Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DebConf20: offer to speak in Palestine censored

debian.community

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 60 posts

Re: DebConf20: offer to speak in Palestine censored

#41

Post by azinman2 »

pytester wrote: post #12
tompccs wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? There was an article on HN just yesterday about how Turkey censored Wikipedia for two years. I think a lot of Israeli engineers would just like to be able to host conferences without it turning into a geopolitical debate.

>Are you serious? There was an article on HN just yesterday about how Turkey censored Wikipedia for two years. And yet it would maximize those who would be able to attend. Both Israelis and Arabs can fly to Turkey pretty easily. >I think a lot of Israeli engineers would just like to be able to host conferences without it turning into a geopolitical debate I'm sure a lot of North Korean and Venezuelan engineers would…

I don’t want to get inti a huge debate here, but you’ve repeatedly talked about apartheid which is a highly inappropriate metaphor that often gets tossed around as if it’s somehow factual. There are Arab citizens of Israel, and they don’t have codified laws that require them to live separately from Jews, nor do you find signs that say “beware of Arabs” and other such hallmarks of apartheid. It’s a disservice to both the history of South Africa and Israel to use this term.

There are few places that don’t have geopolitical concerns for _someone_. I don’t think the community would be up in arms for a conference in the US, but plenty cannot come to the US (and it’s hardly not geopolitically controversial). I don’t think you’ll find many Armenian or Kurdish developers who want or could come to Turkey, for example. If you host in Palestinian territory, you won’t find many Israelis, Jews, gays, or other persecuted minorities able to attend that either.

I ask you to recognize that these things are complicated and multi-faceted, with a wide variety of “valid” viewpoints depending on who you are, and not worthy of such reductionism.

Re: DebConf20: offer to speak in Palestine censored

#42

Post by yasserarafat »

mjw1007 wrote: post #30
slim wrote: post #14

IMHO the carefulness that was put in writing that message make it impossible to interpret it as antisemitic or bad faith. Actually interpreting it as antisemitic is bad faith.

If the message was silently censored, there's no reason to believe that the list manager is claiming that it was antisemitic. Here's another possible explanation: maybe the message was posted by an individual who is generally banned from Debian mailing lists. Come to that, maybe the same individual is the author of all the articles on the oddly-anonymous "Debian Community News" site.

Banning the person would be an even more extreme form of censorship, it is abusive. It is like banning the Palestinians from travel, they have to get a visa to go anywhere because of Israel.

Re: DebConf20: offer to speak in Palestine censored

#43

Post by Udik »

azinman2 wrote: post #41
pytester wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Are you serious? There was an article on HN just yesterday about how Turkey censored Wikipedia for two years. And yet it would maximize those who would be able to attend. Both Israelis and Arabs can fly to Turkey pretty easily. >I think a lot of Israeli engineers would just like to be able to host conferences without it turning into a geopolitical debate I'm sure a lot of North Korean and Venezuelan engineers would…

I don’t want to get inti a huge debate here, but you’ve repeatedly talked about apartheid which is a highly inappropriate metaphor that often gets tossed around as if it’s somehow factual. There are Arab citizens of Israel, and they don’t have codified laws that require them to live separately from Jews, nor do you find signs that say “beware of Arabs” and other such hallmarks of apartheid. It’s a disservice to both…

> but you’ve repeatedly talked about apartheid which is a highly inappropriate metaphor

The apartheid accusation doesn't have much to do with Arab Israelis; the fact is that Israel exercises complete civil and military control over vast portions of the West Bank; in these areas, you can be Jewish- in which case you're an Israeli citizen, subject to civil law and able to vote for the government that effectively controls the area; or, if you're Palestinian, you're subject to the military law and vote for a government that is powerless on the territory. This is an apartheid situation, but Israel can deny it because it happens outside of its legal borders, where Israel enjoys every privilege of sovereignty without any of the duties.

Re: DebConf20: offer to speak in Palestine censored

#45

Post by woodpanel »

slim wrote: post #34
woodpanel wrote: post #22

Many people remain uncomfortable about how DebConf organizers are handling the challenges presented in the middle east. As someone, who has zero experience with DebConf whatsoever, I have to say, I can see how such an intro could be interpreted as anti-semitic. What "challenges" would have an Israli conference have to handle? How and why. If it's just because it is Israeli then do all Israeli conferences need to "han…

For example : the territory is zoned, there are military checkpoints and depending on your ethnicity, you are not free to go where you want. So if you are Muslim for instance you could be banned from attending the conference.

> the territory is zoned

Haifa is not zoned. It's inside Israel, which once entered you're free to wander around.

> there are military checkpoints

Given the threat posed by terrorism, blaming the Israelis for having military checkpoints on their land borders is kind of disengenious

> depending on your ethnicity

Arabic is an official language of Israel. 20% of its people are Muslim. I've never witnessed a security check where men wearing a Taqiyah were treated different. Please ride the Jerusalem tram, which is packed almost 50/50 with orthodox jews and orthodox muslims and tell me, this is an Apartheit-state and not a place of civic order.

> So if you are Muslim for instance you could be banned from attending the conference.

No, you're not. As the place of the conference is Haifa, once you've managed to pass border-customs at the airport your movement is unrestriced inside Israel.

Re: DebConf20: offer to speak in Palestine censored

#46

Post by [deleted] »

techntoke wrote: post #13
tompccs wrote: post #9

Headline is misleading. He didn't 'offer to speak', he proposed splitting the conference 50:50 between Israel and Palestine. Fine, if that's something you think would benefit the community, but then should we also be splitting conferences in China between Beijing and Tibet? Russia and East Ukraine? India and Kashmir? Either turn every academic conference into a geopolitical soapbox or just host it where the engineers…

Why is in order for us to do this, we have to do that? What about supporting Palestine bothers you so much?

[deleted]

Re: DebConf20: offer to speak in Palestine censored

#47

Post by yasserarafat »

jwilk wrote: post #26
throwaway202001 wrote: post #19

If(?) you really want to read this, please note that the site is closely connected to a former Debian developer with an axe to grind and at least people in his very close proximity acting in bad faith [0][1]. Please use your judgement as to the quality of the contents of https://debian.community . I have no horse in this race, but I do notice it is a prime example of Godwin's law [2]... [0] dig debian.community, dig…

Note that this is the same person whose message was allegedly censored. The actual reason the message didn't reach the mailing list it that he's banned there.

this looks like more character assassination. you focus on the person and try to avoid talking about the real issues: Censorship, Palestine. there is no evidence this person did anything to be banned so if he is banned, it is only for asking important questions. looks a lot like the mysterious poison that killed Yasser Arafat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat#Illness_and_deat...

Re: DebConf20: offer to speak in Palestine censored

#48

Post by benjf »

ealexhudson wrote: post #28
slim wrote: post #14

IMHO the carefulness that was put in writing that message make it impossible to interpret it as antisemitic or bad faith. Actually interpreting it as antisemitic is bad faith.

I suspect the care put into the message was more to ensure that this specific example would look reasonable on its own. When set in the context of the site it's posted on, and the other sites associated with the author (e.g. fsfesicherheit's other postings to HN), it looks more like a pattern of quite targeted harassment. I personally have no skin in this game, but if the message was censored from the list I would gi…

You try to smear the author to avoid the real issues. If a Debian Developer or a member of any other voluntary non-profit group asks about governance standards, that is not what you call targeted harassment, that is simply being a good citizen. We need more people like this who speak truth to power.

Re: DebConf20: offer to speak in Palestine censored

#49

Post by benjf »

s_dev wrote: post #33
ealexhudson wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the care put into the message was more to ensure that this specific example would look reasonable on its own. When set in the context of the site it's posted on, and the other sites associated with the author (e.g. fsfesicherheit's other postings to HN), it looks more like a pattern of quite targeted harassment. I personally have no skin in this game, but if the message was censored from the list I would gi…

>(e.g. fsfesicherheit's other postings to HN) A single other submission (an article on the Berlin Wall) and two comments relating to said article consitutes a HN posting history? I'm not seeing anti-semitism here but I am seeing censorship.

#1 rule of censorship: don't talk about censorship. Or they will spread rumours that people have been secretly banned from Debian.

Re: DebConf20: offer to speak in Palestine censored

#50

Post by aaron695 »

Anyone here think organising a 2nd conference is not incredibly hard?

It probably would push the conference into a large loss even if they could get it organised.

One speaker only offering to speak twice, which is basically nothing, is very bad faith.

The email should be deleted. They are a troll.

The website linked is definitely a troll website.

Post reply on HN