Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany

Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany have been made since the 1940s, taking place first within the larger context of the aftermath of World War II. Such comparisons are a rhetorical staple of anti-Zionism in relation to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Whether comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany are intrinsically antisemitic is disputed. Scholarly analysis has taken place in the broader context of the frequent comparisons made in international popular culture comparing widely various entities to the historical Nazis. British academic David Feldman, director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, commented that comparisons frequently do not become antisemitic because they take place in the context of a commonly deployed rhetorical device "used in many arguments about many subjects, often light-mindedly, lacking any specifically antisemitic content", as vastly different entities get compared to the Nazis. The Anti-Defamation League, an American social activist organization, has argued in a statement that antisemitism takes place through what it sees as measures "purposefully directed at Jews in an effort to associate the victims of Nazi crimes with the Nazi perpetrators ... [which] serves to diminish the significance and uniqueness of the Holocaust." According to political scientist Ian S. Lustick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, such comparisons are "a natural if unintended consequence of the immersion of Israeli Jews in Holocaust imagery". A wide variety of political figures and governments have made the comparison historically, an example being the administration of the Soviet Union in the context of the Six-Day War within 1960s era Cold War divisions. Politicians in the 21st century who have done so include the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and British parliamentarian David Ward. From Wikipedia