The “Hitler” comparison thing!
We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” ― James Baldwin
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., is asking members of his own party to stop comparing President Donald Trump to “Hitler”; reacting to the assassination of Charlie Kirk on Sunday.
This is an American domestic schoolyard bullies debate, a fake one, another art form of manufacturing differences between the two corporate parties system. The rowdy political wrangling, the far right and radical left extremists are labels; it is a family feud rising in a declining empire. “I think you just don’t ever, ever compare anyone to Hitler and those kinds of extreme things,” Fetterman warned. In the rational civilized West, you can’t compare anyone to Hitler; we only had one Hitler, only one evil, and one time, but in the Middle East, many Arab/Muslim leaders were compared to Adolf Hitler by Western politicians, journalists, and historians. In Western collective memories, Adolf Hitler is dead, but in the Middle East, Hitler still lives, and some may even think he was born there. Hitler resurrected every few years, usually with an Arabic name, a mustache in need of trimming, when a capital city needed to be invaded or bombed. It’s almost comical: in the 50s Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt was “the Hitler of the Nile” for nationalizing the Suez Canal. Saddam Hussein was “Hitler in the desert”—twice. Ayatollah Khomeini got the title in the 1980s, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2000s. Yasser Arafat? At one point, “the Palestinian Hitler.” Even Muammar Gaddafi, with his Bedouin tent and oversized sunglasses, got cast as a desert Führer by Ronald Reagan. The Israeli PM Netanyahu, a war criminal who has committed genocide, ethnic cleansing, and starvation of over two million Palestinians in Gaza for almost two years, has a soft thing for Hitler. He claimed that Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini gave Adolf Hitler the Holocaust idea, “Hitler just wanted to expel Jews from Europe,: but the Palestinian Mufti told him to “Burn them.” Netanyahu explained, A ludicrous claim that Jewish historians and Holocaust experts debunked. The Middle East must be the most Hitler-infested region on Earth. The reason is simple: Hitler is a political code for demonizing a person; for the West, he is pure evil; even other Western leaders have done worse, killed millions, but they were killed out of Europe, Congo, South Africa, Namibia, in Africa, and the natives and blacks in the new America. Why call someone a Hitler? a simple way to skip the messy business of history and context. You don’t have to explain colonialism, occupation, or U.S. meddling. You don’t have to ask why people resist or rebel. Hitler isn’t human—he’s evil incarnate. And evil can’t be reasoned with; it can only be destroyed, killed, starved, and ethnic cleansed, If your opponent is Hitler, you’re Truman, or Churchill. You’re the lone defender of civilization. Even Churchel, who caused the death of millions of people in India and Ireland, and whatever war you’re not about to launch a war, it’s a moral crusade. But here’s what the Hitler comparison leaves out: In Egypt, Nasser wasn’t building concentration camps; he was ending colonial rule. The Palestinian leader Arafat wasn’t plotting a Holocaust; he was fighting for a homeland. Saddam of Iraq was a brutal dictator, yes—but he wasn’t invading Paris or exterminating minorities on an industrial scale. By casting every adversary as Hitler, the West silences their actual grievances and erases its own role in creating them. It turns political struggle into a simple narrative: good versus evil, freedom versus fascism. Trump may admire Hitler, but he is not Hitler, Arab leaders were not Hitler; Egypt’s military dictators, Nasser, Not Hitler. Saddam, not Hitler, Gaddafi, certainly not Hitler, Assad, not Hitler, apparently, so long as it signs arms deals and hosts American bases. There’s also the danger of crying Hitler too often. If everyone is Hitler, then no one is. The Holocaust becomes just an industry, another metaphor, cheapened each time it’s used to sell a war. Let’s be clear: the Arab world has seen its share of authoritarian rulers. But Hitler? No. Not even close. Every time Western leaders resurrect Hitler’s ghost, they’re not describing reality—they’re manufacturing consent. They’re greasing the wheels for war, sanctions, and bombing campaigns. The next time a Western politician rolls out the “new Hitler” line, we should hear it for what it really is: a modern way to control the narrative, for intervention, occupation, more bombing, and killing. And like all political propaganda, it deserves skepticism, not applause.
Ahmed Tharwat
Host and Producer of Arab American TV show BelAhdan
Blog at Notes from America
His Documentary film, The Coptic Grave, will be screened at the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, September 25th
612-250-6567
