UN, Europe, the far left, and Anti-Sematism

[GarfieldJL]

All your post was, was a lesson in how not to evaluate sources.

 

How not to? I've been using your own country's accepted news media as sources, some of whom I've repeatedly accused of being anti-Israel? How are they not valid sources when they have to admit about anti-semitism in your country?

 

I wasn't born yesterday.

 

If I thought you might change your position, I would actually bother to construct the argument counter to your post, however I doubt you will change your position, and I have an exam in 15 minutes...

 

I do change positions based on new information, however you've got a pretty big hole to dig out of considering I'm using your own government, the BBC, and other British media sources (some of whom are staunchly anti-Israel) as sources. I'm not even using the blogs at the moment.

 

Please indicate at any point any evidence what so ever that anti-Semitism is wildly prevalent in either the media or academia, none of your sources shows this.

 

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=209241&sectioncode=26

 

I love how the BBC is biased against Israel, and then you quote a BBC article. Anyone smell the irony?

 

Sometimes even biased sources are forced to admit that there is a problem, when it is so bad even they can't turn a blind eye to it.

 

Nice - I don't deny anti-Semitism happens, especially when morons respond with violence to Israel bombing the hell our of Lebanon; however that does not indicate a wide spread problem.

 

Wrong, because the study's data was from before the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon War. I have been deliberately trying to use articles from before that war so people couldn't use that as an excuse.

 

 

ROFL - that is simply the funniest thing I have ever read on Lucas Forums - the UK is implementing Šarīʿah law? No its not, where on earth do you possibly get that impression? I'm just going to say this as its a fact; Quite frankly anyone trying to argue Šarīʿah has come through in the UK in anyway is clueless about UK legislature.

 

I never said that you did impliment it, I'm saying it was flying around your parliament to impliment it or something or other, I'll go dig up the topic to check what all was said more in depth.

 

 

Funny how my "selective" sample of 50 + Jewish friends have never been a victim of racism (anti-Semitism). Nor do I see any media or academic agenda.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Balen_Report

 

No anti-Semitism huh?

 

The plans were talking about allowing Muslims to open Muslim courts - not implementing the damned system in the entire judiciary. If you'd actually done some research into it you'd have realised the absurdity of your statement.

 

Do we see the UK making it so Hindus get to have Hindu law, or Jewish people be subject to Jewish law? Seriously, that is favoring one religion over any other religion.

[SW01]

I never said that you did impliment it, I'm saying it was flying around your parliament to impliment it or something or other, I'll go dig up the topic to check what all was said more in depth.

 

Nope. Sharia 'courts' are being permitted as arbitrators between Muslim parties. They are being, and have been, permitted to rule on issues of Muslim civil law, in the same way as the Beth Din (see below)

 

Do we see the UK making it so Hindus get to have Hindu law, or Jewish people be subject to Jewish law? Seriously, that is favoring one religion over any other religion.

 

Yes, we do.

 

BBC: 'Jewish courts are in daily use in Britain, and have been for centuries.

 

British Jews, particularly the orthodox, will frequently turn to their own religious courts, the Beth Din, to resolve civil disputes, covering issues as diverse as business and divorce. '

 

The Beth Din also takes care of a multitude of Jewish community affairs, many of which never give rise to any dispute: the dates of the Sabbath, kosher certification of caterers and bakers, medical ethics for Jewish patients and religious conversions. But it is in the areas of divorce and litigation that the Beth Din acts as a court in the western sense.'

 

BBC Source

[vanir]

I'm noticing a real cultural divide between Americanism and Empire here, which goes back to how government is performed very, very differently between the US and British Parliamentary systems.

 

Point one: it is not un-Constitutional to favour a religion under Parliamentary legislation. The establishment of Parliament was by favouring one religion over others, moreso at any time Parliamentary members as a whole feel it is suitable to the public good to show a particular religion some favour, it is compelled to do so. This is simply how our two democracies are very different from each other. One should take note of the current climate against terrorism and the common marginalisation among uneducated social groups towards Muslims in general for the pain of select extremists. To discuss some ideas is Parliament representing the best intentions of the general public as a whole without marginalisation or violence, that is, the intentions of democracy.

 

Point two: given the nature of Parliament particularly in Parliamentary nations the newsmedia and media organisations play no part in academia. There are rules about what journalists may or may not do and say, again for the best intentions of the public good. To an extent you might consider newsmedia in these countries to be representative of certain governing ideals, though individual media organisations will have leanings towards individual Parties. Powers of media influence are frequently a Parliamentary concern, which makes them an exceedingly poor academic source for any kind of material argument. Sometimes, they honestly just make things up because it has something to do with a present governing legislative agenda (typically these are presented with statistics and public polls, whenever seeing these in media the politically and intellectually independent beware).

 

Point three: the United States works upon a completely different system of governing due for the most part to its independent Constitution (the separation of Church and State, a matter which still exists in Parliamentary nations by definition). Newsmedia is a little more independent, but also a little more prone to political corruption and individual agendas. Mostly newsmedia is a lot more like a public sounding board with all the good and bad elements of American-democracy.

 

 

So...you don't really approach media in a Parliamentary nation the same way that you do in the United States. It is no part of any argument. Nobody even takes it very seriously at all. It is a government forum, designed to inform or incite from such a perspective.

 

 

Point five: most important of all is how Parliamentary government works, which would not even be allowed in the United States. MP's are all in it together. But call each other...ahem, bad names. That's how the system works. Quite often a political argument, designed to promote or disallow a legislative proposal is performed with obscenities or ridiculous and irrelevent allusions. The idea is that, well that idea wasn't very popular.

So newsmedia, in reporting directly will often represent political arguments within Parliament relating to legislative proposals by course. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the state of the nation, for the man on the street. It's just politics and something for the armchair experts to talk about in their loungerooms.

That's the system. Welcome to the Empire.

[GarfieldJL]

Nope. Sharia 'courts' are being permitted as arbitrators between Muslim parties. They are being, and have been, permitted to rule on issues of Muslim civil law, in the same way as the Beth Din (see below)

 

Okay after viewing your source I stand corrected on that point, thanks for that little tidbit of information, learn something new everyday.

 

 

Anyways to add to my comments about how there is demonstratible anti-semitism in the UK. First as I've stated earlier I deliberately used articles where the information was collected before 2006. However, since jonathan7, was kind enough to bring up the Israeli/Lebanon conflict of 2006.

 

Myth: Israel was completely unjustified in their attacks on Lebanon.

 

Fact: In all actuality, Israel was completely justified both legally and morally based on international law, when Hezbollah abducted Israeli soldiers from Israel. Compounding the justification was Hezbollah firing a bunch of rockets into Israel with the intent to kill Israelis. Because Lebanon's military could not or would not do anything to stop Hezbollah, nor did they act to try to rescue the abducted Israelis, it amounts largely to the same thing as an act of war.

 

Israel isn't the size of Canada, it is an extremely small country and they don't have the luxery of a lot of empty territory in which the population of Grizzly Bear is higher than the population of people. A few cities in Israel were actually taking hits from those rockets and while those rockets were inaccurate, the fact that we're talking hundreds to thousands of these things being fired into Israel, the people of Israel were lucky that not very many people were killed, there could have been a lot more casualties if the roll of the dice of fate had ended up differently.

 

Myth: Israel was deliberately targetting civilians, ambulences, etc.

 

Fact: As I've pointed out before concerning the doctored photos from the Israeli/Lebanon conflict, the evidence used to condemn Israel turned out to be a bunch of "manufactured" evidence (would be similar to planting evidence). Further the ambulence incident despite what Human Rights Watch claimed, the damage done could not have been caused by a missile. There is also evidence that Hezbollah was using locations where civilians were located to fire rockets into Israel, in other words using children as human shields.

 

Because of that, the civilian casualties would be rather high, but it would not be the fault of Israel in that regard. Personally I would have loved for Israel to have been able to send in a crack commando team that would have gone in killed the terrorists, rescued the abducted Israelis and gotten out. But this isn't a video game, that kind of raid had next to absolutely no chance of success. It is easy to sit in another country and blame Israel for being heavy-handed, but fact is when you're attacked by someone using something that could potentially kill you, you'd use deadly force to defend yourself.

 

---------

 

I could really go on and on about this topic all day, because I did an entire report on the media coverage of the 2006 conflict for a report on media bias. The blogs played a key role of exposing the major media outlets' lack of objectivity, and forced them to admit it.

 

I deliberately used data concerning anti-sematism in the UK where the data was collected before 2006, (as much as possible anyways) so there wouldn't be a legitimate argument when people started saying "it's due to Israel bombing Lebanon". Fact is, there is anti-sematism in the UK and it is more common than many in the UK believe. In fact Times Higher Education, says flat out that there is more anti-sematism in the United Kingdom than in Germany.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

well, thanks for your report on how there are antisemitic people my eyes have really been opened thanks.

[GarfieldJL]

well, thanks for your report on how there are antisemitic people my eyes have really been opened thanks.

 

That wasn't the sole purpose, of this topic, because this is an extremely prevalent problem (much more than many people believe) and part of it is acadamia and the media. I haven't seriously delved into how the UN is anti-sematic.

[jonathan7]

Anyways to add to my comments about how there is demonstratible anti-semitism in the UK.

 

I'm sure I could show that there is demonstrative anti-semitism in the US - what's your point? How about I point out how a much larger proportion of Americans have been calling for Obama to be assassinated, care to do anything about that? Besides a small minority of incidence is irrelevant, especially when Arab-aphobia has been much more prevalent in western countries after 9/11

 

First as I've stated earlier I deliberately used articles where the information was collected before 2006. However, since jonathan7, was kind enough to bring up the Israeli/Lebanon conflict of 2006.

 

Myth: Israel was completely unjustified in their attacks on Lebanon.

 

Who said anything about unjustified - it was just a stupid move, here's why; all Israel achived was the greatest recruitment drive Hezbollah will ever get, as well as destabilizing a fragile government that was just getting rid of Syrian and Iranian influences. By bombing as much as they did Israel has created a much bigger problem later on for itself by the number of young Lebanese who will become terrorists because their homes were attacked. The UK, could of reacted in a similar way to Iran kidnapping our sailors (the failure of command to act not withstanding) after they were taken we could of responded with force but, didn't as it wasn't worth the escalation.

 

Here's a big massive fact to hit you with, they've been acting the way you say for the last 4,000 years in the region, and look what its done. Israel isn't in the right, and neither are Hezbollah or the Palestinians - they are all a bunch of schoolyard bullies blowing the crap out of each other and inflicting continued suffering on each other, all your wonderful conflict in Lebanon has done is to continue the endless circle of misery in the region.

 

It is easy to sit in another country and blame Israel for being heavy-handed, but fact is when you're attacked by someone using something that could potentially kill you, you'd use deadly force to defend yourself.

 

All this shows is you don't study martial arts - I study Krav Maga (invented by the Israeli special forces) and it's first teaching is that if you can avoid a fight at all costs do.

 

I deliberately used data concerning anti-sematism in the UK where the data was collected before 2006, (as much as possible anyways) so there wouldn't be a legitimate argument when people started saying "it's due to Israel bombing Lebanon". Fact is, there is anti-sematism in the UK and it is more common than many in the UK believe. In fact Times Higher Education, says flat out that there is more anti-sematism in the United Kingdom than in Germany.

 

Maybe that's because a lot more Jewish people live here than Germany (a lot did come here during Hitlers reign prior to WW2, or have you conveniently forgotten this?) Further more have you ever been to UK? I love how I'm getting a social commentary from someone who has clearly never been to the UK. Fact is there is racism in the states, and its far more prevalent than anti-Semitism is in the UK - you gonna do something about that Garfield?

[GarfieldJL]

I'm sure I could show that there is demonstrative anti-semitism in the US - what's your point? How about I point out how a much larger proportion of Americans have been calling for Obama to be assassinated, care to do anything about that? Besides a small minority of incidence is irrelevant, especially when Arab-aphobia has been much more prevalent in western countries after 9/11

 

There have been some crackpots calling for Obama's death, and those people should be investigated, though they probably already are being investigated.

 

Who said anything about unjustified - it was just a stupid move, here's why; all Israel achived was the greatest recruitment drive Hezbollah will ever get, as well as destabilizing a fragile government that was just getting rid of Syrian and Iranian influences. By bombing as much as they did Israel has created a much bigger problem later on for itself by the number of young Lebanese who will become terrorists because their homes were attacked. The UK, could of reacted in a similar way to Iran kidnapping our sailors (the failure of command to act not withstanding) after they were taken we could of responded with force but, didn't as it wasn't worth the escalation.

 

Okay, there are several differences between the Iran/UK issue and this one.

• Iran wasn't firing rockets into England, if they had there would have been a shooting war.
  
• There were third parties financing and supplying the weapons being used against Israel (i.e. Syria and Iran)
  
• While they abducted sailors from your ship, these Israelis were abducted in Israel literally.
  
• If Israel hadn't have done anything, it would have been a green light to other terror groups to attack Israel.
  

 

Here's a big massive fact to hit you with, they've been acting the way you say for the last 4,000 years in the region, and look what its done. Israel isn't in the right, and neither are Hezbollah or the Palestinians - they are all a bunch of schoolyard bullies blowing the crap out of each other and inflicting continued suffering on each other, all your wonderful conflict in Lebanon has done is to continue the endless circle of misery in the region.

 

I wouldn't address it in quite the same terms, while I will admit you have a fair point about there is blame to go around, there are some things that give Israel the moral high-ground.

1. Israel does not use children as delivery devices for explosives nor do they use children as human shields.
   
2. Israel has been trying to get the Palestinians to sit down and talk the situation over to resolve the issue. (While some Palestinian factions are negotiating, and want the cycle to end others do not, until every last Israeli is dead)
   
3. Israel usually provides ample warning that civilians should get out of the area when they are going to attack that area.
   
4. Israel isn't in the habit of using ambulances to ferry munitions.
   
5. Israel isn't in the habit of firing rockets into another country from a UN observation post.
   
6. Israel has made peace with Egypt, and returned most of the land they took in the 6-day war (including the land that gave Egypt control of the Suez Canal again).
   

 

All this shows is you don't study martial arts - I study Krav Maga (invented by the Israeli special forces) and it's first teaching is that if you can avoid a fight at all costs do.

 

While you try to avoid a fight, you also have to be willing to fight if you end up having to. Believe it or not, Israel used an enormous amount of restraint in the Israeli/Lebanon conflict. I can think of several countries that would have simply carpet bombed Lebanon without regard for civilians.

 

Maybe that's because a lot more Jewish people live here than Germany (a lot did come here during Hitlers reign prior to WW2, or have you conveniently forgotten this?) Further more have you ever been to UK?

 

And that excuses the anti-sematism? Ordinarily, the more people are exposed to another group of people at a young age (assuming they aren't taught to hate that group), the less likely they'll end up hating that group and the more accepting they will be towards that group.

 

Fact is there is racism in the states, and its far more prevalent than anti-Semitism is in the UK - you gonna do something about that Garfield?

 

The racism isn't as prevalent as you think, it still exists, and there have been racism on both sides, but it is steadily on the decline at least concerning one particular group towards another (some of the minorities on the other hand are a different matter). The race card has been played to the point it has no more meaning whatsoever, particularly in 2008.

 

I don't know how many people here know this, but John McCain has an adopted daughter who happens to be black, ordinarily I wouldn't even bring this up because to me skin color is a nonissue, that being said, the only reason I'm bringing this up, we had Democrats (whom held public office) accusing John McCain of being a racist. That's just one example of it being overplayed, so I'm just going to say some people in the US have a tendency of being hypersensitive and take any little criticism as racism.

[Astor]

The racism isn't as prevalent as you think

 

And neither is the Anti-semitism in this country. If it was as rife as you would have us believe (ludicrous, trying to convince residents of the concerned country, and also quite insulting), then we would know about it.

 

I'm not denying it exists, but it is in no way on the scale you are trying to claim.

[GarfieldJL]

And neither is the Anti-semitism in this country. If it was as rife as you would have us believe (ludicrous, trying to convince residents of the concerned country, and also quite insulting), then we would know about it.

 

Last I checked, there isn't any credible accusation out there currently our major media outlets in the United States are racist, but there are credible sources that back up accusations that some European media stations are anti-sematic.

 

I'm not denying it exists, but it is in no way on the scale you are trying to claim.

 

The British Government among others apparently have data that show otherwise.

[mimartin]

There is no racism in the United States; after all we elected an African-American President.

 

However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation begs to differ with this assumption. 2007 Statistics by the FBI show that over 50% of the 7624 reported hate crime incidents were racially motivated.

 

2007

 

Don't forget to go tables for a breakdown.

 

 

Edit:

These are REPORTED CRIMES ONLY- it in no way takes into account unreported crimes or unreported incidents of racism, sexism…

[GarfieldJL]

There is no racism in the United States; after all we elected an African-American President.

 

That's not what I'm saying, I'm just saying it isn't as prevalent.

 

However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation begs to differ with this assumption. 2007 Statistics by the FBI show that over 50% of the 7624 reported hate crime incidents were racially motivated.

 

2007

 

And how many crimes occur in the United States each year, better yet, look at the population of the United States. Not to mention not all of those cases were directed towards blacks.

 

Seriously as of 2007, there were approximately 301,139,947 people living in the United States.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html

 

Based on that number assuming we are talking about a single individual in each case, would make it 0.00263% of the population committing a hate crime. That is assuming that it is 1 person per crime and leaving out that some people commit multiple acts or other incidents involve multiple people.

 

So while the number seems high, when you look at the rest of the data, it puts it in a whole different perspective.

 

The United Kingdom has a population of 60,776,238 people as of July, 2007.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/uk.html

 

And while we're referring to reported attacks, let me remind you that the British Police do not even record the vast majority of the attacks. So I'm having problems getting a remotely accurate number.

 

 

I have another incident case but this one is in France:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/961212.html

 

The police ruled it wasn't a hate crime.

 

Here us another incident, may be rather graphic:

The French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, yesterday described the abduction, torture and killing of a young Jewish man as an anti-Semitic crime, amid growing anger at the brutal murder.

Mr Sarkozy told the French parliament that the gang sought for the murder of Ilan Halimi, 23, whose naked body was found by railway tracks eight days ago, three weeks after he had disappeared, had also tried to kidnap other Jews.

 

Here is the French Interior Minister's comment on the incident:

Mr Sarkozy told MPs: "The truth is that these crooks acted primarily for sordid and vile motives, to get money, but they were convinced that 'the Jews have money', and if those they kidnapped didn't have money, their family and their community would come up with it.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/22/france.mainsection

 

To get money huh? In the US, that would have been considered a hate crime.

[SW01]

And while we're referring to reported attacks, let me remind you that the British Police do not even record the vast majority of the attacks. So I'm having problems getting a remotely accurate number.

 

The police don't keep records of attacks...strange then that the Home Office was able to publish a figure of 5,619 reported hate crimes involving injury and 4,350 hate crimes without injury.Home Office Source (note that harassment is a tort rather than a criminal action)

 

Also, of 29 defendants brought to trial for religiously motivated crimes in 2006-2007 by the Crown Prosecution Service, only two of the victims were Jewish, compared to 17 Muslim victims. I compare that to the FBI statistics of 68.4% of 1477 racially motivated incidents being anti-Semitic.CPS Source

[mur'phon]

Israel does not use children as delivery devices for explosives

 

In all fairness this tends to be done be the extreme fringe groupings, which is hard to claim represents Palestinians/Hezballah supporters.

 

nor do they use children as human shields.

 

No, but in the palestinians case they often have little choice due to being clumped together in small areas.

 

Israel has been trying to get the Palestinians to sit down and talk the situation over to resolve the issue. (While some Palestinian factions are negotiating, and want the cycle to end others do not, until every last Israeli is dead)

 

They also set requirements which the Palestinians can't meet, and, thanks to US backing have "should" attached to most of their side of deals made, while Palestinians are only offered "musts". Besides, breaking promises made to the palestinians, their (for the most part) refusal to deal with Hamas has, more than anything, destroyed Palestinians faith in a peacefull deal with Israel.

 

Israel usually provides ample warning that civilians should get out of the area when they are going to attack that area.

 

Palestinians often have no place to get too, not to mention that many attacks aren't advertised.

 

Israel has made peace with Egypt, and returned most of the land they took in the 6-day war (including the land that gave Egypt control of the Suez Canal again).

 

Wonderfull, if they only did as much to make peace with it's other neighbors.

 

Believe it or not, Israel used an enormous amount of restraint in the Israeli/Lebanon conflict. I can think of several countries that would have simply carpet bombed Lebanon without regard for civilians.

 

Not carpet bombing a country is "enormous amount of restraint"?

And while we are at it, which carpet bombing countries where you thinking of?

 

One thing to remember, bias against israel =/=anti-semitism

[Q]

Garfield, after reading this entire thread (yeah, there's ~10-15 minutes that I'll never get back) I'm still at a loss as to the point that you're trying to make here.

[Web Rider]

Garfield, after reading this entire thread (yeah, there's ~10-15 minutes that I'll never get back) I'm still at a loss as to the point that you're trying to make here.

 

The UN and Europe are a breeding ground for antisemitism, and that's bad.

[Q]

And that's news? I thought that the Holocaust already proved that.

[EnderWiggin]

Do we see the UK making it so Hindus get to have Hindu law, or Jewish people be subject to Jewish law? Seriously, that is favoring one religion over any other religion.

 

It'd be really nice if you could make your points using actual fact instead of just saying whatever you want without knowing if it's true.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

_EW_

[jonathan7]

The UN and Europe are a breeding ground for antisemitism, and that's bad.

 

And that's news? I thought that the Holocaust already proved that.

 

Guys perhaps I'm lost here, but having been to all of the UK, and much of; France, Belguim, Holland, France, Spain, Portugal -- I really can say that anti-Semitism is no more prevalent here than racism against other groups. Indeed in Germany, because of the war anti-Semitism is treated extremely seriously. I'm further at a loss to see how the UN is anti-Semitic, just because it criticises Israel does not make it anti=Semitic. Furthermore the last two posts by SW01 have utterly destroyed Garfields points.

[Q]

@j7:

 

We weren't being serious. Sorry.

 

[jonathan7]

@j7:

 

We weren't being serious. Sorry.

 

Hehe, you don't need to apologise, no green writing here - I was 90% sure it was sarcastic, but the lack of a smiley meant I wasn't 100% sure