Mark Gardner at the CST.
There was a time, not so long ago, when Holocaust denial was considered too toxic for secular leftist anti-Israel activists to touch. Not any more, because the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) is now using the winning entry from Iran’s notorious Holocaust cartoon competition of 2006. (See here, on SPSC website, inserted by SPSC to accompany a press release by the Israeli group, Gush Shalom. The story appears here in the Jewish Telegraph, including condemnations by local politicians.)
This is not to accuse the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign of indulging in Holocaust denial. Far from it. Rather, they have repeatedly utilised Holocaust imagery and abused Holocaust memory to launch the most repugnant attacks upon Israel and its supporters. (The logic is simple and seductive, as subverting the Holocaust undermines the most resonant moral and historical pillar for Israel’s existence.)
Overall, the leftist anti-Israel slide into Nazi-themed filth has been gradual but persistent. (For detail, see this article, “Holocaust Denial as an Anti-Zionist and Anti-Imperialist Tool for the European Far Left” by CST’s Dave Rich.)
It began with absurdly overblown accusations of Zionist complicity with the Nazi Holocaust, epitomised by the play “Perdition”.
It regressed into accusing Israel of being the new Nazi Germany, as seen throughout last year’s Gaza war demonstrations.
It debased Holocaust Memorial Day, using it for anti-Israel campaigning.
Now, it is now lifting cartoons from the world’s foremost pushers of Holocaust denial and antisemitism.
Every stage of this moral collapse has been led by some individual activist or group. Opposing voices have occasionally been heard from within the anti-Israel camp, but largely there was silence, followed by creeping support: until each stage of the narrative reached its tipping point and became embedded as part of accepted anti-Israel wisdom. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the widespread tolerance and subsequent promotion of the Israel equals Nazi Germany libel.
As shown in CST’s Antisemitic Discourse Report (lengthy pdf download here), Nazi-themed anti-Israel propaganda is a grotesque abuse of Jewish history and memory that causes direct and significant hurt to Jews; trivialises and essentially denies the enormity of the Holocaust; and attempts to displace Jews as victims of the Holocaust and supersede them with Palestinians.
The anti-Israel left must know the pain that all of this Nazi-themed filth causes to the overwhelming majority of Jews: but history would strongly suggest that Jews should not expect any comfort or sentimentality from this supposedly anti-racist element of our society.
This was the winning cartoon, used by SPSC. It shows the railway tracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
These cartoons were from the same competition as the one used by SPSC, and were amongst those winning “special awards”. The first implicitly denies the Holocaust. The second is a riot of antisemitic caricature and racism, with Holocaust denial thrown in for ugly measure.
Engage 
October 29, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Note too the caption to the article,
“Isreal’s [sic] filthy Wall – what is Israel’s solution to ‘too many Palestinians’ in Palestine?”
with the implication (the word “solution”) that Israel thinks, a. that there are “too many Palestinians in Palestine” (i.e. in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank) and that the “solution” is extermination, hence the image of Auschwitz.
It is sickening, but goes some way to explain why ‘anti-zionsts” don’t like the EUMC definition of antisemitism and having to abide by its tenets.
October 29, 2010 at 4:01 pm
I am disgusted with Gush Shalom’s indifference to this: “When the Scottish Friends of Israel drew the cartoon to Gush Shalom’s attention, spokesperson Beate Zilversmidt responded: “The illustration in the SPSC website, which we consider to be in bad taste, is not our responsibility.” Feh.
November 1, 2010 at 3:53 pm
What can they do, though? To the people at Gush Shalom, the SPSC must seem by now to be like some drug-addled crank babbling about how the Octopus Men are trying to steal his thoughts. They probably know that the SPSC has now passed the point of complete lunacy and any attempt to argue with them will just be a waste of time.
November 2, 2010 at 1:49 pm
‘the SPSC must seem by now to be like some drug-addled crank babbling about how the Octopus Men are trying to steal his thoughts.’
LOL
October 29, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Bella,
Nothing is anybody’s responsibility; apart from,
Israel is responsible for antisemitism.
Jews who do not “speak out” against Israel are responsible for antisemitism.
Everyone is responsible for antisemitism – apart from antisemites
ps. if I recall, in the film “Defamation” someone from GS assured all those willing to be assured that there was no antisemitism anywhere.
December 4, 2011 at 10:03 pm
That makes about as much sense as Scots who do not speak out against Scotland are responsible for……. a word has yet to be invented errrr anti-braveheartism; yeah that’ll do even though it has an Auzzi origin. Since you like to get you’re information from films it fits how you think anyway! Stick up for Israel they have a lot to offer and they have a right to exist!
November 1, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Politics aside, as an artist I find it quite depressing that a competition can be won by cartoonists whose drawing skills are somewhere below that of the average GCSE art student (and, in one case, at least, seem unable to spell “Holocaust”).
Someone also needs to finally tell some of these ludicrous so-called “pro-Palestinian” activists just what a lot of Palestinians think of their efforts. The “Palestine Telegraph”, for example, provokes absolute hilarity among the growing cult following it’s developing at Palestinian universities.
November 11, 2010 at 10:31 pm
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March 2, 2012 at 8:37 pm
[…] there are more serious cases that are worth looking at. Let’s just take one example that was flagged up by Engage: the use by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) of a cartoon that showed an Israeli […]