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"and block its websites." So this keeps Israelis from reading Al Jazeera.
Now that's new. Israel started Internet censorship in 2017.[1] Initially it was limited to "terror group websites, online illegal gambling, prostitution services, hard drug sales". At the time, "due to warnings from rights groups that the law poses a slippery slope toward additional censorship, the final version of the legislation dictates that rights groups may appeal the decisions."
Then, in 2021, there was the "Facebook bill", authorizing very broad censorship.[2] That does not seem to have passed. It was first proposed in 2016, almost passed in 2018 [3], tried in 2021, and tried again in 2022. It doesn't seem to have passed.
But something new happened recently. Wikipedia has a note at Censorship in Israel: "This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: New ban issued by the knesset on foreign media channels. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (April 2024)"[4]
The Knesset gave the government the authority to ban foreign media on April 1, 2024.[5]
This isn't just about preventing outside media from reporting from Israel. It keeps Israelis from viewing media the government doesn't like. Haarez has good coverage.[6]
The US White House press secretary issued a weak statement condemning Israel's action, but it was on April 1st and the costumed Easter Bunny overshadowed that statement.[7]
> The US White House press secretary issued a weak statement condemning Israel's action, but it was on April 1st and the costumed Easter Bunny overshadowed that statement.[7]
Armando Iannucci's career has twice now been upstaged by the increasing ridiculousness of reality in politics.
One of the reasons he says he stopped making his first series, The Thick of It, was that UK politicians became parodies of themselves. There was nothing left to make fun of. Then the same thing happened to his American incarnation, Veep.
I genuinely cannot tell if this is real still. Like, I want to believe you, but this person is basically doing the best Michael Scott impersonation I’ve ever seen.
It helps to bear in mind that Police & Crime Commissioners are people elected by the local population as a sort of overseer of the local police forces.
This generally ensures that they have absolutely no clue what they are doing, or qualifications for the job, and hence can be used as a scapegoat, while central government pretends it's not involved or to blame...
(And it also scuppered various plans to combine some police forces to improve efficiency, save costs etc)
> It helps to bear in mind that ... people elected by the local population as a sort of overseer ... generally ensures that they have absolutely no clue what they are doing
A while ago I came to the conclusion this is true in general of almost all politicians. What triggered it was the conservative side of Australian politics have been fighting the good fight against climate change activism and renewables in particular for 15 years now. Currently they are pushing SMR's as the solution to climate change. As far any anyone can tell it's a delaying tactic because they know they won't work.
The conservatives have held the levers of power federally 8 of the last 24 years, so obviously Australia must be a basket case when it comes to shifting to renewables - right? As best they have slowed it down, slightly. Australia leads the world in roof top solar, and coal plants are being closed at record rates. Similar examples could be raised for the other side of politics, particularly in education.
Apparently leading the country isn't what politicians do if you look at outcomes, because evidently no one is actually doing what they command. Instead in Western Societies optimising our way around the laws they make. Which is probably just as well, because as far as I can tell the pollies don't anything notably well, and that includes playing politics. That's probably true for the very reason you give, they are elected in a way that doesn't select for qualifications, skill or competence.
That raises a question, as it appears countries who elect their politicians based on something other than competence nonetheless do well economically. Under the Westminster system decision making seems to be deferred to private enterprise and a government bureaucracy that overseas the rules private enterprise operates under. To me that says the politicians must doing something else that is useful. That would be to "take the blame", as you say. We elect them with high hopes, we blame and abuse them for everything that goes wrong for 10 years or so, then replace them with a new punching bag. Behind the scenes the people who actually capable of running the country get to keep their jobs for decades.
In the recent movie "Golda" (which I recommend), Golda Meir gives a piece of advice to an up and coming military commander Benjamin Netanyahu: "they will make you prime minister, but remember the career of every politician ends in failure".
The editing could be described as "unsympathetic". I get the impression that the substance of her responses lives between the cuts. Although this is one of that unfortunate situations where the video is so funny it undermines any interest in what is really going on.
Iannucci's Death of Stalin has the advantage that it's all history - it can't become more ridiculous after he made the movie because it's in the past. But of course the reality is more or less as absurd as the movie, although different in important ways. (Lots of the timing is completely wrong, events are re-arranged, people are shuffled about so that fewer actors play more important roles) but it does have the advantage that yeah, Stalin can't have another even more ridiculous life which makes the movie seem tame, he's dead.
Don’t forget they actually reduced the number of medals on Zhukov’s chest because they thought it was too over the top to replicate what he actually wore
I really appreciate works like Death of Stalin that are more than happy to move things around in the name of entertainment. It isn't a documentary so it has the freedom to get creative and hit the key notes rather than pure accuracy. They also just said "No need to have Russian accents, the audience is smart enough to just go with what you have."
Using an accent without also speaking the right language seems needless.
I do like that Hunt for Red October has the Russians all speak Russian until one of them says a crucial word that's the same in English, and from there it's all English. "Armageddon". This submarine is capable of ICBM launch, starting World War III, and in the resulting ashes English or Russian would not matter.
Honestly the accents were a really well done part of that movie. A lot of the diversity and variety of Russian culture does not come through to Anglophone ears with fake Russian accents which are often a monotonous stern and gruff voice but. The movie did a good job illustrating the diversity of Russian society through homologous variety of English accents.
That's correct and IMHO its the right thing to do when shooting begins because when people shoot each other this is no longer a discussion and the press is part of the warfare. Remember all the Russian media and social media accounts claiming that its American hysteria that they will invade Ukraine? They denied and mocked anyone who claimed that they will invade up until the tanks rolled in.
Personally, I'm critical of the Israeli government but I think it's in their right to try to control information flow as they are in process of driving people from their homes and mass killing people in retaliation of a terrorist attack that claimed the lives of over thousand innocent people.
I really dislike glorification war and pretending that it has rules or honour or something like that. People are taking lives en masse and its more than normal to try to control the information flow when doing it.
It's a bit ironic how we are constantly reminded that china isn't a democracy because they have censorship, while we are free and democratic and don't have censorship (except we do).
Italy is passing laws to be able to block websites within 30 minutes, without any oversight from any judge. (more details here, link in italian https://stop-piracy-shield.it/)
I would likely be arrested if I wore my UK-created anti-fascist Football Fans Against Apartheid/Free Palestine pin, so it’s going into a drawer. Zionism has drowned all voices, my Jewish friends are being harassed for dissent too.
Really, objectively, I am wondering what on Earth any country X would do faced with a statement from an enemy Y as in :-
The complete and utter destruction of X as an essential condition for the liberation of Y and the establishment of a religious state based on [ Y's religious theocratic laws ]
Any form of coexistence is clearly not on the table. For the context please read the link in the Atlantic article.
In this case it's akin to the bullied child crying 'I'll kill you', from his puddle of blood on the ground. Israel's own conduct in Gaza and the West Bank is the primary threat to the existence of the state. Not two million impoverished people who've been crushed under an imperial boot since the theft of their land almost eighty years ago. Israel is a wealthy, post industrial US backed, nuclear power. Hamas are a convenient boogyman allowing them to further consolidate their control over land that international law recognises as occupied [1].
Yes but how about answering the question because lives depend on it. What should Israel do? Live with Hamas and the 80% of Palestinians who support them? Give up and move ten million people (including some ~20% Muslims & Arabs) to somewhere else? Where? Let's get serious! Again, what to do? How about a constructive response including your advice to Israel under these circumstances. I have no dog in the fight, criticize Israel how you like (undoubtedly much of it justified) but what's the solution? If there is none forthcoming, and there has not, then we move to Clauswitz. Whatever he meant with his famous dictum, that says there is no alternative.
Appalling, much like the Ukraine/Russia horror show.
> What should Israel do? Live with Hamas and the 80% of Palestinians who support them?
Giving concessions to the population and offering them an equitable stake in society would go a long way to dissipating support for armed resistance.
It's not a conflict on the same scale but you can look to the resolution of conflict in Northern Ireland for parallels. Denying people their basic chances in life and doing so with the threat of violence it's never going to win people to your side.
At some point you either have to talk to them or kill them all. The situation now is only creating martyrs and enough trauma to fuel the next generation of the cycle.
I completely agree with your comment and would also note that the median age in Gaza is roughly 18 which is coincidentally also roughly the last time they had an election, which means most Palestinians have had no influence on their government.
This feels a lot like the American reaction after 9/11 where a great crime was committed but less violent options were rejected by hardliners who wanted to overcompensate for having missed the threat after having made “we will protect you” a major campaign point, and likely also seeing an opportunity for something they could not do following the normal political process. In this case it seems all the more tragic because there’s no natural separation due to distance, and it’s hard to see this not resulting in more tragedies for decades with so much fresh blood to avenge.
That's what Oslo peace agreement was about. Palestinians rejected it and went back to intifada. They received the land and independence. Gaza had an international airport that Clinton landed in. They overwhelmingly rejected it.
They elected Hamas and strive to erase Israel. There is no such thing as land concessions, they see it as a weakness and demand more. The national Palestinian idea is the genocide of Jews and the establishment of an Islamic state on all of Israel's borders. That's Hamas's stated goal and it is supported by 80% of the Gaza population. Judea & Samaria are the same, despite PLO geriatrics being in control most of the population supports genocide of Jews.
It can't be compared to Ireland since the Irish never sought the destruction of Britain and the genocide of the English. The same with Japan. You can't compare.
You see it with Western eyes and can't really understand or willfully ignore the Palestinian aspirations.
A supermajority of Gazans are literally not old enough to have ever voted in an election. Hamas won the 2006 election by force, and immediately replaced open democratic process with a system of internal Shura councils. Palestine did not elect Hamas.
According to international observers the elections in Gaza that Hamas won in 2007 were democratic and fair:
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) in partnership with The Carter Center reported "a professional and impartial performance of election officials".[33] The European Union delegation reported "there was nothing which would indicate that the final result was not the outcome chosen by the voters".[34] A CRS Report for Congress on the 2006 elections concluded: "The election was overseen by 17,268 domestic observers, complemented by 900 credentialed international monitors. ... The Bush Administration accepted the outcome of the Palestinian legislative elections and praised the PA for holding free and fair elections. ... The conduct of the election was widely considered to be free and fair."[45]
Indeed, the entity that did its best to obstruct the democratic protest was Israel:
In the lead-up to the elections, on 26 September 2005 Israel launched a campaign of arrests against PLC members. 450 members of Hamas were detained, mostly those involved in the 2006 PLC elections. The majority of them were kept in administrative detention for different periods.[23] In the election period, 15 PLC members were captured and held as prisoners.[24]
During the elections, the Israeli authorities banned the candidates from holding election campaigns inside Jerusalem. Rallies and public meetings were prohibited. The Jerusalem identity cards of some PLC members were also revoked.[25] The Carter Center, which monitored the elections, criticised the detentions of persons who "are guilty of nothing more than winning a parliamentary seat in an open and honest election".[26]
Israeli obstruction during the election resulted in estimated 123,000 voters in East Jerusalem being prevented from registering until ten days before the elections, creating a number of logistical problems shortly before the election day. The checkpoints of Israel also continued to pose serious obstacles to all Palestiniain parties during the electoral campaign as well as on voting day itself. It was also noted that Palestinian refugees in exile and 9,000 prisoners remained ineligible to vote.[27]
The only problem with the elections was that the Palestinians elected the wrong party. The US, that great champion of liberal democracy around the world, did its utmost best to correct the result: they sponsored, armed and trained a Fatah faction to stage a coup; which backfired and left Hamas in control of Gaza.
The report said that instead of driving its enemies out of power, the US-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. David Wurmser, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief Middle East adviser a month after the Hamas takeover, said he believed that Hamas had no intention of taking over the Gaza Strip until Fatah forced its hand. "It looks to me that what happened wasn't so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was preempted before it could happen," he was quoted as saying. Wurmser said that the Bush administration engaged in a "dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] with victory." Wurmser said he was especially galled by the Bush administration's hypocrisy. "There is a stunning disconnect between the president's call for Middle East democracy and this policy," he said. "It directly contradicts it.".[69]
The reason you're talking about an election that took place 18 years ago is that, after seizing control in Gaza, Hamas refused to ever hold another election. A supermajority of Gazan residents aren't old enough ever to have voted in an election held in Gaza. Whatever happened in 2006 --- and you'll get lots of stories about it if you go digging --- the Palestine that exists in 2024 did not elect Hamas.
And there is no reason to "go digging" and look for "stories". You can read the wikipedia article I quote above, about the US-backed Fatah coup and follow the sources, which are entirely public and mainstream. One of them is actual Vanity Fair.
The "US-backed Fatah coup"? Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2006, and won a war against Fatah in 2007. Most Palestinians are too young ever to have voted for Hamas.
Yeas, a US backed Fatah coup. It's all on wikipedia:
US post-election impediments
Just before the January 2006 elections, and after witnessing Hamas' gains in municipal polls, the House of Representatives passed H.Res. 575 (December 16, 2005), asserting that terrorist groups, like Hamas, should not be permitted to participate in Palestinian elections until such organizations "recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, cease incitement, condemn terrorism, and permanently disarm and dismantle their terrorist infrastructure."[63] The Palestinian Authority chose to ignore this external decision: "the Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas has favored an unconditional acceptance of Hamas's electoral participation, believing that it could co-opt Hamas within the Palestinian political fold".[64]
The New York Times reported in February 2006 that "The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again. The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election."[65]
Just how much further matters would be taken was revealed in April 2008. Tom Segev (in Ha'aretz) reported:
a "confidential document, a 'talking points' memo,[66] was left by the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem, Jake Walles, on the desk of Mahmoud Abbas . … According to the paper left behind … he wanted to pressure Abu Mazen to take action that would annul the outcome of the elections that had catapulted Hamas to power. … When nothing happened, Walles … warned the Palestinian president that the time had come to act. Instead, Abu Mazen launched negotiations with Hamas on the establishment of a unity government. … At this point the Americans moved to "Plan B." That was a plan to eliminate Hamas by force. In fact, it was to be a deliberately fomented civil war Fatah was supposed to win, with U.S. help."[67]
In April 2008 Vanity Fair published "The Gaza Bombshell":
There is no one more hated among Hamas members than Muhammad Dahlan, long Fatah's resident strongman in Gaza. Dahlan, who most recently served as Abbas's national-security adviser, has spent more than a decade battling Hamas. ... Bush has met Dahlan on at least three occasions. After talks at the White House in July 2003, Bush publicly praised Dahlan as "a good, solid leader." In private, say multiple Israeli and American officials, the U.S. president described him as "our guy."
Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America's behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)
Some sources call the scheme "Iran-contra 2.0," recalling that Abrams was convicted (and later pardoned) for withholding information from Congress during the original Iran-contra scandal under President Reagan. There are echoes of other past misadventures as well: the C.I.A.'s 1953 ouster of an elected prime minister in Iran, which set the stage for the 1979 Islamic revolution there; the aborted 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which gave Fidel Castro an excuse to solidify his hold on Cuba; and the contemporary tragedy in Iraq.[68]
The Jerusalem Post confirmed that the documents cited by Vanity Fair "have been corroborated by sources at the US State Department and Palestinian officials", and added:
The report said that instead of driving its enemies out of power, the US-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. David Wurmser, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief Middle East adviser a month after the Hamas takeover, said he believed that Hamas had no intention of taking over the Gaza Strip until Fatah forced its hand. "It looks to me that what happened wasn't so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was preempted before it could happen," he was quoted as saying. Wurmser said that the Bush administration engaged in a "dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] with victory." Wurmser said he was especially galled by the Bush administration's hypocrisy. "There is a stunning disconnect between the president's call for Middle East democracy and this policy," he said. "It directly contradicts it.".[69]
The original article was cited by the Irish Times, the Israeli historian and political analyst, Tom Segev, in an article entitled "Bay of Pigs in Gaza", and also by Suzanne Goldenburg of The Guardian, who added "A state department memo put the cost for salaries, training and weapons at $1.27bn (£640m) over five years."[59]
The 2008 exposé by Vanity Fair (of plans to reverse the democratic 2006 PA parliamentary elections) confirmed a CF Report of January 2007, over a year earlier, by Alistair Crooke:
Deputy National Security Advisor, Elliott Abrams ... has had it about for some months now that the U.S. is not only not interested in dealing with Hamas, it is working to ensure its failure. In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas elections, last January, Abrams greeted a group of Palestinian businessmen in his White House office with talk of a "hard coup" against the newly-elected Hamas government — the violent overthrow of their leadership with arms supplied by the United States. While the businessmen were shocked, Abrams was adamant — the U.S. had to support Fatah with guns, ammunition and training, so that they could fight Hamas for control of the Palestinian government.
Over the last twelve months, the United States has supplied guns, ammunition and training to Palestinian Fatah activists to take on Hamas in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank. A large number of Fatah activists have been trained and "graduated" from two camps — one in Ramallah and one in Jericho. The supplies of rifles and ammunition, which started as a mere trickle, has now become a torrent (Haaretz reports the U.S. has designated an astounding $86.4 million for Abu Mazen's security detail), and while the program has gone largely without notice in the American press, it is openly talked about and commented on in the Arab media.
Of course, in public, Secretary Rice appears contrite and concerned with "the growing lawlessness" among Palestinians, while failing to mention that such lawlessness is exactly what the Abrams plan was designed to create."[70]
Voice of America reported that the Bush administration had denied the Vanity Fair report.[71]
In 2016 a 2006 audio tape emerged that contains an interview by Eli Chomsky of the Jewish Press with Hillary Clinton. Clinton opined that pushing for elections "in the Palestinian territories ... was a big mistake", adding "(a)nd if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win."[72]
This is a very long post that doesn't contradict anything I've said. There was a 7-day civil war in Gaza, which Hamas technically started (if that matters to you), back in 2007; Hamas has controlled Gaza ever since. It was doing so prior to that "war" (one of the reasons Fatah and Hamas got into it was that Hamas replaced all of the PA's governing institutions --- the courts, the school systems, etc --- with Hamas-designed alternatives), but, whatever.
Also: we all have access to Wikipedia. You don't have to copy and paste whole articles here.
>> There was a 7-day civil war in Gaza, which Hamas technically started (if that matters to you), back in 2007;
No. Fatah started it. The US funded, armed and trained a Fatah faction to stage a coup against Hamas. The coup backfired and Hamas kicked Fatah out of Gaza.
To be perfectly clear: Fatah and Hamas are different, rival organisations. The 2007 Gaza War was started by Fatah, not Hamas.
Again: it's on wikipedia.
>> (one of the reasons Fatah and Hamas got into it was that Hamas replaced all of the PA's governing institutions --- the courts, the school systems, etc --- with Hamas-designed alternatives),
Yes, because they won the election. So they replaced the public officials with their own. Are you suggesting there is something sinister in that?
People on this site are going to disagree with you about all sorts of things. You need to stop writing things like "you don't seem to read", or the worse thing you wrote downthread, if you expect to have a curious conversation with anybody. Can you do that?
Nah, I'm good. You refuse to engage with the information I present and continue to say the same factually wrong things over and over. You don't get to lecture me about curious conversation.
Would you say elections from 20 years ago are representative of the political mood in your country today?
Also:
1. Most of the current population wasn't born then.
2. Voting for the political wing of a violent group isn't the same as supporting violence. Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, are the biggest party in Northern Ireland almost 30 years since the cease fire.
That's right, but we do have up-to-date information that suggests Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank both support Hamas (though not overwhelmingly so) and consider the 7th October attacks to be justified. This is from the AP (I also posted the link earlier):
Palestinian poll shows a rise in Hamas support and close to 90% wanting US-backed Abbas to resign
Despite the devastation, 57% of respondents in Gaza and 82% in the West Bank believe Hamas was correct in launching the October attack, the poll indicated.
(...)
Overall, 88% want Abbas to resign, up by 10 percentage points from three months ago. In the West Bank, 92% called for the resignation of the octogenarian who has presided over an administration widely seen as corrupt, autocratic and ineffective.
At the same time, 44% in the West Bank said they supported Hamas, up from just 12% in September. In Gaza, the militants enjoyed 42% support, up slightly from 38% three months ago.
But, just to be perfectly clear lest there be some misunderstanding: Palestinians may support whomever they want and whatever they want, that does not justify their endless slaughter and apparent ethnic cleansing by Israel. That is in the same way that the almost universal support of the far right by the Israeli public does not justify terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.
This kind of conversation is always about morality, as well as other considerations. The killing of women and children and unarmed men will always elicit moral outrage, as well it should. In a context as inhumane and cruel as the brutal occupation of the Palestinian lands by Israel there is very little safe moral ground that any side can occupy. Hamas are the democratically elected government of Gaza, they are the legitimate resistance against the occupation and at the same time they are the perpetrators of shocking atrocities against Israeli civilians. The Israeli government is democratically elected and enjoys the support of a majority of the Israeli population and the current "war" has the full support of the majority of the Israeli public. The only unassailable moral stance remains to respect the facts on the ground, discuss them as one understands them, and not try to twist them for political reasons. My thoughts anyway.
To make it plain: so what if Palestinians support Hamas? Massacring a defenseless civilian population is never justified.
Hamas won a narrow plurality in the 2006 legislative elections. That government dissolved entirely in 2007 after a military conflict between Hamas and Fatah.
So since 2007, Hamas has not been "elected". In any case it's main function since then has been as an instrument of Israeli policy. In Bibi's own words, just a few years ago: "Anyone who wants to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas."
So if you are unhappy with Hamas still being around, you know who to direct your concerns at.
That is certainly not Hamas's main function. Netanyahu is obviously in some sense culpable for funneling resources to Hamas, but Hamas is, obviously, an independent actor; if it's an instrument of anyone's policy, it's Iran's --- though, since October 7, the aQB wing of Hamas appears to be completely on its own.
Netanyahu funded Hamas because he had a cunning plan:
‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas
As far back as December 2012, Mr. Netanyahu told the prominent Israeli journalist Dan Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Mr. Margalit, in an interview, said that Mr. Netanyahu told him that having two strong rivals, including Hamas, would lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.
What a guy, that Bibi. He's so cute and smart, you just want to pinch his cheek and ruffle his hair. He funded Hamas to encourage them to fight the PA so they would not work together to create a Palestinian state. What an amazingly bright plan! Sending millions to Hamas? I mean what could ever possibly go wrong?
If it wasn't clear, both myself and 'racional are making the same point. We're disputing the long-term impact of that funding, not whether or why it took place.
Of course it's an independent actor, but I'm talking about the bigger picture and the strategic rational behind its continued existence. The Leitmotif if you will.
The IRGC was going to make sure Hamas continued to exist, to the extent it needed external support at all. Hamas isn't a creation of Israel; Israeli support is not the rationale for its continued existence.
I'm not saying you did, I'm just emphatically pushing back on the idea that Netanyahu's support for Hamas is instrumental to its staying power or in some way its reason for existing. It's clear what Netanyahu's purpose for assisting it was --- to divide Palestine between Fatah and Hamas and prevent the emergence of a coherent Palestinian state. Similarly, the US had very particular goals in supporting Afghan Mujahideen, which turned out to be quite different than those groups actual reason to exist.
As I'm sure you're aware, this notion that Hamas is (or was, before the IDF demolished it) a puppet for Netanyahu has a lot of currency in online spaces. I don't see you making that argument! But it's worth calling it out. It is fine --- maybe even... dare I say it... good? --- if we say things that we agree on aloud.
> Palestinians rejected it and went back to intifada.
Um, not really. Hamas did. And their radical brethren who assassinated Yitzhak.
It did end up extremely bad for everyone involved.
(I don't want to downplay the anti-Oslo sentiment [0], especially that Oslo I-II got signed despite the attacks previously.
Also it's hard to say how well the PLO represented the people, but it's sure that they were more accepted than Hamas. After all Arafat got elected in 1996 despite participating in the peace process.
It seems fairly clear that the peace process was a very unfortunate Schelling point for extremists on both sides, and their tireless cooperation successfully pushed the region away from peace and prosperity.
And, it's also important to note that it's perfectly possible that Arafat was simply deceitful, and the PLO wanted to get some breathing space to gather an army, blablabla. Sure. And that would/could have lead to ... exactly here anyway. Or maybe it would be even worse! Those are all legitimate concerns that have to be addressed, but very few things can simply make the basic issues irrelevant, and as long as people are there they will inevitably bear the burden of living with those unaddressed issues.)
Israel should make peace with the Palestinians. It is only Israel that can decide to have peace, because it is the overwhelmingly more powerful side, militarily and in every other way, and even if Hamas put down its weapons and surrendered, there would be no peace if Israel did not agree to it.
And just to be sure this is well understood: Israel does not want peace. Israel has maintained its brutal occupation of the Palestinian territories for years well before Hamas, it has broken ceasefires left and right for years, it has continued to massacre the Palestinians every chance it gets, it has continued to settle more and more of the lands where the Palestinians live, and even when the top leadership of Hamas proposed a long-lasting truce, Israel responded by assassinating them, just in case anyone took them to their word:
According to Tristan Dunning, Israel has never responded to repeated offers by Hamas over subsequent years for a quid pro quo moratorium on attacks against civilians.[176] It has engaged in several tadi'a (periods of calm), and proposed a number of ceasefires.[176] In January 2004, Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, prior to his assassination, said that the group would end armed resistance against Israel for a 10-year hudna[k] in exchange for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, and that restoring Palestinians' "historical rights" (relating to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight) "would be left for future generations". His views were quickly echoed by senior Hamas official Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, who added that Hamas envisaged a "phased liberation".[178] Israel's response was to assassinate Yassin in March in a targeted Israeli air strike, and then al-Rantisi in a similar air strike in April.[179]
And let's not forget that the current leadership of Israel has made it exceedingly clear that it is hell-bent against any ideas of a "two state" solution, that it has complete disrespect for any UN resolutions trying to establish any kind of solution that involves Palestinian independence, and has of course worked hard to reduce the Oslo accords to a farce.
I don't think any of this is a particularly fair summary of the situation. In particular, it ratifies Hamas and the 2022 Netanyahu coalition as the leaders of both sides of the broader conflict; neither are really representative of the populations they serve. Hamas has at least since 2017 been run by a millenarian Bond villain, causing much of Hamas's political leadership to flee the country. Netanyahu assembled a neo-Kahanist fringe coalition as a parliamentary maneuver to keep from losing his post, because it's widely believed he's going to end up in prison as soon as he leaves.
Meanwhile: if we're talking about peace in the context of what happened after October 7, there's no country in the world that would have failed to respond militarily to an attack like that, which was the point of the attack in the first place. Sinwar expected Iran to go all-in on a final war that would wipe Israel off the map; instead, Hezbollah stayed home, and the whole plan fizzled.
The Israel/Palestine situation is widely considered one of the more complicated geopolitical crises, and for good reason. If you think you have a simple summary of it, like "Israel does not want peace", you're probably glossing over a lot of stuff.
Btw, this happened just as I was replying to your comment. tl;dr Hamas accepted a ceasefire proposal and Israel started attacking Rafah:
Israel’s military is now launching targeted strikes in eastern Rafah, Reuters and AP reported citing a statement. Israel says it is striking Hamas targets in the region. But more than 1 million displaced Palestinian people have sought refuge in Rafah amid Israel’s attacks in Gaza, the Washington Post reported.
Hamas says it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari ceasefire proposal to halt the seven-month war with Israel. It issued a statement on Monday saying its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had delivered the news in a phone call with Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence minister.
An IDF spokesperson said Israel will continue to act in a “operational manner” in Gaza despite Hamas announcing that it accepted a Gaza ceasefire deal on Monday. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel is going to continue to act in an operational manner, saying earlier that Israel has a right to defend itself.
This is breaking news from like 4 hours ago. It did not happen just as you were writing these comments.
I don't think you're going to find many people to take the other side of your "Netanyahu is a monster" argument. The IDF has crushed Hamas militarily. There was no reason for Netanyahu not to accept a ceasefire on any terms that gave hostages back. This is why the streets in Israel are full of gigantic demonstrations about the return of the hostages.
>> This is why the streets in Israel are full of gigantic demonstrations about the return of the hostages.
Yes, what may not be clear is that those people are demonstrating for the return of the hostages, not the end of the massacre of the Palestinians. They couldn't care less about the Palestinians. As I point out in another comment there is widespread support among the Israeli public for the war and near zero concern about what it will do to Palestinian civilians, including children.
Even the dumbest Google search will quickly get you examples of protests against the IDF's operations in Gaza right now. Try [protest (some-Israeli-city)]. I don't care what +972 thinks the Israeli public thinks about Gazans.
I’ve mostly been getting my news about these protests from English language news (particularly Democracy Now!) so I may be wrong about this, but I don’t recall at any point they even mention Palestinians in these protests. They seem to be against the war, and against the current government, solely because they want the hostages home.
Now, I want to be clear, I’m not blaming the protestors (I know many here on HN are going to these protests, and all the power to you for that). And I’m certainly not going to accuse any individual protestor of not caring about Palestinians. But from my eyes, through the English language news, it certainly does not seem to be a priority, nor even a consideration, for the public at large in Israel, that Palestinians get justice and liberation from these years and years of political neglect and human rights violations.
If you compare this to the Iraq war protests in the USA, which I will not deny were more about bringing the troops home then about the lives of Iraqis, but the lives and conditions of Iraqis was always at least a part of the conversations. I’m not seeing this int the “Bring Them Home Now” protests in Israel. The hostages are not the main focus, but the only focus. Consideration for Palestinian lives is completely absent.
When I see protests which actually consider Palestinian lives, it is not these mass demonstrations like we see with the “Bring Them Home Now” protests, but rather, very few individual anti-Zionist activists, who seem to get pretty disproportionate treatment from the Israeli police.
I also get my news from Democracy Now :) There was an interview with Omer Bartov last week, where I think he broached the subject of the Israeli public's concern about the lives of the Palestinians and it wasn't good. I think this was the video:
Apologies but I don't have time now to search it to find the place where he talks about Israelis' opinions, or to check that's the right one. I'll try to do it later today, if you're interested.
Bartov is one of the calmest and most sensible voices around these days. He seems completely incapable of accepting that his country is committing a genocide and has argued eruditely and logically against it, but I guess that's understandable. I listen to that guy every chance I get.
For what its worth, I was watching Al Jazeera live last night, and they did cover last nights protests in Israel (I don’t know where they got their footage though). There were three protestors interviewed and all of them mentioned Palestinians lives[1]. So I was wrong about it being completely absent. There are at least some protestors which do use these protests to advocate for justice for Palestinians.
Daniel Levy’s interview at Democracy Now! this morning was also insightful[2]. Particularly the answer to Juan González’ question:
> JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you also about the protests, the continuing massive protests within Israel, even while the war continues. Your sense of the impact of these protests on the Israeli government?
> DANIEL LEVY: It’s a very important point, Juan. What I think we have seen is the intensity of those protests — and those protests tend to center around the prioritizing of getting the hostages out, saying, “Do the deal. Get the hostages out.” The intensity, especially those led by members of family of those being held, by family, friends, those have increased. The volume, the extent to which this is disruptive and is impossible for Netanyahu to stare down, I do not think we are anywhere near that moment.
> The internal pressure is such that the soft opposition, who will run against Netanyahu in the next election, led by this guy Gantz, former chief of staff, former defense minister, and Eisenkot, they are still in the government. They have still not unequivocally said that if Netanyahu turns down the deal, they will quit. Even if they quit, Netanyahu has a majority.
> But the pressure does not feel sufficient that Netanyahu’s politics needs him to accept a ceasefire. He still thinks he can wiggle out of this, which is where the question of the external pressure becomes a key factor, because it’s going to be that combination of internal and external. So I think the next question one would have to address is: Where does the external pressure stand?
So, in short, Daniel Levy does not believe these protests will do anything to change Israel’s policy, nor will any pressure from within Israel. He believes the only thing which will change this policy is external pressure, especially from the US. Meaning the student protests in the US are more relevant to the future of Palestine. The ball is not in Hamas’ courtyard, nor in Israel’s, it is—and has been this whole time—in the US’.
I'm looking randomly at an RT from Rasha al Aqeedi right now of a Tel Aviv protest with signs like "STOP BOMBING RAFAH" and "DROP FOOD NOT BOMBS".
It is simply false that "Israelis" don't care about the lives of Gazan civilians. There are Israelis that don't (they are disproportionately likely to be Israelis of Middle Eastern descent, for demographic reasons similar to the urban/rural political divisions in the US), just as there are Americans that don't care about Mexican lives and Palestinians who don't care about Jewish lives and Zaydi Yemenis who don't care about Sunni Yemeni lives. People are awful and wonderful and complicated all at the same time.
I just saw it now. All the power to these people, they are absolute heroes. Also power to the protestors in the Al-Jazeera clip I cited earlier in the Bring Them Home Now protest for talking about Palestine.
I think, however—and it seems I’m not the only one—that far more is needed. This is not a large demonstration, especially given the stakes and the seriousness of Israel’s crimes.
The anti-zionist movement in Israel certainly exists, and is doing an amazing job. When I was in university I followed the works of Anarchists against the wall very closely (I don’t know if they are active any more though). I was also a member of the Icelandic Red Cross which worked closely with Israeli organizations (don’t remember which ones) in aiding victims of settler violence on the West Bank. If I remember correctly these organizations were mostly giving legal aid and monitoring checkpoints in the hopes it would prevent violence. Some of my colleges actually went to the West Bank to work with them.
But this was 15 years ago, and thinks have only gotten worse since then. I’m not optimistic that the current movements will have any more effects on policy than those of the last decade and a half (but they absolutely should still try). Like Daniel Levy says above, the pressure needs to come from the outside.
If the OP of the RT was indeed Oren Ziv, then you cited an anti-zionist journalist, that works for an anti-zionist news paper, photographing a what looks like an anti-zionist rally.
You've reached the point where you're trying to make a point by citing Truthout. That's fine, you can take places like that seriously, but I do not, and a list of analyses about how Israelis really want the hostages returned isn't refuting my point. It's fine if we simply disagree here.
[Examples of protests against the IDF's operations in Gaza right now]
These are also described as "rare", and tend to get broken up by authorities for "harming the feelings of the public" and whatnot. The vast majority are led by the Bring Them Home Now movement or are otherwise unequivocally focused on the return of the hostages.
It's not hard to find explicitly anti-war protests from organizations on the Israeli left, but if you yourself were building a program to mobilize opposition to the war in Gaza, what would you lead with? Every march for the return of hostages is implicitly (or explicitly) demanding that Netanyahu complete a ceasefire deal with Hamas. 3/4 of polled Israelis now want Netanyahu gone, and the numbers don't get much better for his defense and intelligence teams.
Is this the conversion getting more thoughtful as it goes on? If even "the dumbest" Google search can show what you're saying, maybe you could provide these dummies with a link? You're dismissing their sources out of hand without any rebuttal while at the same time quoting various figures with no source at all.
I don't understand what you're asking, but 'runarberg upthread just posted a clear example. I'm uncomfortable with the whole enterprise of trying to characterize the thoughts and feelings of 7 million people, so the idea of doing a dueling cites thing is unappealing to me. If anyone on this thread wants to read that as a concession, I'm fine with agreeing to disagree.
I don’t think Netanyahu on his own is able to reject this deal and invade Rafah. Especially with protests in both Israel as well as the USA, and with USA having set a red line here.
No, I think it is wildly simplistic to blame this on him, and there is a deep understanding inside the entire Israeli leadership that the genocide continues, no matter the cost. The Israeli public may not agree with it, however from what I see in the protests, there is very little talk—if any—of the lives of Palestinians. So it doesn’t really seem that Palestinian lives matter as much as the hostages for the Israeli public at large.
If e.g. Benny Gantz were to become the Prime Minister, there is little evidence he would behave any differently, this is for example how he is reacting to Hamas’ accepting of the ceasefire deal:
> “Every decision will be brought before the war cabinet—there will be no political considerations”
> “The military action in Rafah is also an inseparable part of our continued efforts and commitment to return our hostages and change the security reality in the south.”
There are not many—if any—political regimes plausible in Israel at the moment who do not take a very hawkish and a criminal approach in denying Palestinians their states. The political reality is that without an intifada, there will be no political avenue for Palestine to gain their freedom from oppression.
You're saying all this and I guess I get why, but I'm coming at this from the opposite angle. I don't believe Israel has any further military objectives to pursue in Gaza beyond getting the hostages back.
There are allegedly 4 remaining combat-ready Hamas battalions (Google the ISW's al-Qassam Brigades Order of Battle for more information than you've ever wanted on this topic), all in or around Rafah. The other 15 battalions have all been disabled. Israel is believed to have killed or captured a full 1/4 of all Hamas fighters, but that figure understates the damage they did to Hamas; for instance, it really seems like they've more or less killed Hamas's entire officer cadre. Hezbollah fought the IDF to a standstill a few years back. Hamas did not repeat the performance. The IDF won, decisively.
Netanyahu's ghoulish neo-Kahanist coalition says things about completely eradicating Hamas, and, yes, about collectively punishing Gazans (this whole thing about Hamas being the duly elected representatives of Gaza is one of their talking points). But they're incompetent and these aren't military goals. If you killed literally every Hamas fighter, they'd be in approximately the same place: within 10 years of rehabilitation as a combat force given the same 9-figure p.a. disbursals they get from the IRGC and Syria.
There's a persuasive argument that Netanyahu needs this conflict to stay hot in order to stay in office; his incentives are very like those of the US's ex-President: being in office prevents his prosecution and eventual imprisonment (not unprecedented in Israel). I don't put it past him. Nixon probably prolonged the Vietnam War for electoral reasons. People do awful things.
I'm just saying: there's no coherent security reason for them to continue active combat operations. I think the Al-Aqsa Flood Attack is somewhat like the 9/11 hijackers storming the cockpits; it worked once, but it's never going to work again.
But, of course, Sinwar is no better. I assume Haniya is telling him about the alfalfa they're going to plant for the rabbits, and how Sinwar will get to tend the rabbits. My advice to Hamas people, once this all settles out, would be not to get in a motor vehicle with either of the Sinwar brothers ever again. It's an achievement to piss off Hamas and Fatah, the IRGC, and the IDF simultaneously.
>> (this whole thing about Hamas being the duly elected representatives of Gaza is one of their talking points).
It doesn't matter whose talking point it is. Hamas was elected fair and square in proper democratic elections. They are the only legitimate authority in Gaza. Those are the facts on the ground and there is no world where it makes sense to ignore this.
I suspect you assume this somehow justifies the atrocities committed by Israel, along the lines of Isaac Herzog's comment about innocent civilians in Gaza [1] but that's just nuts. We're not going to ignore reality because a bunch of blood-crazed fascists are trying to twist it to their needs.
"Netanyahu assembled a neo-Kahanist fringe coalition as a parliamentary maneuver to keep from losing his post, because it's widely believed he's going to end up in prison as soon as he leaves."
It may be "widely believed" but that doesn't make it true. It's highly unlikely that
Netanyahu would end up in prison. The only case with a real threat of prison (case 4000) has been collapsing steadily since the start, with dismal prosecution witnesses, and judges were pushing the prosecution team for a plea bargain [1] due to the low chances of successful conviction.
It's also clear that the court proceedings would last until the end of the decade, so extending the war by months wouldn't buy him much time. Not to mention that the war cabinet is a unity wartime cabinet that is made up of the main centrist leaders too.
The idea that Netanyahu's war strategy is based on him clinging to power is lazy thinking that keeps on getting trotted out in order to bolster the argument that the war is unjust. In fact, the Israeli public are clearly behind the war aim of dismantling Hamas, the only significant split in public opinion is whether to risk a hostage deal that may not result in many living hostages released in practice and will only encourage further hostage taking by terrorists in the future.
Only ben-Gvir can be accused of having neo-Kahanist tendencies, the rest are "merely" right wing. And forming a coalition with a large parliamentary majority after an election is hardly a "parliamentary manoeuvre", it's democracy and all too predictable after multiple elections and failure for 5 years for centrist coalition to stick together.
All but a tiny fringe of people everywhere favor the dismantling of Hamas --- something that has largely been accomplished at this point. For normal people who aren't poisoned by Twitter, the contention isn't that Hamas is worth saving, but rather that Israel's operations amount in practice to a collective punishment of Gazans for the actions of Hamas. I am deeply sympathetic to this argument, and disagree with most of what you have to say.
I was pointing out that the simplistic theory that Netanyahu is at real risk of going to prison is not true. It's a view that's put out to turn Natenyahu into a "monster" and make it easy to glibly view the war as serving Natenyahu's interests instead of the harder to swallow reality that it supported by the vast majority of Israelis (who don't have the luxury of merely "favor"ing Hamas' destruction, but as a existential necessity to ensuring Oct 7 is not repeated).
The rest of your comment is predicated on the fact that Hamas is a spent force which is nonsense. If there was a ceasefire today it's clear Hamas will regroup and reestablish. Most media sources claim 4 of their battalions are almost fully intact in Rafah.
The war aim, supported by vast majority of Israelis, is that Hamas is no longer a fighting force and will never threaten Israel again. Yes, there may be new terrorist groups that pop up, but the essential deterrent - that Israel is capable and will fully dismantle any good group that wars against it - will be reestablished. (Plus Israel has learnt a lot of lessons about how to ensure Hamas 2.0 is less of threat, including a renewed focus on insisting to the world for a Marshall-plan-style deradicalization, and the realisation that there are no bounds to what terrorists will do even if you ply them with cash and improve work opportunities for Gazans as Netanyahu and many previous governments did prior to Oct 7).
This war involves the most difficult urban warfare the world has ever seen - it's Mosul or Raqah combined with Vietnam, with extensive extensive secret tunnels and the use of civilian infrastructure to wage war. The civilian casualties and destruction where inevitable and the "collective punishment" argument simply does not stack up in this war.
I disagree with all of this. Hamas could be eliminated root and branch and still reconstitute within 10 years. My claim is that Israel has already accomplished the goal you lay out in your third paragraph. I don't believe there is any such thing as "Marshall-plan-style deradicalization".
Of course, what's really happening here is that our premises are too far apart for us to productively discuss things. To continue talking, we'd just be playing to the crowd, hoping to attract some other commenter on this benighted threat to chime in our side. Maybe there's some value in us just calling out the places where we disagree and leaving it at that?
Only Ben-Gvir can be accused of having neo-Kahanist tendencies, the rest are "merely" right wing.
Though that certain other major cabinet figure you're not mentioning (Smotrich) avoids the explicit affiliation and more obvious rhetoric -- his actions clearly resonate with the Kahanist agenda.
Other coalition members seem to be "out there" on the Kahanist spectrum. Meet Orik Strook (aka Minister of Settlements and National Missions), for example:
In 2007, Strook's son Zvi was convicted of abusing a Palestinian boy and killing a young goat, and spent thirty months in an Israeli prison as a result. In response to the ruling, Strook stated that, "Unlike the Court, who preferred to believe the Arab witnesses, we are sure of Zvi's innocence, and are hurting from the success of his haters and would assist him to deal with the difficult sentence imposed on him".
You've also got Zvi Sukkot:
In 2012, [Sukkot] was expelled from the West Bank under suspicion that he was part of a group of 12 that had planned and carried out violent attacks against Palestinians and their property. ... On 6 July 2017, he was arrested on suspicion of engaging in "price tagging". ... At the onset of the Huwara rampage, Sukkot tweeted that "Huwara's killers' nest needs to be taken care of", and posted a picture of himself among a group of settlers gathering at Tapuach Junction, to the immediate south of Huwara.
Finally, it's important to note that the vast majority of the folks who helped the Nazis do their dirty work throughout Europe were not members of their local Nazi parties (or if so, only on paper and sometimes under duress). By and large, they were "merely" right-wing or apolitical.
No, I think it is your account that is attempting to over-simplify world politics into a Tolkien-esque story of good vs. evil, with Yahya Sinwar as a Bond-like villain and Iran as the secretive puppet master, pulling the strings, pulling the strings from the shadows. The problem is that this simplistic story doesn't seem to have much to do with the facts on the ground, as we can observe them, and not imagine them.
For example, I cannot find any information about Ismail Haniyeh having left for Qater with his merry band of revelers because of Sinwar. The scant information we have about the support of Hamas among Palestinians suggests that Hamas is popular enough among Palestinians in Gaza, and certainly in the West Bank, that if there was another election they would easily win it [1].
The same goes for the Israeli government. Certainly everyone agrees that Bibi is doing everything he can to prolong the war to save his ass, but at the same time his government coalition enjoys the support of a majority of the Israeli voters, whom, after all, it represents [2] [3]. And a majority of Israeli civilians support the "war" [4]. Scare quotes because that's not a war but an unhindered massacre of a defenseless civilian population.
>> Sinwar expected Iran to go all-in on a final war that would wipe Israel off the map; instead, Hezbollah stayed home, and the whole plan fizzled.
There is absolutely no reason to assume any of that is true. We do not know what were the strategic goals that Hamas had in invading Israel. They have given some reasons but they're not exactly a trustworthy source so the best thing to do is to avoid launching into wild speculation.
_______________
[1] Palestinian poll shows a rise in Hamas support and close to 90% wanting US-backed Abbas to resign
Overall, 88% want Abbas to resign, up by 10 percentage points from three months ago. In the West Bank, 92% called for the resignation of the octogenarian who has presided over an administration widely seen as corrupt, autocratic and ineffective.
At the same time, 44% in the West Bank said they supported Hamas, up from just 12% in September. In Gaza, the militants enjoyed 42% support, up slightly from 38% three months ago.
[2] The Israeli public has embraced the Smotrich doctrine
The terrifying Smotrichization of the Israeli public is embodied in the total willingness to sacrifice the lives of every last Palestinian in Gaza for the ultimate victory that the far-right minister promised in his plan. It is the terrifying indifference to the astronomical number of dead children, and the complete internalization of the idea that any thought of struggle and freedom on the other side of the fence must be extinguished, no matter the human cost.
[3] How Israeli youth helped usher in the farthest right-wing government ever
Recent polling backs that surprising observation: A joint poll published by the Israel Democracy Institute last month found that 73 percent of Jewish Israelis between ages 18 and 24 identify as right-wing, compared with only 46 percent of Jewish Israelis over 65. Young Jewish Israelis are showing up to rallies and polling stations for the extremist politicians whose November electoral victory ushered in Israel’s farthest right-wing government ever.
The issue is how culpable civilians are in Hamas' atrocities.
The Israeli government is currently at ~30 killed Palestinians for each 1 killed Israeli.
Presumably, whatever anyone's opinion, there's some ratio that is unjust. Or is killing every Palestinian in Gaza just?
Last I checked, Exodus' Covenant Code [0] was also pretty clear on this, and it didn't include any multiple.
>> Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death. However, if it is not done intentionally, but God lets it happen, they are to flee to a place I will designate. But if anyone schemes and kills someone deliberately, that person is to be taken from my altar and put to death.
FWIW most Western militaries have specific ratios that are deemed acceptable for neutralizing a target (i.e. killing a baddie). These ratios are usually ranked based on the target's importance with a regular soldier being very low and a military leader being ranked very high. Often collateral damage from strikes against high value targets is more acceptable because the high value target is accompanied by lower value targets adding to the ratio.
I'm not aware of any such ratio used by the IDF. I've recently heard an Israeli government spokesperson say that the IDF has killed 13,000 Hamas including "civilian combatants". My guess would be that the IDF uses a very loose definition of whom they define as a combatant (note that the US for example has never used the term "civilian combatant" as that mixes the two groups: if they're a combatant they're not civilian and vice versa). Given that Israel also does not seem to acknowledge the 30,000+ lower bound on total deaths from IDF attacks in Gaza, it's entirely possible that Israel's ratio could be as low as 2 civilians per combatant in aggregate. But it's worth noting that this would still be much higher than anything used by any "Western" military even the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Given the rhetoric of Israeli government spokespersons, officials, politicians and other talking heads, I think it's more likely that the IDF effectively has no limits on how many Palestinian civilian casualties are acceptable per target. Former IDF soldiers have mentioned eliminationist rhetoric like "the terrorists who did Oct 7 are the kids we spared" or "anyone who hasn't left after the evacuation order should be assumed to be Hamas". This doesn't inspire confidence.
>> They also discuss the three cardinal principles of targeting: distinction (which prohibits intentionally targeting civilians or civilian objects), precautions (which requires taking all feasible measures to mitigate civilian harm), and proportionality (which for each individual attack requires balancing the anticipated military advantage against the expected civilian harm) and the rules, procedures, and policies the IDF has in place to follow these principles in every attack.
> Given that Israel also does not seem to acknowledge the 30,000+ lower bound on total deaths from IDF attacks in Gaza, it's entirely possible that Israel's ratio could be as low as 2 civilians per combatant in aggregate. But it’s worth noting that this would still be much higher than anything used by any “Western” military
> The most comparable recent US engagement was destroying ISIS in Mosul.
My point wasn't that the US is better. My point was that there were widespread protests opposing the US's "collateral damage" in their wars after 9/11 and Israel is doing worse.
The number you're citing is also the effective ratio based on the reported deaths, not an official or leaked guideline and this wasn't "the US" but "the US-led Iraqi Security Forces" (not a Western military, even if it is in practice US-led). The tweet you cite also references a Pacific battle between the US and Japan in WW2 (when the US infamously dehumanized the Japanese to an uncomfortable degree - surely the nuclear bombs trump that battle in terms of civilian casualties) and a battle that was part of the "Korean War" which in retrospect has become infamous for its war crimes, mostly committed by the US.
These are battles of infamy. You don't get a medal for being better than that, those are the table stakes if you want to shout about being the "most humane military".
Also, the reason I called 30,000+ the "lower bound" is because the process used by the "Hamas-run health ministry" is extremely conservative (it's not just a tally - the "fake deaths at hospital parking lot" story everyone ran with was a translation error into English that conflated "injured" and "deceased") and seems to have broken down earlier this year along with the remaining infrastructure in Gaza.
> The IDF has a robust decision making process, in excess of a single “ratio” approach.
That's a no then unless you think other militaries don't have decision making processes.
I'm not going to engage with you further as we seem to have either fundamentally opposed value systems or fundamentally opposed perceptions of reality.
I don't have to engage with every single person on HN to any extent just because I post on HN. I can also decide to engage with a post without having to commit to engaging with everything else that posters wants to add. I think it provides useful context if I clarify in advance WHY a follow-up might not receive a reply from me. In fact, most discussions on HN aren't back-and-forths between two people and arguably benefit from that.
But what is their definition of “combatant”? The IDF massacred a group of escaped Israeli hostages because the IDF didn’t realize they were Israeli before too late. The escaped hostages had stripped down to thir underwear to show they where unarmed. Neverthless the IDF said the “felt threatend” by them. Presumably these victims would be considered “combatants” if they had not turned out to be be israeli.
Strictly speaking, they are all "civilians", since Gaza is not a state (it is just the coastline of the western Negev - a geographic region of Israel) and does not have regular armed forces. Does this mean that these "civilians" have carte blanche to commit any unthinkable atrocity and remain unpunished?
Most of them are illegal combatants and none of the Geneva Conventions should apply to them.
Also, there is documented evidence that even their "civilian civilians" participated in atrocities, not to mention that a significant portion of them elected and supported terrorist "government".
I'm guessing that the so-called "civilian combatants" in these reports are people who are on the payroll of a terrorist organization, such as police officers, security guards, tunnel builders, etc. - anyone who helps/supports the terrorist "government", but may not be 100% militants by themselves. I.e. like the difference between a regular support soldier and a special forces.
Good to remember the real world consequences for the people on the ground when we declare combatants as non-state paramilitaries rather than recognising them with fuller status.
Indeed the Geneva Convention doesn't apply which means lots of things are on the table that otherwise wouldn't be. This is how the British state forces were able to use chemical weapons against the civilian population in Northern Ireland.
> This is how the British state forces were able to use chemical weapons against the civilian population in Northern Ireland.
I'm guessing these Catholics from Northern Ireland were British citizens, right?
This is something between separatism and civil war (although much closer to the former than the latter).
A better analogy would be if the Republic of Ireland settled its citizens there en masse and provided them with weapons, similarly to what Egypt did when they controlled Gaza.
A significant portion of Gaza's population today is descended from Egypt, they even speak with the Egyptian accent.
And majority of the advanced weapons were smuggled via Egypt.
I wasn't making an analogy, just pointing out another time when the definition of what was and wasn't a war had real world consequences for people on the ground.
But I would say two things: First, not only Catholics were targeted during the Troubles. If tear gas is used to dispel a riot then it not only those involved on both sides but also anyone down wind from it. My mother lost her eyesight from tear gas related injuries because she had to walk past a flash point daily on her return from work.
Secondly, while citizens of Northern Ireland are British by birth they were also entitled by birth to Irish citizenship after 1956.
I remember when during the 2020 civil rights protests in the US people were talking about the Geneva convention and calling what the police did "in violation" of it, especially wrt chemical warfare, only to be surprised to find out it doesn't apply outside formal wars.
I think if we want to make comparisons, an important difference is that Gaza has been existing in a limbo where Israel insists it's a sovereign territory because Israel withdrew from it but also insists it's part of Israel because they want to control its borders and what goes in and comes out of it.
Also, in addition to everything that happens in Gaza, Palestinian Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank have also been targeted by Israel despite Hamas being largely confined to Gaza.
> a war had real world consequences for people on the ground
no need to point obvious things
> not only Catholics were targeted
In case everyone were targets, and not just separatists - then it's closer to civil war. It only shows how cruel Brittish were (or still are), and all the double standards with regards to Israel.
> while citizens of Northern Ireland are British by birth they were also entitled by birth to Irish citizenship after 1956.
Granting citizenship to people in breakaway separatists regions is the strategy employed by Putin. Russia first grant them citizenship, and then uses this as a pretext for military invasion in order to protect their newly acquired "citizens".
Obviosly, Republic of Ireland doesn't employ this tactic, but granting citizenship to foreign people in confict areas is still problematic.
> A better analogy would be if the Republic of Ireland settled its citizens there en masse and provided them with weapons,
This did actually happen, but the other way around. The British settled citizens en masse in Ireland and provided them with weapons. This was called the Ulster Plantation. Even today many people in the North of Ireland speak with a dialect derived from the Scots language.
Interestingly, Ronald Storrs, the first British military governor in Jerusalem, was recorded to have said that the Balfour Declaration’s purpose was to form a “little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.” [0]
> Obviosly, Republic of Ireland doesn't employ this tactic
No, and I think the comparison is a little unfair. It's true that these things can be abused tactically but it's not always the case.
I'm familiar with Anglo-Saxon and Norsemen colonization of Celtic people in Britain and Ireland.
The latter is referred as a series of "Plantations"[1, 2].
Interestingly, while in some western/highland parts of Britain, Celts kept their language, but adopted Anglicanism as a religion, in most of the Ireland they kept their Catholic religion, but adopted English language, and only in some western parts of Ireland kept both.
Anyway, if we go back to medieval times, then we can also talk about Arab and Ottoman colonization of Israel.
---
[1]. Israel condemns London's Ulster plantation project after private colonisation contract was awarded by the Queen
> Interestingly, Ronald Storrs, the first British military governor in Jerusalem, was recorded to have said that the Balfour Declaration’s purpose was to form a “little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.”
And to further this, historical and current Israeli restrictions on West Bank Palestinians and authorization and promotion of Israeli settlers seem like exactly the playbook one would run for crypto-annexation.
> none of the Geneva Conventions should apply to them.
The Geneva Convention is (currently) humanity's best attempt at codifying ethical aspects of war. Unfortunately, it is not some lofty goal to aspire to. Oh no. It is the result of discussion and compromise. In other words, it literally is the lowest possible ethical standard we agreed to hold each other to. We should strive to do better, not worse.
Therefore:
all of the Geneva Convention applies, always, to everyone.
So-called "international law" is not really a law, but only a set of political treaties. In addition, the jihadists and other bad actors do not recognize it.
Japan killed 2403 Americans at Pearl Harbor, to which the US retaliated by killing over 2 million Japanese, with more than 100 thousands in a single day.
So don't tell me about "conventions" that apply to some and don't apply to others. It's not some Law of Physics. It's a man-made stuff, invented by corrupt politicians.
If the international treaties do not work - they shouldn't be treated as written in stone - instead they should be changed and adapted to the realities of the modern assymetric wars. And also everyone should be treated the same - no double standards, otherwise nobody should recognize them.
We program the world through incentives, positive and negative. Malicious agents must be disintensivized/punished, and if that doesn't work - destroyed.
Elsewhere reported to be 100:1 for high-ranking Hamas targets
>> Several of the sources described how, for certain categories of targets, the IDF applied pre-authorised allowances for the estimated number of civilians who could be killed before a strike was authorised.
>> Two sources said that during the early weeks of the war they were permitted to kill 15 or 20 civilians during airstrikes on low-ranking militants. Attacks on such targets were typically carried out using unguided munitions known as “dumb bombs”, the sources said, destroying entire homes and killing all their occupants.
This talk of a ratio is mostly irrelevant. Palestinians are not being killed as a matter of retribution. They are being killed as enemies or collateral in the pursuit of enemies.
If Israel could neutralise Hamas and retrieve the hostages with zero casualties, they would do it. That's obviously impossible.
With the ratio of the dead being about 4 civilians to every 1 Hamas fighter it checks out with other major wars. Considering Hamas is a gurella force that's actually quite good.
Gen Westmoreland might provide some insight on the consequences of making enemy KIA the reward function, and the incentives that back-propogates to the classifier.
And to the IDF's credit, as much as I have issue with their absent strategic goals and tactical choices, they are fighting a guerrilla insurgence in one of the most density populated areas in the world.
So, it could have been worse? But it still isn't great.
The ratio of civilian to military deaths of the October 7th attack is very similar to Israel's in Gaza, around two thirds.
Israel has been caught multiple times willfully killing civilians in this conflict, and there are hundreds of statements by politicians, officers and soldiers calling for atrocities or even genocide. Israel is not a moral actor, and far more comparable to Hamas than any real democracy.
I know some people who are regularly protesting in Germany also, but my understanding is that they knowingly break the law in doing so. Is this not correct?
Germany has pretty strict laws against "incitement of hatred". Additionally it's illegal to deface, damage or destroy a foreign flag. Also demonstrations and protests need to be registered in advance with proof of proper security and safety measures. Germany is also very biased in favor of Israel and has (like the US) adopted the stance that an attack on Israel is an attack on Judaism. This has led to Jewish anti-Israel protestors being arrested.
In theory it is possible to have a "spontaneous" protest without leaders but in practice this means the police will designate the loudest persons in the crowd as leaders and claim that they organized a protest without a permit and arrest them for that. Also the political bias favoring Israel means pro-Israel counter-protestors are likely to be tolerated more than anti-Israel protests.
And of course anti-genocide is conflated with anti-Israel and pro-Hamas, again like in the US. But yes, most political protests are illegal because they are not formally organized with the authorities (and even with organized protests you often have break-out protests deviating from the permitted route/location or overstaying). From personal experience I can tell you though that unless the police can pin anything on you (e.g. trespassing, resisting arrest, "attacking a police officer"[0]) this usually only ends up with the police roughing you up a bit maybe and then recording your identity before dropping you off somewhere else with a temporary restraining order.
[0]: This is worth mentioning because it explains the low police numbers for injured protestors in Lüzerath compared with the video evidence of police charging unarmed protestors: being injured by a police officer is considered evidence for attacking a police officer as unless there is evidence for the police officer doing anything wrong the assumption is that they followed the guidelines for escalating force, i.e. they must have had a good reason. It's also worth mentioning that in many places riot cops do not have any visible unique identification so reporting any claim of police brutality at a protest is usually fruitless as the alleged perp can not uniquely be identified and you need an individual person to accuse. Protest medics thus have stopped giving detailed statistics as merely keeping a tally would help the police in tracking down "suspects" by visiting the nearby hospitals (which they did e.g. after Lüzerath).
So tl;dr: depending on your demographic, your cause and which police you end up being surrounded by, it's relatively safe to take part in an illegal protest in Germany as long as they can't prove you did anything illegal and don't get hurt.
Based of your tl;dr would you say they that the original assertion was true in practice, that they generally "can't publicly gather to protest Israel's actions either, not legally anyway."
You are allowed to protest against Israel, but you have to be extremely careful about how to phrase it, as a lot of things can get you arrested for anti-Semitism, even when it is arguably factual. So things like calling Israel an apartheid state, calling Israel fascist or warning of a genocide might land you in jail.
So basically you can protest legally as long as you don't protest against certain things the government protects. I'm gonna stand by my original assertion. It's like saying you can publish whatever you like in China as long as you don't mention Tianamen Square.
I'm not sure whether there have been any pro-Palestine or even simply "anti-war" protests that were properly registered, not disrupted and not dissolved by the police but I guess it depends on your definition of "legally".
I would say in practice it's very difficult to have any protest opposing Israel's actions in Gaza without a high risk of ending up in a place where the police decides to dissolve it. But I think in practice the two biggest reasons for that are a) the topic is likely to attract protestors who decide to express opinions that are illegal (or are deliberately interpreted that way) and b) most protests tend to be dissolved by the police eventually because even ones that follow all the rules usually spin off or feed into spontaneous protests that don't.
This article is clearly an oversimplification on aljazeera's side [0], which a bit also highlights a problem with their journalism. However, I guess this is harmless against some tabloids that are far from being banned.
One would have thought that a proper stance is to be against any kind of mass killings, yet given the attitude on the topic of Namibia we do know there are first and second class victims.
And there is certainly anti-Semitism mixed in with the protests, but I think Germany is still overdoing it. Silencing plenty of valid speech has a cost, too.
This type of conflation is extremely dangerous. Criticism of the actions of the government of Israel is not the same thing as anti-semitism (a real and very bad thing).
To make this claim essentially gives the government of Israel the go ahead to do absolutely anything without any possibility of criticism, because that criticism is never engaged with on the basis of its content but dismissed as anti-semitism.
I've seen thousands upon thousands of people protesting with my own eyes but never caught onto anything anti semitic. In fact I often see Jewish groups attending as well.
I'm sure there often are people espousing vile views, that's a statistical inevitability almost, but it's clearly far from the norm.
Yes, I know it well. I remember a very striking moment during some protests in London. The GB news was presenting it as having turned violent, with close ups of protesters clashing against the police. At the same time many individuals who were at the events themselves were able to broadcast on social media showing thousands of people peacefully walking together in a very positive atmosphere totally unaware that a small alteration had taken place elsewhere on the fringe of the event.
This is, by definition ("the protesters" used to generalise to all protesters), a gross generalisation. Based on what evidence? All the protests I have been to people have taken great pains to make that distinction.
Comments like the above merely reinforce what I'm saying: the basis of criticism is never engaged with in terms of its own merits or content but is dismissed using ad hominem.
I do sincerely apologise for omitting the word "often". My point remains that generalisations should not be made based on the views of a minority.
I have noticed that US media in particular presents a very one-sided accounting of protests. Axios, for examples, implies that Pro-Palestinian protests at colleges are a form of anti-semitism.
Again, I apologise. That was in error, not malice.
The same thing is happening to this protest as what happened in many other protests in the US. The news is finding outliers and representing it as the norm. January 6th, the majority of those people weren't trying to overthrow the government, but all the protesters were branded as doing just that, and many got pretty harsh sentences for it. BLM protests were similar with the fires and the riots. The vast majority of BLM protesters were non-violent but they were all branded as rioters and fire starters. The media is now running that play against the pro-Gaza protests and trying to paint them all as antisemitic by pointing out some antisemitic things some people in the protests said.
It's the standard playbook that happens again and again and again. It's almost as if the large media companies work for the status quo and feel any protests is a threat to that; which it is.
You appear to have fallen victim to a similar attempt at conflation, Zionism is a movement to fulfill the right for Jewish self-determination in their native land of thousands of years. Being antizionism is antisemitism because it negates the right to self-determination of the Jewish people.
I realize though that what you actually means is anti-Israel, or if we are being more specific, I assume anti-Israeli-far-right or anti-Israeli-right. E.g. if you are for a two-state solution you are in agreement with the Israeli center and left (mostly, but that's just going into too many details).
> Zionism is a movement to fulfill the right for Jewish self-determination in their native land
The thing is, though, it's not a right, it's their belief. They're very welcome to hold their beliefs and take democratic means to achieve their aims, but in a free and peace centred society they should not be allowed to take violent means to pursue their aims. Certainly if they want me to be happy taking financial and material support from a government that I'm supporting with my tax then they need to follow these basic ideals of respect for the other.
Long story short, we can accept their belief in their promised land without accepting it as their right to take it by whatever means necessary.
> The thing is, though, it's not a right, it's their belief.
Would you also say you have no right to live in the United States, and it is only your personal belief? If you think it is equally fictional then at least I can't fault your views for their internal consistency.
> They're very welcome to hold their beliefs and take democratic means to achieve their aims, but in a free and peace centred society they should not be allowed to take violent means to pursue their aims.
Are Jews prohibited from taking violent means to pursue their aims while Arabs are permitted? If not, then how do you accept Arab use of violent means to conquer and settle Israel 1,400 years ago?
> Long story short, we can accept their belief in their promised land without accepting it as their right to take it by whatever means necessary.
First, we aren't talking about a promised land being taken, we are talking about at land that was taken away from them and is at best being taken back.
Second, you aren't required to support anyone in any endeavor. You can even be pro-Israel and pro-Zionism and still not think they deserve your financial support. But if you single out Jews as being the only people in the world that are not allowed to have a state and not allowed to live in their native land of thousands of years (especially for the reason "but the Arabs took it away from them, so it isn't theirs anymore"), then you are indeed being antisemitic.
> Would you also say you have no right to live in the United States, and it is only your personal belief?
I'm not American so I would of course agree. But I believe I have a right to live in my current state because those rights are granted to me by the law. The distinction with Zionism is that the right for "the Jews" (i use quotes because of course this is not an homogeneous group, just as ideal) to claim, inhabit and govern Israel as their own is ordained by God. I find this as contrary to the ideals of equality and akin to totalitarianism.
> But if you single out Jews as being the only people in the world that are not allowed to have a state...
Wow there, that's quite a leap. I'm not saying anyone should be made stateless, only that if they're claiming to do the whole democracy thing then they need to recognise the right of their neighbours not to live by the rules of their Gods.
> then you are indeed being antisemitic
I would appreciate if you asked me to clarify when I was saying instead of delivering uncharitable readings, presumed arguments, and conclusions like these.
> I would appreciate if you asked me to clarify when I was saying instead of delivering uncharitable readings, presumed arguments, and conclusions like these.
Apologies if I have offended, but that's why that sentence begins with an "if", implying that statement is only correct conditional on some theoretical claim that might or might not be implicit from your statements. Since the discussion originates from the topic of antizionism and antisemitism, it is meant to refer back to the conclusion of my own parent comment clarifying where such a statement falls (as opposed to just being an ad-hominem). Maybe I'm not being entirely clear as English is not my native language and much of communication tends to be cultural rather than linguistic (for example, in the United States "That's a good start" is usually a scathing critique whereas in Israel it is usually a genuine compliment :))
> I'm not American so I would of course agree
I assumed by your reference to having your taxes go to Israel, a common American talking point. What taxes then are you referring to that are going towards Israel?
> But I believe I have a right to live in my current state because those rights are granted to me by the law.
Sure, and Israel also a rule of law country and acts within the boundaries of its laws, so you are going to have to go into more details into what you feel separates your rights from Jewish rights.
> The distinction with Zionism is that the right for "the Jews" (i use quotes because of course this is not an homogeneous group, just as ideal) to claim, inhabit and govern Israel as their own is ordained by God. I find this as contrary to the ideals of equality and akin to totalitarianism.
That is incorrect. In fact, the Zionism movement originated with secular Jews, seeing how they are persecuted around the world and desiring a return to their native land where they can band together and protect themselves under the mechanisms of state. Your conclusion about inequality and totalitarianism are therefore misguided. As a side-note I'll add that the more fundamental ultra-orthodox Jews that desire an Israel ruled by biblical law tend to be antizionist as well.
> if they're claiming to do the whole democracy thing then they need to recognise the right of their neighbours not to live by the rules of their Gods.
First, no such thing happens, Palestinians are not bound to the rules of a Judaism, neither those that are Israeli citizens, nor those that are not. Specifically for Muslims in Israel they have their own religious authorities with the ability to govern in matters of their religion. For example, Muslims can marry each other under Muslim law, in Muslim ceremonies etc. It is true though that Jewish courts currently have too much authority in governing Jewish customs like marriage, and that to my mind religion is too intertwined with state mechanisms, but not nearly so far as I'd say that it is ruled by religious law.
Second, I'm not actually sure what this has to do with the topic of the discussion, which is Zionism, which is not a religious movement (remembering that Judaism is both a religion and an ethnicity).
Don't the Palestinians also have the right to self determinization in their native land?
My understanding is that anti-Zionism is not opposed to Jews living in Palestine having self determination. It is opposed to preventing Arabs living in Palestine from having self determination and/or oppossed to Israel existing as an ethnostate (since most people on the left are opposed to the concept of ethnostates).
> Don't the Palestinians also have the right to self determinization in their native land?
Sure, in fact Israel's declaration of independence (which doesn't have an official legal status, but is considered to be the base of a future constitution for Israel) calls for peaceful co-existence with its neighbouring Arab states. It would be an interesting alternate history to observe where Israel was not attacked by all of its neighbouring Arab states, could we really have peaceful co-existence? (I'd like to think the answer is "yes").
Now if you define "Palestinian native land" as the Jewish native land that was colonized by Arabs around 1,400 years ago, then you'll have a problem since that will legitimize Jews to themselves recolonize (and regular colonize) whatever areas they please thus making it their own native land. Of course, reverting the borders to 3,000 years ago is also not practical (especially as that would revert the peace agreement with Jordan which would have to give up a substantial piece of land). That's why IMO something like a two state solution makes the most sense, maybe along the lines of the agreement that was almost signed in 2008?
> My understanding is that anti-Zionism is not opposed to Jews living in Palestine having self determination.
No need to keep to the Roman convention of renaming Israel to Palestine.
> My understanding is that anti-Zionism is not opposed to Jews living in Palestine having self determination. It is opposed to preventing Arabs living in Palestine from having self determination
That just sounds like you are redefining "Anti-Zionism" to mean "Pro-Palestine". Sure, under a different definition it means something else, but how is that useful? If I define "Jews" to mean "Bananas" can I say that I think Jews are disgusting because I actually mean bananas are disgusting?
Anti-Zionism means exactly that, against the right for Jews for self determination in their native land.
> Israel existing as an ethnostate
I think this term is a bit excessively vague. Naturally the Jewish people want to live in their land of the Jewish people in much the same way that the French or Palestinian people want to live in their land of the French or Palestinian people.
A right of return for the Jewish people to the land of self-determination for Jews is only natural, just as much as an emerging state of Palestine should want a right of return for Palestinians into it (it sounds like madness for Palestine to refuse Israeli Arabs from moving to it).
It would also be madness to deny Israel a right to control immigration to it, especially as it is already very densely populated.
That said, I agree that current policies are too extreme, and I'm generally for a much greater separation between state and religion in Israel.
Don't you think 1400 years is a bit long? If you considered 'native people' to go back that far, you could get all sorts of really strange 'native lands'.
Normally, right of return is for people who were living somewhere, or have parents or grandparents who live somewhere. So it's obviously very strange when that applies to jewish people, who potentially have some ancestors in biblical times that were living in Jordan, but doesn't apply to Palestinians, who had grandparents living there.
To be honest, I have more sympathy for the argument that, yes, Israel is a typical colonial enterprise, but it's also been a while (70+ years), and people have made their lives there, so 2SS makes sense. It seems more consistent with how words like 'native', 'colony', and 'original inhabitants' work everywhere else.
Any threshold you set is arbitrary and then tends to be motivated by personal politics. I have some difficulty with setting any specific threshold since if you say the threshold is 1,000 years for example, then it follows that you have set a rule on how it is morally achievable to set or expand your territory; You take some place by force and then hold it for 1,000 years and then no one is allowed to contest it, which means that Israel should be allowed to take whatever land it wants as it is merely following the proper procedure you have set (and of course, Palestine and Iran are equally allowed to follow this procedure ;)).
> Normally, right of return is for people who were living somewhere, or have parents or grandparents who live somewhere. So it's obviously very strange when that applies to jewish people, who potentially have some ancestors in biblical times that were living in Jordan,
Much of the original push for the creation of Israel originates in world wide persecution of Jews, so it makes sense to me to allow all of them into Israel where they can band together. I also think that limitations on "parents or grandparents" are meant to imply some sort of test of "are they really still French if they left France two generations ago and haven't tried to come back since then?", whereas for Judaism many communities have been rather insular and managed to maintain their Jewish identity going back all the way to their original exile, so it is easier to see that they are still part of the same people. I do somewhat agree though in thinking that there eventually has to be some limit and the right to return should be drastically altered/reduce/abolished and replaced with more "normal" immigration controls. Maybe something like "You have a right to return by default if you are the grandson of a Jew who lived during the Holocaust. If you are the son or grandson of such a Jew (i.e. grandson of grandson) then follow this procedure, beyond that you are considered to have waived your right to return". Though this is off-the-cuff random internet talk and not a sound opinion :)
If talking specifically about Jordan, where Jews do not have a right to return, I'll add the other countries of the Middle East and North Africa where Jews who left (often but not only to go to Israel) are definitely not welcome back. It seems like morally you'd expect such a thing, though in practice I'd be surprised if there were any Jews willing to use such a right.
> but doesn't apply to Palestinians, who had grandparents living there.
Since you mentioned Jordan specifically, I'd just say that it is up to the Jordanians to provide that right to return (which I don't think they do).
For a Palestinian state (in a hypothetical 2ss) it will certainly make sense to have a right of return for Palestinian people, but I don't think it makes sense to have a right of return for Palestinians into Israel or Jews into Palestine, since the whole point of such an agreement would be to draw lines on what is Israel and what is Palestine, and drastically mixing the populations would just blur those lines and reignite conflict.
> To be honest, I have more sympathy for the argument that, yes, Israel is a typical colonial enterprise, but it's also been a while (70+ years), and people have made their lives there, so 2SS makes sense. It seems more consistent with how words like 'native', 'colony', and 'original inhabitants' work everywhere else.
Indeed I feel that is what follows from your initial statement, and I'll agree that your views are self-consistent and sound. Ideologically I don't fully agree with your thoughts, since I feel it incentivizes war-making as I mentioned.
Of course, as I said in my previous comment, in the real world I don't think it is practical or entirely fair to pursue something like a 3,000 year reversion, so a two state solution is a reasonable compromise, and it will require some strong guarantees to make sure such an agreement is kept and war-making is deterred.
I guess my intuition for how a 'right-to-return' should work would be, if you have your property stolen and you are driven out of the land, and it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt that it is yours by inheritance, then you should be able to get it back.
It's to the eternal shame of Poland, Germany, and many other countries in Europe, that this is not what they did after the war. It's frankly shameful that this is rarely enforced anywhere.
If you do 'right of return' without the implicit return of property thing, it's pretty hollow if you've actually had your house/farm stolen, but it also becomes just a way of having an immigration policy that discriminates on an ethnic or religious basis.
I feel like people are generally pretty fine with accepting colonial borders: basically the whole world outside europe is divided by them. As long as they have a chance to live in peace, build businesses, live normal lives, I don't think people get that exercised about these things, on the whole. If you look at the lives of Palestinians, they look pretty humiliating. If I lived that life, had no chance to build anything or hold onto anything, I expect I would be pretty angry about it.
No need to keep to the Roman convention of renaming Israel to Palestine.
It's the historically accepted term for the region. The Zionists themselves used it in their literature. Quibbles about it are disingenuous and absolutely irrelevant to the current situation on the ground.
Anti-Zionism means exactly that, against the right for Jews for self determination in their native land.
No, it means being against an ideology which fundamentally rejects the right of self-determination to the non-Jewish population living on their land.
Israel as an ethnostate is vague
It's now written into the Basic Laws of Israel,
thanks to 2018 Nation-State bill.
If you define "Palestinian native land" as ...
We all know what it what is meant by "Palestine" and "Palestinians". And even Jabotinsky recognized the Palestinians as indigenous.
I still don't follow your logic, I can't find a more charitable interpretation then you just saying that Jews are inherently murderous and the French are inherently not.
Somewhat ironic as currently the average French person is probably safer in Tel Aviv than the average Jew is in Paris.
So here is my understanding of your point, feel free to correct it in a clearer statement, since your point still seems incomprehensible to me.
You are saying that denying the rights of Jews to self determination in their native land is not antisemitic, because Jewish identity is tied into both an ethnicity and a religion, making Jews inherent murderers and thus undeserving of a state. This is as opposed to say the French or German people, whose identity is mostly ethnic, who have a long history of peace, devoid of genocide, murder and disenfranchisement.
Not sure what you mean by a fairy tale definition of a promised land, we are talking about actual land that they've actually lived in for thousands of years (though naturally not all of it continuously, after the Roman exile not that many Jews were left. Though if you accept that as removing their right to live there then surely you'll have no problem with Israel doing the same to the Palestinians).
> Not sure what you mean by a fairy tale definition of a promised land, we are talking about actual land that they've actually lived in for thousands of years (though naturally not all of it continuously, after the Roman exile not that many Jews were left.
This is false, there's a reason for modern Palestinians and modern Jews sharing around the same genetic material with ancient Israelites, and that is conversion. The conflation of the ethnic group and the religious group is where your entire argument falls apart. What you are arguing for is not just an ethni-nationalist state, it is one steeped in religion, which is as good as any definition for fascism.
>> You appear to have fallen victim to a similar attempt at conflation, Zionism is a movement to fulfill the right for Jewish self-determination in their native land of thousands of years.
That doesn't make sense. I am Greek and we lost our ancestral lands in Asia Minor when we were slaughtered and expelled from them by the modern Turkish nation [1]. The same thing happened to the Armenians, Cappadocian Christians and Assyrian Christians, also.
And yet it is not anti-hellenic, or anti-christian, or anti-anything to deny that all those people and the Greeks have a right to return to their ancestral lands, where Turkish people now live. Resisting irredentist nationalism is not racist.
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[1] The Jewish are not the only people who were kicked out of the land they lived in for thousands of years, lost their greatest city and had their greatest temple turned into a mosque: this also happened to the Greeks: Asia Minor, Constantinoupolis and Agia Sophia, were Greek for thousands of years and now they belong to the Turkish nation. If the Greeks and every other ethnic and religious group claimed their "right to self-determination in their native land of thousand years", there would be bloodshed and war without end.
Germany isn't banning criticisms against Israel. They're banning antisemitic symbolism (whatever that means) that gets used in the protests. They have been like that for a long time with Nazi symbolism that isn't explicitly antisemitic.
The general dynamic remains: protests against specific actions of Israel are dismissed as anti-semitic by definition.
Banning Nazi symbolism is a good thing. Trying to equate neo-Nazis to anti-war protesters is disingenuous.
Far-right conservatives in Germany have claimed to be persecuted in this way for a long time, claiming that they aren't antisemitic. My point is that it's nothing new.
That can be true but it doesn't logically follow that the people being shut down today are from the same group or are employing the same rhetorical strategies.
Far-right conservatives in Germany claim to be "not antisemtic" by using dogwhistles (similar to the US, e.g. "elites" - the Nazis literally used "international bankers"). However they generally don't oppose Israel's right to self-defense and they are anti-Palestine because they don't like Muslims. In fact "actually the rise of antisemitism is caused by all the Muslims in our country" has been a major right-wing conservative talking point in Germany (and other parts of Europe) because it serves as a distraction. As there's no "risk" of increased Jewish immigration to Germany and Israel actually literally wants the opposite (i.e. for Jews to leave their home countries for Israel to increase the Jewish population in the Middle East, especially if they're the "right" kind of Jew), being pro-Israel is actually an effective strategy even if you turn around to blame all ills on a nebulous group of Jewish "elites" (and in Germany this is usually very nebulous as even far-right conservatives aren't dumb enough to be openly antisemetic).
Anti-Zionism is not antisemitic and antisemitism is not anti-Zionist. Historically the German far-right was actually indifferent to Zionism because it provided a way to get rid of Jewish people domestically. They placed restrictions on emigration to prevent wealth drain (i.e. rich Jewish people taking their money/property with them when leaving Germany) but the only reason they shut down the Zionist emigration project was that they invaded Poland and suspended all legal migration because of the war.
There is a line between being pro-Palestine/anti-Israel and being antisemitic. That line is when you insist on people being evicted from Palestine/Israel simply for being Jewish. Yes, some protests have seen people cross that line and some groups who have organized protests were firmly on the wrong end of that line. But the narrative that you can't be anti-Zionist without being antisemtic or that you can't be opposed to Israel's government's action without being opposed to the existence of Jewish people in Palestine/Israel is in itself antisemitic by deliberately conflating a state with individuals, many of whom don't even live in that state nor agree with it.
There have been many Jewish opponents to Zionism and Zionism in Palestine especially since the inception of the modern Zionist movements. Until the state of Israel was created there was a strong divide between Jewish Zionists and Bundists, the latter arguing for a stateless nationhood. Bundists and other Jewish anti-Zionists still exist, they're just relegated to obscurity because Israel dominates the international conversation and most Jewish interest groups have aligned themselves with Israel for pragmatic reasons.
Also, finally, Israel's current government as well as the illegal settlers in the West Bank (and prominent figures who fantasize about a "Greater Israel" including at least all of Palestine but potentially also parts of the surrounding countries) are in fact most accurately described as "far-right conservatives" as well.
Not relevant to the ideals set forth, which our moderns free democracies are based on. This is fundamental, so it's actually worse than when it happens in China.
Not really. Compromise and nuance have always been necessary features of democracies. This has also frequently been seized upon by autocratic apologists with this framing (“it’s actually worse here because of our idealism!”) and yet autocracies remain reliably worse off than democracies in practice.
It’s actually not a sign of intelligence or honesty to be able to squint so hard that you see no meaningful differences between e.g. the US and Russia/Iran/China. It’s just called closing your eyes.
Did American citizens directly vote for the level of imprisonment in the country?
The game is rigged: any political system that allows any voting at all can be "accurately" described as "being democratic", and this (especially when combined with non-stop supplemental propaganda) is more than adequate to satisfy the heuristic based thinking of most people (and to pull the wool over their eyes).
Noteworthy: who sets educational curriculum (which is what enables people to think skilfully about such things) in schools in "democracies"? How likely does it seem that among thousands of people over decades, no one connected to the department of education noticed that the basic skills for practicing critical thinking are not contained within K-12 curriculum?
Directly voting on laws is neither necessary nor ideal for a democracy.
Again, squinting too hard. American democracy is extremely flawed, yes, but no that doesn't make every other self-proclaimed democracy actually the same.
Your noteworthy note is not that noteworthy. Curricula are almost entirely controlled by state and local school boards. The federal DOE has extremely limited requirements by design to prevent the exact thing you're accusing them of doing.
Thank you for sharing your opinion! It's not a very commonly held view or intuition that directly voting on policy is a prerequisite for democracy. Of course you can use whatever exotic definitions you want to trick yourself into believing you've won an argument, but it will do nothing in terms of actually creating the type of world you'd like.
I don't think we'll see eye to eye on this and that's okay.
> Directly voting on laws is neither necessary nor ideal for a democracy.
a) That depends on which subjective definition you are using, and also whether you realize your definitions are subjective.
b) It isn't possible for you to know what is "necessary" or "ideal", thus you are speculating.
> Again, squinting too hard.
Speaking (and perhaps even thinking) in popular but misinformative catchphrases may not be ideal.
> American democracy is extremely flawed, yes, but no that doesn't make every other self-proclaimed democracy actually the same.
This is true if considered independently (not in the context of this conversation), but what is the "but no" part referring to?
> Your noteworthy note is not that noteworthy.
Your subjective opinion appearing to you as an objective fact is noteworthy.
> Curricula are almost entirely controlled by state and local school boards.
There is how things are supposed to work, there is how things are claimed to work, and then there is how things actually work (and even this is a substantial simplification). Talking about that last one is...culturally frowned upon.
> The federal DOE has extremely limited requirements by design to prevent the exact thing you're accusing them of doing.
Maybe this is part of the problem!
Regardless: I think it is time the public stopped taking all this nonsense lying down, and behaving as if we are helpless observers trapped in a stream of reality in which we have and can have no control over.
From below:
>> Thank you for sharing your opinion!
Very interesting. Is this interesting to you?
> I don't think we'll see eye to eye on this and that's okay.
When you say "that's okay", what is it you are referring to? Reality?
Democratic, rules based order, freedom: all words used to paint oneself in the good and others in the back. They barely have meaning in political discourse nowadays.
Go to Qatar and strike up a conversation like the ones that are had millions of times per day in the US about how awful/incompetent/evil/illegitimate the government is.
It's you who is degrading the meaning of these things. You can go experience the difference for yourself.
> Go to Qatar and strike up a conversation like the ones that are had millions of times per day in the US about how awful/incompetent/evil/illegitimate the government is.
What is the point of this with respect to the comment it is replying to? Is it intended to be a disproof of some kind?
And while we're at that (comparing Qatar to the US), should we also consider other metrics? Like, oh, I don't know...say Total Body Count on the International Stage? I'm fairly certain being alive is at least as important to most people as Freedom of Speech.
> It's you who is degrading the meaning of these things.
Appeals to the perfection of one's own cognition are getting a bit old. It's 2024 ffs.
> You can go experience the difference for yourself.
Realistically, most people are mostly stuck where they are, and I would rather not engage in illusory thinking about the quality of my country to make myself feel better. But of course, each to his own.
Uhh yes, it's to say there are actually real, practical differences in daily life between countries on the dimension of "freedom" and that these are not merely artifacts of one's own cognition or of rhetorical gotchas. They do not "barely have meaning" and one can travel to various places on the earth and try simple experiments to prove it.
Absolutely wild to be saying "go travel and try to exercise a freedom there" is seen as an appeal to cognition while "I would rather not engage in illusory thinking" is... what exactly?
> ...and that these are not merely artifacts of one's own cognition or of rhetorical gotchas.
A non-"pedantic" person might read this and accidentally form the belief that they are not often just rhetorical gotchas, or that they are not artifacts of one's own cognition (which they are....but they are not only that....and, it is fairly well known even by science how unreliable our Narrator of Reality is).
The relative perfection of the US and other "democracies" is what it is, and that perfection is plausibly substantially influenced by the degree to which citizens collectively buy into the stories of how good they are ("if it ain't broke...").
Do you disagree that most people's models of the quality of various governments rest upon a bed of stories? Or another way of asking the question: do you believe that there is an accurate methodology in existence to objectively determine with high accuracy the quality of each nation in this regard (and also that most people utilize such a methodology, as opposed to believing the stories that please them)?
> They do not "barely have meaning" and one can travel to various places on the earth and try simple experiments to prove it.
It's a fair point, but the claim was: "They barely have meaning in political discourse nowadays". There is a difference, and the importance of the difference is very tricky.
> Absolutely wild to be saying "go travel and try to exercise a freedom there" is seen as an appeal to cognition while "I would rather not engage in illusory thinking" is... what exactly?
Also wild: you sidestepping the other metric I mentioned, and leading out with supreme self-confidence. But then, truthfulness and accuracy is perhaps not the game being playing here, considering the topic.
I was in China, they called democracy "hopelessly inefficient, will not work for a large population like ours".
What you describe is mostly western/NATO rhetoric, after which they can influence the election (which drives them to tears when it supposedly happens back home).
In fact, a series of Western media including the BBC, Reuters, CNN, etc. all have offices in China.... and you can also easily access Western media websites through VPN and other methods which are uncensored
VPNs increasingly don't work well, however, it's not like they completely turn a blind eye. It's some kind of statistical thing that drops connections that "look wierd" that can interfere with even quite obfuscated VPNs.
yeah, actually what I told 'VPN' is also included like SS/SSR/V2Ray/Xray/Trojan, which is easily gotten, and smooth link and you can even have a HK phone number and used the no GFW network in China.
A democracy is dependent on people having access to information. Free information is a direct requirement of any democracy. It just isn't the only requirement of course.
Right, and it's far from the only one the PRC is lacking. If a tyrannical dictatorship hypothetically permitted free speech, it wouldn't be a democracy. The most conspicuous lacking feature of a democracy in the PRC is the lack of legal competing parties and elections, so it's strange to hear that China isn't a democracy because they don't have free speech.
Incidental to that, free speech as a qualification of democracy is less than cut and dry; every democratic country recognizes some limits to free speech, be that as simple as libel and slander laws, wartime censorship (as America had during WW2), or even hate speech laws like most of the democracies other than America have. If absolute free speech is a prerequisite for having a democracy, then no democracy exists. If you concede some limits, then we're just quibbling the details. Probably, America "" banning"" tiktok still qualifies as having free speech since it's still legal for Americans and American media companies to say nearly anything they like, limited mostly just by slander and libel laws (e.g. infowars getting sued for saying Sandy Hook didn't happen.) Certainly on the spectrum of speech freeness, America is far further on the free side than the PRC where you can get your organs harvested for saying that the government should be replaced. The supposed irony guappa was talking about up-thread is farcical, you have to be out of your mind to think America and China are even remotely close to each other on the speech freeness spectrum.
No tyrannical dictatorship ever permitted free speech because it would pose an immediate threat to their rule.
Competing parties is an indication of a working democracy. Theoretically everyone could agree with a single party to rule. Edge case and very unlikely of course. But there is a reason freedom of opinion is a human right instead of the freedom to have multiple political factions. It isn't comparable.
In contrast to that freedom of speech and expression is a fundamental requirement. For parties forming in the first place for that matter. It is a right that can be abused and different countries deal differently with that problem, although the technicalities should be very carefully considered here.
I don't believe TikTok is an essential part to freedom of speech, but it could very well suppress voices otherwise unheard. Even if I disagree with most of them, there is a restriction.
I do believe the decision against it is populist drivel though and I agree that there is a stark difference between China and the US in offering freedoms. China banning foreign platforms is a sign of weakness in their convictions and they are afraid that different ideas would challenge their order.
Freedom and democracy are luxuries of peacetime, unfortunately.
Fear does terrible things to many people. When the guns come out, leaders that previously were the most staunch supporters of freedom will file them away and promise to reinstate them when the war is "won".
> china isn't a democracy because they have censorship
You got that wrong. The reason China is not a democracy, is instead that it is a dictatorship, that's why it's not a democracy.
Democracies can have censorship, there's no contradiction. (Although less common.)
For example, IMO it's good to censor some of Putin's manipulation, because most people are dangerously easy to fool. It's a mistake to let an enemy state broadcast their psychological warfare unhindered.
I’m also quite concerned about the Western world adopting the Chinese style of governance but censorship at wartime is very different from censorship at peace time.
False information leading to spreading misguided ideas is deadly at wartime because there is no time to address it.
I definitely don’t support Italy blocking websites or the US blocking apps.
What about all the misleading news (i.e., positive spin) in the Western world's "free press" that lead to many believing that Ukraine had a chance for a counter offensive (against even basic military thinking and logic). Didn't that lead to unnecessary suffering and deaths during war time (vs say an alternative, beefing up defense lines)?
That's just a random recent example. Another older one is the the media going nuts over "WMDs", leading to an unnecessary US invasion and millions of deaths. My point being is that even free press can spread bad ideas and narratives - in fact, it frequently does. And those ideas should be able to be challenged, at any time, by any source.
I do not understand how supporting Ukraine can lead to more suffering, there is a long history of implerialism causing suffering so there is a rather large opposition against it in the west. What Russia does to Ukraine is pretty gruesome, it is not even considered a country in russian intellectual discourse that is a bad sign.
When we talk about the press and politics these kind of cynical tones are not helpfull. The WMD issue was heavily discussed and debated. The same as Gaza is now, it is interesting what issues manage to be changed by public opinion and what that really is, this is not only an issue with the press. People and groups tend to think that their own opinions should matter, that is only true if you managed to get enough people to care about your opinions and even then you might need a referendum.
> I do not understand how supporting Ukraine can lead to more suffering
You're not responding to the right question at all. You're being asked about the Westerns media not covering the difficulties, losses, and bleak future of the war - justified it seems by the need to support Ukraine.
I’m not talking about supporting Ukraine vs not, but about wishful thinking propagated by media that led thousands of unfortunate Ukrainian souls into heavily mined traps. And that’s my point, media spread a narrative that was at odds with expert advice and basic military strategy (there’s mathematical equations about force required, etc for these types of operations that was ignored). That idea should have been able to been challenged without accusations of being in bed with Putin. We all saw the aftermath. Bad ideas, even from the good guys, can be deadly.
That's a good question that has a lot of people scratching their heads. My best guess is top Ukrainian leadership are staffed by a lot of former mass media people, including the president himself (well, until May 20th when his term ends).
So you have enough insider information about the decision making process to know they plan the strategy based on media propaganda rater than military intelligence. But you dont have information about why.
what a starange statement about the counterattack, as if there was a definite knowledge about the future and the Western propaganda suppressed it.
They attempted at taking back their own lands and they failed. The same people claiming to know the future also used to claim that Russia would not attack and later that Ukraine will fall in matter of days.
Exactly, I prefer to listen to experts and the experts were saying it was a bad idea (esp without air power). It was news media and politicians (ie, not military experts) that cheered it on.
It's amazing how you believe that militaries and politicians operate without experts and there're experts on the social media/ tradmedia who came together analysed the situation, came to a definitive prediction about the outcome of a military operation but the western media surpassed those experts and as a result politicians and military engaged in a futile counterattack.
You're being very disrespectful in this conversation. I was GP has provided links and references when they made their comment, but they are certainly correct. The way the conflict is covered in US media makes it seem like Ukraine is wily superhero making good progress against the bumbling Russians. This does not reflect the current reality or future prospects in the conflict.
Pretty sure the actual world leading experts on Ukraine’s situation are the ones making battlefield decisions in Ukraine. Like the other commenter said, what a fascinating model of the world you’ve built here.
Yes, it is a major contributing factor. PR wins help with public support for funding. This situation/topic is not the only situation they intentionally manipulate public option on.
>I’m also quite concerned about the Western world adopting the Chinese style of governance but censorship at wartime is very different from censorship at peace time
If you allow this then the government will just forever find excuses to be at war.
Not at all, you can't be at war all the time as people and ammo is limited resource. Just stick tight to definitions and observe for technicality BS. I.e. don't take "War on drugs" as a war, don't assume you are at war when the countries no longer fight but technically never signed a peace agreement etc.
I think I made it pretty clear that the exception for censorship is only when people are actively killing each other and this is because killing happens fast and its irreversible, therefore tolerances to tackle spread of false information is too small to be allowed.
Not the war on drugs, but certainly the "war on terror". This is not clinging to definitions, it is political reality that such measures would also be undertaken in peace time, any justification would suffice. Who do you believe would draw the line here anyway?
Also, especially in times of war, there is a heightened interest of people getting news and independent reporting. Any other news isn't worth the read.
I don’t say that the truth should be this or that, all I say is that information flow is part of the warfare and the parties at war will want to control it for their advantage. After all, they are literally killing people.
RT is not truth though. When a country is fighting for its very survival against a genocidal foe, I'm not about to start clutching my pearls that they've banned their genocidal foe's propaganda. Seems reasonable to me.
It's no worse than CNNs take on iraq and weapons of mass destruction, or (to go to the ru-ukr war), all the "putin has 3 days of supplies left" articles from 2022, 2023 and this year.
I don't think that "putin has 3 days of supplies left" propaganda is just as bad as the kind of genocidal propaganda pumped out by the Russian media, no, sorry.
Not all propaganda is born equal. Antisemitic propaganda pumped out by the Nazis in WW2 was absolutely worse than "keep calm and carry on" propaganda pumped out by the Brits during WW2. Hope that helps.
But if you truly believe that putin is losing due to propaganda, you'll go and fight a war you believe you'll win... and then die, because the media lied to you. How is this good for you?
I mean sure... you, as an outside observer want more "other" people to die for a cause you believe in, but for an individual it's better to know the truth and decide according to that, than to be mislead by lies and propaganda.
Ukraine seems pretty intent on continuing to fight, I'm not forcing them to do anything, indeed I have no power over Ukrainian policy whatsoever. If Ukraine wants to fight then I believe we should support them. Hope that helps.
> fight a war you believe you'll win... and then die
I can't imagine any sane person is going to blame the Ukrainian media for Russia invading Ukraine, killing Ukrainian soldiers and committing genocide in Ukraine. I imagine they would, you know, blame Russia itself. Lol.
Thanks for the hot takes though, amusing, if not also a little bit sad.
> Ukraine seems pretty intent on continuing to fight
Yeah, i saw the videos of men being kidnapped from the streets, and the articles about european countries trying to forcibly sending men (who managed to escape) back to ukraine, to die for zelensky. Once you're out of volounteers ready to fight, you're not "intent on" anything anymore, but are forcing young (and a bit less young) men to die for politics. And ukraine hasn't had any volounteers for quite a lot of time now.
> I can't imagine any sane person is going to blame the Ukrainian media for Russia invading Ukraine, killing Ukrainian soldiers and committing genocide in Ukraine. I imagine they would, you know, blame Russia itself. Lol.
Ukranian media can be a cause for uninformed men to die in a way, that they would never fight in, if they knew the truth.
But if people prefer their own life to some lines on the map... why should we force them to fight? I mean.. shouldn't ukranian individuals have a choice? Are we really supporting forcefully sending them to die? Is this "democracy"? "western way of life"?
If you prefer lines on the map, why not help with the fighting, instead of being a keyboard warrior?
This is a really common refrain from paid Russian trolls. It means that someone cannot argue against an injust invasion unless they fight themselves - which is ridiculous. So you are either a troll, or just stupid. Based on the rest of your comments I'm certain you are a troll. What is really sick is that you claim to be concerned about Ukrainian lives when you are actively supporting their daily massacre.
You can argue all you want, but you shouldn't be able to force people to die for your arguments. And ukranian men don't want to die.
Instead of arguing, you come with the "paid troll" accusations and personal attacks.. come on.
It's one thing to argue about injustness (especially if you're from one of the coutries that is currently invading some other country, or recently has been, like syria or afghanistan.. like my country did), but you canot argue about ukranians having to die for whatever you consider to be right. If you support any kind of democracy, and if there is noone left who wants to volounteer and fight, the democractic opinion is already known (at least the opinion of those whose opinion should matter). If you believe that dying in this war is worth it, for whatever reason, you can replace a ukranian guy who doesn't believe that.
I'm not willing to fight for Ukraine but I am willing to support them. If my country was at risk of being ruled by the thugs in the Kremlin, I would fight for it and I would welcome support from anyone.
Your line of argument (idiotic though it is ) is used frequently by trolls because it is very effective at shutting down conversation. You can't threaten violence directly but you would if you could. You are supporting a regime that kills, rapes and kidnaps children (you will deny this because you are a paid troll but it's absolutely clear from your arguments that you do)
Anyway, you are clearly delighted to get more opportunities to repeat it so I will shut up now.
You've made it so deep into this discussion and now is when you pull out the "paid troll" comment? Speak directly and don't imply things you're not confident enough to say outright. And frankly, 99% of claims of paid trolls sound like conspiracy theories to my ears.
I'm not desparate for russia to win, I just support people to have a chance to not die for the lines on the map. It's not just ukraine forcing them to do so (and us helping them), but there are actual movements within EU to forcibly send the ones who escaped back.
If you want to fight russia, you're free to do so, but you shouldn't be able to force others to do so.
> Conscription in its various forms is as old as warfare itself. I cannot believe you think Ukraine invented conscription lmao.
Sure, and it's wrong and should be abolished. Aren't we the ones supporting democracy here? At least you're acting as if you are, as long as ukranian men have no choice but to die in a war you support more than them.
Do you believe it's possible to support Ukraine, criticize and blame Russia for the conflict, and still think there's much to criticize about the Ukrainian response? It seems like you're not comfortable with that level of nuance, and you're being very disrespectful as a result.
Of course, but they very clearly support Russia, so that does not apply here.
They explicitly state that Ukraine should stop fighting, i.e., let Russia win.
They state The Independent and Russia Today are two equally trustworthy news sources. That is not serious.
Anyone who says we should support Ukraine is told that we should go and join the Ukrainian army, also ridiculous.
I do not respect such people, so I am being disrespectful, indeed. I do not care, either.
If you think I am being an arsehole, that's fine, you're probably right, but if you cannot see that the other guy is also at least as much of an arsehole as I am, then you presumably have very interesting opinions on the Russian attack on Ukraine, just like he does.
If the democratic majority wants to fight, you have more than enough volunteer soldiers to either win (or lose ~1/2 of your population...). If you can't get any volunteers any more, their opinion on if they want to fight or not is already known, even without a democratic referendum.
...at least if you only count the votes of people whose opinion actually matters here.
What good will that do? 1 outrage = one prayer? Or whatever that faceook boomer meme was?
Now is the time to prevent forciful conscription in other countries, because our politicians are steering us towards war, and I don't want to die for them. If someone volunteers, sure, if not, then sit down and negotiate.
I don't live in neither russia not ukraine... my outrage went to my (small, eu) country occupying afghanistan and still having soldiers in syria. Sadly noone gave so much weapons and money to afghanistan/syria/libya/... to help them win the war.
My point is if you're going to rage about the war in Ukraine, you should probably rage and seethe about the invader, not criticise Ukraine for defending itself lmao.
If your only problem is that Ukraine has conscription, well so too does Russia, but you only criticise Ukraine, and repeat Russian imperialist/fascist talking points about defending Russians in Ukraine.. so it is very transparent where your sympathies really lie.
Few questioned Ukraine's decision to ban RT's operations. This doesn't seem terribly different - Al Jazeera has very deep ties to Hamas, the enemy Israel is at war with, and has arguably been acting as their mouthpiece for propaganda.
i did and do. banning your citizens from reading the 'propaganda' of your enemy reduces them to subjects and foments further armed conflict. it's also a power invariably used to avoid accountability for petty corruption such as beria's garden full of young, beautiful women
An important distinction must be drawn between suppressing distribution, and "banning your citizens from reading". In fact it is not illegal to possess or read RT content, nor even for that matter to share it on social media. It is not secret. All that has been done is to remove a propagandist with a megaphone from the town square.
Is the fact that you put "propaganda" in quotation marks an indication that you don't consider RT to be that, or that you don't think propaganda even exists?
That's completely unrelated. Obviously there exist objective facts, but outlets get to pick and chose which facts they report and which ones to hide under the rug. For example, its common for state news organizations to report enemy losses, but omit their own.
Some propaganda goes beyond selective disclosure of facts, like Al Jazeera uncritically reporting questionable claims as long as they're anti-Israeli, and failing to retract the ones that turn out to be false.
"Verifying it yourself" is often if not usually also a leap of faith, because how shall a single mind error check itself in a confirmably reliable manner, especially if it's received no specialized training in the domain?
And to know that, you need (just for starters) a means of discovering what is True...so you are back to the problem I noted.
Luckily, all of this complexity can be wallpapered over by cultural conditioning, making the problem essentially vanish (depending on the frame of reference one is observing from, or if one even knows what that means).
Propaganda is still dangerous, and a country at war has no obligation to allow the country it is at war with to continue to openly spread it. Banning RT makes sense in that context.
I don't see the banning of Al Jazeera in the same light, as it's not like it's a Hamas-run outlet.
A country at war has no moral or legal obligation to publish its enemy’s propaganda. This should be very obvious.
And yes RT was always complete shite for gullible morons, though it is rather beside the point in this case actually. The British government had no moral obligation on free speech grounds to allow the spread of nazi propaganda in the United Kingdom during WW2, either. Again, obvious stuff.
Propaganda in war times is very often directed at a domestic audience. Examples are stories like the Ghost of Kyiv on the "western side". There are examples on the Russian side too.
Yes: A lie to boost the morale of a country fighting a defensive war against a genocidal dictatorship is unambiguously a better lie than the lies of the genocidal dictatorship to rile up its populace to more effectively execute the genocidal war.
My country lied to its populace during WW2 to boost morale in its fight against Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany lied to its populace to more effectively execute the holocaust. They are not the same.
So it's true, not all lies are equally bad, hope that helps. Most learn that as children.
It's arguably not propaganda to publish an article quoting a member of the Ukrainian military. It's even in the headline right there: "Ukraine military claims".
If you think the output of RT and the Independent are indistinguishable then yeah I guess we just will never agree. Still, glad my country banned RT nevertheless. If the only downside is the odd anti-west tankie on HN crying about "hypocrisy", then, it's not so bad ;)
So trust the propaganda side, don't verify and publish such propagnda?
I mean... you can still not read RT, I don't know why you feel the need to forbid others from reading it? What if others want to ban something you wish to read? I mean...i'm glad you admit supporting censorship, but you can't complain then when some other country bans lgbt materials, harry potter, books on sexuality, books about satan, etc.
>So trust the propaganda side, don't verify and publish such propagnda?
?
> What if others want to ban something you wish to read?
Somethings things get banned even in democratic societies, that's never not been the case. Given that Russia is attacking Europe and has carried out numerous executions of private citizens on European soil, I struggle to see why we are obliged to let them air their propaganda in our countries. Maybe suck cuckholdery is appealing to you, but not to me or us.
> but you can't complain then when some other country bans lgbt materials, harry potter, books on sexuality, books about satan, etc
I don't complain. Russia is a shithole, we know this, it's established fact at this point, if it wants to cry about Harry Potter and LGBT rather than finally install toilets in peoples houses and help brings its people into the 21st century, then that's their choice. But invading a sovereign country like Ukraine and committing genocide against Ukrainians, that's not really acceptable, sorry.
The media trusted someone that said the "three days" story, didn't verify and published the lie as propaganda, so more people died because they believed that they'll win after the three days of supplies are used up.
> Somethings things get banned even in democratic societies, that's life
Yeah sure, sometimes innocent people die, sometimes a piano falls from a crane and kills a person. Some people like you even support such stuff.
> Given that Russia is attacking Europe and has carried out numerous executions of private citizens on European soil, I struggle to see why we are obliged to let them air their propaganda in our countries. Maybe suck cuckholdery is appealing to you, but not to me or us.
Russia is attacking ukraine, the same way as a bunch of european and american countries were attacking afghanistan, syria, libya, iraq, twice, etc. Why do you care now? Because you're not the one on the attacking side?
> I don't complain. Russia is a shithole, we know this, it's established fact at this point, if it wants to cry about Harry Potter and LGBT rather than finally install toilets in peoples houses and help brings its people into the 21st century, then that's their choice. But invading a sovereign country like Ukraine and committing genocide against Ukrainians, that's not really acceptable, sorry.
> But invading a sovereign country like Ukraine and committing genocide against Ukrainians, that's not really acceptable, sorry.
Why not? I mean... why is attacking iraq for nonexisting WMDs acceptable, but attacking ukraine for killing minorities in it's own country isn't? I mean.. didn't nato bomb yugoslavia for that same reason?
Carry on trying to hit me over the head with the Hacker News rule book whilst turning a blind eye and saying literally nothing to that guy's genocide apologism. You have beclowned yourself.
> I don't think the invasion of Iraq was a good thing or acceptable.
But it was. Nothing happened to anyone, no courts, trials, no jail time for any of the politicians, no nothing. So we, as a "western society" (or whatever you might call us) deem such invasions acceptable. Not just that, but we conduct new ones after that. So yeah, if you do something, officially, with documentation, public money, public employees, and nothing happens, how is it not acceptable?
I mean... if it's not acceptable, why did WE do it then? Assuming you're old enough, you literally financed people getting killed there with your taxes.
> But you very clearly seem to think the invasion and genocide in Ukraine is acceptable.
In the same way as iraq was. But we're not the ones attacking now, and we're bothered by that, so we're using even more money to get more people killed in this war.
I have a toilet, and my taxes are going to ukraine to prolong this war, as they went to helping the occupiers of iraq, and are still going to syria (we have soldiers there too). We had to run away from afghanistan a few years ago though... it just cost us and our 'friends' a trillion to replace the taliban with the taliban there, and kill a lot of locals. Apparently, that's acceptable too, since noone is in jail for that war.
Seems like a good deal to me if you're worried about money rather than lives: give money to Ukraine, keep Russian dictatorship at bay, before it invades other parts of Europe.
So cheer up, your taxes are not being wasted, they are saving you money in the long run by keeping Russia from invading Europe even more.
But ukraine is using that money to kill their own men who don't want to fight. Why don't you go and fight instead, and risk your own life instead of forcing them to do it?
Considering the sitation in ukraine, we've wasted a lot of money and a lot of ukranian men for what exactly?
> Considering the sitation in ukraine, we've wasted a lot of money and a lot of ukranian men for what exactly?
The alternative is that Russia rolls over Ukraine, murders between few hundred thousand and few million people to enforce the occupation, and then decimates Ukrainian male population by using them as cannon fodder against Poland and other European countries. Please explain me how this is any better.
I mean sure... it's their choice. If they want to fight against that, sure, let them volounteer and fight. If you can't get any more people to fight without literally forcing them, then you obviously don't have enough "democractic" support for a fight anymore (at least not from the ones whose opinions should matter), and should start looking at the negotiating table.
If you believe that, then put your life where your mouth is, and go fight. If you want to live, let others live too.
Even during the WW2, a few countries capitulated with the germans and survived, even eg. france. On the other hand, a bunch of those countries (even france), no go half a planet away to kill people over there, and there is no support to those countries to fight harder against the french. And france is far from the only country that does that in europe, not to even mention the USA.
I don't have to volunteer anywhere; I already face rising odds that I'll be conscripted even before this year is out.
As to France and other countries occupied by Nazis, capitulation meant a ride to death camp for some, slave labor to others, starvation and oppression for all. France was used as a staging ground for the Battle of Britain and for the aborted invasion of British Isles, and served as a base of operations for submarines attacking allied convoys in the Atlantic ocean. France didn't regain freedom until massive landings on Normandy beaches and fierce fighting through the country by soldiers who were mostly conscripts and not there on their own will, so I don't understand what it was meant to prove.
I think the issue is that you are saying things are "normal" without addressing whether or not they are right and good.
I would probably agree with you that it's normal for a country at war to want to control information flow. But that's absolutely a bad thing! Obviously not all "information" is created equal: some of it is high-quality and objective, and some of it is lies (and everything in between). I don't trust pretty much any government entity to be objective about these sorts of bans, though. The ultimate consequence of these sorts of things is a poorly-informed, propagandized public.
To parse your statement we need to understand what genocide means to you. For most it means the systemic killing of every person of a certain genetic identity. Is that what you believe is happening or something else?
If genocide is illegal than covering up would be the only logical move. Therefore it would be normal.
Genocide has a precise definition and has been codified in international law. I believe this internationally recognized definition mirrors what most people mean when they use the term. It does not necessitate the systemic killing of every person of a certain genetic identity.
Genocide is outlined in the Genocide convention from 1948[1]. It is short so I’ll give you the whole definition here:
> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
> (a) Killing members of the group;
> (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
> (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
> (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
> (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Genocide is illegal under international humanitarian law, there is no justification admissible for the crime of genocide. It is not normal to cover it up. Israel is currently being investigated by the ICJ for the crime of genocide. Israel has argued that whatever it is doing in Gaza is not genocide.
I think it's fairly clear that given this definition (which is the same one I always reference), Israel isn't committing a genocide.
If you do think Israel is committing a genocide, I think one thing you have to do is demonstrate how what Israel is doing is different from any other war (e.g. war on ISIS, Afghanistan, Iraq as obvious examples).
The statute makes the difference pretty clear - it's the intent to kill some (definable) part of the members of the group. This is not the case with Israel given its current actions and lack of actions; it could kill far more people if it decided to, militarily speaking. (I say this not because Israel deserves any "credit" for not killing more people, obviously, only to make it clear that the reason more aren't killed isn't because of lack of capability, but because of lack of desire to kill more).
Of course, you might disagree with me. If you don't have some kind of way to distinguish between what Israel is doing and what e.g. the US did in Iraq, you can just bite the bullet and say that all wars are genocide. That would be a consistent POV, but that would also effectively render the concept of Genocide meaningless.
> The statute makes the difference pretty clear - it's the intent to kill some (definable) part of the members of the group. This is not the case with Israel given its current actions and lack of actions; it could kill far more people if it decided to, militarily speaking.
This logic is one-dimensional and flawed. Israel is capable of wanting many different things and intelligently balancing their actions to accomplish many different things. For example, if Israel wants to remove all Palestinians from Gaza while also retaining some international allies, they would balance their actions to achieve both, and that would probably look quite similar to what we are seeing.
It's like in chess. I want to capture my opponents pawn, that is a thing I want. That doesn't mean I will sacrifice my queen for the pawn. And if an observer says "he must not want to take that pawn, because he could have taken the pawn with his queen but didn't", that observer would be looking at things in a very one-dimensional way and would be wrong.
OK. What would it look like if Israel just wanted to remove Hamas from power in Gaza without wanting to remove Palestinians from Gaza?
Just to remove doubt - I'm genuinely asking. One thing I don't feel I've ever gotten a real answer on is what should Israel have done after the October 7th attack instead of what it did. Not in general about the situation, but specifically on October 7th.
They need a carrot and and stick, not just a stick.
For one thing, they need to let in the thousands of trucks of aid that are held up by their onerous inspection processes. They need the people of Gaza to see Hamas as the source of their troubles and Israel as a source of aid.
It's hard thing to do. I remember listening to Jocko Willink (a US Navy Seal) describe this difficulty in Iraq. They had to work closely with poorly trained Iraqi soldiers to help them become better trained, and they had to go out of their way to obey the rules of engagement. He had to explain to soldiers that their mission was to stabilize Iraq, not just to kill insurgents and survive the next patrol. Some of his soldiers died because of this. Those soldiers wouldn't have died if the US just dropped 2000 pound bombs on everything, but that wouldn't have accomplished the mission of stabilizing Iraq. (I know there's plenty to criticize about the Iraq war, but focus on my point please.)
I don't get the sense that the IDF is doing this. They are all stick, no carrot. Their actions will not reduce the amount of terrorism coming out of Gaza.
Remember when the Israeli hostages tried to get help and surrender? They wave a white flag, they seek help, the IDF just shoots them, and later we all recognize it was a tragedy. Well, that scene has played out hundreds of other times, but hidden, Palestinians getting killed intentionally for no good reason. If my accusations here are true we would expect to see other instances as well, such as blowing up marked international aid vehicles that are actively coordinating with the IDF--the IDF just blows them up anyway, blows up one vehicle, survivors crawl away, minutes later they blow up a second vehicles, minutes later they blow up a third vehicle. Other times, we see things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhVV2_mub84
Maybe I have a blind spot in my news sources, but has the IDF done anything to show the Palestinians that they are friends, or could be friends? I know the IDF tried to give out flour once and ended up shooting several hundred Palestinians and killing about a hundred (the "flour massacre"). Maybe I've missed it, but have they ever tried that again with more success? Have they done anything to help the civilians of Gaza?
These are not actions that will reduce terrorism. These are not actions that will help the people of Gaza learn to live in peace.
I think there are plenty of actions and statements from Israeli political leaders to differentiate between a focused goal of eliminating Hamas and collective punishment and revenge, and it appears punishing all people in Gaza is one of the things they want.
> They need a carrot and and stick, not just a stick. [...] They need the people of Gaza to see Hamas as the source of their troubles and Israel as a source of aid.
Oh, I absolutely think Israel should've done this, both for strategic reasons and moral reasons. I think Israel should've been showing Gazans (and the world) some amazing innovations in getting aid into a warzone, proving to everyone that it cars more about Gaza's civilians than Hamas does. I think this would've been, not just the moral thing to do, but then smart thing to do.
I just don't think that not doing so means it's committing genocide. It's just undertaking a war like most countries do. War is always awful.
> It's hard thing to do. I remember listening to Jocko Willink [...] He had to explain to soldiers that their mission was to stabilize Iraq, not just to kill insurgents and survive the next patrol. Some of his soldiers died because of this. Those soldiers wouldn't have died if the US just dropped 2000 pound bombs on everything, but that wouldn't have accomplished the mission of stabilizing Iraq.
Yes, I heard this podcast (and I admire Jocko). Israel did something very similar - the first few weeks of fighting were mostly bombings, but the ~5 months after that have been a ground invasion that has gotten IDF soldiers killed (as opposed to more aerial bombardment).
That said, Israel is facing a tougher situation - Hamas is far more entrenched and very innovative in terms of their insurgent operations. You can watch videos by Preston Stewart to get a sense of the kinds of attacks Hamas is doing (a recent one is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFeWC1svUQI). Hamas is moving around dressed as civilians and can plausibly claim to be civilians, right up until the moment they open fire. That's a very hard situation to deal with, leading to many tragic situations.
> Remember when the Israeli hostages tried to get help and surrender, they wave a white flag, they seek help, the IDF just shoots them, and later we all recognize it was a tragedy. Well, that scene has played out hundreds of other times, but hidden, Palestinians getting killed on purpose for no good reason.
Yes, there have been countless tragedies in this war. It's partially the fault of the IDF lowering the bar for shooting, it's partially the fault of Hamas operating in the way that they do (there are cases of them deliberately pretending to be civilians then ambushing soldiers).
That video is utterly without context. I don't remember the exact case (I think Preston Stewart talked about it), but those could literally be armed militants walking to/away from battle. I don't know if Al Jazeera followed this up with any other information.
> These are not action that will reduce terrorism. These are not actions that will help the people of Gaza learn to live in peace.
I don't think Israel is trying to help Gaza learn to live in peace. It's trying to win a war against the Gazan government and military so it doesn't attack again.
I cannot understand your key points that this is a) not genicide, b) it is simply what the US was doing all these years c) Israel kills acts with self constraint not imposed by others
Israel is actively doing most of the points above against an effectively unarmed and blockaded group of people. US was fighting against actual armies whichever their quality. Israel claims “hamas” and kills indiscriminately, there is no footage of “hamas” army with any heavy military equipment, israel actively causes famine, destroys all hospitals, creates mass graves that have victims with hands tied behind their backs. Israel official claim their desire to kill everyone.
They simply cannot do it immediately because they are doing it with western financial and military support which would evaporate because you can only do propaganda so much.
> Israel is actively doing most of the points above against an effectively unarmed and blockaded group of people. US was fighting against actual armies whichever their quality.
You are just factually wrong on many of your points.
It's true that Hamas isn't a traditional military with heavy equipment, but they are a 30k strong insurgent group that has had years to plan their defense. They've built tunnel complexes that are said to be larger than the NY Subway and hide in them, coming up to ambush soldiers.
If your view of what is happening is that the IDF is going around shooting at civilians, then you're just incorrect about what is actually happening on the ground for the last many months.
If you look at videos that Hamas themselves post, you can see them constantly attacking soldiers, collapsing buildings on soldiers, placing munitions on tanks to blow them up, etc.
> [Israel] destroys all hospitals,
Absolutely not true. Israel hasn't destroyed hospitals, definitely not all of them, despite this being commonly claimed.
There was one hospital that saw a week of fighting between Hamas and the IDF. After that week, much of it was destroyed. This btw goes against your point that Hamas is effectively unarmed. But while most other hospitals have seen attacks around them and many have been ordered evacuated, they aren't destroyed. (Some are damaged, to be fair - but hospitals are pretty big, and there's a world of difference between "some hospitals have been damaged" and "Israel has destroyed all hospitals".)
> israel actively causes famine
I think Israel has acted horribly around humanitarian aid, yes. This has largely changed recently, thankfully.
> creates mass graves that have victims with hands tied behind their backs.
This was recently reported and hasn't been investigated. Many things later turn out to not be what was claimed by the Gazan authorities (Hamas) who are playing a disinformation campaign. Israel says this mass grave was made by Palestinians. Neither you nor I know the truth of this. I highly doubt it was Israel, if those people are civilians. If it was Israel, that would most definitely be a war crime as far as I can tell.
> Israel official claim their desire to kill everyone.
Not true, and I've talked about this in another comment in this thread.
> They simply cannot do it immediately because they are doing it with western financial and military support which would evaporate because you can only do propaganda so much.
OK. But that's an unfalsifiable statement. You can always say that Israel is "just about" to do more. Do you think Israel has more support now or 6 months ago right after the October 7th attacks? I think it has far less support, which was entirely predictable. So why wait so long? What kind of evidence would convince you that Israel doesn't want to engage in genocide, if not doing it when it had more support isn't strong enough evidence?
There isn't a single item on that definition that hasn't been reported and evidenced on numerous times by the limited press coverage. To bring the conversation back to the article.
The argument that it could kill more is ridiculous. Israel is clearly killing as many as it believes the international community will let it, without becoming a pariah state. Deliberately, and indiscriminate killing or maiming of 5% of a population is not trivial.
I find it difficult to classify what is happening as a war. The disparity in power, control and access to military and other means is to disparate. Like Iraq, Afghanistan, etc it's transparent one side is doing it because they can, and without regard for anything but their own satisfaction and revenge.
Not just that, the international community [0] is helping them, by giving them weapons, money and other kids of help to do so. Even coutries like germany, who had their own genocidal "incidents" in the past, continue to export weapons to israel.
Agreed and on moral grounds the war of Israel is far more defensible than these examples because they are directly subjected to the aggressor. That doesn't allow killings with impunity of course, but that is far from what Israel is doing.
There were quite a few statements by key people in the current Israeli government that demonstrate clear intent for genocide.
As to why they don't massacre every living Palestinian in Gaza if they really want to do so - Israel still depends significantly on external support, most notably from US, but also from European countries. Thus even if intending to commit genocide, they have to do so in a plausibly deniable way.
> There were quite a few statements by key people in the current Israeli government that demonstrate clear intent for genocide.
There were a few statements, mostly made very early in the war, most of them ambiguous. These are horrible, but fairly similar to most war-time propaganda in most countries.
They're also dwarfed by the many, many statements almost all of them made that quite explicitly clarified that that isn't what they want, and that the only goal is to remove Hamas while trying to minimize harm to civilians.
Btw, this is less true of ethnic cleansing - there is a minority, but influential, part of the government that is, at the very least, hinting strongly at ethnic cleansing. I find it despicable and am convinced the majority of Israelis would never go along with this, but those statements by those (despicable) "leaders" are recent.
> As to why they don't massacre every living Palestinian in Gaza if they really want to do so - Israel still depends significantly on external support, most notably from US, but also from European countries. Thus even if intending to commit genocide, they have to do so in a plausibly deniable way.
This is an unfalsifiable statement. People have been claiming for most of my life that Israel is either committing genocide, or wants to, and is only held back by foreign powers. A genocide hasn't occurred so far, and I believe very strongly that Israel will never do so. But you can always say "oh well, they just can't because other people are keeping them in check". OK - so what kind of evidence would convince you that that's not true?
There are clearly genocidal statements from Israeli leadership.
Bezalel Smotrich, finance minister, for example: "We need to encourage immigration from there. If there were 100,000-200,000 Arabs in the Strip and not two million, the whole conversation about the day after [the war] would be completely different".
Remember, these are people whose entire nation is Palestine. He's certainly not suggesting that Palestinians be accepted as refuges in Israel, and he has also been actively taking land in the West Bank, so is not proposing they go there either. In the Knesset in September 2021 he told an Arab Knesset member: "You’re here by mistake, it’s a mistake that Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the job and didn’t throw you out in 1948".
The most charitable interpretation of this so far is that he only wants a "forcible transfer of population" (Article 7 of the Rome Statue of the ICC - a crime against humanity) instead of a genocide. However, those statements can be coupled with actions:
* While people in Gaza were suffering famine, he issued an order blocking flour into Gaza.
* Half of Gaza's population is squeezed into a tiny corner, Rafah, by Israeli actions. Smotrich has called for: "No half jobs. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat, total and utter destruction". So he is calling just there for killing half of the Gaza population, which he has made clear, he doesn't want to continue to exist in Gaza.
I think all of this together is quite solid evidence that Smotrich is inciting genocide with intent to destroy at least part of the Palestinian nation. Others are even more extreme. For example, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu suggested dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza to wipe out everyone there.
In this context it is worthy to cite Article III of the genocide convention (which directly follows the above definition in Article II):
> The following acts shall be punishable:
>
> (a) Genocide;
> (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
> (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
> (d) Attempt to commit genocide;
> (e) Complicity in genocide.
Bezalel Smotrich is deffinetly guilty of (c) here, “Direct and public incitement to commit genocide”, but being a member of the Israeli government which is plausibly guilty of (a), a government who’s several members are also guilty of (c), including the Prime Minister himself. it is very likely—though we don’t know this yet—that he, other Israeli officials, and generals in the Israeli military, are also guilty of (b) “Conspiracy to commit genocide”.
Even in the most charitable interpretations of Smotrich’s words, he, and other members of the Israeli governments, are plausibly guilty of (e) “Complicity in genocide” as Israel has a duty to protect Palestinians from Genocide, but still allowing genocidal actions to unfold in Gaza, while not punishing offenders, nor even stepping down their rhetoric.
The tech nerd in me insists I complain that this isn't a database. It's just a document.
I've read this site multiple times. While some statements there are horrible (and I never said there weren't), many are really taken out of context and/or exaggerated. And most are very early in the war, as I said.
Also, to get to such large numbers, they are putting in statements from random infantry soldiers, random journalists, etc. If you want the list that's actually somewhat relevant, I think only the decision makers one is (22 statements there), maybe parts of the army personnel. Is it really relevant to include "public expressions" made by a football player, or the Australian Jewish association? Does that make sense to call it an "Israeli Incitement to Genocide"?
What matters is that these statements were both echoed and followed by actions. When random infantry soldiers recite genocidal rhetoric, and don’t get punished for that, at best you are complicit in genocide (which is also a crime according to Article III (e) of the Genocide Convention). When genocidal rhetoric is echoed on the international stage by random journalists, or football players representing your nation, you need to disavow those words (and in case of the football player, dismiss the player from the sport).
Genocide is serious crime, and when it is plausible that a genocide is being committed, any incitements to further it are criminal, and need to be punished, if these acts are not punished, or worse, dismissed as not relevant, you are at best complicit. But the fact that genocidal conduct continues on the ground, and officials are not backing down their rhetoric, and are not punishing genocidal actions, it is reasonable to assume that genocide is also the intent of the people in charge.
In fact, the US is guilty of genocide as well - it just has a far more effective media control apparatus, which shields its citizens from the outrage they'd experience if they really knew and understood just how responsible they are for such atrocities as, the funding of ISIS, the destruction of Mosul, the destruction of Raqqa, the destruction of Libya, the military support of the genocide of Yemen, and .. on and on.
So yeah "the bigger bully also kills people" might be an effective thought-blocking argument, but that is only the case because that bully has been effectively thought-blocking any inspection of its war crimes by the people, who ultimately pay for them.
Yes, the US should face justice for its war crimes, crimes against humanity, and so on. No, it won't face justice because, instead of frog-marching its war criminals to face justice in The Hague, it has plans to invade The Hague, instead.
Those who support Israels massacre of innocent Palestinians need to be very, very careful about the association with bigger bullies. Just because your allies got away with genocide, doesn't mean you will. (See also: Australia)
The ICJ are NOT investigating Israel for the crime of genocide. This is a common misunderstanding. See clarifications by the former president of the International Court of Justice, Joan Donoghue.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean. You cited a ruling from March 28th 2024, which imposed extra provisional measures in light of evidence that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war, and ordered Israel to stop doing that. Or in words of the Court (Article III, Paragraph 45):
> In conformity with its obligations under the Genocide Convention, and in view of the worsening conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza, in particular the spread of famine and starvation, Israel shall:
> (a) take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full co-operation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance, including food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza, including by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary; and
> (b) ensure with immediate effect that its military does not commit acts which constitute a violation of any of the rights of the Palestinians in Gaza as a protected group under the Genocide Convention, including by preventing, through any action, the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance.
The original ruling is from January 26th 2024 was also orders of provisional measures, but crucially ruled that the court had jurisdiction over the case (Article II, Paragraphs 31-32) and that accusations of genocide were plausible (Article IV, Paragraph 54):
> In the Court’s view, the facts and circumstances mentioned above are sufficient to conclude
that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are
plausible.
The court has not concluded on this case, which means that it is fact still investigating the allegations. I honestly can’t see where my supposed misunderstanding lies.
Here is the precise misunderstanding; the statement you quote
>In the Court’s view, the facts and circumstances mentioned above are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible.. (my emphasis)
Has been widely reported as saying that the allegations of genocide are plausible.
The court ruled that it has jurisdiction over the case, and that some of the allegations are plausible. How are they not investigating Israel for the crime of Genocide?
Is the misunderstanding in the meaning of the term investigate? It very common for justice systems or law enforcement to investigate whether a certain crime falls under a given category, for example Hate Crime.
Now this example is of a local law enforcement, which has pretty liberal laws on what it investigates. The World Court however needs strong conviction to even accept a case. The court did rule that the accusations are plausible and that they have jurisdiction over it. In other words, they are investigating whether Israel’s conduct falls under the crime of genocide.
Speaking as an American: yes. Bush and Obama are war criminals and I'd say that they belong in Gitmo but I'm more principled than that and we need to shut Gitmo down.
You may confuse the deaths of the sunni-shia civil war with deaths under US fire. Saddam Hussein like Gaddafi would have died sooner or later. To me there is nothing that suggests that these civil wars wouldn't have happen sooner or later, like in Yugoslavia.
Source? None of the organisations tracking Iraqi civilian deaths that have broken down figures by cause show that number caused by US forces directly.
If you're including indirect causes too, such as a rise in sectarian violence, deprivation, and increased criminality then, yes, but that's a different statement.
The context of the convention needs to be understood in the general context and especially in the context of a war (though of course they don't "exist" only in that context). And wars are awful.
(not saying what Israel is doing is correct or even adequate - but generalizing terms helps nobody)
That's a built-in failing of the genocide definition: it requires intent, otherwise no doubt the US would have been on the hook as early as the Korean war.
Sadly for the Israelis, they have a cabinet of the kind of people who just cannot help themselves from communicating intent.
Are you familiar with the fine words of Madeleine Albright and her cohorts in PNAC, who very clearly demonstrated the intent to massacre hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's, mostly children, and then proceeded to do so?
Just because the US got away with genocide doesn't mean any other nation should. The American people should be jailing their own war criminals, and then go after those of Russia and Israel and the UK and Ukraine and so on. However, war crimes are good for (American) business. See also: the military support of the genocide of Yemen by a known fascist totalitarian-authoritarian dictatorship.
Madeleine Albright should have been frog-marched into The Hague for justifying the US-sanctioned deaths of over 500,000 children. [1], [2]
The extremely deceptive, duplicitous individuals in PNAC are the ones who lied and scammed the American public into funding the destruction of Iraq, and countless other sovereign states in the Middle East, in order to be able to refactor those states according to American interests.
This is why the USA illegally occupies 1/3rd of Syria's sovereign territory (its oil fields) in order to deny the Syrian people the resources they need to rebuild their country.
It is why Libya was destroyed, why Iraq was destroyed, why Afghanistan was left in utter ruin. Its why Yemen suffered a genocide widely ignored by the West.
This is why the USA funds and supports ISIS as a "fifth column" (See also: Operation Gladio[3]) in the region, in order to fight wars without the approval of Congress. Note that Gladio is still in effect as official US military doctrine - under different names now, but the modern manifestations go all the way back to the original Gladio doctrine.
It would be very important for you to understand who PNAC are and what their very clearly stated intentions are - these are the fascist oligarchs whose dogma allows the Joint Chiefs of Staff to get away with mass murder. Real, actual mass murder, not hyperbole, of cultures deemed culturally inferior by Americas oligarchic ruling class.
Note that, even if Americans are not aware of these things, the rest of the world is, and is - I believe - a motivating force behind the rise of BRICS and the general anti-American sentiment that exists outside the Anglosphere bubble.
Exactly how you think the US can support ISIS (oil sales via Turkey? Used plumbing trucks to JAS/JAN which aren’t ISIS?) when Lloyd Austin blew hundreds of millions to arm like 10-100 people is beyond me.
I swerved hard on a girl obsessed with Madeleine Albright. I'm glad I got out and around that because I never really liked the look of that older woman.
> That's correct and IMHO its the right thing to do
I'm in awe. I'm pro-censorship myself as a general principle (though not in this obviously unjustifiable instance of it), but please be coherent. How come the current semi-popular opinion on HN happens to be pro-censorship, when HN community is against censorship in every other situation?
> How come the current semi-popular opinion on HN happens to be pro-censorship, when HN community is against censorship in every other situation?
The answer to most questions like this is: there are many different users on HN. You might think the "general consensus" of HN is one thing, but you're talking to a specific person commenting on a specific article, who has their own views, not to a generic "HN user".
And note that different threads will have a different makeup of users clicking on it. E.g. I wouldn't necessarily be interested in a random "censorship" thread, but this one is about Israel, so (as an Israeli) I am interested. Since this logic probably extends to other users as well, that will give the thread a specific bias, depending on its subject matter and framing.
I just think media is part of the warfare and it’s normal to try to control it during a war. I am anti war in first place, if you don’t want censorship don’t start a war.
They have a lot to fear from their citizens knowing that what they hear from their officials is not all the truth.
Some time in the future, when someone mentions the Jewish genocide, people will ask if they mean the one happened to them or the one they did.
Obviously the current Israeli government will want to control the information flow so they can proceed with their final solution to the Gaza issue. They will also try to control what comes out of Gaza to avoid the consequences of their actions.
I don’t think it’s that at all, it’s about controlling the narrative for your advantage. You might be lying as well, be doing horrible things and you don’t want the people you control to know that or to think that way.
Is taking sides in a war though. That’s why the Russian outlets push talking points. This can affect the public support on war efforts issues, which is fine only before shooting start because when no one is shooting arguments(which can be fair ones or designed to achieve something like withholding weapons deliveries) can be addressed in timely manner.
Whatever problems a website or an app is causing can be solved through civil means, but at a war time irreversible damage using deadly weapons can be done before even realizing it.
But banning Russian propaganda surely is an indication of weakness. Banning RT to me also signals that Russia got good at playing the media game, which until recently was largely the playground of US and UK. There is a reason that dry Tass is not banned but snazzy RT is.
It is not clear that the pipeline was an act of war, but acts of war can be that simple.
"WW3" is a conceptualization of existential fear, rather than a singular event. The world rallying to one of two sides to make war (or neutrality), is highly unlikely.
I think that denying that ww3 would pose an existential threat to everyone is akin to being a flatearther and an anti waxer. However given todays unfortunate climate it is infinitely more dangerous and war mongorers should be exposed more ferrociously than Russian bots
If you believe that RT is an organisation that is not interested in the truth, but is set up purely to disrupt and disturb, then a government can reasonably want to prevent its operation.
Adding plausible noise to information causes people to have to do much more work to discern between what is true and what is not, time that many people do not have.
A reluctance to ban a bad-faith organisation is good: a moral society should thoroughly debate why it might undertake a repressive thing. But you cannot wish away the effects of corrosive and coercive behaviour because the act of banning a such an organisation is repressive.
A poor but useful analogy is use of violence in society. Violence is a bad thing, but to absolutely forswear it in all situations is something that very few governments will do, for reasons that seem quite justified to me.
There are two things wrong with this argument. One, it implies that there isn't a better way to deal with an such a malicious organization. And two, it doesn't acknowledge how such a ban creates an obvious opening for abuse.
Holding up the classic Western ideals of Democracy and Freedom is hard because it is much deeper than simply giving people the freedom to access all information so they can form their own opinions. It also requires that these people are educated and trained to be competent critical thinkers and be able to intelligently form their own opinions. It holds its citizens and the government to high standards and will collapse if these standards aren't met. Accordingly, better education and trust in citizens is the better solution, not banning.
As for the obvious opening for abuse, it doesn't have to be said that every system will eventually be maximally exploited, and creating this opening for exploitation will eventually be exploited as well. It is just a matter of time...
Another poor but useful analogy is fast food. Banning bad media is like consuming fast food. It is quick and easy, and "satisfies" the goal within some basic parameters, but it really does more harm than good in the long term.
The argument in no way implies that there is no other way to deal with malice, only that it is an option. The argument further implies that the decision to censor should not be taken lightly. When censorship is being considered in a democratic society, the decision to do so must be argued and debated. Note that it is perfectly possible to be well-educated and still be taken in by bullshit and false information - it happens all the time. Education is a good, not a nostrum, and durable opponents of truth are also motivated, sophisticated and smart. Democracy is about the means you use to undertake drastic decisions, and in no way rules out the restriction of unseemly behaviour.
Maybe explain why my analogy is not useful - I’ll do the same for you. What I initially said did not in any way imply banning should be quick or easy, while “fast food” is not, in itself, bad for you, but a restricted and monotonous diet of anything can well be.
Content is being banned because the governments don't think the citizens collectively can handle that content. This is the government thinking for the people. I wouldn't have an issue if it was really argued and debated, but I don't really see that happening. It is mostly just the government unilaterally deciding that said content is bad and banning it with no really possibility for debate. It isn't too hard to imagine a situation where content would help citizens but harm the government, and who is really deciding what to ban in such a case.
Countries are seeing how much banning content helps governments in places like China, and want that easy "solution" to their problems instead of doing the difficult thing of properly educating citizens and cultivating free and open discourse.
I guess my analogy is bad because it is debatable if fast food, in itself, is bad for you. My issue with your analogy is that the use of violence is abused by governments so much more than it is every used correctly (if that is even possible) and that all citizens would benefit from governments condemning violence. The reason governments don't condemn violence isn't because their use of violence helps citizens, it is because their use of violence helps themselves. And the same thing goes for banning content. So I guess your analogy is actually pretty good,
just counterproductive to your point.
Your analogy was bad in that it represented a case that I had not made, that the ban was a convenient lever to be reached for out of convenience.
I have not seen an operating system of civil governance that has not reserved to itself the right coerce behaviour as a "last resort" (this would be different things to different people), so it is hard to say much about your last paragraph.
I would say: if you don't think that people are going to debate and argue a case for banning, for punishing, for going to war or other forms of controversial and "extraordinary" behaviour, you probably can't think that people are going to agree to be educated properly, whatever that means. Debate, argument and loser's consent are fundamentals behind the model of democracy we have today. including, in my view, the part where the demos is educated.
I think if you ask the average conservative voter, they would argue the New York Times is a bad faith organisation, uninterested in the truth if it contradicts its narrative, and trying to disrupt and divide. That's why the state should be nowhere near any power to curb political speech. If you would like to shut down a news outlet you don't like, ask yourself if you would like Trump to have that same power.
Who gets to decide that RT is not interested in the truth? Traditionally, liberal democracy has held that it's not safe for the government to make that decision.
Yes. Which I find abhorrent as an European, and has made me realize even more than our countries are much less democratic than we officially paint them as.
When the italian government wants to be able to block any website immediately and with no appeal, calling it an anti-piracy measure, it's completely fine and democratic.
Do you have examples for Europe blocking Russia? Because all I have seen is DNS providers omitting certain sites (i.e RT), but their apps still work (plus URLs when using other DNS). An nothing of that coming from the nation states as all seems to be due to the activities of private companies doing these things.
RT, Sputnik and related Russian state media outlets are subject to sanctions in the EU, their broadcast licenses have been revoked and their channels have been removed from terrestrial, cable and satellite broadcasts. Their accounts on all major social media platforms are blocked. Their apps are no longer available on the Google or Apple stores. Europe doesn't have a Chinese-style Great Firewall, but EU countries have taken every reasonable step to prevent Russian state media from reaching EU audiences.
> Europe doesn't have a Chinese-style Great Firewall, but EU countries have taken every reasonable step to prevent Russian state media from reaching EU audiences.
Because they don't like anti-government point of views to become too widespread.
In Italy the current defence minister is personally earning considerable amount of money by sending weapons to Ukraine, because he's also an owner and manager of companies that make said weapons.
Do you think they'd want to favour open discussions?
No. In fact besides RT being banned, they want to be able to block any website, giving providers 30 minutes to implement the ban, no appeal and no oversight from a judge (https://stop-piracy-shield.it/)
> In Italy the current defence minister is personally earning considerable amount of money by sending weapons to Ukraine, because he's also an owner and manager of companies that make said weapons.
FUD is the reason why Russian liars are banned from EU.
It's part of the EU sanctions, EU ISPs are required to block certain Russian sites. But they didn't specify how, that's left up to the countries to figure out afaik. But as you say, some of the what has been done barely qualifies.
Here's my personal experience with this:
Germany does exactly what you describe, the bare minimum to say "we're blocking" --- DNS omitting certain sites.
Spain is doing deep packet inspection, blocking DNS requests that lookup RT, so DNS over HTTPS or through a VPN is a must. Additionally, they're also reading the SNI in TLS requests and blocking that way. If you try accessing RT in pure unencrypted HTTP you're get some fortigate blocking message back.
Thanks, though that specifically why I am questioning that it is the EU in this case. Because rt.com is reachable in Sweden just fine, including sub-sites. Which, to me, says that it must be national sanctions, or at minimum, national lists of what to 'block'.
Because rt.com is reachable in Sweden just fine, including sub-sites.
See discussion further down thread, but basically the block in Sweden seems to be on the ISP level and depends on which ISP you have. I can access rt.com via work wifi, but not not over mobile data via Telia. Another user who has Telia as their home ISP cannot access rt.com from home either.
At least in the UK, you used to be able to watch RT on broadcast. Now only the Internet version is accessible, and I think some ISPs DNS block them. Granted, a DNS block is easy to circumvent if you understand it, but most users will still be cut off.
Was it actually broadcast terrestrially? I remember picking it up from Astra2 (the "skytv" satellite) but looking online, it's not transmitted anymore.
Many using VPN. For example if you set the VPN servers to HK, RT will display as usual. In general I notice my peers will use anti-west countries based servers for censored western news and the reverse for anti-east. Some do use it so intuitively they might not realized RT or any Russian sites blocked. A lot of time I just assume it is due to network outages.
I would think most people know about RT blocking because it was widely announced and discussed at the time, and not because they actually tried to access RT.
I am very much aware of this but as I wrote, I do not consider this blocked as the servers are very much reachable and what you show is that the DNS does not resolve. That is not what I consider blocked by the state. And yes, here in Sweden, rt.com resolves just fine everywhere. That's why I was wondering about specific European legislation as it seemed to be 'only' private companies doing their part.
The main difference would be that Al Jazeera is from Qatar and not Gaza, this would be the equivalent of the EU banning Armenia because they are friendly with Russia.
Banning Armenia isn't really an apt comparison since Israel isn't banning all media from Qatar, just one particular news organization which has very deep ties to the enemy they're at war with.
Apartheid South Africa also tried to ban news media. It's a sign of extreme desperation and signals political vulnerability. Hopefully, Israel will get elections soon, and center- or left-leaning coalition government will pursue different foreign and military policies that a significant majority of Israelis prefer over the absurdity of the militarists and militant settlers.
Nearly every democratic country has previously or is currently censoring the media in some ways, including the US[1] and EU[2]. Single factor analysis is one of the worst kinds of analysis. If we only consider this one factor, then there is basically no country that is not like Apartheid South Africa. Apartheid South Africa was not exceptional or notable because it did what nearly every other country has or is currently still doing, i.e. censoring media. It was notable because people of specific races had fewer legal rights than others.
Furthermore, as far as I'm aware, the majority of Israelis want the IDF to go into Raffah[3] and are not opposed to the attemts to eliminate Hamas.
A better way to engage than to allude to some TV series is to rather look for and present any information that suggests this is not the case, that suggests that there is in fact wide spread opposition to the war in Gaza and widespread support for an independent Palestinian state.
Before the October 7, only 35% of Israelis (41% Arab and 32% Jewish) thought a way can be found for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully with each other [1]. We have to engage with reality here, not with TV tropes.
I thought alluding to this part in Yes, Prime Minister is going to get across the idea of questionable trustworthiness of surveys. I did try to get the survey details from the given page though, but for some reason the survey page is not loading for me.
Although the protests in Capital against the regime and ministers are pretty revealing . This is a month old link and things might have changed, for the better or worse.
About peace though, it can only prevail with disarmament and talks. And reconciliation. I think we have too many actors, powerful actors, who doesn't want it. Yitzhak Rabin didn't die in his sleep, for one.
The problem with protests is, it's not public opinion. So I don't know what you think it reveals. Poll after poll indicates that there is no appetite in Israel for accepting Hamas's terms, widespread support for military action against Hamas, and widespread opposition to a Palestinian state [1].
Alluding to a TV series is in no way indicative of the accuracy of opinion polls. Yes, Prime Minister is fictional. Israel is not fictional, the war is not fictional, the 1000s of people dead are not fictional, the 1000s of destroyed lives and trillions in destroyed capital is not fictional. Nothing about a fictional TV series is relevant here.
In reality, the Israelis are way more fed up with Gaza than it was 10 years ago and the support for a Palestinian state and peace with Hamas is not going to win anyone elections in Israel. You don't have to like it, but if you think getting rid of Netanyahu is going to change that, you are wrong. What might change is the government policy regarding settlements in the west bank, but it won't stop the war. The most likely person to replace Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, is more eager to enter Rafah than Netanyahu.
I think we should still take notice that polls can be manipulated and we have to be careful with the wording. Also people are prone to agreeing to good sounding abstract things but then disagreeing and voting or acting in another way when it comes down to it.
As far as I can tell, the evidence that getting rid of Netanyahu will drastically ramp down of Israeli military policy just does not exist. The only way to support that view is to ignore all the evidence that is available. People may not like Netanyahu, but they don't dislike him because he is fighting Hamas, and they don't dislike them because he is not agreeing to a Palestinian state.
Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but I don't see widespread condemnation for current EU and US censorship of the Russian propaganda outlet RT, and to be quite frank, I think it should be censored. The right to free speech does not extend to people who are not subject to a countries laws, and I don't see why it should.
I'm not condoning all past actions of the US or EU, but censoring fake news and propaganda that is controlled by groups or nations that want to destroy you seems like something that is reasonable to do.
After rt.com et al were blocked in the EU they also kept working for a few more week/months before I had to use a mirror/VPN to read the new paper of "the enemy".
Side note: I though being able to read the news of the enemy was testimony to the moral high ground of a "modern free and democratic society". No more moral high ground if you are trying to shape the perception of the public with censorship.
I personally don't support blocking Al Jazeera. It's not that I'm a fan of them or any news station operated under a dictatorship without free press. It's clear that Al Jazeera acts as the propaganda wing of the Qatari government, and Qatar, being one of the main sponsors of Hamas, uses it to effectively spread Hamas propaganda. However, the real question is what does blocking them achieve. Does it stop their influence? No. Does it make them harder to watch here? No. Are the people advocating for their blockage even watching it? Likely not. It's mostly done because it's something the government can claim to have achieved for what remains of their base. I'm skeptical that the blocking of the website will actually occur, as it will probably be challenged in court.
Regardless, in a democracy, internet censorship is a slippery slope, and for that reason, I am against it in most cases.
The sponsoring of Hamas by Qatar has happened with approval from Netanyahu. Until October 7th of course.
And the reason that Hamas headquarters are in Doha, is because the US government requested that in 2011.
I'm not going to defend Bibi and his government. They have made and continue to make many decisions I disagree with. Like the vast majority of Israelis, I think we should go to elections sooner rather than later.
However, this does not change the fact that now there is an active war between Hamas and Israel most Israelis dislike Al Jazeera because they perceive to be part of the propaganda wing of Hamas with Qatar's support.
Of course it does? Most people are not going to go out of their way for it unless they have specific reasons to do so. What's on/available by default matters. (Ask any UX specialist.)
I should know better, my wife is a UX specialist!
You make a good point. What I should have said is that it won’t stop people who really want to watch it.
But then that isn't the goal: totally preventing you from ever seeing Al Jazeera or somesuch. As you noted: that'd be curtailment of freedoms only befitting dictatorships. Nobody wants that.
Making it slightly more difficult to consume outright propaganda by not having it front and center; that seems to me to be a very much acceptable move for democratic and free states to make in the context of information warfare.
The Qatari government has been hosting Hamas at the request of the United States and Israel, which want to use Qatar as an intermediary (similarly to how Qatar facilitated talks between the US and the Taliban).
Al Jazeera has more journalists on the ground in Gaza than anyone else. They're some of the only independent media there (because Israel has blocked international media from entering, but Al Jazeera already has people there). If you want to know what's going on in Gaza, you watch Al Jazeera.
The state's enemy isn't my enemy. Consider the case of Edward Snowden. Journalism is still valuable even if you disagree with the person's motives or aims.
No, but Russia is my enemy, and should be the enemy of everyone who cares about a liberal world order based on law, not might.
And in the case of RT, they had left even the pretence of journalism a long time ago. But I agree with those that say we should not have banned them. When we try to defend our liberal world order with censorship, we are certainly throwing out the baby with the bath water.
There has never been a situation where all had more equal access to speech than today. Printing presses were expensive and complicated machines, and distributing handbills was far slower and riskier than tweeting.
Today, anyone can make a website. If they say enough interesting things, they'll get eyeballs. Even if those things are false, and even if the algorithms of the walled gardens want to suppress them, they'll still get out.
I think perhaps you're underappreciating the difficulty of physical distribution. Having one's voice heard has always been the domain of the rich and powerful. Sure, platforms control promotion and discoverability today, but I doubt that gives them more strength to control dissenting views than was available in the days of the printing press.
It's a heck of a lot harder to effectively eradicate physical media than digital.
F.ex. if I shower a town with 250 physical leaflets + I post on all the major platforms, and immediately people of power attempt to suppress them, which do you think results in more people seeing them?
Well I think it depends on the situation. If you're trying to post something they have already built good defenses against (e.g. child porn, or maybe mocking the king of Thailand), you'd probably have better luck with the handbills, but then you'd also have a better chance of getting arrested. If you are posting something that isn't automatically suppressed, I bet social media would still get you more reach.
You're missing the third option however. Start your own blog, then just post links on all of the major social medias, and especially on some of the minor ones. Once your link hits the right Signal groups or Truth Social followers or whatever, it will fly around way faster than any samizdat ever could.
> And in the case of RT, they had left even the pretence of journalism a long time ago.
What is RT doing that is not found in FOX, NBC, CNews.fr, Hayom?
> liberal world order based on law, not might.
This is a facade. The talking point the NATO/US/west uses, while they violate every such rule when they see fit. You may be interested in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer
This is exactly one of the Russian talking points. "You see, we might have invaded a few neighbour countries with the intention of annexing the territories, but look at NATO, they are equally bad because they invaded Iraq." (NATO didn't invade Iraq, the US did with the help of UK, Poland, and Australia)
I can't take someone (like Mearsheimer) who warns that Germany again is likely to try to invade Europe even a little bit serious. He clearly knows nothing about contemporary German politics, culture, or how well they are doing manufacturing and trading.
> This is exactly one of the Russian talking points.
Calling something a "Russian talking point" does not make it less true. Russia would not have invaded if (combination of factors): Ukraine did not have ethnic Russians that were being oppressed (see the Odessa union house massacre), Ukraine did not want to go NATO, Ukraine was not a safe haven of anti-Russia fascists (see the enormous statue for Bandera in Lvov -- bizarre how that's allowed in an "EU ally"). Minks agreements were "just to give Ukraine time to build military" said Merkel (a guarantor of the agreement). Russia was cheated by the west, and behaves accordingly, if you ask me.
> who warns that Germany again is likely to try to invade Europe
> Ukraine did not have ethnic Russians that were being oppressed (see the Odessa union house massacre)
This has ceased being a valid casus belli in the developed world since 1945.
Annexation of a neighboring state's territory isn't justified by purported ethnic persecution.
Not least, because it's historically been the most common manufactured lie to justify war.
> Ukraine did not want to go NATO
Since when does Russia get a say in other sovereign countries' decisions?
Last I checked at the UN, Russia (and China) were big supporters of countries' ability to do whatever they wanted within their own borders (external complaints be damned).
> Ukraine was not a safe haven of anti-Russia fascists
> anti-Russia
Hard to forget the 4 million Ukrainians the USSR purposefully killed during the Holodomor. [0]
When a country does something to an ethnic group that ranks with the Holocaust, it shouldn't be surprised when people are anti-it.
>> fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition [1]
> exalts nation and often race above the individual
How's the glorification of Russkiy Mir going? Or the vilification of non-Russian ethnic minorities?
> stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader
How long has Putin been president or prime minister?
> severe economic and social regimentation
How many state-owned enterprises are there in Russia?
And what inalienable freedom of speech and association rights do Russian citizen have?
> forcible suppression of opposition
How many opposition candidates ran in the last election?
If Russia is looking for fascism, it might want to start with a mirror.
Because it is a pejorative generalization. Some people are susceptible to labels like "the migrants" and short circuit their reasoning when confronted with eg. articles from RT or aljazeera "must be fictious enemy propanda".
because they not my enemy. they dont threaten me. imho NATO threatens them by trying to extend into ukraine/georgia and making color revolutions on their borders.
They are my enemy. I’m living in a country with borders less than 300 km from Russia.
NATO wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for Russia. The only reason Russia’s neighbours strive to join NATO is because Russia’s habit of invading them when they don’t behave exactly as Russia wants them too.
> I though being able to read the news of the enemy was testimony to the moral high ground of a "modern free and democratic society".
Sure, if you believe your own (or more accurately: most liberal democracies') propaganda. But it really depends on how invested that enemy is in convincing your citizens to side with it. It turns out that "freedom of speech" ultimately is a losing strategy against an enemy that's excellent at abusing speech (which is another way of saying they have a good understanding of psychology, rhetorics and deception).
The successful way to engage with propaganda is not to let it sit alongside reality[0] but to contextualize it with reality. A widely known example in US news coverage for the former is showing "both sides of the debate" on issues like global warming or evolution: merely giving it an equal weight gives it equal presence in public perception and legitimizes it. Contextualizing means being explicit about which side you agree with and explaining why the given argument by the other side is wrong.
Of course the problem with effective propaganda is that it's not simply misinformation which can be contrasted and dissected easily but disinformation that not only shields itself against analysis but actively disrupts any attempt at analysis. Russian propaganda legitimizing the invasion of Ukraine for example (and this isn't new, this is literally a continuation of Soviet Union psychological warfare) used multiple mutually contradictory conflicting narratives which effectively drown out any other narrative by not only giving a manufactured alternative equal weight but giving equal weight to multiple alternatives, like a DDoS attack on information.
[0]: Of course we can debate what "reality" means but no matter the overarching narrative or the individual justifications, it's nearly impossible to avoid agreeing on things like "Russia sent ground troops in the direction of Kyiv within Ukranian borders" even if you might have different explanations of why that happened or what the intention behind that was or whether it constitutes a military attack.
Of course the irony is that in this case the side most heavily relying on disinformation seems to be Israel given its various contradictory official claims on social media. But arguably their application of it is nowhere near as effective. It's also worth mentioning that not only did the EU kick out Russian state-owned media but Russian television is also heavily censored and legal access to foreign news sources very limited. So the answer to "Who's engaging in censorship?" in this case seems to be "Everyone, to varying degrees". That implies this has never been a meaningful moral distinction, no matter what bleeding heart liberals and free speech libertarians may claim.
It does not provide source data, just the calculated results presented. There is also a methodology link, which points to different pages, depending on the year selected
I know it's a bit unrelated to this exact person, but this is how you get terrorists.
Imagine some foreign worker in europe/us, losing all his family this way until s/he literally has nothing left to lose, while the politicians in your new country brag about helping the killers of your family with more weapons and money.
Then when someone like that decides to bring the "war" to europe/us, and shoots/bombs/... some people, we all act as if "how is this possible?", "who could have radicalized him like that?" etc. Well, we did.
Gaza is being leveled to the ground, and thousands of innocent people are killed. Many of the boys who witness that will become terrorists when they grow up, because from their perspective and lack of education - it seems right to respond to violence with violence.
As much as it hurts even writing it, I don't think its a rare story there these days. History will not look kindly at both sides here, they really have no higher moral ground than the other
>History will not look kindly at both sides here, they really have no higher moral ground than the other
There are four sides here: the Israeli government, Hamas, Israeli citizens, and Palestinian citizens. The first two are the active combatants. The third group were victims in October. The fourth group are still victims today. Killing unarmed and non-hostile citizens is absolutely immoral. Acting in such a reckless way that the majority of casualties are citizens is still immoral.
History will look harshly on Hamas for slaughtering thousands of Israeli citizens, and Israel for slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens. No rational person should think those citizens were at fault.
Compared to other recent conflicts like Iraq and Checnya war etc, the collateral damage in Gaza is pretty good. Israel have done a good job at minimising civilian deaths, if Hamas didn't frustrate the civilians efforts to evacuate or let civilians shelter underground with them, the numbers would be a lot lower still.
The horrendous civilian casualties we are seeing in Gaza are not collateral damage, or otherwise unintended byproducts of the operation. They are the coolly chosen effective means -- along with the destruction of housing, hospitals, schools and so on -- of promoting its expressly stated goal: what the government refers to as "humanitarian emigration" from the Strip.
As articulated by Likud MK / Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel back in January:
On Tuesday, Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel told Zman that “voluntary migration is the best and most realistic program for the day after the fighting ends.”
On Tuesday, during a conference held in the Knesset to examine possibilities for postwar Gaza, Gamliel said: “At the end of the war, Hamas rule will collapse. There are no municipal authorities; the civilian population will be entirely dependent on humanitarian aid. There will be no work, and 60% of Gaza’s agricultural land will become security buffer zones.”
Gamliel said that Gaza must not be handed over to the Palestinian Authority, and Gazans must not be left in the Strip to be educated to hate, as that would mean that further attacks on Israel are only a matter of time. While rejecting the PA’s return, the government has offered few details on what political entity it wants to rule Gaza.
“The Gaza problem is not just our problem,” Gamliel said. “The world should support humanitarian emigration, because that’s the only solution I know.”
I think this is absolutely right, so please don't take this as a disagreement with the point you made.
But what I think a lot about is the precursor years to these kinds of events. I have a deep well of sympathy for the people of Gaza who have long despised being governed by Hamas, but haven't been able to figure out how to throw them off. They knew Hamas was a disaster waiting to happen, they could see it coming, but still couldn't stop it. And just the same for the opposition in Israel, who have come so close to getting rid of Netanyahu and his ilk on so many occasions. They knew he was a disaster waiting to happen too.
I just recently had a friend tell me that many of their Israeli friends and family are leaving the country in disgust. But of course that means that they won't be there to vote against Netanyahu. By losing, he wins.
And some of the leaders of Hamas, watching from other countries as the people of Gaza are slaughtered, also get to enjoy the spectacle of young people in the west hoisting their flags and chanting their slogans. By losing, they win too.
But what's maddening is that seeing disasters waiting to happen doesn't make it easy to keep them from happening. It can be obvious that it's a disaster waiting to happen to have a presidential candidate in the US refuse to accept the results of elections, and openly plan for an authoritarian consolidation of power, and that might make it less likely to happen, it might make it easier to stop it, but still not easy.
Obvious encroaching disasters can still happen, and frequently do. I hate that!
> No rational person should think those citizens were at fault.
Did you read some sort of an impressive proof for this fact prior to epistemically & cognitively (consciously &/or subconsciously) upgrading it to Objectively True? Because for something to be labeled as True in a strict system of logic, it requires a proof.
Note also that Consensus Belief of Truth is not identical to Proven Truth, even though it typically appears that way due to our cultural conditioning.
The moral high ground is for the rich and safe. Both Israel and the Palestinians are under real threats and thus do not care much for morality that is disconnected from PR.
Terror is an extremely good tool to dispose of foreign power that takes economic interest in an area, as it makes the endeavor unprofitable. But backfires horribly when it is a local hegemon.
I don't think so, it's rare that you have such an extreme power imbalance in conflict, only for it then to be viewed as "both sides are equally bad" a hundred years later. We just have a skewed perspective on the proportionality of violence -in the present day-, we tend to gain context over time. Like we can judge a larger struggle over many decades as a congruent whole, instead of only the narrow present instance of a conflict.
This also explains why there are so many historical examples of people in the past seemingly be so obviously on the "wrong side of history". It's not that they didn't have largely the same morals than most people today, it's more a cognitive dissonance.
Do these numbers distinguish between journalists killed while doing journalism vs journalists killed as collateral damage not in the capacity of a journalist vs combatants who were journalists prior to picking up a gun and joining the war?
I feel like its very hard to draw any conclusions from these numbers without distinguishing between those cases (other than of course that war is a tragedy and innocents generally pay the price of war).
Isn't it any less worse that 170+ journalists were killed among the 30,000+ civilians?
And no, it's unlikely these are journalists who picked up a gun - the IDF is dropping up to 2,000 Lbs bombs, and that's possibly how many are killed; however there have been many reports of journalists homes being targeted in direct strikes, at least one journalist I heard who's wife and children/whole family were killed but he wasn't.
It's not surprising in reality if it's 170+ journalists amongst 30,000+ killed.
There are videos of IDF soldiers harassing and brutally assaulting journalists, if that's any indication of the rules of engagement they subscribe to; I'm obviously not linking to any here on HN - this topic is already a minefield.
What HN is missing is going one layer up, where all of the various points brought up are catalogued-organized - and then allow a second round of discussion, perhaps with a more sophisticated UI/UX for people (from "both"/all sides) to contribute things like citations to evidence/data support the claim/statements, etc; and then those cited sources and data could also then be another layer deeper to constrain or contain further contextualized-narrowed conversation to the analysis of those sources.
> Isn't it any less worse that 170+ journalists were killed among the 30,000+ civilians?
Yes. One is a clear cut war crime, the other is not. (Or at least not in and of itself. There are of course factors that could make those civilian deaths be a war crime, but it depends on the circumstances.)
(To be clear, what i am saying is that intentionally targeting journalists (who have not picked up a gun and joined the fight) is an unambigious war crime. Killing journalists incidentally while targeting something else may or may not be a war crime depending on all sorts of factors)
I consider things that are war crimes to be much worse than things that are not. So i do think there is a big difference between the two scenarios.
I think its also important to recognize that this sort of thing has huge propaganda value for the Palestinian side, so its important to be careful when evaluating circumstantial evidence (and to be clear i would say that about any side in any war when it comes to information that makes their oponent look bad). As the saying goes, truth is the first casualty of war. It can be very difficult to know what is going on in the middle of a conflict.
Israel has a history of intentionally targeting journalists (such as the American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli snipers, despite being very clearly identified as a journalist).
It's also the case that more generally, Israel's practice of dropping 2000-pound bombs on civilian areas is a war crime. Any targeting of civilian areas has to weigh the military gain against the damage to civilians, and Israel is not doing that. It has emerged that Israel is knowingly targeting buildings where it knows hundreds of civilians will die, just to kill one individual who is suspected of being associated in some way with Hamas. Israel specifically targets suspected Hamas associates when they're at home. These people are identified based on a pattern of behavior and things like cell-phone data, without Israel even knowing whether they really are combatants.[0] In this conflict, Israel has completely taken the gloves off and quite obviously does not care about civilian casualties.
I did not read the whole thing, I read far enough to realize the methodology was garbage. The article basically says anyone ever associated with Hamas or resisting the IDF is a legitimate military target. Let's try switching that around. Anyone who served in the IDF or spoke positively of a successful attack of Israel against Palestine is a legitimate military target and not a journalist? No, this is obviously nonsense. I'm pretty sure at this point, there's almost nobody left in Gaza that hasn't said a few epithets towards Israel... that doesn't make them military targets.
Al Jazeera getting banned tracks with the current Israel government not being a huge fan of journalism.
> Anyone who served in the IDF or spoke positively of a successful attack of Israel against Palestine is a legitimate military target and not a journalist?
This very specific point is made almost always by Hamas and co to justify indiscriminate firing of rockets into populated areas. "No civilians because everyone has done military time or is a reservist, even women" is a very, very common point.
You conflate average Gazans who "said a few epithets towards Israel" with those who "promoted and celebrated terrorism and the death of innocent civilians".
Gaza Health Ministry numbers are a reliable floor, as confirmed by numerous organizations like the US State Department. The real count probably above 100k dead so far.
I will say that both analysis seem really repugnant. Specially the first one that first acknowledges the obvious limitation that "only a third of Gaza’s hospitals are even partially functional", to then push the idea that the MOH trying to work under that limitation is an attempt of manipulation. It's absurd to think that releasing less numbers would paint a more accurate picture; but I guess some side would appreciate if people stop counting the dead.
I don't think this is true. Can you refer to the US State Department official position on this? It's true that in previous conflicts the numbers were in the ballpark but the breakdown between e.g. combatants and civilians was not. This conflict is very different so I don't think we should be extrapolating.
They are correct in saying it's a reliable floor. From AP:
>HOW DOES THE MINISTRY ARRIVE AT A DEATH TOLL?
>Gaza’s most widely quoted source on casualties is Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra. From an office at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, al-Qidra receives a constant flow of data from every hospital in the strip.
>Hospital administrators say they keep records of every wounded person occupying a bed and every dead body arriving at a morgue. They enter this data into a computerized system shared with al-Qidra and colleagues. According to screenshots hospital directors sent to AP, the system looks like a color-coded spreadsheet divided into categories: name, ID number, date of hospital entry, type of injury, condition.
Given this, it is entirely possible that there are additional dead that otherwise do not make it to the hospital morgue, those lost in rubble, those left behind, or cases were the violence was so great there is no body to note. To your question Hamas has made a point to be conservative and validate the death tolls, meaning that there are likely a great number of dead that don't reach these standards and are not counted.
Is media worker always a journalist? The list seems in disagreement with the other list. Also if you work for Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad are you a journalist? Where does that line pass? Are IDF media people journalists or are they soldiers? Either way, even by the most generous interpretation not everyone on that list is a journalist. e.g. a "a sound engineer working for the Gaza’s Hamas government owned Al-Rai radio and freelancing for other local radio stations" is not a journalist.
I would trust the list a lot more if there was a reference to their work. Are they published journalists? The list says nothing about what media they worked for. Random e.g. on the list uses Al Jazeera as a reference:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/1/8/israel-war-...
"Gaza’s Government Media Office has confirmed the deaths of two more Palestinian journalists – Abdullah Baris and Muhammad Abu Dayer"
A journalist should mean "a person who writes for newspapers, magazines, or news websites or prepares news to be broadcast.", is there a list that includes what newpapers, magazines, or news websites those people worked for?
I drilled down the wikidata reference link from the article. Some of the people have some references to them being journalists. Others don't.
EDIT: Btw the list of clarifications in the bottom of the CPJ source is also interesting.
"CPJ has removed two Israeli journalists, Shai Regev and Ayelet Arnin, from this list after their outlets confirmed that the journalists were not on assignment to cover the music festival, nor did they have any opportunity to begin reporting on the attack by Hamas militants that killed them on October 7. CPJ’s global database of killed journalists includes only those who have been killed in connection with their work or where there is still some doubt that their death was work-related."
I don't see any evidence that the Gazans reported killed were killed in connection with their work.
"After receiving reports that Palestinian journalist and presenter Alaa Taher Al-Hassanat may have survived the attack thought to have killed her, CPJ has removed her name from its casualties list pending further investigation." - so people are sometimes reported killed but aren't.
"CPJ has removed a Palestinan man, Mohamed Khaireddine, from this list. Khaireddine was previously identified as a journalist, but his family later clarified that he was neither a journalist nor a media support worker." - so we have people reported as journalists by someone ... but aren't.
also: "The list below is CPJ’s most recent and preliminary account of journalist deaths in the war. Our database will not include all of these casualties until we have completed further investigations into the circumstances surrounding them."
Are we all of a sudden still blindly trusting Wikipedia as a trustworthy-authoritative source because it's structured information?
Here's an example of how the IDF treats people who are clearly journalists:
Arguably behaviour of a Gestapo, no? The "wolves in clothing" aspect of this is quite the mind fuck once enough puzzle pieces come together and you realize what's realy going on; and where it makes sense that such deceit as a strategy, long-time, long-running, and long-form propaganda as a psychological manipulation strategy is the only way you can get to this stage of fascism that we're seeing with this current Israeli government.
Repeat behaviour, a pattern by Israel/IDF reminds me of this quotes that general go something like this: it's never the well-intentioned who want-demand censorship.
Conclusions,
We actually have the opportunity this time to stop this fascist regime in its tracks before 10s to 100s of millions of people die.
Unlike during NaZi Germany anyone who spoke up could quickly be visited by Gestapo, first reported on by 60%+ of their neighbours, and so were easily found.
Today with the internet that is still free enough - where information and evidence can rapidly be studied and curated before distribution - where there are simply too many people already who starting from the comfort of their own homes are able to see and share the truth, or at least present a different perspective - and ideally engage in long-form conversations and see if the person they're engaged with is intellectually honest or not, able to learn and incorporate new information when cognitive dissonance is triggered; there is still suppression going on as part of the "war"-control effort - an attempt to keep specific channels of indoctrinated ideologues kept in bubbles and "ideally" unexposed to questions and thought exercises that would start them down a line of thinking to shatter the veil of the propagandists.
- A short interview clip where it's mentioned that the Gaza bureau Chief of Al Jazeera - his wife, son, and daughter were killed in a strike; was it targeting the journalists' home and that's why it happened, or it was from their indiscriminante bombing of Gaza; which by the way, they're likely killing all of the hostages, too, right?
- So people who support these bombardments are also supporting killing their own citizens - "kill Hamas at all costs" seems to include murdering people that could have been you.
I honestly can't follow the line of your argument. You say "truth" but then you say "different perspective". Which one? You say engage in long form conversation but you're not really engaging in conversation here. You say shatter the veil of the propagandist but you're engaging in propaganda yourself.
I commented here because the truth is not being told about the number of journalists killed in Gaza. That number is artificially inflated and used as propaganda. You're misdirecting to the family of Al Jazeera bureau chief. He was not killed by the way (you seem to imply he was). I don't know the circumstances related to that attack so I can't comment on it. Lots of innocent people were killed in this war and the blame lies squarely on Hamas.
Your comment about the hostages is intellectually unfair. Given Hamas' attack on Oct 7th it is Israel's right to eliminate that threat. Given the situation on the ground and the goal of minimizing casualties to your own side you're inevitably going to see something that looks very similar to what you've seen. There's no way to use massive military force against an enemy like Hamas under the conditions as they exist in Gaza without that.
But even ignoring that, do see you Hamas returning those hostages? There's precedence here, they've held Gilad Shalit for 5 years and they've been holding Avre Mengisto ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avera_Mengistu ) since 2014. Given the combination of the imperative to eliminate Hamas for Israel's security and the fact Hamas would not release hostages unless it is forced to then there's no a lot of wiggle room here. I'm pretty sure Israel is trying to avoid killing hostages which is probably why the Hamas leadership is still alive.
Your comparison to the Gestapo and the Nazis just shows me you know nothing about either. But hey, what else can we talk about on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day. If you do want to compare someone to the Nazis try Hamas, a much better fit.
Unfortunately you can't "see the truth" from the comfort of your home on TikTok. You're seeing what some people want you to focus on. You need to step back, look at the whole picture, not just specific events, and use some critical thinking skills to fit everything, not just one event, to a reasonable theory of what is going on.
If you're interesting in how Hamas treats journalists here's some resources:
I find it difficult to tell how their reports translate to objective numbers. For example, the United States’ ranking fell from 45 to 55 in the last year. Here are the reports for those years:
As far as I can tell, the only negative differences between these two reports are that a reporter was killed while investigating a murder by the murder suspect (who is now in jail and on trial), and that Biden “has come under criticism for failing to press US partners like Israel and Saudi Arabia on press freedom.” Falling ten places is a significant change (and is called out in the preface to the whole report)—are these two things really enough to justify such a change, or is the ranking sourced from more data not present in the report?
Here’s another story about Reporters Without Borders, about the first time I dug into one of their publications. In 2018, I read a report they published listing the six most dangerous countries for journalists: India, Yemen, Mexico, Syria, Afghanistan, and the United States. It described how in Mexico journalists are executed by cartels and organized crime, how journalists in Yemen die in prison due to mistreatment, how in Syria journalists were killed in airstrikes and taken hostage by Islamic militants, how in India Hindu nationalist mobs would run down journalists with trucks… and how in the US, four journalists were murdered by a stalker angry at a 2011 story the newspaper had published (subsequently jailed, tried, and found guilty of mass murder); and two more were killed by a falling tree. Somehow these two cases were enough to warrant the United States being called out with the other five countries. And it made the headlines everywhere, of course, because it was the midst of Donald Trump’s presidency.
It's a ranking, so presumably part of the US dropping is due to other countries improving. There is another major negative change noted though - more newspaper closures and huge layoffs at news organizations. It also sounds like the Sociocultural section might be partially based on polling of trust in media, which could have dropped, but I don't know where to look into that more.
The 2018 report you're talking about is here: https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/worldwilde_round-up.pdf. The list is not the most dangerous countries for journalists, but the most deadly - a straightforward measure of how many journalists were killed in each country. They publish this every year and the US is usually not on it, but this year someone murdered 4 journalists because of their reporting. I'm not sure how they could make this more objective, and I can't think of any metric that would include murders committed by angry men in cartels or angry men with SUVs in India but not angry men with shotguns in America.
Obviously the falling tree is not reflective of the journalistic climate in the country, but if they had been the only two the US would not have been listed. The mass shooting is what put it within the same neighborhood as Mexico and India.
> It's a ranking, so presumably part of the US dropping is due to other countries improving.
Is that the case? Do the other countries’ entries in the report reflect that?
> I can't think of any metric that would include murders committed by angry men in cartels or angry men with SUVs in India but not angry men with shotguns in America.
One such metric would be whether a country’s justice system arrests and puts the perpetrator on trial, as happened with the American murder and presumably didn’t happen in the case of Mexican cartels or the Indian mob.
Yes, the following countries improved their scores between 2023 and 2024 and passed the US (71.22 -> 66.59) in the ranking: Chile (60.09 -> 67.32), Ghana (65.93 -> 67.71), Poland (67.66 -> 69.17), Fiji (59.27 -> 71.23), Armenia (70.61 -> 71.6), Slovenia (70.59 -> 72.6), Mauritania (59.45 -> 74.2), Suriname (70.62 -> 76.11).
I agree that whether or not perpetrators are tried is relevant to the country, but I don't agree that it's relevant to this metric or to the dead journalists. They don't come back to life if their murderer is imprisoned, and the arrest rate doesn't have any impact on how dangerous it was to be a journalist that year. If they were to do a forward-looking report on the outlook for journalists in each country in the next 10 years or so, then I do think the effectiveness of the justice system might be relevant.
I don't know how to interpret the front page saying "More than 100 journalists killed in six months in Gaza" directly above a "real time" abuse barometer saying that 12 journalists have been killed worldwide in 2024.
Probably different measuring / classifications at play too. For example, they may be including independent journalists in one set vs only recognized outlets in another.
---
edit, they have the following note in the barometer
> Journalists are listed only if RSF has established that their death or imprisonment was linked to their journalistic activity. The list does not include journalists who were killed or imprisoned for reasons unrelated to their work or when the link to their work has not yet been confirmed.
Netanyahu's ongoing corruption trial looms large over all of this. If he were to lose power, he would be far more vulnerable to conviction and potential imprisonment. So from this vantage point, the Al Jazeera ban could be seen as an act of desperation - muzzling a high-profile critic as a concession to far-right parties, even at the expense of free press principles, all in service of his own political and personal survival.
It paints a troubling picture of a leader whose decision-making is distorted by clinging to power at all costs. Undermining democratic norms to appease extremist coalition partners is a dangerous road that could lead Israel to more illiberal and authoritarian policies, especially toward Palestinians, the Arab media, and domestic dissent.
It was a very strange day yesterday: the whole week coverage had been building up to a meeting in Cairo, Hamas signalled they were going to accept the cease fire.
Saturday AM EST, it was reported that Hamas confirmed they were going to accept the deal. By noon Saturday EST, the "Israel-Hamas War"...idk what to call it, live blog? collection-of-news headline?...was gone for the first time in months.
Israel reporting (not just Haaretz) reported huge, multiple, protests (it was at night there, early afternoon EST) due to Israel rejecting a cease fire. Piecing it together from Twitter natsec people, standard blob, certainly not polarized against israel, Israel didn't even send a delegation to the talks, and the far right Israeli leader said Bibi promised him they wouldn't accept "a rushed deal" (i.e. the cease fire), and people were irate. An irate Israeli TV reporter revealed the anonymous "diplomatic source" promising no deal Friday night was Bibi himself.
The blogs are back up now, with a sort of hurried framing that the talks fell apart because Hamas wanted a permanent cease fire (no mention of any of the above -- I assume that'd complicate it too much for, it needs to be a nice little set piece of Israel vs. Hamas.
It's really, really strange watching the coverage the last week, in America, without any attachment to either "side". I guess its easier to push the A vs. B framing on a new subject, our college kids, rather than trying to explain how any of this makes any sense at all.
"We might agree to a cease-fire for a little bit, but I guarantee you will invade you soon anyway" is not exactly what I'd call good faith language. What's even the point of a cease-fire if you don't at least offer the possibility of something long-term? It's a completely absurd thing to say.
This has long been the problem, with the Israeli government never offering any perspective or hope on a long-term solution.
That seems very good faith and transparent. Bad faith would be saying, 'yeah we are happy with a permanent cease fire', getting all the hostages, and then continuing the assault.
Agree that the logic kind of pushes Hamas into keeping the hostages so not sure what Israel is expecting and most likely Israel has just marked the hostages as dead and will do anything to permanently destroy Hamas and show other potential beligerents that the deterrent strategy is concrete - even though that means a death sentence for most of those hostages still alive.
> open a window for negotiating a permanent ceasefire.
Israeli government already very clearly and explicitly said that this window doesn't exist; that was my entire point. If he had said "we MAY still invade" or anything even slightly more qualified, then sure. But he didn't. Unless something went spectacularly wrong in translation, what I read is that he said in very clear terms that Israel will absolutely invade.
Whether that's just empty threads or not is a judgement call, but it's certainly not the language of good faith.
> But he didn't. Unless something went spectacularly wrong in translation, what I read is that he said in very clear terms that Israel will absolutely invade.
A temporary ceasefire also creates room for the opposition to create pressure to call for elections. That’s difficult to do while a war is ongoing.
I think what you're getting at - and which is the critical thing that seems to keep getting forgotten is the critical situation of the hostages. Everything from both sides is rotating around the hostages and we are still not yet in a classical war so much as an extreme hostage negotiation with many layers of force including jets, tanks, and infantry driving the negotiations.
Well I'm not really "getting at" anything per se, other than point out that the diplomatic behaviour of Netanyahu is not especially brilliant and is kind of sabotaging the negotiations.
I think it is much easier to understand the situation if we take Netayahiu at his own words. He does not want any ceasefire, he has said so in the past, and he keeps saying that now. His actions are consistent with the fact that he does not want any ceasefire, as he tries to vandalize any prospects of a ceasefire, even a temporary one, e.g. by wowing to invade Rafah, even if there is a ceasefire.
The timing of this ban on Al Jazeera is also consistent with his behavior of trying to vandalize any ceasefire talks. Al Jazeera is a Qatar based media company, and Qatar is also the mediator in the ongoing talks. If Netanyahu wanted these talks to be successful he would not antagonize the mediator this way.
No, the Israeli government does not want a ceasefire, neither a permanent one, nor a temporary one. What they want is to make it look like they are making an effort, but only enough to improve the optics. There may be a faction inside the military which actually wants a ceasefire, so perhaps—and hopefully—a ceasefire can be negotiated despite vandalism attempts by the Israeli government, but I’m not hopeful.
In the meantime, I do take Netanyahu at his words, that he does not want a ceasefire, and he wants in invade Rafah, to continue the genocide, and to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.
I agree with most of your comment, but I'll push back on a couple of things:
> No, the Israeli government does not want a ceasefire, neither a permanent one, nor a temporary one.
All the things you wrote before that are things that Israel explicitly says, that it won't agree to a permanent ceasefire. But this statement is your personal opinion, and I don't think it's necessarily justified.
> In the meantime, I do take Netanyahu at his words, that he does not want a ceasefire, and he wants in invade Rafah, to continue the genocide, and to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.
I think your phrasing on this is misleading, since it implies that Netanyahu's words are that he wants to "continue a genocide" and "ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians". That is incorrect. Are words are that he will invade Rafah, the "continue the genocide/ethnic cleansing" thing are your words, not his. (I highly disagree with using those words, but either way, my point stands.)
It's impossible to disagree with -- we have to eliminate the terrorist military leadership that perpetrated a massacre. Why would they get a permanent cease fire?
To your point, in my varied Israeli media diet, it's well-understood in the entire Israeli press that Bibi went out of his way to torpedo it by saying this simple idea over and over. The only question is whether this show he has a spine (willing to lose an eventual vote just to defeat the terrorists), or that he's weak (willing to lose the hostages to retain his political position) A majority is weary of it because the implementation of the specifics is "we will work our way through the refugee camp and then ???" and they feel they've seen that plan before.
We can confirm this is from an unbiased perspective by noting that the protests kicked up a notch, and the TV presenter outed the anonymous diplomatic source as him, and then perusing original sourcing as to why. (to share something I learned re: sourcing, Haaretz will be seen as some interlocutors as a left-wing rag doing performances for overseas audiences, Times of Israel is better)
"transparently" or "allegedly and repeatedly" ? People have been protesting precisely because absolutely no progress have been made towards freeing the hostages, on the contrary. So obviously "return of the hostage" is a simple mantra to which Israeli government pay some lip service. What they actually plan to do with Hamas or Gaza people in general remains to be known, we have all reasons to question every single word coming from them.
By this point these aims appear to have evolved, and it now seems primarily concerned with encouraging what it refers to as "voluntary migration" from the Gaza Strip. And as a secondary aim, to incrementally expand the settlements in the West Bank (in the hopes of securing their eventual annexation).
> Israel reporting (not just Haaretz) reported huge, multiple, protests (it was at night there, early afternoon EST) due to Israel rejecting a cease fire.
Correcting you on this - the protests were not because Israel "rejected a cease fire".
For one thing, these are the same protests that happen every Saturday for the last few weeks of the war, continuing the "tradition" of protests that happened every Saturday for the ~10 months before the war.
For another, Israel didn't "reject" the ceasefire deal, Hamas did, or at least that's the way it is being talked about by Israel itself. There are many reasons to think Israel (and specifically Netanyahu) may have tried to tank the deal, but Hamas are the ones that eventually walked away.
You're right that there's been protests. The claims in the post, not sending a delegation, Bibi's anonymous statements being deanonymized, and the protests this weekend being intensified and a subject hostages families spoke about at the protests are all verifiable.
I share similar view. Israel response is guided by prime minister’s personal political ambitions, while war is ongoing, the leader has more power and less of a chance to be replaced.
He's playing with the same rulebook of Slobodan Milošević - He's trying to make apparent to everybody that if he goes down, his own country will go down with him.
Frankly, it feels like the only hope for an end to this conflict is in the hands of the internal Israeli political opposition. I wouldn't be surprised if he's not stopped, we're gonna see the same... "approach" used with Palestinian people applied to whatever internal resistance is left.
it would be interesting to know to what extent they're aware of what's actually happening in Gaza.
Also, given the vilification we've seen of those expressing sympathy for a two-state solution or the general Palestinian population in the last 30 years, I'd be wary to take at face value any poll without being sure they were done with some sort of guarantee of anonymity.
I'm pretty sure you'd get even more one-sided approval results asking the British about the handling of the Ireland border during the troubles, or the Spanish on the repression of the Basque population after Zaragoza.
I'm pretty sure you're right on that last bit, but I don't think that wouldn't be reflecting the reality in UK or Spain, either. People are generally pretty quick to get into an "us vs them" mode when threatened, and, once there, will come up with increasingly ludicrous justifications even for the nastiest stuff.
And yes, in Israel right now it's probably somewhat affected by social (and sometimes legal) consequences of dissent... but those very social consequences are in and of themselves indicative of supermajority support. Point being, even if it is, say, 65% rather than 80%, that still means that opposition has no power, and so nothing is really in its hands at the moment.
> it would be interesting to know to what extent they're aware of what's actually happening in Gaza
I suspect that most don't know. I've sometimes seen articles in Times of Israel, and although they mention that lots of civilians are getting killed, they also write that this is Hamas health ministry counting, suggesting that the numbers would be made up.
Look here:
> At least 34,596 Palestinians have been killed [...] the Hamas-run health ministry in the Strip says.
> The figures cannot be independently verified and include at least 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle
So, Times of Israel writes as if information provided by IDF would be trustworthy (13 000 gunmen). But from what I've seen, when reading e.g. about the Lavender AI system and IDF's replies, then, the IDF generals and spokespeople lie a lot, and it's better to disregard anything they say.
Someone living in Israel, might be inclined to trust the IDF. However, looking at how many women have been killed, and realizing that a similar number of civilian men have been killed too -- then, more likely, 80%? 90%? of those "gunmen" were in fact civilians, but IDF happily counts each dead man as a terrorist.
(With that said, most Palestinians and AlJazeera readers don't know what Hamas did on October 7. Not all but most Israelis and Palestinians are blind to the bad things that happen to those in the other tribe, know only about the bad things that happened to themselves.)
How big a share of Palestinian media consumption does Al Jazeera have? As in, do the residents of Gaza treat it as the main news source?
The reason for asking is because a poll[0] of Palestinians says “90% believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians during its October the 7th offensive. Only one in five Palestinians has seen videos showing atrocities committed by Hamas.”
So is it Al Jazeera’s fault that Palestinians have not seen the evidence and seem not to think 10/7 was all that problematic? One assumes that if such deliberate distortion/omission was normal practice at Al Jazeera, Israel would be able to clearly point to it. But the justification for the ban is a pretty vague concern about national security.
I think they do, as long as their internet connections are up. At least the Gazans I follow on social media seem to be perfectly aware of the world news. Graffiti tags on refugee tents in Rafah thanking American students for their solidarity seems to support that.
I’ve also read in the past that Al Jazeera is a rather popular media outlet among Palestinians in Gaza.
> Pan-Arab satellite TVs, especially Qatar's Al-Jazeera, are popular. [1]
I know that Shireen Abu Akleh—an Al Jazeera journalist murdered by IDF in 2022—was a superstar among Palestinians, including Palestinans in Gaza.
It's bizarre. Gazan social media happily shows the malls and beach clubs, car dealerships, supermarkets etc, that existed before Hamas started the war. There's literally nothing flag-worthy about my comment asides from it debunking a narrative about Gazan life.
Wow, I did not know until now that 90% (!!!) of Palestinians "believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians during its October the 7th offensive," and "only one in five Palestinians has seen videos showing atrocities committed by Hamas." Are they really so misinformed?
If that's true, it makes sense to ask whether Al Jazeera has been purposely feeding misinformation to the Palestinian population during the war. And it makes sense to ask if that is in any way related by Al Jazeera's funding by Qatar, where the leaders of Hamas live: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/qatar-hamas-israel-1.699941...
Hamas has been in power since 2006 and had reeducated the youth akin to what the hitler youth did. Its no surprise many tow the company line. Majority of people in gaza are under 18 where all they know is that sort of indoctrination.
> did not know until now that 90% (!!!) of Palestinians "believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians
I know some Palestinians, and yes, they seem extremely misinformed, clueless about what Hamas did.
I was surprised after October 7 when they seemed to have had no idea about what had happened. They apparently only knew that IDF had started bombing. I might even guessed 95% instead of 90% "believe that Hams did not ...".
Al Jazeera lies by omission -- by not mentioning what Hamas did, and, if it does, then downplaying the numbers.
The Israeli newspapers lie by omission, too: they don't let their readers know how many civilians Netanyahu and IDF has killed in Gaza. Al Jazeera and right wing Israeli newspapers manipulate the Palestinians and Israelis, respectively.
> ask whether Al Jazeera has been purposely feeding misinformation to the Palestinian population during the war
> The reason for asking is because a poll[0] of Palestinians says “90% believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians during its October the 7th offensive. Only one in five Palestinians has seen videos showing atrocities committed by Hamas.”
I think they have more pressing matters on their mind than getting informed at the moment, such as trying not to starve, finding dead relatives in the rubble of destroyed apartments, and similar things.
Moreover, I think the people of Palestine might be a bit biased against Israel. And I don't think that's an information issue, I think it's a completely natural response to Israel killing tens of thousands of civilian, 70% of whom women and children.
I think if you ask Ukrainian civilians what they think of Russians you'll hear some falsehoods and unreasonable stuff too. That's a completely natural response, and the Ukrainian media is not to be blamed for that.
I don't feel good about this at all, but please keep in mind that there is still serious independent journalism in Israel. And it's doing very well. For example I can recommend pretty much anything published by Haaretz, or Barak Ravid. We should monitor the health of their domestic media should things start going un-democratic there. After all nothing can replace domestic media, this is painfully clear in the case of Russia.
It's worth noting Qatar is the main benefactor of Al Jazeera, while also having funded Hamas for years, and hosting the Hamas leaders in their country. Al Jazeera in English is extremely different from al Jazeera in Arabic where journalism takes a back seat on any item somehow connected to Israel and especially Hamas. Like many of these seemingly weird decisions, there's more to it than "Israel bad".
> having funded Hamas for years, hosting the Hamas leaders in their country
Qatar did both of those things at the request of the US and Israel. Qatar serves as an intermediary between the US/Israel and Hamas, just as it served as an intermediary for talks between the US and the Taliban.
> Like many of these seemingly weird decisions, there's more to it than "Israel bad".
The motivation here is clearly to stop information about what is happening in Gaza from reaching the outside world. Al Jazeera is the only major international news agency with a significant presence on the ground there.
There are also many other foreign journalists in Israel. Other than Al Jazeera there are no restrictions on foreign media from operating in Israel. Certainly not western foreign media.
There are indeed restrictions on western foreign media.
"Like all foreign news organizations operating in Israel, CNN’s Jerusalem bureau is subject to the rules of the Israel Defense Forces’s censor, which dictates subjects that are off-limits for news organizations to cover, and censors articles it deems unfit or unsafe to print. ... the military censor recently restricted eight subjects, including security cabinet meetings, information about hostages, and reporting on weapons captured by fighters in Gaza. In order to obtain a press pass in Israel, foreign reporters must sign a document agreeing to abide by the dictates of the censor."
This seems reasonable to me? If a western press were outside missile factories saying "this is the only place our super missiles are built!" I would expect the department of defence to block that information from being published...
It’s very much legal in wartime, for exactly those sorts of purposes. Though I’m not sure we’ve tested the legality of it in this modern world where nobody actually formally declares war anymore—I don’t think it’s been attempted.
(Please don’t flame thinking I’m hardcore in support of a particular side in this war due to this post—you’ve very likely gotten the wrong impression. I’m commenting only on the narrow point that the US in fact can censor, including with prior restraint in certain circumstances, during war.)
The United States's last declaration of war was 83 years ago. Since then it's been all "police actions" or some such. What meaning does "during war" carry in the world of today?
My understanding is that they put a lot of pressure to block things and sometimes offer quid pro quo and sometimes even implant operatives in certain media positions, but legally they can't just come in and shut it down.
There absolutely are restrictions. No journalists are allowed in Gaza, which is at odds with almost every other conflict in the past hundred years.
The stated reason is "to keep journalists safe". But journalists have risked their lives in many conflicts to bring the news to people, its their choice to risk their life or not. Unless one were to believe that all journalists biased against israel, there is no reason to restrict all journalists. Why not let in Christiane Amanpour, or many other western trained and western paid journalists?
Is this true? I do not think journalists are just allowed to the front lines of any war. The entire Gaza strip seems like one giant front line. There needs to be more journalists reporting but I think just allowing anyone to walk anywhere because they've got 'press' on their jacket is probably just going to end up with dead journalists considering journalists will want to be were the fighting is and will gravitate towards danger.
War correspondents have been around since at least the French revolution.
Article 79 of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions provides for protection of war correspondents to the level of civilians.
That seems very reductive to just say that as if it is a fact. 90% of the claims I've seen about the IDF end up being just nonsense. I did pay very close attention to what happened with Shireen Abu-Akleh and I think that was definitely not dealt with in a satisfactory way.
"not dealt with in a satisfactory way" is exactly the justification that IDF has used after many similar circumstances. Let's say they just don't care, since there are no repercussions.
We should also keep in mind the Palestinians refused to allow the IDF to conduct its own forensic investigation. That's partly why the was no definite conclusion from the investigation into the matter. You can't demand that Israel investigate and then not enable it to do so.
"The US State Department subsequently announced on July 4 that tests by independent ballistics experts under U.S. oversight were not conclusive about the gun it was fired from but that US officials have concluded that gunfire from Israeli positions most likely killed Akleh and that there was "no reason to believe" her shooting was intentional. US investigators had "full access"[138] to both IDF and PA investigations.[139][140][141] The Palestinian Public Prosecutor's Office disputes the US conclusion that the bullet cannot be matched to a gun and maintains its position that the killing was premeditated.[142] On July 5, the US stressed that it did not conduct its own probe, but the conclusion was a "summation" of investigations by the Palestinian Authority and Israel.[143]" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh#Subsequent_i...
> According to Reporters Without Borders' tally, at least 105 [journalists] have so far [since October 7th] been killed by Israeli airstrikes, rockets and gunfire, including at least 22 in the course of their work.
Were they killed "for sport" (implying deliberate targetting)? With almost 35,000 dead, 105 journalists is about 0.3% of that. Seems about right as "normal" casualties.
Look, I have a lot of criticism about not just this war, but how the Palestinian people have been treated over the last 60 years. But you can't just say things like "they're targetting journalists for sport" and then pivot to this type of stuff when pressed.
I’m not the person you were originally interacting with, so I wasn’t “pivoting” - sorry to cause confusion!
There’s not really any doubt that the press feel they’re targeted, I think some have gone on the record about it. I don’t know how well we can really test such a claim absent the cooperation of the IDF, which will never happen.
My comment is meant to be a joke about how some of this stuff is grimly academic. If your army has enough xenophobic misanthropes and incompetent reservists who are willing to shoot at anything not wearing their uniform, the notion of a class of people being “targeted” is rendered redundant.
The Hebrew-speaking hostages who were killed while trying to surrender were just one aspect of this conflict that someone writing a really dark antiwar comedy might have come up with.
> My comment is meant to be a joke about how some of this stuff is grimly academic.
Well it's not "academic" if it occupies quite a bit of the public debate, and it's also not helpful if it's actually fairly easy to debunk, and is just fuel for the "they will make up anything to make us look bad" line. All of that energy can and should be spent elsewhere.
For those who aren't familiar with this, after the IDF shot American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to death, Israeli security forces attacked her funeral procession. There's a video of Israeli soldiers physically beating the pall bearers, and the coffin nearly falling to the ground.[0]
> Israel’s military can continue barring foreign journalists from accessing the Gaza Strip, the High Court said Monday, citing ongoing security concerns after months in which only Gazans or correspondents accompanied by the army have been able to report from inside the enclave.
If you allow "national security" to be used as an excuse to "grant powers" which ultimately just "destroy freedom" then you will end up with leaders who intentionally do a bad job at security in order to access the power that grants them.
If your government cannot protect the country from journalists, then you should force them to resign, and call for new elections.
Isn't that just a crime in and of itself? Wouldn't that entitle the government to just arrest and charge that particular person with these crimes? I think that stands a chance of ending well, or at least, justly.
I’m not sure about “dark day for the media” but it does feel like a dark day for Israel.
Once you’ve established that the government can unilaterally ban a voice for reasons of “national security” you’ve essentially given them a free pass. As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.
Is Qatar a belligerent in the war? Belarus has allowed Russia to use their territory as a point from which to launch both ground assaults and missiles into Ukraine. Hard to say the same about Qatar and Hamas. If Al Jazeera were an Iranian publication the comparison might be more similar.
Israeli news reports and analysts say Qatar has sent more than $1 billion to Gaza over the past decade.
Qatar sent that aid through fuel to the Gaza Strip's Hamas government, which in turn sold it and paid partial salaries. In the past, the money was sent via suitcases stuffed with cash.
Israel allowed these transfers to Hamas. Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say the payments his government approved helped keep the status quo in the Gaza Strip and Hamas from escalating attacks on Israel.
Qatar is not exactly a belligerent but it hosts the Hamas leadership. It has been funding Hamas and other groups. It (partly) funds Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera is considered by some to be its PR/Propaganda arm and has a low standard for factual reporting - https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/al-jazeera/
Israeli enabled money to go in to pay government salaries to prevent Gaza from descending in chaos. That said I think it's a matter of fact that maintaining Hamas as a counter to the PA was part of strategy of the Netanyahu government.
I think pretty much any money going into Gaza should be considered funding Hamas. It either went directly to Hamas or it was taxed or it allowed Hamas not to spent that money. This means Europe and the US also funded Hamas.
The reason for funding was to create chaos, not to remove it. Why else do you fund a group that destabilises the area. Basically Israel wanted Gaza to be more chaotic as they felt it gave them more control.
The decision to pursue power and chaos as opposed to seeking resolution and a path to peace has had obvious consequences.
It’s so interesting that you’ve taken away all agency from the Palestinians, or you believe as an absolute rule that giving someone money automatically makes them do chaotic evil things. And that the encourager of the monetary transaction (not the giver or recipient) is solely responsible for any harm or chaos that ensues.
This whole thread is so strange, people keep claiming Palestinians cannot be trusted to rule themselves, while at the same time accusing Israel of genocide for not giving them the ability to rule themselves.
Hmmm. I don't think I agree with that. It's such a polarized and emotional debate. It could really benefit from being precise with words.
Making everything sound just slightly worse than it is will help rile up the side that feels slighted and it will let the other side just pass the speaker off as a liar. The result is fewer shared facts, more polarization and a more emotional debate.
The truth of war is bad enough. It doesn't need to be stretched.
Is this some kind of rhetorical question? Qatar is the main funder of Hamas regime. And hosting Hamas leadership. They fund Hamas more than Iran, according to Israeli intelligence (which may be wrong but that’s the source we have)
Iran is Hamas' main backer. Qatar funded Hamas with Israel's consent, so it's not really fair to hold this against Doha. (Their continuing to host Hamas' leadership is fair to criticise.)
> Petraeus revealed that Qatar has hosted the Hamas leadership at the request of US
Sure. Hence why I qualified my statement with "continuing." Doha hosting Hamas in '17 was fine. Doha hosting them after October 7 is fair to criticise.
Discovering that request surprised me, it strikes me as pragmatic and forward thinking; it also suggests that Qatar is rather keen to accede to US requests. Has that US policy changed now? If so I would have expected Qatar to expel.
> Has that US policy changed now? If so I would have expected Qatar to expel
Yes. Hamas was seen by even Israel as better than anarchy. That's why they let Doha fund them.
We're now seeing American lawmakers criticising Qatar [1]. That's prompting Dohas to "re-evaluat[e] its role as mediator in ceasefire talks" and weigh "whether to allow Hamas to continue operating [its] political office" [2][3].
> Hamas was seen by even Israel as better than anarchy.
Better then anarchy or better than peace? There is some people on both sides of this conflict which are happy to see it radicalized and I think those people all benefits from the other being strong on the other side.
Better than anarchy and better Palestinians divided between Hamas and the PA is fair statement. Most Israelis don't believe any Palestinians have an interest in peace (I don't have a survey handy but I'm sure we can find one) and their actions reflect that belief. But if you can make a reasonable argument how defunding Gaza would result in peace then I'd be interesting in hearing it.
All that said, the actions taken by the Israeli right are certainly not helping the possibility of a future peace agreement, but it's not clear whether this specific action belongs in that group. One might argue that a stronger central authority in Gaza means there is a partner for a future agreement and that if Gaza can transition to be a more peaceful place (and it seemed to be heading in that direction) that would also support a future agreement.
Yes, my (probably somewhat poor) understanding is that Israel actions over the past years tended to favor Hamas and weaken PA. From declarations I read in the press I can imagine how some people are happy that peace doesn't happen so they can justify eradicating the Gaza inconvenience.
I can point to a laundry list of atrocities committed by US. Should Qatar refuse to host US?
Qatar is not a western country, there is no reason to expect it to buy into western exceptionalism. This is not to defend Hamas but simply to point out that the western double standard doesn’t reach much beyond Europe.
India pays a lot of money to Russia for oil, it doesn't make them a belligerent. China also has close ties, but arguably they've refrained from arming Russia.
Are missiles coming out of Qatar? Are they even supplying arms to Hamas, or do they simply fund the civilian portions of the government?
Qatar plays both sides. They have friendly relations with Hamas, Houthis and Iran.
AlJazeera is known to be untrustworthy on matters of the middle east. Just as BBC is untrustworthy on matters of UK international politics and the NYT [1] can't be trusted on US foreign policy matters.
AlJazeera, NYT and BBC are weapons of mass propaganda just like Globaltimes or RT. The main (and admittedly stark) difference is how often these weapons are deployed.
We definitely did block or at least make them less available, as I recall prior to the invasion RT was commonly on when walking into a hotel room or in Youtube recommendation lists. Post invasion in US I never see it in any hotels or recommended on Youtube... was it censored or maybe just wildly boycotted, not sure... but seems appropriate as a response to me
I don't think you can compare Al Jazeera and RT, because one has been a firehose of bullshit that has literally advocates invasion of Ukraine, and the other does not. As far as I know, Al Jazeera is banned purely because they've been critical of current Israeli policy. There are some reasonable criticisms of Al Jazeera and things they could have done better, but that applies to every media outlet on the planet.
You'd might want to watch some arabic al jazeera. While Al Jazeera English pushes s the progressive post-colonialist narrative in the United States, Al Jazeera Arabic gears the Middle East for a war by pushing a Muslim Brotherhood idea of a Sharia state, Salafism and Jihad.
Both have the same aim, just as Qatar Airways sponsor your flights with oil money so you might fly through Qatar, Al Jazeera pays journalists so they can push Qatar's narratives to Western or Arabic audience. This is highly similar to RT in intent.
Looking from Israel standpoint, it's a news outlet that pushes your enemies propaganda arm videos unfiltered and also uses it to radicalize part of your population
Do you have a link to an article in Arabic where they incite violence?
I've spent a while translating various articles on the Al Jazeera Arabic site from Arabic to English with mistral-7b. Everything seemed to be very fact based, and was emphasising things like civilian deaths, which aligns to what I'd consider public interest.
The Arabic text does consistently use the term شهيد (martyr) to describe Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza, which is the closest thing to biased language I found across multiple articles about Israel and Palestine - but I think that is normal in Arabic for describing even non-combatant casualties and not necessarily reflective of bias given Arabic conventions.
This is obviously a source with a considerable bias, but they link to many concerning examples of Al Jazeera reporting. I personally don’t speak Arabic but anecdotally I’ve heard that the translations are accurate, the bias is manifest in choosing what to translate. This example was especially concerning, exacerbating civilian deaths:
> Al-Jazeera Fabricates Information Designed To Thwart Israel's Instructions To The Gaza Population
>Al-Jazeera broadcast footage of bodies of civilians strewn over a road, presenting them as victims of an Israeli attack against people who had abided by the IDF instructions to evacuate to southern Gaza.[91] Israel in fact had secured safe passage to the south for those civilians who wished to go there, while Hamas exerted pressure on them to remain put in order to use civilians as human shields.[92]
It's normalized enough that even the notoriously secular SDF in Syria uses that term for their own fighters, and not just in Arabic publications, but also in Kurdish ones.
I don't speak Arabic so I can't really judge that; I'm sure there's tons of stuff I'd find distasteful, but being distasteful or even inflammatory (within some limits of reason) should not be outlawed. All I can do is go by articles such as this, which don't really seem to cite the same "firehose of bullshit"-type stuff.
Also note that the Israeli government spends tons of money to push Israeli narratives and viewpoints. That's fine, they're allowed to do that, but we can leverage the same "highly similar to RT in intent" accusations against them. In the end we should judge actions, not intent.
In most of the world outside of the United States, there are laws that relate to the concept of a "defensive democracy". For example the laws that outlaw display of swastikas in Germany are contradictory with freedom of speech but are aimed at denying a democracy being exploited by extreme groups (see ww2).
The discussion here is about the actions of Israel versus Al Jazeera, not a possibility of banning Al Jazeera in the United States or maybe Israeli viewpoints.
Also, I am pretty sure Israeli spendings to push Israeli narratives in the US are minuscule, especially compared to Qatar's.
American citizens are, of course, allowed to have such opinions, but we're not talking about a few citizens here - we're talking about what's considered one of the most influential political lobbyist organizations in US.
AIPAC is nominally funded by "individual donations", but the problem with that it is fairly trivial for a nation-state to fund things in this manner, so it doesn't really tell us anything. And then, of course, there's the question of personal connections: if you have a private person donating huge amounts of money to AIPAC, and they just happen to be heavily involved with the governing political party in Israel, I would consider them an agent of the state of Israel ipso facto even if they don't have such official position (just as I would consider, say, one of Putin's pet oligarchs a Russian agent if they donate money to an American political campaign in their private capacity).
I was not comparing them, and I think this is dishonest to read my comment that way.
I was giving an example of the way democracies around the world restrict free speech in order to defend other rights
This is quite popular in europe and is a result of lesson learned from the nazis
This entire thread started with me saying pretty much the same thing, and using Nazi Germany as an example absolutely implies some form of comparison, especially in a discussion about what specifically Al Jazeera may or may not have done wrong. You can't demand careful language usage from others (in e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40090402https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40088873) and at the same time carelessly throw around stuff yourself.
Well, you can. You're allowed. But at that point I decide to stop engaging. So good day to you.
“because one has been a firehose of bullshit that has literally advocates invasion of Ukraine”
How is that different from CNN/BBC/whatever advocating NATO/US invasions in the last half century? (Serbia, Iraq2, Libya, etc). And more recently Gaza.
They didn't; there was tons of criticism about that, including on the beeb and CNN and everywhere else. You're confusing debate with propaganda. There were enormous protests against the Iraq war in London and other places. Try that in Russia. Never mind Serbia was busy with its own ethnic cleansing campaigns and maybe taking some action about that wasn't entirely a bad thing...
I think there is a huge difference between the government blocking access to a media outlet versus hotels choosing to no longer display said media outlet on their televisions.
AFAIK, there has been no ban. It would probably face some backlash given the First Amendment right to freedom of press. (Though I'm not sure that truly extends to the press of a foreign country?)
>The EU has banned many Russian and Belarussian news sources since the invasion of Ukraine.
I read Clark's Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia (<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RI9PMM/>) right after hearing about YouTube shutting down Russian state media channels. I was surprised to learn in the book of the extent of the freedom of the press in late 18th-century Prussia. A British visitor wrote that people were as free to speak as back home, citing a work that was very critical of the king in the context of Poland. During the Napoleonic wars, despite the existential threat to Prussia from France, at least four newspapers that celebrated Revolutionary France as the next step in human freedom were allowed to publish.
It's always preferable to counter propaganda with free speech. Even liars deserve the opportunity to speak. This is especially true when there is no formally declared war between US/Europe outside Ukraine and Russia.
Freedom of the press is typically considered one of the tenets of a democracy. The vote becomes meaningless if voters cannot be informed, which includes having access to all possible points of view.
If the leaders install autocracy based on majority opinion is that democratic? Because you're essentially describing the government of Iran at that point, led by a Supreme Leader who cannot be voted out, e.g. a very undemocratic system.
Just because people vote for something doesn't make the thing they voted for democratic. Historically people have voted to install a non-democratic government before.
They have always had deep flaws. Under an uncharitable interpretation you could say that they've always been a farce, I won't argue because it's a perfectly valid standpoint if you're demanding or perfectionistic enough. Under a charitable interpretation you could say that perfect democracy is an utopia, the perfect is enemy of the good, and at least many Western democracies tried, and achieved reasonably good levels of freedom and choice by the people.
Whatever the interpretation, I think it's clear that things are degrading fast in the last few decades. I don't think an EU-wide block on Russian media such as RT wouldn't have passed with such indifference 20 years ago.
That's the most worrying to me: not the measure itself, but the indifference from the general population. In fact, I have another comment in this thread saying that block was abhorrent and it's gathering downvotes... In HN, a community where most are well-educated people from the US, a country that has arguably been the staunchest defender of freedom of expression and of the press. I find that worrying. And then there is cancel culture, and other factors, that have eroded effective freedom of speech.
At this rate, in a few more decades Western democracies will be hard to tell in practice from Chinese authoritarianism, which is worrying, because they have better economic projection, more safety, booming infrastructure, a less aggressive foreign policy... Democracy and freedom is basically what makes the West worth it, if we lose it, what's even the point?
Censorship occurs on most of the major platforms, targeting specific topics or phrases, instead of outright banning channels; arguably to be as discrete as possible and not spook the herd, and where Twitter-X is going to allow the most information to flow - arguable more lies, but arguably also more truth.
I did some further research and technically the EU has banned them, but only from being broadcasted and they are supposed to be DNS-blocked but failing to do so is without legal consequences.
To me this is more a discouragement of promotion than any real ban, but I will edit my previous comment.
My wife is Belarussian and was upset she couldn't read her news, that's how I know they banned many websites. They didn't ban the "opposition" websites run from outside Russia/Belarus though :).
That's scary. Perhaps they only block if you try to access the sites regularly?? I wouldn't think my ISP matters (Telia, which one you're on?) but that's possible too.
Did some more tests and seems to be Telia doing the blocking at the ISP level. When I'm connected to the eduroam wifi network (I'm at a university) then I can get to all those sites. When I turn off wifi and use mobile data, via Telia, then they are blocked. If I use mobile data plus a VPN with the location set to Sweden, I can access the sites again. I have Tele2 as my ISP at home, will be interesting to see if that works or not.
I agree this is not good for Israel. A democracy is partly measured by its ability to tolerate voices it does not approve of. Israel should be stronger than this. I agree that using national security as an excuse is a slippery slope.
This is mostly a symbolic move that will make very little difference. Likely it will push Al Jazeera to be more anti-Israeli but I'm sure they can make up (pun intended) for their lack of physical presence in the region. People that want to consume that content in Israel will have no problem (many already get this via satellite).
A by the way is that this can still be challenged in the courts. If Al Jazeera chooses to go to the supreme court I imagine there's a pretty good chance that the decision will get overturned. They might intentionally decide not to do that because that outcome will put Israel in a positive light.
The only justification would be if they are broadcasting government secrets.
Clearly they're not doing that, just criticizing the government.
The obvious next step is outlawing any speech criticizing the government (or rather 'speech that is a threat to national security'), then you've got the same laws as in Russia.
There's plenty of Israeli media attacking the government day in and out. Haaretz, Yedioth, etc.
They were not closed because they're "criticizing the government". They were closed because they're acting on behalf of a foreign agent and spreading propaganda (I think the actual language "is harmed national security"). Qatar is not a free country, it funds Al-Jazeera, it hosts the Hamas leadership.
I know that people in general seems to react strongly negative to government censorship, but I can not avoid seeing it through the light of recent trends of post-truth online censorships that blasted the internet during the last decade. Popularity of censorship is something that seems to go in wave, and outside the US there seems to be more acceptance to government censorship as comparative to platform censorship. In smaller countries the distinction becomes a bit blurry if it is the government doing the censorship, or the ISP's doing it voluntarily, or the dominant market platform making the same decision.
In my own industry I commonly hear people talk about self regulation in order to keep governments from interfering. This has benefits, but it also makes the action of the industry a dialog between government and private sector. Voluntarily removing undesired content is technically not censorship ordered by the government, but it is also not completely separated from the wishes of the government.
Honestly, I kind of think censorship would be a positive thing when applied to people lacking education. Where to draw the line is the issue, but at the least maybe people who didn't finish highschool or get a GED or equivalent shouldn't be exposed to conspiracy theories that they then act on.
> We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners. We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering.
> In the four attacks for which the most complete information about the perpetrators' educational levels is available -- the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the 9/11 attacks, and the Bali bombings in 2002 -- 53 percent of the terrorists had either attended college or had received a college degree.
Yes, propaganda is acceptable during a war, and censorship is a part of that. But Europe is not at war with Russia. They are simply giving material support to one of the belligerents. Outside the context of a declared war, censorship should not happen in so-called democratic societies.
That's quite a blunt viewpoint. Is it possible the situation is more nuanced?
To resort to official declarations of war or lack thereof, to hamstring the US response to widespread dissemination of Russian propaganda is plausible on the face of it.
But consider: the US is under no obligation to facilitate Russian propagandists. To deny them access is a matter for the State Department, as it's dealing with foreign nationals. It's quite routine to deny rights to non-American citizens.
Finally, a declaration of war with Russia could destabilize politics everywhere. Or even, destroy the world. It's disingenuous to ignore that and quibble over the rules, especially since those rules clearly don't apply to foreign governments trying to operate in the US.
> As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.
One of the genuine cultural differences between the US and Israel is that while Americans prefer greater liberty (even if it means less security), Israelis prefer greater security (even if it means less liberty). Which is to say, both cultures appreciate both values, but they have different priorities.
Israel is a country where you will have your bags searched before entering shopping malls or train stations. That Israelis' privacy is violated on a daily basis by other Israelis is popular. There is a sense that the privacy violations are genuinely needed, result in genuine protection, and are not abused by those in power.
I should note that "there is a sense that the privacy violations are genuinely needed, result in genuine protection, and are not abused by those in power" also describes modern Russia, for example.
I think there are limits - when it's a state-run agency that's peddling straight propaganda and not making an effort to produce news content, I don't see why you would let them operate within your borders: looking at you RT.
I think it's neither surprising nor necessarily bad. Just think of how Russia Today was spreading disinformation and propaganda about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Banning them from the EU was certainly in our interest.
I know the whole radical free speech theory where everyone should be able to see all discourses and make their own informed opinion. The thing is, the facts are that propaganda and fake news are super effective. Probably a failure of western democracies to develop critical sense of their citizens, or the lake of preparation to the quick rise of social networks. And now far right are rising in Europe too, of course driven - in part - by Russian propaganda and fake news (and funding too).
So I'm not sure what is the good solution now. I'd be happy if there were more money to fund school and lessons for children to understand how those fake news work. But this is long term. Short term I think I'm okay if we don't have RT in France.
"Short term I think I'm okay if we don't have RT in France."
You do. On the internet. An increasing amount of people are getting their (fake) news now exclusivly online via "alternative" news sources like RT. Banning one of those sources on television will just mean further entrenching of those people. ("see, they don't want the truth to spread" ...)
" I'd be happy if there were more money to fund school and lessons for children to understand how those fake news work."
And aside to lots and lots of crap in the curriculum, there would be enough school time avaiable to teach more of criticial information analysis and media skills. But partial banning of one source seems like the more comfortable solution. Except that this might really hurt us in the long run, if the next source that will be banned, won't be enemy propaganda source, but just a legitimate critical newspaper for example. But secret service will say the enemy funded and influenced them, so off they go.
Some people sees TV as a more serious or reliable source of information than internet, so I think it's fair to avoid having the official propaganda of an hostile country there.
Of course there is always a risk of censorship of real information. As citizens we must be vigilant to what is banned. And our reaction as citizens should absolutely be different depending of wether the ban targets RT or Le Monde (for example).
RT France was still available online after the broadcast ban, but it was forced to move out of France in 2023 after the French government froze its bank accounts. From what I've read, the rt website is also unavailable in France without using a VPN with a proxy outside of the France and a number of other EU countries.
> The thing is, the facts are that propaganda and fake news are super effective. Probably a failure of western democracies to develop critical sense of their citizens,
Something about thermodynamics. Random noise is free. Exposing lies and ascertaining the truth requires structure, observation, flexibility, organization, introspection, correlation, adaptation— a lot of things that take a lot of effort in multiple different ways, that is physically and socially both difficult/expensive and fragile/vulnerable.
Propaganda and fake news are not really different from a sleazy salesman, or an abusive relationship. In the time it takes you to fly a journalist to the scene, speak with and hear the experiences of people on the ground, find patterns and write accurate, digestable descriptions and cite precedents, consult with experts, then with dissenters— So on— In the time it takes you to move just one single step closer to the truth, for an answer that still leaves complex questions and won't satisfy anybody, the liar will already have invented a thousand completely new ways to lie (as well as a couple hundred reasons why you must be the lying one, for disputing them, of course). …Or hired some guy to drive a meat cleaver in your back…
Plus, lies are often directly predatory towards some of the best parts of ourselves too… The desire to trust, and assume good faith, about what other people tell you…
> or the lake of preparation to the quick rise of social networks.
Our mental and social faculties for ascertaining and communicating realities are ultimately encoded in physical structures which tend towards chaos and collapse.
…I suppose it is to be expected that vastly increasing the rate at which information can be "generated" and transmitted would cause the equilibrium to be dominated by r-strategists. ..Ah, fuck.
If we had to ban every media that has said a half truth, we'd have no media at all.
It wasn't in the interest of freedom. Everyone reading it would know it was the russian spin. But now we are not allowed to know what the russians think. After all thinking of them as humans like us is not something we want right?
Times of Israel is the media of a different belligerent in this conflict, why on earth should I trust them to debunk AJ anymore than I should trust AJ to truthfully report on Israel?
The difference is that Times of Israel is privately owned, while Al Jazeera is operated by an authoritarian government. also the information I posted can be found in other places. However, if you think a government that promotes modern slavery is probably a good source for journalism, that's your choice to make.
However, Al Jazeera never corrected the story, just took it down, which is just as OP reported: "We can draw the line when they report proven false information and never apologize for reporting so."
> We can draw the line when they say one thing on English Al Jazeera and another on Arabic Al Jazeera.
The vast majority of media companies that own media in different languages are on Al Jazeera's side of the line then, including most companies that have social media channels in different languages.
> I’m not sure about “dark day for the media” but it does feel like a dark day for Israel.
I would never expect any theocracy to be a bastion of democracy. Israel can't really realize its goals and be free at the same time. Those goals are not compatible.
Lets not forget that the British Govt banned Russia Today from broadcasting in the UK a few years back. Such is their planning and manipulation of events on the global stage!
Russian government literally assassinated or tried to assassinate several people in British territory. That the Russian government's propaganda arm hadn't been given the boot after these spectacular acts of bad faith demonstrates that the UK government perhaps has slightly more dedication to press freedom than you're suggesting.
You can't know to what extent a government will behave, and people will have different limitations and tolerances.
It's why referendums exist - however the more authoritarian a government becomes, the less they want the population voting specifically on issues to maintain more control over policy (and the population), e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Canada
Then let me go on record as saying that I fully support my government and my army's efforts to return the remaining hostages even in the face of double-standard world efforts to legitimize the genocidal, racist, homophobic, and misogynistic Hamas regime.
Can you also go on the record to say what do you think the % odds are that the IDF killed Hamas' hostages (your own fellow citizens) when bombarding Gaza - which they continue to do - which arguably further increases the odds of killing more hostages?
Logically the odds of the hostages being alive would be higher if this wasn't the tactic the IDF decided to use, right?
If I was in command of a military then the hostages would come first, and I would send in soldiers who signed up to potentially give their lives - to exchange soldiers lives for civilians, if need be.
> in the face of double-standard world efforts to legitimize the genocidal, racist, homophobic, and misogynistic Hamas regime.
I ask this question very genuinely: what world efforts are seeking to legitimize Hamas? I have seen a great many pro-Palestinian perspectives but have not seen anything pro-Hamas beyond fringe kooks.
As for double standard… I think the reason you see the double standard is precisely because the comparison is racist, homophonic, misogynistic, etc. Israel is held to a higher standard than neighbouring countries because it’s a liberal democracy as opposed to a theocratic dictatorship. I (as an outsider of course) would think it a great loss for the world if Israel starts to consider Iran to be the bar they have to clear rather than anything higher.
In my experience, most invocations of Israel's right to exist are not functionally asking people to extend some generally accepted principle to Israel, but rather demanding that they accept Israel's existence as axiomatic. My response is usually something along the lines of "I'm not sure any state has a right to exist, or that it's even a meaningful concept to apply to political entities rather than people".
That's often not productive in terms of continuing the conversation, but I'm not trying to be clever or evasive; I genuinely don't understand why I should accept the premise of the question.
> response is usually something along the lines of "I'm not sure any state has a right to exist, or that it's even a meaningful concept to apply to political entities rather than people"
It generally means do they have the rights of a nation-state. That said, I agree it’s a new way of framing the one-state solution.
It gets more interesting if you start to get exposed to enlightening questions to begin critically thinking through:
- Why wasn't Germany divided into half - 50/50 - or even 55% given to the Jewish people [and force the Germans off of their lands that they were on for - whether they were Gestapo and toeing the line as vicious or blind citizens during NaZi Germany] - which would seem to be a fair-reasonable punishment for Germany's authoritarians' behaviour? How fair is that to do to a population who's society was trying to genocide you vs. doing that to a population that had no part in trying to genocide you?
- Why didn't America - where the Israel lobby is arguably the strongest legal influence on the political system, politicians and policy - instead give a large amount of land to the Jewish people in America instead of Balfour Declaration somehow allowing Britain to "give it away"?
Also, there's an unmentioned sentiment usually attached to to the phrase of "Israel doesn't have a right to exist" that it's somehow akin to "Jews don't have a right to exist."
I think that feeling or belief is planted by propaganda has purposefully conflated - along with Israel state equals Judaism [just because they arguably misappropriated the Star of David for their state flag; one of multiple tactics for the what I argue is full of wolves in sheep's clothing].
Re: Hamas' Charter
Other foundational propaganda that's propagated deep and wide, and even those who are very well-informed - possibly because in reality it's a moot point, as Hamas-like organizations are inevitable to form from within an occupied-suppressed and segregated state of existence:
- The claim that in the Hamas Charter it says their goal is to "obliterate all Jews globally" stems from an arguable purposeful mistranslation, where instead it appears to be propaganda to demonize Hamas and Palestinians via guilt by association campaigns, where the proper translation says their goal is to "invalidate" any UNJUST behaviour - written within the context of speaking of just vs. unjust behaviour - which means any just behaviour, e.g. non-violence, truth, etc. is fine and won't be targeted by them; from my understanding that means actual practicing Jews wouldn't fall into this category but the specific behaviours of the specific heads of state driving towards genocide,is party to unjust behaviour, will be held to account and have their actions "invalidated" based on their Charter. Source: https://jstor.org/stable/26331116
Conclusions,
I think it's critical people begin to be asked into thought exercises to understand just how isolated in algorithmic bubbles we all are - unless we're conscious of that and not prone to confirmation bias - to understand how people could be so deeply and firmly indoctrinated into one set of beliefs, where one side is completely delusional as to the truth and reality; they know only a shallow and misleading version of the truth, but not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - so help us God.
The incongruences are glaring as the relatively unsophisticated politicians [useful fools] et al stumble their way through, placed there are useful puppets - and why the bad actors ultimately need full control over speech and communications, or else a critical mass forms against them - and those blindly toeing the line for them in various institutions waken at exponential pace: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5y-lc7RtcE/
Let us not forget: Julian Assange has been being essentially tortured in prison without being convicted of anything - because he published leaks from a violent-authoritarian regime's security apparatus, exposing illegal actions by bad actors - and instead of the bad actors who have currently captured our systems going through justice process - Assange is suppressed as an example - https://www.instagram.com/p/C5X_KC2twid/
It now must be compiled and accessible in a way that is gentle enough to breakthrough and onboard the ideologues believing the nearly century of propaganda; this will also arguably take a cultural shift towards healing and developing self-awareness, the cognitive dissonance of logic working towards realizing must be fierce and will harden people in place to avoid the torment they were blindly supporting, so learning how to forgive oneself is perhaps the first fundamental lesson most ideologues need to learn - we all make mistakes, we all can be mislead until we learn better; "forgive them father for they know not what they do."
There's an obvious pattern of behaviour of producing propaganda with sleight of hand to misdirect attention to who's likely actually pulling the strings for such scenarios.
> Then let me go on record as saying that I fully support my government and my army's efforts to return the remaining hostages [...]
This is a common talking point that makes no sense when you think about it. Could you please explain how you envision the hostage release to be achieved through bombing and systematic destruction of the area that they are held in? It sounds much more likely to kill them instead. Why not simply negotiate a hostage exchange? Do you expect that if Hamas was about to be completely wiped out, that they would not simply kill all the hostages that were still alive up to that point?
> Could you please explain how you envision the hostage release to be achieved through bombing and systematic destruction of the area that they are held in? It sounds much more likely to kill them instead. Why not simply negotiate a hostage exchange?
That presumes that there is something hamas wants that is viable for israel to give them. Its far from obvious that is the case in this conflict.
Its not like "carrot and stick" negotiating tactics are unique to this conflict.
> That presumes that there is something hamas wants that is viable for israel to give them. Its far from obvious that is the case in this conflict.
If that’s true (and I agree that it may well be) then surely Israel’s army’s efforts can’t be in aid of hostage release, because it’s an entirely unattainable goal?
I think that’s what the OP is getting at. The tactics we see don’t seem like they’d be effective ways to rescue hostages. Nor does it feel all that viable to persuade Hamas to release the hostages. So what are the current tactics in aid of?
There are two ways it could in theory be in aid of that goal:
- putting pressure - even if there is nothing now to negotiate with, military action could reduce hamas's negotiating position and in principle cause them to sue for peace. I'm a bit doubtful in this conflict, but traditionally this how war works. If your enemy refuses to surrender, you take their land until either they surrender or they have no more land. For example in world war 1, there was still a lot of deaths right up until the armistice even though people knew fighting was going to stop soon, because the sides thought the more land we have now, the better our position will be during the peace negotiations.
- second, Israeli army could find where the hostages are and take them back by force. Also pretty hard, but if negotiations are unattainable its not surprising they would go here as the only other option.
Most wars happen to obtain goals that are unattainable by peaceful negotiation. I don't think this conflict is any different in that regard than any other.
Because there are two war aims: hostage release and the removal of Hamas.
> Do you expect that if Hamas was about to be completely wiped out, that they would not simply kill all the hostages that were still alive up to that point?
No, for the same reason countries don't kill all their prisoners of war right before surrendering. You still need to negotiate the terms of the peace.
There's a distinction to draw between creating more militant opposition to Israel's occupation and creating more Hamas. A category error I think a lot of people make when discussing this is to presume Hamas is a normal representation of armed resistance. At least since 2017, and arguably before, it has been a deeply abnormal armed resistance movement.
You might have reasons to believe that Israel's persecution of Hamas is going to generate a new generation of Hamas, but reasonable people might disagree and say that to the extent Israel is creating new militants, they're likely to look more like Fatah's armed wing than Hamas.
I've recently visited my parents in europe. I have no affiliations with Israel or Jews. My parents watched a local Al-Jazeera channel in their mother tongue since Qatar seems to strategically deploy satellite offices of Al-Jazeera in different countries, even european. Boy was i shocked at the level
of propaganda from this channel. Basically all day in big letters "genocide in gaza" with anti-jewish paroles. I can understand why Israel decides to close down such a channel.
"The ICJ had to decide [...] Whether the underlying case was at least plausible"
This is false and shows a misunderstanding. Choose better information sources.
ICJ only decided whether it is plausible to allow South Africa to continue with this process on behalf of Gaza. It has nothing to do with the court's opinion on the plausibility of the -underlying- case but on the questioned legality of the process itself.
“It will be several years before the court in The Hague will hand down its verdict, but we must not look at the catastrophic situation purely through legal lenses,” said Goldberg. “What is happening in Gaza is genocide because the level and pace of indiscriminate killing, destruction, mass expulsions, displacement, famine, executions, the wiping out of cultural and religious institutions, the crushing of elites (including the killing of journalists), and the sweeping dehumanization of the Palestinians — create an overall picture of genocide, of a deliberate conscious crushing of Palestinian existence in Gaza.”[1]
"In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly."
I would not agree this constitutes genocide. Israel withdrew from Gaza not too long ago. If the attacks hadn't happened, there would be a "ceasefire" today. It is completely contrary to what Israel tries to do, the accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis and judgement.
There is already a court ruling that "at least some of the acts alleged by South Africa appear to fall under the provisions of the Genocide Convention."
Additionally "On 28 March 2024, following a second request for additional measures, the ICJ ordered new emergency measures, given the deterioration in the situation since the initial ruling: ordering Israel to ensure basic food supplies, without delay, as Gazans face famine and starvation"
This is from the Wikipedia. Have you been living under a rock?
Israel is actively blocking delivery of food to the civilian population and has already in one case caused a massacre of people trying to get their hands on basic supplies. At the same time, a minister in the government is publicly calling for occupying Gaza and "motivating" civilians to "voluntarily" leave.
If after reading all this your sincere analysis is move along nothing to see here, I would advise you to recheck the word sincere in the dictionary.
The court ruled that South Africa had plausible standing to bring a case defending Gazans, not that there was plausible genocide. Bringing wikipedia as a source about a very hot topic doesn't lend any support to your argument.
It's not false at all and says the same thing. Again the quote: at least some of the acts alleged by South Africa appear to fall under the provisions of the Genocide Convention.
My post was made in reply to the claim that the genocide "accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis"
Obviously not the case - South Africa made the exact claim and the court decided that the acts alleged fall under the provisions of the genocide convention. So the only ridiculous thing void of sincere analysis is claiming there is nothing to discuss.
If you actually listened to what she said you'd know that's not at all what was decided, all they decided was that SA has plausible standing to bring a case. Not that the case itself has any standing. That was left for a future decision.
Exactly, and if you had read what I wrote (one time explicitly) it's a reply to the claim that the "accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis".
Her words, direct quote: it did emphasize in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right of being protected from genocide. Or do you think that genocide is a ridiculous accusation but the risk of harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide has merit? Because that would be laughable -- what is the consequence of losing your right to the protection of genocide if not genocide itself? So the case has merit and it's very far away from lacking serious analysis. Quite the opposite.
She was very explicit in her words, there's no need to read into them, she meant exactly what she said.
She very clearly stated, they didn't find or make any ruling on the plausibility of genocide, just that it was plausible that they might not be able to be protected in a case where a genocide were to happen.
They couldn't honestly claim there was any merit to the claim of genocide, but people were screaming for blood so they did this doublespeak thing where if you squint you can claim they 100% claim genocide is happening to mollify the anti-semites while not actually saying anything.
Essentially, she said, "we haven't found a genocide, but were a genocide to be attempted, it would be difficult to prevent" which is true in every single case of war, especially asymmetric warfare, where one side is much stronger than the other.
If someone were to bring a case against the US back in 2004 following the invasion of Iraq a similar finding would be totally within reason... but does anyone claim NATO committed genocide? No, but it's plausible that that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Iraqi right to be protected from genocide.
I don't interpret them into something else, I explain in simpler words because you appeared to be having trouble understanding.
Lets make an analogy: Right now you have the the right to freedom of speech, if someone would threaten to sew your mouth shut, there is now a plausible risk of harm to your right to free speech. Has your right been taken away yet? No, you are still able to speak freely, but if they were to act on that threat and accomplish their goal now that risk is realized.
It's not a perfect analogy, but so too here, the ICJ ruling didn't state that a genocide is plausibly happening, rather that due to the power imbalance it would be difficult to prevent a genocide from happening, should Israel attempt it.
Not according to the judge you linked. She says the court emphasized that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right of being protected from genocide.
You wrote a lot but for someone so adept in understanding others, you have failed multiple times to answer a very simple question, so I will ask it once again:
What happens if there is harm to your right to be protected from genocide?
Again, we're talking about the risk of harm... so we're another order of magnitude removed.
To rephrase your question with that in mind: What happens if there is an increased risk of harm to your right to be protected from genocide?
My answer: Sounds like you've found yourself in a dangerous situation. You might be in a war zone perhaps...
But again, that doesn't mean you're being "genocided" rather it means there is increased possibility of genocide. Which as I've stated multiple times, is true whenever there is a conflict, and that risk increases with the scale of the conflict, but just because the risk increases it doesn't mean that the genocide is actually happening.
Now I'd like to ask you a question or two:
What happens if there is harm to your right to free speech?
What happens if there is harm to your right to assembly? Does it mean you can't assemble at all? or rather someone is worried that maybe your right to assemble is being removed?
What happens if there is harm to your ability to sit down? Are you unable to sit down? Or maybe just it will be more difficult.
In this case the ICJ is saying "everyone has a right to be protected from genocide, and it's possible that if Israel isn't careful they may find themselves committing such an atrocity against the gazan population" No where does she say such a atrocity is being carried out, in fact she's very clear in her next sentence to say such an interpretation of her words and the court's findings is totally invalid. You can attempt to insert such meaning into her words but she's very careful to clearly state such an attempt is false and misleading.
So there is risk of harm, according to the court, and yourself. I think we can agree that it's a valid debate if there is genocide in Gaza and far removed from the original claim that it's "ridiculous".
I will now continue my education on genocide by listening what a Holocaust survivor has to say about it.
This feels like you’re intentionally misinterpreting what I’m saying and what the court and the judge said. There’s a risk of harm to the protection. But again that’s always true in war, it’s incredibly naive and disingenuous to claim that this means there is a genocide happening.
Bringing a random YouTube video of someone who was 7 years old when he experienced the war doesn’t do anything for your argument except show that you’re arguing in bad faith. It’s totally irrelevant. Additionally we have many more holocaust survivors who were older saying the exact opposite, so the fact that you have one who decided to capitalize on his nazi experience for his 15 minutes of fame doesn’t really help you.
And finally I’ll add: research Kapos, his word likely means even less. (Kinda like the other famous holocaust survivor who is funding a lot of the college campus protests)
Its fascinating that you're suddenly popping up again to discuss this while not responding to anything else in this thread.
I also don't think I need to do anything, I didn't say he was shady or make any attempt at a smear, I'm just stating that if you look into his actual story you might take his feelings here with a grain or two of salt. Hint: according to his own account, he spent about as much time interacting with genocide and nazis as my own grandparents who also fled and hid during the war did. He's also made a very big name for himself as the "anti-zionist holocaust survivor". The point is that this is one child's opinion, there are many other people, who also survived the war and are ardent zionists who vehemently disagree with him. He's by no means an expert on this topic so I don't understand why he's even being discussed.
I will not engage anymore on him, as it's totally irrelevant to the discussion which was "did the ICJ rule that Israel is committing genocide", the answer, clearly is no. and thus instead we have locallost attempting to save his argument by whatabouting to other topics, like the opinions of others.
Hint: according to his own account, he spent about as much time interacting with genocide and nazis as my own grandparents who also fled and hid during the war did.
That's all you got?
You were clearly attempting to impugn his character and credibility. Defamatory statements against living persons must be backed up with hard evidence. Otherwise it's slander.
In this case, against a Holocaust survivor no less.
You've got this penchant for interpreting what someone is saying instead of just allowing them to speak for themselves. Please refrain from attaching your own biased meaning to something when I deliberately tell you what I meant to say.
Again, I don't see any response to anything substantial I've said, you're now just attempting to defame and question my credibility.
Why don't we get back on topic? According to the ICJ, as of yet, they've made no ruling about the existence of genocide in Gaza or Israel, to make such a claim in their name is false and, at this point, a intentional attempt at spreading misinformation.
But what is the consequence of the harm to protection of genocide? When your protection of genocide gets harmed, did you suffer genocide or was your Nintendo Switch stolen?
Smearing Holocaust survivors just because you disagree with them is poor taste.
Repeating the same question after its already been answered doesn't help you. The fact that you continue to refuse to acknowledge the answer is pretty telling.
I'll answer again for you: the consequence of the harm to your protection of genocide is the possibility of genocide happening... like in every single war. But you didn't suffer a genocide and again, the judge and the ICJ choose their words very carefully (as can see in the video, she is being very deliberate). To answer in terms you will understand: On an individual level, yes, it is more akin to having your nintendo switch stolen vs an actual genocide happening.
That's not only false, but also grotesque. The judge you quoted said "risk of irreparable harm" in relation to genocide not stolen property. I guess this is what happens when people get dehumanized, which also strongly correlates to cases of genocide.
You made the "grotesque" comparison multiple times. If you find it so grotesque you probably shouldn't have said it begin with. Now you're throwing it back at me. As I said before you continue to engage in a disingenuous way.
As always in these conversations nothing of substance was reached, you had no interest in engaging in a curious manner and instead wanted to spread your own disinformation, when you were confronted with the truth you continued to misinterpret reality to your own twisted purpose, once even that failed you have started to attack my character.
I'm done being maligned and attacked, I hope you consider having some empathy for those who have been the subject of an attempted genocide and ethnic cleansing in nearly every single generation for the last 2000 years. Instead of siding with those who would commit another atrocity.
Is that the empathy you showed to a Holocaust survivor because you didn't like his opinion? You don't even know where your holes are.
I thought the comparison would make you stop and think about what you're actually saying. But when Palestinians have been successfully dehumanized then it becomes easy to compare their "risk of harm of genocide" to a simple case of stolen property.
Yes, after killing tens of thousands of women and children in six months, destroying universities and hospitals so it erases all culture and make life impossible, Israel is the real victim here. I have failed to account for how bad they must feel as they commit those atrocities. Maybe someone from the IDF can in 20 years make a movie about how they can't sleep and can't remember their past, let's call it Tango with Ahmed.
Ah yes, the classic, it's ok and correct for me to but when you do it, it's evil. Good stuff buddy. Telling me I don't even know where my holes are while engaging in hypocrisy in the same breath takes real talent.
I would say the victim is the one who didn't start the war, who just wants their civilians back, who has shown enormous restraint compared to literally every other army in the world, who would be happy to end the war today if those who started it surrendered, who has attempted to make peace at every turn and who even while they're being bomb are bringing in aid for the very people who are trying to kill them.
I wouldn't call the victims the one's who cheered and desecrated bodies at the start of the war, who continue to support the war no matter the cost to their own families, who could have easily ended the war by simply returning the hostages that they are keeping in their own homes. Victims aren't those who have their children put on plays where they simulate capturing and killing jewish kids. A victim isn't someone who when warned about an impending bomb responds by saying "kill me and all my children". A victim isn't someone who actively and happily participates in and perpetuates a society that kills minorities.
I will also point out that you continue to lead off topic ever since I’ve shown you that you were wrong to claim the ICJ has ruled that a genocide was being committed. In fact your only argument is to make (in your own words) grotesque comparisons in someone machiavellian attempt to catch me in a moral quandary.
By my calculations this discussion is over. You can keep pretending that you alone understand what the judge said, and she herself doesn’t, but don’t expect anyone to take you seriously.
I never claimed there was genocide, I said claiming that the idea of it is ridiculous is in itself ridiculous. And I quoted an ICJ ruling that said "at least some of the acts alleged by South Africa appear to fall under the provisions of the Genocide Convention". Which means what it says, South Africa claims certain things, and those things it alleges fall under the Genocide convention. So the discussion about genocide is far removed from being ridiculous, it's being argued in a very serious way. This was further proved by your quote of the ICJ judge that said the court ruled there was risk of genocide as Israel continues its destruction of civilian population.
I also never claimed that risk of losing your right to be protected from genocide is like getting your Nintendo Switch stolen, it was just a pointer for you to think about what it actually would mean. And it would mean genocide, not some minor thing like you pretend it to be. Oh well, they lost their right to be protected from genocide, what else is on the news - oh look we bombed a kindergarten, we are further progressing in our goals to live a peaceful life.
But speaking of holes, I guess I discounted the large void between your ears.
I never made a social experiment either. People with something between their ears are able to scroll up and see I wrote as a direct reply to the claim "it's ridiculous to even say that". I then proceeded to mention this to you explicitly several times, but I guess you needed a flowchart to connect the dots. You can verify all this by scrolling up but I am not holding my breath.
It's funny how I say "minister 'motivating' civilians" and you ask and replace civilians with terrorists. Wasn't there an old looney tunes cartoon with a not very bright character picking up a can of gasoline and blowing himself up after saying g-a-s what a strange way to write water? I guess he won at being stupid, which seems to be a common theme here. Congratulations on your victory.
They are also the last refuge of people who wrote civilians and got asked about terrorists as if they were the same thing. Well, for you in any case the same - only a dead Palestinian is a good dehumanized Palestinian, they are all the same.
> only a dead Palestinian is a good dehumanized Palestinian, they are all the same.
Is that what you believe?
That's a pretty grotesque thing to say, even if it's not really clear what it means.
Instead of failed attempts to cast insults and innuendos why don't you actually address the discussion.
Admit that you made a grotesque comparison in an attempt to prove your moral superiority but instead got caught in your own hubris. Admit that you're making up quotes left and right so you can try to salvage some part of your argument, admit that you're putting words in other peoples mouths so you can build up strawmen to attack. Admit that every time you're shown you're wrong you refuse to even acknowledge it and instead start hurling insults as if that will make people forget the preposterous arguments you attempted. Admit that not once in this entire discussion did you approach it with even an ounce of curiosity, and instead assumed malice at every step. Then we can continue to have some sort of civil discussion, otherwise you're tilting at windmills and it makes you look foolish.
You've broken nearly every hn guideline for good discussion and continue to fume, it might be time to step back and step away for a bit.
Are you ok? You're coming off as more and more unhinged each time you comment. I'd highly recommend you step away from the computer and step outside, enjoy the fresh air, take your mind off of your troubles. I can say honestly I have no idea what the above comment means, but, sincerely, I didn't mean to break you.
I'm not surprised you have no idea. In the beginning I thought you were discussing in bad faith, but now I see it's just normal for you.
Recently I damaged a bicycle I really like and got depressed about it - but then I thought, you know I am not in Gaza sleeping in a tent as a child with both my parents dead and my sister with legs amputated, hoping I will not starve to death. Or trying to survive the Holocaust, or something similar. It helps in a weird way appreciate how good you have it. Unlike other people. Like war criminals whose future is a one way ticket to the Hague.
Again, nothing you've said in the above comment has made any sense, I highly recommend you take a deep breath and step back and consider taking a day away from electronics, I promise you, you'll feel much better, maybe like that child camping in Gaza with her parents.
Of course it doesn't make any sense to you, we've already identified the reasons. Or the main reason.
The last sentence really defines you. You feel mighty and powerful don't you, you know it's your time and nothing can stop you. Here's a song you can sing to celebrate this accomplishment:
You continue to hurl nonsensical insults instead of meaningfully engaging in the topic at hand.
I’m sorry you’re feeling so hurt and upset, hopefully you’ll heed my well intentioned advice and take a sabbatical from your culture war, just to recharge and gain perspective.
> And I quoted an ICJ ruling that said "at least some of the acts alleged by South Africa appear to fall under the provisions of the Genocide Convention"
As I re-read this, I struggle to understand what this means; everything done during war time falls under the provisions of the Genocide Convention, that doesn't mean that genocide is happening, but rather again, that it's a war and people are being killed. Its kinda like calling an airstrike against a military target "premediated murder in the first degree" or calling all soldiers who have killed the enemy serial killers.
If you squint and remove all context the labels apply but they're meaningless under our current understanding of those words.
> I also never claimed that risk of losing your right to be protected from genocide is like getting your Nintendo Switch stolen, it was just a pointer for you to think about what it actually would mean.
"I never made the comparison, I just made the comparison because I was conducting a social experiment" Ok, I'll let you continue trying to figure out what you mean by that.
If we go back to your original comment, you also made a number of false statements in there:
> Israel is actively blocking delivery of food to the civilian population and has already in one case caused a massacre of people trying to get their hands on basic supplies.
This is totally false. Israel is not actively blocking delivery of food and the case of a massacre can be clearly seen in video to be caused by people trampling each other after attempting to rush at a platoon of soldiers.
> At the same time, a minister in the government is publicly calling for occupying Gaza and "motivating" civilians to "voluntarily" leave.
Would you care to explain what specifically is problematic about saying that terrorists should be encouraged to move their terror activities away from Israel? Or what is problematic about Israel governing an area that they've shown they can govern in a much more democratic and fair way than the currently elected suicidal death cult? Were you upset when the US occupied Germany for 11 years? and continued to have a large presence for the next 30 years?
> But speaking of holes, I guess I discounted the large void between your ears.
Insults are always used by those who know they've lost. Thank you for admitting defeat.
> Kinda like the other famous holocaust survivor who is funding a lot of the college campus protests
Seriously? You have been accusing me of anti-semitism but now you play straight into a harmful and anti-semitic conspiracy theory about George Soros, with hints to another very damaging and equally anti-semitic conspiracy theory about Cultural Marxism.
For what it is worth, George Soros does not fund any of the student movements responsible for the pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide encampments. One of the charities he helps fund has awarded grants to two student organization which the New York Post has claimed (but now proven) to be involved in the protests[1]. This is several degrees of separations, and the link is on flaky grounds.
Kapos’ interview above was excellent. He describes visiting another holocaust survivor [T=00:05:17] in Israel and being shocked at how racist she was:
> Yet she came back to Israel, and she was as racist as the rest of them, against the Palestinians.
> I think this has to do with the extreme propaganda, and the dehumanization. Zionism was a very unfortunate and sad development for the Jewish people. It broke a much longer tradition of always being on the side of the oppressed, not the oppressor. And the charitable nature of Judaism and the humanity they advocate, into a kind of exceptionalism and nationalism. And in practical terms the impossible project of taking over another people’s country.
> So when I visited them—that was my first brush of Zionism—I was completely shocked—despite their experiences during the Holocaust—they were racist, against the Palestinians. I couldn’t understand it, and I can’t understand it, but they were, and there is no denying it. And I found that racism was prevailing generally in Israel. And I turned strongly against that.
I’ve been seeing this argument pop up a lot lately, and I’ll try to address it (though frankly, I’m not that smart, so maybe somebody else can explain it better).
So what you are trying to claim is that the World Court never explicitly claimed, in direct words, that some of South Africa’s allegations for genocide was plausible, therefor the court never ruled that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide, and therefor, we have no authority claiming that Israel is committing genocide, and therefor, any claims of Israel committing genocide are unfounded.
First of all I want to address how weak this line of argument is. The ICJ is not the only authority which has claimed plausible genocide (yes, the ICJ did claim that; I’ll come back to that), second, we have plenty of evidence which indicts Israel for the crime of genocide, including, but not limited to South Africa’s filing at the ICJ (see sources on Wikipedia). Even if we take your or Joan Donoghue’s interpretation at face value, raxxorraxor’s claim that “the accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis and judgement” is it self pretty much wrong.
Second, the court did rule that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide, by any reasonable interpretation of the ruling. Even though most people cite Article IV paragraph 54 (See [1]; quoted above) as the smoking gun (which it absolutely is) equally relevant is Article II Paragraphs 30-32 where the court decides it has jurisdiction over the case, citing Article IX of the Genocide Convention. The court would not have done that if it did not think it was plausible that Israel were violating the terms of the Genocide Convention. In other words, the court ruled that some of South Africa’s accusations were plausible. And put yet another way, the court decided that it is plausible that Israel is committing the crime of Genocide.
The problem with your interpretation, and your citing of Joan Donoghue’s answer in this context, is that she is actually answering a question relating to the provisional measures ordered by the court on January 26th 2024 (which is what Article IV is all about), and again on March 28th 2024. My personal opinion is that by answering the question this way she is actually being willfully misleading. It is beyond a doubt that the court decided that some of the accusations were plausible, her clarifying and stating that technically the court only decided on provisional measures, is obscuring the fact that it did rule to start investigating Israel for the crime of Genocide.
ICJ member often rules in alignment with their nation’s foreign policy, and Joan Donoghue has shown that to be the case under her presidency, I actually find it a miracle that the court ruled in favor of South Africa under her presidency. My personal belief is that the case against Israel is very obvious, and there was no way the court could rule any other way. This interview is she rectifying US foreign policy, and offering a plausible deniability to what the court actually ruled.
This is an odd analysis of the ICJ decision. The decision is preliminary. It finds that the ICJ has jurisdiction over the Israel/Gaza conflict, and that South Africa has standing to bring a case. Given that a plausible case exists, the ICJ considers preliminary measures --- injunctions, essentially --- to preserve South Africa's rights for such a trial.
Read Paragraph 62: "The Court is not called upon, for the purposes of its decision on the request for the indication of provisional measures, to establish the existence of breaches of obligations under the Genocide Convention, but to determine whether the circumstances require the indication of provisional measures for the protection of rights under that instrument."
The preservation of rights is a procedural matter for the court; they are measures to prevent prejudice against the case, and to prevent the irreparable harms claimed by the plaintiff. The facts under consideration there are viewed in the light favorable to the movant, because they are not in fact a disposition of the question. ["preservation of rights" filetype:pdf] is a good search here.
The ICJ did not in fact find that Israel had engaged in acts of genocide.
If you use a casual or non-legal definition of "genocide" --- "any campaign of ethnically targeted mass violence" seems like a reasonable one --- this is a live argument. But if you're going to cite chapter and verse from the decision and the Genocide Convention, I think you're clearly on the wrong side of the argument?
Like I said, I’m actually not that smart and you’ll certainly find flaws at my poor attempt at understanding a legal document.
I—nor any uptread posts I read—claimed that the court found and ruled that Israel had engaged in Genocide. Merely that the court found it was plausible. I stand by these words, that the court did indeed find it plausible.
As I understand it everything in Article IV (including Paragraph 62) in the January 26 order was relating to the preliminary measures as requested by South Africa. Everything ruled there would be without prejudges with respect to the final ruling, as Article IV’s primary function is to prevent the Palestinian people from genocide (a function it has utterly failed at in my frank opinion).
Article II is, however, very relevant in the context of arguing whether the World Court finds the genocide accusation plausible. Article II is all about establishing jurisdiction, which it does by establishing that Article IX of the Genocide Convention applies. Article IX says:
> Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.
Article III of the Genocide convention lists every crime which is punishable by the convention, including (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; and (e) Complicity in genocide.
By establishing jurisdiction the case the court must find that Article IX applies, and to find that Article IX applies, it must show that it believes Israels conduct may be in violation of the genocide convention. Or as the ruling says (Paragraphs 19-20):
> To determine whether a dispute exists in the present case, the Court cannot limit itself to noting that one of the Parties maintains that the Convention applies, while the other denies it
> Since South Africa has invoked as the basis of the Court’s jurisdiction the compromissory clause of the Genocide Convention, the Court must also ascertain, at the present stage of the proceedings, whether it appears that the acts and omissions complained of by the Applicant are capable of falling within the scope of that convention ratione materiae.
In other words, if the court would not believe that Israel’s conduct (as described by South Africa) does not fall inside the Genocide Convention, then the court would reject the case on the grounds that it does not have jurisdiction.
Note, I think this was most of Israel’s legal defense, that it was trying to establish that their conduct does indeed not fall within the Genocide Convention.
The crucial finding (as my limited mind understands it) is then in Paragraph 30:
> In the Court’s view, at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the Convention.
To my ears, this sounds like—while the court hasn’t issued a final ruling—it does indeed find it plausible that Israel is committing a genocide.
EDIT: The only other reading I can entertain is that the court believes none of the accusations brought by South Africa which fall under Article III (a) of the Genocide Convention are plausible, and merely some of the accusations relating to Article III (b)-(e) apply. In which case, I stand corrected.
"Capable of falling within the provisions of the Convention" means that South Africa can bring the case and the ICJ can rule on it. The ICJ very explicitly did not make a determination about whether Israel had violated the convention. I quoted the numbered graf that says exactly that.
What you're reading about is the ICJ equivalent of a preliminary injunction. An injunction is a court order issued before the case is decided. Injunctions are based on balancing tests: some likelihood of irreparable harm must exist, and some likelihood that the movant will succeed at trial must exist. The more harm you demonstrate, the less likelihood you need to demonstrate, and vice versa.
Here, the harm South Africa is concerned about is of the gravest type possible.
Again: it is just not accurate to suggest that the ICJ has determined Israel has committed acts of genocide. It's "not even wrong"; the decision you're referring to is an interim provisional ruling.
I was trying to argue that the only way the Court would accept the case is if it would find the accusations plausible.
I specifically said nobody is trying to argue that the court has ruled one way or the other. Merely that by accepting the case, the court did view some of the actions as capable of falling inside the Convention.
We are basically arguing over what the word plausible means here. I still stand by my words that the word applies to the courts believes as stated by the ruling.
If it was "implausible" the case would have been dismissed. I don't see anybody arguing that there is no case, only that the case has not at this point decided that Israel is culpable for acts of genocide. You claimed the opposite upthread. That was incorrect. We don't need to harp on this or keep going, but I don't think there's a way to rehabilitate your analysis of the ICJ ruling. It was wrong. Preliminary injunctions are issued in cases where the defense wins all the time.
If you do some reading on the "Plausibility" standard in the ICJ --- it's a recent development --- I think you're going to find it's a pretty low bar.
If the court would have believed that South Africa’s accusations did not fall under the Genocide Convention, the case would have been dismissed. This was Israel’s entire legal defense. And this is explained in Paragraph 20 cited above.
I guess I see one more scenario here, where the court did not find it plausible. That would be that the court found South Africa’s accusations to plausibly fall under the Genocide Convention, but did not look at the credibility of the accusations. However in the rulings of the preliminary measures, they do state that the risk of genocide inflicted on the Palestinian people was plausible, so frankly, I don’t think the court found the accusations implausible.
In any case, I guess if that is the case, I stand corrected, however given the mountain of evidence given by South Africa, and the fact the people don’t dispute the authenticity of those evidence, the fact that the court found the accusation plausibly fall under the Genocide Conention is almost identical to the statement that the court found the accusations plausible. The nuance here is so small that it is completely irrelevant.
That's you deciding the case, not the ICJ. Which is fine, but you cannot reasonably argue that the ICJ agrees with you, because it has not done so. This isn't nuance; respectfully, you're flatly wrong about the implications of the ICJ ruling. What I think is happening is that you're looking at legal terms of art and just substituting ordinary definitions for them. You cannot meaningfully do that.
You are fighting an uphill battle, and honestly taking a weird—and insignificant—hill to die on.
I’m hardly the only one which has this reading of the court order[1]. Here is a human rights lawyer speaking with the Times[2] which describes the ruling as:
> Having the World Court say to the state of Israel that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide will be heard by the rest of the international community, even if Netanyahu doesn’t want to hear it,
Like I said earlier we are actually arguing about the meaning of “plausible”. I’m using this word in a non-legal way while applying it to the legal definition of genocide. The ICJ on the other hand uses it in a legal way, for them plausibility has a legally defined meaning, and using it must meet some specific standard[3].
The conduct in question here is the general behavior of Israel in Gaza, which some of our ancestors say:
South Africa brought in its case many examples of general conduct and accused them of violating the Genocide Convention. Israel—in its defense—did not deny this conduct, but rather stated they weren’t Genocidal, and didn’t violate the Convention, and therefore the Court had no jurisdiction over the case. The court ruled that these allegations “appear to be capable” of falling under the Convention. Meaning that the court thinks that the same conduct we are arguing whether constitutes a Genocide, the ICJ has said: “appears to be capable” of falling under the legal definition of Genocide.
When I, or the NPR, or the BBC[4] say the ICJ “decided there was a plausible case under the 1948 Genocide Convention,” we are using the world plausible in laypeople terms. So I stand by what I said. If we use the legal definition of Genocide, the ICJ has ruled the conduct of Israel in Gaza can plausibly be described as Genocide.
No. This is simple. You sue me, say, for trademark infringement. Before the case goes to trial, you ask for a preliminary injunction demanding that I --- at least for the duration of the trial --- stop using your trademark. As it turns out, I'm not doing much interesting with it; the cost to me to stop using the trademark is minimal. Recognizing that, the court enjoins me from using your trademark, until the trial is done.
What you're saying now is "because I got the injunction, I won the case". Obviously, no.
"Plausibility" at the ICJ is a technical term, part of a 3-part test to determine if any preliminary orders can be issued ("in preservation of rights") at all in a case:
"What is required is something more than assertion but less than proof; in other words, the party must show that there is at least a reasonable possibility that the right it claims exits as a matter of law and will be adjudged to apply to that party’s case".
Plausibility is virtually always established in these cases.
Now, look at what South Africa asked for as a preliminary measure, and look what they got.
Again, it is weird that we are still talking about this, because I quoted for you the numbered paragraph in the decision that repeats the point I am making.
Later
I'm noting that we are so far to the right margin on this very old, cursed thread that this post gets only 250px in my browser window. It's fine if we're not going to convince each other; we can just leave it here. We're probably the only two people reading this.
Go read up on ICJ preservation of rights process, though. It's fascinating. It's like a whole parallel law system, being worked out in our lifetimes.
runarberg is not interested in getting to some commonly understood truth, he's only interested in spreading his propaganda. If you examine your conversation with him through this lens, it makes perfect sense. He continues to repeat lies that you've pointed out don't make any sense. He makes sure to repeat his unfounded claim that "They are definitely committing genocide" as he does in nearly every comment he's made in the last 2 weeks, regardless of how wrong he's shown to be. If you start to back him into a corner, he's begin to deny very obvious truths like Jewish people have a historical connection to that area and continues to claim, without any basis that he's simply repeating what the ICJ has said, when the president of the council very clearly said the opposite.
We are two HN people who disagree. I think they're too attached to their ICJ procedural argument; it doesn't make much sense, and they don't need it to make the broader point they clearly want to make about Israel's moral culpability for genocide (an argument I don't agree with fully, but I disagree with less). That doesn't make them a liar or a propagandist.
If your arguments are strong, well-expressed, and calm, they'll do fine here, and there's no need to pick apart the people trying to rebut them. We know less than we think we do about people commenting here; I've spent 16 years watching people reach all sorts of weird conclusions about me. Let's not do that to someone else here. These threads are bad enough as it is.
Israel’s legal culpability in genocide is probably even more important, because if we only argue moral culpability it gives world governments an excuse to non-action. If we have legal culpability these same world governments become complicit.
The legal argument for genocide is strong. Not only by referring to the ICJ case, but also several legal experts who have conducted a thorough study in the subject.
I’m returning to this thread because of the publication today of a 100 page long report which the authors claim is “the most comprehensive legal analysis to ate of Israel’s military operation in Gaza since October 7, 2023.” This report is from legal experts exploring the legal argument of genocide, using the 1948 convention as the definition for genocide. The authors, comprise of independent human rights scholars and legal experts from University Network of Human Rights, Boston University School of Law, Cornell Law School, University of Pretoria, and Yale Law School. They conclude that: “srael has committed and continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
Just look at this guy's comment history, it's all there. He denies Jewish history, erases the reality that Jews are undeniably linked to Israel and calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the ME. All the while making spurious unfounded accusations against Jews. I engaged with him for a long time, but ultimately found him to be dishonest and not interested in holding a critical curious discussion.
He denies Jewish history, erases the reality that Jews are undeniably linked to Israel and calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the ME.
Can you provide substantiation for the last of these claims, at least?
I haven't seen all of this user's comment history -- but I've seen a good chunk of it, and I haven't seen anything that even remotely suggests that they are calling for the ethnic cleansing of anyone from anywhere.
Israel has sat pretty quietly for 75 years next to people regularly firing rockets at them and attacking their people. People that don't accept its existence and have a charter that can describe pretty closely what a proper definition of genocide can look like. Something that is far away from the conduct of Israel, even if it isn't perfect.
They do not believe Jews have any right to national sovereignty in their own land.
No - they just don't happen agree with them on the question of whose land it is.
You don't have to agree with their historical reading of the situation, of course. But it's really quite straightforward and simple, really. And if people are firing rockets at you -- it's probably best not to invent outlandish and unreal explanations for why they're doing so.
In any case -- pretending that the rest of the world obviously and unquestionably accepts the idea that this is all "Jewish land" (now or in 1947) -- or that if they don't, it's because the simply hate Jews, or won't accept the idea of Israel existing in any form -- definitely isn't helpful.
(And no, I'm not justifying or "explaining" the firing of rockets at anyone - please don't go there).
Please refrain from spreading misinformation and lies, it's not possible to have a productive discussion when one side is constantly warping the truth and denying reality. The Palestinian people - as a people - have elected/appointed/followed leaders for the last 100 years who have made many promises about wiping Jews off the face of the earth. Every time those leaders temper their views, they are cast aside and new extremists are followed who continue calls for genocide.
From the Mufti[0], to Arafat[1], to Abbas[2], and now to Haniyeh, each leader at their height has called for not just the destruction of Israel, but a global pogrom against Jews everywhere and as they were forced to be more reasonable they were cast aside for the next extremist. As Abbas has tried to find peace with Israel, Hamas has gained popularity for refusing to ever acknowledge Jews as having any connection to their historical homeland. At any point in the last 20 years (including today) Hamas would win an election by popular vote of all palestinians with a very large margin.
So I ask, if you're going to engage in this conversation, lets start from a common place of reality. Hamas, and by extension the majority of palestinian people, do not want peace, are not interested in finding common ground. They only want all Jews everywhere murdered in a global intifada.
Whatever the reason is, it doesn't matter and you shouldn't bite on that hook. "They are evil and endangering our homeland so we are just in exterminating them" is Nazi rhetoric no matter who it comes from.
For whatever reason most people don't get that. I came to live in Germany around 15 years ago during the economic crisis and was pretty shocked that it was normal to say in public that Greeks are lazy. I couldn't understand the difference between that and "Jews are evil" and similar rhetoric that led to the Holocaust. And that in the country that should've learned something from the past. This time around I am not surprised they are fully behind this genocide simply because it's more convenient to look the other way.
You really got to hand it to the Royal Family of Qatar - they are geopolitical Warren Buffets.
The Arab Spring and all the bad things that ensued from it was effectively a giant geopolitical windfall for the Qatari royal family and their investments in founding that broadcaster.
They (almost) changed the entire geopolitical landscape of the Arab world to their benefit. Installing a caliphate here, toppling a major power like Egypt there. They even forced Saudi Arabia into concessions.
All of that, like the NATO-buffoons sending fighter jets into Libya because the Qataris social-engineered the Western public into demanding it, is an amazing show of political skills.
Gee, the poor Europeans till this day don't even realize how much their "refugee-crisis" has been instigated as a "weapon of mass migration" by the Qataris using their set of tools of which Al Jazeera is one.
Did they wait for the world press freedom index to get published before doing this to artificially inflate their position on this year's list (it's published on world press freedom day, may 3rd annually) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index
I don't agree with Israel censoring websites, but important to keep in mind Al Jazeera is run by Qatar which is a monarchy without real freedom of the press, it's not CNN. They have strong regional interests and an obvious desire to shape the narrative of the conflict. They're not humanitarians.
Al Jazeera has much more extensive coverage of Israel/Palestine than CNN does, and I would compare Al Jazeera favorably with CNN, overall. CNN and Al Jazeera definitely have different biases, but if you just want to know what's going on in Gaza, you watch Al Jazeera, not CNN.
Well, there are quite a few monarchies where people enjoy freedom of press. (You probably meant “absolute monarchy”.) On the other hand, I am not sure what the lack of freedom of press in one country has to do with these events in another. Looks like a straw man to me.)
You can't even compare the reputation of CNN and Al Jazeera.
You can't also compare the interest of US and Israel in manipulating public with any other country in the planet. US & Israel plays the game dirtiest, does false flag attacks, kill children and mothers carrying white flags, bomb hospitals and families of journalists.
Qatar does not do any of these and do not need to manipulate you. US and Israel have to keep manipulating you, because as citizen, you need to be a part of the crime.
They can ban whatever they want, after all its a democracy only in name. I'd be far more concerned about Israel using its direct influence or its proxies to ban TikTok in the United States.
Israel currently denies the right to vote to more people that its government controls the lives of than it grants the right to vote for. This is because it wants to be both a Jewish (demography-first) and democratic (equal-representaition-first) state.
I'm very aware of why this is the case and the history. This is the current case on the ground. Palestinians do not have their own state (according to Israel), so they are occupied and have all their imports, exports, water usage, food intake, ability to earn money, etc. etc. regulated and controlled by a government they cannot vote for, while a minority of people on the other side of a wall can vote for that government.
Israel's government administers several territories with different legal statuses for their inhabitants:
Israeli citizens, including Arabs, Jews, and others within the borders recognized internationally as Israel, all have the right to vote.
Residents of East Jerusalem, mostly Palestinians, are typically offered permanent residency status but not citizenship. They have the right to apply for citizenship, though it involves a complex process. They can vote in local elections but not in national elections unless they become citizens.
Inhabitants of the West Bank are not Israeli citizens and do not have the right to vote in Israeli national elections. They are subject to some Israeli military law and some laws set by the Palestinian Authority.
Gaza Strip is governed by Hamas, and the inhabitants do not have rights to vote in Israeli elections. Israel does not have administrative control over Gaza but does control most of its borders, airspace, and maritime access.
Yeah that's pretty much what I said, Palestinians are basically not in their own state and not voting citizens of Israel but controlled by Israel and the majority of native born people living under Israeli rule
If you want to play conspiracy theorist, the correct conspiracy is that Mark Zuckerberg is responsible for the TikTok ban bill, given that he was lobbying for it.
>>How have you heard more about TikTok and Israel than TikTok and china? How is that possible??
Inside "Congressional circles" as clearly written in my post. And I should have added within the past few months.
>>India banned TikTok in 2020 accusing Chinese influence, are they time travelers?
India can have its own reasons, my argument is limited to the United States and that too, through wooing Congress
>>Did israel convince all of these countries to ban TikTok?
I didn't say that, of-course not.
>>Wow the Jewish World Domination Forum is really pushing its weight around lately.
I like you... I mean the way you classified me into your world view, twisted my arguments. You think, I will now defend a conspiracy of "Jewish World Domination"? Very impressive sir!
EU has a ban on RT on its books today, nearly every single democratic country is currently or has previously censored media. Without judging this specific action, saying that Israel is bad for doing something that every other country does or has done makes it seem like your problem is not really with what is being done, but your problem is with Israel. This may not be the case, you may not be aware that nearly every country engages in censorship of some form.
How many of those 100 journalists killed were intentionally killed because they were journalists, as opposed to dying as collateral damage?
And if foreign journalists want to get into Palestine, they have other options than entering through the Israeli border, they can enter through the Egyptian border.
> And if foreign journalists want to get into Palestine, they have other options...
First, they don't. All crossings are controlled by Israel. There's a reason why you have a lot of foreign reporting on the ground from Syria civil war and nothing from Gaza. (I noted your switch from Gaza to Palestine, btw) And journalistic agencies complain about this repeatedly.
10% of journalists killed (against 2% of total population killed) and ratios of killed/injured certainly suggest special targeting.
To me, it looks like majority were killed intentionally based on that list. Things like sniper and other direct fire killings, being killed in their homes along with their families when doing nothing but dinning or sleeping, or at assignments, or in front of hospitals near journalist tents, or being denied medevac after critical injuries, is not how I'd define collateral damage.
This is false. Israel does not control Egypt's or Jordan's borders.
> To me, it looks like majority were killed intentionally based on that list.
By CPJ's own account, that list is not verified:
> Our database will not include all of these casualties until we have completed further investigations into the circumstances surrounding them. For more information, read our FAQ.
I did check some of them, and I would agree some of it look concerning at face value, but I'm not sure if I would take any of those sources at face value. I would very much like to see some investigation into this, but without the war ending, I don't really see how that will happen.
> This is false. Israel does not control Egypt's borders.
Of course it does. It closed the crossing shortly after Oct 7. Crossing it, requires Israel approval and inspections. The moment Egypt stops observing Israel's rules, it will bomb the crossing. It did bomb it already a few times last year in order to close it. Israel already stated that it will operate anywhere in Gaza militarily, that includes the Rafah crossing, and it does.
That's pretty much what anyone would consider being in control of a crossing, effectively.
In addition, despite this crossing being between Palestine and Egypt, the agreement that splits the roles of who does what at the crossing is between Egypt and Israel as part of Israel-Egypt peace treaty https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/new-real...
So Israel does partially control it even in this "legal" aspect. It kinda makes sense given that Gaza is still considered an occupied territory by UN. Since when occupied territories control their own corssings with other countries?
> By CPJ's own account, that list is not verified:
Yes, that goes back to Israel refusal for independent foreign journalists presence in Gaza. Or ICC investigators. Convenient.
> Today: "BREAKING| Security sources to Al Aqsa TV: Three Israeli tanks are stationed 200 meters away from the Rafah border crossing and have fired several shells at buildings on the border crossing."
The tweet that is linked in the web page is from the former managing editor of Al Jazeera. You can just click on the tweet directly and use Google translate.
Why would Israel have to do anything? With the flagging system, even if there's just a minority of pro-Israel users anything anti-Israel is now effectively banned.
Are you saying that every news outlet that reports false claims by eyewitness accounts which turn out not to be true and aren't sufficiently loud about retractions should be banned by their host countries?
Because I can think of quite a number of stories over the years, and even in terms of this current conflict in the Middle East, where there were falsehoods in the fog of war or even intentionally seeded that turned out not to be true and many of the news organizations airing them initially only took stories down and didn't run front page denouncements of their own reporting.
I agree that retractions and in general journalistic integrity needs a bit more attention as a global society, but banning news organizations that print things you don't like is something I tend to associate with a very Stalinesque mindset and not a bastion of democracy and liberty.
In general, individuals and groups are bettered by exposure to naysayers than surrounded by yes-men.
But that the whole point. It's not just that Israel "don't like it". It's false claims.
> aren't sufficiently loud about retractions
And what if there are no retraction? only if the backlash is big enough? Like in the case where there were no hundreds of dead in a direct bombing but a 50 dead in a failed PIJ rocked on hospital:
All newspapers get things wrong some of the time. With the best of intentions and best of skills, it ... just happens because the world is just too complex to always be 100% accurate. Of course they should strive to be accurate all of the time, but we also need to be realistic. This applies even more to warzones.
What matters is how often this happens and what the response is when it happens. As far as I know, Al Jazeera is not significantly worse than anyone else here. There's a difference between "spreading misinformation" and "being wrong every once in a while".
The problem with sites like "honest reporting" is that they take these incidents, completely ignore (or outright defend) all the types their side has been wrong on this type of stuff, and then construct a narrative that "proves" that "the other side" is merely a malicious cluster of evil that seeks to spread evil for evil's sake. This is exactly the type of dehumanizing hyper-partisanship that got us in this mess in the first place.
> All newspapers get things wrong some of the time.
And what if there are no retraction? only if the backlash is big enough? Like in the case where there were no hundreds of dead in a direct bombing but a 50 dead in a failed PIJ rocked on hospital:
I can go tit-for-tat with examples from Israeli newspapers or even Israeli government for the rest of the day, but like I said, what matters is the overall pattern and how this compares. And as far as I know, Al Jazeera is not significantly worse here.
> examples from Israeli newspapers ... Al Jazeera is not significantly worse here.
Sure, I would like to see something similar from Haaretz/Ynetnews where they believed Israel without critical due process. And did not retract in a consistent matter.
And the second account is my mobile (I like it separate)... that is why I gave them the same name.
The reason stated on why Hamas affirmed the rape story was false wasn't 'because it backfired and made civilians flee'. This never happened,and the justifications is too convoluted. No, they took a page out of IRA and ETA's: total transparency. They want people to believe what they say, and for that, you can't be caught lying. I don't know if it's recent or not, but that's also the reason why the death toll reported by Hamas is lower than the one expected by the US and most military intelligence. If a news is from a Hamas official spokesman, it's likely true (might be misleading, but always factually true)
Shame on Al-Jazeera to let liars on air, but to be fair, that 24h news for you.
> Words are not knifes. People eventually will adapt to lies and weird things. And truth will find a way.
I really see it differently that both ends are equally bad. After all, on the same night that the BBC announced 500 dead after the "bombing" at a hospital in Gaza, which turned out to be a Hamas missile that fell and killed at most 50 there... crowds took to the streets and created a threat to Israeli embassies around the world.
IDF has bombed the entirety of Gaza health infrastructure by now. It's odd they don't want us to believe they would be capable to bomb this particular hospital when they destroyed every single other one.
Did you read it? It says at the end "what happened at al-Ahli remains inconclusive"
Not to mention they say they scraped al Jazeera for other incident which is ironic here, because the claim is they misreport
And I will add that everything they said is only based on the videos... The impact on the ground was consistent with PIJ/Hamas rockets and not Israel missiles.
So I will rather believe U.S. Experts/Western intelligence (which since did not report otherwise)... so no Debunking at all:
Maher Arar is not an authority on this issue (same for me, same for you) as he is a telecommunications engineer. And all of his assumptions about missiles and air warfare in the article must have sources before used. Just like anything else, also in doppler equtions: garbage in, garbage out. But just look on the 2 videos he brings trying to claim it was a GBU-39 bomb:
As clearly stated in [3]: "More than half a dozen experts who independently reviewed imagery of the scene said the lack of major blast damage, such as collapsed buildings, as well as the relatively small size and shape of the crater, ruled out the possibility of the kind of airstrike Israel has carried out elsewhere in Gaza since Oct. 7."
Yes, this is actually PIJ, I was referring to the colloquial referral as Hamas to all Palestinian organizations in Gaza. Colloquial use that OP seemed to be using.
Also they do coordinate their fighting and if you read the last link also their propaganda
> My opinion is that freedom of speech must be absolute, despite all the issues and shortcomings coming with it. You must be able to speak, write, draw anything you like, without any limits.
This would make all libel and defamation permissible.
This would make any type of business fraud permissible.
This would make it permissible to lie and fabricate documentation in order to target vulnerable populations for theft and fraud.
This would make identity impersonation (including of, say, law enforcement, medical, legal, or engineering professionals) permissible.
This would make it permissible to fabricate evidence for use in legal cases.
This would make it permissible to lie or fabricate evidence for sexual partners regarding STIs or contraceptive use.
Other than free speech zealots, you're not going to get anyone on board with rebuilding society so that we have to preemptively guard against all of these things, and have no recourse against bad actors.
Just a point about Al Jazeera that is worth mentioning. There are two Al Jazeeras. One which is presented to Western audiences and one which is presented to Middle-Eastern audiences. The media and articles are politically aligned in each region. Don't assume what you read in the US/UK/wherever is the same as over there.
In the case of Israel, the Middle-Eastern unit were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas. Also the entire point of Al Jazeera was for Qatar to provide political influence through media, not as an unbiased news agency.
It's even banned in some Arab countries for being a security risk.
Why would you allow that to continue in your country?
> It's even banned in some Arab countries for being a security risk.
If I recall Egypt partially did that after the military coup, and some Gulf countries. None of which are known for being kind to criticism. So this point is more validating of Aljazeera's position as relatively honest journalism in the a region full of dictatorships and corrupt governments.
I wouldn't say it's validating, just not necessarily invalidating.
Regardless, a news organizing funded by a monarchy not exactly known for its human and civilian rights mostly like has an agenda beyond "honest journalism".
>BTW both have very high standards and make excellent journalism.
With respect to everything except the middle east.
I won't deny that they have generally good coverage on many subjects, but the nuance is that they leverage / launder that credibility towards advancing the state aims of Qatar whenever needed.
And as OP mentioned, if you look up how AJ covers a topic in English and how they cover it in Arabic, it's wildly different.
As an Arabic speaker I notice higher standards in the English version of Al Jazeera, I remember a Qatari cameraman was killed in a shooting attack in Benghazi-March 12, 2011, Ali Hassan Al-Jaber, unlike the English Al Jazeera team, was not wearing any protective gear nor had he undergone any media training for covering war zones. Some interesting take on this goes like this: 'Qatar is not only a historical part of the American security and energy system, as is the case with many other countries. The issue is that, thirty years ago, Qatar went through a difficult period - a crisis of legitimacy, a coup, and a real external threat - that shaped Qatari foreign policy and made the regime understand that, in order to become useful and necessary for Washington, it needed to do “more,” to excel. From the rest of the allies in the region, and for it to have a special role that no one else can play.All Qatari policies since then, from the Al-Udeid base to relations with Israel to hosting Hamas and rapprochement with Syria, then waging war against it, all come within this framework. If you do not interpret Qatari policies within their actual historical and functional context, then you are be misled on the real purpose of Al Jazeera channel.
What is interesting here is that the Qatari officials themselves do not hide these matters at all, and they publicize them at every turn and external criticism that comes their way, the latest of which is an official statement from the Qatari embassy in Washington: “We do not act on our heads. We did not host the leadership of Hamas except in response to an American request, and not only with their approval, and the same goes for relations with the Taliban, the Syrian war, and the transfer of money to Gaza was taking place with Israeli approval and under their eyes - we perform the tasks for you.” They say this to the American and Western public exclusively, and as an Arab, when you question Qatari policy and its role, you may not find a single Qatari citizen in the discussion before you. Why do you think, and within any theory of the world, might America ask Qatar to host Hamas or establish relations with Hezbollah?'
The BBC doesn't fit my definition as it's run by a democracy with a high degree of human rights and civilian freedoms.
And journalism can be technically right while still showing a very one sided view.
Not that I'm pro ban, just saying that there's a good reason to be vigilant when it comes to their news coverage and make sure it's not you're only source.
No, the specific atrocity stories of 40 beheaded babies that BBC repeats after it was discredited, the baby cut from a womb, and others that were admitted to be fabrications but continue to be reported from Zaka as a credible source. Don't slander me saying that I deny Oct 7 happened.
Detractors say that discrediting Zaka propaganda is equivalent to Oct 7 denial full-stop, even though Israeli publications have also discredited their claims (I guess Haaretz must also be an Oct 7 denier) - you can be the judge of that
>Why would you allow that to continue in your country?
We have a constitution that protects our rights, and among them a right to make up our minds on the basis of an uncensored discourse. That's the other, implicit half of the first amendment: the right to listen to what others want to tell you.
It depends. Not sure of the threshold offhand, but I believe it has to do with “incitement of imminent lawlessness” — that is, whether your words are designed to cause specific violent acts (as opposed to just generally stirring up hate that ends up being violent).
Concrete examples: “Jews will not replace us” is protected speech; “everyone go out and find a Jew” to an angry mob is probably not.
Leaving that question aside, I believe there's a difference between that, and reporting, uncensored, that somebody else did. Presumably Israel is happy for the "right" people to report it, with the appropriate condemnation and editing. What that ends up amounting to is compelled speech. I know that's not quite the issue you're responding to, but I do believe that free speech requires the right to report that somebody said something that might be illegal itself, and that free speech also requires that you not be compelled to rebuke it with the appropriate government talking points to do so.
I think you can. I mean the Daily Stormer amongst other horrible hate-filled online publications are allowed to publish online, and US citizens are allowed to read it.
Meanwhile Israeli citizens cannot read Al Jazeera legally now.
Had cops show up at the home of a child that was on a sports team of my daughter's. They were looking for her brother and took him in.
Afterwards we spoke more to her mother and found out that users in game forums had told him he could make these kinds of comments and it was free speech as long it wasn't a call to violence. Well I don't know the legalities, but I do know he was never welcome back at that school. (Nor even in the district for that matter.) Worse, the neighboring district got word, and they implemented their own machinations to ensure he was effectively banned from there as well. In the end, they sent him to live with relatives.
I wouldn't be so cavalier about telling people they can say things like this. It's like, well you can say anything. But if you say things that make oblique suggestions towards violence, expect to watched from that point on. And excluded from any activities that people believe would provide you opportunity to act on what they now suspect to be your intentions. You can't talk about indirect suggestions of violence against airliners, presidents, or students in high schools and still expect to be able to show up at the White House, or board an airliner, or go to the high school you attend. Society doesn't work like that these days.
> Can you openly call for the murder of <enter ethnic group> in the US under the protection of the first amendment ?
You can not. Inciting violence and calls for criminal action is a well establish limit of the First Amendment, but that is not what they are doing from what I gathered in this thread.
From the poster a few levels above:
> In the case of Israel, the Middle-Eastern unit were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas. Also the entire point of Al Jazeera was for Qatar to provide political influence through media, not as an unbiased news agency.
Showing a video of an enemy of the country calling for genocide of that country is a newsworthy event that is part of journalistic practice. The American media showed Osama Bin Laden videos calling for the death of Americans, to report on him.
Please learn the difference of showing a video of a terrorist calling for genocide to report on him vs the news anchor/owner of that news company agreeing with that terrorist and joining that call for genocide.
America has other limits on free speech. Foreign control of media for example which I am not familiar with.
> You can not. Inciting violence and calls for criminal action is a well establish limit of the First Amendment, but that is not what they are doing from what I gathered in this thread.
Brandenburg v Ohio (the current standard for what constitutes incitement) literally says your free speech rights run up to and include advocacy for violent overthrow of the government. The limitation it establishes is "incitement to imminent lawless action", with heavy emphasis on "imminent".
There is still a question of whether that is the correct limit. Many people think it is. Obviously Israel disagrees. We can’t use the First Amendment and SCOTUS precedent to uncover aughts, especially to another country.
However, if you agree that Brandenburg set the correct limit, you can conditionalize aid on it. It’s just not a first principles approach.
> You can not. Inciting violence and calls for criminal action is a well establish limit of the First Amendment, but that is not what they are doing from what I gathered in this thread.
Saying "ethnic group XXX should be exterminated" does not meet the standard for incitement. I don't know why the debate has become about US law but I'm even more puzzled about so many people confidently stating, wrongly, that the US bans hate speech. The US has frequently been criticized by Europeans for this exact reason -- in their view, the US stance permitting hate speech is irresponsible.
There is more to it than that. The Supreme Court has held that “advocacy of the use of force” is only unprotected when it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and is “likely to incite or produce such action.”
Apparently as far as I learned from a lawyer the answer is yes. If you are not acting or planning to act on it what you described is protected under free speech.
That’s complicated. The US has criminal and civil law. With regards to criminal law in terms of expression and liberties there are very few things you cannot do. The default is to lean towards liberty always.
In terms of civil law you can generally sue anyone for anything at anytime unless there is existing law or contracts halting further civil actions.
You can't sue someone for calling for violence, including racially motivated violence. Incitement is a crime, but incitement happens when you direct someone to take a specific action and they do exactly what you said (e.g., you tell them to go beat someone and they do it).
Balaji Srinivasan - "Take total control of your neighborhood. Push out all Blues. Tell them they’re ... unwelcome Just as Blues ethnically cleanse me out of San Francisco, like, push out all Blues." https://youtu.be/EqJoXaNFFjY?si=x3HD6-P9n98KTHGi&t=14723
> Can you openly call for the murder of <enter ethnic group> in the US under the protection of the first amendment ?
Yes. We see this with open chants of "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" and "Globalize the Intifada"
...as long as the call is not likely to produce "imminent lawless action". Brandenburg v. Ohio was a decision by the Supreme Court establishing the "imminent lawless action" test for determining when speech advocating illegal conduct is not protected by the First Amendment. The Court held that speech is protected unless it is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.
I would describe this as a motte and bailey: using the failure of peace processes to advance the claim that any call for Palestinian freedom is genocidal. Although even the “motte” in this case is tenuous, since preventing the recognition of a Palestinian state has been an explicit goal of Israeli and U.S. foreign policy.
Honestly not even sure what to say about the second paragraph, other than that “implacable religious and ethnic hatred” is definitely a deeply held Western value. We don’t have a monopoly on it, but the idea that we are the uniquely moral ones, while all those other people are just motivated by hatred… sheesh.
In 2005, the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza meant the IDF leaving and taking all Jews from the area with them. That's about as pro-peace as you can get. Israel saying in essence "Here you go, Palestinians. Take all of Gaza in peace. No strings attached. We will supply you with water and electricity too!"
Gazans elected Hamas and then fired so many rockets at Israelis that they had to invent a new technology to protect themselves. Gazans dug tunnels under the border with Israel for no other purpose than to kill Israelis.
Yeah, like most humans, we Westerners have experience of hate, but no, Westerners do not have living experience of that level of hate. Well, Jews do.
This is dishonest. Try again, please. Why was "access to the rest of the world", by which I guess you mean the Egypt-Israeli blockade, put in place? When?
For someone who thinks the rest of us are so ignorant on this...
Gaza's (only) Airport, which had its radar station and control tower bombed in 2001, and its runways cut up by IDF bulldozers in 2002.
Gaza's port has been intermittently blockaded by the Israeli Navy since 2005, and permanently since 2007.
> Exit and entry into Gaza by sea or air is prohibited. There are only three crossings in and out of Gaza, two of them controlled by Israel and one by Egypt. Israel heavily regulates Palestinians' movement through Erez, with applications considered only for a small number of laborers (less than 5% of the number considered in 2000) and for limited medical and humanitarian reasons.[6] Israel's military cooperation with Egypt and its control of the population registry (through which it controls who can obtain the necessary travel documents) gives it influence over movement through Rafah.
Certainly sounds like "access to the rest of the world" is being prohibited.
I think you mean "In response to Hamas, funded in part by the Likud administration, because the PLA was being increasingly seen as conciliatory and willing to seek diplomacy (who knows why, tiredness of conflict, Arafat growing more philosophical in his late life), which caused awkward questions of "if they are willing to negotiate, why isn't Israel?"."
Hamas was propped up by the hard right wing because they made a more visible enemy.
So, if Hamas is dedicated to "exterminating Jews" as you say, then why would Israel give them funding and support against the PLA?
Hamas is ~38,000 of 2.5M people. And thanks to those embargoes and blockades, they're the only ones who are really armed in Palestine.
You're contorting the answer in order not to answer. The blockade was put in place in response to what, when?
2005, unilateral withdrawal from Gaza
2006, Gazans peacefully went about their lives, setting up - and minding their own - businesses, made trade contacts, geared up a booming tourist industry...? No. That's not what happened, is it. I'm sure you can find a way to blame Israel for Palestinian choices, but that helps no one.
2007, blockade, out of the blue with no rhyme or reason. Just to flex, and watch the world burn.
If you care about peace, you won't do these weird contortions to explain Israel's actions. As with Hamas, Israel explains the reasons for its actions very clearly but largely boils down to "leave us alone or FAFO".
The PLO had ordered its military/paramilitary to not antagonize Israel, and they weren't. That was one of the keys to sitting at the negotiation table. And there had been a few false starts. Israel, in response to those false starts, entirely reasonably, left the table. But then there was a period of reasonable calm.
Palestinians are not attacking Israel - this isn't a war.
Hamas continued to have a militant and extremist position, which included attacking Israel.
^ There, answering your question, acknowledging that Hamas had and continues to attack Israel.
Now answer mine:
Why did Israel fund and prop up Hamas rather than the PLO who was working towards a peaceable situation?
Like you said, Hamas are attacking Israel. But the Likud administration sent them money and supported them.
Come on, you're actively avoiding anything that paints Israel as less than saintly.
> For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.
> Mossad chief, David Barnea, was asked a question that had not been on the agenda: Did Israel want the payments to continue?
> Mr. Netanyahu’s government had recently decided to continue the policy, so Mr. Barnea said yes.
> The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from
> For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.
> The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.
I suppose the Times of Israel is anti-semitic, too?
> And I ask again: there were no reasonable security concerns behind the blockade according to you? Just for evil funsies?
There's no room for conversation here. You doggedly hang on to issues even after they've been answered.
I literally said "Hamas was actively attacking Israel".
> "Yes, Hamas was financed by the government of Israel in an attempt to weaken the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah," Borrell said in a speech in the University of Valladolid in Spain without elaborating.
EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell.
> "Blowback: How Israel Went from Creating Hamas to Bombing It"
And what do you have? "Some guy on HN says Israel (and the US) supported the PLO against Hamas".
Huh. US involvement: "The US committed $59 million for training and non-lethal equipment for the Presidential Guard".
Fun fact, the amount that was sent to Hamas with Netanyahu's -specific and explicit- approval was around that much... every month... for near two decades.
But, as mentioned, I cannot see fruitful outcomes from further discussion here.
I regret the phrasing “U.S. and Israel backed coup”, since it makes them sound like equal participants and the discussion is now marginalizing the U.S.’s involvement. But like I said elsewhere, both the coup attempt and Israel’s support for Hamas at other points in time are well documented.
I think your contributions on this have been useful and valuable.
Parent keeps harping about Hamas coming to power in 2006 and that that is when the blockades started and that people should "figure out why those dates align", steadfastly refusing to acknowledge that the airport had been bombed in 1999 and runways dug up in 2001.
Oh, and any claim about Hamas being supported by Israel is apparently anti-semitic.
> I literally said "Hamas was actively attacking Israel".
You did? It was buried under lots of anti-Israel rhetoric that it was hard to see.
The blockade was introduced to the discussion as yet but one more example of Israel oppressing the poor Gazans, presented as if it were some kind of arbitrary evil simply to control Gazans with no other rhyme or reason. It turns out that there was a reason, actually. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40271323
So, without cruft:
2005: Israel withdrew from Gaza
2007: Israel blockades Gaza
we have "Hamas actively attacked Israel"
It seems a very straightforward cause and effect.
> Come on, you're actively avoiding anything that paints Israel as less than saintly.
Not at all. However, I do note with sadness that you and the other guy could not simply answer the question. Lots of diversion into how awful Israel is before at last a grudging admission that the blockade was in response to attacks.
Do you think it's at least possible that your firm and unwavering anti-Israel stance is informed itself by this kind of rhetoric? Just a thought.
Ok, now that that's established, I'll dig into this allegation of Netenyahu funding Hamas in order to deny Palestinians a state. And while I'm at it the other guy's allegation that at the same time Israel funded a coup against Hamas. Sounds suss out of the gate but who knows? Maybe this is the smoking gun that Israel is led by demons.
I find that most anti-Israel rhetoric is like that. Israel builds a wall in response to a wave of attacks: "Israel is building an open air prison". Israel blockades Gaza in response to tunnels: "Israel just wants to control Gazans lives" and so forth. Israel destroying an airport? Gee, I wonder why they did that? What possible reason could those monsters have for doing such a despicable act? Any ideas?
Did you know that Finland is building a wall on her border with Russia? In response to what, would you guess?
Is one of these walls ok but the other not? If not, why not? A wall is the most passive thing one can do to protect one's national borders, and yet, somehow you present it as yet another example of Israeli evil. Why Palestinians should have the right to stroll onto Israeli grounds anytime they please remains unexplained.
There certainly is a theme here of imputing malevolence even to Israel's most mild, passive response to actual violence by Palestinians. Are you infuriated by the Iron Dome as well?
No strings attached… except the lack of an airport (Israel destroyed it in 2001), a sea blockade, tightly controlled land border crossings and periodic attacks on Gaza power and water facilities. You only need to look at the past six months to see that Israel is not “supplying” Gaza with water and electricity out of the goodness of their hearts.
While you’re looking at the last six months, perhaps also look at what Israeli government officials have been saying for years. Just last week Bezalel Smotrich called for the “complete destruction” of Gaza — far more explicitly genocidal than “from the river to the sea” — and for the annexation of the West Bank if the UN were to recognize a Palestinian state. That level of hate is, at the very least, heartily reciprocated.
I am Jewish, by the way. So inasmuch as this affects Jews as a whole — rather than Israelis specifically — it’s not abstract for me.
There are two colliding views here - one is that Israel is acting in good faith, and the other - that Israel is on a campaign of cruelty. For the believers in the former, i want to bring two facts:
> tightly controlled land border
for people who think border is there for security, you should be aware that Israel has, for years, blocked imports of essential sanitary products and food items into Gaza, i.e. toilet paper, soap, and humus. Many of the tunnels under gaza were built for smuggling in these items. United states has long protested this policy:
in 1995 Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by Israeli religious extremist to sabotage the peace process
> The perpetrator was Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old former Hesder student and far-right law student at Bar-Ilan University. Amir had strenuously opposed Rabin's peace initiative, particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords, because he felt that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would deny Jews their "biblical heritage which they had reclaimed by establishing settlements".
> should be aware that Israel has, for years, blocked imports of essential sanitary products and food items into Gaza, i.e. toilet paper, soap, and humus. Many of the tunnels under gaza were built for smuggling in these items
Oh, now I understand! This is but a simple misunderstanding! How silly, but easy to clear up.
You see, the tunnels came first - into Israel in order to kill Israelis. Only then did Israel and Egypt blockade Gaza. Had nothing to do with smuggling. Now that that is cleared up, you can distrust Hamas and trust Israel. Unless, of course, there's another misunderstanding in your way that I can clear up for us all?
But also, that Ynet article is just stenography for the IDF! The only sources are IDF officers and the Israeli defense minister. Why would anyone believe this is not just manufacturing a pretext for escalation?
I’ll add one more, which I alluded to in my first comment.
Netanyahu has been supporting and funding Hamas for years, specifically and explicitly to prevent recognition of a Palestinian state. Direct quote: “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas.”
This is dishonest. Why were these measures put in place? If any part of your answer is "to oppress Palestinians" the answer is wrong and you should update your information.
You simplify of course, because my actual argument is harder to counter. I understand if the choice choice is "Palestinians attack Israel as a righteous resistance to oppression" or "Palestinians attack Israel because the idea of living peacefully next to a Jewish state is abhorrent." why a reasonable person would think the first is more likely. It's counter intuitive to our expectations.
And you never answered the question. Why were those measures put in place?
I don’t think “they hate Jews” is a meaningful simplification from “the idea of living peacefully next to a Jewish state is abhorrent.” If your argument is more nuanced, you are doing a poor job communicating it.
Anyway, I’ll play ball. First of all, Israel controlled Palestinian movement into and out of the Gaza strip for years before Hamas came into power.
In 2000, during the Second Intifada, Israel closed Yasser Arafat International Airport — the only international airport in Gaza. The next year they destroyed it.
In 2005, Israel withdrew all settlements from Gaza out of concern that if the Palestinian population kept growing, it would threaten Israel’s ability to be a Jewish state.
In 2006, Hamas was elected in Gaza with a plurality of the vote. After the U.S. and Israel backed the previous incumbents Fatah in an attempted coup, Hamas seized full control of the Gaza strip. This is about when Israel imposed the full blockade.
> This is about when Israel imposed the full blockade.
about is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Let's walk through more slowly.
Israel withdrew from Gaza when? Then imposed a blockade when and in response to what?
I'm hearing that Netanyahu supported Hamas, now I'm hearing from you Israel supported Fatah. Which is it? Either way, or both, it sounds pretty nefarious of these wiley, shifty Israelis. They do this simply because they are evil or is there a charitable interpretation that they are addressing a a specific concern?
This is all well documented. But it seems like you are intent on finding charitable interpretations for Israel’s actions while not searching further than “they hate Jews” for Palestine’s. So unless that stance changes, I don’t really see any point in further discussion.
You: Did you know that Israel supported a coup against Fatah?
What would get me interested:
You: The blockade came in response to a serious of tunnel attacks and is an attempt to limit materials that could be used to attack Israel. But there is important context that's missing. Hamas came to power after an attempted coup, and...
I'll check into your 2 allegations and report back.
Ok. I read the first part of the Vanity Fair article and of the Times article and I think I get the gists. Asking if I have them right:
Regarding "the Israeli government supported Hamas", from the NYT:
For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.
... Allowing the payments — billions of dollars over roughly a decade — was a gamble by Mr. Netanyahu that a steady flow of money would maintain peace in Gaza, the eventual launching point of the Oct. 7 attacks, and keep Hamas focused on governing, not fighting.
...Mr. Netanyahu’s critics disparage them as part of a strategy of “buying quiet,” and the policy is in the middle of a ruthless reassessment following the attacks.
Is that a fair excerpt?
Regarding "Israel and the US attempted a coup against Hamas" the gist appears to be that Bush the younger (really, as an aside, the worst President the US has had in my lifetime and I'm old enough to have been alive during the Nixon administration) supported a coup against Hamas in an incompetent attempt to create conditions for a the formation of a Palestinian state during his Presidency.
Is that fair? Probably not, because I don't have much patience for Bush shenanigans and it was hard to read.
One of the attached strings is that they aren't allowed to have a meaningful airport or seaport. It's a misrepresentation to suggest that Gaza has been free to self-realize given that it's basically been under a light-touch siege for decades.
That was not an original "string". The question is, and be honest: why was there a blockade? How long did Palestinians have Gaza and no blockade? What happened then?
This is not an argument. To address my argument, you'd have to show that "free" meant "sovereignty". But you cannot, because that's not what it means. It means the destruction of Israel and the expulsion - at best - of its people. It does not mean "living in peaceful coexistence with". What else do you think it means? What else could it possibly mean?
1 able to act or be done as one wishes; not under the control of another: I have no ambitions other than to have a happy life and be free | a free choice.
• [with infinitive] able or permitted to take a specified action: you are free to leave.
• (of a state or its citizens or institutions) subject neither to foreign domination nor to despotic government: a free press.
• historical not a slave: the poor among the free men joined the slaves against the rich.
• [in names] denoting an ethnic or political group actively opposing an occupying or invading force, in particular the groups that continued resisting the Germans in the Second World War after the fall of their countries: the Free Dutch, Free Polish, and Free Norwegian fleets. See also Free French.
2 [often as complement] not or no longer confined or imprisoned: the researchers set the birds free | police were forced to let him walk free.
• not physically obstructed or fixed: he tried to kick his legs free | she smiled, leaned back, and waved a free arm in the air.
• Physics (of power or energy) disengaged or available. See also free energy.
• Physics & Chemistry not bound in an atom, a molecule, or a compound: the atmosphere of that time contained virtually no free oxygen. See also free radical.
• Linguistics denoting a linguistic form that can be used in isolation.
3 not subject to engagements or obligations: she spent her free time shopping.
• (of a facility or piece of equipment) not occupied or in use: the bathroom was free.
4 (free of/from) not subject to or affected by (something undesirable): our salsas are free of preservatives.
5 given or available without charge: free healthcare.
6 using or expending something without restraint; lavish: she was always free with her money.
• frank or unrestrained in speech, expression, or action: he was free in his talk of revolution.
• archaic overfamiliar or forward.
7 (of literature or music) not observing the normal conventions of style or form.
• (of a translation) conveying only the broad sense; not literal.
8 Sailing (of the wind) blowing from a favourable direction to the side or aft of a vessel.
#4 is the sense Palestinians mean it while well-meaning Westerners hear #1 and #2. The movement exploits the ambiguity of this term to dogwhistle and get all the no kidding white-supremacist, anti-Semites on board. To play in the bailey, so to speak.
I'm not aware of any country with a constitution that prohibits all manners of media censorship and I'm also not aware of any country that does not have some level of media censorship that it engages in. What country are you talking about?
The United States has no prior speech restrictions, only limitations on the use of finite public spaces (town squares, broadcast spectrum), and restrictions based in the illegal origin of certain materials (CSAM). Libel laws are not restraints on speech, they're an avenue for torts arising from harms proven after they occurred. Specifically, the restraints the US does not have are called prior restraints. There are no banned media outlets or silenced individuals, which would be prior (before the fact) restraints on speech.
This is fine but you have to realise that war isn’t just about bombs. It’s about information too. An information war. In order to make up your mind correctly you need to be feed accurate information. Al Jazeera making up causality figures in real-time isn’t how you make up your mind.
> In order to make up your mind correctly you need to be feed accurate information.
Haha. And we're going to let the government decide what is "correct" and "accurate"?
Letting whoever is currently in power control what information the electorate has access to is one of the single biggest threats to democracy.
> Al Jazeera making up causality figures in real-time isn’t how you make up your mind.
The correct response is pointing out that their numbers are made up. In a working democracy you get people to see truth through public discourse, not censorship.
Don't make a deal with the devil just to shut up the neighbor's annoying dog.
> In a working democracy you get people to see truth through public discourse, not censorship.
in an idealistic world, this is true.
Unfortunately, it is also empirically true that, at least in the USA, the majority of the voting population has become a bit dumb, and does not personally try to verify these things they see or hear on the news.
Civic duty in democracy includes this sort of scrutiny, but sadly this level of critical thinking has been in decline in recent decades.
Haha. And we're going to let the government decide what is "correct" and "accurate"?
Ok, so how did all this unchecked exposure to propaganda workout for Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Palestine etc? Did it lead to some kind of "free thinking" utopia?
Free speech hasn't been banned in Israel. Access to information hasn't been banned. What has been banned is a platform for foreign agents to easily negative influence their populace and to broadcast nonsense en masse to their people.
If any Al Jazeera staff who have a residency permit want to walk the streets and discuss things their passionate about to other people, it will be allowed. But it won't be allowed if it turns out their being paid to do so by a foreign government. It's no different.
Sorry to say this, but you have yet offered a sane alternative here.
We can't just have autocrats from foreign countries broadcasting nonsense, unabated to whoever wants to listen, else our society will look no different to those dystopias.
Domestic free speech within a democracy is one thing, foreign interference is another.
> Ok, so how did all this unchecked exposure to propaganda workout for Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Palestine etc? Did it lead to some kind of "free thinking" utopia?
You did not think this argument through. None of the aforementioned countries have free press. They censor heavily.
In all of the above countries the government dictates what is "correct" and "accurate" information. News outlets saying anything else are shut down, banned, and journalists are sometimes jailed.
All of these non-democracies are afraid of free press. Is that the company Israel wants to keep in this matter?
> Access to information hasn't been banned [in Israel].
Al Jazeera is literally banned and blocked.
> We can't just have autocrats from foreign countries broadcasting nonsense, unabated to whoever wants to listen, else our society will look no different to those dystopias.
This defeatist argument leads to the conclusion that democracy cannot work. Democracy cannot work without free press, and according to you it cannot work if press is free from government interference.
Nonsensical comment (even these "disinformation campaigns" are press), but I'll try to find meaning where there is little to be found and humor you.
You cannot let the legislative decide what constitutes an "enemy disinformation campaign" and what is "free press". It's an obvious weak spot in your democracy bad actors can exploit - far more dangerous than foreign propaganda that has to measure up against friendly outlets.
You’re absolutely correct about the information war bit. Facts are important. But another equally important component is what is withheld from the public.
I think it would be a mistake to characterize the difference between Israeli media and pro Palestinian media as simply disagreeing about numbers. If we’ve learned anything about global conflict, numbers don’t mean anything to people. If all Al Jazeera were doing is putting a black text white background body count on screen, there would have been no issue.
The difference is the images that are being depicted. People are moved by images of suffering. And depending on whose side you’d like to benefit, there’s plenty of suffering to show. This is likely one of the reasons Israel is shooting journalists. They might show pictures that complicate their black and white depiction of the conflict.
It’s also a trap to say that showing one side diminishes the suffering of the other. Fundamentally, neither’s suffering is more important.
Do you really think say if you listen to US MSM you will make up your mind correctly?. They are constantly making up stuff and omitting facts to influence public opinion.
Well at this point, I'm not so sure some of what I've seen on US MSM isn't created by foreign interference.
Anyway, I get your point but the difference here is this, you're allowed to ask questions like that in the very places where this nonsense is being fabricated.
That same toxic propaganda shouldn't be allowed to spread freely and unabated within our information space or we become those very dystopias we try to avoid.
I think this blind belief that "all information" is part of "free speech" is our Achilles heel, it might destroy our country.
The U.S. Constitution provides rights for citizens to have free speech — not non-citizens. And in fact, the U.S. does not allow broadcast companies (along with various others, e.g. common carrier and aeronautical radio companies) to be more than 25% owned by foreign entities unless the FCC specifically approves them: https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-poli... And for 60+ years the cap was 20%, and you could not go higher: there was no FCC approval process, and the cap was mandated by Congress. (And alternatives like the Internet didn't exist!)
And the E.U. banned Russia's RT media network, and has strict rules over foreign-owned media. This is all just the pot calling the kettle black to score points with anti-Israel domestic audiences. Literally every country complaining about it has some kind of similar restriction. Qatar doesn't recognize Israel as a state and has funded Hamas for years; Israel banning their state-owned media domestically is only controversial because some people find Israel to be controversial. Qatar complaining about it is especially ironic, since they hand out life sentences in prison for criticizing the Qatari government (e.g. Qatari poet Mohammed al-Ajami).
Free speech in the US is not limited to citizens. The first amendment reads “Congress shall make no law”. It doesn’t say anything about citizens. That’s a complete misunderstanding of the first amendment.
I believe you are incorrect. While non-citizens are granted freedom of speech while physically present in America, they are not granted freedom of speech outside of America. If they were, legal restrictions on foreign ownership of broadcast media companies would be difficult to enforce, since corporate expenditures are considered speech under Citizens United.
> The U.S. Constitution provides rights for citizens to have free speech — not non-citizens.
This is basically untrue. At times, the court has applied different standards to speech by residents, but this does not mean that they would allow the government to apply any kind of limit on their speech, or indeed, more than very narrow ones.
In addition, the first amendment also covers the right to receive information.
Foreign ownership rules are not the same thing as the EU banning RT through legal means, or Israel shutting down Al-Jazeera and instituting internet blocks. You will notice that RT is not blocked in the US, nor is any other foreign media company.
I believe RT actually is blocked from operating broadcast or radio services in America (although not cable services, since those are exempt — only free-to-air broadcast coverage is included in the legal restrictions), which is why it never operated free-to-air broadcast or radio services in the U.S., unlike in other countries.
I'm not really sure pulling out a controversies tab from wikipedia is making the point that OP is trying to make. It's like citing BBC for their controversies
Every single news outlet is known to have issues with factuality. Reporting the news is expensive and the people paying for it almost always want their point of view to be taken into consideration, regardless of state or private funding.
There is a spectrum of factuality, BBC News has problems with the govt threatening to shut it down if it doesn’t report what the govt wants it to report, but it’s no Russia Today, Daily Mail, or Fox News.
>the Middle-Eastern unit were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas
I am failing to see how an article about Russia's war correlates to OP's claim about Al Jazeera showing Hamas videos calling for an uprising. Can we get a direct link to the article that the OP mentioned?
Those are interviews with Hamas spokespeople. It isnt the opinion of al Jazeera being presented.
There's nothing more shocking than the stuff Ben Gvir (security minister of Israel) does or says.
The second interview even references his calls to burn women and children as, yknow, a bad thing.
"memri" doesnt seem to consider that valid context, that is probably because it is a state propaganda outfit acting on behalf of that same Israeli minister who openly expressed a desire to burn women and children.
It's not an interview if a spokesman is allowed to say whatever they like without being challenged. It's not an interview if you broadcast a pre-recorded speech without comment. Ben Gvir is awful, but that doesn't change the fact that Al Jazeera's Arabic service is not impartial and is not acting as a legitimate journalistic outlet.
99+% of interviews in American media aren't trying to challenge the interviewee. They're just trying to gather information from one side, and then they generally try to get a token representative quote from the other side at the very end of an article, but sometimes not even that.
So you seem to be trying to hold Al Jazeera to a vastly higher standard than mainstream US media, at least in this particular regard.
Simply reporting without comment on what important/influential individuals and groups are saying, and adding basic objective context, is a large part of mainstream journalism.
>So you seem to be trying to hold Al Jazeera to a vastly higher standard than mainstream US media, at least in this particular regard.
The mainstream US news media would fall foul of broadcasting standards laws in a lot of liberal Western democracies. Here in the UK, due impartiality is a legal duty of news broadcasters. The First Amendment is not the norm globally and the US is exceptionally laissez-faire when it comes to the regulation of broadcast news.
> It's not an interview if a spokesman is allowed to say whatever they like without being challenged.
This describes most interviews I've seen with Israeli government officials in the American press, although it's starting to change over the last few months.
It's hard for me to believe that your "Arabic" version is genuine. But if that's just me being naive, then I'd like to understand the truth, but I need actual evidence for that.
So if there are genuine headlines like that on Al Jazeera, it should be trivial for you to provide a couple of representative links that we can run through Google Translate to verify?
"تواصلت الاشتباكات بين القوات الإسرائيلية ومقاومين فلسطينيين بمواقع داخل إسرائيل، وذلك مع دخول اليوم الثالث من عملية طوفان الأقصى التي أطلقتها كتائب عز الدين القسام التابعة لحركة المقاومة الإسلامية حماس ضد الاحتلال الإسرائيلي..."
"The clashes between the Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters continued at locations inside Israel, as the third day of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation launched by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas against the Israeli occupation proceeds..."
1. "مقاومين فلسطينيين" (Palestinian resistance fighters): The term "resistance fighters" conveys a sense of legitimacy and heroism to the Palestinian combatants, compared to more neutral terms like "militants" or "combatants."
2. "الاحتلال الإسرائيلي" (the Israeli occupation): This phrase inherently carries a negative connotation and frames Israel as an occupying force, which is a viewpoint that aligns with Palestinian narratives and is contentious in international discussions.
3. "عملية طوفان الأقصى" (Al-Aqsa Flood operation): The operation's name itself, invoking the Al-Aqsa mosque—a highly symbolic and emotive site in the conflict—suggests a righteous or justified struggle, further aligning the narrative with Palestinian perspectives.
These choices in vocabulary serve to frame the conflict in a way that emphasizes Palestinian resistance against an unjust "occupation," aligning closely with the Palestinian viewpoint and potentially eliciting a sympathetic response from Arab audiences.
This framing influences how readers perceive the events, creating a less neutral, more partisan view of the conflict.
That’s a lot less incendiary than your first example. As a simple point of fact, Israel is occupying territory whose inhabitants do not want them there and are not given a right to vote. What term would you consider more accurate?
Your last point seems to be unawareness that the name given is Hamas’ official name for that operation. Using it in the quoted sentence seems very similar to, say, reporting that U.S forces attacked Houthi rebel positions in the sixth month of Operation Prosperity Guardian. Whether or not you like the term, it’s the official name and it’s reasonable to expect readers to be familiar with it.
The great thing about the pro-Palestinian position is that it's super easy to understand. Zionists settled land that wasn't theirs and stole it. Easy. Simple. Wrong.
That it's wrong doesn't matter to most people. "Occupied land" has a specific, legal definition that in no way applies to Israel or Gaza, and probably does not apply to the West Bank. And, see, already I'm losing this discussion: with just a single misused word "occupation" you - perhaps unintentionally - sewed misinformation that needs to be unwound even assuming you have a good faith interest in doing that. Most anti Zionists are simply not interested.
So, yes, words matter. If you repeat that Israel has "occupied" territory "illegally" long enough in the media, people like yourself will accept it as true without really understanding what it means.
> That’s a lot less incendiary than your first example.
I don't know what you're taking about. This is my first contribution to the thread.
You saw that words matter, what term do you prefer? I asked for that but got three paragraphs of accusation of being “pro-Palestinian” and being told that I’m misusing a word but not what the correct term is. I suspect this is at least in part due to the conflation with the question illegality in your third paragraph: use of the term is well established but there’s considerable debate over whether it was ever legal or still is.
Here, for example, note that use of the term occupied is established enough to be used in official UN documents:
You know, we had an interesting discussion about Land Day a while back when you were accusing me of being an Islamist. I am saddened to see this regression on the issue of occupation/“pending final status determination”
You've crossed into religious flamewar. That's not allowed here, regardless of which religion the issue is with. We ban accounts that do it repeatedly, so please don't do it again.
Every square cm is an exaggeration. Malaysia and Indonesia in my understanding accepted Islam largely through peaceful trading contacts. The Levant in particular, however, was conquered militarily and Arabized by a succession of Muslim conquests:
Rashidun Caliphate (632–661)
Umayyad Caliphate (661–750)
Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258)
Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171)
Ayyubid Dynasty (1174–1260)
Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517)
Ottoman Empire (1517–1918)
Where there is overlap, they ruled different parts of the area.
Personally, I think the idea of prior indigenous claim is counter productive, but since it has been introduced by Palestinians as a kind of volksgemeinschaft, blut und boden, Jews would have prior claim by that standard.
I think the idea of prior indigenous claim is counter productive, but since it has been introduced by Palestinians as a kind of volksgemeinschaft, blut und boden, Jews would have prior claim by that standard.
The folks who first brought up this "prior indigenous claim" business were the early Zionists of course. The pre-1897 inhabitants didn't have to "claim" any special rights because they were already there (give or take some forced migration within the Ottoman empire), and not trying to expand into any new territory they hadn't been occupying in living memory -- and so had nothing to justify or explain.
Anyway it's all moot because the earliest known inhabitants in the region were not Jews in any recognizable sense, but predominantly the Canaanites and other bronze age cultures. Whose presence predates any traces of the Israelite culture by 2000+ years. And who were likely the primary genetic reservoir for both Palestinians and Jews as they are currently known, via significant mixtures with other groups from outside the region.
The whole idea of attempting to adjudicate anything happening on the ground today on the basis of any of this history (or our current conception of it) is completely vacuous of course. As is this bizarre Blut und Boden reference that you're trying to asign to the Palestinians, of all people.
This is not purposefully, Arabic is the main language of the people living in the regions, the Arabs. Just because they're catering to that out and giving news accordingly to the local demographics, bringing speakers from there doesn't make it their viewpoints. If you want to accuse someone of pushing agenda then Western media outlets and outlets that pushed the "40 babies beheading" stories is more factual.
Here's a random description of sources, with an illustration of what's happening right at the time I'm posting this, in a not particularly important news item.
(yes, this strange URL is just Google translate translating the arabic frontpage of Al-Jazeera. Don't worry, they're not going to stop the double speak)
Proudly declaring that Hezbollah attacks the Golan Heights of Israel with "booby-trapped drones". One might point out that booby trapping weapons is illegal under international law and a serious warcrime. A warcrime that even Russia, who see no problem with white phosphorous and poison gas, refuses to commit in Ukraine. Why? There's no telling who will be killed by booby trapped weapons (Booby trapped weapons legislation is about that will explode on impact, then explode again or otherwise injure people when it's getting cleaned up or examined. Because civilians might clean up weapons, or children might find them, this is a big no-no in international law)
The whole article is about using 10 different sources to brag how effective the attack was, and it just keeps and keeps going on about that. It mentions various sources, each more far fetched than the last, how "these types of rockets" cause enormous damage, death and injuries. It has no mention of this being a response to Israeli attacks, nor does it have any mention that Israel made a counterstrike.
It concludes by actually stating that the military campaign by Hezbollah is about to defeat the IDF.
In this, the "booby-trapped" part is gone, they are reporting it, pretending to be neutral about it (as opposed to in arabic, where they are anything but neutral) and the whole article starts trying to cause doubts about whether the attack happened at all.
Prominently featured in the article is that the Isreali military states no injuries where reported, and all the sources are suddenly gone. Instead, there is focus on that this is a "tit-for-tat" attack, that was really Israel's fault.
In other words, the article focuses on how this was a totally ineffective attack, that was justified because of Israeli killings in Lebanon, that absolutely does not merit any kind of counterattack.
In case you're wondering, Israeli press reported the same event:
1) 30 rockets (al Jazeera and Hezbollah reported many drones)
2) NO details, no statements from Hezbollah
3) it hit a town, Metulla, not a military base, either zero (Haaretz, Ynetnews) or two (Jerusalem Post) persons wounded, both civilians. The town, by the way, is in the foothills of the Golan heights at best, it is very much not actually in the Golan heights. But it's very close to Lebanon.
3) The IDF executed a military counterstrike, against military targets (which means Hezbollah launch sites)
That’s an error page but also it seems like you’re conceding the point if you can’t provide a single link and are basically telling someone to comb through the output of a large media organization to try to find support for someone else’s argument. At the very least, the Wikipedia criticism page would be a good place to start doing your own research:
I'm not the original commenter that made the claim, I'm just saying that anyone who wants to check for themselves can use the Arabic Al Jazeera and translate it into English.
> In the case of Israel, the Middle-Eastern unit were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas.
>
> It's even banned in some Arab countries for being a security risk.
>
> Why would you allow that to continue in your country?
Especially when you have, in your country, about 20% of muslim arabs, most of which being israelo-palestinians (i.e. palestinians with an israeli passport).
The last thing they'd want, in addition to fighting both Hamas and Hezbollah, would be an uprising of the israelo-palestinians who live in Israel.
It's of note that while there about 20% muslims in Israel, there's about zero jewish person in Gaza (there are some israelo-palestinian though) and zero jewish person in Iran. Or close to that.
The number of publication and jewish newspaper offices in both Gaza and Iran should also be food for thought.
> last thing they'd want, in addition to fighting both Hamas and Hezbollah, would be an uprising of the israelo-palestinians who live in Israel
You're talking about Israeli citizens. The way you keep them from uprising is by giving them political power. (I also see no evidence any uprising is imminent.)
Or they’re a diverse set of people whose views can’t be summarised based on their race and religion alone. I doubt, for example, many of them are in favour of a one-state solution.
Actually, as far as I understand it, most have historically preferred not to engage with the Israeli political system for ideological reasons. This is changing somewhat over the last few years.
Though I'm not a member of that group, so I don't want to misrepresent "their" views (and of course there is no such thing as "their" views, as you mentioned, they are a large and fairly diverse group).
> I doubt, for example, many of them are in favour of a one-state solution.
Israel is rich. Palestine is poor. It would be on par with a German or Korean reünification in terms of cost.
Also, Israel has a relatively-liberal voting population. Palestine does not. One could have reasonable concerns around losing valued freedoms if a single Palestinian state drifts towards regional norms.
Israeli Arabs know they have it much better in Israel than anywhere else in the region. They historically have been highly opposed to proposed land-swaps/unification deals with the PA.
Again, I'm not a Palestinian-Israeli. I'm sure some share that attitude, but considering that many have families that are "on the other side of the border", I think there's quite a few that do want one unified country with everyone having voting rights. It's been argued for quite eloquently by several very prominent Palestinian voices, too (not necessarily Palestinian-Israeli voices).
How is that relevant? There’s multiple Arab parties in Israeli politics. None of them wield any serious power because the people with the diverse set of views they attempt to represent don’t vote.
> is there some other context driving their non-participation?
Muslim Israelis have representation in the Knesset. Their community simply hasn’t aligned itself with the American pro-Palestinian movement. (There are absolutely racism issues in Israel. But it’s not Jim Crow.)
Note: The correct word is "Israeli", not "Israelo".
> It's of note that while there about 20% muslims in Israel, there's about zero jewish person in Gaza (there are some israelo-palestinian though) and zero jewish person in Iran. Or close to that.
Actually, while there are ~zero Jewish people in almost all Arab countries, Iran specifically has an actual Jewish population, though a very small one - I think the current estimate is around 8,000.
> It's of note that while there about 20% muslims in Israel, there's about zero jewish person in Gaza (there are some israelo-palestinian though) and zero jewish person in Iran. Or close to that.
Not only are there Jews in Iran, they even have a seat permanently reserved in the Iranian parliament.
The ethnic cleansing isn't totally complete, but it's quite close. It's nice that the Ayatolla made a fatwa to protect them though. But if I were Jewish in Iran I would expect that protection to fall the second the Ayatolla dies.
The reader should take note that when those celebrating "the only democracy in the Middle East" shutting down a news organization, and blocking Israelis from accessing their web site - when they talk about Hamas and the political influence of Qatar - remember that Netanyahu sent the head of the Mossad to Qatar weeks before October 7 to encourage them to send money to Hamas ( https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q... ). He did this because the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was making peaceful, political headway in getting Palestine internationally recognized.
Providing political influence is the point of any state news agency, including "unobjectionable" ones like the BBC, among others. In a democratic country worthy of the name they're allowed to operate regardless. I'd like to see some citation for the claim that Al Jazeera was serving as some sort of pro-violence propaganda stream; CNN showed some speeches from bin Laden after 9/11 but that doesn't make them al Qaeda propaganda.
The first half of your comment is fascinating and sounds entirely plausible. At first glance.
The second half contains emotion which makes clear where your heart is on this. So, that casts a shadow of doubt.
Could it be that there is credibility to your point but not to such an extreme extent where it’s like this deliberate conspiracy? I mean, as soon as everyone finds out, then this would actually be kind of a dumb plan on their part. The Arabic audience can inform the English audience of the discrepancy and vice versa. What if it’s not a conspiracy but a consequence of a large organization containing a blend of biased opinionated departments? Some more focused on journalism, and some on catering to local audiences’ tastes. That would make more sense to me, along with the typical biases of all news-media orgs everywhere in the world..
> In the case of Israel, the Middle-Eastern unit were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas
Israel is a country which values demography over democracy, so, like other Arab countries which don't value democracy, press repression is going to be a foregone conclusion
Yes it is. They have low to no journalistic standards in that edition and it's heavily propagandized depending on their agenda. Their entire reputation is based on the Western version as "look we use those standards everywhere" which is definitely not true.
I’m pretty sure that’s more normal than not for news orgs that have a home country or region but also compete on the global market. Some have several versions, not just two.
> were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas.
If you mean that they were covering such demands and showing clips in which they are made etc. - what's the problem with that?
> for being a security risk.
goes to show they were doing some decent journalistic work then. Not that Al-Jazeera is saintly, or unbiased, or treats all subjects fairly etc. (they are under the indirect control of the Qatari government after all) - but they certainly offer critically important coverage of what's happening in Palestine in general, and Gaza in particular, which is very hard to get elsewhere.
> Why would you allow that to continue in your country?
If by "you", you mean a semi-totalitarian state which wants to silence coverage of its crimes and hide the horrors of its actions from the world and from its residents, then - you're right, you definitely wouldn't want it to continue operating.
> It's even banned in some Arab countries for being a security risk.
Saudi Arabia is not exactly a bastion of free speech and murdered US journalist Jamal Khashoggi using the cover of an embassy. Not exactly a great endorsement of what Israel is doing here.
I started watching it to try get a different take on events in Israel. It took me about 10 minutes to realise it’s a Hamas mouthpiece. I think they have two audiences to try establish a sense of credibility and then use it to spew lies.
She's a MEP and yet went on to defend Qatar as a bastion of democracy (!). Close to a million EUR was found in cash at her apartment: which probably helped defend a country where the official law is the Sharia law as a bastion of democracy.
War is ugly but religious extremism is ugly too, especially when it's financed by a shitload of oil.
People would do well to wonder who's financing all these "grassroots" movements in the EU and the US defending people who voted in power a terrorist organization who swore by the death of Israel.
Either the media was in English or in Arabic. If it was English, then it was the same stuff being shown to everyone else in the west. If it was Arabic, then I don’t think Israelis would understand any of it.
Israel blocked English version, too. So clearly they don't aggree with that content either. :)
Anyway, you know which news outlets also have local and international versions with different content? BBC, CNN, ...
Also western democracies allowed "Letter to the American People" to be published in full. Also a messaging from an active terror group with significant impact at the time, more significant than Oct 7.
Would you please link to examples the same news to Western audiences and to Middle Eastern ones? We can use Google translates by our selves.
Sorry, but I can't just take your words for it. It looks more like propaganda.
The more I read Al Jazeera, the more I respect their high journalism standards. I'm from a third world country and really envy the quality of the news.
In 1919 in the United States we put people in prison for handing out anti war pamphlets. They equated it to “yelling fire in a crowded theater” thus dangerous and illegal. Then in the 60s we revised our “understanding” of the 1st amendment. Today it would be pretty extraordinary to have antiwar proponents thrown in prison.
The point is, in the US we forget that our speech didn’t used to be so unrestricted. What some countries call a security risk, in America we would call essential political speech.
Of course there remains the question of the extent to which we should support countries which do not share our values.
This is a loaded argument that requires citations. Since you're making the claim, can you please link specific articles from the Arabic site that make your point? As well as linking which Arab countries banned it and when?
It's easy to just claim something, but it's crucial to back your point up front when it's particularly sensitive so as to not inadvertently spread misinformation. You may be correct, but that's why the citations are needed.
> According to a news bulletin on the Qatar-based channel, Mr al-Hamr said the ban was being imposed because the station was biased towards Israel and against Bahrain.
> Mr al-Hamr is said to have accused the station of being infiltrated by Zionists. "We believe (Al Jazeera) is suspect and represents the Zionist side in the region. We will not deal with this channel because we object to its coverage of current affairs. It is a channel penetrated by Zionists," he was quoted as saying.
This is perhaps making the opposite point I think you intended to.
I hope you actually read those articles, because 2 of them are saying Al Jazeera is biased towards Israel - hence why the ban, and not what you are trying to prove.
Obviously that’s what they would say. The whole point of this discussion is that people tend to say things that advance their agenda, or are politically expedient, not because they are the unvarnished truth.
How much precedent is there for this? Are there parallels for other countries? Does the US prohibit any news agencies from operating in our borders? Does Europe? Does Russia? Does China?
I presume North Korea does, but I don't actually know. These aren't designed to be leading questions. I don't know the answers, and rather than searching, I figured someone else here might know offhand.
I'll try to tackle this as objectively as possible.
Not many countries enshrine press freedom as a constitutional right. US can't directly shut down news agencies by law but there are other less direct ways to restrict their ability to operate (like not granting visas). The US has all sorts of fringe news outlets, including some run by cults like Falun Gong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tang_Dynasty_Television )
Europe likes to claim they support press freedom but they banned RT in many countries. Looking at the press freedom index my kneejerk is to rank a lot of their countries lower, but then I remembered there's a habit of suing or disappearing journalists in the US that probe into larger corps.
As for Russia/DPRK/China, laws heavily restrict reporting. These are all way worse than Israel's current restrictions. DPRK has fully centralized mass media, so any other reporting inside is illegal by default without explicit approval of the state. China and Russia I think allows some reporting, basically anything appearing critical of nations of China or Russia can get you jailed/killed.
RT was heavily censored in the USA and is banned in several European countries. Press censorship is pretty much the norm in 'western democracies' similar to everywhere else.
I don't know of any outright censorship of it, but all US journalists who worked for it were no longer allowed to after the outbreak of the war. If money is speech under citizens united, then pay for journalism would seem like it could possibly be protected under the same standard, though I think election funding is still allowed to be banned from foreign states even if they use super-PACs.
How heavily has RT been censored in the USA? Has the government ever censored it or pressured others to censor it, or is it just that links/rebroadcasts have been dropped by private entities of their own volition?
It hasn't been. Probably more accurate to state that when it was carried on cable media they broadcast a bowdlerized version. Al Jazeera did the same thing when it was carried by cable/satellite in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_America
Like any decision, the difference is how it is made (e.g. a vote in parliament versus an executive order), how long it remains in force (a limited time while a investigation is done versus indefinitely), and how accountable the decision makers are.
All countries are on a spectrum, there is no clear line between shiny democracy and brutal dictatorship. They all have institutions that look similar on the surface. A democracy is not going to stop having a police force just because some police states also have one, for example.
So yes, some democracies ban some media spreading propaganda for foreign interests, but the details matter.
WW2 provides ample examples. Information is part of warfare
Russia is certainly jailing journalists. As example, Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, is currently imprisoned: https://www.wsj.com/news/evan-gershkovich.
Nowadays, every country has an interest in preventing foreign influence operations across traditional and social media
I believe RT (which is Russian but produced some interesting journalism once in a while) was banned in Europe (or at least it is in France). I don't even know what to think about it...
Maybe in theory, but there are no mechanisms or jurisdiction to enforce the ban in many countries. It's not like we have country wide firewall here. Blocks usually happen at ISP DNS server level, and that means very little these days.
> TikTok wasn't banned explicitly. They are required to divest within a year. If they don't, then the app becomes banned
Note, too, the difference between the app being banned and the source being banned. TikTok.com will continue to resolve even if they remain under Chinese control.
Its not but it is being banned because people are getting their news from there and its not following the right narrative that the 'real' news agencies are failing at peddling to the public.
Then again I could be wrong and the U.S government just doesn't like people people dancing, hard to tell which one is the reason behind it all.
Like sibling said, they've been pretty clear on the why. They called an emergency session and Senator Ricketts was pretty clear that they view pro-Palestinian tiktok content as Chinese propaganda that's inciting the youth to protest[0].
The administration has been threatening tiktok for two Presidental terms, but it wasn't until pro-Palestinian tiktok content had "more reach than the top 10 US news sites, combined" that they've taken broad bipartisan action.
I've personally experienced the propaganda that US mainstream media doles out, I know it's real; in my mind this smacks of leaders reacting in fear to the erosion of control over what the American people can know about what's happening in the war. This lines up exactly with Israel's muting of Al Jazzera.
Pretty amusing to watch sibling's link of Mitt Romney and the interviewer haltingly say "narrative" in hushed tones, like they know it's some kind of dirty word.
The thing with propaganda is that it needs to have parts rooted in truth in order to be effective outside total information control; I consider the ability to consume everyone's propaganda an essential tool in distilling the most truth possible in a world where media and leadership across the world are openly concerned with the breakdown of their PR (read propaganda).
Watching the clip is just the usual "Who you gonna believe? us our your lying eyes?". Thing is that the days of a media fully controlling the narrative are gone. Before it was easier since all you had were rumors of what was really going on but now anyone can take video and give direct proof, how are you going to Baghdad-Bob your way into the narrative you want?.
The best they can aim for is trying to create a narrative that at least somewhat aligns with the reality that is impossible to fully hide now.
The United States right of free speech is uniquely strong. That's why we're all just sitting here acting completely blase about bad faith propaganda destroying us.
Al Jazeera claims this is direct retaliation for their 7 Oct documentary which is a very thorough analysis of some of the more extreme claims made by the IDF about what happened that day. Ironically, this documentary uses the Israeli government's own information as its initial primary source (including the official record of who died that day).
I'm not a fan of Al Jazeera myself but this sets a very bad precedent. Israel is winning the war but they are being very short sighted among the decisions they are making.
I wouldn't classify murdering 30k+ civilians (15k+ children), dropping bombs on entire families, being caught[0] executing civilians with drones in plain view, having israeli holocaust scholars and survivors describing israel's actions as "textbook-case of genocide"[1][2], the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state, as "winning", but you do you.
[0] "Note that this footage permits no room for "it was a mistake," showing repeated, specifically-targeted strikes on the unarmed and even wounded. The sort of behavior the ICJ explicitly forbid in the genocide ruling against Israel." https://x.com/Snowden/status/1770936325996155290
You're still conflating murdering civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure with "winning", but the resistance is quite safe in their tunnels and they are still fighting[0] back. It's also advisable to take Israel's casualty numbers with a huge grain of salt because they are contradictory to what's happening on the ground. Israel has not achieved any of its declared objectives (except for the Genocide)
Winning is based on war aims. Israel's were the return of captives and removal of Hamas. It is further along in those aims than it was in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks; that's fairly defined as winning. (Taken to the extreme, Nazi Germany was winning WWII in 1940.)
> the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state
>> the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state
>Your other claims are true. This one is not.
I should have phrased that more precisely but I was just judging by what Israel's ministry of hasbara itself seems to be most concerned with and fears the most is people questioning israel's legitimacy. Combined with the sentiment that can be seen across social media where even regular folks have started seeing israel as a racist settler colonial project that has no legitimacy. But you're correct, my previous wording was too ambiguous since "the world" is too broad and can refer to too many things.
> the sentiment that can be seen across social media where even regular folks have started labelling israel as a racist settler colonial project that has no legitimacy
A majority of Americans support Israel's war [1]. An overwhelming majority believe Israel has a right to exist [2]. (The exception being 18 to 24-year olds, among whom 31% believe Israel does not.)
Israel has faced practically zero actual diplomatic consequences as a result of its war, with even those voting against it at the UN continuing to e.g. trade with and talk to it [3].
>A majority of Americans support Israel; that fraction has actually grown recently [1]
America is a special case and does not represent the regular folks of the world because it's home to the strongest israeli lobby on the planet and their supporters are mostly die-hard evangelicals for whom no evil israel does is too far.
Just listen to Jonathan Greenblatt's admission in the leaked[1] conversation where he verbatim states: “We have a major, major, major generational problem, All the polling I’ve seen: the ADL’s polling, ICC’s polling, independent polling, suggests that this is not a left, right gap folks. The issue of the United States’ support of Israel is not left and right. It is young and old.”
> America is a special case and does not represent the regular folks of the world
Israel's net favourability is down globally [1]. But there is zero evidence it's losing legitimacy; very few countries flipped sign. Instead, it was countries that didn't like Israel a bit disliking them more. (And again, not to the degree of carrying policy consequences.)
> issue of the United States’ support of Israel is not left and right. It is young and old
>Israel's net favourability is down globally [1]. But there is zero evidence it's losing legitimacy; very few countries flipped sign.
>zero evidence it's losing legitimacy
zero? "Colombia nation cuts ties with Israel amid Columbia University protest"[0]
Your judgment on this is rather shortsighted and there is more than enough evidence that israel is losing legitimacy. The people's opinion rarely turns into policy over night, even in democracies.
I've observed the sentiments on this particular issue for more than a decade and I can tell you that I've never seen such insane amount of regular folks, from diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, who fearlessly speak truth about israel in a manner that would make Menachem Begin tremble in his grave. I'm observing Israeli accounts and hasbara efforts and it's evident, from the content they produce, that they fear losing legitimacy and are acting accordingly e.g. investing a lot of money into gerrymandering/astroturfing[1]
Even dictators in the middle east, who are puppets of the US and Israel, are fearing of losing their own legitimacy because of what their own people perceive[2][3] as corrupt and subservient behavior to the empire. Those dictators are one arab spring away from getting brought to justice by their own people for their complicity in israel's genocide and they know it and they fear that.
Ukraine has cut diplomatic ties with Russia; the Baltic states have gone almost as far [1]. That doesn't mean they deny Russia's legitimacy as a state.
There has been zero change in recognition of Israel since October 7 [2]. (Belize and Bolivia also severed relations, by the way. And Turkey stopped trading. But again, very different from disagreement and denying legitimacy, and why I said practically zero diplomatic consequences, a threshold much lower than loss of legitimacy.)
> more than enough evidence that israel is losing legitimacy
Open to being convinced, but do you have a source?
> I've never seen such insane amount of regular folks, from diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, who fearlessly speak truth about israel
Plenty of batshit crazy stuff seems widespread on the internet.
> they fear losing legitimacy
Sure. They should. America fears China annexing Taiwan; that isn't evidence it's happening.
> dictators in the middle east, who are puppets of the US and Israel, are fearing of losing their own legitimacy
> There has been zero change in recognition of Israel since October 7
It's not about recognition of Israel as a nation, it's about legitimacy of Israeli policies. The phrasing of "illegitimate pariah state" (not my phrasing) was rather unfortunate IMHO.
And I think it's very hard to deny that criticism of Israel's long-term policies of settlement has increasingly come under more and more scrutiny. Even your own links are demonstrating that. This is not new criticism: pretty much the entire world except Israel and the US has been saying for decades that the settlement policy is illegal and the major roadblock to peace.
> it's very hard to deny that criticism of Israel's long-term policies of settlement has increasingly come under more and more scrutiny
Oh absolutely. The legitimacy of Israel’s entire Palestine strategy has essentially crumbled. Its ability to conduct diplomatic relations has been impaired, and it’s got a massive perception problem across an entire generation.
But when someone says Israel is losing legitimacy, they are arguing that its continued existence as a state is under threat. When the Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden, they lost legitimacy with the United States. That’s what a country losing legitimacy means—it’s no longer treated like a real country. (I don’t necessarily think everyone who says this understands this. But that’s what those words mean.)
And in respect of Israel, that simply isn’t true. In terms of pariah status it isn’t even in the world’s top ten. Its support in America—its security guarantor—is surprisingly stable. It has nukes. This isn’t a view seriously held by anyone with any military or international relations credibility. That said, I see why it has appeal in a sort of karmic justice way. Because it’s not fun to watch e.g. a Sudanese warlord or junta in Myanmar commit war crimes and win.
>> more than enough evidence that israel is losing legitimacy
>Open to being convinced, but do you have a source?
A state's legitimacy hinges not only on diplomatic relations with other states but also significantly on public perception and global discourse. This is particularly evident in the case of Israel, where many now view it as a racist colonial entity which is a danger to israel's legitimacy. As I've stated before, your judgment on this seems to be extremely shortsighted, you may dismiss the countless of crucial events of the past months but israelis certainly don't, they speak of the existential threat of "delegitimization" of israel and they are fighting it tooth an nail[0]. Why would they so fiercely fight the "delegitimization" of israel if they didn't see it as a real & existential threat?
>> I've never seen such insane amount of regular folks, from diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, who fearlessly speak truth about israel
>Plenty of batshit crazy stuff seems widespread on the internet.
Without "batshit crazy" people israel couldn't even survive, those "batshit crazy" evangelicals have immense influence on policy.
Furthermore, your dismissal is a bit flippant, the people I've seen speak out are sensible & reasonable; people from whom I would have never expected to hear harsh truths about the zionist colonial project.
>> they fear losing legitimacy
>Sure. They should. America fears China annexing Taiwan; that isn't evidence it's happening.
I don't think that is an adequate comparison. I'm not interested in writing an essay on how different those conflicts are, I'm pretty sure you know enough about that.
>> dictators in the middle east, who are puppets of the US and Israel, are fearing of losing their own legitimacy
>The ones who helped Israel repel Iran's attack?
Yes, the article[1] I linked above literally mentions that and I really don't see how your point diminishes in any way what I've argued for.
[0] The Diane and Guilford Foundation that grants this fellowship to you has as its stated mission "the prosperity and safety of Israel". Their grant focuses include "confronting the delegitimization of Israel" and to advance "Israel's geopolitical interests" https://x.com/birdelaire/status/1784413355236790382
That's just arguing semantics, many of those dynamics go hand in hand.
Anyway we can meet here again in 12 months and have a clearer picture of the consequences of the past months on israel's legitimacy. Thank you for the conversation.
I think you should be skeptical of the official state claims of war aims. It seems quite apparent that Israel's actions are working towards the goal of ethnic cleansing and land conquest.
With the amount of unexploded munitions they're leaving there, they're supplying the future resistance's rocket and IED systems for the next 75 years. Also creating enough orphans and resentment for another orphan army to replace the current one. Winning?
Al Jazeera was one of the few sources of 'on the ground' journalism in Gaza.
It's quite chilling that western democracies have stood back from ensuring journalistic freedom is upheld in the reporting up until now. To allow the removal of the last effective observational counterpoint to Israel's narrative points to the acceptance of despot power of Israel over the population of Gaza.
Effectively it sanctions whatever Israel wants to do to that population without any oversight or reporting. Given what has been done in sight and the obvious desire of the Israeli government to attack Rafah, and the US's impotency to influence Israel it's clear this move is just to reduce the risk of ongoing exposure of children and other innocents being slaughtered on TV repeatably and without having to even pretend justification.
Users have a wide range of conflicting views about what HN does or doesn't have to do with. You can see that vividly in these past examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, which go back many years but sound like they were posted last week.
Those are the principles, and they've been stable for a long time. Then there's which stories get to count as clearing the bar. That is also contentious, but a different question: it's about how to apply the principles, not what the principles should be.
We look for stories that contain significant new information [1], aren't too repetitive of recent discussion [2, 3], and have at least some chance of providing a foundation for intellectually curious conversation.
If you want to understand HN moderation, you need to understand the difference between those two questions—what the principles are vs. how to apply them in specific cases. It's the difference between the rules of a game and the calls made by refs on specific occasions.
The rules are stable and we're confident that they're right. Particular calls, not so much—we sometimes get them wrong. We're often willing to make adjustments in specific cases, especially when users persuade us that we got something wrong. But we're much less willing to change the rules themselves, because they've held up well over many years, and provide a good basis for running HN for its intended purpose [4].
As you can imagine, this question shows up often—especially on divisive topics like the OP—and I've written different versions of this answer many times. You can find a bunch of past explanations from threads about the current topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39618973. If you, or anyone, still have questions after reading the current post, I suggest looking at that link (and the links back from there). If after that you still have a question I haven't answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
Then I was confused myself. I thought Hacker News was in relation to the hacker spirit, embodied best in the book "Hackers", or even "Masters of DOOM", with a slight twist of VP and startup culture. Even the Big Tech propaganda gets tiring and off-topic. But I guess I was mistaken about the expectations.
Well, it certainly is supposed to be for those things. But if you try to run a site like HN only for those things, it turns out that's not a stable position.
'Freedom of speech' as a topic is interesting to HN and has an obvious Information Technology angle. It is probably the one that skirts the edge the most though.
TBH I don't care to extend charity like freedom of speech to people that don't share our liberal values. Sure, the bar should be very high for such charges, but organizations like Al Jazeera have repeatedly shown their colors.
When you want to control the narrative. Block out any independent journalists. Use your leveraged/blackmailed journalists or state news to push propaganda.
The amount of blood the current Israeli government is willing to shed is just creating future generations of terrorists. Hamas may eventually get rooted. But only at significant cost of civilian life. The Israeli-Palestinian war will never end. Violence begets violence.
Is there anyone else who doesn't support either side of this conflict? They've been fighting each other for over 100 years. They both want the same piece of land. It's on them to figure it out. People around the world don't need to 'pick a side'. We can protest for both sides to sort their shit out, and not drag the rest of us into it.
I think lots of people don't really have a "side", other than the side of just not wanting to see people suffer. I don't think that closing your eyes to that is neutral. Sometimes "do nothing" is an act of evil.
In Northern Ireland and the Balkans international intervention almost certainly saved lives and helped bring about peace and relative stability. How long had they been fighting? There's probably some more examples. So I'd argue that it's not useless either.
And Jewish and Israeli (and by extension, Palestinian) history is strongly connected to the history of 19th and 20th century Europe in all sorts of ways, and I don't think you can just cleanly separate that.
Of course on a personal level I can imagine people reading the news, feeling powerless to change anything, and just not being interested. That's fine. But on a governmental/policy level, I do think we (the world) needs to stay engaged. Not just here, but also elsewhere with long-running issues. It's not our problem to solve, no, but we can facilitate and help.
That's kind of what I'm getting at. I don't support either side because both are wrong. Stopping the suffering means compromise and concessions on both sides. The best the world can do is make that clear and not get caught up protesting for one side or the other - again, both are wrong. Their current path will only lead to another 100 years of suffering.
> I don't support either side because both are wrong.
That's only true if you view the "Israeli government" and "Hamas" as the only sides that exist. That is not the case; you don't need to choose either of them.
Now, of course it's true that everyone has legitimate grievances here for all sorts of reasons, an it's also true that forever banging on about every little thing anyone has ever done wrong will lead to another 100 years of suffering. But that doesn't mean we (broad international community) can't and shouldn't try. Even if it fails, I think it was worth the effort to try.
Right, that's my point. All of these protests have taken one of the two sides. Which has zero chance of resolving this. There aren't any protests pointing the finger at both these groups telling them to figure their shit out.
I think this is classic "you only hear the loudest people" type of thing. Everyone somewhere in the middle with more nuanced views will get piled on by the extremes from all sides. That does not mean those extremes are the only thing that exists, or represent the majority of people with views on the matter.
Extreme voices tend to drown out everyone else. I mean, what type of reasonable person has the energy and will to involve themselves in this toxic quagmire, right? The type of people willing to do so are strongly biased to people with Very Strong Views.
Trying to organise a protest around unfocused nuanced views is hard. "Free Palestine" is easy and straight-forward. "Hamas is wrong, but Israel should offer a solution for the people of Gaza that does not involve a de-facto concentration camp under military control" doesn't really fit on a billboard.
And lets also be realistic: yes, "both sides" have blame, but "both sides have blame" does not mean "both sides are equivalent". The people of Gaza are by and large powerless, and have been for a long time. The initiative for any solution really rests primarily on the Israeli side, who have been controlling much of life in Gaza for a long time now. The situation in Gaza and that Israel has never seriously offered any solution is frankly just disgraceful, and could only have ended in violence one way or the other sooner or later.
I think it's less the impunity and more the active supporting. The US is building a floating pier and air-dropping aid instead of simply pressuring Israel's government to let trucks through.
> Israel lets more aid through now than before the October 7th atrocities. That aid is intercepted by Hamas and does not reach the intended recipients.
No, they do not. There are still less full aid trucks even after the murder of the World kitchen volunteers massively increased international pressure on Israel to let aid in.
Northern Gaza is now in full blown famine as defined by top US officials that define famine, with southern Gaza on the brink of famine, as all farming infastructure inside gaza gas has now been destroyed. They need drastically more full trucks than the the 500/day that was the norm before the war started, not drastically fewer.
I think what really makes the situation uniquely toxic is that after reading your comment, I genuinely have no idea which side you're referring to that you think is getting total impunity.
Note: You don't need to reply and specify which. Apparently you've picked a side, as have I. No point debating that here I think. But each side would claim that the other is committing war crimes and inhuman acts and not being held to account.
It’s worthwhile learning the history of intervention in this conflict by the US and UK. It’s not just two groups fighting amongst themselves. It’s western governments putting their thumbs on the scales to massively help one side destroy the other. The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi is an excellent book on the subject with a good audiobook on audible. It’s remarkable how one sided this conflict has been with western support since the beginning.
AJ is far from bipartisan wrt to the conflict. they employ high journalistic standards for just about everything except israeli news, for that they become rapid dogs. example: https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-793560
Yeah, I'm totally with you. At this point it's like the Hatfields and the McCoys. I don't care what was the last thing the other guy did - he did it to get back at you for the second to last thing you did.
On the other hand, killing children is always wrong. Fucking stop it.
It's not a "cycle of violence" - "both sides" scenario for anyone who has actually put in the effort to study the history in detail.
Since you brought up the "cycle of violence" argument, I remember Shaun making an excellent video[1] on the topic and also addressing that specific talking point.
You can disagree all you want, some people even disagree on if the holocaust happened but no one takes them seriously. The history of Zionism and its goal to colonize Palestine (long before the holocaust even happened) and their ruthless methods of colonization are thoroughly documented[0][1].
A man comes into your house. His 2-year old is in a baby carrier on his chest. He has a gun and is firing at you. Your wife and 5 year old son are behind you on the couch, and you have a gun too.
Do you shoot back?
Did you just hesitate? A bullet just scraped your wife on the side of the leg. Hesitated again? Son just got a bullet in his arm.
You fire three bullets. The baby is dead and so is the intruder.
Are you in the wrong here?
---
I'm not saying this is the same as what's happening in Israel and Gaza. But "always wrong", like many views on this conflict, is sorely lacking in nuance.
With thousands of Israelis and tens of thousands of Palestinians killed, ignoring nuance is disrespectful to their memories and will not lead to realistic progress.
I agree with that line of thought too, but one side is sort of represented a terrorist organization who have the ability to murder 1200 people and kidnap others while the other is a western democracy that has the ability kill 30k people as collateral damage level. The collateral damage is so high but people like Sam Harris is saying Israel is engaging in a restrained manner compared to other powers previous retaliatory actions to terrorism.
I think it is not the kind of conflict where you pick a side. There are legitimate and illegitimate claims on both sides. As a bystander I try to evaluate specific actions, not choose a favorite.
I agree with you. What I'm saying is that all I see are people who have picked a side and no one in the middle saying, 'you are both wrong. figure it out'
The optics are interesting. People who have opinions on things are unlikely to change them due to this.
The interesting question is how many people do not have strong opinions and how this could affect them.
My guess is it also won't. Why would you be paying attention to news you haven't cared about up to now? The nonopinionated will likely not hear of this
What is worrying is what it’ll mean for the access to the West Bank and Gaza, as they’re currently the only international media outlet on the field, and are documenting various atrocities that are currently being looked at by the ICJ.
As Americans, we’re constantly told, “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.” The narrative is always that they’re “our greatest ally” because we share similar values to them. Well, one of our values—in fact, a constitutionally protected one—is press freedom. Al Jazeera has been the only media/news outlet in Israel that offered the Palestinian perspective and they’ve shut it down. As a rule, you’re probably not the good guys when your tactic for winning the information war is censoring the other side—especially while you’re being accused by millions across the world of committing a genocide (whether you agree with that characterization or not).
Even the TikTok ban appears to have been led by the Israeli lobby and Israeli operatives because so much of the TikTok content re the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has leaned in favor of the Palestinians [0][1].
for anyone reading and wondering what qatar's intentions are with their media arm, they're the largest foreign donor of US institutions: https://tikva.so/qatar
it's not coincidental that these are where all the protests are, and suddenly college students have access to thousands of $ of camping gear...
Nothing in the article you linked appears to indicate that al jazeera is anti semitic. Nor does it indicate it's anti-Israel even. Certainly, it deleted a story, and didn't instead retract it, which isn't great, but how does that support an accusation that the entire outlet is anti semitic or anti israel?
Opposing Israeli war crimes is not anti semitic. Claiming that Israel represents all Jewish people worldwide, though, is anti semitic.
i am curious ig there is a valid threat in israelis reading al jazeera. or if they have any proof of any falsehoods being published there and why it would need to be shut down?. any good neutral resource around this for a non-israeli/non-palestinian person to make sense of this? from the surface this looks so grim, but i do not want to jump to conclusions... its so hard to make sense of this more and more.. and it becomes easier to beleive the wrong things.
I am all agaisnt censorship, but I am ok with gagging the guy screaming fire in the theather. 90% fake news outlets fall into that category.
IDK about your country, but Latam RT was 25% discussion about how Russia has been great through history, 25% one sided debates about how democratic countries are hypocrites and bad, 25% wrong and one sided reads into current events, and 25% travel bloggers in Russia.
I am on the fence about removing RT, but arab Al-Jazera calling for action and praising the martyrs falls into my censorable bag
I like your analogy on the gagging of the guy screaming fire. this is a very good and clear way to put it thanks. that guy deserves a ban from the theatre for sure ;)
It's hard to read or watch Al Jazeera's reporting on this matter without feeling utterly disgusted at how a certain military is treating a civilian population (be it in Gaza or the West Bank). They make the Israelis and the IDF look like absolute monsters.
thanks for the reply. i do feel the same, as in, i sometimes even think that way too due to the news. i dont watch al jazera, but in my country, the IDF does not come out good either... Israelis though, they dont get chucked in with the same sentiment. (im dutch, there's reports of the injustices against civilians, but no word on the general population of israel being 'bad' or something like that.)
im maybe lucky i have some israeli ex colleagues who can help me see that the people there are also against violence and injustices. (what those are is not the point i guess. - maybe that's an opinion different on both sides of a fence..)
There's in our national news things like a report that says there's like 35k deaths in gaza, then the next report says there's like 30k children killed. - it's really easy to get a weird idea here..... (I simply assume no soldier would willingly just kill mostly children - but maybe thats also wrong??)
don't want to say i am with one or another side. just want to point out how reporting, as you said, can make things look a certain way, while they might not be. This is now true for most conflicts as there's so many sides of each story, and then all the content-farms and propaganda ontop of that.
everyone is trying to win the others over to their side of the debate to justify their war, rather than to build peace. (i think?)
What is exactly wrong with shutting down someone who not just lies (nothing unique there lol) but systematically supports information war against your country?
Al Jazeera is not engaged in an "information war" against Israel. Al Jazeera is the major independent media organization operating in Gaza, and one of the main sources of accurate information about the conflict. That's what angers the Israeli government.
2. I don't much care about what opinion pieces get published in Al Jazeera, or whether they meet your political demands. I care about the news reporting that Al Jazeera does from Gaza. On that score, Al Jazeera is the best source out there.
> Even a single post calling hamas terrorists (or at least some of their actions a terrorist attack) would suffice to convince me.
I'll take you up on that.
From [0], "At the time of writing, one month has passed since the barbaric terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7. A total of 1,400 Israelis were murdered. Over 230 people were taken hostage."
Sorry, but you're either completely out of touch with what's going on there.
Or you have bad intents.
Regardless of your attitudes and ideological preferences - calling Al Jazeera "independent" is the winner of international nonsense contest.
Independent in general, or their Gaza branch in particular - it is a nonsense.
Last independent people in Gaza were thrown off the roof about 15 years ago. Unfortunately. Don't you know how dictatorships work? Even if for the arguably right cause...
Independent in that they're not beholden to either side: the Israelis or the Palestinians (any faction). They're a major international news organization that has people on the ground.
The major threat to Al Jazeera journalists over the last several years has come from the IDF, not from Palestinians. There are plenty of examples of the IDF killing Al Jazeera journalists, but I'm not aware of any cases of them being killed by Hamas.
You can make a parallel with Russia Today being (effectively) banned in the US (albeit not via direct government action). Both are just mouthpieces of their respective masters and not a source of objective information.
That said, banning media presence in Gaza by Israel, and the overall hesitance of western media to report on the devastation is very disappointing.
Curious fact. The shutting down of Al Jazeera gave at least one journalist the title of being part of media organizations banned by distinct apartheid regimes twice, first SA in 1988, and now Israel in 2024. Wonder it that qualifies for the Guinness Book. See:
1 point by rajishx 0 minutes ago | next | edit | delete [–]
Isn't the same as when RT was not allowed to broadcast in Europe after the war? I wonder why the news about Al Jazeera and Israel makes more splash than the RT and Russia news
There can be regulatory bodies, which ideally should be self governing the media instead of executive of the elected government, which regulate some of the media attributes. But a blanket ban on a media house, for criticism in the name of national security? No. That is the failure of the civilian leadership to provide the security to the nation. Admitting that you are naked should the norm, not blinding the population from seeing you.
I disagree. The temporary ban is due to the platforming of violence. It's the same ban that the US, UK, and EU have in place and for the same reasons. You can't give terror a voice or it gives terrorists an incentive to commit terror. If AJ wants to broadcast they need to stop airing interviews with terror groups.
Other broadcasters critical of Israel seem to have that part figured out.
That doesn’t sound like a thing Chomsky would do. I could imagine him saying that certain tactics were effective or certain aspects of their politics were notable, but I don’t see him as someone who idolizes anyone.
Do you have a source for this? To me this sounds like a misunderstanding, but I’m open to being shown otherwise.
Bit of a busy day for me so I asked ChatGPT so summarize and explain the author’s position on the Khmer Rouge.
“The text is an interview with Noam Chomsky discussing the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Chomsky critiques Western media's portrayal of the Khmer Rouge, arguing that it's exaggerated and ignores broader historical context, particularly U.S. involvement. He suggests that atrocities attributed to the Khmer Rouge may have been exaggerated or even fabricated, emphasizing the need for independent investigation. Chomsky's attitude toward the Khmer Rouge appears critical of Western narratives, highlighting skepticism and a call for a more nuanced understanding.”
That’s does not give any truth to your claim of idolizing, as I expected. It’s quite believable that western narratives could be manipulated as that is common place and the subject of Chomsky’s expertise. Pointing out the manipulation of the media and painting the target as more nuanced and not as evil as media makes them out to be is a far cry from idolization.
I’m gonna believe what makes sense. You made a claim which didn’t fit with what I know about Chomsky, and left a citation that doesn’t support that claim. Your claim does not make any sense to me. It’s perfectly within my understanding of Chomsky for him to say “These people we vilified weren’t quite that bad. We vilified them for our own political aims, and fabricated stories as needed to support that. The truth is much more nuanced than media made it out to be.”
And Chomsky doesn’t just make empty claims or “believe what he wants”. He usually cites sources from within the US government, like published State Department memos stating the position he’s claiming they had.
There is plenty of precedent as others have pointed out, including in the EU.
And we are talking about a media outlet controlled by the government of a foreign country that also directly finances the opposing terrorist group and houses their leaders.
Democracy merely depends on free media, not on free foreign or adversary media.
That's the bane of democracy, not to say that we have a better alternative. Because democracy has been assigned to be any system where there are some elections and people vote. Universal suffrage is itself is pretty modern. The decisions in bastions of democratic countries where in the hands of a few elite. What is the distinguishing factor of a high quality democracy is it when it does have a set of constitution, and is republic by nature. The rule of law is enforced. Selective enforcement is nonexistent.
On an assessment by these very basic qualities, the current Regime in charge can't be really classified as a democracy. It is an excuse for democracy. An overgrown military outpost formed out of crusade era objectives and European anti semitic emotions. Not to mention the oil and perceived potential of the region to be a western adversary.
In the words of US president, US-UK still believes that if there were no Israel, then they would have to create one. Which is ironic, since they are the ones who created it.
Israel has never formally left behind the "make it up as you go" spirit of the founding days. Not entirely surprising considering that they've never had a lack of more pressing problems. But a "who needs rules if we are all friends" attitude certainly seems a bit anachronistic by now, and really not a good fit for the reality on the ground.
But I make it the centerpiece of my best-case scenario for the region: imagine that gap left by the absent constitution getting filled by something aggressively secular, with a strong set of entrenched clauses (aka eternity clauses) protecting individual religious freedom from any majority shifts that might happen. Perhaps even with some strong federal element enabling peaceful growth (and Brexit-like shrinkage) like the EU. I'm certainly not holding my breath, neither expecting Israel to come up with anything like that (despite their internal made-up-as-they-went not being terribly far off, I think) nor this having any effect on countries refusing recognition. But then what other best-case scenarios are there?
The genocide in Gaza and the subsequent full colonization of the strip during the years to come will be the most shameful event of the twentieth first century. Denying the genocide is like denying the holocaust while it was happening.
I had this discussion recently and went onto investigate, and I found no reports that any newspaper was outlawed in Gaza. In fact I read that the most popular newspaper is Al-Quds, a Jerusalem based newspaper.
I don’t think there is much of a market for either Haaretz or the Jerusalem Post in Gaza, so I would be really surprised if respective offices care to distribute their papers there.
Do you have any reports which indicates that Hebrew (or any other) newspapers are censored in Gaza?
All that said, press freedom is definitely a concern in Gaza, however that is a result of the Israeli occupation, which prevents access, targets journalists, blockades the enclave, and sometimes even levels foreign press offices, such as the AP’s.
If the Internet is available, then ofcourse these should be available in there. But on the contrary Al Jazeera website itself would be censored out of the Internet for Israel.
If I was Jewish I'd be very upset of what is being done in my name. The Israeli government, by insisting any criticism is antisemitic, is equating Judaism with its own actions. With their existing extreme, brazen and opportunistic behavior they're slowly mainstreaming antisemitism as outrage grows at the government and people accept being called 'antisemitic' if they oppose it. It's a tragedy for Jews.
I don't say this as a personal view, but as a logical inevitability.
I am Jewish, and that's pretty much how I feel. Israel wants criticism of itself to be seen as antisemitic, which means that anything Israel does that warrants criticism (e.g. killing children) ends up driving people towards antisemitism.
It’s a standard behaviour in theocracies. Being against the Al-Sauds means being against Islam (according to the Saudi government), other governments do that too. Being against Trump is being against Christianism (according to Republican fundamentalists, hopefully those won’t end up in the cabinet again).
The State props up the religion by normalising it and undermining its competition, and the religion props up the state by providing convenient pretexts and effective brainwashing mechanisms. I am not Jewish, but I find it particularly disgusting too. My sympathies to humanist Jews who are thrown into this nightmare.
> Being against the Al-Sauds means being against Islam (according to the Saudi government)
Pretty much every of the hundreds of millions of muslims who live outside Saudi Arabia (and probably a large number of those who live inside it) laugh at that, and despise the Saudi regime. If you do not believe me, try talking to some and asking them.
As a practicing Muslim, yup I have no love for the Saudi regime (same with the Iranian regime, Taliban, etc.).
That being said you'll find a variety of opinions with the Muslim community both from Saudi and non-Saudi Muslims.
I imagine my relationship with KSA is similar to how some if not many US Jews feel with Israel. Just like I have an emotional attachment to Mecca and Medina which is currently under Saudi control I can understand how those among the Jewish diaspora may have an emotional attachment to Israel or believe in principle jewish self determination even when they vehemently oppose the government or have reservations about the modern state.
I know. The Iranians and the talibans do the same, the 3 are more or less incompatible and yet all pretend to be Islam in their country. It’s mostly for their captive audience. Islam in itself does not have to imply brutal dictatorship (this should not need saying).
> Israel started Internet censorship in 2017.[1] Initially it was limited to "terror group websites, online illegal gambling, prostitution services, hard drug sales"
It always starts like that, and it's usually the #1 motivation to sell censorship laws to the population in countries that don't have them already in place. It also has the side effect to create a mind association where censorship is seen as positive. Then, once those laws are passed, it's too late as they will be slowly but progressively applied also against anything that government sees as hostile, including legit political opposition that could change or remove those laws.
"Think of the children/fear terrorists" laws that usually are enacted in "western" countries follow the same pattern where the powers need a stronger and more fear inducing argument than gambling, prostitution or drugs. Israel isn't the 1st and won't be the last democratic country to go down this route.
Far too many eyeballs witnessing the "conflict" now - and with Elon buying Twitter-X, the censorship-suppression-narrative control apparatus has a massive hole in it now.
In order for that to happen, a Shabak rep. Will have to provide statement that Haaretz poses serious threat to the national security of Israel. Call me when that happens (spoiler: it won’t).
Now that would make an interesting hn story.
[EDIT: sorry, having read the bill again, it's also required for Haaretz to be "a foreign news channel"]
Considering what Haaretz is, banning them would not be a good idea. Even by the standards of this genocidal regime, that would be such a rare event of censoring. I think a more gradual and coercive strategy would be applied there. Deployment and outcome of that, if it were to be done, would be a case study.
The article's content evokes a bit of Orwelllian irony though, Minister of Communications threatening to ban the long(est?) standing news outlet.
They will not be banned. There is zero evidence for this.
There is a big difference between banning what can only be described as a fake news outlet controlled by the adversary government of Qatar vs. banning the most important or second most important independent newspaper in the country.
When _that_ happens then the completely unjustified outrage in many comments here will be justified as that would indeed be an unprecedented step.
As someone who was only familiar with Al Jazeera's English reporting (and thought it was pretty good), it was eye opening to check out their Arabic website translated into a language I speak. Maybe Google Translate was erasing some nuance, but I saw a huge number of controversial, disputed, or downright false claims that were reported uncritically as facts.
It's all looking like pretty standard news stuff to me.
And I don't know about you, but I see "controversial, disputed, or downright false claims that were reported uncritically as facts" all the time even in mainstream US publications.
So I'd need to see some evidence here that Al Jazeera is particularly worse.
Your second claim seems to being mistaking their role as telling absolute truth. The very first sentence makes it clear that they are reporting an official government statement, and the next that Israel disputes it and says the PLJ was responsible. This seems very normal for war reporting and I note that they’re very careful to attribute each claim so the reader can decide how much to trust it.
Edit: your first source is a pro-Israeli advocacy group run by a former AIPAC employee, which has marked its coverage of the war with things like baselessly claiming reporters were in on the October 7th attacks:
Given that in this case they ran a report by a witness, and then publicly updated that to say that a Hamas investigation had called her credibility into question, it’s interesting to note how carefully the “Honest Reporting” writer relies on uncited insinuation or tries to distract your attention to statements by people who are not part of al Jazeera. Again, it’s not great that they ran a story by someone who lied but that’s a hazard of breaking news coverage and it’s hardly unique in the field.
> then publicly updated that to say that a Hamas investigation had called her credibility into question
I don't think there's much of a question, the claims were just fabricated, according to Hamas themselves.
By "publicly updated", do you just mean quietly deleting the articles with false information? As far as I know, they never acknowledged the error and published a retraction, which calls into question their legitimacy as a news organization.
I was referring to the lead in that “Honest Reporting” article which was about one of their employees doing the opposite of this claim by correcting the record:
Now, I do think they should have put out an official statement pointing out the unreliability of the interviewee rather than simply yanking the video but a single unreliable witness interviewed in a tumultuous event which is promptly dropped seems to fall well short of establishing a lie. All news organizations interview people who turn out to be wrong or misleading, so we’d want to see more than a single interview to establish whether there’s a pattern of poor vetting or running a story after evidence has come forth that the witness is unreliable. The public has rather strongly expressed a desire for immediate news coverage rather than waiting for lengthy review and corroboration.
I don't really take issue with publishing the allegation (it's credibility might have been lacking, but that's difficult to judge), just quietly yanking the false information. Wouldn't any legitimate news agency do some form of retraction, such as adding a prominent note at the top of the original article?
To be clear, I think they should have updated their liveblog to add a link to the subsequent Hamas statement calling its accuracy into question. That said, I think some of this comes into questions about the format - this wasn’t a specific story but one of many breaking news details in a tumultuous event, and it’s far from unprecedented within the industry.
As a good example of how messy this can be, consider this story:
None of that is mentioned on that story and the only correction is a minor detail.
Now, to be clear, I am not saying that it’s okay for Al Jazeera to be sloppy if the NYT is sloppy but rather that we should be consistent in our standards and they should probably be higher for everyone. The public and especially people covered in these stories deserve better.
I've been following the Screams Without Words story and I don't think it's really comparable to something that was basically confirmed to be false. The NYT stands behind the report
> We remain confident in the accuracy of our reporting and stand by the team’s investigation which was rigorously reported, sourced and edited.
A lot of the "debunking" seems fairly weak in my opinion. E.g. Gal Abdush's brother in law made a rather baseless statement that "the media invented" Gal's rape. Really the article was reporting what Israeli police believed, mainly based on (non-public) video evidence which the Times reporters also reviewed.
I think it would be comparable if Israeli police retracted their claims and stated that Gal was not raped. Then surely the NYT would make some kind of clear correction/retraction, rather than quietly deleting (part of) the report.
Specifically, that is the position of the intelligence agencies of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada, and also the conclusion of investigations by the Associated Press, CNN, The Economist, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal. That's really the best we know about it.
I have no idea how all those newspapers could manage >>independent<< investigations, as the Israeli army banned journalists. The first time [that I saw] CNN reported on something they actually filmed was The Israeli army pointing at tunnels.
The "Summary" is clearly biased and absolutely not "The best we know" depending on who is "we"
I have no idea about the reasons of the explosion, but contesting the palestinian dead toll without [credible] sources is politics.
I dare say United Nations might have a more balanced approach, and they cite the enclave health authorities when they say that as of April 22th there are 34,000 deaths. No other source is cited for some reason.
I have no idea how all those newspapers could manage >>independent<< investigations, as the Israeli army banned journalists. The first time [that I saw] CNN reported on something they actually filmed was The Israeli army pointing at tunnels.
BTW, CNN is now much less biased towards the israeli narrative. During 2023 [Latam] CNN seemed a Netanyahu's outlet more that anything. France24 and DW >>seem<< neutral right now. Spain outlets have mediocre coverange, and Latinamerican outlets are only citing random news from other outlets.
The Wikipedia "Summary" is clearly biased and absolutely not "The best we know" depending on who is "we"
I dare say United Nations might have a more balanced approach, and they cite the enclave health authorities when they say that as of April 22th there are 34,000 deaths. No other source is cited for some reason.
You're giving a ton of weasel words here: most likely (but not certainly). All that word salad of wishy washy makes it clear that the fog of war is still present regarding those events.
Describing the report as credible is not accurate. Given that many news outlets retracted their initial claims and the official statements, it is very likely that there is enough evidence that Israel did not bomb the hospital and that the reported number of casualties is inaccurate. You using the "fog of war" argument to dismiss his claim—which was honest enough to say "not certainly"—is irrelevant. You could say this about almost every other reported event in Gaza.
If you include the surrounding context, that al Ahli had been targeted before, and since, and that other hospitals had also been not only targeted but actively sieged for days, at is in fact credible that the Israeli military targeted and hit the Hospital.
Now remote forensics on the site makes it implausible that the initial reports of an Israeli airstrike were true, however we still haven’t ruled out other types of munitions by the Israeli military.
Note that the initial reports of those supportive of Israel were also false. They claimed that they captured the rockets which they claimed hit the hospital on camera. It turned out this footage was of an unrelated rocket which got completely destroyed in air. Al Jazeera was actually one of few media outlets which correctly hypothesized that this rocket was unrelated to the incident.
The fact is, we still don’t know what happened, all we know is that many of the initial reports were false. There was a lot of lying involved to win the narrative (especially by Israeli officials), and there are at least two very credible hypotheses on what happened.
It’s not worse at all. Actually probably the opposite, I learn some crazy stuff watching Al Jazeera and sometimes don’t believe it and go off researching it … and wow it’s very concerning. It seems almost certain to me there has to be some conspiracy amongst US publications to conceal certain information around Israeli-Palestinian conflict and history. As one example, read up on Ben Gvir, current National Security Minister … it’s totally crazy.
Unfortunately, whenever anything is being posted on this topic, we get to see so many comments such as this.
> It seems almost certain to me there has to be some conspiracy amongst US publications to conceal certain information around Israeli-Palestinian conflict and history
No evidence was provided, just another unfounded conspiracy theory. What can we take away from this?
It’s hard to provide proof of such a conspiracy due to the nature of the conspiracy is to omit information. It’s really only an impression I have when watching France 24 and AJ amongst other non-US news sources and then comparing to US sources.
For examples of stories or topics that appear to be dramatically underreported in the US:
- extremist positions of Israeli cabinet members. Including associations with Zionist terrorists, obviously very anti-Muslim/Arab but also including anti-Christian positions
- Israeli settlers expansions and history of aggressive actions
- famine conditions in Gaza
- and most simply the very high levels of casualties in Gaza, including children and women in huge numbers.
I really don’t ever hear any of those items mentioned even in left leaning US media. Now you might say well France and Qatar are biased due to more Arab listeners. Maybe a bit yeah because I think I hear less on Hamas atrocities perhaps than in US media.
Every media is biased.
Now per my other comment, once you criticize either side then you get automatically labeled as on the other side, our instinct is to use Hero-Villain frameworks, not Villain-Villain. Once you break out of that both leadership and politics on both side look really bad and weighing evil is not a good approach.
As far as worse, I'm not conducting a longitudinal study or anything so I can't compare their rate of "fake news" compared to Fox News or MSNBC or whatever your control group is.
Anecdotally I've noticed the biggest delta between their English and Arabic reporting in the immediate aftermath of major events. For example after the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion, the English version of their reporting was along the lines of "According to a Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson, 500+ people were killed. A Hamas spokesperson said that the explosion was caused by an Israeli airstrike, launched via an F-16 or F-35." They made sure to hedge and make clear that their sources might be biased.
This[1] seems like the sort of Arabic coverage I remember seeing in the past, a much more definitive statement just saying that the occupiers massacred 500+ martyrs.
Unfortunately Google Translate doesn't play nicely with the wayback machine so it's tedious to build up a library of concrete examples.
The oldest example I can find was passed by the Knesset in July of 1986. I'm not very familiar with Israeli laws so it's totally possible I'm missing prior examples from before 1986... That's just what I found after a few minutes of search engine and wikipedia research, limited to English pages.
My understanding is that the degree to which "freedom of speech" is protected in the USA (a country I'm more familiar with) is actually pretty rare globally
I was expecting links to comparative articles that showed the discrepancies you suggested were there. Not phrases that whilst I can have translated by Google have no context.
Took the same path recently. Probably the easiest thing to point to if you're looking for something to convince people of Al Jazeera's nature, (besides specific articles), is the incredible amount of time and editorial space devoted to Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the arabic channel (before his death). The man had an audience of 60 million people for a decade and a half, and could reasonably be called the face of Al Jazeera Arabic. He has caused a lot of problems through that platform that hopefuly only the most radicalized westerner won't view as monstrous.
Probably no one who needs convincing is willing to read the ADL on him, but you can basically pick your source.
Here's a video of him asserting that "Hitler was a god given punishment upon the Jews, (not that the holocaust was as bad as they say)" on Al Jazeera TV.
Just to clarify: that clip was broadcast on a separate channel called AJ Live (“Mubasher”). It’s a 24/7 channel that basically broadcasts entire live events and re-runs - think press conferences, speeches, etc. I would compare it to something like C-SPAN in the US.
Now, how much editorial input AJ has over this channel, that I don’t know.
> the incredible amount of time and editorial space devoted to Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the arabic channel (before his death). The man had an audience of 60 million people for a decade and a half, and could reasonably be called the face of Al Jazeera Arabic. He has caused a lot of problems through that platform that hopefuly only the most radicalized westerner won't view as monstrous.
I don't know Arabic, but I am Muslim, and Yusuf al Qaradawi is probably most known as a preeminent Islamic scholar. Any mosque you go to will likely have a work by him because his scholarship on the Quran and Hadith (not necessarily his views on current events) are very renowned. I'm not sure what makes him so radical and evil to be honest. He has written tons of scholarly works about Islam, interpretation of Islamic rules and laws, etc. And from looking online I see he was on Al Jazeera hosting a program called "Sharia and Life". These kinds of call-a-sheikh / Islamic info shows are pretty common in the Muslim world and probably have more viewership than news channels. Something Americans probably might not understand...
But it makes total sense for Al Jazeera Arabic (a channel with possibly a 90% Muslim viewership) to have a Muslim ask-a-sheikh show.
Scholarship on the Quran means what, to you, exactly?
To me it just sounds that he's an expert in convincing people that it is god's will to implement his agenda. Taking the Quran as a source of absolute truth and then taking the further step of handing the reins of interpretation to some "preeminent scholar" is a recipe for exactly the kind of extremism that you see plaguing the Islamic world.
Your and my claims about what Qaradawi is are not mutually exclusive, and are in fact deeply correlated.
> Scholarship on the Quran means what, to you, exactly?
The guy famously studied for like 20 years at Al-Azhar getting a bunch of degrees in Islamic scholarship from the largest mainstream Islamic school in the world. That's what I mean.
>To me it just sounds that he's an expert in convincing people that it is god's will to implement his agenda
Can you cite some controversial or not seen before analysis from any of his works? Most of his publications, that I'm aware of, are pretty standard interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence. It's nothing that would shock or surprise an average Muslim, imo.
>Taking the Quran as a source of absolute truth and then taking the further step of handing the reins of interpretation to some "preeminent scholar" is a recipe for exactly the kind of extremism that you see plaguing the Islamic world.
That's actually the kind of stuff he and other modernist Islamic scholars (Israr Ahmed is a similar scholar but for South Asia, where I'm from) were against. They both championed the idea that the Quran and Hadith are pretty clear and don't need expert opinion for many things. That people should take the time to read Arabic and read Quran and hadiths and they would not have much need for Sheikhs.
In general, this type of "democratic" or "non-hierarchical" view of Islamic scholarship is pretty modern. Older peoples (before the "extremism" you're talking about ostensibly) would have been much more hierarchical and rigid about the need to consult scholars rather than attempt to learn things oneself.
> Your and my claims about what Qaradawi is are not mutually exclusive, and are in fact deeply correlated.
So then you agree it's not a big deal that Al Jazeera has him on their network, since he's a pretty mainstream scholar? Okay, thanks for the chat I guess
I believe that you don't have the perspective to understand my claim, because you are a believer. I would very much like you to try though.
I claim that religious scholarship and religious fundamentalism are one and the same. You're arguing that Qaradawi was an Islamic scholar, I'm arguing that he was an Islamic fundamentalist. However, in all religious scholarship, there are further choices to be made once you are a fundamentalist. The book contradicts itself (intentionally, as it's more important that people who believe different Islams both be able to call themselves Muslim), and Qaradawi had further used his position of "celebrated religious scholar" to assert that it is Shari'a to annihilate the Jews, and used his general credibility to deny the severity of the holocaust. That's just this clip.
You can't become a religious leader without being a religious scholar, and you can't lead an extremist sect without leaning on that classification pretty heavily.
Rather than assuming anything about me, just ask. That's what an online forum is for.
> I claim that religious scholarship and religious fundamentalism are one and the same
This is straying quite a bit from the original claim, that Al Jazeera was wrong to have the scholar on the air. But if you believe, as you claim to, that religious scholarship and religious fundamentalism are the same, then you can't really begrudge the network for having him on, for they could not have any religious scholar on who was not a fundamentalist, according to you. And at least they picked a very mainstream one, no?
That logic out of the way, what do you describe as "fundamentalism"? If the idea that the Quran is the literal, unchanging word of God is fundamentalist, then yeah, all Islamic scholarship will be fundamentalist. If non-fundanentalisn is described as beliefs not orthogonal to the fundamental beliefs of the religion, then yes, you'll be right.
It depends on what you mean.
> The book contradicts itself
In what way, relevant to the discussion we are having where you seem to be most concerned with Qaradawi's anti-Semitic remarks? There's a whole litany of irrelevant arguments we could have about contradictions in the source material, but what specific contradiction do you think he can exploit to make questionable claims in your mind about Israel and/or Jews?
> is Shari'a to annihilate the Jews, and used his general credibility to deny the severity of the holocaust.
So the clip you linked does not say that. Sharia is law. What he's echoing is the belief that sometimes calamities in the world are punishments for moral failings of groups of people. Many religions believe this. It was even insinuated by Muslim scholars that loss of dignity and faith by Muslims was what led to the calamity suffered by the Palestinians. [1]
Is it anti-Muslim to believe that the moral failings of billions of Muslims can cause many Muslims to face calamities as we see today? I don't think so. Many Muslims believe that. Likewise, I don't think it's wrong to believe this about any people, and that's what he's saying in this clip.
If you believe people are not collectively punished by God as groups, that's fine, but there are very clear examples of this happening in religious source material (Sodom is the main one). And as such, I think the only questionable element is him saying "they exaggerate" when referring to the Holocaust. And yes I disagree with that. But it's not an Islamic scholarship issue, that.
We are all trained starting from childhood to use a Hero-Villain framework when observing conflicts and it leaves us very confused when the real world is closer to Villain-Villain situation.
Anytime I ever bring up say Kissinger and the crazy realpolitik actions he took, or now this lunatic Ben-Gvir in Israel I’ve recently learned about, other people are trained to see me as a communist or anti-semite immediately, because if I object to a US figure, I must be with the other side, same with Israel.
I don’t really know how to navigate this problem to be honest.
At the risk of being downvoted as the parent comment. There were many reports in Israeli media showing their reporters framing a false narrative around the conflict.
To be fair, I think that blocking etc. is a dumb move by the government. Even though they are clearly a very biased organization the damage of closing their offices is probably worse than the alternative.
The fear mongering of the top parent comment is unjustified and not exactly accurate. I'm physically in Tel Aviv and can access the Al Jazeera website just fine. News outlets can't be closed and there's no "great firewall" in Israel. There is a censor but its usage is relatively limited in the age of the internet.
Examples of Al Jazeera bias include a famous video of a Gazan interviewed by a reporter blaming Hamas for everything and the reporter immediately cutting it off so it won't break the narrative that everyone in Gaza blames only Israel.
They're the ones that promoted the fake hospital bombing and they are the source of most fake unsubstantiated stories. Their Arabic language channel is far worse than their English coverage.
They made up fake stories about IDF soldiers raping in Gaza and obviously didn't report about the actual rapes by Hamas.
They refuse to interview people who can actually answer questions legitimately in Arabic such as Yosef Hadad since that would let their audience receive unfiltered truth.
Not every news source need report on every story. Especially in times of war, it's important to read every side's coverage of both themselves and the other side.
I'm no fan of the settlers but they are deeply religious and won't even talk about sex with their own wives, let alone rape. The idea is deeply abhorrent in Jewish communities. There's no such documentation of any rape at scale. Accusations are easy to make with no supporting evidence whatsoever.
OTOH there are many well documented cases of soldiers doing bad things to Palestinians and getting jail time for that. There's a lot of evidence about settlers doing bad stuff. These sort of lies pollute the objective truth to force a narrative of false equivalency where facts don't matter.
"However, at Shura Base, to which most of the bodies were taken for purposes of identification, there were five forensic pathologists at work. In that capacity, they also examined bodies that arrived completely or partially naked in order to examine the possibility of rape. According to a source knowledgeable about the details, there were no signs on any of those bodies attesting to sexual relations having taken place or of mutilation of genitalia."
"200 bodies were documented. These teams did not document a single case of sexual assault or cases of genital mutilation. "
"the intelligence material collected by the police and the intelligence bodies, including footage from terrorists' body cameras, does not contain visual documentation of any acts of rape themselves. "
That is very selective reading of the article ignoring some core facts. Forensic post mortem analysis can't be done on 1,400 bodies most of which were mutilated and many burned. There were just not enough experts available to do that work.
There are many testimonies. Including from the rapists themselves. According to Hamas's interpretation of the Quran rape is legitimate as part of Jihad.
Nowhere have I mentioned the conflict nor have I mentioned whether reporting on it is easy. Not blatantly lying is pretty easy though and Al Jazeera fails that test.
More importantly, Al Jazeera is not merely reporting on the conflict, they have been „reporting“ about many other things for a long time. That’s enough data for me that can be compared to the sum of ALL other outlets.
None of that is surprising either - Al Jazeera is a government propaganda tool, run by a dictatorial kingdom that ranks rather low on freedom of the press.
The fact that you drew a comparison to BBC is telling.
> The fact that you drew a comparison to BBC is telling.
That indeed was a specific choice - you could also state that it's a state-run "propaganda tool". It's also going to have a western (specifically UK) based view on the media it's reporting on. The same is true of Al Jazeera, or the Australian Broadcasting Company.
That, in and of itself, does not mean it is "blatantly lying". No news agency is without bias, and believing so is naive.
Does Al Jazeera have areas for improvement that are likely to not materialise due to the context in which the company is based? Sure, but that's also true of Fox News, CNN, the BBC, ABC, or random Reddit commenters.
I didn‘t ban it and the Israeli government certainly didn‘t ask me for my opinion. They had their own reasons and their own evidence and I only gave you _my_ reason for considering it fake news, which most of it is.
Doesn't that depend on what you say 'zionism' is? If the definition of Zionism is just "a safe place" or "a country for" Jewish people, isn't that antisemitic to be anti-zionist? You don't want anywhere for Jewish people?
It seems everyone is saying something different and when I see things like:
> Literally anything zionism does needs to be questioned and called out
I worry that we're glossing over lots of things with a wide brush.
Except it should not be divisive - as the topic of a nation state’s actions toward their stated goal of genocide (I’m sorry, “mowing the lawn”) should turn everyone against said nation state. Instantly.
> Israel is routinely held up to a far far higher standard than any other country
Is it held to a higher standard than countries America provides arms to? (Genuine question.)
Note: I'm not saying we haven't provided arms to horrible regimes. But it's loudly criticised. Rightly or wrongly, we hold ourselves and our allies to a higher standard than e.g. Iran, China or Russia. It's partly why we have so many more of them.
Yes, in many facets of this war Israel is held to a higher standard than America itself.
When the towers were hit, the gloves came off. America wasn't accused of genocide when civilians were accidentally killed as they went after ISIS. The notion of a news agency reporting on American military strategy and directly inciting an additional attack on American soil in actionable ways wouldn't be tolerated for a second. It's so absurd that there isn't even a real-world comparison, America silences that shit on a personal cellular phone level. It's treason.
I would argue that's an apples to oranges comparison.
Since by international law definition Gaza is an occupied territory, for one, and it's perhaps one of the most disproportionate "conflicts" in modern history.
Re: journalistic integrity - I thought the idea with investigative journalism is allow people to speak freely - and then let the individual determine how truthful the source is based on a multitude of factors? Couldn't you also argue the 4th most powerful military, and arguably best funded and most sophisticated militaries, will be the most effective at generating and distributing propaganda?
What does proportion have to do with anything? You can't actually expect a country at war to supply the enemy with ammunition, period. I don't expect Hamas to allow an Arutz Sheva, or even Haaretz, office to operate on their airwaves.
Re: journalistic integrity. It's arguable, but I would say no- and many others in democratic countries would too. Bleach doesn't cure COVID, vaccines don't cause autism, and Israel isn't commiting genocide. When the facts are being twisted and misinformation endangers human life, there is a responsibility to get it right or shut it down. I am not talking about the average person having stupid uninformed opinions and shouting it to the rooftops. I am talking about professionals. Same goes for many other professions. If you're programming firmware for a dialysis machine, and you knowingly introduce a bug to kill people, your power to distribute that code to hospitals should be taken away before people get hurt.
There's irony and arrogance in much of what you say, especially "When the facts are being twisted and misinformation endangers human life, there is a responsibility to get it right or shut it down."
What if that actually applies to you and what you believe, that perhaps you've been successfully been trained with misinformation and twisted truth?
What if in fact there is a genocide going on but the population who Netanyahu needs to continue to support him has had propaganda used on them for so long that it's manufactured consent for a genocide - that some people are misled to believe it isn't.
These conversations need to happen but they haven't for obvious reasons - and it's always going to be the bad actor who's wanting the truth to be hidden; perhaps exhibit A for this is Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire - while publicly discussing doing a debate between Ben and Candace Owens - they behind the scenes were seeking and received a gag order on Candace; please of video overviews of this:
The problem is most people don't stay engaged in the discussion long enough, and the ideological mob side knee-jerk reacts away to be dismissive in anger-rage and discuss - short-circuiting their critical thinking, perhaps the cognitive dissonance is too painful as well, denial of the possibility of how could your precious government do such a horrific thing?
What's the irony, what's the arrogance? You can't just say "what if" without proof (I mean, say whatever you want.. but..) Back up your accusations with simple explanations please, I am not going to go watch 30 minutes of video to suss out your evidence.
Israel is the host country to the second largest Palestinian population on earth. I went to the Dead Sea the other day and passed by dozens of Palestinian cars on the road (not Israeli Arabs, which are another huge population- the Palestinians have different license plates).
If the goal of Israel was genocide, the number of civilian casualties would be FAR FAR greater than they are. I know programmers aren't necessarily mathematicians, but come on people, this is kindergarten stuff.
Look up the number of civilian casualties in America's fight against ISIS.
Hamas goes out of their way to use civilians as human shields. Just yesterday Israel had to try and carefully distinguish as a dual UNRWA / Hamas headquarters was put out of commission.
The narrative that Israel is commiting genocide in this war is so ridiculously stupid, a failure of basic math skills a 5 year old could do, the only way to believe it is to be horribly misinformed, or to want to believe it.
Al Jazeera incites violence by knowingly pushing misinformation on an audience who wants to believe it, to fan the flames of hate.
On Holocaust day especially, it's insane to expect Israel to provide resources for blood libels to her enemy in times of war.
So, I'm/we're just supposed to accept your narrative "without proof" but "the other side" requires proof which there is plenty of - but you're clearly not going to be willing to spend the time to read/watch it?
Re: "If the goal of Israel was genocide, the number of civilian casualties would be FAR FAR greater than they are."
I've heard this fallacious argument regularly - one of the many counter-points the mob is trained with to parrot - stopping them from critically thinking deeper, and keeping the mob relatively done not teaching them anything to keep them in the dark:
If they weren't trying to deceive you then they should be teaching you about the broader scope/context of the situation, instead of narrowing-fixating your view on such a shallow metric. E.g. Current bad actors in Israeli government are very aware of the need to maintain public support, support of a weaponized mob to apply distributed "peer pressure" as part of the censorship-suppression-narrative control apparatus that exists; thank God Elon Musk existed to be able to pay a easy $44 billion to take that weaponized media channel out of the hands of censorious bad actors - so even if arguably more lies spread, also arguably it's more likely more truth will also spread.
Re: "this is kindergarten stuff"
So welcome to my kindergarten class, unless you already realized the broader context that Israel needs to maintain enough public support so the funding tap (that Netanyahu also has bragged on video that he will "milk America dry") to Israel/IDF continues? It doesn't seem you're taking into account that perceptions matter though, even though you believe the side that there is a massive global uprising against the actions of this current Israeli government.
Have you ever written out to extrapolate, let's say reverse engineer, how you'd potentially get to this point from a historical point? E.g. we could start at the point Israel was formed as a state, "given" 55% of the Palestinian land - which initially was made up of Arabs and Jews peacefully living together, all of them in that region were called Palestinians - not just the Arabs; I've heard estimates the population of Jewish people in the region was anywhere from 3-7%, being given a highly disproportionate 55% of the land.
And then when a "legitimate" war broke out, as was expected to happen - Israel being funded by the military-industrial complex and the captured coffers of and for the pillaging of the United States of America - they of course won being outgunned, and took 70%+ of the land.
Do you know yet or even believe that Netanyahu funded Hamas? As unbelievable as that sounds, it's documented - along with the purpose. Netanyahu is also very aware of and has spoken about on video about 5th generation warfare - psychological warfare tactics including but not limited to subversion. Are you aware of any of that, and what's your take on it?
Netanyahu from a fairly young age also has had the stance that should not be a two-state solution, that Palestinians don't have a right to a state: does that make it more or less likely that he'd be willing to do unwarranted harm against them to support his fundamental beliefs?
P.S. If you're not willing to actually invest time into seeking out the truth, you're highly likely an ideologue and indoctrinated into narratives you've been trained with over many decades. Most ideologues are more lazy than not - refuse to engage at any depth - and then cite things generally, if they put in that much effort because they feel the need to be the last one to respond usually ; or whether that is because they "don't have time" - the consequences are the same.
So what's your time limit for video clips? 2 minutes?
Do you think you can learn an alternative perspective without going into any depth about it, or spending say 20+ hours studying what the other side.
Obviously I'm not going to waste more time providing you more links to videos or articles, if even the ~5 minute video is too long for you.
You're also falling for the propaganda that this is a war, it's not: they are an occupied land, recognized by international law and they are required by international law to have a higher duty of care for those they occupy; if you want to claim they're not occupied, then how did Israel turn off their water, electricity, etc. the moment they wanted to?
If this conversation did actually continue, and we kept engaging, then I am 80% confident that I'd be able to predict other rhetoric that then presents itself as more recent layers of learned reflexive narrative talking points of belief are deconstructed.
The problem is, this conversation in general, where everyone has the opportunity to put their points forward in a long-form format - over a lot of time, to create a single corpus for the layperson to follow along with and learn from - is prevented from happening; already pointed out to what the pro-Israel / arguably pro-genocide supporting side's (mislead primarily via manufactured consent) most recent "tip of the spear" move was Ben Shapiro/Daily Wire getting a gag order on Candace Owens - in secret - while publicly pretending to arrange a public debate between Shapiro and Owens - because propagandists know that too bright of a spotlight shown on their incongruent logic will start to shatter the veil of their blind followers.
The fun part to all of this - or by fun I guess I mean what is exciting and good to look forward to, to work towards for the much brighter future coming:
- In the future we'll train our own personal AI Avatars - and those avatars that are better trained will obliterate others less trained, if put up head-to-head in a conversation, say on Israel-Palestine; and then automated systems, trained initially by us, will be able to highlight the points of cognitive dissonance and/or incongruences in logic - in narrative statements presented; because this is tiring, but it is work - and work that is the most important work if you care about human life, human life as sacred vs. "kill Hamas at all costs" vs. - the reason you don't go full genocidal fascist behaviour is because it's possible - and in this case is the case - that heartless sociopath-psychopath authoritarians will pull strings towards manufacturing consent to deceive others into doing their evil bidding for them; it only took a handful of people to run the concentration-death camps in NaZi Germany - the rest of the Gestapo "just" gathered up the Jews, the crippled, etc, and loaded them onto trains - probably able to tell themselves
Conclusions,
How do you process the incongruence that interviews like this one - with head head of Israeli intelligence, is actually on the side of the Palestinians for what Israel/IDF has done and is doing to them: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5pI0nLBxR3/
Is it a fake video, fake interview? Do you think an ex-head of IDF's intelligence agency wouldn't know exactly 100% of the truth?
> So, I'm/we're just supposed to accept your narrative "without proof" but "the other side" requires proof
No, not at all, the number of Palestinians in Israel is a matter of public record. The Hamas strategy of human shields is extremely well documented. It's trivial to get footage of Palestinians driving on Israeli roads without hassle. Literally only need to go to a supermarket 15 minutes outside of Jerusalem, even in Jewish areas like mishor adumim.
> unless you already realized the broader context that Israel needs to maintain enough public support
Huh? There's no "broader context" to accusations of genocide. Either Israel has a policy of murdering all the Palestinians or it doesn't. It doesn't.
(Though there isn't really a genetic difference between Palestinians and Jordanian/Egyptian Arabs, not sure if that would even be genocide- but that's semantics, Israel is obviously not trying to wipe these people out, even if their identity is based on recent tribal affiliations)
Eh.. honestly, I'd go through your response point by point, but you are both clueless _and_ passionate, which is a combo I don't feel like dealing with.
If we're going into "you should watch", I literally worked on a documentary series about the formation of the state of Israel called "Faith and Fate", produced by Rabbi Berel Wein. It covers the period leading up to the state of Israel. It speaks to some of the issues you brought up like pogroms against Jews in Israel in the 1920's, the white paper, yearning of the indigenous people to return to their homeland for a couple thousand years, etc. etc.
Re: 'If we're going into "you should watch", I literally worked on a documentary series about the formation of the state of Israel called "Faith and Fate"'
You're playing the avoidance game - to avoid having to challenge your currently blindly-unchallenged narrative you've convinced yourself is the truth; common practice of an ideologue who's beliefs can't hold water once challenged.
Re: "Either Israel has a policy of murdering all the Palestinians or it doesn't. It doesn't."
This is called bipolar or all-or-nothing thinking. You either have a mental block or you're being intellectually dishonest by not being willing, avoiding actually integrating my logic into your thinking to then respond to that vs. blatant knee-jerk reaction dismissal.
And you throw in ad hominem claiming I'm clueless while 1) only shallowly answering a cherrypicked few points so it looks like you responded, and 2) to avoid entering into a logic thread that will break apart your beliefs.
I was unable to reply to your last reply since someone flagged/killed it, so replying here:
Straw man argument - the video is one piece of evidence towards a corpus that paints all of this current Israeli government as genocidal.
And are you claiming Netanyahu doesn't have a political agenda?
Didn't Netanyahu fund Hamas to prop them up?
And that you're ignoring/dismissing what the ex-IDF intelligence agency's head says because he supposedly has a political agenda - while Netanyahu certainly has a political agenda, as well do many of his Ministers et al made public statements to that effect - supported now by their actions considered war crimes/crimes against humanity based on international law.
Netanyahu since a long time has stated he doesn't believe Palestinians deserve their own state - and his actions have been working towards making that nearly impossible now.
Israel government has even shown a map of Israel - where it covers and includes all of Palestine: if that isn't evidence of premeditated genocide, then what is showing such a map "from the river to the sea" [this is a map shown by Israel by the way, and that phrase comes from being used by Israel first] - what does or could that signify in your mind?
I doubt you even understand where in the line of evidence his interview would fit in the puzzle pieces, your mind seems very locked up/bound in fabricated weave of thin narrative lines.
And are you so certain Hamas has the stated goal of wiping "us" out?
Are you aware the part in the Hamas Charter, associated with it, claiming to say Hamas will "obliterate all Jews" is mistranslated?
You've already already lazily avoided enough of my argument points that I'm not going to waste my time with someone who's probably just a dishonest emotional "fast talker" on live video, if this is how you behave in writing.
You have a bunch of logical fallacies in your thinking - that bipolar / all-or-nothing thinking perhaps skewing your understanding the most, for starters, where genocide doesn't require immediately or successfully killing 100% of people.
And then you parrot boring rhetoric like "accusations are weird and baseless" to just add as filler, to make your argument look longer and probably to try to calm yourself down as a keyboard warrior for high emotions.
Claiming the interview with ex-IDF head saying if he was a Palestinian he'd be fight the Israelis for his freedom - he'd do anything - implies a lot.
I'd be happy to walk you through that but you don't seem open to new information, e.g. from his statement it can 100% be inferred that from his perspective at the very top of their intelligence agency - which gives him a lot of credibility, even if you claim to just want to dismiss him offhand, honest-rational-reasonable-unbiased people won't) - and that the Palestinians aren't a free people, that they are occupied and controlled-suppressed by this Israeli government.
How about you start addressing each of my points, not cherrypick, show that you can think through situations and information put forward to you - instead of regurgitating your propaganda narrative lines like that list you made?
Since you have experience doing documentaries, why don't you do a documentary for "the other side"? Gather all of the evidence, video clips, etc - and piecing them together, and then work through the cognitive dissonance you're clearly having - and outline in the highest detail possible the differences in the narratives?
Here's a starting point for you in the documentary, a thought exercise us: I'm going to give 55% of your land/properties/assets/money [yes, yours dakom] to the Palestinian refugees because of the allegedly accidental killing of 10,000s of civilians as compensation to give them new places to live. You agree to doing this, yes? Why or why not? Or will you avoid answering this question too because you'll infer and understand the point I am making you run into?
> I'm not going to waste my time with someone [...] on live video.
Yeah, thought so. If you want to debate this on live video with full transparency (real names, agreement to have it publicized, third party mediator we both agree to), let me know.. otherwise- this is not worth my time.
I don't address each of your points because they are so ridiculous it's not about rational argument in text. I assume you are much smarter than these points indicate, and so the actual issue at hand is deeper, and I think if you're forced to confront that with some real accountability you _might_ be able to recognize this with your reputation on the line.
One example: Chalking up Hamas's intent to eradicate Israel entirely to "mistranslation"... that's a new level of willfull ignorance. Do you really need me to break down the Arabic translation on Wikipedia part by part, or source the numerous public statements by Hamas officials calling for the eradication of Israel by jihad and any means necessary? No, you don't need me to do that, it's obvious, so where does such a clear mistake come from? Not from misunderstanding facts.
(P.S.. your ad-hominem attacks are clearly projecting your own insecurities. I know that telling you this won't change anything, but I want you to know that it not only doesn't bother me, it makes you look bad, you might want to stick to evidence-based points in the future)
You claim I did ad hominem - please cite those specifically. The behaviour of yours I am pointing out can be supported with supported arguments by referencing all the various times you have and continue avoid.
Also, couldn't this actually be you projecting - or is that an impossibility? "I don't address each of your points because they are so ridiculous it's not about rational argument in text. I assume you are much smarter than these points indicate, and so the actual issue at hand is deeper, and I think if you're forced to confront that with some real accountability you _might_ be able to recognize this with your reputation on the line."
Here's my citation for the Hamas Charter mistranslation - I actually forgot to add my source and details for that, so I'll do that now, though it points to you're not even aware of most of the "other side's" argument points:
PROPER TRANSLATION: "Israel will be established and will continue to be establishment until Islam invalidates it, just as Islam invalidated others before it."
The actual language used is properly translated to "invalidate" Israel (and not specifically Jewish either, and more people are now differentiating between Judaism and Zionism - the bad-unjust actors wanting to conflate themselves with Judaism, wolves wearing sheep’s clothing, as is said and warns us in the bible - in the context of speaking of unjust actions, e.g. it won't be Jewish (or even specifically Zionists) that will be eradicated, it will be any bad-unjust behaviours that won't be allowed to continue.
So are you saying then you disagree with the translation in my citation above?
Also, have you yet watched the videos by credible investigative journalists debunking the propaganda/lies created and distributed by your side? E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mxfnya3ZRc
You do understand the concepts of and how propaganda and manufacturing consent works, right?
Nice work - you've obviously completely demolished the objection to the translation by the user above. In fact one can verify the correct ("invalidate"/"nullify") translation directly, by looking at the original arabic word that was used (and its root).
While you're at it, perhaps you can also explain this fun passage from the 1988 covenant:
The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."
Any translation issues with the phrases "killing of the Jews" and "There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him"? There are also two appearances of the phrase "battle with the Jews" -- can you explain those as well, please?
The JSTOR article conspicuously avoids analysis of these passages.
I don't know the context is of where what you cited.
And once again, we'd need unbiased scholars to give an unbiased translation - as what you're citing could likely be purposefully or poorly mistranslated to change, even slightly, the context or scope - and when doing so could completely change the meaning.
So where exactly did you pull this quote from? And does it cite where it's pulling the original quote from, or is it pulling from someone else who may have dishonestly translated it to begin with?
You'd have to agree with me that confirmation bias exists - and is a very difficult minefield for any individual to navigate, right? Especially a difficult trap or valley to climb out of if someone may have been deeply indoctrinated into certain a weave of "disgust" producing narrative lines/threads for nearly a century, passed on through multiple generations?
There is also biblical-religious verses that Netanyahu has cited that have the same annihilation rhetoric, as far as I remember, so it's okay if one side does it - but not the other?
The rabbit hole goes very deep - has many misleading paths - and the problem is is proper conversation is heavily prevented and suppressed, primarily by one side, for example: Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire, while being deceitful - in public attempting to organize a public debate with Candace Owens - behind the scenes in parallel were applying for and got a gag order on her.
Do you think preventing people from "either side" from diving into long-form, thorough discussion to hash out as many points as possible - is good or bad?
Thankfully people like Piers Morgan are having some of these people on to discuss, and it allows the general population to see for themselves who uses dishonest and disgusting tactics as part of their arguments - and which side aren't deceitful or avoidance, who are clear and articulate, etc.
And should I bring up again now that the phrase "from the rivers to the sea" was first used by Israel? How about I mention again the Israeli government (I think it was Netanyahu himself but I don't remember at the moment) showed a map of Israel - that only showed Israel, with no Palestine nor Gaza nor West Bank marked on it. So it's okay when Israeli uses it but demonized and misrepresented as to its meaning when Palestinians use it?
The very same document you were dissecting - the 1988 charter. The phrases are easy to find in any reliable translation you have handy. Just look for keywords like "Judgement", "tree", "Jew", "battle". The other questions you're raising are also interesting, but if you don't mind -- for now I'd be keen to know your interpretation of the phrases cited in the post above this one.
The context for each phrase would be the immediately surrounding text, of course.
(Yes, is a turgid sprawl, the '88 charter. But give it a shot!)
> that only showed Israel, with no Palestine nor Gaza nor West Bank marked on it
1) Look at a map of Palestine in 1947. Now look at the Palestinian flag side by side with the Jordanian flag. I bet you can figure this one out.
2) When did the nation of Palestine ever have their own land and national identity, prior to 1948? Who was their president/leader?
3) On that note, where was Arafat born?
The thing is- this whole farce of "Palestine" is, in fact, nonsense, and the obvious real answer to peace if the Arab refugees from 48 want to call themselves after an old Roman slur to the Jews is for Jordan to designate a chunk.
There's like, what, two million so-called Palestinians in Jordan already.
> There is also biblical-religious verses that Netanyahu has cited that have the same annihilation rhetoric, as far as I remember
I call B.S. the Torah not only doesn't encourage murdering Arabs of any kind, it outright prohibits it. The idealized Torah-based government encourages all the nations of the world to come and live and visit in Israel, provided they follow the 7 Noahide laws (which moderate forms of Islam do).
Be honest- did you just completely make up this point? What could you possibly be misremembering? Netanyahu has issues, but misquoting the Torah and using that misquote as a basis for an extreme position of genocide is _very_ out of character for him, doesn't ring true at all.
(there _is_ an imperative in the Torah to kill Amalekites. They don't exist anymore and it's completely irrelevant.)
That's the question we should be asking and the pressure Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan need to be put under by Saudi Arabia, UAE, US, France, Russia, China, etc.
I realize that's a stretch- but it shouldn't be.
Fantasy scenario: it just happens. Many Palestinian/Arabs continue to live in Israel under Israeli sovereignty because they like the job opportunities or whatever. No persecution, they live and flourish no problem (assuming they genuinely accept Israeli government). Many emigrate to Palestine in eastern Jordan because they feel a connection to the land their great grandparents grew up in, it's worth the tradeoff for them (assuming it's less prosperous than Israel which of course may be inverted, who knows)
If 80% of the energy from world hatred of Jews went to actually trying to solve the problem, we'd be in a far better place- less war, less innocents dying, less needing to censor treasonous media, etc.
To be completely honest, it boggles my mind that this _isn't_ happening. Instead we have pointless shit like Gays for Palestine blocking entrance to Disneyland. The world has lost its mind on this issue.
Many emigrate to Palestine in eastern Jordan because they feel a connection to the land their great grandparents grew up in, it's worth the tradeoff for them (assuming it's less prosperous than Israel which of course may be inverted, who knows)
In an optimistic scenario -- approximately what percentage of the current Palestinian/Arab population (in the West Bank + Gaza) need to make this move in order to create conditions for peace, in your view?
0% of those who accept Israeli government wholeheartedly, choose to live as law-abiding citizens, and teach their children to do the same (similar to many Israeli-Arab and Druze populations today).
100% of those who actively support the eradication of Israel and driving every Jew into the sea.
In the middle, it may need to lean to less tolerance due to the reality of democracy and demographics, but I'm not sure.
My hope would be that most would fit in the 0% category.
It sounds you are basically advocating for the Decisive Plan as put forth by the current Minister of Finance.
Am I reading you correctly, here?
Do you have a sense as to what portion of the non-Arab population in Israel would support such a project? A rough percentage estimate would be greatly appreciated.
Interesting.. believe it or not, I don't pay much attention to politics as I often feel like they miss the forest for the trees and exchange integrity for votes.
But at a glance- it seems like I am in fact proposing something like his Decisive Plan.
I suppose the main difference is I am dreaming that it comes about through peace and with world support- especially Arab support.
I don't want it to be forced through violence. Unfortunately, it may be inevitable... I can't even get people on hacker news to retract their erroneous accusations of genocide. What hope is there for a peaceful "180 degree" turn?
I keep wanting to believe the world is not full of anti-semites, it's just an issue of misunderstanding, and I keep finding I am wrong... in that context, something like the decisive plan may need to be forced through war eventually. God I hope it doesn't come to that.
Re: stats, I don't have that info.. if I had to guess, I would say that a plan like this is hugely unpopular in Israel- but I would also guess that it's like that because it implies a lot of suffering in today's climate, and it would be much more accepted if the Palestinians wanted it too.
Your 0% category fits into a schoolbook example of colonialism. If your hope is that most people accept being colonized and loosing any prospect of self determination, and potentially their identity, then your hope is that a whole peoples just allows a colonizer to determine their fate in peace.
It is not only unrealistic, but also an outdated 19th century view of geopolitics, with a history full of racism, genocide and other horrors.
You have it completely inverted. I am talking about the indigenous people returning to their land. I am talking about the original (and much more prolific) religious claims to land being restored over subsequent weak-claimed usurpers.
That's literally the opposite of colonialism.
(by "weak" I just mean the opposite of prolific.. not sure what the right word would be there, i.e. Judaism has super strong ties to Israel- agricultural laws of orlah and shemittah, recorded purchase and significance of Hebron, daily prayer for over 2000 years to rebuild Jerusalem. No other religion has anywhere near this strong of a connection to the land).
The colony in Palestine took off, due to the British preference of solidifying european control over Ottoman region, and the convenient façade of the historical claim.
People lived there before this are descendents of those who lived there in the past. Many stayed even after the expulsion by Romans, many returned. Some, obviously would have changed their faith, but none of that gives the European descendents any more right over it. We can all colonise Ethiopia if we were to go on like this.
"someone who's probably just a dishonest emotional 'fast talker'"
(false: I'm very honest, pretty chill, and speak at a pretty normal pace due to my Texan upbringing)
"bi-polar"
(false, never been diagnosed with that)
There's more of course.. but, do you really need me to list every instance where you crossed that line?
> translation
in addition to the other poster's comment pointing out that the charter literally calls for fighting/killing all the Jews in other passages, what _exactly_ do you think their charter means by "invalidating [Israel's existence]". In what world is that not mutually exclusive with Israel existing??
Btw- while there is much debate even among religious Jews about the line between the modern state of Israel and the Jewish religion, there is no debate that they are intimately tied at the core. There are hundreds of commendments relating to the land of Israel, e.g. agricultural laws that do not apply in America or Guam or wherever.
The most prolific commentator (Rashi) points out that the Torah begins with the creation of the world precisely because it needs to establish the Jewish connection to the land of Israel, as both are designated by God to be intertwined in legislature later on in the Torah.
Not saying anyone has to believe this, but, ultimately, one can't _really_ be anti-Zionist without being anti-Jewish, it's just an excuse for politically correct hatred in today's climate.
The religious Jewish identity cannot exist without the land of Israel (hence why it's been in Jewish prayers 3 times a day and after every meal with bread ever since the Roman exile).
Again, because people tend to misunderstand when I point this out- I am not saying the world has to believe this. I am just pointing out the intellectual dishonesty when people say anti-Zionism doesn't imply anti-Jewish. It's just not true when fleshed out fully, and, in my anecdotal experience, when someone claims they are "just" anti-Zionist, they truly do harbor deep hatred for the Jewish people too, irregardless of Israel.
Simple question which I asked before- if you accuse Israel of genocide, why is the IDF not dropping bombs on Ramallah? One would think that if the goal were genocide, Israel wouldn't discriminate between the PA and Hamas, right?
a) Raids in the West Bank are numerous and increasing, including a few in December where the IDF seized a bunch of money from exchange shops[1] (I don’t know why they did that), and a very big one in March where they killed a 16 year old child[2].
b) Palestinians in Gaza is a group (or peoples), and as such subject to Genocide on their own. One does not need to target every Palestinians for it to count as genocide. Bosniaks in Srebrenica was a group which was targeted during the Bosnian Genocide. The Srbska army did not need to target every Muslim Bosniak for it to constitute genocide.
> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
> (a) Killing members of the group;
> (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
> (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
> (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
> (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Israel has (a) killed members of the group, (b) caused serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, and (c) deliberately inflicted on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, by e.g. destroyed hospitals, cultural centers, whole neighborhoods etc. preventing food and fuel from reaching Gaza, thus causing a famine, etc. And Israeli officials have made statements and actions to reflect that statements which makes it reasonable to infer that they are doing this with the intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a group.
The according to the definition of genocide, and according to past convictions for the crime of genocide, targeting every member of a group is not a necessary condition for genocide.
Finally, regarding the Ramallah raids, in very few places does throwing Molotove coctails at law enforcement in protective armor get you killed. Palestinians are one of very few groups who get killed for this relatively harmless—though violent—crime. Almost every other group, would get arrested and maybe a felony charge with a very minor prison sentence at worst. That said, I don’t believe Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in the West Bank. That is a crime which Gazans are the sole victims of.
None of those criteria fit when talking about Palestinians in the West Bank (or Gaza before the war, but let's put that aside for now). The Palestinian population has increased in Israel, they are free to roam, reproduce, etc.
As I have said previously, one merely has to drive 15 minutes outside of Jerusalem to witness this. For anyone living in the Dead Sea area, as I did for over 3 years, it's _routine_ to see Palestinians existing just fine with none of the criteria for genocide at all. That's a fact, jack.
So.. what you're really saying is Israel is commiting "genocide" against Hamas. Wow. Alert the press. It's a war, initiated by Hamas and every terrorist attack they've been doing, not just Oct 7th. You're damn right Israel has a goal of wiping out every single one of those psychotic terrorists, and the world should be thanking us.
Instead, we're forced to try and distinguish Hamas from the civilians they use as human shields, and international anti-semetism that is hell-bent on getting the facts completely wrong. I am not saying the IDF is free of mistakes, but by and large it goes to extreme lengths to protect normal Palestinians.
What army on earth gives their enemy advance warning before attacking? The ratio of combatants to civilians is damn near miraculous in the current fighting conditions.
It's really impossible to mistake this for attempted genocide if you're honest.
Re: Molotov cocktail
Have you ever had one thrown at you personally? I have. It's no joke and it is absolutely 100% a lethal weapon. You can't attack a solider with a lethal weapon and not expect them to attack back. I don't care what the stats are, it should be expected every time.
> I don’t believe Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in the West Bank.
And any charges of Genocide against Palestinians in Gaza is for conduct after oct 7.
> What army on earth gives their enemy advance warning before attacking?
I don’t know, probably most. But that is no excuse for a genocide. There is no exemptions for international humanitarian laws if you issue a warning before committing the crime.
> You can't attack a solider with a lethal weapon and not expect them to attack back.
Molotov cocktails are lethal the same way tear gas is lethal. Against a soldier in full riot gear, it is hardly lethal at all. But in fact, I would expect most solders not to kill a teenager throwing a Molotov at them. If a kid throws a Molotov cocktail at a soldier and that soldier reacted by killing that teenager, I would expect that soldier to be charged for a crime and go to prison for killing a non-combatant.
That's a bold assertion - do you have any evidence to support this? I find that they do plenty of great journalism, often bringing stories that don't make it into the english-language media via other outlets. For example, just from today an article on the fight for Iraqi waterway restoration:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2024/5/4/dont-be...
In general, the Features page (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/) doesn't exactly smack of Islamic propaganda - so curious to see how you came to this conclusion.
Well, Al Jazeera English is separate and a bit better than regular Al Jazeera. But look at their stories and the morals they try to show in there. It’s always garnering more support for Islamic causes. They infiltrated several Israeli and Jewish groups, and are funded by the Qatari government.
These governments are not okay. State sponsored tv from countries like Iran, Qatar, Russia are not okay. Not even when they report accurately, because of the bias in what and how they report.
Not saying western media like Fox News is any better, but yeah.
And that they ‘appear’ okay is precisely the biggest problem. If they are so fair; how many reports are pro Israe, or condemn Hamas’s actions? Is it zero? ;)
How can we still continue to call Israel a liberal society when their entire political class is banning and censoring opposition media? Interfaith marriages are illegal. Gay marriage is illegal (not unusual for the region, but since Israel likes to trot out the rainbow flags it bears repeating). It's the thinnest possible vaneer of "western values" slapped over a colonial military outpost.
Is that the bar now? Gay people get thrown from buildings next door in Gaza and they get strung up from a crane in Iran. On that basis, as a gay man, I'd much rather let Israel "trot out the rainbow flags" than take my chances with their enemies.
So your response is a seven year old video asserting I'm simply ignorant? Not a particularly winning argument. And flagging your initial response since you've now edited in baseless accusations of antisemitism. That's not how you have a conversation here.
@dang -- you're not going to get the polite, respectful conversation on this topic that I think you're hoping for. Instead, you're going to get criticisms on the legitimacy of each organization involved in this conflict. I don't understand why you even want this topic on HackerNews.
Having spent entire days moderating previous threads on this topic, I know what kind of conversation we're likely to get. But abandoning discussion altogether is also not an option.
> I don't understand why you even want this topic on HackerNews.
I don't think I'd say 'want' (what I want is to spend Sunday afternoons working on something else), but the issue is the principles by which we moderate the site. If you look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267862 (edit: which I just posted in the current thread) and then https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39618973 and the links back from there, you should find plenty of explanation of the relevant points. If you (or anyone) want to familiarize yourself with those answers and still have a question I haven't addressed, I'd be happy to try.
This point inadvertently exposes an aspect of information management which is sorely unaddressed and inadequate to purposes of understanding within a commonwealth:
That situations conflict which are already well understood to history are regurgitated as mysteries, and the knowledge system is practically useless to providing coherent access to previous experience and context.
When a mod has to write:
> If you look at <URL> and the links back from there, you should find more than enough (indeed, frequently repeated) explanations of the relevant points. If you (or anyone) want to familiarize yourself with those answers and still have a question I haven't addressed, I'd be happy to try.
Why has a new thread been created?
Why isn't this article and the attending thread of comments already situated within existing paths of discourse helping readers to assess the long prevailing (say 100 years) of understanding on the topic and identify, explore and integrate the outlying views? Why hasn't all the redundant and trivial junk of the previous thread been sifted and gleaned into salient regards for the situation?
Does any media apparatus help with us with knowing how what's happening today relates to what we understood yesterday and the days before?
Why is all news manifest as a reverse chronological list of forgettery, de-contextualized factoids and rediscovery of precedents among initiates?
A user posted it and other users upvoted it. Other users flagged it, but I chose to turn off the flags on this one, for reasons I've explained at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267862 and in many other places linked to there.
> Why isn't this article and the attending thread of comments already situated within existing paths of discourse
It is in the sense that the web already does that. I often post lists of related links from past HN discussion (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), but that's not doable when my hair is on fire and I'm also trying to keep my head above water.
The site hasn't changed in this respect. If you look at the examples in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, you'll see that all these things—the moderation approach to politics and all the common complaints—go back 15 years.
> because it's hard doesn't mean it shouldn't be an option
I hope it's not. Trolls aside, I've found HN's discussion on this topic to be interesting.
For example, this comment [1]. I hadn't considered belligerent status as a relevant factor before. (It's obvious once pointed out, and not a decisive factor. But it has weight nevertheless.)
I've been part of this but these are different than the typical political heated discussions on HN like in the trump era. These here tend to swift quickly into antisemitism.
Comments do that are usually swiftly and correctly flagged by users (or mods). In egregious cases, or repeated cases, we warn and/or ban the account.
If you see cases where this is not true, the most likely reason is that we haven't seen them yet. (We don't see everything that gets posted to HN, or even everything that gets posted to a large thread.) The thing to do then is flag the comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cflag) and/or to email us at hn@ycombinator.com in egregious cases.
Alternatively, since different people have different thresholds for considering something to be antisemitic, there may often be things that are not flagged that others think should be, and vice versa. It's difficult to determine what the right threshold should be, but it often won't match the preference of the most sensitive users. If productive conversation is to happen, it may require some degree of discomfort.
All: if you're about to comment in this thread, please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make sure your post is in the intended spirit of the site. If it isn't, please edit it until it is; or simply remember that the internet is usually wrong and refrain from posting.
The intended spirit is curious, respectful conversation in which we learn from each other. Yes, that is hard when emotions run strong, but hard != impossible, and it's what the site rules ask: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
"and block its websites." So this keeps Israelis from reading Al Jazeera.
Now that's new. Israel started Internet censorship in 2017.[1] Initially it was limited to "terror group websites, online illegal gambling, prostitution services, hard drug sales". At the time, "due to warnings from rights groups that the law poses a slippery slope toward additional censorship, the final version of the legislation dictates that rights groups may appeal the decisions."
Then, in 2021, there was the "Facebook bill", authorizing very broad censorship.[2] That does not seem to have passed. It was first proposed in 2016, almost passed in 2018 [3], tried in 2021, and tried again in 2022. It doesn't seem to have passed.
But something new happened recently. Wikipedia has a note at Censorship in Israel: "This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: New ban issued by the knesset on foreign media channels. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (April 2024)"[4] The Knesset gave the government the authority to ban foreign media on April 1, 2024.[5]
This isn't just about preventing outside media from reporting from Israel. It keeps Israelis from viewing media the government doesn't like. Haarez has good coverage.[6]
The US White House press secretary issued a weak statement condemning Israel's action, but it was on April 1st and the costumed Easter Bunny overshadowed that statement.[7]
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/to-tackle-online-crime-israel-...
[2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/proposed-censorship-bill-more-...
[3] https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-israel-nearly-destroyed-fr...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Israel
[5] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israels-knesset-approve...
[6] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-05-05/ty-article/is...
[7] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/202...
> The US White House press secretary issued a weak statement condemning Israel's action, but it was on April 1st and the costumed Easter Bunny overshadowed that statement.[7]
Wow you can't make this stuff up
Armando Iannucci's career has twice now been upstaged by the increasing ridiculousness of reality in politics.
One of the reasons he says he stopped making his first series, The Thick of It, was that UK politicians became parodies of themselves. There was nothing left to make fun of. Then the same thing happened to his American incarnation, Veep.
He's not wrong. This is a real Police and Crimes Commissioner and is not a character from the Thick of It: https://youtube.com/watch?v=xlcWVXHv_As
I genuinely cannot tell if this is real still. Like, I want to believe you, but this person is basically doing the best Michael Scott impersonation I’ve ever seen.
It helps to bear in mind that Police & Crime Commissioners are people elected by the local population as a sort of overseer of the local police forces.
This generally ensures that they have absolutely no clue what they are doing, or qualifications for the job, and hence can be used as a scapegoat, while central government pretends it's not involved or to blame...
(And it also scuppered various plans to combine some police forces to improve efficiency, save costs etc)
> It helps to bear in mind that ... people elected by the local population as a sort of overseer ... generally ensures that they have absolutely no clue what they are doing
A while ago I came to the conclusion this is true in general of almost all politicians. What triggered it was the conservative side of Australian politics have been fighting the good fight against climate change activism and renewables in particular for 15 years now. Currently they are pushing SMR's as the solution to climate change. As far any anyone can tell it's a delaying tactic because they know they won't work.
The conservatives have held the levers of power federally 8 of the last 24 years, so obviously Australia must be a basket case when it comes to shifting to renewables - right? As best they have slowed it down, slightly. Australia leads the world in roof top solar, and coal plants are being closed at record rates. Similar examples could be raised for the other side of politics, particularly in education.
Apparently leading the country isn't what politicians do if you look at outcomes, because evidently no one is actually doing what they command. Instead in Western Societies optimising our way around the laws they make. Which is probably just as well, because as far as I can tell the pollies don't anything notably well, and that includes playing politics. That's probably true for the very reason you give, they are elected in a way that doesn't select for qualifications, skill or competence.
That raises a question, as it appears countries who elect their politicians based on something other than competence nonetheless do well economically. Under the Westminster system decision making seems to be deferred to private enterprise and a government bureaucracy that overseas the rules private enterprise operates under. To me that says the politicians must doing something else that is useful. That would be to "take the blame", as you say. We elect them with high hopes, we blame and abuse them for everything that goes wrong for 10 years or so, then replace them with a new punching bag. Behind the scenes the people who actually capable of running the country get to keep their jobs for decades.
In the recent movie "Golda" (which I recommend), Golda Meir gives a piece of advice to an up and coming military commander Benjamin Netanyahu: "they will make you prime minister, but remember the career of every politician ends in failure".
The editing could be described as "unsympathetic". I get the impression that the substance of her responses lives between the cuts. Although this is one of that unfortunate situations where the video is so funny it undermines any interest in what is really going on.
Seems to be real. "Ann Force 1" was given to a charity in 2015.
Source: https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/amp/ann-force-one-v...
Ha ha! Wow.
Iannucci's Death of Stalin has the advantage that it's all history - it can't become more ridiculous after he made the movie because it's in the past. But of course the reality is more or less as absurd as the movie, although different in important ways. (Lots of the timing is completely wrong, events are re-arranged, people are shuffled about so that fewer actors play more important roles) but it does have the advantage that yeah, Stalin can't have another even more ridiculous life which makes the movie seem tame, he's dead.
Don’t forget they actually reduced the number of medals on Zhukov’s chest because they thought it was too over the top to replicate what he actually wore
I really appreciate works like Death of Stalin that are more than happy to move things around in the name of entertainment. It isn't a documentary so it has the freedom to get creative and hit the key notes rather than pure accuracy. They also just said "No need to have Russian accents, the audience is smart enough to just go with what you have."
Using an accent without also speaking the right language seems needless.
I do like that Hunt for Red October has the Russians all speak Russian until one of them says a crucial word that's the same in English, and from there it's all English. "Armageddon". This submarine is capable of ICBM launch, starting World War III, and in the resulting ashes English or Russian would not matter.
Hadn't noticed this before, seems very clever
Honestly the accents were a really well done part of that movie. A lot of the diversity and variety of Russian culture does not come through to Anglophone ears with fake Russian accents which are often a monotonous stern and gruff voice but. The movie did a good job illustrating the diversity of Russian society through homologous variety of English accents.
In a similar vein: "The closer the collapse of the Empire, the crazier its laws are." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GfCgqeWqOY
Europe has done the same with Russia.
Also, I think a few other Arab countries like Egypt have blocked/banned Al Jazeera.
That's correct and IMHO its the right thing to do when shooting begins because when people shoot each other this is no longer a discussion and the press is part of the warfare. Remember all the Russian media and social media accounts claiming that its American hysteria that they will invade Ukraine? They denied and mocked anyone who claimed that they will invade up until the tanks rolled in.
Personally, I'm critical of the Israeli government but I think it's in their right to try to control information flow as they are in process of driving people from their homes and mass killing people in retaliation of a terrorist attack that claimed the lives of over thousand innocent people.
I really dislike glorification war and pretending that it has rules or honour or something like that. People are taking lives en masse and its more than normal to try to control the information flow when doing it.
It's a bit ironic how we are constantly reminded that china isn't a democracy because they have censorship, while we are free and democratic and don't have censorship (except we do).
Italy is passing laws to be able to block websites within 30 minutes, without any oversight from any judge. (more details here, link in italian https://stop-piracy-shield.it/)
In Germany they can't publicly gather to protest Israel's actions either, not legally anyway.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/26/complete-censo...
I would likely be arrested if I wore my UK-created anti-fascist Football Fans Against Apartheid/Free Palestine pin, so it’s going into a drawer. Zionism has drowned all voices, my Jewish friends are being harassed for dissent too.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/ha...
Really, objectively, I am wondering what on Earth any country X would do faced with a statement from an enemy Y as in :-
The complete and utter destruction of X as an essential condition for the liberation of Y and the establishment of a religious state based on [ Y's religious theocratic laws ]
Any form of coexistence is clearly not on the table. For the context please read the link in the Atlantic article.
In this case it's akin to the bullied child crying 'I'll kill you', from his puddle of blood on the ground. Israel's own conduct in Gaza and the West Bank is the primary threat to the existence of the state. Not two million impoverished people who've been crushed under an imperial boot since the theft of their land almost eighty years ago. Israel is a wealthy, post industrial US backed, nuclear power. Hamas are a convenient boogyman allowing them to further consolidate their control over land that international law recognises as occupied [1].
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
Yes but how about answering the question because lives depend on it. What should Israel do? Live with Hamas and the 80% of Palestinians who support them? Give up and move ten million people (including some ~20% Muslims & Arabs) to somewhere else? Where? Let's get serious! Again, what to do? How about a constructive response including your advice to Israel under these circumstances. I have no dog in the fight, criticize Israel how you like (undoubtedly much of it justified) but what's the solution? If there is none forthcoming, and there has not, then we move to Clauswitz. Whatever he meant with his famous dictum, that says there is no alternative. Appalling, much like the Ukraine/Russia horror show.
> What should Israel do? Live with Hamas and the 80% of Palestinians who support them?
Giving concessions to the population and offering them an equitable stake in society would go a long way to dissipating support for armed resistance.
It's not a conflict on the same scale but you can look to the resolution of conflict in Northern Ireland for parallels. Denying people their basic chances in life and doing so with the threat of violence it's never going to win people to your side.
At some point you either have to talk to them or kill them all. The situation now is only creating martyrs and enough trauma to fuel the next generation of the cycle.
I completely agree with your comment and would also note that the median age in Gaza is roughly 18 which is coincidentally also roughly the last time they had an election, which means most Palestinians have had no influence on their government.
This feels a lot like the American reaction after 9/11 where a great crime was committed but less violent options were rejected by hardliners who wanted to overcompensate for having missed the threat after having made “we will protect you” a major campaign point, and likely also seeing an opportunity for something they could not do following the normal political process. In this case it seems all the more tragic because there’s no natural separation due to distance, and it’s hard to see this not resulting in more tragedies for decades with so much fresh blood to avenge.
That's what Oslo peace agreement was about. Palestinians rejected it and went back to intifada. They received the land and independence. Gaza had an international airport that Clinton landed in. They overwhelmingly rejected it. They elected Hamas and strive to erase Israel. There is no such thing as land concessions, they see it as a weakness and demand more. The national Palestinian idea is the genocide of Jews and the establishment of an Islamic state on all of Israel's borders. That's Hamas's stated goal and it is supported by 80% of the Gaza population. Judea & Samaria are the same, despite PLO geriatrics being in control most of the population supports genocide of Jews. It can't be compared to Ireland since the Irish never sought the destruction of Britain and the genocide of the English. The same with Japan. You can't compare. You see it with Western eyes and can't really understand or willfully ignore the Palestinian aspirations.
A supermajority of Gazans are literally not old enough to have ever voted in an election. Hamas won the 2006 election by force, and immediately replaced open democratic process with a system of internal Shura councils. Palestine did not elect Hamas.
"Palestine" most certainly elected Hamas.
According to international observers the elections in Gaza that Hamas won in 2007 were democratic and fair:
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) in partnership with The Carter Center reported "a professional and impartial performance of election officials".[33] The European Union delegation reported "there was nothing which would indicate that the final result was not the outcome chosen by the voters".[34] A CRS Report for Congress on the 2006 elections concluded: "The election was overseen by 17,268 domestic observers, complemented by 900 credentialed international monitors. ... The Bush Administration accepted the outcome of the Palestinian legislative elections and praised the PA for holding free and fair elections. ... The conduct of the election was widely considered to be free and fair."[45]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...
Indeed, the entity that did its best to obstruct the democratic protest was Israel:
In the lead-up to the elections, on 26 September 2005 Israel launched a campaign of arrests against PLC members. 450 members of Hamas were detained, mostly those involved in the 2006 PLC elections. The majority of them were kept in administrative detention for different periods.[23] In the election period, 15 PLC members were captured and held as prisoners.[24]
During the elections, the Israeli authorities banned the candidates from holding election campaigns inside Jerusalem. Rallies and public meetings were prohibited. The Jerusalem identity cards of some PLC members were also revoked.[25] The Carter Center, which monitored the elections, criticised the detentions of persons who "are guilty of nothing more than winning a parliamentary seat in an open and honest election".[26]
Israeli obstruction during the election resulted in estimated 123,000 voters in East Jerusalem being prevented from registering until ten days before the elections, creating a number of logistical problems shortly before the election day. The checkpoints of Israel also continued to pose serious obstacles to all Palestiniain parties during the electoral campaign as well as on voting day itself. It was also noted that Palestinian refugees in exile and 9,000 prisoners remained ineligible to vote.[27]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...
The only problem with the elections was that the Palestinians elected the wrong party. The US, that great champion of liberal democracy around the world, did its utmost best to correct the result: they sponsored, armed and trained a Fatah faction to stage a coup; which backfired and left Hamas in control of Gaza.
The report said that instead of driving its enemies out of power, the US-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. David Wurmser, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief Middle East adviser a month after the Hamas takeover, said he believed that Hamas had no intention of taking over the Gaza Strip until Fatah forced its hand. "It looks to me that what happened wasn't so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was preempted before it could happen," he was quoted as saying. Wurmser said that the Bush administration engaged in a "dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] with victory." Wurmser said he was especially galled by the Bush administration's hypocrisy. "There is a stunning disconnect between the president's call for Middle East democracy and this policy," he said. "It directly contradicts it.".[69]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...
The reason you're talking about an election that took place 18 years ago is that, after seizing control in Gaza, Hamas refused to ever hold another election. A supermajority of Gazan residents aren't old enough ever to have voted in an election held in Gaza. Whatever happened in 2006 --- and you'll get lots of stories about it if you go digging --- the Palestine that exists in 2024 did not elect Hamas.
No, the reason was constant attacks by Israel in multiple military operations against Gaza, what is allegedly known as "mowing the grass" in Gaza.
Wikipedia has an extensive timeline:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_conflict#2...
And there is no reason to "go digging" and look for "stories". You can read the wikipedia article I quote above, about the US-backed Fatah coup and follow the sources, which are entirely public and mainstream. One of them is actual Vanity Fair.
The "US-backed Fatah coup"? Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2006, and won a war against Fatah in 2007. Most Palestinians are too young ever to have voted for Hamas.
Yeas, a US backed Fatah coup. It's all on wikipedia:
US post-election impediments
Just before the January 2006 elections, and after witnessing Hamas' gains in municipal polls, the House of Representatives passed H.Res. 575 (December 16, 2005), asserting that terrorist groups, like Hamas, should not be permitted to participate in Palestinian elections until such organizations "recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, cease incitement, condemn terrorism, and permanently disarm and dismantle their terrorist infrastructure."[63] The Palestinian Authority chose to ignore this external decision: "the Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas has favored an unconditional acceptance of Hamas's electoral participation, believing that it could co-opt Hamas within the Palestinian political fold".[64]
The New York Times reported in February 2006 that "The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again. The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election."[65]
Just how much further matters would be taken was revealed in April 2008. Tom Segev (in Ha'aretz) reported:
In April 2008 Vanity Fair published "The Gaza Bombshell": The Jerusalem Post confirmed that the documents cited by Vanity Fair "have been corroborated by sources at the US State Department and Palestinian officials", and added: The original article was cited by the Irish Times, the Israeli historian and political analyst, Tom Segev, in an article entitled "Bay of Pigs in Gaza", and also by Suzanne Goldenburg of The Guardian, who added "A state department memo put the cost for salaries, training and weapons at $1.27bn (£640m) over five years."[59]The 2008 exposé by Vanity Fair (of plans to reverse the democratic 2006 PA parliamentary elections) confirmed a CF Report of January 2007, over a year earlier, by Alistair Crooke:
Voice of America reported that the Bush administration had denied the Vanity Fair report.[71]In 2016 a 2006 audio tape emerged that contains an interview by Eli Chomsky of the Jewish Press with Hillary Clinton. Clinton opined that pushing for elections "in the Palestinian territories ... was a big mistake", adding "(a)nd if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win."[72]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...
This is a very long post that doesn't contradict anything I've said. There was a 7-day civil war in Gaza, which Hamas technically started (if that matters to you), back in 2007; Hamas has controlled Gaza ever since. It was doing so prior to that "war" (one of the reasons Fatah and Hamas got into it was that Hamas replaced all of the PA's governing institutions --- the courts, the school systems, etc --- with Hamas-designed alternatives), but, whatever.
Also: we all have access to Wikipedia. You don't have to copy and paste whole articles here.
I do, because you don't seem to read them:
>> There was a 7-day civil war in Gaza, which Hamas technically started (if that matters to you), back in 2007;
No. Fatah started it. The US funded, armed and trained a Fatah faction to stage a coup against Hamas. The coup backfired and Hamas kicked Fatah out of Gaza.
To be perfectly clear: Fatah and Hamas are different, rival organisations. The 2007 Gaza War was started by Fatah, not Hamas.
Again: it's on wikipedia.
>> (one of the reasons Fatah and Hamas got into it was that Hamas replaced all of the PA's governing institutions --- the courts, the school systems, etc --- with Hamas-designed alternatives),
Yes, because they won the election. So they replaced the public officials with their own. Are you suggesting there is something sinister in that?
People on this site are going to disagree with you about all sorts of things. You need to stop writing things like "you don't seem to read", or the worse thing you wrote downthread, if you expect to have a curious conversation with anybody. Can you do that?
Nah, I'm good. You refuse to engage with the information I present and continue to say the same factually wrong things over and over. You don't get to lecture me about curious conversation.
Would you say elections from 20 years ago are representative of the political mood in your country today?
Also:
1. Most of the current population wasn't born then.
2. Voting for the political wing of a violent group isn't the same as supporting violence. Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, are the biggest party in Northern Ireland almost 30 years since the cease fire.
That's right, but we do have up-to-date information that suggests Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank both support Hamas (though not overwhelmingly so) and consider the 7th October attacks to be justified. This is from the AP (I also posted the link earlier):
Palestinian poll shows a rise in Hamas support and close to 90% wanting US-backed Abbas to resign
Despite the devastation, 57% of respondents in Gaza and 82% in the West Bank believe Hamas was correct in launching the October attack, the poll indicated.
(...)
Overall, 88% want Abbas to resign, up by 10 percentage points from three months ago. In the West Bank, 92% called for the resignation of the octogenarian who has presided over an administration widely seen as corrupt, autocratic and ineffective.
At the same time, 44% in the West Bank said they supported Hamas, up from just 12% in September. In Gaza, the militants enjoyed 42% support, up slightly from 38% three months ago.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion...
But, just to be perfectly clear lest there be some misunderstanding: Palestinians may support whomever they want and whatever they want, that does not justify their endless slaughter and apparent ethnic cleansing by Israel. That is in the same way that the almost universal support of the far right by the Israeli public does not justify terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.
This kind of conversation is always about morality, as well as other considerations. The killing of women and children and unarmed men will always elicit moral outrage, as well it should. In a context as inhumane and cruel as the brutal occupation of the Palestinian lands by Israel there is very little safe moral ground that any side can occupy. Hamas are the democratically elected government of Gaza, they are the legitimate resistance against the occupation and at the same time they are the perpetrators of shocking atrocities against Israeli civilians. The Israeli government is democratically elected and enjoys the support of a majority of the Israeli population and the current "war" has the full support of the majority of the Israeli public. The only unassailable moral stance remains to respect the facts on the ground, discuss them as one understands them, and not try to twist them for political reasons. My thoughts anyway.
To make it plain: so what if Palestinians support Hamas? Massacring a defenseless civilian population is never justified.
[flagged]
Many distortions above; let's just pick one:
They elected Hamas
Hamas won a narrow plurality in the 2006 legislative elections. That government dissolved entirely in 2007 after a military conflict between Hamas and Fatah.
So since 2007, Hamas has not been "elected". In any case it's main function since then has been as an instrument of Israeli policy. In Bibi's own words, just a few years ago: "Anyone who wants to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas."
So if you are unhappy with Hamas still being around, you know who to direct your concerns at.
That is certainly not Hamas's main function. Netanyahu is obviously in some sense culpable for funneling resources to Hamas, but Hamas is, obviously, an independent actor; if it's an instrument of anyone's policy, it's Iran's --- though, since October 7, the aQB wing of Hamas appears to be completely on its own.
Netanyahu funded Hamas because he had a cunning plan:
‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas
As far back as December 2012, Mr. Netanyahu told the prominent Israeli journalist Dan Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Mr. Margalit, in an interview, said that Mr. Netanyahu told him that having two strong rivals, including Hamas, would lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
What a guy, that Bibi. He's so cute and smart, you just want to pinch his cheek and ruffle his hair. He funded Hamas to encourage them to fight the PA so they would not work together to create a Palestinian state. What an amazingly bright plan! Sending millions to Hamas? I mean what could ever possibly go wrong?
If it wasn't clear, both myself and 'racional are making the same point. We're disputing the long-term impact of that funding, not whether or why it took place.
Of course it's an independent actor, but I'm talking about the bigger picture and the strategic rational behind its continued existence. The Leitmotif if you will.
The IRGC was going to make sure Hamas continued to exist, to the extent it needed external support at all. Hamas isn't a creation of Israel; Israeli support is not the rationale for its continued existence.
I don't agree, but more to the point I didn't say or even suggest this:
Hamas is a creation of Israel
So I think we can wrap up here.
I'm not saying you did, I'm just emphatically pushing back on the idea that Netanyahu's support for Hamas is instrumental to its staying power or in some way its reason for existing. It's clear what Netanyahu's purpose for assisting it was --- to divide Palestine between Fatah and Hamas and prevent the emergence of a coherent Palestinian state. Similarly, the US had very particular goals in supporting Afghan Mujahideen, which turned out to be quite different than those groups actual reason to exist.
As I'm sure you're aware, this notion that Hamas is (or was, before the IDF demolished it) a puppet for Netanyahu has a lot of currency in online spaces. I don't see you making that argument! But it's worth calling it out. It is fine --- maybe even... dare I say it... good? --- if we say things that we agree on aloud.
Tough luck, maybe Bibi et al should check for underground water chi flows or indian graves or something causing this misfortune!
But hopefully more bombing will fix this soon! Insallah!?
> Palestinians rejected it and went back to intifada.
Um, not really. Hamas did. And their radical brethren who assassinated Yitzhak.
It did end up extremely bad for everyone involved.
(I don't want to downplay the anti-Oslo sentiment [0], especially that Oslo I-II got signed despite the attacks previously.
Also it's hard to say how well the PLO represented the people, but it's sure that they were more accepted than Hamas. After all Arafat got elected in 1996 despite participating in the peace process.
It seems fairly clear that the peace process was a very unfortunate Schelling point for extremists on both sides, and their tireless cooperation successfully pushed the region away from peace and prosperity.
And, it's also important to note that it's perfectly possible that Arafat was simply deceitful, and the PLO wanted to get some breathing space to gather an army, blablabla. Sure. And that would/could have lead to ... exactly here anyway. Or maybe it would be even worse! Those are all legitimate concerns that have to be addressed, but very few things can simply make the basic issues irrelevant, and as long as people are there they will inevitably bear the burden of living with those unaddressed issues.)
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_views_on_the_pea...
>> What should Israel do?
Israel should make peace with the Palestinians. It is only Israel that can decide to have peace, because it is the overwhelmingly more powerful side, militarily and in every other way, and even if Hamas put down its weapons and surrendered, there would be no peace if Israel did not agree to it.
And just to be sure this is well understood: Israel does not want peace. Israel has maintained its brutal occupation of the Palestinian territories for years well before Hamas, it has broken ceasefires left and right for years, it has continued to massacre the Palestinians every chance it gets, it has continued to settle more and more of the lands where the Palestinians live, and even when the top leadership of Hamas proposed a long-lasting truce, Israel responded by assassinating them, just in case anyone took them to their word:
According to Tristan Dunning, Israel has never responded to repeated offers by Hamas over subsequent years for a quid pro quo moratorium on attacks against civilians.[176] It has engaged in several tadi'a (periods of calm), and proposed a number of ceasefires.[176] In January 2004, Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, prior to his assassination, said that the group would end armed resistance against Israel for a 10-year hudna[k] in exchange for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, and that restoring Palestinians' "historical rights" (relating to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight) "would be left for future generations". His views were quickly echoed by senior Hamas official Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, who added that Hamas envisaged a "phased liberation".[178] Israel's response was to assassinate Yassin in March in a targeted Israeli air strike, and then al-Rantisi in a similar air strike in April.[179]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Second_Intifada
And let's not forget that the current leadership of Israel has made it exceedingly clear that it is hell-bent against any ideas of a "two state" solution, that it has complete disrespect for any UN resolutions trying to establish any kind of solution that involves Palestinian independence, and has of course worked hard to reduce the Oslo accords to a farce.
I don't think any of this is a particularly fair summary of the situation. In particular, it ratifies Hamas and the 2022 Netanyahu coalition as the leaders of both sides of the broader conflict; neither are really representative of the populations they serve. Hamas has at least since 2017 been run by a millenarian Bond villain, causing much of Hamas's political leadership to flee the country. Netanyahu assembled a neo-Kahanist fringe coalition as a parliamentary maneuver to keep from losing his post, because it's widely believed he's going to end up in prison as soon as he leaves.
Meanwhile: if we're talking about peace in the context of what happened after October 7, there's no country in the world that would have failed to respond militarily to an attack like that, which was the point of the attack in the first place. Sinwar expected Iran to go all-in on a final war that would wipe Israel off the map; instead, Hezbollah stayed home, and the whole plan fizzled.
The Israel/Palestine situation is widely considered one of the more complicated geopolitical crises, and for good reason. If you think you have a simple summary of it, like "Israel does not want peace", you're probably glossing over a lot of stuff.
Btw, this happened just as I was replying to your comment. tl;dr Hamas accepted a ceasefire proposal and Israel started attacking Rafah:
Israel’s military is now launching targeted strikes in eastern Rafah, Reuters and AP reported citing a statement. Israel says it is striking Hamas targets in the region. But more than 1 million displaced Palestinian people have sought refuge in Rafah amid Israel’s attacks in Gaza, the Washington Post reported.
Hamas says it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari ceasefire proposal to halt the seven-month war with Israel. It issued a statement on Monday saying its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had delivered the news in a phone call with Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence minister.
An IDF spokesperson said Israel will continue to act in a “operational manner” in Gaza despite Hamas announcing that it accepted a Gaza ceasefire deal on Monday. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel is going to continue to act in an operational manner, saying earlier that Israel has a right to defend itself.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/may/06/israel-ga...
Israel does not want peace and there is nothing simplistic in that observation.
This is breaking news from like 4 hours ago. It did not happen just as you were writing these comments.
I don't think you're going to find many people to take the other side of your "Netanyahu is a monster" argument. The IDF has crushed Hamas militarily. There was no reason for Netanyahu not to accept a ceasefire on any terms that gave hostages back. This is why the streets in Israel are full of gigantic demonstrations about the return of the hostages.
>> This is why the streets in Israel are full of gigantic demonstrations about the return of the hostages.
Yes, what may not be clear is that those people are demonstrating for the return of the hostages, not the end of the massacre of the Palestinians. They couldn't care less about the Palestinians. As I point out in another comment there is widespread support among the Israeli public for the war and near zero concern about what it will do to Palestinian civilians, including children.
This is false.
You keep ignoring every link I post here and still insist you understand the situation.
The Israeli public has embraced the Smotrich doctrine
https://www.972mag.com/smotrich-decisive-plan-israeli-public...
As trauma of October 7 massacres endures, Israeli support for Gaza war remains high
https://www.itv.com/news/2023-10-13/israeli-president-says-g...
How Israeli youth helped usher in the farthest right-wing government ever
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/2/23/23609584/israel...
Even the dumbest Google search will quickly get you examples of protests against the IDF's operations in Gaza right now. Try [protest (some-Israeli-city)]. I don't care what +972 thinks the Israeli public thinks about Gazans.
I’ve mostly been getting my news about these protests from English language news (particularly Democracy Now!) so I may be wrong about this, but I don’t recall at any point they even mention Palestinians in these protests. They seem to be against the war, and against the current government, solely because they want the hostages home.
Now, I want to be clear, I’m not blaming the protestors (I know many here on HN are going to these protests, and all the power to you for that). And I’m certainly not going to accuse any individual protestor of not caring about Palestinians. But from my eyes, through the English language news, it certainly does not seem to be a priority, nor even a consideration, for the public at large in Israel, that Palestinians get justice and liberation from these years and years of political neglect and human rights violations.
If you compare this to the Iraq war protests in the USA, which I will not deny were more about bringing the troops home then about the lives of Iraqis, but the lives and conditions of Iraqis was always at least a part of the conversations. I’m not seeing this int the “Bring Them Home Now” protests in Israel. The hostages are not the main focus, but the only focus. Consideration for Palestinian lives is completely absent.
When I see protests which actually consider Palestinian lives, it is not these mass demonstrations like we see with the “Bring Them Home Now” protests, but rather, very few individual anti-Zionist activists, who seem to get pretty disproportionate treatment from the Israeli police.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war_prote...
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/2/14/israels-wa...
I also get my news from Democracy Now :) There was an interview with Omer Bartov last week, where I think he broached the subject of the Israeli public's concern about the lives of the Palestinians and it wasn't good. I think this was the video:
https://youtu.be/Ie3InYIVXF8?si=E0bdNNTQ2vr3Ysfs
Apologies but I don't have time now to search it to find the place where he talks about Israelis' opinions, or to check that's the right one. I'll try to do it later today, if you're interested.
Bartov is one of the calmest and most sensible voices around these days. He seems completely incapable of accepting that his country is committing a genocide and has argued eruditely and logically against it, but I guess that's understandable. I listen to that guy every chance I get.
For what its worth, I was watching Al Jazeera live last night, and they did cover last nights protests in Israel (I don’t know where they got their footage though). There were three protestors interviewed and all of them mentioned Palestinians lives[1]. So I was wrong about it being completely absent. There are at least some protestors which do use these protests to advocate for justice for Palestinians.
Daniel Levy’s interview at Democracy Now! this morning was also insightful[2]. Particularly the answer to Juan González’ question:
> JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you also about the protests, the continuing massive protests within Israel, even while the war continues. Your sense of the impact of these protests on the Israeli government?
> DANIEL LEVY: It’s a very important point, Juan. What I think we have seen is the intensity of those protests — and those protests tend to center around the prioritizing of getting the hostages out, saying, “Do the deal. Get the hostages out.” The intensity, especially those led by members of family of those being held, by family, friends, those have increased. The volume, the extent to which this is disruptive and is impossible for Netanyahu to stare down, I do not think we are anywhere near that moment.
> The internal pressure is such that the soft opposition, who will run against Netanyahu in the next election, led by this guy Gantz, former chief of staff, former defense minister, and Eisenkot, they are still in the government. They have still not unequivocally said that if Netanyahu turns down the deal, they will quit. Even if they quit, Netanyahu has a majority.
> But the pressure does not feel sufficient that Netanyahu’s politics needs him to accept a ceasefire. He still thinks he can wiggle out of this, which is where the question of the external pressure becomes a key factor, because it’s going to be that combination of internal and external. So I think the next question one would have to address is: Where does the external pressure stand?
So, in short, Daniel Levy does not believe these protests will do anything to change Israel’s policy, nor will any pressure from within Israel. He believes the only thing which will change this policy is external pressure, especially from the US. Meaning the student protests in the US are more relevant to the future of Palestine. The ball is not in Hamas’ courtyard, nor in Israel’s, it is—and has been this whole time—in the US’.
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-NKhRVV2gU
2: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/5/7/daniel_levy_israel_raf...
I'm looking randomly at an RT from Rasha al Aqeedi right now of a Tel Aviv protest with signs like "STOP BOMBING RAFAH" and "DROP FOOD NOT BOMBS".
It is simply false that "Israelis" don't care about the lives of Gazan civilians. There are Israelis that don't (they are disproportionately likely to be Israelis of Middle Eastern descent, for demographic reasons similar to the urban/rural political divisions in the US), just as there are Americans that don't care about Mexican lives and Palestinians who don't care about Jewish lives and Zaydi Yemenis who don't care about Sunni Yemeni lives. People are awful and wonderful and complicated all at the same time.
This one here right: https://twitter.com/OrenZiv_/status/1787891404313628749
I just saw it now. All the power to these people, they are absolute heroes. Also power to the protestors in the Al-Jazeera clip I cited earlier in the Bring Them Home Now protest for talking about Palestine.
I think, however—and it seems I’m not the only one—that far more is needed. This is not a large demonstration, especially given the stakes and the seriousness of Israel’s crimes.
The anti-zionist movement in Israel certainly exists, and is doing an amazing job. When I was in university I followed the works of Anarchists against the wall very closely (I don’t know if they are active any more though). I was also a member of the Icelandic Red Cross which worked closely with Israeli organizations (don’t remember which ones) in aiding victims of settler violence on the West Bank. If I remember correctly these organizations were mostly giving legal aid and monitoring checkpoints in the hopes it would prevent violence. Some of my colleges actually went to the West Bank to work with them.
But this was 15 years ago, and thinks have only gotten worse since then. I’m not optimistic that the current movements will have any more effects on policy than those of the last decade and a half (but they absolutely should still try). Like Daniel Levy says above, the pressure needs to come from the outside.
Wait a minute. I'm not talking about an "anti-Zionist movement" in Israel.
If the OP of the RT was indeed Oren Ziv, then you cited an anti-zionist journalist, that works for an anti-zionist news paper, photographing a what looks like an anti-zionist rally.
Those are demonstrations to return the hostages, not to stop killing Palestinians.
First page of results on google and ddg:
Polls Show Broad Support in Israel for Gaza’s Destruction and Starvation
https://truthout.org/articles/polls-show-broad-support-in-is...
Netanyahu might be losing ground, but his politics still resonate with most Israelis
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/israel-gaza...
Enduring pain keeps public support for Gaza war strong in Israel
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/enduring-pain-keep...
What Israelis Think of the War With Hamas
https://time.com/6333781/israel-hamas-poll-palestine/
War on Gaza: Majority of Israelis support withholding aid to Gaza until captives returned
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-majority-israeli...
You've reached the point where you're trying to make a point by citing Truthout. That's fine, you can take places like that seriously, but I do not, and a list of analyses about how Israelis really want the hostages returned isn't refuting my point. It's fine if we simply disagree here.
[Examples of protests against the IDF's operations in Gaza right now]
These are also described as "rare", and tend to get broken up by authorities for "harming the feelings of the public" and whatnot. The vast majority are led by the Bring Them Home Now movement or are otherwise unequivocally focused on the return of the hostages.
It's not hard to find explicitly anti-war protests from organizations on the Israeli left, but if you yourself were building a program to mobilize opposition to the war in Gaza, what would you lead with? Every march for the return of hostages is implicitly (or explicitly) demanding that Netanyahu complete a ceasefire deal with Hamas. 3/4 of polled Israelis now want Netanyahu gone, and the numbers don't get much better for his defense and intelligence teams.
Is this the conversion getting more thoughtful as it goes on? If even "the dumbest" Google search can show what you're saying, maybe you could provide these dummies with a link? You're dismissing their sources out of hand without any rebuttal while at the same time quoting various figures with no source at all.
I don't understand what you're asking, but 'runarberg upthread just posted a clear example. I'm uncomfortable with the whole enterprise of trying to characterize the thoughts and feelings of 7 million people, so the idea of doing a dueling cites thing is unappealing to me. If anyone on this thread wants to read that as a concession, I'm fine with agreeing to disagree.
Here is the full text of the ceasefire proposal as accepted by Hamas:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/6/text-of-the-ceasefir...
I don’t think Netanyahu on his own is able to reject this deal and invade Rafah. Especially with protests in both Israel as well as the USA, and with USA having set a red line here.
No, I think it is wildly simplistic to blame this on him, and there is a deep understanding inside the entire Israeli leadership that the genocide continues, no matter the cost. The Israeli public may not agree with it, however from what I see in the protests, there is very little talk—if any—of the lives of Palestinians. So it doesn’t really seem that Palestinian lives matter as much as the hostages for the Israeli public at large.
If e.g. Benny Gantz were to become the Prime Minister, there is little evidence he would behave any differently, this is for example how he is reacting to Hamas’ accepting of the ceasefire deal:
> “Every decision will be brought before the war cabinet—there will be no political considerations”
> “The military action in Rafah is also an inseparable part of our continued efforts and commitment to return our hostages and change the security reality in the south.”
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/389518
There are not many—if any—political regimes plausible in Israel at the moment who do not take a very hawkish and a criminal approach in denying Palestinians their states. The political reality is that without an intifada, there will be no political avenue for Palestine to gain their freedom from oppression.
You're saying all this and I guess I get why, but I'm coming at this from the opposite angle. I don't believe Israel has any further military objectives to pursue in Gaza beyond getting the hostages back.
There are allegedly 4 remaining combat-ready Hamas battalions (Google the ISW's al-Qassam Brigades Order of Battle for more information than you've ever wanted on this topic), all in or around Rafah. The other 15 battalions have all been disabled. Israel is believed to have killed or captured a full 1/4 of all Hamas fighters, but that figure understates the damage they did to Hamas; for instance, it really seems like they've more or less killed Hamas's entire officer cadre. Hezbollah fought the IDF to a standstill a few years back. Hamas did not repeat the performance. The IDF won, decisively.
Netanyahu's ghoulish neo-Kahanist coalition says things about completely eradicating Hamas, and, yes, about collectively punishing Gazans (this whole thing about Hamas being the duly elected representatives of Gaza is one of their talking points). But they're incompetent and these aren't military goals. If you killed literally every Hamas fighter, they'd be in approximately the same place: within 10 years of rehabilitation as a combat force given the same 9-figure p.a. disbursals they get from the IRGC and Syria.
There's a persuasive argument that Netanyahu needs this conflict to stay hot in order to stay in office; his incentives are very like those of the US's ex-President: being in office prevents his prosecution and eventual imprisonment (not unprecedented in Israel). I don't put it past him. Nixon probably prolonged the Vietnam War for electoral reasons. People do awful things.
I'm just saying: there's no coherent security reason for them to continue active combat operations. I think the Al-Aqsa Flood Attack is somewhat like the 9/11 hijackers storming the cockpits; it worked once, but it's never going to work again.
But, of course, Sinwar is no better. I assume Haniya is telling him about the alfalfa they're going to plant for the rabbits, and how Sinwar will get to tend the rabbits. My advice to Hamas people, once this all settles out, would be not to get in a motor vehicle with either of the Sinwar brothers ever again. It's an achievement to piss off Hamas and Fatah, the IRGC, and the IDF simultaneously.
>> (this whole thing about Hamas being the duly elected representatives of Gaza is one of their talking points).
It doesn't matter whose talking point it is. Hamas was elected fair and square in proper democratic elections. They are the only legitimate authority in Gaza. Those are the facts on the ground and there is no world where it makes sense to ignore this.
I suspect you assume this somehow justifies the atrocities committed by Israel, along the lines of Isaac Herzog's comment about innocent civilians in Gaza [1] but that's just nuts. We're not going to ignore reality because a bunch of blood-crazed fascists are trying to twist it to their needs.
_____________
[1] https://www.itv.com/news/2023-10-13/israeli-president-says-g...
The election was 20 years ago, with a population that is overwhelmingly very young.
In my country the political landscape was very different 20 years ago.
True, see my comment to you upthread (I think).
I suspect you assume this somehow justifies the atrocities committed by Israel
No, and don't write things like this here.
[dead]
"Netanyahu assembled a neo-Kahanist fringe coalition as a parliamentary maneuver to keep from losing his post, because it's widely believed he's going to end up in prison as soon as he leaves."
It may be "widely believed" but that doesn't make it true. It's highly unlikely that Netanyahu would end up in prison. The only case with a real threat of prison (case 4000) has been collapsing steadily since the start, with dismal prosecution witnesses, and judges were pushing the prosecution team for a plea bargain [1] due to the low chances of successful conviction.
It's also clear that the court proceedings would last until the end of the decade, so extending the war by months wouldn't buy him much time. Not to mention that the war cabinet is a unity wartime cabinet that is made up of the main centrist leaders too.
The idea that Netanyahu's war strategy is based on him clinging to power is lazy thinking that keeps on getting trotted out in order to bolster the argument that the war is unjust. In fact, the Israeli public are clearly behind the war aim of dismantling Hamas, the only significant split in public opinion is whether to risk a hostage deal that may not result in many living hostages released in practice and will only encourage further hostage taking by terrorists in the future.
Only ben-Gvir can be accused of having neo-Kahanist tendencies, the rest are "merely" right wing. And forming a coalition with a large parliamentary majority after an election is hardly a "parliamentary manoeuvre", it's democracy and all too predictable after multiple elections and failure for 5 years for centrist coalition to stick together.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/prosecution-rejects-retreat-fr...
All but a tiny fringe of people everywhere favor the dismantling of Hamas --- something that has largely been accomplished at this point. For normal people who aren't poisoned by Twitter, the contention isn't that Hamas is worth saving, but rather that Israel's operations amount in practice to a collective punishment of Gazans for the actions of Hamas. I am deeply sympathetic to this argument, and disagree with most of what you have to say.
I was pointing out that the simplistic theory that Netanyahu is at real risk of going to prison is not true. It's a view that's put out to turn Natenyahu into a "monster" and make it easy to glibly view the war as serving Natenyahu's interests instead of the harder to swallow reality that it supported by the vast majority of Israelis (who don't have the luxury of merely "favor"ing Hamas' destruction, but as a existential necessity to ensuring Oct 7 is not repeated).
The rest of your comment is predicated on the fact that Hamas is a spent force which is nonsense. If there was a ceasefire today it's clear Hamas will regroup and reestablish. Most media sources claim 4 of their battalions are almost fully intact in Rafah.
The war aim, supported by vast majority of Israelis, is that Hamas is no longer a fighting force and will never threaten Israel again. Yes, there may be new terrorist groups that pop up, but the essential deterrent - that Israel is capable and will fully dismantle any good group that wars against it - will be reestablished. (Plus Israel has learnt a lot of lessons about how to ensure Hamas 2.0 is less of threat, including a renewed focus on insisting to the world for a Marshall-plan-style deradicalization, and the realisation that there are no bounds to what terrorists will do even if you ply them with cash and improve work opportunities for Gazans as Netanyahu and many previous governments did prior to Oct 7).
This war involves the most difficult urban warfare the world has ever seen - it's Mosul or Raqah combined with Vietnam, with extensive extensive secret tunnels and the use of civilian infrastructure to wage war. The civilian casualties and destruction where inevitable and the "collective punishment" argument simply does not stack up in this war.
I disagree with all of this. Hamas could be eliminated root and branch and still reconstitute within 10 years. My claim is that Israel has already accomplished the goal you lay out in your third paragraph. I don't believe there is any such thing as "Marshall-plan-style deradicalization".
Of course, what's really happening here is that our premises are too far apart for us to productively discuss things. To continue talking, we'd just be playing to the crowd, hoping to attract some other commenter on this benighted threat to chime in our side. Maybe there's some value in us just calling out the places where we disagree and leaving it at that?
Only Ben-Gvir can be accused of having neo-Kahanist tendencies, the rest are "merely" right wing.
Though that certain other major cabinet figure you're not mentioning (Smotrich) avoids the explicit affiliation and more obvious rhetoric -- his actions clearly resonate with the Kahanist agenda.
Other coalition members seem to be "out there" on the Kahanist spectrum. Meet Orik Strook (aka Minister of Settlements and National Missions), for example:
In 2007, Strook's son Zvi was convicted of abusing a Palestinian boy and killing a young goat, and spent thirty months in an Israeli prison as a result. In response to the ruling, Strook stated that, "Unlike the Court, who preferred to believe the Arab witnesses, we are sure of Zvi's innocence, and are hurting from the success of his haters and would assist him to deal with the difficult sentence imposed on him".
You've also got Zvi Sukkot:
In 2012, [Sukkot] was expelled from the West Bank under suspicion that he was part of a group of 12 that had planned and carried out violent attacks against Palestinians and their property. ... On 6 July 2017, he was arrested on suspicion of engaging in "price tagging". ... At the onset of the Huwara rampage, Sukkot tweeted that "Huwara's killers' nest needs to be taken care of", and posted a picture of himself among a group of settlers gathering at Tapuach Junction, to the immediate south of Huwara.
Finally, it's important to note that the vast majority of the folks who helped the Nazis do their dirty work throughout Europe were not members of their local Nazi parties (or if so, only on paper and sometimes under duress). By and large, they were "merely" right-wing or apolitical.
Looks like a duck, talks like a duck ...
No, I think it is your account that is attempting to over-simplify world politics into a Tolkien-esque story of good vs. evil, with Yahya Sinwar as a Bond-like villain and Iran as the secretive puppet master, pulling the strings, pulling the strings from the shadows. The problem is that this simplistic story doesn't seem to have much to do with the facts on the ground, as we can observe them, and not imagine them.
For example, I cannot find any information about Ismail Haniyeh having left for Qater with his merry band of revelers because of Sinwar. The scant information we have about the support of Hamas among Palestinians suggests that Hamas is popular enough among Palestinians in Gaza, and certainly in the West Bank, that if there was another election they would easily win it [1].
The same goes for the Israeli government. Certainly everyone agrees that Bibi is doing everything he can to prolong the war to save his ass, but at the same time his government coalition enjoys the support of a majority of the Israeli voters, whom, after all, it represents [2] [3]. And a majority of Israeli civilians support the "war" [4]. Scare quotes because that's not a war but an unhindered massacre of a defenseless civilian population.
>> Sinwar expected Iran to go all-in on a final war that would wipe Israel off the map; instead, Hezbollah stayed home, and the whole plan fizzled.
There is absolutely no reason to assume any of that is true. We do not know what were the strategic goals that Hamas had in invading Israel. They have given some reasons but they're not exactly a trustworthy source so the best thing to do is to avoid launching into wild speculation.
_______________
[1] Palestinian poll shows a rise in Hamas support and close to 90% wanting US-backed Abbas to resign
Overall, 88% want Abbas to resign, up by 10 percentage points from three months ago. In the West Bank, 92% called for the resignation of the octogenarian who has presided over an administration widely seen as corrupt, autocratic and ineffective.
At the same time, 44% in the West Bank said they supported Hamas, up from just 12% in September. In Gaza, the militants enjoyed 42% support, up slightly from 38% three months ago.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion...
[2] The Israeli public has embraced the Smotrich doctrine
The terrifying Smotrichization of the Israeli public is embodied in the total willingness to sacrifice the lives of every last Palestinian in Gaza for the ultimate victory that the far-right minister promised in his plan. It is the terrifying indifference to the astronomical number of dead children, and the complete internalization of the idea that any thought of struggle and freedom on the other side of the fence must be extinguished, no matter the human cost.
https://www.972mag.com/smotrich-decisive-plan-israeli-public...
[3] How Israeli youth helped usher in the farthest right-wing government ever
Recent polling backs that surprising observation: A joint poll published by the Israel Democracy Institute last month found that 73 percent of Jewish Israelis between ages 18 and 24 identify as right-wing, compared with only 46 percent of Jewish Israelis over 65. Young Jewish Israelis are showing up to rallies and polling stations for the extremist politicians whose November electoral victory ushered in Israel’s farthest right-wing government ever.
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/2/23/23609584/israel...
[4] As trauma of October 7 massacres endures, Israeli support for Gaza war remains high
https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-trauma-of-october-7-massacr...
It is not my contention that the IRGC controlled Hamas leading up to October 7. The IRGC has trained and funded Hamas for over two decades.
The issue is how culpable civilians are in Hamas' atrocities.
The Israeli government is currently at ~30 killed Palestinians for each 1 killed Israeli.
Presumably, whatever anyone's opinion, there's some ratio that is unjust. Or is killing every Palestinian in Gaza just?
Last I checked, Exodus' Covenant Code [0] was also pretty clear on this, and it didn't include any multiple.
>> Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death. However, if it is not done intentionally, but God lets it happen, they are to flee to a place I will designate. But if anyone schemes and kills someone deliberately, that person is to be taken from my altar and put to death.
[0] https://www.biblestudytools.com/exodus/21.html
FWIW most Western militaries have specific ratios that are deemed acceptable for neutralizing a target (i.e. killing a baddie). These ratios are usually ranked based on the target's importance with a regular soldier being very low and a military leader being ranked very high. Often collateral damage from strikes against high value targets is more acceptable because the high value target is accompanied by lower value targets adding to the ratio.
I'm not aware of any such ratio used by the IDF. I've recently heard an Israeli government spokesperson say that the IDF has killed 13,000 Hamas including "civilian combatants". My guess would be that the IDF uses a very loose definition of whom they define as a combatant (note that the US for example has never used the term "civilian combatant" as that mixes the two groups: if they're a combatant they're not civilian and vice versa). Given that Israel also does not seem to acknowledge the 30,000+ lower bound on total deaths from IDF attacks in Gaza, it's entirely possible that Israel's ratio could be as low as 2 civilians per combatant in aggregate. But it's worth noting that this would still be much higher than anything used by any "Western" military even the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Given the rhetoric of Israeli government spokespersons, officials, politicians and other talking heads, I think it's more likely that the IDF effectively has no limits on how many Palestinian civilian casualties are acceptable per target. Former IDF soldiers have mentioned eliminationist rhetoric like "the terrorists who did Oct 7 are the kids we spared" or "anyone who hasn't left after the evacuation order should be assumed to be Hamas". This doesn't inspire confidence.
>I’m not aware of any such ratio used by the IDF.
The IDF has a robust decision making process, in excess of a single “ratio” approach. Here is an article that talks about an aspect of this:
http://law-disrupted.fm/idf-lawyer-advises-war-gaza-military...
>> They also discuss the three cardinal principles of targeting: distinction (which prohibits intentionally targeting civilians or civilian objects), precautions (which requires taking all feasible measures to mitigate civilian harm), and proportionality (which for each individual attack requires balancing the anticipated military advantage against the expected civilian harm) and the rules, procedures, and policies the IDF has in place to follow these principles in every attack.
> Given that Israel also does not seem to acknowledge the 30,000+ lower bound on total deaths from IDF attacks in Gaza, it's entirely possible that Israel's ratio could be as low as 2 civilians per combatant in aggregate. But it’s worth noting that this would still be much higher than anything used by any “Western” military
The most comparable recent US engagement was destroying ISIS in Mosul. The US had a 2.5:1 civilian combatant casualty ratio. Source: https://twitter.com/SpencerGuard/status/1786612914117349769#
> The most comparable recent US engagement was destroying ISIS in Mosul.
My point wasn't that the US is better. My point was that there were widespread protests opposing the US's "collateral damage" in their wars after 9/11 and Israel is doing worse.
The number you're citing is also the effective ratio based on the reported deaths, not an official or leaked guideline and this wasn't "the US" but "the US-led Iraqi Security Forces" (not a Western military, even if it is in practice US-led). The tweet you cite also references a Pacific battle between the US and Japan in WW2 (when the US infamously dehumanized the Japanese to an uncomfortable degree - surely the nuclear bombs trump that battle in terms of civilian casualties) and a battle that was part of the "Korean War" which in retrospect has become infamous for its war crimes, mostly committed by the US.
These are battles of infamy. You don't get a medal for being better than that, those are the table stakes if you want to shout about being the "most humane military".
Also, the reason I called 30,000+ the "lower bound" is because the process used by the "Hamas-run health ministry" is extremely conservative (it's not just a tally - the "fake deaths at hospital parking lot" story everyone ran with was a translation error into English that conflated "injured" and "deceased") and seems to have broken down earlier this year along with the remaining infrastructure in Gaza.
> The IDF has a robust decision making process, in excess of a single “ratio” approach.
That's a no then unless you think other militaries don't have decision making processes.
I'm not going to engage with you further as we seem to have either fundamentally opposed value systems or fundamentally opposed perceptions of reality.
If you want to end a comment with "I'm not going to engage with you further," better to not make that post.
Getting the last say in an argument by fiat isn't healthy.
Don't want others opinions? Don't offer your own.
I don't have to engage with every single person on HN to any extent just because I post on HN. I can also decide to engage with a post without having to commit to engaging with everything else that posters wants to add. I think it provides useful context if I clarify in advance WHY a follow-up might not receive a reply from me. In fact, most discussions on HN aren't back-and-forths between two people and arguably benefit from that.
But what is their definition of “combatant”? The IDF massacred a group of escaped Israeli hostages because the IDF didn’t realize they were Israeli before too late. The escaped hostages had stripped down to thir underwear to show they where unarmed. Neverthless the IDF said the “felt threatend” by them. Presumably these victims would be considered “combatants” if they had not turned out to be be israeli.
No one should be surprised by what happened to those hostages.
The soldiers were told they were fighting "human animals", and acted accordingly.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-ministe...
Strictly speaking, they are all "civilians", since Gaza is not a state (it is just the coastline of the western Negev - a geographic region of Israel) and does not have regular armed forces. Does this mean that these "civilians" have carte blanche to commit any unthinkable atrocity and remain unpunished?
Most of them are illegal combatants and none of the Geneva Conventions should apply to them.
Also, there is documented evidence that even their "civilian civilians" participated in atrocities, not to mention that a significant portion of them elected and supported terrorist "government".
I'm guessing that the so-called "civilian combatants" in these reports are people who are on the payroll of a terrorist organization, such as police officers, security guards, tunnel builders, etc. - anyone who helps/supports the terrorist "government", but may not be 100% militants by themselves. I.e. like the difference between a regular support soldier and a special forces.
Good to remember the real world consequences for the people on the ground when we declare combatants as non-state paramilitaries rather than recognising them with fuller status.
Indeed the Geneva Convention doesn't apply which means lots of things are on the table that otherwise wouldn't be. This is how the British state forces were able to use chemical weapons against the civilian population in Northern Ireland.
> This is how the British state forces were able to use chemical weapons against the civilian population in Northern Ireland.
I'm guessing these Catholics from Northern Ireland were British citizens, right?
This is something between separatism and civil war (although much closer to the former than the latter).
A better analogy would be if the Republic of Ireland settled its citizens there en masse and provided them with weapons, similarly to what Egypt did when they controlled Gaza.
A significant portion of Gaza's population today is descended from Egypt, they even speak with the Egyptian accent.
And majority of the advanced weapons were smuggled via Egypt.
I wasn't making an analogy, just pointing out another time when the definition of what was and wasn't a war had real world consequences for people on the ground.
But I would say two things: First, not only Catholics were targeted during the Troubles. If tear gas is used to dispel a riot then it not only those involved on both sides but also anyone down wind from it. My mother lost her eyesight from tear gas related injuries because she had to walk past a flash point daily on her return from work.
Secondly, while citizens of Northern Ireland are British by birth they were also entitled by birth to Irish citizenship after 1956.
I remember when during the 2020 civil rights protests in the US people were talking about the Geneva convention and calling what the police did "in violation" of it, especially wrt chemical warfare, only to be surprised to find out it doesn't apply outside formal wars.
I think if we want to make comparisons, an important difference is that Gaza has been existing in a limbo where Israel insists it's a sovereign territory because Israel withdrew from it but also insists it's part of Israel because they want to control its borders and what goes in and comes out of it.
Also, in addition to everything that happens in Gaza, Palestinian Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank have also been targeted by Israel despite Hamas being largely confined to Gaza.
> a war had real world consequences for people on the ground
no need to point obvious things
> not only Catholics were targeted
In case everyone were targets, and not just separatists - then it's closer to civil war. It only shows how cruel Brittish were (or still are), and all the double standards with regards to Israel.
> while citizens of Northern Ireland are British by birth they were also entitled by birth to Irish citizenship after 1956.
Granting citizenship to people in breakaway separatists regions is the strategy employed by Putin. Russia first grant them citizenship, and then uses this as a pretext for military invasion in order to protect their newly acquired "citizens".
Obviosly, Republic of Ireland doesn't employ this tactic, but granting citizenship to foreign people in confict areas is still problematic.
I want to add something to the previous response.
> A better analogy would be if the Republic of Ireland settled its citizens there en masse and provided them with weapons,
This did actually happen, but the other way around. The British settled citizens en masse in Ireland and provided them with weapons. This was called the Ulster Plantation. Even today many people in the North of Ireland speak with a dialect derived from the Scots language.
Interestingly, Ronald Storrs, the first British military governor in Jerusalem, was recorded to have said that the Balfour Declaration’s purpose was to form a “little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.” [0]
> Obviosly, Republic of Ireland doesn't employ this tactic
No, and I think the comparison is a little unfair. It's true that these things can be abused tactically but it's not always the case.
0: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/winston-churchill-s...
I'm familiar with Anglo-Saxon and Norsemen colonization of Celtic people in Britain and Ireland. The latter is referred as a series of "Plantations"[1, 2].
Interestingly, while in some western/highland parts of Britain, Celts kept their language, but adopted Anglicanism as a religion, in most of the Ireland they kept their Catholic religion, but adopted English language, and only in some western parts of Ireland kept both.
Anyway, if we go back to medieval times, then we can also talk about Arab and Ottoman colonization of Israel.
---
[1]. Israel condemns London's Ulster plantation project after private colonisation contract was awarded by the Queen
https://postimg.cc/xJ1XpHx7
[2]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland
> Interestingly, Ronald Storrs, the first British military governor in Jerusalem, was recorded to have said that the Balfour Declaration’s purpose was to form a “little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.”
And to further this, historical and current Israeli restrictions on West Bank Palestinians and authorization and promotion of Israeli settlers seem like exactly the playbook one would run for crypto-annexation.
> none of the Geneva Conventions should apply to them.
The Geneva Convention is (currently) humanity's best attempt at codifying ethical aspects of war. Unfortunately, it is not some lofty goal to aspire to. Oh no. It is the result of discussion and compromise. In other words, it literally is the lowest possible ethical standard we agreed to hold each other to. We should strive to do better, not worse.
Therefore: all of the Geneva Convention applies, always, to everyone.
> all of the Geneva Convention applies, always, to everyone Why? Because you wrote so?
Taking your line of thought to the ad absurdum will result in: "No one should ever be punished nevermind atrocities they have committed."
The Convention clearly states to whom it applies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions#Application
So-called "international law" is not really a law, but only a set of political treaties. In addition, the jihadists and other bad actors do not recognize it.
Japan killed 2403 Americans at Pearl Harbor, to which the US retaliated by killing over 2 million Japanese, with more than 100 thousands in a single day.
So don't tell me about "conventions" that apply to some and don't apply to others. It's not some Law of Physics. It's a man-made stuff, invented by corrupt politicians.
If the international treaties do not work - they shouldn't be treated as written in stone - instead they should be changed and adapted to the realities of the modern assymetric wars. And also everyone should be treated the same - no double standards, otherwise nobody should recognize them.
We program the world through incentives, positive and negative. Malicious agents must be disintensivized/punished, and if that doesn't work - destroyed.
> Therefore: all of the Geneva Convention applies, always, to everyone.
Except it only applies in certain circumstances, and doesn't apply in the current conflict.
The Guardian published a piece on the automated ISR systems Israel uses, with cited ratios. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai...
15:1 for low-ranking Hamas militants
Elsewhere reported to be 100:1 for high-ranking Hamas targets
>> Several of the sources described how, for certain categories of targets, the IDF applied pre-authorised allowances for the estimated number of civilians who could be killed before a strike was authorised.
>> Two sources said that during the early weeks of the war they were permitted to kill 15 or 20 civilians during airstrikes on low-ranking militants. Attacks on such targets were typically carried out using unguided munitions known as “dumb bombs”, the sources said, destroying entire homes and killing all their occupants.
This talk of a ratio is mostly irrelevant. Palestinians are not being killed as a matter of retribution. They are being killed as enemies or collateral in the pursuit of enemies.
If Israel could neutralise Hamas and retrieve the hostages with zero casualties, they would do it. That's obviously impossible.
Israel could nuke Gaza and kill most of Hamas.
Presumably we all agree that's unacceptable.
So somewhere between "zero collateral civilian casualties" and "all collateral civilizian casualties" is warranted.
Which leads to a debate about where the line should be.
With the ratio of the dead being about 4 civilians to every 1 Hamas fighter it checks out with other major wars. Considering Hamas is a gurella force that's actually quite good.
Gen Westmoreland might provide some insight on the consequences of making enemy KIA the reward function, and the incentives that back-propogates to the classifier.
And to the IDF's credit, as much as I have issue with their absent strategic goals and tactical choices, they are fighting a guerrilla insurgence in one of the most density populated areas in the world.
So, it could have been worse? But it still isn't great.
The ratio of civilian to military deaths of the October 7th attack is very similar to Israel's in Gaza, around two thirds.
Israel has been caught multiple times willfully killing civilians in this conflict, and there are hundreds of statements by politicians, officers and soldiers calling for atrocities or even genocide. Israel is not a moral actor, and far more comparable to Hamas than any real democracy.
There are regular pro Palestine protests in my German hometown. And they do condemn Israel's actions.
I know some people who are regularly protesting in Germany also, but my understanding is that they knowingly break the law in doing so. Is this not correct?
It's complicated.
Germany has pretty strict laws against "incitement of hatred". Additionally it's illegal to deface, damage or destroy a foreign flag. Also demonstrations and protests need to be registered in advance with proof of proper security and safety measures. Germany is also very biased in favor of Israel and has (like the US) adopted the stance that an attack on Israel is an attack on Judaism. This has led to Jewish anti-Israel protestors being arrested.
In theory it is possible to have a "spontaneous" protest without leaders but in practice this means the police will designate the loudest persons in the crowd as leaders and claim that they organized a protest without a permit and arrest them for that. Also the political bias favoring Israel means pro-Israel counter-protestors are likely to be tolerated more than anti-Israel protests.
And of course anti-genocide is conflated with anti-Israel and pro-Hamas, again like in the US. But yes, most political protests are illegal because they are not formally organized with the authorities (and even with organized protests you often have break-out protests deviating from the permitted route/location or overstaying). From personal experience I can tell you though that unless the police can pin anything on you (e.g. trespassing, resisting arrest, "attacking a police officer"[0]) this usually only ends up with the police roughing you up a bit maybe and then recording your identity before dropping you off somewhere else with a temporary restraining order.
[0]: This is worth mentioning because it explains the low police numbers for injured protestors in Lüzerath compared with the video evidence of police charging unarmed protestors: being injured by a police officer is considered evidence for attacking a police officer as unless there is evidence for the police officer doing anything wrong the assumption is that they followed the guidelines for escalating force, i.e. they must have had a good reason. It's also worth mentioning that in many places riot cops do not have any visible unique identification so reporting any claim of police brutality at a protest is usually fruitless as the alleged perp can not uniquely be identified and you need an individual person to accuse. Protest medics thus have stopped giving detailed statistics as merely keeping a tally would help the police in tracking down "suspects" by visiting the nearby hospitals (which they did e.g. after Lüzerath).
So tl;dr: depending on your demographic, your cause and which police you end up being surrounded by, it's relatively safe to take part in an illegal protest in Germany as long as they can't prove you did anything illegal and don't get hurt.
Based of your tl;dr would you say they that the original assertion was true in practice, that they generally "can't publicly gather to protest Israel's actions either, not legally anyway."
You are allowed to protest against Israel, but you have to be extremely careful about how to phrase it, as a lot of things can get you arrested for anti-Semitism, even when it is arguably factual. So things like calling Israel an apartheid state, calling Israel fascist or warning of a genocide might land you in jail.
So basically you can protest legally as long as you don't protest against certain things the government protects. I'm gonna stand by my original assertion. It's like saying you can publish whatever you like in China as long as you don't mention Tianamen Square.
I'm not sure whether there have been any pro-Palestine or even simply "anti-war" protests that were properly registered, not disrupted and not dissolved by the police but I guess it depends on your definition of "legally".
I would say in practice it's very difficult to have any protest opposing Israel's actions in Gaza without a high risk of ending up in a place where the police decides to dissolve it. But I think in practice the two biggest reasons for that are a) the topic is likely to attract protestors who decide to express opinions that are illegal (or are deliberately interpreted that way) and b) most protests tend to be dissolved by the police eventually because even ones that follow all the rules usually spin off or feed into spontaneous protests that don't.
This article is clearly an oversimplification on aljazeera's side [0], which a bit also highlights a problem with their journalism. However, I guess this is harmless against some tabloids that are far from being banned.
[0] https://www.dw.com/en/israel-gaza-demonstrations-what-is-all...
For some reason, Germany has very strict rules and traditions against any hint of anti-Jewish activities.
One would have thought that a proper stance is to be against any kind of mass killings, yet given the attitude on the topic of Namibia we do know there are first and second class victims.
And there is certainly anti-Semitism mixed in with the protests, but I think Germany is still overdoing it. Silencing plenty of valid speech has a cost, too.
Considering what happened in Germany the last time it held mass gatherings to protest against Jews, better to err on the side of caution.
This type of conflation is extremely dangerous. Criticism of the actions of the government of Israel is not the same thing as anti-semitism (a real and very bad thing).
To make this claim essentially gives the government of Israel the go ahead to do absolutely anything without any possibility of criticism, because that criticism is never engaged with on the basis of its content but dismissed as anti-semitism.
>Criticism of the actions of the government of Israel is not the same thing as anti-semitism
Unfortunately, it seems the protesters themselves often don't make the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism.
I've seen thousands upon thousands of people protesting with my own eyes but never caught onto anything anti semitic. In fact I often see Jewish groups attending as well.
I'm sure there often are people espousing vile views, that's a statistical inevitability almost, but it's clearly far from the norm.
I'm just going on what the news says, and you know how the news likes to misrepresent stuff for clicks, but here's a few articles on the topic.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/student-protesters-denounce-antise...
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/israel-hamas-war-protest...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/03/coll...
Yes, I know it well. I remember a very striking moment during some protests in London. The GB news was presenting it as having turned violent, with close ups of protesters clashing against the police. At the same time many individuals who were at the events themselves were able to broadcast on social media showing thousands of people peacefully walking together in a very positive atmosphere totally unaware that a small alteration had taken place elsewhere on the fringe of the event.
This is, by definition ("the protesters" used to generalise to all protesters), a gross generalisation. Based on what evidence? All the protests I have been to people have taken great pains to make that distinction.
Comments like the above merely reinforce what I'm saying: the basis of criticism is never engaged with in terms of its own merits or content but is dismissed using ad hominem.
I like how you cut my quote in half to misrepresent what I said. Well done.
I do sincerely apologise for omitting the word "often". My point remains that generalisations should not be made based on the views of a minority.
I have noticed that US media in particular presents a very one-sided accounting of protests. Axios, for examples, implies that Pro-Palestinian protests at colleges are a form of anti-semitism.
Again, I apologise. That was in error, not malice.
Thanks for that.
The same thing is happening to this protest as what happened in many other protests in the US. The news is finding outliers and representing it as the norm. January 6th, the majority of those people weren't trying to overthrow the government, but all the protesters were branded as doing just that, and many got pretty harsh sentences for it. BLM protests were similar with the fires and the riots. The vast majority of BLM protesters were non-violent but they were all branded as rioters and fire starters. The media is now running that play against the pro-Gaza protests and trying to paint them all as antisemitic by pointing out some antisemitic things some people in the protests said.
It's the standard playbook that happens again and again and again. It's almost as if the large media companies work for the status quo and feel any protests is a threat to that; which it is.
I think it's ok so long as we keep the protests at Beer Hall Putsch levels and don't go full Reichstag fire.
You appear to have fallen victim to a similar attempt at conflation, Zionism is a movement to fulfill the right for Jewish self-determination in their native land of thousands of years. Being antizionism is antisemitism because it negates the right to self-determination of the Jewish people.
I realize though that what you actually means is anti-Israel, or if we are being more specific, I assume anti-Israeli-far-right or anti-Israeli-right. E.g. if you are for a two-state solution you are in agreement with the Israeli center and left (mostly, but that's just going into too many details).
> Zionism is a movement to fulfill the right for Jewish self-determination in their native land
The thing is, though, it's not a right, it's their belief. They're very welcome to hold their beliefs and take democratic means to achieve their aims, but in a free and peace centred society they should not be allowed to take violent means to pursue their aims. Certainly if they want me to be happy taking financial and material support from a government that I'm supporting with my tax then they need to follow these basic ideals of respect for the other.
Long story short, we can accept their belief in their promised land without accepting it as their right to take it by whatever means necessary.
> The thing is, though, it's not a right, it's their belief.
Would you also say you have no right to live in the United States, and it is only your personal belief? If you think it is equally fictional then at least I can't fault your views for their internal consistency.
> They're very welcome to hold their beliefs and take democratic means to achieve their aims, but in a free and peace centred society they should not be allowed to take violent means to pursue their aims.
Are Jews prohibited from taking violent means to pursue their aims while Arabs are permitted? If not, then how do you accept Arab use of violent means to conquer and settle Israel 1,400 years ago?
> Long story short, we can accept their belief in their promised land without accepting it as their right to take it by whatever means necessary.
First, we aren't talking about a promised land being taken, we are talking about at land that was taken away from them and is at best being taken back.
Second, you aren't required to support anyone in any endeavor. You can even be pro-Israel and pro-Zionism and still not think they deserve your financial support. But if you single out Jews as being the only people in the world that are not allowed to have a state and not allowed to live in their native land of thousands of years (especially for the reason "but the Arabs took it away from them, so it isn't theirs anymore"), then you are indeed being antisemitic.
> Would you also say you have no right to live in the United States, and it is only your personal belief?
I'm not American so I would of course agree. But I believe I have a right to live in my current state because those rights are granted to me by the law. The distinction with Zionism is that the right for "the Jews" (i use quotes because of course this is not an homogeneous group, just as ideal) to claim, inhabit and govern Israel as their own is ordained by God. I find this as contrary to the ideals of equality and akin to totalitarianism.
> But if you single out Jews as being the only people in the world that are not allowed to have a state...
Wow there, that's quite a leap. I'm not saying anyone should be made stateless, only that if they're claiming to do the whole democracy thing then they need to recognise the right of their neighbours not to live by the rules of their Gods.
> then you are indeed being antisemitic
I would appreciate if you asked me to clarify when I was saying instead of delivering uncharitable readings, presumed arguments, and conclusions like these.
> I would appreciate if you asked me to clarify when I was saying instead of delivering uncharitable readings, presumed arguments, and conclusions like these.
Apologies if I have offended, but that's why that sentence begins with an "if", implying that statement is only correct conditional on some theoretical claim that might or might not be implicit from your statements. Since the discussion originates from the topic of antizionism and antisemitism, it is meant to refer back to the conclusion of my own parent comment clarifying where such a statement falls (as opposed to just being an ad-hominem). Maybe I'm not being entirely clear as English is not my native language and much of communication tends to be cultural rather than linguistic (for example, in the United States "That's a good start" is usually a scathing critique whereas in Israel it is usually a genuine compliment :))
> I'm not American so I would of course agree
I assumed by your reference to having your taxes go to Israel, a common American talking point. What taxes then are you referring to that are going towards Israel?
> But I believe I have a right to live in my current state because those rights are granted to me by the law.
Sure, and Israel also a rule of law country and acts within the boundaries of its laws, so you are going to have to go into more details into what you feel separates your rights from Jewish rights.
> The distinction with Zionism is that the right for "the Jews" (i use quotes because of course this is not an homogeneous group, just as ideal) to claim, inhabit and govern Israel as their own is ordained by God. I find this as contrary to the ideals of equality and akin to totalitarianism.
That is incorrect. In fact, the Zionism movement originated with secular Jews, seeing how they are persecuted around the world and desiring a return to their native land where they can band together and protect themselves under the mechanisms of state. Your conclusion about inequality and totalitarianism are therefore misguided. As a side-note I'll add that the more fundamental ultra-orthodox Jews that desire an Israel ruled by biblical law tend to be antizionist as well.
> if they're claiming to do the whole democracy thing then they need to recognise the right of their neighbours not to live by the rules of their Gods.
First, no such thing happens, Palestinians are not bound to the rules of a Judaism, neither those that are Israeli citizens, nor those that are not. Specifically for Muslims in Israel they have their own religious authorities with the ability to govern in matters of their religion. For example, Muslims can marry each other under Muslim law, in Muslim ceremonies etc. It is true though that Jewish courts currently have too much authority in governing Jewish customs like marriage, and that to my mind religion is too intertwined with state mechanisms, but not nearly so far as I'd say that it is ruled by religious law.
Second, I'm not actually sure what this has to do with the topic of the discussion, which is Zionism, which is not a religious movement (remembering that Judaism is both a religion and an ethnicity).
Don't the Palestinians also have the right to self determinization in their native land?
My understanding is that anti-Zionism is not opposed to Jews living in Palestine having self determination. It is opposed to preventing Arabs living in Palestine from having self determination and/or oppossed to Israel existing as an ethnostate (since most people on the left are opposed to the concept of ethnostates).
> Don't the Palestinians also have the right to self determinization in their native land?
Sure, in fact Israel's declaration of independence (which doesn't have an official legal status, but is considered to be the base of a future constitution for Israel) calls for peaceful co-existence with its neighbouring Arab states. It would be an interesting alternate history to observe where Israel was not attacked by all of its neighbouring Arab states, could we really have peaceful co-existence? (I'd like to think the answer is "yes").
Now if you define "Palestinian native land" as the Jewish native land that was colonized by Arabs around 1,400 years ago, then you'll have a problem since that will legitimize Jews to themselves recolonize (and regular colonize) whatever areas they please thus making it their own native land. Of course, reverting the borders to 3,000 years ago is also not practical (especially as that would revert the peace agreement with Jordan which would have to give up a substantial piece of land). That's why IMO something like a two state solution makes the most sense, maybe along the lines of the agreement that was almost signed in 2008?
> My understanding is that anti-Zionism is not opposed to Jews living in Palestine having self determination.
No need to keep to the Roman convention of renaming Israel to Palestine.
> My understanding is that anti-Zionism is not opposed to Jews living in Palestine having self determination. It is opposed to preventing Arabs living in Palestine from having self determination
That just sounds like you are redefining "Anti-Zionism" to mean "Pro-Palestine". Sure, under a different definition it means something else, but how is that useful? If I define "Jews" to mean "Bananas" can I say that I think Jews are disgusting because I actually mean bananas are disgusting?
Anti-Zionism means exactly that, against the right for Jews for self determination in their native land.
> Israel existing as an ethnostate
I think this term is a bit excessively vague. Naturally the Jewish people want to live in their land of the Jewish people in much the same way that the French or Palestinian people want to live in their land of the French or Palestinian people.
A right of return for the Jewish people to the land of self-determination for Jews is only natural, just as much as an emerging state of Palestine should want a right of return for Palestinians into it (it sounds like madness for Palestine to refuse Israeli Arabs from moving to it).
It would also be madness to deny Israel a right to control immigration to it, especially as it is already very densely populated.
That said, I agree that current policies are too extreme, and I'm generally for a much greater separation between state and religion in Israel.
Don't you think 1400 years is a bit long? If you considered 'native people' to go back that far, you could get all sorts of really strange 'native lands'.
Normally, right of return is for people who were living somewhere, or have parents or grandparents who live somewhere. So it's obviously very strange when that applies to jewish people, who potentially have some ancestors in biblical times that were living in Jordan, but doesn't apply to Palestinians, who had grandparents living there.
To be honest, I have more sympathy for the argument that, yes, Israel is a typical colonial enterprise, but it's also been a while (70+ years), and people have made their lives there, so 2SS makes sense. It seems more consistent with how words like 'native', 'colony', and 'original inhabitants' work everywhere else.
> Don't you think 1400 years is a bit long?
Any threshold you set is arbitrary and then tends to be motivated by personal politics. I have some difficulty with setting any specific threshold since if you say the threshold is 1,000 years for example, then it follows that you have set a rule on how it is morally achievable to set or expand your territory; You take some place by force and then hold it for 1,000 years and then no one is allowed to contest it, which means that Israel should be allowed to take whatever land it wants as it is merely following the proper procedure you have set (and of course, Palestine and Iran are equally allowed to follow this procedure ;)).
> Normally, right of return is for people who were living somewhere, or have parents or grandparents who live somewhere. So it's obviously very strange when that applies to jewish people, who potentially have some ancestors in biblical times that were living in Jordan,
Much of the original push for the creation of Israel originates in world wide persecution of Jews, so it makes sense to me to allow all of them into Israel where they can band together. I also think that limitations on "parents or grandparents" are meant to imply some sort of test of "are they really still French if they left France two generations ago and haven't tried to come back since then?", whereas for Judaism many communities have been rather insular and managed to maintain their Jewish identity going back all the way to their original exile, so it is easier to see that they are still part of the same people. I do somewhat agree though in thinking that there eventually has to be some limit and the right to return should be drastically altered/reduce/abolished and replaced with more "normal" immigration controls. Maybe something like "You have a right to return by default if you are the grandson of a Jew who lived during the Holocaust. If you are the son or grandson of such a Jew (i.e. grandson of grandson) then follow this procedure, beyond that you are considered to have waived your right to return". Though this is off-the-cuff random internet talk and not a sound opinion :)
If talking specifically about Jordan, where Jews do not have a right to return, I'll add the other countries of the Middle East and North Africa where Jews who left (often but not only to go to Israel) are definitely not welcome back. It seems like morally you'd expect such a thing, though in practice I'd be surprised if there were any Jews willing to use such a right.
> but doesn't apply to Palestinians, who had grandparents living there.
Since you mentioned Jordan specifically, I'd just say that it is up to the Jordanians to provide that right to return (which I don't think they do).
For a Palestinian state (in a hypothetical 2ss) it will certainly make sense to have a right of return for Palestinian people, but I don't think it makes sense to have a right of return for Palestinians into Israel or Jews into Palestine, since the whole point of such an agreement would be to draw lines on what is Israel and what is Palestine, and drastically mixing the populations would just blur those lines and reignite conflict.
> To be honest, I have more sympathy for the argument that, yes, Israel is a typical colonial enterprise, but it's also been a while (70+ years), and people have made their lives there, so 2SS makes sense. It seems more consistent with how words like 'native', 'colony', and 'original inhabitants' work everywhere else.
Indeed I feel that is what follows from your initial statement, and I'll agree that your views are self-consistent and sound. Ideologically I don't fully agree with your thoughts, since I feel it incentivizes war-making as I mentioned.
Of course, as I said in my previous comment, in the real world I don't think it is practical or entirely fair to pursue something like a 3,000 year reversion, so a two state solution is a reasonable compromise, and it will require some strong guarantees to make sure such an agreement is kept and war-making is deterred.
I guess my intuition for how a 'right-to-return' should work would be, if you have your property stolen and you are driven out of the land, and it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt that it is yours by inheritance, then you should be able to get it back.
It's to the eternal shame of Poland, Germany, and many other countries in Europe, that this is not what they did after the war. It's frankly shameful that this is rarely enforced anywhere.
If you do 'right of return' without the implicit return of property thing, it's pretty hollow if you've actually had your house/farm stolen, but it also becomes just a way of having an immigration policy that discriminates on an ethnic or religious basis.
I feel like people are generally pretty fine with accepting colonial borders: basically the whole world outside europe is divided by them. As long as they have a chance to live in peace, build businesses, live normal lives, I don't think people get that exercised about these things, on the whole. If you look at the lives of Palestinians, they look pretty humiliating. If I lived that life, had no chance to build anything or hold onto anything, I expect I would be pretty angry about it.
No need to keep to the Roman convention of renaming Israel to Palestine.
It's the historically accepted term for the region. The Zionists themselves used it in their literature. Quibbles about it are disingenuous and absolutely irrelevant to the current situation on the ground.
Anti-Zionism means exactly that, against the right for Jews for self determination in their native land.
No, it means being against an ideology which fundamentally rejects the right of self-determination to the non-Jewish population living on their land.
Israel as an ethnostate is vague
It's now written into the Basic Laws of Israel, thanks to 2018 Nation-State bill.
If you define "Palestinian native land" as ...
We all know what it what is meant by "Palestine" and "Palestinians". And even Jabotinsky recognized the Palestinians as indigenous.
> Zionism is a movement to fulfill the right for Jewish self-determination in their native land of thousands of years.
This is the definition that makes Zionism troubling.
Why not just disenfranchise and/or murder any non-Jewish person within the borders of the Jewish people's native land?
Why not just disenfranchise and/or murder any non-French person within the borders of the French people's native land?
> Why not just disenfranchise and/or murder any non-French person within the borders of the French people's native land?
Historically?
Because post-revolutionary France has been a militantly-secular state.
And a decent counter-example on why conflating a state with a specific ethno-religious identity is a terrible idea.
I still don't follow your logic, I can't find a more charitable interpretation then you just saying that Jews are inherently murderous and the French are inherently not.
Somewhat ironic as currently the average French person is probably safer in Tel Aviv than the average Jew is in Paris.
You said "Being antizionism is antisemitism because it negates the right to self-determination of the Jewish people."
To which I pointed out that unlimited rights to self-determination include justifying genocide.
To which you rebutted that other countries have self-determination and avoid genocide.
To which I rebutted that those other states aren't founded on ethno-religious identities.
So here is my understanding of your point, feel free to correct it in a clearer statement, since your point still seems incomprehensible to me.
You are saying that denying the rights of Jews to self determination in their native land is not antisemitic, because Jewish identity is tied into both an ethnicity and a religion, making Jews inherent murderers and thus undeserving of a state. This is as opposed to say the French or German people, whose identity is mostly ethnic, who have a long history of peace, devoid of genocide, murder and disenfranchisement.
Maybe you're not saying what you mean.
What limits do you place on "self determination", as you define it?
And I'd point out that modern France and Germany are much less religious and more religiously diverse than Israel. (Even including Israeli Muslims)
But yes, historically states with high religiosity and state-entwined religions tend to be murderous: it's always a good reason for a just war.
What's meant is that nobody would be called antisemitic for being against them if not for the fairy tale definition of a promised land.
Not sure what you mean by a fairy tale definition of a promised land, we are talking about actual land that they've actually lived in for thousands of years (though naturally not all of it continuously, after the Roman exile not that many Jews were left. Though if you accept that as removing their right to live there then surely you'll have no problem with Israel doing the same to the Palestinians).
> Not sure what you mean by a fairy tale definition of a promised land, we are talking about actual land that they've actually lived in for thousands of years (though naturally not all of it continuously, after the Roman exile not that many Jews were left.
This is false, there's a reason for modern Palestinians and modern Jews sharing around the same genetic material with ancient Israelites, and that is conversion. The conflation of the ethnic group and the religious group is where your entire argument falls apart. What you are arguing for is not just an ethni-nationalist state, it is one steeped in religion, which is as good as any definition for fascism.
You're using imaginary references, there's nothing to discuss here.
>> You appear to have fallen victim to a similar attempt at conflation, Zionism is a movement to fulfill the right for Jewish self-determination in their native land of thousands of years.
That doesn't make sense. I am Greek and we lost our ancestral lands in Asia Minor when we were slaughtered and expelled from them by the modern Turkish nation [1]. The same thing happened to the Armenians, Cappadocian Christians and Assyrian Christians, also.
And yet it is not anti-hellenic, or anti-christian, or anti-anything to deny that all those people and the Greeks have a right to return to their ancestral lands, where Turkish people now live. Resisting irredentist nationalism is not racist.
__________________________
[1] The Jewish are not the only people who were kicked out of the land they lived in for thousands of years, lost their greatest city and had their greatest temple turned into a mosque: this also happened to the Greeks: Asia Minor, Constantinoupolis and Agia Sophia, were Greek for thousands of years and now they belong to the Turkish nation. If the Greeks and every other ethnic and religious group claimed their "right to self-determination in their native land of thousand years", there would be bloodshed and war without end.
Greek genocide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide
Armenian genocide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide
Assyrian genocide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayfo
Pontic Greek genocide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic_Greek_genocide
About the Cappadocian Greeks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocian_Greeks
Germany isn't banning criticisms against Israel. They're banning antisemitic symbolism (whatever that means) that gets used in the protests. They have been like that for a long time with Nazi symbolism that isn't explicitly antisemitic.
The general dynamic remains: protests against specific actions of Israel are dismissed as anti-semitic by definition. Banning Nazi symbolism is a good thing. Trying to equate neo-Nazis to anti-war protesters is disingenuous.
Far-right conservatives in Germany have claimed to be persecuted in this way for a long time, claiming that they aren't antisemitic. My point is that it's nothing new.
That can be true but it doesn't logically follow that the people being shut down today are from the same group or are employing the same rhetorical strategies.
Far-right conservatives in Germany claim to be "not antisemtic" by using dogwhistles (similar to the US, e.g. "elites" - the Nazis literally used "international bankers"). However they generally don't oppose Israel's right to self-defense and they are anti-Palestine because they don't like Muslims. In fact "actually the rise of antisemitism is caused by all the Muslims in our country" has been a major right-wing conservative talking point in Germany (and other parts of Europe) because it serves as a distraction. As there's no "risk" of increased Jewish immigration to Germany and Israel actually literally wants the opposite (i.e. for Jews to leave their home countries for Israel to increase the Jewish population in the Middle East, especially if they're the "right" kind of Jew), being pro-Israel is actually an effective strategy even if you turn around to blame all ills on a nebulous group of Jewish "elites" (and in Germany this is usually very nebulous as even far-right conservatives aren't dumb enough to be openly antisemetic).
Anti-Zionism is not antisemitic and antisemitism is not anti-Zionist. Historically the German far-right was actually indifferent to Zionism because it provided a way to get rid of Jewish people domestically. They placed restrictions on emigration to prevent wealth drain (i.e. rich Jewish people taking their money/property with them when leaving Germany) but the only reason they shut down the Zionist emigration project was that they invaded Poland and suspended all legal migration because of the war.
There is a line between being pro-Palestine/anti-Israel and being antisemitic. That line is when you insist on people being evicted from Palestine/Israel simply for being Jewish. Yes, some protests have seen people cross that line and some groups who have organized protests were firmly on the wrong end of that line. But the narrative that you can't be anti-Zionist without being antisemtic or that you can't be opposed to Israel's government's action without being opposed to the existence of Jewish people in Palestine/Israel is in itself antisemitic by deliberately conflating a state with individuals, many of whom don't even live in that state nor agree with it.
There have been many Jewish opponents to Zionism and Zionism in Palestine especially since the inception of the modern Zionist movements. Until the state of Israel was created there was a strong divide between Jewish Zionists and Bundists, the latter arguing for a stateless nationhood. Bundists and other Jewish anti-Zionists still exist, they're just relegated to obscurity because Israel dominates the international conversation and most Jewish interest groups have aligned themselves with Israel for pragmatic reasons.
Also, finally, Israel's current government as well as the illegal settlers in the West Bank (and prominent figures who fantasize about a "Greater Israel" including at least all of Palestine but potentially also parts of the surrounding countries) are in fact most accurately described as "far-right conservatives" as well.
One of them is 100 times more extensive. Ideal is to have none, but lets not pretend that magnitude and severity is not relevant.
Relevant to the people living in it.
Not relevant to the ideals set forth, which our moderns free democracies are based on. This is fundamental, so it's actually worse than when it happens in China.
Not really. Compromise and nuance have always been necessary features of democracies. This has also frequently been seized upon by autocratic apologists with this framing (“it’s actually worse here because of our idealism!”) and yet autocracies remain reliably worse off than democracies in practice.
Every country calls their enemy "undemocratic"
Stunningly, not all of them are correct.
It’s actually not a sign of intelligence or honesty to be able to squint so hard that you see no meaningful differences between e.g. the US and Russia/Iran/China. It’s just called closing your eyes.
Shall we talk about what % of the population is imprisoned in all the countries you mentioned?
Happy to once you explain clearly how that number is relevant to whether a country is democratic or not. Or are you just trying to change the topic?
Did American citizens directly vote for the level of imprisonment in the country?
The game is rigged: any political system that allows any voting at all can be "accurately" described as "being democratic", and this (especially when combined with non-stop supplemental propaganda) is more than adequate to satisfy the heuristic based thinking of most people (and to pull the wool over their eyes).
Noteworthy: who sets educational curriculum (which is what enables people to think skilfully about such things) in schools in "democracies"? How likely does it seem that among thousands of people over decades, no one connected to the department of education noticed that the basic skills for practicing critical thinking are not contained within K-12 curriculum?
Directly voting on laws is neither necessary nor ideal for a democracy.
Again, squinting too hard. American democracy is extremely flawed, yes, but no that doesn't make every other self-proclaimed democracy actually the same.
Your noteworthy note is not that noteworthy. Curricula are almost entirely controlled by state and local school boards. The federal DOE has extremely limited requirements by design to prevent the exact thing you're accusing them of doing.
Only 23 states in USA allow referendum to take place. Being allowed to vote is a requisite for democracy.
Thank you for sharing your opinion! It's not a very commonly held view or intuition that directly voting on policy is a prerequisite for democracy. Of course you can use whatever exotic definitions you want to trick yourself into believing you've won an argument, but it will do nothing in terms of actually creating the type of world you'd like.
I don't think we'll see eye to eye on this and that's okay.
> Directly voting on laws is neither necessary nor ideal for a democracy.
a) That depends on which subjective definition you are using, and also whether you realize your definitions are subjective.
b) It isn't possible for you to know what is "necessary" or "ideal", thus you are speculating.
> Again, squinting too hard.
Speaking (and perhaps even thinking) in popular but misinformative catchphrases may not be ideal.
> American democracy is extremely flawed, yes, but no that doesn't make every other self-proclaimed democracy actually the same.
This is true if considered independently (not in the context of this conversation), but what is the "but no" part referring to?
> Your noteworthy note is not that noteworthy.
Your subjective opinion appearing to you as an objective fact is noteworthy.
> Curricula are almost entirely controlled by state and local school boards.
There is how things are supposed to work, there is how things are claimed to work, and then there is how things actually work (and even this is a substantial simplification). Talking about that last one is...culturally frowned upon.
> The federal DOE has extremely limited requirements by design to prevent the exact thing you're accusing them of doing.
Maybe this is part of the problem!
Regardless: I think it is time the public stopped taking all this nonsense lying down, and behaving as if we are helpless observers trapped in a stream of reality in which we have and can have no control over.
From below:
>> Thank you for sharing your opinion!
Very interesting. Is this interesting to you?
> I don't think we'll see eye to eye on this and that's okay.
When you say "that's okay", what is it you are referring to? Reality?
Democratic, rules based order, freedom: all words used to paint oneself in the good and others in the back. They barely have meaning in political discourse nowadays.
Go to Qatar and strike up a conversation like the ones that are had millions of times per day in the US about how awful/incompetent/evil/illegitimate the government is.
It's you who is degrading the meaning of these things. You can go experience the difference for yourself.
> Go to Qatar and strike up a conversation like the ones that are had millions of times per day in the US about how awful/incompetent/evil/illegitimate the government is.
What is the point of this with respect to the comment it is replying to? Is it intended to be a disproof of some kind?
And while we're at that (comparing Qatar to the US), should we also consider other metrics? Like, oh, I don't know...say Total Body Count on the International Stage? I'm fairly certain being alive is at least as important to most people as Freedom of Speech.
> It's you who is degrading the meaning of these things.
Appeals to the perfection of one's own cognition are getting a bit old. It's 2024 ffs.
> You can go experience the difference for yourself.
Realistically, most people are mostly stuck where they are, and I would rather not engage in illusory thinking about the quality of my country to make myself feel better. But of course, each to his own.
Uhh yes, it's to say there are actually real, practical differences in daily life between countries on the dimension of "freedom" and that these are not merely artifacts of one's own cognition or of rhetorical gotchas. They do not "barely have meaning" and one can travel to various places on the earth and try simple experiments to prove it.
Absolutely wild to be saying "go travel and try to exercise a freedom there" is seen as an appeal to cognition while "I would rather not engage in illusory thinking" is... what exactly?
> ...and that these are not merely artifacts of one's own cognition or of rhetorical gotchas.
A non-"pedantic" person might read this and accidentally form the belief that they are not often just rhetorical gotchas, or that they are not artifacts of one's own cognition (which they are....but they are not only that....and, it is fairly well known even by science how unreliable our Narrator of Reality is).
The relative perfection of the US and other "democracies" is what it is, and that perfection is plausibly substantially influenced by the degree to which citizens collectively buy into the stories of how good they are ("if it ain't broke...").
Do you disagree that most people's models of the quality of various governments rest upon a bed of stories? Or another way of asking the question: do you believe that there is an accurate methodology in existence to objectively determine with high accuracy the quality of each nation in this regard (and also that most people utilize such a methodology, as opposed to believing the stories that please them)?
> They do not "barely have meaning" and one can travel to various places on the earth and try simple experiments to prove it.
It's a fair point, but the claim was: "They barely have meaning in political discourse nowadays". There is a difference, and the importance of the difference is very tricky.
> Absolutely wild to be saying "go travel and try to exercise a freedom there" is seen as an appeal to cognition while "I would rather not engage in illusory thinking" is... what exactly?
Also wild: you sidestepping the other metric I mentioned, and leading out with supreme self-confidence. But then, truthfulness and accuracy is perhaps not the game being playing here, considering the topic.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-i...
I was in China, they called democracy "hopelessly inefficient, will not work for a large population like ours".
What you describe is mostly western/NATO rhetoric, after which they can influence the election (which drives them to tears when it supposedly happens back home).
In fact, a series of Western media including the BBC, Reuters, CNN, etc. all have offices in China.... and you can also easily access Western media websites through VPN and other methods which are uncensored
VPNs increasingly don't work well, however, it's not like they completely turn a blind eye. It's some kind of statistical thing that drops connections that "look wierd" that can interfere with even quite obfuscated VPNs.
yeah, actually what I told 'VPN' is also included like SS/SSR/V2Ray/Xray/Trojan, which is easily gotten, and smooth link and you can even have a HK phone number and used the no GFW network in China.
> china isn't a democracy because they have censorship,
What the fuck even is this? That's like saying Pizza Hut isn't a hamburger shop because they don't sell french fries.
They're not, but that's not the reason!
A democracy is dependent on people having access to information. Free information is a direct requirement of any democracy. It just isn't the only requirement of course.
> It just isn't the only requirement of course.
Right, and it's far from the only one the PRC is lacking. If a tyrannical dictatorship hypothetically permitted free speech, it wouldn't be a democracy. The most conspicuous lacking feature of a democracy in the PRC is the lack of legal competing parties and elections, so it's strange to hear that China isn't a democracy because they don't have free speech.
Incidental to that, free speech as a qualification of democracy is less than cut and dry; every democratic country recognizes some limits to free speech, be that as simple as libel and slander laws, wartime censorship (as America had during WW2), or even hate speech laws like most of the democracies other than America have. If absolute free speech is a prerequisite for having a democracy, then no democracy exists. If you concede some limits, then we're just quibbling the details. Probably, America "" banning"" tiktok still qualifies as having free speech since it's still legal for Americans and American media companies to say nearly anything they like, limited mostly just by slander and libel laws (e.g. infowars getting sued for saying Sandy Hook didn't happen.) Certainly on the spectrum of speech freeness, America is far further on the free side than the PRC where you can get your organs harvested for saying that the government should be replaced. The supposed irony guappa was talking about up-thread is farcical, you have to be out of your mind to think America and China are even remotely close to each other on the speech freeness spectrum.
No tyrannical dictatorship ever permitted free speech because it would pose an immediate threat to their rule.
Competing parties is an indication of a working democracy. Theoretically everyone could agree with a single party to rule. Edge case and very unlikely of course. But there is a reason freedom of opinion is a human right instead of the freedom to have multiple political factions. It isn't comparable.
In contrast to that freedom of speech and expression is a fundamental requirement. For parties forming in the first place for that matter. It is a right that can be abused and different countries deal differently with that problem, although the technicalities should be very carefully considered here.
I don't believe TikTok is an essential part to freedom of speech, but it could very well suppress voices otherwise unheard. Even if I disagree with most of them, there is a restriction.
I do believe the decision against it is populist drivel though and I agree that there is a stark difference between China and the US in offering freedoms. China banning foreign platforms is a sign of weakness in their convictions and they are afraid that different ideas would challenge their order.
Freedom and democracy are luxuries of peacetime, unfortunately.
Fear does terrible things to many people. When the guns come out, leaders that previously were the most staunch supporters of freedom will file them away and promise to reinstate them when the war is "won".
China agrees that it's not a democracy.
They don't even have sham elections on the national level.
> china isn't a democracy because they have censorship
You got that wrong. The reason China is not a democracy, is instead that it is a dictatorship, that's why it's not a democracy.
Democracies can have censorship, there's no contradiction. (Although less common.)
For example, IMO it's good to censor some of Putin's manipulation, because most people are dangerously easy to fool. It's a mistake to let an enemy state broadcast their psychological warfare unhindered.
I’m also quite concerned about the Western world adopting the Chinese style of governance but censorship at wartime is very different from censorship at peace time.
False information leading to spreading misguided ideas is deadly at wartime because there is no time to address it.
I definitely don’t support Italy blocking websites or the US blocking apps.
What about all the misleading news (i.e., positive spin) in the Western world's "free press" that lead to many believing that Ukraine had a chance for a counter offensive (against even basic military thinking and logic). Didn't that lead to unnecessary suffering and deaths during war time (vs say an alternative, beefing up defense lines)?
That's just a random recent example. Another older one is the the media going nuts over "WMDs", leading to an unnecessary US invasion and millions of deaths. My point being is that even free press can spread bad ideas and narratives - in fact, it frequently does. And those ideas should be able to be challenged, at any time, by any source.
I do not understand how supporting Ukraine can lead to more suffering, there is a long history of implerialism causing suffering so there is a rather large opposition against it in the west. What Russia does to Ukraine is pretty gruesome, it is not even considered a country in russian intellectual discourse that is a bad sign.
When we talk about the press and politics these kind of cynical tones are not helpfull. The WMD issue was heavily discussed and debated. The same as Gaza is now, it is interesting what issues manage to be changed by public opinion and what that really is, this is not only an issue with the press. People and groups tend to think that their own opinions should matter, that is only true if you managed to get enough people to care about your opinions and even then you might need a referendum.
> I do not understand how supporting Ukraine can lead to more suffering
You're not responding to the right question at all. You're being asked about the Westerns media not covering the difficulties, losses, and bleak future of the war - justified it seems by the need to support Ukraine.
I’m not talking about supporting Ukraine vs not, but about wishful thinking propagated by media that led thousands of unfortunate Ukrainian souls into heavily mined traps. And that’s my point, media spread a narrative that was at odds with expert advice and basic military strategy (there’s mathematical equations about force required, etc for these types of operations that was ignored). That idea should have been able to been challenged without accusations of being in bed with Putin. We all saw the aftermath. Bad ideas, even from the good guys, can be deadly.
Are you saying Ukrainian military base their strategy on media propaganda rather than basic military strategy? Why would they do that?
That's a good question that has a lot of people scratching their heads. My best guess is top Ukrainian leadership are staffed by a lot of former mass media people, including the president himself (well, until May 20th when his term ends).
So you have enough insider information about the decision making process to know they plan the strategy based on media propaganda rater than military intelligence. But you dont have information about why.
what a starange statement about the counterattack, as if there was a definite knowledge about the future and the Western propaganda suppressed it.
They attempted at taking back their own lands and they failed. The same people claiming to know the future also used to claim that Russia would not attack and later that Ukraine will fall in matter of days.
Maybe just stop listening to fortune tellers.
Exactly, I prefer to listen to experts and the experts were saying it was a bad idea (esp without air power). It was news media and politicians (ie, not military experts) that cheered it on.
It's amazing how you believe that militaries and politicians operate without experts and there're experts on the social media/ tradmedia who came together analysed the situation, came to a definitive prediction about the outcome of a military operation but the western media surpassed those experts and as a result politicians and military engaged in a futile counterattack.
Fascinating mental model on how the world works.
You're being very disrespectful in this conversation. I was GP has provided links and references when they made their comment, but they are certainly correct. The way the conflict is covered in US media makes it seem like Ukraine is wily superhero making good progress against the bumbling Russians. This does not reflect the current reality or future prospects in the conflict.
Apologies if I sounded disrespectful, I’m just fascinated that people can conceptualize the world in this way.
That’s exactly what happened, yeah. And warfare/foreign policy is not the only issue they gaslight us on.
Pretty sure the actual world leading experts on Ukraine’s situation are the ones making battlefield decisions in Ukraine. Like the other commenter said, what a fascinating model of the world you’ve built here.
Holding a non-narrative driven view might be fascinating for some, I suppose.
You are literally constructing a narrative that western news media makes the decisions on the Ukrainian battlefield.
Yes, it is a major contributing factor. PR wins help with public support for funding. This situation/topic is not the only situation they intentionally manipulate public option on.
Lots of narrative here buddy
Lot of books, buddy. You might want to start with this one: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12617.Manufacturing_Cons...
I'm pretty sure that "western news anchors produce an expected-to-fail counteroffensive in Ukraine" would even make Chomsky roll his eyes.
Your explanation is not even internally coherent. A successful counteroffensive is a PR win. An unsuccessful one is a PR loss, obviously.
His thoughts on this conflict are a simple Google search away.
Please link to any source in which he makes the argument you're making. I looked and couldn't find any.
Your argument is dismissible on its own merits and Chomsky believing it as well won't change that, but I am curious if he does.
>I’m also quite concerned about the Western world adopting the Chinese style of governance but censorship at wartime is very different from censorship at peace time
If you allow this then the government will just forever find excuses to be at war.
We live in a broken world, there are no perfect solutions. But I would argue that staying alive comes as a primary priority.
Ah yes the "we must kill them, to stay alive" narrative. It has never been abused in the whole history of mankind.
What are you even talking about? Of course those attacked must kill the attackers to stay alive.
Is italy at war? I must have missed the memo.
It’s not at war, that’s why I don’t support such a thing.
It isn't and shouldn't be different in war time either. If you allow this exception, you will just always be at war.
Censorship for security reasons isn't a new concept.
Not at all, you can't be at war all the time as people and ammo is limited resource. Just stick tight to definitions and observe for technicality BS. I.e. don't take "War on drugs" as a war, don't assume you are at war when the countries no longer fight but technically never signed a peace agreement etc.
I think I made it pretty clear that the exception for censorship is only when people are actively killing each other and this is because killing happens fast and its irreversible, therefore tolerances to tackle spread of false information is too small to be allowed.
Not the war on drugs, but certainly the "war on terror". This is not clinging to definitions, it is political reality that such measures would also be undertaken in peace time, any justification would suffice. Who do you believe would draw the line here anyway?
Also, especially in times of war, there is a heightened interest of people getting news and independent reporting. Any other news isn't worth the read.
Yeah, just don’t fall for that kind of BS.
> That's correct and IMHO [censorship is] the right thing to do when shooting begins
it's been a common observation since aischylos that the truth is the first casualty of war
it's quite different to assert that the truth should be the first casualty of war, which seems to be your position
I don’t say that the truth should be this or that, all I say is that information flow is part of the warfare and the parties at war will want to control it for their advantage. After all, they are literally killing people.
Sure, but why should we be subjected to only our own propagandists lies and not be able to hear the other side? Why are our lies better?
RT is not truth though. When a country is fighting for its very survival against a genocidal foe, I'm not about to start clutching my pearls that they've banned their genocidal foe's propaganda. Seems reasonable to me.
It's no worse than CNNs take on iraq and weapons of mass destruction, or (to go to the ru-ukr war), all the "putin has 3 days of supplies left" articles from 2022, 2023 and this year.
You just prefer your own propaganda.
I don't think that "putin has 3 days of supplies left" propaganda is just as bad as the kind of genocidal propaganda pumped out by the Russian media, no, sorry.
Not all propaganda is born equal. Antisemitic propaganda pumped out by the Nazis in WW2 was absolutely worse than "keep calm and carry on" propaganda pumped out by the Brits during WW2. Hope that helps.
But if you truly believe that putin is losing due to propaganda, you'll go and fight a war you believe you'll win... and then die, because the media lied to you. How is this good for you?
I mean sure... you, as an outside observer want more "other" people to die for a cause you believe in, but for an individual it's better to know the truth and decide according to that, than to be mislead by lies and propaganda.
Ukraine seems pretty intent on continuing to fight, I'm not forcing them to do anything, indeed I have no power over Ukrainian policy whatsoever. If Ukraine wants to fight then I believe we should support them. Hope that helps.
> fight a war you believe you'll win... and then die
I can't imagine any sane person is going to blame the Ukrainian media for Russia invading Ukraine, killing Ukrainian soldiers and committing genocide in Ukraine. I imagine they would, you know, blame Russia itself. Lol.
Thanks for the hot takes though, amusing, if not also a little bit sad.
> Ukraine seems pretty intent on continuing to fight
Yeah, i saw the videos of men being kidnapped from the streets, and the articles about european countries trying to forcibly sending men (who managed to escape) back to ukraine, to die for zelensky. Once you're out of volounteers ready to fight, you're not "intent on" anything anymore, but are forcing young (and a bit less young) men to die for politics. And ukraine hasn't had any volounteers for quite a lot of time now.
> I can't imagine any sane person is going to blame the Ukrainian media for Russia invading Ukraine, killing Ukrainian soldiers and committing genocide in Ukraine. I imagine they would, you know, blame Russia itself. Lol.
Ukranian media can be a cause for uninformed men to die in a way, that they would never fight in, if they knew the truth.
Yeah that's why war sucks bro. People end up getting conscripted when the war is for the very existence of the country itself. It sucks.
So Russia should withdraw.
Anyway seethe more. And keep acting all shocked and outraged that countries produce propaganda during war time when they are attacked. Lol.
But if people prefer their own life to some lines on the map... why should we force them to fight? I mean.. shouldn't ukranian individuals have a choice? Are we really supporting forcefully sending them to die? Is this "democracy"? "western way of life"?
If you prefer lines on the map, why not help with the fighting, instead of being a keyboard warrior?
North Korea is a line on a map.
>why not help with the fighting
This is a really common refrain from paid Russian trolls. It means that someone cannot argue against an injust invasion unless they fight themselves - which is ridiculous. So you are either a troll, or just stupid. Based on the rest of your comments I'm certain you are a troll. What is really sick is that you claim to be concerned about Ukrainian lives when you are actively supporting their daily massacre.
You can argue all you want, but you shouldn't be able to force people to die for your arguments. And ukranian men don't want to die.
Instead of arguing, you come with the "paid troll" accusations and personal attacks.. come on.
It's one thing to argue about injustness (especially if you're from one of the coutries that is currently invading some other country, or recently has been, like syria or afghanistan.. like my country did), but you canot argue about ukranians having to die for whatever you consider to be right. If you support any kind of democracy, and if there is noone left who wants to volounteer and fight, the democractic opinion is already known (at least the opinion of those whose opinion should matter). If you believe that dying in this war is worth it, for whatever reason, you can replace a ukranian guy who doesn't believe that.
I'm not willing to fight for Ukraine but I am willing to support them. If my country was at risk of being ruled by the thugs in the Kremlin, I would fight for it and I would welcome support from anyone.
Your line of argument (idiotic though it is ) is used frequently by trolls because it is very effective at shutting down conversation. You can't threaten violence directly but you would if you could. You are supporting a regime that kills, rapes and kidnaps children (you will deny this because you are a paid troll but it's absolutely clear from your arguments that you do)
Anyway, you are clearly delighted to get more opportunities to repeat it so I will shut up now.
You've made it so deep into this discussion and now is when you pull out the "paid troll" comment? Speak directly and don't imply things you're not confident enough to say outright. And frankly, 99% of claims of paid trolls sound like conspiracy theories to my ears.
>If you prefer lines on the map, why not help with the fighting, instead of being a keyboard warrior?
If you are so desperate for Russia to win, why don't you go and join the Russian army and join a meat wave?
> shouldn't ukranian individuals have a choice
Conscription in its various forms is as old as warfare itself. I cannot believe you think Ukraine invented conscription lmao.
I'm not desparate for russia to win, I just support people to have a chance to not die for the lines on the map. It's not just ukraine forcing them to do so (and us helping them), but there are actual movements within EU to forcibly send the ones who escaped back.
If you want to fight russia, you're free to do so, but you shouldn't be able to force others to do so.
> Conscription in its various forms is as old as warfare itself. I cannot believe you think Ukraine invented conscription lmao.
Sure, and it's wrong and should be abolished. Aren't we the ones supporting democracy here? At least you're acting as if you are, as long as ukranian men have no choice but to die in a war you support more than them.
Nothing necessarily antidemocratic about conscription. Finland is a democracy and has conscription.
You need to focus your outrage on Russia for invading Ukraine
instead of Ukraine for defending itself.
Do you believe it's possible to support Ukraine, criticize and blame Russia for the conflict, and still think there's much to criticize about the Ukrainian response? It seems like you're not comfortable with that level of nuance, and you're being very disrespectful as a result.
Of course, but they very clearly support Russia, so that does not apply here.
They explicitly state that Ukraine should stop fighting, i.e., let Russia win.
They state The Independent and Russia Today are two equally trustworthy news sources. That is not serious.
Anyone who says we should support Ukraine is told that we should go and join the Ukrainian army, also ridiculous.
I do not respect such people, so I am being disrespectful, indeed. I do not care, either.
If you think I am being an arsehole, that's fine, you're probably right, but if you cannot see that the other guy is also at least as much of an arsehole as I am, then you presumably have very interesting opinions on the Russian attack on Ukraine, just like he does.
Conscription is undemocratic by design.
If the democratic majority wants to fight, you have more than enough volunteer soldiers to either win (or lose ~1/2 of your population...). If you can't get any volunteers any more, their opinion on if they want to fight or not is already known, even without a democratic referendum.
...at least if you only count the votes of people whose opinion actually matters here.
You need to focus your outrage on Russia for invading Ukraine
instead of Ukraine for defending itself.
What good will that do? 1 outrage = one prayer? Or whatever that faceook boomer meme was?
Now is the time to prevent forciful conscription in other countries, because our politicians are steering us towards war, and I don't want to die for them. If someone volunteers, sure, if not, then sit down and negotiate.
I don't live in neither russia not ukraine... my outrage went to my (small, eu) country occupying afghanistan and still having soldiers in syria. Sadly noone gave so much weapons and money to afghanistan/syria/libya/... to help them win the war.
What good does your seething on HN do?
My point is if you're going to rage about the war in Ukraine, you should probably rage and seethe about the invader, not criticise Ukraine for defending itself lmao.
If your only problem is that Ukraine has conscription, well so too does Russia, but you only criticise Ukraine, and repeat Russian imperialist/fascist talking points about defending Russians in Ukraine.. so it is very transparent where your sympathies really lie.
Few questioned Ukraine's decision to ban RT's operations. This doesn't seem terribly different - Al Jazeera has very deep ties to Hamas, the enemy Israel is at war with, and has arguably been acting as their mouthpiece for propaganda.
It should be noted that Ukraine has banned far more than just RT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press_in_Ukrain...
i did and do. banning your citizens from reading the 'propaganda' of your enemy reduces them to subjects and foments further armed conflict. it's also a power invariably used to avoid accountability for petty corruption such as beria's garden full of young, beautiful women
An important distinction must be drawn between suppressing distribution, and "banning your citizens from reading". In fact it is not illegal to possess or read RT content, nor even for that matter to share it on social media. It is not secret. All that has been done is to remove a propagandist with a megaphone from the town square.
Is the fact that you put "propaganda" in quotation marks an indication that you don't consider RT to be that, or that you don't think propaganda even exists?
I think the point is that one side's propaganda is another side's information.
As in "there is no such thing as true or false, only opinion"?
That's completely unrelated. Obviously there exist objective facts, but outlets get to pick and chose which facts they report and which ones to hide under the rug. For example, its common for state news organizations to report enemy losses, but omit their own.
Some propaganda goes beyond selective disclosure of facts, like Al Jazeera uncritically reporting questionable claims as long as they're anti-Israeli, and failing to retract the ones that turn out to be false.
In a post truth society, certainly. If you can't verify it yourself it's all a leap of faith.
"Verifying it yourself" is often if not usually also a leap of faith, because how shall a single mind error check itself in a confirmably reliable manner, especially if it's received no specialized training in the domain?
It comes down to the relative stretch of the leap you take.
And to know that, you need (just for starters) a means of discovering what is True...so you are back to the problem I noted.
Luckily, all of this complexity can be wallpapered over by cultural conditioning, making the problem essentially vanish (depending on the frame of reference one is observing from, or if one even knows what that means).
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if it was abject shite nobody wanted to read or watch, they wouldn't bother to ban it
Propaganda is still dangerous, and a country at war has no obligation to allow the country it is at war with to continue to openly spread it. Banning RT makes sense in that context.
I don't see the banning of Al Jazeera in the same light, as it's not like it's a Hamas-run outlet.
I would love to live in the universe where popularity was a good indicator of quality.
A country at war has no moral or legal obligation to publish its enemy’s propaganda. This should be very obvious.
And yes RT was always complete shite for gullible morons, though it is rather beside the point in this case actually. The British government had no moral obligation on free speech grounds to allow the spread of nazi propaganda in the United Kingdom during WW2, either. Again, obvious stuff.
Propaganda in war times is very often directed at a domestic audience. Examples are stories like the Ghost of Kyiv on the "western side". There are examples on the Russian side too.
Sure, but it's still lies.
Somehow we act as if our lies are better than their lies.
Yes: A lie to boost the morale of a country fighting a defensive war against a genocidal dictatorship is unambiguously a better lie than the lies of the genocidal dictatorship to rile up its populace to more effectively execute the genocidal war.
My country lied to its populace during WW2 to boost morale in its fight against Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany lied to its populace to more effectively execute the holocaust. They are not the same.
So it's true, not all lies are equally bad, hope that helps. Most learn that as children.
So we should lie that israel is losing hard, so good morale brings more and more people to fight for hamas?
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Yes, they should read about how putin has only thre days of supplies left and not worry about the war, because it'll be over by the weekend.
Oh wait, those articles were from 2022:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-food-...
Why not ban Independent too?
It's arguably not propaganda to publish an article quoting a member of the Ukrainian military. It's even in the headline right there: "Ukraine military claims".
If you think the output of RT and the Independent are indistinguishable then yeah I guess we just will never agree. Still, glad my country banned RT nevertheless. If the only downside is the odd anti-west tankie on HN crying about "hypocrisy", then, it's not so bad ;)
So trust the propaganda side, don't verify and publish such propagnda?
I mean... you can still not read RT, I don't know why you feel the need to forbid others from reading it? What if others want to ban something you wish to read? I mean...i'm glad you admit supporting censorship, but you can't complain then when some other country bans lgbt materials, harry potter, books on sexuality, books about satan, etc.
>So trust the propaganda side, don't verify and publish such propagnda?
?
> What if others want to ban something you wish to read?
Somethings things get banned even in democratic societies, that's never not been the case. Given that Russia is attacking Europe and has carried out numerous executions of private citizens on European soil, I struggle to see why we are obliged to let them air their propaganda in our countries. Maybe suck cuckholdery is appealing to you, but not to me or us.
> but you can't complain then when some other country bans lgbt materials, harry potter, books on sexuality, books about satan, etc
I don't complain. Russia is a shithole, we know this, it's established fact at this point, if it wants to cry about Harry Potter and LGBT rather than finally install toilets in peoples houses and help brings its people into the 21st century, then that's their choice. But invading a sovereign country like Ukraine and committing genocide against Ukrainians, that's not really acceptable, sorry.
The media trusted someone that said the "three days" story, didn't verify and published the lie as propaganda, so more people died because they believed that they'll win after the three days of supplies are used up.
> Somethings things get banned even in democratic societies, that's life
Yeah sure, sometimes innocent people die, sometimes a piano falls from a crane and kills a person. Some people like you even support such stuff.
> Given that Russia is attacking Europe and has carried out numerous executions of private citizens on European soil, I struggle to see why we are obliged to let them air their propaganda in our countries. Maybe suck cuckholdery is appealing to you, but not to me or us.
Russia is attacking ukraine, the same way as a bunch of european and american countries were attacking afghanistan, syria, libya, iraq, twice, etc. Why do you care now? Because you're not the one on the attacking side?
> I don't complain. Russia is a shithole, we know this, it's established fact at this point, if it wants to cry about Harry Potter and LGBT rather than finally install toilets in peoples houses and help brings its people into the 21st century, then that's their choice. But invading a sovereign country like Ukraine and committing genocide against Ukrainians, that's not really acceptable, sorry.
I was refering to this: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/harry-potter-series-tops... And more and more books are added to the list in recent time.
> But invading a sovereign country like Ukraine and committing genocide against Ukrainians, that's not really acceptable, sorry.
Why not? I mean... why is attacking iraq for nonexisting WMDs acceptable, but attacking ukraine for killing minorities in it's own country isn't? I mean.. didn't nato bomb yugoslavia for that same reason?
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> We are not the same.
> Anyway you've let your mask slip, you're pro war and pro genocide.
You should consider the the site guidelines. This is completely unacceptable. How can you be so comfortable seeing the world in black and white?
Speak for yourself. The conclusion was reasonable.
That person is literally defending the invasion of Ukraine, justifying it in terms of "protecting Russian minorities being killed".
How can you be so comfortable casting everything as exactly the same shade of grey, even when it is not always the same shade of grey?
How about you consider the site guidelines, if you're defending that person?
Don't troll by acting like a neutral observer when you clearly agree with him. Thanks. That's bad faith, and goes against side guidelines.
Explanation isn't excuse. You're confounding the two.
Carry on trying to hit me over the head with the Hacker News rule book whilst turning a blind eye and saying literally nothing to that guy's genocide apologism. You have beclowned yourself.
> I don't think the invasion of Iraq was a good thing or acceptable.
But it was. Nothing happened to anyone, no courts, trials, no jail time for any of the politicians, no nothing. So we, as a "western society" (or whatever you might call us) deem such invasions acceptable. Not just that, but we conduct new ones after that. So yeah, if you do something, officially, with documentation, public money, public employees, and nothing happens, how is it not acceptable?
I mean... if it's not acceptable, why did WE do it then? Assuming you're old enough, you literally financed people getting killed there with your taxes.
> But you very clearly seem to think the invasion and genocide in Ukraine is acceptable.
In the same way as iraq was. But we're not the ones attacking now, and we're bothered by that, so we're using even more money to get more people killed in this war.
I have a toilet, and my taxes are going to ukraine to prolong this war, as they went to helping the occupiers of iraq, and are still going to syria (we have soldiers there too). We had to run away from afghanistan a few years ago though... it just cost us and our 'friends' a trillion to replace the taliban with the taliban there, and kill a lot of locals. Apparently, that's acceptable too, since noone is in jail for that war.
Seems like a good deal to me if you're worried about money rather than lives: give money to Ukraine, keep Russian dictatorship at bay, before it invades other parts of Europe.
So cheer up, your taxes are not being wasted, they are saving you money in the long run by keeping Russia from invading Europe even more.
But ukraine is using that money to kill their own men who don't want to fight. Why don't you go and fight instead, and risk your own life instead of forcing them to do it?
Considering the sitation in ukraine, we've wasted a lot of money and a lot of ukranian men for what exactly?
> Considering the sitation in ukraine, we've wasted a lot of money and a lot of ukranian men for what exactly?
The alternative is that Russia rolls over Ukraine, murders between few hundred thousand and few million people to enforce the occupation, and then decimates Ukrainian male population by using them as cannon fodder against Poland and other European countries. Please explain me how this is any better.
I mean sure... it's their choice. If they want to fight against that, sure, let them volounteer and fight. If you can't get any more people to fight without literally forcing them, then you obviously don't have enough "democractic" support for a fight anymore (at least not from the ones whose opinions should matter), and should start looking at the negotiating table.
This is only going to get more people killed.
If you believe that, then put your life where your mouth is, and go fight. If you want to live, let others live too.
Even during the WW2, a few countries capitulated with the germans and survived, even eg. france. On the other hand, a bunch of those countries (even france), no go half a planet away to kill people over there, and there is no support to those countries to fight harder against the french. And france is far from the only country that does that in europe, not to even mention the USA.
I don't have to volunteer anywhere; I already face rising odds that I'll be conscripted even before this year is out.
As to France and other countries occupied by Nazis, capitulation meant a ride to death camp for some, slave labor to others, starvation and oppression for all. France was used as a staging ground for the Battle of Britain and for the aborted invasion of British Isles, and served as a base of operations for submarines attacking allied convoys in the Atlantic ocean. France didn't regain freedom until massive landings on Normandy beaches and fierce fighting through the country by soldiers who were mostly conscripts and not there on their own will, so I don't understand what it was meant to prove.
I find it downright perverse to call genocide "retaliatory" and the act of covering it up "normal".
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I think the issue is that you are saying things are "normal" without addressing whether or not they are right and good.
I would probably agree with you that it's normal for a country at war to want to control information flow. But that's absolutely a bad thing! Obviously not all "information" is created equal: some of it is high-quality and objective, and some of it is lies (and everything in between). I don't trust pretty much any government entity to be objective about these sorts of bans, though. The ultimate consequence of these sorts of things is a poorly-informed, propagandized public.
To parse your statement we need to understand what genocide means to you. For most it means the systemic killing of every person of a certain genetic identity. Is that what you believe is happening or something else?
If genocide is illegal than covering up would be the only logical move. Therefore it would be normal.
Genocide has a precise definition and has been codified in international law. I believe this internationally recognized definition mirrors what most people mean when they use the term. It does not necessitate the systemic killing of every person of a certain genetic identity.
Genocide is outlined in the Genocide convention from 1948[1]. It is short so I’ll give you the whole definition here:
> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
> (a) Killing members of the group;
> (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
> (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
> (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
> (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Genocide is illegal under international humanitarian law, there is no justification admissible for the crime of genocide. It is not normal to cover it up. Israel is currently being investigated by the ICJ for the crime of genocide. Israel has argued that whatever it is doing in Gaza is not genocide.
1: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Prevention_...
I think it's fairly clear that given this definition (which is the same one I always reference), Israel isn't committing a genocide.
If you do think Israel is committing a genocide, I think one thing you have to do is demonstrate how what Israel is doing is different from any other war (e.g. war on ISIS, Afghanistan, Iraq as obvious examples).
The statute makes the difference pretty clear - it's the intent to kill some (definable) part of the members of the group. This is not the case with Israel given its current actions and lack of actions; it could kill far more people if it decided to, militarily speaking. (I say this not because Israel deserves any "credit" for not killing more people, obviously, only to make it clear that the reason more aren't killed isn't because of lack of capability, but because of lack of desire to kill more).
Of course, you might disagree with me. If you don't have some kind of way to distinguish between what Israel is doing and what e.g. the US did in Iraq, you can just bite the bullet and say that all wars are genocide. That would be a consistent POV, but that would also effectively render the concept of Genocide meaningless.
> The statute makes the difference pretty clear - it's the intent to kill some (definable) part of the members of the group. This is not the case with Israel given its current actions and lack of actions; it could kill far more people if it decided to, militarily speaking.
This logic is one-dimensional and flawed. Israel is capable of wanting many different things and intelligently balancing their actions to accomplish many different things. For example, if Israel wants to remove all Palestinians from Gaza while also retaining some international allies, they would balance their actions to achieve both, and that would probably look quite similar to what we are seeing.
It's like in chess. I want to capture my opponents pawn, that is a thing I want. That doesn't mean I will sacrifice my queen for the pawn. And if an observer says "he must not want to take that pawn, because he could have taken the pawn with his queen but didn't", that observer would be looking at things in a very one-dimensional way and would be wrong.
OK. What would it look like if Israel just wanted to remove Hamas from power in Gaza without wanting to remove Palestinians from Gaza?
Just to remove doubt - I'm genuinely asking. One thing I don't feel I've ever gotten a real answer on is what should Israel have done after the October 7th attack instead of what it did. Not in general about the situation, but specifically on October 7th.
They need a carrot and and stick, not just a stick.
For one thing, they need to let in the thousands of trucks of aid that are held up by their onerous inspection processes. They need the people of Gaza to see Hamas as the source of their troubles and Israel as a source of aid.
It's hard thing to do. I remember listening to Jocko Willink (a US Navy Seal) describe this difficulty in Iraq. They had to work closely with poorly trained Iraqi soldiers to help them become better trained, and they had to go out of their way to obey the rules of engagement. He had to explain to soldiers that their mission was to stabilize Iraq, not just to kill insurgents and survive the next patrol. Some of his soldiers died because of this. Those soldiers wouldn't have died if the US just dropped 2000 pound bombs on everything, but that wouldn't have accomplished the mission of stabilizing Iraq. (I know there's plenty to criticize about the Iraq war, but focus on my point please.)
I don't get the sense that the IDF is doing this. They are all stick, no carrot. Their actions will not reduce the amount of terrorism coming out of Gaza.
Remember when the Israeli hostages tried to get help and surrender? They wave a white flag, they seek help, the IDF just shoots them, and later we all recognize it was a tragedy. Well, that scene has played out hundreds of other times, but hidden, Palestinians getting killed intentionally for no good reason. If my accusations here are true we would expect to see other instances as well, such as blowing up marked international aid vehicles that are actively coordinating with the IDF--the IDF just blows them up anyway, blows up one vehicle, survivors crawl away, minutes later they blow up a second vehicles, minutes later they blow up a third vehicle. Other times, we see things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhVV2_mub84
Maybe I have a blind spot in my news sources, but has the IDF done anything to show the Palestinians that they are friends, or could be friends? I know the IDF tried to give out flour once and ended up shooting several hundred Palestinians and killing about a hundred (the "flour massacre"). Maybe I've missed it, but have they ever tried that again with more success? Have they done anything to help the civilians of Gaza?
These are not actions that will reduce terrorism. These are not actions that will help the people of Gaza learn to live in peace.
I think there are plenty of actions and statements from Israeli political leaders to differentiate between a focused goal of eliminating Hamas and collective punishment and revenge, and it appears punishing all people in Gaza is one of the things they want.
> They need a carrot and and stick, not just a stick. [...] They need the people of Gaza to see Hamas as the source of their troubles and Israel as a source of aid.
Oh, I absolutely think Israel should've done this, both for strategic reasons and moral reasons. I think Israel should've been showing Gazans (and the world) some amazing innovations in getting aid into a warzone, proving to everyone that it cars more about Gaza's civilians than Hamas does. I think this would've been, not just the moral thing to do, but then smart thing to do.
I just don't think that not doing so means it's committing genocide. It's just undertaking a war like most countries do. War is always awful.
> It's hard thing to do. I remember listening to Jocko Willink [...] He had to explain to soldiers that their mission was to stabilize Iraq, not just to kill insurgents and survive the next patrol. Some of his soldiers died because of this. Those soldiers wouldn't have died if the US just dropped 2000 pound bombs on everything, but that wouldn't have accomplished the mission of stabilizing Iraq.
Yes, I heard this podcast (and I admire Jocko). Israel did something very similar - the first few weeks of fighting were mostly bombings, but the ~5 months after that have been a ground invasion that has gotten IDF soldiers killed (as opposed to more aerial bombardment).
That said, Israel is facing a tougher situation - Hamas is far more entrenched and very innovative in terms of their insurgent operations. You can watch videos by Preston Stewart to get a sense of the kinds of attacks Hamas is doing (a recent one is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFeWC1svUQI). Hamas is moving around dressed as civilians and can plausibly claim to be civilians, right up until the moment they open fire. That's a very hard situation to deal with, leading to many tragic situations.
> Remember when the Israeli hostages tried to get help and surrender, they wave a white flag, they seek help, the IDF just shoots them, and later we all recognize it was a tragedy. Well, that scene has played out hundreds of other times, but hidden, Palestinians getting killed on purpose for no good reason.
Yes, there have been countless tragedies in this war. It's partially the fault of the IDF lowering the bar for shooting, it's partially the fault of Hamas operating in the way that they do (there are cases of them deliberately pretending to be civilians then ambushing soldiers).
> Other times, we see things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhVV2_mub84
That video is utterly without context. I don't remember the exact case (I think Preston Stewart talked about it), but those could literally be armed militants walking to/away from battle. I don't know if Al Jazeera followed this up with any other information.
> These are not action that will reduce terrorism. These are not actions that will help the people of Gaza learn to live in peace.
I don't think Israel is trying to help Gaza learn to live in peace. It's trying to win a war against the Gazan government and military so it doesn't attack again.
So you agree that the actions of Israel do not look like genocide?
The rest of your comment is conjecture and it sounds a bit conspiratorial.
I cannot understand your key points that this is a) not genicide, b) it is simply what the US was doing all these years c) Israel kills acts with self constraint not imposed by others
Israel is actively doing most of the points above against an effectively unarmed and blockaded group of people. US was fighting against actual armies whichever their quality. Israel claims “hamas” and kills indiscriminately, there is no footage of “hamas” army with any heavy military equipment, israel actively causes famine, destroys all hospitals, creates mass graves that have victims with hands tied behind their backs. Israel official claim their desire to kill everyone.
They simply cannot do it immediately because they are doing it with western financial and military support which would evaporate because you can only do propaganda so much.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148876
> Israel is actively doing most of the points above against an effectively unarmed and blockaded group of people. US was fighting against actual armies whichever their quality.
You are just factually wrong on many of your points.
It's true that Hamas isn't a traditional military with heavy equipment, but they are a 30k strong insurgent group that has had years to plan their defense. They've built tunnel complexes that are said to be larger than the NY Subway and hide in them, coming up to ambush soldiers.
If your view of what is happening is that the IDF is going around shooting at civilians, then you're just incorrect about what is actually happening on the ground for the last many months.
If you look at videos that Hamas themselves post, you can see them constantly attacking soldiers, collapsing buildings on soldiers, placing munitions on tanks to blow them up, etc.
> [Israel] destroys all hospitals,
Absolutely not true. Israel hasn't destroyed hospitals, definitely not all of them, despite this being commonly claimed.
There was one hospital that saw a week of fighting between Hamas and the IDF. After that week, much of it was destroyed. This btw goes against your point that Hamas is effectively unarmed. But while most other hospitals have seen attacks around them and many have been ordered evacuated, they aren't destroyed. (Some are damaged, to be fair - but hospitals are pretty big, and there's a world of difference between "some hospitals have been damaged" and "Israel has destroyed all hospitals".)
> israel actively causes famine
I think Israel has acted horribly around humanitarian aid, yes. This has largely changed recently, thankfully.
> creates mass graves that have victims with hands tied behind their backs.
This was recently reported and hasn't been investigated. Many things later turn out to not be what was claimed by the Gazan authorities (Hamas) who are playing a disinformation campaign. Israel says this mass grave was made by Palestinians. Neither you nor I know the truth of this. I highly doubt it was Israel, if those people are civilians. If it was Israel, that would most definitely be a war crime as far as I can tell.
> Israel official claim their desire to kill everyone.
Not true, and I've talked about this in another comment in this thread.
> They simply cannot do it immediately because they are doing it with western financial and military support which would evaporate because you can only do propaganda so much.
OK. But that's an unfalsifiable statement. You can always say that Israel is "just about" to do more. Do you think Israel has more support now or 6 months ago right after the October 7th attacks? I think it has far less support, which was entirely predictable. So why wait so long? What kind of evidence would convince you that Israel doesn't want to engage in genocide, if not doing it when it had more support isn't strong enough evidence?
The two wrongs make a right argument.
There isn't a single item on that definition that hasn't been reported and evidenced on numerous times by the limited press coverage. To bring the conversation back to the article.
The argument that it could kill more is ridiculous. Israel is clearly killing as many as it believes the international community will let it, without becoming a pariah state. Deliberately, and indiscriminate killing or maiming of 5% of a population is not trivial.
I find it difficult to classify what is happening as a war. The disparity in power, control and access to military and other means is to disparate. Like Iraq, Afghanistan, etc it's transparent one side is doing it because they can, and without regard for anything but their own satisfaction and revenge.
Not just that, the international community [0] is helping them, by giving them weapons, money and other kids of help to do so. Even coutries like germany, who had their own genocidal "incidents" in the past, continue to export weapons to israel.
[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/tfrh17/the_internati...
Agreed and on moral grounds the war of Israel is far more defensible than these examples because they are directly subjected to the aggressor. That doesn't allow killings with impunity of course, but that is far from what Israel is doing.
There were quite a few statements by key people in the current Israeli government that demonstrate clear intent for genocide.
As to why they don't massacre every living Palestinian in Gaza if they really want to do so - Israel still depends significantly on external support, most notably from US, but also from European countries. Thus even if intending to commit genocide, they have to do so in a plausibly deniable way.
> There were quite a few statements by key people in the current Israeli government that demonstrate clear intent for genocide.
There were a few statements, mostly made very early in the war, most of them ambiguous. These are horrible, but fairly similar to most war-time propaganda in most countries.
They're also dwarfed by the many, many statements almost all of them made that quite explicitly clarified that that isn't what they want, and that the only goal is to remove Hamas while trying to minimize harm to civilians.
Btw, this is less true of ethnic cleansing - there is a minority, but influential, part of the government that is, at the very least, hinting strongly at ethnic cleansing. I find it despicable and am convinced the majority of Israelis would never go along with this, but those statements by those (despicable) "leaders" are recent.
> As to why they don't massacre every living Palestinian in Gaza if they really want to do so - Israel still depends significantly on external support, most notably from US, but also from European countries. Thus even if intending to commit genocide, they have to do so in a plausibly deniable way.
This is an unfalsifiable statement. People have been claiming for most of my life that Israel is either committing genocide, or wants to, and is only held back by foreign powers. A genocide hasn't occurred so far, and I believe very strongly that Israel will never do so. But you can always say "oh well, they just can't because other people are keeping them in check". OK - so what kind of evidence would convince you that that's not true?
There are clearly genocidal statements from Israeli leadership.
Bezalel Smotrich, finance minister, for example: "We need to encourage immigration from there. If there were 100,000-200,000 Arabs in the Strip and not two million, the whole conversation about the day after [the war] would be completely different".
Remember, these are people whose entire nation is Palestine. He's certainly not suggesting that Palestinians be accepted as refuges in Israel, and he has also been actively taking land in the West Bank, so is not proposing they go there either. In the Knesset in September 2021 he told an Arab Knesset member: "You’re here by mistake, it’s a mistake that Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the job and didn’t throw you out in 1948".
The most charitable interpretation of this so far is that he only wants a "forcible transfer of population" (Article 7 of the Rome Statue of the ICC - a crime against humanity) instead of a genocide. However, those statements can be coupled with actions:
* While people in Gaza were suffering famine, he issued an order blocking flour into Gaza. * Half of Gaza's population is squeezed into a tiny corner, Rafah, by Israeli actions. Smotrich has called for: "No half jobs. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat, total and utter destruction". So he is calling just there for killing half of the Gaza population, which he has made clear, he doesn't want to continue to exist in Gaza.
I think all of this together is quite solid evidence that Smotrich is inciting genocide with intent to destroy at least part of the Palestinian nation. Others are even more extreme. For example, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu suggested dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza to wipe out everyone there.
In this context it is worthy to cite Article III of the genocide convention (which directly follows the above definition in Article II):
> The following acts shall be punishable:
>
> (a) Genocide;
> (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
> (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
> (d) Attempt to commit genocide;
> (e) Complicity in genocide.
Bezalel Smotrich is deffinetly guilty of (c) here, “Direct and public incitement to commit genocide”, but being a member of the Israeli government which is plausibly guilty of (a), a government who’s several members are also guilty of (c), including the Prime Minister himself. it is very likely—though we don’t know this yet—that he, other Israeli officials, and generals in the Israeli military, are also guilty of (b) “Conspiracy to commit genocide”.
Even in the most charitable interpretations of Smotrich’s words, he, and other members of the Israeli governments, are plausibly guilty of (e) “Complicity in genocide” as Israel has a duty to protect Palestinians from Genocide, but still allowing genocidal actions to unfold in Gaza, while not punishing offenders, nor even stepping down their rhetoric.
> There were a few statements, mostly made very early in the war, most of them ambiguous.
There was so many of them, over 500, that it was actually necessary to set a database to track them all. See https://law4palestine.org/law-for-palestine-releases-databas...
The tech nerd in me insists I complain that this isn't a database. It's just a document.
I've read this site multiple times. While some statements there are horrible (and I never said there weren't), many are really taken out of context and/or exaggerated. And most are very early in the war, as I said.
Also, to get to such large numbers, they are putting in statements from random infantry soldiers, random journalists, etc. If you want the list that's actually somewhat relevant, I think only the decision makers one is (22 statements there), maybe parts of the army personnel. Is it really relevant to include "public expressions" made by a football player, or the Australian Jewish association? Does that make sense to call it an "Israeli Incitement to Genocide"?
What matters is that these statements were both echoed and followed by actions. When random infantry soldiers recite genocidal rhetoric, and don’t get punished for that, at best you are complicit in genocide (which is also a crime according to Article III (e) of the Genocide Convention). When genocidal rhetoric is echoed on the international stage by random journalists, or football players representing your nation, you need to disavow those words (and in case of the football player, dismiss the player from the sport).
Genocide is serious crime, and when it is plausible that a genocide is being committed, any incitements to further it are criminal, and need to be punished, if these acts are not punished, or worse, dismissed as not relevant, you are at best complicit. But the fact that genocidal conduct continues on the ground, and officials are not backing down their rhetoric, and are not punishing genocidal actions, it is reasonable to assume that genocide is also the intent of the people in charge.
In fact, the US is guilty of genocide as well - it just has a far more effective media control apparatus, which shields its citizens from the outrage they'd experience if they really knew and understood just how responsible they are for such atrocities as, the funding of ISIS, the destruction of Mosul, the destruction of Raqqa, the destruction of Libya, the military support of the genocide of Yemen, and .. on and on.
So yeah "the bigger bully also kills people" might be an effective thought-blocking argument, but that is only the case because that bully has been effectively thought-blocking any inspection of its war crimes by the people, who ultimately pay for them.
Yes, the US should face justice for its war crimes, crimes against humanity, and so on. No, it won't face justice because, instead of frog-marching its war criminals to face justice in The Hague, it has plans to invade The Hague, instead.
Those who support Israels massacre of innocent Palestinians need to be very, very careful about the association with bigger bullies. Just because your allies got away with genocide, doesn't mean you will. (See also: Australia)
The ICJ are NOT investigating Israel for the crime of genocide. This is a common misunderstanding. See clarifications by the former president of the International Court of Justice, Joan Donoghue.
Google for the clarification or read the actual text https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203847
I’m not sure I understand what you mean. You cited a ruling from March 28th 2024, which imposed extra provisional measures in light of evidence that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war, and ordered Israel to stop doing that. Or in words of the Court (Article III, Paragraph 45):
> In conformity with its obligations under the Genocide Convention, and in view of the worsening conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza, in particular the spread of famine and starvation, Israel shall:
> (a) take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full co-operation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance, including food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza, including by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary; and
> (b) ensure with immediate effect that its military does not commit acts which constitute a violation of any of the rights of the Palestinians in Gaza as a protected group under the Genocide Convention, including by preventing, through any action, the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance.
The original ruling is from January 26th 2024 was also orders of provisional measures, but crucially ruled that the court had jurisdiction over the case (Article II, Paragraphs 31-32) and that accusations of genocide were plausible (Article IV, Paragraph 54):
> In the Court’s view, the facts and circumstances mentioned above are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible.
The court has not concluded on this case, which means that it is fact still investigating the allegations. I honestly can’t see where my supposed misunderstanding lies.
1: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192...
Here is the precise misunderstanding; the statement you quote
>In the Court’s view, the facts and circumstances mentioned above are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible.. (my emphasis)
Has been widely reported as saying that the allegations of genocide are plausible.
I don’t understand your point.
The court ruled that it has jurisdiction over the case, and that some of the allegations are plausible. How are they not investigating Israel for the crime of Genocide?
Again your use of language is loose. It's yet to be established that genocide is occurring, so how can you investigate it?
Is the misunderstanding in the meaning of the term investigate? It very common for justice systems or law enforcement to investigate whether a certain crime falls under a given category, for example Hate Crime.
Here is one example: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/comments-at-pro-palest... The police does not know as of yet whether this protestor was guilty of hate crime, but they find it plausible, and are investigating.
Now this example is of a local law enforcement, which has pretty liberal laws on what it investigates. The World Court however needs strong conviction to even accept a case. The court did rule that the accusations are plausible and that they have jurisdiction over it. In other words, they are investigating whether Israel’s conduct falls under the crime of genocide.
Perhaps in the narrow technical meaning. But how you present it has great PR value.
I'd like to announce that I'm now investigating @runarberg for <despicable crime>.
Debunked.
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/09/israel-genocide-gaza-us-aus...
And this was widely reported by the MSM.
The US has killed over 400,000 Iraqis since invading Iraq. Do you think that qualifies as genocide?
Speaking as an American: yes. Bush and Obama are war criminals and I'd say that they belong in Gitmo but I'm more principled than that and we need to shut Gitmo down.
You may confuse the deaths of the sunni-shia civil war with deaths under US fire. Saddam Hussein like Gaddafi would have died sooner or later. To me there is nothing that suggests that these civil wars wouldn't have happen sooner or later, like in Yugoslavia.
Source? None of the organisations tracking Iraqi civilian deaths that have broken down figures by cause show that number caused by US forces directly.
If you're including indirect causes too, such as a rise in sectarian violence, deprivation, and increased criminality then, yes, but that's a different statement.
It isn't
The context of the convention needs to be understood in the general context and especially in the context of a war (though of course they don't "exist" only in that context). And wars are awful.
(not saying what Israel is doing is correct or even adequate - but generalizing terms helps nobody)
Absolutely, positively, unequivocally, yes.
That's a built-in failing of the genocide definition: it requires intent, otherwise no doubt the US would have been on the hook as early as the Korean war.
Sadly for the Israelis, they have a cabinet of the kind of people who just cannot help themselves from communicating intent.
Are you familiar with the fine words of Madeleine Albright and her cohorts in PNAC, who very clearly demonstrated the intent to massacre hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's, mostly children, and then proceeded to do so?
Just because the US got away with genocide doesn't mean any other nation should. The American people should be jailing their own war criminals, and then go after those of Russia and Israel and the UK and Ukraine and so on. However, war crimes are good for (American) business. See also: the military support of the genocide of Yemen by a known fascist totalitarian-authoritarian dictatorship.
I am not, and I have no idea what PNAC is. I think I am probably representative. Will you explain what you are talking about?
Some explanation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Albright#Sanctions_a...
PNAC = Project for a New American Century [0]
Madeleine Albright should have been frog-marched into The Hague for justifying the US-sanctioned deaths of over 500,000 children. [1], [2]
The extremely deceptive, duplicitous individuals in PNAC are the ones who lied and scammed the American public into funding the destruction of Iraq, and countless other sovereign states in the Middle East, in order to be able to refactor those states according to American interests.
This is why the USA illegally occupies 1/3rd of Syria's sovereign territory (its oil fields) in order to deny the Syrian people the resources they need to rebuild their country.
It is why Libya was destroyed, why Iraq was destroyed, why Afghanistan was left in utter ruin. Its why Yemen suffered a genocide widely ignored by the West.
This is why the USA funds and supports ISIS as a "fifth column" (See also: Operation Gladio[3]) in the region, in order to fight wars without the approval of Congress. Note that Gladio is still in effect as official US military doctrine - under different names now, but the modern manifestations go all the way back to the original Gladio doctrine.
It would be very important for you to understand who PNAC are and what their very clearly stated intentions are - these are the fascist oligarchs whose dogma allows the Joint Chiefs of Staff to get away with mass murder. Real, actual mass murder, not hyperbole, of cultures deemed culturally inferior by Americas oligarchic ruling class.
Note that, even if Americans are not aware of these things, the rest of the world is, and is - I believe - a motivating force behind the rise of BRICS and the general anti-American sentiment that exists outside the Anglosphere bubble.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C...
[1] - https://www.newsweek.com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-ira...
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47aaaFhGtMM
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
Exactly how you think the US can support ISIS (oil sales via Turkey? Used plumbing trucks to JAS/JAN which aren’t ISIS?) when Lloyd Austin blew hundreds of millions to arm like 10-100 people is beyond me.
I swerved hard on a girl obsessed with Madeleine Albright. I'm glad I got out and around that because I never really liked the look of that older woman.
> That's correct and IMHO its the right thing to do
I'm in awe. I'm pro-censorship myself as a general principle (though not in this obviously unjustifiable instance of it), but please be coherent. How come the current semi-popular opinion on HN happens to be pro-censorship, when HN community is against censorship in every other situation?
> How come the current semi-popular opinion on HN happens to be pro-censorship, when HN community is against censorship in every other situation?
The answer to most questions like this is: there are many different users on HN. You might think the "general consensus" of HN is one thing, but you're talking to a specific person commenting on a specific article, who has their own views, not to a generic "HN user".
And note that different threads will have a different makeup of users clicking on it. E.g. I wouldn't necessarily be interested in a random "censorship" thread, but this one is about Israel, so (as an Israeli) I am interested. Since this logic probably extends to other users as well, that will give the thread a specific bias, depending on its subject matter and framing.
I’m not pro-censorship at all.
I just think media is part of the warfare and it’s normal to try to control it during a war. I am anti war in first place, if you don’t want censorship don’t start a war.
As a complete aside, I enjoy your posts. Cheers.
Thanks!
Certain topics, this is one example, draw a different crowd than other HN articles.
[flagged]
Just because it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s morally correct.
If they had nothing to fear from it they wouldn’t do it.
Israel fearing anything from Hamas is laughable, so what they really fear is their own citizens.
They have a lot to fear from their citizens knowing that what they hear from their officials is not all the truth.
Some time in the future, when someone mentions the Jewish genocide, people will ask if they mean the one happened to them or the one they did.
Obviously the current Israeli government will want to control the information flow so they can proceed with their final solution to the Gaza issue. They will also try to control what comes out of Gaza to avoid the consequences of their actions.
It is at least the biggest insult to your adult citizens to say to them, "you are not allowed to read this because you are too stupid."
I don’t think it’s that at all, it’s about controlling the narrative for your advantage. You might be lying as well, be doing horrible things and you don’t want the people you control to know that or to think that way.
It’s not a noble thing, it’s a war weapon.
I dont think the EU is at war
Is taking sides in a war though. That’s why the Russian outlets push talking points. This can affect the public support on war efforts issues, which is fine only before shooting start because when no one is shooting arguments(which can be fair ones or designed to achieve something like withholding weapons deliveries) can be addressed in timely manner.
Whatever problems a website or an app is causing can be solved through civil means, but at a war time irreversible damage using deadly weapons can be done before even realizing it.
But banning Russian propaganda surely is an indication of weakness. Banning RT to me also signals that Russia got good at playing the media game, which until recently was largely the playground of US and UK. There is a reason that dry Tass is not banned but snazzy RT is.
Someone is blowing up military facilities in the EU though. So if at war or not is starting to be open to interpretation.
Whats open to interpretation? If sabotage = war we would have seen ww3 several decades ago.
It is not clear that the pipeline was an act of war, but acts of war can be that simple.
"WW3" is a conceptualization of existential fear, rather than a singular event. The world rallying to one of two sides to make war (or neutrality), is highly unlikely.
I think that denying that ww3 would pose an existential threat to everyone is akin to being a flatearther and an anti waxer. However given todays unfortunate climate it is infinitely more dangerous and war mongorers should be exposed more ferrociously than Russian bots
If you believe that RT is an organisation that is not interested in the truth, but is set up purely to disrupt and disturb, then a government can reasonably want to prevent its operation.
Adding plausible noise to information causes people to have to do much more work to discern between what is true and what is not, time that many people do not have.
A reluctance to ban a bad-faith organisation is good: a moral society should thoroughly debate why it might undertake a repressive thing. But you cannot wish away the effects of corrosive and coercive behaviour because the act of banning a such an organisation is repressive.
A poor but useful analogy is use of violence in society. Violence is a bad thing, but to absolutely forswear it in all situations is something that very few governments will do, for reasons that seem quite justified to me.
There are two things wrong with this argument. One, it implies that there isn't a better way to deal with an such a malicious organization. And two, it doesn't acknowledge how such a ban creates an obvious opening for abuse.
Holding up the classic Western ideals of Democracy and Freedom is hard because it is much deeper than simply giving people the freedom to access all information so they can form their own opinions. It also requires that these people are educated and trained to be competent critical thinkers and be able to intelligently form their own opinions. It holds its citizens and the government to high standards and will collapse if these standards aren't met. Accordingly, better education and trust in citizens is the better solution, not banning.
As for the obvious opening for abuse, it doesn't have to be said that every system will eventually be maximally exploited, and creating this opening for exploitation will eventually be exploited as well. It is just a matter of time...
Another poor but useful analogy is fast food. Banning bad media is like consuming fast food. It is quick and easy, and "satisfies" the goal within some basic parameters, but it really does more harm than good in the long term.
The argument in no way implies that there is no other way to deal with malice, only that it is an option. The argument further implies that the decision to censor should not be taken lightly. When censorship is being considered in a democratic society, the decision to do so must be argued and debated. Note that it is perfectly possible to be well-educated and still be taken in by bullshit and false information - it happens all the time. Education is a good, not a nostrum, and durable opponents of truth are also motivated, sophisticated and smart. Democracy is about the means you use to undertake drastic decisions, and in no way rules out the restriction of unseemly behaviour.
Maybe explain why my analogy is not useful - I’ll do the same for you. What I initially said did not in any way imply banning should be quick or easy, while “fast food” is not, in itself, bad for you, but a restricted and monotonous diet of anything can well be.
Content is being banned because the governments don't think the citizens collectively can handle that content. This is the government thinking for the people. I wouldn't have an issue if it was really argued and debated, but I don't really see that happening. It is mostly just the government unilaterally deciding that said content is bad and banning it with no really possibility for debate. It isn't too hard to imagine a situation where content would help citizens but harm the government, and who is really deciding what to ban in such a case.
Countries are seeing how much banning content helps governments in places like China, and want that easy "solution" to their problems instead of doing the difficult thing of properly educating citizens and cultivating free and open discourse.
I guess my analogy is bad because it is debatable if fast food, in itself, is bad for you. My issue with your analogy is that the use of violence is abused by governments so much more than it is every used correctly (if that is even possible) and that all citizens would benefit from governments condemning violence. The reason governments don't condemn violence isn't because their use of violence helps citizens, it is because their use of violence helps themselves. And the same thing goes for banning content. So I guess your analogy is actually pretty good, just counterproductive to your point.
Your analogy was bad in that it represented a case that I had not made, that the ban was a convenient lever to be reached for out of convenience.
I have not seen an operating system of civil governance that has not reserved to itself the right coerce behaviour as a "last resort" (this would be different things to different people), so it is hard to say much about your last paragraph.
I would say: if you don't think that people are going to debate and argue a case for banning, for punishing, for going to war or other forms of controversial and "extraordinary" behaviour, you probably can't think that people are going to agree to be educated properly, whatever that means. Debate, argument and loser's consent are fundamentals behind the model of democracy we have today. including, in my view, the part where the demos is educated.
I think if you ask the average conservative voter, they would argue the New York Times is a bad faith organisation, uninterested in the truth if it contradicts its narrative, and trying to disrupt and divide. That's why the state should be nowhere near any power to curb political speech. If you would like to shut down a news outlet you don't like, ask yourself if you would like Trump to have that same power.
I guess this is what deliberation and debate is all about. I mean, a lot of people thought Trump shouldn't be President at all, but he was.
Who gets to decide that RT is not interested in the truth? Traditionally, liberal democracy has held that it's not safe for the government to make that decision.
It’s a good question. But I think that it is valid for a democracy to decide to tackle it.
> you believe that RT is an organisation that is not interested in the truth, [...] then a government can reasonably want to prevent its operation.
Except it's not what you believe that matters, but what the Ministry of Truth says.
> Europe has done the same with Russia.
Yes. Which I find abhorrent as an European, and has made me realize even more than our countries are much less democratic than we officially paint them as.
Nono, it's only undemocratic when china does it.
When the italian government wants to be able to block any website immediately and with no appeal, calling it an anti-piracy measure, it's completely fine and democratic.
Exactly. "Foo" is democratic when democratic or non-democratic country does it in a democratic way.
Do you have examples for Europe blocking Russia? Because all I have seen is DNS providers omitting certain sites (i.e RT), but their apps still work (plus URLs when using other DNS). An nothing of that coming from the nation states as all seems to be due to the activities of private companies doing these things.
RT, Sputnik and related Russian state media outlets are subject to sanctions in the EU, their broadcast licenses have been revoked and their channels have been removed from terrestrial, cable and satellite broadcasts. Their accounts on all major social media platforms are blocked. Their apps are no longer available on the Google or Apple stores. Europe doesn't have a Chinese-style Great Firewall, but EU countries have taken every reasonable step to prevent Russian state media from reaching EU audiences.
https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-rt-sputnik-illegal-eu...
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/news-centre/2022/ofcom-revokes-rt-b...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/01/youtube...
https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-google-blocks-r...
> Europe doesn't have a Chinese-style Great Firewall, but EU countries have taken every reasonable step to prevent Russian state media from reaching EU audiences.
Because they think the EU audiances are stupid?
Because they don't like anti-government point of views to become too widespread.
In Italy the current defence minister is personally earning considerable amount of money by sending weapons to Ukraine, because he's also an owner and manager of companies that make said weapons.
Do you think they'd want to favour open discussions?
No. In fact besides RT being banned, they want to be able to block any website, giving providers 30 minutes to implement the ban, no appeal and no oversight from a judge (https://stop-piracy-shield.it/)
> In Italy the current defence minister is personally earning considerable amount of money by sending weapons to Ukraine, because he's also an owner and manager of companies that make said weapons.
FUD is the reason why Russian liars are banned from EU.
Well italy allows the openly racist newspaper "libero" to be open. I don't think FUD is a main concern when blocking websites.
It's part of the EU sanctions, EU ISPs are required to block certain Russian sites. But they didn't specify how, that's left up to the countries to figure out afaik. But as you say, some of the what has been done barely qualifies.
Here's my personal experience with this:
Germany does exactly what you describe, the bare minimum to say "we're blocking" --- DNS omitting certain sites.
Spain is doing deep packet inspection, blocking DNS requests that lookup RT, so DNS over HTTPS or through a VPN is a must. Additionally, they're also reading the SNI in TLS requests and blocking that way. If you try accessing RT in pure unencrypted HTTP you're get some fortigate blocking message back.
It is still perfectly possible to access RT from Spain, even using regular ISP DNS servers.
That's not my experience with Movistar, they are throwing down the gauntlet
Thanks, though that specifically why I am questioning that it is the EU in this case. Because rt.com is reachable in Sweden just fine, including sub-sites. Which, to me, says that it must be national sanctions, or at minimum, national lists of what to 'block'.
Because rt.com is reachable in Sweden just fine, including sub-sites.
See discussion further down thread, but basically the block in Sweden seems to be on the ISP level and depends on which ISP you have. I can access rt.com via work wifi, but not not over mobile data via Telia. Another user who has Telia as their home ISP cannot access rt.com from home either.
mullivad has a free to use DNS over https service by the way.
At least in the UK, you used to be able to watch RT on broadcast. Now only the Internet version is accessible, and I think some ISPs DNS block them. Granted, a DNS block is easy to circumvent if you understand it, but most users will still be cut off.
As a total outlier, RT was paying the cable/sat systems to be carried in US/Canada, instead of the other way around.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/rts-purchase-of-cana...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rt-channels-unique-carriage-dea...
I wonder if other countries were the same.
That’s not really an outlier. Common for political networks, religious channels, shopping networks….
Probably more than half the channels on a typical American cable system are paying to be there. Especially the stuff in the basic tiers.
Was it actually broadcast terrestrially? I remember picking it up from Astra2 (the "skytv" satellite) but looking online, it's not transmitted anymore.
I used to watch it on Freeview, picked up via a regular antenna if that's what you mean by "terrestrially".
rt.com and their twitter are blocked.
How are you not aware of this? It's been a few years already.
The EU ruled on this.
https://paste.pics/4b60ebef97d3b7fbb6aba74637c2e818
https://paste.pics/0cb2ae98754165dad5cf086e75c4cc31
Many using VPN. For example if you set the VPN servers to HK, RT will display as usual. In general I notice my peers will use anti-west countries based servers for censored western news and the reverse for anti-east. Some do use it so intuitively they might not realized RT or any Russian sites blocked. A lot of time I just assume it is due to network outages.
I would think most people know about RT blocking because it was widely announced and discussed at the time, and not because they actually tried to access RT.
I am very much aware of this but as I wrote, I do not consider this blocked as the servers are very much reachable and what you show is that the DNS does not resolve. That is not what I consider blocked by the state. And yes, here in Sweden, rt.com resolves just fine everywhere. That's why I was wondering about specific European legislation as it seemed to be 'only' private companies doing their part.
I'm in Sweden and I can see rt.com
I am in the Netherlands and I am able to visit rt.com without VPN.
Netherlands here also and it's blocked for me.
Not for me.
Me too. I didn't even know about this blockade. I'm using T-Mobile fiber internet and rt.com loads just fine.
The main difference would be that Al Jazeera is from Qatar and not Gaza, this would be the equivalent of the EU banning Armenia because they are friendly with Russia.
Banning Armenia isn't really an apt comparison since Israel isn't banning all media from Qatar, just one particular news organization which has very deep ties to the enemy they're at war with.
They're only banning the important one :D
> Europe has done the same with Russia.
Not really. Top Russian officials, say Dmitri Medvedev, are still shitposting on twitter:
> Macron preparing to go to kyiv? But he's a zoological coward!
Most Russian news websites are still up, say vesti.ru
And Russia is active participant in a war, while Quatar is not bombing anyone.
Also many european countries are not actively fighting a war. I do not really think it was the right decision to ban RT what are they scared of?
Egypt is a military dictatorship, so it's no surprise when it bans media organizations.
Apartheid South Africa also tried to ban news media. It's a sign of extreme desperation and signals political vulnerability. Hopefully, Israel will get elections soon, and center- or left-leaning coalition government will pursue different foreign and military policies that a significant majority of Israelis prefer over the absurdity of the militarists and militant settlers.
https://truthout.org/articles/media-and-the-end-of-apartheid...
EDIT: Haaretz is a good and honest news source that has been extremely critical of the current leadership. Also recommended documentary film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gatekeepers_(film)
Nearly every democratic country has previously or is currently censoring the media in some ways, including the US[1] and EU[2]. Single factor analysis is one of the worst kinds of analysis. If we only consider this one factor, then there is basically no country that is not like Apartheid South Africa. Apartheid South Africa was not exceptional or notable because it did what nearly every other country has or is currently still doing, i.e. censoring media. It was notable because people of specific races had fewer legal rights than others.
Furthermore, as far as I'm aware, the majority of Israelis want the IDF to go into Raffah[3] and are not opposed to the attemts to eliminate Hamas.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship
[2]: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-rt-sputnik-eu-access-bans-pro...
[3]: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/poll-75-of-jewi...
I am not sure how many people were surveyed and what were the questions in these. I am reminded of this from Yes, Prime Minister https://youtu.be/ahgjEjJkZks?si=_6nlxJ1okysqH07U
A better way to engage than to allude to some TV series is to rather look for and present any information that suggests this is not the case, that suggests that there is in fact wide spread opposition to the war in Gaza and widespread support for an independent Palestinian state.
Before the October 7, only 35% of Israelis (41% Arab and 32% Jewish) thought a way can be found for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully with each other [1]. We have to engage with reality here, not with TV tropes.
[1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/26/israelis-...
I thought alluding to this part in Yes, Prime Minister is going to get across the idea of questionable trustworthiness of surveys. I did try to get the survey details from the given page though, but for some reason the survey page is not loading for me.
Although the protests in Capital against the regime and ministers are pretty revealing . This is a month old link and things might have changed, for the better or worse.
About peace though, it can only prevail with disarmament and talks. And reconciliation. I think we have too many actors, powerful actors, who doesn't want it. Yitzhak Rabin didn't die in his sleep, for one.
The problem with protests is, it's not public opinion. So I don't know what you think it reveals. Poll after poll indicates that there is no appetite in Israel for accepting Hamas's terms, widespread support for military action against Hamas, and widespread opposition to a Palestinian state [1].
Alluding to a TV series is in no way indicative of the accuracy of opinion polls. Yes, Prime Minister is fictional. Israel is not fictional, the war is not fictional, the 1000s of people dead are not fictional, the 1000s of destroyed lives and trillions in destroyed capital is not fictional. Nothing about a fictional TV series is relevant here.
In reality, the Israelis are way more fed up with Gaza than it was 10 years ago and the support for a Palestinian state and peace with Hamas is not going to win anyone elections in Israel. You don't have to like it, but if you think getting rid of Netanyahu is going to change that, you are wrong. What might change is the government policy regarding settlements in the west bank, but it won't stop the war. The most likely person to replace Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, is more eager to enter Rafah than Netanyahu.
[1]: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/israel-gaza...
I think we should still take notice that polls can be manipulated and we have to be careful with the wording. Also people are prone to agreeing to good sounding abstract things but then disagreeing and voting or acting in another way when it comes down to it.
As far as I can tell, the evidence that getting rid of Netanyahu will drastically ramp down of Israeli military policy just does not exist. The only way to support that view is to ignore all the evidence that is available. People may not like Netanyahu, but they don't dislike him because he is fighting Hamas, and they don't dislike them because he is not agreeing to a Palestinian state.
I think that most people would argue that past censorship by the US was a violation of democratic principles.
Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but I don't see widespread condemnation for current EU and US censorship of the Russian propaganda outlet RT, and to be quite frank, I think it should be censored. The right to free speech does not extend to people who are not subject to a countries laws, and I don't see why it should.
I'm not condoning all past actions of the US or EU, but censoring fake news and propaganda that is controlled by groups or nations that want to destroy you seems like something that is reasonable to do.
Israeli here - I just checked and I can still access the site in both English and Arabic. My guess is you won’t actually see the site being blocked.
After rt.com et al were blocked in the EU they also kept working for a few more week/months before I had to use a mirror/VPN to read the new paper of "the enemy".
Side note: I though being able to read the news of the enemy was testimony to the moral high ground of a "modern free and democratic society". No more moral high ground if you are trying to shape the perception of the public with censorship.
I personally don't support blocking Al Jazeera. It's not that I'm a fan of them or any news station operated under a dictatorship without free press. It's clear that Al Jazeera acts as the propaganda wing of the Qatari government, and Qatar, being one of the main sponsors of Hamas, uses it to effectively spread Hamas propaganda. However, the real question is what does blocking them achieve. Does it stop their influence? No. Does it make them harder to watch here? No. Are the people advocating for their blockage even watching it? Likely not. It's mostly done because it's something the government can claim to have achieved for what remains of their base. I'm skeptical that the blocking of the website will actually occur, as it will probably be challenged in court.
Regardless, in a democracy, internet censorship is a slippery slope, and for that reason, I am against it in most cases.
The sponsoring of Hamas by Qatar has happened with approval from Netanyahu. Until October 7th of course. And the reason that Hamas headquarters are in Doha, is because the US government requested that in 2011.
See e.g. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/11/middleeast/qatar-hamas-fu...
or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatari_support_for_Hamas
I'm not going to defend Bibi and his government. They have made and continue to make many decisions I disagree with. Like the vast majority of Israelis, I think we should go to elections sooner rather than later.
However, this does not change the fact that now there is an active war between Hamas and Israel most Israelis dislike Al Jazeera because they perceive to be part of the propaganda wing of Hamas with Qatar's support.
> Does it make them harder to watch here? No.
Of course it does? Most people are not going to go out of their way for it unless they have specific reasons to do so. What's on/available by default matters. (Ask any UX specialist.)
I should know better, my wife is a UX specialist! You make a good point. What I should have said is that it won’t stop people who really want to watch it.
But then that isn't the goal: totally preventing you from ever seeing Al Jazeera or somesuch. As you noted: that'd be curtailment of freedoms only befitting dictatorships. Nobody wants that.
Making it slightly more difficult to consume outright propaganda by not having it front and center; that seems to me to be a very much acceptable move for democratic and free states to make in the context of information warfare.
The Qatari government has been hosting Hamas at the request of the United States and Israel, which want to use Qatar as an intermediary (similarly to how Qatar facilitated talks between the US and the Taliban).
Al Jazeera has more journalists on the ground in Gaza than anyone else. They're some of the only independent media there (because Israel has blocked international media from entering, but Al Jazeera already has people there). If you want to know what's going on in Gaza, you watch Al Jazeera.
[dead]
Do you believe that in a society where money is required to make an advertisement, an alternative path to advertising should be violence?
I wouldn't call that a moral high ground.
It usually is, but more neurotic elements in western governments often tend to not give much on values at all.
Why the scare quotes you put around “the enemy“?
The state's enemy isn't my enemy. Consider the case of Edward Snowden. Journalism is still valuable even if you disagree with the person's motives or aims.
No, but Russia is my enemy, and should be the enemy of everyone who cares about a liberal world order based on law, not might.
And in the case of RT, they had left even the pretence of journalism a long time ago. But I agree with those that say we should not have banned them. When we try to defend our liberal world order with censorship, we are certainly throwing out the baby with the bath water.
> When we try to defend our liberal world order with censorship, we are certainly throwing out the baby with the bath water.
I agree with that - freedom of speech is one of the few things I think worth fighting for. We cannot fight for it while rejecting it.
Freedom of speech is a grey area, though.
How long has it been since all had equal access to speech? The mostly-literate + printing press era?
Do we still have free speech if I can turn an algorithmic knob that causes 10% fewer people to see your opinion than those arguing against you?
There has never been a situation where all had more equal access to speech than today. Printing presses were expensive and complicated machines, and distributing handbills was far slower and riskier than tweeting.
Today, anyone can make a website. If they say enough interesting things, they'll get eyeballs. Even if those things are false, and even if the algorithms of the walled gardens want to suppress them, they'll still get out.
I think you're drastically underappreciating the impact of promotion and discoverability on public discourse.
The internet / web has never been a platform where all had equal access to share their views. The ability to speak doesn't matter if few can hear you.
When it was more democratic in the early days, the masses weren't part of it.
When the masses came online, promotion and discoverability had already been centralized by large platforms.
I think perhaps you're underappreciating the difficulty of physical distribution. Having one's voice heard has always been the domain of the rich and powerful. Sure, platforms control promotion and discoverability today, but I doubt that gives them more strength to control dissenting views than was available in the days of the printing press.
It's a heck of a lot harder to effectively eradicate physical media than digital.
F.ex. if I shower a town with 250 physical leaflets + I post on all the major platforms, and immediately people of power attempt to suppress them, which do you think results in more people seeing them?
Well I think it depends on the situation. If you're trying to post something they have already built good defenses against (e.g. child porn, or maybe mocking the king of Thailand), you'd probably have better luck with the handbills, but then you'd also have a better chance of getting arrested. If you are posting something that isn't automatically suppressed, I bet social media would still get you more reach.
You're missing the third option however. Start your own blog, then just post links on all of the major social medias, and especially on some of the minor ones. Once your link hits the right Signal groups or Truth Social followers or whatever, it will fly around way faster than any samizdat ever could.
Glad you come to that conclusion.
> And in the case of RT, they had left even the pretence of journalism a long time ago.
What is RT doing that is not found in FOX, NBC, CNews.fr, Hayom?
> liberal world order based on law, not might.
This is a facade. The talking point the NATO/US/west uses, while they violate every such rule when they see fit. You may be interested in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer
This is exactly one of the Russian talking points. "You see, we might have invaded a few neighbour countries with the intention of annexing the territories, but look at NATO, they are equally bad because they invaded Iraq." (NATO didn't invade Iraq, the US did with the help of UK, Poland, and Australia)
I can't take someone (like Mearsheimer) who warns that Germany again is likely to try to invade Europe even a little bit serious. He clearly knows nothing about contemporary German politics, culture, or how well they are doing manufacturing and trading.
> but look at NATO, they are equally bad because they invaded Iraq." (NATO didn't invade Iraq, the US did with the help of UK, Poland, and Australia)
Where did you get the "are equally bad" part from?
> He clearly...
"Clearly", eh? Well, let's wait to see how you do with the question.
I got it from:
> This is a facade. The talking point the NATO/US/west uses, while they violate every such rule when they see fit.
Which expresses that exact sentiment
Which specific text contains "equally bad" objectively/deterministically?
> This is exactly one of the Russian talking points.
Calling something a "Russian talking point" does not make it less true. Russia would not have invaded if (combination of factors): Ukraine did not have ethnic Russians that were being oppressed (see the Odessa union house massacre), Ukraine did not want to go NATO, Ukraine was not a safe haven of anti-Russia fascists (see the enormous statue for Bandera in Lvov -- bizarre how that's allowed in an "EU ally"). Minks agreements were "just to give Ukraine time to build military" said Merkel (a guarantor of the agreement). Russia was cheated by the west, and behaves accordingly, if you ask me.
> who warns that Germany again is likely to try to invade Europe
Lol. Where did he say that?
> Russia would not have invaded if [...]
> Ukraine did not have ethnic Russians that were being oppressed (see the Odessa union house massacre)
This has ceased being a valid casus belli in the developed world since 1945.
Annexation of a neighboring state's territory isn't justified by purported ethnic persecution.
Not least, because it's historically been the most common manufactured lie to justify war.
> Ukraine did not want to go NATO
Since when does Russia get a say in other sovereign countries' decisions?
Last I checked at the UN, Russia (and China) were big supporters of countries' ability to do whatever they wanted within their own borders (external complaints be damned).
> Ukraine was not a safe haven of anti-Russia fascists
> anti-Russia
Hard to forget the 4 million Ukrainians the USSR purposefully killed during the Holodomor. [0]
When a country does something to an ethnic group that ranks with the Holocaust, it shouldn't be surprised when people are anti-it.
>> fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition [1]
> exalts nation and often race above the individual
How's the glorification of Russkiy Mir going? Or the vilification of non-Russian ethnic minorities?
> stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader
How long has Putin been president or prime minister?
> severe economic and social regimentation
How many state-owned enterprises are there in Russia?
And what inalienable freedom of speech and association rights do Russian citizen have?
> forcible suppression of opposition
How many opposition candidates ran in the last election?
If Russia is looking for fascism, it might want to start with a mirror.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism
> What is RT doing that is not found in FOX, NBC, CNews.fr, Hayom?
Monopolizing discourse.
How many independent news channels are there inside Russia today?
Because it is a pejorative generalization. Some people are susceptible to labels like "the migrants" and short circuit their reasoning when confronted with eg. articles from RT or aljazeera "must be fictious enemy propanda".
because they not my enemy. they dont threaten me. imho NATO threatens them by trying to extend into ukraine/georgia and making color revolutions on their borders.
They are my enemy. I’m living in a country with borders less than 300 km from Russia.
NATO wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for Russia. The only reason Russia’s neighbours strive to join NATO is because Russia’s habit of invading them when they don’t behave exactly as Russia wants them too.
> I though being able to read the news of the enemy was testimony to the moral high ground of a "modern free and democratic society".
Sure, if you believe your own (or more accurately: most liberal democracies') propaganda. But it really depends on how invested that enemy is in convincing your citizens to side with it. It turns out that "freedom of speech" ultimately is a losing strategy against an enemy that's excellent at abusing speech (which is another way of saying they have a good understanding of psychology, rhetorics and deception).
The successful way to engage with propaganda is not to let it sit alongside reality[0] but to contextualize it with reality. A widely known example in US news coverage for the former is showing "both sides of the debate" on issues like global warming or evolution: merely giving it an equal weight gives it equal presence in public perception and legitimizes it. Contextualizing means being explicit about which side you agree with and explaining why the given argument by the other side is wrong.
Of course the problem with effective propaganda is that it's not simply misinformation which can be contrasted and dissected easily but disinformation that not only shields itself against analysis but actively disrupts any attempt at analysis. Russian propaganda legitimizing the invasion of Ukraine for example (and this isn't new, this is literally a continuation of Soviet Union psychological warfare) used multiple mutually contradictory conflicting narratives which effectively drown out any other narrative by not only giving a manufactured alternative equal weight but giving equal weight to multiple alternatives, like a DDoS attack on information.
[0]: Of course we can debate what "reality" means but no matter the overarching narrative or the individual justifications, it's nearly impossible to avoid agreeing on things like "Russia sent ground troops in the direction of Kyiv within Ukranian borders" even if you might have different explanations of why that happened or what the intention behind that was or whether it constitutes a military attack.
Of course the irony is that in this case the side most heavily relying on disinformation seems to be Israel given its various contradictory official claims on social media. But arguably their application of it is nowhere near as effective. It's also worth mentioning that not only did the EU kick out Russian state-owned media but Russian television is also heavily censored and legal access to foreign news sources very limited. So the answer to "Who's engaging in censorship?" in this case seems to be "Everyone, to varying degrees". That implies this has never been a meaningful moral distinction, no matter what bleeding heart liberals and free speech libertarians may claim.
A lie flies while the truth only crawls. Or maybe, a lie rides on horseback while the truth walks.
Reporters Without Borders gathers data and produces some interesting graphics. They recently released their World Press Freedom Index
https://rsf.org/en
https://rsf.org/en/country/israel
---
edit: they appear to keep a list of mirrored news sites to circumvent censorship
https://github.com/RSF-RWB/collateralfreedom
(was hoping they had data available for their index, but have not found it yet)
---
edit: the index has a download button in the bar at the top of the map
https://rsf.org/en/index
It does not provide source data, just the calculated results presented. There is also a methodology link, which points to different pages, depending on the year selected
Not only does Israel target journalists, but it targets the families of journalists.
Nobody is immune not even the bureau chief of Al Jezeera.
Damn that was a difficult read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wael_Al-Dahdouh
2023-10-28: Wife, 15-year-old son, 7-year-old daughter, a grandson and seven other relatives killed in strike on refugee camp.
2023-12-15: Wounded by missile during filming, cameraman fatally wounded and bled to death with ambulances cut off.
2024-01-07: Eldest son, a journalist, killed in air strike.
2024-01-08: Two nephews killed.
2024-01-16: Evacuted to Egypt/Qatar with family. Probably would have been dead by now or with more dead family members if he remained.
I know it's a bit unrelated to this exact person, but this is how you get terrorists.
Imagine some foreign worker in europe/us, losing all his family this way until s/he literally has nothing left to lose, while the politicians in your new country brag about helping the killers of your family with more weapons and money.
Then when someone like that decides to bring the "war" to europe/us, and shoots/bombs/... some people, we all act as if "how is this possible?", "who could have radicalized him like that?" etc. Well, we did.
Gaza is being leveled to the ground, and thousands of innocent people are killed. Many of the boys who witness that will become terrorists when they grow up, because from their perspective and lack of education - it seems right to respond to violence with violence.
As much as it hurts even writing it, I don't think its a rare story there these days. History will not look kindly at both sides here, they really have no higher moral ground than the other
>History will not look kindly at both sides here, they really have no higher moral ground than the other
There are four sides here: the Israeli government, Hamas, Israeli citizens, and Palestinian citizens. The first two are the active combatants. The third group were victims in October. The fourth group are still victims today. Killing unarmed and non-hostile citizens is absolutely immoral. Acting in such a reckless way that the majority of casualties are citizens is still immoral.
History will look harshly on Hamas for slaughtering thousands of Israeli citizens, and Israel for slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens. No rational person should think those citizens were at fault.
Compared to other recent conflicts like Iraq and Checnya war etc, the collateral damage in Gaza is pretty good. Israel have done a good job at minimising civilian deaths, if Hamas didn't frustrate the civilians efforts to evacuate or let civilians shelter underground with them, the numbers would be a lot lower still.
The horrendous civilian casualties we are seeing in Gaza are not collateral damage, or otherwise unintended byproducts of the operation. They are the coolly chosen effective means -- along with the destruction of housing, hospitals, schools and so on -- of promoting its expressly stated goal: what the government refers to as "humanitarian emigration" from the Strip.
As articulated by Likud MK / Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel back in January:
I think this is absolutely right, so please don't take this as a disagreement with the point you made.
But what I think a lot about is the precursor years to these kinds of events. I have a deep well of sympathy for the people of Gaza who have long despised being governed by Hamas, but haven't been able to figure out how to throw them off. They knew Hamas was a disaster waiting to happen, they could see it coming, but still couldn't stop it. And just the same for the opposition in Israel, who have come so close to getting rid of Netanyahu and his ilk on so many occasions. They knew he was a disaster waiting to happen too.
I just recently had a friend tell me that many of their Israeli friends and family are leaving the country in disgust. But of course that means that they won't be there to vote against Netanyahu. By losing, he wins.
And some of the leaders of Hamas, watching from other countries as the people of Gaza are slaughtered, also get to enjoy the spectacle of young people in the west hoisting their flags and chanting their slogans. By losing, they win too.
But what's maddening is that seeing disasters waiting to happen doesn't make it easy to keep them from happening. It can be obvious that it's a disaster waiting to happen to have a presidential candidate in the US refuse to accept the results of elections, and openly plan for an authoritarian consolidation of power, and that might make it less likely to happen, it might make it easier to stop it, but still not easy.
Obvious encroaching disasters can still happen, and frequently do. I hate that!
You forgot the United States who provides the weapons to Israel.
> No rational person should think those citizens were at fault.
Did you read some sort of an impressive proof for this fact prior to epistemically & cognitively (consciously &/or subconsciously) upgrading it to Objectively True? Because for something to be labeled as True in a strict system of logic, it requires a proof.
Note also that Consensus Belief of Truth is not identical to Proven Truth, even though it typically appears that way due to our cultural conditioning.
The moral high ground is for the rich and safe. Both Israel and the Palestinians are under real threats and thus do not care much for morality that is disconnected from PR.
Terror is an extremely good tool to dispose of foreign power that takes economic interest in an area, as it makes the endeavor unprofitable. But backfires horribly when it is a local hegemon.
I don't think so, it's rare that you have such an extreme power imbalance in conflict, only for it then to be viewed as "both sides are equally bad" a hundred years later. We just have a skewed perspective on the proportionality of violence -in the present day-, we tend to gain context over time. Like we can judge a larger struggle over many decades as a congruent whole, instead of only the narrow present instance of a conflict.
This also explains why there are so many historical examples of people in the past seemingly be so obviously on the "wrong side of history". It's not that they didn't have largely the same morals than most people today, it's more a cognitive dissonance.
FTL: "... while more than 100 journalists were killed in six months in Gaza by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) ..."
Anyone know where to find what the current accurate count of number of journalists killed in the Gaza bombardment to date?
Last I heard it was 170.
There are also journalists who lived but their whole family died in the strikes.
Do these numbers distinguish between journalists killed while doing journalism vs journalists killed as collateral damage not in the capacity of a journalist vs combatants who were journalists prior to picking up a gun and joining the war?
I feel like its very hard to draw any conclusions from these numbers without distinguishing between those cases (other than of course that war is a tragedy and innocents generally pay the price of war).
Isn't it any less worse that 170+ journalists were killed among the 30,000+ civilians?
And no, it's unlikely these are journalists who picked up a gun - the IDF is dropping up to 2,000 Lbs bombs, and that's possibly how many are killed; however there have been many reports of journalists homes being targeted in direct strikes, at least one journalist I heard who's wife and children/whole family were killed but he wasn't.
It's not surprising in reality if it's 170+ journalists amongst 30,000+ killed.
There are videos of IDF soldiers harassing and brutally assaulting journalists, if that's any indication of the rules of engagement they subscribe to; I'm obviously not linking to any here on HN - this topic is already a minefield.
What HN is missing is going one layer up, where all of the various points brought up are catalogued-organized - and then allow a second round of discussion, perhaps with a more sophisticated UI/UX for people (from "both"/all sides) to contribute things like citations to evidence/data support the claim/statements, etc; and then those cited sources and data could also then be another layer deeper to constrain or contain further contextualized-narrowed conversation to the analysis of those sources.
> Isn't it any less worse that 170+ journalists were killed among the 30,000+ civilians?
Yes. One is a clear cut war crime, the other is not. (Or at least not in and of itself. There are of course factors that could make those civilian deaths be a war crime, but it depends on the circumstances.)
(To be clear, what i am saying is that intentionally targeting journalists (who have not picked up a gun and joined the fight) is an unambigious war crime. Killing journalists incidentally while targeting something else may or may not be a war crime depending on all sorts of factors)
I consider things that are war crimes to be much worse than things that are not. So i do think there is a big difference between the two scenarios.
I think its also important to recognize that this sort of thing has huge propaganda value for the Palestinian side, so its important to be careful when evaluating circumstantial evidence (and to be clear i would say that about any side in any war when it comes to information that makes their oponent look bad). As the saying goes, truth is the first casualty of war. It can be very difficult to know what is going on in the middle of a conflict.
Israel has a history of intentionally targeting journalists (such as the American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli snipers, despite being very clearly identified as a journalist).
It's also the case that more generally, Israel's practice of dropping 2000-pound bombs on civilian areas is a war crime. Any targeting of civilian areas has to weigh the military gain against the damage to civilians, and Israel is not doing that. It has emerged that Israel is knowingly targeting buildings where it knows hundreds of civilians will die, just to kill one individual who is suspected of being associated in some way with Hamas. Israel specifically targets suspected Hamas associates when they're at home. These people are identified based on a pattern of behavior and things like cell-phone data, without Israel even knowing whether they really are combatants.[0] In this conflict, Israel has completely taken the gloves off and quite obviously does not care about civilian casualties.
0. https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...
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I did not read the whole thing, I read far enough to realize the methodology was garbage. The article basically says anyone ever associated with Hamas or resisting the IDF is a legitimate military target. Let's try switching that around. Anyone who served in the IDF or spoke positively of a successful attack of Israel against Palestine is a legitimate military target and not a journalist? No, this is obviously nonsense. I'm pretty sure at this point, there's almost nobody left in Gaza that hasn't said a few epithets towards Israel... that doesn't make them military targets.
Al Jazeera getting banned tracks with the current Israel government not being a huge fan of journalism.
> Anyone who served in the IDF or spoke positively of a successful attack of Israel against Palestine is a legitimate military target and not a journalist?
This very specific point is made almost always by Hamas and co to justify indiscriminate firing of rockets into populated areas. "No civilians because everyone has done military time or is a reservist, even women" is a very, very common point.
In both cases, it's post-hoc reasoning to justify something they would have done regardless.
You conflate average Gazans who "said a few epithets towards Israel" with those who "promoted and celebrated terrorism and the death of innocent civilians".
It is unlikely that reliable numbers will come out of Gaza with the media blackout and two sides who both want to present information "favorably"
At least until the war has subsided and independent orgs can gain access.
Gaza Health Ministry numbers are a reliable floor, as confirmed by numerous organizations like the US State Department. The real count probably above 100k dead so far.
100k would be well above any estimates I've seen from any source
This is the best meta-analysis I've seen: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gaza-fat...
Here is another that questions the statistics of the underlying reported data: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-securit...
I will say that both analysis seem really repugnant. Specially the first one that first acknowledges the obvious limitation that "only a third of Gaza’s hospitals are even partially functional", to then push the idea that the MOH trying to work under that limitation is an attempt of manipulation. It's absurd to think that releasing less numbers would paint a more accurate picture; but I guess some side would appreciate if people stop counting the dead.
I don't think this is true. Can you refer to the US State Department official position on this? It's true that in previous conflicts the numbers were in the ballpark but the breakdown between e.g. combatants and civilians was not. This conflict is very different so I don't think we should be extrapolating.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/04/09/hamas-run-gaza-healt...
Dont you mean Hamas numbers are a reliable cieling? Why would Hamas undersestimate the number of dead Hamas members/civilians?
They are correct in saying it's a reliable floor. From AP: >HOW DOES THE MINISTRY ARRIVE AT A DEATH TOLL?
>Gaza’s most widely quoted source on casualties is Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra. From an office at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, al-Qidra receives a constant flow of data from every hospital in the strip.
>Hospital administrators say they keep records of every wounded person occupying a bed and every dead body arriving at a morgue. They enter this data into a computerized system shared with al-Qidra and colleagues. According to screenshots hospital directors sent to AP, the system looks like a color-coded spreadsheet divided into categories: name, ID number, date of hospital entry, type of injury, condition.
Given this, it is entirely possible that there are additional dead that otherwise do not make it to the hospital morgue, those lost in rubble, those left behind, or cases were the violence was so great there is no body to note. To your question Hamas has made a point to be conservative and validate the death tolls, meaning that there are likely a great number of dead that don't reach these standards and are not counted.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-health-mini...
I think you mean ceiling.
No 10 millions at least
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_i...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40270344
Like anything coming from Gaza I have some doubts about how legit this data is.
This list has 96 total in Gaza since the beginning of the war. So not 170.
Many of the names use this reference: "97 journalists and media workers were confirmed dead: 92 Palestinian, 2 Israeli, and 3 Lebanese."
https://cpj.org/2024/05/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-...
Is media worker always a journalist? The list seems in disagreement with the other list. Also if you work for Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad are you a journalist? Where does that line pass? Are IDF media people journalists or are they soldiers? Either way, even by the most generous interpretation not everyone on that list is a journalist. e.g. a "a sound engineer working for the Gaza’s Hamas government owned Al-Rai radio and freelancing for other local radio stations" is not a journalist.
I would trust the list a lot more if there was a reference to their work. Are they published journalists? The list says nothing about what media they worked for. Random e.g. on the list uses Al Jazeera as a reference: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/1/8/israel-war-...
"Gaza’s Government Media Office has confirmed the deaths of two more Palestinian journalists – Abdullah Baris and Muhammad Abu Dayer"
A journalist should mean "a person who writes for newspapers, magazines, or news websites or prepares news to be broadcast.", is there a list that includes what newpapers, magazines, or news websites those people worked for?
I drilled down the wikidata reference link from the article. Some of the people have some references to them being journalists. Others don't.
EDIT: Btw the list of clarifications in the bottom of the CPJ source is also interesting.
"CPJ has removed two Israeli journalists, Shai Regev and Ayelet Arnin, from this list after their outlets confirmed that the journalists were not on assignment to cover the music festival, nor did they have any opportunity to begin reporting on the attack by Hamas militants that killed them on October 7. CPJ’s global database of killed journalists includes only those who have been killed in connection with their work or where there is still some doubt that their death was work-related."
I don't see any evidence that the Gazans reported killed were killed in connection with their work.
"After receiving reports that Palestinian journalist and presenter Alaa Taher Al-Hassanat may have survived the attack thought to have killed her, CPJ has removed her name from its casualties list pending further investigation." - so people are sometimes reported killed but aren't.
"CPJ has removed a Palestinan man, Mohamed Khaireddine, from this list. Khaireddine was previously identified as a journalist, but his family later clarified that he was neither a journalist nor a media support worker." - so we have people reported as journalists by someone ... but aren't.
also: "The list below is CPJ’s most recent and preliminary account of journalist deaths in the war. Our database will not include all of these casualties until we have completed further investigations into the circumstances surrounding them."
EDIT2: This is a more in-depth analysis of the specific journalists and their affiliations from the Israeli side: https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/app/uploads/2024/02/E_013_...
Are we all of a sudden still blindly trusting Wikipedia as a trustworthy-authoritative source because it's structured information?
Here's an example of how the IDF treats people who are clearly journalists:
Arguably behaviour of a Gestapo, no? The "wolves in clothing" aspect of this is quite the mind fuck once enough puzzle pieces come together and you realize what's realy going on; and where it makes sense that such deceit as a strategy, long-time, long-running, and long-form propaganda as a psychological manipulation strategy is the only way you can get to this stage of fascism that we're seeing with this current Israeli government.
Re: Interview with a journalist - https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6MFu5MNUoX/
Repeat behaviour, a pattern by Israel/IDF reminds me of this quotes that general go something like this: it's never the well-intentioned who want-demand censorship.
Conclusions,
We actually have the opportunity this time to stop this fascist regime in its tracks before 10s to 100s of millions of people die.
Unlike during NaZi Germany anyone who spoke up could quickly be visited by Gestapo, first reported on by 60%+ of their neighbours, and so were easily found.
Today with the internet that is still free enough - where information and evidence can rapidly be studied and curated before distribution - where there are simply too many people already who starting from the comfort of their own homes are able to see and share the truth, or at least present a different perspective - and ideally engage in long-form conversations and see if the person they're engaged with is intellectually honest or not, able to learn and incorporate new information when cognitive dissonance is triggered; there is still suppression going on as part of the "war"-control effort - an attempt to keep specific channels of indoctrinated ideologues kept in bubbles and "ideally" unexposed to questions and thought exercises that would start them down a line of thinking to shatter the veil of the propagandists.
BONUS: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C48GSaOuT5u/
- A short interview clip where it's mentioned that the Gaza bureau Chief of Al Jazeera - his wife, son, and daughter were killed in a strike; was it targeting the journalists' home and that's why it happened, or it was from their indiscriminante bombing of Gaza; which by the way, they're likely killing all of the hostages, too, right?
- So people who support these bombardments are also supporting killing their own citizens - "kill Hamas at all costs" seems to include murdering people that could have been you.
I honestly can't follow the line of your argument. You say "truth" but then you say "different perspective". Which one? You say engage in long form conversation but you're not really engaging in conversation here. You say shatter the veil of the propagandist but you're engaging in propaganda yourself.
I commented here because the truth is not being told about the number of journalists killed in Gaza. That number is artificially inflated and used as propaganda. You're misdirecting to the family of Al Jazeera bureau chief. He was not killed by the way (you seem to imply he was). I don't know the circumstances related to that attack so I can't comment on it. Lots of innocent people were killed in this war and the blame lies squarely on Hamas.
Your comment about the hostages is intellectually unfair. Given Hamas' attack on Oct 7th it is Israel's right to eliminate that threat. Given the situation on the ground and the goal of minimizing casualties to your own side you're inevitably going to see something that looks very similar to what you've seen. There's no way to use massive military force against an enemy like Hamas under the conditions as they exist in Gaza without that.
But even ignoring that, do see you Hamas returning those hostages? There's precedence here, they've held Gilad Shalit for 5 years and they've been holding Avre Mengisto ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avera_Mengistu ) since 2014. Given the combination of the imperative to eliminate Hamas for Israel's security and the fact Hamas would not release hostages unless it is forced to then there's no a lot of wiggle room here. I'm pretty sure Israel is trying to avoid killing hostages which is probably why the Hamas leadership is still alive.
Your comparison to the Gestapo and the Nazis just shows me you know nothing about either. But hey, what else can we talk about on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day. If you do want to compare someone to the Nazis try Hamas, a much better fit.
Unfortunately you can't "see the truth" from the comfort of your home on TikTok. You're seeing what some people want you to focus on. You need to step back, look at the whole picture, not just specific events, and use some critical thinking skills to fit everything, not just one event, to a reasonable theory of what is going on.
If you're interesting in how Hamas treats journalists here's some resources:
https://www.amnesty.ca/human-rights-news/gaza-hamas-must-end...
https://www.amnesty.ca/human-rights-news/gaza-journalist-fac...
You're likely not going to get any "truth" from any Palestinian in Gaza because they risk retribution for not toeing the Hamas line.
The border between journalists and militants is quite blurry in Gaza. Many of the so-called journalists actively participated in the 7/10 massacre.
I find it difficult to tell how their reports translate to objective numbers. For example, the United States’ ranking fell from 45 to 55 in the last year. Here are the reports for those years:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230817030548/https://rsf.org/e...
https://web.archive.org/web/20240505202537/https://rsf.org/e...
As far as I can tell, the only negative differences between these two reports are that a reporter was killed while investigating a murder by the murder suspect (who is now in jail and on trial), and that Biden “has come under criticism for failing to press US partners like Israel and Saudi Arabia on press freedom.” Falling ten places is a significant change (and is called out in the preface to the whole report)—are these two things really enough to justify such a change, or is the ranking sourced from more data not present in the report?
Here’s another story about Reporters Without Borders, about the first time I dug into one of their publications. In 2018, I read a report they published listing the six most dangerous countries for journalists: India, Yemen, Mexico, Syria, Afghanistan, and the United States. It described how in Mexico journalists are executed by cartels and organized crime, how journalists in Yemen die in prison due to mistreatment, how in Syria journalists were killed in airstrikes and taken hostage by Islamic militants, how in India Hindu nationalist mobs would run down journalists with trucks… and how in the US, four journalists were murdered by a stalker angry at a 2011 story the newspaper had published (subsequently jailed, tried, and found guilty of mass murder); and two more were killed by a falling tree. Somehow these two cases were enough to warrant the United States being called out with the other five countries. And it made the headlines everywhere, of course, because it was the midst of Donald Trump’s presidency.
It's a ranking, so presumably part of the US dropping is due to other countries improving. There is another major negative change noted though - more newspaper closures and huge layoffs at news organizations. It also sounds like the Sociocultural section might be partially based on polling of trust in media, which could have dropped, but I don't know where to look into that more.
The 2018 report you're talking about is here: https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/worldwilde_round-up.pdf. The list is not the most dangerous countries for journalists, but the most deadly - a straightforward measure of how many journalists were killed in each country. They publish this every year and the US is usually not on it, but this year someone murdered 4 journalists because of their reporting. I'm not sure how they could make this more objective, and I can't think of any metric that would include murders committed by angry men in cartels or angry men with SUVs in India but not angry men with shotguns in America.
Obviously the falling tree is not reflective of the journalistic climate in the country, but if they had been the only two the US would not have been listed. The mass shooting is what put it within the same neighborhood as Mexico and India.
Here's the latest one of these, which as usual does not feature America: https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/medias/file/2023/12/Bila....
> It's a ranking, so presumably part of the US dropping is due to other countries improving.
Is that the case? Do the other countries’ entries in the report reflect that?
> I can't think of any metric that would include murders committed by angry men in cartels or angry men with SUVs in India but not angry men with shotguns in America.
One such metric would be whether a country’s justice system arrests and puts the perpetrator on trial, as happened with the American murder and presumably didn’t happen in the case of Mexican cartels or the Indian mob.
Yes, the following countries improved their scores between 2023 and 2024 and passed the US (71.22 -> 66.59) in the ranking: Chile (60.09 -> 67.32), Ghana (65.93 -> 67.71), Poland (67.66 -> 69.17), Fiji (59.27 -> 71.23), Armenia (70.61 -> 71.6), Slovenia (70.59 -> 72.6), Mauritania (59.45 -> 74.2), Suriname (70.62 -> 76.11).
I agree that whether or not perpetrators are tried is relevant to the country, but I don't agree that it's relevant to this metric or to the dead journalists. They don't come back to life if their murderer is imprisoned, and the arrest rate doesn't have any impact on how dangerous it was to be a journalist that year. If they were to do a forward-looking report on the outlook for journalists in each country in the next 10 years or so, then I do think the effectiveness of the justice system might be relevant.
In the Indian cases named in the 2018 report, arrests were made: https://apnews.com/general-news-eb9e0dbcdbab4d93a2d90767c270..., https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/madhya-pradesh-journal....
The situation in Mexico was a bit more grim, but in at least one of the cases the police did make several arrests: https://cpj.org/data/people/mario-leonel-gomez-sanchez/.
> how in India Hindu nationalist mobs would run down journalists with trucks
Sorry I might have missed this.
I live in India, and I've never heard of nationalist mobs running down journalists (plural?!) with trucks.
Do you have any links to share? Google doesn't give me anything.
I don't know how to interpret the front page saying "More than 100 journalists killed in six months in Gaza" directly above a "real time" abuse barometer saying that 12 journalists have been killed worldwide in 2024.
Different (overlapping) time spans
Probably different measuring / classifications at play too. For example, they may be including independent journalists in one set vs only recognized outlets in another.
---
edit, they have the following note in the barometer
> Journalists are listed only if RSF has established that their death or imprisonment was linked to their journalistic activity. The list does not include journalists who were killed or imprisoned for reasons unrelated to their work or when the link to their work has not yet been confirmed.
https://rsf.org/en/barometer?type%5Btue%5D=tue&annee_start=2....
There hasn't been six months in 2024 yet, for one. Many of the deaths could have been in Nov and Dec.
The problem is, if you look at 2023, they only count 50 deaths in the barometer.
Something is definitely amiss, see my peer comment
The world is so focused on Israel that forget the rest.
Netanyahu's ongoing corruption trial looms large over all of this. If he were to lose power, he would be far more vulnerable to conviction and potential imprisonment. So from this vantage point, the Al Jazeera ban could be seen as an act of desperation - muzzling a high-profile critic as a concession to far-right parties, even at the expense of free press principles, all in service of his own political and personal survival.
It paints a troubling picture of a leader whose decision-making is distorted by clinging to power at all costs. Undermining democratic norms to appease extremist coalition partners is a dangerous road that could lead Israel to more illiberal and authoritarian policies, especially toward Palestinians, the Arab media, and domestic dissent.
It was a very strange day yesterday: the whole week coverage had been building up to a meeting in Cairo, Hamas signalled they were going to accept the cease fire.
Saturday AM EST, it was reported that Hamas confirmed they were going to accept the deal. By noon Saturday EST, the "Israel-Hamas War"...idk what to call it, live blog? collection-of-news headline?...was gone for the first time in months.
Israel reporting (not just Haaretz) reported huge, multiple, protests (it was at night there, early afternoon EST) due to Israel rejecting a cease fire. Piecing it together from Twitter natsec people, standard blob, certainly not polarized against israel, Israel didn't even send a delegation to the talks, and the far right Israeli leader said Bibi promised him they wouldn't accept "a rushed deal" (i.e. the cease fire), and people were irate. An irate Israeli TV reporter revealed the anonymous "diplomatic source" promising no deal Friday night was Bibi himself.
The blogs are back up now, with a sort of hurried framing that the talks fell apart because Hamas wanted a permanent cease fire (no mention of any of the above -- I assume that'd complicate it too much for, it needs to be a nice little set piece of Israel vs. Hamas.
It's really, really strange watching the coverage the last week, in America, without any attachment to either "side". I guess its easier to push the A vs. B framing on a new subject, our college kids, rather than trying to explain how any of this makes any sense at all.
Netanyahu has also said that he intends to do an operation in Rafah regardless of whether Hamas gives up the remaining hostages.
https://text.npr.org/1248276817
Israel's war aims have transparently been about both returning the hostages and removing Hamas from power.
I am just pointing out that Israel isn't planning on agreeing to a ceasefire anytime soon. They'll probably need to have new elections.
> Israel isn't planning on agreeing to a ceasefire anytime soon
A permanent one, no. But that wasn't ever on the table. A multi-week ceasefire is absolutely still on the table in exchange for hostages.
"We might agree to a cease-fire for a little bit, but I guarantee you will invade you soon anyway" is not exactly what I'd call good faith language. What's even the point of a cease-fire if you don't at least offer the possibility of something long-term? It's a completely absurd thing to say.
This has long been the problem, with the Israeli government never offering any perspective or hope on a long-term solution.
That seems very good faith and transparent. Bad faith would be saying, 'yeah we are happy with a permanent cease fire', getting all the hostages, and then continuing the assault.
Agree that the logic kind of pushes Hamas into keeping the hostages so not sure what Israel is expecting and most likely Israel has just marked the hostages as dead and will do anything to permanently destroy Hamas and show other potential beligerents that the deterrent strategy is concrete - even though that means a death sentence for most of those hostages still alive.
> What's even the point of a cease-fire if you don't at least offer the possibility of something long-term?
To get aid to civilians. To let fighters regroup and restock. To open a window for negotiating a permanent ceasefire.
I can't think of an example of a permanent cease fire being immediately agreed without surrender or withdrawal.
> open a window for negotiating a permanent ceasefire.
Israeli government already very clearly and explicitly said that this window doesn't exist; that was my entire point. If he had said "we MAY still invade" or anything even slightly more qualified, then sure. But he didn't. Unless something went spectacularly wrong in translation, what I read is that he said in very clear terms that Israel will absolutely invade.
Whether that's just empty threads or not is a judgement call, but it's certainly not the language of good faith.
> But he didn't. Unless something went spectacularly wrong in translation, what I read is that he said in very clear terms that Israel will absolutely invade.
A temporary ceasefire also creates room for the opposition to create pressure to call for elections. That’s difficult to do while a war is ongoing.
I think what you're getting at - and which is the critical thing that seems to keep getting forgotten is the critical situation of the hostages. Everything from both sides is rotating around the hostages and we are still not yet in a classical war so much as an extreme hostage negotiation with many layers of force including jets, tanks, and infantry driving the negotiations.
Well I'm not really "getting at" anything per se, other than point out that the diplomatic behaviour of Netanyahu is not especially brilliant and is kind of sabotaging the negotiations.
I think it is much easier to understand the situation if we take Netayahiu at his own words. He does not want any ceasefire, he has said so in the past, and he keeps saying that now. His actions are consistent with the fact that he does not want any ceasefire, as he tries to vandalize any prospects of a ceasefire, even a temporary one, e.g. by wowing to invade Rafah, even if there is a ceasefire.
The timing of this ban on Al Jazeera is also consistent with his behavior of trying to vandalize any ceasefire talks. Al Jazeera is a Qatar based media company, and Qatar is also the mediator in the ongoing talks. If Netanyahu wanted these talks to be successful he would not antagonize the mediator this way.
No, the Israeli government does not want a ceasefire, neither a permanent one, nor a temporary one. What they want is to make it look like they are making an effort, but only enough to improve the optics. There may be a faction inside the military which actually wants a ceasefire, so perhaps—and hopefully—a ceasefire can be negotiated despite vandalism attempts by the Israeli government, but I’m not hopeful.
In the meantime, I do take Netanyahu at his words, that he does not want a ceasefire, and he wants in invade Rafah, to continue the genocide, and to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.
I agree with most of your comment, but I'll push back on a couple of things:
> No, the Israeli government does not want a ceasefire, neither a permanent one, nor a temporary one.
All the things you wrote before that are things that Israel explicitly says, that it won't agree to a permanent ceasefire. But this statement is your personal opinion, and I don't think it's necessarily justified.
> In the meantime, I do take Netanyahu at his words, that he does not want a ceasefire, and he wants in invade Rafah, to continue the genocide, and to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.
I think your phrasing on this is misleading, since it implies that Netanyahu's words are that he wants to "continue a genocide" and "ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians". That is incorrect. Are words are that he will invade Rafah, the "continue the genocide/ethnic cleansing" thing are your words, not his. (I highly disagree with using those words, but either way, my point stands.)
You are right, actually. It is too late for me to edit, but from the second paragraph onward I needed to prefix with “I think”.
Rereading it I can see how this is misleading, that was not my intention.
Thank you, and for what it's worth, I didn't think you were being intentionally misleading (just came out misleading in the phrasing).
It's impossible to disagree with -- we have to eliminate the terrorist military leadership that perpetrated a massacre. Why would they get a permanent cease fire?
To your point, in my varied Israeli media diet, it's well-understood in the entire Israeli press that Bibi went out of his way to torpedo it by saying this simple idea over and over. The only question is whether this show he has a spine (willing to lose an eventual vote just to defeat the terrorists), or that he's weak (willing to lose the hostages to retain his political position) A majority is weary of it because the implementation of the specifics is "we will work our way through the refugee camp and then ???" and they feel they've seen that plan before.
We can confirm this is from an unbiased perspective by noting that the protests kicked up a notch, and the TV presenter outed the anonymous diplomatic source as him, and then perusing original sourcing as to why. (to share something I learned re: sourcing, Haaretz will be seen as some interlocutors as a left-wing rag doing performances for overseas audiences, Times of Israel is better)
Of course it was, that's what Hamas always told it wanted.
Unless by negotiation table you mean "whatever Israel wants and nothing else".
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What does that have to do with my comment?
BTW October 7th is decidedly not the root of this war, just a dark event in a series of atrocities that have occurred during the last 70+ years.
You can put the root of the problem whenever you want in the last thousand years.
Do you remember what the word "root" means?
"transparently" or "allegedly and repeatedly" ? People have been protesting precisely because absolutely no progress have been made towards freeing the hostages, on the contrary. So obviously "return of the hostage" is a simple mantra to which Israeli government pay some lip service. What they actually plan to do with Hamas or Gaza people in general remains to be known, we have all reasons to question every single word coming from them.
Its stated war aims, at the outset.
By this point these aims appear to have evolved, and it now seems primarily concerned with encouraging what it refers to as "voluntary migration" from the Gaza Strip. And as a secondary aim, to incrementally expand the settlements in the West Bank (in the hopes of securing their eventual annexation).
> Israel reporting (not just Haaretz) reported huge, multiple, protests (it was at night there, early afternoon EST) due to Israel rejecting a cease fire.
Correcting you on this - the protests were not because Israel "rejected a cease fire".
For one thing, these are the same protests that happen every Saturday for the last few weeks of the war, continuing the "tradition" of protests that happened every Saturday for the ~10 months before the war.
For another, Israel didn't "reject" the ceasefire deal, Hamas did, or at least that's the way it is being talked about by Israel itself. There are many reasons to think Israel (and specifically Netanyahu) may have tried to tank the deal, but Hamas are the ones that eventually walked away.
You're right that there's been protests. The claims in the post, not sending a delegation, Bibi's anonymous statements being deanonymized, and the protests this weekend being intensified and a subject hostages families spoke about at the protests are all verifiable.
Yes I don't disagree with any of those.
I share similar view. Israel response is guided by prime minister’s personal political ambitions, while war is ongoing, the leader has more power and less of a chance to be replaced.
He's playing with the same rulebook of Slobodan Milošević - He's trying to make apparent to everybody that if he goes down, his own country will go down with him.
Frankly, it feels like the only hope for an end to this conflict is in the hands of the internal Israeli political opposition. I wouldn't be surprised if he's not stopped, we're gonna see the same... "approach" used with Palestinian people applied to whatever internal resistance is left.
IIRC something like 80% of Israeli citizens approve of the way Israel is fighting in Gaza, according to the polls.
it would be interesting to know to what extent they're aware of what's actually happening in Gaza.
Also, given the vilification we've seen of those expressing sympathy for a two-state solution or the general Palestinian population in the last 30 years, I'd be wary to take at face value any poll without being sure they were done with some sort of guarantee of anonymity.
I'm pretty sure you'd get even more one-sided approval results asking the British about the handling of the Ireland border during the troubles, or the Spanish on the repression of the Basque population after Zaragoza.
I'm pretty sure you're right on that last bit, but I don't think that wouldn't be reflecting the reality in UK or Spain, either. People are generally pretty quick to get into an "us vs them" mode when threatened, and, once there, will come up with increasingly ludicrous justifications even for the nastiest stuff.
And yes, in Israel right now it's probably somewhat affected by social (and sometimes legal) consequences of dissent... but those very social consequences are in and of themselves indicative of supermajority support. Point being, even if it is, say, 65% rather than 80%, that still means that opposition has no power, and so nothing is really in its hands at the moment.
> it would be interesting to know to what extent they're aware of what's actually happening in Gaza
I suspect that most don't know. I've sometimes seen articles in Times of Israel, and although they mention that lots of civilians are getting killed, they also write that this is Hamas health ministry counting, suggesting that the numbers would be made up.
Look here:
> At least 34,596 Palestinians have been killed [...] the Hamas-run health ministry in the Strip says.
> The figures cannot be independently verified and include at least 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hamas-run-healt...
So, Times of Israel writes as if information provided by IDF would be trustworthy (13 000 gunmen). But from what I've seen, when reading e.g. about the Lavender AI system and IDF's replies, then, the IDF generals and spokespeople lie a lot, and it's better to disregard anything they say.
Someone living in Israel, might be inclined to trust the IDF. However, looking at how many women have been killed, and realizing that a similar number of civilian men have been killed too -- then, more likely, 80%? 90%? of those "gunmen" were in fact civilians, but IDF happily counts each dead man as a terrorist.
And Times of Israel is not even a right wing newspaper. (Seems it's "centrist", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times_of_Israel.)
(With that said, most Palestinians and AlJazeera readers don't know what Hamas did on October 7. Not all but most Israelis and Palestinians are blind to the bad things that happen to those in the other tribe, know only about the bad things that happened to themselves.)
How big a share of Palestinian media consumption does Al Jazeera have? As in, do the residents of Gaza treat it as the main news source?
The reason for asking is because a poll[0] of Palestinians says “90% believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians during its October the 7th offensive. Only one in five Palestinians has seen videos showing atrocities committed by Hamas.”
So is it Al Jazeera’s fault that Palestinians have not seen the evidence and seem not to think 10/7 was all that problematic? One assumes that if such deliberate distortion/omission was normal practice at Al Jazeera, Israel would be able to clearly point to it. But the justification for the ban is a pretty vague concern about national security.
[0] https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/969
> do the residents of Gaza treat it as the main news source?
Does Gaza have sufficient connectivity for its population to have a real news source?
I think they do, as long as their internet connections are up. At least the Gazans I follow on social media seem to be perfectly aware of the world news. Graffiti tags on refugee tents in Rafah thanking American students for their solidarity seems to support that.
I’ve also read in the past that Al Jazeera is a rather popular media outlet among Palestinians in Gaza.
> Pan-Arab satellite TVs, especially Qatar's Al-Jazeera, are popular. [1]
I know that Shireen Abu Akleh—an Al Jazeera journalist murdered by IDF in 2022—was a superstar among Palestinians, including Palestinans in Gaza.
1: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14631745
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How is the parent comment [flagged] yet this one is not?
It's bizarre. Gazan social media happily shows the malls and beach clubs, car dealerships, supermarkets etc, that existed before Hamas started the war. There's literally nothing flag-worthy about my comment asides from it debunking a narrative about Gazan life.
Now I'm curious as to what they said
Yep, I wish I could read dead comments after a couple clicks. Maybe not vouch for them, but definitely reading them
You can see all [dead] comments if you turn on 'showdead' in your profile.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
They’re referring to me by first name (rather than my handle) and suggesting I kill myself.
I have never previously had such a comment on HN in the last 16 years.
Wow, I did not know until now that 90% (!!!) of Palestinians "believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians during its October the 7th offensive," and "only one in five Palestinians has seen videos showing atrocities committed by Hamas." Are they really so misinformed?
If that's true, it makes sense to ask whether Al Jazeera has been purposely feeding misinformation to the Palestinian population during the war. And it makes sense to ask if that is in any way related by Al Jazeera's funding by Qatar, where the leaders of Hamas live: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/qatar-hamas-israel-1.699941...
Thank you for sharing this here.
Hamas has been in power since 2006 and had reeducated the youth akin to what the hitler youth did. Its no surprise many tow the company line. Majority of people in gaza are under 18 where all they know is that sort of indoctrination.
The grandparent comment and my comment are about Palestinians, not Hamas.
> did not know until now that 90% (!!!) of Palestinians "believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians
I know some Palestinians, and yes, they seem extremely misinformed, clueless about what Hamas did.
I was surprised after October 7 when they seemed to have had no idea about what had happened. They apparently only knew that IDF had started bombing. I might even guessed 95% instead of 90% "believe that Hams did not ...".
Al Jazeera lies by omission -- by not mentioning what Hamas did, and, if it does, then downplaying the numbers.
The Israeli newspapers lie by omission, too: they don't let their readers know how many civilians Netanyahu and IDF has killed in Gaza. Al Jazeera and right wing Israeli newspapers manipulate the Palestinians and Israelis, respectively.
> ask whether Al Jazeera has been purposely feeding misinformation to the Palestinian population during the war
Of course they do
> The reason for asking is because a poll[0] of Palestinians says “90% believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians during its October the 7th offensive. Only one in five Palestinians has seen videos showing atrocities committed by Hamas.”
I think they have more pressing matters on their mind than getting informed at the moment, such as trying not to starve, finding dead relatives in the rubble of destroyed apartments, and similar things.
Moreover, I think the people of Palestine might be a bit biased against Israel. And I don't think that's an information issue, I think it's a completely natural response to Israel killing tens of thousands of civilian, 70% of whom women and children.
I think if you ask Ukrainian civilians what they think of Russians you'll hear some falsehoods and unreasonable stuff too. That's a completely natural response, and the Ukrainian media is not to be blamed for that.
I don't feel good about this at all, but please keep in mind that there is still serious independent journalism in Israel. And it's doing very well. For example I can recommend pretty much anything published by Haaretz, or Barak Ravid. We should monitor the health of their domestic media should things start going un-democratic there. After all nothing can replace domestic media, this is painfully clear in the case of Russia.
It's worth noting Qatar is the main benefactor of Al Jazeera, while also having funded Hamas for years, and hosting the Hamas leaders in their country. Al Jazeera in English is extremely different from al Jazeera in Arabic where journalism takes a back seat on any item somehow connected to Israel and especially Hamas. Like many of these seemingly weird decisions, there's more to it than "Israel bad".
> having funded Hamas for years, hosting the Hamas leaders in their country
Qatar did both of those things at the request of the US and Israel. Qatar serves as an intermediary between the US/Israel and Hamas, just as it served as an intermediary for talks between the US and the Taliban.
> Like many of these seemingly weird decisions, there's more to it than "Israel bad".
The motivation here is clearly to stop information about what is happening in Gaza from reaching the outside world. Al Jazeera is the only major international news agency with a significant presence on the ground there.
Well, Israel has also funded Hamas for years!
There are also many other foreign journalists in Israel. Other than Al Jazeera there are no restrictions on foreign media from operating in Israel. Certainly not western foreign media.
There are indeed restrictions on western foreign media.
"Like all foreign news organizations operating in Israel, CNN’s Jerusalem bureau is subject to the rules of the Israel Defense Forces’s censor, which dictates subjects that are off-limits for news organizations to cover, and censors articles it deems unfit or unsafe to print. ... the military censor recently restricted eight subjects, including security cabinet meetings, information about hostages, and reporting on weapons captured by fighters in Gaza. In order to obtain a press pass in Israel, foreign reporters must sign a document agreeing to abide by the dictates of the censor."
https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-repo...
https://theintercept.com/2023/12/23/israel-military-idf-medi...
This seems reasonable to me? If a western press were outside missile factories saying "this is the only place our super missiles are built!" I would expect the department of defence to block that information from being published...
That's unlawful in the United States, whose values Israel purportedly represents. It's called "prior restraint".
It’s very much legal in wartime, for exactly those sorts of purposes. Though I’m not sure we’ve tested the legality of it in this modern world where nobody actually formally declares war anymore—I don’t think it’s been attempted.
(Please don’t flame thinking I’m hardcore in support of a particular side in this war due to this post—you’ve very likely gotten the wrong impression. I’m commenting only on the narrow point that the US in fact can censor, including with prior restraint in certain circumstances, during war.)
> during war
The United States's last declaration of war was 83 years ago. Since then it's been all "police actions" or some such. What meaning does "during war" carry in the world of today?
Are you saying the United States would not block something being reported by the media? Because that is certainly false.
My understanding is that they put a lot of pressure to block things and sometimes offer quid pro quo and sometimes even implant operatives in certain media positions, but legally they can't just come in and shut it down.
There is not legal mechanism for that to occur unless the writer is a government employee
Well the parent said there are no restrictions and there are restrictions.
There absolutely are restrictions. No journalists are allowed in Gaza, which is at odds with almost every other conflict in the past hundred years.
The stated reason is "to keep journalists safe". But journalists have risked their lives in many conflicts to bring the news to people, its their choice to risk their life or not. Unless one were to believe that all journalists biased against israel, there is no reason to restrict all journalists. Why not let in Christiane Amanpour, or many other western trained and western paid journalists?
Is this true? I do not think journalists are just allowed to the front lines of any war. The entire Gaza strip seems like one giant front line. There needs to be more journalists reporting but I think just allowing anyone to walk anywhere because they've got 'press' on their jacket is probably just going to end up with dead journalists considering journalists will want to be were the fighting is and will gravitate towards danger.
War correspondents have been around since at least the French revolution. Article 79 of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions provides for protection of war correspondents to the level of civilians.
IDF also kills journalists for sport (Shireen Abu-Akleh comes to mind).
That seems very reductive to just say that as if it is a fact. 90% of the claims I've seen about the IDF end up being just nonsense. I did pay very close attention to what happened with Shireen Abu-Akleh and I think that was definitely not dealt with in a satisfactory way.
"not dealt with in a satisfactory way" is exactly the justification that IDF has used after many similar circumstances. Let's say they just don't care, since there are no repercussions.
We should also keep in mind the Palestinians refused to allow the IDF to conduct its own forensic investigation. That's partly why the was no definite conclusion from the investigation into the matter. You can't demand that Israel investigate and then not enable it to do so.
"The US State Department subsequently announced on July 4 that tests by independent ballistics experts under U.S. oversight were not conclusive about the gun it was fired from but that US officials have concluded that gunfire from Israeli positions most likely killed Akleh and that there was "no reason to believe" her shooting was intentional. US investigators had "full access"[138] to both IDF and PA investigations.[139][140][141] The Palestinian Public Prosecutor's Office disputes the US conclusion that the bullet cannot be matched to a gun and maintains its position that the killing was premeditated.[142] On July 5, the US stressed that it did not conduct its own probe, but the conclusion was a "summation" of investigations by the Palestinian Authority and Israel.[143]" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh#Subsequent_i...
> Let's say they just don't care, since there are no repercussions.
I think that's a fair statement, but also a far cry from "killing journalists for sport". These kind of exaggerated claims aren't helpful.
> According to Reporters Without Borders' tally, at least 105 [journalists] have so far [since October 7th] been killed by Israeli airstrikes, rockets and gunfire, including at least 22 in the course of their work.
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/....
Were they killed "for sport" (implying deliberate targetting)? With almost 35,000 dead, 105 journalists is about 0.3% of that. Seems about right as "normal" casualties.
"We didn't target them because they were journalists. We thought we were shooting at regular unarmed civilians."
Look, I have a lot of criticism about not just this war, but how the Palestinian people have been treated over the last 60 years. But you can't just say things like "they're targetting journalists for sport" and then pivot to this type of stuff when pressed.
I’m not the person you were originally interacting with, so I wasn’t “pivoting” - sorry to cause confusion!
There’s not really any doubt that the press feel they’re targeted, I think some have gone on the record about it. I don’t know how well we can really test such a claim absent the cooperation of the IDF, which will never happen.
My comment is meant to be a joke about how some of this stuff is grimly academic. If your army has enough xenophobic misanthropes and incompetent reservists who are willing to shoot at anything not wearing their uniform, the notion of a class of people being “targeted” is rendered redundant.
The Hebrew-speaking hostages who were killed while trying to surrender were just one aspect of this conflict that someone writing a really dark antiwar comedy might have come up with.
> My comment is meant to be a joke about how some of this stuff is grimly academic.
Well it's not "academic" if it occupies quite a bit of the public debate, and it's also not helpful if it's actually fairly easy to debunk, and is just fuel for the "they will make up anything to make us look bad" line. All of that energy can and should be spent elsewhere.
Why was her funeral disrupted to the point of tossing the coffin about?
For those who aren't familiar with this, after the IDF shot American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to death, Israeli security forces attacked her funeral procession. There's a video of Israeli soldiers physically beating the pall bearers, and the coffin nearly falling to the ground.[0]
0. https://youtu.be/y11CVGz7toM?si=ME1qQTQR3FVA0bz_
Funny how often that seems to happen with the IDF.
> Israel’s military can continue barring foreign journalists from accessing the Gaza Strip, the High Court said Monday, citing ongoing security concerns after months in which only Gazans or correspondents accompanied by the army have been able to report from inside the enclave.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-court-says-israel-can-kee...
https://theconversation.com/how-israel-continues-to-censor-j...
They literally kill journalists, including western journalists.
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If you allow "national security" to be used as an excuse to "grant powers" which ultimately just "destroy freedom" then you will end up with leaders who intentionally do a bad job at security in order to access the power that grants them.
If your government cannot protect the country from journalists, then you should force them to resign, and call for new elections.
and if you allow foreign agents to incite for ethnic murder and the destruction and on your country on local cable TV? you think this ends well?
Isn't that just a crime in and of itself? Wouldn't that entitle the government to just arrest and charge that particular person with these crimes? I think that stands a chance of ending well, or at least, justly.
I’m not sure about “dark day for the media” but it does feel like a dark day for Israel.
Once you’ve established that the government can unilaterally ban a voice for reasons of “national security” you’ve essentially given them a free pass. As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.
The EU has banned many Russian and Belarussian news sources since the invasion of Ukraine.
The USA seems to not have followed through (as far as I know - as Russian news sites seem to be available).
Is Qatar a belligerent in the war? Belarus has allowed Russia to use their territory as a point from which to launch both ground assaults and missiles into Ukraine. Hard to say the same about Qatar and Hamas. If Al Jazeera were an Iranian publication the comparison might be more similar.
Israeli news reports and analysts say Qatar has sent more than $1 billion to Gaza over the past decade.
Qatar sent that aid through fuel to the Gaza Strip's Hamas government, which in turn sold it and paid partial salaries. In the past, the money was sent via suitcases stuffed with cash.
Israel allowed these transfers to Hamas. Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say the payments his government approved helped keep the status quo in the Gaza Strip and Hamas from escalating attacks on Israel.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/02/1210110109/qatar-israel-gaza-...
Qatar is not exactly a belligerent but it hosts the Hamas leadership. It has been funding Hamas and other groups. It (partly) funds Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera is considered by some to be its PR/Propaganda arm and has a low standard for factual reporting - https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/al-jazeera/
Isreal has funded Hamas directly too.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
Is that claim in the part behind the paywall?
The furthest the freely accessible part goes is to say Israel "encouraged" Qatari payments to Hamas.
non paywall version: https://archive.fo/lgtyM
from what I can see it never mentioned Israel directly giving money to Hamas. But encouraging payments seems close enough.
Israeli enabled money to go in to pay government salaries to prevent Gaza from descending in chaos. That said I think it's a matter of fact that maintaining Hamas as a counter to the PA was part of strategy of the Netanyahu government.
I think pretty much any money going into Gaza should be considered funding Hamas. It either went directly to Hamas or it was taxed or it allowed Hamas not to spent that money. This means Europe and the US also funded Hamas.
That's quite a take.
The reason for funding was to create chaos, not to remove it. Why else do you fund a group that destabilises the area. Basically Israel wanted Gaza to be more chaotic as they felt it gave them more control.
The decision to pursue power and chaos as opposed to seeking resolution and a path to peace has had obvious consequences.
The consequence, a violent one, has been incremental land capture
It’s so interesting that you’ve taken away all agency from the Palestinians, or you believe as an absolute rule that giving someone money automatically makes them do chaotic evil things. And that the encourager of the monetary transaction (not the giver or recipient) is solely responsible for any harm or chaos that ensues.
This whole thread is so strange, people keep claiming Palestinians cannot be trusted to rule themselves, while at the same time accusing Israel of genocide for not giving them the ability to rule themselves.
It's interesting that you don't acknowledge what is commonly acknowledged. It's almost like you were pushing an agenda.
Thank you for checking.
> But encouraging payments seems close enough.
Hmmm. I don't think I agree with that. It's such a polarized and emotional debate. It could really benefit from being precise with words.
Making everything sound just slightly worse than it is will help rile up the side that feels slighted and it will let the other side just pass the speaker off as a liar. The result is fewer shared facts, more polarization and a more emotional debate.
The truth of war is bad enough. It doesn't need to be stretched.
Yes, it's real.
Is this some kind of rhetorical question? Qatar is the main funder of Hamas regime. And hosting Hamas leadership. They fund Hamas more than Iran, according to Israeli intelligence (which may be wrong but that’s the source we have)
> Qatar is the main funder of Hamas regime
Iran is Hamas' main backer. Qatar funded Hamas with Israel's consent, so it's not really fair to hold this against Doha. (Their continuing to host Hamas' leadership is fair to criticise.)
In July 2017, former CIA director David Petraeus revealed that Qatar has hosted the Hamas leadership at the request of US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_terr...
> Petraeus revealed that Qatar has hosted the Hamas leadership at the request of US
Sure. Hence why I qualified my statement with "continuing." Doha hosting Hamas in '17 was fine. Doha hosting them after October 7 is fair to criticise.
Discovering that request surprised me, it strikes me as pragmatic and forward thinking; it also suggests that Qatar is rather keen to accede to US requests. Has that US policy changed now? If so I would have expected Qatar to expel.
> Has that US policy changed now? If so I would have expected Qatar to expel
Yes. Hamas was seen by even Israel as better than anarchy. That's why they let Doha fund them.
We're now seeing American lawmakers criticising Qatar [1]. That's prompting Dohas to "re-evaluat[e] its role as mediator in ceasefire talks" and weigh "whether to allow Hamas to continue operating [its] political office" [2][3].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-says-gaza-ce...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-says-gaza-ce...
[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-considers-fu...
> Hamas was seen by even Israel as better than anarchy.
Better then anarchy or better than peace? There is some people on both sides of this conflict which are happy to see it radicalized and I think those people all benefits from the other being strong on the other side.
Better than anarchy and better Palestinians divided between Hamas and the PA is fair statement. Most Israelis don't believe any Palestinians have an interest in peace (I don't have a survey handy but I'm sure we can find one) and their actions reflect that belief. But if you can make a reasonable argument how defunding Gaza would result in peace then I'd be interesting in hearing it.
All that said, the actions taken by the Israeli right are certainly not helping the possibility of a future peace agreement, but it's not clear whether this specific action belongs in that group. One might argue that a stronger central authority in Gaza means there is a partner for a future agreement and that if Gaza can transition to be a more peaceful place (and it seemed to be heading in that direction) that would also support a future agreement.
Yes, my (probably somewhat poor) understanding is that Israel actions over the past years tended to favor Hamas and weaken PA. From declarations I read in the press I can imagine how some people are happy that peace doesn't happen so they can justify eradicating the Gaza inconvenience.
I wish I could source this but I was reading rumors earlier this weeks that the US is currently in talks with Doha to expel Hamas leadership.
I can point to a laundry list of atrocities committed by US. Should Qatar refuse to host US?
Qatar is not a western country, there is no reason to expect it to buy into western exceptionalism. This is not to defend Hamas but simply to point out that the western double standard doesn’t reach much beyond Europe.
> Should Qatar refuse to host US?
America is (a) a country and (b) major trading and security partner.
> Qatar is not a western country, there is no reason to expect it to buy into western exceptionalism
We are their security guarantor. It’s why Doha is publicly debating shutting down Hamas’ political office.
India pays a lot of money to Russia for oil, it doesn't make them a belligerent. China also has close ties, but arguably they've refrained from arming Russia.
Are missiles coming out of Qatar? Are they even supplying arms to Hamas, or do they simply fund the civilian portions of the government?
Both India and China produce their own fascistic propaganda supporting Russia. I wouldn't blame the EU for banning the Global Times.
But isn’t that just an argument in favor of censorship?
Yes it is?
Qatar plays both sides. They have friendly relations with Hamas, Houthis and Iran.
AlJazeera is known to be untrustworthy on matters of the middle east. Just as BBC is untrustworthy on matters of UK international politics and the NYT [1] can't be trusted on US foreign policy matters.
AlJazeera, NYT and BBC are weapons of mass propaganda just like Globaltimes or RT. The main (and admittedly stark) difference is how often these weapons are deployed.
[]1 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/may/26/pressandpublis...
Since when is the entire Europe a party in the war on Ukraine?
I didn't say that, and the matter is irrelevant to the status of Russia and Belarus and their media outlets.
We definitely did block or at least make them less available, as I recall prior to the invasion RT was commonly on when walking into a hotel room or in Youtube recommendation lists. Post invasion in US I never see it in any hotels or recommended on Youtube... was it censored or maybe just wildly boycotted, not sure... but seems appropriate as a response to me
RT was outright banned by the EU after they invaded Ukraine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)#Responses – it's also been dropped/banned by most mainstream platforms.
I don't think you can compare Al Jazeera and RT, because one has been a firehose of bullshit that has literally advocates invasion of Ukraine, and the other does not. As far as I know, Al Jazeera is banned purely because they've been critical of current Israeli policy. There are some reasonable criticisms of Al Jazeera and things they could have done better, but that applies to every media outlet on the planet.
You'd might want to watch some arabic al jazeera. While Al Jazeera English pushes s the progressive post-colonialist narrative in the United States, Al Jazeera Arabic gears the Middle East for a war by pushing a Muslim Brotherhood idea of a Sharia state, Salafism and Jihad.
Both have the same aim, just as Qatar Airways sponsor your flights with oil money so you might fly through Qatar, Al Jazeera pays journalists so they can push Qatar's narratives to Western or Arabic audience. This is highly similar to RT in intent.
Looking from Israel standpoint, it's a news outlet that pushes your enemies propaganda arm videos unfiltered and also uses it to radicalize part of your population
Do you have a link to an article in Arabic where they incite violence?
I've spent a while translating various articles on the Al Jazeera Arabic site from Arabic to English with mistral-7b. Everything seemed to be very fact based, and was emphasising things like civilian deaths, which aligns to what I'd consider public interest.
The Arabic text does consistently use the term شهيد (martyr) to describe Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza, which is the closest thing to biased language I found across multiple articles about Israel and Palestine - but I think that is normal in Arabic for describing even non-combatant casualties and not necessarily reflective of bias given Arabic conventions.
> https://www.memri.org/reports/al-jazeera-arabic-qatari-owned...
This is obviously a source with a considerable bias, but they link to many concerning examples of Al Jazeera reporting. I personally don’t speak Arabic but anecdotally I’ve heard that the translations are accurate, the bias is manifest in choosing what to translate. This example was especially concerning, exacerbating civilian deaths:
> Al-Jazeera Fabricates Information Designed To Thwart Israel's Instructions To The Gaza Population
>Al-Jazeera broadcast footage of bodies of civilians strewn over a road, presenting them as victims of an Israeli attack against people who had abided by the IDF instructions to evacuate to southern Gaza.[91] Israel in fact had secured safe passage to the south for those civilians who wished to go there, while Hamas exerted pressure on them to remain put in order to use civilians as human shields.[92]
It's normalized enough that even the notoriously secular SDF in Syria uses that term for their own fighters, and not just in Arabic publications, but also in Kurdish ones.
I don't speak Arabic so I can't really judge that; I'm sure there's tons of stuff I'd find distasteful, but being distasteful or even inflammatory (within some limits of reason) should not be outlawed. All I can do is go by articles such as this, which don't really seem to cite the same "firehose of bullshit"-type stuff.
Also note that the Israeli government spends tons of money to push Israeli narratives and viewpoints. That's fine, they're allowed to do that, but we can leverage the same "highly similar to RT in intent" accusations against them. In the end we should judge actions, not intent.
In most of the world outside of the United States, there are laws that relate to the concept of a "defensive democracy". For example the laws that outlaw display of swastikas in Germany are contradictory with freedom of speech but are aimed at denying a democracy being exploited by extreme groups (see ww2).
The discussion here is about the actions of Israel versus Al Jazeera, not a possibility of banning Al Jazeera in the United States or maybe Israeli viewpoints.
Also, I am pretty sure Israeli spendings to push Israeli narratives in the US are minuscule, especially compared to Qatar's.
> I am pretty sure Israeli spendings to push Israeli narratives in the US are minuscule
Quite the contrary, just look at ADL or AIPAC.
only these are not financed by the israeli government
AIPAC’s predecessor was a direct lobbying arm that was in fact deemed to be directly financed/registered foreign agent
Sure, they just happen to align 100% with Israeli interests by pure coincidence.
Are American citizens allowed to have opinions that are similar to the opinions of the state of Israel?
It seems you think Israel has direct finance or control interest in AIPAC, do you have something to support that?
American citizens are, of course, allowed to have such opinions, but we're not talking about a few citizens here - we're talking about what's considered one of the most influential political lobbyist organizations in US.
AIPAC is nominally funded by "individual donations", but the problem with that it is fairly trivial for a nation-state to fund things in this manner, so it doesn't really tell us anything. And then, of course, there's the question of personal connections: if you have a private person donating huge amounts of money to AIPAC, and they just happen to be heavily involved with the governing political party in Israel, I would consider them an agent of the state of Israel ipso facto even if they don't have such official position (just as I would consider, say, one of Putin's pet oligarchs a Russian agent if they donate money to an American political campaign in their private capacity).
It is not my impression that Al Jazeera can reasonably be compared to Nazi Germany, but okay...
I was not comparing them, and I think this is dishonest to read my comment that way. I was giving an example of the way democracies around the world restrict free speech in order to defend other rights
This is quite popular in europe and is a result of lesson learned from the nazis
This entire thread started with me saying pretty much the same thing, and using Nazi Germany as an example absolutely implies some form of comparison, especially in a discussion about what specifically Al Jazeera may or may not have done wrong. You can't demand careful language usage from others (in e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40090402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40088873) and at the same time carelessly throw around stuff yourself.
Well, you can. You're allowed. But at that point I decide to stop engaging. So good day to you.
To clarify your post:
“because one has been a firehose of bullshit that has literally advocates invasion of Ukraine”
How is that different from CNN/BBC/whatever advocating NATO/US invasions in the last half century? (Serbia, Iraq2, Libya, etc). And more recently Gaza.
They didn't; there was tons of criticism about that, including on the beeb and CNN and everywhere else. You're confusing debate with propaganda. There were enormous protests against the Iraq war in London and other places. Try that in Russia. Never mind Serbia was busy with its own ethnic cleansing campaigns and maybe taking some action about that wasn't entirely a bad thing...
I think there is a huge difference between the government blocking access to a media outlet versus hotels choosing to no longer display said media outlet on their televisions.
AFAIK, there has been no ban. It would probably face some backlash given the First Amendment right to freedom of press. (Though I'm not sure that truly extends to the press of a foreign country?)
This is a government ban. It is not at all comparable to your perception that private businesses are playing less Russia origin media.
>The EU has banned many Russian and Belarussian news sources since the invasion of Ukraine.
I read Clark's Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia (<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RI9PMM/>) right after hearing about YouTube shutting down Russian state media channels. I was surprised to learn in the book of the extent of the freedom of the press in late 18th-century Prussia. A British visitor wrote that people were as free to speak as back home, citing a work that was very critical of the king in the context of Poland. During the Napoleonic wars, despite the existential threat to Prussia from France, at least four newspapers that celebrated Revolutionary France as the next step in human freedom were allowed to publish.
It's always preferable to counter propaganda with free speech. Even liars deserve the opportunity to speak. This is especially true when there is no formally declared war between US/Europe outside Ukraine and Russia.
> The EU has banned many Russian and Belarussian news sources since the invasion of Ukraine.
Yes it did. And that was a dark day for Europe.
Yes, and I'd say that was a dark day for the EU as well. Our democracies are now little more than a farce.
There's nothing undemocratic about banning foreign propaganda or news outlets.
Illiberal maybe, but not undemocratic.
Freedom of the press is typically considered one of the tenets of a democracy. The vote becomes meaningless if voters cannot be informed, which includes having access to all possible points of view.
Again, liberalism.
If a supermajority opposes free press, it would be undemocratic to force it upon them.
Sure there is. What hope do citizens have in exercising the right to vote if their leaders control what they can and cannot read and hear?
If the leaders do so based on majority opinion, that is democratic.
Too many people - usually Americans - confuse liberal democracy with democracy.
Liberal democracy is a phrase for a reason - and the liberal comes first for a reason!
If the leaders install autocracy based on majority opinion is that democratic? Because you're essentially describing the government of Iran at that point, led by a Supreme Leader who cannot be voted out, e.g. a very undemocratic system.
Just because people vote for something doesn't make the thing they voted for democratic. Historically people have voted to install a non-democratic government before.
Yes, democracy can vote to end itself and replace itself with autocracy.
If not, it's not democracy! You're deciding to overrule the demos and enforce your minority opinion!
I know it seems like pedantry but we shouldn't confuse liberalism with democracy.
But the resulting autocracy is not democratic. People voting is democratic but what they vote for may not be
They’ve always been a farce.
They have always had deep flaws. Under an uncharitable interpretation you could say that they've always been a farce, I won't argue because it's a perfectly valid standpoint if you're demanding or perfectionistic enough. Under a charitable interpretation you could say that perfect democracy is an utopia, the perfect is enemy of the good, and at least many Western democracies tried, and achieved reasonably good levels of freedom and choice by the people.
Whatever the interpretation, I think it's clear that things are degrading fast in the last few decades. I don't think an EU-wide block on Russian media such as RT wouldn't have passed with such indifference 20 years ago.
That's the most worrying to me: not the measure itself, but the indifference from the general population. In fact, I have another comment in this thread saying that block was abhorrent and it's gathering downvotes... In HN, a community where most are well-educated people from the US, a country that has arguably been the staunchest defender of freedom of expression and of the press. I find that worrying. And then there is cancel culture, and other factors, that have eroded effective freedom of speech.
At this rate, in a few more decades Western democracies will be hard to tell in practice from Chinese authoritarianism, which is worrying, because they have better economic projection, more safety, booming infrastructure, a less aggressive foreign policy... Democracy and freedom is basically what makes the West worth it, if we lose it, what's even the point?
Al-Jazeera propaganda/free press sites are also available in Israel
Censorship occurs on most of the major platforms, targeting specific topics or phrases, instead of outright banning channels; arguably to be as discrete as possible and not spook the herd, and where Twitter-X is going to allow the most information to flow - arguable more lies, but arguably also more truth.
Propaganda is a tool of war.
Yeah well the EU isn't exactly a bastion of freedom. There is not freedom of speech there.
Clearly, law based on US definitions of terms is the only way to be free.
Not at all, but there are certainly matters on which US is on the freer part of the spectrum, and freedom of speech in particular is definitely one.
> The EU has banned many Russian news sources
rt.com, enter… loads instantaneously.
sputnikglobe.com, enter… loads instantaneously.
Please don’t lie.
Edit: it was not a lie, my apologies.
One of the most ineffectual bans I have ever seen.
Maybe not for whole EU, but I read it was banned in France, and I can confirm I cannot reach it now (from France).
I did some further research and technically the EU has banned them, but only from being broadcasted and they are supposed to be DNS-blocked but failing to do so is without legal consequences.
To me this is more a discouragement of promotion than any real ban, but I will edit my previous comment.
It seems in some EU countries you can still reach RT or BY.
Try one of these (none accessible to me in Sweden):
* https://sputnikglobe.com
* https://sputnik.by
* https://rt.com/
My wife is Belarussian and was upset she couldn't read her news, that's how I know they banned many websites. They didn't ban the "opposition" websites run from outside Russia/Belarus though :).
Al three work fine for me (also in Sweden). Perhaps different ISPs are dealing with this differently.
That's scary. Perhaps they only block if you try to access the sites regularly?? I wouldn't think my ISP matters (Telia, which one you're on?) but that's possible too.
Did some more tests and seems to be Telia doing the blocking at the ISP level. When I'm connected to the eduroam wifi network (I'm at a university) then I can get to all those sites. When I turn off wifi and use mobile data, via Telia, then they are blocked. If I use mobile data plus a VPN with the location set to Sweden, I can access the sites again. I have Tele2 as my ISP at home, will be interesting to see if that works or not.
I agree this is not good for Israel. A democracy is partly measured by its ability to tolerate voices it does not approve of. Israel should be stronger than this. I agree that using national security as an excuse is a slippery slope.
This is mostly a symbolic move that will make very little difference. Likely it will push Al Jazeera to be more anti-Israeli but I'm sure they can make up (pun intended) for their lack of physical presence in the region. People that want to consume that content in Israel will have no problem (many already get this via satellite).
A by the way is that this can still be challenged in the courts. If Al Jazeera chooses to go to the supreme court I imagine there's a pretty good chance that the decision will get overturned. They might intentionally decide not to do that because that outcome will put Israel in a positive light.
The only justification would be if they are broadcasting government secrets.
Clearly they're not doing that, just criticizing the government.
The obvious next step is outlawing any speech criticizing the government (or rather 'speech that is a threat to national security'), then you've got the same laws as in Russia.
There's plenty of Israeli media attacking the government day in and out. Haaretz, Yedioth, etc.
They were not closed because they're "criticizing the government". They were closed because they're acting on behalf of a foreign agent and spreading propaganda (I think the actual language "is harmed national security"). Qatar is not a free country, it funds Al-Jazeera, it hosts the Hamas leadership.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/al-jazeera/
"Mixed for factual reporting due to failed fact checks that were not corrected and misleading extreme editorial bias that favors Qatar."
Israel is also responsible for 3/4 of all journalist deaths in the last year.
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I know that people in general seems to react strongly negative to government censorship, but I can not avoid seeing it through the light of recent trends of post-truth online censorships that blasted the internet during the last decade. Popularity of censorship is something that seems to go in wave, and outside the US there seems to be more acceptance to government censorship as comparative to platform censorship. In smaller countries the distinction becomes a bit blurry if it is the government doing the censorship, or the ISP's doing it voluntarily, or the dominant market platform making the same decision.
In my own industry I commonly hear people talk about self regulation in order to keep governments from interfering. This has benefits, but it also makes the action of the industry a dialog between government and private sector. Voluntarily removing undesired content is technically not censorship ordered by the government, but it is also not completely separated from the wishes of the government.
Honestly, I kind of think censorship would be a positive thing when applied to people lacking education. Where to draw the line is the issue, but at the least maybe people who didn't finish highschool or get a GED or equivalent shouldn't be exposed to conspiracy theories that they then act on.
Education doesn't make for a good cutoff.
> We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners. We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering.
> In the four attacks for which the most complete information about the perpetrators' educational levels is available -- the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the 9/11 attacks, and the Bali bombings in 2002 -- 53 percent of the terrorists had either attended college or had received a college degree.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/14/opinion/the-madrassa-myth...]
There is more to education than college education.
What a dystopian idea. I understand the reasoning but that is an extremely slippery slope for the rich to control the poor
It's more about the educated controlling the dangerously ignorant.
It's quite usual to ban the enemy from inciting dissidence from your own population during a war.
Yes, propaganda is acceptable during a war, and censorship is a part of that. But Europe is not at war with Russia. They are simply giving material support to one of the belligerents. Outside the context of a declared war, censorship should not happen in so-called democratic societies.
That's quite a blunt viewpoint. Is it possible the situation is more nuanced?
To resort to official declarations of war or lack thereof, to hamstring the US response to widespread dissemination of Russian propaganda is plausible on the face of it.
But consider: the US is under no obligation to facilitate Russian propagandists. To deny them access is a matter for the State Department, as it's dealing with foreign nationals. It's quite routine to deny rights to non-American citizens.
Finally, a declaration of war with Russia could destabilize politics everywhere. Or even, destroy the world. It's disingenuous to ignore that and quibble over the rules, especially since those rules clearly don't apply to foreign governments trying to operate in the US.
Russia is already at war with Europe, sadly Europe doesn’t seem to acknowledge that yet.
TikTok agrees.
> But Europe is not at war with Russia.
Not yet, they're not.
In times of war the law falls silent, as they say.
> As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.
One of the genuine cultural differences between the US and Israel is that while Americans prefer greater liberty (even if it means less security), Israelis prefer greater security (even if it means less liberty). Which is to say, both cultures appreciate both values, but they have different priorities.
Israel is a country where you will have your bags searched before entering shopping malls or train stations. That Israelis' privacy is violated on a daily basis by other Israelis is popular. There is a sense that the privacy violations are genuinely needed, result in genuine protection, and are not abused by those in power.
I should note that "there is a sense that the privacy violations are genuinely needed, result in genuine protection, and are not abused by those in power" also describes modern Russia, for example.
I think there are limits - when it's a state-run agency that's peddling straight propaganda and not making an effort to produce news content, I don't see why you would let them operate within your borders: looking at you RT.
I think it's neither surprising nor necessarily bad. Just think of how Russia Today was spreading disinformation and propaganda about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Banning them from the EU was certainly in our interest.
> Banning them from the EU was certainly in our interest.
but you had no say in the matter; so if a future ban is not in your interest, what will you do?
no, the government should not stifle the market of ideas. that is not in our interest in the long run.
> the government should not stifle the market of ideas
America is uniquely individualistic, our First Amendment uniquely strong. I believe in it. But it's not clear it's the only optimum.
"Banning them from the EU was certainly in our interest."
It is not in my interest, to become more like authorian russia for the sake of fighting them.
Exactly. It’s undemocratic. It’s also unwise strategically.
I know the whole radical free speech theory where everyone should be able to see all discourses and make their own informed opinion. The thing is, the facts are that propaganda and fake news are super effective. Probably a failure of western democracies to develop critical sense of their citizens, or the lake of preparation to the quick rise of social networks. And now far right are rising in Europe too, of course driven - in part - by Russian propaganda and fake news (and funding too).
So I'm not sure what is the good solution now. I'd be happy if there were more money to fund school and lessons for children to understand how those fake news work. But this is long term. Short term I think I'm okay if we don't have RT in France.
"Short term I think I'm okay if we don't have RT in France."
You do. On the internet. An increasing amount of people are getting their (fake) news now exclusivly online via "alternative" news sources like RT. Banning one of those sources on television will just mean further entrenching of those people. ("see, they don't want the truth to spread" ...)
" I'd be happy if there were more money to fund school and lessons for children to understand how those fake news work."
And aside to lots and lots of crap in the curriculum, there would be enough school time avaiable to teach more of criticial information analysis and media skills. But partial banning of one source seems like the more comfortable solution. Except that this might really hurt us in the long run, if the next source that will be banned, won't be enemy propaganda source, but just a legitimate critical newspaper for example. But secret service will say the enemy funded and influenced them, so off they go.
Some people sees TV as a more serious or reliable source of information than internet, so I think it's fair to avoid having the official propaganda of an hostile country there.
Of course there is always a risk of censorship of real information. As citizens we must be vigilant to what is banned. And our reaction as citizens should absolutely be different depending of wether the ban targets RT or Le Monde (for example).
RT France was still available online after the broadcast ban, but it was forced to move out of France in 2023 after the French government froze its bank accounts. From what I've read, the rt website is also unavailable in France without using a VPN with a proxy outside of the France and a number of other EU countries.
DNS over HTTPS also works.
> The thing is, the facts are that propaganda and fake news are super effective. Probably a failure of western democracies to develop critical sense of their citizens,
Something about thermodynamics. Random noise is free. Exposing lies and ascertaining the truth requires structure, observation, flexibility, organization, introspection, correlation, adaptation— a lot of things that take a lot of effort in multiple different ways, that is physically and socially both difficult/expensive and fragile/vulnerable.
Propaganda and fake news are not really different from a sleazy salesman, or an abusive relationship. In the time it takes you to fly a journalist to the scene, speak with and hear the experiences of people on the ground, find patterns and write accurate, digestable descriptions and cite precedents, consult with experts, then with dissenters— So on— In the time it takes you to move just one single step closer to the truth, for an answer that still leaves complex questions and won't satisfy anybody, the liar will already have invented a thousand completely new ways to lie (as well as a couple hundred reasons why you must be the lying one, for disputing them, of course). …Or hired some guy to drive a meat cleaver in your back…
Plus, lies are often directly predatory towards some of the best parts of ourselves too… The desire to trust, and assume good faith, about what other people tell you…
> or the lake of preparation to the quick rise of social networks.
Our mental and social faculties for ascertaining and communicating realities are ultimately encoded in physical structures which tend towards chaos and collapse.
…I suppose it is to be expected that vastly increasing the rate at which information can be "generated" and transmitted would cause the equilibrium to be dominated by r-strategists. ..Ah, fuck.
If we had to ban every media that has said a half truth, we'd have no media at all.
It wasn't in the interest of freedom. Everyone reading it would know it was the russian spin. But now we are not allowed to know what the russians think. After all thinking of them as humans like us is not something we want right?
It's disinformation according to the Government though, which is the same thing happening here with Israel, isn't it?
Do you believe Al Jazeera is spreading misinformation? Even if Israel says so? Even if the USA starts saying so as well?
I don't know where we can draw a line here.
We can draw the line when they report proven false information and never apologize for reporting so.
We can draw the line when they say one thing on English Al Jazeera and another on Arabic Al Jazeera.
We can draw the line when their reporters were (since then eliminated) active member of Hamas rocket teams.
Can you back up the implied claims with some references?
1. https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/10/17/photos-an-israe..., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyNLvL_8SeY this was proven false by many sources other than Israel
2. You can just google Al Jazeera Arabic anti Israel propaganda and you will find more content to read and watch than you can do in your life time
3. https://www.timesofisrael.com/wounded-al-jazeera-reporter-in... https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/israel-accuses-al-jazeera-jo...
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Not parent, but:
1. False report about IDF rape https://www.timesofisrael.com/al-jazeera-report-alleging-idf...
2. Arabic vs English Al Jazeera, conflicting messages
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/gulf/2017/10/01/Al-Jazeer...
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/aljazeer...
3. Al Jazeera reporters doubling as Hamas members
https://www.timesofisrael.com/wounded-al-jazeera-reporter-in...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/al-jazeera-journalist-is-also-...
https://twitter.com/AvichayAdraee/status/1756728159158812921
Times of Israel is the media of a different belligerent in this conflict, why on earth should I trust them to debunk AJ anymore than I should trust AJ to truthfully report on Israel?
The difference is that Times of Israel is privately owned, while Al Jazeera is operated by an authoritarian government. also the information I posted can be found in other places. However, if you think a government that promotes modern slavery is probably a good source for journalism, that's your choice to make.
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about which part? The IDF rape claim was later denied by the same woman claiming it happened as well as an Al Jazeera journalist. https://twitter.com/abuhilalah/status/1771996521312973088
However, Al Jazeera never corrected the story, just took it down, which is just as OP reported: "We can draw the line when they report proven false information and never apologize for reporting so."
Al Jazeera is biased. Source: my biased side.
> We can draw the line when they say one thing on English Al Jazeera and another on Arabic Al Jazeera.
The vast majority of media companies that own media in different languages are on Al Jazeera's side of the line then, including most companies that have social media channels in different languages.
It's possible to make a fair judgement about what a government is doing, and in many places people trust their government and accept their actions.
But it's notable that the Israeli government refuses to submit itself to an election, especially in the face of widespread popular demands.
> I’m not sure about “dark day for the media” but it does feel like a dark day for Israel.
I would never expect any theocracy to be a bastion of democracy. Israel can't really realize its goals and be free at the same time. Those goals are not compatible.
The age old question, "Who will watch the watchmen?"
Lets not forget that the British Govt banned Russia Today from broadcasting in the UK a few years back. Such is their planning and manipulation of events on the global stage!
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/mar/18/will-ofcoms-de...
Notice a pattern with the British Govt? They get their "independent" depts and businesses to do their dirty work for deniability!
Russian government literally assassinated or tried to assassinate several people in British territory. That the Russian government's propaganda arm hadn't been given the boot after these spectacular acts of bad faith demonstrates that the UK government perhaps has slightly more dedication to press freedom than you're suggesting.
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Indeed, up until 2014 the BBC World Service was literally funded by the Foreign Office.
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The opinion of Israel’s majority about the government would usually be measured by elections, not social media.
From what i understand, most polls in Israel suggest that if an election happened right now, the current government would lose.
You can't know to what extent a government will behave, and people will have different limitations and tolerances.
It's why referendums exist - however the more authoritarian a government becomes, the less they want the population voting specifically on issues to maintain more control over policy (and the population), e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Canada
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Then let me go on record as saying that I fully support my government and my army's efforts to return the remaining hostages even in the face of double-standard world efforts to legitimize the genocidal, racist, homophobic, and misogynistic Hamas regime.
Can you also go on the record to say what do you think the % odds are that the IDF killed Hamas' hostages (your own fellow citizens) when bombarding Gaza - which they continue to do - which arguably further increases the odds of killing more hostages?
Logically the odds of the hostages being alive would be higher if this wasn't the tactic the IDF decided to use, right?
If I was in command of a military then the hostages would come first, and I would send in soldiers who signed up to potentially give their lives - to exchange soldiers lives for civilians, if need be.
> in the face of double-standard world efforts to legitimize the genocidal, racist, homophobic, and misogynistic Hamas regime.
I ask this question very genuinely: what world efforts are seeking to legitimize Hamas? I have seen a great many pro-Palestinian perspectives but have not seen anything pro-Hamas beyond fringe kooks.
As for double standard… I think the reason you see the double standard is precisely because the comparison is racist, homophonic, misogynistic, etc. Israel is held to a higher standard than neighbouring countries because it’s a liberal democracy as opposed to a theocratic dictatorship. I (as an outsider of course) would think it a great loss for the world if Israel starts to consider Iran to be the bar they have to clear rather than anything higher.
> what world efforts are seeking to legitimize Hamas?
No real efforts. But a surprising number of young people don't believe Israel has a right to exist.
In my experience, most invocations of Israel's right to exist are not functionally asking people to extend some generally accepted principle to Israel, but rather demanding that they accept Israel's existence as axiomatic. My response is usually something along the lines of "I'm not sure any state has a right to exist, or that it's even a meaningful concept to apply to political entities rather than people".
That's often not productive in terms of continuing the conversation, but I'm not trying to be clever or evasive; I genuinely don't understand why I should accept the premise of the question.
> response is usually something along the lines of "I'm not sure any state has a right to exist, or that it's even a meaningful concept to apply to political entities rather than people"
It generally means do they have the rights of a nation-state. That said, I agree it’s a new way of framing the one-state solution.
> people don't believe Israel has a right to exist.
Israel was created in 1948. If that didn't happen and Israel didn't exist today, imagine how different things would be today for better or worse.
Maybe the people you're talking about believe it would have been better. Is that such a radical belief?
It gets more interesting if you start to get exposed to enlightening questions to begin critically thinking through:
- Why wasn't Germany divided into half - 50/50 - or even 55% given to the Jewish people [and force the Germans off of their lands that they were on for - whether they were Gestapo and toeing the line as vicious or blind citizens during NaZi Germany] - which would seem to be a fair-reasonable punishment for Germany's authoritarians' behaviour? How fair is that to do to a population who's society was trying to genocide you vs. doing that to a population that had no part in trying to genocide you?
- Why didn't America - where the Israel lobby is arguably the strongest legal influence on the political system, politicians and policy - instead give a large amount of land to the Jewish people in America instead of Balfour Declaration somehow allowing Britain to "give it away"?
Also, there's an unmentioned sentiment usually attached to to the phrase of "Israel doesn't have a right to exist" that it's somehow akin to "Jews don't have a right to exist."
I think that feeling or belief is planted by propaganda has purposefully conflated - along with Israel state equals Judaism [just because they arguably misappropriated the Star of David for their state flag; one of multiple tactics for the what I argue is full of wolves in sheep's clothing].
Re: Hamas' Charter
Other foundational propaganda that's propagated deep and wide, and even those who are very well-informed - possibly because in reality it's a moot point, as Hamas-like organizations are inevitable to form from within an occupied-suppressed and segregated state of existence:
- The claim that in the Hamas Charter it says their goal is to "obliterate all Jews globally" stems from an arguable purposeful mistranslation, where instead it appears to be propaganda to demonize Hamas and Palestinians via guilt by association campaigns, where the proper translation says their goal is to "invalidate" any UNJUST behaviour - written within the context of speaking of just vs. unjust behaviour - which means any just behaviour, e.g. non-violence, truth, etc. is fine and won't be targeted by them; from my understanding that means actual practicing Jews wouldn't fall into this category but the specific behaviours of the specific heads of state driving towards genocide,is party to unjust behaviour, will be held to account and have their actions "invalidated" based on their Charter. Source: https://jstor.org/stable/26331116
Conclusions,
I think it's critical people begin to be asked into thought exercises to understand just how isolated in algorithmic bubbles we all are - unless we're conscious of that and not prone to confirmation bias - to understand how people could be so deeply and firmly indoctrinated into one set of beliefs, where one side is completely delusional as to the truth and reality; they know only a shallow and misleading version of the truth, but not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - so help us God.
The incongruences are glaring as the relatively unsophisticated politicians [useful fools] et al stumble their way through, placed there are useful puppets - and why the bad actors ultimately need full control over speech and communications, or else a critical mass forms against them - and those blindly toeing the line for them in various institutions waken at exponential pace: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5y-lc7RtcE/
Let us not forget: Julian Assange has been being essentially tortured in prison without being convicted of anything - because he published leaks from a violent-authoritarian regime's security apparatus, exposing illegal actions by bad actors - and instead of the bad actors who have currently captured our systems going through justice process - Assange is suppressed as an example - https://www.instagram.com/p/C5X_KC2twid/
Former head of IDF intelligence agency: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5pI0nLBxR3/
The truth is out there.
It now must be compiled and accessible in a way that is gentle enough to breakthrough and onboard the ideologues believing the nearly century of propaganda; this will also arguably take a cultural shift towards healing and developing self-awareness, the cognitive dissonance of logic working towards realizing must be fierce and will harden people in place to avoid the torment they were blindly supporting, so learning how to forgive oneself is perhaps the first fundamental lesson most ideologues need to learn - we all make mistakes, we all can be mislead until we learn better; "forgive them father for they know not what they do."
Yeah, also reminds me of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "Wiped off the map" controversy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel...
First time hearing of that - thanks for sharing.
There's an obvious pattern of behaviour of producing propaganda with sleight of hand to misdirect attention to who's likely actually pulling the strings for such scenarios.
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> Then let me go on record as saying that I fully support my government and my army's efforts to return the remaining hostages [...]
This is a common talking point that makes no sense when you think about it. Could you please explain how you envision the hostage release to be achieved through bombing and systematic destruction of the area that they are held in? It sounds much more likely to kill them instead. Why not simply negotiate a hostage exchange? Do you expect that if Hamas was about to be completely wiped out, that they would not simply kill all the hostages that were still alive up to that point?
> Could you please explain how you envision the hostage release to be achieved through bombing and systematic destruction of the area that they are held in? It sounds much more likely to kill them instead. Why not simply negotiate a hostage exchange?
That presumes that there is something hamas wants that is viable for israel to give them. Its far from obvious that is the case in this conflict.
Its not like "carrot and stick" negotiating tactics are unique to this conflict.
> That presumes that there is something hamas wants that is viable for israel to give them. Its far from obvious that is the case in this conflict.
If that’s true (and I agree that it may well be) then surely Israel’s army’s efforts can’t be in aid of hostage release, because it’s an entirely unattainable goal?
I think that’s what the OP is getting at. The tactics we see don’t seem like they’d be effective ways to rescue hostages. Nor does it feel all that viable to persuade Hamas to release the hostages. So what are the current tactics in aid of?
There are two ways it could in theory be in aid of that goal:
- putting pressure - even if there is nothing now to negotiate with, military action could reduce hamas's negotiating position and in principle cause them to sue for peace. I'm a bit doubtful in this conflict, but traditionally this how war works. If your enemy refuses to surrender, you take their land until either they surrender or they have no more land. For example in world war 1, there was still a lot of deaths right up until the armistice even though people knew fighting was going to stop soon, because the sides thought the more land we have now, the better our position will be during the peace negotiations.
- second, Israeli army could find where the hostages are and take them back by force. Also pretty hard, but if negotiations are unattainable its not surprising they would go here as the only other option.
Most wars happen to obtain goals that are unattainable by peaceful negotiation. I don't think this conflict is any different in that regard than any other.
> Why not simply negotiate a hostage exchange?
Because there are two war aims: hostage release and the removal of Hamas.
> Do you expect that if Hamas was about to be completely wiped out, that they would not simply kill all the hostages that were still alive up to that point?
No, for the same reason countries don't kill all their prisoners of war right before surrendering. You still need to negotiate the terms of the peace.
Why do you think that not creating more Hamas isn't also an aim?
There's a distinction to draw between creating more militant opposition to Israel's occupation and creating more Hamas. A category error I think a lot of people make when discussing this is to presume Hamas is a normal representation of armed resistance. At least since 2017, and arguably before, it has been a deeply abnormal armed resistance movement.
You might have reasons to believe that Israel's persecution of Hamas is going to generate a new generation of Hamas, but reasonable people might disagree and say that to the extent Israel is creating new militants, they're likely to look more like Fatah's armed wing than Hamas.
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I've recently visited my parents in europe. I have no affiliations with Israel or Jews. My parents watched a local Al-Jazeera channel in their mother tongue since Qatar seems to strategically deploy satellite offices of Al-Jazeera in different countries, even european. Boy was i shocked at the level of propaganda from this channel. Basically all day in big letters "genocide in gaza" with anti-jewish paroles. I can understand why Israel decides to close down such a channel.
Many people would say “genocide in gaza” is exactly what the television should be saying.
its not a genocide by any definition.
You can think what you want but to act like this is undisputed is a bit silly.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/26/israel-not-complying-wor...
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> its a deliberate attempt to dehumanize jews. there is no systematic erasure of a culture or ethnicity
Israel is being investigated by the ICJ. Calling its war genocide is premature. But rejecting the claim outright is unfounded as well.
The ICJ is currently investigating a genocide case against Israel. So I guess we’ll find out… eventually.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/01/south-africas-genocide-...
"The ICJ had to decide [...] Whether the underlying case was at least plausible"
This is false and shows a misunderstanding. Choose better information sources.
ICJ only decided whether it is plausible to allow South Africa to continue with this process on behalf of Gaza. It has nothing to do with the court's opinion on the plausibility of the -underlying- case but on the questioned legality of the process itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq9MB9t7WlI
“It will be several years before the court in The Hague will hand down its verdict, but we must not look at the catastrophic situation purely through legal lenses,” said Goldberg. “What is happening in Gaza is genocide because the level and pace of indiscriminate killing, destruction, mass expulsions, displacement, famine, executions, the wiping out of cultural and religious institutions, the crushing of elites (including the killing of journalists), and the sweeping dehumanization of the Palestinians — create an overall picture of genocide, of a deliberate conscious crushing of Palestinian existence in Gaza.”[1]
[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240430-yes-it-is-genocid...
I would not agree.
"In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly."
I would not agree this constitutes genocide. Israel withdrew from Gaza not too long ago. If the attacks hadn't happened, there would be a "ceasefire" today. It is completely contrary to what Israel tries to do, the accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis and judgement.
There is already a court ruling that "at least some of the acts alleged by South Africa appear to fall under the provisions of the Genocide Convention."
Additionally "On 28 March 2024, following a second request for additional measures, the ICJ ordered new emergency measures, given the deterioration in the situation since the initial ruling: ordering Israel to ensure basic food supplies, without delay, as Gazans face famine and starvation"
This is from the Wikipedia. Have you been living under a rock?
Israel is actively blocking delivery of food to the civilian population and has already in one case caused a massacre of people trying to get their hands on basic supplies. At the same time, a minister in the government is publicly calling for occupying Gaza and "motivating" civilians to "voluntarily" leave.
If after reading all this your sincere analysis is move along nothing to see here, I would advise you to recheck the word sincere in the dictionary.
Shame!
This is simply false: in their own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq9MB9t7WlI
The court ruled that South Africa had plausible standing to bring a case defending Gazans, not that there was plausible genocide. Bringing wikipedia as a source about a very hot topic doesn't lend any support to your argument.
It's not false at all and says the same thing. Again the quote: at least some of the acts alleged by South Africa appear to fall under the provisions of the Genocide Convention.
My post was made in reply to the claim that the genocide "accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis"
Obviously not the case - South Africa made the exact claim and the court decided that the acts alleged fall under the provisions of the genocide convention. So the only ridiculous thing void of sincere analysis is claiming there is nothing to discuss.
If you actually listened to what she said you'd know that's not at all what was decided, all they decided was that SA has plausible standing to bring a case. Not that the case itself has any standing. That was left for a future decision.
Exactly, and if you had read what I wrote (one time explicitly) it's a reply to the claim that the "accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis".
Her words, direct quote: it did emphasize in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right of being protected from genocide. Or do you think that genocide is a ridiculous accusation but the risk of harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide has merit? Because that would be laughable -- what is the consequence of losing your right to the protection of genocide if not genocide itself? So the case has merit and it's very far away from lacking serious analysis. Quite the opposite.
She was very explicit in her words, there's no need to read into them, she meant exactly what she said.
She very clearly stated, they didn't find or make any ruling on the plausibility of genocide, just that it was plausible that they might not be able to be protected in a case where a genocide were to happen.
They couldn't honestly claim there was any merit to the claim of genocide, but people were screaming for blood so they did this doublespeak thing where if you squint you can claim they 100% claim genocide is happening to mollify the anti-semites while not actually saying anything.
Essentially, she said, "we haven't found a genocide, but were a genocide to be attempted, it would be difficult to prevent" which is true in every single case of war, especially asymmetric warfare, where one side is much stronger than the other.
If someone were to bring a case against the US back in 2004 following the invasion of Iraq a similar finding would be totally within reason... but does anyone claim NATO committed genocide? No, but it's plausible that that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Iraqi right to be protected from genocide.
You say there is no need to interpret her words and then you interpret her words by saying what she "basically" said.
Here is again what she said:
"it did emphasize in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right of being protected from genocide"
What happens if there is harm to your right to be protected from genocide? Someone steals your Nintendo Switch?
So the claim has merit. To say the claim of genocide is "ridiculous" is in itself ridiculous.
I don't interpret them into something else, I explain in simpler words because you appeared to be having trouble understanding.
Lets make an analogy: Right now you have the the right to freedom of speech, if someone would threaten to sew your mouth shut, there is now a plausible risk of harm to your right to free speech. Has your right been taken away yet? No, you are still able to speak freely, but if they were to act on that threat and accomplish their goal now that risk is realized.
It's not a perfect analogy, but so too here, the ICJ ruling didn't state that a genocide is plausibly happening, rather that due to the power imbalance it would be difficult to prevent a genocide from happening, should Israel attempt it.
Not according to the judge you linked. She says the court emphasized that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right of being protected from genocide.
You wrote a lot but for someone so adept in understanding others, you have failed multiple times to answer a very simple question, so I will ask it once again:
What happens if there is harm to your right to be protected from genocide?
Again, we're talking about the risk of harm... so we're another order of magnitude removed.
To rephrase your question with that in mind: What happens if there is an increased risk of harm to your right to be protected from genocide?
My answer: Sounds like you've found yourself in a dangerous situation. You might be in a war zone perhaps...
But again, that doesn't mean you're being "genocided" rather it means there is increased possibility of genocide. Which as I've stated multiple times, is true whenever there is a conflict, and that risk increases with the scale of the conflict, but just because the risk increases it doesn't mean that the genocide is actually happening.
Now I'd like to ask you a question or two:
What happens if there is harm to your right to free speech?
What happens if there is harm to your right to assembly? Does it mean you can't assemble at all? or rather someone is worried that maybe your right to assemble is being removed?
What happens if there is harm to your ability to sit down? Are you unable to sit down? Or maybe just it will be more difficult.
In this case the ICJ is saying "everyone has a right to be protected from genocide, and it's possible that if Israel isn't careful they may find themselves committing such an atrocity against the gazan population" No where does she say such a atrocity is being carried out, in fact she's very clear in her next sentence to say such an interpretation of her words and the court's findings is totally invalid. You can attempt to insert such meaning into her words but she's very careful to clearly state such an attempt is false and misleading.
So there is risk of harm, according to the court, and yourself. I think we can agree that it's a valid debate if there is genocide in Gaza and far removed from the original claim that it's "ridiculous".
I will now continue my education on genocide by listening what a Holocaust survivor has to say about it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AxLtxX7kPcU
This feels like you’re intentionally misinterpreting what I’m saying and what the court and the judge said. There’s a risk of harm to the protection. But again that’s always true in war, it’s incredibly naive and disingenuous to claim that this means there is a genocide happening.
Bringing a random YouTube video of someone who was 7 years old when he experienced the war doesn’t do anything for your argument except show that you’re arguing in bad faith. It’s totally irrelevant. Additionally we have many more holocaust survivors who were older saying the exact opposite, so the fact that you have one who decided to capitalize on his nazi experience for his 15 minutes of fame doesn’t really help you.
And finally I’ll add: research Kapos, his word likely means even less. (Kinda like the other famous holocaust survivor who is funding a lot of the college campus protests)
Research Kapos, his word likely means even less
You haven't told us anything about the guy -- other than that he disagrees with you, and therefore must be shady character.
If you're going to smear a Holocaust survivor, you need to at least attempt to provide some form of substantiation up front.
Its fascinating that you're suddenly popping up again to discuss this while not responding to anything else in this thread.
I also don't think I need to do anything, I didn't say he was shady or make any attempt at a smear, I'm just stating that if you look into his actual story you might take his feelings here with a grain or two of salt. Hint: according to his own account, he spent about as much time interacting with genocide and nazis as my own grandparents who also fled and hid during the war did. He's also made a very big name for himself as the "anti-zionist holocaust survivor". The point is that this is one child's opinion, there are many other people, who also survived the war and are ardent zionists who vehemently disagree with him. He's by no means an expert on this topic so I don't understand why he's even being discussed.
I will not engage anymore on him, as it's totally irrelevant to the discussion which was "did the ICJ rule that Israel is committing genocide", the answer, clearly is no. and thus instead we have locallost attempting to save his argument by whatabouting to other topics, like the opinions of others.
Hint: according to his own account, he spent about as much time interacting with genocide and nazis as my own grandparents who also fled and hid during the war did.
That's all you got?
You were clearly attempting to impugn his character and credibility. Defamatory statements against living persons must be backed up with hard evidence. Otherwise it's slander.
In this case, against a Holocaust survivor no less.
You've got this penchant for interpreting what someone is saying instead of just allowing them to speak for themselves. Please refrain from attaching your own biased meaning to something when I deliberately tell you what I meant to say.
Again, I don't see any response to anything substantial I've said, you're now just attempting to defame and question my credibility.
Why don't we get back on topic? According to the ICJ, as of yet, they've made no ruling about the existence of genocide in Gaza or Israel, to make such a claim in their name is false and, at this point, a intentional attempt at spreading misinformation.
But what is the consequence of the harm to protection of genocide? When your protection of genocide gets harmed, did you suffer genocide or was your Nintendo Switch stolen?
Smearing Holocaust survivors just because you disagree with them is poor taste.
Repeating the same question after its already been answered doesn't help you. The fact that you continue to refuse to acknowledge the answer is pretty telling.
I'll answer again for you: the consequence of the harm to your protection of genocide is the possibility of genocide happening... like in every single war. But you didn't suffer a genocide and again, the judge and the ICJ choose their words very carefully (as can see in the video, she is being very deliberate). To answer in terms you will understand: On an individual level, yes, it is more akin to having your nintendo switch stolen vs an actual genocide happening.
That's not only false, but also grotesque. The judge you quoted said "risk of irreparable harm" in relation to genocide not stolen property. I guess this is what happens when people get dehumanized, which also strongly correlates to cases of genocide.
You made the "grotesque" comparison multiple times. If you find it so grotesque you probably shouldn't have said it begin with. Now you're throwing it back at me. As I said before you continue to engage in a disingenuous way.
As always in these conversations nothing of substance was reached, you had no interest in engaging in a curious manner and instead wanted to spread your own disinformation, when you were confronted with the truth you continued to misinterpret reality to your own twisted purpose, once even that failed you have started to attack my character.
I'm done being maligned and attacked, I hope you consider having some empathy for those who have been the subject of an attempted genocide and ethnic cleansing in nearly every single generation for the last 2000 years. Instead of siding with those who would commit another atrocity.
Is that the empathy you showed to a Holocaust survivor because you didn't like his opinion? You don't even know where your holes are.
I thought the comparison would make you stop and think about what you're actually saying. But when Palestinians have been successfully dehumanized then it becomes easy to compare their "risk of harm of genocide" to a simple case of stolen property.
Yes, after killing tens of thousands of women and children in six months, destroying universities and hospitals so it erases all culture and make life impossible, Israel is the real victim here. I have failed to account for how bad they must feel as they commit those atrocities. Maybe someone from the IDF can in 20 years make a movie about how they can't sleep and can't remember their past, let's call it Tango with Ahmed.
Ah yes, the classic, it's ok and correct for me to but when you do it, it's evil. Good stuff buddy. Telling me I don't even know where my holes are while engaging in hypocrisy in the same breath takes real talent.
I would say the victim is the one who didn't start the war, who just wants their civilians back, who has shown enormous restraint compared to literally every other army in the world, who would be happy to end the war today if those who started it surrendered, who has attempted to make peace at every turn and who even while they're being bomb are bringing in aid for the very people who are trying to kill them.
I wouldn't call the victims the one's who cheered and desecrated bodies at the start of the war, who continue to support the war no matter the cost to their own families, who could have easily ended the war by simply returning the hostages that they are keeping in their own homes. Victims aren't those who have their children put on plays where they simulate capturing and killing jewish kids. A victim isn't someone who when warned about an impending bomb responds by saying "kill me and all my children". A victim isn't someone who actively and happily participates in and perpetuates a society that kills minorities.
I will also point out that you continue to lead off topic ever since I’ve shown you that you were wrong to claim the ICJ has ruled that a genocide was being committed. In fact your only argument is to make (in your own words) grotesque comparisons in someone machiavellian attempt to catch me in a moral quandary.
By my calculations this discussion is over. You can keep pretending that you alone understand what the judge said, and she herself doesn’t, but don’t expect anyone to take you seriously.
I never claimed there was genocide, I said claiming that the idea of it is ridiculous is in itself ridiculous. And I quoted an ICJ ruling that said "at least some of the acts alleged by South Africa appear to fall under the provisions of the Genocide Convention". Which means what it says, South Africa claims certain things, and those things it alleges fall under the Genocide convention. So the discussion about genocide is far removed from being ridiculous, it's being argued in a very serious way. This was further proved by your quote of the ICJ judge that said the court ruled there was risk of genocide as Israel continues its destruction of civilian population.
I also never claimed that risk of losing your right to be protected from genocide is like getting your Nintendo Switch stolen, it was just a pointer for you to think about what it actually would mean. And it would mean genocide, not some minor thing like you pretend it to be. Oh well, they lost their right to be protected from genocide, what else is on the news - oh look we bombed a kindergarten, we are further progressing in our goals to live a peaceful life.
But speaking of holes, I guess I discounted the large void between your ears.
I never made a social experiment either. People with something between their ears are able to scroll up and see I wrote as a direct reply to the claim "it's ridiculous to even say that". I then proceeded to mention this to you explicitly several times, but I guess you needed a flowchart to connect the dots. You can verify all this by scrolling up but I am not holding my breath.
It's funny how I say "minister 'motivating' civilians" and you ask and replace civilians with terrorists. Wasn't there an old looney tunes cartoon with a not very bright character picking up a can of gasoline and blowing himself up after saying g-a-s what a strange way to write water? I guess he won at being stupid, which seems to be a common theme here. Congratulations on your victory.
"Insults are the last refuge of insecure men with crumbling arguments."
By showing your inability to have a civil discussion you've proven you don't have a leg to stand on.
They are also the last refuge of people who wrote civilians and got asked about terrorists as if they were the same thing. Well, for you in any case the same - only a dead Palestinian is a good dehumanized Palestinian, they are all the same.
> only a dead Palestinian is a good dehumanized Palestinian, they are all the same.
Is that what you believe?
That's a pretty grotesque thing to say, even if it's not really clear what it means.
Instead of failed attempts to cast insults and innuendos why don't you actually address the discussion.
Admit that you made a grotesque comparison in an attempt to prove your moral superiority but instead got caught in your own hubris. Admit that you're making up quotes left and right so you can try to salvage some part of your argument, admit that you're putting words in other peoples mouths so you can build up strawmen to attack. Admit that every time you're shown you're wrong you refuse to even acknowledge it and instead start hurling insults as if that will make people forget the preposterous arguments you attempted. Admit that not once in this entire discussion did you approach it with even an ounce of curiosity, and instead assumed malice at every step. Then we can continue to have some sort of civil discussion, otherwise you're tilting at windmills and it makes you look foolish.
You've broken nearly every hn guideline for good discussion and continue to fume, it might be time to step back and step away for a bit.
Me: I need to smear the Holocaust survivor because I disagree with him
Also me: I will get asked about civilians and reply with what's wrong if terrorists are killed
Again me: it's disappointing we can't keep the discussion civil
I can't be stopped: I WON THE DISCUSSION Y'ALL AND YOU LACK THE INTELLECTUAL CURIOTISY CURIOTI CURIOSITY
Are you ok? You're coming off as more and more unhinged each time you comment. I'd highly recommend you step away from the computer and step outside, enjoy the fresh air, take your mind off of your troubles. I can say honestly I have no idea what the above comment means, but, sincerely, I didn't mean to break you.
I'm not surprised you have no idea. In the beginning I thought you were discussing in bad faith, but now I see it's just normal for you.
Recently I damaged a bicycle I really like and got depressed about it - but then I thought, you know I am not in Gaza sleeping in a tent as a child with both my parents dead and my sister with legs amputated, hoping I will not starve to death. Or trying to survive the Holocaust, or something similar. It helps in a weird way appreciate how good you have it. Unlike other people. Like war criminals whose future is a one way ticket to the Hague.
Again, nothing you've said in the above comment has made any sense, I highly recommend you take a deep breath and step back and consider taking a day away from electronics, I promise you, you'll feel much better, maybe like that child camping in Gaza with her parents.
Of course it doesn't make any sense to you, we've already identified the reasons. Or the main reason.
The last sentence really defines you. You feel mighty and powerful don't you, you know it's your time and nothing can stop you. Here's a song you can sing to celebrate this accomplishment:
https://youtu.be/_tUctFu46_c?feature=shared
You continue to hurl nonsensical insults instead of meaningfully engaging in the topic at hand.
I’m sorry you’re feeling so hurt and upset, hopefully you’ll heed my well intentioned advice and take a sabbatical from your culture war, just to recharge and gain perspective.
As long as we’re giving each other extra curricular activities I suggest you read this book: https://www.amazon.com/High-Conflict-Why-Get-Trapped/dp/1982...
I promise you it’ll make you a happier less brooding person.
As there doesn’t seem to be anything productive happening here, this my au revoir. I hope you find the internal peace you’re so sorely missing.
Me: I will spend days bickering about something nobody cares about and be petty about it
Also me: I am the world renowned expert on letting go
For the people that have trouble getting things, where it says "me" it's actually meant "you"
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> And I quoted an ICJ ruling that said "at least some of the acts alleged by South Africa appear to fall under the provisions of the Genocide Convention"
As I re-read this, I struggle to understand what this means; everything done during war time falls under the provisions of the Genocide Convention, that doesn't mean that genocide is happening, but rather again, that it's a war and people are being killed. Its kinda like calling an airstrike against a military target "premediated murder in the first degree" or calling all soldiers who have killed the enemy serial killers.
If you squint and remove all context the labels apply but they're meaningless under our current understanding of those words.
> I also never claimed that risk of losing your right to be protected from genocide is like getting your Nintendo Switch stolen, it was just a pointer for you to think about what it actually would mean.
"I never made the comparison, I just made the comparison because I was conducting a social experiment" Ok, I'll let you continue trying to figure out what you mean by that.
If we go back to your original comment, you also made a number of false statements in there:
> Israel is actively blocking delivery of food to the civilian population and has already in one case caused a massacre of people trying to get their hands on basic supplies.
This is totally false. Israel is not actively blocking delivery of food and the case of a massacre can be clearly seen in video to be caused by people trampling each other after attempting to rush at a platoon of soldiers.
> At the same time, a minister in the government is publicly calling for occupying Gaza and "motivating" civilians to "voluntarily" leave.
Would you care to explain what specifically is problematic about saying that terrorists should be encouraged to move their terror activities away from Israel? Or what is problematic about Israel governing an area that they've shown they can govern in a much more democratic and fair way than the currently elected suicidal death cult? Were you upset when the US occupied Germany for 11 years? and continued to have a large presence for the next 30 years?
> But speaking of holes, I guess I discounted the large void between your ears.
Insults are always used by those who know they've lost. Thank you for admitting defeat.
> Kinda like the other famous holocaust survivor who is funding a lot of the college campus protests
Seriously? You have been accusing me of anti-semitism but now you play straight into a harmful and anti-semitic conspiracy theory about George Soros, with hints to another very damaging and equally anti-semitic conspiracy theory about Cultural Marxism.
For what it is worth, George Soros does not fund any of the student movements responsible for the pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide encampments. One of the charities he helps fund has awarded grants to two student organization which the New York Post has claimed (but now proven) to be involved in the protests[1]. This is several degrees of separations, and the link is on flaky grounds.
Kapos’ interview above was excellent. He describes visiting another holocaust survivor [T=00:05:17] in Israel and being shocked at how racist she was:
> Yet she came back to Israel, and she was as racist as the rest of them, against the Palestinians.
> I think this has to do with the extreme propaganda, and the dehumanization. Zionism was a very unfortunate and sad development for the Jewish people. It broke a much longer tradition of always being on the side of the oppressed, not the oppressor. And the charitable nature of Judaism and the humanity they advocate, into a kind of exceptionalism and nationalism. And in practical terms the impossible project of taking over another people’s country.
> So when I visited them—that was my first brush of Zionism—I was completely shocked—despite their experiences during the Holocaust—they were racist, against the Palestinians. I couldn’t understand it, and I can’t understand it, but they were, and there is no denying it. And I found that racism was prevailing generally in Israel. And I turned strongly against that.
1: https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/may/02/fact-checking...
I’ve been seeing this argument pop up a lot lately, and I’ll try to address it (though frankly, I’m not that smart, so maybe somebody else can explain it better).
So what you are trying to claim is that the World Court never explicitly claimed, in direct words, that some of South Africa’s allegations for genocide was plausible, therefor the court never ruled that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide, and therefor, we have no authority claiming that Israel is committing genocide, and therefor, any claims of Israel committing genocide are unfounded.
First of all I want to address how weak this line of argument is. The ICJ is not the only authority which has claimed plausible genocide (yes, the ICJ did claim that; I’ll come back to that), second, we have plenty of evidence which indicts Israel for the crime of genocide, including, but not limited to South Africa’s filing at the ICJ (see sources on Wikipedia). Even if we take your or Joan Donoghue’s interpretation at face value, raxxorraxor’s claim that “the accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis and judgement” is it self pretty much wrong.
Second, the court did rule that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide, by any reasonable interpretation of the ruling. Even though most people cite Article IV paragraph 54 (See [1]; quoted above) as the smoking gun (which it absolutely is) equally relevant is Article II Paragraphs 30-32 where the court decides it has jurisdiction over the case, citing Article IX of the Genocide Convention. The court would not have done that if it did not think it was plausible that Israel were violating the terms of the Genocide Convention. In other words, the court ruled that some of South Africa’s accusations were plausible. And put yet another way, the court decided that it is plausible that Israel is committing the crime of Genocide.
The problem with your interpretation, and your citing of Joan Donoghue’s answer in this context, is that she is actually answering a question relating to the provisional measures ordered by the court on January 26th 2024 (which is what Article IV is all about), and again on March 28th 2024. My personal opinion is that by answering the question this way she is actually being willfully misleading. It is beyond a doubt that the court decided that some of the accusations were plausible, her clarifying and stating that technically the court only decided on provisional measures, is obscuring the fact that it did rule to start investigating Israel for the crime of Genocide.
ICJ member often rules in alignment with their nation’s foreign policy, and Joan Donoghue has shown that to be the case under her presidency, I actually find it a miracle that the court ruled in favor of South Africa under her presidency. My personal belief is that the case against Israel is very obvious, and there was no way the court could rule any other way. This interview is she rectifying US foreign policy, and offering a plausible deniability to what the court actually ruled.
1: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192...
This is an odd analysis of the ICJ decision. The decision is preliminary. It finds that the ICJ has jurisdiction over the Israel/Gaza conflict, and that South Africa has standing to bring a case. Given that a plausible case exists, the ICJ considers preliminary measures --- injunctions, essentially --- to preserve South Africa's rights for such a trial.
Read Paragraph 62: "The Court is not called upon, for the purposes of its decision on the request for the indication of provisional measures, to establish the existence of breaches of obligations under the Genocide Convention, but to determine whether the circumstances require the indication of provisional measures for the protection of rights under that instrument."
The preservation of rights is a procedural matter for the court; they are measures to prevent prejudice against the case, and to prevent the irreparable harms claimed by the plaintiff. The facts under consideration there are viewed in the light favorable to the movant, because they are not in fact a disposition of the question. ["preservation of rights" filetype:pdf] is a good search here.
The ICJ did not in fact find that Israel had engaged in acts of genocide.
If you use a casual or non-legal definition of "genocide" --- "any campaign of ethnically targeted mass violence" seems like a reasonable one --- this is a live argument. But if you're going to cite chapter and verse from the decision and the Genocide Convention, I think you're clearly on the wrong side of the argument?
Like I said, I’m actually not that smart and you’ll certainly find flaws at my poor attempt at understanding a legal document.
I—nor any uptread posts I read—claimed that the court found and ruled that Israel had engaged in Genocide. Merely that the court found it was plausible. I stand by these words, that the court did indeed find it plausible.
As I understand it everything in Article IV (including Paragraph 62) in the January 26 order was relating to the preliminary measures as requested by South Africa. Everything ruled there would be without prejudges with respect to the final ruling, as Article IV’s primary function is to prevent the Palestinian people from genocide (a function it has utterly failed at in my frank opinion).
Article II is, however, very relevant in the context of arguing whether the World Court finds the genocide accusation plausible. Article II is all about establishing jurisdiction, which it does by establishing that Article IX of the Genocide Convention applies. Article IX says:
> Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.
Article III of the Genocide convention lists every crime which is punishable by the convention, including (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; and (e) Complicity in genocide.
By establishing jurisdiction the case the court must find that Article IX applies, and to find that Article IX applies, it must show that it believes Israels conduct may be in violation of the genocide convention. Or as the ruling says (Paragraphs 19-20):
> To determine whether a dispute exists in the present case, the Court cannot limit itself to noting that one of the Parties maintains that the Convention applies, while the other denies it
> Since South Africa has invoked as the basis of the Court’s jurisdiction the compromissory clause of the Genocide Convention, the Court must also ascertain, at the present stage of the proceedings, whether it appears that the acts and omissions complained of by the Applicant are capable of falling within the scope of that convention ratione materiae.
In other words, if the court would not believe that Israel’s conduct (as described by South Africa) does not fall inside the Genocide Convention, then the court would reject the case on the grounds that it does not have jurisdiction.
Note, I think this was most of Israel’s legal defense, that it was trying to establish that their conduct does indeed not fall within the Genocide Convention.
The crucial finding (as my limited mind understands it) is then in Paragraph 30:
> In the Court’s view, at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the Convention.
To my ears, this sounds like—while the court hasn’t issued a final ruling—it does indeed find it plausible that Israel is committing a genocide.
EDIT: The only other reading I can entertain is that the court believes none of the accusations brought by South Africa which fall under Article III (a) of the Genocide Convention are plausible, and merely some of the accusations relating to Article III (b)-(e) apply. In which case, I stand corrected.
"Capable of falling within the provisions of the Convention" means that South Africa can bring the case and the ICJ can rule on it. The ICJ very explicitly did not make a determination about whether Israel had violated the convention. I quoted the numbered graf that says exactly that.
What you're reading about is the ICJ equivalent of a preliminary injunction. An injunction is a court order issued before the case is decided. Injunctions are based on balancing tests: some likelihood of irreparable harm must exist, and some likelihood that the movant will succeed at trial must exist. The more harm you demonstrate, the less likelihood you need to demonstrate, and vice versa.
Here, the harm South Africa is concerned about is of the gravest type possible.
Again: it is just not accurate to suggest that the ICJ has determined Israel has committed acts of genocide. It's "not even wrong"; the decision you're referring to is an interim provisional ruling.
I was trying to argue that the only way the Court would accept the case is if it would find the accusations plausible.
I specifically said nobody is trying to argue that the court has ruled one way or the other. Merely that by accepting the case, the court did view some of the actions as capable of falling inside the Convention.
We are basically arguing over what the word plausible means here. I still stand by my words that the word applies to the courts believes as stated by the ruling.
If it was "implausible" the case would have been dismissed. I don't see anybody arguing that there is no case, only that the case has not at this point decided that Israel is culpable for acts of genocide. You claimed the opposite upthread. That was incorrect. We don't need to harp on this or keep going, but I don't think there's a way to rehabilitate your analysis of the ICJ ruling. It was wrong. Preliminary injunctions are issued in cases where the defense wins all the time.
If you do some reading on the "Plausibility" standard in the ICJ --- it's a recent development --- I think you're going to find it's a pretty low bar.
If the court would have believed that South Africa’s accusations did not fall under the Genocide Convention, the case would have been dismissed. This was Israel’s entire legal defense. And this is explained in Paragraph 20 cited above.
I guess I see one more scenario here, where the court did not find it plausible. That would be that the court found South Africa’s accusations to plausibly fall under the Genocide Convention, but did not look at the credibility of the accusations. However in the rulings of the preliminary measures, they do state that the risk of genocide inflicted on the Palestinian people was plausible, so frankly, I don’t think the court found the accusations implausible.
In any case, I guess if that is the case, I stand corrected, however given the mountain of evidence given by South Africa, and the fact the people don’t dispute the authenticity of those evidence, the fact that the court found the accusation plausibly fall under the Genocide Conention is almost identical to the statement that the court found the accusations plausible. The nuance here is so small that it is completely irrelevant.
That's you deciding the case, not the ICJ. Which is fine, but you cannot reasonably argue that the ICJ agrees with you, because it has not done so. This isn't nuance; respectfully, you're flatly wrong about the implications of the ICJ ruling. What I think is happening is that you're looking at legal terms of art and just substituting ordinary definitions for them. You cannot meaningfully do that.
You are fighting an uphill battle, and honestly taking a weird—and insignificant—hill to die on.
I’m hardly the only one which has this reading of the court order[1]. Here is a human rights lawyer speaking with the Times[2] which describes the ruling as:
> Having the World Court say to the state of Israel that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide will be heard by the rest of the international community, even if Netanyahu doesn’t want to hear it,
Like I said earlier we are actually arguing about the meaning of “plausible”. I’m using this word in a non-legal way while applying it to the legal definition of genocide. The ICJ on the other hand uses it in a legal way, for them plausibility has a legally defined meaning, and using it must meet some specific standard[3].
The conduct in question here is the general behavior of Israel in Gaza, which some of our ancestors say:
> Its not a genocide by any definition
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40268163
or:
> I would not agree this constitutes genocide.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40273408
they are talking about Israel’s general conduct.
South Africa brought in its case many examples of general conduct and accused them of violating the Genocide Convention. Israel—in its defense—did not deny this conduct, but rather stated they weren’t Genocidal, and didn’t violate the Convention, and therefore the Court had no jurisdiction over the case. The court ruled that these allegations “appear to be capable” of falling under the Convention. Meaning that the court thinks that the same conduct we are arguing whether constitutes a Genocide, the ICJ has said: “appears to be capable” of falling under the legal definition of Genocide.
When I, or the NPR, or the BBC[4] say the ICJ “decided there was a plausible case under the 1948 Genocide Convention,” we are using the world plausible in laypeople terms. So I stand by what I said. If we use the legal definition of Genocide, the ICJ has ruled the conduct of Israel in Gaza can plausibly be described as Genocide.
1: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/26/1227078791/icj-israel-genocid...
2: https://time.com/6588931/icj-ruling-israel-genocidal-acts-ga...
3: https://opiniojuris.org/2024/04/05/the-icjs-findings-on-plau...
4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68108260
No. This is simple. You sue me, say, for trademark infringement. Before the case goes to trial, you ask for a preliminary injunction demanding that I --- at least for the duration of the trial --- stop using your trademark. As it turns out, I'm not doing much interesting with it; the cost to me to stop using the trademark is minimal. Recognizing that, the court enjoins me from using your trademark, until the trial is done.
What you're saying now is "because I got the injunction, I won the case". Obviously, no.
"Plausibility" at the ICJ is a technical term, part of a 3-part test to determine if any preliminary orders can be issued ("in preservation of rights") at all in a case:
"What is required is something more than assertion but less than proof; in other words, the party must show that there is at least a reasonable possibility that the right it claims exits as a matter of law and will be adjudged to apply to that party’s case".
Plausibility is virtually always established in these cases.
Now, look at what South Africa asked for as a preliminary measure, and look what they got.
Again, it is weird that we are still talking about this, because I quoted for you the numbered paragraph in the decision that repeats the point I am making.
Later
I'm noting that we are so far to the right margin on this very old, cursed thread that this post gets only 250px in my browser window. It's fine if we're not going to convince each other; we can just leave it here. We're probably the only two people reading this.
Go read up on ICJ preservation of rights process, though. It's fascinating. It's like a whole parallel law system, being worked out in our lifetimes.
runarberg is not interested in getting to some commonly understood truth, he's only interested in spreading his propaganda. If you examine your conversation with him through this lens, it makes perfect sense. He continues to repeat lies that you've pointed out don't make any sense. He makes sure to repeat his unfounded claim that "They are definitely committing genocide" as he does in nearly every comment he's made in the last 2 weeks, regardless of how wrong he's shown to be. If you start to back him into a corner, he's begin to deny very obvious truths like Jewish people have a historical connection to that area and continues to claim, without any basis that he's simply repeating what the ICJ has said, when the president of the council very clearly said the opposite.
We are two HN people who disagree. I think they're too attached to their ICJ procedural argument; it doesn't make much sense, and they don't need it to make the broader point they clearly want to make about Israel's moral culpability for genocide (an argument I don't agree with fully, but I disagree with less). That doesn't make them a liar or a propagandist.
If your arguments are strong, well-expressed, and calm, they'll do fine here, and there's no need to pick apart the people trying to rebut them. We know less than we think we do about people commenting here; I've spent 16 years watching people reach all sorts of weird conclusions about me. Let's not do that to someone else here. These threads are bad enough as it is.
Israel’s legal culpability in genocide is probably even more important, because if we only argue moral culpability it gives world governments an excuse to non-action. If we have legal culpability these same world governments become complicit.
The legal argument for genocide is strong. Not only by referring to the ICJ case, but also several legal experts who have conducted a thorough study in the subject.
I’m returning to this thread because of the publication today of a 100 page long report which the authors claim is “the most comprehensive legal analysis to ate of Israel’s military operation in Gaza since October 7, 2023.” This report is from legal experts exploring the legal argument of genocide, using the 1948 convention as the definition for genocide. The authors, comprise of independent human rights scholars and legal experts from University Network of Human Rights, Boston University School of Law, Cornell Law School, University of Pretoria, and Yale Law School. They conclude that: “srael has committed and continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b3538249d5abb21360e8...
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Just look at this guy's comment history, it's all there. He denies Jewish history, erases the reality that Jews are undeniably linked to Israel and calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the ME. All the while making spurious unfounded accusations against Jews. I engaged with him for a long time, but ultimately found him to be dishonest and not interested in holding a critical curious discussion.
He denies Jewish history, erases the reality that Jews are undeniably linked to Israel and calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the ME.
Can you provide substantiation for the last of these claims, at least?
I haven't seen all of this user's comment history -- but I've seen a good chunk of it, and I haven't seen anything that even remotely suggests that they are calling for the ethnic cleansing of anyone from anywhere.
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Israel has sat pretty quietly for 75 years next to people regularly firing rockets at them and attacking their people. People that don't accept its existence and have a charter that can describe pretty closely what a proper definition of genocide can look like. Something that is far away from the conduct of Israel, even if it isn't perfect.
Why did they start firing rockets 75 years ago? Did they just fire it to Israel for no reason?
> Did they just fire it to Israel for no reason?
No, they had a very good reason: They hate Jews and do not believe Jews have any right to national sovereignty in their own land.
They do not believe Jews have any right to national sovereignty in their own land.
No - they just don't happen agree with them on the question of whose land it is.
You don't have to agree with their historical reading of the situation, of course. But it's really quite straightforward and simple, really. And if people are firing rockets at you -- it's probably best not to invent outlandish and unreal explanations for why they're doing so.
In any case -- pretending that the rest of the world obviously and unquestionably accepts the idea that this is all "Jewish land" (now or in 1947) -- or that if they don't, it's because the simply hate Jews, or won't accept the idea of Israel existing in any form -- definitely isn't helpful.
(And no, I'm not justifying or "explaining" the firing of rockets at anyone - please don't go there).
Please refrain from spreading misinformation and lies, it's not possible to have a productive discussion when one side is constantly warping the truth and denying reality. The Palestinian people - as a people - have elected/appointed/followed leaders for the last 100 years who have made many promises about wiping Jews off the face of the earth. Every time those leaders temper their views, they are cast aside and new extremists are followed who continue calls for genocide.
From the Mufti[0], to Arafat[1], to Abbas[2], and now to Haniyeh, each leader at their height has called for not just the destruction of Israel, but a global pogrom against Jews everywhere and as they were forced to be more reasonable they were cast aside for the next extremist. As Abbas has tried to find peace with Israel, Hamas has gained popularity for refusing to ever acknowledge Jews as having any connection to their historical homeland. At any point in the last 20 years (including today) Hamas would win an election by popular vote of all palestinians with a very large margin.
So I ask, if you're going to engage in this conversation, lets start from a common place of reality. Hamas, and by extension the majority of palestinian people, do not want peace, are not interested in finding common ground. They only want all Jews everywhere murdered in a global intifada.
[0]https://www.jstor.org/stable/24586167
[1]https://archive.org/details/arafatfromdefend0001abur/page/20...
[2]https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/abbas-an...
Whatever the reason is, it doesn't matter and you shouldn't bite on that hook. "They are evil and endangering our homeland so we are just in exterminating them" is Nazi rhetoric no matter who it comes from.
For whatever reason most people don't get that. I came to live in Germany around 15 years ago during the economic crisis and was pretty shocked that it was normal to say in public that Greeks are lazy. I couldn't understand the difference between that and "Jews are evil" and similar rhetoric that led to the Holocaust. And that in the country that should've learned something from the past. This time around I am not surprised they are fully behind this genocide simply because it's more convenient to look the other way.
Shame.
justifying aggression? imagine the Paiute Indians started firing into the Vegas strip.
There was Arab nationalism that was allied to Hitler, no even talking about the persecution before. Why do you think Jews fought for independence?
I don't recall the genocide definitions including the wording "it's ok if they're brown"
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Can you make an example of "anti-jewish paroles" on European Al-Jazeera outlets? That's a pretty big accusation.
Sincere question: what was propaganda about it? Was it openly anti semitic blood libel stuff? Debunked claims? Or something else?
You really got to hand it to the Royal Family of Qatar - they are geopolitical Warren Buffets.
The Arab Spring and all the bad things that ensued from it was effectively a giant geopolitical windfall for the Qatari royal family and their investments in founding that broadcaster.
They (almost) changed the entire geopolitical landscape of the Arab world to their benefit. Installing a caliphate here, toppling a major power like Egypt there. They even forced Saudi Arabia into concessions.
All of that, like the NATO-buffoons sending fighter jets into Libya because the Qataris social-engineered the Western public into demanding it, is an amazing show of political skills.
Gee, the poor Europeans till this day don't even realize how much their "refugee-crisis" has been instigated as a "weapon of mass migration" by the Qataris using their set of tools of which Al Jazeera is one.
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> is a genocide...It’s ICJ’s
No, it is not. The ICJ said Israel must "take action to prevent acts of genocide" [1][2].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/key-takeaways-worl...
[2] https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192...
That was nearly 5 months ago. Did Israel take any of those measures? Or did you stop following the news since?
Again. Reality check.
Yes! Yes it did! Israel is risking its soldiers’ lives and gives up home land security to reduce harm for civilians.
> That was nearly 5 months ago
That was the ICJ’s last order to Israel. You claimed the ICJ called Israel’s war genocide. That is false.
Did they wait for the world press freedom index to get published before doing this to artificially inflate their position on this year's list (it's published on world press freedom day, may 3rd annually) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index
I don't agree with Israel censoring websites, but important to keep in mind Al Jazeera is run by Qatar which is a monarchy without real freedom of the press, it's not CNN. They have strong regional interests and an obvious desire to shape the narrative of the conflict. They're not humanitarians.
Al Jazeera has much more extensive coverage of Israel/Palestine than CNN does, and I would compare Al Jazeera favorably with CNN, overall. CNN and Al Jazeera definitely have different biases, but if you just want to know what's going on in Gaza, you watch Al Jazeera, not CNN.
> They're not humanitarians.
They're a news organization.
Well, there are quite a few monarchies where people enjoy freedom of press. (You probably meant “absolute monarchy”.) On the other hand, I am not sure what the lack of freedom of press in one country has to do with these events in another. Looks like a straw man to me.)
You can't even compare the reputation of CNN and Al Jazeera.
You can't also compare the interest of US and Israel in manipulating public with any other country in the planet. US & Israel plays the game dirtiest, does false flag attacks, kill children and mothers carrying white flags, bomb hospitals and families of journalists.
Qatar does not do any of these and do not need to manipulate you. US and Israel have to keep manipulating you, because as citizen, you need to be a part of the crime.
Just like in Nazi Germany.
They can ban whatever they want, after all its a democracy only in name. I'd be far more concerned about Israel using its direct influence or its proxies to ban TikTok in the United States.
Here is a list of countries that have banned or restricted TikTok:
https://time.com/6971009/tiktok-banned-restrictions-worldwid...
Israel isn't even on this list.
What do you mean? Israel ranks 30th in The Economist Democracy Index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
It's not great, but it's also far from what you said "democracy only in name."
Israel currently denies the right to vote to more people that its government controls the lives of than it grants the right to vote for. This is because it wants to be both a Jewish (demography-first) and democratic (equal-representaition-first) state.
I'm very aware of why this is the case and the history. This is the current case on the ground. Palestinians do not have their own state (according to Israel), so they are occupied and have all their imports, exports, water usage, food intake, ability to earn money, etc. etc. regulated and controlled by a government they cannot vote for, while a minority of people on the other side of a wall can vote for that government.
That's a democracy in name only
Israel's government administers several territories with different legal statuses for their inhabitants:
Israeli citizens, including Arabs, Jews, and others within the borders recognized internationally as Israel, all have the right to vote. Residents of East Jerusalem, mostly Palestinians, are typically offered permanent residency status but not citizenship. They have the right to apply for citizenship, though it involves a complex process. They can vote in local elections but not in national elections unless they become citizens. Inhabitants of the West Bank are not Israeli citizens and do not have the right to vote in Israeli national elections. They are subject to some Israeli military law and some laws set by the Palestinian Authority. Gaza Strip is governed by Hamas, and the inhabitants do not have rights to vote in Israeli elections. Israel does not have administrative control over Gaza but does control most of its borders, airspace, and maritime access.
Yeah that's pretty much what I said, Palestinians are basically not in their own state and not voting citizens of Israel but controlled by Israel and the majority of native born people living under Israeli rule
If you want to play conspiracy theorist, the correct conspiracy is that Mark Zuckerberg is responsible for the TikTok ban bill, given that he was lobbying for it.
Your conspiracy theory can co-exist with mine :) I believe multiple parties want TikTok banned for their own reasons.
However I am hearing more and more people mention TikTok and Israel together inside congressional circles than mentions of "TikTok and China". Here is an example: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
How have you heard more about TikTok and Israel than TikTok and china? How is that possible??
India banned TikTok in 2020 accusing Chinese influence, are they time travelers?
Did israel convince all of these countries to ban TikTok? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_TikTok Wow the Jewish World Domination Forum is really pushing its weight around lately.
>>How have you heard more about TikTok and Israel than TikTok and china? How is that possible??
Inside "Congressional circles" as clearly written in my post. And I should have added within the past few months.
>>India banned TikTok in 2020 accusing Chinese influence, are they time travelers?
India can have its own reasons, my argument is limited to the United States and that too, through wooing Congress
>>Did israel convince all of these countries to ban TikTok?
I didn't say that, of-course not.
>>Wow the Jewish World Domination Forum is really pushing its weight around lately.
I like you... I mean the way you classified me into your world view, twisted my arguments. You think, I will now defend a conspiracy of "Jewish World Domination"? Very impressive sir!
Any regime that seeks to suppress the media can't be up to any good, IMO.
EU has a ban on RT on its books today, nearly every single democratic country is currently or has previously censored media. Without judging this specific action, saying that Israel is bad for doing something that every other country does or has done makes it seem like your problem is not really with what is being done, but your problem is with Israel. This may not be the case, you may not be aware that nearly every country engages in censorship of some form.
What you're missing is that Israel is banning foreign reporters from Gaza. That's why there are none there.
It also number 1 reporter killing country in the world. Killed more than 100 in the last 365 days. Does EU kill reporters?
So stop your false comparisons.
How many of those 100 journalists killed were intentionally killed because they were journalists, as opposed to dying as collateral damage?
And if foreign journalists want to get into Palestine, they have other options than entering through the Israeli border, they can enter through the Egyptian border.
> And if foreign journalists want to get into Palestine, they have other options...
First, they don't. All crossings are controlled by Israel. There's a reason why you have a lot of foreign reporting on the ground from Syria civil war and nothing from Gaza. (I noted your switch from Gaza to Palestine, btw) And journalistic agencies complain about this repeatedly.
10% of journalists killed (against 2% of total population killed) and ratios of killed/injured certainly suggest special targeting.
So here, have a blast and count for yourself based on your definition of collateral damage: https://cpj.org/2024/05/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-... there's a story/sources there for every single killing that is known/documented.
To me, it looks like majority were killed intentionally based on that list. Things like sniper and other direct fire killings, being killed in their homes along with their families when doing nothing but dinning or sleeping, or at assignments, or in front of hospitals near journalist tents, or being denied medevac after critical injuries, is not how I'd define collateral damage.
> All crossings are controlled by Israel.
This is false. Israel does not control Egypt's or Jordan's borders.
> To me, it looks like majority were killed intentionally based on that list.
By CPJ's own account, that list is not verified:
> Our database will not include all of these casualties until we have completed further investigations into the circumstances surrounding them. For more information, read our FAQ.
I did check some of them, and I would agree some of it look concerning at face value, but I'm not sure if I would take any of those sources at face value. I would very much like to see some investigation into this, but without the war ending, I don't really see how that will happen.
> This is false. Israel does not control Egypt's borders.
Of course it does. It closed the crossing shortly after Oct 7. Crossing it, requires Israel approval and inspections. The moment Egypt stops observing Israel's rules, it will bomb the crossing. It did bomb it already a few times last year in order to close it. Israel already stated that it will operate anywhere in Gaza militarily, that includes the Rafah crossing, and it does.
That's pretty much what anyone would consider being in control of a crossing, effectively.
In addition, despite this crossing being between Palestine and Egypt, the agreement that splits the roles of who does what at the crossing is between Egypt and Israel as part of Israel-Egypt peace treaty https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/new-real...
So Israel does partially control it even in this "legal" aspect. It kinda makes sense given that Gaza is still considered an occupied territory by UN. Since when occupied territories control their own corssings with other countries?
> By CPJ's own account, that list is not verified:
Yes, that goes back to Israel refusal for independent foreign journalists presence in Gaza. Or ICC investigators. Convenient.
> Today: "BREAKING| Security sources to Al Aqsa TV: Three Israeli tanks are stationed 200 meters away from the Rafah border crossing and have fired several shells at buildings on the border crossing."
No control. Right.
Israel has repeatedly instructed people to evacuate to Egypt, and Egypt has refused to allow them to do so.
https://theconversation.com/why-egypt-refuses-to-open-its-bo...
That does not prove lack of control of the border by Israel. It just proves that Egypt controls it from their side.
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Tell me where is the jew news office in Palestine.
On the other extreme, Are media that spread misinformation without any due process are just protected indefinitely?
Like in this very recent case: https://honestreporting.com/damage-done-how-al-jazeeras-fake...
Edit: haaretz link: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-0...
Honest Reporting is an Israeli media advocacy group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HonestReporting
The tweet that is linked in the web page is from the former managing editor of Al Jazeera. You can just click on the tweet directly and use Google translate.
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Why would Israel have to do anything? With the flagging system, even if there's just a minority of pro-Israel users anything anti-Israel is now effectively banned.
Are you saying that every news outlet that reports false claims by eyewitness accounts which turn out not to be true and aren't sufficiently loud about retractions should be banned by their host countries?
Because I can think of quite a number of stories over the years, and even in terms of this current conflict in the Middle East, where there were falsehoods in the fog of war or even intentionally seeded that turned out not to be true and many of the news organizations airing them initially only took stories down and didn't run front page denouncements of their own reporting.
I agree that retractions and in general journalistic integrity needs a bit more attention as a global society, but banning news organizations that print things you don't like is something I tend to associate with a very Stalinesque mindset and not a bastion of democracy and liberty.
In general, individuals and groups are bettered by exposure to naysayers than surrounded by yes-men.
> that print things you don't like
But that the whole point. It's not just that Israel "don't like it". It's false claims.
> aren't sufficiently loud about retractions
And what if there are no retraction? only if the backlash is big enough? Like in the case where there were no hundreds of dead in a direct bombing but a 50 dead in a failed PIJ rocked on hospital:
https://archive.is/r6noB
and the same version today:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/16/israel-ha...
> in the case where there were no hundreds of dead in a direct bombing but a 50 dead in a failed PIJ rocked on hospital
Almost every news agency got this wrong to some degree [1]. What matters is whether they corrected their story as new information arose.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/business/media/hospital-b...
All newspapers get things wrong some of the time. With the best of intentions and best of skills, it ... just happens because the world is just too complex to always be 100% accurate. Of course they should strive to be accurate all of the time, but we also need to be realistic. This applies even more to warzones.
What matters is how often this happens and what the response is when it happens. As far as I know, Al Jazeera is not significantly worse than anyone else here. There's a difference between "spreading misinformation" and "being wrong every once in a while".
The problem with sites like "honest reporting" is that they take these incidents, completely ignore (or outright defend) all the types their side has been wrong on this type of stuff, and then construct a narrative that "proves" that "the other side" is merely a malicious cluster of evil that seeks to spread evil for evil's sake. This is exactly the type of dehumanizing hyper-partisanship that got us in this mess in the first place.
> All newspapers get things wrong some of the time.
And what if there are no retraction? only if the backlash is big enough? Like in the case where there were no hundreds of dead in a direct bombing but a 50 dead in a failed PIJ rocked on hospital:
https://archive.is/r6noB
and the same version today:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/16/israel-ha...
I can go tit-for-tat with examples from Israeli newspapers or even Israeli government for the rest of the day, but like I said, what matters is the overall pattern and how this compares. And as far as I know, Al Jazeera is not significantly worse here.
Also: why are you using two accounts? :-/
> examples from Israeli newspapers ... Al Jazeera is not significantly worse here.
Sure, I would like to see something similar from Haaretz/Ynetnews where they believed Israel without critical due process. And did not retract in a consistent matter.
And the second account is my mobile (I like it separate)... that is why I gave them the same name.
I've read the article. One counterpoint though:
The reason stated on why Hamas affirmed the rape story was false wasn't 'because it backfired and made civilians flee'. This never happened,and the justifications is too convoluted. No, they took a page out of IRA and ETA's: total transparency. They want people to believe what they say, and for that, you can't be caught lying. I don't know if it's recent or not, but that's also the reason why the death toll reported by Hamas is lower than the one expected by the US and most military intelligence. If a news is from a Hamas official spokesman, it's likely true (might be misleading, but always factually true)
Shame on Al-Jazeera to let liars on air, but to be fair, that 24h news for you.
> If a news is from a Hamas official spokesman, it's likely true
What? They lie constantly! They just got caught. Here is what happened when BBC just reported them without checking:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67140250
And then when they apologized admitting they should have not speculate:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/19/israel-accuses...
"honestreporting.com" is ironically dishonestly reporting, it's a propaganda outlet with no credibility.
Maybe the “actual” news should be rebranded to “fake news” in rebuttal.
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> Words are not knifes. People eventually will adapt to lies and weird things. And truth will find a way.
I really see it differently that both ends are equally bad. After all, on the same night that the BBC announced 500 dead after the "bombing" at a hospital in Gaza, which turned out to be a Hamas missile that fell and killed at most 50 there... crowds took to the streets and created a threat to Israeli embassies around the world.
> which turned out to be a Hamas missile
Debunked: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/israeli-disi...
IDF has bombed the entirety of Gaza health infrastructure by now. It's odd they don't want us to believe they would be capable to bomb this particular hospital when they destroyed every single other one.
Did you read it? It says at the end "what happened at al-Ahli remains inconclusive"
Not to mention they say they scraped al Jazeera for other incident which is ironic here, because the claim is they misreport
And I will add that everything they said is only based on the videos... The impact on the ground was consistent with PIJ/Hamas rockets and not Israel missiles.
So I will rather believe U.S. Experts/Western intelligence (which since did not report otherwise)... so no Debunking at all:
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-tries-to-back-u...
https://ararmaher.wordpress.com/2024/04/23/doppler-shift-ana...
Maher Arar is not an authority on this issue (same for me, same for you) as he is a telecommunications engineer. And all of his assumptions about missiles and air warfare in the article must have sources before used. Just like anything else, also in doppler equtions: garbage in, garbage out. But just look on the 2 videos he brings trying to claim it was a GBU-39 bomb:
One destroys an entire mosque in the past:
[1] https://youtu.be/YszjqgUWdUo
But the same left a 1 meter crater in the hospital???? Just nonsense.
[2] https://youtu.be/VnAbV-ktbi8
As clearly stated in [3]: "More than half a dozen experts who independently reviewed imagery of the scene said the lack of major blast damage, such as collapsed buildings, as well as the relatively small size and shape of the crater, ruled out the possibility of the kind of airstrike Israel has carried out elsewhere in Gaza since Oct. 7."
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/10/26/gaz....
You can go to Youtube yourself and look at the size of a GBU-39 explosion.
Correction: a PIJ rocket, not a Hamas rocket.
And it is different how? the point being is that incident was falsely blamed on the IDF while it was a Palestinian rocket misfire
Do you have a source that it was a Hamas missile, or do you simply spread Israeli lies?
AP: https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-hos...
CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/21/middleeast/cnn-investigat...
Economist: https://www.economist.com/interactive/the-economist-explains...
Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/18/al-ahli-arab-h...
WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/video/video-analysis-shows-gaza-hospital...
Also worth reading this document straight from Hamas: https://twitter.com/cogatonline/status/1774437234579558643
None of these actually say Hamas, and the Israelis even blame a different group; Palestinian Jihad.
Yes, this is actually PIJ, I was referring to the colloquial referral as Hamas to all Palestinian organizations in Gaza. Colloquial use that OP seemed to be using.
Also they do coordinate their fighting and if you read the last link also their propaganda
> I was referring to the colloquial referral as Hamas to all Palestinian organizations in Gaza.
This is a pretty big part of the problem, yes.
It's not, before Oct 7 the PIJ was regarded as some different more extreme counterpart to Hamas.
After they fought and coordinated together, raped, massacred and kidnapped, I don't see the difference anymore
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-tries-to-back-u...
> Words are not knifes. People eventually will adapt to lies and weird things. And truth will find a way.
In the meantime there could be a war [1].
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/remember-the-maine-56...
> My opinion is that freedom of speech must be absolute, despite all the issues and shortcomings coming with it. You must be able to speak, write, draw anything you like, without any limits.
This would make all libel and defamation permissible.
This would make any type of business fraud permissible.
This would make it permissible to lie and fabricate documentation in order to target vulnerable populations for theft and fraud.
This would make identity impersonation (including of, say, law enforcement, medical, legal, or engineering professionals) permissible.
This would make it permissible to fabricate evidence for use in legal cases.
This would make it permissible to lie or fabricate evidence for sexual partners regarding STIs or contraceptive use.
Other than free speech zealots, you're not going to get anyone on board with rebuilding society so that we have to preemptively guard against all of these things, and have no recourse against bad actors.
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Just a point about Al Jazeera that is worth mentioning. There are two Al Jazeeras. One which is presented to Western audiences and one which is presented to Middle-Eastern audiences. The media and articles are politically aligned in each region. Don't assume what you read in the US/UK/wherever is the same as over there.
In the case of Israel, the Middle-Eastern unit were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas. Also the entire point of Al Jazeera was for Qatar to provide political influence through media, not as an unbiased news agency.
It's even banned in some Arab countries for being a security risk.
Why would you allow that to continue in your country?
> It's even banned in some Arab countries for being a security risk.
If I recall Egypt partially did that after the military coup, and some Gulf countries. None of which are known for being kind to criticism. So this point is more validating of Aljazeera's position as relatively honest journalism in the a region full of dictatorships and corrupt governments.
I wouldn't say it's validating, just not necessarily invalidating.
Regardless, a news organizing funded by a monarchy not exactly known for its human and civilian rights mostly like has an agenda beyond "honest journalism".
Their journalist were trained at BBC. It is funny that BBC exactly fits your definition :-)
BTW both have very high standards and make excellent journalism.
I'd like to see examples of bad Al Jazeera journalism instead of just attacks to Qatar monarchy.
>BTW both have very high standards and make excellent journalism.
With respect to everything except the middle east.
I won't deny that they have generally good coverage on many subjects, but the nuance is that they leverage / launder that credibility towards advancing the state aims of Qatar whenever needed.
And as OP mentioned, if you look up how AJ covers a topic in English and how they cover it in Arabic, it's wildly different.
As an Arabic speaker I notice higher standards in the English version of Al Jazeera, I remember a Qatari cameraman was killed in a shooting attack in Benghazi-March 12, 2011, Ali Hassan Al-Jaber, unlike the English Al Jazeera team, was not wearing any protective gear nor had he undergone any media training for covering war zones. Some interesting take on this goes like this: 'Qatar is not only a historical part of the American security and energy system, as is the case with many other countries. The issue is that, thirty years ago, Qatar went through a difficult period - a crisis of legitimacy, a coup, and a real external threat - that shaped Qatari foreign policy and made the regime understand that, in order to become useful and necessary for Washington, it needed to do “more,” to excel. From the rest of the allies in the region, and for it to have a special role that no one else can play.All Qatari policies since then, from the Al-Udeid base to relations with Israel to hosting Hamas and rapprochement with Syria, then waging war against it, all come within this framework. If you do not interpret Qatari policies within their actual historical and functional context, then you are be misled on the real purpose of Al Jazeera channel. What is interesting here is that the Qatari officials themselves do not hide these matters at all, and they publicize them at every turn and external criticism that comes their way, the latest of which is an official statement from the Qatari embassy in Washington: “We do not act on our heads. We did not host the leadership of Hamas except in response to an American request, and not only with their approval, and the same goes for relations with the Taliban, the Syrian war, and the transfer of money to Gaza was taking place with Israeli approval and under their eyes - we perform the tasks for you.” They say this to the American and Western public exclusively, and as an Arab, when you question Qatari policy and its role, you may not find a single Qatari citizen in the discussion before you. Why do you think, and within any theory of the world, might America ask Qatar to host Hamas or establish relations with Hezbollah?'
The BBC doesn't fit my definition as it's run by a democracy with a high degree of human rights and civilian freedoms.
And journalism can be technically right while still showing a very one sided view.
Not that I'm pro ban, just saying that there's a good reason to be vigilant when it comes to their news coverage and make sure it's not you're only source.
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What is "Zaka" and what has BBC been saying? Have a link to what you mean?
Zaka is the Israeli first responder organization that did a lot of the work on October 7.
wahnfrieden is apparently an October 7 denier and is annoyed that the BBC does think it happened.
No, the specific atrocity stories of 40 beheaded babies that BBC repeats after it was discredited, the baby cut from a womb, and others that were admitted to be fabrications but continue to be reported from Zaka as a credible source. Don't slander me saying that I deny Oct 7 happened.
Do you have a link where the BBC repeats this? I've never heard of any of it.
Here's a recent one, which cites a discredited Zaka source: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68162920
And there is plenty of reporting on the atrocity propaganda lies Zaka spread, but here is an Israeli publication's reporting: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-31/ty-article-ma...
NYT also repeated discredited lies: https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-anat-schw...
Detractors say that discrediting Zaka propaganda is equivalent to Oct 7 denial full-stop, even though Israeli publications have also discredited their claims (I guess Haaretz must also be an Oct 7 denier) - you can be the judge of that
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>Why would you allow that to continue in your country?
We have a constitution that protects our rights, and among them a right to make up our minds on the basis of an uncensored discourse. That's the other, implicit half of the first amendment: the right to listen to what others want to tell you.
Can you openly call for the murder of <enter ethnic group> in the US under the protection of the first amendment ?
It depends. Not sure of the threshold offhand, but I believe it has to do with “incitement of imminent lawlessness” — that is, whether your words are designed to cause specific violent acts (as opposed to just generally stirring up hate that ends up being violent).
Concrete examples: “Jews will not replace us” is protected speech; “everyone go out and find a Jew” to an angry mob is probably not.
Leaving that question aside, I believe there's a difference between that, and reporting, uncensored, that somebody else did. Presumably Israel is happy for the "right" people to report it, with the appropriate condemnation and editing. What that ends up amounting to is compelled speech. I know that's not quite the issue you're responding to, but I do believe that free speech requires the right to report that somebody said something that might be illegal itself, and that free speech also requires that you not be compelled to rebuke it with the appropriate government talking points to do so.
I think you can. I mean the Daily Stormer amongst other horrible hate-filled online publications are allowed to publish online, and US citizens are allowed to read it.
Meanwhile Israeli citizens cannot read Al Jazeera legally now.
Yes. Neo-Nazis serve as an obvious example. As long as you aren’t inciting imminent lawless actions you can say pretty much anything.
Or https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/us/pastors-praise-anti-ga...
If worded in a way to prevent outright calls to violence, then yes.
Um.
Had cops show up at the home of a child that was on a sports team of my daughter's. They were looking for her brother and took him in.
Afterwards we spoke more to her mother and found out that users in game forums had told him he could make these kinds of comments and it was free speech as long it wasn't a call to violence. Well I don't know the legalities, but I do know he was never welcome back at that school. (Nor even in the district for that matter.) Worse, the neighboring district got word, and they implemented their own machinations to ensure he was effectively banned from there as well. In the end, they sent him to live with relatives.
I wouldn't be so cavalier about telling people they can say things like this. It's like, well you can say anything. But if you say things that make oblique suggestions towards violence, expect to watched from that point on. And excluded from any activities that people believe would provide you opportunity to act on what they now suspect to be your intentions. You can't talk about indirect suggestions of violence against airliners, presidents, or students in high schools and still expect to be able to show up at the White House, or board an airliner, or go to the high school you attend. Society doesn't work like that these days.
Minors essentially don't have the same rights as adults.
I mean, sure, but the question was about the First Amendment.
> Can you openly call for the murder of <enter ethnic group> in the US under the protection of the first amendment ?
You can not. Inciting violence and calls for criminal action is a well establish limit of the First Amendment, but that is not what they are doing from what I gathered in this thread.
From the poster a few levels above:
> In the case of Israel, the Middle-Eastern unit were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas. Also the entire point of Al Jazeera was for Qatar to provide political influence through media, not as an unbiased news agency.
Showing a video of an enemy of the country calling for genocide of that country is a newsworthy event that is part of journalistic practice. The American media showed Osama Bin Laden videos calling for the death of Americans, to report on him.
Please learn the difference of showing a video of a terrorist calling for genocide to report on him vs the news anchor/owner of that news company agreeing with that terrorist and joining that call for genocide.
America has other limits on free speech. Foreign control of media for example which I am not familiar with.
> You can not. Inciting violence and calls for criminal action is a well establish limit of the First Amendment, but that is not what they are doing from what I gathered in this thread.
Brandenburg v Ohio (the current standard for what constitutes incitement) literally says your free speech rights run up to and include advocacy for violent overthrow of the government. The limitation it establishes is "incitement to imminent lawless action", with heavy emphasis on "imminent".
This is the correct answer. I think people are approaching this emotionally. The problem is if you start infringing on it there simply is no end.
kind of makes sense for americans. I feel like "over throw the government" is a core part of american history and culture.
I'd hope this only applies to the government though and not towards groups of people or ethnicity.
Learned something new. Thank you.
There is still a question of whether that is the correct limit. Many people think it is. Obviously Israel disagrees. We can’t use the First Amendment and SCOTUS precedent to uncover aughts, especially to another country.
However, if you agree that Brandenburg set the correct limit, you can conditionalize aid on it. It’s just not a first principles approach.
> You can not. Inciting violence and calls for criminal action is a well establish limit of the First Amendment, but that is not what they are doing from what I gathered in this thread.
Saying "ethnic group XXX should be exterminated" does not meet the standard for incitement. I don't know why the debate has become about US law but I'm even more puzzled about so many people confidently stating, wrongly, that the US bans hate speech. The US has frequently been criticized by Europeans for this exact reason -- in their view, the US stance permitting hate speech is irresponsible.
>You can not
There is more to it than that. The Supreme Court has held that “advocacy of the use of force” is only unprotected when it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and is “likely to incite or produce such action.”
Apparently as far as I learned from a lawyer the answer is yes. If you are not acting or planning to act on it what you described is protected under free speech.
That’s complicated. The US has criminal and civil law. With regards to criminal law in terms of expression and liberties there are very few things you cannot do. The default is to lean towards liberty always.
In terms of civil law you can generally sue anyone for anything at anytime unless there is existing law or contracts halting further civil actions.
You can't sue someone for calling for violence, including racially motivated violence. Incitement is a crime, but incitement happens when you direct someone to take a specific action and they do exactly what you said (e.g., you tell them to go beat someone and they do it).
Balaji Srinivasan - "Take total control of your neighborhood. Push out all Blues. Tell them they’re ... unwelcome Just as Blues ethnically cleanse me out of San Francisco, like, push out all Blues." https://youtu.be/EqJoXaNFFjY?si=x3HD6-P9n98KTHGi&t=14723
Actually yes.
I mean, that’s what the KKK does.
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> Can you openly call for the murder of <enter ethnic group> in the US under the protection of the first amendment ?
Yes. We see this with open chants of "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" and "Globalize the Intifada"
...as long as the call is not likely to produce "imminent lawless action". Brandenburg v. Ohio was a decision by the Supreme Court establishing the "imminent lawless action" test for determining when speech advocating illegal conduct is not protected by the First Amendment. The Court held that speech is protected unless it is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.
> We see this with open chants of "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free"
I particularly object to taking worst possible interpretation, and labelling the slogan as a call for ethnic cleansing.
The phrase "will be free" would not normally be interpreted this was in in any other conflict.
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I would describe this as a motte and bailey: using the failure of peace processes to advance the claim that any call for Palestinian freedom is genocidal. Although even the “motte” in this case is tenuous, since preventing the recognition of a Palestinian state has been an explicit goal of Israeli and U.S. foreign policy.
Honestly not even sure what to say about the second paragraph, other than that “implacable religious and ethnic hatred” is definitely a deeply held Western value. We don’t have a monopoly on it, but the idea that we are the uniquely moral ones, while all those other people are just motivated by hatred… sheesh.
"failure of peace process" is quite the spin.
In 2005, the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza meant the IDF leaving and taking all Jews from the area with them. That's about as pro-peace as you can get. Israel saying in essence "Here you go, Palestinians. Take all of Gaza in peace. No strings attached. We will supply you with water and electricity too!"
Gazans elected Hamas and then fired so many rockets at Israelis that they had to invent a new technology to protect themselves. Gazans dug tunnels under the border with Israel for no other purpose than to kill Israelis.
Yeah, like most humans, we Westerners have experience of hate, but no, Westerners do not have living experience of that level of hate. Well, Jews do.
“No strings attached, no access to the rest of the world without our permission”. I think you’re not seeing the strings for the wall.
This is dishonest. Try again, please. Why was "access to the rest of the world", by which I guess you mean the Egypt-Israeli blockade, put in place? When?
You "guess"?
For someone who thinks the rest of us are so ignorant on this...
Gaza's (only) Airport, which had its radar station and control tower bombed in 2001, and its runways cut up by IDF bulldozers in 2002.
Gaza's port has been intermittently blockaded by the Israeli Navy since 2005, and permanently since 2007.
> Exit and entry into Gaza by sea or air is prohibited. There are only three crossings in and out of Gaza, two of them controlled by Israel and one by Egypt. Israel heavily regulates Palestinians' movement through Erez, with applications considered only for a small number of laborers (less than 5% of the number considered in 2000) and for limited medical and humanitarian reasons.[6] Israel's military cooperation with Egypt and its control of the population registry (through which it controls who can obtain the necessary travel documents) gives it influence over movement through Rafah.
Certainly sounds like "access to the rest of the world" is being prohibited.
Just for shiggles? No particular reason? Keep going. In response to Palestinians doing .... what?
I think you mean "In response to Hamas, funded in part by the Likud administration, because the PLA was being increasingly seen as conciliatory and willing to seek diplomacy (who knows why, tiredness of conflict, Arafat growing more philosophical in his late life), which caused awkward questions of "if they are willing to negotiate, why isn't Israel?"."
Hamas was propped up by the hard right wing because they made a more visible enemy.
So, if Hamas is dedicated to "exterminating Jews" as you say, then why would Israel give them funding and support against the PLA?
Hamas is ~38,000 of 2.5M people. And thanks to those embargoes and blockades, they're the only ones who are really armed in Palestine.
You're contorting the answer in order not to answer. The blockade was put in place in response to what, when?
2005, unilateral withdrawal from Gaza
2006, Gazans peacefully went about their lives, setting up - and minding their own - businesses, made trade contacts, geared up a booming tourist industry...? No. That's not what happened, is it. I'm sure you can find a way to blame Israel for Palestinian choices, but that helps no one.
2007, blockade, out of the blue with no rhyme or reason. Just to flex, and watch the world burn.
If you care about peace, you won't do these weird contortions to explain Israel's actions. As with Hamas, Israel explains the reasons for its actions very clearly but largely boils down to "leave us alone or FAFO".
There's no contortion, there's blinders.
The PLO had ordered its military/paramilitary to not antagonize Israel, and they weren't. That was one of the keys to sitting at the negotiation table. And there had been a few false starts. Israel, in response to those false starts, entirely reasonably, left the table. But then there was a period of reasonable calm.
Palestinians are not attacking Israel - this isn't a war.
Hamas continued to have a militant and extremist position, which included attacking Israel.
^ There, answering your question, acknowledging that Hamas had and continues to attack Israel.
Now answer mine:
Why did Israel fund and prop up Hamas rather than the PLO who was working towards a peaceable situation?
Like you said, Hamas are attacking Israel. But the Likud administration sent them money and supported them.
Why?
This guy says that Israel supported PLO in an attempted, but failed coup against Hamas: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40273500
Seems contradictory. Which is it?
And I ask again: there were no reasonable security concerns behind the blockade according to you? Just for evil funsies?
Come on, you're actively avoiding anything that paints Israel as less than saintly.
> For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.
> Mossad chief, David Barnea, was asked a question that had not been on the agenda: Did Israel want the payments to continue?
> Mr. Netanyahu’s government had recently decided to continue the policy, so Mr. Barnea said yes.
Source: "‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas" - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
> The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from
> For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.
> The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Source: "For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces" - https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
I suppose the Times of Israel is anti-semitic, too?
> And I ask again: there were no reasonable security concerns behind the blockade according to you? Just for evil funsies?
There's no room for conversation here. You doggedly hang on to issues even after they've been answered.
I literally said "Hamas was actively attacking Israel".
> "Yes, Hamas was financed by the government of Israel in an attempt to weaken the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah," Borrell said in a speech in the University of Valladolid in Spain without elaborating.
EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell.
> "Blowback: How Israel Went from Creating Hamas to Bombing It"
Source: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-c...
This isn't anti-semitic conspiracy theory.
And what do you have? "Some guy on HN says Israel (and the US) supported the PLO against Hamas".
Huh. US involvement: "The US committed $59 million for training and non-lethal equipment for the Presidential Guard".
Fun fact, the amount that was sent to Hamas with Netanyahu's -specific and explicit- approval was around that much... every month... for near two decades.
But, as mentioned, I cannot see fruitful outcomes from further discussion here.
Since my mention of the coup attempt was brought up here, I’ll link the same source: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/04/gaza200804
I regret the phrasing “U.S. and Israel backed coup”, since it makes them sound like equal participants and the discussion is now marginalizing the U.S.’s involvement. But like I said elsewhere, both the coup attempt and Israel’s support for Hamas at other points in time are well documented.
I think your contributions on this have been useful and valuable.
Parent keeps harping about Hamas coming to power in 2006 and that that is when the blockades started and that people should "figure out why those dates align", steadfastly refusing to acknowledge that the airport had been bombed in 1999 and runways dug up in 2001.
Oh, and any claim about Hamas being supported by Israel is apparently anti-semitic.
> Oh, and any claim about Hamas being supported by Israel is apparently anti-semitic.
Who said that? Why did they say that?
> I literally said "Hamas was actively attacking Israel".
You did? It was buried under lots of anti-Israel rhetoric that it was hard to see.
The blockade was introduced to the discussion as yet but one more example of Israel oppressing the poor Gazans, presented as if it were some kind of arbitrary evil simply to control Gazans with no other rhyme or reason. It turns out that there was a reason, actually. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40271323
So, without cruft:
2005: Israel withdrew from Gaza
2007: Israel blockades Gaza
we have "Hamas actively attacked Israel"
It seems a very straightforward cause and effect.
> Come on, you're actively avoiding anything that paints Israel as less than saintly.
Not at all. However, I do note with sadness that you and the other guy could not simply answer the question. Lots of diversion into how awful Israel is before at last a grudging admission that the blockade was in response to attacks.
Do you think it's at least possible that your firm and unwavering anti-Israel stance is informed itself by this kind of rhetoric? Just a thought.
Ok, now that that's established, I'll dig into this allegation of Netenyahu funding Hamas in order to deny Palestinians a state. And while I'm at it the other guy's allegation that at the same time Israel funded a coup against Hamas. Sounds suss out of the gate but who knows? Maybe this is the smoking gun that Israel is led by demons.
I find that most anti-Israel rhetoric is like that. Israel builds a wall in response to a wave of attacks: "Israel is building an open air prison". Israel blockades Gaza in response to tunnels: "Israel just wants to control Gazans lives" and so forth. Israel destroying an airport? Gee, I wonder why they did that? What possible reason could those monsters have for doing such a despicable act? Any ideas?
There’s … a literal wall. Good question, when did that appear?
Again, why was a wall built? In response to what?
Did you know that Finland is building a wall on her border with Russia? In response to what, would you guess?
Is one of these walls ok but the other not? If not, why not? A wall is the most passive thing one can do to protect one's national borders, and yet, somehow you present it as yet another example of Israeli evil. Why Palestinians should have the right to stroll onto Israeli grounds anytime they please remains unexplained.
There certainly is a theme here of imputing malevolence even to Israel's most mild, passive response to actual violence by Palestinians. Are you infuriated by the Iron Dome as well?
No strings attached… except the lack of an airport (Israel destroyed it in 2001), a sea blockade, tightly controlled land border crossings and periodic attacks on Gaza power and water facilities. You only need to look at the past six months to see that Israel is not “supplying” Gaza with water and electricity out of the goodness of their hearts.
While you’re looking at the last six months, perhaps also look at what Israeli government officials have been saying for years. Just last week Bezalel Smotrich called for the “complete destruction” of Gaza — far more explicitly genocidal than “from the river to the sea” — and for the annexation of the West Bank if the UN were to recognize a Palestinian state. That level of hate is, at the very least, heartily reciprocated.
I am Jewish, by the way. So inasmuch as this affects Jews as a whole — rather than Israelis specifically — it’s not abstract for me.
There are two colliding views here - one is that Israel is acting in good faith, and the other - that Israel is on a campaign of cruelty. For the believers in the former, i want to bring two facts:
> tightly controlled land border
for people who think border is there for security, you should be aware that Israel has, for years, blocked imports of essential sanitary products and food items into Gaza, i.e. toilet paper, soap, and humus. Many of the tunnels under gaza were built for smuggling in these items. United states has long protested this policy:
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE52A5TA/
> Failure of the peace process
in 1995 Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by Israeli religious extremist to sabotage the peace process
> The perpetrator was Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old former Hesder student and far-right law student at Bar-Ilan University. Amir had strenuously opposed Rabin's peace initiative, particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords, because he felt that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would deny Jews their "biblical heritage which they had reclaimed by establishing settlements".
> should be aware that Israel has, for years, blocked imports of essential sanitary products and food items into Gaza, i.e. toilet paper, soap, and humus. Many of the tunnels under gaza were built for smuggling in these items
Oh, now I understand! This is but a simple misunderstanding! How silly, but easy to clear up.
You see, the tunnels came first - into Israel in order to kill Israelis. Only then did Israel and Egypt blockade Gaza. Had nothing to do with smuggling. Now that that is cleared up, you can distrust Hamas and trust Israel. Unless, of course, there's another misunderstanding in your way that I can clear up for us all?
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3267217,00.html (note the date, 2006 - after withdrawal in 2005 but before the blockade in 2007)
At that point, Israel had already imposed sanctions: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4729000.stm
But also, that Ynet article is just stenography for the IDF! The only sources are IDF officers and the Israeli defense minister. Why would anyone believe this is not just manufacturing a pretext for escalation?
> Why would anyone believe this is not just manufacturing a pretext for escalation?
Why would anyone believe that?
I’ll add one more, which I alluded to in my first comment.
Netanyahu has been supporting and funding Hamas for years, specifically and explicitly to prevent recognition of a Palestinian state. Direct quote: “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas.”
https://archive.md/2024.04.07-081801/https://www.haaretz.com...
But yeah, I’m sure all those peace offers were totally legitimate and it’s Palestine’s fault for never being satisfied.
This is dishonest. Why were these measures put in place? If any part of your answer is "to oppress Palestinians" the answer is wrong and you should update your information.
Need I remind you that your answer for Palestinian attacks on Israel was literally just “they hate Jews”?
You simplify of course, because my actual argument is harder to counter. I understand if the choice choice is "Palestinians attack Israel as a righteous resistance to oppression" or "Palestinians attack Israel because the idea of living peacefully next to a Jewish state is abhorrent." why a reasonable person would think the first is more likely. It's counter intuitive to our expectations.
And you never answered the question. Why were those measures put in place?
I don’t think “they hate Jews” is a meaningful simplification from “the idea of living peacefully next to a Jewish state is abhorrent.” If your argument is more nuanced, you are doing a poor job communicating it.
Anyway, I’ll play ball. First of all, Israel controlled Palestinian movement into and out of the Gaza strip for years before Hamas came into power.
In 2000, during the Second Intifada, Israel closed Yasser Arafat International Airport — the only international airport in Gaza. The next year they destroyed it.
In 2005, Israel withdrew all settlements from Gaza out of concern that if the Palestinian population kept growing, it would threaten Israel’s ability to be a Jewish state.
In 2006, Hamas was elected in Gaza with a plurality of the vote. After the U.S. and Israel backed the previous incumbents Fatah in an attempted coup, Hamas seized full control of the Gaza strip. This is about when Israel imposed the full blockade.
> This is about when Israel imposed the full blockade.
about is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Let's walk through more slowly.
Israel withdrew from Gaza when? Then imposed a blockade when and in response to what?
I'm hearing that Netanyahu supported Hamas, now I'm hearing from you Israel supported Fatah. Which is it? Either way, or both, it sounds pretty nefarious of these wiley, shifty Israelis. They do this simply because they are evil or is there a charitable interpretation that they are addressing a a specific concern?
> I'm hearing that Netanyahu supported Hamas, now I'm hearing from you Israel supported Fatah. Which is it?
Netanyahu was not the prime minister at the time of the blockade.
Anyway, if you want to read about the coup attempt: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/04/gaza200804
I also made another comment citing Netanyahu stating why he supports Hamas: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40274152
This is all well documented. But it seems like you are intent on finding charitable interpretations for Israel’s actions while not searching further than “they hate Jews” for Palestine’s. So unless that stance changes, I don’t really see any point in further discussion.
I'm simply not interested in diversion.
Me: Why did Israel and Egypt blockade Gaza?
You: Did you know that Israel supported a coup against Fatah?
What would get me interested:
You: The blockade came in response to a serious of tunnel attacks and is an attempt to limit materials that could be used to attack Israel. But there is important context that's missing. Hamas came to power after an attempted coup, and...
I'll check into your 2 allegations and report back.
Ok. I read the first part of the Vanity Fair article and of the Times article and I think I get the gists. Asking if I have them right:
Regarding "the Israeli government supported Hamas", from the NYT:
For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.
... Allowing the payments — billions of dollars over roughly a decade — was a gamble by Mr. Netanyahu that a steady flow of money would maintain peace in Gaza, the eventual launching point of the Oct. 7 attacks, and keep Hamas focused on governing, not fighting.
...Mr. Netanyahu’s critics disparage them as part of a strategy of “buying quiet,” and the policy is in the middle of a ruthless reassessment following the attacks.
Is that a fair excerpt?
Regarding "Israel and the US attempted a coup against Hamas" the gist appears to be that Bush the younger (really, as an aside, the worst President the US has had in my lifetime and I'm old enough to have been alive during the Nixon administration) supported a coup against Hamas in an incompetent attempt to create conditions for a the formation of a Palestinian state during his Presidency.
Is that fair? Probably not, because I don't have much patience for Bush shenanigans and it was hard to read.
One of the attached strings is that they aren't allowed to have a meaningful airport or seaport. It's a misrepresentation to suggest that Gaza has been free to self-realize given that it's basically been under a light-touch siege for decades.
That was not an original "string". The question is, and be honest: why was there a blockade? How long did Palestinians have Gaza and no blockade? What happened then?
> "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free"
For several decades, Israel's Likud party (currently in power) election manifesto was...
"From the river to the sea, there will be only Israeli sovereignty".
Perhaps that's where the Palestinians got it?
"Palestine will be free" is not "openly calling for murder".
This is not an argument. To address my argument, you'd have to show that "free" meant "sovereignty". But you cannot, because that's not what it means. It means the destruction of Israel and the expulsion - at best - of its people. It does not mean "living in peaceful coexistence with". What else do you think it means? What else could it possibly mean?
> It means the destruction of Israel and the expulsion - at best - of its people.
Literally nothing in the definition of the word means what you are attempting to make it mean:
free | friː | adjective (freer | ˈfriːə | , freest | ˈfriːɪst | )
1 able to act or be done as one wishes; not under the control of another: I have no ambitions other than to have a happy life and be free | a free choice.
• [with infinitive] able or permitted to take a specified action: you are free to leave.
• (of a state or its citizens or institutions) subject neither to foreign domination nor to despotic government: a free press.
• historical not a slave: the poor among the free men joined the slaves against the rich.
• [in names] denoting an ethnic or political group actively opposing an occupying or invading force, in particular the groups that continued resisting the Germans in the Second World War after the fall of their countries: the Free Dutch, Free Polish, and Free Norwegian fleets. See also Free French.
2 [often as complement] not or no longer confined or imprisoned: the researchers set the birds free | police were forced to let him walk free.
• not physically obstructed or fixed: he tried to kick his legs free | she smiled, leaned back, and waved a free arm in the air.
• Physics (of power or energy) disengaged or available. See also free energy.
• Physics & Chemistry not bound in an atom, a molecule, or a compound: the atmosphere of that time contained virtually no free oxygen. See also free radical.
• Linguistics denoting a linguistic form that can be used in isolation.
3 not subject to engagements or obligations: she spent her free time shopping.
• (of a facility or piece of equipment) not occupied or in use: the bathroom was free.
4 (free of/from) not subject to or affected by (something undesirable): our salsas are free of preservatives.
5 given or available without charge: free healthcare.
6 using or expending something without restraint; lavish: she was always free with her money.
• frank or unrestrained in speech, expression, or action: he was free in his talk of revolution.
• archaic overfamiliar or forward.
7 (of literature or music) not observing the normal conventions of style or form.
• (of a translation) conveying only the broad sense; not literal.
8 Sailing (of the wind) blowing from a favourable direction to the side or aft of a vessel.
#4 is the sense Palestinians mean it while well-meaning Westerners hear #1 and #2. The movement exploits the ambiguity of this term to dogwhistle and get all the no kidding white-supremacist, anti-Semites on board. To play in the bailey, so to speak.
Free as in judenfrei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judenfrei
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I'm not aware of any country with a constitution that prohibits all manners of media censorship and I'm also not aware of any country that does not have some level of media censorship that it engages in. What country are you talking about?
The United States has no prior speech restrictions, only limitations on the use of finite public spaces (town squares, broadcast spectrum), and restrictions based in the illegal origin of certain materials (CSAM). Libel laws are not restraints on speech, they're an avenue for torts arising from harms proven after they occurred. Specifically, the restraints the US does not have are called prior restraints. There are no banned media outlets or silenced individuals, which would be prior (before the fact) restraints on speech.
This is fine but you have to realise that war isn’t just about bombs. It’s about information too. An information war. In order to make up your mind correctly you need to be feed accurate information. Al Jazeera making up causality figures in real-time isn’t how you make up your mind.
> In order to make up your mind correctly you need to be feed accurate information.
Haha. And we're going to let the government decide what is "correct" and "accurate"?
Letting whoever is currently in power control what information the electorate has access to is one of the single biggest threats to democracy.
> Al Jazeera making up causality figures in real-time isn’t how you make up your mind.
The correct response is pointing out that their numbers are made up. In a working democracy you get people to see truth through public discourse, not censorship.
Don't make a deal with the devil just to shut up the neighbor's annoying dog.
> In a working democracy you get people to see truth through public discourse, not censorship.
in an idealistic world, this is true.
Unfortunately, it is also empirically true that, at least in the USA, the majority of the voting population has become a bit dumb, and does not personally try to verify these things they see or hear on the news.
Civic duty in democracy includes this sort of scrutiny, but sadly this level of critical thinking has been in decline in recent decades.
Haha. And we're going to let the government decide what is "correct" and "accurate"?
Ok, so how did all this unchecked exposure to propaganda workout for Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Palestine etc? Did it lead to some kind of "free thinking" utopia?
Free speech hasn't been banned in Israel. Access to information hasn't been banned. What has been banned is a platform for foreign agents to easily negative influence their populace and to broadcast nonsense en masse to their people.
If any Al Jazeera staff who have a residency permit want to walk the streets and discuss things their passionate about to other people, it will be allowed. But it won't be allowed if it turns out their being paid to do so by a foreign government. It's no different.
Sorry to say this, but you have yet offered a sane alternative here.
We can't just have autocrats from foreign countries broadcasting nonsense, unabated to whoever wants to listen, else our society will look no different to those dystopias.
Domestic free speech within a democracy is one thing, foreign interference is another.
> Ok, so how did all this unchecked exposure to propaganda workout for Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Palestine etc? Did it lead to some kind of "free thinking" utopia?
You did not think this argument through. None of the aforementioned countries have free press. They censor heavily.
In all of the above countries the government dictates what is "correct" and "accurate" information. News outlets saying anything else are shut down, banned, and journalists are sometimes jailed.
All of these non-democracies are afraid of free press. Is that the company Israel wants to keep in this matter?
> Access to information hasn't been banned [in Israel].
Al Jazeera is literally banned and blocked.
> We can't just have autocrats from foreign countries broadcasting nonsense, unabated to whoever wants to listen, else our society will look no different to those dystopias.
This defeatist argument leads to the conclusion that democracy cannot work. Democracy cannot work without free press, and according to you it cannot work if press is free from government interference.
Is that what we want to do? Give up?
You're confusing "free press" with "enemy disinformation campaign".
Nonsensical comment (even these "disinformation campaigns" are press), but I'll try to find meaning where there is little to be found and humor you.
You cannot let the legislative decide what constitutes an "enemy disinformation campaign" and what is "free press". It's an obvious weak spot in your democracy bad actors can exploit - far more dangerous than foreign propaganda that has to measure up against friendly outlets.
Anyway, I'm just glad you're not in charge of anything of consequence. Good day to you.
You’re absolutely correct about the information war bit. Facts are important. But another equally important component is what is withheld from the public.
I think it would be a mistake to characterize the difference between Israeli media and pro Palestinian media as simply disagreeing about numbers. If we’ve learned anything about global conflict, numbers don’t mean anything to people. If all Al Jazeera were doing is putting a black text white background body count on screen, there would have been no issue.
The difference is the images that are being depicted. People are moved by images of suffering. And depending on whose side you’d like to benefit, there’s plenty of suffering to show. This is likely one of the reasons Israel is shooting journalists. They might show pictures that complicate their black and white depiction of the conflict.
It’s also a trap to say that showing one side diminishes the suffering of the other. Fundamentally, neither’s suffering is more important.
Do you really think say if you listen to US MSM you will make up your mind correctly?. They are constantly making up stuff and omitting facts to influence public opinion.
Well at this point, I'm not so sure some of what I've seen on US MSM isn't created by foreign interference.
Anyway, I get your point but the difference here is this, you're allowed to ask questions like that in the very places where this nonsense is being fabricated.
That same toxic propaganda shouldn't be allowed to spread freely and unabated within our information space or we become those very dystopias we try to avoid.
I think this blind belief that "all information" is part of "free speech" is our Achilles heel, it might destroy our country.
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Exceptions: yelling fire in a crowded theater and TikTok.
The U.S. Constitution provides rights for citizens to have free speech — not non-citizens. And in fact, the U.S. does not allow broadcast companies (along with various others, e.g. common carrier and aeronautical radio companies) to be more than 25% owned by foreign entities unless the FCC specifically approves them: https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-poli... And for 60+ years the cap was 20%, and you could not go higher: there was no FCC approval process, and the cap was mandated by Congress. (And alternatives like the Internet didn't exist!)
And the E.U. banned Russia's RT media network, and has strict rules over foreign-owned media. This is all just the pot calling the kettle black to score points with anti-Israel domestic audiences. Literally every country complaining about it has some kind of similar restriction. Qatar doesn't recognize Israel as a state and has funded Hamas for years; Israel banning their state-owned media domestically is only controversial because some people find Israel to be controversial. Qatar complaining about it is especially ironic, since they hand out life sentences in prison for criticizing the Qatari government (e.g. Qatari poet Mohammed al-Ajami).
Free speech in the US is not limited to citizens. The first amendment reads “Congress shall make no law”. It doesn’t say anything about citizens. That’s a complete misunderstanding of the first amendment.
I believe you are incorrect. While non-citizens are granted freedom of speech while physically present in America, they are not granted freedom of speech outside of America. If they were, legal restrictions on foreign ownership of broadcast media companies would be difficult to enforce, since corporate expenditures are considered speech under Citizens United.
https://www.freedomforum.org/non-citizens-protected-first-am...
It’s not, but it’s nuanced.
The US Constitution applies to any US Person - someone within the US’ international borders, regardless of citizenship status.
Banning a foreign news outlet who broadcasts outside the US isn’t violating anyone’s 1st amendment rights.
> The U.S. Constitution provides rights for citizens to have free speech — not non-citizens.
This is basically untrue. At times, the court has applied different standards to speech by residents, but this does not mean that they would allow the government to apply any kind of limit on their speech, or indeed, more than very narrow ones.
In addition, the first amendment also covers the right to receive information.
Foreign ownership rules are not the same thing as the EU banning RT through legal means, or Israel shutting down Al-Jazeera and instituting internet blocks. You will notice that RT is not blocked in the US, nor is any other foreign media company.
I believe RT actually is blocked from operating broadcast or radio services in America (although not cable services, since those are exempt — only free-to-air broadcast coverage is included in the legal restrictions), which is why it never operated free-to-air broadcast or radio services in the U.S., unlike in other countries.
Can you point to some articles in Aljazeera Arabic that is doing what you're accusing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_Arabic#Controversie...
I'm not really sure pulling out a controversies tab from wikipedia is making the point that OP is trying to make. It's like citing BBC for their controversies
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_controversies
And? Not a great counter point though.
BBC is known to have issues with factuality.
https://deadline.com/2023/10/bbc-wrong-to-speculate-on-gaza-...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/21/bbc-reporter-nig...
But to address your point:
https://www.aljazeera.net/news/2024/5/3/%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3%D...
"Russia is ready to discuss serious peace proposals, and Zelensky is rushing British weapons "
Every single news outlet is known to have issues with factuality. Reporting the news is expensive and the people paying for it almost always want their point of view to be taken into consideration, regardless of state or private funding.
There is a spectrum of factuality, BBC News has problems with the govt threatening to shut it down if it doesn’t report what the govt wants it to report, but it’s no Russia Today, Daily Mail, or Fox News.
>the Middle-Eastern unit were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas
I am failing to see how an article about Russia's war correlates to OP's claim about Al Jazeera showing Hamas videos calling for an uprising. Can we get a direct link to the article that the OP mentioned?
> https://www.aljazeera.net/news/2024/5/3/%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3%D...
> "Russia is ready to discuss serious peace proposals, and Zelensky is rushing British weapons "
Is that not correct? Or what's the problem with it? A basic translate + fact check seems it's basically correct?
There are no direct examples I could find. Do you have a direct link?
https://www.aljazeera.net/news/2024/5/3/%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3%D...
"Russia is ready to discuss serious peace proposals, and Zelensky is rushing British weapons
"
Just a minute of searching directly.
This is about Russia not Hamas or what OP has been asked to link and thanks for the condescending tone.
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See for yourself:
https://www.memri.org/search-results?country_id_report%5B0%5...
fyi, MEMRI is a media outlet literally founded and run by Israeli intelligence officers.
That seems a bit misleading. According to Wikipedia, there were two founders, one of whom worked in the Intelligence Corps until 1988.
Those are interviews with Hamas spokespeople. It isnt the opinion of al Jazeera being presented.
There's nothing more shocking than the stuff Ben Gvir (security minister of Israel) does or says.
The second interview even references his calls to burn women and children as, yknow, a bad thing.
"memri" doesnt seem to consider that valid context, that is probably because it is a state propaganda outfit acting on behalf of that same Israeli minister who openly expressed a desire to burn women and children.
It's not an interview if a spokesman is allowed to say whatever they like without being challenged. It's not an interview if you broadcast a pre-recorded speech without comment. Ben Gvir is awful, but that doesn't change the fact that Al Jazeera's Arabic service is not impartial and is not acting as a legitimate journalistic outlet.
99+% of interviews in American media aren't trying to challenge the interviewee. They're just trying to gather information from one side, and then they generally try to get a token representative quote from the other side at the very end of an article, but sometimes not even that.
So you seem to be trying to hold Al Jazeera to a vastly higher standard than mainstream US media, at least in this particular regard.
Simply reporting without comment on what important/influential individuals and groups are saying, and adding basic objective context, is a large part of mainstream journalism.
Pushback is often limited to the opinion pages.
>So you seem to be trying to hold Al Jazeera to a vastly higher standard than mainstream US media, at least in this particular regard.
The mainstream US news media would fall foul of broadcasting standards laws in a lot of liberal Western democracies. Here in the UK, due impartiality is a legal duty of news broadcasters. The First Amendment is not the norm globally and the US is exceptionally laissez-faire when it comes to the regulation of broadcast news.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-co...
> It's not an interview if a spokesman is allowed to say whatever they like without being challenged.
This describes most interviews I've seen with Israeli government officials in the American press, although it's starting to change over the last few months.
Wait, impartial is the measure now?
The most-read newspaper in Israel, Israel Hayom, is owned by a friend of Bibi. Is it impartial? Should it be shut down?
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Can you please provide links?
It's hard for me to believe that your "Arabic" version is genuine. But if that's just me being naive, then I'd like to understand the truth, but I need actual evidence for that.
So if there are genuine headlines like that on Al Jazeera, it should be trivial for you to provide a couple of representative links that we can run through Google Translate to verify?
Here you go. https://www.aljazeera.net/news/liveblog/2023/10/7/%D9%82%D8%...
Really was not hard to find.
So, for instance:
"تواصلت الاشتباكات بين القوات الإسرائيلية ومقاومين فلسطينيين بمواقع داخل إسرائيل، وذلك مع دخول اليوم الثالث من عملية طوفان الأقصى التي أطلقتها كتائب عز الدين القسام التابعة لحركة المقاومة الإسلامية حماس ضد الاحتلال الإسرائيلي..."
"The clashes between the Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters continued at locations inside Israel, as the third day of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation launched by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas against the Israeli occupation proceeds..."
1. "مقاومين فلسطينيين" (Palestinian resistance fighters): The term "resistance fighters" conveys a sense of legitimacy and heroism to the Palestinian combatants, compared to more neutral terms like "militants" or "combatants."
2. "الاحتلال الإسرائيلي" (the Israeli occupation): This phrase inherently carries a negative connotation and frames Israel as an occupying force, which is a viewpoint that aligns with Palestinian narratives and is contentious in international discussions.
3. "عملية طوفان الأقصى" (Al-Aqsa Flood operation): The operation's name itself, invoking the Al-Aqsa mosque—a highly symbolic and emotive site in the conflict—suggests a righteous or justified struggle, further aligning the narrative with Palestinian perspectives.
These choices in vocabulary serve to frame the conflict in a way that emphasizes Palestinian resistance against an unjust "occupation," aligning closely with the Palestinian viewpoint and potentially eliciting a sympathetic response from Arab audiences.
This framing influences how readers perceive the events, creating a less neutral, more partisan view of the conflict.
https://www.aljazeera.net/news/liveblog/2023/10/7/%D9%82%D8%...
This language makes it extremely difficult to have a conversation about the conflict. Everything Israel does is framed as nefarious and evil.
That’s a lot less incendiary than your first example. As a simple point of fact, Israel is occupying territory whose inhabitants do not want them there and are not given a right to vote. What term would you consider more accurate?
Your last point seems to be unawareness that the name given is Hamas’ official name for that operation. Using it in the quoted sentence seems very similar to, say, reporting that U.S forces attacked Houthi rebel positions in the sixth month of Operation Prosperity Guardian. Whether or not you like the term, it’s the official name and it’s reasonable to expect readers to be familiar with it.
The great thing about the pro-Palestinian position is that it's super easy to understand. Zionists settled land that wasn't theirs and stole it. Easy. Simple. Wrong.
That it's wrong doesn't matter to most people. "Occupied land" has a specific, legal definition that in no way applies to Israel or Gaza, and probably does not apply to the West Bank. And, see, already I'm losing this discussion: with just a single misused word "occupation" you - perhaps unintentionally - sewed misinformation that needs to be unwound even assuming you have a good faith interest in doing that. Most anti Zionists are simply not interested.
So, yes, words matter. If you repeat that Israel has "occupied" territory "illegally" long enough in the media, people like yourself will accept it as true without really understanding what it means.
> That’s a lot less incendiary than your first example.
I don't know what you're taking about. This is my first contribution to the thread.
You saw that words matter, what term do you prefer? I asked for that but got three paragraphs of accusation of being “pro-Palestinian” and being told that I’m misusing a word but not what the correct term is. I suspect this is at least in part due to the conflation with the question illegality in your third paragraph: use of the term is well established but there’s considerable debate over whether it was ever legal or still is.
Here, for example, note that use of the term occupied is established enough to be used in official UN documents:
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies...
Similarly, the ICRC uses presence rather than trying to make complex judgements about the relative merits:
https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/634kfc....
You know, we had an interesting discussion about Land Day a while back when you were accusing me of being an Islamist. I am saddened to see this regression on the issue of occupation/“pending final status determination”
I'm not really reading an actionable critique there.
It is true under international law though.
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You've crossed into religious flamewar. That's not allowed here, regardless of which religion the issue is with. We ban accounts that do it repeatedly, so please don't do it again.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: we've had to ask you this once before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33220658. Not cool. No more of this on HN, please.
> We're talking about muslims here. EVERY SQUARE CM they inhabit is conquered land. Islam "was spread through the sword".
Are you for real?
Every square cm is an exaggeration. Malaysia and Indonesia in my understanding accepted Islam largely through peaceful trading contacts. The Levant in particular, however, was conquered militarily and Arabized by a succession of Muslim conquests:
Rashidun Caliphate (632–661)
Umayyad Caliphate (661–750)
Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258)
Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171)
Ayyubid Dynasty (1174–1260)
Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517)
Ottoman Empire (1517–1918)
Where there is overlap, they ruled different parts of the area.
Personally, I think the idea of prior indigenous claim is counter productive, but since it has been introduced by Palestinians as a kind of volksgemeinschaft, blut und boden, Jews would have prior claim by that standard.
I think the idea of prior indigenous claim is counter productive, but since it has been introduced by Palestinians as a kind of volksgemeinschaft, blut und boden, Jews would have prior claim by that standard.
The folks who first brought up this "prior indigenous claim" business were the early Zionists of course. The pre-1897 inhabitants didn't have to "claim" any special rights because they were already there (give or take some forced migration within the Ottoman empire), and not trying to expand into any new territory they hadn't been occupying in living memory -- and so had nothing to justify or explain.
Anyway it's all moot because the earliest known inhabitants in the region were not Jews in any recognizable sense, but predominantly the Canaanites and other bronze age cultures. Whose presence predates any traces of the Israelite culture by 2000+ years. And who were likely the primary genetic reservoir for both Palestinians and Jews as they are currently known, via significant mixtures with other groups from outside the region.
The whole idea of attempting to adjudicate anything happening on the ground today on the basis of any of this history (or our current conception of it) is completely vacuous of course. As is this bizarre Blut und Boden reference that you're trying to asign to the Palestinians, of all people.
There were local Palestinian magnates of sone authority in the 16th - 18th centuries CE
*some
Cyprus, Bougainville and Kashmir are all part of some transnational web? Cyprus and Kashmir are recent?
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This is not purposefully, Arabic is the main language of the people living in the regions, the Arabs. Just because they're catering to that out and giving news accordingly to the local demographics, bringing speakers from there doesn't make it their viewpoints. If you want to accuse someone of pushing agenda then Western media outlets and outlets that pushed the "40 babies beheading" stories is more factual.
They're the same speakers. They just lie about their message in English.
You have made this assertion several times but without sources. Can you provide links to examples supporting this claim?
See my other post in this thread. Not sure how I link to a specific post.
Sources, please.
Here's a random description of sources, with an illustration of what's happening right at the time I'm posting this, in a not particularly important news item.
https://www-aljazeera-net.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_t...
(yes, this strange URL is just Google translate translating the arabic frontpage of Al-Jazeera. Don't worry, they're not going to stop the double speak)
vs
https://www.aljazeera.com/
Here's my take:
Arabic: https://www-aljazeera-net.translate.goog/news/2024/5/6/%d8%a...
Proudly declaring that Hezbollah attacks the Golan Heights of Israel with "booby-trapped drones". One might point out that booby trapping weapons is illegal under international law and a serious warcrime. A warcrime that even Russia, who see no problem with white phosphorous and poison gas, refuses to commit in Ukraine. Why? There's no telling who will be killed by booby trapped weapons (Booby trapped weapons legislation is about that will explode on impact, then explode again or otherwise injure people when it's getting cleaned up or examined. Because civilians might clean up weapons, or children might find them, this is a big no-no in international law)
The whole article is about using 10 different sources to brag how effective the attack was, and it just keeps and keeps going on about that. It mentions various sources, each more far fetched than the last, how "these types of rockets" cause enormous damage, death and injuries. It has no mention of this being a response to Israeli attacks, nor does it have any mention that Israel made a counterstrike.
It concludes by actually stating that the military campaign by Hezbollah is about to defeat the IDF.
English, same news event:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/13/lebanons-hezbollah-...
In this, the "booby-trapped" part is gone, they are reporting it, pretending to be neutral about it (as opposed to in arabic, where they are anything but neutral) and the whole article starts trying to cause doubts about whether the attack happened at all.
Prominently featured in the article is that the Isreali military states no injuries where reported, and all the sources are suddenly gone. Instead, there is focus on that this is a "tit-for-tat" attack, that was really Israel's fault.
In other words, the article focuses on how this was a totally ineffective attack, that was justified because of Israeli killings in Lebanon, that absolutely does not merit any kind of counterattack.
In case you're wondering, Israeli press reported the same event:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-05-06/ty-article-li...
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-800017
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s1joamlmc#autoplay
Summary:
1) 30 rockets (al Jazeera and Hezbollah reported many drones)
2) NO details, no statements from Hezbollah
3) it hit a town, Metulla, not a military base, either zero (Haaretz, Ynetnews) or two (Jerusalem Post) persons wounded, both civilians. The town, by the way, is in the foothills of the Golan heights at best, it is very much not actually in the Golan heights. But it's very close to Lebanon.
3) The IDF executed a military counterstrike, against military targets (which means Hezbollah launch sites)
If you want to research yourself, here's the Arabic version of Al Jazeera's Israel-Palestine coverage translated to English:
https://www-aljazeera-net.translate.goog/where/arab/palestin...
That’s an error page but also it seems like you’re conceding the point if you can’t provide a single link and are basically telling someone to comb through the output of a large media organization to try to find support for someone else’s argument. At the very least, the Wikipedia criticism page would be a good place to start doing your own research:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_c...
I'm not the original commenter that made the claim, I'm just saying that anyone who wants to check for themselves can use the Arabic Al Jazeera and translate it into English.
> In the case of Israel, the Middle-Eastern unit were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas. > > It's even banned in some Arab countries for being a security risk. > > Why would you allow that to continue in your country?
Especially when you have, in your country, about 20% of muslim arabs, most of which being israelo-palestinians (i.e. palestinians with an israeli passport).
The last thing they'd want, in addition to fighting both Hamas and Hezbollah, would be an uprising of the israelo-palestinians who live in Israel.
It's of note that while there about 20% muslims in Israel, there's about zero jewish person in Gaza (there are some israelo-palestinian though) and zero jewish person in Iran. Or close to that.
The number of publication and jewish newspaper offices in both Gaza and Iran should also be food for thought.
> last thing they'd want, in addition to fighting both Hamas and Hezbollah, would be an uprising of the israelo-palestinians who live in Israel
You're talking about Israeli citizens. The way you keep them from uprising is by giving them political power. (I also see no evidence any uprising is imminent.)
They have a lot of potential political power. They refuse to use it.
> refuse to use it
Or they’re a diverse set of people whose views can’t be summarised based on their race and religion alone. I doubt, for example, many of them are in favour of a one-state solution.
Actually, as far as I understand it, most have historically preferred not to engage with the Israeli political system for ideological reasons. This is changing somewhat over the last few years.
Though I'm not a member of that group, so I don't want to misrepresent "their" views (and of course there is no such thing as "their" views, as you mentioned, they are a large and fairly diverse group).
> I doubt, for example, many of them are in favour of a one-state solution.
Why do you say that?
> Why do you say that?
Israel is rich. Palestine is poor. It would be on par with a German or Korean reünification in terms of cost.
Also, Israel has a relatively-liberal voting population. Palestine does not. One could have reasonable concerns around losing valued freedoms if a single Palestinian state drifts towards regional norms.
Israeli Arabs know they have it much better in Israel than anywhere else in the region. They historically have been highly opposed to proposed land-swaps/unification deals with the PA.
Again, I'm not a Palestinian-Israeli. I'm sure some share that attitude, but considering that many have families that are "on the other side of the border", I think there's quite a few that do want one unified country with everyone having voting rights. It's been argued for quite eloquently by several very prominent Palestinian voices, too (not necessarily Palestinian-Israeli voices).
> there's quite a few that do want one unified country
Of course. The original point was that they defy, as a community, summary.
How is that relevant? There’s multiple Arab parties in Israeli politics. None of them wield any serious power because the people with the diverse set of views they attempt to represent don’t vote.
"Refuse to use it" like African Americans in the Jim Crow south? Or is there some other context driving their non-participation?
> is there some other context driving their non-participation?
Muslim Israelis have representation in the Knesset. Their community simply hasn’t aligned itself with the American pro-Palestinian movement. (There are absolutely racism issues in Israel. But it’s not Jim Crow.)
Huh? They simply refuse to vote. They could have considerable power to transform Israeli politics if they did.
Note: The correct word is "Israeli", not "Israelo".
> It's of note that while there about 20% muslims in Israel, there's about zero jewish person in Gaza (there are some israelo-palestinian though) and zero jewish person in Iran. Or close to that.
Actually, while there are ~zero Jewish people in almost all Arab countries, Iran specifically has an actual Jewish population, though a very small one - I think the current estimate is around 8,000.
> It's of note that while there about 20% muslims in Israel, there's about zero jewish person in Gaza (there are some israelo-palestinian though) and zero jewish person in Iran. Or close to that.
Not only are there Jews in Iran, they even have a seat permanently reserved in the Iranian parliament.
From 100 000 before the islamic revolution to 8 000 today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Jews
The ethnic cleansing isn't totally complete, but it's quite close. It's nice that the Ayatolla made a fatwa to protect them though. But if I were Jewish in Iran I would expect that protection to fall the second the Ayatolla dies.
I just knew someone would reply with a comment like this but foolishly I decided not to get ahead of it.
Sure, there used to be more. Sure, there are obviously better places to be as a Jew.
But ... I replied to the comment that said "there are no Jews in Iran" . There are Jews living in Iran. That's it.
Is kingofpandora also your account?
I bet there are hidden jews living in other muslim countries too. But that's not really the point. The point is the fear, intimidation, and murders.
The reader should take note that when those celebrating "the only democracy in the Middle East" shutting down a news organization, and blocking Israelis from accessing their web site - when they talk about Hamas and the political influence of Qatar - remember that Netanyahu sent the head of the Mossad to Qatar weeks before October 7 to encourage them to send money to Hamas ( https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q... ). He did this because the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was making peaceful, political headway in getting Palestine internationally recognized.
Providing political influence is the point of any state news agency, including "unobjectionable" ones like the BBC, among others. In a democratic country worthy of the name they're allowed to operate regardless. I'd like to see some citation for the claim that Al Jazeera was serving as some sort of pro-violence propaganda stream; CNN showed some speeches from bin Laden after 9/11 but that doesn't make them al Qaeda propaganda.
The first half of your comment is fascinating and sounds entirely plausible. At first glance.
The second half contains emotion which makes clear where your heart is on this. So, that casts a shadow of doubt.
Could it be that there is credibility to your point but not to such an extreme extent where it’s like this deliberate conspiracy? I mean, as soon as everyone finds out, then this would actually be kind of a dumb plan on their part. The Arabic audience can inform the English audience of the discrepancy and vice versa. What if it’s not a conspiracy but a consequence of a large organization containing a blend of biased opinionated departments? Some more focused on journalism, and some on catering to local audiences’ tastes. That would make more sense to me, along with the typical biases of all news-media orgs everywhere in the world..
> In the case of Israel, the Middle-Eastern unit were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas
Have any citations?
> Why would you allow that to continue in your country?
If you value liberty or democracy the only valid question is: why wouldn’t you?
Israel is a country which values demography over democracy, so, like other Arab countries which don't value democracy, press repression is going to be a foregone conclusion
I didn't realise they had two versions, but it makes sense. Is the anti-infidel version only available in Arabic then?
Yes it is. They have low to no journalistic standards in that edition and it's heavily propagandized depending on their agenda. Their entire reputation is based on the Western version as "look we use those standards everywhere" which is definitely not true.
Where’s the proof to back your statement? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I believe you, but I too would like a citation that I can share with others - even a blog post with some examples would be helpful.
"anti-infidel version" - Godwin's Law but descending to Islamophobia.
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They don't wish harm on you because you are not Muslim.
What is the punishment for apostay in Islam?
Same as Judaism and Christianity. Death.
And which followers of these three faiths still regularly carry out murder for this reason?
A minority of the Muslim world and regularly isn't the word I'd use.
Again, you speak out of your ass.
https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2021/11/death-sentence-fo...
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CNN has two versions too, one for US audiences and one for the world.
I’m pretty sure that’s more normal than not for news orgs that have a home country or region but also compete on the global market. Some have several versions, not just two.
The Guardian is known for having such different takes on transgender rights in their US and British editions that the US employees complained.
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I can't find any indication that what you claim is true. Can you provide citations?
That sounds like a comment made in bad faith.
What did you Google?
Which Arab countries?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_c....
There's quite a few countries on there, I didn't realise it was so widely mistrusted in the Arab world.
> were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas.
If you mean that they were covering such demands and showing clips in which they are made etc. - what's the problem with that?
> for being a security risk.
goes to show they were doing some decent journalistic work then. Not that Al-Jazeera is saintly, or unbiased, or treats all subjects fairly etc. (they are under the indirect control of the Qatari government after all) - but they certainly offer critically important coverage of what's happening in Palestine in general, and Gaza in particular, which is very hard to get elsewhere.
> Why would you allow that to continue in your country?
If by "you", you mean a semi-totalitarian state which wants to silence coverage of its crimes and hide the horrors of its actions from the world and from its residents, then - you're right, you definitely wouldn't want it to continue operating.
> the entire point of Al Jazeera was for Qatar to provide political influence through media, not as an unbiased news agency.
This is the entire point of all mass media. There is no such thing as unbiased news.
> It's even banned in some Arab countries for being a security risk.
Saudi Arabia is not exactly a bastion of free speech and murdered US journalist Jamal Khashoggi using the cover of an embassy. Not exactly a great endorsement of what Israel is doing here.
I started watching it to try get a different take on events in Israel. It took me about 10 minutes to realise it’s a Hamas mouthpiece. I think they have two audiences to try establish a sense of credibility and then use it to spew lies.
Any citations? Reporting what Hamas says doesn't make it a Hamas mouthpiece, btw.
> Also the entire point of Al Jazeera was for Qatar to provide political influence...
FWIW it's what Qatar does. They've also been caught the hand in the cookie jar bribing EU officials:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Kaili
She's a MEP and yet went on to defend Qatar as a bastion of democracy (!). Close to a million EUR was found in cash at her apartment: which probably helped defend a country where the official law is the Sharia law as a bastion of democracy.
War is ugly but religious extremism is ugly too, especially when it's financed by a shitload of oil.
People would do well to wonder who's financing all these "grassroots" movements in the EU and the US defending people who voted in power a terrorist organization who swore by the death of Israel.
Either the media was in English or in Arabic. If it was English, then it was the same stuff being shown to everyone else in the west. If it was Arabic, then I don’t think Israelis would understand any of it.
Many Israelis speak Arabic. Some Israeli Jews, and probably ~all Palestinian-Israelis (20% of the Israeli citizenry).
> Also the entire point of Al Jazeera was for Qatar to provide political influence through media, not as an unbiased news agency.
Isn't this the point of any news organization whatsoever?
It's even banned in some Arab countries for being a security risk.
This is a fact best appreciated in the context of the Sunni-Shi'a sectarian divide.
Israel blocked English version, too. So clearly they don't aggree with that content either. :)
Anyway, you know which news outlets also have local and international versions with different content? BBC, CNN, ...
Also western democracies allowed "Letter to the American People" to be published in full. Also a messaging from an active terror group with significant impact at the time, more significant than Oct 7.
So yeah, countries allow that stuff.
Would you please link to examples the same news to Western audiences and to Middle Eastern ones? We can use Google translates by our selves.
Sorry, but I can't just take your words for it. It looks more like propaganda.
The more I read Al Jazeera, the more I respect their high journalism standards. I'm from a third world country and really envy the quality of the news.
In 1919 in the United States we put people in prison for handing out anti war pamphlets. They equated it to “yelling fire in a crowded theater” thus dangerous and illegal. Then in the 60s we revised our “understanding” of the 1st amendment. Today it would be pretty extraordinary to have antiwar proponents thrown in prison.
The point is, in the US we forget that our speech didn’t used to be so unrestricted. What some countries call a security risk, in America we would call essential political speech.
Of course there remains the question of the extent to which we should support countries which do not share our values.
This is a loaded argument that requires citations. Since you're making the claim, can you please link specific articles from the Arabic site that make your point? As well as linking which Arab countries banned it and when?
It's easy to just claim something, but it's crucial to back your point up front when it's particularly sensitive so as to not inadvertently spread misinformation. You may be correct, but that's why the citations are needed.
>which Arab countries banned it and when?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1980191.stm
https://english.alarabiya.net/media/digital/2017/05/24/Websi...
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/28/al-jazeera-ban...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-censorship-idUSKBN1...
The first link…
> According to a news bulletin on the Qatar-based channel, Mr al-Hamr said the ban was being imposed because the station was biased towards Israel and against Bahrain.
> Mr al-Hamr is said to have accused the station of being infiltrated by Zionists. "We believe (Al Jazeera) is suspect and represents the Zionist side in the region. We will not deal with this channel because we object to its coverage of current affairs. It is a channel penetrated by Zionists," he was quoted as saying.
This is perhaps making the opposite point I think you intended to.
I hope you actually read those articles, because 2 of them are saying Al Jazeera is biased towards Israel - hence why the ban, and not what you are trying to prove.
Obviously that’s what they would say. The whole point of this discussion is that people tend to say things that advance their agenda, or are politically expedient, not because they are the unvarnished truth.
Yeah, that's why I asked for when as well. Ceejayoz addressed the first point; I'll link this to address two and four:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/14/media-blocked-threatened...
Although VoA is the USA's state sponsored news outlet, they have reasonably good analysis on what led up to the 2013 ban. https://www.voanews.com/a/al-jazeera-iraq/3306460.html
Provide any evidence of the accusations you’re hurling, please.
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Please make your substantive points without breaking the site guidelines.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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How much precedent is there for this? Are there parallels for other countries? Does the US prohibit any news agencies from operating in our borders? Does Europe? Does Russia? Does China?
I presume North Korea does, but I don't actually know. These aren't designed to be leading questions. I don't know the answers, and rather than searching, I figured someone else here might know offhand.
I'll try to tackle this as objectively as possible.
Not many countries enshrine press freedom as a constitutional right. US can't directly shut down news agencies by law but there are other less direct ways to restrict their ability to operate (like not granting visas). The US has all sorts of fringe news outlets, including some run by cults like Falun Gong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tang_Dynasty_Television )
Europe likes to claim they support press freedom but they banned RT in many countries. Looking at the press freedom index my kneejerk is to rank a lot of their countries lower, but then I remembered there's a habit of suing or disappearing journalists in the US that probe into larger corps.
As for Russia/DPRK/China, laws heavily restrict reporting. These are all way worse than Israel's current restrictions. DPRK has fully centralized mass media, so any other reporting inside is illegal by default without explicit approval of the state. China and Russia I think allows some reporting, basically anything appearing critical of nations of China or Russia can get you jailed/killed.
Also one can get killed if he is a boeing whistleblower.
RT was heavily censored in the USA and is banned in several European countries. Press censorship is pretty much the norm in 'western democracies' similar to everywhere else.
> RT was heavily censored in the USA
Source?
I don't know of any outright censorship of it, but all US journalists who worked for it were no longer allowed to after the outbreak of the war. If money is speech under citizens united, then pay for journalism would seem like it could possibly be protected under the same standard, though I think election funding is still allowed to be banned from foreign states even if they use super-PACs.
> all US journalists who worked for it were no longer allowed to after the outbreak of the war
Again, source?
I thought i heard Chris Hedges claim that, but it looks like YouTube removed them and it wasn't necessarily from the sanctions.
> RT was heavily censored in the USA
How heavily has RT been censored in the USA? Has the government ever censored it or pressured others to censor it, or is it just that links/rebroadcasts have been dropped by private entities of their own volition?
> How heavily has RT been censored in the USA?
It hasn't been. Probably more accurate to state that when it was carried on cable media they broadcast a bowdlerized version. Al Jazeera did the same thing when it was carried by cable/satellite in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_America
This was the RT channel you're probably thinking of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_America
> RT was heavily censored in the USA
Really?
I am a long way away, but I thought the constitution prevented that
Like any decision, the difference is how it is made (e.g. a vote in parliament versus an executive order), how long it remains in force (a limited time while a investigation is done versus indefinitely), and how accountable the decision makers are.
All countries are on a spectrum, there is no clear line between shiny democracy and brutal dictatorship. They all have institutions that look similar on the surface. A democracy is not going to stop having a police force just because some police states also have one, for example.
So yes, some democracies ban some media spreading propaganda for foreign interests, but the details matter.
There's lots of precedent. We just have to look at the Ukraine-Russia war.
Ukraine has shut down everything but the state-sponsored television.
Russia has shut down most independent media since the beginning of the war as well.
But admittedly, they are in a war of (dis)information so might not be representative of the freedom of the press.
WW2 provides ample examples. Information is part of warfare
Russia is certainly jailing journalists. As example, Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, is currently imprisoned: https://www.wsj.com/news/evan-gershkovich.
Nowadays, every country has an interest in preventing foreign influence operations across traditional and social media
> Russia is certainly jailing journalists
It is also famously killing them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_i...
Both Russia and Ukraine ban multiple news agencies, which hopefully doesn't indicate where this is heading.
Also the United Kingdom has added several of it's own citizens to sanctions lists for journalism within Ukraine/Russia.
I believe RT (which is Russian but produced some interesting journalism once in a while) was banned in Europe (or at least it is in France). I don't even know what to think about it...
Russia Today was banned in Ukraine in 2014 and in some (most?) EU countries in 2022.
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia,
Wrong! RT is available in Ro.
You can see the availability (without needing VPN etc) here.
https://ooni.org/post/2024-eu-sanctions/
Well, Al Jazeera is or had been banned in many Arab countries.
Also, this measure is temporary, only lasting 45 days.
The article indicates the 45 days can be renewed. Presumably repeatedly.
RT and PressTV are banned in quite a few western countries.
Not exactly the same, but rt.com is banned in the EU. However, I don't know how effective it is, since I can still visit it.
Maybe in theory, but there are no mechanisms or jurisdiction to enforce the ban in many countries. It's not like we have country wide firewall here. Blocks usually happen at ISP DNS server level, and that means very little these days.
Tic toc was recently banned in US.
TikTok wasn't banned explicitly. They are required to divest within a year. If they don't, then the app becomes banned
It is likely more countries will follow. India trail blazed by banning TikTok almost 4 years ago after the border skirmish with China
Here Blinken and Romney discuss why Tiktok is being banned over allowing recommendations of Gaza coverage into people's feeds:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMajorityReport/comments/1ckte1k/...
There were attempts at banning it before the war, so probably not the only reason but it does seem to be why the push to ban it reemerged again.
> TikTok wasn't banned explicitly. They are required to divest within a year. If they don't, then the app becomes banned
Note, too, the difference between the app being banned and the source being banned. TikTok.com will continue to resolve even if they remain under Chinese control.
Tik Tok isn't a news agency
Its not but it is being banned because people are getting their news from there and its not following the right narrative that the 'real' news agencies are failing at peddling to the public.
Then again I could be wrong and the U.S government just doesn't like people people dancing, hard to tell which one is the reason behind it all.
Like sibling said, they've been pretty clear on the why. They called an emergency session and Senator Ricketts was pretty clear that they view pro-Palestinian tiktok content as Chinese propaganda that's inciting the youth to protest[0].
The administration has been threatening tiktok for two Presidental terms, but it wasn't until pro-Palestinian tiktok content had "more reach than the top 10 US news sites, combined" that they've taken broad bipartisan action.
I've personally experienced the propaganda that US mainstream media doles out, I know it's real; in my mind this smacks of leaders reacting in fear to the erosion of control over what the American people can know about what's happening in the war. This lines up exactly with Israel's muting of Al Jazzera.
Pretty amusing to watch sibling's link of Mitt Romney and the interviewer haltingly say "narrative" in hushed tones, like they know it's some kind of dirty word.
The thing with propaganda is that it needs to have parts rooted in truth in order to be effective outside total information control; I consider the ability to consume everyone's propaganda an essential tool in distilling the most truth possible in a world where media and leadership across the world are openly concerned with the breakdown of their PR (read propaganda).
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8apP1YYg2o
The congresspeople who voted to shut down TikTok have been very open about the reason: https://twitter.com/wideofthepost/status/1787104142982283587
Watching the clip is just the usual "Who you gonna believe? us our your lying eyes?". Thing is that the days of a media fully controlling the narrative are gone. Before it was easier since all you had were rumors of what was really going on but now anyone can take video and give direct proof, how are you going to Baghdad-Bob your way into the narrative you want?.
The best they can aim for is trying to create a narrative that at least somewhat aligns with the reality that is impossible to fully hide now.
Why not? Nowadays Tik Tok, Instagram, and X/Twitter have more influence than New York Times, at least for the younger generations.
The medium is the message...
It's a forced divestment; they weren't banned but have a year to comply.
Eh, it's effectively the same thing.
If Israel could force the sale of Al Jazeera to Israeli businesses I'm sure it's content would become far more acceptable to the Israeli government.
It's only "effectively" the same thing if ByteDance / China decide to take the loss over selling.
Also, the law could be changed or overruled in the next year. Don't count chickens before eggs hatch?
Lots of democracy limit journalism during war.
The United States right of free speech is uniquely strong. That's why we're all just sitting here acting completely blase about bad faith propaganda destroying us.
Al Jazeera claims this is direct retaliation for their 7 Oct documentary which is a very thorough analysis of some of the more extreme claims made by the IDF about what happened that day. Ironically, this documentary uses the Israeli government's own information as its initial primary source (including the official record of who died that day).
The documentary can be viewed in full on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0atzea-mPY
US law is the same: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2339B
EU is the same: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/terrorist-co...
UK is the same: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/stricter-laws-to-tackle-t...
Why would it be surprising that Israel should follow the example of the rest of the Western world?
remember, when a hostile state does it - it is because they're dictatorial.
when a friendly state does it - it is because it was a threat to democracy.
don't confuse 'em
sarcasm detected, upvote-button clicked.
"When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say."
—George R.R. Martin
I'm not a fan of Al Jazeera myself but this sets a very bad precedent. Israel is winning the war but they are being very short sighted among the decisions they are making.
I wouldn't classify murdering 30k+ civilians (15k+ children), dropping bombs on entire families, being caught[0] executing civilians with drones in plain view, having israeli holocaust scholars and survivors describing israel's actions as "textbook-case of genocide"[1][2], the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state, as "winning", but you do you.
[0] "Note that this footage permits no room for "it was a mistake," showing repeated, specifically-targeted strikes on the unarmed and even wounded. The sort of behavior the ICJ explicitly forbid in the genocide ruling against Israel." https://x.com/Snowden/status/1770936325996155290
[1] Gaza 'Textbook Case of GENOCIDE' - Holocaust Scholar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUeEnjULHe0
[2] Holocaust Survivor Tells Me: Israel Is Committing Genocide - w. Stephen Kapos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4PFmz4MNdg
I meant winning in the context of military conflict. Obviously not in reputation.
You're still conflating murdering civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure with "winning", but the resistance is quite safe in their tunnels and they are still fighting[0] back. It's also advisable to take Israel's casualty numbers with a huge grain of salt because they are contradictory to what's happening on the ground. Israel has not achieved any of its declared objectives (except for the Genocide)
[0] Palestinian resistance weapons continue to evolve during genocide, with Jon Elmer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF9OsxkttM0
When your neighbors are trying to ethnically cleanse you, surviving is winning.
Winning is based on war aims. Israel's were the return of captives and removal of Hamas. It is further along in those aims than it was in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks; that's fairly defined as winning. (Taken to the extreme, Nazi Germany was winning WWII in 1940.)
> the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state
Your other claims are true. This one is not.
>> the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state
>Your other claims are true. This one is not.
I should have phrased that more precisely but I was just judging by what Israel's ministry of hasbara itself seems to be most concerned with and fears the most is people questioning israel's legitimacy. Combined with the sentiment that can be seen across social media where even regular folks have started seeing israel as a racist settler colonial project that has no legitimacy. But you're correct, my previous wording was too ambiguous since "the world" is too broad and can refer to too many things.
> the sentiment that can be seen across social media where even regular folks have started labelling israel as a racist settler colonial project that has no legitimacy
A majority of Americans support Israel's war [1]. An overwhelming majority believe Israel has a right to exist [2]. (The exception being 18 to 24-year olds, among whom 31% believe Israel does not.)
Israel has faced practically zero actual diplomatic consequences as a result of its war, with even those voting against it at the UN continuing to e.g. trade with and talk to it [3].
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/03/21/majority-in-u-s-say-i...
[2] https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycotts_of_Israel
>A majority of Americans support Israel; that fraction has actually grown recently [1]
America is a special case and does not represent the regular folks of the world because it's home to the strongest israeli lobby on the planet and their supporters are mostly die-hard evangelicals for whom no evil israel does is too far.
Just listen to Jonathan Greenblatt's admission in the leaked[1] conversation where he verbatim states: “We have a major, major, major generational problem, All the polling I’ve seen: the ADL’s polling, ICC’s polling, independent polling, suggests that this is not a left, right gap folks. The issue of the United States’ support of Israel is not left and right. It is young and old.”
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1bec4z5/...
> America is a special case and does not represent the regular folks of the world
Israel's net favourability is down globally [1]. But there is zero evidence it's losing legitimacy; very few countries flipped sign. Instead, it was countries that didn't like Israel a bit disliking them more. (And again, not to the degree of carrying policy consequences.)
> issue of the United States’ support of Israel is not left and right. It is young and old
Sure. 31% is a lot. But it's also still 31%.
[1] https://time.com/6559293/morning-consult-israel-global-opini...
>Israel's net favourability is down globally [1]. But there is zero evidence it's losing legitimacy; very few countries flipped sign.
>zero evidence it's losing legitimacy
zero? "Colombia nation cuts ties with Israel amid Columbia University protest"[0]
Your judgment on this is rather shortsighted and there is more than enough evidence that israel is losing legitimacy. The people's opinion rarely turns into policy over night, even in democracies.
I've observed the sentiments on this particular issue for more than a decade and I can tell you that I've never seen such insane amount of regular folks, from diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, who fearlessly speak truth about israel in a manner that would make Menachem Begin tremble in his grave. I'm observing Israeli accounts and hasbara efforts and it's evident, from the content they produce, that they fear losing legitimacy and are acting accordingly e.g. investing a lot of money into gerrymandering/astroturfing[1]
Even dictators in the middle east, who are puppets of the US and Israel, are fearing of losing their own legitimacy because of what their own people perceive[2][3] as corrupt and subservient behavior to the empire. Those dictators are one arab spring away from getting brought to justice by their own people for their complicity in israel's genocide and they know it and they fear that.
[0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/05/02/columbi...
[1] https://x.com/5149jamesli/status/1783144486031495389
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-01/saudi-ara...
[3] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240415-jordans-treachery...
> Colombia nation cuts ties with Israel
Ukraine has cut diplomatic ties with Russia; the Baltic states have gone almost as far [1]. That doesn't mean they deny Russia's legitimacy as a state.
There has been zero change in recognition of Israel since October 7 [2]. (Belize and Bolivia also severed relations, by the way. And Turkey stopped trading. But again, very different from disagreement and denying legitimacy, and why I said practically zero diplomatic consequences, a threshold much lower than loss of legitimacy.)
> more than enough evidence that israel is losing legitimacy
Open to being convinced, but do you have a source?
> I've never seen such insane amount of regular folks, from diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, who fearlessly speak truth about israel
Plenty of batshit crazy stuff seems widespread on the internet.
> they fear losing legitimacy
Sure. They should. America fears China annexing Taiwan; that isn't evidence it's happening.
> dictators in the middle east, who are puppets of the US and Israel, are fearing of losing their own legitimacy
The ones who helped Israel repel Iran's attack?
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-blames-baltic-co...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_I...
> There has been zero change in recognition of Israel since October 7
It's not about recognition of Israel as a nation, it's about legitimacy of Israeli policies. The phrasing of "illegitimate pariah state" (not my phrasing) was rather unfortunate IMHO.
And I think it's very hard to deny that criticism of Israel's long-term policies of settlement has increasingly come under more and more scrutiny. Even your own links are demonstrating that. This is not new criticism: pretty much the entire world except Israel and the US has been saying for decades that the settlement policy is illegal and the major roadblock to peace.
> it's very hard to deny that criticism of Israel's long-term policies of settlement has increasingly come under more and more scrutiny
Oh absolutely. The legitimacy of Israel’s entire Palestine strategy has essentially crumbled. Its ability to conduct diplomatic relations has been impaired, and it’s got a massive perception problem across an entire generation.
But when someone says Israel is losing legitimacy, they are arguing that its continued existence as a state is under threat. When the Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden, they lost legitimacy with the United States. That’s what a country losing legitimacy means—it’s no longer treated like a real country. (I don’t necessarily think everyone who says this understands this. But that’s what those words mean.)
And in respect of Israel, that simply isn’t true. In terms of pariah status it isn’t even in the world’s top ten. Its support in America—its security guarantor—is surprisingly stable. It has nukes. This isn’t a view seriously held by anyone with any military or international relations credibility. That said, I see why it has appeal in a sort of karmic justice way. Because it’s not fun to watch e.g. a Sudanese warlord or junta in Myanmar commit war crimes and win.
>> more than enough evidence that israel is losing legitimacy
>Open to being convinced, but do you have a source?
A state's legitimacy hinges not only on diplomatic relations with other states but also significantly on public perception and global discourse. This is particularly evident in the case of Israel, where many now view it as a racist colonial entity which is a danger to israel's legitimacy. As I've stated before, your judgment on this seems to be extremely shortsighted, you may dismiss the countless of crucial events of the past months but israelis certainly don't, they speak of the existential threat of "delegitimization" of israel and they are fighting it tooth an nail[0]. Why would they so fiercely fight the "delegitimization" of israel if they didn't see it as a real & existential threat?
>> I've never seen such insane amount of regular folks, from diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, who fearlessly speak truth about israel
>Plenty of batshit crazy stuff seems widespread on the internet.
Without "batshit crazy" people israel couldn't even survive, those "batshit crazy" evangelicals have immense influence on policy. Furthermore, your dismissal is a bit flippant, the people I've seen speak out are sensible & reasonable; people from whom I would have never expected to hear harsh truths about the zionist colonial project.
>> they fear losing legitimacy
>Sure. They should. America fears China annexing Taiwan; that isn't evidence it's happening.
I don't think that is an adequate comparison. I'm not interested in writing an essay on how different those conflicts are, I'm pretty sure you know enough about that.
>> dictators in the middle east, who are puppets of the US and Israel, are fearing of losing their own legitimacy
>The ones who helped Israel repel Iran's attack?
Yes, the article[1] I linked above literally mentions that and I really don't see how your point diminishes in any way what I've argued for.
[0] The Diane and Guilford Foundation that grants this fellowship to you has as its stated mission "the prosperity and safety of Israel". Their grant focuses include "confronting the delegitimization of Israel" and to advance "Israel's geopolitical interests" https://x.com/birdelaire/status/1784413355236790382
[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240415-jordans-treachery...
Israel is at risk of losing legitimacy. There is no evidence it is losing legitimacy. That’s an important difference.
That's just arguing semantics, many of those dynamics go hand in hand. Anyway we can meet here again in 12 months and have a clearer picture of the consequences of the past months on israel's legitimacy. Thank you for the conversation.
I think you should be skeptical of the official state claims of war aims. It seems quite apparent that Israel's actions are working towards the goal of ethnic cleansing and land conquest.
With the amount of unexploded munitions they're leaving there, they're supplying the future resistance's rocket and IED systems for the next 75 years. Also creating enough orphans and resentment for another orphan army to replace the current one. Winning?
[flagged]
Al Jazeera was one of the few sources of 'on the ground' journalism in Gaza.
It's quite chilling that western democracies have stood back from ensuring journalistic freedom is upheld in the reporting up until now. To allow the removal of the last effective observational counterpoint to Israel's narrative points to the acceptance of despot power of Israel over the population of Gaza.
Effectively it sanctions whatever Israel wants to do to that population without any oversight or reporting. Given what has been done in sight and the obvious desire of the Israeli government to attack Rafah, and the US's impotency to influence Israel it's clear this move is just to reduce the risk of ongoing exposure of children and other innocents being slaughtered on TV repeatably and without having to even pretend justification.
We live in extraordinary times.
Not that political discussion should not be had, but this has nothing to do with HN at all.
Users have a wide range of conflicting views about what HN does or doesn't have to do with. You can see that vividly in these past examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, which go back many years but sound like they were posted last week.
HN's moderation approach is (a) most political stories are off topic (this is at the top of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html for a reason), but a certain amount of political overlap is (b) inevitable—we learned that the hard way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251, and (c) in keeping with HN's organizing principle of intellectual curiosity.
Those are the principles, and they've been stable for a long time. Then there's which stories get to count as clearing the bar. That is also contentious, but a different question: it's about how to apply the principles, not what the principles should be.
We look for stories that contain significant new information [1], aren't too repetitive of recent discussion [2, 3], and have at least some chance of providing a foundation for intellectually curious conversation.
If you want to understand HN moderation, you need to understand the difference between those two questions—what the principles are vs. how to apply them in specific cases. It's the difference between the rules of a game and the calls made by refs on specific occasions.
The rules are stable and we're confident that they're right. Particular calls, not so much—we sometimes get them wrong. We're often willing to make adjustments in specific cases, especially when users persuade us that we got something wrong. But we're much less willing to change the rules themselves, because they've held up well over many years, and provide a good basis for running HN for its intended purpose [4].
As you can imagine, this question shows up often—especially on divisive topics like the OP—and I've written different versions of this answer many times. You can find a bunch of past explanations from threads about the current topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39618973. If you, or anyone, still have questions after reading the current post, I suggest looking at that link (and the links back from there). If after that you still have a question I haven't answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
[4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Then I was confused myself. I thought Hacker News was in relation to the hacker spirit, embodied best in the book "Hackers", or even "Masters of DOOM", with a slight twist of VP and startup culture. Even the Big Tech propaganda gets tiring and off-topic. But I guess I was mistaken about the expectations.
Well, it certainly is supposed to be for those things. But if you try to run a site like HN only for those things, it turns out that's not a stable position.
'Freedom of speech' as a topic is interesting to HN and has an obvious Information Technology angle. It is probably the one that skirts the edge the most though.
Yeah. The technology angle in this particular one seems close to non-existent. To me it really seemed off-topic.
TBH I don't care to extend charity like freedom of speech to people that don't share our liberal values. Sure, the bar should be very high for such charges, but organizations like Al Jazeera have repeatedly shown their colors.
Ah yes, freedom of speech works best when limited only to people who share your values. Truly our greatest allies in democracy.
True! Couldn't have said it better myself. I don't even share a democracy with Qatar, haha.
When you want to control the narrative. Block out any independent journalists. Use your leveraged/blackmailed journalists or state news to push propaganda.
The amount of blood the current Israeli government is willing to shed is just creating future generations of terrorists. Hamas may eventually get rooted. But only at significant cost of civilian life. The Israeli-Palestinian war will never end. Violence begets violence.
Is there anyone else who doesn't support either side of this conflict? They've been fighting each other for over 100 years. They both want the same piece of land. It's on them to figure it out. People around the world don't need to 'pick a side'. We can protest for both sides to sort their shit out, and not drag the rest of us into it.
I think lots of people don't really have a "side", other than the side of just not wanting to see people suffer. I don't think that closing your eyes to that is neutral. Sometimes "do nothing" is an act of evil.
In Northern Ireland and the Balkans international intervention almost certainly saved lives and helped bring about peace and relative stability. How long had they been fighting? There's probably some more examples. So I'd argue that it's not useless either.
And Jewish and Israeli (and by extension, Palestinian) history is strongly connected to the history of 19th and 20th century Europe in all sorts of ways, and I don't think you can just cleanly separate that.
Of course on a personal level I can imagine people reading the news, feeling powerless to change anything, and just not being interested. That's fine. But on a governmental/policy level, I do think we (the world) needs to stay engaged. Not just here, but also elsewhere with long-running issues. It's not our problem to solve, no, but we can facilitate and help.
That's kind of what I'm getting at. I don't support either side because both are wrong. Stopping the suffering means compromise and concessions on both sides. The best the world can do is make that clear and not get caught up protesting for one side or the other - again, both are wrong. Their current path will only lead to another 100 years of suffering.
> I don't support either side because both are wrong.
That's only true if you view the "Israeli government" and "Hamas" as the only sides that exist. That is not the case; you don't need to choose either of them.
Now, of course it's true that everyone has legitimate grievances here for all sorts of reasons, an it's also true that forever banging on about every little thing anyone has ever done wrong will lead to another 100 years of suffering. But that doesn't mean we (broad international community) can't and shouldn't try. Even if it fails, I think it was worth the effort to try.
Right, that's my point. All of these protests have taken one of the two sides. Which has zero chance of resolving this. There aren't any protests pointing the finger at both these groups telling them to figure their shit out.
I think this is classic "you only hear the loudest people" type of thing. Everyone somewhere in the middle with more nuanced views will get piled on by the extremes from all sides. That does not mean those extremes are the only thing that exists, or represent the majority of people with views on the matter.
Extreme voices tend to drown out everyone else. I mean, what type of reasonable person has the energy and will to involve themselves in this toxic quagmire, right? The type of people willing to do so are strongly biased to people with Very Strong Views.
Trying to organise a protest around unfocused nuanced views is hard. "Free Palestine" is easy and straight-forward. "Hamas is wrong, but Israel should offer a solution for the people of Gaza that does not involve a de-facto concentration camp under military control" doesn't really fit on a billboard.
And lets also be realistic: yes, "both sides" have blame, but "both sides have blame" does not mean "both sides are equivalent". The people of Gaza are by and large powerless, and have been for a long time. The initiative for any solution really rests primarily on the Israeli side, who have been controlling much of life in Gaza for a long time now. The situation in Gaza and that Israel has never seriously offered any solution is frankly just disgraceful, and could only have ended in violence one way or the other sooner or later.
I'd say quite a lot of people are not particularly invested in any "side" but are repulsed by obvious war crimes.
What makes this situation uniquely toxic is how America and most of its allies vehemently insist on total impunity for the crimes of one side.
I think it's less the impunity and more the active supporting. The US is building a floating pier and air-dropping aid instead of simply pressuring Israel's government to let trucks through.
Israel lets more aid through now than before the October 7th atrocities. That aid is intercepted by Hamas and does not reach the intended recipients.
> Israel lets more aid through now than before the October 7th atrocities. That aid is intercepted by Hamas and does not reach the intended recipients.
No, they do not. There are still less full aid trucks even after the murder of the World kitchen volunteers massively increased international pressure on Israel to let aid in.
Northern Gaza is now in full blown famine as defined by top US officials that define famine, with southern Gaza on the brink of famine, as all farming infastructure inside gaza gas has now been destroyed. They need drastically more full trucks than the the 500/day that was the norm before the war started, not drastically fewer.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-aid-coordinator-says-israel...
Hamas / Gazans are bombing aid routes right now.
https://www.google.com/search?q=kerem+shalom+crossing
I think what really makes the situation uniquely toxic is that after reading your comment, I genuinely have no idea which side you're referring to that you think is getting total impunity.
Note: You don't need to reply and specify which. Apparently you've picked a side, as have I. No point debating that here I think. But each side would claim that the other is committing war crimes and inhuman acts and not being held to account.
It’s worthwhile learning the history of intervention in this conflict by the US and UK. It’s not just two groups fighting amongst themselves. It’s western governments putting their thumbs on the scales to massively help one side destroy the other. The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi is an excellent book on the subject with a good audiobook on audible. It’s remarkable how one sided this conflict has been with western support since the beginning.
AJ is far from bipartisan wrt to the conflict. they employ high journalistic standards for just about everything except israeli news, for that they become rapid dogs. example: https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-793560
Yeah, I'm totally with you. At this point it's like the Hatfields and the McCoys. I don't care what was the last thing the other guy did - he did it to get back at you for the second to last thing you did.
On the other hand, killing children is always wrong. Fucking stop it.
It's not a "cycle of violence" - "both sides" scenario for anyone who has actually put in the effort to study the history in detail.
Since you brought up the "cycle of violence" argument, I remember Shaun making an excellent video[1] on the topic and also addressing that specific talking point.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xottY-7m3k&t=10s
I'm afraid we're just going to have to agree to disagree.
You can disagree all you want, some people even disagree on if the holocaust happened but no one takes them seriously. The history of Zionism and its goal to colonize Palestine (long before the holocaust even happened) and their ruthless methods of colonization are thoroughly documented[0][1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
[1] The History of "Socialist" Zionism | Leftist Zionists did the Nakba & founded Israel https://youtu.be/ehp9PZo4UR0
> You can disagree all you want.
Thanks!
A man comes into your house. His 2-year old is in a baby carrier on his chest. He has a gun and is firing at you. Your wife and 5 year old son are behind you on the couch, and you have a gun too.
Do you shoot back?
Did you just hesitate? A bullet just scraped your wife on the side of the leg. Hesitated again? Son just got a bullet in his arm.
You fire three bullets. The baby is dead and so is the intruder.
Are you in the wrong here?
---
I'm not saying this is the same as what's happening in Israel and Gaza. But "always wrong", like many views on this conflict, is sorely lacking in nuance.
With thousands of Israelis and tens of thousands of Palestinians killed, ignoring nuance is disrespectful to their memories and will not lead to realistic progress.
HEH. I'm afraid we're just going to have to agree to disagree.
Killing children is always wrong.
> baby is dead and so is the intruder....Are you in the wrong here?
Yes, what was done is wrong. It might be justified, even forgivable. But it's still wrong.
On that we agree. It is wrong. But you're either wrong or dead.
> It is wrong. But you're either wrong or dead.
In your example, yes. Reality is more complicated; that usually gives reasonable people room to disagree.
I agree with that line of thought too, but one side is sort of represented a terrorist organization who have the ability to murder 1200 people and kidnap others while the other is a western democracy that has the ability kill 30k people as collateral damage level. The collateral damage is so high but people like Sam Harris is saying Israel is engaging in a restrained manner compared to other powers previous retaliatory actions to terrorism.
Honestly I couldn't care less.
If anything I'd want to see less current politics on HN
Ah yes, the zero state solution! Give the whole damn region back to turkey and recreate the Ottoman Empire!
I think it is not the kind of conflict where you pick a side. There are legitimate and illegitimate claims on both sides. As a bystander I try to evaluate specific actions, not choose a favorite.
I agree with you. What I'm saying is that all I see are people who have picked a side and no one in the middle saying, 'you are both wrong. figure it out'
The optics are interesting. People who have opinions on things are unlikely to change them due to this.
The interesting question is how many people do not have strong opinions and how this could affect them.
My guess is it also won't. Why would you be paying attention to news you haven't cared about up to now? The nonopinionated will likely not hear of this
What is worrying is what it’ll mean for the access to the West Bank and Gaza, as they’re currently the only international media outlet on the field, and are documenting various atrocities that are currently being looked at by the ICJ.
I don't think anyone involved in a conflict really wants third party journalists around.
Look at the consequences for Snowden, Assange and Manning.
We probably need to mandate third party international journalist access as some kind of rules of war expectation.
Otherwise basically any war crime can be waged with impunity until well after the fact if you can cutoff access to discover it
[flagged]
As Americans, we’re constantly told, “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.” The narrative is always that they’re “our greatest ally” because we share similar values to them. Well, one of our values—in fact, a constitutionally protected one—is press freedom. Al Jazeera has been the only media/news outlet in Israel that offered the Palestinian perspective and they’ve shut it down. As a rule, you’re probably not the good guys when your tactic for winning the information war is censoring the other side—especially while you’re being accused by millions across the world of committing a genocide (whether you agree with that characterization or not).
Of course the US just voted to ban TikTok for vague national security reasons, so maybe we do have a lot in common.
Even the TikTok ban appears to have been led by the Israeli lobby and Israeli operatives because so much of the TikTok content re the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has leaned in favor of the Palestinians [0][1].
[0]: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/the-truth-about-tiktok-has...
[1]: https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1787134138283155963
That TikTok ban will likely be overturned by the Supreme Court on first amendment grounds.
for anyone reading and wondering what qatar's intentions are with their media arm, they're the largest foreign donor of US institutions: https://tikva.so/qatar
it's not coincidental that these are where all the protests are, and suddenly college students have access to thousands of $ of camping gear...
they're also aggressively anti israel/jew: https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-793560
they employ high journalistic standards for everything but israel.
Nothing in the article you linked appears to indicate that al jazeera is anti semitic. Nor does it indicate it's anti-Israel even. Certainly, it deleted a story, and didn't instead retract it, which isn't great, but how does that support an accusation that the entire outlet is anti semitic or anti israel?
Opposing Israeli war crimes is not anti semitic. Claiming that Israel represents all Jewish people worldwide, though, is anti semitic.
> and suddenly college students have access to thousands of $ of camping gear...
Students paying $65K/year in tuition fees can also afford a $100 tent? Must be covert Qatari funding for sure. /s
i am curious ig there is a valid threat in israelis reading al jazeera. or if they have any proof of any falsehoods being published there and why it would need to be shut down?. any good neutral resource around this for a non-israeli/non-palestinian person to make sense of this? from the surface this looks so grim, but i do not want to jump to conclusions... its so hard to make sense of this more and more.. and it becomes easier to beleive the wrong things.
I am all agaisnt censorship, but I am ok with gagging the guy screaming fire in the theather. 90% fake news outlets fall into that category.
IDK about your country, but Latam RT was 25% discussion about how Russia has been great through history, 25% one sided debates about how democratic countries are hypocrites and bad, 25% wrong and one sided reads into current events, and 25% travel bloggers in Russia.
I am on the fence about removing RT, but arab Al-Jazera calling for action and praising the martyrs falls into my censorable bag
I like your analogy on the gagging of the guy screaming fire. this is a very good and clear way to put it thanks. that guy deserves a ban from the theatre for sure ;)
It's hard to read or watch Al Jazeera's reporting on this matter without feeling utterly disgusted at how a certain military is treating a civilian population (be it in Gaza or the West Bank). They make the Israelis and the IDF look like absolute monsters.
thanks for the reply. i do feel the same, as in, i sometimes even think that way too due to the news. i dont watch al jazera, but in my country, the IDF does not come out good either... Israelis though, they dont get chucked in with the same sentiment. (im dutch, there's reports of the injustices against civilians, but no word on the general population of israel being 'bad' or something like that.)
im maybe lucky i have some israeli ex colleagues who can help me see that the people there are also against violence and injustices. (what those are is not the point i guess. - maybe that's an opinion different on both sides of a fence..)
There's in our national news things like a report that says there's like 35k deaths in gaza, then the next report says there's like 30k children killed. - it's really easy to get a weird idea here..... (I simply assume no soldier would willingly just kill mostly children - but maybe thats also wrong??)
don't want to say i am with one or another side. just want to point out how reporting, as you said, can make things look a certain way, while they might not be. This is now true for most conflicts as there's so many sides of each story, and then all the content-farms and propaganda ontop of that.
everyone is trying to win the others over to their side of the debate to justify their war, rather than to build peace. (i think?)
What is exactly wrong with shutting down someone who not just lies (nothing unique there lol) but systematically supports information war against your country?
Al Jazeera is not engaged in an "information war" against Israel. Al Jazeera is the major independent media organization operating in Gaza, and one of the main sources of accurate information about the conflict. That's what angers the Israeli government.
Can you show me at least 1 al jazeera article in arabic exposing and condemning oct 7?
And at least 2 posts in arabic exposing some of hamas lies or expressing empathy and support to Israel?
Even a single post calling hamas terrorists (or at least some of their actions a terrorist attack) would suffice to convince me.
1. I don't read Arabic.
2. I don't much care about what opinion pieces get published in Al Jazeera, or whether they meet your political demands. I care about the news reporting that Al Jazeera does from Gaza. On that score, Al Jazeera is the best source out there.
English articles would do
> Even a single post calling hamas terrorists (or at least some of their actions a terrorist attack) would suffice to convince me.
I'll take you up on that.
From [0], "At the time of writing, one month has passed since the barbaric terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7. A total of 1,400 Israelis were murdered. Over 230 people were taken hostage."
0. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/11/7/one-day-the-war...
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> the major independent media
Sorry, but you're either completely out of touch with what's going on there. Or you have bad intents.
Regardless of your attitudes and ideological preferences - calling Al Jazeera "independent" is the winner of international nonsense contest.
Independent in general, or their Gaza branch in particular - it is a nonsense.
Last independent people in Gaza were thrown off the roof about 15 years ago. Unfortunately. Don't you know how dictatorships work? Even if for the arguably right cause...
Independent in that they're not beholden to either side: the Israelis or the Palestinians (any faction). They're a major international news organization that has people on the ground.
The major threat to Al Jazeera journalists over the last several years has come from the IDF, not from Palestinians. There are plenty of examples of the IDF killing Al Jazeera journalists, but I'm not aware of any cases of them being killed by Hamas.
Israel doing this might not be very significant, but if other countries, e.g. Germany do the same then this seems to cross another line
Why does Israel get a free pass?
You can make a parallel with Russia Today being (effectively) banned in the US (albeit not via direct government action). Both are just mouthpieces of their respective masters and not a source of objective information.
That said, banning media presence in Gaza by Israel, and the overall hesitance of western media to report on the devastation is very disappointing.
I think the said parallel is not true. Qatar is not a belligerent in the conflict.
Curious fact. The shutting down of Al Jazeera gave at least one journalist the title of being part of media organizations banned by distinct apartheid regimes twice, first SA in 1988, and now Israel in 2024. Wonder it that qualifies for the Guinness Book. See:
https://twitter.com/TonyKaron/status/1787171262202019932
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Karon
*
1 point by rajishx 0 minutes ago | next | edit | delete [–]
Isn't the same as when RT was not allowed to broadcast in Europe after the war? I wonder why the news about Al Jazeera and Israel makes more splash than the RT and Russia news
Related:
Al Jazeera condemns Israeli government decision to shut down channel https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40266122
Is it a good idea to allow governments the power to silence journalists so completely?
I’d love to hear some perspective other than rabid politics.
No.
There can be regulatory bodies, which ideally should be self governing the media instead of executive of the elected government, which regulate some of the media attributes. But a blanket ban on a media house, for criticism in the name of national security? No. That is the failure of the civilian leadership to provide the security to the nation. Admitting that you are naked should the norm, not blinding the population from seeing you.
I disagree. The temporary ban is due to the platforming of violence. It's the same ban that the US, UK, and EU have in place and for the same reasons. You can't give terror a voice or it gives terrorists an incentive to commit terror. If AJ wants to broadcast they need to stop airing interviews with terror groups.
Other broadcasters critical of Israel seem to have that part figured out.
How is this possible in a democratic country?
It’s a great question. I suggest reading up on what democracy really means in the modern world:
https://chomsky.info/consent01/
I suggest avoiding reading anything by a guy that idolizes the Khmer Rouge.
That doesn’t sound like a thing Chomsky would do. I could imagine him saying that certain tactics were effective or certain aspects of their politics were notable, but I don’t see him as someone who idolizes anyone.
Do you have a source for this? To me this sounds like a misunderstanding, but I’m open to being shown otherwise.
https://chomsky.info/19770625/
Bit of a busy day for me so I asked ChatGPT so summarize and explain the author’s position on the Khmer Rouge.
“The text is an interview with Noam Chomsky discussing the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Chomsky critiques Western media's portrayal of the Khmer Rouge, arguing that it's exaggerated and ignores broader historical context, particularly U.S. involvement. He suggests that atrocities attributed to the Khmer Rouge may have been exaggerated or even fabricated, emphasizing the need for independent investigation. Chomsky's attitude toward the Khmer Rouge appears critical of Western narratives, highlighting skepticism and a call for a more nuanced understanding.”
That’s does not give any truth to your claim of idolizing, as I expected. It’s quite believable that western narratives could be manipulated as that is common place and the subject of Chomsky’s expertise. Pointing out the manipulation of the media and painting the target as more nuanced and not as evil as media makes them out to be is a far cry from idolization.
Go believe what you want then, that's what Chompsky does.
I’m gonna believe what makes sense. You made a claim which didn’t fit with what I know about Chomsky, and left a citation that doesn’t support that claim. Your claim does not make any sense to me. It’s perfectly within my understanding of Chomsky for him to say “These people we vilified weren’t quite that bad. We vilified them for our own political aims, and fabricated stories as needed to support that. The truth is much more nuanced than media made it out to be.”
And Chomsky doesn’t just make empty claims or “believe what he wants”. He usually cites sources from within the US government, like published State Department memos stating the position he’s claiming they had.
There is plenty of precedent as others have pointed out, including in the EU.
And we are talking about a media outlet controlled by the government of a foreign country that also directly finances the opposing terrorist group and houses their leaders.
Democracy merely depends on free media, not on free foreign or adversary media.
That's the bane of democracy, not to say that we have a better alternative. Because democracy has been assigned to be any system where there are some elections and people vote. Universal suffrage is itself is pretty modern. The decisions in bastions of democratic countries where in the hands of a few elite. What is the distinguishing factor of a high quality democracy is it when it does have a set of constitution, and is republic by nature. The rule of law is enforced. Selective enforcement is nonexistent.
On an assessment by these very basic qualities, the current Regime in charge can't be really classified as a democracy. It is an excuse for democracy. An overgrown military outpost formed out of crusade era objectives and European anti semitic emotions. Not to mention the oil and perceived potential of the region to be a western adversary. In the words of US president, US-UK still believes that if there were no Israel, then they would have to create one. Which is ironic, since they are the ones who created it.
Israel has never formally left behind the "make it up as you go" spirit of the founding days. Not entirely surprising considering that they've never had a lack of more pressing problems. But a "who needs rules if we are all friends" attitude certainly seems a bit anachronistic by now, and really not a good fit for the reality on the ground.
But I make it the centerpiece of my best-case scenario for the region: imagine that gap left by the absent constitution getting filled by something aggressively secular, with a strong set of entrenched clauses (aka eternity clauses) protecting individual religious freedom from any majority shifts that might happen. Perhaps even with some strong federal element enabling peaceful growth (and Brexit-like shrinkage) like the EU. I'm certainly not holding my breath, neither expecting Israel to come up with anything like that (despite their internal made-up-as-they-went not being terribly far off, I think) nor this having any effect on countries refusing recognition. But then what other best-case scenarios are there?
Don't be deliberately obtuse, censorship is pervasive in any country in times of war, even democratic ones.
Al Jazeeras response was to say Israel is trying to cover up their crimes.
We all know Israel wouldn't do anything of the sort right, along with killing on average 50 children a day for the last 220 days.
I hope this comment is in spirit of HN which has consistently taken down stories about Israel.
never a good sign https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/27/world/europe/russia-media...
The genocide in Gaza and the subsequent full colonization of the strip during the years to come will be the most shameful event of the twentieth first century. Denying the genocide is like denying the holocaust while it was happening.
Hard to care. It's war. Is Haaretz or the Jerusalem Post available in Gaza?
I had this discussion recently and went onto investigate, and I found no reports that any newspaper was outlawed in Gaza. In fact I read that the most popular newspaper is Al-Quds, a Jerusalem based newspaper.
I don’t think there is much of a market for either Haaretz or the Jerusalem Post in Gaza, so I would be really surprised if respective offices care to distribute their papers there.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14631745
Do you have any reports which indicates that Hebrew (or any other) newspapers are censored in Gaza?
All that said, press freedom is definitely a concern in Gaza, however that is a result of the Israeli occupation, which prevents access, targets journalists, blockades the enclave, and sometimes even levels foreign press offices, such as the AP’s.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-middle-east-business-israe...
Tough look for the "only democracy in the middle east" if it can only get compared to a Hamas led government.
If the Internet is available, then ofcourse these should be available in there. But on the contrary Al Jazeera website itself would be censored out of the Internet for Israel.
Considering the IDF bombed the only media office tower in Gaza? Probably not.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/15/media/associated-press-al...
If I was Jewish I'd be very upset of what is being done in my name. The Israeli government, by insisting any criticism is antisemitic, is equating Judaism with its own actions. With their existing extreme, brazen and opportunistic behavior they're slowly mainstreaming antisemitism as outrage grows at the government and people accept being called 'antisemitic' if they oppose it. It's a tragedy for Jews.
I don't say this as a personal view, but as a logical inevitability.
I am Jewish, and that's pretty much how I feel. Israel wants criticism of itself to be seen as antisemitic, which means that anything Israel does that warrants criticism (e.g. killing children) ends up driving people towards antisemitism.
It’s a standard behaviour in theocracies. Being against the Al-Sauds means being against Islam (according to the Saudi government), other governments do that too. Being against Trump is being against Christianism (according to Republican fundamentalists, hopefully those won’t end up in the cabinet again).
The State props up the religion by normalising it and undermining its competition, and the religion props up the state by providing convenient pretexts and effective brainwashing mechanisms. I am not Jewish, but I find it particularly disgusting too. My sympathies to humanist Jews who are thrown into this nightmare.
> Being against the Al-Sauds means being against Islam (according to the Saudi government)
Pretty much every of the hundreds of millions of muslims who live outside Saudi Arabia (and probably a large number of those who live inside it) laugh at that, and despise the Saudi regime. If you do not believe me, try talking to some and asking them.
As a practicing Muslim, yup I have no love for the Saudi regime (same with the Iranian regime, Taliban, etc.).
That being said you'll find a variety of opinions with the Muslim community both from Saudi and non-Saudi Muslims.
I imagine my relationship with KSA is similar to how some if not many US Jews feel with Israel. Just like I have an emotional attachment to Mecca and Medina which is currently under Saudi control I can understand how those among the Jewish diaspora may have an emotional attachment to Israel or believe in principle jewish self determination even when they vehemently oppose the government or have reservations about the modern state.
I know. The Iranians and the talibans do the same, the 3 are more or less incompatible and yet all pretend to be Islam in their country. It’s mostly for their captive audience. Islam in itself does not have to imply brutal dictatorship (this should not need saying).
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I am surprised Israel had local Al Jazeera offices in the first place.
I support closing the offices and making them persona non grata, but blocking the site is wrong and silly, makes us look like we are afraid of words.
Then why close the offices and make them png?
Excellent move. They were encouraging terrorism, and are funded by actors who are connected to terrorist activities. It's long overdue.
Ah I see. They just have to defend themselves from Al Jazeera which is now Hamas? What else is Hamas? Qatar?
How is Israel going to block viewing Al Jazeera content on Youtube from Israel?
> Israel started Internet censorship in 2017.[1] Initially it was limited to "terror group websites, online illegal gambling, prostitution services, hard drug sales"
It always starts like that, and it's usually the #1 motivation to sell censorship laws to the population in countries that don't have them already in place. It also has the side effect to create a mind association where censorship is seen as positive. Then, once those laws are passed, it's too late as they will be slowly but progressively applied also against anything that government sees as hostile, including legit political opposition that could change or remove those laws. "Think of the children/fear terrorists" laws that usually are enacted in "western" countries follow the same pattern where the powers need a stronger and more fear inducing argument than gambling, prostitution or drugs. Israel isn't the 1st and won't be the last democratic country to go down this route.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Banning Al Jazeera is arguably more humane than shooting a rocket into their offices, as was done by Israel in Gaza and the US Army in Baghdad.
Far too many eyeballs witnessing the "conflict" now - and with Elon buying Twitter-X, the censorship-suppression-narrative control apparatus has a massive hole in it now.
#ZeroIsASpecialNumber
I am surprised they even had a office there
Thanks to HN for allowing us have this sort of conversations, talking is much needed!
Imagine if the US banned a site just because of baseless fears about its content and the foreign ownership of its parent company. Hmm.
Here's a better question, why is this on HN?
"The only middle-eastern democracy"
Wow. First the Tiktok ban now this. Sad day.
> Haarez has good coverage.
For now. They are likely to be the next outlet banned. The government has been openly threatening them for a year or so now.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-23/ty-article/is...
In order for that to happen, a Shabak rep. Will have to provide statement that Haaretz poses serious threat to the national security of Israel. Call me when that happens (spoiler: it won’t).
Now that would make an interesting hn story.
[EDIT: sorry, having read the bill again, it's also required for Haaretz to be "a foreign news channel"]
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40268301.
Considering what Haaretz is, banning them would not be a good idea. Even by the standards of this genocidal regime, that would be such a rare event of censoring. I think a more gradual and coercive strategy would be applied there. Deployment and outcome of that, if it were to be done, would be a case study.
The article's content evokes a bit of Orwelllian irony though, Minister of Communications threatening to ban the long(est?) standing news outlet.
They will not be banned. There is zero evidence for this.
There is a big difference between banning what can only be described as a fake news outlet controlled by the adversary government of Qatar vs. banning the most important or second most important independent newspaper in the country.
When _that_ happens then the completely unjustified outrage in many comments here will be justified as that would indeed be an unprecedented step.
On what basis in Al Jazeera a fake news outlet?
As someone who was only familiar with Al Jazeera's English reporting (and thought it was pretty good), it was eye opening to check out their Arabic website translated into a language I speak. Maybe Google Translate was erasing some nuance, but I saw a huge number of controversial, disputed, or downright false claims that were reported uncritically as facts.
Can you provide specifics?
I'm looking at the Google Translate version of their Arabic site right now:
https://www-aljazeera-net.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_t...
It's all looking like pretty standard news stuff to me.
And I don't know about you, but I see "controversial, disputed, or downright false claims that were reported uncritically as facts" all the time even in mainstream US publications.
So I'd need to see some evidence here that Al Jazeera is particularly worse.
Let me help you. Searching is difficult. Examples are in English, to avoid any "lost in translation" issues.
Here's Al-Jazeera echoing completely made up rape accusations. Why were the accusations retracted? https://honestreporting.com/damage-done-how-al-jazeeras-fake...
Here's the (English) report on the Israeli strike (that wasn't) that (didn't) kill 500 in Al-Ahli hospital - a widely quoted and echoed further lie https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/10/17/photos-an-israe...
I can go on but I think it's better you continue the search.
[EDIT: fixed typo in hospital name]
Your second claim seems to being mistaking their role as telling absolute truth. The very first sentence makes it clear that they are reporting an official government statement, and the next that Israel disputes it and says the PLJ was responsible. This seems very normal for war reporting and I note that they’re very careful to attribute each claim so the reader can decide how much to trust it.
Edit: your first source is a pro-Israeli advocacy group run by a former AIPAC employee, which has marked its coverage of the war with things like baselessly claiming reporters were in on the October 7th attacks:
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-photographers-attack...
Given that in this case they ran a report by a witness, and then publicly updated that to say that a Hamas investigation had called her credibility into question, it’s interesting to note how carefully the “Honest Reporting” writer relies on uncited insinuation or tries to distract your attention to statements by people who are not part of al Jazeera. Again, it’s not great that they ran a story by someone who lied but that’s a hazard of breaking news coverage and it’s hardly unique in the field.
> then publicly updated that to say that a Hamas investigation had called her credibility into question
I don't think there's much of a question, the claims were just fabricated, according to Hamas themselves.
By "publicly updated", do you just mean quietly deleting the articles with false information? As far as I know, they never acknowledged the error and published a retraction, which calls into question their legitimacy as a news organization.
I was referring to the lead in that “Honest Reporting” article which was about one of their employees doing the opposite of this claim by correcting the record:
https://twitter.com/abuhilalah/status/1771996521312973088
Now, I do think they should have put out an official statement pointing out the unreliability of the interviewee rather than simply yanking the video but a single unreliable witness interviewed in a tumultuous event which is promptly dropped seems to fall well short of establishing a lie. All news organizations interview people who turn out to be wrong or misleading, so we’d want to see more than a single interview to establish whether there’s a pattern of poor vetting or running a story after evidence has come forth that the witness is unreliable. The public has rather strongly expressed a desire for immediate news coverage rather than waiting for lengthy review and corroboration.
I don't really take issue with publishing the allegation (it's credibility might have been lacking, but that's difficult to judge), just quietly yanking the false information. Wouldn't any legitimate news agency do some form of retraction, such as adding a prominent note at the top of the original article?
To be clear, I think they should have updated their liveblog to add a link to the subsequent Hamas statement calling its accuracy into question. That said, I think some of this comes into questions about the format - this wasn’t a specific story but one of many breaking news details in a tumultuous event, and it’s far from unprecedented within the industry.
As a good example of how messy this can be, consider this story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-at...
They fairly quickly ran into some problems with reliability of one of the key witnesses which reached the point where a number of journalism professors wrote an open letter: https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/us/2024/04/29/journalis...
There’s a rundown with many links here: https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/family-of-key-case-in-new-yor...
None of that is mentioned on that story and the only correction is a minor detail.
Now, to be clear, I am not saying that it’s okay for Al Jazeera to be sloppy if the NYT is sloppy but rather that we should be consistent in our standards and they should probably be higher for everyone. The public and especially people covered in these stories deserve better.
I've been following the Screams Without Words story and I don't think it's really comparable to something that was basically confirmed to be false. The NYT stands behind the report
> We remain confident in the accuracy of our reporting and stand by the team’s investigation which was rigorously reported, sourced and edited.
A lot of the "debunking" seems fairly weak in my opinion. E.g. Gal Abdush's brother in law made a rather baseless statement that "the media invented" Gal's rape. Really the article was reporting what Israeli police believed, mainly based on (non-public) video evidence which the Times reporters also reviewed.
I think it would be comparable if Israeli police retracted their claims and stated that Gal was not raped. Then surely the NYT would make some kind of clear correction/retraction, rather than quietly deleting (part of) the report.
The reports Al-Ahli (I think it's what you meant by "Al-Hila") hospital was targeted by Israel, like every other one in Gaza, are credible. See https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/israeli-disi... and https://ararmaher.wordpress.com/2024/04/23/doppler-shift-ana...
No, there is wide consensus that it was most likely (but not certainly) an errant rocket from Gaza, and not Israel. Wikipedia has a good summary:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosio...
Specifically, that is the position of the intelligence agencies of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada, and also the conclusion of investigations by the Associated Press, CNN, The Economist, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal. That's really the best we know about it.
I have no idea how all those newspapers could manage >>independent<< investigations, as the Israeli army banned journalists. The first time [that I saw] CNN reported on something they actually filmed was The Israeli army pointing at tunnels.
The "Summary" is clearly biased and absolutely not "The best we know" depending on who is "we"
I have no idea about the reasons of the explosion, but contesting the palestinian dead toll without [credible] sources is politics.
I dare say United Nations might have a more balanced approach, and they cite the enclave health authorities when they say that as of April 22th there are 34,000 deaths. No other source is cited for some reason. I have no idea how all those newspapers could manage >>independent<< investigations, as the Israeli army banned journalists. The first time [that I saw] CNN reported on something they actually filmed was The Israeli army pointing at tunnels.
BTW, CNN is now much less biased towards the israeli narrative. During 2023 [Latam] CNN seemed a Netanyahu's outlet more that anything. France24 and DW >>seem<< neutral right now. Spain outlets have mediocre coverange, and Latinamerican outlets are only citing random news from other outlets.
The Wikipedia "Summary" is clearly biased and absolutely not "The best we know" depending on who is "we"
I dare say United Nations might have a more balanced approach, and they cite the enclave health authorities when they say that as of April 22th there are 34,000 deaths. No other source is cited for some reason.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148876 https://archive.ph/B4MuA
You're giving a ton of weasel words here: most likely (but not certainly). All that word salad of wishy washy makes it clear that the fog of war is still present regarding those events.
Describing the report as credible is not accurate. Given that many news outlets retracted their initial claims and the official statements, it is very likely that there is enough evidence that Israel did not bomb the hospital and that the reported number of casualties is inaccurate. You using the "fog of war" argument to dismiss his claim—which was honest enough to say "not certainly"—is irrelevant. You could say this about almost every other reported event in Gaza.
In this case, they have a good argument.
If you include the surrounding context, that al Ahli had been targeted before, and since, and that other hospitals had also been not only targeted but actively sieged for days, at is in fact credible that the Israeli military targeted and hit the Hospital.
Now remote forensics on the site makes it implausible that the initial reports of an Israeli airstrike were true, however we still haven’t ruled out other types of munitions by the Israeli military.
Note that the initial reports of those supportive of Israel were also false. They claimed that they captured the rockets which they claimed hit the hospital on camera. It turned out this footage was of an unrelated rocket which got completely destroyed in air. Al Jazeera was actually one of few media outlets which correctly hypothesized that this rocket was unrelated to the incident.
The fact is, we still don’t know what happened, all we know is that many of the initial reports were false. There was a lot of lying involved to win the narrative (especially by Israeli officials), and there are at least two very credible hypotheses on what happened.
It’s not worse at all. Actually probably the opposite, I learn some crazy stuff watching Al Jazeera and sometimes don’t believe it and go off researching it … and wow it’s very concerning. It seems almost certain to me there has to be some conspiracy amongst US publications to conceal certain information around Israeli-Palestinian conflict and history. As one example, read up on Ben Gvir, current National Security Minister … it’s totally crazy.
Unfortunately, whenever anything is being posted on this topic, we get to see so many comments such as this.
> It seems almost certain to me there has to be some conspiracy amongst US publications to conceal certain information around Israeli-Palestinian conflict and history
No evidence was provided, just another unfounded conspiracy theory. What can we take away from this?
It’s hard to provide proof of such a conspiracy due to the nature of the conspiracy is to omit information. It’s really only an impression I have when watching France 24 and AJ amongst other non-US news sources and then comparing to US sources.
For examples of stories or topics that appear to be dramatically underreported in the US:
- extremist positions of Israeli cabinet members. Including associations with Zionist terrorists, obviously very anti-Muslim/Arab but also including anti-Christian positions
- Israeli settlers expansions and history of aggressive actions
- famine conditions in Gaza
- and most simply the very high levels of casualties in Gaza, including children and women in huge numbers.
I really don’t ever hear any of those items mentioned even in left leaning US media. Now you might say well France and Qatar are biased due to more Arab listeners. Maybe a bit yeah because I think I hear less on Hamas atrocities perhaps than in US media.
Every media is biased.
Now per my other comment, once you criticize either side then you get automatically labeled as on the other side, our instinct is to use Hero-Villain frameworks, not Villain-Villain. Once you break out of that both leadership and politics on both side look really bad and weighing evil is not a good approach.
As far as worse, I'm not conducting a longitudinal study or anything so I can't compare their rate of "fake news" compared to Fox News or MSNBC or whatever your control group is.
Anecdotally I've noticed the biggest delta between their English and Arabic reporting in the immediate aftermath of major events. For example after the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion, the English version of their reporting was along the lines of "According to a Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson, 500+ people were killed. A Hamas spokesperson said that the explosion was caused by an Israeli airstrike, launched via an F-16 or F-35." They made sure to hedge and make clear that their sources might be biased.
This[1] seems like the sort of Arabic coverage I remember seeing in the past, a much more definitive statement just saying that the occupiers massacred 500+ martyrs.
Unfortunately Google Translate doesn't play nicely with the wayback machine so it's tedious to build up a library of concrete examples.
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20231017203426mp_/http://www.alj...
When did Israel make controversial, disputed or downright false claims illegal?
The current prime minister and the IDF make controversial, disputed and downright false claims as well.
The oldest example I can find was passed by the Knesset in July of 1986. I'm not very familiar with Israeli laws so it's totally possible I'm missing prior examples from before 1986... That's just what I found after a few minutes of search engine and wikipedia research, limited to English pages.
My understanding is that the degree to which "freedom of speech" is protected in the USA (a country I'm more familiar with) is actually pretty rare globally
I've done similar in the past, mostly to try to get early sight of news. Never come across anything even close to what you claim.
Can you provide citations?
If not, I'd suggest you are just making this up.
“أبرز تطورات اليوم الـ11 من طوفان الأقصى.” Translated by Google Translate, أخبار | الجزيرة نت, الجزيرة نت, 17 Oct. 2023.
Thanks, however I might be missing something but these aren't citations.
If you ask for citations but won't parse MLA format then I might make some suggestions about YOUR motives too ;)
I was expecting links to comparative articles that showed the discrepancies you suggested were there. Not phrases that whilst I can have translated by Google have no context.
Took the same path recently. Probably the easiest thing to point to if you're looking for something to convince people of Al Jazeera's nature, (besides specific articles), is the incredible amount of time and editorial space devoted to Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the arabic channel (before his death). The man had an audience of 60 million people for a decade and a half, and could reasonably be called the face of Al Jazeera Arabic. He has caused a lot of problems through that platform that hopefuly only the most radicalized westerner won't view as monstrous.
Probably no one who needs convincing is willing to read the ADL on him, but you can basically pick your source.
https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/Sheik-Yusuf-al-Qarad...
Here's a video of him asserting that "Hitler was a god given punishment upon the Jews, (not that the holocaust was as bad as they say)" on Al Jazeera TV.
https://www.memri.org/tv/sheik-yousuf-al-qaradhawi-allah-imp...
I guess you have to trust Memri's translation?
Just to clarify: that clip was broadcast on a separate channel called AJ Live (“Mubasher”). It’s a 24/7 channel that basically broadcasts entire live events and re-runs - think press conferences, speeches, etc. I would compare it to something like C-SPAN in the US.
Now, how much editorial input AJ has over this channel, that I don’t know.
Edit: Kind of proud that my quick explanation lines up pretty well with the wiki entry haha: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_Mubasher
> the incredible amount of time and editorial space devoted to Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the arabic channel (before his death). The man had an audience of 60 million people for a decade and a half, and could reasonably be called the face of Al Jazeera Arabic. He has caused a lot of problems through that platform that hopefuly only the most radicalized westerner won't view as monstrous.
I don't know Arabic, but I am Muslim, and Yusuf al Qaradawi is probably most known as a preeminent Islamic scholar. Any mosque you go to will likely have a work by him because his scholarship on the Quran and Hadith (not necessarily his views on current events) are very renowned. I'm not sure what makes him so radical and evil to be honest. He has written tons of scholarly works about Islam, interpretation of Islamic rules and laws, etc. And from looking online I see he was on Al Jazeera hosting a program called "Sharia and Life". These kinds of call-a-sheikh / Islamic info shows are pretty common in the Muslim world and probably have more viewership than news channels. Something Americans probably might not understand...
But it makes total sense for Al Jazeera Arabic (a channel with possibly a 90% Muslim viewership) to have a Muslim ask-a-sheikh show.
Scholarship on the Quran means what, to you, exactly?
To me it just sounds that he's an expert in convincing people that it is god's will to implement his agenda. Taking the Quran as a source of absolute truth and then taking the further step of handing the reins of interpretation to some "preeminent scholar" is a recipe for exactly the kind of extremism that you see plaguing the Islamic world.
Your and my claims about what Qaradawi is are not mutually exclusive, and are in fact deeply correlated.
> Scholarship on the Quran means what, to you, exactly?
The guy famously studied for like 20 years at Al-Azhar getting a bunch of degrees in Islamic scholarship from the largest mainstream Islamic school in the world. That's what I mean.
>To me it just sounds that he's an expert in convincing people that it is god's will to implement his agenda
Can you cite some controversial or not seen before analysis from any of his works? Most of his publications, that I'm aware of, are pretty standard interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence. It's nothing that would shock or surprise an average Muslim, imo.
>Taking the Quran as a source of absolute truth and then taking the further step of handing the reins of interpretation to some "preeminent scholar" is a recipe for exactly the kind of extremism that you see plaguing the Islamic world.
That's actually the kind of stuff he and other modernist Islamic scholars (Israr Ahmed is a similar scholar but for South Asia, where I'm from) were against. They both championed the idea that the Quran and Hadith are pretty clear and don't need expert opinion for many things. That people should take the time to read Arabic and read Quran and hadiths and they would not have much need for Sheikhs.
In general, this type of "democratic" or "non-hierarchical" view of Islamic scholarship is pretty modern. Older peoples (before the "extremism" you're talking about ostensibly) would have been much more hierarchical and rigid about the need to consult scholars rather than attempt to learn things oneself.
> Your and my claims about what Qaradawi is are not mutually exclusive, and are in fact deeply correlated.
So then you agree it's not a big deal that Al Jazeera has him on their network, since he's a pretty mainstream scholar? Okay, thanks for the chat I guess
I believe that you don't have the perspective to understand my claim, because you are a believer. I would very much like you to try though.
I claim that religious scholarship and religious fundamentalism are one and the same. You're arguing that Qaradawi was an Islamic scholar, I'm arguing that he was an Islamic fundamentalist. However, in all religious scholarship, there are further choices to be made once you are a fundamentalist. The book contradicts itself (intentionally, as it's more important that people who believe different Islams both be able to call themselves Muslim), and Qaradawi had further used his position of "celebrated religious scholar" to assert that it is Shari'a to annihilate the Jews, and used his general credibility to deny the severity of the holocaust. That's just this clip.
You can't become a religious leader without being a religious scholar, and you can't lead an extremist sect without leaning on that classification pretty heavily.
Rather than assuming anything about me, just ask. That's what an online forum is for.
> I claim that religious scholarship and religious fundamentalism are one and the same
This is straying quite a bit from the original claim, that Al Jazeera was wrong to have the scholar on the air. But if you believe, as you claim to, that religious scholarship and religious fundamentalism are the same, then you can't really begrudge the network for having him on, for they could not have any religious scholar on who was not a fundamentalist, according to you. And at least they picked a very mainstream one, no?
That logic out of the way, what do you describe as "fundamentalism"? If the idea that the Quran is the literal, unchanging word of God is fundamentalist, then yeah, all Islamic scholarship will be fundamentalist. If non-fundanentalisn is described as beliefs not orthogonal to the fundamental beliefs of the religion, then yes, you'll be right.
It depends on what you mean.
> The book contradicts itself
In what way, relevant to the discussion we are having where you seem to be most concerned with Qaradawi's anti-Semitic remarks? There's a whole litany of irrelevant arguments we could have about contradictions in the source material, but what specific contradiction do you think he can exploit to make questionable claims in your mind about Israel and/or Jews?
> is Shari'a to annihilate the Jews, and used his general credibility to deny the severity of the holocaust.
So the clip you linked does not say that. Sharia is law. What he's echoing is the belief that sometimes calamities in the world are punishments for moral failings of groups of people. Many religions believe this. It was even insinuated by Muslim scholars that loss of dignity and faith by Muslims was what led to the calamity suffered by the Palestinians. [1]
Is it anti-Muslim to believe that the moral failings of billions of Muslims can cause many Muslims to face calamities as we see today? I don't think so. Many Muslims believe that. Likewise, I don't think it's wrong to believe this about any people, and that's what he's saying in this clip.
If you believe people are not collectively punished by God as groups, that's fine, but there are very clear examples of this happening in religious source material (Sodom is the main one). And as such, I think the only questionable element is him saying "they exaggerate" when referring to the Holocaust. And yes I disagree with that. But it's not an Islamic scholarship issue, that.
[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZdPxihcKEIk
We are all trained starting from childhood to use a Hero-Villain framework when observing conflicts and it leaves us very confused when the real world is closer to Villain-Villain situation.
Anytime I ever bring up say Kissinger and the crazy realpolitik actions he took, or now this lunatic Ben-Gvir in Israel I’ve recently learned about, other people are trained to see me as a communist or anti-semite immediately, because if I object to a US figure, I must be with the other side, same with Israel.
I don’t really know how to navigate this problem to be honest.
You are 1000% correct al-Qaradhawi is total evil.
> I don’t really know how to navigate this problem to be honest.
Realistically, you can't, other than finding people who can accept that reality is shades of grey, not "my team good, other team bad."
Maybe you are ready to learn about Anarchism
At the risk of being downvoted as the parent comment. There were many reports in Israeli media showing their reporters framing a false narrative around the conflict.
To be fair, I think that blocking etc. is a dumb move by the government. Even though they are clearly a very biased organization the damage of closing their offices is probably worse than the alternative.
The fear mongering of the top parent comment is unjustified and not exactly accurate. I'm physically in Tel Aviv and can access the Al Jazeera website just fine. News outlets can't be closed and there's no "great firewall" in Israel. There is a censor but its usage is relatively limited in the age of the internet.
Examples of Al Jazeera bias include a famous video of a Gazan interviewed by a reporter blaming Hamas for everything and the reporter immediately cutting it off so it won't break the narrative that everyone in Gaza blames only Israel.
They're the ones that promoted the fake hospital bombing and they are the source of most fake unsubstantiated stories. Their Arabic language channel is far worse than their English coverage.
They made up fake stories about IDF soldiers raping in Gaza and obviously didn't report about the actual rapes by Hamas.
They refuse to interview people who can actually answer questions legitimately in Arabic such as Yosef Hadad since that would let their audience receive unfiltered truth.
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Repeating lies don't make them true. Palestinians use rape to terrorizing women's, did al Gezira report it?
Not every news source need report on every story. Especially in times of war, it's important to read every side's coverage of both themselves and the other side.
> Palestinians use rape to terrorizing women's, did al Gezira report it?
Replace "Palestinians" with "Jews" in that sentence. It's pretty racist innit? Please be more careful.
> Did Al Jazeera report on it?
Yes, yes they did:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/4/reasonable-grounds-t...
That is nonsense. The sexual assault by Hamas is as proven a fact as any can be. Some people tried to debunk it while ignoring quite a lot of evidence: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-18/ty-article-ma...
I'm no fan of the settlers but they are deeply religious and won't even talk about sex with their own wives, let alone rape. The idea is deeply abhorrent in Jewish communities. There's no such documentation of any rape at scale. Accusations are easy to make with no supporting evidence whatsoever.
OTOH there are many well documented cases of soldiers doing bad things to Palestinians and getting jail time for that. There's a lot of evidence about settlers doing bad stuff. These sort of lies pollute the objective truth to force a narrative of false equivalency where facts don't matter.
Some choice quotes from your Haarez link:
"However, at Shura Base, to which most of the bodies were taken for purposes of identification, there were five forensic pathologists at work. In that capacity, they also examined bodies that arrived completely or partially naked in order to examine the possibility of rape. According to a source knowledgeable about the details, there were no signs on any of those bodies attesting to sexual relations having taken place or of mutilation of genitalia."
"200 bodies were documented. These teams did not document a single case of sexual assault or cases of genital mutilation. "
"the intelligence material collected by the police and the intelligence bodies, including footage from terrorists' body cameras, does not contain visual documentation of any acts of rape themselves. "
That is very selective reading of the article ignoring some core facts. Forensic post mortem analysis can't be done on 1,400 bodies most of which were mutilated and many burned. There were just not enough experts available to do that work.
There are many testimonies. Including from the rapists themselves. According to Hamas's interpretation of the Quran rape is legitimate as part of Jihad.
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That's not a solid basis for considering something to be "fake", let alone to be banned.
I could say that I have read and compared the BBC to Truth Social, and decided that BBC is "fake news"; that doesn't mean it's actually true.
> I could say that I have read and compared the BBC to Truth Social, and decided that BBC is "fake news"; that doesn't mean it's actually true.
If you decide that 2+2=5 that indeed doesn‘t make it true.
I have merely said that I found that 2+2=4.
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Nowhere have I mentioned the conflict nor have I mentioned whether reporting on it is easy. Not blatantly lying is pretty easy though and Al Jazeera fails that test.
More importantly, Al Jazeera is not merely reporting on the conflict, they have been „reporting“ about many other things for a long time. That’s enough data for me that can be compared to the sum of ALL other outlets.
None of that is surprising either - Al Jazeera is a government propaganda tool, run by a dictatorial kingdom that ranks rather low on freedom of the press.
The fact that you drew a comparison to BBC is telling.
> The fact that you drew a comparison to BBC is telling.
That indeed was a specific choice - you could also state that it's a state-run "propaganda tool". It's also going to have a western (specifically UK) based view on the media it's reporting on. The same is true of Al Jazeera, or the Australian Broadcasting Company.
That, in and of itself, does not mean it is "blatantly lying". No news agency is without bias, and believing so is naive.
Does Al Jazeera have areas for improvement that are likely to not materialise due to the context in which the company is based? Sure, but that's also true of Fox News, CNN, the BBC, ABC, or random Reddit commenters.
I didn‘t ban it and the Israeli government certainly didn‘t ask me for my opinion. They had their own reasons and their own evidence and I only gave you _my_ reason for considering it fake news, which most of it is.
> On the basis that I have read and compared it myself for about two decades.
And you can't give one example?
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Doesn't that depend on what you say 'zionism' is? If the definition of Zionism is just "a safe place" or "a country for" Jewish people, isn't that antisemitic to be anti-zionist? You don't want anywhere for Jewish people?
It seems everyone is saying something different and when I see things like:
> Literally anything zionism does needs to be questioned and called out
I worry that we're glossing over lots of things with a wide brush.
That’s.. not what zionism is and even if it was, genocide is not ever acceptable as a way toward that end.
Of course it's divisive. No topic is more divisive these days.
Except it should not be divisive - as the topic of a nation state’s actions toward their stated goal of genocide (I’m sorry, “mowing the lawn”) should turn everyone against said nation state. Instantly.
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> Israel is routinely held up to a far far higher standard than any other country
Is it held to a higher standard than countries America provides arms to? (Genuine question.)
Note: I'm not saying we haven't provided arms to horrible regimes. But it's loudly criticised. Rightly or wrongly, we hold ourselves and our allies to a higher standard than e.g. Iran, China or Russia. It's partly why we have so many more of them.
Yes, in many facets of this war Israel is held to a higher standard than America itself.
When the towers were hit, the gloves came off. America wasn't accused of genocide when civilians were accidentally killed as they went after ISIS. The notion of a news agency reporting on American military strategy and directly inciting an additional attack on American soil in actionable ways wouldn't be tolerated for a second. It's so absurd that there isn't even a real-world comparison, America silences that shit on a personal cellular phone level. It's treason.
I would argue that's an apples to oranges comparison.
Since by international law definition Gaza is an occupied territory, for one, and it's perhaps one of the most disproportionate "conflicts" in modern history.
Re: journalistic integrity - I thought the idea with investigative journalism is allow people to speak freely - and then let the individual determine how truthful the source is based on a multitude of factors? Couldn't you also argue the 4th most powerful military, and arguably best funded and most sophisticated militaries, will be the most effective at generating and distributing propaganda?
What does proportion have to do with anything? You can't actually expect a country at war to supply the enemy with ammunition, period. I don't expect Hamas to allow an Arutz Sheva, or even Haaretz, office to operate on their airwaves.
Re: journalistic integrity. It's arguable, but I would say no- and many others in democratic countries would too. Bleach doesn't cure COVID, vaccines don't cause autism, and Israel isn't commiting genocide. When the facts are being twisted and misinformation endangers human life, there is a responsibility to get it right or shut it down. I am not talking about the average person having stupid uninformed opinions and shouting it to the rooftops. I am talking about professionals. Same goes for many other professions. If you're programming firmware for a dialysis machine, and you knowingly introduce a bug to kill people, your power to distribute that code to hospitals should be taken away before people get hurt.
There's irony and arrogance in much of what you say, especially "When the facts are being twisted and misinformation endangers human life, there is a responsibility to get it right or shut it down."
What if that actually applies to you and what you believe, that perhaps you've been successfully been trained with misinformation and twisted truth?
What if in fact there is a genocide going on but the population who Netanyahu needs to continue to support him has had propaganda used on them for so long that it's manufactured consent for a genocide - that some people are misled to believe it isn't.
These conversations need to happen but they haven't for obvious reasons - and it's always going to be the bad actor who's wanting the truth to be hidden; perhaps exhibit A for this is Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire - while publicly discussing doing a debate between Ben and Candace Owens - they behind the scenes were seeking and received a gag order on Candace; please of video overviews of this:
Breaking Points (4:43 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R1Jhed1-iA
Mark Dice (17 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9nrRH2WeUo
Glenn Greenwald (23 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOh3GJxes28
etc.
The problem is most people don't stay engaged in the discussion long enough, and the ideological mob side knee-jerk reacts away to be dismissive in anger-rage and discuss - short-circuiting their critical thinking, perhaps the cognitive dissonance is too painful as well, denial of the possibility of how could your precious government do such a horrific thing?
What's the irony, what's the arrogance? You can't just say "what if" without proof (I mean, say whatever you want.. but..) Back up your accusations with simple explanations please, I am not going to go watch 30 minutes of video to suss out your evidence.
Israel is the host country to the second largest Palestinian population on earth. I went to the Dead Sea the other day and passed by dozens of Palestinian cars on the road (not Israeli Arabs, which are another huge population- the Palestinians have different license plates).
If the goal of Israel was genocide, the number of civilian casualties would be FAR FAR greater than they are. I know programmers aren't necessarily mathematicians, but come on people, this is kindergarten stuff.
Look up the number of civilian casualties in America's fight against ISIS.
Hamas goes out of their way to use civilians as human shields. Just yesterday Israel had to try and carefully distinguish as a dual UNRWA / Hamas headquarters was put out of commission.
The narrative that Israel is commiting genocide in this war is so ridiculously stupid, a failure of basic math skills a 5 year old could do, the only way to believe it is to be horribly misinformed, or to want to believe it.
Al Jazeera incites violence by knowingly pushing misinformation on an audience who wants to believe it, to fan the flames of hate.
On Holocaust day especially, it's insane to expect Israel to provide resources for blood libels to her enemy in times of war.
So, I'm/we're just supposed to accept your narrative "without proof" but "the other side" requires proof which there is plenty of - but you're clearly not going to be willing to spend the time to read/watch it?
Re: "If the goal of Israel was genocide, the number of civilian casualties would be FAR FAR greater than they are."
I've heard this fallacious argument regularly - one of the many counter-points the mob is trained with to parrot - stopping them from critically thinking deeper, and keeping the mob relatively done not teaching them anything to keep them in the dark:
If they weren't trying to deceive you then they should be teaching you about the broader scope/context of the situation, instead of narrowing-fixating your view on such a shallow metric. E.g. Current bad actors in Israeli government are very aware of the need to maintain public support, support of a weaponized mob to apply distributed "peer pressure" as part of the censorship-suppression-narrative control apparatus that exists; thank God Elon Musk existed to be able to pay a easy $44 billion to take that weaponized media channel out of the hands of censorious bad actors - so even if arguably more lies spread, also arguably it's more likely more truth will also spread.
Re: "this is kindergarten stuff"
So welcome to my kindergarten class, unless you already realized the broader context that Israel needs to maintain enough public support so the funding tap (that Netanyahu also has bragged on video that he will "milk America dry") to Israel/IDF continues? It doesn't seem you're taking into account that perceptions matter though, even though you believe the side that there is a massive global uprising against the actions of this current Israeli government.
Have you ever written out to extrapolate, let's say reverse engineer, how you'd potentially get to this point from a historical point? E.g. we could start at the point Israel was formed as a state, "given" 55% of the Palestinian land - which initially was made up of Arabs and Jews peacefully living together, all of them in that region were called Palestinians - not just the Arabs; I've heard estimates the population of Jewish people in the region was anywhere from 3-7%, being given a highly disproportionate 55% of the land.
And then when a "legitimate" war broke out, as was expected to happen - Israel being funded by the military-industrial complex and the captured coffers of and for the pillaging of the United States of America - they of course won being outgunned, and took 70%+ of the land.
Do you know yet or even believe that Netanyahu funded Hamas? As unbelievable as that sounds, it's documented - along with the purpose. Netanyahu is also very aware of and has spoken about on video about 5th generation warfare - psychological warfare tactics including but not limited to subversion. Are you aware of any of that, and what's your take on it?
Netanyahu from a fairly young age also has had the stance that should not be a two-state solution, that Palestinians don't have a right to a state: does that make it more or less likely that he'd be willing to do unwarranted harm against them to support his fundamental beliefs?
P.S. If you're not willing to actually invest time into seeking out the truth, you're highly likely an ideologue and indoctrinated into narratives you've been trained with over many decades. Most ideologues are more lazy than not - refuse to engage at any depth - and then cite things generally, if they put in that much effort because they feel the need to be the last one to respond usually ; or whether that is because they "don't have time" - the consequences are the same.
So what's your time limit for video clips? 2 minutes?
Do you think you can learn an alternative perspective without going into any depth about it, or spending say 20+ hours studying what the other side.
Obviously I'm not going to waste more time providing you more links to videos or articles, if even the ~5 minute video is too long for you.
You're also falling for the propaganda that this is a war, it's not: they are an occupied land, recognized by international law and they are required by international law to have a higher duty of care for those they occupy; if you want to claim they're not occupied, then how did Israel turn off their water, electricity, etc. the moment they wanted to?
If this conversation did actually continue, and we kept engaging, then I am 80% confident that I'd be able to predict other rhetoric that then presents itself as more recent layers of learned reflexive narrative talking points of belief are deconstructed.
The problem is, this conversation in general, where everyone has the opportunity to put their points forward in a long-form format - over a lot of time, to create a single corpus for the layperson to follow along with and learn from - is prevented from happening; already pointed out to what the pro-Israel / arguably pro-genocide supporting side's (mislead primarily via manufactured consent) most recent "tip of the spear" move was Ben Shapiro/Daily Wire getting a gag order on Candace Owens - in secret - while publicly pretending to arrange a public debate between Shapiro and Owens - because propagandists know that too bright of a spotlight shown on their incongruent logic will start to shatter the veil of their blind followers.
The fun part to all of this - or by fun I guess I mean what is exciting and good to look forward to, to work towards for the much brighter future coming:
- In the future we'll train our own personal AI Avatars - and those avatars that are better trained will obliterate others less trained, if put up head-to-head in a conversation, say on Israel-Palestine; and then automated systems, trained initially by us, will be able to highlight the points of cognitive dissonance and/or incongruences in logic - in narrative statements presented; because this is tiring, but it is work - and work that is the most important work if you care about human life, human life as sacred vs. "kill Hamas at all costs" vs. - the reason you don't go full genocidal fascist behaviour is because it's possible - and in this case is the case - that heartless sociopath-psychopath authoritarians will pull strings towards manufacturing consent to deceive others into doing their evil bidding for them; it only took a handful of people to run the concentration-death camps in NaZi Germany - the rest of the Gestapo "just" gathered up the Jews, the crippled, etc, and loaded them onto trains - probably able to tell themselves
Conclusions,
How do you process the incongruence that interviews like this one - with head head of Israeli intelligence, is actually on the side of the Palestinians for what Israel/IDF has done and is doing to them: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5pI0nLBxR3/
Is it a fake video, fake interview? Do you think an ex-head of IDF's intelligence agency wouldn't know exactly 100% of the truth?
> So, I'm/we're just supposed to accept your narrative "without proof" but "the other side" requires proof
No, not at all, the number of Palestinians in Israel is a matter of public record. The Hamas strategy of human shields is extremely well documented. It's trivial to get footage of Palestinians driving on Israeli roads without hassle. Literally only need to go to a supermarket 15 minutes outside of Jerusalem, even in Jewish areas like mishor adumim.
> unless you already realized the broader context that Israel needs to maintain enough public support
Huh? There's no "broader context" to accusations of genocide. Either Israel has a policy of murdering all the Palestinians or it doesn't. It doesn't.
(Though there isn't really a genetic difference between Palestinians and Jordanian/Egyptian Arabs, not sure if that would even be genocide- but that's semantics, Israel is obviously not trying to wipe these people out, even if their identity is based on recent tribal affiliations)
Eh.. honestly, I'd go through your response point by point, but you are both clueless _and_ passionate, which is a combo I don't feel like dealing with.
If we're going into "you should watch", I literally worked on a documentary series about the formation of the state of Israel called "Faith and Fate", produced by Rabbi Berel Wein. It covers the period leading up to the state of Israel. It speaks to some of the issues you brought up like pogroms against Jews in Israel in the 1920's, the white paper, yearning of the indigenous people to return to their homeland for a couple thousand years, etc. etc.
That video clip is is literally ~1 minute long - I DARE YOU TO WATCH IT, and then give your response to it:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5pI0nLBxR3/
Re: 'If we're going into "you should watch", I literally worked on a documentary series about the formation of the state of Israel called "Faith and Fate"'
You're playing the avoidance game - to avoid having to challenge your currently blindly-unchallenged narrative you've convinced yourself is the truth; common practice of an ideologue who's beliefs can't hold water once challenged.
Re: "Either Israel has a policy of murdering all the Palestinians or it doesn't. It doesn't."
This is called bipolar or all-or-nothing thinking. You either have a mental block or you're being intellectually dishonest by not being willing, avoiding actually integrating my logic into your thinking to then respond to that vs. blatant knee-jerk reaction dismissal.
And you throw in ad hominem claiming I'm clueless while 1) only shallowly answering a cherrypicked few points so it looks like you responded, and 2) to avoid entering into a logic thread that will break apart your beliefs.
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I was unable to reply to your last reply since someone flagged/killed it, so replying here:
Straw man argument - the video is one piece of evidence towards a corpus that paints all of this current Israeli government as genocidal.
And are you claiming Netanyahu doesn't have a political agenda?
Didn't Netanyahu fund Hamas to prop them up?
And that you're ignoring/dismissing what the ex-IDF intelligence agency's head says because he supposedly has a political agenda - while Netanyahu certainly has a political agenda, as well do many of his Ministers et al made public statements to that effect - supported now by their actions considered war crimes/crimes against humanity based on international law.
Netanyahu since a long time has stated he doesn't believe Palestinians deserve their own state - and his actions have been working towards making that nearly impossible now.
Israel government has even shown a map of Israel - where it covers and includes all of Palestine: if that isn't evidence of premeditated genocide, then what is showing such a map "from the river to the sea" [this is a map shown by Israel by the way, and that phrase comes from being used by Israel first] - what does or could that signify in your mind?
I doubt you even understand where in the line of evidence his interview would fit in the puzzle pieces, your mind seems very locked up/bound in fabricated weave of thin narrative lines.
And are you so certain Hamas has the stated goal of wiping "us" out?
Are you aware the part in the Hamas Charter, associated with it, claiming to say Hamas will "obliterate all Jews" is mistranslated?
You've already already lazily avoided enough of my argument points that I'm not going to waste my time with someone who's probably just a dishonest emotional "fast talker" on live video, if this is how you behave in writing.
You have a bunch of logical fallacies in your thinking - that bipolar / all-or-nothing thinking perhaps skewing your understanding the most, for starters, where genocide doesn't require immediately or successfully killing 100% of people.
And then you parrot boring rhetoric like "accusations are weird and baseless" to just add as filler, to make your argument look longer and probably to try to calm yourself down as a keyboard warrior for high emotions.
Claiming the interview with ex-IDF head saying if he was a Palestinian he'd be fight the Israelis for his freedom - he'd do anything - implies a lot.
I'd be happy to walk you through that but you don't seem open to new information, e.g. from his statement it can 100% be inferred that from his perspective at the very top of their intelligence agency - which gives him a lot of credibility, even if you claim to just want to dismiss him offhand, honest-rational-reasonable-unbiased people won't) - and that the Palestinians aren't a free people, that they are occupied and controlled-suppressed by this Israeli government.
How about you start addressing each of my points, not cherrypick, show that you can think through situations and information put forward to you - instead of regurgitating your propaganda narrative lines like that list you made?
Since you have experience doing documentaries, why don't you do a documentary for "the other side"? Gather all of the evidence, video clips, etc - and piecing them together, and then work through the cognitive dissonance you're clearly having - and outline in the highest detail possible the differences in the narratives?
Here's a starting point for you in the documentary, a thought exercise us: I'm going to give 55% of your land/properties/assets/money [yes, yours dakom] to the Palestinian refugees because of the allegedly accidental killing of 10,000s of civilians as compensation to give them new places to live. You agree to doing this, yes? Why or why not? Or will you avoid answering this question too because you'll infer and understand the point I am making you run into?
> I'm not going to waste my time with someone [...] on live video.
Yeah, thought so. If you want to debate this on live video with full transparency (real names, agreement to have it publicized, third party mediator we both agree to), let me know.. otherwise- this is not worth my time.
I don't address each of your points because they are so ridiculous it's not about rational argument in text. I assume you are much smarter than these points indicate, and so the actual issue at hand is deeper, and I think if you're forced to confront that with some real accountability you _might_ be able to recognize this with your reputation on the line.
One example: Chalking up Hamas's intent to eradicate Israel entirely to "mistranslation"... that's a new level of willfull ignorance. Do you really need me to break down the Arabic translation on Wikipedia part by part, or source the numerous public statements by Hamas officials calling for the eradication of Israel by jihad and any means necessary? No, you don't need me to do that, it's obvious, so where does such a clear mistake come from? Not from misunderstanding facts.
(P.S.. your ad-hominem attacks are clearly projecting your own insecurities. I know that telling you this won't change anything, but I want you to know that it not only doesn't bother me, it makes you look bad, you might want to stick to evidence-based points in the future)
You claim I did ad hominem - please cite those specifically. The behaviour of yours I am pointing out can be supported with supported arguments by referencing all the various times you have and continue avoid.
Also, couldn't this actually be you projecting - or is that an impossibility? "I don't address each of your points because they are so ridiculous it's not about rational argument in text. I assume you are much smarter than these points indicate, and so the actual issue at hand is deeper, and I think if you're forced to confront that with some real accountability you _might_ be able to recognize this with your reputation on the line."
Here's my citation for the Hamas Charter mistranslation - I actually forgot to add my source and details for that, so I'll do that now, though it points to you're not even aware of most of the "other side's" argument points:
PROPER TRANSLATION: "Israel will be established and will continue to be establishment until Islam invalidates it, just as Islam invalidated others before it."
Source: https://jstor.org/stable/26331116
The actual language used is properly translated to "invalidate" Israel (and not specifically Jewish either, and more people are now differentiating between Judaism and Zionism - the bad-unjust actors wanting to conflate themselves with Judaism, wolves wearing sheep’s clothing, as is said and warns us in the bible - in the context of speaking of unjust actions, e.g. it won't be Jewish (or even specifically Zionists) that will be eradicated, it will be any bad-unjust behaviours that won't be allowed to continue.
So are you saying then you disagree with the translation in my citation above?
Also, have you yet watched the videos by credible investigative journalists debunking the propaganda/lies created and distributed by your side? E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mxfnya3ZRc
You do understand the concepts of and how propaganda and manufacturing consent works, right?
Nice work - you've obviously completely demolished the objection to the translation by the user above. In fact one can verify the correct ("invalidate"/"nullify") translation directly, by looking at the original arabic word that was used (and its root).
While you're at it, perhaps you can also explain this fun passage from the 1988 covenant:
The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."
Any translation issues with the phrases "killing of the Jews" and "There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him"? There are also two appearances of the phrase "battle with the Jews" -- can you explain those as well, please?
The JSTOR article conspicuously avoids analysis of these passages.
I don't know the context is of where what you cited.
And once again, we'd need unbiased scholars to give an unbiased translation - as what you're citing could likely be purposefully or poorly mistranslated to change, even slightly, the context or scope - and when doing so could completely change the meaning.
So where exactly did you pull this quote from? And does it cite where it's pulling the original quote from, or is it pulling from someone else who may have dishonestly translated it to begin with?
You'd have to agree with me that confirmation bias exists - and is a very difficult minefield for any individual to navigate, right? Especially a difficult trap or valley to climb out of if someone may have been deeply indoctrinated into certain a weave of "disgust" producing narrative lines/threads for nearly a century, passed on through multiple generations?
There is also biblical-religious verses that Netanyahu has cited that have the same annihilation rhetoric, as far as I remember, so it's okay if one side does it - but not the other?
The rabbit hole goes very deep - has many misleading paths - and the problem is is proper conversation is heavily prevented and suppressed, primarily by one side, for example: Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire, while being deceitful - in public attempting to organize a public debate with Candace Owens - behind the scenes in parallel were applying for and got a gag order on her.
Do you think preventing people from "either side" from diving into long-form, thorough discussion to hash out as many points as possible - is good or bad?
Thankfully people like Piers Morgan are having some of these people on to discuss, and it allows the general population to see for themselves who uses dishonest and disgusting tactics as part of their arguments - and which side aren't deceitful or avoidance, who are clear and articulate, etc.
And should I bring up again now that the phrase "from the rivers to the sea" was first used by Israel? How about I mention again the Israeli government (I think it was Netanyahu himself but I don't remember at the moment) showed a map of Israel - that only showed Israel, with no Palestine nor Gaza nor West Bank marked on it. So it's okay when Israeli uses it but demonized and misrepresented as to its meaning when Palestinians use it?
So where exactly did you pull this quote from?
The very same document you were dissecting - the 1988 charter. The phrases are easy to find in any reliable translation you have handy. Just look for keywords like "Judgement", "tree", "Jew", "battle". The other questions you're raising are also interesting, but if you don't mind -- for now I'd be keen to know your interpretation of the phrases cited in the post above this one.
The context for each phrase would be the immediately surrounding text, of course.
(Yes, is a turgid sprawl, the '88 charter. But give it a shot!)
> that only showed Israel, with no Palestine nor Gaza nor West Bank marked on it
1) Look at a map of Palestine in 1947. Now look at the Palestinian flag side by side with the Jordanian flag. I bet you can figure this one out.
2) When did the nation of Palestine ever have their own land and national identity, prior to 1948? Who was their president/leader?
3) On that note, where was Arafat born?
The thing is- this whole farce of "Palestine" is, in fact, nonsense, and the obvious real answer to peace if the Arab refugees from 48 want to call themselves after an old Roman slur to the Jews is for Jordan to designate a chunk.
There's like, what, two million so-called Palestinians in Jordan already.
> There is also biblical-religious verses that Netanyahu has cited that have the same annihilation rhetoric, as far as I remember
I call B.S. the Torah not only doesn't encourage murdering Arabs of any kind, it outright prohibits it. The idealized Torah-based government encourages all the nations of the world to come and live and visit in Israel, provided they follow the 7 Noahide laws (which moderate forms of Islam do).
Be honest- did you just completely make up this point? What could you possibly be misremembering? Netanyahu has issues, but misquoting the Torah and using that misquote as a basis for an extreme position of genocide is _very_ out of character for him, doesn't ring true at all.
(there _is_ an imperative in the Torah to kill Amalekites. They don't exist anymore and it's completely irrelevant.)
the obvious real answer to peace ... is for Jordan to designate a chunk.
And then what needs to happen, specifically? Tell us more, please.
That's the question we should be asking and the pressure Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan need to be put under by Saudi Arabia, UAE, US, France, Russia, China, etc.
I realize that's a stretch- but it shouldn't be.
Fantasy scenario: it just happens. Many Palestinian/Arabs continue to live in Israel under Israeli sovereignty because they like the job opportunities or whatever. No persecution, they live and flourish no problem (assuming they genuinely accept Israeli government). Many emigrate to Palestine in eastern Jordan because they feel a connection to the land their great grandparents grew up in, it's worth the tradeoff for them (assuming it's less prosperous than Israel which of course may be inverted, who knows)
If 80% of the energy from world hatred of Jews went to actually trying to solve the problem, we'd be in a far better place- less war, less innocents dying, less needing to censor treasonous media, etc.
To be completely honest, it boggles my mind that this _isn't_ happening. Instead we have pointless shit like Gays for Palestine blocking entrance to Disneyland. The world has lost its mind on this issue.
Many emigrate to Palestine in eastern Jordan because they feel a connection to the land their great grandparents grew up in, it's worth the tradeoff for them (assuming it's less prosperous than Israel which of course may be inverted, who knows)
In an optimistic scenario -- approximately what percentage of the current Palestinian/Arab population (in the West Bank + Gaza) need to make this move in order to create conditions for peace, in your view?
0% of those who accept Israeli government wholeheartedly, choose to live as law-abiding citizens, and teach their children to do the same (similar to many Israeli-Arab and Druze populations today).
100% of those who actively support the eradication of Israel and driving every Jew into the sea.
In the middle, it may need to lean to less tolerance due to the reality of democracy and demographics, but I'm not sure.
My hope would be that most would fit in the 0% category.
It sounds you are basically advocating for the Decisive Plan as put forth by the current Minister of Finance.
Am I reading you correctly, here?
Do you have a sense as to what portion of the non-Arab population in Israel would support such a project? A rough percentage estimate would be greatly appreciated.
Interesting.. believe it or not, I don't pay much attention to politics as I often feel like they miss the forest for the trees and exchange integrity for votes.
But at a glance- it seems like I am in fact proposing something like his Decisive Plan.
I suppose the main difference is I am dreaming that it comes about through peace and with world support- especially Arab support.
I don't want it to be forced through violence. Unfortunately, it may be inevitable... I can't even get people on hacker news to retract their erroneous accusations of genocide. What hope is there for a peaceful "180 degree" turn?
I keep wanting to believe the world is not full of anti-semites, it's just an issue of misunderstanding, and I keep finding I am wrong... in that context, something like the decisive plan may need to be forced through war eventually. God I hope it doesn't come to that.
Re: stats, I don't have that info.. if I had to guess, I would say that a plan like this is hugely unpopular in Israel- but I would also guess that it's like that because it implies a lot of suffering in today's climate, and it would be much more accepted if the Palestinians wanted it too.
Well, thanks for clarifying at least.
If things do come to that -- it definitely won't be an inevitability, but a conscious choice on the part of those responsible.
Your 0% category fits into a schoolbook example of colonialism. If your hope is that most people accept being colonized and loosing any prospect of self determination, and potentially their identity, then your hope is that a whole peoples just allows a colonizer to determine their fate in peace.
It is not only unrealistic, but also an outdated 19th century view of geopolitics, with a history full of racism, genocide and other horrors.
You have it completely inverted. I am talking about the indigenous people returning to their land. I am talking about the original (and much more prolific) religious claims to land being restored over subsequent weak-claimed usurpers.
That's literally the opposite of colonialism.
(by "weak" I just mean the opposite of prolific.. not sure what the right word would be there, i.e. Judaism has super strong ties to Israel- agricultural laws of orlah and shemittah, recorded purchase and significance of Hebron, daily prayer for over 2000 years to rebuild Jerusalem. No other religion has anywhere near this strong of a connection to the land).
I am not sure who do you mean by usurpers. Here is the colonisers association, tasked with creating colonies: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Colonisation_Associat...
The colony in Palestine took off, due to the British preference of solidifying european control over Ottoman region, and the convenient façade of the historical claim.
People lived there before this are descendents of those who lived there in the past. Many stayed even after the expulsion by Romans, many returned. Some, obviously would have changed their faith, but none of that gives the European descendents any more right over it. We can all colonise Ethiopia if we were to go on like this.
Starting in the 1800's is pretty arbitrary. Try going back a couple thousand years.
I am not interested in debating Ethiopia, I know nothing about it, and wouldn't presume to take a strong position on a subject I know so little about.
"Usurpers" in that context was specifically about religious claim, where Islam has both a far weaker and far later claim than Judaism
Try going back a couple thousand years.
And then a few more, for good measure.
The only legitimate heirs to the region are the Bronze Age Canaanites. The only legitimate religious claim is held by the followers of El and Asherah.
All others are usurpers and latecomers.
Re: ad-hominem:
"someone who's probably just a dishonest emotional 'fast talker'"
(false: I'm very honest, pretty chill, and speak at a pretty normal pace due to my Texan upbringing)
"bi-polar"
(false, never been diagnosed with that)
There's more of course.. but, do you really need me to list every instance where you crossed that line?
> translation
in addition to the other poster's comment pointing out that the charter literally calls for fighting/killing all the Jews in other passages, what _exactly_ do you think their charter means by "invalidating [Israel's existence]". In what world is that not mutually exclusive with Israel existing??
Btw- while there is much debate even among religious Jews about the line between the modern state of Israel and the Jewish religion, there is no debate that they are intimately tied at the core. There are hundreds of commendments relating to the land of Israel, e.g. agricultural laws that do not apply in America or Guam or wherever.
The most prolific commentator (Rashi) points out that the Torah begins with the creation of the world precisely because it needs to establish the Jewish connection to the land of Israel, as both are designated by God to be intertwined in legislature later on in the Torah.
Not saying anyone has to believe this, but, ultimately, one can't _really_ be anti-Zionist without being anti-Jewish, it's just an excuse for politically correct hatred in today's climate.
The religious Jewish identity cannot exist without the land of Israel (hence why it's been in Jewish prayers 3 times a day and after every meal with bread ever since the Roman exile).
Again, because people tend to misunderstand when I point this out- I am not saying the world has to believe this. I am just pointing out the intellectual dishonesty when people say anti-Zionism doesn't imply anti-Jewish. It's just not true when fleshed out fully, and, in my anecdotal experience, when someone claims they are "just" anti-Zionist, they truly do harbor deep hatred for the Jewish people too, irregardless of Israel.
Simple question which I asked before- if you accuse Israel of genocide, why is the IDF not dropping bombs on Ramallah? One would think that if the goal were genocide, Israel wouldn't discriminate between the PA and Hamas, right?
Simple answer:
a) Raids in the West Bank are numerous and increasing, including a few in December where the IDF seized a bunch of money from exchange shops[1] (I don’t know why they did that), and a very big one in March where they killed a 16 year old child[2].
b) Palestinians in Gaza is a group (or peoples), and as such subject to Genocide on their own. One does not need to target every Palestinians for it to count as genocide. Bosniaks in Srebrenica was a group which was targeted during the Bosnian Genocide. The Srbska army did not need to target every Muslim Bosniak for it to constitute genocide.
1: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/28/unparalleled-israe...
2: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-carries-out...
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That is what genocide means [1].
> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
> (a) Killing members of the group;
> (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
> (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
> (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
> (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Israel has (a) killed members of the group, (b) caused serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, and (c) deliberately inflicted on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, by e.g. destroyed hospitals, cultural centers, whole neighborhoods etc. preventing food and fuel from reaching Gaza, thus causing a famine, etc. And Israeli officials have made statements and actions to reflect that statements which makes it reasonable to infer that they are doing this with the intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a group.
The according to the definition of genocide, and according to past convictions for the crime of genocide, targeting every member of a group is not a necessary condition for genocide.
Finally, regarding the Ramallah raids, in very few places does throwing Molotove coctails at law enforcement in protective armor get you killed. Palestinians are one of very few groups who get killed for this relatively harmless—though violent—crime. Almost every other group, would get arrested and maybe a felony charge with a very minor prison sentence at worst. That said, I don’t believe Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in the West Bank. That is a crime which Gazans are the sole victims of.
[1]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Prevention_...
Re: genocide.
None of those criteria fit when talking about Palestinians in the West Bank (or Gaza before the war, but let's put that aside for now). The Palestinian population has increased in Israel, they are free to roam, reproduce, etc.
As I have said previously, one merely has to drive 15 minutes outside of Jerusalem to witness this. For anyone living in the Dead Sea area, as I did for over 3 years, it's _routine_ to see Palestinians existing just fine with none of the criteria for genocide at all. That's a fact, jack.
So.. what you're really saying is Israel is commiting "genocide" against Hamas. Wow. Alert the press. It's a war, initiated by Hamas and every terrorist attack they've been doing, not just Oct 7th. You're damn right Israel has a goal of wiping out every single one of those psychotic terrorists, and the world should be thanking us.
Instead, we're forced to try and distinguish Hamas from the civilians they use as human shields, and international anti-semetism that is hell-bent on getting the facts completely wrong. I am not saying the IDF is free of mistakes, but by and large it goes to extreme lengths to protect normal Palestinians.
What army on earth gives their enemy advance warning before attacking? The ratio of combatants to civilians is damn near miraculous in the current fighting conditions.
It's really impossible to mistake this for attempted genocide if you're honest.
Re: Molotov cocktail
Have you ever had one thrown at you personally? I have. It's no joke and it is absolutely 100% a lethal weapon. You can't attack a solider with a lethal weapon and not expect them to attack back. I don't care what the stats are, it should be expected every time.
At the end of my post, I specifically said:
> I don’t believe Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in the West Bank.
And any charges of Genocide against Palestinians in Gaza is for conduct after oct 7.
> What army on earth gives their enemy advance warning before attacking?
I don’t know, probably most. But that is no excuse for a genocide. There is no exemptions for international humanitarian laws if you issue a warning before committing the crime.
> You can't attack a solider with a lethal weapon and not expect them to attack back.
Molotov cocktails are lethal the same way tear gas is lethal. Against a soldier in full riot gear, it is hardly lethal at all. But in fact, I would expect most solders not to kill a teenager throwing a Molotov at them. If a kid throws a Molotov cocktail at a soldier and that soldier reacted by killing that teenager, I would expect that soldier to be charged for a crime and go to prison for killing a non-combatant.
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That's a bold assertion - do you have any evidence to support this? I find that they do plenty of great journalism, often bringing stories that don't make it into the english-language media via other outlets. For example, just from today an article on the fight for Iraqi waterway restoration: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2024/5/4/dont-be...
In general, the Features page (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/) doesn't exactly smack of Islamic propaganda - so curious to see how you came to this conclusion.
Well, Al Jazeera English is separate and a bit better than regular Al Jazeera. But look at their stories and the morals they try to show in there. It’s always garnering more support for Islamic causes. They infiltrated several Israeli and Jewish groups, and are funded by the Qatari government.
These governments are not okay. State sponsored tv from countries like Iran, Qatar, Russia are not okay. Not even when they report accurately, because of the bias in what and how they report.
Not saying western media like Fox News is any better, but yeah.
And that they ‘appear’ okay is precisely the biggest problem. If they are so fair; how many reports are pro Israe, or condemn Hamas’s actions? Is it zero? ;)
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How can we still continue to call Israel a liberal society when their entire political class is banning and censoring opposition media? Interfaith marriages are illegal. Gay marriage is illegal (not unusual for the region, but since Israel likes to trot out the rainbow flags it bears repeating). It's the thinnest possible vaneer of "western values" slapped over a colonial military outpost.
> when their entire political class is banning and censoring opposition media?
This is not a dead disqualifier for a liberal society. Practically everyone but America does it.
> gay marriage is illegal
Is that the bar now? Gay people get thrown from buildings next door in Gaza and they get strung up from a crane in Iran. On that basis, as a gay man, I'd much rather let Israel "trot out the rainbow flags" than take my chances with their enemies.
> Gay people get thrown from buildings next door in Gaza and they get strung up from a crane in Iran
Nobody argued Hamas, Iran or even the Palestinian people, are liberal.
Nobody claimed rain fell upwards either.
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> Focusing obsesively in Israel is antisemitism
Israel is front-page news because it's an American ally. Sudan and Myanmar are not. People are focussing on it because it's being talked about.
So your response is a seven year old video asserting I'm simply ignorant? Not a particularly winning argument. And flagging your initial response since you've now edited in baseless accusations of antisemitism. That's not how you have a conversation here.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40268301.
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Please don't post flamewar comments to Hacker News. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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I initially read this as "... local AI ..." and was somewhat confused.
@dang -- you're not going to get the polite, respectful conversation on this topic that I think you're hoping for. Instead, you're going to get criticisms on the legitimacy of each organization involved in this conflict. I don't understand why you even want this topic on HackerNews.
Having spent entire days moderating previous threads on this topic, I know what kind of conversation we're likely to get. But abandoning discussion altogether is also not an option.
> I don't understand why you even want this topic on HackerNews.
I don't think I'd say 'want' (what I want is to spend Sunday afternoons working on something else), but the issue is the principles by which we moderate the site. If you look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267862 (edit: which I just posted in the current thread) and then https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39618973 and the links back from there, you should find plenty of explanation of the relevant points. If you (or anyone) want to familiarize yourself with those answers and still have a question I haven't addressed, I'd be happy to try.
This point inadvertently exposes an aspect of information management which is sorely unaddressed and inadequate to purposes of understanding within a commonwealth:
That situations conflict which are already well understood to history are regurgitated as mysteries, and the knowledge system is practically useless to providing coherent access to previous experience and context.
When a mod has to write:
> If you look at <URL> and the links back from there, you should find more than enough (indeed, frequently repeated) explanations of the relevant points. If you (or anyone) want to familiarize yourself with those answers and still have a question I haven't addressed, I'd be happy to try.
Why has a new thread been created?
Why isn't this article and the attending thread of comments already situated within existing paths of discourse helping readers to assess the long prevailing (say 100 years) of understanding on the topic and identify, explore and integrate the outlying views? Why hasn't all the redundant and trivial junk of the previous thread been sifted and gleaned into salient regards for the situation?
Does any media apparatus help with us with knowing how what's happening today relates to what we understood yesterday and the days before?
Why is all news manifest as a reverse chronological list of forgettery, de-contextualized factoids and rediscovery of precedents among initiates?
> Why has a new thread been created?
A user posted it and other users upvoted it. Other users flagged it, but I chose to turn off the flags on this one, for reasons I've explained at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267862 and in many other places linked to there.
> Why isn't this article and the attending thread of comments already situated within existing paths of discourse
It is in the sense that the web already does that. I often post lists of related links from past HN discussion (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), but that's not doable when my hair is on fire and I'm also trying to keep my head above water.
> But abandoning discussion altogether is also not an option.
I don't see why not. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it shouldn't be an option.
This attitude toward moderation is a large reason I do not participate on this site like I used to.
The site hasn't changed in this respect. If you look at the examples in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, you'll see that all these things—the moderation approach to politics and all the common complaints—go back 15 years.
> because it's hard doesn't mean it shouldn't be an option
I hope it's not. Trolls aside, I've found HN's discussion on this topic to be interesting.
For example, this comment [1]. I hadn't considered belligerent status as a relevant factor before. (It's obvious once pointed out, and not a decisive factor. But it has weight nevertheless.)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40268043
> But abandoning discussion altogether is also not an option.
This is the most interesting position i ve seen on the subject.
I've been part of this but these are different than the typical political heated discussions on HN like in the trump era. These here tend to swift quickly into antisemitism.
Comments do that are usually swiftly and correctly flagged by users (or mods). In egregious cases, or repeated cases, we warn and/or ban the account.
If you see cases where this is not true, the most likely reason is that we haven't seen them yet. (We don't see everything that gets posted to HN, or even everything that gets posted to a large thread.) The thing to do then is flag the comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cflag) and/or to email us at hn@ycombinator.com in egregious cases.
Alternatively, since different people have different thresholds for considering something to be antisemitic, there may often be things that are not flagged that others think should be, and vice versa. It's difficult to determine what the right threshold should be, but it often won't match the preference of the most sensitive users. If productive conversation is to happen, it may require some degree of discomfort.
> what I want is to spend Sunday afternoons working on something else
You are deceiving yourself, dang. You cherish every single second of it.
Well that's one word for it!
I think freedom of press is of some significance on a site using news sources as content.
Seems pretty civil at the moment
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Obviously the adults are the ones doing the name-calling.