New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has joined those who seek to demonize Israel, suggesting the values of the hilltop youth who are committing West Bank violence harken back to Nazi ideology and actions. Friedman reported Moshe Ya’alon, defense minister a decade ago, “likening the ideology of extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank to that of Nazi Germany in local news reports.” “What is Jewish supremacy?” Ya’alon asked, “Eighty years after the Holocaust, ‘Mein Kampf’ in reverse. The master race is us.”

While I have previously condemned the extremists and their leader, Itamar Ben-Gvir, their motivation is not Nazi-like as Ya’alon claims. Jews have witnessed what was done in 1949 when territories were turned over to the Jordanians. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported: