I thought you just got done saying that the actions of the Palestinians were justified, understandeable, and logical, no matter how heinous they seem to us, the un-oppressed.
Sam
lavenderlemon, let me try rephrasing this once more and see how it goes.
Did that Israeli mother and her children deserve to die because of her government’s oppressive activities? No.
Do the Palestinians have the right to fight, armed or otherwise, against the Israeli government’s oppressive activities? Yes.
Does that right to fight include the right to murder civilians simply because they are citizens of the oppressing country? No.
Does that make my stance clear enough for you?
I think the real test of whether this mess has anti-Semitism at its base or not is to ask: “Would the Palestinians fight this hard if it were some other ethnic or national group doing this to them?” The answer has to be yes - history is filled with examples of the local population fighting back when a foreign power tries to actively interfere in their affairs. Look at the struggles for national liberation in India and Africa against the British. Look at the struggles in northern Africa against the Spanish and the French. Look at the Philippines against the US during and after the Spanish-American War. Hell, look at the Iraqis fighting US troops now. Oppression breeds resistance no matter where the oppression occurs, no matter who’s being oppressed.
It’s easier to paint this struggle in persecutory colors because the Israelis don’t share a common ethnic or national origin but a religion - and of the three major Western religions it’s the one whose members have known the most persecution. Unfortunately, the leaders of the Palestinian movements use anti-Semitic rhetoric to rouse their side. That is a tragic mistake, as it gives fuel to those who are rightly infuriated by anti-Semitism and only helps to mask the very real oppression Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinians.
It is wrong to assume that, because the anti-Semitic voices in the Palestinian struggle are at this point the loudest, all Arab are somehow inherently anti-Semitic. The governments of Arab countries have done some shitty things to the Jewish populations there, no doubt about it. But so did the Russians under the Tsar. So did the Germans - not just the Holocaust, but for decades, even centuries, before that. Would anyone here seriously want to argue that the Russians, or the Germans, are inherently anti-Semitic? Why make that assumption about the Arabs, then?
I hope this makes my stance somewhat clearer.
QUOTE=Olentzero]Would anyone here seriously want to argue that the Russians, or the Germans, are inherently anti-Semitic? Why make that assumption about the Arabs, then?
[/QUOTE]
Russians?
yep
And, um, ever hear of the POGROMS?
(they too were really a bake-sale)
German neo-nazis must also be a myth, right?
And, plesae, FORGET about, IGNORE, GLOSS OVER the cites I showed which prove the wide spread anti-semitic bigotry of the Arab world.
Unless of couse you’re obfuscating again… and by ‘inherent’ you mean “Ordained by God or the Genetic Code” instead of “part and parcel of their society for generations.”
Understanding does not equal justification. Let me try to take this one step at a time.
Oppression provokes resistance. Someone shits all over you, you’re going to try to hurt them for doing it. This is logical.
Israel is shitting all over the Palestinians. They found organizations dedicated to armed struggle and rebellion to stop that. This is logical and understandable.
This armed struggle is going to claim lives on both sides. Again, logical and understandable.
What makes a killing justifiable is whether or not the people killed are the ones directly responsible for initiating and continuing the oppression that has provoked the fightback. So, that woman and her children, although they opposed Sharon’s plan for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, are not the ones building the wall, or who proposed the travesties known as the Wye and Oslo accords, or bulldozing Palestinian homes, and so on and so forth. Their killings were not justifiable.
[Olentzero Hat ON] Chronologies, please! Cities! Dates! Numbers leaving! Fucking footstep patterns, if you got 'em. Back this claim up![/Olentzero Hat OFF] (Even though you already did.)
So, Finn, have you ever been to Israel, and if so, what was your favorite part?
Finn, one question… who in this wide world, then, besides the Jews themselves, are not inherently anti-Semitic?
So, Finn, have you ever been to Israel, and if so, what was your favorite part?
[/QUOTE]
Hmmmm… I’ve been to Israel twice.
Once when I became Bar Mitzvah atop Massada.
The second time was a trip called 'Project Understanding" where six jews and six catholics visited the holy sites of both religions and engaged in inter-faith discussion.
And after both times I have to say that the walls of Jerusalem at night still take my breath away.
I don’t think people here are assuming that “all Arab(s) are inherently anti-Semitic”. At least I’m not. There are, however, large vocal groups of Arabs, including a majority of the public figures on the Palestinian side who are vocally anti-Semitic and proud of it. The attacks upon Israelites are generally carried out with anti-Semitic glurge when they are claimed by one hate group or another.
Does this make all Arabs Jew-haters? Not in the least.
Does it mean that these attacks against Jews are committed with anti-Semitism in mind? Generally so.
A large portion of the ME was united by anti-Semitic undertones. It still continues today. State-sponsored attacks. Hate groups overlooked or allowed to operate beknownst to their representative governments.
Not just “shitty things”, outright hate, genocide-talk and terror sponsoring.
Sam
I can’t tell… are you trying to be facetious?
Because, if you weren’t wearing blinders, you’d realize that, yes, indeed, a huge portion of the entire fucking world hates the Jews.
In Austin Texas, in London England, in Rome Italy I’ve heard people shout at each other “Don’t be such a Jew!”
We’ve been rounded up. We’ve been raped. We’ve been burned. We’ve been converted at the edge of a sword. We’ve been hacked to bits. We’ve endured pogroms and genocides and expulsions…
So yah, I know it doesn’t fit in with you ‘history’ of the Jews ravaging the world and doing nasty stuff, but for quite some time, the world’s been irrationally against us.
(or you’re going to tell me that the Ivy League schools in America having quotas for the number of Jews they let in was somehow… ~snickers~ kosher?)
I do think, because of all the anti-Semitic propaganda (which even zero has admitted) created a societal-discourse.
If a society’s culture is rife with anti-Semitism… I don’t think it’s wrong to say that society is inherently anti-Semitic. That doesn’t imply and Mr and Ms Smith are anti-Semitic, merely that they live in a culture that is.
See, there’s the point right there. Like it was in Germany and Russia (hell, even in France - note the Dreyfus affair), the anti-Semitism is state-sponsored. Just because the state spews hate, genocide talk, and sponsoring terror, it doesn’t follow that this is some sort of natural reflection of inherent anti-Semitism in the population as a whole. But those ideas can take root, and when they do they obviously have tragic consequences.
It is possible to separate the virulent anti-Semitism spewed by some Palestinian organizations from the struggle for Palestinian self-determination, and politically conscious Palestinians should expend every effort to do so. But it will be very hard to do, not least because their voices are for the most part drowned out, much like the voices of Israeli revolutionaries (and they do exist, thank God) are still being drowned out on the other side of the wall. The louder the anti-Semitism on the Palestinian side, the more fuel for the Israeli government’s argument that the Arabs will have your throat slit the moment you look away, and the harder it will be for revolutionaries on both sides to argue for uniting along class lines rather than religious lines.
Of course, there’s a lot to be said for the billions in US aid bolstering the Israeli economy - that helps to soften the conflicts between Israeli workers and the Israeli government, so it’s harder for the Israeli working class to see that what men like Sharon are doing really isn’t in their best interests as workers.
Not in the least. Just wondering how widespread and intractable you find anti-Semitism to be.
The answer has to be NO - history is filled with examples of the local population NOT fighting back when a foreign power, such as Egypt, Rome, Assyria, France, Turkey or Britain actively interfere**[d]** in their affairs. Look**[ing]** at the struggles for national liberation in India and Africa against the British**,** [l]ook**[ing]** at the struggles in northern Africa against the Spanish and the French**,** [l]ook**[ing]** at the Philippines against the US during and after the Spanish-American War **are all completely irrelevant as to what these people would do and have historically done to other governing/occupying nations. **
Or, to put it the Jewish way; would they fight this hard against other national groups doing this to them? I don’t know, did they? No? Well, then the answer is No, no?
Finn, that is SO COOL that you were Bar Mitzvahed on Masada. Mazel Tov! It is breathtaking up there, is it not? I climbed the snake paths in the dark, just before dawn, and watched the sun rise from behind the mountains. I was there in the Summer of 1978, when Israel occupied the Sinai desert, and had the extraordinary pleasure of climbing what is believed to be Mount Sinai. There simply are no words to express how utterly awe-inspiring it is to stand on the spot where Moses stood, and from whence he came with the 10 commandments.
Ha. hahahahaha.
You’re honestly going to claim that Nazi Germany WASN’T anti-Semitic because its racism was state sponsored? You’re also going to state that the recent spate of swastikas drawn on Jewish graves and synagogues violated in France is the… plan of the government?
(can you see why people take your arguments with a grain of salt?)
So. in plain English… Governments sponsor hate and this government sponsored hate magically ‘takes root’ and then has tragic consequences. Luckily it didn’t ‘take root’ in the anti-Semitic citizens of that country, but in Elves and Fairies.
Yes… but WHY separate them if obviously they’re related?
The Palestinian organizations which spew racism ARE THE SAME ONES WHO CONDUCT TERRORISM. Thus… surely… it’d be irrational to assume that their own organizations are their own organizations, right?
I’m sure SOME Palestinians want to separate the two, because when they’re linked it is an-uprising-in-order-for-genocide.
(as I’ve already PROVEN, check out the poll of Palestinians who thought the Intifada should WIPE OUT Israel)
Drowned out by their leaders and their military organizations which claim anti-Semitic reasons for their actions…
(Pay no attention to the facts behind the curtain!)
You ADMIT that there is institutional anti-Semitism in the PA.
Yet you suggest the Israelis don’t have every logical justification to realize that " the Arabs will have your throat slit the moment you look away".?
Wait… could it possibly be that I’ve reprinted maybe half a dozen quotes where Arabs call for Genocide and murdering ALL Jews?
Nawwwww, cuz an intelligent and thorough man like yourself would’ve caught those and realized they contradicted his position, right?
(And, if every day your neighbor told you they were going to murder you when you weren’t on guard, how comfy would you feel lowering your guard? )
Oh no… weirddave was right!
Uniting along class lines???
Like… the working class and the terrorist class?
Like the going out to nightclubs class and the blowing people up in nightclubs class?
How about ~gasp~ people on BOTH sides unite as HUMANS and stop all the bullshit?
(Class war! Class war!)
Funny… I could’ve sworn that the Israelis had elections and the Knesset
And… I suppose you have some CITES to prove that there is ‘conflict’ between the Israeli government and whatever the ‘working class’ may be?
And, even if there was conflict, why then can’t they vote the bums outa office?
Or do the US dollars beat them up when they try to go vote?
From the MSN Encarta article on the Assyrian Empire:
Here is a dandy little article that seems to demonstrate that the history of the Assyrian Empire was nothing but revolts. Oh, here’s a sentence you ought to like:
How about Egypt? Pretty quiet, I would suppose. Or maybe not:
The Roman Empire? No revolts at all? Does the date 66 AD ring a bell?
The Ottoman Empire had revolts of Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks all in the nineteenth century. The French Empire certainly had revolts towards its end, like those in Africa and Indochina, and at its beginning like Haiti. Imperialism and oppression breed uprisings and revolts, and Palestine has obviously been no stranger to that. I maintain that the Palestinians would fight back as hard as they are now no matter which foreign power was trying to assert itself over their affairs.
Oh shit, Hamster attack!
Finn- I said I agree wholeheartedly about a culture being inherently anti-Semitic.
Olent- Same goes for you. My family in Russia underwent anti-Semitism and pogroms. Same thing happened in Germany, and the same thing goes for them too. The state supports it and the people in the society back it up. Not all of them do, and not all of them 100%, but to a certain degree, if the people put up with state-sponsored hate, they support it.
That’s just the way it is.
Sam
Olent, for all the times we revolted, there were ten times as many times that we didn’t. Chew on that one, Mr. Encyclopedia. Why do you keep dredging this crap up?
Sam
Give proof or retract.
Prove that the "Palestinians"fought the Brits, (who stole their land), with the same ideological fervor and civilian-targeted-tactics.
Or that they fought the Turks…
sorry if I mis-read in my haste GaWd.
as seems obvious to me… societies can be inherently anti-Semitic without being 100 percent anti-Semitic.
(and the drive to ‘prove’ they’re not anti-Semitic just because most of the population happens to hate Jews is, again, obfuscatory and revisionism.)
And with the intent of annihilating their entire population, driving them into the sea and denying them a safe homeland.
<snort>
Like that’ll happen.
Finn, if I remember on Monday, I’ll try to bring my pictures from Israel into the office where I have a scanner, and scan the shots I took from the top of Masada and Sinai.
Sam, have you ever been?