Barack Obama and the Moral Equivalence of Holocaust

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | June 4th, 2009 at 12:05 PM |

RESIZE: AAA

This is perhaps one of the most disturbing parts of Barack Obama’s speech to the muslim world.

While insisting on the reality of the holocaust, something many muslims deny, Barack Obama puts the genocide of 6 million Jews in the same category of what has happened to the Palestinians — something largely inflicted on themselves through their suicide bombings, calls for the destruction of Israel, etc. He treats them as morally equivalent.

Read this passage from today’s speech:

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. ….Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today.….

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations – large and small – that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.

The American Heritage Dictionary notes that the idiom “on the one/other hand” refers to “two sides of an issue”, that is two sides of the same issue.

How is what happened to the Jews the same issue as what is happening to the Palestinians?

The Palestinians have been willful terrorists gladly willing to hinder and harm their own interests and those of their future generations to see Israel wiped off the map. Israel has attempted to give Palestinians some sovereignty, but the moderate elements within Palestinian territory were overrun by terrorists.

There can be no moral equivalence here. Treatment of the Palestinians is largely in the hands of the Palestinians. Treatment of Israel by arabs and others is not in Israel’s hands, unless you assume Israel is happy to commit national suicide.

But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.

We do not have to look at this conflict from either side to see there is something profoundly wrong with a culture that encourages its elementary school children to be suicide bombers.

It is profoundly naive to think Palestinians want to peacefully co-exist with Israel. And it is morally wrong to treat the treatment of Jews and the treatment of Palestinians as morally equivalent.

(H/t to Paul Seale for pointing out this part of the transcript, which I had initially missed while listening to the speech)

Tags: Barack Obama, Holocaust, Israel, Palestine

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icbm

by anti-Israel Muslims, even if it is too subtle for the useful idiots in our media.
INC

A moral equivalence that mocks the reality of good and evil.
INC

moral equivalence tomorrow.
Streiff

great job, Erick
Aaron Gardner
djemi

Nice job, Erick
djemi

And I’m sure that the boys will be busy today
Streiff

n/t
http://www.RedState.com/ETCartman Kenny Solomon

Normally I would never link to another blog post, but Pamela Geller (Atlas Shrugs) is spot on with everything.

Click on the link below….. Read the post….. All of it.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/06/obama-to-ummah-.html

Hey 78% of American Jews…. Are you happy now ?

I’m done with this terrorist sympathizer in The White House.
olsmithie

Ignorant Obama failed to point out that any Christian segment of this population has to hide out and are hunted like animals in constant fear of their life. Wonder why he didn’t mention that a death warrant is commonly issued for you if it is found that you converted to Christianity by the “tolerant” Muslim community.

And listening to the end of his speech, where he claimed the muslim world discovered everything frorm sunshine to shinola, nothing he mentioned was developed by the muslim world.
Look up Greece, China and Babylonia.
I ‘m sure there were developments by the Muslim world, but not any of the ones that he erroneously mentioned in his speech.

He is either the most ignorant “student of history” on the planet, or
the biggest liar on the planet.

My money is on the latter.

Regards
Mike gamecock DeVine
http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

It lists who the contributing editors are, and which have moderator powers.
Aaron Gardner

You just have a stealth about you when you moderate and I don’t like to expose your cover. Neil and Moe are overt, you are covert.

;^)
Aaron Gardner
olsmithie
louisiana

to raise your hand if you want a Palestinian state next door to you. My
Dad was a WWII vet & always said there were 2 people he hoped he would never have to fight–Israel & the Turks. He also said that Israel was the best armed services base the U.S. has (had?). He passed away in’99–sure miss his insights.
bk

If he says that Israel’s “occupation” is “intolerable”, then isn’t he saying that the entire burden is on Israel to concede all the land back to the 1967 borders as a prelude to anything else?
icbm

that’s the job of those nuanced fellows on the left, right? the reason they get up in the morning is to let the rest of us know that no act is better than another, that crime is justice, that war is peace, and so on and so forth.
icbm

don’t take it personally.
icbm

he’s not lying. but he has no idea of the history, and no idea how to judge it, while at the same time he believes that he is highly qualified to judge it.

typical leftist. their ignorance of history only encourages their arrogance in making false statements about it.
Streiff

bite me?
spainishirish

The Palestinians all would have been murdered. It’s that so hard to understand?
http://applescorneroftheorchard.blogspot.com/ Pomme

Without the willful suspension… of course.
icbm

that you decided to make such a joke.
janis

“relief bailout.”
olsmithie

a Muslim.

I came to this conclusion before he was ever elected. I saw people getting jumped on , even here, for suggesting it.
He really is the “Manchurian candidate.”
If you contend that he is not, then please tell me what he would have done differently , had he been a Muslim?

He sucks up to the Muslim world at every opportunity,
He holds Gitmo prisone’rs rights more important than Americans rights.
He obviously holds Israel in contempt, and supports enemies that vow to destroy Israel.
He is quite comfortable running the country like a dictator.
The list goes on and on. .

Regards

BTW there has been another reported beheading by the benevolent bunch that Obama was French kissing on Wednesday.
izoneguy

03.06.09

A Briton kidnapped in Africa has been beheaded by al Qaeda terrorists demanding the release of radical cleric Abu Qatada from jail.

Tourist Edwin Dyer, 60, was abducted four months ago close to the border between Niger and Mali while on a trip to a music festival and cultural centre dedicated to the nomadic Tuareg people.

Al Qaeda’s North African wing said on its website: ?The British captive was killed so that he, and with him the British state, may taste a tiny portion of what innocent Muslims taste every day.?

It said disbelievers would be ?smitten in the neck?. The news came as President Barack Obama began a tour of the Middle East.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/06/muslims-behead-kidnapped-british-man.html

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23702891-details/Kidnapped+British+man+is+beheaded+by+al+Qaeda/article.do
INC

He’s certainly ignorant, but he has no desire to do any research or fact checking.

But anyone who sees a moral equivalence between the Holocaust and the Palestinians is a liar.

Why didn’t he call on the rich Arab states to take the Palestinians in?

Hmm?????
INC

You should read what Andrew Boston wrote about it.

In February, wrote an article titled, Mr. Obama, Speak First at Touro

It’s a great article. In the article he discusses and documents the hatred of Jews taught and fomented in Egypt. In it he says this:

Mr. Obama, before your planned speech in a Muslim capital, I urge you to address the world?s Jewish community, and condemn the jihad-inspired antisemitic violence fomented by esteemed Islamic religious institutions, including notably, Cairo?s Al Azhar University. And I can suggest the ideal venue-redolent with American history-where you should make this statement: Touro, America?s first Jewish synagogue, located in Newport, in my beloved home state of Rhode Island.

We know now that Obama didn?t speak first at Touro (not that I really expected him to do so).

Instead his speech was co-hosted by Al Azhar University!!!!!
Mike gamecock DeVine

ever suck up to the Muslim World
put Gitmo detainee rights above Americans’
hold Israel in contempt nor support its enemies
and would not be dictators

Often I said in during the Iraq War that lib-dems say and do for free what our enemies would pay them to do.

Obama’s problem is he is a leftist.
JadedByPolitics

“Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations ? large and small ? that come with occupation.”

Those refugee camps are no better then the dog pound down the street from your house and the countries who keep the Pali’s in them treat them like the dogs that live on the streets and YET the Israeli’s are the villains OVER AND OVER! I am sick of those animals in the Middle East and Obama who equates the Holocaust to their lives that they themselves through their leadership have brought on via the killing over and over of innocent civilians. If they thought that the Israeli’s would EVER again allow anyone to herd them into death they have made the ultimate decision to live as they do.

OBTW on a side note I certainly hope no women were applauding in the audience when he spoke of women’s rights because they will surely be dead before dark!
INC

Obama now celebrates his Muslim roots, rather than covering them up:

…even if he isn’t a secret Muslim, there is little or no difference between the course he is pursuing and the course he would be pursuing if he really were one.
DonPMitchell

I think Obama’s point was to compare the 1948 war, when the Palestinians were expelled from their land, to the holocaust. Even though the latter is a far greater horror, both peoples have been wronged.

The Palestinians have to accept that Israel is not going away. I certainly want to see Israel survive and flourish. But the Israelis need to accept that the Palestinians are not going to go away. What long-term solution is there except two states?

I guess there is a view that the Palestians should just migrate to other arab countries and be absorbed by them. Clearly their neighbors have not permitted that. It also appears that a violent ghettoized culture has developed that is making it hard to get the Palestinians to settle down and be civil. Israel has to deal with a real mess, so I am not too quick to condemn them for being heavy handed. But nevertheless, the Palestinians are not going to go away.
icbm

His statement is typical of the Far Left, which sees equivalence between the extent of Palestinian Arab suffering and the extent of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.

It’s a stupid view, but I have no doubt that they hold this view sincerely. I’ve spoken with many Leftists who subscribe to such a view.

Manipulative leaders, especially in the Muslim world, may know it’s a lie, but most American Leftists are just dupes.
icbm

that is, unless you mean the occupation of israel by 1 million arabs, far more than the jewish settlers (who have to be protected from attacks, unlike the arabs in israel).
icbm

israelis were expelled, too, in 1948. people are always expelled during war – every war. it’s part of war.

the 1948 war wasn’t a land grab by israelis. (how could it have been? the israeli military was puny compared to the militaries that attacked it.) on the contrary, it was a deliberate attempt by the arab nations to grab land from the israelis!
icbm

thank you
olsmithie

Neighbor.
I treat them just like yankees who move south and try to become a good contributing member of the community. They are always welcome. However,

The Muslims that “O” is sucking up to and promoting are the same folks bankrolling most of the terror in the world, not to be confused with your peace loving neighbor.

There is a task for your neighbor, however, and that is to separate himself from Muslim leaders who promote an angry, destroy the infidel, brand of Islam, that is very present even in the US.

“The Wahabi presence in the United States is a foreboding one that has potentially harmful and far-reaching consequences for our nation?s mosques, schools, prisons and even our military. My fear is, if we don?t wake up and take action now, those influenced by Wahabism?s extremist ideology will harm us in as of yet unimaginable ways.”

?U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)

http://foi.org/thewahabiinvasionofamerica

Regards
Streiff

There is no evidence he was talking about 1948 because he specifically says he’s talking about Arab and Christian Palestinians.

Even were he talking about 1948 it is simply grotesque to place a small number of involuntary expulsions and a much larger number of voluntary emigrants in juxtaposition with 6 million killed in death camps. Even comparing it to Kristallnacht, while closer in fact, would be an abomination.

The failure to point out that the reason the Palestinians are refugees is because the countries which have accepted them, including Egypt, forcibly maintain them as refugees rather than allowing assimilation as a stick to beat Israel with and a perpetual casus belli is just inexplicable.
icbm

it would go a long way toward reducing a lot of the tension that is artificially created by the manipulations of the muslim governments and the useful idiots in the media who spread their propaganda.
INC

because you are obliterating differentiation between good and evil.

I don’t really consider it a mistake–it was intentional. If it was a “mistake” then Obama has no concept of evil.

I guess his high school didn’t show all those films of Holocaust victims and freed concentration camps that we saw at mine.

I guess he’s never read accounts of what transpired there.

SO much for him being a “student of history”!!!!
icbm

But consider it a lie if you wish.

In any case, we agree that it was a horrible mistake and that Obama is awfully ignorant.
icbm

An insightful comment by John at PowerLine:

If Obama really were to speak truth to the Muslim world, he would say that Israel ranks nowhere on the list of Muslim nations’ problems. He would say that the nation of Israel could disappear tomorrow and it would make zero difference in the lives of his Egyptian audience. He would say that the Arabs’ unhealthy obsession with Israel and tolerance of anti-Semitism have been obstacles to the development of Arab countries into healthy societies. He would say that the Palestinians could have had a state long ago if they had wanted one, but they preferred their role as victims–the point of the spear that is intended to drive Jews out of the Middle East.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/06/023724.php
red4ever

on his trip — Germany to visit a concentration camp. I wish I were making this up. This man has NO RIGHT to walk that sacred ground after that speech.
Mike gamecock DeVine
Mike gamecock DeVine

that have so separated themselves.
Tbone

I assume.
JustLeaveMeAlone

You give him too much credit.

He’s not a Muslim. He’s just an opportunist. He uses his “roots” when it’s politic to do so, and yells foul about others referring to them when it isn’t.

As to whether he is a Christian or not, that’s between him and the Almighty. But, as it says in Matthew 7:20, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

Watch what he does, not what he says.
INC

So I know some things about whence they came and how they think (or don’t for that matter).
http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

…where the 60s/70s campus leftists have actually taken over the “system” – while the USSR that served as their model has transmuted into a nationalistic Russia that rejects the Marxist-Leninsim that underlies our leftists’ programs.
http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth
JustLeaveMeAlone

They don’t want the Palestinians either.

It’s just a wedge issue, a way to stir up the stupid and ignorant.

As for al TOTUS’s speech at Cairo University, sheesh — it was given to hand-picked Mubarak proteges. Go into the slums of Cairo where the radicals are made, and ask them what they think of Hosni Mubarak. To them, he’s “Pharaoh”, a violent and brutal dictator.

Mubarak has ruthlessly prevented opposition since the assassination of Sadat in 1981 by means of Emergency Law — which allows him to imprison anyone for any reason (or no reason) for any length of time. And talk about torture — can you say “rendition”?

Then there is the fact that under Egyptian law, no one can run against him for president. Sure, he supposedly eased up on this in 2005, but the corruption was epic and the opposition leader was jailed.

This, boys and girls, is Bambi’s new friend.
icbm

You have all my sympathies.

On the other hand, even though I didn’t go to college until the 90′s, the lefties still ran the campuses for the most part, so the “education” and social situation was about the same, even if it lacked the turbulence of the prior era.

The philistines – they destroyed their own heritage without even knowing what it was, and left later generations orphans.
http://www.RedState.com/ETCartman Kenny Solomon

Here ya go…………..

http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090604.html

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder released the following statement relating to President Obama?s historic speech today in Cairo, Egypt:

“The President’s pledge for a new beginning between the United States and the Muslim community takes root here in the Justice Department where we are committed to using criminal and civil rights laws to protect Muslim Americans. A top priority of this Justice Department is a return to robust civil rights enforcement and outreach in defending religious freedoms and other fundamental rights of all of our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the housing market, in our schools and in the voting booth.

There are those who will continue to want to divide by fear – to pit our national security against our civil liberties – but that is a false choice. We have a solemn responsibility to protect our people while we also protect our principles.”

====================

I’m not going to comment on his statement. At the moment, I simply don’t trust myself.

I just decided to go to the range.

Be back later this evening after I calm down.
DonPMitchell

He said, “On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people ? Muslims and Christians ? have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.”

He was obviously refering to the small Palestinian Christian (Maronite) minority that lived there.
Streiff

as most Israeli/Arab Christians are not Maronites, but whom were not displaced in 1948.
icbm

After 2:24 minutes, Obama’s speech is completely demolished.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3eXFkYvDwM&feature=player_embedded
icbm

Krauthammer demolishing Obama’s attempted moral equivalence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3eXFkYvDwM&feature=player_embedded
http://theminorityreportblog.com David Hinz

of Palestine and who was the leader of the “Palestinian” government?

When Israel was created in 1948, how many Muslim cities did the Jews force to be evacuated — and/or did they allow Muslims to live peacefully in Israel [assuming of course, those Muslims were not taking up arms against Israel]?

How many Jews live peacefully in Palestinian territory? How many Muslims live peacefully inside Israel?
redneck_hippie

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/04/AR2009060403811.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

I have some catching up to do cause my morning am radio guy said he liked the speech and now I see that The Novelty President once again did the predictable and dissed our ally.
INC

now in charge. They were serious about destroying things and implementing their Leftists ideology.
INC

The philistines – they destroyed their own heritage without even knowing what it was, and left later generations orphans.

That’s who they are and what they did.

They didn’t have a clue–and still don’t–that their heritage enabled them to be able to voice dissent in the first place!
INC

“Obama’s Speech was Abstract, Vapid, and Self Absorbed.”
INC

Holder’s statement implies all kinds of things.

Civil rights enforcement?
Defending religious freedoms?
Rights in workplace, housing, schools, voting?

I’d like specific instances in which the law has actually been broken rather than all this implied smearing balderdash!
INC

CK obviously believes in free speech!

Speak truth to power, Mr. K!!
antisocial

Very depressing…

Mr. President,
There is evil in the world. Closing your eyes won’t make it go away.
IJB

There’s plenty of it right here. Start with Washington DC…
antisocial

America’s contribution to the world safety and stability. Probably he doesn’t realize, but if America didn’t act entire world would be speaking German or Japanese….
olsmithie

Have you ever sorted peaches that were a few days past ripe, toting them to the dumpster. It is one of the most offensive smells I have ever encountered.

Inspection of the Obama “fruit” reminds me immediately of that familiar pungent odor. I suspect that the “smell” will only get worse.

Regards

RS

EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Barack Obama and the Moral Equivalence of Holocaust

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