Well, we can debate whether they do Nazi-ish things until the cows come home, but IF they do, then who cares if the comparison is hurtful? They've been on the recieving end of that kind of horrific crap, so I'd expect them to be invested in not becoming the very thing they so despise. I'd say making them aware of it is more important than their hurt feelings.
Or maybe it's because we expect people who've not only been on the recieving end of such treatment, but who constantly draw attention to that fact, to make sure they don't become like their oppressors. It's not "heehee, how can I make Jews upset?" but rather "Don't you see you're becoming the very thing you despise? Wake up before it's too late!"
No, I got that, I just rejected it. The article hasn't shown a change of thinking on the European Left, but instead has snown that it's been fairly consistent in the kinds of groups and behavior it supports and the kind of groups and behavior it condemns. The only thing that seems to have changed is that now Jews are in the crosshairs too. Since they've been happy supporting the Left until that point, it can only mean one of two things, neither particularily flattering:
The Left is right to support the things that brings it in opposition with Jews, in which case, the group that finds itself in opposition to those goals needs to change its own behavior to realign itself with the "good guys." In this case, the Jews would be in the wrong for finding themselves at odd with the rest of the European Left.
The left is wrong to support the things that brings it in conflict with Jews...in which case WHERE THE HELL WERE THEIR OBJECTIONS WHEN IT WAS JUST NON-JEWS GETTING HURT BY THESE POLICIES??
The author seems to be trying to argue a third point, which is that the things the left supports are fine, except when they bring it in conflict with Jewish interests, in which case special exceptions must be made.
I reject this third point because I don't think Jews deserve special treatment the rest of us don't get. They aren't special, they're like everybody else.
The whole article is full of this kind of hypocritical crap (the reference to the Doctor's Plot is especially obnoxious, given that that was one of the last purges Stalin carried out. WHERE WERE THEIR OBJECTIONS TO ALL THE OTHER PURGES? It makes me wish I owned an electron microscope so I could attempt to search for a violin small enough to play in resonse to this particular whine).
In fact, if this article had been written about a group it was safer to oppose, I have a feeling we'd be hearing a lot more people replying "You Reap What You Sow." We might even be hearing an entire orchestra of microscopic violins.