Holocaust and Zionism, debunking a dangerous myth

Looking back at Holocaust Remembrance Day of 2025, it is vital to debunk the dangerous myth that Israel was created as compensation for the murder of six million Jews. Not only does this falsehood delegitimizes Israel and Jewish sovereignty, it fuels the same virulent antisemitism that sparked the Holocaust, which merely continued to simmer beneath the surface until it surged again after October 7th.

No, the Jewish State was not born from the ashes of the Holocaust, but from the Jewish people’s millennia-old yearning for their ancestral homeland — the land where they would fulfill their destiny, both individually and collectively. Jews did not “steal” this land. Early pioneers legally purchased it from the Ottomans to establish modern agricultural settlements. So, no, Jews are not “thieves.”

Nor are they false victims. Jews do not and cannot wallow in victimhood. It’s not a Jewish thing for one, and anyway, whenever they pull the victim card, they are either unheard, silenced or accused of lying or accused of playing the eternal victim card. Jew-haters have long denied Jews even the right to grieve. Before the Holocaust, across Europe, Jews were the scapegoats for all ills. They were subject to racial, economic and religious stereotypes and accused of blood libel (killing children for rituals) , deicide, and even mass murder (well-poisoning). These antisemitic accusations led to discrimination, expulsions and pogroms culminating in Nazi ideology and the Holocaust. In Arab countries, the dhimmi status of Jews made them vulnerable to similar accusations, also leading to discrimination, violence and pogroms. Back then, Jews had nowhere to go or to hide. They were victims but they were accused of perpetrating crimes. This victim inversion happened after the Holocaust too: after Jew-haters either denied, minimized or cleared it of its Jewish particularity, they accused the Jews of committing genocide. This inversion reached new heights after Hamas’s October 7th massacre and rapes: Israel is being widely accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing – and not just by a few Islam-loving wokists but by western state representatives and international institutions. This grotesque distortion in which Pro-Palestinian supporters accuse Israel of genocide and call for a Palestinian State to replace Israel not only erases Jewish suffering, it revokes Israel’s legitimacy and by doing so it aligns with genocidal regimes and terror organizations like Iran or Hamas.

Pro-Palestinian protests near the March of the Living in Auschwitz—attended this year by recently freed hostages—epitomize this shameless inversion. Palestinian flags waved at an event so seminal to Jewish revival denies truth and memory – not just victimhood. Jews are not interested in victimhood – but we are bound to memory. “Remember what Amalek did to you” God commands. The aim of this remembrance is not to wallow in the past, but to learn its lessons as we move forward. The March of the Living symbolizes that spirit: to remember, to cry and mourn but always moving forward. Because Judaism sanctifies life over death. So having a Palestinian flag which stands for an ideology that sanctifies death is an attempt at robbing our people of its worst memory as well as of its vital force. Similarly, anti-Israel protests on university campuses—supposed bastions of free speech—undermine freedom itself: one of Zionism’s main values. Whereas Zionism is a positive and constructive force, newly-formed Palestinianism is defined by the negation of Jewish sovereignty. In 1947, Jews accepted the UN Partition Plan, even with untenable borders and the exclusion of its eternal capital Jerusalem. Arab irredentism, on the other hand, rejected any compromise – and has done so ever since. At the time, the main unifying force of the local Arab population – mostly non-indigenous, tribal and divided, and recently migrated from Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon to flee economic hardship and seize work opportunities created by the Jewish Yishuv – was opposition and violence towards Jewish presence and sovereignty. By 1948, Israel had running institutions and infrastructure and it functioned as a de facto state. Had it existed earlier, countless lives might have been saved.

All these lies fuel a new wave of antisemitism, more insidious than Nazi propaganda. Denying Israel’s right to exist assaults the core of Jewish identity. It empowers terrorist organizations and regimes that openly call for another genocide. Israel was established not because of the Holocaust, but in spite of it. Had the Nazis succeeded, there would be no Israel. And had Jews sunk into despair, the State would not exist. Instead, Jews rose and worked harder toward their homeland. Zionism is not the consequence of antisemitism and Israel is not the consequence of the Holocaust. Antisemitism and threats of a new genocide seem to be inherent to the very existence of Jews and by extension, of Zionism. Israel’s roots precede the Holocaust. While the Shoah intensified its urgency, it did not create the Zionist project. Jewish yearning for Zion is ancient. It was the first commandment to Abraham and remains a spiritual and practical compass, reflected in prayer, ritual, and memory. The return to Zion began long before Herzl or Jabotinsky. Zionism is not a product of antisemitism, though it matured and materialized in its shadow. It is a 2,000-year-old project rooted in Jewish consciousness—a return to sovereignty that would serve as a beacon for mankind.

Since October 7th, many Jews have rediscovered their identity not through victimhood or through antisemitism but through renewed purpose —with Zionism, a living, and more essential work in progress, at its core. It is the duty and privilege of Jews—both in Israel and the diaspora outpost—to strengthen the Jewish state so it can fulfill its destiny as a light unto the nations. Zionism offers hope not just for Jews, but for all people.

Israel and Zionism, are not the consequence of antisemitism and the Holocaust but they are the just response to the Holocaust—and to October 7th. Zionism is the ultimate and only viable answer to antisemitism. On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, let us recall that Zionism begins with Jewish unity. The awe-inspiring momentum following October 7th must continue to fuel and elevate the Zionist enterprise. In Israel, Yom HaShoah is known as Yom HaShoah VeHaGevurah—Holocaust and Heroism Day. And, just as Yom Hazikaron is followed by Yom HaAtzmaut, we mourn and we rise. We remember the horror and honor the heroism—those who fought, resisted, and sacrificed their lives. The Jewish people were not born to be victims and they have shown that they can rise from the ashes. With every blow, we grow stronger.