posted
I´m not taking sides for Israel but that website is using dead children for their bad propaganda...plus, I believe it is wrong to call the Palastinian suffering the Holocaust....there is absolutely no historical or political similarity between the genocide of the European Jews by the German Nazis in WWII and the conflict between Israel/Palastina in the Middle East.
-Hal-
[ January 24, 2009, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: Hal ]
posted
Sorry Hal - there is reason to call it a holocaust. In fact, I get offended when anyone uses the term "the Holocaust" as if to suggest there is only one. History is filled with these...Native Americans, aboriginies of Australia, the Armenians at the hands of the Turks (through the Kurds), the Palestinians. It's all genocide. They are all holocausts.
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posted
"In fact, I get offended when anyone uses the term "the Holocaust" as if to suggest there is only one."
This site, by its very title, appears to be suggesting that there are only two holocausts. In doing so, it could be argued that the site is equally dismissive of other genocides... "The New Holocaust"
quote:Originally posted by lynard: Sorry Hal - there is reason to call it a holocaust. In fact, I get offended when anyone uses the term "the Holocaust" as if to suggest there is only one. History is filled with these...Native Americans, aboriginies of Australia, the Armenians at the hands of the Turks (through the Kurds), the Palestinians. It's all genocide. They are all holocausts.
Personally I think it is historically wrong to call other genocides a holocaust, but I don`t want to split hairs and I certainly don´t want this discussion to start comparing the suffering or genocide of different ethnic groups. There is no question that the acts against the people you mentioned above (the Armenians, the Native Americans, etc.) were atrocious crimes, but for me the Holocaust will always be the industrial extermination of the European Jews by the German National Socialists. (I also know that a more correct term for the European Holocaust is to call it The Shoah) In my opinion, if you start calling everything "a holocaust" you will eventually end up like PETA, who ran a campaign called "The Holocaust on your plate", refering to the suffering and slaughtering of animals for food production. Even though I am a vegetarian for ethical reasons and strongly believe that the mass killing of animals is wrong, I still think this PETA campaign was totally idiotic, historically wrong and that it was bound to backfire (which it eventually did).
If the webmasters of the link in the top post want to call the Middle East conflict a "holocaust" I can`t stop them...but I think it is a really bad move and blatant provocation to accuse Israel of starting "The New Holocaust", especially considering that Israel was partly founded as a refuge for survivors of the Shoa and also considering that 75% of the population today are still Jewish. I´m a German living in Germany, and I know that many people here do not agree to Israel`s policy towards the Palestinians...but many of them are also totally fed up with the muslim world calling Israel "Nazis", comparing them to Adolf Hitler or refering to the conflict as "a holocaust". Those terms are just short sighted and wrong!
Just so you don`t get me wrong: I am in no way condoning the military acts of Israel. I merely disagree with the propaganda website/link that started this thread.
posted
Isn't the word "holocaust" a Hebrew word anyway? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I thought. I argue with my Armenian friend about it, because he harbors a lot of prejudice towards Jews because of what he perceives as the Jewish exclusive use of that word, when the Armenian Genocide was equally as horrible.
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merriam webster definition: a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially through fire <a nuclear holocaust>
I also think any group who suffered a genocide should have the right to refer to it as a holocaust. Just my two cents. I can't see it as being "historically" wrong as long as they're not calling it "the" Holocaust, which clearly everyone associates with the Nazis.
posted
Thanks Vander, I looked it up myself a bit later and realized I was indeed incorrect. Anyway, as far as "rights" go to refer to any sort of tragedy of the like, it seems to me to be more semantics than anything. Either way, it's horrible.
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The term holocaust originally derived from the Greek word holókauston, meaning a "completely (holos) burnt (kaustos)" sacrificial offering to a god.
Its Latin form (holocaustum) was first used with specific reference to a massacre of Jews by the chroniclers Roger of Howden and Richard of Devizes in the 1190s.
The biblical word Shoah (שואה) (also spelled Sho'ah and Shoa), meaning "calamity," became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the 1940s.
posted
The Jews and Arabs have been fighting since the first one picked up a stick or a stone. I'm not taking up for either, but I think Israel was right to kick the Hamas asses. The Hamas are really a bunch of chickensh*ts as they intermingle with the innocent Palestinians for cover, then use the innocents as a ploy. If they're going to send rockets into Israel, then Israel has the right to self-protection. And I have nothing against anyone's personal religious beliefs because I don't agree with any of them, and I include Christianity in that. Religion, greed, and hatred are the cause of most of the world's problems.
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quote:Originally posted by bluesman4123: Religion, greed, and hatred are the cause of most of the world's problems.
Sadly, this has been true for the majority of human history. The worst part about that is that we haven't learned.
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