Guardian newspaper accused of 'astounding lack of judgement' over Holocaust article

The Guardian newspaper has been accused of "an astounding lack of judgement" after publishing an article that accused Israel of "weaponising" the Holocaust in its war against Hamas.

The opinion article, titled 'Israel must stop weaponising the Holocaust', was written by Israeli historian Raz Segal.

In the piece Segal writes that the defence of Israel's retaliation to the Hamas attacks on 7 October are "a textbook use of the Holocaust not in order to stand with powerless people facing the prospect of genocidal violence, but to support and justify an extremely violent attack by a powerful state and, at the same time, distort this reality".

He also compared the weaponisation of the Holocaust to Vladimir Putin, who he said used "precisely this weaponisation of Holocaust history when he launched his assault on Ukraine in February last year, explaining it as a campaign of 'denazification'".

Segal, who unequivocally condemned Hamas war crimes in the article, said scholars were increasingly refuting the "dangerous use of the Holocaust to distort the historical reality of the Holocaust and Israeli mass violence against Palestinians".

Segal's piece prompted a significant backlash online, while the head of the Board of Deputies of British Jews hit out at the newspaper's decision to publish the piece.

President Marie van der Zyl told Yahoo News: "The Guardian's decision to publish a opinion piece titled ‘Israel must stop weaponising the Holocaust’ was unbelievably crass.

"The article's failure, for example, to acknowledge the decades-long comparison of Israel to the Nazis – including in Hamas's genocidal founding charter – sums up the astonishing lack of judgement exhibited. Its publication marks a new low for the paper."

Writer Hadley Freeman, who previously worked for The Guardian, described the article as "intellectually, historically and morally bankrupt".

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The backlash came as the Met Police reported a 1,350% increase in antisemitic hate crime, as well as a 140% increase in Islamophobic hate crimes following the recent conflict in the Middle East.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: "This piece is utterly vile. After the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, the Guardian sees fit to publish an op-ed arguing that Israel is 'weaponising the Holocaust', and that the Holocaust teaches us not to focus on Israel right now.

"It seems that the brutal murder of 1,400 Jews is not enough for the Guardian: it must insult the Jewish people as well. The newspaper is kicking Jews when they're down. It is vile."

Newspaper's response

Following the backlash, a Guardian spokesperson told Yahoo News: "Our opinion columns often provoke robust discussions given the varied viewpoints of writers and readers and we value all feedback.

"The Guardian has consistently described the events of October 7 as an unjustified attack on Israeli civilians, as did this column, written by Raz Segal, an Israeli associate professor of holocaust and genocide studies.

"We encourage our readers to review this column in full - excerpt provided below:

'This historical context in no way justifies or excuses the mass murder of 1,500 Israelis on 7 October, which constitutes a war crime and crimes against humanity. This was the single largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, which deeply shocked Jews and many others around the world. The context of the Hamas attack on Israelis, however, is completely different from the context of the attack on Jews during the Holocaust.'

What's happening in Gaza?

Gaza is currently under "total siege" following an unprecedented attack against Israel by Hamas that left more than 1,400 people dead and saw at least 200 people taken hostage by the group on 7 October.

Since the Hamas attack, Israel has carried out a series of air strikes in Gaza that have killed more than 5,000 people including 2,000 children.

Supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel are now in dangerously short supply in Gaza, with many aid agencies calling for a ceasefire to allow aid into the embattled enclave.

However, Israel has thus far resisted calls for a ceasefire, with the country's foreign minister Eli Cohen saying that the "total destruction" of Hamas was the only proportionate response to Hamas' massacre.

“It is not only Israel’s right to destroy Hamas,” Cohen said. “It’s our duty.”

Watch: Humza Yousaf calls for Gaza ceasefire