Look on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Holocaust Memorial Day statement and admire it.

Anyone who casts doubt on the Holocaust, including Iranian President Ahmadinejad, receives a sharp prod from his crozier.

Attempts to challenge the Holocaust as history, such as the recent conference in Iran, brought disgrace on those who sought to do so for political purposes:

“ The clear implication was that if it had happened at all, it had been greatly exaggerated from motives to do with Zionism and a European guilt complex. It cannot be acceptable to treat the systematic murder of six million Jews and others as a propaganda issue for a particular cause..”

More on the subject here and here.

He warned that challenges still lie ahead and that the Holocaust Memorial Day was not simply about commemorating the past:

“ It is a day to recommit in the most practical ways to continue the struggle against the underlying anti-Semitic causes of that event which remain present and virulent within our communities in this country as in others.“

These things need to be said, but will anything be done? Already, one English town has cancelled Holocaust Memorial Day.

The Vicar of Bolton, Canon Michael Williams, who is treasurer of the Interfaith Council, said: "The service is a bit artificial because we have never had a Jewish community to support it.

In other words, there are no Jews around, so why bother to support it? Well, if it hadn’t been for the Holocaust, Vicar, perhaps there would be more Jews in Bolton now.

Anyway, Vicar, don’t you think there was something, well – how can I put this? - wrong about the Holocaust? Something we should try and prevent from happening again? No?

The replacement of Holocaust Memorial Day by a ‘genocide memorial day’ was the anti-Jewish idea of the Muslim Council of Britain, although even they are having second thoughts about it now. Not for any good reason – just so that they can successfully hijack the event and twist it into a propaganda exercise against the Jews for some pretended ‘genocide of the Palestinians’.

Meanwhile, there has been a marked rise in attacks on Jews in Europe over the past year. As the Archbishop said:

“May 2007 be the year in which we resolve in every local setting to combat anti-Semitic language and behaviour with new vigour.”

We need more words like this from Church leaders – better still, we need actions. How about a few sharp prods of the crozier for some Church organizations, like Christian Aid, or Church media outlets which indulge in disproportionate amounts of Jewish-State-bashing?