Thread: England is anti-semetic

My only prejudice is against the prejudiced.

Reporting the truth shouldn't be seen as bias. Recognising the immorality of the virtual annexing of Palestinian land for Jewish settlers, and the ridiculously violent over-reaction to Hamas' rockets last year, does not make you an anti semite.

Look back 30-40 years, when Israel faced legitimate threats bravely, and they were represented in the press as heroes. The problem is that the underdog has become the bully.

Originally Posted by alanmt

Israel has gone too far lately. Disagreeing with its policies does not make one an anti-semite.

What have they done lately? I've spent a few precious minutes of my time researching the net and have found no statement that even suggest that anyone who disagrees with Israel's policies is anti-Semitic. I'm sure it runs deeper, much deeper.

Suppose the US is attacked and we counter. Anyone who would blame us would be considered anti-American by us, and rightly so. Same difference. England is a country of Anti-Semitic bastards and perhaps the whole of Europe as well as much of the World. We just don't see it (as in care) here in the Texas.

Now consider our ill-conceived involvement in in Iraq war as well as that of Great Britain. Who are we to talk?

Originally Posted by Mike C

Reporting the truth shouldn't be seen as bias. Recognising the immorality of the virtual annexing of Palestinian land for Jewish settlers, and the ridiculously violent over-reaction to Hamas' rockets last year, does not make you an anti semite.

Look back 30-40 years, when Israel faced legitimate threats bravely, and they were represented in the press as heroes. The problem is that the underdog has become the bully.

Looking back? I defy you to prove that this was ever the case. And nothing has changed.

22 Arab and/or Muslim nations that want to drive out the Jewish nation completely engulf Israel. So how in the hell are they the bullies? Arab countries occupy 640 times the land mass as does Israel and outnumber the Jews of Israel by nearly fifty to one. But I understand, your English. Seriously though, why didn't you guys team up with Hitler when you had the chance?

Reporting what biased people want to hear should never be regarded as the truth.

EDIT: Oh this is a beauty, "and the ridiculously violent over-reaction to Hamas' rockets last year" Wow! No cause for alarm people! Their rockets and our dead children is just their way of showing love.

Recognising the immorality of the virtual annexing of Palestinian land for Jewish settlers...

You Brits did the annexing.

http://www.masada2000.org/historical.html

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

Here's my take on why there is anti-Semitism today. Israel was created this time round by being shoe-horned into a tiny corner of the Palestinian desert about sixty years ago and then populated with Europe's Jews. If they'd just been content to continue as they'd always been, greedy money-lenders, the rest of the world might have also been content. But, no, for sixty years they've been aggressive and territorial. They have only themselves to blame, and I have no time for them.

Here's my take, much of the world is deeply religious, particularly the Middle East. Now it's been stated in religious text that the Jews are the chosen ones or something to that affect. So there you have it, the root of all anti-semitism. Opposed violently by Muslims and opposed passively by Christians an idiots. Israel can do no right not even in defense of themselves, as MikeC unwittingly pointed out.

Aggressive and territorial? View Israel from a satellite image and it's hardly visible without a magnifying glass. It's been more in defense of their territory throughout it's history.

I've been very surprised to find such irrational prejudices in my own family. It's not too uncommon for me to hear an uncle say, "Of course the holocaust was wrong, but the Jews had it coming." As if the wanton slaughter of six-million people, many of whom were children and to whom the word Jew was a meaningless label, a word, was somehow alright. These same uncles rant about the natives and other ethnic groups. It's the caveman, us and them mentality. Luckily, the cavemen are going extinct. Unless they've been raised in some really backwater, out of touch towns, I encounter very few prejudices like this in my generation. I think modern education does well to stamp these poisonous ways of thinking out of us, almost every novel we're forced to read has underlying morals on civil rights and tolerance. Take The Chrysalids, for example.

edit: 1000th post, w00t

Originally Posted by caelum

I've been very surprised to find such irrational prejudices in my own family. It's not too uncommon for me to hear an uncle say, "Of course the holocaust was wrong, but the Jews had it coming." As if the wanton slaughter of six-million people, many of whom were children and to whom the word Jew was a meaningless label, a word, was somehow alright. These same uncles rant about the natives and other ethnic groups. It's the caveman, us and them mentality. Luckily, the cavemen are going extinct. Unless they've been raised in some really backwater, out of touch towns, I encounter very few prejudices like this in my generation. I think modern education does well to stamp these poisonous ways of thinking out of us, almost every novel we're forced to read has underlying morals on civil rights and tolerance. Take The Chrysalids, for example.

edit: 1000th post, w00t

There has never been a time (obviously referring to the past) when education was not modern [at the time], and it has yet to stamp out anything. Take the POV's toward current events as shown on this thread instead of your novel example.

There was a time when education was not modern. It's called the past. And as for education having never stamped out anything, from comparing the open-mindedness of my generation to that of our forefathers, I would say it has. Awareness of xenophobic prejudices is put in most of our modern curriculums.

Originally Posted by Blood

Here's my take, much of the world is deeply religious, particularly the Middle East. Now it's been stated in religious text that the Jews are the chosen ones or something to that affect. So there you have it, the root of all anti-semitism. Opposed violently by Muslims and opposed passively by Christians an idiots. Israel can do no right not even in defense of themselves, as MikeC unwittingly pointed out.

I am not having much success trying to work that one out.

Originally Posted by caelum

There was a time when education was not modern. It's called the past. And as for education having never stamped out anything, from comparing the open-mindedness of my generation to that of our forefathers, I would say it has. Awareness of xenophobic prejudices is put in most of our modern curriculums.

I could list numerous faults that exist in the civilised Western world that didn't exist to the same extent in the past. Just a cursory look at history will tell you that it's not as simple as the storybook progression from caveman to modern man.

Originally Posted by Mermaid on the breakwater

I could list numerous faults that exist in the civilised Western world that didn't exist to the same extent in the past. Just a cursory look at history will tell you that it's not as simple as the storybook progression from caveman to modern man.

I'm sure there a few examples of things that are worse now, I can even think of a few, but on the whole I think society has moved forward. Just think of the advances in human rights and public awareness. For anyone who's willing to look, especially with the help of the Internet, there is so much information for us to access. It used to be that if you could restrict knowledge from the people, you held a great club over their head, but that is getting harder to do. It doesn't stop some regimes from trying, though; just look at China's censorship of politically dissident websites.

But from another perspective, perhaps so as the tools of free-speech have advanced, so have the tools of propaganda. Look at the American channel of Fox News.

Originally Posted by caelum

I'm sure there a few examples of things that are worse now, I can even think of a few, but on the whole I think society has moved forward. Just think of the advances in human rights and public awareness. For anyone who's willing to look, especially with the help of the Internet, there is so much information for us to access. It used to be that if you could restrict knowledge from the people, you held a great club over their head, but that is getting harder to do. It doesn't stop some regimes from trying, though; just look at China's censorship of politically dissident websites.

At the same time, as well as having all these great advancements, we're now at a much greater risk of wiping ourselves out with advanced nuclear weapons, and if you're into the climate change stuff, you'll think we've done more damage to the environment in the last few decades that any time in our history. I don't think knowledge has ever been consistently withheld from people in the past. There have been instances but there's no real consistent pattern there from what I can see. It's much easier to access information now than it's ever been, that's true, but then the information is only as good as the mind that's using it.

The first 'now' is redundant.

Originally Posted by Mermaid on the breakwater

I don't think knowledge has ever been consistently withheld from people in the past.

Not just withheld, but distorted and warped. Propaganda and controlling what people hear and are taught are powerful weapons. If you can make people believe, for example, that your right to rule is some kind of "divine, magical" right—I'm thinking pharaohs here—then they'll be less likely to question your rule. There's a reason why religion was the major claim to power in the middle ages. And if you look at the contemporary Muslim theocracies, it still is.

A great case study on this subject is the intensive propaganda campaign that took place in the Third Reich under the direction of Joseph Goebbels, the Minister for Propaganda (lol). Goebbels, often called Hitler's Number Two Man, was a master of public deception, and managed to convince a large part of the German public that Hitler was some kind of god. The Fuhrer was practically mythical.

One technique Goebbels espoused was public demonstrations: military marches, book burnings, executions. Nothing makes an impression on the public like mass demonstrations. Dazzle them. And if you want to delve into the mind of the madman, Goebbels' war-time diaries were discovered posthumously and published in book format (I've read them).

Of course, Hitler was just a man, and not one that was particularly intelligent. But boy oh boy, could he give a speech. I don't even know what the hell he was yelling about, but I just get riled up and want to go and hit something, like a punching bag. Should put some bass on that and we'd have the next club hit. Feel the Spiel. *boom boom chickida boom daboom chikida* Meishen rach nellen du hast! *daboom boom chikida* Deutchsland fizzioncroft meinlager! *boom boom yeah*

Originally Posted by caelum

But boy oh boy, could he give a speech. I don't even know what the hell he was yelling about, but I just get riled up and want to go and hit something, like a punching bag. Should put some bass on that and we'd have the next club hit. Feel the Spiel. *boom boom chickida boom daboom chikida* Meishen rach nellen du hast! *daboom boom chikida* Deutchsland fizzioncroft meinlager! *boom boom yeah*

Ha. Caelum, truly ridiculous.