west didsblue
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 2 Oct 2011
- Messages
- 32,263
Agree with the majority of that. Comparisons of contemporary events with the Holocaust as a whole diminishes the horror of the Holocaust because there has been nothing that compares to the planning, scale and industrialisation of the slaughter.It's not difficult to argue the primacy of the holocaust. The holocaust is a horrific crime, perpetrated on an industrial scale, designed to wipe out an entire race. A good case can be made that it is a crime unique in human history in scale and cruelty, incomparable to anything that preceded it and anything since.
So, if one believes that the holocaust is incomparable, then comparisons should not be made.
But some folk do make comparisons to the holocaust, in so doing they diminish it, and in diminishing the holocaust such comparisons are considered antisemitic.
But some folk disagree.
However there are are aspects of events associated with the Holocaust, particularly in the decade before it came into effect where it is sensible to make comparisons so lessons can be learnt from history because these events led to the attempted liquidation of an entire race of people. The dehumanising language used by the Nazis about Jews in the 1930s can be directly compared to the dehumanising language used by Braverman and her ilk about migrants in recent times, and on that topic I agree entirely with Gary Lineker. Whether he should have said it is a different question because it opens up the specious argument used by Braverman that he was carrying out a direct Holocaust comparison, and too many people will only look at the headlines and make their judgments from that, and that includes too many people who should know better whose opinions are taken more seriously than they should due to who they are rather than what they say. The fact that the Jewish Chronicle has been politicised by its latest Tory owner into toeing the government line does not help in the slightest, because of its influence on the Jewish population.
Bottom line is it’s complicated and making glib comments about antisemitism and the board of deputies doesn’t help in the slightest.