We need to apply some methodological rigour to this debate. 
there are of course comparisons that can be drawn; there 
always are. However, 
a) some comparisons are more useful than others
b) some comparisons are more precise than others.
c) is it all we can to draw comparisons?

A. What does a comparison of Israeli with Nazi policy 
achieve? What does it enable us to say or to do which could 
not be accomplished by means other than drawing an 
objectively arbitrary historical comparison?
(i)I suggest that it only adds a moral charge to the 
condemnation of Israeli policy; it is not necessary 
because it does not yield any insights which could not be 
produced otherwise.
(ii) The moral charge itself depends upon the same moral 
righteousness by which the Israeli state justifies its 
policies. Thus, the comparison may have some strategic 
political utility.
(iii) However, that utility is severley compromised, 
because the only objective link between Nazi policy and 
Israeli policy in particular is that they both involve 'the 
Jews'. The critique thus falls into the trap of depending 
on the very moral logic and the moral identites 
(Israeli claim to represent 'the Jewish people) that it 
sets out to demolish. It will produce only accusations and 
counter accusations of 'Nazism' on both sides.

B. Is the comparison accurate? It has already been subject 
to radical qualification (as Nazi policy toward non-Jewish 
populations of Axis-occupied Europe, rather than toward 
Jews). However, thoss policies cannot be seen as distinct 
and separate from Nazi racial population policy in general, 
which was shaped around the project of eliminating Jews and 
Romani from the European population. Israeli state policy 
has no such objective, however reprehensible it may be.
Other comparisons could be drawn which might be more 
precise and insightful, and which would not invoke the 
entanglements of a case grossly inaccurate comparison with 
Nazism.

C) In any case, are comparisons all that we can draw? This 
debate began with a much firmer and more objective basis in 
criticism, which we need to return to and develop further.

Mick Drake
Tutor in Sociology,
UEA
Norwich
UK 

On Wed, 6 Feb 2002 11:51:33 +0000 Tom Wengraf 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >I first thought I would agree with most of what Wengraf said - till
> >reading the last paragraph (thanx, Gabor, it nearly escaped my notice).
> >Reading this paragraph, however, and in particular the answer of Mr. Roos
> >I must say that this debate is going to far. It is a very often used
> >practice of antisemits to compare Israel and/or the Jews with the Nazis.
> >And this is absolutely unacceptable antisemitism.
> 
> It is absolutely unacceptable to refuse to compare the practices of one
> power-regime with another. I don't compare "the Jews" with "the Nazis"; I
> compare the policy and practice of power of one regime with another. To say
> it is "absolutely unacceptable to compare one State power with another
> State power" is pathetic evasion.
> 
> 
> > In fact, this is not the new antisemtism or better, in Tanguieff's terms
> >judéophobie, but old standard antisemitism. Just to reiterate: the Jews
> >didn't commit permanently terrorist attacks against the Germans - and were
> >exterminated.
> 
> I agree. If anti-Nazi forces in Germany and in Europe had had the power to
> 'fight back" against the expanding Nazi regime in the way that the
> Allied-supported resistance fought back in the early 1940s using "terror"
> (or in the way that some Zionists fought "with terror" against the British
> regime after 1945), then perhaps less anti-Nazis (including less Jews)
> might have been exterminated.
> 
> >The terrorism of the Palestinians was their strategy to avoid a peace
> >settlement twice, once under Peres - the terrorism brought Netanjahu as
> >Prime minister, the second time under Barak: the terrorist attacks led to
> >the landslight victory of Sharon.
> 
> Wasn't it the carefully stage-managed propvocation of Sharon that helped
> trigger-off the Palestinians?
> 
> Note the insistence on talking about "the Jews", "the Germans", "the
> Palestinians" when sociologists should be thinking about the complexity of
> relations between power-regimes and their populations. Using this way of
> thinking, one should think of the "German-Jews" being complicit in the
> invasion of Czechoslovakia: if the ruling regime does something then we
> talk of "the people" doing that something.
> 
> This is irrespective of the merits of that 'peace settlement'. After all,
> Zionists fought against the British peace settlement in Israel;  British
> people  fought against the Nazi "peace settlement" in Europe; the Americans
> fought against the British "peace settlement" when they had their
> revolution in the 18th century. Which Roman said, "they made a desert and
> they called it peace"?
> 
> >
> >Unlike Nazi-Germany Israel is a democracy; by the way, with Israeli Arab
> >deputies in the Knesset. Was that the case in Nazi Germany?
> 
> No, it wasn't.
> 
> >
> >One can easily condemn the occupation policy of Israel like all
> >traditional occupation policies (similar policies were used by the British
> >in Palestine in former times)without referring to the Nazi politics.
> 
> Yes, but for Zionist Jews committed to the expansion of colonisation, it
> might wake them up to realise that a lot of people (including myself, a Jew
> whose maternal grandparents and many other relatives died in the camps) DO
> see them as practising Nazi-like politics..... and tribal double-think.
> 
> > In this respect, and only in this respect, Baruch is wrong: One cannot
> >compare the Israeli policy with the Nazi politics in the slavonic areas
> >they occupied as they had plans to exterminate the Slavonic nations as
> >well. No one can claim that even Sharon intends to exterminate the
> >Palestinians.
> 
> Nazis had plans to keep many of the 'inferior races' as hewers of wood and
> drawers of water. This has been the consistent policy of the apartheid
> regime in South Africa and of the Zionists until very recently. The
> anti-arabist sentiments expressed by the Right-Zionist Minister shot a few
> months ago referred to the Palestinians in the same race-exterminist way
> ("vermin") in which the Nazis referred to the Jews (this does NOT mean I
> approve of him being shot: I don't).
> >
> >Antisemitism, Lasalle noted in the 19th century, is the class struggle of
> >the stupid bloke. The new antisemitism is, apparently the anti-imperialism
> >of the dull sociologists.
> 
> To confuse anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is an idiocy of a very dull
> imperialist and colonising sociology
> >
> >
> >Roanld J Pohoryles
> >
> >----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> >Social Sciences (IFS-ICCR-CIR)
> >
> >Vienna Office:
> >Schottenfeldgasse 69/1; A-1070 Vienna
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> >
> >
> >-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> >Von: Tom Wengraf [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> >Gesendet: Dienstag, 05. Februar 2002 22:57
> >An: [log in to unmask]
> >Betreff: Re: small distinctions?
> >
> >
> >> If you
> >>don't like Sharon's policy, it doesn't mean that this is not a war and
> >>databases aren't and aren't to be utilised as strategic, intelligence
> >>and military sources. And in a war everybody must take a position on one
> >>of the sides.
> >
> >No! There are a whole variety of wars going on, and most of them do not
> >require us to take a position "behind" one side or another. Many
> >contemporary wars are three-or-more sided, by the way. The whole blackmail
> >of the Cold War and of World Bullies is to force everybody to become
> >unconditional supporters of one or other -- hopefully the most powerful --
> >and then call on them to cease all criticism of that 'strongest side' for
> >fear of being called a 'traitor' ('terrorist') and treated as one. Indeed,
> >a much more credible (or at least equally credible position) might be that
> >in most wars (not all), everyone ought to take a position against the
> >continuation of the war.
> >
> >>This is a global war and as times go on, neutrality and
> >>moralizing looses its place, even in the circles of highly educated
> >>sociologists as well.
> >
> >Should we all have backed one side or the other in the First World War?
> >
> >The need for us to avoid 'crowd fever' and 'choose your sides for total
> >liquidationist war' GROWS as war hysteria and psychological warfare for one
> >more final solution in what is heralded as "the" global war ("The War to
> >End all Wars" is an old slogan) between supposed Totally Good and supposed
> >Totally Evil is intensified by the regimes and interests that want such a
> >mobilisation.
> >
> >
> >>(3) Dear sociologists, please utilise as many databases as possible but
> >>don't think the way you collect and/or utilise them is value free. It is
> >>not. And if it is a criterion of morality, democracy and peace to make
> >>databases that are accessible to everybody, don't say "it was financed
> >>by the European Union". - So what? What about the media databases
> >>sponsored by anybody that show and teach young Palestinians how to
> >>commit suicide actions? Shouldn't we protest against the Palestinian
> >>utilising of welfare-state electronic products and PR skills for such
> >>goals? Of course as - let's say - sociologists of communications?
> >
> >Is it 'morally' better for Israelis to be taught to commit
> >murder-without-personal-risk actions from helicopter gunships or for
> >Palestinians to be taught to commit
> >murder-with-personal-death-as-invariable-effect in bus queues?
> >
> >The kill-rate between the high-technology US-backed Israelis and the
> >low-technology US-opposed Palestinians is very clearly to the disadvantage
> >of the Palestinians.
> >
> >Value-freedom is not possible, but value-reflexivity on the basis of a
> >value-commitment to the  equal humanity of all humans I think is;  and
> >'highly educated sociologists' should struggle to avoid 'ethnic-tribal'
> >bias especially in times of high-technology state terror against those
> >without a state, such as the Nazi State against the Jews, or the Israeli
> >State against the Palestinians.
> >
> >
> >                 <http://www.sagepub.co.uk/shopping/Detail.asp?id=4813>
> >                             is where you'll find
> >                    details of my doing-quite-well textbook (Sage 2001)
> >     'Qualitative Research Interviewing: biographic narrative and
> >semi-structured method'
> >
> >Content-type: text/x-vcard; name=",Pohoryles, Ronald (E-Mail).vcf"
> >Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
> >Content-disposition: attachment; filename=",Pohoryles, Ronald (E-Mail).vcf"
> >Content-description: ,Pohoryles, Ronald (E-Mail).vcf
> >
> >Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:,Pohoryles, Ronald (E-Mail).vcf
> >(TEXT/ttxt) (0004A4FA)
> 
> 
>                  <http://www.sagepub.co.uk/shopping/Detail.asp?id=4813>
>                              is where you'll find
>                     details of my doing-quite-well textbook (Sage 2001)
>      'Qualitative Research Interviewing: biographic narrative and
> semi-structured method'