I try. 
Well, duh. I mean, everyone expects those Muslims to behave barbarously. But Jews! Everyone knows Jews are nice. And quiet. And they’re so good with money! Blah blah blah.
Not exactly. Everybody expects Jews not to stab people and throw piss and shit on them.
Wait, that’s not true either. Everybody expects outrage when people throw piss and shit on other people and stab them-- it doesn’t matter if they are Jews or Christians or Muslims or Dairy Queen workers.
And Alessan, I know how easy it is to become defensive and combative when it seems that people on this board are playing into negative stereotypes and using the actions of some to condemn everyone, but where do you see anyone advocating the removal of Isreal?
Both sides in this. . . this. . .thing in the Middle East have acted shamefully-- Palinstinians and Jews. Jews burning down innocent people’s houses, Palestinians bombing innocent shoppers in the middle of downtown. And the only time they can get together is to throw shit on people and stab them. That’s just fucked and everyone should hide their faces in disgrace.
I don’t disagree with you (see my first post in this thread), but it is a very commonly held thought in the West that Israelis should be held to higher standards than other Middle Easterners. You want a cite?
Y’know…why? Why should Israelis act better than people in Saudi Arabia or Iran or Jordan or Sudan? I’d personally love it if everyone everywhere acted better and no one would have to worry about getting shit flung at them or being stabbed when they walked in a gay pride parade, but there are assholes and bigots everywhere and this has absolutely fuck all to do with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or the Shoah. If an Armenian person does something shitty, do people look aghast because Armenians are supposed to be nice, ever since millions of them were massacred by the Turks? Not so much.
When a black person does something shitty does everyone nod and believe that’s what black people always do? Believe me, I know where the defensiveness comes from, but it ain’t right. Just because everyone thinks Jews “should be nice” does not mean they get a pass when they act like savages.
The Jewish-Palestinian conflict comes into play with me when I see that they can, in fact get together and accomplish things. Every Jew and Palestinian should be ashamed that this is what they get together to accomplish.
But this isn’t an Israeli-Palestinian thing. This is one Israeli being a criminal asshole to another Israeli.
It’s like…what if you did something assholish to someone else and people said “Can you believe Biggirl would be such an asshole? And after her people were kidnapped from their homeland and enslaved and persecuted for hundreds of years?! You’d think she’d be a more caring person after all of the shitty things that happened to her people.” And you’d be all “What the fuck?”
And I agree with you. The asshole guy should not get a pass for being Jewish. I never said that - from my first post in this thread on, I have never said anything remotely like that. All I am saying is that it’s annoying that it’s impossible for an Israeli to act like an asshole and not have the Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict dragged into the conversation.
In the 1970s, many people had their minds about gay people changed by watching shows like Donahue and the David Susskind Show.
Others had their minds changed by people like Ellen DeGeneres or k.d. lang coming out.
Legislation grants legal equality. Legal equality is not acceptance by society.
Um, no need for imagination at all. This is the life I lead. All the time. “Look at that Welfare Queen! Boy, you black people sure are lazy and stupid. And criminal minded too!”
Therefore, because I’ve been through the same thing too, I know how you feel. Being a black person on this board has made me more sensitive to a defensive position. Just like being a Jew should make a person more sensitive to dehumanization. It really should. Don’t get defensive if anyone points this out.
I disagree. I’m sure Israelis act like assholes all the time and do not have the Holocaust or Israeli-Palestinian Conflict dragged into the conversation. I’m sure there are many Israelis in jail for theft, murder, rape, embezzlement, and numerous other crimes that never once invited such comparisons.
When, however, Israelis (yes, a small subset) start targetting groups in a very public way, I do not think it should be that surprising to see the comparison. Would you be stunned to see similar questioning if a group of southern blacks lynched a white man who got too upity around some black women?
I really don’t think these things are comparable. It’s not as though there is a long history of gentiles stabbing Jews having a parade, whereas the inverse of your situation does have a historical basis.
I have to leave the house now, so I can’t continue this conversation right now.
Because one of the main reasons I see the Israelis as the good guys is that they don’t act like those in the backward ass societies in SA, Iran, etc. I would expect that kind of shit from the bad guys. The good guys don’t get a pass just because they’re not as bad as the bad guys. If the good guys are only the lesser of evils (i.e., we’re bad, but not nearly as bad as those guys), they’re not really good guys.
You’re right. It has fuck all to do with their behavior relative to Palestinians, other Arabs, etc., or to the Shoah. My objection is to people trying to excuse shitty behavior based on comparisons to those who whose act even worse.
But there is a pretty large historical item, probably the largest in the 20th century, of Jews being beaten, spat upon, and murdered in the streets simply because of the fact that they were Jews. Along with homosexuals, who were part of the same travesty. And now Jews have done the same to homosexuals, in public, as part of a movement.
I don’t think there’s much more reason for discussion with you on this point. I respect your point, I think it’s reasonable, I don’t think it’s outlandish, but I disagree with it. I do think there is a reasonable parallel here, and I do not think it is wrong to bring it up. I’m happy to talk about it further, but I think we just see this in wholly different lights.
No, I as at least one of the people who clarified who my “fuck 'em” was aimed at. It was not aimed at the whole country, just the assholes. It was not meant to say “they don’t deserve a country” at all. As for anti_US sentiments and demands for higher standards, there is/are plenty of that everywhere. Why should any country or people be exempt of any standards?
But where have you seen anyone in his thread exusing the behavior of this nutjob? This whole thread was progressing on topic until SlyFrog jumped into the fray with this tidbit
… following which the whole thing rapidly slipped into the train wreck it has become.
You know? This is just like someone outside the US reading about an Abortion Clinic being bombed (or a Dr. there knifed) and saying “WTF? All of these American slime deserve to die! And we need to give all the land back to the Indians, too!”
Just like the various (sometimes violent) anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-atheiest, anti-anything-different campaigns led by fringe religious nutjobs in the US do not invalidate the existence of the US, or even of most of the (generally sane) relgious groups within it, I don’t see why anything different should hold for what is an internal Israeli social-strife issue.
Dani
Um, when did anyone express anything even the least little bit analogous to this?
Never, which is exactly the point I’m trying to make – it only seems to happen when Israel is involved.
Sorry if I implied otherwise.
Dani
So long as you ignore text and pretend that it says what you want it to, it is unlikely that you will ever learn anything. I do not recall anyone saying anything remotely approaching, “WTF? All of those Israeli slime deserve to die! And we need to give all the land back to the Palestinians, too!”
Of course, you’ve got a store of arguments built up for that discussion, I’m sure, so it must be easier to ignore the present discussion and pretend this is that.
No, I mean when in this thread did this happen?
The first instance was in the post I quoted in my first post in this thread. I didn’t include that quote just for shits and giggles, you know.
Yes – your post, #70, quoting Sam Stone, post #53; well after the train had already derailed. SlyFrog’s post which I quoted, which started the whole downhill slide (culminating, among other things, in Sam Stone’s post, which I agree was uncalled for), was way back at #29.
Matt_mcl – I said that the actual slights against Israel in this thread are as ridiculous as the hypothetical stance that could be taken by an outsider against the U.S. My whole point is that it is unlikely that we would see anyone saying something similar; in this thread or elsewhere. Your asking me “where has someone said this?” proves that I probably didn’t make the theoretical nature of the “question” clear enough. Sorry about that.
So, again – why is it OK to level such criticism against Israel, that would not be leveled against other countries, just because there happen to be stray scumbag nutjobs here, just like anywhere else?
Incidentally, I don’t understand why you seem to feel I am somehow justifying the attack – I’m as “homophilic” as they come, in case I haven’t made that clear. All I object to is taking this terrible incident, which is uncharacteristic of “Gay Pride” marches in Israel (which generally march with much [deserved] support and few problems), this isolated crazy person, and reflecting it on all of Israeli society.
Dani