# Fascist anti-Israel demonstrators **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 12, 2009, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895 "2009-01-12T09:59:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/21 "2009-01-12T19:05:00Z")
There have been 800 arrests in Israel of anti war protesters. There have been anti Israel attack demonstrations all over the world. So the Nazis may be goofy but they have a legitimate complaint. Many peaceful demonstrations have been held. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/22 "2009-01-12T19:12:59Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Anyway, groups always tend toward the idiotic, because once in a group, the only way to stand out is to be more outrageous then your fellow group-slugs. One guy sarcastically says something about Nazis, then another jokingly gives a salute, then another earnestly gives a salute, then it’s Sieg Heil all over the place with everybody trying to outdo his buddy. And before you know it, six million Jews are dead! ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/23 "2009-01-12T20:11:18Z")
Hmm. Too soon? ---
**Author:** ![WF\_Tomba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/24 "2009-01-12T20:54:12Z")
Down with Israel! Down with Palestine! Stop the human race’s illegal occupation of the West Bank! I am only half kidding! ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/25 "2009-01-12T23:45:03Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > Is it OK for me to be pro-Jew but anti-Zionist? Should I be labelled anti-semitic if some of my best friends are Jews, but I condemn the actions of the Israeli military in their actions in Gaza? Is there any way of finding a middle ground? > > :dubious: Is it OK for me to be pro-French but anti-France? I don’t think Frenchmen should be rounded up and put into concentration camps, mind you, I just don’t think they should be allowed to have their own country to live in. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/26 "2009-01-13T00:30:08Z")
[Mahatma Gandhi](http://www.alshindagah.com/jan2001/9a.html) Excerpt: > [@](#): > > …my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and in the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after their return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?.. Anti-Semite worthy of a good beating by the tough-as-nails **Rune** were he alive today… ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/27 "2009-01-13T00:46:04Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > [Mahatma Gandhi](http://www.alshindagah.com/jan2001/9a.html) > > Anti-Semite worthy of a good beating by the tough-as-nails **Rune** were he alive today… Ironic, really, because Gandhi was shot to death for being too inclusive for the tastes of Hindu hardliners (and for allowing the Muslims to “steal” Pakistan, the formation of which he strongly opposed anyway; he reflected on his post-independence marginalization with the words, “everybody is eager to garland my picture, but nobody wants to listen to my advice.” His anti-Zionism beliefs were based on his disgust over Partition- he thought Hindus and Muslims and everyone else should learn to live together, instead of segregating themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/28 "2009-01-13T01:43:55Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Anti-Semite worthy of a good beating by the tough-as-nails **Rune** were he alive today… Y’know, Red, just because Gandhi didn’t want to exterminate all the Jews doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who really do want to exterminate all the Jews. Can we agree that anyone who advocates killing all the Jews is an anti-Semite? Or is that too hasty? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/29 "2009-01-13T01:57:59Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Can we agree that anyone who advocates killing all the Jews is an anti-Semite? Or is that too hasty? Well, if the person advocates killing _everybody_, anti-Semite is a bit restrictive. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/30 "2009-01-13T05:57:43Z")
Gandhi also said that European Jews should have walked willingly into the gas chambers. Fuck Gandhi. ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/31 "2009-01-13T06:12:44Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Gandhi also said that European Jews should have walked willingly into the gas chambers. Fuck Gandhi. Alessan, Please provide a cite for this . ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/32 "2009-01-13T06:19:27Z")
Missed edit window … Is the link same as in post 26 ?? I haven’t read the link yet . ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/33 "2009-01-13T06:38:18Z")
> [@indian](#): > > Missed edit window .. > > Is the link same as in post 26 ?? I haven’t read the link yet . It’s not stated as bluntly as Alessan claims, but the gist of it is Gandhi said the Jews should’ve stayed in Germany and tolerated the suffering, rather than strike out on their own, because the Jews that survive will have won some kind of moral victory, or something. I guess that’s fine when a population is so vast that a mere six million deaths can be absorbed without the destruction of the culture, and when being oppressed by people who won’t resort to systemic and energetic elimination. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/34 "2009-01-13T06:49:00Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Is it OK for me to be pro-French but anti-France? I don’t think Frenchmen should be rounded up and put into concentration camps, mind you, I just don’t think they should be allowed to have their own country to live in. Bad analogy for at least two reasons. \*Jewish \*and \*Israeli \*are separate concepts (whereas France and French are obviously much more tied together), so anti-Israeli =/= anti-Jew. Also, one could be in favor of recognizing a Jewish state within the pre-1967 borders but opposed to Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Both of these are positions to take in opposition to some aspect of Israeli policy, but do not necessarily constitute anti-semitism. In fact, I think a much stronger case can be made that America’s strong pro-Israeli stance is racist. I think Americans think of Israelis as quasi-Europeans (since for most Americans, the Holocaust (an obviously European event) is the main justification for Israel, and since most Americans know American Jews). All this talk about “we support Israel because they are like us 'cuz they have a a democracy and stuff” is a smokescreen. We like them because they are not Arabs. I don’t see Americans crying in their beer over the fragile state of Lebanon’s quasi-democracy, or over the fate of Iran’s democracy at our hands. This position is \*at least \*as plausible as the canard that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/35 "2009-01-13T07:01:00Z")
> [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](#): > > In fact, I think a much stronger case can be made that America’s strong pro-Israeli stance is racist. I think Americans think of Israelis as quasi-Europeans (since for most Americans, the Holocaust (an obviously European event) is the main justification for Israel, and since most Americans know American Jews). All this talk about “we support Israel because they are like us 'cuz they have a a democracy and stuff” is a smokescreen. We like them because they are not Arabs. I don’t see Americans crying in their beer over the fragile state of Lebanon’s quasi-democracy, or over the fate of Iran’s democracy at our hands. This position is \*at least \*as plausible as the canard that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic. You may have something, but even if true, it’s not likely to change as long as “Terrorist = Arab” to the Americans, and it’s not a wholly unreasonable attitude in light of the last thirty years. I guess if North Koreans begin hijacking planes and kept at it intermittently over the next few decades, the formula would change. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/36 "2009-01-13T07:05:35Z")
[http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004247.html](http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004247.html) Is a cite that contains Ghandi’s quotes on the subject. He was not in sympathy with the Nazis, but rather with the Jews, saying that they should have followed his own methods. He was not in favor of Zionism. Ghandi was mistaken in thinking that his methods would have worked with the Nazis in my opinion and that of others. It did work in Ghandi’s case. That did not obligate Jews or anyone else to give it a try. The only reason it worked was because Ghandi’s opponents were far more British than they were Nazi. The world has stood by many times while there has been genocide and done nothing. If Nazi Germany had controlled India, Ghandi would not have been successful in his independence bid. Ghandi’s efforts and methods are laudable because he correctly identified his own opponents strengths as human beings. As for “fuck Ghandi” for his naivete? Sorry, I don’t buy it. Six million Jews did pretty much what Ghandi would have asked them to do had he known about the Holocaust during the war. Like good citizens, most marched right into the showers and worked themselves to death at command. As painful as this is to think about, I cannot condemn them for not fighting back more often. I cannot condemn those who worked the crematoriums themselves to avoid being killed as long as possible. I cannot condemn those who rose up in the Ghetto in hopeless defiance, and being born afterwards, I cannot mourn distant cousins I never knew, or who weren’t and will never be born. Ghandi did what he set out to do, free the people of the Indian sub-continent from British rule and show people all over the world how to act in that situation, achieving freedom with so much less bloodshed. He did this despite many, many obstacles, including holding Hindu and Muslim hatreds in check. He did it consistently offering the same advice. Advice which would not have been effective for European Jews had he given it before the war, which we know because it is largely what they did. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/37 "2009-01-13T07:13:55Z")
> [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](#): > > Bad analogy for at least two reasons. \*Jewish \*and \*Israeli \*are separate concepts (whereas France and French are obviously much more tied together), so anti-Israeli =/= anti-Jew. Also, one could be in favor of recognizing a Jewish state within the pre-1967 borders but opposed to Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Both of these are positions to take in opposition to some aspect of Israeli policy, but do not necessarily constitute anti-semitism. > > In fact, I think a much stronger case can be made that America’s strong pro-Israeli stance is racist. I think Americans think of Israelis as quasi-Europeans (since for most Americans, the Holocaust (an obviously European event) is the main justification for Israel, and since most Americans know American Jews). All this talk about “we support Israel because they are like us 'cuz they have a a democracy and stuff” is a smokescreen. We like them because they are not Arabs. I don’t see Americans crying in their beer over the fragile state of Lebanon’s quasi-democracy, or over the fate of Iran’s democracy at our hands. This position is \*at least \*as plausible as the canard that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic. I agree that this is a bad analogy. Jews and Israel are not co-extensive. I’ll seek protection here in North America if someone decides my Jewish ancestors require my death. I won’t fight over holy dirt. I’ll protect my friends, family and neighbors with laws and good will with nearby countries. As many Jews in American have made this decision as Jews in Israel. And as of today, Israel has decided that Arab-Israeli citizens may not form political parties on the basis of race. [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090112/ap\_on\_re\_mi\_ea/ml\_israel\_arabs\_1](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090112/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_arabs_1) ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/38 "2009-01-13T07:18:15Z")
> [@indian](#): > > Alessan, Please provide a cite for this . From [here](http://blog.prospectblogs.com/2008/01/30/gandhi-60-years-on/): > [@](#): > > As an inspiration and a symbol, Gandhi has no peer in the 20th century; as a practical politician, he was a despair to his colleagues in the Indian national movement. His insistence on non-violence grew more extreme as he aged: during the war, he recommended to the British that they should “invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions.” And in an interview given after the war, he went so far as to say that “the Jews [in Europe] should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.” To attempt to overthrow tyranny, or even to oppose genocide, became for Gandhi an act almost as bad as tyranny or genocide itself—a view which finds an echo today in those who oppose any action of intervention to stop massacres. Gandhi was a great man, and non-violence was exactly the right strategy for his place and time, but like most idealists he tended to think that his ideology could be replicated elsewhere, without taking different cultures and different circumstances into consideration. In other words, he had a very effective hammer, so everything started to look like a nail. It’s interesting how India and Israel, two countries founded within a year of each other, in some ways mirrored each other - in the sense that they were exact opposites. The Indians, a huge, ancient people with a history of violence, found redemption through pacifism; while the Jews, a small, ancient people with a history of non-violence, found redemption through warfare. It’s a funny world. ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/39 "2009-01-13T07:59:57Z")
\*The Indians, a huge, ancient people with a \*\*history of violence \*\*\* Alessan, will you explain the history of violence part ? I am curious . There was no India identity prior to 20th century . It was a lot of small kingdoms held together by desire to be free from british rule in 19th and early 20th century. The small kingdoms did battle violently once in a while, but it does not mean India was a violent nation. I think all nations/kingdoms fought violent battlles in ancient times. Or do you mean faith based violence ?? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895/40 "2009-01-13T08:07:06Z")
Perhaps I took my search for symmetry a bit too far. Still, the inhabitants of India, while no more violent than most nations, were also no less violent - they fought among themselves for millenia, as well as against the Moghuls, the Afghans, the British and others. It was by rejecting this violence that they managed to secure their freedom. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fascist-anti-israel-demonstrators/480895.md?page=3)