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The comparison may be just if you only look at Hamas’ restriction within Gaza and Israel’s government restriction within Israel. However, if you include Israel’

The comparison may be just if you only look at Hamas’ restriction within Gaza and Israel’s government restriction within Israel. However, if you include Israel’s restriction on Gaza and (the relatively minute, but still non-zero) Hamas’ restriction on Israel, you will find a massive tower overlooking the other three. Israel’s press freedom within Israel is perhaps much better than Gaza’s press freedom within Palestine (as dictated by Hamas). But Palestinians still suffer much much much lower press freedom and Israel enforces several orders of magnitude worse press suppression if you include the cross national interference. Your point is perhaps correct if we keep it narrow. However, I think it is wrong to keep it this narrow, because it obfuscates a very real democratic malpractice done by the state of Israel.

tptacek 3y ago
There's no "if we keep it narrow". It's a narrow point. I'm not here to defend the democratic practices of Israel, or any other country, just to say that Hamas would murder you for trying to stand up a major news outlet opposed to Hamas's control of Gaza. That Hamas is extraordinarily bad does not make Israel good.
- runarberg 3y ago
  You were trying to argue that your ancestor was employing a false equivalence, that the disinformation campaign on both sides were in fact not equally bad. I agree that there is a false equivalence, however I disagree with you that it is Hamas which is extraordinarily bad while Israel is relatively not as bad. The actions Israel employs against free press during this genocide are telling, and have consequences. There may be free press within Israel, however that free press does not have access to Gaza because the Israeli military does not grant them access. The targeting of journalists the Israeli military is guilty of also has consequences for the supposedly free Israeli press. If you are working in Gaza and you are afraid Hamas member will push you off rooftops if you publish a critical piece, well... if you are an Israeli journalist, you should indeed be very afraid if you are going to cover a story about Israel’s crime in Gaza. More then a few journalists have indeed be targeted and killed by the Israeli military for trying to do that, including international journalists. What you should take from this is that it is the Israeli military that has the greater potential to lie about their crimes here, and there is no free press in this world (especially not in Israel) which can safely cover those lies.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    No, that's not what I was trying to argue; in fact, I said the opposite thing. At no point have I tried to argue that Israeli journalism is more trustworthy than Gazan journalism, which is not something I believe.

tptacek 3y ago

There's no "if we keep it narrow". It's a narrow point. I'm not here to defend the democratic practices of Israel, or any other country, just to say that Hamas would murder you for trying to stand up a major news outlet opposed to Hamas's control of Gaza. That Hamas is extraordinarily bad does not make Israel good.

runarberg 3y ago
You were trying to argue that your ancestor was employing a false equivalence, that the disinformation campaign on both sides were in fact not equally bad. I agree that there is a false equivalence, however I disagree with you that it is Hamas which is extraordinarily bad while Israel is relatively not as bad. The actions Israel employs against free press during this genocide are telling, and have consequences. There may be free press within Israel, however that free press does not have access to Gaza because the Israeli military does not grant them access. The targeting of journalists the Israeli military is guilty of also has consequences for the supposedly free Israeli press. If you are working in Gaza and you are afraid Hamas member will push you off rooftops if you publish a critical piece, well... if you are an Israeli journalist, you should indeed be very afraid if you are going to cover a story about Israel’s crime in Gaza. More then a few journalists have indeed be targeted and killed by the Israeli military for trying to do that, including international journalists. What you should take from this is that it is the Israeli military that has the greater potential to lie about their crimes here, and there is no free press in this world (especially not in Israel) which can safely cover those lies.
- tptacek 3y ago
  No, that's not what I was trying to argue; in fact, I said the opposite thing. At no point have I tried to argue that Israeli journalism is more trustworthy than Gazan journalism, which is not something I believe.