Yesterday we accused Berlusconi of thinking nothing of the suffering of the Palestinian people, but today he is reported to have tried to make amends while visiting occupied Jerusalem. But being Berlusconi he did it in the most clumsy manner possible by comparing the holocaust to the oppression of the Palestinians. This blog is on record as being against this erroneous comparison of the industrial genocide of six million people with the history of the Zionist project in Palestine, which, for all its barbarities and injustices, does not compare to the holocaust.
Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, courted fresh controversy yesterday by comparing the plight of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to the suffering of victims of the Holocaust. Given that Berlusconi's rise to power in Italy has relied on the support of the 'post-fascist' National Alliance should have rung alarm bells with Israelis before they lauded him for his support for their illegitimate state.
After an official visit to Israel, Mr Berlusconi said in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem that, "just as it is right to cry for the victims of the Shoah [the Holocaust], it is right to show pain for what happened in Gaza".
The remark, which appeared to link Israel's war against the Hamas-controlled territory last year with the murder of millions of Jews in Nazi concentration camps, will be seen as offensive by many in Israel, even if no provocation was intended.
Mr Berlusconi is regarded as a staunch ally of the Jewish state. He has repeatedly spoken out against the dangers of Holocaust denial, and publicly defended Israel's actions in Gaza as "justified".
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