Europe Remembers the Holocaust
European leftists are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Jewish leaders, engaging in a little self-flagellation just so they can get this week over with. In the meantime, this is what they're really thinking:
A poll of 3,000 people published last month by Germany's University of Bielefeld showed more than 50 percent of respondents equating Israel's policies toward the Palestinians with Nazi treatment of the Jews...
In 2002, the Portuguese Nobel Prize-winning writer Jose Saramago declared: "What is happening in Palestine is a crime which we can put on the same plane as what happened at Auschwitz." In Israel just last month, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, the Irish winner of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize, compared the country's suspected nuclear weapons to Auschwitz, calling them "gas chambers perfected."...
A poll in Italy last year, for example, by the Eurispes research institute showed 34 percent of respondents agreeing strongly or to some extent with the view that "Jews secretly control financial and economic power as well as the media."
And of course, there was the Prince Harry stunt.
There's a good argument to be made that part of Europe's constant drive to compare Jews to Nazis is a guilt-reduction strategy so they can wash a little bit of Jewish blood off their hands. But at the end of the day, nuanced psychoanalysis is probably beside the point - comparing Israel to the Nazis is just disgusting.
A poll of 3,000 people published last month by Germany's University of Bielefeld showed more than 50 percent of respondents equating Israel's policies toward the Palestinians with Nazi treatment of the Jews...
In 2002, the Portuguese Nobel Prize-winning writer Jose Saramago declared: "What is happening in Palestine is a crime which we can put on the same plane as what happened at Auschwitz." In Israel just last month, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, the Irish winner of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize, compared the country's suspected nuclear weapons to Auschwitz, calling them "gas chambers perfected."...
A poll in Italy last year, for example, by the Eurispes research institute showed 34 percent of respondents agreeing strongly or to some extent with the view that "Jews secretly control financial and economic power as well as the media."
And of course, there was the Prince Harry stunt.
There's a good argument to be made that part of Europe's constant drive to compare Jews to Nazis is a guilt-reduction strategy so they can wash a little bit of Jewish blood off their hands. But at the end of the day, nuanced psychoanalysis is probably beside the point - comparing Israel to the Nazis is just disgusting.
