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
You are making a lot of arguments in this comment. Here’s the one I’ll focus on:
(emphasis mine)
How can hypothetical damage, of that only even arguably mitigated by this supposed protection (in my view exacerbated), possibly be held up for comparison against ongoing, unapologetic, exquisitely coordinated genocide of right-now-living civilian people?
Human beings, kin to all of us by some degree, are being massacred, now. You are talking about what could happen, and necessarily involving an extreme amount of hypotheticals and uncertainty. These two do not compare. Full stop.
This governance question is about what to do about actual real propaganda that facilitates actual real genocide. If you’re arguing for prioritizing hypothetical harm in the face of that, yeah - this doesn’t sound like the place for you.
Where the fuck did you get that from what I said?
I do not support genocide, I want there to be ICC prosecutions and am against war crimes.
Just because Israel exists does not mean war crimes must occur. This is a specific choice by a specific conservative leadership of Israel. Where are you getting that I am in favor of war crimes from what I said?
Honestly, fuck all of you. I say specifically, multiple times, that I support the ICC, that war crimes have occurred, even listing some of them, and that I support the Palestinians having a place to live that is safe and free of bizarre regulations and cruelty.
But apparently, my comment about protecting Jewish people’s safety means that I must support war crimes? What the fuck?
Full stop, go back to Grok or wherever you learned that shit diction. I am someone who was in favor of ICC prosecutions, in favor of a two state solution, agreed with the International community, and you’re all coming down on me like a bunch of hornets. So you know what? Kick me out, ban me, fuck you, and I won’t express being in support of ICC prosecutions, I won’t do any support of Palestinians… I am a “proud” and “horrible” person and this isn’t “the place for me.” So, go ahead, have your small tent party. I won’t be doing any activism on this at all, apparently I’m not liberal enough and I’m tired of being insulted.
That’s a super emotional response compared to what I said. A lot of it weirdly directed at not me, while said to me, but okay. Add in random accusations about me using a (I think famously shitty, right? And racist, imperialist, etc.) LLM to express my POV, neat, you are not doing yourself any favors.
My comment is that it’s completely inappropriate to insist on the freedom to worry about potential harm to Jews en masse as some nebulous outcome in the face of ongoing, documented, historic, extreme brutality and evil - the genocide of Palestine.
Who says I want favors? Full stop, fuck you.
It is an emotional response because I’ve also been called a horrible person, and proud, and all this other really insulting stuff.
If I say it’s a genocide and I’m in favor of ICC prosecutions, I don’t know how that isn’t enough. Am I not allowed to care about Jewish safety or trans suicides unless my language is more staunchly condemnatory? I linked to a bbc article about Israeli guards fucking prisoners of war with dogs. Multiple people are insulting me, while I’m pretty clearly condemning war crimes, and I’m not allowed to have opinions about other things, apparently, because my condemnation isn’t strong enough.
I really don’t care, fuck all of you, I’m out. My new thing is to not comment on this situation at all, not donate anything, not advocate for anything. I can’t have a position that involves Israel existing without being attacked. I’ll find a new instance and avoid this topic. I expect to be banned at the rate of my replies, but I don’t care, I don’t want to be a part of this. The fediverse is great. I’ll find somewhere else to be that doesn’t want to be mean to me.
I haven’t yet looked at your other comments and responses in the thread, but I can assure you I was making a pretty focused complaint about a specific thing you said because that line of thought is central to the problem being addressed by the governance question.
I’m not here to pile on or dunk in a general sense, that’s not an experience I want to cause well-intentioned others to feel. Again, haven’t looked at your experience elsewhere in the thread and am going to bed.
Stick around if your beliefs seem compatible, your overall description here doesn’t sound off putting. This has always been an easy place to find common ground for me, but most people I meet more generally align much less well.
It’s not mutually exclusive to want Palestinian rights and safety and a Palestinian place to exist (that isn’t subject to unreasonable restrictions) and to also want Israel to not be destroyed and to worry about the safety of Jewish people and to worry about the safety of LGBT people and to also want Israel to be run by much more liberal people and to also want Israel to adhere to international law and to also want ICC prosecutions and more Western countries to support the ICC and to also want ICC members and their families to be taken off blacklists.