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# Stop Comparing October 7 to the Holocaust
October 19 2026
Written by Abbe Gurko.
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APPLES & ORANGES - **The Holocaust is not a metaphor.** What Hamas did to innocent civilians on October 7 was savage, and I will never minimize it. But comparing it to the Holocaust doesn’t track. It was nowhere near the scale or residual effects of the Holocaust, the deadliest slaughter of Jews in history.
Yes, the destruction in Gaza is awful, but what’s worse is Hamas’s use of Palestinian civilians as human shields makes this whole war unconscionable and inexcusable. Yet somehow, a huge swath of the mindless pro-Palestinian movement continues to rally around Hamas and give our enemies a free pass.
The comparison flattens the Holocaust. The word *genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer, in 1944, while Nazi crimes were still underway. It was meant to name the destruction of peoples. Now the word is being used to accuse Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, undercutting the Jewish state's right to defend itself from day one—which is the inversion of truth.
October 7 does not need to be wrapped in the framework of the Holocaust—or the word *genocide*—to be understood as a horrific attack on the Jewish people. Worse, comparing it to the Holocaust makes it sound as if we’re trying to garner pity. These people will never feel sorry for us. The comparison was a massive messaging mistake.
Perhaps the biggest missed opportunity was not releasing all the footage Hamas filmed on October 7 for the whole world to witness everywhere: on repeat, owning the algorithm, shoving it down the world’s throat relentlessly, day after day, week after week, until it gave everyone nightmares.
The boogeyman is real.
Those two communication failures helped get us where we are now, which, as many of you will agree, is not a good place. Netanyahu failed to have a professional communications team in place at the start of the war. By the time his office brought in foreign-media spokespeople, the propaganda war against Israel had already taken hold.
**“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” —The Captain, *Cool Hand Luke***
For those of us who lost parents, grandparents and so much more, comparing October 7 to the Holocaust feels borderline blasphemous. The comparison has paved the way for idiots en masse to call Israel Nazi Germany and compare the IDF to stormtroopers—not the ones in *Star Wars*, but the ones who killed my family. They are not making a serious historical comparison. They are using the Holocaust as a weapon.
And it’s what’s making this moment so infuriating. The word *genocide* is now used in headlines, on campuses, on placards, on podcasts with idiots, and in circle-jerk conversations—as if declaring it ends the debate. Legacy media **is**tossing the word *genocide* across the social media playing field like a football while playing footsie with radical Islam. It does NOT end the debate. I reject the way the accusation is being used to turn Israel into the embodiment of evil and Jews into people the world must wrongly condemn.
Every Jew and Christian whose family members were murdered by the Nazi regime during World War II should reject it, too. This is an ongoing war waged by vile radical Islamists against a productive nation and its people. Their ambitions extend far beyond little old Israel.
And don’t even try to hand me a line of bullshit about the ICJ, the ICC, the UN or Al Jazeera being neutral authorities that wear the word *genocide* like a badge of honor. Their pronouncements do not settle the argument. They have been proven useless, compromised, and probably paid hacks—not impartial arbiters of this conflict and surely not absolute truth. They have forfeited all credibility with me by repeatedly failing to treat Jewish lives and Israeli suffering fairly. Misreporting does not make you right.
What happened to Israelis—and many non-Israelis—on October 7 keeps getting pushed to the margins. The Hamas-led attack is treated as background noise, silenced, or worse—as the excuse for why Hamas are the heroes in this story.
Frankly, if I see one more weepy, far-left Jew on social media trying to educate lobotomy-needing “antisemitic antizionists” whose minds have already been propagandized into mush and who have totally lost the plot, I will scream.
**In case you forgot the plot: It’s all about Jews being and feeling safe in their own homes.**
The Holocaust was the Holocaust. October 7 was October 7. Gaza is Gaza, which is not a Holocaust. Nor is it legally a genocide.
I am angry. I have reason to be angry. And I won’t be silent just because people would prefer to hear the accusation rather than the truth.
***(ABE GURKO** is a writer and author of Won’t Be Silent—Don’t Stop ’til It Matters, and a producer of the documentary. LOUDER: The Soundtrack of Change. He is an opinionator and host of the podcast Won’t Be Silent, engaging in conversations from the edge of democracy. Abe is a contributor to CityWatchLA.com)*
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