As long as I can remember, I've known that there was only one unique Holocaust in the history of humankind. We learned that the Armenians had suffered a “genocide” and that “a people’s massacre” had been perpetrated in Rwanda. We learned that Israel’s Arab citizens experienced a catastrophe, known in Arabic as the “Nakba,” when the state was established 70 years ago and they were uprooted from their homes. We were told that the use of the term “Shoah,” Hebrew for “Holocaust,” to characterize atrocities committed after World War II does a moral and historic injustice to the 6 million Jews exterminated by the Nazis.
However, a sea change has now occurred, and senior elected officials have ceded the Jewish monopoly over the Holocaust. On May 16, Education Minister Naftali Bennett used “Shoah” in calling on Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein to “promote Israeli recognition of the holocaust against the Armenians carried out by Turkey.” Last month, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan of the Likud used the same term in urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognize the "Armenian Holocaust."
