12 million Jews in the world

[Imran Siddiqui]

It's a religion... as well as an ethnicity and a culture and a nation associated with the ancient Israel and Judea, though not with modern Israel.

No it isn't! It is a religion! Unless you think there is a Christian nation and Islam nation. In which case, you are delusional . Religions are not by themselves nations, and the Jews are a religion. You can't tell me that an Ethopian Jew has the same ethnicity and culture as German Jew... you simply can't!

[David Floyd]

To you it's clear that judaism is a religion. To me it's not. To me it's first of all a heritage, a culture, a nation.

Then that explains why Israel allows anyone who converts to Judaism to freely immigrate, because you can convert to a different heritage and culture.

Judaism is a religion!! If you want to talk about ethnicity, as someone already pointed out, use the term Hebrew. Jews are followers of Judaism, just as Christians are followers of Christianity, just as Muslims are followers of Islam, etc.

Accodring to the now world wide accepted articles made by Woodrow Willson every ethnicity has a right for self declaration and self rule.

Gee, Woodrow Wilson said it, it MUST be right
Wilson, IMO, was an idiot, and I refuse to accept that something is right either because he said it or it is "widely accepted".

Great Britain had already existed for brittish. Israel and Judea were destroyed and jews were mostly kicked out.

The Israelites/Jews/whatever the hell we're calling them kicked out the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Meninites, etc., etc., etc. What's the difference?

But according to your arguement here, there's no reason for north ireland to ever become independent. Why do they need their own country just because they have a different religion?

You're absolutely right. I see no reason for the Northern Irish to have their own country. Of course, the situation there is a bit different from that of Israel.

Why is that sickening?

I explained that in my post. It boils down to theft.

The government of poland wasn't. Most of the people however, just like most of the people in many european countries were very glad to help.

So? That doesn't mean they violated any laws, does it? Sure, what they did was morally wrong, as we see it, but legally they committed no crime, therefore they should not forfeit any rights, including rights to their property.

Blaming the holocaust on Nazis alone, or only the government is sickening. Many civilians happily cooperated. Many cooperated out of fear. And many were much more eager then the germans.

None of these people committed any crime, as crime was defined at the time, and you can't go around passing and enforcing ex post facto laws - that's definitely immoral.

Stealing their land? You're either very "uninformed" or incredibly brazen.

Jews had property, houses, art, clothes, money in those countries. It was all confiscated by the Nazis and local governments.

I suppose two wrongs makes a right, then

Who ever repaid jews for the property they lost? Who ever repaid them for the houses that still stand there? Who repaid them for money, much of it still in Swiss banks?

I suppose no one did, as if that has any relevance on the argument at hand. Stealing someone elses land and property to make up for the land and property stolen from you is wrong.

What would have happenned if all the german soldiers disobeyed?

That's unrealistic and frankly a stupid hypothetical. Soldiers are trained to follow orders, and, especially with the Prussian military tradition, German soldiers were remarkably good at following orders. They shouldn't be punished for that.

Persecution of jews doesn't start and end in the holocaust. It existed long before that. The decision that having a state can wait no longer was a result of growing persecution in the 19th century.

I refuse to address any more whining about the Jews being persecuted until you address the points about Jews persecuting others, and take responsibility. Oh, what's that? You can't be held responsible because you didn't do it? Well, people today or in 1948 can't be held responsible either for others persecuting the Jews in the 19th century. Face it, Jews have been persecuted a lot, but they've done plenty of persecuting on their own. I mean, the Jews killed Jesus, so it could be said that they persecuted Christians as well.

When a soldier chooses to fulfil a mission he takes responsibility for it. Whether or not he has a choise, he is responsible.

So in your perfect army each soldier makes his own moral decision about which order he will follow and which he won't? Damn, that sounds like an army I'd like to be in. You get to carry a big gun but not follow orders you don't like! Perfectly safe! Sounds like a terribly effective army too

Israel is a very good judge for Adolf Eichmann, because it knows exactly what he did.

But Adolf Eichmann committed no crime. Israel did, though, by the act of kidnapping Eichmann from Argentina, which was also an act of war against Argentina. In any case, Eichmann did nothing to the State of Israel, so Israel was not even the victim in the supposed crimes.

Fine, then Israel is the property of it's current residents and giving that to previous residents would be just as bad as taking it away in the first place

Not true, because we are talking about land that was owned and occupied by Arabs (for lack of a better generalized term, you know what I mean), who were kicked out by Jews. The Arabs, by the way, believed that land could be owned, and claimed ownership of said land, unlike the American Indians. So while I'll admit that while taking the land the Indians lived on may have been morally wrong, I fail to see why Indians can claim ownership of land today, while they didn't when the land was taken. Sounds like bull**** to me.

Sounds like the Pals' problem, not mine.

Not true. My point is that the "plight of the Jews" isn't my problem because I'm neither a Jew, or a person oppressing Jews, or anyone involved in any way, while you, as an Israeli, obviously are involved, at least to a larger degree than I am.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by axi

Weird, no jews in Australia?

Over 100,000. Very successful community. Not much anti semitism here - except in the business community - my father is very anti semitic because of business dealings with Jews.

We also have per capita the most holocaust survivors outside of Israel and we took Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany before World War II.

[Natan]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
No it isn't! It is a religion! Unless you think there is a Christian nation and Islam nation. In which case, you are delusional . Religions are not by themselves nations, and the Jews are a religion. You can't tell me that an Ethopian Jew has the same ethnicity and culture as German Jew... you simply can't!

Firstly, it is a nation and you must be a member of it since no one but a Jew would have enough Chutzpah to get mad at adherents of another faith because he's sure he has a better grasp of their religion then they do and they won't accept it.

But seriously, as much as the term nation has a meaning, the Jews are a nation. Not all nations are defined by the same traits. Many are defined by language, which the Jews have through Hebrew. Others are defined by a common set of values, such as the US. Others are defined by religion; that is what separates a Serb from a Croat while it is language which separates a Romanian from a Bulgarian. Traditionally, the Jews have always believed that they are a nation and behaved in accordance with that belief. It says right in the Jewish scriptures that the Jews are "a holy nation and a treasured people." Ancient Hebrew, unlike classical Arabic, does not even possess a word for "religion;" clearly, the authors of the Talmud and Torah and their subsequent interpreters thought of the Jews as a nation defined by religion, not as simply a community of believers. Jews treat each other like family - a Jew from out of town can't walk into a synagogue on Friday night (well, a real one at least) without being inundated by invitations from the congregants to join their families at dinner. Jews do things for their fellow Jews which Christians and Muslims do not do for their co-religionists, and the Jews consider themselves to be a nation; which is I think, the key element in being a nation.

David Floyd: This is a silly train of thought - Jews did something bad once (even if they didn't, like the "you killed Jesus" blood libel), therefore, Jewish suffering is irrelevant. This is like saying "why are people so sympathetic to rape victims, after all, it's not like they're all free of sin." It's not clear to me what you're trying to say or where you're going with it. And I'll leave it to Chegitz or someone else to explain to you why "I was following orders" isn't a good excuse to slaughter tens of millions.

[Imran Siddiqui]

BS, Natan! No political scientists worth his weight considers the Jews to be a nation.

Jews do things for their fellow Jews which Christians and Muslims do not do for their co-religionists, and the Jews consider themselves to be a nation; which is I think, the key element in being a nation.

*cough*Islam! Muslims tend to pride themselves on doing things for their religious brothers and sisters that others don't. And Muslims consider all Islam to be of one nation (The Ummah). That doesn't make it a nation. A nation is a group of people that share the same ethnicity and culture. In this way, the United States isn't a nation (and American isn't really a nationality).

The ****ing Jews aren't a nation! They use semantics to try to morally justify their land grabs.

[Natan]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
BS, Natan! No political scientists worth his weight considers the Jews to be a nation.

Firstly, in my experience, few political scientists are "worth their weight", and secondly, this would be a question for a philosopher or sociologist, not a political scientist.

*cough*Islam! Muslims tend to pride themselves on doing things for their religious brothers and sisters that others don't. And Muslims consider all Islam to be of one nation (The Ummah). That doesn't make it a nation.

Again, I think that the things Jews do for each other go beyond that. Good Muslims (fasters on Ramdan who pray five times a day etc.) in many parts of the world kill each other because they are divided by government, ethnicity, etc. Muslims do not in that sense, consider themselves a nation, now in the absence of a Khalifa. Good Jews (who pray with their tefillin, eat only Kosher food, etc.) don't. This was always one of the main arguments used against Jews in nineteenth century Europe, that Jews were loyal to each other and not to their state, and that they did not share the same culture as those around them. The level of trust and good will between two Jews, even from different parts of the world, is much greater than the level of trust and goodwill between two different Russians or two different Egyptians.

A nation is a group of people that share the same ethnicity and culture. In this way, the United States isn't a nation (and American isn't really a nationality).

I disagree. "Culture" and "ethnicity" have meanings just as variable as "nation." When two Americans meet each other in a foriegn country, there is an immediate series of connections which they share and generally speaking, a loyalty to certain ideas and a certain country. In my mind, this shows them to be a nation.

The ****ing Jews aren't a nation! They use semantics to try to morally justify their land grabs.

I don't know about you, but I don't believe that being a nation gives a group of people special rights, so I don't see why you have to get so emotional about whether or not the Jews are a nation. While I'm here, let me add that you seem to be the semantic one, resorting to insults because someone doesn't agree with you on the definition of a word of unclear meaning. Then, based on your own unclear definition, you start accusing people of being liars. Let's try to maintain a civil discussion, okay?

In my mind, being a nation is not about sharing 12 as opposed to 4 great authors, or having a dialect which varies on the prununciation of only a certain number of words, it's about what you think you are. Ukrainians are a different nation from Russians even though their languages are closer than Mandarin and Cantonese. Iranians are a nation even though they are made up of several different ethnic groups.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Firstly, in my experience, few political scientists are "worth their weight", and secondly, this would be a question for a philosopher or sociologist, not a political scientist.

No, it is a question for poltical scientists, for 'nations' are a term FROM political science, and the Jews are definetly NOT a nation. They use this to try to get their own country, saying that they should since they are a nation.

And saying Muslims kill each other make them less family than Jews is ludicrous. I BET you that less Muslims kill each other as a percentage of their total population than Jews kill each other. But you seem to make no difference between practicing and non-practicing Muslims, but you make a different between secular and religious Jews!

[Sirotnikov]

No it isn't! It is a religion! Unless you think there is a Christian nation and Islam nation. In which case, you are delusional . Religions are not by themselves nations, and the Jews are a religion. You can't tell me that an Ethopian Jew has the same ethnicity and culture as German Jew... you simply can't!

Jews do have similar ethnicity. Eastern Jews are different from European ones since they've grown apart for a long time, and in each place, mingled, but not a lot. A proof of that is the Cohanim gene which is unique and common among jews decendants of the priest family, most of those who are named Cohen, Cogan, Kagan, Katz etc.

Judaism is much more closed and not "expansionist". Judaism was never preached anywhere to anyone but those who were already ethnically jews in biblical times. That's why judaism mainly stayed a religion of a specific ethnicity. Islam could have been such if it wasn't spreading like bushfire among dozens of other ethnicities.

You people want to use the term hebrew - fine. Judaism is a religion of hebrews. Hebrews who have left judaism, are also not hebrew anymore since their ethnicity was intermixed with others over generations.

Then that explains why Israel allows anyone who converts to Judaism to freely immigrate, because you can convert to a different heritage and culture.

I admit it's problematic and that's why a better defintion of Judaism should arise than simply religion. Since it's not simply religion.

However, converting to judaism means that one chooses to devote his life to studying and accepting the jewish culture nad history and heritage to his children. It also means he will probably marry jewish (that's why most people convert) and therefore his kids become of jewish ethnicity (over generations).

Gee, Woodrow Wilson said it, it MUST be right
Wilson, IMO, was an idiot, and I refuse to accept that something is right either because he said it or it is "widely accepted".

The idea of ethnicities having rights for a country is not only widely accepted but also one of the major human rights assured by the UN constitution IIRC.

Who's the idiot now?

The Israelites/Jews/whatever the hell we're calling them kicked out the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Meninites, etc., etc., etc. What's the difference?

Jews are decendants of Canaanites whether according to biblical story (Abraham & Sarah converted) or according to current research.

You're absolutely right. I see no reason for the Northern Irish to have their own country.

You're working with a completely different premise than the world has been for the last 90 years. No wonder you are in disagreement with everyone else.

In this case, there's little use for our arguing since we're completely different and won't convince each other. It's like Ramo and me arguing about Anarchism vs. Authoritarianism.

That doesn't mean they violated any laws, does it? Sure, what they did was morally wrong, as we see it, but legally they committed no crime, therefore they should not forfeit any rights, including rights to their property.

2 points:

1) I didn't suggest revoking rights for their property from them as punishment.
2) It's ok to make a law saying it's legal to kill jews and then kill them? It can't / shouldn't be punished?

None of these people committed any crime, as crime was defined at the time, and you can't go around passing and enforcing ex post facto laws - that's definitely immoral.

That arguement is out of the question.

It's not like we're talking about a massacare that happenned 1000 years ago. It's not like we're talking about slavery 500 years ago.

We're talking about brutal murder, torture, abuse and ethnical cleansing.

This behaviour was defined as crime at the time in most of the world, and they were aware of it. This behaviour was defined as a crime in thier own world just shortly before, prior to Nazi occuption, and they were aware of it.

The facts that they hid it from the outer world, never directly mentioned the solution, never made such an order by Hitler, they all suggest they knew very well that they were doing a thing that is wrong according to international standards and if discovered they would be penalised by international community.

I suppose two wrongs makes a right, then

No.
I simply suggest that if you think there shouldn't be an Israel
you should arrange for the return of property to it's rightful owners.

Stealing someone elses land and property to make up for the land and property stolen from you is wrong.

How would that be stealing if I ask for a home that was stolen from a jew in germany to be returned to him/his kin?

They shouldn't be punished for that.

Yes they should. Soldiers are still not machines. You can't try a tank for executing inhumane orders. You can try a soldier.

I refuse to address any more whining about the Jews being persecuted

You not only not address these facts but ignore them completely in your world view. My posts on the matter weren't to justify a point but to correct your facts. You refuse to accept the correction and prefer to stay in the dark.

you address the points about Jews persecuting others, and take responsibility. Oh, what's that? You can't be held responsible because you didn't do it? Well, people today or in 1948 can't be held responsible either for others persecuting the Jews in the 19th century. Face it, Jews have been persecuted a lot, but they've done plenty of persecuting on their own.

Israel wasn't formed as a gift because of the holocaust, but rather as a country for a nation to express itself.

Whether you agree that it is a nation or not is irrelevant since the international community already made that decision.

I mean, the Jews killed Jesus, so it could be said that they persecuted Christians as well.

Great!
This shows:

a) Racism
b) Historical ignorance

Racism because you choose to blame jews for the murder of Christ even though jews as a people can't be responisble for his death. Moreso you choose to portray Jews as enemies of Christianity while forgetting the Jesus himself was a Jew.

Ignorance because Jesus was executed by the Romans after he began upsetting the people into revolt, demanding moral reform. He became a power figure, which Rome couldn't afford to keep alive.

The notion of "Jews murdered Christ" is an old one and was used to flare anti-semitism for centuries, even though it's unfounded and improbable.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Over 100,000. Very successful community. Not much anti semitism here - except in the business community - my father is very anti semitic because of business dealings with Jews.

Possibly. Jews are sometimes, er, cautios with moeny and cherish it a bit more since, well, it's only a century since most of them are allowed to have any.

We also have per capita the most holocaust survivors outside of Israel and we took Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany before World War II.

Do you know why you didn't take the ship I talked about in a previous post?

I'm enquiring because I remember Australia usually did accept Jews.

[Natan]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
the Jews are definetly NOT a nation.

Dictionary.com defines a nation as

na·tion (nshn)
n.
1.
a. A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country.
b. The territory occupied by such a group of people: All across the nation, people are voting their representatives out.

2. The government of a sovereign state.
3. A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality: “Historically the Ukrainians are an ancient nation which has persisted and survived through terrible calamity” (Robert Conquest).
4.
a. A federation or tribe, especially one composed of Native Americans.
b. The territory occupied by such a federation or tribe.

Clearly, what is under discussion here is whether or not Jews fit into the third definition. There is no good way to quantify or develop an objective scale for how many/how much culture, history, origins, customs, or language a group of people share. I think a very good argument could be made that the Jews share quite a bit in this regard, as much as many other nations, such as Poles and Ukrainians. But the key thing is that where it is unclear what makes a nation (which at its heart is a group of people who share important connections) we should look at what signifigance the subjects of the discussion place on their shared customs, history, etc., and clearly, Jews place as high an importance on this as Germans or Italians or what have you.

They use this to try to get their own country, saying that they should since they are a nation.

Why are you adding more political and historical baggage to this conversation then need be. I'm not arguing that Jews deserve anything by being a nation, and I don't know many Jews who do; so why are you making this accusations? What purpose do they serve? Let's debate the issue at hand, okay?

And saying Muslims kill each other make them less family than Jews is ludicrous. I BET you that less Muslims kill each other as a percentage of their total population than Jews kill each other.

Get the murder statistics and then we'll talk, but what I'm talking about is not the frequency of organized crime or domestic violence, but the degree of separation between people due to different governments and ethnicities.
There are good, pious Muslims who consider themselves to have a nationality apart from "Muslim," and place a high value on it. For example, they say things like "first we are Pashtun, then we are Muslim," etc. and there are Muslims who are Arab nationalists or Persian nationalists or Kurdish nationalists or Palestinian nationalists and so on. An incredibly tiny number of pious (Orthodox/real) Jews would say "first I am French/British/whatever" or "first I am Ashkenazi/Slavic/Arab" and only then a Jew. Even Jews who oppose Zionism are Jews first and foremost. Clearly, the Jews have always considered their history and shared customs (including but not solely limited to religion) as setting them apart from their neighbors and their neighbors have shared this view in most cases. This is why I say that Jews are a nation.

But you seem to make no difference between practicing and non-practicing Muslims, but you make a different between secular and religious Jews!

False, you're again failing to read my posts. I said (emphasis added now)

Good Muslims (fasters on Ramdan who pray five times a day etc.) in many parts of the world kill each other because they are divided by government, ethnicity, etc. Muslims do not in that sense, consider themselves a nation, now in the absence of a Khalifa. Good Jews (who pray with their tefillin, eat only Kosher food, etc.)

In short, I did distinguish between practicing and non-practicing Muslims.

[Natan]

Siro: According to the biblical account, Abraham and Sarah were Iraqis, or at least Syrians from the Euphrates river valley. DNA studies have shown though that Palestinians and Israelis share more or less identical genes, IIRC, both being much closer to each other then they are to their historical neighbors in the Arab world or Europe.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

Do you know why you didn't take the ship I talked about in a previous post?

What ship? I recall the United States infamously turning back a Jewish refugee ship before World War II but I don't recall an Australian example.

A lot of Jews, particularly holocaust survivors, came to Australia after World War II. There is a big holocaust museum in Sydney and you can meet survivors there.

[David Floyd]

The idea of ethnicities having rights for a country is not only widely accepted but also one of the major human rights assured by the UN constitution IIRC.

Who's the idiot now?

I forgot. Who gives a **** about the UN constitution? I certainly don't.

1) I didn't suggest revoking rights for their property from them as punishment.
2) It's ok to make a law saying it's legal to kill jews and then kill them? It can't / shouldn't be punished?

1)It sure sounded like it - "a chunk of Germany and Poland"??
2)It isn't ok in the sense you mean, but it's ok from the point of view of national sovereignty. Morally wrong, obviously, but national sovereignty trumps all, in my opinion.

We're talking about brutal murder, torture, abuse and ethnical cleansing.

This behaviour was defined as crime at the time in most of the world, and they were aware of it. This behaviour was defined as a crime in thier own world just shortly before, prior to Nazi occuption, and they were aware of it.

The facts that they hid it from the outer world, never directly mentioned the solution, never made such an order by Hitler, they all suggest they knew very well that they were doing a thing that is wrong according to international standards and if discovered they would be penalised by international community.

Two words: National sovereignty.

I simply suggest that if you think there shouldn't be an Israel
you should arrange for the return of property to it's rightful owners.

When have I opposed that?

Yes they should. Soldiers are still not machines. You can't try a tank for executing inhumane orders. You can try a soldier.

It again boils down to national sovereignty.

Ignorance because Jesus was executed by the Romans after he began upsetting the people into revolt, demanding moral reform. He became a power figure, which Rome couldn't afford to keep alive.

Actually, the Jews were the ones who wanted to execute Jesus, Pontius Pilate didn't want to, gave them plenty of opportunities to free Jesus, or at least not execute him, but the Jews, or at least the Jewish religious leaders, declined.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Pontius Pilate didn't want to, gave them plenty of opportunities to free Jesus, or at least not execute him, but the Jews, or at least the Jewish religious leaders, declined.

Was that when he gave the choice of two prisoners to free: Jesus, or the mudering thief Barabas? That was the only direct opportunity I remember him giving them. What were the others?

[David Floyd]

Was that when he gave the choice of two prisoners to free: Jesus, or the mudering thief Barabas? That was the only direct opportunity I remember him giving them. What were the others?

As I recall, Pilate didn't even think that Jesus had violated Roman law, and was not inclined to charge him with anything.

This is really just a side argument, though.