Is this anti-semitism?

Yeah, currently reading "Hitler's Willing Executioners," which really delves deeply into the details of the German racial mythology and how their entire cultural worldview was based around a certain conception of "The Jew" which had no basis in reality. It wasn't just cynical manipulation by the Nazis. They really, genuinely believed it themselves.

Plus there was no "favoring the dominant religion" in Nazi Germany. Hitler had no more use for Catholics and Lutherans than he did anything else that was not of the Party.

Trying to take the Star of David out of a Holocaust memorial is point-missing on a "how are you even breathing unassisted?" scale.

Shorter: It really did run on simple-minded hatred. Hitler would and did gladly divert needed resources to killing Jews over supporting combat activities - winning the war and making Europe Judenrein were one and the same.

Okay, was less aware of that, assumed that in the early days there was some PR/manipulation at work

Keep in mind that, when Hitler dictated his final testament before his suicide in the bunker, the last, most important thing he felt he needed to tell the German people -- who were undoubtedly going to lose at that point -- was, "It was all the Jews' fault."

A stunningly original thought on which to leave on

"A big Jew did it and ran away"

I suppose what I want to avoid is the 'safety' of thinking that people who commit genocides are all passionately devoted to abstractions, and think of themselves as performing a duty beyond or above personal gain; sure, many of them are, but you don't avoid the possibility of collusion just by distancing yourself from fanaticism.

yeah hitler's anti-semitism wasn't just honest, it was practically his only idea. everything else (lebensraum etc.) was either pretty standard interwar german conservatism or clever (and not-so-clever) opportunism. the jew-hatred doesn't fall into the second category; he formulated it early and stuck to it forever; it was the animating principle of his life. but as for the possibility of collusion, sure: the one thing everyone remembers from arendt is that you didn't need to be passionately devoted to hitler's ideas to become a supporter, even an architect, of genocide. there's no safety in reason. but i think the seed does have to be there.

of course it was convenient for the german people post-ww1 to have an easy explanation for both the war and the defeat, and very convenient to someone trying to rally them behind him. but he rallied himself with that idea as much as anyone else, i think.

turns out that what everyone remembers from arendt is wrong, too:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/misreading-hannah-arendts-eichmann-in-jerusalem/?_r=0

eichmann was a passionate believer in the cause

http://www.timesofisrael.com/un-accredits-ngo-whose-head-is-glad-to-be-labeled-anti-semitic/

The UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People

Not to be confused with the Committee on the Exercise of the Entirely Alienable Rights of the Zionist People

Well, it has to be one or the other, doesn't it

Might as well go through the obvious points, anyway:

Mohamad, who served as Malaysia’s prime minister from 1981 until 2003, has repeatedly sparked controversy with his anti-Western and anti-Semitic comments. In a 2003 speech, he said that “the Jews rule the world by proxy” and get “others to fight and die for them.” During the same speech, he further stated, “They invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong so they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these, they have now gained control of the most powerful countries.”

Then why do you support 'inalienable rights' of Palestinians if human rights are a Jewish plot?

Despite the global outrage caused by his comments, Mohamad did not disavow them. “I am glad to be labeled anti-Semitic,” he stated last year, after an Israeli court ruled that the state was not to blame for the death of American peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was run over by an IDF tank as she attempted to prevent it from demolishing Palestinian homes.

“How can I be otherwise, when the Jews who so often talk of the horrors they suffered during the Holocaust show the same Nazi cruelty and hardheartedness toward not just to their enemies but even toward their allies should any try to stop the senseless killing of their Palestinian enemies,” Mohamad reportedly stated.

Doubt the driver of the tank was a holocaust survivor. As a secondary point, I'm not clear on whether the tank driver in question was acting under specific orders, and if so how high up the orders came from; was this ever proved one way or the other?

It wasn't a tank but a caterpillar bulldozer + there's no evidence that it was intentional, let alone given as an order.

Mind you, reading about the Israel Palestine situation tends to bring on a sort of fatalism. The Israelis don't give a fuck about the rights or lives of the Palestinians and the UN, via the power of the US and the UK, lets them do more or less what they want; inevitably that's going to get all the anti-semites going in to support Palestine. That discredits any supporters of Palestine; and so the Israelis don't give a fuck about the rights or lives of the Palestinians and round and round it goes.

It's incredibly tiresome to have to process accusations of wanting all the Palestinians to be killed every time you critique creeping or blatant anti-semitism among the pro-Palestinian side; it's also incredibly tiresome having to process accusations of anti-semitism every time you critique the pro-Israeli side. You end up with the black spot either way.

Which then brings on notions of wanting to escape from it all with a small handful of 'decent' human beings, which is itself the kind of fantasy that drives the fucking mess you want to escape from.

cardamon, this doesn't seem to be a topic you're particularly interested in. do you have opinions about other territorial disputes too? like what are your thoughts on the TRNC?

really feel like israel/palestine is the king of territorial disputes. trnc is p trifling, prob less interesting than abkhazia, surely a bigger dog like kashmir or tibet wld be a more apt comparison

sure, I'm curious about any of cardamon's thoughts

U never want to talk about NI mordy is this a conspiracy thing or .....

what is NI?

oh wait - northern ireland?

i find talking about the NI situation tends to bring on a sort of fatalism

Probably best to consider my last post a whine and ignore it, tbh

that arendt article mordy posted is really good -- 'eichmann' is one of the most widely misunderstood books i can think of, ppl who criticize it seem to be responding to attacks on the book rather than the actual arendt text.

TRNC/Kashmir/Tibet = equal 'sense of fatalism', fwiw

yeah someone needs to send that article to ron rosenbaum

i want to read this: http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15161.html

can a uklxor explain this to me?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2421231/Tottenham-consult-season-ticket-holders-use-Y-word.html#ixzz2f4dY7Hc5

well, essentially, For years Tottenham, who have a strong Jewish following, have been on the receiving end of cruel anti-Semitic abuse from opposition fans.

In an act of defiance, some fans of the north London club have coined the word "Yid" themselves, and chants of "Yids", "Yid Army" and "Yiddos" are regularly sung on the home terraces at White Hart Lane.

Last Monday the Football Association (FA) issued a statement warning supporters that use of such words could result in either a banning order or even criminal prosecution.

Tottenham responded by saying they would consult with their fans on the matter, and it has now emerged they will do so in the form of a questionnaire that will be sent out to all season-ticket holders.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2421231/Tottenham-consult-season-ticket-holders-use-Y-word.html#ixzz2f5VRLSyk

yes that is the article that i linked to, thx conrad

yes i pasted from your link didn't i

lmao

1. does Tottenham really have a larger Jewish following than eg man U?
2. has the anti-semitism directed against the club been based in this fandom? what kind of anti-semitism has it been?
3. are the Tottenham fans using the word yid Jewish fans or also non-Jewish fans?
4. if the former (or even the latter) why would the pro-jewish chanting (assuming that's what it is) be criticizing instead of the anti-semitism comments directed at the club?

be criticized*

also i'm pretty sure fans of the north London club did not coin the term Yid.

A bit larger. Insofar as British Jewish population is concentrated at all, it's concentrated in North London, where Tottenham are from. Fairly vicious chanting is standard at football games - Liverpool mocked for being poor, unemployed, eternal victims; Man Utd for having their best team killed in a plane crash; Spurs therefore for being Jewish. Chants of 'yids' were then adopted by some Spurs fans (whether jewish or not) as a term of approval - 'yid army' being their term for their own fans, 'yiddo' as a term of approval for players & each other.

The debate is whether certain words should be removed entirely from the lexicon regardless of context.

also i'm pretty sure fans of the north London club did not coin the term Yid

Yiddo otoh

Most of my Spurs friends who chant "Yid Army" are decidedly not Jewish.

i think gentile identification w/ jews through sports fandom is a really interesting concept

Liverpool mocked for being poor, unemployed, eternal victims

"You'll never walk alone" has been adopted by Liverpool fans so their competition sings it as "You'll never work again".

Yeah xp, I doubt there can be any stats on ethnicity of support but Spurs having a larger Jewish following can't translate into anything more than still a very small percentage of total support.

I think this is kind of dumb on the part of the FA. Anybody who's genuinely anti-semitic enough to call Spurs fans 'yids' in earnest is already pretty visibly malevolent (not to mention highly visibly stupid) and anybody trying to wind up Spurs fans by calling them Yids has already been answered by the majority of Spurs fans, Jewish or not.

Another Liverpool dig is for the opposing fans' supporters to sing 'sign on, sign on' over the appropriate bit of You'll Never Walk Alone.

Tottenham/Stamford Hill is a traditionally Orthodox Jewish area (although latterly Tottenham itself is known as the place black people riot against the police), with lots of Jewish people in North London generally, as Ismael says. Outer East London is also a Jewish area and a friend from there who went to a kibbutz for six months told me half-jokingly that it was East London Jews on one side of the pool, North Londoners on the other - and never the twain shall meet.

Apparently some opposing teams' supporters make a hissing noise at Spurs fans, which is supposed to be an allusion to gas chambers. Many Spurs fans are *incensed* that nothing gets said or done about the hissing.

The other complicating thing is that the abuse is mostly pantomime, but not always; and unless you know what's happening it might be hard to tell the difference, and impossible to legislate with that degree of nuance. With Liverpool 'sign on, sign on' gets trotted out in the first five minutes of any game and that's expected, but there's other abuse that might provoke actual violence.

With Spurs there was a highly-publicised instance of mass hissing last season which did aiui provoke outrage because it's become taboo. Ten years ago it wouldn't've.

I was among the Arsenal fans on Saturday and there was a chant I don't know (I'm not Arsenal myself) but which obviously used to have a yid + hissing coda because every time it stopped there was a very quiet continuation along those lines. I dunno what could or should be done about that tbh, because it's still an example of self-policing and even in the midst of it it's impossible to tell who's doing it or how prevalent it is.

Also I doubt that Arsenal have significantly fewer Jewish fans than Tottenham do (they're both North London clubs) so we're not really in the realms of hardcore racial theory here.

http://fanchants.co.uk/football-songs/tottenham_hotspur-chants/yids-clap-spurs/