A Disinformation Twist on the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Bill 111

Originally we liked House Bill 111 (see original HB 111 – Holocaust and Genocide Education) because it was generic and left the discussion of the Holocaust and genocides up to a to-be-created “Holocaust and Genocide Studies Council” without making this an intersectionality and broader bill about all injustices of all types. However the Committee reviewing the bill has apparently been “hacked” by more specific language that substantially dilutes the Holocaust emphasis and having misleading misinformation/disinformation especially related to Palestinians and Israel. You can see the “substitute” bill: Substitute HB111 .

Below are several emails to the authors and Committee members reviewing the Bill that outline our objections. Feel free to use those arguments and any others you see fit when calling and emailing the various representatives.

Take Action:

Please write to the authors (Pamelya Herndon: pamelya.herndon@nmlegis.gov, Meredith Dixon: meredith.dixon@nmlegis.gov) and Committee members (below) and express your support of the original Bill 111, and objections to the substitute Bill. Here are their email addresses and phone numbers:

joanne.ferrary@nmlegis.gov	Joanne J. Ferrary	37 – Dona Ana	505-986-4844	Chair – D
angelica.rubio@nmlegis.gov	Angelica Rubio	35 – Dona Ana	505-986-4210	Vice Chair – D
stefani.lord@nmlegis.gov	Stefani Lord	22 – Bernalillo & Torrance	505-986-4453	Ranking Member – R
john.block@nmlegis.gov	John Block	51 – Otero	505-986-4220	Member – R
andrea@andrearomero.com	Andrea Romero	46 – Santa Fe	505-986-4243	Member – D
liz.thomson@nmlegis.gov	Elizabeth “Liz” Thomson	24 – Bernalillo	505-986-4425	Member – D

If you need more background on this blog posting, please see the previous one here from February 7.

Dear Representatives Herndon and Dixon, and members of the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee:

I am a member of the NM Jewish community and Chairman of Santa Fe Middle East Watch, which purposes include:

To inform the Santa Fe community about Israel and the Middle East proactively, factually, positively.
To counteract unfair or deceptive criticism of Israel by non-profits, media, and others in Santa Fe and surrounding areas.

I am in favor of Bill 111 as originally written. The substitute bill is highly objectionable and contains disinformation that no intellectually honest person would include I would submit that the great majority of the Jewish community would object to the substitute Bill as well.

There are 3 major objections:

the use of the term “European Holocaust”
the inclusion of Palestinians as an example of “modern case studies”
the broadening of the Bill to make this a type of intersectionality studies, a concept based on flawed historical, economic, ethical, and philosophical reasoning.

Why do I object to the new language?

The use of the adjective “European” should not be part of this bill.

The Holocaust is the name of a single, specific, unique genocide. Using “European” is misleading. The term “Holocaust” today literally means “the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators [from the years of 1933-1945].” [see here] The term “European Holocaust” [italics added] implies that there is one or more other “Holocaust[s]” (with a capital “H”) and fails to distinguish between The Holocaust and genocides more generally. Further, as re-written, your Bill severely dilutes the known value and lessons of the Holocaust.

Palestinians should not be included in the list of “modern case studies”

There is no evidence of Palestinian genocide, ethnic cleansing/appropriation, mass violence, or other aspects that are part of the Bill’s mandate.

Including “Palestinians” in the “current case studies list is clear disinformation and propaganda – there is no factual evidence of Palestinian genocide – either physically or culturally. It is a term used by Palestinian propagandists when trying to claim (falsely) that Zionism is immoral and the State of Israel shouldn’t exist. Proclaiming such disinformation is a clear definition of antisemitism as detailed in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and proclaimed by executive order by Governor Lujan-Grisham in August, 2022. As detailed in the Myths and Facts of the Israeli-Arab Conflict [here]:

- “The Palestinians left their homes in 1947-49 for a variety of reasons. Thousands of wealthy Arabs left in anticipation of a war, thousands more responded to Arab leaders’ calls to get out of the way of the advancing armies, a handful were expelled, but most simply fled to avoid being caught in the cross fire of a battle.
- “Many Arabs claim that 800,000 to 1,000,000 Palestinians became refugees in 1947-49. The last census was taken by the British in 1945. It found approximately 1.2 million permanent Arab residents in all of Palestine. A 1949 Government of Israel census counted 160,000 Arabs living in the country after the war. In 1947, a total of 809,100 Arabs lived in the same area.¹ This meant no more than 650,000 Palestinian Arabs could have become refugees. A report by the UN Mediator on Palestine arrived at an even lower figure ? 472,000, and calculated that only about 360,000 Arab refugees required aid.”

Factually it’s intellectually dishonest to argue that the Palestinians are subjects of genocide or meet any of the other terms used for “Holocaust and genocide Studies”. Their self-proclaimed numbers clearly put a lie to any genocide claim: they have grown from an estimated 700,000 in 1948 to an estimated 5.3 million today [see here], Further even today Palestinian nationalists who advocate, for example, boycotting Israel, claim they want land “from the river to the sea” meaning all of what is the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and pre-1967 Israel, with no Jews living in those territories. This is evidence of advocacy of genocide or mass deportation of Jews, not of Palestinians.

It is only a very marginal radical minority group of Jews who would include “Palestinian” in the Bill – not the mainstream community as a whole. There are also those in the non-Jewish community who are anti-Zionist and, according to the IHRA definition, antisemitic. They also tend to be supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to eliminate the Jewish state in its entirety [see here]. You can’t possibly think that giving them legitimacy through your bill is morally legitimate or justifiable.

The attempt at intersectionality implied in the substitute Bill 111 ignores the dramatically different historical contexts and possible solutions of the various conflicts around the world. This makes many of the conflicts mentioned clearly different and not within the definitions of “Holocaust” and “genocide” even within the Bill’s own language. For example, the killing of civilians during war is regrettable and foreseeable, but if there is not a systematic attempt and intent to “destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group in whole or in part” it would not come under the definition of genocide. Rather than including some incorrect examples, the Bill should leave the study, discussion and curriculum to the “Holocaust and Genocide Studies Council.”

Halley S. Faust, MD, MPH, MA

Chairman, Santa Fe Middle East Watch

Letter written by Rabbi Chaim Schmuckler to a representative:

Dear ________:

Thank you for sending this [substitute House Bill 111] to me.

The comparison of the Holocaust to the political conflict between the
Jewish people and the Palestinians is deeply, I repeat, deeply offensive.
In my eyes, it would cause many in the Jewish community to distance themselves
from this initiative.

In the last century, Israel has offered Palestinians on over a dozen
occasions, compromises to create peace and stability in the Region. Time
and again, the Palestinians have refused offers of compromise and peace. This
is the reason for the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Arab Countries.
Their fellow Arabs are tired of being held hostage by Palestinians who refuse
peace and have decided that they do not want the Palestinians to block
peace with their countries and Israel.

It’s outrageous and frankly Anti Semitic to equate Jews PROTECTING themselves
form the tragic violence we saw last week (when two Jewish children were killed
at a bus stop in Jerusalem by a Palestinian terrorist) and perpetrating a
Holocaust where millions were marched to
their death in gas chambers.

I can assure you that any effort to compare the unparalleled tragedy of the
Holocaust, to this political conflict will draw tremendous criticism and
rejection from Jews in New Mexico and the world over. It’s nothing but a
political move to minimize the Holocaust and its historical
importance

Would I be offended, that is a dramatic understatement. It’s the ultimate
insult to the memory of the millions of Jews and others marched to their death
in gas chambers.

If this is included, I will strongly advocate that the Jewish community
boycott any involvement with the Holocaust commission.

Thank you,

Chaim

Some additional observations from Ron Duncan-Hart, Director of the Institute for Tolerance Studies:

There is a problem with the illogical use of terms on page 3, lines 2 and 3 and following. The chemical attacks on Kurds by Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein and the attacks on the Yazidis by ISIS which include campaigns of killing of tens of thousands of people are not comparable to the Palestinian situation, which is not a genocide.

The reference to genocide against “women” is not logical. Women are not an ethnic group like the three ethnic groups mentioned in the sentence. There has not been a systematic campaign of killing of women, which is what the term “genocide” means. Yazidi women were taken into sexual slavery and brutalized. Is that the reference? Or, is it a broader reference to the unequal treatment of women in Arab countries where familial property belongs to the man and women cannot inherit? Does it refer to the male privilege in Arab societies in which women are treated unfairly and sometimes brutally? The unequal and brutal treatment of women is an abuse of human rights and intolerable, but it is not genocide.

From Brian Yapko, Santa Fe:

Dear Authors and Committee Members,

As someone who is half Jewish, half Christian and a gay man who has been subjected to high levels of prejudce my whole life, I am writing to object to language diluting the original intent of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Bill 111.

At a time when prejudice and violence against American Jews is exploding throughout the U.S., you are sabotaging any chance of easing this horrible prejudice by inexplicably putting the Palestinian versus israel conflict front and center. You are creating resentment, not easing it.

Just for a minute can you understand what it feels like to be a Jew who, in living memory, faced the slaughter of one out of every 3 Jews on the planet as part of a concerted effort by German antisemites? Jews make up .02 percent of the entire population of this planet — a total population of 15,000,000 versus the 8,000,000,000 who live on this Earth. This number is infinitesimal. Nor is there anything in history remotely comparable to the Holocaust. Yes, there have been genocides, but never one in which an entire nation’s official administrative, industrial and military capability was focused on one goal: the eradication of all Jews.

…The Holocaust was unique. Please don’t disrespect this by diluting it.

[…]

Here’s why my gay background is relevant. I know with confidence that if you were presented with a gay-education or trans education of African-American education studies bill I do not believe you would even consider diluting it by turning it into an “all lives matter” or an “all sexualities matter” type of course. Why would you consider doing that for an issue that is so uniquely — and traumatically — Jewish? Why is my gay identity more deserving of protection than my Jewish identity? Especially when Jews are the far more vulnerable and smaller population. Look at the FBI statistics.

In sum, I urge you to please allow this to be a focus on the Holocaust of the Jews in World War II. Please don’t dilute into something that is not unique in all of world history. Otherwise it will most certainly be repeated.

Respectfully,

Brian Yapko