Israel and Palestine

[Middle-aged Europe]

"50% Israel and 50% Palestine"
or
"Gaza and the West Bank Palestinian, the rest Israel"
or
"Israel offered deal - 45% Palestine 55% Israel".

I´m so undecided.

Anyway, I voted for "Gaza and the West Bank Palestinian, the rest Israel".


EDIT: Check out the Middle East Political Opinion Selector (http://www.selectsmart.com/FREE/select.php?client=mideast).

[Middle-aged Europe]

I support the formation of a Palestinian state as well as the existence of an Israeli state.

I think Ariel Sharon is an asshole, but Yassir Arafat is even dumber. I´m a Yitzhak Rabin admirer.

And I generally deny any accusation of me being an anti-Semite as anti-European and anti-German.

I don´t want to piss off MarkDel, but the really scary thing is that I personally know some anti-Semites who are pro-American and pro-Bush conservatives.

[Middle-aged Europe]

That's basically my point. Though I do think there are some radical left-wingers as well.

That´s right. I think extreme leftists (and I mean REALLY extreme) see themselves as "anti-Zionist", because Zionism is a form of nationalism/imperialism and Marxists are fighting against imperialism etc.

Anyway, the democratic leftist parties in Germany tend to be very "anti-anti-Semitic", partly because it´s seen as political correct to be against anti-Semitism (has also something to do with the Holocaust etc.). And I´ve met conservatives who complained that "political correctness" has gone too far these days and that it has to be possible to "criticize" the jews.

The last anti-Semitic scandal we had here was then a Member of Parliament of the conservative CDU indirectly called the jews a "race of perpetrators" (maybe somebody heard of it). After some time of bitter political debate within and without the party this MP was expelled from his party.

[Middle-aged Europe]

And there was Möllem as well...I find it funny that the liberal parties in Germany and Austria have such strong anti-semitic traditions, whereas the Swedish liberals are the exact opposite.

Well, of course, there are also counterexamples, like veteran FDP politician Hildegard Hamm-Brücher (whose grandmother was a jew, who committed suicide to prevent her transportation to a concentration camp) who left the party as protest against Möllemann. He was not so undisputed within his party.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Oh, I know I wasn't implying that the party as a whole was anti-semitic, far from it. Only that I think most anti-semites and ex-Nazis joined the liberals after the war, whereas the Christian Democrats were generally more on the good side, as the social democrats. Look at the 'liberal party' in Austria, they've gone completely overboard....

And I didn´t want to imply that you are implying that the FDP is as a whole anti-Semitic neither.

It´s true that right after the war the FDP served as a new political home for former Nazi officials and SS officers etc. in some parts of the country, especially towards the north (political parties were much more decentralized back then, with a lot regional differences). But I doubt there is a connection between the situation then and the "Möllemann affair". The former Nazi officials I mentioned were long dead, when Möllemann started his populist campaign. I think he was more inspired by the success of Jörg Haider and Austria´s FPÖ. And the liberals in Austria always had a more "nationalist" stance, while in Germany there was also a social-liberal tradition (Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, for example).

(I hope the American users here know about the differences between the American and the European meaning of the term "liberal". I once created a lot of confusion in another American-based forum when I started to talk about "liberals" in Europe there. )

[Middle-aged Europe]

OK, I think you know more about the FDP than I do.

And on liberalism, tell me about it! We've had our fair share of controversy regarding that here as well...

Well, you know what I mean... that the European "liberal" has more the meaning of the American "libertarian" than the American "liberal".

[Middle-aged Europe]

OK, I think you know more about the FDP than I do.

And on liberalism, tell me about it! We've had our fair share of controversy regarding that here as well...

Well, you know what I mean... that the European "liberal" has more the meaning of the American "libertarian" than the American "liberal".

Yes, I know that.

Good.