What does 'Never Again' really mean?

Deeply tied to Jewish memory, the slogan 'Never Again' emerged after the Holocaust as a global moral imperative to prevent genocide and mass atrocity.

In Gaza, a child is being killed every 45 minutes. At this moment, two million people are teetering on the edge of starvation.

United Nations workers, journalists, mothers, fathers, the elderly — all are targets in the crosshairs of Israeli tanks.

And nine — yes – just nine — aid trucks were allowed into Gaza on Monday after a three-month blockade.

Are we witnessing anything less than the collapse of humanity?

Next month my 11-year-old will be visiting the Toronto Holocaust Museum after spending the last few months learning about the horrors of the Second World War. She’s looking forward to the field trip. But she has some questions.

“Why did they say ‘Never Again’ after the Holocaust if they’re doing this to Palestinians now?” she asks after stopping at an image on my Instagram feed of an eight-year-old child with grey hair and white patches on her skin. Lana Al-Sharif was diagnosed with vitiligo after suffering a severe panic attack following an Israeli air strike on her neighbourhood last year.

“Did they mean that it should never happen to Jews again, or to anyone?”

What do I say?

I’m thinking about the headlines last week; those vile photos of U.S. President Donald Trump and Saudi ruler Mohammad bin Salman beaming at each other like Cheshire cats during Trump’s Gulf visit after signing investment agreements for more than $600 billion weapons and technology.

This was Trump’s first visit since brokering the Abraham Accords in 2020, a “normalization” agreement between Israel and the UAE that paved the way for ambassador exchanges and partnerships in education, security, trade, and tourism that is now bearing surreal fruit.

According to Israeli media, Dubai has become a top winter destination for Israeli soldiers, praised for its “non-hostile atmosphere and sense of security.” So the IDF soldiers responsible for the murder of more than 50,000 Palestinians over 19 months are now literally lying on Emirati beaches — not as occupiers, but as vacationers.

I guess you can’t blame them though, because really, where else in the region could an Israeli soldier unwind in peace? Only in a place where the American president can look its ruler in the eye and say: “I like him too much. That’s why we give so much, you know? Too much. I like you too much.”

The impunity with which Israel acts as global accusations of genocide mount is unbearable.

Last January, Western powers ignored the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel had plausibly committed violations of the Genocide Convention in Gaza. Will it also ignore recent warnings by the world’s leading genocide scholars — including Holocaust researchers from six countries, including Israel, who believe that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide?

Those who are supporting the Israeli government can no longer use the pretext that this war on Palestinians is about punishing Hamas only. With Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declaring in early May that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” as part of Israel’s military campaign, does anyone seriously still believe that this campaign is not about ethnic cleansing?

In February Trump admitted the plan, saying he is “committed to buying and owning Gaza” and turning it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Trump’s visit to the Gulf also reminded me of the horrific murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, the same autocratic ruler once shunned by the West for greenlighting the operation that saw Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi dismembered with a bone saw in 2020. His state-sanctioned killing sparked international outrage among Western political leaders, human rights organizations, and the media establishments at the time, but there has since been no justice for the Saudi journalist.

Instead, Mohammed bin Salman’s power has only been emboldened by Trump, and former U.S. President Joe Biden.

And yet, since October 7, at least 232 Palestinian journalists have been killed on the job — with very few, if any, expressions of condemnation from world leaders or mainstream news outlets. Why does the murder of an Arab journalist only spark outrage when the perpetrator is Arab too?

Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney’s joint statement this week with France and the UK — denouncing Israel’s actions as “wholly disproportionate” and “egregious” — finally strikes a tone of urgency and moral clarity. But it comes far too late. It comes after far too many lives have been lost, and far too much silence from those in power.

I sit with my daughter’s question, feeling the weight of history and the horror of the present crashing into each other. I don’t trust myself to answer it, not with my thoughts tangled in fury and despair.

“That’s a good question,” I say at last. “I honestly don’t know the answer. Why don’t you ask at the Museum when you’re there?”

This article was first published in Ricochet Media on May 21st, 2025