I forgot to put this in my earlier post. A spoilerbox is used for those who want to avoid witnessing.
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[spoiler]What in the hell is wrong with these people? Is it not written ‘Just as we are commanded to honor our mother and father, so must parents honor their children’? Do we not remember our persecutions under the pharoahs each Passover? Do we not remember how we escaped persecution each Purim? Do we not remember how Antiochus defiled the Temple, outlawed the Talmud and attempted to destroy us each Hannukah? If you think gays are sick, then are you not commanded to treat them with love that you might cure them? Where in the Talmud does it say to hate our brothers and our sisters, our sons and our daughters?
How, in what we are taught is the holiest city in the world, can Jews be so deaf to G-d’s voice? We are all as He made us. You accept that He made us in many colors, shapes, and sizes. Why will you not accept that He made some of His children gay? Accept them as they are. Treat them with compassion. That is the will of G-d.[/spoiler]
Strictly speaking matt, slime fro, er, I mean sly frog first got in a ‘subtle’ comparison between the Israelis and the Nazis. Oh-so-cute. And then of course [d]Dave** responded somewhat bitterly, but before advocating gunning down civies, slime frog yet again attempted to equate Israelis with Nazis.
Now, Dave was wrong. Civilians are not appropriate targets of war. But by the same token, it is infuriating to see idiots like slime frog compare the Israelis to the Nazis, especially when it was the Arab states/Palestinians who have, on several occasions, attempted genocide. Dave’s frustration, if I may put words into his mouth, is probably partially due to the fact that even during peace time, upwards of 80% of the Palestinian populace supports suicide attacks targeting Israeli civilians within the green line. Call it a slow-burning genocide, if you will. And then, of course, a great many of the palesitnian civilians give aid and comfort to groups like Hamas.
So yes, Dave went over the line, and should probably apologize, but after a while of seeing people try to commit genocide and idiots like slime frog championing them while trying to make their victims out to be Nazis… well… it gets on one’s nerves, ya know?
Actually, that’s exactly who lives in the occupied territories. Appalling ignorance of history is easily cured. Read a book sometime.
The Palestinians have a perfectly good country of their own. It’s called Jordan. The Palestinian civilians in question are being held hostage by their own leadership and the leadership of other Islamic nations in the area as a pawn in a political game whose goal is the extermination of Israel.
Finn, once again, feel free to start swearing, sweating profusely, and saying incredibly valuable things like, “You’re an idiot.” It worked so well last time; it shows your incredible intellectual superiority, I get it.
That being said, the point is not to compare the Israelis to the Nazis. The point is my genuine surprise that, if one expected any people to remember the lessons of tolerance and civility to one’s fellow man, I would expect it to be the Israelis. I understand the Palestinian issue is a grey area. I was a bit surprised at violence in the streets against gays.
Again, I guess I just figured that with the histories and the lessons passed down from the past, very few, if any, Israelis would attack people because they belong to a certain group.
Where the hell did you get that from? The point of the anecdote was to suggest (as I mention above), how sad it is that any Israeli, of anyone on the face the earth, would forget the lessons of the past.
Has nothing to do with showing that Israelis are evil; has everything to do with showing that no matter what people say, human nature is what it is, and hate is hate. Sucks when my group is persecuted, but I get to do it to them because they really are bad.
Pretty clear that the Israelis should:
Move “undeseriables into some sort of work camps.”
I have no idea why I got the idea that you were talking about the Israelis and some action reminiscent of putting people into work camps. I get so confused sometimes, you see.
Oh, you weren’t trying to draw a parallel between events. Okay.
Which is of course why you invoked the image of an IDF soldier and him wishing a final solution upon the Palestinians. I am sorry I mistook your words. My bad.
So, according to you, Palestinians came from Transjordan and somehow settled in what is now the occupied territories? Maybe that’s why they’re called “occupied”?
May I know when this happened?
Their country is Jordan, according to you. So, once again : does it mean that according to you the Palestinians ought to be deported?
Probably because these people were Israelis, and were taking barbaric actions against people because of a group they belong to. So see, there’s some irony there.
Of course I was. It was the purpose of drawing the parallel it that you confused. Here’s a hint. It wasn’t to say, “The state of Israel is just like Nazi Germany,” or “Israelis are Nazis.”
Well, I was actually intending to invoke the image of an Israeli, not an IDF soldier in particular. He also happens to be male, which is not relevant to this, and may have brown hair, which is also not relevant. In fact, there are many things about him that are probably irrelevant to the point.
So that being said, the point is this. Clearly the Israelis should not be specially punished because they happen to have some jerks in their midst. I simply find it sad that a subset of a group of a people who went through the Holocaust apparently did not take a fundamental lesson from it. One would think if that were in your history, you would be less likely to cause some of the same abuses on others. In particular, as homosexuals were murdered by the Nazis, you would think that the parallels would be pretty obvious when you then decide to abuse the same group yourself.
For those of us that see the Israelis as the good guys (most of the time), we expect them to act a little better than those in Riyadh or Tehran or Amman or Khartoum. Of course, the shit-flingers and the stabber are not representative of all Israelis, but it’s sad that they were there at all.
We have good old Fred Phelps doing the same, and much worse, not only at Gay Pride festivals and parades, but at funerals of people who have died of AIDS.
Jerusalem has the right to have their nutcases as well, and as it was pointed out, Tel Aviv seemed to have had a fine parade with the mayor in attendance. I think it is like our Red and Blue states. Location, location, location. I think there are quite a few cities in the USA where throngs of well-wishers would not be lining the streets. There is a reason Gay boys move to West Hollywood, NYC and Atlanta, etc.
Sure, the assholes on the street in Jerusalem were bigots and hopefully will rot in hell…but they are no different than the bigoted good 'ol boys here in the good 'ol USA. Or the bigoted good 'ol boys in the White House drafting the anti-Gay marriage Amendment as we type these threads.
Okay, there is no such place as Transjordan. It’s just Jordan, and has been for many years now.
Most Palestinians (in the West Bank, anyway, I’m not sure about Gaza) are, technically, Jordanian citizens, because the West Bank was part of Jordan until the Six Day War. Because Israel annexed East Jerusalem, Palestinians living there had the option of adopting Israeli citizenship (I have no idea how many took them up on this, I can’t imagine it was a lot).
That said, it’s crazy to say that the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories should all have to move to Jordan proper. There’s not even any point to arguing about it, since it’ll never happen.
It took a disturbingly long time for several mainstream organizations to even recognize that gay people were killed in the Holocaust.
Happily, this is waning in many quarters (as the head of my cégep’s queer group, I was invited by Hillel to contribute to their Yom ha’Shoah display, for example.)
Clair: We’ve had a few knock down drag out fights about the origins of Israel in modern times and the citizenship of the refugees in the area. I can link you to a thread or two if you’d like to see both sides hash it out? Suffice it to say, the neighboring Arab states are more than willing to “fight to the last Palestinian.”
Matt: has anybody determined exactly who was part of the protest? While the article you provided mentions a group of ultra-orthodox who tried to block the parade route, it doesn’t say much about the other thousand or so. And, since all of the ‘big three’ major religions joined forces to oppose the parade, it seems more than likely that it wasn’t just jews/Israelis protesting. I could see some good ol’ American fundies flying in to ‘the holy land’ to stir up some shit. Any followup articles that you’ve seen?
Yes, but if a Palestinian travels abroad, they’d do it on a Jordanian passport. Thanks to shifting boundaries, it’s Jordan that they technically belong to, not Israel (and, AFAIK, the Palestinian Authority doesn’t issue passports). But, like I was saying, this is due to happenstance and not because the Palestinian people have some kind of tender feelings toward Jordan (it was the Jordanians who stuck them in refugee camps in the first place, after all). Suggesting that they should leave the West Bank for Jordan is ridiculous.
According to the U.S. Department of State: “The [Palestinian Authority] issues passports and identification cards for Palestinians residing in the West Bank and Gaza. Bearers of Palestinian passports do not need special exit permits from the PA, but do require reentry permits. They can travel both over the Allenby Bridge to Jordan and via Ben Gurion Airport in Israel… Palestinians with passports from other countries are required by Israel to exit and enter (either via Ben Gurion or via land crossings) with a Palestinian passport. Israel asserts that the requirement results from the Interim Agreement. Palestinian officials dispute this interpretation and characterize this requirement as harassment. On several occasions in 1997 following terrorist incidents, Israel has restricted foreign travel of all those who hold Palestinian passports. This has sometimes resulted in Palestinians being unable to leave or to enter Israel. At all times, West Bank and Gazan Palestinians require a special permit, issued by Israel, to enter Jerusalem. The PA does not control its borders. All persons entering PA-controlled areas must be granted permission by Israel.” (Country Reports 1997 1998, 1489).
**The U.S. Department of State has determined that the Palestinian Authority Passport/Travel Document meets the requirements of a passport as defined in Section 101(a)(30) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and therefore is acceptable for visa issuing purposes and travel to the United States.
However, according to an official at the U.S. Department of State, the United States does not recognize Palestine as a country, and therefore the Palestinian Authority Passport/Travel Document does not confer citizenship.**
You know, there should be a SDMB law. Something like: “Any Pit thread that in any way mentions Israel will degenerate into a generic Israeli-Palestinian Conflict debate by the end of the second page.”
Of course not. However, neither do you claim that such actions invalidate your country’s existance, which is what some people here seem to be doing. Perhaps I’m just being paranoid, but the general vibe I’ve been getting is that because Israel is incapable of holding to these higher standards expected of her due to her past (a ridiculous proposition to begin with), then maybe it shouldn’t have been founded in the first place. You don’t hear similar sentiments about Canada, the U.S., or France.