That’s pretty wild you can just to shut down the operations of two news organizations that don’t tow the official line. Democracy though I suppose. Would it be legally possible in the US?
What review can any part of the judiciary do of a constitutional amendment? Even if the amendment authors explicitly say "we're doing this to enrich ourselves and screw over everyone else", once it's part of the Constitution...isn't it a done deal?
There is one restriction on what amendments are valid, but nothing related to this discussion. No amendment can remove a state’s equal suffrage in the Senate without its consent. Otherwise, anything goes.
The judiciary can, of course, still review whether an amendment was validly proposed and ratified, and therefore whether or not it is in fact part of the constitution.
If 88% of all federal and state lawmakers in the US were on board, it could be done, but it would take more time and a few more steps to amend the constitution first.
Thanks for the "tow the line" note. I would've picked "toe the line" as the eggcorn; even after reading the Wikipedia entry, it still looks less natural to me.
The last time this subject came up, when Israel forcefully removed Aj Jazeera[1], there were many HN comments openly supporting such hostility and censorship. I just ask that before people openly advocate for positions of ignorance, even when well intended, they take a brief moment to consider what liberty[2][3] is first and why it might be important.
You linked some trivial materials, is there anything in there that pertains to the specific claims that Al-jazeera cooperates with terrorist and passed the information from Israel, or that some aljazeera journalists sre actually Hamas memebers?
They don't promote the killing of Jews (Associated Press, Al Jazeera, etc.), not sure where you're getting that. Last link notes that the four news organizations have denied these claims.
Edit: After reviewing the post below and others that have been made I see truth became irrelevant long ago.
The point is that a Gazan AP Journalist (featured on CNN) PARTICIPATED in the killing of Jews.
(PLUS a bunch of Gazan journalists went with the terrorists into Israel, and observed, filmed and documented the killing of civilians, triumphantly posting the videos they made of the event. They did not help anyone)
There's no reason to waste time addressing those claims because now that they're also going after western journalists, even Israel isn't bothering with those pretexts anymore.
It's very clearly an attempt to control the information that comes out and limit it to their own narrative only, same as any other dictatorship taking control of the media.
Liberty isn’t about protecting that which you alone or any popular mass agrees with, for if it were it would not be needed. Liberty protects that which is in need of protection, such that its greatest enemy is a hostile majority or any unequal power dynamic therein.
Your comment kinda reminds me of a Stargate SG1 episode, in which some brave soldiers come to earth to seek out help against the evil invaders.
Later on it gets revealed that the brave soldiers are currently doing an ethnic cleansing / mass murder.
Not everyone should be protected, and some actions are evil, even if they're done by journalists. Doing a live report to spread the message of mass murderers is one example of such behaviour.
I would argue it’s far less evil for mass murder atrocities to be well documented as compared to the contrary and be silent or unknown to the outside world.
Similar to "CRTC bans Russian state-controlled TV channels RT, RT France from Canadian airwaves", but with the addition of Al Jazeera (funded by Qatar) leaking sensitive information to enemies of Israel, during a war.
They were never even clear about what the allegations were, but people involved that it was (at most) a media office, so even then it still wouldn't be a media office under any reasonable standard. (Meanwhile, check out where the IDF headquarters is located).
lmao is this a joke? This contradicts what you said.
There's "secret evidence" but Blinken denied seeing it.
The evidence is a secret, and even the people who have seen it are a secret! But we should totally just take Israels word for it, everyone except them will lie pathologically.
in any case, I doubt there is any proof that I could offer that would be enough to change your mind. you already know what you want to believe, so this is just online pugilism.
As I said there are zero journalists in Gaza. This presumes independent reporting and Hamas does not allow it. Any journalist that reports something they don't like gets a beating, and if they persist, they're killed.
There are only propagandists with a "press" jacket. And since there's nothing better, places like BBC and CNN take what they can get.
First of all, this narrative simply isn’t true. We have plenty of images and footage from international journalists working freely in Gaza (except when the Israeli military shoots them).
Second, I hope you are aware of the genocidal nature of your speech. I’m sure you don’t mean it this way, but this kind of speech can be taken to mean every Palestinian journalist in Gaza is a legitimate target. This kind of speech is used during genocides to justify atrocities.
You are the one accusing Hamas of suppressing press freedom in Gaza. Show me the evidence you have for this accusation. Or, better yet, show me a third party report from a secondary source which summarizes this evidence.
Your parent gave you a third party report of Israeli suppression of the press in Gaza (albeit from a primary source).
Finally, you now double down on your rhetoric after I explicitly gave you the benefit of the doubt that you don’t actually mean it that way. Just to make this clear, you are stating that there are no innocent Palestinian journalists in Gaza. I hope realize how problematic this belief is. Even if you had evidence that some journalists were operatives or propagandist, these kinds of generalizing statements are very, very problematic.
> and the journalists who had resisted pressure from Hamas in Gaza were then confronted with Israeli propaganda accusing them of working for Hamas. Journalists are often the target of smear campaigns and threats, and several Israeli politicians have called for Gaza’s journalists to be punished.
EDIT: I’ll do your job for you. Here is an actual secondary source reporting on the press freedom inside Gaza back in 2015
The evidence they have (your RSF source does not cite any evidence):
> In a June 2014 poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), 67.9% of Gazans (sic) said they could not criticise the Hamas authorities without fear.
Perhaps it is right that there is lacking press freedom in Gaza, and that Hamas is at some fault for that. But since Oct. 7 this is all irrelevant because (as your own source states) Israeli suppression of news from Gaza is overwhelming.
First, I just did what you asked for. You said I needed to prove Hamas does not allow freedom of the press. Well, proven, you even bloody agree. Now, of course, you change subject, and blame Israel for supposedly lacking press freedom. Which is not what you were arguing about. You were arguing Hamas allows press freedom.
You do this after pointing out that if one country lacks press freedom, that doesn't make it OK for another to lack it too. Great.
You are not fairly discussing this issue. Not that that wasn't already clear. Everybody knows what hamas is and what they do. NOTHING excuses their behavior, and it is not comparable to what Israel does by any moral measure. Not in press freedom. Not in anything.
Second, this is false moral equivalence. Hamas beats up and even kills journalists to get them under control. Israel "pressures". Some Israeli (NOT the Israeli state) have "smear campaigns" (ie. a few posts on twitter) about those journalists. Some Isreali politicians call for the justice system to go after those journalists, but the justice system doesn't actually do that. And even if it did, it STILL would be VERY far from what Hamas does. There is no moral comparison possible.
Hamas suppress the press "problem" by what any honest human being calls "murder". Just like they solve any other problem.
What Hamas does, obviously IS INFINITELY WORSE than what Israel does, to the point that comparisons are absurd. This is equating what the Taliban does to girls' education (ie. bomb school, poison students, massacre their own people, send in the police to beat students) with the denial of the "right" for teachers to wear headscarves. Whatever your opinion about both issues, they are totally incomparable.
Except you didn't, actually. You were asked to support a specific claim that you made:
Any journalist that reports something they don't like gets a beating, and if they persist, they're killed.
You were asked point blank by user @Pfhortune -- but you ducked to the side, and put out some noise about there being lots of people with guns walking around. You were then asked again by @runarberg -- but the article you dug up still didn't support this claim -- referring only to a vague "pressuring" of journalists by Hamas, and threats to collaborators. But nothing about specific cases of journalists being routinely "beaten, and then if they persists, killed" (per your words) for saying stuff Hamas doesn't like. Meanwhile the same article mentions far more worse abuses by the IDF (which has apparently killed some 147 journalists since the start of the current massacre in Gaza -- some specifically targeted, some killed incidentally).
In other words -- it looks like you're basically making stuff up here. If you'd care to convince us otherwise, you're going to have to do a lot more than 5 seconds of Googling.
> In the West Bank, where journalists were already the victims of abuses by both the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli occupying forces ...
(about PA and Hamas actions against the press)
> With arrests, violence, destruction of equipment, legal proceedings and denial of accreditation, practicing journalism was already difficult before 7 October 2023 ...
Of course, then the article does what everyone keeps doing and blames Israel for all of it. Despite Israel STILL allowing even Al Jazeera to operate (and before you post the bullshit "they closed it", no they didn't: they closed the Al Jazeera CABLE CHANNEL in Israel. Al Jazeera journalists are still operating freely in Israel, as is plain to see on the frontpage of Al Jazeera, not that I expect you not to make yet another false accusation, but the reality is that you just can't receive Al Jazeera on cable in Israel anymore)
In other words, I stand by my claim "there are no independent journalists in Gaza, Hamas won't allow it". And I won't respond further.
Plus, frankly, I hope people still remember the incessant claims from leftists how Soviet press was totally free to report whatever they wanted. You're not the first making this totally absurd claim and nobody with minimal intelligence is fooled.
> As I said there are zero journalists in Gaza. This presumes independent reporting and Hamas does not allow it. Any journalist that reports something they don't like gets a beating, and if they persist, they're killed.
Would like to learn more about this. Are there reports of this? Has Hamas issued a statement?
Completely clamping down on independent photo/videography is very difficult, even in a place like Gaza.
> Completely clamping down on independent photo/videography is very difficult, even in a place like Gaza.
Only if you follow western sensibilities. If you have gunmen roaming the streets with machine guns, allowed to shoot anyone of the "normal" people, and they constantly ask for inspecting people's phones ... then it's not very difficult. They regularly fire into crowds, for all sorts of reasons.
Especially if about 20% of the population is part of that force roaming the streets with machine guns. There's 3 possible jobs you can have in Gaza: construction worker in Israel, Hamas or independent (baker, plumber, ...)
Hamas keeps far tighter control of their population than the USSR ever did.
These are significant allegations, but without any documentation of them I have a hard time believing they can be true. Firing weapons into crowds of people is a messy prospect that would attract significant attention no matter the perpetrator.
62 comments
[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 114 ms ] threadThat’s pretty wild you can just to shut down the operations of two news organizations that don’t tow the official line. Democracy though I suppose. Would it be legally possible in the US?
The judiciary can, of course, still review whether an amendment was validly proposed and ratified, and therefore whether or not it is in fact part of the constitution.
If 88% of all federal and state lawmakers in the US were on board, it could be done, but it would take more time and a few more steps to amend the constitution first.
Unrelated, "tow the line" is a misspelling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line
The last time this subject came up, when Israel forcefully removed Aj Jazeera[1], there were many HN comments openly supporting such hostility and censorship. I just ask that before people openly advocate for positions of ignorance, even when well intended, they take a brief moment to consider what liberty[2][3] is first and why it might be important.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/israel-aljazeera-hamas-gaza-war-e...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty
[3] https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/mill/liber...
Edit: After reviewing the post below and others that have been made I see truth became irrelevant long ago.
(PLUS a bunch of Gazan journalists went with the terrorists into Israel, and observed, filmed and documented the killing of civilians, triumphantly posting the videos they made of the event. They did not help anyone)
I've flagged this and hopefully the admins deal with it appropriately.
It's very clearly an attempt to control the information that comes out and limit it to their own narrative only, same as any other dictatorship taking control of the media.
that's convenient.
If a news agency is anything other than a stenographer for their propaganda, they must be banned. Same thing any other fascist government does.
Later on it gets revealed that the brave soldiers are currently doing an ethnic cleansing / mass murder.
Not everyone should be protected, and some actions are evil, even if they're done by journalists. Doing a live report to spread the message of mass murderers is one example of such behaviour.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/crtc-russia-today-broadcast...
https://apnews.com/article/israel-middle-east-business-israe...
"Israel provides U.S. with info showing Hamas operated in the building from which AP operated" https://www.ynetnews.com/article/Hy008WIZFu
That link shows no such thing.
> Senior defense establishment officials provided classified intelligence to Pentagon officials
It was classified intelligence. It wasn't that there was a sign in the lobby that said "3rd Floor: Associated Press, 4th Floor: Hamas".
"AP Hamas claim panned, Blinken’s ‘seen no evidence’ of presence in their HQ" (May 2021) https://nypost.com/2021/05/17/ap-slammed-for-claiming-it-was...
There's "secret evidence" but Blinken denied seeing it.
The evidence is a secret, and even the people who have seen it are a secret! But we should totally just take Israels word for it, everyone except them will lie pathologically.
which also doesn't say what you say and is basically a hit piece.
Commentators on a website say it's laughable?
It literally has the US Secretary of State, forget AP, saying they had no evidence of it either, nor had they been shown it.
But AP MUST have known, right? Right?
in any case, I doubt there is any proof that I could offer that would be enough to change your mind. you already know what you want to believe, so this is just online pugilism.
be well !
lmao good you admit that there's no evidence. I guess you just believe this on faith due to your religious beliefs.
Going to have to do better than that if you want to use it as justification for blowing up billions.
"Hamas threatening journalists in Gaza who expose abuse of civilians" (2014)
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-threatening-journalists-...
The link doesnt back the claim in the 1st sentence.
Human shields irrespective of the case here are victims IMHO not deserving of the same treatment as those using them.
There are other articles claiming, the 2nd phase continued after journalists reached out for a delay
https://cpj.org/2024/05/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-...
There are only propagandists with a "press" jacket. And since there's nothing better, places like BBC and CNN take what they can get.
Second, I hope you are aware of the genocidal nature of your speech. I’m sure you don’t mean it this way, but this kind of speech can be taken to mean every Palestinian journalist in Gaza is a legitimate target. This kind of speech is used during genocides to justify atrocities.
Obviously you can buy pictures from propagandists. The tough part really is NOT getting pictures from them when you're NOT paying for them.
Your parent gave you a third party report of Israeli suppression of the press in Gaza (albeit from a primary source).
Finally, you now double down on your rhetoric after I explicitly gave you the benefit of the doubt that you don’t actually mean it that way. Just to make this clear, you are stating that there are no innocent Palestinian journalists in Gaza. I hope realize how problematic this belief is. Even if you had evidence that some journalists were operatives or propagandist, these kinds of generalizing statements are very, very problematic.
Yes I am. Google it for 5 seconds and ...
https://rsf.org/en/country/palestine
> and the journalists who had resisted pressure from Hamas in Gaza were then confronted with Israeli propaganda accusing them of working for Hamas. Journalists are often the target of smear campaigns and threats, and several Israeli politicians have called for Gaza’s journalists to be punished.
EDIT: I’ll do your job for you. Here is an actual secondary source reporting on the press freedom inside Gaza back in 2015
https://theconversation.com/why-hamas-still-relies-on-violen...
The evidence they have (your RSF source does not cite any evidence):
> In a June 2014 poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), 67.9% of Gazans (sic) said they could not criticise the Hamas authorities without fear.
Perhaps it is right that there is lacking press freedom in Gaza, and that Hamas is at some fault for that. But since Oct. 7 this is all irrelevant because (as your own source states) Israeli suppression of news from Gaza is overwhelming.
You do this after pointing out that if one country lacks press freedom, that doesn't make it OK for another to lack it too. Great.
You are not fairly discussing this issue. Not that that wasn't already clear. Everybody knows what hamas is and what they do. NOTHING excuses their behavior, and it is not comparable to what Israel does by any moral measure. Not in press freedom. Not in anything.
Second, this is false moral equivalence. Hamas beats up and even kills journalists to get them under control. Israel "pressures". Some Israeli (NOT the Israeli state) have "smear campaigns" (ie. a few posts on twitter) about those journalists. Some Isreali politicians call for the justice system to go after those journalists, but the justice system doesn't actually do that. And even if it did, it STILL would be VERY far from what Hamas does. There is no moral comparison possible.
Hamas suppress the press "problem" by what any honest human being calls "murder". Just like they solve any other problem.
What Hamas does, obviously IS INFINITELY WORSE than what Israel does, to the point that comparisons are absurd. This is equating what the Taliban does to girls' education (ie. bomb school, poison students, massacre their own people, send in the police to beat students) with the denial of the "right" for teachers to wear headscarves. Whatever your opinion about both issues, they are totally incomparable.
Except you didn't, actually. You were asked to support a specific claim that you made:
Any journalist that reports something they don't like gets a beating, and if they persist, they're killed.
You were asked point blank by user @Pfhortune -- but you ducked to the side, and put out some noise about there being lots of people with guns walking around. You were then asked again by @runarberg -- but the article you dug up still didn't support this claim -- referring only to a vague "pressuring" of journalists by Hamas, and threats to collaborators. But nothing about specific cases of journalists being routinely "beaten, and then if they persists, killed" (per your words) for saying stuff Hamas doesn't like. Meanwhile the same article mentions far more worse abuses by the IDF (which has apparently killed some 147 journalists since the start of the current massacre in Gaza -- some specifically targeted, some killed incidentally).
In other words -- it looks like you're basically making stuff up here. If you'd care to convince us otherwise, you're going to have to do a lot more than 5 seconds of Googling.
https://rsf.org/en/country/palestine
From the article:
(about PA and Hamas journalism)
> Content is subject to political control ...
> In the West Bank, where journalists were already the victims of abuses by both the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli occupying forces ...
(about PA and Hamas actions against the press)
> With arrests, violence, destruction of equipment, legal proceedings and denial of accreditation, practicing journalism was already difficult before 7 October 2023 ...
Of course, then the article does what everyone keeps doing and blames Israel for all of it. Despite Israel STILL allowing even Al Jazeera to operate (and before you post the bullshit "they closed it", no they didn't: they closed the Al Jazeera CABLE CHANNEL in Israel. Al Jazeera journalists are still operating freely in Israel, as is plain to see on the frontpage of Al Jazeera, not that I expect you not to make yet another false accusation, but the reality is that you just can't receive Al Jazeera on cable in Israel anymore)
In other words, I stand by my claim "there are no independent journalists in Gaza, Hamas won't allow it". And I won't respond further.
Plus, frankly, I hope people still remember the incessant claims from leftists how Soviet press was totally free to report whatever they wanted. You're not the first making this totally absurd claim and nobody with minimal intelligence is fooled.
Would like to learn more about this. Are there reports of this? Has Hamas issued a statement?
Completely clamping down on independent photo/videography is very difficult, even in a place like Gaza.
Only if you follow western sensibilities. If you have gunmen roaming the streets with machine guns, allowed to shoot anyone of the "normal" people, and they constantly ask for inspecting people's phones ... then it's not very difficult. They regularly fire into crowds, for all sorts of reasons.
Especially if about 20% of the population is part of that force roaming the streets with machine guns. There's 3 possible jobs you can have in Gaza: construction worker in Israel, Hamas or independent (baker, plumber, ...)
Hamas keeps far tighter control of their population than the USSR ever did.