Puerile (not to speak of insensitive and intentionally inflammatory) comparisons: An exasperating and entirely predictable response from the party concerned.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Puerile (not to speak of insensitive and intentionally inflammatory) comparisons: An exasperating and entirely predictable response from the party concerned.
It's not puerile. It's a fact. Zionism is an ideology of ethnic nationalism. An ideology that's based on the belief that one racial, or semi-racial group, has the right to lord it over another group. It's an ideology that has no place in today's World, and that should be tolerated by no one.
You've constructed a notion Zionism as some sort of homogenous essentialized evil, but that isn't what it actually is. It's nationalism, essentially no different from the nationalism of any other people on earth. It isn't inherently racial, nor does it necessitate a belief in subjugating anyone at all. If there's no place in today's world for Zionism then there's no place for any nation state. If that's your argument, well and good, but then I'd question the motivations for your particular vehemence with respect to Zionism alone.
From a working paper produced by David Hirsch, a professor of sociology in London:
"Anti-Zionism tends to define itself against a notion of ‘Zionism’ that is largely constructed by its own discourses and narratives. The ‘Zionism’ that anti-Zionist discourses typically depict and denounce is more like a totalizing and timeless essence of evil than a historical set of changing and variegated beliefs and practices. It is presented as an unthinkable object which requires either unconditional rejection or belief, rather than as a social and political phenomenon. The term ‘Zionism’ is often used in such a way as to bring it closer to the language of evil than to the province of social scientific or historical understanding. ‘Zionist’ often hits out like an insult and carries such pejorative connotations that the reality behind it has ended up disappearing under layers of stigmatisation. For example: ‘The Zionists think that they are victims of Hitler, but they act like Hitler and behave worse than Genghis Khan’ (President Ahmadinejad quoted in Jerusalem Post 2006); ‘Zionism is a form of racism...’, UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 (later rescinded); ‘Zionists and their friends are desperate to silence the voices of and for Palestine’, (from an op-ed piece in the Guardian newspaper Soueif 2006); ‘[Respect] is a Zionist-free party... if there was any Zionism in the Respect Party they would be hunted down and kicked out. We have no time for Zionists’, (Yvonne Ridley, February 2006, Imperial College, London, or-Bach 2006).
The demonization of ‘Zionism’ appears to be part of an anti-oppression politics, but it points in another direction: toward a totalitarian way of thinking whose language is that of conspiracy conducted by dark forces. A solution is often conceived not in terms of peace and reconciliation but rather in terms of destroying or uprooting the evil, wherever it is to be found."
Firstly he made use of two analogies which are routinely used not to shed light on the Israel/Palestine conflict, but to demonize Israel and to foster a commonsense popular loathing of Israel. The Israel/Palestine conflict is a nasty and long-running dispute over (on a global scale) a small amount of territory, in which neither party is entirely right or wrong. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank relies on organized daily violence, repression and humiliation of Palestinians. But the occupation is not the result of an Israeli wish to dominate or of a particularly Israeli cruelty. It is the result of a long and violent dispute between Jews and Arabs, and Israelis and Palestinians in which those who have argued for peace and reconciliation on both sides have usually been defeated politically. Many Palestinian responses to the occupation (and to the presence of Jews in Israel) have been murderous and self-defeating. But the idea that Israel is a Nazi state is absurd and offensive. There is not, and there never has been, a genocide of Palestinians; there are no Israeli gas-chambers, concentration camps or Einsatzgruppen; the numbers of deaths on both sides throughout the conflict are analogous to the number of murders that the Nazi regime routinely committed every few minutes.
The use of the apartheid analogy is designed to isolate Israel as South Africa previously had been, as an illegitimate state. The analogy is not designed to shed light but to act as a short-cut to the boycott conclusion. The analogy could be used, honestly, to illuminate some aspects of the occupation, but when used politically it often functions as a method of demonizing rather than of explaining. Many other analogies are more appropriate, for example analogies with nationalist movements in the Balkans or in other fragments of the old empires. There is a serious situation in the West Bank, where Jewish settlers, backed by Israel, do live in a legally privileged relationship with Palestinians which does have some resemblance to apartheid. They do enjoy privileged legal rights, democratic rights, rights of movement, rights to resources, rights to water. But it is because the situation is not the same as the former South Africa that most Israelis think that the Jewish settlers ought to go home to Israel; a peace between Israel and Palestine will not be forged in a unitary state (like the new South Africa). It is much more likely to be a two state solution precisely because this is a struggle between two national communities, not a struggle against an apartheid system of racism.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
It's nationalism, essentially no different from the nationalism of any other people on earth. It isn't inherently racial, nor does it necessitate a belief in subjugating anyone at all. If there's no place in today's world for Zionism then there's no place for any nation state.
No, it isn't Nationalism. It's Ethnic Nationalism. And it isn't the same as the nationalism of any other people on Earth.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/10/14/fearsome-words/ '...As for Germany, my Jewish parents, born and raised there, staunchly maintained that it was the least antisemitic country in all of pre-Nazi Europe. Why then is the Nazi genocide attributed to antisemitism, which clearly was necessary but not sufficient to produce it? And what about the aspects of Nazi ethnic cleansing that antisemitism can’t possibly explain – the genocide against the gypsies and the planned extermination of thirty million Slavs, many of whom died as ‘subhumans’ in inhuman prison camps?
There was an ideology sufficient to drive all those atrocities. It fairly stares us in the face. It was not devised by Hitler, but by 19th Century Romantics – poets and pseudo-historians from Scandinavia across Central Europe and down into the Italian Peninsula and the Balkans. It was not the Nazis, but Woodrow Wilson who made it a fixture of contemporary politics. This was the ideology of ethnic nationalism.
Wilson legitimized this atrocious doctrine during the peace negotiations that ended the First World War. Wilson’s own secretary of state, Robert Lansing, anticipated its consequences all too accurately:
"The more I think about the President’s declaration as to the right of ‘self-determination,’ the more convinced I am of the danger of putting such ideas into the minds of certain races. It is bound to be the basis of impossible demands on the Peace Congress and create trouble in many lands.
"What effect will it have on the Irish, the Indians, the Egyptians, and the nationalists among the Boers? Will it not breed discontent, disorder, and rebellion? Will not the Mohammedans of Syria and Palestine and possibly of Morocco and Tripoli rely on it? How can it be harmonized with Zionism, to which the President is practically committed?
"The phrase is simply loaded with dynamite. It will raise hopes which can never be realized. It will, I fear, cost thousands of lives. In the end it is bound to be discredited, to be called the dream of an idealist who failed to realize the danger until too late to check those who attempt to put the principle in force. What a calamity that the phrase was ever uttered! What misery it will cause!"
Israel’s famous right of return [...] is based on Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws: the right of Return is granted to any individual with one Jewish grandparent, or who is married to someone with one Jewish grandparent.
...Jew’, in other words, does not refer to those who espouse Judaism or embrace Jewish culture. ‘Jew’ means ‘of Jewish ancestry’. In virtually every Canadian jurisdiction, ancestry is explicitly cited as a prohibited ground of discrimination. Ancestry is just a contemporary stand-in for the older notion of race and is generally used in references to racial discrimination.(**) Like skin colour, it’s something you cannot change, and therefore a particularly repugnant basis for determining civic status.
...So a miracle appears among us. The very ideology of homelands and peoples under whose auspices the Jews were all but exterminated has become the sustaining ideology of Israel, a state devoted to Jewish ethnic sovereignty. This is why we always hear that Israel – not Israelis – has a right to exist. What matters are not the citizens of a state, but the state itself, the totemic icon of ‘the Jewish people’. The fatal confusion that legitimized ethnic nationalism at the Paris Peace Conference now legitimizes Israel itself. When Zionists suggest that the French and Germans have a right to their states, they conveniently forget that this means the *inhabitants* of France and Germany, not those of some French or German *ancestry*, not a ‘people’ in the sense of an ethnic group. (The world was outraged when it suspected that Britain’s ‘patrial’ immigration laws were designed to favor those of ethnically British ancestry.) But ‘the Jewish people’ have a right to their state, and this is supposed to be some lofty ideal. Why? Because ethnic nationalism has taken on the cloak of civic nationalism, and we are too stupid to notice. Had ethnic nationalism not shed a single drop of blood, we should still be ashamed for crediting its mystique of peoples, historical wrongs, collective vices and virtues, ineluctable destinies. Abstractions and myths that could not even gain entrance to a university’s ivory towers flow daily from the lips of supposedly practical people.'
From a working paper produced by David Hirsch, a professor of sociology in London:
"Anti-Zionism tends to define itself against a notion of ‘Zionism’ that is largely constructed by its own discourses and narratives. The ‘Zionism’ that anti-Zionist discourses typically depict and denounce is more like a totalizing and timeless essence of evil than a historical set of changing and variegated beliefs and practices. It is presented as an unthinkable object which requires either unconditional rejection or belief, rather than as a social and political phenomenon. The term ‘Zionism’ is often used in such a way as to bring it closer to the language of evil than to the province of social scientific or historical understanding. ‘Zionist’ often hits out like an insult and carries such pejorative connotations that the reality behind it has ended up disappearing under layers of stigmatisation. For example: ‘The Zionists think that they are victims of Hitler, but they act like Hitler and behave worse than Genghis Khan’ (President Ahmadinejad quoted in Jerusalem Post 2006); ‘Zionism is a form of racism...’, UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 (later rescinded); ‘Zionists and their friends are desperate to silence the voices of and for Palestine’, (from an op-ed piece in the Guardian newspaper Soueif 2006); ‘[Respect] is a Zionist-free party... if there was any Zionism in the Respect Party they would be hunted down and kicked out. We have no time for Zionists’, (Yvonne Ridley, February 2006, Imperial College, London, or-Bach 2006).
The demonization of ‘Zionism’ appears to be part of an anti-oppression politics, but it points in another direction: toward a totalitarian way of thinking whose language is that of conspiracy conducted by dark forces. A solution is often conceived not in terms of peace and reconciliation but rather in terms of destroying or uprooting the evil, wherever it is to be found."
Playing the anti-Semitism card again? How predictable.
There is not, and there never has been, a genocide of Palestinians; there are no Israeli gas-chambers, concentration camps or Einsatzgruppen; the numbers of deaths on both sides throughout the conflict are analogous to the number of murders that the Nazi regime routinely committed every few minutes.
So this makes Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, and it's ongoing land-grab acceptable then?
The use of the apartheid analogy is designed to isolate Israel as South Africa previously had been, as an illegitimate state.
Except nobody ever claimed that South Africa was an illegitimate state. What they claimed was that the Apartheid regime in South Africa was illegitimate. Big difference. But then I can understand why Israel's apologists need to resort to exaggeration and subterfuge. By distorting the facts and pretending that criticism of Israel consists of labeling it a Nazi state, in an effort to 'deligitimize' it, you provide yourself with a convenient platform from which to try and defend Israel's ongoing 46 year old ethnic cleansing and land-grab. Unfortunately, your straw man arguments don't wash with me.
In the allusion to an alleged concerted, and combined effort to 'stigmatize' Israel.
It's just the same old bullshit designed to deflect any and all criticism of Israel and/or Zionism, by pretending that such criticism is merely part of a Global conspiracy based on...you know what.
A) Your argument re. the Nazi comparison is ludicrous. As if there's no middle ground between unquestioning acceptance of everything Israel does and agreeing with you that Israel is tantamount to Nazi Germany. Seriously?!
Read the article. It isn't talking about any sort of wild conspiracy, except insofar as it discusses the conspiratorial bent that marks a lot of anti-Zionist thinking. It's a scholarly piece about the sociology of the various anti-Zionist movements. Seriously, you should read it. It's basically all about you.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
A) Your argument re. the Nazi comparison is ludicrous. As if there's no middle ground between unquestioning acceptance of everything Israel does and agreeing with you that Israel is tantamount to Nazi Germany. Seriously?!
Except I didn't say that Israel is tantamount to Nazi Germany. You said that, in your attempt to exaggerate and distort my argument so that you can try and shoot it down, as I explained already. It's an old trick, but it doesn't work here, because I can see straight through it.
Read the article. It isn't talking about any sort of wild conspiracy, except insofar as it discusses the conspiratorial bent that marks a lot of anti-Zionist thinking. It's a scholarly piece about the sociology of the various anti-Zionist movements. Seriously, you should read it. It's basically all about you.
The piece is a sham which attempts to deflect criticism of Israel and/or Zionism by describing it as being either 'exaggerated' - i.e, unfounded - and/or grounded in anti-Semitism, or inspiring anti-Semitism.
David Hirsh, the author of this piece, has declared that anybody who decides to organize an academic boycott of Israel is an anti-Semite. He also stated the following: "UCU has demonstrated repeatedly that it is simply not bothered by antisemitism if it comes packaged in the language of criticism of Israel." In other words, if you encounter any "language of criticism of Israel" then you must surely be witnessing the cloak of anti-Semitism.
UCU executive committee member Tom Hickey replied to David Hirsh's allegations by saying: “David Hirsh’s contribution was supposed to be about the existence of a variety of forms of antisemitism. The only thing we heard was the union discussing the boycott question. The discussion of the appropriateness of a boycott of Israel by the UCU is not an example of antisemitism, and to ignore all of the real forms of antisemitism in Europe today is, quite simply, a disgrace.”
Mr Hickey said Mr Hirsh’s accusations about institutional racism, antisemitism and intimidation were “a traducement of the truth and it’s a straightforward lie and the author knows it. There has been no intimidation — the union and the chief executive would not allow it.”
Like I said, your playing of the antisemitism card is all too predictable. And all too lame.
Oh, and don't think I've not noticed that you've neglected to address any of the points made in the piece I posted. Zionism is based on ethnic Nationalism. It's a racist ideology that should be abhorred by any right-thinking person.
By the way, this thread is about Jewish settler attacks being labelled acts of terrorism.
First of all, what are your thoughts on that?
Secondly, why are you once again trying desperately to defend Israel - while accusing anyone and everyone who criticizes Israel's crimes as being an anti-semite, and while trying to defend ethnic Nationalism - on a thread dealing with Israeli terrorist attacks against Palestinians?
I want to thank Yosi and VivaPalestina for for taking the time to express their thoughts and opinions. As the only people on this and other similar threads who have lived the conflict it is their opinions that truly matter.
I want to thank Yosi and VivaPalestina for for taking the time to express their thoughts and opinions. As the only people on this and other similar threads who have lived the conflict it is their opinions that truly matter.
Shalom and As- salamu Alaykum
I wouldn't say it is only their opinions that truly matter. I would say their opinions are very valuable.
To say what you have said tends to dismiss any well-formulated opinion developed through extensive research and care. The world isn't a better place if only people directly involved with this type of conflict can hold legitimate perspectives. Not to mention that in some cases, those closest to the situation hold opinions that cannot be developed without varying degrees of bias given their proximity to the situation.
Byrnzie, I think your statement at the top of this page speaks for itself, so let's not start pretending now that the comparison wasn't made. I am not saying that you are an antisemite for making the comparison, though it certainly is viciously offensive and insensitive not to speak of inflammatory and flatly untrue. I would say that the comparison to Nazism is the sort of thing that an antisemite would say.
Which brings us to the next point. There is a serious correlation between extreme anti-Zionism (such as that which you seem to espouse) and anti-Semitism. An academic survey done in 2006 and published in the journal of conflict resolution found that anti-Israel sentiment consistently predicts the probability that an individual is anti-semitic, with the likelihood of measured anti-semitism increasing with the extent of anti-Israel sentiment observed.
NOW, to be clear, I am not saying that you are anti-Semitic, BUT I am saying that the opinions that you espouse and the rhetoric that you use are shared by anti-Semites. That being the case, at the very least, I think you are wildly irresponsible in the way you discuss this issue because you contribute to normalizing real expressions of anti-semitism. There are ways of criticizing Israel that are measured and precise. You don't do that. I'm sorry if you don't like being told that the way you express yourself has consequences and that you're putting yourself in bad company, but that's just the way it is.
Finally, your deflection of the anti-Semitism charge that I didn't actually make, your notion that supporters of Israel just cry anti-Semitism to win arguments, is VERY dangerous, and absolutely supports real anti-Semitism. There is no question that among those who criticize Israel are a large number of anti-Semites. What you are contributing to is a blanket shield for these anti-Semites. You are making the argument that accusations of anti-Semitism in the context of Israel discussions are always made in bad faith, and by doing so you are essentially creating a safe haven for anti-Semitism so long as it clothes itself in the right rhetoric. That is shameful.
I'm not going to answer your question about my feelings regarding settler attacks because if you've read what I've written on these threads before (which I know you have) then you know where I stand.
As for why I am "desperately trying to defend Israel," I think that statement is telling on your part. You've slipped from talking about a group of violent settlers to talking about Israel as a whole, as if the actions of those settlers can be imputed to the entire state. Which is even more interesting given that the article you posted earlier in this very thread reported high level ministers in Israel terming these actions as terrorism. Your thinking on Israel is replete with this sort of slippage, where you take individual events, statements, actions and hold them up as evidence of what Israel IS, as if something as complex as an entire state can be so easily essentialized. This pattern of thought mirrors the way that anti-Semites take the actions of individual Jews to reflect the essential character of THE Jews, as if an entire people can be so easily essentialized. AND again, I don't know you so I am not saying that you are an anti-semite. But the way you speak about Israel reproduces the mode of thought common to anti-Semites, which is precisely why real anti-Semitism has found such a comfortable home in anti-Zionist movements. Again, you are running in a crowd that includes some real bad people, and it behooves you to recognize that fact and to be more careful with your language as a result.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
For anybody who wishes to read a careful analysis of the tendency of Israel's apologists to try and equate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism, I recommend you read the book 'Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History' by Norman Finkelstein.
Byrnzie, I think your statement at the top of this page speaks for itself, so let's not start pretending now that the comparison wasn't made. I am not saying that you are an antisemite for making the comparison, though it certainly is viciously offensive and insensitive not to speak of inflammatory and flatly untrue. I would say that the comparison to Nazism is the sort of thing that an antisemite would say.
Which brings us to the next point. There is a serious correlation between extreme anti-Zionism (such as that which you seem to espouse) and anti-Semitism. An academic survey done in 2006 and published in the journal of conflict resolution found that anti-Israel sentiment consistently predicts the probability that an individual is anti-semitic, with the likelihood of measured anti-semitism increasing with the extent of anti-Israel sentiment observed.
NOW, to be clear, I am not saying that you are anti-Semitic, BUT I am saying that the opinions that you espouse and the rhetoric that you use are shared by anti-Semites. That being the case, at the very least, I think you are wildly irresponsible in the way you discuss this issue because you contribute to normalizing real expressions of anti-semitism. There are ways of criticizing Israel that are measured and precise. You don't do that. I'm sorry if you don't like being told that the way you express yourself has consequences and that you're putting yourself in bad company, but that's just the way it is.
Finally, your deflection of the anti-Semitism charge that I didn't actually make, your notion that supporters of Israel just cry anti-Semitism to win arguments, is VERY dangerous, and absolutely supports real anti-Semitism. There is no question that among those who criticize Israel are a large number of anti-Semites. What you are contributing to is a blanket shield for these anti-Semites. You are making the argument that accusations of anti-Semitism in the context of Israel discussions are always made in bad faith, and by doing so you are essentially creating a safe haven for anti-Semitism so long as it clothes itself in the right rhetoric. That is shameful.
I'm not going to answer your question about my feelings regarding settler attacks because if you've read what I've written on these threads before (which I know you have) then you know where I stand.
As for why I am "desperately trying to defend Israel," I think that statement is telling on your part. You've slipped from talking about a group of violent settlers to talking about Israel as a whole, as if the actions of those settlers can be imputed to the entire state. Which is even more interesting given that the article you posted earlier in this very thread reported high level ministers in Israel terming these actions as terrorism. Your thinking on Israel is replete with this sort of slippage, where you take individual events, statements, actions and hold them up as evidence of what Israel IS, as if something as complex as an entire state can be so easily essentialized. This pattern of thought mirrors the way that anti-Semites take the actions of individual Jews to reflect the essential character of THE Jews, as if an entire people can be so easily essentialized. AND again, I don't know you so I am not saying that you are an anti-semite. But the way you speak about Israel reproduces the mode of thought common to anti-Semites, which is precisely why real anti-Semitism has found such a comfortable home in anti-Zionist movements. Again, you are running in a crowd that includes some real bad people, and it behooves you to recognize that fact and to be more careful with your language as a result.
You are all too obvious, Yosi. I wonder if you think you're actually fooling anyone?
Once again, you already know my feelings on the issue.
As for everything else, I seem to be fooling you, for one. I don't know how else to take your complete dodge of the issues raised but as a tacit admission that you lack an adequate response.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Hasbara? By which you mean what exactly? Is the implication that I am part of some sort of organized conspiracy to spread false Israeli propaganda? Because if that is what you're getting at gimme, then I think you've only added to my point about the tendency for anti-Zionist sentiment to slide precipitously from legitimate criticism into conspiracy theory.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Once again, you already know my feelings on the issue.
As for everything else, I seem to be fooling you, for one. I don't know how else to take your complete dodge of the issues raised but as a tacit admission that you lack an adequate response.
Your feelings on the issue? No, I don't know them. Why don't you remind me?
This thread is about Settler attacks against Palestinians. Yet all you've done in this thread is try and accuse everyone who criticizes Israel of being either a knowing, or unwitting, anti-Semite.
To use your lame logic: Your behaviour indicates that you're 'running in a crowd that includes some real bad people', such as the extremist Israeli settlers who call for the complete annihilation of the Palestinians.
You've said nothing against the extremist settlers, who are rightly being labelled terrorists. Instead, you've simply jumped to the defence of Israel and played the anti-Semitism card. Therefore, I take it you've nothing against these people:
The terms Amalek or Amalekites is code for the Palestinians (and other perceived enemies of the Jewish people) and originates in the Old Testament. It amounts to a call for genocide.
...In the last paragraph of the piece, the attack continues with the following remark, "It will be interesting to see whether they (the politically correct rabbis) leave the assembly of the Amalekites (Palestinians) in extermination camps to others, or whether they will declare that wiping out Amalek is no longer (historically ) relevant. Only time will tell……."
http://www.islamagainstextremism.com/articles/pkfjt-jewish-talmudic-extremism-rabbi-yisrael-all-palestinians-must-be-killed-men-women-infants-and-beasts.cfm "All of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts." This was the religious opinion issued one week ago by Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, director of the Tsomet Institute, a long-established religious institute attended by students and soldiers in the Israeli settlements of the West Bank. In an article published by numerous religious Israeli newspapers two weeks ago and run by the liberal Haaretz on 26 March, Rosen asserted that there is evidence in the Torah to justify this stand.
...Rosen's article, which created a lot of noise in Israel, included the text of the ruling in the Torah: "Annihilate the Amalekites from the beginning to the end. Kill them and wrest them from their possessions. Show them no mercy. Kill continuously, one after the other. Leave no child, plant, or tree. Kill their beasts, from camels to donkeys."
At the head of those supporting his opinion is Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, the leading religious authority in Israel's religious national current, and former chief Eastern rabbi for Israel. Rosen's opinion also has the support of Rabbi Dov Lior, president of the Council of Rabbis of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed and a candidate for the post of chief rabbi of Israel. A number of political leaders in Israel have also shown enthusiasm for the opinion, including Ori Lubiansky, head of the Jerusalem municipality.
Ok, even though you already know very well where I stand on the issue, or should know given everything I've written on these threads over the years, I'll indulge you. I agree, these settlers are crazy and criminal, and yes, probably deserve to be labeled terrorists.
Now, once again, do you have anything to say about your completely irresponsible rhetoric?
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Oh, and by the way, you did it again. You wrote, "You've said nothing against the extremist settlers, who are rightly being labelled terrorists. Instead, you've simply jumped to the defence of Israel...." Once again you've slipped from talking about a particular group of individual settlers to talking about Israel as a whole, which once again indicates that you aren't really talking about the real state of Israel, which like any state in the real world can't be so easily essentialized, but rather are talking about your own ideological construction of "Israel."
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Hasbara? By which you mean what exactly? Is the implication that I am part of some sort of organized conspiracy to spread false Israeli propaganda? Because if that is what you're getting at gimme, then I think you've only added to my point about the tendency for anti-Zionist sentiment to slide precipitously from legitimate criticism into conspiracy theory.
you know exactly what i mean.
you can not deny that hasbara is a real thing. you may not be a part of an organized conspiracy and you may not be on the government payroll, but you come on here and you continue to state that you can recognize the things that the israeli government is doing and you acknowledge that they are treating the palestinians like shit, and that the settlers are in the wrong, but at the end of the day you support the settlers and the israeli government. why is that? we can all see it. you can not be on both sides of the argument. you just can't. logic dictates that you can not be on two sides that are completely opposite of each other.
you can criticize me all you want, but i am criticizing the israeli government and it's policies. the government is the representative of all israelis, and until i see a group of israelis standing up and opposing it and voting out people like bibi and his party, i am going to take that as a tacit approval of that government from all israelis.
i oppose zionism and i find it to be the root of all of the problems in the middle east. there is no convincing me otherwise.
the settlers are the problem, and the expansion of the illegal settlements are the problem. and no matter which way you try to analyze it or justify it, their attacks on palestinians, and the theft of land and destruction of palestinian homes and olive groves, and the thuggish acts of the idf are acts of terrorism. period.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Oh, and by the way, you did it again. You wrote, "You've said nothing against the extremist settlers, who are rightly being labelled terrorists. Instead, you've simply jumped to the defence of Israel...." Once again you've slipped from talking about a particular group of individual settlers to talking about Israel as a whole, which once again indicates that you aren't really talking about the real state of Israel, which like any state in the real world can't be so easily essentialized, but rather are talking about your own ideological construction of "Israel."
Have the settlers been supported 100% by the Israeli leadership? Yep. Until the settlements start to be evacuated, as they should be under international law - instead of more settlements being built, as they are right now - then maybe you have a case that the settlers and the government are not hand in glove with each other.
Gimme, it's perfectly possible to be an ardent Zionist and to support Israel while at the same time opposing the settlers. If you don't believe that it is only because (a) you're completely unaware of what goes on in left-wing Israeli/Zionist discourse, and/or (b) you've conflated the small group of settlers who are the subject of this thread with the Israeli state as a whole. I oppose the settlers and the settlements, as well as the current Israeli government (at least with regards to its policies on the West Bank). You're issue is that I don't agree with your outlandish beliefs about the uniquely evil nature of Zionism as a whole, which strike me as growing out of conspiratorial thinking. The fact that you seem to actually believe that the Israeli government cares at all about what is said on a pearl jam fan forum and would actually organize a secret conspiracy to counter what is said here just confirms the fact (at least for me) that you're not seeing this issue straight.
B, the settlers have certainly gotten too much support from the government, but once again you make the mistake of radically simplifying a complex situation. The Israeli government isn't monolithic, and you're wrong to paint the whole government with a single brush. Look at the article you yourself posted in this thread. Or look at the new senior staff promotions that the IDF just made - they promoted a bunch of left-wing generals who have been targets of settler protests in what many are taking to be an implicit sign that the army views the radical settlers as a big problem. But of course, I forgot, Israel is unique among all the states in the world in that it is completely devoid of all complexity.
Still haven't gotten an answer about your irresponsible rhetoric. For someone so concerned with being anti-racist you seem awfully unconcerned by the fact that you might unwittingly be lending aid and comfort to racists.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Gimme, it's perfectly possible to be an ardent Zionist and to support Israel while at the same time opposing the settlers. If you don't believe that it is only because (a) you're completely unaware of what goes on in left-wing Israeli/Zionist discourse, and/or (b) you've conflated the small group of settlers who are the subject of this thread with the Israeli state as a whole. I oppose the settlers and the settlements, as well as the current Israeli government (at least with regards to its policies on the West Bank). You're issue is that I don't agree with your outlandish beliefs about the uniquely evil nature of Zionism as a whole, which strike me as growing out of conspiratorial thinking. The fact that you seem to actually believe that the Israeli government cares at all about what is said on a pearl jam fan forum and would actually organize a secret conspiracy to counter what is said here just confirms the fact (at least for me) that you're not seeing this issue straight.
B, the settlers have certainly gotten too much support from the government, but once again you make the mistake of radically simplifying a complex situation. The Israeli government isn't monolithic, and you're wrong to paint the whole government with a single brush. Look at the article you yourself posted in this thread. Or look at the new senior staff promotions that the IDF just made - they promoted a bunch of left-wing generals who have been targets of settler protests in what many are taking to be an implicit sign that the army views the radical settlers as a big problem. But of course, I forgot, Israel is unique among all the states in the world in that it is completely devoid of all complexity.
Still haven't gotten an answer about your irresponsible rhetoric. For someone so concerned with being anti-racist you seem awfully unconcerned by the fact that you might unwittingly be lending aid and comfort to racists.
YOU are the one who is conflating particular criticisms into general criticisms..when byrnzie makes points about specific issues and you defend it is Israel you defend. You take criticism of terrorists and Zionism and equate that to antisemitism and everyone versed in this issue is worn out with that mentality.
Just because the rhetoric isn't placatory and equivocating doesn't mean it is irresponsible. What are the consequences that arise from passionate discourse? You don't like it, fine, but who made you the judge of whats acceptable? "lending aid and comfort to racists" theres some inflammatory rhetoric!!! Does he run some sort of shelter for racists who need aid and comfort? Or are you stretching the antisemitism arguement past it's credibility?
Anti-Zionism is also not outlandish, that is just ridiculous.
Whats outlandish is the idea that people from particular bloodlines should be able to make a "self-deterministic" state in direct opposition to people from other bloodlines based on several thousand year old myths which are poorly construed into reality. Inflammatory? Yes. Irresponsible? I highly doubt it.
The fact that you seem to actually believe that the Israeli government cares at all about what is said on a pearl jam fan forum and would actually organize a secret conspiracy to counter what is said here just confirms the fact (at least for me) that you're not seeing this issue straight.
You lost me here, Yosi.
The fact that...
Where has Gimme even come close to demonstrating the fact that he believes the Israeli government coordinates efforts responding to PJ 10C accusations?
Unless I am missing something outrageous... you have lost some credibility with this attempt to illustrate him the fool.
Comments
It's an ideology that has no place in today's World, and that should be tolerated by no one.
From a working paper produced by David Hirsch, a professor of sociology in London:
"Anti-Zionism tends to define itself against a notion of ‘Zionism’ that is largely constructed by its own discourses and narratives. The ‘Zionism’ that anti-Zionist discourses typically depict and denounce is more like a totalizing and timeless essence of evil than a historical set of changing and variegated beliefs and practices. It is presented as an unthinkable object which requires either unconditional rejection or belief, rather than as a social and political phenomenon. The term ‘Zionism’ is often used in such a way as to bring it closer to the language of evil than to the province of social scientific or historical understanding. ‘Zionist’ often hits out like an insult and carries such pejorative connotations that the reality behind it has ended up disappearing under layers of stigmatisation. For example: ‘The Zionists think that they are victims of Hitler, but they act like Hitler and behave worse than Genghis Khan’ (President Ahmadinejad quoted in Jerusalem Post 2006); ‘Zionism is a form of racism...’, UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 (later rescinded); ‘Zionists and their friends are desperate to silence the voices of and for Palestine’, (from an op-ed piece in the Guardian newspaper Soueif 2006); ‘[Respect] is a Zionist-free party... if there was any Zionism in the Respect Party they would be hunted down and kicked out. We have no time for Zionists’, (Yvonne Ridley, February 2006, Imperial College, London, or-Bach 2006).
The demonization of ‘Zionism’ appears to be part of an anti-oppression politics, but it points in another direction: toward a totalitarian way of thinking whose language is that of conspiracy conducted by dark forces. A solution is often conceived not in terms of peace and reconciliation but rather in terms of destroying or uprooting the evil, wherever it is to be found."
If you want to read the whole thing you can find it here: http://isgap.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ISGAP-Working-Papers-David-Hirsh.pdf
It's long, but you should give it a read. It's got you pretty much pegged.
Firstly he made use of two analogies which are routinely used not to shed light on the Israel/Palestine conflict, but to demonize Israel and to foster a commonsense popular loathing of Israel. The Israel/Palestine conflict is a nasty and long-running dispute over (on a global scale) a small amount of territory, in which neither party is entirely right or wrong. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank relies on organized daily violence, repression and humiliation of Palestinians. But the occupation is not the result of an Israeli wish to dominate or of a particularly Israeli cruelty. It is the result of a long and violent dispute between Jews and Arabs, and Israelis and Palestinians in which those who have argued for peace and reconciliation on both sides have usually been defeated politically. Many Palestinian responses to the occupation (and to the presence of Jews in Israel) have been murderous and self-defeating. But the idea that Israel is a Nazi state is absurd and offensive. There is not, and there never has been, a genocide of Palestinians; there are no Israeli gas-chambers, concentration camps or Einsatzgruppen; the numbers of deaths on both sides throughout the conflict are analogous to the number of murders that the Nazi regime routinely committed every few minutes.
The use of the apartheid analogy is designed to isolate Israel as South Africa previously had been, as an illegitimate state. The analogy is not designed to shed light but to act as a short-cut to the boycott conclusion. The analogy could be used, honestly, to illuminate some aspects of the occupation, but when used politically it often functions as a method of demonizing rather than of explaining. Many other analogies are more appropriate, for example analogies with nationalist movements in the Balkans or in other fragments of the old empires. There is a serious situation in the West Bank, where Jewish settlers, backed by Israel, do live in a legally privileged relationship with Palestinians which does have some resemblance to apartheid. They do enjoy privileged legal rights, democratic rights, rights of movement, rights to resources, rights to water. But it is because the situation is not the same as the former South Africa that most Israelis think that the Jewish settlers ought to go home to Israel; a peace between Israel and Palestine will not be forged in a unitary state (like the new South Africa). It is much more likely to be a two state solution precisely because this is a struggle between two national communities, not a struggle against an apartheid system of racism.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/10/14/fearsome-words/
'...As for Germany, my Jewish parents, born and raised there, staunchly maintained that it was the least antisemitic country in all of pre-Nazi Europe. Why then is the Nazi genocide attributed to antisemitism, which clearly was necessary but not sufficient to produce it? And what about the aspects of Nazi ethnic cleansing that antisemitism can’t possibly explain – the genocide against the gypsies and the planned extermination of thirty million Slavs, many of whom died as ‘subhumans’ in inhuman prison camps?
There was an ideology sufficient to drive all those atrocities. It fairly stares us in the face. It was not devised by Hitler, but by 19th Century Romantics – poets and pseudo-historians from Scandinavia across Central Europe and down into the Italian Peninsula and the Balkans. It was not the Nazis, but Woodrow Wilson who made it a fixture of contemporary politics. This was the ideology of ethnic nationalism.
Wilson legitimized this atrocious doctrine during the peace negotiations that ended the First World War. Wilson’s own secretary of state, Robert Lansing, anticipated its consequences all too accurately:
"The more I think about the President’s declaration as to the right of ‘self-determination,’ the more convinced I am of the danger of putting such ideas into the minds of certain races. It is bound to be the basis of impossible demands on the Peace Congress and create trouble in many lands.
"What effect will it have on the Irish, the Indians, the Egyptians, and the nationalists among the Boers? Will it not breed discontent, disorder, and rebellion? Will not the Mohammedans of Syria and Palestine and possibly of Morocco and Tripoli rely on it? How can it be harmonized with Zionism, to which the President is practically committed?
"The phrase is simply loaded with dynamite. It will raise hopes which can never be realized. It will, I fear, cost thousands of lives. In the end it is bound to be discredited, to be called the dream of an idealist who failed to realize the danger until too late to check those who attempt to put the principle in force. What a calamity that the phrase was ever uttered! What misery it will cause!"
Israel’s famous right of return [...] is based on Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws: the right of Return is granted to any individual with one Jewish grandparent, or who is married to someone with one Jewish grandparent.
...Jew’, in other words, does not refer to those who espouse Judaism or embrace Jewish culture. ‘Jew’ means ‘of Jewish ancestry’. In virtually every Canadian jurisdiction, ancestry is explicitly cited as a prohibited ground of discrimination. Ancestry is just a contemporary stand-in for the older notion of race and is generally used in references to racial discrimination.(**) Like skin colour, it’s something you cannot change, and therefore a particularly repugnant basis for determining civic status.
...So a miracle appears among us. The very ideology of homelands and peoples under whose auspices the Jews were all but exterminated has become the sustaining ideology of Israel, a state devoted to Jewish ethnic sovereignty. This is why we always hear that Israel – not Israelis – has a right to exist. What matters are not the citizens of a state, but the state itself, the totemic icon of ‘the Jewish people’. The fatal confusion that legitimized ethnic nationalism at the Paris Peace Conference now legitimizes Israel itself. When Zionists suggest that the French and Germans have a right to their states, they conveniently forget that this means the *inhabitants* of France and Germany, not those of some French or German *ancestry*, not a ‘people’ in the sense of an ethnic group. (The world was outraged when it suspected that Britain’s ‘patrial’ immigration laws were designed to favor those of ethnically British ancestry.) But ‘the Jewish people’ have a right to their state, and this is supposed to be some lofty ideal. Why? Because ethnic nationalism has taken on the cloak of civic nationalism, and we are too stupid to notice. Had ethnic nationalism not shed a single drop of blood, we should still be ashamed for crediting its mystique of peoples, historical wrongs, collective vices and virtues, ineluctable destinies. Abstractions and myths that could not even gain entrance to a university’s ivory towers flow daily from the lips of supposedly practical people.' Playing the anti-Semitism card again? How predictable.
Carry on.
It's just the same old bullshit designed to deflect any and all criticism of Israel and/or Zionism, by pretending that such criticism is merely part of a Global conspiracy based on...you know what.
I suggest you try a different tactic. The piece is a sham which attempts to deflect criticism of Israel and/or Zionism by describing it as being either 'exaggerated' - i.e, unfounded - and/or grounded in anti-Semitism, or inspiring anti-Semitism.
David Hirsh, the author of this piece, has declared that anybody who decides to organize an academic boycott of Israel is an anti-Semite.
He also stated the following: "UCU has demonstrated repeatedly that it is simply not bothered by antisemitism if it comes packaged in the language of criticism of Israel." In other words, if you encounter any "language of criticism of Israel" then you must surely be witnessing the cloak of anti-Semitism.
UCU executive committee member Tom Hickey replied to David Hirsh's allegations by saying: “David Hirsh’s contribution was supposed to be about the existence of a variety of forms of antisemitism. The only thing we heard was the union discussing the boycott question. The discussion of the appropriateness of a boycott of Israel by the UCU is not an example of antisemitism, and to ignore all of the real forms of antisemitism in Europe today is, quite simply, a disgrace.”
Mr Hickey said Mr Hirsh’s accusations about institutional racism, antisemitism and intimidation were “a traducement of the truth and it’s a straightforward lie and the author knows it. There has been no intimidation — the union and the chief executive would not allow it.”
Like I said, your playing of the antisemitism card is all too predictable. And all too lame.
Oh, and don't think I've not noticed that you've neglected to address any of the points made in the piece I posted. Zionism is based on ethnic Nationalism. It's a racist ideology that should be abhorred by any right-thinking person.
First of all, what are your thoughts on that?
Secondly, why are you once again trying desperately to defend Israel - while accusing anyone and everyone who criticizes Israel's crimes as being an anti-semite, and while trying to defend ethnic Nationalism - on a thread dealing with Israeli terrorist attacks against Palestinians?
Shalom and As- salamu Alaykum
To say what you have said tends to dismiss any well-formulated opinion developed through extensive research and care. The world isn't a better place if only people directly involved with this type of conflict can hold legitimate perspectives. Not to mention that in some cases, those closest to the situation hold opinions that cannot be developed without varying degrees of bias given their proximity to the situation.
Byrnzie, I think your statement at the top of this page speaks for itself, so let's not start pretending now that the comparison wasn't made. I am not saying that you are an antisemite for making the comparison, though it certainly is viciously offensive and insensitive not to speak of inflammatory and flatly untrue. I would say that the comparison to Nazism is the sort of thing that an antisemite would say.
Which brings us to the next point. There is a serious correlation between extreme anti-Zionism (such as that which you seem to espouse) and anti-Semitism. An academic survey done in 2006 and published in the journal of conflict resolution found that anti-Israel sentiment consistently predicts the probability that an individual is anti-semitic, with the likelihood of measured anti-semitism increasing with the extent of anti-Israel sentiment observed.
NOW, to be clear, I am not saying that you are anti-Semitic, BUT I am saying that the opinions that you espouse and the rhetoric that you use are shared by anti-Semites. That being the case, at the very least, I think you are wildly irresponsible in the way you discuss this issue because you contribute to normalizing real expressions of anti-semitism. There are ways of criticizing Israel that are measured and precise. You don't do that. I'm sorry if you don't like being told that the way you express yourself has consequences and that you're putting yourself in bad company, but that's just the way it is.
Finally, your deflection of the anti-Semitism charge that I didn't actually make, your notion that supporters of Israel just cry anti-Semitism to win arguments, is VERY dangerous, and absolutely supports real anti-Semitism. There is no question that among those who criticize Israel are a large number of anti-Semites. What you are contributing to is a blanket shield for these anti-Semites. You are making the argument that accusations of anti-Semitism in the context of Israel discussions are always made in bad faith, and by doing so you are essentially creating a safe haven for anti-Semitism so long as it clothes itself in the right rhetoric. That is shameful.
I'm not going to answer your question about my feelings regarding settler attacks because if you've read what I've written on these threads before (which I know you have) then you know where I stand.
As for why I am "desperately trying to defend Israel," I think that statement is telling on your part. You've slipped from talking about a group of violent settlers to talking about Israel as a whole, as if the actions of those settlers can be imputed to the entire state. Which is even more interesting given that the article you posted earlier in this very thread reported high level ministers in Israel terming these actions as terrorism. Your thinking on Israel is replete with this sort of slippage, where you take individual events, statements, actions and hold them up as evidence of what Israel IS, as if something as complex as an entire state can be so easily essentialized. This pattern of thought mirrors the way that anti-Semites take the actions of individual Jews to reflect the essential character of THE Jews, as if an entire people can be so easily essentialized. AND again, I don't know you so I am not saying that you are an anti-semite. But the way you speak about Israel reproduces the mode of thought common to anti-Semites, which is precisely why real anti-Semitism has found such a comfortable home in anti-Zionist movements. Again, you are running in a crowd that includes some real bad people, and it behooves you to recognize that fact and to be more careful with your language as a result.
Once again, and in an attempt to get back on topic, I'll ask you the question: what are your thoughts on this?
As for everything else, I seem to be fooling you, for one. I don't know how else to take your complete dodge of the issues raised but as a tacit admission that you lack an adequate response.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
This thread is about Settler attacks against Palestinians. Yet all you've done in this thread is try and accuse everyone who criticizes Israel of being either a knowing, or unwitting, anti-Semite.
To use your lame logic: Your behaviour indicates that you're 'running in a crowd that includes some real bad people', such as the extremist Israeli settlers who call for the complete annihilation of the Palestinians.
You've said nothing against the extremist settlers, who are rightly being labelled terrorists. Instead, you've simply jumped to the defence of Israel and played the anti-Semitism card. Therefore, I take it you've nothing against these people:
http://aljazeerah.info/News/2011/January/17 n/Israeli Rabbis Call for Extermination Camps to Kill Palestinian Arabs.htm
An article in the Israeli Jewish Orthodox publication "Fountains of Salvation", which purports to be a 'family magazine', suggests that Israel will create death camps for Palestinians in order to wipe them out like Amalek.
The terms Amalek or Amalekites is code for the Palestinians (and other perceived enemies of the Jewish people) and originates in the Old Testament. It amounts to a call for genocide.
...In the last paragraph of the piece, the attack continues with the following remark, "It will be interesting to see whether they (the politically correct rabbis) leave the assembly of the Amalekites (Palestinians) in extermination camps to others, or whether they will declare that wiping out Amalek is no longer (historically ) relevant. Only time will tell……."
http://www.islamagainstextremism.com/articles/pkfjt-jewish-talmudic-extremism-rabbi-yisrael-all-palestinians-must-be-killed-men-women-infants-and-beasts.cfm
"All of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts." This was the religious opinion issued one week ago by Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, director of the Tsomet Institute, a long-established religious institute attended by students and soldiers in the Israeli settlements of the West Bank. In an article published by numerous religious Israeli newspapers two weeks ago and run by the liberal Haaretz on 26 March, Rosen asserted that there is evidence in the Torah to justify this stand.
...Rosen's article, which created a lot of noise in Israel, included the text of the ruling in the Torah: "Annihilate the Amalekites from the beginning to the end. Kill them and wrest them from their possessions. Show them no mercy. Kill continuously, one after the other. Leave no child, plant, or tree. Kill their beasts, from camels to donkeys."
At the head of those supporting his opinion is Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, the leading religious authority in Israel's religious national current, and former chief Eastern rabbi for Israel. Rosen's opinion also has the support of Rabbi Dov Lior, president of the Council of Rabbis of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed and a candidate for the post of chief rabbi of Israel. A number of political leaders in Israel have also shown enthusiasm for the opinion, including Ori Lubiansky, head of the Jerusalem municipality.
Now, once again, do you have anything to say about your completely irresponsible rhetoric?
you can not deny that hasbara is a real thing. you may not be a part of an organized conspiracy and you may not be on the government payroll, but you come on here and you continue to state that you can recognize the things that the israeli government is doing and you acknowledge that they are treating the palestinians like shit, and that the settlers are in the wrong, but at the end of the day you support the settlers and the israeli government. why is that? we can all see it. you can not be on both sides of the argument. you just can't. logic dictates that you can not be on two sides that are completely opposite of each other.
you can criticize me all you want, but i am criticizing the israeli government and it's policies. the government is the representative of all israelis, and until i see a group of israelis standing up and opposing it and voting out people like bibi and his party, i am going to take that as a tacit approval of that government from all israelis.
i oppose zionism and i find it to be the root of all of the problems in the middle east. there is no convincing me otherwise.
the settlers are the problem, and the expansion of the illegal settlements are the problem. and no matter which way you try to analyze it or justify it, their attacks on palestinians, and the theft of land and destruction of palestinian homes and olive groves, and the thuggish acts of the idf are acts of terrorism. period.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
B, the settlers have certainly gotten too much support from the government, but once again you make the mistake of radically simplifying a complex situation. The Israeli government isn't monolithic, and you're wrong to paint the whole government with a single brush. Look at the article you yourself posted in this thread. Or look at the new senior staff promotions that the IDF just made - they promoted a bunch of left-wing generals who have been targets of settler protests in what many are taking to be an implicit sign that the army views the radical settlers as a big problem. But of course, I forgot, Israel is unique among all the states in the world in that it is completely devoid of all complexity.
Still haven't gotten an answer about your irresponsible rhetoric. For someone so concerned with being anti-racist you seem awfully unconcerned by the fact that you might unwittingly be lending aid and comfort to racists.
Just because the rhetoric isn't placatory and equivocating doesn't mean it is irresponsible. What are the consequences that arise from passionate discourse? You don't like it, fine, but who made you the judge of whats acceptable?
"lending aid and comfort to racists" theres some inflammatory rhetoric!!! Does he run some sort of shelter for racists who need aid and comfort? Or are you stretching the antisemitism arguement past it's credibility?
Anti-Zionism is also not outlandish, that is just ridiculous.
Whats outlandish is the idea that people from particular bloodlines should be able to make a "self-deterministic" state in direct opposition to people from other bloodlines based on several thousand year old myths which are poorly construed into reality. Inflammatory? Yes. Irresponsible? I highly doubt it.
The fact that...
Where has Gimme even come close to demonstrating the fact that he believes the Israeli government coordinates efforts responding to PJ 10C accusations?
Unless I am missing something outrageous... you have lost some credibility with this attempt to illustrate him the fool.