See if you can follow this logic, because it’s pretty much escaping me. A town in Sweden has decided to cancel its Holocaust remembrance procession because of the Gaza war.
A northern Swedish city has decided to cancel a planned Holocaust Memorial Day torchlight procession due to the recent IDF offensive in Gaza, it was reported Tuesday.
The official reason given for the decision, made by the municipal board and local church in Lulea, was safety concerns, but Bo Nordin, a clergyman and spokesman for the church, cited the war in Gaza.
“It feels uneasy to have a torchlight procession to remember the victims of the Holocaust at this time,” Nordin told Swedish National Radio. “We have been preoccupied and grief-stricken by the war in Gaza and it would feel just feel odd with a large ceremony about the Holocaust.”
I’m sorry, could you please explain that logic to me again? It would feel wrong to remember the victims of the Nazi genocide because Palestinians died in Gaza last month? Do you mean that it would feel wrong to remember people who were killed because they were Jewish because people who were Jewish killed Gazans?
Would someone kindly tell me again how criticism of Israel is not related to anti-Semitism, because I’m really missing that vital blind spot.
The decision drew fierce criticism from various organizations as well as residents of the city, and a defiant group of Lulea locals has decided to hold the torchlight procession anyway.
Good for you. And hey, Bo Nordin, way to show the compassionate side of Christianity—by being unable to feel sympathy for two disparate groups at the same time. You’re some religious leader, all right.
“I’m sorry, could you please explain that logic to me again? It would feel wrong to remember the victims of the Nazi genocide because Palestinians died in Gaza last month? Do you mean that it would feel wrong to remember people who were killed because they were Jewish because people who were Jewish killed Gazans?”
I will give it a try. This is the typical German way of thinking, which has been more or less adapted by the rest of Europe as well. It has to do with the psychological mechanism of self-exculpation that lets every single misdeed by Jews, real or perceived, and by Israel, the über-Jew, somehow magically lessen the German/European guilt of the Holocaust. Therefore every single misdeed by Jews, real or perceived, has to be duly noticed, given its due “importance”, and charged up against the Holocaust.
It seems that what Israel, the über-Jew, did in Gaza has finally nullified the Holocaust in the mind of the Nordins of this world. I don’t think that it will remain an isolated case.
Here’s something I think is kind of similar: a CNN reviewer, writing about the movie “Defiance,” thought it was inappropriate that this film came out while the fighting in Gaza was going on. As I said in my post on this:
“…the past heroism of Jews fighting their would-be murderers must only be portrayed and celebrated when Jews are not currently fighting other would be murderers?”
No one should kid themselves that this kind of thinking is limited to Europe, although it seems definitely more virulent there.
Left out the link: my post on the film and the review is here.