Summary

IHRC is calling on activists to write to their local councils and organisations taking part in Holocaust Memorial Day, asking them to boycott HMD Trust for their refusal to mention Gaza on their list of genocides.

Background

In November 2024, the IHRC wrote to the Holocaust Memorial  Day Trust requesting that the Gaza Genocide be added to their list of genocides, which includes not only the holocaust, but others as well. The HMD Trust ignored the request, not even bothering to respond.

With the overwhelming amount of evidence, we have gone far beyond any doubt that there is a genocide taking place in Gaza, and most human rights groups and experts have also confirmed that it is such. Therefore, there is no excuse for HMD Trust to not include it, and to do so suggests they are attempting to create a hierarchy of genocides, and contributes to attempts to normalise the genocide in Gaza.

Action Required

Write any organisations that you know are taking part in Holocaust Memorial Day, asking them to include the current genocide in Gaza, and if not to then boycott it, and if possible create an all-inclusive alternative yourselves which does so (contact IHRC for advice and resources in organising an alternative event). There is a template letter below.

Find out more about IHRC’s Genocide Memorial Day event here

You can see more actions to take on our Palestine campaign page here

Donate towards food and medical supplies for Palestine here

Donate to support activism here

Template Letter

[Your name]

[Your address]

[Date]

Dear [Insert name],

Re: Holocaust Memorial Day and Gaza

When looking at the mission of the official Holocaust Memorial Day which reads: “to remember the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, alongside the millions of people murdered under Nazi persecution of other groups, and in more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur”, it is hard to ignore the fact that the current genocide taking place in Gaza is not mentioned.

There is no hierarchy of genocides or suffering and the fact of remembrance is not limited by the background of either the victims or the perpetrators of any of the genocides. Every genocide is unique and all are morally abhorrent and therefore it is with grave concern and great disappointment that we note the absence of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Ther can be no doubt that Israel’s savage onslaught against the besieged people of Gaza amounts to a genocide. This is understood by experts across the World who have all either defined the atrocities as tantamount to genocide or as is the case with the ICJ, believe there is enough evidence to try the state of Israel for the crime of genocide. These experts include the US-based Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestine Territories, University Network for Human Rights, the co-founder of Human Rights Watch, Aryeh Neier, the Islamic Human Rights Commission, and Amnesty International.

We cannot use the excuse that we do not know, as our screens and social media have shown us, not only images and videos of extreme violence not shared so widely before, but also politicians and military figures exposing themselves as having genocidal intent in their words. At the time of writing this letter at least 45,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, while being starved and deprived of the basic conditions necessary for human existence. The actual death toll figures are believed by some experts to be around 5 times that number.

When taking into account the overwhelming evidence that the crime of genocide is being perpetrated in Gaza, it is imperative that if HMD is to retain any credibility as a commemoration, it must be universal in scope and inclusive, and recognise the genocide currently unfolding in Gaza. It is also imperative that if we are to remain faithful to the aim of stopping genocide from happening both in the future and in the World today, we do not show any moral cowardice hen seeing an obvious case of genocide taking place before us.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission has released a statement saying that they wrote to the HMD Trust requesting that they include Gaza, and that their request was ignored. By doing so HMD is undermining a key aim of such commemorations which is to go beyond mere remembrance and take practical measures to ensure that “Never Again” means precisely that. The failure of the HMD Trust to respect such an axiomatic principle speaks to the racial exclusivism that has come to characterise the official commemoration.

For these reasons, we would request that you boycott the official HMD Trust commemoration and replace it with alternatives that recognise the horrific genocide taking place in front of our very eyes.

Yours sincerely,

[Your Name]

Email for politicians

If your local council is taking part, you can find your local politicians here