Or perhaps our brains sometimes come up with excuses to look away from another human being’s suffering so that we feel less guilty?!
I can see how this conclusion would be appealing from that perspective but I’d encourage anyone with this line of thinking, to think twice before posting something to cause doubt and potentially causing someone else to receive less help/attention that they would have otherwise received.
Even if you think it’s plausible for someone to lie about something like a few years of open source contribution (which is very easy to verify for anyone who reaches out for them to help) please contemplate about the possibility of harm that this kind of comment might cause (a fellow human being suffering longer) vs the help you think you are providing by just casting doubt and uncertainty (potentially preventing someone more fortunate to send some money to someone else that didn’t actually need it?! Or they might be offered a job they might not have been offered otherwise?!).
O.P. I’m really sorry for what you’re going through, and I admire your courage and honesty. I hope life becomes more stable very soon!
I think, in his recent podcast, Ezra Klein eloquently explained why young Americans have a less favourable view of Israel:
“Maybe I’ll start here. I think something we’re seeing in the politics in America around Israel right now, I think it reflects three generations with very different lived experiences of what Israel is. You have older Americans, say, Joe Biden, who saw Israel as the haven for the Jews and who also saw Israel when it was weak and small, when it really could have been wiped off the map by its neighbors.”
“We also knew an Israel that was an occupying force, a country that could and did impose its will on Palestinians, and I don’t want to be euphemistic about this, an Israel in which Palestinians were an oppressed class, where their lives and their security and their freedom were worth less. But we also knew an Israel that had a strong peace movement, where the moral horror of that occupation was widely recognized. We knew an Israel where the leaders were trying imperfectly, but seriously and continuously, to become something better, to become something different, to become in the eyes of the world what Israel was in its own eyes, a Jewish state, but a humane and moral one.”
“And so now you have this generation, the one coming of age now, the one that has only known this Israel, Netanyahu’s Israel, Ben-Gvir’s Israel.”
“There is this Pew survey in 2022 that I find really telling. It found that 69 percent of Americans over age 65 had a favorable view of Israel, but among Americans between ages 18 and 29, young Americans, 56 percent had an unfavorable view. As it happens, American politics right now is dominated by people over 65, but it won’t be forever”
“And there are many of us who warned of this exact thing happening, who said, if you lose moral legitimacy, you will not have the world’s good will when you need it most, who said it is a problem for the Jewish state to not be seen, to not be a moral state.”
Wow, I really disagree with this framing! I find the mass media (Ezra Klein included) like to frame things in terms of this big bad far-right government that’s making Israel do bad things. To me, that’s a totally separate issue from the Israeli apartheid.
I admittedly am young, but my introduction to this topic was through Chomsky’s writing from the 80s and 90s. The Israeli oppression seemed exactly as bad back then as it does now under this far right government.
If somehow Netanyahu gets replaced by a “sensible centrist” leader who still practices apartheid in exactly the same way, I guarantee you Ezra will be fawning over the new guy and the media will try and frame it as a “new era for Israeli-Palestinian relations”.
I agree with your point about mass media’s coverage of the conflict and I’m constantly reminded of Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” when watching how US media is covering it.
I would not put Ezra in the same bucket at all though and I don’t think this framing contradicts the view you mentioned. I imagine Ezra’s read aligns a lot more with Chomsky’s interpretation of the conflict and the amount of oppression each side has received or exerted.
I think his critique of Israel’s policies over the years is well documented.
This Vox video from a few years ago comes to mind as well
I really like the simplicity of it and find the experience cute and charming, I bookmarked it for future.
One note though I can’t hear any music or anything playing it (iPhone).
Thanks for making and sharing it :)
Brave browser let’s you make a playlist of YouTube videos which are downloaded to the device. Curate a playlist and then disconnect wifi and voila? Hope that helps
I think this Is further evidence of TikTok cooperating with oppressive regimes, as it seems like they’ve specifically built TikTok so that users with Iranian simcard won’t be able to use the app even if they use VPN to bypass Iran’s fairly sophisticated firewall.
I can see how this conclusion would be appealing from that perspective but I’d encourage anyone with this line of thinking, to think twice before posting something to cause doubt and potentially causing someone else to receive less help/attention that they would have otherwise received.
Even if you think it’s plausible for someone to lie about something like a few years of open source contribution (which is very easy to verify for anyone who reaches out for them to help) please contemplate about the possibility of harm that this kind of comment might cause (a fellow human being suffering longer) vs the help you think you are providing by just casting doubt and uncertainty (potentially preventing someone more fortunate to send some money to someone else that didn’t actually need it?! Or they might be offered a job they might not have been offered otherwise?!).
O.P. I’m really sorry for what you’re going through, and I admire your courage and honesty. I hope life becomes more stable very soon!