ADL Says Glenn Beck's Outrageous Holocaust Comparison Part Of Troubling Epidemic On The Airwaves
New York, NY, May 2, 2007… The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today denounced remarks by radio personality Glenn Beck where he compared efforts to raise awareness about global warming to Hitler's plans to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust, saying his remarks are part of "a troubling epidemic on the airwaves, where comparisons to Hitler and the Holocaust are becoming all-too facile."
On the April 30 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Beck said: "Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world."
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor, issued the following statement:
Glenn Beck's linkage of Hitler's plan to round up and exterminate Jews with Al Gore's efforts to raise awareness of global warming is outrageous, insensitive and deeply offensive. Unfortunately, his remarks are just the latest example of a troubling epidemic on the airwaves, where comparisons to Hitler and the Holocaust are becoming all-too facile.
It has become almost commonplace for talk-show pundits to use comparisons to the Holocaust and Nazi imagery to attack people whose views they disagree with, whether the issue is global warming or immigration, as we witnessed when CNN's Lou Dobbs recently suggested on his program that immigrant rights groups use tactics similar to those of Nazi propagandists.
The six million Jewish victims and millions of other victims of Hitler deserve a measure of respect. Their deaths should not be used for political points or sloganeering. Every time a radio or television personality takes that unique event in history and twists it for their own political agenda, it cheapens the public debate and distorts and trivializes the Holocaust.
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
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