Opinions are like assholes. Everybody’s got one and everybody thinks that everybody else’s stinks.

http://globalcomment.com/forums/topic.php?id=23&replies=1

Typical Zionist response I must say, though. When asked to explain, basically insult and then go away or worse start dropping bombs. I’m here whenever you want to have a real discussion.

Things are definitely changing. Zionism is a movement. Palestine is a country. We’ll see which one is doomed within the next few decades.

Unless some of those people show up for the express purpose of harassing people and instigating things, as the JDL has at demonstrations around here, then it might be just a tiny bit relevant to think that the police might be acting to keep those people separate from each other. That’s not a conspiracy theory and it does not mean that any religion “controls the police,” please.

http://globalcomment.com/forums/

Zionism is a political ideology, just like Nazism, not a class of people.

Maybe it was just a passing comment of speculation while you were still in the heat of the moment, swept up with the passion you mention at the beginning of the post. I can tell you what it wasn’t: professional. I don’t know how seriously I should take you when you fling stuff like that around, even in passing.

If you were indeed treated in this way by police then it was wrongly done and I hope the policemen have disciplinary actions brought against them by their superiors in the police. Peaceful protesters do not deserve this.

And Jamal, way to generalize and insult a huge group of people with varied perspectives and views. It may just be me, but I ‘lose hope for the human race,’ as you referred to it, when I see blanketed hate like yours. Classy.

No. I’m saying that talking about a “Zionist lobby” “influencing the police force” is a truly troubling depiction because of the way that exact language has been used and deployed before (in an antisemitic way).

You’re trying to link a religion to a hateful political ideology and backing it up by mentioning that white supremacist literature says they are the same? And you have the gall to call somebody ELSE anti-semitic?

Zionism is not necessarily a “hateful” political ideology. From reading Jewish writers on the topic and watching speeches like this one from Jewish (and he says Zionist) UK MP Gerald Kaufman, it seems clear the issue is more complicated than just that.

Since you’re Jewish yourself, you must be aware of this complicated relationship. I’ve read many Jews talking about how conflicted they feel not supporting Israel, and how much pressure there is within the community to do so, because Jewish-ness (as an identity) has become so wrapped up in Israel’s existence and Zionism as an extension of that.

In addition, I didn’t call Umayyah Cable anti-semitic, I was taken aback that after the police attacked some Arab demonstrators her reaction to it was “Zionist lobby influenced the police!”

Yes, there is a support of Zionism in many Jewish communities. But there are also many Jewish communities who denounce it: Not In Our Name and a Jewish Voice for Peace to name a few.

And Women in Black, who were at the demonstration and who I said previously I support.

Just because “Zionism and Judaism are linked in the popular imagination,” doesn’t mean it’s ok for you, a seemingly educated and informed individual, to blatantly link them.

They are linked. They are not the same, but they are linked. I called attention to that part of your post because it read to me like something out of a white supremacist magazine, and I found that troubling.

As I stated before I find it distressful when religions and spirituality are hijacked and misused for political ideology.

Don’t forget that to be Jewish to many is also an ethnic identity, and there are the same identity politics with that as there are with other ethnic and racial identities.

By further insisting that Zionism and Judaism are inextricably bound *just* because mainstream opinion says so, you are reinforcing it as ok to do.

But that’s not what I was doing, that wasn’t the point of my comment at all.

I am not here to say who is nice or not. I just don’t understand why 50 pro-Israel supporters garner so much attention. This was meant to be a peace rally not a hate fest toward the Jews.