> > Why can a comparison to National Socialism not be
>> made?
>
>I am not saying it can't be made, just that there is
>something unseemly about the regular comparison to
>National Socialism whenever Israeli engages in
>atrocities which are not uncommon for any armed state
>engaged in war.
Yet again this correspondent attempts to defend the Israeli state by insisting that its war crimes are merely standard practice and that critics are therefor hypocrites. But while it is undeniable that Israel is not the first state in history to use such tactics against its enemies (Rome's destruction of Carthage is a contender for that honour) that doesn't make it standard practice.
>Chris Doss, for example, is something of a Putin fan,
>even though there are some parallels between
>Russian/Chechnya and Israel/Palestine. But nobody,
>other than the American Right, would think of calling
>Putin a Nazi.
>
>Incidentally, the most fanatical defenders of Israel
>on the German "left" also tend to be fans of Putin and
>Milosevic. It's interesting that this is not the case
>in the Anglophone left.
Funny you should mention Milosevic, who was prosecuted for crimes against humanity for engaging in the sort of atrocities which you claim are standard practice. It seems international standards of behaviour in war may be somewhat higher than you assert.
> > They are both blood-based national movements using
>> the logic of
>> victimization to permit themselves anything while
>> taking the moral high
>> ground.
>
>cf. Germany and former Yugoslavia.
>
>> Is Israel, by definition, incapable of fascism?
>
>No. Every nation-state, by default, is capable of
>fascism. When a mass movement emerges in Israel to
>demolish parliamentary democracy and disrupt
>trade-union meetings, I might take the idea seriously.
I understand the government system in Israel already has mass support among the privileged ethnic caste. The privileged ethnic caste strongly support the systematic second class treatment and exclusion from power of other ethnic groups. The privileged ethnic caste also strongly supports the use of torture and murder against dissidents from the second and third class citizens of Israel. (Though I understand that, unlike Nazi Germany, gestapo tactics are not permitted to be used against dissidents from the privileged ethnic group, or any other fully-fledged members of the human race.) The privileged ethnic caste also seems to have no qualms about imprisoning the entire population of other ethnic groups in walled ghettos, surrounded by guard towers and guards who shoot on sight.
This is all carried out quite openly and unashamedly. No denials are even considered necessary. I guess Hitler had a need to demolish parliamentary democracy, as yet there is no such need in Israel. The privileged ethnic group who benefit from the system are happy with it. The subject classes of course are largely deprived of any vote in that system of "parliamentary democracy". They are less than slaves, they are undesirables, vermin.
Naturally, this attitude towards those it treats as human vermin within its own borders tends to affect how it engages in wars in neighboring territory. Instinctively, the Israelis tend to want to clear its bordering of vermin, i.e. people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds. This creation of a "buffer zone" it thinks of as part of its inalienable right of self-defense. Just as the Romans did, after Carthage proved a credible threat. Solution, exterminate them, render the enemy territory uninhabitable
But as for this being a standard or acceptable part of warfare in the modern world, no. In fact your persistent claims that it is, marks you as a dangerous psychopath in the eyes of civilised people.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas