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| Re: Palestinian university students’ trip to Auschwitz causes uproar (1183410) | |||
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Re: Palestinian university students’ trip to Auschwitz causes uproar |
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Posted by Nilet on Wed May 14 18:44:41 2014, in response to Re: Palestinian university students’ trip to Auschwitz causes uproar, posted by 3-9 on Sun May 11 22:43:28 2014. Nope. My point of view is based on the point you make that Palestinians should be incorporated into Israel.Actually, I'm pretty sure I stated that I'm OK with multiple options, but Israel impoverishing Palestine and then blaming them for not being sufficiently dedicated to peace isn't one of them. The question is when you claim that the immigration policy is "at his expense", what exactly did it take away from him that he had before? Who's at what expense? Actually you are implying it, or at least your still dodging it. You are demonstrating again and again that you are unwilling or unable to even try to imagine what it's like to be in that situation. Bullshit. I imagine it every day, especially since, unlike you, I happen to belong to a demographic or two that is actually at risk for being targeted and is, in fact, being so targeted in many countries. I never said "place yourself in the Holocaust happening right now in country XYZ", I said this was a HYPOTHETICAL situation where you and your group are being targeted. Your hypothetical was part of an argument that used the Holocaust in the 1940s to justify Israel's double standard in the 2010s and I pointed out the flaws in this argument. But if you want a full response to your hypothetical, you can have one. If my country designated me a member of the out-group and started persecuting me and members of my demographic, and this persecution became severe enough that I had to flee the country, then a country that says "we'll take you in— you're a member our OUR in-group" is not an optimal solution. In fact, it's not even a long-term solution at all; at best, it's a temporary haven while I search for a non-bigoted country to take me in. The reason for this is that no one should ever rely on a bigot not to persecute them— even one who is bigoted in your favour. This is because once you have rejected the idea that everyone is created equal and declared one form of bigotry to be acceptable, you open the door to others, and so bigotry tends to coalesce into globules. In America, for example, it's very hard to find someone who is racist but not sexist or sexist but not homophobic. If I were declared a member of Israel's in-group and welcomed as a Jew, I would still be at considerable risk of being declared a second-class citizen and persecuted because I'm American, or because of my ethnicity, or because of my political beliefs, or any other factors. Moreover, bigots tend to take increasingly narrow views of their favoured groups. In Nazi Germany, one grandparent who wasn't baptised at a young age made you a Jew. In the antebellum South, one black ancestor made you black— and if you had no black ancestors but obvious Irish ancestors, you might be declared black anyway. So even if Israel welcomes me as a Jew today, it's only a matter of time before they declare me "not a real Jew" and persecute me themselves. That the in-group designation is based on religion just makes it more likely— religions have schisms which lead to mutual hatred. If I had to flee America tomorrow to avoid the camps, then obviously Israel would be as good an option as any, but as soon as I arrived I'd be looking for non-bigoted countries to take me in so that I'd have somewhere safe to live before I had to flee Israel. a) Isn't that great that somebody was nice enough to create a haven for you. What would happen if it was between 1939 and 1947? What would happen if it were 1400 BCE and I was in Israel but I was getting attacked by some other local tribe? You have yet to prove how the politics and prejudices in effect 70 years ago are relevant to Israel's immigration laws and Palestinian relations today. b) Ah, so you ARE for the Law of Return if it was around 1948 or so, when it was necessary, but you think it's obsolete now. Around 1948 or so, it would have been more than a little understandable. Obviously, I would quibble with the fact that it was only open to Jews and not all of the other persecuted minorities despite the need for a haven from said persecution being the justification for its existence. That said, when you've just seen mass murder on such a scale, I'm not going to fault you for instinctively protecting your own. Why those policies exist today is another matter. In fact, it's the point of this debate. Except that the Jews don't think so... And you get to speak for "the Jews" now? I somehow doubt you were appointed spokesman. ...and your solution would end up filling Israel and pretty much ruin the solution they had set up for themselves, leaving them scrambling for another haven. How, exactly, does saying persecuted minorities have a right to flee to Israel regardless of their religion "ruin" it, let alone "fill it?" I think Jewish people would beg to differ. Really? Because I spoke to quite a few of them, and none reported being persecuted lately. Nice ideal, totally lacking in hard physical fact. Segregation ended in US. Segregation ended in South Africa. Women granted the right to vote worldwide. Gay marriage legalised in more states each year. Are those facts hard and physical enough for you? Any proof that they claim roots in a territory or want to set down roots in a territory? Outside of modern immigration, I strongly doubt anyone related to you has any meaningful "roots" in Israel. Keep in mind that ancestors so distant they aren't genetic relatives of yours don't count. So Jews are entitled to Israel because of some tenuous ancestral connection that's been heavily shrouded in myth, but Romani don't get to move there because they "don't have roots?" Strawman. No one is recommending wiping out a demographic, or otherwise committing a crime against humanity. Otherwise, it's working as a haven for Jews, just as intended. That counts as a working, implemented solution. No, it's a reductio ad absurdum, which is a valid argument. You claimed (a) a policy is justified by the fact that it has been implemented and (b) a policy is justified by the fact that it has the effects intended by the people who implemented it. I pointed out that the Holocaust was implemented, and the deaths that took place therein were intended by the people who implemented the policy. Thus, by your own argument, the Holocaust would be justified. Since you doubtlessly consider that position to be absurd, you are forced to abandon the argument which leads to that conclusion. This sounds like yet another strawman. It doesn't have to be a "massive, worldwide persecution", it could be the persecution of a group in a single country. If the persecution is limited to a single country, then there are plenty of countries willing to accept refugees— many of them better than Israel. Allowing unlimited refugee emigration to Israel will fill it up rather quickly, as well. No one's proposing "unlimited refugee emigration to Israel." There are plenty of countries that can take in refugees— Israel only needs to take its fair share. The problem is that they have a double standard; Jews are allowed whether they're being persecuted or not, while non-Jews risk being turned away. Despite much dancing, you have yet to provide a cogent argument in favour of this double standard. So your goal should be the latter, get enough lifeboats for all the passengers, not overload the first lifeboat and sink it. I think you've got it! It's a pity you've previously declared that relying on the one lifeboat is "better" than trying to find others, or "at the very least a damn sight more achievable," then pointed to the one to dismiss the possibility of getting more by noting they have yet to be acquired, that additional lifeboats are a "nice ideal, totally lacking in hard physical fact" and that adding new lifeboats is impossible because it's in the nature of the ocean liner to only have one. I'd be happy that you finally understood this point, but I think in actuality that you've simply failed to grasp the analogy. Except what your trying to do is to change a policy before you've made the change to human nature which would otherwise increase the chances of your policy change's success. And your proposing to do it first to a small, limited resource country, which is a poor starting point. See, there you go again declaring improvement impossible due to the supposed immutability of human nature. What makes you think people aren't trying to defuse anti-semitism also? It must have occurred to you that people are already doing that too, right? Not you. You've been claiming that trying to make other countries more welcoming is impossible because human nature doesn't allow for it. No, the point is that you recommended the Jews alter their haven in a way which would reduce its viability in the long term, on the premise that if other countries can be convinced to do it, the haven will be unnecessary. How would it reduce Israel's long-term viability to stop giving preferential treatment to Jews? Or at minimum, require that Jews actually be persecuted in some way before they get to jump to the head of the line for immigration status? My point is that the current haven is already viable for the long term, so it shouldn't be altered until you get your solution implemented elsewhere. And my point is that Israel is not a viable haven now. If I were being persecuted due to my religious persuasion, would I be welcome in Israel? If the answer is "it depends on what your religious persuasion is," then you have conceded Israel's lack of viability as a haven. That you would accuse me of lacking empathy is highly ironic, since you seem to have no concern whatsoever for anybody who isn't a member of your in-group. Since there either wasn't a solution or the current solution clearly failed, that seems unlikely. My point is, you are denouncing efforts to create a working solution because we've already got a flawed, barely functional solution and that ought to be good enough. |
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