On the eve of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) I feel it necessary to keep up the crusade against those who resort to petty, simplistic Holocaust comparisons in an attempt to score cheap shock value points. When Hamas engages in Holocaust exploitation, such as their recent claim that the Shoah was a Zionist engineered conspiracy to kill off weak Jews who would be useless to the Zionist state, it is not surprising anymore. When a mainstream figure such as Al Gore refers to global warming as an ecological Kristallnacht it’s obviously more painful. But it’s particularly hurtful when Jews engage in this type of exploitation.
An Israeli author recently testified in the Knesset that Israel’s chametz laws (which were recently overturned by an Israeli court as being undemocratic), which ban the public sale of leavened bread by Jews over the Passover holiday, are comparable to the Nuremberg laws. He was rightfully decried by both religious and secular lawmakers. A groups of British academics took out an ad in a UK newspaper stating that they won’t celebrate Israel’s 60th birthday, since Israel’s founding was a “Holocaust to the Palestinians.”
The saddest thing about such emotional outbursts is that they’re not even necessary to prove the arguer’s point. One can argue that the chametz laws and other such religious legislation is undemocratic, or that Israel’s founding was unjust without having to posit that these things are tantamount to genocide. The resort to such emotion-laden red herrings stems from an insecurity in one’s ability to argue their point cogently on its own merit. Jews such as the aforementioned Brits who employ such arguments are the most despicable of all because they’re exploiting their own heritage and history in a way that shows an utter disregard and ignorance of it. They should be automatically excommunicated from the nation they already seem to not want to be a part of. We should all be vigilant to protest against these cheap types of comparisons whenever and wherever they are made.
