Lib Dem Chief Whip (and Government Deputy Chief Whip) Alistair Carmichael has written this letter to Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust: http://www.scribd.com/doc/122300465/ChiefWhipLetter, regarding David Ward's comments about "the Jews" and the Holocaust. I am very pleased to see that this letter has been written and sent. I share many people's feelings of hurt and anger about Mr Ward's comments, about which I have written at: http://matthewfharris.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/david-ward-talks-offensive-..., including:
Has history taught Mr Ward nothing about the dangers associated with using the language of condemnation to describe "the Jews", "the Gypsies", "the Arabs", "the Bosnian Muslims", "the Tutsis", "the gays" - demonising "the other" by ascribing malign characteristics not to individual human beings, but to whole categories of human being - in this case "the Jews"?
If Mr Ward really has said: "It appears that the suffering by the Jews has not transformed their views on how others should be treated" then he is talking about me and my views on "how others should be treated". He is not talking about some Israelis; he is talking about all Jews: Israeli Jews, English Jews, Indian Jews, Guatemalan Jews - all of these people, says Mr Ward, have a problem regarding "their views on how others should be treated".
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