My erstwhile sympathy for egg-bedraggled Black-Jewish Labour MP Oona King has taken a bashing on reading this.
MPs compare Gaza to Warsaw ghetto
Press Association
Thursday June 19, 2003
Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was today compared to the Nazis' creation of the Warsaw ghetto by MPs who recently returned from the region.
The controversial comparison, drawn by Oona King and Jenny Tonge, will anger the pro-Israel lobby and the visiting Israeli finance minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, who met Tony Blair at Downing Street this morning.
Labour MP Ms King, who is Jewish, said Gaza was "the same in nature" as the infamous Polish ghetto.
5 comments:
What's your beef? The first I hear of the woman is her doing something I approve of, so my initial opinion is positive. I then find out said woman has made damn fool utterance, my opinion goes down accordingly. Nothing much to puzzle over there, I would have thought.
If you are going to try to make the case that there IS a valid comparison between Gaza and the Warsaw ghetto, be my guest. Here's your starter-for-ten:
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/W/Wa/Warsaw_Ghetto.htm
But if you're going to convince me, I'll expect to see some kind of evidence along the lines of, say, "Jews preferred living under Nazis" to parallel what you can read here:
http://impdec.blogspot.com/2005/04/palestinians-prefer-zionist-domination.html
J
PS This guy in the Guardian made a good point on Oona and Gaza:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,976513,00.html
Friday June 13, 2003
The Guardian
In equating Gaza with the Warsaw ghetto, Oona King overlooks the question of choice (Israel can halt this now, June 12). The inhabitants of Gaza suffer because of the choice, widely supported by most of them according to all reports, to use violence against Israel. Were these inhabitants to choose peace, there is every indication the Israelis would not be long in departing Gaza.
Those in the Warsaw ghetto had no such choice against the Nazis. She might therefore wish to reconsider her suggested boycott of Israel.
John Goldman, London
I find the whole academic boycott thing quite disturbing.
I find the line "Israeli academics who refuse to condemn their government's actions in the occupied territories risk a boycott by the UK's leadinf lecturer's union."
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,9959,1452283,00.html
There's something deeply Orwellesque about needing to publicly affirm your support of condemnation for a particular group. Is anyone calling for a similar boycott od Muslim academics who do not condemn Islamist terrorism? And would we be confortable with such a boycott?
Spot the difference competition:
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http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/W/Wa/Warsaw_Ghetto.htm
In the three years of its existence, the population of the ghetto dropped from an estimated 380,000 to 70,000
http://www.pnic.gov.ps/english/health/Health_Development.html
Gaza Strip population in 1987 reached 664,378
http://www.fsmitha.com/world/gaza.htm
The population of the Gaza Strip, estimated for July 2004, is 1.3 million... Population growth estimated for 2004 is 3.83 percent
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http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22liquidation+of+the+Warsaw+ghetto%22&meta=
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22liquidation+of+the+Gaza+Strip%22&meta=
Who was it who said 'comparisons are odious'.
Problem with arguments based on comparisons is that you end up with two people just going 'This is how x & y are similar' - 'No! This is how x & y are different.'
1. This is Wembley's comment reposted. Please note that online I am "JP", nothing else. I personally was unhappy with private discussions being in a public forum in the first place, and I suggest a policy of strict anonymity is followed at all times. I am thinking of continuing this discussion by email anyway.
2. On some blogs comments that get personal would be disallowed. The "git" comment would fall into that category. Followers of our discussions over the years will note the absence of such comments in my postings/mails.
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From Wembley 71
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JP you are a git.
Saying there are points of comparison is NOT THE SAME as saying they are identical in nature and character.
Dunno exactly what Oooooo-na-na said, and I no longer care. Here is my point:
Once upon a time there was a community of people, bonded by culture and a common religion, living peacibly in a land they called home. Then, over the course of time, their land was taken from them by military force, predicated by a difference of cultural and religious identity. Many were moved from their homes, against their will.
The new military power determined their 'rights' and insisted upon compiance with the imposed laws of the new autority - even though the religious and cultural group that they belonged to was treated radcally differently in law than the religious and cultural group of the powerful arrivants.
Finally, with rights to citizenship and travel 'controlled' (i.e. denied), and rights of ownership and residency 'controlled' (i.e. restricted), the authoritative power decided to erect a physical barrier, guarded by armed enforcement officers, between the lands freely open to the dominant cultural group, and the lands to which the original inhabitants were now restricted.
The end.
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OK JP, you tell me which parts of this tale do not apply equally to the Warsaw Ghetto and to Gaza?
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Making comparisons is not the same as suggesting moral equivalence - which would clearly be abject bollocks. Your hearing gets very selective when anyone starts (a) criticising Israel or (b) sympathising wih Palestinians.
Pip pip!
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