By Ryan Christie
“Never Again becomes more than a slogan: It is a prayer, a promise, a vow- never again the glorification of base, ugly, dark violence”
-Elie Wiesel
“Never Again”, as written above by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, is not just about the Holocaust, it is a plea for humanity to remember the past and learn from it, a reminder of the dangers of ignorance and complacency in regards.
Antisemitism, unfortunately, has been part of the human experience for thousands of years. Centuries of abuse and discrimination culminated in the Holocaust, where 6 million Jews, or up to 2/3rd of the European Jewish population were systemically and brutally executed. It lives on in collective memory as an appalling example of human evil. When it comes to the Holocaust, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who disagrees with that description.
It has been over two months since the brutal attack on the people of Israel by the terrorist group Hamas on October 7th. Images of hostages and mutilated corpses were shared by Hamas themselves, openly displaying their carnage for the world to see. Israel is justified in rooting out Hamas, as it’s genocidal aims obviously form a grave security threat to the state of Israel and the Jewish people. Israel is not invading Gaza out some malevolent colonialist intent, but because the Israeli people carry the promise of “Never Again”, the collective memories of millions of their ancestors who suffered and died for centuries in their hearts.
Unfortunately, there are numerous left-wing people in the West that do not understand this. They spin Israel’s response, as stated above, into a malevolent colonialist expedition serving no other purpose than to inflict wanton destruction and death onto the Palestinian people. Furthermore, these supposed “liberals” are completely ignorant of the reality that the government of Palestine, which is Hamas, is a theocratic, corrupt body that adheres to absolutely none of the values that the West holds- rule of law, separation of church and state, equal rights, and so forth.
In America in particular, this tolerance for illiberalism based on a Marxist interpretation of the War in Gaza should alarming on a number of levels. One, that a sizeable number of people, particularly young people, are ignorant of the history of discrimination of the Jewish people and thus have a poor understanding of why Israel is so aggressive in its response to attacks on itself. Two, that these people similarly lack an understanding of the complexities of the situation itself and see it simply as a Marxist conflict of the oppressed vs oppressor. Given the recent rise in antisemitism, this does not bode well for neither the Jewish people or the continued intellectual health of the West.