Harry Peto

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, where we remember the 6 million Jewish men, women and children, the thousands of Roma and Sinti, black, gay, disabled and other groups, systematically murdered in the Holocaust, as well as in subsequent genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia and Darfur, where people were persecuted and killed in masses, with the purposeful intent of their total annihilation. Currently in China, between 1-3 million Uyghur Muslims are in concentration camps, in the first genocide recognised by the British government while it is happening. 27th January is the date chosen to mark this, as the date of the liberation of Auschwitz, a death camp where Jews had to pay for their own travel in cattle trucks for days, from as far as Greece and Norway, to Poland to be killed. Approx 1.1m people were murdered there alone. This morning, I’ve already seen Holocaust charities, messages from survivors, and mourners, trolled online in their pain and remembrance, with taunts of being ‘the new nazis’ and cries of ‘genocide’ in Gaza. Let me be clear, the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is awful. The loss of innocent civilian life is devastating, and every decent person wants an end to the suffering of innocent people, whoever they are and wherever they come from, as soon as possible. But however much pain this situation is causing, it is not genocide, and it is not comparable to the Holocaust. This is a new form of Holocaust denial, which distorts the nature of genocide, and minimises the intentional dehumanisation, planning and scale of evil it takes to reduce individuals to members of an group deserving of mass torture and killing. War is horrific by nature, and the pain and suffering it causes I hope never to experience myself, or for my family, and I can’t claim to know how that feels. I empathise with all those suffering due to the accident of where they were born in the world, in the hands of violent and extremist regimes. In other conflicts, just in and around that region, 377,000+ Yemenis, 236,000+ Afghans, 5,400,000+ Congolese, 500,000+ Sudanese, 500,000+ Syrians, 500,000+ Somalis, 300,000+ Iraqis, 50,000+ Libyans have been killed. None were labelled genocides, none were compared to the Holocaust, perpetrators weren’t called nazis. These victims are barely spoken of. This call of genocide is saved for Jews, and for Israel alone, because of the pain this accusation specifically causes them. It has been shouted maliciously for decades, yet is particularly painful in the wake of the Oct 7th pogrom, with 136 hostages still captive, and nearly 1,300 brutally murdered in cruel and celebratory style, in the single biggest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. Latest Hamas figures say around 24,000 have been killed in Gaza. Israel says 9,000 are combatants. Reducing this to a numbers game is uncomfortable when it comes to the suffering of real people, and I repeat, every innocent death - every innocent man, woman and child suffering is a tragedy. But ignoring or inverting the truth of the situation and its cause, does nothing to help those suffering now, and will only encourage other rogue groups around the world to do the same in the future, should it be globally sanctioned or ignored. Hamas has designed and planned for this style of war, spending years and stealing literally billions of aid money to protect its terrorist organisation and weaponry by building tunnels up to twice the length of the London Underground system underneath hospitals, schools, mosques and civilian infrastructure with its specific aim of using human shields to protect itself after provoking its neighbours. Genocidal antisemitism whether from the nazis or Hamas, brings only death and destruction to both Jews, and those under living under these regimes. For the sake of everyone wanting only to raise their families, have careers, build, move forward and live, this needs to be acknowledged and tackled by all of us. Never again is now. #HMD2024