The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is urging Muslims, local government and other organisations to boycott Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations after the organisers failed to add Gaza to the list of genocides being remembered.
The IHRC wrote to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMD Trust) – a government-led charity that presides over Holocaust Memorial Day – on November 27 requesting that Gaza be listed among the genocides being commemorated on January 27 but it failed to respond.
The IHRC letter listed examples of legal and humanitarian bodies expressing the view that what is happening in Gaza is a genocide, including the United Nations, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the U.S.-based Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention.
The letter also told the HMD Trust: “Every genocide is morally abhorrent. It is therefore with grave concern and great disappointment that we note the absence of the ongoing genocide in Gaza from the list of genocides mentioned by HMD. The failure to include it in commemorations would undermine a fundamental aim of marking the Holocaust which is to help prevent further genocides and to put a stop to genocides when they occur, rather than being a symbolic exercise in remembering historical atrocities. There can be little doubt that Israel’s savage onslaught against the besieged people of Gaza amounts to a genocide.
“In view of the overwhelming evidence pointing to the crime of genocide being perpetrated in Gaza it is imperative that if HMD is to retain any credibility as a commemoration, it must be truly universal in scope and recognise the genocide currently unfolding in Gaza. It is also imperative that if we are to remain faithful to the aim of stopping current and preventing future genocides that we include the genocide that is unfolding in our time.”
The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust
HMD Trust is the charity established and funded by the UK Government to “promote and support Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK.”
Subscribe to our newsletter and stay updated on the latest news and updates from around the Muslim world!
Holocaust Memorial Day has taken place in the UK since 2001, with a UK Commemorative Ceremony and more than 10,000 local activities taking place all across the UK on or around January 27 each year.
The UK Government held the responsibility for running Holocaust Memorial Day from 2001-2005, organised through the Home Office.
In May 2005, HMD Trust was registered as a charity and the Home Secretary appointed HMD Trust Trustees for the first time with a professional team starting work in 2005.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has funded the trust’s work since 2007.
On the HMD Trust’s website, they state their prime mission objective as “encourages remembrance in a world scarred by prejudice and systematic, targeted persecution .. The Holocaust is central to Holocaust Memorial Day and we remember the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust.”
Despite the name of the day and the charity behind it, HMD Trust does make clear that it commemorates other genocides too but appears to be selective about which genocides it wants to recognise.
“We also commemorate the millions more people murdered through the Nazi persecution of other groups and in the more recent genocides recognised by the UK government.”
Genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur are listed alongside the Nazi Holocaust on their website.
In a statement, the IHRC chair, Massoud Shadjareh, said: “We have suspected for a long time that Holocaust Memorial Day promotes the exceptionalisation of genocide through the Nazi Holocaust. Any failure to include the actual genocide that is unfolding so graphically in our own time gives the lie to the slogan “Never Again” exposing it as a political device to promote one genocide over all others. Civil society cannot allow the Gaza genocide to be legitimised by the misappropriation of the Nazi Holocaust.”
The Gaza Genocide
More than 45,000 Palestinians have now been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza following October 7 when Palestinian armed group Hamas launched a surprise military operation Al Aqsa Flood, killing over 1000 Israeli citizens.
For over a year, Israeli regime forces have indiscriminately attacked much of Gaza compiling a huge death toll of innocent life. Most killed being women and children.
On December 5, an Amnesty International investigation concluded that a genocide was indeed being carried out in Gaza by Israel.
A report published by the human rights organisation titled ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of October 7, Israel has unleashed “hell and destruction” on Palestinians in Gaza “brazenly, continuously and with total impunity.”
An Amnesty International statement on the report said: “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now.”
This comes after the International Court of Justice found plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide and issued six provisional measures.
Ordering Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent genocidal acts, including preventing and punishing incitement to genocide, ensuring aid and services reach Palestinians under siege in Gaza, and preserving evidence of crimes committed in Gaza.
To date, Israel has continued to deny aid to Gaza and civilians continue to die on a regular basis as a result of Israeli bombings.
Staunch supporters of Israel have attacked the concept of Gaza being a genocide.
Western governments like the UK and U.S.A have denied the claims that a genocide is unfolding in Gaza.
In November, British independent MP, Ayoub Khan asked the Prime Minister Keir Starmer if he agreed with a bizarre definition of genocide issued by Foreign Secretary David Lammy earlier to Parliament.
“Will the Prime Minister share his definition of genocide with this House?” Khan asked.
In his response, Starmer said: “It would be wise to start a question like that by reference to what happened in October of last year. I’m well aware of the definition of genocide, and that is why I’ve never described this as and referred to it as genocide.”
