M A Hossain<\/p>\n
There are terms in moral discourse that demand careful, even reverent use. \u201cHolocaust\u201d is one of them. It is not merely a description of mass death; it is a singular moral indictment: a systematic, bureaucratically organised, and ideologically driven attempt to annihilate an entire people. The word evokes not just tragedy, but deliberate, industrial-scale evil. Invoking it lightly dishonours history. Ignoring its modern echoes dishonours the present. Which brings us, inevitably and uncomfortably, to Gaza.
\nSince October 2023, over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel\u2019s military campaign, including tens of thousands of civilians. More than 121,000 have been wounded. Hospitals have become charnel houses. Schools, shelters, bakeries, and entire residential blocks have been bombed. Food is so scarce that the United Nations has warned of mass starvation. According to credible sources, hundreds have already died from hunger. Among them, dozens of children.
\nThis is not a by-product of poor military intelligence. It is a consequence of deliberate policy decisions. Israeli leaders have publicly justified the withholding of humanitarian aid as a lever to extract political concessions. Defence officials describe the siege in strategic terms\u2014less as a security necessity and more as a method of coercive pressure. When one side in a conflict systematically denies food, medicine, and water to the other, we are no longer in the realm of conventional warfare. We are in the territory of collective punishment.
\nAnd yet, even now, many recoil from the comparison: How can anyone liken Gaza to the Holocaust?
\nA fair question. The Nazi Holocaust was unique in its scope and mechanisation. No crematoria, no gas chambers exist in Gaza. But moral equivalency is not the point. The Holocaust was not defined solely by its methods; it was defined by a logic of elimination, a rationale that a certain population had to be made to disappear\u2014not only from a place, but from history. That logic did not begin with Auschwitz. It began with ghettos, with starvation policies, with a normalisation of cruelty, and with the moral numbness of bystanders.
\nThat logic is being seen again. It does not come wearing swastikas. It comes wrapped in the language of national security and counterterrorism. It is expressed through the destruction of medical infrastructure, the displacement of 80% of the population, and the starvation of infants. It speaks not in slogans of racial supremacy, but in quiet admissions that the lives of two million people are collateral in a broader military agenda.
\nIs this genocide? That is a legal term, and courts will have their say. But genocide begins long before verdicts are issued. It begins when political leaders speak of an entire population as a threat. It gains traction when war becomes indistinguishable from punishment. It finds its justification when entire families are obliterated, and the world rationalises it as an unfortunate necessity.
\nTo those who would invoke 7 October as a justification: Yes, that attack was barbaric. The murder of 1,200 Israelis, the kidnapping of civilians, the trauma inflicted\u2014these were acts of terror, and Israel has both the right and the duty to defend itself.
\nBut self-defence has limits\u2014legal, moral, and practical. The moral limit is crossed when self-defence morphs into vengeance. The legal limit is crossed when civilians become targets. And the practical limit is crossed when military operations create conditions of humanitarian collapse.
\nIsrael is not alone in this failure. The United States, while offering humanitarian aid with one hand, has continued to supply weapons with the other. It has vetoed multiple UN ceasefire resolutions, blocked international investigations, and remained diplomatically aligned even in the face of credible war crimes. This is not a balanced policy; it is strategic indulgence masquerading as an alliance.
\nEurope fares a little better. While several EU members have issued statements of concern and suspended some bilateral talks, none have moved to enforce arms embargoes or sanctioned senior Israeli officials. These are the same governments that demand the world remember the Holocaust every 27 January, yet seem unwilling to heed its clearest warning: that silence in the face of suffering is complicity.
\nEven the Arab world, so often the self-proclaimed voice of the Palestinian cause, has failed to act with resolve. Egypt has restricted aid access. Gulf states have offered money but little pressure. What does it say about regional solidarity when Western university students show more moral courage than Middle Eastern monarchs?
\nNone of this is meant to deny Jewish trauma or to rewrite history. On the contrary, to invoke the Holocaust in reference to Gaza is to insist that \u201cNever Again\u201d must apply to all people\u2014not just Jews, not just Europeans, not just those we find politically convenient to defend.
\nIf the deliberate creation of conditions that lead to mass civilian death\u2014via starvation, dehydration, and aerial bombardment\u2014is not worthy of moral outrage, then we must ask what we mean by \u201catrocity\u201d at all. If genocide only counts when it resembles 1944 Poland, then we have learned nothing from it. Genocides evolve. They adapt to the tools of their time. Today, extermination need not involve gas chambers. It can proceed through blockade, bombing, and bureaucratic paralysis.
\nSome will object that the term \u201cHolocaust\u201d is sacrosanct and should not be diluted. Fair enough. But if our reverence for a word prevents us from recognising its reappearance in new forms, then that reverence becomes blindness. Words are tools. Their power lies not in their preservation, but in their relevance.
\nThe International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to permit humanitarian aid. Human rights organisations are documenting abuses. Civil society is mobilising globally. These are hopeful signs\u2014but they are not enough. What is needed now is policy: arms embargoes, diplomatic pressure, legal accountability, and above all, the political will to act before Gaza becomes a postscript to history\u2019s darkest chapter.
\nThis is not about choosing sides. It is about choosing standards. Either we believe in universal human rights, or we believe in none. Either \u201cNever Again\u201d is a principle, or it is a platitude.
\nThe Holocaust was not inevitable. It happened because the world convinced itself that the suffering of one person was the price of someone else\u2019s peace. That lie is being repeated. This is Gaza\u2019s hour of fire. It may also be our last chance to prove that history taught us anything at all.
\nThe writer is a political and defense analyst based in Bangladesh. He can be reached at writetomahossain@gmail.com<\/p>\n
Courtesy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
M A Hossain There are terms in moral discourse that demand careful, even reverent use. \u201cHolocaust\u201d is one of them. It is not merely a description of mass death; it is a singular moral indictment: a systematic, bureaucratically organised, and ideologically driven attempt to annihilate an entire people. The word evokes not just tragedy, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13085],"class_list":{"0":"post-480629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-article","7":"tag-m-a-hossain"},"yoast_head":"\n