THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Holocaust inversion is going mainstream – it’s deeply disturbing.
Holocaust inversion transposes the guilt of the abusers, the Nazis, onto the abused, the Jews, and leaves no room for any other possibility. It plays on a widespread societal belief about abused children: they can grow up to become abusers themselves – though of course most do not. But Holocaust inversion takes it a step further. Projecting this archetype about individuals onto a nation, it does not merely take the possibility that the abused can become abusers, it assumes, as Mishra did, that it is inevitable that the abused become abusers, and leaves no room even for the possibility that the abused is actually innocent.
This troubling trend continued. In April, after claiming that the Jewish state is conducting “a war against humanity itself,” Chef José Andrés told Martha Raddatz on ABC’s This Week, “if somebody knows suffering, that’s the people of Israel. If somebody really understands the meaning of suffering, if somebody should be holding the highest standards of humanity, I will say that’s also the people of Israel.” His obvious implication is that what the Jews are now doing to the Palestinians, is the same as what the Nazis did to the Jews. Andrés, the founder of the World Central Kitchen relief agency, invoked Jewish suffering during the Holocaust in order to imply an analogy to what Gazans were experiencing, even as he parroted Nazi-esque language himself. Raddatz offered no push-back, and his statements aired on a major network.
The point of Holocaust inversion, of course, is to legitimize violence against Jews. After all, if they are Nazis, they must deserve it. This was made clear in June, when Within Our Lifetime founder Nerdeen Kiswani led those who gathered to protest an exhibit about the Nova music festival in a chant claiming the festival was “like having a rave right next to the gas chambers during the Holocaust.” Gaza, in her absurd analogy, was like the gas chambers. And the Israeli ravegoers, according to her logic, deserved what they got.
And then last month, John Oliver brought Holocaust inversion to HBO using language almost identical to that of Cynthia Nixon. “A phrase that gets brought up a lot with regard to Israel is ‘never again,’ an anti-genocide slogan often invoked in memory of the Holocaust, and it’s always been open to two interpretations. There’s the one that means, this must never again happen to the Jewish people and the one that means, this must never again happen to any people anywhere, and in the West Bank as in Gaza right now it’s pretty clear which one the Israeli government has favored.”
Flashbacks:
● Columbia University makes no mention of Jews in Holocaust Remembrance Day post.
● The rise and rise of Holocaust envy.
● Zone of Interest: The Real Problem With Jonathan Glazer.