The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > BDS campaign questions academics' courage > Comments

BDS campaign questions academics' courage : Comments

By Stuart Rees, published 21/1/2013

In the face of continuous human rights abuses affecting Palestinians, the time comes for citizens to find other ways to address these issues. The BDS movement provides one of the hopeful 'other ways'.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 8
  7. 9
  8. 10
  9. All
Nathan Sharansky's "3D" test distinguishes valid criticism from bigotry: demonisation, de-legitimisation, or double standards are bigotry, not valid criticism. The BDS movement, and this sanctimonious author, are guilty on all three counts. So according to that test, they are promoting a bigoted agenda.
Posted by Sandy Groper, Monday, 21 January 2013 10:35:40 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The BDS never cease to amaze.
Mohammed said war is deceit and lying is obligatory (Law r8.2 page 745 of Reliance of the Traveller).
BDS LIES
"Occupation of Palestine"
"seige of Gaza"
"stealing of Palestinian lands"

Everyone should read the Muslim Brotherhood "The Project" of 1983.
It outlines a 12 point plan for destroying the west including
1) making Palestine a wedge issue
2) linking terror groups in Palestine with other terror groups
3) preventing peace to effect the destruction of Israel
Posted by Geoff Q, Monday, 21 January 2013 11:05:58 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I assume you'd like to see a 'final solution' to this problem with the Jews, wouldn't you Stuart Rees?
Posted by DavidL, Monday, 21 January 2013 11:06:55 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sandy Groper writes: “demonisation, de-legitimisation, or double standards are bigotry”

To be bigotry, a statement has to be untrue

“Demonisastion” is a word used to duck examination of truth. To call racism and its perpetrators unconscionable demonises them, the point at issue is whether the action/group is or is not racist (or the latest polite substitute word “ethnocentric”). Therefore weasels duck arguing the question of truth/untruth by the weasel-word “demonisation”.

To challenge the legitimacy of something is “de-legitimisation” - a weasel-word to avoid addressing the truth or untruth of the challenge.

Yes, double standards are bigotry - e.g. addressing a social conflict from the standpoint that one of the groups involved is by its nature uniquely “special”. That double standard is bigotry. So is addressing social conflict from the standpoint that this or that religion is “special”.

If BDS can help bring about a single standard of democracy, a single standard of land entitlement, a single standard of freedom for and from a religion, a single standard of respect for the rights of the individual, a goal partly achieved in South Africa, then more strength to its elbow.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Monday, 21 January 2013 12:11:26 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dr Jake Lynch standing up for Palestinians? Off with his head! Stone him until his skull is crushed. Pour excrement on his grave! So say the Israeli-apologists.

Anyone with half a brain and a modicum of education could, if they really wanted to, find out about the sixty years of horror the Palestinians have endured at the hands of the terror regime of Israel.

But, like the Americans, some races of people are entirely exempt from valid criticism while others are blamed for everything. So it is with the Palestinians.

Why, we even have a resident author who posts virtually every week and tries to prove that the Palestinians are to blame no matter what the Israelis do. In their operation Cast Lead when a thousand plus Palestinians were killed (400 of them kids) and only a dozen Israelis, the Palestinians were demonized while Jewish folk stood near the border and watched the slaughter in Gaza while drinking tea.

So good on Dr Lynch for sending the Israeli professor packing. Good on him for promoting BDS along with other civilized countries.

The sooner Israel is neutralized the better it will be for the world!
Posted by David G, Monday, 21 January 2013 12:40:49 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Israel's influence is totally out of proportion to it's population.No one dares criticise them here but in the USA is has begun.

Obama has put Israel on notice by appointing Chuck Hagel as defence secretary.Hagel has criticised them over their atrocious treatment of the Palistinians and they don't like it.Remember the sacking of Gen Petraeus as head of the CIA? Well 30 other pro Israel officials went too.The truth hurts.Obama also stopped their dreams of attacking Iran and it now looks like the Rebels armed and supported by the West in Syria are defeated.

Obama sees the rise of China in Africa as more important and is sending troops to 35 countries there to try and contain China.Obama is just doing the bidding of the Military Industrial Complex and that includes Wall St.

NATO is also doing Military exercises in the Artic.Apparently there is lots of oil and gas there and they want to keep Russia out.

There are reports that Israel is moving further to the right and they have their own Imperialistic intent in the Middle East.An oil pipeline already links Iraq with Israel.It is not the threat of Nukes from Iran that worries them but all that oil they lust after.

The consolidation of energy in fewer hands is good for the elites but drives us into poverty.There are four big oil cartels that control pricing in the West.We need more competition and if China and Russia can provide it,we are all better off.

There are no good guys in this Global power struggle just stupid ignorant,greedy people with the obession to be number one.

Lance Armstrong is one such psychopath.He was not sorry just sorry he was caught.Winning at any cost is all that matters.We have leaders like this all around the planet.Imagine people like Lance with their fingers on the nukes.So long as Lance had his own nuke shelter, nothing else would matter.
Posted by Arjay, Monday, 21 January 2013 12:44:09 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Arjay,
President Obama is committing treason against the USA.
The Muslim Brotherhood has declared it will destroy America - Mission statement 1991.
Obama has appointed MB people as advisors.
Obama has donated billions to the MB who openly call for the destruction of the USA.
Obama hates the west, he hates freedom, he hates Christianity and loves Islam, the religion of Satan.
Hence he should be impeached and tried for high treason.
Posted by Geoff Q, Monday, 21 January 2013 1:10:37 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Demonisation is comparing Israelis to Nazis or to apartheid South Africa. Neither comparison could be further from the truth. Nazis murdered over 40,000 Jews per day in industrial killing factories FOR YEARS. Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza have had improved health and living standards and population growth since Israel was re-established. How do they compare? In Israel, the Parliament, the High Court and all the sciences and arts have full representation by Arab members, judges and celebrities. How does that compare with South Africa?

De-legitimisation is campaigning to destroy the only Jewish nation on earth. Why should over 180 nation states exist on earth, and why should the "Palestinian" people who have NEVER had sovereignty on a single square centimetre of earth be allowed self determination (and I don't argue that they shouldn't) while at the same time suggesting that the Jews have no right to self determination in their ancient homeland, which was a Jewish nation for 1500 years before they were expelled by force?

Double standards is IGNORING the fact that Muslims have killed 12-14million other Muslims in wars since 1950, and that Syria has killed over 60,000 of its own citizens in recent months, while haranguing, camapaigning and trying to foment hysteria about Israel's "crimes" ...it's just plain bigotry ...fuelled by irrational hatred, not "social activism"...
Posted by Sandy Groper, Monday, 21 January 2013 1:18:32 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Let’s cut to the chase: the BDS is little more than a nefarious cultural and economic pogrom against the Jewish people. And only the Jewish people.

On the matter of effecting change, I don’t see the BDS menagerie demonstrating against France’s current military expansionism in north Africa. Nor do I see the BDS brownshirts marching in favour of human rights in Iran.

Stuart Rees mentions the “occupation” of Palestinian land. I’m keen to know what he has to say about the occupation of Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and California?

Stuart Rees’ (and others’) support for the BDS demonstrates that they side with the Jihadist narrative to explain the woes of the Middle East.

When even long in the tooth and dogged Israel bashers like MIT’s Prof Chomsky row away at lightening speed from the BDS vortex and all that its hypocrisy stands for (see http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14348) it’s plain as day that only the truly bitter and very bigoted barnacles are left behind.
Posted by Jonathan J. Ariel, Monday, 21 January 2013 2:01:42 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Geoff Q and other pro Israel blinkered people.The Neoncons in Israel and the West are war mongering criminals.The invasions of Afghanistan Iraq,Somalia,Pakistan Lybia etc are all illegal.Iran has attacked no one for many decades yet Israel wants to attack it for reasons of Imperialistic greed.

I don't see a bright future with Israel being so aggressive.They will attack Iran and try and force the USA to defend them.Had Romney become President we'd be all in serious war right now with the real possibility of war with Russia and China.

Hopefully Obama will stop the march to WW3.
Posted by Arjay, Monday, 21 January 2013 2:53:33 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The call by CPACS for a boycott of contacts with Israeli universities is morally and politically repugnant. It is akin to calling for a boycott of the University of Sydney because of an objection to the foreign or domestic policies of the Australian Government. The Hebrew University is rated among the top two hundred in the world and, like other Israeli universities, has produced a number of Nobel laureates. It is located in an area that has been part of Israel since 1948, not in the Territories. Unlike government-controlled universities in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and China, with which the University of Sydney also has ties, Israeli universities operate independently of the government.
If Rees wants to posture about academic courage let's see CPACS boycott Chinese Universities which are complicit in Chinese policies in Tibet. Unlike the Palestinians vis-a-vis Israel, the Tibetans have never threatened China's very existence or fired rockets deliberately aimed at Chinese civilians or deliberately blown Chinese civilians to bits in shops and buses. There is something sinister, and nothing courageous, about the obsessive singling out of Israel.
CPACS never seem to have invited speakers who are internationally-renowned defenders of Israel’s legal position and who have visited Australia. Alan Dershowitz and Irwin Cotler are but two examples. Each of them could provide well thought through contrary views. Perhaps that is why they have not been invited. Like an echo-chamber, CPACS’ staff keep repeating the same shop-worn anti-Israel slogans, deluding themselves into believing that the uniform opinions within their tiny group have the status of eternal truths. I can think of several apt descriptions of what they do, and the way they do it. ‘Genuine scholarship’ is not one of them.
Posted by BSDetector, Monday, 21 January 2013 5:11:40 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Just reading some of the comments in response to this article is frightening indeed. "Israel should be neutralised" is one which sums up all the rest of the hostility being expressed. And if Israel were neutralised, what form would that take exactly? Genocide? How does that make the situation any better - annihilate one group for the sake of another? And who becomes the underdog then? Perhaps the bleeding hearts of the world might swap sides if that were to happen .. but then again, probably not, because they're only Jews aren't they? And Jews are the cause of all evil in the world .. aren't they.
Posted by Sabra, Monday, 21 January 2013 6:07:40 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
When are you all going to realise this is a problem without a solution.
The Jews are back after 2000 years.
They have nowhere to go.
The Arabs want them gone.
The Arabs are genetically unable to compromise.

The rest of us fed up with the Islamists, and have had enough of them.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 21 January 2013 6:42:28 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
As I said the Zionist mentality of born to rule is just like Lance Armstrong.Lance beat cancer and cheated his way to the top therefore in his mind he should be admired and rewarded.

This mentality existed in the Nazis and fascism in all countries around our planet.Our elites like to think that they have the superior genes and deserve to just take what they want.This is worst than law of the jungle because animals take what the need,while some humans want to take everything to have power over others.

With the perception that the planet is way too over populated we are all on the march to war fighting over resources and energy and Israel is one of the leaders in this charge.

Instead of attacking Iran,which was Israel's desire, Obama decided containing China's economic progress in Africa was more important.

The West just cannot continue printing money to support so many wars for much longer.Soon the $ will collapse and China's currency will be the leader.This is the greatest fear of the Western Oligarchs as the rest of the world sees that the West is stuffed.
Posted by Arjay, Monday, 21 January 2013 6:54:41 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Arjay:

Watch out mate, your antisemitism is showing badly with every one of your posts.

“As I said the Zionist mentality of born to rule”

That sentence says it all.

You see most Zionists aren’t Jews, so the ‘little old church going lady’ has a mentality of born to rule, does she?

David G:

Jake Lynch did a great thing for Professor Don Avnon. You see he wasn’t sent packing. Instead a superior faculty at UNSYD picked him up.

Lynch back stabbed himself.

You say “Anyone with half a brain and a modicum of education could, if they really wanted to, find out about the sixty years of horror the Palestinians have endured at the hands of the terror regime of Israel.”

Then I suggest you heed you own words

That is quite hilarious and shows you have little or no idea of the history of the region.

In 1948, when Egypt along with another 4 countries attacked the fledgling State of Israel, they took Gaza from the Arabs in situ.

In 1967, in a war Israel didn’t want or ask for, they took the area, as well as the Sinai Desert, from Egypt.

Jews and Arabs in Gaza co-existed peacefully until the formation of Hamas from the Muslim Brotherhood, well into the early 2000s. The situation reached fever pitch so much so Israel withdrew unilaterally in 2005.

Gaza has been completely independent since that time , so any horror, the non-existent so-called Palestinians have endured has been at their own hands.

Since 2005 terrorists have fired more than 8,000 rockets into Israel. Over one million Israelis are currently living under threat of rocket attacks.

In 2011 alone, 630 rockets from Gaza hit Israeli towns. That’s an even higher number than in 2010, when 231 rockets hit Israel. Since 2001, more than 12,800 rockets and mortars, an average of 3 attacks every single day, have landed in Israel.

I think it's the Israelis suffering not the Gazan Arabs, don't you?

As for 60 years, do your maths.
Posted by SF, Monday, 21 January 2013 9:01:38 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
David G:

“Off with his head! Stone him until his skull is crushed… So say the Israeli-apologists”

You got your facts mixed up. Stoning, beheading, and some of the other colourful practices you describe are carried out by some Muslim societies in the Middle East, including the Palestinians (at least under Hamas). I don’t think they can be classified as supporters or apologists for Israel, they are far more likely to support your views.

“some races of people are entirely exempt from valid criticism while others are blamed for everything”

Does this explain your attitude, where you exclusively blame Israel for the conflict and claim the other side is blameless?

“The sooner Israel is neutralized the better it will be for the world”

Well said. You make righteous folks, such as Nasrallah, Meshaal and Ahmadinejad proud. Once Israel is neutralised, peace will surely come to the Middle East (if not the world), and the benevolent, democratic nature of the Palestinians in the form of Hamas will truly shine
Posted by Avw, Monday, 21 January 2013 9:56:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Arjay:

General Patraeus resigned due to an affair, not sacked because of his love for Israel, just in case you didn’t know. And what do the Syrian rebels have to do with any of this? Is Assad really an Israeli agent? I’m sure you have a very interesting theory – please share it with us.

“An oil pipeline already links Iraq with Israel”

Really? Are you referring to the pipeline built early last century, during the time of the British Mandate, and abandoned since 1948? How much oil flows through this ancient pipeline nowadays, according to your conspiracy theory?

“Israel wants to attack [Iran] for reasons of Imperialistic greed”

This should be really good... Are they planning to build some settlements just outside Tehran?

“As I said the Zionist mentality of born to rule…”

You might have said this before, but that doesn’t make it true. What are you basing this claim on?
Posted by Avw, Monday, 21 January 2013 10:04:48 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The problem is that these people are so blinded with the hate they are
indoctrinated with, they are unable to see the truth.

They need to use their own brains, if they have any, and research and read for themselves.

Avw, you have to realise that this Arjay character is an antisemite using the word Zionist as a replacement for Jew.

http://www.freeman.org/m_online/oct03/plaut1.htm

He says “Israel being so aggressive”

In his dreams is about the only place they are aggressive. Just last year alone when the rockets from Gaza were increasing daily, Israel sat on it. No other country on the word would have endured what Israel has endured and will again once Hamas has rearmed.
In 2012, 1,435 rockets fired from Gaza hit Israel
I can’t imagine any other country in the world sitting on its hands and letting that happen.
Posted by SF, Monday, 21 January 2013 10:24:09 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Stuart Rees has a very black and white view of this terribly sad conflict between two small peoples who are not particularly wanted by anyone. Even their "champions" whether Christian Fundamentalists, Islamists, Far Left or Far Right Ideologues use them as pawns in their own games. It would be far more constructive of Prof Rees to embrace the principles of conflict resolution if he's serious about peace. For the founder of an institute of conflict resolution, he seems not to understand the principles of CR101 - the facilitator of CR shall not take sides but try to understand and create opportunities for understanding. Instead he seems more interested in demonising the pro-Israel side by accusing them of demonising him ... an infinitely regressive and pointless stance. His facts are wrong too as others have pointed. But finally we see the telling climax of his piece. Prof Rees wants to cast himself in the role of the King of the Jews, David! Is this some weird kind of Judaeo-envy?
Posted by Liza Jane, Monday, 21 January 2013 11:35:19 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
SF ,so to criticise Israeli policy is being anti semitic and racist.Noam Chomsky ,Norman Finkelstein and many other Jews will agree with me.I also constantlty criticise Obama for his trashing of the US Constitution,war mongering etc.Does that make me a black hater? Many of the Arab rulers also are oppressive but the West in it's policies have encouraged that to steal their energy/resources.

Israel has been at the forefront of pushing the US to war in the Middle East for their own imperialistic purposes.They just love to paint themselves as the victim.Obama not doing their bidding does not make him the good guy.Obama is more concerned about Russia and China.

Pres Dwight Eisenhower in the 1960's warned us about thwe power of the Military Industrial Complex which really includes our finanacial system.They financed both sides of the last two world wars and caused the Great Depressions of the 1890's and the 1930's.They are responsible for the present financial crisis and our now trying to enslave Russia and China with their debt based money creation system.

Had China rolled over in 2008 and allowed their Govt bansks to be sold off,the Western Oligarchs would have won and there would be no threat of war.
Posted by Arjay, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 6:07:25 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
All university academics and executives could depart from cosy establishment perspectives.
Stuart Rees,
Yes and, try to contribute to our economy instead of viewing it as some magic apron to perpetually hang on to.
On another note the article shows that some people simply can't get their act together. Then, if someone decides to make them see sense they pool their stupidity & actually become a pest to all.
Posted by individual, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 6:14:39 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Cutting to the chase:

Ethnocracy is an evil. ANYBODY'S ethnocracy. ANYBODY'S claim that ANY real or invented ethnic group has the right to maintain a state, especially if it is in conquered territory, which is formally and in practice the state of a real or invented ethnic group. There is only one such state in the world. The last attempt berore that to make one was the "Aryan" state sought by the Nazi Drang nach Osten. The perpetrators and hangers-on of ethnocrats (fancy word for racists) don't have a moral leave pass to label challenges to their ethnocratic pretensions as being racist. It's the pretensions, not challenging their legitimacy, which are racist.

Ethnic cleansing is an evil - driving people out of part or all of their homeland by force to make Lebensraum for those doing the driving. ANYBODY'S ethnic cleansing. Nobody's "special" enough to claim a moral leave pass for ethnic cleansing. Not in the colonies, not in the Americas, not in Australia, not in the Balkans, not in Palestine, not anywhere. NO ethnic cleanser has any moral credibility in hopwls abou5t beiung "vcictimised"
Posted by EmperorJulian, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 7:00:25 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
OH sorry - a half finished draft got into the list accidentally. Here's the real deal:

Ethnocracy is an evil. ANYBODY'S claim to the right to maintain a state, especially if it is in conquered territory, which is formally and in practice the state of a real or invented ethnic group, is ethnocracy. There is only one such state in the world. The last attempt before that to make one was the "Aryan" state sought in the Nazi Drang nach Osten. It is ethnocratic pretensions, not challenges to their legitimacy, which are racist.

Ethnic cleansing is an evil - driving people out of part or all of their homeland by force to make Lebensraum for those doing the driving. NOBODY’S "special" enough to claim a moral leave pass for ethnic cleansing. Not in the colonies, not in the Americas, not in Australia, not in the Balkans, not in Palestine, not anywhere. NO ethnic cleanser's howls about being "victimised" by campaigns (including military and economic) to condemn, "demonise", "deligitimise" and reverse ethnic cleansing has any moral credibility.

Yes, any mug can go globetrotting and time travelling to discover other evils than these. Yes Islam is a creed which calls for coercive punishment (including death) for apostasy, unbelief, impiety, dissent, blasphemy - and as such it is an evil and remains so even if apologists can go globetrotting and time travelling in search of others' (e.g. Christians') transgressions.

The evils BDS (a too-blunt weapon) is about are ethnocracy (weaselese for racism) and ethnic cleansing imposed by deadly violence on Palestine and endangering the rest of us through incessant expansionism.

[continued]
Posted by EmperorJulian, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 7:03:19 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
[continued. . .]

Oh, and forget about "antisemitism". Antisemitism is racism applied to Jews, denying Jews PER SE the personal rights and respect applicable to everyone else. To elevate antisemitism as "special" compared with other racism is in itself racist. It's a weasel word directed to "delegitimising" and "demonising" rejection of ethnocracy and ethnic cleansing.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 7:06:05 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The Hebrew University is a bastion of peace-loving/anti-occupation, a thorn in Israel's government's side.

Stuart Rees, you made Netanyahu a very happy man today!

---

Dear Julian,

ANY ___cracy is evil, being wrong for people to control others, with nobody happy to be at the receiving end.
What makes ethnocracy particularly worse than the others?
Posted by Yuyutsu, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 11:29:00 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
If all "ethnocracy" is evil, Emperor Julian, then the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Arab Republic of Syria, and all the ethnic nations of Europe and Asia are evil. Unlike immigrant nations like Australia, Canada, the US and NZ, all the States of Europe are ethnically based. They are all political expressions of the ethnic language, culture and identity of their majority populations. There is nothing evil about this. The test of how evil they are (if at all) is how they treat their ethnic minorities. Every country in the world discriminates against their minority communities to some degree. Although Israel's record on this score is certainly open to criticism in terms of political and legal equality, standard of living, life expectancy, health, education and overall happiness, Israel's Arab minority fares much better than, say, the African Muslims of France or the Turkish "guest workers" of Germany.
Posted by BSDetector, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 12:17:52 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
In your position as Chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation, I applaud your efforts in working towards a peaceful solution for world conflicts. Supporting boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel does not, however, promote peaceful negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
By attempting to apply pressure to one side of the conflict, the BDS approach fails to acknowledge the intransigent position of the PA leadership, which refuses to recognise the legitimate right of the State of Israel to exist.
A more effective approach towards peace is to promote co-operation between Israelis and Palestinians, an approach adopted by the International Trade Union Confederation.
Refusing to host Prof. Don Avnon was counterproductive: he, like many Israeli academics, encourages debate within Israel regarding their government’s policies. Israeli universities have a significant Arab student population and are important forums for developing understanding and co-operation between Jews and Arabs.
Posted by lets talk, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 3:11:40 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Look, let's cut all the B.S. The Israelis will never give the Palestinians their land back.

They will eventually push the Palestinians out of the road or into the desert and create a Jew-only enclave. That achieved, they will begin to build Greater Israel with help from the U.S. which wants a powerful proxy in the middle of all that oil and always has done!

All the rest is political window dressing and has been since the first batch of fanatical Jews arrived in Palestine. The Palestinians have one choice: fight for their land using any means just as Arafat was doing.

If they won't fight, then history will pass them by.

Perhaps it already has.
Posted by David G, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 3:34:32 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
___cracies don’t faze me - democracy is a splendid basis for rule of a country and would provide the main foundation for a just solution for Palestine (all of it). Ethnocracy (polite for racism) is recognised worldwide as an evil.

An ethnocratic state is one that is constructed for a global ethnic group (real or invented). Its laws distinguish rights including immigration, citizenship, and residency and legal rights on the sole basis of ancestry. Not birth, not culture, not family connection to the country, but ethnicity. There is only one such state in the world. Compounding its racism, it occupies land seized from the original inhabitants, whom it has driven into exile. Hostility to it is growing in direct proportion to its arrogance and its menace to world peace.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 5:06:59 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It is important to realize that the BDS campaign is indifferent to, and omits any protests about the treatment of Palestinian "refugees" in Lebanon, Syria (where they are fleeing persecution), etc., or even within the Palestinian Authority territories -- e.g., they are not allowed to work nor do they have many other basic civil rights, but instead in the PA they are used as milch cows to draw international aid into Fatah Swiss bank accounts, while unemployment remains rampant in the PA.

But the grossly hypocritical BDS campaign has very few successes anywhere in the Western world. It is rightly marginalized (also here in Australia) as the antisemitic and far leftist group it is.
Posted by Everett, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 5:44:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Israel recognises as Jewish anyone born of a Jewish mother. The "Arab" republic of Egypt and the "Arab" Republic of Syria define being "Arab" as being born of an Arab father. Article 5 of the PLO Charter says that a Palestinian is "anyone born of a Palestinian father - whether inside Palestine or outside it". Germans and Greeks, Spaniards and Italians have similar types of definitions for the majority ethnic group in each of their countries, regardless of place of birth, language spoken or culture adopted. The laws of each of these countries distinguish rights including immigration, citizenship, and residency and legal rights on the sole basis of ancestry. For example, a 4th generation Australian of Greek ancestry living in Melbourne is considered automatically to be a Greek citizen, whether or not the person has made a choice to become a Greek citizen. Numerous countries have analogous laws. The distinctions sought to be made by Emperor Julian between "family connection to the country" and "ancestry" are a figment of his imagination.
Posted by BSDetector, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 6:48:05 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The economic sanctions on Iraq and Iran cannot be compared to the BDS.The Iraq invasion was totally illegal and murdered over one million innocent people.The Iran sanctions are also based on a lie.Israel has practised genocide against the Patistinians since 1945 yet no one dares criticise them.

If we allow genocide to happen against any population on our planet,then expect that reality to visit our door soon,with a super elite of bankster criminals who often refer to us common people as "the useless eaters".
Posted by Arjay, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 8:35:59 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
David G:

“Look, let's cut all the B.S. The Israelis will never give the Palestinians their land back”

Just like they did not give the vast Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt?

“…[the Israelis] will begin to build Greater Israel with help from the U.S. which wants a powerful proxy in the middle of all that oil and always has done”

Once again you are so driven by hatred that you fail to differentiate between facts and extreme-left fiction. A greater Israel? Is that why the Israelis withdrew from the Sinai? Is that why they withdrew from Gaza? From large parts of the West Bank? From Southern Lebanon?
As for that “powerful proxy in the middle of all that oil”, Israel has no oil in any significant quantities, and neither do most of its neighbours. The only significant oil field ever captured by Israel was in the Western Sinai, which was returned to Egypt. Israel does have some significant gas fields that it is now starting to develop, but those fields are underwater, not in any disputed Palestinian territory.

“The Palestinians have one choice: fight for their land using any means just as Arafat was doing”

It is exactly this kind of advice, given by fanatic armchair generals such as you, sitting comfortably well away, that keeps fuelling the conflict for close to a century. And what do the Palestinians have to show for having followed this advice? Nothing but the loss of territory, loss of life, and lack of development. No doubt you have no issue with continuing the fight to the last Palestinian.
It is the lunatics issuing this advice who are the greatest enemy of the Palestinians, not Israel.
Posted by Avw, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 8:51:18 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
According to Arjay "Israel has practised genocide against the Patistinians since 1945". Is there no end to the lies and BS these Israel-haters will believe? They are so rigid in their prejudces and opinions that they have to convince themselves of the most extraordinary nonsense to maintain their sanity. In 1945, BEFORE the 'Nakba', the total Arab population of Mandate-era Palestine was 1,200,000. Today, in the same territory (which is now Israel, the WB and Gaza) the total Arab population is about 5.5 million. When Jews started returning to the country in large numbers after 1881, the total Arab population was about 450,000, at which level it had been for the previous 200-300 years. Jewish immigration facilitated economic development and the establishment of modern health services, and ATTRACTED Arab migration into the country. In the first 60 years of Jewish migration into the country, the Arab population nearly tripled. In the subsequent 60 years it more than quadrupled. Funny sort of 'genocide', that. For anyone genuinely interested in the way the word 'genocide' has been devalued by misuse, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11108059
Posted by BSDetector, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 9:50:29 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
PART ONE

Yes David G do let us cut the BS, let’s try to see where this blatant racism and antisemitism is coming from.

Let us do it step by step
• “The Israelis will never give the Palestinians their land back.”

Who are ‘the Palestinians’? Throughout history there has never been any such people.

There is no Palestinian culture, language or cuisine.
There’s never been a land called "Palestine" ruled by "Palestinians." There's never been a Palestinian President, Prime Minister, government or military. This whole notion of 'a Palestine' is a recent false invention, based on lies and violence.

They are an invented people from an invented/non-existent country, which came into being on June 4th 1967

Since the 1880's, it was Jewish pioneers who began to redeem the land from wilderness. Only thereafter, Arabs came from other lands to benefit from what the Jews built and try to take it from them.

If anyone really wants peace with Israel, they MUST recognize Israel's existence, and Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Ipso facto your fictitious people, from an fictitious country can’t have ‘their land back’
Posted by SF, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 11:50:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
PART TWO

• “The Palestinians have one choice: fight for their land using any means just as Arafat was doing.”

Arafat was doing anything BUT fight for land. All Arafat was worried about was Arafat and feathering his own nest with his wife and daughter occupying not one, but two floors of the exclusive Ritz Hotel in Paris.

Arafat's Swiss Bank Account
http://www.meforum.org/645/arafats-swiss-bank-account

Arafat's wife at centre of money-laundering inquiry
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/12/1076548163989.html?from=storyrhs

There are plenty more where these came from. Arafat was a thief and a liar

“Arafat didn't negotiate - he just kept saying no. He is accused of being a liar who talked peace while secretly plotting the destruction of Israel.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may/23/israel3/print

• The Arabs have never had any land or any borders. If they want those they have to negotiate. UN Resolution 242 calls for an ARAB State alongside a Jewish State. Not a PALESTINIAN State alongside a Jewish State. It also says that Israel must have SAFE and SECURE borders.

They have refused land at every turn. They don’t want peace.

In 1948 they chose war rather than accept the UN’s decision to partition Palestine between its Jewish and Arab populations.

• In 1967 Israel offered to relinquish the land it had acquired, in exchange for peace with its neighbours, the Arab world’s response, issued at a summit in Khartoum, was not one NO, but three:

“No peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel."

• In 2000, Camp David offered Arabs a sovereign state with shared control of Jerusalem and billions of dollars in compensation for Palestinian refugees. Yasser Arafat refused the offer and launched the deadly terror war known as the Second Intifada.

• In 2008 Ehud Olmert offered Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas a peace agreement that would have guaranteed a Palestinian state in virtually all the West Bank, Gaza, and part of Jerusalem. Once again, the Palestinians turned down the offer.
Posted by SF, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 11:51:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
To SF, BS, and AVW, there is no doubt that your unquestioning, one-eyed, fanatical support of the Rogue Nation of Israel demonstrates clearly what kind of people you are.

The three of you are quite happy to see Israel continuing with the blockade of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank. You are happy to see settlements being built in the West Bank which is against International law. You are happy to see the humiliation of the Palestinian people which has been occurring since 1948.

And the three of you also condone the starving of the Palestinians, the bombing and shelling of them, the torturing of them, the demolition of their homes and vineyars, the killing of Palestinian children by IDF snipers, the use of phosphorous munitions and drones against them, the crushing of peace activists (Rachael Corrie), the murdering of peace activists on a Turkish ship in International waters, the use of torture and indefinite imprisonment, the denial of medicines and medical aid to the Palestinians, the stealing of Palestinian taxes, the throwing of Palestinians families into the street, etc, etc, etc.

Yeah, it is very clear what kind of people you are and the Israelis are.

"By their actions, ye shall know them!"
Posted by David G, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 9:10:16 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"Aside from the core issues—refugees, Jerusalem, borders—the major themes reflected in the U.N. resolutions against Israel over the years are its unlawful attacks on its neighbors; its violations of the human rights of the Palestinians, including deportations, demolitions of homes and other collective punishments; its confiscation of Palestinian land; its establishment of illegal settlements; and its refusal to abide by the U.N. Charter and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War."

Yeah, Israel has ignored the U.N. continuously. It thinks it is a law unto itself.

Religious derangement causes this arrogance!

Cheers.
Posted by David G, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 9:36:39 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The peripatetic BSDetector should be renamed BSGenerator. His desperate globetrotting has not turned up one state, other than racist Israel, whose self-identification and legal structure are based on ancestry, including the über-racist “Law of Return”. He summarised his non-find thus: “The distinctions sought to be made by Emperor Julian between ‘family connection to the country’ and ‘ancestry’ are a figment of his imagination.”

Figment? Brtitish law, for one, comes to grips with the distinction that eludes BSDetector. My ancestry is British but I don’t qualify under British “patrial” law to migrate to Britain. That law qualifies a person if at least one parent or grandparent is born in Britain. Lacking this I’m rightly deemed not to have a family connection with Britain. Also, Britain is not located in someone else’s land.

Invidious wholesale discrimination based on genetic ancestry is racism. Zionists accordingly are racists, with a propensity to bellow “antisemitism”, either by name or by meaning, when their racism is rumbled, as we have seen in some (but only some) of the Zionist apologetics in this very thread. (This doesn’t include BSDetector - he argues his case and doesn’t impute “antisemitism” a.k.a. “Jew hatred”. The following posts actually do:

DavidL, Monday, 21 January 2013 11:06:55 AM
Jonathan J. Ariel, Monday, 21 January 2013 2:01:42 PM
SF, Monday, 21 January 2013 9:01:38 PM
Everett, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 5:44:43 PM
SF, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 11:50:50 PM)
Posted by EmperorJulian, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 10:53:32 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Poor old Emperor Julian. Still wallowing in his make-believe world of non-sequiturs. He has picked British citizenship law and pretends that it is an exemplar for the rest of the world. Let's look at Greece instead. The nationality law of Greece is based on the principle of jus sanguinis (literally 'law of the blood'). A child of a Greek citizen acquires Greek nationality automatically at birth. Greeks born abroad may transmit citizenship to their children from generation to generation indefinitely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_nationality_law

The Emperor Julian has no clothes.
Posted by BSDetector, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 11:22:56 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Julian,

<<An ethnocratic state is one that is constructed for a global ethnic group (real or invented). Its laws distinguish rights including immigration, citizenship, and residency and legal rights on the sole basis of ancestry.>>

Yes, but you failed to explain why this is any worse than other systems of rule.

The vast majority of people, for example, are prevented from immigrating to Australia (and many are even prevented from visiting on a tourist visa).

The excuse for refusing a person may be other than ethnic (for example that in their youth one chose a profession which Australia needs less - perhaps even their parents chose that profession for them), but on the receiving end of the stick, the reason doesn't matter, whether it's ethnic, occupational, or based on height/weight/baldness/hairiness/etc. - the pain is the same!
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 11:36:19 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yuyutsu, it is worth mentioning that Israel does not prevent people from gaining citizenship based on religion or ethnic identity, so that in fact citizenship is probably not much more difficult to obtain than here in Australia, despite Israel's position as a very tiny state threatened on all sides would tend to make it much more cautious than huge Australia with plenty of open spaces. Christians have citizenship in Israel as a matter of course, and Muslims too, Baha'is from Iran, Buddhists and the like. Legal and political rights in Israel are the same for all its citizens, no matter what their religion. Israel is a firmly liberal democracy in this as in other areas.

David G. says that one can tell the moral standing by the sort of people he or she supports. In that case, what does his support for officially endorsed Palestinian terrorism and openly antisemitic hate incitement, which prevents any peace for at least a generation into the future, say? There is absolutely nothing like that on the Israeli side, and this goes back generations. The leader of the Palestinians in the 1930s was Haj Amin el-Husayni, who led constant terrorist attacks against Jews and British then. He fled to Nazi Germany, where he stayed and aided the Nazi war effort and Holocaust. After WWII, he went to Egypt, where he tutored his nephew, Yasser Arafat, before he became the leader of the chief terrorist group in the world for decades. Today, Mahmud Abbas carries the torch, denies the Holocaust, glorifies terrorists, and officially demands a Judenrein "Palestine." Hamas calls for wiping out the Jewish people. These are the people you support, David G. What sort of person does that reveal you to be?
Posted by Everett, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 12:20:28 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
To BSDetector: Pity to have to break the obvious into so many short repetitive bites, but what British law does is demonstrate that others can cope with the distinction between ancestry and family connection that escapes BSDetector. Claims of ancestry without demonstrable connection with individual native-born citizens with whom you could have had personal contact wouldn’t get you into most countries, not only Britain. Nor do most countries, Britain included, admit you on connections that go further back than the direct personal. Even Greece’s despicable “law of the blood” doesn’t reach further back than identifiable individual native-born Greeks. You would have to SHOW, with name rank and serial number all the way back, that you descended from the Greeks of Plato’s day. Zionists didn’t invent racism, they adapted it to formation of a self-important, land-grabbing, racist state in constant destabilising conflict with those it displaced.

To Yuyutsu: There are overwhelming scientific, historical, moral reasons why the world has long concluded that racism is a bad thing. Heavens above, surely the Nazi Holocaust would be evidence enough. Ethnic DNA as a basis of law is racism.

Correction to my earlier post: SF, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 11:50:50 PM did not include his routine labelling of opponents of Zionism as “antisemites” but SF, Monday, 21 January 2013 10:24:09 PM, which I had overlooked, did.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 12:35:33 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Everett writes: "Mahmud Abbas ... denies the Holocaust, ... officially demands a Judenrein 'Palestine.' Hamas calls for wiping out the Jewish people."

Note especially the word "people". Those are statements about Hamas which, if true and not just Zionist hate propaganda, would be accessibly documented in their own words or honest translation (not reinterpretation by their enemies). Are they demonstrably true or is Everett passing on hate propaganda? Please elaborate.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 1:31:17 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Julian,

<<There are overwhelming scientific, historical, moral reasons why the world has long concluded that racism is a bad thing>>

We were not discussing what the world concluded, but rather what is right and what is wrong.

<<Heavens above, surely the Nazi Holocaust would be evidence enough.>>

It doesn't logically follow: claiming "The Nazis were racist, the Nazis were bad, therefore racism is bad", is logically unsound.

<<Ethnic DNA as a basis of law is racism.>>

Yes, this is a definition, but still does not explain WHY racist-based control is worse than other forms of control.

Causing suffering and pain to others is wrong.
Being controlled against one's will hurts and is painful.
The state consists of many others.
Therefore it is wrong for a state to exert control over people.

You still need to demonstrate why exerting control over others for a racist motive is worse than exerting control over others for other motives.

To make the question more concrete, why is the Nazi/Jewish holocaust, exterminating 6 millions for a racist narrative, worse than Stalin killing 10 million Ukrainian farmers for a non-racist narrative (ditto Mao and Pol-Pot).

Those who recently raped and murdered a girl in India were not motivated by racism - does it make them any better? That was her private holocaust!

Dear Everett,

I am well aware of those facts, thanks.

Nevertheless, the law of return is racist.

Is racism bad? it depends on what you do with it:

If you just feel racist, but do not act on it, then it's OK.
If you feel racist and therefore refuse to marry someone, that's OK.
If you feel racist and therefore refuse to employ someone, then so long as you are a private person, that's OK too.
If you feel racist and therefore refuse someone entry to your own private home, that's OK too.

But if you prevent someone at gun-point from entering a land/region/continent that's not wholly your own, for any reason other than for self-defence, then it's wrong, regardless whether your reason is racist or otherwise.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 1:52:21 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
David G:

"...your unquestioning, one-eyed, fanatical support..."

I have presented you with factual information, none of which you were able to refute, or even attempted to dispute. Are you claiming that the facts are fanatical?!?!
All we heard from you so far are blood thirsty calls to neutralise a country you don’t like, and calls for arms encouraging the bloody conflict to continue. You scarcely provide any facts to support your sensational shrieks and accusations. Who do you really think is the fanatic here?

“The three of you are quite happy to see Israel continuing with the blockade of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank… settlements being built in the West Bank… condone the starving of the Palestinians…”

Can you please point out where and when did I say any of these things? If you are unable to do this, I’ll just put it down to yet another false, baseless claim.

Regarding “the murdering of peace activists on a Turkish ship”, it has already been shown that it was no peace activists on that ship. The ones causing the violence were fanatics, nothing more. Real peace activists do not resort to violence using lethal weapons as your friends did on the Mavi Marmara. Any real peace activists would have carried some humanitarian aid with them (the stated purpose of the convoy) which the Navi Marmara did not (unlike the other ships in the convoy).

“[Israel’s] unlawful attacks on its neighbours”

Which unlawful attacks are you referring to? Can you provide any details rather than throwing a wild accusation and hoping it will stick?

“Religious derangement”? Are you sure you are talking about Israel here and not its neighbours? Maybe you need to look this one up again.
Posted by Avw, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 3:38:14 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It's an old trick, Emperor Julian. You lose the argument so you try to change the criteria. In an earleir post you said, "An ethnocratic state is one that is constructed for a global ethnic group (real or invented). Its laws distinguish rights including immigration, citizenship, and residency and legal rights on the sole basis of ancestry. Not birth, not culture, not family connection to the country, but ethnicity. There is only one such state in the world". Now it turns out that at least one other State in the world, Greece, DOES distinguish legal rights on the sole basis of ancestry, not just parentage. The documentary evidence required to establish the ancestry does not detract from the fact that it is ancestry, not parentage, that counts. No doubt that is why EJ call this Greek law "despicable". But what's so despicable about it? Who says that your sensibilities, EJ, are the ultimate and absolute determinant of right and wrong? Perhaps calling yourself Emperor has gone to your head.
Posted by BSDetector, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 3:57:42 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Julian, here are some quotes from the full text available at www.mideastweb.org:

Article 7: "...(T)he Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, killing them, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."

[, i.e., Allah promised that "the Jews" will be murdered, and the Hamas "aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take."]

Article 32: "After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

Article 22 (also see Articles 17 and 28), citing the Protocols: "They [the Jews] were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we ... hear about. ... With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others ... for the purpose of sabotaging societies. ... They created and controlled World War I ... [and] World War II ... the League of Nations ...[and] the United Nations, to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without their having a finger in it.

Article 28: "They aim at undermining socieies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam." Therefore, Article 29: all Muslims must again "perform their role in the decisive battle of liberation, just as they did when they vanguished the Crusaders and the Tatars and saved human civilization. ... Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Muslim people."
Posted by Everett, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 6:00:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yuyutsu, the Law of Return is not racist, since Jews come from all races, as you will see for yourself if you visit Israel: Ethiopian and other Africans, Berber, Arab, Aryan, Slav, Turkomongolian, Indian (e.g., the Jews of Cochin and some of the Mumbai community, and the B'nai Menashe from NE India), Chinese and Japanese Jews, and others, although there is still strong mainstream continuity from Biblical times. Many Jews coming to Israel are converts. Religion is the key factor determining Jewish affiliation and the existence of the Jewish people as such down through the ages, since it was their acceptance of the Torah at Mt. Sinai that first created and defined them as a people. But in our secular age, even secular Jews are threatened by racists who define Jews, wrongly, as a race, and therefore personal identification with the Jewish people by a secular Jew is sufficient to gain the protection of the State of Israel and residency under the Law of Return. To provide refuge to persecuted Jews, who in our very generation were abandoned to genocide by all the world including the West, is one of the chief reasons the State of Israel exists; it is not however the only reason. It also exists to provide Jews with a majority culture for the first time in 2,000 years, in which Judaism itself and Jewish culture more generally can be sympathetically renewed on its own terms, and this can really only be accomplished in the Land of Israel itself, the Jewish homeland. It therefore brings two millenia of Jewish exile to a partial end, a momentous thing in the whole sweep of Jewish history. On Zionism, its history and teachings, see Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, and Arthur Hertzberg, ed., The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader -- this is an anthology of texts.
Posted by Everett, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 6:38:57 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Everett,

I think that you missed the main thrust of my words to Julian, the tone of my voice:
it was not "Oh Jews/Zionists are terrible racists, tut-tut", but rather "so you say Jews/Zionists are racist - fine, what's the big deal about it?".

Now you are claiming that Zionism is not technically racist, but rather national, or better still, religious, which makes the same behaviour kosher that would otherwise be contemptible if it came under the definition of "racist"?

You may be right about the intricate differences between "racist" and "national", Judaism being probably somewhere in between, but should national-identity be any more kosher than racism?

Next you turn do define Judaism in terms of religion. While I tend to agree with your defining Judaism as a nation (rather than race), I cannot agree on the attribution of religion to Judaism.

Judaism was never a religion because its true object was never to serve God, but to serve the nation of Israel. The whole "Torah" (instructions) were faked, probably by Ezra, in order to promote his personal and national agenda, then forced on the people of Israel as their "history - or else". The invention of the Jewish god, complete with the narrative of Abraham/Isaac/Jacob and Sinai, was merely one convenient tactic, along with a set of "commandments" designed specifically to keep the Jews together as a nation. The nation always came before God, permitting the Jewish leaders (priests, then Rabbis) to override those commandments whenever it was beneficial for the nation to do so. This is hypocrisy, this is sacrilegious of the name of God, this is not a religion!

Actually you just stated yourself that what really matters is "PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION WITH THE JEWISH PEOPLE", so please leave religion aside: according to your own statement, a person who keeps the Sabbath, eats kosher, circumcise, etc. but does not identify with the Jewish people (a Karaaite or Samaritan for example) is not eligible for refuge in Israel.

Whether Zionism is good or bad is a very complex issue, but please keep religious claims out of this discussion.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 8:46:17 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yes Arjay as you stated ‘so to criticise Israeli policy is being antisemitic and racist’ is quite a correct assumption. One definition of antisemitism is * when Israel is singled out for criticism from other counties in the region, it is antisemitism* You sight Noam Chomsky ,Norman Finkelstein s examples of Jewish people who agree with you. You have to understand these two are Jewish in name only and have traded in their religion many years ago for the ideas of the Far Left. They trade on their Jewishness.

The mere fact you use the word Jew or Jews is in itself antisemitic. Rarely will you find Jewish people referring to themselves, or indeed speaking of Jews or Jew
Search Google for the word and you come up with this
Offensive Search Results
We're disturbed about these results as well.
http://www.google.com/explanation.html

I found this tit-bit whilst perusing the comments. Good one!
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/oct03/plaut1.htm

When approached by a student who attacked Zionism, Dr. Martin Luther King responded: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You're talking anti-Semitism.”

I am quite astounded by your lack of knowledge of a few people. Those you are calling Palestinians, do not have any land. What don’t you understand about the fact they have always refused to talk peace and borders. The nearest they came was in 2007 or 2008, when Abbas agreed with Olmert and then never finalised it. The problem is that they want all or nothing.

Even the fact you think that Gaza is under siege is way off the mark. I can give you countless URLs to Gazan sites for 5 star hotels, spas, resorts, night clubs, huge houses, riding schools and more , much more. There are also 9 universities

This fact has been widely reported this past week.

Hamas Tries to Limit Israeli Imports into Gaza
Hamas bans certain types of Israeli goods into Gaza. Israel nevertheless continues supplying goods.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164324#.UP-3IWdPC6h
Posted by SF, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 8:57:07 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yuyutsu, your characterisation of Judaism really lifts the veil on your mental world. It is so far off base, so extremely false and hateful, not just slightly so, that it is evident that you know next to nothing about Judaism, a truly sublime religion that has such beauty and powerful insights that both Christianity and Islam have wanted to claim its treasures solely for themselves, adapted of course in Christianity's case to Graeco-Roman cultures and religions and in Islam's case to pagan Arabian culture. It is simply impossible to explain the profound impact of Judaism in world religions on the basis of the ideas you have. But beyond that, your comments show that you are filled with ill will to Jews as such. You have obviously gotten what little you know on the subject of Jews and Judaism from rabid antisemites, including those who push a Protocols of the Elders of Zion line. For shame.
Posted by Everett, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 9:05:47 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Everett,

<<your comments show that you are filled with ill will to Jews as such.>>

I have no ill will to Jews as such (in fact some of my best friends are Jews), only sadness and pity as I do for anyone who fell in a bad cult.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 9:49:07 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sorry re delay. Crashed my quota.

BSDetector: The only points of argument with you were (1): Your claim there was no distinction between family connection with a country and ancestry was shown to be some BS you failed to detect; (2) Your claim that Greece’s immigration law made it an ethnocracy similar to Israel falls down in several ways: Greece doesn’t recognise claims that being born to a Greek, even if traced back a few generations, makes you a genetic heir to the ancient Greeks; Greece doesn’t occupy a land cleared by ethnic cleansing; Greece is not in incessant war with a population it displaced; Greece is not a menace to world peace.

My objection to Greek nationality law it is that it is none the less racist and that it hands to the corrupt brasshats men who were Greek or born to Greeks, and who are NOT Greek. DFTA warns Australian travellers of this.

Yuyutsu: An evil is not mitigated one whit by scouring the world for other evils. Ethnocentrism a.k.a. racism is an evil if injustice is an evil. Racism nominates people who have superior and inferior entitlement on the grounds of an accident of birth over which the individual has no possibility of influence. That is injustice. Stalin managed to kill many Ukrainians but had no power to reduce the evil of Nazism.

But congratulations - your comment on religion (with which I concur) has brought out of the woodwork another post seeking to trump an argument with stupid insults about “antisemitism”:
See Everett, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 9:05:47 PM.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Thursday, 24 January 2013 1:30:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I never said Greece was an ethnocracy. That’s your term, EJ, not mine. I just pointed out that they have a nationality law based on ancestry, not just parentage, as do the Palestinians, among others. The parentage criterion itself, where it exists, derives from the classical jus sanguinis (right of blood). Israel’s law of nationality imposes no biologiocal racial test as you seem to think. Jews are and always have been both a faith community and a national community, but consist of many biological races.

Israel's status as the state of the Jewish people does not prevent it from being a state for all its citizens (including minorities). Germany is the state of the German people and German is its official language even though there are many ethnic Turks (and other minorities) who live there as equal citizens but who do not share German culture (eg drinking lots of beer and eating pork knuckles). France, Italy, Spain and Greece are all states representing their majority language/culture group even though each of these countries has ethnic minority groups who live there as equal citizens but who don't share the majority culture.

In the 20th century there were a number of arrangements aimed at defining the future ethnic character of countries for the sake of peace eg the population exchanges between Germany and Poland, Poland and Ukraine, India and Pakistan. In 1922 1.3 million Greeks were expelled from Turkey and about 400,000 Turks were expelled from Greece. Israel and Palestine is another example. When the UN voted to support partition in 1947 the resolution clearly specified that one state would be a "Jewish state" and the other an "Arab state". The resolution even made it clear that the Jewish state would have an Arab minority and the Arab state would have a Jewish minority eg:

"[Each]State shall ensure adequate primary and secondary education for the Arab and Jewish minority, respectively, in its own language and its cultural traditions."

So the idea of Israel as the state of the Jewish people is nothing out of the ordinary and has very clear international legitimacy.
Posted by BSDetector, Thursday, 24 January 2013 2:01:52 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Julian,

<<Ethnocentrism a.k.a. racism is an evil if injustice is an evil.>>

Racism by itself (including its special cases of Zionism and antisemitism for that matter) is not evil or unjust - it depends what you do with it.

Suppose you refuse to marry someone, suppose you are not attracted to them due to their race - that's your private preference and there's nothing wrong with it. How would you feel for example if you were blamed of being an evil and unjust homophobic for preferring girls over boys as [sexual] partners? that's no different, we have right to our personal preferences!

Now of course, if you go and burn people's homes because of their race, then it's evil and unjust, but it would also be evil and unjust to burn people's homes for any other reason - for the victim it's all the same whether your motive was racist or you are just an arsonist who enjoys seeing fires, in both cases they lost their home and all personal effects, who cares why?

Similarly, for the dead Ukrainian farmer, or for the farmer who lost his/her family there, it matters not whether they were killed by racist Nazi Germany or by madman Stalin. The outcome is the same.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 24 January 2013 6:31:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
This by an Arab Israeli very well known and well respected journalist is of interest

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3552/israel-election-palestinian-authority

How the Palestinian Authority Tried to Scare Israeli Voters

by Khaled Abu Toameh



It does not matter who is in power in Israel: no Palestinian leader has a mandate to make any concessions to Israel, let alone sign a peace treaty. Abbas knows this very well and that is why he will keep coming up with excuses to avoid signing a peace treaty, regardless of who is in control of the Israeli government.

The Palestinian Authority either does not know what it wants from the Israelis or is too afraid to admit that it does not have a mandate to sign a peace treaty with Israel.

When left-wing parties and candidates were in power, the Palestinian Authority leadership missed several opportunities to reach a peace agreement with Israel.

This happened at least twice during the past 13 years -- first, when then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak made a generous offer to Yasser Arafat at the Camp David summit and later when Ehud Olmert offered even more during his term in office.

So, the Palestinian Authority leadership first misses opportunities to reach agreements with left-wing and centrist parties. Then, when the right-wing comes to power, the Palestinian Authority starts complaining that there is no peace partner in Israel and calls on Israelis not to vote for Binyamin Netanyahu.

The Palestinian Authority's constant refusal to sign a peace treaty with Israel has undermined the left-wing in Israel, driving many Israelis towards right-wing parties such as Likud Beiteinu and Bayit Yehudi.
Posted by SF, Friday, 25 January 2013 7:34:40 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 8
  7. 9
  8. 10
  9. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy