[PhasmaFelis]

Is Jewishness "an inherently violent ideology of ethnic cleansing"?

For that matter, is Communism? Marxist-Leninist governments don't have a great track record, but there are plenty of individual pacifist hippie commies; the ideology of common ownership of production is not inherently violent and racist like Nazism and the Klan are.

[pjc50]

The bar at King's College Cambridge used to have a hammer-and-sicle on the wall for years. If the authorities removed it the students would repaint it. All good clean fun.

It eventually got taken down for good after increasing numbers of students from eastern Europe came to the college and pointed out that, to them, it was just as oppressive a symbol as the swastika.

Really this all should have got sorted out around the time of the Spanish Civil War; actual capital-C Communism is too tied up in Stalinism to be trusted any more.

Of course, plenty of people are happy to label their enemies as "communist" for supporting basic reasonable non-Stalinist things like universal healthcare. So the fact that someone is labelled a communist by their enemies, especially in America, means almost nothing.

[CodeWriter23]

I'm sure not all Jews condone the ethnic cleansing going on in the West Bank and Gaza. But I kinda think some people see the Israeli flag in the same light as Jews see the Nazi flag. And yes, I am speaking as a Jewish man.

You might want to check your Russian History, particularly Stalin's era, to examine the violence inherent to the ideology of common ownership, when applied Soviet style. Scholars debate on whether he killed 8 million or 60 million...

[lostlogin]

If anyone is after anything on the topic, please try The Court of the Red Czar or The Young Stalin. Both by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Ironically a Jew with interesting views on Zionism and an excellent history of Jerusalem. The Radio New Zealand interview with him below covers his views on Zionism briefly.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/...