Holocaust Memorial Day snubbed again in parts of Europe
More evidence of a worrying trend across Europe emerged Saturday as Muslim and leftist groups joined forces yet again to snub Holocaust Memorial Day. Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported in its January 27 edition that some senior figures inside the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) had attempted to get the MCB (the country’s main Muslim umbrella group) to reverse recent practice and attend ceremonies to mark the systematic murder of approximately six million Jews in World War II. The attempt failed.
In a secret ballot, the MCB voted to stay away from the ceremonies, as is now usual, by 23 votes to 14. The cover story used by the MCB and others is that they have nothing against commemorating the Holocaust as such but that it is wrong to hold a single event for Jewish suffering while ignoring the plight of the Palestinians, for example, or other examples of genocide. To quote just one other instance of this sort of thing from Britain, it was also reported Saturday that the municipal council in the northern English city of Bolton had scrapped its own Holocaust memorial events under the same kind of justification as mentioned above. Jewish leaders in the nearby city of Manchester, which has one of Britain’s biggest Jewish communities, expressed outrage. Louis Rapaport, president of the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester, said: “I can’t help feeling the decision was influenced by Bolton’s large Muslim community.”
The English language version of the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported similar goings on in the Socialist-controlled municipal council for the Madrid suburb of Ciempozuelos. The paper quoted a town hall spokesman as saying: “The previous two years we remembered the Holocaust, but this year we decided to commemorate the Palestinian genocide in events on or around Holocaust Memorial Day.” Israeli Ambassador Victor Harel called the decision “insensitive and vile” and “shameful and obscene”. It is hard to disagree.