We, the admin team, decry all forms of settler-colonialism, and we recognize that Zionism is a pro-settler-colonialist position.
Therefore we propose that should no longer be accepting of any Zionist accounts on our instances.
Please upvote for agree, downvote for disagree.
Note: we only count votes by instance members of dbzer0 and anarchist.nexus, plus a few vouched-for external users.
Hi mateys, I’ve kept things simple in the above text, for brevity, but in fact it took the admin team quite a while to get to this stage. We have discussed the policy change extensively, and a variety of different perspectives emerged. I will attempt to sum them up below as best I can:
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The “this isn’t that complicated” school of thought goes something like this: If someone is consistently posting comments that mirror Hasbara talking points (e.g. justifying the genocide in Gaza, consistently painting Palestinians as terrorists and Israel as the victim), then they should be instance banned. It’s just not acceptable for Zionists to be allowed on our instances.
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The “slippery slope” / “purity test” school of thought is that banning people for having an “unpopular” political opinion would potentially mean banning half the fediverse, if more and more of these policies were enacted over time. To attempt to mitigate this we are keeping the scope of this rule as narrow as possible, and I also don’t think many of our users will be affected. Also, we typically don’t have frequent policy changes, and I have no reason to expect that to change moving forward.
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Another important discussion point was “how do we decide whether someone is pro-Zionist or not?” We can’t always be 100% sure of someone’s true intentions, we can only go on what they have posted and that is subject to interpretation. I don’t feel there is an easy answer to this one, except to say that we would have to be pretty certain before issuing a perma-ban.
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The “geopolitics don’t matter” school of thought is that trying to be on the “correct” side of every issue is kind of pointless because nothing that happens in lemmy chat forums will ever make an ounce of difference in the real world. Don’t bother moderating users over political/ideological differences, just let people argue if they want. While I can totally empathize with this sentiment, I can also see the case for taking a clear stance on this topic in accordance with our values and the overwhelming support for the Palestinian cause among our users. Personally, I am advocating in favor of the resolution.
Please add your comments below if you want to provide your own thoughts on the topic, or have any questions.
expiry: 7
The Nazis could have been reporting on the fucking weather - doesn’t make them a trustworthy source for anything, let alone matters relating specifically to the defense of their existence.
If a Nazi says it’s raining, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not raining. When the Nazis exploited the bombing of Dresden for propaganda purposes, that didn’t mean Dresden was never bombed.*
If a source is unreliable or has a vested interest, you take what they say with a pinch of salt and double check, but you can’t assume everything they say is a lie.
Also, Dresden has largely been rebuilt and is well worth a visit.
Of course not - trustworthiness isnt an UNO reverse card that means everything they say is opposite. It means they cant be trusted to report on facts accurately.
And that’s what I wrote in the comment you replied to.
That depends.
For example, when the IDF claimed they weren’t using white phosphorous in Gaza, that’s obviously a lie.
But when the Israeli government released a report detailing why their use of white phosphorous was justified, that report was incredibly useful as it allows anyone to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the IDF does use white phosphorous, despite what some would have you believe. That central fact can be trusted.
Similarly, when an Israeli general leaked footage of the torture of a Palestinian, and Israeli media reported on that leak, large parts of that story were accurate and could be trusted despite the source. If anything, because it was coming from an Israeli source, the central argument that the IDF tortures Palestinians was more believable.
You can’t assume something’s fallacious just because of the source.
This is just common sense, but because this topic is so contentious, and everyone is so angry, so unwilling and unable to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, it’s impossible and unproductive to have discussions about it.
No, it doesn’t ‘depend’. I’m not saying everything they say is a lie, I’m saying you can’t trust it to be true. Those are different things.
Can you learn things from an Israeli report? Sure. But not because you can trust their accuracy, but because it says something about their intentions and state of mind.