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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

#301

Post by YZF »

luffapi wrote: post #299
YZF wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you can hold any position or opinion. John Lennon sang: "Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace" Nobody has banned John Lennon from the radio last time I checked. Until a position is backed up with some rational arguments it's sort of just your opinion. Why should we care? If you are going public with a certain p…

This is a non sequitur and a straw man. I don’t agree with the Balfour Declaration because it was strongly opposed by the Palestinians, 90% of the population at the time. I have no idea why you are quoting John Lennon. It has nothing to do with the topic.

It's good that you are backing your opinion with facts. That's a great start to a rational debate. I don't think the muslims in the region were referred to as Palestinians at the time but it is a fact that they were the majority (I could nitpick specific regions and numbers but sure, as a rule I'd agree). Do you have any reference to their strong opposition? (it sounds reasonable though, so quite likely, but let's differentiate facts from opinions). My counter is that the reason the Jewish population was a minority at the time was that Jews were expelled from the area and prevented from returning. I do support the Balfour Declaration. There are other reasons for my support, such as the persecution of Jews in other countries.

Let's say we have this debate and you convince me, and I agree with you, that the Balfour Declaration was "wrong"(?) because it's not "right" to say people X should take location Y as their country while the locals are not consulted with. Not sure that really gets us anywhere. Lots of countries "exist" without Britain bothering to have declared that they should be countries and lots of countries exist because Britain and France arbitrarily made them so. Saudi Arabia pretty much owns its existence to similar circumstances, the British war on the Ottoman empire. But sure it is part of the long and relevant history of the region.

You can also say the UN should not have passed resolution 181. Again, not sure where that's gonna lead us.

If anyone is still reading this thread: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration for reference.

If you have issues with the Balfour Declaration presumably those should be taken up with Britain?

Anyhow, at the end of the day, I think you're saying that despite the long and documented history of the Jewish people to the land of Israel the fact that the Jewish people were a minority in the area for a lengthy amount of time means that they have no right to that area at all. My counter would be that pretty much any country anywhere in the world doesn't actually satisfy your requirements and that if anything the Jewish people have a stronger "right" to that land than most other people living in other countries. And then you'll disagree. And we'll agree to disagree. And the question of how to resolve the situation today remains.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#302

Post by luffapi »

YZF wrote: post #301
luffapi wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a non sequitur and a straw man. I don’t agree with the Balfour Declaration because it was strongly opposed by the Palestinians, 90% of the population at the time. I have no idea why you are quoting John Lennon. It has nothing to do with the topic.

It's good that you are backing your opinion with facts. That's a great start to a rational debate. I don't think the muslims in the region were referred to as Palestinians at the time but it is a fact that they were the majority (I could nitpick specific regions and numbers but sure, as a rule I'd agree). Do you have any reference to their strong opposition? (it sounds reasonable though, so quite likely, but let's di…

My source on that number is from the Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Balfour_Declarati...

That other countries have also engaged in colonialism, doesn’t mean we have to support it, especially modern day colonialism.

We won’t agree on a solution or even the problem, but my point in this particular case is you can be against Israel as a geopolitical entity and not be anti-Semitic.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#303

Post by smsm42 »

xupybd wrote: post #202
smsm42 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a little difference though... There wasn't an English state in New Zealand since about 10th century BCE.

If we say you can claim land your people held in the 10th century the globe is in trouble.

"in" and "since" is somewhat different. Do Chinese have a claim on China? Do Japanese have a claim on Japan? Are Spaniards OK to live in Spain? Are Jews ok to live in Judea?

Looks like for all of these questions the answer is "duh, yes for sure" - except for the last one. I wonder...

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#304

Post by YZF »

luffapi wrote: post #302
YZF wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good that you are backing your opinion with facts. That's a great start to a rational debate. I don't think the muslims in the region were referred to as Palestinians at the time but it is a fact that they were the majority (I could nitpick specific regions and numbers but sure, as a rule I'd agree). Do you have any reference to their strong opposition? (it sounds reasonable though, so quite likely, but let's di…

My source on that number is from the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Balfour_Declarati... That other countries have also engaged in colonialism, doesn’t mean we have to support it, especially modern day colonialism. We won’t agree on a solution or even the problem, but my point in this particular case is you can be against Israel as a geopolitical entity and not be anti-Semitic.

I agree. You stated your case, you supported it, you're making good arguments. There's no problem.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#305

Post by simondotau »

dang wrote: post #290
simondotau wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused why this post was described as "flamewar" as it's a single sentence of factually correct information.[1] The only part I'd take issue with is the use of the word "fable". Fables are succinct short stories which end in a moral lesson—and the apocalyptic Book of Revelation is neither short nor moral. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/14/h...

That's stretching way too far. "Apocalyptic fables" was obviously a religious putdown. People aren't allowed to smear each other's religions on HN because it leads to some of the nastiest, dumbest, and most repetitive internet threads. It should be obvious from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html why we don't want that.

I'd still assert that "fables" is merely inaccurate, but I will accept this can be a matter of opinion. However you just quoted "apocalyptic fables" as though describing it as apocalyptic were somehow relevant to the negative connotation. Book of Revelation isn't just any apocalyptic literature, it's prototypical of the genre.[1] Apocalypse is the literally a Greek-derived word for revelation.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalyptic_literature

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#306

Post by simondotau »

pstuart wrote: post #288
simondotau wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused why this post was described as "flamewar" as it's a single sentence of factually correct information.[1] The only part I'd take issue with is the use of the word "fable". Fables are succinct short stories which end in a moral lesson—and the apocalyptic Book of Revelation is neither short nor moral. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/14/h...

I was writing up a sibling reply and then caught the last word of the flagged statement. Using "fables" is dismissive and contentious. I agree with the assessment but perhaps if it was phased as: "Yes, because they believe that they need to be on the side of Israel for their anticipated apocalypse." Or something like that. Unfortunately "people of faith" tend to take any sort of criticism of the mechanics of their fa…

> Unfortunately "people of faith" tend to take any sort of criticism of the mechanics of their faith as a personal attack.

An unavoidable consequence of any belief system which assigns significant personal reward upon faith, because criticism of faith places their personal reward into question. More unfortunate is how secular institutions are unintentionally rewarding people of faith for having a thin skin by so eagerly accepting it as a signal to quash criticism. I'd argue that nothing "tramples curiosity" quite so much as the systemic disappearance of criticism in the public square.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#307

Post by dang »

simondotau wrote: post #305
dang wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's stretching way too far. "Apocalyptic fables" was obviously a religious putdown. People aren't allowed to smear each other's religions on HN because it leads to some of the nastiest, dumbest, and most repetitive internet threads. It should be obvious from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html why we don't want that.

I'd still assert that "fables" is merely inaccurate, but I will accept this can be a matter of opinion. However you just quoted "apocalyptic fables" as though describing it as apocalyptic were somehow relevant to the negative connotation. Book of Revelation isn't just any apocalyptic literature, it's prototypical of the genre.[1] Apocalypse is the literally a Greek-derived word for revelation. [2] [1] https://en.wiki…

I know where the word apocalypse comes from. It doesn't change the point: "apocalyptic fables" was obviously a religious putdown, and those are not cool on HN.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#308

Post by mikevm »

luffapi wrote: post #34
mikevm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dang, why are such posts even allowed? It's posted by an anonymous user who's just created his account, and the content his highly one-sided and prone to create political flame wars.

You’re calling on a platform moderator to silence Palestinian voices. It’s the exact problem the OP is talking about. Censorship in social media is definitely on topic for HN.

That blog article contains misinformation which I was too busy to address. I don't think this platform is the place for political flamewars. Facebook and other media platforms are full of anti-Semitism (yes, not just anti-Israeli stuff) in the Arabic language -- something which escapes many people here and in the media in general.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#309

Post by lobocinza »

dang wrote: post #293
kdjsbdb wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy to see hn is moderated against blasphemy, how progressive!

Obviously we don't care about that. We care about having HN threads stay above the bottom of the internet barrel, to the extent possible. If you would please stop creating accounts to break HN's guidelines with, we'd be grateful. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Censuring is the shortest way to the bottom.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#310

Post by saargrin »

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…

as an israeli jew that gets shouted down and banned from every platform where a pro-palestinian opinion is present, i can tell you i can easily assemble similiar facts about the "erasure" of Israeli opinion while violent anti-semitic and ofter plain murderous opinions stay online (especially if you consider arabic language media)
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