Today’s Guardian reports that:
“The Muslim Council of Britain boycotted yesterday’s national Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration in protest at the Israeli offensive in Gaza this month”
The MCB’s decision to vote in December 2007 to end its boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day was regarded by many as proof that the group was moderating and that the government should once more start using it as its first-stop in dealings with the Muslim community. Their decision not to attend yesterday, the fact of which was confirmed to The Spectator by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, shows how wrong-headed that thinking was. The MCB’s reported logic for boycotting (I’ve contacted the MCB asking whether The Guardian’s report about their reason for not attending is accurate but received no reply) draws no distinction between Jews and the state of Israel. It is also a form of Holocaust revisionism to argue that Israel’s actions in Gaza somehow invalidate the memory of the Holocaust.
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