Never again is now
When we talk about the Holocaust we say "never again". Never again is now.
The world marked international Holocaust Remembrance Day (IHRD) on Saturday, January 27. Six million Jews murdered in the worst genocide of modern times.
When we talk about the Holocaust we say “never again”. Never again is now.
The only reason the Holocaust is not repeating itself in Israel right now is because Israel’s brave soldiers are in Gaza fighting to remove Hamas’s capabilities to murder Jews.
Senior Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said it himself in January; the terror group’s murder of 1200 souls on October 7 “revived the dream” for the elimination of Israel. Hamas’s Ghazi Hamad said last year “there will be a second, a third, a fourth” onslaught.
But in a vulgar moral inversion, many who claimed to memorialise the Holocaust last weekend – some who insultingly did so without uttering the word “Jews” – are ignoring this attempt at a new one or slandering Jews for defending themselves against it.
They are wilfully blind to Hamas’s genocidal intentions; even as the terrorist organisation has openly boasted of them.
Locally, those who last weekend tainted the cause of Indigenous Australians with the false equivalence of alleged Palestinian indigeneity insult both Israelis/Jews and First Nations people.
Particularly repugnant are those who dare to label Israel’s defensive actions since October 7 – in which it takes care to minimise civilian casualties while Hamas uses human shields – as a genocide itself. Such a blood libel is antisemitism, plain and simple. The Greens, along with South Africa, should hang their heads in shame.
The International Court of Justice uses as its barometer the Genocide Convention which was conceived in response to the Holocaust, and delivered its orders the day before IHRD. If it truly lived up to its name, it should have thrown out South Africa’s obscene and farcical allegations altogether.
A recent rare win for decency is the Western governments, including Australia, that have finally woken up to the Hamas rot that has long been festering inside UNRWA following reports several of its staffers participated in the October 7 atrocities. But a suspension of funding is not enough; UNRWA has perpetuated the conflict for far too long and must be dismantled if there is to be any hope for peace.
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