[Zyx]

Ter, the comparison still holds whether or not Nazi Germany was more than discriminatory practices against Jews and requirements for people to label themselves for discrimination. Beside from that, Israel, in the eyes of the Palestinian, can be seen as totalitarian (undemocratic if you will,) and it can be seen to have invaded and conquered parts of the Middle East (justifying its conquests on power), furthermore the Jews have always considered themselves the chosen people and do not seem to lose any sleep over the death of Palestinians . . ..

I think that you merely lose at translation. A comparison is not to say that something is identical, but similar. The West doesn't have any element of coding people according to their ethnicity on their clothes or vehicles or requiring them to have passports wherever they go within the state; Nazi Germany did.

Beside, I never said that it was necessary that Israel be like Nazi Germany, but merely that the paradigm is necessary according to the history and culture of the EuroJew. Given that the EuroJew has a history of oppression and takes the role of oppressor without actively opposing the behaviors of its former oppressor, it's legitimate to judge the EuroJew under their Nazi history. I trust that this is a objective outlook. Stories of Nazi Germany survive in the EuroJew's culture where it gains currency as legitimate policy. I do not know of all of the atrocities of the EuroJews, but another one, beside from color coding people, is nude, group searches purposed towards humiliation. There is also arbitrary brutality against the populace. Furthermore, there is state-sanctioned land occupation of more Palestinian land. Seeing these and reviewing the EuroJews plight, it's fair to say that the EuroJews practice some elements of their history. I essentially am saying that they have a history; you are denying that they do.

[Donna]

False. I proposed that the Israeli be looked upon through a paradigm that considers the Nazi backdrop. Therefore a moral comparison can be made within the paradigm. The question then begs whether there is evidence, not so much as whether they are comparable; however, unfortunately, there is evidence in Israeli methodologies with, very likely, Nazi roots such as their required identification for Palestinians at all times and their color coding tradition on Palestinian license plates. There is also the brutality. I am not saying that there is a necessary connection, but that it is perfectly fine to look at a nation according to its history and its people's history of which the Israeli's have Nazism. Essentially, I am the opposite of a Holocaust denier. That line is where we all rear back and laugh for its truth.

This isn't really a moral comparison - there's enough difference between Palestinian identification and license plates (which make sense, since they aren't Israeli citizens) and yellow star patches to discern any outright moral equivalence.

[Zyx]

Why does it need to be a moral comparison, Donald? It seems to have a historical precedence more than anything, and it may well be an artifact for the humiliation of Palestinians which is probably a side-effect of the Nazi's very strategy. Is identification and license plates truly so disparate from a yellow patch? Furthermore, why aren't the Palestinians Israel citizens? Doesn't this have a Nazi basis, too? Sure you can cite Japan (allies of Nazi Germany) but one should consider the historical precedence, especially since the U.S. does not have a similar policy. Although, as for identification, unless Palestinians can not become citizens, I do believe that Palestinian citizens are required to have identification at all times. sploop! would be more informed on this given that I learned of this through one of his threads. Still, the identification is just a part of this, humiliation on the part of customs is also an aspect of the EuroJew's rule--nations without a Nazi history do not have similar traditions.

[Doctor State]

I'll tell you exactly what I think of Godwin's law.

Newsflash to politicsforum: if I compare your point of view on a thread to that of a Nazi, typing the words "Godwin's Law" DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A RESPONSE.

All you've succeeded in doing at that point is saying "Huhuh. You said Nazi."

Godwin's Law was a witty observation. That's all. There's a reason people make lots of comparisons to Nazis: they're a great comparison tool. Get over it.

[sploop!]

Is it 'Goodwin'? Or 'Godwin'?

Personally, I think there is a valid comparison to be made between Israel and a racist state. But I don't believe comparing Israel with the Nazis is as accurate as the comparison that can be made between Israel and Apartheid South Africa, although clearly the comparison with the Nazis is legitimate.

There are some fascinating links here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_Israeli_apartheid

http://www.counterpunch.org/aloni01082007.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/06/southafrica.israel

http://mondediplo.com/2003/11/04apartheid

Goodwin or Godwin or whatever, is usually invoked alongside an accusation of anti-Semitism as a means to shut someone up and discredit their argument without actually engaging in it. It happens on this forum all the time.

[Cartertonian]

If I might be so bold, the Nazi element is a red herring.

I followed Qatz's link and checked out the Wiki Definition - then 'd

If it read...,

As a PoFo discussion grows longer, the probability of the debate degenerating into an ideologically polarised and vitriolic slanging match that stops the actual debate dead in its tracks fast approaches one.

...it would be bang on the money.

[Zyx]

As Maas writes in the other thread with the ethnic slur,

organised ethnic cleansing.... the nazi comparison is made just

And from sploop's article in that thread:

“It should be clear to us that there is no room in Palestine for these two peoples. No `development' will bring us to our goal of independent nationhood in this small country. Without the Arabs, the land will become wide and spacious for us; with the Arabs, the land will remain sparse and cramped.”

. . .

Ya'acov Shimshon Shapiro, who later became Israel's attorney-general and “justice” minister, said of these regulations in 1946: “The system established in Palestine since the issue of the defence laws is unparalleled in any civilised society; there are no such laws even in Nazi Germany.”

--

I have not brought up the Nazi/Israeli comparison in a while, but I remember that upon formulating it, I related the symptom to trauma. That is, I look at a victim of sexual abuse and their autosexual abuse or abusive actions to others as a behavior responding much to their history (trauma.) That said, given that the Israeli likely teach the Holocaust from a victim's standpoint, the student is probable to formulate ideas of experiencing abuses and acting with the abuse in mind (be it to itself or others.) So, take the distribution and look to which would likely gain political capital and there you have why the Israeli can be comparable to Nazi Germany. If the lessons on the Holocaust were not so personal to the Jew, it would probably not affect their state policies as much. To say that the Jews are unaffected by their Nazi history, however, is to deny that they internalized the history.

[sploop!]

The Abused becomes the Abuser, so to speak.

[Zyx]

Precisely, and this nearly always happens. I remember watching the story of a serial killer who began his spree after he saw a boy being sexually abused by his father. In a sense, it was heroic except that he killed the boy along with the man and the adjoining families, but it is psychologically justifiable or reviewable. War Angel related his 'story' and said that he joined the military because as a youth he saw the effects of the war on his growing up. It's a dumb rationalization, surely, but it is a rationalization that one can expect from such a scenario. The abused become abusers. The UN made a mistake in granting the EuroJews a state or the victims of anti-semitism a state: those who were abused, when given power, will only know as much as their abusers. The EuroJew being the richest and most expansive took over Israel and became like the Nazis, naturally. Of course, this is not an anti-Semitic argument given that it's a human universal. The colonized states of Africa behave like the colonial powers. The Liberians, like slave masters over the indigenous Blacks. Granted, this is not all necessary, but if there is no active force against this psychological inheritance, then surely the son of a brute will be a brute!

[Dan]

Godwin was a nazi and those who invoke Godwin's law are fascists.

[sploop!]

It gets quite confusing when the people who invoke Godwin's law do so in the expectation of shutting up someone they think is wrongly making the comparison of Israeli politics and Nazism. It's a kind of fascist shutting down of the Nazi comparator, to spare the feelings of the Zio-nazis. It does my head in. I end up not knowing who I am supposed to be, and who to.

Kumatto - I think you're onto something really interesting. It's a kind of human psychology of the state. I wonder what the theory would say about the psychology of the US in relation to its past? Or Australia, to pick two fairly recent countries at random. Australia built on a foundation of people expelled from the UK, and the US built on the foundation of a bloody break from its parent, followed by severe internal conflict.

[Dr House]

Delete.

[QatzelOk]

The Abused becomes the Abuser, so to speak.

Or were German Jews on the exact same page as German Nazis?

And perhaps the Jewish "Nazis" won.

[sploop!]

Has anyone noticed that when you use the word Zionazi in a post, it gets hyperlinked to a definition of Godwins law all by itself?

Is this the only word to do this, or are there others I am not yet aware of?

[Doctor State]

Zionazi

omg this forum. This fuckin forum. Man oh man.

When oh when will my suspension be lifted at politicalcrossfire?

[NoRapture]

Godwin's Law, using Hitler Germany as an analogy for similar contemporary behavior, is the only decent thing that came out of the Third Reich and it's Jewish Holocaust. Except that I would tend to reward, rather than penalize the user of this law. Even when it is used obnoxiously by the likes of Rumsfeld or Cheney it provides an opportunity to remember what humanity is capable of at the drop of a hat.

[QatzelOk]

using Hitler Germany as an analogy for similar contemporary behavior, is the only decent thing that came out of the Third Reich and it's Jewish Holocaust.

The idea that "nothing good" came out of Naziism is a product of Western propaganda.

Naziism was a wake-up call to oligarchies the world over that they wouldn't be able to rule over masses of starving people for very long. Perhaps many of the world's "rich" nations will soon realize that the government that proceeded the Nazis - much like our own current liberal democracies - were unable to ensure the well being of the majority of the population, and primarily worked towards enriching themselves by bolstering the parasitic power accumulations of the industrial/financial elites.

remember what humanity is capable of at the drop of a hat.

The Nazis didn't emerge "at the drop of a hat." The majority of Germany was hungry and cold under the Treaty of Versailles-respecting Weimar government.

It took a radical regime change to allow Germany to stop following the rules of international finance - the rules that were making the lives of Germans unbearable in a biologically significant way.

[Todd D.]

When people refer to Godwin's law, they are doing so due to someone else's Reductio ad Hitlerum, which IS a logical fallacy (most notably, it's an association fallacy). Don't be idiotic and try to claim "There's nothing wrong with comparing someone to Nazis", when obviously there is.

If you want to condemn genocide, condemn genocide. If you want to condemn racism, condemn racism. If you aren't bright enough to prove something is wrong without invoking horrific acts from 60 years ago, you probably aren't worth taking seriously anyway.

[NoRapture]

If you want to condemn genocide, condemn genocide. If you want to condemn racism, condemn racism. If you aren't bright enough to prove something is wrong without invoking horrific acts from 60 years ago, you probably aren't worth taking seriously anyway.

Well, we know you embrace Godwin's Law. I find that Godwin's Law is invoked as another way of saying, "Shut Up!" I'd rather invoke the Horrific acts from 60 years ago along side the horrific acts of today and sort the similarities from the differences. Clears the air.

[Zyx]

Kumatto - I think you're onto something really interesting. It's a kind of human psychology of the state. I wonder what the theory would say about the psychology of the US in relation to its past?

I can not say that I know much about Australia, but as to the U.S. and its colonial history, it is documented that there was a conscious effort away from behaving like the British. In fact, one of the U.S.'s greatest statesman, Alexander Hamilton, was silenced at the constitutional convention because he wanted to invite a monarch into power, and the U.S.'s first President had to resign voluntarily even though the colonial Americans would have preferred to have had him as a king. This conscious effort is what I alluded to earlier, without it, "oppressed" people would probalistically inherit the principles of their oppressors. Of course, something around the principles would be inherited to; for instance, some Americans became opposed to all taxation and this had led to the Whiskey Rebellion which, unsurprisingly, Alexander Hamilton lead the charge of thwarting it. This does seem like anything can happen, but what I argued was not that something must happen but that a certain paradigm ought to be adapted. Just like one can look at the Whiskey Rebellion as an extension of or derivative from the American Revolution or Liberian oppression as an extension of or derivative from Slavery, one can look at Israeli policies as extensions of or derivative from the Nazi regimes; especially since there doesn't seem to be a conscious effort by the Israeli to not be like the Nazis--thus trauma has more of a natural effect in it's environ.

If you meant the U.S.'s racial past, we know that many people internalize races and race relations in order to act against one another or take up a notion of superioirity/inferioritiy (see Black doll test or Brown vs. Board of Education.)

If you want to condemn genocide, condemn genocide. If you want to condemn racism, condemn racism. If you aren't bright enough to prove something is wrong without invoking horrific acts from 60 years ago, you probably aren't worth taking seriously anyway.

I do not know the name of this logical fallacy that you are arguing, but essentially you are either giving Nazism an exclusive privilege above all other forms of government or social culture, or you are writing that it's 'idiotic' to compare two different things. Can someone say that American foreign policy is similar to Britain's older foreign policy, or is that idiotic? What if someone claimed that a leader in Africa was seemingly Winstonian? What about if I said that China's new leader was similar to Mao? Do you understand what I am getting at? These are all perfectly legitimate statements--it's only that you attach more subjectivity to Nazism than necessary that you believe that calling a duck a duck is stupid.