Dex - first of all, who the hell is comparing Jews to Nazis? As the title of the thread states, the comparison is between WB settlers and Nazis, not the State of Israel or Jews as a whole. As I pointed out, even that was a ridiculously overbroad comparison, but anyway, let’s make sure we are talking about the same people.
Second, your definition of “Nazis” is way, way too narrow. By your definition, the American Nazi Party (the “Illinois Nazis” who John Belushi so hated), are not Nazis, because they haven’t started a war to engulf the world, engaged in government-sponsored murders, or crushed political dissent. But, of course, the Illinois Nazis are in fact Nazis. In essence, you are arguing that only “successful” Nazis are really Nazis. I vehemently disagree.
Looking at the ideology of Naziism, is there a valid comparison to followers of Rabbi Kahane and their ilk? I submit that the four major attributes of Naziism are racialism, anti-liberalism, militarism, and a belief in the propriety of violence for political ends. I think Kach and its successor organizations fit within that profile.
I’ll also add here that the West Bank settler lumped together with the ultra-Zionist is again an overly broad brush.
While the ultra-Zionists are enriched on the West Bank, there are other factions whose justification for being there is different. The Orthodox Jews on the West Bank want to be near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron or the Tomb of Joseph or whatever. These are Jewish holy sites, and IMHO they have as much right to be there as do the Muslims who consider the sites holy.
The reason they are so reluctant to leave is because of the poor record Arab governments have at protecting Jewish holy sites. As seen from 1948-1967 when Jordan occupied East Jerusalem and all the synagogues were burned down, a donkey corral was set up in front of the Western Wall, and the Jews there were rounded up and deported. As seen when Orthodox Jews evacuated the Tomb of Joseph last year and a Palestinian mob came and set the place on fire, burning Torahs and such.
I generally don’t defend these people, as I think that their demands for Israeli government protection is out of line, just like the ultra-Zionists on the West Bank. But they are not out of line demanding protection from the Palestinian government. After all, Israel has guaranteed the right of Muslims to pray at al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock since 1967.
Whew Sua your gonna make me work at this aren’t you. I’ll tell you what I’ll go do a search and find some online articles (from reputable sources of course) about Israelis who were arrested for cirmes commited against palestinians if you can find me articles that are #1 about current Israelis settlers purpotrating attacks #2 that show the Israeli government sanctioned it or let it happen unpunished. Deal?
By the way I think I will shed a little light on where all this Jew=Nazi BS comes from… if you go back and read the political writings and speaches given by PLO leadership back around 1988 or so that is the first time that the Israelis were compared to the Nazis. Its is extremely interesting, to me at least, how if somebody repeats something long and loud enough people start adopting your language. Some interesting parallels can be drawn regarding the “palestinian” people.
Quote:
The Nazis engaged in an automated, government-run program to first de-humanize and then exterminate a whole people. They launched a war that tore Europe apart and in which millions died. They persecuted and murdered any political dissenters, or any minority they didn’t like
Everybody here does realize that the PLO did exactly this don’t they? They have also at least within their own people tried to dehumanize the Jews? Sua if you would like a cite on that I can give it to you but you will have to wait until tommow I don’t have any of my books here at work.
Edwino brings up what I think is a very important aspect that hasn’t been brought up yet. The palestinians have a horrible track record regarding religious site protection. I remember that incident last year when they burned Josephs tomb. It was heart wrenching.
Sua Quote:
Why the double standard? Why should the actions of one Palestinian ambulance driver reflect on all Palestinians?
The reason I posted the link was to show that the issue of “innocence” is relative. The actions of the ambulance driver mentioned is indicative of the situation when dealing with the palestinians. You will recall about a month ago when the IDF shot two pregnant women within two days? I saw that reported here in the western media and thought uh oh this is not good pr I turned to my wife and said “I bet the tried to run a roadblock” I got online the next day and sure enough that was what happened. The link was posted for informative value only. We are supposed to be fighting ignorance here aren’t we?
I also only know what I get from the media, mostly CNN, and have been enjoying this debate so far. One thing I did notice though was that in nswgru1 rebuttle of sua point:
You only skirted around point B, and nowhere did you address point C, This is one of the things that i do feel is unjustified, why is it that the Israelis are justified in bulldozing these people’s homes?? Please answer that one for me. Because it does seem like it is an occupation and a forceful one at that.
I don’t want to keep going and add other points at this time, I would rather take it one step at a time.
Thanks
(b) the Israeli army has blockaded Palestinian cities and towns, preventing access and egress;
In order to understand the logic behind this I think one needs to have some experience in either (A) the military or (B) security operations. It also wouldn’t hurt to know a little bit about the geography of the area also. But to make a long explination short…put yourself in the shoes of the Minister of Defense for Israel you have a population of people that are hostile toward your population of people (even to a suicidal degree) where complete seperation would be the ideal solution. Other considerations are that you are somewhat dependent on these hostile people for a certain percentage of your labor force so what do you do? The obvious answer is to set up check points around the population centers and try to weed out the hostiles from the non hostiles.
Now all this being said lets look at this from the IDF position. Lots of people love to spew forth the contention that even the IDF says that the occupation should end…well it is a well known fact (within military circles) that the type of operations necessary for our senario are not well suited to military troops. The US went through this same kind of situation (remember Somalia and Bosnia durring the early 90’s)
Now lets deal with the issue of bulldozing homes. This policy is one that I have a little bit of trouble with and I will not try to defend all of the bulldozing incidents but a few weeks back probably about 6 or 8 the IDF bulldozed several (I think the number was about 30-40) buildings. BUILDINGS I put this in caps because I want to point out a distinction buildings and the nice little cozy picture of houses and white picket fences. These buildings where along the boarder of the Gaza strip (the southern boarder if I am not mistaken) anyway on the surface this distruction looks arbitrary and cruel but here was the deal for about 3 weeks prior to the bulldozing of these buildings IDF soilders who were stationed at a checkpoint nearby (within a few hundred yards) had recieved sporadic small arms fire (they where shot at once or twice a day and when I say shot at I don’t mean a single shot I am talking about a shootout twenty to thirty shots comming in, lasting two to three minutes) well it seems that the shooters finally went and did some target practice because the day before the bulldozing incident two Israeli soilders where killed the shooters had been using the buildings as firing positions to take pot shots at the soilders. Now what do you do? Do you park a Merkava at the checkpoint and the next time you recieve incomming do you fire off a few HP rounds and hopefully get your shooters (and maybe a few “innocents” also) or do you say enough is enough if the population won’t flog these pot shot taking bastards to death when they see them comming then we are going to deny them their cover. Its a very tough situation and the only people that get hurt in the end are the “innocents”. Its bad and nobody likes it but it is pratical.
Now that is just one incident that I pointed out their are others that (A) don’t have nearly the same kind of justification or (B) very very sketchy justification. For the sake of fairness I will give an example of a very very sketchy justification incident.
The IDF (I think maybe it was public works) in Jerusalem bulldozed dozens (I don’t remember the number but it was a bunch) of houses in Jerusalem because the mayor said that the buildings had been ileagally constructed (they had not obtained a required permit to construct the buildings). Now it has been contended that these permits are almost impossible to obtain (if your arabic) but to be honest I don’t doubt that they are but I haven’t seen the number of permit applications submited by arabs vs the number submitted by Jews and the coresponding numbers of approved permits but anyhoo its probably pretty low on the arab side. Now I don’t have proof to back that up but would love for sombody to blast me with some figures.
Uh-uh. That’s not how this works. **You made an assertion; you back it up. I have not made an assertion; I have nothing I need to back up.
Oh yes you did buddy boy.
Sua Quote:
Writing in all caps doesn’t make something true. And, of course **
[/QUOTE]
it is the case.
See above link. In addition, there are many other instances of “vigilante” murders by West Bank settlers.
Now I conceded that you provided a link of a single group (what was it seven years old?) and I conceded that there have been Israeli reprisals, but even you link says that the perpetrators where imprisoned it was for seven years right? The point your link seemed to be trying to make was that this was not enough well hells bells buddy look at the PA walk in one day out within the hour. To quote the great Sua himself…“Why the double standard?”
Also I would like to hear you address the issue of the number of “innocents” killed vs the actual numbers. Do we need to show documented truth here also or do you concede the numbers reported by the media is misleading to the average person?
What are you talking about? You said that there haven’t been WB settlers who have randomly killed Palestinians. I stated this was inaccurate, and provided a cite to back up my assertion.
You asserted that the Israeli government treats settler vigilantes swiftly and harshly. I requested evidentiary documentation.
You responded by saying that you would back up your assertion if I provided additional evidence about something I never asserted. I am refusing to back up something I’ve never said. No double standard - I’ve provided evidence for my one assertion. You still haven’t provided evidence for the assertion I’ve challenged.
If you want to assert something, you can certainly do that. If you want it believed, you need to provide evidence.
For some reason a lot more than I intended got put inbold
but let me make this simple for you ok here is where you made your assertion:
Quote:
In addition, there are many other instances of “vigilante” murders by West Bank settlers.
Well Mr/Mrs Sua I said I would provide evidence for my assertion lets see yours. I refuse to play this game of nswgru1 does all the looking though articles because quite frankly the as our esteemed coleage MHand has already pointed out to you and the rest of the people reading this thread the link you provided is almost all there is (notice I didn’t say completely all).
You still are avoiding answering what your interpetation of the numbers reported in the media. Are you avoiding this for some reason or are you happy with your diet of pro-palestinian propoganda?
We have gotten off on a tangent here from the original post so I just want to ask you do know what the Weizmann-Fiesal agreement is don’t you? Why have you not mentioned this in any of your other post concerning the middle east…seems to take the wind out of your “the poor palestinians have had their land stolen from them” arguement doesn’t it?
Another thing have you even read any of Kahane’s writing?
Well, on reflection, it wasn’t fair. And while I never did really finish that article, I now sort of agree with its conclusion. Israel as a Jewish state is doomed. The reason is simple political geography. I’ll do another thread about this someday, but for now, I think this:
The best hope for Israel is to take a Palestinian state offer full citizenship & franchise to all the residents of the West Bank & Gaza; some of the Arabs won’t take it, and they must then be deported. Let the Saudis & Hashemites have them, & suffer. Not perfect, but at least it’s not shooting kids (we hope). But this war will go on as long as two things are there: A state of Israel, and enough of those who want to fight it. Israel doesn’t have control. The only unilateral way the Jews could end it is to abandon the whole country.
I guess a lot of you knew this already. So I’m slow.