Is this anti-semitism?

apparently it was his sons that kept him that way against the advice of both doctors and other members of his family

(Jerusalem) – Ariel Sharon died without facing justice for his role in the massacres of hundreds and perhaps thousands of civilians by Lebanese militias in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982. The killings constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Q: Has anyone in history ever been charged with war crimes for allowing someone else's army to commit a massacre?

I'm no Sharon defender, but I think that's a pretty fair question in response to that lede.

sharon "allowed" it to happen in that he instructed the perpetrators of the massacre to go into the camps and restore order, and they did so by massacring civilians

In 1983, a UN commission chaired by Sean MacBride concluded that Israel bore responsibility for the violence.[13]

you don't seem to actually understand Mordy's question

the phalangists were sent in on the orders of the IDF = mordy's question is a nonsequitur

not that this specific argument matters, he was the genocidal leader of a settler state either way

If Sharon was "genocidal" he wasn't very good at it. Do the meanings of words matter to you?

re. "hungry4ass"

yeah I feel like you do violence to the word if you use the word in this context. not everything that is unforgivable and horrible and deliberate and kills a lot of people is a genocide. there has been no systematic attempt to destroy the entire palestinian population in israel, the occupied territories, and/or those in exile in surrounding countries. there has been systematic violence, systematic oppression, rampant violations of human rights, etc.

also i am troubled by the phrase "settler state" since it is hard for me to think of many states that would _not_ fit that description.

as you can see from my comments above i do not think of myself as a "friend of israel" in any of the common senses, but your comment is so hyperbolic that i'm a hairsbreadth from being unable to take your opinions on this matter the least bit seriously. not that you ought to care.

(scarcely possible to take anyone with that screen name "seriously" but anyway)

Don't think Sharon was some genocidal monster nor do I think he was a saint, obv, but all "patriots" should gtfo

irrespective of what i think of Sharon and being broadly pro-Israel i just wanna say that Hurting and amateurist, you're playing a bit semantically disingenuous if you want to restrict use of the term "genocidal" only to those who succeed in wiping out the entirety of a people

Q: Has anyone in history ever been charged with war crimes for allowing someone else's army to commit a massacre?

A fair number of Nazi collaborators, I'd have thought.

He was in effective command of their activities and would have foreseen war crimes occurring if they were allowed into the camps. That makes him liable whether he had a specific goal to kill 2000 civilians or not.

I'm sure it's possible for some people to look fondly on his legacy while acknowledging that he committed horrendous criminal acts (many fans of Milosovic, Tudjman, Taylor, etc do) but downplaying his responsibility in the face of international and domestic Israeli calls for him to face justice always looked a bit suspicious to me.

Sharon was a "centrist," per NPR! Wow, that term is even more fucked up outside the US.

(scarcely possible to take anyone with that screen name "seriously" but anyway)

― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Sunday, January 12, 2014 4:24 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hmm good point, feminist parties i have attended

irrespective of what i think of Sharon and being broadly pro-Israel i just wanna say that Hurting and amateurist, you're playing a bit semantically disingenuous if you want to restrict use of the term "genocidal" only to those who succeed in wiping out the entirety of a people

― Jargon Kinsman (Noodle Vague), Sunday, January 12, 2014 3:11 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I didn't say anything about success.

there are zionists who openly advocate the destruction of the palestinian people, but they are not the engineers of israeli policy, which historically has been awful enough w/o confusing things with the g-word.

i expect this won't stay up too long but here's a link to a copy of the cockburn article:

http://www.phibetaiota.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/2013-12-01-Cockburn-on-Kerry-as-Secretary-of-Nothing.pdf

irrespective of what i think of Sharon and being broadly pro-Israel i just wanna say that Hurting and amateurist, you're playing a bit semantically disingenuous if you want to restrict use of the term "genocidal" only to those who succeed in wiping out the entirety of a people

― Jargon Kinsman (Noodle Vague), Sunday, January 12, 2014 3:11 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I didn't say anything about success.

― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Sunday, January 12, 2014 10:45 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right, as ruthless as Sharon could be, I really don't think his GOAL was to wipe out Palestinians.

letter from the lubavitcher rebbe to sharon:
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/letters/default_cdo/aid/327408/jewish/Condolence-Letter-to-Ariel-Sharon.htm

whether or not sharon could legally or practically have been charged with 'war crimes,' it seems indisputable that he bore ultimate responsibility for the refugee camp killings. whatever else he may have been or done, i can't extend any admiration to a guy with that on his resume.

no admiration extended on my part

Sharon killed only those who deserved to be met with the force of carnage.I weep not for any of his victims

kiddies too, huh

whether or not sharon could legally or practically have been charged with 'war crimes,' it seems indisputable that he bore ultimate responsibility for the refugee camp killings. whatever else he may have been or done, i can't extend any admiration to a guy with that on his resume.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Sunday, January 12, 2014 12:53 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, I agree he has much culpability there. his later pragmatism permitted him to do some not-bad things before his stroke. i don't admire the man, but i wouldn't want the task of making a summary judgment of his life and actions.

i also don't know if i agree with the application of "ultimate" responsibility--seems to simplify something that was multi-causal.

a friend wrote this - imo, very beautiful - piece about baraka:
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/159747/amiri-baraka

“Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers/ to stay away from home that 

is this really the line? Cuz that doesnt even make sense. Is he saying that their home was the twin towers?

No, it actually says "to stay home that day"

Poem also contains the line "Who knows what kind of skeeza is a Condoleeza"

i like that essay

Context is good and useful...just seems a little convenient to me that his artistic/personal motivations fell so in line with the antisemitism of the Nation of Islam. I don't see anything personally or artistically brave about joining an angry mob.

http://www.jta.org/2014/01/27/news-opinion/world/paris-anti-hollande-march-turns-against-jews

I'm of about three minds when it comes to French anti-hate-speech laws. Dieudonné hasn't been funny in ages and he's a hateful tool at this point but giving him so much free press for violating the hate-speech laws and throwing free speech rights into the mix with old fashioned French anti-semitism and general right-wing provocation is awful. I mean he pals around with exactly the kind of ppl he used to lambaste and as much as I support taunting the French establishment, this situation is appalling.

My interest in French antisemitism is more linked to what I see as an inevitable emigration of French Jewry and less about policy recommendations.

As I pointed out up-thread, French Jews are caught between left-wing anti-semites and right-wing anti-semites and the presence of a considerably larger Arab population often, itself, marginalized by racsim, and increasingly anti-semitic. After the attacks in Toulouse, I'm not sure I wouldn't want to leave myself. I saw friends who grew up in the banlieue once united in their resistance to racism and the extreme Right, torn asunder by the Gulf War. When you throw into the mix the differing traditions and outlooks of Ashkenazim from Poland and Germany and Russia and the Shephardim from North Africa, the whole situation gets even cloudier.

I'm sure you know this, but the vast majority of French Jews today are Sephardim. The Ashkenazi community almost entirely disappeared after the war.

It wan't until the 60's following Suez and the 6 Day War that Sephardim outnumbered Ashkenazim in France. I think it's probably about 3/2 these days. I an't find anything on the Crif website and The Republic doesn't officially recognize race or religion.

is it anti-semitic to say "Jews control the media" or "Jews control the financial sector"?

i know that's nagl and i sound like Tuomas, but i grew up in an environment where i wasn't exposed to other ethnicities/religions and yea i really am that ignorant

In general yes.

I was going to ask Shakey for examples where it's not anti-Semitic but I'd rather not know. I'll say that the closest variation to this that is not anti-Semitic is "Jewish people are heavily represented in the media," or "…in finance." Of course even that can immediately become anti-Semitic if you start manufacturing conspiracies from that statistical fact.

cf interesting note there are philosemitic correlations of those - "Jewish people are heavily represented in Nobel prizes," and even philosemites like to play up Jewish contributions to finance, media, along things like civil rights, academia, arts, etc.

Jews are heavily represented in the gem and precious metals trade, in the sense that I don't think I've ever met anyone in it who WASN'T Jewish except that one Italian guy who fixes watches.

Sorry, that's a total aside but that's one world where I don't know of ANY other group having a significant presence, or maybe that's just in New York.

Satmar esp

I guess as a general rule, if you find yourself obsessed with the Jewish people you should think about which particular things are fascinating you + why. conspiratorial thinking is anti-semetic.

Yeah its the "control" part that's ahistorical and anti-semitic. For example its acurate to say that Hollywood's movie industry was largely founded and developed by a predominately Jewish population, but the term "control" implies an organized and cohesive conspiracy type operation, which is a concept with deep and historically explicitly anti-semitic origins.

Rudipherous brought it up on a thread last week and I was pretty offended but let it pass w out comment (it was a fast moving thread)

xxxp Oh huh, I guess my jeweler employer doesn't work with any UO except at that one place and I don't know their background (and they love her)...the rest are all Orthodox presumably? Anyway. Strange world.

ok, right, i can see how "control" implicates a willful conspiracy and how the history of persecution based on that accusation makes that implication anti-semitic. what about this line of reasoning, where does it go wrong?

1. it is fair to point out, in certain contexts, that the representation of 'group x' in 'institution y' is disproportionately high
2. members of religious/ethnic/cultural group x are generally socialized to share the values which are generally held by other members of that group
3. if group x is disproprtionately represented in institution y, there is some cognizable effect of x group's values on the way y institution impacts society/is organized/etc.
4. this analysis can apply to Jewish Americans and, e.g., media outlets

(n.b. i genuinely am underinformed/agnostic about all of this)

also Mordy i don't think you were lobbying the "obsessed" thing directly at me, but really i don't feel comfortable with that as a general proposition. i think there's a risk inherent in accusing people of being "obsessed" with another group when they're genuinely trying to sort out the mechanisms of group dynamics. for example, as an Anglo American, i would feel very uncomfortable telling a Native American not to be "obsessed" with the history of interaction between Europeans and Native Americans.
(if they spend all their time thinking about a group's role/status/impact in society without ever trying to challenge their instincts or even talk to anyone in that group, i agree that that's quite clearly a sign of a problem.)