Despite The Zionists Best Efforts, Holocaust Education Has Backfired on Them – Jewish Children Are Drawing the Lessons that Never Again Applies to Everyone!
Tony Greenstein on Hidden Link between Zionism and Antisemitism – Palestine Chronicle Podcast
I was invited by the Palestine Chronicle to do a podcast on my book Zionism During the Holocaust and to talk about the relationship between Zionism and Anti-Semitism, both today and historically.
Zionism in its origins was a reaction to anti-Semitism and in particular the 1881 pogroms in Odessa that occurred because of the assassination of Czar Alexander II.
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Zionism however was a reaction with a difference. Unlike most Jewish political currents it ‘understood’ anti-Semitism as the understandable reaction of non-Jews to the Jewish stranger in their midst. Zionism began with the belief that anti-Semitism could not be fought as it was inherent in the non-Jew. This was summed up by Leon Pinsker, the founder of the Lovers of Zion group in 1882 that
‘Judeophobia is then a mental disease, and as a mental disease it is hereditary, and having been inherited for 2,000 years, it is incurable
Budapest Deak Square Sculpture to the memory of Pastor Sztehlo Gábor (1909-1974) of the Lutheran Church who saved around 2000 Jewish children and adults during the rule of the fascist Arrow Cross Party
Pinsker was a doctor so he saw anti-Semitism as a phobia. If it was incurable why fight it? At best you should need a palliative. The Zionist solution to anti-Semitism was a state of their own. It soon realised that the anti-Semites would be only too willing to help them. Their best friends became the very anti-Semites who had been staging the pogroms.
Both the Zionists and the anti-Semites agreed that Jews did not belong where they lived and both agreed that Jews should emigrate and form their own state. As the founder of Political Zionism Theodor Herzl noted in his Diaries in 1895:
The anti-Semites will be our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies.
And he was correct. There is no greater friend of Israel than Victor Orban, Hungary’s Prime Minister. Orban described the wartime ruler of Hungary, Admiral Horthy, as an ‘exceptional statesman’, despite having presided over the deportation of nearly half a million Jews to Auschwitz. Orban waged an openly anti-Semitic election campaign in 2017 using George Soros, the Jewish billionaire as his scapegoat. Yet there is no European leader who is closer to Netanyahu and more supportive of the genocide in Gaza than Orban.
Budapest Deak Square Sculpture to the memory of Pastor Sztehlo Gábor (1909-1974) of the Lutheran Church who saved around 2000 Jewish children and adults during the rule of the fascist Arrow Cross Party
Throughout the two years of genocide the most ardent supporters of Zionism and the genocide have been the Islamaphobic right. People like Tommy Robinson and Geert Wilders. They may not like Jews but they love Israel. Donald Trump personifies this with his talk of American Jews not being loyal enough to Israel which is ‘their country’.
What is interesting is what my interviewer, Robert Inlakesh, brought up, about the dilemma expressed by Sarah Hurwitz, the former Obama speechwriter, member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council and dedicated Zionist activist.
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Hurwitz’s speech on November 16, 2025, at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington set off a firestorm because she said out aloud what has been troubling Zionists privately, namely the contrast between holocaust education that teaches that the extermination of Europe’s Jews is wrong and the Holocaust in Gaza which Zionists believe is right.
Of course this wouldn’t be a problem if holocaust education was about how all racism, ethnic cleansing and genocide is wrong. The problem is that Holocaust education tries to combine two messages – exterminating people is bad but supporting Israel is good. Except that Israel is also exterminating Palestinians, hence the dilemma.
Israel is seen as compensation for the holocaust. How to square this with the holocaust in Gaza perpetrated by that very same state? This is the ‘problem’ that Hurwitz tackled, admitting that her hasbara attempts to bridge the gap are making her seem ‘obscene’ to Jewish kids.
Budapest Deak Square Sculpture to the memory of Pastor Sztehlo Gábor (1909-1974) of the Lutheran Church who saved around 2000 Jewish children and adults during the rule of the fascist Arrow Cross Party
In her short rant she accepted that coming to young people with her data, facts and arguments when all they could see on their phones was carnage made her look obscene. Her solution was to confiscate the phones of young people!
This is exemplified by the fact that not one Holocaust Remembrance institution has condemned the Holocaust in Gaza. Indeed the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum actually apologised for suggesting that ‘Never Again’ applied to everyone, with the implication that Palestinians might be included.
The LA Holocaust Museum’s anodyne statement merely said “Never Again’ Can’t Only Mean Never Again For Jews.” This produced an avalanche of protest from racist Zionists who believed that ‘Never Again’ only meant Jews.
The Los Angeles holocaust museum’s pathetic apology read:
“We recently posted an item on social media that was part of a pre-planned campaign intended to promote inclusivity and community that was easily open to misinterpretation by some to be a political statement reflecting the ongoing situation in the Middle East. That was not our intent,”
LOS ANGELES HOLOCAUST MUSEUM STEATEMENT APOLOGISING FOR HAVING POSTED A STATEMENT SAYING THAT ‘NEVER AGAIN’ APPLIED TO MORE THAN JUST JEWS – APPARENTLY SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN APPLIED TO PALESTINIANS TOO
Hurwitz achieved her moment of fame when she articulated the problems that Zionists like herself face. How to portray Israelis in a good light when the lesson that most young people draw from holocaust education is equating strong Nazis persecuting emaciated Jews with strong Israelis persecuting skinny Palestinians.
The family of Stephen Kapos, a holocaust survivor active in Palestine Solidarity politics, as they entered the Columbus Street camp
Sarah Hurwitz Explaining Why She Sounds Obscene
“So you have TikTok just smashing our young people’s brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza. And this is why so many of us can’t have a sane conversation with younger Jews because anything that we try to say to them, they are hearing it through this wall of carnage. So I want to give data and information and facts and arguments and they are just seeing in their minds carnage and I sound obscene… Holocaust education is absolutely essential. But I think it may be confusing some of our young people about antisemitism, because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews, and they think, ‘Oh, antisemitism is like anti-black racism, right? Powerful white people against powerless black people.’ So when on TikTok, all day long, they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it’s not surprising that they think, ‘Oh, I know the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel. You fight the big, powerful people hurting the weak people.”
The family of Stephen Kapos, a holocaust survivor active in Palestine Solidarity politics, as they entered the Columbus Street camp
My book deals in some detail with the Zionist attitude to the holocaust. Zionism holds that the holocaust is unique. Nothing like it has ever happened before nor will it happen again. The Holocaust is sui generis. It cannot be compared. And if the holocaust is unique then one cannot draw any lessons from it, certainly no anti-racist lessons. The only conclusion that one is permitted to draw is the one conclusion that is demonstrably false, namely that Israel was given to the Jews as compensation for 6 million dead.
The Nazi holocaust only happened to one people, the Jews, in Zionist eyes. The Roma, Russians, gays etc. suffered genocide maybe but certainly not holocaust. That is reserved for the Jews. Holocaust education is therefore formulated with those lessons in mind. Holocaust education is designed with the legitimation of Israel in mind. Holocaust memorial institutions have this as their main goal. Yad Vashem serves as the focus of this Holocaust State Worship.
In the Gaza Holocaust Yad Vashem has refused the entreaties of holocaust and genocide scholars to condemn the genocide in Gaza. Yad Vashem itself is presided over by a fascist settler, Dani Dayan, who Brazil refused to accept as Ambassador because of his racism and right-wing views.
In April 1976 John Vorster, South Africa’s PM, Who was Interned as a Nazi Supporter, Visited Israel
Yad Vashem has entertained a bevy of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites beginning with the visit of Prime Minister of Apartheid South Africa, John Vorster in April 1976. Vorster was interned during the war because of his Nazi sympathies. Other visitors include Hungary’s far-right Prime Minister Orban, the Hitler loving Presidents of the Philippines and Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte and Jair Bolsanaro and assorted far rightists.
Zionism and Anti-Semitism go together like a hand and a glove. They make perfect partners.
Tony Greenstein
