Tim Walz Accused of 'Anti-Semitism' for Master's Thesis Saying Holocaust Was Not Unique

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Aug. 12, 2024

Kamala Harris VP pick Governor Tim Walz is being accused of anti-Semitism because his master's thesis on the Holocaust said it was not unique and should be taught as one of many genocides throughout history.


From The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, "Tim Walz wrote a master’s thesis on Holocaust education, just as his own school’s approach drew criticism":
“Schools are teaching about the Jewish Holocaust, but the way it is traditionally being taught is not leading to increased knowledge of the causes of genocide in all parts of the world,” Walz wrote in his thesis, submitted in 2001.

The thesis was the culmination of Walz’s master’s degree focused on Holocaust and genocide education at Minnesota State University, Mankato, which he earned while teaching at Mankato West. His 27-page thesis, which JTA obtained, is titled “Improving Human Rights and Genocide Studies in the American High School Classroom.”

In it, Walz argues that the lessons of the “Jewish Holocaust” should be taught “in the greater context of human rights abuses,” rather than as a unique historical anomaly or as part of a larger unit on World War II. “To exclude other acts of genocide severely limited students’ ability to synthesize the lessons of the Holocaust and the ability to apply them elsewhere,” he wrote.

He then took a position that he noted was “controversial” among Holocaust scholars: that the Holocaust should not be taught as unique, but used to help students identify “clear patterns” with other historical genocides like the Armenian and Rwandan genocides.
Jewish activist groups feel the Holocaust should be taught as entirely unique, as this clip from Yoav Shamir's film "Defamation" featuring former Anti-Defamation League head Abe Foxman intimidating Ukraine into downplaying the Holodomor makes clear.


The Times of Israel published a column on Sunday by Steve Wenick accusing Walz of being a "Holocaust Comparer."

"It is clear, because Walz conflates the Holocaust with all other genocides, he has much to learn about the Holocaust," Wenick wrote. "No other group was slated for extermination based solely on ancestry."

As it just so happens, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other government officials called for a war of extermination against the Palestinians by labeling them "Amalek" at the start of the war.



Walz has been a stalwart defender of Israel and argued just recently that Holocaust education needs to be updated to defend the genocide Israel is committing in Gaza.




Late last year, right-wing Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin said that Israel should "take advantage of the Holocaust" to ethnically cleanse Gaza and build Israeli settlements on their land.


When US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel on Oct 12 and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to underline the US's support for Israel's war, he cited the Holocaust and his own Jewishness to justify US backing for Israel's war.

"I come before you, not only as the United States Secretary of State, but also as a Jew," Blinken told Netanyahu. "My grandfather, Maurice Blinken fled pogroms in Russia. My stepfather, Samuel Pisar, survived concentration camps: Auschwitz, Dachau, Majdanek. So, Prime Minister, I understand, on a personal level, the harrowing echoes that Hamas's massacres carry for Israeli Jews, indeed, for Jews everywhere."


Metula Council head David Azoulai said late last year that Israel should ethnically cleanse Gaza and make it "resemble the Auschwitz concentration camp."



The Holocaust is being used as a rallying cry for war to justify committing genocide and that's why it's so problematic for even a pro-Israel politician like Walz to have argued it should be taught as a warning against committing genocide in general.

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