Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

[kabbes]

Often the nazi thing is meant to provoke Jews but more often than not it’s just a lazy metaphor because people can't be bothered to think of other comparisons. Neither me or cloo are zionists btw.

The metaphor isn’t “lazy”, it’s just how people are making sense of the industrial-scale, systematic genocide they’re seeing played out in front of them. How does one encompass an atrocity? By relating it to other atrocities that have characteristics in common. And the Nazis remain the defining emblem of this kind of thing (in Europe, at least), so that’s what people relate it to in order to understand it.

If you don’t want to be called a Nazi then rather then the easiest way to avoid it is probably don’t go around committing genocide.

 

[frogwoman]

Um, you don't have to tell me that. I'm not the one committing the genocide. Theres legitimate reasons to object to the comparison - and the people objecting here don't agree with what's being done there at all

 

[kabbes]

Um, you don't have to tell me that. I'm not the one committing the genocide. Theres legitimate reasons to object to the comparison - and the people objecting here don't agree with what's being done there at all

My point, though, is that objecting to the comparison is like shouting into the wind. Individuals trying to make sense of something new by referencing it to something old? That’s a fundamental psychological process; objecting to it is like objecting to gravity. Each one of us has to decide what our response is to coming up against that process in this instance. A response that concentrates on the “well, actually…” differences between real Nazism and this actual genocide is a political choice to pick a side. By the time you’re having to defend why this genocide is not actually the same as Nazi genocide, you’ve really already lost the high ground.

 

[Rob Ray]

Ultimately if you're trying to have a go at someone why would you hand them tools to dismiss you? If it's a reach for imagery you think will hit home, but it has the opposite impact, then it's shit imagery. So just pick something else - it's not like there's a shortage.

 

[kabbes]

Ultimately if you're trying to have a go at someone why would you hand them tools to dismiss you? If it's a reach for imagery you think will hit home, but it has the opposite impact, then it's shit imagery.

I don’t think people are relating the Israeli state to Nazis in order to “have a go at them”. They’re relating the Israeli state to Nazis because they think the Israeli state are acting like (what they understand to be) Nazis.

And since the defining characteristics of Nazis in the popular imagination is “industrial genocide of other ethnic groups” and “invades other countries to build their empire”, the imagery makes sense enough to me. I’m certainly not going to spend my time going around person to person to explain to them carefully the difference between the Israeli state and actual real-life Nazis.

 

[Rob Ray]

But that is having a go at them. No-one says "you're like the Nazis" as straightforward analysis - if they did then it'd be crap analysis. Different economic, socio-political, cultural, temporal and religious circumstances with different strategies being employed. Trying to fit it into a historic parallel would be obsfucatory to say the very least. If someone's using it the whole point is to provoke, and that provocation is quite simply poor strategy.

 

[frogwoman]

My point, though, is that objecting to the comparison is like shouting into the wind. Individuals trying to make sense of something new by referencing it to something old? That’s a fundamental psychological process; objecting to it is like objecting to gravity. Each one of us has to decide what our response is to coming up against that process in this instance. A response that concentrates on the “well, actually…” differences between real Nazism and this actual genocide is a political choice to pick a side. By the time you’re having to defend why this genocide is not actually the same as Nazi genocide, you’ve really already lost the high ground.

I'm not even that upset by the comparison!!

but a lot of Jews lost family in the Holocaust and to many people it comes across as a dick move and intended to provoke rather than a serious comment on the situation. As well as this, the words fascist and nazi have been used rather a lot over the years to describe things people don't like - by the left but by those with actual far right sympathies too - so that now we've got real fascists and nazis goosestepping around the place - in Israel and elsewhere - those words have actually lost their meaning to an extent

 

[maomao]

But that is having a go at them. No-one says "you're like the Nazis" as straightforward analysis.

They're saying "they're like the Nazis". None of us is in a position to address the Israeli state.

 

[kabbes]

But that is having a go at them. No-one says "you're like the Nazis" as straightforward analysis - if they did then it'd be crap analysis for a start. Different economic, socio-political, cultural, temporal and religious circumstances with different strategies being employed.

It’s “having a go at them” in effect, not as cause. The cause is to allow the speaker to make meaning of what is happening. People on the other end of that comparison are experiencing it as “having a go at” them because they have their own cultural understanding of what being a “Nazi” involves, which, being Jewish, also includes a rich collective experience of long-standing anti-Semitism. But that’s the meaning-making of the respondent, not the meaning-making of the original speaker.

 

[Rob Ray]

It’s “having a go at them” in effect, not as cause. The cause is to allow the speaker to make meaning of what is happening. People on the other end of that comparison are experiencing it as “having a go at” them because they have their own cultural understanding of what being a “Nazi” involves, which, being Jewish, also includes a rich collective experience of long-standing anti-Semitism. But that’s the meaning-making of the respondent, not the meaning-making of the original speaker.

The speaker is "making meaning" by linking the target to their own prior suffering. Which is an act to provoke response - if it weren't they'd simply pick another one. They're not doing it because Israel actually acts like Nazi Germany, the intended comparison point is "Nazi Germany did bad things to you, why are you doing bad things to others".

 

[frogwoman]

I mean fascism has been used to describe anything from the indoor smoking ban to the impeachment of Donald Trump in recent years lol. That tends to lessen its rhetorical impact imo. I am not even saying don't use it, just pointing out some of the issues with it

 

[kabbes]

The speaker is "making meaning" by linking the target to their own prior suffering. Which is an act to provoke response - if it weren't they'd pick another one. They're not doing it because Israel actually acts like Nazi Germany.

And my response to that is:

If you are offended by somebody making sense of your genocidal actions by relating you to a Nazi then maybe… don’t commit genocide?

And if you are offended on behalf of somebody else whose acts of genocide have been made sense of by relating them to the actions of Nazis then… well, maybe concentrate your sympathy more on the sufferers of the genocide than on the perpetrators of it?

I honestly have the world’s smallest violin at this point for Israeli offence being taken at being compared to Nazis.

 

[PTK]

Often the nazi thing is meant to provoke Jews but more often than not its just a lazy metaphor because people can't be bothered to think of other comparisons. Neither me or cloo are zionists btw.

There have been a few people who have been called "a new Hitler" since 1945. Leaders of Russia, Serbia, Iraq, and Egypt have been given that label. You would think that there were no other examples of human rights abuses, war crimes, and invasion in the past 200 years.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

View attachment 447382

I just watched the video on the guardian website.
Can only fight with remote controlled toys, whilst whining how they are the victims. Yeah winning.

 

[kabbes]

I mean fascism has been used to describe anything from the indoor smoking ban to the impeachment of Donald Trump in recent years lol. That tends to lessen its rhetorical impact imo

In which case, using it to describe actual fascistic acts, like creating a representation of a subhuman enemy within that needs literal extermination, can only be to the good, no?

 

[Rob Ray]

And my response to that is:

If you are offended by somebody making sense of your genocidal actions by relating you to a Nazi then maybe… don’t commit genocide?

And if you are offended on behalf of somebody else whose acts of genocide have been made sense of by relating them to the actions Nazis then… well, maybe concentrate your sympathy more on the sufferers of the genocide than on the perpetrators of it?

I honestly have the world’s smallest violin at this point for Israeli offence being taken at being compared to Nazis.

As though at any stage I suggested the Knesset was in the right or deserved sympathy. I feel like you've entirely ignored what I was saying here.

 

[kabbes]

As though at any stage I suggested the Knesset was in the right or deserved sympathy. I feel like you've entirely ignored what I was saying here.

What you were saying is that “well, actually, the Israelis aren’t actually like the Nazis, you know?” And your justification for raising that crucial difference was that it makes for “shit analysis”, as if that’s what people are doing. Analysing. Rational analysis, through which rational individuals come up with important logical points. Because that’s how humans work.

 

[cloudyday]

Personally I think mormons in utah is a better comparison with zionism, but that doesn't piss jews off, so it'll never catch on.

Do the Mormons of Utah control a prison full of native Americans with which they conduct acts of terror against on an almost daily basis?

 

[frogwoman]

In which case, using it to describe actual fascistic acts, like creating a representation of a subhuman enemy within that needs literal extermination, can only be to the good, no?

I'm not saying don't use it even...

 

[Rob Ray]

What you were saying is that “well, actually, the Israelis aren’t actually like the Nazis, you know?”

Nope, my point was that comparing Israel to the Nazis is poor strategy because it enables dismissal. Whether or not it was poor analysis was the subsequent argument that you wanted to get into.

 

[PTK]

Were there concentration camps in Northern Ireland?

There were certainly three camps in which dissidents were interned without trial. Hundreds of homes were invaded on one night by the British [edit] army, and people roughly dragged off, and mistreated. Some were tortured.

Internment without trial continued for years.

It would be wrong to call the people enacting these human rights abuses “Nazis”. To do so would be to downplay the actions of the Nazi regime in Germany.

Something does not have be “like the Nazis” to be wrong.

Did the fact that some people in the world may have said that the British government was behaving like the Nazis and putting people in concentration camps in any way make the British government think twice about its actions?

How do we define a concentration camp?

 

[kabbes]

Nope, my point was that comparing Israel to the Nazis is poor strategy because it enables dismissal. Whether or not it was poor analysis was the subsequent argument that you wanted to get into.

A poor strategy for what purpose? You seem to be proposing it as a poor argumentation strategy. But argumentation is downstream of sense-making. The individual hasn’t already encompassed and made sense of the genocide and then made some kind of strategic decision to relate it to Nazism. They have used Nazism as a metaphorical resource to encompass and make sense of the genocide up front. And now it forms part of their metaphorical scaffolding through which they make meaning of the situation, so it naturally becomes part of how they describe it to others.

Your model of the human in this instance is some kind of homo economicus, who is able to process data and then make rational decisions about what to do with it. But that’s not how people work.

 

[Rob Ray]

Honestly I don't think there are easy parallels to any specific circumstances elsewhere. In how many cases is the attacking party directly backed by the US, for a start. There's elements you can pick out from lots of regimes - Apartheid South Africa, the Saudis vs Yemen etc - but Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon has a lot of pretty unique aspects.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

I just watched the video on the guardian website.
Can only fight with remote controlled toys, whilst whining how they are the victims. Yeah winning.

Indeed. Absolutely nothing heroic about shooting a man by using a drone (then shelling the building once more just to be sure), yet apparently it was according to Netanyahu.

 

[Rob Ray]

A poor strategy for what purpose? You seem to be proposing it as a poor argumentation strategy.

a) You're on Urban, it's all argumentation. b) We're discussing the use of "like the Nazis" rhetoric. Of course the question is whether this has the impact people are looking for.

The individual hasn’t already encompassed and made sense of the genocide and then made some kind of strategic decision to relate it to Nazism. They have used Nazism as a metaphorical resource to encompass and make sense of the genocide up front.

Some people do this, yes. And for those of us who have thought about it a bit, it's important to then note that they way they are making sense of things, when employed as rhetoric, does not function very well either as analysis or as provocation.

Your model of the human in this instance is some kind of homo economicus, who is able to process data and then make rational decisions about what to do with it. But that’s not how people work.

At no point did I make any demands about how people should think. What I did was point out how an expression of those thoughts functions in practice. Are you suggesting we should never attempt to influence how people refine their ideas and how they express them? On Urban75?

 

[PTK]

The claim in an earlier post that the State of Israel is Nazi was not a metaphor. It was a claim that the State of Israel is literally Nazi.

 

[kabbes]

a) You're on Urban, it's all argumentation. b) We're discussing the use of "like the Nazis" rhetoric. Of course the question is whether this has the impact people are looking for.

If you want to restrict it specifically to urban, can you give me an example on this thread of a poster’s comparison to Nazism that (a) you object to; and (b) is designed to either provoke people or, alternatively, is being used to perform a meaningful analysis?

 

[Rob Ray]

If you want to restrict it specifically to urban, can you give me an example on this thread of a poster’s comparison to Nazism that (a) you object to; and (b) is designed to either provoke people or, alternatively, is being used to perform a meaningful analysis?

I know you're irritated here but there's no point in going off on an obtuse goalpost-moving exercise. I did not "restrict it specifically to urban" in the sense of only referring to posts on urban, and I think you know that.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Israeli spokespeople regularly equate their opponents with the Nazis. It's all too easy to respond with 'I'm not a Nazi. You are.' Not desperately clever but quite understandable. I try to avoid that completely, but others just don't.

We should not either let the idea of Nazism belong solely to Zionists. I suspect nearly everyone here on urban would have fallen foul of the Nazis for one reason or another. Their race, their politics, their sexuality.

Nazism should not either be reduced to nothing but the gas chambers or the final solution. They may have the culminations of Nazism but there was plenty more brutality before that.

 

[PTK]

I saw a former US soldier on television deploring the My Lai massacre and saying that "we" did not go to Vietnam to behave like Nazis.