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The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

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Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#181

Post by Berobero »

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #69
rayiner wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American who moved here from a Muslim country let me assure you Muslims are socialized to feel the same way about Jews. Took me a long time to see it. In high school I obviously supported Palestine and thought Israel was a settler colony (all of it, not just Gaza). Then I realized: wait why do I even care? I’m from 3,000 miles away in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, people don’t even care about Bangladeshis being he…

It's almost like maybe you should care and speak out about Palestine and Bengladeshis in Qatar and Rohingya and Yemenis and Uighurs.

As a general principle, yes, all of humanity matters, and all grave matters deserve grave attention. At the same time, how a given issue impacts you and those around you, how much influence you can possibly have over the matter, and how much responsibility you and those like you truly bare in its existence are all of upmost importance when deciding where you should be putting your emphasis, morally speaking.

For example, for your typical US citizen, decrying the plight of the Uyghurs is fine in principle. But if one goes and weights things relative to the above criteria -- though admittedly there's no clean way to do so -- I'd argue that China's Uyghur genocide would not even make the top 100 of things that deserve to be morally prioritized (again, by your typical US citizen).

And forgive me if I read to far into what you wrote past what you intended; it just struck me as possibly flattening a bit too much.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#182

Post by rayiner »

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #69
rayiner wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American who moved here from a Muslim country let me assure you Muslims are socialized to feel the same way about Jews. Took me a long time to see it. In high school I obviously supported Palestine and thought Israel was a settler colony (all of it, not just Gaza). Then I realized: wait why do I even care? I’m from 3,000 miles away in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, people don’t even care about Bangladeshis being he…

It's almost like maybe you should care and speak out about Palestine and Bengladeshis in Qatar and Rohingya and Yemenis and Uighurs.

That’s not what I’m driving at. My point is that there is a reason Bangladeshis all learn about Israel oppressing Palestine but don’t care about other Bangladeshis being worked to death in the Middle East. There’s a reason that’s the thing that gets people’s attention compared to all the other human rights issues out there.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#183

Post by rayiner »

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #72
werber wrote: post #20

As an American Jew who grew up with a distorted and racist world view in regard to Palestine this just feels like history repeating itself. The troubles that face Israelis have always been amplified over those of Palestinians in my experience. That control of the narrative led me to be actively racist for most of my life while thinking I was not and also morally superior. This kind of censorship has a body count, and…

The sad part is that you can get called an anti-Semite (or self-hating Jew) for expressing any sort of solidarity with Palestinians. The sadder part is that actual anti-Semites then jump in and use that situation to further their agenda.

[flagged]

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#184

Post by rayiner »

let_me_ask_this wrote: post #79
xupybd wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hard to say Israel has less right to the land it took over than say New Zealand. The main difference is how long ago the settling happened.

In that case Israel should follow New Zealand's example and allow all Palestinians to become citizens, with full rights, stop being an ethnostate for Jews, stop with the racism and start behaving like the progressive country they pretend to be.

And it comes down to it: the logic of progressivism inherently demands the end of Israel because it can’t conscience the notion of an ethnostate.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#185

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #183
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad part is that you can get called an anti-Semite (or self-hating Jew) for expressing any sort of solidarity with Palestinians. The sadder part is that actual anti-Semites then jump in and use that situation to further their agenda.

[flagged]

I don't know if there's maybe something to this analysis on a global scale (certainly I've got zero confidence in the good faith of Saudi and Qatari foreign policy), and it's absolutely the case that there's an insidious strain of antisemitism hiding in advocacy for Palestinians, but plenty of people I talk to about this problem are observant Jewish people; they're absolutely not antisemites, or getting "played", any more than people who advocated against apartheid were getting played. The situation is by all accounts very, very bad.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#186

Post by rayiner »

istjohn wrote: post #178
rayiner wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a hilarious assertion. One of the things we found puzzling when we moved here was why Americans spent so much time in school studying all the bad things the country did. Totally bizarre to us, coming from Asia.

Why wouldn't we want to learn from our mistakes? Ignoring past mistakes is a recipe to repeat them. German students are taught about the Holocaust for the same reason.

I’m making a different point. The idea that Americans whitewash their history is absurd compared how kids are educated in nearly the whole rest of the world.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#187

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #184
let_me_ask_this wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case Israel should follow New Zealand's example and allow all Palestinians to become citizens, with full rights, stop being an ethnostate for Jews, stop with the racism and start behaving like the progressive country they pretend to be.

And it comes down to it: the logic of progressivism inherently demands the end of Israel because it can’t conscience the notion of an ethnostate.

I'm not sure this is the mic drop you think it is, since what you're pushing back on here is the idea that Palestinians living in Israel should be allowed to simultaneously remain in their homes and have full political rights and agency. Which of those two things do you disagree with?

You're excluding the middle a lot in these comments, suggesting that the only two valid perspectives on this conflict are "Israel must be an exclusionary ethnostate" and "Hamas is a legitimate actor". It's possible to disagree with both of those statements. People who stick up for Hamas are dumb. Ethnostates are immoral.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#188

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #65
DoctorNick wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans are more prone to this kind of thing because they're already used to overriding settler-colonial propaganda influencing their mindset; Zionist propaganda is just another flavor.

That’s a hilarious assertion. One of the things we found puzzling when we moved here was why Americans spent so much time in school studying all the bad things the country did. Totally bizarre to us, coming from Asia.

Which bad things should we stop studying in school?

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#189

Post by aaronchall »

I know many users have flagged this because moderator, dang, has turned off the flags for this post. I'm sure it would be off the front page by now if he had not.

I also know that after some period of relative peace, the Palestinian people allowed over (conservatively) 3,000 rockets to be fired on Israel by their militias, injuring over (conservatively) 100 and killing 10 (as reported by the Associated Press).

To me this questions the entire framing of the issues involved.

Is this post wartime propaganda?

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#190

Post by bkirkby »

werber wrote: post #164
bkirkby wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share with us the most egregious example of a war crime committed by Israel that caused you to change your view? Please be specific about the laws, actions, and outcomes that resulted in the crime.

Most recently, bombing the offices of multiple news outlets during a conflict comes to mind. But what made me change my mind was actively seeking out Palestinians to talk to one on one after a close friend told me I was racist. This isn’t particularly profound or anything, but a now very close friend of mine talked to me about how she could barely see her family in Palestine and that I could get a free trip and citiz…

> Most recently, bombing the offices of multiple news outlets during a conflict comes to mind.

to steelman the assertion, will you pick one of the targets you are referring to and tell us what Israel says about the reason for the target? also, can you discover if Israel warned the people in the building they targeted about the action and gave them time to evacuate?

i understand if you don't want to steelman the assertion, so i'll try to do that for you if you can pick just one action you are referring to.

> friend of mine talked to me about how she could barely see her family in Palestine and that I could get a free trip and citizenship with no connection to the land because I was Jewish.

are you referring to the "Law of Return" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return)?

if so, are you suggesting that this law amounts to "war crimes that happen in clear view"?

why can your friend "barely" see her family? is it that she can't afford a trip but Jews get to go for free paid by the Israeli government?

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