We Promised “Never Again”

 

We Promised “Never Again”

History does not have to repeat itself exactly before we are required to recognize it.

 

R.M. Westerink; September 2026 

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called for Israel to kill “30 to 40” people in Gaza every night. Not only those presenting an immediate danger, he explained. Some people, he said, are “not worthy of life.” They are “not even people.”

He also declared all of Gaza to be Israeli territory, called for settlements throughout it and advocated encouraging as many Palestinians as possible to leave.[1]

These are not the words of an anonymous extremist. They are the words of a serving minister in the government of Israel.

If this does not sound the alarm, what would?

The Comparison We Are Afraid to Make

The Holocaust was unique in its historical circumstances, organization and murderous scope. But that cannot mean that it teaches us nothing until another Holocaust has been completed.

No historical comparison depends on perfect equality. History never repeats itself precisely. What returns are recognizable mechanisms: people divided into those whose lives count and those whose lives do not; an entire population associated with an enemy; expulsion presented as necessity; cruelty normalized through official language; responsibility dispersed until nobody appears responsible.

That is why comparison with the Holocaust is relevant—particularly for Israel.

The point is not that Israel is Nazi Germany. The point is that “Never Again” was supposed to establish a universal obligation: when a state begins stripping a people of their humanity, we must recognize the danger before we know its final extent.

If the Holocaust may be invoked only to defend Jews, but never to defend others against recognizable processes of dehumanization, its lesson has been reduced from a universal warning to an instrument of national exemption.

That cannot be its moral meaning.

We Know How the Descent Begins

Mass violence does not begin with mass killing. It begins by changing the moral status of its intended victims.

They become animals, terrorists, infiltrators or an existential danger. Their individual identities disappear. Children, civilians, doctors and journalists become members of a suspect population. Their deaths are explained as unavoidable. Their hunger becomes leverage. Their displacement becomes voluntary “emigration.” Their land becomes someone else’s security requirement.

The atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October 2023 were real and indefensible. But no crime committed against Israelis can remove the humanity or legal protection of Palestinians. Justice does not permit one atrocity to place an entire people outside morality.

Ben-Gvir’s language matters because it reveals where the boundary is moving. He is no longer merely defending excessive violence as an unfortunate necessity. He is openly identifying people who, in his judgment, should not live.

Meanwhile, settlement and annexation pressures continue in the occupied West Bank. The International Court of Justice concluded in 2024 that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful and that its settlement policy violates international law.[2] What is happening in Gaza and what is happening in the West Bank are not identical. But both increasingly point toward the same political horizon: Palestinians removed, confined or permanently subordinated so that Israeli control can expand.

Responsibility Is Being Organized Away

Israel’s leaders invoke security. Military institutions invoke orders and operational necessity. Western governments invoke Israel’s right to defend itself. European institutions issue warnings but struggle to attach consequences. Citizens are told that the conflict is too complicated for moral clarity.

This is how responsibility disappears.

It does not actually disappear. It passes along a chain.

The politician who legitimizes dehumanization bears responsibility. The institution that converts it into policy bears responsibility. The ally that supplies weapons or diplomatic protection bears responsibility. The government that condemns violations while preserving the material relationships that help enable those violations bears responsibility.

And once the evidence is openly available, citizens and political representatives must also decide what they are prepared to accept in their name.

Silence is not always approval. But prolonged silence by those with influence becomes permission.

Never Again Is Being Tested

After the Holocaust, the world promised that it would learn to recognize the road toward organized inhumanity.

That promise is not tested when remembering past crimes is easy. It is tested when recognition carries political cost—when the state responsible is an ally, when the victims are unpopular, and when speaking clearly attracts accusations of disloyalty or antisemitism.

Antisemitism is real and must be confronted. But opposing the dehumanization, dispossession or killing of Palestinians is not hostility toward Jews. It is an application of the same universal human principle that makes antisemitism intolerable.

Indeed, many Israelis and Jews around the world are themselves sounding this alarm. They understand that Jewish history cannot confer permission to disregard the humanity of another people.

Israel is not exempt from the moral lessons of Jewish history. No nation is.

We Cannot Say We Did Not Know

We can see Gaza. We can see the West Bank. We can hear the words spoken by Israeli ministers. We know the legal findings. We know that warnings without consequences have not stopped the deterioration.

What remains is not a question of knowledge.

It is a question of courage and responsibility.

Governments that still possess political, economic and military influence over Israel must use it: suspend assistance that may facilitate violations, impose consequences for settlement and annexation policies, protect humanitarian access and make clear that official incitement to expulsion or killing places political leaders beyond normal diplomatic acceptance.

The threshold for action cannot be the completion of an atrocity. By then, “Never Again” has already failed.

History will not ask whether Gaza was identical to the Holocaust.

It will ask whether the warning signs were visible.

They are.

The alarm is sounding.

And this time, we cannot say we did not know.

References

[1] Frank Andrews, “Senior Israeli official calls for killing of ‘30 to 40’ people in Gaza every night,” CBS News, 17 August 2026.
[2] International Court of Justice, Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, 19 July 2024.