"As a Jew, no place but Israel is home "

About 300. Only about a hundred in Tokyo where antisemitic Buddhist monks were demonstrating.

Don't worry, there is a group for you too. Closer to home of course

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FABqq_jjRRo

 

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Well, then, your comment is completely justified. Clearly you're in touch with the pulse of that nation.

Thanks for the other links: great comments below, too. Clearly they understand the issue intimately.

 

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*** MOD NOTE ***
This topic appears to have strayed far from any pretence of being Human Science (and it was little enough to start with). If it doesn't get back to that it'll be moved.

 

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Sure I do. Cambodia has a large population of Korean expats and I have even been to Korea. How about you? Ever been to Korea for more than a stop over? You're youtube assertion doesn't account for the fact that Asians to a very large degree are indifferent towards your pet issue. One Korean woman who runs a school in Cambodia had only one opinion about Israel and that it was that that part of the world is too dangerous. Perhaps you should spend more time visiting other parts of Asia like China, Korea, japan and South East Asia (Exclude Malaysia since its a polluted poll pool)

Rather small demonstration in the video don't you think?

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I'm just saying

 

Well I feel for you, I am also annoyed at her attitude on 'jewishness'

 

And what did you expect? Did you really thought Sam was interested in group 'ethnocentricity' and not using this as a segway towards her desired topic which is Israeli politics and the palestinians? :shrug:

 

Perhaps that fact ought to make you reconsider the premise that a Jewish state as such is inherently incompatible with Palestinian civil rights, then.

Put another way: when you're slamming Noam Chomsky for being too soft on Israel, it's a strong indicator that you've ventured way too far out onto that limb.

 

my mother had a mohel cut my penis

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Why couldn't the woman recognize that cutting open a baby's penis and cut open a little girls head are BOTH f*cked up religious shit?

THAT'S what's interesting IMO.

 

RE: Koreans

I remember a Muslim Australian was once lamenting the fact most people in AU simply don't care about the Palestinian issue. I asked what his thoughts were on North Korea - to which he said he hadn't thought anything about North Korea,,, why would he?


You can't even get people out to protest things happening in their own city let alone in some other part of the world. I blame TV and internet. There was a Youth Hostel (mainly English backpackers) in Sydney that was always rowdy at nights with people drinking and socializing, laughing, and sometimes breaking into fights and busting up the place. The owner decided he'd try an experiment - he paid for a flat screen TV and cable in each dorm room. In one week, one week, it went from loud crazy fun house to NO ONE in the common room. Everyone would make their food and walk back to their rooms to quietly sit in front of the TV.

It was so bizarre as to be ... *shacks head*

 

If the formation of a state based on race and religion can be compatible with human rights, then perhaps we ought to trash the concept completely.

I recently learned that Noam Chomsky did not speak up about Palestinian civil rights until after his parents demise in some sort of misplaced sense of respect to the Jewish tribal meme. I found it extremely odd and then I realised that both Norman Finkelstein and Gideon Levy also support a Jewish state even though they talk of of Palestinian rights. These are educated thinking men, who talk about human rights and deplore the state of occupation in Palestine. And yet, they still, support the notion of a Jewish state in Palestine. Would Norman Finkestein, with equal fervor support a Christian state in the US? Would Chomsky? And yet, they see no cognitive dissonance with supporting a state for Jews in a place where most Jews are dispossessing natives and oppressing them. This is what led me to wonder if being Jewish wires people for ethnocentrism. Are they incapable of moving out of the circle where being Jewish is always a consideration no matter what?

Is Chomsky soft on Israel? Of course not! Would he support one state for all citizens rather than a Jewish state? He claims to be for one state but says that two states are needed.

Why should Australians care about Palestinians, since they have yet to offer a referendum to aboriginal Australians.

 

Heh.

 

What's the problem? Any rational, honest person can see that the two are not incompatible: or at least theoretically, since the issue began with the dispossession of Jewish natives by immigrating Arabs. The amazing fact in all this is that no one - or virtually no one - possesses the slightest amount of introspection to trace the conflict back to its roots, which are largely theological.

(Well, it kind of is, arguably.)

Most? How do you figure? Is this the only such case that rouses your ire?

Well, sort of a bigoted assumption, but we can leave that by the by for the time being.

"No matter what"? The issue started with the essential intolerance of many Muslims for Jews: the notion that no Jewish person - and certainly not a Jewish state - should be permitted to coexist on an equal level with any Muslim individual or state. The history of the area is rife with this sort of thing. And yet, purportedly educated people are almost completely ignorant of the issues, seeing or prefering to see the issue as political, without realizing that religion or belief or self-identification drives the issue on both sides. They sort of support Israel's right to exist in itself as a democratic state, rather than as a refuge for people roundly maltreated by those passing themselves off as their "betters". It's absurd, and the ignorance on the issue is inexusable.

Well...it is, actually. But never mind that: would such a state work? The examples of sentiment in the last thousand years - and the more recent ones across the globe, down to the absurdity of the OIC's non-secular "charter of rights"

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D) - illustrate that it is a practical impossibility. When - not if - it failed, the usual suspects would merely point fingers at the British, or the Americans, or the atheists, or women, or "societal deviants", or whatever else seemed most appropriate to suppress and oppress at the time. It's too much to ask a mass of societies with almost no introspection to produce a secular government that respects the rights of all its citizens - or of its non-Muslim citizens, anyway. The density of the examples is simply too high. One can always hope of course.

 

Well, clearly Michael does. What do the Aborigines have to do with North Korea? Are you imply that Michael's Muslim acquaintance doesn't care about them either?

 

Would you support a state based on race or religion where you live?

Does he? And yet, he comes from a country where natives have been wiped out and moves to another where natives have been marginalised. He prefers a society created by imposing language culture religion and values on the natives. He would probably like South Africa too. Michael has his own brand of ethnocentrism, but since he is not enlisting in an army to wipe out the natives, although he supports the war in Afghanistan and believes that a violent thorough ethnic cleansing may be a more effective solution to resisting natives, I am not concerned with his kind of ethnocentrism. He would not be happy in a society where he would be a minority whether for reasons of race or religion. Good thing the aborigines are only 2% of the population and irrelevant to the larger scheme of what makes up Australia.

 

All other things being equal, no, but it depends entirely on the circumstances, as I think you should appreciate. In extremis almost anything would go. Jews have been kicked around for a long time and have no homeland outside Israel. Israel is a very fair trade for thousands of years of vicious abuse by Islamic societies.

For example: is it fair that Saudi Arabia - and Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan - is a religious state? Of course not. But it can hardly be helped, when the fundamentals of fair secular thought are under such persecution.

 

Yes, I would think so. I'm sure you could ask him directly.

Well, you, too, moved from a society with a horribly abused underclass to another nation in which natives had been marginalized. Why did you do it? I've never understood this, Sam. Do you not realize that you are complicit in the marginalization of natives, Sam?

As would you, apparently. :shrug: I wouldn't go so far as to say anyplace that dissenting voices are silenced or forced out, although you've alluded to the same with your "love it or leave it" comments on the Islamic Middle East. Why are you involved in this, Sam?

 

Very pertinent. I always wondered what native Americans felt, having their culture taken over by foreigners, the way Indians had theirs marginalised by the British.

Thats my brand of ethnocentrism. I didn't feel uncomfortable in my own country afterwards, simply because I speak English better than 90% of the Indian population.

 

Then why did you make yourself complicit in it, Sam?

I fail to see the relevance, but whatever makes you feel better about yourself, I suppose.

 

You believe a race based state is compatible with human rights. I don't have confidence in your ability to make the required distinctions.

But I suppose an Englishman living in the United States, married to the native needs must have these justifications. Odd really, that you would consider a race based state, with mixed race children. Are you a proponent of the One Drop Rule? Do you consider that compatible with human rights as well? What race do you assign in the case of mixed race individuals?

 

Nothing you have said so far would make me happier: my experience of you is intellectual dishonesty, and so if you cast doubt on my morals, it is only to my benefit. I have implied a wide space of reasonable and fair proviso on this issue, and I am pleased to see that you have quite deliberately ignored it, preferring to characterize my position according to your own benefit.

Would I? More so than an immigrant from India, perfectly content to use the system and partake in the oppression and marginalization of natives and other minorities? Aren't you also a staunch proponent of using the "N-word"... to black people? I can't say that I am: it seems horribly offensive. Racist, even: there is hardly any way for an educated person to argue ignorance of its meaning.

Interesting questions. I can honestly say that they enter into no contingency I could imagine, nor have I considered them at any length whatsoever. I rather thought we were talking about Israel specifically, and any other situation hypothetically. For this hypothetical example, under what conditions do you base your opposition? War, genocide, external hostile interests, recent and distant history? The size and political power of the groups concerned? Their recourse to violence? Offensive? Defensive? Retributive? What is their socio-economic standard and what is their support from other nations? Geography? When you have thoroughly answered all these questions, I would be only too happy to provide my suggestions on your pointless questions above.

(The short answer to your questions would be: reasonable relationship and self-inclusion. The history of the Jewish peoples would seem reasonably suited to such a question, given their long history of persecution.)

Now, for you: I infer from your comments that you do not support religion-based states, although I confess that I am not sure. You make no mention of such states all through the Middle East. How, do you feel, should such states be dismantled? Are you in favour of "wiping these regimes from the map"? Or is it that the minorities within these nations that must be removed? "Love it or leave it"? Are these states inviolate, and why? Is there some unifying factor that moves your tolerance of their...well, intolerance?