Meanwhile on the International front....

a tendency to conflate



The Anguished Fallout from a Pro-Palestinian Letter at Harvard

 

the disinformation war

 

Found this interesting - as well as the circumstance of its publication. A piece on the suppression of dissent and unpopular opinion, The Guardian commissioned it, then killed it.

https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/a-surge-in-suppression/

On October 8, the morning after Hamas launched an attack from the Gaza strip that killed 1,400 Israelis, Ha’aretz—Israel’s paper of record—published an editorial laying blame for the massacre squarely on Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government. “The disaster that befell Israel,” the editorial board wrote, “is the clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu.” Netanyahu “completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession” and “embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.” It was a damning and powerful indictment.

Two days later, Ryna Workman, the student body president of NYU Law School, sent out a newsletter to classmates as Israel’s retaliatory assault on the Gaza Strip was well underway. Expanding on the Ha’aretz editorial board’s language, Workman wrote that “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.” Workman also affirmed their solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle against oppression.

Almost immediately, they faced a torrent of backlash in the form of online disparagement and right-wing media attention. In response to pressure, the dean of the law school publicly condemned Workman’s remarks. By the evening, the law firm Winston & Strawn, where Workman had planned to work after graduating, publicly withdrew their job offer without so much as a phone call. The university then unilaterally removed Workman from their position as student body president without any disciplinary process, and threatened further charges—all for daring to speak out.

Workman is not alone. Across the US, people speaking out on behalf of Palestinian human rights and against Israeli war crimes, apartheid policies, and settler-colonial expansion that have been unfolding over nearly eight decades are facing a wave of McCarthyite backlash directly targeting their future careers and livelihoods. Students at other prominent universities have faced the same: the leaders of Harvard University student groups were doxxed and smeared for signing a statement also expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people. Their names and faces were plastered on a mobile billboard truck that roamed around campus for days, and a “College Terror List” circulated online accusing them of antisemitism. Several also lost job offers. A Berkeley law professor published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal imploring legal employers not to hire his own students and smearing them as antisemitic.

This new McCarthyist purge is not limited to students.

 

thinktank!

 

Dozens of Israelis arrested for social media posts defending Gaza, advocates say

 

also also

 

Two things:

I take back what I said about Israeli artillery not having the range to hit the target. I didn't realize how close it was the border.

I still do not think it was artillery. Israel uses 155mm rounds, which create craters at any distance.

 

Image is too big to post directly. But this cartoon sums up the idea that we can’t easily sum this up.

https://mastodon.social/@wardsutton/111223232873286192

 

"...Israeli war crimes, apartheid policies, and settler-colonial expansion that have been unfolding over nearly eight decades ..."

It sounds like they commissioned a news article and got an opinion piece. Calling it an opinion piece is the only way to justify that part in bold. Given that the author wrote that, it is impossible to see them as anything but biased.

 

I think they commissioned an opinion piece and got an opinion they didn't like.

It happens.

But he's a Palestinian human rights lawyer. So I'm not sure what they expected.

 

It is tough to know what they commissioned, but the language I quoted certainly doesn't inspire confidence in the balance and validity of the piece.