TO my eternal shame I go to the movies for very base reasons - to laugh or to see things go bang or to be transported to a realm of fantasy.
I tend not to give a hoot about any interwoven message or even truth when it comes to the cinema, so thes revies tend to send me to sleep: there was one in the Herald Sun yesterday that went on and on about its innaccuracies from a Jewish point of view - well I for one dont draw my understanding of anything from cinematic portayals on the silver screen.

The funniest review I read was in the same paper and Andrew Bolts shot at Finding Nemo - he found underlying evil in the movie because there was a throw away line about America ( not complimentary ) and some scenes about non meat eating sharks ( further evidence of new age/green conspiracies to brainwash the young).

They're just fillums

Colin

A mainstream Jewish American producer didn’t produce a movie sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. How odd!

Your expectation was…?

You say there is too much balance or moral equivalence. It’s a positive strength of Speilberg's movie that it did not overly favour the more popular Israeli view.

The film obviously did not adhere to your sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

On to other things:

The "strong sex scenes" warning (they are really tame) is a feeble attempt to attract a wider audience to the cinema. The graphic violence leaves the most lasting impression.

The spying and tradecraft issues are of interest (to me). The hit team all meeting and loudly chatting about their acheivements in public (while drinking heavily) is totally unrealistic. The film (a study in assassination) is way outside the normal intelligence process though.

My main interest is covered in the Guardian of 26 January 2006 http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1695135,00.html:

“The issue of authenticity still matters because Israel's policy of covert state-sponsored assassination continues: Israel has had no hesitation in assassinating Palestinian leaders since the second intifada began in September 2000.

...there is little sign of agonising by the agents interviewed for the [2] TV documentaries. Officers K and G [actually involved in the revenge missions] ...come across as tougher and more hard-bitten than Spielberg's agents.

Officer G, asked if he ever had doubts, says: "No hesitations. No. No. No. We believe you can say whatever you like in discussions, but when ordered, you must follow it.

COMMENTS ON MOSSAD ATTITUDES - Part 2

Another agent, identified only as "Yonatan", told the Israeli daily Ma'ariv: "We identified completely with our mission after what the terrorists did to our athletes in Munich. I never asked myself, like Avner in the movie, if I was doing the right thing."

Atlantic Productions lists various alleged discrepancies between Spielberg's film and what those involved claim is the reality:

- Spielberg's film suggests one group carried out almost all the assassinations, but in fact much larger teams of agents were involved;

- there is no evidence Mossad worked with the help of a mysterious French criminal "godfather" figure as portrayed in both Vengeance and the film;

- those on the list of assassination targets were not all directly involved in Munich. This is confirmed by Mossad agents, and Spielberg acknowledges this, but only in the last five minutes.

The retired Mossad deputy head Kimche says the mission was not just about revenge but striking fear into the hearts of terrorists..."We tried not to do things just by shooting a guy in the streets, that's easy - fairly. By putting a bomb in his phone, this was a message that they can be got anywhere, at any time and therefore they have to look out for themselves 24 hours a day."

"Yonatan" was asked by an Israeli interviewer if he accepted Spielberg's message that violence was not the right response. "Maybe," he answered. "But what could we have done after Munich? If we had given in, the Palestinians would have thought they were stronger and carried out even worse attacks."

Plantagenet
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/

Interesting that people still think of the Palestinians as the indiginous people of Israel (Palestine). This is despite the fact that they all came much later than the Jewish peoples. If our aboriginal people had all been kicked out of Australia, would that make the Brittish occupiers the indiginous peoples of australia? What would be the response if the aboriginals were brought back after one and a half thousand years? Would the one and a half thousand years of immigrants too australia having occupied the land, lead to those immigrants being the indiginous peoples?

I think what these questions show is that both have a right to claim palestine, the two state situation is the most acceptable. If, however, the palestinians continue to use attacks targeted against civilians then perhaps that is reason to kick them out of the whole area? And I wish people would get their heads around the difference between purposefully targetting civilians, compared with knowing there are civilians in the area that could be hurt when targetting known terrorists (by terorists I mean those who target civilians). For those who cannot think for themselves (clearly the vast majority) the difference is who you are targetting, civilians or criminals, not who you hit.

Was romeo at fault in killing mercutio, or was this an unexpected tradgedy?

I agree wholeheartedly with Colin. He does not condemn the film because it goes against the Palestinian cause; he critisises it because it goes against truth and justice. Yes, I know it's a film, but there are still many people who are taken in by this type of propaganda. Spielberg, at best, is disingenuous at claiming to show both sides. How about telling the whole story...heck, what about making a movie about what happened in 1948 to the indigenous people of that land? He is obviously not putting his humanity, or his craft, before his religion.

The old strategy of the good old Israelis planting trees in the desert and the swarthy, bad Arabs has been debunked. The Zionist propaganda machine is now circling the wagon to think up new strategies. The latest ploy is "there are two sides" to this- as if they are somehow equal sides. The indigenous people of Palestine suffered massacres, a diaspora and are still suffering a decades long occupation. They are the victims...and have been fighting to become survivors. Victims and aggressors are not equal "sides".Fortunately for all the people concerned, it looks like the political way is the next fight to survive.

Fide mae,
It may be interesting to you to say people view Palestinians as indigenous to Palestine...but truth is truely interesting.

In 1917 Balfour said "for in Palestine we do not even propose to go through the form of consulting with the inhabitants of the country". In 1948, about 750,000 Palestinians were expelled, and Weizman called it "a miraculous clearing of the land; the miraculous simplification of Israel's ask". Theodor Herzi wrote in 1895, " we shall try to spirit the penniless population accross the border" In Mashala, 1992, p.194, Ben-Gurion referred to "The committe for removal and expulsion". Weitz, the head of this committe, wrote in 1940 " it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples to live in this country...not one village, not one tribe must remain."

You have been duped if you do not view Palestinians as indigenous people of that land. Furthermore, they are a Semitic people, unlike Jewish people....who are Slav and Anglo...amongst other ethnicities. The people who came to Israel from Europe and North America...are just that...indigenous to Europe and North America.

"Draw, for a moment, an imaginary line across the story of the past; forget all that has happened since the year 4 B.C.; rule out from your mind all the reverence with which centuries of Christianity have invested the Old Testament, all the prejudices which the accidents of later times have raised against the Jewish character as a factor in world-history. Isolate in your mind the picture of a little people, assailed and half-infected by all the superstitions of the ancient world--the animal-worship of Egypt, the vegetation cults of the Canaanitish aborigines, the astrology of Babylon, the cultured anthropomorphism of classical Greece-- yet ever obstinately retaining, after a thousand half-surrenders and tentative apostasies, the conception of a single God, unique in his majesty, controlling the destinies of all nations and all the forces of the created universe. Is there not, in that picture, something infinitely noble, some quality of unexpectedness which almost demands a special Divine revelation to account for it? Is it mere coincidence that amidst all the clash of Empires around the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, unchanged by the influence of Egyptian, Hittite, Assyrian, Syrian, Chaldean, or Phoenician civilisation, unconquered in its inmost hopes by the conquests of a Cyrus, an Alexander, or a Pompey, one tiny mountain people should have cherished like a sacred fire, its inviolable tradition of worship, should have upheld, to the unseeing eyes of pagan antiquity, a conception of fundamental theology which centuries of subsequent reflection have neither modified nor improved?" R.Knox

The Jews are much more than you think sunsie.

Whatever you say about Zionism, perspective demands an equal treatment of Mohammedanism and its imperialism .If we are talking about history how far should we go back? Fide asks a pertinent question. I think I want the Muslims to give back Egypt - no all of North Africa. I want Asia Minor back yeah and the Hagia Sophia . . . .

Sympathies to the innocents that have suffered. But the palestinian is very far from the only victim.
For an understanding of Jews and Muslims read Rosenzweig 'Star of Redemption'

Sunisle
you make the usual mistake of mentioning only the expulsion of Palestinians, without mentioning a similar expulsion/exodus of Jews forced out of surrounding Arab countries.

Why did you do that ?

Selective omission is just as bad as selective inclusion.

Lets go back in History a bit... the year AD70, when Berlesconie's great (x 50) grand daddy and his Roman hoardes expelled the Jews from 'THEIR' homeland, and spread them around the empire in places like Spain etc.

Now, no matter what your view of history or your own situation right now.. u can be sure of one thing. YOU are living on 'Stolen property'

Lets explore a little scenario, you are aboriginal, and it so happens that the whites were not successful in reducing your numbers to insignificance.. and there are approximately 50% Aboriginal population here. They team up with Lybia or someone, who supplies them with weapons..and they plan a cultural/militray coup. Guess what.. I would have to agree that they were just 'fixing a historic injustice'.
Of course the politically correct would send up a howwwwwl of protest about 'the poor white people.. cast out.. nowhere to go.. all refugees over their in Tassy or Kiwiland.... poor us'.

The Jews are rectifying a long standing historic injustice, and with Divine backing, (the covenant promises "To you and your offspring I give this land FOREVER") they probably have more claim to a bit of real estate than any other race in the world.

Every nation today, exists because of an injustice at some time. Conflicts currently raging are current 'injustices' or.. 'fixing injustices' (see history of Congo wars) and when the dust settles.. it will still be an 'un'just status quo.

Ashkenazi (Russian) Jews can be traced back to a son of Noah.

There is a current day aspect of this struggle that impacts on every Australian.

There are two old adages: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and "The friend of my enemy is my enemy."

Australians have now been attacked several times by Islamic terrorists, thankfully so far only overseas, and these terrorists loudly proclaim their desire to continue to attack Australia in any way they can.

The people of Palestine, particularly through their support of Hamas at the recent election, have demonstrated their support for these terrorists.

As a result, for solely Australian reasons, most Australians would consider Israel to be our ally, and Palestine to be our enemy.

This does not involve peaceful, devout Muslims living in Australia who are loyal to Australia and abhor the deeds perpetrated in the name of their religion. These people are welcome among us, and can provide valuable linguistic and cultural skills to Australia in tracking down the terrorists. They fill a similar role to Israeli Arabs, who I am sure have been of great service to Israel. One of the great problems that America has is that it does not seem to have a similar group in the US.

fide mae I'm sure it does say in Christian / Jewish based history that the Jews were there first. However the reality based secular archeology and biology clearly shows they are the same people Arabs and Jews are Semites. The bit you have to get your head around is that the old testament is a work of fiction very few of the stories in it have any basis in fact. The fact is the semi–nomad hill tribes that evolved into Jews are directly related to the plains dwelling people of the area.
Anyway getting back to the subject I was taught as a child that two wrongs don’t make a right (some parents still teach this hopefully). However it tends to be the exact thing we do when wronged. In WW2 the German air force started dropping bombs on civilian targets how did we respond by doing the same to them only we did it bigger and better. Now the scale of the conflict is much smaller the Is rails responded to the Palestinian attacks in much the same way as we did.. Was it wrong to do those things ? Yes was it wrong to relate like that? Yes, Would I do the same thing? Yes but I would feel bad about it if I thought about what I was doing. This doubt plagues all when the angry has gone and there is time to think. And this is what this movie is about. We will only have piece when moral doubt defeats boths sides will to continue the fight.

"The bit you have to get your head around is that the old testament is a work of fiction very few of the stories in it have any basis in fact. The fact is the semi–nomad hill tribes that evolved into Jews are directly related to the plains dwelling people of the area."

Che?

Kenny the bit you have to get your head around is the idea of widening one's reading. Read 'The Lost Testament' David Rohl an Egyptologist/Archeologist or whatever. Using the same old critical archeological methods he concludes the Old Testament is bloody good history.

You do know how to read the Bible don't you Kenny? I mean you wouldn't read a comic like you would a newspaper or textbook. Do you which genre each book in the Bible is?

Try a little caution when talking about topics you don't really understand.

BOAZ_david,

It may be a surprise to you, but I am talking about living , breathing human beings....some occupied and some in a diaspora in refugee camps and detention centres around the world. Now, you may not care about this, but I do. These are irreplaceable human beings that deserve, and are entitled to, what we all take for granted.
You can talk all you want about the distant past...but I care about helping people who are suffering as we speak regardless of their race, religion, or colour.

I have Welsh blood...should I, and others with Welsh blood around the wordl, go to Wales and expel, massacre and put in refugee capms the peole there because we have Druid ancestors? This nonsense about land that God gave the Jews is at best, silly, at worst, a travesty. All human beings deserve a free homeland, not just "chosen" people!

The people who came to Israel from around the world after 1948 had no connection to the land. Palestinians, of all religions, were living there...tilling the land, their crops and animals, building homes and towns...as their forefathers had done. Not so, the people who came from Europe...and then later from North America.

Ghandi spoke of not agreeing with the partition of India and Pakistan...and the colonisation of Palestine. However, he felt it was too late to turn back the clocks....but the injustice of what happened to Palestine could be halted

Martin Ibn Warrrick,

The bible was written by non-scientific men wandering around in a desert. To use it was an excuse for human rights abuses and war crimes is nonsense.

The old "Israel- the land God gave the Jews" would be laughable if it were not for the fact that millions of human beings are suffering because of this nonsense.

Why on earth is "God" classifying human beings into "chosen" and non-"chosen"?

I await your answer

We don’t all start from the same place on our journey. The modern democratic mind imagines us all starting on the same concentric circle striving for the centre.

But a closer look at reality, not the spiritualization of things according to our want, but the reality. We find the universe far from democratic.

Some ppl are born with more beauty, more wealth, more intelligence. In this respect the universe does not favour equality. Why are women selected to grow humans inside them and not men? Is that fair or equal? And those born with birth defects how is life dealing in equality here? Humans the only self conscious beings. Earth the only planet with life, etc etc.

The Jews were singled out for a great honour but with it comes a great responsibility. They are a priestly people, separate from the rest but their sufferings somehow redeem everyone.

Look at the burden they’ve had to carry being God’s chosen people – hatred and persecution. Would you want to be Jewish?

It could be sunisle that you might be called out from the pack and asked to do something for the living God. Remember ”if at first your hear his voice harden not your heart.”

God doesn’t deliberately make himself hard to understand, He wants to be understood and in many ways is simpler and younger than us. But at the same time, do you really think it true that God is going to be perfectly explicable to us?

“My ways are above your ways” says the Lord “as the heavens are above the earth.” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

I will tell you Our Lord and His Word are places to stand. You can build on these. Here its solid ground sunisle.

None of your attempts to understand will be wasted, they’ll most likely turn into diamonds.

sunisle,
while you slang of in a typical left wing way, we will be remembering that the Israelites want a peice of land about the size of the largest cities around the world. Islam on the other hand wishes to take and posess the whole world.

To those who say all semites are the same people, then why cannot the Jewish people have a tiny plot of land with their brothers? It should be noted that the eastern semites (arabic) came to the land of Israel somewhere between 700-900CE, their families had been much further east until their prophet sent them killing and rampaging into the promised land to kick the Jewish peoples out.

My point is that the best solution is the two state one (perhaps Jerusalem should become the new UN headquarter so they stop just talking about problems but are literally forced to do something, as neither side will give it up). Unfortunately the arabs, not only in palestine, but muslims around the world are not willing to accept this. witness the election of the murderous hamas, and yes a doctor that murders is still a murderer.

Anyone watch dateline. one of hamas's leaders was saying if "we are terrorists then all palestinians are too". I agree completely, all palestinians that voted for hamas are terrorists, and it is because of this we should consider moving that wall to include all the promised land and kicking the terrorists out. the muslims are always going on about their ummah. Lets see them help a brother for a change instead of being all talk (witness jordan)

fide mae,
Why do I not feel shocked that you disregard hundreds of thousands of human beings either occupied in 20% of what was once their country, in refugee camps around the world or massacred when the Europeans came and took their country?

Do these people not matter to you because they are Palestinians, Arab, Muslim or because they are not Jewish?

The Palestinians have been asking for an international peace keeping force to come in for decades..no prizes for guessing why Israel is not allowing them in. Yes, Jerusalem should be city for all religions..no prizes for guessing why Israel won't have this either.

Incidentally, 2 more Palestinian children were killed by the IOF last week; read the Guardian newspaper to find this out. It is the IOF who kill with impunity, not Hammas. Remember Rachel Corrie..it is not only Palestinians that the IOF killwith impunity. There is no rule of law in Israel when it comes to the IOF killing Palestinians.

I don't know whether you are a Zionist propaganist, or whether you are parroting what they- very efficiently- put throuth the mainstream media.

If you really do believe what you say, please go and see for yourself what is happening in the Occupied Territories; I defy anyone with a conscience to come back after witnessing the misery caused by Israelis occcupation and land theft, and not come away with a simmering frustration that people need to know. It is now more than 50 years since these human beings were robbed of their land, murdered and maligned in the Western press.

I urge you to go...but be warned...Israel does not want people to see what they are doing to these men, women and children. You will be grilled by Israeli stormtroopers before being "allowed" into the Palestinians land...they cannot even have access to foreign witnesses to their persecution.

What a nonsense – “Occupied Territories”!

It is ARAFATIA or, officially, the Palestinian Authority, where so-called Palestinians (the Arabs of Palestine more clear to me) do their business as they wish.

So, has one got any problem with “national determination”? Mafia rules as wherever in puppet-states, whether it is Bosnia or Latin American (and not A m e r i c a n only) banana republics.

Back to a movie, what did athletes have with then “Occupied Territories”? They where Israeli Jews and, perhaps, wanted free with dignity living in their country, which was Israel.

Would something be changed in the future? Danish sportsmen, for instance, hardly feel themselves much differently in any place in a world nowadays.

Conclusion: do not blame victims of terror – blame those who paid extremists to blow up any peaceful arrangement on very expense of their own people.

Steven Speilberg makes films for the masses. In other words they are candy. The palestinians murdered jewish athletes. The Jews sought revenge. They are the same race. I despise both parts of that same race. I will say though that whilst the jews are vicious they are not cowards like the palestinians. Both of them love to fight. It's in their blood. Hopefully it will go on forever. Trash v trash. Better than any movie you'll ever see. The educated v uneducated. Bullets v rocks. Make sure you check the profiles.

Colin Anderson's critique of the movie "Munich" is the second critique that I have read. The first critique was from a Jewish journalist who attacked the movie for it's total lack of historical accuracy. That journalist pointed out that the real life leader of the Mossad assassination teams sent to kill the leaders of the terrorist/ freedom fighters, (choose your own applicable) was not in the least purturbed by any moral qualms.

I personally think that the Jewish journalist had a very good point. Movie producers should stop presenting fiction as historical fact.

But Colin Anderson criticises the movie for it's moral equivalence. Colin is obviously a supporter of the Islamic domination of Palestine/Israel, and he attacks the notion that Israeli's could be presented in any way which might suggest that the presense of Israel has any validity.

Now Colin's viewpoint may strike a chord in the readership of the Green Left weekly, but his logic would hardly impress the readership of mainstream newspapers. Such readers might be impressed by Speiberg's even handed approach to the moral equivalence of the Israeli and Palestinian causes.

Colin Anderson attempts to justify his view that there is no moral equivalence between Israel and Palestine, by trotting out the usual stories of atrocities and oppression. What he fails to understand is that most readers are fully aware that what he says may be true, but that they are also aware that the Israeli's can do exactly the same thing.

For forty years, the Palestinains have done everything they could do, to drive Western public opinion to favour the Israeli's. Olympic athletes have the status of emmissaries. And civilised societies, even those at war, consider them untouchable. For the Palestinains or their supporters to now claim that the presumed moral supremancy of their own cause should have been highlighted in any movie about "Munich", is more worthy of hilarity than serious consideration.

My goodness Freidrick- what a lot of racial stereo-types. You seem to have everyone catagorized into racial and religious groups...good guys and bad guys.

Perhaps if you take the time to think, you will realise that human beings are more alike than unalike. If the Jewsih people from Europe had come and taken let's say- Texas- and either massacred or driven into refugee camps in other countries...would the people of Texas would have taken it lying down?

A powerful well-equipped Palestinian military occupying, stealing land and murdering Israelis with impunity is not happening; the
reverse is.

And Redneck, Colin's view has a much wider appeal- because it is a just and fair one; it is also the view of many Israelis, who are ashamed of their country's disregard for human rights and the rule of law. Try reading European newspapers.

Yes, back to the movie. There are uninformed people who will view this as "real". Unfortunately, and interestingly, Spielberg never mentions the 1948 massacres and diaspora of the Palestinian people. Neither does he show that Mossad got it wrong in Norway; they murdered a man,in front of his pregnant wife, who had no connection to Munich. If Spielberg were being fair he would have shown the life inflicted on the Palestinians before Munich ...and the total apathy of the powerful nations to their plight.

When Spielberg starts making movies about what has, and is still , happening to Palestinians he can be considered fair. Let's face it, this is happening as we speak; "Schindlers List" is not.

sunisle,

You spelt my name incorrectly.

Palestinians are mostly uneducated. I do however applaud them on ability to throw rocks and to wear towels around their unshaven faces.
By the way is it a sin to shave over there?

Whilst you despise jews at least they are educated. You can converse with a jew. They wash, shave(except the ones with long beards),clean their teeth, polish their shoes, don't fantazise about their first cousins, leave little boys alone.

The USA is run by jews. Your friends are on a rock throwing hiding to nothing.

FRIEDRICH

"You can converse with a jew. They wash, shave(except the ones with long beards),clean their teeth, polish their shoes, don't fantazise about their first cousins, leave little boys alone.

The USA is run by jews..."

Its slowly coming out. To characterise a race, even if "positive" is racist - a sad thing.

What part of (Greater) Germany did your ancestors come from mate?

Plantagenet

Friedrich, I wish to ask again (please hold your tongue BD)...

Are you a Christian? Can you justify your position if you are? Can you point to legitimate religious doctrine that supports your beliefs?

If not, you are no Christian, no matter what coat you claim to where.

Unfortunately the Israeli vs Palestinian struggle tends to drag most people down to that level. It's such a tempting debate to work out who is the most justified in killing the other. It's so easy to give way to hate and just follow one's passion without thinking.

It requires much more courage to unilaterally put down your arms and try to prevail with reason. Especially when the other party keeps shooting/bombing you. Yet that is what must happen before both parties find peace.

Can either side do this? It doesn't look promising from where I sit.

But thank goodness for people like Steven Spielberg who has the courage to call a spade a spade. Murder is murder whether it's done by Israeli's or Palestinians. No difference.

Steve42,
The two sides issues will not wash- Israel is occupying Palestinians and ignoring the UN, Interntaional law and all human rights bodies.....not the other way around.

The onus is on the agressor to stop....not the victim to lie down and accept it.

Besides anything else, Hamas gave up arms for the last year...Israel did not. Many Palestinians were killed by their occupiers...and of course the homes and crops destroyed, whilst Jews-only towns continue to be build on the little land left for the indigenous people.

I do not have time to go over the same facts every time....but this is not an issue about 2 sides fighting each other; it would be if they were 2 countries fighting each other with equal weaponry.

This is an issue about colonization and ethnic cleansing. The fact that Palestinians are resisting this should be no surprise; human beingsa have been fighting oppression as long as we have been on this earth.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Plantagenet. The inability of trendoids to even perceive the fundamental contradictions of their own logic was once parodied by George Orwell in his book "1984."

Your last post just provided a perfect specimen of this phenomenon. You lambasted a poster on his racism, and then displayed that you have exactly the same attitude yourself towards Germans.

Wow. I am impressed.

Herr Friedrich,

Za link below proovs u rong!

http://www.pcbs.org/_pcbs/arab_st/soc8_1.aspx
Palestinan Bureau of Statistics found on google search:
Total young palestinians enrolled in public and private schoold around 700,000 (male to female students ratio 51:48)
That makes it one of the highest according to population and the living conditions they are put in.

Tell me Fuhrer, vood u zend ur kidz to za school ven u liv in ze tent viz ur wif on von dolar per day?

Can you at least research the topic before pausing as an intellect?

FRIEDRICH and (your assistant) redneck

Note “FRIEDRICH” carries his “race” on his sleeve by putting his very German name in CAPITALS.

FRIEDRICH repeating what you said on Sunday, 5 February 2006 9:40:49 AM

"You can converse with a jew. They wash, shave(except the ones with long beards),clean their teeth, polish their shoes, don't fantazise about their first cousins, leave little boys alone. The USA is run by jews..."

redneck what you have decided to characterise as “lambasted” was my comment then question to FRIEDRICH which was:

“Its slowly coming out. To characterise a race, even if "positive" is racist - a sad thing. What part of (Greater) Germany did your ancestors come from mate?”

redneck - “lambasted” are you being dishonest?

One reason I’m interested in this issue is that I lived for 2 years in northern Germany at the then British military base at Falingbostel, near Hanover. This camp was around 15 km from the Belsen concentration camp – where many of the newsreels of dead and dying Jews came from.

Germans had a particular “attitude” to Jews in Belsen. I’m not saying that setting Jews apart is restricted to Germans. Its widely held particularly in central European countries and even amongst Australians.

As I said before “positive” comments still set Jews apart – this is unhelpful because it is wilfully generalising about a diverse group of people held together loosely by a religion. Some of these people look like Arabs, Germans, Russians or English etc. The same could be said of Muslims, but this is, of course, counter to the beliefs of many posters on this thread.

FRIEDRICH if your “positive” comments are a way to set Jews apart (and be doing so set them up – in order to be knocked down) then for want of a better term this is racism.

Now I suspect that you aren’t concerned about the racist tag.

Maybe your gripe is that it was primarily the resources of the US “run by jews” that beat Germany (a country your capitalised name loudly proclaims) in Hitler’s War.

Pete

Reason,

I am a Christian(not a very good one apparently).

plantagenet,

Richard Perle Jew
Paul Wolfowitz Jew
Douglas Feith Jew
Edward Luttwak Jew
Dov Zakheim Jew
Kenneth Adelman Jew
Lewis Libby Jew
Robert Satloff Jew
Elliott Abrams Jew
Marc Grossman Jew

The list is a lot longer. Give me the go ahead.

Onya FREIDRICH

OLO posters (eg rightwingers, "Christians" etc) should always be aware what they are allied to - as reflected in what you just wrote above.

For the sake of relevance to "Munich". Mossad is widely respected in the intelligence community for being on the ball (having good contacts) and taking action, usually against those Muslims who are terrorists.

Pete

Fellow-human,

"Can you at least research the topic before pausing as an intellect".

Should that be posing as an intellectual?

The Second World War was started by the countries that demanded Germany pay war reparations after WW1. The demands could not possibly be met. Enter Adolf Hitler. The USA should not have fought against a European country. Brother against brother. Wrong.

As for the claim that I am a Nazi/Racist/white supremist. I can only say do I not bleed when I am cut? As my grandpapa used to say"we must never forget what it is that we remember to forget".OI VEY. MOSSAD SMOSSAD. I think I might retire to Florida. Business is business. All we want is justice. Pass the soup mildred. Me racist? NEVER.

Amazing, Platangenet. Utterly amazing.

I pointed out to you the fundamental contradiction in your own argument. But instead of acknowledging it, you deny it by continuing to present an argument that is itself a contradiction.

Let’s take this s-l-o-w-l-y will we?

You claim that racism is utterly verboten. You claim that stereotyping people, even stereotyping people positively, is unacceptable racism. You then recount a tale of living in Germany where you formed the opinion that the Germans are anti Semitic.

By characterising Germans as anti Semitic and racist, you are labeling Germans with a negative stereotype. Which according to your sacred logic is racist.

Now personally, I see nothing wrong with stereotyping, prejudging or forming positive or negative opinions about anybody. But I shake my head in pitying wonder at the incredible mindsets of people like you, who routinely violate a principle which they claim is a moral absolute that must never be violated.

This appears to be characteristic of the lack of intellectual capacity from people with your mindset. Over and over, I get posters on this site coming out with real gems of contradiction such as “The only people who look down on others, are ill educated rednecks with low intelligence.”

Orwell was right.

Tell me. Is your opposition to racism the product of critical analysis? Or do you simply parrot the arguments of the peers who you admire and who do your thinking for you?

Friedrich,

SO you hate Jews, you want to 'eradicate all Muslims' but you are not racist and to you this is 'justice'.

Herr Fried- rich,

We all studied history of WW1 & 2 (or at least a version of it).
History = past and the only value it holds is our learnings from it and moving forward to become better people to oursleves and each other.

What is your view on a better world then?

Well, talking of Australia, this is a sanctuary for flourishing rednecks of a native Britons' origin where xenophobia affects equally any outsider – an Arab, European, Jew, Japanese etc. etc. etc., even not speaking of religious differences.

However, Spielberg’s movies are on related but different topic, and made from a safe haven of California, embedding the war times’ tragedies and Jewish - Arabian relations, his films to me are as much realistic as musical “The Cats ” has been educative at the lessons in ecology.

Redneck

Most German’s I have known have been deeply apologetic about the racist past of Germany and for Germany starting WWII.

I was trying to establish with FRIEDRICH how he really stood (on Jewish people, and German’s past).

His answers are eerie but in character for a certain group. Hence he wrote:

“Richard Perle Jew
Paul Wolfowitz Jew
Douglas Feith Jew
Edward Luttwak Jew
Dov Zakheim Jew
Kenneth Adelman Jew
Lewis Libby Jew
Robert Satloff Jew
Elliott Abrams Jew
Marc Grossman Jew

The list is a lot longer. Give me the go ahead.

Posted by FRIEDRICH, Monday, 6 February 2006 1:20:37 PM”

The extreme right revisionist view of WWII has long read something like this:

“The Second World War was started by the countries that demanded Germany pay war reparations after WW1. The demands could not possibly be met. Enter Adolf Hitler. The USA should not have fought against a European country. Brother against brother. Wrong…..

Posted by FRIEDRICH, Monday, 6 February 2006 7:14:24 PM”

Neo Nazi’s are occasionally allied to radical Muslims given their shared hatred of Jews.

See this article http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/012qltyo.asp

“Such an alliance seems unlikely on its face; after all, neo-Nazis view most Muslims as racially inferior, while Islamic extremists believe that neo-Nazis are just another flavor of infidel. However, a closer examination reveals that many white-supremacist groups have expressed solidarity with Islamic terrorists recently, and in turn some white supremacists and far-right Holocaust deniers have found newfound supporters among the Islamists.”

So that’s about the size of it redneck. I admit I don’t like neo Nazi’s whatever their race.

Where do you stand on this?

Pete

Goodness, this thread has been hijacked into dwelling on old history..."the" holocaust...as if African Americans, Native Americans, Australian aborignal people, the Irish, the Russians etc. have not had their own suffering in the past.

Get over it! We are talking about the present persecution of Palestinians. There is no monopoly of suffering in the past. We can help human beings suffering now...so stop hijacking this thread to the past to divert from what is happening RIGHT NOW.

The human beings in Israel are occupying, stealing land, and murdering other human beings...anything else is a red herring....so get over it and deal with this issue.

Amaaazing. Just amaaaazing, Mr Plantagenet.

You emphatically proclaim that prejudging, labeling and stereotyping any group of people is utterly PC verboten. But then you prejudge, label and stereotype Nazi’s and Islamic extremists. But you can not see the contradiction, can you? Amaaazing.

Whether you despise any group of people because of their race or for their political, social or religious beliefs, it is still racism. Despising Nazis is racism. Despising moderate Nazis is racism. Despising liberal Nazis is racism. Despising Islamic fundamentalists is racism. Despising Islamic moderates is racism. Despising Islamic liberals is racism. Have you got it now?

Where do I stand?

In the late 19th century, sex and booze were the manifestations of evil according to the moral puritans of the day. But today’s moral puritans have focused upon racism as the 8th Deadly Sin. Oddly enough, these puritans are unable to comprehend that by denouncing some groups of people that do not conform to their concept of right and wrong, they are guilty of the very Cardinal sin that they stridently claim is a moral absolute.

Get it through your fuzzy head that in group/ out group aggression is as normal as sex. You can denounce it as inappropriate to a particular circumstance, but you can not denounce it as a moral absolute. Because sure as God made little green apples, you are going to display hostility to groups that you don’t approve of, just like everybody else does. As a matter of fact, you did it in your last three posts. You see, my dear Plantagenet, it is entirely normal behaviour

redneck

Calm down mate.

I was immediately aware of an intellectual contradiction. But as I implied before I was seeking to make it plain where the extreme right of OLO stood. This I did with FRIEDRICH. I respect his right to have these views as they are clearly expressed.

Now I admit (with 99% of Australians) that Australians indeed "prejudge, label and stereotype Nazi’s and Islamic extremists." OK you got me there.

Both groups are anathema to the wider Australian community. A few Aussies may sympathise though...

Now what ARE your views? Presumably you don't favour Islamic extremists.

[With relevance to the film "Munich" (long forgotten in this discussion) I wouldn't want to be an Islamic extremist living in Israel.]

If its the right of neo Nazi's to freedom of speech thats fine.

Pete

fellow-human,

Are you serious? Have you not heard a Jew say "all we want is justice"? You back up my claim that the majority of moslems lack the ability to comprehend.

Congratulations to your moslem mateys for burning down embassies. In the Tele today a journalist wrote that the moslems were vandals. Will I still be able to buy a paper tomorrow? Is anybody going to burn down the newspaper building?

What about the book shops in Lakemba that have material denying Jesus died on a cross. Lovely stuff.

Islam.Wicked.Vicious.

Fuhrer Fried Rich,

First, the cartoons were published 5 months ago and most Muslims reacted with Danish products boycott and some engaged in dialogue.

Most Muslims individuals, groups and Imams rejected the violence and threats to embassies and individuals caused by the usual Islamist suspects.

Second, Jesus (pbuh) is a prophet in our faith and it is the Trinity that contradicts with the "God is one" teachings of Islam. Crucifix and Trinity is faith matters to Christians only not for Muslims.

Third, the Quran is contextual on Jesus and the crucifix have multiple theories. Further recommended reading by Dr Ahmad Deedat theory on Jesus crucifix in Islam.

Auf vieder zen,