How the Holocaust is weaponised to repress anti-genocide voices: Op-ed

Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, Wednesday and Thursday this week, will likely see Israeli and US politicians use the opportunity to suggest that their destruction of Gaza is somehow about protecting Jews from another Holocaust - and that anyone who protests against this destruction is really motivated by antisemitism.

That’s certainly what happened last year, when both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former US President Joe Biden made such claims. In response, 10 Holocaust survivors issued a letter, stating: “To use the memory of the Holocaust like this to justify either genocide in Gaza or repression on college campuses is a complete insult to the memory of the Holocaust.”

It’s not just Netanyahu and Biden who have misused the Holocaust in this way. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was clearly referring to the pro-Palestine movement when he talked about antisemitism on university campuses and “hatred marching on our streets” in a speech at the Holocaust Educational Trust last September.

Read more: How the Holocaust is weaponised to repress anti-genocide voices