Tuesday 27 January 2009

Academics Support Occupation

We have been recieving messages of support from academics across the university. Priyamvada Gopal came today to the Law Faculty to speak to us on the topic of 'Gaza: Why Academics Must Speak Out'.

Below is the message that she and Christopher Warnes sent to the Vice-Chancellor:

Dear Professor Richard

We are writing to express our support for the initiative recently taken by Cambridge University students in support of the people of Gaza. We understand that right now negotiations are taking place between representatives of the university and the students concerning proposals for how this university can respond to the catastrophe in Gaza.

We do not believe there is a substantial conflict of interest between the university, its staff and the students on these matters. These students are showing motivation, drive, commitment, perseverance, and principle in abundance - exactly the qualities we as teachers value most in our students. We would thus urge you and your negotiating team to respond sympathetically to the student proposals.

Yours sincerely,

Christopher Warnes
Faculty of English and St John's College

Priyamvada Gopal
Faculty of English and Churchill College

Others include:

Dr Richard Drayton
Faculty of History University of Cambridge
Rhodes Professor of Imperial History- electKings College London:

I am in the United States for the term and will only be very briefly in Cambridge here and there. But I do want, for what it is worth, to send you a message of support. What has taken place in Gaza over the last two months is an act of collective punishment of a civilian population which is precisely equivalent to what Nazi Germany did to towns and cities like Lidice and Oradour in the Second World War in response to an armed resistance to its occupations, respectively, of Czechoslovakia and France. Such acts of collective punishment are themselves war crimes of the first order. The attack on Gaza's people also involved many other abuses of the norms of civilized warfare (if we accept the possibility of such a thing) including the destruction of hospitals, schools, farms, water and electricity plants, and involved the use of radioactive weapons ('depleted uranium', standardly used in modern heavy projectiles, is a euphemism for uranium which can have up to 50% of the radioactivity of 'normal uranium) and weapons such as white phosphorous. British corporations have provided weapons and technology which supported this assault, the British government has permitted their export, and cooperates extensively with the Israeli defence establishment, and British consumers are among the most important supporters of Israeli settler commercial agriculture. In this context, it is right and proper that British civil society take a stand that there cannot be business as usual, that we must take stock of these crimes against humanity, and do what we can to show that we stand on the side of human rights and justice. The student occupations in Cambridge, London, and Oxford represent exactly the kind of act of democratic public witness which universities should seek to protect.

AND

Dear Friends,

I had no idea that you had instigated this show of solidarity with the
people of Gaza, & I'm so heartened to learn of it. Israel has created the
biggest concentration camp on earth. Its wholesale butchering of innocent
civilians in response to the undeniably idiotic & murderous provocations by
Hamas edges into genocide; the complicity of the West is thus a shame & an
infamy.

Every bomb that fell on Gaza will have been branded by a US arms
manufacturer. It falls upon each of us to ensure that our personal actions
do not sustain this vast & mystificatory totalitarian network. And this
includes applying pressure within the University, in order to ensure
openness and accountability over its investments. For who otherwise will
help the maimed & the suffering inhabitants of this land? Certainly not the
louche billionaire racketeers who run the Arab League.

I am so grateful to you for making a stand - at no little personal risk. But
this is what is means to be fully alive.

In solidarity & with warmest wishes,

Michael Hrebeniak
Fellow, Tutor & Director of Studies in English, Wolfson College, University
of Cambridge

57 comments:

  1. "What has taken place in Gaza over the last two months is an act of collective punishment of a civilian population which is precisely equivalent to what Nazi Germany did to towns and cities like Lidice and Oradour in the Second World War in response to an armed resistance to its occupations, respectively, of Czechoslovakia and France."

    'precisely', eh? this guy ought to be sacked.

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  2. HKM,

    As a member of the occupation, I think there are two points to make:

    1) It is inaccurate and offensive to compare Israel's acts to those of the Nazis who perpetrated the Holocaust. Yes, what Israel is doing in Gaza and the occupied territories is obscene; but why choose to compare it to the Holocaust, rather than any of the other examples of war crimes that have occurred through the ages? This kind of comparison detracts from the historical uniqueness of the Holocaust.

    2) Collective punishment is collective punishment. It's an obscenity, it's a crime against humanity, and Israel is doing it (and if Hamas is only performing acts of collective punishment on a comparatively tiny scale, it's not because of goodwill on their part).

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  3. I have never been more horrified or offended by 'precisely' that comparison. Lidice hadn't been sending rockets into Germany for the preceding eight years. When will people realise that this is not one-sided, look beyond the front page pictures in the Guardian, look beyond unreliable and futile statistics, and actually start at least trying to be objective.

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  4. Cambridge Occupation, if you mean what you say viz 'collective punishment' being a crime perpetrated by both sides, then why not -- as you refuse to in the FAQ -- condemn Hamas?

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  5. HKM/Georgia - the precise equivalence lies in the collective punishment of a civilian population.

    You don't like that comparison, then let me give you another which will get under your skin: what Israel has done in Gaza and the West Bank is to create a Ghetto/Shtetl into which it sends its troops and bombers to destroy every time that an Israeli politician needs to look tough.

    And when you make comparisons between the thousands of deaths caused by direct Israeli violence and the tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of deaths caused by the destruction of the economy, civil society, and state of Palestine and Hamas rockets, it might be helpful if you told us what has been the total death toll caused by those Palestinian rockets we hear so much about over many years in Israel?

    And you might consider that if Israel withdrew to its 1967 boundaries, and forcibly removed its settler/colonists from the West Bank and Gaza, and rebuilt what it had destroyed, then even those puny gestures of resistance which are the rockets would stop.

    Never forget too that Israeli intelligence's support virtually created Hamas from the 1970s onwards with the aim of weakening Fatah and secular Palestinians. Now Hamas is the enemy!

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  6. HKM: 'should be sacked' - there we see the Zionist attitude to those who have opinions different from them in its full flesh. So it is a sackable offence to compare Israel's collective punishment of civilians with Nazi Germany's? Maybe you might want to reword your comment and write either 'I strongly disagree with' or 'Georgia''s gushing expression of horror

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  7. "And you might consider that if Israel withdrew to its 1967 boundaries, and forcibly removed its settler/colonists from the West Bank and Gaza, and rebuilt what it had destroyed, then even those puny gestures of resistance which are the rockets would stop."

    I'm not necessarily advocating for what Israel did in Palestine, just objecting to the 'precise' parallel that isn't.

    He didn't mean 'precise equivalent' *in one aspect*, otherwise... it wouldn't be a precise equivalent. He means that, like France, sovereign Palestine was invaded by Israel, which then indiscriminately massacred entire villages in retaliation for all of the rocket attacks made by the French resistance on German civilians. Or something.

    Given that Hamas wants Israel pushed into the sea, I don't think a pullback to the '67 borders is going to stop the rockets.

    Why do you want to 'get under my skin' by comparing Israel with Nazi Germany? It's not the most persuasive tactic.

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  8. "So it is a sackable offence to compare Israel's collective punishment of civilians with Nazi Germany's?"

    Well, it sounds odd coming from someone in the History Faculty, put it that way. Note, he didn't 'compare', he called it the 'precise equivalent'.

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  9. HKM maybe english isn't your first language. The sentence youare commenting on reads: "is an act of collective punishment of a civilian population which is precisely equivalent". Now go back to primary school grammar classes, if you had any, the subject of that sentence is "an act of collective punshment of a civilian population"

    Perhaps instead of misparsing a sentence in defence of Israel you might actually care to express an opinion against atrocities committed by Israel on civilians? Your "am not necessarily advocating' is one of the more nauseatingly weasily formula I've seen mustered in such a context.

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  10. Actually, English isn't my first language -- good sarcasm though, like it -- and I still fail to see your point. He is saying what Israel did in attacking Gaza is 'precisely equivalent' to the Oradour massacre. That is what I object to.

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  11. HKM: 'should be sacked' - there we see the Zionist attitude to those who have opinions different from them in its full flesh.

    No, but anti-Semitism is a sackable offence! There is not even a tinge of moral equivalence between the Nazis and the Israelis. To say so is anti-Semitic. Not every jew supports Israel, but the swastika or nazi tag is a symbol calling for the death of every single jew. If you people are really so ignorant as to require a point by point comparison of the two states, I would be more than happy to provide one. Israel may well have acted in the wrong, Israel may well be guilty of all the crimes which you put forward, but don't for one minute begin to ponder Nazi parallels, I can assure you that you will lose support from any one with a modicum of knowledge and objectivity on the subject.

    Professor Drayton should stick to his field of expertise, extra european history (for those that don't study history, that means outside of Europe), which clearly doesn't include an understanding of the Second World War and Nazi policy, aims and realities!

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  12. In fact I suggest we all have a look at Lidiece and Oradour-sur-Glane on a site like wikipedia. Perhaps professor Drayton would have learned somthing from doing that. Please look and then genuinely try and argue for something that is 'precisely equivalent'!

    On Holocaust memorial day, I find ti most upsetting to witness the complete rape of History

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  13. and before some smart ass corrects me, it was meant to read Lidice

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  14. >'These students are showing motivation, drive,
    >commitment, perseverance, and principle in >abundance - exactly the qualities we as >teachers value most in our students.'

    this is obviously true. on the other hand, the worst student is the one who disrupts the learning of the others in a selfish attempt at attention grabbing. It's clear by now that alot of undergraduate lawyers are pissed off with the situation you have created.

    of course, by now it's too late to avoid getting badly fucked for your actions but one hopes that the undergraduates have the sense to come in and kick you out instead of continuing the exemplary display of tolerance and manners they have so far exhibited.

    FUCK
    OFF
    OUT
    OF
    OUR
    FACULTY.

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  15. Marcel Mouse, I think your comments have exposed you as a complete Anti-Semite.

    "You don't like that comparison, then let me give you another which will get under your skin: what Israel has done in Gaza and the West Bank is to create a Ghetto/Shtetl into which it sends its troops and bombers to destroy every time that an Israeli politician needs to look tough."

    History lesson for you:
    A ghetto and a shtetl are two completely different concepts. The definition of a ghetto is an enclosed part of a city in which a minority ethnic, religious or national group is forced to live. The Palestinians are not a minority in Gaza city. By definition, Gaza is not a ghetto!

    A Shtetl is simply a Yiddish word meaning town or village. They were mainly smalling farming towns with a jewish majority or a large jewish minority that appeared across the pale of settlement in Eastern Europe during the 19th Century. A shtetl was simply a town where jews lived, they could move around, they could leave. Your comparison of Shtetl and Ghetto is laughable and you clearly don't understand the concept of a Shtetl if you think it can be interchanged with Ghetto.

    As for the charge of Anti-Semitism. The reason you think such comparisons will 'get under people's skin' (the fact that you want to get under the skin of those you are debating with speaks volumes for you as a person), is because such a comparison has no factual relavence to the situation, and is simply an attempt to use imagery offensive to Jews. Ghettos were invented to keep Jews in abject living quarters in early Venice and throuhougt history, until most recently Ghettos came to take on a horrible role during the holocaust. Not every Jew supports Israel, but I am sure that references to Ghettoisation are painful for every single Jew. I can't understand your use of the term Shtetl, other than that it was a village in which Jews lived and presumably you are alluding to the fact that Pogroms were comitted against them in these villages?

    You have exposed yourself as a racist and in so doing have certainly lost my respect for any point you make, and I would hope the respect of others and indeed your co protesters.

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  16. you're all so fucked.
    this is just funny now.

    one day you might manage a protest with an aim and a chance of success, but it won't be this one.

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  17. These comments from Prof. Drayton and those defending him are deeply unsettling, and doubly awkward for emerging on Holocaust Memorial Day.

    I suggest we direct our comments not to this blog but to the principal of KCL.

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  18. Here we go, here we go, the usual tactics, first, the equation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism, then the subsequent attempt at censorship of such criticism. The old one-two! It is laughable

    It would be nice if HKM, ignorants and all the sockpuppets actually had the courage of Professor Drayton to speak in his own name in public. There is nothing in his statement of support which is antisemitic. Read it again. His point is that the use of collective punishment of civilian populations as a response to partisan resistance by the German army is comparable to the atrocities committed by the IDF against civilians in Gaza

    And 'ignorants' since the territory of Gaza and the West Bank are essentially defined by what the IDF and 'settlers' don't want, we are at looking at a city which is in the situation of a 'ghetto' in the classic sense, and a rural area of overlapped Palestinian theoretical sovereigny but effective Israeli military control which is effectively a shtetl, pogroms included.

    What really irks you guys is to to look in the mirror and to realise that what was done to you you are now doing to others. If you truly respected Holocaust Memorial Day you would be doing your utmost to oppose those who practice the murder of civilians, wherever or whoever they are. That is the way to honour the Holocaust.

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  19. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  20. And read Professor Drayton's piece once more- he makes no mention of the Holocaust. What he refers to are reprisals taken against civilian populations (none of them Jewish) as acts of collective punishment for the activities of a few partisans. Holocaust never mentioned, nor does he even defend Hamas. His point is about the behavior of an army towards civilians.

    Why can't you all say, just once, that what the IDF did was unacceptable?

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  21. >> HKM/Georgia - the precise equivalence lies in the collective punishment of a civilian population.

    You'd better start patrolling school playgrounds, as I hear the practice of throwing stones at a kid for something his brother did is collective punishment. No, smart aleck, the "precisely equivalent" bit applies both to what initiated the response and the response itself.

    So, neither had Lidice or Oradour been firing rockets at German civilian targets nor was the death-toll in Gaza arrived at over a matter of hours out of a population of just a handful of thousand.

    Rhetoric and logic not your strong points, eh?

    >> What really irks you guys is to to look in the mirror and to realise that what was done to you you are now doing to others.

    You just cannot help yourself, can you? The collective "you guys" speaks the same volumes about your basic psychopathology as boasting of getting under others' skin. Next, and I'm going to go out on a limb here, what makes you think Ignorants is one of those who had anything done by the Nazis? (Just as where he's at any point justified Cast Lead, and not the opposite.)

    Answer, none. Speaking for myself, I am not one of 'those' people, and find your gratuitous offence to be matched only by your lack of any knowledge of the Hitlerian period.

    >> If you truly respected Holocaust Memorial Day you would be doing your utmost to oppose those who practice the murder of civilians, wherever or whoever they are. That is the way to honour the Holocaust.

    How should it be done? Grieving over dead Jews but not those determined to remain not-dead? Go on, tell 'those' people how they should remember the single most traumatic events in theirs or anyone else's history.

    Here's a tip for you. Holocaust Denial is not only about denying its existence. It's also about denying it's *significance*.

    >> It would be nice if HKM, ignorants and all the sockpuppets actually had the courage of Professor Drayton to speak in his own name in public.

    What, like Marcel Mouse? Well, let me offer my name.

    >> Why can't you all say, just once, that what the IDF did was unacceptable?

    He did leave just that very possibility open.

    >> And read Professor Drayton's piece once more- he makes no mention of the Holocaust.

    Did he refer to massacres committed at Lidice and Oradour committed by groups other than the Nazis? Of course he mentioned the Holocaust.

    Don't try to back-pedal now you've been caught defending this repellent comparison.

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  22. Alan (whatever the name you've chosen for your mask), until we see the equivalence of mass murder wherever it happens (whether of gypsies, jews, whatever) and condemn atrocities against civilians we aren't going anywhere

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  23. >> Alan (whatever the name you've chosen for your mask),

    What, is this me? Now, what sort of mother calls the fruit of her loins "Marcel Mouse"?

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  24. Unacceptable and comparable to the Holocaust are two different things. You clearly have a dangerous lack of knowledge about the Holocaust, which was the industrialised, unprovoked murder of six million Jews. That's the starting point - now look up the rest (by the way, it's probably not a good idea to use Hamas as a brilliant authority on these matters).

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  25. Thank you, Alec, for your points. I'm not Jewish, but I guess 'you guys' (that's you Marcel), would imagine I were, given my defence of what is palpably an historically inaccurate comparison.

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  26. Aye, Georgia, it's always a laugh when self-styled anti-racists start imagining their critics are of a certain ethnic group. First time as tragedy, second time as farce.

    I don't mind being mistaken for one of 'those' people, it's being called Alan which gets my goat.

    >> until we see the equivalence of mass murder wherever it happens (whether of gypsies, jews, whatever)

    It'll be a start if you tell us what that means. Some 80% of European Jews died in the Holocaust. The death toll of the Roma and Sinti is much less clear, because of their transient lifestyle, but ranges between 200,000 and one million.

    In addition to Polish Jews, upwards of three million non-Jewish Poles died in the same period. Maybe 40 millions died across Eastern Europe in barely half a decade.

    The dead during Operation Cast Lead, the population of a moderate shtetl (that's a Jewish village which isn't seen anymore).

    Equivalence? You're a tad confused, ain't you?

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  27. Alec: "Did he refer to massacres committed at Lidice and Oradour committed by groups other than the Nazis? Of course he mentioned the Holocaust."

    I'm not sure I follow. The Nazi regime did many things. Not all of them come under the term Holocaust.

    I'm not trying to express an opinion on his comparison here, because I don't know enough to do so. But you seem to be putting words in his mouth, and I feel that is unfair.

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  28. Stumo, indeed the Nazis did many things - Aktion T4, invasion of half of Europe, bombing and machine-gunning of civilian columns in northern France, killing millions of non-Jewish Poles and Russians and others - but it's the whole Jew-murder thing they're best remembered for. Indeed, anyone with a basic background knowledge of period and Hitlerian ideology would know just how integral Jews were.

    "Marcel Mouse" has, without biding, started calling his critics 'those' people who're descended from the victims of Nazi antisemitism and out-disgusting even Prof. Drayton by directly mentioning the Holocaust. This suggests that either this was Prof. Drayton's intention or "Marcel Mouse" is a little bit thick (or, a bit of both, of course).

    The I.D.F. could have done everything it's accused of, and then some. To hammer this home, Prof. Drayton could have compared its actions to the Imperial German military in Belgium 1914, or Russian forces in Grozny, or the Janjaweed. But, no, he says it is "precisely equivalent" to crimes of the Jews' greatest single historical persecutor.

    To deny this is, at best, woefully ignorant of the period in question; at worst, the Isidor technique. The Ku Klux Klan did many reprehensible things, and not just tormenting blacks, but if someone compared a Jamaican gang-killer to them or turned up at a protest against street violence in a white pillow, I would reach for the barf-bag.

    Furthermore, Prof. Drayton speaks of something called "war crimes of the first order". You may know that under jurisprudence, war-crimes follow an incremental scale from A to C.

    Let's say he meant Class-A war-crimes. Sorry, mate, that simply refers to the violation of treaties and international borders.

    Let's say he meant the touchstone of seriousness, those against humanity (Class-C) which is used interchangeably with "war-crimes" in my experience . Sorry, mate, that cannot reasonable be said to have occurred in a convention conflict in which less than 0.25% of the local population died, and those who did die appear to have been overwhelmingly combatants or used by combatants as concealment.

    All that's left is Class-B war-crimes, which should be investigated where they've occurred but are neither of the first-order in alphabetical scale nor of the Nazi-like image he sought to create.

    Is Prof. Drayton a academic in international law, or even the Nazi period?

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  29. "His point is that the use of collective punishment of civilian populations as a response to partisan resistance by the German army is comparable to the atrocities committed by the IDF against civilians in Gaza."

    no, no, not 'comparable to'. 'precisely equivalent to'. had the israeli army gathered together and killed the entire population of a gazan village, the point would approach validity. or, i suppose, if the french resistance used human shields, or attacked german civilians. or if the israeli presence in gaza was remotely like the german occupation of france. or if nazi germany was actually a reasonably liberal democracy that *hadn't* invaded all of its neighbours and set about the extermination of europe's jews. i mean, yeah, in one of those cases, then perhaps would start to approach having a point.

    what drayton said was offensive to the memory of those who fought in the resistance against the nazis. i do personally think that it is at best tactless to constantly try to force parallels between the israelis and the nazis, but that i leave that sort of thing to your conscience because in the end reasonable people will start walking away from you.

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  30. Israel really needs an up-to-date equivalence/comparison (delete as appropriate). How about calling Gaza an open-air Lao Gai?

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  31. How's it all going? Great work guys, keep it up. There are more people supporting you than you might think.

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  32. How is Israel like the Nazis? On holocaust memorial day of all days!. Shame on you.

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  33. Which holocaust are we supposed to be remembering?
    The genocide of Native Americans? (50 miilion +)
    The mass slaughter of Chineses in "The Great Leap forward" (30 million +)
    The slaughter of Russians under Stalin (62 Million +)
    The million Iraqis who have died since the invasion?
    The slaughter of Tootsies in Rwanda (just under a million)
    The Irish Famine (9 million)
    The slaughter of Armeniansby the Ottoman Empire (1.5 miilion)
    The slaughter of civillian Palestinians in Gaza right now?

    The list could go on and on. There's nothing distinctive or special about the way that the Nazis slaughtered people in WW2. Why should we focus on that one episode when there have been many worse mass slaughters and many more recent ones. The people who make a big deal out of the holocaust don't seem to give a damn about any that have happened since.

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  34. Before anyone accusing me of being a holocaust denier, I am merely pointing out that there were many terrible tragedies that have shamed humanity. Why should the crime perpetrated by Nazis towards Jews,gypsies,homosexuals,etc always has to be forced down our throats every single day? What makes them unique?

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  35. >> Which holocaust are we supposed to be remembering?

    TJ, try checking the H.M.D. site, you cupid stunt. This, for those who're interested, is the Isidor defence; making a lie truth through repetition:

    >> The genocide of Native Americans? (50 miilion +)

    Rationale? No, no, not Ward Churchill.

    A disclaimer, what was done should not be celebrated or held up as an example for now, but it is beholden on you to demonstrate genocidal intent.

    Indian culture was always romanticized in the popular imagination, in the U.S. at least. I'd say, at least 75% of state names are Indian-derived. Add to that town-names and modern Americans who boast Indian ancestary - 10% or more - drawing an equivalence with the Holocaust is like imagining Himmler calling his children Pocahontas and Tecumseh.

    But, you are a Denier, aren't you?

    >> The million Iraqis who have died since the invasion?

    Evidence? Apart from discredited reports in the Lancet.

    >> The slaughter of Tootsies in Rwanda (just under a million)

    Toosie was a film with Dustin Hoffman. You're thinking of the Tutsis, and it wasn't all Tutsi. And it is specifically remembered on the H.M.D. site.

    >> The Irish Famine (9 million)

    Oh, come on! This was a reprehensible event in British history, but it was neither equivalent/comparable to the Holocaust nor nine millions!

    (Incidentally, seizable charitable donations were received from certain American Indian groups which "genocide" had missed.)

    >> The slaughter of Armeniansby the Ottoman Empire (1.5 miilion)

    Again, check the "About the Genocides" section of the site.

    >> The slaughter of civillian Palestinians in Gaza right now?

    You haven't been reading this thread, have you, you twat.

    >> The mass slaughter of Chineses in "The Great Leap forward" (30 million +)

    >> The slaughter of Russians under Stalin (62 Million +)

    Arguably discussed under the Cambodian genocide, discussed on the site. Particular mass-killings may not be mentioned, but due to your spectacular ignorance of what H.M.D. actually says, it's a dead cert that if they were, you'd progressively redefine the terms to deny Jews any right to remember the time 80% of their friends and families - just six decades ago - were murdered.

    Why are they *still* upset?

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  36. >> Before anyone accusing me of being a holocaust denier,

    Too late.

    >> I am merely pointing out that there were many terrible tragedies that have shamed humanity.

    And I'm the Queen of Sheba. Go here:

    http://www.hmd.org.uk

    Then either report back and admit you're wrong, or run away and hide.

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  37. Mmmm, tumbleweed blowing by.

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  38. "There's nothing distinctive or special about the way that the Nazis slaughtered people in WW2"

    How sick is that?

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  39. We can all agree that we should not remember the Holocaust *instead of* remembering other instances of genocide. We should be aware of them all.

    But rather than stopping here, TJ then goes off the wall and starts equating the recent offensive in Gaza and the invasion of Iraq with the Holocaust.

    I would be surprised, except that I've heard this warped logic from the foaming mouths of rabid anti-Israelis many many times.

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  40. Listen, occupiers, the last thing you need is messages of support of the kind Richard Drayton wrote.

    Nor do you need supporters with views like those of Marcel Mouse.

    But you are, of course, blinded by your own self-righteousness.

    Still, who needs that Cambridge degree anyway?

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  41. where did this talk of anti-semitism and holocaust denying come from? I'm sure it wasn't from this guy you accuse.
    ( and by 'you' I mean exactly what was meant by this mouse person before, by You I mean all those so agressively attacking both the teacher and their advocate, you used this as an opportunity to twist his arguements to fit exactly what you wanted him to be, an anti-semite. it's disgusting.)
    look, this teacher did not mention the holocaust. how dare you? HOW DARE YOU, use this catastophy of human suffering as means to win you own little blog battle. this man used a well known example of collective punisment in a war situation. shall we have some others: the british treatment of the Boers during both of those imperial wars, the collective punishment, (notice genocide is not mentioned at all) of native americans through out the history of the united states, the executions of entire collectives "villages" in the spanish civil war, the carpet bombing of civilians in vietnam and panama, the invasion of afganistan, various instances in the iran-iraq war, the events in Kosvo, those ignored events in chile in nicguragua where those collectively punished where not nessesarily members of a particular race (just like in the holocaust!) but where in fact a political MAJORITY whose communities suffered the wrath of the state.
    If we're going to use an example of collective punishment from the second world war shall we look at the communists socialists and trades unionists who were the first to be rounded in to ghettos and concentration camps after a communist supposedly burnt down the reichstag.
    I think this guys example stands, are you really saying that these resistance movements killed Less people than palestinians have done? or are you so callous as to think that you can argue the muder of individuals on a numerical basis: the murder of one civillian is as abhorent as the muder of a hundred but one cannot justify the other. but this is the point you should be making: NO-ONE CAN JUSTIFY THE DELIBERATE TARGETING OF CIVILIANS IN A WAR OR AN OCCUPATION. the palestinians should, in my oppinion, have used there legal right to resist the target military institutions. I would whole heartedly support thousands of missiles leaving the occupied teeritories if they were all aimed at IDF institutions. As the technology for accurately targeting these institutions is not available I would suggest that not rockets be fired in to what is now called isreal but based on the 1948 borders is really palestinian territory.
    sorry it's long. This is my real name. my e-mail adress is samwade@hotmail.co.uk and if contact I am willing to talk to anyone face to face about the legitimacy of this demonstration
    I appologise for spelling mistakes but I am a statemented Dyslexic
    Sam Wade, factory worker and IWW member

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  42. >> Look, this teacher did not mention the holocaust. how dare you? HOW DARE YOU,

    Oh, fuck off you pathetic middle-class nobody.

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  43. >> shall we have some others: the british treatment of the Boers during both of those imperial wars,

    Yes, he could have said that (and, above, I gave some other less than illustrious examples). Yet he didn't. Because there's not the same frisson of excitement in taunting Jews with swastikas and Nazi comparisons.

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  44. I hope the university takes action against those few senior members who seem happy to see its life disrupted.

    Though of course they are not brave enough to join the occupation. Oh no.
    Even if Israel's actions are "precisely equivalent" to those of Nazi Germany.

    Much easier to let the students take the fall.

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  45. Shocking stuff. I mean, Prof. Drayton's comments show merely a crass and needlessly inflammatory misrepresentation of history. It's the subsequent comments that are really bad.

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  46. "I would whole heartedly support thousands of missiles leaving the occupied territories if they were all aimed at IDF institutions."

    The murder of anyone be they a civilian or an IDF solider is abhorrent.

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  47. So, ignorants/ce, if it is anti-semitic to compare to compare the state of Israel to Nazi Germany even though - as you say - not all Jews support the state of Israel, how do you explain Gerald Kaufman's speech in parliament 5 days ago in which he - a British Jewish MP - made 'precisely' that comparison. Once again, you are making the dangerous mistake of universalising the Israeli state to a position where it represents World Jewry. To call Jews Nazis is abhorrent; to call the IDF Nazis is common-sense.

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  48. "Let's say he meant the touchstone of seriousness, those against humanity (Class-C) which is used interchangeably with "war-crimes" in my experience . Sorry, mate, that cannot reasonable be said to have occurred in a convention conflict in which less than 0.25% of the local population died, and those who did die appear to have been overwhelmingly combatants or used by combatants as concealment."

    Alec M. - sorry, mate, but you seem to be reducing mass murder to an exercise in statistics and numerology. Wasn't that what the Nazis did?

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  49. >> Alec M. - sorry, mate, but you seem to be reducing mass murder to an exercise in statistics and numerology. Wasn't that what the Nazis did?

    No, try harder.

    Same goes for you, Owen. If I can find two Zionist Jews who disagree with Kaufman (which I can) can I tell you to put a sock in it?

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  50. Alec M . You said this: "Oh, fuck off you pathetic middle-class nobody"
    to Sam Wade and have thereby discredited any and all of the points you made previously. Sam levelled a cogent and damning critique of your rabid Zionism - you say you are not Jewish, so, in you, we have the spectacle of a non-Jewish Zionist - and it impinges on you to respond in like manner. In failing to do so, falling into name-calling, you have automatically ceded the argument.

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  51. How about we discuss the Israeli state's treatment of its own academic historians - like Ilan Pappe, for example - who dare to speak about against the prevailing orthodoxies of Israeli historiography. For those who don't know, Ilan Pappe was hounded out of Israel.

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  52. "can I tell you to put a sock in it?"

    No, because that is what Zionists do to people who disagree with them. People like Ilan Pappe, for example. Or Israel Shahak whose book 'Jewish History, Jewish Religion' is an intelligent discussion of the closed utopia that is modern-day Israel. It silences dissenting voices. There is no room for them within the community because of the threat they pose to the continuing brutal repressions of those (Palestinians) outside the community.

    Find two Zionist Jews, find 5000. That doesn't stop Zionism being an abhorrent, nationalist ideology which is sadly hegemonic amongst many Jews and non-Jews (such as yourself). On this point, you might like to familiarise yourself with John Rose's book 'The Myths of Zionism' and Joel Kovel's book 'Overcoming Zionism'. Both argue that it is the main obstacle to achieving peace in the Middle East.

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  53. >> to Sam Wade and have thereby discredited any and all of the points you made previously.

    Why?

    >> Find two Zionist Jews, find 5000. That doesn't stop Zionism being an abhorrent, nationalist ideology which is sadly hegemonic amongst many Jews and non-Jews (such as yourself).

    Why?

    >> People like Ilan Pappe, for example.

    Thank you and goodnight!

    >> Or Israel Shahak whose book 'Jewish History, Jewish Religion

    Are you a spoof?

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  54. No. Read them. It'll actually help you. You evidently need help. Or do you have a problem with people citing academic sources with whom you disagree?

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  55. Let's see, Ilan Pappe and Israel Shakah... yes, I do have a problem with calling them reputable academic sources.

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  56. Owen: "to call the IDF Nazis is common-sense."

    You may as well call any army Nazi -- Russian, American, British. It's an absurd comparison, in my view an offensive one. No, not all Jews are pro-Israeli, and Israel does not represent all Jews, but people who want to 'get under the skin' of others by making the 'parallel' have clearly got something else going on with them: anti-Semitism.

    What do you mean by 'Zionist' in your comments? Why is Israeli nationalism abhorent, but not Palestinian? Israel actually pulled its settlers back from Gaza. 'Zionist' seems just to mean 'pro-Israeli'.

    Sam Wade's posts are presumably the work of a particularly gifted agent provocateur.

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