Morning Star readers: don't abuse the Holocaust

On 22 November, CST Blog discussed a series of letters in the Morning Star newspaper that abused the Holocaust in order to attack Israel. CST's article discussed the content of the letters, the manner in which they had been further debased by the headlines given them by the paper: and how this had facilitated a rapid degeneration in the debate.  

CST's article, Morning Star and Abuse of the Holocaust, appears immediately below this post and featured on other websites, including Engage, the anti-racist campaign against antisemitism.

Since CST's article was written and posted, two letters on the subject have appeared within the Morning Star arguing against the trend of abusing the Holocaust. They relate to the previous letters' contents, rather than the Morning Star's behaviour. Their animus against Israel is not in doubt, but they show that opposition to the abuse of the Holocaust still persists in such circles.

From the first letter, A disservice on all counts 

...The Holocaust was a unique historical event in which the nazis organised the industrialised genocide of millions of human beings.

Arbitrary comparisons with other historical events diminish the sheer scale and meaning of the Holocaust.

As vile as the Isreali (sic) occupation of Palestine is, it cannot be compared with industrialised genocide.

Moreover, making such a wildly misguided comparison is likely to discredit the Palestinian cause in Britain - especially among the Jewish community.

...Solidarity with Ireland and Palestine can only be harmed by such claims.

From the second letter, Leap of Horror

...The Israeli occupation of Palestine is certainly brutal but there is an exponential leap of horror between the blockade of Gaza and conditions in the Jewish ghettoes of Warsaw and Lodz.

Palestinians are not being lined up along the side of a ditch and machine-gunned en masse, nor are they being herded into cattle trucks, shipped hundreds of miles and then either gassed or worked to death.

The Holocaust was unique in its savagery. Comparing it to the common imperial brutalities of Israel is both historically illiterate and highly offensive.

(Hat-tip: I would like to thank "Pro-lifer" for bringing these letters to my attention in the comments chain at Engage, where he/she said in relation to my original article, "This site is engaging in Stalinist airbrushing. And here is the evidence for the prosecution", and then posted links to the above letters. As I, and others, have pointed out at Engage, the above letters appeared after my original article: which is why they were omitted.)