[WikiEN-l] Ray's anti-Semitic violent attacks on the Jews for not forgiving Nazis

[Ray Saintonge]

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