BF2S Forums The West and the Arab World

CameronPoe wrote:

DeathBecomesYu wrote:

Oh look at all the pretty pictures!!! Your context is WAY, WAY off. Concentration camps and ghettos were two different things. Dont show pictures of ghettos when we are talking about concrentration camps. Those camps were used for genocide. There are not mass graves of palestinians that were burned or killed by gas. There arent train loads of Palestinian dead piled on top of each other. Your pictures only show that it looks like a Ghetto.....concentration camps are something far different used for a very different evil cause. There is no comparison.

My definition of a concentration camp pretty much amounts to a cordoned off place where the freedom to move is restricted by force and the people within are slowly bled to death through actual violence or long slow starvation and economic malaise. So - ghetto - concentration camp - it's all semantics to me.

Excuse me if you didn't find the Warsaw Ghetto abhorrent. I happen to think it was terrible. But maybe that's just me.

DeathBecomesYu wrote:

sergeriver wrote:

DeathBecomesYu wrote:

There is not a difference, its a difference in your eyes, but in context....there isn't a difference. When Israel was attacked and it won the war(militarily), it had the right to keep what it gained as has so many other countries through out history. Is that always right...of course not but that is history and we have to learn from that. Now, of course you will say that Israel was there illegally in the first place. Whether we like it or not, Israel is a country, it is recognized by the rest of the world (majority of) as a legitimate country and that isn't going to change, At the end of the war with its Arab/ Persian neighbors. Israel DID give land back but did keep some of it and since then has gained and gave back land. Also, Israel is not the first country to have to deal with the Palestinians. Jordan has expelled Palestinians from its land and currently has a large population as well, of course in camps similar to what they have around Israel...so is Jordan also in possession of "concentration camps"? There are camps in Lebanon...so is the Lebanese government also running "concentration camps"?

Lebanon has a Palestinian issue too, a very serious one...look at what is going on there...its no different than in Israel. The problem is that terrorists and radicals HIJACK the true Palestinian cause and pervert it for their own cause. On one hand you have true Palestinians fighting for statehood (which they should have) but on the other hand, radicals are ready to use this situation to kill and attack a country they want to totally destroy. No matter where the Palestinians live, their cause will be hijacked. That is what the radicals always do. Find a weak government or people and infiltrate to keep it unstable, then use the innocent for their cause and protection. Its happening in many places outside of the Palestinian/ Israeli conflict. Just look around. CURRENTLY, the root of the problem IS the radicals and will be for a long time to come.

Let's say that Israel gives in and puts the borders back to what they were in the original agreements....Do ANY of you really think it would end there. Of course not!!!!!! This conflict is bigger than that. Whatever Israel concedes will never be enough for the radicals and Israel will still be bombed, attacked with missiles and suicide attacks. People need to look at the big picture. No matter what Israel does in an effort to make a 2 state situation with the Palestinians, the fact remains that Israel will still be under attack by elements under the Palestinian flag or whatever group the terrorists can hijack for their cause and that cause is to wipe Israel off the map completely. This thread about Hamas or Fatah is really kind of a lost cause because in the end it doesn't matter who is in power, the Palestinian people will be used regardless. Whether blatantly by Hamas or undercover under Fatah's nose. Israel is and always will be the target.

The whole Palestine is a big concentration camp.

Honestly, its quite offensive to compare the palestinian situation to concentration camps....I'm not a jew, but I think most jew would find the use of your comparison offensive. Using those words as you have does disservice to every person who died or lost family in an actual concentration camp. The situation if more like an occupation, but only to a point. You have many cultures, religions believing they have this or that right to that land. You have a history of christians building on top of Islam, Islam building on top of Christian over and over in the same small piece of dirt.  You nor I will never change that. Its a battle over thousands of years and probably a thousand years from now. But calling it a concentration camp really goes tooooooo far.

CameronPoe wrote:

DeathBecomesYu wrote:

Oh look at all the pretty pictures!!! Your context is WAY, WAY off. Concentration camps and ghettos were two different things. Dont show pictures of ghettos when we are talking about concrentration camps. Those camps were used for genocide. There are not mass graves of palestinians that were burned or killed by gas. There arent train loads of Palestinian dead piled on top of each other. Your pictures only show that it looks like a Ghetto.....concentration camps are something far different used for a very different evil cause. There is no comparison.

My definition of a concentration camp pretty much amounts to a cordoned off place where the freedom to move is restricted by force and the people within are slowly bled to death through actual violence or long slow starvation and economic malaise. So - ghetto - concentration camp - it's all semantics to me.

Excuse me if you didn't find the Warsaw Ghetto abhorrent. I happen to think it was terrible. But maybe that's just me.

Last edited by sergeriver (2007-06-26 15:42:53)

Kmarion wrote:

CameronPoe wrote:

DeathBecomesYu wrote:

Oh look at all the pretty pictures!!! Your context is WAY, WAY off. Concentration camps and ghettos were two different things. Dont show pictures of ghettos when we are talking about concrentration camps. Those camps were used for genocide. There are not mass graves of palestinians that were burned or killed by gas. There arent train loads of Palestinian dead piled on top of each other. Your pictures only show that it looks like a Ghetto.....concentration camps are something far different used for a very different evil cause. There is no comparison.

My definition of a concentration camp pretty much amounts to a cordoned off place where the freedom to move is restricted by force and the people within are slowly bled to death through actual violence or long slow starvation and economic malaise. So - ghetto - concentration camp - it's all semantics to me.

Excuse me if you didn't find the Warsaw Ghetto abhorrent. I happen to think it was terrible. But maybe that's just me.

You are correct. Consider the Japanese American internment camps, or the plight of the American Indian. The Nazi's just decided to add genocide to the daily events. That doesn't make them exclusive owners to of the right to use the term "concentration camp".

DeathBecomesYu wrote:

sergeriver wrote:

DeathBecomesYu wrote:

Then he should know better.

What should I know better, pls enlighten me.

READ...I dont have to repeat myself

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

CameronPoe wrote:

My definition of a concentration camp pretty much amounts to a cordoned off place where the freedom to move is restricted by force and the people within are slowly bled to death through actual violence or long slow starvation and economic malaise. So - ghetto - concentration camp - it's all semantics to me.

Excuse me if you didn't find the Warsaw Ghetto abhorrent. I happen to think it was terrible. But maybe that's just me.

You are correct. Consider the Japanese American internment camps, or the plight of the American Indian. The Nazi's just decided to add genocide to the daily events. That doesn't make them exclusive owners to of the right to use the term "concentration camp".

the difference is the connotation of the word internment versus concentration.  both suck i agree.  however, when you say internment, it implies imprisonment but you are alive.  concentration evokes images of Dachau/Buchenwald/Auschwitz where people were killed, worked to death, starved, experimented upon, gassed, etc.

if it is semantics, then let's correctly call these as internment camps because they aren't allowed to leave yet are not indiscriminantly killed on a major scale as in a concentration camp.

DeathBecomesYu wrote:

sergeriver wrote:

The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. defines concentration camp as: a camp where non-combatants of a district are accommodated, such as those instituted by Lord Kitchener during the South African war of 1899-1902; one for the internment of political prisoners, foreign nationals, etc., esp. as organized by the Nazi regime in Germany before and during the war of 1939-45.  The English term "concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during the 1899-1902 Second Boer War. Allegedly conceived as a form of humanitarian aid to the families whose farms had been destroyed in the fighting, the camps were used to confine and control large numbers of civilians as part of a Scorched Earth tactic. The term "concentration camp" was coined at this time to signify the "concentration" of a large number of people in one place, and was used to describe both the camps in South Africa (1899-1902) and those established by the Spanish to support a similar anti-insurgency campaign in Cuba (circa 1895-1898), although at least some Spanish sources disagree with the comparison.  Use of the word concentration comes from the idea of concentrating a group of people who are in some way undesirable in one place, where they can be watched by those who incarcerated them. For example, in a time of insurgency, potential supporters of the insurgents are placed where they cannot provide them with supplies or information.

Ignorant post...why, because now you are trying to use definitions to describe a Nazi concentration camp to a general definition. Yes, of course they were gathered in one place but for a whole different purpose. Let's get back on track. The Palestinian issue or situation is NOT even close to what most people would consider "Concentration camps". You can show me tons of pictures, maps, definitions all you want....it still doesn't change the fact that there is NO comparison between the two. NONE. Maybe by definition you could TRY but common sense/ logic....far from it. Don't use pictures of WW2 ghettos and then use it to compare to concentration camps, why....because logically people will make that jump to what most people remember as a concentration camp...a Nazi death camp and when you try to say that this is what the Palestinians are suffering from, then it sends a very wrong image to people who may not know the true history. You can not compare the Nazi death/concentration camps to a current Palestinian refugee camp....THAT IS ABSURD!!!!

Last edited by CameronPoe (2007-06-26 16:08:04)

sergeriver wrote:

DeathBecomesYu wrote:

sergeriver wrote:

The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. defines concentration camp as: a camp where non-combatants of a district are accommodated, such as those instituted by Lord Kitchener during the South African war of 1899-1902; one for the internment of political prisoners, foreign nationals, etc., esp. as organized by the Nazi regime in Germany before and during the war of 1939-45.  The English term "concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during the 1899-1902 Second Boer War. Allegedly conceived as a form of humanitarian aid to the families whose farms had been destroyed in the fighting, the camps were used to confine and control large numbers of civilians as part of a Scorched Earth tactic. The term "concentration camp" was coined at this time to signify the "concentration" of a large number of people in one place, and was used to describe both the camps in South Africa (1899-1902) and those established by the Spanish to support a similar anti-insurgency campaign in Cuba (circa 1895-1898), although at least some Spanish sources disagree with the comparison.  Use of the word concentration comes from the idea of concentrating a group of people who are in some way undesirable in one place, where they can be watched by those who incarcerated them. For example, in a time of insurgency, potential supporters of the insurgents are placed where they cannot provide them with supplies or information.

Ignorant post...why, because now you are trying to use definitions to describe a Nazi concentration camp to a general definition. Yes, of course they were gathered in one place but for a whole different purpose. Let's get back on track. The Palestinian issue or situation is NOT even close to what most people would consider "Concentration camps". You can show me tons of pictures, maps, definitions all you want....it still doesn't change the fact that there is NO comparison between the two. NONE. Maybe by definition you could TRY but common sense/ logic....far from it. Don't use pictures of WW2 ghettos and then use it to compare to concentration camps, why....because logically people will make that jump to what most people remember as a concentration camp...a Nazi death camp and when you try to say that this is what the Palestinians are suffering from, then it sends a very wrong image to people who may not know the true history. You can not compare the Nazi death/concentration camps to a current Palestinian refugee camp....THAT IS ABSURD!!!!

I never said Palestine is a Nazi concentration camp.  Read again my post.  Read and learn, and think before calling someone ignorant, when you are the one who is not getting the point.  Nazis did not invent concentration camps, so we can conclude Palestine with its nice walls is like a concentration camp.  According to the Oxford Dictionary definition a concentration camp comes from the idea of concentrating a group of people who are in some way undesirable in one place.

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

i was under the impression that the palestinian israeli citizens that i work with day to day became israeli in 1948.  in fact, they enjoy comfortable lives in Israel and don't live in cardboard boxes or bombed out homes.  Why aren't these israeli citizens in the camps?

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

In 1967 or 1973 (you probably can educate me here), arab states attacked Israel and Israel beat them back taking some land from them in the process (west bank? golan heights, gaza strip).  These people in these lands are the people in the 'camps', no?  These camps were not originally part of Israel but of its neighbors that attacked.

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

So, in this context, i see your point that mexico 'ceased-to-exist'.  However, later, let's say US attacked the larger Nicaragua and Nicaragua beat the US and took Texas.  Then should the US absorb the US people in Texas/Nicaragua?  Is this more accurate as to your original intent?  One may argue that since the US has plenty of land, that the Nicaraguans can enjoy all the fire-ants they want in Texas.  Others might argue that we (the US) should fight back and take the land back.

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

Now, if you are in the latter camp (fight back), then why aren't the countries affected (namely US in my analogy and lebanon/Jordan/Egypt in the real life example) trying to fight israel outright?  no, instead they choose to fight proxy war using Palestinians as pawns for political pressure since they know that they will not win militarily against the US even without US help.

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

Why doesn't the rest of the world really side with the palestinian plight?  Because they kill innocent people and hide amongst other innocents so when law enforcement attempts to do anything, then of course those innocents become collateral damage.  this is a no win situation but it is where we find ourselves today.

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

also, if my history or view is incorrect, please explain what is the distinction between palestinians living inside/outside of the camps.  why some are in and some are out?

Last edited by CameronPoe (2007-06-26 16:24:53)

DeathBecomesYu wrote:

You are not understanding where I am coming from. There was a post of pictures calling and comparing a ghetto to a concentration camp, then comparing it to the current Palestinian refugee camps. I dont care what the Oxford dictionary definition is.....that is stupid!!! Of course the Nazi's didn't invent it BUT when you or anyone else says the word "Concentration camp" to anyone, they aren't running out to the local library to see what Oxford's definition is..do you understand that difference??  What do most people think of....hmmmmm....let me think.....oh, that's right. Death and genocide of a race of people, a deliberate killing machine. My point is if you are going to throw around WW2 images and provoke those memories and then turn around and say that the Palestinians are suffering the same, then you need be absolutely accurate about it. I agree with the Ghetto comparison but dont mix up the two.

The Palestinian refugee camp IS NOT comparable to what most people consider to be what a concentration camp is. Do not provoke images of Nazi death camps or those emotions attached to concentration camps, show pictures of ghettos and call it all the same...that is ridiculous and dangerous. Finally, you feel free to reduce things to definitions. I refuse to reduce the death of millions of victims to an Oxford definition.

CameronPoe wrote:

DeathBecomesYu wrote:

You are not understanding where I am coming from. There was a post of pictures calling and comparing a ghetto to a concentration camp, then comparing it to the current Palestinian refugee camps. I dont care what the Oxford dictionary definition is.....that is stupid!!! Of course the Nazi's didn't invent it BUT when you or anyone else says the word "Concentration camp" to anyone, they aren't running out to the local library to see what Oxford's definition is..do you understand that difference??  What do most people think of....hmmmmm....let me think.....oh, that's right. Death and genocide of a race of people, a deliberate killing machine. My point is if you are going to throw around WW2 images and provoke those memories and then turn around and say that the Palestinians are suffering the same, then you need be absolutely accurate about it. I agree with the Ghetto comparison but dont mix up the two.

The Palestinian refugee camp IS NOT comparable to what most people consider to be what a concentration camp is. Do not provoke images of Nazi death camps or those emotions attached to concentration camps, show pictures of ghettos and call it all the same...that is ridiculous and dangerous. Finally, you feel free to reduce things to definitions. I refuse to reduce the death of millions of victims to an Oxford definition.

So basically you're criticising me, serge and kmarion for speaking the English language the way it is meant to be spoken. I make the quite valid comparison between the Warsaw Ghetto (an enclosed section of the city, small in area, where jews could do largely as they pleased but could not leave and thus were economically strangled) to the Qalqilya pocket in the West Bank (a completely enclosed section of the West Bank, small in area, where Palestinians can do largely as they please but are pretty much locked in and thus economically strangled - unemployment of 76% I believe).