Comments on: Israeli Extremists Shout ‘Hitler Was Right’

By: David

David — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:50:00 +0000

Your point sounds right… I’m just not sure in what context you’ve placed it here.

The way it sits on the thread, It is unclear what you are commenting about.

The J-rt had a terrible job to do and left to the same situation I don’t know how well any of us would fare having to make the decisions they did or didn’t make.

By: David

David — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:45:28 +0000

There is life oustide these blog pages… no need to apologize for not responding.

Sorry to learn of your loss. Your grandmother sounds like she was a special soul, I’m sure you will miss her.

When time and other elements are right I’m sure you will respond… I’d be interested to read what you have to say.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:17:36 +0000

This was also the justification that Judenrat members used to explain to themselves why they aided the Nazis in governing the ghettos. In truth, there was little Judenrat members could do to help anyone. They nibbled around the edges of evil for a crumb of hope or justice or salvation when little or none was in the offing.

By: Elisabeth

Elisabeth — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:54:05 +0000

By the way (to put things in perspective), my grandfather also signed an ‘Arian declaration’ in order to keep his job as a teacher (you had to state that you yourself, nor your parents or grandparents were Jews). The line between resistance and collaboration is often hard to draw. It is not for nothing that since WW2, in contemporary Dutch the expression for a person in an impossible situation is “mayor in war-time”. This refers to the difficult choice that many mayors of smaller towns (who were not immediately replaced by Nazi’s) had to make: Do I stay on, and try to soften measures as much as I can, or do I step down, and let myself be replaced by a hard-core Nazi?

By: Elisabeth

Elisabeth — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:23:38 +0000

I still plan to answer you David. (I did not forget.) But my grandmother fell down a while ago. At first she was determined to get well again, but instead she got weaker and weaker. (She was 97 years old, and falling down at that age very often means the end, as I have heard.) We took turns staying with her. She was a remarkable woman (involved in the resistance -at first little things, like distributing illegal newspapers and forged food stamps to families who were hiding people, that kind of thing – until she and my grandfather decided to hide a Jewish baby, then she quit everything else). In later years she got involved in helping immigrants who had a hard time finding their way around the Dutch bureaucracy and many, many other people. It is still hard to believe she is really gone and will never urge me to be a good person again. (Oh boy, she was really good at that, it never ended!)

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:42:46 +0000

Would you please expound on this seemingly racist accusation?

Where is there any offical document that says Israeli Jews have more rights and freedoms than Israeli Arabs?

Omigod! Where have you been living since 1948??? On a diff. planet obviously & perhaps diff. solar system. Do you really know ANYTHING about Israeli society? Have you read books that talk about the nature of Israeli society or its ethnic composition? I’d strongly recommend you start by reading through my Tikun Olam Amazon store which recommends books on this subject. You clearly are much more ignorant than even I presumed on this subject if you could ask this question w. a straight face.

the Right of Return for every Jew to become a citizen, which is part of the concept of a Jewish State- which was approved by the UN in admitting Israel as a member

Wow, now the UN has specifically approved & validated the Right of Return. Where did you get that from? Or did you just make that up yrself. If so, that’s actually pretty nifty Hasbara 101. Not convincing, but possibly persuasive to a more innocent audience.

I’ve written about 25 times in various comments listing the various ways in which Jewish rights predominate in Israel. This is so well known that even Israeli Jewish rightists accept the notion & even approve of it.

First, Israeli Palestinians cannot own or lease land. Jews can. Israeli Palestinian political parties are excluded fr. governing coalitions. Israeli Palestinian villages receive a pittance in state subsidy compared to much richer subsidies for Jewish towns & cities. Arab schools are worse because more poorly funded. Less Arabs attend university. Medical facilities & infrastructure in Arab communities are far worse than in Jewish ones. The Arab poverty rate is much higher than Jewish. There are more Arab unemployed than Jewish and Arabs are routinely confined to certain types of less skilled jobs than Jews. Arabs never receive building permits for new homes or other infrastructure projects. Jews do routinely. Even if Arabs wish to serve in the IDF they are refused service in the elite units, which are reserved for Jews.

If you have exception to the Right of Return for Jews to the State (Land) of Israel… can you please tell me how you are a Zionist?

I’ve written about this very often in this blog & I’m too tired to repeat it for the 10th or 20th time. Read the blog, do a Google search. If you still don’t find it e mail me & I’ll get a link. And read the Magnes Zionist blog. If you don’t understand how redefining the Right of Return can still entitle someone to remain a Zionist then as I said above you need to do a lot more reading. Start with the Zionist Idea by Hertzberg & READ, my friend. You have a lot of reading & learning to do.

By: David

David — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:07:00 +0000

Would you please expound on this seemingly racist accusation?

Where is there any offical document that says Israeli Jews have more rights and freedoms than Israeli Arabs?

Excluding the Right of Return for every Jew to become a citizen, which is part of the concept of a Jewish State- which was approved by the UN in admitting Israel as a member – I am interested to know what laws exist that put Israeli Jews above Arabs as far as rights and freedoms.

If you have exception to the Right of Return for Jews to the State (Land) of Israel… can you please tell me how you are a Zionist?

I really would be interested to know… I don’t claim to know all Israeli law and it would be important to learn about it if there truly are discriminating laws against Israeli Arabs.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 08:02:05 +0000

…Israel is a Jewish State, with rights and freedom for all religions.. but still a Jewish State.

That is a very incomplete & hence inaccurate statement. Israel is a Jewish supremacist & ethnocratic state w. superior rights & freedoms for Jews & vastly inferior ones for Arabs.