Why Euros hate Israel? Rage of the Repressed Anti-Semite...

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Orson, Feb 13, 2003.

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  1. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Canadian humorist and politcal columnist Mark Steyn on why Euro's hate Israel so much:

    "The Continentals are something else [than the Brits]. Some just don't like Jews and resent having been unable to express that opinion honestly these last 50 years. But with the others the psychology's a little more complicated. Almost every European country was tainted by the Holocaust and Nazi occupation, but for the sake of the post-war settlement the world agreed to pretend only Germany was to blame. Not so. In France and Holland, the locals eagerly herded Jews onto those eastbound trains. In Belgium, industrial production went up under the Nazis. After half-a-century, the Continentals are sick of this guilt trip. They need to see Israel as the aggressor for their own psychological health. That's why that wacky Dutch broad who's married to the big Eurobanker keeps comparing Sharon to Hitler and Likud to the Nazis. It's a way of evening the score - 'Sure, we had Hitler, you have Sharon; we have Auschwitz, you have Jenin.' It's their way of belatedly taking a moral shower, a way of saying, 'See, the score's one-one now. You're as bad as us. Let's just call it a draw and move on.'"

    http://rightwingnews.com/interviews/steyn.php
    Provocative and insightful thought.

    --Orson
     
  2. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Could we, at this juncture in time, be witness to the return of the repressed? as Freud put it....
    It amazes me, the relevance of the past to the present, because if Steyn's insight is correct, then the past two centuries of racialism in Europe are shaping our present-day conflicts; is so,
    then these (French, German, and Belgium NATO aid dissents) are continental reactions to the consequences of late-British imperialism that gave the world Israel. Complimentarily, the anti-semites can blame the Jews for the rise of Hitler (if 'they' were not with us, Hitler's militarist appeal dimminshes), and Europe's consequent destruction, and loss of pre-eminence would have been avoided.
    There's a lot of grief going around, aiding and abetting vengfulness.

    --Orson
     
  3. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    It certainly goes some way to explain the singing duo of Nazi France and Vichy Germany.
     
  4. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    I think there's unquestionably a lot of antisemitism in Europe right now, but I don't think it's reflected in the policies of France and Germany. The Achilles heel of European politics right now is humanitarian chic, the desire to appear compassionate and progressive at the expense of horse sense. I don't fully support the war in Iraq (I'm very much a fence-straddler at the moment), but I don't have to look much further to see a pattern in the way France and Germany have handled foreign policy in the past 20 years. Remember Mitterand's behavior during the last decade of the Cold War? The French and German governments handle international politics the way a lightweight pop musician handles philosophy: say something that sounds profound and seems to speak well of you, whether it actually makes practical sense or not.


    Cheers,
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 13, 2003
  5. Orson

    Orson New Member

    James Lileks says of Our Times:
    "As I said to my wife last night: did you ever think you’d live to see the day when Eastern Europe was our ally, and France and Germany our enemies?"

    Makes ya think how we got here.

    --Orson
     
  6. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    Actually, yes. Carpathians are funny people, but we know the difference between chirac and shinola.
     
  7. kevingaily

    kevingaily New Member

    Speaking from a specifically religous/Christian standpoint, which you may or may not agree with, I think One of the reasons that there is so much anti-semitism is spiritual. Anti-semitism is nothing new. It's been going on for millenium. Israel was chosen, by God, to be His people; to be a light to the Gentiles. Therefore, it would make perfectly good sense to say that Satan hates them and would like nothing better that to get rid of them. I believe God is far from finished with Israel. Even a casual reading of the books Daniel & Revelation as well as sections in The major prophetic books speak thus. I believe this is the root cause. Anyway, this is my perspective from a Christian world view.:cool:
     
  8. Christopher Green

    Christopher Green New Member

    I remember, for some reason, a text by Lamin Sanneh (sp?) about anti-semitism that was written recently.

    It had something to do with a historical argument that anti-semitism, on the global-historical scale, was rooted in the period of the 18th or 19th dynasty in ancient Egypt. Of course, the extrabiblical references to "Israel" don't start showing up until the 13th century BC (Merneptah), but anti-"semitism" at any point earlier, may be potentially substantiated without references to biblical "Israel."

    My suspicion was that the argument had something to do with the ancient "Hyksos."

    Several of the faculty members at my alma mater, incidentally, believe strongly that the ancient Hebrews were, before the formation of the loose nation-state "Israel," recognized as one group among the Hyksos in Egypt. KL Younger's history of Israel text forthcoming.

    Point being, if it is true that the Hyksos, being semitic, had truly exercised a coup on the eve of the 18th dynasty and on the crest of the "Exodus" age (depeding on your judgment here), it is substantial that this event was a drastic change in Egyptian culture and thought with respect to the semitic peoples.

    Formerly "nothings," now semites were a threat. For this reason, many say, the biblical "exodus" could not have started happening until after the Hyksos coup~~because the biblical Pharoh feared the Hebrews (Ex. 1). Such Egyptian self-criticism does not exist any farther back than a post-Hyksos-coup attitude.

    I think Sanneh, if i'm right about his writing a book at all, led anti-semitism back to this time in ancient Egypt.

    Chris
     
  9. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    What's a "Euro"? What evidence is there that these "Euros" hate Israel?

    What does the phrase "Rage of the Repressed Anti-Semite" mean, exactly?

    If anti-Semitism is wrong, then so is an attempt to stereotype Europeans as being anti-Semites. The sin is similar in both cases: turning a group that one doesn't like into a caricature of evil.

    Frankly, I see this thread as an attempt at provocation, hoping to set Degreeinfo's Americans against its Europeans. That's not a game that I want to play.
     
  10. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    That rather fanciful theory needs a little argument, I think.

    I think that France, Germany and Belgium's reluctance to back the Iraqi campaign might be more straightforwardly explained by a reluctance to attack another nation and start a war, absent a direct and credible threat from that nation.

    A more convoluted theory, but still more credible than yours, is that France doesn't like the world power of the English speakers and of the United States in particular. They would like to restore what they see as the rightful glory of France by organizing Europe as an alternative counter-weight to America, with France at the center in a leading role and Britain kept out at the periphery. So France both fears and opposes any unilateral expression of American power, and hopes to use the crisis to move Europe away from the US and hopefully to break NATO, which they hope to replace with a European force under their leadership.
     
  11. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    Bill, that's the most sensible theory about this I've heard all week. Given the growing power of the EU and bad memories of the Cold War (remember where those intermediate-range nuclear missiles were pointed!), I can understand why French and German officials would want to (a) avoid another global ideological conflict and (b) establish that the EU can stand up to the United States.


    Cheers,
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 14, 2003
  12. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    No, the "sin" isn't similar. Millions weren't gassed for being anti-Semites.
     
  13. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Reducing flesh and blood individuals to symbolic caricatures of evil is what makes it psychologically possible to stuff them into death camps.

    In the context of this thread, Orson seems to be arguing that Europeans (with the exception of the British) are anti-Semites. This sweeping of hundreds of millions of people and dozens of countries into one of the twentieth century's most damning categories of evil serves neatly to dismiss them. Any views that Europeans might have that differ from those of Americans need no longer be taken seriously.

    Anti-Semitism is the sweeping of real-life Jewish men and women into the mythic category of the greedy subversive hook-nosed Jew, is it not? And that dismissal means that their humanity need no longer be taken seriously.

    The process is similar, even if the severity of the result isn't.
     
  14. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    In a culture of therapy, all that is necessary to flee from the real apprehension of actual evil, and actual good for that matter, is to insinuate that one's opponents are driven by a psychological problem. It is also helpful to set up a straw man; in this instance that "all Europeans" were criticized. Finally, the application of false equivalence makes the actions of the National Socialists and criticism of contemporary phenomena in Europe somehow the same.

    As General McAuliffe put it some time ago: "Nuts."

    Or, as was said more recently: "Cruelty is still cruelty. You can serve shit on a china plate, and it still stinks."
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 14, 2003
  15. kevingaily

    kevingaily New Member

    Quote: "Anti-semitism is nothing new. It's been going on for millenium."

    Sorry guys, I meant millenia not millenium.:) I agree that anti-semitism may, as a whole, began in Ancient Egypt. However, satan's hate for the line of: Adam.....Noah, .....Abraham,.....David,.... and so forth has been from the begining even if this wasn't expressed as a national or people group situation before Egypt.
     
  16. timothyrph

    timothyrph New Member

    I think that some of the proof that Billdayson looks fro in anti-semitism in Germany could be the remarks last summer by Deputy Minister Juergan Moelleman that Palestinain suicide bombers in Israel are Justified given Sharon's "Nazi-like" tactics in the reqion. Prime Minister Scroeder then said those remarks were "harmful" to relations, Foreign Minister Fischer said "we are skating on thin ice with comments like these." They could not outright condemn and the man because of a constituency in the Free Democrat Party that would not accept it. This is the same reason Schoeder ran an anti-American campaign to win.

    Why is it so hard to understand that sentiments that would have caused the gassing of millions about 60 years ago would not be resolved? Look at the race problem in the United States.

    The veto by Germany and France allowing Nato forces to protect Turkey in case of war is aimed at not allowing a Muslim country allied with Israel and Us forces to defend itself.

    Germany and France do not want the war for several reasons, I believe and not necessarily in this order.
    1. High Muslim population, staying out may prevent terrorists attacks in their country.
    2. High oil contracts and business dealings in Iraq.
    3. It is highly likely that sometime during the 1980's some of the weapons of mass destruction came from France or Germany. This was even speculation from one of Iraq's top scientist now in teh United States.

    The only thing that amazes me is given the past France loves the country that invaded and took them over, more than the country that liberated them. I guess that proves they are cheese sucking surrender monkeys.
     
  17. kevingaily

    kevingaily New Member

    I too was curious why the French hate us. We can always agree to disagree, but to hate us? We were willing to in two world wars aid them at the cost of many thousands and millions of lives; American lives. I was a vet who served overseas in Germany during the latter half of the eighties. We soldiers cared about Europe and defending it, including France and Germany, in the case of war with the USSR and the Warsaw pack /eastern block countries.
     
  18. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I'm arguing that criticism of American Iraqi policy needs to be understood and dealt with on its merits, not dismissed a-priori. I'm arguing that use of fanciful analogies with Nazi collaboration in order to dismiss that criticism are going to need a lot of argument if they are going to be credible. And I'm arguing that reduction of opponents to caricatures is something that the Nazis themselves were very adept at.
     
  19. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    I don't think they hate us as such (remember the major French newspaper that printed "We Are All Americans" on 9/12?); I think their leaders are suspicious of our government's power. To understand the psychology at work here, you might read some of Charles de Gaulle's anti-NATO speeches from the sixties. The current sentiment is roughly the same.

    As far as Germany and the Sharon-Nazi comparison goes: Criticism of Israeli government policy is not necessarily antisemitic.


    Cheers,
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 14, 2003
  20. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    It's aimed at delaying the war by forcing the U.S. to set up alternative defenses for Turkey before invading. The Turkish government is in no position to complain because Turkey is currently vying for EU membership.
    There are 1.8 million Muslims in France and 3 million Muslims (of which 2 million are ethnic Turks!) living in Germany. The U.S. has a Muslim population of 7 million. Statistically, France's Muslim demographic is about the same as that of the U.S., and Germany's Muslims would be disproportionately likely to support the war against Iraq.
    Business dealings in Iraq are suffering due to the sanctions--so much so that many believe that the U.S. supports the war to make high oil contracts possible. France and Germany would not suffer financial losses if Iraq came under a regime friendly to the Western world.
    We already know that Saddam's ability to manufacture chemical and biological weapons can be partly traced to the support the United States gave him during the Iran-Iraq war. There is no evidence that France or Germany even begin to approach our level of culpability.


    Cheers,
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 14, 2003

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