Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forum‘Jew-baiter’ and former SS member Gunter Grass dies
...Journalist Tom Doran responded to his death on Twitter by saying: “RIP Günter Grass. Of all hypocritical Jew-baiting former SS members, you were the noblest.”
...Mr Grass was best known for his first book the Tin Drum, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/133899/jew-baiter%E2%80%99-and-former-ss-member-gunter-grass-dies
There isn't a single person whose life reflects Germany's story in the past 100 years in a clearer manner than Günter Grass – the writer, artist, political activist, who was active against the remains of Nazism in Germany and in the world after World War II, but forgot to admit that he had served in the Waffen-SS (Adolf Hitler's armed SS force).
Grass became the supreme preacher of the Social Democrats in Germany. With his sharpened tongue and pen, he attacked anyone he suspected of holding nationalistic and fascist views. But he agreed to reveal his own past in the service of Nazism only several years before his death, when his secret was anyway about to be exposed.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4647016,00.html
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R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Grass, who identified as Kashubian,[1][2][8] was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). As a teenager, he served as a drafted soldier in the Waffen SS, starting in 1944, and was taken prisoner of war by U.S. forces in May 1945. He was released in April 1946. Trained as a stonemason and sculptor, Grass began writing in the 1950s. In his fiction, he frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood.
Grass is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. It was the first book of his Danzig Trilogy, the other two being Cat and Mouse and Dog Years. His works are frequently considered to have a left-wing political dimension, and Grass was an active supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The Tin Drum was adapted as a film of the same name, which won both the 1979 Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature, praising him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history".[9]
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)Wasn’t Gunther Grass the very definition of a mensch?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 19, 2015, 07:53 AM - Edit history (3)
By shira, that makes you a "Jew-baiter"
or, if you're Jewish, a "self-loathing Jew", because she also thinks that every Jewish person in the world should tie their sense of self to Israel and Zionism, whether they want to or not).
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)....both condemned his poem for the antisemitic filth that it is.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's not antisemitic to say that Israel shouldn't attack Iran(and to say, in the same poem, that Iran shouldn't attack Israel as well). Israel does not equal "the Jews". It is not synonymous with every Jewish person on the planet.
And quite a lot of Jewish people disagree with the ADL and the Wiesenthal Center on their equation of almost all criticism of Israeli security policy with antisemitism. Those are simply two small, fairly right-wing organizations, and while Simon Wiesenthal himself was a hero in his fight to capture former Nazis and bring them to justice, that doesn't make the organization that survives him infallible.
The fight against antisemitism has nothing to do with anyone's attitudes towards the Israeli government-and it's not at all clear that the Zionist project-at least as it has degenerated towards(though fortunately not yet reached)Slobodan Milosevic-style 19th-Century nationalism in the years since 1967-has actually been useful in fighting antisemitism at all. You can't deny that Netanyahu's demagogic habit of referring to Israel as "the Jews", and unfairly tying the two things together in some people's twisted minds, has probably made it worse.
shira
(30,109 posts)I agree it's not antisemitic to say Israel shouldn't attack Iran. Grass went much further than that.
Quite a lot? You mean maybe 5% at most? That's a lot to you?
Even a dumbass like Netanyahu knows Israel = Jews when ass hat Jew haters like Ali Abunimah, Helen Thomas, David Duke, Gilad Atzmon, Roger Waters, and John Mearsheimer have so much influence within the so-called pro-Palestinian, BDS, Israel-sucks community.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And it serves no good purpose to make the equation.
Grass' poem was simply a call for sanity. It could never be sane or moral to launch a nuclear strike against any country anywhere-and it would be just as insane to launch one against Iran(where it would likely only kill innocent civilians, like in Hiroshima)as it would be to launch one against Moscow, Beijing, London, or Washington.
Any use of nuclear weapons would be intrinsically immoral and unjustifiable-just as the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, launched when the war was already for all practical purposes over-were.
The Bomb is evil, no matter who uses it. Agreed?
And the poem said nothing whatsoever about "Jews". It only mentioned Israel. Will you please get it through your head that the two are NOT synonymous?
Israel is simply another state. I support its right to exist, but really, if it didn't, I'm not sure it would matter that much. Everyone who lives there who felt themselves under threat would simply move to the US(obviously, this is academic, since Israel will never not exist)and be given U.S. citizenship.
BTW, if Iran were really going to try to wipe Israel out-wouldn't it have done that by now? Hezbollah and Hamas aren't serious efforts in that direction...they are basically harassment campaigns, and they couldn't wipe out Israel-any more than the Irish Republican Army could have wiped out the United Kingdom.
shira
(30,109 posts)....Medea Benjamin, John Mearsheimer, etc.
Israel = Jews to the haters just mentioned, and their adoring fans who defend them and eat their Jew-hating shit up. Hell, you've even defended Atzmon, Thomas, and Benjamin so who are you to say Jews aren't Israel when they obviously do? In fact, which non-Jews in Israel do you oppose? Name 3.
It was insanity, given there is zero evidence Israel would nuke Iran.
Again, name some Israeli non-Jews in government who Grass would oppose.
Yeah, okay....no problem with ethnic cleansing on a mass scale. They can all move out.
Iran doesn't yet have the capability to wipe Israel out. Hezbollah has enough missiles and rockets now to cover Israel in its entirety, thanks to Iran. The intent to wipe Israel out is definitely there. Jews learned to listen and believe those in power who said they wanted Jews dead. It was a hard lesson to learn, but we're not being fooled again.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The man is a mental case who has no real influence on anyone. Helen Thomas is dead. And Medea Benjamin has nothing in common with Atzmon or anyone who is actually hostile to Jews. As you yourself pointed out in this thread, Jews can't be antisemites.
2) Grass spoke about the Israeli government. That doesn't even equate to expressing hostility to all Israeli Jews, or even a majority of them. And Grass doesn't have anything against the people of Israel and you know it. It is not as though a strike against Iran is required to protect the Israeli population.
3) Israel's existence is never going to end, so that point was a hypothetical. And the new Israeli government was perfectly ok with "ethnic cleansing on a mass scale" when it drove 800,000 Palestinians out in 1948.
4) U.S. intelligence revealed that Iran had given up its nuclear weapons program in 2007. So there's no there there. Netanyahu needs to give the saber-rattling a rest and he needs to admit that it's completely unreasonable to ask the U.S. to be the ones to bomb Iran-especially since it would be impossible for the U.S. to do anything military to Iran without full-scale war breaking out, and probably bringing in Russia on Iran's side(which, as you know, would then inevitably lead to all of us being vaporized, given that no war between the U.S. and Russia can ever be limited.)
Grass was just saying that it would be as wrong for Israel to use the Bomb as for anyone else to use it. You would agree with that, right?
shira
(30,109 posts)...like Richard Falk and John Mearsheimer support his insanity. I still notice you have nothing to say about Helen Thomas or Medea Benjamin. You're proving my point.
Israel's existence won't end unless they're nuked. But Hezbollah firing off all its missiles that would cover Israel is not something you can expect Israelis to "take". No one sane would take that and it would do a helluva lot of damage, killing many thousands. That may not be bad to you, but it absolutely sucks to any decent human being.
I don't know why you brought up a 2007 US intelligence report when we know that the US is heavily involved in negotiations with Iran to stop their nuclear program. Are you still denying Iran is trying to go nuclear?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And Helen Thomas is dead.
The way to stop Hezbollah is to achieve a just peace with the Palestinians-NOT to obsess about Iran.
And I brought up the 2007 report(which appeared during the Bush Administration, an administration that did want war with Iran-remember, any foreign military strike against Iran would have to mean all-out war, and nothing could be worth that)because it shows that Iran isn't trying to get the Bomb. It shows that all of Netanyahu's demands for war(especially U.S.-led war, which is what Netanyahu really wants, even though he knows he has no right to ask that of the U.S.) are insane.
It's not fair to demand that everyone take the Israeli government's side on all major issues just to prove they don't hate Jews. Israel is not more important than everything else when it comes to that issue.
shira
(30,109 posts)http://www.democraticunderground.com/113483103
Antiwar Activists, 9/11 Truthers Gather In Tehran For Anti-Zionist Conference
http://www.democraticunderground.com/113483118
You keep proving my point when you refuse to condemn Helen Thomas for her obvious antisemitism...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x346061
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x339494
You're wrong about Medea Benjamin, wrong about Helen Thomas, and wrong that Gilad Atzmon is irrelevant.
What makes you think you're right about Grass?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It goes without saying that she rejects Holocaust denial.
shira
(30,109 posts)Obviously, you don't believe she needs to explain anything to anyone.
She's pure as the driven snow.
You cry about Team Israel being against criticism, but you prove here you can't stand when your fellow critics of Israel are exposed for the hateful shits that they are.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I don't actually know why she went to that conference, but it's obvious she didn't go out of any wish to harm her fellow Jews. Medea's agenda (unlike yours, which is support for a nationalist movement and nothing else) is global peace and reconciliation and a decent non-oppressive life for all. I wouldn't have gone to that conference myself, but I don't know what was inn her head. As I understand it, there were some Chasidim who attended as well.
But you wouldn't accept any explanation she could ever offer, so why should she bother? Even if she hadn't attended that event, you'd hate her for daring to question the Occupation and the essentially fascist West Bank settlement project, a project that has had no positive consequences for Israel as a country and has artificially created a new, extreme right-wing anti-two state solution and anti-peace voting bloc that will now drag every israeli government for the forseeable future hopelessly to the far-right.
shira
(30,109 posts)....for being in Iran with her, stinking up the joint with their disgusting filth.
BTW, O'Keefe is a fan of David Duke. Weir published dog shit about Jews offering non-Jewish human sacrifices in the middle ages to link them to Jews today doing the same evil shit to Palestinians. Google it if you don't believe me.
But no, Media is not decent, nor is she a peace activist. She's a POS like her disgusting friends O'Keefe and Weir. Not only is she BFF with O'Keefe & Weir, but also with cretinous degenerates like Greta Berlin & Gilad Atzmon (her peace partners in the flotilla to Gaza).
Good luck finding Benjamin distancing herself from any of these 4 neo-Nazi acquaintances and allies who "support" the Palestinians.
=======================
You really shouldn't accuse others of being against criticism when you can't stand criticism of the worst anti-Zionists.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)But Medea Benjamin is not comparable to him or even Alison Weir(who, weirdly enough, I actually met one time-she was invited to my home town to speak at a public affairs event-and found deeply uncomfortable to be around).
Criticism I can stand...personal demonization of basically good people like Medea Benjamin, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn I can't accept. There is a real difference between bigotry and simple dissent, and the people I listed there never once crossed it.
shira
(30,109 posts)Medea Benjamin, the founder of Code Pink, was interviewed when she was taking part in a demonstration outside of the White House. The protest was over the forced resignation of Helen Thomas for her remarks about Israel. Medea recounted that she has dealt with Helen on many occasions and thought Helen's dismissal was very unfair. Medea, who is Jewish, felt that Helen is not anti-Semitic. Medea stated that many people were distressed by Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians and Helen should not be punished for giving her opinions on the resolution to the Israel/Palestinian questions. To Medea, a position critical of Israeli policy did not constitute anti-Semitism.
That's not only after Helen's demand that Jews GTFO of Palestine, but also after Helen's comments on Jews running the congress, white house, hollywood, and wall street.
You're best off acknowledging the obvious, Ken.
It wouldn't hurt you to actually oppose genuine anti-semitism.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I acknowledge that what she said was stupid and bigoted. And, very slightly antisemitic. But again, she's dead. Move on on this one already. She doesn't matter anymore and there's no good reason for you to be grilling me on this. You're getting personally insulting in your implications towards me.
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Mon Apr 20, 2015, 09:19 PM - Edit history (2)
....hatred to this day, like Medea Benjamin for example, are knee-deep in that antisemitic shit too - like attending ridiculously bigoted Jew-hating conferences in Iran with BFF's Ken O'Keefe and Alison Weir. Fine humanitarians that they are...
Funny how you accuse your opponents of being against any criticism of Israel when it's you who are against any criticism of bigots masquerading as "peace activists" for Palestine.
shira
(30,109 posts)...for going too far.
Was that you or an imposter writing the following...?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/11348352#post32
In my view(and, probably, Grass saw it too in stepping away from at least some of the poem)Grass realized that he'd gone too far in saying that missile strikes on Tehran would wipe out the population of Iran. That it would have been enough to say that it would kill too many innocent people to be acceptable.
Saying that is not antisemitic, since the problem with the missile strikes is NOT the nature of the country that would be launching them...the problem is the missile strikes themselves, which would have to be deadly and can no longer be assumed to be pinpoint.
Can we just end this here, now? I shouldn't have to keep facing interrogation by you. I'm not evil and I don't support anything or anyone that is.
You have no authority to aver whether something or someone is or isn't antisemitic.
Both the ADL and Simon Wiesenthal Center said it's antisemitic and they are the authorities on antisemitism, accepted by mainstream Jewry.
I'll remind you that it's JEWS who get to define what is or isn't Jew-hating bigotry.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's absurd to imply that the survival of the world's Jewish communities requires that the Israeli government be given kids-glove treatment in debate. Most Israelis don't give their government that treatment, so why should anybody else have to?
shira
(30,109 posts)....was totally legitimate.
Why the change?
shira
(30,109 posts)...especially those who only admit they were SS because the truth was about to be exposed soon to the public.
Here's what Tom Segev wrote about Grass:
Here's another article from Haaretz:
...Logic and reason are useless when a highly intelligent man, a Nobel laureate no less, does not understand that his membership in an organization that planned and carried out the wholesale genocide of millions of Jews disqualifies him from criticizing the descendants of those Jews for developing a weapon of last resort that is the insurance policy against someone finishing the job his organization began. What could be more self-evident?
...How could he have imagined that there would not be a price to pay, unless his bloated self-importance hid the reality from him? Having served in the organization that tried, with a fair amount of success, to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth he should keep his views to himself when it comes to the Jews' doomsday weapon. And if the 84-year-old writer has become so lost in self-adulation that he can't realize something that simple, the editors of the respectable newspaper should have found the way to gently point it out to him. He is not just another boy born on the Baltic coast in the 1920s. He did something along the way that tainted him. Forever.
And one more article from Haaretz:
With the sensitive instincts of a great writer, Grass makes a radical statement that reflects a deep-seated idea now spreading in the dark cellars of the new Germany, the new Europe and the new left. According to this deep-seated idea, Israel, not Iran, is the present-day aggressor in the Middle East. Not the extremist Shi'ites but the extremist Israelis are the new Nazis. The crime against humanity that must be at the center of our consciousness is not what Hitler did to the Jews but what the Jews are about to do to the Iranians. Therefore, in the name of the Holocaust, the Jews should be denied the nuclear power that could enable them to cause a second Holocaust.
...The SS soldier who became a famous humanist is ending his life exactly where he began it. As far as he's concerned, there's no danger in American, Russian, British, French, Chinese, Indian and Pakistani nuclear bombs. Nor is there any real danger in an Iranian nuclear bomb. What really might destroy our world are the nuclear weapons attributed to Israel. The Jews' ability to defend themselves and prevent their destruction is what is keeping the moral guru from Lubeck awake at night.
So we have an ex-Nazi here claiming that Israel is about to become the next Nazi-state, exterminating the Iranian people.
Holocaust inversion.
The Jewish state is the new Nazi state. Same reasoning that 40% of Europeans have when they believe Israel really wants to annihilate the Palestinian people. The Jewish descendants of Holocaust victims are now the oppressors.
It takes a lot of nerve to spew evil like that.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Once and for all, Israel is not synonymous with Judaism and Jews. Anyone who equates the two is a right-wing demagogue.
Grass spent his whole life atoning for his past and calling on Germany to be honest about its past-and did so when doing that made him deeply unpopular in his own country.
The lesson of the Holocaust is that the world needs to make sure no people anywhere are marked for extinction-not that the Israeli government must be given special deference and dispensation that no other government in the world is ever given.
BTW, if having those nukes is going to protect Israel, doesn't that prove that Netanyahu is beiing kind of insane in continuing to try and keep the idea of bombing Iran part of the policy discussion?
What Grass was saying was that it isn't anymore virtuous for one state to have the Bomb than for any other to have it. There will never be another case in history in which launching a nuclear strike could possibly be considered righteous or in any way moral.
shira
(30,109 posts)....to defend themselves from fanatical maniacs hellbent on finishing the job his fascist organization started.
Grass is accusing the Jewish state of being like the Nazis, motivated by irrationality to nuke the Iranian people, thus carrying out a genocide. He's accusing the Jewish descendants of Holocaust survivors of being Nazis.
That's vile.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)He didn't want Iran to have them either, or the U.S., or Russia, China or Germany.
It's no more virtuous for any one nation to have them than any other-even the U.S., which has always been just as likely to misuse them as any other. There is no such thing as a righteous use of a weapon of global destruction, and no way to fire off one nuke without setting off Armaggedon.
And again, Israel does not equal "the Jews", so please stop using that trope. Israel is simply one state and most of the world's Jewish population doesn't live there, or want to. It's not Nazi Germany, obviously, but it has just as great a potential for turning into a demagogic dictatorship as any other state born of an exclusivist nationalist movement. Nationalism, even in its most benign-seeming form, always carries the seed of fascism. How could it not?
shira
(30,109 posts)...another people with their nukes. No other nation. That's not the same as being against all nukes. Israel only has them as a last resort, not as an offensive weapon. You know that. It takes a lot of nerve for a Nazi to say Jews have no right to defend themselves.
So name some Arab Israelis involved in Israel's nukes who Grass would have a major problem with. Or is it only Jews he has a problem with?
shira
(30,109 posts)....who are very critical of their government's foreign policies. They are not merely against any criticism of Israel.
One of those authors is Tom Segev, who you admire.
Why can't you acknowledge something was VERY wrong with the Grass poem?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 19, 2015, 12:04 PM - Edit history (2)
By definition, a first strike is not "a last resort".
BTW, since it's possible that not everyone on DU has seen the text of Grass' poem, I'm posting it here, so people can judge for themselves:
What must be said
Why have I kept silent, held back so long,
on something openly practised in
war games, at the end of which those of us
who survive will at best be footnotes?
It's the alleged right to a first strike
that could destroy an Iranian people
subjugated by a loudmouth
and gathered in organized rallies,
because an atom bomb may be being
developed within his arc of power.
Yet why do I hesitate to name
that other land in which
for years – although kept secret –
a growing nuclear power has existed
beyond supervision or verification,
subject to no inspection of any kind?
This general silence on the facts,
before which my own silence has bowed,
seems to me a troubling, enforced lie,
leading to a likely punishment
the moment it's broken:
the verdict "Anti-semitism" falls easily.
But now that my own country,
brought in time after time
for questioning about its own crimes,
profound and beyond compare,
has delivered yet another submarine to Israel,
(in what is purely a business transaction,
though glibly declared an act of reparation)
whose speciality consists in its ability
to direct nuclear warheads toward
an area in which not a single atom bomb
has yet been proved to exist, its feared
existence proof enough, I'll say what must be said.
But why have I kept silent till now?
Because I thought my own origins,
tarnished by a stain that can never be removed,
meant I could not expect Israel, a land
to which I am, and always will be, attached,
to accept this open declaration of the truth.
Why only now, grown old,
and with what ink remains, do I say:
Israel's atomic power endangers
an already fragile world peace?
Because what must be said
may be too late tomorrow;
and because – burdened enough as Germans –
we may be providing material for a crime
that is foreseeable, so that our complicity
will not be expunged by any
of the usual excuses.
And granted: I've broken my silence
because I'm sick of the West's hypocrisy;
and I hope too that many may be freed
from their silence, may demand
that those responsible for the open danger
we face renounce the use of force,
may insist that the governments of
both Iran and Israel allow an international authority
free and open inspection of
the nuclear potential and capability of both.
No other course offers help
to Israelis and Palestinians alike,
to all those living side by side in enmity
in this region occupied by illusions,
and ultimately, to all of us.
(As I read it, there's nothing all that terrible here, and he calls for Iran, as well as Israel, to allow free and open inspection of their nuclear facilities. Why shouldn't the two nations be held to the same standards on the nuclear issue? And why should we simply take it on faith that one of those countries can't be trusted with nukes, but the other can? Can we simply assume that no future Israeli government, no matter what, could ever launch an unjustified or even accidental nuclear strike? Israeli political and military leaders are no more saintly or incapable of error than their counterparts anywhere else.)
shira
(30,109 posts)Israel took out Iraq and Syria's nuclear programs w/o killing any civilians.
It's been Iran threatening to nuke and destroy Israel for years. They have been the aggressors against Israel for years via Hamas and Hezbollah.
This disgusting poem completely inverted the situation.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)before which my own silence has bowed,
seems to me a troubling, enforced lie,
leading to a likely punishment
the moment it's broken:
the verdict "Anti-semitism" falls easily.
But now that my own country,
brought in time after time
for questioning about its own crimes,
profound and beyond compare,
has delivered yet another submarine to Israel,
(in what is purely a business transaction,
though glibly declared an act of reparation)
whose speciality consists in its ability
to direct nuclear warheads toward
an area in which not a single atom bomb
has yet been proved to exist, its feared
existence proof enough, I'll say what must be said.
shira
(30,109 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)A Germany that he is distrustful of, and an Israel that has a nuclear arsenal, not to mention belligerent leaders, that will most likely use these purchased subs as a nuclear launch pad?
So, no, shira. Try again, without the SWC or JDL whining about a poem.
Besides Grass being drafted at 15, at the end of WWII, probably fed a daily diet of propaganda, not unlike Israeli youth indoctrinated into who are their enemies, do you have any reality-based examples of his real-life anti-Semitism?
Oh, and shrill doesn't count. But just a question, shira. Does a boy at 15 hold as much responsibility, being drafted into a collapsing but corrupt system, or a terrorist-later-turned-PM that continues a corrupt system of abuse against an indigenous group of people?
shira
(30,109 posts)The ADL and SWC are arguably the most well known and respected institutions committed to opposing antisemitism & standing up for Jews' human rights.
What kind of person would just dismiss them out of hand?
I think you'll want to take that back.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Now if you can provide irrefutable proof of Grass's anti-Semitism in other areas, without using this poem that has a few people's knickers in a twist, then that would be a start.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Neither has the equivalent of papal infallibility. There are plenty of voices with the American Jewish community that are deeply critical of the stances both organizations have taken on the I/P issue and on their insistence on equating criticism of Israeli security policy with antisemitism in almost every case.
Invoking the ADL and the Wiesenthal Center does not end the debate.
shira
(30,109 posts)...opposing antisemitism. You'll find no other major Jewish group opposed to antisemitism that would stick up for Gunter Grass.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Critics of Israel are now anti-Semites.
In some quarters I would put good money that hasbarists are calling President Obama one as well. Do you disagree?
shira
(30,109 posts)Amazing how you just dismiss the ADL and SWC, as though you know better than they do (and mainstream Jews worldwide) what is and is not antisemitism.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Would you at least agree that no Jewish critic of Israel should ever be called THAT again?
And that nobody who is Jewish should be pressured to feel that her or his identity HAS to be bound up with Zionism?
shira
(30,109 posts)Not just some Jews.
This canard about all criticism of Israel being deemed antisemitic is complete bullshit.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And you admit that that slur should never be used again, since none of them deserves it?
shira
(30,109 posts)....aren't self-loathing at all. They're neo-fascists who are totally in love with themselves, believing they are morally superior to all other Jews.
As opposed to Jewish critics like Amos Oz, David Grossman, Woody Allen, the late Leonard Nimoy, and Barbara Streisand. Their criticism is legitimate and not at all based on hate. Pro-Israel Jews like Alan Dershowitz, Shimon Peres, Tzipi Livni, and Ehud Olmert are harsh critics of Netanyahu and Likud policies. Only nut balls would call them self-loathing Jews.
I don't expect you to ever again bring up this bullshit about all Jewish critics of Israel labeled as self-loathing by Israel's supporters.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)I was writing about critics of Israel being labeled as anti-Semites just for that criticism alone.
Sometimes a poem is just a poem, shira.
shira
(30,109 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)On this board, you have never opposed settlement expansion. Never opposed collective punishment of all Palestinians for the acts of a violent few. Never opposed the immiseration of all Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for the tactics used by their leaders(even when you knew that rank-and-file Palestinians could do nothing about those tactics). Never opposed the day-to-day harassment ordinary Palestinians are subjected to in the name of "security'.
Instead, on this board, all I've ever seen you do is to demonize anyone who did criticize those things and to demand that everyone in the world take Israel's side against the Palestinians, no matter what.
So where has your criticism of the Israeli state been? It damn sure hasn't been here.
All you've done here is to try to shut people up and vilify them as bigots, even when you knew perfectly well they weren't.
shira
(30,109 posts)I'm not giving them more ammunition.
I was right to "demonize" Gilad Atzmon, Helen Thomas, Ali Abunimah, John Mearsheimer, and the MondoWeiss morons.
Do you agree?
All you've done here is to try to shut people up and vilify them as bigots, even when you knew perfectly well they weren't.
I realize the difference between criticism and outright hateful demonization that can be found on sites like Stormfront and JewWatch.
Do you?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)
shira
(30,109 posts)....by obvious Jew haters like Atzmon, Thomas, and Benjamin. They are not mere critics of Israel. Their shit belongs on the pages of StormFront and JewWatch, don't you agree?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)All she is is, at worst, a post-Zionist. Nothing she supports would harm any Jewish people anywhere-you're just mad because she publicly broke with "the line"-the notion that the Israeli government must NEVER(or almost never, which is essentiall the same thing)be subject to open debate and discussion among all people of good will regarding what it does to Palestinians.
I'm disturbed by Atzmon, it's just that I'm not obsessed with him.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)
shira
(30,109 posts)When you say all critics of Israel are deemed antisemites, and all Jews criticize Israel, then what accounts for the fact that all Jews (critics of Israel) are not considered antisemites by your opponents?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Especially when those who do that try to silence most public criticism.
shira
(30,109 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)I was writing about critics of Israel being labeled as anti-Semites just for that criticism alone.
Sometimes a poem is just a poem, shira.
So who is being clueless?
shira
(30,109 posts)All Jews are not considered antisemites.
You fail Logic 101.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Israel in general. See the difference, my poor dear?
You are assigning "Jew" to pretty much everything without thinking first, and apparently you are lacking the ability to look at things abstractly without resorting to reach for excuses and the "Jew" label.
So before you go for the logic 101 nonsense, perhaps you should take the course yourself and learn something.
I would also say that you have taken the entire course in moving goal posts (101-graduating year), but that is not a skill that I would be proud of if I were you.
shira
(30,109 posts)...happen to be critics of Israel?
You can't argue all critics of Israel are smeared as antisemites when all Jews (who also happen to be critics) are not smeared as antisemites.
I'll make this even easier for you to comprehend.
All elected Democrats have some problem or another with Israel, so they're all critics too. When have you seen anyone here lighting into Democrats, especially those you hate for opposing BDS?
========
What you really mean to say is that you think "SOME" critics of Israel are labeled as antisemites. If that's what you claimed, I would agree with you.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)When you get stuck you go for the Jew label. It's shameful. And your sidestep can not be confirmed either way so please stop with the flagrant disinformation.
Have fun moving those goalposts.
shira
(30,109 posts)....are smeared as antisemites. Non-Jewish Democrats who criticize Israel aren't smeared as antisemites. Neither are all Jews who criticize Israel.
You so desperately need others to believe that canard, don't you?
Why?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Last edited Mon Apr 20, 2015, 08:53 AM - Edit history (1)
Israel's 200 nuclear warheads are already guarantee enough that Iran wouldn't try to wipe out Israel with the Bomb. The Iranian government is not made up of people who don't care whether their country's population lives or dies.
And we all know there's no good reason for Netanyahu demanding that the U.S. attack Iran. The U.S. could never possibly owe Israel that. Nothing that the U.S. could ever do to Iran would have anything to do with making up for leaving Jewish refugees locked out in the late 1930's.
(BTW, with some of the crazies in the recent governments there, how can you be totally sure Israel wouldn't use the Bomb?
It seems to think that its possession of that weapon of annihilation is automatically more righteous than anyone else's.)
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Grass said he only understood the truth when the Nazi War Criminals were tried at Neuremberg. "I listened to the radio, and I heard my former Youth Leader ... And he said yes, it's true. It's terrible. But from this moment on, it was clear for me what has happened. And this knowledge never left me."
Trying to come to terms with that knowledge is the basis for much of his writing, says Siegfried Mews, a Günter Grass scholar and professor emeritus of German at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
shira
(30,109 posts)He couldn't come to grips with his own past until he found out that he was about to be exposed as Waffen SS.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Poor, shira. So does Grass have more blood on his hands than, let's say a terrorist turned Israeli PM?
shira
(30,109 posts)He had no comment about Iran's threats to destroy Israel or arming Israel's enemies Hezbollah and Hamas (both committed to killing the Jews).
This, coming from a Nazi whose comrades killed 6 million Jews, thereby making Israel an absolute necessity. He knows as well as anyone else that Israel only has nukes as a last defensive resort. They're not the ones threatening to destroy and annihilate the people of Iran.
The decent thing to do would be to condemn Grass' filth.
Come on, you can do it.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Since he was drafted does that make him a Nazi? Does being shrill prove your point in any way?
shira
(30,109 posts)http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/German-writer-Israel-is-worlds-greatest-danger
He was a Nazi, the leading organizations dedicated to fighting antisemitism say he's antisemitic, and despite his Nazi past he attacks the Jewish state in a hateful way. He obviously hadn't shed his Nazi beliefs about Jews despite masquerading as a moral voice for 70 years.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Conscripts that refused service faced court martial...and you should know that was a dead end with a stone marker.
From the Wik.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS
shira
(30,109 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)
You are a horrible accuser without anything to back up your claims except more baseless accusations.
I feel ashamed for you for what you wrote above.
shira
(30,109 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)The epithet, anti-Semite, has been used so much as to have lost meaning.
Critics of Israel are now anti-Semites.
In some quarters I would put good money that hasbarists are calling President Obama one as well. Do you disagree? (you never answered me on this BTW.)
shira
(30,109 posts)....to hush up critics of Israel. That's what you're accusing the ADL & SWC of doing and they're considered the leading authorities on antisemitism by mainstream Jews.
How ugly.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)he was critical of both Germany and Israel.
I have criticized Israel for more and less for human rights abuses and apartheid.
shira
(30,109 posts)It's easy to figure out where he was coming from with that vile poem.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Or even to any hostility to Jewish people.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)He was just a freaking conscript...he didn't participate in the Holocaust.
shira
(30,109 posts)The ADL and SWC called him out for his antisemitic garbage of a poem that even you took issue with in 2012. Apparently you forgot you had a problem with it 3 years ago.
You think the ADL and SWC are wrong and that mainstream Jews don't know what is or isn't antisemitism?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)That was enough.
You're just mad because he questions the idea that the Israeli government would automatically be more righteous in its use of force against Iran(force that might well include nukes...we can't be sure it wouldn't) simply because of the past suffering of those Israel as a state pretends to represent.
There is no difference between Israel attacking another country and any other country attacking another country. An attack is an attack is an attack. Israel is not automatically the victim nation. Is that so hard to understand?
shira
(30,109 posts)He felt he had to bash the Jewish state.
Legitimate organizations like the ADL and SWC called him out for his antisemitism.
It's not just me.
You prove you know nothing about the situation, as Israel is the ONLY country in the world threatened by such a disparate group of Jew haters calling for its destruction. Even so-called respectable people think it's okay to debate Israel's very existence. All this would be considered racism and hatred if aimed at ANY other country on the planet.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)as it would be for anyone else? Such a statement has nothing to do with whether one wishes ill to Jewish people at all. Israel is not "the Jews". It is simply another state. It's perfectly legitimate to critique that state at the same time you speak out against antisemitism. The two topics have nothing whatsoever to do with each other and it serves no good purpose to equate them.
And a lot of people are debating a lot of countries' existence at the moment...there are secessionist movements all around the planet.
Gunter Grass did not "bash the Jewish state". He just said the Israeli government shouldn't use nuclear weapons against Iran, just as no nation should use nuclear weapons against any other. If, as you claim, the Israeli government wouldn't use nukes against Iran, why does Grass' poems even matter
You don't have to give the Israeli government special dispensation on security issues just to prove you're not an antisemite. People who oppose oppression anywhere oppose antisemitism...because they oppose all forms of bigotry. And the only people alive today who owe any debts regarding the Holocaust are the ideological descendants of the right-wing and centrist types who backed Hitler in the Thirties, and who insisted on keeping the door barred to Jewish refugees in the countries that refused to take them in...NOT people who reject the idea that the State of Israel's leaders should automatically get special treatment because of the past suffering of those that state claims to represent.
And I stand by my statement. The genocide against Europe's Jews in the 1930's an 1940's requires the peoples of the world to stand firm against the oppression or persecution of any group-it does not give the Israeli government any special right to demand freedom from debate from the world community today. The Jewish communities of the planet have a right to expect protection from further oppression, but that applies to those communities, not to any particular state, especially a state that endangers them on a daily basis with its bellicose and demagogic actions and it's completely inappropriate habit of equating itself to "the Jews". Israel is just a state...it is not "the Jews", and it's wrong for Netanyahu to keep making that toxic equation. He should stop doing that and you should be demanding that he stop it.
shira
(30,109 posts)The same shit from the past several thousand years, accusing the Jews of the most malicious intent. It's just easier to accuse Israel now rather than Jews. But it's the same hatred, just more modernized.
There are no movements aimed at a particular country consisting of an ethnic group, people, or population that would be endangered without their self-determination. There are no other countries constantly threatened with annihilation like Israel. Are you really not aware of this? Or pretending not to be aware?
No, he just said the Jewish state would annihilate Iranians despite their nuclear arsenal being there as a weapon of last resort. You'll notice that NONE of Israel neighbors fear Israel's nukes. They know damned well Israel won't use them and that Israel's populace would never let their government use them unless they absolutely had to. As evidence of this fact, you'll notice that all of Israel's sunni neighbors are scared shitless about Iran's nuclear program. They realize the difference between Israel and Iran, despite Grass' perverted distortion of reality.
Pull my other leg. Do you know how many times Jew haters like Helen Thomas, Gilad Atzmon, Richard Falk, and Ali Abunimah were defended here? It's because people you trust to oppose all forms of bigotry aren't the anti-racists you make them out to be. Shall I look for posts in which you defended Helen Thomas, Gilad Atzmon....?
Except that many peoples of the world do not stand firm against Israel's many Jew-hating enemies who want its Jews gone. What made Grass' poem so offensive is that he didn't decide to criticize Iran for threatening to use its nukes to destroy Israel and its people. He condemned the Jewish state instead, despite Iran's support of Jew-hating genocidal maniacs like Hezbollah and Hamas - both committed to finishing what Grass' Fuhrer started. That's what makes his poem so damned disgusting. He deliberately inverted reality, making Iran out to be the victim of Israeli hostility. He wasn't stupid and ignorant. He knew damned well what he was doing.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)What I said was that he was loathesome but irrelevant. The man has no influence and no one listens to him. He discredits himself with every word he says.
And again, why should we simply assume that Israel would never ever use the bomb? Can you predict what every Israeli government, no matter how extreme, no matter which territorially-obsessed maniacs might be in the governing coalition, might do in any given situation? The behavior displayed towards ordinary Palestinians by the Israeli military during the endless and probably eternal West Bank occupation has destroyed forever any automatic claim of moral superiority on the Israeli government's part. Even you would have to admit that.
And being opposed to oppression does NOT mean having to take Israel's side in all international disputes. Opposition to antisemitism and one's views about Israeli security policy are totally separate issues-especially since Netanyahu seems to be trying to incite increased antisemitism through is indefensible rhetorical tactic of referring to his government as "the Jews".
Israel is not "the Jews". It is simply a state. One state among many. And it's no longer clear that its existence(which I still do support) is actually good for the world's Jewish communities at all.
The way to fight antisemitism is to fight against ALL oppression-not to take sides between Israel and Iran. Neither country is worth ending the world over, just as nothing else is.
shira
(30,109 posts)He's very relevant to influential people who support him....like Richard Falk, James Petras, John Mearsheimer, and the very well known and respected Greta Berlin who is adored by all in the BDS movement.
It's that influence that makes him so dangerous.
For example, Ali Abunimah says he disowned Atzmon. Totally opposes Atzmon's blatant antisemitism. But is that true? Abunimah still publishes Jonathan Cook at his ElectronicIntifada website. Cook is a big Atzmon fan. Phillip Weiss from MondoWeiss interviewed Atzmon and didn't say anything critical of Atzmon other than he was controversial.
So you're wrong about all these Jew hating characters. The ADL and SWC had them pegged from the start. You did not and still do not.
What makes you think you're right about Grass? Especially given the fact you criticized him 3 years ago....something you're conveniently forgetting now for some reason.
WTF?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)However, on re-reading the poem, it didn't actually say what I thought it said.
And his criticism was clearly aimed at the Israeli government, not at Jews in general and not even at Israeli Jews in general.
shira
(30,109 posts)What the hell makes you think you got it right this time around with Grass?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And why are we still even talking about Helen Thomas. What she said ended her career and she's been dead for years. Isn't that enough?
I've repeatedly said I find Atzmon's views loathesome. Why isn't that enough? He's not worth obsessing about. Atzmon is on the boneyard of history.
shira
(30,109 posts)...and a strong opponent of antisemitism?
Let's hear it.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)With her, it's over. Why does a dead person who said a stupid thing one time still even matter to you? Do you want me to dig up her grave and dump her bones in the Potomac?
I don't like what she said. But she paid consequences for that and now she's gone. What more do you want?
I don't have to prove to you that I oppose antisemitism.
shira
(30,109 posts)She couldn't make herself more clear. It's obvious you don't like when your team is criticized. But you don't have a problem with baseless accusations against your opponents who are FAR more open to criticism.
That's hypocrisy.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)What she said was stupid and offensive and she's dead. Obviously it was bigoted, but calling it offensive and inflammatory is the same thing-the exact words doesn't matter...especially since, as I've pointed out, she is DEAD and she no longer matters.
Give that one a rest. I said she was wrong to say what she said, and fine, it was on balance antisemitic(although it was ignorant more than anything else, since she seemed to believe that everyone in Israel was originally from the U.S. or Europe, being unaware of the huge Mizrahim population in Israel).
It was one comment near the end of a life...and that life is now over. She didn't actually harm anyone. And she is dead. So what she said, stupid and bigoted as it was, is done with.
shira
(30,109 posts)Why was that so damned difficult?
I think it's because your notion of what is antisemitic hinges on whether people both hate and want Jews killed. If that was the qualifier WRT anti-black racism, it wouldn't be racist to be a proponent of "fair and equal." As long as apartheid doesn't mean you want to kill anyone, that's not racism either.
You've made it practically impossible to call people out for their antisemitism. And I doubt you have such stringent guidelines for any other kind of racism or xenophobia.
In the UN, only Israel is denied rights given to other member states. Only Israel cannot participate in certain UN groups or panels. It's the only state that cannot serve on the Security Council. Only Israel's nationalism has been ruled racist. No other nation.
If that's not antisemitism, what the hell is?
Hello?
I'll bet you'd come down hard if it were a Muslim nation or Black one that was treated the same way. Imagine there only being one Muslim country or one Black country and the UN treats them the same way it treats Israel. You'd deny the UN's racism since they wouldn't technically be calling for the death of all Muslims or all Blacks?
The UN's antisemitic towards Israel. Agreed?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I'm just one guy on the internet, and I don't have any real power over anyone or anything.
And I don't want to make it impossible to speak out against antisemitism. It's a huge problem in a lot of places-and not enough is being done to fight it, as not enough is being done to fight it...and it's mainly an issue outside of Israel and outside of the question of the I/P debate.
The only way to fight antisemitism effectively is to work against all forms of oppression, because it can't be fought while ignoring the oppression experienced by others. You fight antisemitism by working for a better world...THAT is what really matters-ending all forms of hatred.
Whie some people who criticize Israel are antisemites(far less, in Europe and the English-speaking world, than there would have been in the 1950's, obviously) it's usually wrong to apply that slur to people who are simply criticizing the Israeli government, or who simply don't happen themselves to be Zionists(btw...how do you define the term "Zionist" these days? I used to think it simply meant supporting the right of Israel to exist...in some quarters, it seems to mean supporting every bit of territorial expansion anyone in the Israeli government wants to engage in...what, exactly, does it mean to you?)
Some non-Zionists(a small minority in the English-speaking countries and Europe, I'd argue)actually wish ill towards Jews and I wholeheartedly condemn all such people. Most non-Zionists, though, simply want an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people, and, from what I can see, have come to believe that there is no hope of a two-state solution since, as they see it, the Israeli government is doing all that it can to prevent a two-state solution from ever happening. You will recall that, just a few weeks ago, the current Israeli prime minister's government was re-elected only AFTER he promised to make sure a Palestinian state was never allowed to exist while he remained in office). They are, in my view, naive and unrealistic to think a unitary state is feasible at this point(or may ever be), but I truly think they are acting out of a mix of idealism and despair, NOT bigotry.
The way to fight those non-Zionists who are actually antisemites is to push the Israeli government, hard, loudly and PUBLICLY, to stop building more West Bank settlements, to ease the harassment and collective punishment inflicted on all Palestinians for the crimes of a violent few, and to stop the ridiculous attempts by that government to try to dictate who the Palestinian leadership can and cannot be. No other country's leaders, in any situation in which they know the war they are in can only be ended through negotiations, is arrogant or deluded enough to try to control who, on the other side, they are going to negotiate with. Any other country in such a situation is going to recognize that such a demand is foolish, since those they don't negotiate with are still going to be out there and will still, having NOT been included in the negotiations, be using their full arsenal, having no good reason not to do so.
The other way is to accept that the vast majority of people who call for things like an end to the Occupation and the settlements are people of sincere good will who call for what they call for because they support peace and reconciliation...not this year's Hitler Youth.
Israel may be getting harsh treatment as a country at the UN(I'm not sure it's completely unwarranted)but how can you put that down to the religious and cultural group Israel purports to represent? How can you be sure it's totally unrelated to how that country is treating the Palestinians? Especially the way it has treated them since 1967?
And why SHOULD Israel be on the Security Council? It wouldn't make any difference in any of the debates there. Most of countries in the UN haven't been on it yet. And why does it matter if it isn't, since the U.S. is pretty much always going to veto any Security Council resolution the Israeli government don't like, and to do so just because the Israelis don't like it-merits of the resolution be damned.
Most Arab/Muslim hostility towards Israel has been based on Israel's status as a place of Western involvement in the Middle East. They'd have the same hostility towards any other state, in my view, that got the amount of weaponry and intelligence support that Israel has received from the U.S. The fact that 800,000 Jews lived in, on balance, a much greater degree of safety and prosperity in the Arab/Muslim world prior to 1948 proves that Arabs are born with a genetic hatred of Jews and Judaism. It's just not that simple and if it was, no amount of IDF troops in the West Bank and no amount of missiles launched at Gaza or(eventually) Iran could change anything.
I maintain that the question the debate regarding the I/P issue should be kept completely separate from question of fighting antisemitism. Antisemitism is about hatred of and wish to do harm to Jews...it has nothing to do with any state. Why insist on tying it to what people feel about just another nationalist movement? Why insist that the only way a person can prove they aren't an antisemite is to support an increasingly brutal, ugly, and right-wing nationalist movement that no longer seems to have any real positive agenda or objectives and seems not to have any interest in actually ending the war it is engaged in?
shira
(30,109 posts)1. If people hated blacks or muslims but didn't want them dead, just treated differently than others....would you consider that bigotry? Because it's not antisemitism to you when jews are the targets of that same hatred.
2. If antisemitism is an issue outside of Israel, how do you explain Hamas and Hezbollah's clear intentions to wipe out and kill all the Jews?
Sounds similar to Holocaust minimization. Diluting hatred. Why is the Holocaust so special when so many others also died during WW2? Here's the answer to that as well as to what you just wrote: Anti-semitism is unique and not really the same as any other bigotry or hatred. Those bigotries are awful in their own right. Antisemitism vs. Jews tends to always lead to the murder or mass murder of Jews. It's bigotry on steroids. History shows it's been that way for thousands of years.
It's not a small minority when 40% of Europeans actually believe Israel's intent towards Palestinians is to annihilate them. Or that Israel's the major threat to world peace, moreso than any other country. That points to something ginormously problematic, not some minor problem.
That's not true at all. They could care less about Palestinians suffering under Hamas in Gaza, suffering in apartheid conditions in Lebanon, or Palestinians being massacred in Syria. They could care less what happens after occupation as Hamas could do anything it wants to its population, and that would be perfectly okay.
The Israeli government has offered 2 proposals that came extremely close to meeting all the Palestinians' demands for 2 states (A full RoR is a non-starter since it's absolute fiction). The Palestinians didn't make any counter-proposals. Instead they went to war with Israel twice.
So what you really mean is that Israel can offer everything short of national suicide, the Palestinians can say 'No", and you'd keep blaming Israel for the lack of a 2 state peaceful solution.
No other country that is 100x worse than Israel has ever been treated as badly as Israel is by the UN. Not N.Korea or Burma/Myanmar, not S.Arabia, and not even slave states like Sudan and Mauritania.
And now you're justifying the UN's hatred. As if the UN has reason to discriminate against only one nation in the world - the Jewish state. Again, only Israel is barred from being considered for a seat. No other country is. Israel is singled out every year by the UN more than the rest of the world combined. Even you would have to admit that's insanely fucked up.
US aid and support didn't really exist until after 1967. In 1947-48, the USA, UK, and France all barred the Haganah from receiving weapons to fight those committed to finishing Hitler's work.
That's insane. There are no words....
Except that the debate on Israel - questioning its very existence and reason for being - is antisemitic given the world's track record on how they've treated Jews. Discussions about Jews, and only Jews, who can be denied self-determination is antisemitic. All major pro-Palestinian groups want Israel gone, they will never recognize a Jewish state, and will only commit to a 2 state solution in which Jews within the green line become a minority (which would make everything 1-state, non-democratic and iliberal in short time).
Exactly what a 1-state solution would do - endanger and harm Jews worldwide. It's all about wanting the Jewish state erased from existence. This is so fucking obvious, I can't believe it has to be explained to you.
[div class ="excerpt"]Why insist on tying it to what people feel about just another nationalist movement?
No other nationalist movement is treated with as much hostility. I challenge you name another nationalist movement that is opposed with as much hostility. You can't, because it's all about the Jews.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Saying that all forms of oppression IN THE PRESENT have to be combated if antisemitism is to be defeated is not the same thing as saying that antisemitism doesn't matter or that what Hitler did was not unspeakable. And it doesn't minimize the historical suffering of the Jewish communities of the world in the slightest-it just means admitting that that past suffering, horrific as it was(there's nothing comparable to it in this era) isn't the ONLY suffering that matters now, or that it still matters more than all other suffering. Is this such a difficult thing to accept? Especially when speaking to the nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America, nations who bore NO responsibility themselves for what European Christians had done to Jews? Why should those nations accept that, today, antisemitism matters more than every other form of bigotry? Matters more than racism, homophobia, bigotry against indigenous peoples(the last of which has had consequences just as horrific as historic European antisemitism? Why are you still insistent that the world, in the day we live in now, treat antisemitism as if it is still a greater issue than ALL other forms of bigotry? That every other group's suffering must STILL take second place to that? And that the only way to fight antisemitism is to obsess about the security of Israel?
Yes, it did matter more in the 1930's and 1940's-but everything has changed since then, and the pain of others, now, is in many cases just as deep and just as unjust.
And NO nation outside of Christian Europe or the English-speaking world(since that world is eternally disgraced for denying sanctuary to Jewish refugees in the 1930's and 1940's) bears responsibility for the type of genocidal behavior towards Jews by Christian Europeans(and I say that as a person of Christian European ancestry), starting with the birth of Christianity and of "European civilization", that led to the creation of Israel. Therefore, no nation outside of Christian Europe(and few people in Christian Europe that weren't born when World War II too place)bears the kind of historic shame that requires them to abstain from most dissent against Israeli government policies or to put Israel's supposed needs ahead of all other concerns.
The Palestinians have no connection to the European antisemitic heritage, either-and the Arab and Muslim states have little connection to that themselves. And the Grand Mufti himself(since you were about to bring him up)has been dead since 1973-forty-two YEARS ago.
In the Arab/Muslim world, if you were Jewish, you survived the 1933-1945 era. You can't say that of Christian Europe. This is an important fact, since it totally discredits the myth that Arabs and Muslims have always had a pathological hatred of Jews. They could easily have rounded up the entire Jewish populations of their countries and put them on boats to Vichy France or Fascist Italy, where they would all have been sent immediately to the death camps. Yet they didn't. They chose not to.
And it wouldn't have mattered if Israel had existed in 1939, because it goes without saying that Hitler would never have recognized Israeli passports or allowed the bulk of the Jewish population to leave. Hitler was never going to be satisfied with anything short of extermination, and would have done anything to achieve that objective-deals with him were impossible. Hitler would have killed everyone he killed anyway, existence of Israel or not.
And 1967 changed everything for the worse. It was never reasonable to expect the Arab/Muslim world to just accept permanent Israeli control of the West Bank, Gaza and(at the time)the Sinai as the permanent state of affairs-OR to expect them to simply abandon the Palestinians. Ending the conflict was always going to mean accepting a Palestinian state-there was never anything other than that-especially confederation with Jordan-that the Arab/Muslim would could have been expected to go along with.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)I really, fully, and totally disagree with you. May all your replies in this thread be used as kitty litter for Lolcats.
shira
(30,109 posts)Little Tich
(6,171 posts)Gunther Grass isn't even in the ground yet, and it's common decency to wait awhile before flinging shit at dead people. While I disagree with you about just everything concerning Gunther Grass, I will stop here.
shira
(30,109 posts)Gunter Grass was a miserable Nazi until the day he died. The ADL and Simon Wiesenthal Center had him pegged for what he was.
Sorry if that's offensive or worthy of LoL's, but we're on a liberal forum.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Please provide irrefutable truth, in link form, about that, and somebody whining that's it's true doesn't count.
shira
(30,109 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)on being drafted into the SS.
Did you want to refute that, and what makes a 15 year old being drafted into a very propagandized system any different than an Israeli youth being sent into the IDF which treats Palestinians as targets.
It seems like Grass has something in common with IDF youth, but he had at least cone to terms with it no matter hiw shameful.
shira
(30,109 posts)....in order to avoid being shamed more.
And you're defending not only that, but also ignoring the fact that he was condemned as an antisemite by 2 of the leading organizations committed to opposing antisemitism.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)But now, at 78, Mr. Grass has stunned Germany by confessing that he too has a buried past. In an interview with a leading German newspaper, he revealed that in the final months of World War II, when he was 17, he was drafted by the Waffen SS, the military branch of the notorious Nazi corps that played an important role in the Holocaust and other atrocities.
Now I do have an apology to make of sorts. Elsewhere I had read he was 15, but the difference between 15 and 17 in a heavily propagandized society is nil. I wounder if he would be any different today if he was Israeli by birth and entered into service where the IDF use the Palestinians seemingly for target practice.
So you see, shira, if Grass is being labeled an anti-Semite for things that he may have done as a drafted member of the SS then that is one thing, but if he had done terrible things then why wasn't he jailed for it or executed during the Nuremberg Trials?
If he is being called an anti-Semite for his poetry then that is a little more far-fetched.
But, and this is the big but...if it comes out the he is a murderer while being in the SS then that would be something completely different.
From the Wik...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS_foreign_volunteers_and_conscripts
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)He was an anti-Nazi for the rest of his life. He repented by telling the truth about his country. He was not morally disqualified from that because of what he was drafted into for less than a year.
What was far worse were all the post-war "Christian Democratic" governments in West Germany that Israel traded with-governments that were full of former(and totally unrepentant)Nazis like Chancellor Kurt George Kiesinger, who hid his active Nazi past until Beate Klarsfeld publicly exposed him and forced him out of office in 1969-24 years AFTER the defeat of the Third Reich.
And all of the German corporations who had made huge fortunes from their trade with the Reich that were totally allowed to skate by the U.S. occupation authorities after the war because "the fight against communism" was more important to U.S. foreign policy than bringing all of Hitler's accomplices to justice.
And if Grass had written a poem DEFENDING the idea of an Israeli missile strike on Iran, you wouldn't care what he'd done for one year or less as a teenager-even though his past would have been the same.
Hypocrite.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Hypocrites have no shame.
shira
(30,109 posts)...Ali Abunimah, Medea Benjamin, and Helen Thomas have been defended here at I/P to the hilt by "mere critics" of Israel.
And now Grass. And you're telling me Nazis aren't being defended here? Who are you trying to kid?
Hypocrite.
Grass didn't write a poem about Israeli missiles (the kind used to take out Iraq and Syria's nuclear capabilities). He wrote about Israel nuking Iran and annihilating a significant part of its population. No one in their right mind here would defend a nuclear strike on Iran.
You're really good at fabricating straw-men and putting them into the mouths of your opponents so that you can pretend to be addressing their points. You know you're in the wrong when that's all you have.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Gilad Atzmon is an irrelevant head case. And Glass was just a conscript who, as far as I know, didn't even see combat. Helmut Kohl (the asshole who got Reagan to lay wreaths on the Nazi graves at Bitburg) and Helmut Schmidt, German chancellors you probably like(the only truly anti-Nazi German chancellor of the postwar era was the great Willi Brandt, who spent the war in the antifascist underground)both served in the Wehrmacht. Have you ever denounced them with even one-tenth of the bile you have displayed here? No...you were fine with them...because they gave the Israeli government special deference. All Grass did was to write a poem saying the Israeli government shouldn't do something you claim they wouldn't do. How is that worse than Kohl and Kiesinger? Worse than Franz-Joseph Strauss, who opposed removing the statute of limitations for apprehending Nazi war criminals? Worse than the Nazi businessmen who were allowed to keep all their death-begotten profits after 1945 in the name of "fighting the 'Communist menace'"? All of that matters LESS than Grass' poem?
And if you just equated Medea Benjamin, who is herself Jewish-as Jewish as you are, and thus automatically a committed opponent of Nazism and antisemitism-with Nazis, that is truly despicable. She's done nothing to deserve that and you should be ashamed of yourself.
And you can't be sure the Israeli government wouldn't nuke Iran. There have been some pretty cray-cray people in that government in the last few years, and they just got re-elected. A lot of them really buy into the whole "in blood and fire Judea shall rise again" thing-which SHOULD scare the hell out of you, but doesn't, for some twisted reason.
LeftishBrit
(41,212 posts)'It's a rotten poem - the first four lines are OK
then it becomes a sort of caricature of the 'poem with a message': politically simplistic; clumsy and clanking as a poem (it's worse in the translation, but I can read German just well enough to see that it's not much of a poem in the original either).
It's unfair to call Grass a 'Nazi'; he was conscripted in the army as a teenager, and has since condemned Germany's Nazi history fairly consistently. Which doesn't alter the fact that this particular poem is crap, both as a piece of literature and as a political statement.'
So: bad poem; but misleading 'SS' accusation.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)how many dead Palestinians children Benjamin Netanyahu is definitely responsible for?
I understand that your heart is aflutter over his audacity
to criticize Israel, but which one he or Bibi has more blood on his hands?shira
(30,109 posts)I'll remind you once again that Israel agreed to at least 10-11 ceasefires.
Hamas rejected every one of them, from the start. They wanted their war.
BDS-holes gladly defended Hamas and their rejections of every ceasefire. These ghouls encouraged Hamas to continue while the body count went up. They loved every minute of the war.
Again, there were no BDS-holes who demanded that Hamas end their aggression & accept a ceasefire.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)I'll remind you that Israel flattened Gaza and targeted buildings with civilians and children: killing them. Indiscriminately.
So the question was who has more blood on their hands: Grass or Netanyahu?
That was the question, silly.
Nobody defends Hamas in I/P AFAIK, but there is always water to be carried for Netanyahoo and his murderous ways.
There was nobody in I/P who cheered on Hamas firing rockets AFAIK, so?
shira
(30,109 posts)Let's see how you respond to this....
Hamas should've agreed to the very 1st ceasefire, which would have saved nearly 2000 lives.
Agree or Not?
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)But my question was about Grass and Netannutty.
Who has more blood on their hands?
You do understand that Bibi the baby killer kicked the hornet's nest by arresting Hamas members without proper justification, and that is what started the whole mess. You understand that you cannot revise that history, right.
So let's get back to who has more blood on their hands. Grass or Netannutty?
shira
(30,109 posts)You think it was best that Hamas kept attacking & more than 2000 lives were lost. Otherwise, you'd have responded emphatically with a ginormous "YES".
A new low.
I posted an article about this in July, showing that over 70% of Gazans wanted a ceasefire. But not you, not Mondoweiss, and not Hamas. And you say you're for the Palestinian people?
Explain how, please.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Remember Grass? It is your OP, dear.
shira
(30,109 posts)And yet here you are where you can't even agree after the fact that Hamas should've accepted the 1st ceasefire proposal that would have prevented 2000 Palestinians (and all those kids you say you care about) from getting killed.
If you cared about those kids you would've demanded an immediate Hamas agreement to a ceasefire. Hamas rejected at least 10 proposals, and you didn't have a problem with any of that.
Care to explain?
Of course not. But let's remember this thread for future reference every time you bring up baby-killers. I'll remind you of this.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)BTW Israel rejected a 10 year truce offer on July 16 2014
35. You brought up the Gaza war. You've ranted about Bibi the baby killer....
View profile
And yet here you are where you can't even agree after the fact that Hamas should've accepted the 1st ceasefire proposal that would have prevented 2000 Palestinians (and all those kids you say you care about) from getting killed.
If you cared about those kids you would've demanded an immediate Hamas agreement to a ceasefire. Hamas rejected at least 10 proposals, and you didn't have a problem with any of that.
Care to explain?
Of course not. But let's remember this thread for future reference every time you bring up baby-killers. I'll remind you of this.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134100635#post35
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Mon Apr 20, 2015, 08:22 AM - Edit history (1)
http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Terrorism/Pages/Protective-Edge-Hamas-violations-of-ceasefires-chronology.aspxGood to know you support Hamas' war against civilians (Israel's and their own) that they initiated in order to get all their ridiculous demands met.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)it's deadly attack against the people of Shejaiya.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/9/12/the_untold_story_of_the_shejaiya
As Israel is a nuclear armed country reading Israel's justification of the wholesale killing of civilians. apparently all of Gaza is a "terrorist target", is disturbing to say the least.
Your accusations of Hamas targeting Israeli civilian fails dramatically when one looks at the death toll on the Israeli side 66 soldiers and 6 civilians , while the on the Palestinian side 2200-2300 dies the majority 70% were civilians, incliuding 500 children and you tell us Israel is not responsible for these deaths
shira
(30,109 posts)Nuclear weapons are irrelevant WRT Gaza. Your point?
It's not Israel's justification. It's yours and Team Palestine's justification for Hamas continuing its war while trying to get as many of its citizens killed.
So in addition to supporting Hamas' repeated violations and rejections of every ceasefire, you're denying Hamas shot its rockets to attack civilians?
And by death toll, you mean not enough Israelis died. Apparently if Hamas was successful and >2000 Israelis died in the process you wouldn't have anything to argue, would you?
[div class = "excerpt"]while the on the Palestinian side 2200-2300 dies the majority 70% were civilians, incliuding 500 children and you tell us Israel is not responsible for these deaths
No, you're telling me Hamas is not at all responsible for Palestinian deaths despite starting the war, rejecting and violating 11 ceasefires, using their civilians as human shields and sacrificing children as militants.
Hamas isn't responsible because you need Israel to be 100% liable for murdering civilians without any cause.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)not anything on going, and what I am telling you is that Hamas is responsible for the deaths of 6 Israeli civilians and 66 Israeli soldiers, while Israel is responsible for over 2000 Palestinian deaths most of which were civilians and 500 of which were children
shira
(30,109 posts)....for initiating a war while using its civilians as human shields, its women and children as militants, and rejecting every ceasefire attempt.
You do know it's a war crime for Hamas to make children into militants and use their population as a human shield - right?
Agree or Not?
It's a war crime that places the blame on THEM, not Israel.
That's International Law by the way, which apparently only applies if Israel can be blamed but never its enemies.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)and it would seem that human shield ha become a term used to describe any Palestinian civilian or child that gets in the way of an Israeli bomb
shira
(30,109 posts)....or using children as militants. They're completely blameless despite the war crimes they deliberately committed against their population. Over 200 of their rockets even landed in Gaza, not Israel.
But they just have to be as innocent as the driven snow, so you can keep attacking Israel.
That absurd 10 year truce proposal by Hamas was obscene blackmail. "Give us what we want, or we keep attacking you as well as our own people." Seems you support that too.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)35. You brought up the Gaza war. You've ranted about Bibi the baby killer....
And yet here you are where you can't even agree after the fact that Hamas should've accepted the 1st ceasefire proposal that would have prevented 2000 Palestinians (and all those kids you say you care about) from getting killed.
If you cared about those kids you would've demanded an immediate Hamas agreement to a ceasefire. Hamas rejected at least 10 proposals, and you didn't have a problem with any of that.
Care to explain?
Of course not. But let's remember this thread for future reference every time you bring up baby-killers. I'll remind you of this.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=100843
22. Hamas fired hundreds of rockets before Israel gave them an ultimatum...
Israel gave Hamas a 48-72 hour window to stop. Instead, Hamas increased their number of rocket attacks - clearly wanting a war. Israel then started to fight back.
Now you're excusing Hamas for rejecting the 1st ceasefire. They rejected around 10-11 before agreeing to the terms of the 1st ceasefire they could've had 2000 lives earlier. So was it worth it?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=100841
You think it was best that Hamas kept attacking & more than 2000 lives were lost. Otherwise, you'd have responded emphatically with a ginormous "YES".
A new low.
I posted an article about this in July, showing that over 70% of Gazans wanted a ceasefire. But not you, not Mondoweiss, and not Hamas. And you say you're for the Palestinian people?
Explain how, please.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=100814
20. I'm pretty certain you're sure it's Hamas' fault & anyone encouraging Hamas
Let's see how you respond to this....
Hamas should've agreed to the very 1st ceasefire, which would have saved nearly 2000 lives.
Agree or Not?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=100792
shira
(30,109 posts)....for the many war crimes they committed against Palestinians you purport to care about. Those war crimes make Hamas responsible for Palestinian deaths, not Israel. How can you not possibly know that?
I'm sure your denial and deflections from Hamas' war crimes against their populace last summer is appreciated by all Hamas' victims in Gaza. I'm certain they're well aware that you have only their best interests at heart. What a great friend of the Gazan people you are!
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)My original query was about how many Palestinian children dead that Netanyahu was responsible for vs dead children by the hand of Grass.
You really can't be that illogical, can you?
shira
(30,109 posts)...because all the compassion that Team Palestine (BDS, etc) articulates can be easily exposed as nothing more than sanctimonious concern trolling.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)16. I was curious, shira. How many dead children do you believe that Grass was responsible for vs
how many dead Palestinians children Benjamin Netanyahu is definitely responsible for?
I understand that your heart is aflutter over his audacity
to criticize Israel, but which one he or Bibi has more blood on his hands?See? No Gaza mentioned. So please stop with these poor attempts at fabricating the truth.
Or perhaps you have a guilty conscience that makes you think of Gaza when Netanyahu and murder are mentioned at the same time?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)He was 12 years old when Germany invaded Poland. He was 17 when he was drafted into the SS.
shira
(30,109 posts)...prove not only what he was when he was younger. It proves who he was until his last dying breath.
He only came out about his Nazi past when he knew the secret was about to be exposed. So he was a hypocrite too, calling on Germany to come to grips with its past while he comes across as a saint.
The ADL and Simon Wiesenthal Center both accused him of antisemitism, BTW.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)My belief is that he couldn't help but accuse "the Jews" of the most malign intent, just like his fellow comrades did when inciting all of Germany to hate Jews prior to the Holocaust.
Now you.
Why did he pretend Israel wanted to nuke Iran and annihilate its citizens when it's actually Iran who wants to do that to Israel and its people?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And you've heard Netanyahu's insane, demagogic rhetoric-how can you be sure Netanyahu doesn't want to nuke Iran?
He's shown no regard for morality and human life in any other situation.
shira
(30,109 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)He doesn't sound entirely hinged, a lot of the time. They should just put him and the chief mullah on a reality show together and leave the rest of us out of it.