Seattle, WA, June 19, 2008 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today denounced as "inappropriate and offensive" an article in a prominent building industry association newsletter that compared environmentalists and the Washington State Department of Ecology to Hitler's Nazi Party.

The article, titled "Hitler's Nazi party: They were eco extremists" appeared in the newsletter of the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) under the byline of Mark Musser, an employee of the industry group.
   
"This article showed a deplorable lack of judgment on the part of the Building Industry Association of Washington," said Ellen Bovarnick, ADL Pacific Northwest Regional Director.  "Any attempt to compare the policies Hitler and the Nazis, which led to World War II and ultimately the death of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust, to the actions of environmentalists is inappropriate and offensive and has no place in a debate over environmental regulation."

ADL calls on the organization to repudiate the article and to apologize to anyone who may have been offended by the comparison, especially Holocaust survivors and their families.

"While the industry may have concerns about regulation, it is outrageous and false to compare environmentalists and government regulators to Nazis," said Ms. Bovarnick.  "Such comparisons only serve to trivialize the history of the Holocaust."

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.