RO: Glenn Beck compares Utøya murder victims to Hitler Youth

[brazil84]

This is from Wikipedia:

As of 2010, Israel had been condemned in 32 resolutions by the Council since its creation in 2006. The 32 resolutions comprised 48.1% of all resolutions passed by the Council. By April 2007, the Council had passed nine resolutions condemning Israel, the only country which it had specifically condemned. Toward Sudan, another country with human rights abuses as documented by the Council’s working groups, it has expressed “deep concern.”. The council voted on 30 June 2006 to make a review of alleged human rights abuses by Israel a permanent feature of every council session. The Council’s special rapporteur on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is its only expert mandate with no year of expiry. The resolution, which was sponsored by Organisation of the Islamic Conference, passed by a vote of 29 to 12 with five abstentions. Human Rights Watch urged it to look at international human rights and humanitarian law violations committed by Palestinian armed groups as well. Human Rights Watch called on the Council to avoid the selectivity that discredited its predecessor and urged it to hold special sessions on other urgent situations, such as that in Darfur.

The Special Rapporteur on the question of Palestine to the previous UNCHR, the current UNHRC and the General Assembly was, between 2001 and 2008, John Dugard. Bayefski quotes him as saying that his mandate is to “investigate human rights violations by Israel only, not by Palestinians”. Dugard was replaced in 2008 with Richard Falk, who has compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians with the Nazis’ treatment of Jews during the Holocaust. Like his predecessor, Falk’s mandate only covers Israel’s human rights record

[Superfluous_Parentheses]

@brazil84

Lol, don’t be ridiculous. The word “disproportionate” is regularly used to mean “more than would be expected if entities were treated equally.”

Not in my experience, and certainly not when discussing sanctions or punishments for actions. My interpretation is pretty much the dictionary example in that realm. Pick your words with more care next time.

I also note that you are avoiding any discussion of the implications of using the more obvious interpretation; that there are pretty damn good reasons for criticizing Israel’s conduct, in favor of claiming other countries are just as bad and anyone not being “even handed” about it must be a Nazi or something. Which is pretty damn rich in this fucking thread.

[brazil84]

@Superfluous_Parentheses

Not in my experience, and certainly not when discussing sanctions or punishments for actions. My interpretation is pretty much the dictionary example in that realm. Pick your words with more care next time.

My use of the word was completely reasonable and the meaning was completely clear from the context.

Here’s what I said earlier:

I don’t understand your point. Either he is even-handed (which would be pretty unusual but it probably happens once in a while) or his criticism of Israel is disproportionate. What other possibilities are there? I suppose it’s possible that he criticizes Israel proportionately less than other countries.

Any reasonable person would understand I was talking about comparing Israel to other countries.

But if that wasn’t enough, I had asked earlier if Israel should be judged by the same standards as other countries, and you responded to my question by asking about Angola.

that there are pretty damn good reasons for criticizing Israel’s conduct

Well criticism of Israel per se (rightly or wrongly) does not support an inference of anti-Semitism. It’s the singling out which is a problem.

[BrainGlutton]

@brazil84

Any reasonable person would understand I was talking about comparing Israel to other countries.

Any reasonable person would understand that is completely irrelevant to the question of whether Jimmy Carter, of all saints, is antisemitic; as well as to your preposterous and dishonest equation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

[brazil84]

@BrainGlutton

Any reasonable person would understand that is completely irrelevant to the question of whether Jimmy Carter, of all saints, is antisemitic; as well as to your preposterous and dishonest equation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Lol, then how about answering my question:

It’s really very simple:

You seem to be saying that even if Carter regularly attacks Israel while ignoring far worse conduct if perpetrated by Saudi Arabia, he is being “even handed.” Do I understand you correctly?

[BrainGlutton]

@brazil84

Lol, then how about answering my question:

I answered it in post #165.

@brazil84

It’s really very simple:

You seem to be saying that even if Carter regularly attacks Israel while ignoring far worse conduct if perpetrated by Saudi Arabia, he is being “even handed.” Do I understand you correctly?

Certainly. He is not obliged to pay attention to injustice A while addressing injustice B. Are environmentalists obliged to campaign for gay rights, even if they support them? We all have to choose our causes.

And, when you’re hauled into court, it is no defense to say your friend John Doe committed an even worse crime last week.

[Alessan]

@BrainGlutton

Certainly. He is not obliged to pay attention to injustice A while addressing injustice B. Are environmentalists obliged to campaign for gay rights, even if they support them? We all have to choose our causes.

That’s true, but chumming up with one offender while criticizing another is like an environmentalist chopping down a forest while saving a swamp. Is he really an environmentalist, or does he just not like forests?

[brazil84]

@BrainGlutton

I answered it in post #165.

Certainly.

Well as I suggested, I disagree with your definition of “even handed”

Are environmentalists obliged to campaign for abortion rights, even if they support them?

Of course not, but it’s reasonable to infer that environmentalists care more about the environment than they do about abortion rights. Similarly, it’s reasonable to infer that Jimmy Carter cares far more about Jewish misconduct than he does about Muslim or Christian misconduct.

And the next question is “why”?

[Swords_to_Plowshares]

You guys are really letting trolls derail this topic in to a debate on Israel? Really?

[brazil84]

That’s true, but chumming up with one offender while criticizing another is like an environmentalist chopping down a forest while saving a swamp. Is he really an environmentalist, or does he just not like forests?

Or it could be that he’s just a paid shill. I did a couple Google searches on Carter.

According to Alan Dershowitz (and yes, obviously Dershowitz has an agenda) Carter received millions of dollars in funding from Arab oil sheiks since the late 70s.

Recent disclosures of Carter’s extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia, had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?

And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strapped Divinity School received from this source. Initially, I was reluctant to put pressure on Harvard to turn back money for the Divinity School, but then a student at the Divinity School, Rachael Lea Fish showed me the facts.

They were staggering. I was amazed that in the twenty-first century there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up, a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son, hosted speakers who called Jews “the enemies of all nations,” attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States’ own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a “fable.” (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not.

And some more from the same article:

Carter also received a million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family, as well as a personal $500,000 environmental award named for Sheikh Zayed, and paid for by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. It’s worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government’s myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center’s Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis have apparently bought his silence for a steep price. The bought quality of the Center’s activities becomes even more clear, however, when reviewing the Center’s human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea, or in Iran, Iraq, the Sudan, or Syria, but activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center’s website.

The Carter Center’s mission statement claims that “The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution activities.” How can that be, given that its coffers are full of Arab money, and that its focus is away from significant Arab abuses and on Israel’s far less serious ones?

If these charges are true, then I would guess that Carter is not so much an anti-Semite as a paid advocate against Israel.

[Septima]

[QUOTE=Rune]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mighty_Girl
Aren’t you Faroese? (I know, technically Danish).
Half. I claim the nationality that wins me most points in a debate
[/QUOTE]

I thought I was the only faroese nutter around here. Guess I’m not special after all.

(For the folks playing at home, I’m faroese AND norwegian, and living in Oslo now.)

I gave some details of the Rose March in the other thread, but basically it was this: A whole lot of people (some claim 200.000 - I was there, I can believe it.) gathered, held flowers hight, sang together, and left flowers everywhere.

Here is our tiger after the march went by.

[amanset]

@BrainGlutton

Young Democrats

YD High School Caucus.

College Democrats.

Young Republicans.

Teenage Republicans.

College Republicans.

Young Americans for Freedom.

Young Communist League.

Thanks. I expected they would. Someone really should inform Mr Beck. That’s if he doesn’t know already as, let’s face it, he was just doing his usual spectacular trolling so as to attract an audience, wasn’t he?

[Chen019]

Brain Glutton,

I’m tired today and have a lot of work to do, where are we up to in this discussion? It seems to have veered off into talk about Jimmy Carter?

[tnetennba]

Remember, Glenn Beck has Nazi Tourettes. Black on Beck - YouTube

[BrainGlutton]

@Chen019

Brain Glutton,

I’m tired today and have a lot of work to do, where are we up to in this discussion? It seems to have veered off into talk about Jimmy Carter?

IIRC, the fork-point was brazil84’s defense of Beck’s comparison of the kids at the Workers’ Youth League camp with the Hitler Youth, on the grounds that the former were antisemitic, on the grounds that they were staging a Palestinian-rights event. I say Palestinian-rights protests are not antisemitic; Carter being merely a handy example of a Palestinian-rights supporter of unimpeachably humanitarian character. Maybe not a “saint,” lusts in his heart and all that, but he is by politician standards – probably the most saintly Christian ever to sit in the OO (since Abe Lincoln was no Christian).

[Chen019]

@BrainGlutton

IIRC, the fork-point was brazil84’s defense of Beck’s comparison of the kids at the Workers’ Youth League camp with the Hitler Youth, on the grounds that the former were antisemitic, on the grounds that they were staging a Palestinian-rights event. I say Palestinian-rights protests are not antisemitic; Carter being merely a handy example of a Palestinian-rights supporter of unimpeachably humanitarian character. Maybe not a “saint,” lusts in his heart and all that, but he is by politician standards – probably the most saintly Christian ever to sit in the OO (since Abe Lincoln was no Christian).

Oh, I see. Palestinian rights does seem to be a wedge issue for some on the left. I agree it’s pretty tenuous to suggest people staging such a protest are in any way anti-semitic.

[joebuck20]

@Swords_to_Plowshares

You guys are really letting trolls derail this topic in to a debate on Israel? Really?

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. I posted pretty early on in this thread, and just came back to check in. Pretty disappointing to see a much deserved pitting of a first rate asshole turn into a screed about Israel.

[BrainGlutton]

@joebuck20

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. I posted pretty early on in this thread, and just came back to check in. Pretty disappointing to see a much deserved pitting of a first rate asshole turn into a screed about Israel.

You think that’s sumthin’, get a load of the Pat Buchanan thread.

[brazil84]

@BrainGlutton

Carter being merely a handy example of a Palestinian-rights supporter of unimpeachably humanitarian character.

Well do you agree that Carter accepted a lot of money in funding from ruling elites in countries which are (1) very anti-Israel; and (2) have abysmal human rights records?

[brazil84]

it seems to me that the UN is extremely unwilling to do anything significant against what it perceives to be Israeli misconducts.

Well the UN cannot act without the okay of the United States which is has been generally pro-Israel for some time now.