On the quiet sidewalks of Oslo, among the piles of snow and ice blocks that have accumulated since the beginning of winter, here and there "stumbling stones", small tablet gravestones embedded between the cobblestones, indicate the names of the Jews who lived here and were taken to extermination by the Nazis and their local helpers.
The capital of Norway, like the major cities throughout the European continent, is preparing to celebrate International Holocaust Day, but this time a particularly disturbing and embarrassing topical element has been added to the discourse accompanying this event: "I heard that in Israel you are about to adopt legislation that seems to have been taken from the law book of Nazi Germany," an esteemed professor commented to me During the lecture on Israel at a local university.
When I wondered what he meant, it turned out that this is how the Norwegian media quoted the words of the leaders of the opposition in Israel about the legal reform planned in our districts.
"I didn't check what the reform includes," admitted the professor, "but if your public representatives compare it to the Nazis' policy, that's telling me. They wouldn't just make up a horrible false story about their country like that, would they?"
Norway is not alone.
The media in other countries and in other languages also highlighted the nonsense of the representatives of the Israeli left, who compared the initiatives of Justice Minister Yariv Levin to the legislation of the Nazis.
Two days ago, during the lecture in Germany, one of the participants, an Israel lover actually, asked me about the meaning of Bogi Ya'alon's similar words:
"What, he doesn't understand what enormous damage such comparisons cause to the good name of the Jewish state?"
the man wondered in despair.
"After all, this is the dream of every anti-Semitic: an Israeli senior who says out loud that Israelis are as bad as Nazis!".
Whether Shialon and his ilk expected and hoped that their statements would make waves in the world and whether they didn't - it is impossible to ignore the damage they are causing to all of us these days.
Instead of dealing with the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, Europe sees with astonishment how one Israeli camp hangs the worst blame on the other camp, which is bigger than it.
In Israel they may have gotten used to the ease with which the current opposition crosses red lines of what is allowed and what is not allowed in the political discourse, but in the world they are used to giving words the weight they deserve.
Labeling the opponents as "Nazis" is unforgivable, especially when it is done by an Israeli public figure - both because it is a despicable and false statement, and also because it yields a threefold result: vilification of the Holocaust, whitewashing of real Nazis and delegitimization of Israel.
For years, Israel's enemies in the Arab world and beyond adopted the practice of attaching Nazi images to the "Zionist regime".
Who could have imagined that a day would come and the epidemic of lies would spread into our society?
It is precisely the people who suffered the most from the crimes of the Nazis who are hurling the baseless accusation of Nazism at each other.
The proposed legal reform bears no resemblance to the legislation in Germany in the 1930s, and Ya'alon probably knows this well.
He also knows - or should know - that his comparison adds wind to the sails of holocaust deniers and head-butters.
"If the Jews call themselves 'Nazis', it means that being a Nazi is not terrible," an average European will conclude on the eve of International Holocaust Day, and will walk past "stumbling blocks" in his city with relief.
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