Subscribe to Print Edition | Thu., January 22, 2009 Tevet 26, 5769 | | Israel Time: 00:10 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
Haaretz Toolbar
Diplomacy
Defense Jewish World Opinion National
Print Edition
Car Rental
Books Haaretz Magazine Business Real Estate Joy of Giving Travel Week's End Anglo File
Last update - 09:51 20/01/2009
Yad Vashem Chair: Nazi imagery at anti-Israel rallies incites violence
By The Associated Press
Tags: Israel news, anti-Semitism 

The head of Israel's Holocaust memorial said Monday that the use of Nazi imagery at recent violent anti-Israel demonstrations across Europe have fanned the flames of anti-Semitism and incited violence against Jews.

Protests against Israel's Gaza offensive have included signs and slogans comparing Israeli soldiers to German troops, the Gaza Strip to the Auschwitz death camp and the Jewish Star of David to the Nazi swastika.

The protests have come amid a dramatic increase in anti-Semitic acts, including attacks on synagogues, beatings of pro-Israel demonstrators and proposed boycotts of Jewish businesses, according to the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League.
Advertisement
Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem museum and memorial, said the comparisons were manipulative distortions of history and called for the Holocaust to be left out of contemporary political discourse.

"It is legitimate to constructively criticize the policies of any nation, including Israel. However, the baseless use of Holocaust imagery and terminology as a weapon against Israel has incited a tangible surge of anti-Semitism," he said. "That is the danger inherent when people cynically use the Holocaust to distort a present political conflict".

The Nazis and their collaborators murdered 6 million Jews in an attempt to eradicate European Jewry during World War II, shutting them in ghettos and concentrations camps and killing them in gas chambers.

More than 1,200 Palestinians were killed during Israel's three-week operation, launched on Dec. 27 to halt near-daily rocket fire from Gaza toward Israel. More than half of the dead were civilians, according to the United Nations. Thirteen Israelis also died in the fighting.

Images of the devastation in Gaza - including the bloodied bodies of children and anguished victims in hospitals - stoked protests around the world. Human rights groups accused Israel of using disproportionate force and of not doing enough to protect Gaza's civilian population during the war.

While most of the protesters reject any accusation of anti-Semitism, Jewish leaders are concerned that the Holocaust imagery is leading to violence.

Anti-Semitic incidents during the war spiked markedly in Europe, the Anti-Defamation League said.

Molotov cocktails have been hurled at synagogues in France, Sweden and Belgium. Jews have been beaten in England and Norway and an Italian union endorsed a boycott of Jewish-owned shops in Rome.

In Amsterdam, a Dutch lawmaker marched in a demonstration where the crowd hollered Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas. Socialist lawmaker Harry van Bommel said he did not repeat calls for another Holocaust and only chanted, Intifada, Intifada, Free Palestine.

The Norwegian finance minister took part in a protest where comparisons were made between Nazis and Jews. A British lawmaker whose grandmother died in the Holocaust said Israeli soldiers were acting like Nazis and most recently, a senior Vatican official, Cardinal Renato Martino, said Gaza under the Israeli military offensive resembled a big concentration camp.

"We have always seen a link between violence in the Middle East to anti-Semitism but we have never seen anything like what we are seeing now", said Abraham Foxman, a Holocaust survivor and the national director of the ADL. "Not on this scale, not in this intensity."

He said similar protests have also taken place in the United States. In San Francisco, for instance, protesters burned Israeli flags and carried banners reading Jews are terrorists, Zionism=Nazism, and Gaza=Holocaust. The more creative slogans penned the term Zionazis.

"If you think Israel is too aggressive, say it! But don't use the words 'Ghetto' and 'Nazi,'" Shalev said.

Speaking at the cornerstone-laying ceremony for a new wing at Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies, he said the school's students study the painful lessons of that era. He said that includes speaking out against injustice anywhere.

"But they also learn that absurd and vicious comparisons of current events in the Middle East to the Holocaust do nothing to further understanding of the current situation," he said. "Instead they cloud our judgment and our perceptions."
Bookmark to del.icio.us  
 
Foot in both camps
Jordan's king is torn between U.S.-Egypt and Syria-Hamas axes.
Mideast in dark
Aside from Iraq, Obama's plans for the Mideast are still vague.
  1.   The British politician referred to in this report 22:27  |  Chris Linthwaite 19/01/09
  2.   It`s NOT anti-Semitism that has them so upset 22:28  |  James B 19/01/09
  3.   The comments of Chris Linthwaite 23:13  |  joshua 19/01/09
  4.   Jew haters cowardly use different terms to 23:18  |  Hersh 19/01/09
  5.   James B. 23:41  |  Jonathan 19/01/09
  6.   It`s not the nazi imagery.... 23:57  |  Silvienne 19/01/09
  7.   Protest Israeli action in Gaza 00:02  |  Mo 20/01/09
  8.   #1 Chris, Do YOU know the difference between death camp and ... 00:04  |  Israeli Observer 20/01/09
  9.   THERE is nothing more Nazi today than the Hamas manifesto 00:09  |  PETER SM 20/01/09
  10.   James B #2 00:17  |  Sky 20/01/09
  11.   The comparaison is absolutely justified, Gaza=death camp 00:20  |  Sirme 20/01/09
  12.   To: Chris Linthwaite 00:24  |  Heather Czerniak 20/01/09
  13.   Fools, Find Another Word, The Real "Holocaust" Is Already Taken! 00:33  |  Lavi 20/01/09
  14.   Don`t be upset with the truth. 00:37  |  Lou Medel 20/01/09
  15.   Dutch van Bommel 00:46  |  lucas 20/01/09
  16.   #4 Mo 00:59  |  Chayim 20/01/09
  17.   To Chris Linthwaite (# 1). Will you be boycotting oil? 01:01  |  flyingdoc57 20/01/09
  18.   No. 5, Israeli Observer 01:04  |  W 20/01/09
  19.   #5 Israeli Observer 01:10  |  Chris Linthwaite 20/01/09
  20.   You are with us or you are against us 01:12  |  ruiz 20/01/09
  21.   #9 Helen Czerniak 01:17  |  Chris Linthwaite 20/01/09
  22.   #9 Helen Czerniak 01:17  |  Chris Linthwaite 20/01/09
  23.   Mr Linthwaite`s veracity (SECOND try) 01:18  |  joshua 20/01/09
  24.   Rockets fired at Civilians ARE a war crime 01:27  |  GZLives 20/01/09
  25.   1300 dead is NOT a holocaust or even a genocide 01:27  |  GZLives 20/01/09
  26.   Firing from Mosques, Hospitals is a war crime 01:28  |  GZLives 20/01/09
  27.   Using Human Shields is a War Crime 01:28  |  GZLives 20/01/09
  28.   Booby Trapping Schools is a War Crime 01:28  |  GZLives 20/01/09
  29.   Chris Linthwaite, surely you don`t believe that??! 01:30  |  Hannah 20/01/09
  30.   The world loves Palestinians more than ever now 01:46  |  Tamir Palestine 20/01/09
  31.   To Mo (#4) 01:48  |  Justin 20/01/09
  32.   To Peter SM #6 01:53  |  Colin Wright 20/01/09
  33.   To Mo #4 `Protest...` 01:59  |  Colin Wright 20/01/09
  34.   boycott israel 02:04  |  ilfato73 20/01/09
  35.   arab caused death camp 02:05  |  Mark M 20/01/09
  36.   If this is genocide, Israel is terrible at it... 02:09  |  Noach 20/01/09
  37.   Village Idiot? 02:10  |  Cas 20/01/09
  38.   logic result 02:40  |  Ridha 20/01/09
  39.   occupation and resistance 02:44  |  Bob 20/01/09
  40.   24, Human Rights watch says this accusation is a lie 02:45  |  lydia 20/01/09
  41.   "Booby trapping schools" Says Who 02:48  |  lydia 20/01/09
  42.   Nr. 22 02:49  |  Mary 20/01/09
  43.   James B #2 02:57  |  Big Sur 20/01/09
  44.   Nazi imagery at anti-Israel rallies incites violence 03:01  |  Quin Harris 20/01/09
  45.   6, Go read you Talmud! 03:01  |  lydia 20/01/09
  46.   #8 Sime WHAT DO I call it? Justice 03:03  |  Big Sur 20/01/09
  47.   whoa whoa whoa; hold on a second! 03:19  |  eric 20/01/09
  48.   A light amongst the nations 03:39  |  Danii 20/01/09
  49.   anti-sematism 03:45  |  me 20/01/09
  50.   10,000 Rockets 04:10  |  Howard 20/01/09
  51.   #10 Lavi - Yep that word IS taken... 04:19  |  PADDY 20/01/09
  52.   Israeli action incites violence 04:20  |  Jens 20/01/09
  53.   Nazi imagery at pro-Israeli rallies incites violence 04:35  |  Jonas 20/01/09
  54.   Semites 04:36  |  John 20/01/09
  55.   To Mary (#36) 04:41  |  joshua 20/01/09
  56.   1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 11, 15, 27,28, 31, 33, 38, 41, pathetic hypocrites 04:41  |  lalaland 20/01/09
  57.   Guide Lines for protesters. 05:01  |  Dr.Joji Cherian 20/01/09
  58.   To Joshua (#44) 05:22  |  Mike 20/01/09
  59.   Well, how do you call the ones which kill civilians? 06:17  |  Niva dos Santos 20/01/09
  60.   to W 06:26  |  Motale 20/01/09
  61.   #22 06:52  |  David 20/01/09
  62.   Rsponse to Mike (#54) 07:09  |  joshua 20/01/09
  63.   Has chairman of Yad Vashem been to Bethlehem 07:14  |  richard 20/01/09
  64.   to #20 Joshua 07:16  |  Warren J 20/01/09
  65.   To confused # 51 07:18  |  JIM 20/01/09
  66.   Using Human Shields is a War Crime , GZLives 08:48  |  Aristo 20/01/09
  67.   The Israeli OCCUPATION, land piracy, is the root of violence 09:07  |  Ivar 20/01/09
  68.   boycott Israel 09:17  |  Steve 20/01/09
  69.   COLIN WRIGHT Obviously you have never read the Hamas charter. or 09:21  |  PETER SM 20/01/09
  70.   Israel endlessly compares its enemies to Nazis. 10:27  |  Michael 20/01/09
  71.   The Holocaust isn`t sacred. 12:30  |  Michael 20/01/09
  72.   Nazi imagery at anti-Israel rallies 18:02  |  Thomas Lewin 20/01/09
  73.   to Michael#71 18:13  |  Ilya 20/01/09
  74.   #30, Tamir Palestine... 19:23  |  Silvienne 20/01/09
  75.   #46, Big Sur...and how many dead? 19:31  |  Silvienne 20/01/09
  76.   #66, GZLives...human shields... 19:35  |  Silvienne 20/01/09
  77.   to Silvienne#75 22:10  |  Ilya 20/01/09
  78.   Economic crisis = increase of anti-semitism 23:01  |  Sebastian 20/01/09
  79.   #13.Lavi. Then let us call it "Coust lead" 00:11  |  BNaron Frank. 21/01/09
  80.   00:17 | Sky: Sorry you don`t understand 00:00  |  James B 22/01/09
 Read & React
The first day: President Obama to embrace role in meets on Iraq, economy
Responses: 112
Shai Golden: A strong, victorious Israel is far more likely to make peace
Responses: 41
IDF probes improper use of phosphorus shells in Gaza Strip
Responses: 59
Israeli Lebanon war film 'Waltz with Bashir' shown in Beirut
Responses: 15
Israeli human rights activists: Arrest Olmert, Livni, and Barak for war crimes
Responses: 48


More Headlines
20:03 White House: Obama determined to help consolidate Gaza truce
22:47 Meshal urges West: Stop trying to eliminate Hamas, deal with us
23:15 Supreme Court revokes ban on Arab parties from national elections
15:52 Report: Belgian court petitioned to arrest Livni upon arrival in Brussels
21:57 Widow of slain minister Ze'evi: I`m willing to swap his killers for Shalit
15:18 Ramon: Israel need not fear Obama's plan to talk to Iran
17:17 Hamas reasserts control in Gaza, rounds up 'collaborators'
19:38 Israel denies using uranium-infused bombs during Gaza op
07:06 ANALYSIS / Jordan's king is torn between U.S.-Egypt and Syria-Hamas axes
15:03 Iran urges Obama to change U.S. foreign policy in Mideast
15:03 Defense official: Fresh Hamas strikes will be met with even greater force
17:16 EU to pressure Israel to open Gaza borders to allow in aid
06:53 ANALYSIS / Aside from Iraq, Obama's plans for the Mideast are still vague
14:24 Court: Rightist march in Arab town can be held after election
21:59 Dutch MP Wilders faces charges over showing of anti-Muslim film
18:33 View from Ramallah / Israeli refuseniks confront the IDF, from Ni'lin to Tel Aviv
Previous Editions
Special Offers
Advertisement
Summer in Israel
Israeli style - Tzofim Chetz V'Keshet 2009
Blue And White Forever Israel Army T-shirts
Wear with Proud Donate the Soldiers Kit
You can make a direct IMPACT!
on the life of an Israeli soldier
State of Israel Bonds
During this time of market volatility, Israel bonds can help.
SURF RAMBAM
Keep current about new-wave medical care, education and research.
Summer Camp in Israel
The best place for your children this summer
Fattal Hotel Chain
Perfectly located hotels on best resorts of Israel.
Eldan Rent a Car
Israel's leading car rental company offers you a 20% discount on all online reservations
Jewish Singles Personal Ads
Find the love of your life on JDate.com
Junkyard
Junk a car - get free towing nationwide and a tax-deductible receipt
Home | TV | Print Edition | Diplomacy | Opinion | Arts & Leisure | Sports | Jewish World | Underground | Site rules |
Real Estate in Israel | Travel to Israel with Haaretz | Hotels Israel | Restaurants Israel | Tourist attractions Israel | Shops Israel
birthright Israel | Search engine marketing
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
© Copyright  Haaretz. All rights reserved