Gideon Levy: Survivors Drew the Wrong Lesson from the Holocaust Nelson Pereira

 Those who haven’t forgotten the indescribable brutality of the Nazi German genocide of European Jews wonder today how survivors of such horror could support another genocide and crimes of no less cruelty, with more than 20,000 children killed in Gaza in Israeli attacks since October 7, 2023.

Unless one can draw different lessons from a genocide. “The Israelis drew the wrong lesson from the Holocaust,” Israeli journalist Gideon Levy told CounterPunch.

“It’s possible to survive a Holocaust drawing two different messages,” he added. “Both say ‘never again,’ but ‘never again’ can mean ‘never again a Holocaust for the Jewish people’ or ‘never again a Holocaust for anyone.’ Unfortunately, most Israelis adopted the first message, ‘never again a Holocaust for the Jews,’ and this by any price, by any price. This is the wrong message, because the correct message should be that, after the Holocaust, no one should face what the Jews faced, not just the Jews, no one. And that, unfortunately, is not the message adopted in Israel.”

When asked if the survivors who have already passed away would have taken this stance, Gideon argues that most thought so. “There were different opinions, but most did not react as they should have, they did not react with solidarity with the Palestinians. No, they thought that, after the Holocaust, we should protect ourselves.”

Gideon paints a grim picture of Israeli society, pointing the finger at the apathy of the international community. “Israel is on a race to the abyss and will only stop if forced to. It is up to the international community to impose sanctions to stop Israel’s criminal delirium,” he stressed. Evoking the example of someone who has become addicted to drugs, he adds that “if someone says they want to defend Israel, then let’s be clear, defending Israel is doing what a friend would do for their friend, preventing Israel from self-destructing, preventing it from accessing drugs.”

For the Israeli journalist, “the overwhelming majority of Israeli society lives in denial of the occupation.” And he emphasizes that Israeli society is “deeply ill, at the same time misinformed and entrenched in the denial of rights to Palestinians, in support of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.”

Gideon points out that these opinions are not exclusive to extremist political factions, because “liberal Israelis who consider themselves good people essentially harbor the same attitude.” “It’s not just about Benjamin Netanyahu and the extremist ministers in the Israeli government; the problem is much more serious. Almost the entire Israeli society lives in denial of the occupation and the crimes committed against the Palestinians.”

The Israeli journalist acknowledges that the Zionist project sought from the beginning to push the Palestinians out of the land that belonged to them, “from the river to the sea,” resorting to various methods that included violence, but points out that evil has different degrees of magnitude and that “today Israel shows the world a raw level of evil that was previously less widespread in society.”

He confesses that it is difficult for him to be optimistic today and does not foresee improvements, but concludes that history has shown us that “situations that seemed to be eternal have had unexpected outcomes.”