Below is a short video produced by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. It will be shown to young people in the run-up to the day itself in January. The video attempts to draw parallels between modern day bigotries and the bigotry that led to the Holocaust.
It’s mostly a well-produced effort with its heart in the right place. However, the scene that involves a Muslim woman being turned away from a school parents’ evening because she refuses to remove her burqa is perplexing, and its inclusion rather unpleasant. It doesn’t add up factually for a start. It is unlikely such a woman would have been allowed out of her house without a male ‘supervising’ her. And why is the woman of this scene prepared to give her piece to camera without a full burqa on?
The slogan of the video is ‘Stop The Hatred’. Well, the most immediate hatred these women face is the brutal misogyny of Islam.
In any case, it is obscene to attempt to make a comparison between an incident such as the parents’ evening one and the Kristallnacht which saw the murder of more than 90 Jews, the destruction of hundreds of synagogues and thousands of Jewish homes and businesses, and led directly to the Holocaust and six million murdered Jews. To make such a comparison doesn’t increase public understanding of the Holocaust, it actively decreases it.
Indeed, to compare ‘Islamaphobia’ and anti-semitism on any level at all misses one vital point: when was the last time you heard of Jews flying planes into buildings in America, or blowing up tube trains in London, or school-buses in Israel, or torturing and murdering innocent people in India? When did you hear of Jews turning mentally-ill children into unwitting suicide bombers? Never. Neither is there an entrenched culture of tyranny, bullying, misogyny and enslavement in Judaism.
Nobody should be persecuted because of their religion. But let’s get this straight: the Holocaust was an entirely unprovoked bloodbath. ‘Islamaphobia’ is neither of these things.
Holocaust Memorial Day Whole Film from Knifedge on Vimeo.