Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany

Comparisons between Zionism and Nazism predate the foundation of Israel in 1948. In 1945, British Army officer and politician Edward Spears compared political Zionism to the Nazi idea of Lebensraum.Rory Miller, [https://books.google.com/books?id=NUmzAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA23 Divided Against Zion: Anti-Zionist Opposition to the Creation of a Jewish State in Palestine, 1945-1948,] Routledge 2013 {{isbn|978-1-315-03843-8}} p.147. See also pp.16-18,23ff.Martin Kramer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=9Ko0DwAAQBAJ&hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=analogy+Zionism+Nazism&pg=PT225&printsec=frontcover The War on Error: Israel, Islam and the Middle East,] Routledge 2017 {{isbn|978-1-351-29532-1}}

German-Jewish linguist and anti-fascist Victor Klemperer, who survived the Holocaust and chose not to move to Israel but 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. {{Cite book|title=Anasintaxi Newspaper, issue 385|year=2013|chapter=Reactionary German Romanticism|chapter-url=https://translate.google.gr/translate?hl=en&sl=el&u=https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1467916/}}{{cite web | url=https://pdfcoffee.com/bloomsbury-revelations-victor-klemperer-language-of-the-third-reich-lti-lingua-tertii-imperii-bloomsbury-academic-2013-pdf-free.html | title=(Bloomsbury Revelations) Victor Klemperer-Language of the Third Reich_ LTI_ Lingua Tertii Imperii-Bloomsbury Academic (2013) }}

In 1948, Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein and a number of other Jewish public figures signed an open letter which compared Tnuat Haherut, an early Jewish nationalist political party founded by Menachem Begin, to Nazism. {{Cite news |last=Gessen |first=Masha |date=2023-12-09 |title=In the Shadow of the Holocaust |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust |access-date=2025-05-14 |work=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}{{Cite web |date=2018-04-23 |title=Einstein and the ghost of Herut 70 years on |url=https://www.arabnews.com/node/1289796 |access-date=2024-09-23 |website=Arab News |language=en}} Arendt's views on Zionism and Israel varied widely over time,{{cite web |date=2020-07-13 |title=Hannah Arendt on Zionism |url=https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2020/07/13/hannah-arendt-on-zionism/ |access-date=2025-03-12 |website=Yale University Press}} while Einstein supported the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, but not that of a Jewish state.{{cite web |date=2023-04-21 |title=Einstein on Zionism, Politics and Israel |url=https://www.shapell.org/manuscript/einstein-zionist-views-in-1946/ |access-date=2025-03-12 |website=Shapell}}

English historian Arnold J. Toynbee reconsidered his view that Zionism was like Nazism following his earlier critiques.Hedva Ben-Israel, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245780 Debates with Toynbee: Herzog, Talmon, Friedman] Israel Studies, Spring, 2006, Vol. 11, No. 1 pp. 79-90 pp.81-82.Yair Rosenberg, [https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/herzog-toynbee-1961 When an Israeli Ambassador Debated a British Historian on Israel’s Legitimacy—and Won. The Montreal face-off between Yaacov Herzog and Arnold Toynbee offers ways of discussing the Jewish state that still feel fresh] Tablet 31 January 2014A. J. Toynbee, A Study of History, OUP 1964 vol.12 p.627. Critical responses by Jacob Talmon and Eliezer Berkovits contributed to Toynbee's reflection that his condemnation of Zionism's guilt in this regard was disproportionate.Toynbee ibid.p.627

In the context of the Six-Day War, the administration of the Soviet Union compared Israeli tactics to those of Nazi Germany during the Second World War in official commentary.{{cite book|last=Druks|first=Herbert|title=The Uncertain Alliance: The U.S. and Israel from Kennedy to the Peace Process|isbn=9780313314247|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|date=2001|pages=50–51}} After the victory of Likud in the 1977 Israeli legislative election, Holocaust metaphors began to be used by the Israeli right-wing to describe their left-wing opponents.{{sfn|Steir-Livny|2019|p=284}}

The Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz introduced the term "Judeo-Nazis". He argued that continued military occupation of the Palestinian territories would lead to the moral degradation of Israeli Defense Force (IDF), with individuals committing atrocities for state security interests.{{cite journal |last1=Feldhay |first1=Rivka |title=The Fragile Boundary between the Political and the Academic |journal=Israel Studies Review |date=2013 |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=1–7 |doi=10.3167/isr.2013.280102}}{{cite journal |last=Elkad-Lehman |first=Ilana |title='Judeo-Nazis? Don't talk like this in my house' voicing traumas in a graphic novel – an intertextual analysis |journal=Israel Affairs |date=2020 |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=59–79 |doi=10.1080/13537121.2020.1697072|s2cid=212958444 }} In 1988, Holocaust survivor Yehuda Elkana warned that the tendency in Israel to see all potential threats as existential and all opponents as Nazis would lead to Nazi-like behavior by Jews.{{sfn|Bartov|2018|p=192}} During the First Intifada, Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov was enraged by Yitzhak Rabin's call to "break the bones" of Palestinians and wrote him a letter arguing that, based on Bartov's research, the IDF could be similarly brutalized as the German Army was during World War II.{{sfn|Bartov|2018|p=191}} One Israeli nationalist in a moshav told Amos Oz that he did not care if Israel was called a Judeo-Nazi state, it was "better [to be] a living Judeo-Nazi than a dead saint."{{dubious|date=October 2024}}{{cite journal |last1=Oz |first1=Amos |title="Better a Living Judeo-Nazi Than a Dead Saint" |journal=Journal of Palestine Studies |date=1983 |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=202–209 |doi=10.2307/2536162 |jstor=2536162 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2536162 |quote='"As far as I am concerned, you can give the State of Israel any name you wish. You can call it a Judeo-Nazi state, as did Leibowitz. Why not? As the saying goes - better a living Judeo-Nazi than a dead saint. I don't care if I am a Qadhafi. I am not after admiration from the Gentiles. I don't need their love. I don't need love from Jews like you, either. I have to live. And I intend that my children shall live as well- with or without the blessing of the Pope and the other religious leaders from the New York Times. I shall destroy anyone who raises a hand against my children - I shall destroy him and his children, with or without the famous purity of arms, and I don't care if he is Christian, Muslim, Jewish or pagan. History shows us that he who won't kill is killed by others. This is an iron law.'|url-access=subscription }} In 2018, Noam Chomsky cited Leibowitz, arguing that he was right in his prediction that the occupation was producing Judeo-Nazis.{{dubious|date=October 2024}}{{cite news |title=Chomsky to i24NEWS: 'Judeo-Nazi tendencies in Israel a product of occupation' |url=https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/188255-181108-chomsky-to-i24news-judeo-nazi-tendencies-in-israel-a-product-of-occupation|work=i24NEWS|first=Jotam|last=Confino|date=14 November 218 |access-date=8 April 2022 }}

According to political scientist Ian Lustick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, such comparisons are "a natural if unintended consequence of the immersion of Israeli Jews in Holocaust imagery", and the term "Holocaust inversion" for Nazi comparisons is used by those who see the Holocaust as a template for Jewish life.{{sfn|Lustick|2019|p=52}}{{vague|date=October 2024}}

In 1983, University of Bridgeport international law professor Richard Arens, the brother of Israeli Minister of Defence Moshe Arens, compared Israeli settlement to the Nazi lebensraum.{{cite web|date=21 September 1983|title=Arens’ Brother Delivers a Scathing Attack on Israel|url=https://www.jta.org/archive/arens-brother-delivers-a-scathing-attack-on-israel|author-last=|author-first=|access-date=28 November 2024|work=Jewish Telegraphic Agency}}

File:Nazis.png" by Carlos Latuff ]]

During the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, settlers donned yellow stars to compare themselves to Holocaust victims as part of their protests against the disengagement.

In a 2012 article entitled "The Blot of a Light Cloud: Israeli Soldiers, Army, and Society in the Intifada", 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."{{Cite news |last=Elizur |first=Yoel |title='When you enter Gaza, you are God': Inside the minds of IDF soldiers who commit war crimes {{!}} Opinion |url=https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-12-23/ty-article-opinion/.premium/when-you-enter-gaza-you-are-god-inside-the-minds-of-idf-soldiers-who-commit-war-crimes/00000193-f2a4-dc18-a3db-fee62b540000 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20241224035621/https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-12-23/ty-article-opinion/.premium/when-you-enter-gaza-you-are-god-inside-the-minds-of-idf-soldiers-who-commit-war-crimes/00000193-f2a4-dc18-a3db-fee62b540000 |archive-date=24 December 2024 |access-date=19 April 2025 |work=Haaretz |language=en}}

In a testimony published by Breaking the Silence, an IDF soldier who served in Operation Protective Edge recounted Israel's attacks on Beit Hanoun by saying:

There's that famous photo that they always show on trips to Poland (organized trips in which Israeli youths visit Holocaust memorial sites) that shows Warsaw before the war and Warsaw after the Second World War. The photo shows the heart of Warsaw and it's this classy European city, and then they show it at the end of the war. They show the exact same neighborhood, only it has just one house left standing, and the rest is just ruins. That's what it looked like.{{cite web |title=This is How We Fought in Gaza |url=http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/pdf/ProtectiveEdge.pdf |website=Breaking the Silence |access-date=23 April 2025}}

In 2016, Yair Golan, the Israeli general and deputy chief of staff of the IDF, sparked a controversy during a speech at Yom HaShoah. Golan alluded to manifestations of processes that occurred in Holocaust-era Europe.{{sfn|Lustick|2019|p=143}} After criticism by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Golan said that he did not intend to compare Israel to Nazi Germany: "It is an absurd and baseless comparison and I had no intention whatsoever to draw any sort of parallel or to criticize the national leadership. The IDF is a moral army that respects the rules of engagement and protects human dignity."{{Cite web |last=Beaumont |first=Peter |date=5 May 2016 |title=Israeli military chief backtracks from 1930s Germany comparison |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/05/israeli-military-chief-yair-golan-nazi-germany-comparison |website=The Guardian}} He later again compared right wing Israeli politicians to Nazis, drawing criticism from the right in Israel.{{cite web | last1=Ben-David | first1=Ricky | last2=Schneider | first2=Tal | last3=Magid | first3=Jacob | last4=Bachner | first4=Michael | last5=Sharon | first5=Jeremy | title=Incoming MK Yair Golan again compares right-wing to Nazis, drawing ire | website=The Times of Israel | date=October 3, 2019 | url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/incoming-mk-yair-golan-again-compares-right-wing-to-nazis-drawing-ire/ | access-date=November 24, 2023}}

In 2023 during the Gaza war, the mayor of Metula David Azoulai said in an interview: "The whole Gaza Strip needs to be empty. Flattened. Just like in Auschwitz. Let it be a museum for all the world to see what Israel can do. Let no one reside in the Gaza Strip for all the world to see, because October 7 was in a way a second Holocaust." The remarks were condemned by a spokesperson for the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum who said that they "may sound as a call for murder of the scale akin to Auschwitz".{{cite web |last1=Lidor |first1=Canaan |title=Israeli mayor calls for turning Gaza into ‘Auschwitz-like’ museum, prompting rebuke |url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israeli-mayor-calls-for-turning-gaza-into-auschwitz-like-museum-prompting-rebuke/ |website=Times of Israel |access-date=19 April 2025 |date=18 December 2023}}

Moshe Feiglin compared both Israel and Palestinians to the Nazis, saying "As Hitler, may his name be erased, once said: 'I cannot live in this world if there is one Jew left in it,' we could not live in this land if even one such Islamo-Nazi remains in Gaza, and not before we return to Gaza and turn it into Hebrew Gaza."{{cite web |last1=Romm |first1=Jake |title=Idée Fixe |url=https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/ide-fixe |website=Parapraxis |access-date=19 April 2025}}

In August 2022, the President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, accused Israel of having committed "50 Holocausts" during a visit to Berlin, Germany. Abbas had responded to a reporter's question about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the 1972 Munich massacre committed by the internationally active Palestinian militant group Black September, who were at that time affiliated with Abbas' Fatah Party. When asked if he intended to apologize for the attack, Abbas responded by listing allegations of atrocities committed by Israel. Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor of Germany, grimaced at the use of the word "Holocausts" but said nothing. Scholz condemned the remarks later. He asserted, "Especially for us Germans, any relativization of the Holocaust is unbearable and unacceptable". The German publication Bild labeled the incident as antisemitic.{{cite news|date=16 August 2022|title=Palestinian President Abbas skirts apology for Munich attack|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mahmoud-abbas-ap-palestinian-berlin-israeli-b2146318.html|accessdate=7 September 2022|journal=The Independent}}{{cite news|title=In Berlin, Abbas says Israel committed 'holocausts' against the Palestinians; Scholz grimaces silently, later condemns remarks|url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/in-berlin-abbas-skirts-apology-for-munich-attack-says-israel-committed-holocausts/|date=16 August 2022|accessdate=7 September 2022|journal=The Times of Israel}} In response, Abbas said that his answer was not intended to deny the singularity of the Holocaust, which he stated that he condemned in the strongest terms, but that he had intended to discuss the "crimes and massacres committed against the Palestinian people since the Nakba at the hands of the Israeli forces" in his view.{{cite web|url=https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/130464|title=Statement by the President of Palestine regarding what was stated in the response in joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin|publisher=WAFA|date=17 August 2022|access-date=4 November 2023}}

In July 2018, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, while addressing Grand National Assembly MPs in Ankara, said that the "spirit of Hitler" lives on in Israel, commenting specifically that he believes "no difference [exists] between Hitler's obsession with a pure race and the understanding that these ancient lands are just for the Jews." He also called Israel "the world's most Zionist, fascist, racist state." The statements were condemned by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who described Erdoğan's rule as "a dark dictatorship" and stated that Erdoğan "is massacring Syrians and Kurds and has jailed tens of thousands of his own citizens."{{cite news|url=https://www.itv.com/news/2018-07-24/turkish-president-calls-israel-fascist-and-racist-over-nation-state-law|title=Turkish president calls Israel fascist and racist over nation state law|work=ITV.com|date=24 July 2018|accessdate=4 May 2022}}{{Cite news |date=24 July 2018 |title=Erdogan calls Israel world's 'most fascist, racist' state |url=https://www.france24.com/en/20180724-erdogan-calls-israel-worlds-most-fascist-racist-state |work=France 24 |agency=Agence France-Presse}} The spat between the two leaders took place following the Israeli government's adoption of Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People.

In 2023, Tunisian President Kais Saed said, "While Tunisians protected Jews during the Holocaust, today elderly women and children are being bombed in Gaza."{{Cite web |last=Friedman |first=Gabe |date=2023-05-16 |title=Days after synagogue attack, Tunisian president criticizes Israel and says his country saved Jews in WWII |url=https://www.jta.org/2023/05/16/global/days-after-synagogue-attack-tunisian-president-criticizes-israel-and-says-his-country-saved-jews-in-wwii |access-date=2023-05-31 |website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |date=2023-05-11 |title=Deadly Tunisian synagogue attack was premeditated and targeted temple, interior minister says |url=https://apnews.com/article/tunisia-synagogue-attack-7435af3d6715f8b12fe869afa6dec056 |access-date=2023-05-31 |website=AP NEWS|first=Bouazza|last=Ben Bouazza |language=en}} Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said such remarks incited hate against Tunisian Jews.{{Cite web |title=Days After Two Jews Shot Dead, Tunisian President Compares Israel to Nazis |url=https://jewishlink.news//world-us/59522-days-after-two-jews-shot-dead-tunisian-president-compares-israel-to-nazis |access-date=2023-05-31 |website=jewishlink.news |date=18 May 2023 |language=en-GB}}

On 18 February 2024, the President of Brazil Lula da Silva stirred up controversy due to his statement comparing the actions of Israel in the Gaza war to the Holocaust.

In the United Kingdom, erstwhile Member of Parliament for Bradford East, the Liberal Democrat politician David Ward, created controversy after signing the ceremonial Book of Remembrance in the Houses of Parliament on Holocaust Memorial Day, with him writing: "I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new state of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza." He later said that "a huge operation out there" had distorted what he meant. As a result of the scrutiny over the January 2013 controversy, the Liberal Democrats' leadership threatened Ward with formal disciplinary action over his arguments.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-21240036|title=Lib-Dem David Ward MP censured over Israel criticism|work=BBC News|date=28 January 2013|accessdate=18 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170507170907/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-21240036|archive-date=7 May 2017}}

Roger Waters of the British rock band Pink Floyd has repeatedly compared Israel to Nazi Germany. In a 2013 interview with Counter Punch, he accused "the Jewish lobby" of being very powerful in the United States and said, "There were many people that pretended that the oppression of the Jews was not going on. From 1933 until 1946. So this is not a new scenario. Except that this time it’s the Palestinian People being murdered."{{Cite web |last=Barat |first=Frank |date=2013-12-06 |title=An Interview with Roger Waters |url=https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/06/an-interview-with-pink-floyds-roger-waters/ |access-date=2023-05-31 |website=CounterPunch.org |language=en-US}}{{cite web | last=Thorpe | first=Vanessa | last2=Helmore | first2=Edward | title=Former Pink Floyd frontman sparks fury by comparing Israelis to Nazis | website=the Guardian | date=14 December 2013 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/14/pink-floyd-frontman-fury-israel-nazis | access-date=5 March 2025}} American rabbi and writer Shmuley Boteach regarded this comparison as antisemitic, writing in The Observer, "Mr. Waters, the Nazis were a genocidal regime that murdered 6 million Jews. That you would have the audacity to compare Jews to monsters who murdered them shows you have no decency, you have no heart, you have no soul."{{Cite web |last=Boteach |first=Shmuley |date=2013-12-12 |title=The Anti-Semitic Stench of Pink Floyd |url=https://observer.com/2013/12/the-anti-semitic-stench-of-pink-floyd/ |access-date=2023-05-31 |website=Observer |language=en-US}} In a 2017 hour-long video live chat on Facebook, Waters again compared Israel to Nazi Germany.{{Cite web |title=Roger Waters compares Israel to Nazi Germany in Facebook Q&A |url=https://www.jpost.com/bds-threat/roger-waters-compares-israel-to-nazi-germany-in-facebook-q-and-a-499851 |website=The Jerusalem Post|first=Amy|last=Spiro|date=16 July 2017|access-date=4 November 2023 |language=en-US}}

In a Netflix special, comedian Dave Chappelle made a joke about William Ellison, a former slave in South Carolina who then went on to own slaves. The punchline of the joke was "And shockingly, they’re making a movie about him. Ironically, it’s called 'Space Jews.'" The UK-based Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) said the joke implied that "Jews subject others to the atrocities that they suffered in the Holocaust." The joke was denounced by CAA, with a spokesperson saying: "Antisemitism and minimizing the Holocaust are no joke. Whilst there is always a place for light-hearted humor, Dave Chapelle’s so-called comedy is barely coherent and plays on the ignorant prejudices of his audience. It is bad enough to do so in the confines of a comedy club, but to be streamed into living rooms around the world courtesy of Netflix is an undeserved privilege for someone willing to mock the trauma of Jewish history and the memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide."{{cite web |last1=Ghermezian |first1=Shiryn |title=Dave Chappelle Faces Backlash Over Netflix Comedy Special Jokes About World-Dominating ‘Space Jews’ |url=https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/10/07/dave-chappelle-faces-backlash-over-jokes-in-netflix-comedy-special-about-world-dominating-space-jews/ |website=The Algemeiner |access-date=19 April 2025}}

Actor Wallace Shawn said in a 2025 interview with Katie Halper that Israel is "doing evil that is just as great as what the Nazis did." Shawn added: "In some ways it’s worse, because they kind of boast about it. Hitler had the decency to try to keep it secret. For some reason, Hitler didn’t want people to know he was doing these things to the Jews. The Israelis are almost proud of it, and it’s demonically evil. And anybody who doesn’t recognize that it’s evil, I can’t, probably, communicate with that person. That might be temporary insanity."{{Cite web|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/wallace-shawn-israeli-treatment-gaza-nazi-1236127279/|title='Princess Bride' Actor Wallace Shawn Compares Israeli Treatment of Gaza to Nazi Germany|access-date=19 April 2025|website=The Hollywood Reporter|last=Phillips|first=Zoe}}

Jake Romm in a piece for Parapraxis on the role of the Shoah in Zionism wrote, "The Shoah was present for the early Zionist perpetrators of the Nakba both as the crime to be avenged and the model for the barbarity—and efficacy—required to carry that vengeance out."

{{expand section|with=more points of view, requires coverage from views that the comparison is not antisemitic|date=September 2024|small=no}}

Academics worldwide have debated whether comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany are antisemitic or not.{{sfn|Rosenfeld|2019|p=175–178, 186}} Lesley Klaff and Bernard-Henri Lévy argue that these comparisons lack historical and moral equivalence, and risk inciting anti-Jewish sentiment. Author Yossi Klein Halevi deemed the comparison a form of an archaic dehumanizing trope: "the Jew as embodiment of evil" and the "satanic Jew", now turned into "the satanic Jewish state".{{efn|Halevi continues: "The end of the post-Holocaust era is expressed most starkly in the inversion of the Holocaust [...] The Jew-as-Nazi is the endpoint of political supersessionism:{{cite journal |journal=Religions |url=https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/1/59 |title=The Cruelty of Supersessionism: The Case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer |volume=13 |issue=1 |year=2022 |access-date=October 14, 2024}} Not only have we forfeited our identity as "Israel," but we've assumed the identity of our worst enemy. {{cite journal |journal=Jewish Journal |author=Yossi Klein Halevi |url=https://jewishjournal.com/cover_story/375665/the-end-of-the-post-holocaust-era |title=The End of the Post-Holocaust Era |date=October 10, 2024 |access-date=October 14, 2024 |quote=Oct. 7 shattered Israelis' faith that the state would protect them and shook American Jewry's sense of full social acceptance – but there is a way forward.}}}}

Comparisons between Israel and Nazism have been described as a form of Holocaust trivialization called "Holocaust inversion". Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism, describes this type of Holocaust inversion as "soft-core" Holocaust denial, as contrasted with the "hard-core" denial practiced by David Irving. She says that it "dilutes what the Holocaust was" by using a false comparison.{{Cite web |last=Klein |first=Amy |date=2009-04-19 |title=Denying the deniers: Q & A with Deborah Lipstadt |url=https://www.jta.org/2009/04/19/lifestyle/denying-the-deniers-q-a-with-deborah-lipstadt |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |language=en-US}}

Kenneth L. Marcus says that Holocaust inversion aims to "shock, silence, threaten, insulate, and legitimize", which has "a chilling effect on Jewish supporters of Israel". He says that it implies the subject deserves some form of punishment, which then justifies any antisemitism that may occur, while disguising it as political criticism of Israel. This also serves to insulate those who use such comparisons from accusations of racism. Bernard-Henri Lévy says this erodes societal safeguards by providing "an entirely new way of justifying" antisemitism that is subtler than yelling "Money Jews" or "They Killed Christ".{{cite book

| last = Marcus

| first = Kenneth L.

| title = Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America

| publisher = Cambridge University Press

| year = 2010

| pages = 63–64

| isbn = 978-1-139-49119-8

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=U3z7Fh7xOmcC&dq=%22holocaust+inversion%22&pg=PA63

}} David Hirsh described "The Livingstone Formulation" as the defense used by those accused of antisemitism that their accusers are trying to prevent Israel from being criticized.{{cite web |date=2010 |last=Hirsh |first=David |title=Accusations of malicious intent in debates about the Palestine-Israel conflict and about antisemitism: The Livingstone Formulation, 'playing the antisemitism card' and contesting the boundaries of antiracist discourse |url=https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/7144/ |access-date=2024-12-01 |publisher=Transversal |ISSN=1 607-629X |page=47}}

The Working Definition of Antisemitism – adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the U.S. Department of State, and other organizations – offers several examples to help determine when criticism of Israel may be antisemitic, including "drawing comparison of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis".[https://books.google.com/books?id=EYuFDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Manfred+Gerstenfeld%E2%80%8E%22&pg=PA195 Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: The Dynamics of Delegitimization], chapter by Alan Johnson, page 177 Critics of the definition say that it could define legitimate criticisms of Israel as antisemitic and that it has been used to censor pro-Palestinian activism, in particular. Alternative definitions such as the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism have been proposed instead on this basis.{{cite news |title=The problems with an increasingly dominant definition of anti-Semitism (opinion) |work= Inside Higher Ed |url=https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2021/03/26/problems-increasingly-dominant-definition-anti-semitism-opinion |access-date=8 April 2022 |date=March 26, 2021|author=Neve Gordon and Mark LeVine}}

Eyal Levin suggests that Holocaust inversion is becoming part of the iconography of a new antisemitism which has spread globally – particularly in the Arab and Muslim world and in Western Europe and America – often appearing in demonstrations and media portrayals.{{cite book |last=Lewin |first=Eyal |title=Blaming the Jews for Acting like Nazis: The Rhetoric of Holocaust Inversion |year=2017}} Historian Bernard Lewis suggests that the belief that the Nazis were no worse than Israel also provides "welcome relief to many who had long borne a burden of guilt for the role which they, their families, their nations, or their churches had played in Hitler's crimes against the Jews, whether by participation or complicity, acquiescence or indifference".{{cite book

| last = Marcus

| first = Kenneth L.

| title = Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America

| publisher = Cambridge University Press

| year = 2010

| page = 56

| isbn = 978-1-139-49119-8

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=U3z7Fh7xOmcC&dq=brought+welcome+relief+to+many+who+had+long+borne+a+burden+of+guilt+for+the+role+which+they%2C+their+families%2C+their+nations%2C+or+their+churches+had+played+in+Hitler%27s+crimes+against+the+Jews%2C+whether+by+participation+or+complicity%2C+acquiescence+or+indifference&pg=PA56

}}

In Austria, while overt antisemitism has been limited following the Holocaust, the Freedom Party of Austria has used comparisons between Nazi Germany and Israel to delegitimize its political opponents.Stoegner, Karin (2016). {{"'}}We are the new Jews!' and 'The Jewish Lobby'–antisemitism and the construction of a national identity by the Austrian Freedom Party". Nations and Nationalism 22 (3): 484–504. In Israel, Lustick reports that many Israelis are "already repelled by actions against Palestinians they cannot help but associate with Nazi persecution of Jews".{{sfn|Lustick|2019|p=143}} Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov has drawn an analogy between the German army's dehumanization of its enemies under Nazism and the attitudes displayed by young Israeli troops in the 2024 Gaza war.Omer Bartov, [https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/13/israel-gaza-historian-omer-bartov As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel] The Guardian 23 August 2024

British scholar David Feldman suggests that comparisons in relation to the 2014 Gaza War have not been motivated by a broader anti-Jewish subjectivity but by targeted criticism of Israeli policy in military actions.{{sfn|Rosenfeld|2019|p=175-178, 186}}

• Relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world
• Nazi analogies
• Criticism of the Israeli government
• Double genocide
• Fascist (insult)
• Genocide recognition politics
• Hajo Meyer
• United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 (revoked by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/86)
• Zionist antisemitism
• Carlos Latuff
• The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism
• Putler, a comparison of Russia's actions in the Russo-Ukrainian War to Nazi Germany's during the Second World War
• 3D test of antisemitism
• Weaponization of antisemitism
• Zionist as a pejorative

{{notelist}}

Citations

{{reflist}}

Bibliography

• {{cite book |last1=Bartov |first1=Omer |author1-link=Omer Bartov |title=The Holocaust and the Nakba |date=2018 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-54448-1 |language=en |chapter=National Narratives of Suffering and Victimhood: Methods and Ethics of Telling the Past as Personal Political History}}
• {{cite book |last1=Lustick |first1=Ian S. |author1-link=Ian Lustick |title=Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality |date=2019 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-5195-1 }}
• {{cite book|last=Rosenfeld|first=Alvin H. | author-link =Alvin Hirsch Rosenfeld |title=Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: The Dynamics of Delegitimization|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EYuFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA195|date=9 January 2019|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-03872-2}}
• {{cite book|last=Marcus|first=Kenneth L.|title=Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U3z7Fh7xOmcC&pg=PA63|date=30 August 2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-49119-8}}
• {{cite book |last1=Steir-Livny |first1=Liat |title=New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in Global Comparison |date=2019 |publisher=Purdue University Press |isbn=978-1-61249-616-0 |chapter='Kristallnacht in Tel Aviv': Nazi Associations in the Contemporary Israeli Socio-Political Debate}}

{{Commons category|Comparison of Israel and Nazi Germany}}

• {{cite web | last=Iganski | first=Paul | last2=Sweiry | first2=Abe | title=Understanding and Addressing The 'Nazi card' Intervening Against Antisemitic Discourse | publisher=European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism | date=2009 | url=https://brandeiscenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/nazicard.pdf | access-date=5 March 2025}}
• [https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/7/26/israels-nation-state-law-parallels-the-nazi-nuremberg-laws "Israel's 'nation-state law' parallels the Nazi Nuremberg Laws"] by Susan Abulhawa at Al Jazeera
• [https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-718367 "Herzog calls on Israel's politicians to leave Nazi references out of campaigns"] by Greer Fay Cashman at The Jerusalem Post
• [https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2016-06-21/ty-article/.premium/the-rights-and-wrongs-of-comparing-israel-to-nazi-germany/0000017f-e011-db22-a17f-fcb179b60000 "The Rights and Wrongs of Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany"] by Daniel Blatman at Haaretz

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Israel and Nazi Germany

Category:Anti-Arabism in Israel

Category:Anti-Palestinian sentiment in Israel

Category:Anti-Israeli sentiment

Category:Anti-Zionism

Category:Germany–Israel relations

Category:Historiography of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Category:Holocaust historiography

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Category:Media bias controversies involving Israel

Category:Media coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict

Category:Metaphors referring to war and violence

Category:Nazi analogies

Category:Political psychology

Category:Politics of Israel

Category:Racism in Israel

Category:Racism in Palestine

Category:Victimology