It really makes me mad when Jewish people...

[Pushyourluck]

I cannot believe the origional poster is down as being 45 years old. That really makes ME mad.

 

[G-Lexington]

It really makes me mad when people lump groups of people together as if they're one big homogenous group, especially if it's in an effort to belittle everyone in that group.

Lex

 

[FREDDIE187]

Ive never heard about 6 million other people from a certain group that were torn apart from their loved ones, put into camps, where they were starved, tortured, beaten, treated like complete animals, and died a horrible death.

can any one tell me?? Jews Have gone through so much, and for what? for killing a complete lunatic thousands of years ago who thought he was the son of god...Thank you..

As a matter of interest, the first concentration camps were in South Africa. During the war between the English and the Boers (1900). The English burned down the farms and put the woman and children in camps to break the spirit of the boer fighters. Many thousands of woman and children died in those camps from starvation, diseases and from being treated inhumanly.

 

[pigeonpost]

It really makes me mad when people lump groups of people together as if they're one big homogenous group, especially if it's in an effort to belittle everyone in that group.

Lex

But that is the point..Judaism is a religion therefore there is no such thing as the Jewish people..might as well talk of the Catholic or Protestant people

 

[yamneck]

are put like the persecuted and hated ones when there are many more people who are more persecuted and killed to this day, like in Africa and nobody says nothing, especially the American ones.

How are Americans killed on an ongoing basis as it is happening to other nations (except in Iraq where they have no business) ? How and why are these Americans dying 'to this day' that you are reffering to?

Just curios.

 

[Croynan]

Hmmm, so I'm trying to figure out if this is the most repulsive thread I've read in the last week, or if it will be the most repulsive thread I will read for this next week.

BRAVO​

.

eM.

 

[Croynan]

It really makes me mad when Jewish people nowadays act like fascists themselves and use other people to get further in life without any sympathy.

free line dictionary

Noun 1. anti-Semitism - the intense dislike for and prejudice against Jewish people
antisemitism
racism - the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races

eM.

 

[theatreboi]

Hmmm, so I'm trying to figure out if this is the most repulsive thread I've read in the last week, or if it will be the most repulsive thread I will read for this next week.

I think this might say everything that I wanted to say, but in a way that wouldn't involve me getting so angry that my head began to hurt from the restraint of keeping all of my negative thoughts in.

 

[BluesDog]

just this weekend in Philadelphia, four college students were arrested after a brutal beating of a man during which the perpetrators shouted anti-Semitic slurs. Every group has been victimized by prejudice at some point in history, but few have been so universally attacked through the centuries as the Jews, and few have a more valid claim to seek justice. No matter what your opinion about the Israeli government's actions against their Palestinian citizens, there is no excuse for attacking Jews elsewhere.

 

[youngnihilist]

Anti-semitism is still rampant. but theres two kinds. the hard anti-semitism that we see with violence, name-calling, etc. thats obvious and blatant and most condemn it.

but a more common type of anti-semitism is more subtle. that Jews are this or that, that they're fascists, that they're greedy or whiny, that all they care about is Israel...

yes it's true other groups died in the holocaust. 600,000 gypsies, tens of thousands of homosexuals, the list goes on. but no group was as damaged as the Jews, who lost ONE HALF of their world population.

Israel isn't perfect but it has to exist to protect the Jewish people. is there any other country on earth that pretty much 90% of the world hates? israel is surrounded by dozens of muslim neighbors ready to annihilate it. israel is hated by russians, africans, latin americans, and most europeans. and its retaliation is perfectly justified. if our neighbors (i.e. mexicans) started lobbing missiles and suicide bombers at our border towns, do you think we'd sit back with our hands behind our back? no i think most of us would be advocating nuking mexico city!

you think being gay is hard? try being jewish. or jewish and gay.

 

[SoulSearcher]

Anti-semitism is still rampant. but theres two kinds. the hard anti-semitism that we see with violence, name-calling, etc. thats obvious and blatant and most condemn it.

but a more common type of anti-semitism is more subtle. that Jews are this or that, that they're fascists, that they're greedy or whiny, that all they care about is Israel...

yes it's true other groups died in the holocaust. 600,000 gypsies, tens of thousands of homosexuals, the list goes on. but no group was as damaged as the Jews, who lost ONE HALF of their world population.

Israel isn't perfect but it has to exist to protect the Jewish people. is there any other country on earth that pretty much 90% of the world hates? israel is surrounded by dozens of muslim neighbors ready to annihilate it. israel is hated by russians, africans, latin americans, and most europeans. and its retaliation is perfectly justified. if our neighbors (i.e. mexicans) started lobbing missiles and suicide bombers at our border towns, do you think we'd sit back with our hands behind our back? no i think most of us would be advocating nuking mexico city!

you think being gay is hard? try being jewish. or jewish and gay.

I am Jewish and gay, and I'll say again what I said above in my post. Of course anti-Semitism is out there, but it is also true, that in the US at least, American Jews have done such a good job of creating a sense of guilt and paranoia, that people are so so scared to legitimately criticise Israeli actions, lest they be labeled "anti-Semitic".

I lived in Israel for most of my life, I was born there, and my family are Greek Jewish immigrants who moved there after Israel was formed. You say that people in other places don't understand history. I think that people who take your view don't understand history. Israel may have been needed, but it was formed in an unjust way, plain and simple. I was born to settler parents who certainly tilled land that was cleansed of indiginous Palestinians. Is it my fault that I was born to settlers? I don't think so. This is the problem. We need to stop sanitizing what is not clean. My country is not innocent. We need to stop running this Holocaust Industry, using past injustices to justify unjust behaviour today, making the dispossessed look like lunatic and irrational or innately violent beings, using the Holocaust to silence legitimate criticism of immoral and unethical behaviour of Israel.

For those who really want to know what actual Israelis think, read Israeli newspapers, and you will realise that American Jews live in their own imagined realities about what a Jew is and what Israel is supposed to be about. When compared to American Jewry, Israeli Jews are much more diverse in political thoughts, and indeed much more critical of our own government's actions. No more making an industry out of the Holocaust! My ancestors have been the voice of man's conscience throughout the ages, but the historical and daily injustices against Palestinians is destroying that soul. Dehumanising them and using the "terrorist" card to continue with the same old business will only let us sink deeper into this hole. The occupation is eating away at Israel. I hope and wish more people, particularly American Jews could see that, so that they don't blindly support every Israeli action or seek to silence any criticism by immediately labeling it anti-Semitism.

 

[star-warrior]

Thank you for the perspective in Israel, SoulSearcher. I'm saddened by the continued conflict that lies between your country and your neighbours. For most of my childhood and adult life, there hasn't been many times where there hasn't been any news of death from your area. It is simply appalling.

Someone above asked us to look again at European history, and the reasons in Mein Kampf. I don't believe its just that insane litany of reasons by the author that was reason why a nation of people could have lost its soul to such a ideology. It may have been much more deeply rooted in prejudice and other factors too. The Jews of old Europe are well known to have been money lenders, and maybe some part of the retribution was the avoidance of paying back money loaned. Certainly the twelvth century murder of Jews in the city of York in the UK was partly due to this reason. Moreover, people of different customs and culture have always been seen by locals as being outsiders, distinct and in some ways alien no matter in which country they come from. It would have been easy for local grudges and some type of debt against them to have rooted the prejudices even deeper. The Nazis offered a state sanctioned excuse to rid the locals of their problems, and the locals took it, despite throwing away their conscience. These Jews of pre-war Europe were like similar in their mode of living, maybe their dress, and most certainly would have sounded in speech like the local indigenous people if they grew up over several generations there. Only their customs differed. They were of the same race, caucasians.

The treatment of Germany during the first world war was excessive leading to a country who had lost its self worth and a lot of unemployment and dissatisfaction especially from former soldiers like Hitler. The rise of the false hope of nazism and it outward depiction of brute force and strength under his charisma may have been alluring to many Germans at that time. The interwar years were certainly still an age of empire and the dominance of European countries over the areas in Africa and other places still influenced the thinking and mentality of the ruling classes. I think it came as a big shock to white middle and upper class people to see their fellow Germans kill caucasians on account of their different culture and customs which perpetrated a sense of repugnance and guilt. IMHO, this may have been why the holocaust is inextricably linked with the Jews since the end of WW2.

I agree with you that the milking of these past atrocities by the American Jewish lobby to silence critics of Israel is deplorable. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it demeans the memory of the dead. The way Israel was form by unilateral declaration seemed so unfair to the Arabs then living in Palastine. The British had promised the Arabs and reneged on their promise, as many supporters of the Jews in Britain had pro-Zionist leaning even though they were Chrisitians (those who hoped that the coming of salvation through god meant an establishment once again of the state of Israel). I'm not an expert on the history or causes of the conflict, but through watching programmes from the people of both sides of the divide on television, one can see a deep rooted feeling of injustice by the palastinians for being cheated out of nationhood. They hate the United States of America for being the first country which acknowledged Israel's declaration of nationhood, leading to post WW2 middle eastern conflict by armed struggle as a way to gain nationhood by being 'freedom fighters'.

Working towards a peace in the region looks impossible under this light, because the more deaths there are, the more the call for revenge there is. And for others to take a warped view and use the Middle Eastern conflict to their own purposes (and I'm talking about extremist Al Quaeda type organisations) does not bode well for world peace.

 

[SoulSearcher]

Just because you were born in Israel and lived there doesn't mean that the story of early Jewish settlers coming there and "taking lands" from "indigenous Palestinians" is true. Your version of the history is poplar with the extreme left movement in Israel and abroad, especially with "human rights" groups like Betlehem. Israeli academics like Beni Morris found it very popular to play the self hate card and reinvent the history of early Jewish settlement, but he was quickly shown to produce fraudulent academic works. Today "Professor" Beni Morris sings to a different tune. This reminds me of Noam Chomsky or Ward Churchill who hate everything about American history. Yes there are very diverse views in Israel like yours, but it doesn't mean most Israelis play along to some self hating false history of the Zionist movement. No one says Israel can't be criticized, but there is a difference when there is legitimate criticism and anti-Zionist agenda that for the most part deploys double standards in criticizing Israeli actions.

No, Jews didn't come there and take away lands from anyone, more like they were paying for swamps from the Ottoman empire and building farming villages that attracted Arab influx from neighboring regions. Today's left love to create victims from the Palestinians, who would have a long time ago had their own state that would have been larger if only like the rest of the Arab world they would not be preoccupied with Islamic hate towards Jewish sovereignty. There was no occupation in 1920's 30's but Palestinians were just as crafty in spilling Jewish blood as they are today. Hebron massacre of 1929 and earlier ones are just an example.
I'm amazed that these supposed murderous Zionist settlers spared the rest of the Palestinians who today comprise 1.5 million of Israel's population. If it weren't for early Zionists, the Arabs that started calling themselves Palestinians in the 50's wouldn't be different than their Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian ancestors.

American Jews are not "politically diverse" because they known well what it will mean if the so popular anti-Zionist propaganda becomes a "historic fact" like it has always been in Europe. Don't worry you have Jimmy Carter and the "Israel Lobby" to fill us in on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Are you Jewish or Israeli? Just curious to know.

More than half of Israeli academics have relationships with our security apparatus, and therefore have a different take on matters than they otherwise would in a free society. You've picked on Benny Morris, but let me tell you, even when Benny Morris was recounting Israeli atrocities during the "war of independence", he was never sympathetic towards the Palestinians, he always maintained that wrong was done, but that it had to be done, therefore was morally acceptable.

Obviously, we have a different view on Britain and the UN Mandate and the origins of the conflict. I'll assure you that most Israelis at least agree that we have wronged the Palestinians, we disagree on this; whether it was morally justified out of necessity for our survival or not. To think that a whole bunch of Russians and Poles keep becoming fully subsidized citizens of Israel each year, many of who have nothing to do with Judaism or Israel, while Palestinians can't come back to their homes is not OK in my Jewish mind.

And let us also not forget that we are not one "people" or one "race" or one ethnicity. Right from the day Israel was formed, white Jews (Jews of European origin, Ashkenazi) had received all the state's priviledges, the best housing, the best jobs, the best education, etc. Sephardim and Mizrahim (Jews of Middle Eastern and other Mediterranean origin) had to live in tent cities for months and received the worst services from the state. This discrimination continues to this day in Israel. We even had our own Black Panther movement in Israel. Sephardim are not black, they're olive skinned, but you can still here Ashkenazis call them Schwartze, which means black in Yiddish.

Anyways, my point is, that Israel is not only unjust to Palestinians, there is also a lot of disparities and racism within the Jewish community in Israel. Even though the population is split half half between white jews and Sephardim, differences in economic, educational and social indeces are very marked. Anti-Semitism card works with non-Jews, but we also need to address the real anti-Semitism, that by the white Jews against Semitic Jews.

 

[SoulSearcher]

If the British were so pro Zionist, they would keep their word in the Balfour Decloration and the original mandate for Palestine and not brake 80% of the promised land to the Jews and create Trans-Jordan to appease the Arabs for oil. The White Papers were not so pro zionist after all when they prevented Jews from entering, while allowing full migration of Arabs into the region at the time.

During colonial days, Europeans used to imagine that they were the masters of the earth. They have no right to determine who's land goes to who. Palestine belonged to Palestinians, Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Jews. Jews have a right to return, Russian Jews have a right to return to Russian, Polish Jews have a right to return to Poland, and Nazi Jews should certainly be deported back to Germany and Russia!!! Did you know that? In Israel, we even have Nazi Jewish youth groups who use identical rhetoric and symbols as other neo-Nazi groups? And these are supposedly children of "Jewish immigrants" from Europe.

 

[Kurn]

If you ask a thousand Jews about all this you will get about 3,333 different opinions.

 

[SoulSearcher]

If you ask a thousand Jews about all this you will get about 3,333 different opinions.

I agree, I see that at family gatherings, gets crazy at times.

 

[Ninja108]

boy, lots of generalization in these threads.. as for the Jews. they have been mass killings of them throughout the centuries, the Holocaust just being the most recent one

 

[SoulSearcher]

As a settler family were you involved in the persecution of Palestinians?

I never persecuted them directly, I just knew that we were living where they used to, and our action was illegal. Knowing that I was gay also made me very conscious of other people's pains, as I was constantly suffering myself. My family didn't feel the same way, not that they hated the Palestinians, but even the older family friends actively harassed and called names to Palestinian passer-bys, stoning them, spitting on them, a lot of times for no reason at all. They were just a nuisance, the sight of them just incensed a lot of people. The only Palestinian friends we ever had for the first 17 years of my life were 2 Palestinian Jewish families. The only reason we even left the settlement was because my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer, and we came to the US to get treatment.

 

[FREDDIE187]

I am Jewish and gay, and I'll say again what I said above in my post. Of course anti-Semitism is out there, but it is also true, that in the US at least, American Jews have done such a good job of creating a sense of guilt and paranoia, that people are so so scared to legitimately criticise Israeli actions, lest they be labeled "anti-Semitic".

I lived in Israel for most of my life, I was born there, and my family are Greek Jewish immigrants who moved there after Israel was formed. You say that people in other places don't understand history. I think that people who take your view don't understand history. Israel may have been needed, but it was formed in an unjust way, plain and simple. I was born to settler parents who certainly tilled land that was cleansed of indiginous Palestinians. Is it my fault that I was born to settlers? I don't think so. This is the problem. We need to stop sanitizing what is not clean. My country is not innocent. We need to stop running this Holocaust Industry, using past injustices to justify unjust behaviour today, making the dispossessed look like lunatic and irrational or innately violent beings, using the Holocaust to silence legitimate criticism of immoral and unethical behaviour of Israel.

For those who really want to know what actual Israelis think, read Israeli newspapers, and you will realise that American Jews live in their own imagined realities about what a Jew is and what Israel is supposed to be about. When compared to American Jewry, Israeli Jews are much more diverse in political thoughts, and indeed much more critical of our own government's actions. No more making an industry out of the Holocaust! [F]My ancestors have been the voice of man's conscience throughout the ages, but the historical and daily injustices against Palestinians is destroying that soul. Dehumanising them and using the "terrorist" card to continue with the same old business will only let us sink deeper into this hole. The occupation is eating away at Israel. [/FONT]I hope and wish more people, particularly American Jews could see that, so that they don't blindly support every Israeli action or seek to silence any criticism by immediately labeling it anti-Semitism.

Being a South African I know a little bit about that. I have no doubt that that is true and it will inevitably mean the end of Isreal as we know it.

 

[unclaimedblessing]

I have long puzzled over hatred of the Jews.
A few reasons might be that:
Many still believe the myth that the Jews killed Christ.
Some govts (like Nazi Germany) need a scapegoat to divert blame for their problems.
Jewish culture strongly encourages the education of their children. The better educated usually get the better, and better paying, jobs.
Judaism doesn't proselytize like its Christian and Moslem bretheren possibly creating a "closed group" perception.
When Jews migrated to new countries, they gratefully accepted the laws and cultures of their new homes and never rioted for acceptance or exception for their people (which might be construed as a weakness).
They are in fact victims. They are victims of the diasporas, the inquisitions and the holocaust. They are victims of Christian and Moslem (in addition to chauvinistic national) persecution. For some people it's easier and safer to jump on that bandwagon.
Just some ideas.