The dispute between U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and the Anti-Defamation League is, on one level, about the culture of apology. Ellison said he was prepared to issue a clarification of his recent statements comparing Bush administration policies after 9/11 to those of the Nazis. He had conferred with the ADL and was convinced that the analogy was inappropriate.

Ellison cried foul, however, when an ADL statement condemning his remarks appeared just hours before he was able to issue his own statement conceding that his words were ill chosen.

If Ellison's account is accurate, it seems he was dealt a pretty poor hand by the Jewish watchdog group. We've long argued that community relations need to be built on relationships, and that the media, with their penchant for distortion and magnification, should be enlisted only as a last resort. What began as model outreach — a quiet effort to convince a lawmaker how certain words can offend the Jewish community — became a case of dueling press statements, where misunderstandings can only be magnified.

But there's another level to this story. What's not clear is the degree to which a group dedicated to monitoring anti-Semitism should be the arbiter of the uses of the Nazi analogy. The Nazis' slaughter of the Jews and the centrality of genocide to their ideology certainly give Jews a unique and even proprietary interest in the uses put to Hitler's legacy. However, the ADL waves a powerful weapon in its ability to brand individuals friends or foes of the Jewish people. Nazi analogies invariably show a woeful lack of historical perspective, as Ellison's remarks demonstrated. They offend the spirit of public discourse as much as they defile the memories of Hitler's victims. But are they necessarily anti-Semitic?

As Jews, we have a particular claim on the history of World War II, but not an exclusive claim. The ADL and other Jewish groups share the responsibility to maintain the distinction between a politician's misguided hyperbole and genuine anti-Semitism.