[News] Around The Rest of World

A posting place for news from places around the globe, outside of the US/Europe.

The number of casualties as a result of the Palestinian terror attack in Tel Aviv has risen to 3.

That's a total 14 Israelis murdered over the past two weeks in one stabbing and three shooting attacks in Beer Sheva, Hadera, Bnei Brak and Tel Aviv, all cities within uncontested Israeli territory (unless you support the Palestine "from the river to the sea" - which is a call for the total destruction of Israel).

Israel has significantly increased freedom of movement for Palestinians in honor of Ramadan, this is how they chose to use it.
The freedom of movement has not been lifted as of these lines.

Mod note:

Going to add something I've already mentioned before on these forums, but bears repeating: Folks, using comments that include racist slurs agains a minority group (That is NOT a part of this conversation) in order to criticize someone else is out of bounds. You can easily critique someone's argument without resorting to that.

Sonny:
Yes, mainstream media sells their preferred narrative. From a moderation perspective feels like you're continuing to beat this drum to stir the pot because you're aware of the sociopolitical leanings of this forum. Great, you've established that you're pro-israel while the rest of the western world is often aligned with free Palestine and you don't agree with that. Got it.

and I will never tolerate terrorism against civilians nor will I tolerate false or biased reporting about this conflict.

Ok. I hope you're doing what you can in your local area to enact change to fight terrorism, and not just reading online articles that don't align with your worldview to make yourself mad, and then bringing it here to argue with random folks on the internet in a video game forum to... I'm not entirely sure. Make yourself feel better? You are welcome to "not tolerate" what you choose to look at and react to, but you don't have the authority to "not tolerate" what you don't agree with in this space unless that means removing yourself from the conversation. You're free to do that whenever you like.

I too have tolerances, usually regarding disruptive activity on this forum. Please note that I don't care what your opinion is on any given subject (or anyone else's, for that matter), and would like the conversation to move on. The only thing I care about are patterns of established behaviour within the bounds of this space, and yours looks like pot stirring?

If you're just going to continue to hold up hand-picked instances of Palestinian pushback to years of occupied oppression and carry on with this one-man mission in some remote online forum to proclaim "who's worse," I would take a moment to reflect, and also ask the rest of you to not take the bait and ignore it, especially if it's not adding anything new to the discussion.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...

To make sense of most international journalism from Israel, it is important first to understand that the news tells us far less about Israel than about the people writing the news. Journalistic decisions are made by people who exist in a particular social milieu, one which, like most social groups, involves a certain uniformity of attitude, behavior, and even dress (the fashion these days, for those interested, is less vests with unnecessary pockets than shirts with unnecessary buttons). These people know each other, meet regularly, exchange information, and closely watch one another’s work. This helps explain why a reader looking at articles written by the half-dozen biggest news providers in the region on a particular day will find that though the pieces are composed and edited by completely different people and organizations, they tend to tell the same story.

I am pretty sure that is true of journalism in the US as well.

farley3k wrote:

I am pretty sure that is true of journalism in the US as well.

Yeah that was my response to the notion that there's no place for one-sided journalism.

That is in effect, an argument for NO journalism. Every outlet has a position to support. Every. Single. One.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: None of this is sarcastic; please read this as entirely sincere as I intend it to be.

I don't like to publicly dispute mod actions, but I find it very distressing and disturbing that the statements Sonny made - which I in large part directly quoted to make the analogous example pointing out how racist and hateful they are - have been left up and un-modded.

While I can see how it may be interpreted as me "discussing the poster and not the content of the post", I strongly beg to differ. My intention was to directly correlate the hateful content of the post with similar hateful content that we have condemned in older discussions of which many of us have participated. Hell, I'm not sure if anyone will remember this far back, but I was once a racist in denial of their racism (I chose that phrasing very carefully) -- meaning that while I didn't support blatant racist attitudes or language, I harbored more subtle and insidious racist views like so much of the white population of the US. It was a challenge over several years to root that crap out of myself and recognize how vigilant I will always need to be.

I'm not necessarily stating that I should not have been modded. Looks like I ran afoul of the CoC but it was sincerely not my intention. I'm mainly replying to seek public clarification of the points I'm raising here because I can't be the only one who is confused. It seems like we're allowing bigotry against some populations to stand unmodded and unchallenged while maintaining our appropriate "no tolerance" stance for other populations.

I'm in 15th hour of crunch on 4 hours of sleep, and will be working through most of the weekend, however the weekend is when I get to sleep a little more, so I had plans to go through threads and get context. I apologize that I cannot both keep up with the speed of most of these threads or read all of the backlog in detail for context, especially when people dogpile, rightly or wrongly, and it goes runaway like a freight train to cleveland.

My intent was to pump the breaks on whatever is going on here so I/we have a chance to catch up and figure out the context of the conversation that many seem to have a lot of time in their workdays to expand upon for pages and pages. In the past if it's getting too out of hand, I've just temporarily locked threads until I had a chance to stop, catch up, and take the time to make informed decisions. If that is your preference we can do that instead, though I feel it is not ideal.

No matter how I handle it, someone isn't going to like it, so I appreicate your feedback so I can factor that into my process.

Farscry wrote:

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: None of this is sarcastic; please read this as entirely sincere as I intend it to be.

I'm not necessarily stating that I should not have been modded. Looks like I ran afoul of the CoC but it was sincerely not my intention. I'm mainly replying to seek public clarification of the points I'm raising here because I can't be the only one who is confused. It seems like we're allowing bigotry against some populations to stand unmodded and unchallenged while maintaining our appropriate "no tolerance" stance for other populations.

Also, in the spirit of sincerity, I would appreciate you being crystal clear on what you're saying here regarding the vaguery around "some populations" and "other populations." Can you please explicitly state which populations you are referring to here? Also please detail specifically which bigotry we're allowing. I'm happy to address that once I have more information on what this is supposed to refer to.

Hey all,

I've taken my responses to PM's -- in fact, did so before I saw Amoebic request clarification in this last post. After calming down a bit, realized that I really should have just done so in the first place and trusted that the mods will respond in a time and manner that best resolves things. I apologized to Amoebic directly in PM, and am reiterating it here because I do believe in accountability to our community when we do wrong and despite my sincerity, I was out of line to respond to a mod action this way.

Hey Amanda,

Allow me to make a few comments.

Amoebic wrote:

Going to add something I've already mentioned before on these forums, but bears repeating: Folks, using comments that include racist slurs agains a minority group (That is NOT a part of this conversation) in order to criticize someone else is out of bounds. You can easily critique someone's argument without resorting to that.

I suppose this was not directed at me. If yes, kindly point me to it.

From a moderation perspective feels like you're continuing to beat this drum to stir the pot because you're aware of the sociopolitical leanings of this forum. Great, you've established that you're pro-israel while the rest of the western world is often aligned with free Palestine and you don't agree with that. Got it.

Sorry, I don't think you quite get it.

I feel like many people on this forum (at least the ones who respond to my posts) have a very narrow and fixed perception of what 'pro Israel' actually means. A pro American, for example can be a Trump supporter or a Bernie Sanders supporter. Two completely different types of people, yet both can be considered pro Americans because they want the best for their country. Same for goes for Isrtaelis, there are liberal, right wing, orthodox, etc.
Yet here, for some reason, being a 'pro Israel' or just an Israeli, automatically paints me as an ultra-nationalist propagandist who supports the oppression of Palestinians and a Hasbara employee (I was actually accused being one on this forum).

Perhaps this is the perception you make about all Israelis in your head and apply them when you talk to one but that is not who I am and it's a shame that people seem to ignore many things that I actually say and just attack me based on the things they assume I am.

For example, you assume that I do not support 'free Palestine'.
Why? When did I ever said that? On the contrary, I said more than once on this very forum that I support freedom for Palestinians, I support a just and a peaceful solution for both nations.

Sure, there is an argument to be had as to *how* Palestine will become free (I, for example, oppose violence and terrorism) or what are the borders of Palestine (my 'from the river to the see' comment) but from here to labeling me as someone who opposes a Palestinian state? Come on...

and I will never tolerate terrorism against civilians nor will I tolerate false or biased reporting about this conflict.

Ok. I hope you're doing what you can in your local area to enact change to fight terrorism, and not just reading online articles that don't align with your worldview to make yourself mad, and then bringing it here to argue with random folks on the internet in a video game forum to... I'm not entirely sure. Make yourself feel better? You are welcome to "not tolerate" what you choose to look at and react to, but you don't have the authority to "not tolerate" what you don't agree with in this space unless that means removing yourself from the conversation. You're free to do that whenever you like.

My 'never tolerate terrorism' was a general statement, it wasn't intended at this forum. I think you read it as "I'm going to fight anyone here" and it wasn't my intent.

I literally came to a forum called 'discussion and debates' and posted in a thread dedicated to news from around the world and posted about news I felt was important. Why ridicule me for it?
No, I'm not 'pot stirring' nor am I coming here to 'argue' with people. I simply shared something with the community I've been a part of for many years, hoping for a civilized discussion yet receive a bunch of troll responses and a mod who's using her authority to give me a character analysis. Not cool.

If you're just going to continue to hold up hand-picked instances of Palestinian pushback to years of occupied oppression

What does 'hand-picked' even mean? Am I expected to post ALL Israeli related news? How is that different from someone posting 'Israel is an apartheid state' bullsh*t a few posts before me? That one wasn't "hand picked"?

No, it wasn't handpicked. Farley posts all kinds of stuff like that, in the various appropriate threads.

Only two kids of people participate in internet discussions and debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, masochists and fools.

sonny615 wrote:

Hey Amanda,

Eeeyyy let's not do that. Please refer to me by the forum handle next to my user image like we've all done with eachother so far. Thanks for reminding me I need to legally change my name at some point, though.

I have scheduled a time to review this thread over the weekend for context as noted above, and will respond to whatever else you've written since I posted above until the time that I'm able to review the thread and discuss a response at length in the moderator chat. As usual.

Amoebic wrote:
sonny615 wrote:

Hey Amanda,

Eeeyyy let's not do that. Please refer to me by the forum handle next to my user image like we've all done with eachother so far. Thanks for reminding me I need to legally change my name at some point, though.

Noted, sorry!

I was doing photoshop for work, so this seemed easier at the time than trying to use the extensive pastequote function that folks will often use to break down one-another's posts, which I kind of loathe. Looking forward to potentially getting maybe threaded comments for us? No promises on that yet, just pipedreams for the new site.

IMAGE(https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/v243/Liolai/sonny(1).png)

I realize this is illegible. click through to see the full-size image.
Furthermore, as satisfying as it is to remove distateful and abhorrent things, sometimes they exist to be a lesson learned, and them remaining and the ensuing conversation is a reminder to all why it's important to air things sometimes. By removing them it creates an erasure or avoidance of a thing that may need to be discussed. Sometimes out of sight, out of mind feels like ignoring a problem we don't want to admit is happening, even if that may not be the impetus behind it.

So many things that are wrong with what you wrote, and while trolls are nothing new to me, I can't be bothered to argue with an unprofessional and hostile mod.

I will just comment on one thing:
IMAGE(https://i.ibb.co/CWSv8v2/joke.png)

We could argue whether Israel is an apartheid state (it's nowhere close) or if it's ok to stoop as low as whitewashing terrorism against innocent civilians by calling it "reactionary tactics", or any part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but having the nerve to exercise your authority as a mod based on your (radical left) political views makes you an absolute joke and a disgrace.

This also proves that I was absolutely right, about this part of the forum at least. You are incapable of listening to a different voice or an opinion, you are intolerant, unwelcoming and mean. It was a little disappointing at first, because I really wanted to be a part of this community but it is what it is.
Enjoy having 'discussions and debates' with a bunch of people who think exactly like you.

ok

~mod~
If you feel you must, engage the post, not the poster.
mudbunny

You have both provided an excellent example of my thesis. Thank you.

Israel is an apartheid state, according to Amnesty International. Their mission is to support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Stele wrote:

Israel is an apartheid state, according to Amnesty International. Their mission is to support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

They'd really prefer Israel not exist at all.
"In the course of establishing Israel as a Jewish state in 1948, Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and destroyed hundreds of Palestinian villages, in what amounted to ethnic cleansing," the report said

I'm really impressed with Israel's ability to conduct ethnic cleansing before its establishment.

So that didn't happen? Gotcha...full on Orwell. What you see is not true.

Or is the idea that since Jewish leaders were lobbying the United Nations for a Jewish state, and that Jewish people moved into the areas were Palestinians were forced from is just someone else's fault?

You'd be amazed at the kind of magic jewish people can perform. Walk on water. Turn water into wine. Even resurrection!

farley3k wrote:

So that didn't happen? Gotcha...full on Orwell. What you see is not true.

Or is the idea that since Jewish leaders were lobbying the United Nations for a Jewish state, and that Jewish people moved into the areas were Palestinians were forced from is just someone else's fault?

Those wily jews straight up colonized Palestine!

I got to say when you find yourself fighting against Amnesty International I think a much deeper look at your position is called for.

Seriously a group who's goal is to end abuses of human rights is your enemy....well lets just say I find your position wrong.

Farley, stick to scraping reddit.

LOL I have time to argue with evil and scape reddit.

farley3k wrote:

LOL I have time to argue with evil and scape reddit.

You are truly a hero for the modern age. Keep up the fight sir!

Thanks! I kind of thought you were annoyed but I am happy you want me to keep going.

In all fairness though I do believe the Jewish people deserve a homeland, I do not believe they should be terrorized in their homes, and I do believe in a long, long, loooong history of their mistreatment by ... well about everyone. However I don't think that excuses anything and everything they do.

The whole two wrongs don't make a right thing...

If I let every ignorant person I come in contact with affect me emotionally I'd have put a bullet in my head already.