I would not characterize such Jews as “disloyal” except for very few convicted spies (and, OK, practically everybody affiliated with AIPAC 
). Otherwise, these are not racist beliefs, they are facts all Americans know and I have never known any Jew to deny. It is a plain and obvious fact – the kind of plain and obvious fact WRT which even a polite request for poll results would be disingenuous – that many, perhaps most (certainly not all) American Jews – like all Christian Zionists, and practically all neocons Jewish or gentile – will defend and support Israel in any and all circumstances and are automatically sympathetic to the Israelis as against the Palestinians in practically all cases of conflict. It is also a fact that many, probably most, American Muslims and/or Arabs are hostile to Israel and sympathize with the Palestinians as against the Israelis, and it is by no means “racist” to point it out. In both cases, these transnational loyalties are perfectly understandable (not defensible, just understandable), but must be kept always in mind in any meaningful discussion of the relevant issues.
In a case like this, no, I don’t accept that. These Palestinian millitants can’t be compared to ordinary criminals like simple murders or bank robbers. They’re engaged in a millitary uprising/rebellion when they do something like this, and need to be treated in a millitary matter.
:dubious:
I am a Canadian Jew generally quite sympathetic to Israelis, but I would hardly say that I “…will defend and support Israel in any and all circumstances and [am] automatically sympathetic to the Israelis as against the Palestinians in practically all cases of conflict”.
Moreover, that discription fits few if any people I know.
I think you are doing a serious dis-service to the facts here. North American Jews, while very often sympathetic to Israelis as people, are also very often highly critical of particular Israeli government actions. Reactions in fact vary widely. Some Jews are uncritical supporters, some are even more critical, as they sometimes expect a higher degree of morality from the Israeli gov’t.
If you are comming from the point of view that you must accept your (in my opinion, quite mistaken) position as axiomatic, as to be “…kept always in mind in any meaningful discussion of the relevant issues”, I suggest you are making a rather glaring mistake in judgment; if directed at analysis of a particular poster based on this stereotype, I will not say it is “racist”, but I will say it is an inappropriate and mistaken use of a generality as an ad homenum attack on a person’s objectivity based on their ethnic background.
http://www.nysun.com/article/70067
Israel seems to be trying to block off gaza from itself, and is essentially telling Egypt “Do what you like, and don’t bother us.” I think Israel is getting VERY tired of the never-ending rocket attacks, and may soon start pushing Gaza’s border south. They’re also simply going to stop dealing with Gaza at all, it appears.
What this probably means is that Egypt will quickly decide it doesn’t want to deal with Hamas, either, and it will close the border by force or carefully watch evrything going in and out. WHile they don’t really are about people running out to buy cigs, they apparently despise people from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
As B’Tselem also points out, that would require treating them as POWs. Immune from prosecution.
If he is “obviously” not an actual associate of the Nazis, then we have a bright line distinction between his attitudes and those of Hitler. That puts your quote outside the bounds.
Now, you are going to argue (and have already initiated the first points in that sort of discussion) that his remarks are the same as those of classic anti-semites. However, you do not get to draw the inference that he is, himself, anti-semitic until such time as he steps over that line. There are a lot of people in this country who have expressed concern that a certain segment of the population is excessively pro-Israel. Compaints about the “Israeli lobby” in Congress have been lodged by people of all sorts of political persuasions over the years–including people who have supported Israel but who think that the U.S. has made such support some sort of shibboleth of political correctness. The fact that there are also people who speak of “dual loyalties” who are anti-semitic bigots does not allow you to assign that label to everyone who expresses concern about pro-Israeli interests any more than an opposition to Affirmative Action does not make one the legitimate target of cries of racism even though David Duke (for one example) and the guys in the White Nationalist Movement (for others) have long decried AA.
The earlier exchange in the Iran thread that appears to have set you off began with BrainGlutton asserting that in these discussion, you “seem to take the side of Israel no matter what.” No mention of Jews. No mention of dual loyalties. No implication that you were Jewish or that all Jews had dual loyalties. You simply grabbed that single observation about your personal posting activity and the state of Israel and imposed on BrainGlutton your own revulsion against what has been an actual slur by other people at other times. When you challenged him at that time, he only noted that he had discovered, from an association with a pro-Palestinian Jew who routinely suffered death threats for his activities, that some (undefined) number of Jews in the U.S. had a “blind spot” regarding Israel. No claims that “Jews” had a dual loyalty. I understand your reaction to a “dual loyalty” accusation, but when you go out of your way to infer it, then you are out of line. (And your extended riff on “nation” is just silly. BrainGlutton’s statement was pretty clearly a reference to a “nation state” even if neither you nor he could take the time or make the effort to clarify the issue.)
All the claims of “dual loyalty” (and the charges of anti-semitism that have arisen from the claim) originated from your keyboard. From that perspective, I see no reason to tolerate your cries of “anti-semitism” until such time as another poster makes an actual anti-semitic remark. Your inferences are simply not sufficient to launch accusations against other posters. That was a familiar tactic of december and it was not appropriate when he engaged in that behavior, either. There is genuine anti-semitism in the world and it has even been posted on this board, but in this case (and the Iran thread that preceded it), you have gone out of your way to draw conclusions unsupported by the actual posts of your opponents.
[ /Moderating ]
Having said that, I will note that the following comes closer to the sort of issue you wished to attack:
Note, however, that all he really stated was that people from the same cultural backgrounds tend to have a knee-jerk defense of people with the same cultural backgrounds. There was no claim that this was a “Jewish” characteristic. (I think he overstates his claim, but that could be discussed separately.) I will also note that (much of) the Irish-American community supported terrorism in Northern Ireland for a very long time, that the initial response to WWI was a rise of, among other groups, many Deutschesbunden in German immigrant communities in the U.S., that Southern Florida has a huge component of people with a rather fixed view of U.S.-Cuban relations.
Taking all that into consideration, your leap to an anti-semitic position that is not expressly conveyed is making a political observation into a personal one.
Just heard – again on Democracy Now! – that one-fifth of the population of Gaza has crossed the border into Egypt since the wall was blown up.
I don’t think this is true. B’Tselem is trying to use relatively neutral language to draw a distinction between killings made by non-uniformed combatants, and those made by uniformed combatants – the IDF and the PA security forces. B’Tselem uses the term “civilian” equally for Israeli and Palestinian militants – as in this example from FinnAgain’s cite (bolding mine): “'Ata 'Abd al-Hai, age 20, killed by gunfire from an ambush by Israeli civilians while riding a truck, north of the settlement of Kochav HaShahar in Ramallah and Al Bira District, The West Bank.” Would you or FinnAgain have this read “killed by gunfire from an ambush by Israeli terrorists”?
In any case, it’s a petty quibble about terminology, which would equate in very few minds to B’Tselem being “a pack of liars.” B’Tselem in fact is a human-rights organization that is well respected both in Israel and worldwide. They have credibility here; CAMERA doesn’t. And you can read a specific rebuttal to the charge about the use of the word “civilians” here.
And further, this whole thing about B’Tselem is a bit of a sideshow. I’m still waiting for a convincing rebuttal of the paragrah I quoted from B’Tselem – a fact-based rebuttal, that is.
Not surprising, given that they are under siege.
Partition, says I.
I can’t speak for him, but I don’t see a problem with that. Or, if you want to use the word “millitants”, that works too.
Here is an op-ed piece about the current situation that pretty much mirrors my thinking on the whole situation.
I know I should respond to this, but you have yet more factual inaccuracies, and we’re supposed to be fighting ignorance here, not spreading it.
Whack-a-mole is in full swing, as most of your argument have already been answered once, if not several times.
On the subject of Ata 'Abd al-Hai, no shit they should’ve used different terminology than “civilians”. They’re not above labeling people “militants”, when it suits their agenda. Surely differentiating between criminals engaged in murder, and civilians engaged in legitimate self defense, shouldn’t be too hard, eh? But it suits their drive for a fallacious smoral equivalence. If all Israelis, from those who spring traps from ambush and kill Palestinian civilians to those who kill gunmen engaged in firing on a Bat Mitzvah, are to be given the same adjectival description, then it doesn’t mean all that much. If that same adjectival description then applies not only to Israelis engaged in self defense or aggression, but also to Palestinian bombers and gunmen, then the adjective loses all meaning.
If they were really concerned with accuracy, they could’ve even had several categories “Palestinian militants/terrorists killed, in the course of committing or attempting murder, by Israeli civilians.” and an entirely separate list “Palestinian civilians murdered by Israeli militants/terrorists.”
But they didn’t. And to think that it “just happened” that they didn’t differentiate stretches credulity past the breaking point.
Again, as I’m sure isn’t lost on you, B’Tselem knows full well what impact a news headline that says “X number of Palestinian civilians were killed by Israelis” reads. Even a statement that read “X number of Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli civilians” makes the Israeli civilians seem like bloodthirsty thugs, especially if it’s left out that they Palestinian “civilians” who were killed, were killed in the midst of shooting unarmed civilians. B’Tselem could, as they have done elsewhere, used words like “militants”, but they choose not to. “X number of Palestinian militants, in the course of committing murder, were killed by Israelis.” doesn’t quite advance their agenda the same way. They know full well that their yearly figures of Palestinian “civilians” killed by Israel are a veritable media event, and are wildly reported. They know that claims of Palestinian “civilian” deaths look very bad for Israel, and lead to numerous op-eds, articles, and screeds that cast Israel as a warmongering colonialist, or what have you.
I’m sure that’s just a lucky coincidence. Of course. Of course.
And as already pointed out several times, and ignored you by you several times, B’Tselem’s decision to call bombers and gunmen “civlians” came years before the Court’s ruling. As such, it should be obvious to anybody paying attention, their act of justifying such a practice with the Court’s ruling is anachronistic, self-serving, and deceptive.
Especially since B’tselem has no problem, at all, with continuing to identify some people as militants or security forces. As long as it suits their narrative.
And while I’m pointing out double standards, with all of B’Tselem’s proven dishonesty, rationalizations and deception, you still believe their story about Ata 'Abd al-Hai, with nary a single other confirming cite. Interesting, aint it?
Let’s see, is that truth, or is it bullshit?
Which has already been responded to. Maybe you don’t notice it because the word “CAMERA” wasn’t there.
Here, let me highlight, again, how you have put your faith in a pack of liars with a policital agenda.
"B’Tselem no longer classifies Palestinians into civilians and security forces simply because all Palestinians are civilians. "
Is that true, do they really no longer classify Palestinians as civilians or security forces? Really? Or do they classify them, while simply putting them under the bland title of “Palestinians killed by Palestinians”??
What a surprise, they really do classify Palestinians as members of security forces or militants.
What utter hogwash. And you’ve just so happened to have missed the numerous rebuttals which were based on facts and cites, yet again, just a few posts up from your denial of something.
B’Tselem uses the Court’s verdict to justify calling bombers and gunmen “civilians” instead of “militants”, uses that verdict anachronistically and selectively while still referring to some Palestinians as “militants” and identify them as belonging to the Hamas’ military forces, when they kill other Palestinians, and then B’Tselem opportunistically ignores the fact that the very same verdict specifically says that the IDF can legally kill Palestinian terrorists, based on circumstances.
B’Tselem says “Palestinian civilians who engage in hostilities do so illegally and it is Israel’s responsibility to arrest and bring them to justice.”
Again, is that true, does the Court’s verdict support any such thing, or are they lying? And in lying, are they deliberately ignoring the very Court ruling they claim to be basing their stance on?
What do you know, they were lying.
Who’d a thunk it?
That you view them as being credible, at all, when faced with such a clear and obvious level of deliberate deceit on their part, that’s your deal. It’s obvious that you very much want B’Tselem to be honest and accurate. But wanting it doesn’t make it so.
But don’t worry, this isn’t B’Tselem cynically applying a Court ruling anachronistically, with bias and only in certain circumstances, and then deliberately ignoring it when it doesn’t suit their political agenda.
In fact, I’m sure that CAMERA is somehow to blame!! :eek:
Actually, I think the border exists because Egypt has no interest whatsoever in annexing the Gaza Strip. Can’t say as I blame 'em.
:rolleyes: Erm, yeah, good luck with that.
It isn’t, actually. B’Tselem is widely considered to be credible even within official Israel. Prove to me that they’re not, except by a fringe with an ax to grind. Just because you have a pettifogging quibble about their terminology does not indict them as a “pack of liars” in my mind, and I doubt in anybody else’s. The British Foreign Office, the European Commission, the Swiss Foreign Affairs Office, and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry would hardly give them funding if they were a pack of liars with no credibility.
BTW, FinnAgain, you need to learn to use the underlining function more selectively. It’s like the bold and italics functions – to be used for emphasis. There’s no point in underlining an entire post or everything inside a quote box.
A joint report by eight human-rights agencies says the humanitarian situation in Gaza is worse now than at any time since 1967.