The Rise of ‘Soft’ Holocaust Denial
After Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel died in July at the age of 87, American leaders mourned the loss of his globally respected advocacy for peace and tolerance. “Elie Wiesel was one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world,” President Barack Obama wrote.
Some anti-Zionist opportunists, however, leapt to slander Wiesel for his lifelong Zionism and support for Israel. Ali Abunimah, founder of the anti-Israel blog Electronic Intifada, called Wiesel “vile” and tweeted, “Elie Wiesel will be remembered by Palestinians for his racism.” Jewish anti-Israel blogger Max Blumenthal falsely called Wiesel a denier of the Armenian genocide and tweeted, “Elie Wiesel went from a victim of war crimes to a supporter of those who commit them. He did more harm than good and should not be honored.” In an op-ed, Blumenthal called Wiesel Islamophobic for writing about Hamas’s use of human shields.
These vitriolic attacks on Wiesel, which likely would not have surprised him, were only the latest examples of a growing trend in which anti-Zionists use the tragedy of the Holocaust to attack Israel. This tactic is nothing less than a form of soft Holocaust denial. Unlike the “hard” Holocaust denial practiced by neo-Nazis and other openly anti-Semitic groups, soft denial is the pseudo-intellectual hijacking of the meaning of the Holocaust in pursuit of delegitimizing the Jewish state. While hard denial forces us to prove that the Holocaust happened, soft denial forces us to prove that it still matters.
Noted historian Deborah Lipstadt was the first scholar to recognize soft denial as a serious problem. She has only spoken about the concept in speeches and short blog posts, and it has yet to be introduced into the popular lexicon. In a speech at Australia’s Shalom Institute, Lipstadt stated, “Soft-core deniers are people who do not deny the facts of the Holocaust, but who raise questions about it in a more covert fashion.” Lipstadt was intentionally alluding to pornography with her use of the term “soft-core,” as she stated, “Holocaust denial is, at its core, pornographic.”
Lipstadt frequently refers to soft denial as “squishier” and therefore harder to combat than hard denial. In that speech and others like it, Lipstadt cited examples of soft denial, like comparisons between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Nazis, along with hyperbolic uses of the word “Holocaust” to describe unrelated incidents, thus trivializing the Holocaust itself. Describing the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a genocide also fits this mold. “Some may see oppression; some may see discrimination. But to speak of a genocide is to create a situation which is completely untrue,” Lipstadt said.
http://www.thetower.org/article/the-rise-of-soft-holocaust-denial/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Holocaust denial fell out of favor and was replaced with "revisionism" which was the forbearer of "soft denial." In just about any "debate" with certain "pro" people, Holocaust and Nazi references are almost always employed, yet, they are the same people who screech like wounded howler monkeys, wailing "GODWIN!" if a Jew, pro-Israel, or like-minded person brings up a Holocaust reference.
There is a real anti-Semitic nature to it as well. Many of those, who can't even properly define anti-Semitism, basing the definition on a false etymology or "fee-fees", ignore the fact most Holocaust denial/revisionism almost exclusively targets Jews, much like the Holocaust itself. Rarely does one hear denial about the treatment of the Rom, gays, and other victims.
Another issue is the constant need to compare everything, except shit that affects Jews, to the Holocaust. In tonight's presidential debate, a question about Syria was asked, and it was compared to the Holocaust. 
To me, that is also a form of "denial" because it is an attempt top shift away from a very serious issue and trying to make it like something it isn't.