Calling attention to some recent controversies sparked by invocations of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, Ben Cohen wonders why people “just can’t stop talking about Hitler” and addresses what this means for the Jews. On the left, it is the urge to universalize the Shoah that has proved most disturbing:

On January 17, the outgoing president, Barack Obama, appointed his deputy national-security adviser, Ben Rhodes, to the council of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Rhodes, you will remember, was the White House staffer who constructed the administration’s smoke-and-mirrors communications strategy around the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. And after having crafted the myth of a moderate, cooperative Iran—which meant dismissing the Islamic Republic’s official doctrine of Holocaust denial as rhetoric without consequence—Rhodes has landed a post that feels like a thumb in the eye to many Jews, Democrats and Republicans alike.

One can only speculate about what President Obama was thinking—it was revenge, many said, and that is probably true up to a point. Of greater import, I’d say, is what this tells us about the tensions that arise from the manner in which the Holocaust is remembered.

Obama himself has been interested only in Judaism’s universalist aspects, and there is no reason to expect Rhodes to be any different. Implicit in his appointment is the view that the Holocaust is a tragedy that belongs to everybody, and that the best response to it is an anodyne, pacifist humanitarianism, solemnly declaring that all cultures are of equal worth, emphasizing diplomacy and dialogue when confronted by nationalist and religious fanatics.

There are many, many problems with this viewpoint. One of them involves a failure to grasp that these same fanatics wield the Holocaust as a propaganda weapon. Holocaust denial is a staple in the Arab and wider Islamic worlds, along with imagery depicting Israelis as Nazis. In the Soviet Union, the Holocaust’s Jewish character was outright negated; now Russian dictator Vladimir Putin portrays Ukraine as a Nazi state in order to win support for the occupation of Crimea. Again, this is a propaganda trend that shows no sign of abating.

Even if the agreement with Hamas to secure the release of some, and possibly all, of the remaining hostages—and the bodies of those no longer alive—is a prudent decision for Israel, it comes at a very high price: potentially leaving Hamas in control of Gaza and the release of vast numbers of Palestinian prisoners, many with blood on their hands. Nadav Shragai reminds us of the history of such agreements:

We cannot forget that the terrorists released in the Jibril deal during the summer of 1985 became the backbone of the first intifada, resulting in the murder of 165 Israelis. Approximately half of the terrorists released following the Oslo Accords joined Palestinian terror groups, with many participating in the second intifada that claimed 1,178 Israeli lives. Those freed in [exchange for Gilad Shalit in 2011] constructed Gaza, the world’s largest terror city, and brought about the October 7 massacre. We must ask ourselves: where will those released in the 2025 hostage deal lead us?

Taking these painful concessions into account Michael Oren argues that they might nonetheless be necessary:

From day one—October 7, 2023—Israel’s twin goals in Gaza were fundamentally irreconcilable. Israel could not, as its leaders pledged, simultaneously destroy Hamas and secure all of the hostages’ release. The terrorists who regarded the hostages as the key to their survival would hardly give them up for less than an Israeli commitment to end—and therefore lose—the war. Israelis, for their part, were torn between those who felt that they could not send their children to the army so long as hostages remained in captivity and those who held that, if Hamas wins, Israel will not have an army at all.

While 33 hostages will be released in the first stage, dozens—alive and dead—will remain in Gaza, prolonging their families’ suffering. The relatives of those killed by the Palestinian terrorists now going free will also be shattered. So, too, will the Israelis who still see soldiers dying in Gaza almost daily while Hamas rocket fire continues. What were all of Israel’s sacrifices for, they will ask. . . .

Perhaps this outcome was unavoidable from the beginning. Perhaps the deal is the only way of reconciling Israel’s mutually exclusive goals of annihilating Hamas and repatriating the hostages. Perhaps, despite Israel’s subsequent military triumph, this is the price for the failures of October 7.