Using Holocaust to define evil weakens its memory

November 11, 2005
Jewish News Weekly of Northern California
by emanuele ottolenghi

Even while the Holocaust is finally becoming the quintessential reincarnation of evil in Europe, Europeans are busy trivializing it.
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Intellectuals should be able to tell the difference: That all evil becomes the same is a testimony to their intellectual failure, not a reflection of a new truth about good and evil in the world.
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Among those who manipulate the Holocaust to belittle it or to void it of its Jewish component are pro-Palestinian apologists. The effort to equate the Palestinians’ plight with the Holocaust is part of the ongoing pro-Palestinian propaganda effort against Israel to deny Israel any legitimacy. By elevating the Palestinian predicament to genocide, not only is Israel demonized as the latest reincarnation of Nazism — hence, evil — but the Palestinians also become the new archetypal underdog — “the Jews of the 21st century” — deserving protection from the new Hitlers.
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[...]Last January, representatives of Islamic organizations refused to attend official Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations. [...] the head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Iqbal Sacranie, argued that Holocaust Memorial Day was not inclusive and therefore not worthy of their presence.

Objecting to the uniqueness of the Jewish genocide, Sacranie supported instead a Genocide Memorial Day, when all victims of genocides, past and present, would be commemorated, and when “peace with justice” would be promoted for those continuing to suffer in the world, especially in Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya.

This argument is disingenuous: Sacranie mentioned only the emotional issues feeding into a strong sense of pan-Islamic grievance within Europe and across the Islamic world. As genocides past and present he quoted Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda but omitted Armenia and Sudan. His agenda thus was clear both in its sins of omission. (These omissions shrouded in silence those tragedies in which the murderers were — and still are — Muslim armies and Muslim governments.)
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Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.