Anti-Zionist Holocaust survivor speaks at Sacramento mosque

Fresnozionism.org
17 February '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/02/anti-zionist-holocaust-survivor-speaks-at-sacramento-mosque/

This is close to home:

Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer makes the 11th stop on his national “Never Again for Anyone” tour at the Sacramento League of Associated Muslims Islamic Center at 7 p.m. [Feb. 16].

Meyer has equated the Holocaust to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, drawing intense fire from Sacramento’s Jewish community and the Anti-Defamation League.

“Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is repugnant, anti-Semitic and defiles the sacred memory of millions who perished during the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Reuven H. Taff, president of the 13-member Board of Rabbis of Greater Sacramento, in a civil but emotional exchange of letters with SALAM’s Imam Mohamed Abdul Azeez…

“The event is not going to be canceled,” said Azeez, who encouraged “any of our friends in the Jewish community to attend, ask questions and engage the speakers.”

Azeez noted that eight national organizations and nine local organizations are sponsoring it, including the Florin Japanese American Citizens League and the local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace…

“You have a Holocaust survivor talking for the first time to the Muslim community about the Holocaust and putting it in a modern context that the rights of all people should be respected,” Azeez said. “The world is changing, and it’s time for us to have more dialogue about these untouchable idols,” such as the Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

The Imam’s response included this very strange distinction:

Azeez agrees that the rabbis raise a legitimate concern – “any attempt to equate the Holocaust with what is happening in Palestine is an atrocity.” Azeez said SALAM’s management will not allow the speakers to compare Israel to the Nazis. — Sacramento Bee

Apparently he thinks that it is fine to accuse Israel of perpetrating a Holocaust against the Palestinian Arabs, but atrocious to compare them to Nazis! I won’t try to understand this.

The premise of “Never again for anyone” is that Israel’s actions in self defense — like the recent mini-war in Gaza — are comparable in intent, if not in scale, to the Nazi Holocaust against European Jews.

This is a lie. It is an invention from whole cloth, without even a shred of truth behind it.

It is being told over and over in the UN, by Israel-hostile NGOs, etc. For example, the UN ‘Human Rights’ Council’s Goldstone report asserts that it was IDF policy to hurt and kill Gaza residents as ‘punishment’ for their support of Hamas. Exactly the opposite is true. But that is normal when the ‘big lie’ technique is employed.

Indeed, the truly genocidal intent belongs to the Palestinian Arab Hamas organization.

The big lie is supported by a whole collection of smaller lies, some of which I listed on Tuesday:

…the IDF shot Mohammad Dura in cold blood, the IDF kills Arabs and takes their organs, thousands were massacred in Jenin in 2003, AIDS and Measles are spread by Jews, Israelis have trained sharks to attack tourists off Egyptian beaches, the IDF shot hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war in the Sinai in 1967, Ariel Sharon himself shot children to death in Sabra/Shatila, the IDF went into Gaza with orders to kill as many civilians as possible, Israeli soldiers landed on the deck of the Mavi Marmara shooting… I could go on and on.

Hajo Meyer’s experience may qualify him to talk about Nazis, but it does not make him an expert on Zionism and the Palestinian Arabs. In fact, there are perhaps psychological reasons that Holocaust survivors are easy prey for those who distort present-day reality.

***

The tour is sponsored by American Muslims for Palestine, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) and the Middle East Children’s Alliance. On their highly professional, multilingual website, the IJAN’s charter describes it as

…an international network of Jews who are uncompromisingly committed to struggles for human emancipation, of which the liberation of the Palestinian people and land is an indispensable part. Our commitment is to the dismantling of Israeli apartheid, the return of Palestinian refugees, and the ending of the Israeli colonization of historic Palestine.

Simply: the dissolution of the state of Israel and its replacement by an Arab-dominated state. In practice the implementation of their program would result in a bloody Arab-Jewish war. Rhetoric follows the extreme left-wing post-colonial model. For example,

We pledge to: Oppose Zionism and the State of Israel

Zionism is racist. It demands political, legal and economic power for Jews and European people and cultures over indigenous people and cultures. Zionism is not just racist but anti-Semitic. It endorses the sexist European anti-Semitic imagery of the effeminate and weak “diaspora Jew” and counters it with a violent and militarist “new Jew,” one who is a perpetrator rather than a victim of racialized violence. Zionism thus seeks to make Jews white through the adopting of white racism against Palestinian people…

***

Let’s return to Hajo Meyer:

Meyer, in an exclusive interview with The Bee, said he survived 12 years under Hitler and 10 months in Auschwitz. “I have a number on my arm and they dare to call me an anti-Semite?” he said.

Meyer’s anti-Zionism, expressed here as a litany of false or context-free accusations against the state of Israel and his stated commitment to the principles of IJAN calling for the elimination of the Jewish state, clearly meets the Sharansky 3D test for antisemitism (see also my article here).

Meyer thinks that his number somehow immunizes him against accusations of antisemitism. Logically, that’s nonsense.

Is he an antisemite? My answer is yes.

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