People, Wake up: We're Reliving Prelude to WWII
The world idly observed Hitler's expansion of violence into neighboring countries until it escalated into a full-blown world war—history is repeating itself.
As Israeli bombs obliterate residential neighborhoods in Lebanon, burying innocent civilians under miles of rubble, the haunting echoes of one of history's darkest chapters reverberate through the ashes. Benjamin Netanyahu's unquenchable thirst for territorial expansion, coupled with the world's complicit silence in the face of escalating atrocities, conjures chilling parallels to the unfolding horrors that led to World War II and the systematic extermination of millions during the Holocaust.
At its core, the Nazi regime's genocidal campaign was driven by a poisonous ideology of Aryan racial supremacy that dehumanized and justified the industrialized slaughter of Jews, Roma, Slavs, and other groups deemed racially "inferior." Today, the Israeli government's brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people is similarly rooted in a disturbing belief in Jewish supremacy – a mindset that portrays the Arab populace as an existential threat to be crushed, displaced, and denied the most fundamental human rights.
Third Reich/Greater Israel
Just as Hitler's territorial conquests had no bounds, seeking to establish a mythical "Greater Germanic Reich" through endless military campaigns, so too does Netanyahu appear insatiable in his pursuit of a "Greater Israel." Each bombardment of Gaza, each expansion of violence into Lebanon and Syria, serves as another blood-soaked stepping stone towards that goal, fueled by ultra-nationalist rhetoric and the blind hatred intentionally stoked among the Israeli populace.
The parallels are striking: Hitler initiated wars of liquidation on an almost incomprehensible scale, aiming for total destruction and annihilation, with civilian populations as primary targets. Similarly, Israel demonstrates an utter disregard for Arab life, predominantly killing non-combatants—men, women, and children.
The parallels extend to the dehumanizing language employed to justify these atrocities. The Nazis branded their victims as subhuman vermin, Untermenschen, stripping them of their humanity to enable industrial-scale genocide. Likewise, Israeli officials have labeled the entire Arab population as 'human animals' whose children are all 'terrorists.' They use such vitriol to justify a wide range of depravities, including merciless sieges, indiscriminate bombings, mass rape and torture, and the complete erosion of basic civil liberties.
The West - Yet Again- Supports Racial Dominance, Ethnic Cleansing, and Genocide
As Hitler's Nazi regime consolidated power, it systematically dismantled democratic norms and individual freedoms, paving the way for unchecked oppression of dissenting voices. Meanwhile, Hitler's racial supremacist ideology, deeply rooted in European colonialism, found support in the West, with figures like Winston Churchill admiring his white supremacist values and European royal families seen giving the Nazi salute. This historical context bears a chilling resemblance to contemporary Israel's flagrant disregard for freedoms within its own borders, where the few existing counter-narratives are increasingly criminalized. Concurrently, the West violently represses anti-genocide protests and offers unquestioning support to Zionist supremacism and anti-Arab racism.
We must begin to ask ourselves, repeatedly and critically, why it is that every single Western culture seems to be built on racial supremacism and eventually becomes implicated, one way or another, in ethnic cleansing and genocide. Is there any Western culture that can truly exempt itself from this recurring pathology? - Yes, this includes the Irish (yes, also today). The past 600 years have provided ample evidence of this pattern, unlike any other so-called ‘civilization’.
Scholars, universities, and philosophers of the future should develop curricula around this question to explore why the West appears uniquely predisposed to commit violent atrocities against other human beings. Where does the recurring pattern of projecting its evil tendencies onto innocent victims, resulting time and again in the total eradication of an innocent people, come from? Only by grappling with this disturbing pattern can we hope to understand and perhaps disrupt its perpetuation.
As With Hitler, World Idly Observes Netanyahu’s Expansionism
Perhaps most haunting of all is the world's deafening silence that enabled such horrors to unfold before and during World War II, and which pervades to this day. As the Nazi war machine gathered strength, the international community's inaction and feckless condemnations emboldened Hitler's genocidal policies. The writing was on the wall: Hitler invaded one neighboring country after another, yet all the major powers remained paralyzed.
Today's global leaders display a similarly tragic indifference, offering little more than token statements as Israel's extermination of the Palestinian people continues and its bombardment of Lebanon's cities intensifies with each passing day.
The lessons from the unconscionable atrocities of World War II should have been permanently seared into the human conscience as a revolting nadir that can never be allowed to repeat itself. Yet, as Israel's relentless pursuit of its own 'Greater Israel' continues unchecked with the world's tacit approval, chilling echoes reverberate across the blood-soaked lands of West Asia. Even the UN, established to prevent such horrors after World War II, exhibits the same idle inertia as the rest of the world, suggesting that we have not progressed one inch, underscoring its uselessness.
In a final, defiant act that may well mark the United Nations' death knell, Benjamin Netanyahu, just a day ago, spat in the face of world leaders—including major powers like China and Russia—by denouncing the global organization as a pro-Palestinian "house of darkness" during a speech at the UN headquarters. Compounding this brazen affront, Netanyahu also published a picture of himself ordering the mass slaughter of Lebanese civilians while present at the UN, a stark and chilling reminder of his disregard for international opinion and human life.
Hitler could only be stopped by intervention
If we fail to heed the warnings, spelled out in the ashen remnants of Gaza and Lebanon, then we are doomed to witness history's darkest chapters replicated in their most horrific forms. The choice is as clear as the smoking rubble of Lebanon's shattered streets – confront this harsh reality and break the cycle of violence and oppression, or bear witness to the resurgence of destructive forces we had professed to banish to the abyss of the past.
Hitler could only be stopped by intervention. Instead of leaving it all up to the heroic, but heavily underarmed Arab resistance, the world should stop Netanyahu now, before we are all sitting among dropping bombs.
- Karim
I agree with this analysis. My son recently said, “This must be what it was like watching Hitler’s army in Europe.” Our leaders are not spineless cowards, instead they are the cheerleaders just as many were prior to the outbreak of war - and even during.
Powerful (and frightening) piece of writing. And there's nothing, really, to argue with. And just as Canada refused entry to Jews fleeing Hitler, so too my country has made it near-impossible for Palestinians to arrive here; one young woman just had her visa cancelled while she was mid-flight from Istanbul. It is beyond inhuman.