MrPedantic  +  292015 Sun, 12 Nov 06 12:55 AM <...The fascist thugs in Europe who desecrate graves in Jewish cemeteries or attack Jewish shops never take the side of the Palestinians. These elements hate Arabs as much as they hate Jews; if they can beat up a Jew one day and an Arab the next, they are happy...> Actually, some far-right organizations in Britain do claim to support "self-determination" for other groups within other countries, including the Palestinians. I don't propose to post any links to their unsavoury sites; but some readers might be surprised by the rather familiar arguments they profess. MrP MrPedantic Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004 Veteran Member 12,592 ...opella forensis / adducit febris...

	MrPedantic  +  292016 Sun, 12 Nov 06 01:14 AM <duplicate post> MrPedantic

	J Lewis  +  292124 Sun, 12 Nov 06 11:46 AM So why is France democratic? Why is Italy democratic? If you disagree with my analysis, say why, instead of shouting slogans. As you see, in my post I didn't defend the Israeli government or its policies in any way. I simply tried to see a way forward, given the failure of the present policies on both sides. J Lewis Joined on Tue, Sep 5 2006 Italy Regular Member 518

	Forbes  +  292137 Sun, 12 Nov 06 12:29 PM  Anonymous wrote: guys 85 died in Gazza becasue of bombimg , during 4 days only, and u still say there is no genocide in israel! I think we need to understand what we mean by the word genocide. It is the deliberate killing of members of another race simply because they belong to another race. According to this definition Israel is not guilty of genocide. This does not of course mean that what they are doing is not wrong, but let's try and use the right words. Forbes Joined on Thu, Jun 16 2005 Regular Member 895

	J Lewis  +  292140 Sun, 12 Nov 06 12:35 PM My previous post was a reply to the anonymous post which said that Israel is democratic 'cause most of its citizens are fanatics! This may not be clear as MrP's post has appeared since then. In reply to MrP, who says some far-right organizations in Britain do claim to support "self-determination" for other groups within other countries, including the Palestinians: yes, perhaps I was a little simplistic, but I don't think there's a difference in principle. Never take these organizations at face value; judge them by what they do, not by what they say, which is demagogy. If they speak in favour of Palestinians, it is only as a convenient argument against Jews, just as they spoke against big business and bankers in the past. They will never do anything concrete against big business interests or against the western power system. It's all very well to make propaganda about something far from home that they have no intention of doing anything about - in Italy I've never seen the extreme right take the side of Arab immigrants against racist attacks. They are more likely to be those who perpetrate the attacks! J Lewis

	J Lewis  +  292590 Mon, 13 Nov 06 03:45 PM If you accuse a man of ten crimes when he has only committed nine, you can be sure that he will talk entirely about the one crime he did not commit. Joseph's original post was dedicated entirely to countering the idea that Israel is committing genocide. About the general treatment of the Palestinians, about the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, about historical questions, about the political situation inside Israel he seemed to have nothing to say. I'm sad to see that most of the replies took the bait. The number of people killed by the Israeli armed forces is very large and this in my opinion is a terrible crime. I see no reason to make it sound worse by using the word genocide. Genocide means systematic extermination of an entire population, while Israel would be happy if the Palestinians lowered their heads and accepted all the injustices. If we put aside this word, maybe the defenders of Israeli policy will have to find some other arguments, which will be more difficult. J Lewis