Comparing Arizona to Nazi Germany is wrong, Jewish group tells L.A. politicians

Is Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigration really comparable to Nazi Germany?

The comparison was made by some on the L.A. City Council on Wednesday as the body approved a boycott against Arizona. But one leading Jewish group says its "irresponsible" to liken the Arizona law to Nazi tactics.

“The Wiesenthal Center along with many other Americans expressed our opposition to the language of the Arizona immigration bill but it is inappropriate and irresponsible to link the bill to the actions of Nazi Germany,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the center, said in a statement. “In a democracy, there is no need to demonize opponents, even when they are mistaken, to those whose actions led to history's most notorious crime."

On Wednesday, council members compared Arizona’s action to Nazi Germany and the beginning of the Holocaust, as well as to the internment and deportation of Japanese Americans during World War II. A new Arizona law, which will take effect July 23, will require police to determine whether people they stop are in the country illegally, which critics say will lead to racial profiling.

In April, Cardinal Roger Mahony also compared Arizona's law to Nazism. "American people are fair-minded and respectful. I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation," Mahony wrote on his blog. 

A Wiesenthal Center official did agree with Mahony that the Arizona law is wrong. “This isn’t about immigration, it’s about discrimination,” Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the center, said in a statement. “We should not forget that we’re a nation of immigrants. This law makes no sense -- it guarantees and stigmatizes people of color as second-class citizens and exposes them to intimidation and the use of racial profiling as a weapon of bias."

-- Shelby Grad

Photos: Marvin Hier, Roger Mahony. L.A. Times files.

Comments

[Tom]

Does the city council of LA really have nothing better to do? Is it really lost on everyone that there are federal laws on the books that say you're not supposed to be here unless you go through proper immigration channels? Arizona's just the first government body to man up and address the elephant in the room.

You want "nazi", try doing anything in Mexico without a valid visa.

[factofthematter]

By now, everyone is familiar with the charge that Arizona’s new immigration law is racist. So now, when a state decides to enforce a federal law about people needing to enter our country legally, rather than illegally, somehow this is racist. According to the latest CBS poll, 61 percent of Americans agree with the new law. Wow! That’s a lot of racism. How oh how did so many of those same racists put our first African-American president into office?

[Francisco De Paula]

Kindly takes this comment as very well informed because I happen to straddle the fence between 2 cultures: Latino and USA-Anglo-Saxon.

I'm an immigrant but I came to the USA in a legal manner and I don't like when other folks just come across our borders without authorization...I don't care what country they come from!

One more thing:
When the cancer of political correctness precludes the citizens of the country from using their common horse sense to see what stands right in front of their own noses, and to take action and defend their own national self-interest...then things have top change! I don't give a hoot about political correctness!

I don't like it when folks comment that we are becoming like the Nazi party of WW II ....if the federal government won't defend our way of life - and our borders - we need to do it ourselves.

Nothing is perfect, but we do have a set of values handed down through generations...values that we should uphold!

I don't have anything against my foreign Latino brethren, but I have lived in most countries of Central America and Mexico, in lawless, filthy, and very corrupt countries...and I don't want that way of life imported into this country...my country!

Oh, BTW, I happen to know those countries very well because I'm also fluent in Spanish..it is my first language!

What is happening in Arizona and many other parts of the USA is nothing less than an invasion of our way of life!

Let this clarion call sound loud and clear: When we, the legal Latino citizens of the USA, do not support any group or person violating our immigration laws...it should be taken as a BIG HEADS UP !!!

Why? Because many of us have witnessed the corruption inherent in the thinking and way of life these illegal immigrants bring with them when they come here.

If you don't believe me, spends 6 months in any part of Mexico or Central America and see with your own eyes.......do you want that type of government, payola, and corruption here in the USA too?

[Robin Yap]

Why are we concern about what Arizona is doing when the City of Los Angeles
is facing huge deficit. What I like to hear from the L.A. City Council members
is that they are concentrating on how to revive the current economic crisis facing this city and they voluntarily announcing their salary cut by 30% ? What the State of Arizona is doing is to control their border which so far, our Federal Government is unable or lacking the manpower or resources to impose our Immigration law. Do you know how much narcotics are being seized at our border crossing point ?

[Stephen L. Hoffman]

Arizona and Nazi Germany: Gypsies and Jews

Arizona's proposed Illegal Immigration Laws reminds me of something I read about Nazi Germany and the Gypsies.

"Persecution of Roma (Gypsies) in Germany, and indeed in all of Europe, preceded the Nazi takeover of power in 1933. The police in Bavaria, Germany, maintained a central registry of Roma as early as 1899, and later established a commission to coordinate police action against Roma in Munich. In 1933, police in Germany began more rigorous enforcement of pre-Nazi legislation against those who followed a lifestyle labeled "Gypsy." The Nazis judged such people to be racially "undesirable" and enacted systematic measures of persecution against the Roma...."
The rest of the Article can be found at the below url:

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005482

As to 'Comparing Arizona to Nazi Germany', what's that famous quote?

"When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out."

- Martin Niemoller -

[bartolo]

The Arizona "law" was written by self-proclaimed Neo-Nazis! With all respect to my beloved Jewish community, you should be standing up on the right side of history with us. You know 6 million Native Americans were slaughtered in the genocide on this land; the left is now the center?! It is irresponsible to allow the hate-speech to escalate to the level of pre-Nazi Germany when there were many rallies before Hitler's evil rise. I want to open a Native American Museum of Tolerance right next the now Museum of Tolerance to magnify the truth of the holocaust of the Indigenous. The oppression of the Indignous goes on in the face of every migrant that you call "illegal." We are ONE...

[Miguel]

Yes this is Exactly like 1934 Nazi Germany!

Remember in 1934 how the Jews would Sneak accross the border into Germany to get Free Health Care from Dr. Josef Mengele?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele

[Michael Boyd]

One of the freedoms is that THEY can move out at any time. Cheap flights leaving all the time. Besides, what would the tickets really cost? Answer: nothing.

Do a Ray Charles and "...hit the road, Ben (or Michael or_____) , and don't ya' come back no mo' no mo'...."

[Frederick Drury]

What a bunch of political brown noser's; Cardinal Mahoney, the L.A. city council and anyone who uses this issue to appear as benefactors to the nations 12 million identity thieves, illegal immigrants. What hypocrisy, does anybody really believe that so-called "liberalized" countries, France or Amsterdam actually have laws any less effective?
Racial profiling? More accurately, criminal pursuit.

[Keith Freitas]

Cardinal Roger Mahoney, a priest, better yet a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, who throughout his career hid Pedophiles.
Now am I supposed to take him seriously about his view of a law that he has obviously not researched.

Illegals and pedophilia are against the law.

If other countries can uphold their Illegal Immigration Law why can't the USA.

The only good immigrant is a legal immigrant.

[Art Ghecko]

It is absurd for the L.A. City Council to boycott Arizona for their stance on illegal immigration. All Arizona wants to do is to enforce the law, and keep those who have skirted our immigration laws out of our country. It's not racist to ask for verification of identity, and to prove that you are here legally, especially given the rampant disregard for immigration policy by Mexicans in general. I "get" that Hispanics will be profiled, but that's how laws get enforced.

[Salem]

This isn’t about immigration, it’s about discrimination,” Rabbi Marvin Hier

Well said Rabbi

[yoga2010]

Maybe the LA City Council should boycott the federal government, as it is the federal government's inability or unwillingness to enforce current immigration law that precipitated the AZ law.

Boycott LA!

[jean]

Oh come on everyone we have to do something about illegal immegration. It's about time. Nothing is stopping anyone from comming here illegally but we have a lot of BAD people comming here too and they need to get stopped.

[john]

have any of the opposing people actually READ AZ's law? If so how do you differ between it and US law on aliens. ALL legal aliens MUST carry identification at ALL times, that is Federal law. Since when? 1940 is when the Federal gov't passed it. All Az. does is follow those guidelines so the hysteria, distortions and out right lies do nothing but create a false picture of reality.

[Carol]

Why can't people understand that it is not a LEGAL immigrant issue, it is an ILLEGAL immigration issue?! Los Angeles can boycott all they want, all the ILLEGALS will just come to Los Angeles since it is a sanctuary city. With L.A. on the verge of bankruptcy and record high unemployment for its own CITIZENS, let them deal with all the influx of ILLEGALS that will come to their city. Good luck...so much for citizens helping citizens.

[DRE DAWG]

Finally! Some common sense! Yes, comparing the law to Nazi Germany is insane....thank you Rabbi Cooper and the Wiesenthal Center.

[Sheryl]

THANK YOU, RABBI COOPER.

The truth of the matter is that no legitimate political argument can be made using comparisons to Nazi Germany.

The moment any public figure--elected, celebrity or otherwise--uses the WORD Nazi or the name Hitler, they've proven 2 things, irrefutably:

FIRST--They don't know enough about what happened in Germany between WWI and WWII.

SECOND--They don't have a legitimate argument to make about the "issue" they're condemning by comparing it to Nazi Germany--they're just looking for press coverage and drama. If they HAD a legitimate, logical argument--they would USE it.

The LA City Council has PROBLEMS ENOUGH IN LOS ANGELES. These people need to SHUT UP and get busy doing the job they were elected to do.

When the City of LA is solvent, safe, and every single child in the city limits graduates from high school, THEN you can start pontificating about things that happen elsewhere!

[wanda]

It's just one disaster after another for Los Angeles wanna-be leaders.

[SP]

Heaven forbid you take any thunder away from the jewish plight. NEVER forget that they have suffered more than any other group in entire history of the universe. NEVER forget that they suffered almost as much as the Native Americans in the New World.

NEVER FORGET!

[Cheryl Cornell]

I think the Holocaust began by boycotting Jewish businesses,
not by asking for their papers.
And I believe the Jews were actually citizens of Germany and
not illegal aliens invading Germany.
So where's the comparison?
No wonder our city is in so much trouble!

[BOB2]

The headlines seem not to match the story? Eliminationist language like the Arizona bill is not "real" Nazism, according to the spin in this story about the Weisenthal center response? The Arizona law was only suggested by Nazi's? This original language just happened to be written by former Nazi's and white supremacist's for a State Senator who seems to like to like Nazi sympathizers, and hosts their messages?

But it's not Nazi according to the Times spin, just sort of neo Nazi eliminationist language, pandering to neo Nazi's and street corner tweekers, and making American citizens prove their nationalities based on their "looks"?

I think that if it walks like a duck, and takes advice from Nazi's, then it just might be a kind of Nazism, hiding behind an American flag lapel pin?

According the the Times spin on the Weisenthal Center response, these aren't real Nazi's though, because they are ignoring the Jews for now, and haven't committed state sanctioned murder, yet, so it isn't Nazism right?

Fact: the Nazi's didn't start with State sanctioned murder, they started with racial profiling...... That creation of the "other" made the State sanctioned murder possible........

[brad lovejoy]

every member of the Los Angeles city council needs to be fired and that includes the mayor. they are more concerned with a meaningless boycott than they are with the causes of L.A.'s financial troubles. the CITY of L.A. needs to focus on its issues and not on the issues of the STATE of ARIZONA.

[Robert]

I think all of LA city council should clock out and get their head examined.

[mike higginson]

exactly. so if you read most comments on this subject that has nothing to do with illegal immigration and most comments are about hate, racial comments and treating everyone is an illegal. I actually live in Arizona and I work for the government, nothing high i just work at the court..... most hispanics in Arizona are Americans Citizens, not illegal. I would say that out of every 100 Hispanics maybe 1 or 2 are illegal aliens. that's what people dont understand or they don't want to accept that most of this hispanics that they think are illegal, have absolutly nothing to do with illegal immigration and its not fair that a group of US Citizens should be getting so many "hate comments, racist comments" and treating them as illegals when they are not. ....