You're right about Israel, but where is your outrage about the ethnic cleansing of 100,000 Armenians by the Azeris in Nagorno-Karabakh? Or the ethnic cleansing of the Boers in South Africa? Or the Tigray war?
It seems that critics of Israel have a double standard. They apply a harsh standard to any white and/or developed country, and an extremely lax standard to any non-white and/or undeveloped country.
I'm a Whataboutist because Whataboutism is just a synonym for rational thinking. Whenever you make a choice, you should ask "what about the alternatives"?
There are plenty of issues in the world I choose not to write about. Whether or not I write about an issue shouldn’t be assumed to correlate with the amount of moral outrage I associate it with.
For example, I feel particularly compelled to write about Israel because, A, my tax dollars are being sent to the IDF and America gives Israel immense diplomatic protection and, B, because I’m kinda Jewish and feel personally connected to and interested in the conflict.
I also just don’t know a lot about some issues. I’m vaguely aware of the Nagorno-Karabakh war but I know almost nothing about Tigray or South Africa.
Hi Simon, I'll just start by saying that there's no ethnic cleansing of Boers. SA has a very high murder rate, with around 20 000 murders per year, and out of these around 50 victims per year are white farmers. Clearly not ethnic cleansing.
To answer your question, the difference is that there isn't an army of propagandists and lobbyists defending atrocities in Tigray or Nagorno-Karabakh in the West. Don't you think it's crazy that despite all the documentation, our politicians still refuse to recognize Israel's crimes? The IDF has basically committed every crime in the book by now, including genocide as it is defined by the UN. Despite this, Israel continues to receive billions in US aid and diplomatic support. Just a few weeks ago now ex-Prime Minister Trudeau said "No one in Canada should be ashamed to say they're a Zionist. I am a Zionist", using a vague and erroneous definition of the word. Not to mention the even worse rhetoric in the US.
What Theo outlines well in this article is the deeply concerning refusal of powerful people in the west, including corporate media and politicians, to call a spade a spade, and their silencing and doxxing of those who speak out against Israel's crimes. The power of special interest groups to obfuscate and misrepresent the truth in western democracies should be deeply concerning to anyone who actually believes in the values that our countries say they stand for- democracy, freedom, and human rights. The reason there's so much focus on Palestine right now is because if we let a false narrative of what's going on in Palestine win, we go down a very dangerous road of normalizing and justifying fascism.
Excellent post— this brought to mind one of the rare episodes covering the Gazan experience of the war by The Daily last year, where Sabrina Tavernise asked a Palestinian surgeon if Hamas was inside his hospital right after he described the suffering he was being exposed to.
I checked the first 10 links and they all supported the claim that was being made (though the seventh one is an anonymous source, but presumably the longest running newspaper in Israel checks their sources). Then I clicked 10 other links and they supported the claims too. Great work!
Some unimportant typos:
> But the reason this is provocative is not because they’re aren’t fascist, but becuase we’ve been conditioned to think they aren’t.
Should be:
> But the reason this is provocative is not because they aren’t fascist, but because we’ve been conditioned to think they aren’t.
and:
> Western media turns a blind eye Israeli fascism
Should be:
> Western media turns a blind eye to Israeli fascism
But great writing (and scholarship) overall, you definitely deserve more subscribers.
You're right about Israel, but where is your outrage about the ethnic cleansing of 100,000 Armenians by the Azeris in Nagorno-Karabakh? Or the ethnic cleansing of the Boers in South Africa? Or the Tigray war?
It seems that critics of Israel have a double standard. They apply a harsh standard to any white and/or developed country, and an extremely lax standard to any non-white and/or undeveloped country.
I'm a Whataboutist because Whataboutism is just a synonym for rational thinking. Whenever you make a choice, you should ask "what about the alternatives"?
There are plenty of issues in the world I choose not to write about. Whether or not I write about an issue shouldn’t be assumed to correlate with the amount of moral outrage I associate it with.
For example, I feel particularly compelled to write about Israel because, A, my tax dollars are being sent to the IDF and America gives Israel immense diplomatic protection and, B, because I’m kinda Jewish and feel personally connected to and interested in the conflict.
I also just don’t know a lot about some issues. I’m vaguely aware of the Nagorno-Karabakh war but I know almost nothing about Tigray or South Africa.
Hi Simon, I'll just start by saying that there's no ethnic cleansing of Boers. SA has a very high murder rate, with around 20 000 murders per year, and out of these around 50 victims per year are white farmers. Clearly not ethnic cleansing.
To answer your question, the difference is that there isn't an army of propagandists and lobbyists defending atrocities in Tigray or Nagorno-Karabakh in the West. Don't you think it's crazy that despite all the documentation, our politicians still refuse to recognize Israel's crimes? The IDF has basically committed every crime in the book by now, including genocide as it is defined by the UN. Despite this, Israel continues to receive billions in US aid and diplomatic support. Just a few weeks ago now ex-Prime Minister Trudeau said "No one in Canada should be ashamed to say they're a Zionist. I am a Zionist", using a vague and erroneous definition of the word. Not to mention the even worse rhetoric in the US.
What Theo outlines well in this article is the deeply concerning refusal of powerful people in the west, including corporate media and politicians, to call a spade a spade, and their silencing and doxxing of those who speak out against Israel's crimes. The power of special interest groups to obfuscate and misrepresent the truth in western democracies should be deeply concerning to anyone who actually believes in the values that our countries say they stand for- democracy, freedom, and human rights. The reason there's so much focus on Palestine right now is because if we let a false narrative of what's going on in Palestine win, we go down a very dangerous road of normalizing and justifying fascism.
Wonderful post. No notes. Although, I think a different color palette would be good.
great post
Excellent post— this brought to mind one of the rare episodes covering the Gazan experience of the war by The Daily last year, where Sabrina Tavernise asked a Palestinian surgeon if Hamas was inside his hospital right after he described the suffering he was being exposed to.
Phenomenal post.
I checked the first 10 links and they all supported the claim that was being made (though the seventh one is an anonymous source, but presumably the longest running newspaper in Israel checks their sources). Then I clicked 10 other links and they supported the claims too. Great work!
Some unimportant typos:
> But the reason this is provocative is not because they’re aren’t fascist, but becuase we’ve been conditioned to think they aren’t.
Should be:
> But the reason this is provocative is not because they aren’t fascist, but because we’ve been conditioned to think they aren’t.
and:
> Western media turns a blind eye Israeli fascism
Should be:
> Western media turns a blind eye to Israeli fascism
But great writing (and scholarship) overall, you definitely deserve more subscribers.
Thanks very much! I really appreciate it.