The Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth took aim at those who suggest Israel has carried out “genocide” against Gaza, noting that the move is a “moral inversion” meant to rip open the lingering wound of the Holocaust, according to a piece written by the rabbi for the Telegraph.
Nazi Germany murdered approximately six million Jews during World War II.
Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis said the shaky allegation that the Jewish state was carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian people was the “ultimate demonisation of the Jewish state.” He went on to say that using the term “genocide” was offensive to the victims and families of those who suffered through the Holocaust.
Mirvis continued by saying that there have been real genocides since the Holocaust, including those in Bosnia, Cambodia, Darfur, and Rwanda, according to the Telegraph.
Pro-Palestine activists have actively sought to undermine Israel’s response to Hamas’ violent attack against the Jewish state on October 7. Some 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered in a single day, and another 240 Israelis were abducted and taken into Gaza as hostages.
“It is a term deployed not only to eradicate any notion that Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens, but also to tear open the still gaping wound of the Holocaust, knowing that it will inflict more pain than any other accusation,” Ephraim wrote in the piece.
“It is a moral inversion, which undermines the memory of the worst crimes in human history.”
Mirvis addressed the recent effort by the African National Congress government in South Africa to bring a case of genocide against the Jewish state to the International Criminal Court. The development comes as major bodies have come under pressure to condemn Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
“We have watched in horror as people have rushed to invoke the crime of genocide – some within days of Oct 7,” Mirvis wrote. “Fringe academics and their partisan cheerleaders have selectively quoted Israeli politicians to paint a picture of a country bent on annihilation.”
“The enthusiastic clamour by some to declare it as something which belongs in a different moral category to the many other just wars with horrific humanitarian consequences, represents a moral failure built upon a foundation of hatred and disinformation.”
The conflict in the Middle East has shaken institutions around the world, including the U.S., where many students and professors in major universities have condemned Israel for its response against Hamas.
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