'Never Again' Unless Maybe You Thought That Included Palestinians, Holocaust Museum Says By Deleting Post

"Unbelievable" yet entirely predictable was how Palestinian rights supporters described a decision by Holocaust Museum LA in Los Angeles over the weekend to take down a social media post that had stated a clear opposition to all genocide, no matter the victims.

The museum had shared a post with its 24,200 Instagram followers last week that read, "Never again can't only mean never again for Jews," repeating a sentiment expressed by Jewish-led human rights groups and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, named for the Holocaust survivor who coined the term "genocide."

"Jews were raised to say, 'Never again,'" the post continued. "That means never again. For anyone."

But the post was met with a barrage of angry comments from pro-Israel users and groups including the organization Stop Antisemitism, which calls itself a Jewish civil rights watchdog group and has spent months targeting public figures who criticize Israel's assault on Gaza and express support for Palestinians, more than 63,000 of whom have been killed by Israeli forces since October 2023.

The group—which earlier this year called on the US Department of Justice to investigate whether children's entertainer Ms. Rachel is funded by Hamas due to her support for Palestinian rights—called on donors to the museum to "redirect [their] giving our way, an organization that focuses solely on the Jewish people and fighting the bigotry we face."

An account with 30,000 followers was among those that accused the museum of "feeding into the genocide libel"—suggesting that the finding by numerous international rights organizations, the Lemkin Institute, and Israeli human rights groups that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is comparable to medieval "blood libels" against Jewish people.

The museum responded to the comments by taking down the post and issuing an apology that appeared intent on denying the organization has any concern for Palestinians currently facing a famine orchestrated by the Israeli government and daily attacks as Israel enacts its plan to take over the entire Gaza Strip.

The original post, said the museum, had been intended to "promote inclusivity and community," but was "easily open to misinterpretation by some to be a political statement reflecting the ongoing situation in the Middle East."

"The was not our intent," the organization added, promising to more thoroughly vet its social media content in the future to ensure its message "always remains clear."

The museum's overall message to the public, suggested the apology, is not that all populations must be protected from genocidal violence—a statement that left Ryan Grim of Drop Site News "speechless."

Grim said the museum's position appeared to be, "If you denounce genocide, some might think you're being critical of Israel and we can't have that."

The apology itself, said Laila Al-Arian of Al Jazeera's "Fault Lines," would not be out of place "in a museum someday showing how genocides happen."

Writer and researcher Ismail Aderonmu added that the museum, which was founded by Holocaust survivors, had stepped back from "the clearest moral lesson of the Holocaust: Never again for anyone."

Human rights lawyer Yasmine Taeb told Al Jazeera that Holocaust Museum LA's original post had simply appeared to acknowledge what "countless genocide scholars and human rights organizations" have already said: that "what Israel is doing in Gaza is textbook definition of genocide."

"It's appalling that a museum established for the purpose of educating the public about genocide and the Holocaust not only refuses to acknowledge the reality of Israel's actions in Gaza, but [is] removing a social media post that merely stated that 'never again' is not intended for just Jews, in order for it to not be interpreted as a response to the genocide in Gaza," Taeb said.

Assal Rad, a researcher at Arab Institute Washington, DC added that the apology was dehumanizing to Palestinians in Gaza and the US.

"Palestinians are so dehumanized that they're excluded from 'never again,'" said Rad. "Apparently their genocide is the exception."