Auckland – Prof Scott Poynting is a scholar of hate crime at the
University of Auckland. Sadly ironically, he is also the author of a sickening
antisemitic letter to the Waikato Times on Nov 28th.
The letter is anti-Semitic
primarily because it seeks to draw false parallels between Nazi Germany and
Israel and is sickening as the Farben factory referred to in the letter is
notorious for making the gas used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews. Such
demonisation and delegitimization of Israel not only fails Sharansky’s ‘3-D’ test,
the comparison is also explicitly part of the working definition of
antisemitism for the European Forum and the US State department.
His letter reads “Thank you for
explaining in your article how SodaStream generously provided work for
Palestinians. I understand that IG Farben provided work for large number of
Jews. Not that I have anything against Germans, mind you.”
IG Farben
was a German chemical manufacturing company that held the patent for and made
Zyklon-B, the poison used to mass exterminate Jews. The company also used slave
labour to speed up production under orders of the SS. Comparing this to
SodaStream is obscene and hateful. The implication that Israel is like Nazi
Germany is anti-Semitic. The false inference from an academic is inexcusable.
