The headline of this article at the Huffington Post says: Ammon Bundy Blames Jews for the Holocaust at Idaho Anti-Lockdown Rally.
The headline is accurate, but the headline is misleading without context. Ammon Bundy was not speaking as some sort of Holocaust denier, nor was he saying something only an anti-Semite would say. In fact, Bundy was repeating what Orthodox Jewish rabbis and right wingers in Israel are often still fond of saying to Israeli Jews of European heritage, which is the following: German, and later European, Jews were too passive in allowing the Nazis to get into a position where the Jews were easily taken away and killed. Better to be martyrs than sheep to the slaughter. In the first decade or so after WWII, one heard this viewpoint among Israelis across the political spectrum, essentially calling Holocaust survivors wimps.
I am definitely not at all defending what Bundy said. In fact, it is time to completely knock down the analogy, no matter who makes it. The analogy fails at every level. Every single level. First, it was better for Germany's Jews to run in the period of 1933-1939. In fact, nearly 70% of Germany's Jews escaped from Germany during that period--and survived. Second, once Germany began its invasion of Poland in August 1939, it became impossible for Jews in Poland, Eastern Europe, and the Baltic States to stop the German Army. And this was because the German army overwhelmed those nations, but also something worse: Lots of the locals in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States were eager to join in finding and killing Jews, so that even if the Jews had arms, even more would have been killed by the overwhelming forces of the German army and locals who were enabling the killing of entire families of Jews. Even when Jews in Warsaw, Poland were able to procure lots of guns and ammunition, the Jews there were overpowered by superior arms and ammo. The Warsaw Ghetto Jews were far more like the Israeli martyrs around 70 AD/CE., who died on the mountaintop at Masada after being surrounded by Rome's far superior armies. Contrast the plight of Jews in Europe with how Israeli Jews, in 1947-1948, had equal or superior arms to the Arab nations, and were gathered in a small enough place where the numbers of Israeli soldiers were sufficiently equal against the number of disorganized and infighting Arab soldiers from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. See here for a summary of Benny Morris' book on the 1947-1948 war. And dammit, Bundy, we are talking about sheltering in place during a pandemic, not Nazis intentionally targeting and killing Jews.
So, maybe now that a right wing nut like Bundy has used this disgustingly wrong analogy, it is time for American Jews to verbally pulverize anyone, including any Israeli Jew, who uses that analogy. The analogy is factually wrong at every level, and is a cruelly immoral insult to Holocaust victims. But, please mark my words. This analogy is still uttered in dark corners of Israeli society, and too many Israeli Jews are afraid to admit they find the analogy appealing. For the analogy also speaks to Israeli society's justification for the continued oppression of Palestinians. It is part of the whole Magneto "Let's get them before they get us, and before it's too late" mindset. In short, too many Israeli Jews these days think more like Ammon Bundy, and have left behind the philosophies of Martin Buber (and yeah, I know Buber's limits, too).
