Subject:
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Re: Babies who threaten to topple Israel?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 14 Jan 2004 20:07:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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562 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Harro de Jong wrote:
> dr_scott_arthur@yahoo.co.uk (Scott A) wrote in <HrHJ6M.1F4I@lugnet.com>:
> > Israeli nationalists ({not} Jews) break international law, oppresses a
> > people, murder civilians and then acts like a petulant child when
> > criticised. WW2 justifies none of that.
>
> All of this seems to be par for the course for the region. If you're going
> to criticise the Israelis, why not apply the same standards to the entire
> Middle East?
One reason is that the US provides massive funding and military support for
Israel but not for other Middle Eastern nations. Additionally, Israel is after
all, the only nation in the region confirmed to possess nuclear weapons, but the
US hasn't undertaken any pre-emptive invasions of Israel. Another reason is
that when the Israeli military kills Palestinian civilians, it's considered
acceptable casualties of legitimate, self-protecting action, but when
Palestinian bombers kill Israeli civilians, it's called terrorism. A related
reason is that, when Israeli civilians are killed, it makes headlines in the US
and UK, but when Palestinian civilians are killed, they barely qualify for a
footnote.
Yet another reason is that Sharon, arguably guilty of war crimes, is still
treated with light-handed respect, even as he works actively to forestall any
efforts at peace, but Arafat is derided as a criminal when he fails to rein in
every last member of Hamas.
I would also suggest that, in the US at least, there is a indoctrination of
commonality between citizens of the US and of Israel, and this indoctrination
rears its head in the oft-repeated claim (in various phrasings) that United
States law is firmly founded in Judeo-Christian tradition, which is an explicit
endorsement of Judaism as inherently compatible with "our" values, whereas Islam
is explicitly excluded from that equation.
To be sure, none of these reasons justifies bloodshed by either side, but these
and many other reasons may contribute to the sense that Israel is held to a
standard diffferent from that applied to its neighbors in the region.
Dave!
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Babies who threaten to topple Israel?
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| Snipped everything I agreed with, leaving one little bitty bit... (...) yes... way too much. Asserted to be more than all the rest of the direct foreign aid budget combined but I don't have a cite that I trust handy... (...) Um, how many B USD a (...) (21 years ago, 14-Jan-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Babies who threaten to topple Israel?
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| orrex@excite.com (Dave Schuler) wrote in <HrHx8H.1zHJ@lugnet.com>: (...) So those other Middle Eastern nations can do whatever they want, because they're not on Uncle Sam's payroll? (...) Israel is also the only democracy in the region... (...) (...) (21 years ago, 15-Jan-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Babies who threaten to topple Israel?
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| dr_scott_arthur@yahoo.co.uk (Scott A) wrote in <HrHJ6M.1F4I@lugnet.com>: (...) No, but I don't need to. I didn't say anything about other forms of racism, I merely observe that antisemitism is alive and kicking. (...) But that's not what you were (...) (21 years ago, 14-Jan-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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