Talk:Anti-Semitism (archive 3)

Wesley writes "As for RK's comments, it appears that "hatespeech" is just a word used to describe politically incorrect opinions, and has very little to do with 'hatred' in the older more conventional sense of that word. "

No, Wesley, that is an outrageous claim. GrahamN regularly makes violently anti-Semitic outburts on Wikipedia. It hurts me very much that not only does this not bother you, but that you think his diatribes are merely "politically incorrect". Do you really think that its Ok to violently hate millions of Jews and Christians who believe that Jews have the right to a state, as GrahamN admits he does? Your tone in recent weeks worries me, and it seems that you are presenting aspects of your personality that I have not seen here before. RK

• RK, your conclusion is wrong because your premises are wrong. You base your "hatespeech" comment on the idea that Zionism = Jews. There are ultra-Orthodox Jews who are anti-Zionist; they believe the "true Israel" must be established by God, not man. There are many Reform Jews who are anti-Zionist, and more who wouldn't classify themselves as anti-Zionist but are certainly opposed to the policies of Israel.

• Let us make one thing very clear. Disagreement with the policies of the government of Israel, or the means by which Israel was established, is not anti-Semitism. It is disagreement with a past and present political movement, no more, no less. I, personally, do not hate those who do believe in these policies. But I deplore policies which I disagree with, and Israel has many. I deplore atrocities, whomever commits them and by whomever they are committed; this includes atrocities against Arabs by Zionists, against Zionists by Arabs, against Zionists by non-Zionist Israelis, against non-Zionist Israelies by Zionists, against Arabs by Arabs... or any other bloody permutation that you care to name. This does not make me anti-Semetic. It makes me anti-atrocity. Let us not demean the many, many people who have suffered from anti-Semitism, unto torture and death, by applying the label indiscriminately to those who merely disagree with the politics of a regime or territorial movement. -- April

RK: First of all, I haven't been following these discussions or "outbursts" closely, so I'm not going to give any blanket approval or condemnation of statements I haven't read. It seemed to me that GrahamN was at a genuine loss to understand how Zionists justify an exclusively Jewish state if not on the basis of religion, and mentioned "plain evil" as the only possibility he could think of, BUT I thought did so as an invitation to have someone correct his misunderstanding. Perhaps I misunderstood.

RK, I find it difficult to take you seriously when you throw around emotionally loaded words so carelessly. For example, what is the difference between "violent hatred", "hatred", and "thinking that what someone else is doing is wrong"? Normally, I would think violent hatred would have some component of deliberate physical or emotional harm. Yet you use the phrase in a context where I see no evidence of deliberate harm, or planned deliberate harm, other than GrahamN saying that Zionism is wrong and racist. Now, you and others might be hurt by his remark, but that doesn't mean that hurting you emotionally was his intent. You might possibly call the statement hateful if he had stated that Jews were evil, but since he didn't in that paragraph, I'm at a loss. I don't know what to think, or what you mean by "violent hatred" or "hatespeech", so it's simply hard to take such accusations seriously when I don't know what they are supposed to mean. I fear they aren't supposed to mean anything specific, but are merely rhetorical devices. Please correct me, as I genuinely hope I'm laboring under a misunderstanding. Wesley

No, Wesley, you are not laboring under a misunderstanding. You are making it clear that you don't have a problem with GrahamN's flat-out admission that he hates all Zionists, which is the same thing as hating most Jews. I don't understand why you don't have a problem with this; it's very disappointing. I suspect that Jesus would be sad to see people justify such hatespeech against his people and his nation.

I don't think it's my place to judge GrahamN, you, or anyone else. I've tried to address the terms used in the debate, not take sides in the debate itself. I don't think insults advance either side. I'm quite certain that I've done far more to cause Jesus sorrow than anything I've typed online, grievous though some of my remarks may be. -As for the article itself, if it uses words like "hatespeech", I hope that such terms are well-defined there. That's all. Wesley

To Graham and RK - please cool it. These kinds of insults do not belong here. Grahams point of view 'Zionism is racist' and RK's point of view 'anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic' are both widely held, and controversial views (which is unsurprising given that wars are fought over these kinds of arguments). We are here to write articles, not to act as an arena for these kinds of disputes. You both need to display more sensitivity for other people's points of view if we are to all work productively together to improve articles. Enchanter

We won't ever improve the article while anti-Semites flood this forum with anti-Semitic hatespeech against Jews. Why is this simply concept so confusing to you?

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RK, your conclusion is wrong because your premises are wrong. You base your "hatespeech" comment on the idea that Zionism = Jews. There are ultra-Orthodox Jews who are anti-Zionist; they believe the "true Israel" must be established by God, not man. There are many Reform Jews who are anti-Zionist, and more who wouldn't classify themselves as anti-Zionist but are certainly opposed to the policies of Israel.

I must disagree. Most Jews are pro-Zionist to some extent. Zionism is merely the belief that Jews have a right to a Jewish state. Further, most people who are members of Zionist organizations currently are Jews. Secondly, you may have misread what I wrote. I agree that there are still some anti-Zionist Jews; I have written about them in great detail (see the archive page). To makr this clear, I agree with you! Thirdly, although what you write about Reform Judaism was true 100 and 50 years ago, it is now decades out of date; it is now incorrect. Fourthly, I myself have repeatedly written that mere disagreement with certain policies of Israel is not anti-Semitism. Again, I agree with you. But when a person like GrahamN comes along and flat-out publicly states that he hates all these Jew, well hatred of most Jew is anti-Semitism. That is what the word means. RK

• Let us make one thing very clear. Disagreement with the policies of the government of Israel, or the means by which Israel was established, is not anti-Semitism.

I totally agree; your point is covered in great detail already on this very Talk page. See this entry and its archive for more info. I think you are countering an argument that no one is making. We all agree with you. (Always a nice thing to hear!) RK

It is disagreement with a past and present political movement, no more, no less. I, personally, do not hate those who do believe in these policies. But I deplore policies which I disagree with, and Israel has many. I deplore atrocities, whoever commits them and against whomever they are committed; this includes atrocities against Arabs by Zionists, against Zionists by Arabs, against Zionists by non-Zionist Israelis, against non-Zionist Israelies by Zionists, against Arabs by Arabs... or any other bloody permutation that you care to name. This does not make me anti-Semetic. It makes me anti-atrocity. Let us not demean the many, many people who have suffered from anti-Semitism, unto torture and death, by applying the label indiscriminately to those who merely disagree with the politics of a regime or territorial movement. -- April

Um, what atrocities do you believe are being committed by zon-Zionist Israelis against Zionist Israelis? And what atrocities do you believe are being committed by Zionist Israelis against non-Zionist Israelis? I have never heard anyone, even Arabs, make such a charge. I can't imagine what you are referring to. The Israeli, American, Arab and European newspapers have never mentioned any such events, ever. I am disturbed to hear you making these claims without any basis whatsoever. It sounds like you really have it in for the Jews. RK

• As someone else said, that was meant to be a hypothetical case: hate the atrocity, no matter who's doing what to whom. However, since you insist, and since I cynically believe you can find examples of almost anyone doing almost anything to anyone else... I did a web search. For a beginning, see this link: http://www.io.com/~jewishwb/iris/archives/551 ... "With my own eyes, I wept. I wept that a Jewish policeman would attack a Jewish child. I wept that a Jewish government would use violence against Jewish citizens." ... This was not chosen because it's the best source, but because it was the first allegation I found. Thirty-second search. Please don't make me search for more and better sources - I will almost certainly find 'em, people being people the world over, and this sort of thing depresses me.) Note that I do not have the slightest idea whether this is a true or a false allegation. It is an allegation, ergo such allegations exist, ergo I deplore the actions cited in the allegation if in fact those actions happened as described. So am I anti-Semetic for condemning the hypotheitical actions of a hypothetical Jewish policeman against a hypothetical Jewish child? I think not.

• It's my belief that trying to tar those who disagree with one with slurs of bigotry, when no bigotry is actually in evidence, is both a weak tactic and a harmful one. Something that long experience has taught me: be precise, and condemn the action you deplore, not the person committing it. (Hey GrahamN, talkin' to you too here. :) Sling that "anti-Semetic" around too much, and you only empower the racists, by actually lending credence to the old canard that the term is just used to silence political opponents. I refuse to let the serious problem of anti-Semitism be degraded that way. Check out my posts to sci.skeptic on DejaNews, wherein I have verbally walloped on Holocaust revisionists who tried just that.

• A long time ago, in a city far away from where I am now, my mother was a US civil rights activist with "Women for Racial and Economic Equality." She was an enthusiastic and idealistic promoter of equality of all peoples, of the ideal that individual potential mattered far more than ethnic or socioeconomic background. And one day, when she was running for a leadership position within the group, another woman argued that she should not be allowed to have it. Why? Because she was "racist". It was incidents like that which, alas, let the term "playing the race card" into the vocabulary, thence to be seized on and used gleefully by racists everywhere. RK, I beg of you, in all seriousness, don't make the same mistake.

• And now, as Enchanter so wisely points out, this doesn't really belong here. (She said, after adding several paragraphs. Apologies.) I second his motion, and suggest that we take this to meta, or better yet, all try to see each other as individuals with different points of view, and work together to build a better Wikipedia. -- April

RK - You are repeatedly insinuating that others are racist or anti-semitic without good reason. (I would have thought it is quite clear that April is speaking hypothetically and is not making any specific allegations). Again - these kinds of insults are out of place, and April for one certainly deserves an apology for your misunderstanding her. Enchanter 14:40 Sep 4, 2002 (PDT)

RK, I think you are probably quite mad. I have never made an anti-Semitic remark in my life. As for your accusation that I am violent, I'll have you know that I am a pacifist. Once more you slander me because I dare to say things that you know to be true but which you wish were left un-said. I think Wesley is saying that the non-religious Zionists' motivation for wanting Jews to dominate Israel-Palestine, was that it should be a haven from anti-Semitism. This sounds reasonable, but it is a reasoning that only works while anti-Semitism is a widespread phenomenon. So it is clear that Zionists have a vested interest in keeping anti-Semitism alive; if there were no anti-Semitism, there would be no moral justification for the apartheid. It seems to me that accordingly, you Zionists have adopted two strategies for keeping anti-Semitism alive. Firstly you try, in articles like this one, to re-define the word "Anti-Semitism" to include anybody who opposes Zionism, in the hope that this will allow Zionism to float along in perpetuity on a hovercraft of circular reasoning. Secondly, you behave like utter bastards towards the Palestinians, so that all right-minded people will despise you. In case you are confused, I repeat that by “you” I mean “you Zionists” not “you Jews”. OK? GrahamN 14:23 Sep 4, 2002 (PDT)

Whatever you think of Zionists, this is not the place to vent your opinions. These insults reflect very badly on Wikipedia. Please stop. Enchanter 14:40 Sep 4, 2002 (PDT)

GrahamN writes "I think Wesley is saying that the non-religious Zionists' motivation for wanting Jews to dominate Israel-Palestine, was that it should be a haven from anti-Semitism. This sounds reasonable, but it is a reasoning that only works while anti-Semitism is a widespread phenomenon. So it is clear that Zionists have a vested interest in keeping anti-Semitism alive..."

GrahamN, please stop filling this forum with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. This kind of obsession about Jews is unhealty.

GrahamN writes "if there were no anti-Semitism, there would be no moral justification for the apartheid. It seems to me that accordingly, you Zionists have adopted two strategies for keeping anti-Semitism alive. Firstly you try, in articles like this one, to re-define the word 'Anti-Semitism' to include anybody who opposes Zionism, in the hope that this will allow Zionism to float along in perpetuity on a hovercraft of circular reasoning. Secondly, you behave like utter bastards towards the Palestinians, so that all right-minded people will despise you. In case you are confused, I repeat that by 'you' I mean 'you Zionists' not 'you Jews'.

The Zionists GrahamN refers to are most of the world's Jews. So GrahamN claims that he can't be an anti-Semited because of word games? I find this quite unconvincing. Frankly, he has a grudge against Jews that he just can't control, and is trying to use Wikipedia as a forum to vent. I believe that he should go elsewhere.