John Arendt's column about Elon Musk (Attempting to defend the indefensible) was half right.
He was right to bring attention to the alarming rise of antisemitism and the importance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27.
He was wrong to suggest that Elon Musk did a Nazi salute.
First, it's not just an excuse to say that Musk makes awkward gestures.
In the past, he's publicly acknowledged being "on the spectrum," and anyone who follows the news has seen him wildly gesticulating in awkward ways.
Second, when the accusations of a Nazi salute were levelled against Elon Musk, the more honest news media showed his actions in context. He was enthusiastically demonstrating his words to the crowd, "My heart goes out to you."
Third, he was promptly supported by some of the most prominent Jewish voices in the world: by Ben Shapiro, who had made a trip to Auschwitz with Musk a year earlier; by Prime Minister Netenyahu, who called Musk a friend of Israel; and even by the left-wing Anti-Defamation League, who acknowledged (perhaps reluctantly) that Musk was not anti-Semitic.
When the word "Nazi" is carelessly bandied about, it not only damages the person wrongly accused, but also minimizes the horror of what the real Nazis did.
We need to do better than that.
Arthur Enns
