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Double penumonia: congressman and imam

Truth, unlike water, does not seek its own level, at least not in the public square. Truth is calibrated to fit the recipient, and the recipient is cut according to political lenses. If there is a topic on which truth should be unadulterated regardless of its recipient, it is the Holocaust.

Alas, it is not so. Truth about the Holocaust is adjusted, softened, corrupted. Case in point: The congressman from Florida, and the imam from Calgary.

Note well: Holocaust metaphors, let alone direct distortions of the Holocaust, diminish the Holocaust because no metaphor can match the truth of the Holocaust’s horror. And no distortion, denial or miminization of the Holocaust is anything other than an exploitation of this unspeakable, unimaginable horror of horrors.

So, when Rep. Allen West of Florida invoked Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels in speaking about the Democratic party, he was bluntly and strongly taken to task.

He said: “If Joseph Goebbels was [sic] around, he’d be very proud of the Democrat Party because they have an incredible propaganda machine.”

He was trying to defend his party against public blame for the unpopularity of Congress. Now, whatever Congress, or, for that matter, whatever the Demoratic Party, is or is not doing, it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with Joseph Goebbels.

Rep. West’s comparison is factually wrong, morally obtuse, emotionally insulting, and evidence of extraordinary ignorance.

About Rep. Allen West, a Republican, the National Jewish Democatic Council said: “As we have said repeatedly, invoking the Holocaust to make a political point is never acceptable and should be condemned by all for the sake of the memory of those who were lost.”

Amen.

About West, the ADL said: “Such outrageous Holocaust analogies have no place in our political dialogue. They are offensive, they trivialize real historical events, and they diminish the memory of the six million Jews and millions of others who perished in the Holocaust.”

Amen.

Of West, the AJC said that he “displayed a compete lack of understanding of the worst genocidal era in human history.”

Amen.

Rep. Ted Deutch, a Democrat from Florida, who is Jewish, said: “Comparing the way Democrats defend our record to the way the Nazi Minister of Propaganda attempted to defend and even justify the murder of six million Jewish is utterly outrageous. I hope that Rep. West will apologize to the many Holocaust survivors in South Florida and throughout the nation.”

Amen.

However, at roughly the same time that Rep. West made his outrageous comparison, a Canadian imam said: “Muslims are going through that situation right now what the Jews faced before the Holocaust.”

There are no Muslims anywhere, including in Canada, facing what the Jews faced before the Holocaust. The imam’s comparison is factually wrong, morally obtuse, emotionally insulting, and evidence of extraordinary ignorance.

But about Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, the National Jewish Democratic Council, to our knowledge, said nothing.

Ditto, ADL: About Soharwardy, it said, to our knowledge, nothing. Ditto, AJC: on Soharwardy, nothing. Ditto, Rep. Ted Deutch: silence.

The congressman from Florida is — rightly — raked over the coals. The imam from Canada is allowed to say he was “misinterpreted.”

How effective is the condemnation of the Republican congressman from Florida when an imam, who exploits the Holocaust for his own purposes, is let off the hook? Regardless of how sincere the outrage at the congressman from Florida may be, how sincere is it perceived to be when there is no evident outrage, from the same sources, at the imam from Canada?

Soharwardy later said that he did not mean to compare Ottawa’s policy banning Islamic face veils at citizenship ceremonies to the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust. “I said,” he said, “the current situation of Muslims that we are facing is trending towards a situation that will be very, very horrible.”

In the context of the imam’s previous remarks, what can “very, very horrible” mean other than the mass murder the Jews faced? Unwittingly, the imam’s non-apology apology underscores not only the outrage of his remarks, but their absurdity.

Yet . . . he is not raked over the coals. He is an imam, to whom, apparently, different standards apply, even for Holocaust exploitation.

The application of different standards is itself a form of exploitation of the Holocaust.

The imam went on to say: “I created a similarity just to make a point, not to insult, not to be unrealistic or insensitive or incorrect. I have regret in the interpretation, on how people understand. What I don’t regret is the truth I believe.”

Can you parse any logic out of that “clarification?” The imam’s bottom line seems to be this: He ends where he began, since he insists on retaining the “truth” he believes, i.e., the denial of the veil is a step on the way to a “very, very horrible” situation, like the Jews before the Holocaust.

A congressman. An imam. A case of double pneumonia — each locale of the disease, of Holocaust exploitation, is equally worthy of condemnation, equally outrageous, equally wrong, equally ignorant, equally a distortion, equally a disgrace.

Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News




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