The Prevention of a Second Holocaust
That in itself is justification for Operation Epic Fury.
Jeffrey Folks for American Thinker
According to early reports, Operation Epic Fury has killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, perhaps along with much of the leadership of Iran. Hopefully, Epic Fury will eliminate the most imminent threat to the existence of Israel as well as threats to American bases and other allies in the region.
What takes Khamenei’s place remains to be seen, but the removal of a state leader who spoke ceaselessly of the destruction of the Jewish people is cause for celebration. Driven by a hatred that is hard to comprehend, Khamenei sought nothing less than a second Holocaust or worse: the death of all 7.76 million Jewish residents of Israel and of Jews around the world.
One man in particular dedicated his entire life to the remembrance of the Holocaust and warning of the possibility of a repetition. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the death of that man, Elie Wiesel. In some fifty books — not all of them directly about the Holocaust, but all of them marked by his experience of it — Wiesel served as what he called an “observer” of the most devastating period in human history.
One of Wiesel’s important concerns was that there still existed antisemitism in every country — certainly in Iran, but also in Western Europe and America. In this respect, he was prophetic, for since his death, there has been a noticeable rise in antisemitism in the West. Wiesel could never explain how fascism arose in a country as educated and accomplished as Germany. Nor could he understand how antisemitism continued to exist in the United States, a country that professes to be the home of liberty, regardless of race, religion, or national origin.
To many of us, it is puzzling that antisemitism has found a home particularly on some of our elite university campuses and among privileged young people who should know better. It is especially among progressives on the left that the cause of Palestinians is celebrated and Israel is condemned, despite decades during which Israel has been under attack by those same Palestinians and under threat by their sponsor, Iran.
Recent attacks have gone far beyond mere words, which themselves are unacceptable (“From the River to the Sea,” implying the destruction of the State of Israel). The murder of Jews at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, killing 15 and wounding 40 others, is just one example. Along with this, thousands of Jews have suffered physical attacks in our own country just in the past year.
There is no excuse for either verbal or physical attacks on Jews: both are the expression of pure hate, the same hatred that drove events in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. There must never be another Holocaust, and for that reason, antisemitism must not be allowed to gain even a small foothold in the West or anywhere.
Wiesel himself was attacked in 2007 by a Holocaust-denier while he was staying in a San Francisco hotel. Though not injured, Wiesel understood the attack as testimony to the extent of antisemitism in the United States and the danger that Jews live with everywhere. Had he lived to witness the events of October 7, 2023, Wiesel would, I believe, have interpreted them in the context of the long history of violence against Jews, not merely in Palestine, but in many other places and going back centuries. He would have been deeply moved by the plight of the 1,195 killed and the 250 taken hostage. Since he is no longer here, it is the responsibility — a word he used so often, and one that served as the foundation of his writing — of other thoughtful people to record their reaction to the events.
Novels such as Sophie’s Choice trivialize the Holocaust by failing to depict the extent and depth of Nazi cruelty, and Democrats trivialize it by calling President Trump and other conservatives “fascists.” It is incredible that Democrats continue to depict Trump as a Nazi, despite the fact that he has apparently just removed the most consequential threat to Jews on the planet. Trump is not the one who supports attacks on Jews; it is liberals who turn the other way when Jewish students are harassed, when Jewish speakers are intimidated, and when Jews are physically assaulted. Wiesel was correct in saying that those who were not victims can never truly know the Holocaust, but, as he also said, those who were not victims can still make a sincere effort to understand it, and progressives, with their callous response toward October 7 and condemnation of Epic Fury, are not making that effort.
As a conservative, I stand against liberals who pretend kindness but who then turn around and attack Jews in the media, at colleges and universities, and even in Congress, and who refuse to condemn the events of October 7. This includes Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who on the second anniversary of the attacks issued a statement mourning the victims but condemning Israel for its “genocidal war” against Gaza. In the past, Mamdani has refused to condemn the phrase “globalize the Intifada,” which many take to mean larger-scale attacks against Israel, and he has threatened to arrest Israeli president Netanyahu as a “war criminal” if the latter visits New York City for U.N. meetings.
Conservatives do understand the Holocaust because they understand the value of human life. It is conservatives who care about each human being on a personal level — as a valuable citizen with much to contribute to the world — and who refuse to act out of ideology in the way leftists have done in their mindless condemnation of Israel and by extension of Jews in our country. It is conservatives who look to the past for guidance in all things and who are keenly aware of the meaning of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel did so much to help us in this endeavor.
For those unfamiliar with Wiesel’s writing, the memoir Night is, as Wiesel himself said, the best place to begin. Night is a gripping account of the transportation of Wiesel and his family and neighbors to Auschwitz and other concentration camps in Poland, which took place when Wiesel was fifteen. Wiesel lost his parents and younger sister in the Holocaust. Afterward, first in France and then in the United States, he spent the rest of his life writing, teaching, and speaking publicly about the danger of a second Holocaust. If he were alive today, he would, I believe, have applauded President Trump’s actions in removing the threat of the Khamenei regime.
As I write, there is still much that is unknown about Operation Epic Fury. How extensively has the military infrastructure been damaged or destroyed, and, most importantly perhaps, what kind of leadership will emerge in a post-Khamenei Iran? Those are at this time all unknowns, but what we can say for certain is that President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu acted with the clear intention of preventing a second Holocaust. As Elie Wiesel would have understood, that in itself is justification for the operation.
Image via Pxbarn.
