I have to agree. people are like this every where you go, it seems to simply be human nature to identify with your own 'group'.
I grew up in a place where pretty much every day was kick a pollack day. And that was with a large polish community nearby to kick,. And I will never forget, it was so funny.. I was probably 11 or 12 years old.. my parents take us on our regular summer vacation tour America thing.. we did that every summer when i was a kid.. one or two weeks.. my parents would drive us to visit some new place we had never been.. so this time we head toward Norfolk Virginia where I had an older cousin working for NASA.. and we are in this little store, Hampton maybe, I forget exactly.. my 2 sisters, my mom and myself.. and we are talking.. and I hear this little girl in the next aisle saying to her mother that we talk funny (no southern twang) and before you know it, this little girl, she must have been all of 8 years old about 3 feet tall.. comes straight up to me and kicks me. really hard, in the shin. She says at the same time 'Stupid yankee!"
With the financial and cultural support of the host nation(!). How many Nobels have the IL scholars won...? How many have the Muslim won? How many the Christians have?
...Jews in Poland do not fear persecution these days? any serious studies been done on this in Poland to support your claim?
You're not serious, are you? No, you cannot be serious. Have you actually read what you had asked?
A STUDY to prove that Jews are not persecuted, not shot point-blank in the streets of Poland, so they could feel OK?
Polish hatred towards Jews? Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations - per Country & Ethnic Origin January 1, 2009 - Poland is in the first place with 6,135 righteous:
yadvashem.org/righteous_new/statistics.html
Recently, after numerous racial incidents in France, the Israeli president called the Jews to leave France, not Poland, so pls don't get excited over how PL hates Jews...
True enough, Nika. The French have a much greater problem and Sarkozy must be wriggling around as he is a Jew of Hungarian decent himself. As I keep saying, it's all in the sell. I sold the Israeli people as highly respectable in my class on the kibbutz system and they agreed.
Truth be told, many of the younger generation have little or no exposure to Jews here and Poland is trying to see itself in the framework of Europe, not the ME. The biggest problem was with haggling. My wife haggled for a long time with this Jewish woman over the price of massage cream. They disliked the firm position of each other but that isn't hate, that's just style.
Seanus And sarkozy is not Jewish. He's a Roman catholic and that's as far as you can get from Judaism. Yes, he does have Jewish ancestry but he is NOT pro-Judaism!
Cool, that's better. My wife met a Polish Jew from Wrocław on her trip to Cyprus and Israel and she said he was one of the coolest guys she had ever met. She is not anti-Semitic but she isn't a fan of the Jews based on what her parents passed down to her. When we break prejudices and learn to get along, so many positive things can happen.
I keep saying it, I don't like what the IDF are doing but I'm not in Israel and never have been so I don't know the reality on the ground. I guess that they overreact but they go unpunished. Still, between peoples, I will judge them as just that. I'm sure I could get along with many Israelis. It's politics that divides!
I don't like the IDF as well, but I don't like what those suicide bombers and rocket launchers are doing either. There are too many ppl here that paint a too black picture of things. Some are notorious for finding ways to blacken Jews and Israelis. Some base their views on "proof" provided by White Supremacists and plain out hate-sites. Unfortunately it's Inet and even those ppl should get a window to vent their quirks and farts. Freedom of speech is what I stand for and I will always defend that, even when some misuse that freedom to vent opinions which basically limit that right to certain groups or individuals. This doesn't mean I necessarily like the fact that such tumors exist in society, and I will always keep fighting opinions that have the limiting of other opinions as a base. But to read those "opinions" sometimes literally makes me sick.
Seanus, question for you as humanist: tolerance is one of the greatest goods mankind knows nowadays; how would you see the way tolerant ppl should act towards intolerant ppl?
Well, the rocket launching is old news, M-G. Hamas has signed an agreement not to do it and, even before, it was another radical group that was doing it for so long.
Good question. I see it as an educating function. If we are to assume that much can be attributed to prejudice and lack of knowledge, we need to give them the facts as we know them and impart/disseminate as much as possible. We must understand how people come to take intolerant positions as the tabula rasa means they had none. We shouldn't be so quick to judge the intolerant as they are often just victims of disinformation through mass media. It doesn't mean that they don't have the potential to reform themselves and see the light. We have all changed and can change, we just need mentors and influences.
Number One, Hamas was funded and supported by Israel initially as a leverage against the PLO/PLA...This was merely for convenience, as when Hamas became a democratically elected governing party, they became 'the new enemy' and 'unacceptable' and 'terrorists'...Hamas goal was basically to form a governing body and provide social services for poor Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, especially since there was a void after Israel decided to 'vacate' Gaza, in terms of Jewish settlements...This, of course, was unacceptable to the Israelis because they must control all opposition...Hamas offered Israel a ten year truce, as far as conflict went, but the Israelis rejected this...You will not hear this fact stated on BBC, in the EU, nor in American media.
As for the talk of 'suicide bombers', this is nonsense...As I stated in a previous post, I have more of a chance of being attacked and killed by a 'Black terrorist' in my own neighborhood and city than the average Israeli does of suffering the same from a Palestinian.
Well said, Joe. The point is, modern global approaches demand that an enemy is needed. The IDF had their enemy in Hamas in OCL. However, the media played their part in overplaying their resistance. The very testimony of IDF soldiers in Burning Conscience: Soldier testimonies, shows that they were met with little or, sometimes, no resistance. We must bear in mind that many journalists were not allowed in until the third and final week of the conflict. Robert Fisk (not in OCL but before) and many other journalists were denied full filming rights and you have to wonder why.
Rockets and suicide bombers are vastly overstated and play more to paranoia than to a rational threat assessment.
Have any of you been to Israel? There is a reason there are not as many suicide bombings anymore.
Its called very high security.
Seanus, question for you as humanist: tolerance is one of the greatest goods mankind knows nowadays; how would you see the way tolerant ppl should act towards intolerant ppl?
I think intolerance comes from a lack of education. The Media have a set agenda, you must know how to research subjects from every angle and not accept everything the newspapers tell you at face value.
I agree, as would any rational person, that they are wrong but I examined the various stats available on the level of damage caused and I found that the damage done over 15 years was trivial compared to one 3-week operation. That tells its own story!
We must understand that, although we can't condone attacks, much in the same way as we can't condone stealing, we must understand why people do it. Desperate times call for desperate measures! This is my liberal compromise position. I see both sides of the coin.
The damage to property was minimal maybe. I can assure you that the mental damage was much higher. The Israel Defence Force wanted to stop the rockets all together so their civilians could live, work and sleep without worrying about bombs.
On another side, IDF means "Israel Defence Force" but it also means "Indirect Fire".
I understand and appreciate that, Steve, but they need to face some misery too as they have been dishing it out for far too long. Please try and understand the Palestinians who often live in squalor and fear. If my family were being trampled on in 'occupied' territory, who knows what I would resort to? You see my point I presume? 2 wrongs don't make a right but we MUST imagine ourselves in that predicament.
Sorry, I was not meaning it was right for the 3 week assault, I just meant I understand why they did it. The Arabs are also wrong to fire rockets, you just don't know where they will land as they are not aimed.
I wish both sides would stop and live together peacefully. Don't "forget" the past but "forgive" the past. I don't hold Germans from my generation responsible for what Germans from my grandparents generation did to Britain. I have forgiven them but I've not forgotten it happened. Germans are nice people.
One rocket attack is too many. Its the thought of more coming that is the bad part.
Do you live in Israel?...Listen, if you do, I tell you what: We swap for a year...I live in your place in Jaffa, suburban Jerusalem, wherever, and you come live in my place in SouthWest Philadelphia USA...You won't have to worry one bit about rocket attacks here...You may get jumped by a gang or shot in the head however, as a part of the natural course.
'Let's Trade Places!'
'Meat for Less' Store, 62 & Elmwood Avenue: I don't know about Kosher, but Halal, yes.
