http://gawker.com/5994970/energized-...s-just-in-time :)
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Times like this I wonder what goes on behind the scenes in his life and how much influence he has on his affairs.
Quote:
Stephen Hawking reaffirms support of Israel boycott
By JONNY PAUL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
08/05/2013
Hawking sends letter to President's Conference organizers saying he faced pressure to withdraw from Palestinian academics.
LONDON – After much back and forth on Wednesday, Prof. Stephen Hawking retracted his statement that he pulled out of the fifth President’s Conference in Jerusalem because of ill health and clarified that it was because he supports an academic boycott of Israel.
Earlier on Wednesday, the physicist’s spokesman at the University of Cambridge had denied that support for a boycott was the catalyst and said that he withdrew on medical grounds.
“Professor Hawking has decided to cancel his planned visit to Israel on the advice of doctors,” the spokesman said.
A letter sent by Hawking to the organizers of the June 18- 20 conference suggested, however, that pressure from Palestinian academics made him withdraw.
“I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics,” Hawking said in the letter. “They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this I must withdraw from the conference.”
When this was put to his spokesman, he told The Jerusalem Post that he was unaware of this line in the letter and reaffirmed that medical reasons was the sole reason for canceling.
Later on Wednesday, the University of Cambridge withdrew its original statement and confirmed that Hawking withdrew his participation based on advice from Palestinian academics that he should respect the boycott.
“We had understood previously that his decision was based purely on health grounds, having been advised by doctors not to fly,” the university spokesman said.
Presidential Conference chairman Israel Maimon responded to Hawking’s announcement on Wednesday saying that his decision was unjustifiable and wrong.
“The academic boycott against Israel is in our view outrageous and improper, certainly for someone for whom the spirit of liberty lies at the basis of his human and academic mission. Israel is a democracy in which all individuals are free to express their opinions, whatever they may be. The imposition of a boycott is incompatible with open, democratic dialogue.”
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center, called Hawking’s boycott hypocritical.
“His whole computer-based communication system runs on a chip designed by Israel’s Intel team. I suggest that if he truly wants to pull out of Israel, he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet.”
She suggested that he should also consult his academic contacts and the Intel engineers in Israel before deciding to boycott.
“He seems to have no understanding of this world.”
Since 1997, Hawking’s computer- based system has been sponsored and provided by Intel.
This year’s Presidential Conference will also be a celebration of the 90th birthday of President Shimon Peres.
Organizers are expecting a record attendance of 5,000 participants, including some of the world’s greatest brains, leaders of the largest global technological companies, internationally renowned academics, Nobel Prize laureates, celebrated artists and past and present heads of state. Former US president Bill Clinton is to be awarded with the Presidential Medal of Distinction at the conference.
Other statesmen who are set to join Peres in celebrating his ninth decade include former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, former British prime minister Tony Blair, who attended all four previous Presidential Conferences, and Prince Albert of Monaco.
Legendary singer Barbra Streisand will divide her time in Israel between conference participation in Jerusalem and her sold-out concerts in Tel Aviv.
Although Hawking’s initially scheduled participation in the conference had captured headlines in Israel, it is doubtful that there would have been any public response to his cancellation if other media outlets had not picked up on a report in The Guardian.
Hawking, 71, has visited Israel four times, most recently in 2006, when he lectured at Israeli and Palestinian universities.
In an interview with Al Jazeera during Operation Cast Lead in 2009, Hawking condemned Israel, saying its response to Gazan rocket fire was out of proportion and compared it to apartheid South Africa.
http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/Pri...aspx?id=312505
So apparently saying hip hip hooray is anti-Semitic.
I thought it was pro-hip hop? :o
I think that it's not actually very clear on the etymology of that term, Flixy.
Oh, I agree, but someone was talking in a talk show that it's anti-Semitic to use that term.
It's not completely made up - there's some evidence the claim might be true - but I think it's so divorced from what more or may not have been its original usage that it's essentially meaningless.
Wow, I just read up on this hip-hip hooray thing. :bulb: I agree with Wiggin, if it ever was kinda-sorta about Jews, it's definitely not anti-semitic these days.
What a nightmare for someone raised on paranoid anti-Israel zealotry. One day you're fighting the good ole' Jihad against the infidel Assad, you get knocked unconscious and the next day you wake up in fucking Israel having had your life saved by Israelis.
Naturally, most of the people interviewed are going to pretend it never happened so their family doesn't think they were implanted with Zio-chips.
Quote:
August 5, 2013
Across Forbidden Border, Doctors in Israel Quietly Tend to Syria’s Wounded
By ISABEL KERSHNER
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...leLarge-v2.jpg
NAHARIYA, Israel — The 3-year-old girl cried “Mama, Mama” over and over as a stranger rocked her and tried to comfort her. She had been brought from Syria to the government hospital in this northern Israeli town five days earlier, her face blackened by what doctors said was probably a firebomb or a homemade bomb.
In the next bed, a girl, 12, lay in a deep sleep. She had arrived at the pediatric intensive care unit with a severe stomach wound that had already been operated on in Syria, and a hole in her back.
Another girl, 13, has been here more than a month recovering from injuries that required complex surgery to her face, arm and leg. She and her brother, 9, had gone to the supermarket in their village when a shell struck. Her brother was killed in the attack.
As fighting between Syrian government forces and rebels has raged in recent months in areas close to the Israeli-held Golan Heights, scores of Syrian casualties have been discreetly spirited across the hostile frontier for what is often lifesaving treatment in Israel, an enemy country.
Most are men in their 20s or 30s, many of them with gunshot wounds who presumably were involved in the fighting. But in recent weeks there have been more civilians with blast wounds, among them women and children who have arrived alone and traumatized.
Israel has repeatedly declared a policy of nonintervention in the Syrian civil war, other than its readiness to strike at stocks of advanced weapons it considers a threat to its security. Officials have also made clear that Israel would not open its increasingly fortified border to an influx of refugees, as Turkey and Jordan have, given that Israel and Syria officially remain in a state of war.
But the Israeli authorities have sanctioned this small, low-profile humanitarian response to the tragedy taking place in Syria, balancing decades of hostility with the demands of proximity and neighborliness.
“Most come here unconscious with head injuries,” said Dr. Masad Barhoum, the director general of the Western Galilee Hospital here in Nahariya, on the Mediterranean coast six miles south of the Lebanese border. “They wake up after a few days or whenever and hear a strange language and see strange people,” he said. “If they can talk, the first question is, ‘Where am I?’ ”
He added, “I am sure there is an initial shock when they hear they are in Israel.”
The identity of the patients is closely guarded so they will not be in danger when they return to Syria. Soldiers sit outside the wards where the adults are to protect them from possible threats and prying journalists. But doctors granted access to the children in the closed intensive care wing, on the condition that no details that could compromise their safety were published.
Like many Israeli hospitals, this one serves a mixed population of Jews and Arabs; its staff includes Arabic-speaking doctors, nurses and social workers. In the lobby, a glass display case contains the remnants of a Katyusha rocket that was fired from Lebanon and hit the hospital’s eye department during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. The rocket penetrated four floors but nobody was injured because all the north-facing wards had been moved underground.
With more than 100,000 people estimated to have died in the Syrian civil war, Dr. Barhoum, an Arab Christian citizen of Israel, acknowledged that the Israeli medical assistance was “a drop in the ocean.”
But he said he was proud of the level of treatment his teams could provide and proud to be a citizen of a country that allowed him to treat every person equally. He said the cost of the treatment so far had amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars and would be paid for by the Israeli government.
Since late March, almost 100 Syrians have arrived at two hospitals in Galilee. Forty-one severely wounded Syrians have been treated here at the Western Galilee Hospital, which has a new neurosurgical unit as well as pediatric intensive care facilities. Two of them have died, 28 have recovered and been transferred back to Syria, and 11 remain here.
An additional 52 Syrians have been taken to the Rebecca Sieff Hospital in the Galilee town of Safed. The latest, a 21-year-old man with gunshot and shrapnel wounds, arrived there on Saturday. A woman, 50, arrived Friday with a piece of shrapnel lodged in her heart and was sent to the Rambam hospital in the northern port city of Haifa for surgery.
Little has been revealed about how they get here, other than that the Israeli military runs the technical side of the operation. The doctors say all they know is that Syrian patients arrive by military ambulance and that the hospital calls the army to come pick them up when they are ready to go back to Syria.
The Israeli military, which also operates a field hospital and mobile medical teams along the Syrian frontier, has been reluctant to advertise these facilities, partly for fear of being inundated by more wounded Syrians than they could cope with.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said that “a number of Syrians have come to the fence along the border in the Golan Heights with various levels of injuries.”
He added that the military has, “on a purely humanitarian basis, facilitated immediate medical assistance on the ground and in some cases has evacuated them for further treatment in Israeli hospitals.”
Now, efforts are under way to bring over relatives to help calm the unaccompanied children.
When the 13-year-old arrived, she was in a state of fear and high anxiety, according to Dr. Zeev Zonis, the head of the pediatric intensive care unit here.
“A large part of our treatment was to try to embrace her in a kind of virtual hug,” he said.
Days later, the girl’s aunt arrived from Syria. She began to care for the Syrian children here, living and sleeping with them in the intensive care unit. The staff and volunteers donated clothes and gifts.
The aunt, her face framed by a tight hijab, said a shell had struck the supermarket in their village suddenly, after a week of quiet. A few days later, she said, an Arab man she did not know came to the village.
“He told us they had the girl,” she said. “They took me and on the way told me that she was in Israel. We got to the border. I saw soldiers. I was a little afraid.”
But she added that the hospital care had been good and that “the fear has passed totally.” She was reluctant to speak about the war back home, saying only, “I pray for peace and quiet.”
Sitting up in bed in a pink Pooh Bear T-shirt, the niece, who was smiling, said she missed home. She and her aunt were expected to return to Syria later this week.
Asked what she will say when she goes back home, the aunt replied: “I won’t say that I was in Israel. It is forbidden to be here, and I am afraid of the reactions.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/wo...s-wounded.html
If you read between the lines, he's saying Palestinians should move to Jordan (rather than calling for a one state solution as suggested by the poster). ;)
I've seen that before, it's sorta eery to see him using that name. And sounding almost exactly the same as he does now. Like he had the voice of a much older man when he was very young.
Meanwhile, we may as well light the campfires in this thread if the US launches missiles at Syria...
I don't see Syria really following through on their threats against Israel.
No, I meant light the campfires of Zionuttery.
EG, MORE SPY BIRDS
Quote:
French 'spy swan' detained in Egypt after citizen's arrest is neither a spy nor a swan
Suspicions were raised after a man noticed an electronic device attached to the suspected winged infiltrator
ROB WILLIAMS Author Biography SUNDAY 01 SEPTEMBER 2013
In a case that's likely to once again ruffle feathers regarding the treatment of innocent animals as spies Egyptian authorities have detained a migratory bird that one citizen suspected of working for the French security services.
According to reports, authorities in the troubled country detained the bird after a man in Egypt’s Qena governorate, some 450 kilometers (280 miles) southeast of Cairo, spotted the animal - described by officials as a swan - among a group of four others.
Suspicions were raised after the man noticed an electronic device attached to the suspected winged infiltrator.
The head of security in Qena said on Saturday that officials examined the bird and the electronic box concluding - perhaps unsurprisingly - that the device was neither a bomb nor spying equipment.
The box was actually a tracker used by French scientists to follow the movement of migrating birds, Ayman Abdallah, the head of Qena veterinary services said. Mr Abdallah said the device had stopped working when the bird crossed the French border.
In a further twist to an already bizarre story, authorities in Egypt appear to have misidentified the bird as a swan, after images were released showing the bird - looking very much like a stork - behind bars.
Despite its evidently stork-like appearance, Ayman Abdallah and others repeatedly referred to the bird as a swan.
This most recent unwarranted avian arrest follows an incident earlier this year in which a security guard filed a police report after capturing a pigeon he said carried microfilm.
Amid continued unrest in Egypt conspiracy theories abound. In 2010 an Egyptian official said Israel-controlled sharks could be involved in a number of tourist attacks in the Red Sea.
Elsewhere, in December last year an eagle carrying an Israeli tag was touted as a Mossad spy in Sudan and just last month a Kestrel was held in Turkey on suspicion of working for the Israeli security services.
Additional reporting by Associated Press.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...n-8793319.html
Kinda the opposite of Zionuts, but funny nonetheless:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7W5tsnd0BE
Wait for it... at 1:58. Classic hot mic moment.
Plenty of Israël in the news this week here!
http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1567695
By now some Dutch politicians and the Israeli embassy complained. Which is kinda stupid, because the club isn't really at fault, they got assurances it'd be okay, until a day before. Of course they aren't going to cancel an important training camp with arranged matches last minute for which it's impossible to find a last minute replacement. So the criticism should be directed at the UAE, not the club. And the criticism is fiercely hypocritical, too - if the Dutch politicians think the club should boycott the country, why do we sell arms to them? I think that'd be a bigger message than a private, not even that big, football club. And Israel complaining? Please, they ban Palestine football players all the time from traveling, preventing important matches, so they have no right to complain about this.
And the Israeli government summoned the Dutch ambassador twice, because two private (!) companies stopped trading with Israeli companies that operate within occupied territory. Since when is the government responsible for private companies doing something they have every right to do?
Should be interesting what happens with Israeli players during the World Cup in Qatar. :noob:
Most likely, they will stay at home because they didn't qualify :p And if the unlikely does happen: http://web.archive.org/web/200911151...ael-booze.html It does appear Israel has prevented the Palestine football team from going to world cup qualifiers. :down: So much for their call to 'seperate politics and sport', but I guess that only applies when it's about other countries. And then I'm not even mentioning the players who have been killed, or detained without trial, and the fact their stadium was bombed, because they might actually have a reason for that (hard to say though, if you detain people without trial, but that's a bigger problem anyway).Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
The choice for Qatar is retarded for a lot of reasons, but at least they will allow Israel, should the unlikely happen. Slave labour, climate, etc., are a lot more troubling.
I meant Jewish players. :o
Well, if they allow Israeli players already, there's no reason to expect they'd ban jewish players from less hated countries, obviously.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I agree with you in principal, though keep in mind that it's fairly provocative for FIFA to even recognize Palestine as a country for football purposes. I can't think of a solid parallel, maybe if FIFA were to recognize the Catalonia national football team or a Basque team. But exit visas for Palestinians are notoriously difficult; after all it's a belligerent occupation, so the issue isn't confined to football.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
Meanwhile, reading all the Ariel Sharon obituaries today...
http://www.timesofisrael.com/economi...-after-uproar/
Don't need a lot of thought to know this was a bad idea.
To play devil's advocate, if they were going to outright say Israel was holding the US back, the star on Israel's flag sorta gives few other options. Though it's preposterous to suggest Israel is somehow chaining US foreign policy. We seem to be having few problems signing poorly-structured deals with Iran quite nicely.
Honestly the more damaging concern is that it's not Israel per se they were referencing, but rather Jews in general (e.g. the old canard about Jews controlling the US government for their nefarious ends - see: Protocols). Really not cool.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
That isn't a true Zionut example! We need these:
Quote:
Israeli architecture association faces ban from international forum
Royal Institute of British Architects proposes boycott of Israeli Association of United Architects' over Palestinian settlements
Britain's leading architectural association has called for its Israeli counterpart to be excluded from the International Union of Architects in protest at Israel's occupation of Palestine, in a further indication of the growing momentum of the boycott movement.
The Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) has demanded the suspension of the Israeli Association of United Architects (IAUA) from the international body, saying it is complicit in the construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and other violations of international law.
The former Riba president Angela Brady told a meeting of its council on Wednesday that failure to back the motion "would send a clear message to the world that we as an institution turn a blind eye or by inaction support what's going on – land grabs, forced removals, killing the state and human rights, and reinforcement of apartheid".
But other council members pointed to human rights violations in other parts of the world, such as North Korea, which is a member of the International Union of Architects. "Don't you think architects are designing prison camps and torture chambers there?" asked one council member, Francesca Weal.
The motion – backed by 23 votes to 16, with 10 abstentions – was welcomed by the Palestinian BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement. It claims there is mounting international support for a boycott of Israel and points to an increasing number of companies disinvesting over fears of damaging their reputations.
"Architects and planners are central to Israel's colonisation of Palestinian land and the forced displacement of Palestinian people," said Rafeef Zaidah, of the Palestinian BDS national committee. "Given the complicity of the [IAUA] in Israel's construction of illegal Israeli settlements, it is only right that it is excluded from international forums."
Prof Baruch Baruch of the IAUA said the decision was "astonishing". He added: "I don't think architects can be blamed for government policies. I don't think boycotts will help to solve any of the problems in the Middle East."
His organisation, which includes Israeli-Arab architects, was not complicit in settlement construction. "A lot of members are against settlements and building in the West Bank. They won't be helped by a boycott."
Calls to boycott Israeli institutions have bitterly divided academic bodies in the UK, US and elsewhere. European governments are under pressure from trade unions, NGOs, churches and other organisations to take a tougher stand on Israeli settlement produce.
Scarlett Johanssen's celebrity endorsement of SodaStream, which has a factory in a West Bank settlement, caused an international furore earlier this year. US secretary of state John Kerry warned last month that the boycott movement could gain traction if his efforts to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians failed.
In response, the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said: "Attempts to impose a boycott on the state of Israel are immoral and unjust. Moreover, they will not achieve their goal."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...an-settlements
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/7w...k-about-israel
Seems like a pretty good description of what happens when you discuss Israel :p
To be fair, the criticism leveled at his hack job last week was legitimate and not very shrill. The most oft-forwarded piece was fairly reasonable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
Not to take away from his main point in this clip, which that this particular topic brings out all sorts of nutjobs and that reasoned debate is challenging.
Oh, didn't see that, and did not know about that, just thought this was a bit funny :p I'll check that to, then. Which forwarded piece are you talking about?
The piece people sent around is the link below by David Horovitz, the founding editor of Times of Israel and former editor in chief of JPost. Hardly a demagogue. It's true that there were others - notably Mark Levin - who were more hyperbolic in their critiques - but they didn't get anywhere near as much attention. There's no question that Horovitz supports Israel's position here, but I hardly think he was shrilly shouting down Stewart or resorting to name-calling; he just correctly points out that in trying for a laugh, he left all context out of a story that may be his viewer's only exposure to this subject.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jon-ste...n-israel-gaza/
I'm actually curious why it's wrong for the Ukrainian separatists to shoot down a civilian plane, but apparently it's ok for Hamas to try to do the same with Israeli civilian planes. Or does the international community decide to support Israel only after Jews get massacred?
What makes you think Israel doesn't have global support as a sovereign nation? And since when did "the international community" consider pro-Russian Ukraine separatists as legitimate rebel forces? :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
And what part about those Palestinian *civilians* being killed, caught in the middle between no-state status, minority Hamas factions, and Israeli defense measures doesn't matter? Long, slow, drawn-out ethnic killings don't count as "massacres" unless it involves Jews? Please, tell me I read your post wrong.
Very pro Israel, and I don't agree with everything he says, but the reply (if you ask me) does show how discussing Israel works - being, as that article points out, a satirical show rather than a news show (which it doesn't claim to be), they have sloppy reporting for the laughs all the time. But only when it's about Israel people get upset, even if more important subjects to most viewers (I.e. Domestic issues) come up and nobody cares.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
You can do satire and do a complex issue justice, though, Flixy. This is just one-sided Israel-bashing which contributes nothing and brings nothing new to the table.
Leaving out the Hamas' role in this conflict is plain irresponsible. Yes, even for "satire".
I certainly agree that this particular bit of news get far more scrutiny than most issues - but it also gets far more press. The press spends a lot of time on it, so it's not surprising that it also gets a lot of scrutiny.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
That being said, Jon Stewart et al is criticized all of the time for his stance on other issues as well. So does Rush Limbaugh (not to draw too strong of a comparison) or any other pundit. Israel is a lightning rod, yes, but hardly the only one.
I like that the Daily Show has made many younger viewers more engaged with current issues. I think it's important for people to be passionate about important issues facing the world and to realize that the news has very real applicability to their own lives. I don't, however, like how he turns complex issues into black and white narratives interspersed with the occasional bon mot. Stewart defends himself by saying it's a comedy show on a comedy network, but he knows as well as anyone else how many people use it as their main source of news. He has a responsibility, not to be impartial or non-partisan, but to approach his subjects with a degree of journalistic rigor. He stopped being just a comedy show (or very funny, for that matter) years ago. He shouldn't get defensive when people rightly (and thoroughly) point out his errors. Stewart's defense was that he was being castigated and called names just because he tried to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He's wrong; he is criticized (and, in the case of the column I sent out, quite calmly) for addressing the issue devoid of so much context as to make it unrecognizable. He can't expect to be treated as just another comedian trying to get a laugh, nor should he fall back on the tried and true 'no one is willing to listen' defense. He bears some responsibility.
To be fair, I don't think Stewart is entirely incorrect. Of course, the story he tells is grotesque and stripped of nuance or context. But he's not wrong that the situation in Gaza is dire, and the overwhelming disparity in how Gazans vs. Israelis are experiencing the conflict is worth discussing. It's just that he doesn't approach it from that perspective; he instead just gets a few digs in at Israel to set up a couple of gags and moves on. I think if he legitimately tried to do what he says he wants to do - have thoughtful conversations on difficult issues - I think I'd really enjoy it. But if you look at his 'serious' interviews on the show, it becomes clear how his worldview is not particularly flexible - nor is he very articulate in discussing these complexities.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro
I don't recall if I posted it here, but there was a recent study that looked at the political knowledge of people who paid attention to different sources of news. The most informed were ones who read the Economist. They were followed by people who watched CNN and Fox News (don't recall if MSNBC was an option). The next group were ones who didn't follow news at all. The least informed group was the one that got its news from parody shows, like the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.
Fair enough. I watched the bit, it's indeed without any context. Also I don't really follow his critics, so I stand corrected about him not getting flak for other stuff. I suppose you are right about his responsibility, I myself watch the show purely for entertainment and get my news elsewhere, and didn't really consider those who use it as their news source (which is aside from the bias, lack of context and humour, a bad idea because you're also going to miss a lot of news stories that don't come up there in the first place).Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
Aye, the difference between the situation in Israel and Gaza is newsworthy if you ask me, and should be addressed because it also addresses proportionality, but he completely skipped that and just made a joke.Quote:
To be fair, I don't think Stewart is entirely incorrect. Of course, the story he tells is grotesque and stripped of nuance or context. But he's not wrong that the situation in Gaza is dire, and the overwhelming disparity in how Gazans vs. Israelis are experiencing the conflict is worth discussing. It's just that he doesn't approach it from that perspective; he instead just gets a few digs in at Israel to set up a couple of gags and moves on. I think if he legitimately tried to do what he says he wants to do - have thoughtful conversations on difficult issues - I think I'd really enjoy it. But if you look at his 'serious' interviews on the show, it becomes clear how his worldview is not particularly flexible - nor is he very articulate in discussing these complexities.
Regarding his interviews, they seem to be mostly either asking a (joke)question set up so the interviewee can say his/her prepared lines on the subject, or a somewhat critical standard question (not seldom a wrong criticism), with a similarly standard answer. Not very deep, seriously critical, or anything.
Well, that's not very surprising, considering it is a comedy show first, news source second - I'm curious what part of the viewers get their news there, and what part (like me) gets their news elsewhere and watches the show for fun. Though I am slightly surprised they did worse than those who don't get any news at all, surely by watching parody news you'd at least know what stories are playing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
The surprising part was that these people were less informed than those who didn't follow the news; mostly because these people get a warped picture of reality and actually believe it to be accurate. People who watched normal news and parody news were fine; the problem was only the ones who watched nothing but parody news.
As an aside, I want to emphasize that proportionality does not mean what anyone thinks it means. Proportionality has nothing to do with casualty ratios, either between the sides, or between civilians and military targets. It also has nothing to do with the relative damage to one side in a conflict - otherwise you'd end up with countries never being allowed to legally enjoy an advantage in firepower in a conflict.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
Rather, proportionality is a very specific legal proviso in international 'law' which requires any civilian (/environmental/etc.) damage from a military strike to be proportional to the military goals of the strike. If the military advantage expected to be gained from a strike is significant, then more civilians can be conceivably put in harms way. Deaths of civilians in a war zone do not by itself constitute a crime. Their deaths are a crime only if either (1) the principle of distinction is violated (e.g. they are targeted, rather than a military target they just happen to be near), or (2) the military advantage expected to be gained is significantly less than the civilian damage/death expected.
Obviously proportionality is to some extent a judgment call - there is no official definition of how to determine if an attack is proportionate. Yet in general real military targets - such as launching sites, weapons caches, command and control centers, tunnels, enemy personnel attacking you - are fair game provided that an attempt is made to minimize civilian casualties. Israel has gone out of their way to do this, with the obvious caveat that in a densely populated place like Gaza with military targets intentionally dispersed in a civilian population, it's awfully hard.
The important point here is that proportionality has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the difference in damage or deaths between two sides in a conflict, only between the perceived military advantage from an action vs. the expected civilian cost. This is a major pet peeve of mine.
The reason I think the stories in Gaza vs. Israel are newsworthy are not because of some potential war crime, but because they illustrate the very real dilemmas experienced by civilians on both sides and decision makers in Israel. Gaza is a festering sore, and we shouldn't forget that just because Israel is justified in defending its citizens from attack. The responsibility for Gaza's state can be laid at many feet, but we shouldn't forget just how dire things are there.
Agreed.Quote:
Regarding his interviews, they seem to be mostly either asking a (joke)question set up so the interviewee can say his/her prepared lines on the subject, or a somewhat critical standard question (not seldom a wrong criticism), with a similarly standard answer. Not very deep, seriously critical, or anything.
Which, sadly, is a not insignificant portion of his viewership.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Yes, that was the reason for the study.