Seems to me she’s taken offence at comparisons between the aggressive behaviour of the Nazi German government and the present Israeli one.

I see, yes, had a look at other references to the incident after my post. I didn’t get from the clip that she was objecting (apparently) to Finklestein’s use of the adjective Nazi to describe the Israeli government.

If you look at the annexing of Gaza and the treatment of the Palestinians then there are certain parallels with historical world events.

Interesting video.

Bushwacked – Member

If you look at the annexing of Gaza and the treatment of the Palestinians then there are certain parallels with historical world events.

Be careful ….. the last time someone made a comparison between the Nazis and Israel, Mark closed the thread :

Mark – Resident Grumpy

Making comparisons with Nazis is too much.

Click

Good spot ernie.

footflaps – Member

Things might change once Iran gets nuclear war heads on their missiles. Israel might have start behaving responsibly and compromise. 😯

Ernie, did I say anything of the sort..? I was referring to the English occupation of the Welsh. 😉

Perhaps the rest of the world needs to get over the collective political holocaust guilt which seems to be clouding everybodies judgement and stop treating Israel with kid gloves.

The rest of the world has collective holocaust guilt that clouds its judgement and causes it to treat Israel with kid gloves?

Thats my take on it Konabunny but of course that is just my opinion. It just seems to me that Israel is a very small country that makes a lot of noise and threats and does a lot of damage in a region of the world where the UN, US and UK would normally step in and put a stop to such aggressive behaviour.

Any criticism of Israel always results in cries of anti-semitism and ‘remember the holocaust’. The worlds governments seem reluctant to take Israel to task properly; there has to be some reason for it as without Israel causing a lot of hassle the middle East would probably be a much less volatile part of the world. I can only come to the conclusion that none of Israels allies have the stomach to say ‘the holocaust happened, it was awful, you’ve been given a country of your own as a result of it now move on’.

The link to the Finklestein video shows that even a professor of Jewish descent has a hard time trying to argue that the pro-zionist movement within Israels government is destructive and needs to stop living in the past. In fact it is worth looking up Finklestein (I was a bit sad and looked up some of his stuff last night), he makes a lot of persuasive arguments and has clearly spent his whole professional life trying to understand why Israel is, as he puts it, an ‘insane nation’.

I shall accept any vicious attacks on my views and principles from my fellow STWers with good grace. Let the flaming commence…

like all religion- Zionism seeks justify its hegemony on the graves of all others.

The link to the Finklestein video shows that even a professor of Jewish descent has a hard time trying to argue that the pro-zionist movement within Israels government is destructive and needs to stop living in the past. In fact it is worth looking up Finklestein (I was a bit sad and looked up some of his stuff last night), he makes a lot of persuasive arguments and has clearly spent his whole professional life trying to understand why Israel is, as he puts it, an ‘insane nation’.

Finkelstein is prominent mostly because he is Jewish and a critic of Israel. Like black swans and those black hat fruit loops that periodically show up in Iran, Venezuela and Libya, he is remarkable only because he is an outlier.

Obviously everyone within every Israeli government is a Zionist. They wouldn’t be interested in the job if they didn’t support the creation and maintenance of Israel as a homeland for the Jews.

Your suggestion that Israelis stop living in the past is wrongheaded: it suggests that they’re a bunch of retrograde Holocaust-botherers, which they’re not, it risks binning the lessons of the past, and it ignores the importance of reconciling with historical narratives if Palestinians and Israelis are ever to live sustainably in the future.

For its part, Palestinian society has yet to really acknowledge its political class’s utter failure on so many occasions over the past 70 years: 47, 67, 70, 73, 82, the intifada, 1991, Camp David…and a major stumbling block (one of many) to a permanent negotiated peace is the demand for the right of return to pre-1967 or even pre-47 lands, and Hamas’s failure to recognize the State of Israel. If one were as crass as you, one could describe this as “living in the past”, as everyone back in the real world recognizes that such positions are hopelessly quixotic and wishing away the past few decades of reality: the land will never be resumed (at best, there will be some compensation and nominal land swaps), and the state is just not going to disappear.

not all israelis are zionists,that finkelstein argues on behalf of oppressed people seems to annoy all those who try to present jews as all right wing reactionaries. He at least talks in reasonable terms, and there is hope for humanity once the zealots are removed from influence.

Lol Junkyard I was referring to the other thread in a number of those statements you so lovingly collated and arranged. I’m truly honored you took the time to do that.

Enjoy your thread Junk, you never know – there might be a few more people ‘brave’ enough to disagree with one or two of your political points who feel like posting soon! Then you’ll all be able to gang up on him and show him your intellectual ‘wrath’ as well haha. Fun times.

(For the 2nd and last time, I’m out. So please don’t feel the need (as much as you love me) to insult me behind my back when I’m gone again, but feel more than free to reply to this last comment if you so wish.

For the 2nd and last time, I’m out.

Ah, so the first time out was a pseudo flounce.

Bushwacked – Member
If you look at the annexing of Gaza and the treatment of the Palestinians then there are certain parallels with historical world events.

Be careful ….. the last time someone made a comparison between the Nazis and Israel, Mark closed the thread :

Mark – Resident Grumpy
Making comparisons with Nazis is too much.
Click

And unfortunately its this attitude that criticism of Israel and the comparison to another historic occupational regime which imposed strict controls on a occupied population within its own occupied lands and the fear of being compared yourself to the unmentionable regime and thus to be branded anti-semitic that has helped to prevent the situation in the middle east being resolved.

I think when it comes to comparisons people need to remember that the Nazi murdered over 11 Million people 5million who were not Jewish.

The comparison with the Nazi’s is not from the extermination based on religion but the occupation and ghettoisation of the indigenous population.

I don’t have time to argue this to its fullest extent but let me quote (in very simple wikipedia terms)

[quick wiki quote]

Soon after the 1939 Invasion of Poland, the German Nazis began to systematically move Polish Jews away from their homes and into designated areas of larger Polish cities and towns. Many ghettos were walled off or enclosed with barbed wire.

In the case of sealed ghettos, any Jew found leaving them was shot. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest ghetto in Nazi occupied Europe, with over 400,000 Jews crammed into an area of 1.3 square miles (3.4 km2).

Open ghettos, which did not have walls or fences, existed mostly in initial stages of World War II in German-occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union, but also in Transnistria province of Ukraine occupied and administrated by Romanian authorities. There were severe restrictions on entering and leaving them.

[/quick wiki quote]

From 1947 there was forced removal of the Arab population from towns such as Ashkelon (1950) and subsequent the occupation of the territories and an ever increasing tightening of restrictions and controls on movement and liberties of the occupied populace eventually leading up to the construction of a wall denying them access to their land.

Just because it has taken 50 or 60 years to get to this point as opposed to 5 years 60 years ago doesn’t stop the comparison being valid.

For reference I am a descendant of a lucky survivor of the invasion of Poland.

Sir Gerald Kaufman address to the House.

Sir Gerald Kaufman, veteran Labour MP, comparing the actions of Israeli troops in Gaza to the Nazis who forced his family to flee Poland.

Mark –
Making comparisons with Nazis is too much.

Not apparently for a Jewish MP.

The interesting thing about Gerald Kaufman is not the position which he takes now, but how his position has changed over time. I remember Kaufman as a pro-Zionist Jew and the reason that he is today one of Israel’s most outspoken critics, and compares the Israelis with the Nazis, is a direct result of Israel’s behaviour towards Palestinian’s over past decades.

Whilst there is little doubt that the very many Jews who throughout the world are prepared to publicly denounce the Zionist State and its treatment of the Palestinian people often do so with such passion precisely because they are reminded of what the Nazis did, it can nevertheless take some guts as they are invariably vilified by pro-Zionist Jews as “Jewish self-haters”. In contrast I was never vilified as a “white self-hater” due to my opposition to the racist Apartheid Regime. And btw the racist Apartheid Regime had, unsurprisingly, no truer friend than Israel.

And the comparisons between Nazi tactics and those of the Zionists aren’t restricted solely to the policy of Lebensraum, the expulsion of the Palestinians from their lands into sealed areas where everything that goes in and comes out is very strictly (and totally illegally) controlled. In the case of Gaza it is the largest concentration of people on Earth.

Or the use of armed civilians/settlers as instruments of conquest by moving them into occupied territories – in direct violation of Geneva Convention. Any resistance to these armed civilians/settlers btw is classed as an act of terrorism.

But also the much used Israeli tactic of Collective Punishment against the population in reprisal for resistance to Zionist occupation, which again is in direct violation of Geneva Convention.

And the Collective Punishment of the perceived racially inferior doesn’t just take the form of the bombing and slaughter of unarmed and defenseless men, women, and children, but the Zionist resprisal tactics also includes the increased illegal blockade of the Gaza ghetto/concentration camp to cause new punishing levels of hardship.

Plus increased restriction of free movement to all Palestinians, irrespective of why they need it – medical treatment, agricultural activity, etc. The bulldozing of homes, and so on.

All this is in addition to the normal daily denial to Palestinians of things such as sufficient water for their personal and agricultural needs, or the systematic wholesale destruction of Palestinian olive groves – a vital source of livelihood for Palestinians. And of course all the other hardships caused by Israel’s ongoing illegal occupation.

I think when it comes to comparisons people need to remember that the Nazi murdered over 11 Million people 5million who were not Jewish.

What light do you think that comment throws on the subject at hand, exactly?