AIBU, to be concerned about increasing anti-semitism throughout Europe

[DikTrom]

Yesterday's Sunday Times had a number of articles about increased anti-semitism in the UK. Same is happening in the Netherlands and even more so in France and Germany.

Yes pigletjohn I am as deluded as you have tunnel vision.

I am not an idiot so please don't attempt to treat like one.

PJ - Israel started in 1948, but when most people talk about occupied lands, they are referring to its gains from the 1967 war. So if Israel needs to "end the occupation", you, along with Hamas, think this means they just need to pack up and go home, wherever that is. This is about as reasonable as the BNP's "send them back" policy.

Wannabe - Of course I'm not blaming Israel for having good defense systems. Obviously

I'm holding an unruly child at arm's length while it tries to hit me. I'm bigger, stronger, and my arms are longer so his feeble blows don't hurt, they just piss me off.

If I were to hammer the brat's little face to a bloody pulp in response, would you be ok with that?

If not, why not?

Sam

I don't know why you started talking as if I had said anything about the Israelis packing up, or why you suggest that what "most people" think, is true.

I know as well as you do, and as well as Mr Netanyahu does, that Israel will not ever give up the land it has seized. The idea "would be laughable if it was not so tragic"

This however does not mean that I have to stop criticising the State of Israel for its racist, brutal, inhumane and murderous treatment of the surviving Palestinians.

Neither does it mean that I have to say the Occupied Territories are not occupied, or the Illegal Settlements are not illegal.

p.s.

I see you are not denying that the occupation of Palestine started in 1948

What can you tell me about Ordnance 5708-1948?

I mean, Area of Jurisdiction and Powers Ordnance 1948

I am increasingly concerned about the rise of anti-semitism, islamaphobia and anti-immigration sentiment in this country. I think it is part of the wider them and us mentality that also leads to the demonisation of the poor and vulnerable. Problems are seen to be the fault of a group of "others".

I am a Christian married to a Muslim immigrant and I do wonder if some people will ever really accept my children as properly British despite my family connections with this country. I wonder if a similar sentiment is behind the Ed Milliband bacon sarnie?

The situation in Gaza is appalling but I don't pretend to understand its full complexities. DH frequently points to Egypt's willingness to keep its border closed too. I suspect that the vile situation suits extremists on all sides with the ordinary Palestines and Israelis stuck in the middle. One thing that is also pretty clear is that the whole region is one where the superpowers conduct their geopolitical power struggles with other people's lives, freedoms and homes.

PJ - I'm not denying that Israel declared independence in 1948. There's considerable documentary evidence of it happening, and the recent 66th anniversary celebrations give it away. The West Bank was occupied by the Jordanians from 1948, not that anyone, least of all the Palestinians, were remotely bothered.

I think you're showing your ignorance in relation to the Ordnance. 5708 is just the Jewish equivalent of 1948, so it's like asking you about the 1992 regulations. Could mean almost anything....

Post 9/11 was racism, ignorance, bigotry- how are any of these things helpful in finding solutions and moving forward. When Racists aren't responsible for their actions you're essentially promoting anarchy. What good can come of that thought process- none!

My parents worked in Uganda when Idi Amin was in power. My Mum witnessed bodies floating in the Nile all because they weren't from the right 'ethnic' group, expulsion and ethnic cleansing of the Indian population of Uganda at the time. Racism is never right and should never be understood or justified.

I don't know anyone who blamed 'All' Muslims for 9/11- where do you live where people hold such ignorant views of other ethnic groups. You say it's 'stupid' people and your not one of them but why I you even beginning to provide reasoning for such distasteful acts in a supposedly 'democratic' country such as Britain and since when is it a good idea to take provide reasons for the unreasonable in our society. No voice should be given to these emptionally immature clowns!

Last post to Cote

Sam

I am puzzled that you only say "I'm not denying that Israel declared independence in 1948" and you evade my point that Israel's seizure of Arab homes and land began in 1948.

Are you trying to deny it, or is it just something you prefer to sweep under the carpet?

Cote - I'm not making any statement at all about it. I do query whether it is relevant to the matter at hand, which is whether the UK Jewish community should be under siege. I know half a dozen established British families who are emigrating to Israel in the next few weeks, partly because of what they believe to be the hostile atmosphere here. Big loss to the UK, big gain for Israel.

Responding to Israel’s U.S.-backed claim that its assault on Gaza is necessary because no country would tolerate the rocket fire from militants in Gaza, Siegman says: "What undermines this principle is that no country and no people would live the way that Gazans have been made to live. … The question of the morality of Israel’s action depends, in the first instance, on the question, couldn’t Israel be doing something [to prevent] this disaster that is playing out now, in terms of the destruction of human life? Couldn’t they have done something that did not require that cost? And the answer is, sure, they could have ended the occupation."

Given his background, what American Jewish leader Henry Siegman has to say about Israel’s founding in 1948 through the current assault on Gaza may surprise you. From 1978 to 1994, Siegman served as executive director of the American Jewish Congress, long described as one of the nation’s "big three" Jewish organizations along with the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. Born in Germany three years before the Nazis came to power in 1933, Siegman’s family eventually moved to the United States. His father was a leader of the European Zionist movement that pushed for the creation of a Jewish state. In New York, Siegman studied the religion and was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi by Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, later becoming head of the Synagogue Council of America. After his time at the American Jewish Congress, Siegman became a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He now serves as president of the U.S./Middle East Project.

Read the whole interview if interested in this subject.

Yes that is all horrifying Piglet just like the man arrested for incitement after chanting Heil Hitler, the Belgian shop banning Jews from entering but saying they allow dogs, the chant of 'death to the Jews' outside The Hague, German demonstrators chanting 'Jews, Jews, cowardly pigs' and the Hungarian ambassador saying Jews enslaved mankind and were servants of Satan. And, of course, the chant of 'Jews to the gas chambers' in Germany, the defacement of the Holocaust war memorial with swastikas in Athens, the burning of shops, the three pipe bombs chucked at the German synagogue, the house of a Dutch Jew set on fire, the rise in anti Semitic motivated assaults nd so on. Not, of course, on the same scale as being massacred in your hundreds and thousands in Gaza.

It is sickening. Being Palestinian or being Jewish or being black or Muslim or whatever is never an excuse for discrimination and hatred. It seems way too many people around the world disagree with that.

It's much worse when racism is part of the national culture, and is inculcated by the education system and the national institutions and laws.

Thank gods it has mostly been outlawed in South Africa now.

Racism is still alive and well in South Africa, except that it works in the opposite direction now.

White people are made redundant or not hired at all, regardless of their experience or qualifications.

Yes. I remember growing up watching SA. And if Israel and Palestine do want peace then they- well, more Israel as they have the more structured education system- will need to start from the very youngest. Not that the Israeli government or Hamas seem particularly keen on peace anyway, tbf.

I believe the palestinian Christians have a hard time in Israel as well sometimes from there own people because they don't follow Islam. The whole situation in the middle East is very complicated.