Wealthy countries will generally be okay, comparatively. The rest of the world will be the 2/3rds that suffer. That’s always been the case.

972 people is a respectable sample size, representative mix of demographics is good, a mix of phone and internet interviews is good too. Seems pretty decent.

Look, it’s obvious that you either can’t, or don’t want to, have a good-faith open discussion about Israel’s genocide. Either way, you’re wasting my time.

None of what you’ve said changes anything. If a French guy committed genocide, that wouldn’t justify a genocide against all French people.

Likewise, as I already established with my first comment, Israel definitely has demonstrated genocidal intent, very very clearly. There are a number of Israeli politicians who have openly stated in public that they want to push all Arabs out of the region. They’re taking pretty much every genocidal action categorised.

You are behaving as though you are literally incapable of considering whether you could be wrong.

Uh, sorry, I didn’t realise we could just come up with our own “considerations” of words with meanings which are widely acknowledged under international law.

Here’s the basic criteria: State killing, maiming, attempted reduction of the birth rate, forcibly transferring children, or inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.

For the October 7 attacks to be acknowledged as a genocide, firstly, the State of Palestine would need to be acknowledged as a bona-fide state and Hamas recognised as the government of that country. Then we could discuss what the potential intent of the attacks were, but I don’t think that it would be a stretch to consider Hamas a genocidal organisation, or to consider the October 7 attacks genocidal in that case. These attacks, no matter how deplorable, do not justify genocide as a response.

Are you willing to acknowledge Israel as genocidal under the same framework?

I’m not sure what your point is, here. If the bombing was worse, you’d be happy to consider it genocide? How many people does it take for a bombing campaign to pass your “genocide” barrier? Is that in whole numbers, or as a percentage of population?

I would also consider those acts of bombing to be absolutely unjustified, evil, crimes against humanity and wholly deplorable. I’ve even spoken out against the bombings of civilians on this very account.

Just ignored all of my comment to get upset about a rhyming chant, did we?

You have the projection backwards. It’s the genociders who project into that chant.

So you’re saying that Israel’s genocide is fine because it hasn’t caused as much loss of life as a nuclear bomb?

It’s a fucking wonder to me how you believe that the fucking life expectancy data is going to be anywhere near up to date or verifiable, considering that Israel have killed like three years worth of the yearly death rate in 9 months.

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First of all, let’s not conflate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. I am an ardent opponent of anti-semitism, and while criticism of Israel may well be used as a dog-whistle among anti-semites, that doesn’t mean that all criticism of Israel is inherently anti-semitic. Indeed, I am very happy to know that there are many Jewish people who oppose Israel’s genocide who I can stand with.

As for your question - I don’t believe any individual person’s claims of genocide, but rather consider the evidence. These are the facts as I know them:

1. Israeli politicians have gone on-record, several times, all the way back to David Ben-Gurion, about their intent to, at the very least, displace, the arab population in and around Israel. In more modern times, the rhetoric is far stronger and very dehumanising.
2. Israel has continually treated Arab Israelis as, at best, second class citizens, denying them citizenship and property rights, displacing them, causing them to flee in conflict and refusing them the right to return to their homes.
3. Israel built a wall around Gaza, tightly controlling the flow of people, food, water, medicine and other forms of aid into Gaza. The West bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem have been illegally occupied by Israel since 1971.
4. A series of conflicts have seen Israeli employing overwhelming and disproportionate military force against Arabs indiscriminately, bombing schools, hospitals, residences, and destroying vital infrastructure, as well as maiming, killing or imprisoning journalists, human rights monitors, aid workers, and so on.

I could go on, but honestly, that’s enough for me to call it like I see it. Israel’s grand ambitions extend at least as far as driving all Arabs out of the territory immediately surrounding Israel, from the banks of the River Jordan to the Mediterranean sea, and possibly further. They are willing to go to any lengths to achieve that goal, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, extrajudicial killings, mass murder, bombing civilians, destroying schools, hospitals, mosques, regardless of who is inside, they’re willing to illegally push people out of their homes, bulldoze Palestinian settlements, steal, kill, and lie about it the whole time they’re doing it.

The original point you made was that the musician didn’t do the right thing, and I was explaining why I thought you were wrong. We weren’t talking about whether it was right or wrong for the venue to deplatform him.

I’m happy to talk about that, but I am curious about your thoughts in reaction to my original response

It is widely acknowledged that external international pressure was one of the major factors in ending the apartheid regime. Therefore, it’s worth considering the impact of raising awareness among international audiences, even those not politically engaged, to put pressure on Israel to end their genocide.

On one hand, you have the discomfort felt by attendees to a live symphony performance in Melbourne, Australia having to listen to the pianist spend 30 seconds introducing the song:

Over the last 10 months, Israel has killed more than one hundred Palestinian journalists. A number of these have been targeted assassinations of prominent journalists as they were travelling in marked press vehicles or wearing their press jackets. The killing of journalists is a war crime in international law, and it is done in an effort to prevent the documentation and broadcasting of war crimes to the world.

In addition to the role of journalists who bear witness, the word Witness in Arabic is **Shaheed, which also means Martyr.

On the other hand, you have the discomfort felt by the victims of war crimes and genocide perpetuated by Israel.

Personally, I don’t think it’s that hard to judge where the cost/benefit analysis goes on that, but of course it’s a personal value judgment. Perhaps you don’t hold the same values I do, or not to the same degree, but for me, it’s obvious that using your platform to raise awareness and to put pressure on Israel is the right thing to do.

Holding wealthy people accountable for their actions is a rare thing, worth treasuring and celebrating, even when it’s just talk. I hope we can all pray that Elon Musk is brought to justice soon.

Permanently.

If they were, we wouldn’t believe it. That’s the double-edged sword of lying constantly.

It’s rare to see a comment that is so absolutely, completely, confirmably wrong.

the official UK Xitter account was banned

No, it wasn’t. That is fake news spread by right-wingers.

threatening extra-judicial extradition

No, they didn’t. They threatened UK-based Twitter users promoting violence and hatred that they could be prosecuted for it. The tweet in question was not intended for an international audience.

We fought a whole fucking war to not be subject to the UKs laws

Welcome to the globalised economy, if you want to trade in the UK, you are subject to the UK’s laws.

I’m not the commenter you’re arguing with, I’m just reading the conversation, but you’re not engaging with their substantive point, you’re assuming that they hold a position that they don’t hold and you’re arguing with that position instead. I think you both make a valid argument and it’s a little frustrating seeing such interesting debates just go ignored because people miss the point

Everything you wrote was true right up until the last line. The democrats could be 100% in power and it still wouldn’t happen. The problem is capitalism, not one particular political party.

Personally, this would not help me at all. A 48-point series of questions to consider and it’s not in any way insightful.

I’d just write “Is the headline written to be emotional rather than factual? Does the article actually back up the claim in the headline with facts? Does it cite a source that you can check? Does checking the source tell the same story?”

This stuff tends to work better the other way around, generally. Adults are unreceptive to mass education campaigns, but they are generally willing to hear their kids out.

Media literacy is an extremely broad subject and includes everything from being able to summarise a text, to the discussion of themes within a work, to considering the arguments of a discursive or argumentative work on its merits. This is taught in UK schools.

Fake news, outrage bait, etc. is kind of a different beast, because you have to consider whether the author is writing in good faith as well as knowing a series of rhetorical tricks to look out for. This wasn’t taught to me in school.

This is a classic fascist talking point. The ideology is coming from inside the house on this one.