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Comment by redsummer | Hacker News Reader

Apparently, remembering gypsies and other groups 'diminishes the memory' of the holocaust because they were just 'political prisoners': http://nypost.com/2009/06/08/hikind-jews-only/

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This is exactly the kind of direction commenters need not to take in a thread like this. Significantly increasing both inflammation and repetition (of well-trodden pathways) is a ticket to flamewar hell, which is just where you and other commenters ended up.

Fortunately this phenomenon is so predictable that we can ask commenters to simply avoid it here. Please don't do it again.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14191321 and marked it off-topic.

That's not what that article says.

It's in the 3rd paragraph, no?

No.

It categorically does not say that remembering non-Jewish victims diminishes the memory of the holocaust. It says that commemorating non-Jewish victims at that specific monument diminishes the memory of the holocaust vis-à-vis that specific monument.

Anyone who's happy to make the former interpretation needs to look very carefully at their motivations.

The stated reason does suggest they believe non-Jewish groups are less deserving of remembrance:

    These people are not in the same category as Jewish people
    with regards to the Holocaust,” Hikind said following a
    press conference at the memorial. “It is so vastly
    different. You cannot compare political prisoners with
    Jewish victims.”

The proviso I would add is that NYP a muck-racking rag that delights in outrage and controversy. I would be very skeptical it is giving a full and fair account of the individual's views.

    Anyone who's happy to make the former interpretation
    needs to look very carefully at their motivations.

I don't believe the parent is making unfair interpretation of the actual article content. Using that as a source is somewhat suspect but any discussion of anything holocaust, Jewish or Israeli leads to accusations of anti-semitism these days. Its a problem, please be charitable.

The guy in question - Dov Hikind - seems quite open in his views. He's a follower of the terrorist group Jewish Defense League who has some odd views that @tome will probably be happy to explain to you as misunderstood :)

http://gawker.com/5986773/assemblyman-dov-hikind-king-of-one...

Uh-huh. The same hilarious double think is in evidence in Israel - building a Museum of Tolerance on a Muslim cemetry:

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/visit-j...

> Anyone who's happy to make the former interpretation needs to look very carefully at their motivations.

... and I was proved correct in literally the next comment.

In my experience, the blinkers on white South Africans during apartheid and Jewish Israelis seem to be constructed in the same way. In that sense I don't blame Israelis for wanting to build a Museum of Tolerance on a Muslim cemetry - that's just how they have been brought up. Just their culture.

It's no wonder Israel supplied apartheid South Africa with nuclear weapons. They had a shared philosophy.

There's so much wrong here I don't know where to start.

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