Over 50% of Germans equate IDF with Nazi army

[chequita guevara]

I start from the premise that they're thugs and that their opponents are thugs, and that both sides have very legitimate grievances with the other, but they won't get dealt with because the thugs run the show on both sides and the wounds go too deep for either side to make the first move towards peace.

[notyoueither]

Yet surpirisingly, the thugs on one side have managed to make peace with several of the thug neighbours, whereas the thugs on the other side are persona non grata even among those who should be 'family'.

Christ, we could go on forever dancing around this. The simple fact is that there will never be peace so long as the leadership of the Palestinians entertain the fancy that Israel can ever be made to go away by some slightof hand involving propaganda and violence. Equally, when the chance to obtain peace arises, for real, the Israelis have to be prepared to grasp it and hold on. I don't think that chance has really come yet, and Benny Morris seems to agree.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by GePap
We invaded Iraq qith 150,000- and that nut is saying the Arabs threw 190,000 men at Israel? I am sorry, you were in Iraq- I would have thought you could see right through such utterly absurd numbers.

I concede the numbers but given that Iraq recently had a 1,000,000 man army it doesn't seem to absurd, on the face of it, that the other Arab states would be able to collectively muster a couple hundred thousand.

[notyoueither]

Here's an idea. Israel agrees to the 1967 borders and is admitted to NATO...

Go ahead, Egypt and Syria, make our day.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Oerdin


I concede the numbers but given that Iraq recently had a 1,000,000 man army it doesn't seem to absurd, on the face of it, that the other Arab states would be able to collectively muster a couple hundred thousand.

So? Recently, as in after 40 years of independence and an 8 year war with its massive neighbor Iran with tens of billions of petrodollars and loans from its neighbors?

Oh yes, that certainly describes the Arab states in 1948, 3 years after their independence (for all except Egypt, which still had thousands of British troops based there).

[Az]

Umm, how did the issue of blame get in the threadjack, anyway? I certainly feel that Israel's pre-independence leadership was happy with the UN plan. However, once hostilities broke out, it's hardly suprising that they grabbed everything they could. So would everyone else, in the case of hostilities. And since the arab factions all wanted conflict, for their respective reasons, I don't think that anyone should be really playing the blame game.

[Kropotkin]

I don't think that anyone should be really playing the blame game.

I've only heard about one person in the region saying that before you and they nailed him to a piece of wood....

...oh ****! Azazel is the messiah!

[GePap]

On the issue of "sympathy", I understand fully why the Palestinians did not want to say yes at all to this idea.

Imagine the following:

There you are, living in a province of a foreign empire and then a big war comes and another empire "liberates" you. Then the peace comes, and this New empire is in control of your dystany- but now, not only are you again under foreign control, this new empire has decided that a foreign people can immigrate into the land with the aim of creating their own state- these people don't speak your language, don;t share your religion, come and live in their own groups.

What people in the worldwould accept that?

[Kropotkin]

Panama?

[GePap]

We didn't like it either- not like we had much of a fighting chance thought

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Azazel
Umm, how did the issue of blame get in the threadjack, anyway?

Some people were under the impression that Israel has sparkling white teeth and that your breath smells like roses and your **** doesn't stink. There was an issue of attrocities with regard to the OP (comparing the IDF with the Wehrmacht). Once that issue is broached, then comes the response, "well look at who they're fighting, poor little Israel," so it becomes necessary to engage in a round of origin-myth busting.

As far as blame goes, we never touched it. No one here's talking about the Brits.

[Az]

I've only heard about one person in the region saying that before you and they nailed him to a piece of wood....

...oh ****! Azazel is the messiah!

ph33r B*tch.

che:
Much strawman attacking about nothing, that "myth-busting" campaign. The comparison with the wehrmacht is, of course, still rediculous, unless we start comparing all armies with the wehrmacht, and thus, degrade (further) the nazi atrocities.

[GePap]

After 50 years, of course this has been highly devalued- why people gets to compare the Feds to Nazi's in the US for gun control, or some fool like Rush calling femenist Nazis, or Bush being called a Nazi- Nazi comparisons are cheap and easy.

I still ask- were the respondents given a choice of groups to compare to the IDF and chose the Nazi for it, or they were asked, does the IDF behave like Nazi's, yes or no? Cause that makes a big difference.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by GePap
After 50 years, of course this has been highly devalued- why people gets to compare the Feds to Nazi's in the US for gun control, or some fool like Rush calling femenist Nazis, or Bush being called a Nazi- Nazi comparisons are cheap and easy.

Yes, however, it still gives me a bad feeling to hear that many of my fellow Germans are so quick in throwing dumb accusations around. Beside the political dimension it also indicates a simple lack of tact and a somewhat disturbing affinity for stereotypes. OTOH (not to excuse it) I think much of this can be found in other countries as well, just (perhaps) without the Nazi-relation/background.

[GePap]

Well, we all know all Germans are closet nazi's: didn't we learn that form this thread?