7 ms·

> Are you implying that anyone criticizing Israel should be automatically discarded on the basis of intolerance? You don't seem to have listened. It wasn't abo

by jacobmg 16y ago

> Are you implying that anyone criticizing Israel should be automatically discarded on the basis of intolerance? You don't seem to have listened. It wasn't about that one article, it was about their coverage of the issue, which is skewed in one obvious direction. And by the way, the article is nothing more than a bunch of anecdotes misrepresented as an accurate representation of the issue (the article itself even acknowledges this but ignores the implications.) When you take instances of violence by individuals and try to assert it's a general pattern, that is hate mongering, plain and simple. Quote from the article: 'Bayu says: "It's obvious that [things] can go to another level. This is what happened in Germany and many other places."' Look, it even comes with allusions to the comparison of Israel and the Nazis! >Why do you say that? They do seem to have a better and broader news coverage. "They do seem" as a claim on it's own has no persuasive power.

teyc 16y ago
Jacob, are you in Israel? Would you care to shed some perspective? For instance, are the races segregated? Are children taught to distrust other races? Are they taught all peoples are equal?
- tkahn6 16y ago
  > For instance, are the races segregated? No. I'm curious, is this a rhetorical question or are you genuinely ignorant of Israeli domestic policy?
- jacobmg 16y ago
  Just an American here, but there is no racial segregation or systematized racism of any kind in Israel. 'Racism' and 'Apartheid' are just thrown around carelessly at Israel by some critics.
  - teyc 16y ago
    You are just making things up.
    - jacobmg 16y ago
      No, everything claimed is easy to verify. Races aren't segregated, racism isn't taught (as in, it's not part of the curriculum.) All races are equal under Israeli law. Your education on this subject had to have been seriously skewed to think otherwise.
      - srean 16y ago
        From what I remember from posts on HN by Israeli citizens, but of ethnically non-Jewish background its not quite the clear picture you paint. Leaving aside Palestinian civilians who do not have recourse to the same civic laws and roads as Israeli citizens, Israeli Arabs do not have the same rights even legally (let alone inconsistent application of existing laws) as Jewish citizens. These discrepancies crop up in different spheres of life, from marriage to permit for visiting cities to owning property.
        jacobmg 16y ago
        You really are mistaken. The hearsay of some hackernews posts amounts to zero evidence, while you can verify the legal equality of races in Israel in any decent book. Unless of course, you want to grasp at straws like another poster here and argue that semantically a Law of Return is racist (even though many acknowledged non-racist countries have the same laws) or Arabs having the option to opt out of the draft is racist (which should speak for itself.)
        teyc 16y ago
        Here is a general observation (not just about Israel). In places where race is an overt issue, and people at the highest political places earn their votes based on race, and therefore dependent upon people who are conscious of race rights, no amount of laws is going to stop a government from exercising racial preferences in its administration. Countries like Fiji is an example.
        jacobmg 16y ago
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
rdtsc 16y ago
> "They do seem" as a claim on it's own has no persuasive power. Sorry. I meant they seem to _me_ I wasn't asserting a general truth. I am just one of the HNers here. So it is more of a personal observation. > Look, it even comes with allusions to the comparison of Israel and the Nazis! ---- excerpt from first article ------ In mid-January, dozens of young Jews attacked Muslims at a mosque in Yafo or Jaffa, the historically Arab city just south of Tel Aviv. An Israeli media outlet reports that the youth, who were armed with stones and Israeli flags, shouted "Mohammed is a pig" and "Death to Arabs" just as the Muslims were preparing to pray. When the police arrived, they did not arrest any of the assailants. ------- end of excerpt ------- Sure I wasn't there on the ground witnessing this, but I believe that story to be true. Why? Because other stories on Al-Jazeera seem to _me_ to be true. Yes I throw the word "seems" around too much, this is all just my person observation, but I try to be as objective as possible. They list other incidents, about 3 or 4 total. Imagine that your local American small town a group of white youths attacked a black family. And then there would 3 or 4 similar racially motivated incidents. I believe nobody would blink an eye if _any_ media source would start writing editorials wondering about the resurgence of racism in the region. If it happens in Israel all of the sudden there is a lot of defense and touchiness about the issue. Why is that? Why is it so hard to believe that a country in the Middle East would have a problem with racism. It seems denying it and covering it up, is a larger sign of a problem.
- jacobmg 16y ago
  It is easy to draw intuitive statistical conclusions in a small town; you bet if there weren't usually race based violence in a small town, that if you saw 4-5 incidents in a short period of time, there would be very few non-racism based explanations that were plausible. Israel is 7.5 million people with 75% Jews. That provides a large enough pool of incidents of Jews attacking Muslims to draw from just because there are a given number of violent people in any country. Now they can easily misrepresent these stories because you can cram an article with them. You can't do intuitive statistics with a country of 7.5 million, or even 500,000. You need to do statistics, period. Anything less is irresponsible, and any article from any organization that tries to interpret anecdotes into patterns when you're drawing from such large sample pools is not practicing professional journalism. And with Al Jazeera's "In Depth" page basically dedicating it's Israeli/Palestinian focus on these types of articles, there is little room to interpret there ME coverage as objective. > If it happens in Israel all of the sudden there is a lot of defense and touchiness about the issue. Why is that? Why is it so hard to believe that a country in the Middle East would have a problem with racism. Because there's never any evidence except these anecdote based articles. At a certain point, if you want to make such a serious accusation that deviates from the assumptions that people operate on, the burden is on you to prove it, with some sort of comprehensive proof.

by jacobmg 16y ago

teyc 16y ago

Jacob, are you in Israel? Would you care to shed some perspective? For instance, are the races segregated? Are children taught to distrust other races? Are they taught all peoples are equal?

tkahn6 16y ago
> For instance, are the races segregated? No. I'm curious, is this a rhetorical question or are you genuinely ignorant of Israeli domestic policy?
jacobmg 16y ago
Just an American here, but there is no racial segregation or systematized racism of any kind in Israel. 'Racism' and 'Apartheid' are just thrown around carelessly at Israel by some critics.
- teyc 16y ago
  You are just making things up.
  - jacobmg 16y ago
    No, everything claimed is easy to verify. Races aren't segregated, racism isn't taught (as in, it's not part of the curriculum.) All races are equal under Israeli law. Your education on this subject had to have been seriously skewed to think otherwise.
    - srean 16y ago
      From what I remember from posts on HN by Israeli citizens, but of ethnically non-Jewish background its not quite the clear picture you paint. Leaving aside Palestinian civilians who do not have recourse to the same civic laws and roads as Israeli citizens, Israeli Arabs do not have the same rights even legally (let alone inconsistent application of existing laws) as Jewish citizens. These discrepancies crop up in different spheres of life, from marriage to permit for visiting cities to owning property.
      - jacobmg 16y ago
        You really are mistaken. The hearsay of some hackernews posts amounts to zero evidence, while you can verify the legal equality of races in Israel in any decent book. Unless of course, you want to grasp at straws like another poster here and argue that semantically a Law of Return is racist (even though many acknowledged non-racist countries have the same laws) or Arabs having the option to opt out of the draft is racist (which should speak for itself.)
        teyc 16y ago
        Here is a general observation (not just about Israel). In places where race is an overt issue, and people at the highest political places earn their votes based on race, and therefore dependent upon people who are conscious of race rights, no amount of laws is going to stop a government from exercising racial preferences in its administration. Countries like Fiji is an example.
        jacobmg 16y ago
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

rdtsc 16y ago

> "They do seem" as a claim on it's own has no persuasive power. Sorry. I meant they seem to _me_ I wasn't asserting a general truth. I am just one of the HNers here. So it is more of a personal observation. > Look, it even comes with allusions to the comparison of Israel and the Nazis! ---- excerpt from first article ------ In mid-January, dozens of young Jews attacked Muslims at a mosque in Yafo or Jaffa, the historically Arab city just south of Tel Aviv. An Israeli media outlet reports that the youth, who were armed with stones and Israeli flags, shouted "Mohammed is a pig" and "Death to Arabs" just as the Muslims were preparing to pray. When the police arrived, they did not arrest any of the assailants. ------- end of excerpt ------- Sure I wasn't there on the ground witnessing this, but I believe that story to be true. Why? Because other stories on Al-Jazeera seem to _me_ to be true. Yes I throw the word "seems" around too much, this is all just my person observation, but I try to be as objective as possible. They list other incidents, about 3 or 4 total. Imagine that your local American small town a group of white youths attacked a black family. And then there would 3 or 4 similar racially motivated incidents. I believe nobody would blink an eye if _any_ media source would start writing editorials wondering about the resurgence of racism in the region. If it happens in Israel all of the sudden there is a lot of defense and touchiness about the issue. Why is that? Why is it so hard to believe that a country in the Middle East would have a problem with racism. It seems denying it and covering it up, is a larger sign of a problem.

jacobmg 16y ago
It is easy to draw intuitive statistical conclusions in a small town; you bet if there weren't usually race based violence in a small town, that if you saw 4-5 incidents in a short period of time, there would be very few non-racism based explanations that were plausible. Israel is 7.5 million people with 75% Jews. That provides a large enough pool of incidents of Jews attacking Muslims to draw from just because there are a given number of violent people in any country. Now they can easily misrepresent these stories because you can cram an article with them. You can't do intuitive statistics with a country of 7.5 million, or even 500,000. You need to do statistics, period. Anything less is irresponsible, and any article from any organization that tries to interpret anecdotes into patterns when you're drawing from such large sample pools is not practicing professional journalism. And with Al Jazeera's "In Depth" page basically dedicating it's Israeli/Palestinian focus on these types of articles, there is little room to interpret there ME coverage as objective. > If it happens in Israel all of the sudden there is a lot of defense and touchiness about the issue. Why is that? Why is it so hard to believe that a country in the Middle East would have a problem with racism. Because there's never any evidence except these anecdote based articles. At a certain point, if you want to make such a serious accusation that deviates from the assumptions that people operate on, the burden is on you to prove it, with some sort of comprehensive proof.