi Germany, and that comparison should never be made. But educating ourselves and others on what happened in the Holocaust is not just about ensuring that Nazis never try to take over the world again and murder 11+ million people. We educate ourselves on the Holocaust so that we can understand how minorities can be vilified and scapegoated in order to justify their oppression. We educate ourselves so that we can understand how entire countries can turn a blind eye to oppression and genocide just because it doesn’t affect them personally. The occupation is not the Holocaust, but it is a huge humanitarian crisis that cannot be ignored. How can we remember the Holocaust but turn a blind eye to the suffering of over 4 million Palestinians today? You may say it’s different because Palestinians are fighting back, Israel is at war, they have to protect themselves. But is that an excuse for refugee camps full of women and children being bombed? Is that an excuse for seizing land, evicting Palestinians, and bulldozing houses and farms so that Israeli settlers can move in? Is that an excuse for building walls and checkpoints in order to restrict Palestinian movement and keep them from getting to work or traveling? Is that an excuse for locking up children? Is that an excuse for the many violations of international law that the UN has documented?
The answer is no. There is never an excuse. But the way we turn a blind eye is remarkably similar to how other Germans turned a blind eye to what was happening to the Jews. We must educate ourselves on the Holocaust in order to prevent ourselves from becoming complicit in oppression of any kind. The Bible tells us that all human beings were created in the image of God. Full stop. Not just humans who look like us, or talk like us, or worship like us. All humans. Like it or not, you cannot find a single human being in this world who is not the image of God. We must therefore as Christians defend the rights and life of every human. There is a lot of debate about what the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is, and I don’t pretend to know the answer. But we need to ensure that whatever the solution is, it includes justice and peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.