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NEWS
Holocaust Day Ceremonies Used for Antisemitism
By Arnon Yaffeh, Paris
In the aftermath of International Holocaust Remembrance Day
ceremonies, which were held in the shadow of anti-Israeli
incitement, calls are being issued to cancel them entirely.
This year more than ever public figures shed crocodile tears,
allowing people like UN General Assembly President Rev.
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua to demonize today's
Jews. At the last moment the Americans prevented him from
attended the ceremony in the UN General Assembly, but even
without him it seemed absurd to hold the ceremony in the
place where four short months ago the audience cheered a
speech by arch-antisemite Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.
Commenting on this year's Holocaust Remembrance Day, Wall
Street Journal editor Daniel Schwammenthal wrote, "Let it be
the last one, at least outside the Jewish world." He decried
the "risk-free grandstanding," saying the remarks made at the
event cast the Jews as today's Nazis.
In any case International Holocaust Day fails to achieve its
aim. The speeches given around Europe made no mention of the
new dangers and the rise of antisemitism in political circles
and in the streets and included no denunciation of modern
antisemitism or Islamo-fascists calling for the annihilation
of Israel. The shouts of "Death to the Jews" that filled
European streets during anti-Israel demonstrations by Arabs
were enough to show International Holocaust Day is
pointless.
Jewish community leaders, who made such great efforts to
lobby governments to establish Holocaust days and to teach
Holocaust history in schools, have discovered that rather
than educate, in-depth study of the Holocaust fans the flames
of hatred and increases Holocaust denial. They erred gravely
in working to introduce Holocaust studies at schools in Arab
neighborhoods and at French schools who interpreted the
imposition of the subject on them as an act of provocation.
Academics and parliamentarians are working obsessively to
organize boycotts of Israel and to compare it to Nazis. The
Central Council of Jews in Germany avoided sending
representatives to the official ceremony in the German
Parliament last week, which dealt with the Holocaust as a
crime from the distant past.
Elsewhere ceremonies were used to protest against Israel by
canceling them. The Wall Street Journal cited a number
of examples: In Barcelona a city official told La
Vanguardia "marking the Jewish Holocaust while a
Palestinian Holocaust is taking place is not right." In
Lulea, Sweden, a priest said, "It feels uneasy to have a
torchlight procession to remember the victims of the
Holocaust at this time. We have been preoccupied and grief-
stricken by the war in Gaza." Trine Lilleng, a Norwegian
diplomat stationed in Saudi Arabia, sent an email message
that made its way into the Jerusalem Post reading,
"The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors from World War II
are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them
by Nazi Germany."
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