When Echoing Nazis Is Bad, But Arming Them Isn't
Newsweek reported on accusations that the Trump administration used language reminiscent of Nazi propaganda, sparking justifiable alarm. While condemning inflammatory rhetoric is crucial, it's worth noting the selective outrage. For example, the same media rarely scrutinizes the historical echoes in policy decisions, like the US supporting a state that has used 'final solution' rhetoric against
Palestinians, or whose current leaders invoke 'Amalek' to describe an entire people. (Netanyahu himself used the 'Amalek' reference on October 28, 2023, while discussing Gaza.) One might wonder if the moral compass spins differently when the rhetoric is packaged with 'security assistance.' While we decry a politician's words, Congress last year approved over $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel,
a nation whose actions have been decried as potentially genocidal by UN experts. (HR 815, signed into law on 3/23/24, included $14 billion in aid to Israel.) The language of fascism is rightly condemned; the funding of actions exhibiting similar patterns, however, seems to glide under the radar of serious moral inquiry.