ENOUGH! Stop calling October 7th a Holocaust! 

The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was a gut-wrenching nightmare that left 1,200 people dead, 251 taken hostage, and Jewish hearts shattered. In the raw pain that followed, some people, survivors, activists, even X users, called it a “Holocaust,” pointing to the savage antisemitism and cold-blooded murders.

But as awful as that day was, it’s not the Holocaust, the Nazi genocide that wiped out six million Jews and millions more. Slapping that label on October 7 muddies history, stirs up trouble, and weakens the fight against hate.

Let’s dive into why these two tragedies aren’t the same, why the comparison’s a bad move, and what’s at stake, with a voice that’s real, not stuffy, and keeps your call-out on rigid thinking front and center.

October 7: A Day of Horror

Dawn on October 7, 2023: 4,000 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters storm across Israel’s Gaza border. They hit kibbutzim like Nahal Oz, military posts, and the Nova music festival, where young people were dancing without a care. The carnage was brutal: 1,200 killed, mostly civilians, including 36 kids. Human Rights Watch documented rape, torture, and mutilation, war crimes that sear the soul.

They grabbed 251 hostages, and 59 are still stuck in Gaza, maybe only 24 alive. The attack screamed antisemitism, targeting Jews just for being Jews, with plans to hit schools and youth centers. No wonder some, like The Misfit Patriot, saw echoes of the Holocaust’s hatred.

Israel hit back hard. The trauma, ongoing hostage saga, and anti-Israel protests, some downright gleeful, as Douglas Murray told Gad Saad, pushed people to draw Holocaust parallels, feeling like history’s darkest chapter was repeating.

The Holocaust: A Nightmare Beyond Compare

Now, let’s talk about the Holocaust, the Nazi slaughter from 1933 to 1945 that killed six million Jews, two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population, plus millions of Romani, disabled folks, and others. It was a machine of death: gas chambers, mass shootings, camps like Sachsenhausen, where 100,000 perished, as recent FSB files on commander Anton Kaindl show. The Nazis’ “Final Solution” wasn’t just murder; it was a plan to erase every Jew from the planet, fueled by a twisted ideology that painted them as humanity’s enemy.

This wasn’t a one-day rampage. It stretched years, gutted entire communities like Aleppo’s Syrian Jews and leaned on propaganda, laws, and a world that looked the other way.

Why They’re Worlds Apart

October 7 was a kick in the gut, but it’s not the Holocaust. Here’s why they don’t line up:

Size and Time:

The Holocaust killed six million Jews over 12 years, shredding a continent’s Jewish life. October 7 took 1,200 lives in one day: heartbreaking, but nowhere near that scale. Even if you scale it to Israel’s 9 million people (like 44,000 U.S. deaths), it’s still a fraction of the Shoah’s devastation.

What They Wanted:

Nazis wanted every Jew gone, everywhere, forever, with a sick, scientific plan. Hamas’s attack, soaked in antisemitism, was about hitting Israel hard in a political fight. Their charter screams “destroy Israel,” not “kill all Jews globally.” It’s terror, not genocide, not because they don't wish they could get rid of us all, but because they can't.

How It Happened:

The Holocaust was a state-run killing factory: camps, trains, gas chambers, backed by half of Europe. October 7 was a blitz by a terrorist group, catching Israel off guard but limited to one region. Nazis had free rein; Hamas faced Israel’s army within hours.

What Happened After:

Holocaust Jews had no state, no army, and barely any hope, with survivors scraping by until Israel’s birth in 1948. October 7 hit a strong Israel, which fought back fast, backed by allies like the U.S. That power to resist makes all the difference.

Why Calling It a Holocaust Is a Bad Call

I get why people reach for the Holocaust comparison: October 7 felt like a betrayal of “Never Again.” But throwing that term around does more harm than good. Here’s why:

It Shrinks the Holocaust:

The Holocaust is a one-of-a-kind horror, the gold standard for what genocide looks like. Comparing it to a single attack, even one as vile as October 7, makes it seem less colossal. Yad Vashem calls the Shoah “unprecedented,” and watering it down risks letting deniers, who already have traction, with 11% of U.S. adults clueless about it per a 2020 Pew survey, chip away at its truth.It Heats Up Fights:

Saying “Holocaust” can turn the Israel-Palestine mess into a shouting match. It ignores the conflict’s roots, land, politics, history and pushes away people who might stand against antisemitism.

It also opens the door to garbage like Dan Bilzerian, claiming Israel’s running a “holocaust in Palestine,” twisting both stories into a mess that helps no one.

It Hides Jewish Grit

The Holocaust was about Jews with no way to fight back, crushed by a machine. October 7, awful as it was, showed Israel hitting back hard: soldiers, jets, the works.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, fighting for guys like Omri Miran, shows that spirit too. Calling it a Holocaust plays up weakness, not the strength that kept things from getting worse.

It Muddies the Antisemitism Fight

Antisemitism’s spiking, 360% more incidents in the U.S. post-October 7, says the Anti-Defamation League. But shouting “Holocaust” at every attack makes it harder to call out real threats, like Hezbollah’s alleged drug and diamond schemes in Africa to fund terror, which echo old Jew-hating lies.

Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt says stick to clear words to keep people listening, not rolling their eyes.

It Hurts Survivors

Holocaust survivors, like Arieh Pinsker, who stood at Majdanek in 2025 with his son, carry a pain tied to losing millions. Comparing that to October 7, like Hannanel Aviv did on Yom HaShoah, can feel like it cheapens their nightmare. It’s a gut punch to those who lived through the Shoah and their families, splitting Jews when we need to stand together.

What’s Really at Stake

I feel the fear driving this comparison, October 7 was a wake-up call, and protests cheering it, as Murray pointed out, hit like salt in a wound. But slapping “Holocaust” on it blinds us to the Israel-Palestine tangle, where Hamas hides among civilians and Israel’s response gets slammed for its body count. Calling October 7 a Holocaust is a black-and-white trap, shutting down the messy truth for a cheap emotional jab.

For Jews, keeping it straight matters. The Holocaust teaches what happens when hate runs wild: October 7 shows it’s still out there, but we’ve got a state, an army, and a voice now. Calling it a “pogrom” or “massacre,” like historian Omer Bartov says, nails the antisemitism without stealing the Shoah’s weight. That clarity helps push for the 59 hostages, like Omri Miran, whose family’s Yom HaShoah cry was about action, not just words.

Globally, the wrong label twists the conflict into a cartoon, good guys versus bad, making deals for those hostages harder and numbing folks to real genocide warnings, like in Sudan. It also hands ammo to folks like Bilzerian, who twist “holocaust” to bash Israel.

The Way Forward

October 7, 2023, was a brutal antisemitic attack, but it’s not the Holocaust. Let’s call it what it was: a pogrom, a massacre, and keep the Shoah’s place as the ultimate warning of where hate can lead.

"Never Again” means doing the hard stuff: freeing hostages, teaching history, calling out antisemitism. That’s how we honor the six million and the 1,200, keeping our eyes clear and our fight strong.

And for those readers who still aren't clear, just because I am against calling October 7th a Holocaust doesn't mean I am undermining what happened.It was the single worst antisemitic carnage since the Holocaust, and Jews the world over and Israelis especially are still reeling from the fallout, while the rest of the world eagerly laps out the 'Poor Palestinians' narrative.

Sources: Human Rights Watch,, ADL, The Times of Israel, 2025 Pew Research Center, “What Americans Know About the Holocaust”