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The pro-Israel information war

jackpoulson.substack.com

741–750 of 1001 posts

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#741
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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You just did the thing: Conflating being pro-Palestine (Anti-zionist) with anti-Jew. Why is it weird to mention non-Israeli jews when being Anti-zionist? The point is to NOT conflate Zionism with being Jewish. The matter of what should happen in Israel/Palestine is separate from this discussion. Anyway, they wouldn't (in theory) necessarily have to go anywhere. Jews and Arabs could have lived together in a single dem…

> pro-Palestine (Anti-zionist)

And you’re conflating being pro-Palestine with being anti-Zionist :)

At least, if one discussed pro- or anti-Israel sentiments, it’s a little bit clear what “Israel” means. It’s a country, with something vaguely resembling identifiable borders, with a particular government, citizens, a military, etc.

What, exactly, is “Palestine” if one is pro-Palestine or anti-Palestine? Is it the people? (If so, which people? Those who lived in the area currently known as Israel + Gaza + the West Bank and their descendants, but not the descendants of the Jews who settled in the region since the Zionist movement got started? Is it Palestinian refugees as defined by UNRWA? Is it the current civilization in Gaza and the West Bank? What about the multigenerational refugees in camps in nearby countries? [0]. Is it the land itself? Is it the current governments (plural!)? Is it the idea that Israel ought not to exist? (If so, what does Israel not existing even mean?). Is it the idea that innocent Gazans ought not to feel safe in their homes and have access to food, clean water, electricity, and medicine?

The whole situation is an unbelievable mess, both because the present situation is a mess and the history is a mess. I don’t a critically considered opinion can be summarized by a single hyphenated term or even two of them.

[0] Yes, there are people born in refugee camps in a couple of neighboring countries who are somehow not citizens of those countries. From a US perspective, this is very strange. The descendants of people who fled to the US are most definitely citizens. I don’t think most of them consider themselves to be refugees, nor do many other people consider them to be refugees, nor do they live in refugee camps.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#742
post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fundamental assumption of the analysis that there are two mutually exclusive groups, 'pro-Israel' and 'pro-Palestine' is flawed. It is possible to simultaneously support the interests of Palestinian and Israeli civilians (and support a peaceful Israel within the 1967 boundaries), while condemning the massacre of civilians under the orders of Likud (and other far right parties) and Hamas. I think it is cur…

I don't support how civilians are being treated in Palestine whatsoever, but: >while condemning the massacre of civilians under the orders of Likud (and other far right parties) When has Likud ordered massacres of civilians? Or when has any modern Israeli party? I also don't believe Likud is considered far-right in Israel; just "right". There are parties far to the right of them. Not that that's necessarily a good th…

Ariel Sharon was a member of Likud until 2005, and Israeli PM 2001-2006. An official enquiry found him responsible for the massacre of thousands of civilians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#743
Most of the top comments here are against Israel, the country that is defending itself against Hamas-ISIS. I think the bias in this discussion is a direct illustration of Sam Altmans tweet from yesterday:

https://twitter.com/sama/status/1732925866836210151

"for a long time i said that antisemitism, particularly on the american left, was not as bad as people claimed.

i'd like to just state that i was totally wrong.

i still don't understand it, really. or know what to do about it.

but it is so fucked."

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an ocean of injustice in the world and this one issue causes more anger than many that are equally abhorrent.

Right now, there is nowhere else in the world where so many civilians are being killed. Nothing else even comes close. 20k deaths in just two months is a massive death toll for such a short conflict. For comparison, it's more than the civilian death toll in the nearly 2-year-old war in Ukraine. The other thing is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for decades, and many people have formed strong o…

> 20k deaths in just two months is a massive death toll for such a short conflict.

This is the number provided by Hamas. Per Israel, 15k people have been killed, approximately 10k of whom are civilians.

> For comparison, it's more than the civilian death toll in the nearly 2-year-old war in Ukraine.

This is according to numbers sourced from Russians. According to Ukrainians, >20k civilians died in Mariupol’ alone (a city 1/5th the size of Gaza).

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#745
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.…

The skew is just from that view being much more popular. It's organic content.

The pro-israel side is from heavy manipulation of the recommendation algorithms and billions of dollars worth of propaganda investments (including paying people to post).

Also worth noting the strong pro-israel sentiment in India is only amongst extreme far-right Hindus.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-semitism in and of itself is unequivocally wrong. But conflating anti-Israeli views with anti-Semitic views does a disservice to Jews and Palestinians alike.

Couldn't agree more. It's a common misunderstanding, perhaps because there has always been a powerful campaign to equate any criticism of Israel to antisemitism.

  > there has always been a powerful campaign to equate any criticism of Israel to antisemitism.
Anti-Israeli views are anti-Semitic views when criticizing Israel and Israel only, for actions that are done by dozens of states over the course of decades.

If the people spouting anti-Israel sentiment spouted the same sentiment for the same actions done a dozen times over by other nations, then they would not be anti-Semitic. In fact, I would agree with the vast majority of them. But when they ignore the 300,000 killed in Syria, or the 600,000 killed in Ethiopia, or the situations in Yemen, Mail, Turkey, or even Gaza when Hamas murders hundreds of Palestinians, or in Syria where the regime kills thousands of Palestinians, then it is clear that they are not stewards of "human rights" or "civilians" or even "values". Rather, they are abusing these ideas to promote an anti-Semitic agenda. These people actually need dead Palestinians to further their agenda.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to argue and "make a peaceful treaty" with a ruling party of terrorists (greatly supported by the population btw), who want to completely obliterate Israel, launch rockets from their own houses near their own children, which has been factually proven countless amount of times. Same goes to Russia, DPRK, Iran, these are narrow minded non-negotiable despotic countries, they want only their way, regardless of casual…

Hamas supporters would say the same thing about Israel, that they could never "make a peaceful treaty" with the state that expelled their grandmother from her home at gunpoint, that launched the bomb that killed their sister, that supported the illegal settlers that shot their cousins in the West Bank… The 1% most extreme on both sides want to drag you down to their level, don't let them.

It was newly formed Arab countries' unjustified joint decision to destroy Israel in the middle of the 20th century, which led to this point, people somehow forget who started it all.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like Hamas values one Palestinian less than one Israeli. This is based on prisoner exchanges. Hamas gives up one Israeli prisoner for more than one Palestinian. Most recently it was 2:1, but historically it was 100:1 or more.

This is silly right? It isn’t like Hamas demanded this ratio, or that they forced Israel to accept. Should Hamas refuse out of principle if Israel gave them prisoners for free? On the contrary it seems more like a power play on Israel’s part. “Take our prisoners we will just defeat them again!”

> It isn’t like Hamas demanded this ratio

thats exactly what its like. If israel wanted their hostages back they needed to give up twice as many palestinian prisoners.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly I've seen a strong pro-Israel bias, particularly on the larger subreddits (like the default ones). Some of the smaller ones do seem to have a pro-Palestine (or pro-civilian) outlook but nothing that I would describe as "strongly anti-Israel"

you should look at the r/palestine if you want see manifestation of hatred. or any heavily left leaning subs.

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Re: The pro-Israel information war

#750

I've been watching Project Ask recently: https://www.youtube.com/@CoreyGilShusterAskProject/videos It's fascinating to hear opinions on the ground from both sides. Some things I've learned or concluded: Young Palestinians are much more radical than older ones, who seem more flexible. I personally think the two-state solution is a non-starter, and watched these videos to see if a one state solution is at all viable (m…

> Sadly, I think we are going to continue with the one state with Apartheid The situation is not like Apartheid in South Africa. In Apartheid, the white minority controlled South Africa, and did things like denying the black majority the vote. In contrast, Israel has a ~20% Arab minority (excluding Gaza and West Bank). The rights of that minority are respected. Arabs can vote in Israel, and in fact there is an Arab p…

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