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In Germany, Twitter is one of few ways to get informed about the war in Gaza. - German media completely ignores the horrors happening there. And attacks intelle

In Germany, Twitter is one of few ways to get informed about the war in Gaza. - German media completely ignores the horrors happening there. And attacks intellectuals like Masha Gessen, cancels others like Ilan Pappe, Judith Butler, Candice Breitz, Ai Wei Wei, smears Greta Thunberg, and many others. So yes, Twitter is a very important channel to listen to various voices. Germany did something similar in dealing with Covid. Everyone not in line with the officially accepted narrative was attacked, ridiculed, smeared. I started discussions with "although I have been vaccinated", to have permission to speak.

5345459 3y ago
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WhackyIdeas 3y ago
I absolutely love Germany, it’s my favourite destination. So I am a quite upset about what you are saying. It’s not all that different to the stories we all heard about how the media and public turned a blind eye at the horrors orchestrated on the Jewish people, but now it’s happening 90 years later on the Palestinian people (the numbers of dead civilians speak volumes). When Russia went to war with Ukraine, I thought it was barbaric… unjust.. and evil. But after 20,000 dead in Gaza (mostly women and children according to media) and the place being flattened, it makes Russia look ten times less nasty. Gaza will be a car park soon.
- myspy 3y ago
  The post is exaggerated. Media is still reporting what is happening there. The problem is that journalism is not well equipped anymore to give deeper insights (for example sending people there to find out what is really going on without relying on either parties reporting). The conflict started and due to the scale of the Hamas attack and the German government supporting Israel due to its historic connection it is Israel focused. That's what I get from the media landscape.
- gryzzly 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - submeta 3y ago
    Withholding water, food, medicines for 2.3mil civilians for over 75 days, 1.1 mil children has nothing to do with fighting the enemy. It is only targeting civilians of whom thousands have died. And this is not collateral damage. It is intentional as Netanyahu comparing Palestinians to Amalek (google it) means destroying all of them: „killing the women, children, even the unborn.“. Gallant compared them to human animals and then said, he‘ll cut water(!), food, medicines. Herzog says „there are no innocents in Gaza“, saying: all of them are targets. IDF dropping leafelets: leave north or you are considered combatant. Israel has effectively made all hospitals inoperational, shoots old women in churches lately, promting the Pope for a comment, saying „this is terrorism“. So what are you trying to prove with your whataboutism? Yes, Assad was worse, but Israel is a western all and needs to act civilised, and apparently it is just taking revenge as there seems no clear strategy as to what it tries to achieve by even the withholding water and food! Let alone stopping ambulance, letting people die inside. Or snipers shooting inside hospitals. And what I said was that mainstream German newspapers and media will never report about these details. So please stop your hasbara. Please stop downplaying Palestinian victims.
    - gryzzly 3y ago
      Repeating lies such as "shots old women in churches" is 1000% antisemitic, now after a bit of exchange you show yourself clearly. How about that hospital? Do you think Israel and Israelis are doing this for fun? Like what your assumption is about "shooting women" or maybe "bombing hospitals" – say it already, what are you trying to say?
      - submeta 3y ago
        Do you read news? Why did the pope condemn the shooting of two Christian women in a church in Gaza? And can you please stop insulting me? Apparently what I am saying is the IDF does not care if civilians are killed. And I am saying they deliberately target civilians, not only in Gaza, but in West Bank as well. Ample evidence. Go read Haaretz or other serious journalism. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/18/women-mother-daughter-gaza-church-israel-cardinal-vincent-nichols https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/18/women-mother-d...
- gryzzly 3y ago
  Russia is actually a supporter of Hamas, providing weapons, training and intelligence, and is very much benefiting from the unstable middle east and the attention and budget being pulled from West to support Israel.
igetspam 3y ago
If Twitter is your truth-in-media source in Germany, that's unfortunate. The friends and family I have im Germany don't seem to lack for legitimate news sources, so I'm a little surprised by your claim. Can you elaborate?
gryzzly 3y ago
All three biggest German news sites have Israel/Gaza on their index pages right now. The fact that you antisemitism is punished doesn’t mean that there is no reporting. "Attacks on intellectuals" is I guess giving them prizes, while they can do comparisons between a military exterminating a terrorist organisation that uses civilian infrastructure to attack Israel and its military and systematic murder of millions. As a Jewish person I’m very happy there is at least an attempt to protect me from hate in this country.
- gryzzly 3y ago
  correction "The fact that you antisemitism is punished" should be "The fact that antisemitism is punished", `you` is a leftover typo.
  - submeta 3y ago
    Well, if you follow ther IHRA's definition of antisemitism that says "criticism of the state of Israel is considered antisemtic". Germany adopted that. But there are other definitions of antisemtism. The jerusalem declaration of antisemtism for instance. Btw: Israel is currently governed by an ultra-right fascist government with members like Ben Gvir (convicted terrorist), Smotrich, and the likes. They have incited pogroms (says the IDF) or have openly called for annexing all of West Bank. So criticism of this government is--according to IHRA--antisemtic.
    - gryzzly 3y ago
      https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitions-charters/working-definition-antisemitism https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-defin... What is antisemitic: "Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust." "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." "Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel." What can be used as a guidance: "Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits." Are you reading this differently than I do? This doesn’t anywhere say you can’t criticise Israel. But the point is that no one would criticise another country that protects its people against brutal massacre, hostage capture and constant (over 9000 rockets in the last 2 months) rocket fire saying the military action is "genocide", for example. It is not genocide, and unlike most other countries, I assume (maybe if Finland or New Zealand had to protect themselves I imagine), it provides humanitarian routes and drops leaflets with safety advice, calls civilians etc. and then Hamas uses these humanitarian areas and prevents the people from moving to the safer areas. And demanding "cease fire", calling this genocide, or simply chanting "from the river to the sea" is all 100% antisemitic.
hnbad 3y ago
I don't think the two things are comparable. Germany is religiously pro-Israel and any attempt to bring more nuance into it than "Israel good, terrorists bad" is seen as antisemitism. This also nicely fits with the idea that antisemitism is mostly a problem of Muslim immigrants or of the political left (to be clear: the dishonest framing of the NSDAP as a "left-wing" party is largely an American thing so this is entirely about the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, not about labelling the left as Nazis). The problem with Covid was that although Merkel initially talked about following the evidence, the start of the pandemic fell right into the leadup to election season and she had already made it clear that she did not want to run for another term and this created an additional internal struggle for the positions of both chancellor candidate and leader of the party. This resulted in the various minister presidents of the Länder (states) to use the pandemic to demonstrate their political savvy which was made worse by the federal system delegating various decisions to the individual Länder rather than allowing the federal government to call these shots. In the end the response to COVID in Germany was a mixture of overly draconian measures (e.g. banning meetings between different households even in the open, making demonstrations illegal and shutting down playgrounds) and ineffective half-measures (e.g. appealing to "personal responsibility" and letting schools figure out their own hygiene rules without giving them a budget). This also played into the existing Q-Anon-adjacent movement (the second largest one internationally after the US), anti-vaxxers and other fringe extremist groups like the German monarchist-flavored sovereign citizen Reichsbürger movement giving rise to the ("non-partisan") Querdenker or Querfront movement which was primarily focused on COVID denialism but used it as a jumping off point for various conspiracy theories and New Age beliefs. This movement in turn saw a surprising amount of popularity with celebrities and thus resulted in anyone opposed to any anti-COVID measures for any reason to be lumped in with the movement, much to its benefit. The Querfront movement seamlessly moved on to being a "peace movement" in opposing the military support of Ukraine against the Russian invasion, although this incidentally quieted down after the EU sanctions against Russia forced Russian state media to pull out of most European countries. The problem with getting info on Gaza from Twitter however is that Twitter is now filled to the brim with disinfo and misinformation. While the pro-Israel propaganda is mostly easy to spot because it originates with the IDF or Israel government affiliated accounts, the anti-Israel propaganda is mostly spread by random people for engagement and clout.
murermader 3y ago
What do you mean by "ignores the horrors happening there"? There is a daily coverage of what is happening, there are even live tickers and articles. The reports mention what is happening in Gaza, the shelling, the ground invasion, the civilian casulaties, the humanitarian crisis (no water / electricity / no food etc.). I think one problem in this war is that there is a lot of propaganda going around, and there is not enough reliable impartial information. So just because the Hamas is reporting that Israel bombed a hospital (as an example), that the media will immediately pick up on that. For example, bombing a hospital sounds bad, but what if the hospital was acticely used by Hamas terrorists for ammunition storage, and even fighting from there? Is is now OK for Israel to attack the hospital? I don't think the media should immediately pick that up, because that information is not verified, and could as well be propaganda. In my opinion, one of the reasons the palestinian people are suffering so much is because of Hamas, and how they use civilian infrastructure and hide in the population as their strategy. There is no way for Isreael to "win" without massive civilian casualties. And we should also not forget that Hamas is not innocent, they are not "just defending" their country. They started a war, which they are now loosing. You cannot attack another nation state, and then expect them not to do anything about it? Also keep in mind that Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization in Germany, while Israel and Germany maintain good political relations. It makes sense that Germany is more supportive of Israel.
- submeta 3y ago
  Meron Mendel says[1] that German reporting on Israel is more sensitive compared to the USA. Criticism of the government is clearly expressed, but he thinks it's _very unlikely that images of killed children from Gaza are printed_. Axel Springer has a guideline document that demands pro-israel stance and fired journalists[2] who question that or tells pro-Palestinian staff to quit[3] Axel Springer SE is a leading digital publishing company based in Berlin. Axel Springer SE, is well known for publishing numerous successful newspapers and magazines, including "Bild," one of Europe's most popular daily tabloids, and "Die Welt," a leading daily newspaper. Journalists associated with Axel Springer have on many occasions mocked the victims of Israeli bombardement, comparing the destruction in Gaza to Dresden, questioning Geneva Conventions (civilians are protected; withholding water, food, medicins is prohibited), questioning the number of killed in Gaza, citing "experts" who argue that it's legal to bomb hospitals. Germany declares all pro palestinian protests as illegal (long before 10/7), criminalises the protestors, scares them with raids, police brutality, with press, that smears them (Greta Thunberg and others speaking for the Palestinian cause). [1] https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/staatsraeson-in-den-medien-wie-wird-ueber-israel-berichtet-dlf-kultur-1dfea8df-100.html https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/staatsraeson-in-den-med... [2] [Axel Springer Fires Lebanese Employee Who Questioned Pro-Israel Stance - The Intercept](https://theintercept.com/2023/10/26/axel-springer-fires-employee-israel/ https://theintercept.com/2023/10/26/axel-springer-fires-empl...) [3] [Axel Springer: German publisher tells pro-Palestinian staff to quit | Middle East Eye](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-axel-springer-tells-staff-quit-anti https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-axel-spr...)
tzs 3y ago
> In Germany, Twitter is one of few ways to get informed about the war in Gaza. - German media completely ignores the horrors happening there. You obviously can read and write English well. Germany doesn't, as far as I know, have some kind of national firewall blocking Germans from visiting foreign sites. You should then be able to read American, Canadian, Australian, and UK media easily. There are also a large number of Arab newspapers in English [1]. And similar in many other countries. I'd expect channels like those to be more useful than Twitter when it comes to becoming and staying well informed on any major issue. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_newspapers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_newspapers
- submeta 3y ago
  Well, I was complaining about German media, not CNN, Haaretz, Guardian. But to give you two examples: the whole discussion about why Candice Breitz was cancelled or why the city of Munich tried to cancel a talk of israeli historian Ilan Pappe happened on Twitter, by German intellectuals. German newspapers rather demonized them as antisemites.

5345459 3y ago

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WhackyIdeas 3y ago

I absolutely love Germany, it’s my favourite destination. So I am a quite upset about what you are saying. It’s not all that different to the stories we all heard about how the media and public turned a blind eye at the horrors orchestrated on the Jewish people, but now it’s happening 90 years later on the Palestinian people (the numbers of dead civilians speak volumes). When Russia went to war with Ukraine, I thought it was barbaric… unjust.. and evil. But after 20,000 dead in Gaza (mostly women and children according to media) and the place being flattened, it makes Russia look ten times less nasty. Gaza will be a car park soon.

myspy 3y ago
The post is exaggerated. Media is still reporting what is happening there. The problem is that journalism is not well equipped anymore to give deeper insights (for example sending people there to find out what is really going on without relying on either parties reporting). The conflict started and due to the scale of the Hamas attack and the German government supporting Israel due to its historic connection it is Israel focused. That's what I get from the media landscape.
gryzzly 3y ago
[flagged]
- submeta 3y ago
  Withholding water, food, medicines for 2.3mil civilians for over 75 days, 1.1 mil children has nothing to do with fighting the enemy. It is only targeting civilians of whom thousands have died. And this is not collateral damage. It is intentional as Netanyahu comparing Palestinians to Amalek (google it) means destroying all of them: „killing the women, children, even the unborn.“. Gallant compared them to human animals and then said, he‘ll cut water(!), food, medicines. Herzog says „there are no innocents in Gaza“, saying: all of them are targets. IDF dropping leafelets: leave north or you are considered combatant. Israel has effectively made all hospitals inoperational, shoots old women in churches lately, promting the Pope for a comment, saying „this is terrorism“. So what are you trying to prove with your whataboutism? Yes, Assad was worse, but Israel is a western all and needs to act civilised, and apparently it is just taking revenge as there seems no clear strategy as to what it tries to achieve by even the withholding water and food! Let alone stopping ambulance, letting people die inside. Or snipers shooting inside hospitals. And what I said was that mainstream German newspapers and media will never report about these details. So please stop your hasbara. Please stop downplaying Palestinian victims.
  - gryzzly 3y ago
    Repeating lies such as "shots old women in churches" is 1000% antisemitic, now after a bit of exchange you show yourself clearly. How about that hospital? Do you think Israel and Israelis are doing this for fun? Like what your assumption is about "shooting women" or maybe "bombing hospitals" – say it already, what are you trying to say?
    - submeta 3y ago
      Do you read news? Why did the pope condemn the shooting of two Christian women in a church in Gaza? And can you please stop insulting me? Apparently what I am saying is the IDF does not care if civilians are killed. And I am saying they deliberately target civilians, not only in Gaza, but in West Bank as well. Ample evidence. Go read Haaretz or other serious journalism. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/18/women-mother-daughter-gaza-church-israel-cardinal-vincent-nichols https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/18/women-mother-d...
gryzzly 3y ago
Russia is actually a supporter of Hamas, providing weapons, training and intelligence, and is very much benefiting from the unstable middle east and the attention and budget being pulled from West to support Israel.

igetspam 3y ago

If Twitter is your truth-in-media source in Germany, that's unfortunate. The friends and family I have im Germany don't seem to lack for legitimate news sources, so I'm a little surprised by your claim. Can you elaborate?

gryzzly 3y ago

All three biggest German news sites have Israel/Gaza on their index pages right now. The fact that you antisemitism is punished doesn’t mean that there is no reporting. "Attacks on intellectuals" is I guess giving them prizes, while they can do comparisons between a military exterminating a terrorist organisation that uses civilian infrastructure to attack Israel and its military and systematic murder of millions. As a Jewish person I’m very happy there is at least an attempt to protect me from hate in this country.

gryzzly 3y ago
correction "The fact that you antisemitism is punished" should be "The fact that antisemitism is punished", `you` is a leftover typo.
- submeta 3y ago
  Well, if you follow ther IHRA's definition of antisemitism that says "criticism of the state of Israel is considered antisemtic". Germany adopted that. But there are other definitions of antisemtism. The jerusalem declaration of antisemtism for instance. Btw: Israel is currently governed by an ultra-right fascist government with members like Ben Gvir (convicted terrorist), Smotrich, and the likes. They have incited pogroms (says the IDF) or have openly called for annexing all of West Bank. So criticism of this government is--according to IHRA--antisemtic.
  - gryzzly 3y ago
    https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitions-charters/working-definition-antisemitism https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-defin... What is antisemitic: "Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust." "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." "Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel." What can be used as a guidance: "Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits." Are you reading this differently than I do? This doesn’t anywhere say you can’t criticise Israel. But the point is that no one would criticise another country that protects its people against brutal massacre, hostage capture and constant (over 9000 rockets in the last 2 months) rocket fire saying the military action is "genocide", for example. It is not genocide, and unlike most other countries, I assume (maybe if Finland or New Zealand had to protect themselves I imagine), it provides humanitarian routes and drops leaflets with safety advice, calls civilians etc. and then Hamas uses these humanitarian areas and prevents the people from moving to the safer areas. And demanding "cease fire", calling this genocide, or simply chanting "from the river to the sea" is all 100% antisemitic.

hnbad 3y ago

I don't think the two things are comparable. Germany is religiously pro-Israel and any attempt to bring more nuance into it than "Israel good, terrorists bad" is seen as antisemitism. This also nicely fits with the idea that antisemitism is mostly a problem of Muslim immigrants or of the political left (to be clear: the dishonest framing of the NSDAP as a "left-wing" party is largely an American thing so this is entirely about the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, not about labelling the left as Nazis). The problem with Covid was that although Merkel initially talked about following the evidence, the start of the pandemic fell right into the leadup to election season and she had already made it clear that she did not want to run for another term and this created an additional internal struggle for the positions of both chancellor candidate and leader of the party. This resulted in the various minister presidents of the Länder (states) to use the pandemic to demonstrate their political savvy which was made worse by the federal system delegating various decisions to the individual Länder rather than allowing the federal government to call these shots. In the end the response to COVID in Germany was a mixture of overly draconian measures (e.g. banning meetings between different households even in the open, making demonstrations illegal and shutting down playgrounds) and ineffective half-measures (e.g. appealing to "personal responsibility" and letting schools figure out their own hygiene rules without giving them a budget). This also played into the existing Q-Anon-adjacent movement (the second largest one internationally after the US), anti-vaxxers and other fringe extremist groups like the German monarchist-flavored sovereign citizen Reichsbürger movement giving rise to the ("non-partisan") Querdenker or Querfront movement which was primarily focused on COVID denialism but used it as a jumping off point for various conspiracy theories and New Age beliefs. This movement in turn saw a surprising amount of popularity with celebrities and thus resulted in anyone opposed to any anti-COVID measures for any reason to be lumped in with the movement, much to its benefit. The Querfront movement seamlessly moved on to being a "peace movement" in opposing the military support of Ukraine against the Russian invasion, although this incidentally quieted down after the EU sanctions against Russia forced Russian state media to pull out of most European countries. The problem with getting info on Gaza from Twitter however is that Twitter is now filled to the brim with disinfo and misinformation. While the pro-Israel propaganda is mostly easy to spot because it originates with the IDF or Israel government affiliated accounts, the anti-Israel propaganda is mostly spread by random people for engagement and clout.

murermader 3y ago

What do you mean by "ignores the horrors happening there"? There is a daily coverage of what is happening, there are even live tickers and articles. The reports mention what is happening in Gaza, the shelling, the ground invasion, the civilian casulaties, the humanitarian crisis (no water / electricity / no food etc.). I think one problem in this war is that there is a lot of propaganda going around, and there is not enough reliable impartial information. So just because the Hamas is reporting that Israel bombed a hospital (as an example), that the media will immediately pick up on that. For example, bombing a hospital sounds bad, but what if the hospital was acticely used by Hamas terrorists for ammunition storage, and even fighting from there? Is is now OK for Israel to attack the hospital? I don't think the media should immediately pick that up, because that information is not verified, and could as well be propaganda. In my opinion, one of the reasons the palestinian people are suffering so much is because of Hamas, and how they use civilian infrastructure and hide in the population as their strategy. There is no way for Isreael to "win" without massive civilian casualties. And we should also not forget that Hamas is not innocent, they are not "just defending" their country. They started a war, which they are now loosing. You cannot attack another nation state, and then expect them not to do anything about it? Also keep in mind that Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization in Germany, while Israel and Germany maintain good political relations. It makes sense that Germany is more supportive of Israel.

submeta 3y ago
Meron Mendel says[1] that German reporting on Israel is more sensitive compared to the USA. Criticism of the government is clearly expressed, but he thinks it's _very unlikely that images of killed children from Gaza are printed_. Axel Springer has a guideline document that demands pro-israel stance and fired journalists[2] who question that or tells pro-Palestinian staff to quit[3] Axel Springer SE is a leading digital publishing company based in Berlin. Axel Springer SE, is well known for publishing numerous successful newspapers and magazines, including "Bild," one of Europe's most popular daily tabloids, and "Die Welt," a leading daily newspaper. Journalists associated with Axel Springer have on many occasions mocked the victims of Israeli bombardement, comparing the destruction in Gaza to Dresden, questioning Geneva Conventions (civilians are protected; withholding water, food, medicins is prohibited), questioning the number of killed in Gaza, citing "experts" who argue that it's legal to bomb hospitals. Germany declares all pro palestinian protests as illegal (long before 10/7), criminalises the protestors, scares them with raids, police brutality, with press, that smears them (Greta Thunberg and others speaking for the Palestinian cause). [1] https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/staatsraeson-in-den-medien-wie-wird-ueber-israel-berichtet-dlf-kultur-1dfea8df-100.html https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/staatsraeson-in-den-med... [2] [Axel Springer Fires Lebanese Employee Who Questioned Pro-Israel Stance - The Intercept](https://theintercept.com/2023/10/26/axel-springer-fires-employee-israel/ https://theintercept.com/2023/10/26/axel-springer-fires-empl...) [3] [Axel Springer: German publisher tells pro-Palestinian staff to quit | Middle East Eye](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-axel-springer-tells-staff-quit-anti https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-axel-spr...)

tzs 3y ago

> In Germany, Twitter is one of few ways to get informed about the war in Gaza. - German media completely ignores the horrors happening there. You obviously can read and write English well. Germany doesn't, as far as I know, have some kind of national firewall blocking Germans from visiting foreign sites. You should then be able to read American, Canadian, Australian, and UK media easily. There are also a large number of Arab newspapers in English [1]. And similar in many other countries. I'd expect channels like those to be more useful than Twitter when it comes to becoming and staying well informed on any major issue. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_newspapers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_newspapers

submeta 3y ago
Well, I was complaining about German media, not CNN, Haaretz, Guardian. But to give you two examples: the whole discussion about why Candice Breitz was cancelled or why the city of Munich tried to cancel a talk of israeli historian Ilan Pappe happened on Twitter, by German intellectuals. German newspapers rather demonized them as antisemites.