My Question - why do uninvolved mislead on Israel?

[MGB8]

First, I have to apologize to the board for my harsh reactions to some posters in light of misleading or false recitals of fact by some posters on this board.

I have been quick to accuse people of anti-semitism. I do this only because the consequence of repeating the misleading arguments or flat out lies that these people repeatedly spout is a delegitimization of Israel, a weakening of her ability to defend herself, and, as a result, more dead Jews. It seems that some people don't care that action on their positions would likely result in genocide of the Jewish people in Israel, or at best mass killings, expulsions, and the rest in dhimitude - with the Jews, unlike Christians and Muslims, for some reason un-deserving of even one state of their own.

With hostile outcomes likely, I have been quick to assume a hostile intent.

But that may not be the case.

So, my question to the board...why do people recite either bad facts or use facts in a misleading way to make Israel look much worse than it is?

Is it simple Jew-hatred, or a desire to fit into the lefty crowd, or feeling bad for the Pal-Arabs who haven't stood up against violence but don't actually participate in it and have been victimized by the actions of the Arab leadership?

I don't know....

Certainly Israel has been an aggressor - 1956, lebanon, even attacks on Arab villages in 47-48 - but why do people seek to ignore the attacks from Lebanon (and the civil war) or the Sinai, or the reality of Arab agression in 1967 and on Yom Kippur in 1973, not to mention the PLO's more recent actions and arabic statements and symbols...

Why do people do it?

[Gilgamesh]

Originally posted by MGB8
First, I have to apologize to the board for my harsh reactions to some posters in light of misleading or false recitals of fact by some posters on this board.

I have been quick to accuse people of anti-semitism. I do this only because the consequence of repeating the misleading arguments or flat out lies that these people repeatedly spout is a delegitimization of Israel, a weakening of her ability to defend herself, and, as a result, more dead Jews. It seems that some people don't care that action on their positions would likely result in genocide of the Jewish people in Israel, or at best mass killings, expulsions, and the rest in dhimitude - with the Jews, unlike Christians and Muslims, for some reason un-deserving of even one state of their own.

With hostile outcomes likely, I have been quick to assume a hostile intent.

But that may not be the case.

So, my question to the board...why do people recite either bad facts or use facts in a misleading way to make Israel look much worse than it is?

Is it simple Jew-hatred, or a desire to fit into the lefty crowd, or feeling bad for the Pal-Arabs who haven't stood up against violence but don't actually participate in it and have been victimized by the actions of the Arab leadership?

I don't know....

Certainly Israel has been an aggressor - 1956, lebanon, even attacks on Arab villages in 47-48 - but why do people seek to ignore the attacks from Lebanon (and the civil war) or the Sinai, or the reality of Arab agression in 1967 and on Yom Kippur in 1973, not to mention the PLO's more recent actions and arabic statements and symbols...

Why do people do it?

Great post!!!

Why do people do it? Why anti semetism exists? Why did the Amalek attacked us on our way out of Egypt? Why the Egyption people were not satisfieyed with enslaving our ancestors, and had to torture then, and later to feed the crockodiles of Nile with our new born male babies?

This is the way the world works. A force of nature. Every body hate the weak. And we are weak. Not because of something we do or did... but because of what we FAIL to do.

We have to be strong. We have to be smartest. We have to be richest. We have to be cruel, in order to survive. But above all that, we have to have faith. Our faith. And be strong mindend and even staburn about it, in order to make good sense and good meaing for our goals to come about. We wont be smart, strong, rich ect... if we will lose our faith, and lose our reason to exist and chose to forsake our uniquness and assimilate and lose our destinty.

The Jewish Zionist goal, the aim our forefathers always reaching for, was to create a Jewish society which by self examplery, show the rest of humanity the right way forward, they way out of the dark tunnel. The Light! light of progress and reason.

When we will achive that... then the world will be a far better place.

[elke]

It seems to me, that different people do it for different reasons. In addition, some individuals have more than one reason to do it... While for a few it does seem to be the "good, old-fashioned" antisemitism, for majority, IMO, it's something else. Here's "The World According to Elke"

Throughout the human history, the strong were accorded respect. It seems to me, that this is something hard-wired in living organisms, as the strong are defined as "those who can survive".

Human institutions, such as the legal codes, - and especially the monotheistic religions, - have attempted to change that, by introducing the concepts of Justice and Mercy into human affairs. For centuries, however, these concepts remained more-or-less on paper, without radically changing the psyche of majority of humans living in societies protected by them.

20th century changed that. The two World Wars, as well as the introduction of WMD, became cataclysms that changed the world view of large chunks of human population, especially in Europe. That, and the rapidly climbing literacy rate, which allowed many to understand the consequences of our collective actions.

The result of this evolutionary process is the currently prevalent world view, that if might doesn't make right, it automatically follows that it makes wrong. And its corollary: if might makes wrong, then weakness makes right. Of course, one doesn't have to be well-trained in formal logic, to see the inconsistency in these statements. Nevertheless, this seems to be the operative assumption of what is generally now called "The Left".

Out of this erroneous a priori assumption, follow certain erroneous conclusions. For example, I recently received an e-mail from an acquaintance of a friend, who previously was thundering about the goal of "regime change" in Iraq as something US has no business doing, because Iraq is a sovereign country. The last e-mail from this individual managed to blame Israel for the age-old Palestinian practice of honor killing; and as the solution, proposed a "regime change" there!

[eyl]

You left out "ignorance".

Originally posted by MGB8
First, I have to apologize to the board for my harsh reactions to some posters in light of misleading or false recitals of fact by some posters on this board.

I have been quick to accuse people of anti-semitism. I do this only because the consequence of repeating the misleading arguments or flat out lies that these people repeatedly spout is a delegitimization of Israel, a weakening of her ability to defend herself, and, as a result, more dead Jews. It seems that some people don't care that action on their positions would likely result in genocide of the Jewish people in Israel, or at best mass killings, expulsions, and the rest in dhimitude - with the Jews, unlike Christians and Muslims, for some reason un-deserving of even one state of their own.

With hostile outcomes likely, I have been quick to assume a hostile intent.

But that may not be the case.

So, my question to the board...why do people recite either bad facts or use facts in a misleading way to make Israel look much worse than it is?

Is it simple Jew-hatred, or a desire to fit into the lefty crowd, or feeling bad for the Pal-Arabs who haven't stood up against violence but don't actually participate in it and have been victimized by the actions of the Arab leadership?

I don't know....

Certainly Israel has been an aggressor - 1956, lebanon, even attacks on Arab villages in 47-48 - but why do people seek to ignore the attacks from Lebanon (and the civil war) or the Sinai, or the reality of Arab agression in 1967 and on Yom Kippur in 1973, not to mention the PLO's more recent actions and arabic statements and symbols...

Why do people do it?

[David_in_NYC]

Originally posted by MGB8
Why do people do it?

Habit, jealousy, xenophobia... a little bit of each.

[Ahava]

Originally posted by David_in_NYC
Habit, jealousy, xenophobia... a little bit of each.

You've got it all wrong. It's: ignorance, misinformation.

People know NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING about the conflict, they think to know by hearing Palestinian rhetoric over and over and seeing images of a tank versus a stone-throwing boy, and crying Palestinian mothers. It's just easier to convey the palestinian position in a nutshell. Use words as "occupation", "oppression" and "desperation" and there you have it, all the understanding. Whereas someone arguing for the Israeli position comes up with a long and complicated story where not even half way through people lose their attention. It's not "catchy".
This added to a leftist tendency to stand up for the perceived "underdog", whether these are right or wrong, and there you go.

[RichardP]

Originally posted by Ahava
You've got it all wrong. It's: ignorance, misinformation.

People know NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING about the conflict, they think to know by hearing Palestinian rhetoric over and over and seeing images of a tank versus a stone-throwing boy, and crying Palestinian mothers. It's just easier to convey the palestinian position in a nutshell. Use words as "occupation", "oppression" and "desperation" and there you have it, all the understanding. Whereas someone arguing for the Israeli position comes up with a long and complicated story where not even half way through people lose their attention. It's not "catchy".
This added to a leftist tendency to stand up for the perceived "underdog", whether these are right or wrong, and there you go.

Great thread, although the analysis, or the pathology of anti-Semitism, soon becomes a Chinese puzzle of sorts. As soon as you believe it’s solved, there is more of the puzzle to unravel. Therefore, all the posts are correct; they are a piece of anti-Semitism. Like most, I have come to the same conclusions, but there’s more to it, Aish.com has some exceptionally thought provoking reflections and articles on this subject; there is no easy answer. All I know is that we must keep on fighting it, until G-d knows when. Thanks for the great thread and feedback. If, anyone believes they have found the core of anti-Semitism let me know; as indoctrination, ignorance, xenophobia are all part and parcel of it.

[Ahava]

Originally posted by RichardP
If, anyone believes they have found the core of anti-Semitism let me know; as indoctrination, ignorance, xenophobia are all part and parcel of it.

You may have already seen it as you were referring to Aish yourself, but I've read this very interesting and insightful presentation from Aish, to be found here:
Why the Jews?

[RichardP]

Originally posted by Ahava
You may have already seen it as you were referring to Aish yourself, but I've read this very interesting and insightful presentation from Aish, to be found here:
Why the Jews?

It certainly gets the brain cells going; doesn't it?

[Batman]

Originally posted by Ahava
You've got it all wrong. It's: ignorance, misinformation.

People know NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING about the conflict, they think to know by hearing Palestinian rhetoric over and over and seeing images of a tank versus a stone-throwing boy, and crying Palestinian mothers. It's just easier to convey the palestinian position in a nutshell. Use words as "occupation", "oppression" and "desperation" and there you have it, all the understanding. Whereas someone arguing for the Israeli position comes up with a long and complicated story where not even half way through people lose their attention. It's not "catchy".
This added to a leftist tendency to stand up for the perceived "underdog", whether these are right or wrong, and there you go.

Didn't Martin Luther King identify the entire problem in the 1960s already?

If anyone chooses to hate Israel "the collective Jew" and then look for reasons to justify his point of view there is a lot of ways to do that and lots of other people who are doing it to join with. Therefore it's pretty popular to lie about the truth, as it was when the Nazis said the Jew is inhuman and can be muredered without guilt and the masses of German and European countries bought this lie and went right ahead with this evil plan.

So what has changed?
Is it ignorance? yes, the ignorance of popularity which changes with the wind.

Is it misinformation? yes, but by choice because there are many sources the refute this misinformation, if someone chooses to find those and read them. The important word here is:"chooses"

So what's the answer?

Israel has to be STRONG and not give in to evil pressures.

That establishes the real facts, like 'this is OUR land and we are NOT giving up an inch!" If State of Israel existed during the Holocaust as a haven for Jews it would have saved all the Jews of Europe. So what is behind hating the STate of the JEws and trying to mislead others to hate Israel too?

Do you think these people haven't heard (have no heart for) of the HOLOCAUST? Why do they have no sympathy for Israel's-the JEWS' terrible plight?

[RichardP]

Originally posted by Batman
Didn't Martin Luther King identify the entire problem in the 1960s already?

If anyone chooses to hate Israel "the collective Jew" and then look for reasons to justify his point of view there is a lot of ways to do that and lots of other people who are doing it to join with. Therefore it's pretty popular to lie about the truth, as it was when the Nazis said the Jew is inhuman and can be muredered without guilt and the masses of German and European countries bought this lie and went right ahead with this evil plan.

So what has changed?
Is it ignorance? yes, the ignorance of popularity which changes with the wind.

Is it misinformation? yes, but by choice because there are many sources the refute this misinformation, if someone chooses to find those and read them. The important word here is:"chooses"

So what's the answer?

Israel has to be STRONG and not give in to evil pressures.

That establishes the real facts, like 'this is OUR land and we are NOT giving up an inch!" If State of Israel existed during the Holocaust as a haven for Jews it would have saved all the Jews of Europe. So what is behind hating the STate of the JEws and trying to mislead others to hate Israel too?

Do you think these people haven't heard (have no heart for) of the HOLOCAUST? Why do they have no sympathy for Israel's-the JEWS' terrible plight?

One hell of a question; there is no easy explanation, for me, anyway. It almost seems as if, anti-Semitism is a genetic flaw, but that would construe, that they are not responsible for their anti-Semitism. Jews have ceaselessly been loathed; it has become an insidious flaw in ‘humankind’ for eons. Perhaps, they weren’t as empathetic to Judaism, post- Holocaust as, we trusted they were. The Europeans are apparently less empathetic, to the survival of Israel and Judaism, and the Final Solution took place on their soil. Moreover, anti-Semitism isn’t only a European blight; it has become a curse worldwide (as always)… as if, the pogroms, and Holocaust had never been; or were a mere glitch in history. Myself, I hold little faith, in but a few, of our staunchest allies; the others, it seems to me, are carrying their anti-Semitism/Israel as they have always done, from generation to generation.

[MGB8]

the aish article is very interesting, and I think that there is a lot of truth for it.

People hate Jews not because of who they are, but WHAT Jews stand for..the famous quote from Arafat - "jews love life more than any other people on earth."

Jews stand for tolerance NOT imposing our beliefs on others (contrary to missionary orriented groups - as Christianity once was, and Islam currently is, although through conquest more than conversion.)

Jews stand for individual liberties and rights, coupled with serious individual RESPONSIBILITIES.

Jews have born witness to greatest evils of mankind - and the same mistakes made over and over again.

The article also shows us how Jews have come to co-exist with Christians (not g-dless fake Christians like in much of Europe) - by saying "We don't know....You might be right...we may simply be modern doubting Thomases...but that is our right...we do not claim that you are wrong, only that we are not convinced enough to move to your way of thinking....we agree on issues of how to behave, on morals and family and right or wrong....we just can't follow Jesus...because then we'd no longer be Jews."

Christians, I believe, can accept this. They may believe that we are doubting Thomases, that we may be destined for a not good end at the end of days...but they know we are not a threat - we do not challenge the general ideas...we do not say "you are wrong" - only "we don't know..."

[Kev]

Originally posted by Ahava
You've got it all wrong. It's: ignorance, misinformation.

People know NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING about the conflict, they think to know by hearing Palestinian rhetoric over and over and seeing images of a tank versus a stone-throwing boy, and crying Palestinian mothers. It's just easier to convey the palestinian position in a nutshell. Use words as "occupation", "oppression" and "desperation" and there you have it, all the understanding. Whereas someone arguing for the Israeli position comes up with a long and complicated story where not even half way through people lose their attention. It's not "catchy".
This added to a leftist tendency to stand up for the perceived "underdog", whether these are right or wrong, and there you go.

I'd agree with A's claim.

Unfortunately, today, it is exaggerated due to the worlds split feelings about Bush, Iraq and the WOT.

Magnify this thousands of times with the internet I would have to suggest that for most, it has become a tool in which is also being used quite well by many Muslim/Arab/Lefty's and they are reaching a whole generation of people that never would have been exposed to any information let alone misinformation.

To be honest, although some will certainly disagree, I tend to feel that many who are stuck to a 'puter 24-7 have a very magnified and sometimes exaggerated view of it all today.

[Roland]

Good post, MGB8!

Why do people do it?
Habit, jealousy, xenophobia... a little bit of each. ...
You've got it all wrong. It's: ignorance, misinformation. ...
... Is it ignorance? Is it misinformation? ...

Yes. All that is true...

So what's the answer? ... Jews have born ...
... Israel has to be STRONG ...

Loads of good thoughs.

Do you think these people haven't heard (have no heart for) of the HOLOCAUST?

Everybody has (though I say nobody can imagine ALL aspects in ALL depth of the HC). That's NOT the answer to the question.

What about "IT IS PART OF GODS PLAN, AND THEREFORE IT IS THE FATE OF ISRAEL AND THE JEWS "?

EDIT:
And I might add: From my point of view, there is a PR-war going on. An endless list of anti-semitic and anti-israel misinformation is here.
Much of this is what common people "know" about Israel!