Robert, with friends like you, the Jews don't need enemies.

Those whom I have met through Wikipedia, and whom I recognize to be Jews have with only one single exception approched this class of topics with remarkable discretion and sensitivity.

Robert wrote:

Ray's attacks on the Jews for not forgiving Nazis is not only off-topic, but outrageously hateful. Without any exagerration, his argument comes directly from Neo-Nazi websites. This is no joke. Please look at the many Nazi websites on the Internet; they have precisely the same argument Ray uses here.

Every mainstream Jewish organization has condemned this specific argument as anti-Semitism.

I don't spend time on Neo-Nazi websites so I am not as familiar as Robert with their tactics. I must believe him if he says that they use the same argument.

I'm sure that those sites say a lot of other far more hateful things. There is something fundamentally illogical in the argument that if an evil organization employs one argument in the pursuit of its goals, than anyone else who uses it must also be evil. I think that this is a case of "post hoc, ergo propter hoc."

Forgiveness is about healing the victim, much more than about liberating the criminal. A feeling of hatred and a lust for revenge causes far more agony and sleepless nights for the person who feels them than for the object of those feelings.

Ray writes:

...

but militant Jewish organizations continue to insist that the matter be continued in the criminal justice system.

As opposed to gentiles, who don't enforce the laws of their nations? In what country? On what planet?

You are putting the letter of the law above the spirit of the law. I am suspicious of what people mean when they say "I want these criminals brought to justice." More often they're after revenge.

...

These very vocal and very public organizations manage to promote a public image of Jews as completely insensitive and unforgiving.

This is classical Chrisitian anti-Semitism, and has been used for over 2,000 years to explain why all Jews will burn in hell. It also paints the victim as evil for the "sin" of asking that justice be served.

Is it really anti-semitism to be severely critical of those minority elements in the Jewish community who bring the whole community into disrepute. I have not introduced the issue of Jews burning in hell; you have. If the bulk of Jews allowed themselves to identify with the compulsively masochistic victimization that you propose their lot would be far more difficult than it is now. If I could ever bring myself to believe in Christian fairy stories, I'm sure that the judgement that results in anyone being condemned to hell would not be left in the hands of the believers.

...

The same can be said of the Nazi hunters who continue to seek punishment on old men 60 years after the fact, often at great expense.

There is no time-limit on mass murder and genocide. Members of my own family were exterminated by the Germans. Why should people be allowed to get away with rape, slavery and murder, just because they were lucky enough to evade the legal authorities at the time? That is a highly immoral position.

So what difference does it make that members of your own family were among the exterminated? If 10 happened to be members of your family, how different is their situation from that of the other 5,999,990? How does it earn you a spot at the top of the heap?

Perhaps my sense of justice is different from yours. It is not based on a need for revenge or punishment, but on integrating these perpetrators back into normal life, and perhaps having them contribute within their individual capacity to the improvement of the lot of others. Ann Frank did not become a role model by hating the Nazis. The Truth and Reconciliation process in post-apartheid South Africa is far superior to an endless series of war-crime tribunals.

...

There comes a time when these events need to be put behind us so that everyone can go on with life.

So it would be Ok, if someone here raped and murdered your mother, raped and killed your sister, and killed your father and son, and burnt all their bodies in an oven? And then did this to most of your extended family? You'd actually argue in public that someone who did such a thing should be allowed to get away with it, if they evaded the authorities at the time and lived as a free man until he was 60?

I don't need to personalize the question by speculating how things would be if my relatives were the victims.

Sixty years after the fact the stragglers are much older than sixty. Most of them left the Nazi lifestyle shortly after the war, and likely went on to get married, have children, and otherwise live normal productive lives. That's perhaps the most that we can demand out of justice. Continued persecution also affects the liives of others who had nothing to do with the events in the camps; it just widens the circle of hatred. The ones that are left were among the youngest at the time; their education was gained in the Nazi era when an alternative morality might not have been available. The young prison guards were as much victims of their circumstances as the people whom they helped to kill. It's all part of the military mentality, which recent events at Abu Ghraib have proven to be still alive and well.

If so, then you are a sick man who needs mental help, immediately. If not, then you have an anti-Semitic double standard.

It's hard to respond when you have so clearly run out of coherent arguments.

I am disgusted at this pro-Nazi, openly anti-Semitic vitriol. I am just wondering if anyone here will have the guts to oppose this violent hatespeech.

If Dante had been Jewish he would have found you a proper spot in Gehenna.

I am well aware of and support the distinction that Steven made between personal attacks and hate speech. If in this I have inadvertently stepped into the latter, I trust that the majority will accept my apologies for such errors.

Ray