The recent fiasco on ABC’s daily talk show “The View” regarding some ill-informed comments by Whoopi Goldberg about the Holocaust underscored just how punitive our society has become. Goldberg just returned from serving a two-week suspension for saying the killing of six million Jews during World War II wasn’t about race but instead about “man’s inhumanity towards man.”

To clear this up: The Holocaust was one thousand percent about race. Hitler and the Third Reich believed that the Aryan race was genetically superior to all other races, and engaged upon a massive campaign to dehumanize and systematically annihilate Jews because they believed that Jews were a parasitic “lower race.”

Whoopi was wrong, and a lot of people let her know that. To her credit, after initially defending her remarks, she listened to Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, forcefully correct her on the air of the very show she hosts, and later apologized.

What did that get her? A suspension from her bosses at ABC.

This struck me as such a missed opportunity on a number of levels. First, there seemed to be genuine contrition on Goldberg’s part after people pointed out why her comments were not just wrong, but also potentially offensive to Jews.

Second, she’s on a TV show that is all about sharing opinions, many of which are not always right.

Third, the suspension seemed to be a case of piling on to earn brownie points with that online subset of people who seem to be waiting for someone, anyone, to make a dumb mistake and then seek maximum punishment. That doesn’t sit well with me.

Much more could have been achieved by letting Goldberg remain on “The View” and having further conversations about Jewish culture, especially at a time when anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise in America. That would have been the right call, the smart decision.

Instead, ABC took the lazy way out.