[Reader-list] With Hamas, Hitlerism comes to the Middle East wearing the mask of anti-Hitlerism

[Pawan Durani]

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http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjRiODVjOGExYjM5YjhhMmQ1YTMzMzkzYTZlNWY0Njg=&w=MQ
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*'G*o back to the oven! You need a big oven, that's what you need!"

This is what one young woman thought passed for acceptable discourse during
an anti-Israel rally last week in, of all places, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Other chants were similarly unlovely. You can watch it on YouTube if you
like But why bother? The Fort Lauderdale outburst is just one window on the
upside-down world of Israel hatred. Across the Islamic world, and in too
many points West, it is still considered a penetrating and poignant insight
to call Zionists the "new Nazis." For instance, in Sunday's *Gulf News*,
Mohammad Abdullah al Mutawa, a sociology professor at United Arab Emirates
University, penned an essay titled "Zionists are the new Nazis." He began:
"Today, the whole world stands as a witness to the fact that the Nazi
Holocaust was a mere lie, which was devised by the Zionists to blackmail
humanity."

At a Saturday protest in New York against Israel's military assault on Gaza,
some carried signs that read: "Israel: The Fourth Reich," "Holocaust by
Holocaust Survivors," "Stop Israel's Holocaust," "Holocaust in Gaza" and
"Stop the Zionist Genocide in Gaza."

Type "Israel" and "Nazi" into any news search engine and you'll be rewarded,
or punished, with a bounty of such statements from just the last week or so.
Gaza is the new Auschwitz, the Israeli Defense Forces are SS troops ... I
find myself tempted to simply write "et cetera" because it's all so familiar
by now. But to do that is to dismiss, and therefore accept, such
grotesqueries as trivialities, when in fact such charges are deeply
revealing — just not about Israel.

First, let us note that if supposedly all-powerful Israel is dedicated to
exterminating the Palestinian people, it is doing a bad job. The Palestinian
population has only grown since 1948. There are more Arab citizens living in
Israel proper today than there were in all of Palestine the year Israel was
founded.

Perhaps one reason Israel fails at genocide is that it isn't interested in
genocide? That would explain why Israel warned thousands of Gazans by cell
phone to leave homes near Hamas rocket stockpiles. It would clarify why,
even amid all-out war, it offers aid to enemy civilians. It would even
illuminate the otherwise mysterious clamor from Israelis for a viable "peace
partner."

But no. For millions of Israel haters, the more plausible explanation is
that the "defiant" Palestinians have miraculously survived Israel's
determination to wipe them out.

Meanwhile, calls for the complete extermination of Israel are routine. The
Hamas charter, invoking the fraudulent "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as
justification, demands the destruction of Israel. Hamas exists solely
because it is dedicated to the complete obliteration of the "Zionist
entity." Remove that "principle" and Hamas is meaningless.

A sick mixture of Holocaust envy and Holocaust denial is the defining spirit
of Hamas. Indeed, Holocaust denial passes for a scholarly pursuit not just
in Gaza but throughout much of the Arab and Muslim world.
Meanwhile, calls for the complete extermination of Israel are routine. The
Hamas charter, invoking the fraudulent "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as
justification, demands the destruction of Israel. Hamas exists solely
because it is dedicated to the complete obliteration of the "Zionist
entity." Remove that "principle" and Hamas is meaningless.

A sick mixture of Holocaust envy and Holocaust denial is the defining spirit
of Hamas. Indeed, Holocaust denial passes for a scholarly pursuit not just
in Gaza but throughout much of the Arab and Muslim world.
*— Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and the
author of **Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from
Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning**.
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