Cory1848

<sigh> I sometimes wonder why I fall into online arguments with complete strangers; at best, it’s useless. Cats are supposed to help reduce blood pressure, so at least I have a cat ...

If you want to call the Israeli settlements on the West Bank “genocide,” go for it. You wouldn’t be the first, the word has lost all real meaning anyway, and it’s a boring argument. What I object to is people using a word like “genocide” to equate what the Israelis are doing with what the Nazis did, in terms of actual magnitude of the crime. There’s another word for that.

Don’t be absurd. “Not holocaust numbers” indeed. There are several magnitudes of evil between what Nazi Germany did and what the Israelis have been doing. Nazi Germany, as a matter of state policy, rounded up six million civilians in the entirety of the territory they controlled and murdered them, simply based on the perceived “race” of the victims. I am in no way diminishing the crimes and excesses of the Israeli government in the occupied West Bank. What *you* are doing, however, is watering down the real meaning of words like “genocide” and “Nazi.”

Oh c’mon, now you’re just throwing stuff at the wall. Netanyahu is an actual criminal who needs to stay in power to stay out of jail and has aligned himself with religious zealots to do so (sound familiar?). Some earlier Israeli PMs negotiated with the Palestinian leadership. And the Palestinian Authority have not always been the easiest negotiating partners, and the leadership of Hamas in Gaza has been atrocious. Neighboring Arab countries have treated Palestinian refugees like political pawns, not allowing them to assimilate into their own societies (for how many generations now?) based on unrealistic promises of a “right of return.” Sure, and when is the Jewish refugee in Israel going to get his flat in Basra back again? There’s plenty of bad behavior all around. I’ll repeat myself: Those who focus exclusively on the *very real* crimes of the Israeli state while ignoring the *very real* crimes of, for instance, Israel’s neighbors, may have a world view that’s less than objective.

These are two entirely different issues. (1) Israel is violating the human rights of Palestinians in the West Bank. (2) Antisemitism has existed in the world for two millennia. I am NOT vilifying critics of Israel; I myself am a critic of Israel, particularly under Netanyahu, as are most of my friends in the US and elsewhere, many of whom happen to be Jewish. I AM vilifying those critics of Israel who criticize Israel obsessively and don’t care a hoot about violations of human rights in other parts of the world, as this MIGHT be an indication that their concern about Palestine is rooted in something other than an objective awareness of current events. This might sound a *little* complicated, but it’s really not if you think it through.

There are tons of people who are obsessively critical of Israel, who otherwise take little interest in world events and couldn’t find Tigray on a map. It may be “innocent” -- perhaps they have some personal connection in the region. It may be because they get their news from dubious sources and simply have a twisted, one-sided view of the world. Or it may be because they illogically hate Jewish people and obsess over crimes committed by the state of Israel as a way of justifying and reinforcing their hatred. I wouldn’t presume to judge a person, including people on this forum, without knowing where they’re coming from, but I do know several people personally who fall into the latter category above, and their obsessive focus on Israel clearly derives from antisemitism.

You may be overreacting with regard to the “downfall of the West”; there is indeed a widening wealth gap in the US and probably in other Western democracies as well (and I use the word “democracy” loosely), but calling out the “decimation” of the middle class might be a bit much. There’s some stress for sure, at least on the lower middle classes -- e.g., people working at big box stores in the US who are limited to part-time hours, meaning the corporation doesn’t need to provide worker benefits. Perversely, it’s these very same workers who continue to vote into office those politicians who are most likely to continue to provide favors to their corporate donors. But this doesn’t require blowing up the system; it requires much stricter regulation of capitalism, getting money out of politics, and other major tweaks. What else did you have in mind -- and remember what Churchill said: “Democracy is the worst form of government -- except for all the others that have been tried.” Assassinating a head of state of course is insane, no matter how much better the world might be without a Vladimir Putin in it, and nobody in a position of power in their right mind would consider it. I’m also not too concerned about “WWIII” (presumably, between Russia and NATO); neither side is about to attack the other directly. Then again, I never imagined that Putin would actually invade Ukraine, so what do I know ...

“One world government” sounds scary and dystopian, and one needs a system that accommodates human nature. (Communism might have sounded good on paper, but it fell apart when actual people tried to apply it.) Still, we need to move in some sort of collective direction, as more and more broad issues require global cooperation and response -- climate change, pandemics, international crime and terrorism, resource allocation, an integrating global economy. Without such cooperation, we will not survive as a species. Someone mentioned the EU, that it had effectively stopped warmaking among Europeans, and I think that’s a good model; why shouldn’t the EU (plus NATO, or some military alliance) grow, not only farther east but to North Africa, Latin America, East Asia? Maintaining a system of nation-states for local administration while developing a shared set of values, and a framework for global action? Not going to happen in our lifetimes, but it seems important to start thinking a little further ahead than next month ...

No, it’s conspiracy theory garbage; it’s an “opinion” gone horribly awry. Whenever anyone mentions the crimes of Hunter Biden (a war profiteer? WTF?), I know exactly where that person gets their “information” from. Not worth the cyber-ether it floats in on.

Quite right, and if Putin were taken out by an external force, he would be replaced by even worse hardliners, which would be a nightmare. It needs to come from inside (even if Russia’s experience with revolutions has not always led to the best results!).

You’re probably right. And there are all those people in the Russian hinterland who want Stalin to come back. There was a period of optimism under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, but the US itself may have botched that with “disaster capitalism” (see Naomi Klein).

No, not BS. The Putin regime will be replaced by a regime chosen by or at least acceptable to the Russian people, whether pro-US or not. That said, I would frankly like to see Russia under progressive leadership as part of the EU as well as NATO, and lots of other countries as well. The Western democratic model that the EU operates under provides better quality of life, prosperity, and freedom for all people than any other system *yet devised* (factoring in much stricter regulation of neoliberal capitalism, which remains problematic); this is what the Ukrainians recognize and are fighting for, and what Russians and others would want for themselves as well. Encouraging broad membership in international bodies, and giving those bodies real power, leads to better management of global issues and problems, rather than continuing to engage in silly tribal wars. I’m in favor of human evolution and refuse to believe it’s not possible; if that’s naïve, so be it.

Not necessarily; as has been stated repeatedly, antisemitism existed long before the Israeli state, and crimes committed by the Israeli government do not lead one to hate Jewish people any more than crimes committed by the current Russian government lead one to hate Russian people. Antisemitism is simply hatred of Jewish people, whether driven by the need for a scapegoat, twisted religious notions, prodding by demagogues for political purposes, or just pure racism. When the Israeli government persecutes Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, that doesn’t help matters, but it doesn’t drive people to suddenly become antisemitic.

Mr. Mojo: I agree, the “typical Islamic filth” line is way over the top. Otherwise, you are misreading and oversimplifying much of the thread here. Criticizing Israel does not make one an antisemite; there is much in Israeli government policy, especially now, that deserves condemnation. Criticizing Israel exclusively and obsessively *might* be antisemitic, as it indicates a tendency to look for faults particularly in Jewish people. However, lumping Jewish people together as a group and blaming them collectively for vague crimes, as some people here have done, is clearly antisemitic and leads directly to pogroms and other mayhem, as two millennia of history have demonstrated. I don’t know what a “sook” is, but thin-skinned I am not.

When you reduce yourself to counting the number of Jews in the room (as in Biden’s cabinet), that in and of itself demonstrates your hatred of Jewish people, as your assumption is that they must be acting in concert somehow to subvert the will of the “majority” (the majority of what?), and that if they’re destroyed as a result (by “earning the ire” of others), well, they were asking for it. Bernie Sanders and Jared Kushner are both Jewish. I wonder what on earth they might have to talk about. Their respective bar mitzvahs? Then what? I really do hope that this discussion is “painful” for you, as you said, because rather than seeking the common humanity in all of us, you prefer to take an entirely racist view of the world. I hope you find your way out.

Your clearly implied statement that Jewish people have collectively “behaved so badly” over the millennia that they have deserved their endless persecution is the most disgusting statement I’ve read in this long string of disgusting statements. Whatever Creator injected humankind with such a liberal dose of anti-Semitism was playing a cruel trick indeed. Please, just stop.

Right: nationalist branding. Even if the current ultra-nationalist Indian government manages to regularize the use of “Bharat” as the international (English-language) moniker for their country, it may become forever associated with that government and get ditched when more progressive leadership again takes charge in India. Like the name “Zaire,” adopted by a corrupt dictator, was discarded right after his death, or like “Myanmar” might get discarded as the English-language name for that country should the military ever be removed from power there. (Aung San Suu Kyi, when she’s speaking English, continues to use “Burma.”)

Wow. In an earlier post you felt the need to say that were not anti-Semitic. Simply the fact that you felt that needs tells me all I need to know. (Quacking like a duck!)

Right, Jesus was the first Palestinian. I've heard that howler before. Engage in historical anachronism much?

Yes, a higher standard. I see it from so many people, and it’s intellectually dishonest. And no, Israel is not repeating the German tactics leading to the Holocaust. As for “worse crimes elsewhere,” I could give you a long list but fear I’d be wasting my time. As for anti-Semitism, you know the expression -- if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck ...

To repeat, the Israelis have not rounded up six million Palestinian Arabs, not in the last couple of years nor in the last 75 years, and murdered them in cold blood for no other reason than that they were Palestinian Arabs. If you think cutting off someone's power for 12 hours a day is equivalent to that, I disagree.

No, I was not minimizing Israel’s crimes. And I have no patience for semantic rabbit holes that serve only to distract, such as what you’ve laid out. You clearly have no interest in understanding the point I’m making, so whatever ...

I was referring specifically to armchair pundits who go on endlessly about Israel’s crimes while not caring a hoot about other, worse crimes taking place elsewhere in the world. This in no way excuses Israel for land theft and apartheid in the West Bank, but I was pointing out the dishonesty of holding Israel to a higher standard.

Go back and read it again; I'm not going to hold your hand. Nowhere did I say that I was accepting of Israeli crimes, as you allege.

That's not at all what I said.