Shocking comparison of Nazi Germany’s ‘concentration camp’ with Gaza sparks uproar: ‘Understandable why they would kill or take hostages’

A prominent SBS World News presenter has sparked outrage after sharing an excerpt from a film review comparing the people of Gaza to the victims of Nazi concentration camps.

Mary Kostakidis, considered the face of public broadcasting for 20 years, shared an excerpt from American journalist Steven Thrasher’s review of the recent film The Zone of Interest, which shows a family of German Nazis living blissfully next to lives in the Auschwitz concentration camp. during the Second World War.

In his piece, written for the pro-Palestinian news site Mondoweiss, Thrasher questioned whether Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel was understandable.

“The Zone of Interest,” about a family of Nazis living right up against the walls of Auschwitz, is the most relevant movie in the world right now,” Kostakidis tweeted, as Thrasher wrote in his op-ed.

“If the Jews who were shot and shoveled into ovens could just break through that wall, of course they would kill whoever they found partying on the other side of the wall!

‘And of course they would take women and children hostage and drag them back to their inner hell, if that would give them any power to free their fellow Jews from torture and death!

Naturally, this thought set in motion an obvious but taboo moral question in my mind about one of the most pressing issues of our time: is it understandable why people in Gaza, similarly imprisoned behind a wall in a concentration camp and experience genocide? ., would kill or take hostage people they found on the other side of the wall while they were holding them back?’

Kostakidis immediately faced a barrage of criticism after sharing Thrasher’s opinion on her Twitter account on Saturday.

Many labeled the journalist ‘anti-Semitic’ and wondered how a comparison of Gaza with the infamous Auschwitz labor camp could be made.

Others also accused the tweet of minimizing the atrocities that have taken place in the conflict between Palestine and Israel, including the shocking killings of children.

Mary Kostakidis shared an excerpt from American journalist Steven Thrasher’s review of the recent film The Zone of Interest, which features a family of German Nazis living blissfully next to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Kostakidis was widely criticized for sharing the clip

‘Mary, are you seriously comparing Auschwitz to Gaza?! “I’m not even Jewish and even I find your tweets tasteless, offensive and without any form of accurate historical comparison,” one person replied.

‘Wow. Disgusting and disgraceful. Anti-Semitism cloaked in a deliberate misrepresentation of the truth. You really need to retract this and apologize,” said another.

“Mary, it is incredibly disappointing to see a prominent and influential Australian attempt to justify the use of murder and kidnapping,” one tweet said.

“Man, I’m not an Israel fanboy, but this is honestly one of the worst comparisons I’ve ever seen,” wrote another.

‘An absolutely diabolical post. You should be completely ashamed. Shame shame shame!’

Others pointed to reports of the Nova Festival massacre, in which hundreds were killed by Hamas terrorists, and some victims were said to have been raped.

Kostakidis presented the nightly news for SBS for twenty years before leaving the network in 2007.

She was the first woman to present a national prime time news bulletin.