Jewish history is blinding us Israelis to the suffering in Gaza

[bannork]

“What should we learn from the murder of six million Jews?” my Israeli high school teacher asked each Holocaust Memorial Day. The response came like a liturgy: “Remember and never forget,” followed by the familiar chorus: “We must never let it happen again. That’s why we need a strong army to defend us.”

 

The post-Holocaust Jewish identity has been forged by millennia of persecution, where survival itself became a form of resistance. Almost every holiday retells the story: we were strangers, we were hunted, we endured.

 

Yet, in that classroom, I couldn’t stop thinking about my grandparents’ survival and how their suffering had been conscripted into a narrative of strength through force. I stayed silent as Holocaust memory was transformed into justification for endless militarisation. The question I was too afraid to ask then demands an answer now: does surviving genocide grant us license to inflict suffering – or does it obligate us to prevent it?

 

Voices: Jewish history is blinding us Israelis to the suffering in Gaza

 

 I urge posters to read the full article above.