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Accusing Israel of Perpetrating a ‘Holocaust’ Is the Worst Sin of All
As Israel’s effort to uproot the Hamas terror organization from Gaza stretches into its seventh month, the battle for the moral high ground and international support rages online and in the media.
Hamas’ plan to portray Israel as an indiscriminate aggressor seems to be working, with a willing assist from international media outlets and politicians in the US and around the world. Despite Israel’s willingness to negotiate while Hamas — and despite almost unparalleled efforts to protect Palestinians during the war — Israel is still facing a daunting amount of pressure and condemnation.
Yet Israel remains undeterred. While the US government waffles in its public support of our ally, everyone in Israel knows what needs to happen next. An operation in Rafah must take place, in order to get rid of the genocidal threat that Hamas presents, and to rescue the hostages that include American citizens.
Israel will inevitably face a horrible backlash, but it is a burden Israel will carry because it is the right thing to do, and because Israel must survive — despite what all the morally twisted people have to say about it.
But there is one charge that cuts Israel and world Jewry more than any other: the claim that Israel is committing a “genocide” and “a Holocaust” of the Palestinians.
These days, when we can viscerally experience war on our phones, reasonable people witnessing what is happening because of Hamas’ homicidal use of human shields and civilian infrastructure are deeply affected by the graphic images they see on their screens, and express their outrage by throwing around terms and historical comparisons that are belied by the evidence.
The “genocide” and Holocaust comparisons have been made by many public figures and online commentators, including Joe Rogan, who called Israel’s war in Gaza a small scale Holocaust, and more pernicious actors like the antisemitic “UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967,” Francesca Albanese, who issued a report titled “Anatomy of a Genocide,” concluding that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide has been met.
There has been one Holocaust in history, and that is the one that Germany perpetrated on the Jewish people just 79 years ago. There have been many genocides and massacres in history. When compared to actual historical equivalents, Israel’s current operation against Hamas is self-evidently not a genocidal campaign, but a tragically necessary defensive war.
Many don’t understand this because they refuse to see the facts, they lack a basic grasp of history and context, and because of the peaceful bubble our society has been blessed to live in for the past seven decades.
The people accusing Israel of “genocide” don’t understand that governments who perpetrate genocides systematically work to wipe out civilian populations, like Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. They make people “disappear” like Stalin’s Russia and Xi’s China in regards to the Uyghurs. Regimes committing genocide aim solely to murder innocent civilians, and terrorize them with indiscriminate attacks.
Quite clearly, Israel has done none of that. In fact, Israel’s incredible civilian to terrorist target ratio has set a new standard for urban warfare. Furthermore, Israel’s legal system ensures those Palestinians convicted of terror related offenses are protected in prison, and even benefit from prison services. And for a country supposedly seeking to erase a people, Israel has been surprisingly diligent in its efforts to inform the population where it is attacking, how to avoid harm, and offering routes to protected areas.
Those smearing Israel with these horrific charges are misinformed and falling for propaganda, or are purposefully spreading misinformation. When asked for proof that Israel is committing genocide, Albanese ignorantly retorted that no evil government ever writes down their strategy, so she doesn’t have proof to offer. (Although Nazi Germany did just that).
Hijacking the Jewish people’s tragic history and misappropriating it for those who dream of perpetrating yet another genocide against Jewish people is deeply offensive. It is a way for those that seek to tar Israel to redirect blame from the perpetrators of the October 7 horrors onto the victims — simply because they are Jewish.
Universalizing the Holocaust is a deliberate attempt to delegitimize the Jewish experience, and too many are falling for it and spreading it further. By doing so, these individuals not only insult the memory of the actual victims of genocide by tying them in with bloodthirsty terrorists, but cheapen and strip a powerful word and historical events of meaning and significance.
In this battle of good versus evil, it’s incumbent on us to inform ourselves of the difference between facts and propaganda before commenting about a conflict thousands of miles away that is felt deeply by those here at home.
Yonatan Hambourger is a rabbi with Chabad of Rural Georgia. Tzali Reicher is a rabbi and writer currently living in Florida.
The post Accusing Israel of Perpetrating a ‘Holocaust’ Is the Worst Sin of All first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US House Members Ask Marco Rubio to Bar Turkey From Rejoining F-35 Program
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard
A bipartisan coalition of more than 40 US lawmakers is pressing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prevent Turkey from rejoining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, citing ongoing national security concerns and violations of US law.
Members of Congress on Thursday warned that lifting existing sanctions or readmitting Turkey to the US F-35 fifth-generation fighter program would “jeopardize the integrity of F-35 systems” and risk exposing sensitive US military technology to Russia. The letter pointed to Ankara’s 2017 purchase of the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system, despite repeated US warnings, as the central reason Turkey was expelled from the multibillion-dollar fighter jet program in 2019.
“The S-400 poses a direct threat to US aircraft, including the F-16 and F-35,” the lawmakers wrote. “If operated alongside these platforms, it risks exposing sensitive military technology to Russian intelligence.”
The group of signatories, spanning both parties, stressed that Turkey still possesses the Russian weapons systems and has shown “no willingness to comply with US law.” They urged Rubio and the Trump administration to uphold the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) and maintain Ankara’s exclusion from the F-35 program until the S-400s are fully removed.
The letter comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed during a NATO summit in June that Ankara and Washington have begun discussing Turkey’s readmission into the program.
Lawmakers argued that reversing course now would undermine both US credibility and allied confidence in American defense commitments. They also warned it could disrupt development of the next-generation fighter jet announced by the administration earlier this year.
“This is not a partisan issue,” the letter emphasized. “We must continue to hold allies and adversaries alike accountable when their actions threaten US interests.”
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US Lawmakers Urge Treasury to Investigate Whether Irish Bill Targeting Israel Violates Anti-Boycott Law
A pro-Hamas demonstration in Ireland led by nationalist party Sinn Fein. Photo: Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne
A group of US lawmakers is calling on the Treasury Department to investigate and potentially penalize Ireland over proposed legislation targeting Israeli goods, warning that the move could trigger sanctions under longstanding US anti-boycott laws.
In a letter sent on Thursday to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, 16 Republican members of Congress expressed “serious concerns” about Ireland’s recent legislative push to ban trade with territories under Israeli administration, including the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
The letter, spearheaded by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), called for the US to “send a clear signal” that any attempts to economically isolate Israel will “carry consequences.”
The Irish measure, introduced by Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Simon Harris, seeks to prohibit the import of goods and services originating from what the legislation refers to as “occupied Palestinian territories,” including Israeli communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Supporters say the bill aligns with international law and human rights principles, while opponents, including the signatories of the letter, characterize it as a direct extension of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel as a step toward the destruction of the world’s lone Jewish state.
Some US lawmakers have also described the Irish bill as an example of “antisemitic hate” that could risk hurting relations between Dublin and Washington.
“Such policies not only promote economic discrimination but also create legal uncertainty for US companies operating in Ireland,” the lawmakers wrote in this week’s letter, urging Bessent to determine whether Ireland’s actions qualify as participation in an “unsanctioned international boycott” under Section 999 of the Internal Revenue Code, also known as the Ribicoff Amendment.
Under that statute, the Treasury Department is required to maintain a list of countries that pressure companies to comply with international boycotts not sanctioned by the US. Inclusion on the list carries tax-reporting burdens and possible penalties for American firms and individuals doing business in those nations.
“If the criteria are met, Ireland should be added to the boycott list,” the letter said, arguing that such a step would help protect US companies from legal exposure and reaffirm American opposition to economic efforts aimed at isolating Israel.
Legal experts have argued that if the Irish bill becomes law, it could chase American capital out of the country while also hurting companies that do business with Ireland. Under US law, it is illegal for American companies to participate in boycotts of Israel backed by foreign governments. Several US states have also gone beyond federal restrictions to pass separate measures that bar companies from receiving state contracts if they boycott Israel.
Ireland has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel on the international stage since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza, leading the Jewish state to shutter its embassy in Dublin.
Last year, Ireland officially recognized a Palestinian state, a decision that Israel described as a “reward for terrorism.”
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US Families File Lawsuit Accusing UNRWA of Supporting Hamas, Hezbollah
A truck, marked with United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) logo, crosses into Egypt from Gaza, at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah, Egypt, Nov. 27, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
American families of victims of Hamas and Hezbollah attacks have filed a lawsuit against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, accusing the organization of violating US antiterrorism laws by providing material support to the Islamist terror groups behind the deadly assaults.
Last week, more than 200 families filed a lawsuit in a Washington, DC district court accusing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) of violating US antiterrorism laws by providing funding and support to Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
The lawsuit alleges that UNRWA employs staff with direct ties to the Iran-backed terror group, including individuals allegedly involved in carrying out attacks against the Jewish state.
However, UNRWA has firmly denied the allegations, labeling them as “baseless” and condemning the lawsuit as “meritless, absurd, dangerous, and morally reprehensible.”
According to the organization, the lawsuit is part of a wider campaign of “misinformation and lawfare” targeting its work in the Gaza Strip, where it says Palestinians are enduring “mass, deliberate and forced starvation.”
The UN agency reports that more than 150,000 donors across the United States have supported its programs providing food, medical aid, education, and trauma assistance in the war-torn enclave amid the ongoing conflict.
In a press release, UNRWA USA affirmed that it will continue its humanitarian efforts despite facing legal challenges aimed at undermining its work.
“Starvation does not pause for politics. Neither will we,” the statement read.
Last year, Israeli security documents revealed that of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza, 440 were actively involved in Hamas’s military operations, with 2,000 registered as Hamas operatives.
According to these documents, at least nine UNRWA employees took part directly in the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
Israeli officials also uncovered a large Hamas data center beneath UNRWA headquarters, with cables running through the facility above, and found that Hamas also stored weapons in other UNRWA sites.
The UN agency has also aligned with Hamas in efforts against the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israeli and US-backed program that delivers aid directly to Palestinians, blocking Hamas from diverting supplies for terror activities and selling them at inflated prices.
These Israeli intelligence documents also revealed that a senior Hamas leader, killed in an Israeli strike in September 2024, had served as the head of the UNRWA teachers’ union in Lebanon, where Lebanon is based,
UNRWA’s education programs have been found by IMPACT-se, an international organization that monitors global education, to contribute to the radicalization of younger generations of Palestinians.