Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott gestures during a joint news conference during an official two-day visit in Auckland, Feb. 28, 2015. (Photo : REUTERS)
Some Jewish leaders are angry at Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott for his comment that the Islamic State (IS) is worse than the Nazi.
In an interview with Sydney Radio 2GB on Thursday, Abbott was quoted as saying, "The Nazis did terrible evil, but they had a sufficient sense of shame to try to hide it." He added, referring to the IS, "These people boast about their evil, this is the extraordinary thing."
Abbott describes the manner the Islamic terror group operates as similar to how medieval barbarians acted, which they even have the temerity to broadcast to the world "with an effrontery which is hard to credit." The Australian PM is apparently referring to the decapitation of foreign prisoners by Jihadi John the burning of some captives, throwing from buildings and stoning of gays to death which the IS posts on YouTube.
In response to Abbott's comments, Robert Goot, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, points out a fundamental difference between organized acts of terrorism and "a genocide systematically implemented by a state as essential policy." He concedes that IS is profoundly evil, but Goot finds Abbott's comment on Nazi remorse as "injudicious and unfortunate."
The PM said it was not his intention to rank the evil done by the IS and Nazi, but stood by his comment of the IS being the greater evil because while Stalin and Hitler attempted to hide their evil deeds, the IS - which Abbott calls a wretched death cult - even boasts about their crimes.
Such an outlook of IS is the reason why Abbott is expected to approve next week the request by the Coalition for Canberra to join the air strikes against the IS targets beyond Syria and Iraq.
Abbott's two previous comments or references to the Nazis led to an apology from the PM. In March, he called Opposition leader Bill Shorten as "the Dr. Goebbels of economic policy. Goebbels was the propaganda minister of the Nazi regime under dictator Adolf Hitler. The previous month, he described the 10 percent cut in defense industry jobs during the previous Labor government as a "holocaust of jobs."
However, The Guardian finds the comparison between the two evil regimes as "cynical, condescending and lazy." The British daily sees Abbott's statements as his way of scaring Aussies so they would vote for Coalition members as the party observes two years in power and submits anew to voters for another term of office.
The British daily explains Abbott's fixation on Nazi to the lack of sophistication of the PM's power of morality and political reflection or not being attuned to modern realities.
