Jenin | FirstOneThrough

In November 2005, the United Nations decided to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the few surviving Jews from the Auschwitz Death Camp in Poland on January 27, 1945, as an International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On that day, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that the Holocaust is “a unique evil which cannot simply be consigned to the past and forgotten.”

The reality is that the lust for Jewish blood is very much a part of the present.

In December 2022, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) published its latest poll. It showed a dramatic spike in the number of West Bank Arabs in favor of killing Israeli Jews. The gap in Jewish blood lust between Gazans and West Bank Arabs was at the narrowest level since the Second Intifada / Two Percent War.

The results of the PCPSR poll were depressing, showing Palestinian support for terrorism against Israeli Jews and a rejection of a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. In particular, Arabs showed vigorous support for new terrorist groups emerging in Jenin which had committed a number of deadly attacks inside of Israel.

On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance, when the world pretends in understands #NeverAgain, the Israeli Defense Forces launched a raid to capture several terrorists in Jenin who had committed, and were planning to launch, terrorist attacks. The IDF was successful in eliminating several terrorists when the Arabs opened fire on the soldiers, and left Jenin without the loss of any IDF troops. Two West Bank civilians were killed according to reports from Arab media.

About twelve hours earlier, U.S. forces killed a top leader of the Islamic State and ten other fighters in a raid in Somalia, without the loss of any American troops. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the terrorist “was responsible for fostering the growing presence of ISIS in Africa and for funding the group’s operations worldwide, including in Afghanistan.”

And just a few hours before the U.S. raid, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said “terrorism remains a global scourge — an affront to humanity on every level. It affects people of all ages, cultures, religions and nationalities.” Indeed, as the U.S. and Israeli raids against terrorism highlighted.

But there’s an important difference.

Gutteres pointed out that terrorism “is a global scourge” which impacts all religions and nationalities. Lloyd Austin mentioned that the Islamic State was building a base “in Africa… worldwide, including in Afghanistan.”

But Palestinian terrorist groups are only coming for the Jews, and the majority of Palestinian society supports them. These terrorists are not a fringe radical group but represent a mainstream sentiment. That desire elected a Holocaust denier to the presidency in the last Palestinian election and will likely vote a terrorist as president in the next.

Many actively deny this reality. We pretend that targeting Jews was “consigned to the past” and the occasional terrorist attack in Israel is part of a “global scourge” which “finds its home in vacuums” as Gutteres opined.

It’s not. It’s grounded in a perverse anti-Semitism.

As we remember the 6 million Jews murdered by Nazis and their collaborators, let us not forget the “unique evil” was that Jews were systematically targeted for annihilation. So it was in Europe in the 1940’s, and remains so among Palestinian Arabs in the holy land today.