Israel vs. Middle Eastern Arab states

[Gibber]

Now thats what I call a liberal secular modern democracy EM!

 

[KOYAANISQATSI]

As long as poverty and lack of education rule Gaza, there is no chance for a lasting peace in the Middle East.

 

(And for balance)

 

relief for them from either, is not in Israel's game plan.

[Gibber]

That sounds like a criticism of Israel, not Gaza and its government unless you're saying that Hamas is the cause of poverty and lack of education. I wouldn't argue that except only in broad terms that their policy of exterminating Israel has caused this situation that requires a blockade and sanctions and hundreds of truck loads of goods per day from Israel.

 

So which is it? Israel's fault for poverty or Hamas' beligerance?

 

And what leads you to think that if this situation didn't exist, Gaza would have anything like the standard of living or education that we or Israel has? For starters the female half of the population would be severely curtailed from education and economic freedom. And if you are hoping that if Israel didn't exist then Gaza could have the wonderful standard of living of Morocco, Syria or Egypt then you're doing them a disservice anyway.

[EM]

I've just criticised an Israeli judge and by extension a part of Israeli law, off the top of my head I've criticised the settlements, Netanyahu and Shas previously.

Noted, and welcome.

 

EM couldn't bring himself to post one positive thing about Israel...

I certainly could not think of anything praiseworthy about the Israeli state's activities and achievements; I still can't. It wasn't a matter of not being able to bring myself to do so, rather, I can't indentify anything which could be praised. As I've already stated, there is no shortage of favourable examples to cite concerning many aspects of Jewish culture, be it in the diaspora or within Israel.

 

I've no problems with the ladies in the dancing clip being "same sex," but I must confess I would have to list such entertainment formats as a pretty good example of how rubbish TV can be. So, perhaps not a particularly effective example in general?

[Gibber]

I presume that by "Israel" you mean the state and official institutions of Israel rather than Jewish culture and endeavour. Laudable examples of the latter are many and exceptional. Not much springs to mind for the former, other than (at a push) perhaps a few of their Eurovision song entries.

 

No, anything Israeli you want including the Jewish culture and endeavour that continues as a part of Israel

 

So a liberal secular modern democracy isn't a positive in your eyes? And there are plenty of examples of the state and its institutions. Education being an obvious one. The State Education Law has been mentioned in this very thread if I remember rightly. Perhaps you find that instrument of state to be substandard?

[EM]

So a liberal secular modern democracy isn't a positive in your eyes?

In itself, not particularly, for several reasons.

 

The term liberal has become almost meaningless nowadays as it is commonly applied to everybody from the most "touchy feely" hippy to hard-right free trade capitalists. Israel may be described as liberal for having same-sex dancers, but that does not make it a liberal state.

 

Secular remains a clear and laudable property, but in the case of Israel I certainly would not list it as being a secular state, whatever it aims to be.

 

Modern democracy is not something which impresses me much, so even if Israel is an example of this (debateable, but not by me), I don't think this really matters much. Usually, the states with the most enlightened governments are modern democracies, but in my opinion the correlation is not a given. What matters is how enlightened a state's constitution is, and how well it is upheld. I'd prefer a dictatorship with good, just behaviour, than the realities experienced in most modern democracies.

[Gibber]

Secular remains a clear and laudable property, but in the case of Israel I certainly would not list it as being a secular state, whatever it aims to be.

 

So the State of Israel's aim to be secular and its methods of attempting to do so is a positive for you. As will be laudable parts of the constitution and the means of state that are employed to uphold it even if they fall short of your 'good dictatorship' utopia.

 

"...will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of religion, race, or sex; will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, education and culture; will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions"

 

Putting the adjective good onto anything makes it 'good', it doesn't make it practical or coherant in reality though anymore than 'good Aids'.

 

Democracy is the least worse system we've come up with, putting good in front of dictatorship makes as much real sense as good evil doers.

 

I'd prefer a dictatorship with good, just behaviour, than the realities experienced in most modern democracies.

 

Why wouldn't you prefer a democracy with good, just behaviour? what does a benevolent dictatorship have that a benevolent democracy doesn't?

[Guest Anonymous]

The results contain five principal points of interest.

 

First, on the vocabulary test adopted as a measure of intelligence, Jews obtained an average score equivalent to 9.25 IQ points higher than non-Jewish whites. This is closely similar to the Jewish IQ advantage of approximately 10 IQ points found in a number of other studies noted in the introduction. An IQ advantage of this magnitude is sufficient to explain most and perhaps all of the high Jewish achievement.

 

A population of gentiles with an average IQ of 100 has approximately 2% of individuals with an IQ of 130 and above. Jews with an average of IQ 110 should have about 9% of individuals with IQs at this level. At IQs above 145, Jews should have approximately seven times the proportion of gentiles (approximately 0.14% of the population of gentiles and approximately 0.98% of Jews).

 

These differences go a considerable way to explaining the high achievements of Jews.

 

Second, the results do not provide any evidence for the theory that Jews attach more importance to success or to studiousness than non-Jews. In fact Jews attach less importance to success and to studiousness than non-Jews in the results set out in both Table 1 and Table 2, although the differences between Jews and non-Jewish are not statistically significant.

 

Third, Jews do attach more importance to four values than non-Jews. These are considerateness, interest in how and why things happen, judgment, and responsibility, but it is not easy to see how these would contribute to the success of Jews in virtually all walks of life.

 

The results that Jewish parents are more likely to foster interest in how and why things happen suggest that this might contribute to the high Jewish achievement in science, but Jews have been equally successful in law, the humanities and business, for which an interest in how and why things happen would not seem to confer any obvious advantage.

 

Fourth, Jews do not differ much from others in the values they would most like their children to have. Jews and non-Jews attach most importance to their children having good judgement, being considerate, honest and responsible, and Jews and non-Jews attach least importance to their children valuing cleanliness and appropriate sex role behaviour.

 

Fifth, the results clearly support the high intelligence theory of Jewish achievement while at the same time provide no support for the cultural values theory as an explanation for Jewish success. Although the high Jewish IQ has been known for many decades, it has typically been ignored by historians, sociologists, and economists who have written on the high achievements of the Jews.....Yet it would appear that high intelligence is the most promising explanation of Jewish achievement."

 

as good a argument for eugenics if ever there was one, now where the castrating knife

[Guest Anonymous]

Arabs had a functioning sophisticated society while your ancestors were rubbing themselves with cowsh[t to keep warm.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1V2LbJ5aX8&NR=1

 

think again gibber

watch all 3 episodes, but the stsement at the end might just enlighten you and a few others

[KOYAANISQATSI]

I don't mean to take the moral high ground

 

Western European culture has enjoyed the fruits of Jewish over acheivement

 

Your academic development is far and away disproportionately the result of Jewish endeavour

 

Disproportionate Jewish overachievement is well documented.

This overachievement has also been attributed to genetics too.

 

a genuine, real science

 

Your ancestors were rubbing themselves with cowsh[t to keep warm.

 

Yes I hear what you're saying but before I crawl round on my hands and knees to scrub your carpet; I'd just like to check if your genuine, real science is settled and that it's not just you trying to manufacture a consensus with something you found on the internet, just because it tastes right to you and goes nicely along with the chips on your shoulder.

 

African IQ scores prove flawed

 

Wicherts and his colleagues examined over 100 published studies, concluding that there is no evidence to back up Lynn's claims. Amongst other flaws, Lynn used selective data by systematically ignoring Africans with high IQ scores. The researchers also claim that African IQ test scores cannot be interpreted in terms of lower intelligence levels, as these scores have different psychometric characteristics than western IQ test scores. Until now, the incomparability of Western and African IQ scores had never been systematically proven.

The scientists point out that the average African IQ is currently comparable to the average level in the Netherlands around 1950. However, IQ scores in Western countries have risen sharply over the course of the 20th century. In view of this trend, Wicherts and his colleagues claim there are no reasonable grounds to conclude that sub-Saharan countries are poor due to the lower IQ scores of their populations. As it turns out, the average IQ of African adults is seeing a similar rising trend, which is expected to continue if living conditions in Africa improve in future.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121155220.htm

 

I will deal first with an especially troubling example of the quality of the data on which Herrnstein and Murray rely. They ask, "How do African-Americans compare with blacks in Africa on cognitive tests?" They reason that low African-American IQ scores might be the result either of a history of slavery and discrimination or of genetic factors.

 

Herrnstein and Murray call on the authority of Richard Lynn described as "a leading scholar of racial and ethnic differences," They state that Lynn, who in 1991 reviewed 11 African IQ studies, "estimated the median black African IQ to be 75...about 10 points lower than the current figure for American blacks." Herrnstein and Murray conclude that the "special circumstances" of African-Americans cannot explain their low average IQ relative to whites. That leaves genetics free to explain the black-white difference. But why do black Americans have higher scores than black Africans? Herrnstein and Murray, citing "Owen 1992," write that "the IQ of 'coloured' students in South Africa--of mixed racial background--has been found to be similar to that of American blacks." The implication is clear: the admixture of Caucasian and African genes, both in South Africa and in the U.S., boosts "coloured" IQ 10 points above that of native Africans. But the claims made regarding African and coloured IQs cannot withstand critical scrutiny.

 

Lynn's 1991 paper describes a 1989 publication by Ken Owen as "the best single study of the Negroid intelligence." The study compared white, Indian and black pupils on the Junior Aptitude Tests; no coloured pupils were included. The mean "Negroid" IQ in that study, according to Lynn, was 69. But Owen did not in fact assign IQs to any of the groups he tested; he merely reported test-score differences between groups, expressed in terms of standard deviation units. The IQ figure was concocted by Lynn out of those data. There is, as Owen made clear, no reason to suppose that low scores of blacks had much to do with genetics: "the knowledge of English of the majority of black testees was so poor that certain [of the] tests...proved to be virtually unusable." Further, the tests assumed that Zulu pupils were familiar with electrical appliances, microscopes and "Western type of ladies' accessories."

 

For Herrnstein and Murray, the relation of their index of parental socioeconomic status to the child's IQ means that parents of high status--the "cream floating on the surface of American society"--have transmitted high-quality genes to their offspring. But other interpretations are possible. Perhaps the kinds of people who get high test scores are precisely those who are vain enough to claim exaggerated social status for themselves. That tendency could artificially inflate correlations of IQ both with parental socioeconomic status and with self-reports of success, distorting all tests of the relative predictive power of socio-economic status and IQ. Such an explanation may seem far-fetched to some readers, but it is clearly a logical possibility. The choice between such alternative interpretations of statistical associations cannot be based on logic alone. There is plenty of elbow room for ideological bias in social science.

 

The core of the Herrnstein-Murray message is phrased with a beguiling simplicity: "Putting it all together, success and failure in the American economy, and all that goes with it, are increasingly a matter of the genes that people inherit." Income is a "family trait" because IQ, "a major predictor of income, passes on sufficiently from one generation to the next to constrain economic mobility." Those at the bottom of the economic heap were unlucky when the genes were passed out, and they will remain there.

 

The correlations with which Herrnstein and Murray are obsessed are of course real: the children of day laborers are less likely than the children of stockbrokers to acquire fortunes or to go to college. They are more likely to be delinquent, to receive welfare, to have children outside of marriage, to be unemployed and to have low-birth-weight babies. The children of laborers have lower average IQs than do the children of brokers, and so IQ is also related to all these phenomena. Herrnstein and Murray's intent is to convince us that low IQ causes poverty and its attendant evils--not, as others hold, vice versa.

 

Herrnstein and Murray answer that the children of the poor, like their laborer parents before them, have been born with poor genes. Armed with that conviction, the authors hail as "a great American success story" that after "controlling for IQ," ethnic and racial discrepancies in education, wages and so forth are "strikingly diminished." They reach this happy conclusion on the questionable basis of their regression analyses. But the data, even if true, allow another reading. We can view it as a tragic failure of American society that so few black and low-socioeconomic status children are lucky enough to be reared in environments that nurture the skills needed to obtain high IQ scores. For Herrnstein and Murray, it is only fair that the race should go to the swift, who are blessed with good genes and high IQs. The conception that our society hobbles most of the contestants at the starting line does not occur to them.

 

http://www.mdcbowen.org/p2/rm/sciam1.htm

 

Hopefully this will be able to help your understanding further, on how to get over yourself.

 

 

PS. Charlemagne is as far back as I've traced my ancestry but whatever he was doing with cow poop, he must have kept it to himself, for I can find no written record about it.

[Gibber]

One article doesn't make a consensus and even that states that intelligence (whether its genetic or not) has been overlooked previously.

 

"Although the high Jewish IQ has been known for many decades, it has typically been ignored by historians, sociologists, and economists who have written on the high achievements of the Jews"

 

And the first link gives many reasons

 

"So while at a table of 12 at this conference that included Jews and non Jews (majority non Jews) I posed the question. Why are Jews over-represented in places when the most successful entrepreneurs meet up? The answers: some said tremendous emphasis on education, others said that there´s more solidarity among Jews than other groups, another answer related to a survival of the fittest theory that argued that after being massacred for thousands of years Jewish people are descendants of the few smart survivors,.........Personally I don´t have the right answer to give to antisemites. I wish I did cause a simple explanation would go a a long way. "

 

Unless what you mean is that Jews aren't disproportionaltely over-acheivers at all, rather than over-acheivers just based on [genetic] intelligence?

 

as good a argument for eugenics if ever there was one, now where the castrating knife

 

No, that doesn't mean that all Jews are more intelligent, and personally I wouldn't put genetics down as the sole reason for disproportionate over-acheivement, but then I wouldn't totally dismiss it either.

[NewMagnie]

I think you're perfectly aware that I'm referring to the introduction of Sharia law and not a one off murder that the criminal courts in this country sent the perpetrators to jail for.

 

Honour killings aren't one off murders and they are religiously motivated. It wasn't clear that you were referring to Sharia law becoming institutionalised in Britain.

 

Honour killings aren't one-off's granted - my reference was to Bob's example, hence the singularity - but they aren't part of our legal code or culture and are subject to criminal prosecutions - I think that was clear enough,

 

I don't need your help pal. If you're dumb enough to adopt an absolutist stance on this, your feeblemindedness knows no bounds.

 

Sod em all is as absolutist and for that matter, negative as it gets.

 

Fair enough - but its a flippant throwaway remark on an internet forum, a fairly limited communications platform - if you want to turn it around into a personal insult, that's your lookout.

 

Of course there's a moral equivalence between individual acts.

 

It seems like you're talking about states not acts although I don't really know what the judicial wrongdoing bit means in this sentence.

 

judicial wrongdong between Israel and the Arab States.

 

But I take your point you meant immoral acts.

 

I'm referring to acts - I'm trying not to slip into your habit of conflating states, acts and religions. I apologise if my shorthand is confusing but there is such a concept as judicial malfeasance, I didn't think it was that opaque.

 

The fact is we hold the Israeli nation to higher standards precisely because they are one of the more developed nations in the region,

 

But this is the interesting part and it echoes K’s thoughts about how his criticism of extremists is pointless whereas disproportionately criticising the liberal secular democracy of Israel is some sort of justifiable moral crusade. Although this doesn’t explain why he (and indeed many) will never criticise the less extreme, yet still morally wrong and institutionalised facets of Arab states that fall short of the flag burning jihadist hand chopping extremists, but will get very excited when some Israeli Judge makes a stupid decision or upholds a stupid law because of a prejudiced Israeli woman. And for that matter, Israel's crimes are as extreme and as blatant as hand chopping Jihadists for people like him, the naziesque mass murder of innocent Palestinian children etc. yet this doesn't fall under the 'its too obvious to comment upon' escape clause that is reserved for states that aren't Israel.

 

In the first instance why do you think you have the right to demand a higher standard? And wouldn't it be more sensible to hold others up to a higher standard instead of concentrating on the secular modern liberal democratic Israel? By your reasoning the more developed as a culture or society Israel becomes the more criticism it should attract because a higher and higher standard is demanded of it. Seems to be the wrong way around to me.

 

For the same reasons you believe you have the right to laud Israel's civil institutions.

 

Maybe it's not a higher standard - maybe its just a standard that's closer to our own, one that's less alien and less incomprehensible. That doesn't imply that we hold others to no standards at all, but one size doesn't fit all.

 

Because we're disussing a single state here, and no-one's raised their views on Burma or Tibet or indeed their own states, you'd be in error to assume they had none.

 

Additionally runing arguments about past achievements, religious views and current actions together merely muddles the argument. Founding the university of Krakow in 1460 doesn't give you the right to ethnically cleanse west Jerusalem in 2009 for example.

 

If on the other hand, you feel there's a strong argument there, go ahead and make it. My point is that as thinking, rational and hopefully ethical human beings, with varied life experiences, we're inclined to take a view on a range of subjects. Your language reads like you're the only on here with that entitlement.

 

Its way too complex to put it down to the contributions of one people - perhaps you need to read your O level history books again, and a little more carefully.

 

I'm not putting it all down to one people, I'm making the point that someone from a Western European Christian culture has no right to demand higher standards from Israel or write off their existence with a sod em all. Read your own history, Britain has only recently managed to start crawling out of the class system.

 

Nonsense, it (a) reads like you are and ( of course they do. Western Christian culture (*sigh* there you go again..) can shift for itself but western secular democracy is perfectly entitled to demand higher standards from Israel every bit as much as it is entitled to demand higher standards from China or Sudan - not necessarily the same ones of course.

 

If your point is that the demand for higher standards should not be limited to Israel you're right - but if it is that anyone who's a national of a country with any stain on its history can't comment, you're on shaky ground.

 

Who exactly is 'entitled' to an opinion? The Dalai Lama?

 

"your academic development is far and away disproportionately the result of Jewish endeavour" - total cr@p - yes, they're a people who value learning, if we stick with stereotype anyway - but "disproportionately"? - you're raving.

 

Sorry you're wrong

 

http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/general/antisemitic-people-and-jewish-overachievers.html

 

Disproportionate Jewish overachievement is well documented. It’s not a stereotype, it’s a Jewish cultural norm to value education. This overachievement has also been attributed to genetics too.

 

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/jewish-genius-10855?page=all

 

Sorry I can’t link to this for copyright reasons (because it’s from a special kind of Wikipedia, a genuine, real science article K!) and I've emboldened it to break up the text.

 

"How to explain high Jewish achievement: The role of intelligence and values

Personality and Individual Differences

Volume 44, Issue 4, March 2008, Pages 801-808

 

Richard Lynn

 

The results contain five principal points of interest.

 

First, on the vocabulary test adopted as a measure of intelligence, Jews obtained an average score equivalent to 9.25 IQ points higher than non-Jewish whites. This is closely similar to the Jewish IQ advantage of approximately 10 IQ points found in a number of other studies noted in the introduction. An IQ advantage of this magnitude is sufficient to explain most and perhaps all of the high Jewish achievement.

 

A population of gentiles with an average IQ of 100 has approximately 2% of individuals with an IQ of 130 and above. Jews with an average of IQ 110 should have about 9% of individuals with IQs at this level. At IQs above 145, Jews should have approximately seven times the proportion of gentiles (approximately 0.14% of the population of gentiles and approximately 0.98% of Jews).

 

These differences go a considerable way to explaining the high achievements of Jews.

 

Second, the results do not provide any evidence for the theory that Jews attach more importance to success or to studiousness than non-Jews. In fact Jews attach less importance to success and to studiousness than non-Jews in the results set out in both Table 1 and Table 2, although the differences between Jews and non-Jewish are not statistically significant.

 

Third, Jews do attach more importance to four values than non-Jews. These are considerateness, interest in how and why things happen, judgment, and responsibility, but it is not easy to see how these would contribute to the success of Jews in virtually all walks of life.

 

The results that Jewish parents are more likely to foster interest in how and why things happen suggest that this might contribute to the high Jewish achievement in science, but Jews have been equally successful in law, the humanities and business, for which an interest in how and why things happen would not seem to confer any obvious advantage.

 

Fourth, Jews do not differ much from others in the values they would most like their children to have. Jews and non-Jews attach most importance to their children having good judgement, being considerate, honest and responsible, and Jews and non-Jews attach least importance to their children valuing cleanliness and appropriate sex role behaviour.

 

Fifth, the results clearly support the high intelligence theory of Jewish achievement while at the same time provide no support for the cultural values theory as an explanation for Jewish success. Although the high Jewish IQ has been known for many decades, it has typically been ignored by historians, sociologists, and economists who have written on the high achievements of the Jews.....Yet it would appear that high intelligence is the most promising explanation of Jewish achievement."

 

I wouldn't bet too much on IQ testing if I were you. Its a fairly discredited device, subject to cultural bias and lack of scientific method. But its a point of view - I wouldn't accept it as definitive though

 

People like K and Damn Saxon will latch onto Jewish conspiracy theory to explain overachievement in fields such as banking and politics. As I brilliantly contrasted in a previous post why doesn’t K or Damn Saxon claim a black conspiracy in the fields of athletics or basketball?

 

That would be up to K and DS. I don't think I've posited any conspiracy theories.

 

Beside your repeated conflation of Jewish and Israeli (while understandable to a point) reveals the depth of your actual grasp of the subject.

 

Thanks, hopefully I'll be able to help your understanding further.

 

Very glib - I notice you're continuing to make the same mistakes.

 

ps, if you're going to call me illiterate you might want to stop using words like wrongdong.

 

You're right, I shouldn't have called your post illiterate.

 

But what you did was conflate race with religion, both Judaic/israeli and Christian/European - make broad assumptions about my faith and ancestory (which, btw, doesn't bother me on a personal level, it just makes your argument weak) - and which you've signally failed to respond to.

 

What I should have called it was intellectually lazy - a bit like posting a single article to support the notion of Jewish intellectual superiority.

 

But then, perhaps that shouldn't worry me. This is the internet after all, where people are wont to dismiss complex geopolitical situations with phrases like sod 'em all...

 

Patronising remarks along the lines of 'let me help you' or snide remarks about cowsh!t and football aren't really going to further your cause much either.

[Gibber]

Honour killings aren't one-off's granted - my reference was to Bob's example, hence the singularity - but they aren't part of our legal code or culture and are subject to criminal prosecutions - I think that was clear enough,

 

I already said it wasn’t clear but I take the point you meant.

 

Fair enough - but it’s a flippant throwaway remark on an internet forum, a fairly limited communications platform - if you want to turn it around into a personal insult, that's your lookout

 

I didn’t take it too personally, the moral equivalency between the two is invalid in my opinion.

 

I'm referring to acts - I'm trying not to slip into your habit of conflating states, acts and religions. I apologise if my shorthand is confusing but there is such a concept as judicial malfeasance, I didn't think it was that opaque.

 

Well you're conflating acts of state with individual wrongdoing, namely the legal use of phosphorus by the state and the illegal use of Palestinians as human shields by individuals of the IDF who were (IIRC) or would be prosecuted by Israel for doing so. And as a little footnote, extra judicial killings are just that, extra judicial, bomb makers in Gaza tend to evade legal judgement because there is obviously no will to prosecute them from those in charge. The best way to subject them to judicial process (a judicial process which has used the death penalty once, for Eichman) would be for Israel to reoccupy Gaza which I assume you are not arguing for.

 

For the same reasons you believe you have the right to laud Israel's civil institutions.

 

I don’t laud Israel’s institutions because I demand a higher standard of Israel.

 

Maybe it's not a higher standard - maybe it’s just a standard that's closer to our own, one that's less alien and less incomprehensible. That doesn't imply that we hold others to no standards at all, but one size doesn't fit all.

 

If Israel’s situation and its resultant actions are incomprehensible to you then you are in even less of a position to dictate what it should be doing. You could start by asking yourself what you and your country would do in Israel’s situation.

 

Because we're disussing a single state here, and no-one's raised their views on Burma or Tibet or indeed their own states, you'd be in error to assume they had none.

 

The thread is titled Israel vs. Middle Eastern Arab states which is probably why Burma and Tibet aren’t being discussed. Why is the criticism disproportionate toward one M.E. state, and indeed the only state that is a liberal secular modern democracy? Why would K rather eat his own leg than comment on some of the medieval standards enforced by the Hamas government?

 

Additionally runing arguments about past achievements, religious views and current actions together merely muddles the argument. Founding the university of Krakow in 1460 doesn't give you the right to ethnically cleanse west Jerusalem in 2009 for example.

 

If on the other hand, you feel there's a strong argument there, go ahead and make it. My point is that as thinking, rational and hopefully ethical human beings, with varied life experiences, we're inclined to take a view on a range of subjects. Your language reads like you're the only on here with that entitlement.

 

Previous Jewish endeavour should have no bearing on the acts of Israel. But criticism of Israel should be valid and backed up by argument, if it is I’ll be the first to agree with it, demanding higher standards of Israel than any other country begs the question, what standards have you got that give you that right? In the case of European history, and let’s face it, a mere 6 decades after the Holocaust, not many. It will also encourage people like me (and admittedly on an emotive level) to show people like you where you could look to a higher standard, namely disproportionate European Jewish achievement.

 

Nonsense, it (a) reads like you are and ( of course they do. Western Christian culture (*sigh* there you go again..) can shift for itself but western secular democracy is perfectly entitled to demand higher standards from Israel every bit as much as it is entitled to demand higher standards from China or Sudan - not necessarily the same ones of course.

 

No, I mean Jews are disproportionately responsible in view of the size of their population.

 

If your point is that the demand for higher standards should not be limited to Israel you're right - but if it is that anyone who's a national of a country with any stain on its history can't comment, you're on shaky ground.

 

Of course they can comment whatever their nation’s history but they cannot demand a higher standard from Israel than that of any other state.

 

Who exactly is 'entitled' to an opinion? The Dalai Lama?

 

Well yes, and indeed everyone, but on this thread it will need to be backed up with argument.

 

That would be up to K and DS. I don't think I've posited any conspiracy theories.

 

I didn’t say you had.

 

But what you did was conflate race with religion, both Judaic/israeli and Christian/European - make broad assumptions about my faith and ancestory (which, btw, doesn't bother me on a personal level, it just makes your argument weak) - and which you've signally failed to respond to.

 

What I should have called it was intellectually lazy - a bit like posting a single article to support the notion of Jewish intellectual superiority.

 

You as a person demanded a higher standard from a state, why can’t I question your grounds for doing so based on the culture and history and standards of your state or collection of states that makes up Europe? (apologies if you’re an Eskimo or something, not that that would allow you to demand a higher standard of Israel than other states either)

 

And I can only assume that some sort of ‘wrongdong’ has occurred during your accounting procedure because statistically speaking I posted 3 articles, unless I’m also too innumerate to analyse my own posts of course. I’m of the opinion that cutting and pasting numerous articles scooped up from Google and letting the shear weight of text replace a supporting argument is the intellectually lazy thing to do as I’ve said in the past on this thread. The 1st gives numerous ideas on the subject, the other 2 give a more recent and indeed controversial genetic view.

 

But then, perhaps that shouldn't worry me. This is the internet after all, where people are wont to dismiss complex geopolitical situations with phrases like sod 'em all...

 

I as a member of European Western democratic culture I demand a higher standard on the Shetlink Israel thread than any other thread.

 

Patronising remarks along the lines of 'let me help you' or snide remarks about cowsh!t and football aren't really going to further your cause much either.

 

I guess you’re right and “this is the internet after all†then.

[MJ]

I've just been reminded why I avoid this thread, but I was just shown this.

 

[Gibber]

Do we need more one sided inaccurate youtube evidence? And disproportionate criticism of Israel (Israel is the root of all problems) is exactly what I'm talking about.