Tender's megathread on crime in Austria

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Subtle, Tender. I guess you would be sharing this if it had been Austrian citizens doing the rape?

Regardless, yes, this is a terrible crime, these men should be in prison, longer than 5-15 years, I think. Life if the Austrian legal system allows for it.

There's no dispute that the crime is terrible, just the terribly unsubtle message of "REFUGEES BAD NATIONALISM GOOD".

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Siren, I really dislike the implications that some posters are trying to draw from this, but reaching back to the social trauma of people at the epicenter of one the most destructive events in history for a comparison does not suggest to me that this is just something to be expected as a matter of the normal, everyday criminality that every society experiences.

That's a fair point.  I'm not really trying to say this kind of thing is normal, but I think there are some important lessons from it.  The stories from the German victims show the intense humiliation that people feel when they've been raped and how it makes many of them really unlikely to want to tell anyone.  They felt ashamed at what their country had done but also were afraid that nobody would believe them because they were untrustworthy or worse, being afraid that people would say they deserved it because they were Germans.  So when victims are afraid no one will believe them, they are less likely to report. 

It also shows that people are capable of truly barbaric things when they've gone through incredible hardship (yes, even white people!)  Refugees are coming from a very bad situation, so if they arrive in a new environment that's kind of unknown, and they remain poor or don't have a job, it's going to create some problems.  Just like when people try to point to inner city black crime rates, and try to say oh it's the black culture when it's actually the living conditions. 

It's understandable that people see crime statistics from refugees and immediately want to ban them all, but that means closing the door to people literally running from genocide.  I've been to refugee shelters here in New York and seen the smiling children, running around and playing just like normal kids, pointing to maps and showing you happily where they grew up until they smile and say "bye!" when it's time for them to go to their English class.  It might take some extra work to help them get going in society, but I'm prepared to do it.  They don't deserve to die.  I don't really know how European refugee shelters and policies are handling the situation, but my guess is that their solution is too bureaucratic and doesn't have enough understanding of the human condition.  They might need some extra help coming from the circumstances they do, but that doesn't mean they're bad people.  Anyone would be messed up coming from a situation like that. 

And that's not even counting all of the examples of refugees who have done great things like Nadia Nadim, an Afghan refugee that fled the Taliban when they murdered her father.  Now she plays on the Danish national soccer team and founded several clinics in Denmark to help hungry children, while studying at university to be a doctor.  If Denmark didn't take her in, she would probably just be a body in the ground somewhere.  It just goes to show what good people can do for society when given the chance.

Exactly. No one is denying that monstrous actions of these refugees, and what others have/might have done. We're just pushing back against the asinine implication that "REFUGEE BAD NATIVIST GOOD" that is the core of what Tender and others have said in this thread.

The majority of refugees are average, everyday people, and like natives of any given country, there are bad people and there are good people, and different extremes in between. We're pushing back against this absurd demonization of all refugees by Tender and co.

Again, no one is denying that what these refugees did is bad. No one has said that's fine. Punish them as the law demands, and make the law stricter and harsher if you must. But demonization of refugees as a whole is ridiculous.

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Frankly, the anti-refugee types seem to want us to stand up and applaud them in text for the gift of sharing this information.

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Oh look, it's another Tender Branson thread whining about migrants/refugees! Who could have guessed?!?

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As usual, anti semitism is almost exclusively a symptom of the far right and radical Islam. Left wing anti Zionists are, in my experience, some of the most decent, accepting people out there.

I don't think it is possible to be anti-zionist and not be anti-semitic, because the entire position relies on the argument that Jewish nationalism is somehow uniquely unacceptable.

That said, right wing anti-semitism is clearly a thing and people should recognise this.

Question: is it anti-semitic or anti-zionist to fully recognize that Israel should exist and that it is in fact better on human rights than many other nations in the area, but also to say that it might want to treat Palestinians better?

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As usual, anti semitism is almost exclusively a symptom of the far right and radical Islam. Left wing anti Zionists are, in my experience, some of the most decent, accepting people out there.

I don't think it is possible to be anti-zionist and not be anti-semitic, because the entire position relies on the argument that Jewish nationalism is somehow uniquely unacceptable.

That said, right wing anti-semitism is clearly a thing and people should recognise this.

Question: is it anti-semitic or anti-zionist to fully recognize that Israel should exist and that it is in fact better on human rights than many other nations in the area, but also to say that it might want to treat Palestinians better?

Not remotely anti-semitic. In fact, I would bet it was the position of a majority of actual Zionists.

The problem of anti-zionists is delegitimization. BDS' driving principle is that Israel is the one nation in the world that is so evil and illegitimate that the country and the people in it should be treated as unpersons. There's no way around it that that's anti-semitic.

All right then. My position is that Israel does have a basic right to exist, but that it really should treat the Palestinians better. And of course that the surrounding nations should not encourage Palestinians to become militant.

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and the Palestinians themselves are totally innocent?

They are not, but considering Israel itself is the government authority, they've got the majority of guns and soldiers, and I hold them to a bit of a higher standard. And as I said, I do hold the neighboring nations that make a point to support Palestinian belligerence to a higher standard as well.

Palestinians themselves are held to some standard of course, but I believe that Israel, as the stronger "partner" in this symbiotic relationship, should treat them better first, though Palestinians really should stop committing violence as well. I blame the overall tension and anger between both sides (and fanned by the neighboring and allied nations) for much of the modern mess.