[Rhadamanthus]

(Original post by unclej)
So do you think it's anti-Semetic to use the word holocaust to describe the Armenian holocaust using the word holocaust? I know a lot of zionists feel very protective of the holocaust being exclusively Jewish.

I do view them emotionally because it is murder of innocent people

I don't have a problem with the word 'Holocaust' being used to describe what happened to the Armenians. The paper says nothing about the use of the word, just comparisons of Israel with the Nazis.

[Suetonius]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
There is only one appropriate response to this kind of bull****:

6 million Jews, either lying in mass graves throughout Europe or nowhere because their bodies were cremated, wish with all their hearts that the comparison between the Nazis and Israeli government was valid.

I also find the comparison between Israel and Nazism to be distasteful and innacurate. I'm personally sick to death of any reference to it when discussing Israel; not only are the likes of 'unclej' guilty of comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, etc., but the Israeli government - and its avid and misguided supporters - use the non sequitur of the Holocaust as a legitimation tool. (Something you're guilty of.) I recall seeing Bill Maher interviewing Netanyahu in 2006 when the latter contemptibly asserted, "we're not going back to those gas chambers". I'm sorry, but what gas chamber has Netanyahu ever set foot in? This tribalistic nonsense has to end. Only the most parochial and paranoid Jews believe that they must pull up the drawbridge because the world is out to get them.

Even using the Holocaust to defend Israel's existence is absurd (despite the roots it has in the genocide), considering it presumes there must always be a dominant majority of Jews there. Shouldn't Israel actually be the "Sovereign state of the Jewish, Roma, Sinti, Polish, Slavic, homosexual, dissident, black, disabled, and POW people"? (Groups I see you omitted from your account of those "lying in mass graves throughout Europe" etc.) I imagine that if you proposed such an idea to an ardent supporter of Israel then they'd spit in your face. Because, as we all know, Zionism today is not really about the Holocaust. Extreme right-wing jingoists like Netanyahu only use past tragedies in order to serve a vulgar and propagandistic legitimation campaign. People like 'unclej' are a nuisance, obviously, but they're not exactly threatening. Are you willing to condemn the other "kind of bull****" too? Or do you think we should go easier on the preachings of concentrated Israeli power than toward some harmless crackpot on the internet?

Plus, I think people like you throw around the figures (RE: 6 million) too much, which only works to emphasise one example of suffering at the expense of others. After all, a Jew killed under Nazism is no different from a Palestinian killed by an indiscriminate Israeli bomb or a Vietnamese peasant killed by American defoliation or an American killed in an 'al-Qaeda' attack. There's no qualitative difference between an IDF serviceman catching the Einsatzgruppen spirit and shooting a Palestinian civilian in cold blood, and the actions of an Einsatzgruppen officer himself. The difference is that the latter's actions were more institutionalized. All forms of murder can be compared, regardless of the level, means and extents the murderers - and the systems they operate within - will go to. I'm sure a Palestinian mother who's lost a child to Israeli shelling would "wish with all their hearts" that their child had instead survived the Nazi persecution. Furthermore, I'm sure the 6 million (it's actually over 11 million if we're being serious, which you don't appear to be) victims you cite (for some strange reason, you seem to think you can speak on their behalf) would not "wish with all their hearts" that their memory be exploited in order to extend the bloodshed to Arabs.

As it happens, though, we don't know what the future will hold. Yet people who think that ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Territories could never happen are fooling themselves. Under the cover of a regional war with Iran and its proxies, or a third intifada, it's certainly not an outlandish prospect. The signs of an eroding democracy can already be identified within the State of Israel; as demonstrated by the recent clampdown on free speech, which is only intended to stifle any criticism directed towards its expansionist and hysterical government. As evidenced by this, Israeli policy is currently driven, in part, by an irrational hatred of Palestinians. Particularly Palestinian children.

[Rhadamanthus]

(Original post by Suetonius)
After all, a Jew killed under Nazism is no different from a Palestinian killed by an indiscriminate Israeli bomb or a Vietnamese peasant killed by American defoliation or an American killed in an al-Qaeda attack.

"A Taliban operative killed in a drone attack is no different from an American civilian killed in the World Trade Center attack." Discuss. I'd argue motive matters.

[Suetonius]

(Original post by Rhadamanthus)
"A Taliban operative killed in a drone attack is no different from an American civilian killed in the World Trade Center attack." Discuss. I'd argue motive matters.

I'm not talking about "operatives". I'm referring to civilians. You can't call the shooting of an enemy soldier in war a "murder". It can conceivably be argued that a Palestinian civilian killed in a bombing raid on a civilian area, where there is almost a guarantee that civilians will be killed, is a murderous war crime. That's in spite of the stated motive behind it. A Pakistani or Afghan civilian killed in a particular drone attack, where it's also conceivable that civilians will be killed, can too be placed under this heading. Indeed, that's why raids of the OBL-sort are more desirable than a drone attack; because there's a near-guarantee that the casualties will be combatants. I would say that "an American civilian killed in the World Trade Center attack" has neither more nor less worth than a Palestinian civilian killed in an indiscriminate bombing of occupied Palestinian territory (which, of course, shouldn't be under Israeli control according to all standards of international law) or a Jewish civilian killed in a Nazi death camp or a Kurdish civilian killed by Iraqi poison gas or an Afghan civilian slaughtered by the Taliban or, of course, an Afghan civilian slaughtered by an American soldier (as I have argued in the past). I find it grossly disingenous to compare and contrast the consequences of different atrocities. One can argue about the motives behind them, and the nature of the groups which conduct them, but that's a completely separate question. Do you think there's a real difference between Samir Kuntar and Shimon Peres, when the latter has been responsible for more deliberate civilian deaths? If so, do the actions of Peres make Kuntar's actions any less grotesque, or his victims any less worthy of consideration? Of course not. The nuances of what is and is not acceptable in conditions of war are not made any more or less important by the stated motives of those behind such atrocities.

[unclej]

(Original post by Rhadamanthus)
"A Taliban operative killed in a drone attack is no different from an American civilian killed in the World Trade Center attack." Discuss. I'd argue motive matters.

both were killed by terrorists although wtc victims were innocent civillians.

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by Suetonius)
I also find the comparison between Israel and Nazism to be distasteful and innacurate. I'm personally sick to death of any reference to it when discussing Israel; not only are the likes of 'unclej' guilty of comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, etc., but the Israeli government - and its avid and misguided supporters - use the non sequitur of the Holocaust as a legitimation tool. (Something you're guilty of.) I recall seeing Bill Maher interviewing Netanyahu in 2006 when the latter contemptibly asserted, "we're not going back to those gas chambers". I'm sorry, but what gas chamber has Netanyahu ever set foot in? This tribalistic nonsense has to end. Only the most parochial and paranoid Jews believe that they must pull up the drawbridge because the world is out to get them.

Even using the Holocaust to defend Israel's existence is absurd (despite the roots it has in the genocide), considering it presumes there must always be a dominant majority of Jews there. Shouldn't Israel actually be the "Sovereign state of the Jewish, Roma, Sinti, Polish, Slavic, homosexual, dissident, black, disabled, and POW people"? (Groups I see you omitted from your account of those "lying in mass graves throughout Europe" etc.) I imagine that if you proposed such an idea to an ardent supporter of Israel then they'd spit in your face. Because, as we all know, Zionism today is not really about the Holocaust. Extreme right-wing jingoists like Netanyahu only use past tragedies in order to serve a vulgar and propagandistic legitimation campaign. People like 'unclej' are a nuisance, obviously, but they're not exactly threatening. Are you willing to condemn the other "kind of bull****" too? Or do you think we should go easier on the preachings of concentrated Israeli power than toward some harmless crackpot on the internet?

Plus, I think people like you throw around the figures (RE: 6 million) too much, which only works to emphasise one example of suffering at the expense of others. After all, a Jew killed under Nazism is no different from a Palestinian killed by an indiscriminate Israeli bomb or a Vietnamese peasant killed by American defoliation or an American killed in an 'al-Qaeda' attack. There's no qualitative difference between an IDF serviceman catching the Einsatzgruppen spirit and shooting a Palestinian civilian in cold blood, and the actions of an Einsatzgruppen officer himself. The difference is that the latter's actions were more institutionalized. All forms of murder can be compared, regardless of the level, means and extents the murderers - and the systems they operate within - will go to. I'm sure a Palestinian mother who's lost a child to Israeli shelling would "wish with all their hearts" that their child had instead survived the Nazi persecution. Furthermore, I'm sure the 6 million (it's actually over 11 million if we're being serious, which you don't appear to be) victims you cite (for some strange reason, you seem to think you can speak on their behalf) would not "wish with all their hearts" that their memory be exploited in order to extend the bloodshed to Arabs.

As it happens, though, we don't know what the future will hold. Yet people who think that ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Territories could never happen are fooling themselves. Under the cover of a regional war with Iran and its proxies, or a third intifada, it's certainly not an outlandish prospect. The signs of an eroding democracy can already be identified within the State of Israel; as demonstrated by the recent clampdown on free speech, which is only intended to stifle any criticism directed towards its expansionist and hysterical government. As evidenced by this, Israeli policy is currently driven, in part, by an irrational hatred of Palestinians. Particularly Palestinian children.

If I understand you correctly then what you're saying is basically that there is no connection between Israel today and the history of Jewish persecution culminating (but not ending) with the Holocaust. Israel and its supporters shouldn't make any reference to Jewish history when discussing Israel's actions or when discussing the need for a sovereign and secure Jewish state. Personally, that seems quite ridiculous.

Sure, its totally wrong to say something like "we killed 10 Palestinians because we suffered in the Holocaust". Fortunately, I don't think many people say things like that.

What they do say are things like "we feel the need to keep Israel very secure because we have seen what people are willing to do to Jews and we're not prepared to leave ourselves vulnerable again". Is that so unreasonable?

They might also say things like "we need to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel to ensure Jewish sovereignty because we don't trust non-Jews to keep us safe under all circumstances". And that too is not unreasonable.

Sure, if you're not Jewish and/or not sensitive to the past then it sounds strange. After all, now is not 1930s Europe. Jews are surely safe now, right? They can ease up and relax nothing is going to happen to them. Well, hopefully you're right. But then Jews in Germany in the 1920s thought the same thing.

So, no, I won't condemn what doesn't exist. And I won't condemn people who are sensitive to Jewish history and the very genuine feelings of insecurity that are shared by a great many Jews to a greater or lesser extent.

====

As for your point about being able to compare murders, I really don't get it again. First you say that there is no qualitative difference between an IDF soldier murdering a Palestinians and a Nazi murdering a Jew. But then you immediately point out the very large qualitative difference - namely that one is acting against his orders and the other is following orders. But the main point, of course, is that it is certainly relevant to compare numbers when the charge of genocide is made because it serves to illustrate the absolutely astronomical difference between an actual genocide and what is happening to Palestinians.

====

Here's the short version for you - comparing Israel to Nazis is moronic bull****. Suggesting that there is no connection between Israel and the Holocaust (and the rest of Jewish history) is also bull****.

[Suetonius]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
If I understand you correctly then what you're saying is basically that there is no connection between Israel today and the history of Jewish persecution culminating (but not ending) with the Holocaust. Israel and its supporters shouldn't make any reference to Jewish history when discussing Israel's actions or when discussing the need for a sovereign and secure Jewish state. Personally, that seems quite ridiculous.

Sure, its totally wrong to say something like "we killed 10 Palestinians because we suffered in the Holocaust". Fortunately, I don't think many people say things like that.

What they do say are things like "we feel the need to keep Israel very secure because we have seen what people are willing to do to Jews and we're not prepared to leave ourselves vulnerable again". Is that so unreasonable?

They might also say things like "we need to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel to ensure Jewish sovereignty because we don't trust non-Jews to keep us safe under all circumstances". And that too is not unreasonable.

Sure, if you're not Jewish and/or not sensitive to the past then it sounds strange. After all, now is not 1930s Europe. Jews are surely safe now, right? They can ease up and relax nothing is going to happen to them. Well, hopefully you're right. But then Jews in Germany in the 1920s thought the same thing.

So, no, I won't condemn what doesn't exist. And I won't condemn people who are sensitive to Jewish history and the very genuine feelings of insecurity that are shared by a great many Jews to a greater or lesser extent.

====

As for your point about being able to compare murders, I really don't get it again. First you say that there is no qualitative difference between an IDF soldier murdering a Palestinians and a Nazi murdering a Jew. But then you immediately point out the very large qualitative difference - namely that one is acting against his orders and the other is following orders. But the main point, of course, is that it is certainly relevant to compare numbers when the charge of genocide is made because it serves to illustrate the absolutely astronomical difference between an actual genocide and what is happening to Palestinians.

====

Here's the short version for you - comparing Israel to Nazis is moronic bull****. Suggesting that there is no connection between Israel and the Holocaust (and the rest of Jewish history) is also bull****.

You have misunderstood me, especially given that I clearly acknowledged Israel's "roots...in the genocide". I would go further and make the observation that pre-WWII Jewish migrations to Palestine during the late 19th and early 20th centuries - which culminated in Israel's creation - were largely driven by various other persecutions. But that's not what I'm talking about. You're failing to make the distinction between the motivations of the original Zionist movement and the motivations of the current Israeli government. "Jewish history" and "the need for a sovereign and secure Jewish state", as shocking and contradictory as it may seem, isn't really a concern for jingoistic Israelis. After all, illegally occupying another people's land against their will is hardly a guarantee of security. Quite the opposite in fact. Of the 6 million Jews living in the U.S., the 6 million Jews living in Europe, and the 6 million Jews living in Israel, the latter group can be considered the least safe. This is something that would change with a permanent Arab-Israeli peace, but attitudes like yours aren't going to achieve that.

It is unreasonable to assume that Gentiles are somehow culturally and determinedly predisposed to murder Jews, yes. "Jewish sovereignty" is a vulgar idea, as is any notion of sovereignty being determined by ethnicity. Partition is testament to that. Collective gratuity is just as irrational as collective punishment. No state should be run on the precept that one group within it is on the verge of being slaughtered by the rest of the world. There's a word to describe the protestation "we don't trust non-Jews to keep us safe". It's called racism. As it happens, though, this isn't the real issue. Israel can be whatever sort of state it wants to be as long as it abides by international law. At the moment, it's not doing so.

You say you "don't think many people say things" like "we killed 10 Palestinians today because we suffered in the Holocaust." Of course you don't. It's not something that's overtly admitted; it pays off to be far more subtle. What does happen is that these policies are carried out under the pretense of keeping Israel - and Jews - "safe". We all know the propagandistic function the Holocaust can serve when it comes to retrospectively justifying an aggressive action that was apparently undertaken in "defense" of Jews. Netanyahu, who isn't even the most extreme element in his Coalition, is addicted to using the Holocaust as a ploy for an aggressive and jingoistic foreign policy. Right now it's about a potential war with Iran, but there are many other examples. When the Sinai and the Gaza Strip - occupied Egyptian and Palestinian territory - were evacuated in 1982 and 2005 respectively, there were routine condemnations from the right-wing about this being "another Holocaust". Abba Eban, Israel's foreign minister during the Six-Day War, referred to the pre-1967 borders as the "Auschwitz lines", which has been latched on to by the Israeli right ever since. These are not negligible extremists who no-one takes seriously, but are in fact at the core of the Israeli state. Do you condemn this?

Of course, your response doesn't succeed in even noticing my acknowledgement that Holocaust victims predominantly consisted of non-Jews (depending on what definition you use).

====

That's not a qualitative difference. It's an institutional difference. You'll see that, important as they are, I'm not talking about general motivation or the systems in which soldiers operate. I'm not talking about events as a whole. You seem to have forgotten that I agree that they can't be compared as events. Only an idiot (i.e. 'unclej') would call cumulative Israeli actions more severe than Nazi actions, and I stated that from the off. They're incomparable with regard to scale, and the Nazis were obviously guilty of committing far more grotesque crimes than any Israeli will ever think of doing. It would be insincere and obscene to mention Israeli policy in the same breath as gas chambers, slave labour or so-called "medical" experiments. What I said was that Israeli hawks use the Holocaust to excuse and, in most cases, ignore the behaviour of those few within the IDF who act like a Nazi and deliberately murder civilians. Your assessment of my claim is inaccurate. I didn't imply that said IDF soldier is "acting against his orders". He was following orders alright, but managed to overstep them. It's a crucial difference. To Israeli chauvinists, acting "against" orders, i.e. draft-dodging, is considered a far more severe crime than overstepping orders, i.e. ruthlessly slaughtering innocent civilians. I said that the Einsatzgruppen "actions were more institutionalized". More institutionalized. I didn't say that violence and killing are not institutionalized in the IDF. They're integral to any country's military, regardless of the degree to which it is wielded.

The number of IDF who commit war crimes and go unpunished is significant. Furthermore, they are largely ordered to act aggressively by IDF commanders. To quote just one example, Amnesty International's 2012 annual report maintains that: "Up to 35 people were reportedly killed and hundreds injured when Israeli soldiers fired at thousands of Palestinian refugees and others who protested on 15 May and 5 June [2011] at the Lebanese border with Israel and the Syrian border with the Israeli-occupied Golan. Some protesters threw stones and some crossed the border in the Golan Heights, but demonstrators did not have firearms and did not appear to pose a direct threat to the soldiers’ lives. Israel disputed the numbers killed and the circumstances.". These were not cases of bad apples acting against orders. The fact that Israel disputes it proves the extent to which governments will go in order to preserve their country's reputation at the expense of serious investigation into human rights abuses carried out by their own soldiers.

Amnesty also detailed several examples of close-range shootings (i.e. deliberate executions) during the attack on Gaza: "The evidence indicates that none could have reasonably been perceived as a threat to the soldiers who shot them, and that there was no fighting going on in their vicinity when they were shot". First, "In the afternoon of 4 January 2009, members of the Abu Halima family were shot by Israeli soldiers as they were taking to hospital relatives who had been injured in a devastating white phosphorus attack on their home in the Sayafa area, in the north-west of Gaza. Matar Abu Halima, 27, and his cousin Muhammad-Hikmat Abu Halima, 19, were both killed.". Second, that also "a 47-year-old woman, Rawhiya al-Najjar, was shot in the head as she walked ahead of a group of women carrying a white flag near her home in the village of Khuza’a, near Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza...Yasmine al-Najjar, aged 23, told Amnesty International that she was standing next to Rawhiya when she was shot and had seen an Israeli soldier in a nearby house. She was also herself shot in her right leg, as she tried to rescue Rawhiya. She had fled her home that morning at about 6.30am, when Israeli army bulldozers started to demolish it, and had joined other women near Rawhiya’s house.". And, third, that "On 7 January 2009 three little girls and their grandmother were shot outside their home in the ‘Izbet Abed Rabbo area, east of Jabalia, northern Gaza.": "Two soldiers stood outside the tank in our garden, eating chips and chocolate and ignored us. We stood still for several minutes. Then suddenly a soldier emerged from the middle of the tank. He was out of the tank from the waist up, and he took aim at us and shot many bullets. My daughter Amal had nine bullets in the chest area. She was holding a teddy bear against her chest and it got ripped by the bullets, my daughter Souad got some 11 or 12 bullets also in the chest area, and my daughter Samar got several bullets in the chest and tummy, and my mother was shot in the arm and buttock." Do you condemn this? Would the mother of those children in northern Gaza not "wish with all their hearts" that they had survived the Nazi genocide? Of course they would. This is why it's grotesque to compare the consequences of different atrocities. I repeat, the consequences of different atrocities; not the motivation behind, or scale of the events themselves. Israel revoltingly uses the 6 million Jewish victims of Nazi persecution in order to implicitly diminish the significance of murders like the ones contained in this report. As long as it's in "defense" of Jews, then we don't have to care about what we do. That's tribalism, and that's what you get when Jews "don't trust non-Jews to keep [them] safe". It's what you get when you pull up the drawbridge and turn your country into a bunker. Tell me, putting aside the fact that they're Jewish, do you believe these IDF war criminals would be out of place in the Einsatzgruppen? Shooting children and groups of women in cold blood? These occurrences need to be taken very seriously, but the propagandistic functions of the Israeli government, the repeated usage of "Jewish persecution" and "Jewish history", blind many to them. It should be noted once more that these soldiers were not "acting against orders". Even though they overstepped them, they were licensed to attack Gaza in such a wanton manner and to my knowledge were not reprimanded for their actions.

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by Suetonius)
You have misunderstood me, especially given that I clearly acknowledged Israel's "roots...in the genocide". I would go further and make the observation that pre-WWII Jewish migrations to Palestine during the late 19th and early 20th centuries - which culminated in Israel's creation - were largely driven by various other persecutions. But that's not what I'm talking about. You're failing to make the distinction between the motivations of the original Zionist movement and the motivations of the current Israeli government. "Jewish history" and "the need for a sovereign and secure Jewish state", as shocking and contradictory as it may seem, isn't really a concern for jingoistic Israelis. After all, illegally occupying another people's land against their will is hardly a guarantee of security. Quite the opposite in fact. Of the 6 million Jews living in the U.S., the 6 million Jews living in Europe, and the 6 million Jews living in Israel, the latter group can be considered the least safe. This is something that would change with a permanent Arab-Israeli peace, but attitudes like yours aren't going to achieve that.

It is unreasonable to assume that Gentiles are somehow culturally and determinedly predisposed to murder Jews, yes. "Jewish sovereignty" is a vulgar idea, as is any notion of sovereignty being determined by ethnicity. Partition is testament to that. Collective gratuity is just as irrational as collective punishment. No state should be run on the precept that one group within it is on the verge of being slaughtered by the rest of the world. There's a word to describe the protestation "we don't trust non-Jews to keep us safe". It's called racism. As it happens, though, this isn't the real issue. Israel can be whatever sort of state it wants to be as long as it abides by international law. At the moment, it's not doing so.

You say you "don't think many people say things" like "we killed 10 Palestinians today because we suffered in the Holocaust." Of course you don't. It's not something that's overtly admitted; it pays off to be far more subtle. What does happen is that these policies are carried out under the pretense of keeping Israel - and Jews - "safe". We all know the propagandistic function the Holocaust can serve when it comes to retrospectively justifying an aggressive action that was apparently undertaken in "defense" of Jews. Netanyahu, who isn't even the most extreme element in his Coalition, is addicted to using the Holocaust as a ploy for an aggressive and jingoistic foreign policy. Right now it's about a potential war with Iran, but there are many other examples. When the Sinai and the Gaza Strip - occupied Egyptian and Palestinian territory - were evacuated in 1982 and 2005 respectively, there were routine condemnations from the right-wing about this being "another Holocaust". Abba Eban, Israel's foreign minister during the Six-Day War, referred to the pre-1967 borders as the "Auschwitz lines", which has been latched on to by the Israeli right ever since. These are not negligible extremists who no-one takes seriously, but are in fact at the core of the Israeli state. Do you condemn this?

Of course, your response doesn't succeed in even noticing my acknowledgement that Holocaust victims predominantly consisted of non-Jews (depending on what definition you use).

====

That's not a qualitative difference. It's an institutional difference. You'll see that, important as they are, I'm not talking about general motivation or the systems in which soldiers operate. I'm not talking about events as a whole. You seem to have forgotten that I agree that they can't be compared as events. Only an idiot (i.e. 'unclej') would call cumulative Israeli actions more severe than Nazi actions, and I stated that from the off. They're incomparable with regard to scale, and the Nazis were obviously guilty of committing far more grotesque crimes than any Israeli will ever think of doing. It would be insincere and obscene to mention Israeli policy in the same breath as gas chambers, slave labour or so-called "medical" experiments. What I said was that Israeli hawks use the Holocaust to excuse and, in most cases, ignore the behaviour of those few within the IDF who act like a Nazi and deliberately murder civilians. Your assessment of my claim is inaccurate. I didn't imply that said IDF soldier is "acting against his orders". He was following orders alright, but managed to overstep them. It's a crucial difference. To Israeli chauvinists, acting "against" orders, i.e. draft-dodging, is considered a far more severe crime than overstepping orders, i.e. ruthlessly slaughtering innocent civilians. I said that the Einsatzgruppen "actions were more institutionalized". More institutionalized. I didn't say that violence and killing are not institutionalized in the IDF. They're integral to any country's military, regardless of the degree to which it is wielded.

The number of IDF who commit war crimes and go unpunished is significant. Furthermore, they are largely ordered to act aggressively by IDF commanders. To quote just one example, Amnesty International's 2012 annual report maintains that: "Up to 35 people were reportedly killed and hundreds injured when Israeli soldiers fired at thousands of Palestinian refugees and others who protested on 15 May and 5 June [2011] at the Lebanese border with Israel and the Syrian border with the Israeli-occupied Golan. Some protesters threw stones and some crossed the border in the Golan Heights, but demonstrators did not have firearms and did not appear to pose a direct threat to the soldiers’ lives. Israel disputed the numbers killed and the circumstances.". These were not cases of bad apples acting against orders. The fact that Israel disputes it proves the extent to which governments will go in order to preserve their country's reputation at the expense of serious investigation into human rights abuses carried out by their own soldiers.

Amnesty also detailed several examples of close-range shootings (i.e. deliberate executions) during the attack on Gaza: "The evidence indicates that none could have reasonably been perceived as a threat to the soldiers who shot them, and that there was no fighting going on in their vicinity when they were shot". First, "In the afternoon of 4 January 2009, members of the Abu Halima family were shot by Israeli soldiers as they were taking to hospital relatives who had been injured in a devastating white phosphorus attack on their home in the Sayafa area, in the north-west of Gaza. Matar Abu Halima, 27, and his cousin Muhammad-Hikmat Abu Halima, 19, were both killed.". Second, that also "a 47-year-old woman, Rawhiya al-Najjar, was shot in the head as she walked ahead of a group of women carrying a white flag near her home in the village of Khuza’a, near Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza...Yasmine al-Najjar, aged 23, told Amnesty International that she was standing next to Rawhiya when she was shot and had seen an Israeli soldier in a nearby house. She was also herself shot in her right leg, as she tried to rescue Rawhiya. She had fled her home that morning at about 6.30am, when Israeli army bulldozers started to demolish it, and had joined other women near Rawhiya’s house.". And, third, that "On 7 January 2009 three little girls and their grandmother were shot outside their home in the ‘Izbet Abed Rabbo area, east of Jabalia, northern Gaza.": "Two soldiers stood outside the tank in our garden, eating chips and chocolate and ignored us. We stood still for several minutes. Then suddenly a soldier emerged from the middle of the tank. He was out of the tank from the waist up, and he took aim at us and shot many bullets. My daughter Amal had nine bullets in the chest area. She was holding a teddy bear against her chest and it got ripped by the bullets, my daughter Souad got some 11 or 12 bullets also in the chest area, and my daughter Samar got several bullets in the chest and tummy, and my mother was shot in the arm and buttock." Do you condemn this? Would the mother of those children in northern Gaza not "wish with all their hearts" that they had survived the Nazi genocide? Of course they would. This is why it's grotesque to compare the consequences of different atrocities. I repeat, the consequences of different atrocities; not the motivation behind, or scale of the events themselves. Israel revoltingly uses the 6 million Jewish victims of Nazi persecution in order to implicitly diminish the significance of murders like the ones contained in this report. As long as it's in "defense" of Jews, then we don't have to care about what we do. That's tribalism, and that's what you get when Jews "don't trust non-Jews to keep [them] safe". It's what you get when you pull up the drawbridge and turn your country into a bunker. Tell me, putting aside the fact that they're Jewish, do you believe these IDF war criminals would be out of place in the Einsatzgruppen? Shooting children and groups of women in cold blood? These occurrences need to be taken very seriously, but the propagandistic functions of the Israeli government, the repeated usage of "Jewish persecution" and "Jewish history", blind many to them. It should be noted once more that these soldiers were not "acting against orders". Even though they overstepped them, they were licensed to attack Gaza in such a wanton manner and to my knowledge were not reprimanded for their actions.

This is all such trite *******s.

So, Jews are persecuted on and off by Christians and Muslims for at least a thousand years and conclude that they can't fully trust Christians and Muslims to keep them safe. And its the Jews who are the racist ones! Perlease.

Then, having said that its complete bull**** to compare the Holocaust with events in the West Bank and Gaza, you want us to accept that there is no real difference between some members of the IDF and the Nazis. Why? Because at the end of the day someone was killed as a result of their actions. Again, perlease.

[Suetonius]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
This is all such trite *******s.

So, Jews are persecuted on and off by Christians and Muslims for at least a thousand years and conclude that they can't fully trust Christians and Muslims to keep them safe. And its the Jews who are the racist ones! Perlease.

Then, having said that its complete bull**** to compare the Holocaust with events in the West Bank and Gaza, you want us to accept that there is no real difference between some members of the IDF and the Nazis. Why? Because at the end of the day someone was killed as a result of their actions. Again, perlease.

It's interesting that you perceive Jews, Christians and Muslims to be homogenous and inflexible collectives with no trace of individualism, and that all within said groups share the same outlook and conduct. If a Jew says that they "can't trust non-Jews to keep them safe" then it's no less racist than a white bigot saying that they "can't trust non-whites to keep them safe". It's an intolerant position that isn't grounded in fact. By your reckoning, because "Jews have been persecuted...for at least a thousand years" it would be impossible for Jews to ever be racist. That because of tragedies inflicted on Jews in the past, then Jews deserve special dispensation when it comes to intolerance directed toward others. That's exactly the sort of mentality that defines Israel's conduct toward the Palestinians.

I've asked you whether you condemn two separate things. The first is the obscene propagandistic legitimation campaign wielded by the Israeli right, where the Holocaust and other persecutions are used to justify an aggressive foreign policy, and, second, war crimes committed by IDF servicemen which have not been investigated or punished. Instead of doing so you've just resorted to using petty swear words. What a shame. It's no wonder that Israel gets off with its crimes so lightly when you're not even willing to condemn its most flagrant breaches of international law and human rights.

[notnerdylikeyou]

(Original post by unclej)
So do you think it's anti-Semetic to use the word holocaust to describe the Armenian holocaust using the word holocaust? I know a lot of zionists feel very protective of the holocaust being exclusively Jewish.

I do view them emotionally because it is murder of innocent people

not only are you being anti-semitic your also infringing there copyright! how dare you claim that other people have been massacred in history!

[unclej]

(Original post by notnerdylikeyou)
not only are you being anti-semitic your also infringing there copyright! how dare you claim that other people have been massacred in history!

I thought you were serious for a minute

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by Suetonius)
It's interesting that you perceive Jews, Christians and Muslims to be homogenous and inflexible collectives with no trace of individualism, and that all within said groups share the same outlook and conduct. If a Jew says that they "can't trust non-Jews to keep them safe" then it's no less racist than a white bigot saying that they "can't trust non-whites to keep them safe". It's an intolerant position that isn't grounded in fact. By your reckoning, because "Jews have been persecuted...for at least a thousand years" it would be impossible for Jews to ever be racist. That because of tragedies inflicted on Jews in the past, then Jews deserve special dispensation when it comes to intolerance directed toward others. That's exactly the sort of mentality that defines Israel's conduct toward the Palestinians.

I've asked you whether you condemn two separate things. The first is the obscene propagandistic legitimation campaign wielded by the Israeli right, where the Holocaust and other persecutions are used to justify an aggressive foreign policy, and, second, war crimes committed by IDF servicemen which have not been investigated or punished. Instead of doing so you've just resorted to using petty swear words. What a shame. It's no wonder that Israel gets off with its crimes so lightly when you're not even willing to condemn its most flagrant breaches of international law and human rights.

Your position of liberal purity would be so much stronger if you didn't do exactly what you condemn. So its racist to make generalisations about Jews and their history of persecution at the hands of Christians and Muslims. However, its OK for you to say that your weird interpretation of what I said (I have no idea how you go from what I said to the notion that Jews cannot be racist) is the sort of mentality driving Israel's policy. Odd how one generalisation is racist and the other is fine.

Frankly I think your arguments are entirely and completely disingenuous. Either that or you're an idealistic teenager who knows little and thinks less. Either way I don't think there's much to be gained from further discussion.

[Suetonius]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
Your position of liberal purity would be so much stronger if you didn't do exactly what you condemn. So its racist to make generalisations about Jews and their history of persecution at the hands of Christians and Muslims. However, its OK for you to say that your weird interpretation of what I said (I have no idea how you go from what I said to the notion that Jews cannot be racist) is the sort of mentality driving Israel's policy. Odd how one generalisation is racist and the other is fine.

You argue that because Jews "are persecuted on and off by Christians and Muslims for at least a thousand years", then "the Jews" - who you seem to see as an homogenous unit (a bit like Hitler did) instead of numerous individuals with varying political inclinations - are not "the racist ones". By such nonsense you fail to make distinctions between Jews with an intolerant, bigoted and jingoistic outlook, such as those within the Israeli government and settler movements, and other Jews, i.e. civilians who were slaughtered in the Nazi genocide. Past crimes do not diminish the severity of other murders. But I haven't heard you acknowledge that once, even though I've called you up on it repeatedly. Why? I feel that when people repeatedly evade calls to condemn (i) obscene Nazi analogies by the Israeli government, and (ii) Nazi-like behaviour by specific people within the IDF (crimes which have been concealed and unpunished by Israel, under the pretense that the operation as a whole was to keep Jews safe), then the only explanation for it is an uneasy conscience or secret support for such behaviour. By what standard on earth is it racist for me to accuse a government of directing foreign policy with an absurd outlook? If you don't think Israel's stated priority lies with an ethnocentric obsession with "defending" the Jewish people - as counterproductive as it is - then you're right to say that it does not warrant further discussion, because you're simply an extremist.

[Rhadamanthus]

(Original post by Suetonius)
I'm not talking about "operatives". I'm referring to civilians. You can't call the shooting of an enemy soldier in war a "murder". It can conceivably be argued that a Palestinian civilian killed in a bombing raid on a civilian area, where there is almost a guarantee that civilians will be killed, is a murderous war crime. That's in spite of the stated motive behind it. A Pakistani or Afghan civilian killed in a particular drone attack, where it's also conceivable that civilians will be killed, can too be placed under this heading. Indeed, that's why raids of the OBL-sort are more desirable than a drone attack; because there's a near-guarantee that the casualties will be combatants. I would say that "an American civilian killed in the World Trade Center attack" has neither more nor less worth than a Palestinian civilian killed in an indiscriminate bombing of occupied Palestinian territory (which, of course, shouldn't be under Israeli control according to all standards of international law) or a Jewish civilian killed in a Nazi death camp or a Kurdish civilian killed by Iraqi poison gas or an Afghan civilian slaughtered by the Taliban or, of course, an Afghan civilian slaughtered by an American soldier (as I have argued in the past). I find it grossly disingenous to compare and contrast the consequences of different atrocities. One can argue about the motives behind them, and the nature of the groups which conduct them, but that's a completely separate question. Do you think there's a real difference between Samir Kuntar and Shimon Peres, when the latter has been responsible for more deliberate civilian deaths? If so, do the actions of Peres make Kuntar's actions any less grotesque, or his victims any less worthy of consideration? Of course not. The nuances of what is and is not acceptable in conditions of war are not made any more or less important by the stated motives of those behind such atrocities.

Ignoring all motives: "There is no difference between a member of the Nazi Einsatsgruppen and a man who shoots someone who is about to attack him." Both result in a dead person, and according to you it does not matter how many nor what their motives are - and all are as bad as each other. I do think there is a difference between someone who intentionally tires to kill someone due to their genocidal ideology and someone who accidentally kills someone whilst acting in self-defence.

[Suetonius]

(Original post by Rhadamanthus)
Ignoring all motives: "There is no difference between a member of the Nazi Einsatsgruppen and a man who shoots someone who is about to attack him." Both result in a dead person, and according to you it does not matter how many nor what their motives are - and all are as bad as each other. I do think there is a difference between someone who intentionally tires to kill someone due to their genocidal ideology and someone who accidentally kills someone whilst acting in self-defence.

But I didn't say that. You deliberately misquote me. I have not talked about "someone who is about to attack" anywhere in my recent posts, and I'd like to see you uncover the quote where I said that. If you read post #4956 then the only people I compare to the Einsatzgruppen are those in the IDF who carried out deliberate close-range executions during the Gaza invasion, in conditions where, I repeat, no victim "could have reasonably been perceived as a threat to the soldiers who shot them, and that there was no fighting going on in their vicinity when they were shot". I've also made two references not to the motives of the assailants, but to the material consequence of a Holocaust victim's death being comparable to "a Palestinian killed by an indiscriminate Israeli bomb or a Vietnamese peasant killed by American defoliation or an American killed in an al-Qaeda attack" - none of these victims "threatening to attack" anyone. The death of a civilian caused by a Nazi would be no more or less tragic than a hypothetical death of a civilian caused by, say, Martin Luther King Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi. That simple and honest observation is quite different from prosecution of the assailant's motives.

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by Suetonius)
You argue that because Jews "are persecuted on and off by Christians and Muslims for at least a thousand years", then "the Jews" - who you seem to see as an homogenous unit (a bit like Hitler did) instead of numerous individuals with varying political inclinations - are not "the racist ones". By such nonsense you fail to make distinctions between Jews with an intolerant, bigoted and jingoistic outlook, such as those within the Israeli government and settler movements, and other Jews, i.e. civilians who were slaughtered in the Nazi genocide. Past crimes do not diminish the severity of other murders. But I haven't heard you acknowledge that once, even though I've called you up on it repeatedly. Why? I feel that when people repeatedly evade calls to condemn (i) obscene Nazi analogies by the Israeli government, and (ii) Nazi-like behaviour by specific people within the IDF (crimes which have been concealed and unpunished by Israel, under the pretense that the operation as a whole was to keep Jews safe), then the only explanation for it is an uneasy conscience or secret support for such behaviour. By what standard on earth is it racist for me to accuse a government of directing foreign policy with an absurd outlook? If you don't think Israel's stated priority lies with an ethnocentric obsession with "defending" the Jewish people - as counterproductive as it is - then you're right to say that it does not warrant further discussion, because you're simply an extremist.

You're either obtuse or deliberately disingenuous. Just as not all Christians nor all Muslims persecuted Jews, so too not all Jews reached the conclusion I suggested. Only a fool would think I was suggesting that every single Jew thought the same way on this topic.

Now, as for whether past crimes diminish other murders - of course they do. Again only an idiot would think they don't. Suppose, for example, that a man has a large family of 10 daughters. Now, this man and his daughters are blue. One by one, 9 of his daughters are murdered by green people who came to his house and killed them. One time a green person comes to his house and he murders the green person. Murder no doubt. But as severe as someone else who murders a green person. Piss off!

I don't find it obscene when some Jews refer to the Holocaust when discussing their world view and their motivations. Again you can piss off if you want to suggest that Jews shouldn't refer to their past when discussing the present.

It ought to go without saying that I condemn any murder. However, "Nazi-like"? Really? Didn't you start our conversation by pointing out the ludicrousness of such comparisons and yet now you are using it freely.

I conclude that you don't find such comparisons "distasteful and inaccurate" as you first claimed. The only thing you dislike is Israeli-supporters using the Holocaust and other persecutions in support of Israel. Using it to bash Israel is actually fine in your book as you have done so yourself. I don't really have anything more to say to you.

[Suetonius]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
You're either obtuse or deliberately disingenuous. Just as not all Christians nor all Muslims persecuted Jews, so too not all Jews reached the conclusion I suggested. Only a fool would think I was suggesting that every single Jew thought the same way on this topic.

Now, as for whether past crimes diminish other murders - of course they do. Again only an idiot would think they don't. Suppose, for example, that a man has a large family of 10 daughters. Now, this man and his daughters are blue. One by one, 9 of his daughters are murdered by green people who came to his house and killed them. One time a green person comes to his house and he murders the green person. Murder no doubt. But as severe as someone else who murders a green person. Piss off!

I don't find it obscene when some Jews refer to the Holocaust when discussing their world view and their motivations. Again you can piss off if you want to suggest that Jews shouldn't refer to their past when discussing the present.

It ought to go without saying that I condemn any murder. However, "Nazi-like"? Really? Didn't you start our conversation by pointing out the ludicrousness of such comparisons and yet now you are using it freely.

I conclude that you don't find such comparisons "distasteful and inaccurate" as you first claimed. The only thing you dislike is Israeli-supporters using the Holocaust and other persecutions in support of Israel. Using it to bash Israel is actually fine in your book as you have done so yourself. I don't really have anything more to say to you.

Then it would have served you better to word your argument a bit more carefully. You can't clearly state something and then, when picked up on it, say that you didn't mean it that way. The statement "Jews are persecuted on and off by Christians and Muslims for at least a thousand years and conclude that they can't fully trust Christians and Muslims to keep them safe. And its the Jews who are the racist ones! Perlease." is incredibly simplistic, and has no place in serious discourse. It is objectively racist for someone not to trust non-Jews solely on the basis that they are not Jews. This is an indisputable fact.

Your 'green person'/'blue person' argument is convoluted and quite strange, judging by your apparent need to keep bringing people's colour, ethnicity or creed into things. Every legal definition on earth contradicts it, considering a murder is always a murder, regardless of the historical background of particular groups. It's truly detestable for people to refer to previous cases of murder in order to justify those that are committed in the name of the group they purport to belong to.

As for your other point that I "start our conversation by pointing out the ludicrousness of such comparisons and yet now you are using it freely." You're quite clearly confusing things. I point out the ludicrousness of comparing the cumulative actions of Israel to those of the Nazis, among other things like comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, and other obvious anti-Semitic soundbites. It's certainly not ludicrous to compare an IDF soldier who deliberately shoots three young children and an old woman outside their home to a Nazi. In fact, it hurts Israel when it doesn't reprimand these individuals, because it only contributes to the country's moral degeneration. Your passivity in letting Israel do whatever it wants will only hurt the Israeli people in the long term.

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by Suetonius)
Then it would have served you better to word your argument a bit more carefully. You can't clearly state something and then, when picked up on it, say that you didn't mean it that way. The statement "Jews are persecuted on and off by Christians and Muslims for at least a thousand years and conclude that they can't fully trust Christians and Muslims to keep them safe. And its the Jews who are the racist ones! Perlease." is incredibly simplistic, and has no place in serious discourse. It is objectively racist for someone not to trust non-Jews solely on the basis that they are not Jews. This is an indisputable fact.

Your 'green person'/'blue person' argument is convoluted and quite strange, judging by your apparent need to keep bringing people's colour, ethnicity or creed into things. Every legal definition on earth contradicts it, considering a murder is always a murder, regardless of the historical background of particular groups. It's truly detestable for people to refer to previous cases of murder in order to justify those that are committed in the name of the group they purport to belong to.

As for your other point that I "start our conversation by pointing out the ludicrousness of such comparisons and yet now you are using it freely." You're quite clearly confusing things. I point out the ludicrousness of comparing the cumulative actions of Israel to those of the Nazis, among other things like comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, and other obvious anti-Semitic soundbites. It's certainly not ludicrous to compare an IDF soldier who deliberately shoots three young children and an old woman outside their home to a Nazi. In fact, it hurts Israel when it doesn't reprimand these individuals, because it only contributes to the country's moral degeneration. Your passivity in letting Israel do whatever it wants will only hurt the Israeli people in the long term.

Why do you insist on seeing the world without grey and then claiming that I am being simplistic?

In your worldview, in your morality, do motivation and context not matter?

[Suetonius]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
Why do you insist on seeing the world without grey and then claiming that I am being simplistic?

In your worldview, in your morality, do motivation and context not matter?

Where did I say it didn't matter? If you look at post #4957, I clearly said that "important as they are, I'm not talking about general motivation or the systems in which soldiers operate. I'm not talking about events as a whole." I'm talking about the qualitative nature of these murders as standalone cases. At the end of the day, the IDF soldier who executes three young children and an old woman outside their home is motivated by the same bloodlust as an Einsatzgruppen trooper doing the same thing, give or take some ideological differences. You'll note that in that same post I said "It would be insincere and obscene to mention Israeli policy in the same breath as gas chambers, slave labour or so-called "medical" experiments" because, of course, a reasonable comparison ceases at the point of criminal shootings.

The Nazi's actions are certainly more institutionalized, as I already observed in post #4952, but the IDF man's behaviour is still institutionalized, given that he was not reprimanded for his actions, that IDF soldiers were ordered to behave wantonly in one of the most densely populated areas on earth, and that violence and aggression are obviously integral to all armed forces. To counter your accusation, this takes varying shades of grey into account more than your apparent position of 'Nazis bad, Israel good', 'Jews vs. Gentiles', and so on.

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by Suetonius)
Where did I say it didn't matter? If you look at post #4957, I clearly said that "important as they are, I'm not talking about general motivation or the systems in which soldiers operate. I'm not talking about events as a whole." I'm talking about the qualitative nature of these murders as standalone cases. At the end of the day, the IDF soldier who executes three young children and an old woman outside their home is motivated by the same bloodlust as an Einsatzgruppen trooper doing the same thing, give or take some ideological differences. You'll note that in that same post I said "It would be insincere and obscene to mention Israeli policy in the same breath as gas chambers, slave labour or so-called "medical" experiments" because, of course, a reasonable comparison ceases at the point of criminal shootings.

The Nazi's actions are certainly more institutionalized, as I already observed in post #4952, but the IDF man's behaviour is still institutionalized, given that he was not reprimanded for his actions, that IDF soldiers were ordered to behave wantonly in one of the most densely populated areas on earth, and that violence and aggression are obviously integral to all armed forces. To counter your accusation, this takes varying shades of grey into account more than your apparent position of 'Nazis bad, Israel good', 'Jews vs. Gentiles', and so on.

You make a number of assumptions that are to greater or lesser extents unfounded.

The first is that there are IDF soldiers guilty of what you accuse. I don't, for a second, trust any "testimony" from Palestinians about that.

Second, you assume that the IDF never reprimands soldiers for things. This is flat out untrue.

Third, you assume that the motivation of a soldier who hypothetically kills unarmed Palestinian civilians in Gaza is the same as a member of the Einsatzgruppen. Unless you equate the Israelis with Nazis this assumption is quite ridiculous. The situations are so different that to assume that the motivations are identical is unfounded. In one case you have a soldier fighting armed terrorists, dressed as civilians hiding among unarmed civilians in a dense urban environment. Moreover, the general group of people he is fighting are directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israeli civilians and continued rocket attacks against thousands more. So if it happens that he kills unarmed civilians we do not know whether that was a mistake, whether he panicked, whether he thought he was under threat or whether his hatred for the terrorists had spilled over. To compare him to a member of a group whose entire role was to roam the countryside in order to hunt down and murder unarmed Jews who belonged to a group that had never posed any threat at all to Germany is obscene.

Finally, to generalise all armed forces into the same is likewise obscene. Yes soldiers are trained to kill. Does that make all soldiers essentially indistinguishable from Nazis? **** off. Grow up. Please find your way to the real world. All this moral equivocation is boring and silly. I have no time for it.

If you want to move the discussion on, please do so. But don't expect me to respond any more to ridiculous comparisons of Israelis to Nazis. Either you compare everyone (or at least all soldiers to Nazis) or you don't compare Israeli ones to them. If you try and compare only Israeli soldiers to them then I won't respond because it is simply ludicrous and not worthy of further responses.