I agree with AbuSinan, I think the term “anti-semitism” is out of context when applied to arabs. It originated in a very different enviroment.

Israel is a fact today, but no one forgets how it was formed. It was simply “rape”. You don’t need any religion to hate that, it is natural.

You can join the conversation by clicking on the link from my blog, http://www.garybaumgarten.com

The show is likely to excoriate the Saudi Academy, based on the USCIRF report, as well, so all interested might want to take a look—JB

Interesting to note that anti-Semitism, in it’s current form in the Middle East, is almost entirely European in it’s background.

I guess if the Zionists, complict with large sections of the world, hadnt stolen Palestinian lands, it might not be the issue it is today.

Full stop, the world community, under whatever guise, had no right to give away Palestinian lands.

I have nothing against Jews, I do not believe that Israel was set up in a moral or legal fashion. Two different things.

But on this planet, we’ve become so interdependent and globalized that it’s not possible to segregate religions, even within one country, though the KSA puts up an effort.

I believe it is not just the Palestinian issue but it runs deeper than that as has been touched upon.

Perhaps we can partition the earth off for each religion???

All the major religions can get a bigger slice and a few slivers for the odd religions. Perhaps we can ship certain groups of people off to Mars one day. That way we won’t have to see their ugly faces.

Sure, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was anti-Semitic. So were Henry Ford, King Edward VIII, and a lot of other political leaders of the period. It was a miasma that covered most of the globe. Singling out Arabs, as though they were the epitome of anti-Semitism is disingenuous, at best.

And trotting out the hoary accusations of ‘blame the victim’ to avoid substantive argument is exactly what is meant when people claim that any anti-Zionist comment is–presto-chango–turned into an anti-Semitic argument. Thus, you do yourself and your argument a grave disservice.

Try sticking with the topic, not redefining categorical terms by assertion, and maybe even do a little more reading of non-participant histories.

I reject ‘transfer of populations’ today, not in the aftermath of WWII. At that time–60+ years ago–it made sense and was likely the only available solution to the problems of the day.

Today, it’s totally inappropriate and is, in itself, a human rights violation of the highest order. Not as serious as terrorist bombing, assuredly, but neither is it an appropriate response to it.

First off, what is a “palestinian”? “Palestine” is the name given to the region in the Middle East that was dismembered by the Romans in 67AD. Before the early 1960s, “palestinian” was a word used to refer to Jews living in Palestine. Arabs who lived there were called “Arabs”, Syrians, Lebanese… Those that lived there thought of themselves as part of “Southern Syria”.

As for having “nothing to do with the Holocaust”, I guess you could say that technically, that is true. After all, very few, if any at all, ran any of the gas chambers or crematoriums in any of the death camps. However, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem met with Hitler in 1942 to help each other with their plans to exterminate the Jews. The Mufti is on record as saying many times that Hitler should finish the job so he would not have to smell the Jews in his world anymore.

Also, the hue and cry of so-called “hospitable” Arab Muslims, both living in the region and outside, to turn away many many boatloads of wretched Jewish refugees that were lucky enough to get to the shores of Palestine, back to Europe and their eventual gassing and burning, gives the Arabs that were living in that area more than a bit of complicity in the Holocaust, albeit indirect.

Then, of course, there was the change in definition of the word “refugee” in the early 30s by the UN on the behest of the Arabs to say that a refugee is one who is displaced from the land they lived on for 2 years or more; this was then able to encompass most of the Arabs who were not born in the land of “Palestine”, but rather emigrated in from all of the other surrounding countries at the behest of the British in order to skew the demographics against the indigenous Jews.

“It is also a fact, convenient, comfortable, likable or not, that the fact of Israel is one of the driving forces for modern Islamic and Arab anti-Semitism.” Sorry, believing Muslims do not need any excuse or driving force to hate Jews, or for that matter, Christians. It is written in the Qu’ran to do so. See http://www.prophetofdoom.net for more on this.

It is good of you though, to admit that there was a need for Zionism. Herzl came up with it after the Dreyfuss affair where he realized that the Jews would only be safe in a country of their own.

“Israel, IMO, needs to find a better way of dealing with the fact that they are severely unloved in the region and losing support outside the region.” Yeesss… blame the victim. That woman shouldn’t be walking around in such a short skirt, it incites men to rape them.

“No one, Arab or Israeli, is going to get the maximal return on negotiation. Both sides are going to have to lose something important to them.” The difference is what each has to lose. Look at the difference in land mass between Israel and the rest of the Arab countries. Each square meter that Israel gives up is one square meter closer to being pushed into the Mediterranean Sea as the Arabs never get tired of threatening to do. Israel is not making any existential threats against the Arabs, and never has.

“no one was taking the Arab view into consideration anyway.” Sure they were. That’s why the the British decided to renege their deal to give the Jews any land at all. What eventually ended up as the State of Israel was not even %15 of the original Mandate. Looking on a map of the Mandate before the British anti-semites got finished with it shows that Jordan is “Palestine”. The Arabs were not satisfied with this and wanted “all or nothing” and still do.

“Israel is founded on the very same principles and practices that forced them to flee Europe. Some Israeli leaders know this, it is why they pointed to the Nazis on how to deal with the Palestinian issue.

I remember the one Israeli general who suggested that they look to how the Nazis dealt with the Warsaw Uprising to find inspiration for how to treat the Palestinians.”

Yes, equate the victim to their persecutor, a favorite anti-semitic tactic. Where’s your sources for any of this? Which general? When did he say such a thing and to whom?

“But there’s also anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism.” Like yours.

“Displacing millions in Europe post-WWII would have been a big thing, assuredly, but no bigger than took place when the borders of Ukraine, Poland, and Germany were all shifted westward. I Jewish state, even in the middle of Europe, would have provided the buffer against anti-Semitism that clearly was needed at the time.”

Interesting. You justify the policy known as “transfer” that most mainstream Israelis reject as being inhuman, that of moving all “palestinians” across the Jordan River into Jordan where they should have been in the first place if the original promise of the British Mandate had been kept.

BTW, in today’s climate, anything which attacks Israel or it’s “right” to exist is considered anti-Semitic.

I know it is nonsense, but there it is. No country has a “right” to exist, let alone using ties from 2,000 years ago shared by a portion of that population and their religious book.

If Soloman is living in the USA I suggest that he donates his house and land to the local American Indian tribe. It is their land, they existed on it longer than the Israelis did in Palestine.

Make your support known for the Zionist concept Soloman, give up your house!

The idea that because some members of the Jewish faith had ties to the Middle East means that they had a right to it after some 2,000 years of being away from it just boggles the mind.

The concept that the Palestinians, who had nothing to do with the Holocaust, should be the population to pay for it is more than a bit obscene as well. Nevermind the tactics used to found the state and then keep it, and how often they tend to harken back to the historical treatment of the Jews themselves.

Soloman also shows an astounding lack of knowledge of the Middle East, Europe and Islam when he tries to claim that Arabs always mistreated Jews the first chance they got. I get he has never heard of “al Andalus” where Jews, under rule by Maghrebe Arabs enjoyed a level of living and prestige that they did not enjoy again in Europe until after WW2.

When Christians took the Muslim areas of Spain the Jews were then forced to convert, even then most often murdered, and then again fled to Muslim lands, many of them heading to Arab lands.

Israel, as a modern entity, is founded on the dispossesion of an entire peoples.

Israel is founded on the very same principles and practices that forced them to flee Europe. Some Israeli leaders know this, it is why they pointed to the Nazis on how to deal with the Palestinian issue.

I remember the one Israeli general who suggested that they look to how the Nazis dealt with the Warsaw Uprising to find inspiration for how to treat the Palestinians.

Interesting when people become what they hate and despise!