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Re: Palestinian university students’ trip to Auschwitz causes uproar

Posted by Nilet on Sun May 11 13:22:00 2014, in response to Re: Palestinian university students’ trip to Auschwitz causes uproar, posted by 3-9 on Sun May 11 05:23:55 2014.

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Subjunctive mood

Yes. I'm familiar with the concept. It is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand and does not address my point in any way.

My point is this. You stated the following:

Israeli Arabs seem to live relatively peacefully in Israel. If all the other Arabs want to wipe out Israel, that's their fault.


That would imply you believe all non-Israeli Arabs want to wipe out Israel.

Do you believe that all non-Israeli Arabs want to wipe out Israel?

And now they are letting in other people, including refugees.

Except that Jews are still given priority. A double standard is still in place.

So did Israel's policy prevent him from trying to emigrate to the US? Or Canada? Or Europe?

If he did and they turned him away, that's wrong and that's their fault. However, that three other people have stood by and done nothing in the face of injustice does not excuse your own apathy, especially when you have plainly demonstrated the ability to address that injustice.

You can't even begin to imagine what it was like to be through the Holocaust or a pogrom, or at least have a relative who did and told you about it, and then you expect the Jewish members of this board to take you seriously?? For real??

Now you're just making up random bullshit.

You seem to have broken up the lines, but you originally said this:

I was commenting on your total lack of empathy and possibly imagination, which explains your overly idealistic views and in your inability to respond to the situation I proposed.


And my reply was this single cohesive argument:

How am I supposed to have "empathy" for the hypothetical victims of the 2014 holocaust that isn't happening?

You asked whether I'd trust other countries to take me in if I were in the late 1940s and had just watched my friends and relatives killed. I pointed out that it was moot, because Israel was set up for that specific purpose.

I know that being told the situation you proposed is moot and irrelevant is not the answer you wanted to hear, but ignoring it and pretending I was "unable" to respond doesn't help your case.


As you can see, I never said, suggested, or implied that I "can't even begin to imagine what it was like to be through the Holocaust or a pogrom," I pointed out that neither exists in 2014, and your argument based on the political situation of the 1940s is not relevant to what policies should be implemented today.

A point you seem to have missed as evidenced by your further statements:

Dodging by omission. I said "And since this is a hypothetical situation where you don't like Israel's Law of Return policy, we'll leave that out and you'll have to go through the hoops just like everyone else." Not to mention that up until 1948, there was no Israel.

(a) If I'm not mistaken, 1948 is, in fact, the "late 1940s."

(b) I have/had/would have had no objections to Israel's Law of Return policy in 1948, so asking me to ignore it in your hypothetical is unfair. That a law was expected or acceptable in different circumstances does not justify its existence now.

Their first priority was their own people.

Indeed. However, I think it's time they managed to move on to second and third priorities. The situation re: Judaism and worldwide acceptance thereof seems pretty much sorted.

Remember what I said about achievable goals?

History is filled with many examples of countries being persuaded to abandon a double standard. I'll call it "achievable."

Not to mention that a lot of the other people who died already had a home country.

The Romani still have trouble finding a country that will accept them. They didn't fare much better than the Jews during the Holocaust, so maybe Israel can grant them "right of return" as well?

You wouldn't, but the people who moved to Israel would.

And the people in Palestine wouldn't. It's easy to support a policy you're not on the wrong side of.

Nobody said it was a perfect solution. Unlike yours, it's actually been implemented.

Frankly, the same could be said about the Holocaust itself.

Come on, the best justification you can think of for the policy is the fact that it exists? You can't seriously believe that.

Considering that the one country is going to be around in the foreseeable future...

There's going to be no massive worldwide persecution of Jews in the "foreseeable" future either. Another Holocaust and Israel becoming unlivable are both possibilities and neither is clearly more likely than the other.

...it's better than no country you can rely on.

My point is that it's not an optimal solution. Having a lifeboat on an ocean liner is better than not having one, but it is neither preferable to nor precludes the possibility of having enough lifeboats for all of the passengers.

And like I said before, they succeeded in creating that country. How about your solution?

This goes back to my previous remarks about passively accepting a bad policy as the inevitable product of human nature vs. actually working to change it. You're trying to use your apathy as justification for itself— other countries don't currently accept me, so there's no reason to persuade them to.

Although given how concerned you seem to be about another holocaust, did it not occur to you that campaigning for other countries to be more accepting wouldn't just provide a backup haven to flee to but also eliminate the chance of that country participating in the antisemitism you think any country is about to erupt into? I would think that preemptively combatting antisemitism before another holocaust is even a remote possibility would be right up your alley.

Carving out a country and making it livable is hardly doing nothing.

I proposed an effort to change other countries' immigration policies. You said that not doing so would be easier than doing so. I pointed out that yes, apathy is always easier than action.

I'm glad you weren't around in the 1940s, since you'd probably be telling everyone that creating a Jewish State is an unachievable goal and that America's semi-open immigration policy was better than nothing since there won't be anything else in the foreseeable future.

And they seem to have gotten farther with their solution than yours.

Once again, you use your apathy to justify itself. "It hasn't been built yet, so there's no reason to try building it."

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