Tony

And to add to that, these people did not say “Hamas did nothing wrong”. 58% said they saw Hamas as very or “somewhat” positive. This is an organisation who on one hand is a terrorist organisation, but who on the other hand operates social services. People living in deep poverty who are exposed to the social services aspect will naturally to some extent be willing to tick a box saying “somewhat positive” (38%, vs 20% “very positive”) for an organization who they personally have first-hand positive interactions with.

Despite that, and at the same time, the same survey also points out that 70% of the population in Gaza wants Hamas to give up separate armed units and hand power over the the Palestinian Authority, which should give some insight into how “somewhat positive” does not mean “agree with brutal terrorism against civilians” given that it in fact doesn’t even mean “thinks Hamas should stay in charge or have control of armed units”.

This person keeps grossly misrepresenting the level of support actually expressed.

Check the statistics I linked though and you’ll find that 50% of Palestinians don’t want peace as long as israel exist.

From your link:

Moreover, half (50%) agreed with the following proposal: “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.”

That does not support your claim, because people were not asked about what you claim, and it’s grossly dishonest to suggest they answered based on your characterization.

The question is two-pronged, asking both whether Hamas should change their demands and then narrowing the possible solution down to one specific peace alternative that we know many Palestinians would be deeply unhappy with, given that it would mean substantial territorial concessions and might well also have been interpreted as largely giving up the very thorny right of return demand.

Nothing in this question asks people to agree or disagree to “peace as long as Israel exist”.

A more reasonable interpretation is that half of Gazans are support substantial concessions before even starting any negotiations by expressing support for a kind of peace that’d involve the Palestinian side giving up on big territorial claims from the outset.

When you misrepresent the numbers this way, why should anyone listen to you?

Massive support for various terrorist groups, one of them reaching 74%

Firstly, they’ve not been asked whether they support them. If you’re going to link surveys, maybe don’t actively misrepresent what they say.

The very same link also shows 70% want the PA to take over power in Gaza. Some “support”.

50% of the population don’t want peace with Israel.

An occupied population has a legal right under international law to engage in armed resistance against their occupier, so why is this surprising? A brutally oppressive apartheid state engaged in extensive war crimes and crimes against humanity does not have a right to an expectation that the other side want peace when they continue that oppression.

If Israel shows that it is willing to take Palestinian concerns seriously and Palestinians still don’t want peace, then you’d have an argument. As it is, it’s grossly unjustified to demand of the Palestinian population that they should be ready to surrender.

Imagine that 57% of Palestinians supports Hamas

It’s cute when someone posts claims contradicted by their own source. The link actually says that “57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas”.

Consider that while Hamas is a terrorist organisation it also runs social programs, exactly to effectively buy this kind of support. For some poor family in Gaza struggling to survive it’s unsurprising that if given handouts by Hamas that some will express that kind of muted positive views even for a dictatorial regime that 70% of Gazans wants removed from power per the same link (see below).

To try to twist that into “supports” is victim-blaming of the worst sort.

Should we meanwhile talk about Israel, where there actually are regular elections and majorities keep voting in regimes that perpetuate an apartheid regime and commits gross crimes against humanity? Or is it only people in Gaza who are responsible for their governments actions, despite the fact that the majority of those of voting age in Gaza were not old enough to be part of the electorate that brought Hamas to power (in an election where they got a minority of votes).

some of ya’ll are defending them

Just like some are defending the mass murderous apartheid regime of Israel or try to implicate Palestinian civilians for actions they had no party in.

Meanwhile most of us think Hamas are terrorists but also recognise that Israel is an oppressive apartheid state and the only party with the power to actually end this, and yet is doubling down on crimes against humanity.

To focus on Hamas is deflection.

Same as for South Africa, basically. Segregation started in 1908. Formal apartheid in 1948. Full on boycotts with government support late 1980’s, and 1990 the regime fell.

I mean, their current actions are tbh pretty justified.

Terrorising the civilian population makes them no better than Hamas, and that you seek to justify their brutality is quite telling.

They have 200 innocent kidnapped civilians. And I have yet to see the Israeli government officially target Palestinian people in their attacks, physical or verbal. All of their aggression is focused on Hamas.

Very few brutal oppressors officially target civilians. The notion that it’s not official policy is the excuse of apologists for brutally oppressive regimes everywhere.

I legit don’t hear of any attacks Israel does without there being a Hamas HQ/Storehouse (and even when they’re a legit target, they alert people to evacuate beforehand…

Of course. Nobody is going to carry out an attack and go “of course we intended to murder innocent people, and knowingly committed war crimes”, so that will always be the story. And given that Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the planet, you can randomly and indiscriminately attack and then retroactively find some excuse. That they keep ending up with dead civilians shows

Context. I agree about the Apartheid in some some parts (West Bank) but there’s so much nuance there that’s it’s hard to actually define as Apartheid - they’re not actual citizens and they have their own government (PA). Their government doesn’t do much, and they’re under Israeli power -

This is only hard to people who haven’t bothered looking, and who are wildly unaware of the characteristics of apartheid.

This was exactly the point of the use of Bantustans in South Africa too: To try to write off responsibility by pretending that they had “independence”, even though South African controlled essential aspects such as borders.

Ever heard of the “states” Transkei? KwaZulu? Ciskei? There were many more. They were “states” created in a way that allowed the South African regime to try to pretend that the suffering and oppression they forced on the population was not their fault, because they were nominally “independent”. Many of the leaderships of these bantustans took on the role willingly - a means for personal power - some took up with some level of protest. E.g. Buthelezi, who led Inkatha and “ruled” KwaZulu refused to accept the pretend independence offered in part because the territory was inherently unviable.

What all of these “countries” had in common was that their bordered were unilaterally dictated by South Africa, and their level of territorial control was unilaterally dictated by South Africa, and so on, just like Israel has dictated the level of territorial control of the West Bank and Gaza and hollowed out whichever pieces they wanted. Many of the bantustans were used as excuses for “resettling” populations in supposed “homelands” and denying claims to other land the same way Palestinians have been systematically pushed into smaller and smaller areas and given some notional control over what is left.

but neither Israelis nor Palestinians consider Palestinians as Israelis - so naming it Apartheid is just not accurate. They’re just a different people.

KwaZulu was a “homeland” for the Zulu people. Ciskei and Transkei were “homelands” for the Xhosa people.

Ovamboland was a “homeland” for the Ovambo people in Namibia, so not even part of South Africa. Damaraland for the Damara people, also in Namibia. Hereroland for the Hereros, also in Namibia.

Like Israel, South Africa also occupied and controlled territories outside their own national boundaries where they, like Israel, unilaterally decided on borders for territories allowed to self govern.

So even if on were to accept your notion that the fact Palestinians and Israelis agree that they are not Israeli, there were still numerous Bantustans in the same situation: Populations that did not consider themselves part of either the same people or the same nation as South Africa, and which were still a core part of the bantustan system.

That you use this as an excuse for dismissing the accusation of Apartheid makes it clear you don’t understand what Apartheid was. Because Apartheid was far more varied than “just” the headline racism and the most in-your-face segregation.

I suggest this article. It’s old, but it’s good particularly because one of the main people mentioned in the article, Arthur Goldreich, was a hero of the Apartheid struggle, a Jewish South African who helped hide Mandela. He was also a fighter in Palmach in the 1940’s, fighting to make Israel a reality. After fleeing South African prison, he settled in Israel again in the 1960’s. I’ll quote a few paragraphs:

As it is, Goldreich sees Israel as closer to the white regime he fought against and modern South Africa as providing the model. Israeli governments, he says, ultimately proved more interested in territory than peace, and along the way Zionism mutated.

Goldreich speaks of the “bantustanism we see through a policy of occupation and separation”, the “abhorrent” racism in Israeli society all the way up to cabinet ministers who advocate the forced removal of Arabs, and “the brutality and inhumanity of what is imposed on the people of the occupied territories of Palestine”.

“Don’t you find it horrendous that this people and this state, which only came into existence because of the defeat of fascism and nazism in Europe, and in the conflict six million Jews paid with their lives for no other reason than that they were Jews, is it not abhorrent that in this place there are people who can say these things and do these things?” he asks.

These are the words of someone who lived decades in South Africa under Apartheid, and then decades in Israel under Apartheid, and who fought against South Africa, and who fought for Israel. This was 2006. Things have gotten far worse since then.

Nobody denies what they’re doing - I just give them a break considering they’re fighting a war against an organization who benefits from civilian casualties (on both sides…).

This is actually worse. If you acknowledge what they’re doing (despite your attempts to whitewash it above), then you’re giving oppressors engaged in gross human rights abuses a break while not giving the oppressed civilian population who are also opposed to Hamas and of whom the vast majority are innocent a break.

They’re also not helped by “woke” distortion of reality which makes the Israeli people only support their right wing government more against the world who very verbosely stick their nose in a conflict thousands of kms away, taking the easy way out of supporting the underdog, no matter what that underdog is actually like.

“Your criticism forced us to align with far-right extremist mass murderers” is never a valid argument. Everyone should stick their noses in when a country keeps electing governments that commits crimes against humanity on a regular basis, just like people eventually did against South African apartheid. If “woke” now means “has basic human decency”, then anyone who isn’t woke is scum.

People used your argument to try to shield the South African apartheid regime against criticism too, and it was just as nasty apologism then as it is now.

taking the easy way out of supporting the underdog, no matter what that underdog is actually like.

Anyone who believes supporting Palestinians has been “the easy way” is either a child or have not paid attention to the political climate for support for Palestinians over a period of many decades. It’s ahistorical and a nasty distortion.

You’re suggesting a brutally oppressive apartheid regime engaged in decades of war crimes and gross crimes against humanity have “tried for forgiveness, compassion, compromise, negotiation”? If so, you’re both delusional and an apartheid apologist.

but still there’s a lost nuance in this article that Israel is only addressing the Palestinian leaders (Hamas), not the Palestinian population as a whole.

Sorry, but that is pure and utter bullshit and shows you trying to justify Israels actions in a way not even Israels own government does.

That’s a very huge distinction, since jews in the Holocaust were just regular citizens in a country, without a murderous leadership. Palestinians are different in that regard - they have a terrorist organization running their territory, and no one but Israel can/will do anything about that. No one is considering how good Gazans could’ve lived if their leaders weren’t terrorists.

If Israel was actually only narrowly targeting Hamas, then that’d be great. Polls shows most people in Gaza would prefer the PA control Gaza too. I’ve posted links and images of those polls several times. But the idea that is all Israel is doing is pure fiction.

And nobody can fight a terrorist organization without civilian casualties.

Nobody is asking for that. People are asking for them to not engage in genocide. People have also been asking them - for many decades - to stop engaging in Apartheid and other brutally war crimes and human rights violations. Hamas only exists in the first place because of Israeli oppression and because Israeli encouraged opposition to Fatah. The violence of Hamas against both Israel and the Palestinian population is also part of Israels responsibility. They brought it on, and they therefore has a special responsibility to not worsen the situation even further through even more harm against civilians who have done nothing wrong and who have all been victims of Israel their whole lives, and a large proportion have also been victims of Hamas their whole lives.

Calling it a genocide is in my eyes dishonest to actual genocides where innocent people are being called animals and pillaged and slaughtered.

Denying the evidence for what Israel is engaging in is vile and dishonest against the Palestinian population.

Palestinians are poor people, but there’s definitely not only one aggressor against them.

That is true. But they’re not helped by apologists for the brutally oppressive Israeli apartheid regime.

When you’re engaged in oppressing a whole population for decades, then you should be surprised when people get desperate enough to lash out in brutal ways. That the other side also commits war crimes does not give you any right to commit even more war crimes.

It’s not about Israel having to take it lying down. It’s about Israel not retaliating against civilians who have already been victims of both Israeli and Hamas oppression their entire lives for actions carried out by a tiny proportion who won a minority of the votes so long ago that the vast majority of the current Gaza population were not even of voting age when the last election were held, and that a majority would like to get rid of (see below).

Had Israel engaged with any kind of humanity, instead of with prominent people calling Palestinians animals and instigating brutal additional oppression, and instead aimed to take on just Hamas and showed they were serious even a lot of people who see Israel as the brutal apartheid state it is would be a lot more sympathetic to their legitimate right to fight back against Hamas.

As it stands, Israel is demonstrating that like Hamas, its government are far-right extremist war criminals who thrives on dehumanizing and victimizing civilians, and whereas Israeli civilians are not legitimate targets, and should have our sympathy, nobody should have any sympathy for their Apartheid government.

To preempt the inevitable attempt to conflate Palestinians with Hamas:

(from https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-show-majority-gazans-were-against-breaking-ceasefire-hamas-and-hezbollah )

Extermination is first stage 9 out of 10 of Stantons 10 stages of genocide. And as the article also points out, extermination is only one approach to genocide, and not required to meet the UN definition.

That you conflate genocide with inherently requires mass murder just demonstrates that you don’t know what genocide is.

Maybe you should actually read and try to understand the article.

It went a similar way with South African apartheid. It took decades of things getting worse before the rest of the world even took notice - the first segregation laws were passed in 1908. It was first 40 years later the official Apartheid laws came into force. In the 1960’s, more than half a century after segregation started, the ANC gave up being peaceful. In the late 70’s they went from sabotage to starting to kill people. In the 1980’s ANC was consider a terrorist organization by the US and UK governments, and in 1987 Mandela was explicitly called a terrorist by Thatcher.

In 1990 the regime gave in.

Because the pressure had finally built to an unsustainable level, despite the fact that just a few years prior some of the most powerful countries in the world were still calling their main opponents terrorists.

This, by the way, is not intended to compare Hamas with ANC; ANC did also carry out terror, but not at nearly that scale, and of what they did carry out it’s unclear which parts of the leadership approved what

The point is the timescale. How long it took before people started giving more than lip service to turning their back to an Apartheid regime that had gotten worse for their entire lives while they ignored the oppression, and how rapidly it snowballed once it first became accepted to turn your back on the regime, and then expected, and then a necessity to prevent people from turning their backs on you.

I agree with you there’s more open criticism of Israel this time. In part, I think because there’s been a slow drip of increasingly prominent organisations applying the Apartheid label in recent years from sources that are harder and harder to dismiss, and particularly the slowly growing acceptance that Gaza and the West Bank functions as bantustans. It makes it harder to just shout down critics.

And this can, and likely will, turn really fast once things truly starts to accelerate. A couple of big PR missteps and Israel will risk the opposition to BDS crumbling as well, and then the regime will be well and truly fucked.

Totally normal behaviour from a totally not authoritarian or far-right extremist apartheid government.

I pasted my comment into a couple of online reading-level checkers, and they assessed it as requiring a reading level equivalent to grade 7 and up to grade 10 for one of them. In other words: We both know this is an excuse because you’ve run out of arguments.

You seriously struggle with reading comprehension.

I can say anything I want to gay people and by your logic should be protected.

I have said nothing of the sort. If anything, my comment took pains to draw a line. What I have said is that I don’t think anyone has any legitimate claim to demanding the unmasking of someone who merely expresses the political view without taking action on it, subject to the limitations I stated with respect to incitement etc.

It is only when, after they find out about my beliefs (and make a point to try to use my services), the baker should be forced make the cake or decline their business that it becomes distasteful?

I would have found hate speech distasteful before that but it seems that is just me.

I specifically wrote that I considered the mere view alone distasteful in itself. Was that sentence too complicated for you? Let me quote where I did so:

“One is political speech, however distasteful.”

Also, and your logic is pretty pretzeled so I am trying to follow it to its conclusion.

It’s only “pretzeled” to you because you’ve failed to understand almost every part of what I wrote:

Because you agree with the speech, because you believe a bunch of Harvard students, who made a public statement and therefore made themselves targets of publicity, are oppressed, then their identities should be protected. But only because you believe their speech is justice. If it was unjust they should be hauled to the town square?

This entire paragraph misrepresents what I wrote so hilariously much it’s really quite impressive:

1. I agree with their speech, that part is right. The “because” is not.

2. Because the fact that I agree with their speech is irrelevant.

3. I don’t believe they are oppressed. I have never said or implied I think they are oppressed.

4. I do think the identities of anyone who engages in political speech and who does not cross over into inciting illegal acts should be free to remain anonymous, whether or not I disagree with them.

5. Whether or not their speech is justified is irrelevant. Case in point: I don’t think your speech is justified. I don’t think arguing it’s right to unmask and put these people at right is reasonable. I find that notion reprehensible. I still think you should be free to remain anonymous, and don’t think you should be “hauled to the town square”.

Furthermore, I consider it a central measure of whether or not a person is good by whether or not they scream for “consequences” for everyone they disagree with.

I see, if it is speech you agree with and believe that there should be no punishment, then it is find to be anonymous. Is the reverse true, if this was an anti-Arab hate group, would you call for such protection? I doubt it. You would call for them to be unmasked and punished.

How nice of you to decide you know my views. Especially when you get it so offensively wrong.

If someone made a statement of the same content as they did, with the groups reversed, no, I sure as hell would not argue for them to be unmasked, nor would I argue for them to be punished, and I would think it was vile and a sign of deeply nasty authoritarian beliefs to do so, because the ability to debate without someone taking actions that are clearly intended to intimidate and ruin someone’s life over disagreeing with me is something that is fundamentally incompatible with all my beliefs.

Put another way: I find the views you are expressing here reprehensible, because I consider standing up for the right of specifically those you disagree with to be a core and essential factor in whether or not someone is a good person and someone who believes in freedom and democracy. But I have no desire to see you punished for them, because I do fully believe you have the right to them, and the right to express them, without worrying about consequences.

Now, had you actually argued for violence or other illegal actions against specific people in a way reasonable to consider incitement, or intended to deprive others of that same freedom, then I would want to see you unmasked and punished for that.

To me, this desire to punish and to impose consequences is at its core a deeply authoritarian, anti-democratic belief.

In the end, I know where your disingenuous argument comes from. You are a rules for thee and not for me kind of person.

I take offense at that. Are you going to give us your full real identity, in accordance with your own principles, because someone takes offence at what you have said? I certainly would not demand it, because I find the notion of demanding to unmask someone offensive, but you yourself have argued that people should stand up for what they say.

No, I’m pointing out that they had a legitimate reason for staying anonymous. That the concern was economic is irrelevant.

As for the baker, you seem to struggle with the distinction between making a statement about views vs. pointing out their intent to discriminate. In other words: The distinction between anonymously saying they don’t want to bake for gay people vs. actually refusing to bake for gay people. One is political speech, however distasteful. The other is actual discrimination.

I get the current fashion of political tribalism dictates that one must defend their side even when it does something awful or ridiculous. However, when you say vile things either on the left or the right you should face the consequences.

The problem comes when someone says something they don’t consider vile, but that they know the other side will want to impose consequences on them for. It is wildly unreasonable to think people should just offer themselves up as sacrificial lambs for bigots who can’t bear it when students express their political views on a brutally oppressive apartheid regime who has engaged in decades of war crimes and who want to impose punishments for designing to point out the responsibility of said apartheid regime.

This notion of trying to demand that people sacrifice themselves for speaking out about a brutal oppressor because they’re not brave enough to risk ruining their lives over it is one that only ever comes from those siding with the oppressors.

Indeed, if it is not objectionable, there should be no punishment, in which case if they could trust this there would be no issue with them signing their names to their statement.

You are right, they likely do not sign their names because they fear retribution. In other words: They do not trust that there will be no punishment. The demands to unmask them show that this risk is real. It does not follow from this that this is something that warrants punishment.

See how that works: Someone can believe - whether or not they are right - that there is nothing in it warranting punishment, and at the same time believe that there will be punishment anyway.

That is a logically consistent position to hold, and sufficient to warrant not disclosing their names, and so it is not valid to try to infer from this that they belief that they’ve done something wrong, nor is it reasonable to expect everyone who believes in a cause to consider it so important to them personally that they are willing to risk their future careers over it.

Unless you yourself have taken greater risks in the name of this cause, you have no basis for demanding of them risks you are unwilling to take yourself.

While that is true in the legal sense, there has also been a historical expectation (more so than reality) that universities were also meant to be bastions of free speech. And irrespective of legal protections, it is entirely reasonable for people to still be upset that other entities disregard it. Especially in cases where there are potential lifelong consequences for the people involved.

If the bakers were just signing letters saying they opposed making cakes for gay people, but not actually refusing, then there’d be no public interest in demanding their names be uncovered.

If they cannot justify their speech to the public, there is probably an issue with what they said.

You mean like when several of the US founding fathers published the Federalist Papers anonymously?