response 125 of 197:

Oct 13 20:02 UTC 2003

Even in the middle-east, I doubt that arabs hate jews. I feel the media 
blows over the sentiments expressed by a few extremists too much and 
paints the whole of arabia as jew haters.

response 133 of 197:

Oct 14 16:15 UTC 2003

re:  "#124 (sj2):  I think lk is paranoid about beig hated. In Asia, 
except for the middle-east (which is very small population-wise), 
people do not even notice that jews exist on this earth. Much less hate 
them. . . ."

Don't be so sure, Mr. sj2:

From Tel Aviv U website:

Anti-Semitism Worldwide 1997/8
ASIA PACIFIC - GENERAL ANALYSIS
Anti-Semitism today is expanding into areas where it never existed 
before. The most prominent example is the Asia Pacific region, most 
notably, Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia. Asian Pacific anti-Semitism, 
unlike its Western and Middle Eastern counterparts, is Jew-hatred 
without Jews. It is thus rhetorical in nature, expressed mainly in 
books, magazines, articles, radio and TV broadcasts and speeches; "real 
time" and anonymity are rapidly transforming the Internet into another 
powerful vehicle for the dissemination of anti-Semitic ideas."

 
re:  "#125 (sj2):  Even in the middle-east, I doubt that arabs hate 
jews."

You mean it only seems that way??  What a relief!

response 135 of 197:

Oct 14 17:33 UTC 2003

Re #129: See, this is why it's impossible to discuss this issue.  If you
express anything but complete agreement with Israel's policies, you're
pigeonholed as a Jew-hater and all kinds of other bizarre beliefs are
assigned to you.  It'd be like if I said, "You know, I think O.J. might have
been guilty" and someone responded with, "So you hate all black people and
believe they should be sent back to Africa, then?"

Re #133: The Japanese are notoriously racist towards blacks and Koreans.  It
wouldn't surprise me to hear that there's a lot of anti-semitism in Japan,
but I suspect it wouldn't be anything specific about Jews, but simply the
fact that they're yet another group that is Not Japanese.

response 137 of 197:

Oct 14 18:10 UTC 2003

I also find it interesting that the conflict in the middle east seems to have
bridged the ideological disputes within Israel.  I mean, do not many of the
more right wing orthodox jews oppose Israel's secular government, believing
that Israel is not to re-form technically until the messiah returns?
Maybe such internal disputes, which used to be commonplace in israel, have
become irrelevant now.  But in theory, wouldn't the most orthodox of jews
be as opposed to an "Israel" government as many Arabs are?

response 139 of 197:

Oct 14 21:14 UTC 2003

Personally, I have found that I am often in agreement with the 
positions of Israel's left wing. This doesnt surprise me since I also 
tend to be in agreement with the policies of the left wing here in the 
United States. However, I have found that I feel more free to be 
critical of the current administration in Washington without being 
called a Texan hater than I feel free to be critical of the Likud 
party's policies without being called a Jew hater. At least in this 
item anyway. 

response 141 of 197:

Oct 14 22:31 UTC 2003

No, Bruce, that is a totally different issue. It would be more like if 
Rush had simply said that a particular quarterback is getting too much 
press and *then* someone accused him of being racist because the 
quarterback happens to be black. 

response 143 of 197:

Oct 15 01:21 UTC 2003

Re #140: I could comment, but it's probably best left for a different item.
:>  I will say I don't think Rush was being racist, I think he was just
trying to get people worked up like he usually does.  Like his fellow
right-wing talk show host Michael Savage, he forgot tht there's a difference
between what you can get away with on network TV and what you can get away
with on AM radio.  He was being stupid and offensive but not racist.

response 145 of 197:

Oct 15 02:22 UTC 2003

Drug addict, too.

response 147 of 197:

Oct 15 04:41 UTC 2003

RCURL, Re# 119:

Let's ask MYNXCAT and SJ2 if rcurl's unsubstantiated premise has merit.
In your experience, are Arab women "more sheltered" or would you say that
roughly half the people on the street (let alone at markets) are women?

See? Another biased assumption to make the facts fit his model.

Yet oddly, Rane states a truth but fails to see its ramifications:

> There are other possible explanations for this. For one thing, the
> Israeli civilian deaths come from indiscriminate bombings

Bingo!! The majority of Israeli deaths are innocent civilians, randomly and
indiscriminately targeted and murdered. Thus they represent a cross-section
of the population.

Yet despite propaganda campaigns about Israel shelling civilians, the same
cannot be said about the Arab deaths. In reality, if Rane's assumptions were
valid, they would argue against him. If the women (and children) are
"sheltered" and at home while the men are out, then if Israel were randomly
bombing neighborhoods then we'd expect that more than half the casualties
would be women (and children 14 and under).

Yet those groups only amount to about 5% of the Arab casualties.

Perhaps Rane can give us a legitimate "other explanation" and show why we
should reject the explanation consistent with Occam's Razor  that Israel
targets combatants, not civilians?

(Not to mention that many of the Arab deaths have been self-induced in
suicide attacks or because they were Arab "collaborators" murdered by
their own brethren.)


SJ2, re#124:

> In Asia, except for the middle-east (which is very small population-wise),
> people do not even notice that jews exist on this earth. Much less hate them.

There's some truth to that, but not entirely. For example, I (officially)
cannot travel to Malaysia because I'm Jewish. Iran? Forget it.  (OK, I suppose
Iran may be included in the nebulous "mid-east").  What may hold true is that
in non-Islamic Asia, there is little anti-semitism.  But as klg showed, even
that isn't entirely true.

But what's your point, that the relative rarity of anti-semitism there makes
it ok elsewhere? Of course not.  That doesn't mean that there isn't a serious
problem in much of the rest of the world  and that this ethnic hatred
influences politics. (Which may explain why in the first 45 years of the UN,
a majority of its resolutions were condemnations of Israel. Thus, for example,
the Arab world seeks "justice" not through the rule of law at the World Court
but via politics at the UN, where the "jury" is not of one's peers, and where
the non-aligned votes were "bought" by threat of an oil embargo.)

> Even in the middle-east, I doubt that arabs hate jews. I feel the media
> blows over the sentiments expressed by a few extremists too much and
> paints the whole of arabia as jew haters.

See:

http://www.secularislam.org/articles/khawaja3.htm

Jews under Arab rule:
http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/40079.php

http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20030421&s=morris042103

"Palestinian leaders and preachers, guided by history and religion, have
traditionally seen the Jews as an inferior race whose proper place was as an
abased minority in a Muslim polity; and the present situation, with an Arab
minority under Jewish rule, is regarded as a perversion of nature and divine
will."

        - "Revisionist" historian prof. Benny Morris.


> thats really surprising that there is hatred for jews in the west.

Wow. You've never heard of "pogroms", "blood libels" or the "Holocaust"?
Do you believe that the sentiments that led to these just disappeared? Nor
was it just the Germans. When hitler wanted to expel the Jews, where was the
rest of the world? No one would take them (thus hitler's "solution" became
genocide).  Not even countries where Jewish immigration quotas were not filled
and which sent back boatloads of refugees to their murder in Europe (e.g.
USA). In countries taken over by the nazis, it was often the locals who
took over the murder of the Jews.

Have you not been reading in the news about the new wave of anti-semitism
sweeping through Europe?


GULL, re #135:

You just don't get it. No one has ever demanded "complete agreement with
Israel's policies".  Heck, in Israel half the people don't agree (2 Jews, 3
opinions). But you've distinguished yourself in constantly making assumptions
that demonstrate a decided bias. As I said (to which you responded with the
above straw-man non-argument), you are always willing to assume that Israel
is guilty and wrong, regardless of the weakness of the evidence. Then you
demand thorough proof of innocence, say you'll consider it, and without doing
so you (weeks or months) later regurgitate the original false assumption of
guilt (e.g. Israel's immigration laws are uniquely racist and unlike that of
any other country).


DAN, if mdw were present, he'd address Jenin -- and tell you that we can't
know for sure (despite the lack of bodies or missing people) that there
wasn't a massacre, regardless of HRW and Amnesty International's
investigations and the (belated) UN report on the matter.  (My retort was
that we can't prove that Grexers didn't massacre space aliens....)


RICHARD, re#137:

>  But in theory, wouldn't the most orthodox of jews  be as opposed to an
> "Israel" government as many Arabs are?

(So much theory, so little fact, eh?)

No, most orthodox Jews support the state of Israel as a Jewish state.

It is true that there is a small sect (in NY) that believes that there
shouldn't be a Jewish state until the arrival of the messiah. Yet they are
opposed to an "'Israel' government" for very different reasons that "Arabs
are".


LYNNE, re #139:

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I don't agree with you on many of
these issues, but I respect your position.  You're willing to question your
assumptions and attempt to look at the issue from both sides. We just see some
things differently and arrive at different conclusions (strangely, I hope you
prove to be right, but I fear otherwise).


BRUCE, re#140: I hate McNabb. Not because he's black, but because he was an
outstanding athlete and great QB in the one game I saw him play.  I'm almost
willing to believe that he didn't need 10 team mates on offense to beat
Michigan that day.  Seems like he managed to avoid the Rush all day long....

response 149 of 197:

Oct 15 07:54 UTC 2003

lk, from the link you posted

http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/40079.php

Seems like you didn't scroll down

Read this part - 
------------------------------------------------------------------
The subject of how Jews have been treated by other cultures and 
political constructs throughout history could probably be the subject 
of a sizeable encyclopedia. But giving so much attention to the 
historical injustices against a particular group which numbers 
probably less than one percent of the human population only serves to 
diminish the horrendous injustices that virtually every definable 
group of humans have suffered throughout history. 

Not only that, but the injustices and tragedies which the Jews are 
subject to today pale in comparison to the injustices and tragedies 
which a vast number of definable groups are subject to at this very 
moment. Groups such as slaves, sex slaves, prostitutes, the captives 
being tortured and abused in prisons all over the world, child 
soldiers, refugees, homeless people, hungry people, sick people 
deprived of medical care, involuntary military conscripts, victims of 
child and spousal abuse, the victims of war and its aftermath, 
indentured laborers, the poor, the oppressed in every land, the hunted 
and slaughtered because of their race, culture or political beliefs, 
trade union activists in South America, Falun Gung practitioners in 
China, the Tibetan people, the people of Burma, Aceh, certain parts of 
the Philippines and West Papua, the victims of war and famine in 
Africa, AIDS victims all over the world, all the citizens of brutal 
totalitarian regimes all over the planet, etc, etc. 

And furthermore, the suffering which any group have endured should 
hopefully sensitize them to the horrors of racial injustice and social 
discrimination, and harden their resolve to create a free and just 
society which confers all rights and privileges to all its members 
irregardless of race, religion, age, sex, financial status, political 
belief, etc. 

The fact the the Jews generally obsess over their own wellbeing and in 
many cases feel justified to deprive other people of their fundamental 
human rights in order to assert their own self-granted privileges is a 
mystery of this complex cultural phenomena called Jewry which deserves 
some kind of global investigative commission to explore and finally 
get to the bottom of. 

The only reason that I say this is because the press is filled to 
overflowing with Jew obsessed propaganda, Hollywood incessantly 
bemoans the tragedies of this group, thereby ignoring the equally and 
sometimes even more horrendous past and current suffering of hundreds 
of other equally numerous groups, and Israel is actively scheming with 
the US administration to totally destabilize and restructure the power 
interests of the entire planet, starting with the Middle East. This 
machiavellian scheme puts the entire planet under immediate threat of 
induced terrorist assault, American and other sources of national 
invasion, and nuclear war between nations. This is not a fitting 
legacy to the victims of discrimation against Jews in various times 
and places throughout history. A more fitting legacy would be a 
campaign to rid the world of racial injustice and instead promote a 
vision of a world where everyone can live as one people, blind to race 
as a factor of depriving certain people of rights and confering 
special privileges on a select group, but instead cognisant of the 
essential dignity of every human being.
------------------------------------------------------------------

Not my views but interesting.