Fox News host Jeanine Pirro sparks outrage by comparing shutdown of Parler to 'a Kristallnacht' when Jewish-owned businesses and synagogues were destroyed by Nazis

Fox News host Jeanine Pirro has sparked backlash among Jewish leaders by saying that tech companies' decision to boot the far-right social network Parler off the Internet was 'akin to a Kristallnacht.' 

Pirro drew the comparison between Parler's de-platforming and the 1938 Nazi pogrom targeting Jewish-owned synagogues and businesses, also known as the 'Night of Broken Glass,' during an appearance on 'Fox & Friends' on Monday.

Amazon kicked Parler off its web-hosting service over ties to last week’s deadly siege on the US Capitol, and both Apple and Google followed suit. 

Jeanine Pirro is facing a backlash after going on Fox & Friends on Monday and drawing a comparison between Parler's removal from the Internet to Kristallnacht 

'What we’re seeing is a kind of censorship which is akin to a Kristallnacht where they decide what we can communicate about,' said Pirro. She claimed that tech companies had given conservatives a 'taste' of the censorship before the election by suppressing stories about Hunter Biden's laptop

When asked to offer her opinion on the Parler 'shutdown,' Pirro said, in part: 'what we’re seeing is a kind of censorship which is akin to a Kristallnacht where they decide what we can communicate about.'

She also claimed that tech companies had given conservatives a 'taste' of the censorship to come before the election by suppressing stories about Hunter Biden's laptop allegedly containing compromising emails.     

After being criticized on Twitter for likening Parler's business woes to the historic Nazi atrocity that served as a prelude to the Holocaust, Pirro stated that she had been referring to the burning of Jewish books that took place during Kristallnacht. 

'Although book burning started earlier, Kristallnacht included the destruction of Jewish stores, homes & synagogues containing rare Jewish books & Torahs,' she tweeted on Monday. 'My reference was in context of books.The Holocaust was the greatest hate crime the world ever tolerated. I abhor all violence.' 

Pirro was not the only voice on the right drawing dubious parallels between the deadly mass hate crime perpetrated by the Nazis and Parler's removal from cloud services.

Former Republican Congressman Steve King lamented in a tweet on Sunday that he has lost 8,000 followers in a day, adding: 'Apple, Google, Facebook, & others have cancelled many conservatives. Last night was cyber god's Kristallnacht!'

Former Republican Congressman Steve King has been raked across the coals for invoking Kristallnacht in his tweets 

He doubled down on his argument the next day, tweeting: 'The CyberGods have shut down every effective platform hosting speech contrary to their Leftist ideology. Last night was Kristallnacht 2.0. Today began Impeach Trump 2.0. I can't think of a better way to incite March on Capitol 2.0.'    

Prominent Jewish leaders and cultural figures on the left and the right wasted no time raking Pirro and King across the coals for their respective Kristallnacht remarks. 

'Kristallnacht was an organized pogrom by the Sturmabteilung and Hitler Youth destroying hundreds of synagogues and thousands of Jewish-owned businesses, killing dozens of Jews, and hauling tens of thousands of Jewish men to concentration camps such as Buchenwald,' CNN host Jake Tapper tweeted. 

Neoconservative political analyst Bill Kristol tweeted: 'your occasional reminder that Fox News has a board of directors who are responsible for this programming, and, for that matter, for the salaries of Ms. Pirro and those listening: Rupert Murdoch Lachlan Murdoch Chase Carey Anne Dias Roland Hernandez Jacques Nasser Paul Ryan.' 

Dov Hikind, former New York State Assemblyman, minced no words in taking Pirro and King to task, tweeting: 'CAN EVERYONE STOP WITH THE TERRIBLY IGNORANT HOLOCAUST COMPARISONS?!?! If you didn’t lose anyone to Hitler’s death machine then KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!' 

Avi Mayer, Managing Director of Global Communications at American Jewish Committee, tweeted at Pirro, demanding an apology. 

'Members of my family were taken to concentration camps on Kristallnacht, our synagogue was burned to the ground, and my grandparents and their families were forced to flee for their lives. This is nothing like that, @JudgeJeanine. You owe us an apology.'

Political cartoonist Eli Valley also took a swipe at Pirro, remarking sarcastically: 'Yes Kristallnacht, where Jews were denied a forum to plan Nazi terror. '

Parler, a 2-year-old magnet for the far right became the No. 1 free app on iPhones late last week after Facebook, Twitter and other mainstream social media platforms permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s accounts over comments during a rally that seemed to incite Wednesday’s deadly insurrection. 

The wave of Trump followers flocking to the service was short-lived. Google yanked Parler’s smartphone app from its app store Friday for allowing postings that seek 'to incite ongoing violence in the US.'

Parler CEO John Matze decried the punishments as 'a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the marketplace'

Apple followed suit on Saturday after giving Parler a day to address complaints it was being used to 'plan and facilitate yet further illegal and dangerous activities.' But the death knell came from Amazon Web Services, the leading provider of cloud computing infrastructure, which informed Parler it would need to look for a new web-hosting service after Sunday.

Parler has filed a lawsuit to get back online, arguing in a federal court Monday that Amazon was abusing its market power in a way that 'will kill Parler's business - at the very time it is set to skyrocket.'

Parler CEO John Matze decried the punishments as 'a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the marketplace.'