ABSTRACT
Holocaust inversion is central to contemporary antisemitism. Popular in the Middle East and parts of the Western anti-Zionist left, it proceeds by a double inversion. First, an inversion of reality, casting Zionists and Israelis as the ‘new’ Nazis and the Palestinians as the ‘new’ Jews. Second, an inversion of morality, framing the Holocaust as a moral lesson for, and moral indictment of Zionists, Israelis and Jews, summed up in the phrase ‘the victims have become perpetrators’. Objections to these inversions are dismissed as mere bad faith, aimed at deflecting criticism of Israel. The intellectual and political consequences of the Holocaust inversion include grossly false equivalencing, viewing the Middle East conflict through a distorting lens, soft-core Holocaust denialism, Holocaust trivialisation, the abuse of Holocaust memory, and the loading onto Israel and ‘the Jews’ of a uniquely heavy weight of moral responsibility and accountability in their treatment of others, even others who seek their destruction, often resulting in a de facto denial of Israel’s right to self-defence.
