My Central Valley bud Devra points out Ampersands comments about conflating anti-semitism with criticism of Israel.
She tags a few good points
although I think Goodwins Law applies, and that the term Nazi is most usually used as a meaningful-conversation-stopper; I think there has to be a distinction between some uses of the term
for example, some of my motorcycling and climbing friends have called me the Safety Nazi with mixed levels of warmth, which I dont find terribly insulting because I am inflexible about safety, and the use of the terms feminazi or econazi, which Ive heard used to apply to folks who are equally inflexible about feminism or ecology. Both have an element of the dismissive about them, and could, in some light be seen as insulting.
But to call Jews Nazis is a different level of the game, in no small part because it is a targeted and intentional insult aimed at the heart of their cultural and racial history. It isnt an indirect or general insult, it is a intentional slap in the face no less than the other N word.
And because I usually use anecdote to make my points, heres a personal one.
As a teenager, my brother went through a phase of his life when he was simply convinced he was black. He dated black girls, hung out with the black kids at school, spoke in that soft middle-class West Los Angeles version of a black drawl with traces of black urban grammar. I never quite figured out where it came from; both of us has been in part raised by strong black men who were close friends to our checked-out parents, but Id simply acknowledged my status as a mutt and always been comfortable with it. Maybe it connected with him in some deeper way, I really dont know.
Later in life, he would fall into his wigro role among black friends or co-workers.
Until one day, he got fired because in the heat of an argument at work, hed called a black co-worker by the n-word. He called me in tears and rage.
Hed used the same word, collegially, a dozen times, he told me. He couldnt understand why, now, his colleague had called management and management had summarily fired him.
I told him that I understood, and that if hed worked for me, Id probably have fired him, too.
The issue is that insult derives from context and intention.
To call me a Nazi because Im obsessed with and rigid about safety, or a women a Nazi because she is obsessed with or rigid about feminism, or an ecologist a Nazi because they are obsessed with or rigid about ecology is a different thing than to call someone by the name of the enemy who specifically targeted them out and attempted to exterminate them.
And to wave that off is simply as morally indefensible as what my brother did. At least he learned his lesson.
Ill add a geopolitical point as well. The issue in criticizing Israels sometimes misguided policies is to distinguish one key fact: do you support Israels right to exist? As a Western and predominantly Jewish state? Because while I have been and will continue to be critical of many of their loonier policies, their right to exist trumps a whole range of other issues for me, and their opponents refusal to meaningfully agree to their right to exist and to take concrete steps to back up that agreement devalue their claims almost to zero.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
What does it mean for a state to have a right to exist?Which states exist by right, and which by usurpation – or charity?Which states do not exist though they have a right?
Date: 10/07/2002 00:00:00 AM
I have three points to make:First, comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany are idiotic. Making such a comparison demonstrates an appalling lack of knowledge of what the Nazis actually did. However, it is — unfortunately — more accurate, although not completely so, to compare Israel to apartheid South Africa. (Jewish Israelis are about half the combined population of Israel and the occupied territories, whereas the whites of South Africa make up a small minority of South Africa.) If you want to make an inflammatory comparison, it is probably most accurate to compare Israel to Serbia, and Sharon to Milosevic.Second, Armed Liberal’s analogy is simply wrong. Calling someone Israeli (or Jewish) a “Nazi” is not like calling someone who is African-American a “nigger.” Calling someone Jewish a “kike” or “yid” is like calling someone who is African American a “nigger.” Calling someone Israeli or Jewish a Nazi is like calling an African-American “massa” or “slavetrader.” This is a pretty significant difference. Referring to Israelis as Nazis is stupid, but it is not in the same league as calling someone black a “nigger.”Third — although this is less a point than a question — what does it mean for Israel to have a “right” to remain a “Western” state? What does it mean for it to have a “right” to remain a “predominantly Jewish” state? Does Australia have a right to remain Western? Does Armenia have a right to remain predominantly Christian?
Date: 10/04/2002 00:00:00 AM
The URL to “Goodwin’s Law” has it wrong. It’s actually “Godwin’s Law”, named after Mike Godwin, frequent USENET poster and one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Date: 10/03/2002 00:00:00 AM
But the funny thing is– in Israel, people use “Nazi” metaphorically or as a political epithet ALL THE TIME. The Chief Sephardic Rabbi, for example, said that Reform and Conservative Judaism were “worse than the Holocaust”. And after a graft scandal with Israel’s version of vouchers for religious education (44 fictitious yeshivot existed only as mail drops for government money), a leftist opined that European Judaism had perished in the Holocaust and had been recreated in Israel on the basis of captured German documents. (Sorry, I couldn’t find a link for this bon mot.)
Date: 10/02/2002 00:00:00 AM
The overuse of the word, and the use of the word against Israel and the Jewish community stems largely from two things. Overuse in recent popular culture, and the inability of many members of Generation X and Y to understand how horrible the Nazi’s truly were considering it to be their grandparent’s typical hyperbole.
Date: 10/02/2002 00:00:00 AM
The Nazi thing bugs me too, just because it makes me question how much the accuser understands the actual history of Nazism. Since little of Israel’s actions are actually analgous to Nazism at all. And if the accuser doesn’t understand Nazism historically, then I’m not sure how qualified they are to talk about the formation of Israel.-AE