The Responsibility of Holocaust Education

Malcolm Nance asks, and answers, the question of why there so many protesters of Israel are johnnies-come-lately.

Most of the people who are angry right now could not spell "Palestine" three weeks ago. They weren't angry when Bashir Assad used chemical weapons and mass murdered 500,000 of their own people.

There's a fight going on in Sudan right now. Five thousand people have been killed by two factions that have been fighting. Somalia, Libya, Lebanon.

Oh Jesus, Lebanon. I went to the civil war. They have been massacring each other to the tune of 125,000 people. ISIS literally tried to wipe out north Iraq and Syria and took slaves doing it.

What people are showing here is one of two things. One: this is something they could wrap their head around because there's a lot of cameras or to be quite honest, there's a lot of inherent anti-Semitism in this and maybe they think in solidarity with their Palestinian, brothers and sisters, who are angry, that this position is the right one.

Dear Pro-Palestine activists. Sometimes I make sense. You might want to listen to HAMAS's plan and how you are NOW part of it. h/t @rolandsmartin https://t.co/VQaHcFWSuN

— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) November 7, 2023

And one more thing, which no one has on his or her bingo card as a reason for the immense hostility toward Israel's actions in Gaza. Nor will there be consideration that this could be a factor because it is unexamined and counter-intuitive. 

As of the end of 2021, there were twenty-one states which required schools to provide Holocaust education.  On the website of the United States Holocaust Research Museum, there are "Guidelines for Teaching About the Holocaust."  There are ten recommendations, although only one- "Contextualize the History"- pertains to my theory. There we read

Events of the Holocaust, and particularly how individuals and organizations behaved at that time, should be placed in historical context. The Holocaust should be studied in the context of European history as a whole to give students a perspective on the precedents and circumstances that may have contributed to it.

Similarly, the Holocaust should be studied within its contemporaneous context so students can begin to comprehend the circumstances that encouraged or discouraged particular actions or events. For example, when thinking about resistance, consider when and where an act took place; the immediate consequences of one’s actions to self and family; the degree of control the Nazis had on a country or local population; the cultural attitudes of particular native populations toward different victim groups historically; and the availability and risk of potential hiding places.

Encourage your students not to categorize groups of people only on the basis of their experiences during the Holocaust; contextualization is critical so that victims are not perceived only as victims. By exposing students to some of the cultural contributions and achievements of 2,000 years of European Jewish life, for example, you help them to balance their perception of Jews as victims and to appreciate more fully the traumatic disruption in Jewish history caused by the Holocaust.

Ironically, if the guidelines advocated by the Holocaust Museum are routinely reflected in the teaching of the Holocaust, this singularly barbaric event is taught out of context. There are two instances in this section in which "European" is mentioned.  The words "Arab," "Persian," or "Muslim" are not listed here, nor anywhere in the Guidelines. This portion of Jewish history is critically relevant to understanding the milieu in which the Holocaust took place. The Time of Israel explains

Jews were an enduring presence in the Middle East and North Africa before the advent of Islam and Arabian conquests, yet today fewer than 4,000 Jews live in the region. This contrasts with post-Holocaust Europe, where 1.4 million Jews currently reside. So much for the Moroccan proverb, “A market without Jews is like bread without salt.”

Beginning with Iraq’s notorious Farhud pogrom on June 1–2, 1941, Jews in Iraq and elsewhere faced intensified persecution akin to what took place in pre-Holocaust Nazi Germany as leaders such as Iraqi prime minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani sought to emulate Hitler’s tactics.

 During the two-day Farhud in Baghdad and other Jewish population centers in Iraq, Jewish homes were marked so mobs could destroy them. In the process, 180 Jews were recorded as murdered. Similar to Kristallnacht in Germany and Nazi-occupied lands, shops and religious buildings were looted and set ablaze.

 The word “Farhud” means “violent dispossession” in Arabic, the prophetic name given to the pogrom by Iraqi citizens. About 135,000 Jews lived in Iraq in 1941, but almost the entire community relocated to Israel within a decade of the pogrom.

 “The Farhud was a turning point because it was the first step in this Jewish community’s dispossession,” said Black.

 The Holocaust directly reached Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, as well as Lebanon and Syria, through the Vichy France regime. In German and French documents, those lands were considered part of Europe for the purposes of the genocide.

For example, after the Nazis invaded Tunisia, some 5,000 Jewish men were sent to forced labor camps. In France, 160 Tunisian Jews were deported to the death camps. Despite the genocide’s reach into Tunisia, the country was home to the region’s largest Jewish community outside Israel until the 1970s.

After Nazi Germany’s defeat in 1945, the persecution of Middle Eastern Jews in no way slowed down.

Outside of Israel, there no longer are many Jews in the Middle East and it is no coincidence. There were periods of severe violence and oppression of Jews. As noted here, "in the ninth century, for example, Baghdad's Caliph al-Mutawakkil designated a yellow badge for Jews, setting a precedent that would be followed centuries later in Nazi Germany."

As a response especially to the Holocaust, but also to the mistreatment of Jews in the Muslim-dominated Middle East, the state of Israel was created in 1948 upon a tiny sliver of land surrounded by Arab and Persian nations. Jews in large numbers had resided in the land of Palestine since time immemorial. Great Britain in 1922 was awarded the Mandate for Palestine and expected to create from it a Jewish homeland.  In November 1947 the United Nations adopted a resolution to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, the latter east of the Jordan river. Great Britain announced it would relinquish the Mandate on March 15, 1948 and on March 14, Israel declared its independence.

The following day, five Arab countries launched a war against the new nation.

This is a part of the history of the creation of Israel which often is forgotten. It is even unknown to many individuals, especially young people. They've heard of the Holocaust, perpetrated by the German nation, and may even have studied it. Yet, Tel Aviv is killing a large number of civilians in the Middle East and is located nearly two thousand miles from Germany. Being ill-informed, young people may be averse to the idea of having a Jewish state in the Middle East.

Holocaust education, if conducted as the US Holocaust Research Museum recommends, reinforces the perception a young person already has about Israel's origin as being entirely due to atrocities committed by Europeans.  Contributing to this ignorance was President Barack Obama, who in a speech in Cairo in June, 2009 failed to distinguish between mainstream Islam and fundamentalist Islam, at one point remarking

The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights... 

And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality. 

(Imagine a Republican today extolling the virtues of Christianity and ignoring the dangers posed by extremists claiming to be devout Christians. Democrats would be apoplectic, largely justifiably.)

The Holocaust was the main driver of creation of the state of Israel, and most Muslims, like most Jews, Christians, and others, are relatively peaceful.  Yet, a full and complete picture is being denied to many students. If an anti-Western bias pervades Holocaust education, young men and women are getting a skewed version of history.  And the results, in both anti-Semitism and uninformed, sometimes prejudiced, bias against Israel, are glaringly obvious.

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The Family Dodge

"I have no idea why President Trump would make up a story about me like he did today,"  countered the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.  April Ryan had asked President Trump about having a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus and the President commented

I was all set to have the meeting. You know, we called him and called him. And he was all set. I spoke to him on the phone, very nice guy.....

He wanted it, but we called, called, called and can't make a meeting with hm. Every day I walk and say I would like to meet with him becuase I do want to solve the problem. But he probably was told by Schumer or somebody like that, some other lightweight. He was proably told- he was probably told "don't met with Trump. It's bad politics.

So Donald Trump lied. Big deal- his lips moved, he lied. Nothing new there. Nor is it surprising that when African-American Ryan asked about the absence of a meeting with the CBC, Trump responded "Do you want to set up the meeting?" After Ryan started to respond "I'm not," the President interrupted with "are they friends of yours?" Appropriately nonplussed, Ryan stated "I'm just a reporter" and the President replied "well, then set up the meeting."

Trump's Administration is in such disarray that he can't get his people to set up a simple meeting. And he thinks all black people know all other black people.  And Saturday follows Friday.

Lamentably less controversially, the President claimed

So here's the story, folks. Number one, I am the least anti- Semitic person that you've ever seen in your entire life. Number two, racism, the least racist person. In fact, we did very well relative to other people running as a Republican -- quiet, quiet, quiet.







Famously, the Office of the White House lost track of six million murders on Holocaust Remembrance Day, wiping out the genocidal nature of the Nazi regime.  When the White House recently released its list of "underreported" acts of terrorism it somehow omitted what by one account  are the "350 terrorist attacks — including stabbings, shootings, vehicular ramming attacks and a bus bombing —" targeting Israeli victims, most of them Jews, since September 13, 2015. Jacob Weisberg reminds us that President Trump declared "a position of 'America First' in his inaugural address. He either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that was the slogan of America’s pro-Nazi isolationist movement, which accused Jews of drawing the country into war."

And who can forget this tweet during the campaign, from a white supremacist's website?

Fewer than can recall, from the campaign's final week, the arguably anti-Semitic ad which famed white nationalist Richard Spencer labeled "powerful,"

Trump has an all-purpose answer whenever he is charged- and when he is not- with anti-Semitism.  Wednesday was typical, when he responded to a question about national disunity by saying "Hopefully, I'll be able to do something about that. And you know it's something that was very important to me. As far as people, Jewish people, so many friends, a daughter who happens to be here right now, a son-in-law, and three beautiful grandchildren."

Thirteen months ago, American Jew and Haaretz columnist Peter Beinart warned

For years, Benito Mussolini carried on an affair with a Venetian Jewish woman named Margherita Sarfatti. He nevertheless boasted about his hatred of “these disgusting Jews,” a hatred that he claimed long preceded Italy’s implementation of anti-Semitic legislation in 1938. 

In his book, The Captive Mind, Czeslaw Milosz describes an anti-Semitic writer in 1930s Poland who “had many Jewish friends, and the very day he published his racist statements, he would come to these friends…and falling on his knees, would declare his love for them.” Notorious anti-Jewish polemicists of 16th Century Central Europe, Johannes Pfefferkorn and Anton Margaritha, were both Jewish converts to Christianity. Even Hitler himself expressed deep affection toward Eduard Bloch, a Jewish doctor from Vienna who had treated his mother. Calling Bloch a “noble Jew,” Hitler instructed the Gestapo to protect him even as Nazi forces sent other Austrian Jews to their deaths. 

Skepticism should ensue when someone touts his personal affection for individuals while indentifying them by their religious, ethnic, or racial group.  Many people have black friends or have even voted for black political candidates while believing the latter are anomalous.  Decades ago, in Donald Trump's formative years, it was not uncommon to hear "some of my best friends are colored." It was a tip-off, even as it was sometimes accurate. "Personal behavior," Beinart observes, "often contradicts public ideology."

Beinart adds

Lueger, the notoriously anti-Semitic turn-of-the-century mayor of Vienna who inspired Adolf Hitler, had numerous Jewish friends. Asked to explain the apparent contradiction, he declared, 'I decide who is a Jew.'" 

It is not hard to imagine that Donald Trump believes his daughter, son-in-law, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin are Jewish while believing other Jewish people.  Scapegoating those Jews he reviles because, or independent, of their religious affiliation also is not a stretch.

We know Donald Trump is narcissistic and dishonest.  We do not know that he is a racist or anti-Semite, or has other characteristics seemingly on display.  But just as he undoubtedly has black friends while he fans the flames of racial animosity, sincere affection for his daughter and the man she married, as well as their children prove little.







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Minister Of Propaganda

Bill Maher observed the first week (!) of the Trump presidency and recalled

Before the election, I was saying there's a slow-moving coup happening and fascism could come to America. This week the President talked about sending troops into Chicago.   He said I'm going to send the Feds in. By the way, Chicago- only the 18th worst murder rate of cities in America. The idea of Donald Trump sending a private army into an American city is not a precedent I really want to see, talked about. 

Starting up black sites for torture overseas. His chief strategist and the media said the media should keep their mouth shut and just listen. He muzzled agencies- EPA can't tweeet or talk any morein comination with this concept of alternative facts, so you can't get out the real facts.  EPA- the only facts we hear are the alternative facts. I'm just saying it's easy to get distracted.








Sean Spicer seems to be one of the culprits (although it has been learned he was not primarily responsible for the following).  President Trump announces the refugee ban on the same day as Holocaust Remembrance Day and forgets Jews were its primary victims. As Trump's mouthpiece, Spicer states

I gotta be honest. The president went out of his way to recognize the Holocaust and the suffering that went through it and the people affected by it and the loss of life. And to make sure that America never forgets what so many people went through, whether they were Jews or gypsies, gays, disability, priests…

Still no mention of the primary victims, constituting what is a hop, step, and a way from Holocaust denial.

There is a rumor that Spicer and Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway are an item, and not in a good way, which at least adds a little intrigue to the unprecedented conentration of power in the Executive branch.  On Fox News Sunday, in the portion (beginning at 16:56 of video below) of her rant which seemed least unhinged, Conway contended

And yet we deal with him every single day. We turn the other cheek. If you are part of team Trump, you walk around with these gaping, seeping wounds every single day, and that's fine. I believe in a full and fair press. I'm here every Sunday morning. I haven't slept in a month. I believe in a full and fair press. But with the free press comes responsibility.

Sure enough, the First Amendment begins "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," a provision deeply offensive to resident theocrat Mike Pence. In the Conway version, it continues as

.... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press- unless that press is not acting responsibly- or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

What's that? Not accurate? But that's the alternative facts of the Counselor to the President, in which freedom of the press may not be abridged by government unless the press is not acting with "responsibility."





And that, boys and girls, is the presidential adviser not named Sean Spicer or Steve Bannon, but instead the one-time winner of the New Jersey Blueberry Princess Pageant and World Champion Blueberry competition, now a mover and shaker in an Administration determined to establish an authoritarian state.








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Not An Isolated Remark

In May, the Washington Post's Ishaan Tharoor identified seven things which have been inaccurately equated by one or more individuals or groups with the Holocaust.  They are: avoidance by European governments of the migrant refugee crisis in the Mediterranean; Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent program; the annual Canadian commercial sea hunt; the "progessive war on the American one percent, namely the rich"; slaughtering animals; Hamas, ISIL, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

And of course, abortion.  Aside from President Obama, abortion/Holocaust is the GOP's favorite false equivalence, one which will not go away once Barack Obama does and there is a new Democratic president.

Huckabee is not exception.When in 2007 he was running for president, he maintained  "It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973."  (And of course we could use more people looking for jobs because there really arent enough of them now.)  

After sitting out one presidential election cycle, Huckabee in February, 2013- probably contemplating yet another run for the Oval Office- remarked "And now we are called into this incredible Holocaust of our own in America. Fifty-five million babies. Fifty-five million babies since 1973 have died in what ought to be the safest place in the world, their mother’s womb. It has become one of the most dangerous places for a baby to be."

But wait! He wasn't done.  In an interview with Breitbart on Saturday, Huckabee contended

This president’s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven. This is the most idiotic thing, this Iran deal. It should be rejected by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and by the American people. I read the whole deal. We gave away the whole store. It’s got to be stopped.

And for good measure, the next day- Sunday- Reverend Huckabee tweeted "the Iran nuclear deal is marching the Israelis to the door of the oven."   Every letter appeared in caps, presumably to make sure Repub primary and caucus voters didn't miss the implication. Evidently, Sunday isn't just for worship anymore.

On Monday's Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski  was "horrified" at the "crass"statement and accurately noted it was "way worse" than Trump's immigrant remarks.  She was moved to respond “Oh God. I had not read it until this moment and I am horrified" and later in the program commented (video below)

Here’s the response that I have to Huckabee’s comments. If you’ve been to Auschwitz, if you’ve been to Birkenau, if you’ve been to any of these places where people were killed and you see the piles of glasses, the piles of hair, the piles of shoes and the piles of clothes. And every bit of their humanity that had to be stripped away, handed over as they went and burned to their deaths among other things, it’s really not a good comment to say.

It’s a deal breaker! It should be over for him. You don’t say that. And by the way, if you said it by mistake, that’s a sign of who you really are.







Brzezinski believes Huckabee now has gone over the line.  But on at least two occasions the former governor has strongly implied that abortion is no better than the Holocaust.  That's obviously inaccurate and demagogic, and is justifiably offensive to Jews, who wonder why Huckabee believes someone requesting a procedure he thinks is murder is morally equivalent to a European Jew of the 1940s.

Why not, however, continue the analogies?  Aside from Brzezinski's righteous outrage, there has been relatively little reaction to the nuclear deal/Holocaust analogy, and the candidate's motive in trying to draw attention to himself is no excuse for lack of condemnation.   Neither should the excitement of mainstream media figures over a USA women's soccer team or a female NBA or NFL coach obscure silence toward an invalid, offensive, and obscene analogy.   We know what Mike Huckabee thinks about women enduring hardship, and it isn't pretty. But in the corporate offices which control mainstream journalism, the regard may be no greater.





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Comparing Choice To Genocide

Kenneth P.Vogel of Politico reports the Republican Jewish Coalition

will gather Tuesday evening for a reception at a Washington stekhouse where some of the party's most generous Jewish donors- including Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson- will clebrate the incoming Senate majority and fete their most influential allies. Expected attendees include Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, John McCain of Arizona and Rob Portman of Ohio, as well as former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The reception, to be held at at the Capital Grille, also will commemorate the swearing-in of freshman Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, who carries the heavy burden of replacing the powerful former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor as the only Republican Jew in Congress.

Vogel continues

The RJC "has a well-developed strategy which was executed during former Majority Leader Cantor's tenure and will continue with the new leadership tema in the House and new Senate Majority, thus ensuring strong, virtually unanimous Republican support for Israel at this dangerous time," asserted Florida mall developer Mel Sembler, who contributes to the RJC and sits on its board.

The outreach to Jews, whose activism and willingness to donate to political candidates far outweigh their numbers in the population, is of some concern to Greg Rosenbaum, chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, who

acknowledged the RJC has become a force because of its gaudy budget (it raised $10 million in 2012, compared to $1 million for the NJC, which is not holding a welcome event for the new Congress) and effective messaging on Israel. Democrats need "to be vigilant" in combating the narrative that the GOP is stronger on Israel, Rosenbaum said.  "We need to keep reminding Jewish voters that Israel requires bipartisan support and it is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. And we think that, once we neutralize that, we can win Jewish voters overall by showing that on the bulk of the issues, Democrats comport more closely with Jewish values."

With the close relationship between Benjamin Netanyahu and Repubs in Congress, the tension between the Israeli Prime Minister and President Obama, and the GOP tendency toward scare tactics in the matter of foreign policy, it will be difficult for the NJDC to compete with the GOP in its pro-Israel rhetoric. But convincing Jewish voters "Democrats comport more closely with Jewish values" will not be as difficult.

For that, they have an ace in the hole, and it comes in the form of one likely GOP presidential candidate. At the Family Research Concil's Values Voter Summit in October, 2007 former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee claimed

Sometimes we talk about why we're importing so many people in our workforce. It might be for the last 25 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortinunder a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973.

Clearly not amused, Anti-Defamation League President Abe Foxman wrote Huckabee

The Holocaust was a unique tragedy in human history- an attempt by the Nazis to exterminate the Jewish people that led to the deliberate murder of six million Jews. We find the use of analogies to the Holocaust in other contexts deeply painful, disturbing and offensive. Such analogies can only trivialize and diminish the horror, and cause further pain to Holocaust survivors and to those alive today who lost friends and loved ones."

Either forgetful or not chastened, two months ago at the Iowa Republican party's Celebrate Life Event, Huckabee referred to the "55 million babies" aborted since Roe v. Wade in 1973 as the "incredible Holocaust of our own." After Huckabee and members of the clergy visited Auschwitz and Birkenau on a "Mike Huckabee's Reagan, Thatcher, Pope John Paul II Tour," the Arkansan gave a speech in which he maintained (at approximately 1:13 of the video below)

If you felt something incredibly powerful at Auschwitz and Birkenau over the 11 million killed worldwide and the million and a half killed on those grounds, cannot we feel something extraordinary about the 55 million murdered in our own country in the womb of their mothers? Does that not speak to us?










Just this past weekend, Huckabeee quit his Fox News program to explore a presidential bid. Commenting on the 11/13 speech, Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk had claimed "you're done before you've even started."









Not nearly. we're speaking of the Republican Party, whose favorite Jews are Israeli Jews and billionaire Adelson, whom Politico's Vogel believes is looking most closely at governors Christie, Walker, and Kasich, three not coincidentally virulently  anti-labor chief executives. There is little or no chance any Repub, fearing a backlash from the"pro-life" crowd, will question (much less confront) Huckabee on his comments trivializing the Holocaust.  And "little" is on its way out-of-town.

Comparing abortion- or anything- to the Holocaust is an abomination,not unlike making comparisons to slavery.  Mike Huckabee (assuming he becomes a candidate) probably will not be able to resist the temptation to do it again. And if he does, and no Republican has the courage to call him on it, it should not go unnoticed by the Democratic Party.




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Holocaust Heresy



Shakespeare's Antony once said "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."   But in a stunning if largely unnoticed and insignificant reversal, I truly come to praise President Obama.

Although he has not opted for the dodge "evolved," President Obama seemingly has come a long way in his understanding of the Middle East.

It might be said to have been in his speech (transcript, here) in Jerusalem on Thursday, when the President boldly defended controversial U.S. action at the U.N. by declaring

There is no question that Israel has faced Palestinian factions who turned to terror, and leaders who missed historic opportunities. That is why security must be at the center of any agreement. And there is no question that the only path to peace is through negotiation. That is why, despite the criticism we’ve received, the United States will oppose unilateral efforts to bypass negotiations through the United Nations.

It might have been the enunciation during the speech of an even-handed approach to the conflict between Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs when

Addressing an enthusiastic crowd of more than 2,000, Mr. Obama offered a fervent, unsparing case for why a peace agreement was both morally just and in Israel’s self-interest. Younger Israelis, Mr. Obama said, should empathize with their Palestinian neighbors living under occupation — or, as he put it, “look at the world through their eyes.”

Hours earlier, visiting the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Mr. Obama urged the Palestinians to return to the bargaining table even if Israel did not meet their condition of halting construction of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories — a demand he, too, made at the start of his first term, but which had only a temporary, partial impact.

It might have been the linkage Obama noted between the movement for freedom of American blacks and that of Jews generally when he remarked

In the United States – a nation made up of people who crossed oceans to start anew – we are naturally drawn to the idea of finding freedom in our land. To African-Americans, the story of the Exodus told a powerful tale about emerging from the grip of bondage to reach for liberty and human dignity – a tale that was carried from slavery through the civil rights movement.

Though few may notice, that was a rebuke, intentional or otherwise, to that portion of the American left which applauds every national liberation movement- but not of Jews.

My vote, though, is for a another statement made by Obama the following morning in which (though understandably he'd never admit it) he contradicted a shameless remark made in his astoundingly overrated speech in Cairo.   There, he propagated a powerful myth:  "Around the world," he claimed, "the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust."

The point was not "around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries."  Nor was it that the "culmination" of anti-Semitism was the Holocaust which, after all, was morbidly termed "the final solution."  The significance lay in the phrase "anti-Semitism in Europe."

 Anti-semitism, common in Arab lands for centuries, was neither a 20th century phenomenon, nor the sole province of Europeans.   In remarks to the press Friday morning at the Yad Vashem memorial to the approximately 1.5 million children murdered in the Holocaust, the President declared "The State of Israel does not exist because of the Holocaust, but with the survival of the State of Israel there will never be such a holocaust again."

The latter phrase is self-evident and beyond debate:  there will never be a holocaust again because there is a Jewish homeland, with most other Jews in the U.S.A.   But in words superficially merely symbolic but with the possibility of policy ramifications, Obama declared "The State of Israel does not exist because of the Holocaust."  It is recognition of history, history that is sometimes denied and typically ignored. Now, dramatically, Barack Obama seems to have rejected myth and embraced a reality too rarely voiced.




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Not The Holocaust, Again

Chris Hayes interviewed Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who has been involved in conservative causes outside and inside of Kansas.     He served as a legal consultant to the State of Arizona in designing SB 1070, the private prison anti-illegal immigration statute upon which the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a mixed verdict last week.    Over the course of four segments (video available on MSNBC website), Hayes proved himself well-versed on immigration issues and roughly the equal of Kobach, while at least two of his guests, Latino USA's Maria Hinojosa and Demos' Heather McGhee proved that, well, they have strongly held opinions.

In the segment posted below, Hinojosa comments

So just tell me- you describe for me- and we're not even talking about the term "illegal," okay, which Elie Wiesel is the one who taught me 20 years ago stop using it because, he said, "there is no such thing as an illegal human being.   He just said "you know what, the Jews were declared illegal and that's how the Holocaust started so to declare a population illegal...






No one could know exactly what Elie Wiesel told Maria Hinojosa and under what conditions, in whatever context.     But the term "illegal immigrant" (in contrast to the term "illegals" or even "illegal alien") is not synonymous with labeling someone illegal.      "Illegal" is herein used not as a noun, but as an adjective- a word modifying "immigrant."    Therefore, referring to someone as an "illegal immigrant" is not declaring him or her "illegal" but merely illegal as an immigrant.   The left should not twist the language to suit a political agenda, as the other side does with the pejorative "illegals" or "illegal aliens," the latter a redundancy, thus suggesting political motivation.

Prior to the process of extermination, Jews in Germany were subjected to discrimination beyond being treated as second-class citizens, and the regime did not consider them to be fully German, despite German citizenship.   Supporters of the regime were obsessed with the concept of race and considered Jews not to be "Aryan."    Ironically, it is the (pro-immigrant) left which in the U.S. today emphasizes the racial difference between Mexicans and native-born Americans, to the point of considering some adversaries racist.  

Evidence is scant, moreover, that whatever Weisel told Hinojosa, Jews were "declared illegal" as she claimed she was told (evidence to the contrary welcomed).

None of the above, however, is the major problem with Hinojosa's statement.     Sorry, Maria, but attempting to enforce the law- or, at the extreme, throwing individuals out of the country for having violated immigration regulations- simply is not comparable to the Holocaust.    There is no extermination camp in Dubuque nor concentration camp in Crested Butte, nor will there ever be.

This was not the first time for Hinojosa.    Interviewed recently by Chicago public radio station WBEZ, she offered nearly the same story, albeit avoiding reference to the Holocaust.

The right is wrong when some of its cultural fanatics compare abortion to the Holocaust.   But so is Maria Hinojosa, as well as Elie Wiesel, dead wrong, assuming her recollection is accurate.     Despite any claim she may have to particular insight as a liberal, a (broadcast) journalist, or a first-generation American born in Mexico, her analogy is little better than reprehensible. 

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Different Styles, Different Sensibilities


On January 19, 2010 Representative Steve Cohen (D-Tenn), as heard on Rush Limbaugh's program, overreached on the floor of the U.S. House, asserting of the far-right:

They don't like the truth so they summarily dismiss it. They say it's a government takeover of healthcare. A big lie just like Goebbels. You say it enough and you repeat the lie, repeat the lie, repeat the lie until eventually people believe it. Like blood libel, that's the same kind of thing. The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it, and you have the Holocaust. You tell a lie over and over again.

Limbaugh justifiably criticized Cohen's remarks but unfortunately did so by comparing Democrats- mainstream Democrats, including two centrists- to the Third Reich's Minister of Propaganda:

It's parallel universe, alternative universe time. (sigh) We could point out countless Democrats who have perfected Goebbels. Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton could probably teach a course. Harry Reid.

But that wasn't the end of it. A few moments later, Limbaugh would skirt along the edges of anti-Semitism (never quite getting there) while plunging wholeheartedly into victimhood:

If you're gonna make a comparison with Nazi Germany, isn't it clear who the new Jews are? It sure as hell isn't the Democrats. Who are the new Jews, Congressman Cohen? It's not the Democrats. It's the Tea Party. Tea Party.

But it didn't stop even there. Today, Limbaugh told his vast audience

So we've got this guy Steve Cohen, and the media acts somewhat amused, and you have Sheriff Dipstick, and they act amused and then they're laudatory, Sheriff Dipstick and Steve Cohen, they're not backing down. When's the last time I was ever applauded for my courage in sticking to my guns? It doesn't happen.

I don't know who in the media is "somewhat amused" but if Rush doesn't make something up, he's not happy. And if he whips out his victim card by wailing "when's the last time I was ever applauded for courage in sticking to my guns?" it is standard fare for the right. Even $50 million a year doesn't protect from the sufferings of Job a man who courageously beats the drum for tax cuts for the wealthy.

But.... they're not backing down?

Asked by Ed Schultz on January 20 if he were sorry he "made the connection" between the Holocaust and vehement critics of the Affordable Care Act, Cohen replied "I definitely I am. And I`m sorry that any Jewish people, my Republican colleagues, or anybody got the wrong impression."

Asked if he would "say that you would not use that term again," Cohen responded, without qualification, "Never." Responding to the next question, the Democrat added "No. Well, I`m not going to do it again. I`ve learned my lesson."

And Rush Limbaugh says "they're not backing down." But this isn't about Rush Limbaugh- this is about liberal Democrats (such as Cohen) and conservative Republicans.

As recently as 1996, radical anti-abortion rights activist Randall Terry ran as a Republican for the Florida state senate. Now he is applying his obsession with abortion to a race for the Democratic nomination for President, announcing his candidacy outside of the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. Terry declared

We will run ads on the Super Bowl 2012 that show dead babies," he began, "the victims of abortion. We will, with the help of God, bring America face to face with the victims of Obama's policies. This campaign is about human rights, ladies and gentlemen.

"It will be first and foremost about the human rights of babies that are being brutally slaughtered and thrown in dumpsters and landfills. But it is also about the human rights of the slave labor force on Obama's plantation.

"We have a federal plantation - there's always work, there's always have a roof over your head as long as you'll be faithful to stay on the plantation. Well, there's a lot of slave laborers, myself included, that would like real freedom again.

"We will also focus on President Obama's foreign policy....

Pro-life activists frequently have claimed a parallel between the Holocaust and abortion. Roughly six million people murdered in an effort to rid Europe of a group of people erroneously considered a race by evil, genocidal maniacs heading an authoritarian state. Versus a controversial medical procedure willingly selected by individuals (pregnant women) of a free society and democratic republic.

Steve Cohen apologized; pro-life extremists invoking the Holocaust do not. We are waiting, but not holding our breath.

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Fearful

Several days ago, Republican politicians got in line to denounce Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (video below). RNC chairman Michael Steele:

Having made this disgraceful statement on the floor of the United States Senate, Mr. Reid should immediately apologize on the Senate floor to his colleagues, to his constituents, and to the American people. If he is going to stand by these statements, the Democrats must immediately reconsider his fitness to lead them.

Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss:

They are so desperate that it is unbelievable. And for Senator Reid to go out this morning and make such an outlandish statement like he made, just is another indication of the desperation that the Democrats are showing and the pressure that they're feeling...."

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn:

I think it's beneath the dignity of the majority leader, for one. I think it's beneath the dignity of the Senate...to make any kind of outlandish claim similar to what was made on the Senate floor this morning, and I personally am insulted by the Majority Leader.

They all were criticizing the analogy (video below) between health care and slavery made that morning by Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid, who argued in part

Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right," Reid said Monday. "When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.'

These Republicans were right- as far as they went, notwithstanding examples of Republican heavyweights comparing slavery to taxation, the economic stimulus, or abortion. But they didn't go far enough. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post said it concisely, plainly, yet completely on MSNBC's Hardball on December 7:

You don‘t compare anything to slavery. You don‘t compare anything to the Holocaust. OK? So let‘s get real.

Slavery. And the Holocaust. But the Republicans did not mention the Holocaust.

A mere oversight? Nah. These Republicans, being intelligent individuals of some sensitivity, are aware that comparing anything to the Holocaust is offensive and irrational. But what they are most sensitive to is the (debased) base of the base of the GOP, which periodically refers to abortion as a "Holocaust," unlike more reasonable "pro-life" advocates. They could say simply: Any comparison to slavery or the Holocaust is wrong. Period. But the extremist, fanatical wing of the anti-abortion rights wing of the party would be enraged and demand contrition. And unlike the Democratic Party, whose leaders incessantly whittle health care reform down, this is not a party fond of bucking its base.

Holocaust, Again

It’s not that the poster reading “National Socialist Health Care Dachau Germany 1945” reflects the thinking or IQ of most of the participants in Thursday’s corporate-sponsored anti-health care rally in Washington, D.C. Most of the protesters, even the ill-informed majority, are neither anti-Semitic nor grotesquely ignorant.

Still, Representative Steve Israel (D.-N.Y.) is courageous, and has it mostly correct, when he (video below) referred to the right of free speech and noted

But with that right comes a responsibility by leaders to condemn that kind of expression. I just cannot believe that Congresswoman Bachmann sponsored and brought to the American people the use of images from the Holocaust, actual photographs of the skeletal remains of people from the crematoria, in order to make a point about the health insurance bill.

I can't believe that Congresswoman Bachmann would stand where she stood, and see those images, and not have the common decency to say, 'I disagree with the use of those images.' I think that she owes the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust an apology. She owes us all an apology. And I'm waiting. We're all waiting.

Clearly, use of holocaust imagery to score political points, as we’ve seen from the right previously in its hysterical opposition to health care reform, is reprehensible; and Rep. Israel is right to imply that Representative Bachmann has little sense of common decency. Certainly, she should denounce such expressions that are obviously offensive and politicians, media, and others need to call upon her to do so.

But Bachmann, as this summary from politifact.org graphically illustrates, has been completely unconcerned with the truth, and any apology would be empty and worthless.

Most extreme conservatives these days have no sense of shame or humility. One need only look at the race in the 23rd congressional district of New York. Avidly supported by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Bachmann, and much of the Republican right, Douglas Hoffman forced out of the race moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava and managed to lose a congressional seat Repubs have held since Adam and Eve. The day after, Limbaugh commented “Now, I'm telling you, the percentage of the vote that Hoffman got has put the fear of 2010 in the mind of every Blue Dog and in a lot of RINOs. This guy almost pulled it out with his own party running ads against him and endorsing a liberal Republican, and then praising her when she leads and then she endorses the Democrat. And all this is done in 30 days? “ Beck was even more boastful, even more adamant that his cause had triumphed.

There is, generally, no sense of humility and no sense of shame on the Republican right. They win, they gloat. They lose, they gloat.

So don’t expect an apology from the likes of Michele Bachmann- and don’t wish for one. There is no need for this hateful, dishonest creature to utter a banality such as “I apologize if anyone who misunderstood me was offended,” a fairly typical form of the modern “apology.” Her motives are clear, her tactics are clear, and her aims are clear. They are clear, and they are loathsome. And it’s up to the forces of decency in both parties to denounce the destructive radicalism she preaches.

And Now, Reverend Richard Land

Reverend Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, on September 26 at a Christian Coalition of Florida banquet in Orlando declared

What they are attempting to do in healthcare, particularly in treating the elderly, is not something like what the Nazis did. It is precisely what the Nazis did….

The Nazis said people should be euthanized when they had lives unworthy of life. … Well, at the very least Dr. Emanuel, [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi, [Sen.] Max Baucus and President Obama are saying that some people have lives less worthy of life. And the older you are, the sicker you are, the less valuable your life is and the more likely they want to terminate your care.

After Abe Foxman of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League termed the Nazi analogies “inappropriate, insensitive, and unjustified,” Land wrote

It was never my intention to equate the Obama administration's healthcare reform proposals with anything related to the Holocaust,….Now that I have had the opportunity to speak with you personally and reflect on my words, I deeply regret the reference to Dr. Josef Mengele,…. I was using hyperbole for effect and never intended to actually equate anyone in the Obama administration with Dr. Mengele. I will certainly refrain from making such references in the future. I apologize to everyone who found such references hurtful. Given the pain and suffering of so many Jewish and other victims of the Nazi regime, I will certainly seek to exercise far more care in my use of language in future discussions of the issues at stake in the healthcare debate.

But on October 21 in the Baptist Press, Dwayne Hastings reported that in an interview with the publication

Land said there are some involved in the health care debate who appear to believe some lives are less valuable and less worthy of medical treatment than others.

In noting he had previously used "imprecise language," Land said he should have said some of the philosophies that are being espoused "bear a lethal similarity in their attitudes toward the elderly and the terminally ill and could ultimately lead to the kinds of things the Nazis did."

"To equate expressing concerns that such a mindset could be carried to such an extreme at some time in the future as the equivalent of saying the Obama administration is like the Nazis or that Barack Obama is Hitler is either delusional or deliberately misleading," Land said.

Steve Benen, who has blogged on Land’s remark on October 3, October 17, and October 24, charges that the claim “health care reform bears a "lethal similarity" to Nazi tactics is obviously crazy” and invoking the Third Reich in referring to health care reform is “completely insane.”

Well, no. It is inaccurate, offensive, and incendiary. But it is not insane A fellow can make a ridiculous comment but have a rational, strategic motive in going beyond the pale. On August 6, Rush Limbaugh claimed “And if you go and take a look at this, you will find that the Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo. I'm going to show you people watching on the Dittocam this, and there you are. The middle frame is the Obama health care logo. At the bottom is an official Nazi logo, eagle and everything, spread wings, or bird with spread wings” The same day, Glenn Beck compared health care reform to the eugenics program of Nazi Germany.

Such comments by Beck, Limbaugh, and Land are ludicrous and meant to delude listeners and followers of the demagogue. But the men themselves men are not insane- and probably not ignorant- but are attempting to divide the American people (further) for their own strategic interest.

Normally, the media reports a story excessively at first, then proceeds to ignore it, even if details later emerging lend the story greater urgency and relevance. Consequently, in following the story in its twists and turns, Benen is truly performing a valuable, and unusual, service, even if he does miss a subtle, backhanded swipe made by Dr. Land in his initial non-apology apology.

Land had slyly remarked “Given the pain and suffering of so many Jewish and other victims of the Nazi regime.” It is literally true- many groups other than Jews suffered at the hands of Hitler and his henchmen. But it is misleading, as George F. Will argued in 1989, coincidentally during the controversy over the establishment of a Catholic convent on the site of the Auschwitz death camp. A delegation met representatives of the Polish government there and at other Holocaust sites to obtain artifacts which would be exhibited at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, which would open in Washington, D.C. in 1992. Writing from Treblinka, Will noted

Yes, others were killed. But if there had been no Jews in Euroe, there would have been no Holocaust. There would have been no Hitler. No Treblinka…

But here you also see everything. Treblinka is the starkest testimony to the radical evil that gives the Holocaust its stunning uniqueness, its apartness from all other human experiences. The radicalism was in its furious focus on Jews.

Comparisons of health care reform, the Democratic Party, or Barack Obama to fascism, Nazism, or Adolph Hitler do not demonstrate the madness of the opposition, but rather its extremism and utter lack of decency.