EU History Texts To Recast Nazi Yellow Star As ‘Consumer Information’

EU officials privately acknowledge that footnotes in the textbooks will be allowed to allude to the economic and social pressure concomitant with the star-wearing requirement.

Brussels, November 11 – Following today’s European Union decision to label imports of Israeli goods manufactured in occupied territory, explaining it merely as an informational tool for consumers, the body will also edit textbooks discussing Nazi treatment of Jews to describe the discriminatory yellow star as similarly non-discriminatory.

The EU announced today (Wednesday) that it will issue labeling guidelines for such products to allow European consumers to decide whether or not to purchase items based on that criterion, but representatives of the body insisted there was no endorsement of a boycott of Israeli products. Similarly, the textbooks will be rewritten to reflect that Nazi labeling of Jews and Jewish businesses was merely a move aimed at providing consumers with information, and left the decision whether or not to support such entities in the hands of the individual buyer.

Among the world’s approximately 200 existing territorial disputes, the EU selected only Israel’s for such treatment, but denied there was any anti-Israel or antisemitic motive for the decision. Starting next week, the body will begin a review of the history texts currently approved by various member states, and will recommend the specific changes necessary to bring understanding of Nazi policies into line with the current EU understanding of what constitutes an antisemitic policy. Accordingly, the law in Nazi Germany and the territories it controlled, to the effect that Jews must sew a yellow star with the word “Jew” in the local language onto their outermost garments, will be explained not as an effort to separate Jews and undermine their legitimacy and rights, but as a useful way to provide the host populations with pertinent information relevant to purchasing habits.

EU representatives have repeatedly insisted the labeling requirement is a technical, not a political, step, while behind the scenes several officials have conceded it is meant to pressure Israel over the lack of further territorial concessions to the Palestinians. As such, the requirement apples even to Israeli-occupied territories not considered Palestinian, such as the Golan Heights, which was taken from Syria in 1967, and later annexed, a move not recognized internationally. Along the same lines, EU officials privately acknowledge that footnotes in the textbooks will be allowed to allude to the economic and social pressure concomitant with the star-wearing requirement, and the fact that a commercial boycott of Jewish businesses was also given the force of German law at the time.

An EU spokesman said the body would continue the unrestricted importation of  hundreds of thousands of migrants from areas under territorial dispute in the Middle East, Africa, and south-central Asia with no labeling or vetting requirements.