Ignorance on this board

The BBQ Pit
1

Is sterotyping not ignorant? I have heard arguments that:

  1. Palestinians are terrorists.

  2. The dead Palestinians were “asking for it”.

  3. Palestinian parents are “fanatics”.

  4. The Palestinian parents are not only responsible if their child dies by an Israeli bullet, but they sent them out to be shot.

  5. A quote, when I said “Palestinians are human like us” someone named “SAILOR” had replied “Speak for yourself,for they are not like me. I am no such fanatic. Our culture is not fanatical like theirs”

I mean is this not a case of discrimination and racism going on. Are we not dehumanizing the Palestinian people, please tell me that this is wrong. Please help regain my faith in this board.

Here is the thread address:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=102455

2

Hey, in order to fight ignorance, first you have to find some. They come here, we help 'em out.

3

efrem, while I agree that painting any group with teh same brush leads to harmful stereotyping, there is, unfourtunately, a grain of truth to this.

I do know a Palestinian personally, and the mindset that was discussed is, indeed, present.

4

Well, you’re right, efrem.

However, just to keep things in perspective, Americans don’t throw a street dance when innocent civilians are murdered over there. And I’m sure Americans don’t refer to the Palistinians as “the great Satan.”

5

Of course not. Everyone knows that The Great Satan is Bill Gates

6

This is very similar to the process that happened on these boards when all that anger against the Afghani people erupted a little while ago (it was senseless back then and it’s senseless now). In both cases we are seeing the depths of ignorance, bigotry, and propaganda dressed up in the trappings of argument by biased ignoramuses foaming at the mouth. I have these words for those who think you have all the answers: STOP FOAMING, START THINKING.

The situation is not as simple as your offensive and bigoted arguments are presenting it. Human conflicts rarely, if ever, are that simple.

No side in this conflict consists of saints, and both sides have to account for a lot. I am disgusted by the ignorance of those who wander along and claim things like “Israel is 100% right”, or those who respond to the claim that “Palestinians are human too” with “Speak for yourself,for they are not like me”.

You are ignorant and categorical morons who refuse to see the bigger picture of human tragedy. Not merely Palestinian, not merely Israeli, but human. If attitudes expressed on these boards by these loudmouths are any indication, this conflict is set to last a long time.

7

So do I, several in fact. And it isn’t present. What does that tell us apart from that generalisations aren’t constructive ?

8

Well, given the events of the last months in Israel, I think it’s safe to say that, yes, some Palestinians are terrorists. Nobody is saying that all Palestinians are terrorists.

Maybe you have a point here. Perhaps the suicide bombers were not asking for it. Maybe they were just supposed to be giving it (but, alas, their nail bombs unkindly tore them open too).

Let’s see. Their kid blows up twenty teenagers, and himself, and then they smile as they talk about him and his deed with pride. Yeah, I’d call that fanaticism.

Well, if you had kids would you allow them out to participate in “protests” which are identical to those where others’ kids have been shot? Would you send them to a place where the expectation is of violence? No. No, matter how much you hated the Israelis you’d never allow your kids to get close. Unless, of course, you’re a fanatic. So maybe this should be with point #3 above.

Listen, no generalization about people, or about a people, is ever true. But there’s no way you can tell me that there haven’t been a lot of Palestinian terrorist acts, that at lease some Palestinian parents haven’t considered their suicide bomber sons as great martyrs to be admired, and that at least some Palestinian parents have done a piss-poor job of keeping their kids out of harms way.

9

Context, context, context. Everything has to be taken in context. If you were scoping the threads right after 9/11, you probably noticed a lot of posters threatening horrible death to the party responsible. Much of it was just ordinary venting, and it served a purpose, too. Some people let it bother them anyway, but I think cooler heads kept it from complete meltdown. It might be the same with the your question. OF COURSE not all Palestinians are [fill in the blank]. It’s just easier to rant when you generalize. Perhaps if you ask for a clarification, that’d answer the question.

Generally, unless someone is being flagrantly noxious, I’d give him the benefit of the doubt.

10

But that doesn’t seem to be stopping you, Karl.

11

NaSultainne, while I agree with you to an extent, venting does not belong in Great Debates. GD is a place for informed debates; not venting, not displaced anger, not even useless feel-good chit-chat. It is offensive to see GD submerged by manure every few weeks simply because a significant number of posters lack the intellectual discipline to make posts that are free of bigotry, incitement, bullshit, etc.

And we have seen very high levels of noxiousness recently, which are not excusable in a debate. It’s typically posters responding aggressively and with undue accusations when their bigoted points of view are challenged (plenty of examples in the thread posted by Efrem).

What really gets me is that many people come to these boards for information, and are then regaled with the majority expressed opinions of bigots, the uninformed, or the plain angry and therefore senseless. That just makes the ignorance around here worse.

12

Well, I think Efraim misinterpreted my position (and that of some other posters) in the other thread. No one in that other thread said that Palestinians were inhuman or that all Palestinians were terrorists. That is, of course, bigotry of the worst degree. I did assert, as did many others, that many of those Palestinians who died recently did so because they were engaged in terrorist acts or other violence against Israeli citizens and soldiers, and also that it is not Israeli policy to kill innocent civilians. It has been the policy, however, of some Palestinian groups to engage in violence against the State of Israel and her people, and it is those groups, who of course do not make up all Palestinians, that the Israelis are fighting against.

Andros, Karl is not generalizing in his post. He’s referring to that subset of Palestinians who engage in violent acts against Israel.

13

Palestinians are not terrorists. They just have bad PR.

14

Arghhhh…this is the same shit, different thread.

If you are American, you define terrorism according to who is “terrifying” you or your allies (in this case, Israel, who receive the largest amount of money given to any country in the world from the US).

I am sure that you’ve heard of State-sponsored terrorism. Please, oh, please, tell me, why is what Israel does not considered state-sponsored terrorism? Please read the following article for reference. It is long, I know, but it makes the point eloquently.

from zmag.org

ISRAEL’S APPROVED ETHNIC CLEANSING
PART 1, MAKING “FACTS ON THE GROUND”

Edward S. Herman

Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has always presented a moral problem to the West, as that treatment has violated every law and moral standard on the books. Some 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in 1948-1949, and since then scores of thousands more have been pushed out by force, their houses demolished or taken over by Israeli Jews (not Israeli Arabs). Under the supposed “peace process” following the signing of the Oslo Agreement in September 1993, a UN Special Report of November 13, 2000, says that “In the past seven years…Israel’s confiscation of Palestinian land and construction of settlements and bypass roads for Jewish settlers has accelerated dramatically in breach of Security Council Resolution 242 and of provisions of the Oslo agreements requiring both parties to respect ‘the territorial integrity and unity of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.’ Since 1993 the settler population in the West Bank and Gaza has doubled to 200,000 and increased to 170,000 in East Jerusalem.” The report also describes and condemns the demolitions of Palestinian houses, the diversion of water to Israeli cities and settlements, the policy of closures that has damaged Palestinian social and economic life, and the “widespread violation of their [Palestinian] economic, social and cultural rights” both within Israel and in the occupied territories. It also assails Israel’s use of excessive force against Palestinians and hundreds of Intifada killings, “most of them unarmed demonstrators.[b/]”

(bolding mine)

I am not singling out Israel, by the way. There are countless other examples of state-sponsored terrorism, I am merely choosing Israel/Palestine here because that is what is discussed in the OP.

15

Efrem, after reading your thread and trying to comprehend your logic with agonizing futility, I still fail to understand why you either A) take someone’s post out of context and then respond to your new fantasy post, or B) dismiss someone’s post entirely because you either don’t understand the point of the post, or you’re willingly ignoring the point?

Oh, and by the way, how about citing stuff every once in a while? So far you’ve been making all sorts of claims in that thread, but you haven’t included a single cite to support your position! You’ve relied entirely on rhetoric (and straw men), and rhetoric (or straw men) just doesn’t cut it.

16

not GD.

17

And just to keep things in perspective, Palestinians don’t snicker over downloaded pictures of innocent Iraqi children killed in the Gulf War.

18

Actually, this is true. It is a fair criticism of the Palestinian government that they fail to promote their cause through the western media. Instead, only the acts of terrorists make headlines, not the underlying concerns of peaceful Palestinians.

But of course, one might argue, why should they need to impress the western world? They are not westerners.

And of course, they do not have as much money as Israel, which spends millions of dollars on international PR:

I have also given this quote before, but here it is again.
“More than 600 Palestinians and 170 Israelis have been killed in the violence of the last 12 months.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1568000/1568463.stm

19

So are you saying that Americans snicker over pictures of dead Iraqi children? Where the fuck did that come from? Are you really serious or are you just a fucking idiot?

20

Upon re-reading…you obviously meant that Israelis snickered at pictures of dead Iraqi children. Again though, where the fuck did that come from?