From: perlman@qso.Colorado.EDU (Eric S. Perlman)
Subject: Re: The Hadith about Muslims killing the Jews / Hamas vs. Sunnah
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 17:46:34 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.152007.966@cbfsb.cb.att.com> mmdh@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (Mazen Mokhtar) writes:
>Eric S. Perlman writes:
>
>>The situation of Palestinians may not be the best,
>
>  That is for sure.
>
>>but if you want to use the comparison then answer me these questions: where
>>are the gas chambers?
>
>  Instead, we have people burried alive by buldozers and houses of people who
>are not even suspect destroyed. People are expelled out of their country and
>their land and property is given to foreigners.

Even if this is a wide-scale occurrence - and it is not - it does not
justify the comparison.  Do you know what is like to have over a third
of your population die in the space of a few years?  We Jews do.  The
thing about occurrences like those is that they are not the rule.
They are the ghastly exception.

>> where are the concentration camps?
>
>  In the Negev desert among other places are camps where innocent people are
>incarcerated for extended periods of time without even a charge. They are
>subjected to torture from which they frequently die.

That's not what a concentration camp is.  I suggest you read in detail
about what Dachau, Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bergen Belsen, and the others
were.  I do know - I lost dozens of relatives to them, and have uncles 
and aunts who still bear the scars as survivors.  Second of all the 
charges of torture are way overblown.  The US's reports on human rights 
show this clearly. 

>>>  I am a semite an I am not biased against Jews. I am only an opponent of
>>>oppression. This position offends many, but that has not detered me.
>
>>Look "anti-semite" up in the dictionary.  Not "semite."  English as a
>>language isn't always consistent, and the fact is that whether you like
>>it or not the word "anti-semite" does not mean "against all semites".
>>It specifically denotes hatred of Jews.
>
>  Reread my sentence above and it will be clear that I understand. Furthermore,
>if the English language only includes jews as targets of anti-semitism, then
>it should be changed by better usage of the word.

Perhaps.  Does "Judeophobe" sound better?  I hardly think so.
Unfortunately history, not sensibility, often denotes words.

>>>  This subject is certainly debatable. After all, both of them are based on
>>>the assumption that a certain nationality is "chosen" or better than the rest.
>
>>No, they're not.  Zionism certainly isn't.  I defy you to prove this.
>>Indeed, Herzl wasn't even religious.  Neither was Weizmann.  Or the vast
>>majority of the founders of Zionism.
>
>  Actually, most of them were atheist or borderline atheist. However, they
>still felt that Israel should belong to the members of the so called Jewish
>nation. Israel does not revolve around the ideas of the Jewish religion (I
>wish), Israel revolves around the idea of the Jewish people. The result
>is racist at best.

How, may I ask?  Your answer itself shows that you understand very
little, if anything, about Jews.  What criteria would you have a group
of people meet to be able to call itself a people, e.g. an ethnicity?
Common language?  OK, we have Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino.  Common
culture?  Jewish culture in the Ashkenazi and Sephardi streams remained
remarkably similar through centuries without communication.  Art?  We
have that too.  The concept of Jews as a people has been a constant
theme of Jewish life for millenia.  Even in diaspora.  The concept of
Jews as a people is *inextricable* from the Jewish religion. So how is the
concept of Jews as a people offend as being racist?  Further, what is
wrong with a Jewish state having Palestinians who live in it, as
citizens, with full rights?  Nothing.  And there is nothing in Zionism
that precludes that; indeed, Zionism is built on just such ideas.
 


-- 
"How sad to see/A model of decorum and tranquillity/become like any other sport
A battleground for rival ideologies to slug it out with glee." -Tim Rice,"Chess"
     Eric S. Perlman 				 <perlman@qso.colorado.edu> 
  Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, University of Colorado, Boulder
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast