[CommiesOut]

I don't know, comrades...
Why our American friends have such a thin skin?
Call them "antisemite", "nazi", "commie" and they go nuts.
Well, I know why. They should read more:

(...) if "vile speech" causes assassination, then Israel should have had an endless carnage of its political leaders ever since independence (if not beforehand).

Israeli political discourse is and has always been characterized by rhetorical overkill, ad hominem slander, and unrestrained high-decibel shrieking.

Anyone with any doubts should go read the Protocols of the Knesset from the 1950's, when even back then--in the pre-television era--Knesset debate was constantly peppered with cries of "Fascist," "Traitor," "Dictator," "Criminal," etc., coming from all sides of the chamber. David Ben-Gurion himself frequently referred to his main opponent Jabotinsky as "Vladimir Hitler."

Perhaps it is our proximity to the Mediterranean, but political discussion in Israel is and always has been uncivilized. (Any doubters should watch the weekly political barroom brawl on Israeli television, Popolitika.) (...)

http://www.afsi.org/OUTPOST/96FEB/feb5.htm

Hm... Vladimir Hitler? What have this dude done to be called that?

[NewAmsterdam]

I would think that plenty of members of the Knesseth come or came from Eastern Europe where they were well-trained in fierce argument. After all, the Polish Diet was not a place for the faint-hearted, either.

[NewAmsterdam]

Speaking of real anti-Semitism as opposed to the PR-kind: a Fellow of Davenport College at Yale told me that well into the sixties of the 20th Century Yale accepted one Jew and one Catholic each year. That was enough to fulfill the quota as Yale saw it. In order to make sure that neither of these two 'foreign imports' would pollute the rest of the University's student body, Yale put both of them in one room. This sort of thing would have been unthinkable in any European country at that time (and indeed, well before and after that time).

[malarski]

David Ben-Gurion himself frequently referred to his main opponent Jabotinsky as "Vladimir Hitler."

It takes one to know one.

[madrussian]

Israeli political discourse is and has always been characterized by rhetorical overkill, ad hominem slander, and unrestrained high-decibel shrieking.

LOL! That's why I call them "Middle Eastern bazaar traders".

Now wait for someone to declare the Arafat cousins to belong to the Western culture.

Caughing-snot, kiss your brother Arafat.