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Holocaust ‘Shutting Down Debate’ About Treatment of Palestinians, New York Times Frets

The sign “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work makes you free”) is pictured at the main gate of the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz in Oswiecim, Poland. Photo: Reuters/Pawel Ulatowski

The real problem with the Holocaust is that it is “shutting down debate about Israeli treatment of Palestinians.”

That’s the argument getting respectful attention in a New York Times book review. The review lavishes praise — “conscientious,” “especially timely,” “concise and accessible” — on a book that applies the label of “knee-jerk Zionism” to the views of Jewish Holocaust survivors in displaced persons camps.

It’s hard to tell how much of the complaining about Israel and Zionism is from the book, The Holocaust: An Unfinished History, by Dan Stone, and how much is added by the Times book reviewer, staff critic Jennifer Szalai.

The book itself, as the reference to “knee-jerk Zionism” indicates, has its problems. A sentence from the introduction asserts, “It would take several decades for the events which accompanied the creation of the state of Israel, especially the Nakba, or Palestinian catastrophe, when Palestinians were expelled from their towns and villages to make way for Jewish settlers, to make its mark on Israeli intellectuals and the public.” Never mind that many of those Arabs fled on their own, hoping that the invading Arab armies would destroy Israel, and never mind that some Jewish officials at the time urged the local Arabs to remain.

Yet as the review notes, the “book was first published in Britain in January of last year — too early to include events from the last few months.” That doesn’t stop the Times reviewer from using the Holocaust as a platform to opine about the Israel-Hamas war.

“Prominent historians have decried the misuse of ‘Holocaust memory’ by politicians to justify Israel’s bombing of Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks,” the Times reviewer writes, hyperlinking to a Nov. 2023 letter from a motley collection of far left academics accusing Israeli leaders of “promoting racist narratives” and blaming Israel for “seventy-five years of displacement, fifty-six years of occupation, and sixteen years of the Gaza blockade.”

The Times review includes this passage:

In Germany, regulations on how the Holocaust is remembered are so restrictive that criticism of Israel gets branded as antisemitic (a conflation that occurs elsewhere, including here in the United States). Stone deplores the effects of Germany’s position. In addition to shutting down debate about Israeli treatment of Palestinians, it has the perverse result of equating Jews with Israel “in the fetishized manner of both hard-line Zionist and anti-Zionist thought.”

If the Holocaust indeed has had the effect of “shutting down debate about Israeli treatment of Palestinians,” you sure wouldn’t know it from reading the New York Times, where such criticism, even if not justified, is nonetheless pervasive. And equating Jews with Israel isn’t some sort of “hard-line” “fetish”; it is merely an acknowledgment of the reality that for the overwhelming majority of Jews worldwide, identification with Israel is an intrinsic part of their identity. And maybe the Times might want to be a little more cautious in cheering on overly permissive definitions of antisemitism in Germany?

As the Times itself has conceded, it failed during the actual Holocaust to adequately cover the war against the Jews. A Times executive editor, Max Frankel, has called it a “staggering, staining failure.” By falsely portraying the Holocaust’s contemporary significance as constraining criticism of Israel’s self-defense, the Times compounds its original error.

Israel’s elected leaders are well aware of the history. In 2022, Benjamin Netanyahu responded to a Times editorial by writing, “After burying the Holocaust for years on its back pages and demonizing Israel for decades on its front pages, the New York Times now shamefully calls for undermining Israel’s elected incoming government.”

It could be that rather than constraining criticism of Israel, as the Times claims, the Holocaust encourages criticism of Israel. Institutions such as the Times, which failed abjectly to rise to the mission of defending the Jews during the Holocaust, now seek to salve their own guilt by falsely portraying Jews as perpetrators of Nazi-scale crimes against humanity.

As the historian Bernard Lewis memorably put it, “For more than half a century, any discussion of Jews and their problems has been overshadowed by the grim memories of the crimes of the Nazis and of the complicity, acquiescence, or indifference of so many others. But inevitably, the memory of those days is fading, and now Israel and its problems afford an opportunity to relinquish the unfamiliar and uncomfortable posture of guilt and contrition and to resume the more familiar and more comfortable position of stern reproof from an attitude of moral superiority.”

Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.

The post Holocaust ‘Shutting Down Debate’ About Treatment of Palestinians, New York Times Frets first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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