Eurovision 2024

[goinghome]

The Holocaust was exceptional in world history in terms of its sheer organisation and planning and the numbers exterminated. Socialist-inspired mass murderers have killed much more, of course, but by famine and forced marches etc. not by direct extermination.
There is only one party engaged in genocide in the current conflict and it is Hamas.
Imagine 2 scenarios.
Scenario 1: Israel surrenders. Hands over all its land and its people to Hamas to run a new country called Free Palestine. Every Jew would be slaughtered. Do you doubt that for one second?
Scenario 2: Hamas surrenders. Frees all the remaining hostages. The war would stop.
Who is engaged in genocide here?

World history had already seen industrial-level murders before WWII. The foundations were laid elsewhere, for what was a continuation and extension of methods previously honed elsewhere. Just a few examples among many:

Irish famine - https://www.irishcentral.com/news/irish-famine-genocide-british

Concentration camps in Africa during the Boer War 1899-1902 - https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/concentration-camps-anglo-boer.html

Depopulation of the Congo in the early twentieth century - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369801X.2023.2288113

Those who justify their right to kill must view the deaths of others as less heinous than the slaughter of their own group, but where is the logic there, especially for those also holding a view that animal cruelty in general isn't nice either?

 

[Lucifer Sam]

 

[caramel sea salt]

 

[caramel sea salt]

Israel loses -> "Oh, look how unpopular they are!"
Israel does well -> "Vote is rigged!"

 

[nicky wire's legs]

Israel loses -> "Oh, look how unpopular they are!"
Israel does well -> "Vote is rigged!"

Sounds about right!

 

[gashonthenail]

World history had already seen industrial-level murders before WWII. The foundations were laid elsewhere, for what was a continuation and extension of methods previously honed elsewhere. Just a few examples among many:

Irish famine - https://www.irishcentral.com/news/irish-famine-genocide-british

Concentration camps in Africa during the Boer War 1899-1902 - https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/concentration-camps-anglo-boer.html

Depopulation of the Congo in the early twentieth century - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369801X.2023.2288113

Those who justify their right to kill must view the deaths of others as less heinous than the slaughter of their own group, but where is the logic there, especially for those also holding a view that animal cruelty in general isn't nice either?

Jesus, goinghome, that post delves new depths of absurdity. Why is it you are an intelligent and reasonable man, and then on this one topic you go full bat shit crazy? The Irish Famine was not the same as the Holocaust. Cancer is not the same as the Holocaust.

 

[gashonthenail]

Israel loses -> "Oh, look how unpopular they are!"
Israel does well -> "Vote is rigged!"

To see a baying crowd boo a young woman who was just there to sing a song and take part in a competition was horrible. Every person who booed should be ashamed of themselves. I'm sure they all have #BeKind on their Twitter accounts.

 

[gashonthenail]

It is really interesting that when the USA and the UK invaded Iraq - and they stopped counting the bodies - the left was not calling it genocide. The left screamed 'illegal war'.
Russia has invaded Ukraine. I don't see the left calling it genocide in Ukraine. I don't see the left marching every week or taking over university campuses to condemn the genocide in China. Or the genocide in Syria. Or the act of genocide that took place on 7th October. Instead, it's Hamas has the right to attack the invader.
The USA and the UK bomb the Houthis. No one shouts genocide.
But when Israel invades Gaza - let's throw the word 'genocide' at them, over and over again, and really rub their Jewish faces in it.

 

[Lucifer Sam]

It is really interesting that when the USA and the UK invaded Iraq - and they stopped counting the bodies - the left was not calling it genocide. The left screamed 'illegal war'.
Russia has invaded Ukraine. I don't see the left calling it genocide in Ukraine. I don't see the left marching every week or taking over university campuses to condemn the genocide in China. Or the genocide in Syria. Or the act of genocide that took place on 7th October. Instead, it's Hamas has the right to attack the invader.
The USA and the UK bomb the Houthis. No one shouts genocide.
But when Israel invades Gaza - let's throw the word 'genocide' at them, over and over again, and really rub their Jewish faces in it.

I would agree with you that 20 or 30,000 people killed out of a population of 2 million is hardly much of a genocide. Probably "ethnic cleansing" is a more accurate term for the Israeli mission in Gaza, since they basically want it uninhabited or scarcely inhabited or settled by Israelis. Whether the Gazans die or leave, Israel will be satisfied as long as they're mostly gone—or else living there in such extreme squalor and malnutrition that it really would be the kind of "open air concentration camp" it has sometimes been described as.

Given the context of Israel's history, you should be able to appreciate why "genocide" is a more fitting shorthand for Israel/Gaza than it is with many of the instances you mentioned above.

 

[goinghome]

Jesus, goinghome, that post delves new depths of absurdity. Why is it you are an intelligent and reasonable man, and then on this one topic you go full bat shit crazy? The Irish Famine was not the same as the Holocaust. Cancer is not the same as the Holocaust.

Of course all these multiple massacres differ in aspects from each other, but the drive is similar; eliminate first, ask later, for some kind of gain. Very good point about omissions re. Iraq, Syria etc, though speaking of twenty or thirty thousand not mattering, as Lucifer Sam does, dehumanises in the extreme.

Did you know that in 1910, Terence MacSwiney wrote a play called The Holocaust? - https://www.dib.ie/biography/macswiney-terence-james-a5297

I wonder if that fact will be redacted soon?!

 

[Lucifer Sam]

though speaking of twenty or thirty thousand not mattering, as Lucifer Sam does, dehumanises in the extreme.

When did I ever say the deaths of 20/30,000 Gazans "don't matter"? Of course they matter. I've routinely said Israel is guilty of war crimes and ethnic cleansing, and I also said genocide suffices as a rhetorical shorthand for the destruction in Gaza. I was just making the realistic point that killing ≈1.5% of a population is more difficult to qualify as a genocide than say, the ≈20% of European Jews killed in the Holocaust, being conservative on the numbers. How would you quantify genocide?

 

[gashonthenail]

I would agree with you that 20 or 30,000 people killed out of a population of 2 million is hardly much of a genocide. Probably "ethnic cleansing" is a more accurate term for the Israeli mission in Gaza, since they basically want it uninhabited or scarcely inhabited or settled by Israelis. Whether the Gazans die or leave, Israel will be satisfied as long as they're mostly gone—or else living there in such extreme squalor and malnutrition that it really would be the kind of "open air concentration camp" it has sometimes been described as.

Given the context of Israel's history, you should be able to appreciate why "genocide" is a more fitting shorthand for Israel/Gaza than it is with many of the instances you mentioned above.

We only have Hamas to tell us how many civilians have been killed.
Of all the instances mentioned, the genocide in Xinjiang is almost certainly the one for which the term 'genocide' is most 'fitting', to use your word: forced contraception and sterilisation of women, internment and slave labour of both men and women, and cultural indoctrination of children. That is genocide. If we leave China to it, soon there won't be any Uyghurs left. And yet, no weekly marches, no student sit ins.
There is a reason why white, middle class students like shouting 'genocide' at Jews. It's to remind every one of them that in their view it's a shame any Jews made it out of the death camps alive. Hitler is alive and well on the left of politics. It's where he started from, after all.

 

[gashonthenail]

This is worth a watch.

 

[Lucifer Sam]

We only have Hamas to tell us how many civilians have been killed.
Of all the instances mentioned, the genocide in Xinjiang is almost certainly the one for which the term 'genocide' is most 'fitting', to use your word: forced contraception and sterilisation of women, internment and slave labour of both men and women, and cultural indoctrination of children. That is genocide. If we leave China to it, soon there won't be any Uyghurs left. And yet, no weekly marches, no student sit ins.
There is a reason why white, middle class students like shouting 'genocide' at Jews. It's to remind every one of them that in their view it's a shame any Jews made it out of the death camps alive. Hitler is alive and well on the left of politics. It's where he started from, after all.

Normally you are a supremely insightful poster, gashonthenail, but to be honest with you, I think it’s pretty rich that you would call goinghome "an intelligent guy who’s gone batshit crazy" on this one issue and then turn around and accuse the student protestors of being little Hitlers who wish no Jew had been spared the Holocaust. That is bonkers. For one thing, there are Jewish students participating in the protests, and for another, the anti-Zionism of the student protestors is primarily motivated by anti-West, anti-colonial-settler sentiment. They mainly see the Palestinians as the victimized BIPOC people and the Israelis as the oppressive whites. It’s not "exterminate the Jews" Nazism; this isn't Germany 1938. When you frame things so absurdly, it’s as easy to dismiss you as it is to dismiss the lazy Zionist jargon that anyone who isn’t pro-Israel is "pro-Hamas."

We’ve been over the "where is the outrage over China" thing a dozen times. And if it’s not China/Uyghurs, it’s Russia/Ukraine. The salient difference is that the West is not subsidizing and supporting China and Russia in their efforts.

 

[gashonthenail]

Normally you are a supremely insightful poster, gashonthenail, but to be honest with you, I think it’s pretty rich that you would call goinghome "an intelligent guy who’s gone batshit crazy" on this one issue and then turn around and accuse the student protestors of being little Hitlers who wish no Jew had been spared the Holocaust. That is bonkers. For one thing, there are Jewish students participating in the protests, and for another, the anti-Zionism of the student protestors is primarily motivated by anti-West, anti-colonial-settler sentiment. They mainly see the Palestinians as the victimized BIPOC people and the Israelis as the oppressive whites. It’s not "exterminate the Jews" Nazism; this isn't Germany 1938. When you frame things so absurdly, it’s as easy to dismiss you as it is to dismiss the lazy Zionist jargon that anyone who isn’t pro-Israel is "pro-Hamas."

We’ve been over the "where is the outrage over China" thing a dozen times. And if it’s not China/Uyghurs, it’s Russia/Ukraine. The salient difference is that the West is not subsidizing and supporting China and Russia in their efforts.

That's not the point I am making. We can all agree that the scenes coming out of Gaza are horrific. And the scenes coming out of Ukraine are horrific. As are the scenes described by human rights organisations in Syria, and Xinjiang, where no Western journalists or cameras are allowed, of course.
And yet why do the student protesters not seem to take delight in screaming 'genocide' about these other atrocities happening in the world? Why do they take such delight in screaming 'Go back to Poland' at Jews? That is my point. To deny that some of the venom and the passion on their side is not driven by hatred of Jews is just blinkered.
The funding issue is irrelevant. If the USA and UK stopped funding Israel tomorrow, I do not think any of the sit ins would stop. The funding isn't the issue. Jews owning the land of Israel is the issue.

 

[Lucifer Sam]

That's not the point I am making. We can all agree that the scenes coming out of Gaza are horrific. And the scenes coming out of Ukraine are horrific. As are the scenes described by human rights organisations in Syria, and Xinjiang, where no Western journalists or cameras are allowed, of course.
And yet why do the student protesters not seem to take delight in screaming 'genocide' about these other atrocities happening in the world? Why do they take such delight in screaming 'Go back to Poland' at Jews? That is my point. To deny that some of the venom and the passion on their side is not driven by hatred of Jews is just blinkered.

As I said, it's mainly because those other examples are not Western-backed settler-vanity projects. What you need to establish is that these protestors would hate Jews if the modern state of Israel had never come into existence, which I absolutely don't think they would. This is not unmitigated traditional anti-Semitism, hating Jews for the fact of their being Jewish. This is fervent anti-Zionism that gets uglier and nastier corresponding to how badly Israel behaves, and naturally it will pick up some rawness and anti-Semitism. The original stated goal of Zionism was a safe haven for the Jews. That has been a demonstrable abject failure, and now because of Israel even Western countries are becoming less safe for Jews.

The funding issue is irrelevant. If the USA and UK stopped funding Israel tomorrow, I do not think any of the sit ins would stop. The funding isn't the issue. Jews owning the land of Israel is the issue.

I think we should stop the funding and find out. Although, obviously, Jews owning the land of Israel cannot persist without the funding, so this is just chicken-or-egg.

 

[gashonthenail]

As I said, it's mainly because those other examples are not Western-backed settler-vanity projects. What you need to establish is that these protestors would hate Jews if the modern state of Israel had never come into existence, which I absolutely don't think they would. This is not unmitigated traditional anti-Semitism, hating Jews for the fact of their being Jewish. This is fervent anti-Zionism that gets uglier and nastier corresponding to how badly Israel behaves, and naturally it will pick up some rawness and anti-Semitism. The original stated goal of Zionism was a safe haven for the Jews. That has been a demonstrable abject failure, and now because of Israel even Western countries are becoming less safe for Jews.



I think we should stop the funding and find out. Although, obviously, Jews owning the land of Israel cannot persist without the funding, so this is just chicken-or-egg.

The creation of the state of Israel wasn't a 'Western-backed settler-vanity project'. In fact the UK tried very hard to limit and restrict Jewish migration to Palestine. The UK also lost many lives to Jewish terrorism, such as the King David Hotel bombing. The partition of mandatory Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel was an attempt by the UN to create peace in the region. Countries voting for the plan included the USSR and Eastern bloc countries. China abstained. What escalated the conflict was the attempt to wipe Israel off the face of the map in the 1948 war. It was that war, and later wars, that made Israel an important part of a wider geo-political conflict between the West and the Middle East, especially Iran, and Western backing has increasingly become a factor, in that I agree.

King David Hotel bombing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Lucifer Sam]

The creation of the state of Israel wasn't a 'Western-backed settler-vanity project'. In fact the UK tried very hard to limit and restrict Jewish migration to Palestine. The UK also lost many lives to Jewish terrorism, such as the King David Hotel bombing. The partition of mandatory Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel was an attempt by the UN to create peace in the region. Countries voting for the plan included the USSR and Eastern bloc countries. China abstained. What escalated the conflict was the attempt to wipe Israel off the face of the map in the 1948 war. It was that war, and later wars, that made Israel an important part of a wider geo-political conflict between the West and the Middle East, especially Iran, and Western backing has increasingly become a factor, in that I agree.

King David Hotel bombing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

England was going back and forth on the creation of a Jewish state ever since the Balfour declaration, always cynically according to what might serve their own interests. All we need to see is that the Arabs, as you rightly point out, wanted Israel off the map (and why wouldn't they?) since its foundation by violence and displacement of Palestinians in 1948. If that wasn't a portent of the Zionist folly, what more obvious sign could you want? Israel's continued existence depends on the continued displacement, oppression, and subsequent radicalization of Arabs, and that was always going to be a recipe for a lack of both Middle East peace and Jewish safety. It was a mistake then and it's a mistake now.