Key Takeaways:
- Since October 7, 2023, voices on social media have increasingly labeled the war in Gaza a “Holocaust,” and in doing so distort the term and the memory of the Holocaust.
- As Holocaust memory is reframed as a political benchmark rather than a specific historical crime, the murder of six million Jews is reduced to a rhetorical tool, thereby warping public understanding and erasing Jewish suffering.
- This distortion constitutes a recognized form of antisemitism, normalizing Holocaust inversion and comparison in ways that dishonor survivors, undermine historical truth, and fuel post-October 7 propaganda.
It takes a serious lack of empathy and general understanding of history to revise the Holocaust to serve an unrelated political and emotional goal. The systematic and state-driven campaign designed to annihilate the Jewish people is a historical event without any parallel and is commemorated on International Holocaust Memorial Day this week, on January 27. The scale, industrialization, and intent of absolute destruction remain imprinted in the collective memory of the Jewish people.
Yet, during the Israel-Hamas war, a new and worrying trend has emerged whereby the memory of the Holocaust has been distorted in order to be misappropriated to the war in Gaza.
In every acceptable definition of antisemitism, denial, distortion, and inversion of the Holocaust is stated to be a manifestation of antisemitism. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition specifically notes that “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is a contemporary expression of antisemitism.
This has not stopped a large number of people online from doing exactly that. Even in the days immediately following Hamas’ October 7 massacre, people flocked online to refer to Israel’s war campaign as a “genocide.” The weaponization of the term genocide quickly took form, with definitions shifting to fit false accusations against Israel.
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Throughout the war, this language was continuously weaponized to frame Israel as the “new Nazi regime” while Gazan civilians became those living through a “Holocaust.” In October 2023, Arab outlets began describing the war as “the Gaza Holocaust.” International outlets such as The New Yorker published a piece that created a false connection between the Nazis and Israeli war conduct against Hamas, while the radical Israeli publication +972 Magazine helped push forward this narrative as legitimate criticism of the war in Gaza.
❌ Holocaust inversion
❌ Comparing Israelis to NazisGrotesque antisemitism legitimized by a radical extremist Israeli media outlet.@972mag — the source of the fake 83% Gazan civilian casualties story — has really hit rock bottom. pic.twitter.com/wRkMYBkCso
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 19, 2025
When the ceasefire was announced, however, this trend grew even larger, particularly with Palestinians living in Gaza who proclaimed online that they had “survived the Holocaust.” Yet, there is no possibility that they “survived the Holocaust” for this term refers specifically and exclusively to Holocaust survivors who survived years of systematic and genocidal persecution by the Nazi regime. By 1945, two out of three Jews living in Eastern Europe had been killed. No survivor in Nazi-occupied Europe documented their genocide in real time, posed for a camera, or framed their survival as content.
I’m a holocaust survivor
Free Palestine ??✌? pic.twitter.com/ekMHa3rV3m— Dr.SAEB_FROM_GAZA (@Dr_SaebGaza) October 11, 2025
Nonetheless, data by CyberWell reveals that in the six months leading up to the October 2025 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the term “Gazan Holocaust” appeared in over 525,000 posts on X. In the five days following the signing of the agreement, there were 20,000 posts with phrases referring to individuals as “survivors” of the Holocaust in Gaza.
Posts with such references are not just from bots with few followers and little reach, but rather from powerful platforms. Mehdi Hasan, for instance, is regarded as a legitimate voice due to his founding of the media company Zeteo and previous employment at MSNBC. To his nearly two million followers on X, he shared that what is happening in Gaza is this generation’s version of the Holocaust or Rwandan genocide. Perhaps worse, the post Hasan responded to used imagery from the Warsaw Ghetto, further attempting to blur the abundantly clear distinction between the Gaza war and the mass murder of the Jewish people under the Nazi regime.
We are doing this. Our governments. Our taxes. Our arms sales.
This is our Holocaust. Our Cambodian killing fields. Our Balkans. Our Rwandan genocide.
We are doing this and history will never forgive us.
Gaza: https://t.co/4Q1uzTn7aB
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) July 19, 2025
The “journalist” Max Blumenthal has similarly followed in Hasan’s path, referring to the war as a Holocaust committed by an “apartheid state.” Worryingly, this comes in response to a post expressing deep concern over the brutality of the Iranian regime as it has been cracking down on protesters. Blumenthal’s post marks yet another sub-trend that has emerged since the protests in Iran broke out, whereby Jewish voices expressing genuine worry for innocent Iranians are seen as disingenuous because Jews are collectively held responsible for the war against Hamas in Gaza.
Thank you, Mark, for your false solidarity with Iranians whose lives you helped ruin with sanctions, and whose targeting with Israeli bombs you zealously welcome
After two years of denying the Holocaust committed in Gaza by the apartheid state you serve, we expect nothing less pic.twitter.com/hgQkk1Kdjl
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) January 23, 2026
Beyond journalists, Nerdeen Kiswani, a Palestinian activist and the founder of the extreme anti-Israel organization Within Our Lifetime (WOL), accused the Jewish state on its Holocaust memorial day of remembering the Holocaust by committing one. Her deliberate timing further exemplifies how Holocaust memory is distorted rather than being used to educate and remember.
Remember the holocaust by committing another one against the Palestinian people… https://t.co/ACCLDWBo0p
— Nerdeen Kiswani (@NerdeenKiswani) April 24, 2025
The Holocaust was a state-run, industrial campaign of annihilation against Jews, not a label to be claimed for online validation. Reducing it to a cheap talking point aimed at maximum reach on social media strips it of historical meaning, erases Jewish suffering, and normalizes the weaponization of Holocaust memory that has increasingly defined post-October 7 discourse.
This very weaponization dishonors the few remaining Holocaust survivors whose lived testimony is now being overpowered by propaganda. They deserve to have their memories and stories of survival against systematic destruction preserved and honored with dignity.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
