CIJR | Canadian Institute for Jewish Research
L'institut Canadien de Recherches sur le Judaisme

Analysis

From Hitler to Hamas: A Genealogy of Evil

Prof. David Patterson
ISGAP, Oct. 17, 2023
 
“What Hamas has in common with Hitler is not merely the desire to exterminate the Jews.  No, it is this: exterminationist Jew hatred forms a definitive, foundational basis for their entire worldview.”
 
In recent days the word Hamas has been all over the media.  Protesters around the world have come out in support of the murderous terrorists, denying the truth of the photos that Hamas themselves have posted, much as their compatriots deny the Holocaust.  The organization has earned its notoriety not through its “fight for freedom” or any humanitarian endeavor but through acts of sheer, unabashed, mind-numbing, head-spinning horror—acts of premeditated, systematically perpetrated evil.  By now many people have heard their name, but very few know much about their history, genealogy, ideology, and aims.  Here I shall briefly lay out that background so that we may better understand of whom and what we are speaking when we say, “Hamas.”  It begins with the Nazis.  Yes, the Nazis.

National Socialism emerged not only from social, political, and other vicissitudes of modern Germany but also from the convergence of religious, philosophical, and cultural expressions of a modern Jew hatred that surpassed every manifestation to date: it was an antisemitism foundational to Nazi thinking and exterminationist in its aims.  In 1922 Adolf Hitler told German journalist Josef Hell, “Once I am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews.” 

He also declared to Hermann Rauschning that, as Führer, his mission in life was to destroy the “tyrannical God of the Jews” and His “life-denying Ten Commandments.” The object of extermination, then, was not only the Jews but also the teaching and testimony of Judaism—the Holy One Himself—that the Jews represent through their very presence in the world.  Here we see exactly what the antisemite, both Nazi and Jihadist, is anti-, what the exterminationist antisemite seeks to exterminate in the extermination of the Jews. 

… [To read the full article, click here]

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