Some anti-Semites excuse their behavior, claiming they merely oppose Israel, not Jews. However, the Norwegian Parliament didn’t bother to distinguish the two in this incident. Note that the Star of David sympolizes both Israel and Judiasm.
December, there have been myriad instances of attacks on Jewish synagogues, institutions, cemetaries and individuals in the U.S. over the past decade. I don’t recall Bushes Sr. or Jr., or Clinton commenting on them, with or without “sufficient urgency or zeal.” Have our last three Presidents been anti-Semitic?
Sua
December, if you could read Norweagian you woould have read this:
The director Hans Brattestå at the Stortinget says to Dagbladet that he hadn’t heard about thr other matter [Tveitt’s allegations that people had been allowed to walk around in dressed Palestinian scarves], but as a principal people are allowed to wear symbols and badges on their jackets.
“In the first case I have been lead to understand that the badge - or flag - was big and could be taken as a political demonstration and that we cannot allow”, says Brattestå. He also points out that visitors usually hang their jackets in the wardrobe.
Thanks for the translation, Floater. The link above shows a picture of the badge. Dopers can make their own judgments about how big and flag-like it was.
It appears to me around 5 inches by 3 inches – only a little bigger than a typical badge or emblem. I agree with Mr. Brattestå that it does looks like a small flag, rather than simply a design.
The less said, the better about the feeble excuse of jackets normally going in the wardrobe.
I expect that Mr. Brattestå regrets the incident.
I haven’t looked for statistics, but my impression is that the attacks in France in much more pervasive. There was another one yesterday
I’d be more convinced that France wasn’t anti-Semitic if they had succeeded on cathching more of the attackers.
I’m not here to excuse anything, but I’d like to make an observation and ask a question.
Observation: Unlike the simple Star of David, which symbolizes both Judaism and Israel (or so the argument can be made), the Israeli flag only symbolizes Israel.
Question: is there anything to be read into the fact that the young man is displaying the Israeli flag sideways?
SuaSponte,
If there was suddenly a tremendous increase in the attacks upon such (or attacks on black churches) and the political response was one of that these are only incidents of “suburban hooliganism” then you betcha such an accusation would be made. But no such tremendous increase above baseline has occurred in America … just the usual volume. And local police have been very good about responding with appropriate zeal, calling hate crimes what they are.
Good point DSeid
That’s exactly how one should respond to attacks on jews and jewish property.
They are * hate* crimes.
You can be pro-Palestinian if you think it might be sensible to keep the middle-east as your friend. So you won’t lose your oil-supply sold by other anti- Israel countries, but keep your filthy anti-semite paws off jews.
A few years ago, it was believed that many Black churches were being burned by racists. (Although that turned out not to be the case.)
Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick said
Yesterday, around 15 hooded attackers wielding sticks and metal bars assaulted a Jewish teen-age soccer team after making anti-Semitic remarks. French Sports Minister Marie-George Buffet said
What a wimpy statement! Maybe the French aren’t anti-Semitic. Perhaps they’re just feckless and effete. Bah!
December:
Though I agree with you most of the time on the Israel/Palestine subject, I always hesistate to read any thread you start as I know it will be filled with bad evidence, blanket statements and general needling to get your point across.
For the record, Israelis view the Jerusalem Times as a tabloid, kind of like what we New Yorkers feel about the NY Post and the Daily News (a lot of times even the Times) also, linking to a NY Times OpEd letter is kind of like using a Pit thread as a “cite”
Your posts are almost always reactionary and contain a feeling of “tinfoil hat” drama. I wish you’d give a little more thought to the partisanship of your sources as you do pretty often have a good point, however you tend to build it upon an elaborate framework of chopsticks and scotch tape.
You use more cites than just about anyone I see on here so why don’t you spend more time finding a cite for the same example from unaffiliated sources and less on finding 10 different examples of the point you are trying to make.
Your post here had almost nothing to do with European leaders. While I do believe that Europe is more anti-semitic than the US in general I don’t think you made that point effectively at all.
If you want the Israeli point of view from a more reliable source try Yedioth Ahronoth or Ha’aretz (sp?).
You make a lot of great points, and I have found myself thinking on something you’ve had to say in the past, however I find myself skimming your posts with the thought that it’s gonna be mostly reactionary BS and I probably miss a lot of the content. In the end by posting the way you do, you only propogate ignorance, as we miss the good points that you do have sometimes and you post extremely biased opinions as cites, therefore if someone ends up believing you, they leave the debate MORE ignorant rather than less.
Erek
Thank you for the feedback and suggestions, **Erek **.
Here’s an interesting reported action by a European leader.
In the face of almost daily attacks against Jews in France, Chirac warned the Israeli envoy to control Jewish activists.
Reading the full article, Chirac’s comment makes some sense. It says that certain Jews have perpetrated attacks and are planning others. However, the article raises several questions:
– Has this Arab newspaper correctly represented the crimes and intent of these Jewish activists?
– Is it reasonable for Chirac to assume that these French Jews are controlled by Israel?
– Isn’t there some French person that French Jews would take advice from, rather than an Irsaeli envoy?
– Did Chirac make corresponding requests of the envoys from the various Arab countries?
– By making this request, it seems as if Chirac is holding Israel responsible for acts commited by French citizens? (Hmmm. Maybe it’s smart politics to use Israel as a scapegoat.)
[sub]That’s OK M. Chirac. We’re used to it.[/sub]
I can’t say for certain that this was an anti-Semitic action on Chirac’s part, but it sure looks odd…
Sorry to bump my own thread, but here’s a correspondent from Paris named Nelson Ascher who sees the French response to anti-Semitic attacks pretty much like my last post.
December,
So, acording to a journalist, an unidentified french official would have said that the attacks in France are related to the tensions in the middle-east. Since another unindentified french official would have put the blame on Israel for the situation in the middle east, it results logically according to you is that the Jews are to be blamed for the attacks.
Sorry but it makes absolutely no sense :
- The fact that ISRAEL is responsible for the situation in the middle-east isn’t the same that the JEWS are responsible for the same. Or are Jews and Israel synonyms in your book?
2)How do you add up these two statements? If Israel is to blame for the situation in the middle-east, why would it makes Israel responsible of everything which could happen anywhere and which would be related? I personnaly believe too that Israel is to blame. If I then write that, listening to the news about Israel while driving, I was distracted and crashed my car, would you “add it up” and assume I actually just said that the jews were to blame for my car accident?
3)Did an unindentified french official added up these two statements? No. But the journalist did.
4)Were even these two statements made by the same person? According to your quote, not even that…
5)At the very least, one would assume that we could know who are the people who made the statements, their level of responsability, their position…Bur we won’t know that, either…
So to sum up, two unknown persons holding unknown official positions in France have made two unrelated statements. Guess what? There has been Jewish people who have said recently that the attacks are related to the situation in the middle east. I also know Jews who thinks that Israel is to blame in the current situation.
So, following the logic in this quote, I can state that Jews thinks Jews are to blame for the attacks in France. Which proves that Jews are antisemitic. Isn’t this logic wonderful?
Now, let’s be a little more serious. Why, instead of quoting a journalist refering to the statements ( which aren’t actually antisemitic…though…I know…you think that anybody blaming Israel for anything is antisemitic) of UNINDENFIED officials, since your thread is about whether the european leaders are antisemitic, why don’t you quote these leaders? Why didn’t you quote some antisemitic statement, by, say, the french president or prime minister? Or even some statement which would prove that he don’t care about the attacks?
Of course, I know why you don’t. You would be hard pressed to find a speech which would prove your point. If you were actually quoting actual political leaders expressing their opinion about the attacks it would contradict your assertions. What the point in quoting a leader condemning the attacks since you want to prove that in fact they condone them? It’s of course much better to find some article using an idiotic “logic” , as long as it supports your statements.
Oh, and by the way, why are you refering only to the situation in France? Isn’t your post about “EUROPEAN” leaders?
Related to your other post : the only incident I’m aware of perpetrated by jews recently happened last sunday at the end of a pro-Israeli protest in paris. Young Jewish activists, armed with knives and base ball bats have been chasing down “muslim-looking” people (arabs and blacks, apparently) in the streets. A police officer has also been stabbed and seriously wounded, while he attempted to stop them. Some days ago, pacifists who were waiting at the airport a group coming back from palestine had also been attacked in the same way, but nobody was seriously harmed. Apparently, these young guys are member of the BETAR, which is quite well known for resorting to violence (but usually it’s against equally violent extreme-right activists, so everybody’s happy)
You know; **clairobscur ** The main reason French people aren’t very loved in the world, is because they can’t say “mea culpa”.
If every now and then a French could say: “Hey!, you’re right, we did wrong” - people wouldn’t be so disgusted by the French.
Is this enough evidence for ye, or shall I find some more?
And before you start; Yes. There’s a lot wrong with Holland and the Dutch people.
Fair question. It’s because I was faulting the French leadership for their lack of strong statements and their lack of strong actions. One cannot post examples of what’s missing.
That’s interesting. I wonder whether BETAR is actually associated with or controlled by the State of Israel. Otherwise it seems like an insult to Israel for Chirac to have assumed that the Israeli envoy could control these BETAR thugs. Also, it seems as though Chirac was equating Jews with Israel.
However, I withdraw these comments if BETAR is actually associated with Israel.
Fair question. It’s because I was faulting the French leadership for their lack of strong statements and their lack of strong actions. I cannot post examples of he absence of something.
That’s interesting. I wonder whether BETAR is actually associated with or controlled by the State of Israel. Otherwise it seems like an insult to Israel for Chirac to have assumed that the Israeli envoy could control these BETAR thugs They are French, not Israeli. Also, it seems as though Chirac was equating Jews with Israel.
However, I withdraw these comments if BETAR is actually associated with Israel.
Or to rephrase:
So, we’re dealing with elected politicians here? And we’re surprised that they’re basing policy on votes rather than what’s right?
Puh-leez :rolleyes:
Am I reading you correctly, stofsky? ** If French leaders are turning a blind eye to violence against Jews for purely political reasons, those leaders aren’t really anti-Semitic because* they don’t hate Jews themselves*.**
Maybe there’s some sort of logic to that position. But, the leaders’ motives don’t help French Jews who continue to be under attack.
So, we’re going on xenophobia and prejudice, now?
So, I should say “mea culpa”. Do you mean that I personnally attacked synagogues or do you mean that I’m actually an “antisemitic european leader”? What should I excuse myself for?
I would never say “we” except if I had personnally taken part in something. I’m not France, nor the french government, nor the french history.
Evidence for what??? Evidences that synagogues were attacked in France? Who denied that? In what way is this link related to the content of my post?
Thanks for posting something related to what I was talking about, next time you’ll respond to me.