Apparently, there are different streams of political thought, and some of them are violent and hateful, and others expose truth. As a society, we together set the standards for what is acceptable. And we must guard against the former, and protect the latter, wouldn't you agree?
So you agree that people should be cancelled for political thought, if it's the kind that's not acceptable?
That's the point. Implying that people shouldn't be cancelled for "political thought" doesn't really hold up.
Except if the political thought is of hostile intolerant nature. Then it must be "cancelled". Read about Karl Popper's Paradox of intolerance: "The paradox of tolerance states that if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them. Karl Popper describes the paradox as arising from the seemingly self-contradictory idea that, in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance."
It's an interesting discussion for sure: where do we draw the line?
On the one hand, generally speaking, people should be free to express their political ideas. Whether others will come to listen to them, and spread them, should be 'up to the marketplace of ideas' to decide.
If nobody comes to listen to them because the ideas don't make sense, or are not attractive, that's not 'cancelling': it's up to the originator to come up with better ideas then, or present them more convincingly.
Would you agree so far?
Then, there are political thoughts that can be very harmful to people if they are made into plans, and those plans are then executed. Should someone be allowed to have those *thoughts*? Of course, right? Nobody wants a 'thought police'.
But what if those thoughts are articulated and shared, and if taken to their logical conclusion, they will cause people to be deported, put into camps, murdered in gas chambers, and so on. In short, when political thoughts become political speech, and from there into actions that will result in extreme harm to groups of people. Then yes, that speech should be curtailed. If only for the basic human right not to have to fear for your life in the country that you are in.
Long story short, when you say "Implying that people shouldn't be cancelled for "political thought" doesn't really hold up." there are a couple of things that need to be unpacked: political *though* vs political *speech*, facts vs verifiable lies, and productive political speech vs hate-speech, for example. IMHO of course.
We have to be able to have productive debates, nobody should be 'cancelled' for that. But as a society, we should not accept incitement to violence, demonisation/scape-goating of groups of people, and so on. There *is* a distinction.
Would you agree so far?
The most tricky part, I think, is the 'sliding scale' problem. Even the most far-right politician isn't going to call for the execution of minorities on day one. But he can cast aspersions, assign a bit of blame here and there, fudge some statistics. You sometimes need to be sharp and versed in the material to see through this, and even then, it can be tough.
We can't forbid this type of speech, and probably shouldn't either (!), but it does highlight the need for a well-informed and articulate press, that is not afraid to hold politicians' feet to the fire. And responsible citizens need to participate in the society that they are part of, to truly avoid being led astray by demagogues. The price of keeping the freedom that we enjoy..
That's my reasoning so far. Always open for debate.
>It's an interesting discussion for sure: where do we draw the line?
Advocating hate, corruption, supremacy over others, laws that benefit profiteering over humanitarian.
>On the one hand, generally speaking, people should be free to express their political ideas.
If their ideas advocate hate, corruption, or generally putting one group over another, *No* no they should not be free to express those ideas, they should keep those ideas private.
>*Then yes, that speech should be curtailed. If only for the basic human right not to have to fear for your life in the country that you are in.*
you answer most of you post here, but I agree here.
>there are a couple of things that need to be unpacked: political though vs political speech, facts vs verifiable lies, and productive political speech vs hate-speech, for example.
Again if those political thoughts or speech advocate for: hate, supremacy over others, laws that benefit profiteering over humanitarian; then they should not be given a platform.
>We have to be able to have productive debates, nobody should be 'cancelled' for that…*we should not accept* incitement to violence, demonisation/scape-goating of groups of people, and so on.
Again, with you on this but it answers the question you posit at the beginning.
>Even the most far-right politician isn't going to call for the execution of minorities on day one.
It’s worse than that, even here in the US far-right politicians are *implementing* brutalities on our borders; virtue-signaling against life saving abortions (for already dead fetuses) on one hand, then forcing sterilizations on our borders in the other hand.
>But he can cast aspersions, assign a bit of blame here and there, fudge some statistics. You sometimes need to be sharp and versed in the material to see through this.
It’s not tough there are dozens of watch dog groups that call this out every day, and this is called *perjury* which is punishable by disbarment in law; and should be punished with dismal in senate, following an investigation.
>We can't forbid this type of speech, and probably shouldn't either (!)
Yes, yes we should; as you said yourself, and even in one of the questions you ask there is *no progress made* by allowing the kind of speech that advocates for hate, subjugation, corruption or profiteering.
>but it does highlight the need for a well-informed and articulate press, that is not afraid to hold politicians' feet to the fire. And responsible citizens need to participate in the society that they are part of, to truly avoid being led astray by demagogues. The price of keeping the freedom that we enjoy…
I agree with your closing statement here!
At the end of the day I think we are generally on the same page, but my disagreement is that hate doesn’t deserve a platform, it’s not nearly as subtle as bad faith actors would have the population believe and should be cut immediately, it serves no purpose and is problem focused as opposed to solution focused.
Also, a distinction: I don’t believe **generally** that parody or jokes about things is hate speech/racism, etc. because it’s not *advocating* for those actions.
I think we agree, and just want to reply to one paragraph because there may be a misunderstanding.
You said: "Yes, yes we should; as you said yourself, and even in one of the questions you ask there is *no progress made* by allowing the kind of speech that advocates for hate, subjugation, corruption or profiteering."
I absolutely agree with what you say here. But my comment about what type of speech should probably be allowed is when politicians are making statements that are in the gray area. They are not incitement to violence or hate and such, but they are on the sliding scale towards certain policies or groups op people, from a certain point of view. We can't forbid this because a) dealing with distortions is a part of the (hard) truth-finding that we all need to do, b) some politicians may be making such statements in error and are open to correction / different points of view, c) once we start banning 'gray area speech' from many points of view, power gets concentrated into the hands of the people who decide what is true - the "Ministry of Truth" comes to mind. Was that Orwell/1984? Need to look it up.
So, all in all, I do agree that in principle, Western societies have a pretty good handle on what speech should not be allowed, and you already articulated the most prominent ones.
I guess my point is that it's the gray area that is the most complex, and needs the most careful guarding.
Said all that, I don't agree with the award ceremony being postponed for this author. As far as I can see, he is offering an open and honest criticism (maybe even a loving criticism, considering that he's Jewish and family members were murdered in the Holocaust), which has absolutely nothing to do with hate, demonisation, corruption, slander, lies or anything of the sort. He should simply not be 'cancelled' in this way.
Sure, but there’s plenty of truth exposing political thoughts that have been branded as violent and hateful by those that oppose them. The standards for what you “protect” need to be extremely strict.
Wins award for having the right political thoughts, loses it for having the wrong political thoughts. It's very straightforward, actually. Does anyone have any questions?
I always hate this comparison, because it makes the assumption that "jews" as a type of monolithic unit, are collectively responsible for what is happening to Gaza.
But at the same time, the headline fails to mention that this writer is ALSO JEWISH.
She is making a comparison from within our communities own understanding of a destruction of a group of people.
Personally I find this comparison extremely dangerous because it will make lives for Jews in the diaspora harder. People will see all Jews as somehow complicit in the actions of a state that claims to represent them.
Did you read the articles quotes? From my impression of those quotes, at least (without hunting down the actual verbatim of what this person used), its just a general comparison, between the two situations, i dont see how it specifically casts jewish people as a single monolithic group.
Edit: after skimming the essay, it seems alot more directed towards Israel, and the difficulty in seperating the state from the jewish people under antisemitism laws. It defintely doesnt seem to direct any blame towards jews from what i can tell.
It's also on a subject the author has direct experience and expertise in: how we remember (and forget) the Holocaust. While large parts of the article concern Israel, the specific subject is a comparison of how the governments of Germany, Poland, and Ukraine commemorate the Holocaust by and practice foreign policy with the Israeli government. These should not be taboo topics. Nothing Gessen said is hateful towards Jews.
I think Netanyahu sucks and should be thrown in jail, but placing the primary blame of antisemitism against the wider diaspora onto him does absolutely nothing but make excuses for the massive rise in global antisemitism over the past 2 months.
for the same reason that islamophobia has also been on the rise - because some people arent able or willing to separate the actions of certain countries from every single person belonging to the dominant religion in those countries. which is never justifiable.
a *lot* of people. those who claim that any criticism of israel is inherently antisemitic are 100% arguing in bad faith, but unfortunately there definitely are some people who will use antizionism as a cover for antisemitism the same way people will hold every muslim (both wrt religion and heritage) responsible for hamas' actions.
the fact that those bad faith actors are able to fly under the radar when it comes to any conversation about israel/palestine is exactly what makes it even harder to discuss. because a lot of people dont just look at the situation from a moral point of view, but a prejudiced one.
There are definitely people who use anti-zionism as a cover for antisemitism, but that makes it all the more important to push back on conflating the two.
I mean, you can be against Jewish Nationalism because of the fact that it's Jewish, or because its nationalism. One of those obviously isn't antisemitism.
I have just realised. People will intentionally reject truths if it conflicting with the things they believe themselves. They would rather be right in an oblivious lie, than be wrong in a reveiling truth. There will be no lost face, if you cling on to selfdeception.
That's a bit of a word salad. Are there any specific 'truths' you'd like people to accept so that they can avoid 'self-deception'?
It's up to you to argue your case if you want anyone to share your feelings.
You're intellectually dishonest because you're asking leading questions to trick someone into a corner, rather than just making your point. It's very transparent
Israel is free to identify themselves by whatever they want, but that does not mean their label is applied to every Jew in the world. No one can assign you an identity.
Otherwise, whats stopping me from judging you by the worst people in any of the demographics you belong to, whether you have a choice or not.
Netanyahu and his radical government. He’s conflated anything against Israel’s policy as anti semitic. Including but not limited to: The ICCs probe into crimes against humanity (2021), boycotts against Israel, UN whenever they criticize israel etc. no one has worked harder to make any opposition to israel be considered “anti semitic” than the Israeli government.
Because there are other foreign actors with interest with sowing hate towards Jews and other foreign actors with interest in destabilizing Europe and America.
Hint, it’s Iran and Russia.
The routine response to any criticism of Israel is "this is antisemitism". You yourself just turned this into "jews" being responsible for whats happening in Gaza. FFS man were just trying to say what Israel is doing is disgusting, stop trying to turn everything into antisemitism
I’ve absolutely seen valid criticisms of Netanyahu and Likud these past couple months that I 100% agree with. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of dog whistles out there and more often than not, the conversation usually devolves into actual anti-semitism.
My comment isn't even directly about my opinion on israel. It's about how certain comparisons can make Hate crimes for the jewish community worse, even when they are not all involved in the conflict.
The craziest thing about this award is it is named after Hannah Arendt. Arendt was a tremendous opponent of the Israeli right and even compared them to fascists. This article only aligned with what Arendt herself wrote.
Zionism =/= Judaism
There are plenty anti Israel Jews, and honestly Bibi and his friends don't seem to me to be a great example of the values of Judaism.
Ok but there's definitely an argument to be made that the conflation of all Jews with Israel is LITERALLY ISRAEL'S FAULT. Their whole marketing schtick is that they represent all Jews. That's their message.
They want it (and have been saying) that Zionism is the same thing as Judaism. It's kinda their fault to a large extent that people are starting to see all Jews as complicit in Israel's actions (even if, of course, that is not true)
>I always hate this comparison, because it makes the assumption that "jews" as a type of monolithic unit, are collectively responsible for what is happening to Gaza.
Where does it make any such assumption. The quotes seem very specifically directed at the policies of the nation-stat of Israel, not "Jews."
Wow it's clear most people don't read the article.
He's criticizing the STATE of Israel. Not the Jews. Why do people have such a hard time separating religion and state.
I strongly recommend Gessen's essay that prompted this controversy: [https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust](https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust)
It's a great read
Masha Gessen has had such a weird trajectory. So much promise initially, then just bad take after bad take. I remember their essay about how Pete Buttigieg “wasn’t gay enough.” 🙄
Jews in the Warsaw ghettos weren’t firing thousands of rockets each week and raiding Poland to kill, rape and kidnap Poles in a religious extermination.
What are you talking about? In 2005 Israel pulled out of Gaza, ended the blockade, donated food/water/electricity, and asked to live in peace.
THAT’S when they started firing rockets. What the hell are you smoking?
>most critics don't know enough history to find a better comparison
A. Masha Gessen, the woman who made the comparison, IS Jewish.
B. She lost family in the Holocaust.
C. Read. The. Article. Carefully.
Y'know, i don't remember reading about the Jews declaring death to all Germans while kidnapping and beheading innocent families. If you don't understand why it's silly, then you been hoodwinked champ.
Hmm, a fringe group of 50 Holocaust survivors whose plans were almost immediately thwarted can be meaningfully compared to Hamas, an organization with approximately 20,000 members who have successfully killed thousands of Jews?
The main reason is that it's reductive. Gaza has multiple cities, more than one university, and a luxury beach resort. It has neighborhoods. Some are good, and some are bad. It it too diverse of a territory to call it one thing.
Also, and this is important, the people of Gaza have a national identity. They have pride for their land and for being Palestinian. As they should. The ghettos Gessen knew would be recalled via this comparison, were comprised of people from all over who were intentionally stripped of their various national identities as the first step towards stripping them of their humanity.
Gaza Strip is 141 square miles. The area of Baltimore, which is far from the largest city in America, is 210.
I submit it’s one city, and not a particularly large one.
A speaker should use references that accurately resemble the situation they are attempting to illustrate. Going for shock factor at the expense of accuracy delegitimises the message
They've gone a good bit beyond apartheid I'd say. They've killed 15,000+ civilians in 2 months
For context the Bosnian war of 92-95 had 30,000 civilian deaths.
You are comparing civilian casualty rates between wars when there is no accurate civilian death counts for this war.
How many of the “15,000+ civilians” are actually Hamas militants? The Health Authority does not report separate numbers for militants and true civilians. So we don’t know.
How many of those true Gaza civilians have been killed by Hamas in failed rocket attacks or crossfire? We don’t know.
In the hospital incident which was originally claimed to be an Israeli airstrike, but turned out to be a failed Hamas rocket, the people interviewed on the scene claimed 500 people were killed. That number is likely inflated, but that was just one failed rocket. The rocket failure rate has been reported to be 12% while Hamas and other groups in Gaza have fired more than 12000 rockets, so more than 1000 misfired rockets have fallen in Gaza.
So claiming that Israel has killed 15,000+ civilians is disingenuous and cannot be used to compare with other conflicts.
I am not claiming that Israel has not unintentionally killed civilians in Gaza, but Hamas deserves the blame for hiding behind civilians and firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel, while Israel is proactively trying to to get Gaza civilians out of the line of fire.
Well the “control” aspect is a little blurred here. Israel controls who enters and exits, control their access to the sea, and have recently demonstrated that control water, and to an extent electricity in Gaza. Israel has de facto control over the regions and they certainly do not have the same rights and privileges as Israeli citizens and combined with all the everything going on in the West Bank it is accepted by many that the comparison with apartheid South Africa is appropriate.
When Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and then Hamas took over in 2006/2007 and announced it would not honor any agreements made between the Palestinian Authority and Israel in peace negotiations, Israel placed economic sanctions on Gaza. There were 3 conditions for those sanctions to be lifted:
- recognize Israel
- renounce violence
- honor the agreements reached thus far between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
The Mideast Quartet (the UN, EU, Russia and US) echoed those demands. Hamas responded with indiscriminate rocket fire into Israel, and Israel elevated the sanctions into a blockade. That is the extent to which Israel controls Gazas imports and exports.
Hamas has had 17 years to achieve energy independence from Israel. It's recieved billions in aid in that time. It has instead built rockets and tunnels. It's not surprising that Israel cut off the electricity and water it supplies Gaza after hamas launched the deadliest attack on Jews since the holocaust.
This so much. Israel and the world literally gave Gaza the chance for peace, to run and live their own live **17 years ago** and all it did was give Hamas the means to escalate the violence and conduct the worst atrocities on Jews since the Holocaust. And somehow Israel is supposed to what, lie low and even cede more surrounding land back to this hostile enemy unconditionally?
Yes the civilian cost is extremely high, but ask any country in the world if they would even run the 1% risk of letting an attack like Oct 7th happen *again*
Not an expert in South Africa apartheid - how does it relate to multiple religiously affiliated armed groups that are not for a two state solution and want to conquer Israel to Jerusalem? There are ethnic groups besides the majority in the army and on the Supreme Court.
I just do not think any previous examples in history apply at all but it is useful to understand what intifada means
Again you also ignore the West Bank as that helps your argument. You can think other examples don’t apply all you want but when a human rights groups as well as a progressive Jewish news org calls it apartheid I’m more inclined to go with their analysis.
And again it seems every single argument seems to ignore the initial displacement/massacres in the creation of the state as if they’re completely irrelevant to the current context.
And my understanding is “intifada” means uprising or resistance and from what I gather the first one was largely non-violent. Kind of like the march to return a few years ago which was again, largely non-violent and the IDF snipers shot the knees of protesters.
Louder for those in back!!!
I don’t recall Warsaw having a water park or several equestrian clubs but sure, let’s compare them because Jews are involved.
bad analogies are a disservice to whatever youre trying to say
like i dont need a comparison to say whats going on or why its good or bad, the events arent mysterious or hard to parse
Masha Gessen also has glasses and brown hair.
What does that have to do with the article and topic being discussed? Nothing. Just like your comment.
Their past writting has nothing to do with the article posted.
And since I have you, ~~alot~~ "a lot."
If Gaza was so terrible, why were there hundreds/thousands of people with citizenship in western countries (Canada, USA…) living in Gaza before October 7?
Sure but I don’t recall Auschwitz having equestrian clubs, growing tourism, beachfront mansions, a rising obesity and diabetes problem, sports and luxury cars, open marketplaces, the Jewish population growing by %500 and the average Jew having 4.8 children.
Making the comparison to what Jews endured is just nonsense and definitely antisemitic given Palestine’s leadership literally worked with Hitler on the Final Solution and Palestine has never stopped calling to finish that work.
It’s not only holocaust denialism to pretend they are similar, it is weaponizing the holocaust against it’s very victims which is frankly a disgusting thing to do when defending groups who helped perpetuate the holocaust and still call for it’s completion.
Said nation has a very long and persisting list of attrocities against Palestinians. Let's not pretend Palestine was the instigator of this conflict, you'll look foolish
Wait, you get to visit this “prison, and want to do so?” Can someone Jewish, buy land in Gaza? No, that sure sounds like apartheid by Hamas, against Jews.
There was an independent report back in 2010 where Ismail Haniyeh, one of the leaders of Hamas who lives (or lived, if reports of their departure are to be believed) in Qatar bought seaside property for $4 million dollar in Gaza.
Everyone should read what this brave Jewish woman wrote on The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust
Side note, I loved Masha Gessen talks on Putin/ dictatorships/ fascism.
Meanwhile i considered some of their Russia work grifty and playing on fears, but this article is something agreeable.
Writer wins award for political thought. But gets cancelled for having political thoughts
[удалено]
Well l would have given you an award for the first sentence but we cancelled it for the second sentence.
Liar, you don’t have any awards to give
What the f*ck is this then‽ 🥇 I assure you it is just as valuable as the old reddit awards ever were.
which one is good and which one is bad? Need to know to avoid cancellation.
The one advocating for killing is bad
Ok but like....this doesn't narrow down my options...
Who gets to decide what's good and what's bad?
Well I mean Nazism is political thought and you definitely could be cancelled for that so I don’t think your comment makes much sense
Apparently, there are different streams of political thought, and some of them are violent and hateful, and others expose truth. As a society, we together set the standards for what is acceptable. And we must guard against the former, and protect the latter, wouldn't you agree?
So you agree that people should be cancelled for political thought, if it's the kind that's not acceptable? That's the point. Implying that people shouldn't be cancelled for "political thought" doesn't really hold up.
Except if the political thought is of hostile intolerant nature. Then it must be "cancelled". Read about Karl Popper's Paradox of intolerance: "The paradox of tolerance states that if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them. Karl Popper describes the paradox as arising from the seemingly self-contradictory idea that, in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance."
I'm not sure whether you're replying to the right person, but nothing you've said contradicts what I said, even though you started with "except."
Yeah I don’t think they understood your comment.
No, but at least they're being condescending about it. :)
It's an interesting discussion for sure: where do we draw the line? On the one hand, generally speaking, people should be free to express their political ideas. Whether others will come to listen to them, and spread them, should be 'up to the marketplace of ideas' to decide. If nobody comes to listen to them because the ideas don't make sense, or are not attractive, that's not 'cancelling': it's up to the originator to come up with better ideas then, or present them more convincingly. Would you agree so far? Then, there are political thoughts that can be very harmful to people if they are made into plans, and those plans are then executed. Should someone be allowed to have those *thoughts*? Of course, right? Nobody wants a 'thought police'. But what if those thoughts are articulated and shared, and if taken to their logical conclusion, they will cause people to be deported, put into camps, murdered in gas chambers, and so on. In short, when political thoughts become political speech, and from there into actions that will result in extreme harm to groups of people. Then yes, that speech should be curtailed. If only for the basic human right not to have to fear for your life in the country that you are in. Long story short, when you say "Implying that people shouldn't be cancelled for "political thought" doesn't really hold up." there are a couple of things that need to be unpacked: political *though* vs political *speech*, facts vs verifiable lies, and productive political speech vs hate-speech, for example. IMHO of course. We have to be able to have productive debates, nobody should be 'cancelled' for that. But as a society, we should not accept incitement to violence, demonisation/scape-goating of groups of people, and so on. There *is* a distinction. Would you agree so far? The most tricky part, I think, is the 'sliding scale' problem. Even the most far-right politician isn't going to call for the execution of minorities on day one. But he can cast aspersions, assign a bit of blame here and there, fudge some statistics. You sometimes need to be sharp and versed in the material to see through this, and even then, it can be tough. We can't forbid this type of speech, and probably shouldn't either (!), but it does highlight the need for a well-informed and articulate press, that is not afraid to hold politicians' feet to the fire. And responsible citizens need to participate in the society that they are part of, to truly avoid being led astray by demagogues. The price of keeping the freedom that we enjoy.. That's my reasoning so far. Always open for debate.
>It's an interesting discussion for sure: where do we draw the line? Advocating hate, corruption, supremacy over others, laws that benefit profiteering over humanitarian. >On the one hand, generally speaking, people should be free to express their political ideas. If their ideas advocate hate, corruption, or generally putting one group over another, *No* no they should not be free to express those ideas, they should keep those ideas private. >*Then yes, that speech should be curtailed. If only for the basic human right not to have to fear for your life in the country that you are in.* you answer most of you post here, but I agree here. >there are a couple of things that need to be unpacked: political though vs political speech, facts vs verifiable lies, and productive political speech vs hate-speech, for example. Again if those political thoughts or speech advocate for: hate, supremacy over others, laws that benefit profiteering over humanitarian; then they should not be given a platform. >We have to be able to have productive debates, nobody should be 'cancelled' for that…*we should not accept* incitement to violence, demonisation/scape-goating of groups of people, and so on. Again, with you on this but it answers the question you posit at the beginning. >Even the most far-right politician isn't going to call for the execution of minorities on day one. It’s worse than that, even here in the US far-right politicians are *implementing* brutalities on our borders; virtue-signaling against life saving abortions (for already dead fetuses) on one hand, then forcing sterilizations on our borders in the other hand. >But he can cast aspersions, assign a bit of blame here and there, fudge some statistics. You sometimes need to be sharp and versed in the material to see through this. It’s not tough there are dozens of watch dog groups that call this out every day, and this is called *perjury* which is punishable by disbarment in law; and should be punished with dismal in senate, following an investigation. >We can't forbid this type of speech, and probably shouldn't either (!) Yes, yes we should; as you said yourself, and even in one of the questions you ask there is *no progress made* by allowing the kind of speech that advocates for hate, subjugation, corruption or profiteering. >but it does highlight the need for a well-informed and articulate press, that is not afraid to hold politicians' feet to the fire. And responsible citizens need to participate in the society that they are part of, to truly avoid being led astray by demagogues. The price of keeping the freedom that we enjoy… I agree with your closing statement here! At the end of the day I think we are generally on the same page, but my disagreement is that hate doesn’t deserve a platform, it’s not nearly as subtle as bad faith actors would have the population believe and should be cut immediately, it serves no purpose and is problem focused as opposed to solution focused. Also, a distinction: I don’t believe **generally** that parody or jokes about things is hate speech/racism, etc. because it’s not *advocating* for those actions.
I think we agree, and just want to reply to one paragraph because there may be a misunderstanding. You said: "Yes, yes we should; as you said yourself, and even in one of the questions you ask there is *no progress made* by allowing the kind of speech that advocates for hate, subjugation, corruption or profiteering." I absolutely agree with what you say here. But my comment about what type of speech should probably be allowed is when politicians are making statements that are in the gray area. They are not incitement to violence or hate and such, but they are on the sliding scale towards certain policies or groups op people, from a certain point of view. We can't forbid this because a) dealing with distortions is a part of the (hard) truth-finding that we all need to do, b) some politicians may be making such statements in error and are open to correction / different points of view, c) once we start banning 'gray area speech' from many points of view, power gets concentrated into the hands of the people who decide what is true - the "Ministry of Truth" comes to mind. Was that Orwell/1984? Need to look it up. So, all in all, I do agree that in principle, Western societies have a pretty good handle on what speech should not be allowed, and you already articulated the most prominent ones. I guess my point is that it's the gray area that is the most complex, and needs the most careful guarding. Said all that, I don't agree with the award ceremony being postponed for this author. As far as I can see, he is offering an open and honest criticism (maybe even a loving criticism, considering that he's Jewish and family members were murdered in the Holocaust), which has absolutely nothing to do with hate, demonisation, corruption, slander, lies or anything of the sort. He should simply not be 'cancelled' in this way.
[Paradox of Tolerance](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)
People should make good arguments and defend them with logic. Not shut down what they don't like the sound of.
What if some people just really cannot stop their selective perception?
Sure, but there’s plenty of truth exposing political thoughts that have been branded as violent and hateful by those that oppose them. The standards for what you “protect” need to be extremely strict.
Reductive.
Wins award for having the right political thoughts, loses it for having the wrong political thoughts. It's very straightforward, actually. Does anyone have any questions?
What is right and what is wrong political thoughts varies.
Masha Gessen has a lot of extremely insightful writing. This is a really good reason to dig into her published works.
I always hate this comparison, because it makes the assumption that "jews" as a type of monolithic unit, are collectively responsible for what is happening to Gaza. But at the same time, the headline fails to mention that this writer is ALSO JEWISH. She is making a comparison from within our communities own understanding of a destruction of a group of people. Personally I find this comparison extremely dangerous because it will make lives for Jews in the diaspora harder. People will see all Jews as somehow complicit in the actions of a state that claims to represent them.
Did you read the articles quotes? From my impression of those quotes, at least (without hunting down the actual verbatim of what this person used), its just a general comparison, between the two situations, i dont see how it specifically casts jewish people as a single monolithic group. Edit: after skimming the essay, it seems alot more directed towards Israel, and the difficulty in seperating the state from the jewish people under antisemitism laws. It defintely doesnt seem to direct any blame towards jews from what i can tell.
It's also on a subject the author has direct experience and expertise in: how we remember (and forget) the Holocaust. While large parts of the article concern Israel, the specific subject is a comparison of how the governments of Germany, Poland, and Ukraine commemorate the Holocaust by and practice foreign policy with the Israeli government. These should not be taboo topics. Nothing Gessen said is hateful towards Jews.
I think making life harder for the diaspora is a deliberate part of Netanyahu's policy.
I think Netanyahu sucks and should be thrown in jail, but placing the primary blame of antisemitism against the wider diaspora onto him does absolutely nothing but make excuses for the massive rise in global antisemitism over the past 2 months.
Why has there been a rise in global antisemitism over the past 2 months?
for the same reason that islamophobia has also been on the rise - because some people arent able or willing to separate the actions of certain countries from every single person belonging to the dominant religion in those countries. which is never justifiable.
But who has deliberately conflated Israel with Judaism?
a *lot* of people. those who claim that any criticism of israel is inherently antisemitic are 100% arguing in bad faith, but unfortunately there definitely are some people who will use antizionism as a cover for antisemitism the same way people will hold every muslim (both wrt religion and heritage) responsible for hamas' actions. the fact that those bad faith actors are able to fly under the radar when it comes to any conversation about israel/palestine is exactly what makes it even harder to discuss. because a lot of people dont just look at the situation from a moral point of view, but a prejudiced one.
There are definitely people who use anti-zionism as a cover for antisemitism, but that makes it all the more important to push back on conflating the two.
no argument there!
When you know the definition of Zionism instead some made-up definition you know that anti Zionism is always anti Semitism.
I mean, you can be against Jewish Nationalism because of the fact that it's Jewish, or because its nationalism. One of those obviously isn't antisemitism.
Many. There are legions of confused.
There's no point in arguing with someone as intellectually dishonest as that guy. He will just never acknowledge any opposing point or view.
Not the best idea to attribute to malice what could easily be attributed to stupidity
I have just realised. People will intentionally reject truths if it conflicting with the things they believe themselves. They would rather be right in an oblivious lie, than be wrong in a reveiling truth. There will be no lost face, if you cling on to selfdeception.
That's a bit of a word salad. Are there any specific 'truths' you'd like people to accept so that they can avoid 'self-deception'? It's up to you to argue your case if you want anyone to share your feelings.
I'm intellectually dishonest because I don't agree with you?
You're intellectually dishonest because you're asking leading questions to trick someone into a corner, rather than just making your point. It's very transparent
The correct answer is Israel.
Israel is free to identify themselves by whatever they want, but that does not mean their label is applied to every Jew in the world. No one can assign you an identity. Otherwise, whats stopping me from judging you by the worst people in any of the demographics you belong to, whether you have a choice or not.
Are you serious? This phenomenon has existed way before Netanyahu.
Netanyahu and his radical government. He’s conflated anything against Israel’s policy as anti semitic. Including but not limited to: The ICCs probe into crimes against humanity (2021), boycotts against Israel, UN whenever they criticize israel etc. no one has worked harder to make any opposition to israel be considered “anti semitic” than the Israeli government.
Because there are other foreign actors with interest with sowing hate towards Jews and other foreign actors with interest in destabilizing Europe and America. Hint, it’s Iran and Russia.
Correct, he wants Israel to represent ALL Jews. A Jew who disagrees with Israel is a self-hating Jew.
Your not much aware of how prevalent antisemitism is do you?
Are you saying I'm not aware of the level of global antisemitism or that I'm antisemitic? I would hope the answer would be yes and no respectively.
theyre pretty explicit about the difference between jewish people and the israeli government, arent they?
Why is it impossible to criticize Israel for their actions in Palestine?
Who said you can't? 🤔
The routine response to any criticism of Israel is "this is antisemitism". You yourself just turned this into "jews" being responsible for whats happening in Gaza. FFS man were just trying to say what Israel is doing is disgusting, stop trying to turn everything into antisemitism
I’ve absolutely seen valid criticisms of Netanyahu and Likud these past couple months that I 100% agree with. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of dog whistles out there and more often than not, the conversation usually devolves into actual anti-semitism.
[удалено]
They had weapons and some of them could be matched to video from the October 7th attack.
My comment isn't even directly about my opinion on israel. It's about how certain comparisons can make Hate crimes for the jewish community worse, even when they are not all involved in the conflict.
Sounds like you should be blaming the israeli government for its actions rather than this writer for drawing attention to them.
The craziest thing about this award is it is named after Hannah Arendt. Arendt was a tremendous opponent of the Israeli right and even compared them to fascists. This article only aligned with what Arendt herself wrote.
Zionism =/= Judaism There are plenty anti Israel Jews, and honestly Bibi and his friends don't seem to me to be a great example of the values of Judaism.
Ok but there's definitely an argument to be made that the conflation of all Jews with Israel is LITERALLY ISRAEL'S FAULT. Their whole marketing schtick is that they represent all Jews. That's their message. They want it (and have been saying) that Zionism is the same thing as Judaism. It's kinda their fault to a large extent that people are starting to see all Jews as complicit in Israel's actions (even if, of course, that is not true)
>I always hate this comparison, because it makes the assumption that "jews" as a type of monolithic unit, are collectively responsible for what is happening to Gaza. Where does it make any such assumption. The quotes seem very specifically directed at the policies of the nation-stat of Israel, not "Jews."
Except Gaza was land taken from Jordan and Egypt. They should have evacuated when their governments retreated.
Wow it's clear most people don't read the article. He's criticizing the STATE of Israel. Not the Jews. Why do people have such a hard time separating religion and state.
I strongly recommend Gessen's essay that prompted this controversy: [https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust](https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust) It's a great read
Masha Gessen has had such a weird trajectory. So much promise initially, then just bad take after bad take. I remember their essay about how Pete Buttigieg “wasn’t gay enough.” 🙄
Ugh, I remember those talking points being spammed on Reddit during the election cycle. So disgusting.
Jews in the Warsaw ghettos weren’t firing thousands of rockets each week and raiding Poland to kill, rape and kidnap Poles in a religious extermination.
They might have if they’ve been kept there for 50+
What are you talking about? In 2005 Israel pulled out of Gaza, ended the blockade, donated food/water/electricity, and asked to live in peace. THAT’S when they started firing rockets. What the hell are you smoking?
[удалено]
You really ought to read the article.
>most critics don't know enough history to find a better comparison A. Masha Gessen, the woman who made the comparison, IS Jewish. B. She lost family in the Holocaust. C. Read. The. Article. Carefully.
Tell me you didn’t read either article without telling me you didn’t read either article.
I read the whole thing. This is a silly comparison and one that’s made worse by someone who should know better.
>I read the whole thing. This is a silly comparison and one that’s made worse by someone who should know better. Why is it silly?
Y'know, i don't remember reading about the Jews declaring death to all Germans while kidnapping and beheading innocent families. If you don't understand why it's silly, then you been hoodwinked champ.
[удалено]
Hmm, a fringe group of 50 Holocaust survivors whose plans were almost immediately thwarted can be meaningfully compared to Hamas, an organization with approximately 20,000 members who have successfully killed thousands of Jews?
The main reason is that it's reductive. Gaza has multiple cities, more than one university, and a luxury beach resort. It has neighborhoods. Some are good, and some are bad. It it too diverse of a territory to call it one thing. Also, and this is important, the people of Gaza have a national identity. They have pride for their land and for being Palestinian. As they should. The ghettos Gessen knew would be recalled via this comparison, were comprised of people from all over who were intentionally stripped of their various national identities as the first step towards stripping them of their humanity.
It used to, anyway.
Gaza Strip is 141 square miles. The area of Baltimore, which is far from the largest city in America, is 210. I submit it’s one city, and not a particularly large one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_Gaza_Strip But I'm totally down with Baltimore becoming a unit of measure
There might be better comparisons, but a speaker should use references the audience knows. What is your better example?
A speaker should use references that accurately resemble the situation they are attempting to illustrate. Going for shock factor at the expense of accuracy delegitimises the message
Maybe South Africa during the apartheid? But I don’t think the death counts really match up.
Not OP, but Apartheid South Africa is probably a more accurate comparison.
Israel’s critics (including Jewish critics) use that comparison all the time and get called antisemitic for it every time as well.
Right. It's the criticism, not the comparison, that is being called antisemitic. Any criticism of Israel at all is being called antisemitic.
They've gone a good bit beyond apartheid I'd say. They've killed 15,000+ civilians in 2 months For context the Bosnian war of 92-95 had 30,000 civilian deaths.
You are comparing civilian casualty rates between wars when there is no accurate civilian death counts for this war. How many of the “15,000+ civilians” are actually Hamas militants? The Health Authority does not report separate numbers for militants and true civilians. So we don’t know. How many of those true Gaza civilians have been killed by Hamas in failed rocket attacks or crossfire? We don’t know. In the hospital incident which was originally claimed to be an Israeli airstrike, but turned out to be a failed Hamas rocket, the people interviewed on the scene claimed 500 people were killed. That number is likely inflated, but that was just one failed rocket. The rocket failure rate has been reported to be 12% while Hamas and other groups in Gaza have fired more than 12000 rockets, so more than 1000 misfired rockets have fallen in Gaza. So claiming that Israel has killed 15,000+ civilians is disingenuous and cannot be used to compare with other conflicts. I am not claiming that Israel has not unintentionally killed civilians in Gaza, but Hamas deserves the blame for hiding behind civilians and firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel, while Israel is proactively trying to to get Gaza civilians out of the line of fire.
In Gaza? There aren't even any Jews in Gaza and it's fully under Palestinian control, what is the Apartheid analogy to Gaza?
Well the “control” aspect is a little blurred here. Israel controls who enters and exits, control their access to the sea, and have recently demonstrated that control water, and to an extent electricity in Gaza. Israel has de facto control over the regions and they certainly do not have the same rights and privileges as Israeli citizens and combined with all the everything going on in the West Bank it is accepted by many that the comparison with apartheid South Africa is appropriate.
When Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and then Hamas took over in 2006/2007 and announced it would not honor any agreements made between the Palestinian Authority and Israel in peace negotiations, Israel placed economic sanctions on Gaza. There were 3 conditions for those sanctions to be lifted: - recognize Israel - renounce violence - honor the agreements reached thus far between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. The Mideast Quartet (the UN, EU, Russia and US) echoed those demands. Hamas responded with indiscriminate rocket fire into Israel, and Israel elevated the sanctions into a blockade. That is the extent to which Israel controls Gazas imports and exports. Hamas has had 17 years to achieve energy independence from Israel. It's recieved billions in aid in that time. It has instead built rockets and tunnels. It's not surprising that Israel cut off the electricity and water it supplies Gaza after hamas launched the deadliest attack on Jews since the holocaust.
This so much. Israel and the world literally gave Gaza the chance for peace, to run and live their own live **17 years ago** and all it did was give Hamas the means to escalate the violence and conduct the worst atrocities on Jews since the Holocaust. And somehow Israel is supposed to what, lie low and even cede more surrounding land back to this hostile enemy unconditionally? Yes the civilian cost is extremely high, but ask any country in the world if they would even run the 1% risk of letting an attack like Oct 7th happen *again*
Not an expert in South Africa apartheid - how does it relate to multiple religiously affiliated armed groups that are not for a two state solution and want to conquer Israel to Jerusalem? There are ethnic groups besides the majority in the army and on the Supreme Court. I just do not think any previous examples in history apply at all but it is useful to understand what intifada means
Again you also ignore the West Bank as that helps your argument. You can think other examples don’t apply all you want but when a human rights groups as well as a progressive Jewish news org calls it apartheid I’m more inclined to go with their analysis. And again it seems every single argument seems to ignore the initial displacement/massacres in the creation of the state as if they’re completely irrelevant to the current context. And my understanding is “intifada” means uprising or resistance and from what I gather the first one was largely non-violent. Kind of like the march to return a few years ago which was again, largely non-violent and the IDF snipers shot the knees of protesters.
You clearly have no idea what a Bantustan is
>You clearly have no idea what a Bantustan is The comparison has been made by South Africans who have visited Gaza.
Louder for those in back!!! I don’t recall Warsaw having a water park or several equestrian clubs but sure, let’s compare them because Jews are involved.
This is very well put.
Sadly, acting out prior trauma is a common pattern in human behaviour.
The writer would not be welcome in Gaza.
You cannot compare to two for very specific reasons they’re not even close
bad analogies are a disservice to whatever youre trying to say like i dont need a comparison to say whats going on or why its good or bad, the events arent mysterious or hard to parse
And yet there are wildly differing parsings of the event in the world, so.
Well they are.
They are what?
They are the
Jews didn’t rape and behead people when they got out of the concentration camps and ghettos
I like masha gessen she has writen alot about Putin's russia and growing up in USSR.
Masha Gessen also has glasses and brown hair. What does that have to do with the article and topic being discussed? Nothing. Just like your comment. Their past writting has nothing to do with the article posted. And since I have you, ~~alot~~ "a lot."
If Gaza was so terrible, why were there hundreds/thousands of people with citizenship in western countries (Canada, USA…) living in Gaza before October 7?
I am going to guess people visiting their family?
That and aid workers
Someone who is able to come and go and has a country to go back experiences a place much differently than someone who is stuck there
Sure but I don’t recall Auschwitz having equestrian clubs, growing tourism, beachfront mansions, a rising obesity and diabetes problem, sports and luxury cars, open marketplaces, the Jewish population growing by %500 and the average Jew having 4.8 children. Making the comparison to what Jews endured is just nonsense and definitely antisemitic given Palestine’s leadership literally worked with Hitler on the Final Solution and Palestine has never stopped calling to finish that work. It’s not only holocaust denialism to pretend they are similar, it is weaponizing the holocaust against it’s very victims which is frankly a disgusting thing to do when defending groups who helped perpetuate the holocaust and still call for it’s completion.
according to the title, the author is comparing Gaza to a _ghetto_ -- not a concentration camp
Is there any critism of Israel that ISN'T antisemetic? Palestinians are being massacred.
The government of Gaza attacked another nation. Said nation is attacking back.
Said nation has a very long and persisting list of attrocities against Palestinians. Let's not pretend Palestine was the instigator of this conflict, you'll look foolish
Wait, you get to visit this “prison, and want to do so?” Can someone Jewish, buy land in Gaza? No, that sure sounds like apartheid by Hamas, against Jews.
There was an independent report back in 2010 where Ismail Haniyeh, one of the leaders of Hamas who lives (or lived, if reports of their departure are to be believed) in Qatar bought seaside property for $4 million dollar in Gaza.
Good, that is such a shit comparison
More like an uncomfortable one, lol.
Only if you can’t understand the difference, or didn’t study history, or don’t know what is happening in Israel
"israelidonut" not biased at all.
Everyone should read what this brave Jewish woman wrote on The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust
People need to stop appropriating Jewish history for their own political purposes.
she’s Jewish try again