Israel is waging a holocaust in Gaza. Denazification is our only remedy
JVL Introduction
A taboo is broken and direct comparison is made to the Holocaust.
At last a powerful voice from within Israel speaks for those who refuse to hold back.
It is that of journalist and translator Orly Noy, chair of B’Tselem’s executive board and an activist with the Balad political party:
The Gaza holocaust was made possible by the embrace of the ethno-supremacist logic inherent to Zionism. Therefore it must be said clearly: Zionism, in all its forms, cannot be cleansed of the stain of this crime. It must be brought to an end.
She poses a stark choice: either a Jewish, messianic, genocidal state, or a truly democratic state for all its citizens.
RK
This article was originally published by +972 Magazine in partnership with Local Call on Thu 18 Sep 2025. Read the original here.
Israel is waging a holocaust in Gaza. Denazification is our only remedy
The deadly ethno-supremacy inherent to Israeli society runs deeper than Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, and Smotrich. It must be confronted at its root.
Loading article text…
The idea that the Israeli state is a nazi state implies that the problem arose in the twentieth century. But there may be an additional, older cause, viz the concept of the jews as the ‘chosen people’. Isn’t the sense of being ‘chosen’ deeply linked to the Zionists’ racist conviction that they, and only they, matter?
There is an interpretation of being the chosen people that says it means chosen for Tikkun Olum – to make the world better.
An excellent and brave article. The new chapter in my book, Zionism During the Holocaust, is called ‘The Holocaust in Gaza’ which Verso will be bringing out.
When we see the Israeli Generals strutting their stuff we are seeing latter day Nazi Generals as they raise Warsaw to the ground. Indeed the cruelty of the Israeli military, its cutting off of anaesthetics even exceeds that of the Nazis.
Its Death by Hunger policy is taken from the Nazi playbook and its attack on hospitals and health care centres also exceeds that of the Nazis. When the Russians liberated Berlin in 1945 the Jewish hospital was still standing, untouched. Not one Gaza Hospital has been left alone.
There are those who say well at least they haven’t introduced gas chambers (though this has been suggested by one well known TV producer). What people don’t realise is that because shooting Jews into pits was producing nervous wrecks among the SS the Nazis experimented with exterminating by explosives.
It was an abject failure. One suspects that if they had had the high powered 2000 lb bombs of Israel they might have thought differently. Dying a lingering death under the rubble is far worse than a quick death in a gas chamber. Truly the Zionists have learnt well from their Nazi predecessors
There was a time when people rolled their eyes when I compared Zionism and Israel to Nazi Germany. Today that is no longer the case. Such comparisons are common place. But I confess that even I did not forecast the savagery and cruelty that has accompanied the holocaust in Gaza.
I am sure that this article is well-intentioned but discussing the genocide in terms of the fascist Third Reich is a complete misnomer. It just falls into the same trap as the defenders of Zionism. The Third Reich was a particular form of fascism, different for instance from that in Italy or Japan; or that that may well emerge in the USA. The Zionist regime is a settler-colonial project, which is not the same as fascism in an advanced capitalist state. Franz Fanon characterizes this really well; we should encourage more people to read his ‘Wretched of the Earth’.
Conceiving “us” to be better than, more worthy of our support and sympathy than “them” is a horribly common, invariably destructive feature of human psychology and history, in my view. I don’t think it even matters who “us” regard as “them” (whether other human beings or non-humans), the dire consequences for both sides are similar.
That kind of thinking becomes really poisonous when the “us” have significantly more power and cohesion than the “them” have; and also vital interests requiring them to subjugate the “out groups”. Which has been consistently the case in the century since the powerful “us” (the Zionists and the antisemitic, imperialist British establishment) colluded with each other to disempower and drive out or kill the “them” of the indigenous population.
I couldn’t agree more with Orly that Israel needs to be denazified and to junk its identity as a Jewish state if it’s to have a future. She’s right in saying a mass refusal by conscripts and reservists to serve in the IDF would help the process along. It won’t be sufficient.
What’s also urgently needed are arrests and prosecutions (under universal jurisdiction) of IDF soldiers and of Israeli officials, politicians and businesses against whom there’s credible evidence of war crimes.
When Israelis en masse realise they face lifelong risks of prison time for any war crimes committed that increases the chances they’ll demand changes in their government and governance. Changes needed include reforms to Israel’s (racist) education services, laws, police and prison services and media.
Until Evangelical and Christian Zionist USA are challenged about their un-Christian support for the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine, this is not going to stop. End-of-times theology may say that Jesus Christ will return when conditions are met, including the Jewish colonisation of “Greater Israel” including Palestine, but considering all His teachings, He would not approve of the treatment of Palestinians, nor even Christians’ treatment of each other!
Left-wing son of a Rabbi tells me that Jews were chosen to serve, not rule over others.
I think it should be recognised that the de-nazification of Germany after WW2 was imposed from outside by the victors; it did not arise spontaneously from the German people, a proportion of them being eager to obtain a ‘Persil Letter’.
Yes indeed, chosen for what? The prophets had one definition, the kings had another.
I am reminded that back in 2023 a young Na’amod organiser spoke out about the need to denazify (de-Trumpify?) parts of the Jewish community here in the UK. Na’amod is doing such good work on people’s family dynamics as well as their public protests.
BTW I’m not saying the Trump/nazi attitude is dominant among British Jews, passive shame-filled compliance motivated by fear seems more prevalent to me. But perhaps you both, Lucy and Leah, will know far more?
At last an Israeli talks very clearly and logically about the nature of the Israeli occupation forces, the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank and the state itself. As Norman Finklestein’s mother who is a Holocaust survivor said “You must compare”. The terms Nazism, Holocaust, war crimes, crimes against humanity, terror state, and ethnic cleansing are all relevant here. Denazification and decolonisation and the dismantling of Zionism are of prime importance and urgency if we do not wish to see the world plunge into a nuclear Holocaust, underlined by Netanyahu and Donald Trump with Western State leaders as cohorts. The world must act now.
Brilliantly put, I could not agree more. Orly Noy does not fall into the familiar Israeli trap of calling the country a democracy. It never was and it never could be as it was built on a notion of the inherent supremacy of the Jews and the oppression, displacement and slaughter of the indiginous Palestinian Arabs. One democratic state with equality for all its people must be the final goal to aim for if permanent genocidal war is to be avoided.
Everyone seems to agree that the genocide must be stopped and there are numerous suggestions of what must be done to slow it. What must be realised is that we are now facing the end game, “The Final Solution” Slowing will not be enough to save the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza. Action is Needed Now, Not words though they can help. Th Flotilla heading to Gaza is doing its bit, but I doubt it will get to the shore, There would need to be many more, “little Ships” for some to get through Israeli defences. The problem is too deep rooted to be stopped by stopping Gaza elimination. the West Bank annexation is already underway. The Problem is with the conception of Zionism itself which is to take over land by using any means possible including force and killing, I believe Herzle wrote it may take a hundred years or two hundred years. The Racism in The ruling classes helped divide the country of Palestine along the same lines as Pakistan and India, for the same purpose, of making the area difficult to rule and administer, while keeping attention on local problem solving as the Western World rulers got on with whatever other divide and rule projects it had underway. Zionism is at a rotten gangrenous limb that the Jewish people throughout the world must quickly decide to cut off and cauterize before it kills the rest of the Jewish body.