Comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany (or even Jews to Nazi) are made frequently in discussions and internet. I heard these comparisons in public twice. Individuals making the statements were very convinced in what they are saying and not at all afraid to be persieved as antisemites or people making baseless, wrong accusations.
Are these people antisemites?
In my view - yes. This is also included in EU definition of antisemitism.
There is an argument I heard that they do not. Here it is:
Listen, they do not know anything about Israel. You know that mass media do not report truth, brainwashing public. Many people hate Israel, so that person is not different from others, no big deal. It may be that these people want to say that Israel is very bad and use Nazi comparison for this purpose.
Indeed, I had the following conversation:
A: what the crimes Israel is doing... and America supports
B: what do you mean?
A: Israel started war in Lebanon
B: it is not Israel started. Israel is not even blamed for that. Israel is blamed only for 'unpropotional response's
A: exactly! You do not kill 2 million people for 3 soldiers
B: where 2 million figure is coming from?
A: silent in confusion
Many people around know nothing about genocide in Darfur or Yazidis. But mass media covered war in Lebanon so close with lot of video (same picture fir 24 hours coverage on some channels) but without enough facts, that population may bern left to invent facts like above on their own.
For those having similar situations and conversations with collegues, coworkers or strangers, below is my attempt of comparisons or arguments that can be used to address such comparisons.
| Nazi Germany |
Israel |
International Community |
| Race theory and plan to eliminate people, including jewish | Seek recognition and peace with Arabs and Muslim states. | Ignores not recognition of israel existence by UN member states, unproportional blames Israel, do no enough to struggle against anti-Semitism |
| Eliminated Jewish life in places it occupied. Jewish people of Europe with their language and place of living are no longer existing |
Arabs live in every city in Israel, palestine, middle East. Israeli Arabs have Israel citizentsip | Accepts the fact that Israeli and jews can not travel to some countries, sporsmen barred from particpaton in international competitions. Have Jewish families living in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem as occupants assuming jewish families to be removed like it happened in Gaza, leaving these places ''Judenrein" |
| There were appr 9 mio jews in europe before russian revolution and pogroms, 10mio Jews in Europe before WWII / Holocaust, only 3 mio after WWII. Jewish population now is appr pre-WWII level of 16 Mio worldwide |
There were 300k Arabs in palestine before Zionism development, 900k before British mandate, now 13 mio incl.2mio Israeli citizens |
Recognizes Israel in 1949 borders (called by some 'auschwitz' borders) that are 30 km from East to West in the country middle. Surrounding by countries that started several wars to destroy Israel. |
| Jews were not bobmbing German cities from concentration camps |
Gaza, that often compared in Europe to a concentration camp, has population and gathermdnt seeking Israel destruction and terrorising Israel with thousands of rockets and bombs. |
Blames Israel, unproportional number of UN resolutions against Israel. PA pays terrorist for attacks against Jews, Europe and international pay PA. |
| Jews could not escape from europe and Nazi concentration camps except rare cases of 'trades'. |
Gaza has a border with Egypt. Israel can not stop re-settlement of arabs from gaza in arabic countries if they wish do. Israel and US offer billions of dollars to invest in the middle East. |
International law prohibits 'transfer of population'. Palestinian Arabs are hostages of conflict and Hamas. |
Another argument I seen many years ago in internet and continue to hear it is this. Israel should not have been created because Palestinians Arabs have nothing to do with German Nazi crimes against Jewish people and should not have pay a price for that.
This argument implies that people think Israel is appeared just after WWII as a present to Jews. This is not so because Jews were always living and travelling to palestine. Migrations related to Zionism started in 1882 and success of Jews in developing palestine was reflected by League of nation's mandate which created a border of Jewish national home in palestine and ask Jews to settle and develop the land. Other mandates defined borders of other states like Egypt, Syria etc. Jordan was part of initial mandate to palestine.
This argument also makes no sense as Jerusalem muftij have cooperated with Hitler.
And in addition, people making this argument do not propose any solution, that would represent justice to Jewish people. They are concerned just of injustice towards Palestinians Arabs.
For many years of antiisrael stand of Europe, the blames towards Israel were changed many times. First accusations I remember were that it is less Jews died in conflict vs. Arabs, then that Israel exersize force vs. unarmed peasants, to unproportional use of force etc. Now this is more and more often Jews and Israel are blamed for unjustice towards palestinian Arabs, that fact of creation of Israel was injustice. So Israel is guilty just because it exists. And this implies that palestinian Arabs have rights to resistance, which can be everything including terror attacks. This is difficult to voice clearly as such position is anti-Semitic, but this view, I believe, is behind many cases of so called 'Israel critic'.
The reasonable argument I see here is that those Jews who left Europe and settled in mandate palestine have escaped Nazi concentration camps and saved there lives. After Evian conference of 1938 Jews were refused with options to move out of Europe to safer places. If moving Jews to palestine that saved lives of people is seen as unjustice towards palestinian Arabs, then we have a moral issue I Europe and argument of unjustice to Arabs does not sound to me at all. Also blaming Zionist on their agenda to legally establish Jewish home and save Jews from pogroms and anti-Semitic criminals, sounds absurd to me.
What we need examine is if restriction to Jews to migrate to palestineb were criminal, amoral or just wrong.
In addition, wars to destroy Israel just after 2 years of Holocaust with no or little support to Israel from democratic countries, needs to be evaluated. Oppositely, war started by Arabs counties to destroy Israel are sometimes rationalized as something self understandable.
AKAD book GS 512 9783715536835 for Swiss schools, page 9, describes massacre in Deir Yassin calling Jewish militants ruthless ('rücksichtslose') and mentions German and polish antisemites in this regard ('deutsche und polnische Antisemiten').
This book text in my view needs to be open for public as parents need to know what kids get in school. AKAD should send this entire book text to review by specialists in anti-Semitism.
And for this particular paragraph on page 9, I would have asked the following questions:
1. Who are German and Polish Antisemiten'? Hitler, other Nazi criminals? Are German Nazi just antisemtes?
Is there something to do with neglecting Holocaust or not?
2. If they do not mean Nazi in this sentence, why do not they mention pogroms in Russian empire? 2mln Jews left Russia/Ukraine and word pogrom itself has Russian language origin.
3. Do they compare Jewish militants with German fashists as they mention German anti-Semites? Or can t be understand this way by Swiss students
4. Isn't it clear that civil war is always criminal unjustice, ruthless on both sides? And Deir Yassin massacre, where Jewish fighters were killed and wounded as well, was an operation during civil war. This can be compared to other massacres, but has totally nothing to do with ''german antisemites'?
5. Why do not they equally emotioaly describe Arabs and Jewish pogroms in palestine. Actions of arabs militants?
Almost every paragraph in AKAD book raises questions on how this book happen to be education material in Swiss schools. It must be open and reviewed by specialists in history, extremism and anti-Semitism to ensure there is correct representation of facts and no sights of anti-Semitism?
