With the debate over US admission of Syrian refugees coming to a head after last week’s attacks in Paris, the group Occupy Democrats has gone on a meme-a-thon, co-opting Holocaust images in furtherance of its position that we must take the refugees in.
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/photos/a.347907068635687.81180.346937065399354/1002007479892306/?type=3&hc_location=ufi
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/photos/a.347907068635687.81180.346937065399354/1001895089903545/?type=3&hc_location=ufi
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/posts/1003073163119071
As an American, I completely agree that, despite the risks involved — and clearly there are risks — the only moral choice is to take in some number of (hopefully well-vetted) Syrian refugees. And I can’t deny that my thinking on this is colored by my knowledge of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust. Yet still, I find these posts thoroughly offensive. Beyond offensive, really, more like repulsive.
While Occupy Democrats is now using Holocaust imagery to further its own political ends, this comes only a few months after it shilled for President Obama’s deadly pact with Iran, a pact which carries with it the potential for a new Holocaust. When the Prime Minister of the world’s only Jewish state spoke out against this travesty, Occupy Democrats called him a “warmongering traitor.” They called the invitation to Netanyahu from the Speaker of the House to address Congress — an invitation merely to speak — “an act of political treason against the United States.” In March the group’s website proclaimed that
Of course, Netanyahu’s speech had nothing to do with proposing actual solutions to the perceived threat of Iran’s nuclear ambitions — it had everything to do with disrespecting Pres. Obama, obstructing him at every turn, sabotaging his foreign policy, and warmongering the American people into supporting a preemptive strike against Iran.
The leader of the world’s only Jewish state, they claim, is more interested in manipulating US policy than in the well-being of his own country. Then, in September, a post on their website claimed that Senator Tom Cotton “takes orders from Netanyahu.” These are some serious shades of Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
(In an even more despicable attack on Senator Cotton, the same post said that his “favorite sport” is “killing brown people.”)
In still another post on the Occupy Democrats’ website they falsely imply that Palestinian Arabs have no self-rule and are in need of “protect[ion] from the encroachment of Israeli settlements and the harsh pressure of the IDF.” They ignore, of course, the fact construction activity has decreased dramatically since 2009, and that IDF actions are designed to defend and protect Israeli Jews from attacks.
This is part of a new pattern emerging on the far left, a pattern of loving Jews, but only as long as we are victims. They are all for commemorating the Holocaust, but can’t stand to see Jews stand up for ourselves. When Jews defend ourselves, we are called warmongers and racists; we are vilified and demonized.
At the same time, they have no qualms over co-opting the worst chapter in modern Jewish history to emotionally manipulate people to cut off a discussion about this issue. And, while, as I said, I agree in the end with the group’s conclusion that we must admit Syrian refugees despite the risk, people’s concerns and fears over this issue are valid and worthy of discussion. The glib use of these photos serves to cut off that discussion by implying that having concerns makes you an unfeeling bigot, the type of person who would send Anne Frank to her death all over again.
So I’d thank the Occupy Democrats if they would kindly leave Anne Frank and other Holocaust imagery to people who truly don’t want to see that history repeated.
