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.
expiry: 7
After many Muslims were let into Canada, they protested against trans people, calling it gender ideology. (https://www.trtworld.com/article/13562350). Huge numbers of trans people successfully complete suicide because of bullying, trans people who can't get hormone treatments when they are young have less successful transitions and are more likely to commit suicide, and religious protesting against gender ideology in Canada literally is more straw on the backs of transgender youths and likely was the tipping point that did in fact lead to some young trans people to kill themselves. You can call it xenophobia or whatever, but it's reality, and trans suicides are not just theoretical.
It is also not as though most Muslims throughout the world protested against these Canadians, saying they had gone too far. Yes, there are trans Muslims and liberal Muslims, but were trans kids in Canada more likely to commit suicide because of these protests? Yes.
I can simultaneously want Palestinian people to not be genocided and subject to war crimes and want to protect trans people. If we are truly anti-colonialism, it would also be requesting abolishment of the USA and abolishment of even some South American countries and I do not genuinely believe that if the states that exist were to somehow go away and borders were to go away, that the result would be more liberalism. I don't even see how the idea of any borders is somehow fair; why should some people be allowed to roam earth freely in some areas and other people not? But it's not logistically clear how it would work right now if all borders were abolished, if people just did whatever they want. It is also not logistically clear how Jewish people would be protected when you have rising far right European parties and rising US neo-Nazism. My belief that Israel protects Jewish people does not mean that I support conservative Jewish people in Israel committing war crimes. I support the ICC and I support Israel existing and I support Palestinians having a safe and nice place to live without being treated horribly. But on a technical level, anyone who supports Israel even existing is a Zionist. So, that's what I am then. Even if colloquially Zionism has come to represent apologists for a war crime regime in Israel, Zionism technically means someone who wants Israel to exist, so... then I am a Zionist.
When Biden left Iraq, ISIS filled the vaccum and now women are not allowed to read. And yes, the US should have never gone into Iraq, but my point is that in a vaccum or void left from the absence of a state, it's not as though educated and enlightened liberalism is the first thing to swoop in and expand and fill that void, instead it was ISIS. I am xenophobic toward transphobic people and misogynistic people and if that makes me inherently xenophobic, so be it. If there were a way to allow for immigration as long as people weren't transphobic, then great, but it doesn't seem like there are "liberalism values" tests given to people who immigrate. There are Middle Eastern women out there, heroes, who are protesting against cruel treatment, women like Mahsa Amini and Hadis Najafi. I am not scared of heroes like this. I wish I had all the integrity and bravery of Hadis who died a hero to all people. I wish I could have met her and talked to her. I look at her, and AOC, and Geta Thunberg as so pure and ethical... but Hadis, she was something else, a different kind of Warrior. There are also Palestinian people who died as heroes documenting the genocide. I also do not claim to be a good person who has stood up to injustice and cruelty the way others have.
It seems like I am the sort of person you all want to ban, so I should just go. It's just an instance and I don't want to be where I am not wanted. It's clearly the best instance for various reasons, but I'll be okay. That's what's great about the fediverse!
You are making a lot of arguments in this comment. Here's the one I'll focus on:
(emphasis mine)
How can hypothetical damage, of that only even arguably mitigated by this supposed protection (in my view exacerbated), possibly be held up for comparison against ongoing, unapologetic, exquisitely coordinated genocide of right-now-living civilian people?
Human beings, kin to all of us by some degree, are being massacred, now. You are talking about what could happen, and necessarily involving an extreme amount of hypotheticals and uncertainty. These two do not compare. Full stop.
This governance question is about what to do about actual real propaganda that facilitates actual real genocide. If you're arguing for prioritizing hypothetical harm in the face of that, yeah - this doesn't sound like the place for you.
Where the fuck did you get that from what I said?
I do not support genocide, I want there to be ICC prosecutions and am against war crimes.
Just because Israel exists does not mean war crimes must occur. This is a specific choice by a specific conservative leadership of Israel. Where are you getting that I am in favor of war crimes from what I said?
Honestly, fuck all of you. I say specifically, multiple times, that I support the ICC, that war crimes have occurred, even listing some of them, and that I support the Palestinians having a place to live that is safe and free of bizarre regulations and cruelty.
But apparently, my comment about protecting Jewish people's safety means that I must support war crimes? What the fuck?
Full stop, go back to Grok or wherever you learned that shit diction. I am someone who was in favor of ICC prosecutions, in favor of a two state solution, agreed with the International community, and you're all coming down on me like a bunch of hornets. So you know what? Kick me out, ban me, fuck you, and I won't express being in support of ICC prosecutions, I won't do any support of Palestinians... I am a "proud" and "horrible" person and this isn't "the place for me." So, go ahead, have your small tent party. I won't be doing any activism on this at all, apparently I'm not liberal enough and I'm tired of being insulted.
That's a super emotional response compared to what I said. A lot of it weirdly directed at not me, while said to me, but okay. Add in random accusations about me using a (I think famously shitty, right? And racist, imperialist, etc.) LLM to express my POV, neat, you are not doing yourself any favors.
My comment is that it's completely inappropriate to insist on the freedom to worry about potential harm to Jews en masse as some nebulous outcome in the face of ongoing, documented, historic, extreme brutality and evil - the genocide of Palestine.
Who says I want favors? Full stop, fuck you.
It is an emotional response because I've also been called a horrible person, and proud, and all this other really insulting stuff.
If I say it's a genocide and I'm in favor of ICC prosecutions, I don't know how that isn't enough. Am I not allowed to care about Jewish safety or trans suicides unless my language is more staunchly condemnatory? I linked to a bbc article about Israeli guards fucking prisoners of war with dogs. Multiple people are insulting me, while I'm pretty clearly condemning war crimes, and I'm not allowed to have opinions about other things, apparently, because my condemnation isn't strong enough.
I really don't care, fuck all of you, I'm out. My new thing is to not comment on this situation at all, not donate anything, not advocate for anything. I can't have a position that involves Israel existing without being attacked. I'll find a new instance and avoid this topic. I expect to be banned at the rate of my replies, but I don't care, I don't want to be a part of this. The fediverse is great. I'll find somewhere else to be that doesn't want to be mean to me.
I haven't yet looked at your other comments and responses in the thread, but I can assure you I was making a pretty focused complaint about a specific thing you said because that line of thought is central to the problem being addressed by the governance question.
I'm not here to pile on or dunk in a general sense, that's not an experience I want to cause well-intentioned others to feel. Again, haven't looked at your experience elsewhere in the thread and am going to bed.
Stick around if your beliefs seem compatible, your overall description here doesn't sound off putting. This has always been an easy place to find common ground for me, but most people I meet more generally align much less well.
It's not mutually exclusive to want Palestinian rights and safety and a Palestinian place to exist (that isn't subject to unreasonable restrictions) and to also want Israel to not be destroyed and to worry about the safety of Jewish people and to worry about the safety of LGBT people and to also want Israel to be run by much more liberal people and to also want Israel to adhere to international law and to also want ICC prosecutions and more Western countries to support the ICC and to also want ICC members and their families to be taken off blacklists.
I'm glad you support Palestinian liberation and oppose their genocide.
There's still the underling belief that an ethno-religious colonial state can address your fears of persecution of anyone outside of your identity group, and that's what people are pointing to as incompatible with anarchism. It doesn't make you a 'bad person' to hold that position, but it is a morally abhorrent belief on its own.
I'm sorry you got piled on, and I hope it didn't cause you too much distress. If i'm being frank - an anarchist instance probably isn't a good fit for you.
I am in favor of a much more liberal Israel existing that doesn't violate international law. I don't think my belief is that an ethno-religious colonial state is the only way to address fears of persecution. As I said, in an ideal situation, in the future, things would be very different.
I really like this instance in part because it doesn't reject the Tor browser, which I support because it helps with free speech.
I feel like some of my values fit this instance, but perhaps it doesn't align perfectly. As I said, I'm planning on deleting my account and going somewhere else. I also don't consider myself an expert on this topic, at all, but since I am apparently horrible and shit, I think I need to learn about other topics, not this, there are other conflicts and problems in the world, there are other instances. The response to my posts is overwhelmingly negative, I just can do something else with my time than be here. I'll benefit and so will everyone else, apparently.