Do We Need To Remind Activists About What Happened To Jews In Nazi Germany?

According to the far left, Jews are now 'colonizers' and 'oppressors'.

Antisemitic imagery on the rise. Image source: instagram

by Ben Cohen

“There are a lot of people that are afraid, afraid to be Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country, so often subjected to violence.”

- Susan Sarandon

The Nazis had several solutions to the “Jewish problem” in Germany. This included sterilization, imprisonment, and forced displacement. Ultimately the Nazis settled on mass genocide, but before the Final Solution was implemented, European Jews were also used as slaves to help build Germany an empire.

Having been humiliated by the treaty of Versailles, Germany was desperate to rebuild itself and get what European colonial powers had. The German invasion of Europe was motivated in part by Lebensraum — or “living space” — a concept created by German geographer Friedrich Ratzel in the early 1900s. Lebensraum was adopted by the Nazis and became a critical part of their imperialist fantasies.

After invading their neighboring countries, Jewish slaves were then used to repair roads, clean up damage, and boost war production. In Auschwitz, many Jews were spared the gas chambers in order to help with the process of killing Jews. They retrieved corpses from the gas chambers, unloaded new arrivals, and picked through the teeth of dead Jews to find valuable gold to help finance the German expansion project.

The new white supremacists

As one of the worst victims of European colonialism and slavery, Jews now find themselves in the odd position of being labeled ‘racist white colonialists’. Ironically, much of this comes from liberal white Europeans who appear to be entirely unencumbered by the deeds of their ancestors. Recently for example,100 artists including Susan Sarandon, Ken Loach, Tilda Swinton, Peter Gabriel, and Mark Rylance signed an open letter calling out Israel for its crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, but made no mention of the October 7th attacks that saw Hamas fighters deliberately target and brutally murder innocent civilians — including small children and the elderly.

In liberal activist circles it is now perfectly acceptable to label Israel a ‘settler colonial’ society in the mold of Apartheid South Africa. Whatever your feelings are about the horrendous conflict in Gaza, or Israel’s hardline government’s policies towards Palestinians, labeling a nation built by refugees under the auspices of the United Nations a ‘settler colonial’ society is simply historically wrong. As Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame Alan Dowty writes:

Prevailing definitions of “settler colonialism” add to this the further implication of an intention to replace, or even eliminate, the indigenous people and/or culture. This goes well beyond the usual motives of domination or exploitation.

Zionism does not fit this model. There was no métropole, no mother country of which the settlers were an extension. Jews who came to Palestine, first from Russia and later from elsewhere, generally fit the accepted definition of refugees who were escaping persecution (at least 80 percent of them by my calculation). In no sense (despite Turkish suspicions) did they represent Russian interests. They sought rather to leave their proverbial Diaspora baggage behind and build a new society based on ancient Middle Eastern roots, including a revived Semitic language.

To call Israel a ‘white settler colonial’ country you have to ignore so much history that the Holocaust becomes a footnote, or even another Jewish conspiracy. The actual history of the Palestinians must be ignored too (they are no more indigenous to the region than Jews are), and you have to believe that skin color alone dictates oppressor vs oppressed status. Unfortunately, left wing activists steeped in US racial politics have designated Jews ‘white oppressor’ status, and Palestinians ‘black indigenous’. The result is that Palestinians cannot be held to the same ethical standards as Jews because of their inherent status as officially oppressed people. The crimes of Hamas can then be justified as part of their struggle against ‘the oppressor’:

There is some debate over whether antisemitism plays a role in the categorization of Jews as ‘white oppressors’. Andrew Sullivan for example, believes it is just a version of anti-white racism:

If a member of an oppressor class says something edgy, it is a form of violence. If a member of an oppressed class commits actual violence, it’s speech. That’s why many Harvard students instantly supported a fundamentalist terror cult that killed, tortured, systematically raped and kidnapped Jews just for being Jews in their own country. Because they have been taught it’s the only moral position to take. They’ve diligently read their Fanon, and must be puzzled over what the problem is. Palestinians are victims of a “colonial,” “white,” “settler-state” and any violence they commit is thereby justified.

It would be wrong to see this as a function merely of old-school anti-Semitism. The new anti-Semitism is simply a subsidiary of the entire rubric of “anti-Whiteness” that is taught as the supreme principle of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.” DEI does not mean and has never meant diversity, equity and inclusion for all. It means active support for the “oppressed” against the “oppressors.” It means challenging “whiteness,” as represented by individual white people.

Jews who grew up in Europe and America however, do not see it this way. One defining aspect of being Jewish is the gnawing sensation that at any point, your country can — and probably will — turn on you. Jews grow up hearing the stories of the struggles of their ancestors. They are warned by their parents that while many look ‘white’ (and many don’t), they are not. They receive letters from the police and Jewish organizations warning them about the threat of antisemitic violence. Their children go through active shooter drills in countries where firearms are strictly forbidden. They also experience discrimination from other minorities, most of whom no longer view them as minorities.

Complexity, not binary

This isn’t meant to paint Jews as entirely innocent victims. Jews of course can be just as racist as anyone else. But with a global population of under 16 million people and a documented track record as probably the most persecuted group in history, if anyone deserves ‘oppressed’ status in the left wing identity politics schema, the Jews do.

The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, and more recently the horrifying outburst of violence in Gaza, is enormously complex. There can be no doubt that Israel has flouted international law, illegally annexed land, and treated Palestinians in occupied territories terribly. It is also true that the Palestinians have repeatedly refused to negotiate with Israel in good faith, have subjected Israel to decades of terrorism, and elected an Islamofascist government in Gaza dedicated to wiping out all Jews from the region. Furthermore, Israel has been attacked by neighboring Arab countries that have also pledged to wipe out the entire nation.

Israel should absolutely be called out for the crimes it commits, but there must be an acknowledgment of the double standards being applied. This has to start with an understanding of why the state of Israel was created, and why assigning ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’ status to Israelis and Palestinians isn’t helpful.

Left wing activists no doubt believe they are cheering for the underdog, but their cheers are now drowning out Jewish history. That history apparently needs to be taught again, because as Jews know, it can happen again.

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