Chris Knight writes about how the IHRA definition attempts to stop us learning from history.
[Editorial note: It is important to recognise that comparisons with Nazis need to be carefully considered and not used as a default term of abuse. It is also important to note that analogies are best drawn with pre-1939 Nazi oppression of Jews (and of course many others); not with the industrialised mass killings of the war time period with which there is no comparison.]
Reprinted from Labour Briefing
One of the more worrying aspects of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism is its suggestion that ‘drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’ is necessarily anti-Semitic. It is true that, at times, such comparisons can be crude and ahistorical. But in many cases, even where we might dispute the conclusion, it seems far-fetched to attribute it to anti-Semitism.
Here we publish extracts from Holocaust survivors who oppose historical and recent Israeli policies, in some cases connecting them with those of the Nazis. In one case, the author Rudolf Vrba – again a Holocaust survivor – compares key policies of the wartime Zionist movement to those of the Nazis. Continue reading “8 Holocaust survivors compare Zionist policies to those of the Nazis”
