Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumGerman left-wing radicals say Jews have ‘too much influence’
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/German-left-wing-radicals-say-Jews-have-too-much-influence-460773According to the academic survey conducted by the Free University of Berlin, 34 percent of the respondents defined as leftist extremists said Jews have “too much influence” in Germany, and that 16% of Germans who were classified as radical left-wing harbored anti-Semitic views.
The study showed 34% of leftwing extremists affirmed the anti-Semitic attitude that Jews are “money-grabbing,” while of those termed radical leftists, 13% said Jews are consumed with money.
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gordianot
(15,515 posts)If gene therapy ever becomes available for behavioral traits here is a candidate. Also you would think understanding history would make one cautious.
PatrickforO
(15,109 posts)We see it everywhere, exacerbated by the immigrant problems in Europe and the rise of Trump in the United States.
Elie Wiesel just died. In 'Night' he warned us we must never forget. But the WWII generation has died and people do forget.
Now it is awakening again in the context of a very powerful military industrial complex that has already had over a decade to sow the seeds of fear and hatred. There's money to be made in wars...
But, no worries. I have some room in my house to hide people from nacht and nebel.
6chars
(3,967 posts)
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)can be trusted.
I went to the original site of the survey (http://www.fu-berlin.de/presse/informationen/fup/2016/fup_16_251-folgestudie-linksextremismus/index.html) and I got a definite feeling that it didn't conform to statistical standards.
This is very unfortunate, because it would actually be nice to know if there are any anti-Semites among the German left.
6chars
(3,967 posts)Gee, that's a toughie! 
shira
(30,109 posts)Thus, nothing is antisemitic and no one can be accused of such.
Presumably, one can support the Nazi murder of Jews w/o being antisemitic either. Same logic...
6chars
(3,967 posts)Little Tich
(6,171 posts)It's impossible to discuss this issue without any evidence.
shira
(30,109 posts).....you'll never see it anywhere, ever. There's no amount of evidence that could ever get you to acknowledge antisemitism anywhere.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)I'm very wary of polls in general, and unless the methodology is sound, it's better not to trust them. It's just my own opinion and it has nothing to do with Hamas.
shira
(30,109 posts)It's that simple.
Since you refuse to acknowledge that, it's unlikely you'll see any act or statement as antisemitic, no matter how airtight the survey. You've made up your mind and you cannot be convinced otherwise.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)Is it antisemitic to support Hamas' murdering of innocent random Jews?
Yes or No?
If your answer is anything other than Yes, there's no way you'll see antisemitism anywhere - whether in word or deed, survey or not.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)Your questions indicate that you don't care about the reliability of the results of the survey. For me, that's what's most important.
shira
(30,109 posts)All you have is a "feeling" the survey didn't conform to statistical standards. You said there's no serious survey that can reveal German leftist attitudes towards Jews.
What rubbish.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)It may seem to be a bit harsh, but I don't think that an anonymous online survey with no control group and an ad hoc standard for who's considered a leftist and what the criteria for anti-Semitism are can't really reveal anything about leftist attitudes towards Jews.
However, there's the ADL Global Anti-Semitism Index (http://global100.adl.org/) which gives a pretty good indication of the level of anti-Semitism in countries worldwide. While I think the index is a bit too blunt of an instrument, it gives a rough but usable estimate. Unfortunately for you, lefties aren't singled out, nor does the index deal with Zionism and Israel - just people's attitudes towards Jews.
The index gave Germany a score of 27% of Germans harboring Anti-Semitic attitudes, which is three times higher than the US 9%. Go figure.
6chars
(3,967 posts)Control groups are used in experiments. As for anonymous, do you think surveys about racism are not anonymous? That would definitely bias the results. As for ad hoc standard for leftist and criteria for anti-semitism, the study is clear in how they defined leftist - I would assume a well-known political science researcher would use established constructs and it seems the survey questions relied on those to gain an indication of holding of leftist views, and similarly used /defined constructs for holding of anti-semitic views. There is thorough statistical analysis to look at differences between subpopulations in the survey. This is what happens in research.
This is really a top notch scholarly research center there. To go out and criticize these people for not knowing what they are doing is the equivalent of how some passionate people criticize climate science because it is all just based on models that cannot be proven. Sounds a lot the same.
Really, you could just say "I don't understand survey techniques, but I trust my gut and my got doesn't like the idea that German leftists would be anti-semitic so I need more convincing than just a few surveys and a few rowdy crowds." Fair enough.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)My skepticism about online surveys is pretty deep-rooted, and I need more proof showing that it's reliable before I can consider the findings.
6chars
(3,967 posts)so with these surveys, you try to get a lot of participants because you really can't control with stratified sampling or similar techniques. 36,000 is a good number. you have questions relating to political viewpoint, like "should the tax code be more progressive", "is defense funding too high or too low or just right", "should corporations be more or less regulated", "should ... (questions relating to approval of German constitution" and then mixed in questions relating to attitudes toward people "do you think Jews have too much influence" "are Jews overly interested in money" and you have questions about other things too. So, no obvious pattern in the questions. You then sort people into categories for purposes of the study as moderate, moderate left, right, extreme left, etc based on their answers on the first set and you define "holding anti-semitic views" as having the associated answers to the questions about Jews. With this survey, you can't say x% of Germans have these views because maybe - this is the problem with online - the people answering tended to be internet people who are maybe more extremist or more left or whatever. You can say - as the authors did 34% of people who answered and were assigned to category of radical left also gave responses we defined as representing anti-semitic views. Credible study.
Maybe you don't like that they used "Jews have too much influence" and "Jews are overly interested in money" as their definition of holding anti-semitic views. Then you disapprove of the wording of the results as representing anti-semitism, even though the results themselves are valid. Do you think those two questions indicate anti-semitic views?
Maybe you don't like the way responses they used to categorize respondentws as radical leftist.
They don't do studies like "What is your name?" Hans. "What are your politics" "I am a radical leftist" "are you anti-semitic" "Yes"
This is a quite large scale study by academic standards. If you need more proof, it is not possible to produce it.
This isn't an accusation - it is reporting the results of a study. The study IS the exact evidence for what is being reported. The German leftists aren't being punished for holding anti-semitic views. They don't themselves classify these views as anti-semitic, much as some people don't classify support for Hamas terrorism (not in this study) as anti-semitic. There is no real consequence here. The study just tells us - reliably! - that a substantial proportion of people who hold the views that the authors name as radical leftist also hold views that the authors (and common sense?) classify as anti-semitic. And that the proportion is higher among radical leftists than mere extreme leftists. And, I believe, higher among extreme leftists than among the general population completing the survey.
If one does not trust social science, but only trust one's gut, one will develop ideas that cannot be challenged and one may find oneself holding some strong but wrong viewpoints.
shira
(30,109 posts)....in the form of mass murder against innocent random Jews and a great percentage said 'Yes", that would be incontrovertible evidence of antisemitism...no different than supporting Nazi murders of Jews.
You would disagree, right?
Response to Little Tich (Reply #4)
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shira
(30,109 posts)Has her own definition of Apartheid too. And now this.
Experts are bullshit. Tich ROOLZ, they drool.... lol
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)In general, I don't consider online surveys to be accurate. Leftist attitudes towards Jews is a pretty loaded subject, and it would be much better if there was more reliable evidence of what those attitudes are before the shit flinging starts.
Sorry.