But for Portman, the burden of proof is to show that Holocaust education is somehow marginalizing the suffering of others and preventing its lessons from being applied in other cases. For many, applying the lessons of the Holocaust involves speaking out if a segment of the population is being systematically dehumanized, mistreated and killed. The Holocaust is often used to make a point about a political or moral issue, and critics of this practice argue that it is exploitative and disrespectful to the memory of the Holocaust victims. Nevertheless, one can find analogies to the Holocaust made by anti-abortion and animal rights activists, and ironically, by those who are opposed to the state of Israel or at least what they term the occupied territories.
Pro-Life activists regard the unborn, on theological or moral grounds, as having lives that are just as viable as babies that have been born, and some members may not hesitate to invoke the Holocaust to make their point. These groups have intensified protests against Planned Parenthood as a video depicted a discussion that was allegedly about selling fetal parts to biotech companies and research labs. Thousands of pro-life protesters gathered in front of Planned Parenthood and some abortion clinics to pray against the practice of abortion, which they compare to murder. In response to counter protesters who accused them of wanting to deny women healthcare, theNewAmerican.com responded that “they never block anyone from accessing ‘basic reproductive healthcare.’ In fact, the demonstrators cannot and do not even block anyone from obtaining an abortion, which those who value human life would only consider to be ‘healthcare’ in the sense that Dr. Joseph Mengele, in his capacity as physician at the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, provided ‘healthcare’ to his victims there.”
Nobel Prize winning writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, who wrote in Yiddish and left his native Poland for America prior to Hitler’s rise to power, became an early vegetarian, before refraining from meat became a fad. When asked if he avoided eating meat for health reasons, he responded, “Yes, for the health of the chicken.” He famously said, “To a chicken, every day is Auschwitz.” One could say that if Singer, who was lucky enough not to suffer in Hitler’s Europe, could make an analogy between meat eating and the Holocaust, why should others be prevented from the practice? In fact, animal rights group PETA used I.B. Singer’s own quote, “To animals, all people are Nazis,” on a controversial campaign that showed photos of mistreated chickens, pigs and cattle in factory farms, alongside pictures of emaciated concentration camp inmates. The ad campaign was called “Holocaust on Your Plate,” and it caused an outcry from those who objected to the moral equivalency of humans and animals, factory farms and concentration camps.
There is no doubt that anti-Israel movements, such as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, often eschew dialogue in order to portray Israel as a country that is beyond negotiating with, who was founded by those who survived the Nazi terror only to become latter day “Nazis” in the eyes of the Palestinians. The irony is pedantic, the parallels are sensationalistic, and sadly, they also obscure any rational dialogue on the subject between Israelis and Palestinians. The true irony lies in the fact that the complete demonization of Israel makes impossible the coexistence which true Palestinian advocates want. The incidents of Nazi imagery used against Israel in BDS protests are, sadly, too numerous to count, including an Israeli flag with a swastika in the middle or a Nazi flag with the star of David in the middle. The Holocaust analogies used regarding the Palestinians, false comparisons which are meant to rub Israel’s face in its own history, are not used merely by protesters, but by those who sit in the parliaments of Europe and the United Nations. In 2009, British MP Gerald Kaufman said Israel’s justification of the death of 1,000 Palestinians on the grounds that 500 were militants was “the reply of a Nazi.” In 2009 and 2010, two UN rapporteurs were criticized for their equation of Israel with Nazi Germany.