Far too many eyeballs witnessing the "conflict" now - and with Elon buying Twitter-X, the censorship-suppression-narrative control apparatus has a massive hole in it now.
All: if you're about to comment in this thread, please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make sure your post is in the intended spirit of the site. If it isn't, please edit it until it is; or simply remember that the internet is usually wrong and refrain from posting.
The intended spirit is curious, respectful conversation in which we learn from each other. Yes, that is hard when emotions run strong, but hard != impossible, and it's what the site rules ask: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Users have a wide range of conflicting views about what HN does or doesn't have to do with. You can see that vividly in these past examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, which go back many years but sound like they were posted last week.
Those are the principles, and they've been stable for a long time. Then there's which stories get to count as clearing the bar. That is also contentious, but a different question: it's about how to apply the principles, not what the principles should be.
We look for stories that contain significant new information [1], aren't too repetitive of recent discussion [2, 3], and have at least some chance of providing a foundation for intellectually curious conversation.
If you want to understand HN moderation, you need to understand the difference between those two questions—what the principles are vs. how to apply them in specific cases. It's the difference between the rules of a game and the calls made by refs on specific occasions.
The rules are stable and we're confident that they're right. Particular calls, not so much—we sometimes get them wrong. We're often willing to make adjustments in specific cases, especially when users persuade us that we got something wrong. But we're much less willing to change the rules themselves, because they've held up well over many years, and provide a good basis for running HN for its intended purpose [4].
As you can imagine, this question shows up often—especially on divisive topics like the OP—and I've written different versions of this answer many times. You can find a bunch of past explanations from threads about the current topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39618973. If you, or anyone, still have questions after reading the current post, I suggest looking at that link (and the links back from there). If after that you still have a question I haven't answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
Then I was confused myself. I thought Hacker News was in relation to the hacker spirit, embodied best in the book "Hackers", or even "Masters of DOOM", with a slight twist of VP and startup culture. Even the Big Tech propaganda gets tiring and off-topic. But I guess I was mistaken about the expectations.
Well, it certainly is supposed to be for those things. But if you try to run a site like HN only for those things, it turns out that's not a stable position.
'Freedom of speech' as a topic is interesting to HN and has an obvious Information Technology angle. It is probably the one that skirts the edge the most though.
It does not provide source data, just the calculated results presented. There is also a methodology link, which points to different pages, depending on the year selected
Gaza Health Ministry numbers are a reliable floor, as confirmed by numerous organizations like the US State Department. The real count probably above 100k dead so far.
I don't think this is true. Can you refer to the US State Department official position on this? It's true that in previous conflicts the numbers were in the ballpark but the breakdown between e.g. combatants and civilians was not. This conflict is very different so I don't think we should be extrapolating.
I will say that both analysis seem really repugnant. Specially the first one that first acknowledges the obvious limitation that "only a third of Gaza’s hospitals are even partially functional", to then push the idea that the MOH trying to work under that limitation is an attempt of manipulation. It's absurd to think that releasing less numbers would paint a more accurate picture; but I guess some side would appreciate if people stop counting the dead.
They are correct in saying it's a reliable floor. From AP:
>HOW DOES THE MINISTRY ARRIVE AT A DEATH TOLL?
>Gaza’s most widely quoted source on casualties is Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra. From an office at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, al-Qidra receives a constant flow of data from every hospital in the strip.
>Hospital administrators say they keep records of every wounded person occupying a bed and every dead body arriving at a morgue. They enter this data into a computerized system shared with al-Qidra and colleagues. According to screenshots hospital directors sent to AP, the system looks like a color-coded spreadsheet divided into categories: name, ID number, date of hospital entry, type of injury, condition.
Given this, it is entirely possible that there are additional dead that otherwise do not make it to the hospital morgue, those lost in rubble, those left behind, or cases were the violence was so great there is no body to note. To your question Hamas has made a point to be conservative and validate the death tolls, meaning that there are likely a great number of dead that don't reach these standards and are not counted.
Do these numbers distinguish between journalists killed while doing journalism vs journalists killed as collateral damage not in the capacity of a journalist vs combatants who were journalists prior to picking up a gun and joining the war?
I feel like its very hard to draw any conclusions from these numbers without distinguishing between those cases (other than of course that war is a tragedy and innocents generally pay the price of war).
Isn't it any less worse that 170+ journalists were killed among the 30,000+ civilians?
And no, it's unlikely these are journalists who picked up a gun - the IDF is dropping up to 2,000 Lbs bombs, and that's possibly how many are killed; however there have been many reports of journalists homes being targeted in direct strikes, at least one journalist I heard who's wife and children/whole family were killed but he wasn't.
It's not surprising in reality if it's 170+ journalists amongst 30,000+ killed.
There are videos of IDF soldiers harassing and brutally assaulting journalists, if that's any indication of the rules of engagement they subscribe to; I'm obviously not linking to any here on HN - this topic is already a minefield.
What HN is missing is going one layer up, where all of the various points brought up are catalogued-organized - and then allow a second round of discussion, perhaps with a more sophisticated UI/UX for people (from "both"/all sides) to contribute things like citations to evidence/data support the claim/statements, etc; and then those cited sources and data could also then be another layer deeper to constrain or contain further contextualized-narrowed conversation to the analysis of those sources.
> Isn't it any less worse that 170+ journalists were killed among the 30,000+ civilians?
Yes. One is a clear cut war crime, the other is not. (Or at least not in and of itself. There are of course factors that could make those civilian deaths be a war crime, but it depends on the circumstances.)
(To be clear, what i am saying is that intentionally targeting journalists (who have not picked up a gun and joined the fight) is an unambigious war crime. Killing journalists incidentally while targeting something else may or may not be a war crime depending on all sorts of factors)
I consider things that are war crimes to be much worse than things that are not. So i do think there is a big difference between the two scenarios.
I think its also important to recognize that this sort of thing has huge propaganda value for the Palestinian side, so its important to be careful when evaluating circumstantial evidence (and to be clear i would say that about any side in any war when it comes to information that makes their oponent look bad). As the saying goes, truth is the first casualty of war. It can be very difficult to know what is going on in the middle of a conflict.
Israel has a history of intentionally targeting journalists (such as the American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli snipers, despite being very clearly identified as a journalist).
It's also the case that more generally, Israel's practice of dropping 2000-pound bombs on civilian areas is a war crime. Any targeting of civilian areas has to weigh the military gain against the damage to civilians, and Israel is not doing that. It has emerged that Israel is knowingly targeting buildings where it knows hundreds of civilians will die, just to kill one individual who is suspected of being associated in some way with Hamas. Israel specifically targets suspected Hamas associates when they're at home. These people are identified based on a pattern of behavior and things like cell-phone data, without Israel even knowing whether they really are combatants.[0] In this conflict, Israel has completely taken the gloves off and quite obviously does not care about civilian casualties.
I did not read the whole thing, I read far enough to realize the methodology was garbage. The article basically says anyone ever associated with Hamas or resisting the IDF is a legitimate military target. Let's try switching that around. Anyone who served in the IDF or spoke positively of a successful attack of Israel against Palestine is a legitimate military target and not a journalist? No, this is obviously nonsense. I'm pretty sure at this point, there's almost nobody left in Gaza that hasn't said a few epithets towards Israel... that doesn't make them military targets.
Al Jazeera getting banned tracks with the current Israel government not being a huge fan of journalism.
> Anyone who served in the IDF or spoke positively of a successful attack of Israel against Palestine is a legitimate military target and not a journalist?
This very specific point is made almost always by Hamas and co to justify indiscriminate firing of rockets into populated areas. "No civilians because everyone has done military time or is a reservist, even women" is a very, very common point.
You conflate average Gazans who "said a few epithets towards Israel" with those who "promoted and celebrated terrorism and the death of innocent civilians".
Is media worker always a journalist? The list seems in disagreement with the other list. Also if you work for Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad are you a journalist? Where does that line pass? Are IDF media people journalists or are they soldiers? Either way, even by the most generous interpretation not everyone on that list is a journalist. e.g. a "a sound engineer working for the Gaza’s Hamas government owned Al-Rai radio and freelancing for other local radio stations" is not a journalist.
I would trust the list a lot more if there was a reference to their work. Are they published journalists? The list says nothing about what media they worked for. Random e.g. on the list uses Al Jazeera as a reference:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/1/8/israel-war-...
"Gaza’s Government Media Office has confirmed the deaths of two more Palestinian journalists – Abdullah Baris and Muhammad Abu Dayer"
A journalist should mean "a person who writes for newspapers, magazines, or news websites or prepares news to be broadcast.", is there a list that includes what newpapers, magazines, or news websites those people worked for?
I drilled down the wikidata reference link from the article. Some of the people have some references to them being journalists. Others don't.
EDIT: Btw the list of clarifications in the bottom of the CPJ source is also interesting.
"CPJ has removed two Israeli journalists, Shai Regev and Ayelet Arnin, from this list after their outlets confirmed that the journalists were not on assignment to cover the music festival, nor did they have any opportunity to begin reporting on the attack by Hamas militants that killed them on October 7. CPJ’s global database of killed journalists includes only those who have been killed in connection with their work or where there is still some doubt that their death was work-related."
I don't see any evidence that the Gazans reported killed were killed in connection with their work.
"After receiving reports that Palestinian journalist and presenter Alaa Taher Al-Hassanat may have survived the attack thought to have killed her, CPJ has removed her name from its casualties list pending further investigation." - so people are sometimes reported killed but aren't.
"CPJ has removed a Palestinan man, Mohamed Khaireddine, from this list. Khaireddine was previously identified as a journalist, but his family later clarified that he was neither a journalist nor a media support worker." - so we have people reported as journalists by someone ... but aren't.
also: "The list below is CPJ’s most recent and preliminary account of journalist deaths in the war. Our database will not include all of these casualties until we have completed further investigations into the circumstances surrounding them."
Are we all of a sudden still blindly trusting Wikipedia as a trustworthy-authoritative source because it's structured information?
Here's an example of how the IDF treats people who are clearly journalists:
Arguably behaviour of a Gestapo, no? The "wolves in clothing" aspect of this is quite the mind fuck once enough puzzle pieces come together and you realize what's realy going on; and where it makes sense that such deceit as a strategy, long-time, long-running, and long-form propaganda as a psychological manipulation strategy is the only way you can get to this stage of fascism that we're seeing with this current Israeli government.
Repeat behaviour, a pattern by Israel/IDF reminds me of this quotes that general go something like this: it's never the well-intentioned who want-demand censorship.
Conclusions,
We actually have the opportunity this time to stop this fascist regime in its tracks before 10s to 100s of millions of people die.
Unlike during NaZi Germany anyone who spoke up could quickly be visited by Gestapo, first reported on by 60%+ of their neighbours, and so were easily found.
Today with the internet that is still free enough - where information and evidence can rapidly be studied and curated before distribution - where there are simply too many people already who starting from the comfort of their own homes are able to see and share the truth, or at least present a different perspective - and ideally engage in long-form conversations and see if the person they're engaged with is intellectually honest or not, able to learn and incorporate new information when cognitive dissonance is triggered; there is still suppression going on as part of the "war"-control effort - an attempt to keep specific channels of indoctrinated ideologues kept in bubbles and "ideally" unexposed to questions and thought exercises that would start them down a line of thinking to shatter the veil of the propagandists.
- A short interview clip where it's mentioned that the Gaza bureau Chief of Al Jazeera - his wife, son, and daughter were killed in a strike; was it targeting the journalists' home and that's why it happened, or it was from their indiscriminante bombing of Gaza; which by the way, they're likely killing all of the hostages, too, right?
- So people who support these bombardments are also supporting killing their own citizens - "kill Hamas at all costs" seems to include murdering people that could have been you.
I honestly can't follow the line of your argument. You say "truth" but then you say "different perspective". Which one? You say engage in long form conversation but you're not really engaging in conversation here. You say shatter the veil of the propagandist but you're engaging in propaganda yourself.
I commented here because the truth is not being told about the number of journalists killed in Gaza. That number is artificially inflated and used as propaganda. You're misdirecting to the family of Al Jazeera bureau chief. He was not killed by the way (you seem to imply he was). I don't know the circumstances related to that attack so I can't comment on it. Lots of innocent people were killed in this war and the blame lies squarely on Hamas.
Your comment about the hostages is intellectually unfair. Given Hamas' attack on Oct 7th it is Israel's right to eliminate that threat. Given the situation on the ground and the goal of minimizing casualties to your own side you're inevitably going to see something that looks very similar to what you've seen. There's no way to use massive military force against an enemy like Hamas under the conditions as they exist in Gaza without that.
But even ignoring that, do see you Hamas returning those hostages? There's precedence here, they've held Gilad Shalit for 5 years and they've been holding Avre Mengisto ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avera_Mengistu ) since 2014. Given the combination of the imperative to eliminate Hamas for Israel's security and the fact Hamas would not release hostages unless it is forced to then there's no a lot of wiggle room here. I'm pretty sure Israel is trying to avoid killing hostages which is probably why the Hamas leadership is still alive.
Your comparison to the Gestapo and the Nazis just shows me you know nothing about either. But hey, what else can we talk about on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day. If you do want to compare someone to the Nazis try Hamas, a much better fit.
Unfortunately you can't "see the truth" from the comfort of your home on TikTok. You're seeing what some people want you to focus on. You need to step back, look at the whole picture, not just specific events, and use some critical thinking skills to fit everything, not just one event, to a reasonable theory of what is going on.
If you're interesting in how Hamas treats journalists here's some resources:
I don't know how to interpret the front page saying "More than 100 journalists killed in six months in Gaza" directly above a "real time" abuse barometer saying that 12 journalists have been killed worldwide in 2024.
Probably different measuring / classifications at play too. For example, they may be including independent journalists in one set vs only recognized outlets in another.
---
edit, they have the following note in the barometer
> Journalists are listed only if RSF has established that their death or imprisonment was linked to their journalistic activity. The list does not include journalists who were killed or imprisoned for reasons unrelated to their work or when the link to their work has not yet been confirmed.
I find it difficult to tell how their reports translate to objective numbers. For example, the United States’ ranking fell from 45 to 55 in the last year. Here are the reports for those years:
As far as I can tell, the only negative differences between these two reports are that a reporter was killed while investigating a murder by the murder suspect (who is now in jail and on trial), and that Biden “has come under criticism for failing to press US partners like Israel and Saudi Arabia on press freedom.” Falling ten places is a significant change (and is called out in the preface to the whole report)—are these two things really enough to justify such a change, or is the ranking sourced from more data not present in the report?
Here’s another story about Reporters Without Borders, about the first time I dug into one of their publications. In 2018, I read a report they published listing the six most dangerous countries for journalists: India, Yemen, Mexico, Syria, Afghanistan, and the United States. It described how in Mexico journalists are executed by cartels and organized crime, how journalists in Yemen die in prison due to mistreatment, how in Syria journalists were killed in airstrikes and taken hostage by Islamic militants, how in India Hindu nationalist mobs would run down journalists with trucks… and how in the US, four journalists were murdered by a stalker angry at a 2011 story the newspaper had published (subsequently jailed, tried, and found guilty of mass murder); and two more were killed by a falling tree. Somehow these two cases were enough to warrant the United States being called out with the other five countries. And it made the headlines everywhere, of course, because it was the midst of Donald Trump’s presidency.
It's a ranking, so presumably part of the US dropping is due to other countries improving. There is another major negative change noted though - more newspaper closures and huge layoffs at news organizations. It also sounds like the Sociocultural section might be partially based on polling of trust in media, which could have dropped, but I don't know where to look into that more.
The 2018 report you're talking about is here: https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/worldwilde_round-up.pdf. The list is not the most dangerous countries for journalists, but the most deadly - a straightforward measure of how many journalists were killed in each country. They publish this every year and the US is usually not on it, but this year someone murdered 4 journalists because of their reporting. I'm not sure how they could make this more objective, and I can't think of any metric that would include murders committed by angry men in cartels or angry men with SUVs in India but not angry men with shotguns in America.
Obviously the falling tree is not reflective of the journalistic climate in the country, but if they had been the only two the US would not have been listed. The mass shooting is what put it within the same neighborhood as Mexico and India.
> It's a ranking, so presumably part of the US dropping is due to other countries improving.
Is that the case? Do the other countries’ entries in the report reflect that?
> I can't think of any metric that would include murders committed by angry men in cartels or angry men with SUVs in India but not angry men with shotguns in America.
One such metric would be whether a country’s justice system arrests and puts the perpetrator on trial, as happened with the American murder and presumably didn’t happen in the case of Mexican cartels or the Indian mob.
Yes, the following countries improved their scores between 2023 and 2024 and passed the US (71.22 -> 66.59) in the ranking: Chile (60.09 -> 67.32), Ghana (65.93 -> 67.71), Poland (67.66 -> 69.17), Fiji (59.27 -> 71.23), Armenia (70.61 -> 71.6), Slovenia (70.59 -> 72.6), Mauritania (59.45 -> 74.2), Suriname (70.62 -> 76.11).
I agree that whether or not perpetrators are tried is relevant to the country, but I don't agree that it's relevant to this metric or to the dead journalists. They don't come back to life if their murderer is imprisoned, and the arrest rate doesn't have any impact on how dangerous it was to be a journalist that year. If they were to do a forward-looking report on the outlook for journalists in each country in the next 10 years or so, then I do think the effectiveness of the justice system might be relevant.
As much as it hurts even writing it, I don't think its a rare story there these days. History will not look kindly at both sides here, they really have no higher moral ground than the other
The moral high ground is for the rich and safe. Both Israel and the Palestinians are under real threats and thus do not care much for morality that is disconnected from PR.
Terror is an extremely good tool to dispose of foreign power that takes economic interest in an area, as it makes the endeavor unprofitable. But backfires horribly when it is a local hegemon.
>History will not look kindly at both sides here, they really have no higher moral ground than the other
There are four sides here: the Israeli government, Hamas, Israeli citizens, and Palestinian citizens. The first two are the active combatants. The third group were victims in October. The fourth group are still victims today. Killing unarmed and non-hostile citizens is absolutely immoral. Acting in such a reckless way that the majority of casualties are citizens is still immoral.
History will look harshly on Hamas for slaughtering thousands of Israeli citizens, and Israel for slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens. No rational person should think those citizens were at fault.
I think this is absolutely right, so please don't take this as a disagreement with the point you made.
But what I think a lot about is the precursor years to these kinds of events. I have a deep well of sympathy for the people of Gaza who have long despised being governed by Hamas, but haven't been able to figure out how to throw them off. They knew Hamas was a disaster waiting to happen, they could see it coming, but still couldn't stop it. And just the same for the opposition in Israel, who have come so close to getting rid of Netanyahu and his ilk on so many occasions. They knew he was a disaster waiting to happen too.
I just recently had a friend tell me that many of their Israeli friends and family are leaving the country in disgust. But of course that means that they won't be there to vote against Netanyahu. By losing, he wins.
And some of the leaders of Hamas, watching from other countries as the people of Gaza are slaughtered, also get to enjoy the spectacle of young people in the west hoisting their flags and chanting their slogans. By losing, they win too.
But what's maddening is that seeing disasters waiting to happen doesn't make it easy to keep them from happening. It can be obvious that it's a disaster waiting to happen to have a presidential candidate in the US refuse to accept the results of elections, and openly plan for an authoritarian consolidation of power, and that might make it less likely to happen, it might make it easier to stop it, but still not easy.
Obvious encroaching disasters can still happen, and frequently do. I hate that!
> No rational person should think those citizens were at fault.
Did you read some sort of an impressive proof for this fact prior to epistemically & cognitively (consciously &/or subconsciously) upgrading it to Objectively True? Because for something to be labeled as True in a strict system of logic, it requires a proof.
Note also that Consensus Belief of Truth is not identical to Proven Truth, even though it typically appears that way due to our cultural conditioning.
Compared to other recent conflicts like Iraq and Checnya war etc, the collateral damage in Gaza is pretty good. Israel have done a good job at minimising civilian deaths, if Hamas didn't frustrate the civilians efforts to evacuate or let civilians shelter underground with them, the numbers would be a lot lower still.
The horrendous civilian casualties we are seeing in Gaza are not collateral damage, or otherwise unintended byproducts of the operation. They are the coolly chosen effective means -- along with the destruction of housing, hospitals, schools and so on -- of promoting its expressly stated goal: what the government refers to as "humanitarian emigration" from the Strip.
As articulated by Likud MK / Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel back in January:
On Tuesday, Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel told Zman that “voluntary migration is the best and most realistic program for the day after the fighting ends.”
On Tuesday, during a conference held in the Knesset to examine possibilities for postwar Gaza, Gamliel said: “At the end of the war, Hamas rule will collapse. There are no municipal authorities; the civilian population will be entirely dependent on humanitarian aid. There will be no work, and 60% of Gaza’s agricultural land will become security buffer zones.”
Gamliel said that Gaza must not be handed over to the Palestinian Authority, and Gazans must not be left in the Strip to be educated to hate, as that would mean that further attacks on Israel are only a matter of time. While rejecting the PA’s return, the government has offered few details on what political entity it wants to rule Gaza.
“The Gaza problem is not just our problem,” Gamliel said. “The world should support humanitarian emigration, because that’s the only solution I know.”
I don't think so, it's rare that you have such an extreme power imbalance in conflict, only for it then to be viewed as "both sides are equally bad" a hundred years later. We just have a skewed perspective on the proportionality of violence -in the present day-, we tend to gain context over time. Like we can judge a larger struggle over many decades as a congruent whole, instead of only the narrow present instance of a conflict.
This also explains why there are so many historical examples of people in the past seemingly be so obviously on the "wrong side of history". It's not that they didn't have largely the same morals than most people today, it's more a cognitive dissonance.
I know it's a bit unrelated to this exact person, but this is how you get terrorists.
Imagine some foreign worker in europe/us, losing all his family this way until s/he literally has nothing left to lose, while the politicians in your new country brag about helping the killers of your family with more weapons and money.
Then when someone like that decides to bring the "war" to europe/us, and shoots/bombs/... some people, we all act as if "how is this possible?", "who could have radicalized him like that?" etc. Well, we did.
Gaza is being leveled to the ground, and thousands of innocent people are killed. Many of the boys who witness that will become terrorists when they grow up, because from their perspective and lack of education - it seems right to respond to violence with violence.
@dang -- you're not going to get the polite, respectful conversation on this topic that I think you're hoping for. Instead, you're going to get criticisms on the legitimacy of each organization involved in this conflict. I don't understand why you even want this topic on HackerNews.
Having spent entire days moderating previous threads on this topic, I know what kind of conversation we're likely to get. But abandoning discussion altogether is also not an option.
> I don't understand why you even want this topic on HackerNews.
I don't think I'd say 'want' (what I want is to spend Sunday afternoons working on something else), but the issue is the principles by which we moderate the site. If you look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267862 (edit: which I just posted in the current thread) and then https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39618973 and the links back from there, you should find plenty of explanation of the relevant points. If you (or anyone) want to familiarize yourself with those answers and still have a question I haven't addressed, I'd be happy to try.
I've been part of this but these are different than the typical political heated discussions on HN like in the trump era. These here tend to swift quickly into antisemitism.
Comments do that are usually swiftly and correctly flagged by users (or mods). In egregious cases, or repeated cases, we warn and/or ban the account.
If you see cases where this is not true, the most likely reason is that we haven't seen them yet. (We don't see everything that gets posted to HN, or even everything that gets posted to a large thread.) The thing to do then is flag the comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cflag) and/or to email us at hn@ycombinator.com in egregious cases.
Alternatively, since different people have different thresholds for considering something to be antisemitic, there may often be things that are not flagged that others think should be, and vice versa. It's difficult to determine what the right threshold should be, but it often won't match the preference of the most sensitive users. If productive conversation is to happen, it may require some degree of discomfort.
The site hasn't changed in this respect. If you look at the examples in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, you'll see that all these things—the moderation approach to politics and all the common complaints—go back 15 years.
> because it's hard doesn't mean it shouldn't be an option
I hope it's not. Trolls aside, I've found HN's discussion on this topic to be interesting.
For example, this comment [1]. I hadn't considered belligerent status as a relevant factor before. (It's obvious once pointed out, and not a decisive factor. But it has weight nevertheless.)
This point inadvertently exposes an aspect of information management which is sorely unaddressed and inadequate to purposes of understanding within a commonwealth:
That situations conflict which are already well understood to history are regurgitated as mysteries, and the knowledge system is practically useless to providing coherent access to previous experience and context.
When a mod has to write:
> If you look at <URL> and the links back from there, you should find more than enough (indeed, frequently repeated) explanations of the relevant points. If you (or anyone) want to familiarize yourself with those answers and still have a question I haven't addressed, I'd be happy to try.
Why has a new thread been created?
Why isn't this article and the attending thread of comments already situated within existing paths of discourse helping readers to assess the long prevailing (say 100 years) of understanding on the topic and identify, explore and integrate the outlying views? Why hasn't all the redundant and trivial junk of the previous thread been sifted and gleaned into salient regards for the situation?
Does any media apparatus help with us with knowing how what's happening today relates to what we understood yesterday and the days before?
Why is all news manifest as a reverse chronological list of forgettery, de-contextualized factoids and rediscovery of precedents among initiates?
A user posted it and other users upvoted it. Other users flagged it, but I chose to turn off the flags on this one, for reasons I've explained at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267862 and in many other places linked to there.
> Why isn't this article and the attending thread of comments already situated within existing paths of discourse
It is in the sense that the web already does that. I often post lists of related links from past HN discussion (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), but that's not doable when my hair is on fire and I'm also trying to keep my head above water.
Is there anyone else who doesn't support either side of this conflict? They've been fighting each other for over 100 years. They both want the same piece of land. It's on them to figure it out. People around the world don't need to 'pick a side'. We can protest for both sides to sort their shit out, and not drag the rest of us into it.
Yeah, I'm totally with you. At this point it's like the Hatfields and the McCoys. I don't care what was the last thing the other guy did - he did it to get back at you for the second to last thing you did.
On the other hand, killing children is always wrong. Fucking stop it.
It's not a "cycle of violence" - "both sides" scenario for anyone who has actually put in the effort to study the history in detail.
Since you brought up the "cycle of violence" argument, I remember Shaun making an excellent video[1] on the topic and also addressing that specific talking point.
You can disagree all you want, some people even disagree on if the holocaust happened but no one takes them seriously. The history of Zionism and its goal to colonize Palestine (long before the holocaust even happened) and their ruthless methods of colonization are thoroughly documented[0][1].
A man comes into your house. His 2-year old is in a baby carrier on his chest. He has a gun and is firing at you. Your wife and 5 year old son are behind you on the couch, and you have a gun too.
Do you shoot back?
Did you just hesitate? A bullet just scraped your wife on the side of the leg. Hesitated again? Son just got a bullet in his arm.
You fire three bullets. The baby is dead and so is the intruder.
Are you in the wrong here?
---
I'm not saying this is the same as what's happening in Israel and Gaza. But "always wrong", like many views on this conflict, is sorely lacking in nuance.
With thousands of Israelis and tens of thousands of Palestinians killed, ignoring nuance is disrespectful to their memories and will not lead to realistic progress.
I think what really makes the situation uniquely toxic is that after reading your comment, I genuinely have no idea which side you're referring to that you think is getting total impunity.
Note: You don't need to reply and specify which. Apparently you've picked a side, as have I. No point debating that here I think. But each side would claim that the other is committing war crimes and inhuman acts and not being held to account.
I think it's less the impunity and more the active supporting. The US is building a floating pier and air-dropping aid instead of simply pressuring Israel's government to let trucks through.
> Israel lets more aid through now than before the October 7th atrocities. That aid is intercepted by Hamas and does not reach the intended recipients.
No, they do not. There are still less full aid trucks even after the murder of the World kitchen volunteers massively increased international pressure on Israel to let aid in.
Northern Gaza is now in full blown famine as defined by top US officials that define famine, with southern Gaza on the brink of famine, as all farming infastructure inside gaza gas has now been destroyed. They need drastically more full trucks than the the 500/day that was the norm before the war started, not drastically fewer.
I agree with that line of thought too, but one side is sort of represented a terrorist organization who have the ability to murder 1200 people and kidnap others while the other is a western democracy that has the ability kill 30k people as collateral damage level. The collateral damage is so high but people like Sam Harris is saying Israel is engaging in a restrained manner compared to other powers previous retaliatory actions to terrorism.
It’s worthwhile learning the history of intervention in this conflict by the US and UK. It’s not just two groups fighting amongst themselves. It’s western governments putting their thumbs on the scales to massively help one side destroy the other. The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi is an excellent book on the subject with a good audiobook on audible. It’s remarkable how one sided this conflict has been with western support since the beginning.
I think it is not the kind of conflict where you pick a side. There are legitimate and illegitimate claims on both sides. As a bystander I try to evaluate specific actions, not choose a favorite.
I agree with you. What I'm saying is that all I see are people who have picked a side and no one in the middle saying, 'you are both wrong. figure it out'
AJ is far from bipartisan wrt to the conflict. they employ high journalistic standards for just about everything except israeli news, for that they become rapid dogs. example: https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-793560
I think lots of people don't really have a "side", other than the side of just not wanting to see people suffer. I don't think that closing your eyes to that is neutral. Sometimes "do nothing" is an act of evil.
In Northern Ireland and the Balkans international intervention almost certainly saved lives and helped bring about peace and relative stability. How long had they been fighting? There's probably some more examples. So I'd argue that it's not useless either.
And Jewish and Israeli (and by extension, Palestinian) history is strongly connected to the history of 19th and 20th century Europe in all sorts of ways, and I don't think you can just cleanly separate that.
Of course on a personal level I can imagine people reading the news, feeling powerless to change anything, and just not being interested. That's fine. But on a governmental/policy level, I do think we (the world) needs to stay engaged. Not just here, but also elsewhere with long-running issues. It's not our problem to solve, no, but we can facilitate and help.
That's kind of what I'm getting at. I don't support either side because both are wrong. Stopping the suffering means compromise and concessions on both sides. The best the world can do is make that clear and not get caught up protesting for one side or the other - again, both are wrong. Their current path will only lead to another 100 years of suffering.
> I don't support either side because both are wrong.
That's only true if you view the "Israeli government" and "Hamas" as the only sides that exist. That is not the case; you don't need to choose either of them.
Now, of course it's true that everyone has legitimate grievances here for all sorts of reasons, an it's also true that forever banging on about every little thing anyone has ever done wrong will lead to another 100 years of suffering. But that doesn't mean we (broad international community) can't and shouldn't try. Even if it fails, I think it was worth the effort to try.
Right, that's my point. All of these protests have taken one of the two sides. Which has zero chance of resolving this. There aren't any protests pointing the finger at both these groups telling them to figure their shit out.
I think this is classic "you only hear the loudest people" type of thing. Everyone somewhere in the middle with more nuanced views will get piled on by the extremes from all sides. That does not mean those extremes are the only thing that exists, or represent the majority of people with views on the matter.
Extreme voices tend to drown out everyone else. I mean, what type of reasonable person has the energy and will to involve themselves in this toxic quagmire, right? The type of people willing to do so are strongly biased to people with Very Strong Views.
Trying to organise a protest around unfocused nuanced views is hard. "Free Palestine" is easy and straight-forward. "Hamas is wrong, but Israel should offer a solution for the people of Gaza that does not involve a de-facto concentration camp under military control" doesn't really fit on a billboard.
And lets also be realistic: yes, "both sides" have blame, but "both sides have blame" does not mean "both sides are equivalent". The people of Gaza are by and large powerless, and have been for a long time. The initiative for any solution really rests primarily on the Israeli side, who have been controlling much of life in Gaza for a long time now. The situation in Gaza and that Israel has never seriously offered any solution is frankly just disgraceful, and could only have ended in violence one way or the other sooner or later.
I've recently visited my parents in europe. I have no affiliations with Israel or Jews. My parents watched a local Al-Jazeera channel in their mother tongue since Qatar seems to strategically deploy satellite offices of Al-Jazeera in different countries, even european. Boy was i shocked at the level
of propaganda from this channel. Basically all day in big letters "genocide in gaza" with anti-jewish paroles. I can understand why Israel decides to close down such a channel.
"The ICJ had to decide [...] Whether the underlying case was at least plausible"
This is false and shows a misunderstanding. Choose better information sources.
ICJ only decided whether it is plausible to allow South Africa to continue with this process on behalf of Gaza. It has nothing to do with the court's opinion on the plausibility of the -underlying- case but on the questioned legality of the process itself.
“It will be several years before the court in The Hague will hand down its verdict, but we must not look at the catastrophic situation purely through legal lenses,” said Goldberg. “What is happening in Gaza is genocide because the level and pace of indiscriminate killing, destruction, mass expulsions, displacement, famine, executions, the wiping out of cultural and religious institutions, the crushing of elites (including the killing of journalists), and the sweeping dehumanization of the Palestinians — create an overall picture of genocide, of a deliberate conscious crushing of Palestinian existence in Gaza.”[1]
"In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly."
I would not agree this constitutes genocide. Israel withdrew from Gaza not too long ago. If the attacks hadn't happened, there would be a "ceasefire" today. It is completely contrary to what Israel tries to do, the accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis and judgement.
There is already a court ruling that "at least some of the acts alleged by South Africa appear to fall under the provisions of the Genocide Convention."
Additionally "On 28 March 2024, following a second request for additional measures, the ICJ ordered new emergency measures, given the deterioration in the situation since the initial ruling: ordering Israel to ensure basic food supplies, without delay, as Gazans face famine and starvation"
This is from the Wikipedia. Have you been living under a rock?
Israel is actively blocking delivery of food to the civilian population and has already in one case caused a massacre of people trying to get their hands on basic supplies. At the same time, a minister in the government is publicly calling for occupying Gaza and "motivating" civilians to "voluntarily" leave.
If after reading all this your sincere analysis is move along nothing to see here, I would advise you to recheck the word sincere in the dictionary.
Israel has sat pretty quietly for 75 years next to people regularly firing rockets at them and attacking their people. People that don't accept its existence and have a charter that can describe pretty closely what a proper definition of genocide can look like. Something that is far away from the conduct of Israel, even if it isn't perfect.
Whatever the reason is, it doesn't matter and you shouldn't bite on that hook. "They are evil and endangering our homeland so we are just in exterminating them" is Nazi rhetoric no matter who it comes from.
For whatever reason most people don't get that. I came to live in Germany around 15 years ago during the economic crisis and was pretty shocked that it was normal to say in public that Greeks are lazy. I couldn't understand the difference between that and "Jews are evil" and similar rhetoric that led to the Holocaust. And that in the country that should've learned something from the past. This time around I am not surprised they are fully behind this genocide simply because it's more convenient to look the other way.
They do not believe Jews have any right to national sovereignty in their own land.
No - they just don't happen agree with them on the question of whose land it is.
You don't have to agree with their historical reading of the situation, of course. But it's really quite straightforward and simple, really. And if people are firing rockets at you -- it's probably best not to invent outlandish and unreal explanations for why they're doing so.
In any case -- pretending that the rest of the world obviously and unquestionably accepts the idea that this is all "Jewish land" (now or in 1947) -- or that if they don't, it's because the simply hate Jews, or won't accept the idea of Israel existing in any form -- definitely isn't helpful.
(And no, I'm not justifying or "explaining" the firing of rockets at anyone - please don't go there).
The court ruled that South Africa had plausible standing to bring a case defending Gazans, not that there was plausible genocide. Bringing wikipedia as a source about a very hot topic doesn't lend any support to your argument.
It's not false at all and says the same thing. Again the quote: at least some of the acts alleged by South Africa appear to fall under the provisions of the Genocide Convention.
My post was made in reply to the claim that the genocide "accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis"
Obviously not the case - South Africa made the exact claim and the court decided that the acts alleged fall under the provisions of the genocide convention. So the only ridiculous thing void of sincere analysis is claiming there is nothing to discuss.
If you actually listened to what she said you'd know that's not at all what was decided, all they decided was that SA has plausible standing to bring a case. Not that the case itself has any standing. That was left for a future decision.
Exactly, and if you had read what I wrote (one time explicitly) it's a reply to the claim that the "accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis".
Her words, direct quote: it did emphasize in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right of being protected from genocide. Or do you think that genocide is a ridiculous accusation but the risk of harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide has merit? Because that would be laughable -- what is the consequence of losing your right to the protection of genocide if not genocide itself? So the case has merit and it's very far away from lacking serious analysis. Quite the opposite.
She was very explicit in her words, there's no need to read into them, she meant exactly what she said.
She very clearly stated, they didn't find or make any ruling on the plausibility of genocide, just that it was plausible that they might not be able to be protected in a case where a genocide were to happen.
They couldn't honestly claim there was any merit to the claim of genocide, but people were screaming for blood so they did this doublespeak thing where if you squint you can claim they 100% claim genocide is happening to mollify the anti-semites while not actually saying anything.
Essentially, she said, "we haven't found a genocide, but were a genocide to be attempted, it would be difficult to prevent" which is true in every single case of war, especially asymmetric warfare, where one side is much stronger than the other.
If someone were to bring a case against the US back in 2004 following the invasion of Iraq a similar finding would be totally within reason... but does anyone claim NATO committed genocide? No, but it's plausible that that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Iraqi right to be protected from genocide.
I don't interpret them into something else, I explain in simpler words because you appeared to be having trouble understanding.
Lets make an analogy: Right now you have the the right to freedom of speech, if someone would threaten to sew your mouth shut, there is now a plausible risk of harm to your right to free speech. Has your right been taken away yet? No, you are still able to speak freely, but if they were to act on that threat and accomplish their goal now that risk is realized.
It's not a perfect analogy, but so too here, the ICJ ruling didn't state that a genocide is plausibly happening, rather that due to the power imbalance it would be difficult to prevent a genocide from happening, should Israel attempt it.
Not according to the judge you linked. She says the court emphasized that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right of being protected from genocide.
You wrote a lot but for someone so adept in understanding others, you have failed multiple times to answer a very simple question, so I will ask it once again:
What happens if there is harm to your right to be protected from genocide?
Again, we're talking about the risk of harm... so we're another order of magnitude removed.
To rephrase your question with that in mind: What happens if there is an increased risk of harm to your right to be protected from genocide?
My answer: Sounds like you've found yourself in a dangerous situation. You might be in a war zone perhaps...
But again, that doesn't mean you're being "genocided" rather it means there is increased possibility of genocide. Which as I've stated multiple times, is true whenever there is a conflict, and that risk increases with the scale of the conflict, but just because the risk increases it doesn't mean that the genocide is actually happening.
Now I'd like to ask you a question or two:
What happens if there is harm to your right to free speech?
What happens if there is harm to your right to assembly? Does it mean you can't assemble at all? or rather someone is worried that maybe your right to assemble is being removed?
What happens if there is harm to your ability to sit down? Are you unable to sit down? Or maybe just it will be more difficult.
In this case the ICJ is saying "everyone has a right to be protected from genocide, and it's possible that if Israel isn't careful they may find themselves committing such an atrocity against the gazan population" No where does she say such a atrocity is being carried out, in fact she's very clear in her next sentence to say such an interpretation of her words and the court's findings is totally invalid. You can attempt to insert such meaning into her words but she's very careful to clearly state such an attempt is false and misleading.
So there is risk of harm, according to the court, and yourself. I think we can agree that it's a valid debate if there is genocide in Gaza and far removed from the original claim that it's "ridiculous".
I will now continue my education on genocide by listening what a Holocaust survivor has to say about it.
This feels like you’re intentionally misinterpreting what I’m saying and what the court and the judge said. There’s a risk of harm to the protection. But again that’s always true in war, it’s incredibly naive and disingenuous to claim that this means there is a genocide happening.
Bringing a random YouTube video of someone who was 7 years old when he experienced the war doesn’t do anything for your argument except show that you’re arguing in bad faith. It’s totally irrelevant. Additionally we have many more holocaust survivors who were older saying the exact opposite, so the fact that you have one who decided to capitalize on his nazi experience for his 15 minutes of fame doesn’t really help you.
And finally I’ll add: research Kapos, his word likely means even less. (Kinda like the other famous holocaust survivor who is funding a lot of the college campus protests)
Its fascinating that you're suddenly popping up again to discuss this while not responding to anything else in this thread.
I also don't think I need to do anything, I didn't say he was shady or make any attempt at a smear, I'm just stating that if you look into his actual story you might take his feelings here with a grain or two of salt. Hint: according to his own account, he spent about as much time interacting with genocide and nazis as my own grandparents who also fled and hid during the war did. He's also made a very big name for himself as the "anti-zionist holocaust survivor". The point is that this is one child's opinion, there are many other people, who also survived the war and are ardent zionists who vehemently disagree with him. He's by no means an expert on this topic so I don't understand why he's even being discussed.
I will not engage anymore on him, as it's totally irrelevant to the discussion which was "did the ICJ rule that Israel is committing genocide", the answer, clearly is no. and thus instead we have locallost attempting to save his argument by whatabouting to other topics, like the opinions of others.
Hint: according to his own account, he spent about as much time interacting with genocide and nazis as my own grandparents who also fled and hid during the war did.
That's all you got?
You were clearly attempting to impugn his character and credibility. Defamatory statements against living persons must be backed up with hard evidence. Otherwise it's slander.
In this case, against a Holocaust survivor no less.
You've got this penchant for interpreting what someone is saying instead of just allowing them to speak for themselves. Please refrain from attaching your own biased meaning to something when I deliberately tell you what I meant to say.
Again, I don't see any response to anything substantial I've said, you're now just attempting to defame and question my credibility.
Why don't we get back on topic? According to the ICJ, as of yet, they've made no ruling about the existence of genocide in Gaza or Israel, to make such a claim in their name is false and, at this point, a intentional attempt at spreading misinformation.
But what is the consequence of the harm to protection of genocide? When your protection of genocide gets harmed, did you suffer genocide or was your Nintendo Switch stolen?
Smearing Holocaust survivors just because you disagree with them is poor taste.
Repeating the same question after its already been answered doesn't help you. The fact that you continue to refuse to acknowledge the answer is pretty telling.
I'll answer again for you: the consequence of the harm to your protection of genocide is the possibility of genocide happening... like in every single war. But you didn't suffer a genocide and again, the judge and the ICJ choose their words very carefully (as can see in the video, she is being very deliberate). To answer in terms you will understand: On an individual level, yes, it is more akin to having your nintendo switch stolen vs an actual genocide happening.
That's not only false, but also grotesque. The judge you quoted said "risk of irreparable harm" in relation to genocide not stolen property. I guess this is what happens when people get dehumanized, which also strongly correlates to cases of genocide.
You made the "grotesque" comparison multiple times. If you find it so grotesque you probably shouldn't have said it begin with. Now you're throwing it back at me. As I said before you continue to engage in a disingenuous way.
As always in these conversations nothing of substance was reached, you had no interest in engaging in a curious manner and instead wanted to spread your own disinformation, when you were confronted with the truth you continued to misinterpret reality to your own twisted purpose, once even that failed you have started to attack my character.
I'm done being maligned and attacked, I hope you consider having some empathy for those who have been the subject of an attempted genocide and ethnic cleansing in nearly every single generation for the last 2000 years. Instead of siding with those who would commit another atrocity.
Is that the empathy you showed to a Holocaust survivor because you didn't like his opinion? You don't even know where your holes are.
I thought the comparison would make you stop and think about what you're actually saying. But when Palestinians have been successfully dehumanized then it becomes easy to compare their "risk of harm of genocide" to a simple case of stolen property.
Yes, after killing tens of thousands of women and children in six months, destroying universities and hospitals so it erases all culture and make life impossible, Israel is the real victim here. I have failed to account for how bad they must feel as they commit those atrocities. Maybe someone from the IDF can in 20 years make a movie about how they can't sleep and can't remember their past, let's call it Tango with Ahmed.
Ah yes, the classic, it's ok and correct for me to but when you do it, it's evil. Good stuff buddy. Telling me I don't even know where my holes are while engaging in hypocrisy in the same breath takes real talent.
I would say the victim is the one who didn't start the war, who just wants their civilians back, who has shown enormous restraint compared to literally every other army in the world, who would be happy to end the war today if those who started it surrendered, who has attempted to make peace at every turn and who even while they're being bomb are bringing in aid for the very people who are trying to kill them.
I wouldn't call the victims the one's who cheered and desecrated bodies at the start of the war, who continue to support the war no matter the cost to their own families, who could have easily ended the war by simply returning the hostages that they are keeping in their own homes. Victims aren't those who have their children put on plays where they simulate capturing and killing jewish kids. A victim isn't someone who when warned about an impending bomb responds by saying "kill me and all my children". A victim isn't someone who actively and happily participates in and perpetuates a society that kills minorities.
I will also point out that you continue to lead off topic ever since I’ve shown you that you were wrong to claim the ICJ has ruled that a genocide was being committed. In fact your only argument is to make (in your own words) grotesque comparisons in someone machiavellian attempt to catch me in a moral quandary.
By my calculations this discussion is over. You can keep pretending that you alone understand what the judge said, and she herself doesn’t, but don’t expect anyone to take you seriously.
I never claimed there was genocide, I said claiming that the idea of it is ridiculous is in itself ridiculous. And I quoted an ICJ ruling that said "at least some of the acts alleged by South Africa appear to fall under the provisions of the Genocide Convention". Which means what it says, South Africa claims certain things, and those things it alleges fall under the Genocide convention. So the discussion about genocide is far removed from being ridiculous, it's being argued in a very serious way. This was further proved by your quote of the ICJ judge that said the court ruled there was risk of genocide as Israel continues its destruction of civilian population.
I also never claimed that risk of losing your right to be protected from genocide is like getting your Nintendo Switch stolen, it was just a pointer for you to think about what it actually would mean. And it would mean genocide, not some minor thing like you pretend it to be. Oh well, they lost their right to be protected from genocide, what else is on the news - oh look we bombed a kindergarten, we are further progressing in our goals to live a peaceful life.
But speaking of holes, I guess I discounted the large void between your ears.
> And I quoted an ICJ ruling that said "at least some of the acts alleged by South Africa appear to fall under the provisions of the Genocide Convention"
As I re-read this, I struggle to understand what this means; everything done during war time falls under the provisions of the Genocide Convention, that doesn't mean that genocide is happening, but rather again, that it's a war and people are being killed. Its kinda like calling an airstrike against a military target "premediated murder in the first degree" or calling all soldiers who have killed the enemy serial killers.
If you squint and remove all context the labels apply but they're meaningless under our current understanding of those words.
> I also never claimed that risk of losing your right to be protected from genocide is like getting your Nintendo Switch stolen, it was just a pointer for you to think about what it actually would mean.
"I never made the comparison, I just made the comparison because I was conducting a social experiment" Ok, I'll let you continue trying to figure out what you mean by that.
If we go back to your original comment, you also made a number of false statements in there:
> Israel is actively blocking delivery of food to the civilian population and has already in one case caused a massacre of people trying to get their hands on basic supplies.
This is totally false. Israel is not actively blocking delivery of food and the case of a massacre can be clearly seen in video to be caused by people trampling each other after attempting to rush at a platoon of soldiers.
> At the same time, a minister in the government is publicly calling for occupying Gaza and "motivating" civilians to "voluntarily" leave.
Would you care to explain what specifically is problematic about saying that terrorists should be encouraged to move their terror activities away from Israel? Or what is problematic about Israel governing an area that they've shown they can govern in a much more democratic and fair way than the currently elected suicidal death cult? Were you upset when the US occupied Germany for 11 years? and continued to have a large presence for the next 30 years?
> But speaking of holes, I guess I discounted the large void between your ears.
Insults are always used by those who know they've lost. Thank you for admitting defeat.
I never made a social experiment either. People with something between their ears are able to scroll up and see I wrote as a direct reply to the claim "it's ridiculous to even say that". I then proceeded to mention this to you explicitly several times, but I guess you needed a flowchart to connect the dots. You can verify all this by scrolling up but I am not holding my breath.
It's funny how I say "minister 'motivating' civilians" and you ask and replace civilians with terrorists. Wasn't there an old looney tunes cartoon with a not very bright character picking up a can of gasoline and blowing himself up after saying g-a-s what a strange way to write water? I guess he won at being stupid, which seems to be a common theme here. Congratulations on your victory.
They are also the last refuge of people who wrote civilians and got asked about terrorists as if they were the same thing. Well, for you in any case the same - only a dead Palestinian is a good dehumanized Palestinian, they are all the same.
> only a dead Palestinian is a good dehumanized Palestinian, they are all the same.
Is that what you believe?
That's a pretty grotesque thing to say, even if it's not really clear what it means.
Instead of failed attempts to cast insults and innuendos why don't you actually address the discussion.
Admit that you made a grotesque comparison in an attempt to prove your moral superiority but instead got caught in your own hubris. Admit that you're making up quotes left and right so you can try to salvage some part of your argument, admit that you're putting words in other peoples mouths so you can build up strawmen to attack. Admit that every time you're shown you're wrong you refuse to even acknowledge it and instead start hurling insults as if that will make people forget the preposterous arguments you attempted. Admit that not once in this entire discussion did you approach it with even an ounce of curiosity, and instead assumed malice at every step. Then we can continue to have some sort of civil discussion, otherwise you're tilting at windmills and it makes you look foolish.
You've broken nearly every hn guideline for good discussion and continue to fume, it might be time to step back and step away for a bit.
Are you ok? You're coming off as more and more unhinged each time you comment. I'd highly recommend you step away from the computer and step outside, enjoy the fresh air, take your mind off of your troubles. I can say honestly I have no idea what the above comment means, but, sincerely, I didn't mean to break you.
I'm not surprised you have no idea. In the beginning I thought you were discussing in bad faith, but now I see it's just normal for you.
Recently I damaged a bicycle I really like and got depressed about it - but then I thought, you know I am not in Gaza sleeping in a tent as a child with both my parents dead and my sister with legs amputated, hoping I will not starve to death. Or trying to survive the Holocaust, or something similar. It helps in a weird way appreciate how good you have it. Unlike other people. Like war criminals whose future is a one way ticket to the Hague.
Again, nothing you've said in the above comment has made any sense, I highly recommend you take a deep breath and step back and consider taking a day away from electronics, I promise you, you'll feel much better, maybe like that child camping in Gaza with her parents.
Of course it doesn't make any sense to you, we've already identified the reasons. Or the main reason.
The last sentence really defines you. You feel mighty and powerful don't you, you know it's your time and nothing can stop you. Here's a song you can sing to celebrate this accomplishment:
You continue to hurl nonsensical insults instead of meaningfully engaging in the topic at hand.
I’m sorry you’re feeling so hurt and upset, hopefully you’ll heed my well intentioned advice and take a sabbatical from your culture war, just to recharge and gain perspective.
You both broke the site guidelines so outrageously and so often in this hellish flamewar that I need to reply even though it is over a week later.
If you break the site guidelines like this again on HN, we will have to ban you, no matter how provocative someone else's comments are or you feel they are.
You both broke the site guidelines so outrageously and so often in this hellish flamewar that I need to reply even though it is over a week later.
If you break the site guidelines like this again on HN, we will have to ban you, no matter how provocative someone else's comments are or you feel they are.
> Kinda like the other famous holocaust survivor who is funding a lot of the college campus protests
Seriously? You have been accusing me of anti-semitism but now you play straight into a harmful and anti-semitic conspiracy theory about George Soros, with hints to another very damaging and equally anti-semitic conspiracy theory about Cultural Marxism.
For what it is worth, George Soros does not fund any of the student movements responsible for the pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide encampments. One of the charities he helps fund has awarded grants to two student organization which the New York Post has claimed (but now proven) to be involved in the protests[1]. This is several degrees of separations, and the link is on flaky grounds.
Kapos’ interview above was excellent. He describes visiting another holocaust survivor [T=00:05:17] in Israel and being shocked at how racist she was:
> Yet she came back to Israel, and she was as racist as the rest of them, against the Palestinians.
> I think this has to do with the extreme propaganda, and the dehumanization. Zionism was a very unfortunate and sad development for the Jewish people. It broke a much longer tradition of always being on the side of the oppressed, not the oppressor. And the charitable nature of Judaism and the humanity they advocate, into a kind of exceptionalism and nationalism. And in practical terms the impossible project of taking over another people’s country.
> So when I visited them—that was my first brush of Zionism—I was completely shocked—despite their experiences during the Holocaust—they were racist, against the Palestinians. I couldn’t understand it, and I can’t understand it, but they were, and there is no denying it. And I found that racism was prevailing generally in Israel. And I turned strongly against that.
I’ve been seeing this argument pop up a lot lately, and I’ll try to address it (though frankly, I’m not that smart, so maybe somebody else can explain it better).
So what you are trying to claim is that the World Court never explicitly claimed, in direct words, that some of South Africa’s allegations for genocide was plausible, therefor the court never ruled that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide, and therefor, we have no authority claiming that Israel is committing genocide, and therefor, any claims of Israel committing genocide are unfounded.
First of all I want to address how weak this line of argument is. The ICJ is not the only authority which has claimed plausible genocide (yes, the ICJ did claim that; I’ll come back to that), second, we have plenty of evidence which indicts Israel for the crime of genocide, including, but not limited to South Africa’s filing at the ICJ (see sources on Wikipedia). Even if we take your or Joan Donoghue’s interpretation at face value, raxxorraxor’s claim that “the accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis and judgement” is it self pretty much wrong.
Second, the court did rule that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide, by any reasonable interpretation of the ruling. Even though most people cite Article IV paragraph 54 (See [1]; quoted above) as the smoking gun (which it absolutely is) equally relevant is Article II Paragraphs 30-32 where the court decides it has jurisdiction over the case, citing Article IX of the Genocide Convention. The court would not have done that if it did not think it was plausible that Israel were violating the terms of the Genocide Convention. In other words, the court ruled that some of South Africa’s accusations were plausible. And put yet another way, the court decided that it is plausible that Israel is committing the crime of Genocide.
The problem with your interpretation, and your citing of Joan Donoghue’s answer in this context, is that she is actually answering a question relating to the provisional measures ordered by the court on January 26th 2024 (which is what Article IV is all about), and again on March 28th 2024. My personal opinion is that by answering the question this way she is actually being willfully misleading. It is beyond a doubt that the court decided that some of the accusations were plausible, her clarifying and stating that technically the court only decided on provisional measures, is obscuring the fact that it did rule to start investigating Israel for the crime of Genocide.
ICJ member often rules in alignment with their nation’s foreign policy, and Joan Donoghue has shown that to be the case under her presidency, I actually find it a miracle that the court ruled in favor of South Africa under her presidency. My personal belief is that the case against Israel is very obvious, and there was no way the court could rule any other way. This interview is she rectifying US foreign policy, and offering a plausible deniability to what the court actually ruled.
Just look at this guy's comment history, it's all there. He denies Jewish history, erases the reality that Jews are undeniably linked to Israel and calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the ME. All the while making spurious unfounded accusations against Jews. I engaged with him for a long time, but ultimately found him to be dishonest and not interested in holding a critical curious discussion.
He denies Jewish history, erases the reality that Jews are undeniably linked to Israel and calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the ME.
Can you provide substantiation for the last of these claims, at least?
I haven't seen all of this user's comment history -- but I've seen a good chunk of it, and I haven't seen anything that even remotely suggests that they are calling for the ethnic cleansing of anyone from anywhere.
This is an odd analysis of the ICJ decision. The decision is preliminary. It finds that the ICJ has jurisdiction over the Israel/Gaza conflict, and that South Africa has standing to bring a case. Given that a plausible case exists, the ICJ considers preliminary measures --- injunctions, essentially --- to preserve South Africa's rights for such a trial.
Read Paragraph 62: "The Court is not called upon, for the purposes of its decision on the request for the indication of provisional measures, to establish the existence of breaches of obligations under the Genocide Convention, but to determine whether the circumstances require the indication of provisional measures for the protection of rights under that instrument."
The preservation of rights is a procedural matter for the court; they are measures to prevent prejudice against the case, and to prevent the irreparable harms claimed by the plaintiff. The facts under consideration there are viewed in the light favorable to the movant, because they are not in fact a disposition of the question. ["preservation of rights" filetype:pdf] is a good search here.
The ICJ did not in fact find that Israel had engaged in acts of genocide.
If you use a casual or non-legal definition of "genocide" --- "any campaign of ethnically targeted mass violence" seems like a reasonable one --- this is a live argument. But if you're going to cite chapter and verse from the decision and the Genocide Convention, I think you're clearly on the wrong side of the argument?
Like I said, I’m actually not that smart and you’ll certainly find flaws at my poor attempt at understanding a legal document.
I—nor any uptread posts I read—claimed that the court found and ruled that Israel had engaged in Genocide. Merely that the court found it was plausible. I stand by these words, that the court did indeed find it plausible.
As I understand it everything in Article IV (including Paragraph 62) in the January 26 order was relating to the preliminary measures as requested by South Africa. Everything ruled there would be without prejudges with respect to the final ruling, as Article IV’s primary function is to prevent the Palestinian people from genocide (a function it has utterly failed at in my frank opinion).
Article II is, however, very relevant in the context of arguing whether the World Court finds the genocide accusation plausible. Article II is all about establishing jurisdiction, which it does by establishing that Article IX of the Genocide Convention applies. Article IX says:
> Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.
Article III of the Genocide convention lists every crime which is punishable by the convention, including (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; and (e) Complicity in genocide.
By establishing jurisdiction the case the court must find that Article IX applies, and to find that Article IX applies, it must show that it believes Israels conduct may be in violation of the genocide convention. Or as the ruling says (Paragraphs 19-20):
> To determine whether a dispute exists in the present case, the Court cannot limit itself to noting that one of the Parties maintains that the Convention applies, while the other denies it
> Since South Africa has invoked as the basis of the Court’s jurisdiction the compromissory clause of the Genocide Convention, the Court must also ascertain, at the present stage of the proceedings, whether it appears that the acts and omissions complained of by the Applicant are capable of falling within the scope of that convention ratione materiae.
In other words, if the court would not believe that Israel’s conduct (as described by South Africa) does not fall inside the Genocide Convention, then the court would reject the case on the grounds that it does not have jurisdiction.
Note, I think this was most of Israel’s legal defense, that it was trying to establish that their conduct does indeed not fall within the Genocide Convention.
The crucial finding (as my limited mind understands it) is then in Paragraph 30:
> In the Court’s view, at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the Convention.
To my ears, this sounds like—while the court hasn’t issued a final ruling—it does indeed find it plausible that Israel is committing a genocide.
EDIT: The only other reading I can entertain is that the court believes none of the accusations brought by South Africa which fall under Article III (a) of the Genocide Convention are plausible, and merely some of the accusations relating to Article III (b)-(e) apply. In which case, I stand corrected.
"Capable of falling within the provisions of the Convention" means that South Africa can bring the case and the ICJ can rule on it. The ICJ very explicitly did not make a determination about whether Israel had violated the convention. I quoted the numbered graf that says exactly that.
What you're reading about is the ICJ equivalent of a preliminary injunction. An injunction is a court order issued before the case is decided. Injunctions are based on balancing tests: some likelihood of irreparable harm must exist, and some likelihood that the movant will succeed at trial must exist. The more harm you demonstrate, the less likelihood you need to demonstrate, and vice versa.
Here, the harm South Africa is concerned about is of the gravest type possible.
Again: it is just not accurate to suggest that the ICJ has determined Israel has committed acts of genocide. It's "not even wrong"; the decision you're referring to is an interim provisional ruling.
I was trying to argue that the only way the Court would accept the case is if it would find the accusations plausible.
I specifically said nobody is trying to argue that the court has ruled one way or the other. Merely that by accepting the case, the court did view some of the actions as capable of falling inside the Convention.
We are basically arguing over what the word plausible means here. I still stand by my words that the word applies to the courts believes as stated by the ruling.
If it was "implausible" the case would have been dismissed. I don't see anybody arguing that there is no case, only that the case has not at this point decided that Israel is culpable for acts of genocide. You claimed the opposite upthread. That was incorrect. We don't need to harp on this or keep going, but I don't think there's a way to rehabilitate your analysis of the ICJ ruling. It was wrong. Preliminary injunctions are issued in cases where the defense wins all the time.
If you do some reading on the "Plausibility" standard in the ICJ --- it's a recent development --- I think you're going to find it's a pretty low bar.
If the court would have believed that South Africa’s accusations did not fall under the Genocide Convention, the case would have been dismissed. This was Israel’s entire legal defense. And this is explained in Paragraph 20 cited above.
I guess I see one more scenario here, where the court did not find it plausible. That would be that the court found South Africa’s accusations to plausibly fall under the Genocide Convention, but did not look at the credibility of the accusations. However in the rulings of the preliminary measures, they do state that the risk of genocide inflicted on the Palestinian people was plausible, so frankly, I don’t think the court found the accusations implausible.
In any case, I guess if that is the case, I stand corrected, however given the mountain of evidence given by South Africa, and the fact the people don’t dispute the authenticity of those evidence, the fact that the court found the accusation plausibly fall under the Genocide Conention is almost identical to the statement that the court found the accusations plausible. The nuance here is so small that it is completely irrelevant.
That's you deciding the case, not the ICJ. Which is fine, but you cannot reasonably argue that the ICJ agrees with you, because it has not done so. This isn't nuance; respectfully, you're flatly wrong about the implications of the ICJ ruling. What I think is happening is that you're looking at legal terms of art and just substituting ordinary definitions for them. You cannot meaningfully do that.
You are fighting an uphill battle, and honestly taking a weird—and insignificant—hill to die on.
I’m hardly the only one which has this reading of the court order[1]. Here is a human rights lawyer speaking with the Times[2] which describes the ruling as:
> Having the World Court say to the state of Israel that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide will be heard by the rest of the international community, even if Netanyahu doesn’t want to hear it,
Like I said earlier we are actually arguing about the meaning of “plausible”. I’m using this word in a non-legal way while applying it to the legal definition of genocide. The ICJ on the other hand uses it in a legal way, for them plausibility has a legally defined meaning, and using it must meet some specific standard[3].
The conduct in question here is the general behavior of Israel in Gaza, which some of our ancestors say:
South Africa brought in its case many examples of general conduct and accused them of violating the Genocide Convention. Israel—in its defense—did not deny this conduct, but rather stated they weren’t Genocidal, and didn’t violate the Convention, and therefore the Court had no jurisdiction over the case. The court ruled that these allegations “appear to be capable” of falling under the Convention. Meaning that the court thinks that the same conduct we are arguing whether constitutes a Genocide, the ICJ has said: “appears to be capable” of falling under the legal definition of Genocide.
When I, or the NPR, or the BBC[4] say the ICJ “decided there was a plausible case under the 1948 Genocide Convention,” we are using the world plausible in laypeople terms. So I stand by what I said. If we use the legal definition of Genocide, the ICJ has ruled the conduct of Israel in Gaza can plausibly be described as Genocide.
No. This is simple. You sue me, say, for trademark infringement. Before the case goes to trial, you ask for a preliminary injunction demanding that I --- at least for the duration of the trial --- stop using your trademark. As it turns out, I'm not doing much interesting with it; the cost to me to stop using the trademark is minimal. Recognizing that, the court enjoins me from using your trademark, until the trial is done.
What you're saying now is "because I got the injunction, I won the case". Obviously, no.
"Plausibility" at the ICJ is a technical term, part of a 3-part test to determine if any preliminary orders can be issued ("in preservation of rights") at all in a case:
"What is required is something more than assertion but less than proof; in other words, the party must show that there is at least a reasonable possibility that the right it claims exits as a matter of law and will be adjudged to apply to that party’s case".
Plausibility is virtually always established in these cases.
Now, look at what South Africa asked for as a preliminary measure, and look what they got.
Again, it is weird that we are still talking about this, because I quoted for you the numbered paragraph in the decision that repeats the point I am making.
Later
I'm noting that we are so far to the right margin on this very old, cursed thread that this post gets only 250px in my browser window. It's fine if we're not going to convince each other; we can just leave it here. We're probably the only two people reading this.
Go read up on ICJ preservation of rights process, though. It's fascinating. It's like a whole parallel law system, being worked out in our lifetimes.
runarberg is not interested in getting to some commonly understood truth, he's only interested in spreading his propaganda. If you examine your conversation with him through this lens, it makes perfect sense. He continues to repeat lies that you've pointed out don't make any sense. He makes sure to repeat his unfounded claim that "They are definitely committing genocide" as he does in nearly every comment he's made in the last 2 weeks, regardless of how wrong he's shown to be. If you start to back him into a corner, he's begin to deny very obvious truths like Jewish people have a historical connection to that area and continues to claim, without any basis that he's simply repeating what the ICJ has said, when the president of the council very clearly said the opposite.
We are two HN people who disagree. I think they're too attached to their ICJ procedural argument; it doesn't make much sense, and they don't need it to make the broader point they clearly want to make about Israel's moral culpability for genocide (an argument I don't agree with fully, but I disagree with less). That doesn't make them a liar or a propagandist.
If your arguments are strong, well-expressed, and calm, they'll do fine here, and there's no need to pick apart the people trying to rebut them. We know less than we think we do about people commenting here; I've spent 16 years watching people reach all sorts of weird conclusions about me. Let's not do that to someone else here. These threads are bad enough as it is.
Israel’s legal culpability in genocide is probably even more important, because if we only argue moral culpability it gives world governments an excuse to non-action. If we have legal culpability these same world governments become complicit.
The legal argument for genocide is strong. Not only by referring to the ICJ case, but also several legal experts who have conducted a thorough study in the subject.
I’m returning to this thread because of the publication today of a 100 page long report which the authors claim is “the most comprehensive legal analysis to ate of Israel’s military operation in Gaza since October 7, 2023.” This report is from legal experts exploring the legal argument of genocide, using the 1948 convention as the definition for genocide. The authors, comprise of independent human rights scholars and legal experts from University Network of Human Rights, Boston University School of Law, Cornell Law School, University of Pretoria, and Yale Law School. They conclude that: “srael has committed and continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
You really got to hand it to the Royal Family of Qatar - they are geopolitical Warren Buffets.
The Arab Spring and all the bad things that ensued from it was effectively a giant geopolitical windfall for the Qatari royal family and their investments in founding that broadcaster.
They (almost) changed the entire geopolitical landscape of the Arab world to their benefit. Installing a caliphate here, toppling a major power like Egypt there. They even forced Saudi Arabia into concessions.
All of that, like the NATO-buffoons sending fighter jets into Libya because the Qataris social-engineered the Western public into demanding it, is an amazing show of political skills.
Gee, the poor Europeans till this day don't even realize how much their "refugee-crisis" has been instigated as a "weapon of mass migration" by the Qataris using their set of tools of which Al Jazeera is one.
The tweet that is linked in the web page is from the former managing editor of Al Jazeera. You can just click on the tweet directly and use Google translate.
Why would Israel have to do anything? With the flagging system, even if there's just a minority of pro-Israel users anything anti-Israel is now effectively banned.
The reason stated on why Hamas affirmed the rape story was false wasn't 'because it backfired and made civilians flee'. This never happened,and the justifications is too convoluted. No, they took a page out of IRA and ETA's: total transparency. They want people to believe what they say, and for that, you can't be caught lying. I don't know if it's recent or not, but that's also the reason why the death toll reported by Hamas is lower than the one expected by the US and most military intelligence. If a news is from a Hamas official spokesman, it's likely true (might be misleading, but always factually true)
Shame on Al-Jazeera to let liars on air, but to be fair, that 24h news for you.
> Words are not knifes. People eventually will adapt to lies and weird things. And truth will find a way.
I really see it differently that both ends are equally bad. After all, on the same night that the BBC announced 500 dead after the "bombing" at a hospital in Gaza, which turned out to be a Hamas missile that fell and killed at most 50 there... crowds took to the streets and created a threat to Israeli embassies around the world.
Yes, this is actually PIJ, I was referring to the colloquial referral as Hamas to all Palestinian organizations in Gaza. Colloquial use that OP seemed to be using.
Also they do coordinate their fighting and if you read the last link also their propaganda
IDF has bombed the entirety of Gaza health infrastructure by now. It's odd they don't want us to believe they would be capable to bomb this particular hospital when they destroyed every single other one.
Did you read it? It says at the end "what happened at al-Ahli remains inconclusive"
Not to mention they say they scraped al Jazeera for other incident which is ironic here, because the claim is they misreport
And I will add that everything they said is only based on the videos... The impact on the ground was consistent with PIJ/Hamas rockets and not Israel missiles.
So I will rather believe U.S. Experts/Western intelligence (which since did not report otherwise)... so no Debunking at all:
Maher Arar is not an authority on this issue (same for me, same for you) as he is a telecommunications engineer. And all of his assumptions about missiles and air warfare in the article must have sources before used. Just like anything else, also in doppler equtions: garbage in, garbage out. But just look on the 2 videos he brings trying to claim it was a GBU-39 bomb:
As clearly stated in [3]: "More than half a dozen experts who independently reviewed imagery of the scene said the lack of major blast damage, such as collapsed buildings, as well as the relatively small size and shape of the crater, ruled out the possibility of the kind of airstrike Israel has carried out elsewhere in Gaza since Oct. 7."
> My opinion is that freedom of speech must be absolute, despite all the issues and shortcomings coming with it. You must be able to speak, write, draw anything you like, without any limits.
This would make all libel and defamation permissible.
This would make any type of business fraud permissible.
This would make it permissible to lie and fabricate documentation in order to target vulnerable populations for theft and fraud.
This would make identity impersonation (including of, say, law enforcement, medical, legal, or engineering professionals) permissible.
This would make it permissible to fabricate evidence for use in legal cases.
This would make it permissible to lie or fabricate evidence for sexual partners regarding STIs or contraceptive use.
Other than free speech zealots, you're not going to get anyone on board with rebuilding society so that we have to preemptively guard against all of these things, and have no recourse against bad actors.
Are you saying that every news outlet that reports false claims by eyewitness accounts which turn out not to be true and aren't sufficiently loud about retractions should be banned by their host countries?
Because I can think of quite a number of stories over the years, and even in terms of this current conflict in the Middle East, where there were falsehoods in the fog of war or even intentionally seeded that turned out not to be true and many of the news organizations airing them initially only took stories down and didn't run front page denouncements of their own reporting.
I agree that retractions and in general journalistic integrity needs a bit more attention as a global society, but banning news organizations that print things you don't like is something I tend to associate with a very Stalinesque mindset and not a bastion of democracy and liberty.
In general, individuals and groups are bettered by exposure to naysayers than surrounded by yes-men.
But that the whole point. It's not just that Israel "don't like it". It's false claims.
> aren't sufficiently loud about retractions
And what if there are no retraction? only if the backlash is big enough? Like in the case where there were no hundreds of dead in a direct bombing but a 50 dead in a failed PIJ rocked on hospital:
All newspapers get things wrong some of the time. With the best of intentions and best of skills, it ... just happens because the world is just too complex to always be 100% accurate. Of course they should strive to be accurate all of the time, but we also need to be realistic. This applies even more to warzones.
What matters is how often this happens and what the response is when it happens. As far as I know, Al Jazeera is not significantly worse than anyone else here. There's a difference between "spreading misinformation" and "being wrong every once in a while".
The problem with sites like "honest reporting" is that they take these incidents, completely ignore (or outright defend) all the types their side has been wrong on this type of stuff, and then construct a narrative that "proves" that "the other side" is merely a malicious cluster of evil that seeks to spread evil for evil's sake. This is exactly the type of dehumanizing hyper-partisanship that got us in this mess in the first place.
> All newspapers get things wrong some of the time.
And what if there are no retraction? only if the backlash is big enough? Like in the case where there were no hundreds of dead in a direct bombing but a 50 dead in a failed PIJ rocked on hospital:
I can go tit-for-tat with examples from Israeli newspapers or even Israeli government for the rest of the day, but like I said, what matters is the overall pattern and how this compares. And as far as I know, Al Jazeera is not significantly worse here.
> examples from Israeli newspapers ... Al Jazeera is not significantly worse here.
Sure, I would like to see something similar from Haaretz/Ynetnews where they believed Israel without critical due process. And did not retract in a consistent matter.
And the second account is my mobile (I like it separate)... that is why I gave them the same name.
EU has a ban on RT on its books today, nearly every single democratic country is currently or has previously censored media. Without judging this specific action, saying that Israel is bad for doing something that every other country does or has done makes it seem like your problem is not really with what is being done, but your problem is with Israel. This may not be the case, you may not be aware that nearly every country engages in censorship of some form.
How many of those 100 journalists killed were intentionally killed because they were journalists, as opposed to dying as collateral damage?
And if foreign journalists want to get into Palestine, they have other options than entering through the Israeli border, they can enter through the Egyptian border.
> And if foreign journalists want to get into Palestine, they have other options...
First, they don't. All crossings are controlled by Israel. There's a reason why you have a lot of foreign reporting on the ground from Syria civil war and nothing from Gaza. (I noted your switch from Gaza to Palestine, btw) And journalistic agencies complain about this repeatedly.
10% of journalists killed (against 2% of total population killed) and ratios of killed/injured certainly suggest special targeting.
To me, it looks like majority were killed intentionally based on that list. Things like sniper and other direct fire killings, being killed in their homes along with their families when doing nothing but dinning or sleeping, or at assignments, or in front of hospitals near journalist tents, or being denied medevac after critical injuries, is not how I'd define collateral damage.
This is false. Israel does not control Egypt's or Jordan's borders.
> To me, it looks like majority were killed intentionally based on that list.
By CPJ's own account, that list is not verified:
> Our database will not include all of these casualties until we have completed further investigations into the circumstances surrounding them. For more information, read our FAQ.
I did check some of them, and I would agree some of it look concerning at face value, but I'm not sure if I would take any of those sources at face value. I would very much like to see some investigation into this, but without the war ending, I don't really see how that will happen.
> This is false. Israel does not control Egypt's borders.
Of course it does. It closed the crossing shortly after Oct 7. Crossing it, requires Israel approval and inspections. The moment Egypt stops observing Israel's rules, it will bomb the crossing. It did bomb it already a few times last year in order to close it. Israel already stated that it will operate anywhere in Gaza militarily, that includes the Rafah crossing, and it does.
That's pretty much what anyone would consider being in control of a crossing, effectively.
In addition, despite this crossing being between Palestine and Egypt, the agreement that splits the roles of who does what at the crossing is between Egypt and Israel as part of Israel-Egypt peace treaty https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/new-real...
So Israel does partially control it even in this "legal" aspect. It kinda makes sense given that Gaza is still considered an occupied territory by UN. Since when occupied territories control their own corssings with other countries?
> By CPJ's own account, that list is not verified:
Yes, that goes back to Israel refusal for independent foreign journalists presence in Gaza. Or ICC investigators. Convenient.
> Today: "BREAKING| Security sources to Al Aqsa TV: Three Israeli tanks are stationed 200 meters away from the Rafah border crossing and have fired several shells at buildings on the border crossing."
I’m not sure about “dark day for the media” but it does feel like a dark day for Israel.
Once you’ve established that the government can unilaterally ban a voice for reasons of “national security” you’ve essentially given them a free pass. As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.
I think it's neither surprising nor necessarily bad. Just think of how Russia Today was spreading disinformation and propaganda about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Banning them from the EU was certainly in our interest.
Times of Israel is the media of a different belligerent in this conflict, why on earth should I trust them to debunk AJ anymore than I should trust AJ to truthfully report on Israel?
The difference is that Times of Israel is privately owned, while Al Jazeera is operated by an authoritarian government. also the information I posted can be found in other places. However, if you think a government that promotes modern slavery is probably a good source for journalism, that's your choice to make.
However, Al Jazeera never corrected the story, just took it down, which is just as OP reported: "We can draw the line when they report proven false information and never apologize for reporting so."
> We can draw the line when they say one thing on English Al Jazeera and another on Arabic Al Jazeera.
The vast majority of media companies that own media in different languages are on Al Jazeera's side of the line then, including most companies that have social media channels in different languages.
I know the whole radical free speech theory where everyone should be able to see all discourses and make their own informed opinion. The thing is, the facts are that propaganda and fake news are super effective. Probably a failure of western democracies to develop critical sense of their citizens, or the lake of preparation to the quick rise of social networks. And now far right are rising in Europe too, of course driven - in part - by Russian propaganda and fake news (and funding too).
So I'm not sure what is the good solution now. I'd be happy if there were more money to fund school and lessons for children to understand how those fake news work. But this is long term. Short term I think I'm okay if we don't have RT in France.
"Short term I think I'm okay if we don't have RT in France."
You do. On the internet. An increasing amount of people are getting their (fake) news now exclusivly online via "alternative" news sources like RT. Banning one of those sources on television will just mean further entrenching of those people. ("see, they don't want the truth to spread" ...)
" I'd be happy if there were more money to fund school and lessons for children to understand how those fake news work."
And aside to lots and lots of crap in the curriculum, there would be enough school time avaiable to teach more of criticial information analysis and media skills. But partial banning of one source seems like the more comfortable solution. Except that this might really hurt us in the long run, if the next source that will be banned, won't be enemy propaganda source, but just a legitimate critical newspaper for example. But secret service will say the enemy funded and influenced them, so off they go.
RT France was still available online after the broadcast ban, but it was forced to move out of France in 2023 after the French government froze its bank accounts. From what I've read, the rt website is also unavailable in France without using a VPN with a proxy outside of the France and a number of other EU countries.
Some people sees TV as a more serious or reliable source of information than internet, so I think it's fair to avoid having the official propaganda of an hostile country there.
Of course there is always a risk of censorship of real information. As citizens we must be vigilant to what is banned. And our reaction as citizens should absolutely be different depending of wether the ban targets RT or Le Monde (for example).
> The thing is, the facts are that propaganda and fake news are super effective. Probably a failure of western democracies to develop critical sense of their citizens,
Something about thermodynamics. Random noise is free. Exposing lies and ascertaining the truth requires structure, observation, flexibility, organization, introspection, correlation, adaptation— a lot of things that take a lot of effort in multiple different ways, that is physically and socially both difficult/expensive and fragile/vulnerable.
Propaganda and fake news are not really different from a sleazy salesman, or an abusive relationship. In the time it takes you to fly a journalist to the scene, speak with and hear the experiences of people on the ground, find patterns and write accurate, digestable descriptions and cite precedents, consult with experts, then with dissenters— So on— In the time it takes you to move just one single step closer to the truth, for an answer that still leaves complex questions and won't satisfy anybody, the liar will already have invented a thousand completely new ways to lie (as well as a couple hundred reasons why you must be the lying one, for disputing them, of course). …Or hired some guy to drive a meat cleaver in your back…
Plus, lies are often directly predatory towards some of the best parts of ourselves too… The desire to trust, and assume good faith, about what other people tell you…
> or the lake of preparation to the quick rise of social networks.
Our mental and social faculties for ascertaining and communicating realities are ultimately encoded in physical structures which tend towards chaos and collapse.
…I suppose it is to be expected that vastly increasing the rate at which information can be "generated" and transmitted would cause the equilibrium to be dominated by r-strategists. ..Ah, fuck.
If we had to ban every media that has said a half truth, we'd have no media at all.
It wasn't in the interest of freedom. Everyone reading it would know it was the russian spin. But now we are not allowed to know what the russians think. After all thinking of them as humans like us is not something we want right?
Then let me go on record as saying that I fully support my government and my army's efforts to return the remaining hostages even in the face of double-standard world efforts to legitimize the genocidal, racist, homophobic, and misogynistic Hamas regime.
> Then let me go on record as saying that I fully support my government and my army's efforts to return the remaining hostages [...]
This is a common talking point that makes no sense when you think about it. Could you please explain how you envision the hostage release to be achieved through bombing and systematic destruction of the area that they are held in? It sounds much more likely to kill them instead. Why not simply negotiate a hostage exchange? Do you expect that if Hamas was about to be completely wiped out, that they would not simply kill all the hostages that were still alive up to that point?
> Could you please explain how you envision the hostage release to be achieved through bombing and systematic destruction of the area that they are held in? It sounds much more likely to kill them instead. Why not simply negotiate a hostage exchange?
That presumes that there is something hamas wants that is viable for israel to give them. Its far from obvious that is the case in this conflict.
Its not like "carrot and stick" negotiating tactics are unique to this conflict.
> That presumes that there is something hamas wants that is viable for israel to give them. Its far from obvious that is the case in this conflict.
If that’s true (and I agree that it may well be) then surely Israel’s army’s efforts can’t be in aid of hostage release, because it’s an entirely unattainable goal?
I think that’s what the OP is getting at. The tactics we see don’t seem like they’d be effective ways to rescue hostages. Nor does it feel all that viable to persuade Hamas to release the hostages. So what are the current tactics in aid of?
There are two ways it could in theory be in aid of that goal:
- putting pressure - even if there is nothing now to negotiate with, military action could reduce hamas's negotiating position and in principle cause them to sue for peace. I'm a bit doubtful in this conflict, but traditionally this how war works. If your enemy refuses to surrender, you take their land until either they surrender or they have no more land. For example in world war 1, there was still a lot of deaths right up until the armistice even though people knew fighting was going to stop soon, because the sides thought the more land we have now, the better our position will be during the peace negotiations.
- second, Israeli army could find where the hostages are and take them back by force. Also pretty hard, but if negotiations are unattainable its not surprising they would go here as the only other option.
Most wars happen to obtain goals that are unattainable by peaceful negotiation. I don't think this conflict is any different in that regard than any other.
Because there are two war aims: hostage release and the removal of Hamas.
> Do you expect that if Hamas was about to be completely wiped out, that they would not simply kill all the hostages that were still alive up to that point?
No, for the same reason countries don't kill all their prisoners of war right before surrendering. You still need to negotiate the terms of the peace.
There's a distinction to draw between creating more militant opposition to Israel's occupation and creating more Hamas. A category error I think a lot of people make when discussing this is to presume Hamas is a normal representation of armed resistance. At least since 2017, and arguably before, it has been a deeply abnormal armed resistance movement.
You might have reasons to believe that Israel's persecution of Hamas is going to generate a new generation of Hamas, but reasonable people might disagree and say that to the extent Israel is creating new militants, they're likely to look more like Fatah's armed wing than Hamas.
> in the face of double-standard world efforts to legitimize the genocidal, racist, homophobic, and misogynistic Hamas regime.
I ask this question very genuinely: what world efforts are seeking to legitimize Hamas? I have seen a great many pro-Palestinian perspectives but have not seen anything pro-Hamas beyond fringe kooks.
As for double standard… I think the reason you see the double standard is precisely because the comparison is racist, homophonic, misogynistic, etc. Israel is held to a higher standard than neighbouring countries because it’s a liberal democracy as opposed to a theocratic dictatorship. I (as an outsider of course) would think it a great loss for the world if Israel starts to consider Iran to be the bar they have to clear rather than anything higher.
In my experience, most invocations of Israel's right to exist are not functionally asking people to extend some generally accepted principle to Israel, but rather demanding that they accept Israel's existence as axiomatic. My response is usually something along the lines of "I'm not sure any state has a right to exist, or that it's even a meaningful concept to apply to political entities rather than people".
That's often not productive in terms of continuing the conversation, but I'm not trying to be clever or evasive; I genuinely don't understand why I should accept the premise of the question.
> response is usually something along the lines of "I'm not sure any state has a right to exist, or that it's even a meaningful concept to apply to political entities rather than people"
It generally means do they have the rights of a nation-state. That said, I agree it’s a new way of framing the one-state solution.
It gets more interesting if you start to get exposed to enlightening questions to begin critically thinking through:
- Why wasn't Germany divided into half - 50/50 - or even 55% given to the Jewish people [and force the Germans off of their lands that they were on for - whether they were Gestapo and toeing the line as vicious or blind citizens during NaZi Germany] - which would seem to be a fair-reasonable punishment for Germany's authoritarians' behaviour? How fair is that to do to a population who's society was trying to genocide you vs. doing that to a population that had no part in trying to genocide you?
- Why didn't America - where the Israel lobby is arguably the strongest legal influence on the political system, politicians and policy - instead give a large amount of land to the Jewish people in America instead of Balfour Declaration somehow allowing Britain to "give it away"?
Also, there's an unmentioned sentiment usually attached to to the phrase of "Israel doesn't have a right to exist" that it's somehow akin to "Jews don't have a right to exist."
I think that feeling or belief is planted by propaganda has purposefully conflated - along with Israel state equals Judaism [just because they arguably misappropriated the Star of David for their state flag; one of multiple tactics for the what I argue is full of wolves in sheep's clothing].
Re: Hamas' Charter
Other foundational propaganda that's propagated deep and wide, and even those who are very well-informed - possibly because in reality it's a moot point, as Hamas-like organizations are inevitable to form from within an occupied-suppressed and segregated state of existence:
- The claim that in the Hamas Charter it says their goal is to "obliterate all Jews globally" stems from an arguable purposeful mistranslation, where instead it appears to be propaganda to demonize Hamas and Palestinians via guilt by association campaigns, where the proper translation says their goal is to "invalidate" any UNJUST behaviour - written within the context of speaking of just vs. unjust behaviour - which means any just behaviour, e.g. non-violence, truth, etc. is fine and won't be targeted by them; from my understanding that means actual practicing Jews wouldn't fall into this category but the specific behaviours of the specific heads of state driving towards genocide,is party to unjust behaviour, will be held to account and have their actions "invalidated" based on their Charter. Source: https://jstor.org/stable/26331116
Conclusions,
I think it's critical people begin to be asked into thought exercises to understand just how isolated in algorithmic bubbles we all are - unless we're conscious of that and not prone to confirmation bias - to understand how people could be so deeply and firmly indoctrinated into one set of beliefs, where one side is completely delusional as to the truth and reality; they know only a shallow and misleading version of the truth, but not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - so help us God.
The incongruences are glaring as the relatively unsophisticated politicians [useful fools] et al stumble their way through, placed there are useful puppets - and why the bad actors ultimately need full control over speech and communications, or else a critical mass forms against them - and those blindly toeing the line for them in various institutions waken at exponential pace: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5y-lc7RtcE/
Let us not forget: Julian Assange has been being essentially tortured in prison without being convicted of anything - because he published leaks from a violent-authoritarian regime's security apparatus, exposing illegal actions by ba...
There's an obvious pattern of behaviour of producing propaganda with sleight of hand to misdirect attention to who's likely actually pulling the strings for such scenarios.
Can you also go on the record to say what do you think the % odds are that the IDF killed Hamas' hostages (your own fellow citizens) when bombarding Gaza - which they continue to do - which arguably further increases the odds of killing more hostages?
Logically the odds of the hostages being alive would be higher if this wasn't the tactic the IDF decided to use, right?
If I was in command of a military then the hostages would come first, and I would send in soldiers who signed up to potentially give their lives - to exchange soldiers lives for civilians, if need be.
You can't know to what extent a government will behave, and people will have different limitations and tolerances.
It's why referendums exist - however the more authoritarian a government becomes, the less they want the population voting specifically on issues to maintain more control over policy (and the population), e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Canada
We definitely did block or at least make them less available, as I recall prior to the invasion RT was commonly on when walking into a hotel room or in Youtube recommendation lists. Post invasion in US I never see it in any hotels or recommended on Youtube... was it censored or maybe just wildly boycotted, not sure... but seems appropriate as a response to me
I think there is a huge difference between the government blocking access to a media outlet versus hotels choosing to no longer display said media outlet on their televisions.
AFAIK, there has been no ban. It would probably face some backlash given the First Amendment right to freedom of press. (Though I'm not sure that truly extends to the press of a foreign country?)
I don't think you can compare Al Jazeera and RT, because one has been a firehose of bullshit that has literally advocates invasion of Ukraine, and the other does not. As far as I know, Al Jazeera is banned purely because they've been critical of current Israeli policy. There are some reasonable criticisms of Al Jazeera and things they could have done better, but that applies to every media outlet on the planet.
You'd might want to watch some arabic al jazeera. While Al Jazeera English pushes s the progressive post-colonialist narrative in the United States, Al Jazeera Arabic gears the Middle East for a war by pushing a Muslim Brotherhood idea of a Sharia state, Salafism and Jihad.
Both have the same aim, just as Qatar Airways sponsor your flights with oil money so you might fly through Qatar, Al Jazeera pays journalists so they can push Qatar's narratives to Western or Arabic audience. This is highly similar to RT in intent.
Looking from Israel standpoint, it's a news outlet that pushes your enemies propaganda arm videos unfiltered and also uses it to radicalize part of your population
I don't speak Arabic so I can't really judge that; I'm sure there's tons of stuff I'd find distasteful, but being distasteful or even inflammatory (within some limits of reason) should not be outlawed. All I can do is go by articles such as this, which don't really seem to cite the same "firehose of bullshit"-type stuff.
Also note that the Israeli government spends tons of money to push Israeli narratives and viewpoints. That's fine, they're allowed to do that, but we can leverage the same "highly similar to RT in intent" accusations against them. In the end we should judge actions, not intent.
In most of the world outside of the United States, there are laws that relate to the concept of a "defensive democracy". For example the laws that outlaw display of swastikas in Germany are contradictory with freedom of speech but are aimed at denying a democracy being exploited by extreme groups (see ww2).
The discussion here is about the actions of Israel versus Al Jazeera, not a possibility of banning Al Jazeera in the United States or maybe Israeli viewpoints.
Also, I am pretty sure Israeli spendings to push Israeli narratives in the US are minuscule, especially compared to Qatar's.
I was not comparing them, and I think this is dishonest to read my comment that way.
I was giving an example of the way democracies around the world restrict free speech in order to defend other rights
This is quite popular in europe and is a result of lesson learned from the nazis
This entire thread started with me saying pretty much the same thing, and using Nazi Germany as an example absolutely implies some form of comparison, especially in a discussion about what specifically Al Jazeera may or may not have done wrong. You can't demand careful language usage from others (in e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40090402https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40088873) and at the same time carelessly throw around stuff yourself.
Well, you can. You're allowed. But at that point I decide to stop engaging. So good day to you.
American citizens are, of course, allowed to have such opinions, but we're not talking about a few citizens here - we're talking about what's considered one of the most influential political lobbyist organizations in US.
AIPAC is nominally funded by "individual donations", but the problem with that it is fairly trivial for a nation-state to fund things in this manner, so it doesn't really tell us anything. And then, of course, there's the question of personal connections: if you have a private person donating huge amounts of money to AIPAC, and they just happen to be heavily involved with the governing political party in Israel, I would consider them an agent of the state of Israel ipso facto even if they don't have such official position (just as I would consider, say, one of Putin's pet oligarchs a Russian agent if they donate money to an American political campaign in their private capacity).
Do you have a link to an article in Arabic where they incite violence?
I've spent a while translating various articles on the Al Jazeera Arabic site from Arabic to English with mistral-7b. Everything seemed to be very fact based, and was emphasising things like civilian deaths, which aligns to what I'd consider public interest.
The Arabic text does consistently use the term شهيد (martyr) to describe Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza, which is the closest thing to biased language I found across multiple articles about Israel and Palestine - but I think that is normal in Arabic for describing even non-combatant casualties and not necessarily reflective of bias given Arabic conventions.
It's normalized enough that even the notoriously secular SDF in Syria uses that term for their own fighters, and not just in Arabic publications, but also in Kurdish ones.
This is obviously a source with a considerable bias, but they link to many concerning examples of Al Jazeera reporting. I personally don’t speak Arabic but anecdotally I’ve heard that the translations are accurate, the bias is manifest in choosing what to translate. This example was especially concerning, exacerbating civilian deaths:
> Al-Jazeera Fabricates Information Designed To Thwart Israel's Instructions To The Gaza Population
>Al-Jazeera broadcast footage of bodies of civilians strewn over a road, presenting them as victims of an Israeli attack against people who had abided by the IDF instructions to evacuate to southern Gaza.[91] Israel in fact had secured safe passage to the south for those civilians who wished to go there, while Hamas exerted pressure on them to remain put in order to use civilians as human shields.[92]
“because one has been a firehose of bullshit that has literally advocates invasion of Ukraine”
How is that different from CNN/BBC/whatever advocating NATO/US invasions in the last half century? (Serbia, Iraq2, Libya, etc). And more recently Gaza.
They didn't; there was tons of criticism about that, including on the beeb and CNN and everywhere else. You're confusing debate with propaganda. There were enormous protests against the Iraq war in London and other places. Try that in Russia. Never mind Serbia was busy with its own ethnic cleansing campaigns and maybe taking some action about that wasn't entirely a bad thing...
Is Qatar a belligerent in the war? Belarus has allowed Russia to use their territory as a point from which to launch both ground assaults and missiles into Ukraine. Hard to say the same about Qatar and Hamas. If Al Jazeera were an Iranian publication the comparison might be more similar.
Israeli news reports and analysts say Qatar has sent more than $1 billion to Gaza over the past decade.
Qatar sent that aid through fuel to the Gaza Strip's Hamas government, which in turn sold it and paid partial salaries. In the past, the money was sent via suitcases stuffed with cash.
Israel allowed these transfers to Hamas. Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say the payments his government approved helped keep the status quo in the Gaza Strip and Hamas from escalating attacks on Israel.
Is this some kind of rhetorical question? Qatar is the main funder of Hamas regime. And hosting Hamas leadership. They fund Hamas more than Iran, according to Israeli intelligence (which may be wrong but that’s the source we have)
Iran is Hamas' main backer. Qatar funded Hamas with Israel's consent, so it's not really fair to hold this against Doha. (Their continuing to host Hamas' leadership is fair to criticise.)
> Petraeus revealed that Qatar has hosted the Hamas leadership at the request of US
Sure. Hence why I qualified my statement with "continuing." Doha hosting Hamas in '17 was fine. Doha hosting them after October 7 is fair to criticise.
Discovering that request surprised me, it strikes me as pragmatic and forward thinking; it also suggests that Qatar is rather keen to accede to US requests. Has that US policy changed now? If so I would have expected Qatar to expel.
> Has that US policy changed now? If so I would have expected Qatar to expel
Yes. Hamas was seen by even Israel as better than anarchy. That's why they let Doha fund them.
We're now seeing American lawmakers criticising Qatar [1]. That's prompting Dohas to "re-evaluat[e] its role as mediator in ceasefire talks" and weigh "whether to allow Hamas to continue operating [its] political office" [2][3].
> Hamas was seen by even Israel as better than anarchy.
Better then anarchy or better than peace? There is some people on both sides of this conflict which are happy to see it radicalized and I think those people all benefits from the other being strong on the other side.
Better than anarchy and better Palestinians divided between Hamas and the PA is fair statement. Most Israelis don't believe any Palestinians have an interest in peace (I don't have a survey handy but I'm sure we can find one) and their actions reflect that belief. But if you can make a reasonable argument how defunding Gaza would result in peace then I'd be interesting in hearing it.
All that said, the actions taken by the Israeli right are certainly not helping the possibility of a future peace agreement, but it's not clear whether this specific action belongs in that group. One might argue that a stronger central authority in Gaza means there is a partner for a future agreement and that if Gaza can transition to be a more peaceful place (and it seemed to be heading in that direction) that would also support a future agreement.
Yes, my (probably somewhat poor) understanding is that Israel actions over the past years tended to favor Hamas and weaken PA. From declarations I read in the press I can imagine how some people are happy that peace doesn't happen so they can justify eradicating the Gaza inconvenience.
I can point to a laundry list of atrocities committed by US. Should Qatar refuse to host US?
Qatar is not a western country, there is no reason to expect it to buy into western exceptionalism. This is not to defend Hamas but simply to point out that the western double standard doesn’t reach much beyond Europe.
India pays a lot of money to Russia for oil, it doesn't make them a belligerent. China also has close ties, but arguably they've refrained from arming Russia.
Are missiles coming out of Qatar? Are they even supplying arms to Hamas, or do they simply fund the civilian portions of the government?
Qatar is not exactly a belligerent but it hosts the Hamas leadership. It has been funding Hamas and other groups. It (partly) funds Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera is considered by some to be its PR/Propaganda arm and has a low standard for factual reporting - https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/al-jazeera/
Israeli enabled money to go in to pay government salaries to prevent Gaza from descending in chaos. That said I think it's a matter of fact that maintaining Hamas as a counter to the PA was part of strategy of the Netanyahu government.
I think pretty much any money going into Gaza should be considered funding Hamas. It either went directly to Hamas or it was taxed or it allowed Hamas not to spent that money. This means Europe and the US also funded Hamas.
The reason for funding was to create chaos, not to remove it. Why else do you fund a group that destabilises the area. Basically Israel wanted Gaza to be more chaotic as they felt it gave them more control.
The decision to pursue power and chaos as opposed to seeking resolution and a path to peace has had obvious consequences.
It’s so interesting that you’ve taken away all agency from the Palestinians, or you believe as an absolute rule that giving someone money automatically makes them do chaotic evil things. And that the encourager of the monetary transaction (not the giver or recipient) is solely responsible for any harm or chaos that ensues.
This whole thread is so strange, people keep claiming Palestinians cannot be trusted to rule themselves, while at the same time accusing Israel of genocide for not giving them the ability to rule themselves.
Hmmm. I don't think I agree with that. It's such a polarized and emotional debate. It could really benefit from being precise with words.
Making everything sound just slightly worse than it is will help rile up the side that feels slighted and it will let the other side just pass the speaker off as a liar. The result is fewer shared facts, more polarization and a more emotional debate.
The truth of war is bad enough. It doesn't need to be stretched.
Qatar plays both sides. They have friendly relations with Hamas, Houthis and Iran.
AlJazeera is known to be untrustworthy on matters of the middle east. Just as BBC is untrustworthy on matters of UK international politics and the NYT [1] can't be trusted on US foreign policy matters.
AlJazeera, NYT and BBC are weapons of mass propaganda just like Globaltimes or RT. The main (and admittedly stark) difference is how often these weapons are deployed.
Censorship occurs on most of the major platforms, targeting specific topics or phrases, instead of outright banning channels; arguably to be as discrete as possible and not spook the herd, and where Twitter-X is going to allow the most information to flow - arguable more lies, but arguably also more truth.
I did some further research and technically the EU has banned them, but only from being broadcasted and they are supposed to be DNS-blocked but failing to do so is without legal consequences.
To me this is more a discouragement of promotion than any real ban, but I will edit my previous comment.
My wife is Belarussian and was upset she couldn't read her news, that's how I know they banned many websites. They didn't ban the "opposition" websites run from outside Russia/Belarus though :).
That's scary. Perhaps they only block if you try to access the sites regularly?? I wouldn't think my ISP matters (Telia, which one you're on?) but that's possible too.
Did some more tests and seems to be Telia doing the blocking at the ISP level. When I'm connected to the eduroam wifi network (I'm at a university) then I can get to all those sites. When I turn off wifi and use mobile data, via Telia, then they are blocked. If I use mobile data plus a VPN with the location set to Sweden, I can access the sites again. I have Tele2 as my ISP at home, will be interesting to see if that works or not.
They have always had deep flaws. Under an uncharitable interpretation you could say that they've always been a farce, I won't argue because it's a perfectly valid standpoint if you're demanding or perfectionistic enough. Under a charitable interpretation you could say that perfect democracy is an utopia, the perfect is enemy of the good, and at least many Western democracies tried, and achieved reasonably good levels of freedom and choice by the people.
Whatever the interpretation, I think it's clear that things are degrading fast in the last few decades. I don't think an EU-wide block on Russian media such as RT wouldn't have passed with such indifference 20 years ago.
That's the most worrying to me: not the measure itself, but the indifference from the general population. In fact, I have another comment in this thread saying that block was abhorrent and it's gathering downvotes... In HN, a community where most are well-educated people from the US, a country that has arguably been the staunchest defender of freedom of expression and of the press. I find that worrying. And then there is cancel culture, and other factors, that have eroded effective freedom of speech.
At this rate, in a few more decades Western democracies will be hard to tell in practice from Chinese authoritarianism, which is worrying, because they have better economic projection, more safety, booming infrastructure, a less aggressive foreign policy... Democracy and freedom is basically what makes the West worth it, if we lose it, what's even the point?
Freedom of the press is typically considered one of the tenets of a democracy. The vote becomes meaningless if voters cannot be informed, which includes having access to all possible points of view.
If the leaders install autocracy based on majority opinion is that democratic? Because you're essentially describing the government of Iran at that point, led by a Supreme Leader who cannot be voted out, e.g. a very undemocratic system.
Just because people vote for something doesn't make the thing they voted for democratic. Historically people have voted to install a non-democratic government before.
>The EU has banned many Russian and Belarussian news sources since the invasion of Ukraine.
I read Clark's Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia (<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RI9PMM/>) right after hearing about YouTube shutting down Russian state media channels. I was surprised to learn in the book of the extent of the freedom of the press in late 18th-century Prussia. A British visitor wrote that people were as free to speak as back home, citing a work that was very critical of the king in the context of Poland. During the Napoleonic wars, despite the existential threat to Prussia from France, at least four newspapers that celebrated Revolutionary France as the next step in human freedom were allowed to publish.
It's always preferable to counter propaganda with free speech. Even liars deserve the opportunity to speak. This is especially true when there is no formally declared war between US/Europe outside Ukraine and Russia.
The only justification would be if they are broadcasting government secrets.
Clearly they're not doing that, just criticizing the government.
The obvious next step is outlawing any speech criticizing the government (or rather 'speech that is a threat to national security'), then you've got the same laws as in Russia.
There's plenty of Israeli media attacking the government day in and out. Haaretz, Yedioth, etc.
They were not closed because they're "criticizing the government". They were closed because they're acting on behalf of a foreign agent and spreading propaganda (I think the actual language "is harmed national security"). Qatar is not a free country, it funds Al-Jazeera, it hosts the Hamas leadership.
Lets not forget that the British Govt banned Russia Today from broadcasting in the UK a few years back. Such is their planning and manipulation of events on the global stage!
Russian government literally assassinated or tried to assassinate several people in British territory. That the Russian government's propaganda arm hadn't been given the boot after these spectacular acts of bad faith demonstrates that the UK government perhaps has slightly more dedication to press freedom than you're suggesting.
Yes, propaganda is acceptable during a war, and censorship is a part of that. But Europe is not at war with Russia. They are simply giving material support to one of the belligerents. Outside the context of a declared war, censorship should not happen in so-called democratic societies.
That's quite a blunt viewpoint. Is it possible the situation is more nuanced?
To resort to official declarations of war or lack thereof, to hamstring the US response to widespread dissemination of Russian propaganda is plausible on the face of it.
But consider: the US is under no obligation to facilitate Russian propagandists. To deny them access is a matter for the State Department, as it's dealing with foreign nationals. It's quite routine to deny rights to non-American citizens.
Finally, a declaration of war with Russia could destabilize politics everywhere. Or even, destroy the world. It's disingenuous to ignore that and quibble over the rules, especially since those rules clearly don't apply to foreign governments trying to operate in the US.
I know that people in general seems to react strongly negative to government censorship, but I can not avoid seeing it through the light of recent trends of post-truth online censorships that blasted the internet during the last decade. Popularity of censorship is something that seems to go in wave, and outside the US there seems to be more acceptance to government censorship as comparative to platform censorship. In smaller countries the distinction becomes a bit blurry if it is the government doing the censorship, or the ISP's doing it voluntarily, or the dominant market platform making the same decision.
In my own industry I commonly hear people talk about self regulation in order to keep governments from interfering. This has benefits, but it also makes the action of the industry a dialog between government and private sector. Voluntarily removing undesired content is technically not censorship ordered by the government, but it is also not completely separated from the wishes of the government.
Honestly, I kind of think censorship would be a positive thing when applied to people lacking education. Where to draw the line is the issue, but at the least maybe people who didn't finish highschool or get a GED or equivalent shouldn't be exposed to conspiracy theories that they then act on.
> We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners. We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering.
> In the four attacks for which the most complete information about the perpetrators' educational levels is available -- the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the 9/11 attacks, and the Bali bombings in 2002 -- 53 percent of the terrorists had either attended college or had received a college degree.
> I’m not sure about “dark day for the media” but it does feel like a dark day for Israel.
I would never expect any theocracy to be a bastion of democracy. Israel can't really realize its goals and be free at the same time. Those goals are not compatible.
I agree this is not good for Israel. A democracy is partly measured by its ability to tolerate voices it does not approve of. Israel should be stronger than this. I agree that using national security as an excuse is a slippery slope.
This is mostly a symbolic move that will make very little difference. Likely it will push Al Jazeera to be more anti-Israeli but I'm sure they can make up (pun intended) for their lack of physical presence in the region. People that want to consume that content in Israel will have no problem (many already get this via satellite).
A by the way is that this can still be challenged in the courts. If Al Jazeera chooses to go to the supreme court I imagine there's a pretty good chance that the decision will get overturned. They might intentionally decide not to do that because that outcome will put Israel in a positive light.
I think there are limits - when it's a state-run agency that's peddling straight propaganda and not making an effort to produce news content, I don't see why you would let them operate within your borders: looking at you RT.
> As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.
One of the genuine cultural differences between the US and Israel is that while Americans prefer greater liberty (even if it means less security), Israelis prefer greater security (even if it means less liberty). Which is to say, both cultures appreciate both values, but they have different priorities.
Israel is a country where you will have your bags searched before entering shopping malls or train stations. That Israelis' privacy is violated on a daily basis by other Israelis is popular. There is a sense that the privacy violations are genuinely needed, result in genuine protection, and are not abused by those in power.
I should note that "there is a sense that the privacy violations are genuinely needed, result in genuine protection, and are not abused by those in power" also describes modern Russia, for example.
How much precedent is there for this? Are there parallels for other countries? Does the US prohibit any news agencies from operating in our borders? Does Europe? Does Russia? Does China?
I presume North Korea does, but I don't actually know. These aren't designed to be leading questions. I don't know the answers, and rather than searching, I figured someone else here might know offhand.
Its not but it is being banned because people are getting their news from there and its not following the right narrative that the 'real' news agencies are failing at peddling to the public.
Then again I could be wrong and the U.S government just doesn't like people people dancing, hard to tell which one is the reason behind it all.
Watching the clip is just the usual "Who you gonna believe? us our your lying eyes?". Thing is that the days of a media fully controlling the narrative are gone. Before it was easier since all you had were rumors of what was really going on but now anyone can take video and give direct proof, how are you going to Baghdad-Bob your way into the narrative you want?.
The best they can aim for is trying to create a narrative that at least somewhat aligns with the reality that is impossible to fully hide now.
Like sibling said, they've been pretty clear on the why. They called an emergency session and Senator Ricketts was pretty clear that they view pro-Palestinian tiktok content as Chinese propaganda that's inciting the youth to protest[0].
The administration has been threatening tiktok for two Presidental terms, but it wasn't until pro-Palestinian tiktok content had "more reach than the top 10 US news sites, combined" that they've taken broad bipartisan action.
I've personally experienced the propaganda that US mainstream media doles out, I know it's real; in my mind this smacks of leaders reacting in fear to the erosion of control over what the American people can know about what's happening in the war. This lines up exactly with Israel's muting of Al Jazzera.
Pretty amusing to watch sibling's link of Mitt Romney and the interviewer haltingly say "narrative" in hushed tones, like they know it's some kind of dirty word.
The thing with propaganda is that it needs to have parts rooted in truth in order to be effective outside total information control; I consider the ability to consume everyone's propaganda an essential tool in distilling the most truth possible in a world where media and leadership across the world are openly concerned with the breakdown of their PR (read propaganda).
> TikTok wasn't banned explicitly. They are required to divest within a year. If they don't, then the app becomes banned
Note, too, the difference between the app being banned and the source being banned. TikTok.com will continue to resolve even if they remain under Chinese control.
Maybe in theory, but there are no mechanisms or jurisdiction to enforce the ban in many countries. It's not like we have country wide firewall here. Blocks usually happen at ISP DNS server level, and that means very little these days.
WW2 provides ample examples. Information is part of warfare
Russia is certainly jailing journalists. As example, Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, is currently imprisoned: https://www.wsj.com/news/evan-gershkovich.
Nowadays, every country has an interest in preventing foreign influence operations across traditional and social media
I believe RT (which is Russian but produced some interesting journalism once in a while) was banned in Europe (or at least it is in France). I don't even know what to think about it...
RT was heavily censored in the USA and is banned in several European countries. Press censorship is pretty much the norm in 'western democracies' similar to everywhere else.
Like any decision, the difference is how it is made (e.g. a vote in parliament versus an executive order), how long it remains in force (a limited time while a investigation is done versus indefinitely), and how accountable the decision makers are.
All countries are on a spectrum, there is no clear line between shiny democracy and brutal dictatorship. They all have institutions that look similar on the surface. A democracy is not going to stop having a police force just because some police states also have one, for example.
So yes, some democracies ban some media spreading propaganda for foreign interests, but the details matter.
I don't know of any outright censorship of it, but all US journalists who worked for it were no longer allowed to after the outbreak of the war. If money is speech under citizens united, then pay for journalism would seem like it could possibly be protected under the same standard, though I think election funding is still allowed to be banned from foreign states even if they use super-PACs.
How heavily has RT been censored in the USA? Has the government ever censored it or pressured others to censor it, or is it just that links/rebroadcasts have been dropped by private entities of their own volition?
It hasn't been. Probably more accurate to state that when it was carried on cable media they broadcast a bowdlerized version. Al Jazeera did the same thing when it was carried by cable/satellite in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_America
The United States right of free speech is uniquely strong. That's why we're all just sitting here acting completely blase about bad faith propaganda destroying us.
I'll try to tackle this as objectively as possible.
Not many countries enshrine press freedom as a constitutional right. US can't directly shut down news agencies by law but there are other less direct ways to restrict their ability to operate (like not granting visas). The US has all sorts of fringe news outlets, including some run by cults like Falun Gong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tang_Dynasty_Television )
Europe likes to claim they support press freedom but they banned RT in many countries. Looking at the press freedom index my kneejerk is to rank a lot of their countries lower, but then I remembered there's a habit of suing or disappearing journalists in the US that probe into larger corps.
As for Russia/DPRK/China, laws heavily restrict reporting. These are all way worse than Israel's current restrictions. DPRK has fully centralized mass media, so any other reporting inside is illegal by default without explicit approval of the state. China and Russia I think allows some reporting, basically anything appearing critical of nations of China or Russia can get you jailed/killed.
Did they wait for the world press freedom index to get published before doing this to artificially inflate their position on this year's list (it's published on world press freedom day, may 3rd annually) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index
That doesn’t sound like a thing Chomsky would do. I could imagine him saying that certain tactics were effective or certain aspects of their politics were notable, but I don’t see him as someone who idolizes anyone.
Do you have a source for this? To me this sounds like a misunderstanding, but I’m open to being shown otherwise.
Bit of a busy day for me so I asked ChatGPT so summarize and explain the author’s position on the Khmer Rouge.
“The text is an interview with Noam Chomsky discussing the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Chomsky critiques Western media's portrayal of the Khmer Rouge, arguing that it's exaggerated and ignores broader historical context, particularly U.S. involvement. He suggests that atrocities attributed to the Khmer Rouge may have been exaggerated or even fabricated, emphasizing the need for independent investigation. Chomsky's attitude toward the Khmer Rouge appears critical of Western narratives, highlighting skepticism and a call for a more nuanced understanding.”
That’s does not give any truth to your claim of idolizing, as I expected. It’s quite believable that western narratives could be manipulated as that is common place and the subject of Chomsky’s expertise. Pointing out the manipulation of the media and painting the target as more nuanced and not as evil as media makes them out to be is a far cry from idolization.
I’m gonna believe what makes sense. You made a claim which didn’t fit with what I know about Chomsky, and left a citation that doesn’t support that claim. Your claim does not make any sense to me. It’s perfectly within my understanding of Chomsky for him to say “These people we vilified weren’t quite that bad. We vilified them for our own political aims, and fabricated stories as needed to support that. The truth is much more nuanced than media made it out to be.”
And Chomsky doesn’t just make empty claims or “believe what he wants”. He usually cites sources from within the US government, like published State Department memos stating the position he’s claiming they had.
There is plenty of precedent as others have pointed out, including in the EU.
And we are talking about a media outlet controlled by the government of a foreign country that also directly finances the opposing terrorist group and houses their leaders.
Democracy merely depends on free media, not on free foreign or adversary media.
Israel has never formally left behind the "make it up as you go" spirit of the founding days. Not entirely surprising considering that they've never had a lack of more pressing problems. But a "who needs rules if we are all friends" attitude certainly seems a bit anachronistic by now, and really not a good fit for the reality on the ground.
But I make it the centerpiece of my best-case scenario for the region: imagine that gap left by the absent constitution getting filled by something aggressively secular, with a strong set of entrenched clauses (aka eternity clauses) protecting individual religious freedom from any majority shifts that might happen. Perhaps even with some strong federal element enabling peaceful growth (and Brexit-like shrinkage) like the EU. I'm certainly not holding my breath, neither expecting Israel to come up with anything like that (despite their internal made-up-as-they-went not being terribly far off, I think) nor this having any effect on countries refusing recognition. But then what other best-case scenarios are there?
That's the bane of democracy, not to say that we have a better alternative. Because democracy has been assigned to be any system where there are some elections and people vote. Universal suffrage is itself is pretty modern. The decisions in bastions of democratic countries where in the hands of a few elite. What is the distinguishing factor of a high quality democracy is it when it does have a set of constitution, and is republic by nature. The rule of law is enforced. Selective enforcement is nonexistent.
On an assessment by these very basic qualities, the current Regime in charge can't be really classified as a democracy. It is an excuse for democracy. An overgrown military outpost formed out of crusade era objectives and European anti semitic emotions. Not to mention the oil and perceived potential of the region to be a western adversary.
In the words of US president, US-UK still believes that if there were no Israel, then they would have to create one. Which is ironic, since they are the ones who created it.
If you allow "national security" to be used as an excuse to "grant powers" which ultimately just "destroy freedom" then you will end up with leaders who intentionally do a bad job at security in order to access the power that grants them.
If your government cannot protect the country from journalists, then you should force them to resign, and call for new elections.
Isn't that just a crime in and of itself? Wouldn't that entitle the government to just arrest and charge that particular person with these crimes? I think that stands a chance of ending well, or at least, justly.
Netanyahu's ongoing corruption trial looms large over all of this. If he were to lose power, he would be far more vulnerable to conviction and potential imprisonment. So from this vantage point, the Al Jazeera ban could be seen as an act of desperation - muzzling a high-profile critic as a concession to far-right parties, even at the expense of free press principles, all in service of his own political and personal survival.
It paints a troubling picture of a leader whose decision-making is distorted by clinging to power at all costs. Undermining democratic norms to appease extremist coalition partners is a dangerous road that could lead Israel to more illiberal and authoritarian policies, especially toward Palestinians, the Arab media, and domestic dissent.
It was a very strange day yesterday: the whole week coverage had been building up to a meeting in Cairo, Hamas signalled they were going to accept the cease fire.
Saturday AM EST, it was reported that Hamas confirmed they were going to accept the deal. By noon Saturday EST, the "Israel-Hamas War"...idk what to call it, live blog? collection-of-news headline?...was gone for the first time in months.
Israel reporting (not just Haaretz) reported huge, multiple, protests (it was at night there, early afternoon EST) due to Israel rejecting a cease fire. Piecing it together from Twitter natsec people, standard blob, certainly not polarized against israel, Israel didn't even send a delegation to the talks, and the far right Israeli leader said Bibi promised him they wouldn't accept "a rushed deal" (i.e. the cease fire), and people were irate. An irate Israeli TV reporter revealed the anonymous "diplomatic source" promising no deal Friday night was Bibi himself.
The blogs are back up now, with a sort of hurried framing that the talks fell apart because Hamas wanted a permanent cease fire (no mention of any of the above -- I assume that'd complicate it too much for, it needs to be a nice little set piece of Israel vs. Hamas.
It's really, really strange watching the coverage the last week, in America, without any attachment to either "side". I guess its easier to push the A vs. B framing on a new subject, our college kids, rather than trying to explain how any of this makes any sense at all.
"We might agree to a cease-fire for a little bit, but I guarantee you will invade you soon anyway" is not exactly what I'd call good faith language. What's even the point of a cease-fire if you don't at least offer the possibility of something long-term? It's a completely absurd thing to say.
This has long been the problem, with the Israeli government never offering any perspective or hope on a long-term solution.
I think it is much easier to understand the situation if we take Netayahiu at his own words. He does not want any ceasefire, he has said so in the past, and he keeps saying that now. His actions are consistent with the fact that he does not want any ceasefire, as he tries to vandalize any prospects of a ceasefire, even a temporary one, e.g. by wowing to invade Rafah, even if there is a ceasefire.
The timing of this ban on Al Jazeera is also consistent with his behavior of trying to vandalize any ceasefire talks. Al Jazeera is a Qatar based media company, and Qatar is also the mediator in the ongoing talks. If Netanyahu wanted these talks to be successful he would not antagonize the mediator this way.
No, the Israeli government does not want a ceasefire, neither a permanent one, nor a temporary one. What they want is to make it look like they are making an effort, but only enough to improve the optics. There may be a faction inside the military which actually wants a ceasefire, so perhaps—and hopefully—a ceasefire can be negotiated despite vandalism attempts by the Israeli government, but I’m not hopeful.
In the meantime, I do take Netanyahu at his words, that he does not want a ceasefire, and he wants in invade Rafah, to continue the genocide, and to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.
I agree with most of your comment, but I'll push back on a couple of things:
> No, the Israeli government does not want a ceasefire, neither a permanent one, nor a temporary one.
All the things you wrote before that are things that Israel explicitly says, that it won't agree to a permanent ceasefire. But this statement is your personal opinion, and I don't think it's necessarily justified.
> In the meantime, I do take Netanyahu at his words, that he does not want a ceasefire, and he wants in invade Rafah, to continue the genocide, and to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.
I think your phrasing on this is misleading, since it implies that Netanyahu's words are that he wants to "continue a genocide" and "ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians". That is incorrect. Are words are that he will invade Rafah, the "continue the genocide/ethnic cleansing" thing are your words, not his. (I highly disagree with using those words, but either way, my point stands.)
> open a window for negotiating a permanent ceasefire.
Israeli government already very clearly and explicitly said that this window doesn't exist; that was my entire point. If he had said "we MAY still invade" or anything even slightly more qualified, then sure. But he didn't. Unless something went spectacularly wrong in translation, what I read is that he said in very clear terms that Israel will absolutely invade.
Whether that's just empty threads or not is a judgement call, but it's certainly not the language of good faith.
> But he didn't. Unless something went spectacularly wrong in translation, what I read is that he said in very clear terms that Israel will absolutely invade.
A temporary ceasefire also creates room for the opposition to create pressure to call for elections. That’s difficult to do while a war is ongoing.
I think what you're getting at - and which is the critical thing that seems to keep getting forgotten is the critical situation of the hostages. Everything from both sides is rotating around the hostages and we are still not yet in a classical war so much as an extreme hostage negotiation with many layers of force including jets, tanks, and infantry driving the negotiations.
Well I'm not really "getting at" anything per se, other than point out that the diplomatic behaviour of Netanyahu is not especially brilliant and is kind of sabotaging the negotiations.
It's impossible to disagree with -- we have to eliminate the terrorist military leadership that perpetrated a massacre. Why would they get a permanent cease fire?
To your point, in my varied Israeli media diet, it's well-understood in the entire Israeli press that Bibi went out of his way to torpedo it by saying this simple idea over and over. The only question is whether this show he has a spine (willing to lose an eventual vote just to defeat the terrorists), or that he's weak (willing to lose the hostages to retain his political position) A majority is weary of it because the implementation of the specifics is "we will work our way through the refugee camp and then ???" and they feel they've seen that plan before.
We can confirm this is from an unbiased perspective by noting that the protests kicked up a notch, and the TV presenter outed the anonymous diplomatic source as him, and then perusing original sourcing as to why. (to share something I learned re: sourcing, Haaretz will be seen as some interlocutors as a left-wing rag doing performances for overseas audiences, Times of Israel is better)
That seems very good faith and transparent. Bad faith would be saying, 'yeah we are happy with a permanent cease fire', getting all the hostages, and then continuing the assault.
Agree that the logic kind of pushes Hamas into keeping the hostages so not sure what Israel is expecting and most likely Israel has just marked the hostages as dead and will do anything to permanently destroy Hamas and show other potential beligerents that the deterrent strategy is concrete - even though that means a death sentence for most of those hostages still alive.
"transparently" or "allegedly and repeatedly" ? People have been protesting precisely because absolutely no progress have been made towards freeing the hostages, on the contrary. So obviously "return of the hostage" is a simple mantra to which Israeli government pay some lip service. What they actually plan to do with Hamas or Gaza people in general remains to be known, we have all reasons to question every single word coming from them.
By this point these aims appear to have evolved, and it now seems primarily concerned with encouraging what it refers to as "voluntary migration" from the Gaza Strip. And as a secondary aim, to incrementally expand the settlements in the West Bank (in the hopes of securing their eventual annexation).
> Israel reporting (not just Haaretz) reported huge, multiple, protests (it was at night there, early afternoon EST) due to Israel rejecting a cease fire.
Correcting you on this - the protests were not because Israel "rejected a cease fire".
For one thing, these are the same protests that happen every Saturday for the last few weeks of the war, continuing the "tradition" of protests that happened every Saturday for the ~10 months before the war.
For another, Israel didn't "reject" the ceasefire deal, Hamas did, or at least that's the way it is being talked about by Israel itself. There are many reasons to think Israel (and specifically Netanyahu) may have tried to tank the deal, but Hamas are the ones that eventually walked away.
You're right that there's been protests. The claims in the post, not sending a delegation, Bibi's anonymous statements being deanonymized, and the protests this weekend being intensified and a subject hostages families spoke about at the protests are all verifiable.
He's playing with the same rulebook of Slobodan Milošević - He's trying to make apparent to everybody that if he goes down, his own country will go down with him.
Frankly, it feels like the only hope for an end to this conflict is in the hands of the internal Israeli political opposition. I wouldn't be surprised if he's not stopped, we're gonna see the same... "approach" used with Palestinian people applied to whatever internal resistance is left.
it would be interesting to know to what extent they're aware of what's actually happening in Gaza.
Also, given the vilification we've seen of those expressing sympathy for a two-state solution or the general Palestinian population in the last 30 years, I'd be wary to take at face value any poll without being sure they were done with some sort of guarantee of anonymity.
I'm pretty sure you'd get even more one-sided approval results asking the British about the handling of the Ireland border during the troubles, or the Spanish on the repression of the Basque population after Zaragoza.
I'm pretty sure you're right on that last bit, but I don't think that wouldn't be reflecting the reality in UK or Spain, either. People are generally pretty quick to get into an "us vs them" mode when threatened, and, once there, will come up with increasingly ludicrous justifications even for the nastiest stuff.
And yes, in Israel right now it's probably somewhat affected by social (and sometimes legal) consequences of dissent... but those very social consequences are in and of themselves indicative of supermajority support. Point being, even if it is, say, 65% rather than 80%, that still means that opposition has no power, and so nothing is really in its hands at the moment.
> it would be interesting to know to what extent they're aware of what's actually happening in Gaza
I suspect that most don't know. I've sometimes seen articles in Times of Israel, and although they mention that lots of civilians are getting killed, they also write that this is Hamas health ministry counting, suggesting that the numbers would be made up.
Look here:
> At least 34,596 Palestinians have been killed [...] the Hamas-run health ministry in the Strip says.
> The figures cannot be independently verified and include at least 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle
So, Times of Israel writes as if information provided by IDF would be trustworthy (13 000 gunmen). But from what I've seen, when reading e.g. about the Lavender AI system and IDF's replies, then, the IDF generals and spokespeople lie a lot, and it's better to disregard anything they say.
Someone living in Israel, might be inclined to trust the IDF. However, looking at how many women have been killed, and realizing that a similar number of civilian men have been killed too -- then, more likely, 80%? 90%? of those "gunmen" were in fact civilians, but IDF happily counts each dead man as a terrorist.
(With that said, most Palestinians and AlJazeera readers don't know what Hamas did on October 7. Not all but most Israelis and Palestinians are blind to the bad things that happen to those in the other tribe, know only about the bad things that happened to themselves.)
I share similar view. Israel response is guided by prime minister’s personal political ambitions, while war is ongoing, the leader has more power and less of a chance to be replaced.
If I was Jewish I'd be very upset of what is being done in my name. The Israeli government, by insisting any criticism is antisemitic, is equating Judaism with its own actions. With their existing extreme, brazen and opportunistic behavior they're slowly mainstreaming antisemitism as outrage grows at the government and people accept being called 'antisemitic' if they oppose it. It's a tragedy for Jews.
I don't say this as a personal view, but as a logical inevitability.
I am Jewish, and that's pretty much how I feel. Israel wants criticism of itself to be seen as antisemitic, which means that anything Israel does that warrants criticism (e.g. killing children) ends up driving people towards antisemitism.
It’s a standard behaviour in theocracies. Being against the Al-Sauds means being against Islam (according to the Saudi government), other governments do that too. Being against Trump is being against Christianism (according to Republican fundamentalists, hopefully those won’t end up in the cabinet again).
The State props up the religion by normalising it and undermining its competition, and the religion props up the state by providing convenient pretexts and effective brainwashing mechanisms. I am not Jewish, but I find it particularly disgusting too. My sympathies to humanist Jews who are thrown into this nightmare.
> Being against the Al-Sauds means being against Islam (according to the Saudi government)
Pretty much every of the hundreds of millions of muslims who live outside Saudi Arabia (and probably a large number of those who live inside it) laugh at that, and despise the Saudi regime. If you do not believe me, try talking to some and asking them.
I know. The Iranians and the talibans do the same, the 3 are more or less incompatible and yet all pretend to be Islam in their country. It’s mostly for their captive audience. Islam in itself does not have to imply brutal dictatorship (this should not need saying).
As a practicing Muslim, yup I have no love for the Saudi regime (same with the Iranian regime, Taliban, etc.).
That being said you'll find a variety of opinions with the Muslim community both from Saudi and non-Saudi Muslims.
I imagine my relationship with KSA is similar to how some if not many US Jews feel with Israel. Just like I have an emotional attachment to Mecca and Medina which is currently under Saudi control I can understand how those among the Jewish diaspora may have an emotional attachment to Israel or believe in principle jewish self determination even when they vehemently oppose the government or have reservations about the modern state.
You can make a parallel with Russia Today being (effectively) banned in the US (albeit not via direct government action). Both are just mouthpieces of their respective masters and not a source of objective information.
That said, banning media presence in Gaza by Israel, and the overall hesitance of western media to report on the devastation is very disappointing.
The optics are interesting. People who have opinions on things are unlikely to change them due to this.
The interesting question is how many people do not have strong opinions and how this could affect them.
My guess is it also won't. Why would you be paying attention to news you haven't cared about up to now? The nonopinionated will likely not hear of this
What is worrying is what it’ll mean for the access to the West Bank and Gaza, as they’re currently the only international media outlet on the field, and are documenting various atrocities that are currently being looked at by the ICJ.
I don't feel good about this at all, but please keep in mind that there is still serious independent journalism in Israel. And it's doing very well. For example I can recommend pretty much anything published by Haaretz, or Barak Ravid. We should monitor the health of their domestic media should things start going un-democratic there. After all nothing can replace domestic media, this is painfully clear in the case of Russia.
There are also many other foreign journalists in Israel. Other than Al Jazeera there are no restrictions on foreign media from operating in Israel. Certainly not western foreign media.
There are indeed restrictions on western foreign media.
"Like all foreign news organizations operating in Israel, CNN’s Jerusalem bureau is subject to the rules of the Israel Defense Forces’s censor, which dictates subjects that are off-limits for news organizations to cover, and censors articles it deems unfit or unsafe to print. ... the military censor recently restricted eight subjects, including security cabinet meetings, information about hostages, and reporting on weapons captured by fighters in Gaza. In order to obtain a press pass in Israel, foreign reporters must sign a document agreeing to abide by the dictates of the censor."
This seems reasonable to me? If a western press were outside missile factories saying "this is the only place our super missiles are built!" I would expect the department of defence to block that information from being published...
My understanding is that they put a lot of pressure to block things and sometimes offer quid pro quo and sometimes even implant operatives in certain media positions, but legally they can't just come in and shut it down.
It’s very much legal in wartime, for exactly those sorts of purposes. Though I’m not sure we’ve tested the legality of it in this modern world where nobody actually formally declares war anymore—I don’t think it’s been attempted.
(Please don’t flame thinking I’m hardcore in support of a particular side in this war due to this post—you’ve very likely gotten the wrong impression. I’m commenting only on the narrow point that the US in fact can censor, including with prior restraint in certain circumstances, during war.)
The United States's last declaration of war was 83 years ago. Since then it's been all "police actions" or some such. What meaning does "during war" carry in the world of today?
There absolutely are restrictions. No journalists are allowed in Gaza, which is at odds with almost every other conflict in the past hundred years.
The stated reason is "to keep journalists safe". But journalists have risked their lives in many conflicts to bring the news to people, its their choice to risk their life or not. Unless one were to believe that all journalists biased against israel, there is no reason to restrict all journalists. Why not let in Christiane Amanpour, or many other western trained and western paid journalists?
Is this true? I do not think journalists are just allowed to the front lines of any war. The entire Gaza strip seems like one giant front line. There needs to be more journalists reporting but I think just allowing anyone to walk anywhere because they've got 'press' on their jacket is probably just going to end up with dead journalists considering journalists will want to be were the fighting is and will gravitate towards danger.
That seems very reductive to just say that as if it is a fact. 90% of the claims I've seen about the IDF end up being just nonsense. I did pay very close attention to what happened with Shireen Abu-Akleh and I think that was definitely not dealt with in a satisfactory way.
"not dealt with in a satisfactory way" is exactly the justification that IDF has used after many similar circumstances. Let's say they just don't care, since there are no repercussions.
> According to Reporters Without Borders' tally, at least 105 [journalists] have so far [since October 7th] been killed by Israeli airstrikes, rockets and gunfire, including at least 22 in the course of their work.
Were they killed "for sport" (implying deliberate targetting)? With almost 35,000 dead, 105 journalists is about 0.3% of that. Seems about right as "normal" casualties.
Look, I have a lot of criticism about not just this war, but how the Palestinian people have been treated over the last 60 years. But you can't just say things like "they're targetting journalists for sport" and then pivot to this type of stuff when pressed.
For those who aren't familiar with this, after the IDF shot American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to death, Israeli security forces attacked her funeral procession. There's a video of Israeli soldiers physically beating the pall bearers, and the coffin nearly falling to the ground.[0]
I’m not the person you were originally interacting with, so I wasn’t “pivoting” - sorry to cause confusion!
There’s not really any doubt that the press feel they’re targeted, I think some have gone on the record about it. I don’t know how well we can really test such a claim absent the cooperation of the IDF, which will never happen.
My comment is meant to be a joke about how some of this stuff is grimly academic. If your army has enough xenophobic misanthropes and incompetent reservists who are willing to shoot at anything not wearing their uniform, the notion of a class of people being “targeted” is rendered redundant.
The Hebrew-speaking hostages who were killed while trying to surrender were just one aspect of this conflict that someone writing a really dark antiwar comedy might have come up with.
> My comment is meant to be a joke about how some of this stuff is grimly academic.
Well it's not "academic" if it occupies quite a bit of the public debate, and it's also not helpful if it's actually fairly easy to debunk, and is just fuel for the "they will make up anything to make us look bad" line. All of that energy can and should be spent elsewhere.
We should also keep in mind the Palestinians refused to allow the IDF to conduct its own forensic investigation. That's partly why the was no definite conclusion from the investigation into the matter. You can't demand that Israel investigate and then not enable it to do so.
"The US State Department subsequently announced on July 4 that tests by independent ballistics experts under U.S. oversight were not conclusive about the gun it was fired from but that US officials have concluded that gunfire from Israeli positions most likely killed Akleh and that there was "no reason to believe" her shooting was intentional. US investigators had "full access"[138] to both IDF and PA investigations.[139][140][141] The Palestinian Public Prosecutor's Office disputes the US conclusion that the bullet cannot be matched to a gun and maintains its position that the killing was premeditated.[142] On July 5, the US stressed that it did not conduct its own probe, but the conclusion was a "summation" of investigations by the Palestinian Authority and Israel.[143]" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh#Subsequent_i...
War correspondents have been around since at least the French revolution.
Article 79 of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions provides for protection of war correspondents to the level of civilians.
> Israel’s military can continue barring foreign journalists from accessing the Gaza Strip, the High Court said Monday, citing ongoing security concerns after months in which only Gazans or correspondents accompanied by the army have been able to report from inside the enclave.
It's worth noting Qatar is the main benefactor of Al Jazeera, while also having funded Hamas for years, and hosting the Hamas leaders in their country. Al Jazeera in English is extremely different from al Jazeera in Arabic where journalism takes a back seat on any item somehow connected to Israel and especially Hamas. Like many of these seemingly weird decisions, there's more to it than "Israel bad".
> having funded Hamas for years, hosting the Hamas leaders in their country
Qatar did both of those things at the request of the US and Israel. Qatar serves as an intermediary between the US/Israel and Hamas, just as it served as an intermediary for talks between the US and the Taliban.
> Like many of these seemingly weird decisions, there's more to it than "Israel bad".
The motivation here is clearly to stop information about what is happening in Gaza from reaching the outside world. Al Jazeera is the only major international news agency with a significant presence on the ground there.
I'm not a fan of Al Jazeera myself but this sets a very bad precedent. Israel is winning the war but they are being very short sighted among the decisions they are making.
I wouldn't classify murdering 30k+ civilians (15k+ children), dropping bombs on entire families, being caught[0] executing civilians with drones in plain view, having israeli holocaust scholars and survivors describing israel's actions as "textbook-case of genocide"[1][2], the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state, as "winning", but you do you.
[0] "Note that this footage permits no room for "it was a mistake," showing repeated, specifically-targeted strikes on the unarmed and even wounded. The sort of behavior the ICJ explicitly forbid in the genocide ruling against Israel." https://x.com/Snowden/status/1770936325996155290
Winning is based on war aims. Israel's were the return of captives and removal of Hamas. It is further along in those aims than it was in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks; that's fairly defined as winning. (Taken to the extreme, Nazi Germany was winning WWII in 1940.)
> the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state
>> the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state
>Your other claims are true. This one is not.
I should have phrased that more precisely but I was just judging by what Israel's ministry of hasbara itself seems to be most concerned with and fears the most is people questioning israel's legitimacy. Combined with the sentiment that can be seen across social media where even regular folks have started seeing israel as a racist settler colonial project that has no legitimacy. But you're correct, my previous wording was too ambiguous since "the world" is too broad and can refer to too many things.
> the sentiment that can be seen across social media where even regular folks have started labelling israel as a racist settler colonial project that has no legitimacy
A majority of Americans support Israel's war [1]. An overwhelming majority believe Israel has a right to exist [2]. (The exception being 18 to 24-year olds, among whom 31% believe Israel does not.)
Israel has faced practically zero actual diplomatic consequences as a result of its war, with even those voting against it at the UN continuing to e.g. trade with and talk to it [3].
>A majority of Americans support Israel; that fraction has actually grown recently [1]
America is a special case and does not represent the regular folks of the world because it's home to the strongest israeli lobby on the planet and their supporters are mostly die-hard evangelicals for whom no evil israel does is too far.
Just listen to Jonathan Greenblatt's admission in the leaked[1] conversation where he verbatim states: “We have a major, major, major generational problem, All the polling I’ve seen: the ADL’s polling, ICC’s polling, independent polling, suggests that this is not a left, right gap folks. The issue of the United States’ support of Israel is not left and right. It is young and old.”
> America is a special case and does not represent the regular folks of the world
Israel's net favourability is down globally [1]. But there is zero evidence it's losing legitimacy; very few countries flipped sign. Instead, it was countries that didn't like Israel a bit disliking them more. (And again, not to the degree of carrying policy consequences.)
> issue of the United States’ support of Israel is not left and right. It is young and old
>Israel's net favourability is down globally [1]. But there is zero evidence it's losing legitimacy; very few countries flipped sign.
>zero evidence it's losing legitimacy
zero? "Colombia nation cuts ties with Israel amid Columbia University protest"[0]
Your judgment on this is rather shortsighted and there is more than enough evidence that israel is losing legitimacy. The people's opinion rarely turns into policy over night, even in democracies.
I've observed the sentiments on this particular issue for more than a decade and I can tell you that I've never seen such insane amount of regular folks, from diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, who fearlessly speak truth about israel in a manner that would make Menachem Begin tremble in his grave. I'm observing Israeli accounts and hasbara efforts and it's evident, from the content they produce, that they fear losing legitimacy and are acting accordingly e.g. investing a lot of money into gerrymandering/astroturfing[1]
Even dictators in the middle east, who are puppets of the US and Israel, are fearing of losing their own legitimacy because of what their own people perceive[2][3] as corrupt and subservient behavior to the empire. Those dictators are one arab spring away from getting brought to justice by their own people for their complicity in israel's genocide and they know it and they fear that.
Ukraine has cut diplomatic ties with Russia; the Baltic states have gone almost as far [1]. That doesn't mean they deny Russia's legitimacy as a state.
There has been zero change in recognition of Israel since October 7 [2]. (Belize and Bolivia also severed relations, by the way. And Turkey stopped trading. But again, very different from disagreement and denying legitimacy, and why I said practically zero diplomatic consequences, a threshold much lower than loss of legitimacy.)
> more than enough evidence that israel is losing legitimacy
Open to being convinced, but do you have a source?
> I've never seen such insane amount of regular folks, from diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, who fearlessly speak truth about israel
Plenty of batshit crazy stuff seems widespread on the internet.
> they fear losing legitimacy
Sure. They should. America fears China annexing Taiwan; that isn't evidence it's happening.
> dictators in the middle east, who are puppets of the US and Israel, are fearing of losing their own legitimacy
>> more than enough evidence that israel is losing legitimacy
>Open to being convinced, but do you have a source?
A state's legitimacy hinges not only on diplomatic relations with other states but also significantly on public perception and global discourse. This is particularly evident in the case of Israel, where many now view it as a racist colonial entity which is a danger to israel's legitimacy. As I've stated before, your judgment on this seems to be extremely shortsighted, you may dismiss the countless of crucial events of the past months but israelis certainly don't, they speak of the existential threat of "delegitimization" of israel and they are fighting it tooth an nail[0]. Why would they so fiercely fight the "delegitimization" of israel if they didn't see it as a real & existential threat?
>> I've never seen such insane amount of regular folks, from diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, who fearlessly speak truth about israel
>Plenty of batshit crazy stuff seems widespread on the internet.
Without "batshit crazy" people israel couldn't even survive, those "batshit crazy" evangelicals have immense influence on policy.
Furthermore, your dismissal is a bit flippant, the people I've seen speak out are sensible & reasonable; people from whom I would have never expected to hear harsh truths about the zionist colonial project.
>> they fear losing legitimacy
>Sure. They should. America fears China annexing Taiwan; that isn't evidence it's happening.
I don't think that is an adequate comparison. I'm not interested in writing an essay on how different those conflicts are, I'm pretty sure you know enough about that.
>> dictators in the middle east, who are puppets of the US and Israel, are fearing of losing their own legitimacy
>The ones who helped Israel repel Iran's attack?
Yes, the article[1] I linked above literally mentions that and I really don't see how your point diminishes in any way what I've argued for.
[0] The Diane and Guilford Foundation that grants this fellowship to you has as its stated mission "the prosperity and safety of Israel". Their grant focuses include "confronting the delegitimization of Israel" and to advance "Israel's geopolitical interests" https://x.com/birdelaire/status/1784413355236790382
That's just arguing semantics, many of those dynamics go hand in hand.
Anyway we can meet here again in 12 months and have a clearer picture of the consequences of the past months on israel's legitimacy. Thank you for the conversation.
> There has been zero change in recognition of Israel since October 7
It's not about recognition of Israel as a nation, it's about legitimacy of Israeli policies. The phrasing of "illegitimate pariah state" (not my phrasing) was rather unfortunate IMHO.
And I think it's very hard to deny that criticism of Israel's long-term policies of settlement has increasingly come under more and more scrutiny. Even your own links are demonstrating that. This is not new criticism: pretty much the entire world except Israel and the US has been saying for decades that the settlement policy is illegal and the major roadblock to peace.
> it's very hard to deny that criticism of Israel's long-term policies of settlement has increasingly come under more and more scrutiny
Oh absolutely. The legitimacy of Israel’s entire Palestine strategy has essentially crumbled. Its ability to conduct diplomatic relations has been impaired, and it’s got a massive perception problem across an entire generation.
But when someone says Israel is losing legitimacy, they are arguing that its continued existence as a state is under threat. When the Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden, they lost legitimacy with the United States. That’s what a country losing legitimacy means—it’s no longer treated like a real country. (I don’t necessarily think everyone who says this understands this. But that’s what those words mean.)
And in respect of Israel, that simply isn’t true. In terms of pariah status it isn’t even in the world’s top ten. Its support in America—its security guarantor—is surprisingly stable. It has nukes. This isn’t a view seriously held by anyone with any military or international relations credibility. That said, I see why it has appeal in a sort of karmic justice way. Because it’s not fun to watch e.g. a Sudanese warlord or junta in Myanmar commit war crimes and win.
I think you should be skeptical of the official state claims of war aims. It seems quite apparent that Israel's actions are working towards the goal of ethnic cleansing and land conquest.
With the amount of unexploded munitions they're leaving there, they're supplying the future resistance's rocket and IED systems for the next 75 years. Also creating enough orphans and resentment for another orphan army to replace the current one. Winning?
You're still conflating murdering civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure with "winning", but the resistance is quite safe in their tunnels and they are still fighting[0] back. It's also advisable to take Israel's casualty numbers with a huge grain of salt because they are contradictory to what's happening on the ground. Israel has not achieved any of its declared objectives (except for the Genocide)
1,475 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 690 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Banning Al Jazeera is arguably more humane than shooting a rocket into their offices, as was done by Israel in Gaza and the US Army in Baghdad.
#ZeroIsASpecialNumber
The intended spirit is curious, respectful conversation in which we learn from each other. Yes, that is hard when emotions run strong, but hard != impossible, and it's what the site rules ask: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
HN's moderation approach is (a) most political stories are off topic (this is at the top of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html for a reason), but a certain amount of political overlap is (b) inevitable—we learned that the hard way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251, and (c) in keeping with HN's organizing principle of intellectual curiosity.
Those are the principles, and they've been stable for a long time. Then there's which stories get to count as clearing the bar. That is also contentious, but a different question: it's about how to apply the principles, not what the principles should be.
We look for stories that contain significant new information [1], aren't too repetitive of recent discussion [2, 3], and have at least some chance of providing a foundation for intellectually curious conversation.
If you want to understand HN moderation, you need to understand the difference between those two questions—what the principles are vs. how to apply them in specific cases. It's the difference between the rules of a game and the calls made by refs on specific occasions.
The rules are stable and we're confident that they're right. Particular calls, not so much—we sometimes get them wrong. We're often willing to make adjustments in specific cases, especially when users persuade us that we got something wrong. But we're much less willing to change the rules themselves, because they've held up well over many years, and provide a good basis for running HN for its intended purpose [4].
As you can imagine, this question shows up often—especially on divisive topics like the OP—and I've written different versions of this answer many times. You can find a bunch of past explanations from threads about the current topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39618973. If you, or anyone, still have questions after reading the current post, I suggest looking at that link (and the links back from there). If after that you still have a question I haven't answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
[4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
https://rsf.org/en
https://rsf.org/en/country/israel
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edit: they appear to keep a list of mirrored news sites to circumvent censorship
https://github.com/RSF-RWB/collateralfreedom
(was hoping they had data available for their index, but have not found it yet)
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edit: the index has a download button in the bar at the top of the map
https://rsf.org/en/index
It does not provide source data, just the calculated results presented. There is also a methodology link, which points to different pages, depending on the year selected
Anyone know where to find what the current accurate count of number of journalists killed in the Gaza bombardment to date?
Last I heard it was 170.
There are also journalists who lived but their whole family died in the strikes.
At least until the war has subsided and independent orgs can gain access.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/04/09/hamas-run-gaza-healt...
This is the best meta-analysis I've seen: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gaza-fat...
Here is another that questions the statistics of the underlying reported data: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-securit...
>Gaza’s most widely quoted source on casualties is Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra. From an office at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, al-Qidra receives a constant flow of data from every hospital in the strip.
>Hospital administrators say they keep records of every wounded person occupying a bed and every dead body arriving at a morgue. They enter this data into a computerized system shared with al-Qidra and colleagues. According to screenshots hospital directors sent to AP, the system looks like a color-coded spreadsheet divided into categories: name, ID number, date of hospital entry, type of injury, condition.
Given this, it is entirely possible that there are additional dead that otherwise do not make it to the hospital morgue, those lost in rubble, those left behind, or cases were the violence was so great there is no body to note. To your question Hamas has made a point to be conservative and validate the death tolls, meaning that there are likely a great number of dead that don't reach these standards and are not counted.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-health-mini...
I feel like its very hard to draw any conclusions from these numbers without distinguishing between those cases (other than of course that war is a tragedy and innocents generally pay the price of war).
And no, it's unlikely these are journalists who picked up a gun - the IDF is dropping up to 2,000 Lbs bombs, and that's possibly how many are killed; however there have been many reports of journalists homes being targeted in direct strikes, at least one journalist I heard who's wife and children/whole family were killed but he wasn't.
It's not surprising in reality if it's 170+ journalists amongst 30,000+ killed.
There are videos of IDF soldiers harassing and brutally assaulting journalists, if that's any indication of the rules of engagement they subscribe to; I'm obviously not linking to any here on HN - this topic is already a minefield.
What HN is missing is going one layer up, where all of the various points brought up are catalogued-organized - and then allow a second round of discussion, perhaps with a more sophisticated UI/UX for people (from "both"/all sides) to contribute things like citations to evidence/data support the claim/statements, etc; and then those cited sources and data could also then be another layer deeper to constrain or contain further contextualized-narrowed conversation to the analysis of those sources.
Yes. One is a clear cut war crime, the other is not. (Or at least not in and of itself. There are of course factors that could make those civilian deaths be a war crime, but it depends on the circumstances.)
(To be clear, what i am saying is that intentionally targeting journalists (who have not picked up a gun and joined the fight) is an unambigious war crime. Killing journalists incidentally while targeting something else may or may not be a war crime depending on all sorts of factors)
I consider things that are war crimes to be much worse than things that are not. So i do think there is a big difference between the two scenarios.
I think its also important to recognize that this sort of thing has huge propaganda value for the Palestinian side, so its important to be careful when evaluating circumstantial evidence (and to be clear i would say that about any side in any war when it comes to information that makes their oponent look bad). As the saying goes, truth is the first casualty of war. It can be very difficult to know what is going on in the middle of a conflict.
It's also the case that more generally, Israel's practice of dropping 2000-pound bombs on civilian areas is a war crime. Any targeting of civilian areas has to weigh the military gain against the damage to civilians, and Israel is not doing that. It has emerged that Israel is knowingly targeting buildings where it knows hundreds of civilians will die, just to kill one individual who is suspected of being associated in some way with Hamas. Israel specifically targets suspected Hamas associates when they're at home. These people are identified based on a pattern of behavior and things like cell-phone data, without Israel even knowing whether they really are combatants.[0] In this conflict, Israel has completely taken the gloves off and quite obviously does not care about civilian casualties.
0. https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...
Al Jazeera getting banned tracks with the current Israel government not being a huge fan of journalism.
This very specific point is made almost always by Hamas and co to justify indiscriminate firing of rockets into populated areas. "No civilians because everyone has done military time or is a reservist, even women" is a very, very common point.
This list has 96 total in Gaza since the beginning of the war. So not 170.
Many of the names use this reference: "97 journalists and media workers were confirmed dead: 92 Palestinian, 2 Israeli, and 3 Lebanese."
https://cpj.org/2024/05/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-...
Is media worker always a journalist? The list seems in disagreement with the other list. Also if you work for Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad are you a journalist? Where does that line pass? Are IDF media people journalists or are they soldiers? Either way, even by the most generous interpretation not everyone on that list is a journalist. e.g. a "a sound engineer working for the Gaza’s Hamas government owned Al-Rai radio and freelancing for other local radio stations" is not a journalist.
I would trust the list a lot more if there was a reference to their work. Are they published journalists? The list says nothing about what media they worked for. Random e.g. on the list uses Al Jazeera as a reference: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/1/8/israel-war-...
"Gaza’s Government Media Office has confirmed the deaths of two more Palestinian journalists – Abdullah Baris and Muhammad Abu Dayer"
A journalist should mean "a person who writes for newspapers, magazines, or news websites or prepares news to be broadcast.", is there a list that includes what newpapers, magazines, or news websites those people worked for?
I drilled down the wikidata reference link from the article. Some of the people have some references to them being journalists. Others don't.
EDIT: Btw the list of clarifications in the bottom of the CPJ source is also interesting.
"CPJ has removed two Israeli journalists, Shai Regev and Ayelet Arnin, from this list after their outlets confirmed that the journalists were not on assignment to cover the music festival, nor did they have any opportunity to begin reporting on the attack by Hamas militants that killed them on October 7. CPJ’s global database of killed journalists includes only those who have been killed in connection with their work or where there is still some doubt that their death was work-related."
I don't see any evidence that the Gazans reported killed were killed in connection with their work.
"After receiving reports that Palestinian journalist and presenter Alaa Taher Al-Hassanat may have survived the attack thought to have killed her, CPJ has removed her name from its casualties list pending further investigation." - so people are sometimes reported killed but aren't.
"CPJ has removed a Palestinan man, Mohamed Khaireddine, from this list. Khaireddine was previously identified as a journalist, but his family later clarified that he was neither a journalist nor a media support worker." - so we have people reported as journalists by someone ... but aren't.
also: "The list below is CPJ’s most recent and preliminary account of journalist deaths in the war. Our database will not include all of these casualties until we have completed further investigations into the circumstances surrounding them."
EDIT2: This is a more in-depth analysis of the specific journalists and their affiliations from the Israeli side: https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/app/uploads/2024/02/E_013_...
Here's an example of how the IDF treats people who are clearly journalists:
Arguably behaviour of a Gestapo, no? The "wolves in clothing" aspect of this is quite the mind fuck once enough puzzle pieces come together and you realize what's realy going on; and where it makes sense that such deceit as a strategy, long-time, long-running, and long-form propaganda as a psychological manipulation strategy is the only way you can get to this stage of fascism that we're seeing with this current Israeli government.
Re: Interview with a journalist - https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6MFu5MNUoX/
Repeat behaviour, a pattern by Israel/IDF reminds me of this quotes that general go something like this: it's never the well-intentioned who want-demand censorship.
Conclusions,
We actually have the opportunity this time to stop this fascist regime in its tracks before 10s to 100s of millions of people die.
Unlike during NaZi Germany anyone who spoke up could quickly be visited by Gestapo, first reported on by 60%+ of their neighbours, and so were easily found.
Today with the internet that is still free enough - where information and evidence can rapidly be studied and curated before distribution - where there are simply too many people already who starting from the comfort of their own homes are able to see and share the truth, or at least present a different perspective - and ideally engage in long-form conversations and see if the person they're engaged with is intellectually honest or not, able to learn and incorporate new information when cognitive dissonance is triggered; there is still suppression going on as part of the "war"-control effort - an attempt to keep specific channels of indoctrinated ideologues kept in bubbles and "ideally" unexposed to questions and thought exercises that would start them down a line of thinking to shatter the veil of the propagandists.
BONUS: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C48GSaOuT5u/
- A short interview clip where it's mentioned that the Gaza bureau Chief of Al Jazeera - his wife, son, and daughter were killed in a strike; was it targeting the journalists' home and that's why it happened, or it was from their indiscriminante bombing of Gaza; which by the way, they're likely killing all of the hostages, too, right?
- So people who support these bombardments are also supporting killing their own citizens - "kill Hamas at all costs" seems to include murdering people that could have been you.
I commented here because the truth is not being told about the number of journalists killed in Gaza. That number is artificially inflated and used as propaganda. You're misdirecting to the family of Al Jazeera bureau chief. He was not killed by the way (you seem to imply he was). I don't know the circumstances related to that attack so I can't comment on it. Lots of innocent people were killed in this war and the blame lies squarely on Hamas.
Your comment about the hostages is intellectually unfair. Given Hamas' attack on Oct 7th it is Israel's right to eliminate that threat. Given the situation on the ground and the goal of minimizing casualties to your own side you're inevitably going to see something that looks very similar to what you've seen. There's no way to use massive military force against an enemy like Hamas under the conditions as they exist in Gaza without that.
But even ignoring that, do see you Hamas returning those hostages? There's precedence here, they've held Gilad Shalit for 5 years and they've been holding Avre Mengisto ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avera_Mengistu ) since 2014. Given the combination of the imperative to eliminate Hamas for Israel's security and the fact Hamas would not release hostages unless it is forced to then there's no a lot of wiggle room here. I'm pretty sure Israel is trying to avoid killing hostages which is probably why the Hamas leadership is still alive.
Your comparison to the Gestapo and the Nazis just shows me you know nothing about either. But hey, what else can we talk about on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day. If you do want to compare someone to the Nazis try Hamas, a much better fit.
Unfortunately you can't "see the truth" from the comfort of your home on TikTok. You're seeing what some people want you to focus on. You need to step back, look at the whole picture, not just specific events, and use some critical thinking skills to fit everything, not just one event, to a reasonable theory of what is going on.
If you're interesting in how Hamas treats journalists here's some resources:
https://www.amnesty.ca/human-rights-news/gaza-hamas-must-end...
https://www.amnesty.ca/human-rights-news/gaza-journalist-fac...
You're likely not going to get any "truth" from any Palestinian in Gaza because they risk retribution for not toeing the Hamas line.
Something is definitely amiss, see my peer comment
Probably different measuring / classifications at play too. For example, they may be including independent journalists in one set vs only recognized outlets in another.
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edit, they have the following note in the barometer
> Journalists are listed only if RSF has established that their death or imprisonment was linked to their journalistic activity. The list does not include journalists who were killed or imprisoned for reasons unrelated to their work or when the link to their work has not yet been confirmed.
https://rsf.org/en/barometer?type%5Btue%5D=tue&annee_start=2....
https://web.archive.org/web/20230817030548/https://rsf.org/e...
https://web.archive.org/web/20240505202537/https://rsf.org/e...
As far as I can tell, the only negative differences between these two reports are that a reporter was killed while investigating a murder by the murder suspect (who is now in jail and on trial), and that Biden “has come under criticism for failing to press US partners like Israel and Saudi Arabia on press freedom.” Falling ten places is a significant change (and is called out in the preface to the whole report)—are these two things really enough to justify such a change, or is the ranking sourced from more data not present in the report?
Here’s another story about Reporters Without Borders, about the first time I dug into one of their publications. In 2018, I read a report they published listing the six most dangerous countries for journalists: India, Yemen, Mexico, Syria, Afghanistan, and the United States. It described how in Mexico journalists are executed by cartels and organized crime, how journalists in Yemen die in prison due to mistreatment, how in Syria journalists were killed in airstrikes and taken hostage by Islamic militants, how in India Hindu nationalist mobs would run down journalists with trucks… and how in the US, four journalists were murdered by a stalker angry at a 2011 story the newspaper had published (subsequently jailed, tried, and found guilty of mass murder); and two more were killed by a falling tree. Somehow these two cases were enough to warrant the United States being called out with the other five countries. And it made the headlines everywhere, of course, because it was the midst of Donald Trump’s presidency.
The 2018 report you're talking about is here: https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/worldwilde_round-up.pdf. The list is not the most dangerous countries for journalists, but the most deadly - a straightforward measure of how many journalists were killed in each country. They publish this every year and the US is usually not on it, but this year someone murdered 4 journalists because of their reporting. I'm not sure how they could make this more objective, and I can't think of any metric that would include murders committed by angry men in cartels or angry men with SUVs in India but not angry men with shotguns in America.
Obviously the falling tree is not reflective of the journalistic climate in the country, but if they had been the only two the US would not have been listed. The mass shooting is what put it within the same neighborhood as Mexico and India.
Here's the latest one of these, which as usual does not feature America: https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/medias/file/2023/12/Bila....
Is that the case? Do the other countries’ entries in the report reflect that?
> I can't think of any metric that would include murders committed by angry men in cartels or angry men with SUVs in India but not angry men with shotguns in America.
One such metric would be whether a country’s justice system arrests and puts the perpetrator on trial, as happened with the American murder and presumably didn’t happen in the case of Mexican cartels or the Indian mob.
I agree that whether or not perpetrators are tried is relevant to the country, but I don't agree that it's relevant to this metric or to the dead journalists. They don't come back to life if their murderer is imprisoned, and the arrest rate doesn't have any impact on how dangerous it was to be a journalist that year. If they were to do a forward-looking report on the outlook for journalists in each country in the next 10 years or so, then I do think the effectiveness of the justice system might be relevant.
In the Indian cases named in the 2018 report, arrests were made: https://apnews.com/general-news-eb9e0dbcdbab4d93a2d90767c270..., https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/madhya-pradesh-journal....
The situation in Mexico was a bit more grim, but in at least one of the cases the police did make several arrests: https://cpj.org/data/people/mario-leonel-gomez-sanchez/.
Sorry I might have missed this.
I live in India, and I've never heard of nationalist mobs running down journalists (plural?!) with trucks.
Do you have any links to share? Google doesn't give me anything.
Nobody is immune not even the bureau chief of Al Jezeera.
2023-10-28: Wife, 15-year-old son, 7-year-old daughter, a grandson and seven other relatives killed in strike on refugee camp.
2023-12-15: Wounded by missile during filming, cameraman fatally wounded and bled to death with ambulances cut off.
2024-01-07: Eldest son, a journalist, killed in air strike.
2024-01-08: Two nephews killed.
2024-01-16: Evacuted to Egypt/Qatar with family. Probably would have been dead by now or with more dead family members if he remained.
Terror is an extremely good tool to dispose of foreign power that takes economic interest in an area, as it makes the endeavor unprofitable. But backfires horribly when it is a local hegemon.
There are four sides here: the Israeli government, Hamas, Israeli citizens, and Palestinian citizens. The first two are the active combatants. The third group were victims in October. The fourth group are still victims today. Killing unarmed and non-hostile citizens is absolutely immoral. Acting in such a reckless way that the majority of casualties are citizens is still immoral.
History will look harshly on Hamas for slaughtering thousands of Israeli citizens, and Israel for slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens. No rational person should think those citizens were at fault.
But what I think a lot about is the precursor years to these kinds of events. I have a deep well of sympathy for the people of Gaza who have long despised being governed by Hamas, but haven't been able to figure out how to throw them off. They knew Hamas was a disaster waiting to happen, they could see it coming, but still couldn't stop it. And just the same for the opposition in Israel, who have come so close to getting rid of Netanyahu and his ilk on so many occasions. They knew he was a disaster waiting to happen too.
I just recently had a friend tell me that many of their Israeli friends and family are leaving the country in disgust. But of course that means that they won't be there to vote against Netanyahu. By losing, he wins.
And some of the leaders of Hamas, watching from other countries as the people of Gaza are slaughtered, also get to enjoy the spectacle of young people in the west hoisting their flags and chanting their slogans. By losing, they win too.
But what's maddening is that seeing disasters waiting to happen doesn't make it easy to keep them from happening. It can be obvious that it's a disaster waiting to happen to have a presidential candidate in the US refuse to accept the results of elections, and openly plan for an authoritarian consolidation of power, and that might make it less likely to happen, it might make it easier to stop it, but still not easy.
Obvious encroaching disasters can still happen, and frequently do. I hate that!
Did you read some sort of an impressive proof for this fact prior to epistemically & cognitively (consciously &/or subconsciously) upgrading it to Objectively True? Because for something to be labeled as True in a strict system of logic, it requires a proof.
Note also that Consensus Belief of Truth is not identical to Proven Truth, even though it typically appears that way due to our cultural conditioning.
As articulated by Likud MK / Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel back in January:
This also explains why there are so many historical examples of people in the past seemingly be so obviously on the "wrong side of history". It's not that they didn't have largely the same morals than most people today, it's more a cognitive dissonance.
Imagine some foreign worker in europe/us, losing all his family this way until s/he literally has nothing left to lose, while the politicians in your new country brag about helping the killers of your family with more weapons and money.
Then when someone like that decides to bring the "war" to europe/us, and shoots/bombs/... some people, we all act as if "how is this possible?", "who could have radicalized him like that?" etc. Well, we did.
> I don't understand why you even want this topic on HackerNews.
I don't think I'd say 'want' (what I want is to spend Sunday afternoons working on something else), but the issue is the principles by which we moderate the site. If you look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267862 (edit: which I just posted in the current thread) and then https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39618973 and the links back from there, you should find plenty of explanation of the relevant points. If you (or anyone) want to familiarize yourself with those answers and still have a question I haven't addressed, I'd be happy to try.
If you see cases where this is not true, the most likely reason is that we haven't seen them yet. (We don't see everything that gets posted to HN, or even everything that gets posted to a large thread.) The thing to do then is flag the comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cflag) and/or to email us at hn@ycombinator.com in egregious cases.
I don't see why not. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it shouldn't be an option.
This attitude toward moderation is a large reason I do not participate on this site like I used to.
I hope it's not. Trolls aside, I've found HN's discussion on this topic to be interesting.
For example, this comment [1]. I hadn't considered belligerent status as a relevant factor before. (It's obvious once pointed out, and not a decisive factor. But it has weight nevertheless.)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40268043
That situations conflict which are already well understood to history are regurgitated as mysteries, and the knowledge system is practically useless to providing coherent access to previous experience and context.
When a mod has to write:
> If you look at <URL> and the links back from there, you should find more than enough (indeed, frequently repeated) explanations of the relevant points. If you (or anyone) want to familiarize yourself with those answers and still have a question I haven't addressed, I'd be happy to try.
Why has a new thread been created?
Why isn't this article and the attending thread of comments already situated within existing paths of discourse helping readers to assess the long prevailing (say 100 years) of understanding on the topic and identify, explore and integrate the outlying views? Why hasn't all the redundant and trivial junk of the previous thread been sifted and gleaned into salient regards for the situation?
Does any media apparatus help with us with knowing how what's happening today relates to what we understood yesterday and the days before?
Why is all news manifest as a reverse chronological list of forgettery, de-contextualized factoids and rediscovery of precedents among initiates?
A user posted it and other users upvoted it. Other users flagged it, but I chose to turn off the flags on this one, for reasons I've explained at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267862 and in many other places linked to there.
> Why isn't this article and the attending thread of comments already situated within existing paths of discourse
It is in the sense that the web already does that. I often post lists of related links from past HN discussion (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), but that's not doable when my hair is on fire and I'm also trying to keep my head above water.
This is the most interesting position i ve seen on the subject.
You are deceiving yourself, dang. You cherish every single second of it.
On the other hand, killing children is always wrong. Fucking stop it.
Since you brought up the "cycle of violence" argument, I remember Shaun making an excellent video[1] on the topic and also addressing that specific talking point.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xottY-7m3k&t=10s
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
[1] The History of "Socialist" Zionism | Leftist Zionists did the Nakba & founded Israel https://youtu.be/ehp9PZo4UR0
Thanks!
Do you shoot back?
Did you just hesitate? A bullet just scraped your wife on the side of the leg. Hesitated again? Son just got a bullet in his arm.
You fire three bullets. The baby is dead and so is the intruder.
Are you in the wrong here?
---
I'm not saying this is the same as what's happening in Israel and Gaza. But "always wrong", like many views on this conflict, is sorely lacking in nuance.
With thousands of Israelis and tens of thousands of Palestinians killed, ignoring nuance is disrespectful to their memories and will not lead to realistic progress.
Yes, what was done is wrong. It might be justified, even forgivable. But it's still wrong.
In your example, yes. Reality is more complicated; that usually gives reasonable people room to disagree.
Killing children is always wrong.
What makes this situation uniquely toxic is how America and most of its allies vehemently insist on total impunity for the crimes of one side.
Note: You don't need to reply and specify which. Apparently you've picked a side, as have I. No point debating that here I think. But each side would claim that the other is committing war crimes and inhuman acts and not being held to account.
No, they do not. There are still less full aid trucks even after the murder of the World kitchen volunteers massively increased international pressure on Israel to let aid in.
Northern Gaza is now in full blown famine as defined by top US officials that define famine, with southern Gaza on the brink of famine, as all farming infastructure inside gaza gas has now been destroyed. They need drastically more full trucks than the the 500/day that was the norm before the war started, not drastically fewer.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-aid-coordinator-says-israel...
https://www.google.com/search?q=kerem+shalom+crossing
If anything I'd want to see less current politics on HN
In Northern Ireland and the Balkans international intervention almost certainly saved lives and helped bring about peace and relative stability. How long had they been fighting? There's probably some more examples. So I'd argue that it's not useless either.
And Jewish and Israeli (and by extension, Palestinian) history is strongly connected to the history of 19th and 20th century Europe in all sorts of ways, and I don't think you can just cleanly separate that.
Of course on a personal level I can imagine people reading the news, feeling powerless to change anything, and just not being interested. That's fine. But on a governmental/policy level, I do think we (the world) needs to stay engaged. Not just here, but also elsewhere with long-running issues. It's not our problem to solve, no, but we can facilitate and help.
That's only true if you view the "Israeli government" and "Hamas" as the only sides that exist. That is not the case; you don't need to choose either of them.
Now, of course it's true that everyone has legitimate grievances here for all sorts of reasons, an it's also true that forever banging on about every little thing anyone has ever done wrong will lead to another 100 years of suffering. But that doesn't mean we (broad international community) can't and shouldn't try. Even if it fails, I think it was worth the effort to try.
Extreme voices tend to drown out everyone else. I mean, what type of reasonable person has the energy and will to involve themselves in this toxic quagmire, right? The type of people willing to do so are strongly biased to people with Very Strong Views.
Trying to organise a protest around unfocused nuanced views is hard. "Free Palestine" is easy and straight-forward. "Hamas is wrong, but Israel should offer a solution for the people of Gaza that does not involve a de-facto concentration camp under military control" doesn't really fit on a billboard.
And lets also be realistic: yes, "both sides" have blame, but "both sides have blame" does not mean "both sides are equivalent". The people of Gaza are by and large powerless, and have been for a long time. The initiative for any solution really rests primarily on the Israeli side, who have been controlling much of life in Gaza for a long time now. The situation in Gaza and that Israel has never seriously offered any solution is frankly just disgraceful, and could only have ended in violence one way or the other sooner or later.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/26/israel-not-complying-wor...
Israel is being investigated by the ICJ. Calling its war genocide is premature. But rejecting the claim outright is unfounded as well.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/01/south-africas-genocide-...
This is false and shows a misunderstanding. Choose better information sources.
ICJ only decided whether it is plausible to allow South Africa to continue with this process on behalf of Gaza. It has nothing to do with the court's opinion on the plausibility of the -underlying- case but on the questioned legality of the process itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq9MB9t7WlI
[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240430-yes-it-is-genocid...
"In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly."
Additionally "On 28 March 2024, following a second request for additional measures, the ICJ ordered new emergency measures, given the deterioration in the situation since the initial ruling: ordering Israel to ensure basic food supplies, without delay, as Gazans face famine and starvation"
This is from the Wikipedia. Have you been living under a rock?
Israel is actively blocking delivery of food to the civilian population and has already in one case caused a massacre of people trying to get their hands on basic supplies. At the same time, a minister in the government is publicly calling for occupying Gaza and "motivating" civilians to "voluntarily" leave.
If after reading all this your sincere analysis is move along nothing to see here, I would advise you to recheck the word sincere in the dictionary.
Shame!
For whatever reason most people don't get that. I came to live in Germany around 15 years ago during the economic crisis and was pretty shocked that it was normal to say in public that Greeks are lazy. I couldn't understand the difference between that and "Jews are evil" and similar rhetoric that led to the Holocaust. And that in the country that should've learned something from the past. This time around I am not surprised they are fully behind this genocide simply because it's more convenient to look the other way.
Shame.
No, they had a very good reason: They hate Jews and do not believe Jews have any right to national sovereignty in their own land.
No - they just don't happen agree with them on the question of whose land it is.
You don't have to agree with their historical reading of the situation, of course. But it's really quite straightforward and simple, really. And if people are firing rockets at you -- it's probably best not to invent outlandish and unreal explanations for why they're doing so.
In any case -- pretending that the rest of the world obviously and unquestionably accepts the idea that this is all "Jewish land" (now or in 1947) -- or that if they don't, it's because the simply hate Jews, or won't accept the idea of Israel existing in any form -- definitely isn't helpful.
(And no, I'm not justifying or "explaining" the firing of rockets at anyone - please don't go there).
The court ruled that South Africa had plausible standing to bring a case defending Gazans, not that there was plausible genocide. Bringing wikipedia as a source about a very hot topic doesn't lend any support to your argument.
My post was made in reply to the claim that the genocide "accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis"
Obviously not the case - South Africa made the exact claim and the court decided that the acts alleged fall under the provisions of the genocide convention. So the only ridiculous thing void of sincere analysis is claiming there is nothing to discuss.
Her words, direct quote: it did emphasize in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right of being protected from genocide. Or do you think that genocide is a ridiculous accusation but the risk of harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide has merit? Because that would be laughable -- what is the consequence of losing your right to the protection of genocide if not genocide itself? So the case has merit and it's very far away from lacking serious analysis. Quite the opposite.
She very clearly stated, they didn't find or make any ruling on the plausibility of genocide, just that it was plausible that they might not be able to be protected in a case where a genocide were to happen.
They couldn't honestly claim there was any merit to the claim of genocide, but people were screaming for blood so they did this doublespeak thing where if you squint you can claim they 100% claim genocide is happening to mollify the anti-semites while not actually saying anything.
Essentially, she said, "we haven't found a genocide, but were a genocide to be attempted, it would be difficult to prevent" which is true in every single case of war, especially asymmetric warfare, where one side is much stronger than the other.
If someone were to bring a case against the US back in 2004 following the invasion of Iraq a similar finding would be totally within reason... but does anyone claim NATO committed genocide? No, but it's plausible that that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Iraqi right to be protected from genocide.
Here is again what she said:
"it did emphasize in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right of being protected from genocide"
What happens if there is harm to your right to be protected from genocide? Someone steals your Nintendo Switch?
So the claim has merit. To say the claim of genocide is "ridiculous" is in itself ridiculous.
Lets make an analogy: Right now you have the the right to freedom of speech, if someone would threaten to sew your mouth shut, there is now a plausible risk of harm to your right to free speech. Has your right been taken away yet? No, you are still able to speak freely, but if they were to act on that threat and accomplish their goal now that risk is realized.
It's not a perfect analogy, but so too here, the ICJ ruling didn't state that a genocide is plausibly happening, rather that due to the power imbalance it would be difficult to prevent a genocide from happening, should Israel attempt it.
You wrote a lot but for someone so adept in understanding others, you have failed multiple times to answer a very simple question, so I will ask it once again:
What happens if there is harm to your right to be protected from genocide?
To rephrase your question with that in mind: What happens if there is an increased risk of harm to your right to be protected from genocide?
My answer: Sounds like you've found yourself in a dangerous situation. You might be in a war zone perhaps...
But again, that doesn't mean you're being "genocided" rather it means there is increased possibility of genocide. Which as I've stated multiple times, is true whenever there is a conflict, and that risk increases with the scale of the conflict, but just because the risk increases it doesn't mean that the genocide is actually happening.
Now I'd like to ask you a question or two:
What happens if there is harm to your right to free speech?
What happens if there is harm to your right to assembly? Does it mean you can't assemble at all? or rather someone is worried that maybe your right to assemble is being removed?
What happens if there is harm to your ability to sit down? Are you unable to sit down? Or maybe just it will be more difficult.
In this case the ICJ is saying "everyone has a right to be protected from genocide, and it's possible that if Israel isn't careful they may find themselves committing such an atrocity against the gazan population" No where does she say such a atrocity is being carried out, in fact she's very clear in her next sentence to say such an interpretation of her words and the court's findings is totally invalid. You can attempt to insert such meaning into her words but she's very careful to clearly state such an attempt is false and misleading.
I will now continue my education on genocide by listening what a Holocaust survivor has to say about it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AxLtxX7kPcU
Bringing a random YouTube video of someone who was 7 years old when he experienced the war doesn’t do anything for your argument except show that you’re arguing in bad faith. It’s totally irrelevant. Additionally we have many more holocaust survivors who were older saying the exact opposite, so the fact that you have one who decided to capitalize on his nazi experience for his 15 minutes of fame doesn’t really help you.
And finally I’ll add: research Kapos, his word likely means even less. (Kinda like the other famous holocaust survivor who is funding a lot of the college campus protests)
You haven't told us anything about the guy -- other than that he disagrees with you, and therefore must be shady character.
If you're going to smear a Holocaust survivor, you need to at least attempt to provide some form of substantiation up front.
I also don't think I need to do anything, I didn't say he was shady or make any attempt at a smear, I'm just stating that if you look into his actual story you might take his feelings here with a grain or two of salt. Hint: according to his own account, he spent about as much time interacting with genocide and nazis as my own grandparents who also fled and hid during the war did. He's also made a very big name for himself as the "anti-zionist holocaust survivor". The point is that this is one child's opinion, there are many other people, who also survived the war and are ardent zionists who vehemently disagree with him. He's by no means an expert on this topic so I don't understand why he's even being discussed.
I will not engage anymore on him, as it's totally irrelevant to the discussion which was "did the ICJ rule that Israel is committing genocide", the answer, clearly is no. and thus instead we have locallost attempting to save his argument by whatabouting to other topics, like the opinions of others.
That's all you got?
You were clearly attempting to impugn his character and credibility. Defamatory statements against living persons must be backed up with hard evidence. Otherwise it's slander.
In this case, against a Holocaust survivor no less.
Again, I don't see any response to anything substantial I've said, you're now just attempting to defame and question my credibility.
Why don't we get back on topic? According to the ICJ, as of yet, they've made no ruling about the existence of genocide in Gaza or Israel, to make such a claim in their name is false and, at this point, a intentional attempt at spreading misinformation.
Smearing Holocaust survivors just because you disagree with them is poor taste.
I'll answer again for you: the consequence of the harm to your protection of genocide is the possibility of genocide happening... like in every single war. But you didn't suffer a genocide and again, the judge and the ICJ choose their words very carefully (as can see in the video, she is being very deliberate). To answer in terms you will understand: On an individual level, yes, it is more akin to having your nintendo switch stolen vs an actual genocide happening.
As always in these conversations nothing of substance was reached, you had no interest in engaging in a curious manner and instead wanted to spread your own disinformation, when you were confronted with the truth you continued to misinterpret reality to your own twisted purpose, once even that failed you have started to attack my character.
I'm done being maligned and attacked, I hope you consider having some empathy for those who have been the subject of an attempted genocide and ethnic cleansing in nearly every single generation for the last 2000 years. Instead of siding with those who would commit another atrocity.
I thought the comparison would make you stop and think about what you're actually saying. But when Palestinians have been successfully dehumanized then it becomes easy to compare their "risk of harm of genocide" to a simple case of stolen property.
Yes, after killing tens of thousands of women and children in six months, destroying universities and hospitals so it erases all culture and make life impossible, Israel is the real victim here. I have failed to account for how bad they must feel as they commit those atrocities. Maybe someone from the IDF can in 20 years make a movie about how they can't sleep and can't remember their past, let's call it Tango with Ahmed.
I would say the victim is the one who didn't start the war, who just wants their civilians back, who has shown enormous restraint compared to literally every other army in the world, who would be happy to end the war today if those who started it surrendered, who has attempted to make peace at every turn and who even while they're being bomb are bringing in aid for the very people who are trying to kill them.
I wouldn't call the victims the one's who cheered and desecrated bodies at the start of the war, who continue to support the war no matter the cost to their own families, who could have easily ended the war by simply returning the hostages that they are keeping in their own homes. Victims aren't those who have their children put on plays where they simulate capturing and killing jewish kids. A victim isn't someone who when warned about an impending bomb responds by saying "kill me and all my children". A victim isn't someone who actively and happily participates in and perpetuates a society that kills minorities.
I will also point out that you continue to lead off topic ever since I’ve shown you that you were wrong to claim the ICJ has ruled that a genocide was being committed. In fact your only argument is to make (in your own words) grotesque comparisons in someone machiavellian attempt to catch me in a moral quandary.
By my calculations this discussion is over. You can keep pretending that you alone understand what the judge said, and she herself doesn’t, but don’t expect anyone to take you seriously.
I also never claimed that risk of losing your right to be protected from genocide is like getting your Nintendo Switch stolen, it was just a pointer for you to think about what it actually would mean. And it would mean genocide, not some minor thing like you pretend it to be. Oh well, they lost their right to be protected from genocide, what else is on the news - oh look we bombed a kindergarten, we are further progressing in our goals to live a peaceful life.
But speaking of holes, I guess I discounted the large void between your ears.
As I re-read this, I struggle to understand what this means; everything done during war time falls under the provisions of the Genocide Convention, that doesn't mean that genocide is happening, but rather again, that it's a war and people are being killed. Its kinda like calling an airstrike against a military target "premediated murder in the first degree" or calling all soldiers who have killed the enemy serial killers.
If you squint and remove all context the labels apply but they're meaningless under our current understanding of those words.
> I also never claimed that risk of losing your right to be protected from genocide is like getting your Nintendo Switch stolen, it was just a pointer for you to think about what it actually would mean.
"I never made the comparison, I just made the comparison because I was conducting a social experiment" Ok, I'll let you continue trying to figure out what you mean by that.
If we go back to your original comment, you also made a number of false statements in there:
> Israel is actively blocking delivery of food to the civilian population and has already in one case caused a massacre of people trying to get their hands on basic supplies.
This is totally false. Israel is not actively blocking delivery of food and the case of a massacre can be clearly seen in video to be caused by people trampling each other after attempting to rush at a platoon of soldiers.
> At the same time, a minister in the government is publicly calling for occupying Gaza and "motivating" civilians to "voluntarily" leave.
Would you care to explain what specifically is problematic about saying that terrorists should be encouraged to move their terror activities away from Israel? Or what is problematic about Israel governing an area that they've shown they can govern in a much more democratic and fair way than the currently elected suicidal death cult? Were you upset when the US occupied Germany for 11 years? and continued to have a large presence for the next 30 years?
> But speaking of holes, I guess I discounted the large void between your ears.
Insults are always used by those who know they've lost. Thank you for admitting defeat.
It's funny how I say "minister 'motivating' civilians" and you ask and replace civilians with terrorists. Wasn't there an old looney tunes cartoon with a not very bright character picking up a can of gasoline and blowing himself up after saying g-a-s what a strange way to write water? I guess he won at being stupid, which seems to be a common theme here. Congratulations on your victory.
By showing your inability to have a civil discussion you've proven you don't have a leg to stand on.
Is that what you believe?
That's a pretty grotesque thing to say, even if it's not really clear what it means.
Instead of failed attempts to cast insults and innuendos why don't you actually address the discussion.
Admit that you made a grotesque comparison in an attempt to prove your moral superiority but instead got caught in your own hubris. Admit that you're making up quotes left and right so you can try to salvage some part of your argument, admit that you're putting words in other peoples mouths so you can build up strawmen to attack. Admit that every time you're shown you're wrong you refuse to even acknowledge it and instead start hurling insults as if that will make people forget the preposterous arguments you attempted. Admit that not once in this entire discussion did you approach it with even an ounce of curiosity, and instead assumed malice at every step. Then we can continue to have some sort of civil discussion, otherwise you're tilting at windmills and it makes you look foolish.
You've broken nearly every hn guideline for good discussion and continue to fume, it might be time to step back and step away for a bit.
Also me: I will get asked about civilians and reply with what's wrong if terrorists are killed
Again me: it's disappointing we can't keep the discussion civil
I can't be stopped: I WON THE DISCUSSION Y'ALL AND YOU LACK THE INTELLECTUAL CURIOTISY CURIOTI CURIOSITY
Recently I damaged a bicycle I really like and got depressed about it - but then I thought, you know I am not in Gaza sleeping in a tent as a child with both my parents dead and my sister with legs amputated, hoping I will not starve to death. Or trying to survive the Holocaust, or something similar. It helps in a weird way appreciate how good you have it. Unlike other people. Like war criminals whose future is a one way ticket to the Hague.
The last sentence really defines you. You feel mighty and powerful don't you, you know it's your time and nothing can stop you. Here's a song you can sing to celebrate this accomplishment:
https://youtu.be/_tUctFu46_c?feature=shared
I’m sorry you’re feeling so hurt and upset, hopefully you’ll heed my well intentioned advice and take a sabbatical from your culture war, just to recharge and gain perspective.
As long as we’re giving each other extra curricular activities I suggest you read this book: https://www.amazon.com/High-Conflict-Why-Get-Trapped/dp/1982...
I promise you it’ll make you a happier less brooding person.
As there doesn’t seem to be anything productive happening here, this my au revoir. I hope you find the internal peace you’re so sorely missing.
Also me: I am the world renowned expert on letting go
For the people that have trouble getting things, where it says "me" it's actually meant "you"
If you break the site guidelines like this again on HN, we will have to ban you, no matter how provocative someone else's comments are or you feel they are.
Absolutely no more of this, please.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If you break the site guidelines like this again on HN, we will have to ban you, no matter how provocative someone else's comments are or you feel they are.
Absolutely no more of this, please.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Seriously? You have been accusing me of anti-semitism but now you play straight into a harmful and anti-semitic conspiracy theory about George Soros, with hints to another very damaging and equally anti-semitic conspiracy theory about Cultural Marxism.
For what it is worth, George Soros does not fund any of the student movements responsible for the pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide encampments. One of the charities he helps fund has awarded grants to two student organization which the New York Post has claimed (but now proven) to be involved in the protests[1]. This is several degrees of separations, and the link is on flaky grounds.
Kapos’ interview above was excellent. He describes visiting another holocaust survivor [T=00:05:17] in Israel and being shocked at how racist she was:
> Yet she came back to Israel, and she was as racist as the rest of them, against the Palestinians.
> I think this has to do with the extreme propaganda, and the dehumanization. Zionism was a very unfortunate and sad development for the Jewish people. It broke a much longer tradition of always being on the side of the oppressed, not the oppressor. And the charitable nature of Judaism and the humanity they advocate, into a kind of exceptionalism and nationalism. And in practical terms the impossible project of taking over another people’s country.
> So when I visited them—that was my first brush of Zionism—I was completely shocked—despite their experiences during the Holocaust—they were racist, against the Palestinians. I couldn’t understand it, and I can’t understand it, but they were, and there is no denying it. And I found that racism was prevailing generally in Israel. And I turned strongly against that.
1: https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/may/02/fact-checking...
So what you are trying to claim is that the World Court never explicitly claimed, in direct words, that some of South Africa’s allegations for genocide was plausible, therefor the court never ruled that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide, and therefor, we have no authority claiming that Israel is committing genocide, and therefor, any claims of Israel committing genocide are unfounded.
First of all I want to address how weak this line of argument is. The ICJ is not the only authority which has claimed plausible genocide (yes, the ICJ did claim that; I’ll come back to that), second, we have plenty of evidence which indicts Israel for the crime of genocide, including, but not limited to South Africa’s filing at the ICJ (see sources on Wikipedia). Even if we take your or Joan Donoghue’s interpretation at face value, raxxorraxor’s claim that “the accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis and judgement” is it self pretty much wrong.
Second, the court did rule that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide, by any reasonable interpretation of the ruling. Even though most people cite Article IV paragraph 54 (See [1]; quoted above) as the smoking gun (which it absolutely is) equally relevant is Article II Paragraphs 30-32 where the court decides it has jurisdiction over the case, citing Article IX of the Genocide Convention. The court would not have done that if it did not think it was plausible that Israel were violating the terms of the Genocide Convention. In other words, the court ruled that some of South Africa’s accusations were plausible. And put yet another way, the court decided that it is plausible that Israel is committing the crime of Genocide.
The problem with your interpretation, and your citing of Joan Donoghue’s answer in this context, is that she is actually answering a question relating to the provisional measures ordered by the court on January 26th 2024 (which is what Article IV is all about), and again on March 28th 2024. My personal opinion is that by answering the question this way she is actually being willfully misleading. It is beyond a doubt that the court decided that some of the accusations were plausible, her clarifying and stating that technically the court only decided on provisional measures, is obscuring the fact that it did rule to start investigating Israel for the crime of Genocide.
ICJ member often rules in alignment with their nation’s foreign policy, and Joan Donoghue has shown that to be the case under her presidency, I actually find it a miracle that the court ruled in favor of South Africa under her presidency. My personal belief is that the case against Israel is very obvious, and there was no way the court could rule any other way. This interview is she rectifying US foreign policy, and offering a plausible deniability to what the court actually ruled.
1: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192...
Can you provide substantiation for the last of these claims, at least?
I haven't seen all of this user's comment history -- but I've seen a good chunk of it, and I haven't seen anything that even remotely suggests that they are calling for the ethnic cleansing of anyone from anywhere.
Read Paragraph 62: "The Court is not called upon, for the purposes of its decision on the request for the indication of provisional measures, to establish the existence of breaches of obligations under the Genocide Convention, but to determine whether the circumstances require the indication of provisional measures for the protection of rights under that instrument."
The preservation of rights is a procedural matter for the court; they are measures to prevent prejudice against the case, and to prevent the irreparable harms claimed by the plaintiff. The facts under consideration there are viewed in the light favorable to the movant, because they are not in fact a disposition of the question. ["preservation of rights" filetype:pdf] is a good search here.
The ICJ did not in fact find that Israel had engaged in acts of genocide.
If you use a casual or non-legal definition of "genocide" --- "any campaign of ethnically targeted mass violence" seems like a reasonable one --- this is a live argument. But if you're going to cite chapter and verse from the decision and the Genocide Convention, I think you're clearly on the wrong side of the argument?
I—nor any uptread posts I read—claimed that the court found and ruled that Israel had engaged in Genocide. Merely that the court found it was plausible. I stand by these words, that the court did indeed find it plausible.
As I understand it everything in Article IV (including Paragraph 62) in the January 26 order was relating to the preliminary measures as requested by South Africa. Everything ruled there would be without prejudges with respect to the final ruling, as Article IV’s primary function is to prevent the Palestinian people from genocide (a function it has utterly failed at in my frank opinion).
Article II is, however, very relevant in the context of arguing whether the World Court finds the genocide accusation plausible. Article II is all about establishing jurisdiction, which it does by establishing that Article IX of the Genocide Convention applies. Article IX says:
> Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.
Article III of the Genocide convention lists every crime which is punishable by the convention, including (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; and (e) Complicity in genocide.
By establishing jurisdiction the case the court must find that Article IX applies, and to find that Article IX applies, it must show that it believes Israels conduct may be in violation of the genocide convention. Or as the ruling says (Paragraphs 19-20):
> To determine whether a dispute exists in the present case, the Court cannot limit itself to noting that one of the Parties maintains that the Convention applies, while the other denies it
> Since South Africa has invoked as the basis of the Court’s jurisdiction the compromissory clause of the Genocide Convention, the Court must also ascertain, at the present stage of the proceedings, whether it appears that the acts and omissions complained of by the Applicant are capable of falling within the scope of that convention ratione materiae.
In other words, if the court would not believe that Israel’s conduct (as described by South Africa) does not fall inside the Genocide Convention, then the court would reject the case on the grounds that it does not have jurisdiction.
Note, I think this was most of Israel’s legal defense, that it was trying to establish that their conduct does indeed not fall within the Genocide Convention.
The crucial finding (as my limited mind understands it) is then in Paragraph 30:
> In the Court’s view, at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the Convention.
To my ears, this sounds like—while the court hasn’t issued a final ruling—it does indeed find it plausible that Israel is committing a genocide.
EDIT: The only other reading I can entertain is that the court believes none of the accusations brought by South Africa which fall under Article III (a) of the Genocide Convention are plausible, and merely some of the accusations relating to Article III (b)-(e) apply. In which case, I stand corrected.
What you're reading about is the ICJ equivalent of a preliminary injunction. An injunction is a court order issued before the case is decided. Injunctions are based on balancing tests: some likelihood of irreparable harm must exist, and some likelihood that the movant will succeed at trial must exist. The more harm you demonstrate, the less likelihood you need to demonstrate, and vice versa.
Here, the harm South Africa is concerned about is of the gravest type possible.
Again: it is just not accurate to suggest that the ICJ has determined Israel has committed acts of genocide. It's "not even wrong"; the decision you're referring to is an interim provisional ruling.
I specifically said nobody is trying to argue that the court has ruled one way or the other. Merely that by accepting the case, the court did view some of the actions as capable of falling inside the Convention.
We are basically arguing over what the word plausible means here. I still stand by my words that the word applies to the courts believes as stated by the ruling.
If you do some reading on the "Plausibility" standard in the ICJ --- it's a recent development --- I think you're going to find it's a pretty low bar.
I guess I see one more scenario here, where the court did not find it plausible. That would be that the court found South Africa’s accusations to plausibly fall under the Genocide Convention, but did not look at the credibility of the accusations. However in the rulings of the preliminary measures, they do state that the risk of genocide inflicted on the Palestinian people was plausible, so frankly, I don’t think the court found the accusations implausible.
In any case, I guess if that is the case, I stand corrected, however given the mountain of evidence given by South Africa, and the fact the people don’t dispute the authenticity of those evidence, the fact that the court found the accusation plausibly fall under the Genocide Conention is almost identical to the statement that the court found the accusations plausible. The nuance here is so small that it is completely irrelevant.
I’m hardly the only one which has this reading of the court order[1]. Here is a human rights lawyer speaking with the Times[2] which describes the ruling as:
> Having the World Court say to the state of Israel that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide will be heard by the rest of the international community, even if Netanyahu doesn’t want to hear it,
Like I said earlier we are actually arguing about the meaning of “plausible”. I’m using this word in a non-legal way while applying it to the legal definition of genocide. The ICJ on the other hand uses it in a legal way, for them plausibility has a legally defined meaning, and using it must meet some specific standard[3].
The conduct in question here is the general behavior of Israel in Gaza, which some of our ancestors say:
> Its not a genocide by any definition
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40268163
or:
> I would not agree this constitutes genocide.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40273408
they are talking about Israel’s general conduct.
South Africa brought in its case many examples of general conduct and accused them of violating the Genocide Convention. Israel—in its defense—did not deny this conduct, but rather stated they weren’t Genocidal, and didn’t violate the Convention, and therefore the Court had no jurisdiction over the case. The court ruled that these allegations “appear to be capable” of falling under the Convention. Meaning that the court thinks that the same conduct we are arguing whether constitutes a Genocide, the ICJ has said: “appears to be capable” of falling under the legal definition of Genocide.
When I, or the NPR, or the BBC[4] say the ICJ “decided there was a plausible case under the 1948 Genocide Convention,” we are using the world plausible in laypeople terms. So I stand by what I said. If we use the legal definition of Genocide, the ICJ has ruled the conduct of Israel in Gaza can plausibly be described as Genocide.
1: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/26/1227078791/icj-israel-genocid...
2: https://time.com/6588931/icj-ruling-israel-genocidal-acts-ga...
3: https://opiniojuris.org/2024/04/05/the-icjs-findings-on-plau...
4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68108260
What you're saying now is "because I got the injunction, I won the case". Obviously, no.
"Plausibility" at the ICJ is a technical term, part of a 3-part test to determine if any preliminary orders can be issued ("in preservation of rights") at all in a case:
"What is required is something more than assertion but less than proof; in other words, the party must show that there is at least a reasonable possibility that the right it claims exits as a matter of law and will be adjudged to apply to that party’s case".
Plausibility is virtually always established in these cases.
Now, look at what South Africa asked for as a preliminary measure, and look what they got.
Again, it is weird that we are still talking about this, because I quoted for you the numbered paragraph in the decision that repeats the point I am making.
Later
I'm noting that we are so far to the right margin on this very old, cursed thread that this post gets only 250px in my browser window. It's fine if we're not going to convince each other; we can just leave it here. We're probably the only two people reading this.
Go read up on ICJ preservation of rights process, though. It's fascinating. It's like a whole parallel law system, being worked out in our lifetimes.
If your arguments are strong, well-expressed, and calm, they'll do fine here, and there's no need to pick apart the people trying to rebut them. We know less than we think we do about people commenting here; I've spent 16 years watching people reach all sorts of weird conclusions about me. Let's not do that to someone else here. These threads are bad enough as it is.
The legal argument for genocide is strong. Not only by referring to the ICJ case, but also several legal experts who have conducted a thorough study in the subject.
I’m returning to this thread because of the publication today of a 100 page long report which the authors claim is “the most comprehensive legal analysis to ate of Israel’s military operation in Gaza since October 7, 2023.” This report is from legal experts exploring the legal argument of genocide, using the 1948 convention as the definition for genocide. The authors, comprise of independent human rights scholars and legal experts from University Network of Human Rights, Boston University School of Law, Cornell Law School, University of Pretoria, and Yale Law School. They conclude that: “srael has committed and continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b3538249d5abb21360e8...
No, it is not. The ICJ said Israel must "take action to prevent acts of genocide" [1][2].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/key-takeaways-worl...
[2] https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192...
Again. Reality check.
That was the ICJ’s last order to Israel. You claimed the ICJ called Israel’s war genocide. That is false.
The Arab Spring and all the bad things that ensued from it was effectively a giant geopolitical windfall for the Qatari royal family and their investments in founding that broadcaster.
They (almost) changed the entire geopolitical landscape of the Arab world to their benefit. Installing a caliphate here, toppling a major power like Egypt there. They even forced Saudi Arabia into concessions.
All of that, like the NATO-buffoons sending fighter jets into Libya because the Qataris social-engineered the Western public into demanding it, is an amazing show of political skills.
Gee, the poor Europeans till this day don't even realize how much their "refugee-crisis" has been instigated as a "weapon of mass migration" by the Qataris using their set of tools of which Al Jazeera is one.
Like in this very recent case: https://honestreporting.com/damage-done-how-al-jazeeras-fake...
Edit: haaretz link: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-0...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HonestReporting
The reason stated on why Hamas affirmed the rape story was false wasn't 'because it backfired and made civilians flee'. This never happened,and the justifications is too convoluted. No, they took a page out of IRA and ETA's: total transparency. They want people to believe what they say, and for that, you can't be caught lying. I don't know if it's recent or not, but that's also the reason why the death toll reported by Hamas is lower than the one expected by the US and most military intelligence. If a news is from a Hamas official spokesman, it's likely true (might be misleading, but always factually true)
Shame on Al-Jazeera to let liars on air, but to be fair, that 24h news for you.
What? They lie constantly! They just got caught. Here is what happened when BBC just reported them without checking:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67140250
And then when they apologized admitting they should have not speculate:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/19/israel-accuses...
I really see it differently that both ends are equally bad. After all, on the same night that the BBC announced 500 dead after the "bombing" at a hospital in Gaza, which turned out to be a Hamas missile that fell and killed at most 50 there... crowds took to the streets and created a threat to Israeli embassies around the world.
CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/21/middleeast/cnn-investigat...
Economist: https://www.economist.com/interactive/the-economist-explains...
Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/18/al-ahli-arab-h...
WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/video/video-analysis-shows-gaza-hospital...
Also worth reading this document straight from Hamas: https://twitter.com/cogatonline/status/1774437234579558643
Also they do coordinate their fighting and if you read the last link also their propaganda
This is a pretty big part of the problem, yes.
After they fought and coordinated together, raped, massacred and kidnapped, I don't see the difference anymore
Debunked: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/israeli-disi...
IDF has bombed the entirety of Gaza health infrastructure by now. It's odd they don't want us to believe they would be capable to bomb this particular hospital when they destroyed every single other one.
Not to mention they say they scraped al Jazeera for other incident which is ironic here, because the claim is they misreport
And I will add that everything they said is only based on the videos... The impact on the ground was consistent with PIJ/Hamas rockets and not Israel missiles.
So I will rather believe U.S. Experts/Western intelligence (which since did not report otherwise)... so no Debunking at all:
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-tries-to-back-u...
One destroys an entire mosque in the past:
[1] https://youtu.be/YszjqgUWdUo
But the same left a 1 meter crater in the hospital???? Just nonsense.
[2] https://youtu.be/VnAbV-ktbi8
As clearly stated in [3]: "More than half a dozen experts who independently reviewed imagery of the scene said the lack of major blast damage, such as collapsed buildings, as well as the relatively small size and shape of the crater, ruled out the possibility of the kind of airstrike Israel has carried out elsewhere in Gaza since Oct. 7."
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/10/26/gaz....
In the meantime there could be a war [1].
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/remember-the-maine-56...
This would make all libel and defamation permissible.
This would make any type of business fraud permissible.
This would make it permissible to lie and fabricate documentation in order to target vulnerable populations for theft and fraud.
This would make identity impersonation (including of, say, law enforcement, medical, legal, or engineering professionals) permissible.
This would make it permissible to fabricate evidence for use in legal cases.
This would make it permissible to lie or fabricate evidence for sexual partners regarding STIs or contraceptive use.
Other than free speech zealots, you're not going to get anyone on board with rebuilding society so that we have to preemptively guard against all of these things, and have no recourse against bad actors.
Because I can think of quite a number of stories over the years, and even in terms of this current conflict in the Middle East, where there were falsehoods in the fog of war or even intentionally seeded that turned out not to be true and many of the news organizations airing them initially only took stories down and didn't run front page denouncements of their own reporting.
I agree that retractions and in general journalistic integrity needs a bit more attention as a global society, but banning news organizations that print things you don't like is something I tend to associate with a very Stalinesque mindset and not a bastion of democracy and liberty.
In general, individuals and groups are bettered by exposure to naysayers than surrounded by yes-men.
But that the whole point. It's not just that Israel "don't like it". It's false claims.
> aren't sufficiently loud about retractions
And what if there are no retraction? only if the backlash is big enough? Like in the case where there were no hundreds of dead in a direct bombing but a 50 dead in a failed PIJ rocked on hospital:
https://archive.is/r6noB
and the same version today:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/16/israel-ha...
Almost every news agency got this wrong to some degree [1]. What matters is whether they corrected their story as new information arose.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/business/media/hospital-b...
What matters is how often this happens and what the response is when it happens. As far as I know, Al Jazeera is not significantly worse than anyone else here. There's a difference between "spreading misinformation" and "being wrong every once in a while".
The problem with sites like "honest reporting" is that they take these incidents, completely ignore (or outright defend) all the types their side has been wrong on this type of stuff, and then construct a narrative that "proves" that "the other side" is merely a malicious cluster of evil that seeks to spread evil for evil's sake. This is exactly the type of dehumanizing hyper-partisanship that got us in this mess in the first place.
And what if there are no retraction? only if the backlash is big enough? Like in the case where there were no hundreds of dead in a direct bombing but a 50 dead in a failed PIJ rocked on hospital:
https://archive.is/r6noB
and the same version today:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/16/israel-ha...
Also: why are you using two accounts? :-/
Sure, I would like to see something similar from Haaretz/Ynetnews where they believed Israel without critical due process. And did not retract in a consistent matter.
And the second account is my mobile (I like it separate)... that is why I gave them the same name.
It also number 1 reporter killing country in the world. Killed more than 100 in the last 365 days. Does EU kill reporters?
So stop your false comparisons.
And if foreign journalists want to get into Palestine, they have other options than entering through the Israeli border, they can enter through the Egyptian border.
First, they don't. All crossings are controlled by Israel. There's a reason why you have a lot of foreign reporting on the ground from Syria civil war and nothing from Gaza. (I noted your switch from Gaza to Palestine, btw) And journalistic agencies complain about this repeatedly.
10% of journalists killed (against 2% of total population killed) and ratios of killed/injured certainly suggest special targeting.
So here, have a blast and count for yourself based on your definition of collateral damage: https://cpj.org/2024/05/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-... there's a story/sources there for every single killing that is known/documented.
To me, it looks like majority were killed intentionally based on that list. Things like sniper and other direct fire killings, being killed in their homes along with their families when doing nothing but dinning or sleeping, or at assignments, or in front of hospitals near journalist tents, or being denied medevac after critical injuries, is not how I'd define collateral damage.
This is false. Israel does not control Egypt's or Jordan's borders.
> To me, it looks like majority were killed intentionally based on that list.
By CPJ's own account, that list is not verified:
> Our database will not include all of these casualties until we have completed further investigations into the circumstances surrounding them. For more information, read our FAQ.
I did check some of them, and I would agree some of it look concerning at face value, but I'm not sure if I would take any of those sources at face value. I would very much like to see some investigation into this, but without the war ending, I don't really see how that will happen.
Of course it does. It closed the crossing shortly after Oct 7. Crossing it, requires Israel approval and inspections. The moment Egypt stops observing Israel's rules, it will bomb the crossing. It did bomb it already a few times last year in order to close it. Israel already stated that it will operate anywhere in Gaza militarily, that includes the Rafah crossing, and it does.
That's pretty much what anyone would consider being in control of a crossing, effectively.
In addition, despite this crossing being between Palestine and Egypt, the agreement that splits the roles of who does what at the crossing is between Egypt and Israel as part of Israel-Egypt peace treaty https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/new-real...
So Israel does partially control it even in this "legal" aspect. It kinda makes sense given that Gaza is still considered an occupied territory by UN. Since when occupied territories control their own corssings with other countries?
> By CPJ's own account, that list is not verified:
Yes, that goes back to Israel refusal for independent foreign journalists presence in Gaza. Or ICC investigators. Convenient.
No control. Right.
https://theconversation.com/why-egypt-refuses-to-open-its-bo...
Once you’ve established that the government can unilaterally ban a voice for reasons of “national security” you’ve essentially given them a free pass. As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.
Do you believe Al Jazeera is spreading misinformation? Even if Israel says so? Even if the USA starts saying so as well?
I don't know where we can draw a line here.
But it's notable that the Israeli government refuses to submit itself to an election, especially in the face of widespread popular demands.
We can draw the line when they say one thing on English Al Jazeera and another on Arabic Al Jazeera.
We can draw the line when their reporters were (since then eliminated) active member of Hamas rocket teams.
2. You can just google Al Jazeera Arabic anti Israel propaganda and you will find more content to read and watch than you can do in your life time
3. https://www.timesofisrael.com/wounded-al-jazeera-reporter-in... https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/israel-accuses-al-jazeera-jo...
1. False report about IDF rape https://www.timesofisrael.com/al-jazeera-report-alleging-idf...
2. Arabic vs English Al Jazeera, conflicting messages
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/gulf/2017/10/01/Al-Jazeer...
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/aljazeer...
3. Al Jazeera reporters doubling as Hamas members
https://www.timesofisrael.com/wounded-al-jazeera-reporter-in...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/al-jazeera-journalist-is-also-...
https://twitter.com/AvichayAdraee/status/1756728159158812921
However, Al Jazeera never corrected the story, just took it down, which is just as OP reported: "We can draw the line when they report proven false information and never apologize for reporting so."
The vast majority of media companies that own media in different languages are on Al Jazeera's side of the line then, including most companies that have social media channels in different languages.
but you had no say in the matter; so if a future ban is not in your interest, what will you do?
no, the government should not stifle the market of ideas. that is not in our interest in the long run.
America is uniquely individualistic, our First Amendment uniquely strong. I believe in it. But it's not clear it's the only optimum.
It is not in my interest, to become more like authorian russia for the sake of fighting them.
So I'm not sure what is the good solution now. I'd be happy if there were more money to fund school and lessons for children to understand how those fake news work. But this is long term. Short term I think I'm okay if we don't have RT in France.
You do. On the internet. An increasing amount of people are getting their (fake) news now exclusivly online via "alternative" news sources like RT. Banning one of those sources on television will just mean further entrenching of those people. ("see, they don't want the truth to spread" ...)
" I'd be happy if there were more money to fund school and lessons for children to understand how those fake news work."
And aside to lots and lots of crap in the curriculum, there would be enough school time avaiable to teach more of criticial information analysis and media skills. But partial banning of one source seems like the more comfortable solution. Except that this might really hurt us in the long run, if the next source that will be banned, won't be enemy propaganda source, but just a legitimate critical newspaper for example. But secret service will say the enemy funded and influenced them, so off they go.
Of course there is always a risk of censorship of real information. As citizens we must be vigilant to what is banned. And our reaction as citizens should absolutely be different depending of wether the ban targets RT or Le Monde (for example).
Something about thermodynamics. Random noise is free. Exposing lies and ascertaining the truth requires structure, observation, flexibility, organization, introspection, correlation, adaptation— a lot of things that take a lot of effort in multiple different ways, that is physically and socially both difficult/expensive and fragile/vulnerable.
Propaganda and fake news are not really different from a sleazy salesman, or an abusive relationship. In the time it takes you to fly a journalist to the scene, speak with and hear the experiences of people on the ground, find patterns and write accurate, digestable descriptions and cite precedents, consult with experts, then with dissenters— So on— In the time it takes you to move just one single step closer to the truth, for an answer that still leaves complex questions and won't satisfy anybody, the liar will already have invented a thousand completely new ways to lie (as well as a couple hundred reasons why you must be the lying one, for disputing them, of course). …Or hired some guy to drive a meat cleaver in your back…
Plus, lies are often directly predatory towards some of the best parts of ourselves too… The desire to trust, and assume good faith, about what other people tell you…
> or the lake of preparation to the quick rise of social networks.
Our mental and social faculties for ascertaining and communicating realities are ultimately encoded in physical structures which tend towards chaos and collapse.
…I suppose it is to be expected that vastly increasing the rate at which information can be "generated" and transmitted would cause the equilibrium to be dominated by r-strategists. ..Ah, fuck.
It wasn't in the interest of freedom. Everyone reading it would know it was the russian spin. But now we are not allowed to know what the russians think. After all thinking of them as humans like us is not something we want right?
This is a common talking point that makes no sense when you think about it. Could you please explain how you envision the hostage release to be achieved through bombing and systematic destruction of the area that they are held in? It sounds much more likely to kill them instead. Why not simply negotiate a hostage exchange? Do you expect that if Hamas was about to be completely wiped out, that they would not simply kill all the hostages that were still alive up to that point?
That presumes that there is something hamas wants that is viable for israel to give them. Its far from obvious that is the case in this conflict.
Its not like "carrot and stick" negotiating tactics are unique to this conflict.
If that’s true (and I agree that it may well be) then surely Israel’s army’s efforts can’t be in aid of hostage release, because it’s an entirely unattainable goal?
I think that’s what the OP is getting at. The tactics we see don’t seem like they’d be effective ways to rescue hostages. Nor does it feel all that viable to persuade Hamas to release the hostages. So what are the current tactics in aid of?
- putting pressure - even if there is nothing now to negotiate with, military action could reduce hamas's negotiating position and in principle cause them to sue for peace. I'm a bit doubtful in this conflict, but traditionally this how war works. If your enemy refuses to surrender, you take their land until either they surrender or they have no more land. For example in world war 1, there was still a lot of deaths right up until the armistice even though people knew fighting was going to stop soon, because the sides thought the more land we have now, the better our position will be during the peace negotiations.
- second, Israeli army could find where the hostages are and take them back by force. Also pretty hard, but if negotiations are unattainable its not surprising they would go here as the only other option.
Most wars happen to obtain goals that are unattainable by peaceful negotiation. I don't think this conflict is any different in that regard than any other.
Because there are two war aims: hostage release and the removal of Hamas.
> Do you expect that if Hamas was about to be completely wiped out, that they would not simply kill all the hostages that were still alive up to that point?
No, for the same reason countries don't kill all their prisoners of war right before surrendering. You still need to negotiate the terms of the peace.
You might have reasons to believe that Israel's persecution of Hamas is going to generate a new generation of Hamas, but reasonable people might disagree and say that to the extent Israel is creating new militants, they're likely to look more like Fatah's armed wing than Hamas.
I ask this question very genuinely: what world efforts are seeking to legitimize Hamas? I have seen a great many pro-Palestinian perspectives but have not seen anything pro-Hamas beyond fringe kooks.
As for double standard… I think the reason you see the double standard is precisely because the comparison is racist, homophonic, misogynistic, etc. Israel is held to a higher standard than neighbouring countries because it’s a liberal democracy as opposed to a theocratic dictatorship. I (as an outsider of course) would think it a great loss for the world if Israel starts to consider Iran to be the bar they have to clear rather than anything higher.
No real efforts. But a surprising number of young people don't believe Israel has a right to exist.
That's often not productive in terms of continuing the conversation, but I'm not trying to be clever or evasive; I genuinely don't understand why I should accept the premise of the question.
It generally means do they have the rights of a nation-state. That said, I agree it’s a new way of framing the one-state solution.
Israel was created in 1948. If that didn't happen and Israel didn't exist today, imagine how different things would be today for better or worse.
Maybe the people you're talking about believe it would have been better. Is that such a radical belief?
- Why wasn't Germany divided into half - 50/50 - or even 55% given to the Jewish people [and force the Germans off of their lands that they were on for - whether they were Gestapo and toeing the line as vicious or blind citizens during NaZi Germany] - which would seem to be a fair-reasonable punishment for Germany's authoritarians' behaviour? How fair is that to do to a population who's society was trying to genocide you vs. doing that to a population that had no part in trying to genocide you?
- Why didn't America - where the Israel lobby is arguably the strongest legal influence on the political system, politicians and policy - instead give a large amount of land to the Jewish people in America instead of Balfour Declaration somehow allowing Britain to "give it away"?
Also, there's an unmentioned sentiment usually attached to to the phrase of "Israel doesn't have a right to exist" that it's somehow akin to "Jews don't have a right to exist."
I think that feeling or belief is planted by propaganda has purposefully conflated - along with Israel state equals Judaism [just because they arguably misappropriated the Star of David for their state flag; one of multiple tactics for the what I argue is full of wolves in sheep's clothing].
Re: Hamas' Charter
Other foundational propaganda that's propagated deep and wide, and even those who are very well-informed - possibly because in reality it's a moot point, as Hamas-like organizations are inevitable to form from within an occupied-suppressed and segregated state of existence:
- The claim that in the Hamas Charter it says their goal is to "obliterate all Jews globally" stems from an arguable purposeful mistranslation, where instead it appears to be propaganda to demonize Hamas and Palestinians via guilt by association campaigns, where the proper translation says their goal is to "invalidate" any UNJUST behaviour - written within the context of speaking of just vs. unjust behaviour - which means any just behaviour, e.g. non-violence, truth, etc. is fine and won't be targeted by them; from my understanding that means actual practicing Jews wouldn't fall into this category but the specific behaviours of the specific heads of state driving towards genocide,is party to unjust behaviour, will be held to account and have their actions "invalidated" based on their Charter. Source: https://jstor.org/stable/26331116
Conclusions,
I think it's critical people begin to be asked into thought exercises to understand just how isolated in algorithmic bubbles we all are - unless we're conscious of that and not prone to confirmation bias - to understand how people could be so deeply and firmly indoctrinated into one set of beliefs, where one side is completely delusional as to the truth and reality; they know only a shallow and misleading version of the truth, but not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - so help us God.
The incongruences are glaring as the relatively unsophisticated politicians [useful fools] et al stumble their way through, placed there are useful puppets - and why the bad actors ultimately need full control over speech and communications, or else a critical mass forms against them - and those blindly toeing the line for them in various institutions waken at exponential pace: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5y-lc7RtcE/
Let us not forget: Julian Assange has been being essentially tortured in prison without being convicted of anything - because he published leaks from a violent-authoritarian regime's security apparatus, exposing illegal actions by ba...
There's an obvious pattern of behaviour of producing propaganda with sleight of hand to misdirect attention to who's likely actually pulling the strings for such scenarios.
Logically the odds of the hostages being alive would be higher if this wasn't the tactic the IDF decided to use, right?
If I was in command of a military then the hostages would come first, and I would send in soldiers who signed up to potentially give their lives - to exchange soldiers lives for civilians, if need be.
It's why referendums exist - however the more authoritarian a government becomes, the less they want the population voting specifically on issues to maintain more control over policy (and the population), e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Canada
The USA seems to not have followed through (as far as I know - as Russian news sites seem to be available).
AFAIK, there has been no ban. It would probably face some backlash given the First Amendment right to freedom of press. (Though I'm not sure that truly extends to the press of a foreign country?)
I don't think you can compare Al Jazeera and RT, because one has been a firehose of bullshit that has literally advocates invasion of Ukraine, and the other does not. As far as I know, Al Jazeera is banned purely because they've been critical of current Israeli policy. There are some reasonable criticisms of Al Jazeera and things they could have done better, but that applies to every media outlet on the planet.
Both have the same aim, just as Qatar Airways sponsor your flights with oil money so you might fly through Qatar, Al Jazeera pays journalists so they can push Qatar's narratives to Western or Arabic audience. This is highly similar to RT in intent.
Looking from Israel standpoint, it's a news outlet that pushes your enemies propaganda arm videos unfiltered and also uses it to radicalize part of your population
Also note that the Israeli government spends tons of money to push Israeli narratives and viewpoints. That's fine, they're allowed to do that, but we can leverage the same "highly similar to RT in intent" accusations against them. In the end we should judge actions, not intent.
The discussion here is about the actions of Israel versus Al Jazeera, not a possibility of banning Al Jazeera in the United States or maybe Israeli viewpoints.
Also, I am pretty sure Israeli spendings to push Israeli narratives in the US are minuscule, especially compared to Qatar's.
This is quite popular in europe and is a result of lesson learned from the nazis
Well, you can. You're allowed. But at that point I decide to stop engaging. So good day to you.
Quite the contrary, just look at ADL or AIPAC.
It seems you think Israel has direct finance or control interest in AIPAC, do you have something to support that?
AIPAC is nominally funded by "individual donations", but the problem with that it is fairly trivial for a nation-state to fund things in this manner, so it doesn't really tell us anything. And then, of course, there's the question of personal connections: if you have a private person donating huge amounts of money to AIPAC, and they just happen to be heavily involved with the governing political party in Israel, I would consider them an agent of the state of Israel ipso facto even if they don't have such official position (just as I would consider, say, one of Putin's pet oligarchs a Russian agent if they donate money to an American political campaign in their private capacity).
I've spent a while translating various articles on the Al Jazeera Arabic site from Arabic to English with mistral-7b. Everything seemed to be very fact based, and was emphasising things like civilian deaths, which aligns to what I'd consider public interest.
The Arabic text does consistently use the term شهيد (martyr) to describe Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza, which is the closest thing to biased language I found across multiple articles about Israel and Palestine - but I think that is normal in Arabic for describing even non-combatant casualties and not necessarily reflective of bias given Arabic conventions.
This is obviously a source with a considerable bias, but they link to many concerning examples of Al Jazeera reporting. I personally don’t speak Arabic but anecdotally I’ve heard that the translations are accurate, the bias is manifest in choosing what to translate. This example was especially concerning, exacerbating civilian deaths:
> Al-Jazeera Fabricates Information Designed To Thwart Israel's Instructions To The Gaza Population
>Al-Jazeera broadcast footage of bodies of civilians strewn over a road, presenting them as victims of an Israeli attack against people who had abided by the IDF instructions to evacuate to southern Gaza.[91] Israel in fact had secured safe passage to the south for those civilians who wished to go there, while Hamas exerted pressure on them to remain put in order to use civilians as human shields.[92]
“because one has been a firehose of bullshit that has literally advocates invasion of Ukraine”
How is that different from CNN/BBC/whatever advocating NATO/US invasions in the last half century? (Serbia, Iraq2, Libya, etc). And more recently Gaza.
Israeli news reports and analysts say Qatar has sent more than $1 billion to Gaza over the past decade.
Qatar sent that aid through fuel to the Gaza Strip's Hamas government, which in turn sold it and paid partial salaries. In the past, the money was sent via suitcases stuffed with cash.
Israel allowed these transfers to Hamas. Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say the payments his government approved helped keep the status quo in the Gaza Strip and Hamas from escalating attacks on Israel.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/02/1210110109/qatar-israel-gaza-...
Iran is Hamas' main backer. Qatar funded Hamas with Israel's consent, so it's not really fair to hold this against Doha. (Their continuing to host Hamas' leadership is fair to criticise.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_terr...
Sure. Hence why I qualified my statement with "continuing." Doha hosting Hamas in '17 was fine. Doha hosting them after October 7 is fair to criticise.
Yes. Hamas was seen by even Israel as better than anarchy. That's why they let Doha fund them.
We're now seeing American lawmakers criticising Qatar [1]. That's prompting Dohas to "re-evaluat[e] its role as mediator in ceasefire talks" and weigh "whether to allow Hamas to continue operating [its] political office" [2][3].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-says-gaza-ce...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-says-gaza-ce...
[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-considers-fu...
Better then anarchy or better than peace? There is some people on both sides of this conflict which are happy to see it radicalized and I think those people all benefits from the other being strong on the other side.
All that said, the actions taken by the Israeli right are certainly not helping the possibility of a future peace agreement, but it's not clear whether this specific action belongs in that group. One might argue that a stronger central authority in Gaza means there is a partner for a future agreement and that if Gaza can transition to be a more peaceful place (and it seemed to be heading in that direction) that would also support a future agreement.
Qatar is not a western country, there is no reason to expect it to buy into western exceptionalism. This is not to defend Hamas but simply to point out that the western double standard doesn’t reach much beyond Europe.
America is (a) a country and (b) major trading and security partner.
> Qatar is not a western country, there is no reason to expect it to buy into western exceptionalism
We are their security guarantor. It’s why Doha is publicly debating shutting down Hamas’ political office.
Are missiles coming out of Qatar? Are they even supplying arms to Hamas, or do they simply fund the civilian portions of the government?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
The furthest the freely accessible part goes is to say Israel "encouraged" Qatari payments to Hamas.
from what I can see it never mentioned Israel directly giving money to Hamas. But encouraging payments seems close enough.
I think pretty much any money going into Gaza should be considered funding Hamas. It either went directly to Hamas or it was taxed or it allowed Hamas not to spent that money. This means Europe and the US also funded Hamas.
The reason for funding was to create chaos, not to remove it. Why else do you fund a group that destabilises the area. Basically Israel wanted Gaza to be more chaotic as they felt it gave them more control.
The decision to pursue power and chaos as opposed to seeking resolution and a path to peace has had obvious consequences.
This whole thread is so strange, people keep claiming Palestinians cannot be trusted to rule themselves, while at the same time accusing Israel of genocide for not giving them the ability to rule themselves.
> But encouraging payments seems close enough.
Hmmm. I don't think I agree with that. It's such a polarized and emotional debate. It could really benefit from being precise with words.
Making everything sound just slightly worse than it is will help rile up the side that feels slighted and it will let the other side just pass the speaker off as a liar. The result is fewer shared facts, more polarization and a more emotional debate.
The truth of war is bad enough. It doesn't need to be stretched.
AlJazeera is known to be untrustworthy on matters of the middle east. Just as BBC is untrustworthy on matters of UK international politics and the NYT [1] can't be trusted on US foreign policy matters.
AlJazeera, NYT and BBC are weapons of mass propaganda just like Globaltimes or RT. The main (and admittedly stark) difference is how often these weapons are deployed.
[]1 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/may/26/pressandpublis...
Yes it did. And that was a dark day for Europe.
rt.com, enter… loads instantaneously.
sputnikglobe.com, enter… loads instantaneously.
Please don’t lie.
Edit: it was not a lie, my apologies.
One of the most ineffectual bans I have ever seen.
To me this is more a discouragement of promotion than any real ban, but I will edit my previous comment.
Try one of these (none accessible to me in Sweden):
* https://sputnikglobe.com
* https://sputnik.by
* https://rt.com/
My wife is Belarussian and was upset she couldn't read her news, that's how I know they banned many websites. They didn't ban the "opposition" websites run from outside Russia/Belarus though :).
Whatever the interpretation, I think it's clear that things are degrading fast in the last few decades. I don't think an EU-wide block on Russian media such as RT wouldn't have passed with such indifference 20 years ago.
That's the most worrying to me: not the measure itself, but the indifference from the general population. In fact, I have another comment in this thread saying that block was abhorrent and it's gathering downvotes... In HN, a community where most are well-educated people from the US, a country that has arguably been the staunchest defender of freedom of expression and of the press. I find that worrying. And then there is cancel culture, and other factors, that have eroded effective freedom of speech.
At this rate, in a few more decades Western democracies will be hard to tell in practice from Chinese authoritarianism, which is worrying, because they have better economic projection, more safety, booming infrastructure, a less aggressive foreign policy... Democracy and freedom is basically what makes the West worth it, if we lose it, what's even the point?
Illiberal maybe, but not undemocratic.
If a supermajority opposes free press, it would be undemocratic to force it upon them.
Too many people - usually Americans - confuse liberal democracy with democracy.
Liberal democracy is a phrase for a reason - and the liberal comes first for a reason!
Just because people vote for something doesn't make the thing they voted for democratic. Historically people have voted to install a non-democratic government before.
If not, it's not democracy! You're deciding to overrule the demos and enforce your minority opinion!
I know it seems like pedantry but we shouldn't confuse liberalism with democracy.
I read Clark's Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia (<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RI9PMM/>) right after hearing about YouTube shutting down Russian state media channels. I was surprised to learn in the book of the extent of the freedom of the press in late 18th-century Prussia. A British visitor wrote that people were as free to speak as back home, citing a work that was very critical of the king in the context of Poland. During the Napoleonic wars, despite the existential threat to Prussia from France, at least four newspapers that celebrated Revolutionary France as the next step in human freedom were allowed to publish.
It's always preferable to counter propaganda with free speech. Even liars deserve the opportunity to speak. This is especially true when there is no formally declared war between US/Europe outside Ukraine and Russia.
Clearly they're not doing that, just criticizing the government.
The obvious next step is outlawing any speech criticizing the government (or rather 'speech that is a threat to national security'), then you've got the same laws as in Russia.
They were not closed because they're "criticizing the government". They were closed because they're acting on behalf of a foreign agent and spreading propaganda (I think the actual language "is harmed national security"). Qatar is not a free country, it funds Al-Jazeera, it hosts the Hamas leadership.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/al-jazeera/
"Mixed for factual reporting due to failed fact checks that were not corrected and misleading extreme editorial bias that favors Qatar."
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/mar/18/will-ofcoms-de...
Notice a pattern with the British Govt? They get their "independent" depts and businesses to do their dirty work for deniability!
To resort to official declarations of war or lack thereof, to hamstring the US response to widespread dissemination of Russian propaganda is plausible on the face of it.
But consider: the US is under no obligation to facilitate Russian propagandists. To deny them access is a matter for the State Department, as it's dealing with foreign nationals. It's quite routine to deny rights to non-American citizens.
Finally, a declaration of war with Russia could destabilize politics everywhere. Or even, destroy the world. It's disingenuous to ignore that and quibble over the rules, especially since those rules clearly don't apply to foreign governments trying to operate in the US.
Not yet, they're not.
In my own industry I commonly hear people talk about self regulation in order to keep governments from interfering. This has benefits, but it also makes the action of the industry a dialog between government and private sector. Voluntarily removing undesired content is technically not censorship ordered by the government, but it is also not completely separated from the wishes of the government.
> We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners. We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering.
> In the four attacks for which the most complete information about the perpetrators' educational levels is available -- the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the 9/11 attacks, and the Bali bombings in 2002 -- 53 percent of the terrorists had either attended college or had received a college degree.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/14/opinion/the-madrassa-myth...]
I would never expect any theocracy to be a bastion of democracy. Israel can't really realize its goals and be free at the same time. Those goals are not compatible.
This is mostly a symbolic move that will make very little difference. Likely it will push Al Jazeera to be more anti-Israeli but I'm sure they can make up (pun intended) for their lack of physical presence in the region. People that want to consume that content in Israel will have no problem (many already get this via satellite).
A by the way is that this can still be challenged in the courts. If Al Jazeera chooses to go to the supreme court I imagine there's a pretty good chance that the decision will get overturned. They might intentionally decide not to do that because that outcome will put Israel in a positive light.
One of the genuine cultural differences between the US and Israel is that while Americans prefer greater liberty (even if it means less security), Israelis prefer greater security (even if it means less liberty). Which is to say, both cultures appreciate both values, but they have different priorities.
Israel is a country where you will have your bags searched before entering shopping malls or train stations. That Israelis' privacy is violated on a daily basis by other Israelis is popular. There is a sense that the privacy violations are genuinely needed, result in genuine protection, and are not abused by those in power.
I presume North Korea does, but I don't actually know. These aren't designed to be leading questions. I don't know the answers, and rather than searching, I figured someone else here might know offhand.
Then again I could be wrong and the U.S government just doesn't like people people dancing, hard to tell which one is the reason behind it all.
The best they can aim for is trying to create a narrative that at least somewhat aligns with the reality that is impossible to fully hide now.
The administration has been threatening tiktok for two Presidental terms, but it wasn't until pro-Palestinian tiktok content had "more reach than the top 10 US news sites, combined" that they've taken broad bipartisan action.
I've personally experienced the propaganda that US mainstream media doles out, I know it's real; in my mind this smacks of leaders reacting in fear to the erosion of control over what the American people can know about what's happening in the war. This lines up exactly with Israel's muting of Al Jazzera.
Pretty amusing to watch sibling's link of Mitt Romney and the interviewer haltingly say "narrative" in hushed tones, like they know it's some kind of dirty word.
The thing with propaganda is that it needs to have parts rooted in truth in order to be effective outside total information control; I consider the ability to consume everyone's propaganda an essential tool in distilling the most truth possible in a world where media and leadership across the world are openly concerned with the breakdown of their PR (read propaganda).
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8apP1YYg2o
The medium is the message...
If Israel could force the sale of Al Jazeera to Israeli businesses I'm sure it's content would become far more acceptable to the Israeli government.
Also, the law could be changed or overruled in the next year. Don't count chickens before eggs hatch?
It is likely more countries will follow. India trail blazed by banning TikTok almost 4 years ago after the border skirmish with China
Note, too, the difference between the app being banned and the source being banned. TikTok.com will continue to resolve even if they remain under Chinese control.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMajorityReport/comments/1ckte1k/...
There were attempts at banning it before the war, so probably not the only reason but it does seem to be why the push to ban it reemerged again.
Russia is certainly jailing journalists. As example, Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, is currently imprisoned: https://www.wsj.com/news/evan-gershkovich.
Nowadays, every country has an interest in preventing foreign influence operations across traditional and social media
It is also famously killing them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_i...
https://ooni.org/post/2024-eu-sanctions/
Also the United Kingdom has added several of it's own citizens to sanctions lists for journalism within Ukraine/Russia.
All countries are on a spectrum, there is no clear line between shiny democracy and brutal dictatorship. They all have institutions that look similar on the surface. A democracy is not going to stop having a police force just because some police states also have one, for example.
So yes, some democracies ban some media spreading propaganda for foreign interests, but the details matter.
Source?
Again, source?
How heavily has RT been censored in the USA? Has the government ever censored it or pressured others to censor it, or is it just that links/rebroadcasts have been dropped by private entities of their own volition?
It hasn't been. Probably more accurate to state that when it was carried on cable media they broadcast a bowdlerized version. Al Jazeera did the same thing when it was carried by cable/satellite in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_America
This was the RT channel you're probably thinking of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_America
Really?
I am a long way away, but I thought the constitution prevented that
Ukraine has shut down everything but the state-sponsored television.
Russia has shut down most independent media since the beginning of the war as well.
But admittedly, they are in a war of (dis)information so might not be representative of the freedom of the press.
Also, this measure is temporary, only lasting 45 days.
Not many countries enshrine press freedom as a constitutional right. US can't directly shut down news agencies by law but there are other less direct ways to restrict their ability to operate (like not granting visas). The US has all sorts of fringe news outlets, including some run by cults like Falun Gong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tang_Dynasty_Television )
Europe likes to claim they support press freedom but they banned RT in many countries. Looking at the press freedom index my kneejerk is to rank a lot of their countries lower, but then I remembered there's a habit of suing or disappearing journalists in the US that probe into larger corps.
As for Russia/DPRK/China, laws heavily restrict reporting. These are all way worse than Israel's current restrictions. DPRK has fully centralized mass media, so any other reporting inside is illegal by default without explicit approval of the state. China and Russia I think allows some reporting, basically anything appearing critical of nations of China or Russia can get you jailed/killed.
Al Jazeera condemns Israeli government decision to shut down channel https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40266122
https://chomsky.info/consent01/
Do you have a source for this? To me this sounds like a misunderstanding, but I’m open to being shown otherwise.
“The text is an interview with Noam Chomsky discussing the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Chomsky critiques Western media's portrayal of the Khmer Rouge, arguing that it's exaggerated and ignores broader historical context, particularly U.S. involvement. He suggests that atrocities attributed to the Khmer Rouge may have been exaggerated or even fabricated, emphasizing the need for independent investigation. Chomsky's attitude toward the Khmer Rouge appears critical of Western narratives, highlighting skepticism and a call for a more nuanced understanding.”
That’s does not give any truth to your claim of idolizing, as I expected. It’s quite believable that western narratives could be manipulated as that is common place and the subject of Chomsky’s expertise. Pointing out the manipulation of the media and painting the target as more nuanced and not as evil as media makes them out to be is a far cry from idolization.
And Chomsky doesn’t just make empty claims or “believe what he wants”. He usually cites sources from within the US government, like published State Department memos stating the position he’s claiming they had.
And we are talking about a media outlet controlled by the government of a foreign country that also directly finances the opposing terrorist group and houses their leaders.
Democracy merely depends on free media, not on free foreign or adversary media.
But I make it the centerpiece of my best-case scenario for the region: imagine that gap left by the absent constitution getting filled by something aggressively secular, with a strong set of entrenched clauses (aka eternity clauses) protecting individual religious freedom from any majority shifts that might happen. Perhaps even with some strong federal element enabling peaceful growth (and Brexit-like shrinkage) like the EU. I'm certainly not holding my breath, neither expecting Israel to come up with anything like that (despite their internal made-up-as-they-went not being terribly far off, I think) nor this having any effect on countries refusing recognition. But then what other best-case scenarios are there?
On an assessment by these very basic qualities, the current Regime in charge can't be really classified as a democracy. It is an excuse for democracy. An overgrown military outpost formed out of crusade era objectives and European anti semitic emotions. Not to mention the oil and perceived potential of the region to be a western adversary. In the words of US president, US-UK still believes that if there were no Israel, then they would have to create one. Which is ironic, since they are the ones who created it.
If your government cannot protect the country from journalists, then you should force them to resign, and call for new elections.
It paints a troubling picture of a leader whose decision-making is distorted by clinging to power at all costs. Undermining democratic norms to appease extremist coalition partners is a dangerous road that could lead Israel to more illiberal and authoritarian policies, especially toward Palestinians, the Arab media, and domestic dissent.
Saturday AM EST, it was reported that Hamas confirmed they were going to accept the deal. By noon Saturday EST, the "Israel-Hamas War"...idk what to call it, live blog? collection-of-news headline?...was gone for the first time in months.
Israel reporting (not just Haaretz) reported huge, multiple, protests (it was at night there, early afternoon EST) due to Israel rejecting a cease fire. Piecing it together from Twitter natsec people, standard blob, certainly not polarized against israel, Israel didn't even send a delegation to the talks, and the far right Israeli leader said Bibi promised him they wouldn't accept "a rushed deal" (i.e. the cease fire), and people were irate. An irate Israeli TV reporter revealed the anonymous "diplomatic source" promising no deal Friday night was Bibi himself.
The blogs are back up now, with a sort of hurried framing that the talks fell apart because Hamas wanted a permanent cease fire (no mention of any of the above -- I assume that'd complicate it too much for, it needs to be a nice little set piece of Israel vs. Hamas.
It's really, really strange watching the coverage the last week, in America, without any attachment to either "side". I guess its easier to push the A vs. B framing on a new subject, our college kids, rather than trying to explain how any of this makes any sense at all.
https://text.npr.org/1248276817
A permanent one, no. But that wasn't ever on the table. A multi-week ceasefire is absolutely still on the table in exchange for hostages.
This has long been the problem, with the Israeli government never offering any perspective or hope on a long-term solution.
To get aid to civilians. To let fighters regroup and restock. To open a window for negotiating a permanent ceasefire.
I can't think of an example of a permanent cease fire being immediately agreed without surrender or withdrawal.
The timing of this ban on Al Jazeera is also consistent with his behavior of trying to vandalize any ceasefire talks. Al Jazeera is a Qatar based media company, and Qatar is also the mediator in the ongoing talks. If Netanyahu wanted these talks to be successful he would not antagonize the mediator this way.
No, the Israeli government does not want a ceasefire, neither a permanent one, nor a temporary one. What they want is to make it look like they are making an effort, but only enough to improve the optics. There may be a faction inside the military which actually wants a ceasefire, so perhaps—and hopefully—a ceasefire can be negotiated despite vandalism attempts by the Israeli government, but I’m not hopeful.
In the meantime, I do take Netanyahu at his words, that he does not want a ceasefire, and he wants in invade Rafah, to continue the genocide, and to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.
> No, the Israeli government does not want a ceasefire, neither a permanent one, nor a temporary one.
All the things you wrote before that are things that Israel explicitly says, that it won't agree to a permanent ceasefire. But this statement is your personal opinion, and I don't think it's necessarily justified.
> In the meantime, I do take Netanyahu at his words, that he does not want a ceasefire, and he wants in invade Rafah, to continue the genocide, and to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.
I think your phrasing on this is misleading, since it implies that Netanyahu's words are that he wants to "continue a genocide" and "ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians". That is incorrect. Are words are that he will invade Rafah, the "continue the genocide/ethnic cleansing" thing are your words, not his. (I highly disagree with using those words, but either way, my point stands.)
Rereading it I can see how this is misleading, that was not my intention.
Israeli government already very clearly and explicitly said that this window doesn't exist; that was my entire point. If he had said "we MAY still invade" or anything even slightly more qualified, then sure. But he didn't. Unless something went spectacularly wrong in translation, what I read is that he said in very clear terms that Israel will absolutely invade.
Whether that's just empty threads or not is a judgement call, but it's certainly not the language of good faith.
A temporary ceasefire also creates room for the opposition to create pressure to call for elections. That’s difficult to do while a war is ongoing.
To your point, in my varied Israeli media diet, it's well-understood in the entire Israeli press that Bibi went out of his way to torpedo it by saying this simple idea over and over. The only question is whether this show he has a spine (willing to lose an eventual vote just to defeat the terrorists), or that he's weak (willing to lose the hostages to retain his political position) A majority is weary of it because the implementation of the specifics is "we will work our way through the refugee camp and then ???" and they feel they've seen that plan before.
We can confirm this is from an unbiased perspective by noting that the protests kicked up a notch, and the TV presenter outed the anonymous diplomatic source as him, and then perusing original sourcing as to why. (to share something I learned re: sourcing, Haaretz will be seen as some interlocutors as a left-wing rag doing performances for overseas audiences, Times of Israel is better)
Agree that the logic kind of pushes Hamas into keeping the hostages so not sure what Israel is expecting and most likely Israel has just marked the hostages as dead and will do anything to permanently destroy Hamas and show other potential beligerents that the deterrent strategy is concrete - even though that means a death sentence for most of those hostages still alive.
Unless by negotiation table you mean "whatever Israel wants and nothing else".
BTW October 7th is decidedly not the root of this war, just a dark event in a series of atrocities that have occurred during the last 70+ years.
By this point these aims appear to have evolved, and it now seems primarily concerned with encouraging what it refers to as "voluntary migration" from the Gaza Strip. And as a secondary aim, to incrementally expand the settlements in the West Bank (in the hopes of securing their eventual annexation).
Correcting you on this - the protests were not because Israel "rejected a cease fire".
For one thing, these are the same protests that happen every Saturday for the last few weeks of the war, continuing the "tradition" of protests that happened every Saturday for the ~10 months before the war.
For another, Israel didn't "reject" the ceasefire deal, Hamas did, or at least that's the way it is being talked about by Israel itself. There are many reasons to think Israel (and specifically Netanyahu) may have tried to tank the deal, but Hamas are the ones that eventually walked away.
Frankly, it feels like the only hope for an end to this conflict is in the hands of the internal Israeli political opposition. I wouldn't be surprised if he's not stopped, we're gonna see the same... "approach" used with Palestinian people applied to whatever internal resistance is left.
Also, given the vilification we've seen of those expressing sympathy for a two-state solution or the general Palestinian population in the last 30 years, I'd be wary to take at face value any poll without being sure they were done with some sort of guarantee of anonymity.
I'm pretty sure you'd get even more one-sided approval results asking the British about the handling of the Ireland border during the troubles, or the Spanish on the repression of the Basque population after Zaragoza.
And yes, in Israel right now it's probably somewhat affected by social (and sometimes legal) consequences of dissent... but those very social consequences are in and of themselves indicative of supermajority support. Point being, even if it is, say, 65% rather than 80%, that still means that opposition has no power, and so nothing is really in its hands at the moment.
I suspect that most don't know. I've sometimes seen articles in Times of Israel, and although they mention that lots of civilians are getting killed, they also write that this is Hamas health ministry counting, suggesting that the numbers would be made up.
Look here:
> At least 34,596 Palestinians have been killed [...] the Hamas-run health ministry in the Strip says.
> The figures cannot be independently verified and include at least 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hamas-run-healt...
So, Times of Israel writes as if information provided by IDF would be trustworthy (13 000 gunmen). But from what I've seen, when reading e.g. about the Lavender AI system and IDF's replies, then, the IDF generals and spokespeople lie a lot, and it's better to disregard anything they say.
Someone living in Israel, might be inclined to trust the IDF. However, looking at how many women have been killed, and realizing that a similar number of civilian men have been killed too -- then, more likely, 80%? 90%? of those "gunmen" were in fact civilians, but IDF happily counts each dead man as a terrorist.
And Times of Israel is not even a right wing newspaper. (Seems it's "centrist", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times_of_Israel.)
(With that said, most Palestinians and AlJazeera readers don't know what Hamas did on October 7. Not all but most Israelis and Palestinians are blind to the bad things that happen to those in the other tribe, know only about the bad things that happened to themselves.)
I don't say this as a personal view, but as a logical inevitability.
The State props up the religion by normalising it and undermining its competition, and the religion props up the state by providing convenient pretexts and effective brainwashing mechanisms. I am not Jewish, but I find it particularly disgusting too. My sympathies to humanist Jews who are thrown into this nightmare.
Pretty much every of the hundreds of millions of muslims who live outside Saudi Arabia (and probably a large number of those who live inside it) laugh at that, and despise the Saudi regime. If you do not believe me, try talking to some and asking them.
That being said you'll find a variety of opinions with the Muslim community both from Saudi and non-Saudi Muslims.
I imagine my relationship with KSA is similar to how some if not many US Jews feel with Israel. Just like I have an emotional attachment to Mecca and Medina which is currently under Saudi control I can understand how those among the Jewish diaspora may have an emotional attachment to Israel or believe in principle jewish self determination even when they vehemently oppose the government or have reservations about the modern state.
That said, banning media presence in Gaza by Israel, and the overall hesitance of western media to report on the devastation is very disappointing.
The interesting question is how many people do not have strong opinions and how this could affect them.
My guess is it also won't. Why would you be paying attention to news you haven't cared about up to now? The nonopinionated will likely not hear of this
Look at the consequences for Snowden, Assange and Manning.
We probably need to mandate third party international journalist access as some kind of rules of war expectation.
Otherwise basically any war crime can be waged with impunity until well after the fact if you can cutoff access to discover it
"Like all foreign news organizations operating in Israel, CNN’s Jerusalem bureau is subject to the rules of the Israel Defense Forces’s censor, which dictates subjects that are off-limits for news organizations to cover, and censors articles it deems unfit or unsafe to print. ... the military censor recently restricted eight subjects, including security cabinet meetings, information about hostages, and reporting on weapons captured by fighters in Gaza. In order to obtain a press pass in Israel, foreign reporters must sign a document agreeing to abide by the dictates of the censor."
https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-repo...
https://theintercept.com/2023/12/23/israel-military-idf-medi...
(Please don’t flame thinking I’m hardcore in support of a particular side in this war due to this post—you’ve very likely gotten the wrong impression. I’m commenting only on the narrow point that the US in fact can censor, including with prior restraint in certain circumstances, during war.)
The United States's last declaration of war was 83 years ago. Since then it's been all "police actions" or some such. What meaning does "during war" carry in the world of today?
The stated reason is "to keep journalists safe". But journalists have risked their lives in many conflicts to bring the news to people, its their choice to risk their life or not. Unless one were to believe that all journalists biased against israel, there is no reason to restrict all journalists. Why not let in Christiane Amanpour, or many other western trained and western paid journalists?
I think that's a fair statement, but also a far cry from "killing journalists for sport". These kind of exaggerated claims aren't helpful.
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/....
0. https://youtu.be/y11CVGz7toM?si=ME1qQTQR3FVA0bz_
There’s not really any doubt that the press feel they’re targeted, I think some have gone on the record about it. I don’t know how well we can really test such a claim absent the cooperation of the IDF, which will never happen.
My comment is meant to be a joke about how some of this stuff is grimly academic. If your army has enough xenophobic misanthropes and incompetent reservists who are willing to shoot at anything not wearing their uniform, the notion of a class of people being “targeted” is rendered redundant.
The Hebrew-speaking hostages who were killed while trying to surrender were just one aspect of this conflict that someone writing a really dark antiwar comedy might have come up with.
Well it's not "academic" if it occupies quite a bit of the public debate, and it's also not helpful if it's actually fairly easy to debunk, and is just fuel for the "they will make up anything to make us look bad" line. All of that energy can and should be spent elsewhere.
"The US State Department subsequently announced on July 4 that tests by independent ballistics experts under U.S. oversight were not conclusive about the gun it was fired from but that US officials have concluded that gunfire from Israeli positions most likely killed Akleh and that there was "no reason to believe" her shooting was intentional. US investigators had "full access"[138] to both IDF and PA investigations.[139][140][141] The Palestinian Public Prosecutor's Office disputes the US conclusion that the bullet cannot be matched to a gun and maintains its position that the killing was premeditated.[142] On July 5, the US stressed that it did not conduct its own probe, but the conclusion was a "summation" of investigations by the Palestinian Authority and Israel.[143]" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh#Subsequent_i...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-court-says-israel-can-kee...
Qatar did both of those things at the request of the US and Israel. Qatar serves as an intermediary between the US/Israel and Hamas, just as it served as an intermediary for talks between the US and the Taliban.
> Like many of these seemingly weird decisions, there's more to it than "Israel bad".
The motivation here is clearly to stop information about what is happening in Gaza from reaching the outside world. Al Jazeera is the only major international news agency with a significant presence on the ground there.
[0] "Note that this footage permits no room for "it was a mistake," showing repeated, specifically-targeted strikes on the unarmed and even wounded. The sort of behavior the ICJ explicitly forbid in the genocide ruling against Israel." https://x.com/Snowden/status/1770936325996155290
[1] Gaza 'Textbook Case of GENOCIDE' - Holocaust Scholar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUeEnjULHe0
[2] Holocaust Survivor Tells Me: Israel Is Committing Genocide - w. Stephen Kapos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4PFmz4MNdg
> the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state
Your other claims are true. This one is not.
>Your other claims are true. This one is not.
I should have phrased that more precisely but I was just judging by what Israel's ministry of hasbara itself seems to be most concerned with and fears the most is people questioning israel's legitimacy. Combined with the sentiment that can be seen across social media where even regular folks have started seeing israel as a racist settler colonial project that has no legitimacy. But you're correct, my previous wording was too ambiguous since "the world" is too broad and can refer to too many things.
A majority of Americans support Israel's war [1]. An overwhelming majority believe Israel has a right to exist [2]. (The exception being 18 to 24-year olds, among whom 31% believe Israel does not.)
Israel has faced practically zero actual diplomatic consequences as a result of its war, with even those voting against it at the UN continuing to e.g. trade with and talk to it [3].
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/03/21/majority-in-u-s-say-i...
[2] https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycotts_of_Israel
America is a special case and does not represent the regular folks of the world because it's home to the strongest israeli lobby on the planet and their supporters are mostly die-hard evangelicals for whom no evil israel does is too far.
Just listen to Jonathan Greenblatt's admission in the leaked[1] conversation where he verbatim states: “We have a major, major, major generational problem, All the polling I’ve seen: the ADL’s polling, ICC’s polling, independent polling, suggests that this is not a left, right gap folks. The issue of the United States’ support of Israel is not left and right. It is young and old.”
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1bec4z5/...
Israel's net favourability is down globally [1]. But there is zero evidence it's losing legitimacy; very few countries flipped sign. Instead, it was countries that didn't like Israel a bit disliking them more. (And again, not to the degree of carrying policy consequences.)
> issue of the United States’ support of Israel is not left and right. It is young and old
Sure. 31% is a lot. But it's also still 31%.
[1] https://time.com/6559293/morning-consult-israel-global-opini...
>zero evidence it's losing legitimacy
zero? "Colombia nation cuts ties with Israel amid Columbia University protest"[0]
Your judgment on this is rather shortsighted and there is more than enough evidence that israel is losing legitimacy. The people's opinion rarely turns into policy over night, even in democracies.
I've observed the sentiments on this particular issue for more than a decade and I can tell you that I've never seen such insane amount of regular folks, from diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, who fearlessly speak truth about israel in a manner that would make Menachem Begin tremble in his grave. I'm observing Israeli accounts and hasbara efforts and it's evident, from the content they produce, that they fear losing legitimacy and are acting accordingly e.g. investing a lot of money into gerrymandering/astroturfing[1]
Even dictators in the middle east, who are puppets of the US and Israel, are fearing of losing their own legitimacy because of what their own people perceive[2][3] as corrupt and subservient behavior to the empire. Those dictators are one arab spring away from getting brought to justice by their own people for their complicity in israel's genocide and they know it and they fear that.
[0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/05/02/columbi...
[1] https://x.com/5149jamesli/status/1783144486031495389
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-01/saudi-ara...
[3] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240415-jordans-treachery...
Ukraine has cut diplomatic ties with Russia; the Baltic states have gone almost as far [1]. That doesn't mean they deny Russia's legitimacy as a state.
There has been zero change in recognition of Israel since October 7 [2]. (Belize and Bolivia also severed relations, by the way. And Turkey stopped trading. But again, very different from disagreement and denying legitimacy, and why I said practically zero diplomatic consequences, a threshold much lower than loss of legitimacy.)
> more than enough evidence that israel is losing legitimacy
Open to being convinced, but do you have a source?
> I've never seen such insane amount of regular folks, from diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, who fearlessly speak truth about israel
Plenty of batshit crazy stuff seems widespread on the internet.
> they fear losing legitimacy
Sure. They should. America fears China annexing Taiwan; that isn't evidence it's happening.
> dictators in the middle east, who are puppets of the US and Israel, are fearing of losing their own legitimacy
The ones who helped Israel repel Iran's attack?
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-blames-baltic-co...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_I...
>Open to being convinced, but do you have a source?
A state's legitimacy hinges not only on diplomatic relations with other states but also significantly on public perception and global discourse. This is particularly evident in the case of Israel, where many now view it as a racist colonial entity which is a danger to israel's legitimacy. As I've stated before, your judgment on this seems to be extremely shortsighted, you may dismiss the countless of crucial events of the past months but israelis certainly don't, they speak of the existential threat of "delegitimization" of israel and they are fighting it tooth an nail[0]. Why would they so fiercely fight the "delegitimization" of israel if they didn't see it as a real & existential threat?
>> I've never seen such insane amount of regular folks, from diverse backgrounds and political affiliations, who fearlessly speak truth about israel
>Plenty of batshit crazy stuff seems widespread on the internet.
Without "batshit crazy" people israel couldn't even survive, those "batshit crazy" evangelicals have immense influence on policy. Furthermore, your dismissal is a bit flippant, the people I've seen speak out are sensible & reasonable; people from whom I would have never expected to hear harsh truths about the zionist colonial project.
>> they fear losing legitimacy
>Sure. They should. America fears China annexing Taiwan; that isn't evidence it's happening.
I don't think that is an adequate comparison. I'm not interested in writing an essay on how different those conflicts are, I'm pretty sure you know enough about that.
>> dictators in the middle east, who are puppets of the US and Israel, are fearing of losing their own legitimacy
>The ones who helped Israel repel Iran's attack?
Yes, the article[1] I linked above literally mentions that and I really don't see how your point diminishes in any way what I've argued for.
[0] The Diane and Guilford Foundation that grants this fellowship to you has as its stated mission "the prosperity and safety of Israel". Their grant focuses include "confronting the delegitimization of Israel" and to advance "Israel's geopolitical interests" https://x.com/birdelaire/status/1784413355236790382
[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240415-jordans-treachery...
It's not about recognition of Israel as a nation, it's about legitimacy of Israeli policies. The phrasing of "illegitimate pariah state" (not my phrasing) was rather unfortunate IMHO.
And I think it's very hard to deny that criticism of Israel's long-term policies of settlement has increasingly come under more and more scrutiny. Even your own links are demonstrating that. This is not new criticism: pretty much the entire world except Israel and the US has been saying for decades that the settlement policy is illegal and the major roadblock to peace.
Oh absolutely. The legitimacy of Israel’s entire Palestine strategy has essentially crumbled. Its ability to conduct diplomatic relations has been impaired, and it’s got a massive perception problem across an entire generation.
But when someone says Israel is losing legitimacy, they are arguing that its continued existence as a state is under threat. When the Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden, they lost legitimacy with the United States. That’s what a country losing legitimacy means—it’s no longer treated like a real country. (I don’t necessarily think everyone who says this understands this. But that’s what those words mean.)
And in respect of Israel, that simply isn’t true. In terms of pariah status it isn’t even in the world’s top ten. Its support in America—its security guarantor—is surprisingly stable. It has nukes. This isn’t a view seriously held by anyone with any military or international relations credibility. That said, I see why it has appeal in a sort of karmic justice way. Because it’s not fun to watch e.g. a Sudanese warlord or junta in Myanmar commit war crimes and win.
[0] Palestinian resistance weapons continue to evolve during genocide, with Jon Elmer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF9OsxkttM0