The Holocaust was a unique event in world history. It wasn’t just one nation going to war against another, something that often ends in mass slaughter. It was the German people’s decision to erase Jews from the face of the earth, a plan put into effect after accelerating centuries of dehumanizing rhetoric about Jews meant to highlight their status as enemies, not just of Germany but all humankind. The world did not care. Sadly, on both the left and the right, we’re seeing Americans slip into that mindset. Doing so is not only offensive, but it also ignores Israel’s strategic importance to America.

Of course, what’s happening on the right is the most disturbing because the right has been the last American holdout of philo-semitism. On a Breaking Points podcast in December, Tucker Carlson attacked pro-Israel conservatives for their perceived overreaction to the October 7 attack on Israeli civilians. Carlson went as far as accusing them of disloyalty to America, being more concerned about threats to Israel than the homeland.

Although Carlson expressed strong feelings of sympathy for the victims of the attacks, he was appalled by what he described as “character assassination” against him for failing to support Israel’s plan to destroy Hamas. Specifically calling out Ben Shapiro and others who support Israel’s war against Hamas, he contended they did not care enough about America and its domestic problems. Had Carlson simply attacked their support for Israel, his footing might have been sound. However, the idea that those who support Israel’s war do not care about America is exactly what Dave Rubin called it: a “low I.Q.” response. It’s also a traditional “dual loyalty” argument against Jews.

But Tucker isn’t the only one who sees Jews as less than American. The American media and political class have largely ignored that several dozen Americans were killed and/or taken hostage. The fact that they are Jewish should be irrelevant, but that does not seem to be the case. Has America enacted its own “Nuremberg Laws,” depriving American Jews of their citizenship as Germany did in 1935? Apparently, this must have happened because precious little has been done by the Biden administration to free the hostages. We are still sending money to the Hamas kidnappers and allowing oil revenue to flow to Iran. As the world knows, Iran provided terrorist funding and training for their attacks.

Elsewhere in the United States, there were similar questions:

• Why does Israel matter so much?
• Why are people so obsessed with the situation in Israel?
• Why is it so important?

The answer is that the Holocaust makes it important, not just because of what happened to the Jews, but because of what it says about modern man’s capacity to dehumanize those whom he dislikes and then embark upon a global slaughter.

Today, most people view the Holocaust as a number. Six million Jews died. End of story. The people who think this way more than likely have never seen a documentary with actual pictures and videos of the atrocities. I would invite them to watch the 1961 Academy Award-winning Judgement at Nuremberg. Or they can watch Shoah, a 1985 documentary by Claude Lanzmann, an immense undertaking that took more than 11 years to make and runs for nine hours. It also received critical acclaim for excellence.

A more recent HBO Max production, The Survivor, is based on the true story of Harry Haft, a Polish Jew who survived the Auschwitz concentration camp by boxing fellow inmates for the amusement of the Nazi crowd. To further their amusement, the losing boxer was immediately executed. More than once, Haft was overmatched by size or experience, and yet he survived. The cast was so committed to showing the horrors of Nazi camps that they dieted to starvation weights to create the haunting images. When Hollywood stays out of politics, they can do some great things.

On October 7, Hamas, with the apparent support of a majority of Gaza’s population, embarked upon a bloody massacre that would have made the Nazis proud. As with the Nazis, it was preceded by decades and centuries of eliminationist rhetoric. And as with the Nazis, who sought world domination, the Islamists, are merely starting with the Jews and are open about their plans for the rest of the world.

Things are different this time, though. Unlike the 1930s, when people were dismayed or disinterested, this time around, in cities across the West and at the heart of the West’s intellectual life (the universities), people are siding with the Nazis. That’s what makes it so heartbreaking to see conservatives try to straddle the line, saying something akin to “I don’t like what the Islamists did, but Jews are still the enemy within.”

In December, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee went to Israel to express the support of sixty million American Evangelical Christians for Israel at this time. Was Governor Huckabee wrong to go to Israel during these difficult times to express the support of his Christian community for Israel? Does that make him or those he represents disloyal to our country?

There are several good reasons for America to support Israel at this pivotal time.

First, the Chinese are watching to see if America stands by our ally Israel to determine if we will support Taiwan.

Second, Israeli technology is now a critical part of our national defense. We currently have several joint ventures for missile defense systems ongoing between our two countries. Out of necessity, Israel is the world’s foremost expert in this field. Its iron dome missile defense system (short-range defense) is legendary and, since 2014, has been co-produced in America as a joint venture between Israel’s Raphael Advanced Defense Systems and Raytheon. There is ongoing work between the two to develop countermeasures against cruise missiles and long-range ballistic missiles. Boeing is in a partnership with Israel Aerospace Industries to develop defensive systems for short, medium, and long-range threats.

Image: Israel’s (and, soon, America’s) Iron Dome defense system. IDF Spokesperson's Unit / CC BY-SA 3.0.

America’s relationship with Israel also protects the integrity of the dollar as the world’s fiat currency. When America and Israel stood side by side in the Middle East, no one feared Iran. Middle Eastern oil states stood with us and our dollar. With the U.S. pivoting away from Israel and toward Iran, Sunni nations are pivoting towards China and its yuan.

People will align with us out of necessity, not out of love. America sells protection.

To stand up to the joint Communist Chinese and Russian threat, America needs allies such as Israel and Taiwan. We need to rebuild relationships with the Saudis and others who left us.

Finally, the world’s radical Islamists, from Iran on down, have made no secret of the fact that America is the “Great Satan” to Israel’s “Little Satan.” Just as Nazis once cried out, “Today, Germany; tomorrow, the world,” today’s Islamists are open about the fact that theirs is a war against the West. Israel is the first, not the last or only target.

In other words, supporting Israel is in America’s national interest. And, of course, America’s projecting strength is a very good way to forestall the aggression of a rogue antisemitic ideology that, in the 1930s, led to WWII and that, in the 2020s, is perfectly likely to lead to WWIII. For people like Tucker Carlson to suggest otherwise is to get things completely backward.