Antisemitism Report 2009 - World Jewish Congress

leftist sources. In rationalisations or justifications in response to criticism, Islamic
spokesmen and far-left commentators asserted that it was justifiable to use such rhetoric as
Israel Shahak and Norman Finkelstein, both Jewish, promoted the Nazi-Jewish analogy.
Melbourne CBD January 2009
The slur has currency particularly in far left circles, with some members of left-wing groups
alleging that civilians who are the tragic victims of conflicts involving Israel are victims of a
Nazi-like genocide and some right-wingers accusing Jews who support legal recourse for
victims of racism with Nazis who murdered political opponents. It has also been used
increasingly by Arab and Muslim critics of Israel in Australia.
This slander is sometimes conscious antisemitism, sometimes thoughtless polemic and
sometimes confused rhetoric, but regardless of its motivation it is generally recognised, after
consideration, as antisemitism.
2.6 Holocaust Denigration
In a community, such as that in contemporary Australia, which includes substantial
numbers of Holocaust survivors and people who lost many family members in the Nazi
Genocide, the legitimate concern that Nazism is understood for what it was is complemented
by sensitivity to abuse of language. Sloppy, inappropriate invocation of terminology,
including ―Nazi‖ and ―Holocaust‖, is not necessarily the result of antisemitic intent, but does
denigrate the reality of Genocide, persecution and suffering. Political analysts in Australia
have observed the way in which consistent, inaccurate analogies involving Holocaust
terminology reduce the true historic event in a way which can be summarised as ―if
everything is a Holocaust, then the Holocaust has no special significance.‖ This
phenomenon is disturbing, and can have the result of furthering antisemitic agendas, even if
Jews were not part of the thinking of those who are part of it.
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