Harry's Place

May I be the first to say: “What a fucking prick.”

Fuck off Ken Loach

Rosie Bell hits the nail on the head when she asks if – after 9/11 – Ken Loach would have found it “understandable” that Mosques were being vandalised and Muslims attacked.

It seems that some kinds of racism and prejudice are more understandable than others.

Loach is a socialist (cock) roach.

Ken Loach is being wickedly disingenuous here saying its all a nothing and then giving the impression the Jews have to earn the right for people not to be antisemitic.
Just highlights the lefts morphing with Islamofascism in this area.

He’s only saying what a lot of people are thinking…

Those people being those who read the Indy or the Grauniad.

Could this count as incitement?

And check out this for rampant paranoia -

…the director, who has spoken out against Israel in the past, branded the report as a “red herring” designed to “distract attention” from Israel’s recent military actions.

Is there no limit to how low the Jews will stoop?

He’s only saying what a lot of people are thinking…
Those people being those who read the Indy or the Grauniad.

Indeed. Seem to remember reading last week that the CiFer Ben White said exactly the same thing. They’ve both campaigned for a boycott too. The rot spreads wide.

Could this count as incitement?

Here’s what to do: Ignore unimportant man saying thing about stuff. Don’t import Middle Eastern disputes to wherever you live.

Is there no limit to how low the Jews will stoop?

Is the World Champion Limbo Dancer Jewish?

And I bet Ken Loach doesn’t even think he’s an anti-Semite

Never heard before from the Fundamental (geddit) Rights Association!

Seriously though, someone recently said to me about Gaza, that I was insulting Jews by associating their well being, with Israel. It’s the logic of Israel does not deserve to exist – going back on a decision of the United Nations made in the aftermath of the last world war. Loach is a malcontent anarchist inclined trustafarian. I look forward to missing his next movie.

Loach is not an antisemite, he’s just someone who is blind to it, and will make excuses for it, when it suits him.

If Israel fuels antisemitism does Mugabe’s Zimbabwe fuel anti-black racism?

Traditional leftism is now unambiguously antisemitic. For a time, it was theoretically opposed but practically abnegatory of antisemitism. Now, I think there can be no doubt that positive, unambiguous antisemitism is becoming a necessary condition to an association with the left.

This is sad to those of us who had always assumed that the left, whatever their faults, were generally the “good guys”.

Here’s what to do: Ignore unimportant man saying thing about stuff. Don’t import Middle Eastern disputes to wherever you live.

I think that’s what people would have preferred to do, and indeed had been trying to do. They’d been quite successful until recently.

I saw his Spanish civil war film “Land and Freedom” when it was showing in Tel Aviv– Hebrew subtitles and all.

About which other people would Loach dare to say that undifferentiated hatred is “understandable”?

Here’s the true test for his comrades in Respect and elsewhere– will they denounce this, or will they excuse or ignore it? Either way, we’ll have a pretty clear idea of where they stand.

The “red herring” comment is much worse than the “understandable” part. “Understandable” on its own could just be a bad choice of word, with no intention to excuse: but the “red herring” bit is unambiguous. A shame; he’s made some damn good movies.

@ Post: “The left” doesn’t exist. The concept of the political “wings” as monolithic entities really is a red herring.

It is understandable though. Not justifiable, of course, but understandable. There are a lot of bigots out there who’ll grasp any excuse, let alone the semi-legitimised cover of ‘anti-Zionism’.

Straight from the start, I’m not second-guessing what Ken Loach meant here – I can guess, and my guess is that he didn’t mean what these wankers … ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^…. think he meant.

If I can be heretical here, I can understand increased public hostility to Islam and Muslims as a result of, say, 9/11 or the other week’s ridiculous Islamist/twat anti-army protest.

I can understand it, but I still think it’s unacceptable, despicable and disgusting. That’s a very, very different thing to condoning, justifying or excusing such things.

This is not hard to grasp, I’ll add, but lots of people in Britain have built careers on pretending they don’t get it. David T. has spent his time online pretending he doesn’t understand the difference.

Check it – “Understand” does not mean “Condone”.

This is disgusting.

It’s also a vicious circle – terrifying and deadly antisemitism after centuries of misery finally forced Jews to flee Europe and Middle Eastern communities, the UN voted to partition the Mandate and allow the birth of modern Israel because of the Shoah in which millions of Jews died –

- Israel was immediately attacked and given only weeks to live by people who understood their dire military situation – Arab armies were equipped and in some cases led by guess who – Nazis had fled to the Middle East and were involved with the Arabs – especially with the Grand Mufti – who spent the war years in Berlin and who vowed to exterminate the Jews in the Middle East –

- so somehow Israel survived but has been attacked in several wars since and of course terrorized and Jews around the world have been terrorized some more – so Israel tried to defend its borders from ceaseless rocket attacks aimed at its civilian popularion so -

“antisemitism is understandable.”

Oy:(

Can somebody forward this creep a link to this piece and the others cited? Maybe he can read and reflect.

:(

Is this ‘understandable’ too according to Loach’s criteria?

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3686848,00.html
3 hours ago -2 Israelis murdered in drive-by shooting.

If I can be heretical here, I can understand increased public hostility to Islam and Muslims as a result of, say, 9/11 or the other week’s ridiculous Islamist/twat anti-army protest.

But if one of us had said this, we probably would have been denounced as bigots by the likes of Ken Loach. (And for the record, I don’t think anti-Muslim behavior was “understandable” after 9/11.) God knows, Loach never would have said it. Which gets back to my point about Jews being the only people about which he would say that hatred is understandable.

Oh, no! Now I have to boycott Ken Loach films.

Gawd. Hysterical knee-jerks without dictionaries.

May I ask why the satiating child is permitted to post yet another argument which went out with Noah whilst I am edited for word-choice already in use on this thread?

serioulsy, what a fkwit.
it’s people like him that make me feel very uncomfortable in this country.

I am boycotting Flying Rodents!

“Vandalism on mosques is entirely understandable, given what Muslims perpetrated on 9/11.”

Is that really an acceptable sentence, Rodent?

“Understand” does not mean “Condone”.

Please read Rosie Bell’s blog for the different meanings of “understand”.

Yeah, rodent, when do you think Len Roach will ever say Islamophobia is “understandable”?

At least Zin and TheWhiney, slimy creeps that they are, obsessively excuse – look, I didn’t say “understand”, ain’t I clever – anti-Jewish racism because it suits their wider political position, debased and repellent though it is.

This disgusting person comes along and would stand by as British Jews were vilified and attacked in the street simply so he could get one over on Harry’s Place. Psychopathic is a word which springs to mind.

“I can understand it, but I still think it’s unacceptable, despicable and disgusting.”

So, when 52 people were killed in London in 1995, you must also understand that. And, if a group of Jewish New Yorkers, furious about the rampant anti-Semitism in the UK, beat a few innocent British tourists to a bloody pulp, that too you’d have to understand.

That anti-Semitism has again become widespread in Europe within living memory of the Holocaust makes only one thing truly understandable: Europe is possessed of a monstrous and ineradicable evil.

And black people cause slavery too.

Please read Rosie Bell’s blog for the different meanings of “understand”.

I like Rosie a lot, but she’s been reading too much of Professor Norm’s horrible politics and I disagree with her here.

But if one of us had said this, we probably would have been denounced as bigots by the likes of Ken Loach.

Indeed, and if Ken Loach said something similar, he’d be denounced as a bigot by the likes of you. Oh, look, your commenters have done it for you Gene, as is always the way – your hands are clean.

This isn’t hard to get. I can understand why somebody who’s been fired from his job of 25 years would go insane and shoot up his co-workers, but I would condemn it completely.

I understand entirely why someone who’s been violently beaten and robbed by, say, an Inuit fisherman, becomes a nasty racist against eskimos, but I find racism repellent.

I can understand why a bunch of former leftists horrified by Islamist violence would set up a website for the enjoyment and satisfaction of racist wingnut freaks, but I would be disgusted by their constant ethnocentric lunacy.

This isn’t hard to grasp, and pretending that it is for political purposes is pretty much beneath contempt…. And that’s what’s going on here – people pretending not to get simple and obvious concepts, for political reasons.

It’s pathetic.

Of course, Sasha. Were Rodent’s interests to be attacked (although, gawd knows what they are), to remain consistent, he would be obliged to support collective punishment against the perps’ population groups.

“Vandalism on mosques is entirely understandable, given what Muslims perpetrated on 9/11.”

Is that really an acceptable sentence, Rodent?

I understand entirely why someone who’s been violently beaten and robbed by, say, an Inuit fisherman, becomes a nasty racist against eskimos, but I find racism repellent.

Yeah, right. You can “understand” (when did we stop discussing understandability?) every piece of human hatred, every act of political terrorism – be it the Provos, Red Hand Loonies, L.T.T.E., anarchists flying Zeppelins into the Empire State Building, Baader Meinhof, Maoists in Nepal, Shining Path, riots in the Solomon Islands – since the French Revolution.

Because you’re so clever. Because you operate on a plane superior to Harry’s Place. Because you’re farts smell of lavender.

Leaving aside such subjective categories as “understandable” and “not surprising,” what is objectively true is that there have been attacks on Jews (mostly verbal, but some physical) that wouldn’t have taken place if Israel had not destroyed Gaza.

Which collides with the notion that Israel exists so that Jews around the world will be safer.

wouldn’t have taken place if Israel had not destroyed Gaza.

A: which destruction on Gaza precipitated the Amia bombing or the Shoah?;

B: no Israel did not;

C: antisemitism and anti-Zionism are indistinguishable to Buster. I’m should be as surprised when I saw Grey Wolf on Sonic’s blog, but I’m not.

I think Mr Loach is a physically repellent maker of tedious
films.

Does anyone other than French communists enjoy his tedious right on crap ?

The fact that he’s a Jew hater is just the sickly icing on the putrid cake.

Martin

ad hominem perhaps, but greatly justified

I think Mr Loach is a physically repellent maker of tedious
films.

Does anyone other than French communists enjoy his tedious right on crap ?

The fact that he’s a Jew hater is just the sickly icing on the putrid cake.

Martin

ad hominem perhaps, but greatly justified

I like Rosie a lot, but she’s been reading too much of Professor Norm’s horrible politics and I disagree with her here.

Thanks Rodent, but I did work this one out for myself, without the influence of Prof Norm.

Here’s a sentence. “It’s understandable the English get a lot of abuse in Scotland. Remember what happened to William Wallace?” Doesn’t that sound shitty to you?

“Understandable” (adjective) has different connotations from “I understand” (verb). However, I’m not going to repeat the point of my post.

PS – you seem to have stopped blogging on your own site. Are you going to start up again?

If “understand” is such a neutral term, Flying Rodent, how is it I have never ever seen anyone hostile to Israel able to bring themselves even to write that it is understandable that Israel felt the necessity to build the security fence, or set up checkpoints, or respond to years of incessant rocket attacks by taking action in Gaza, or for that matter feel the need for a Jewish state.

I can understand why Flying Rodent is trying to minimise the effect of Loach’s words (but I cannot condone it.)

Quite, KB Player.

“Understandable” can mean “able to be understood” – but also “unsurprising” “natural” or “reasonable”.

In the context of Loach’s use of the words “I am not surprised” in the preceding sentence, it really is stretching it to maintain that he was using the former meaning.

You can “understand” (when did we stop discussing understandability?) every piece of human hatred, every act of political terrorism

Some of it can be understood, some of it can’t. Reasonable human beings often understand violence while still opposing it, as a rule. It doesn’t ever help us to pretend we can’t comprehend things we do in fact understand perfectly well – especially for political reasons, as is happening here – regardless of whether we support or oppose it.

Because you’re farts smell of lavender.

That line was boring and predictable in 2006, and it doesn’t weather any better with the misplaced apostrophe.

Which gets back to my point about Jews being the only people about which he would say that hatred is understandable.

This reminds me of a debate I had on another blog a few days ago. I said something about Israel discriminating against its Arab minority, and my rival in the debate retorted “it’s understandable, since Israeli Arabs root for the Palestinians.”

I would say that is a position commonly held by Zionists, while Ken Loach’s is not commonly held by film directors. Which prompts the question: why the hell is he given such a disproportionate importance.

Reasonable human beings often understand violence while still opposing it, as a rule

Er… I think you should be arguing that

Reasonable human beings often find violence understandable while still opposing it, as a rule

That is, after all, the word that is under dispute. Don’t get slippery.

Here’s a sentence. “It’s understandable the English get a lot of abuse in Scotland. Remember what happened to William Wallace?” Doesn’t that sound shitty to you?

Yes. OTOH, a few English people in Scotland are subjected to aggression and moronic abuse – because some Scots are aggressive, idiotically nationalistic morons. I understand it fine – I reject utterly the implication that, because I recognise the roots of such stupid violence, that I somehow approve of it. It’s bollocks, bollocks on stilts.

you seem to have stopped blogging on your own site. Are you going to start up again?

I’m on sick leave – dental. Trust me, you don’t want to know.

By the same token

Reasonable human being often understand racism

is very different from

Reasonable human beings often find racism understandable

So can you please stop equivocating?

“I am attempting to understand white on black racism.”

“I am attempting to find white on black racism understandable.”

Reasonable human beings often understand violence while still opposing it

Of course there is such a thing as understanding in the academic (i.e non-political, just for knowledge) sense. Then there are people who say:

“If there has been a rise I am not surprised. In fact, it is perfectly understandable because Israel feeds feelings of anti-Semitism.”

People like Ken Loach, George Galloway et al can claim not to be anti-semitic until they are blue in the face. Ifor one would never believe them.

Mark T, you know very well what I meant, and picking nits isn’t the same as refutation.

That’s me for the evening, I’m up at 5.15 for work. Cheers!

i.e first give us an appeal to old Ken’s own “authority”. Say that you have always felt this way. Call it a “fact”. Chuck in intensifier to make sure the audience know how understandable it all is then use an anthropomorphic metaphor to charactise Israel as some kind of all-consuming monster.

Perfectly understandable.

That’s me for the evening, I’m up at 5.15 for work. Cheers!

Can I just say that i find it perfectly understandable that you are legging it.

Hell, watch for a post at about 5.30am, G.

If it is going to take you all night I hope its worth it.

Mark T, you know very well what I meant, and picking nits isn’t the same as refutation.

What? Picking nits?

Throughout this entire thread, you have not used the word “understandable” even once – you’ve blathered and avoided the issue by talking about how you can “understand” unpleasant things, but frankly it stinks of equivocation when you can’t even present the word you’re trying to defend Loach’s use of.

Now you can understand racism until the cows come home – but until you attempt to argue that you find racism understandable, I’m afraid you’ve lost this argument.

Bye bye!

Graham and Mark got there ahead of me, so I’ll settle for:

Some of it can be understood, some of it can’t.

So, it is reasonable to infer that Rodent is able to ‘understand’ (only the luftmensch sense) some acts of violence/racism more than others (especially anti-Jewish violence). Yet he claims to abhor all equally. Which is it?

Also, picking an Internet poster up on their spelling/punctuation is one of the most childish tactics out there. But, that is Rodent to a tee.

Is this ‘understandable’ too according to Loach’s criteria?

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3686848,00.html
3 hours ago -2 Israelis murdered in drive-by shooting.

From the link: “investigators also looking into possibility terrorists staged flat tire, then opened fire on officers, who stopped to help.”

Sickening. Makes my blood boil. By Ken Loach/Flying Scumbag’s logic, it would be understandable if I decided to go out and punch an Arab right now.

Is this ‘understandable’ too according to Loach’s criteria?

3 hours ago -2 Israelis murdered in drive-by shooting.

From the link: “investigators also looking into possibility terrorists staged flat tire, then opened fire on officers, who stopped to help.”

Sickening. Makes my blood boil. By Ken Loach/Flying Scumbag’s logic, it would be understandable if I decided to go out and punch an Arab right now.

If the comments attributed to Ken Loach are correct then he is wrong and he is certainly someone who knows better. Knowing the general principles he supports I don’t think he is in any way condoning antisemitism but he comes dangerously close to excusing it and he needs to retract his statement.

What I don’t “understand” is the assumption that this statement can be read as typical of all leftists, which seems to be about as valid as saying that any right wing nutter who posts here is typical of the contributors to HP.

Most leftists who rightly condemned Israel’s war on Gaza made clear distinctions between criticising Israel’s actions and criticising Jews, though this blog has homed in on those that don’t, which is fair enough. Of course, the fact that a small minority criticise Israel’s actions in antisemitic terms does not make Israel’s actions any nicer or any more acceptable.

I suppose if Ken L had chosen his words more carefully he could have put a much more challenging argument. For example if he would have said, “When the self-proclaimed leaders of the Jewish community in Britain do not utter one word of criticism of the scale of murder of civilians, the use of phosphorus bombs etc,and furthermore call on the Jewish community to show they are fully behind Israel, when they blur distinctions between Jews in Britain and the Israeli government, then you can understand, but not justify, the fact that some less than sophisticated opponents of Israeli policy hit innocent targets thinking they are hitting back at the israeli oppressors,” then he wouldn’t be so wrong would he?

As many people often state here, only antisemites are responsible for antisemitism (a point made eloquently by Sartre back in the 1940s in his classic book Anti-Semite and Jew) but it could be acknowledged,without removing responsibility from the antisemites, that Israeli policy makers and Jewish leaders in the diaspora make it easier not harder for them to attempt to justify their actions.

The following is, apparently, an example of “right-wing online commenting”, as formulated by one “Anton Vowl”:

KILLING – understandable if it’s shooting a Brazilian electrician six times in the head; understandable if you’re a speeding driver killing a pedestrian; perfectly understandable if you’re one of OUR BOYS shooting a brown person.

Source:
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/08/10/a-z-of-right-wing-online-commenting/

Sheet, I remember when Liberal Conspiracy was quite good and not back-slapping sixth year stuff with enough sophistry to feed Emperor Qin’s entire model army of straw-men.

I suppose if Ken L had chosen his words more carefully he could have put a much more challenging argument. For example if he would have said, “When the self-proclaimed leaders of the Jewish community in Britain do not utter one word of criticism of the scale of murder of civilians, the use of phosphorus bombs etc,and furthermore call on the Jewish community to show they are fully behind Israel, when they blur distinctions between Jews in Britain and the Israeli government, then you can understand, but not justify, the fact that some less than sophisticated opponents of Israeli policy hit innocent targets thinking they are hitting back at the israeli oppressors,” then he wouldn’t be so wrong would he?

No, that would be even worse.

Can I be the first to say a knee jerk reaction is the classic sign of a healthy and properly functioning body.

the use of phosphorus bombs etc

There was absolutely NO use of “phosphorus bombs” by Israel, Mr. Rosenberg as you falsely accuse. There is a claim that because 20 phosphorus flares (used exclusively for illumination) were deployed over a populated area this may breach conditions in International Law governing the use of phosphorus flares.

There was a reported incident of a phosphorus rocket deployed as an incendiary device targeting non-belligerent civilians during the war in Gaza, however since the targets were Israeli, neither the racist hypocrites convening the Russell Inquiry, nor Mr. Rosenberg would ever dream of demanding an investigation into this incident to determine whether Hamas ought to be convicted for war crimes.

Mr. Rosenberg evidently is not interested in what really happened re the use of phosphorus in Gaza or in International Law. Mr. Rosenberg is only interested in spreading hyperbolic libels to demonize Israeli forces and whitewashing the use of phosphorus as an incindiary weapon when deployed by the belligerent clerical fascist thugs he supports against Israelis.

In the interest of respecting and safeguarding The Laws of War and the pursuit of truth from those who would abuse them in the pursuit of a morally demented ‘ends justifies the means’ praxis, I deem Mr. Rosenberg an antizionism uber alles ideologue, a faux human rights supporter and an arsehole.

I can understand why Flying Rodent is trying to minimise the effect of Loach’s words (but I cannot condone it.)

I concur Graham.

@puzzled

If Israel fuels antisemitism does Mugabe’s Zimbabwe fuel anti-black racism?

Hmmm, let me see now, yep, actually it does. All boxes ticked.

In the interest of respecting and safeguarding The Laws of War and the pursuit of truth from those who would abuse them in the pursuit of a morally demented ‘ends justifies the means’ praxis, I deem Mr. Rosenberg an antizionism uber alles ideologue, a faux human rights supporter and an arsehole.

Hear hear. Great reply.

That anti-Semitism has again become widespread in Europe within living memory of the Holocaust makes only one thing truly understandable: Europe is possessed of a monstrous and ineradicable evil.

Nope. That’s just racism. Like saying that only Europeans are capable of being slavers is racism. In fact this is part of a contradiction in leftist politics that has led them to anti-Semitism. If anti-Semitism is particularly white, particularly Christian, particularly western, then Ahmadinijad or Hamas can’t really be anti-Semites. Ergo, anti-Semitism is acceptable and not racist. The only alternative would be to admit that the evils of colonialism are not to be found in specific European cultural aspects but in the human condition itself, which would make their life’s work of destroying traditional European mores and building a new man itself an act of racism. At which point they disappear up their own backsides.

Would Tentacle provide a link to any incident where Mugabe’s rule was implicated for fueling a demonstrable global upsurge of anti-black racism, notwithstanding that he/she already ticked off all his/her own boxes for what – in the absence of any evidence to the contrary – appears to be his/her intention of disputing the salient point made by Puzzled in order to condone and justify Loach’s ‘blame the victims of racism’ remark?

My bad Tentacle. I still have no idea why you believe Mugabe’s rule has fueled an upsurge of anti-black racism worldwide, but I was likely wrong to assume your intention was to condone and justify Loach’s remark. Sorry.

What I don’t “understand” is the assumption that this statement can be read as typical of all leftists, which seems to be about as valid as saying that any right wing nutter who posts here is typical of the contributors to HP.

Most leftists who rightly condemned Israel’s war on Gaza made clear distinctions between criticising Israel’s actions and criticising Jews, though this blog has homed in on those that don’t, which is fair enough. Of course, the fact that a small minority criticise Israel’s actions in antisemitic terms does not make Israel’s actions any nicer or any more acceptable.

True that not everyone who is left wing is anti-Semitic, HOWEVER anti-Semitism is inherently left wing in form. The leftist error is that it follows ideas of distributive justice. That is what the left is all about in terms of economics, race, basically everything. The chain goes inequality of outcome => unfairness => the successful exploit the unsuccessful.

This will lead to naturally siding with the Palestinians against Israel. Israelis richer and more powerful => Palestianians are being treated unfairly => Israelis are exploiting the Palestinians.

Also to Jews in European / US societies. Jews richer on average, disproportianately represented amongst Politicans / Banking / CEOs / Media figures => Gentiles are being treated unfairly => Jews are exploiting Gentiles. (Real reason is probably largely the 112 IQ for reasons of genetics, but that opens a whole other can of worms).

In contrast the right wing (e.g. classical liberal, Thatcherite, Economist, Geert Wilders type) error is to assume fairness even without properly checking to see if the rules of the game really are fair.

Therefore wrt I/P it would go Israelis richer and more powerful => Palestinians are more lazy, backwards or shit in some way and it’s their fault => we should support Israel in the same way we support South Korea against the north, whatever the Arabs represent it’s a pile of shit that should be opposed because it doesn’t bring success.

Also to Jews in European / US societies. Jews richer on average, disproportianately represented amongst Politicans / Banking / CEOs / Media figures => Jewish culture must be good with things worth learning from => Jews deserve what they have achieved (ditto Chinese in Malaysia or whatever).

So while not all left wing people are anti-Semites and not all anti-Semites are (with the totality of all their views considered) left wing, virtually all modern _anti-Semitism_ is left wing.

Would Tentacle provide a link to any incident where Mugabe’s rule was implicated for fueling a demonstrable global upsurge of anti-black racism, notwithstanding that he/she already ticked off all his/her own boxes for what – in the absence of any evidence to the contrary – appears to be his/her intention of disputing the salient point made by Puzzled in order to condone and justify Loach’s ‘blame the victims of racism’ remark?

This is strawmanage. Mugabe’s Zimbabwe has fueled anti-black racism. I’ve seen it on less censored forums than this one, where on news of the latest calamity from Zimbabwe it brings cries of “n*ggers are just savages”, “blacks can’t run their own countries”, “James Watson was right” and that kind of stuff. Does that count as being racism?

Rosenberg, you are a tripe hound.
” the scale of murder of civilians”…..what utter bosh. Yes, in a war innocents are killed, possibly as many as 900 in the Gaza incursion.
Today, Hamas are working hard to stop the rockets going from Gaza to Israel, with considerable success; had they done the same before the conflict, as they were supposed to, as they were asked to time and again, there would have been to incursion, and no loss of innocent lives.
Tripe hound, please put the blame where it truly belongs; on Hamas.

Should have read ” there would have been NO incursion, and no loss of life”.
Tripe hound, please put the blame where it truly belongs; on Hamas.

Tentacle is right is his 4.24 racism entry; what he writes there is important to understand.

Mark T – you’ve blathered and avoided the issue by talking about how you can “understand” unpleasant things, but frankly it stinks of equivocation when you can’t even present the word you’re trying to defend Loach’s use of.

Do you, knowing what you do about the man, think Loach’s use of “understandable” means he thinks racism is a) comprehensible – that it can be grasped by the reasoning mind – or that racism is b) rational and justified?

If you are contending that Loach believes that racism is rational and justified, – then you should be aware that the charge will be unlikely to stand up in court.

The difference between a) and b) is easy to spot, unless you are determined to pretend you can’t see it. It should also be noted that while a) is unobjectionable, printing b) in a national newspaper would probably result in an epic law suit, resulting in the author forking over a substantial amount of money.

Rodent, in the context of his remarks about drawing attention to anti-semitism being a red herring, I would say that he meant “b” in your analysis.

“Understand” can be neutral – “I understand French”, “I understand you’re leaving the department.”

“Understand” can also have the sense of sympathy arising from a full knowledge of the circumstances. “How can I get my parents to understand my reasons for chucking medicine and doing music instead?” “I had to take lots of time off work when my dad was ill but my employers were very understanding.”

It’s common enough among the left to “understand” in the second sense why people riot, or commit crimes, or get heavily into drugs if they live in slums. So it seems to me likely that Ken Loach would think the rise of anti-semitism would be “understandable” in that sense.

Do you, knowing what you do about the man, think Loach’s use of “understandable” means he thinks racism is a) comprehensible – that it can be grasped by the reasoning mind – or that racism is b) rational and justified?

He is arguing that anti-semitism is somehow a natural, unsurprising and expected response to perceived Israeli crimes. As has been highlighted many times already, he is using the word in the sense

“She slapped him in the face. Her reaction was entirely understandable, given that he had been chatting up another woman.”

Of course using the word in this sense becomes quite unpleasant, if, for instance -

“He punched a Muslim lad on the street. His reaction was understandable, given that Muslims had detonated a bomb on a tube train a few weeks earlier.”

And yet this is precisely the sense in which Loach is using the word. People are attacking Jews, and yet Loach finds this understandable, because Jews are allegedly committing crimes elsewhere in the world.

Why are you defending this crap?

Great points by Tentacle.

So it seems to me likely that Ken Loach would think the rise of anti-semitism would be “understandable” in that sense.

I’m sorry, but that sounds like a licence to put words and opinions in people’s mouths that they would never endorse, based upon little more than suspicion and possibly telepathy.

I’m not buying this as a standard for damning people all – it’s wide open to abuse and politically-motivated shenanigans, and is exactly the kind of thing that libel and slander laws exist to counter. Quite correctly too when we consider the seriousness of such accusations and the giddy abandon with which they’re often made.

I can sort of understand some of the points Flying Rodent is making in a wider context, but that is too big a subject for me to comment on now.

Rather I prefer to stick to this particular case. Ken Loach’s remark was inexcusable, considering that he knew of attacks made on Jews, just because they are Jews. These are the result of dimwiitted, criminal stupidity. There is no way of ‘understanding’ them, and from this point of view the Rodent is being a smart Alec, if not a clever ox.

If a war suddenly broke out between Britain and Italy, does he think it would be understandable if Italians started to hate me or beat me up, because I was a British citizen? I don’t. It’s no good saying, he would understand but not condone. That kind of ignorant brutality can be understood yes, but understood for what it is.

If Ken Loach understands why dimmwitted people could become anti-semitic in a world of dimwitted prejudices, his understanding should include a condemnation of them/it.

I can remember warning Marxist friends long ago that they should be careful about using ‘just’ causes in order to become persecutors.

It’s absolutely amazing how the jew-hating syndrome moves like an amoeba across the spectrum imperceptably from from far right to far left. No sector is clear of it and at present it seems to increasingly to seriously infect the left. Even Loach with impeccable left-wing credentials finds it acceptable to say that anti-semitism is ‘understandable’, thus joining all the loonies of the Islamist/rightist/leftist tendencies, who cover and excuse their stance with a hatred of the Zionist state, which is, of course, basically another way of saying “I hate jews”. I was Jew-hater myself once, when I lived in a Jewish area of Manchester, but I was only seven or eight at the time and hadn’t developed by then either a left- or right-wing political allegiance, but to Loach and his comrades, what would that matter, as long as I continued in my basic attitude? Stick by the basics, isn’t i?

Tentacle: That is a valid and interesting description of one model of leftist thinking, but there is another which I have mostly come into contact with: That of imperial powers playing off “oppressed” peoples against each other. According to this, Jews have through the ages been set up by the Imperial power as a middle agent, having no choice but to carry out this historic role of oppression on behalf of the power and thus deflecting the hatred away from the Imperial power onto the Jews.

In contemporary times, this is translated as the USA employing Israel as middle agent against the Palestinians. This theory deems both oppressed antagonists as innocent, helpless pawns; denying them Agency in the other sense of the word, meaning responsibility or autonomy, and therefore even more insulting than the other paradigm.

Flying Rodent, your attempt to defuse the semantic charge of Loach’s utterances is brave, but unconvincing. If Loach had merely stated that he understood antisemitism in a mechanistic sense, that would be a *fairly* neutral claim (albeit an astonishingly hubristic one, bearing in mind the age and complexity of the multipathed hatred). But Loach’sfurther and connected comments about the “red herring”, as well as his well-attested previous enunciations, block most paths to the “reasonable but hubristic” reading you’d wish to plea for him.

Together, the semantic power of his two statements propels one to understand them as postulating that antisemitism is a rational reaction to provocation, *caused* by Jewish collective moral actions (rather than by the ethical decisions of those who choose so to hate), and that even to discuss the true dimension of causality in this relationship of hatred is further provocation by the ever-duplicitous Jew.

I’m sorry, but that sounds like a licence to put words and opinions in people’s mouths that they would never endorse, based upon little more than suspicion and possibly telepathy.

This is the writer of the “Decentpedia” talking here right?

I’m not buying this as a standard for damning people all – it’s wide open to abuse and politically-motivated shenanigans, and is exactly the kind of thing that libel and slander laws exist to counter.

You really think that your postmodernist attempts to diffuse the meaning of Loach’s words would stand up in any court anywhere?

“As many people often state here, only antisemites are responsible for antisemitism (a point made eloquently by Sartre back in the 1940s in his classic book Anti-Semite and Jew) but it could be acknowledged,without removing responsibility from the antisemites, that Israeli policy makers and Jewish leaders in the diaspora make it easier not harder for them to attempt to justify their actions.” (David Rosenberg)

Leaving aside the fact that I consider that Israel’s actions are laudable, a Jew in the Diaspora is attacked by an antisemite not because of his actions, but because he is a Jew, David.

This is completely ‘understandable’.

Loach is a prisoner of a circular error. The limited understanding I have of mathematics aside, I do think I understand the rule of consequences. A small error is magnified as the function runs its course until the contradiction is manifestly obvious and cripplingly so.

Loach believed in what? – a form of super leftish thought which ruthlessly subordinated reality to ideological acceptable ‘truths’ – the Daily Telegraph is wrong even when it says eating babies is a disgusting outrage because it is the Tory Daily Telegraph saying this. Ideologically (and there is no other yard stick) the message cannot therefore be independent of the means of conveyance.

This has led him to the position of many on the super left who (so very like Victorians gathering in their dividends from sweated child labour fulminating against cruelty to animals) have identified themselves with a cause without stopping to think where this is taking them. He now finds himself in a political and moral cul-de-sac. The obvious course would be to recognise one’s error and back out. But no, he cannot. It would destroy him in his own eyes. It would be a compromise – even with the truth. It is therefore necessary to devise an excuse, an excuse which is psychologically protective. It is not he, Ken Loach who is wrong, but the facts.

So a man who was inspired to do good ends by spouting rubbish and siding with people who whose actions over decades show how they deal with ‘free expression’. A very sad end.

What David Rosenberg would never say:

“without removing responsibility from the racists, high crime rates among Blacks and apologist Black leaders make it easier not harder for them to attempt to justify their actions.”

Re the anti-Semitism / left wing connection, I should just add: everybody I’ve ever heard make an anti-Semitic comment IRL, as opposed to online or pontificating in the media, has been on the right.

Ah, Shmuel, I thought that D.R. was talking about the actions of the Jews.

In any case, I find it very easy to justify any action I would want to take against any group of people. Even against D.R. You just need to have no scruples and just pick and choose. D.R. is apologizing for people without scruples.

Ken Loach’s remark was inexcusable, considering that he knew of attacks made on Jews, just because they are Jews.

Ken Loach is an individual not representing any state.

You’ll agree it’s much, much more serious when representatives of a state, such as soldiers, write graffiti like “ARabs need 2 die”, “Arabs are pieces of shit” and “1 is DOWN 999,999 TO GO.”

So if talking about Israel but not about Darfur is antisemitic, then taliking about Loach and not about the call for genocide made by Israeli soldiers is anti — I don’t know what, but it’s anti-something.

So an order of priorities should be respected. First you denounce the Israeli soldiers’ written statements. And only then can you focus on the far, far less relevant words of a British film director.

Otherwise you’re bigoted.

But I understand you.

Leaving aside such subjective categories as “understandable” and “not surprising,” what is objectively true is that there have been attacks on Jews (mostly verbal, but some physical) that wouldn’t have taken place if Israel had not destroyed Gaza.

So this latest wave of anti-semitism is a reaction to Israel’s operations in Gaza?

By that logic, British Hindus should be verbally and physically attacking Pakistani Muslims residing in Englandas a reaction to the attacks on India’s parliament and on Mumbai by Pakistani jihadists.

Surely you think that some *islamophobia* is therefore in order.

As a reaction, I mean.

First you denounce the Israeli soldiers’ written statements. And only then can you focus on the far, far less relevant words of a British film director.

Ridiculous argument. A British film director is far far more culturally influential than any individual racist soldier of any nationality.

Try again.

You’ll agree it’s much, much more serious when representatives of a state, such as soldiers, write graffiti like “ARabs need 2 die”, “Arabs are pieces of shit” and “1 is DOWN 999,999 TO GO.”

You violate the rule here that when you post an example you shouldn’t extrapolate it (or suggest) it is a characteristic of ALL people of the same ilk.

If I comment on a poster by an Islamist Extremist that says “Kill all those who offend The Prophet” then I don’t believe that ALL Muslims will kill a non-believer for passing a comment about Mohammed.

Christ, this is such a ‘no-brainer’.

Rodent kinda knows he is talking crap and is increasingly waffling and Hasbara (Im guessing here cos the bloke makes little sense to me) is quoting some grafitti daubed on a wall by an Israeli Conscript of evidence of something very much more important.

Anyway, im not a theatre critic like Rosie, an academic like Norm or as eminently qualified as many others here; but its not rocket science.

If I looked at a bar chart of anti-semitic attacks over the last 18 months and saw a ’spike’ in attacks in january 2009, I could ‘understand’ the ’spike’ if someone reminded me that this was the month of the Gaza incursion.

I would understand the ’spike’ (ie because morons though it was a good excuse to attack jews) but would think anti-semitic attacks moronic, detestable and illegal.

Loach is evidently a prick and I believe his ‘understanding’ is somewhat different to mine . The sentence about the ‘red herring’ is what makes his position so indefensible.

He is saying…..

Its not just that you jews warranted this increase in anti-semitism…you are now using this increase (real or imagined) to deflect criticism of Israel in that wily way you people have etc etc etc.

So, yes, his comments are dumb, ignorant, stupid and…….’anti semitic’.

All the rest is just bullshit really (as evidenced by the particularly idiotic comments of a Rosenberg above)

mattG

Hasbara Buster:

“So an order of priorities should be respected. First you denounce the Israeli soldiers’ written statements. And only then can you focus on the far, far less relevant words of a British film director.”

There is no such thing as a mere ‘individual.’ We can only become individuals, thanks to society. Ken Loach is a representative individual, thanks to his fame, but also thanks to a quite considearable anti-Israeli plus anti-semitic tendency. He is much more rerpesentative than a couple of stupid soldiers, who do NOT represent either Israel or most Jews.

Graffiti writers are much more singularly individual than Loach can ever hope to be.

Then each case should be taken as it comes up. The graffiti writers should be condemned. But what your argument seems to boild down to is that we can’t criticise someone who has expressed a barbaric point of view, because someone somewhere else has been a baddie too. Loaches pronouncement is much more universally damaging than that of graffiti writers.

How can we live with a clear conscience in a world in which antagonism to Jews, Chinese, Danes etc. is ‘understandable’ because of something that their government, their institutions do.

I hesitate to believe that Loach meant what he said – it would be too disgusting – but I presume that he has by now replied with a fulsome apology and explanation. Has he done so? This kind of news is not much reported in Italy.

Flying Rodent, having witnessed substantial Anglophobic bigotry in Scotland, and having been on the receiving end of anti-Scots bigotry in England, let me assure you that the critical part of the problem is not the aggressive nationalist idiocy of some Scots. It’s the widespread and casual toleration of their bigotry as something ‘understandable’ by otherwise decent people. As it happens, the roots of that kind of bigotry are not rational, and are usually based on a distorted nationalist folklore rather than any sense of objective historical reality. What seems to be absent from that sneaking regard is any sense that the people displaying it have any personal responsibility to challenge the bigotry in question.

That is the real problem with Ken Loach’s remark for me; it smacks of precisely the same sneaking toleration of bigotry.

OT and I don’t know which thread to post this on but given the move by members of the Jordanian Parliament to try to get Israel charged with war crimes it seems unconscionable to ignore this painful to watch recent You Tube clip showing the Jordanian Army hazing some naked prisoners held in a pit.

Understanding is certainly not the same as condoning. Understanding is certainly not even “half way” to condoning.

Moreover, the fact that a response (such as an expression of antisemitism) to a crime, bad act or omission is inappropriate does not justify the original crime, bad act or omission (such as, for example, dropping bombs on densely populated civilian neighbourhoods and trying to dump the blame on the “human shields” er, I mean victims).

Yet that’s what people seem to be arguing.

Moreover not all crimes bad acts or omissions are equal.

So why does (for example) Rosie Bell think that putting Brian’s dinner on the table 10 minutes late is even remotely comparable to bombing Gaza with the resultant deaths of 1300 people, 400 of them kids?

Could someone explain, preferably without calling me an antisemite?

Understanding is certainly not the same as condoning.

If you have not read the thread it is understanable that you don’t know that understandable is not the same word as understanding.

I think people have mainly moved onto other threads.I have done some googling and so far I see know signs of backtracking on the part of Loach. In this case he proves himself to be literally anti-semitic. Understanding but not condoning is an empty phrase when when the understanding results effectively in the behaviour he is not supposed to condone and encourages it.

Internationalist

harps on the killings in Gaza when he is refering to an ongoing war with people – do I have to repeat it again ?- who want to expunge Israel form the face of the earth. The only logical outcome of Inernationalist’s arguments must inevitably be the annihilation of Israel. Presumably the massacre of thousands of people in the most barbaric way would then be ‘understandable’ for Internationalist. The Israeli war was NOT an indiscriminate massacre. Even from my distant vantage point, I could tell they were doing their best to avoid the kind of massacre that Hamas would like to perpetarte on Israel.

It is quite useless to draw the attention of Internationalist and friends to the nature of the fundamentalist regimes they support. No attacks and protests about the really indiscrinmiate and barnaric murders and Massacres going on in those regions and in others (China and Tibet). They trun a blind eye; they do not reply. Up to today I haven’t had a single reply to such questions.

I think Internationalist, Loach, Galloway and others should go to live in those countries with their families, not in European enclaves, but among the people they espouse, and find out what life is like under Sharia law.

Galloway can hob-nob with criminals and then retrurn safely home, while home still remains safe.Much of this Islamo-leftishness has something clinically suicidal about it. This brand of Islamism is the very last thing that will help them evolve a society that is free from exploitaion of the exploited classes, or that will dismantle ruthless capitalism or what they call Imperialism. The real new Imperialists are the Islamic fundamentalists.

There is something of what Loach considers ‘understandable’ anit-Arab feeling in Italy. I neither understand nor condone it.

Perhaps Internationalist would like to explain how he/she became convinced that 400 children were killed by Israel during Cast Lead given that the Palestinian Health Authority didn’t publish the names of the children they claim were killed making it impossible to corroborate their statistic and given that the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) which has so far only published an incomplete list of names, but which also places Hamas operatives and militants into the category of non belligerent civilian(1) doesn’t claim 400 children were killed.

PCHR says that 280 of the victims were children and 121 were women. If we assume that none of the 15-17-year old children were in fact fighters – which is not likely to be true – and if we assume that half of Gazans are under 18 (the median age is 17.2) and that half of Gazans are male and half female, and if we further assume that there were 20,000 fighters, then according to PCHR’s own figures:

“Combatants” and Hamas police were 35 times more likely to be killed than civilians.
Adult males were 8.5 times more likely to be killed than adult women.
Adult males were 7 times more likely to be killed than children under 18.

—————————————–
(1) The PCHR made no attempt to determine whether any of the dead were members of terror groups, only if they were (what PCHR defines as) “active combatants.” In other words, if the IDF shot a Hamas operative a minute after he/she shot a rocket into Israel, the PCHR would classify him/her as a “noncombatant” since the operative was not shot at precisely the moment he/she was firing the rocket. The PCHR also counted Nizar Rayyan as a civilian.

The UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes has stated that there were no serious grounds for disputing the Palestinian Ministry of Health figures.

These are 1324 Gazans killed including 437 children under the age of children.

In addition 110 women, 123 elderly men, 14 medics, and four journalists.

“It is quite useless to draw the attention of Internationalist and friends to the nature of the fundamentalist regimes they support. No attacks and protests about the really indiscrinmiate and barnaric murders and Massacres going on in those regions and in others (China and Tibet). They trun a blind eye; they do not reply. Up to today I haven’t had a single reply to such questions.”

What questions?

I don’t support ANY fundamentalist regimes, past or present. Including the Dalai Lama’s Tibet, which was run as a feudal theocracy with 95% of the population living in a state best described as serfdom.

I always find it strange and perplexing that people, mostly intelligent people, people who wouldn’t dream of excusing or “understanding” anti-black racism, ant-Irish racism, anti-Roma racism, extreme forms of sexism, fascism, etc tie themselves in knots when it comes to anti-Jewish racism

so in the end they would never consider, dream or want to make the former “understandable” but can’t apply those selfsame sentiments when the issue is the latter, anti-Jewish racism

that is a very peculiar attitude.

So why does (for example) Rosie Bell think that putting Brian’s dinner on the table 10 minutes late is even remotely comparable to bombing Gaza with the resultant deaths of 1300 people, 400 of them kids?

You evidently haven’t read my post with any understanding at all of the point I am trying to make.