The Jews of the world don't like you either, Sevastopol

The BBQ Pit
101

I am certainly not suggesting that you or others are “getting marching orders” from anyone. I am stating clearly that when someone makes arguments like those referred to here that some supporters of Israel come along and by innuendo libel people as anti-Semitic. Opposing arguments and instances are referred to as “discredited” or “demolished” elsewhere.

Suffice to say that Sevastapol has in the topic line of the OP been accused of not liking Jews. That is an accusation of anti-Semitism by innuendo. Nobody here has supported that argument with direct quotes that stand up. For all I know, they might exist, but they haven’t been put forward. What I see instead is the usual smears against someone who is anti-Zionist: that it is the same has hating Jews. It isn’t. The complained of quote from Sevastapol is that Zionism is strongly liked to Judaism and it hurts Judaism. I’m sorry to burst any bubbles here, but when someone within a group or a group does something that reflects badly on the group, be they Shriners, Muslims, Democrats or Jews. Madoff was really bad for Jews. Gaza reflects badly on Israel and overzealous defense of what goes on in Gaza and the occupied territories reflects badly.

For the past several years, my support of Israel has dwindled a great deal because of the long term treatment of the Palestinians. I would like to see the situation salvaged, but will it be?

102

The course of true lovenever did run smooth.

Interesting, more later.

103

I don’t know Sevastopol, or his postings (other than what is linked to), but what really irritates me is the notion that anyone who disagrees with Israel or giving money to Israel is anti-semitic.

It’s a nice label, and it immediately changes the debate, but it doesn’t make the person anti-semitic.

I also find it interesting that people who are offended by the word “cult” to describe judaism, have no problem seeing christianity being bashed on these boards on a daily basis as a “cult”.

As far as WWII, and the idea that the holocaust was suppressed, well, I have to ask… if so, so what? Roosevelt’s first priority was to US security and national interests, and I don’t see any reason why he would jump into WWII to “save the jews”. How about “save the Russians” (they lost 20 + million) or save the Poles, or the gypsys or the crippled or infirmed? Not to mention, the brits!

The US shouldn’t have jumped into a world war to save the Jews, or anyone else. If the Jews were saved as a consequence of our participation, that’s fine… but why do Jews feel that the US owed them the blood of their sons to help their plight in Europe over the plight of everyone else? The US didn’t cause the problem in Europe. And if the people of the US wouldn’t support a war in Europe, that’s our right as a nation.

And for you historians who speak of this anti-semitism in the US pre-WWII, what were the reasons for this? Seems that anti-semitism was global then. Why?

104

Of course not. He just wants to see a lot of Jews shot, and any questioning of doing so is actually anti-Semitism defending these moral defectives - who happen to be, you know, Jews but he has no idea about this. Of course this leads to the issue of how he can think anyone who questions shooting all these people is his perverted definition of an anti-Semite. I mean if he has no clue if these people he wants to kill are Jews, how can anyone objecting to it be anti-Semitic? Well, they’re not just moral defectives, they’re less than human.

Of course directly calling them sub-human might cause problems, so apparently it’s the Israeli Army that views settlers as less than human, not Sevastopol himself. I mean there was some guy who used to like calling Jews and other undesirables subhuman.

Not exactly. He didn’t say the link from Zionism to Judaism hurts Judaism, he said it pollutes it, corrupts it and makes it an evil cult -or wait, sorry, it *appears * as an evil cult. Actually flat out saying it’s an evil cult of morally degenerate subhumans runs into problems, like it’s not a very effective way to troll.

I’d love to see things get salvaged as well, and any blind unqualified support for Israel I had dwindled long ago. The Palestinians have very legitimate grievances. This doesn’t make obvious trolling less obvious though.

105

You are really missing the point. First of all the WWII discussion was tangential to this thread. Secondly, the historical puzzle is why the US government didn’t denounce Nazi atrocities against the Jews during WWII. (There are other questions regarding why the US didn’t bomb the trains leading to Auchwitz, but they are not part of this thread.)

It’s not exactly news that there was a large amount of racial and ethnic prejudice in the US during the 1930s, much of it quite explicit. There were also advocates of human decency during the era, who deserve recognition.

Flub aside, I opine that some of the comments in the OP cross the line into anti-semitism. Face it: it is possible for somebody to be against the policies of the state of Israel and a bigot as well, though IMHO most of those in the former group are not part of the latter.

106

Actually the idea was not mine at all, rather isn’t the “PR coup” view a historical fact?

Again a bit of a misunderstanding here. While I do not recall the exact quote, ‘agency’ was used in the sense of an intermediary, not a bureaucracy with public funding and so forth. It is useful to clear these things up.

As to language in general, I think it is a fair criticism to say that I occasionally stray into exaggeration.

107

He is now claiming that a post of mine saying Jordan needs to be involved in any creation of a Palestinian state is supporting ethnic cleansing.

Sumbitch has no knowledge of history or geography.

108

Judaism has caused conflict on this planet? Fair enough. Just about every religion has caused conflict on this planet. Are there bad Jews? Of course! Are there “evil” Jews? Of course! Just like there are evil/bad Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Scientologists, whatever. But those "bad’ Jews, like Baruch Goldstein, like Mehir Kahane, were guilty of committing chillul hashem, of defaming the name of G-d, those two specifically by violating his commandments against murder and bearing false witness (respectively). Does that make all Jews evil or horrible? No. It does, however, impress upon us the responsibility of making kiddush hashem to atone for them and all other “bad” people in the world. I will do that, as others have before me and, I’m sure, as others others will do long after I’m gone. I cannot for the life of me fathom why Jews are so maligned in the world. I challenge anyone to tell me what is so bad about Jews or Judaism that we need to be so specifically hated and distrusted. It can’t possibly be the so-called “Israeli atrocities,” because we were hated long before Israel was ever even a glimmer in someone’s eye.

I don’t give a shit what your religion is, just try and keep it to your fucking self

Judaism is one of the very few religions that actually discourages conversion and prostheltyzing. If anyone needs to keep their religion to themselves it certainly isn’t Jews. We DO keep our religion to ourselves!

109

As can be said of most Jews in the diaspora, as well as a sizable portion of the Israeli population. Read the English edition of Haaretz if you don’t believe me.

110

The purpose of the OP as I understand it was to call out Sevastopol for being a bigot. His arguments, such as they were, were dealt with in the referenced GD thread (and many similar GD threads before it). The Pit seems to me to be a proper place for, well, pitting him.

No, it appears quite direct to me.

This displays remarkable naivete or willful blindness. Very, very seldom will you see anyone (and never on this board in my memory) come right out and admit that they despise a particular ethnic group. They reveal themselves in more indirect ways. Sevastopol’s rantings barely qualify as demonstrating any subtlety.

And what I see is the same old unfounded charge dragged out yet again, in defense of a bigot who taints the cause you support. Is this really the company you want to keep?

The irony, it burns.

My positive feelings have dwindled as well, as regards both sides. I think if you paid attention to what people who debate the subject on this board are saying, you’ll find that most if not all “supporters of Israel” are far from being “Israel right or wrong” types. As an example, I recall Finn as being outspoken on the damage unrestrained settlement construction is doing to hopes for peace.

As far as I’m concerned, I view anyone who views one side in this conflict as evil and the other side as essentially blameless to be wretchedly biased and helping to damage prospects for peace. Adding flat-out bigotry to the mix only makes matters worse.

Not everyone takes as much satisfaction in death caused by terrorism as you do. Though it’s interesting that in your remarks on the subject in that thread, you primly sanitized the murders as “kidnappings”. :dubious:

Don’t let me stop you from “clearing things up” further? Who or what is the mysterious “intermediary” that holds the strings of your debate opponents?

And why do my checks never arrive? If I’m selling my soul to a shadowy Entity, there has to be more in it for me than the satisfaction of pummeling some dimwit on a message board.

111

The Azeris in Iran are “culturally more Turkish”? You could be right, but I’d need to see a cite for that.

112

Exactly.

I am not an Israel can do no wrong person either. But the comments by Sev’s that I linked to were just over the top inappropriate. You do NOT gain support for the Palestinian cause by using such vile language about Jews.

Implying that Judaism is corrupt and evil; that Jews have dual loyalties and that Judaism is polluted (criticism that has very ugly historical overtones) is not the way to get Jews to listen to you or (one would hope) get the world to take you seriously.

113

I’ll do it for you. Being Jewish is a faith, ethnic group and culture, all rolled into one. To most other cultures (including most religions, as well as ideologies) which have a proselytizing background, this concept is entirely alien. Arguably, two out of three is enough, myself as a typical example of somebody who has never though of himself as anything other than a Jew culturally and ethnically, while being an atheist.

The term antisemitism was coined in Europe in the 1860s, in regard to races, and very specifically connoting hatred against Jews. From a modern perspective, there is no such thing as a “Semitic race” (as little as there is an “Aryan race”). Those associated with the Semitic language group are diverse ethnic and cultural groups with little in common.

So,

Antisemitism means hatred against Jews as an ethnic group*
Judaism is a religion, practiced by the cultural and ethnic group known as Jews.
Semites are not an ethnic group, but a language group.

114

Let’s see…different languages, different ethnic groups, different cultures, different subsets of the same religion (as different as Protestantism is to Catholicism as to Russian Orthodox), different history.

Persians and Arabs are not the same, no.

115

We don’t. For the last 150 years, we’ve preferred to have our own nation, where we can defend ourselves.

116

If a majority of the population of Northern Ireland no longer wished to remain part of the United Kingdom, withdrawal would happen. Is that also true of the Occupied Territories?

The people of Northern Ireland are full citizens of the United Kingdom. Are the people of the Occupied Territories full citizens of Israel?

Generally I think you are right in your conversation with ivan astikov here, but this is just bs.

More generally, is there a list of which insults based on national origin are permitted here and which aren’t?

117

One thing: while Persians tend to be Shi’a, they aren’t alone. There are Arab Shi’a as well.

118

Indeed. Hezbollah are an example of a powerful Shi’a group within the Arab world. But then we also have Sufi, Ismailism (a branch of Shi’a) and Wahhabism (a branch of Sunni), not to mention Arab subgroups such as Maronites and arguably the Druze.
Still, I was generalizing =)

119

Hm, all the Druze I’ve met consider themselves to be just Druze, not Arabs.

120

The same in my experience, hence I said arguably. They are mentioned as Arabs in the Wikipedia article about the same, so I thought I’d add them anyway.