Thank you for your remarks. My main point was made in my first post. Figures in the media who wish to refer to the power of the Israel Lobby should not be hindered by the thought that a charge of antisemitism may be directed against them. Responsible journalists know where the limits are.

Obama is seeking the creation of an independent Palestinian state. This is at odds with the manifesto of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, and since the Lobby’s aim is to advocate whatever policies are put forward by the Israeli leadership, its role in the next few years will be crucial and should be freely debated.

Well done! Excellent points and rebuttal.

You say, “Hehe, you know you’ve got the vulgar Leninists on the run when they’re reduced to telling you how socially inept or disagreeable you are independent of your argument”.

You began the personal attacks from the outset with your first post on 11 May 2009 9:10 am. Unfortunately for you, you had entirely misunderstood my response to KB Player, as I pointed out in my two subsequent posts. Bizarrely, you also accused me of using a 1996 quote that I had not used before, even though I had used a part of it in an earlier post. You started the insults and then lost the arguments.

You call me a “gutless wonder”, another bizarre insult. I am as forthright and persistent in ordinary life as I am on here. Not a single person who knows me would describe me as ‘gutless’.

You say I have “spent this thread arguing that we should accept the justifications of a sociopath and religious reactionary..”. After 9/11, the FBI was tasked with questioning al-Qaeda detainees to discover the nature of the organisation. The chief interrogator was Supervisory Special Agent James Fitzgerald. He said, “I believe they feel a sense of outrage against the United States. They identify with the Palestinian problem, they identify with people who oppose repressive regimes and I believe they tend to focus their anger on the United States”. Is James Fitzgerald asking us to accept the justifications of al-Qaeda?

Of course he isn’t. He is simply talking about their motivations, which is a factual matter, not a moral one. And if you look at my use of Bin Laden quotes, you will see that I used them solely to show that he was motivated to a significant degree by the Israel-Palestine problem. I wasn’t in the least suggesting that people should think his actions were justified. I suspect that you know this, but because you have so few openings, you have to use what materials you can grasp, however weak they are.

I said, “Hence, the US should act to improve the situation in the Middle East”. You responded “Reward what you say is morally unacceptable behaviour with its demands? What sort of twisted monster are you?”.

As I pointed out before, in 2004 50 retired US diplomats urged Bush to change his policies in regard to Israel. Aside from saying that “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the core of the problems in the Middle East,” they also said, “By closing the door to negotiations with Palestinians and the possibility of a Palestinian state, you have proved that the United States is not an evenhanded peace partner. You have placed US diplomats, civilians, and military doing their jobs overseas in an untenable and even dangerous position”.

According to your reasoning, these diplomats are rewarding the terrorists, since part of their reason for wanting Bush to change his policies is the fact that they believe US personnel will be exposed to terrorist attacks. What sort of twisted monsters are they? On your reasoning, if something is wrong and also a factor in terrorism, then we should not rectify the wrong because to do so would be to reward the terrorists.

You also say, “I can tell you hate the lower-classes”. Yet again, a bizarre insult. I am in fact from a close-knit working-class community, and very proud of the fact. Can your attempts get any more ludicrous? You don’t seem to have grasped the point that insults work only when they have some basis in fact.

You state, “The Provos are/were a bunch of poorly defined thugs, fascists and right-wing Catholics who had a functioning state in which their ethnic group was in the majority, but wished to expel/subjugate another distinct group. If you’re trying to compare them favourably to OBL, you’re failing.”.

In Ireland in general, from the sixteenth century onwards, the British expropriated almost all the land, cleared the Irish off it, and denied the Irish their rights. This was the source of the centuries of terrorism that occurred in Ireland before the formation of the Northern Ireland state. In the mid 1960s, however, there was almost no support for the IRA in Northern Ireland, even though there was widespread discrimination, and if the civil right marchers had been treated fairly, the support for the IRA would have probably evaporated entirely. Unfortunately, the civil rights marchers were beaten up, and when Protestant mobs started attacking Catholic areas, the police, so far from stopping them, did nothing, and in some cases participated.

All this was the principal factor in the formation of the Provisional IRA, and caused hundreds to join the organisation. Or are you going to say that hundreds would have flocked to the ranks of the IRA and started bombing even if the civil rights movement had been treated fairly? Not even you would say this, so my point is proven.

On a connected note, the Irgun planted bombs in market places and, on at least one occasion, detonated a bomb in a bus queue. They also carried out numerous other terrorist attacks, and even hanged an innocent British soldier in cold blood. Two of the group’s leaders, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir were later to become Prime Ministers of Israel.

From your remarks above, you plainly think Bin Laden and the IRA are more or less morally equivalent. To be consistent, could you please confirm that you think two of Israel’s Prime Ministers should also be placed in the same category? I ask because you strike me as someone who would be frightened to make such a statement on this site in case you fell out of favour on a pro-Israel blog. (For various reasons, I wouldn’t classify Begin or Shamir with Bin Laden, but, for consistency, you are obliged to).

You claim, “Provos, Irgun, you’re all over the place”. I said that you couldn’t understand logic, and here you prove my point by failing to grasp a simple logical analogy. Your principle is that if an individual says that Islamic terrorists are to a significant extent motivated by the Israel-Palestine situation, then they are “a anti-Arab racist and anti-Muslim bigot who doesn’t expect anything other than irrational violent emotion from ‘em”. I drew attention to the fact that people habitually point out the factors that led to some of the actions of the IRA and the Irgun without implying that they don’t “expect anything other than irrational violent emotion from ‘em”.

Amusingly, the better a logical analogy is, the more it does go “all over the place”, because the underlying idea is to show that the principle being rejected does not hold in most cases.

You say, “You see, speaking of responses to the Nazis when discussing responses to Israeli actions is one of things which gets one called a Jew-baiter”. I’ve said that Israeli policies in the Middle East and British policies in Ireland have been a source of terrorism. I’ve also said that the British presence in Mandate Palestine was a source of terrorism, and that if the Germans had invaded Britain, there would have been terrorism in Britain, too. I mentioned all this solely to show that all group could be imagined carrying out terrorist acts, a fact which refutes your claim that I was “a anti-Arab racist and anti-Muslim bigot who doesn’t expect anything other than irrational violent emotion from ‘em”.

A ‘Jew-baiter’, as you phrase it, is someone who deliberately claims that the Israelis are in some ways as vicious and evil as the Nazis, but I’m not saying this at all, not least because the idea is absurd. I mentioned the British in Northern Ireland and in Mandate Palestine in the same context, yet no one would say that I was implying that they were much the same as the Nazis. In fact, in Palestine, the British were relative benign under the circumstances, and under the mandate they had the right to rule there. The Nazis were were *qualitatively* different from the other groups I mentioned. Still, as I don’t want to offend anyone, I will rewrite the passage completely: “And if some foreign country, say, America, had invaded Britain for some reason, I’m sure we would have seen terror attacks against them”.

You also remark, “I guess one does have to be a Jew or an individual with a scintilla of human compassion to have sympathy for David’s fears”.

David T said in a national newspaper that it was anti-Semitic to say that the Israel Lobby was “huge and incredibly powerful”. This is a serious thing to say because it puts people like Mearsheimer and Walt in the same category as the most virulent antisemites. Yet even David Hirsh said, “No serious critic of Mearsheimer and Walt has accused them of being motivated by anti-Semitism”, so given that David T is a semi-public figure it was perfectly appropriate that I give my opinion.

I was also pointing out that some at least of David T’s fears were not justified. For example, David T has talked of genocide, and thinks that one of the bad signs is that people are prepared to talk to Hamas. In a post about a month ago, David T said of Hamas “They are a genocidal racist terrorist organisation…”, and went on to describe what sort of regime they had in mind. He then says “Who would support engagement with such an organisation?”. As I pointed out above, in a poll last year 64 percent of the Israeli public said they wanted Israel to hold direct talks with Hamas. Doubtless the Israelis believe that if talks begin, and the two sides can build up some trust and mutual respect, then Hamas will become more moderate.

But because I adhered rigidly to the facts, you are saying that I have no compassion and no sympathy for David T, but you have no idea at all what I think. I will however point out that when referring to sensitive issues I take some care in selecting my terminology, so as not to mislead or offend. The following example shows that, in this, I differ from you.

Many Muslims of all descriptions were deeply offended by the Danish cartoons. On a thread a few weeks ago, a Muslim poster said, “The offensive caricatures of Muhammad (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) employed familiar racist symbolism used to associate Arabs and Muslims in general with backwardness and barbarity. No sincere anti-racist should have anything to do with them”. Your response was “Your religion was offended? So the **** what?”.

One of the cartoons showed Mohammed with a bomb on his head, with some Muslim doctrine written on the bomb. As the poster said, the cartoon does employ “familiar racist symbolism used to associate Arabs and Muslims in general with backwardness and barbarity,” yet you don’t address this issue at all. I also think it’s clear that you would not have given the same response to a cartoon depicting Moses with a phosphorus bomb on his head and a verse from the Torah referring to the return to Israel. Hence, you must be either a racist or frightened of the response you would receive on this site.

In case you’re interested, I would have treated the two cases in exactly the same way, and expressed my opinion in my usual unemotional fashion.

This debate has been rather personal, but this fact is not surprising in light of your first statement to me: “Stop playing dumb, Ken. The quotation Player gave was not “interesting”; it actually discussed his oeuvre and repudiated your childish syllogisms and half-baked analyses of a spoilt scion of a concrete baron. This grudging approval, complete with your only now giving a quotation from 1996 having previously bandied around one from seven years after the fact, points to your changing the parameters as you go along… which is a very dangerous thing to allow patently dishonest posters such as yourself to do”.

I’ve shown in detail just how flawed this passage is, and I think the rest of the debate has shown that you are the only patently dishonest poster involved.

http://www.amazon.com/Price-Whiteness-Jews-American-Identity/dp/0691121052

EV, it was a metaphor and a joke at the same time (although it was not mine). There was a book cover I saw lately that was about the integration of Jews into American society, the advantages and disadvantages that this created for Jewish identity and it was humorously titled “The price of being white” or something very similar.

I see that you have not argued further the nonsense point that Jews in America are “advocating for preferences and privelege for themselves.”

Good for you.

30 Rock – Garkel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqPqTfGxZbM

Gabriel, Obama’s children have legal preferences over dirt poor white children…..that is a fact…..deal with it.

Ken, you’re a gutless wonder who has spent this thread arguing that we should accept the justifications of a sociopath and religious reactionary and overindulged rich-kid for mass-murder, only to now say you find his actions to be “entirely in the wrong” “from the perspective of morality”.

Does the paranoid schizophrenic who believes Princess Diana is poisoning the water-supply have a point about fluoridation, or is he just a deluded nut?

It indicates that Bin Laden’s actions were significantly influenced by the Palestinian situation, as are those of many other Islamist terrorists. Hence, the US should act to improve the situation in the Middle East.

Reward what you say is morally unacceptable behaviour with its demands? What sort of twisted monster are you?

[...] as are those of many other Islamist terrorists. [...]

Apart from those who target Jews-as-Jews in Bombay.

I’ve addressed each of the points you have directed at me.

It took three attempts to get you to address the one about Kenya, and then you say:

they had nothing to do with Israel. It was an attack on US interests.

I can tell you hate the lower-classes, but you could at least try not to be such a reactionary. Two hundred Kenyan workers had absolutely nothing to do with “US interests”: if (as with rationalizing the attack on Chabad House as responding to Israeli policy) it could be seen as such, the perps should be viewed as extremely violent and unpredictable individuals whose “justifications” are worthless but merely see anyone of a different confessional or political allegiance as of less value than insects. Which I doubt is the effect you were trying to create.

The IRA planted bombs in part because of the denial of their rights and because they hated English rule.

The Provos are/were a bunch of poorly defined thugs, fascists and right-wing Catholics who had a functioning state in which their ethnic group was in the majority, but wished to expel/subjugate another distinct group. If you’re trying to compare them favourably to OBL, you’re failing.

The Jewish Irgun organisation planted bombs in market places in part because they wanted their own state and because they were fighting against the Arabs.

Provos, Irgun, you’re all over the place.

Al-Qaeda carries out attacks against the US partly because of the US presence in the Middle East and because of the US’s support for Israel.

And the paranoid schizophrenic refuses to drink tap-water because he’s read what an overdose of fluorine can do, so what? A-Q has not been elected by any Middle Eastern populous, has no mandate and – if *you* knew owt about it – can be seen to wish to impose a far more vile iteration of Islam than is seen in Saudi, and has always deliberately killed far more Muslims than Americans or Israelis (never mind those 200 Kenyan workers whom would you dismiss as collateral damage).

And we should negotiate with them? Admit it, Montag, you’re scared of Muslims and Arabs and think .

And if the Germans had invaded Britain, I’m sure we would have seen terror attacks against them.

You see, speaking of responses to the Nazis when discussing responses to Israeli actions is one of things which gets one called a Jew-baiter.

You use such terms as ‘syllogisms’, ‘unfalsifiable’, ‘parameters’, ‘cognizance’ and so on, but your use of these is plainly gratuitous, because you have a very poor grasp of logic. Take your use of the word ‘syllogism’.

This really is one of the most ignorant comments I’ve seen since Sonic called me a fud for expecting him to identify the method for giving a Biblical verse. This is the Internet, you moron, not a debating society or philosophy PhD viva.

I haven’t dismissed your prose, yet you feel the need to run your opponents into the ground; whilst using terms such as “discourse” or “specious arguments”. Rules apply only to the little people, eh?

I was responding to David T’s remarks about the increase in certain types of discourse being a sign that there may be problems ahead for Europe’s Jewish community.

I guess one does have to be a Jew or an individual with a scintilla of human compassion to have sympathy for David’s fears. Furthermore, this is an admission of just how little respect you have for the damage caused by Sands’ thesis in general, and Gabriel specifically that you use his thread to pursue an unrelated point with David.

If you wish to pick David up without interruption, take this to private e-mail.

This remark comes from someone who is one of the most frequent posters on a site where anti-Muslim posts are commonplace.

TheWhiney can be a frequent poster on this site, are you going to tar him with the same brush? Note also the self-declared Logic King associating me with the views and positions of unrelated individuals. Bit of self-awareness forming?

*This* is also an admission that you’re one of those rather obsessive characters who return to this site under different names when one posting handle has been thoroughly ridiculed. Who are you? Zin? Montag? Sonic?

What you forget is characters such as this come and go on this site, because there is something which rattles them about it. You’re as new and interesting as a plumber finds a blocked sink.

Only TheWhiney is eternal.

Having already conclusively demonstrated that you are an idiot, I find I’m compelled to do so again. There’s no point in saying “letting you set the parameters of the debate is clearly a dangerous game”, because it is quite clear that haven’t grasped what has been said.

You ask “Even if OBL said everything you say he did with full cognizance and chronological accuracy, so what?” – It indicates that Bin Laden’s actions were significantly influenced by the Palestinian situation, as are those of many other Islamist terrorists. Hence, the US should act to improve the situation in the Middle East. But to do this, the US would have to act against some of the positions of the Israel Lobby. For example, Netanyahu’s Likud party is against the formation of a Palestinian state. The US is in favour of such a state. But the Israel Lobby by and large supports the policies of whatever party is in power in Israel.

“what does it have to do with Sands’ thesis?” – Nothing. I was responding to David T’s remarks about the increase in certain types of discourse being a sign that there may be problems ahead for Europe’s Jewish community.

“Yours is the tactic of making unfalsifiable statements and then retreating when called upon it” – Can you point some out? If you wish to say that a proposition referring to a ‘significant extent’ of influence is unfalsifiable, then I would ask you to refer me to some technique that can be used to measure motivation in an objective, accurate way. Also, show me where I have retreated.

You say that I want to “throw the germ of doubt in readers’ minds that his actions were borne out of righteous anger at an injustice” – You will see from my posts that I concentrate on factual matters, not morality. Consequently, you could not ascertain from my posts whether I like Bin Laden or loathe him. As a matter of fact, I detest him. Although I can see how some people in the Middle East might strongly object to some of the policies of the US, the fact remains that a society run by Bin Laden would be a sort of hell on earth, because he is a deeply evil man. Nonetheless, I don’t make mention of his odiousness, because that fact is obvious, and I have no desire to utter platitudes to show how moral I am.

To return to your comment, for all I know, Bin Laden may not even be able to feel “righteous anger”, but the facts of Bin Laden’s morality are irrelevant to arguments regarding causation. If Israel suddenly transformed its attitude to the Palestinians in a positive way, it is conceivable that al-Qaeda might for some reason increase its attacks. In such a situation, I would say, from the perspective of causation, the change in Israeli policy was part of the cause of the increase in al-Qaeda activity. But if I said this, you would undoubtedly be irate, because you have not grasped the fundamental distinction between causation and morality. (From the perspective of morality, I would say that al-Qaeda were entirely in the wrong).

I would study some logic, if I were you. You use such terms as ‘syllogisms’, ‘unfalsifiable’, ‘parameters’, ‘cognizance’ and so on, but your use of these is plainly gratuitous, because you have a very poor grasp of logic. Take your use of the word ‘syllogism’. When I see this word, I expect to see a sequence of propositions with quantifiers explicitly stated, and with no tacitly assumed premises. Yet you are plainly using it instead of the perfectly good word ‘argument’ to impress people. Your use of the word reminds me of the two pseuds who are Harry Enfield’s ‘bores’. One asks the other, “What are you doing at this point in the space-time continuum?”.

“fraud and intellectual coward” – ‘fraud’ – Go through my posts from the start of this thread and note how scrupulous I am in providing evidence for my claims. ‘intellectual coward’ – I’ve addressed each of the points you have directed at me.

“Once again, what did the murder of 200 Kenyan workers have to do with Israel?” – they had nothing to do with Israel. It was an attack on US interests.

“At the very, very least you’re a anti-Arab racist and anti-Muslim bigot who doesn’t expect anything other than irrational violent emotion from ‘em. Quite possibly you’re also an anti-Jewish racist”. – This remark comes from someone who is one of the most frequent posters on a site where anti-Muslim posts are commonplace. Suppose you discovered that I was a contributor to site where threads often featured remarks like “Jews are..” followed by derogatory comments. You simply would not find me posting remarks critical of the Israel Lobby on such a site.

As for the reasoning behind your claim, it is utterly specious. The IRA planted bombs in part because of the denial of their rights and because they hated English rule. The Jewish Irgun organisation planted bombs in market places in part because they wanted their own state and because they were fighting against the Arabs. Al-Qaeda carries out attacks against the US partly because of the US presence in the Middle East and because of the US’s support for Israel. And if the Germans had invaded Britain, I’m sure we would have seen terror attacks against them. Am I anti-Irish, anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and anti-British because I hold that their actions were to a significant extent motivated by the factors I have referred to? Of course not.

You have no real grasp of logic, the Israel Lobby or al-Qaeda, and you are also dishonest and malicious. Arguing with you is like arguing with a malevolent drunk. From the first, you misunderstood what I said, a fact which to have attempted to conceal, and the rest of your time has been spent propounding specious arguments and making absurd accusations.

I said the Israel Lobby was ‘huge and incredibly powerful’, claimed that US policies in regard to Israel are a significant factor in anti-US terrorism, and pointed out that Brendan O’Neill’s analysis of Bin Laden was totally flawed. I supported these claims with well-supported facts. But in your responses, you employ terms like “playing dumb”, “having previously bandied around”, “changing the parameters as you go along”, “patently dishonest posters such as yourself”, “making unfalsifiable statements and then retreating when called upon it”, “to throw the germ of doubt in readers’ minds”, and “fraud and intellectual coward”.

And these terms come from someone who can barely grasp what points are being made.