DC Trawler

NYT’s Nick Kristof: When You Think About It, The Holocaust Was America’s Fault

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Like all other forms of bigotry, anti-Semitism has existed for a long time and will exist for a long time to come. And because it exists, according to Nick Kristof of the NY Times, that means American anti-Semites during World War II were just as responsible for the Holocaust as the Nazis were. If not more so.

Here’s Kristof talking to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell yesterday, exhuming Anne Frank’s grave in order to shame Americans who’ve noticed that a lot of Islamic terrorists are getting into Western countries by posing as Syrian refugees:

“I think we all think that Anne Frank and European Jews were simply murdered because the Nazis regarded them as inferior. And, in some sense, that’s true. But it’s also true that they died because mainstream America, in some sense, regarded them as inferior as well.”

The operative phrase here is “in some sense.” Sure, Kristof says, the Nazis considered Jews inferior and used that as justification to murder millions of them. Well, in some sense they did, anyway.

But shouldn’t we really blame ourselves?

Kristof is using this to compare the plight of Jews during the Holocaust with the plight of Syrian refugees today, which is arguable. (Sorry, alt-righties, but it is.) What is not arguable is that the United States is in any way responsible for the Holocaust. In case Kristof has forgotten, the Allies ended the Holocaust. That’s why you’re not reading this in German. It might be why you’re even alive at all.

We know America is a perpetual font of disappointment, Nick, but a simple “Thank You for Stopping the Nazis” would suffice.

(Hat tip: Joe Cunningham)