Nazism was never truly defeated: Sawt Al-Azhar editorial draws parallels with Gaza - Foreign Affairs

Al-Ahram Weekly

15-05-2025

The latest editorial of Sawt Al-Azhar, penned by Editor-in-Chief Ahmed El-Sawy, challenges the global celebrations marking the anniversary of the fall of Nazism, highlighting the moral contradiction posed by the ongoing war in Gaza.
The editorial, which questions the global moral compass, is titled "How Can the World Celebrate the Fall of Nazism … While Gaza Tells a Different Story?"
It condemns what El-Sawy describes as the West's selective memory and ethical double standards in commemorating the defeat of Nazism while supporting Israel's actions in Gaza.
The editorial, published amid global ceremonies marking the anniversary of the allied victory over Nazism, draws a provocative comparison between Nazi ideology and the ongoing Israeli military assaults in Gaza.
"Was Nazism truly defeated? While it may have fallen militarily in Berlin in 1945, its spirit was never buried … Some of its core ideas, tools, and methods remain alive—practised daily in occupied Palestine," El-Sawy writes.
He underscores the parallels between Nazi racial ideology and what he describes as a religious-nationalist Zionist project based on supremacy and exclusion, referencing policies of displacement, siege, and the systematic denial of basic rights in Gaza.
"Homes are bombed over their residents' heads. Schools, hospitals, and refugee camps are struck. Access to water, food, medicine, and electricity is deliberately denied. Incendiary rhetoric describes Palestinians as 'human animals'—the same language Nazis used to strip their victims of humanity before exterminating them," he continues.
El-Sawy also accuses the West of moral inconsistency, saying: "The so-called 'free West' cannot claim Nazism was defeated while Palestinian refugee camps have stood for 75 years, and a defenseless people continue to be crushed by internationally banned bombs."
Moreover, the editorial cites several prominent Jewish intellectuals who have criticized Israeli policies, including Noam Chomsky, who described Israel as "a fascist state where the ideology of Jewish supremacy dominates everything," and Norman Finkelstein, who called Gaza "the largest open-air prison in the world."
The piece also refers to B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, which described the regime from the river to the sea as "a single regime founded on Jewish supremacy."
The editorial's central message is a call to recognize that the defeat of Nazism must go beyond historical commemoration and extend to confronting its manifestations wherever they appear.
"The true defeat of Nazism will only be realized when we defeat its essence, its culture, its ideas, its tools, and its practices—no matter the name, the slogans, or who the perpetrators and victims may be," El-Sawy concludes.
The editorial offers a forceful moral argument, urging global powers to reconcile their historical memory with present-day realities, especially in Gaza, where El-Sawy believes the principles that fueled Nazism are being replicated under a different banner.
On 18 March, Israel resumed its genocidal war on Gaza after unilaterally ending the ceasefire agreement with Hamas, which Egypt, Qatar, and the US mediated.
Since 2 March, Israel has also blocked the entry of all humanitarian aid to Gaza, putting more than two million Palestinians on the brink of famine.
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