Stephen Kapos's Views on Gaza
What are we to make of the Hungarian Holocaust survivor who is characterizing the situation in Gaza as another Holocaust?
A friend just sent me the following video of Stephen Kapos, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor and activist based in the UK.
Kapos describes the situation in Gaza as a “Holocaust” (or genocide) and notes that some Jewish individuals speak out against Israeli actions there, while criticizing broader support or silence in the Jewish community. Kapos’s statements in the video are consistent his other public statements and interviews.
Born in Budapest in 1937, Kapos survived the Holocaust as a child (including time in hiding and the Budapest ghetto under Nazi occupation; much of his family perished). He has been a vocal pro-Palestine activist, regularly appearing in videos, interviews.
He draws parallels between his experiences and the suffering in Gaza, calls Israel’s actions a genocide, rejects using the Jewish Holocaust to justify them, and is associated with groups of Holocaust survivors and descendants opposing the war in Gaza.
To me, this kind of testimony goes to the heart of our current epistemological crisis—that is, our inability to know what to believe.
I am often told that, when it comes to the situation in the Middle East, I am not allowed to consider points of view that stray from official US and Israeli government narratives. This is a very strange state of affairs for me, because the rationale for founding this newsletter with Dr. Peter McCullough was our questioning of official US government narratives about COVID-19.
We also noted—to our astonishment—that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government initiated a “Green Badge” policy in which the government made entry to gyms, hotels, pools, and cultural events accessible only to those who carried a certificate of vaccination with a QR code. The program was in effect roughly between February 2021 and March 2022.
What do you think about Kapos’s point of view? Do you think he is overstating, exaggerating, or just plain wrong?
He is wrong. Jews are the indigenous. Arabs live in Israel with full rights of citizenship. As long as some ignore the words of those who seek to destroy all Jews, peace will prevail only when those who speak those words cease to exist.
He makes a very strong moral case but he says nothing of what can or should be done to resolve the situation. What do you do when your neighbor has sworn to wipe you off the face of the map?