Recently, my mother, who escaped Hungary as a young teen in 1943 as the Nazis were closing in, called me from her home in Jerusalem. She was quite agitated, asking why even Israel’s loyal friends seem to be promoting compromise on issues fundamental to its security. She begged me to speak to anyone and everyone I know, from community leaders to elected officials.
As the world marks Saturday, January 27, as the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is clear that my mother needs no such day. The question the Jewish people must be asking is who will benefit from a day in January, 2024, designated to remember the Holocaust?
The Holocaust deniers, including President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, many Western nations’ preferred steward of Gaza for the day after the war, and Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose country funds Hamas and the other armed groups attacking Israel and its allies on multiple fronts, will not benefit from it. They cannot commemorate something they claim never occurred.