Former White House aide Sarah Hurwitz, who served as a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama, warned this week that Holocaust education was “confusing” young people into sympathizing with “weak, skinny Palestinians” instead of “powerful Israelis.”

She continued:

“You have TikTok just smashing our young people’s brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza, and this is why so many of us can’t have a sane conversation with younger Jews, because anything that we try to say to them, they’re hearing it through this wall of carnage. So I want to give data and information and facts and arguments, and they’re just seeing in their minds carnage, and I sound obscene.”

And you know, I think, unfortunately, the very smart bet that we made on Holocaust education to serve as anti-Semitism education, in this new media environment, I think that is beginning to break down a little bit because, you know, Holocaust education is absolutely essential, but I think it may be confusing some of our young people about anti-Semitism, because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews and then they think, “Oh, anti-Semitism is like anti-black racism, right? Powerful white people against powerless black people.” So, when on TikTok all day long they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it’s not surprising that they think, “Oh I know, the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel. You fight the big powerful people hurting the weak people.”

  • Dearth@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Conflating the state of Israel and criticism of the actions of the state of Israel with anti- semitism is doing the work of anti-semites.

  • ubersolver@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Basically saying "We accidentally taught kids that the powerful preying on the weak and powerless is evil and now they can only see the carnage when we tell them to support the genociders like they’re supposed to.

    We accidentally gave them the critical thinking skills to identify fascism-fueled genocide and this is bad because now we’re the ones trying to do it and they can’t see past all the carnage and genocide their tax dollars are sponsoring when we try to convince them to support it. Stupid kids."

  • Cyrus Draegur@lemmy.zip
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    13 hours ago

    We know that we’re looking at: a Holocaust.

    That’s literally what’s actually fucking happening.

    Palestine is experiencing a Holocaust.

    And the fascist state of Israel is inflicting it.

    So yeah. Holocaust education worked.

  • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    So her argument is that the lesson of the Holocaust was NOT that racism is wrong, that religious intolerance is wrong, that the overwhelming power of the strong used on the weak is wrong, that systemic genocide and ethnic cleansing are wrong. No, the lesson of the Holocaust is that antisemitism, AND SPECIFICALLY ONLY ANTISEMITISM, is wrong. You fucking moronic children that are angry over a powerful Jewish ethnostate systematically genociding and ethnic cleansing a weaker population due to their race and religion… you’ve missed the point of your Holocoaust education! Being Jewish makes their actions right, and saying otherwise is antisemitic.

    Jesus fucking Christ, lady. You have managed to amplify this stupid antisemitic argument to absurd levels by claiming Holocaust education should, in fact, lead one to support carnage and genocide. A new low. You’re a monster, congrats.

    • Omgpwnies@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      But, like, Palestinians are by definition also semites, so it’s now antisemitism to criticize semites committing antisemitisim…

      • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        You’re semantically correct, but that isn’t the colloquial understanding of the term, nor what they mean when they say ‘antisemitism’.

  • grte@lemmy.ca
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    18 hours ago

    “Oh I know, the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel. You fight the big powerful people hurting the weak people.”

    Yes, that’s the lesson of the holocaust. If in your mind the lesson of the holocaust is that Israel get one free genocide, you are fucking psychotic.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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      15 hours ago

      The fact that those words came out of her mouth and she didn’t immediately stop and go “Oh, fuck, I’m the bad guy here” is completely insane. How cooked does your brain have to be for you to even be able to say something like that in the first place?

      • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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        13 hours ago

        It’s pretty clear she’s gotten past this contradiction long ago.

        So the answer is fried into a crisp

    • Cyrus Draegur@lemmy.zip
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      13 hours ago

      PRECISELY!

      Israel, of all factions, should know better than anyone:

      INFLICTING
      A
      HOLOCAUST
      IS,
      um, *checks notes*
      BAD,
      ACTUALLY.

    • xyzzy@lemmy.today
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      15 hours ago

      The lesson in her mind and the minds of those who think like her is that Jews were victims in the Holocaust, therefore the state of Israel has an unrestricted right to do anything it wants in the name of security. It can commit systematic mass murder and terrorism against the entire population of Gaza, it can turn a blind eye when Israeli terrorists do the same in the West Bank, it can shamelessly spy on and steal technology from its closest ally, it can negotiate in bad faith. Nothing matters because the thought process begins with “Israel is in the right.” Everything flows from that belief.

      • Cyrus Draegur@lemmy.zip
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        13 hours ago

        Oh yeah that makes sense–you see, if a crime is done to you, you’re ALLOWED to do it to others yourself forever! It’s EXACTLY like how people who were victims of trafficking and molestation when they were children get a free pass to rape all the kids they could ever want to for the rest of their lives, right? /s

    • diverging@piefed.social
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      14 hours ago

      No, you’re still not getting it. She’s saying that Jews that are the master race, so they get to do as many genocides as they want.

  • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    We are not confused and neither are those kids. You show them what happened in germany and they rightfully compare it to what is happening today.

  • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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    12 hours ago

    But that’s exactly the lesson. You help the weak supressed civilians against the powerful authoritarian racist military.

    Religion is not the part that mattered in the Holocaust.

    • Cyrus Draegur@lemmy.zip
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      13 hours ago

      I’m no marvelhead but Captain America nailed it:

      “I don’t like bullies. I don’t care where they’re from.”