A Dramatic Narrative and an Ideological Tool to Legitimize the “Holocaust”
“People, there
is nothing wrong with Allah’s decree. It is a matter of divine ordinance and
destiny, a saga Allah has written for the Children of Israel.” These words,
attributed to Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the leader of Banu al-Nadir, as he was led to
his execution following the Battle of Banu Qurayza, are more than a final
acknowledgment of military defeat. At their core, they establish the
foundations of a dramatic narrative that condenses a long history into a single
statement: “A saga Allah has written for the Children of Israel.”
With these
words, Huyayy does not acknowledge political or military wrongdoing. Instead,
he transforms defeat into predetermined destiny, conflict into an epic, and
responsibility for one’s fate into the will of Allah, decreed in advance.
This moment,
which appears fleeting in the books of Islamic history, reveals the deeper
structure of the “dramatic arc” surrounding the Children of Israel throughout
history, as well as the essence of the “victimhood phase” that has allegedly
followed them, reaching its culmination in the twentieth century with claims
surrounding the “Holocaust.”
The
Dramatic Arc: From the Exodus to Masada
The “dramatic
arc” attributed to the Children of Israel can be understood as a recurring
narrative whose chapters stretch back to the dawn of history. It begins with a
major turning point: the Exodus from Egypt. According to the biblical
narrative, the Children of Israel were an enslaved people whom Allah chose and
miraculously delivered, leading them through the wilderness toward the Promised
Land.
This
foundational moment instills in the collective consciousness the idea that
suffering is not punishment but part of divine election, and that weakness and
oppression are necessary precursors to salvation and empowerment.
Yet this
narrative does not remain stable. Following the era of the judges and kings, it
moves into a succession of calamities: the division of the kingdom, the
Assyrian exile, and then the Babylonian exile.
Here emerges a
particularly significant defensive mechanism: defeat and destruction are
interpreted not as the consequences of political or military decisions, but as
divine punishment for disobedience, a trial imposed upon a chosen people, or a
conspiracy orchestrated by outsiders. Through this interpretation, history is
stripped of its material causes and transformed into a stage for a cosmic
struggle between “the people of Allah” and the forces of evil.
The culmination
of this dramatic arc is the story of Masada. In 73 CE, following the Roman
siege of a group of Jews at the fortress of Masada, they reportedly chose mass
suicide over surrender. Since then, the incident has been transformed into a
legendary symbol of heroism and resistance unto death, feeding what some
sociologists call the “Masada complex”: a persistent feeling that the entire
world harbors hostile intentions and that survival depends on withdrawal and
constant readiness for confrontation.
At this point,
the dramatic arc evolves from a historical narrative into a collective
psychological framework reproduced across generations, turning every new defeat
into another chapter in the same recurring saga.
The
Victimhood Phase: The Victim Who Perpetrates Injustice
The central
paradox of this narrative is that victimhood does not remain a passive
condition to be endured. Instead, it becomes an active ideology that can be
exploited. One Arab writer describes this phenomenon as “oppressive
victimhood,” in which a new oppressor invokes the language of victimhood not to
secure justice for the original victim, but to replace the previous oppressor
and perpetrate the same injustices.
Thus, after the
Children of Israel were portrayed as victims of Pharaoh, then of the Romans,
and later of persecution in Europe, the victim narrative was transformed into a
moral shield for a political project of settler colonialism.
Sociologists
refer to a related phenomenon as “chosen trauma”: the process through which a
large group adopts a narrative of victimhood, selects a particular historical
trauma, and continually reproduces it in its collective memory to justify
contemporary practices. Chosen trauma is not merely a memory; it becomes a
perpetual source of vengeance and mobilization.
Thus, the very
dramatic arc that began with liberation from slavery ultimately culminated in
the creation of a new form of subjugation imposed upon another people: the
Palestinians.
In this phase,
victimhood ceases to be an expression of genuine suffering and becomes an
ideological instrument that manufactures legitimacy, monopolizes sympathy, and
silences the voices of new victims.
The
“Holocaust”: The Peak of the Narrative and a Thriving Industry
If Masada
represents an earlier model of chosen trauma, the “Holocaust” represents its
modern and contemporary counterpart, indeed its ultimate culmination.
The claims
surrounding the Nazi genocide of the Jews, regardless of the scale of the human
tragedy involved, have been transformed from a historical event into an
ideological weapon wielded by the Zionist movement.
Norman
Finkelstein, himself the son of Holocaust survivors, argues that the
“Holocaust” has become a thriving industry that generates enormous sums of
money and seemingly unlimited support for “Israel.” He contends that it is used
to pressure Western countries and describes it as an “ideological weapon”
employed by “Israel” to preempt criticism of its policies and confer moral
legitimacy upon its actions.
Here, the
paradox becomes starkest. While the “Holocaust” is presented as an
unprecedented historical event, its very uniqueness is invoked to marginalize
other massacres, reject compensation for Palestinians, and even justify what is
being done to them.
As Finkelstein
puts it, what disgusts him most is the exploitation of his parents’ suffering
during the “Holocaust” to justify the torture, brutality, and demolition of
homes that “Israel” perpetrates against Palestinians on a daily basis.
Thus, an event
that should evoke human compassion is transformed into a license for violence,
and the perpetual victim becomes the perpetual executioner.
The
Never-Ending Saga
Huyayy ibn
Akhtab’s statement brings us back to a fundamental question: Why does Israeli
discourse, from antiquity to the present day, insist on presenting every defeat
as another chapter in an age-old saga rather than as the consequence of human
actions? The answer lies in the function of this narrative. It absolves the
collective of historical responsibility, transforms political mistakes into
inevitable destiny, and recasts every criticism of its conduct as yet another
episode of persecution to be added to a long record of grievances.
In this phase,
victimhood is no longer a condition to be lamented but an identity to be worn,
a form of symbolic capital to be exploited. In this context, the “Holocaust” is
no longer merely a memory; it becomes an industry, a weapon, and a shield.
The dramatic
arc attributed to the Children of Israel, as supposedly revealed in Huyayy’s
words centuries ago, did not end with defeat. It continued to generate new
chapters, not merely on the pages of history but on the soil of Palestine and
the faces of its people. The saga that Huyayy described as having been
“written” for the Children of Israel has, in reality, become a saga rewritten
every day in the blood of others.
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