Tagged with Holocaust

From the Holocaust to the Irish famine: can you make comedy out of genocide?

Life is Beautiful2Can it ever be legitimate – possible even – to make comedy out of the world’s most appalling tragedies?

A sitcom to be called Hungry, based on the Irish great famine (in which 1 million people died and another million were forced to emigrate in what some regard as an example of genocide), has been commissioned by Channel 4 from Dublin-based writer Hugh Travers. He told the Irish Times that “we’re kind of thinking of it as Shameless [a comedy about a dysfunctional Manchester family led by a drunken patriarch – Ed] in famine Ireland.”

In response, Dublin Fianna Fáil councillor, David McGuinness, described the proposal as a “total disgrace” and “nothing short of insulting” to the 2 million people affected. Niall O’Dowd, of the Irish-American site Irish Central blog, described it as an abomination and equivalent to comedies involving Holocaust victims and Ebola victims. Change.org have organised a petition NOT to make a comedy series, about the Irish famine which has 13,000 signatures and rising. It argues: Continue reading →

When genocide is permissible?

2jdjj1tNever. Well, sometimes. Or at least thinking aloud about it is okay. Why else would The Times of Israel publish such a thing? They may have removed it in short order, but as we know once things get on the internet….

Yochanan Gordon’s execrable screed shits on the memory of his ancestors. I am loathe to bring up history, but someone else once justified the extermination of Europe’s Jews in terms of securing the national well-being of his people. Yet Gordon has done the world a service. By putting his thoughts down on paper, as it were, he has distilled the barbarism consuming Israel. The “facts” are crap, but the facts do not matter. The 800 or so words articulate a feeling, an impulse.  Continue reading →

Shame on the Board of Deputies of British Jews for marring Holocaust day with a false accusation of antisemitism

The Board of Deputies of British Jews has shamed itself and marred International Holocaust Day with a false accusation of antisemitism that does a disservice to the memory of the six million Jews who perished, and indeed to Jews in Britain and elsewhere who face genuine antisemitic attacks.

The Board of Deputies yesterday lodged a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission at a cartoon by Gerald Scarfe in yesterday’s Sunday Times, which it claims:

depicts Benjamin Netanyahu bricking up Palestinians and using blood for mortar, which is shockingly reminiscent of the blood libel imagery more usually found in parts of the virulently antisemitic Arab press (sic – our emphasis). Continue reading →

On invoking the Holocaust in defence of Progress

Labour’s right appears to be panicking. That is the charitable explanation. No sooner had Paul Kenny suggested at the GMB congress that he supported a move to “outlaw Progress as part of the Labour Party” than Progress activists started to talk of a “purge“: “Seems the purges are about to start in the Labour Party! Odd, I always thought I’d be doing the purging”, said one. No matter that no-one had suggested expelling anyone. OK, it isn’t yet quite clear what Paul and the GMB have in mind but since the Left doesn’t want to expel Progress and its supports, it seems unlikely that the GMB does either — though they clearly feel very strongly about what Progress is trying to do in the party. But to make comparisons with the Holocaust? Continue reading →