Holocaust Dropped From Some UK Schools 1286
dteichman2 writes "It appears that some UK schools are ignoring the Holocaust. A government-backed study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, found that some teachers are reluctant to teach history lessons on the Holocaust for fear of offending Muslim students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial. Additionally, similar problems are being encountered with lessons on the Crusades because these lessons contradict teachings from local mosques."
Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Old news. (Score:5, Insightful)
We already have schools ignoring real science to avoid offending radical Christians.
Accomodating religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this a problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
You have *got* to be sh!tt!ng me. (Score:5, Insightful)
What happened to "lest we forget"???
You know, there's verifiable evidence of the Holocaust. Photos. Movies. Graveyards. Camps. Survivors.
This is a dark day for the human race.
The source.... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the sort of "journalism*" wiling to blame paedophilia for rising house prices, and frankly I would never believe a single thing they say, nor anything their readers say unless it was backed up by at least 3 independent sources.
And even then, I'd still take it with a metric ton of salt
*Any good editor would call it an opinion piece, and any good editor would bin it and sack the writer responsible.
So what about the Jewish people? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sure I can see the reasoning though (being serious now): If we piss of the Jews they will complain vs. if we piss off the Muslims the radicals will riot, burn things, etc.
The day we stop discussing facts/history because somebody may be offended is the day we are all screwed.
Revisionism (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing to see here... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Deny everything (Score:5, Insightful)
I call BS on the summary! (Score:1, Insightful)
Beliefs of a few people in a group are NOT representative of the entire group.
Re:teach both.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
Questions you shouldn't have to ask. (Score:4, Insightful)
On the one hand, you're denying the validity of the very scientific method itself, which can't possibly be a benefit to the future of your society. On the other, though, you're denying the atrocities societies are capable of, even in our "enlightened" era. If you don't know it happened and don't know it can happen, that has to make it more likely for it to happen again.
I suppose, upon further review, that if I had to choose, I'd rather skip the Holocaust than teach ID. The Holocaust could probably be replaced with the Khmer Rouge, Stalin's purges, and Darfur to accomplish the same goals of warning. You lose a bit of connection, since all those examples are "somewhere else" in a way that Germany in the early 20th century isn't, but they're still perfectly good examples of what can happen.
Moreover, ID is certainly more widespread in this country than Holocaust denial is in the UK, so it's certainly a more immediate threat.
Still and all, the fact that I even have to think about this is ridiculous.
Don't change history for convenience (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, I am always amazed when I watch the History channel and see how much was left out of or glossed over in the US history textbooks, especially regarding the Revolution. I'm sure that its to give kids the idea that America is great, noble, etc. etc. but I don't think that ignoring our own history (especially the mistakes we've made) does anyone any good.
LIes, damned lies and the Daily Mail (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus the story is dated the 2nd of April so I'm not sure what the submitter was trying to achieve other than to provoke the flamefest that will inevitably ensue.
Re:Deny everything (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The source.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Accomodating religion (Score:2, Insightful)
Why does accommodating religion nearly always harm society?
Because most (all?) religions are intransigent in their core beliefs, even in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence. Society pays the price for bending over backwards to appease fairy tales.
Re:Questions you shouldn't have to ask. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:teach both.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Scaremongering (Score:5, Insightful)
I wasn't aware that holocaust denial was a part of the Muslim religion, especially since their holy books etc were written long before it actually happened and I'm not sure exactly what teaching about the Crusades goes on inside mosques but if this teaching is correct then teaching it in schools as well will just re-enforce the lessons and lead to better exam grades for Muslims.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
"Let us not become so tolerant that we tolerate intolerance".
I think this is that kind of a scenario. And, as always, complacency will only lead further into oblivion. If this is what is happening, then it really is time for the UK to wake up. Really, that time has already come and gone, but if they finally do realize what is happening, we can forget that they're late to the party, and embrace the fact that they showed up at all.
However, the hard question is what is there to be done about this. Frankly, I am hard-pressed to see a solution to this crisis. As the percentage of the people who espouse these beliefs rises within the UK population, they are going to feel increasingly empowered, both by the virtue of their numbers, as well as due to the apparent utter impotence of the British in the face of their assault.
Not True (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:1, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
(FWIW, I am not a muslim.)
That Is Pathetic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignoring the scientifically-confirmable, historical reality of the holocaust hurts others. Lots of others. I don't think it's going too far to say that a pedagogical approach like this is *catastrophic to any society that implements it. You could end up with an entire generation that doesn't know where fascism tends, and what the real human cost of demagoguery is.
Fear of Islam (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the reasons why I changed my mind on the Danish cartoons that enraged the muslim world so much.
Fear cannot be allowed to dictate what we say or teach.
If you say what you think and someone threatens your life for saying it, they have broken the law in most civilized countries. Send them to jail.
In this case it's not even a matter of belief. It's a matter of fact. The Holocaust happened and denying it is in itself illegal in some countries. Rewriting history is a very serious thing, even though it's being done on a daily basis. History is there for us to learn from so we do not repeat it. We better learn our lessons or we're bound to make the same mistakes over and over.
Re:Old news. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:0, Insightful)
In fact, I think if you read the book, the Jews may have been promises the 'promised land' but they committed genocide in the process of claiming it. Not to get on a rant, but genocide does seem to be rather common. There is no reason to think that the Germans weren't trying a bit of it on their own.
Re:Accomodating religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixed with a reminder: Allowing someone to practice their beliefs is good. Insisting everyone switch to yours is not.
Re:Old news. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not saying creationism is valid science by any stretch, but the ethcical comparison simply does not exist.
Re:They do have some cause (Score:1, Insightful)
Reality vs opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, not their own reality. You get to to have your own ideas about what facts mean but you don't get your own facts. 2+2=4 no matter how hard you believe otherwise.
Reality is that which doesn't change no matter how hard you wish it otherwise. The Holocost is objective reality. The fact the whole Middle East was on the Axis side is also objective reality. The fact they LOST WWII is objective reality. And in the end that last fact is the heart of the matter. Because if all three of the facts I just stated are reality their own worldview can't exist, so they collectively went into denial. Because it all comes down to their objection of the Western powers setting up Israel. Here in Reality winning WWII gave the victors the right to remake the defeated enemies territories including, granting Israel to the surviving Jews, splitting up Germany, tearing apart Japanese society and remaking it in our own image, etc.
The difference is we didn't occupy the Middle East and force their backwards asses into the 20th Century, mostly because before oil was discovered nobody cared enough. That was a mistake, but hindsight is always better than foresight. What is happening now with appeasing the crazies is obviously stupid to anyone outside government and the far left. If we won't stand up and defend the teaching of objective REALITY how is the West supposed to muster the courage to defend it's BELIEFS?
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's a perfect statement here. To me, this situation is unbelievable.
"The report said teachers feared confronting 'anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils'."
By that logic, schools in the US shouldn't teach about slavery, fearing a confrontation of an 'anti-black' sentiment among racist hicks.
I don't think any reasonable person could argue that the holocaust didn't happen. If there's a strong anti-Semitic view in the mosques of England, I suppose there's nothing we can do about that. But that doesn't erase the fact that the holocaust happened and school children should learn about it.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
A reason for teaching of history's atrocities is to show people what horrible things can happen. It's so we don't repeat our mistakes, and that the educated citizenry can identify trends that could lead to a repeat and (hopefully) do something about it.
Could something like the holocaust happen again? Sadly, yes. But the likelihood of it happening is diminished with education.
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're inferring emotion, based upon your own preconceptions. Moderation is a numerical system. Things are not "violently" moderated. They might be "quickly" or "repeatedy" moderated. Can you show me an example of a post that mentions the holocaust or holocaust denial and which was not either completely offtopic, or an emotional appeal instead of a logical argument?
Now don't get me wrong. I'm all in favor of discussion of the holocaust. My grandfather did not like to talk about the war, but he made a point of telling all of us kids that the deniers were full of crap because he saw the furnaces full of bones and the camps. For the most part, however, the topic is not pertinent to subjects being discussed on Slashdot and an impartial audience probably should mod them down, regardless of nationality.
teaching the Holocaust is being made *compulsory* (Score:1, Insightful)
It's often considered a big list for special interest groups to lobby over to get their pet subject included. This topic must then be taught by all state schools (not private/home schools, thank goodness).
The problem is that when you force people to sit and learn something (or, from the teacher's POV, you force them to teach something), especially while you're banging the drum about the glorious freedoms and rights of your nation, you will make them resent you.
You see, the Holocaust was awful, but it was not the the only awful thing to happen in human history. If you say "OK, we're going to make the Holocaust compulsory for all kids to learn" but not, say, any number of other massacres/mistreatments in the name of race, power, politics or just plain bloodymindedness, you are implying, somehow, that the Holocaust was worse.
The concerned party then asks, "Why are you implying that the Holocaust was worse than [insert long list here]?" But there is no answer - how do you quantify "horrificness"? You can rank by number of deaths, but then Stalin's purges beat the Holocaust; you can rank by racism, but blacks have suffered in the past three centuries in greater numbers under slavery (and I wouldn't recommend considering slavery as "better" than death). You can rank by the extent to which government records (census data etc.) was used in massive quantities for the first time to oppress a group, but the amount of data that could be used against you was paltry compared to what is collected on every citizen today.
So, let the fair history teachers combine various examples to give a sufficient overview to schoolchildren. A teacher with a strong agenda/bias isn't going to teach better because the government forces him to cover particular topics - he's just going to rebel, as above.
Re:Why is this a problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
X: love it or leave it, for any nation X.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Cambodia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge [wikipedia.org]
Rwanda: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1288230.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Darfur: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict [wikipedia.org]
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Do most people in the US talk to muslims? I hear condemnation of suicide bombings from muslims all the time.
As I'm sure you're figured out by now, Falwell died last week. I think your argument is for more muslim televangelists. Sure, there are very vocal TV personalities who refer to themselves as christians and loudly proclaim all sorts of things. Sure televangelists would go on TV and and denounce people who set off bombs, but I bet they would not refer to them as "radical christian bombers" and neither would the papers. Did you hear anyone call the unibomber a "christian radical bomber?" What about the oklahoma bombers? Most of the suicide bombers are not acting for religious reasons so much as political reasons. It is just that religion and politics are as tied together there as they are in the US, but there they admit it.
Why don't you learn to speak arabic and get a satellite dish. Then start watching religious and political programs from the middle east and report back as to how many christians there are on said TV denouncing the actions of the US military in the middle east.
Re:That Is Pathetic. (Score:4, Insightful)
fascinating and troubling problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Faith, obedience to God (or whatever the leader says that God meant, truth be told) and adherence to the group's internal norms are the only virtues. They hate a free, tolerant society for the very values and qualities that we love it for. But we can't very well shoot them all, because, well, that isn't very nice. But what do we do with them? They will continually try to co-opt, undermine, and degrade the freedom we care about.
And it isn't just freedom that suffers--intellectual integrity goes out the window as we try to accomodate them. Evolution is the foundation of modern biology, but how many teachers have to tiptoe around it, along with the age of the Earth and who knows how many other subjects, because they might "offend" a subset of the religious among them? And now we're editing one of the most central facts of the 20th century out of existence because of yet more religious fundamentalists. Fantastic.
Show some perspective. (Score:3, Insightful)
For comparison, there are plenty of equally devistating topics that have never even been included in school curriculums, genocides all over the world, including in the US by the US army. If mearly dropping a topic out of history class is reason for such an uproar, then how much more stuff is out there to cry about because it was never included in the first place? And how long would history class have to be to include it all?
There is much more to consider than which side you are on concerning this one event.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Equilibrium?!
This is called appeasement... or better yet - catering to the demands of terrorists. Yes, you heard me. If a teacher is afraid to teach the [i]history[/i] of the Holocaust (and let us not kid ourselves - it's not a P.C. kind of fear, but fear of disruptive behaviour and violence), then this is terrorism by definition.
Remember - "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Sunshine and ridicule would work wonders (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes there is. No the government should not pass more useless asshattery like 'hate crimes' laws. No the government should not establish a commission to regulate the contents of religious teachings. Yes the rest of society can and should hold those mosques that teach evil and stupid things up to public inspection and yes even ridicule. They get away with what they do because everyone is afraid to even object, and that is BEFORE the worries that the 'Religion of Peace(tm)' will KILL you for offending their insensibilities. Yes we can and MUST expose the terrorist supporting portion of Islam within Western societies, put protesters outside their door, regular dosings of media exposes and long well researched and 100% factual newpaper and magazine articles, etc.
The second thing we can do is FORCE them to integrate into our society instead of this politically correct multiculturalism that teaches that anything that isn't Western is superior so we have no right to object, even when leftist loons are forced to defend 7th Century misogeny like honor killings, forced weddings and female genital mutilation. Step one, force imigrants to know the dominate language and customs before granting Citizenship. That gets em out of their media and cultural ghetto.
Actually... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:2, Insightful)
Decades later, I realize that although there is probably some truth to that, continuing to teach it that way does nothing but foster racial and geographic resentments within the nation. (e.g. "Damned Yankees!")
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
How exactly do you consider NOT teaching a subject specifically because a teacher is afraid of offending the ignorant to be concentrating on education?
"Equilibrium"? What? Giving equal time to the uninformed? That's the role of TV news and radio talk shows, not of a teacher.
This is just like the whole nonsense with creationism in the U.S. So, 40% of people in the United States think that creationism is just as valid a scientific theory as evolution by natural selection. The answer to that is not to pander to them, but to educate them.
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you agree that there's a difference between privately admitting something to friends, and publicly proclaiming it to everyone?
I think your argument is for more muslim televangelists.
It doesn't have to be televangelists. I would just as much expect Sean Hannity -- as much as I might otherwise disagree with him -- to cleverly mock their claim to being Christian.
Did you hear anyone call the unibomber a "christian radical bomber?" What about the oklahoma bombers?
No, because they didn't make their Christianity a defining part of their justification for violence. Now, I'd agree there's some asymmetry in the use of "radical Christian" vs. "radical Muslim", but that wasn't my point. My point was that Christians would be more vocal about getting across the idea that those people aren't following Christianity if it were widely believed otherwise.
It's just coherent behaviour (Score:5, Insightful)
The Nazis were defeated mainly by the USSR, not by the USA, even if that's not what you learn. The Japanese _were_ defeated by the USA, but the way of doing it, killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of civilians in an atomic inferno is presented as rather the right thing to do, or, at the very least, as a great technical achievement. The holocaust is much remembered, and special laws passed to forbid the denial of the fact, but other much bigger killings go as footnotes in history books. Japanese don't teach about "comfort" women. The paper of England in the slave trade is usually hushed in the classrooms. Spain is indignant when Ben-Laden speaks about it being part of Al-Andalus, because in its history books, it's defined as a re-conquering, even if the people that re-conquered it had nothing to do with the people that lost it in the first place. France prefers not to speak too much about torture in Alger. Israelis will tell you that it's all right if they took the land from Palestinian people after WW2, because it "belonged" to them, somehow. I doubt they would return the land to some previous inhabitants of it, if the situation ever came up.
And so on. There is not such thing as "objective" history, and those teachers are just recognizing it. After all, we must remember that George Orwell, who came up with the idea of automatic history rewriting, was British.
Re:That Is Pathetic. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:2, Insightful)
The same type of mentality can be seen in the US with some evangelical groups where they may not be as desperate to commit violent acts in the name of god are equally willing to turn over their life savings for "the cause". These sort of easily deluded people have always existed in poverty and war stricken areas and they are not going to noticeably go away until many generations have passed.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sick of hearing about "the tiny minority" (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, and all the members of Jeffry Dahmer's first-grade class grew up to be law-abiding, upstanding citizens, except for one. Yet there were still many dead victims. What's your point? This line about the "minority" of violent muslims doesn't mean a damned thing, so long as that minority has 1) influence and 2) the ability to project power, which I argue it does.
>>There are a lot of peace-loving muslims around the world.
So simply going by the numbers, if only a percentage or two of Muslims worldwide are violent that means there are A LOT, tens of millions(!), of hate-filled Muslims worldwide, ready to erupt into violence. And they do, although you may have to dig deep into the news to find the stories. You see, all but one of the 21 "hot" wars in the world involve Islam as one of the parties. Bet you didn't know that.
You see, the problem is a culture fueled by religious extremism and fanaticism. The Koran is an instruction manual for waging war and spreading influence. (No, that's not slanderous or "flamebait" -- go read the damned book and see for yourself. Sura after Sura specifies precisely how violence should be applied to spread Islam. You are either in the House Of Islam, or the House of War. There is no other option. And, you should know, all those Suras which are oft-quoted and preach peace with the Infidel, are "overridden" by later Suras which specify violence.
And, before you go quoting sections of the Christian bible (Old Testament) which proscribe stonings or other violent actions, be aware it's not a fair comparison. You see, there are no Christians ACTUALLY PERFORMING THESE ACTS. Christianity went through The Reformation, wherein it shrugged off many of these proclamations as archaic and incompatible with modernity. Islam has had no such event.
Re:That Is Pathetic. (Score:1, Insightful)
and what makes it worse is the number of people who will shout you down for posting as an AC even tho there is a great amount of tolerance towards people who get to mod AC by using the underrated/overrated mods. if you take the pains to follow it you'll often find political/social postings modded in this fashion because the mods do not have the conviction to stand by their ideals and worse yet the higher ups at slashdot can't be bothered to see that this system isn't abused. they know it's abused, they've seen it go on for years, and yet they still sit on their hands.
it has become so bad as late that i've nearly abandoned my account here because of moderation corruption.
for what it's worth anymore i can understand why slashdot has gone from an exchange of ideas into simple flamewars. but hey, the site gets hits and the advert dollars keep on flowing so why rock the boat?
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I don't think that way, but that seems to be the only difference.
Mod me down if you must.
Re:So what about the Jewish people? (Score:1, Insightful)
Shit's the same on both sides, insurgents are striking back in Iraq because the US is attacking them, the US is attacking them because they've been attacked by terrorists and they think it helps them avoid that, they were attacked by terrorists because some people in the middle east feel that the US pushed its way into their business and cause unnecessary violence, etc. etc. -- It goes on like that, back and forth throughout history. Both sides have some people that are doing things wrong.
Beating a dead horse (Score:4, Insightful)
The usual pro-confederacy arguments are that they were fighting for states' rights and not for slavery. These are both patently false.
The southern states were the ones arguing for federal supremacy over states. They wanted the federal government to enforce slavery laws in free states. They argued that a slave owner should retain ownership of those slaves while traveling in free states, and that slaves who escaped to free states should be returned to their owners. Hardly a states rights position!
The war of 1812 was a disaster, economically, for the New England states which depended so heavily on trade. They spent three years getting up the nerve to send a delegation to Washington to bring up the subject of secession, but the war ended before they could do anything. The southern states were the most vocal in condemning secession as treason. How interesting that when their ox was being gored, they acted immediately, not even trying to negotiate with the federal government. So much for honor!
As for economics, which is the usual neo-confedrate blame for northern aggression, it was slavery which put the south at a disadvantage, in that it made labor so cheap that industrialization was too expensive. It really hurt the small farmers who had to do their own labor. I have never understood why poor whites, then or now, backed the slavery system which kept them in poverty. No self-employed man can compete with slaves. The expense of overseers doesn't come close to compensating for the cheap maintenance (crowded crappy housing, no elders to take care of) of slaves.
It was a war for the rich white southerners. Nobody else would have benefited from secession.
Re:So what about the Jewish people? (Score:2, Insightful)
They don't get complaints from Jews because there are barely any Jews left there to complain!
Re:That Is Pathetic. (Score:5, Insightful)
This deserves +5 informative - I read the summary, became briefly angry, and then thought, "wait - I bet that link is to the Daily Mail". A quick mouseover later and I am smiling a wry smile.
The Daily Mail will blow any story out of proportion, and put the most sensationalist spin on it possible, because it knows that if a story makes someone angry, they're more likely to buy the paper to find out more about it.
For the record, if I thought the story was true then I would be just as angry as any other reasonable-minded person. But because of its source, I'm strongly inclined to disbelieve it's anywhere near as bad as the summary makes it out to be. Also, I'm not going to RTFA as I don't want to give the bigots advertising revenue.
Re:Questions you shouldn't have to ask. (Score:3, Insightful)
However, the consequences of infringing on one's liberty can and should be taught and reinforced whenever possible, to enable acceptable mores and a healthy paranoia toward an overreaching gov't.
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
The history has been toned down A LOT in most US schools, to the extent that if it is mentioned at all, it's just Custer's last stand.
Unfortunately, it appears that a lot of americans are uncomfortable with the idea that America has just as bad a history as all those evil-doers out there. And because of that discomfort, the subject is dropped or sevearly watered down.
The cut has already been made. The only question is was this appeasement or terrorism?
Re:That Is Pathetic...There is more (Score:5, Insightful)
And it won't be for years, and probably never will, because whether people want to openly admit it or not... Arabs are considered animals and there blood is not as valuable as Jewish or Western blood.
Re:I am sick of hearing about "the tiny minority" (Score:4, Insightful)
Who cares what a minority of muslims think and how much influence and power they project, when the MAJORITY of the united states desired to invade an innocent country for no other reason than imperialistic agression.
That the most militarily advanced country in the world is trigger-happy is a far far far bigger problem. (Don't forget that USA foreign policy - meddling in the middle east - is more or less the entire reason that many of these muslims are vocal).
"A LOT, tens of millions(!), of hate-filled Muslims worldwide, ready to erupt into violence. "
an approximation:
300 million americans, roughly 50% of whom supported GWB's war of agression. That is 150 million americans who vastly threaten the security of the rest of the world.
Why do you focus so much on these moslems? The problem is a bit closer to home than you think mate.
Re:Well (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:That Is Pathetic. (Score:2, Insightful)
(SARCASM ALERT!)
They could, of course, have completely made up a fake government report.
Re:Well (Score:1, Insightful)
So how on earth can holocaust denial be part of it? I sense a bit of media sensationalism to hop on the anti-islam fervour going around. Things being banned because they 'offend muslims' is a sure-fire way of getting LOTS of attention.
Holocause denial is not part of the muslim faith. I can't stand it how media love to pick up the words of extremists and generalise 1.1 billion people by it.
Re:Sunshine and ridicule would work wonders (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reality vs opinion (Score:3, Insightful)
-> genocidal murderer
-> (incestuous) paedophile
-> thief
-> plunderer
-> gave his soldiers orders to rape captive women
-> a terrorist
http://www.faithfreedom.org/challenge.htm [faithfreedom.org]
The Roma most definitely were (Score:5, Insightful)
If they weren't victimized as systematically, why so much official propaganda and policies on the subject? See Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porajmos [wikipedia.org]
Re:Fear of Islam (Score:3, Insightful)
Name 1 (ONE) muslim country where this exists about islam. There is none. In most muslim countries it is punishable by death. Examples of countries where criticism of islam is punishable with death :
-> Saudi Arabia
-> Pakistan
-> Iran
-> Afghanistan (even now)
-> Tunisia
-> Libya
->
Renouncing islam is also punishable by death in most of these countries.
Re:That Is Pathetic. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Zionist Propaganda (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Sunshine and ridicule would work wonders (Score:5, Insightful)
Should we have protesters outside of christian churches every time there is a sermon on 1 Timothy (it is blatantly sexist)? Should we chant and jeer outside churches that teach the parts of the bible about male genital manipulation (circumcision)?
Sure, why not?
Idiotic delusional nonsense is just that regardless of what the particular trivial details that are the only distinctions between these various "absolute truths", so they should be ridiculed mercilessly until people are just too fucking embarrassed to be associated with such idiocy.
Where's the problem exactly?
Re:They do have some cause (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Your Fox post was flamebait. (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I think if you paid a little closer attention to what they report, how they report it and what they don't report I think you would find their slant pretty incredible, and as I said, their tactics somewhat genius.
Re:Well (Score:2, Insightful)
"Off the table" Pelosi and the rest of her DLC following Dempublicans are playing political patty-cake while this travesty of a revenge act against the completely wrong party goes on full swing. The big media-hogging "mainstream" (*snicker*) Democrats are doing they're best to do nothing as furiously and noisily as possible to end this... End this what? War? No. Police Action? Maybe. Disarmament? Heh. Regime Change? Oops, that didn't work out so well... Well, whatever the hell it is, it's failed (by any sane measure) and the Pelosi crew are to busy milking it politically to stop it.
If you really want to support democratic ideals, you're going to have to look a bit deeper into the party to find them. Kucinich is probably the most well known example.
Oh, and here is how mainstream Pelosi is in her thought process...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904/ [msn.com]
Off the table.
Re:That Is Pathetic...There is more (Score:5, Insightful)
These are Palestenian REFUGEES. And where are they refugees from?
There own homes
50 years ago those people were kicked out of there homes and forced to leave. They have no identity, no home. They aren't citizens of Lebanon.
To put this in perspective how would you feel if someone kicked you out of your home with all of your neighbors and you had no place to go but a neighboring country. You and your neighbors and family members have no home no identity no citezenship and have to live in slum camps for 50 years.
You may not rob a bank, or blow up a building, but your grandson might.
I am Lebanese, and while I understand that you might not be as educated about these issues as I am, or for that matter even care, but I want you to realize that this is a SERIOUS problem, and it is only getting worse with ignorance and neglect. I'm not trying to start a flamewar, but I believe that ALL people deserve basic human rights.
Re:Zionist Propaganda (Score:3, Insightful)
Civilization and barbarism (Score:2, Insightful)
For a start, don't even dare to call me "racist": I won't criticize a single race in my post (nor would I ever criticize a single race). This is not a rant about a particular race. It is, however, a rant against a particular view of one monotheist religion. The west shall never bow before a religion that considers women to be inferior beings. The west shall never bow before a religion that considers gay people inferior beings (if you think that it's bad to be gay in the U.S. then cite me one San Fransisco like city in a country populated with a majority of extremist muslims). The west shall never bow before extremists that claim that it is righteous to kill non-believers.
Muslims living in the west better adapt to western principles for western principles will never allow islam's principles to rule the west.
One of the biggest problems the muslims faces is that their religion is quite recent compared to the two other major monoteist religions. There's only one historical reality and it is clear that Jerusalem's history doesn't belong to the muslims. Heck, the historical reality of what happened in Jerusalem predates islam by more than one millenium and a half. They know that very well and it pisses them off in a way you can't imagine.
Once you realize that you understand why the muslims have always hated the jews so much.
The time where we tolerate intolerance is coming to a halt. The recently elected french president made it clear in its campaign that if you want to come live in France you'd better learn and adapt to the western civilization. Barbarism has no place here. Jews hatred has no place here. Turkey is now in wild turmoil due to islamists taking over power. France is now against Turkey joining Europe. People in the western world simply do not want to be ruled by extremists muslims. And they never will. The americas will never turn to a majority of muslims. Russia neither. China neither. Europe and the UK are now waking up.
Recently in germany a judge tried to free some man who beated his wife for "it was normal in his religion". Major fiasco. Overruled. In the UK the parliament will vote law to make teaching of history mandatory wether it displeases some people's little fantasical beliefs or not.
So if islam's views are incompatible with the west muslims living in the west better adapt their islam... For it's not the west that is going to adapt. There's no place for extremists here. Note that apparently there's no much place in Turkey neither, nor in Lebanon (where the regular is fighting extremists as I type this).
No I'm not a woman, no I'm not gay and, no, I'm not a jew. But, yes, members of my family died fighting nazis exterminating jews and gypsies and, yes, if it comes to that, I'll fight to protect women's right, gay people's right, gypsies's right and jews' right.
There's no future for religious extremists. And they know it, which pisses them off even more.
Re:Zionist Propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
The mass murder of the large bulk of European Jewry, which happened during the lifetime of many people still living, is of tantamount importance if you take the teaching of history to be an exercise in educating us as to deeds done and how they can be avoided.
For instance, blaming everything on Zionists was precisely the kind of monstrous ideology that allowed the Nazis to kill so many Jews. By recreating a group of individuals into some sort of dark shadow cult out to take over the world, the Nazis were able to more easily demonize Jews. It's sad that there are still evil little monsters like yourself so happy to ape the discredited notions of Nazi anti-semitism. You do, through your hate, make it clear that teaching about the Holocaust is still of the utmost importance.
Re:That Is Pathetic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
I know I'm making a mistake attempting to have a rational discussion of this on the internet, but here goes.
The most prominent primary target of the Nazi's killing spree was indeed the Jewish people, and their story of systematic, legitimized oppression, and how the general German populace went along with it by degrees is the most harrowing. It teaches us that when you start institutionally marginalizing a people or class of persons, even if only slightly at first, you go down a road which may lead to something truly horrific.
That having been said, the current state of holocaust education effectively denies the deaths of the millions of non-Jews by focusing exclusively on the deaths of the Jews. It invalidates their suffering. You yourself implicitly said it was unimportant. And thus, people grow up thinking that genocide is some kind of rare thing which confines itself to one people at a time, and not only is this not correct, but the message is injured. Think I'm wrong? Ask an average American high school kid about Darfur, or the Armenians, or the purges in the Soviet Union, or Cambodia.
I would rather teach kids that if they start letting intolerance into their hearts, not only is it going to be the people of x super-vilified minority who go against the wall, it's going to be your little sister with a bum leg, your evangelical uncle, the sad beggars in downtown, those two boys holding hands, anyone who voices a dissident opinion, and everyone you know who's not white, brown, yellow, or whatever the uber-race is supposed to be.
Re:Zionist Propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
There are legitimate complaints about the very concept of Zionism (the argument that Jews should immigrate to the Middle East to form a homeland, even if it means displacing the locals).
There is a legitimate argument to be made that Zionism has, quite contrary to its intent, encouraged a new round of antisemitism and made the world less safe for the Jewish people, not more safe.
There are legitimate complaints to be made about how the Israeli government is currently running its foreign policy.
By treating anyone who has any problem with the concept of Zionism or the policies of the state of Israel as being inherently anti-semitic, you're part of the problem, just like those who deny the Holocaust are part of the problem from the other side.
Re:Religion and Education (Score:2, Insightful)
In neither case is it the teacher who made that decision. I know of science teachers who hate ID, but cannot teach Evolution because if they do, their children's Right-Wing-Nutjob parents will complain to the school board and have the teacher fired. That is the source of the problem. The ignorance and dogma comes from parents. Don't blame the teachers for doing what administrators and school boards order them to do. Do you honestly expect them to stick their necks out when they are being paid crap wages already? Do you have any idea what happens when a teacher gets fired for something like this? There are two options: Go back to school and get a new career or move to a school so crappy that they are willing to explain to the parents why they hired a teacher who was fired. No one cares that they were fired for having principles and fighting a war that you should have been fighting for them.
If you want to fix this problem, don't blame teachers. They're already on your side. Blame yourself. What have you done to stop the nutjob parents of the other children from robbing your child of the good education the teacher wants to give them?
Re:Actually... (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. Mutilating infant boys without their consent isn't much at all.
Re:Fear of Islam (Score:4, Insightful)
Nevermind the fact that the press couldn't accurately and objectively tell the Danish cartoon story without showing the cartoons. No reader or viewer had any idea what the problem was about without viewing the materials themselves. In today's day and age, accurately and objectively telling the news is a secondary objective for news stations. Their primary goals are diversity and inclusiveness in order to keep their viewers and advertisers happy and the money rolling in.
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Insightful)
And hell, let's forget all about the health benefits and relative (lack of) impact on the kid's life otherwise here...
Re:Mail's founder admitted formula is "Daily Hate" (Score:5, Insightful)
That should not be assumed here. If I don't know all the facts of a political story for sure, and read it in a newspaper with a known reputation for right-wing bias and pandering to its readership to sell papers, I'm quite entitled to be sceptical.
Please read this comment of mine [slashdot.org], which you'll note was posted almost 90 minutes before your comment. Salient points emphasised (here) in bold:-
And, as I made clear, my message was *not* an "ad hominem" attack against the facts. It's a valid questioning as to whether the facts as presented are accurate. Since you misinterpreted it as such, it may be true that *you* need to look at logical thinking in *your* country- starting with yourself.
This isn't denying that 3 + 5 = 8. At best we know that the right-hand side is 8, but we aren't sure what the two numbers on the left are. Am I going to take the word of someone with a vested interest in 3s and 5s? Am I heck! They might be 4 + 4, or 6 + 1, or whatever...
Re:Actually... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
The term "radical" means that you and your group are in the practice of killing people who don't follow your beliefs. The only "radical Christians" that I can think of are abortion-doctor murders. There hasn't been a whole lot of this; they target individuals; and they don't target random people in the general public. OTOH, radical Muslims murder about 50,000 people a year and are actively pursuing nuclear weapons. Radical Christians are common criminals, whereas radical Muslims are a significant threat to civilization.
I'd say there's quite an asymmetry the dangers these groups present.
When allowance is NOT good (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not always true. Consider Koran 4:34, for instance:
"Men are meant to be righteous and kind guardians of women because God has favored some more than others and because they [men] spend out of their wealth. In their turn righteous women are meant to be devoted and to guard what God has willed to be guarded even though out of sight of the husband. As for those women on whose part you fear ill-will and nasty conduct, admonish them first, next separate them in beds and last beat them. But if they obey you, then seek nothing against them. Behold, God is most high and great."
Should we allow a muslim man to practice his belief that men are allowed to beat women who do not obey?
What is more important: protecting others' freedom of religion, or protecting women's right to life?
By the way, many millions of Muslim women, in addition to being humiliated by being forced to veil themselves, are beaten by their husbands. It is all completely justified by the Koran. Sad is the plight of the Muslim woman who lives at the mercy of a cruel and misogynistic religion.
Re:Sunshine and ridicule would work wonders (Score:1, Insightful)
In some cases, yes. In many or even most cases, no. The printing presses invented in China and Korea, for example, did not lead to printing revolutions, either in China/Korea or elsewhere. In fact, these only came when Western printing technology, derived from Gutenberg's printing press, arrived in the 19th century. This, you see, is why Gutenberg's printing press is historically important and the others are mere trivia. In any case, to those of us living in the West, the most important part of history is that which moulded our societies, just as to the Chinese, the most important history is that which moulded Chinese society.
I know a number of Muslims ( I happen to live in an area of US where there is a substantial Muslim minority), and all of them (every single one I personally know) are very well educated, really pleasant people, who are very tolerant of the fact that I am an atheist. While they observe their religious practices, they make sure these do no adversely affect people around them, and they definitely never attempted to convert me to Islam. That's more then I can say about some of my Christian friends.
Yes, you're lucky in that most of the Muslims who migrate to the USA are highly educated. A lot of the Muslims here in Europe are barely literate, and insist on walking about in public in medieval robes. Even many of the educated ones, though generally quite pleasant people, believe every word of the koran, and some become angry over things like cartoons of Muhammed. How would your Muslim friends react if you drew a cartoon of Muhammed?
If it was medieval Arab culture, that wouldn't be such problem, definitely better than medieval European culture. What Islamic fundamentalists promote is, unfortunately, post-medieval Arab (or Persian) culture.
This is just a game of semantics. I enjoy living in a modern European society, with free speech, democracy, equal rights for the sexes and so on. I would not wish to live in medieval Europe, medieval Arabia, medieval Persia, post-medieval Arabia or post-medieval Persia. There are Muslims who want to impose such a society on me, and you can call it post-medieval Persian if it makes you happy, which is what I find intolerable.
Re:That Is Pathetic. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the Daily Mail effect. If you see a horribly twisted and obviously sensationalistic story in the UK about any person or group of people that are not white, British and middle-class, chances are good that shower of utterly shameless bastards are the ones pimping it out. Although it's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison to line them up next to Fox News in the US, they are probably even worse.
Re:Zionist Propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)
A new round of antisemitism? What fucking planet do you live on? Would you care to point out a gap between the "old" antisemitism and the "new" antisemitism? Antizionism is, much of the time, merely antisemitism attempting to be respectable. The "antizionist" propaganda coming from the left wingers is identical to that of the skinheads and neo-nazis, and pretty much looks exactly the same as what was produced by Goebbels.
Re:Zionist Propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference being the people involved. The old antisemitics largely had no evidence other than racism. Antizionists on the other hand have friends and family, or themselves, who have been kicked out of their homes and regulated to ghetto life in the West Bank, Golan Heights, or the Gaza Strip. Some of them aren't even Muslims, but Christians- it's amazing the zionist racism that has gone on in Bethleham of all places.
Re:Actually... (Score:2, Insightful)
(and it doesn't mean they have to end UP Jewish, but raisin' em so ain't asking much).
That's a lot to ask. Forcing children to believe in imaginary bullshit to keep them in line is approximately the most evil thing the human race has to offer. The nice part is that we wrap it up in virtue. Tricksy.
Re:Your Fox post was flamebait. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, that's bloody hilarious! Forcing your network to try and sell the American public on things like the Iraq War is "steering the straight and narrow and not letting their own personal biases muddle the story", while a journalist who gets 30 minutes a day, who was *forced out* for getting a single story wrong, is the "titular head of the network", controlling all of its content.
Get me some of whatever you're smoking. It must be good stuff.
Re:Zionist Propaganda (Score:2, Insightful)
On Monday evening a Qassam missile fell in Sderot, killing a woman. Please, find me one single headline, in any non-Israeli newspaper, that mentioned this.
Re:Your Fox post was flamebait. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sunshine and ridicule would work wonders (Score:4, Insightful)
If that is what it takes. Listen up Citizen, we are in a battle for the survival of our civilization, not just a single nation state. One side is going to win and one lose.. or in the words of Ming the Merciless, "be willing to settle for less." I'm as simplistic as Reagan, "We win, they lose." is the only outcome I plan on accepting.
> Face it: if we start exposing religions for being racist, sexist, and overflowing with evil anti-social ideologies, they will all crumble, not just extremist Islam.
Yea, if carried to the extreme. But it wouldn't. Assume we (we being followers of what could broadly be called Western Civilivation) grew a pair and started holding the Religion of Peace(tm) to account for their more dangerous notions. Well it is safe to assume that under the scrutiny there would be a trend to moderate in some while others decided their host country was no longer hospitable and return to somewhere where Sharia prevails. As Islam (at least as taught and practiced in the West) moderated there being less to poke fun at, we would be less motivated to poke fun at em. Eventually a balance would be reached, much like Christian churches and the Enlightenment reached a stable relationship by moderating some of it's more antiquated notions.
Much like the Spanish Inquisition isn't likely to come knocking anymore, Islam has to give up a few of it's more uncivilized traditions if it is to be permitted to live in civilized lands.
Re:Actually... (Score:1, Insightful)
1) THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO HEALTH BENEFITS TO CIRCUMCISION
2) Circumcision has a permanent impact on kids' lives. It is very comparable to removing a woman's labia. It results in constant dryness and irritation of the penis head, dulled sensitivity, and is strongly linked to various disorders and health problems.
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
A man is upset by something a powerful government is doing. Eventually he feels so strongly about the politics and international ramifications of it, that he straps a bomb to himself and walks into a crowd of the people he feels is responsible.
Now, would you call that man a "radical christian?" Would you call him a "radical muslim?" Does the person's religion have a lot bearing on the matter if the politics are not directly related to religion, only to ethical/moral beliefs and political opinions?
The important point I think is that in the US if the person happened to be muslim, would be branded a "radical muslim" whereas if they happened to be a christian they would not be branded a "radical christian" in the media. I'm sure the opposite holds true, to some degree, in areas where christians are a minority and muslims or jews a majority. It isn't that a person is more likely to be violent in expressing their beliefs because they are of a given religion. Just look at the numbers.
The KKK calls themselves a Christian organization. The fundamentalists running the US government who ordered the bombing of Iraq and who have killed a lot more innocent women and children than Iraqi retaliation, also call themselves christians. Why are you not apply the "radical christian" label to them? Most of the people in Iraq who blow themselves up aren't doing it because they hate christianity. They're doing it because they hate the fact that their country has been occupied by a foreign army who has killed a great many of their friends and family and looted their country for resources, selling all the local industry to foreign investors and emptying the national treasury, while building dozens of permanent military bases. If roles were reversed, they'd probably be watching news about how some radical christians were murdering their troops stationed in the northern US, because I'd be shooting the invaders. And ignorant people would assume, based upon that reporting, it is because I'm one of those radical christians (even though I'm more of an agnostic/zen buddhist in reality).
A brief discourse (Score:3, Insightful)
All of the various forms of ad hominem fallacies are fallacies of distraction. So if the Daily Mail says "Muslim girls should not be allowed to wear head scarves," it would be a distraction to reply, "Well, that's just a hate mongering, right wing rag." Because the hate mongering, right wing nature of the Daily Mail has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue of whether muslim girls should, or should not wear the hejab.
On the other hand, if we are evaluating the credibilty of a factual assertion made by the Daily Mail, the character of that source is in fact relevant. If the source has a demonstrable bias, or as in this case a stated intention to present information in a biased manner, then this is highly relevant to the question.
So, to sum up:
(1) It is invalid thinking to dismiss a conclusion based on the character of some person holding it, but
(2) It is prefectly valid to question facts or evidence cited by a source with a known bias.
Re:Denying holocaust? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, Palestine was used as a geographic name for what's now Israel (and some of the surrounding area) for most of the 20th Century prior to Israel's creation. I would agree that its use as a cultural or ethnic title is rather new, but people living in the area under the British Mandate of Palestine prior to 1948 had some legitimate cause to call themselves Palestinians and to be less than thrilled that all these Jews were coming to the area following WWII. Note I'm not defending how many decided to express their displeasure (violence) just saying I can understand why they didn't want this population influx. (This is ignoring any antisemitism on top of that, an attitude I would obviously disagree with.)
I also want to point out that the original UN partition plan split both the Jewish the Arab states into two parts (almost three). See the map and more info on the partion plan at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_UN_Partition_Pl
While I completely agree that sitting back down at the negotiating table would have been the better choice than launching a war, and it's entirely possible the Arab nations would have launched a war no matter what, Arabs did have good cause to be unhappy with the UN's decision. With the exception of keeping Jerusalem as a UN-controlled city, which I think would have been a fantastic decision, the original UN plan seems rather shortsighted in its devision of territory.
There is something to that which I think we can both agree on. However, I would argue that Israel hasn't been completely without wrongdoing - I think nothing will get accomplished until A) the Arabs concede Israel does want peace (as you said) and B) the Israel concedes that Palestinians do have legitimate issues with how the creation of Israel was handled 60 years ago and how it has conducted itself since (which it sounds like you might disagree with).
I am not trying to say which side is 'worse' or excuse the suicide bombing (or any violent act). All I'm saying is that each side, from their point of view has solid reasons for saying the other side "started it first" and that neither of those points of view are completely without merit.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
-Trillian
Re:Sunshine and ridicule would work wonders (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I think it would do society good to raise children to value a moral philosophy which has absolutely no connection to magic or superstition. Of course, that that point, it wouldn't be a religion.
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
We caught on pretty damn quick, though. Hey, guys, let's end this war. Here, have some blankets as a peace offering. No, no, we didn't get them from a smallpox hospital...
Re:Zionist Propaganda (Score:3, Insightful)
Herzl actually never made any assertions that Jews had to establish a homeland in the middle east. When he first discussed the idea of a Jewish homeland, in a pamphlet (if recollection serves, it was "The Jewish Sate"), he was thinking about South America (thought it was Argentina, but I could be wrong), and that the land should be purchased, legitimately, so that no assertions of thievery could be made.
The problem is that in the early part of the 20th century, a number of movements (some linked with socialism) adopted Herzl's zionism as the cause for the re-establishment of the biblical Jewish homeland in what was then called Palestine. There's a bunch of Jewish theological commentaries and arguments about the notion of returning to the holy land, and some traditions in burial and at passover time to symbolically create the link to the biblical homeland. Different Jewish sects see the call to return to the biblical homeland differently, and have different traditions for it. These differences are the sources of endless, bitter controversy among the worldwide Jewish community
What gets lost on the enemies of zionism as we know it today (and you sum it up pretty well, even though you distort it a little bit with the "displacement" assertion), is that the Jewish people are, and have almost always been, a people of the diaspora -- without a religious home. The people that come to Israel (planeloads every day), come because they are shunned and persecuted where they lived elsewhere in the world, for the most part. Sure, there are spiritual zionists that come not to flee persecution but to fulfill the spiritual mission of returning to the holy land, but for the most part, these spiritual zionists do not come to stay in Israel for the rest of their lives. Some do come to stay, though.
As to "displacement"... when Great Britain ceded Palestine to become the Jewish state of Israel, the Arab and Palestinian inhabitants were pretty much glad to be rid of the British, and there have always been Jewish communities in Palestine, so Israel wasn't seen so much as a threat. It was cautious, and even skeptical, optimism on their part that allowed the state to be created. The Jewish government in Israel didn't do a very good job of making good on their promise to include Palestinian tribes and ethnic groups as they took the reins of power. The "displacement" that is at the core of many Palestinian complaints came as a result of the 6 day war, when Palestinians in Israel and what are now the occupied territories deserted their lands and fled as they saw Nasser's armies (and Syria's and Jordan's) poised to sweep though Israel. The Israeli army occupied all the lands that Syria and Jordan and Egypt had been using to threaten Israel.
Honestly, I understand the Israeli perspective -- that is, if the people who threaten you either flee their lands when you attack or host foreign armies to threaten you, they lose their land. That's it. No give-backs. If a people does not have the courage to stay and fight for their land, then the land must not mean much to them. At the same time, I think that Palestinians got a really sucky deal from Israel from the time it was created. Sure, the rhetoric at the time was "we can all live together peacefully", but the practice of Israeli rule really gave Palestinians the short shrift -- they didn't get the same level of access to government services & contracting opportunities, the courts were stacked against them, water rights were not honored, and the Israeli army defended the taking of land by Israeli settlers when they should not have.
Personally, as a Jew, I hope one day to visit Israel before I die. At the same time, I've met a lot of Arabs and Muslims and Druse who have a mixed story to tell of their time in Israel and of being second-class citizens, not very much unlike black folks here in the states, and I have great sympathy for that. I've never been a fan of the occupation, but I also see the unilateral pullout from Gaza as having been a disaster. The war
Re:That Is Pathetic...There is more (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That Is Pathetic...There is more (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, from what I've heard, if you are a non-Jewish semite living in Israel, yes you can expect Mossad to break down your doors for pretty much anything at all.
I've known many Israelis who talk in a way that I'd have expected from some fanatical blonde, blue-eyed member of a certain self-declared 'master race' from Germany of the 1930s/40s. Seriously.