N.B. Please note that IHRA's statements have been emboldened by the author. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism is often used as its authority. “Antisemitism is a certain [undefined] perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. These are the points made in this post. I refer the reader to IHRA’s comprehensive thinking here: https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism IHRC’s views on antisemitism are opinions, with no greater weight than the opinions of others. Just because IHRA appears first in your Google search does not make them right in every case. Let’s take a comparative look: ▪ Annexing territory, occupation, personal violence, police, soldiers, checkpoints and identity checks. ▪ Abrogation of freedom to worship. ▪ Murder of a civilian population, targeting medical staff, journalists, children, hospitals and schools. ▪ Banning foreign observers and journalists. ▪ Enforcing starvation and preventing humanitarian aid. ▪ Blocking ambulances from reaching the wounded. ▪ Mocking their victims, both dead and wounded, and calling them derogatory names. ▪ Confining a population in an area with no exits, guarded by soldiers. ▪ Assassinations of perceived enemies. ▪ Military targeting of numerous adjoining states, and killing civilians. Bombing foreign capitals and seats of government. Disrupting essential government functions. ▪ Ordering evacuations and removal of foreign citizens, a million people in Lebanon alone. ▪ Declaring anyone who refuses to leave their home a terrorist. ▪ Annexation of foreign territories by expanding Israel’s borders. ▪ Israel’s Dahiyeh doctrine deliberately inflicts disproportionate force on civilians as a form of collective punishment. Sound familiar? Every single one of these actions has been documented. How is this Dahiyeh doctrine any different from one of the manifestations of antisemitism explained by IHRA: “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.” But doesn't "collective punishment" work both ways? [Dahiyeh is a dense, predominantly Shia Muslim suburb located in the southern part of Beirut. The district is a major urban hub, known as a political and social stronghold of Hezbollah, and has been a frequent target of Israeli military strikes, causing significant damage.] TV commentator Itamar Fleischmann brazenly touted, “We need to destroy Dahiyeh … We need to destroy the country [Lebanon] in terms of infrastructure…no more civilian infrastructure in Lebanon.” Sorry, but those sound like the words of a madman. In other words, Israel is drunk on impunity. Nobody—NOBODY—gets a pass on racism All these sound similar to other countries which have pursued the same goal, ethnic cleansing. This isn’t the first time. These esteemed and respected citizens of the world have quite a different view to those of the IHRA, not about Jews per se but about the State of Israel. One (Jews) cannot be conflated with the State of Israel. 'Israel' clearly means the government of Israel. I have carefully avoided using the capitalised N- word here, (to be differentiated from the lowercase n- word), both ens seem to express the relationship between the State of Israel and Palestinians. Or at least the way Israel wants it to be. I have no control over what these world citizens say, most of whom are Jewish, some Israeli and also some Holocaust survivors. Feel free to disagree. They, too, deserve a voice in a democracy. Let them speak. In 1948, Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt signed an open letter comparing Menachem Begin's Tnuat Haherut party to Nazism. Some Holocaust survivors, such as Dr. Hajo Meyer and Dr. Gabor Maté, have compared Israeli policies to Nazi actions. The anti-Zionist Orthodox group Neturei Karta frequently makes this comparison. Israeli Knesset member Ofer Cassif has also made such comparisons. Yeshayahu Leibowitz (Philosopher): Coined the term "Judeo-Nazis" in the 1980s regarding the occupation. Yair Golan (IDF General): Discussed troubling parallels with 1930s Europe, later comparing right-wingers to Nazis. Amiram Levin (Former IDF General): Compared West Bank control to Nazi policies. Moshe Ya'alon (Former Defense Minister): Labeled Israeli government ideology as resembling Nazi racial theory. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Colombian president Gustavo Petro In 1945, British Army officer and politician Edward Spears German-Jewish linguist and anti-fascist Victor Klemperer, who survived the Holocaust and chose not to move to Israel but to stay in Germany after 1945, wrote in his LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii (The Language of the Third Reich) that both Zionism and Nazism are essentially neo-Romantic nationalist ideologies. Walter Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne was assassinated by the Zionist militant group Lehi, in Cairo, November 1947, Winston Churchill made the comparison Following the Sergeants affair, the American consul in Jerusalem. This incident was a July 1947 terrorist attack by Jewish paramilitaries during the Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine. English historian Arnold J. Toynbee. In 2018, Noam Chomsky. In 1983, anti-Zionist scholar Boaz Evron. University of Bridgeport international law professor Richard Arens. The brother of Israeli Minister of Defence Moshe Arens. In 1983, the American freelance journalist Lenni Brenner Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov. In 1988, Holocaust survivor Yehuda Elkana. Holocaust historian John K. Roth . In a 2024 article for Haaretz, Israeli academics (and former IDF soldiers) Nuphar Ishay-Krien and Yoel Elizur quoted an anonymous soldier who served during the First Intifada as saying, "I felt like, like, like a Nazi ... it looked exactly like we were actually the Nazis and they were the Jews. In November 2020, the prime minister's son, Yair Netanyahu. In December 2023, the mayor of Metula, David Azoulai. August 2022, the President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas. Sociologist Martin Shaw In April 2025, Argentinian lawmaker Vanina Biasi. In April 2016, Turkish-born Swedish politician Mehmet Kaplan. Former UK Member of Parliament David Ward Distinguished SOAS Professor Rebecca Ruth Gould Former Likud Knesset member, Moshe Zalman Feiglin Roger Waters of Pink Floyd British-Australian Jewish actress Miriam Margolyes. Jewish actor Wallace Shawn. Human rights lawyer Jake Romm Historian Bernard Lewis. British scholar David Feldman. University of Pennsylvania professor, political scientist Ian Lustick, Holocaust and genocide scholar Omer Bartov warns that Israel's repeated invocation of the Holocaust to justify its military actions against Palestinians represents a profound moral and historical distortion. In 2026 Jewish pop star, Mary Ocher, born in Russia and raised in Israel ,rejected her IDF call and moved to Germany. Her album, Weimar, is about Germany’s pre-Nazi years and the dangers of nationalism. “I could see that people who migrated to Israel wanted to integrate and to become part of that society, which means not criticising it, and actively joining the mainstream that is preaching hate.” Have you noticed Netanyahu's son???
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