Supplementary Material 2: Dissident Dialogues, Bloodbaths, & Genocidal Debates
Added 2024-03-22 00:48:48 +0000 UTCThe adventure in formatting continues with the second Supplementary Material episode.
On this episode:
Sam Harris Devotees
Dissident Dialogues
Lex's important message about idolism
Trumpian Bloodbath & Media Criticism
Lex Fridman's Israel-Palestine Debate
Finkelstein vs. Destiny
Genocidal Debates
Links
Lex Fridman Podcast: Finkelstein, Destiny, M. Rabbani & Benny Morris
Joe Rogan & Jonathan Haidt Disagree About Donald Trump BLOODBATH Comment
UN investigation (2015) that covered the beach bombings and reached more critical conclusions
Comments
I'm just catching up on DTG, so I'm a bit late to the party. But I came here to say the same thing as you. And also, I think Matt and Chris glossed over the words Trump used in between which were: "that will be the least of it", insinuating that the trade issues would be a "secondary bloodbath" but not the primary one. Full quote of that bit: "If I get elected...now if i don't get elected it'll be a bloodbath for the whole...that's gonna be the least of it. It's gonna be a bloodbath for the country. That'll be the least of it." He has a history of dog whistling (stand back and stand by, be there it will be wild etc). All perfectly defensible in isolation, but not taken as a whole. So I think in this case, the media is actually correct in reporting what trumps intentions are.
Josh Stuart
2024-04-22 03:23:23 +0000 UTCYep that is disappointing :)
David Noble
2024-04-06 23:25:46 +0000 UTCYeah, entirely stand by that. We aren’t the place to come for political stances. There’s a tonne of causes we could be advocating for and conflicts we could cover. You are going to be continuously disappointed if you want us to advocate for those kind of issues beyond what we do now. And I also think you are overestimating our influence. I felt quite strongly about the conflict in Syria but we covered it zero times on the show. It’s just not the subject, and there are many, many alternative larger politics focused shows.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-06 22:54:20 +0000 UTCI'm referring to where you said "leave the politics to other people" and that "we're gonna make no difference to what is currently going on over there". You have a louder voice than most people do, and this is an issue on which public opinion is the only thing driving politicians towards making the right choices. I'm saying don't be apathetic when it comes to politics, you can actually make a difference.
David Noble
2024-04-06 22:47:27 +0000 UTCI’m pretty sure we discussed in the episode how if you feel strongly that attending protests and voicing your opinion to relevant politicians is useful but that’s rather different than devoting many hours to debating on Reddit and Twitter about Destiny and Finkelstein’s performance.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-06 21:57:58 +0000 UTCSorry to harp on about this, but I just watched this video wherein an ex member of the U.S. state department said that really the only thing that makes Biden change course is public opinion. I fear a message about how our opinions on the genocide don't really matter is a self-fulfilling prophecy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdtXOEzDBCQ
David Noble
2024-04-06 21:49:42 +0000 UTCHow could people not know what Supplementary Materials mean? It’s in a grade 7 math book!!
Julie
2024-04-02 23:43:02 +0000 UTCThis was an interesting discussion. However, the use of the word “children” without additional context and qualifiers is frustrating. When someone hears a child was killed it has immediate powerful moral implications that can dramatically change our intuitions about the situation. ‘Children’ is a broad category that includes everything from a blissfully unaware 3 year old girl to an ideologically driven 17 year old armed soldier. Understanding the age and context changes our moral evaluation. For example, during WW2 the nazis drafted children from the Hitler Youth into the army and thousands of them fought and killed Allied soldiers. Does that mean they were not legitimate targets? Of course not, they were. It’s regrettable but not condemnable. It seems like some, especially in the Gaza war, use the term child without qualifications intentionally to be manipulative. It would be good if we had less ambiguous terminology
Par
2024-04-01 22:15:58 +0000 UTCJovan, sorry - this might be just a misunderstanding and we're running in circles. I definitely noticed that you mentioned Snyder and Kotkin and that you defer to them about the topic of Russian invasion in Ukraine (as do I). I also never said anything about Destiny - I don't know nor really care about who he is. I haven't listened to the debate nor do I intend to after hearing the snippets in the pod. Clearly you've listened to much more of him, I'll take your word on Destiny's guru-ness. I did mention in my first comment that this is probably not the same discussion, but I do think that Finkelstein has become "unhinged", does comment on subjects he is not an authority and sounds crazy in general. That says nothing about Destiny, btw. As for "my politics", I've found Finkelstein's books I've read (quite a long time ago though) interesting, and I definitely would not defer to Destiny on the subject.
kurdelis
2024-03-28 19:35:21 +0000 UTCWilliam Burns was the head of the CIA, served under four different presidents, and was the American liaison to Russia under Bush. His opinion is not only repeatable - it is essential in understanding American relations with Russia. It's funny how gurus get a pass for expertise by the way but academics who have related areas of study do not, interesting phenomenon. Like several times in this thread and throughout my interactions here I was told, and I quote, "you are appealing to authority," when I said how ridiculous it was that NF - an academic who studied International Relations with a speciality in the Israel-Palestine conflict - was labeled a guru while Destiny, someone who started learning about this conflict 6 months ago, was not. It's obviously just about which guru aligns with your preconceived values. NF studied International Relations w/r/t Israel-Palestine, so actually I agree with you that he is not an authority on this conflict, and if you read my post I cited two academics who are staunchly pro-Ukraine (if you want to put it in such reductive good vs bad terms), Snyder and Kotkin who I personally defer to when it comes to this topic. But you can't have your cake and eat it, too. You can't say NF can't comment on a topic which is adjacent to his field of study and Destiny can comment on whichever is the topic of the day that will garner him the most followers and be blind to the implicit hypocrisy of your value system. As for the conflict in I-P I would defer to the authorities in this subject, people like who were in this debate (sans Destiny).
Jovan Popov
2024-03-27 18:29:37 +0000 UTCSo as far as I can understand from your comments he both has "more of a nuanced opinion " and "pretty much repeating William Burns mantra of NATO expansion". How his teaching at four different schools 10 years ago automatically makes him an authority on the subject of Russian invasion in Ukraine that started about the same time he finished teaching there, I don't understand. All of his books as far as I know are on Israel-Palestine conflict, I don't question his knowledge about that subject at all, btw.
kurdelis
2024-03-27 17:23:28 +0000 UTCNorman Finkelstein has taught International Relations at four different schools of higher learning. I think he has more of a nuanced opinion than your every man. So what you are saying is objectively wrong. It's not just Putin's mantra - this is something that American academics who specialize in the subjects of global politics and relations have voiced for over 40 years. Don't get me wrong, I prefer Kotkin or Snyder - but I'm not in the business of silencing academics or referring to them as "crazy" because they hold different political beliefs than me.
Jovan Popov
2024-03-27 14:53:54 +0000 UTC".. a discussion on which of these figures is more of a guru as defined by their use of rhetorical manipulation to cover subjects they are not necessarily authorities on but for which they want to garner a large audience of, oh let's call them followers." was my point I don't think that Finkelstein is an authority on the topic at all, so he does exactly what you described. + for me, an eastern european, repeating Putin's mantra about NATO expansion and Russia "having the right to invade" does make him look unhinged.
kurdelis
2024-03-27 09:46:22 +0000 UTCThanks for your response, Chris. I really would challenge you - I'm guessing you're not the psychologist - and say that in fact you are agreeing or are being blind to Destiny's guruness because he is challenging the positions/people YOU are not sympathetic towards. I haven't listened to the JP vs Destiny fiasco but I imagine you put all your energy towards JP and maybe the off-hand comment towards Destiny - which by the way, I don't blame you in that case - JP is obviously a huge guru. Destiny seems great if he is debating people you don't care for but I really recommend you spend a bit of time on his channel (I had to do this recently because my students keep mentioning him and how smart he is) and you can make up your own mind. To me his is a particularly evil type of guru, the neo-liberal guru, who can espouse such lunatic, blood-thirsty remarks like, "We can nuke all of Gaza and it still wouldn't be called genocide" with a straight face and still hide behind a mask that he is the open-minded purveyor of leftist humanistic values all while making millions and millions of dollars off his followers. I'll give you a couple of videos to start off your research, hopefully you'll do a podcast some day on him because he is GenZ's newest guru and is shaping the minds of the next generation: He uses obfuscation, diverts topics, and then uses euphemisms for really terrible events for things that are at least genocide-adjacent, there is one point in this video that is particular egregious but you can see all his debate bro tactics in general in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEuFqEErHno&t=6674s And then there are 100s of examples where he is teaching the generation really terrible ways to talk to people you disagree with: Here he is telling someone he disagrees with to kill themselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrt_9u9DQz0 Here he calls the person he is debating a "retard that doesn't know what (they) are talking about" and then hangs up on them: 1h16.20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VkVHYdgI3s&t=1579s There are so many examples of his toxic behavior it's crazy, just spend a month on his algorithm and you'll go crazy - I blocked him now to preserve my mental health. I feel so sorry for the new generation that they have voices like this influencing their opinions and world views.
Jovan Popov
2024-03-27 07:55:54 +0000 UTCI'm not really sure what you are trying to point out. We are having a discussion (or at least I am) on which of these figures is more of a guru as defined by their use of rhetorical manipulation to cover subjects they are not necessarily authorities on but for which they want to garner a large audience of, oh let's call them followers. Everything Finkelstein covered in this video seems right out of a playbook by Merscheimer, William Burns, or Jeffrey Sachs - whom he quotes - which is to say authorities on this subject and respected academics who teach about global politics. Now, if you disagree with his point of view, that is fine, but it is a point of view shared articulatly with thought and precision by people who have interpreted something that runs contrary to your beliefs and that is OK - the fact that so many respected academics, government officials, authorities on the subject interpreted it like NF obviously means there is more than way to interpret this event - I personally don't agree with them, but, like Voltaire, I will fight for their right to voice a reasoned, articulate thought, especially coming from people who know what they are talking about. I don't know how what you posted in this video shows how Mr. Finkelstein has "lost his mind" other than where he says "Russia had the right to invade Ukraine" but then quickly (for NF) amended "but there is a difference between HAVING a right and EXERCISING the right, and I can't say with any sort of certainty that it was wise or prudent." So, I'm guessing you are using hyperbole, because these are not the words of someone who is unhinged - he's pretty much repeating William Burns mantra of NATO expansion as a threat to Russia which is probably one of the most cited arguments on the Ukraine-Russia conflict that exists - it's an academic, reasoned argument that I don't necessarily agree with but which is shared by many, many people - so, again - what are you trying to add to his discussion?
Jovan Popov
2024-03-27 07:34:07 +0000 UTCYeah, I took the comment "whether it's genocide or not depends on the framing" which I believe Chris made, to be a denial that this is a genocide. Also some comments in response to xxx. As to the kids on the beach, if the drone operators killed them knowing they were kids, it was one small act with genocidal intent, among many far clearer cases of IDF soldiers killing Palestinians with genocidal intent. There's a difference between atrocities and genocide. For example Assad, the dictator of Syria, committed many horrible atrocities against the Syrian people. But he wasn't trying to wipe them out as a people. So there's a difference between denying atrocities and denying genocide. I am not accusing you of denying atrocities or lacking some concern about the humanitarian situation. Feel free to be concerned about "civilians" but the term gets tossed around by military planners as in "how many civilians is it acceptable to kill while accomplishing military objectives." So that the human beings themselves, their lives, their love for their children and families, hopes and dreams are reduced to numbers in a calculation of death. I find that dehumanizing, and I object. I object especially when it's a genocide.
Kat
2024-03-27 06:17:10 +0000 UTCIf it is a pose and in the end they vote for whoever is the more moderate candidate, I agree that is rational.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-27 04:32:26 +0000 UTCYes and when enough people don't believe it is a genocide and don't care about the Palestinians we get inaction from leaders. Hence why it matters what people think.
David Noble
2024-03-27 04:31:37 +0000 UTCIt seems more likely those voters would feel disaffected about many issues including Israel/Hamas and not vote. It’s also the case there are voters with consciences who don’t share your conclusions about that war and vote Democrat.
Adam Sher
2024-03-27 04:11:22 +0000 UTCI think it's rational to threaten to not vote for Biden to try to make him do what you want. If you say you will vote for someone no matter what then they have no reason to listen to you anymore.
David Noble
2024-03-27 04:02:52 +0000 UTCYeah, I agree people can do what they want, I just don't understand the logic of those people. Not voting for Biden = Increased chance of Trump and Trump was an Israel hawk. But c'est la vie... people are not rational.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-27 03:56:39 +0000 UTCI agree, but I don't get to tell everyone what to value. For people who feel very strongly about this genocide, Biden's inaction too much to accept. This is why it matters what people think, because if enough people make this the issue that determines there vote then maybe Biden will be forced to make the right choice.
David Noble
2024-03-27 03:55:06 +0000 UTCThe calculus for such people feels off. Don't vote for Biden because Trump will be more sympathetic to Palestine? If the choice is Biden vs. Trump on almost every single issue that left-leaning people care about, Biden is the better option, even where his stances deserve strong criticism.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-27 03:48:59 +0000 UTCIt's not about troops, it's about funds, weapons, and diplomatic heft. Without the US Israel can't maintain its aggression. Genocide is a very motivating thing for voters with a conscience.
David Noble
2024-03-27 03:46:56 +0000 UTCThe US doesn’t have troops in Gaza. While some people have decided it’s a Genocide, that’s an opinion of some. Biden has other issues like Extremism (i.e Trump J6) the economy, and immigration. Crime and abortion come in next (those are top 5 in order for both parties). So do young potential democrat voters stay home in larger numbers or vote for Trump or RFK Jr because of the war between Israel Hamas? I doubt it.
Adam Sher
2024-03-27 03:14:33 +0000 UTCI couldn't say how many it will influence, honestly. As for how much people will consider it come election time, that depends on a few things. We don't know when the conflict is going to be resolved, it could still be going in November so it will be on people's minds. The "undecided" vote is significant, a lot of people are very angry with Biden for supporting a genocide. Also, younger generations are more war weary and older generations are dying off. American exceptionalism isn't so strong anymore, foreign policy may not have mattered so much in the past but times change.
David Noble
2024-03-27 01:46:03 +0000 UTCI don’t think that debate will influence someone’s opinion. Maybe a popular personality like, or Destiny, or Joe Rogan can influence opinion on that but in the course of normal format and not debate. There’s room for some influence beyond family and friends - people do become radicalized, but I’m skeptical stuff like this moves the needle. What’s more in this issue, I am even more doubtful US foreign policy will be a serious consideration at the ballot box - it almost never is.
Adam Sher
2024-03-27 01:16:08 +0000 UTCThe one with Destiny and Finklestein? I've only seen clips of it and I'm informed about the conflict already so I've got my position for now. Why?
David Noble
2024-03-27 00:50:38 +0000 UTCDid that discussion move your position or confirm your priors?
Adam Sher
2024-03-26 23:26:20 +0000 UTCThese are great points an really underscores my point that it really does matter what people around the world think about the Israel/Palestine conflict. Up until now Israel has not faced any consequences from the rest of the world for its actions and that really needs to change. That's only going to happen if public sentiment sours to the point that world leaders face consequences for supporting Israel. A great example of Israel's concern about international opinion was the PSA they made shortly after Oct 7th. One of their military leaders gave a warning to the Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza in a youtube video. Except he spoke in English and at the time Israel had cut the internet in Gaza. The PSA wasn't for Palestinians, it was for the rest of the world to see, so they would see how Israel was doing the right thing. Israel knows that it cannot continue without support from the US and at the very least apathy from the rest of the world.
David Noble
2024-03-26 23:10:52 +0000 UTCLargely agree with everything said except the point you guys made at the end. It really does matter what you think on the topic of Israel/Palestine, especially if you are a US citizen. Because you can organise to put pressure on Biden to stop Israel. US support is extremely important for Israel, both in terms of resources and diplomatic connections.
David Noble
2024-03-26 22:44:59 +0000 UTCThis of course is not the same discussion, but please imagine you are 70 years old, you have published more than a dozen books on a different subject and you have lost your mind:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USciAjCIwyY
kurdelis
2024-03-26 22:28:28 +0000 UTCNot sure what the issue is then, maybe when you edit posts it removes responses. Whatever the case a bunch of replies have disappeared and it seems pointless to repeat the points. I agree with you that the evidence is not conclusive, my point was simply that the internal accounts suggest it was a case of misidentification, and I agree that this in itself could be damning of the standards used to launch attacks. That was one of my earlier points. We are debating the beach attack, because that's what we referenced on the podcast and what my comments about the likelihood of it being an intentional targeting were related to. You constantly present any disagreement with your assessment as being equivalent to a denial of atrocities or concern about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. This is a false dichotomy you constantly invoke and which I have no interest in. Expressing concerns about civilians as somehow being a bad thing compared to your concern about 'humanity' is also a very odd position. So I'm out.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-26 07:07:14 +0000 UTCYou have a good sense of humour!
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-26 06:52:42 +0000 UTCReasonable points. My argument was primarily based on the evidence I'd read about the beach attack, which seemed to reflect a callous disregard and lax standards, as opposed to a knowing targeting of children. To be honest, I do not know that is a particularly exculpatory reading. In the specific circumstances involved, it seemed the soldiers were aware of the proximity of civilian observers and possibly aware that there would be foreign journalists in the vicinity. The outcry over the attack also did result in coverage and condemnation in international media, and an investigation by the police. You are correct that any such attack would be unlikely to lead to the US rescinding support or anything like that, and that the military police are not exactly a neutral third party but I think that even assuming the worst motives it would still be in the Israeli military's interests to avoid such easily documented murders of children.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-26 06:47:07 +0000 UTCGolf clap for 'Harrisites', much appreciated :)
Ymirsdreams
2024-03-26 06:46:03 +0000 UTCThose are great points, and I pretty much take back my point about translation. I’m not an academic, and to me it sounds odd to devote so much time to an area of study without including the language — I think it’d be fascinating as well as helpful. But yeah, not required.
Jesse Rimler
2024-03-26 03:17:59 +0000 UTC(Apologies for the many edits - my mind becomes untidy when I'm sleep deprived). With the caveat that I am agnostic wrt whether the IDF kills children intentionally on a mass scale (my position is that it's more likely they just do not take enough care to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties, be they children or adults - or like others have said they know children will die as a result of their campaign and this is taken as acceptable collateral damage) I thought the argument "it doesn't make sense for them to target children, it would just make them look monstrous...." is a poor one. Implicit to this argument is "they wouldn't do it because regardless of whether it is something they want to do, it would be foolish strategically because of how it would make them look", right? This ignores a few facts about attitudes towards Palestinians in present day Israeli society and also the position of Israel on the world stage. What would be the consequences if they were to do such things? Or more importantly what do the IDF / Israel government believe would be the consequences? This is where it breaks down, because if history is anything to go by Israel knows that other war crimes or violations of international law it has committed have gone largely unpunished... The Israeli public by and large do not care/are more preoccupied by the security of Israelis. There has not been a political appetite in Israel for the Palestinian cause for many years. The reasons for this are complex and somewhat understandable but the point remains. The mass protests that were going on prior to Oct 7 were about judicial reforms, not Palestinian rights. Despite them happening on a backdrop of one of the deadliest 18 months for Palestinian civilians in the West Bank in years. It is also not a fringe opinion in Israel that being a Palestinian child (esp an older male child) is not incompatible with being an enemy combatant. You often see these justifications being trotted out when children are knowingly targeted in the West Bank (they were throwing rocks, they were a look out for terrorists etc). The rest of the world? Sure you'll get some grumblings and lip service but in reality the protection and financial support of the US (and UK, Australia etc) has allowed Israel to act w impunity for decades now. Only now, after 30K dead civilians is only 5 months, a preliminary ICJ hearing, mass worldwide protests, Biden taking a hit at the polls, are you are starting to see the smallest cracks in American support. Still, the money tap pouring billions into the war on Gaza remains on. At the time of the beach killings Israel's violations of human rights of the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza were well documented, basically status quo in Israel, and had been allowed to continue with impunity, with the US veto (and funding) ensuring that Israel can continue with doing what it wants to do, to continue the killing of civilians, continue the occupation, continue expanding the settlements, continue with the illegal arrest and imprisonment of Palestinian minors, continue with providing army and police cover or at best turning a blind eye to Settler violence - even though in doing these things it breaks international law and is condemned by well respected worldwide humanitarian organisations. In the above context (if you accept that my description is accurate of course) I don't see how you could argue that concerns over looking monstrous would be a compelling reason for the IDF to not deliberately target children, as looking monstrous has never really harmed them that much before. (Also it's useful to remember that not all systemic and widespread and even top-down policies that deliberately target civilians are explicitly put in writing or put out in official orders or even spoken about openly at length.. but that's a separate issue).
Anna J
2024-03-26 03:07:24 +0000 UTCAs someone on the left I agree - I wish Norm was not the go to guy. There are far better people - eg Gideon Levy, Ilan Pappe (although there are definitely some issues w him too). Not speaking the language of primary sources doesnt necessarily disqualify you from being a historian on the topic though, I mean it does make you more susceptible to mistakes w translations of course but if you applied this rule you would exclude a lot of historians from commenting on any issue outside their immediate geographical vicinity. Also Benny Morris does not speak Arabic (equally important here) so you could level a similar albeit watered down version of that criticism towards him, with that logic.
Anna J
2024-03-26 02:11:52 +0000 UTCIn case you missed it: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/andrew-huberman-podcast-stanford-joe-rogan.html Optimizers can be jerks too.
Joan Taylor
2024-03-25 21:23:19 +0000 UTCFYI: what brought me back as a patreon was the Sam Harris /Making Sense/ parody about the "rest of the show being behind a paywall, if you can't afford, ask and we will ignore you, etc...". Perfect parody of the music (I got it immediately). I think that joke was the best part of the episode.
Jonathan Cano
2024-03-25 18:50:58 +0000 UTCYeah, I (Chris) disagree with various points there. I listened to the whole debate and think Norm was the worst in terms of reliance on rhetorical techniques. And as I mentioned this is not the only content of Finkelstein’s I’ve come across. This is also an entirely independent point from whether his positions were valid/more compelling. I can also say with absolute confidence that no I would not act like Finkelstein, even if faced with an obnoxious student. He does not behave like a normal academic, as can be observed by the actions of the other two academics present. Maybe your dislike of Destiny and the positions he is advocating is making you overly sympathetic to Finkelstein or maybe you’ve just met many really arrogant academics. 🤷🏻♂️
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-25 18:31:16 +0000 UTCThis is my last comment on this. I listened to the end of the podcast and actually agree with the final sentiments, that arguing about this debate on reddit (which is basically what I'm doing) is really the worst kind of response to this ridiculous debate. You are not replying to the substance of my comment. You criticize Finkelstein as a guru, which I wouldn't necessarily disagree with regarding other things like maybe his books are biased or he's more interested in book sales than the Palestinian plight - I don't know! I'd like to think it's not the case because he seems sincere in his convictions, but I'm enough of a critical thinker to understand its important to questions authorities - you guys qualified him as a guru because he got angry and used ad hominems. You did this without addressing all the really terrible rhetorical bad faith debate pro tactics destiny used. Destiny showed up to this debate with a shirt emblazoned with his logo, a capital D; he has a horde of followers that call themselves DGG and who follow him cultishly around; he loses people in small peevish details instead of focusing on the larger catastrophic themes; he is a millionaire who lives in a penthouse in Miami; he rubs his temples and acts - and it is an act - like he is in psychic pain when he disagrees with his interlocutors. And he is half the age of NF and has spent 6 months researching this subject. Again, you guys have spent time in academia; so have I. Imagine if one of your students treated you like Destiny treated NF and tell me if you truly believe you wouldn't have gotten so pissed off you'd have left the room. And Destiny SHOULD be treated like a student, by his own admission he has been studying the topic for 6 months and is still trying to learn. And good for him! But you are not going to be treated as an equal and anyone who has worked in academia knows what I mean. So, I'll just assume you are going to do a later episode on Destiny and that you picked this one to focus your energy to accuse Norman Finkelstein, for the wrong reasons, to be a guru.
Jovan Popov
2024-03-25 17:39:16 +0000 UTCSomeone graduating from a prestigious university (Eric Weinstein, Ron DeSantis) and having many publications (Jordan Peterson, Peter McCullough) or even a Nobel Prize (Luc Montagnier) is absolutely not a guarantee that you are a serious person incapable of deploying rhetoric or behaving as a guru. Finkelstein's behaviour and attitude in this interview were not out of character from what I've seen in interviews without Destiny. Destiny was not there as Norm's starry-eyed grad student, he was there as a debate opponent, and for that you can blame Lex. You also seem very exercised about an offhand insulting comment by Destiny when Norm was consistently delivering much more direct insults. Finally, if you care about this issue, I think you should devote minimum time to litigating whether Destiny or Norm deserves more criticism. None of that is going to have any impact on anything; the event was a spectacle and I would imagine very few people who have thought about the topic seriously had their minds altered by that discussion.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-25 16:54:28 +0000 UTCThe other example which apparently cements Finkelstein as a guru is because he reacted to Destiny when the latter sighed loudly and condescendingly after Finkelstein replied "that's mea culpus" (admittedly arrogantly himself - but at least with some sort of forward rhetorical trajectory other than insult, mea culpus being a much more recognizable term than the obscure term Destiny pulled out). Destiny just found a term that even people who study this sh*t don't recognize right away as a debate bro strategy to obfuscate the subject and then when they don't know be able to childishly reply, "Did you even read the text?" Which is something by the way he does on a lot on his stupid online debates - just because someone doesn't remember one obscure term on a 300 page document doesn't mean that they aren't qualified to discuss the overall topic. And that just played right into Destiny's debate bro tactics because Finkelstein, again a 70 year old grizzly curmudgeon, is obviously going to be hysterical, as would ANY OTHER academic I've ever worked with!! I can't imagine telling my thesis advisor, "Ummmm... did you even read this?" Just because they misplaced one term. I don't care if it's for entertainment but these are serious issues!! We are talking about the plausibility of genocide, not what is the best Street Fighter character. These issues should be treated with gravitas and respect. The fact that Destiny was there obfuscating something as serious and terrible as what is going on right now in Palestine is heart-wrenchingly sad. I didn't particularly care for Finkelstein but if you can't see who the bigger guru is in this situation...
Jovan Popov
2024-03-25 15:40:48 +0000 UTCIt's not about backing up your claims. It's about how a real life human would react, especially one who doesn't spend their life online, to these childish debate bro tactics, which is what I would much more like to be analyzed on a podcast which purports to decode gurus. It's childish to say someone is "lying" in a serious academic debate, it's not about "lying" it's about interpretation - that's what academics do, they interpret things, unless you are God, no one has the definitive truths. Now throw into the mix a 70 year old curmudgeon from Brooklyn who by all accounts is at least a bit of an authority on the subject than of course you're going to get fireworks! But to disregard this person for being human is extremely online behavior, people are allowed to be emotional especially given this type of context!
Jovan Popov
2024-03-25 15:21:28 +0000 UTCYou are appealing to authority. Princeton isn’t a trump card, and neither is a list of published books. It is reasonable to expect Finklestein to back up his claims with facts and references and not insults and diversions. Somehow, Morris and Rabbani comported themselves with maturity. This entire podcast is based on looking at how smart people employ rhetorical tactics to make their case in the absence of substance. Finklestein used his bag of rhetorical techniques and I’d expect DtG to spend their time analyzing them. By contrast, the other three participants didn’t in nearly the same quantity which left less to say about them in this regard. The most substantive portions of the debate were Rabbani / Morris sections because they stuck to the facts at hand
Adam Sher
2024-03-25 15:08:54 +0000 UTCYour entire conversation looked so much more favorably on Destiny than on Finklestein - completely ridiculous - how can you possibly be serious academics? Did you notice how Destiny had his capital D insignia emblazoned on his shirt - surely not the psychotic behavior of a guru... I understand we can challenge Finkelstein, but you have to give him his due, he received his PhD at Princeton, so, yes, I imagine he is a bit of an authority - to put him in the same comparative sentence as Destiny and still come away with the former just being a loud, angry man that might be an academic ("Finkelstein he is some kind of academic, right?" you asked twice), is just not fair. You focus on the tone of Finkelstein without getting much into the substance or context of his arguments - look at how he was so angry at Destiny, now please imagine you are 70 years old, you have published more than a dozen books on a subject, spent over 40 years in academia fighting for a cause only to be told by someone HALF YOUR AGE, "Did you even read the material", "you lied about this!", "you're a pop historian!" I would love to see you both, wonderful academics you are, not blow a gasket!! I personally work in academia, I'm the same age as Destiny, and if someone half my age called me a liar or challenged that I had actually read the material for which I am an authority I would have gone mental!! I agree that Finkelstein has his issues but I would expect much more intelligence from Guru-decoding academics that you would pick apart Finkelstein and only quibble with Destiny on one point - that maybe when he said nuking Palestine wouldn't be genocide maybe he went a little too far??? Are you serious??
Jovan Popov
2024-03-25 13:49:56 +0000 UTCI haven't deleted any previous messages. I don't know what you're talking about. Sometimes I hit "return" which posts the message when I meant to add a new paragraph, and have to go and edit my message. The intercept article posts 3 IDF drone footages as if they were vindications of what happened at the beach. And indicates the IDF meant them to be vindications of what happened at the beach. But those particular drone footages were from sales pitches, as indicated in the quote from the article I provided as follows: "The PR unit released operational footage, apparently taken from the screens of Israeli drone operators,..." In other words, the footages in the Intercept article were cherry-picked to make the drone technology (and IDF) look good to a certain audience. So they vindicate nothing. Why does the article bring up drone footages where Israeli officers acted appropriately (at least by a likely audience of potential purchasers of Israeli drones). Those are cherry-picked to appeal to the potential purchasers. Your argument, if I interpret it correctly, is that the killing of the 4 kids on the beach was entirely an accident. My argument is that you can't know that from the available evidence (in particular given propensity of murderers to lie), and even if it was unintentional by dint of not knowing the blobs on the screen were kids, it takes a racist point of view to interpret blobs on the screen as terrorists. Granted, I don't limit my evidence to the specific case at hand. Israel has a long history of mass murders of innocent civilians, it colors my interpretation. Here's something I missed before: "The testimony raises new questions about whether the attack, which unfolded in front of dozens of journalists and triggered global outrage, was carried out with reckless disregard for civilian life and without proper authorization. " I don't see a contradiction in what I said. I'm saying, I don't know for sure the drone operator's motive for killing the kids, none of the likely motives vindicate him. One is he knew the kids were kids and killed them anyway (then lied about it), the other is he was seeing all blobs on his screen as terrorists which is careless and racist at best. The "Breaking the Silence" evidence says it was policy to kill kids or whoever and work on the excuses and coverups later. But why are we arguing about 4 kids israel killed 10 years ago anyway? And what's this dichotomy of caring about "civilians" vs agreeing with me? Do you care about "civilians?" Denying there's a genocide is a whole different question. My accusation is that you deny a clear and obvious genocide (more obvious than the one in Bosnia). JFC arguing about 4 kids 10 years ago. It does bewilder me a bit, though, that someone who claims to care about "civilians" doesn't care about the erasure of a whole people and their humanity. That is to say, the destruction of all the universities in Gaza, most of the hospitals, the assassination of poets and academics, doctors, journalists, intellectuals, deliberate starvation of people and deprivation of drinkable water, multiple massacres of people trying to get food and execution of policemen who try to organize the orderly distribution of food. Dr. Muhammed Abu Salamiya, the director of Shifa hospital, was arrested last November. Little has been heard of him since but reports say he was stripped naked, a collar was put on his neck and he was forced to eat from the ground. Reports are believable because other released detainees have reported that the Israelis beat them and forced them to howl like dogs (this has made it into wikipedia). Reports say they broke Dr. Abu Salamiya's arms, some say his hand and legs. What should I do? A campaign to find out what happened to him might get him killed in prison. Go ahead, deny the genocide, worry about "civilians" just not about humanity. I'm a little beyond concerned about "civilians".
Kat
2024-03-25 03:58:34 +0000 UTCVery funny and depressing!
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-25 02:58:37 +0000 UTCKat your arguments are hard to follow and contradictory and you also seem to be deleting your previous messages which then removes others responses to them so this will be my last response to you. Casting concern with civilians as being contingent on agreeing with you and your specific interpretations seems distasteful to me and a false dichotomy. You can care about civilians and not agree with your specific interpretation/politics. If you were not intending to argue for this dichotomy then great. But that is how it came across to me. I referenced the Intercept report not as conclusive proof of vindication of the IDF but rather as a source that highlights the internal accounts of those involved with that attack.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-24 22:13:25 +0000 UTCYeah, I agree with most of that Paul, my question was to clarify your position. On Bloody Sunday, there are indeed justifications offered for actions and differing opinions on how valid they are. I also agree they are grey areas and fuzzy boundaries when it comes to motivations. Mind you, in regards Bloody Sunday I don’t know that specific example is so confounding… if the soldiers targeted children, knowing they were children, with the instrumental purpose to draw out fighters that would be an example of deliberate targeting of known children with the goal of provoking a militarily useful reaction. That would be distinct from say a paratrooper attacking a mob believing they had seen a weapon, heard a shot, and killing a child without realizing they were a child. Those two scenarios are very different to me, though the actions involved might be the same. But in any case, your response clarified things in more detail anyhow.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-24 20:59:49 +0000 UTCI suppose you didn't check the link in the Guardian article, on the report from the Israeli ex-soldier group Breaking the Silence: 'They include allegations that Israeli ground troops were briefed to regard everything inside Gaza as a “threat” and they should “not spare ammo”, and that tanks fired randomly or for revenge on buildings without knowing whether they were legitimate military targets or contained civilians. "' Nah of course you didn't. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/04/israeli-soldiers-cast-doubt-on-legality-of-gaza-military-operation I give the Breaking the Silence soldiers a pass on the accusation of genocide or genocidal intent, for sure. I find them praiseworthy, in fact. No saying what any individual soldier's mindset, or knowledge of what they were shooting at was. But this kind of racist disregard for children's lives apparently comes from top down. That's not better, whether or not the Israeli drone operator killed the kids on the beach deliberately while knowing they were kids.
Kat
2024-03-24 20:26:50 +0000 UTC*point to specific text and say this is where such and such Israeli intent in its sin is.
Adam Sher
2024-03-24 20:02:37 +0000 UTCI think it matters that he doesn’t know the native languages. The factual part of Norm’s strategy relies entirely on pointing to specific phrases and stating that is where the is. The beginning of the debate was understanding what relocate arabs meant 100 years ago. Norm had handcuffed himself to translation and really couldn’t productively contribute. If you have ever translated text, you’ll appreciate how different sentences can mean if you interpret words certain ways. To emphasize how critical original language knowledge is, Benny Morris’s critique Ilan Pappe’s (someone that shares similar views on Israel as Norm) revisionist history because he could read the original texts that Pappe referenced and point to where quotes didn’t exist or that Morris believed Pappe incorrectly translated something. A much less controversial version of this is if you read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology v a revisionist text, which is very enjoyable, called Pandora’s Jar. The author of Pandora’s Jar opens each story with an explanation of how she examined historical artifacts and texts to conclude significantly different stories.
Adam Sher
2024-03-24 20:00:47 +0000 UTCAll this makes sense to me, Paul, though I do not know enough about the top leadership of the IDF to say whether they are unable to control their forces. One place where I can see that it is important to be legalistic about whether civilians are being intentionally targeted is if one is making the claim that they are committing war crimes. I agree that Israel is hurting itself and that it is good to pressure our politicians to stop supporting Israel in their campaign.
Linda Sears
2024-03-24 19:02:24 +0000 UTCGot the intercept article. "The PR unit released operational footage, apparently taken from the screens of Israeli drone operators,which documented how three Israeli airstrikes had been called off that week because figures, identified as civilians, had appeared close to targets in the densely populated Gaza Strip." Yes, the makers of the drones were marketing the technology, one of the features they advertise is that it enables the operators to distinguish between militants and civilians. So, like, you're going to believe 3 cherry-picked marketing examples prove something about the kids on the beach? The second point is that a great excuse for anyone who commits murder is that it was an accident. The victim deserved it, the victim made me do it are also favorites, which Israelis are also prone to using, but I think it was an accident is their favorite. Sorry, one shouldn't take the word of someone who's murdered 4 kids of a class of people who Israeli Zionist are known to hate, and whom they've been mass murdering for decades. Assuming the drone operator didn't kill 4 civilians on purpose, that he looked at 4 small blobs on his screen, who in actuality were kids, and saw terrorists, says to me he's seeing terrorists here there and everywhere. That is, he's a f*cking racist. Not better really. That they turned out to be kids made the argument harder to make, too bad for him and the PR departments of the IDF and the drone manufacturers. Of course I don't know the true mindset of the drone operator. Well I could go on... Regarding Chris Hedges, he was there in Gaza, he saw what he saw, it's immaterial whether he plagiarized elsewhere.
Kat
2024-03-24 16:59:49 +0000 UTCI think we're in danger of straying into legalism here. Not quite to the stratospheric level that Destiny takes it with his absurd idea that even nuking Gaza and killing all 2.3m of the population still wouldn't be genocide, as you rightly questioned in the episode. But to illustrate what I mean, I'll sketch a legalistic counter-argument to show how much work the "not some other military purpose" is doing in your formulation. Six of the victims of Bloody Sunday were legally children (17). If, for the sake of argument, we take the commonly accepted view that what 1 Para was trying to do that day was draw out the Derry Provos into an open firefight, then that would amount to "some other military purpose". Does it follow that saying that the deaths of those six teenagers "wasn't the deliberate targeting of children", because it was a means to an end, instrumental to an other military purpose? (Like the deaths of the journalists children). These are the kind of knots you can tie when you start trying to use legalistic arguments to settle debates around what is the common sense meaning of statements is, in the democratic debate around what should reasonable public opinion be on a certain question. Natural language is polysemous and ambiguous, so applying principles from legal or mathematical/logical fields (like the law of the excluded middle, for example) is rarely appropriate or straightforward. You have to consider all the meanings that a non-specialist public will read into the statement and what they will most commonly understand by it, to judge which is the fairer statement, or least misleading one. To come back to your question in that light, two points are important - 1) that most people use collective nouns like "does the IDF do Y" or "do the Brits do Y" interchangeably with "do members of X do Y" questions; 2) the common assumption is that deliberate and accidental are both mutually exclusive and exhaustive, such that the IDF are either killing children deliberately or the are doing so accidentally (back to that excluded middle). So your suggestion of a third category - not accidental, but motivated by some other purpose - is cutting across that in a way that's likely to lead to the sterility of legalisms and pseudo-syllogisms. My position is that members of the IDF deliberately shooting children is common enough to be considered routine (and long before the current conflict started, in fact). And that this can be categorised as "endemic" to the extent that IDF command generally do not prosecute most of these cases (there are exceptions in particularly well-publicised or scandalous cases, but numerically these are the exceptions that prove the rule). But, where I would break with perhaps most of pro-Palestinian rights moral discourse is that I don't think that the failure to exert military discipline in these cases is due to moral failings of the army leadership so much as a structural limitation on how much they can in fact discipline their unprofessional conscript forces without bringing about a collapse of morale and willingness to serve. Long story short, I don't think the root cause is "IDF tops are evil" - because that could potentially be fixed with a different leadership - but more unfixably that "IDF tops are too structurally weak to prevent routine killing of Palestinian civilians, children included". In the long term that position is more fatal. I would see the problems of the IDF as similar to those of the Rhodesian military and the armed forces of Apartheid South Africa. Both of whose forces routinely committed atrocities against the subaltern population in the course of a doomed struggle to uphold a minoritarian settler-colonial supremacist state. I think long-term, despite the fascist and genocidal fantasies of Otzma and Tkuma, the Israeli right are in the same position. The demographics are against them and tantrums of violence and killing won't change the outcome. But in as far as doing what we are able, on the outside, to put pressure on our own governments to stop supplying arms to the IDF and boycott settlement produce, etc, may be able to force a facing of that reality, then the less people will be killed and the less hatreds will be generated for the fallout in future generations. Which is why its worth the effort to try. Even if it results in absurdly long comment posts
Paul Bowman
2024-03-24 16:18:36 +0000 UTCI hope it’s okay if I wade in here. If the IDF had a policy of routinely targeting children, the reasons that I could imagine are: to demoralize and break the people of Gaza, to destroy those who they think will be hostile to Israel when they grow up, to get rid of an inferior ethnic group, pure sadism, or overwhelming anger that has blinded them to the humanity of their enemy. My guess is that there are people within the IDF who are acting on some of these reasons. But I also guess there are many more who see the deaths of children as “regrettable collateral death.” Tragically, the outcome (dead children) is the same regardless of the reasons.
Linda Sears
2024-03-24 14:03:24 +0000 UTCI'm beginning to like the title "Supplementary Material". For reasons of practicality, we'll be abbreviating it as "SM" anyway, which is conveniently ambiguous: > As episode 2 has shown, SM can be painful. In honour of the fact that you used to do these sections Before the Decodings, we might even call them BDSM. 😄
Roland Weber
2024-03-24 12:37:56 +0000 UTCI think the answer would be all of it counts as acceptable collateral for Israel’s government at the minute because they are continuing to pursue the war and attacks with knowledge of the civilian toll. I think I’ve got your position clear, but let me clarify one thing… do you think Israeli soldiers are routinely deliberately targeting children, knowing they are children and that there is no actual military target? I’m not asking if they accept dead children as collateral (they do), I’m not asking if soldiers have ever deliberately killed children (they have), I’m asking if you think that the IDF routinely target children with the intention of targeting children, not some other military purpose? I’m not asking for evidence either, just want to clarify your position.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-24 10:55:12 +0000 UTCI'm getting lost in the semantics here. For clarity, I would consider the deliberate targeting of journalists by air strike, at their homes, where their partners and children are present, with full knowledge by military command that this will result in death of not only the journalist (a civilian) but also family, children included, to be deliberate killing of children as a matter of IDF military policy. For detailed reference on the killings one citation would be the committee for the protection of journalists (spec. https://cpj.org/2024/03/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/). I don't know whether that meets your threshold or not, or whether it counts as "acceptable collateral"
Paul Bowman
2024-03-24 10:23:02 +0000 UTCI would consider intentional malice in this circumstance to refer to the deliberate targeting of children, knowing they are children and that there is no legitimate military target. So to clarify, your position is that this is routine and endemic to the IDF regardless of any official policies to the contrary? And that while the specific example we referenced in the episode might have been a genuine error (potentially due to official policies that accept errors/misidentification that routinely lead to civilian deaths), this ignores that deliberately targeting children is endemic in the IDF? For clarity on my position, I would anticipate cases of outright brutality in the IDF, including intentional targeting of civilians and children, with awareness of their identity but that these will be rare in comparison to deaths caused by Israeli policies that do not deliberately target civilians but regard their deaths as acceptable collateral damage/misidentification to be inevitable and regrettable. I think assuming that murder of innocents is inevitably motivated by individual malice to be naive in the sense that it ignores that murder of innocents and brutality is perfectly possible even with good intentions depending on your policies.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-23 21:24:26 +0000 UTCNeutonic! You will make us lose our advertising deal!
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-23 21:10:33 +0000 UTCOK. I see you consider "intentional malice" as not including the intentional malice of the IDF members doing the deliberate targeting, but only if the explicit policy of the military - as a body - mandates it (whether openly or no). This is a somewhat "macrosocial" notion of intentionality. It's also true that it was never the military policy of the US army in Vietnam to deliberately target civilians including children, and yet individual soldiers did so on a large enough scale to count as systematic or endemic - that's why I chose that example. Similarly the Macpherson report into the Met police's handling of the Stephen Lawrence murder looked into the gap between the Met's "policing policy" which was formally not racist, and the institutional effect of making no effort to challenge the culture of racism endemic within its ranks (and more controversially, its systemic processes) which is where the notion of "institutional racism" came from in its conclusions (the report is worth reading, esp ch 6 on this vexed topic). We have different views on what deliberate targeting means. I feel that my interpretation is actually the more common understanding of that language. But that's not possible to prove without any surveying
Paul Bowman
2024-03-23 17:51:02 +0000 UTCAnd this is yet another reason why war is so terrible because it puts people in situations where they do things they probably never wanted to do. I imagine there will be many Israeli soldiers who are scarred for life by what they have done and seen. Since serving in the IDF is obligatory, the soldiers fighting there are like the soldiers in Vietnam under the draft.
Linda Sears
2024-03-23 13:53:46 +0000 UTCI don’t think you have to be the ‘most moral army in the world’ to not intentionally target children. I don’t doubt there are instances of civilians, including children, being deliberately targeted by IDF members. And I don’t doubt that Israel’s current and past military strategy means many innocent children will die and that those who developed it are aware of that. But I do think that this is distinct from a military policy that deliberately targets children in terms of ‘yes aim for & kill the targets we just identified as children’. I actually think that it’s naivety to imagine that brutality always requires intentional malice.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-23 12:42:00 +0000 UTCOK, that piece was helpful. I didn't realise that this was in relation to a drone strike incident during the 2014 "Operation Protective Edge". The clip was introduced (41:19) by "This is referencing civilians being killed by the Israeli Defence Forces during attacks", so I assumed that this was in relation to the current IDF assault on Gaza - my mistake. The problematic segment is at 45:36 "But it is probably also true to say that it wasn't the deliberate targeting of children, because what purpose would that serve except to make the IDF seem monstrous. You could say 'to terrorise the Palestinian people' or whatever. But this is just a thing that is going to receive a lot of criticism, you know, for killing four children. So... It is probably also true that it wasn't an intentional elimination of children." I now appreciate that you are talking in the context of the 2014 drone strike, not the actions of IDF ground troops in the current conflict. But... the "what purpose would that serve except to make the IDF seem monstrous", does lend itself to the "most moral army in the world" interpretation that the IDF conscripts on the ground currently, are taking great pains not to deliberately shoot children, because of concern for the impact on the IDFs image. Frankly this flies in the face of all the available evidence, even with the deliberate exclusion of foreign media from Gaza. Evidence aside, I think the reasoning heuristic itself - a kind of "cui bono" - is worth calling out as naive at best.
Paul Bowman
2024-03-23 10:39:57 +0000 UTCRead this report by *The Intercept* and see if what is described in the leaked internal documents suggests the intentional targeting of children. https://theintercept.com/2018/08/11/israel-palestine-drone-strike-operation-protective-edge/
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-22 22:41:56 +0000 UTCYeah, the thing about the shooting of the kids had to be accidental because the soldiers wouldn't do it deliberately because it would make the IDF look bad, is just naive - regardless of the other merits of the case. There's a great book on the Vietnam war by Mark Baker called "Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There", which is just verbatim accounts from vets. Those necklaces of ears were not a myth. Scared witless American teenagers, soon figured out there was no comeback for just murdering Vietnamese civilians, so many of them just did. Not every war is like Belfast. There's a spectrum between Belfast and Nam, and following the many, many accounts, of new atrocities, day in and day out, the inescapable conclusion is that what the IDF is doing in Gaza is a lot closer to Nam than anything else. So its entirely plausible that young IDF draftees will just kill Palestinian kids for the hell of it. Especially if they've been ideologically prepared to think of Palestinians as vermin and cockroaches - which is very much part of the discourse in Israeli social media and mainstream media both (I have Israeli anarchist comrades who attest to this stuff, I'm not pulling it out of my backside). That aside, the close temporal proximity of covering Hasan Piker and Vaush on this topic is instructive. Just because they are on opposite sides of this polarisation doesn't make one of them any more acceptable than the other. Ditto Finkelstein. There are two types of people who put themselves forward as champions for a cause: those who are prepared to put aside their ego and do whatever is necessary for the greater good of the cause; and those who could never put aside their ego, because the cause, and their defence of it, is in fact just another extension of their ego. For me Finkelstein is in the latter camp. Or as we say in Hiberno-English, "a gobshite". Regardless of what position he's arguing for. Finally, as I was writing this, it struck me that my "two types" actually seems to have some resonance with the de-individuation vs identity fusion dichotomy. Maybe that difference in commitment to a cause is itself a matter of personal ideological schemas, rather than an objective fact for all people in all contexts?
Paul Bowman
2024-03-22 21:32:20 +0000 UTCI like the new format. Its nice to get more regular content from you guys and seems like smaller chunks of material makes that more manageable for you guys.
Loki
2024-03-22 21:04:20 +0000 UTCThat was pretty revealing. Thanks for mentioning it.
Linda Sears
2024-03-22 18:24:00 +0000 UTCFrom Euromed Monitor, 20 March 2024: A survivor who asked to be identified only as “M.K.” confirmed that Israeli soldiers repeatedly took prisoners into the [Shifa] hospital’s morgue area, that gunshots were then heard, and that the soldiers left without the prisoners. “The soldiers detained me and handcuffed me in the hospital courtyard; I was left undressed for more than nine hours,” M.K. stated. “About four times during that period, I saw soldiers lead groups of detainees—[always] at least three people and [never] more than 10—into the hospital buildings, particularly the morgue building where bodies had previously been kept,” added M.K. “Gunshots were heard, with the soldiers then leaving the area to bring another group there.”
Kat
2024-03-22 18:00:36 +0000 UTCI love you all
Níall Faughnan
2024-03-22 14:20:34 +0000 UTCOne thing I’ll add: in the discussion of apartheid and genocide definitions, it’s important (but unremarked on) that Destiny says “[Jim Crow Laws] might not be apartheid but it’s still bad”. Rabbani was implying Destiny was somehow defending Jim Crow laws by saying they might not be apartheid, but Destiny had the obvious stance that things can be not-[specific bad thing], but still bad.
Ethan Milne
2024-03-22 12:28:04 +0000 UTCWhat strikes me about what Trump said was his use of the future tense “it’s going to be a bloodbath.” I don’t know enough about the situation with Chinese factories in Mexico right now, but if they are already there and causing economic havoc for America, why would the bloodbath be in the future? Is it just that this bloodbath will take some time to felt by us economically? If the Chinese are in the process of building factories in Mexico and they haven’t started selling cars yet, I could see why he would use the words “it’s going to be.” Or he could just be engaging in scarier rhetoric by envisioning a future economic catastrophe. For context, compare how he has typically referred to immigrants invading the country. He doesn’t say “If I don’t get elected, there is going to be an invasion.” He says things like, “This is a Biden invasion over the past three years.” I do agree that we on the left have to be very careful about getting these things right.
Linda Sears
2024-03-22 12:19:44 +0000 UTC“5 hours is too long” — a little rich coming from DtG lmao
Ethan Milne
2024-03-22 12:04:14 +0000 UTCTo me Trump used bloodbath in an ambiguous way but as you said taken in context it sort of makes sense but......ya never know with him. Boy he sounds old.
Tim Tripp
2024-03-22 11:24:57 +0000 UTCHey guys, my 2 cents. With regards to the Trump discussion, the Bulwark (moderate conservatives) did a nuanced discussion on it. Highly recommend checking it out. It’s their latest The Next Level Show with Sarah, Tim & JVL. They do the best political analysis IMO. I do agree that we all need to be careful & be in full possession of facts & their context before we comment on them. It’s a thing gurus are often guilty of and therefore yeah the bloodbath thing is where the media slightly overshot in their criticisms. However what strikes me is the asymmetry. On the right, u have dedicated trolls & douchebags like Kisin & others who constantly misrepresent data, facts, science, liberals etc but they NEVER issue apologies when found to be wrong. It’s frankly amazing! And tbh the mainstream media are the ones who went back & self-corrected their first impressions, so credit for that. Also u can’t forget that Trump often deploys violent rhetoric with regards to immigrants, protesters, the left etc. he recently said that immigrants are poisoning the blood of Americans, which is literally Nazi rhetoric. He actually did incite an insurrection in the past, so context is important. But yeah as Matt said, it’s stunning how intellectually dishonest these right wing culture warriors & budding authoritarians are but they pay no price for their inconsistencies. While the left constantly self-flagellate. I know the answer isn’t to lower our standards BUT this also needs to be pointed out everything a similar thing happens.
SHOUNAK SARKAR
2024-03-22 10:21:09 +0000 UTCI don't have a definitive opinion on the substance of the matter, but I would like to point out Chris Hedges is not exactly a trustworthy source https://newrepublic.com/article/118114/chris-hedges-pulitzer-winner-lefty-hero-plagiarist
Jasza Dobrzanski
2024-03-22 10:05:51 +0000 UTCWe're all here for the parasocial, let's be honest :P
Jasza Dobrzanski
2024-03-22 10:02:22 +0000 UTCWe're a cult. Your newtropic drink is in the post.
Ymirsdreams
2024-03-22 07:07:43 +0000 UTCHere is the Intercept report on the leaked internal documents, which indicate that the attack appears to be due to genuine error/misidentification. They are still very critical of the lack of diligence shown and for the failure to disclose information about drone strike programs. The Intercept is not noted for its apologist stance towards the Israel military and part of the argument it is making is that the drones have much more limited visualisation abilities than you suggest. https://theintercept.com/2018/08/11/israel-palestine-drone-strike-operation-protective-edge/
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-22 06:33:50 +0000 UTCYeah, sorry for Chris's genocide denial. Regarding the 4 kids on the beach, Chris says it was likely accidental, simply because killing 4 kids accidentally would look bad for Israel (or whatever the excuse was)? That's really, really underestimating the malice of racism. There are too many incidents where Israeli killing of unarmed civilians was clearly intentional for this to be passed off as likely accidental. Chris Hedges documented one where IDF soldiers taunted some Palestinians kids who were playing, saying some rude things about their mothers or something. The kids then approached the soldiers and threw some stones - from far away, the stones couldn't reach the soldiers. The soldiers shot the kids with high-powered rifles. He called it shooting kids for sport The shooting of Shireen Abu Akleh is another case which could only be an intentional murder by the IDF. This is from the Goldstone Report investigating crimes of both sides of the Israeli attack on Gaza of 2008-2009: "In Chapter XI of the Report, for example we detail a number of specific incidents in which Israeli forces launched direct attacks against civilians with lethal consequences. These were, with only one exception, where the facts establish that there was no military objective or advantage that could justify the attacks." The IDF marines or whoever have the binoculars and such with the power to determine whether or not the kids on the beach were armed. Clearly they weren't. And why make up the story about the fisherman's shack being some kind of militant hideout? The "tragic accident" cover story becomes less believable when they make stuff up. You may not like Finkelstein's style, I get that, and he doesn't get every detail right, but I mean, Destiny's point that killing people in war doesn't necessarily mean genocide? He's right, simply killing people in war doesn't imply genocide. Significant amount of the SA case were exactly providing evidence of genocidal intent by Israeli elected officials. Sixteen of seventeen judges agreed there was genocidal incitement by leading Israelis. That's a very plausible case. So, I'm not giving you a pass on your genocide denial.
Kat
2024-03-22 05:58:38 +0000 UTCONE OF US...
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-22 05:03:09 +0000 UTCI’m just stumbling into this Patreon space after bumping into the paywall, I’m glad I encountered it 😆. Nothing substantive or insightful from me, just here for the parasocial. Nervous about my grammar all of a sudden 😂
Neil vdp
2024-03-22 04:56:09 +0000 UTCYou have good taste ;)
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-03-22 03:56:27 +0000 UTCChris, I laughed out loud at the "Somehow, the IDW has returned" joke. If I had a Twitter account I would have replied with "They fly now?" It was a really good one, don't let Matt convince you otherwise. I especially refrained from commenting under the Sam Harris video on YouTube because I didn't want to deal with his little Harrisites replying to my comments.
Said Polat
2024-03-22 03:29:47 +0000 UTCFinally someone has a reasonable take on the Trump bloodbath thing. In a speech where he all but threatens another Jan 6 situation if he loses AND proposes a tariff that would cause entire sections of the economy to grind to a halt overnight, it's annoying that his use of "bloodbath" is what people want to talk about. I can already sense that Joe Rogan and Elon will be bringing this up as yet another failure of the woke MSM until like 2037.
Hayden Setlik
2024-03-22 03:09:21 +0000 UTCNever said anything about it discrediting the whole side, so that’s a non sequitur. And sure, the left is not unified, but Finkelstein is everywhere, and often promoted by people on the left.
Jesse Rimler
2024-03-22 03:03:29 +0000 UTCAlright. I was unfortunate enough to listen to the 5hr debate. Here are a couple of my takes/observation. - I do think normies can discern things from the more shallow bloodsports debate (which is good) - Destiny the debate bro he is did spend many boring hours researching the studies on his stream so it's not like he just performed - much has been made about Dolus Specialis (special intent) and it's such a stupid argument because it is a type of mens rea but Finklestein was the one who challenged Destiny on this even though (like Chris pointed out) NF claims to have read the paper and it does show up 4 times. - previous point is emblematic of a lot of what happened during the debate at some points. Getting stuck arguing pedantic meaningless things but Norm is the cause of most of this. You actually hear Destiny during the break bemoan that they're not going to talk about anything interesting because they keep up drowning in the shallow end
Dr Badmouth
2024-03-22 02:45:50 +0000 UTCI don’t like this mindset that the left has “a guy” for any given topic, and we all decided to put them forward as our champion? Or something? As if someone not “winning” a debate on a topic somehow discredits the whole side and anyone who agrees with them.
Kelley
2024-03-22 02:45:06 +0000 UTCAlso agree that this debate culture is pretty gross. It’s wrestling for the extremely-online.
Jesse Rimler
2024-03-22 02:36:36 +0000 UTCIt’s a real shame that Norman Finkelstein is the go-to guy for the left on Palestine. I find Destiny pretty unbearable, but when he pointed out in the debate that Finkelstein hadn’t learned Hebrew or Arabic, it’s not a bad point. Why would a scholar devote his life to studying the conflict and not learn the languages of those in conflict? And Finkelstein shoots himself in the foot by resorting to ad hominem.
Jesse Rimler
2024-03-22 02:22:58 +0000 UTCThe second clip of Trump wasn't chosen for an article because it's not news. Trump has repeatedly said he wouldn't respect the election. He's not actually saying that here. It doesn't take much charity to interpret him as saying no more elections will occur because liberals will end them, ie "Democracy hangs in the balance". So basically he's saying something less threatening than what he's already said before. At this point in American politics, saying the next election might be the last is kind of cliche. The Dems have been saying similar things for years, so a headline criticizing Trump for it also creates an opening for what-aboutism. Trump hasn't directly threatened violence, so the "bloodbath" would be news if only it was true. Obviously there's a partisan thing here, but I think some of it is also just a desire to break something novel.
Trees
2024-03-22 02:14:31 +0000 UTCDo you think Lex feels unloved for not being part of the Dissident fest?
Linda Sears
2024-03-22 01:28:38 +0000 UTCI want to be clear that I saw your tweet Chris and I got the Star Wars reference at the time
Andy
2024-03-22 01:26:36 +0000 UTCIf you haven’t read Noah Rawlings account from within the Forbidden Courses at antiwoke University of Austin (in Dallas) you’re in for a real treat! Street Epistemologist and self-professed jujitsu practitioner Peter Boghossian is so much funnier than I realized.
Christopher McLaughlin
2024-03-22 01:08:02 +0000 UTCDtG staring into the abyss of despair
Adam Sher
2024-03-22 00:50:22 +0000 UTC
