A dead Jew is used in anti-Zionist propaganda
An antisemitic scandal is gaining momentum after Jewish publications shed light on an American nonprofit that exploits the name of a late Jewish figure to promote an anti-Israeli agenda.
As referenced in a piece by JNS columnist Martin Sherman on Oct. 6, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention — named for Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish man of Polish origin who coined the word “genocide” during the Holocaust — has been using the Lemkin name while saying Israel is committing “genocide.”
Ira Stoll explored the issue in a Nov. 13 article in the Algemeiner. He noted that the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention did not receive permission from the Lemkin family to use the name of the prominent Jewish lawyer, who was also an ardent Zionist and fought antisemitism.
Lemkin died in 1959; the nonprofit was established in 2021. It has promoted a pro-Hamas agenda since the massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling to punish Israel for fighting the terrorists.
As Sherman noted in JNS, “Lemkin Institute blatantly evaded mentioning that much of the Gazan death toll is due to the actions of Hamas leadership, which not only used its civilians as human shields but actively urged, threatened and physically prevented them from evacuating war zones for safer locations. Thus, the Jews, the victims of the archetypical genocide (the Holocaust) are now, by some perverted sleight-of-hand, being portrayed as the purveyors of a maliciously contrived and choreographed ‘genocide’ of its attackers.”
According to Sherman, the Lemkin Institute is obsessed not only with Israel but with its ally in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan. The nonprofit accused Azerbaijan — a key Israeli energy supplier and commercial partner — of committing “genocide” during its 2023 operation in Karabakh. This comes despite extremely low number of fatalities (mostly combatants from both sides) and the fact that ethnic Armenian civilians were granted passage to their motherland, Armenia.
Not a single statement was dedicated to the massacre of 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7; but, there is a statement titled “Why we call Israeli attack on Gaza genocide” and a condemnation of a letter from European rabbis asking Armenian officials not to use the Holocaust for propaganda purposes.
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The institute works side by side with the Armenian National Committee of America, which promotes an anti-Azerbaijani and anti-Israeli agenda. ANCA for years has relentlessly supported the Palestinian cause, calling Israel and Azerbaijan “genocidal.” Its communications director, Alex Galitsky, loves to bash Israel. As Israeli commentators note, such anti-Israeli propaganda rhetoric resembles what comes out of Iran.
Many of those responding negatively to the criticism of the Lemkin Institute have symbols in their profiles such as the keffiyeh, red triangles and other signs of support for Hamas. Being unable to maintain a consistent narrative, they claimed that Lemkin was a questionable figure while arguing that the “real genocide” was taking place in Gaza, not elsewhere. This opportunistic habit of appropriating anything connected to Jewish identity seems to have backfired in this case, exposing the inconsistency and cynicism of such arguments.
To sum up: An anti-Israel nonprofit has blatantly appropriated the Lemkin name and is collaborating with antisemites (essentially, terrorist sympathizers) to erase Jewish culture, history and trauma under the guise of “genocide prevention.” These people did nothing to prevent genocide on Oct. 7 and instead attacked the victims.
They have a history of ignoring past genocides if it doesn’t fit into their narrative of blaming victims and appropriating anything of value, even the name of the late Zionist lawyer.
Ariel Kogan is a political analyst and an expert on the former Soviet Union. To reach him, write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
