You don’t even remember Begin in the '70s?! What kind of historical memory have you guys got over there?!
Has he ever been assaulted before, since 1945? Perhaps the possibility never occurred to him.
No, actually.
Here’s an amusing bit from the nutjob’s Ziopedia article:
So this guy admits to stalking a 78 year old holocaust survivor for weeks, then assaulting him in an elevator, and when the victims yells for help, HE’S the lunatic?
I’m just glad Wiesel wasn’t hurt. If they catch “Eric Hunter,” I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some mental health issues. Sometimes an insanity defense is valid. This guy really doesn’t seem to be operating in the same reality as everybody else.
Hasn’t he received many death threats over the years? I could have sworn…
Beating up a frail 78 year old man. Way to prove your manhood, scumball. :mad:
Never underestimate the power of someone who’s been through WW II. A few years ago, a couple of young punks thought that it’d be a real hoot to mug a WW II vet. He proceeded to beat the shit out of them and when the police showed up, the punks were practically begging to be hauled off to jail. When a reporter asked the vet if he was scared, his response was, “Nah. If I wasn’t scared of the Nazi’s, why should I be scared of a couple of dumbasses?” (Paraphrased from memory, but the gist is right.)
I’ve got an uncle who was an aide to MacArthur in WW II. My uncle had a stroke a few years back and doesn’t get around very well. I had to help him get down some steps and even though he’s 88 years old, he had a grip like iron. I don’t doubt that if he were attacked, he’d go down like a lion. Young guys just try to pummel their opponents into submission, old guys don’t have time for that and try to bring their opponent down as quickly as possible.
Elie’s a man with a mission, and that is a powerful incentive to want to stay alive.
The 70’s were a long time ago, and Begin wasn’t a native-born Israeli.
I had more or less the same response to this as Diogenes the Cynic. So, you pull an old guy out of a lift and he reacts like he’s being …well, assaulted by a crazy person. You think that this makes him a nutter and publicly say so? I have to feel a little bit sorry for him, because he’s so, so crazy. It hurts to be this near him.
Wow, so anti-Semitism isn’t that common in Israel? Whouda’ thunk it? :rolleyes:
Uh, yeah?
My point being, since most Israeli Jews have little to no personal experience with anti-semitism, their perception of it is profoundly different from that of their foreign brethren.
I just returned from a (Taglit 
) trip to Israel, and, I’d have to agree with **Alessan ** (this is an American’s perspective on Israelis here). The Israelis I met were interested in stories of modern anti-semitism, since they had trouble imagining it themselves. OTOH, when one of them (an IDF guy working in intelligence, of all people) heard that my GF is Muslim, he refused to believe it.
In another, more on-topic vein, in this story is a Holocaust-denying strategy of which I’ve never heard. Weisel’s “Night” is ***not *** non-fiction. It’s mostly from his personal experiences, but partly from his interviews of other survivors. Libraries often categorize the book with “Fiction.” But, I’ve never heard this categorization used to deny the Holocaust. That’s just retarded. And even that is unfair to retarded people.
Aren’t suicide bombers in Israel generally anti-semites?
No, they just hate us.
The thing about anti-semitism is that it’s inexplicable - it has no logical basis. What Palestinians feel towards us is perfectly normal hatered of the kind you usually see between nations that have been at war for a very long time (which is (often much stronger in the side that sees itself as losing). We certainly don’t condone it, but we see where it’s coming from.
Anti-semitism, OTOH, makes no fucking sense.
Okay, help me.
Anti-semitism is hatred of Jews with no logical basis? I thought it was based on perceived evil thoughts and deeds by Jews, going way back.
Are we talking about the same thing, Alessan? I really do want to figure this out.
Is it like the differences between bigotry and racism?
How should I put this? Unlike every other group of people who’ve hated Jews over the past two thousand years, the Palestinians are the first to have actual grievences. No one is going to deny that Arabs have been hurt by Jews. That doesn’t make their hatred justified, but it certainly makes it understandable.
It’s not the difference between bigotry and racism, it’s the difference between bigotry and tribal warfare.