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Israeli

(4,148 posts)
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 02:04 AM Aug 2014

The Collapse of the American Jewish Center

Three weeks ago, a group of young American Jews gathered outside the New York offices of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the umbrella organization founded in the 1950s and which claims to speak for a consensus of the American Jewish community. The young Jews outside, though, were challenging that organization’s claim to speak in their name. They read aloud the names of Palestinians and Israelis killed in the latest military escalation between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and they recited the Mourner’s Kaddish.

A few days later, the group delivered a letter to the Conference’s CEO, Malcolm Hoenlein, demanding “that the Conference of Presidents join our call to stop the war on Gaza, end the occupation, and forge a path forward for freedom and dignity for all people in Israel and Palestine.” Nine activists were arrested for civil disobedience.

Hoenlein called the protest “very insignificant” and the protesters “Jewish kids who are misguided.”

Known as #IfNotNow (a use of the well-known words of the first century rabbinical sage Hillel), the group is made up of Jewish activists, some of whom are veterans of J Street, the inside-the-beltway advocacy group launched in 2008 that describes itself as “the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans.”

Carinne Luck, a former J Street chief of staff and vice-president for field and campaigns, who is part of #IfNotNow, said it is “not a direct response to or turning away from J Street,” but #IfNotNow’s existence “does speak to the lack of spaces in our community to take these actions and speak with this kind of voice.”


http://religiondispatches.org/the-collapse-of-the-american-jewish-center/

50 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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The Collapse of the American Jewish Center (Original Post) Israeli Aug 2014 OP
continued .... Israeli Aug 2014 #1
Yes: Jefferson23 Aug 2014 #41
The Demise of Liberal Zionism? Israeli Aug 2014 #2
The center has not collapsed leftynyc Aug 2014 #3
cry me a river leftynyc ... Israeli Aug 2014 #4
Aint looking for sympathy from leftynyc Aug 2014 #5
from the likes of me !! Israeli Aug 2014 #6
Thank you so much leftynyc Aug 2014 #7
you are very welcome ..... Israeli Aug 2014 #8
Why? leftynyc Aug 2014 #9
if you are leftynyc.... Israeli Aug 2014 #11
Once again, and listen closely this time, leftynyc Aug 2014 #13
Honestly ... Israeli Aug 2014 #22
Feel free to link leftynyc Aug 2014 #23
I wonder if he calls himself left wing shaayecanaan Aug 2014 #44
Do they have them in NYC to ??? Israeli Aug 2014 #45
interesting piece shaayecanaan Aug 2014 #49
That's rude, King_David Aug 2014 #10
" When it comes to Israel " .... Israeli Aug 2014 #12
Why ? Because there are so many King_David Aug 2014 #21
Nope .... Israeli Aug 2014 #24
". your a hasbarist habibi .." King_David Aug 2014 #25
Hasbarist habibi? leftynyc Aug 2014 #32
thats me being polite leftynyc .... Israeli Aug 2014 #34
Same for me supposed Israeli leftynyc Aug 2014 #35
.....only I am not a "supposed Israeli".... Israeli Aug 2014 #37
Yawn leftynyc Aug 2014 #40
That is funny, but I will say after reading this thread, King_David Aug 2014 #42
I think you've variously claimed to be posting from all of those places at one time or another (nt) shaayecanaan Aug 2014 #46
I was traveling a lot in those days King_David Aug 2014 #47
I guess traveling comes with the territory shaayecanaan Aug 2014 #48
Yep yep King_David Aug 2014 #50
Well when a person is stuck on a kibbutz King_David Aug 2014 #26
I get to Tel Aviv at least ... Israeli Aug 2014 #28
Good to hear, King_David Aug 2014 #43
He/she doesn't think leftynyc Aug 2014 #14
she .... Israeli Aug 2014 #15
I'm 53 leftynyc Aug 2014 #16
Not sure if he/she is or isn't Israeli King_David Aug 2014 #17
Exactly my point leftynyc Aug 2014 #19
How should one view the situation to be considered a genuine leftist and why is that important? DemocratSinceBirth Aug 2014 #20
Well Dave, here's a tip Scootaloo Aug 2014 #29
Actually the extreme right King_David Aug 2014 #30
Think you could organize your thoughts into a single cohesive argument? Scootaloo Aug 2014 #31
I definitly did not say that, King_David Aug 2014 #36
i didn't think you were. so what are you saying? Scootaloo Aug 2014 #38
"" .....good ....you wont get any either" R. Daneel Olivaw Aug 2014 #39
Is it possible to support Israel and not the current leadership? DemocratSinceBirth Aug 2014 #18
Apparently not leftynyc Aug 2014 #33
I think the article is compelling whosinpower1 Aug 2014 #27

Israeli

(4,148 posts)
1. continued ....
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 02:09 AM
Aug 2014

The rising tensions between the supporters of Israel’s use of military force and the dissenters has led to an unprecedented polarization in the American Jewish community as Operation Protective Edge continues without a permanent cease fire, much less visible prospects for the moribund peace process.

While #IfNotNow’s actions and protests thus far have been tiny—numbering in the hundreds—they are reflective of a burgeoning discontent with institutional Jewish reaction to the current Gaza conflict. That institutional reaction, these dissenters charge, not only unquestioningly supports the official Israeli narrative that Hamas left Israel no choice but to attack—and no choice but to target locations packed with civilians—but fails to acknowledge and address the ongoing violence and repression inherent in the occupation.

That institutional reaction, additionally, fails to reckon with countervailing evidence to the official Israeli narrative of the immediate causes of the current escalation. That includes evidence that the Israeli government knew the three Israeli students kidnapped in the West Bank in June had been murdered, but still ginned up emotions, in Israel and the diaspora, for a search the government knew was futile to find them alive. The Jewish Daily Forward’s J.J. Goldberg has meticulously documented the series of events leading up to an “unnecessary war” that “nobody wanted.” The government claim to be searching for the three kidnapped students, was, Goldberg wrote, “simply put, a lie.”

The institutional reaction, its critics further charge, fails to reckon with rising anti-Palestinian racism in Israeli government and society, or of military and police brutality against Palestinians, such as that brought down on Tariq Abu Khdeir, an American citizen and cousin of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, who was burned alive by Jewish Israeli citizens.

Increasingly, the American press is covering these societal and governmental trends, along with growing repression of left-wing and dissenting voices in Israel.


The current Israeli government, said Nathan Hersh, managing director of Partners for Progressive Israel, an American group allied with Israel’s liberal Meretz party, “is the further right government that I’ve seen in my lifetime.” Americans, he said, have become more conscious of “terribly racist” and “more blatant” comments tolerated by government officials. “That’s a driving force to the center and the left” among American Jews, he said.

The polarization of American Jews, said Dov Waxman, Professor of Political Science, International Affairs, and Israel Studies at Northeastern University, has increased with each large-scale eruption of fighting between Israel and Palestinians. Since the Second Intifada, which started in 2000, he said, with each escalation—Operation Cast Lead in 2009, Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, and this summer’s Operation Protective Edge—there has been a shift of pro-two-state solution activists to the left; at the same time, though, the right becomes strengthened and entrenched.

http://religiondispatches.org/the-collapse-of-the-american-jewish-center/

Jefferson23

(30,099 posts)
41. Yes:
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 06:30 PM
Aug 2014
*Americans, he said, have become more conscious of “terribly racist” and “more blatant” comments tolerated by
government officials.

Israeli

(4,148 posts)
2. The Demise of Liberal Zionism?
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 02:20 AM
Aug 2014

Waxman has called this spring’s collapse of Kerry’s peace initiative “a bitter blow for liberal Zionists,” who now “must either abandon their liberalism or their Zionism, or just learn to live with the constant tension between them.”

This tension is slowly but increasingly finding its way into the public discourse via prominent public intellectuals, including journalist Peter Beinart, who led the way with his 2012 book The Crisis of Zionism, warning of drift away from and even hostility toward the establishment by young American Jews, and New York Times columnists Roger Cohen and Thomas Friedman, whose critiques are laced with laments over the decline, in Israel, of the liberal Zionism they grew up with and still cherish.

Beinart now writes for Israel’s leading left-leaning newspaper Haaretz, where this summer he has repeatedly questioned Operation Protective Edge, both morally and strategically. In one column, a rejoinder to right-wing opponents who accuse him of being a Hamas sympathizer, Beinart argued, “Hamas does have unwitting allies among our people,” particularly “the Israeli and American Jewish leaders who convince Palestinians that nonviolence and mutual recognition are futile. They bolster Hamas’ greatest asset, which is not rockets and tunnels. Hamas’ greatest asset is the Palestinian belief that Israel only understands the language of force.”

Most frequently cited to me in conversations with activists over the past week, though, was New York magazine correspondent Jonathan Chait’s “Israel Is Making It Hard to Be Pro-Israel.” The Gaza operation, Chait wrote, “is not Netanyahu’s strategy in excess; it is Netanyahu’s strategy in its entirety.”

“The liberal Zionist, two-state vision with which I identify, which once commanded a mainstream position within Israeli political life,” Chait went on, “has been relegated to a left-wing rump within it.”

If you’ve lost Chait, the “pro-Israel” camp is in big trouble, reasoned pro-peace activists. Without a solution that ends the occupation and the second-class status of Israel’s Arab citizens, it will be increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to be a liberal Zionist.


The reality, though, is that these shifts have been taking place even before Chait issued his cri de couer—his prominence as a figure with unassailable “pro-Israel” credibility and a widely read platform merely brought them to the fore as photographs of dead Palestinian children and grieving families dominated newspaper front pages around the world.

Lisa Goldman, director of the Israel-Palestine Initiative at the New America Foundation, who worked for a decade as a journalist in Israel and the occupied territories, noted a growing and “real unease among a whole slew of male liberal Zionist columnists.” This shift, she said, has been developing over the past five years, as realities on the ground—including the daily brutality of the occupation and growing repression of left-wing dissent—have become more well-known.

http://religiondispatches.org/the-collapse-of-the-american-jewish-center/



 

leftynyc

(26,060 posts)
3. The center has not collapsed
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 05:11 AM
Aug 2014

They're busy taking heat from both sides. On one side they're called Islamophobes and supporters of murder from the far left for supporting Israel (as is continually said about me here) and theyre called soft on terror from the hard right. I know - I'm in the center and going through it right now.

I really don't give a shit what the hard right has to say because I'm a liberal. But when clowns on the left insist I must support murder, that's not acceptable. Using that logic, if I support Israel, I must support their current leaders. Extending that logic, those who support Gazans, support their leaders - hamas. So they're supporting suicide bombers, killers of gays, and terrorism. The hard left doesn't even understand where their own logic takes them.

 

leftynyc

(26,060 posts)
5. Aint looking for sympathy from
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 07:37 AM
Aug 2014

the likes of you. Just explaining the OP is complete bullshit. But keep trying to divide the left because you're doing a bang up job of that.

Israeli

(4,148 posts)
6. from the likes of me !!
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 09:17 AM
Aug 2014

...... born here in 1950 leftynyc ....lived here for 64 years ....never been to America and have no idea what left you are talking about .

" Aint looking for sympathy from the likes of you. " .....good ....you wont get any either .

" Just explaining the OP is complete bullshit " ..... .....you sure convinced me












 

leftynyc

(26,060 posts)
7. Thank you so much
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 09:26 AM
Aug 2014

for so beautifully illustrating why you're opinion is so completely meaningless to me. Bravo.

 

leftynyc

(26,060 posts)
9. Why?
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 09:41 AM
Aug 2014

Why would I allow some anonymous keyboard warriors define me? I'm much too confident in my positions for that. Try some weakminded clowns who sway with the wind - maybe they'll let you define them.

Israeli

(4,148 posts)
11. if you are leftynyc....
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 10:01 AM
Aug 2014

then God help America ....but .... you are not ... its just a handle that you dont represent .
Not to the Israeli Left anyhow .
You could change it to ....centralistnyc ....but that is collapsing to ... dont believe me ....just read :

http://religiondispatches.org/the-collapse-of-the-american-jewish-center/

 

leftynyc

(26,060 posts)
13. Once again, and listen closely this time,
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 10:15 AM
Aug 2014

I don't let keyboard warriors (from the right or the left) define me. And really, do you feel comfortable speaking for Americans seeing as you're not even American?

Israeli

(4,148 posts)
22. Honestly ...
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 12:08 PM
Aug 2014

no I dont ... but you guys never shut up speaking for us .... so I guess we are " even "

Israeli

(4,148 posts)
45. Do they have them in NYC to ???
Tue Aug 19, 2014, 05:06 AM
Aug 2014

More black shirts shaayecanaan :

http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.611026.1408435866!/image/2349077637.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_282/2349077637.jpg

This time at Mahmoud and Morel's wedding :

Two hundred meters from Morel Malka and Mahmoud Mansour’s wedding celebration in the Shemesh Aduma (Red Sun) wedding hall in the industrial area of Rishon Letzion, lined with supermarkets and other events halls, a counter demonstration was held by the Lehava organization – a demonstration of pure hatred. The hatred oozed from the looks of the protestors, dripped with their sweat, passed in the screams and the poisoned air.

Some 200 people from Lehava (a Hebrew acronym for “Preventing Assimilation in the Holy Land,” meaning “flame” in Hebrew) came to try to destroy the couple’s happiness, a large number in shirts saying “Lehava – the Jewish Honor Guard.”

“Ahmed Tibi is dead,” they screamed, “Mohammed is dead,” “Death to Arabs.”

“Everyone knows the truth, but don’t given them reasons for an indictment,” one of the demonstration’s organizers tried to calm people. But the crowd never stopped abusing the air.

When someone started calling “Death to Leftists,” one of the organizers tried to cover it with “Leftists are Jews.” But the man next to me explained: “The leftists are worse than the Arabs. They are a mixed multitude,” and earned respect.

Toward the end of the demonstration, the matter of the wedding was forgotten and only the intermixed “Death to Arabs” and “Death to Leftists” remained. That’s the problem with extremism. There is always someone who outflanks you, faster and more sophisticated. If once the Yad L’Achim organization set the tone, then Benzi Gopstein from Lehava – who is far more media savvy – stole the show from them. And now Gopstein is the sign of moderation, the responsible adult who is trying to calm the calls to kill Arabs, so as to emphasize the original idea of the protest.

“The people of Israel are responsible for one another, we are not a people for all the peoples,” said the organizers – and suddenly a vehicle playing Hassidic music arrives, it’s not clear from where. Many of the young people abandon Gopstein and Itamar Ben Gvir, the learned attorney for Lehava, and dance on the side, leaving him with the sign “Our teacher Moses is crying.” He is speaking in front of the Rishon Letzion veterinary institute about the Arab village where Mansour will take Malka, even though Mohammed is really Mahmoud and lives in Jaffa – which is not a village.

Israel Harel in a stylish gray hat, it seems with a shofar [ram’s horn trumpet] in his hand, talks about how there can be miracles and reminds us of the miracles during the war.

“Because of weddings like this [there are] all the problems in the war,” says someone next to me. It is hard to understand what Harel is saying since someone is banging away crazily with a bottle of water.

Gopstein wants to calm the flames of hatred. “Everyone wants for us to say Mohammed is dead,” he says, and tries to tell them “but we will not let them.” But next to him they are screaming “and that is what we’ll do.” Gopstein and Ben Gvir also talk about Mohammed the groom. When somebody corrects them, Gopstein says “Mohammed, Mahmoud, it doesn’t matter.” And someone completes what he is saying, “All the same shit.”

One of the protestors, in a light purple shirt, explains to a foreign television crew: “It’s not racism. We simply fear that because of the assimilation we will become extinct. The Arabs do not want us alive so it is important that the Arabs go extinct and that we humiliate them.”

“Let them bring out an Arab woman who wants to marry a Jew, I want to see that,” said the man in the purple shirt, his eyes inflamed with disgust, as if they bring out and give away women in the industrial area of Rishon.

It is not just a demonstration of hate for Arabs or leftists, but also for modern women, who can do what they want. Facing the demonstrators, the organizers tried to keep a different tome: “Even if Morel converted to Islam she is still our sister, we don’t give up on a single Jew. A Jewish wedding should have been here. Soon the bride will come to dance with us here.”

A German reporter next to me looked like she was terrified and didn’t exactly understand what was going on. I was afraid too.

‘This is how you get girls’

The left’s counterprotest in support of the young couple was the exact opposite. If I was afraid at the right-wing demonstration, the dangerous part of the left-wing one was when I got stuck in a string of balloons. The demonstrators held flowers and laughed among themselves. A young man in a Labor Party shirt sang a Gidi Gov song: “My flower.” If men stood in the middle of the Lehava demonstration with a few young women around the edges, here the supporters of the wedding were mostly women. They all looked happy and loving.

“This is how you get girls,” said my friend Salim, an actor, who hugged a girl to take advantage of the romantic momentum.

“I’m not a racist,” Zion Malka from Ramat Gan told me, and showed me with a trembling hand his ID card with the same last name as that of the bride. He disagreed with the shouts of “Death to Arabs” and told me “For hundreds of years we maintained Judaism in Morocco under harsh conditions. Every Jew should feel pain when this happens. It is worse than the Holocaust.”

I told him I didn’t understand why we should get involved in the decisions of people who want to get married. He gave me a novel idea: “It’s like when vegetarians climb onto your plate.”

The masses continued to scream all the time: “An Arab is a son of a bitch” and “Haneen Zoabi is a whore.”

“Everyone knows what Haneen Zoabi is, but this is not the place,” the organizer tried again. A boy trying to act like a man next to me cursed everyone mentioned in horrible sexual descriptions, including the bride – on whose behalf everyone there wanted to ensure her welfare and innocence. Then Gopstein talked about the blessing President Reuven Rivlin gave the couple, one of the few courageous things about the whole event. Gopstein told Rivlin he should be embarrassed. The crowd cried out after him and repeated it – and Gopstein noted that Rivlin was elected because of Arab MKs such as Tibi.

A few girls who earlier had looked to me like they were nice and playful, wrapped in an Israeli flag, started calling “Leftist trash.” Someone tried to scare them, “The leftists want to push us into extermination like the Judenrat.”

The crowd remains excited, refuses to leave and slowly moves toward the wedding hall, every once in a while throwing firecrackers. The police detain a few demonstrators. The nice girls from before start calling out slogans at the left-wing protestors. The police try to save the separation between the protestors and the wedding, but it was not easy as they advanced and advanced.

Finally the protest ended, a few opponents of the wedding stood where the leftists had stood earlier and felt like they had captured a fortress. “I wish all the leftists pancreatic cancer,” a girl shouted.

A group of rightists stood on a higher position and proudly waited to spit on the leftists, while a car drove by the supermarket playing a trance track of “Mohammed is dead.”

After the police receive their sandwiches, they announce the end and clap hands; I walk to the train. Two young Lehava men ask me for the fare to Safed, and then hang up a sign: “I wanted a grandson, I got a shahid [martyr]” on a bridge over a noisy highway. One of them warns that the sign could fall from the bridge onto the road and cause an accident. The other tells him it will fall on an Arab car – what does it matter? The first says that in Rishon Letzion it will fall on a non-Arab car, and the second answers: “Don’t worry, the sign will fall on an Arab.”

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.611184

King_David

(14,851 posts)
10. That's rude,
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 09:47 AM
Aug 2014

Who are you to judge who gets into the club of the left ?
When it comes to Israel there is very little difference between the extremist Left and the extreme right ( witness David Duke )
In the USA .

I have witnessed a lot of homophobia from some so called Palestinian supporters even here at DU and those are not "left " attributes and lastly groups like Hamas are extreme right wing and Gay hating that of anyone on the "left " support them they themselves are certainly not "left".

King_David

(14,851 posts)
21. Why ? Because there are so many
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 11:31 AM
Aug 2014

Antecedent Zionists or Later Day Zionists or Post Zionists or whatever the flavor of the month today is in that tiny little club ?

My grandparents were born in what was then Palestine..

Where were yours born? Not that it makes any difference to me though .

Yes I thought so.


Israeli

(4,148 posts)
24. Nope ....
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 12:40 PM
Aug 2014

.....because you are not Israeli King_David.....much tho you fantazise that you are ....you can spin it all you like .

You make it up as you go along ..... all anyone needs to know about you is written in your past posts ... your a hasbarist habibi ....and you are not fooling anyone ....least of all me .

 

leftynyc

(26,060 posts)
32. Hasbarist habibi?
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 01:57 PM
Aug 2014

Now you're just giving people with triple digit IQs more reason to think there is no reason whatsoever to listen to a word you say. Speaking of someone who isn't fooling anyone.........

Israeli

(4,148 posts)
34. thats me being polite leftynyc ....
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 02:34 PM
Aug 2014

...If I had to say what I think about King David ....and all of his lies and all of his bullshit ...and all of his fantasies ....

I would not be here tomorrow .

King_David

(14,851 posts)
42. That is funny, but I will say after reading this thread,
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 06:43 PM
Aug 2014

The seeds of doubt have been planted that maybe some people who claim to be from Israel or anywhere else posting on forums on the internet are really from Greenland or Sweden or Ireland or elsewhere.

Nothing is as it seems ,apparently.

King_David

(14,851 posts)
47. I was traveling a lot in those days
Tue Aug 19, 2014, 08:09 AM
Aug 2014

But as all this proves , one can never trust everything that's posted on the Internet.

King_David

(14,851 posts)
50. Yep yep
Tue Aug 19, 2014, 10:39 AM
Aug 2014

Although I never said that it's a perfect illustration that you should never trust people posting on an anonymous Internet board when they tell you they famous trapeze artist or posting from Israel and are post Zionists or Australians.

King_David

(14,851 posts)
26. Well when a person is stuck on a kibbutz
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 12:49 PM
Aug 2014

The world is very small.

You need get to Tel Aviv

Experience Israel's diversity

Israeli

(4,148 posts)
28. I get to Tel Aviv at least ...
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 01:03 PM
Aug 2014

once every two weeks King_David..... my daughter lives there .

How often do you get to Tel Aviv ?????????


King_David

(14,851 posts)
43. Good to hear,
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 06:55 PM
Aug 2014

You should get your daughter to take you to some Gay areas, so you can experience one of the worlds top gay cities and see what everyone is raving about.

I will be there around Rosh Hashanah, if you want to experience some gay diversity in Tel Aviv that you do not have on your kibbutz I will be happy to take you around with a bunch of my friends. Get out a little off your homogenous Kibbutz.

Israeli

(4,148 posts)
15. she ....
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 10:57 AM
Aug 2014

......and I'm an Israeli sabra .....and a Left wing post zionist Israeli sabra .

you ... well you can call yourself whatever you like ....leftynyc you are not IMHO .

" So we're even " .........how old are you ?? ......you come across like a little child .

 

leftynyc

(26,060 posts)
16. I'm 53
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 11:04 AM
Aug 2014

and therefore way past the time where I'd let anonymous people think they can define me and expect me to care about their opinion. Are you also of the opinion that the majority of American people are in any way shape or form represented by DU?

King_David

(14,851 posts)
17. Not sure if he/she is or isn't Israeli
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 11:14 AM
Aug 2014

Or who is from the USA even.

People have been accused here of being paid shills for Israel and also I heard Saudi money pays for the opposite.

This is the Internet after all.

 

leftynyc

(26,060 posts)
19. Exactly my point
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 11:19 AM
Aug 2014

I've had my liberal credentials (and my screen name) questioned by dozens of posters on DU but the same people expect everyone else to suck up what they say as if it's nothing but the truth. That's just bullshit. And fyi - she has said she's a woman.

DemocratSinceBirth

(99,710 posts)
20. How should one view the situation to be considered a genuine leftist and why is that important?
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 11:22 AM
Aug 2014

Labels should be on boxes and not people. I reject orthodoxy in religion and ideology.

 

Scootaloo

(25,699 posts)
29. Well Dave, here's a tip
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 01:20 PM
Aug 2014

If someone supports violence and oppression against millions of people on the basis of their race or nationality, they're not a leftist. Nor are they a liberal. or even a progressive. That shit puts a person right smack into the hard right. And it doesn't matter if that person abuses and exploits gay people to attempt to justify their support for violence and oppression - the EDL does that as well, it hasn't put them any closer to the left.

It's a right-wing tactic to silence criticism of their violence and hatred by trying to mask it as concern for gays. Or women. or whoever the "Woobie of the Week," might be, some trodden group whose victimization can be twisted to support and justify victimizing the target of the violent bigots.

King_David

(14,851 posts)
30. Actually the extreme right
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 01:27 PM
Aug 2014

Such as David Duke are just as concerned with Israel and the Jewish state and support of Palestinians and Hamas .

This has been traditionally extremist right wing and extremist left wing now too.

Lefties like myself support universal health care , diversity , immigration and reform , government support if the poor .

The so called lefties that support extreme right wing groups like Hamas and are homophobic extremely do not belong in my Democratic Party .

Being anti Israel doesn't make one a lefty it usually is the domain of the extreme right . I don't consider your views on Israel to be "left "at all.

Some "leftist " Post Zionist posters from Israel have expressed very anti immigrant views that's not leftist .

And speaking of gay issues ... A small little DU experiment is to look at the list of banned DU members on the Gay group and cross check to posters in the IP forum and cross check which side of the issue they come from.

 

Scootaloo

(25,699 posts)
31. Think you could organize your thoughts into a single cohesive argument?
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 01:42 PM
Aug 2014

You're doing your gish gallop here.

It LOOKS like you're calling me a right-wing homophobe who is aligned with David Duke and supports Hamas. Now I know that isn't what you're trying to say because you're a nice guy, right Dave?

DemocratSinceBirth

(99,710 posts)
18. Is it possible to support Israel and not the current leadership?
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 11:15 AM
Aug 2014

There are certain times I have not supported the leadership of my own nation.

 

leftynyc

(26,060 posts)
33. Apparently not
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 01:58 PM
Aug 2014

But at the same time it's perfectly acceptable to support the people of Gaza but expect people to believe you don't support hamas. If the far left didn't have double standards on this issue, they'd have no standards at all.

whosinpower1

(85 posts)
27. I think the article is compelling
Mon Aug 18, 2014, 12:59 PM
Aug 2014

The resulting "conversation" above proves the point quite nicely.

If the middle (center) is not collapsing - then why is it not successful at defining its position?

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Israel/Palestine»The Collapse of the Ameri...