"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...
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...
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.
Unfortunately, it seems the protesters themselves often don't make the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism.
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).
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?
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).
You're using imaginary references, there's nothing to discuss here.
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.
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).
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?
No need to keep to the Roman convention of renaming Israel to Palestine.
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.
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 ;)).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 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?
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.
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.
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).
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'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[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.
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.
> 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.
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]
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
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.
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.
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...
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#
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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’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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
[delayed]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
Yes RT was doing wonderful journalistic work in Ukraine and elsewhere... Lol... Poor Ukrainian subjects not getting to read that shite. It was abject shite 15 years ago, let alone today.
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.
?
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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?
I don't think the invasion of Iraq was a good thing or acceptable.
But you very clearly seem to think the invasion and genocide in Ukraine is acceptable.
We are not the same.
Anyway you've let your mask slip, you're pro war and pro genocide. I'm glad you're seething on Hacker News about so-called "western hypocrisy". It means my countries are doing something to piss yours off. Good. Have a nice life and carry on seething. Good luck in getting toilet installed in beautiful hut/house/shack. Hopefully it is your turn on waiting list.
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.
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?
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.
You should consider the the site guidelines. This is completely unacceptable. How can you be so comfortable seeing the world in black and white?
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.
if it was abject shite nobody wanted to read or watch, they wouldn't bother to ban it
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?
I would love to live in the universe where popularity was a good indicator of quality.
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.
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"?
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).
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.
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.
It should be noted that Ukraine has banned far more than just RT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press_in_Ukrain...
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.
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.
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.
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?
If you are so desperate for Russia to win, why don't you go and join the Russian army and join a meat wave?
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.
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.
North Korea is a line on a map.
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 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?
I find it downright perverse to call genocide "retaliatory" and the act of covering it up "normal".
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:
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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):
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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".)
I think Israel has acted horribly around humanitarian aid, yes. This has largely changed recently, thankfully.
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.
Not true, and I've talked about this in another comment in this thread.
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.
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 US has killed over 400,000 Iraqis since invading Iraq. Do you think that qualifies as genocide?
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?
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.
Some explanation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Albright#Sanctions_a...
Absolutely, positively, unequivocally, yes.
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)
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.
Debunked.
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/09/israel-genocide-gaza-us-aus...
And this was widely reported by the MSM.
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
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
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.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
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.
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
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.
mullivad has a free to use DNS over https service by the way.
It is still perfectly possible to access RT from Spain, even using regular ISP DNS servers.
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...
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/)
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.
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.
I used to watch it on Freeview, picked up via a regular antenna if that's what you mean by "terrestrially".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Not really. Top Russian officials, say Dmitri Medvedev, are still shitposting on twitter:
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.
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.
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.
Glad you come to that conclusion.
What is RT doing that is not found in FOX, NBC, CNews.fr, Hayom?
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.
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.
Lol. Where did he say that?
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.
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).
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.
How's the glorification of Russkiy Mir going? Or the vilification of non-Russian ethnic minorities?
How long has Putin been president or prime minister?
How many state-owned enterprises are there in Russia?
And what inalienable freedom of speech and association rights do Russian citizen have?
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
Where did you get the "are equally bad" part from?
"Clearly", eh? Well, let's wait to see how you do with the question.
Monopolizing discourse.
How many independent news channels are there inside Russia today?
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.