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New York Times Opinion Piece Paved Way for Oscar Night Comparison of Israel to Nazis
Director Jonathan Glazer, of the United Kingdom, poses with the Oscar for Best International Feature Film for “The Zone of Interest” in the Oscars photo room at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, US, March 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
On Oscar night, British director Jonathan Glazer used his movie about the Holocaust to condemn Israel’s “ongoing attack on Gaza” as an example of the same “dehumanization” that characterized the Nazis’ genocide against the Jewish people.
Glazer was widely — and appropriately — condemned by Jewish leaders, thinkers, and organizations who found his remarks while accepting the Oscar for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday repugnant.
Less noticed, but just as outrageous, was a New York Times op-ed published on Saturday previewing Glazer’s argument.
The opinion article came from David Klion, a writer whose views are so loathsome that I have long had him blocked on X/Twitter.
Klion writes about Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, contending that it “finds something new and profoundly unsettling to say about the Holocaust” and “also accomplishes something more relevant to the present, forcing viewers to confront difficult questions about our own proximity to atrocity, and succeeding as a bracing reminder of how art can alert and sensitize us to the historical moment we inhabit.”
Klion writes that the movie “depicts the life of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, and his family at their handsome estate just outside the walls of the death camp.”
He continues: “Watching The Zone of Interest as US-made bombs rained down on civilian neighborhoods in Gaza, I couldn’t help but dwell on the banal acceptance of these mass civilian casualties that I’ve witnessed closer to home.”
The op-ed goes on to complain about “Israel’s military siege against the Palestinians.”
It goes on further: “For Jews like myself, who publicly oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza, one of the hardest realities to confront is the fact that plenty of people in our communities are aware that the Israeli offensive is killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of whom are children. But in the wake of the gruesome Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israelis that touched off the war, many people we are close to are not just incurious about Israel’s assault on Gaza but are willing to justify it without apology.”
In case anyone missed the point, Klion spiked the football about his piece in a March 9 post on X: “Proud that my first print appearance in NYT is, among other things, an argument that what Israel is doing in Gaza amounts to a genocide.”
The widely adopted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism includes as an example “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” That practice — also known as “Holocaust inversion” —is deeply problematic.
As the World Jewish Congress (WJC) has explained, “Any alleged wrongdoings on Israel’s part cannot be compared to Nazi crimes during the Holocaust. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is a territorial and political one, whereas the Holocaust was the attempt to systematically annihilate European Jewry. Despite the unfortunate outbreak of violence during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the Palestinian population has grown by all metrics, and is projected to continue doing so. To compare this to the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust is preposterous and diminishes the pain of those who have suffered during the conflict.”
The WJC also quotes Deborah Lipstadt, now the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism: those who accuse Israel of genocide and other such crimes “are making a false comparison which elevates by a factor of a zillion any wrongdoings Israel might have done, and lessens by a factor of a zillion what the Germans did.”
It should be obvious that the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust and Israel’s just war of self-defense against Hamas are nothing like one another. In the Holocaust, the Nazis intentionally set out to kill all the Jews, who had done nothing wrong. In the Gaza war, the Israelis are being careful to minimize civilian casualties in an operation aimed at uprooting an evil terrorist militia that is dedicated to killing the Jews and wiping Israel off the map. If there’s a parallel to be made with the Nazis, the parallel is with Hamas, not with Israel.
Glazer’s comments generated substantial pushback. Klion’s New York Times piece, on the other hand, published on the Jewish sabbath, went widely unremarked upon in the mainstream Jewish community. Perhaps the Times opinion pages have gone so far off the anti-Israel deep end that they’ve lost their capacity to shock anyone. Or perhaps all the pro-Israel readers have already canceled their subscriptions. Whatever the reason, Klion and whatever Times editor made the bad decision to publish his article deserve a place with Glazer among the “Jews like myself, who publicly oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza.” I guess it’s better to know who these people are than to have them lurking unidentified in our midst. May they come to realize their errors, speedily and in our days.
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 New York Times Opinion Piece Paved Way for Oscar Night Comparison of Israel to Nazis first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Former Columbia University President Appointed as UK Economic Adviser
Columbia University administrators and faculty, led by President Minouche Shafik, testified before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, 2024. Photo: Jack Gruber/Reuters Connect
i24 News – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has named Minouche Shafik, former president of Columbia University, as his chief economic adviser at Downing Street, a move aimed at stabilizing the country’s fragile economy and averting a potential budget crisis.
Shafik, an economist of Egyptian origin with dual British and American nationality, has held senior roles at the Bank of England, the IMF, and the World Bank.
She later led the London School of Economics and was elevated to the House of Lords in 2020.
Her tenure in the United States was more turbulent. Shafik stepped down as president of Columbia University in 2024 after just a year in office, amid fierce criticism over her handling of pro-Palestinian protests following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza.
US officials accused her of failing to confront antisemitism on campus, while students and faculty condemned her decision to call in police to dismantle protest encampments.
Since returning to Britain, Shafik has played an active role in policy and cultural institutions. She advised Foreign Secretary David Lammy on international aid reform, has chaired the Victoria & Albert Museum since January, and led the “Economy 2030” inquiry for the Resolution Foundation, where she argued for reforms to the UK’s system of wealth taxation.
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Israel Mulls West Bank Annexation in Response to Moves to Recognize Palestine
The Jordan Valley. Photo: Юкатан via Wikimedia Commons.
Israel is considering annexation in the West Bank as a possible response to France and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state, according to three Israeli officials and the idea will be discussed further on Sunday, another official said.
Extension of Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank – de facto annexation of land captured in the 1967 Middle East war – was on the agenda for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet meeting late on Sunday that is expected to focus on the Gaza war, a member of the small circle of ministers said.
It is unclear where precisely any such measure would be applied and when, whether only in Israeli settlements or some of them, or in specific areas of the West Bank like the Jordan Valley and whether any concrete steps, which would likely entail a lengthy legislative process, would follow discussions.
Any step toward annexation in the West Bank would likely draw widespread condemnation from the Palestinians, who seek the territory for a future state, as well as Arab and Western countries. It is unclear where US President Donald Trump stands on the matter. The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar did not respond to a request for comment on whether Saar had discussed the move with his US counterpart Marco Rubio during his visit to Washington last week.
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the prime minister supports annexation and if so, where.
A past pledge by Netanyahu to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley was scrapped in 2020 in favor of normalizing ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Abraham Accords brokered by Trump in his first term in office.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States said on Friday it would not allow Abbas to travel to New York for the United Nations gathering of world leaders, where several US allies are set to recognize Palestine as a state.
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Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli forces pounded the suburbs of Gaza City overnight from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was set on Sunday to discuss a plan to seize the city.
Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighborhoods of Gaza City, said the territory had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday and on Sunday, forcing families to seek shelter in the western parts of the city.
The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past three weeks, and on Friday it ended temporary pauses in the area that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a “dangerous combat zone.”
“They are crawling into the heart of the city where hundreds of thousands are sheltering, from the east, north, and south, while bombing those areas from the air and ground to scare people to leave,” said Rezik Salah, a father of two, from Sheikh Radwan.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu’s security cabinet will convene on Sunday evening to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as Hamas’ last bastion.
A full-scale offensive is not expected to start for weeks. Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in.
HAMAS SPOKESPERSON TARGETED
Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israeli forces had targeted Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing. Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Abu Ubaida was killed. Two Hamas officials contacted by Reuters did not respond to requests for comment.
Gaza health authorities said 15 people, including five children, were killed in the attack on a residential building in the heart of Gaza City.
Abu Ubaida, also known as Hozayfa Al-Khalout, is a well-known figure to Palestinians and Israelis alike, close to Hamas’ top military leaders and in charge of delivering the group’s messages, often via video, for around two decades, delivering statements while wearing a red keffiyeh that concealed his face.
The US targeted him with sanctions in April 2024, accusing him of leading the “cyber influence department” of al-Qassam Brigades.
In his last statement on Friday, he warned that the planned Israeli offensive on Gaza City would endanger the hostages.
On Saturday, Red Cross head Mirjana Spoljaric said an evacuation from the city would provoke a massive population displacement that no other area in the enclave is equipped to absorb, with shortages of food, shelter and medical supplies.
“People who have relatives in the south left to stay with them. Others, including myself, didn’t find a space as Deir Al-Balah and Mawasi are overcrowded,” said Ghada, a mother of five from the city’s Sabra neighborhood.
Around half of the enclave’s more than 2 million people are presently in Gaza City. Several thousand were estimated to have left the city for central and southern areas of the enclave.
Israel’s military has warned its political leaders that the offensive is endangering hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in the past few weeks.