Reply #36: I don't think that in its context it's truly bigoted

[LeftishBrit]

If it were said JUST about the Palestinians, then it would be. But Strenger seems to be highly critical of both Israeli and Palestinian political choices. And in the context it is clearly about *political* wrong choices, rather than wrong lifestyle or cultural choices.

I think it was badly phrased, in that Palestinians have very diverse political views, so that rather than 'Palestinians' it would have been better to have said 'Palestinian governments' or even 'a plurality of Palestinian voters'.

But it's not on the level of saying, as some have, that Palestinians have 'a culture of death'. Similarly saying that 'Israelis make every conceivable wrong decision' in a political context is not the same thing as 'Israelis are genocidal supremacists'. Such remarks about 'wrong decisions' may ignore the fact that Palestinians have rarely been presented with good alternatives in elections, or that Israelis have a voting system that leads to disproportionate power for extremist parties that get relatively few votes. But so long as they are describing the Palestinians and Israelis in terms of voting constituencies (as I think is the case here) rather than cultures, I don't find them bigoted or exceptionalist.

Suppose that someone were to say, 'First Norman Tebbit; then Ian Duncan-Smith! The voters of Chingford make every conceivable wrong decision!' Or 'Thurmond! Sanford! DeMint! The voters of South Carolina make every conceivable wrong decision!' Such statements would doubtless be annoying to a Labour voter in Chingford or a South Carolina Democrat - but they wouldn't be racist or even especially bigoted IMO.