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About LinkBacksThat's a bit like how we used handle divorce - but we've moved on - a bit anyway.Originally Posted by L'Chaim
That's a bit like how we used handle divorce - but we've moved on - a bit anyway.
So you're a sex counsellor? Advice on how to get rid of 'superficial people'.
L'Chaim, I've read your various posts on this thread in a state of cringing embarrassment for you. It really is pathetic watching someone, whom I suspect isn't entirely comfortable with their brief, trying to justify the patently indefensible. I could put a pointy white hat on your head and have you teleported to Alabama, 1933, and you'd not look one iota out of place.
Pack it in. The only ones proud of your efforts are the mentally deranged bigots who pop cans of beer as they sit on deckchairs watching the bombs fall on Gaza's packed urban sprawl.
Is that where you see yourself?
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Mahatma Gandhi
I have responded to the tone of the contribution above, but was interrupted before I could reply to the substance.
You suggest that I said (in effect), "What about Burma?" or that I want to talk about Burma.
I didn't and I don't. I mentioned also Rwanda and Kashmir, but just to ask rhetorically whether there would be the same interest in a similar story from those places, or other non-Middle Eastern places where there is conflict and the lack of harmony among nations to which the West has become accustomed.
Your answer indicates that there would be interest on *your* part in a story out of Burma that raised a human rights issue. That is to your credit.
But it still seems to me that, in general, there is more interest in Israel than other places (and, unfortunately, that includes Burma, for instance) because of a greater interest in the larger conflict between the competing forces in the Middle East.
You also use the adjective "boring". You apply it to me personally, but since we have not met, I assume you mean that the longer comment of mine you quoted was boring. And perhaps it was. But please recall what prompted it. You dismissed my earlier, very brief and pointed comment as saarcastic and invited me to make an "actual contribution". Perhaps foolishly, I accepted that invitation. Obviously, explaining why a joke might illustrate a valid point runs the risk of being a little tedious.
Sarcastic? Boring? Maybe it is just that my comments suggest to you that we do not agree,
I would not intentioanlly derail a thread. If I am doing so, I do not mind someone pointing it out. I admit that my point was somewhat meta-thread, if you'll pardon that phrase. Are we debating this particular question of criminal justice at such length because it involves israel, and is that of interest because of interest in the larger question of the of the rights and wrongs of the conflict in the Middle East?
No it isn't. Except in the Israeli Reich, which now has its own Nuremberg Laws to match. Lebensraum is already in place (settlements), along with ghettos (Gaza). So I guess the yellow-crescent badges won't be long in coming...Sieg....
Last edited by FutureTaoiseach; 30th July 2010 at 10:26 PM.
I agree with you that one of the things that israel does that opens it to criticism is to claim (basixcally) that it is just another "liberal Western democracy."
That is a mistake, principally because Israel exists in circumstamces that are very different from those of contemporary liberal Western democracies (even apart from mere geography).
What Israel ought to say --as it would be much closer to the reality -- is that it is one of those Middle Eastern nations, with a special purpose for a particular ethnic group, that aspires, despite overt hostility from majority sentiment in the Middle East, to have some degree of democracy, pluralism, due process, and liberal or humanistic values. A few other nations in the Middle East -- though not many, unfortunately -- might make the same claim -- modest as it might seem by liberal Western standards.
The extent to which the "facts on the ground" would cause an impartial observer to credit that claim, would be another matter.
So, here is a thought experiment: If israel admitted it was nothing more than an imperfect Middle Easrtern democracy, how would we feel about it? Better? Or would the conflict not seem as important in that case?
[Interista, I have puzzled over you attribution to me of a "faux naif" line. I do not understand it. Can you explain what you mean? It is possible that you take me for an uncritical propogandist for Israel. Believe me, the only thing I am an uncritical propogandist for is freedom. There is precious little of it in the Middle East, and in saying that I do not avert my gaze from Israel -- nor do I change or skew my perspective on the region when turning attention to Israel.]
Last edited by caulfield-the-yank; 30th July 2010 at 10:53 PM.
some good points there.
Maybe Israel should be more honest as to what it is. It is a unique country and therefore acts in a unique way. Due to thousands of years of persecution when nobody helped them, they should just say "we want a jewish state for jews - if you are not a jew, you are not welcome"
The law everywhere ought to recognize that some forms of deception will vitiate consent.
The question is what sort of deception.
From the comments I have read, there seems to be a consensus that the deception must have something to do with the sex, from an objective standpoint. That is, from the standpoint of what the accused reasonably should have understood as being important to the complainant in terms of her decision whether or not to consent to have sex with the accused.
Some things might be presumed to be understood as important. (Some posters have mentioned health.) Other things, such as race or religion, should not enjoy such a presumption -- even though, in a given case, the accused *could* have an objective understanding that such a thing *did* matter in terms of the other party's consent.
If a woman says, I will only have sex with you if you are Jewish, then, rational or not, that is her choice, and, unless a non-Jewish man really and reasonably thinks that is a cod, he knows (as surely as he knows he is not Jewish) that he does not have her consent, unless and until she gives some objectively adequate indication that she has changed her mind.
But that kind of situation would be rare, or so I imagine. Typically, when it comes to casual dalliances, there is always an element of risk that things are not what they seem, or not all one thinks one has been led to suppose they are or might be. And, usually, an acceptance of *some* of those risks is objectively understood as being entailed, if those risks have not been explicitly ruled out by one of the parties in a manner that the other party should (from an objective standpoint) have understood.
I do not know the particulars of this case, or of Israeli law. But if Israeli law either creates a presumption that a Jewish woman has not consented to otherwise consensual sex *merely* because the man falsely claimed at some point during his acquaintance to be Jewish; or if Israeli law is phrased in such a way that it could be so construed in doubtful cases; or if Israeli law, either textually or through construction, places a greater risk on non-Jews than on Jews in this situation; then I say the law should be changed.
I am sure there are many members of the Knesset, and many candidates for the Knesset, who would agree. If I lived in Israel, I would vote for those candidates. And I would count it as one of the advantages of Israeli citizenship -- call it one of the few, if you wish -- that I would have the right to do so.
Last edited by caulfield-the-yank; 30th July 2010 at 11:07 PM.
Thanks, but you're pulling our leg there.
What Israel should say is, "We want a free and pluralistic society in this part of the Middle East, as close as we can get to Western liberal democracies -- and especially for Jews, because despotic, insular regimes have historically been the great threat to Jews. Thus, whatever your ethnicity, if you want to live in a country that tries to be as free and pluralistic as it is possible to be in the Middle East, and you do not want to persecute Jews or repalce israel with an Islamic 'republic' or similarly despotic regime, you are welcome."
Last edited by caulfield-the-yank; 30th July 2010 at 11:51 PM.
Do you know how much your undermining the seriousness of the word rapist by using it in this way? It's shameful.
you think Israelis want a multicultural state? I am confident they want a Jewish one.
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