We, the admin team, decry all forms of settler-colonialism, and we recognize that Zionism is a pro-settler-colonialist position.
Therefore we propose that should no longer be accepting of any Zionist accounts on our instances.
Please upvote for agree, downvote for disagree.
Note: we only count votes by instance members of dbzer0 and anarchist.nexus, plus a few vouched-for external users.
Hi mateys, I've kept things simple in the above text, for brevity, but in fact it took the admin team quite a while to get to this stage. We have discussed the policy change extensively, and a variety of different perspectives emerged. I will attempt to sum them up below as best I can:
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The "this isn't that complicated" school of thought goes something like this: If someone is consistently posting comments that mirror Hasbara talking points (e.g. justifying the genocide in Gaza, consistently painting Palestinians as terrorists and Israel as the victim), then they should be instance banned. It's just not acceptable for Zionists to be allowed on our instances.
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The "slippery slope" / "purity test" school of thought is that banning people for having an "unpopular" political opinion would potentially mean banning half the fediverse, if more and more of these policies were enacted over time. To attempt to mitigate this we are keeping the scope of this rule as narrow as possible, and I also don't think many of our users will be affected. Also, we typically don't have frequent policy changes, and I have no reason to expect that to change moving forward.
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Another important discussion point was "how do we decide whether someone is pro-Zionist or not?" We can't always be 100% sure of someone's true intentions, we can only go on what they have posted and that is subject to interpretation. I don't feel there is an easy answer to this one, except to say that we would have to be pretty certain before issuing a perma-ban.
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The "geopolitics don't matter" school of thought is that trying to be on the "correct" side of every issue is kind of pointless because nothing that happens in lemmy chat forums will ever make an ounce of difference in the real world. Don't bother moderating users over political/ideological differences, just let people argue if they want. While I can totally empathize with this sentiment, I can also see the case for taking a clear stance on this topic in accordance with our values and the overwhelming support for the Palestinian cause among our users. Personally, I am advocating in favor of the resolution.
Please add your comments below if you want to provide your own thoughts on the topic, or have any questions.
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I imagine you thought this was a pretty clever argument. unfortunately, you are not very clever. calling us racist because we don't want to associate with supporters of a racist genocidal apartheid regime is a nice touch. it's very MAGA of you. how oppressed you are that we don't want oppressors among us. you'll find such arguments carry no weight here, and nobody is impressed.
you have no idea what you're talking about, and you've wrapped yourself in a blanket of ignorance to comfort yourself. the rest of us can see that the blanket is covered in shit though.
Except I didn't call you racist, I implied you followed the same ideology of racists. You see people who are functionally the same as you as if they are different when they aren't. You've taken someone who agrees with your ideals but not your methods and ostracized them for not saying things the way you want.
that was an attempt at clever wordplay that means absolutely nothing. you're not good at this.
nobody who is a zionist is "functionally the same as" anarchists. the two ideologies are diametrically opposed and cannot function together.
no zionist agrees with my ideals, or they would no be a zionist. you cannot agree with my ideals and support a racist genocidal apartheid regime.
anarchists voluntarily associate into communities of like-minded individuals. this is a right that cannot be infringed upon. likewise, the right to disassociate from people who are not like-minded is also a right that cannot be infringed. they are a foundation of anarchist thought. any zionist is free to form their own associations of like-minded individuals. banning zioonism from our community does not infringe on their rights, nor impede them in any way from speech.
So, let me ask clearly, do you think I am a Zionist?
I do not care if you are. you're not on our instance. we're not being forced to associate with you. you probably thought you had some sort of "got you!" argument lined up. but I'm not concerned with whether or not some random .worlder supports genocide. this time tomorrow, I'll have forgotten you exist.
the only thing I'm doing here is making sure anyone else who wanders by does not see your absolutely wrong position and think being a zionist and an anarchist are anything but mutually exclusive ideologies.
Except your instance is federated and you do have to contend with me. I asked you an honest question and instead of answering it you avoided the question because you don't want to contend with an honest debate.Your users can come and go, but so long as I am unbanned and you are federated we may as well be in the same instance. The truth is that I am not a Zionist, I don't support Israels actions, but I also don't like your radical response to poor sources or arguments. Represent yourself better and raise your own standards.
yeah, I don't really think that's true, all things considered.
I am not interested in debating whether or not I should associate with ethnocutural supremacists.
first of all, I never asked what you do or do not like. nobody did. you're not part of the flotilla, or one of the instances thinking of joining the flotilla. you shouldn't even be here, since this thread is not for you and your voice is not recognized and will not be considered when the decision is made.
my "poor arguments" are nothing more than arguments that you are either incapable or unwilling of understanding. likely the latter, since even a child is capable of love for each other.
my standards for association are clearly much higher than yours.