Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (73570)	2/13/2003 1:32:20 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Hermann is charging Israel with crimes against humanity without basis. This isn't just wrong, it is slanderous - and it is driven by hatred of the State of Israel. I would guess one could make a case against the Israeli government for "crimes against humanity" for the Lebanon 82 stuff, perhaps some before and after. I genuinely don't know. I don't think the mere fact of criticisms at that level renders the charger an anti-semite. Remember, we are only talking about that post of Hermann's. I don't know his work so can't argue one way or the other about it. I thought you would be familiar by now with the common signs in leftist (anti-war, anti-globo, etc) marches: Zionism=Racism or Zionism=Nazism. The latter formulation is very popular in Europe, where it lets the marchers feel absolved of any lingering guilt for the Holocaust. Zionism never = nationalism, of course, because nationalism is a GOOD THING, while colonialism, racism and Nazism are of course BAD THINGS. I've seen the signs but I thought we were talking about SI posts, not about protest signs. Are you changing the subject? As for the original post from Scott in which he offers a quick summary of the bin Laden tape then his own views, I agree with Ken's first response. It's easy enough to tell the point in the post at which Scott moves from a summary of bin Laden into his own views. Perhaps he should have made it clearer but you genuinely have to be looking for trouble to not see the transition. I repeat an offer I've made several times before. If you and Paul and Ken and Bill and anyone else wishes to work, seriously, on criteria for content limits, then I'm happy to join in. My time is a little more pressed right now but in a couple of weeks it will be a bit freer. Without that, the stuff you are complaining about is no more objectionable, perhaps even less so, than the constant refrain of anti-European bigotry, anti-leftist bigotry that passes for punditry in many FADG posts.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (73570)	2/13/2003 1:38:13 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 281500

Whoops. Missed the last paragraph. ANSWER argues it too, John. The radical Left has now taken pro-Palestinian anti-Zionism as an article of faith. That's why their platforms have mullahs shouting "Allahu akhbar" but they ban Rabbi Lerner. I guess you can regard this as a "purity" campaign. It reminds me of some other "purity" campaigns I have read of, and it seems to be aiming at rendering the movement Judenrein. Oh, please, Nadine. Way too sensitive. I'm not going to defend ANSWER. But what's happening with Lerner (a) should not happen; (b) is absolutely typical of protest marches of the left and right when one group claims a righteous lock on the truth and won't let others take leadership roles; and (c) offers its critics the kind of rhetorical opportunity you are trying to use. Even if you are way over the top. And, as I've typed before, I don't take these criticisms terribly seriously because they are, at best, simply attempts to delegitimize the effort to stop an invasion of Iraq. But, and this does trouble me, we are, if we don't watch out, headed for the kinds of national divisions we last saw in the late 60s. Because the Bush folk are taking us to war without a clear mandate from the population.