Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

[Gramsci]

More of Jews the are Nazis rhetoric that reflects either an ignorance or indiference to what actually happened under the Third Reich. The death camps, such as Auschwitz 2, were designed for the systematic industrialised murder of Jews; Roma and Sinti; and others

Gaza is a territory under brutal Israeli seige and whilst the they have no compunction about civillian deaths arrising from that seige there is no systematic attempt to exploit and then murder all Gazans. There are no death ramps and no selection of those to be gassed and those to be worked to death.

In reality the IDF have limited control on the ground. They wouldn't have bombing and shooting for over a year if they had. Sinyar was killed in an Israeli attack on suspected Hamas fighters, not because they had specific information on his location. If you want a contemporary comparison, look at the civillian "collateral damage" in the war and seiges in Ukraine or the seige of Aleppo.

The Russian, Syrian, and Israeli regimes are vile but none of them operate "Nazi death camps".

What the death camps were actually like: https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/auschwitz-ii/

Leaving aside the Nazi comparisons which I do not find helpful the ICJ say there is a case for Israel state to answer that it's enacting genocide in Gaza.

(One thing. My reading of Holocaust is that a lot of the killing was done, not on industrial scale, but by taking Jews to pits and shooting them. Whist gas chambers were important that wasn't the only way Jews were murdered.)

The South Africa/ ICJ case will probably rumble on for years.

I don't agree with the view that the IDF have limited control on the ground. What they have been doing, for example, is systematic destruction of infrastructure. Footage put up by IDF soldiers shows Universities etc being intentionally blown up when their is no military reason to do so.

So to say they have limited control over the ground and would not have been bombing and shooting for a year if they had I don't agree with.

It doesn't look to me after a year of this that the sole reason to attack Gaza was to eliminate Hamas.

What is happening in Gaza is at the very least collective punishment and at worst there is plausible case genocide is being enacted.

 

[Gramsci]

Find it quite depressing after a year of this and the SA case being brought ( and accepted by ICJ as serious case) still have to argue about this here.

This is pragmatic reason why I think using Nazi comparison is a mistake.

It gives those who would like to chip away at the SA case leverage to undermine it. For some accusing Israel of Genocide is also wrong. Not just the ill thought out Nazi comparisons.

So people who keep banging on about Nazis aren't doing Palestinians any favours.

 

[tim]

Find it quite depressing after a year of this and the SA case being brought ( and accepted by ICJ as serious case) still have to argue about this here.

This is pragmatic reason why I think using Nazi comparison is a mistake.

It gives those who would like to chip away at the SA case leverage to undermine it. For some accusing Israel of Genocide is also wrong. Not just the ill thought out Nazi comparisons.

So people who keep banging on about Nazis aren't doing Palestinians any favours.

I think it's more than depressing that posters here are pushing antisemitic tropes and you regard it merely as a pragmatic error. You should condemn it.

I don't see anyone here trying to minimise the crimes of the Israeli state.

 

[Gramsci]

I think it's more than depressing that posters here are pushing antisemitic tropes and you regard it merely as a pragmatic error. You should condemn it.

I don't see anyone here trying to minimise the crimes of the Israeli state.

The reason the recent argument kicked off was because I did considered post criticising use of Nazi comparison.

 

[Gramsci]

I think it's more than depressing that posters here are pushing antisemitic tropes and you regard it merely as a pragmatic error. You should condemn it.

I don't see anyone here trying to minimise the crimes of the Israeli state.

I think the argument underlying this is whether Israel can be accused of Genocide.

 

[PTK]

More of Jews the are Nazis rhetoric that reflects either an ignorance or indiference to what actually happened under the Third Reich. The death camps, such as Auschwitz 2, were designed for the systematic industrialised murder of Jews; Roma and Sinti; and others

Gaza is a territory under brutal Israeli seige and whilst the they have no compunction about civillian deaths arrising from that seige there is no systematic attempt to exploit and then murder all Gazans. There are no death ramps and no selection of those to be gassed and those to be worked to death.

In reality the IDF have limited control on the ground. They wouldn't have bombing and shooting for over a year if they had. Sinyar was killed in an Israeli attack on suspected Hamas fighters, not because they had specific information on his location. If you want a contemporary comparison, look at the civillian "collateral damage" in the war and seiges in Ukraine or the seige of Aleppo.

The Russian, Syrian, and Israeli regimes are vile but none of them operate "Nazi death camps".

What the death camps were actually like: https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/auschwitz-ii/

You wrote what I was going to post.

 

[mojo pixy]

Israel = Nazis isn’t meant as a meaningful or informative comparison though is it? It's meant purely as an insult to throw at the israeli state because the israeli state is a jewish one (indeed the jewish one) and nazis exterminated jews in death camps within living memory. It's meant to be hurtful, not insightful. We know this. We even know there are better, more accurate and more enlightening comparisons. But the point is, there are no more emotive comparisons.

 

[Gramsci]

The reason I am alive today is because the day that my entire family was massacred in their shtetl in Lithuania, in another genocide – the Holocaust – my grandmother just happened to be away.

I grew up aware that I am not supposed to be here. I also grew up agonizing over these questions. Where were the neighbors? Why did they just stand by? Why didn’t they hurl their bodies between the killers and my family?

As the NYPD dragged me by my arms and legs out of the New York Stock Exchange, I felt all of my Jewish ancestors at my back, the one who survived and all those who didn’t. We say now, with more conviction than ever before: we refuse to be neighbors who just stand by

Here is Jewish person ( anti Zionist member of Jewish Voice for Peace) using her history of being descendant of Holocaust survivor to argue she cannot stand by and watch another genocide take place in her name.

This kind of comparison I think is valid.

It depends on how its done and the context in which its said.

Jews shut down the New York Stock Exchange to protest Israel. Here’s why | Elena Stein

As the descendant of a survivor of a genocide, the Holocaust, I refuse to be a bystander to another genocide

www.theguardian.com

 

[PTK]

Israel = Nazis isn’t meant as a meaningful or informative comparison though is it? It's meant purely as an insult to throw at the israeli state because the israeli state is a jewish one (indeed the jewish one) and nazis exterminated jews in death camps within living memory. It's meant to be hurtful, not insightful. We know this. We even know there are better, more accurate and more enlightening comparisons. But the point is, there are no more emotive comparisons.

The "Nazi" insult has not only been used against the State of Israel. It has been used many times to describe a number of states and organisations since 1945. Indeed, the war in Europe was not long over when Winston Churchill said that if the Labour Party was elected to office in the 1945 General Election it would bring in a Gestapo.

 

[tim]

The reason the recent argument kicked off was because I did considered post criticising use of Nazi comparison.

You need to edit that to make it comprehensible.

 

[Gramsci]

You need to edit that to make it comprehensible.

Post in thread 'Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion' Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

 

[kabbes]

Israel = Nazis isn’t meant as a meaningful or informative comparison though is it? It's meant purely as an insult to throw at the israeli state because the israeli state is a jewish one (indeed the jewish one) and nazis exterminated jews in death camps within living memory. It's meant to be hurtful, not insightful. We know this. We even know there are better, more accurate and more enlightening comparisons. But the point is, there are no more emotive comparisons.

You’re making sense of it from your own perspective, and experiencing it as something directed at your social group, with the purpose of hurt. But the comparison entered the semiotic system in the first place from somebody else’s perspective, not yours. So you need to understand how and why it got there through that frame, not your frame. I think it’s much more likely that it got into the communication system originally due to being used as a conceptual anchor to make sense of events, rather than a strategic weapon designed to wound.

 

[ID47]

You’re making sense of it from your own perspective, and experiencing it as something directed at your social group, with the purpose of hurt. But the comparison entered the semiotic system in the first place from somebody else’s perspective, not yours. So you need to understand how and why it got there through that frame, not your frame. I think it’s much more likely that it got into the communication system originally due to being used as a conceptual anchor to make sense of events, rather than a strategic weapon designed to wound.

Very well said.

 

[mojo pixy]

You’re making sense of it from your own perspective, and experiencing it as something directed at your social group, with the purpose of hurt. But the comparison entered the semiotic system in the first place from somebody else’s perspective, not yours. So you need to understand how and why it got there through that frame, not your frame. I think it’s much more likely that it got into the communication system originally due to being used as a conceptual anchor to make sense of events, rather than a strategic weapon designed to wound.

If it were anything like an accurate comparison it might not be so obviously emotive in intent. But it's so inaccurate that the only possible reason to use it is to (tactically, not strategically) provoke. Which btw it's done, so it clearly works. I don't believe for a single moment that people use it because it's a 'conceptual anchor' (lol), they use it because of its very specific associations that other, better conceptual anchors don't have.

Also, am I right in understanding that my opinion on this is only my opinion because of my 'social group'? And how could you know my social group? Is this a thing we should all do, take a view more or less seriously depending on social groups? Isn't that like .. prejudice?

 

[mojo pixy]

I mean .. just wow atm

 

[Serge Forward]

While I agree comparing Israel with naziism is completely unhelpful, I can also see where people are coming from when they compare some of the Israeli government/IDF's actions with the nazis. Yes, some of this comes from anti-semitism intended to stoke division and attack Jews in general, but other comparisons will come from genuine responses to the well established atrocities being carried out by the IDF. Either way, we can well do without such comparisons, whatever the motives.

It's also worth remembering that the current far right Israeli government is the heir of revisionist zionism, in itself a broadly fascist movement. The current Israeli regime would probably meet several of the criteria from Umberto Eco's Ur-fascism. Yes, Nazis they are not, but Netanyahu et al are very much in the fascist orbit.

 

[kabbes]

If it were anything like an accurate comparison it might not be so obviously emotive in intent.

No. Before you can even have intent, you need to make meaning. Intent is downstream of meaning

But it's so inaccurate that the only possible reason to use it is to (tactically, not strategically) provoke.

No. Everything abstract is understood by first relating it to something already encompassed into the system of meaning. You’re taking it as a given that the situation in Israel has already been understood by people who then invoke this comparison for another purpose. But I’m saying that the comparison is part of how people are making sense of the situation in the first place.

Which btw it's done, so it clearly works. I don't believe for a single moment that people use it because it's a 'conceptual anchor' (lol), they use it because of its very specific associations that other, better conceptual anchors don't have.

You believe this because you have already encompassed the situation using other conceptual anchors (lol, apparently?). So to you, this is a new and unwelcome metaphor, not part of the way you understood it in the first place.

Also, am I right in understanding that my opinion on this is only my opinion because of my 'social group'? And how could you know my social group? Is this a thing we should all do, take a view more or less seriously depending on social groups? Isn't that like .. prejudice?

This has got nothing to do with opinions. (If we could even easily demarcate a nice, clear definition of an “opinion” as separate from a meaning-making system at all, which I doubt).

 

[mojo pixy]

While I agree comparing Israel with naziism is completely unhelpful, I can also see where people are coming from when they compare some of the Israeli government/IDF's actions with the nazis. Yes, some of this comes from anti-semitism intended to stoke division and attack Jews in general, but other comparisons will come from genuine responses to the well established atrocities being carried out by the IDF. Either way, we can well do without such comparisons, whatever the motives.

It's also worth remembering that the current far right Israeli government is the heir of revisionist zionism, in itself a broadly fascist movement. The current Israeli regime would probably meet several of the criteria from Umberto Eco's Ur-fascism. Yes, Nazis they are not, but Netanyahu et al are very much in the fascist orbit.

Nobody here as far as I can tell, is saying anything else. Israel atm is indeed in the control of a far-right regime (albeit an elected one) and netanyahu and his powerful allies are racist, genocidal and unapologetically cruel. They're ordering war crimes, and the israeli army is committing them. They are leading the country down a dark and maybe even fatal path. They're eagerly enacting policies that even the british empire might have blanched at (though probably would have done, 'reluctantly')

All that and more can be said without the word 'nazi'.

 

[mojo pixy]

No. Before you can even have intent, you need to make meaning. Intent is downstream of meaning

No. Understanding in the first place is shaped and coloured by what came, was felt or believed before. As I'm sure you'll have asserted somewhere around here, awareness and self-expression of that is an emergent, nonlinear process. 'Downstream' rather underplays its complexity.

No. Everything abstract is understood by first relating it to something already encompassed into the system of meaning.

Yes, I thought you'd said something like that.

You’re taking it as a given that the situation in Israel has already been understood by people who then invoke this comparison for another purpose.

Yes. The purpose is to delegitimise pro-israel voices, especially jewish ones (as jews are most likely to be bothered by the invocation of nazis)

But I’m saying that the comparison is part of how people are making sense of the situation in the first place.

Some people. Not - as we're seeing, actually - most people. Which is heartening.

You believe this because you have already encompassed the situation using other conceptual anchors (lol, apparently?). So to you, this is a new and unwelcome metaphor, not part of the way you understood it in the first place.

Maybe, or maybe I have an understanding of the situation that means I can temper my emotional response to it with some reasonably informed historical analysis. I'm happy to share that, fwiw. Maybe I'm less interested in making edgy comparisons so as to objectify caricature the process at play and the protagonists in it, and more interested in understanding the situation as it is so as to talk about it with insight and empathy if not sympathy.

This has got nothing to do with opinions. (If we could even easily demarcate a nice, clear definition of an “opinion” as separate from a meaning-making system at all, which I doubt).

OK well, if your meaning-making system simply cannot disentangle nazis and israel then fair enough; we're all entitled to our own meaning-making system after all.

 

[frogwoman]

Usual caveats but there's some extremely distressing tweets/images on bluesky at the moment about massacres that Israeli troops are committing in Gaza and some WhatsApp messages that have been found celebrating it. I don't really want to link to any of it in case it turns out not to be genuine but it looks completely horrifying.

 

[_Russ_]

I think it's more than depressing that posters here are pushing antisemitic tropes and you regard it merely as a pragmatic error. You should condemn it.

I don't see anyone here trying to minimise the crimes of the Israeli state.

I do, you come up with loads of whataboutery and constantly push against criticism of Israel's actions usually arguing some semantic detail.
The odd slipping in of admissions that Israels murdering is a disgrace seems little less than a rock for you to hide your real intent behind

 

[ID47]

Nobody here as far as I can tell, is saying anything else. Israel atm is indeed in the control of a far-right regime (albeit an elected one) and netanyahu and his powerful allies are racist, genocidal and unapologetically cruel. They're ordering war crimes, and the israeli army is committing them. They are leading the country down a dark and maybe even fatal path. They're eagerly enacting policies that even the british empire might have blanched at (though probably would have done, 'reluctantly')

All that and more can be said without the word 'nazi'.

"albeit an elected one"

Elected? Election has no validity when the indigenous population has been ethnically cleansed and millions have been imported and given voting rights to replace them.

 

[tim]

I do, you come up with loads of whataboutery and constantly push against criticism of Israel's actions usually arguing some semantic detail.
The odd slipping in of admissions that Israels murdering is a disgrace seems little less than a rock for you to hide your real intent behind

I've come across a lot of casual antisemitism from some posters in the last few pages. Calling it out is not 'Whataboutery' is just a cliche you to use to excuse your own bigotry.

 

[_Russ_]

I've come across a lot of casual antisemitism from some posters in the last few pages. Calling it out is not 'Whataboutery' is just a cliche you to use to excuse your own bigotry.

You don't fool me

 

[Happy Tree]

I've seen people trying to have an in-depth analysis of one of the most sensitive subjects there is to discuss in the world today. Nobody has been antisemitic. It's unhelpfully reductive to have this cliché itself bandied about. That shuts down the discourse dismissively.

 

[mojo pixy]

Election has no validity when the indigenous population has been ethnically cleansed and millions have been imported and given voting rights to replace them.

OK well that's Australia, Brazil and Canada fucked then.

 

[tim]

.

You don't fool me

It would be difficult if I wanted to.

 

[Pickman's model]

.
It would be difficult if I wanted to.

Oh dear

 

[tim]

I've seen people trying to have an in-depth analysis of one of the most sensitive subjects there is to discuss in the world today. Nobody has been antisemitic. It's unhelpfully reductive to have this cliché itself bandied about. That shuts down the discourse dismissively.

The term "JudeoNazi" is not one I associate with in-depth sensitivity.

 

[Gramsci]

OK well that's Australia, Brazil and Canada fucked then.

As far as I can gather indigenous people in those countries have a vote now.

Bolivia not on your list did have Eva Morales as first indigenous president.

Take the West Bank. For all intents and purposes it's been effectively annexed by state of Israel.

A Jewish settler living in one of the Jewish housing developments built since 67 in West Bank does have a vote. it's correct to say Jewish in this context as local Palestinians have no chance of getting to live in them. And Palestinians don't have a vote. No say in who really is running west bank and that's Israel state.

Or have I got that wrong?