UK comedian David Baddiel has been praised for his eloquent explanation of why Whoopi Goldberg's recent comments about the Holocaust were inaccurate and problematic.
The author of Jews Don't Count appeared on Good Morning Britain in the wake of Goldberg's assertion the Holocaust "wasn't about race" and "occurred between two groups of white people".
The backlash was swift. Goldberg made a public apology, but was still suspended from her role as co-host of ABC's The View for two weeks.
Baddiel, a self-described fan of Goldberg's, said her words revealed "an awful lot about the confusions people have around anti-Semitism".
"One of the principal things that's going on here is the resistance to the idea that anti-Semitism is racism," he said.
"What does Whoopi Goldberg think it is? Well I think what a lot of people think it is, is religious intolerance.
"The problem with that is I'm an atheist and the Gestapo would have shot me tomorrow," he explained, noting that the Nuremberg Laws enacted in Nazi Germany to legally define Jews as separate and inferior to Germans were, by definition, "racial purity laws".
"My great uncle who died in the Warsaw ghetto was not an observant Jew," Baddiel added.
The QI panelist said that today's Neo-Nazis are similarly focused on race over religion.
"And it's not just the Holocaust, now Neo-Nazis marching with torches saying 'Jews will not replace us' in Charlottesville would not ask a Jew whether he kept Kosher before they set alight his house," he said.
"They are not interested in faith and the Nazis weren't interested in faith, they were interested in racial purity."
In addressing Goldberg's insistence that Jews and Nazis were "two groups of white people fighting amongst themselves", Baddiel said the way in which the ethnicity of Jews is perceived has long been a complex issue.
"Jews are seen as white or non white, depending on the politics of the observer, right, so far-right groups and for years and years, centuries have seen Jews as not part of the white race," he said.
"But on the far left, the association of Jews, which is a racist thing with power and privilege, makes them kind of super white.
"And what that ends up with, it's similar to the Black Lives Matter thing with saying 'All Lives Matter', because it takes away from the specifics of the racism to something very bland in general, like 'man's inhumanity to man'," Baddiel continued, referencing Goldberg's answer to what the Holocaust was "actually about".
Baddiel also made reference to Goldberg's appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which was taped after her controversial comments on The View, but before she released her apology online. During the show, Goldberg appeared to double down on some of her sentiments, including the idea that the Holocaust "wasn't racism, it was evil" and that she thought of race as "something you can see".
Baddiel countered that the Holocaust was a "very particular type of genocide".
"She talked on the Stephen Colbert show, about 'two sides fighting'," he said of Goldberg.
"This is not two sides fighting. This was an ethnic group being marked out to be destroyed by the military industrial machine."
Baddiel's analysis of the 'Sister Act' star's comments earned him accolades on social media, with many Twitter users thanking him for the "articulate" and "irrefutable" explanation.
"That's brilliant - and helpful for those of us who have a lot to learn on this subject," one tweet read.
"Incredibly insightful as I've always understood that being Jewish was associated directly with religion/Judaism, but hearing it this way has helped me better understand. I appreciate him breaking that down," said another.
"As always, THANK YOU David Baddiel for representing us so well and educating non-Jews on the very real dangers of anti-Semitism," a third responded.