Iran's Holocaust Conference

Of course, you do understand Israel taking some sort of pre-emptive action of that magnitude might be enough to trigger some sort of Arab coalition...

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bob Allen @ Dec 14 2006, 04:11 PM) [snapback]362309[/snapback]</div>

I've proven this repeatedly on this board, when you take a position against Israel, you WILL be deemed an anti-semite. It's one of those places people don't want to go, for all any politician needs these days is the mere accusation he or she is anti-semetic, and he's out of the game so to speak. An environment was created such that you have to be REALLY careful how you criticize Israel...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bob Allen @ Dec 14 2006, 02:11 PM) [snapback]362309[/snapback]</div>

I think you misrepresent at the least the reasons behind the barrier or as Jimmy Carter calls it the aparteid Wall being built. Why should Israel give back the West Bank when after giving back the Gaza Strip all they get is attacked by missiles targeting civilians? You obviously have taken sides - which is ok. You state Israel is "free wheeling" with the violence - that's stretching things a bit - but follows suit with your post.

Name one peace initiative taken by the PA? Just one.

The only idiotic war was the last one in Lebanon when Olmert did not let loose the dogs.

Your solutions are single sided and probably - guessing here - include the right to return for the Palestinians? Yes or no?

If you could settle it - what would your final solution look like?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bob Allen @ Dec 14 2006, 01:11 PM) [snapback]362309[/snapback]</div>

Bob, you forgot to mention the daily rockets that seem to keep landing on houses in Isreal... I'm sure this was an oversight, please address this issue. I'm sure your plan will be for the Isrealie children to learn to catch them in flight so they don't explode on impact. It's probably Isreals fault that these rockets keep coming over the fence... that big magnet they have causes the rockets to be sucked over the fence, they are not really launched over...

 

Gee, I wonder why the Palestinians have resorted to such tactics?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Dec 14 2006, 01:58 PM) [snapback]362347[/snapback]</div>

Looks like it's close enough we can erase the rest of the green and make it all white.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Dec 14 2006, 05:00 PM) [snapback]362350[/snapback]</div>

I'm sure berman and others agree wholeheartedly.

 

Of all places to support the whole natural selection, the stronger will survive... make the whole map white and stop all the argueing about it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Dec 14 2006, 02:19 PM) [snapback]362311[/snapback]</div>

Has not stopped people here from doing such. Tell me, Israel subjects itself to self-critisism - do the Palestinains. The Israeli's elect governments based on democratic principles and the government reflects the will of the people from wanting peace to not - the Palestinians. The Israeli's grow an economy and and educations system the envy of the world given its locations and population and the burden it faces being surrounded by enemies bent on its destruction - what do the Palestinains build?

Maybe you find that the position you take is wrong? Possible?

And what environment that you cant go after Israel. Ask Jimmy Carter if he is having any problems - in fact you and he are in good company - same beliefs - same everything.

 

By supporting Darwin, Prius Chat also supports Isreal to conquer palestine...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Dec 14 2006, 03:00 PM) [snapback]362350[/snapback]</div>

Hamas uses the same map - so do others of their ilk as did Jimmy Carter. Tell me - when you are done with the propaganda print me a map circa 2000BC.

Also help me here - the term Palestinian first made its appearance when?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Dec 14 2006, 03:03 PM) [snapback]362358[/snapback]</div>

I think Prius Chat supports liberal thought, tolerance, individual freedom, a free press, a fair judiciary - sounds like Israel or the Palestinian Authority to you.

If Israel believed in might being right it would be over anytime they wanted it to be over. But you know that too.

Useless.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Dec 14 2006, 05:10 PM) [snapback]362362[/snapback]</div>

BS. If the world decided to turn a blind eye to what Israel does, there would be no such thing as Palestine, not because of some altuistic "higher ground"....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Dec 15 2006, 03:49 AM) [snapback]362340[/snapback]</div>

The tone of your post implies that it's beyond reason to conclude that Israeli policy might possibly have some connection to the missiles and the suicide bombings. To criticize Israel does not mean I support rocket attacks on civilian populations. Ask yourself this question: What level of degradation and powerlessness would a population need to endure that would induce them to suicide bombings? There is some fundamental thorn in the side of reality here that few acknowledge; it's easier to blame the symptoms (missile attacks) and ignore the underlying causes. Someone else accused me of taking sides and presumed I was on the Palestinian side because I dared to criticize Israeli policy. Taking sides, if that means de-legitimizing the other side, precludes making peace. When did Israel get to be the privileged victim here who can do no wrong? As long as we (and Israelis) continue looking at Israel as the victim of Arab aggression (which is true) we can ignore that Palestinians have been equally the victims of Israeli territorial ambitions and aggression as well as being victims of other Arab states, i.e, Jordan and Syria. I'm not taking sides; I want an honest representation of both points of view, which is not happening in the US media or political discourse, and cannot happen until we kick the knee jerk response. I'm not able or smart enough, nor do I have enough information to offer a solution, but I am savvy enough to know when I'm being lied to or being fed one-sided propaganda. Every time Bush talks about bringing democracy to the Middle East I want to barf; not because the idea itself is bad (actually, it could be a good thing but waaaaay more complicated than the simpleton in the White House imagined) but because his hypocrisy is so blatant, his ignorance of Arab culture so overwhelming, his arrogance beyond belief and his lies beyond counting. And, of course, we are oil whores to the Saudis.

For obvious cultural and political reasons, we have a stronger (much stronger) affinity for Israel than we do for any Arab society. Add to that, the violence of 9/11 and our general ignorance of the Muslim world typified by Bush, Cheney, INC., centuries of Christian/Muslim antipathy, and you have a recipe for foreign relations disasters. Israel is a democracy and deserves our support. I don't argue that. That support, however, has to be based on realistically obtainable goals which do not include a fundamentalist interpretation of Scriptures (Jewish and Muslim), and which acknowledge that Palestinians, who've lived there as long as the Jews, have rights too.
Respectfully,
Bob

 

Well, for whatever it's worth, I think when some country like Iran starts stating how Israel should be wiped off the map, and is blatantly moving towards nuclear power, Israel has the green light to go in and take him out, opposed to waiting around to find out just how serious he is.

Some anti semite I am...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black2006 @ Dec 13 2006, 11:46 PM) [snapback]362066[/snapback]</div>

No, you missed the second sentence, evidently. Here it is again:

"But we need to be neither tolerant or polite about their lunatic ramblings when they have as a stated goal the destruction of the people who disagree with them"

So, yes, we can be rude to people who want to wipe Isreal off the map and kill all the Jews, even while they claim that Hitler never intended to kill them all. We don't have to consider them serious about seeking the truth, any more than we have to consider Pastor Fred Phelps a 'calvinist' because of HIS lunatic ramblings about gays.

Iran's "conference" on the Holocaust is to history and sociology what "Scientific Creationism" is to the scientific study of the origins: politically motivated poppy-cock that no one has to take seriously. There is no need to expend limited resources on such a waste of time. The difference between the "Young Earthers" and Iran is that the "Young Earthers" are not seeking to kill those that oppose them.

In contrast, challenges to the historical record from people like Pat Buchanan should be analyzed, and time can certainly be taken with his claims. He's still way off, in my view, because of his methodology, but he isn't advocating mass murder.

Did you get that point? I want to make sure I'm understood before I continue in this debate.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bob Allen @ Dec 14 2006, 06:00 PM) [snapback]362488[/snapback]</div>

Who is responsible for their [the Palestinians] feelings of powerlessness and how are the Israeli's degrading the Palestinians? I am interested in what you term "underlying causes".

Name one other "oppressed" people who have resorted to strapping dynamite belts on their women and children and using them as human homocide bombers in all of man's history? Also, name one "oppressed" that launches missiles into another countries civilian centers?

You are allowed to take sides. If you condone the murder of innocent Israeli civilians that is your choice (me personally I find it hard to condone walking into a pizzeria and blowing yourself up and killing dozens of innocent kids no matter what "underlying causes" you may have real or imagined - that is an AFFRONT to HUMANITY - something you obviously are overlooking in my opinion).

I will extrapolate that to you "understand" why 3,000 Americans were murdered on 9/11 - obviously American imperialism and oppression of Arabs justified those attacks on that day - provided them with an "underlying cause".. And obviously, the Japanese were well within their rights to attack Pearl Harbor when we cut off or threatened to cut off oil supplies to them. Those were all according to you "symptoms" while we should not "ignore the underlying causes".

I could go on but I choose not to. I do have a belief in right and wrong for those who might be oppressed - real and imagined. You do not. I hope you extend your beliefs to peoples outside the Jewish/Arab arena. How do you feel about American Native Indians - can they start suicide bombings in the USA???

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Dec 15 2006, 10:54 AM) [snapback]362699[/snapback]</div>

See, this is where you totally miss the point....

Gee, what does a group of people with no significant military resort to when threatened with, literally, extinction?

Maybe to illustrate, let's reverse the tables, what if you were one of maybe a few hundred thousand Jews left on the planet, surrounded by all sides by Arabs who hate you, you have little to no military, and the land you're on seems to be getting smaller by the day? ...and for some IRRATIONAL reason, you believe you're going to be obliterated. I hope you never get to find out, but I HIGHLY DOUBT, you'd throw your hands up and go down quietly while only taking pot shots at military targets you pretty much know you can't even dent....

It's pretty easy to talk about moral equivalence, justification, etc., when you're not on the wrong side of the gun.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black2006 @ Dec 15 2006, 12:30 AM) [snapback]362611[/snapback]</div>

Sure there's dangers in my argument. And if I've tended to harp on Iran, it's because of the thread title and perhaps because disinformation is these days the thing that annoys me the most, and the Iran conferences is nothing but that, cloaked under a free speech argument. So in my mind, to have used Iran in a example regarding this is pretty akin to falling for the bait in a bait and switch. Sorry if that's not what you intended, but I think that's how a lot of us took it.

The example you give, of the Reichstag laws, is not entirely appropriate. That law removed a heck of a lot more than free speech, specifically:
It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom [ habeas corpus ], freedom of opinion, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

I really don't think that's analogous to countries where the Nazi party grew up passing laws to halt its resurgance using an extraordinarily limited restriction on speech. These are, after all, the countries where the blood was spilled. The laws hardly limit "all free speech." As I recall, most of these laws got put on the books relatively recently (80's-90's? welcome correction) to combat a specific rise in Neo-nazism and attacks against immigrants.

Will the laws turn out to be a mistake and be repealed? Possibly. Intellectuals of the heft of Noam Chomsky oppose them. Do they expose us to charges of hypocrisy? Sure. (Although in my book, there are a helluva lot better things to charge us with hypocrisy about than these ). But for me, I'll trust the citizens of these countries to rewrite these laws or disband them when they need to. The laws are there, specifically, to stop the Nazis coming back. That's fine by me.

The punishments for holocaust denial are likewise not as draconian as your analogy suggested:
Austria (min: six months, max: twenty years (violent), ten years (non-violent)), Belgium (min: fine, max: one year), Czech Republic (min: six months, max: two years), France (min: fine/one month, max: two years), Germany (min: fine/six months max: five years), Israel (min: one year, max: five years), Lithuania (min: fine/two years, max: ten years (violent)), Poland (min: fine/three months, max: three years), Romania (min: six months, max: three years (public offender), five years (public servant offender)), Slovakia (min: fine/one month, max: three years) and Switzerland (min: fine/one year, max: fifteen months).
That Austria has a much harsher sentence here than the others, again, I don't have a problem with. The nazis were pretty darn popular in Austria. I'm sure there are some there itching to get back to it (with immigrants the most likely targets now. They were pretty thorough with the Jews the first time around.)

Neither, in response to other posters, do I think Iran's conference justifies some of the absurd solutions given (NUKES????). If anything, Iran is holding this conference because US military might is so diminished in light of Iraq. Due to our own ignorance, we have been unable to bring stability to a country smaller than Texas. Saddam got their electricity back up in 18 days after Gulf War I. We haven't managed it in four years. We have also ignored the Palestinians, and the fester of that situation plays directly into our problems in Iraq. We need engagement and dialogue in this region. Ignorance gets us nowhere. Going it alone has proven the failure it was doomed to be from the start. And again, why are we in this mess? Because of al quaida? No, that was Afghanistan. We are in Iraq because someone told us a story (Saddam=WMD). Don't ever underestimate the number of people a story can kill.

Frankly, I find the military commissions act of 2006, that gives my government the right to pick up, torture, and hold without trial anyone they see fit a lot more frightening the minor speech restrictions of holocaust denial laws. That America embraces torture ...that America embraces torture. That says it all right there. What's a little holocaust denial law compared to that?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Dec 15 2006, 09:13 AM) [snapback]362710[/snapback]</div>

You missed my point. Threatened with extinction? Let me see - who has ever been threatened with extinction - the hundreds of millions of Arabs or the few million Jews - I wonder about your perspective for sure. Are you accusing the Israeli's of exterminating the Palestinians? Seems to me it is the Palestinians and other Arabs that are continuously threatening the Israeli's - no??

Your scenario is interesting to say the least - are you actually defending Israel's positions?? Tell me, name one instance in which the Palestinians offered something for peace?? Kind of like the Israeli's giving back the Sinai or even like the Israeli's giving back the Gaza Strip last year or even kind of like the Israeli's removing their forces from southern Lebanon. And in EACH of these offerings of PEACE what did the Israeli's get in return? They got WAR! Now your turn....

And if you reverse the positions completely and surround 6 million arabs with several hundred million Jews - you would have peace.

If the Arabs put down their guns there would be peace. If the Israeli's put down their guns there would be no Israel and no Jews.....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Dec 15 2006, 12:15 PM) [snapback]362722[/snapback]</div>

Well let me ask you this, what do YOU think the Palestinians want, such that they'll effectively drop their guns? What, the pre-'67 borders?