Myth: Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is comparable to the Nazis’ treatment of Jews during the Holocaust

Any comparison of the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians to the Nazi regime’s murder of six million Jews is cynical and unfounded. Doing so weaponizes the Jewish people’s suffering during the Holocaust and runs counter to the guidelines of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.  

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a territorial and political one; the Holocaust was the systematic attempt to annihilate European Jewry. Despite outbreaks of violence during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by all metrics, the Palestinian population has grown and is projected to continue doing so. To compare this to the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust is preposterous.  

Comparing Israeli policy toward Palestinians with Nazi policy regarding Jews is an example of Holocaust inversion, where reality and morality are flipped: the Israelis are cast as the "new" Nazis and the Palestinians as the "new" Jews – and the Holocaust is presented as a moral indictment of "the Jews."