ADL: Stop Arizona-Holocaust analogies

By LAHAV HARKOV
29/04/2010
JPost

"There is no comparison" between the two, Foxman says.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Thursday said that it is disturbed by
the use of analogies to Nazis and the Holocaust in reaction to the
recently-passed law in Arizona, which gives police the authority to detain
people they suspect are illegal immigrants.

The signing of the Arizona immigration law released a flood of comparisons
of the legislation to Nazi policies from elected officials, religious
leaders, editorial cartoonists and others. Many have also compared Arizona
Governor Jan Brewer to Adolf Hitler.

According to ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman: "No matter how odious,
bigoted, biased and unconstitutional Arizona’s new law may be, let’s be
clear that there is no comparison between the situation facing immigrants,
legal or illegal, in Arizona and what happened in the Holocaust. Let’s
remember that the Nazi identity cards were part and parcel of a plan to
force Jews into ghettos and for their ultimate deportation to extermination
camps."

The new immigration law in Arizona, signed last week, requires local and
state police to question people about their immigration status if there is
reason to suspect they are in the country illegally. It also makes it a
state crime to be in the US illegally. The strict new law led to outrage in
the US, with many claiming that it will lead to racial profiling, and
demands for a comprehensive immigration bill to be passed in Congress have
been renewed.

"We are seeing these offensive and inappropriate Nazi and Holocaust
comparisons come to the fore in the public debate once again," Foxman
continued. "We saw it in the health care debate, and now we are seeing it
with Arizona. It is disturbing that in speaking out against the bill a
number of individuals have taken to…describing the legislation as being
reminiscent of Nazi policies that required Jews and others to carry identity
cards, or in comparing the governor and other Arizona officials as being
like Hitler."

Some high-profile examples of comparisons to the Nazis in recent days
include Colorado Rep. Jared Polis, who said the legislation was "reminiscent
of second-class status of Jews in Germany prior to World War II, when they
had to have their papers with them at all times and were subject to routine
inspections."

In New Jersey, an editorial cartoon in the Bergen Record portrayed Hitler
with his infamous moustache rendered in the shape of the state of Arizona.

Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony wrote on his blog: "I can’t imagine
Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques
whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any
suspicion of documentation."

"Comparisons to the Nazis may be politically expedient and serve an agenda
of demonizing those who supported the bill, but in the end they do great
damage to the memory of six million Jews and the millions of others and
soldiers who fought to defeat Nazism," Foxman said.