The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #160727   Message #3813593
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
09-Oct-16 - 11:04 AM
Thread Name: BS: What does 'anti-semitism' mean?
Subject: RE: BS: What does 'anti-semitism' mean?
Bringing in the Nazis as analogies or comparison is liable to happen in any heated discussion - that's why people talk of Godwin's Law - "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazism or Hitler approaches 1"[2][3]—​​that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism.

It doesn't just happen with Israel, it happened with South Africa, it happens in relation to Putin's Russia, Iran, the Vietnam War, and in all kinds of contexts, even relatively trivial contexts - people talk about "feminazis" or "the folk Gestapo.".

As for double standards, precisely the same criticism was made in the context of South Africa. The common factor is that in both case they were states which claimed to be part of the democratic world, and which were essentially colonial regimes.

As for the suggestion that Israel is the only country where its legitimacy as a state is questioned, this doesn't bear close examination. The legitimacy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and North Ireland to continue to exist is challenged by those who favour Scottish Independence or Irish reunification. The legitimacy of the USSR was challenged by those who favoured its break up into successor state, and the legitimacy of the successor states is challenged by those who favour the reconstitution of a version of the USSR. There are other examples, all different
, all unique, as Israel is, but sharing the common element that there are those who believe those countries, as legal entities, ideally should not exist, and the inhabitants should have a different citizenship. In none of those cases would it be suggested that people holding such views were automatically hostile to emigrants from those countries, even where they did not share these views, or should be accused of such hostility even when they denied it.
..........
As for this thread. Years ago when I was hitching in Morocco I remember that wasps zooming around after sweet mint tea were a nuisance in outdoor restaurants - and I saw that how Moroccans dealt with that was not to try to swat the waspes, but instead to give them a glass of their own at the end of the table, full of sweetened tea and mint leaves.