Hanin Zoabi (file)
Hanin Zoabi (file)Hadas Parush/Flash90

Arab Joint List MK Hanin Zoabi has refused to participate in a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony, she announced Wednesday, insisting that Holocaust education "teaches the lessons of the Holocaust in order to increase the motivation to humiliate and oppress others." 

Responding to her invitation to the ceremony, run by the Havatzelet organization, Zoabi insists there is "an alarming similarity from what is happening around us to Germany of the 1930s." Havatzelet had invited all 120 MKs to the ceremony, to be held on May 5. 

"I am honored to stand in memory of the victims, but it's equally important for me to warn you about what preceded the Holocaust, and paved the way to it," she added. "Just because of that, I find it necessary to refuse to attend." 

"Unfortunately, there is no justification for crimes against humanity, and there is no justification for the murder of men and women, nor lordship over other humans," Zoabi continued. "It is important to mention the Holocaust in that it is important to learn from it. And this is exactly the problem: that learning is done in a selective and manipulative [manner]." 

Zoabi, who has openly supported the Hamas terror organization that calls for the genocide of Jewish in its charter, then went on a long tirade about her own perception of the ineffectiveness of Holocaust education. 

"You cannot teach the lessons of the Holocaust in order to increase the motivation to defend oneself by humiliation and oppression," she began. "You cannot teach the lessons of the Holocaust by adopting a policy of closed doors, extortion, robbery and murder."

"It would be cynical exploitation, selective, distorted and ultimately, not 'Holocausty.'"

"How can you teach the lessons of the Holocaust when you don't distinguish between the terrifying imagination around what is happening today and what happened in Germany in the 30s?" she added. "And thus the danger: summary executions, detentions without trial, torture, gag orders, persecution of protesters and political activism." 

Zoabi then claimed that singling out the Holocaust justifies emotional manipulation and abuse, and claimed it pushes Arab MKs to speak out against "racist legislation." She urged Israeli Arabs "not to be silent" about Israel "stealing land and property" and "bombing and eradicating entire neighborhoods." 

The organizers of the rally noted in response that the ceremony is "entirely apolitical" and that commemorating the Holocaust is important "for every human being, regardless of religion, ethnicity, or gender."