WH: No mention of Jews on Holocaust Remembrance Day because others were killed too

[TomCADem]

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN)The White House statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day didn't mention Jews or anti-Semitism because "despite what the media reports, we are an incredibly inclusive group and we took into account all of those who suffered," administration spokeswoman Hope Hicks told CNN on Saturday.

Hicks provided a link to a Huffington Post UK story noting that while 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, 5 million others were also slaughtered during Adolf Hitler's genocide, including "priests, gypsies, people with mental or physical disabilities, communists, trade unionists, Jehovah's Witnesses, anarchists, Poles and other Slavic peoples, and resistance fighters."

Asked if the White House was suggesting President Donald Trump didn't mention Jews as victims of the Holocaust because he didn't want to offend the other people the Nazis targeted and killed, Hicks replied, "it was our honor to issue a statement in remembrance of this important day."

The presidential reference to the "innocent people" victimized by the Nazis without a mention of Jews or anti-Semitism by the White House on International Holocaust Remembrance Day was a stark contrast to statements by former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/white-house-holocaust-memorial-day/

---

Wow, Republicans are even going "All Lives Matter" on Jews on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

[bravenak]

1. No mention of slaves during Black History Month because...

Other people were slaves too!

[KittyWampus]

3. My heart is breaking. But I guess things were no longer sustainable.

The USA is in labor pains. I hope we don't die giving birth.

We've been ruled by a minority using voter suppression, gerrymandering and dirty tricks.

Just not sustainable.

[bravenak]

5. Yes. I think this will end up exploding in ways we never imagined.

America is falling like Rome.

[progree]

15. What's going on in the first pic of your sig line? Trump looks like he's about to eat or eat out

some kind of contraption. Just curious. Or about to puke, I can't tell.

[bravenak]

17. I wish I knew, it looks so gross, I decided he would hate it being shown over and over

I think he's laughing a poor people, idk

[Saviolo]

25. Yeah, the white nationalist and white supremacists love this myth.

Especially the well-debunked myth of the Irish slaves:

It broadly claims that indentured servitude and penal servitude can be equated with racialized perpetual hereditary chattel slavery. It proclaims that an “Irish Slave Trade” was initiated in 1612 and not abolished until 1839, and that this concurrent transatlantic slave trade of “white slaves” has been covered up by “liberal," “cultural Marxist” or “politically correct” historians.

The various memes make many claims including (but not limited to) the following; that “Irish slaves” were treated far worse than black slaves; that there were more “Irish slaves” than black slaves; that “Irish slaves” were worth less than black slaves, that enslaved Irish women were forced to breed with enslaved African men, and that the Irish were slaves for much longer than black slaves.

This is then invariably followed up by overtly racist statements, e.g. “yet, when is the last time you heard an Irishman bitching and moaning about how the world owes them a living?” The “Irish slaves” meme is a subset of the “white slavery” contemporary discourse which emphasizes class over race and is fueled by a potent cocktail of bad history, false equivalence, conspiracy theories, and reductionist fallacies.

The article that's from: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/04/19/how-myth-irish-slaves-became-favorite-meme-racists-online

Which also has some good links for debunking the whole Irish slave derailment.

[VespertineIconoclast]

29. Thanks for the link! N/t

[Chasstev365]

2. Wow: Why isn't Benamin Netanyah upset?

Oh, that's right: he's only good at fake outrage and silent when there should be genuine outrage!

[HopeAgain]

4. More red meat for racist followers...

Im sure it got two thumbs up from David Duke.

[TrollBuster9090]

7. Breitbart-dot-com, too, perhaps?

[dalton99a]

26. +1

[Fast Walker 52]

39. yes, David Duke and his goons are THRILLED right now

[TrollBuster9090]

6. JUST..STOP..DIGGING..you f#@ing idiots.

[Beakybird]

8. The ones who died who he mourns were

the Nazis

[jayschool2013]

9. Projection

I can't stand the "we're not racist; you're the racists" argument.

"No racist. No racist. You're the racist."

[riversedge]

10. Trump is controlled by Steve Bannon--the conspiracy theorist!! Each day gets worse.

[TomCADem]

12. Brietbart Will Lead With, "WHY DO YOU HATE CHRISTIANS?!?!?!"

It will be like the "All Lives Matter" response to protests about police killing unarmed African Americans.

[riversedge]

34. Hannity and Fox news will say it first or at same time.

[EarthFirst]

11. Because "WE'RE AN INCREDIBLY INCLUSIVE GROUP"

Say WHAT now?!

[VespertineIconoclast]

30. Laughable isn't it if it weren't so disgusting. N/t

[Mrs. Overall]

13. We are an incredibly inclusive group, that's why only Christian refugees may enter our country...

[MurrayDelph]

14. Will they use this "logic" to avoid

mentioning the Irish on St. Patrick's day

"because other people drink, too!"?


/sarcasm-off

[Mrs. Overall]

16. And from now on, no mention of Veterans on Veterans Day nor the dead on Memorial Day.

[Rhiannon12866]

18. I actually feel kind of sick right now. What has been unleashed?

Over 2 centuries of hard won progress - and now we are reduced to this??

[question everything]

19. Kushner's grandparents were Holocaust survivors and came here as refugees

wonder what he said..

Or, how does he interact on a regular basis with anti-Semite Bannon..

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. Bannon didn't want to offend neoNazis on IHRDay. Too busy offending everyone else. . . nt

[shadowmayor]

21. Because of the endless shitstorm

One dumpster fire followed by another and then some tire fires and 19 shitstorms, and that's just before lunch. This move by our new administration deserves far more coverage and outrage. But, we'll have to see if this leaves a mark or the media gives it a pass just like so many other disgusting decisions.

[Lithos]

22. What do you expect?

When you've got Anti-semites writing the script? Bannon and company only worry about the Nazis who died in WW 2, not the true victims.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

23. Despicable. A new low,

even for the Pissolini admin..

[Little Tich]

24. This is how revisionism starts to creep in and pervert the truth.

It's of course a fact that a lot of the people who died in the holocaust weren't Jews, but we must not forget that Jews held a special place in Nazi mythology and were targeted above anyone else. By implying that all the victims of the Holocaust were somehow targeted equally, the White House can avoid giving special mention to Jews, something that wouldn't sit well with some groups connected to Trump.

[gwheezie]

27. All lives matter

Because anything that doesn't acknowledge white Christian men as victims too is unAmerican

[HassleCat]

28. This is a common thing among holocaust deniers and minimizers.

The suggestion is that it was a general tragedy that accompanied a big war, going very soft on the notion that the whole thing was motivated by racism, xenophobia, nationalism, ignorance and fear.

[riversedge]

32. #1

[Fast Walker 52]

37. exactly-- this was pointed out in the piece, that is a meme common among holocaust deniers

and how fucking sick is it to have a white house trying to accommodate holocaust deniers???

[treestar]

41. Yep. It's an excuse, cover for their anti-Semitism

[IronLionZion]

43. Same reason they say "All lives matter"

Considering how they need to minimize how it disproportionally affected specific communities.

One would think Ivanka or Jared would say something.

[Generator]

50. Or as we now are calling it America version 2017

Great post. Horrible times.

[Blue_Tires]

54. +1

[briv1016]

31. So no mention of the gays and lesbians that where targeted and sent to the camps.

Hell, "trade unionists" got a shout-out.

[NurseJackie]

46. I noticed that as well.

[LuvNewcastle]

51. Noticed.

This is a sick bunch in this (mal)administration.

[Behind the Aegis]

33. It is how revisionism and propaganda work.

I have seen this type of minimization and a form of misdirection used when the Holocaust is discussed. Any discussion of Jews as victims must also include discussion about other groups. "Where are all the Holocaust films about other people?!" "Why is it always about the Jews?!" These are the questions which lead people down the path of "anti-Semitism wasn't a motivation which had taken root long before the war, long before the camps." These are nothing more than versions of "All Lives Matter"..."All Genocides Matter."

This particular version is making the Holocaust into a holocaust. While other groups were the target of Hitler's death factories, the Jews held a very "special" place, so much so, it was called "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question." It also allows people to place everyone into the same group. Some of those who were murdered were criminals and agitators against the state. Soon, there aren't "specific" groups, just "people" massacred, which turns to "criminals and agitators" killed, which turns to some died "during a conflict which claimed the lives of 60 million people worldwide."

It also allows "undesirable" groups from the present to not be mentioned, as exemplified in the actual article, given that GAYS and LESBIANS weren't mentioned, but the very fact GAY MEN got their own fucking triangle should have at least got a mention...but I digress, while demonstrating a point.

It doesn't help that there are those who decry this behavior while engaging in a similar form by immediately asking, "What's Bibi have to say?" Why the fuck when shit like this happens do some people feel the need to mention Israel or Israeli leaders (or some random group of Jews)? Well, the answer is almost the fucking same as to why these assholes left the Jews out of the equation, there are those who always feel the need to mention "bad Jews" anytime anti-Semitism is discussed, it ignores and/or minimizes anti-Semitism and the lives of Jews!

This isn't "forgetting the past", this is attempting to rewrite it!

[Fast Walker 52]

38. yep-- as in the article:

Anti-Defamation League Director Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted that the "@WhiteHouse statement on #HolocaustMemorialDay, misses that it was six million Jews who perished, not just 'innocent people'" and "Puzzling and troubling @WhiteHouse #HolocaustMemorialDay stmt has no mention of Jews. GOP and Dem. presidents have done so in the past."

Asked about the White House explanation that the President didn't want to exclude any of the other groups Nazis killed by specifically mentioning Jews, Greenblatt told CNN that the United Nations established International Holocaust Remembrance Day not only because of Holocaust denial but also because so many countries -- Iran, Russia, Poland, and Hungary, for example -- specifically refuse to acknowledge Hitler's attempt to exterminate Jews, "opting instead to talk about generic suffering rather than recognizing this catastrophic incident for what is was: the intended genocide of the Jewish people."

Downplaying or disregarding the degree to which Jews were targeted for elimination during the Holocaust is a common theme of nationalist movements like those seen in Russia and Eastern Europe, Greenblatt said.

[Danmel]

40. Thank you

You summed it up beautifully.

Plus they not only omitted gays, they called the Roma victims "gypsies" which is a slur.

[NurseJackie]

47. That did not escape my attention either ...

... they're a complete disaster. But, I do encourage them to keep on talkin' ... the more they talk, the deeper they did and the more likely it is that even the dumbest among us will figure it all out.

[Stand and Fight]

35. Anyone find it most unsettling that homosexuals weren't mentioned?

[starshine00]

36. very

I just love how they omitted us as well...

[Stand and Fight]

52. No doubt in my mind that they omitted them purposefully.

That's a silent nod to their homophobic supporters.

[Paladin]

42. This country is being reduced to a fascist dictatorship before our very eyes.

They're not even trying to disguise their efforts. A significant portion of the population is just fine with it.

The only question remaining is: what are we going to do about it?

[Gothmog]

44. I am so angry about this

Trump is truly an evil person who hates Jews

[heaven05]

45. this is

steve bannon's work.....come on people when will the MSM say the truth about the KKKlanner...steve bannon is a known and confirmed anti-semite, racist and all around opponent to democracy for all, he wants it only for white males only....no one else...AA, Latinos, Jews, openly gay people, any person with brown skin will have to first apply for special intra-country travel papers and then will have to show those papers when moving from place to place on demand from any white male.....soon.... way to go white male and female deplorables, you've won the first round......15 more to go...guaranteed

[TomCADem]

49. The Idea Is To Reinforce the Wedge Between Religious Right and Everyone Else

This is why Trump has been spouting off about how he would exempt Christians from his refugee ban.

[The_Voice_of_Reason]

48. Find it very telling

that after the WH failed to mention Jews in their original statement, that Hope Hicks in naming so many groups (including anarchists) peersecuted by Hitler in her defense of original statement failed to include Homosexuals who were slaughtered in the Holocaust.

[ismnotwasm]

53. Holy shit holy shit

That's...Jesus I don't even have the words for how fucked up that is

[Blue_Tires]

55. Imagine the Republican and media meltdown if Obama ever pulled this shit