The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recently spoke out against ads placed on Regional Transportation District buses and light rail cars falsely accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” that coincided with the Jewish National Fund’s national conference in Denver, Colorado.  ADL also spoke out against inappropriate comments made by supporters of an effort to recall Colorado State Senator Evie Hudak.

Scott Levin, Regional Director of the Mountain States Region of ADL, said of the ads that appeared on the buses and light rail cars last month:

“We are deeply disturbed by ads falsely accusing Israel of ’ethnic cleansing’ that have appeared on RTD light rail trains and buses.  These ads, placed by anti-Israel groups, are part of a larger campaign to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state.

While we believe that the ads are a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, we strongly object to their offensive message. Ads like these are inaccurate, inflammatory, and divisive.  They do nothing to advance peace.”

ADL also condemned remarks made by a leader of the effort to recall Senator Hudak on the Peter Boyles radio show.  Mike McAlpine compared opponents to the recall effort to Brownshirts, Nazi paramilitary formations used by Adolf Hitler to intimidate political opponents.  Mr. Boyles appeared to concur.

Said Levin:

“Mike McAlpine’s analogy to the Brownshirts trivializes the genocide of the Holocaust and is deeply offensive to Holocaust survivors, their families, and those who fought valiantly against Hitler’s regime.

“It is beneath a public figure and community member to invoke such an inappropriate analogy. Further, Boyles had a responsibility – as we all do – to repudiate such a comparison. That he endorsed the analogy is reproachful.

“As the League has said many times before, reasonable people can disagree about political issues without drawing inappropriate comparisons to the Holocaust.  ADL calls upon McAlpine, Boyles, and all public figures and community members to refrain from making inappropriate Nazi analogies in the political arena.”