UPDATE: Holocaust Day Commemorated with Hate
Latest update: January 30th, 2013
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January 27, the date in 1945 on which Auschwitz was liberated by the Allies, is the day designated by the United Nations to officially commemorate the Shoah.
But there are some who cannot permit a mention of the Holocaust without insisting, sometimes in lurid pictures, that Israel is a modern day version of the grand masters of genocide: Hitler and the Nazis. And there are armies of willing collaborators for that concept, which include many in the chattering classes. These second level haters repeatedly insist that Jews use the “Holocaust” card to block what they say is just criticism of Israel’s “Apartheid,” and brutal “occupation” of the Arab Palestinians.
The cartoon in this week’s British Sunday Times is a stellar example of the first category.
Notice the hulking presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Raheem Kassam, of The Commentator, describes the depiction as the stereotypical Jew anti-Semites love to hate: “the large-nosed Jew, hunched over a wall, building with the blood of Palestinians as they writhe in pain within it.” He is slathering the bricks of the infamous “Apartheid Wall” – which is neither about a separation of the races, nor is it a brick wall – more than 97% of it is fencing. Also, instead of mortar, the cartoon depicts the substance being used to cement the “wall” is blood. And whose blood? Why, the blood of Arabs, of course.
The words printed beneath the wall say “Israeli Elections.” Perhaps the author never got the memo that rather than a huge right-wing surge by the Israelis, this election instead brought in an almost perfectly balanced knesset of members from the right and the left. The scrawled words beneath the picture state: “Will Cementing Peace Continue?”
Many people were horrified not only that the Times ran the cartoon, but that it was run on Holocaust Rememberance Day. The Anti-Defamation League condemned the cartoon by calling it a “blood libel” and “grossly insensitive,” according to a report in the Algemeiner.
The Times of London is indirectly owned by Ruport Murdoch. Murdoch, as the Algemeiner points out, has been the recipient many times of honors from Jewish groups, including the ADL, for being a friend to Israel.
The cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, is well known not only for his Sunday Times work, but also for drawing musicians. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that one of his best known album covers is for Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” Roger Waters, lead singer of Pink Floyd, is a virulent Israel hater who penned an appeal to fellow artists to boycott Israel, and most recently compared Israel to Nazis.
Which brings us back to Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the use by anti-Semites to accuse Israel of being the new Nazis.
Merry Olde England had another bout of “Let’s Call Israel Nazis” just a few days ago, on January 25. David Ward, who is a Liberal Democrat member of Parliament, wrote the following in his personal blog after signing his name in the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Book of Commitment in the House of Commons during an event in anticipation of Holocaust Remembrance Day:
Having visited Auschwitz twice – once with my family and once with local schools – I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza.
After a flurry of criticism, Ward invoked the standard excuse given when caught with one’s pants down and anti-Semitism showing: “I never for a moment intended to criticise or offend the Jewish people as a whole, either as a race or as a people of faith, and apologise sincerely for the unintended offence which my words caused.”
And many hours after the Sunday Times began receiving criticism for the “grossly insensitive” cartoon it ran on Holocaust Remembrance Day, its editors used the very same excuse, to wit: it isn’t Jews we were criticizing, just Israel.
The Sunday Times firmly believes that it is not anti-Semitic. It is aimed squarely at Mr Netanyahu and his policies, not at Israel, let alone at Jewish people. It appears today because Mr Netanyahu won the Israeli election last week. The Sunday Times condemns anti-Semitism, as is clear in the excellent article in today’s Magazine which exposes the Holocaust-denying tours of concentration camps organised by David Irving.
Oh my: we don’t insult dead Jews, only live ones, especially the kind that firmly believes in, and practices, self-defense.
tell a friendAbout the Author: Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the US correspondent for The Jewish Press. She is a recovered lawyer who previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools.
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I have a critical view of Israeli treatment of Palestinian civilians but I am not a holocaust denier.
There is plenty of Palestinian blood for a wall. In the past 10 days IDF sharpshooters have murdered 6 Palestinian civilians, wounding others. In the West Bank an IDF sniper killed a woman near a a college and wounded her friend. In the village of Budrus in the West Bank a young man was shot in the back by a trigger happy IDF member. Four of the dead were in Gaza shot as they were walking or working on their own land.
It is not hard to imagine the outrage if 6 Israelis had been murdered in the same period of time. Netanyahu would once again attack Gaza saying that Israel has the right to defend itself. When will the Palestinians have the same right?
Checkmate: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/an-evening-of-arab-terror/2013/01/27/
. I have bowed out of the local interfaith Holocaust service, because it was a custom to include Hatikvah at the end, but now some Christian groups object as they support the Palestinians and the Muslim Imams would either sit or leave during the Hatikvah. Perhaps interfaith Holocaust programs no longer make sense, at least to me. I do not need the stress of seeing disrespect being afforded to Israel and nor do I wish to compromise by leaving Hatikvah out. This is a personal choice and I DO NOT ADVOCATE ANYONE NOT PARTICIPATING IN ANY INTERFAITH HOLOCAUST SERVICE. I INTRODUCED INTERFAITH HOLOCAUST SERVICES IN 1974 AND WAS ONE OF THE FIRST IF NOT THE FIRST TO DO SO. This was a difficult decision for me based on personal principle. The interfaith Holocaust memorials started as well intentioned way for the Jewish people and other groups to pause and reflect on man's capacity to perpetuate unbelievable cruelty against his fellow and to commiserate as a group and others, with the Jews and hopefully prevent this nightmare from reoccurring. Over the years it was understandably modified to include other victims of genocidal mass killings, though these mass killings were not really analogous, as the Nazis were obsessed at not just killing Jews as a competing group, but Hitler desired to eliminate our creed and it's pervasive influence on humanity, particularly Christian doxy. As a result of Muslim participation and twisted liberalism, this is morphing into a twisted canard where Israel is being blamed for perpetuating ethnic killings against the Palestinians as the Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis. One can understand the Islamo-Nazis belief system with a quote from the Talmud. We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG, CHILD OF Holocaust survivors and a refugee born in a D.P. camp.
Subject: Cementing Hate on Holocaust Memorial Day – Britain the thirsty for Jewish blood.
Cementing Hate on Holocaust Memorial Day.
This is a sign to every jew, who still lives in UK, it's time to return from "GALUT" to your native land.
Until you, Kerlvin and Jan, have walked in the shoes of the "trigger happy" soldiers, you have no business critizing them. Furthermore, having a wall to protect its civilians is like putting up a fence between you and your unpleasant next door neighbor!
More than six Israelis get shot down by the "downtrodden" daily. Does ANY Arab weep?
I am shocked that anyone would post a cartoon depicting Israel as the bully, Aren't they surrounded by hostile nations on every side, who want to drive them into the sea, so why should they not defend their homeland, which was promised to them by the Lord G-d Himself. As Psalm 105 "Firm stands His Word to Abraham spoken, His oath to Isaac never broken, His everlasting covenant, with Israel, God will not recant. He said "To you this land I give, that as my heirs you there may live, Let them live in peace, and let Palestine look after their own refugees,
The cartoon is despicable! The newspaper editor should not have allowed it to be printed. As Sientjie commented, the Scriptures state that G-d gave the land to His people, in the time of Moses and Joshua. Let us continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and all Israel's citizens.
Ok. So some of you believe the "Palestinians" aren't terrorists… just freedom fighters. But " terrorist atack" or not, to dead or maimed Israelis…Jews, Druze, or Arabs… , dead or maimed is dead or maimed. So get pragmatic. When military combatants… Gaza and/or West Bank… operate in and among civilians, and with the complicity of some civilians, they turn all civilians into potential military combatants. That why we have to remove our shoes for airport screening. So security fences, check points, and other security measures are to prevent ordinary looking civilians from killing or maiming Jews, Druze, and Arab Israelis. But you knew that, didn't you?
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