The Derelict Mass Media of America

"The organized lying practiced by totalitarian states is not, as is sometimes claimed, a temporary expedient of the same nature as military deception. It is something integral to totalitarianism, something that would still continue even if concentration camps and secret police forces had ceased to be necessary. [...] Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth." -George Orwell (The Prevention of Literature)

"The Israeli State lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie. That's what they do. They lie and they kill, they kill they lie, then they lie again and then they kill some more then they lie again and then they kill and then they lie again. That's what we've just been subjected to, you see, for the last six and a half months, lots of killing and lots of lies." -Owen Jones

For the last six months the US media has laundered  those lies and the government has used taxpayer dollars to fund the killing. US citizens are not responsible for Israel, yet we have both the right to expect honest, moral and lawful behavior from our government and the responsibility to hold our government accountable. Perhaps the most striking feature of the media coverage and commentary about Israel for the past six months (aside from the lack thereof) is its tendency to avoid any subject of domestic accountability. Israel is frequently the subject of criticism (and rightly so), yet discourse about legal and ethical accountability in providing aid to Israel was not nearly as common. For instance, why weren't the Leahy Laws and the obligation of various individuals in government central to the discussion? They still aren't. When they are brought up in the news (which from what I've seen is a very rare thing), it usually receives very little emphasis, brought up almost as an afterthought. There are a few articles out there, but by no means are they very conspicuous. In the last few weeks (as of 5/16/24), the issue of sending weapons has become more common in the media, yet for the six months prior it did not figure largely into the discussion. Even after the ICJ case was opened the media did not emphasize this point. The same is true for any other event relating to the ICJ case. It was scarcely mentioned, and even now the focus is on whether a particular shipment of weapons should be "paused" and not so much how to hold anyone accountable for their role in providing funding and weapons the past six months nor their failure to impose conditions on this aid or make any commitment to that effect. Nor has the discourse focused on how domestic laws against sponsoring war crimes might be strengthened. Gaza is a sliver of land one tenth the size of long island Sponsoring the illegal annexation of Gaza - which is almost certainly the aim of Israel's invasion - is of no apparent value to the American public, who stand to gain nothing even if it succeeds. Conversely there are significant legal and ethical consequences, and our politicians and their benefactors severely debase our international reputation and moral authority in the process. The mass media could have easily stopped this had they reported on it honestly, because politicians would then be forced to put conditions on aid. Regardless of political affiliation, the vast majority of the general public would almost certainly have agreed to use this leverage. Instead we have a narrative in the abstract, discussing ideology and with some pundits "calling for a ceasefire" and directing their energy and attention toward a nation that is not accountable to the public rather than their own nation, which had the ability to withhold material assistance the entire time. This is not to say they shouldn't criticize Israel or that pundits don't ever address domestic government (nor do I imply Jones himself isn't one of the better critics) but that in general, media and critique that communicates actionable, material objectives is relatively uncommon.

The following is a series of observations started in January 2024. I had originally intended this to be an essay about the mass media's coverage of Gaza and the ICJ case (or lack thereof), but since it's a developing situation, a journal format turned out to be easier. It is not comprehensive nor am I well-versed on the history of the region, much less an expert, so take these entries merely as a series of critical observations from a concerned citizen. While I would normally try to condense this and refine it into something more compact, I will probably leave it unmodified for now, as I want to have a record of my own prima-facie impressions. However, I will attempt to summarize some of the more salient points and adjust the summary as I see fit. First, from the mass media's response (or again, lack thereof), one can only conclude that America's major news networks and political figures are untrustworthy and dishonest. Even many of the US media organizations and pundits who do cover Israel's war crimes seem to have ignored the Israel lobby almost universally. Consider how easy it would have been for the media to stop this. It would not exactly be a hard sell to the American public; save billions of tax dollars, don't fund war crimes. Yet so much critical discourse has been generously peppered with the usual idioms and buzzwords; 'zionism', 'the right', 'the left', 'white supremacy', 'colonialism', 'antisemitism', 'terrorism', every kind of nominal -ism, -ist, and -tion, and other such words from the mass media's political argot. One's argument would be more effective and no harder to state without going out of one's way to include loaded political idioms. You'd have at least half the public with "save billions in tax money" and the other half at "stop war crimes". One notices how the media's idiomatic language of buzzwords and tropes can be used to confect not a serious critique but an abstract, useless diegesis. A narrative with a focus on political drama, rather than crimes, accountability, or the misery of Gazans. The Israel lobby (which comprises a loose set of domestic US organizations that do not apparently get their money from Israel, for the most part) seems to bear neither the expense nor the consequences of this attempt to ethnically cleanse Gaza, which appears to represent a severe moral hazard, as it were. Activists are frequently defamed for trying to do the right thing. "Antisemitism" is abused as an ad hominem. To prescribe a definition that is different from how the word is typically used seems ultimately futile and misleading. Defining the word using a descriptivist approach would probably yield "anything against Jewish interests", and unless someone can make a serious counterargument (which I am open to) this is how I will interpret the word myself from now on. The media have exposed themselves as liars and frauds, and US politicians have exposed their near-universal venality. These are the conclusions I draw from the events I've observed and (at least partly) have tried to hash out below.

What exactly is the nature of the USA's relationship with Israel? This question has bothered me for some time, but lately it appears to be a rather urgent question. Please feel free to give your own answer on the talk page or leave comments in general. Israel faces the charge of genocide in the ICJ, brought by South Africa. "The Honorable" Antony Blinken writes them off as little more than a distraction, and I should hope no American citizen is satisfied with such a glib and disinterested reply to the fact that there may be a genocide in progress, paid for in part by our tax dollars. (That's quite a sulky why-would-you-do-this-to-us face he's putting on, compared with his Wikipedia portrait.) There is a striking lack of media exposure and discourse. We've seen very little from major networks between the first ICJ hearing and their interim ruling. Instead of reporting on an ongoing alleged genocide, most of it is worthless filler media about Trump, Biden, other presidential candidates, etc. It's a grossly disproportionate news cycle and while there has been token coverage of the ICJ case, I've seen no major network at all bring up questions of whether or not it's appropriate to continue foreign aid to Israel. The United States has given more foreign aid to Israel than any other nation on earth, despite that they are relatively wealthy. Last year this bill was proposed. "Provides $10.6 billion to support Israel, including $4 billion for Israeli missile defense capabilities and $1.2 billion to accelerate development of the Iron Beam missile defense system.", "Provides $3.5 billion in foreign military financing to help Israel reestablish territorial security and deterrence.", "Increases the fiscal limits on several Presidential drawdown authorities and provides additional flexibility for transfers of defense articles to Israel from U.S. foreign stockpiles." The media usually discusses this with a very heavy emphasis on the border and Ukraine, and often does not even mention that fourteen billion dollars would go to Israel's 'war' effort. Here are a couple examples with Chuck Schumer advocating the aid package. , . You'll notice in the first video that the brief intro states that this would involve aid for Israel, yet Schumer does not appear to mention this once in that video, and only once in the second. Other examples include, which only mentions Israel to say that a deal without aid would "stab them in the back", , which mentions Israel only once but uses the word border twenty times, and in which Israel is not mentioned at all. Aid for the Ukraine is brought up here and there, Israel even less frequently. The ICJ's interim ruling finds "In the Court's view, at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the (Genocide) Convention." (paragraph 30.) As I understand the provisional measures requested by South Africa and ordered by the ruling are to help the people of Gaza in the meantime if the accusation is at least plausible. Like many Americans I cannot see for myself what is happening in Gaza but must rely on second-hand information, yet I can only interpret all this to mean there exists a significant possibility that our tax dollars have funded and would continue to fund genocide. This is illegal according to our own laws, "The term “Leahy law” refers to two statutory provisions prohibiting the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights (GVHR).". Yet despite all this I haven't seen a major news network (CNN,Fox,MSNBC,etc.) bring up any legal or ethical questions about this aid package on grounds that Israel is credibly accused of genocide in the International Court of Justice. Why has South Africa accused Israel of genocide if they aren't guilty of exactly that? Are we supposed to believe they just thought it would be a good laugh to file a genocide complaint with the ICJ against Israel? Aren't we owed a bit more explanation? Why does the government seem so entirely disinterested that the aid package they've proposed might fund a genocide? Why is the media ignoring this issue? At some point these questions just start to seem rhetorical, though I don't intend them to be.

Here are just a few quotes from South Africa's report to the ICJ, all of which have references in the paper: "A total of over 7,729 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza to date — over 115 Palestinian children in Gaza are killed every day." and "Burns and amputations are typical injuries,with an estimated 1,000 children having lost one or both legs. There are reports of Israeli forces using white phosphorus in densely populated areas in Gaza: as the World Health Organization describes, even small amounts of white phosphorus can cause deep and severe burns, penetrating even through bone, and capable of reigniting after initial treatment. " "''There have now been more than 238 attacks on ‘healthcare’ in Gaza, in which over 61 hospitals and other healthcare facilities have been damaged or destroyed. Only 13 out of 36 hospitals and 18 out of 72 healthcare centres are still even functioning — some of them barely — despite the overwhelming number of people injured in Israeli attacks. The Israeli army has targeted hospital generators, hospital solar panels, and other life-saving equipment, such as oxygen stations and water tanks." The United Nations states "Gazans now make up 80 per cent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s continued bombardment and siege, according to UN human rights experts." Is that not a complete disgrace? The media browbeats the middle class with so much hokum about 'past injustices', 'historical wrongs', 'systemic racism', so on and so forth, so that no such tragedies can ever happen again. Suddenly we learn from South Africa that one may very well be happening again'', and as it turns out, we the American Public are generous benefactors of the accused. And amazingly, America's own media has hardly anything to say about it. It hardly takes much courage to criticize the long-dead perpetrators of so many historical atrocities. What they have had to say about Gaza and Israel usually presents the problem as "war", without communicating how one-sided the conflict has been or that international law may have been violated by Israel. If someone criticizes Israel's actions toward Gaza and do not 'condemn Hamas', they're accused antisemitism, sympathizing with terrorists, or simply not caring whether or not the people of Israel live or die. The idea that Hamas presents an existential threat to Israel of similar caliber seems unlikely. Israel is a modern, nuclear state (one of only nine) and relatively wealthy. Why must anyone (least of all victims of genocide) be forced to 'condemn' the enemies of the alleged perpetrator before criticizing the alleged perpetrator themselves? This pavlovian exercise is obviously just damage control. I sincerely hope that every hostage is returned safe and sound and that Israel suffers no further casualties. However the only belligerent in court on genocide charges is Israel, as far as I know. One does not need to look very hard to find journalists and networks who do cover this, for example as in. Nothing akin to Mr. Jones' withering critique of Israel's actions can be seen in the regular news cycle of a network like CNN, Fox, MSNBC or ABC. These are well-funded, well-informed, well-connected news networks. The Q&A portions of the white house daily briefings (which are covered by cspan) are sometimes pretty interesting, with the white house spokespeople being regularly put on the spot. The mass media's response to the interim ruling is entirely misleading. For instance MSNBC's video, calling it a "stern warning" and a "slap on the wrist". How is an interim ruling intended to preempt wholesale genocide during an ongoing genocide case a "stern warning" against Israel? The guest, an Israeli Ambassador, states "I'm pretty satisfied that there is absolutely no intent on Israel's side." As if there weren't an entire section (D) in the report entitled "Expressions of Genocidal Intent against the Palestinian People by Israeli State Officials and Others", which quotes the president of Israel saying "It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved. It’s absolutely not true. ... and we will fight until we break their backbone." That's from the President Herzog himself, but there are far more disturbing quotes in the report, such as this one from a "motivational speaker" to Israeli soldiers prior to the invasion which I'm only partially copying, "''Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live ... Every Jew with a weapon should go out and kill them. If you have an Arab neighbour, don't wait, go to his home and shoot him." The title of NPR's video reads "U.N. Court Orders Israel To Do More To Protect Palestinians' Lives", as if to suggest they were protecting Palestinian lives in the first place. MSNBC's response along with those of NBC news, CBS news and even Democracy Now (a somewhat smaller organization who have covered this extensively) all did something odd. Did you catch it? They all use phrases like "stopped short of'' calling for a ceasefire" (in MSNBC's case, a "yellowcard" simile). In other words, they're ranking the judgement. The rhetorical implication here is that the situation is less serious than South Africa alleges, but is this necessarily true? Mr. Jones does not point out this bit of rhetoric, but unlike these sources he does speculate why the ICJ might not have ordered a ceasefire, and none of the speculations have to do with the urgency of the situation. Later in the video, the guests on Democracy Now assert that there must in effect be a ceasefire in order to adhere to the interim ruling's orders anyway, as does Jones. How exactly does America's gratuitous foreign aid to Israel benefit the American public in the first place? None of this is an anti-zionist argument per se. I think anyone would be very hard-pressed at this point to argue that the ICJ case and other indicators are simply manifestations of antisemitism or otherwise meritless. That explanation does not satisfy parsimony. If the highest court in the world considers it plausible, why doesn't the white house or congress? If we suppose this is the case, would it not imply that much of the nation's political class and mass media have been lying outright to the American public, prioritizing Israel's short-term ambitions over the public interest, and knowingly supporting genocide with foreign aid? I don't even know how many laws they've broken if this is the case. It would be an obscenity if the American public were to allow the government to finance and arm a genocide. This would be public money and materiel being used largely without the public's consent at the expense of America's reputation, to facilitate the collective punishment of Gaza's people, most of whom have done nothing to wrong us. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 07:55, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Addendum: Jones' guest Mouin Rabbini says aloud what many have probably been thinking. The only thing I can think to add is if there had been any credible claim to ignorance by public officials and mass media before the ICJ decided to take the case, no such excuse exists after the fact. There is now an ongoing genocide case in the World Court. In an amazing coincidence, the Department of State pulled funding from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on the day after the interim ruling. According to a quote in an NPR article published prior to the allegations, UNRWA is the "last remaining lifeline for the Palestinian people in Gaza." Jones published a more recent video about this conveniently-timed event. It's worth remembering this each time you hear some spokesperson say, in tones of utter sincerity and with a look of abject sympathy, "we're doing everything we can to help the people in Gaza". Aside from being morally bankrupt, this is completely transparent and awful from a PR standpoint. What will the white house even tell us when they're asked about this? Even forgetting the ethical, moral and humanitarian abuses for a moment, isn't it enough to piss you off that public money, our money, is withheld or granted on these sordid terms and we are consistently lied to about it? AP295 (discuss • contribs) 00:41, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Another "stops-short-of" distortion, MSNBC states in that the ICJ "stopped short of calling for a cease-fire and calling the war an act of genocide". A bald-faced misrepresentation of the interim ruling. As Rabbini states in the video above, the purpose of the interim ruling was not to issue a judgement on whether or not genocide had occurred, nor should it be interpreted as such. They thought South Africa's case was credible enough to proceed with and the measures they ordered are intended to help those in Gaza in the meantime. MSNBC's coverage has been particularly gross. I don't feel Zionism per se was or is something bad, yet this sort of damage control is appalling. It's beyond description. The number of people and organizations aggressively, hysterically defending the mass murder of Gaza's people is unreal. You cannot do that. Do they only think of themselves? Do they want to completely undermine public trust in mass media and the government itself? They're out of their wits. Frankly I'd rather they tell the truth in this instance, much as I'd like the public to realize how fake and morally bankrupt mass media is. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 10:33, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Media is signalling a new "border deal",, , , ,. CNN's article states "The details provide a new window into high-profile negotiations that have been going on for months – as Senate leaders hold out hope they can attach the deal to aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as domestic and international crises loom." I anticipate that the media will continue to put heavy emphasis on the border security and immigration component while largely ignoring foreign aid to Israel. Quoting, "The Leahy Law (also known as the Leahy Amendment) prohibits most types of U.S. foreign aid and Defense Department training programs from going to foreign security, military and police units credibly alleged to have committed human rights violations." If you search explicitly for "Leahy Law Israel", you'll find a few results, , ,. However, unless one already knew to search for it, one would probably not be made aware of this serious issue by watching or reading the news from a major network. I've never seen, for example, a youtube video from a major news network that discusses the legality of foreign aid to Israel, after the first ICJ hearing. One could hardly even call it token coverage. There are credible allegations. There's an impending foreign aid package. Is this not a salient issue? AP295 (discuss • contribs) 12:01, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

NBC news airs footage of IDF possibly violating the Geneva convention, but calls it a "bold hospital raid". , Note that this hospital is in the west bank, not Gaza. Many hospitals in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by aerial bombing. . To get a broad view of how the media has structured their coverage of the events this year and the sort of rhetoric that has been used, archive.org can be a useful reference. The front page of a news network's website seems a fair way to judge what that network wants to inform us of. Obviously, size and placement are just as important in the news as they are in advertising. Here are a few links, , , , ,. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 08:10, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

It's perhaps important to keep a realistic conception of what motives might be involved here. I wasn't even going to entertain the pavlovian whataboutism that usually involves a digression about 10/7, Israel's right to exist, condemning Hamas etc. but I'll say (just once) that I do acknowledge all of this and that there are two sides to every story. Having said that, an idea frequently encouraged by the "leftist", not-quite-mainstream media is that these alleged war crimes are motivated by racism, and I disagree with this interpretation. If we suppose that 10/7 and counterinsurgency aren't the only motives here, then isn't it more likely that Gazans are simply in Israel's way and that the object is to annex Gaza? To view this as an instance of racial hatred obscures the material incentives that existed and in turn the moral of this sad state of affairs. I'm not contradicting South Africa's allegations (as far as I know) nor am I questioning the concept of genocide per se, but rather suggesting that we interpret it as a means rather than an end in and of itself, i.e. as realpolitik with material, concrete motives rather than irrational hatred. It is no less contemptible. Beware attempts to exploit western identity and patriotism by drawing a false equivalence between the events in Gaza and early colonial America, or any other rhetoric that would frame it as a partisan issue. Plenty of Americans tune out when they hear the word "racism" spoken frequently enough, and this itself can be used to shape public opinion. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 20:53, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

states that the aid package (which has thus far not been made public) will include aid for Israel. There's a digression about "settler violence in the west bank", which is completely beside the issue of the alleged organized and state-supported genocide in Gaza. If I were to guess, this is a red herring intended to deceive those who are perhaps vaguely aware that there is a problem, but unclear about its nature and extent. It encourages the perception of scrutiny and accountability on part of our government, while completely ignoring that there's a far more serious and dire problem in Gaza. Around fourteen minutes in the Leahy law and foreign aid to Israel is finally discussed, and this is what should have been right at the beginning of the video. Quoting the law itself "(a) IN GENERAL. – No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights. " South Africa's well-supported ICJ application, the ongoing genocide case in the ICJ, and many statements by Israli officials themselves seem to satisfy any reasonable interpretation of "credible information". Not only is there credible information suggesting gross violations of human rights, but genocide. If my government funds these war crimes with billions of dollars of public money, with full knowledge of what we all now know and without any clear benefit to the American public, then how can I have any respect for it at all? I would be deeply ashamed to condone or serve a government that has completely abandoned our founding principles, their duty to the American public, and common decency itself. I hope congress has the sense to put a stop to this madness. I should also hope they fire The 'Honorable' Antony Blinken (His Excellency, to you foreign types), as he continues to disgrace the nation and insult our intelligence by calling the ICJ case "meritless" and mislead the public. He will probably continue to do so, since if the DoS acknowledge the problem but continue to send funding, then (if I understand the law correctly) they'd be openly violating the Leahy laws. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 02:44, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Another interesting video. At best, these protestors are misguided about how public opinion is constructed in the US. "Abandon Biden" is not an actionable objective. If only it were. Their signs should read "No foreign aid for Genocide" or "Save $14,000,000,000 and Gaza" or "No money for Israel's war crimes" or some such thing to that effect. Would our government even have the authority to order a 'ceasefire' between Israel and Hamas? I'm not sure, but they certainly have both the authority and the obligation to cut off aid to Israel until we know they're not committing war crimes in Gaza and officials are held accountable for any such atrocities. Is that not the obvious message that one should communicate in this instance? It's not partisan and it would save the taxpayer fourteen billion dollars, which is not a hard sell to begin with let alone just prior to tax season and with the benefit of averting America's complicity in genocide. After the full text of the bill is made public, the government will probably rush to get it passed before the public becomes fully aware of the situation in Gaza. That is what they should aim to prevent. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 20:17, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

The bill has been made public and indeed it includes fourteen billion in aid for Israel. Notice there's no mention of the genocide case, war crimes, or the Leahy laws. Only the "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza, which seems to be the mass media's preferred euphemism for genocide. Oddly enough a separate bill was also introduced which would also include aid to Israel. Can't you just imagine headlines like "Border bill passes, congress rejects bill for foreign aid to Israel"? I cannot say whether that's the idea here but at any rate it's something to watch closely. Hopefully neither pass. Apparently some of the CNN staff have revolted (and rightly so), with The Guardian running a great story that exposes CNN's extreme pro-Israel bias. "According to accounts from six CNN staffers in multiple newsrooms, and more than a dozen internal memos and emails obtained by the Guardian, daily news decisions are shaped by a flow of directives from the CNN headquarters in Atlanta that have set strict guidelines on coverage. They include tight restrictions on quoting Hamas and reporting other Palestinian perspectives while Israel government statements are taken at face value. In addition, every story on the conflict must be cleared by the Jerusalem bureau before broadcast or publication." Anyone who's been paying attention knows CNN is biased but the fact that our news goes to Jerusalem for screening is a tremendous reproach to American mass media. There are many other salient parts to that story, such as one CNN staffer's observation about one such internal memo, "How else are editors going to read that other than as an instruction that no matter what the Israelis do, Hamas is ultimately to blame? Every action by Israel – dropping massive bombs that wipe out entire streets, its obliteration of whole families – the coverage ends up massaged to create a ‘they had it coming’ narrative." I would add that CNN's coverage is not an exception but quite representative of the other large media organizations. Owen Jones made a video about it, and while I largely agree with his commentary in this video, he makes one point that's rather questionable: "Now it's clear who is chiefly held responsible at the top for this raging bias is the new editor-in Chief and CEO Mark Thompson that matters actually because this guy used to be director general of the BBC and he was as the article actually notes accused repeatedly of bowing to Israeli government pressure when he headed that Corporation". Quoting The Guardian's article, "CNN journalists say the tone of coverage is set at the top by its new editor-in-chief and CEO, Mark Thompson, who took up his post two days after the 7 October Hamas attack." If CNN's board of directors were impartial, independent and concerned with journalistic integrity they wouldn't hire this CEO two days after 10/7, obviously. Ultimately it is CNN and mass media itself that should be viewed with incredulity. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 03:32, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Jones posted a video yesterday. He fails to draw the obvious conclusion that even some of the commenters seem to be correctly moving toward. Namely that two-party politics in America is itself a farce. It's a media stunt designed to lower public expectations and provide the public the illusion of political involvement. I've written about this in another essay and I've been saying it for years, but I won't get too far into it here in this essay. Secondly, he states "One recent poll finds that 50% of Biden's self-described voters think Israel is committing genocide but B sees Israel as a fundamental guarantor of us strategic interests in the Middle East which is why he wishes to slavishly defend Israel. It's very important to make this point because anti-semitic conspiracy theories would have you believe that Israel is calling the shots because it somehow runs the US and taps into these ideas of secretive Jewish power which are always been integral to anti-semitic conspiracy theories. That's not what's happening here it's the US which is calling the shots globally and running the show but sees Israel as just one example of something which furthers its interest." I probably can't put it any better than Christopher Hitchens did when he wrote the following of polls, "''Thus to the consumer the “poll”—a suggestive word, by the way, and derived from the old and retrogressive “head count” tax—may seem like a mirror of existing opinion. But to the one who produces it, the poll is a swift photograph of the raw material to be worked upon. You may have noticed that popular opinion is not always and invariably cited by the elites. Nor is it consistently tested: I don’t remember reading the findings of any poll about the tight money policy of the Federal Reserve. Who would pay (a properly sampled poll is quite an expensive business) for such a thing? No, “public opinion” is not usually recycled until it has been treated. Only then are people informed whether or not their own opinion enjoys the certification of being the majority or approved one. Even general elections, which are supposed to involve voting in the active voice rather than the passive one, have been increasingly compromised by passive dress rehearsals: the polls condition the poll. ''" Indeed, this poll result is a major part of the problem itself. People are less likely to scrutinize or disapprove of foreign policy if they think it benefits their own nation. Yet how does the slaughter and displacement of Gaza's people serve America's geopolitical interests? Not that I would approve of it in any case, but if one is going to make that claim they had better be prepared to explain it. I understand that having an ally in the middle east with nuclear capabilities is a strategic asset, but that's quite a different thing from condoning genocide with foreign aid and domestic propaganda at the expense of America's public and its international reputation, merely so that Israel can annex a tract of desert one tenth the size of long island. The idea that Americans somehow benefit from the slaughter of Gaza's people is nonsense. The poll is suggestive but Jones takes this lie closer to its logically valid-but-unsound conclusion instead of pointing out that it's obviously an attempt at justifying war crimes to the American public. Particularly, it seems to address what I presume is a rather serious dissonance in the mind of the Democratic voter, since the Democratic party's image doesn't square well with sponsoring genocide. Interestingly, I've not seen even a single video on Foxnews' youtube channel about the genocide case. I've not cited a single story from fox news about the genocide case because I haven't seen any. To paraphrase another line from Hitchens; it's a complement to the American people that they must be lied to so often. In this case the greatest complement is paid to viewers of Fox News, who aren't even told about it at all. The average Republican voter would not likely be any more happy than the democrat about the murder of so many civilians and children. One should guard themselves against attempts to foist a degree of blame upon the American public and the implication that killing ten thousand children in Palestine is of any benefit to the American public or integral to America's geopolitical interests. Such propaganda is likely intended to undermine the public's moral outrage toward the media, the politicians and Israel. In particular, Jones' statement seems like a bid to divert blame from Israel and preempt viewers from recognizing that the poll's implication is bogus. As if to drive the point home, he delivers it with the rather dishonest insinuation that anyone who disagrees is an antisemitic conspiracy theorist. He may or may not have intended it as such (frankly I think it's likely he did, I don't trust anyone with a large audience) but it's disappointing, considering he's one of only a few who cover Palestine decently. While he is not American, I'm sure many of his viewers are and I wish he would speak more about realpolitik such as the impending foreign aid bill which would give Israel around fourteen billion dollars.

I might as well completely explode his claim while I'm at it, so let's suppose I live in NY and want to write my representative. Eighteen out of twenty six or so representatives from NY have one or more Jewish or Israeli PACs, e.g. AIPAC,JStreetPAC,Republican Jewish Coalition,Pro-Israel America PAC, among their top five contributors. But that's only New York, you say? Well how about some red state, say, Alabama? Five out of seven have received contributions from AIPAC, and AIPAC is among the top five contributors for three of those representatives. According to opensecrets (in 2022), 396 out of 435 members of the house and 42 out of 100 senators received donations from pro-Israel groups. On the whole in 2022, the Israel lobby ranked above the pharmaceutical, oil and gas, crop production, and commercial bank sectors. That's ridiculous. I'm sorry, but this issue can't be addressed unless one is willing to acknowledge that, prima facie, Israel the Israel Lobby has far too much influence over US politics. If one wants to claim this isn't true, one must offer another explanation for why our politicians are funded by Israeli/Jewish PACs, make pro-Israel decisions at the public's expense, and lie to the public on Israel's behalf. I'm all ears. At the very least, Israel appears to enjoy huge privileges over the American public interest as far as congress is concerned. Am I really supposed to believe that writing my congressperson would have any bearing whatsoever on their decisions regarding Israel when their campaign was paid for by AIPAC? This is a clear-cut, bald-faced conflict of interest. AIPAC donates to both parties. It's not antisemitic to suggest that Israel has too much influence in US politics. As always I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong. Much of politics is simply choreographed farce but taking this information at face value, it's the only conclusion one can draw. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 01:02, 8 February 2024 (UTC) One additional note about a trend I sometimes see in comments: There's really no such thing as a 'dual citizen', and nobody should be allowed to serve in the government if they're a citizen of another nation. That said, the "dual citizen" talking point seems to be driven by speculation and somewhat misses the mark to begin with. Looking at where their money comes from, they might as well all be 'dual citizens'. Even that term gives too much credit to a public servant who just works for the highest bidder. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 19:17, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Bill failed, but it's too early to celebrate. True to form, Schumer is putting together an alternate bill that includes aid to Israel but none of the measures for border security, which is even worse. What really needs to happen is for Blinken and the department of state to acknowledge Israel's war crimes and the legitimacy of the genocide case in the ICJ. It seems to me that until that happens, it's entirely possible that an aid bill for Israel could pass and that the money could end up supporting war crimes. There's also a bunch of doublespeak about national debt in that video, but I digress. That's another essay. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 03:40, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Very interesting story that examines Israel's far-reaching propaganda machine, As many had already suspected given the timing, there's no evidence to support Israel's allegations against UNRWA and so withdrawing funding was at least partly an act of retribution. Many more revealing details. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 08:22, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Nicaragua filed an application to join in South Africa's case against Israel. FYI, case updates can be found here. One thing I've seen a few times in comment sections as well as one MSNBC video I cited earlier is the nonsense suggestion that proving genocidal intent will be difficult or impossible. MSNBC's host did not challenge this suggestion. Blinken has consistently rejected the legitimacy of the ICJ case, "We believe the submission against Israel to the international court of justice distracts the world from all of these important efforts and moreover the charge of genocide is meritless." "With regard to the icj um ruling first uh let me just say broadly that we can believe clearly that uh the allegations of genocide are without merit. Uh we have consistently made clear to um to Israel going back to the early days the imperative of taking every possible step to protect civilian life to get humanitarian assistance uh to those who need it." He delivered a pathetically obsequious speech in Tel Aviv during which he repeated the earlier line verbatim, but otherwise did not speak about the ICJ case, nor was he asked about it. The media continues to publish uncritical and apologetic interpretations of his behavior, not even mentioning much less questioning his unbelievable and repeated denials of an ongoing genocide, even as they casually report on the fact that Israel continues to bomb areas where the civilian population has fled to. This is all really intolerable. As early as mid October 2023, a sizable number of scholars and academics had warned that there was evidence of genocidal intent. "Statements of Israeli officials since 7 October 2023 suggest that beyond the killings and restriction of basic conditions for life perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza, there are also indications that the ongoing and imminent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip are being conducted with potentially genocidal intent." Over eight hundred scholars signed that paper. Raz Segal wrote "Indeed, Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed. Perpetrators of genocide usually do not express their intentions so clearly, though there are exceptions." South Africa's application to the ICJ reads, "Evidence of Israeli State officials’ specific intent (‘dolus specialis’) to commit and persist in committing genocidal acts or to fail to prevent them has been significant and overt since October 2023." How does Blinken still get away with calling the accusation "meritless"? He needs to acknowledge that it's a legitimate case and suspend aid to Israel. Israel obviously does not intend to stop, they bombed Rafah just after Blinken left. For god's sake, call them "war crimes", make a firm condemnation, and stop using euphemisms like "over the top". Get rid of Blinken and suspend funding per the Leahy Laws. It would be monstrous to do anything less. It's the bare minimum. Blinken's denials are far worse than holocaust denial. The holocaust is history but he makes denials while something can still be done for Gazans, precisely to avoid that responsibility. America's political leadership is making America look like servile, two-faced cowards and monsters. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 11:14, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

A few astute journalists attending the state department briefing on 1/11/24 illustrate the hypocrisy of the State Department's untenable position. The briefing contains other relevant questions and it can be watched or read in full here "Question: In 2022, the U.S. filed a brief of intervention in Ukraine’s case against Russia in the ICJ. Why are the circumstances different that the U.S. would not file such a brief or support South Africa in its action against Israel? What are the points of difference that the U.S. has decided on to adopt these very different positions?

Mr. Patel: Every conflict is different, and how and whether there is a ground to make a determination or not is based on specific facts and law. And again, in the case of genocide and this ongoing case in front of the ICJ, we believe that those claims are unfounded, and we believe that making such a claim needs to take place with such great care.

Question: The claim is not exactly genocide is happening. The claim in the brief is that the potential for genocide is in place. The bar for genocide is exceedingly high, as you know, but also remembering that President Biden in 2022 described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as genocide. So he was very quick to make a determination which something like the ICJ still has not made on that particular case. Isn’t this all a bit too early to be saying that there are no grounds for the potential to genocide?

Mr. Patel: Every conflict is different and every circumstance is different, and these kinds of determinations need to be made with a close look at the law and the facts. And these allegations that Israel is committing genocide are unfounded. That being said, we have been clear to Israel that they not only must comply with international humanitarian law in its operations against Hamas, but it needs to take all feasible steps to prevent civilian harm. Also we have been clear with regional partners who have relationships or influence with Hamas that any steps that they would be interested in taking to cease hostilities, to release hostages, to take steps away from their self-claimed goal of repeating October 7th again and again and again and again, would be welcome as well.

Question: Can I follow up on that?

Mr. Patel: Go ahead.

Question: Secretary Blinken has specifically accused China of genocide for its treatment of the Uyghurs, but Blinken didn’t point to any mass killing there. According to Euro-Med Monitor, 4 percent of the entire population of the Gaza Strip is now dead or injured in just 90 days, 65,000 tons of munitions have been dropped on the Gaza Strip, three times what was dropped on Hiroshima. You have evidence of industrial-style killing. The South African legal team presented 20 minutes straight of statements on the record by Israeli leadership expressing the intent to commit genocide, for example, referring to the Palestinian population as Amalek. So how can you explain this discrepancy between Secretary Blinken accusing China explicitly of genocide with no mass killing, presenting no evidence of the mass killing of Uyghurs, and then dismissing out of hand the potential that Israel could be committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, calling it unfounded? How do you explain this discrepancy?

Mr. Patel: The same way that I just explained it to your colleague who asked essentially the same version of your question, which is that each conflict is different, and any kind of determination like this needs to be based on specific facts and law.

Question: And given —

Mr. Patel: And when it comes to the points that are made – being made in today’s hearing, again, I’m not going to speak to those specifically. Israel will have an opportunity to address some of those tomorrow. But we, again, feel that these allegations that Israel is committing genocide are unfounded. That being said, we do not disagree that additional steps must and need to be taken to minimize the impact on civilians, and we’ll continue to raise that directly with relevant partners.

Question: And given that you’ve fast-tracked 14 – a sale of 14,000 tank shells to Israel, bypassing Congress, given Secretary Blinken’s participation in war cabinet meetings —

Mr. Patel: We didn’t by – we didn’t – I’m just going to stop you right there, because the premise of your question is – is a little misguided. We did not bypass Congress. As part of those – as part of that, there is appropriate congressional notification that happens, and we complied with those appropriately.

Question: Okay. More and more members of Congress are demanding oversight because they’re not getting adequate oversight, but no one disputes that the U.S. is isolated in protecting Israel as it conducts this operation, as it calls it, in Gaza. No one disputes the direct U.S. role. So the question is: Is Secretary Blinken, who went to Israel first declaring he was there as a Jew identifying with the ethno-religious character of this state which is now standing accused of the potential to commit genocide, is Secretary Blinken concerned that ruling in favor of South Africa in this case could set the stage for his own prosecution or that of your colleagues?

Mr. Patel: I’m just not going to get ahead of hypotheticals, and you probably shouldn’t either."

Have you ever heard such grotesque doublespeak from a state department spokesperson? If that's not Orwellian, I don't know what is. These politicians and officials are going to ruin us. They're no good. They've got to go, before they further involve the nation in these serious crimes. That's probably the worst I've seen so far, but to directly quote every scuzzy, mealymouthed answer spoken in one of these state department meetings would probably take up more space than the essay itself. The focus of this essay is intended to be mass media, but I feel that these are useful to get a sense of what sort of questions mass media should be asking and discussing. I suppose I might add a few more choice bits as I find them: Spokesperson gives non-answers when asked about why IDF gunned downed civilians trying to reach south Gaza while holding a white flag. Spokesperson gives non-answers when asked about legislation that blocks UNRWA funding: Spokesperson gives non-answers when asked what the many displaced civilians in Rafah are supposed to do in case Israel attacks Rafah: Non-answers when asked about the five-figure death toll of women and children, reports of IDF summary executions, the IDF's destruction of a University in Gaza, etc.  "I won't...", "I can't...", "I don't...", "I'm not going to..."  AP295 (discuss • contribs) 18:07, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

By and large I agree with Jones in general but I'm almost certain he gets a few things wrong. My earlier remarks about realpolitik and motives more or less apply to his newest video A few points to address here. First he communicates another poll result, which is that something like 60% of the Israeli population opposes humanitarian aid to Gaza. To this I would reiterate Hitchens' viewpoint that polls are ultimately a means of influencing public opinion and tend not to be cited very often when they reveal dissenting opinions. We should all remember that the Israeli population is subject to propaganda just as we are. He seems to attribute such attitudes and behavior to "colonialism", stating "This is the long trodden path of colonial or settler states who tried to subject peoples which don't want to be subjugated." As I've said this does not strike me as a very useful line of discourse. "Colonialism" is a means and not an end or a motive in itself, and I don't believe Israel's leadership wants to subjugate the Palestinians but rather to drive them out altogether. The Gaza strip occupies a prime location. If Israel were to annex the Gaza strip, they'd own the whole coast right up to Egypt. It seems more likely that they want the Gazans gone so they can build seaside condos and maybe an oil pipeline. In other words, greed is the particular vice we are observing here and which we should guard ourselves against. If I'm being honest, in general I suspect this is a propaganda tactic to shore up sympathy from the "populist right" and to divert attention from the real origin of this anti-social behavior. Even if so, I suppose one should give Jones the benefit of the doubt, as it's a fairly typical interpretation. In the west we've been conditioned to accept materialism. To admire greed and avarice rather than be disgusted by it. This probably serves the needs of power quite well. Whether this is why there's such a heavy emphasis on "racism" in twenty first century propaganda, I do not know, but it doesn't seem like a bad guess. I actually see nothing wrong with the idea of a Jewish state in and of itself. It seems like Palestine is strategically valuable and not so much the best location for Jews to live peacefully, not that there's much to be done about it now. Patriotism and kinship are being taken advantage of yet I don't believe they're evil per se. Rather, these things are treated as a tool and scapegoat. The immediate solution is to stop aid to Israel. In the long term, I wish people would learn to value their tribe but not let others take advantage of this fondness and unity to commit evil. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 02:28, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Israel continues to attack Rafah. . "What we're seeing is fresh air strikes on Rafah overnight and we've seen fatalities as a result of that. And despite the US pressure, we're seeing a lot of it come from the US. As you said, Joe Biden has called the war in Gaza at this point over the top. Israelis saying that they're ready to press ahead with a ground offensive into Rafah." What pressure? "Despite pressure from X" is just a stock phrase. Here's another video in which the newer bill is discussed without any mention of the ICJ case, nor war crimes, nor the leahy law, nor any ethical considerations. Israel and Gaza were mentioned only in passing once or twice. It would be too generous to even call it sophistry. The phrase of the dissenting CNN staffers, "journalistic malpractice", is probably a more appropriate term. "Filthy lies" would be more appropriate still, if you consider the omission of salient information a lie. If it seems like they lie with impunity, recall Hitchens' observation: It's a complement to the American people that they must be lied to so often. It's not merely a complement, but good evidence that the American public are not as apathetic, cynical, servile or amoral as they'd like everyone to believe. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 12:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Journalists grill state department spokesperson in the daily brief. They try to extract a statement about whether aid to Israel will be cut if Israel keeps killing civilians, without much success. Of course a good question, yet it would have been nice if they followed with a few more questions. Why does the state department feel South Africa's ICJ application is meritless? Why do they take Israel's word above this hard, material evidence? Is the state department concerned that criminal liability might result from their continued support for a nation credibly accused of genocide in the ICJ? What might this continued support do to America's international reputation and standing if Israel is found to be in violation of the genocide convention? Questions like that. They're far more critical than the mass media, but aren't they still ignoring the elephant in the room? The ICJ declined to dismiss the case and they ordered provisional measures. South Africa's ICJ application contains 500+ citations. Can they not even offer the public a counterargument that addresses the general points of South Africa's argument? Again, what entitles Blinken and the state department to assert that it's meritless without even addressing any of its substance? What entitles him to repeat this falsehood as a representative of America abroad? And why are these journalists accepting such weak excuses as "maybe Hamas should stop hiding – but – it’s Hamas that continues to hide behind those civilians"? If a criminal hides behind a civilian, do police just blow them both away? I'm sure this very simple analogy occurs to them. Nobody would ever accept this excuse if it happened here. Yet it's always Hamas was in that hospital, Hamas was in that university, Hamas was in that highschool, Hamas was in that refugee shelter, or some such nonsense. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 00:24, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

One of those journalists asks good questions about who's going to pay for all this after the 'war' is over. See for the full conversation. "QUESTION: Okay. Well, so what about in other cases? Like after World War II, the Japanese attacked us but then the Germans declared war on us, so we were – went in and we – the Marshall Plan paid for huge amounts of reconstruction in Europe, and the United States also paid for the reconstruction of Japan after the war. So does that same – and recognizing that the situations are not exactly similar, but does Israel bear any responsibility for paying for the reconstruction of Gaza?

MR MILLER: So the —

QUESTION: Or do they get to foist it off on others?

MR MILLER: So the situations are not at all – are not at all —

QUESTION: Well, but they’re all conflicts and —

MR MILLER: But let – but —

QUESTION: And I realize that World War II is over and the Ukraine war is not over.

MR MILLER: Yeah.

QUESTION: But neither is the Gaza war. And you’re saying that Russia right now has to pay for the damage that it caused in Ukraine. So I’m just wondering: Would you say the same, that Israel should pay for at least some of the damage that it has caused in Gaza, even though it’s fighting what you say is a completely justifiable – or what is a completely justifiable war?

MR MILLER: So I would say on that matter is that one of the things that we have heard as – through the Secretary’s diplomacy in the region is that there are countries who are ready to step up and help pay for the reconstruction of Gaza. I don’t mean Israel. Other countries who are willing to step up and help with the reconstruction of Gaza and put real money into the game as well as real political credibility, but that’s another matter on another track. But just with respect to reconstruction, there are other countries who are willing to recontribute or contribute to the —

QUESTION: No, no, recontribute is right because they’ve already rebuilt Gaza like three times, right?

MR MILLER: Who are – fair point.

QUESTION: And so but —

MR MILLER: Let me just finish.

QUESTION: But Israel is not one of those countries.

MR MILLER: Let me – Matt, let me just finish. Our discussions have been about other countries who are willing to contribute to the rebuilding of Gaza, but they expect something from Israel in return, and that’s – we’ve talked about this path to two states.

QUESTION: But what about money? What about actual reconstruction?

MR MILLER: So I’m not going to get into the hypothetical because we think the policy that we ought to pursue —"

Shouldn't the state department at least have the decency to print their names instead of 'QUESTION'? Meanwhile the mass media continues to yak about Trump and whatever he's supposed to be in trouble for, Biden, and the rest along with other worthless nonsense like entertainment news. It makes me wonder how many ordinary, middle-class people are realizing or have already realized just how fake the mass media and two party politics really are. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 20:57, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Jones' just posted a video in which he and a guest comment on how all this will compromise the media's reputation On one major point, his guest is wrong; "I think that's a really interesting point because... but in terms of integrity what I would say is you can always get your integrity back, right. There's there is the space to be redeemed, so the idea that they would have to maintain this line because it's been this line all along, um I understand because to a certain extent it undermines the their own um you know their own sort of institution in a way but I think you come out of it the other end with more validity than you had before..." This seems more a plea than a reasonable assessment. I don't see the media coming out of this one ahead. Their job is to launder propaganda from the government, it's clients, and on behalf of various private interests. They don't deserve the public trust, nor did they deserve it prior to their coverage post 10/7. The lesson here is that the mass media should always be taken with incredulity and scrutiny. Jones is correct that mass media is in a crisis. They've painted themselves into a corner and can't do jack about it now. I really have to get my essay Socialism/Bipartisan fraud into shape. Sad as it is, this genocide and the media's coverage supports the thesis of that essay very strongly. Not only does it implicate the media, but the political class has shown itself to be a bunch of two-faced liars across both parties. Jones appears to ignore this issue of politicians breaking character, which I'm not surprised by. There's also the story of Hind Rajab, which is probably the most depressing story yet. There's not much for me to add. While supposedly there's audio of the 911 call, I don't particularly want to listen to it. The latter video also features more fantastic stories from Israel, this time about underground Hamas datacenters or some such nonsense, and finally a discussion about whether 12,000 child casualties in four months is or isn't an acceptable figure; "Hundreds of people were killed last night including dozens of children. I mentioned before I don't know if we're able to show it or willing to show it but there's a very viral image going around of a girl hanging from the side of a wall with both of her legs ripped off and it is what it sounds like. Is that justified like at what point how many civilian deaths, how many child deaths? There was new reporting um with a new updated number of child deaths almost half of the population that's been killed out of the 27,000 or so I think it's like 11 or 12,000 now or children specifically." This video is actually much more critical of Israel than the bigger networks, both hosts can at least agree that we should stop sending checks to Israel, if not on whether twelve thousand dead children amounts to justifiable collateral damage. The larger networks, as Jones illustrates in the first video out, actively distort the events themselves to provide cover for Israel. Meanwhile, the senate approved a gratuitous foreign aid bill including fourteen billion for Israel. Forty six democrats supported the bill and two opposed, republicans 22 to 26. CBS news hails it as a "major bipartisan victory" and Chuck Schumer asks house republicans to "do the right thing" and to approve the bill swiftly. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 16:27, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

This journal is somewhat becoming a running review of Jones' coverage. The largest media organizations are so openly malfeasant that it's almost boring to critique them. Jones, The Hill, DemocracyNow are some of the better sources, so the reader should keep in mind here that my critique does not always focus on the worst. Most of the critique that can be made of the largest organizations is made reasonably well by Jones and others, so preempting or reiterating the same points they make is not terribly useful. Anyway, as several of his other videos have, his newest video puts substantial emphasis on racism. I do not follow British politics, but more generally I get the sense that "racism" is usually applied in a rhetorical (e.g. as Jones frequently uses it) if not defamatory capacity (e.g. "criticizing Israel is antisemitism"). In the latter case it often achieves a chilling effect. I'm going to go way out on a limb here: I assert that most moral arguments that use the word "racism" or "racist" can be expressed at least as well if not better without using the word. It's a thought I had written down on my userpage several weeks ago and while I'm still not entirely confident in it, I think it holds true in many cases. Is it not likely that influence from Israel and the Israel lobby (and whatever they call it across the pond) better explain pro-Israel favoritism in politics than a supposed ideological hatred or dislike for a given ethnicity? Is Israel's behavior itself not just as easily condemned on the moral principles that greed, war crimes, mass murder, cruelty and unfairness are wrong? Conversely, the word "racism" finds broad and effective application as a defamatory ad hominem, as demonstrated in this video (not by Jones himself, though he does use the word) and by many other instances. I've always vaguely disliked the term or at least the manner in which it is often used. Anyone who criticizes the term might conceivably be accused of racism themselves, and this circularity adds to my dislike. At times the public discourse seems to degenerate into base mudslinging, you're a racist, no, YOU'RE a racist, so on and so forth. Even when tarted up with officialese, exchanges like this are still exceedingly stupid. Feel free to leave a comment on my talk page. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 00:13, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

A handful of articles that turned up when I searched for news on the aid bill. ,, , , , , More or less as I had anticipated, they're largely focused on the Ukraine and the border. Most of them do seem to mention Israel now, yet at a glance none of them indicate that Israel is charged with genocide, nor of the recent events that suggest Israel is still committing war crimes. Some of them mention humanitarian aid for Gaza, but not in such a way to insinuate any wrongdoing on Israel's part, as if it were a natural disaster and not probable genocide. Journalistic malpractice indeed. Support for Israel's invasion seems to be on the decline elsewhere. Here though, the mass media's news is all but silent on the matter. Jones' has a new video and the events in Gaza he reviews are appalling. How does Israel suppose they'll square any of this with the ICJ? Would any of this be possible without the Israel lobby and without mass media like CNN who clearly are lying (either by distortion or omission) on Israel's behalf? The doomsayer title seems unproductive. Why make vague predictions about the demise of "the west" instead of speaking about something less abstract? What I am most concerned about are these aid bills. If they pass, then what moral authority can congress claim to have? It has already demonstrated the moral bankruptcy, cynicism and generally low quality of many individuals in the senate. Whether or not it passes, I shall remember that my senators voted in favor of sending fourteen billion dollars to sponsor a genocide. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 13:42, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Among the small amount of material that the media have published on Gaza, one phrase that pops up frequently in some form or another is "calling for a ceasefire". Protestors, nations, politicians, etc. "calling for a ceasefire", debating whether a ceasefire can or should be called and so on. Notably, Jones and others speculated that perhaps the ICJ did not have the authority to order a ceasefire, which seems like one of the more relevant points. By and large though, I am suspicious of this stock phrase. Of course one would hope for a cessation of all hostilities, yet foreign aid to Israel is the concrete, direct, material leverage that the USA has the authority to control. Its politicians not only have the authority but also the obligation to withhold aid to Israel if Israel is committing gross violations of human rights, which appears to be the case. This is public money, and the public has a say in what the government does with it. I've said all this before but at least in certain contexts the phrase "calling for a ceasefire" seems increasingly mealymouthed and wooden compared to materially consequential objectives and actions such as "cutting off aid to Israel", "embargoing Israel", etc. If Israel is openly violating international law, why would they heed anyone's "call for a ceasefire"? The journalists in the state department Q&A sessions seemed to hit closer to the target than most, as they attempted to extract specific commitments from the state department to withhold aid to Israel, but this has not been a strong point of emphasis in the mainstream media or even in Jones' material. The abstract displaces the material. One is not really making a serious critique if the most salient, actionable conclusions are omitted or replaced. While I consider Jones' material to be valuable, he stops short of taking it to its logical conclusion and leaves the viewer with outrage fodder. One should certainly be outraged, but one should also have a clear objective in mind. All this is obvious and I refuse to believe Jones and others do not understand this. In other words, Jones is doing exactly what the mainstream media does, just to a much lesser degree. Similar in direction, if not magnitude. Instead of fawning and gushing or assenting in his righteous indignation, his viewers should be asking "what are we going to do about it?" I remember Hitchens being asked essentially the same question (though not in those exact words) during an old video where he was giving a talk (at a college or library if I recall) about Kissinger. He did not give a particularly satisfying answer, as though something were stopping him from doing so. Youtube replies on any video nearly always suck, frankly. Most of them read like a gushy hallmark card, but I digress. Condemnations, affirmations, and many other -tions aggrandized from their corresponding verbs, are the media's language of posturing and pomp. Be suspicious of all such things when they aren't backed up by meaningful commitments or acts. Even the blond man's cold, cynical viewpoint in and in other videos on that channel (which seems to oppose gratuitous aid for Israel) is more straightforward than crocodile tears and vague words about a humanitarian crisis. The false equivalence with American colonialism comes up in that video. Consider that prior to European colonization, there were .5:1 natives per square mile, as opposed to Gaza's density of 16,853:1. The industrial-style killing of Gazans is not by any stretch analogous. I could go on, but the important point is that the taxpayer is sponsoring this atrocity and it is at least in part the taxpayer's responsibility to speak up against it. In short, most popular critiques are compromised by lack of an operative or actionable component. I don't imply that this is intentional in all cases, yet its absence or omission should be conspicuous to any reasonably objective observer or critic. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 17:14, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Jones' new video is a good example of how easily a critique can drift into filler media. I'll qualify this by saying that I know very little about UK politics. It starts off with a promising title, Our Establishment Tries To Silence YOU On Gaza. In general this is certainly true. Popular websites are practically designed to suppress discourse, as I discuss in Policy and Standards for Critical Discourse. Without such controls, censors, and exposition to constrain and modulate social transmission on the internet, it would not be long before the public arrived at a natural consensus. Namely, (I should hope) that using public money to sponsor crimes against humanity in Gaza is both morally reprehensible and a waste of public money. Unfortunately the video has little to do with that. He talks about a few specific instances of political dishonesty and blackmail, and it does appear to be a reasonable critique during the first half, albeit not what I'd expect given the title. After that, it increasingly gives the impression of trite political diegesis as he uses more of the mass media's argot; "both sides", "centrist, "left", "right", "racist extremist", etc. The title is more interesting than the video. Consider that propaganda and censorship does not really need to change anyone's opinion. It suffices that people are not confident enough to say what they believe. If an atrocity is presented as a "controversy" then many people will likely say nothing, simply for fear of being "on the wrong side". AP295 (discuss • contribs) 13:51, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

"Biden signs $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan" Apparently Israel is to receive about 26.4 billion of it. Judging by the votes, it received even more support from the democrats in congress than the republicans. Well before 10/7/23, I made the assertion that our two-party status quo is a collusive fraud. To think that back then I was worried this hypothesis would be hard to substantiate. It has always been my assumption that these propagandists, politicians, and the interests they serve are at least competent as frauds, if not competent as leaders. Yet right now, any member of the public (consider for example a genuine, socially-conscious democrat) can take one look at congress and directly conclude that their party is an utter sham. I'm not a member of any party and never have been, but I assume that most people who join the democratic party do so with the good-faith belief that its leaders represent a moral authority. This trust is obliterated when these leaders, who build their public image upon pretenses like concern for "social justice", "equity", "equality" and so forth write a twenty-six billion dollar check to sponsor a rogue state that is credibly accused of war crimes and violations of the genocide convention. I can only hope that the American people have the principle and self-respect to reject this gross abuse of public trust and public resources so that they do not become the overt status quo. I believe they do. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 16:07, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

"Biden administration steps up pressure on Israel as Rafah assault intensifies". "Biden Pressures Israel for Cease-Fire, and Threatens to Withhold Arms" "Biden Pressures Israel, Promises Gaza Aid Pier in State of the Union Speech" "Biden says he would halt additional weapons shipments if Israel invades Rafah" "Biden’s Warning Over Rafah Sharpens a Problem for Netanyahu" "Biden admin carefully ramps up criticism of Israel over the Gaza war but stops short of cutting off military aid" "ENDGAME For Netanyahu? - Israeli Analyst Ori Goldberg Gives Devastating Assessment"

"You stop that. We're 'pausing' this one missile shipment. You better shape up, or else. *Gives Israel 26 billion dollars*" Not impressed. Especially when I consider that it's my tax money they're handing over, while the media simultaneously claims that my government is "pressuring" Israel. If only we were all so "pressured" (under a pile of free money). AP295 (discuss • contribs) 05:48, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

P.S. The last video, published by Owen Jones, is a relatively long (42 min) discussion with guest Ori Goldberg. There's a large emphasis on Nethanyahu. It seems that the mass media is trying in earnest now to construct an interpretation of these events that's suitable for mass consumption and integrate it into "the mainstream narrative", so to speak. It's a story. The main characters are Biden and Netanyahu, and apparently we're entering the third act. Can't you just imagine a PR-friendly whitewash of these events that goes roughly like this: Nethanyahu falls from grace (retires comfortably) due to 'pressure' (oh the pre$$ure, have mercy) from Biden and others, with pundits speaking of this as a more-or-less acceptable conclusion. Israel is presumed the hapless victim of both Hamas' unprovoked violence and Netanyahu's poor leadership, as well as Biden's pre$$ure, which they bear selflessly and without resentment because it had to be done to stop Netanyahu. Nevermind that it was allowed to go on for well over half a year. Nevermind the genocide case in the world court. (Major events receive token coverage, just to keep up appearances.) If the ICJ's ruling is unfavorable toward Israel, it is presumed a grossly unfair miscarriage of justice and probably a result of antisemitic bias. Nevermind everyone else who participated besides Nethanyahu. Nevermind the continued, gratuitous foreign aid for Israel. (They got rid of the bad guy, so it's fine.) Nevermine the Israel lobby. Nevermind the misery of Gazans. All is well. Pundits treat the matter as more-or-less resolved, save for Hamas, and perhaps serving occasionally as a cautionary tale against racism and ethnic identity. (Just for white westerners of course, as they are far too racist and privileged.) Not that I think it will really be that obvious, but one does get the sense that mass media (possibly even including critics like Jones, or at least some of his guests) are desperately trying to work this into a story with an ending, after which it will be spoken of in the past tense. I really do feel bad for those in Israel who are good, honest patriots, and I admire those patriots who speak or act against this senseless violence. If such people seem uncommon, I assume it's because the media prefers that dissenting opinions are expressed by the "radical left" or some other personality who's suitably unappealing. I'm not anti Israel. There's nothing wrong with the idea of an ethnostate in and of itself (though it seems many of Israel's supporters abhor the idea when the conversation isn't about Israel). My nation is funding Israel's war crimes and I feel a responsibility to speak against this, for the sake of all concerned. Simple as that. It's the least I can do. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 06:57, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Really, what a ridiculous angle. What would it matter if the USA stopped giving Israel weapons? They already turned Gaza into a wasteland. They've been getting weapons and money for decades. They're still getting money. A lot of money. I can only assume they'll be okay for a while. And just look at how cliche these articles titles are. Even Jones seems to be taking this bullshit seriously, or pretending to. Christ. I don't understand how all these people can do this day after day and not feel like complete scoundrels. Right now I think I'd be too ashamed to even speak with a victim of all this, let alone get in front of millions of people and outdo even the most deranged, clinically diagnosed pathological liar in order to save those responsible from public scrutiny. Not once have I felt even the slightest bit tempted to capitulate and condone the status quo (despite considerable pressure, and not the good kind). People who do are not the sort of company I want to keep. They are cheap prostitutes. Anyone who feels cornered, socially pressured, or put down by these people should remember that cheap whores have no business looking down upon anyone, so don't take any lip from them. While I don't know exactly what one stands to gain, it's probably not as important or impressive as it seems from the outside. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 11:25, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Another dubious Owen Jones video (or rather a video with a dubious title), this time entitled "Israel Faces Defeat: Palestinian Ex-Negotiator Diana Buttu Explains" What does this video title communicate to the viewer? What is the tacit implication that the the viewer is conditioned with? I imagine something along the following line: "Israel has received their comeuppance. They've been defeated, just ask this Palestinian lady. Show's winding down, move along." Come on. It's rather unfortunate that Jones seems to entertain this Biden vs. Netanyahu narrative, wittingly or unwittingly. Maybe just to keep the videos coming. I can't be too disappointed in him, he does a better job than most critics, and certainly better than the big networks. Why doesn't he bring in a lawyer to discuss the legality of western aid in various nations, and the possibility of bringing a case against the politicians who break the law, for instance? "The term “Leahy law” refers to two statutory provisions prohibiting the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights (GVHR)." There is certainly credible information to implicate Israel. Tons of it. They could be implicated many times over. Are our nations allowed to supply funds or weapons to a state believed to be committing violations of the genocide convention, the Geneva convention, and probably other such niceties? If so, then let it be said that this is allowed. Let the public know that it's legal to aid and abet an attempted genocide or other serious war crime. If not, then someone has broken the law and one should be able to bring a case against them. How should one assist or initiate such an effort? But no, we're talking about Biden, Netanyahu (who appears to be the scapegoat they've chosen) positions, views, pre$$ure, elections, Israeli society, antisemitism, "condemnations" so on and so forth, all the usual bullshit. Sure, Netanyahu ought to be thrown in jail, but so should many other people. In reality this is not just a story about two bad presidents. Don't be placated by this clumsy spin control. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 20:07, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Jones made several videos within the last month whose titles (and to some degree content) follow this pattern. It's hard to say whether they're run-of-the-mill clickbait or whether these titles were deliberately written to imply that Israel is being held to account. At any rate, I'm not at all impressed. Here they all are in a list (I won't bother including a ref for all of them, just go to his youtube channel)
 * Israeli Spokesperson HUMILIATED: Literally Left Speechless
 * ENDGAME For Netanyahu? - Israeli Analyst Ori Goldberg Gives Devastating Assessment
 * Israel Faces Defeat: Palestinian Ex-Negotiator Diana Buttu Explains
 * Rafah Invasion Shows Israel Has LOST
 * Rafah Invasion Means 'CATASTROPHE Upon Catastrophe' - w/. Unicef's James Elder
 * Israel's Most LETHAL Lie Falls Apart - But Leaves Catastrophic Impact
 * Israel Has Been DEFEATED. A Total Defeat" - Israeli Newspaper's Shocking Admission

Give me a break. You know I'd leave a comment on his youtube channel, but I've never seen him use the comment system. Youtube's comment system is practically unusable (for reasons I explain in ), and I am sure that youtube has debased it on purpose. It would be trivially easy to fix, but youtube is not a platform where users are encouraged to talk with other users. It is a site where you (the consumer) are to watch and keep quiet, and maybe once in a while make your comment, which, if you didn't post it minutes after the video was uploaded, will never be seen by most people since the highest rated comments will more or less stay at the top. If you are one of the first people to comment, then your comment may or may not be buried or censored. Comments can (and often do) disappear entirely without explanation (this is an automatic censor), or bizarrely, put into a state of limbo where they are only visible when the comment section is sorted by "newest first". To see these comments, one is forced to traverse a substantial portion of the existing comments. No way to search, no way to skip ahead. Scroll all you like, they've built in an artificial delay so that when you get to the bottom, you have to wait a moment or two for the next dozen comments to "load", and then again for then next dozen, and so on. If it doesn't already occur to you, any site that can stream 4k video at 60FPS would capable of loading all of the comments instantly on any given video. Not that they'd have to do that, just having a comment search bar (rather strange omission for a company whose flagship product is the most popular search engine in the world) and being able to jump to any page quickly (similar to a forum) would suffice. Having it order threads like a form would make it better still, as each person's comment has a chance to be seen. I didn't sign up for youtube until quite recently, but I've heard that it had a messaging system until it was removed. There is no conceivable reason to remove such a basic and useful feature like that unless you don't want your users to talk to each other that much. It's a royal pain to have a real conversation on youtube and they've gone well out of their way to make it like that. Not only that, but they've done so in such a way that the pretense of discourse remains, at least superficially. They could have just deleted it, but no. They want everyone to stare at youtube like a million viewers in a million different houses, but still giving users the impression that they're talking with one another. The cargo-cult dialog that results from this is not conversation between users, nor (for most channels) an interaction between users and the uploader. Many of the comments are typically written as though addressed to the uploader, usually gushing, flattering approval. Speaking of approval, users only see the upvote count. Users are not allowed to know when they all disagree with something. The downvote count was removed some time ago. Deceitful bastards. Youtube, twitter and reddit (all of them suck equally) make any run-of-the-mill vbulletin board look like the Forum Romanum during the height of the Empire. How did these shitty websites ever get so popular in the first place? None of these websites encourage conversation, they're only designed to provide a convincing substitute thereof, while at the same time manipulating users and lowering their expectations. I have my own version of Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice, greed or self-interest. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 23:41, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

According to Orwell in "Politics and the English Language", "... the normal way of coining a new word is to use a Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the -ize formation. It is often easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non- fragmentatory and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one’s meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness." Nominalizations are also easily contrived. Just as Orwell observes later in the essay, such words appear frequently as political jargon. Their apparent meanings are often vague or very flexible and I hypothesize they are typically applied as a means of conflating or grouping dissimilar concepts. For example, Zionism is an umbrella term that can refer to both the ideal of a Jewish state but also the hostile takeover of Palestine for that purpose. Clearly there's a difference between separatism, which is not in and of itself wrong, and the subjugation or forced removal of another group. Unfortunately the media often abuses the word "conflation" by using it as a euphemism. One frequently encounters statements like "We must acknowledge how deeply the conflation between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has become normalized, including within some progressive Jewish circles." I'm not familiar with the website, but it's a common assertion. What's actually going on is that the word "antisemitism" is being used as an ad hominem against those who criticize Israel's actions. Likewise, abstract words like "racism" are ill-defined and frequently used to make ad hominem attacks. These words are not necessary for dialectic argument. Mass murder is wrong because it's mass murder. As ad hominems, words like "racist" and "antisemite" are very effective. So long as people take them seriously, they put people on the defensive. In short, they are harmful to open discourse and I will explain this fully using the next two paragraphs. Many people do take them very seriously and I'm not trying to insult those people. It's interesting that in article I quoted from, they do recognize that there's a problem "We are concerned that a lack of clarity about what anti-Semitism is—and isn’t—allows false equivalencies and elisions to be weaponized against movements for social justice.", but they don't seem to recognize the obvious solution. Or they do but can't bring themselves to be honest about it because they want to have it both ways. Frankly I think the latter is more likely. There's a large body of scholarly work, journalism, literature etc. which would all look rather meaningless, dishonest or absurd if one realizes that the language is being abused. At least a dozen times I've heard Owen Jones say something dramatic like "Antisemitism is REAL, and it is a SCOURGE and must be DESTROYED". Obviously he's terrified of being called one himself. It's fear that makes ad hominems like this effective. One should not be intimidated or defamed for trying to do the right thing.

Let's try to be more specific though. Obviously I am not claiming that they are "meaningless" in the sense that you cannot find definitions for these words in a dictionary or some other authoritative document. Orwell makes a similar observation in his essay Politics and the English Language, which is excellent and which I've cited many times before - "''Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly even expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, ‘The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality’, while another writes, ‘The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness’, the reader accepts this as a simple difference of opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. [...]. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. [...] Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.". Orwell takes a good shot at describing the problem. I think the common thread though is that these words add no expressive power to a language. Any dialectic argument can be expressed more clearly without them. They are only useful for constructing rhetoric, and quite useless for dialectic. Typically such words have strong connotations yet don't really communicate much more than good or bad in a given context. Their rhetorical power comes from drama, representations in media and art and other propaganda. For example Owen Jones' when he says something like "Antisemitism is a SCOURGE and must be fought against." I don't remember which video that was, but I'll link it if I run across it. In, Jones insists "It should have a very precise meaning which we all have to agree on because anti-Semitism is one of the great evils. ", with his guest lackadaisically affirming "Yeah I think anti-Semitism should be uh fought against.''" It's interesting that most words in the English language don't seem to have this problem.

Orwell's assertion "each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another" is in a sense correct. Within a single source one will often find a definition (possibly comprised of multiple definitions from the same source e.g. a single dictionary entry) broad enough to encompass two quite different things, often things that should not be considered similar. Let's from now on consider the word "racism". Why is its definition so loose? You can find any number of definitions, all vaguely similar, some better some worse. Recall the claim I made earlier; two specific and distinct concepts are often conflated using a third word (usually a neologism) that can be used in reference either one or the other concept. The first two definitions on Merriam Webster online dictionary are "1. A belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race" and "2a. The systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another. Already we can see that "racism" conflates a belief with mass oppression. Certainly quite broad. A racist could be a ruthless tyrant or a Darwinist. The third (or 2b) reads: a political or social system founded on racism and designed to execute its principles. Malcom X was a black separatist and believed his race was superior. (To be clear, personally I've no interest in a separatist movement, but I'm quite interested in the media's rhetorical doublespeak and why these vague definitions and political nominalizations never seem quite well defined.) He satisfies 1. and 2b. Yet I see nothing wrong with the idea of Malcom X and his followers having their own chunk of land to themselves. It is not my prerogative to make him believe that his race is not superior, nor my prerogative to change his preferences. Likewise, I see nothing wrong with the idea of a Jewish state. Yet here we see that even just this one, two part definition alone can be used to describe two quite different things, one of which is morally defensible and one of which is indefensible. Not vague enough yet? "Racism is a system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on the social interpretation of how one looks, which is what we call race, that unfairly disadvantages some individuals and communities, unfairly advantages other individuals and communities and saps the strength of the whole society through the waste of human resources." That's from a college website. This is why I say that the word is meaningless. Now suppose that being a racist is a serious charge and that you might be in hot water if you're thought to be one. Since it's sufficient just to have a certain belief, the accusation is more or less unfalsifiable. Anyone can be called a racist and you cannot say "here's my alibi". The best one can do is to "denounce racism" frequently, and all this does is reinforce the idea that the word has meaning. When people are accused of murder, they generally don't argue over the definition of murder. Yet since one can't falsify an accusation of racism, arguing the definition (which is already extremely loose) is often easier. One now begins to see just how absurd it is. Since antisemitism is generally thought of as "racism against Jews", the same argument applies in this less general sense. There you have it. The point is this: Mass murder is mass murder, war crimes are war crimes, just call them what they are and forget the words like *ist and *ism. There's no point in describing Israel's war crimes as "racist" or any such variation (and there are many similarly bogus words) because it does not help your critique. Likewise there's no point in trying to give an "alibi" if one is called an antisemite for criticizing Israel because there does not exist such an alibi. Unless you enjoy acting utterly obnoxious by posturing and making denunciations and condemnations and affirmations and so on and so forth just to build up enough "street cred" to dishonestly call others racist (e.g. w:WP:NONAZIS ), then just cut these words out of your vocabulary. I wince every time I see some decent academic or intellectual have to issue a series of condemnations and disclaimers just to make their point. I challenge anyone to provide a serious, dialectic argument that depends upon these neologisms or is weakened without them. It's ludicrous to take seriously an accusation that is 1) satisfied by an unfalsifiable thought-crime, 2) is so vague and nebulous that nobody can say with certainty exactly what it is or isn't. 3) chills critical discourse to such an extent that it prevents the criticism of genocide.

The boston review article I quoted earlier, published in 2019, bears the title "What Anti-Semitism Is—And What It Is Not". It reads very much like a political dog-whistle. From statements like we are concerned that a lack of clarity about what anti-Semitism is—and isn’t—allows false equivalencies and elisions to be weaponized against movements for social justice" one naturally would presume that somewhere in this severely long article there is a definition of antisemitism. There's no definition of antisemitism in this article about how to define antisemitism. Instead there is a tremendous amount of abstract jargon and pseudoacademic fluff. Sentences like "the core of white nationalism is not anti-Semitism, but settler colonialism and antiblackness" would be impossible to write without jargon unless one has concrete interpretation already in mind? It appears to be contradicted by another part of the article, "For neo-Nazis and modern white nationalists,” Wise writes, “anti-Jewish bigotry is literally the fuel of their movement, the glue that binds them.” He adds that “Jew-hatred is the thing, bigger than racism against folks of color.". Try to make sense of this one: "As Ben Daniel implores, we need to understand the privileges and powers granted to white American Jews not as an inevitable symptom of anti-Semitism, but as a symptom of whiteness, white supremacy, and the ability (and willingness) of many white American Jews to align themselves with both a fundamental American anti-blackness, as well as an imagined “Judeo-Christian” West that serves the imperialist project of Western Islamophobia. " In particular, consider the first part, "we need to understand the privileges and powers granted to white American Jews not as an inevitable symptom of anti-Semitism" Why would they consider "antisemitism" a source of privilege in the first place? Isn't it supposed to be "one of the great evils"? How should I understand this sentence?

Orwell makes several recommendations in his essay to avoid political language, stating "These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article." It's just as hard to imagine how one would write such an article without using "to be" forms that assert identity. Try to rewrite it in w:WP:E-Prime. There are several "to be" verb forms that resemble definitions but aren't. For example "Antisemitism is/isn't". Many could have been expressed with more specific verb forms e.g. antisemitism includes/excludes that's less strict than equivalence. These aren't ungrammatical (except in E-prime), but taking all this together article is extremely sloppy. Sentences like the following seem to make little sense unless "antisemitism" is considered as a rhetorical device. "Is twenty-first-century American Jewish identity—at least as it is popularly understood and circulated—even possible without anti-Semitism? Can we conceive of “Jewishness” in its modern, often class-privileged and white American manifestation, without a sense of victimization? Certain responses to the anti-Semitism of the Trump campaign, the “alt-right,” and even the Tree of Life shooting seem to indicate that these episodes ​resolve​ the crisis of modern white American Jewish identity—by ​confirming​ that anti-Semitism is indeed cyclical and permanent. Contemporary American Jewishness has thus become parasitic on victimhood. But retreating to these comfortable narratives about who “we” are is preventing us from building coalitions, challenging institutions, and engaging in self-criticism in effective ways."

To summarize: the words "racist" and by extension "antisemitic" tend to be used as dishonestly as rhetorical devices. As accusations, they are unfalsifiable, as one cannot furnish an alibi for thought crimes. They are defaming, often severely, with a well-documented pattern in which Israel's critics are accused of antisemitism, implying genocidal intent on part of people who speak against war crimes. Clearly such rhetoric has not prevented ethnic violence in this case but has been used to suppress critique thereof. Conversely, any crime or injustice can be described at least as well without these words and without seeming any less tragic for their absence. Plain, dialectical English such as mass murder, assault, etc. is more powerful than rhetorical condemnations and universally respected and understood among English speakers. On the other hand, the word "racism" encourages a culture of posturing, affirmation, denunciation and other Pavlovian exercises that involve aggrandizing or debasing some group or person in order to build enough social capital as a "non racist" to use the term as a weapon. This stultifies the public, debases public discourse and debases western culture itself. It represents an abuse of good faith and human kindness. How are we to understand the word "antisemitism"? I would say that since nobody can seem to prescribe a definition consistent with how people insist on using the word, we can take the descriptivist approach. In The Holocaust Industry, Finkelstein writes "ADL head Nathan Perlmutter maintained that the “real anti-Semitism” in America consisted of policy initiatives “corrosive of Jewish interests” ... " Generalizing, one can interpret "antisemitism" to mean "anything contrary to Jewish interests", which is broad but not vague. If you can think of a narrower definition that is honestly descriptivist, then please share it. I promise to hear you out and accept that definition if 1) it reasonably captures how the word is used in the public discourse and literature (rather than how people say it should be used), and 2) you explain why a more general definition would be harmful. What can not go on though, is this farce in which pundits prescribe a definition that is very different from how these words are actually used. The word does withstand descriptivism better than "racist", which I suppose would be "anything contrary to the interests of any particular race". One potential counterargument is that abusus non tollit usum, an ancient and often underused point. I argue against gun control on this basis, so I feel I must address it. Fortunately this is easy: strictly speaking, I am not making an argument against the use of these words in the first place. Rather, I am arguing that one should interpret them differently. Under this interpretation they're not particularly useful as ad hominems, yet in the case of antisemitism, the word still suffices to describe actions taken against Jews as an ethnic group. It does not undermine honest literature about Jewish persecution. Assuming this definition were universal, the word "antisemitic" would not be a defamation in and of itself. However if a person commits some crime X against Jews, it can still be said that their crimes are "antisemitic". This definition is material and objective, being inherently predicated upon the idea of "Jewish interests" rather than "Jewish victimhood". It leaves less to the imagination and does not admit thought-crimes. From my own point of view, this literal interpretation of antisemitism is both honest and fair, though I really would like to hear from anyone who's Jewish. (Note: I may integrate the above few paragraphs into a larger essay on rhetoric and the media's language. Then I could simply cite it here. I have not started it yet, but it's going to include other material not related to Israel. Likewise I may move other digressions and then reference them here if they are worthwhile but seem to fit better elsewhere.)

My interpretation of the word "antisemitism" is a descriptivist one by necessity. It only takes a cursory literature search to find any number of sources that proclaim absurd definitions. I cannot make sense of literature like, which appears to be a review of a book entitled Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition. The second paragraph of the lede reads ''“Anti-Judaism should not be understood as some archaic or irrational closet in the vast edifices of Western thought,” Nirenberg observes in his introduction, as quoted and affirmed by Paula Frederiksen in her review. “It was rather one of the basic tools with which that edifice was constructed.” And as he ominously concludes, hundreds of pages later, “We live in an age in which millions of people are exposed daily to some variant of the argument that the challenges of the world they live in are best explained in terms of ‘Israel’.” The book's Amazon page reads "This incisive history upends the complacency that confines anti-Judaism to the ideological extremes in the Western tradition. With deep learning and elegance, David Nirenberg shows how foundational anti-Judaism is to the history of the West. Questions of how we are Jewish and, more critically, how and why we are not have been (sic) churning within the Western imagination throughout its history. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; Christians and Muslims of every period; even the secularists of modernity have used Judaism in constructing their visions of the world." Really?'' The foundation of western intellectual progress, the enlightenment, the development of the scientific method, all of that was borne from irrational resentment toward Jews? Am I really expected to swallow nonsensical hyperbole such as this? The following two sentences are from The Times of Israel, yet I'm fairly certain that any gentile who made a habit of repeating these exact words would be labeled an anti-semite. "The Christian restrictions against usury were ultimately relaxed but by then Jews had mostly come to dominate the banking and finance industries (e.g., the Rothschilds), continuing to this day. For instance, Jews constitute less than 2% of the American population, and yet many top banking executives, financial leaders, board of director members, and academic economists are Jewish – Soros, Yellen, Greenspan, Fink, Dimon, Summers, Stiglitz – the list goes on and on." In my own opinion, one can argue just as well against the injustice of debt-based central banking without ever mentioning race at all, and I do just that in another essay. One almost gets the sense that they wrote this precisely so that people would speak of it from an ethnic viewpoint. The term is applied broadly to protestors, whom I can only presume are not, for the most part, protesting because Israel exists, but because of its war crimes. "They excuse all their actions under the defence of free speech, an inalienable right except if you disagree with them in which case you are a Nazi and are blocked from engaging or entering. They stand up for what they believe in, but cover their faces to do so. They scream “apartheid fascists” at Zionists – whose country enshrines free speech, embraces LGBT people and has an 18 per cent Muslim population with equal rights – but glorify Hamas, the Iran-sponsored Islamist terror cult that hates Jews and kills dissenters." There are dozens if not hundreds of stories like this. "Karp, whose company recently extended an initiative that offers college fellowships to students looking to get away from antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses, likened the demonstrators' fervent views to a form of religion that's disconnected from Western political and social norms." Again, these people would not be protesting were it not for Israel's crimes. Crimes for which they are charged with violating the genocide convention. What I find genuinely frightening though is legislation such as this, which does represent an immediate danger to Western principles and tradition. It is not merely hypocritical, but an actual danger to American ideals. Personally I would rather not go on living any longer than have my rights taken. You'd have to kill me to take them from me, and I cannot blame Palestinians for feeling the same way.

Damage control on Wikipedia:   "Pro Palestine campus occupation" is an odd way to spell "genocide protest". I had a look at the talk pages and I was pretty disappointed not to see a single person object to this obvious distortion. It's hardly the only propaganda on Wikipedia, I could probably find something very wrong with most of the 'well-developed' articles relating to the conflict. "Pro Palestine campus occupation" is frankly just insulting though. Even calling them "Israel-Hamas war protests" would be more somewhat more self-explanatory than "Pro Palestine campus occupation". They are not protesting because they are partial to Palestine - which is what the title implies - they are protesting because Israel is using their tax dollars to commit crimes against humanity against millions of innocent people. They would protest all the same if it were any other people, including Jews. The sort of person who speaks or acts against Israel's war crimes today is the same sort of person who would have acted against a Pogrom with Jewish victims. I hope they know that.

From the background section of we have the following, "Pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses escalated in April 2024, spreading in the United States and in other countries, as a part of wider Israel–Hamas war protests. The escalation began after mass arrests at the Columbia University campus occupation, led by anti-Zionist groups, in which protesters demanded the university's disinvestment from Israel over its alleged genocide of Palestinians. " There you go. It's right there. They are protesting against crimes against humanity. There's nothing here that suggests these protesters have an interest in Palestine specifically. If Israel invaded Jordan and started to massacre them I presume they'd protest just the same. Would Wikipedia be calling them "Pro-Jordanian protestors on university campuses". I suppose so. Clearly one can see how absurd it is though. These protestors are protesting Israel's crimes against humanity. This instance of spin control casts doubt upon the objectivity of the protestors and it also avoids reference to Israel's crimes. Crimes that are still going on as we speak. So in fact, this conspicuously poor choice of words likely has three effects. 1) it falsely casts doubt upon the objectivity of well-meaning students who are protesting war crimes. 2) it helps to cover up those crimes by minimizing their media exposure. 3) it aids and abets crimes against humanity, (possibly including genocide) because Israel is still committing these crimes. Sure, you might argue that the information is still in the article, but any reasonable person would agree there's quite a big difference between calling it a "genocide protest" or "student protest of Israel's alleged war crimes" or anything to that effect, and, calling it "Pro-Palestinian protest". Yet this is not nearly as grotesque or overtly monstrous as the responses from some members of congress and president(s): "''President Joe Biden criticized and condemned the protests, calling them antisemitic while also criticizing those who "don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians. Former President Donald Trump, stated that the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia was "peanuts" comparative to the ongoing protests. House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke at Columbia on April 24 stating that "Congress will not be silent as Jewish students are expected to run for their lives and stay home from their classes hiding in fear." Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer condemned the "lawlessness" during the protests at Columbia University, saying it is "unacceptable when Jewish students are targeted for being Jewish, when protests exhibit verbal abuse, systematic intimidation or glorification of the murderous and hateful Hamas or the violence of." So the students are demanding disinvestment from Israel, i.e. trying to withhold money, which congress and the president were and still are legally obligated to do themselves per the leahy laws'' but haven't, and for their trouble these students are defamed by the president? I have no idea what specific incident (if any) they're referring to by "jewish students are expected to run for their lives" (frankly I'm doubtful), but if these politicians would withhold aid themselves like they're supposed to, the students wouldn't need to try and do it themselves and there would be no protests. Did Johnson really mean that, as he spoke those words, there was a BDS sit-in that chases down passing Jews and kills them? Not quite, apparently. The only allegation in the entire article is "Some protesters have directly confronted Jewish students on and near campus, at times using antisemitic rhetoric..." Maybe that's true, maybe they made it up, maybe it was a staged PR stunt, but at any rate I see a lot of hand waving and melodramatics over, well, nothing really. Perhaps Mike Johnson was talking about these people, since they've been given an impossible evacuation order and have nowhere to go. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 13:56, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

lmfao... This guy would probably be a riot to have a few beers with. He makes Tommy Wiseau look like Leonardo DiCaprio but they both have the same vibe. You're Tearing Me Apart, Lisa! AP295 (discuss • contribs) 16:34, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Many advocates stress how important it is to speak out. Jones encourages people to do so all the time and he's correct. There's a very pervasive culture of political quietism in the USA. If the subject comes up, there always seems to be someone around to say "let's not get into politics". It strikes me as awfully favorable to the status quo even under normal circumstances, let alone when they're sponsoring crimes against humanity with your taxes. All the same it's likely that the worst thing you'll earn in the USA for criticizing open injustice is a cold shoulder from those who commit or profit from it. Hardly a pity. Yet that can all change if people ignore criminal behavior in government too many times and for too long. This prerogative is obviously not due to the mercy or good faith of those who commit or sponsor crimes against humanity, who clearly are willing to use force when they can. It's because of people who keep the government in check and hold them to account. It's due to our constitution in part, sure, but that's no more than a piece of paper if people don't respect it and live by it. Do you think Israel believes in these principles? Do you think our own leaders believe in them? Clearly a good indicator of a person's moral fiber is how they behave when they know nobody will hold them to account for their actions. How does our "closest ally" treat some of its domestic critics? Watching this interview segment, one can appreciate both how low the stakes are in the short term for westerners who speak out, and how high they are in the medium and long term if people do not exercise and retain their rights. If it seems fashionable to act as though one is above having an opinion or talking about politics, who benefits from this and who does it appeal to? The lawless, unprincipled and corrupt benefit from it, and it appeals only to cowards and the exceptionally gullible who can put on airs and act like proud imbeciles when the subject of politics comes up and they repeat whatever conversation ender comes to mind. Political media is a sham and so are both major parties in America. Each one is a mishmash of incompatible beliefs and ill-defined idioms. One should never let themselves be persuaded condone the elimination (or more often the slow debasement) of individual liberties in any context. Any attempt to debase the first or second Amendment is a push toward what you see in the video above. Politicians know full well where it leads and have no respect for the public. How could they? You cannot respect someone that you're being paid to lie to and deceive every day while they pay your salary and vote for you. You'd have to believe they're chattel or you'd be in a constant state of despair and guilt. We've had good leaders before and we can have them again, but not if people refuse to talk about politics over dinner, or at work, or any time and place they gather. Not if people allow nonsense to stand uncontested. For instance, having a conversation or Socratic debate is often frowned upon on some wikimedia projects. One is often expected to simply make their point and leave. Persist and you'll be told to stop beating a dead horse and  bludgeoning the process. To Just drop it,  desist and mind your own business, to catch once,  let it go and  walk your dog, because  silence is golden. When a user visits a wikimedia project, they presume that its material is the eventual result of public consensus and scrutiny, which they can be forgiven for because that's essentially what wikipedia claims, and often it appears (at least superficially) that nobody's challenging questionable material. When nonsense and distortions are allowed to stand uncontested in public, people seem to accept them. At the moment I don't see anyone who has pointed out on the talk pages of those protest articles that "Pro palestine protest" is clearly spin control and not an objective description.

Earlier I explained why I dislike the title of Owen's video "Israel Faces Defeat" and many others like it. Not that I mean he's necessarily wrong. Consider for a moment how this would have turned out if South Africa hadn't charged Israel, which very easily might have been the case. No US citizen should breathe a sigh of relief just because they're told Israel has been held accountable or "faces defeat". Israel could not have even attempted it alone. Our government and mass media - both parties and all major networks - all acted in unison to fund and cover up a genocide. Don't let them scapegoat Israel or Netanyahu. They should be held to account, but by no means should the public let the government and mass media confect some three act story with a few scapegoats and then resume the same dog-and-pony they've been putting on. I already see this starting. For example, I'm already hearing pundits talking about this as though it were a cautionary tale against ethnic nationalism, which sounds very nice but realize it's an implicit reference to Israel. Almost all of our (very diverse) congress voted yes on an aid bill, knowing full well what Israel was doing. This is a lesson about greed, mass media and unaccountable government. Don't forget about these past six months. I turned this into a journal exactly because I anticipated a lot of scapegoating and a lot of feigned amnesia. There's nothing to feel relieved about. Yet they've all been exposed now and anyone can see the big lie for what it is. I'm reminded of something Christopher Hitchens said during a Q&A session, "[...] But two, you have to remember, that year, a large number of citizens had in effect seen through the government. I mean, there was, I remember it myself and some of you younger people who have read about it; there were riots in the streets and on campuses, there was the feeling that not just an appalling thing had been done to the people of Indochina but a terrific rape of the American Constitution had taken place, that Congress had been lied to, that the system was breaking down. Well, if they knew what the Nixon gang was up to and had been doing and how easy it was to continue to make end runs around democracy, what might have been the harvest? In my opinion, this, by the way, will hold true in all cases. What unites both major parties is much larger, greater and tighter than what divides them." In this case congress has not been lied to, they are the liars and so are all the major media networks. Are you really going to continue voting for whoever the democratic (or republican) party put put on the ballot and listen to the same "lesser evil" argument from people who tried to cover up or aid and abet a genocide? It's harvest time.

An interesting video. At one point in the video the speaker (Mearsheimer) states that "if you look at what's happening in Gaza the Israelis could never conduct that operation in Gaza without American Support, not even close, and all sorts of Israeli generals say that in the Israeli press they cannot by themselves produce the Weaponry to conduct the operations they're now conducting in Gaza they need us" The audience asks fairly good questions but one in particular is what many including myself here have been asking (sometimes rhetorically) the whole time: why doesn't the US put a stop to this by putting firm conditions on its aid to Israel? "I'd like to just push on this two-state solution a bit bit further um and really as you as a realist I mean basically you said that a greater Israel um with the pal you know um the West Bank and Gaza in it as as a Democratic state is off the table I think everybody can understand that. I think that ethnic cleansing is off the table because it's not going to happen um nobody's going to allow Israel to do that and I'm not even sure that Israel wants to do that so you are driven back to the two-state solution and and I'm I'm sort of intrigued as a realist why you're not embracing that and and and can I just push you on can't the United States really use its influence to create that solution "

The speaker's reply (which I've abbreviated somewhat) was "Walt and I wrote this book on the Israel Lobby [...] he and I wrote the book on the Israel Lobby and there's no way any American government can put significant pressure on Israel [...] Biden, you understand Joe Biden wants to win the election this coming November and if Joe Biden gets tough on Israel you'll see [...] Brett Stevens he wrote a big column as soon as soon as Joe Biden told Israel he was holding up these extra bombs, that they really didn't need anyway because they've got so many bombs, as soon as that happened Brett Stevens had a column and all sorts of supporters of Israel told Joe Biden in no uncertain terms you want to remember you're up for re-election [...]"

Think about what he's actually saying here. He had been saying the whole time that a two-state solution would be preferable for all concerned, except that Israel doesn't want one. Personally I cannot see any reason the US should object to a two state solution. Isn't he essentially saying that, in spite of American interests, America's political establishment cannot withhold its own money to force a peaceful and fair outcome? Isn't he essentially saying that preventing genocide, even though it's in America's interest, it is still not a viable political platform to run? I'm sure most of the public would think no worse of any candidate for promising to make aid conditional. So you see the problem here. While I've used the phrase "Israel's influence", this is perhaps not the best choice of words. I have caution about understanding this as simply a matter of Israel (the state itself) influencing US politics. Presumably not just anyone with fifty million dollars could outbid the Israel lobby for control over foreign US foreign policy. Yet clearly it is not in America's interest to continue providing money and weapons while Israel completes the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, since a two-state solution would do just as well. The speaker also states that the majority of Americans polled now believe Israel is committing genocide, and more than half of the remainder "aren't sure". Yet, as I wrote not long ago in the new intro, Israel is not accountable to the American public. The American government is. The speaker seems to expect Israel will continue its effort to ethnically cleanse Gaza and eventually succeed. This is the danger of simply "voting for the lesser evil". There is no "lesser evil" when both parties are backed by the same financiers. Their distinction from one another is PR contrivance. The mass media launders their dramatic farce. I've been saying so for years. Now we are at the point where the "lesser evil" intends to overtly, materially support ethnic cleansing and war crimes if not genocide, against the nation's interest no less. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 18:39, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I decided to check out this Bret Stevens fellow, and the first article I came across was one entitled "A Thank-You Note to the Campus Protesters". As I explained earlier, there's a distinction to be made between the idea of a Jewish state and the hostile takeover of Palestine for that purpose. The word "Zionism" is a convenient umbrella term that combines these ideas, and is often used in reference to one or the other. According to the speaker in the talk I cited just above, Israel does not want a two-state solution. Also, it seems a fair assumption that none of the recent protests would have occurred if Israel didn't appear to be trying to forcibly remove or exterminate the entire population of Gaza in order to annex the land. Therefore, it would be rather dishonest to characterize those protestors as "anti-zionist", yet that's exactly what this article presumes: "Though it may take a few years before you realize it, supporters of Israel like me have reasons to give thanks to militant anti-Zionists like you." It's also rather ridiculous to use the word "millitant" to describe an unarmed group. Now, if you ask them whether or not they're anti-zionist, I imagine a number of them might say "yes". Yet they are not protesting against the very existence of Israel, they are protesting against its recent war crimes in Gaza. Assuming this Stevens guy isn't an idiot, he surely understands that. Why, then, does he write "In short, what if your protests had focused on Israel’s policies, whether in Gaza or the West Bank, rather than demanding the complete elimination of Israel as a Jewish state?" If we accept his premise, the rest of the article actually then seems quite reasonable, and in fact it shares several points in common with my own view and some of the arguments I've made here. Statements like these also seem candid "I am also a Zionist for the most personal of reasons: because I see Israel as an insurance policy for every Jewish family, including mine, which has endured persecution and exile in the past and understands that we may not be safe forever in our host countries." I imagine many Jews feel likewise, and this is probably one of the reasons there's significant support for Israel among those who live in the US. (Looking past the prima facie explanation of influence from Israel itself, such support probably counts for a lot.) Yet under the dishonest presumption that people are protesting against Israel itself rather than Israel's war crimes in Gaza, what does one make of this? One has to wonder to what extent such media is self-fulfilling. Beware all such trickery. There are many arguments in the media that rest upon false premises and take on a form that is logically valid-but-unsound. In all political media there are cues that nudge or tempt one to be unreasonable, even though one's motivations are justified.

To repeat an earlier quote from Owen Jones, "One recent poll finds that 50% of Biden's self-described voters think Israel is committing genocide but B sees Israel as a fundamental guarantor of us strategic interests in the Middle East which is why he wishes to slavishly defend Israel. It's very important to make this point because anti-semitic conspiracy theories would have you believe that Israel is calling the shots because it somehow runs the US and taps into these ideas of secretive Jewish power which are always been integral to anti-semitic conspiracy theories. That's not what's happening here it's the US which is calling the shots globally and running the show but sees Israel as just one example of something which furthers its interest." I pointed out that the annexation of Gaza does not seem to serve the us public interest in any conceivable way, and that the Israel lobby is one of the largest lobbying groups in America. According to John Mearsheimer, a two-state solution would serve the US public interest just as well and that the Israel lobby is the only reason that the US does not make aid conditional in order to force this outcome, which is ostensibly the case. Jones' statement is self-contradictory. Earlier I posited that Israel was the most obvious supporter of the Israel lobby, yet from what I've learned it's not registered as a foreign agent. If not just Israel itself, it seems reasonable to surmise that a sizable and influential set of American Jews support the lobby. Despite Jones' hand-waving, it does not strike me as particularly conspiratorial. Mearsheimer, the man who gave the talk I cited earlier, has a book on the Israel lobby whose Wikipedia summary includes the following quote: "the bulk of the lobby is comprised of Jewish Americans". No doubt there are many who feel the same way as Stevens: "I see Israel as an insurance policy for every Jewish family, including mine, which has endured persecution and exile in the past and understands that we may not be safe forever in our host countries." Israel is an ethnostate for Jews and so American Jews have a vested interest in it. Or at least some of them appear think so. If I could ask Stevens a question, I'd like to know what conceivable scenario he foresees in which Jews are persecuted in the United States and Israel does not depend upon US money and goods. That is difficult for me to understand. My ancestors were persecuted and had to flee at one point too (actually at two points, on both sides of my family, and they probably deserved it in one instance), yet it never occurred to me to have a backup country and frankly I dislike the idea and its implications. I also dislike Jones' quote since he implies that this unconditional US aid serves "US interests" rather than Israel or its domestic supporters here in the US. I suppose I more or less knew all this, but Jones' ridiculous spiel was enough to keep me from taking the argument to its logical conclusion. Terms like "American interests" are often used dishonestly. They ought to mean "the public interest", but more often people use them to describe those of the "ruling class", which as Christopher Hitchens observes, are a reality here in the USA.

I've made a couple corrections to my idea about rhetorical conflation using neologisms, having recognized it's not the only way two concepts can be conflated, but merely one of them, and a couple other corrections. Generally I am not doing much revising to this log, as I want it to be more a record of my observations than an essay or article, but I will go back and correct things that are incorrect. Again, most of the stylistic flaws will remain. Part of the reason I've started this record is because the political narrative has more or less gone off track (apparently due to Israel's actions), and many of these observations are strongly supportive of another hypothesis I have. Certainly I do not presume to be knowledgeable on the middle east, but I have resented the dishonesty of the US mass media for a few years now. I also sympathize with the victims and find it appalling that my nation's resources are being used against our national interest, against the defenseless citizens of Gaza, against all good sense and humanity. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 09:42, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Yesterday the ICJ issued a new order. "[The court] indicates the following provisional measures: [...] The State of Israel shall, in conformity with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and in view of the worsening conditions of life faced by civilians in the Rafah Governorate: [...] Immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part" It seems the ICC might issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. All good news, but exactly as I had anticipated, even the segment of western media that reports upon these things seems to be mostly ignoring the role of the Israel lobby, which enabled this war for months. Apparently the largest organizations comprising the Israel lobby are not actually registered as foreign agents, but instead funded domestically by donations. (see and The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Stephen and Mearsheimer, especially notes 73,76). It seems likely that most of the 'left-leaning' media will continue to emphasize Israel, Netanyahu, Gallant, etc. and not so much their willing benefactors or the venal western politicians that serve them. It's not particularly hard at this point for someone like Owen Jones or other pundits to be critical of Israel itself and some of his comments about about western support (such as the one I quoted earlier) seem quite misleading. Even if he isn't particularly informed about the Israel lobby per se, it should be obvious that they exert significant political influence and consequently that foreign policy toward Israel does not represent the US public interest. I'm not impressed by those who make a critique only when it's relatively easy and popular. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 22:09, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

After watching Mearsheimer's talk a few days ago (I was unaware of his work prior to that), I read (most of) his book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which he coauthored with Stephen Walt. They also gave a bunch of talks together e.g. and in my judgement their critique is probably the best I've seen so far. One can't blame Stephen Walt for making a preemptive defense of their work during his introductory comments, which he begins with a metaphor that I found somewhat amusing " [...] when the subject is middle east policy and you bring up the Israel lobby you're grabbing the third rail with both hands". It's a bad metaphor of the sort Orwell had criticized; using both hands to grab the third rail is better than leaving one grounded. On the other hand, isn't it better to make a potent argument than to mince words? I'm sure Walt and Mearsheimer got a lot of grief at first for writing The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Even Christopher Hitchens - one of my favorite authors - did not seem to look upon it (or rather an early essay from which it developed) favorably. Yet I suspect Walt and Mearsheimer are more than just a bit proud of their work today. I also suspect that if Hitchens were still alive, he'd probably wish he hadn't panned the essay. Hitchens' review bears the title "Overstating Jewish Power: Mearsheimer and Walt give too much credit to the Israeli lobby." This notion seems unsustainable. The US could have stopped Israel's violence at any time by making aid conditional, to the benefit of all concerned. Who besides the Israel lobby would have objected? Again: prima facie, the Israel Lobby has far too much influence over US politics. If one wants to claim this isn't true, one must offer another explanation for why our politicians are funded by Israeli/Jewish PACs, make pro-Israel decisions at the public's expense, and lie to the public on Israel's behalf. Originally I had written "Israel" instead of "the Israel lobby", but I understand how important this distinction is now.

The media generally escape criticism in the media. Again, I started this log to have at least some record of these few months during which the media have exposed themselves as liars and frauds. Every major American news organization ran interference for Israel and laundered their propaganda. One cannot reasonably be called a conspiracy theorist for suggesting that the largest news organizations (and also most of the smaller ones) are untrustworthy. While I've not done a serious literature search, I've never seen a potent critique of the media that isn't debased in some way or another. There wasn't even an entry for Propaganda Laundering on Wiktionary until I made one and even that was severely debased just after I created it by a sysop who started an edit war, locked it, and shortly thereafter threw me out of wiktionary altogether, stating that I've made "no productive contributions". Walt and Mearsheimer only have a very short section on the media in their book. Perhaps they thought they'd be easy targets for defamation if they talked about both the media and politics, though I can only guess. Even in some parts of that talk intro it seems like Walt is splitting hairs: "it is certainly not a cabal or conspiracy to control American foreign policy again it's just a powerful interest group that operates the same way others do " ... in this case to control American foreign policy. I do have caution about this, because he goes on to draw a false equivalence between the Israel lobby and the NRA. "As American as apple pie", he insists. I beg to differ; on the one hand you have an organization that is (at least ostensibly) working to preserve a constitutional right, and on the other hand you have an organization working to send billions of dollars and materiel to a foreign ethnostate, at public expense and at risk of making the nation complicit in war crimes. Not only is this not American, but it's not really Israeli either, since they could likely just cut their losses in the worst case and blame Israel itself. Walt and Mearsheimer don't even think it will help Israel in the long run, which they stated using similar diction in the talk from 2015: "what is now going on is not only not good for the united states, it is not good for Israel and if the united states had told Israel starting in 1967 in no uncertain terms that it can't build settlements that would have been much better for Israel than allowing them to build all those settlements and get into a situation now where they are headed towards becoming an apartheid state". I can at least understand the motivations of the Israeli patriot, but I cannot understand why some American Jews are giving them the means to ruin themselves. The American public is paying for it, the Israeli public has to deal with the consequences, but the Israel lobby seems to bear neither the expense nor the risk. It's the father of all moral hazards. There's no accountability if the public won't demand it. Anyway I can forgive him for it, since he then goes on to make a serious critique. Of course he is correct to distinguish his durably-constructed argument from the various tropes that exist in the public consciousness, which are essentially strawmen. Anyone who wants to make such a critique has to clear a minefield of various rhetorical traps and gotchas. The problem is compounded by propaganda in the mass media and advertising (whose bread and butter are eristic  and rhetoric), not just by the information it communicates but by the language they use (and thus impress upon the public) to do so. The public is rarely shown examples of honest dialectic and critique, and many therefore lack the expressive power to make such an argument themselves. If one does not make a potent, literal, honest and dialectic argument, but instead uses the vague, nebulous and flexible language of the media, the rest is left to the observer's imagination, or worse yet, actively- and plausibly-distorted by others. My object here is to eventually build a purely dialectical and rhetorically-durable critique of the media. I've noticed that the best critiques in general tend to be slow developments, during which the dissenter makes many mistakes but also makes a persistent effort to interpret information objectively, and perhaps most importantly, they seem to firmly believe in their own core judgement. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 07:44, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

On certain websites that rhyme with metawiki and wikipedia, a user who persists in making an argument that is sound but one the status quo does not want to hear will often be accused of "disruption" (or a number of any other things). This is essentially an attempt to terminate the discourse and I say a bit about it on my metawiki userpage as well as in another essay (which needs to be refurbished). It seems to be the digital equivalent of what one author calls "respectability politics":. They are essentially correct and I think it's a good article, though I would not use the phrase "respectability politics", mostly because it's jargon. Rather, I would describe this rhetorical tactic as either a thought-terminating cliche (e.g. when enshrined in a half-assed wikipedia essay like don't bludgeon the process) or a red herring by which the speaker/writer assumes false moral authority. I'm usually impressed when people attempt a real critique of the rhetoric, so I searched the author to see if they had written anything else. Instead the search turned up dozens of articles (many by major organizations) that are essentially voyeuristic slam pieces. At the top though was a grotesque website called canarymission, apparently for smearing BDS activists, protestors and academics. How vile it is that she and other protestors are treated so poorly and dishonestly. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 04:03, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Related Discussions and Pages On Wikimedia Projects
Some discussions I participated in. These are permalinked to the latest revision at the time I added them here.

A terrible dilemma of priorities; WP:Neutrality vis-a-vis the prevention of genocide

[https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta:Requests_for_deletion&oldid=26705351#Joint_Statement_on_Palestine Several irrelevant and off topic discussions that you definitely shouldn't read. (They're really very off topic, you wouldn't be interested.) ]

If my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle

"We'd like to veto that anguished cry for help."

[https://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Palestinian_campus_occupations_of_2024&oldid=2626561 No reason. They just, y'know, really like Palestine. ] AP295 (discuss • contribs) 11:08, 12 May 2024 (UTC)