Jordan’s Queen Rania faces backlash after equating Israel’s Gaza operations with Nazi Germany’s Holocaust atrocities during a Munich summit speech.
A firestorm erupted Tuesday after Queen Rania of Jordan used her platform at the One Young World Summit in Munich to liken Israel’s actions in Gaza to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews during the Holocaust — a statement that drew immediate condemnation from Jewish leaders, Western officials, and Holocaust remembrance organizations worldwide.
Speaking before delegates from more than 190 countries, Rania accused Israel of deploying “hate speech” and alleged that Israeli leaders used dehumanizing language to justify military operations against Hamas. Referring to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s 2023 remark calling Hamas terrorists “animals” in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, Rania shockingly equated his words to the Nazi propaganda that labeled Jews as “vermin.”
Her comments — made in Munich, the city where Hitler’s Nazi Party was born — were condemned as historically obscene and morally perverse, especially given the ongoing Hamas atrocities and hostage crisis.
“Every atrocity is unique,” Rania said, claiming her comparison was “not about weighing grief” but about recognizing the “equal worth of all human life.”
Critics across Europe and Israel accused the queen of weaponizing Holocaust imagery to delegitimize Israel’s right to defend itself.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center called her remarks “an unforgivable distortion of history,” stating:
“To compare the Jewish state defending its citizens from genocidal terrorists to Nazi Germany — the regime that tried to exterminate the Jewish people — is a desecration of Holocaust memory itself.”
Israeli officials blasted Rania’s statements as deeply cynical and hypocritical, noting that Hamas — the group that slaughtered 1,200 Israelis on October 7, including women, children, and Holocaust survivors — continues to use civilians as human shields in Gaza while holding hostages in violation of international law.
Rania’s latest outburst follows a pattern of anti-Israel rhetoric since the Hamas massacre. In previous interviews, she dismissed reports of beheaded Israeli infants as “unverified,” accused Israel of conducting a “slow-motion mass murder,” and repeatedly denied that Hamas represents the Palestinian people — even while ignoring its genocidal charter calling for Israel’s destruction.
Despite her claim that Israel’s operations were “illegal,” the IDF had already withdrawn to the agreed-upon Yellow Line under a US-brokered ceasefire, while Hamas continued to fire rockets into southern Israel and hide weapons in schools and hospitals.
Political analysts note that Rania’s remarks are part of a broader trend among Arab elites seeking to reframe Hamas’s terror as resistance, even as regional leaders like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE cautiously distance themselves from Hamas’s Iranian-backed extremism.
Israeli commentators reacted sharply, with one columnist writing:
“Queen Rania speaks of humanity, yet her silence over Hamas’s crimes speaks louder. Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is not moral leadership — it’s moral collapse.”
