@Goomy pls:
@Adrian
Yeah, that's the major problem. It is pure invective to compare Israel to Nazi Germany as the two are actually substantially different beasts altogether.
Well, Xotan answered that himself: his intention with that word was to administer an elctroshock. And I have to agree with him that, speaking as someone who has no personal/emotional ties to either side, it can get pretty hard not to draw some parallels between the behaviour of Israel and some the crimes of the Nazi. This doesn't mean that I'm calling every Jew or even every Israeli a Nazi, of course, and nobody is claiming that Israel is building extermination camps or using Palestinians for Mengele-style experiments. On the other hand, it does mean that I honestly don't see much of an intristic difference between for example the Nazi claiming that they had a right to whatever Lebensraum they chose and Zionists claiming that they have an exclusive (or at least superior) right to a land because it was supposedly their ancestral land a couple of millenia ago: both are claiming that they deserve these lands because they want and/or need them, and fuck the people living there who happen to disagree. Same thing with comparing corraling nearly two millions in a tiny, blockaded stretch of land where basic things like power, food or clean water are sparse with an open-air concentration camp, or pointing out that the Nazi too had a thing for disproportionate, undiscriminate retribution against civilian populations.
(On a side note, I jusqt had this thought: aren't modern Jews said to be mostly descended of the two tribes that used to live in the kingdom of Judea before the Romans crushed said kingdom around 70CE and exiled its population, with the fate of the other ten tribes a mystery? Wouldn't that then mean that even if we granted their claim to the Zionists, they'd only have rights to what used to be the territory of Judea? What do you think)
And as for the Frenchman bit, surely you are disgusted by the behaviour of anti-Zionist rioters in your country? I have heard that, to escape the rising anti-Semitism and cries of "Hitler was right" (I take it he was also right in invading France?) and "Gas the Jews" (and look like the true villains in this situation? sure, you couldn't be more helpful for Zionism even if you were their paid agents [/Ralph Flanders on Joe McCarthy]), thousands of Jews are evacuating France for Israel by the week.
Well, the Frenchman bit was referring to the fact that as a citizen of a countrythat strongly values the notion of an universal and secular law for everybody, the idea that a country would recognize religious laws is pretty disturbing, but duh! Of course I'm disgusted, two wrongs do not make one right, particularly when things go beyond justifiable opposition to Zionism and into hateful anti-semitic territory. On the other hand, I can't say that I'm particularly surprised that pro-Palestine groups would react with anger and hatred to what is happening in Gaza. A bit surprised that such riots would happen in France, but that's mostly the "it can't happen here, can it?" reflex speaking.
That said, I just did some reading about these riots in French newspapers to get a better grasp of exactly what happened (I tend to live as a recluse, with little awareness of current affairs except for what I hear about by friends or through FSTDT), and according to Libération it appears that in at least some of the demonstrations the ones responsible for things turning violent were hooligans who had come looking for an excuse to fight and break things, not the sincere pro-Palestine protesters. And a couple of cases also involved a gang of radical Zionist/Kahanist hooligans, la Ligue de Défense Juive (a French version of the Jewish Defense League. Both the French and the US version are classified as terrorists by the FBI and by Israel, btw) who were for example recorded attacking protesters with chairs, tables and weapons while shouting "Palestine, we fuck you up the ass!" They have quite a record of provocation, vandalism and property damage, and straight up violence, including against pro-Palestine activists and anti-Zionist Jews: just last months, two of their members were for an attempted bombing against an anti-Zionist Jewish blogger. Pretty disgusting, wouldn't you agree? And definitely not helpful, be it for the peace and safety of the Jewish community in France or to solve the unholy mess of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Oh, and another interesting detail: yes, a couple of pro-Palestine demonstrations turned ugly. You know what didn't get even a fraction of the media attention of these riots? The 50-60 pro-Palestine demonstrations around the country that did not get violent.
@Xotan:
@ Adrian
Cher Adrian, je suis heureux de rencontrer un autre français sur ce forum, mais je dois vous avouer que je suis, en fait, pas français moi-même. Je suis irlandais. Cela dit, j'ai vécu dans le sud de la France dépuis très longtemps. Donc, je suis peut-être moitié français.
OK OK. Perso c'est comme ça que je verrais les choses ^^
My use of the German term for living space was quite deliberate. It was intended to shake complacency in respect of what is actually happening in an area that is particularly susceptible to American influence.
I suspected as much.
