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The pro-Israel information war

jackpoulson.substack.com

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Re: The pro-Israel information war

#171

Post by matrix87 »

jeromegv wrote: post #103
mytailorisrich wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That is your interpretation. Doesn’t mean it is true. Jewish organizations have joined the large pro-Palestinian marches in Toronto for example. It was a protest against the war and occupation, not about the religion. It’s like saying that Israel marches are islamophobic. Saying it doesn’t make it true. And yes, sometimes it does happen that there are antisemitic people that join those groups. But if they aren’t the…

> And yes, sometimes it does happen that there are antisemitic people that join those groups. But if they aren’t the organizers and are quickly excluded

I don't think you can easily say "this person is not an antisemite"

When you have entire groups organizing and deploying hostile rhetoric, referring to Jewish people themselves as "colonizers", that's drifting towards antisemitism

When you have universities selectively employing double standards where they will fire faculty over e.g. praising Brett Kavanaugh (I can find several other examples if you like) but suddenly "care" about free speech when the topic is related to Jewish people, it's hard to rule out the question of antisemitism there. Especially considering some of these universities had antisemitic policies historically

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#172

Post by matkoniecz »

KittenInABox wrote: post #61
mastazi wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that parent is suggesting that platforms are actively prioritising one over the other. I think they are saying that the composition of users of these apps skews one way rather than the other due to pre existing stances, and the fact that the apps are not available in some markets. As a result, certain views are prioritised as a byproduct of the fact that all modern social media apps have an algorithm th…

> I think they are saying that the composition of users of these apps skews one way rather than the other due to pre existing stances I think the notion that the vast chunk of Twitter or TikTok had a pre existing stance on Israel/Palestine before Oct 7 is kind of silly, imo? Before this I could scroll Twitter without seeing anything about Israel or Palestine for... idk. Weeks, months at a time. I'll maybe see one thi…

> I really struggle to believe anyone beyond a small minority even thought about Palestine or Israel before Oct 7.

This appeared repeatedly as important news, sadly mostly due to wars and terrorism.

Jerusalem relevance alone for multiple religions with its holy sites made it important topic for many.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#173

Post by Pxtl »

zeronullempty wrote: post #4

Paul Graham: Well, well, well. That felt coordinated. Turns out it was. https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1733146138226614465?ref_src...

The replies in that are pretty terrible. I'd forgotten how awful the bluecheck-reply slurry was on Twitter since they started selling those.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#175

Post by shmatt »

dml2135 wrote: post #158
incrudible wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is, what is so special about the Israeli/Palestine conflict that leads to these outsized protests? I do not recollect a similar response to the treatment of ISIS or the war in Yemen, even though both had the unconditional support of the US war machine. Even if the left could be absolved of antisemitism, the resistance groups it is aligning itself with clearly can not.

I certainly remember similar sized, if not larger, protests against the Iraq war.

Iraq never attacked anyone. A better comparison is the war in Afghanistan.

If we compare # of people in each country. 10/07 for Israel was like 15 9/11s (this is a quote from a President Biden speech).

So not only is it worth asking - how many Americans didnt want to fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. But how many would be against some sort of war like that, if tomorrow morning they woke up to a 9/11 sized attack in 15 of the biggest US cities, happening at the same time

Not only did the US go far from home to destroy Afghanistan, but the whole world joined them to do it together

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#176

Post by mastazi »

KittenInABox wrote: post #61
mastazi wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that parent is suggesting that platforms are actively prioritising one over the other. I think they are saying that the composition of users of these apps skews one way rather than the other due to pre existing stances, and the fact that the apps are not available in some markets. As a result, certain views are prioritised as a byproduct of the fact that all modern social media apps have an algorithm th…

> I think they are saying that the composition of users of these apps skews one way rather than the other due to pre existing stances I think the notion that the vast chunk of Twitter or TikTok had a pre existing stance on Israel/Palestine before Oct 7 is kind of silly, imo? Before this I could scroll Twitter without seeing anything about Israel or Palestine for... idk. Weeks, months at a time. I'll maybe see one thi…

I think you are underestimating the diversity of these global platforms.

As an example, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are among the top 10 countries in terms of Twitter users.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-...

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#177

Post by ARandumGuy »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #91

I have no skin in this game. What I have seen is a confusion (perhaps intentional) between anti-semitism, and protesting Israel’s behavior since the Hamas attack in October. Criticizing Israel’s response is not anti-Semitism- it is literally just criticizing the response.

Israel and pro-Israel commentators have spent a lot of time and effort trying to ingrain the idea that Israel == Jews. Of course, not all Jews are Israeli, and not all Israelis are Jews. And there are many Jewish Israelis who are critical of the actions of the Israeli government.

Of course, a lot of criticism of Israel is rooted in antisemitism. But saying all criticism of Israel is antisemitic deflects legitimate criticism, and makes it harder to identify legitimate antisemitism.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#178

Post by fnimick »

chimeracoder wrote: post #113
rushingcreek wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more complicated than that. Criticizing Israeli settlements in the West Bank is not antisemitic. But suggesting that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state is antisemitic as it implies ethnic cleansing. Both are arguably criticisms of the Israeli government.

> But suggesting that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state is antisemitic as it implies ethnic cleansing. You've got it backwards. The only way for Israel to exist as an ethnostate is through an ethnic cleansing. That's not specific to Israel; that's inherent to the concept of an ethnostate. The assumption that Israel can only exist as an ethnostate is itself a political assertion - it's the hallmark of rig…

> The assumption that Israel can only exist as an ethnostate is itself a political assertion - it's the hallmark of right-wing Zionism.

I had a discussion at length on this with some very historically learned people (far more than me) shortly after the attack, with the context of Biden's response.

The underlying cultural memory is that of the Holocaust, and of thousands of years of oppression and pogroms before, where nobody would ever help the Jewish people if they were in danger. Thus the belief that the second the Jewish people became a political minority in Israel, they would be immediately and inevitably subject to ethnic cleansing and persecution by the government. Jewish supremacy is viewed as the only way for Jews to be safe in a world full of people who either hate them or don't care enough to help.

This explains Biden's "bear hug" diplomatic approach as well, which as much as it was directed to Netanyahu, was actually directed at the Israeli population (and he is now much more popular than Netanyahu is, from approval polling). The only way to defuse the situation long-term is to convince the Jewish people that if they accept peaceful co-existence without enforced ethnic supremacy and apartheid; and the only way to do that is to convince them that if they are threatened, that they will not be left to die alone as they feel they have been so many times before.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#180

Post by proc0 »

holmesworcester wrote: post #19
jdross wrote: post #7

Pro-Palestinian views outrank Pro-Israeli online by around 36 to 1 on TikTok and 8 to 1 on other online platforms. https://twitter.com/antgoldbloom/status/1721561226151612602 If anything the skew within the platforms is to prioritize pro-palestinian views https://twitter.com/committeeonccp/status/173279243496103143... It also seems like these platforms create (rather than support) anti-Israeli views: https://twitter.…

Another possible explanation for this skew is that TikTok and IG are primarily video platforms. The videos of destruction and death in Gaza are far more horrific than corresponding videos in Israel, because the scale of what Israel is doing to Gaza is so much greater than what Gaza has done to Israel. Another way of saying it is, it makes sense that someone who spends hours on apps optimized for empathy-based addicti…

> The videos of destruction and death in Gaza are far more horrific than corresponding videos in Israel

Maybe you haven't seen enough of what happened in 10/7 then. I would rather get hit by a bomb then tortured to death in the most horrific way possible.

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