By Mark Fowler

“Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry and desolate ground.” —Job 30:3 (New Revised Standard Bible)

The late 19th and early 20th century marked one of the greatest periods of change in human history. Advances in medicine, science, and technology brought with it major social upheaval. Farm laborers migrated to cities for new manufacturing jobs. Landed gentry saw their way of life evaporate. Advances in transportation made moving goods, people, and arms easier.

But what scientific progress did not do was improve the human heart. The 20th century was also the bloodiest in human history, and some 200 million people were killed outside of combat, largely because of improved technology such as machine guns and Zyklon B.

Of those 200 million deaths, a specific subset of six million had the most profound effect on history. Americans know it as the Holocaust; Europeans and Jews know it as Shoah from “Shoah u-meshoah” in the Hebrew bible, which means waste and desolation. These deaths effectuated by the Nazi party were in response to the “Jewish Question” — an unreasonable blind hatred of Jews that simmered in Europe until Adolf Hitler used it to his advantage to garner support. But anti-Semitism was not limited to Europe, and when the pogroms against Jews started, the United States was hesitant to accept Jewish refugees.

Zyklon B was a cyanide-based insecticide that could be converted to a gaseous form. As Jews were rounded up, men and women were separated based on who could work. Those who could were poorly clothed and either worked to death, starved to death, or housed in camps that were veritable incubators of disease until they were totally used up. Then they were gassed. Others, including children too young to work, homosexuals, gypsies, and the physically and intellectually infirm, were gassed to death by the thousands on arrival to the concentration camps.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917, sponsored by Lord Balfour of England, proposed a “national homeland” for the Jews while preserving the rights of Palestinians. Indeed, down through the years, any number of propositions to address this insolvable problem have attempted to protect the rights of Palestinians. And, by and large, the Palestinians have rejected them. There has never been a Palestine state whereby Palestinians self-governed. For approximately five centuries until 1917, “Palestine” was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. The end of World War I and the discovery of German atrocities in World World II led to the creation of the nation of Israel in 1948 for the purpose of giving Jews a homeland in which and from which they could defend themselves.

Israel has faced or faces now hostile state action from Egypt, Jordan, Iran, and Pakistan. While it is true there have been atrocities committed by both sides, it is equally true that Israel is the only stable democracy in the region. It is also true that of the population of nine million, over 20% are Arabs and non-Jews, and there are Arab representatives in the Israeli parliament.

Arab nations refuse to accept Palestinian refugees, and the Palestinians themselves have made insignificant efforts at self-government. Most recently, Hamas defeated the more moderate Fatah movement and gained control over the Palestinians in 2007. There have been no Palestinian elections since then. Hamas has used money sent for relief to build secret tunnels under hospitals and schools, where they manufactured and hid thousands of rockets to use against Israel. It was Hamas that initiated the massacre on October 7, 2023. If the Palestinians need liberation, it is from Hamas, not Israel. So pervasive is anti-Semitism that many employees of the United Nations World Relief Agency were found to have diverted relief money to use against Israel.

And then there is Iran, a country that was formerly moderately progressive until the overthrow of the Shah of Iran (who was admittedly corrupt). Iran is now governed by Islamic extremists and all the oppression and hatred that entails. Women are forced to wear a hijab, homosexuals are thrown from buildings, and the clerics preach “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” In that posture, Iranians cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons. It was proper, moral, and just that the United States — the only country capable of doing so — destroyed the Iranian infrastructure for making nuclear weapons. It is proper and moral that good men oppose anti-Semitism here.

Shoah. Six million Jews. Never again.

Mark Fowler is a former attorney and board-certified physician. He can be reached at [email protected].