----- Original Message ----- From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2002 3:52 AM Subject: Re: Trouble in Europe
> At 06:25 5-4-02 -0800, John Giorgis wrote: > > > Some interesting arguments on the latest outburst of > >Anti-Semitismin Europe: > > http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=105001871 > > I read the article, and not surprisingly, I disagree with it. I readily > accept that you have to be anti-Semitic to attack synagogues, and I most > certainly condemn those attacks, but exactly how many people where involved > in those attacks? There have been demonstrations against Israel's actions > throughout Europe; the total number of protesters is well into six-digit > range by now. Most of those people show no signs of being anti-Semitic, > they are opposed to the violence. It is only a relatively small group of > people who use those demonstrations to vent their hatred of Jews. > > This is a common tactic of extremist groups, BTW. Using mass demonstrations > to commit acts of violence has two advantages for them: it makes it look as > if they have much more support than they really have, and it makes it easy > for them to disappear into the crowd to avoid being arrested. > > The article, however, fails to make that distinction. Instead, it is > implying that Europe is anti-Semitic, thus implying that all those millions > of Europeans hate Jews. This is simply not true. Europeans are deeply > concerned by what is going on in the Middle East, but onlike the editors of > OpinionJournal, we do not utterly condemn one side and utterly defend > everything the other side does. Rather, we see that both sides are at fault > here. > > And why should we not criticise Israel? Much of their violence is > unwarranted. They accuse Arafat of doing nothing to stop terrorism, but at > the same time do everything they can to *prevent* him from doing anything. > They prevented European diplomats from entering Ramallah to get European > citizens out. They thwart attemps by international organisations like the > Red Cross to reach the wounded. When mr. Zimmi went to talk to mr. Arafat > and journalists tried to get near, they were stopped by Israeli troops, > fired at by Israeli soldiers and chased away with tear gas. > > And it is not just Europe who is protesting; pretty much the whole world is > growing more and more critical of Israel's actions. Heck, even the US, > Israel's long-time friend and ally, is criticising Israel and calling on > Sharon to end the violence. The fact that they have turned to *supporting* > UN Resolutions instead of vetoing them speaks volumes. > > So, why should we *not* criticise Israel? > Jeroen, what you are saying is that Europe, in the last 50-60 years, has changed all the attitudes, beliefs, and prejudices that underly the last 1500 years of history. I live in the "South". I recognise that there is still some outright bigotry here (in regards to the descendents of African slaves). We have had 135 years or so to change prejudice into tolerance and then into appreciation.(appreciation is the best word I could come up with as the antonym to predjudice. Help anyone?) And we have only been, at best, mostly successful. Extremists do not exist in a vacuum. they exist in a continuum. Those who bomb synagogues only exist if there is enough memetic pressure to allow them to find like minded comrades. This means that those prejudices have to exist in many places in a society. How these prejudices are balanced in a society is debateable but there is always some sort of balance between hatred and appreciation. Jeroen, my point is not that you are a bigot. My point is that you are guilty of hubris. You optimisticly overestimate the abilities of Europeans to free themselves from prejudice. (To be fair, I think you could say the same about John and America. And to some degree each of us in our individual situations. Its just one of those human things.) xponent Guilty Too Maru rob
