Of course it didn't. See the comment to which I was replying: spiderbait compared the actions of the Israeli government to mafia protection rackets. I don't think that's a strong comparison, and I tried to demonstrate it by teasing it out a little and letting everyone see how ridiculous it is.

Judging by the red "-81p" symbol next to my name, it appears that not a lot of people understand this kind of logic. I suppose I could write something like "spiderbait wrong, spiderbait bad" and I'd get a lot more approval.

I definitely expected to see the vibram five fingers on this list.

Haha, I was being facetious. Everyone knows that Israel has had nuclear weapons for more than 40 years.

Israeli government to Arafat: You can go to any one of something like 200 countries in the world. Or you can stay right where you are. But if you go to one of the other 200 countries, we might not let you back where you are now. So that's your decision.

Mobster to shopowner: You can sell anything you want. Or you can keep selling switchblades and brass knuckles. But if you open a grocery and start supplying the neighborhood with fresh vegetables, we might not let you supply weapons any more. So that's your decision.

Yeah, Israel really comes off like a mobster in this analogy.

Arafat: One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.

Yeah, and one man's garbage man is another mans' trash collector. But neither a terrorist nor a freedom fighter is a political prisoner, so neither belongs on this list.

Are you saying that if a jewish person converts to another religion, then that person is a nazi?

Come on, let's not lose perspective here. It's possible to hate Jews and not be a Nazi. It's possible to hate Jews and still not want to exterminate every single one of them. Mordechai Vanunu hates Jews, and he's done terrible things out of that hatred, but of course he's no Nazi.

Hatred of jews? His father was a rabbi.

So what? My father is an accountant. If I express strenuous opposition to the existence of accounting as a profession, and I take measures to ensure that accountants are harmed, and I am rewarded for it by people who profess to hate accountants, can't we just go ahead and say that I have a hatred of accountants too? What else would it take?

Everything Mordechai Vanunu has ever done in his adult life has reflected a deep anti-Jewish sentiment. When the USSR had a state policy of anti-Zionism combined with very harsh treatment of its Jews, and any expression of Jewish culture was illegal, Vanunu was a Communist. When Israel (allegedly) developed a nuclear arsenal to prevent its own destruction at the hands of enemies who genuinely wanted to erase it from the map, Vanunu was an anti-nuclear activist (I guess it didn't matter that the Soviet Union also had nuclear weapons). When in prison, he didn't just say, "I don't want to be a Jew anymore" and start considering himself a Christian - no, he picked one of the most anti-Israel churches and converted to that one. He's not fooling anyone - there's nothing he would not do to harm Israel and Jews, if he had the opportunity.

This list is not complete until it includes entries for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Natan Sharansky.

Vanunu was a political prisoner? His only principle is hatred of Jews and Israel, and he was sentenced to normal prison after committing a real, actual crime. This is like calling Klaus Fuchs a political prisoner.

Yasser Arafat was never imprisoned in Ramallah. The Israeli government always allowed him to leave, but he refused to leave because they didn't promise to allow him to return.