Confused about "antisemitism" in the Labour Party

[mistermack]

1 minute ago, geordief said:

If the war that Israel fought against its neighbours (was it 67 or was there also one earlier?) was legitimate then it is also arguably legitimate and prudent  for it to keep territory  gained such as the Golan Heights and possibly other strategic areas.

I agree that the settlements are indefensible.

 

But Israel has a right to defend itself (ie a right to exist ) in the same way as any other nation  unless one is going to revisit the settlement after the war (which I assume had the rubber stamp of the UN at the time )

How can a robber fight a legitimate war, to keep their stolen property? The mass Jewish immigration was not legitimate. The setting up of the State was not legitimate. They only legitimate thing that they could do would be to fuck off out of there, and pay compensation to the surviving Palestinians.

[geordief]

1 minute ago, mistermack said:

How can a robber fight a legitimate war, to keep their stolen property? The mass Jewish immigration was not legitimate. The setting up of the State was not legitimate. They only legitimate thing that they could do would be to fuck off out of there, and pay compensation to the surviving Palestinians.

So your position is  that the establishment of Israel was illegal.

 

I disagree. If it was sanctioned by the UN ,it was legal. We have to move forwards not backwards

 

I imagine there is zero likelihood of revisiting 1945 .

[mistermack]

I took your word legitimate to mean morally legitimate. You didn't say legal.

As far as legality goes, it's money that talks. Morals have nothing to do with it.

[John Cuthber]

20 minutes ago, geordief said:

Yes it was (see the earlier post). 

I had already looked through the previous posts.
The find function in Chrome was unable to locate an instance of either "so called" or "right to exist" prior to your use of them.
 

22 minutes ago, geordief said:

I agree that the settlements are indefensible.

 

It would be good if people stopped trying to argue that Palestinians shouldn't seek to retaliate.

[geordief]

3 minutes ago, mistermack said:

I took your word legitimate to mean morally legitimate. You didn't say legal.

As far as legality goes, it's money that talks. Morals have nothing to do with it.

All wars have grey areas  when it comes to legitimacy and I can't say which side was in the right in 67  but I doubt all the right or wrong was on one side.(I remember well Nasser saying that he would drive Israel into the sea before that war)

 

The establishment of Israel was an internationally recognised legal agreement and has to be honoured.

 

 

[MigL]

I will change my mind and wholeheartedly agree with you, Mistermack, when you give back the land that you reside on to the original owners.
As I previously stated, there is no place on Earth that hasn't seen migrations of peoples and displacement of natives.

Apply the same rules to all.
And then you talk about obnoxious double standards, Mistermack ?

 

And now you've stepped in the mess of having to defend retaliation/revenge, John.
Not prevention/defence as most Israeli acts can be classified, but retribution for past acts.

Edited August 19, 2018 by MigL

[geordief]

8 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

I had already looked through the previous posts.
The find function in Chrome was unable to locate an instance of either "so called" or "right to exist" prior to your use of them.
 

 

It would be good if people stopped trying to argue that Palestinians shouldn't seek to retaliate.

See it now?  https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/115411-confused-about-antisemitism-in-the-labour-party/?do=findComment&comment=1065494

I don't argue that....

Edited August 19, 2018 by geordief

[mistermack]

14 minutes ago, MigL said:

I will change my mind and wholeheartedly agree with you, Mistermack, when you give back the land that you reside on to the original owners.
As I previously stated, there is no place on Earth that hasn't seen migrations of peoples and displacement of natives.

Apply the same rules to all.
And then you talk about obnoxious double standards, Mistermack ?

So you presumably think the Nazis should keep their spoils of war? Nice.   Strangely enough, the Jews would disagree with you on that one. 

[MigL]

No, I remember history books stating the Nazis had lost the war.
They lost territory as a result; what would they keep ?

I'm not sure where you're from, but who were the original ( or at least previous ) peoples who lived there ?
Should you leave and give back the land ?

I live in North America,. Do I have to leave and give back the land to the native Indians ?
Do all non-aboriginal Australians have to leave ?
Do all white Africans have to leave ?

Why are you applying this bizarre 'morality' only to Israel ?

I don't think you're anti-Semite, because  intelligent/educated people are not.
And I respect your opinion, because Israel does do some things which are distasteful ( and don't help their cause ), but to liken them to the second coming of Attila the Hun is hyperbole. Especially considering the character of the neighbors they have to defend againts.

[mistermack]

So Russia is fine to keep the Crimea then? And it's enclaves in Georgia and Ukraine? That's going to be popular in the US. Up jump the old double standards again. Why should they stop there? Cut Ukraine in half. There's a lot of Russians living there.

There's a big difference between historical migrations and this one, and that is that now, we're supposed to know better. The days of empire, and treating foreign nations like shit were supposed to be over. 

I can just imagine what the US would do, if six million muslims tried to set up a home for muslims in Colorado. Different standards would be  very quickly rolled out. 

[DrP]

I re-watched 'Schindler's list' yesterday evening.  I saw it 25 years ago.  I still shed tears at the end when he breaks down. I am still depressed now. Mainly because it isn't some ancient history, it was in the 1940s.  I think everyone should watch it. Everyone in the world.

 

On ‎19‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 10:16 PM, mistermack said:

So Russia is fine to keep the Crimea then? And it's enclaves in Georgia and Ukraine?

I think there were 2 sides to all that  -  the people there (majority according to democratic votes?) actually want to be part of Russia. I guess it depends on who you ask and what web site you read the info from. Certainly in Georgia anyway - they actually asked the Russians for military help. All those places are right on the Russian border - I'd let them police their own country/borders.  Did they strip any children from their mothers and fathers and send them thousands of miles away?   

 

[iNow]

4 minutes ago, DrP said:

I re-watched 'Schindler's list' yesterday evening.  ...  Mainly because it isn't some ancient history, it was in the 1940s.  I think everyone should watch it. Everyone in the world.

I did the same thing last year... Always thought, "How did the German people let that happen? Why did nobody put a stop to it? How was that even possible?" Looking around at the world today, I'm disappointingly coming to understand the answer to each of those questions.

[DrP]

8 minutes ago, iNow said:

I did the same thing last year... Always thought, "How did the German people let that happen? Why did nobody put a stop to it? How was that even possible?" Looking around at the world today, I'm disappointingly coming to understand the answer to each of those questions.

Yea - it was awful.   I wasn't sure whether to post this here or in your Nazi thread. I wonder what current day Nazi's think of the film. They probably think it was faked, didn't happen or that it was exaggerated fake news. idk. How mislead or evil must someone be to consider other human beings as vermin?  How does one get so detached from humanity?

 

 

[StringJunky]

18 minutes ago, DrP said:

 How mislead or evil must someone be to consider other human beings as vermin?  How does one get so detached from humanity?

Live with some heroin addicts, as an example, then it's not so difficult to understand. Depraved examples of people are never faraway, if we choose to look. If all one sees is inhumanity then it takes a strong person to preserve their own and likely at considerable personal cost.

[dimreepr]

On 8/19/2018 at 2:39 PM, MigL said:

No, I remember history books stating the Nazis had lost the war.
They lost territory as a result; what would they keep ?

I'm not sure where you're from, but who were the original ( or at least previous ) peoples who lived there ?
Should you leave and give back the land ?

I live in North America,. Do I have to leave and give back the land to the native Indians ?
Do all non-aboriginal Australians have to leave ?
Do all white Africans have to leave ?

who deserves to suffer the sins of our fathers? when we have our own to worry about?  

Edited August 22, 2018 by dimreepr

[DrP]

25 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Live with some heroin addicts, as an example, then it's not so difficult to understand. Depraved examples of people are never faraway, if we choose to look. If all one sees is inhumanity then it takes a strong person to preserve their own and likely at considerable personal cost.

I see it now with people at work going on about Tommy Robinson and the Muslims that were jailed for being part of a paedophile ring. There were white local people jailed a decade ago for running a daughter swap paedophile ring just up the road from here. There was a guy who worked in there very department who went to jail for grooming a 13 year old girl. That was disgusting. It is disgusting whatever your race or religion  -  many humans ARE disgusting...  but I see them solely blaming all the countries problems on immigrants. Half our workers here are Polish...  I don't care - they are all fine humans to me.  Some here hate them for 'taking all our jobs'.   If they weren't such c**ts they wouldn't be loosing their jobs to these very respectable, very polite hard working and obedient people.

I used to be more right wing but I have changed a lot over the years. I learnt and worked out that most of the things that I was angry about weren't even true and were lies and propaganda propagated to make people angry so they would join the political cause. It is very difficult getting this across to right wingers though - they really don't care about facts or people  - they just want some righteous anger to direct towards some group or another. If I explain that they are looking at the world with polarized glasses on they will say I am brainwashed by education or will simply not believe me. I despair.  At least people are talking about such things now  -  the last couple of decades have not allowed conversation to take place and anyone who mentioned immigration was immediately branded a racist and the conversations were shut down. That is why we now have this brexit debacle imo - people are fed up with not being allowed to talk about their fears and grievances and they let that out in the vote.

Sorry - this might be off of the topic of the OP now...  but it is all along the same line of conversation and is related by the fact the topic has lead us here.

 

[dimreepr]

26 minutes ago, DrP said:

I see it now with people at work going on about Tommy Robinson and the Muslims that were jailed for being part of a paedophile ring. There were white local people jailed a decade ago for running a daughter swap paedophile ring just up the road from here. There was a guy who worked in there very department who went to jail for grooming a 13 year old girl. That was disgusting. It is disgusting whatever your race or religion  -  many humans ARE disgusting...  but I see them solely blaming all the countries problems on immigrants. Half our workers here are Polish...  I don't care - they are all fine humans to me.  Some here hate them for 'taking all our jobs'.   If they weren't such c**ts they wouldn't be loosing their jobs to these very respectable, very polite hard working and obedient people.

I used to be more right wing but I have changed a lot over the years. I learnt and worked out that most of the things that I was angry about weren't even true and were lies and propaganda propagated to make people angry so they would join the political cause. It is very difficult getting this across to right wingers though - they really don't care about facts or people  - they just want some righteous anger to direct towards some group or another. If I explain that they are looking at the world with polarized glasses on they will say I am brainwashed by education or will simply not believe me. I despair.  At least people are talking about such things now  -  the last couple of decades have not allowed conversation to take place and anyone who mentioned immigration was immediately branded a racist and the conversations were shut down. That is why we now have this brexit debacle imo - people are fed up with not being allowed to talk about their fears and grievances and they let that out in the vote.

Sorry - this might be off of the topic of the OP now...  but it is all along the same line of conversation and is related by the fact the topic has lead us here.

 

it's always someone's fault and they're to blame...

[studiot]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

it's always someone's fault and they're to blame...

correction

it's always someone's else's fault and they're to blame...

Back on topic.

Sorry Tim, I don't even know or want to know what antisemitism is, or have anything to do with it.

You are correct to say it's all very vague.

Edited August 22, 2018 by studiot

[dimreepr]

15 minutes ago, studiot said:

correction

it's always someone's else's fault and they're to blame...

if you say so... Or is that my fault?

[studiot]

6 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

if you say so... Or is that my fault?

Touche

[mistermack]

The Jews were unfortunately the minor victims of the Nazis. There was also the little matter of twenty million Russians, among others. 

Funny that Russia gets a totally different reaction, when it took over the Crimea. Even though they were merely transferring title back to where it belonged, and not moving in six million aliens, as has happened to Palestine. 

Double standards, double standards. Is anti-russiatism a word ?

[MigL]

I guess a variation of the old adage...

"Those who don't know history are bound to repeat its mistakes."

20 million Russians died fighting to protect their country;
while 6 million Jews died just for being Jewish.

( my apologies for having to jump back in and continuing off topic )

Edited August 22, 2018 by MigL

[mistermack]

11 minutes ago, MigL said:

I guess a variation of the old adage...

"Those who don't know history are bound to repeat its mistakes."

20 million Russians died fighting to protect their country;
while 6 million Jews died just for being Jewish.

( my apologies for having to jump back in and continuing off topic )

Not quite. Wikipedia says :

"The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war,^[329] including 8.7 million military and 19 million civilian deaths.^[330] A quarter of the people in the Soviet Union were wounded or killed.^[331] "        

We had it pretty cushy in the West.

[MigL]

The fact remains that none of the Russians were killed for being of a 'vermin' religion.

[CharonY]

8 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Live with some heroin addicts, as an example, then it's not so difficult to understand. Depraved examples of people are never faraway, if we choose to look. If all one sees is inhumanity then it takes a strong person to preserve their own and likely at considerable personal cost.

I don't think that it is the lesson. Folks that let it happen were not special or depraved. The big lesson of Nazi-Germany was that otherwise decent folks in a bad system are very likely to just let bad things happen. Also, if you give folks too much power over other folks, bad things will happen. This is something many Germans learned (though some of the younger ones start forgetting). The perpetrators and bystanders were not some foreign monsters. They were ones (great)grand parents and intuitively folks understood that it can't be that the whole population suddenly became depraved. Rather, it is something that is in all of us and lacking vigilance we may give rise to conditions that lead to these atrocities. Rather unfortunately, folks on the other side of the war often deem themselves immune from this danger.

 

4 hours ago, MigL said:

The fact remains that none of the Russians were killed for being of a 'vermin' religion.

Well, considering that Slavs were considered a lesser breed I am not sure whether that is a good argument (see Generalplan Ost).

I am not sure what the overall argument is though. Assuming Israel gets to keep its spoils of war, what about the increase in settlements as a means to decrease Palestinian rights to their land? If that is accepted, what prevents any country to annex part of lands, plop down settlements and declare it theirs? After all, if it was alright to do it with First Nations, it must still be acceptable, if you got the military, no? In other words, what is your moral or legal stance on that matter? 

With regard to OP as others have mentioned, the deeds of a Government should be seen separate of the population as a whole (even if in a democratic system the former is an expression of the latter). After all, there are many Israelis heavily criticizing Israeli policy (as it should happen in any democracy). And it is not that Israel (the nation) is treating all Jews well, either. One only need to look at the treatment of African Jews to see that it their current policy is not based on shared trauma and history. Or at least it does not transcendent regular good old bigotry. Some of the folks that I admire most are Holocaust-survivors who have been outspoken against Islamophobia (in Europe) and/or the treatment. Those folks indeed acting on their history and try take the more difficult moral road. That part goes back my comment to SJ: acting morally, especially if it seemingly is against your interest (or tribal affiliation) is hard. The world will be poorer with fewer of them around to remind us of that.

 

Edit: we could even try to explore the legality of compensation of indigenous people. I am quite certain the situation there is far more complex than we took it and now we get to keep it. But I am certain that both of us have some serious reading to do to if we even want to get a glimpse into that situation.

Edited August 22, 2018 by CharonY