Last Word in Anti-Semitism - LA Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-reich28may28,1,5492662.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

" Genocidal mass murder continues to foul the world. So do large-scale massacres of civilians and brutal executions.

Yet the foulest epithet in any language — "Nazi" — is hurled not against any of the perpetrators of those crimes but, uniquely and systematically, against Israel.

It's not as if the real horrors are hard to find. To see a state-sponsored genocidal campaign, go to Sudan, where troops of the Muslim Arab government in Khartoum, and the Arab militias supplied by that government, are systematically targeting black tribes. Thousands have been murdered and a million driven from their homes by a program of bombing villages, shooting men, women and children, widespread rape and forced thirst and starvation. Yet the word "Nazi" isn't commonly used against the Sudanese authorities, whether by Arab countries or any others, just as it wasn't used against the Rwandan authorities who organized the genocide of about 800,000 Tutsis."

Perhaps a lesson here is that any strong position one takes will have some interesting bedfellows, and it's worth at least looking at who's with you (or seems to be)and what their motives are. On both sides.

I think most people make the mistake of freely substituting 'Nazi' for fascist'.

Some people do sometimes use the phrase "Nazi" when they mean "fascist". These people show their ignorance of the difference between the two phrases and do so in a way which is highly insensitive and incorrect. Nazism has entered the cultural heritage of Judaism in a way which is extremely painful and which has NOT been duplicated in any remote way in the Middle East with the possible exceptions of the sufferings of the Armenians and the Zoroastrians.

However, what this article says is that these days Israel is the most common recipient of commentary using this term. And I think this difference is caused by those who choose to play with the strongest iconography they can think of to attack Israeli policy. Many people are quite aware of the linkage between Nazism and Judaism, however, they fail because they also make a stereotypical leap that Israel and Judaism are completely equivalent which is not true; Judaism is NOT expressed by, or is the expression of, the policies and politicians of Israel. So in their attack of Israel, they attack Judaism and do so in a way which is bigoted.

Whether it is through ignorance or implied intent is not important. This is why such comparisons are not allowed here on DU.

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...both for describing Israeli tactics as analogous to those used against Jews by Nazis and even for using metaphors that referred to specific fascist organizations, such as the SS. This was over a year ago, and I now avoid those analogies, so I can't speak for the present situation, but such censorship HAS been the rule in the past.

Among them are civility, and a certain necessary minimum of agreement that allows, at the end of the day, for people to agree to disagree without forfeiting self-respect. In an anonymous and remote venue such as this, many of the normal enforcement mechanisms for civility in particular cannot operate. People find it easy to say things they would not be capable of saying, or maintaining in countenance, were they actually face to face with their opponents. This tends to drive rhetoric to excess, and excite persons to employ deliberately giving offense as a technique of argument. At best, the result is not discussion or debate, but mere shouting contests, devoid of any meaning to either participant, or to any spectators.

A further consideration is the question of fact, of whether a statement is in any meaningful sense true. A person has, in the abstract, certainly, the right to lie in a discussion, but a person who does so can hardly be said to be making a useful contribution to discourse on a subject by the doing. In most instances, a person who has chosen to employ deliberate lies in a debate cannot be persuaded to cease the practice: no matter how often it is demonstrated the statement employed is untrue, such a person will continue to repeat it. This throws a tremendous burden on the opposition, which must continually re-state the refutation, before proceeding to any other point. That is, in fact, one of the reasons people employ such a technique, as a strategy for diverting and finally exhausting their opponent's energies.

You may have heard of Gresham's Law, that if two currencies are available for use, one debased and one good, the latter will be driven from circulation by the former, as people will seek to keep for themselves the good, and palm off on others by expenditure the debased. Something similar operates in discussion and debate. Where people employ debased methods of argument, persons who seek to engage in civil and rational discussion tend to depart the venue, and leave the field to the mindless shriekers. For someone who wishes to maintain a forum available for civil and rational discussion of a matter, this is a thing to avoid, and so it is proper for them to take some steps to avoid or prevent it.

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When you can point to my urging as a sacred duty incumbent on all who speak the language the execution of any who abuse or mis-use it in this manner, you may compare my comments above to the fatwa against Mr. Rushdie. As it stands, you have merely indulged in the sort of extreme hyperbole that so often mars discussion of this particular issue, and certainly contributes nothing meaningful or productive to it.

Connotations of a word must bear some real relation to what it denotes, else we are off in the Wonderland of Alice, where "When I use a word, it means just what I say it means." There is absolutely nothing distictively Nazi about the use of cruel, unethical, and murderous means to achieve some end considered higher than those means: that is the normal activity of nations and political movements throughout history: it would be easier by far to list the exceptions than to list those which hewed to such commonplace and orthodox techniques. Nor is there anything distinctively Nazi about a nation or state or a political movement being imbued with a sense of racial or ethnic superiority: that too is the garden variety condition throughout history. Therefore, the usage of Nazi you claim, or suggest, is one that has very little real usefulness in conveying meaning about the thing it is intended to describe. It gives you no grounds for discerning between what you have attached the epithet to, and polities as different as Imperial China, Stalin's Soviet Union, or the ante-bellum United States. It resembles giving the police a decription of a criminal to be apprehended that reads in its entirity: "A human being."

In the broadest possible terms, what renders Nazism distinct from other collective human misbehaviors is its extremity. Serious attempts to exterminate entirely entire groups of humans are not that common in history, though that is not unheard of. The prosecution of such attempts with the degree of vigor, and degree of success, achieved by the Nazis in their endeavor, is even more rare. Thus it would be quite proper to liken to the Nazis those who have made attempts at extermination which achieve a great part of the desired end, even if the stated motivations or ideologies of the criminals had no relation to actual Nazi doctrine, or Nazi practice otherwise. In the latter half of the twentieth century two episodes which stand out clearly as worthy of such comparison are the Khymer Rouge and Rwanda, and three which stand out in the half century or so before the Nazis are the Ottoman campaign against Armenians, King Leopold's Congo, which by its degree transcended its origin as a campaign to force labor, and Imperial Germany's campaign against the Hiero in German Southwest Africa, which, although involving a not particularly numerous tribe of rebels, was explicitly ordered as an extermination campaign.

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Abstract words always have many connotations. It is a non-starter to say that the connotation I provided is Alice in Wonderland.

That broad definitions exist for abstract words is not new. As stated in the subject line "Zionism has always meant different things to different people...

"The Zionist Organization had developed a genius for not answering, or answering ambiguously, all questions of political consequence. Everyone was free to interpret Zionism as he pleased . . . ."(Hannah Arendt)...

Zionist leaders have put off indefinitely the attempt to resolve the resulting conflicts and even contradictions generated by different interpretations of Zionism. This explains why the "Jewish state" has no constitution and why many fundamental questions about the nature of Israel remain undefined. The avoidance of a battle over conflicting definitions of what is a Jewish state is one of the reasons why Israel has a vested interest in maintaining the state of war in the Middle East. This interest has been openly acknowledged by a former president of the World Jewish Congress, Nahum Goldmann:


On the day when peace comes, the leftist movement will undoubtedly be very strong in Israel, and it will be anti-Orthodox. A great cultural battle will then break out which, like Ben Gurion, I want to avoid at this moment: as long as war prevails, that kind of internal struggle would be terribly dangerous. But after the hostilities the first thing to do will be to separate religion and state. Today we confine ourselves to telling the leftists: "Don't make a fuss on this question, you will be obstructing our defence policy, which requires national unity" -- and the leftists, being good patriots, give way. But after the peace they will resume the debate.5

http://www.realnews247.com/jewish_criticism_of_zionism.htm

The issue isn't one of free speech as no one is denying your right to say whatever you want, but rather one of reasoned and rational debate which this board demands and expects from it's participants.

You can argue all you want, but the use of inflammatory vocabulary and iconography is highly disrespectful and adds little to nothing to the debate.

Statements such as "in their attack of Israel, they attack Judaism" is patently wrong and incense critics of Israel because they are smeared as being anti-semitic. There are numerous Jews who speak out against Israel such as Mordacai Vananau, Norman Finklestein, Jews Against Zionism. Are they attacking Judaism?

The issue here is about the use of Nazi iconography to make a cheap attack against Israel, not whether any criticism against Israel is anti-Semitic. As for whether the usage is anti-Semitic is based upon the knowing intent of the user. However, as I stated above such usage is indeed insensitive and frequently the coin of those who ARE anti-Semitic.

Norman Finkelstein and Mordecai Vanunu tend to follow a very rational and reasoned approach to discussion of Israel, its policies and its supporters. For instance, while you may or may not agree with Finkelstein's comments about such subjects as the _Holocaust Industry_, or his rebuttals to Joan Peters, Benny Morris, and Alan Dershowitz he consistantly and conscientiously chooses to use language which avoids the type of cheap iconography which detracts from the quality of the discourse.


On Edit: Grammar.

What he said!

and stuff...

and used only to inflame and incite not to lend insight.

Does Israel have a government that has outlawed all political parties?

Does the political party of the Prime Minister of Israel rely on para military organizations to intimidate its political opponents?

Is the Israeli economic system based on a marriage of capitalism and the state?

Has Israel embarked on an imperialist campaign against its neighbors in order to cleanse it of those seen as inhuman?

Does Israel have eugenics laws?

Has Israel begun a systematic murder of the non Jews with in its borders?

Is the Bush family secretly laundering money for the Israeli government?

If you really feel this strongly about Israel, if you truly feel that Israel is as bad as Nazi Germany then you should be fighting them right now like the brave members of the Lincoln Brigade fought Hitler in Spain. You don't actually beleive they are as bad as Nazi Germany unless you don't actually think Nazi Germany was particularly bad. In fact, I would be willing to bet you can't make a compelling argument that Israel is even the worst government within a one hundred mile radius of Jerusalem.

The only reason to make the comparison is to anger people so stop whining when people get angry when you do it. Take responsibity for your irresponsibility.

...

The refugees tell of sudden attacks by the camel-riding Janjaweed Arab militia, which is financed by the Sudanese government, then a panic of shooting and fire. Girls and women are routinely branded after they are raped, to increase the humiliation.

One million Darfur people are displaced within Sudan, and 200,000 have fled to Chad. Many of those in Sudan are stuck in settlements like concentration camps.

I've obtained a report by a U.N. interagency team documenting conditions at a concentration camp in the town of Kailek: Eighty percent of the children are malnourished, there are no toilets, and girls are taken away each night by the guards to be raped. As inmates starve, food aid is diverted by guards to feed their camels.

The standard threshold for an "emergency" is one death per 10,000 people per day, but people in Kailek are dying at a staggering 41 per 10,000 per day — and for children under 5, the rate is 147 per 10,000 per day. "Children suffering from malnutrition, diarrhea, dehydration and other symptoms of the conditions under which they are being held live in filth, directly exposed to the sun," the report says.

"The team members, all of whom are experienced experts in humanitarian affairs, were visibly shaken," the report declares. It describes "a strategy of systematic and deliberate starvation being enforced by the GoS and its security forces on the ground." (Read the 11-page report here.)

Demographers at the U.S. Agency for International Development estimate that at best, "only" 100,000 people will die in Darfur this year of malnutrition and disease. If things go badly, half a million will die.

This is not a natural famine, but a deliberate effort to eliminate three African tribes in Darfur so Arabs can take their land. The Genocide Convention defines such behavior as genocide, and it obliges nations to act to stop it. That is why nobody in the West wants to talk about Darfur — because of a fear that focusing on the horror will lead to a deployment in Sudan.

...

Yet while Mr. Bush has done far too little, he has at least issued a written statement, sent aides to speak forcefully at the U.N. and raised the matter with Sudan's leaders. That's more than the Europeans or the U.N. has done. Where are Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac? Where are African leaders, like Nelson Mandela? Why isn't John Kerry speaking out forcefully? And why are ordinary Americans silent?

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/29/opinion/29KRIS.html

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someone ought to inform them that their saviors are on their way and should be there any minute now, any minute...

granting my approval to the policies of the EU or the UN in this matter.

One must distinguish "like a Nazi" from "is a Nazi", the former
allows much more latitude of application.

I have seen "is a Nazi" applied to Mr. Bush and various other parts
of the US ruling clique with great abandon and little apparent
understanding of the words meaning, and that arouses less debate
precisely because it lacks the emotional slap-in-the-face that it
has when applied to Israel.

The use of the term as a general pejorative has no place in
reasoned debate, and that seems to be it's most common use, so
I think it would be better avoided, unless propaganda is one's
purpose in the first place.

This fellow appeared to be to be trying to draw the anti-Israel
is anti-semite equivalence, albeit circuitously, and that is another
reason to avoid use of the term ,as its uses serves to discredit
otherwise reasonable criticism of Israeli policies.

This fellow appeared to be to be trying to draw the anti-Israel
is anti-semite equivalence, albeit circuitously, and that is another
reason to avoid use of the term ,as its uses serves to discredit
otherwise reasonable criticism of Israeli policies.

That is indeed one of the reasons why it adds little to the debate and not allowed.

I have seen "is a Nazi" applied to Mr. Bush and various other parts
of the US ruling clique with great abandon and little apparent
understanding of the words meaning, and that arouses less debate
precisely because it lacks the emotional slap-in-the-face that it
has when applied to Israel.

In the case of Bush, it is okay because it does not involve any side cultural issues. However, it does not add much to the debate as it is often distracting from any reasoned criticism of his policies and record. (Which should be easy enough as it is). However, the best case I've seen for bringing it up is to say his family did get rich and benefit from its ties to Nazi Germany up through a period after the US and Germany were officially at war.

I find it a tedious and silly line of argument.

There were many who thought well in one degree or another
of the Nazis, and it was never their politics as such that
set them apart so much as the zealous efficiency with which
they pursued them, and the fact that they lost of course,
pace to all who think them special, I do not.

It has long seemed to me that we would do better in addressing
the problem of man's inhumanity to man if we admitted that it
is not a special tendency that one finds only in aberrant
individuals, but rather a tendency that lives comfortably in
all of us.

If one wishes to stop the use of torture, for example, one must
admit that it is never acceptable, one cannot simultaneously
adhere to principle and expediency. It civilization must fall
because it adheres to principle, then it must fall, otherwise it
is not in fact civilization, but merely barbarism with a civil
facade, when that is expedient.

as the great Steven Cordry said about Abu Ghariab...
"Its not important that we tortured them, its important that we aren't the kind of people who would torture them."

Study after study shows that people who control the lives of other people get goofy if proper safegaurds aren't in place.

What is important is that we tortured them.
We clearly are the kind of people who would torture them.
What is your view?

he is a comedian....it was a joke....he is on the Daily Show.

My view is that he summed up the rediculousness of the situation in one line.

Hence it did not seem obvious to me that it was parody.
And I don't watch TV I'm afraid.

then you miss a lot of funny people making fun of the Evil Empire.

I trust you will carry on without me.

the quality of TV is better than the quality of books.

Do you read much?

I work for a reading school...

Why do you ask?

five of the top ten selling books in the US are diet books. People like the IDEA of books but they don't actually like books. Most books suck. The majority of books are written by people like Barbra Cartlan, Louis L'Amour and Tom Clancy. And books are really bad with breaking news...


Im kind of kidding...I just don't like TV snobs.

how do you know you don't like it?

on how much Jergens you are using.

He would be a very dangerous man to play cards against....

A dying art these days, too.

doubt that anyone watching the daily show misunderstood the intention of that bit.

but thank you anyway for reassuring me.

nobody should dare think they get the last word on any matter.

were Nazis, there is a bit of history there. I will not speculate as to whether current Palestinians are pro-Nazi (some of their leaders are apologists) or whether calling them that is helpful.

There are sufficient consequences visited on the present state of Arab Palestinians for the errors of half a century and more ago, with accusing those present now of the sins of their ancestors.

with the crimes of the Nazis.

Please read this thread for more info on this lie.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=69012#69147

Posts 29 and 30 particularly

The collaboration of Arab Nationalist leadership with the Reich is well established, and you will find any effort to dispute it futile....

. I dispute the mufti's involvement with Holocaust. I don't dispute they may have had military alliances with Germans to fight the British colonial governments, or that they actively tried to keep zionist Jews from immigrating and establishing the Israeli State. American's and Brits did the same thing to all jews fleeing nazi germany in general. I dispute completely that they were philosophical nazis or personally shipped Jews to Auschwitz. I despute that the mufti was involved in the planning of the final solution. I consider such claimes lies and fearmongering. If you can prove otherwise feel free.

Is no trivial matter: to lend material assistance to that regime of cosmic rascism and murder, and actively seek and hope for its victory, is to partake of all crimes it committed, and desired to commit when successful. To have been an exceedingly junior partner in the enterprise is no real mitigation.

The Mufti doubtless was no philosophical Nazi, as he doubtless did not view the Aryan as supreme by right over all other creatures, or interpert history as a cosmic struggle between the noble and spiritual Aryan and the base and material Jew, that could only end by one of those contenders exterminating the other. That he was a deeply committed Anti-Semite, however, is beyond reasonable doubt. That is quite evident from his public speeches and actions, beginning with his incitement to murderous riot in Jerusalem in 1920, and continuing on throughout his career. Nor is there any real room for doubt he found his principle point of identity with the Reich in his murderous attitude towards Jews, and not in some clean anti-colonialist sentiment, as is easily imagined by some today who share that latter distaste.

The Mufti's major material contribution to the crimes of the Reich centers on the influence he was able to exert on Moslem peoples actually brought into the orbit of the Reich during the war. He was prominent in recruiting efforts for the S.S. Skanderberg unit, raised among Moslems in Yugoslavia. This was a notorious band that compiled a ghastly record in partisan suppression campaigns in Serbia. His recruiting pitch emphasized that victory for the Reich was the way to success in cleansing Palestine of Jews.

of the Israeli state. There is no doubt about this. I think most people would do the same given the fact that it was where their home was and that state and it didn't include them. Ultimately they ethnically cleansed 90% of the Palestinians. There were also massacres by zionists against Palestinians in the 20's and 30s. They should not be smeared with Nazism. That is just silly. The Palestinians were to busy fighting their own battles to be concerned with what was happening in Europe at the time. Why the hell are they more culpable for denying Jews the right to immigrate their than Americans and Brits?

A dozenth re-hash of this thing, put bluntly, does not much interest me now.

The fact remains that the Mufti, and indeed most Arab Nationalist leadership in the Near East during the period, openly collaborated with the Reich, and sought to assist its victory to the extent that they could do so. That they did is one of the reasons they had so little success in rousing political opposition to the Partition at the United Nations in '47, when these memories were still quite fresh.

You may perhaps have noted my opposition above to stating any point of identity between the struggle of the Arab Palestinian people and the crimes of the Reich?

. The British lack of sypathy for the people they colonized preceded the British Mandate long before WWII and the mandate. How do you account for the Balfore Declaration.

That the enemy of my enemy is my friend can lead to some damned bad cul de sacs: it is seldom a royal road to success and clean hands....

The superpowers are more to blame than them. They didn't have an obligation to drop their own struggle for a fight in Europe.

Israel was as much a Cold War pawn as Syria or Egypt or the Palestine Liberation Organization, or as North or South Viet Nam, or Luxembourg, for that matter.

.

Must take some rsponsibility for what moves it makes....

in their oppression of Palestinians to create their Jewish state.

The state was established, and it will remain.

Neither side of this quarrel makes much of a practice of owning up to past or current flaws. You are, yourself, Sir, after all, engaged just now in arguing that the Arab Nationalist collaboration with the Reich is either of no signifigance, or ought to be over-looked as disadvantageous just now to the side you support.

I am arguing that this is a demonization of the Palestinians that is designed to make it impossible for Israelis to negotiate with the Palestinians for a Palestinian state. It is exactly that.

It is an unfortunate thing about facts that they have little signifigance of themselves, but acquire that only by juxtaposition with other facts in a framework of theoretical view.

Let us try a small and cruel thought experiment, Sir. Suppose the Reich had succeeded in downing the Soviet Union in the autumn of '41, or in driving past Suez in that year, and so come to evict the English from the Levant, and that matters then had taken the course there we both know they would have. What then would be your view of the Arab Nationalist collaboration with the Reich, and the cause of the Arab Palestinian people, as they had achieved success in enjoying a jurisdiction free of Jews?

Jews. Palestine had Jews before the zionist hatched their ideas. They were trying to stop the Israeli state and the expulsion of the Palestinian people. The piss ant Palestinian rebels were in no way in a position to tip the balance toward the nazis so what is your point? The collaboration of the zionists with the British colonialist didn't help the colonialist Brits in any way either. What if the zionist had tipped the balance the Brits were still colonizing half the fucking world, and creating famines in India, Africa and Ireland? It didn't happen. The Brits still packed up. Fighting over what didn't happen is pretty silly.

The Mufti spoke frequently of driving all Jews from Palestine during the time of the Mandate, and no meaningful distinction was ever made between immigrant and native Jews in episodes of massacre: the community at Hebron, attacked in 1929, was one of the oldest Jewish communities in the region, and contained very few immigrants.

The influence of Arab Nationalist elements might well have proved decisive in the Middle East in the year mentioned. English forces were stretched quite thin. An Arab Nationalist rebellion in Iraq that received German assistance was contained only with difficulty. A mutiny of the Egyptian armed forces was planned, and only narrowly averted: if successful, it could have broken England's power there, in conjunction with Italo-German assault from Libya.

England, after the Great War, sought Palestine as a buffer for Suez against French power in Syria, the two being long and bitter rivals in the region, and as part of a back-up land route to India, in case of some interuption to the sea lanes. To the degree that the Zionists were of material assistance to England in maintaining control of Palestine at that time, they were of use in the imperial enterprise. Conditions after the Second World War were quite different, and by then the Zionists were hostile towards England, and the principal threat to its control of the Mandate territory, which England did not evacuate until after it had departed from India.

The point of the thought experiment, which it does not surprise me you did not engage head on, was to lay bare one of the assumptions behind your dismissal of attaching any signifigance to Arab Nationalist collaboration with the Reich, which is this: you know almost nothing about it, except that it was, in the end, wholly futile, and since it was, you take the view of the neighborhood basketball court --- no harm, no foul. But it might well have had some effect, and what your view would be of the cause you support, had it succeeded through such a means, is something you might want to think about, if only to understand why the matter seems of some importance to persons with a different view.

To my mind, the only signifigance of the thing is the tremendous detriment it caused to Arab Palestinian attempts to oppose politically the United Nations partition in 1947. Every government in Europe was in the hands of people who had been to some degree resistors against the Nazi occupation, almost every government with membership in the United Nations had joined in in some degree in the war against the Axis. It was a damned tough crowd for men widely known to have been actively collaborating with the Nazis to come before and try to make a case against the desires of the principal victims of the Reich.

Is correct. The history of Israel is contentious. There were several massacres against Palestinian communities then too. Their was also the outright ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages in 1948.

However, these claims are used a bludgeon on the Palestinians and they really aren't right. Why did those European Nations in the UN have a right to sit in judgement of the Palestinians after what they had done. There were collaborators in France, definately Germany, Poland, Sweden and Spain. The answer is that that Palestinians were colonial pawns to them at that time. They were punishing them for disloyalty.

It not my practice to knowingly mis-state or distort facts.

What on earth do you mean by asking "Why did those European Nations in the UN have a right to sit in judgement of the Palestinians after what they had done."?

Mandatory Palestine was at that time the property, in effect, of the United Nations, that organization having assumed the jurisdictions of the old League of Nations, and was deciding what to do with land it had legal responsibility over, and for. The decision was whether or not to partition it into Arab and Jewish zones. Arab Nationalists of Palestine, led by the Mufti, lobbied against this plan, and had no more success at it than they had managed in previous efforts, and due in some part to their war-time activities rendering them distasteful to many governments.

makes it very clear that the Jewish state was in no way related to Palestinian collaboration with Nazis, since there were no nazis to collaborate with at that time. There was a pre-existing sentiment to displace the Palestinians with an Israeli state. As for your previous assertion that you display no tendency to destort History. No comment. Needless to say you judicial detatchment is slipping a bit.

It has been a pleasant afternoon....

The Balfour declaration was a statement by the English government late in 1917 declaring its intention to foster a "Jewish national home" in the Levatine territories just partially conquered, at the time it was issued, from the Ottoman. The formulation "Jewish state" was deliberately avoided. It was incorporated into the League of Nations mandate assigning administration of that territory to England only after clarafication by a White Paper of Winston Churchill's preparation, which stated specifically that fostering a "Jewish national home" was not to be done to the detriment of the original Arab inhabitants, and the English policy of the time was fairly summed up by Churchill's statement that those who spoke of Palestine becoming as Jewish as Manchester was English had no comprehension of England's intentions, or of the practical possibilities of the situation.

We can leave the course of that policy over the next two decades for a later time; very little that the English did during them suited the Zionists particularly well, or seemed to them to be actively promoting a Jewish state, particularly during the latter thirties....

Balfour the man who declared the declaration was clearly an evangelical christian zionsist. Also it was assumed a Palestinian state would be created so maybe that was how he weasled "not at the expense of the Arabs"

The Arabs didn't want to moved to amke way for Israel, I don't dispute this.

And was the man in charge of the policy at the time. Balfour had no reponsibility for Colonial affairs. The Tory government which took office after Mr. Lloyd George's Coalition fell thought very little of fostering a "Jewish national home", as it feared unrest among Moslem subjects throughout the Empire, though it thought a good deal of up-holding English promises, particularly those made in the name of a fellow Tory, and made a game go of not changing course drastically....

There was, at the time of the League promulgating the Mandate, no particular assumption concerning the future course of events, only that the inhabitants of the territory were to be led towards self-government and the management of their own affairs. The Zionists had their own ideas, of course, but lacked utterly the power to impose them, and similarly the Arab Nationalists had their own ideas, and lacked any power to impose them. The English hoped for establishing various representative bodies, apportioned according to population, in which Arab Nationalists refused to participate, because these would include a small proportion of Jews. The upshot was that the place, though technically not a colony, came to be administered as one, while beneath the surface of colonial administration, a small scale cantonal war of the communities came to smoulder, and occassionally flare into massive violence.

even at that time. This plan required ethnic cleansing, just like in ulster. Churchill was lying his ass off.

Here is a quote from the British governer of Jerusalem.

Sir Ronald Storrs explained that the value of creating a Jewish colony is in "forming for England a 'little loyal Jewish Ulster' in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism."

Please don't pretend the British colonialists had enlightened motives.

Provide the years that particular gentleman was Governor....

He was, after all, but one of several who held the post. There are also the varying attitudes of different Governments over the span of time England held the Mandate, as well as the feelings of the relevant bureacrats, both civil and military, in charge of executing, and at times taking upon themselves the obstructing of, the varying official policies.

You are, at bottom, simply engaging in anachronism, by seeking to impose a current view of matters onto a past, that seemed a very diferent thing to the people of that time than what you wish to shape it as today.

"It is wrong to divide people into good and bad. people are either charming or tedious."

.

He summed up once his attitude to his duties in his position in terms that strike me as most sympathetic: "Two hours of Arab grievances drive me into the Synagogue, while after an intense course of Zionist propaganda I am prepared to embrace Islam."

He began as one of the young "Egyptians" of Lord Kitchener's headquarters in Cairo at the start of the Great War, and played a leading role in approaching Sherif Hussein of Mecca to rebel against the Ottoman. He considered the Zionist project a dangerous one for England to back, for he was convinced a fair portion of Arab hostility to the Turks was rooted in their feeling the Turks were siding with the Jews, as it was considered to be the case at the time that Zionism was a German plot and the Ottoman were then allied with Germany: he proposed that Palestine be annexed to Egypt on conquest, along with a good deal more territory, to be ruled by the puppet Caliph it was then imagined the Sherif could be made into.

Governor Storrs was wildly unpopular with the Zionists, who held him responsible, through lax management and arrogant presumption, for several violent outbreaks of mob murder in Jerusalem, most noteably the Nebi Musa outbreaks in 1920. There is something to these views; he was very lax in maintaining order.

I'm glad you pointed that out. There was a lot of the enemy of my enemy is my friend alliances forged before and during WWII....


Violet...

You are confusing the actions of the Palestinians against the Zionist settlers as being under the same philosophy as the Mufti and that the attacks by the Zionist settlers excused the Mufti's own actions in Europe. Nothing excuses what he did knowingly through his support.

However, remember the Mufti does not represent a direct lineage of philosophy or leadership in the Palestinian Nationalistic movement.
What power he had was representative of his role as a leader of a leading Jerusalem family and his role as a British-installed leader of the Islamic body in Palestine. The Mufti was anti-Semitic, that is a fact which is well documented. Given his source of power, to say he was representative of the Palestinian people is an erroneous statement. Once his sources of power were lost following 1948, he quickly lost his role in shaping the Palestinian politic.

L-

Cassandra was. They also claim this man is Arafat's great uncle so there is a direct linage to the Palestinian leadership. According to Avi Shlaim professor of Israeli History at Oxford their is no evidence of the muftis collaboration with Nazis on the holocaust.

He says

The Mufti was the leader of the Palestinian national movement but he was an out-and- out rejectionist and in this he did not serve his people well. He rejected a long series of compromise proposals put forward by the British. He embarked upon a very risky strategy of all-or-nothing and he ended up with nothing.

Whichever way you look at the Palestinian struggle for independence under the British mandate, it is the story of how Mufti muffed it! Yasser Arafat is not a great statesman either. The Palestinians have been most unfortunate in having a good cause, but incompetent leaders.

As for the Mufti and Nazism, it is simply not true that he participated in the Nazi holocaust. He fell out with Britain, he went over to Germany, and he met with Hitler. Zionist writers, with the exception of Zvi Elpeleg, have been very harsh on the Mufti. But they have produced no hard evidence to prove that he participated actively in the Nazi destruction of European Jewry.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x69008

with Joseph("Uncle Joe")Stalin during WWII in light of what you have said? He was a known tyrant responsible for an enormous amount of death prior to the alliance. Futhermore, Germany's invasion of Poland was the trigger for Britain and France's declaration of War on Germany. And after the war ended the Soviet Union then occupied eastern europe for the next 54 years. A "Cold War" between the east and west lasted over 50 years causing by some accounts 150-200 million deaths in the world. And significantly because of the "Cold War", the US supported countless despotic regimes.

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Also, the books and articles linked below give an account of history that has not been presented in this thread.
What do you make of these accounts? And in light of what you have said?
This excerpt is from an article titled
"51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis".
The author has written a book by the same name.
-snip-
"Zionist factions competed for the honor of allying to Hitler. By 1940-41, the "Stern Gang," among them Yitzhak Shamir, later Prime Minister of Israel, presented the Nazis with the "Fundamental Features of the Proposal of the National Military Organization in Palestine (Irgun Zvai Leumi) Concerning the Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe and the Participation of the NMO in the War on the Side of Germany."

Avraham Stern and his followers announced that

"The NMO, which is well-acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government and its authorities towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, is of the opinion that:

1. Common interests could exist between the establishment of a new order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by the NMO.

2. Cooperation between the new Germany and a renewed folkish-national Hebraium would be possible and,

3. The establishment of the historic Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in the Near East.

Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in Palestine, under the condition the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognized on the side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war on Germany's side."

They hanged people all over Europe after WW II for notes to the Nazis like these. But these treasons against the Jews were virtually unknown in the run up to the creation of the Zionist state in May 1948.
-snip
http://www.counterpunch.org/brenner1223.html

"51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration With The Nazis" (Book Review)
by William Hughes
http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&expire=&urlID=7908458&fb=Y&partnerID=31
---

"Zionism in the Age of the Dictators"
Lenni Brenner
Chapter 26. The Stern Gang
This book is entirely online at the link below the quote. The author, a secular Jew, has a very different perspective and accounting of the history and nature of Zionism in his book than one commonly hears or reads.

A Quote:
-snip-
The Ankara document called itself a Proposal of the National Military Organisation (Irgun Zvai Leumi) Concerning the Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe and the Participation of the NMO in the War on the side of Germany. (The Ankara document is dated 11 January 1941. At that point the Sternists still thought of themselves as the “real” Irgun, and it was only later that they adopted the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel – Lohamei Herut Yisrael – appellation.) In it the Stern group told the Nazis:

The evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe is a precondition for solving the Jewish question; but this can only be made possible and complete through the settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine, and through the establishment of a Jewish state in its historical boundaries ...

The NMO, which is well-acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government and its authorities towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, is of the opinion that:

Common interests could exist between the establishment of a New Order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by the NMO.
Cooperation between the new Germany and a renewed volkish-national Hebrium would be possible and
The establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in the Near East.
Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in Palestine, under the condition the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognised on the side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war on Germany’s side.

This offer by the NMO ... would be connected to the military training and organising of Jewish manpower in Europe, under the leadership and command of the NMO. These military units would take part in the fight to conquer Palestine, should such a front be decided upon.
-snip-
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/ch26.htm

---
The following Chapter of this book has an accounting of history that is relevant to this discussion as well.
"The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict"
Published by Jews for Justice in the Middle East
Chapter: Zionism and the Holocaust
http://www.cactus48.com/holocaust.html

In the forth line of the first paragraph the "next 54 years" should be the "next 44 years", and in the fifth line the "over 50 years" should be "over 40 years".

Particularly in his personal involvement while in Europe in organizing Muslim volunteers in Yugoslavia for the SS and for supporting their use against Jews. This has been shown with considerable evidence.

However, this is a red herring when discussing the completely different issues of Palestinian nationalism. The Mufti owed much of his power prior to 1941 to the British who made him head of Jerusalem's Islamic body. Following WWII he represented at best a figurehead. Even that little voice and representation he had amongst the Palestinian people following WWII was destroyed during the realignment of power following 1948 when he was effectively shunted aside. At no time did the Mufti ever represent a true voice for even a significant majority of the Palestinian people and lived his life a pawn of groups seeking to dominate the political landscape.

Again another case of why such discussions often add nothing to the debate.

L-

They also claimed he personally shipped 4000 jewish children to auschwits when he really denied them the right to immigrate to Palestine.

to this thread. Avi Shlaim says there is no evidence for the Muftis involvment with the holocaust and he teaches Israeli History at St Antony's College, Oxford. Are you saying he is lying? I believe him to be a better authority on the matter than either Magistrate or yourself.

Is an excellent scholar. The point you seem to be missing is that neither Mr. Lithos nor myself is claiming any real, direct involvement of the Mufti with the program of extermination finalized by the Nazis after Barbarossa, though Mr. Lithos has made the unexceptionable statement that members of some S.S. unit the Mufti assisted in recruitment for killed some Jews in Yugoslavia. What we are asserting is that the Mufti was a collaborator with the Reich during World War Two, which in fact he was, and further, on my part at least, that anyone who collaborates with such a criminal enterprise bears some share of responsibility for the crimes of that enterprise.

Your position seems to boil down to the assertion that anti-colonialism is of sufficiently high moral value that anything done in its name is excused, that no ally is too foul for association with in that high and holy cause, and that pointing out the vile shifts engaged in by someone in its name is a smear and a slander. That, in my view, will not do at all....

in it's nuclear program in exchange South African intelligence received training from the mossad. It also allied itself with the Solviet Union at various times, including the regime of Joseph Stalin. What is there damned excuse? This is just guilt tripping Palestinians for being caught up in the games of a couple of Super Poweres. They were pawns in the great game, and now they are nazi collaborators. I won't accept this.

Israel is routinely denounced here for the South African connection, and all the modern Arab powers, as well as the various Arab Palestinian militant organizations, allied themselves with the Soviet Union throughout most of the Cold War.

It has never been my contention Israel does nothing wrong....

political manuverings and don't deserve the Nazi label. The myth needs debunking because it is so often cited in pro-Sharon articles, as the reason we can not give he Palestinians a state. The claim the Arafat is the great nephew of the Muft, and there fore a nazi. The Palestinians are nazis. That is where this myth leads too. The conclusion that they want the reader to reach is this, "How can Israel possibly make peace or negotiate with Nazis(the PA and Arafat). It is very destructive.

Was not realist. Throughout the whole period from the English occupation of the region in the last year of World War One to the present day, the Arab Nationalist leadership of Palestine compiled a record of calamatous mis-perception and mis-judgement unparalleled in the twentieth century.

You will hunt in vain through this forum for any statement by me the Arab Palestinian leadership was or is uniquely evil, though you will find some to the effect that it was and is uniquely feckless and foolish. You will also find statements of the plain fact that that leadership collaborated with the Reich, and found a point of identity with it in a shared hate for Jews.

Since the Zionist were definately trying to establish a majority Jewish state at the time(meaning most of the Arabs have go), the fact that they disliked them is not surprising.

I edited my post and added more on the subject of why this myth is so destructive to the peace process.

BTW, what is dramatically being overlooked here is that zionist were collaborating with Colonialist in their oppression of Palestinians to create their state. Why is that not a bad thing? Were the zionist not engaging in "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" thinking when they did this?

It was hardly the only mis-perception they indulged in, nor even the one most destructive to their cause. Their most calamatous mis-judgement was to hugely over-rate their power of resistance, which led them into a policy of confronation and rejectionism towards England after the Great War, when co-operation with the self-government plans of the initial Mandatory authorities would have served them much better. The course of mob murder towards Jews adopted from 1920, in combination with this, injured their cause fatally. It is, put bluntly, distressing to see these same errors played out more than eighty years later, on progressively smaller patches of ground.

The Zionists set out coldly to create a Jewish state in the Levant, and succeeded. They judged the situation, their capabilities, and what course would be best suited to produce success in their endeavor much better than their opponents. Their resolve sprang from a feeling the situation of their people was intolerable, and their determination to do something about it. That is something peoples do, and it is generally done at the expense of someone else. The participants will not much care about the spectators' views of the rights and wrongs of the thing. That applies, of course, to the other side of such a struggle as well.

If the collaboration of the Arab Nationalist leadership in the past with the Reich is inconvenient in some ways today, that is unfortunate, but that inconvenience makes it no less a fact. The assistance provided the Zionist enterprise by a colonial power is also a fact, and as it provides the reason for a good deal of left opposition to Israel, it is similarly inconvenient in some ways today.

not even me. I was just responding to your comment indicating that Israelis use Nazi as a slur against Palestinians. I haven't asked them in exactly what spirit they mean the slur but I'm sure it's heard differently by Palestinians than it is by Jews. It would have a different sort of sting.

Here is a repost of it

Since their leaders during WWII...



were Nazis, there is a bit of history there. I will not speculate as to whether current Palestinians are pro-Nazi (some of their leaders are apologists) or whether calling them that is helpful.

Then, they were, now, some are apologists about the past.

. Read the thread. Also Magistrate has literally used the "collaboration" to describe what happened several times, so again read the thread the thread before you claim "nobody said that they were collaborators". Finally I don't see how claiming they were literally nazis is less inflammitory then claiming they collaborated.

Clearly means that no one is saying that the Arab Palestinian leadership today are engaged in collaboration with Nazis. It is true my statements they collaborated with the Nazis during the period roughly between 1935 and 1945 were written today, but that is hardly the same thing....

man, that they Palestinian movement to create a state is a nazi enterprise.

It has been prominent politically in Palestine since the days of Ottoman rule.

It has never, to my knowledge, however, made claims to be of pure Aryan stock, and would be ill-suited in many regards for membership in any Nazi party.

Not about Arafat's family lineage, but that the Palestinian movement to create a state is a nazi enterprise. That's absurd, unless you mean that a desire of some Palestinians for a Palestine free of Jews from the Jordan to the Mediterranian would be a kind of final solution. Is someone claiming that?

Some ludicrous statements along that line have been made on the Israeli right.

Begin likened Arafat in Beirut to Hitler in his Berlin bunker.

In recent demonstrations by the settler lobby against Sharon's proposal for Gaza, there have been cries he would open the gates of Auschwitz by doing as he intends.

I assume CL meant something like that rather than accusing people on this board.

and didn't even hint at it. I was referring to many columns that have appeared recently in newspapers. Do a google search on Arafat, the mufti and nazism. You'll see this very clearly. Though such claims have been made posters who post here frequently.

Just because someone collaborated with the Nazis doesn't make them a Nazi. Japan didn't just collaborate, it was allied closely with the Nazis during the war, and by no stretch could Japan have been called a Nazi state. In fact, their Nazi allies were pretty contemptuous of Japan because they weren't Ayrans. One example of that is the Battle of Midway where the lack of functioning radars made all the difference to that turning point in the war. There were radars on the Japanese ships that the Nazis had sent them, but they were still not installed because the Nazis couldn't be bothered installing them and showing the Japanese how to use them...

Violet...

I doubt that the Nazi belief in Aryan supremacy is the primary insult meant. Fascism, mass murder and a militarized corporate state are more likely to come to mind.

The Japanese weren't Nazis. The Nazis were a political party and Japan HAD no political parties. Japan was a good old fashioned Imperialist theocracy. God forbid we would sully their history by comparing them to Nazis.

Japan committed genocide in Manchuria, regularly practiced war crimes, had no domestic civil liberties and a rigid class system.

Plus they thought the Emporer was god...


but they weren't NAZIS!


Neither were the Italians. Mussolinni called his party something else. The Salvadoran death Squads weren't Nazis either, they were Organizacion Democratica Nacionalista. Sadaam Hussein wasn't a Nazi either, he was a Baathist a whole different kind of facist.

The list of people who aren't Nazis is much longer than the list of people who are so I guess we are all okay.

While there were well documented ties with some of the Arabic leadership with the Nazi regime, those leadership threads have long since ended and replaced by other unrelated efforts.

Continued discussion in terms of modern day Palestine and it's leadership is unfruitful and incorrect.

I was just pointing out a distinction. Would that everyone would stop using that word (except against Bush).

who wrote this, anyway?

There it was while I was drinking my coffee in the morning.

get really uncomfortable when bigotry is discussed.


Some people don't.

I have never found a pattern either.