Lesson from the LA Holocaust Museum
The LA Holocaust Museum recently suggested that “Never Again” is a fundamental lesson of the Holocaust. Then they took it back. Here’s the (almost) inconceivable story from Caitlin Johnstone:
Israel supporters are so crazy and evil that the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum recently retracted a statement saying “Never again can’t only mean never again for Jews” after objections from Zionists.
The museum issued a statement saying, “We recently posted an item on social media that was part of a pre-planned social media campaign intended to promote inclusivity and community that was easily open to misinterpretation by some to be a political statement reflecting the ongoing situation in the Middle East. That was not our intent. It has been removed to avoid any further confusion.”
Think about how gross your position has to be for you to be all hey, let’s say no genocide for ANYBODY, and then immediately have to come back and clarify that you definitely weren’t saying no genocide for the Palestinians.
I’m glad that’s clear! Talk about a profile in cowardice.
Then there are those who get testy about applying the word “genocide” to events in Gaza. Their distorted mouth noises sound something like this: Israel is at war with terrorists (Hamas) and *only* 70,000 or so Palestinians are dead so it’s not really a genocide, is it? Plus it’s all their fault because of October 7th, end of story.
For what it’s worth, I taught the Holocaust as a professor of history after attending a seminar at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Also, if it means anything, I’m Catholic, retired military, with no particular axe to grind.
Yes, it’s a genocide in Gaza. A holocaust in slow motion. Heck, Israeli leaders have freely confessed their goal is a final solution to the Gaza question, mainly by killing many Palestinians while forcing the rest to leave. (Whether they’ll have any place to go remains to be seen.)
There is no one model of genocide, and definitions also vary. But if what’s happening in Gaza isn’t a genocide, I don’t know what other word applies. Mass murder, perhaps? Extermination, but slowly? Ethnic cleansing and mass death followed by mass expulsion? That is genocide, plain and simple.
Bracing Views 
[My comment from the Substack version]
Also saw Caitlin Johnstone’s entry late last night. Was left gobsmacked. Derangement shows no bounds.
Curious about your seminar at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. I have negative connotations about the place, from my visit to it back in the mid-’90s, I believe it was, to checking its online content maybe three, four months ago. In brief, “Holocaust Industry” is my take. Please expound.
[WJA response]
The seminar I attended was very useful. Basically, it provided materials and lessons on how to teach the Holocaust. It was run by Henry Friedlander, a survivor of Auschwitz who wrote “The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to Final Solution.” This was about 25 years ago.
[XK response]
Thanks, reassuring to hear. Roughly about the time I had visited*. I haven’t followed it since then until recently, when my perception now is that it has taken on the role as more of an extension of the hasbara strategy than dispassionate resource on holocausts, capital aitches or not. Example, reference to May 15th +/- as Israeli Independence Day, no acknowledgement whatsoever as it also being the onset of the Nakba. That kind of selective memory.
*I may relate my experience upon going there another time.
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