Antisemitic threads in TSR and the rise of antisemitism

X

Ah and I suppose it's acceptable to credit the actions of a few to the whole
of Islam? Not saying you do it, the media certainly does.

I am grateful. The question is why you made it in the first place? I question your judgment, your sense of political and historical context, that you made such a comment.

Pray tell, where is the evidence for the Israelis trying to lower the birthrate of Arabs? You made that claim, now back it up.

And not unfairly. I personally would have a problem if million of Muslims turned up and tried to turn Britain into a Muslim state. I think it's more than fair to conclude that it is right and proper for a state to maintain its national and ethnic character. Most British, most French, most Germans would agree with that.

You should read Caroline Glick's book The Israel Solution, which represents a very large portion of views amongst settlers and right-wing Israelis. They would be more than happy to annex the entire West Bank and bring 1.5 million Arabs in the West Bank onto the voting rolls. They would still constitute no more than 1/3rd of the population.

Absolute nonsense. No-one can predict the future, and the Jews have been through this before. Germany prior to and during World War 1 was a very friendly place for Jews, they occupied many high offices of state and owned large portions of industry. They thought they were safe there. Just like many socialists and others, the Jews didn't think that progressive Germany could, within 10 or 15 years, turn into a genocidal state (and be in a situation not just where a genocidal state wanted to murder them, but even countries traditionally friendly to Jews like America and Britain would not allow them in as refugees).

You have an extraordinarily superficial understanding of history if you think it moves just in one direction, towards more progress and human rights, and things never go backwards. In many ways, that is what is known as Whig History. And it seems you are guilty of it.

By the way, what is your proposed solution? Do you really think the Mizrahi Jews (Jews from Middle Eastern countries, who were expelled or left due to anti-semitism and repression) who constitute about 60% of Israel's Jewish population can really go back to Arab countries?

They deserve to be safe. And to be safe, Israel needs to retain its Jewish character. There are plenty of Arab Muslim states, so your claim to be opposed to the single Jewish state comes across as (perhaps unconsciously) anti-semitic and deeply detached from the reality and facts on the ground.

By the way, you might actually have a scintilla of a point if Israel had ever done anything undemocratic to maintain its Jewish character. It has not. Arabs in Israel have full voting rights, and to the degree Israel has a "Jewish character", how is that different to the from Ireland having an Irish character, or Poland having a Polish character? Or indeed the UK, given it has an established state religion and the head of state is guaranteed to be an Anglican?

I'm not sure an 'ethnic state' is any better, morally speaking, than a 'religious state'.

Even though Israel does have a sizable Arab minority, the government and many of the more nationalist Israelis were (and are) extremely concerned about their ratio. Essentially, they feel that they would be put into a precarious position if Arabs became a majority - or even a somewhat bigger minority - given that Israel is a democracy. I remember reading about various governmental ploys to encourage Jewish women to have more children, and to incentivise Arabs to have fewer, that followed these lines. Incidentally that is also why a one-state solution will never be accepted by Israel.

The worries about their long-term security because of demographic change are, of course, perfectly logical and legitimate - but that doesn't mean that engineering ethnic proportions is any more morally acceptable. The existence of an expanded Israel in its current form throws up a multitude of problems that can only really be dealt with by objectionable means, and that's why it faces the criticism it does today. For example, the above is easily misconstruable as Hitlerian ideology of 'keeping the Jewish race clean' (in fact, many Jewish girls were strongly discouraged from dating Bedouin/Arab men - so that element did actually exist) rather than a state security issue.

Jews are perfectly safe in the UK, US and most of the non-Arab world. They no longer face persecution; they prosper and assimilate and practice their religion freely all over the world. Appealing to 'Jewish safety' is just a rhetorical device unhinged from present day realities.

They will still remain, by dint of their demographic majority, a Jewish state de facto if not de jure

Polish and Irish are nationalities, not ethnicities

I have a question: if I immigrate to Israel - for work, say - then can I, as a non-Jew (also a non-Muslim/Arab) eventually gain Israeli citizenship?

If so, then I actually don't think Israel has any practicable 'Jewish character' apart from its demographic majority and culture. In which case, I have no problem with it.

100 million native americans died, and the amount I've heard about the persecution they faced is negligible compared to hearing about Jews. Where's the native americans state for all the suffering they faced?

X.

The State of Israel was created primarily to protect Jews from anti-semitism. Jewish self-determination is necessary to fulfill this objective, and a pre-condition for self-determination within a democracy is that they (Jews) form a voting majority within the state. The very survival of the State of Israel as we know it is therefore tied to the existence of Jewish demographic hegemony.

If some Western liberal types want to be uneasy with this concept then so be it. Let them feel uneasy. I don't see why the Jews should be willing to risk their safety just because we happen to be living in a point in time when some people may be uncomfortable with the idea of ethno-religious nationalism. The alternative for them is to remain exclusively in the diaspora and cross their fingers that a 2000-year-old trend (i.e. that of persecution and expulsion) ceases to manifest itself in the next few centuries. So therefore they can either risk another catastrophe as a people or they can risk slightly offending the political sensibilities of left-leaning non-Jews. I know which I would choose in their position. When so much is at stake, sometimes idealism has to give way to pragmatism.

I'm not up to date on the current demographics so I can't really comment on how "real" this threat is. It would hypothetically present Israel with an existential problem either way: if they allow the non-Jew population to grow large enough then the Jewish identity of the state will most probably get voted out of existence, yet if they take active measures to manipulate demographic trends then they risk seriously violating the tenets on which the state was founded. They would be between a rock and a hard place. But again, I don't know how realistic this fear. Certainly, any requests for full-scale Palestinian right-of-return would equate to the death of Israel via ticking time bomb.

Do you have any evidence that Israel is involved in engineering ethnic proportions? Regardless, I do strongly object to the "Hitlerian ideology" remark as the nature of the State of Israel and the Third Reich are clearly worlds apart. I find comparisons between Israel and the Nazis to be highly distasteful to be honest.

As another user mentioned, a cultural aversion to inter-marriage is not unusual or unique to the Jews. Ultimately I support the right of the individual to marry whomever they want to marry, but I can understand the current social aversion to inter-marriage. When two people inter-marry then obviously there is a risk that their descendants could be cut off from the religious tradition of the parent(s). Jews number only about 15 million in the world, and the increasing secularisation of some Jews alongside inter-marriage could see that number shrink in later generations, so I can understand the concern merely from the viewpoint of self-preservation.

I'm going to have to disagree with you strongly there.

If you look on any website anywhere on the Internet that isn't overtly pro-Israel then you will find anti-semitic filth of the worst kind on the comments sections of any article relating to Israel. Even on this site (a student website!) it's been really bad over the past month, and what's surprised me more than anything is that some of the worst bile is coming from some of the high-rep, otherwise-intelligent users here. Of course, the great irony of it all is that the manner in which many of these so-called "anti-Zionists" protest against Israel vindicate the very existence of the State of Israel for those of us who can see the signs.

My point is that human emotions are very changeable, and those who are vulnerable in society should never be too complacent. With all the new technology and jurisdiction we have now we have bought into a fatal conceit that we are somehow more advanced as a species than we used to be, but the truth is that on a visceral level we are the same barely-evolved apes that we always were. Everything is fine now, but when resources become limiting and the **** hits the fan then we will cling to our old tribal allegiances and the out-groups in society will stand to suffer. Remember that only a couple of years before the Third Reich was the liberal and progressive Weimar Republic. In the time scale of fifty or hundred years anything can change.

x

x

Oh, you didn't know They actually do have mini-states called tribal governments which have a form of sovereignty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_sovereignty_in_the_United_States

By the way, it was nothing like 100 million.

And are you saying that if someone has suffered worse than another group, then the latter group has no right to be heard? In which case, the Palestinians have no right to be heard because the Jews have suffered far more historically.

No, I'm saying be consistent. Israel has always just been about having a police force for America, in the Middle East, at whatever cost.

OK. Let's get realistic here for a moment.

If for some reason in the future, there turns out to be a situation where the US, UK and other Western countries are taken over by anti-semitic governments bent on their extermination . . . do you really think that Israel will be able to keep Jews safe?

It's disgusting Israel doesn't equal all Jews.

Absolutely. You do realise Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons, long-range missiles and rockets, and some of the most advanced cyberwarfare and intelligence capabilities in the world? Israel is armed to the teeth, probably the most heavily armed country in the world per capita. And it has impressive unconventional capabilities. If Mossad wanted to get a suitcase nuke into New York City or London, they could do it.

Secondly, the more realistic threat is that a country like Russia will start slaughtering its Jews, and neither the UK or the US will be willing to take in millions of refugees.

Finally, are you saying that because the emergence of an anti-semitic government would be a huge challenge for the world Jewish community, we should just throw our hands up in the air and do nothing?

I hate to put it in these terms, but given Israel's nuclear weapons, it's quite clear there won't be another Holocaust. If we go down, we'll take all of the perpetrators with us. Their entire civilian population, everyone, whether that involves nuclear weapons, bioweapons (which Israel has done extensive research into), cyberwarfare. As I said before, Jews aren't going to live at someone else's mercy, and given what Israel has done to ensure its survival thus far, it might be worth taking that seriously.

Superb comment, and I couldn't agree more about the Third Reich/Weimar. No-one can predict history, and as I said above, it is totally ahistorical to believe that because things are okay now, they always will be. That's almost a faith-based belief that history always gets better.

Anyone with basic historical knowledge knows that's not true (End of the Roman Empire, barbarian invasions), but especially the Jews.

And I agree with what you said above; let them be uncomfortable. The whole point of the Jewish state is we don't need their approval to live anymore.

I'm done for tonight, gentlemen. But it's been an interesting and enlightening debate which has certainly made me think, and has probably changed my views in some respects.

For the record, I am neither Jewish (I'm sure you guessed that ) nor Arab, nor Muslim or from a Muslim family etc. I have both Jewish and Muslim friends. I have no bias in this matter whatsoever - I'm (trying to) judge things by a neutral and universal morality. If that comes across as anti-semitic, then I fear that either we fundamentally disagree on what anti-semitism constitutes or I phrased myself clumsily - as with the remark about Hitler, for which I apologise again.

I'll take a look at any responses tomorrow.

The demographics on this are mixed. Some scholars claim that at the current rate, Arabs will be a majority in Israel within 20 years. Others point to a rapid decrease in Arab birthrates and an increase in Jewish birthrates (and immigration), and think it likely that the Arab proportion may actually decrease.

I have provided evidence in some of my posts above that this is something which concerns top Israeli politicians. Indeed, it is something that you recognise as a problem - as do I. I also provided evidence that Israel has incentivised increasing the Jewish birth rate - I have not found evidence to support that they seek to lower Arab birth rates, so I retracted that. I also retracted - and apologise for - the Hitlerian remark, though I point out that I did not say myself that I thought the actions were Hitlerian; rather, that they could be misconstrued as such (specifically 'keeping the race pure', rather than 'maintaining security') in the context of Israeli policy.

Actually I just found this on the subject of Arab birth rates: "In 2003, the Israeli daily Ma’ariv published an article entitled "Special Report: Polygamy is a Security Threat", detailing a report put forth by the Director of the Population Administration at the time, Herzl Gedj; the report described polygamy in the Bedouin sector a “security threat” and advocated means of reducing the birth rate in the Arab sector." Note the Population Administration is an arm of the Israeli government, so this is not just some unknown academic or journalist putting up their opinion.

I can understand it, in the same way that I can understand why fundamental Christians like the security blanket of believing the Bible literally in terms of the Earth's age etc. That doesn't mean that I agree with it. I couldn't care less about whether Jews - or any religion/ethnicity - dwindles in number through interracial marriage. The fetish of purity of 'race' - whether Jewish, white, black, whatever - I find very backwards, if not unsettling.

OK. Let's get realistic here for a moment.

If for some reason in the future, there turns out to be a situation where the US, UK and other Western countries are taken over by anti-semitic governments bent on their extermination . . . do you really think that Israel will be able to keep Jews safe? Of course not.

As a small minority of the world, Jewish existence is incumbent upon the goodwill of nations to honour their commitment to secularism and combating anti-semitism. That does not actually change with the existence of Israel - its existence is neither here nor there for safety of Jews, at least in the West (I concede that the story of Jews in the Middle East is different, but here the history is very much more knotty. For much of history, for example, they lived perfectly peacefully alongside Muslims - much more so than in Europe. One of my good friends is actually a Bahraini Jew, for example, and she went to school there - including A Levels - and still visits her family there every year).

Also, I do not think that anti-semitism online is representative of a true threat to Jewish safety.

Finally, as I said in a post above, there are many other oppressed minorities without their own state who have faced persecution throughout history and still face more problems that most Ashkenazi Jews do today. It is simply not logically consistent to advocate a Jewish state on the grounds of safety without granting equal validity to clamour for statehood for these other minorities. Perhaps you will agree that they should have nations too though.

I'm done for tonight, gentlemen. But it's been an interesting and enlightening debate which has certainly made me think, and has probably changed my views in some respects.

For the record, I am neither Jewish (I'm sure you guessed that ) nor Arab, nor Muslim or from a Muslim family etc. I have both Jewish and Muslim friends. I have no bias in this matter whatsoever - I'm (trying to) judge things by a neutral and universal morality. If that comes across as anti-semitic, then I fear that either we fundamentally disagree on what anti-semitism constitutes or I phrased myself clumsily - as with the remark about Hitler, for which I apologise again.

I'll take a look at any responses tomorrow.

Also, I would like to challenge your assertion that they lived "perfectly peacefully alongside" Muslims for much of their history. They didn't live alongside Muslims but rather specifically under them as dhimmis

The need for such states would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis for each minority.

IIsrael seems to suffer from an ongoing paranoia about elimination that is no longer a real world possibility

The reality is we're talking about the survival of Israel and that isn't in doubt

The only way it could be in doubt to my mind is if an ISIS-like power takes over a serious Arab state with large resources and starts developing nuclear weapons

My point is that Israel uses this rhetoric of imperilled survival as part of its internal justificatory mechanism for constant attacks on the land, rights and viability of a Palestinian state.

There is no excuse for general anti-Jewish racially motivated attacks

If you believe there's no possibility of Jewish pogroms in the future, you are suffering the "Whig History" delusion. Jews in the Weimar Republic felt safe. They never could have imagined that 10-15 years later, the German government would have a genocidal policy of murdering all of them.

Except that many Western leftists constantly try to put it in doubt, and say Israel has no right to exist, and support organisations like Hamas that don't just call for the abolition of Israel, but the death of all Jews everywhere

That is a serious threat, and perhaps one reason why Israel is circumspect about a Palestinian state. If ISIS could take over a reasonably well established state like Iraq, imagine what easy pickings they would find Palestine? Israel is right to be concerned about its security, and your dismissal of their very legitimate security concerns doesn't speak well of your understanding of middle eastern politics or hsitory

Israel has been under continuous attack for 60 years by a religio-ethnic group that doesn't accept they have the right to exist. They are surrounded by a billion Muslims who despise them and want to see them destroyed. And you say Israel is just being paranoid?

Indeed. But such anti-semitism is common amongst people who claim to be "supporters of Palestine". The Cambridge Palestine Solidarity society proposed to have their anti-Israel protest in front of a synagogue. I mean, what the **** is up with that?