As a student of World War II history, I have been enamored by the question of how the Nazis rose to power. In particular, how did they manage to convince a whole nation that one group of people—simply by birth—was inferior to another? In other words, how did a political party with the most evil intentions convince a nation at the very least to look the other way when implementing the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.
In 1945, when entering the recently liberated Ohrdruf Concentration Camp and witnessing the piles of rotting corpses and the emaciated few survivors, Supreme Commander of the Allies, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, issued two orders.
First, he ordered members of Congress and editors of news organization to come to Ohrdruf and document the overpowering “evidence of bestiality and cruelty” of what he saw. His reason was prophetic: no one is going to believe the common practices of the Nazi concentration camp. There can be no doubt that this horror actually happened.
Secondly, he ordered his officers force German citizens of nearby towns to come and give the piles of bodies a proper burial. The citizen’s crime essentially was apathy. Now they must see and smell for themselves the stench and suffering the Reich thrust upon the Jews.
Apathy can never be an excuse.
Since the 1940s, the horror and shock of the Nazi death camps generated the phrase: never again.
“Never again” was the driving force to keep six million memories alive. “Never again” was the warning to make sure this does not happen in civilized society.
Unfortunately, “never again” is upon us.
It’s been a few weeks since a Hamas army shot rockets and invaded Israeli settlements, taking hundreds of men, women, and children hostage and slaughtering hundreds more.
The numbers of Israeli dead from this attack are staggering. It was the highest single-day death toll of Jews since the holocaust.
The stories and images are horrifying.
The massacre of 260 unarmed attendees of a music festival by Hamas terrorists.
The beheading and killing of infants.
Children being ripped from their families and “stockpiled” as human shields.
A 19-year-old Israeli woman named Naama Levy, bloodied with her hands ziptied behind her, being pulled out of the back of a Jeep by her hair as her captors yelled “Allahu Akbar,” a Muslim prayer meaning “God is great.”[1]
This whole attack seemed a clear case of good and evil. Innocent, unarmed civilians—some too young to even walk—were targeted and killed by the hundreds.
I heard a Hamas spokesman claim the attack targeted nothing but two military barracks.
Clearly that is a line of bull.
The images, corpses, and photos of missing women and children say otherwise.
This was a terrorist attack. Plain and simple.
Ah, but life today is never plain and simple.
Within hours of the slaughter, the narrative within media outlets, social media, and universities shifted to put the blame squarely on the victims. The victim became the bad guy. The aggressor the victim. The hashtag “#support for Palestine” dominates TikTok, but that doesn’t mean much. First, there are fifteen million Jews in the world, and over 1.1 billion Muslims. Secondly, I am highly skeptical about what comes out of TikTok, given its primary audience has just enough critical thinking skills to pass on whatever TikTok algorithms tell them to.
This blaming the victim shouldn’t surprise me anymore. This insanity was foreshadowed last spring, when a trans individual shot up a Christian school in Tennessee, killing three and injuring. Within a day, the trans community became the victims, and Christians became the aggressor as though nine-year-old Christian kids had shot up a trans community.
It was bizarre enough, but with the help of the social media, that narrative got traction.
Fast-forward to the slaughter on October 7.
It started within a day of the attack and has progressively spiraled in the weeks since then. First came the obligatory statements of condemnation; however, they were closely followed with calls for a ceasefire.
This was nothing more than a rhetorical stunt. Knowing full-well Israel was going to respond gave pro-Palestinian protesters to change the narrative, making Israel the aggressor.
Since then, American Campuses and public squares filled with loud and increasing violent pro-Palestinian protests. The timing seemed a little insensitive, but we all have the right to be insensitive. If loud groups want to debate Israeli-Palestinians tensions, fine. I have just as much right to ignore them, and given their ignorance in history and lack of a moral compass, I find it not very hard to do.
However, in the weeks following, the rhetoric shifted from pro-Palestinian support to outright anti-Semitism. Every day, I witness a level of hate and violence toward Jews to come out of college campuses that would make any neo-Nazi proud.
Hitler would be smiling if his charred remains had lips.
Stories have come out of Jewish students locked away in a university library as pro-Hamas protesters banged on the doors and windows.[2] In Sydney, Australia, pro-Palestinian protestors chanted “Gas the Jews.”[3] In Russia, pro-Palestinian protestors stormed an airport shortly after a plane from Tel Aviv landed “looking for Jews.”[4] At Cornell University, Patrick Dai was arrested for threatening to slit the throat of any male Jew, rape any female Jew, and bring an AR-15 to shoot up a kosher dining hall.[5]
Is there a limit to this hate?
Apparently not.
As I write this, I saw a headline about a Jordanian man in Texas, living illegally in the United States, “studying ways to make bombs” to target Jews.[6] I even saw that the phrase “Hitler was right” was shared over 17,000 times on social media with zero response from Big Tech.[7] (Although I can understand why: they’re extremely busy shadowing or taking down pro-Israel posts).
Seriously, is all of this for real? Do people realize that the Holocaust happened less than a century ago? Have we really become that stupid? What happened to “never again?”
I have reached a level of horror that the catalyst behind “never again” is currently in the headlines. How is this happening? It goes back to the question of how Hitler managed to convince an entire society that Jews needed to be eradicated?
I now know: you can find that answer in American universities today.
Most of these anti-Semites have zero tolerance for racism. Why are Jews fair game? Do these protesters have any awareness of the irony here?
Sadly, I am guessing that if they do, it doesn’t matter.
Today, good and evil has been replaced with “oppressed” and “oppressor.” Right and wrong are decided not by a moral code but by who can shout the loudest or who can dominate the narrative. An evil act is good if it is against a person or organization defined as “oppressor.”
Apparently, that bound woman getting yanked out of a jeep by her hair is the oppressor. The young hostage waiting to be executed is the enemy. It doesn’t matter if the accusation of an Israeli missile hitting a hospital and killing 500 turn out to be a Jihadi missile that malfunctioned and hit the parking lot next to the hospital. Apparently, if it weren’t for the Jew, the Jihadi missile would not have needed to be fired.
Society has got to get back to the value system of good and evil. Unfortunately, I don’t claim to have the answer how to turn that big ship around. I am thankful that wealthy donors are now openly cutting off their donations to universities and businesses are withdrawing their job offers to antisemites.
I hope it is not too little too late.
For now, Christ-followers must call out evil for what it is. No additional context or nuance is needed.
Evil must always be called evil.
If an innocent person is kidnapped, used as a human shield or slaughtered, it is evil.[8]
“Never again” must mean never again.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/zip-tied-bloodied-israeli-woman-abducted-in-gaza-by-hamas-militants-during-surprise-attack-video-shows/ar-AA1hQTCx
[2] https://nypost.com/2023/10/26/news/jewish-students-reveal-what-happened-at-cooper-union-protest/
[3] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/australian-pro-palestinian-protesters-chant-gas-the-jews-as-police-warn-jewish-people-to-stay-away-from-area/ar-AA1hZVmZ
[4] https://apnews.com/article/israel-russia-airport-dagestan-riot-antisemitism-aadbfa7389e96f56a9af1ac402195827
[5] https://nypost.com/2023/11/01/news/mugshot-shows-cornell-hamas-fighter-patrick-dai-ahead-of-court-appearance/
[6] https://www.foxnews.com/us/jordanian-national-living-illegally-texas-accused-studying-build-bombs-target-jews-reports
[7] https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/x-repeatedly-told-us-users-who-posted-hitler-was-right-and-urged-final-solution-jewish
[8] I am aware of the “what about the innocent Palestinian” argument. I am completely aware that some might claim that I am in fact justifying Israel’s action toward a civilian population. However, were it not for Hamas’s October 7 massacre, the majority of Palestinians in Gaza support Hamas, as well as Israeli dropping fliers telling civilization to get out only to be stopped from escape by Hamas and Hamas setting up headquarters in basements of hospitals and school, I would agree. This is not Israel’s responsibility. That lies solely on Hamas.
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