If Sunday’s speech by Irish President Michael Higgins in commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day is any indication, the world is still more comfortable honoring dead Jews than defending live ones.
In a grotesque distortion of the meaning of the day, which is meant to commemorate the six million Jews who were slaughtered at the hands of the Nazis, Higgins spewed disdain for Israel, the refuge and guardian of Jews and the insurance policy that the Holocaust will not repeat itself.
Higgins not only injected equivalency to Israel’s war in Gaza to free the hostages held by Hamas after it brutally attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, but focused on the humanitarian situation in Gaza instead of the more than 90 hostages still held captive by the brutal terrorist group.
“The grief caused to families by the horrific acts of October 7, and the response to them, is unimaginable. The loss of civilian lives, the displacement of people, the destruction of homes and institutions – all are beyond comprehension,” Higgins said. “The current agreement must end the killing and urgently provide a massive increase in humanitarian aid to save more lives.”
Transparently attempting to connect the Holocaust to Israel’s actions in Gaza over the last 16 months, Higgins said, “When wars and conflicts become accepted or presented as seemingly unending, humanity is a loser. War is not the natural condition of humanity: cooperation is.”
Unfassbar !!! Der irische Präsident Michael D. Higgins nutzte ausgerechnet die Bühne des Internationalen Holocaust-Gedenktags, um Israel wegen des Kriegs in Gaza scharf zu kritisieren. Juden im Publikum, die ihren Unmut äußerten, wurden kurzerhand gewaltsam aus dem Saal geworfen. pic.twitter.com/UVvseMnwgV
— Ahmad Mansour ️ (@AhmadMansour__) January 26, 2025
How does this correspond?
He addressed “the heavy price” paid during the conflict: “the loss of civilian life, the majority women and children, their displacement, loss of homes: the necessary institutions for life itself.”
Higgins has had no qualms about calling Israel’s war to remove Hamas from power in Gaza and free the hostages a “genocide,” but he could only muster calling the Nazi extermination attempt of the Jews “an attempted genocide.”
His statements spurred a protest by some members of the audience, with video footage showing at least one attendee being dragged away by security.
What does any of that have to do with International Holocaust Remembrance Day? There is a time and place to hurl criticism of Israel and its policies, but it’s not on a solemn day that honors those slaughtered by the Nazis and those who survived.
At Monday’s main ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland, where roughly 1.1 million Jews were murdered, only 50 survivors were expected to be present – down from 300 a decade ago and 1,000 a decade before that.
The focus should be entirely on them – now more than ever.
Incidents of global antisemitism have spiked to unprecedented post-World War II levels, and public figures like Elon Musk are quoted telling supporters of the rising far-Right German political party Alternative for Germany that “there is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that.”
Clearly, the lessons the world needed to learn from the Holocaust are getting muddied and faded the further we move from the actual events that took place. As the survivors die, and along with them their first-hand accounts of the horrors perpetrated against the Jews, the easier it will be for people like Higgins to diminish their magnitude and use them for cheap political gain.