I read this article today on Foxnews.com (don't worry, I don't get my actual news from there):
California Professor Probed After Sending E-Mail Comparing Israelis to NazisIt seems to me that there is such zeal in defending Israel (at least in the United States) in every regard that no honest critique of the nation could be presented to the public. At the very least, I get a whole "Israel can do no wrong" vibe from conservative folks in this country (including the above web site). I agree to a large extent that Israel needs support to survive. There are many people who would like to see the country destroyed, no doubt about it. Still, Israel is imperfect. It has made mistakes. For the health of its society, I feel that it even deserves criticism so that it may improve.
On the subject matter though, I found the professor's comparison to be fair. Surely, the Holocaust was worse than the current situation in Gaza and the West Bank. However, that
does not excuse the Israelis for their rather extreme prejudice against the Palestinians. Palestinians are regularly denied food, water, and other necessary supplies. They are kept penned up and cut off from the rest of the world. I have no idealistic dreams that the rest of the Arabic world would jump at the chance to help them, but it does give the Arabic world another argument against Israel. If Israel would make the feeblest attempt to extend its hand in new found friendship to the Palestinians, it would go a long way towards deflating the tension over there. Seeing that professor's criticism does make me sad that those most harmed by the Holocaust would be so quick to subject others to similar (if slightly lesser) treatment.
This topic is two-pronged: to what extent should we be able to criticize Israel with due consideration to its current troubles and what criticism of your own would you offer? To be fair, feel free to offer what you think Israel is doing well to counter any criticism.
None.
I thought his pictures and points were rather stupid and not 'identical'. "Nazis built fences and now so do the jews, GOTCHA!" and the pictures of bodies weren't comparable because most of those civilian deaths are a result of Human Shield tactics. The Nazi's treatment of the Jews was much worse and inescapable.
There
IS a bias for Israel, but this is not a good example.
I said what was happening in Israel wasn't on the same level, but many of the... themes are there.
None.
I'm taking issue with the professor. You're reply wasn't needed.
Nor is your flippant and dismissive attitude.
None.
And the possibility of this topic being closed just tripled.
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I'm curious what class(es) he sent the email out to, since one of the students who dropped out claimed the email was not in context of the course. What we do know, however, is that the man is a
sociology professor. Under that umbrella, the email's issue appears relevant.
EDIT:
"Alleging that the circulation of this course material caused them to drop his class, the students in their complaints claimed the subject of the email was not relevant to the course. The course title was “Sociology of Globalization” and the course curriculum covered contemporary, global conflicts and struggles." -
SourceAs for comparing pictures, that's an easy source to mislead and abuse facts. However identical something may appear, it is meaningless out of context and acts only as a fallacious appeal to emotion. Since the letter was not present in its entirety on the news article, I cannot judge whether the professor provided adequate context for each image.
Finally, whether or not he should have spoke his mind and shared his theory is a question for those too weakhearted to actually grapple and debate his assertions.
EDIT:
Reading over the
original email, I find this is far from some demonizing anti-semetic hate-speech. After the professor's introduction, the rest of the material in question was done by other people. We have an editorial written by a Jewish reporter, followed by the picture comparisons from some apparently Spanish forward.
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Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on May 5 2009, 8:22 am by Hercanic.
Is Israel a country, is America a country? Are the Jews people, are the Americans people, do
they have rights too? IF there is some "right" to discrimate the Jewish people than so should there be for the Americans! Plus it's pretty stupid to critize the israelis because they're basically Americans anyway. I just don't like it how people pick on certain groups of people just because they're different.
Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 3 2009, 1:07 pm by Dapperdan. Reason: this post is not SD worthy nor does it address the topic at hand
None.
