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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • First and foremost, I owe you an apology for all of my unfounded accusations. The mere fact that you are willing to hear me out is clear indication that I was mistaken. Upon reflection, it appears that your passion about the topic is entrenched by empathy for the Palestinians that lack any form of agency over their own suffering. That is, of course, the most important thing here. I would do better to remember that.

    Note: In an attempt to cut down on the enormous amount of text on screen, I’ve added a lot of links to selected text. I’m not sure whether or not they’re going to work correctly in your browser of choice.

    I don’t get your point about Yosef Weitz, he did play a major role with the unofficial Transfer Committee and the JNF. Which has dispossessed Palestinians to present day.

    My point is that extremism had pervaded both parties perpetuating this conflict, not to mention there was a tidal wave of Nationalism surging through many countries of the time period. The presence of radical ideology is self-evident and gets us no closer to conclusively proving that the Jewish government had always been plotting to expel Palestinians by force. There needs to be a very clear distinction here. This controversy is embroiled in an abyss of disputed information.

    The JNF is actually a prominent example of an organization that took measures not to expel Palestinians by force. There were plenty of Palestinians that were more than happy to sell their land in Palestine, presumably because they wanted to live elsewhere.

    And that once Zionism chose Palestine as a location, it was deliberately a settler colonialist movement.

    Yes, they made mention of this often. Presently the terms “settler” and “colonialist” are used to retroactively transpose modern narratives onto a period in history where conquest/colonialism had not yet been demonized. The Ottoman Empire had not even completely dissolved by the turn of the 20th century. Hell, Egypt, Jordan - Syria and Iraq all swooped in to occupy territory in Palestine, even though the only country that Britain had sanctioned in the territory was Israel. And sure, the ideologies of Zionism were certainly distorted by individual extremism, but I would argue that the underlying goal of an independent Jewish state is not inherently evil when considering they had long established territories in the region. As you brought up, the alternative was to submit themselves to the inhumane segregation of Christian fundamentalism or the inhumane segregation of Islamic fundamentalism.

    However, looking into the history, it looks like many Jewish people experienced more rights as Dhimmi than they would’ve under Christian nations for example

    I think we can agree that they’re both demeaning, and they’re both inhumane. Here are some examples of rights stripped away from you under the Ahl ad-Dhimma System:

    required to pay additional taxes, required to wear certain forms of dress, required to join only a set list of occupations, had their ability to work in the government circumscribed, forbidden to possess weapons, judged in Islamic Courts for any crime involving a Muslim (even if the Muslim was the perpetrator), Jews and Christians confined to certain areas, etc.

    https://medium.com/@Jaime.Morris/does-dhimmi-status-still-exist-in-some-islamic-countries-4389b485a134

    Especially during the Ottoman empire, it looks like Jewish people had comparatively more rights and was generally considered a ‘safe haven.’

    The Ottomans sometimes made concessions to appease Europe, but Islamic revivalists were still prevalent. Sharia law still being rampant in the middle-east to this very day should be more than sufficient evidence that it was not just paranoia.

    Amin Husseini became antisemitic largely after his Exodus to Germany. I’m certain he fell for Nazi propaganda and even tried to promote it in Palestine. However his influence continued to dwindle after his Exodus and in Palestine his western antisemitism didn’t really catch on

    I’m almost in complete agreement with you here, but I would still be very careful that we’re not conflating that contemporary Palestine and Arab League. I only ever claimed it had ties to the latter, and the former was not the only Jewish adversary. I’d just really rather not get into the minutia of this topic, its only relevance is the cooperation of some Arab leaders and the fear it would invoke in Jews. It’s not isolated to just Husseini:

    https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna29058048

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba'athism

    Ba’athism has been criticized by Western observers as similar in form to Nazism, specifically regarding its historic anti-semitism, authoritarian and nationalist tendencies.[287][288] The historian Stephen Wild in his 1985 paper National Socialism in the Arab near East between 1933 and 1939 briefly draws a direct line between these two ideologies. He cites the fact that Michel Aflaq, one of the founding fathers of Ba’athism, purchased a copy of Alfred Rosenburg’s The Myth of the Twentieth Century. He also quotes Sami al-Jundi: Whoever has lived during this period in Damascus will appreciate the inclination of the Arab people to Nazism, for Nazism was the power which could serve as its champion, and he who is defeated will by nature love the victor.

    We were racialists, admiring Nazism, reading its books and the source of its thought, particularly Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Fichte’s Addresses to the German Nation and H.S. Chamberlain’s Foundations of the Nineteenth Century which revolves on the race. We were the first to think of translating Mein Kampf.[289]

    Arsuzi formed the Arab Ba’ath Party in 1940

    Hopefully I at least raised enough alarm about Al Jazeera to compel you to be more skeptical about them. The English branch does placate to public opinion, but has still been caught pushing the limits of antisemitism until the outrage starts to boil. I do strongly agree with you though, criticism of Israel is indeed not antisemitism. And extremism still present in Israel continues to disproportionately cause much more suffering than any extremism permeating the Palestinian population.

    I don’t think Pappe ever insinuates ‘jews’ had ‘complete control.’

    Pappe’s entire rhetoric about an overarching “master plan” is beyond silly to me. The Arab League’s biggest weakness was not having a united front, but for the overwhelming majority of this time period, even up to the very month the war of independence began, the Jewish military could not even begin to compete. If not for the exact set of events that lead up to this moment in time, such as the Holocaust and emancipation in North Africa both causing massive surges in Jewish emigration and conscription, conquest in Palestine would’ve never been feasible for them as they would’ve been easily obliterated as soon as they occupied territory in Palestine. However, I won’t discredit his assertions that there were radical individuals.

    I don’t agree with the notion that the civil war was inevitable. For one, that argument depends on the notion that Palestinians had no desire for peace and wanted to genocide all the Jews

    We have a complete misunderstanding here. I’m not suggesting that Palestinians, or Arabs in general, had no desire for peace. They had no desire to recognize Israel’s independence, under any circumstance. And Israel had no desire for anything but independence, under any circumstance. These two diametrically opposed beliefs were on a collision course from the very beginning.


  • Next point:

    No, it’s more that a few quotes are no justification for doing ethnic cleansing. Especially when there was no military policy that backed up any genocidal threats.

    Let’s take a step back. If I gave the impression that I am attempting to justify anything, then I’ve made an error. I’ve already implied that I condemn both parties that this conflict derived from, I.E. my use of “…unabated mutual extremism”. The point here is to remember that I’m presenting what you’ve failed to include in your campaign, the contested interpretation and the context in totality. War had become unavoidable by 1947, and you can imagine what those Jew’s reactions would’ve been to facing another perceived existential threat.

    I can’t find any evidence of that quote in the photo you posted at all, it’s as if they just made it up. The wiki commons for the leaflet say “A leaflet, distributed after the U.N partition resolution, by the Mufti High Command supporters, which calls the Arabs to attack and conquer all of Palestine, to burn all the middle east and cancel the U.N partition resolution.”

    I’ll admit, it’s difficult for me to measure the validity of the original claim because I don’t speak Hebrew or Arabic. However, I do know that al-Husseini had already issued several declarations using this exact same Nazi-emulating rhetoric.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relations_between_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Arab_world

    Back in the summer of 1940 and again in February 1941, al-Husseini submitted to the Nazi German Government a draft declaration of German-Arab cooperation, containing a clause: Germany and Italy recognize the right of the Arab countries to solve the question of the Jewish elements, which exist in Palestine and in the other Arab countries, as required by the national and ethnic (völkisch) interests of the Arabs, and as the Jewish question was solved in Germany and Italy.[185]

    Subsequently, al-Husseini declared in November 1943- It is the duty of Muhammadans [Muslims] in general and Arabs in particular to … drive all Jews from Arab and Muhammadan countries… . Germany is also struggling against the common foe who oppressed Arabs and Muhammadans in their different countries. It has very clearly recognized the Jews for what they are and resolved to find a definitive solution [note: see German translation ] for the Jewish danger that will eliminate the scourge that Jews represent in the world.[205]

    Plus you ignore the decades of Palestinians officials advocating for a unitary state or what life was and the dispossession of Palestinians like under British occupation.

    I don’t blame you for accusing me of this. I’m not some omniscient scholar that can decipher exactly what version of events had occurred or who had the onus of making concessions in order to salvage some kind of unity out of what is otherwise over a century of suffering caused to the innocent bystanders of Palestine. However, I do know that there was enormous unrest in the region both before and after the birth of Zionism, and that I am acutely unqualified to suggest the perfect resolution.

    Remember that friction was extremely high between these groups. It’s completely possible, had the events occurred differently, that Jews would currently be on the disproportionate receiving end of suffering. I just have absolutely no way of knowing.

    Anti-zionism is not remotely antisemitism. Although, the intentional conflation of them is. As your saying the criticisms of the state of Israel (which doesn’t represent all Israeli and not remotely all Jewish people) is the same as genuine antisemitism.

    https://www.axios.com/2023/10/25/tony-blinken-qatar-israel-hamas | https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/20/al-jazeera-suspends-two-journalists-over-offensive-holocaust-report | https://www.arabnews.com/node/1499786/media | https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/05/24/al-jazeeras-anti-semitism-runs-deep/ | https://www.france24.com/en/20170712-uae-slams-al-jazeera-anti-semitism-inciting-hate

    In it, Gargash wrote that Al-Jazeera had “promoted anti-Semitic violence by broadcasting sermons by the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi”.

    Qaradawi, he added, had "praised Hitler, described the Holocaust as ‘divine punishment’, and called on Allah to 'take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people… and kill them, down to the very last one’".

    Bud, I would not go there. I could not care less what you choose to label it. Openly supporting systematic annihilation of an entire people is beyond redeemable. It’s heinous. And most importantly, it’s evil.

    I highly suggest you try reading the book assuming Pappe is wrong about everything

    Not everything. Definitely all the times he insinuates that Jews had complete and total control over everything and could commit ethnic cleansing whenever the hell they so chose, though.


  • I suggest you read the links I provided for the Concept of Transfer in Zionist thought and the two links on Plan Dalet if you think there is/was no “official policy.”

    It’s funny you should mention your sources for the Concept of Transfer. This is what originally clued me in on your propagandistic presentation. Nur Masalha obviously failed to conduct credible research, evidenced by his use of works by known fraud, Israel Shahak. Shahak is infamous for taking a personal diary of one Yosef Weitz, who never so much as stepped foot into Jewish government, and deploying it out of context to prove some deep-rooted Zionist conspiracy. Far from being official policy, Weitz later even repudiated the idea.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Shahak

    As a public intellectual, Israel Shahak was accused of fabricating the incidents he reported, of blaming the victim, of distorting the normative meaning of Jewish religious texts, and of misrepresenting Jewish belief and law.[37] Paul Bogdanor claimed that Shahak “regaled his audience with a stream of outrageous libels, ludicrous fabrications, and transparent hoaxes. As each successive allegation was exposed and discredited, he would simply proceed to a new invention.”[38]

    In his book review, Werner Cohn said that Shahak was making “grotesque charges” and that specific passages in Jewish History, Jewish Religion are without foundation:[32] Some are just funny. He says (pp. 23-4) that “Jewish children are actually taught” to utter a ritual curse when passing a non-Jewish cemetery.[b] He also tells us (p. 34) that “both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands…On one of these two occasions he is worshiping God… but on the other he is worshiping Satan…” I did take the trouble to question my orthodox rabbi nephew to find what might be behind such tall tales. He had no clue. If orthodox Jews were actually taught such hateful things, surely someone would have heard. Whom is Dr. Shahak kidding?.[c]

    The main contention among historians is whether or not “Transfer” had remained a contingency in the case of unavoidable war for Jewish independence or a secret plot. What I’m here to address is that you’ve only presented one interpretation of the events that defined this conflict. There can be a sincere case made for the origins of Zionism disillusionment with a lack of independence being embedded by centuries of persecution, the inhumane practices of Sharia law, and the burgeoning of such practices being galvanized by Islamic revivalists present in the remnants of the collapsed Ottoman Empire. I find it concerning that there is so much one-dimensional rhetoric about Israel’s practices of apartheid (to be clear this is not a justification for anything, but rather presenting the unrelenting nature of both sides of the coin) and yet the second-class citizenship associated with that of a Dhimmi is absent.

    https://nysba.org/NYSBA/Sections/International/Awards/2016 Pergam Writing Competition/submissions/Hellmann Ashlea.pdf

    1. Muslim countries where Islam is the official religion and Sharia law has been declared to be a source, or even the only source, of the law, practice a “classical Sharia” system, creating a sort of “government under God.” The fifteen (15) countries that implement this form of Sharia law include: Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, certain regions in Indonesia, the Maldives, Malaysia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.15 In these countries, Sharia law has a high degree of influence on the entire legal system, including the areas of family and criminal law.16 In Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq, it is also forbidden to enact any legislation that is antithetical to Islam.17

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia

    According to human rights groups, some of the classical sharia practices involve serious violations of basic human rights, gender equality and freedom of expression, and the practices of countries governed by sharia are criticized.[18] The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECtHR) ruled in several cases that Sharia is “incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy”.[19][20] Against this, “the concept of human rights” have been categorically excluded by the governments of countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia by claiming that it belongs to secular and western values,[21] and the Cairo conference by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation declares that human rights can only be respected if they are compatible with Islam.[22]+

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_revival

    In the 20th century, figures such as Sayyid Rashid Rida, Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Abul A’la Maududi, and Ruhollah Khomeini, have been described as such. Academics often use the terms “Islamist” and “Islamic revivalist” interchangeably.[9][10] Contemporary revivalist currents include Jihadism; neo-Sufism, which cultivates Muslim spirituality; and classical fundamentalism, which stresses obedience to Sharia (Islamic law) and ritual observance.[4]


  • I think you may be unfamiliar with the phrase “official policy” if you’re asserting the Prime Minister’s letter to his son as such. You’re also squinting really hard to avert your gaze from the numerous times Arabs made it abundantly clear they were going to respond to Jewish independence with indiscriminate obliteration no matter how the chain of events transpired. In fact, you responded to a total of 0 points involving genocidal threats made by Arabs before Israel’s existence in all three of your comments. 🤔

    And yes, I’m sure you’re as critical of Pappe as you are of the undoubtedly anti-Semitic views of the Al Jazeera Media Network.

    Morris attributes my mistakes for being almost a Palestinian. The moment you are a Palestinian you can only be a bad historian. He detests, as he admits, my siding with the Palestinian narrative of disputed events, such as the debate over the question of who provoked the 1920 and the 1929 riots. Morris relies on the British reports when they endorsed the Zionist claims and disregards the British reports when they endorse the Palestinian claims. I probably do the opposite in many cases, I admit it; he does not. He is an ‘objective’ historian.

    Openly admitting bias does not exonerate you from the ways in which it affects the “truth” you report. You’re also ignoring the criticism that correctly points out that the chronicling of Israel’s history by Pappe can’t be reconciled with interconnected events that happened internationally or with the previously available avenues for Jewish emancipation prior to Plan Dalet being adopted as official policy.


  • Oh I have looked towards the New Historians for clear black and white answers to what otherwise seems like unabated mutual extremism. Unfortunately, Pappe’s absolute mockery of an attempted chronicling only served to add to the obfuscation of what can be accepted as truth.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ethnic_Cleansing_of_Palestine

    Jørgen Jensehaugen, in the Journal of Peace Research, while calling the book “a good read”, faults Pappé for claiming that the preplanned expulsion of Palestinians was “the reason for the war”, rather than merely “one aspect of the various war plans”.[8]

    Ephraim Nimni, in the Journal of Palestine Studies, commends Pappé on the book’s “polemical character”, but claims that the Zionist leaders were not solely responsible for the ethnic cleansing: Consequently, even if Pappé’s chronology is correct, and there is no reason to doubt this, the book does not provide a sufficient explanation for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. No matter how meticulous the planning by the leaders of the Yishuv (settlers) was, it would have been to no avail without an unusual concatenation of international events (the genocide of European Jewry, the onset of the cold war, the closing of liberal democratic gates to Jewish refugees, the emancipation of colonies in North Africa, and last but not least the hegemony of the model of the ethnic nation-state as the only available avenue for national emancipation).[9]

    Even one of Pappe’s close colleagues completely discredited him:

    Critical analysis appeared in The New Republic. In his review of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, fellow new historian Benny Morris wrote, “At best, Ilan Pappe must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest. In truth, he probably merits a place somewhere between the two.” Morris argued, “Such distortions, large and small, characterize almost every page of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.”[11]

    The siege of Jerusalem preceded Plan D according to New Historians.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dalet

    On November 29, 1947, the UN voted to approve the Partition Plan for Palestine for ending the British Mandate and recommending the establishment of an Arab state and a Jewish state. In the immediate aftermath of the United Nations’ approval of the Partition plan, the Jewish community expressed joy, while the Arab community expressed discontent.[19][20][qt 2] On the day after the vote, a spate of Arab attacks left at least eight Jews dead, one in Tel Aviv by sniper fire, and seven in ambushes on civilian buses that were claimed to be retaliations for a Lehi raid ten days earlier.[21] Shooting, stoning, and rioting continued[dubious – discuss]apace in the following days. Fighting began almost as soon as the plan was approved, beginning with the Arab Jerusalem Riots of 1947. Soon after, violence broke out and became more and more prevalent. Murders, reprisals, and counter-reprisals came fast on each other’s heels, resulting in dozens of victims killed on both sides in the process. The sanguinary impasse persisted as no force intervened to put a stop to the escalating cycles of violence.[dubious – discuss]

    From January onward, operations became increasingly militarized, with the intervention of a number of regiments of the Arab Liberation Army (consisting of volunteers from Arab countries) inside Palestine, each active in a variety of distinct sectors around the different coastal towns. They consolidated their presence in Galilee and Samaria.[22] Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni came from Egypt with several hundred men of the Army of the Holy War. Having recruited a few thousand volunteers, al-Husayni organised the blockade of the 100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem.[23] To counter this, the Yishuv authorities tried to supply the Jews of the city with food by using convoys of up to 100 armoured vehicles, but the operation became more and more impractical as the number of casualties in the relief convoys surged. By March, Al-Hussayni’s tactic, sometimes called “The War of the Roads”,[24] had paid off. Almost all of Haganah’s armoured vehicles had been destroyed, the blockade was in full operation, and the Haganah had lost more than 100 troops.[25] According to Benny Morris, the situation for those who dwelt in the Jewish settlements in the highly isolated Negev and North of Galilee was equally critical.[26] According to Ilan Pappé, in early March, the Yishuv’s security leadership did not seem to regard the overall situation as particularly troubling, but instead was busy finalising a master plan.[27]

    Citation [25][26]&[27] are all New Historian documentation.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Jerusalem

    Avi Shlaim, a New Historian, substantiates the Arab League’s genocidal threats:

    https://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The Debate About 1948.html

    It is true that all the Arab states, with the exception of Jordan, rejected the UN partition plan. It is true that seven Arab armies invaded Palestine the morning after the State of Israel was proclaimed. It is true that the invasion was accompanied by blood-curdling rhetoric and threats to throw the Jews into the sea. It is true that in addition to the regular Arab armies and the Mufti’s Holy War army, various groups of volunteers arrived in Palestine,the most important of which was the Arab Liberation Army, sponsored by the Arab League and led by the Syrian adventurer Fawzi al-Qawukji. More importantly, it is true that the military experts of the Arab League had worked out a unified plan for the invasion and that this plan was all the more dangerous for having had more limited and realistic objectives than those implied by the wild pan-Arab rhetoric.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calls_for_the_destruction_of_Israel

    New Historian Benny Morris has described the Arabs as making calls with a “expulsionist or eliminationist mindset”:

    In late 1947, King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia corresponded with U.S. President Harry Truman: The Arabs have definitely decided to oppose [the] establishment of a Jewish state… Even if it is supposed that the Jews will succeed in gaining support… by their oppressive and tyrannous means and their money, such a state must perish in a short time. The Arab will isolate such a state from the world and will lay siege until it dies by famine… Its end will be the same as that of [the] Crusader states.[15]

    Around the same time, in response to the UNSCOP report, Azzam Pasha, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, stated that a war with the proposed Jewish state would lead to “a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.” Ephraim Karsh and David Barnett characterized this statement as a genocidal threat, while Tom Segev contested this interpretation.[16]

    In the early months of 1948, Matiel Mughannam, an Arab Christian born in Lebanon and the leader of the Arab Women’s Organization, stated: [A Jewish state] has no chance to survive now that the ‘Holy War’ has been declared. All the Jews will eventually be massacred.[15]

    https://www.jstor.org/stable/41858205?seq=2

    “The Nazi government developed a cordial relationship with some Arab nationalists and it also cooperated with them, based on their common enemies and their shared distaste towards Jews and Zionism. Notable examples include the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine and other actions led by Amin al-Husseini…” - Nafi, Basheer M. “The Arabs and the Axis: 1933-1940”. Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 19, Issue 2, Spring 1997

    I’ve used enough time disputing and this point about Nazi Germany and the Arab League is a really dense subject that Bernard Lewis. who is admittedly alleged to be anti-Arab/Muslim, has revisited many times after Basheer. It’s not really that important to my overall point other than its role in inciting The Great Revolt, which is when it became obvious that war was imminent.



  • How normalized does hatred have to be for anyone to think that this defense isn’t inherently despicable:

    …falsity of the Israeli army’s claim that the Palestinian civilians subjected to torture in the presence of Israeli civilians were fighters involved in the October 7 attack

    Hamas prisoners or not this is pure, unfettered zealotry and it’s embarrassing that these soldiers thought this would be a credible justification.

    Edit: welp I did some digging and I don’t know what to believe now:

    https://unwatch.org/un-human-rights-office-amplifies-blood-libel-by-terrorist-sympathizers/

    Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor’s leadership routinely posts antisemitic and pro-Hamas content online.

    The chairman of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor’s Board is none other than Richard Falk—the former UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine who has hailed Hamas’ “spirit of resistance,” justified Palestinian violence, and claimed that Hamas aims for “long-term peaceful co-existence.” While he was Special Rapporteur, Falk was at the center of multiple controversies that led to continuous calls for his resignation by the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and others. According to the U.S. State Department, this was because of his “despicable and deeply offensive comments, particularly his anti-Semitic blog postings, his endorsement of 9/11 conspiracy theories, and his deplorable statements with regard to the terrorist attacks in Boston.” Falk had first called the Boston bombing a false flag and then justified it as a form of “resistance” that was “bound” to result from U.S. “military undertakings.” Even Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had to come out several times to publicly denounce Falk’s statements. Falk’s antisemitism has even gotten him fired from a Human Rights Watch committee.


  • Just from a reading of 4 of your comments as a sample size, it is obvious you are an Anti-Israel propagandist.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_criticism

    Allegations of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment

    An article by Sherry Ricchiardi in the American Journalism Review (AJR) noted that critics of Al Jazeera have "assailed what they see as anti-Semitic, anti-American bias in the channel's news content."[4] Ricchiardi had earlier criticized an Al Jazeera report that Jewish employees of 9/11 targets were informed of the attacks beforehand, a report which was also criticized in an October 2001 New York Times editorial. She cited the former Al Jazeera weekly show Sharia and Life, hosted by Yusuf Qaradawi (an Egyptian cleric who "argues clearly and consistently that hatred of Israel and Jews is Islamically sanctioned").[5] The organization held a 2008 on-air birthday party for Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese terrorist convicted of killing four Israelis who was released in July of that year, later admitting that its coverage of Kuntar's release violated its code of ethics.[6] The organization's Beirut bureau chief said, "Brother Samir, we wish to celebrate your birthday with you" and called him a "pan-Arab hero."[7][8]

    Former Fox News conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly has called Al Jazeera "anti-Semitic" and "anti-American."[9] Dave Marash who resigned from his position saying his exit was due in part to an anti-American bias at the network that is little seen in the US. Marash said he felt that attitude more from British administrators than Arabs. He said there were other reasons for his exit and was proud of the network's coverage of issues south of the equator, but that he ultimately felt that it was not the right place for him.[10] He appeared on The O'Reilly Factor to challenge conservative host Bill O'Reilly's lambasting of Al Jazeera and said: "They certainly aren't anti-Semitic, but they are anti-Netanyahu and anti-Lieberman and anti-Israeli, right."[4][11] Marash had also described Al Jazeera as “the best news channel on Earth.”[12]

    On May 30, 2017, Al Jazeera's English-language account retweeted an Anti-Semitic meme.[13][14][unreliable source?] The network tweeted an apology after the incident, calling it a "mistake."[15][unreliable source?]

    In May 2019, AJ+ produced a video denying and minimizing the Holocaust. Al Jazeera said it had "swiftly deleted" the video, stating that it had "violated the editorial standards of the network". The video stated that "[the] number [of Jews murdered in the Holocaust] had been exaggerated and 'adopted by the Zionist movement', and that Israel is the 'biggest winner' from the genocide."[16]




  • I think you’re forgetting that the supernatural is but another theory, put forth by humans, to explain our existence. It doesn’t earn bonus points for being unobservable. I’ve seen 0 evidence supporting it, contrary to how many questions particle physics has solved.

    I’ve simply stated that we can’t draw statistics about things for which we have no evidence - which you now seem to be agreeing with.

    I’ve posited quite the opposite of this. If there are two opposing theories, with one substantiated and one not, then the substantiated one is more likely. For example: you wouldn’t say that a chicken’s offspring being implanted in an egg by cosmic rays is just as likely as the egg being fertilized before it was laid because the latter is substantiated while the former has yet to have any observable truth.

    I’d say 99% is a completely fair probability as the ratio of something to nothing approaches infinity.

    we don’t yet have evidence pertaining to any hypothesis for how it was created

    I just gave you some? I don’t know about you, but humans being able to replicate the exact particle that originated matter is a profound bit of evidence towards the universe not being a product of some higher power to me.


  • They aren’t immeasurable. The reason you think I’m making a different argument to your point is that you’re asking for every negative proof. This is never going to provide an answer, as it would be a competition to dispel the imagination.

    Hypotheses and positive proofs are slowly answering the question of why we’re here. We know that evolution is likely, DNA is irrefutable evidence. We know that it’s likely our known universe began with a singularity because of the background microwave radiation accelerating away from a point of origin. We know the field and corresponding particle that gave matter its properties from the particle acceleration tests by CERN.

    It becomes a much different question when one is not only seeking answers that fit their beliefs.





  • I completely agree that’s what this basically boils down too. ST was an interesting concept I read about once and only briefly recalled twice since. Nothing more. This could be a valid criticism of individuals putting more stock into the idea but for anyone else it’s a reach.

    The belief system built around God affects me every single day of my life. I have family that are hardcore Christians that pester me about it regularly. Approximately half of the political ideologies being pushed in my country center around Christian dogma.

    Honorable mentions: Foreign and domestic terrorism threat and future wars being incited.


  • BTW I did indeed remember something I missed. He made his studio a hostile work environment by abusing his employees and generally being a trashy person. His co-host supported the claims made by other employees in an interview, here’s the TL;DR (of the interview) I got from a reddit comment:

    TL;DR: Crowder is a narcissistic and hypocritical bully. Included things like: screaming at Landau that he ‘owns him’ and that Landau ‘has no friends’, after Landau protested when Crowder changed his mind last minute after agreeing that he could have his comedian friend on. Having a ‘shut up’ light for Landau in studio. Crowder bitched about the Daily Wire term sheet’s clause about not being paid for days he didn’t do work (…) but gave Landau a clause that he’d be sent home without pay if he was 5 minutes late. Demanding that Landau’s family move even though he knew one member relied on their current job’s health insurance for a serious issue, imposing on his tour dates, and cutting the few seconds of the show where he’d pitch Landau’s tour from the contract the moment Landau got ‘too successful’ (saying that Landau now earned more than him, which Landau insists can’t be true).


  • He’s openly homophobic/transphobic. He refuses to debate his peers but sees nothing wrong with making his positions look artificially superior by choosing unprepared college students as his opponents, making up statistics to support his claims knowing that said opponents won’t have the data to disprove it off the top of their head, and simply editing out the times that his opponent does manage to correctly oppose his argument (allegedly).

    Recently even his political constituents hate him after he whined at Daily Wire for, what he calls, treating him unfairly with a $50 million dollar contract. And to completely top off the shit-sandwich, there’s video evidence of him abusing his wife and she claims that he made physical threats.

    Even after all that I’m sure I’m missing something lol


  • I’d say so

    • plucked from poverty and slavery, despite his mother remaining helpless, by a Jedi that was a part of an order that ultimately saw him as an unscrupulous means to an end of maintaining their power

    • he felt as though he could make a bigger difference than he was allowed if stated order relinquished their attempt at controlling him

    • this feeling was vindicated by his mother’s torture and subsequent death

    • had his previously instilled beliefs challenged by two men he respected

    • incredibly strong motivation to go against the Jedi’s wishes to save the one person he valued more than life itself