# Please Debate The Merits Of This Article on Israel/Gaza **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 17, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-debate-the-merits-of-this-article-on-israel-gaza/481782 "2009-01-17T21:17:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 80
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-debate-the-merits-of-this-article-on-israel-gaza/481782/80 "2009-01-19T16:58:03Z")
> [@American civilians are legitimate targets in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/333): > > Calling a group or an action racist is permitted in this Forum, but calling other posters racist is name-calling and is prohibited. > [@tomndebb](#): > > There may, indeed, be a line of belief in this area that is racist and it may actually parallel the thoughts that **treis** has expressed. Wanting to keep a race out of an area and prohibiting property ownership by that race _might_ be a racist action? Demanding that members of a race couldn’t possibly be given self determination, even in the absence of a sovereign power, without disastrous consequences if someone else was in the majority, but when that race was in the majority they should still be denied self determination and be ruled over by politicians who helped design a program to exterminate them from the face of the Earth. _..might_ be a racist action? What, it might also be a trampoline? To be clear I am calling the action of trying to deny housing, immigration and self determination to a group, based on race, a racist action. I have not called Treis a racist, nor would I in this forum. But by your own moderating rule, I can point out that the _action_ of preventing Jewish immigration, property ownership and the self determination due to a fictional non-Jewish majority, while allowing those with Nazi ideology ruling over an actual Jewish majority, are racist _actions_. Would it be better if I’d simply done as you’ve done in this forum, and referred to it as institutional racism, since: > [@Crack Cocaine vs Powder Cocaine distinction in our laws is a terrible policy](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crack-cocaine-vs-powder-cocaine-distinction-in-our-laws-is-a-terrible-policy/472810/69): > > The phrase “institutional racism” has been employed for nearly forty years to indicate a situation in which underlying assumptions are allowed to exist without serious analysis that result in negative actions or processes affecti9ng one or another perceived race. It explicitly is employed where the (unconsidered) assumptions occur in a situation where no one is actively attempting to behave in a racist manner, but the assumptions permeate the institution, (be it law enforcement, education, some other institution, or society at large). Would that be okay then? My mistake is to call the double standards, fictions and unanalyzed claims that would make it okay for Jews to be ruled by Nazis but horrible for Arabs to be ruled by Jews, racist instead of calling them, as you have called other actions, institutionally racist? Is this really a question of my being disallowed from pointing out that certain actions are racist, and instead having to point out that they represent institutional racism? > [@tomndebb](#): > > this repeated association of **treis** ’s views with racism is not necessary or appropriate. It’s quite necessary to point out that among all the people of the earth, the Jews are _still_ singled out as having committed some crime for _owning property and living somewhere_, and then not wanting to be ruled over by ideological Nazis when there was no regional sovereign. That even now, people argue that if Jews aren’t wanted somewhere, they should just go away, or at least accept being ruled over by Nazis. That if Jews, even in Jewish majority areas, try to achieve self determination while explicitly granting full rights to everybody, then it must have been a secret plot necessitating that they remove and marginalize the ‘native’ population (most of whom are just as much immigrants as the Jewish population, but using a single standard won’t be done). And yet, if non-Jews, even those whose leadership was allied with the Nazis and hoped to bring the Final Solution to the area… wanted to rule over places with a majority Jewish population, well, then that’s all fine. > [@tomndebb](#): > > This is particularly true since you are the one who introduced the issue of racism into this thread with your questions about chinks and darkies. No, the person who introduced the idea that it was okay to prohibit a race from immigrating based on their race because other people living there were racists and didn’t like that race moving into the neighberhood. That it was okay to prohibit them from owning property based on their race, and prohibit them from achieving self determination based on their race if someone else was a fictional majority. But that it was okay for a more another race to achieve self determination even if they’d rule over an actual, factual majority of another race while their own leadership had helped design a program to exterminate that actual majority from the planet…did that. In fact, the guy who has now repeatedly said that Jews shouldn’t have been allowed to live there _because_ their neighbors were racist and didn’t want Jews living there, did that. It is a racist action to want to prohibit Jews from immigrating simply because they were Jews, to prohibit them from buying land simply because they were Jews, and then stand against them achieving self determination if a fictional non-Jewish majority would be impacted… and then be totally okay with non-Jews immigrating, renting land and wanting to achieve self-determination even if an actual Jewish majority would be effected. It shows that the position revolves around a double standard where it’s wrong if Jews do it, but okay if others do. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-debate-the-merits-of-this-article-on-israel-gaza/481782)._