Labours ongoing anti semitism row

mij

You asked a question and I gave you an example of how it could be true, I think what you really wanted was an argument, hence the smiley.

You do seem to a very angry person with this subject and have insulted people in my opinion, calm down and be more objective.  I am from a Travelling/Gypsy background and have often read things on here about us that are far worse than anything you are having to read, and has been allowed by the staff.

I politely suggest that you are often choosing to miss the point, or perhaps may even have an agenda of your own and will trouble you no further.

Toko Black

Yes, yes I do.

However, as you may or may not be aware, calling, labeling or comparing someone or thing to the Nazis is not uncommon and covers a spectrum of comparisons from the out right absurd to the too close for comfort.
It is used whenever one person/party considered another person/party as being dictatorial/authoritarian/oppressive etc as a generic pejorative term.

I agree this is for the most part extremely insensitive to the reality of what the Nazis actually did, which was genocide on terrible scale.
However, like it or not, insensitivity is not anti-semitism.

... and there in lays the potential problems with the IHRA definition.
It is not clearly defined enough to adequately take account of genuine criticism of the State of Israel, whether it be accurate, exaggerated or insensitive from criticism of Israel for anti-semitic reasons.

Again, just to be clear, I abhor anti-semitism, just as I abhor all prejudices based upon someones colour, ethnicity, gender or sexuality.
I also abhor religious prejudices based upon the idea that because a person belongs to a particular religion he/she is automatically better or worse than someone that belongs to another.
Equally, the notion that one religion is better or worse than any other based upon the core principles and foundations of that religion is prejudiced - rather than restricting an opinion or evaluation to the contemporary problems and impacts caused by a particular religion over another.*

* that is saying that Islam is fundamentally worse than Christianity because currently Islam is causing more problems in the world - that is not a fair assessment.
It is fair to assess the current impact of Islam on the world and conclude that it is a greater threat to stability and western democracies because of the problems it is causing due to geographical and historic events effected by and upon those religions.

robel

You simply made a statement, you did not give an example of how it could be true.

Angry, not at all, im not even sure how you would determine my emotions from my responses.

And how have I insulted people, please do me the service of providing proof, if you going to make accusations.

robel

That is your entitled opinion but I do not agree with it in any way. To compare the victims of the worst genocide in history (modern or otherwise) to those who carried it out, you have to be absolute low life scum. People who do this either hate Jews or are ignorant to the facts.

Im sorry but i cannot agree that these statements are "insensitive", its far worse than that.

Are you suggesting that racism is just being insensitive?

The IHRA definition is defined clearly enough for a plethora of organisations and governments, including the CPS to adopt. And plenty of them are still able to criticise Israel.

maddy

If the behaviour of Israeli is the same of that of the Nazi's, then surely the Palestinians would be almost all dead.  After all, Israel would have had decades to kill them all.

The empirical evidence is that the actions of Israel aren't the same as those of the Nazis.  So there must be something else going on with all those politicans who compare Israel and the Nazis.

Toko Black

Who is comparing the victims with the perpetrators ?
The Prime minister of Israel was not born until 5 years after World War 2, was born in Israel and after Israel was admitted to the UN.

Ergo, criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu and the policies he supports as Prime Minister is not criticising a victim of the holocaust.

You are compounding and conflating Israel as a state, it's government, the Jewish ethnicity and individual Jewish people as the same/interchangeable entities.

Racism is racism - insensitivity can be racist, but not automatically so.
You can replace the word insensitive with cruel, crude or offensive but it is still not necessarily racist just because it upsets or offends someone regardless of what suffering they have or have not been subjected to directly or indirectly.

If someone is offensive or insensitive to anyone/everyone regardless of their gender, race or colour it is not racism or prejudice - you can call them a bad, insensitive or disrespectful person.

The issue I and many others seem to have is that subjective insentivity or offence is potentially being used to claim racism and bigotry to silence critics on personal and political levels.

Toko Black

Yes - that something else is either:

i) racism.
ii) ignorance.
iii) exaggeration.
iv) hyperbole.

My issue is when hyperbole, which is quite common in usage not just in politics but by the public in general is being confused, conflated or deliberately misrepresented as racism or ignorance.

For reference:

Hyperbole is when something is purposefully exaggerated to make a point and is not meant to be taken literally.

Bl4ckGryph0n

The solution is simple; just critic Israel in a proper manner and don't be anti-Semitic about it. Trying to redefine an agreed definition to make it fit ones own perspective doesn't do that. And to quote from the IHRA working definition;

Just don't do it regardless of how you want to package it, this really doesn't have to be that hard.

Toko Black

I disagree - as it should be:

Critique Israel in ANY manner as long as it's not actually anti-semitic.

I mean if we couldn't be critical of anything or anyone in a non-proper manner, you would be stuck for anything to say

Bl4ckGryph0n

If it makes you happy, sure whatever. If you prefer to exhibit improper behaviour and critique then that say more about you than whatever the point is you are trying to make.