This past week, we were given a stark reminder of the link between classic Nazi ideology and today’s Palestinian-related antisemitism as expressed by a senior representative of the United Nations. The outrageous and reprehensible remarks of Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories who spoke at a recent conference in Doha, in which Albanese argued that “Israel is a common enemy of all humanity.” This conspiratorial and dehumanizing contempt is based on a viewpoint that perceives Jews as the embodiment of absolute evil, similar to what the Jews symbolized according to Nazi ideology, who regarded Jews as subhuman.
It is important to keep in mind the role of Francesca Albanese who is employed by the United Nations and fulfills an official position that allows her to speak as a purportedly qualified and respected UN expert. Albanese is entitled to disseminate press releases and reports that are reproduced and made accessible online to governments, academics, the press, and legislators throughout the world. Albanese has denied that Israel has the right to self-defense against Hamas even after the October 7th invasion of southern Israel by Hamas terrorists who committed countless acts of terror in a litany of brutality and inhumanity — babies slaughtered, bodies desecrated, children burned alive, women raped, parents executed in front of their children, children in front of their parents. Since October 7th, Albanese has consistently and repeatedly attempted to shift the blame and responsibility for the massacre of 1,200 Israeli civilians from Hamas terrorists on to the State of Israel.
Albanese, a committed and vocal supporter of Hamas and the Palestinian cause echoes the sentiment not only of the Palestinians but also of millions of their supporters throughout the world — Muslims, radical Islamic movements, radicalized supporters in Western Democratic countries in the United States, Europe, Australia, and so forth. The idea that Jews and today’s State of Israel are the “common enemy of humanity” did not originate with Albanese, or with Hamas, or even a contemporary Iranian politician, Ahmadinejad, who has claimed at every opportunity that “the Zionist regime will be wiped out and humanity liberated.” The link between Nazi ideology and today’s pro-Palestinian antisemitism as expressed by Albanese did not begin in 1948 or even 1967 but has its roots in the 1930s. In an official Nazi directive of that period, “The extermination of Jewry throughout the world is the precondition for an enduring peace.”
The desire to purify the world of Jews has been bequeathed by the Nazis to Hamas terrorists and their pro-Palestinian supporters. The murder, torture, mutilation of bodies, and sexual assaults against innocent Jewish children, women, men and the elderly are nothing less than a pogrom reminiscent of the Holocaust and the Nazis’ genocidal war against the Jewish people. Since its inception, Hamas has openly and consistently declared its determination to annihilate Israel and murder Jews. Their charter quotes a disputed hadith stating explicitly, “The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: ‘O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'” Hamas’s ideology echoes classic European antisemitism and Nazi ideology, which incited the genocide of the European Jews. The Hamas terrorists are modern day torchbearers of Nazi ideology.
The common desire for the total destruction of Jews is shared by Hamas, Albanese, their pro-Palestinian supporters, and Nazi ideology. The Nazis embraced an antisemitism of annihilation called “redemptive antisemitism,” namely a form of antisemitism that explains all in the world by offering a form of “redemption” by exterminating the Jewish race. Pro-Palestinian Hamas supporters express the same rationale for murdering Jews and Israelis. Hamas, with its “hour of judgment,” embraces exactly the same demented apocalyptic prophesy. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority broadcast daily programs to children and adults glorifying the murder of Jews and promising heaven (redemption) for those that carry out acts of terror against the Jewish nation. “Redemptive antisemitism” has become the major Nazi-inspired ideological believe that allows for and encourages the upsurge in deadly antisemitic violence of recent years against Jews everywhere, whether in Israel, in the United States, the European continent, and Australia.
The export of redemptive antisemitism from Nazi Germany to parts of the Arab world during and after World War II is not merely a supplementary feature of modern radical Islamism, but at its ideological core. All Islamist groups, including Hamas, embrace it, with results that we saw in full on October 7. The connection between the Palestinians and the Nazi regime is direct. A key player was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who personally met with Hitler, as well as representatives of the Nazi SS intelligence arm during the late 1930s. Not coincidentally, he also consulted with Adolf Eichmann, one of the major directors responsible for implementing the killing fields of the Holocaust. Yasser Arafat, who established the Palestinian Liberation Organization, dedicating his life to murdering Jews, was the beloved nephew of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.
What starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. The PLO practically invented airplane hijacking. So, today, at every airport in every country in the world, we all line up for security checks. Jews around the world, make no mistake. What transpired on October 7 is not only a conflict, not only a war, but part of our historical struggle against those who wish to annihilate the Jewish people. Francesca Albanese is only the latest manifestation of this Nazi-inspired hatred.
Ron Jager grew up in the South Bronx of New York, making aliyah in 1980. Ron is a 25-year veteran of the Israel Defense Forces, where he served as a field mental-health officer and as commander of the central psychiatric military clinic for reserve soldiers at Tel-Hashomer. Since retiring from active duty, he has been providing consultancy services to NGOs, implementing psychological trauma and psychological education programs to communities in the North and South of Israel. Ron served as a strategic adviser to the chief foreign envoy of Judea and Samaria. To contact him, e-mail [email protected]. Read more of Ron Jager’s articles at 5TJT.com.
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