Well, I took a month or so to cool off before returning to this board, and it looks like I won’t be back. Crane’s post was clearly anti-Semitic, as multiple Jewish posters from diverse ideological backgrounds agreed. It was IMO deserving of insta-ban, although I also would have accepted a lengthy suspension. Anything less is a meaningless slap on the wrist.
It frankly boggles my mind how you can be a Jew and not see that. In any case, I can’t see myself remaining a member of this board after Crane was not warned, and then I was warned for complaining about him. (Yes, I used ATMB-inappropriate language. Seems like I should have been cut some slack under the circumstances, but I guess the mods are perfectly OK with “slamming people for going overboard on emotional topics”…as long as those people are Jewish).
Congratulations to all those of you who apparently want to see SDMB become a Jew-free zone. I’m out of here. Someone please PM me on Giraffe when Crane dies so I can come join the party.
I’m sorry you feel that way. I very much don’t want the sdmb to be a “jew free zone”. I suspect there’s are a lot of Jews here, actually.
Fwiw, it generally takes more than one outburst to be banned for racism, sexism, and various other forms of bigotry on this board. I frequent other boards that take a harder line on those topics.
Yeah, I do not understand at all how this became Thing.Fish’s chosen hill to die on (complete with resumption of provocative death-wishing, yet).
While I agree with basically everybody that it was justified to mod Crane’s inflammatory comparison of Israeli actions with those of the Waffen SS, I have to say this:
Speaking as a Jew and a supporter of Palestinian rights, although I utterly reject claims of overall moral equivalence between Israelis and Nazis in general, I can nonetheless see how a reasonable non-antisemite might honestly believe, based on recent events, that at least some policy shapers in the Israeli government are deliberately seeking a degree of destruction targeting the Palestinian people that plausibly qualifies as genocidal attack.
I refrain from such accusations myself, because I think that unambiguously determining exactly what counts as “genocide” and exactly how evidence should be assessed to evaluate such claims in the current conflict is well beyond my ability and expertise. But I don’t regard it as intrinsically, necessarily antisemitic for someone to claim that Israel is currently seeking genocide against Palestinians.
I repeat that I agree that the deliberate introduction of the “Waffen SS” comparison into such a claim is gratuitously insensitive and horrifying to the point where that rhetoric does arguably cross the line into antisemitic provocation, and Crane was rightly rebuked for it. But I’m equally if not more disgusted by Thing.Fish’s repeated gloating over the prospect of another poster’s death, especially given that the other poster in question is (as far as the SDMB community can determine) a nonagenarian.
IMHO, in this interposter dispute Crane is by no means coming off as the clear winner of the Primary Asshole title. And IMHO, when one of the disputants has literally compared Israelis to Nazis, it takes a pretty impressive display of assholery on their opponent’s part to put that title back in play.
Well, although I find it very hard to see how anyone of good will could disagree with me on this, if Kimstu thinks I’m acting like an asshole, I have to think that I probably am.
So I’ll renounce the flounce, but I still feel like I need an extended vacation from this place, at least from threads on controversial topics. Peace out.