• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

German court rules that firebombing a synagogue is not anti-Semitic

Status
Not open for further replies.

Irminsul

Member
And "drunken stupor" and "no objects of these states to protest". These guys threw a molotov cocktail. I feel that is kind of downplaying the crime.
Btw., the second-level court rejected the notion of "drunken stupor" quite thoroughly. As I said, the article gets a lot wrong.
 

efyu_lemonardo

May I have a cookie?
Ummm..what? lol.



Boy-That-Escalated-Quickly-Anchorman.gif

"Germany learned nothing from the holocaust" is an extreme and unfair reaction, though.
 
GO FUCK yourself. Just because one court ruled a specific thing a certain way doesnt mean everyone in Germany is agreeing with it.

It's an idiotic statement that I wanted to refute with hard numbers. However I couldn't:
  • Germany, 2015:1400 antisemitic crimes (source)
  • US, 2015: 730 antisemitic crimes source (Of the 1,402 victims of anti-religious hate crimes | 52.1 percent were victims of crimes motivated by their offenders' anti-Jewish bias.)

Not to mention that the US is almost 4 times as populous as Germany.

/not saying this makes that particular statement valid.
 
If your lashing out because someone doubted the steps you had taken to protect minorities your not doing it for the sake of the oppressed group, because then your implying enough or too much has done, which is not the case as based by not only this but also the statistics provided by the other user, your doing it for yourself and your pride.

Edit: I agree with your point there's just no need for the language
 

Irminsul

Member
It's an idiotic statement that I wanted to refute with hard numbers. However I couldn't:
  • Germany, 2015:1400 antisemitic crimes (source)
  • US, 2015: 730 antisemitic crimes source (Of the 1,402 victims of anti-religious hate crimes | 52.1 percent were victims of crimes motivated by their offenders’ anti-Jewish bias.)
I mean, you're trying to argue hard numbers in a thread on a crime that could have been ruled as a hate crime, but wasn't.

Besides, definitions of "hate crime" probably differ between Germany and the US. Not that this would necessarily sway the outcome.
 
That is total bullshit.

Firebombing a synagogue is textbook antisemitism. Whatever shitty thing Israel did should have no consequences for Jews living in another country, but these fuckers are dragging them into this just because they are Jewish.

This. No amount of mental gymnastics changes this core fact.
 
I mean, you're trying to argue hard numbers in a thread on a crime that could have been ruled as a hate crime, but wasn't.

Besides, definitions of "hate crime" probably differ between Germany and the US. Not that this would necessarily sway the outcome.

Sure, I just didn't want my googling to go to waste.

It's just another example of the German smugness. We think we're awesome at environmental protection for getting out of nuclear power, but fail to reduce greenhouse emissions. We think, antisemitism is a thing of the past, but have ~ 8 times as many antisemitic crimes per capita compared to the US...

On topic: I consider it antisemitic to make sweeping assumptions about Jews based on Israel and its actions.
 
That is total bullshit.

Firebombing a synagogue is textbook antisemitism. Whatever shitty thing Israel did should have no consequences for Jews living in another country, but these fuckers are dragging them into this just because they are Jewish.

This, fuckers deserve jail
 
I don't know anything about the specifics of this case, as do all the people posting in this very thread. Without those details, it's literally impossible to come to a proper conclusion why the judges ruled that this is not anti-semitism. It's also very, very difficult to argue whether or not the perpetrators should be in prison. The actual damage was 800€, so I'm gonna guess that the attempt wasn't exactly successful, so maybe that was part of the reason why the guys got parole.
 

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
Because the firebomber didn't bomb it because they were Jews, but because he made the connection that Jews = Israel and he wanted to bomb something Israel.

That's dumb in itself, but it doesn't make his act anti-Semitic, I can't really find that much fault in the courts reasoning on that front.
But... that's anti-Semitic.

You're literally bombing a synogogue because it's made by people who share the same ethnicity as people across the world who you don't like.

How is that not anti-Semitic? That's...

I don't understand. I literally do not understand how the fuck that isn't anti-Semitic.
 
This is really fucked up and a ruling I cannot agree with despite Israel's actions. Hard not to think there is some (subconscious) antisemitism going on in the courts.
 

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
Because the firebomber didn't bomb it because they were Jews, but because he made the connection that Jews = Israel and he wanted to bomb something Israel.

That's dumb in itself, but it doesn't make his act anti-Semitic, I can't really find that much fault in the courts reasoning on that front.

HOW IS THAT NOT ANTI-SEMITIC?!
 

Luxorek

Member
It's an idiotic statement that I wanted to refute with hard numbers. However I couldn't:
  • Germany, 2015:1400 antisemitic crimes (source)
  • US, 2015: 730 antisemitic crimes source (Of the 1,402 victims of anti-religious hate crimes | 52.1 percent were victims of crimes motivated by their offenders’ anti-Jewish bias.)

Not to mention that the US is almost 4 times as populous as Germany.

/not saying this makes that particular statement valid.

I don't know, man. Anti-semitism in modern Germany rarely has anything to do with your traditional neo-nazis and more with Turks, Arabs or other Middle-Easterners having some repulsive views that they try to justify by pointing out Palestinian plight.

I mean, hell, in 2012 18% of Turks in Germany expressed a view that Jews are inferior. It's a much bigger problem now when the Muslim population, with fucked up, regressive beliefs has increased that much more due to immigration.
 

horkrux

Member
It's an idiotic statement that I wanted to refute with hard numbers. However I couldn't:
  • Germany, 2015:1400 antisemitic crimes (source)
  • US, 2015: 730 antisemitic crimes source (Of the 1,402 victims of anti-religious hate crimes | 52.1 percent were victims of crimes motivated by their offenders’ anti-Jewish bias.)

Not to mention that the US is almost 4 times as populous as Germany.

/not saying this makes that particular statement valid.

I mean you have to compare how much those numbers have changed over time. We went from the Holocaust to 1400 crimes a year - I think that's a feat. I guess even 70 years are not enough to have the numbers fall down to 'normal' levels. Especially if you consider how long the country was divided.
 
It's an idiotic statement that I wanted to refute with hard numbers. However I couldn't:
  • Germany, 2015:1400 antisemitic crimes (source)
  • US, 2015: 730 antisemitic crimes source (Of the 1,402 victims of anti-religious hate crimes | 52.1 percent were victims of crimes motivated by their offenders’ anti-Jewish bias.)

Not to mention that the US is almost 4 times as populous as Germany.

/not saying this makes that particular statement valid.


It should be noted that only 36 of those antisemitic crimes included violence of some kind. A cross-country comparison is probably difficult, too, because definitions of what is and isn't an antisemitic crime might be totally different.
 

Fred-87

Member
Because the firebomber didn't bomb it because they were Jews, but because he made the connection that Jews = Israel and he wanted to bomb something Israel.

That's dumb in itself, but it doesn't make his act anti-Semitic, I can't really find that much fault in the courts reasoning on that front.

So if you attack a Mexican church because you hate the country of Mexico (but not the people) your not being charged as a hatecrime? I dont understand.
 

Luxorek

Member
Are there numbers about the background of the perpetrators of antisemitic crimes?

I take back what I said, about the majority of anti-semitic crimes being commited by people of ME or Arab background. I tried searching for official figures and the only ones I was able to find were mentioned [but not sourced] in a couple of articles and reported that most of anti-semitic crimes could be attributed to the far-right.

That saying, 2014 was a special year when it comes to anti-semitism in Germany as it saw a major increase in hate crimes directed towards Jewish people. That rise could be traced in part to perpetrators of Muslim or Arab background responding to the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. So yeah... definitely a factor.
 

Opto

Banned
Maybe they should put notes on the firebombs next time " Nothing against Jews! More of an anti-zionism thing. Not sure why we didn't go after an israeli consulate or something, but there you. Again, not anti-semitic."
 
Because the firebomber didn't bomb it because they were Jews, but because he made the connection that Jews = Israel and he wanted to bomb something Israel.

That's dumb in itself, but it doesn't make his act anti-Semitic, I can't really find that much fault in the courts reasoning on that front.
Failing to see the reasoning why this isn't anti-Semitic. They were clearly targeted for being Jewish. Using Israel as a reason doesn't change that fact.
 

Ogodei

Member
I think the point is that the perpetrator's intentions were not anti-semetic and instead anti-Israel.

I can see the logic, but it's still bullshit hair-splitting. Much like other issues of hate crimes or politically-motivated crimes, context matters. If you use an intimidation tactic used in the past by anti-semites, targeted against Jews, then you're committing a (anti-semitic) hate crime, much like how modern racists in America have appropriated the old tactics of racists of yore even if they're deploying them in new ways. It's still the same old, hateful shit, just repackaged.
 

KDR_11k

Member
I'm guessing that since this is about whether the act is a hate crime or a political crime for the purpose of increasing the sentence the standards to reach are somewhat high and weren't reached here.

It's an idiotic statement that I wanted to refute with hard numbers. However I couldn't:
  • Germany, 2015:1400 antisemitic crimes (source)
  • US, 2015: 730 antisemitic crimes source (Of the 1,402 victims of anti-religious hate crimes | 52.1 percent were victims of crimes motivated by their offenders' anti-Jewish bias.)

Not to mention that the US is almost 4 times as populous as Germany.

/not saying this makes that particular statement valid.

Keep in mind that in Germany it's a crime to say anti-semitic things or deny the holocaust, both of which are legal in the US and thus would not fall under a crime statistic. The number of violent crimes with anti-semitic motivation is listed as 36 for Germany and 100 assaults for the US (table 4 breaks that down). Of course we do have a widespread Nazi problem here that anyone except the politicians will recognize.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom