The Analogies that Got Away

In my 17 May post Sheridan in Love 4, I had occasion to quote from (& critically discuss) the European Union Monitoring Committee on Racism & Xenophobia's 'working definition of anti-Semitism'. One element of that definition is 'drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis'. Of course, as pointed out in my post, for Zionist propagandists, the drawing of comparisons of contemporary Arab/Iranian policies to that of the Nazis has become a staple of their craft, with Nasser, Saddam Hussein, Arafat, and Ahmadinejad all being condemned, at one stage or the other, as risen Hitlers.

The hypocrisy and ideological bias of automatically ruling out such comparisons (indeed, condemning them as anti-Semitic) when it comes to Israeli leaders, policies and practices, while routinely employing them to demonise Arab and other leaders and ignoring their use in other contexts, was highlighted recently in two media reports.

In the first, Parliamentary scuffle over Third Reich comparison (The Australian Jewish News, 22/5/09), we learn that Labor MP Steve Gibbons had delivered a speech in federal parliament in which he commented that shadow minister Tony Abbott showed "all the compassion of the Third Reich" when it came to aged pensioners. This comparison was roundly condemned by Liberal MP (& Chairman, Australia/Israel Parliamentary Group 1996-2004) Christopher Pyne as displaying a "total lack of regard for the sensibilities of Jewish Australians... who were persecuted in both Germany and other conquered territories."* And was Pyne's motion to condemn Gibbon's heinous crime backed by Labor MP (& federal parliament's most strident defender of Israel) Michael Danby? In a word - no.

[*Imagine if he'd used the term 'occupied territories'?]

In the second, Holocaust of torture exposed in a litany of unredeemed sin (The Australian, 22/5/09), Times journalist Ruth Gledhill wrote of the findings of Ireland's Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, namely that Irish Catholic-run institutions had engaged in the torture, rape and beating of thousands of orphans going back to 1914, that "It would be no exaggeration to call this a holocaust of abuse." Expecting to find today's letters page of The Australian overrun with complaints at such an 'inappropriate' comparison, I in fact found - nothing.