From The Holocaust To Israel, “The Man In The Street”

Last month, the International Day of Holocaust was commemorated everywhere in the free world. “I remember”, was the hashtag of the day, as usual. It has again been a warning to all people who do not want to hear about and those who do not wish to see about the atrocities that have been committed and may be committed in the future.

Racism, xenophobia, antisemitism is still among us and infiltrate into vast piles of people worldwide. It’s unfortunate to see that even today, despite all the lessons that humanity could withdraw from the Holocaust, we are again coming across discrimination, intimidation, ethnic cleansing, direct and indirect extermination… What a shame?

In Turkey, where I come from, the Holocaust is not known as it should be. The “man in the street” is either unaware of what went on during WW2 or knows very poorly and has his fixed ideas about it. We can easily conclude that there is a solid base for Holocaust denial. For him, the “man in the street”, the Holocaust is exaggerated: Either it has never happened, or it’s a tale of deliberate false reckoning.

For him, The Holocaust is the malice that Jews have taken advantage of to create the Jewish State, despite what the Arabs deserved. Building a link between the Holocaust and Israel is very common and connotes a negative perception. For him, Hitler should have fulfilled his task of the final solution, and it’s a pity that he was banned from doing so by the Soviets and the Americans, both having solid Jewish connections. 

For him, Europe is the culprit of the Jewish elimination; however, the Muslims had to pay dearly: losing their lands being forced out to live as refugees in camps with a broken national pride. This national pride that has been substituted by a kind of religious brotherhood among Arabs is, for some time, being systematically used by the ruling regime in Turkey to consolidate its supporters. 

For him, that Jews – who have suffered so much from the atrocities of the Nazi regime – give a hard time to Muslims in Palestine should be a shame for them. To link Israel to Nazi Germany, to blame Zionism for the course of the problems between the Palestinians and Israel, is quite popular. This has put the Palestinian flag with the swastika very often together during the many anti-Israel demonstrations in Istanbul. So, not only is there the banalisation of the Holocaust but also the de-legitimization and demonization of Israel, in the approach of the “man in the Turkish streets”… However, this is a learned situation.