Aral Balkan

Someone educate the admins at mastodon.social that holocaust and Holocaust are different things. Note the capitalisation.

What israel is perpetrating in Palestine is *a* holocaust, not *the* Holocaust. And yes, it is genocide. And yes, they’re also guilty of close to eight decades of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and settler colonialism. All these things can be (and are) true at the same time.

Basically, if you’re defending israel in any way, shape, or form right now, you’re the worst of the worst. Almost a century ago, you’re the kind of person who would have been cheering on Hitler. And yes, that’s also a valid comparison.

(Genocide-loving Germans on mastodon.social don’t @ me. My mentions are a genocide-apologist-free zone.)

#mastodonDotSocial #israel #holocaust #germany #Nazis #Holocaust #genocide #ethnicCleansing #apartheid #Palestine #Gaza #WestBank https://mastodon.social/@Sable_Shade/114697845822637992

Jun 17, 2025 at 12:40pmWeb
Show threadSergioJun 17, 2025

@aral i absolutely agree. thank you for this! I received this same message a few days back for responding with an image. And the image did not fall into any of the categories listed in this response from the admins!

#StopnetanyahuNow #netanyahuIsATerrorist

Show threadJo - pièce de résistanceJun 17, 2025

@aral reading the wiki…how Jews get to have The Holocaust, instead of just your regular everyday Holocaust without the The. 🙄
It could also be called a holomodor…a genocide by deliberate starvation.

Shall we make up new words no one understands? Personally I don’t like the use of Holocaust because of the ‘burnt offering’ connotation. It’s a gross term for it. Jews and Palestinians alike.

Show threadCriminelle OnctueuseJun 17, 2025

@aral stop calling every genocide a "holocaust", an holocaust is a sacrifice, an offering, it's the total opposite of a genocide

The jews were not genocided as a some sort of sacrificial ritual, and neither are the palestinians

That's why we call the genocide of the jews "Shoah" which means "disaster", and we should use the same vocabulary when speaking of the palestinian genocide, it's not a sacrifice, it's a genocide

Show threadAral BalkanJun 17, 2025

@Tiflosion Please let all the dictionaries know too:

- https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/holocaust
- https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/holocaust
- https://www.oed.com/dictionary/holocaust_n

(The meaning you quote is historical. Latter usages of the term do not carry the connotation of sacrifice.)

holocaust

1. a very large amount of destruction, especially by fire or heat, or the…

Show threadCriminelle OnctueuseJun 17, 2025
@aral they know : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/holocaust
holocaust - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Wiktionary
Show threadCriminelle OnctueuseJun 17, 2025
@aral
Show threadWesDymJun 17, 2025
@Tiflosion The word's history is complicated, and not nearly this simple -- and also much older. It was used in this sense nearly a thousand years before the Third Reich, and plenty of times in between -- in modern times, originally referring to how my country (the US) treated the Natives who rightfully possessed this land before we came along. So it already had that usage long before the Nazis rose to power. Its ancient Koine Greek meaning does not refute any of those later usages.
Show threadAlx 🐈Jun 17, 2025

@aral

Language essentialism is a big sign of
Nazism/Fascism. As per Umberto Eco:

"Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.[...] [E]lements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show"

Show threadMohaJun 17, 2025
@aral
And don't forget that Israel is not acting alone. It gets cheered by the entire west leaders.
Show threada fish named dog ✡️♾️Jun 18, 2025
@aral Okay minor terminology rant incoming (not even gonna TOUCH some of that stuff):
"Holocaust" includes Romani people and also it is a very bystander-centric term, (I could rant more if you want but I'm tired of writing threads) I prefer referring to the Nazi genocide of Jews as the 'Shoah'.
Also, tbf, an integral part of Nazism is antisemitism. if someone is jewish (not bobby-fischer-style-'I'm a Jewish antisemite' Jewish), most you can say is cheering on a genocidal fascist (say, Kahane).