No, of course not, he certainly wasn't referring to Bush. Absolutely not. No way. He could be referring to your neighborhood garbage collector whose policies have been radically altered for the worse using 9/11 as an excuse.

Here in Israel, it is politically incorrect to use Nazism or Hitler as part of political discourse. When those of us who opposed the Oslo Agreements said Arafat is no different than Hitler, i.e. a mortal enemy of the Jewish people, we were accused of "incitement to murder" because then we were supposedly implying that Rabin and Peres were Nazi collaborators (I leave it to you to decide if that was indeed the case).
Another example was in the 1988 Israeli election campaign. Peres was promising an "international peace conference" to "settle" the Arab/Israeli conflict. The Likud (this is back in the good old days when the Likud actually believed in something) came out with a very effective ad showing a photo of the main participants of the 1938 Munich Conference. Underneath the photo they wrote the caption "International Peace Conference".
The Left went ballistic, but the Likud won the election anyway.

This is why Bar Kochba should be banned from TPM:
"When those of us who opposed the Oslo Agreements said Arafat is no different than Hitler, i.e. a mortal enemy of the Jewish people, we were accused of "incitement to murder" because then we were supposedly implying that Rabin and Peres were Nazi collaborators (I leave it to you to decide if that was indeed the case)."

A guy who "leavers it to you" to decide if Rabin and Peres were Nazi collaborators who deserved to be killed, he has eliminated himself from this community.

I will never address anything that he says again. Nor should anyone else. He should be banned.

I guess that guy Mark was right when he said Bar K danced and cheered when Rabin was killed.

Yuk. B-K man sends out a stench.

I live in Rep. Ellison's district, happily voted for him and will do so again. But I do think he made a mistake here. It's certainly open for debate whether the Nazis' horrors were so unique that it's fundamentally illegitimate to compare anything to them. But the fact is, Nazi analogies have been abused for so long that it's not surprising that people have become ultra-sensitive to them.

I wouldn't suggest that public figures should calibrate their speech to avoid tripping the right-wing outrage machine's wires. But as Dick Durbin showed, if you mention the Nazis there's a pretty good chance the rest of your message is going to be drowned out in the subsequent howling. This is one area in which it's best for people to tread lightly, especially when you can easily make the same point without running afoul of Godwin's law or it's corollaries.

Naturally, none of this changes the fact that Katherine Kersten is a fool.

How do you know he's not referring to Cheney and Rumsfeld and the neocons who did exploit 9/11 to promote their own agenda? I really doubt he was comparing Bush to Hitler - Bush isn't as smart.

Of course, if you're Arab (or Hugo Chavez) then comparison to Hitler is a given. Hussein, Ahmadenijad, Arafat, bin Laden and al Zawahari have all been compared to our favorite poster boy of EVIL. The Bush presidency has come closest to any of using fascist techniques, including torture. If comparisons are defendable, let them be made. Hitler was just a very successful tyrant and mass murderer in a long line of them. There is no "H" word that's off limits.

Of course, Zionista, but doesn't the example you cite simply confirm yet another nefarious effort on the part of Jews like you to stifle debate? Isn't that what you were trying to do when you complained of the joy some seemto take in calling Jews Nazis?

Are you a scorned stifler Zionista?

And by questioning whether the N word should be thrown around without reservation Zionista, doesn't that mean that you are in bed with Matt Drudge and you loathe Keith Ellison (nothwithstanding that, entirely independently of this latest tempest brought on by Drudge, you touted Mr. Ellison as a possible candidate for representing the U.S. in Middle East peace negotiations, a touting which I sumbit was obviously a ruse (since, after all, your name is Zionista))?

MJ:

By analogy to the old adage, "bad cases make bad law", so too does this latest nonsense being stoked by Matt Drudge against a fine man like Keith Ellison present an awkward forum for raising the real issue (if there is a real one), and that is whether folks think it's OK to throw around the Nazi label.

I don't like it when people call other people Nazis, and I admit to being especially sensitive to the use of the N word by people who I believe in my own heart hold an irrational hatred toward the State of Israel and/or a blatant insensitivity to Jewish people and their experience with real Nazis.

So, MJ, I guess my question to you would be (since we've dabbled in this issue over the past week), whether you believe that labelling someone a Nazi to advance a political argument should be done with the same type of caution you insist must be applied to the use of the term anti-semite, which is a term you have said in the past is overused by some to stifle debate?

Or, is it like Don Key and Madison suggest above, that no special care should be taken with respect to calling someone a Nazi or comparing someone to Hitler?

Regards,

Bruce

I'm with you. I'm against people making fale moral equivalences ("That politician I don't like is nothing but an Adolf Hitler!") but I have no problem with meaningful comparisons ("He uses propaganda in the same way that Hitler did, here's an example...")

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

All that is true, John, but I submit that, in the ordinary course, calling a Jew or a supporter of Israel a Nazi or Hitler-like is not being done for the purpose of focusing on that person's obsession with nationalism, mysticism, flag waving, or the shine in one's jackboots.

That's a good answer, MJ. I'd say it's wrong as namecalling but that it's fair game if you're pointing out a demonstrable historical comparison.

I tend to think, and this isn't a very novel thought, that the first person to call the other a Nazi during an argument is usually the loser of the argument.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I wouldn't refer to Hitler or "Hitler like"
when discussing/debating Israel, an Israeli, or a Jew.

This is why I made the distinction when I said 'Hitler is more than just the guy that murdered 6 million Jews.'

What you said about Netanyahu was absolutely UNTRUE. The infamous picture of Rabin in the SS uniform was made by SHABAK provocateur Avishai Raviv, was in a corner not seen from the place the speakers were standing. Raviv had it shown to Israel TV reporter Nitzan Chen in order it should be broadcast. Chen testified about this to the Shamgar Commission. People were shouting "Rabin is a traitor". Netanyahu silenced them and said "he is not a traitor, he is mistaken." This is all a matter of public record. I have learned from my participation in this group that demonization of political opponents seems to be a favorite pasttime of fanatics, but these untruths must not be allowed to spread.

self-deleted

I agree with whoever said not to respond to Bar-K. His last posts makes it clear that he celebrated the assassination of Rabin and by saying that Israel's President, Shimon Peres, is "criminally responsible" for the death of innocent Israelis, he is inciting against him as well.
He should be ignored completely or, better yet, banned from the site. MANAGEMENT, TAKE NOTE!

mj,

I'm not beyond mumbling the epithet "frikkin Nazi" now and then, especially in the age of Bush and the right wing, it almost comes regularly, but its impulsive, a kind of Pavlovian reaction to the latest BS coming from the Bush gang or their sycophants. When I sling that charge its disconnected to what the Nazis did to the Jews.

Yet, as impulsive or Pavlovian the charge is, it usually has a degree of accuracy, as in secret prisons around the world.

By the way, the brain dead section of the Christian right were too uninformed to know that newly elected members of Congress do not "swear in" on any holy book, Bible, Koran, or the Torah. Pictures of Congresspeople being "sworn in" with hand on holy book are photo ops taken AFTER the official swearing in ceremony occurs.

mj,

I may be the only one posting here that actually dealt with the original Nazis. :-)

You say the same things about Bush, Cheney, et.al. I said Rabin and Peres should have been put on trial, you said Cheney should be impeached. And as usual, you completely ignore the points I have made...that they KNEW Arafat would unleash a terrorist war against Israel, yet they still decided to bring him to Israel.

BTW-where do I "celebrate" Rabin's murder? Please bring proof, quotes and the such, not the usual nonsensicle extrapolations you are constantly making (the "anybody who is not a 'progressive' must be a criminal" line we are constantly hearing here). Also And I also want you to bring proof that "Bibi laughed" at the demonstration when people were denouncing Rabin. Do you have photos and recordings of this? Maybe he did laugh when someone told a joke and not in response to what people were saying?
Or are you giving us the ususal intellectually dishonest "we know what criminals those Likudniks are so he must have done that..I don't need to have acutally seen it, I am sure it happened" and the such?

One thing you can be sure is that MJ Rosenberg will never debate you on the merits of what you say.  He is fond of tossing off one-liner insults, but he never responds to commenters who rebut the nonsense he peddles.

That said, the idea that "the right" in general was responsible for Rabin's murder is a favorite of Israeli leftists despite the fact there is little or no evidence.  Still, if you've got some links to the assertions above, that would help.

Keep fighting the good fight.

No one is ever allowed to compare anything anyone ever does to anything Hitler did.

This is supremely ironic coming from someone from the left.  It is the left, after all, that routinely compares Bush to Hitler, and has been doing so since before there were any revelations about secret prisons or torture or any other outrages.  All you need to do is look on this thread to see the Bush = Hitler meme is alive and well.

Let's get few things straight: George Bush and the Republican party, vile as they are, are NOTHING like Hitler and the Nazis.  Not in kind and not in degree.  Nothing.

Even secret prisons, torture, signing statements, politicizing the Justice department and any and all such abuses of power do not add up to a miniscule fraction of the crimes of the Nazis.

So yes, No one should be allowed to make comparisons to the Nazis and get away with it.  That's true of the left who invoke Hitler when denouncing Bush, and the right, when invoking Hitler when talking about radical Islam (although it is worth noting that Islamism is a lot closer to Nazism than is American conservatism, something the left would do well to bear in mind).

I don't think that's a very good idea. You can't complain that those who hold an opposite position to AIPAC's stance are being censored and then call for it yourself.

You are a distorter and a slanderer with no shame whatsoever.  You take the words of people who disagree with you, twist them beyond recognition and use them to throw cheap insults to play to your peanut gallery here. 

You are the mirror image of all those right-wing nutcases who make no distinction between liberals and communists or between moderate Muslims and radical Muslims.  To you, the right is one big undifferentiated mass of bigoted, fascist monsters who have Rabin's blood on their collective hands, just as their parents all have Bobby Kennedy's and Martin Luther King's blood on their hands.  There is no such thing as center-right, moderate right or any other kind of right except the kind that cheers political assassination.

It's as disgusting when it comes from you as it is when it comes from Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity.  More than disgusting, it's just plain infantile.

So no, there is no debate that Yigal Amir was described by most as from the "right".  But Yigal Amir has as much similarity to Benjamin Netanyahu as you do.

And there is not a shred of evidence that bar_kochba "cheered" the assassination of Rabin.  I don't even understand the logic of that one on its own terms.  He challenged you to point to a link but of course you cannot.  You're nothing but a pathetic coward.