I am fairly sure other countries use fake social accounts to garner support or take advantage from US lawmakers too.
Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
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Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#722Earlier quoted context omitted.
The total amount of direct evidence (evidence, not assertions of secret evidence by the US government, unproven and unsubstantiated allegations of hacking or superman Bernie memes by click farms based somewhere in Russia) that Russia has "interfered" with US politics that has been released by the US government in the last 10 years adds up to less than the evidence in this article on Israel alone. Evidence aside, I pe…
> that Russia has "interfered" with US politics that has been released by the US government in the last 10 years adds up to (...) So you acknowledge that it's quite clear that Russia indeed is systematically interfering, and your only claim is to call "what about" some other country?
The nation that systematically interferes to the maximum possible extent in other nation's internal affairs, including elections is the United States of America. Tens of billions of dollars are spent on propaganda, misinformation, sponsorship of civil disturbances, activist NGO's, paid-coups of elected leaders whose elections were EU observer verified, etc.
The U.S. has grandmastery level of expertise in this space. No other nation comes remotely close. ex CIA directors have even admitted this openly on TV - "election interference" for the "greater good" - to thunderous applause!
Russian efforts to interfere were small, laughable peanuts that the American experts pitied. Read the assessments written in 2023, when Anti Trump hysteria had lowered.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/20/23559214/r...
Other nations just grit their teeth and put up with the extraordinary American interference in their internal affairs - because what can they even do ? The U.S. is the Divine Icon of Sanctimonious Hypocrisy. Complain too hard and you will be openly threatened with sanctions. (Look at what is happening with Georgia nowadays)
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#723Earlier quoted context omitted.
> that Russia has "interfered" with US politics that has been released by the US government in the last 10 years adds up to (...) So you acknowledge that it's quite clear that Russia indeed is systematically interfering, and your only claim is to call "what about" some other country?
The nation that systematically interferes to the maximum possible extent in other nation's internal affairs, including elections is the United States of America. Tens of billions of dollars are spent on propaganda, misinformation, sponsorship of civil disturbances, activist NGO's, paid-coups of elected leaders whose elections were EU observer verified, etc. The U.S. has grandmastery level of expertise in this space.…
> Tens of billions of dollars are spent on propaganda, misinformation, sponsorship of civil disturbances, activist NGO's, etc.
Only one item here really is explicitly illegal/immoral. Can you guess which one? How much evidence is there for US doing it?
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#724Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worth mentioning that Rabin's murder was almost certainly related/triggered to the wave of suicide bombing attacks by Hamas that came as a response to the peace process. The Israeli right was up in arms about how the peace process was leading to terrorism. I.e. the root cause of this was Palestinians, not Israelis.
> the wave of suicide bombing attacks by Hamas that came as a response to the peace process The Hamas suicide bombings in 1994 were in response to the massacre committed by Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein in February. The first bombing of the "wave" happened in April. [1] > This was the first suicide bombing attack to be carried out by Palestinian militants against Israeli civilians in Israel, and was carried out i…
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Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#725Earlier quoted context omitted.
"strong counterclaim". You and I have different definitions. I'm saying they're commiting mass murder in hospitals and you're saying they don't do it with air strikes. So I guess it's good then.
> I'm saying they're commiting mass murder in hospitals and you're saying they don't do it with air strikes. So I guess it's good then. I didn't say it was good. This thread was about whether NYT is biased or not, with the specific mention of them incorrectly stating a hospital was bombed. You then said that it's infuriating that people are correcting this and that this is propaganda, because every hospital has been…
The common reporting is that all hospitals in Gaza have been destroyed. I saw that written in mainstream media just today. I've seen it dozens of times. I've seen the word "bomb" used, but I am not an expert in explosives or artillery.
If you deny this, then no, you are not correct on the facts. If you want to split hairs with me about what specific mechanism Israel used to destroy those hospitals, I frankly do not think it matters. But I believe you are likely splitting hairs on that in bad faith as means of genocide denial.
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#726Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a 14 year old HN post linking to a dead article, the comments on which say things like > This is not the 'hacker news' ranking algorithm, this is the ranking algorithm distributed with 'ARC', which is the basis for the HN algorithm, but definitely not equal to it. The biggest missing ingredients are flagged posts dropping off quicker and posts that contain no URL dropping off quicker but there are quite a few…
Was referring to pg's comment
What do you mean?
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#727Earlier quoted context omitted.
The nation that systematically interferes to the maximum possible extent in other nation's internal affairs, including elections is the United States of America. Tens of billions of dollars are spent on propaganda, misinformation, sponsorship of civil disturbances, activist NGO's, paid-coups of elected leaders whose elections were EU observer verified, etc. The U.S. has grandmastery level of expertise in this space.…
> Tens of billions of dollars are spent on propaganda, misinformation, sponsorship of civil disturbances, activist NGO's, etc. Only one item here really is explicitly illegal/immoral. Can you guess which one? How much evidence is there for US doing it?
I thought they were all bad - according to the U.S itself when it is the target of such activities at the minutest level.
There is a lot of evidence, including open statements made by ex-CIA directors, published books by former military/intelligence agents, de-classified documents, news articles, interviews of EU ministers, etc. But most Americans hold your position - that direct or covert U.S. interference in other nation's affairs is completely fine. The only thing I complain about is the sanctimonious hypocrisy when actions reflect back.
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#728Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/06/world/middleeast/israel-g... That is currently the NYT headline - How can you call it Israeli propaganda is beyond me.
What if I told you modern forms of propaganda are more sophisticated than the mere blunt force repetition of a single obvious and consistent message? When is the NYT willing to stretch truth and credulity, and when is it not? What is the likely net effect of a world-weary, cynical (and false) both-sidesism as applied to the Israel/Palestine war?
Ah yes, a public company is somehow conducting a super sophisticated and secretive propaganda campaign.
I guess you're not a fan of Occam's razor? The simplest explanation here seems pretty straightforward, and no, it doesn't involve some NYT conspiratorial behavior.
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#729Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the wave of suicide bombing attacks by Hamas that came as a response to the peace process The Hamas suicide bombings in 1994 were in response to the massacre committed by Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein in February. The first bombing of the "wave" happened in April. [1] > This was the first suicide bombing attack to be carried out by Palestinian militants against Israeli civilians in Israel, and was carried out i…
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Did you know Israelis ran a covert bombing campaign in Lebanon wherein they blew up hundreds of civilians, blamed it on Palestinians, and then used this to justify the 1982 invasion?
> [Rise and Kill First] contains several pages devoted to the FLLF operation. Based on interviews with officials involved in the operation or who were aware of its existence at the time, it confirms that the Palestinians had been right all along: the FLLF was indeed a creation of Israel, a fictitious group used by senior officials to hide their country’s hand in a deadly ‘terrorist’ campaign.
> As Rise and Kill First documents in detail, the FLLF bombings were an integral part of this Israeli strategy of provocation. Indeed, the new Defense Minister immediately decided to “activate” the FLLF operation and sent Eitan as his personal emissary to “keep an eye” on the clandestine operation. Remarkably, at the time Eitan was serving as Begin’s “counterterrorism” adviser.
> On September 17, 1981, a car bomb exploded outside of the command center shared by the PLO and its Lebanese leftist allies in the port city of Sidon, killing over 20, most of them women and children who lived in nearby apartment buildings, John Kifner reported in the New York Times.
> Two days later, another “terrorist bomb” killed four in a crowded movie theater in West Beirut, Kifner reported. The FLLF claimed responsibility, but Palestinian officials immediately insisted that the group is “fictitious,” a ploy used by Israel to hide its hand in these attacks.
> On October 1, a car exploded near PLO offices in a crowded street in Moslem west Beirut, killing 90, as Kifner and the UPI reported. Several other vehicles loaded with explosives were found and defused in Beirut and Sidon “in what was intended as a devastating blitz against Palestinians and leftist Lebanese militiamen by rightist terrorists.”
> A RAND report on ‘recent trends in international terrorism’ published in April 1983 describes a few of these bombings in some detail. The death toll from these few bombings adds up to 120. By comparison, and according to the same RAND report, in 1980 and 1981 combined Palestinian ‘terrorists’ killed a grand total of 16 people. As UPI journalist Fred Schiff wrote at the time, over just two weeks the FLLF’s ‘wave of terror bombings’ in its totality claimed 308 lives.
> The censor’s decision made it possible for Israeli leaders to insist, in June 1982, that the invasion of Lebanon was justified in the name of fighting “terrorism.” Remarkably, it made it possible for Ariel Sharon to take to the pages of the New York Times in August 1982 and insist that Israeli troops “were greeted as liberators for driving out the terrorists who had raped and pillaged and plundered” the country. They had followed the Jewish doctrine of tohar haneshek, “the moral conduct of war,” Sharon added, a policy that stood “in vivid contrast to the P.L.O.’s practice of attacking only civilian targets.”
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/10/it-is-time-to-break-the-silen...
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#730Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I acknowledge that some interference by Russia and other countries is likely but not clear, since no clear evidence has ever been publicly offered. The only public evidence of clear, systemic, long-standing and ongoing interference we have is that of Israel.
Well, there are the indictments against 13 Russian nationals by the DOJ, and all the materials necessary for that. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-thirteen-r... And there are reports from the intelligence services which are very clear as well, for example: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf A brief search will come up with much more. The only question is why you haven't found any of…
(Not the original poster)
Thank you for providing civil, factual, compassionate responses in this thread - it’s an inspiring example of discourse.
I’d like to add an informative and entertaining essay on the mechanics of belief and the reasons some beliefs are harder to change than others: