Israeli-Nazi comparison a slanderous distortion

It’s more than a bit outrageous for Eric Bahrt to compare Israel to the Nazis. Unfortunately, this is a comparison that has been in vogue for quite some time among vicious anti-Semites and a tiny minority of self-flagellating Jews such as Bahrt. But a look at the basic facts shows that the comparison is nothing but a slanderous distortion. There is no disputing the fact that Israel oppresses Palestinians. The Nazis, however, did not simply oppress Jews. What set the Nazis apart from countless other oppressive regimes is that they attempted to exterminate an entire people from the face of the earth. They rounded up and murdered approximately six million Jews before their industrial genocide machine was halted by military defeat at the hands of the Allies.

In 1947, just before the birth of the state of Israel, the United Nations reported there were nearly 1.3 million Arabs living in Palestine. Today there are over six million living in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinians have one of the fastest-growing populations in the world. Israel itself has 1.7 million Arab citizens and the political party with the third-highest number of seats in the Knesset is Joint List, an Arab party. Make no mistake, life can be miserable for Palestinians, but that’s a far cry from genocide. If Israelis are trying to exterminate Palestinians from the face of the earth, they are doing an awfully poor job of it. In fact, more Arabs have died during the last three years in the Syrian conflict than in all the Arab-Israeli wars and Palestinian intifadas since 1948 combined.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was lying when he said Palestinian leader Amin al-Husseini gave Hitler the idea for the Final Solution. But let’s not whitewash al-Husseini. He was Hitler’s guest in Germany, was aware the Jews were being exterminated as early as 1943 and made public statements supporting it, going so far as to write an anti-Jewish pamphlet for the SS. He publicly called on Muslims to drive Jews out of all Arab and Muslim lands, not just Palestine. And on a Radio Berlin broadcast in 1944 he said, “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history and religion.” These words are still being repeated by some Palestinian clerics and leaders today. And they contribute, along with Israeli actions, to furthering bloodshed and preventing a compromise that will bring peace to both peoples and independence to the Palestinians.

Isaac Stone