"If Israel had land in 1940, why did 6 million Jews die during the holocaust when they could have just fled there?"
The government of the Palestinians in the 1940s, such as it was, was a close ally of Nazi Germany, and actually participated in the Holocaust. This government pretty much survived for a long time: the leader from back then was Arafat's mentor.
"In the modern western world, anti-zionism has been equated with anti-semitism"
The first is a mere code-word for the other. People have found it convenient to hide a hatred of Jews behind a supposedly reasonable and justified hatred of Israelis.
"So let me get this straight. Israel has never done anything wrong, ever"
Nice straw-man attack. I've never seen any of those of us who defend the Israelis' right to exist ever say anything like this. You are making this one up.
"Anyway historically jews and muslims have gotten along very well"
Yes, they got along very well as long as the Jews converted to Islam when asked, or threw themselves on the swords of the Muslim invaders, or as long as the Jews never objected when being forced to follow Muslim religious laws imposed on them. Yes, just like "historically, blacks and whites in the old American South have gotten along very well".
What explains your mischaractarization of history? Ignorance, or a general hatred of Jews?
"If I was hated by my neighnors (and lets face it disliked by most of the rest of the world) then I might ask myself why"
And then you would realize that you are hated merely because you are of the wrong religion, and that your neighbors will continue to throw grenades onto your lawn until you convert to their faith. That's a rather close analogy.
"Got a problem with the name of the State of Israel? Perhaps you would prefer to all it "the zionist entity" or "the little satan"? "
He uses such inflammatory and hateful language, and keeps denying it. I think his preferred name for Israel would be "ashes that are all that remain of the filthy Juden".
"Capturing 2 soldiers does not constitute an invasion."
princeton.edu "the act of invading; the act of an army that invades for conquest or plunder". freedictionary.com "To enter by force in order to conquer or pillage". It was an invasion no matter how you look at it. I see that you left out that the invading army intentionally murdered 3 Israelis during the invasion, so the "capturing 2" claim is so incomplete as to be a lie. Was this ignorance, or just part of a general pattern to lie about the incident (like denying it was an invasion)?
Note: None of the definitions of invasion hinge on the number of soldiers captured during the action.
Not recognizing the right of a nation to exist is the same as not recognizing the right of its people to exist. A nation is made up of its people. Demanding either is inhumanely intolerant. Also, I quoted elsewhere Hamas' own charter and its demand for killing Jews. If there is one thing to be said for Hamas, they come right to the point and do not hide behind the "zionist" code word. I can't believe it has come to actually defending the absolutist final-solution demands of Hamas as being somehow "reasonable".
Continent-wise, the new world is devided into just two continents: North America and South America.
"America has more parts than just North and South. You can't (even just for the sake of argument) choose to arbitrarily polarize a unique, rich culture."
The geographic entities of "North America" and "South America" are not cultural ones.
"The original poster decided to call all North American natives as savages and proceeded to claim that they sacrificed people and did not care about life"
If it is the message I am thinking of, it referred to specifically South America, but instead meant groups like the Maya who lived instead in North America.
"Mesoamerican. Not North American."
Just like saying "French. Not European." Not an equality relationship, but that of a subset.
"Er, no, they don't recognize the right of the State of Israel to exist, and frequently call for the people of Israel to be pushed out of the area they currently occupy"
And if these people go into the cattle cars, those instituting this ethnic cleansing will be most happy to remove them "by other means". Language from Hamas, Hesbollah, and Iran makes quite clear how little worth the lives of Jews have. Thus, intolerance for the right of a nation to exist is very little different from intolerance for the rights of its people to live if you indicate your willingless to kill them if they won't willingly participate in 'peaceful' ethnic cleansing methods. So yes, it is a "frequent call for extermination" since few anywhere really except the Israelis to leave on their own.
Please don't soft-pedal it and attempt to justify it for something less than what it is. We've even seen this in practice rather recently in former Yugoslavia. Technically, the expansionist Serbian demogogues wanted the Muslims to peacefully leave Kosovo and Bosnia, but they were extremely willing to use other methods to bring about "no Muslims live here" when asking them to leave failed.
"this is little different than the frequent calls on the Israeli Right, which have abated a bit in the last few years, for the displacement of the Palestinian population"
That, too, was quite alarming. That would have also meant genocide, of course. No different at all. However, that has not been the dominant view in Israel, let alone a mainstream one, for some time now. In contrast, the call for such ethnic cleansing against Israel is a very strong position among several major players in that area. Any calls for "transfer" are little different than calls for genocide.
All of "Apocalypto" takes place in North America, not in any part of South America. Check the IMDB entry. It refers to the Maya kingdom, which was in what is now Mexico, "...a located in North America"
"Well, that's great and all, but please check your geography. Mesoamerican is not the same as North-American."
Check your geography indeed. Mesoamerican is the "same as" North American as French is the "same as" European. It is a subset relationship: Mesoamerica is merely the southern part of the continent of North America. Everything Mesoamerican is North American, but not everything North American is Mesoamerican. Never press the geography nazi.
"Hamas was democratically elected. Look how "democratic" world was treated."
Democratic countries are no less responsible for their actions than others. The democratic Palestinian state re-instated their call for genocide against the Jews (yes, the Hamas charter makes little distinction between Israelis and Jews). When one (new) country has as its primary foreign policy goal the extermination of 5 million people in a neighboring country, this can cause proper reaction and condemnation. A democratic decision to institute another Final Solution is no better than a non-democratic solution.
"THe "democratic" "state" of "Israel" is practicing apartheid"
It's interesting that the only word that really didn't make sense in that sentence was "apartheid", but you did not leave it in quotes.
The non-recognition of the rights of Israelis to exist is typically based in a foundation of hatred of Jews. Why include yourself in that company? I can't imagine wishing that any nation did not exist.
"There is great animosity between Jews and Arabs in the area because of incessant bloodshed that is continuing for about a century now."
It actually goes back to around 700 AD. It's really surprising that there were any Jews left there by the 20th century, considering all the pogroms, and how the Muslim empire for many hundreds of years instituted a legal/government system that punished people for being Jewish.
"Muslims are capable of piecefully coexisting with Christians and Jews, it is imprinted in the Qur'an and Sunnah"
The book quotes are not relevant. Real practice is what counts, and through history Muslim rule is mostly synonmous with oppression and extreme intolerance for those who do not worship the Muslim god. There are exceptions: Turkey is a "Muslim country", and it is quite tolerant. It has even let go of antisemitism enough to recognize the right of Israel to exist.
Saladin's oppressive rule, while not as bad as any of the others, was not anything to write home about. He still ruled over a system that gave Jews second-class citizenship: one where they had to convert to Islam in order to be treated as equal to the occupying culture. He was not as bad as the Crusaders, of course: but he was still a foreign occupier who did not respect the indiginous people. Andalus is not a good example for you to bring up either: there, as elsewhere, the occupying armies of the Muslim empire were still imperial overlords. Defending them is like defending Britain's colonial control of India. Yeah, it was better than some alternatives, but should not have happened at all.
"Indeed, it was the fact that anyone who questions the actions of Israel is immediately labeled an "anti-Semite"
That is not a "fact": it just a straw man. It is possible to make reasonble criticism of Israel. However, bashing it through code-words, questioning the very right of its people to exist, echoing false claims about history? Those are not reasonable. Hatred of Israel is indeed based in antisemitism.
You are forgetting (of course) the real history: that the Jews there were indiginous natives or settlers who came there and bought land. However, the local Palestinian government (which was actually allied with and cooperated with Nazi Germany) could not stand this and instituted pogroms against these people who did not steal land. That was a particularly genocide form of antisemitism, and it was directed at the ones who had long-term continuous roots in the area as well as the newcomers. The solution of establishing a sort of "reservation" on a mere 1/6 or so of the land, in order to protect these people from genocide, was a very reasonable decision.
Your "The land in question was owned by Arabs" is quite misleading, considering that the local Arab authorities were working to steal land from the Jews. who had legitimately purchased it.
So now, at least there is one small place in that area where Jews aren't treated like dogs. It turns out to be, interestingly enough, the place in the area where Arabs and Muslims have the most religious, political, and other rights. But there are some who would rather that there was no such place. There is no real rational explanation for the hatred of Israel (even as mild as "sadness" that it exists)... which is why irrational reasons must be explored. Reasons such as antisemitism. Pointing out of the illogical antisemitism is an argument, not an evasion of one. One has to have a certain degree of antisemitism to be "sad" that Israel even exists.
...for the main reason that I've never seen a blog worth anything that requires you register with some dumb pointless "Elmer Fudd at 90210" registration just to be able to read it like the NYT does.
Why put it in quotes? I've typically seen such tricks used rarely in other parts of the world for countries that someone wants wiped out. Why not just leave the quotes off? As for the antisemitic friend, he's an AC, not imaginary. I can link you to one of his venomous pro-extermination rants if you want. As he's an AC, I have not yet had the chance to mod him friend OR foe.
Your combined nation idea (further up, grandparent post maybe?) is quite interesting, and is an idea I support under certain conditions. Would it include Gaza or any parts of Jordan? Would the government be relentessly secular, but still allow-support important Jewish, Muslim and other holidays?
"that started the theft of Arab lands for the benefit of Zionism"
Thanks for the nice antisemitic intentional misreading of history. Interestingly, the statements about Natives are quite correct, but this antisemitic rant about the "theft" of protecting people's own land and the "Zionist" bogeyman might as well have been lifted from a Hesbollah speech.
"How do you think Islam established itself in the Middle East?"
It was an through an invasion of the Eastern Mediterraean shore area by a religion-fueled army that raped, conquered, pillaged, massacred and established a hegemony without any consideration to the indiginous people. It became a crime in the conquered land to practice the indiginous religion.....
BR>
It's funny how when the Crusaders did this, it's
"one of history's most shocking crimes.
But when the Arabian Empire did this, to a much greater extent, with more atrocity, and more permanence, it's all nice and good. Yes, the Arabs seem to have no problem with the "guilt of grabbing land which does not belong to them and the guilt of killing thousands of innocent human beings is going to consume them." In fact, they now even want to take over more non-Arab land (Darfur and Israel are two examples).
Slashdot Mirror
"( ) 100 million dollar jets to destroy an entire country"
That's not happening and has not been an issue for a while. But it might be if China makes good on its threats against Taiwan.
"If Israel had land in 1940, why did 6 million Jews die during the holocaust when they could have just fled there?"
The government of the Palestinians in the 1940s, such as it was, was a close ally of Nazi Germany, and actually participated in the Holocaust. This government pretty much survived for a long time: the leader from back then was Arafat's mentor.
"In the modern western world, anti-zionism has been equated with anti-semitism"
The first is a mere code-word for the other. People have found it convenient to hide a hatred of Jews behind a supposedly reasonable and justified hatred of Israelis.
"So let me get this straight. Israel has never done anything wrong, ever"
Nice straw-man attack. I've never seen any of those of us who defend the Israelis' right to exist ever say anything like this. You are making this one up.
"Anyway historically jews and muslims have gotten along very well"
Yes, they got along very well as long as the Jews converted to Islam when asked, or threw themselves on the swords of the Muslim invaders, or as long as the Jews never objected when being forced to follow Muslim religious laws imposed on them. Yes, just like "historically, blacks and whites in the old American South have gotten along very well".
What explains your mischaractarization of history? Ignorance, or a general hatred of Jews?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/16/flying_air craft_carrier/
"If I was hated by my neighnors (and lets face it disliked by most of the rest of the world) then I might ask myself why"
And then you would realize that you are hated merely because you are of the wrong religion, and that your neighbors will continue to throw grenades onto your lawn until you convert to their faith. That's a rather close analogy.
"The Republican party is in power, has been for a while now"
Pssst. October 2006 called. It wants its political reality back.
"Got a problem with the name of the State of Israel? Perhaps you would prefer to all it "the zionist entity" or "the little satan"? "
He uses such inflammatory and hateful language, and keeps denying it. I think his preferred name for Israel would be "ashes that are all that remain of the filthy Juden".
"Capturing 2 soldiers does not constitute an invasion."
princeton.edu "the act of invading; the act of an army that invades for conquest or plunder". freedictionary.com "To enter by force in order to conquer or pillage". It was an invasion no matter how you look at it. I see that you left out that the invading army intentionally murdered 3 Israelis during the invasion, so the "capturing 2" claim is so incomplete as to be a lie. Was this ignorance, or just part of a general pattern to lie about the incident (like denying it was an invasion)?
Note: None of the definitions of invasion hinge on the number of soldiers captured during the action.
Not recognizing the right of a nation to exist is the same as not recognizing the right of its people to exist. A nation is made up of its people. Demanding either is inhumanely intolerant. Also, I quoted elsewhere Hamas' own charter and its demand for killing Jews. If there is one thing to be said for Hamas, they come right to the point and do not hide behind the "zionist" code word. I can't believe it has come to actually defending the absolutist final-solution demands of Hamas as being somehow "reasonable".
Continent-wise, the new world is devided into just two continents: North America and South America.
"America has more parts than just North and South. You can't (even just for the sake of argument) choose to arbitrarily polarize a unique, rich culture."
The geographic entities of "North America" and "South America" are not cultural ones.
"The original poster decided to call all North American natives as savages and proceeded to claim that they sacrificed people and did not care about life"
If it is the message I am thinking of, it referred to specifically South America, but instead meant groups like the Maya who lived instead in North America.
"Mesoamerican. Not North American."
Just like saying "French. Not European." Not an equality relationship, but that of a subset.
"Er, no, they don't recognize the right of the State of Israel to exist, and frequently call for the people of Israel to be pushed out of the area they currently occupy"
And if these people go into the cattle cars, those instituting this ethnic cleansing will be most happy to remove them "by other means". Language from Hamas, Hesbollah, and Iran makes quite clear how little worth the lives of Jews have. Thus, intolerance for the right of a nation to exist is very little different from intolerance for the rights of its people to live if you indicate your willingless to kill them if they won't willingly participate in 'peaceful' ethnic cleansing methods. So yes, it is a "frequent call for extermination" since few anywhere really except the Israelis to leave on their own.
Please don't soft-pedal it and attempt to justify it for something less than what it is. We've even seen this in practice rather recently in former Yugoslavia. Technically, the expansionist Serbian demogogues wanted the Muslims to peacefully leave Kosovo and Bosnia, but they were extremely willing to use other methods to bring about "no Muslims live here" when asking them to leave failed.
"this is little different than the frequent calls on the Israeli Right, which have abated a bit in the last few years, for the displacement of the Palestinian population"
That, too, was quite alarming. That would have also meant genocide, of course. No different at all. However, that has not been the dominant view in Israel, let alone a mainstream one, for some time now. In contrast, the call for such ethnic cleansing against Israel is a very strong position among several major players in that area. Any calls for "transfer" are little different than calls for genocide.
All of "Apocalypto" takes place in North America, not in any part of South America. Check the IMDB entry. It refers to the Maya kingdom, which was in what is now Mexico, "...a located in North America"
"Well, that's great and all, but please check your geography. Mesoamerican is not the same as North-American."
Check your geography indeed. Mesoamerican is the "same as" North American as French is the "same as" European. It is a subset relationship: Mesoamerica is merely the southern part of the continent of North America. Everything Mesoamerican is North American, but not everything North American is Mesoamerican. Never press the geography nazi.
"Hamas was democratically elected. Look how "democratic" world was treated."
Democratic countries are no less responsible for their actions than others. The democratic Palestinian state re-instated their call for genocide against the Jews (yes, the Hamas charter makes little distinction between Israelis and Jews). When one (new) country has as its primary foreign policy goal the extermination of 5 million people in a neighboring country, this can cause proper reaction and condemnation. A democratic decision to institute another Final Solution is no better than a non-democratic solution.
"THe "democratic" "state" of "Israel" is practicing apartheid"
It's interesting that the only word that really didn't make sense in that sentence was "apartheid", but you did not leave it in quotes.
"NYT is primarly print, while blogs are strictly web based. Sort of comparing apples to oranges (I get my news from blogs and print)."
I was referring to the NYT web site, not to the newspaper.
The non-recognition of the rights of Israelis to exist is typically based in a foundation of hatred of Jews. Why include yourself in that company? I can't imagine wishing that any nation did not exist.
"There is great animosity between Jews and Arabs in the area because of incessant bloodshed that is continuing for about a century now."
It actually goes back to around 700 AD. It's really surprising that there were any Jews left there by the 20th century, considering all the pogroms, and how the Muslim empire for many hundreds of years instituted a legal/government system that punished people for being Jewish.
"Muslims are capable of piecefully coexisting with Christians and Jews, it is imprinted in the Qur'an and Sunnah"
The book quotes are not relevant. Real practice is what counts, and through history Muslim rule is mostly synonmous with oppression and extreme intolerance for those who do not worship the Muslim god. There are exceptions: Turkey is a "Muslim country", and it is quite tolerant. It has even let go of antisemitism enough to recognize the right of Israel to exist.
Saladin's oppressive rule, while not as bad as any of the others, was not anything to write home about. He still ruled over a system that gave Jews second-class citizenship: one where they had to convert to Islam in order to be treated as equal to the occupying culture. He was not as bad as the Crusaders, of course: but he was still a foreign occupier who did not respect the indiginous people. Andalus is not a good example for you to bring up either: there, as elsewhere, the occupying armies of the Muslim empire were still imperial overlords. Defending them is like defending Britain's colonial control of India. Yeah, it was better than some alternatives, but should not have happened at all.
"Indeed, it was the fact that anyone who questions the actions of Israel is immediately labeled an "anti-Semite"
That is not a "fact": it just a straw man. It is possible to make reasonble criticism of Israel. However, bashing it through code-words, questioning the very right of its people to exist, echoing false claims about history? Those are not reasonable. Hatred of Israel is indeed based in antisemitism.
You are forgetting (of course) the real history: that the Jews there were indiginous natives or settlers who came there and bought land. However, the local Palestinian government (which was actually allied with and cooperated with Nazi Germany) could not stand this and instituted pogroms against these people who did not steal land. That was a particularly genocide form of antisemitism, and it was directed at the ones who had long-term continuous roots in the area as well as the newcomers. The solution of establishing a sort of "reservation" on a mere 1/6 or so of the land, in order to protect these people from genocide, was a very reasonable decision.
Your "The land in question was owned by Arabs" is quite misleading, considering that the local Arab authorities were working to steal land from the Jews. who had legitimately purchased it.
So now, at least there is one small place in that area where Jews aren't treated like dogs. It turns out to be, interestingly enough, the place in the area where Arabs and Muslims have the most religious, political, and other rights. But there are some who would rather that there was no such place. There is no real rational explanation for the hatred of Israel (even as mild as "sadness" that it exists)... which is why irrational reasons must be explored. Reasons such as antisemitism. Pointing out of the illogical antisemitism is an argument, not an evasion of one. One has to have a certain degree of antisemitism to be "sad" that Israel even exists.
...for the main reason that I've never seen a blog worth anything that requires you register with some dumb pointless "Elmer Fudd at 90210" registration just to be able to read it like the NYT does.
Why put it in quotes? I've typically seen such tricks used rarely in other parts of the world for countries that someone wants wiped out. Why not just leave the quotes off? As for the antisemitic friend, he's an AC, not imaginary. I can link you to one of his venomous pro-extermination rants if you want. As he's an AC, I have not yet had the chance to mod him friend OR foe.
Your combined nation idea (further up, grandparent post maybe?) is quite interesting, and is an idea I support under certain conditions. Would it include Gaza or any parts of Jordan? Would the government be relentessly secular, but still allow-support important Jewish, Muslim and other holidays?
"We in Canada are paying reparations for a government imposed head tax on Chinese immigrants back in the 20s, this is pretty reasonable"
Don't knock the Chinese head-tax. It kept the numbers of two- or three- headed Chinese to a minimum, didnt it?
"that started the theft of Arab lands for the benefit of Zionism"
Thanks for the nice antisemitic intentional misreading of history. Interestingly, the statements about Natives are quite correct, but this antisemitic rant about the "theft" of protecting people's own land and the "Zionist" bogeyman might as well have been lifted from a Hesbollah speech.
"How do you think Islam established itself in the Middle East?"
It was an through an invasion of the Eastern Mediterraean shore area by a religion-fueled army that raped, conquered, pillaged, massacred and established a hegemony without any consideration to the indiginous people. It became a crime in the conquered land to practice the indiginous religion.....
BR> It's funny how when the Crusaders did this, it's "one of history's most shocking crimes. But when the Arabian Empire did this, to a much greater extent, with more atrocity, and more permanence, it's all nice and good. Yes, the Arabs seem to have no problem with the "guilt of grabbing land which does not belong to them and the guilt of killing thousands of innocent human beings is going to consume them." In fact, they now even want to take over more non-Arab land (Darfur and Israel are two examples).
"... to attract more Jews to "Israel" to fight an uphill..."
As much as you want it extermin.... ahem "wiped off the map", it's a real nation. Israel is its only name, no quote necessary.
"And how they've always been at war with Oceania."
Pretty hard to do without a navy.