I hope that you can link to their thoughtful comments so that we can consider them? Certain posters have demanded that all such links be to printed material, but I would be happy to consider video interviews.
Peronsally, I think it is bizzare and absurd to base opinions on complex matters of middle eastern politics and history on the opinions of elderly survivors of a massacre in an entirely different part of the world - no matter what ‘side’ they come down on.
Whether some people want to admit to it or not, the fact that someone obviously so honored and credible as having been proven to have risked his life for the Jewish people is now protesting the current Israeli government’s actions speaks volumes to the amount of trust and good will that Israel has lost and the damage its continuing actions are doing to the good name of Jews. Of course this is just one man, and there are many on the other side that differ in opinion, but the rarity and uniqueness of returning such a medal makes the story stand out amongst other, more typical protestors of Israeli violence. Its a story because it does hurt Israel on some level.
I don’t get why being “behind the French revolution” is considered damning, too.
I think conflating “Jews” and “Israel” is bullshit.
The actions of Israel cannot “damage the good name of Jews”.
The fact that some guy rescued some Jews before a country called Israel even existed does not thereby demonstrate that he ever approved of Israel in the first place.
A natural love for French Aristos, perhaps?
Let them eat hummus!
In all the history of bad summaries of other posts, this may well be the worst. I mean, you used some of the same words–it’s not like you summarized my post as “Eggplant sharknado twiddlefingers,” so maybe that ought to count in your favor–but I actually think that makes the summary worse, as it’s not merely orthogonal to what I said, but actually runs counter to what I said.
Look, I’ve got about halfway through it before getting tired of trying to figure out what you think the point is. It’s long on claims but short on cites. What specific passages in textbooks are racist? Army rabbis telling soldiers it’s their mitzvah to “kill every Palestinian you see”–when, where, what’s the evidence?
Nothing in the bit I read [edit: I finished reading the whole thing to avoid the infinitesimal chance that there’d be some strong evidence near the end of it] was fact-filled or persuasive.
*Yes, we and the whole world and the people who live in Gaza are too inferior to understand the complexity that taking land from a whole people, making them live in a blockaded community inadequate resources and killing them en masse wantonly when some few of them engage in retaliatory violence is too much for our little brains.
When Israeli soldiers in tanks taunt little boys verbally over loudspeakers until the boys throw rocks and the soldiers machine gun the little boys is too complex for us to understand. *
That is sarcasm. It isn’t difficult to understand, it is a grab of land and property and a scapegoating of a helpless and oppressed people and killing them at will. It’s accusing those critical of being anti-Semitic, dismissing the deaths as inconsequential and hand waving. And the US is paying for all of it.
A number of people in the thread who are offended at the Nazi/Israeli comparison basically agree that what Israel is doing is wrong and wring their hands, some even publicly say “stop it.”
But the idea that the Middle East is too complicated for us mere Americans to weigh in on, even though virtually every side has at one time or another been financed by US militarily is the arguing equivalent of snot on icy pavement.
Let’s seize one noodle from your word pasta and see if it leads anywhere.
The conflict in Gaza is a “land grab”? Okay, that’s at least a claim.
Would it then perhaps surprise you to learn that Israel used, in fact, to “occupy” Gaza in truth - an even build Israeli settlements there - but gave it all up nearly a decade ago?
Strange sort of “land grab”, that has the violent/facsistic “land grabber” handing the entire area back to the current inhabitants (including evacuating, by force, thousands of Israelis “settled” there).
A sort of “land grab” in reverse, one might say, where the “grabber” hands stuff over to the “grabbee”.
It does if Fascism is the one and only thing you don’t like, and you dislike it in all of its forms. Have you ever considered the possibility that maybe **Second Stone **only opposes nazis based on their political ideology?
“Do you like bananas?”
“Are bananas fascist?”
“…no?”
“Then I have no objection.”
Would it surprise you to learn that Palestinian people used to be welcome to live and move about the entire geographic area? All of Israel is a land grab, the pre-1967 borders of which were authorized by the UN. But you knew that. The UN authorization did not authorize the kicking out of the existing inhabitants, the disenfranchisement of them. The ones stuck in Gaza are not allowed to return to the more pleasant place of their birth or ancestors as the case may be. But you knew that.
These people did nothing to deserve to lose their homes, have never had a recognized government of their own and are treated physically by Israel as suspected criminals at best.
I note that you make no attempt to defend the machine gunning of little boys, but rather ignore it. I note that you make no attempt to justify the bombings of civilians and the thousands dead. This last week, a number of Hamas leaders were targeted and killed in the crackdown. Any reason these people couldn’t have been arrested? They are not part of an Israel recognized government. Why bomb admittedly innocent people at hospitals and schools first? Why do they even have to be innocent? You don’t bomb non-combatants even in war.
What did the Jews do to have their property seized and be killed and beaten on the streets by the Nazis in the 30s? Nothing. What did the Palestinians do to have their property seized, be beaten and killed during the last 50 years? Nothing. What did the Jews do to deserve being rounded up and herded into ghettos like the one in Warsaw where they starved and were subject to periodic raids and beatings and killings? Nothing. What did the Palestinians do to deserve being rounded up and herded into ghettos like the one in Gaza where they starved and were subject to periodic raids and beatings and killings? Nothing.
Some of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto fought back in an uprising. The Nazis called them criminals and killed them and then transported the rest to concentration and death camps. Some of the people in Gaza have fought back and the Israelis called them criminals and killed them, and anyone else nearby and leave them to languish in the hellhole that is Gaza. Occasionally some person like Joan Rivers or a right wing military figure in Israel will out loud say that they are all criminals and should be killed. That last part hasn’t happened yet. But there are calls for it. The Nazis were rightly recognized as evil long before the death camps. The death camps were their very worst atrocity, but the crimes against humanity started much earlier.
The UN mandate for Israel was not intended as license for a genocide or forced diaspora of the people living in Palestine.
In short, to you it doesn’t matter worth a damn what Israel is doing in Gaza right now, as their very existence as a country is the “offence”. Got it.
Your continual demand that Israelis simply arrest Hamas leaders just shows you have zero grasp on the reality of the situation. The phrase “you and what army?” springs to mind.
Yes.
Pretty much any war results in civilian injury and death through bombing or other means. And that goes for every major conflict in which the U.S. and European nations have been involved.
A review of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shows that children on both sides have become victims; in some cases, deliberately.
If you’re going to wave your hands and shout “Nazi!”, you’ll need to be consistent and denounce virtually all nations. Except maybe the Swiss.
And I’m not so sure about them either.
Once again, you make up something I did not say. That is called a straw man argument. It has no relevance to anything I am saying. I did not call the existence of Israel an “offence”, or a crime or anything close. It is an insulting ad hominem.
You also assert that it doesn’t matter what Isreal is doing in Gaza right now to me. That too is a mis-characterization of my position. And it is an insulting ad hominem directed at me personally. I’m objecting to killings in Gaza.
So, no, you do not “got it.”
No? Someone else wrote this, then? Not you?
[emphasis added]
Thanks, I think, for that link–there are many more specifics there than Second Stone has bothered to offer. Many of those actions by the IDF are indeed deplorable, although it’s still idiotic to compare them to death camps.
Overall, the IDF’s main injustice IMO is an insufficient willingness to distinguish between combatant and civilian: while they make some effort, they’re too willing to accept civilian casualties (FWIW I think the US suffers from a similar problem, although I’m not willing to speculate on whether the US is as egregious in its negligence as Israel often is). However, you’re quite right to point out specific evil acts such as forcing a Palestinian child to open packages suspected of being booby-trapped. That’s no good.
War cannot be declared by non-nations or individuals or gangs. There is only one internationally recognized country here and that is Israel. It has not declared war on another country in this instance, it makes war on native people they have blockaded for the acts of a gang they have called criminals in a territory they have de facto control of, used to have official occupation of, and now just blockade and kill in.
Yes, and all of them should be prosecuted as murders by the only nation in the area that has the ability to do so. Israel.
My hands are at my keyboard, not waving, and I have not spoken, much less shouted. As LHOD has noted, no audible or video will be accepted or reviewed by him, only printed word, we will see if he comes back and reviews the printed word. Are you also of the position that only printed word will be reviewed?
The only difference anyone has noted in this thread between the Nazis towards the Jews and the Israelis towards the Gazans has been me, when I have noted that death camps are not instituted. Everyone objected simply asserts it is different and everyone can tell the difference. So tell it.
Rather than assert that there are no differences, how about demonstrate them?
Are the Gazans free to come and go through their ancestral lands? No.
Are the Gazans subject to being machine gunned by soldiers. Yes.
Are the Gazans allowed to form their own internationally recognized government? No.
Do the more extremist elements call for the extermination of the Gazans? Yes.
Are the Gazans allowed to conduct international trade? No.
When some of the Gazans fight back are all of them subject to collective punishment? Yes.
Do the Gazans and Palestinians in general have the same right of return that non-native people applying for Israeli citizenship based on religion have? No.
Are the Gazans effectively dictated to by an authority that they have no influence, legal, persuasive or otherwise over? Yes.