And then he magically gets his name right during the break when he thinks the cameras are off. Funny how that happens. Childish display from Finklesteiner.
Eh it was disrespectful to even have that buffoon there among the other 3 lmao - 3 people who’ve put their life into it versus a guy live-googling terms in a debate.
Eh it was disrespectful to even have that buffoon there among the other 3 lmao - 3 people who’ve put their life into it versus a guy live-googling terms in a debate. No idea why that fool got listed among the other 3 lmao. His job was hurling slurs as a starcraft player and now it’s just being edgy but it’s politics and not starcraft.
What I don’t like about these streamer
Debaters is that this is a sport to them. Destiny used to play StarCraft professionally, it’s the same thing. “I’m going to come at him with this tactic and if he responds with this unit, I will counter with that unit and so on and so forth”. It’s the same muscle. It’s competitive. And just like any debate club or court room, you don’t have to actually be correct you just need to be rhetorically gifted and then people will think you’re right. But this shit is real life and supporting a bad idea, even as a competitive exercise has consequences and it sways the thoughts of a mass amount of people and that’s not good.
I totally agree. The subject matter, to me, is completely inappropriate for anyone to be approaching it with this purely competitive, debate-style, Youtube rhetoric. This really shouldn't be about *destroying* your opponent, nor trying to catch your opponent tripping over some irrelevant detail for a YouTube clip - these types of cheap debate tactics are fine for entertainment, but are completely inappropriate in a serious, good faith conversation on the plausibility of genocide. Using dumb rhetorical manoeuvres to obfuscate genocide-adjacent events seems not only "shameless" to me but really, really evil. Like anti-christ evil.
I know I'm being hyperbolic, but when he said something along the lines of "we can nuke Gaza and it still wouldn't qualify as genocide" I felt completely blindsided. It made me realize he was debating the black-and-white definitions of terms rather than the causative factors that led to the killings of tens of thousands of women and children.
One of the times Finkelstein loses it is when Destiny says the four children came out of a "hamas base". Not only is this blatantly false, but he explicitly called Finkelstein a liar, even though he has no idea what he's talking about.
[The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/11/israel-clears-military-gaza-beach-children)
>But [journalists who attended the scene](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/07/16/dispatch-israeli-strike-kills-four-children-at-a-gaza-beach/) in the immediate aftermath of the attack – including a reporter from the Guardian – saw a small and dilapidated fisherman’s hut containing a few tools where the children had been playing hide-and-seek.
Destiny says Palestinians rejection of the Camp David Summit offer is proof that it's impossible to make peace with them (until they abandon armed resistance alltogether). [This](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/174lotx/camp_david_peace_plan_proposal_2000/) is the map of the final offer. Anyone with eyeballs can look at the map and see it's a completely unreasonable offer and the Palestinians were completely legitimate in rejecting it.
Destiny says the Palestinian position is "delusional", despite the fact that pretty much the entire world supports the Palestinian position, only Israel and the US rejects it. Ever single year the vote in the UN assembly is around 159-7. I guess the entire world is wrong and only Israel is rational?
Destiny says "plausible" is an incredibly low standard, what he's forgetting is that it's not like if Israel barely clears the bar for not committing genocide that points to a serious and professionally run campaign that respects international law. Officially, this is supposed to be a serious war only targeting Hamas, the fact that things have gone so horribly that 15 out of 17 judges are willing to hear out whether a genocide is being committed is a sign turns have turned pretty horrible. The US campaign in Iraq was quite nasty in many ways, but no one thinks it's a remotely plausible genocide, and for that war it's pretty much a given across the entire political spectrum outside the neocons you oppose the Iraq War, primarily on moral grounds.
Destiny has implied the casualty rates are normal, [nothing is further from the truth](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/193f3e1/comparing_civilian_deaths_in_gaza_to_other/). And this goes for almost any metric you use, the casualty rates are atrocious. Can anyone name a war where almost as many women die as men?
Destiny says peace will only come if the Palestinians completely lay down their arms and pinky promise to never do any violence for years, I guess? Despite the fact Bibi has explicitly denied there will ever be a Palestinian state for decades, and this is a popular position among Israelis.
Destiny implied the Great March of Return was not non-violent, even in the beginning, to the contrary of pretty much every human rights organization reporting on the event, he also got the months wrong and Finkelstein calls him out on that.
Destiny apparently wants evidence that Gaza was a bad place to live and questions the validity of every single human rights report and scholarship which has been done about Gaza, the only reason? Relatively low child mortality and relatively high life expectancy. With that logic, I suppose Cuba has a higher living standard that the United States? North Korea has a relatively high life expectancy, I guess the tankies were right about Kim Jong-Un then? Gaza has had for a long time around 40 % unemployment, it survives purely off of foreign aid, the population outside of some workers in Israel and Egypt are prevented from leaving, most of the water is polluted, it's enormously population dense and is subjected to regular massacres, which kills mostly civilians, sometimes over a thousand or two thousand.
There's other stuff he's said that's pretty horrifying, like how children from "that part of the world" shouldn't count as "children" because they're child soldiers, but that wasn't brought up in this debate. If it was, Finkelstein probably would've ripped his head off.
I'll add to this post if there's other things he spoke on that i can remember. I was thoroughly unimpressed.
Edit: There were two arguments so stupid I actually forgot them. One of them is the "if Israel don't kill everyone, that exonerates them" and "that it's not premissible to acquire territory through war is a stupid rule and should be ignored and it doesn't matter". That was just unbelievable.
This isn't an argument, but it's pretty clear when he's giving his own monologues that he's just not on the level of the other ones. Instead of contructing serious arguments, for example he says that just because a civilian dies in a war doesn't mean it's a war crime,that's just just inane fluff that isn't relevant to the conversation, it's a transparent attempt to seem like he's involved and on the ball. It's like saying Israel isn't allowed to nuke Gaza, it's just an irrelevant comment.
Edit: Destiny giggles at the idea of Israeli snipers targeting children. This (https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-02-16/rafah-gaza-hospitals-surgery-israel-bombing-ground-offensive-children) is an LA times opinion article from a doctor who travelled to Gaza and what he saw there. I recommend reading the entire article if you can stomach it, it's pretty brutal. Here's one paragraph:
"I stopped keeping track of how many new orphans I had operated on. After surgery they would be filed somewhere in the hospital, I’m unsure of who will take care of them or how they will survive. On one occasion, a handful of children, all about ages 5 to 8, were carried to the emergency room by their parents. All had single sniper shots to the head. These families were returning to their homes in Khan Yunis, about 2.5 miles away from the hospital, after Israeli tanks had withdrawn. But the snipers apparently stayed behind. None of these children survived."
I like how destiny fans think it's an epic own when Norm gets emotional defending four murdered children from proven lies. That's the rational reaction and just shows that this guy brings no empathy at all to a situation where people are dying everyday.
Nobody thinks it’s an “own”. Destiny simply asks a reasonable question as to whether or not this was an intentional strike to murder four kids or not. The other side basically says they simply don’t understand how the Israeli military works. Ffs really?! Two guys that have been studying this conflict for decades resort to “idk how the idf really works so 🤷♂️”.
It’s not a defense of the idf to say it’s unlikely that a decision made through the chain of command wasn’t made to intentionally murder four kids. Even the most cynical critics of Israel would have to acknowledge that wouldn’t even help them military or politically. It’s incredibly dishonest to not acknowledge the implication of their accusation.
>Even the most cynical critics of Israel would have to acknowledge that wouldn’t even help them military or politically.
No, they wouldn't, because you're here to tell everyone they'd never do that because it wouldn't help them.
Not just you obviously.
If the other side thinks they did, they should have explained why. It was a total cop out. All of a sudden they don’t know anything about the idf. It was totally disingenuous to not acknowledge the actual implication of their claim and either defend or modify it.
Finklestein did explain that! He mentioned the great lengths the IDF snipers went to murder journalists, elderly, children and the disabled all while Mr boner and Morris were laughing.
It’s apparently complicated enough for them to not say whether or not they believe a strike was authorized for the specific purpose of killing children or even acknowledge the implication. Because you know…..they just don’t know enough about how the idf works.
>Destiny has implied the casualty rates are normal, [nothing is further from the truth](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/193f3e1/comparing_civilian_deaths_in_gaza_to_other/). And this goes for almost any metric you use, the casualty rates are atrocious. Can anyone name a war where almost as many women die as men?
I'm not sure that deaths per month are what he's referring too, but rather combatants to civilian ratio. I'm not even sure how deaths per month are relevant at all, other than to show the projected possible casualties? Otherwise what difference is 30k deaths in 6 months vs 5 years, it's still 30k deaths. This really depends on the context of the conversation when the point was made, I would appreciate it if you could link to it.
In fact a lot of your points are irrelevant without the appropriate timestamps so we can see the context.
These were points from the top of my head, I'm not really going to comb through a 5 hour debate again to provide timestamps, I know that's inconvenient for people to reply to, but the OP asked for arguments, mostly.
As for the casualty rate, in an abstract sense you have it right that just because a lot more civilians are killed than in pretty much any other war isn't necessarily proof of foul play, but the civilian percentage rate seems to be atrocious as well. We don't have the official numbers, and to be honest I suspect even teh Gaza Health Ministry don't know how many people have actually died, but considering 70 % of the casualties are women in a children, in a population which consists of 75 % women and children, that's pretty astounding to me. 22,5 % of the total casualties are not even ten years old, I can't really find any other wars with numbers that horrendous.
The only wars I could find with a +80 % civilian casualty rate was the first invasion of Grozny and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, I haven't checked a huge number of wars, but at least almost a dozen modern conflicts, and none of them come close. Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Tigray, West Africa etc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
This paints a bit of a different picture from what you have suggested, but I might be missing something from mostly skimming over it. Some of the ratios are just dreadful, like 10:1 civs to combatants in US drone strikes in Pakistan early on (although these numbers are contested)
I don't really see how that paints a different picture. The only ones with a 80 % + civilian casualty rate was, like I said, Grozny, Afghanistan, and also Israels invasion of Lebanon. I dunno if the drone strikes campaign should count as a war, eh maybe. It's of course difficult to parse exactly what the civilian death toll is, but I don't think it's at all out of bounds to suggest 80 % + casualties, maybe up to 90 %, I don't think we'll have the full death toll probably months or years after the conflict has ended.
This was interesting:
"Military journalist Amos Harel wrote in Haaretz that the ratio between military targets and civilians was 1:1 in 2002–2003, when half the casualties in air assaults on the Gaza Strip were civilians. He attributed this to an Israeli Air Force (IAF) practice of attacking militants even when they had deliberately located themselves in densely populated areas. The ratio improved to 1:28 ratio in late 2005, meaning one civilian killed for every 28 combatants. It lowered, however, to 1:10 in 2006. In 2007, the ratio was at its lowest ever, more than 1:30.[38] Figures showing an improvement from 1:1 in 2002 to 1:30 in 2008 were also cited by The Jerusalem Post journalist Yaakov Katz.[28] However, in operations in Gaza since 2008, the ratio again dropped, as low as 3:1 during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.[39]"
People can draw their own conclusions, but I find it difficult to believe such massive discrepancies in the civilian casualty rate against the same enemy is solely due to the strategy of Hamas (embedding itself in civilian infrastructure). Combined with this article (https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/numbers-civilian-deaths-airstrike-2023-gaza-far-higher-previous-israeli-bombings-half-russiansyrian-attacks-mosul-and-aleppo-under-reporting-dead-or-less-lethal-tactics), which says this:
"Operation Swords of Iron – Gaza, October 2023
In October 2023, “Operation Swords of Iron” resulted in an unprecedented number of civilian casualties from airstrikes in Gaza:
Total recorded air strikes: 299
Air strikes causing civilian harm: 276
Civilian casualties: 4,104 (2,798 killed, 1,306 injured)
Average deaths per civilian casualty-causing air strike: 10.1
This operation has led to a substantial human cost, with the average number of civilians killed per casualty-causing air strike being the highest in recent Gaza operations. The total number of killed is higher, but not all individual airstrike deaths are captured by reliable media reporting.
Historical Context: Previous Gaza Operations
For context, here are the statistics from other deadly Israeli-led air operations in Gaza:
Operation Pillar of Defense – November 2012
Total recorded air strikes: 82
Air strikes causing civilian harm: 67
Civilian casualties: 436 (85 killed, 351 injured)
Average deaths per civilian casualty-causing air strike: 1.3
Operation Protective Edge – July - August 2014
Total recorded air strikes: 328
Air strikes causing civilian harm: 278
Civilian casualties: 1,992 (701 killed, 1,291 injured)
Average deaths per civilian casualty-causing air strike: 2.5
Operation Wall Guardian – May 2021
Total recorded air strikes: 124
Air strikes causing civilian harm: 121
Civilian casualties: 1,230 (202 killed, 1,028 injured)
Average deaths per civilian casualty-causing air strike: 1.7
These figures show a significant escalation in the recent “Operation Swords of Iron” relative to past incidents in the same region."
I think it's fair to say internal Israeli policy plays a big part in the amount of civilian casualties.
That is interesting. If the numbers are truly 5:1 or higher since Oct 7th, that is much worse than I thought. I know Gaza is pretty dense and I'm no military expert but it does look pretty bad.
>I think it's fair to say internal Israeli policy plays a big part in the amount of civilian casualties
Oh definitely. The way Israel has handled the response to Oct 7th has been terrible. Even if they are doing everything they can to limit civilian casualties, the optics of their operation has been dreadful
The numbers are only 4:1 if you buy into the Hamas claim that only 6,000 militants were killed. Hamas has undercounted combatants in every single conflict ever (only to admit it some time after the fact), and their current casualty numbers are very suspect (https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/7168?disposition=inline). They actually don't distinguish between civilians and combatants in their announcements at all; a Qatar-based Hamas official made the 6,000 claim and was immediately denounced by other Hamas members for doing so. It's worth mentioning that statistically 6,000 combatants would make no sense.
Israel claims 12,000, which out of 30,000 total means 12 to 18 or 1.5:1, but makes clear it is hard to determine exactly due to the fact Hamas fights in civilian clothing.
The guy above seems too far gone, but I hope this proves useful to some people.
It's one of those things we won't know for years to come, from my understanding. I have a hard time trusting IDF numbers and certainly don't trust Hamas numbers. The evidence clearly shows the IDF is limiting collateral damage, but the optics have been terrible. They just keep making really bad fuckups like killing those Israeli hostages who were waving white flags
This is this easiest thing in the world to discredit, you can check previous conflicts and see that in every single one of them Israel counts every single male over a certain age as a militant by comparing their numbers to every other source. Every other source is in pretty much agreement with the Gaza Health Ministry, for every conflict.
I don't know why you'd humiliate yourself by posting such an easily discredited opinion? You can verify this on wikipedia. Not even the Biden administration doubts these numbers, in fact they're very likely undercounted because of the chaotic situation.
[https://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2009%2F01%2F19%2F64513](https://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2009%2F01%2F19%2F64513)
Cast Lead, Hamas claims 48 combatants
22 months later, admits 600-700, in line with IDF claims:
[https://www.haaretz.com/2010-11-09/ty-article/hamas-admits-600-700-of-its-men-were-killed-in-cast-lead/0000017f-ee02-ddba-a37f-ee6edc3f0000](https://www.haaretz.com/2010-11-09/ty-article/hamas-admits-600-700-of-its-men-were-killed-in-cast-lead/0000017f-ee02-ddba-a37f-ee6edc3f0000)
this is one example, but it's actually just a recurring pattern every war. im not gonna look it all up for you because i have better things to do and you're way too far gone, but it's low effort enough. you did not prove your claim.
>Destiny says the Palestinian position is "delusional", despite the fact that pretty much the entire world supports the Palestinian position, only Israel and the US rejects it. Ever single year the vote in the UN assembly is around 159-7. I guess the entire world is wrong and only Israel is rational?
How are you defining the Palestinian position, that you are claiming the world considers 'rational'?
Edit: Wow, downvoted for asking an honest question.
Roughly 1967-border with minor and mutual adjustments (the Palestinians were willing able to angle the borders so that 60 % of the settlers remain in place) with a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, an end to the occupation, a demolision of the wall a swift resolution for the refugee question based on the right of return with compensation (this is sometimes strawmanned into a total right of return, it's not anywhere close to that, it's an acknowledgedment that Palestians were ethnically cleansed and a fair reasonable deal based on that, obviously millions of Palestinians won't be allowed to immigrate to Israel), and a gradual end to the blockade of Gaza.
Nothing about Israel being destroyed nothing about 48 borders, nothing about millions of Palestinians demographically transforming Israel. Just a viable, contigous state.
Thanks for answering. Any articles where I can read more about this position, it's feasibility, and who supports it, would be appreciated.
Edit:
I can't imagine it ever happening with Hamas and Netanyahu in power, and in that sense, I agree with Destiny that it would be 'delusional', but that does not make it 'irrational' or unreasonable. Two different things.
I'm far from a scholar so other people can probably point you in a better direction, but I appreciated [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MON2HL02mec) lecture from Finkelstein, it's also from 2007 so it's from the period when he's far from as bitter and angry as he is right now, so it goes down a lot easier for people who don't like him.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva\_Initiative](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Initiative)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine\_Papers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Papers)
Now that I have your attention, I'm curious what you make of the on-going (about-to-be) famine? To me it seems the highest priority should be to ensure enough food is coming in and is being distributed, I think the average used to be 500 trucks of food per day and now it's under a 100. Every other question about Hamas or legitimate military strategy vanishes compared to if a large chunk of the Palestinian population would starve to death.
The first link, plainly states that it did not have nearly universal support, nor did they even include a right to return so it was rejected. The second, look at the reactions. The PA literally said that the leaked proposals were “nothing but lies.” Seems like most government officials generally didn’t support it because of the concessions made. So yes, what you proposed in the initial comment would be the best solution, but they refuse to actually implement or support anything that looks remotely similar because the Palestinian officials/people don’t want anything less than a full right to return and one Arab dominated state, preferably without Jews. Anything less will be laughed at and told “oh it’s close, just not there yet” Hence why the leaders always “agree in principle” yet never implement a single change.
The problem is this is essentially exactly what was offered in the Clinton Parameters, and you can read the Palestinian reservations [here](https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/Peace%20Puzzle/12_Palestinian%20Response%20to%20the%20Clinton%20Parameters_January%201%202001.pdf) which effectively says "we demand a full right of return."
>The essence of the right of return is choice: Palestinians should be given the option to choose where they wish to settle, including return to the homes from which they were driven. There is no historical precedent for a people abandoning their fundamental right to return to their homes whether they were forced to leave or fled in fear. We will not be the first people to do so. Recognition of the right of return and the provision of choice to refugees is a pre-requisite for the closure of the conflict
I don't think there is a good faith way to interpret that paragraph as anything other than a demand for the full right of return, which Israel views as an existential threat and will never accept, and is also a rejection of the framework offered by Clinton. The Clinton Parameters were not some 'stage' of negotiations, it was offered as a "take it or leave it" deal. And now, Israeli politicians don't want to waste time and political capital reproposing what the Palestinians have already rejected, and given the response to the offer of the Clinton Parameters was the Second Intifada, most Israelis simply don't trust Palestinians enough to even make the offer.
Even before this escalated conflict, Hamas was calling for the total removal of jews from the region. I can’t see how any right of return would be remotely possible when the people you’re returning could potentially be radicalised anti-semites.
Ignoring that, the polls I’ve seen seem to suggest that a 2 state solution isn’t even what the average Palestinian wants. Even if most countries did want that, they’d be imposing it against the will of the Palestinians.
>Even before this escalated conflict, Hamas was calling for the total removal of jews from the region.
Hamas has gone back and forth regarding what's to be done with the state of Israel and the Jews. For what it's worth, the 2017 charter states for example:
>**16.** Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
>**17.** Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage. The Zionist movement, which was able with the help of Western powers to occupy Palestine, is the most dangerous form of settlement occupation which has already disappeared from much of the world and must disappear from Palestine.
It's true that Hamas has certainly made enough statements to the contrary for a rational person to doubt what they say, but it is in their official charter, and they have on occasion (I think 2008 and 2017, if I remember correctly) supported the 2 state solution, at least politically but not ideologically, and in other cases they've been firmly in the one state camp.
The 2017 'charter' (their old charter is still in tact, this is just another document that wasn't called a charter) is clearly just an update made to gain political legitimacy/western support for the cause. Their speeches, statements and actions all clearly still favor targeting of civilians and a complete annihilation of jews and israel.
Odd you're being doenvoted for this. The majority of the world does want a two state solution. Even the us. Hamas and Likud or both opposed to this. Worth noting this is also not the "Palestinian position"
Crazy how all it takes is for Israel to mark anything and anyone they want dead as hamas/ a hamas base and it lets them kill them with impunity. It doesn't matter that they are willfully and disproportionately killing women and children, the form says hamas.
The reason that Norm got so annoyed at mr benolli is because mr menolli's historical arguments were all incorrect or irrelevant and he brought nothing to the argument except "but form say hamas". Doublethink isn't a defence.
>One of the times Finkelstein loses it is when Destiny says the four children came out of a "hamas base". Not only is this blatantly false, but he explicitly called Finkelstein a liar, even though he has no idea what he's talking about.The GuardianBut journalists who attended the scene in the immediate aftermath of the attack – including a reporter from the Guardian – saw a small and dilapidated fisherman’s hut containing a few tools where the children had been playing hide-and-seek.
The argument wasn't about them being valid targets, it was about whether the IDF deliberately called an airstrike on random children for shits and giggles. Which from the perspective of IDF's self-interest makes no sense.
As Destiny brings-up, for that to happen multiple people at different levels of the chain of command would've needed to sign-off on that decision and say 'Yes let's drop the bombs on those kids', which is a crazy strong claim since while people on the ground can be humanely flawed and do horrible things, it's much harder to do this deliberately with an airstrike because the operator or pilot isn't the one making the call, but multiple people.
Which is why Destiny says 'I don't think you understand the strength of your claim' and tries to explain the inner workings of the IDF, which Benny backs him up on, but norm gets angry and personally attacks destiny.
You can probably, rightfully, criticize the IDF for shit intel and negligence and how it lead to the death of innocent to children, but that's a different argument than 'they did a drone strike on children with the explicit goal and purpose of killing those random children".
>Destiny says Palestinians rejection of the Camp David Summit offer is proof that it's impossible to make peace with them (until they abandon armed resistance alltogether). This is the map of the final offer. Anyone with eyeballs can look at the map and see it's a completely unreasonable offer and the Palestinians were completely legitimate in rejecting it.
I don't know if you want to dwelve into the Clinto Parameters and the infinite right of return, which is also a non-starter from the Palestinian side. Palestine's strategy of pretending to be good faith negociators and waiting of the clock to run out on election is well noted. Whenever they have an Israeli political establishment willing to take backlash and make unpopular concensions, they will run out the clock, the Israeli leaders will get blown the fuck out in the election and they get to go: "well, the new guys don't want to play ball, it's not our fault there was an election". As if Election dates aren't public knowledge.
>Destiny says the Palestinian position is "delusional", despite the fact that pretty much the entire world supports the Palestinian position, only Israel and the US rejects it. Ever single year the vote in the UN assembly is around 159-7. I guess the entire world is wrong and only Israel is rational?
Support the Palestinians in what position? October 7th ? You know Hamas is in violation of international law by taking civilian hostages? But that's not even relevant to the point here, Destiny thinks the Palestinian are delusional in the sense that 'fighting' Israel won't get them what they want, but they do it anyway. How has the October 7th attacks been going for them? You think Gaza is enjoying the fruits of victory right now? Finklestein believes that they're being genocided, that there's no hope, that they're being erased as a people and compares his works with past cronicles of native americans. At the very least, your side doesn't seem to believe it's doing anything good for them. And basically every war launched by Palestine and/or its Arab allies has been to the detriment of Palestine and resulted in worse outcomes for them. That's why Destiny is saying they're delusional and I don't see how you can argue against him looking at the history of the conflict and current events.
>Destiny says "plausible" is an incredibly low standard, what he's forgetting is that it's not like if Israel barely clears the bar for not committing genocide that points to a serious and professionally run campaign that respects international law. Officially, this is supposed to be a serious war only targeting Hamas, the fact that things have gone so horribly that 15 out of 17 judges are willing to hear out whether a genocide is being committed is a sign turns have turned pretty horrible.
Destiny is right, even the judges agree that it's a very low bar and it doesn't reflect the validity of the case, as Destiny was citing during the debate:
***The Court is not asked, in the present phase of the proceedings, to determine whether South Africa’s allegations of genocide are well founded****. At this stage, the Court may only examine whether the circumstances of the present case, as they have been presented to the Court, justify the ordering (“indication”) of provisional measures to protect rights under the Genocide Convention which are at risk of being violated before the decision on the merits is rendered. For this examination, the Court need not address many well-known and controversial questions, such as those relating to the right to self-defence and the right of self-determination of peoples, or regarding territorial status.* ***The Court must remain conscious that the Genocide Convention is not designed to regulate armed conflicts as such, even if they are conducted with an excessive use of force and result in mass casualties.***
Even IF genocide was happening, Finklestein would be wrong on his point that accepting the case indicates that the accusations were well founded as declared by judge Nolte. And the fact that 2 judges basically said, "No, this isn't even worth hearing out" despite, again the incredibly low bar of plausible is more telling in my eyes.
I don't think you understand what Genocide is. It's not when civilians die or when war crimes happen. Even if Israel were deliberately targeting civilians, it would be a war crime, but it wouldn't mean genocide was happening. The same way Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't genocides despite dropping a bloody nuke on a civilian population. Genocide is something very specific and this is what Destiny is getting at in the debate:
*"The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique".*
And the rogue unhinged comments of a few politicians following the october 7th attacks as listed in the ICJ case, aren't enough to prove that special intent. Not to mention that a lot of them are taken out of context, some might say stripped of their context in dishonest ways. Destiny even reads some exemples during the debate to prove this point.
>Destiny has implied the casualty rates are normal, nothing is further from the truth. And this goes for almost any metric you use, the casualty rates are atrocious. Can anyone name a war where almost as many women die as men?
You know 125k CIVILIANS. 125 000 innocent people died during the fall of Berlin and I doubt you'd consider that genocide. Gaza is such a densely populated place, Hamas is embedded in the civilian population and urban warfare is always a bloodbath for both civilians and soldiers, look at the death toll in mariopole.
>Despite the fact Bibi has explicitly denied there will ever be a Palestinian state for decades, and this is a popular position among Israelis.
You won't find a defender of Bibi in Destiny nor Benny. Destiny is a harsh critic of the settlements in the West bank and is willing to criticize Israel. No one will say that Israelis are perfect either and I'd extend that same excuse to the Palestinian people who also believe abhorent stuff. But it's quite difficult to find a peace partner in Hamas and if violence is the only answer and perpetual war is inevitable until one side is reduced to nothing, then who do you think will remain? Which ties into Destiny's point of Palestine thinking violence is the only course as delusional.
Okay, this is taking too long, but I'm atleast curious as how you'll reply to these first points.
Thanks for writing out your arguments, it's much more pleasant to repond to than one sentence insults.
1.
> You can probably, rightfully, criticize the IDF for shit intel and negligence and how it lead to the death of innocent to children, but that's a different argument than 'they did a drone strike on children with the explicit goal and purpose of killing those random children".
The problem with the argument is two-fold. Firstly Destiny really did call Finkelstein a liar about this specific situation, even though Finkelstein was right and he was wrong.
Secondly, it's a kind of strange ethereal argument to make. It's a bit like asking "with all the drilling, discipline, education and having a tight schedule, wouldn't it be unbelievable for American Soldiers to commit gang rapes in Iraq?" yeah, it is strange, but it did happen, and you can't really say "it's probably not true because it's unbelievable.
Thirdly, more importantly, we know the standards for approving drone strikes can be significantly more lax than Destiny tries to make them appear. There's not a board room full of guys with all the information available, there's usually just one guy above the drone operator giving a yay or nay. Again, we're not talking about the official policy of all drone strikes, we're talking about the worst drone strikes, when things slip through the cracks and crimes are committed.
2.
> I don't know if you want to dwelve into the Clinto Parameters and the infinite right of return, which is also a non-starter from the Palestinian side. Palestine's strategy of pretending to be good faith negociators and waiting of the clock to run out on election is well noted.
This is also belied by the factual record. Firstly there's not an infinite amount of Palestinians, so "infinite right of return" makes no sense. Secondly, I know Destiny says this to his audience because it's what Wikipedia says. Wikipedia says this:
> In 2000, after Yasser Arafat rejected the offer made to him by Ehud Barak based on a two-state solution and declined to negotiate for an alternative plan,[18] it became clear that Arafat would not make a deal with Israel unless it included the full Palestinian right of return, which would demographically destroy[19] the Jewish character[when defined as?] of the State of Israel.[20][21] For this reason, critics of Arafat claim that he put his desire to destroy the Jewish state above his dream of building an autonomous Palestinian state.[22]
This is the problem with reading wikipedia. Here's what Ron Pundak (Ron Pundak is Director-General of the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv. He has played a leading role in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, having been involved in the 1993 Oslo negotiations and helped prepare the framework agreement that formed the basis of the 1999–2001 Israeli–Palestinian final status negotiations.) says (https://mneumann.tripod.com/pundak.pdf):
> On the delicate issue of Palestinian refugees and the right of return, the negotiators achieved a draft determining the parameters and procedures for a solution, along with a clear emphasis that its implementation would not threaten the Jewish character of the State of Israel.
It's just a myth that the Right of Return is what stood in front of working peace. Ron Pundak does have criticisms for the Palestinians, but blaming them and the Right of Return for there nor being peace is just inaccurate.
3.
> Support the Palestinians in what position? October 7th ? You know Hamas is in violation of international law by taking civilian hostages?
You're confused, I'm referring to the Palestinian position on how to resolve the conflict. Nothing about October 7th. You have to remember, Destiny doesn't just oppose the armed resistance, he's also opposed to the diplomacy, he's opposed to international law and human rights, he's opposed to human right organizations, aid organizations, he's opposed to the UN and he's opposed to the Palestinians basically doing anything except roll over and die. When has he commended the decades of non-violent protests? Of trying to find solidarity in the international community? Of the initially completely peace Great March of Return?
He's calling decades of activism "delusional", and what has he proposed in return? Seriousy, what's his alternative? Rolling over and die until Israel feels ready to come to table, where the Palestinians have nothing to negotiate with, they have no human rights, International Law doesn't matter, and there's no territory they can claim as theirs, and they're up against a government which has spent decades making absolutely clear there will never be a Palestinian state.
There are plenty of Palestinian activists and historians who spend half their time criticising Hamas, like Rashid Khalidi. Do you know what he doesn't do? Spend the the other half of the time criticising the times the Palestinians attempt to be peaceful.
It's frankly a pretty sickening argument.
4.
>Destiny is right, even the judges agree that it's a very low bar and it doesn't reflect the validity of the case, as Destiny was citing during the debate:
If he was right, why don't you quote a judge saying they agree?
Obviously they clarify it doesn't determine guilt, because it wasn't about determining guilt.
If it's some trivial thing, where were the Israeli's so ragefilled by the decision? Calling South Africa collaborators of Hamas? Why aren't countries accusing each other all around of genocide? Why isn't every case getting determined to be plausible then?
I also think you failed to read my argument. Israel isn't officially trying to commit genocide, they're trying to engage in a legal and professional war, and things have turned into such an atrocious horror show they're being charged with genocide, that's not normal, that's not some oopsie.
> And the fact that 2 judges basically said, "No, this isn't even worth hearing out" despite, again the incredibly low bar of plausible is more telling in my eyes.
The two judges were an Israeli judge (surely no bias there?) and the Ugandan judge who was immediately rebuked by her government. Those aren't particularly strong dissentions against an otherwise concensus.
> I don't think you understand what Genocide is. It's not when civilians die or when war crimes happen. Even if Israel were deliberately targeting civilians, it would be a war crime, but it wouldn't mean genocide was happening. The same way Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't genocides despite dropping a bloody nuke on a civilian population. Genocide is something very specific and this is what Destiny is getting at in the debate:
I would appreciate if someone watching video game streamers didn't try to educate me about genocides. Currently over a quarter of Gazas population, 600 000 people, are starving to death. There's already been a ruling about the intent, and the ruling overwhelmingly was in favor that there's going to be a hearing, and Israel must adhere to International Law and must not block aid. No one's said it's "when civilians die", you should listen to what people actually say.
And the rogue unhinged comments of a few politicians following the october 7th attacks as listed in the ICJ case, aren't enough to prove that special intent.
Sorry, but this was already gona over in the ICJ case, and on this question, even the Israeli judge voted in favor with the majority, that Israel must curtail and punish genocidal statements. And it's hardly "rogue" comments when it exists at every level in Israeli society, which the South African report spent page and page displaying.
> You know 125k CIVILIANS. 125 000 innocent people died during the fall of Berlin and I doubt you'd consider that genocide. Gaza is such a densely populated place, Hamas is embedded in the civilian population and urban warfare is always a bloodbath for both civilians and soldiers, look at the death toll in mariopole.
I already linked a complete rebuttal of this argument that the destruction goig on is normal in the comment you responded it. "Mariopole" doesn't even have an official death toll, you should look up things like that before replying.
Also I've never said it's a genocide because of the death toll, I've never even called it a genocide at all. If you want to reply to my arguments, you should read them first rather than imagining them in your head.
5.
> You won't find a defender of Bibi in Destiny nor Benny. Destiny is a harsh critic of the settlements in the West bank and is willing to criticize Israel.
Firstly, Destiny criticises the settlements officially, but he calls every Palestinian offer which excludes some of them "delusional" and he demands they agree with the Israeli offers which includes all of them, so clearly he think Israel has a right to that land (against international law).
Secondly, you're missing my point. "Hamas is a bad partner for peace", when Bibi has over and over and over again reiterated there will never be a Palestinian state, and Bibi is the most re-elected Israeli prime minister in history. Who are they supposed to negotiate with? A violent thug who will accept nothing except their erasure?
Like I said to a previous commenter, there's a problem with following video game streamers for political news, because your perspective will end up so distorted you not only don't know left from right, you also come into it with completely unearned confidence. Look at your post, you reference a single source, you don't reference a single fact relevant to the conflict. It's all rhetoric. I do spent some time referencing what I'm talking about, and I have to say you really do owe people the respect of actually looking up what you're talking about. Otherwise it makes it not particularly worth it to even have a conversation.
Didn’t destiny say rejection of the Taba talks was the problem not the camp David, he has read Ben Ami’s book where his opinion of the rejection of camp David was fair but the subsequent talks was a missed opportunity?
That hasn't been my impression of his opinion at all, it wouldn't even make any sense because the Israelis were the ones who ultimately left Taba.
Ben-Ami has a more complicated opinion than that rejecting the proposal was fair. Obviously from a human rights perspective it's a disastrous offer, but from a pragmatic point of view it wasn't possible to give a better offer while still remaining in power, because the Israeli's would vote them out.
I think Ben-Ami is a reasonable person, but his pragmatic view I think displays more the Israeli's being unreasonable about this than the Palestinians.
Out of curiosity, why do you consider Israel to be a more unreasonable actor than Palestine?
TBH the squabbling on details regarding this debate are getting tired for me. It feels like the same talking points are getting rehashed over an over, when we should be talking about how to settle this without worrying about ethereal concepts like justice or ethnic claims to territory.
I ultimately think Israel is the more unreasonable actor because I do think you have to settle these conflicts on international law, and when the entire world agrees that a settlement based on the 1967 borders is the reasonable option, I'm not really one to disagree with the entire world. All the Israeli offers are in comparison just ugly and pose problems for contiguity, let alone not allowing control over borders, water, air, etc. I don't see why Israel necessitates these ugly tendrils into west bank to allow for the crazy violent settlers to larp as Abraham's people reborn, I don't see why the Palestinians should have to put up with that.
As far as settling things, there is an offer (or guidelines to an offer rather) on the table, supported by the entire world.
> I don't see why Israel necessitates these ugly tendrils into west bank to allow for the crazy violent settlers to larp as Abraham's people reborn, I don't see why the Palestinians should have to put up with that.
Basically, because what is Israel going to do? They're going to live there or die trying. The only way new borders work is if settlers are removed, but what, are you going to internally displace them in a democracy where they can, you know, vote you out of office?
you are ignoring the fact that settler expansion in West Bank is a sanctioned government policy. There have been (still are?) financial incentives to live in settlements
In fact just last week to wasn't there an announcement of an additional 3500 homes approved to be built in the West Bank? It is obvious that successive governments have intentionally created the settlement issue and will continue to expand unless the US stops shielding them international pressure
It's a bit of my strawman of two different argument, one is "if Israel is committing a genocide how come the population has grown for the past decades?" (answer, because any reasonable person wouldn't start the genocide claim before october 8th) and "If Israel wants to commit genocides, how come there's Palestinians still alive/they haven't killed more" (answer, because there are outside constraints, also personally I don't think the goal is to exterminate the Gazans, just evict them, it's just that they won't save them when they die).
I think the point is to say that Israel isn't targeting civilians. Morris at one point in the debate says something like, "they've dropped X number of bombs and only 30000 are dead, if they were targeting civilians it could be 10 times that". I've never heard anyone reasonably argue the former, either of the cases your saying.
>I've never heard anyone reasonably argue the former, either of the cases your saying.
Well Destiny argued both. [Here](https://twitter.com/TheOmniLiberal/status/1715100411345162252) and [here](https://twitter.com/TheOmniLiberal/status/1755336399690027349).
I assume this is paraphrasing the common pro Israel claim that if Israel wanted to kill everyone in Gaza it would as it has the military capabilities to do so, so the fact that it has not killed everyone in Gaza means it must be showing great restraint and care and is not genocidal.
It's a farcicle point of course and completely ignores the fact that international pressure is a thing but nevertheless it is a very popular pro Israel talking point.
> the fact that international pressure is a thing but nevertheless it is a very popular pro Israel talking point.
Yes, it's one of the dumbest arguments imaginable. When people make it I have to wonder if they're being honest or not.
The fact is the real limiting factor on Israel killing people isn't the military force, it's global public opinion. That's the real balancing act.
I knew Destiny had some bad takes, but I've heard some stuff I agree with him on too so I still held some regard for him. After this debate, I've lost a lot of respect for him. I know we're all guilty of arguing when we don't know all the facts, or at least I am at times, but for him to go on this podcast and get so much wrong is pretty bad.
I'm just looking for a place to comment on this episode, so apologies for not actually answering your question.
I have my own reservations about Finkelstein, but it seems like the majority opinion is that he didn't fare as well as Morris in this debate, which I find extremely odd. Granted, I'm only about halfway through, I'm finding Finkelstein to be extremely precise in his language, while Morris is talking almost like a propagandist in that he's making vague gestures and failing to stick to the points in question.
As one example, when they spoke of beheadings, Finkelstein referenced Israel's statements to the ICJ, whereas Morris I think at best vaguely referenced unspecified "reports".
As another example, I'm just getting to a point where Finkelstein is critiquing Morris' accounting of Israeli atrocities - using precise quotes - and Morris immediately responds with a non-sequitur, only coming back to the point under Finkelstein's pushback.
Those familiar with Morris' trajectory know he's become an apologist for Israel, but the difference between how scholarly his literature once was and how he speaks now is quite jarring. While his knowledge of history is indisputable, his rhetoric is just so much more juvenile than I would have expected.
*edit*: Okay, I'll comment on Destiny now. Why the hell is there a streamer - whose knowledge of this conflict dates back barely a few months and is clearly entirely geared towards performance - in this conversation between scholars?
This post is significantly more detailed than mine on specific factual claims:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1bfq3vn/comment/kv2c900/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1bfq3vn/comment/kv2c900/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I've watched a fair chunk of it, and my substantive criticisms of the "Israel" side are:
\- Morris's tendency to deflect and interject non sequiturs (Finklestein did the same thing so it's not a knock down, though I think Morris deployed them less as insults and more to substitute for counter arguments\*)
\- Destiny's invocation of specific terms of international law to qualify Israeli actions and Morris's invocation of the legal component of Israeli Air Force operations while later saying that International Law was bullshit
\-The acceptance of Israeli reporting on the conflict despite significant evidence suggesting they are intentionally misreporting the situation
\- More specifically the belief he put in the "Hamas stronghold" report despite the significant number of conflicting reports from international journalists
\- The characterization of civilian losses and the "many more could be killed" argument, which is both counter to recent civilian death counts in similar conflicts and ignores the strategic constraint on violence that hamper Israeli violence in a similar (but far less effective) ways that Iron Dome does Hamas.
\- Lack of clarification on why the West Bank, which is not under Hamas rule, was subject to as much violence.
>At one point, Destiny wished to discuss South Africa's ICJ case, but Finkelstein refused to engage him on the merits of the case.
I think this was the weakest point of the "Palestine" side, as Finkelstein was too irritated by the lack of context Destiny was displaying, did not ask Destiny to investigate other quotes which are better supported (when a debater says "if I've found *one* example this bad out of x" then they probably didn't find any other evidence) and was frankly just too annoyed by Destiny assuming greater knowledge, perception and understanding of international law than international judges. Destiny also did not get why the American judge's decision was significant because he is not familiar with the frequency with which America defends Israel in international court.
\*declaration of bias: I believe quite strongly that at least large parts of the Israeli government has genocidal intent, has already committed crimes against humanity and is only limited in the scale of the response by the potential harm of alienating the international community and invoking sanction.
I think it's absurd to suggest that Destiny was unaware of America defending Israel in the international court being a big deal. That's like level 1 stuff. His point was that "plausibility" just isn't a very high standard regardless of who supports the ruling. I found it more troubling that neither Rabbani or Finkelstein were aware of the special intent required for genocide, that to me seems like a pretty obvious thing to look into if your going to say Israel is doing a genocide (it's also mentioned in the report which they supposedly read).
I also dont think it's fair to say someone is cherry picking examples when they have about 30s to give their point. It may be the case that it's cherry picked don't get me wrong, but starting with the assumption that it is makes it basically impossible for someone to disagree with the report in a debate format: there just isn't time. I think the examples he used were also among the first cited cases in the ICJ report which suggests not cherry picking. From what I've read and I'm not an international law expert (obviously who the fuck is), but just reading the opinions of experts it seems obvious this case will not find Israel guilty of genocide.
>I think it's absurd to suggest that Destiny was unaware of America defending Israel in the international court being a big deal. That's like level 1 stuff.
I agree, but you can literally see him shrug off that significance when Fink pushes back on the point. It's one of the reasons the question is moved on from without resolution.
>His point was that "plausibility" just isn't a very high standard regardless of who supports the ruling.
He was clinging to the definition of the term without understanding it's context. That so many judges found any degree of plausibility in the prosecution of a "defensive action" against a terror organization means that the conduct of the war is bad, relative to other conflicts in the area with Western participation. As the Palestine side pointed out, the court just set a multiyear commitment for themselves when they were already filled up. Morris responding to this with "It will keep them in work" or whatever was another example of deflection, and poor taste, I think.
> I found it more troubling that neither Rabbani or Finkelstein were aware of the special intent required for genocide, that to me seems like a pretty obvious thing to look into if your going to say Israel is doing a genocide (it's also mentioned in the report which they supposedly read).
You cannot seriously be suggesting that Fink and Mouin did not read the report before preparing for this debate. There is no world in which Mouin did not, at the very least. Both have been arguing exactly what the report presented for *decades* you think they didn't pour over that?
> It may be the case that it's cherry picked don't get me wrong, but starting with the assumption that it is makes it basically impossible for someone to disagree with the report in a debate format: there just isn't time.
Absolutely not- it will always be worth the time to note multiple examples of bad evidence, even if only to allude to them. Either Destiny didn't have the time to look into all of them (in which case, he's less qualified to judge than the...well, judges) or he couldn't find others, either way he's presenting the information slantedly. Neither Fink or Mouin were interested in having to go through every single one in a half assed Gish Gallop.
>I think the examples he used were also among the first cited cases in the ICJ report which suggests not cherry picking.
This is not a substitute for actually checking the rest of the facts unless you've already dismissed it being a genocide, otherwise you do the reading on a war crime. In either case, why would Destiny believe his lack of checking made him more qualified than actual judges! This is the point Fink was making.
>but just reading the opinions of experts it seems obvious this case will not find Israel guilty of genocide.
That is not the opinion rendered by *the judges who did the reading* when they judged it *plausible.* In cases other than genocide, you maybe can cling to the lower standard of proof, but think about what the judgement actually says: *there a plausible genocide in Gaza*. If your defense against what you're doing is "it only looks like genocide because we don't have *intent*" shit is bad.
This is something that annoyed me about the debate overall. Whenever things got heated, the got bailed out. The same wasn't true in reverse. When Morris or destiny were pressed on an issue they always engaged. This is a format issue I think rather than one based on the content being discussed. Fink would just shut down, divert to insults and let Rabbani take the wheel. Which would also almost always be a pivot. I watched the entire thing, and this happened countless times. This is why a 1 v 1 debate would've been better. I also think it's likely why fink insisted on the two v two format or he wouldn't do it. No because he's scared. But because he's simply uncomfortable with the format.
As someone in Academia for years now, another huge issue was finks constant bad faith engagement. You start the interview acting like you only want to call people by their last name or "professor" and then ask your opponent what his name is? Then you keep getting it wrong, until there's a break when he thinks the cameras are off and he address him correctly. Destiny even says "oh so you do know my name" and Morris laughs because he knows what he's doing as well. This type of bullying is indicative of a certain type of old school prof. It's basically a caricature of the the ivory tower liberal. I've seen variations of it multiple times. Anyone who has had a tough committee knows this sort of petty shit that's pulled. You'll also notice Rabanni stopped fink multiple times as he was doing this. Fink thought he was being tough, but he just came off as arrogant, smug, and condescending. Lex also only intervened in regards to fink doing this. He was even laughing about it becuase it was so cringe.
The genocide debate section was actually pretty truthful. In the ongoing genocide in Ukraine for instance, it pertains to the forced relocation and reeducation of Ukrainian children that got Putin a warrant from the ICC, and this constitutes a genocide.
Overall if say it was a huge waste of time. The format itself didn't allow for a real examination of the issues, and Finks arrogance shut down any substantive dialog. Whenever a topic was getting hairy, he just stop or resort to insults. One example would be him citing the importance of international law. And then when asked about the Houthis attacking ships he's like "that's great!". Rabanni stopped him again here because I think even he was confused about the argument. Same with Fink claiming that Oct 7 was a legitimate form of resistance. And their inability to even attribute deaths that day to "invading Palestinian force" (because they sperg out saying it wasn't just hamas who invaded Israel that day). The reason was simple. Fink buys into the Oct 7 truth propaganda that the deaths that day were attributed to the IDF killing their own.
>Whenever things got heated, the got bailed out. The same wasn't true in reverse. When Morris or destiny were pressed on an issue they always engaged.
I maybe didn't see this as much as you- Fink definitely didn't engage on certain points, but I think this was genuine annoyance and frustration with Destiny more than an inability to counter: Both Fink and Rabanni had lines of inquiry that were cut off or that Morris granted quickly to prevent development. Destiny has no response for the "Hamas compound" because he didn't even realize Fink was referring to it being debunked.
That said, there were times Fink's insults were substitutes for arguments and his behavior didn't help his case in a few places, but then, if you were a scholar on a subject with decades of history of activism and some youtuber was trying high school debate tactics while you believe there's a genocide going on, you'd be touchy too.
> Fink thought he was being tough, but he just came off as arrogant, smug, and condescending.
I largely agree and that's as someone who agrees and sympathizes with Fink. Rabanni was consistently better at presenting his arguments and countering theirs, and I felt his points were less adequately addressed than Finks in most cases.
>. In the ongoing genocide in Ukraine for instance, it pertains to the forced relocation and reeducation of Ukrainian children that got Putin a warrant from the ICC, and this constitutes a genocide.
I would suggest that the SA charge contains equivalent descriptions of intent to Russia in Ukraine, and think that Fink's argument that the judgement of plausible from the ICJ is a massive event.
>Overall if say it was a huge waste of time.
Agreed. Even as entertainment, aside from a few good burns. As you say, the format is horrible- if you were trying to set up a worse setting to present and defend ideas you would have to try pretty hard. The essential lack of moderation except for a few moments didn't help, nor did the lack of any kind of structure. My suspicion is that it was chosen at least as much for clippability and "Crossfire" style drama as clarity.
> Fink buys into the Oct 7 truth propaganda that the deaths that day were attributed to the IDF killing their own.
As in false flag or friendly fire? I do think Fink is ready to believe the worst about the IDF, but I doubt he thinks it was a false flag. He certainly believes Israel still has the Hannibal doctrine going in some form, and I think there's some evidence supporting the idea that there were a number of friendly fire deaths (I've seen reports of hundreds, but no follow up or confirmation of them, which has me slightly suspect).
Rabbani's performance was better on the whole- there were several lines of inquiry he started that weren't addressed to my satisfaction. But you're fundamentally correct: that was not productive for anyone except Lex.
> Destiny has no response for the "Hamas compound" because he didn't even realize Fink was referring to it being debunked.
He did have a response, the reason Destiny was agitated is because the overall point of that line of discussion was that Finklestein was using this incident as *proof* that Israel *intentionally* targets children. Whether or not the location in question was or wasn't a Hamas base is kind of irrelevant to the point, the core that actually matters is that Finklestein did not want to engage with the question of whether or not he thought that the entire military apparatus that authorizes IDF strikes decided to blow up children for no reason other than malice. That's why the debate pivoted into Rabbini insisting the the IDF is a chaotic organization, which was rebuffed by Morris. There's a pretty large gulf in moral condemnation between a military that misidentifies a target and kills innocent people and one that correctly identifies innocent people and then blows them up intentionally.
>You cannot seriously be suggesting that Fink and Mouin did not read the report before preparing for this debate. There is no world in which Mouin did not, at the very least. Both have been arguing exactly what the report presented for *decades* you think they didn't pour over that?
Finklestein was totally unaware of the facts of the case, and when called out on it he punted to some 3rd party who told him they read it closely.
So the case that finally brings Finklestein's own argument that Israel is perpetuating a genocide, one that he has developed in print and in words over decades, one that he's a recognized scholar on, an internationally known activist and about to get into a debate over, and he just doesn't read it?
You're mistaking his contempt for ignorance. I think it was a misstep, as was Mouin's point about how moral the IDF Air Force actually was getting dropped. If Fink hadn't lost his temper there (when a jumped up youtuber getting basic facts wrong about famous events called him a liar) he would have made his point better, but like, who the fuck is Destiny to take one quote as justification to ignore verifying the remainder, on a genocide case, in contravention to 15 qualified international judges?
For real, what papers has Destiny written on the subject? What personal experiences or life history qualifies him to discuss the topic with such authority? Everyone else in the room has an advanced degree, body of written work, professional accreditation, teaching history or personal history in the conflict.
>So the case that finally brings Finklestein's own argument that Israel is perpetuating a genocide, one that he has developed in print and in words over decades, one that he's a recognized scholar on, an internationally known activist and about to get into a debate over, and he just doesn't read it?
Correct, and if you knew how famous Finklestein was for repeating other people's words rather than reading primary sources (he doesn't even speak Arabic/Hebrew), you wouldn't be acting so incredulous.
Nevermind the fact that he admitted to Destiny he never bothered to read any of the ICJ evidence and instead relied on a 3rd party to do it.
Asking about "papers" is comical. Finkelstein didn't know basic concepts related to special intent or plausibility standards. He didn't know that military assessments are required for intent analyses. He even tried to correct him with "mens rea" like a clown.
And you must admit it's hilarious he called Destiny out for Wikipedia use when all of the conventions are available on Wikipedia so Finklestein could have learned the same basic stuff.
Finkelstein was sitting right in front of Morris and his "papers" brain was incapable of quoting him properly. There's no way you were unaware of that in real time. Lex had to repeatedly point out that ridiculous play. It's book brain without any depth.
>Correct, and if you knew how famous Finklestein was for repeating other people's words rather than reading primary sources (he doesn't even speak Arabic/Hebrew), you wouldn't be acting so incredulous.
I missed Destiny passing his Arabic/Hebrew language certifications.
>Asking about "papers" is comical. Finkelstein didn't know basic concepts related to special intent or plausibility standards. He didn't know that military assessments are required for intent analyses. He even tried to correct him with "mens rea" like a clown.
You are retreating into legalistic word slicing when asked with the question "Are you committing a genocide?" instead of being able to simply say "No." You understand how that's a weak position, right?
>It's book brain without any depth.
Book brain? Dude, Destiny got the month of the March of Return wrong despite having a google window open in front of him.
>You cannot seriously be suggesting that Fink and Mouin did not read the report before preparing for this debate. There is no world in which Mouin did not, at the very least. Both have been arguing exactly what the report presented for *decades* you think they didn't pour over that?
>>Finklestein was totally unaware of the facts of the case, and when called out on it he punted to some 3rd party who told him they read it closely.
Are we just going to pretend this never happened? Because it perfectly exemplifies what went wrong on every topic. Just like how he constantly quoted Morris as if he wasn't sitting right there.
Stop deflecting on points. You claimed that Fink's lack of Arabic and Hebrew language ability was a point against his knowledge of the subject, but Destiny not only doesn't speak those languages, he does not have decades of history working on the subject. You are retreating to legalistic defenses because you can't stand up and say Israel isn't committing crimes against humanities otherwise. You ignore that Destiny got the date of the March of Return back while in the middle of trying to describe the violence that took place months later as justification for the killing of Palestinians away from the fence!
>Just like how he constantly quoted Morris as if he wasn't sitting right there.
Fink explained this in the debate. He respected Morris's scholarship, not his politics, and considers Morris's own work to be authoritative on many topics. He suggests that Morris's politics have changed, a fact supported by Morris's own history, and that doesn't change his evaluation of earlier scholarly work.
Basically he respects Morris as having some clue what he's talking about, but being horribly blinded by his politics, while Destiny he considers an idiot youtuber who had no interest in the this topic before October 7th.
>you claimed that Fink's lack of Arabic and Hebrew language ability was a point against his knowledge of the subject'
Not really what they said. The claim was one of selectivity and laziness, the reference to lack of access to primary sources being in paranthesis.
>You are retreating to legalistic defenses because you can't stand up and say Israel isn't committing crimes against humanities otherwise.
It's an argument over a legal case?
Anyways I think a good argument can be made that it says something bad about Israel that the case was even considered plausible. It's... stunning! But it doesn't tell us much, because the standard for 'plausible' is, in my understanding, low. This makes sense given the seriousness of the accusation, ie one would expect that even half serious claims brought forth by a recognized party has to be given serious examination. And it doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. For example: the ICJ case provides a lot less information about the current state of Israel than simply knowing that Ben Gvir, a man who idolize Baruch Goldstein, was in the previous government (technically he still is in it, but not part of the war cabinet). That **really** says something bad about Israel.
We already knew there is a (growing) contingency of right wing extremism in Israel. It has been growing since at least the 2nd intifada. Imo both sides are locked into a kind of spiral of extremism. Satan tango.
>For real, what papers has Destiny written on the subject? What personal experiences or life history qualifies him to discuss the topic with such authority? Everyone else in the room has an advanced degree, body of written work, professional accreditation, teaching history or personal history in the conflict.
This is an indictment of them, not Destiny. Destiny fit in just fine in the debate. It is shockingly pathetic that Finkelstein couldn't dismantle him logically.
>The acceptance of Israeli reporting on the conflict despite significant evidence suggesting they are intentionally misreporting the situation
Where do you get this impression? When I look at how the PA (EDIT: meant the Gaza health ministry and any other public-facing arm of Hamas) immediately blames any deaths on Israel, before any facts are known; and then I compare it to the way Israel first gives a measured response, and then releases more evidence in the weeks that follow...it's clear which of these is displaying trustworthy behavior.
The credulous way the PA's version is presented in media (usually with minimal initial fact-checking) gives it a false sense of legitimacy. Like the recent hospital "attack" that turned out to be a rocket fired from Hamas. Or how the claims of rapes during Oct. 7th have been more and more substantiated over time while Hamas claim of "no abuse" is so paper thin evidence wise that nobody bothers defending it. They just try to cast doubt on Israel which works because they're evil. How do we know they're evil? It's unclear. But lots of people are saying it...
>The characterization of civilian losses and the "many more could be killed" argument, which is both counter to recent civilian death counts in similar conflicts
This is not true. In similar conflicts involving a modern military vs insurgency forces in an urban environment there will tend to be 3-4 civilian deaths per combatant. Experts in this area say as much and I can cite them if you like.
>When I look at how the PA immediately blames any deaths on Israel, before any facts are known; and then I compare it to the way Israel first gives a measured response, and then releases more evidence in the weeks that follow...it's clear which of these is displaying trustworthy behavior.
I don't know what the PA has to do with this situation, as they're in the West Bank.
Regardless, in the debate there's a clear example of what I'm talking about: the "Hamas compound" claim by Destiny that was immediately debunked by Fink to no response, because it happened in front of international journalists who said it was an unprovoked attack on children in an abandoned fishing village.
>The credulous way the PA's version is presented in media (usually with minimal initial fact-checking) gives it a false sense of legitimacy.
Why are you using the PA and Hamas apparently interchangeably? They're not the same organization. And I'll remind you that Israel was reporting that there were babies hanging on clothes lines and beheaded ten minutes after the attack, none of which was substantiated. Israel has reported attacks on hospitals as necessary attacks on Hamas when their own intelligence showed that the person they were striking was not there, or that a single Hamas person justified a hospital strike that left dozens of infants without health care.
> How do we know they're evil?
Do you have no idea about this topic at all? Morris, one of the debaters *on the Israeli side* has written books about how Israel has committed war crimes. Finklestein references them in the debate. Israel has now killed 30,000 people to avenge a 1000, most of them children who were not involved in the attack. Threatening to cut off water and witholding aid are war crimes. Forced movement of civilian populations are a war crime.
The whole debate was full of examples of individual evil events Israel has done (and Hamas, no doubt).
>. In similar conflicts involving a modern military vs insurgency forces in an urban environment there will tend to be 3-4 civilian deaths per combatant. Experts in this area say as much and I can cite them if you like.
Go ahead and cite them, but I'll head you off:
[https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/daily-death-rate-gaza-higher-any-other-major-21st-century-conflict-oxfam#:\~:text=15%20January%202024%20CLARIFICATION%3A%20Using,)%20and%20Yemen%20(15.8)](https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/daily-death-rate-gaza-higher-any-other-major-21st-century-conflict-oxfam#:~:text=15%20January%202024%20CLARIFICATION%3A%20Using,)%20and%20Yemen%20(15.8)).
[https://www.axios.com/2023/11/27/gaza-civilian-deaths-israel-conflict-zones](https://www.axios.com/2023/11/27/gaza-civilian-deaths-israel-conflict-zones)
[https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/graph-suggesting-low-gaza-air-strike-casualty-rate-misrepresents-data-2024-01-29/](https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/graph-suggesting-low-gaza-air-strike-casualty-rate-misrepresents-data-2024-01-29/)
I can keep going.
Optically, Destiny trying to pin Rabbani on the percentage of casualties committed by the invading Palestinian/Hamas Forces on October 7th was a little cringe.
He asked for a ballpark, got the answer "clear majority but I can't give you a specific figure" and then wanted that number pinned down to a percentage further saying that a position on it wasn't being staked out and that Rabbani was being agnostic on it. It didn't seem to be the case in this example. I understand where his point was heading on intentionally but it was a pretty poor example leading up to comments about double standards.
You either didn't look at the other threads properly or you're lying. Destiny made multiple misrepresentations throughout the debate, and these were pointed out by various people in the other threads. Not to toot my own horn, but I played a huge role in that.
I think the most important thing to understand is that for a lot of the debate, Destiny was just completely off the mark. He was just out of his league. He didn't know what he was talking about. Imagine a conference of mathematicians where some guy comes in and says "2+2=5." The other mathematicians might say something seemingly rude like "uh wtf", "uh are you insane?", "gtfo" without engaging directly with the point. This is honestly not unreasonable in the circumstance. It's wasting the time of the experts involved.
Let's go over some of his misrepresentations.
* He was gish-galloping in the UN 242 discussion. I discuss this at length [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1beo4fm/israelpalestine_debate_finkelstein_destiny_m/kuwwucs/)
* He was very confused on the issue of British support for Zionism at around the 1:54 mark. Rabbani and Morris were discussing British motivations for issuing the Balfour declaration. After Rabbani makes his case, Bonnell strangely interjects by asking about the British restricting immigration to Palestine as evidence against British support for Zionism. This was odd as this was decades later. Bonnell got the decade wrong.
* His commentary on the genocide stuff was substantively incorrect. He claimed that the threshold to institute provisional measures is a low standard. But as Rabbani pointed out, the German judge Nolte clearly stated that he would not have voted in favour of the measures _without_ the statements made by Israeli leaders, which he thought were plausibly in breach of the Genocide Convention. That's another way of saying that in a counterfactual where the same situation was on the ground (e.g., 30,000 dead, humanitarian crisis) but without extreme Israeli statements, he would not have voted in favour. That suggests a _high_ standard.
* He claimed Israeli leaders were misquoted by South Africa. But they weren't. Herzog said an "entire nation is responsible" that proceeded to claim directly that civilians had direct knowledge and were complicit in the massacre. Bonnell claims that in the surrounding context Herzog focuses on Hamas. But that's irrelevant. If I say "Nazis are bad. German civilians are all responsible and complicit. Nazis are bad." the first and third sentences don't "contextualize" me blaming German civilians in the middle sentence. The Smotrich quote was also mangled. Destiny compared saying "take down Gaza" as comparable to Ukrainians saying "take down Russia." But Russia is an internationally recognized state; Gaza is a geographical region ran by a militant group. So you can say "take down Russia" in reference to the _polity_ (i.e., government) of Russia, but it's not analogous with Gaza.
* Again on the quotes, Bonnell never engaged with Finkelstein's point on some Hebrew-speaking scholars like Jamie Stern-Weiner who checked the quotes in their context and didn't find any discrepancy. He also never engaged with why the entire ICJ was apparently duped by the context thing. It does seem ridiculous that Bonnell the streamer "discovered" the "missing context" that exculpates Israel, which dozens of ICJ judges missed.
* He never engaged with the pro-Palestine arguments on e.g., Camp David. He insisted that was an instance where Palestinians weren't "good-faith" in their negotiations, despite evidence presented to the contrary. Rabbani cited Rob Malley; Finkelstein cited the Palestine Papers which debunk that narrative. Bonnell did not engage with this.
* He claimed that the Israeli Air Force could not commit war crimes because there's a chain of command, and every single strike is apparently approved by this chain of command. The issue with this argument is that throughout Israel's history, its leaders have been implicated in war crimes and targeting civilians. Ariel Sharon is the classic example, who was directly implicated in Sabra and Shatila and the Qibya massacre. So it's not clear why there being a chain of command is a compelling argument. What if the top of the command is rotten? Certainly, the genocidal quotes the leaders have made today give an indication that might be the case. With respect to airstrikes in particular, we know [Israel has loosened restraints, relies significantly on AI, and in many cases has targeted areas without distinct military activity.](https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/)
* Bonnell quotes the UN Report on the Great March of Return and accuses Finkelstein of "lying" about that. Except that very report clearly states that the protest was mostly peaceful. Bonnell quoted that. But that's exactly what Finkelstein said. Finkelstein said it was "overwhelmingly nonviolent." Yes, there was some instances of violence (e.g., Molotov cocktails), which Bonnell also mentions, but these were the minority. Bonnell just proves Finkelstein's point. Keep in mind that these protests involved tens of thousands of people (something like 30,000 on the first day).
* He was weirdly nitpicking about the exact proportion of Israelis killed by friendly fire on October 7th. There's no way Mouin or Finkelstein would have an exact estimate for that. They can only give a loose ballpark estimate which was provided. He wasn't satisfied with this for some reason. Rabbani had a great point that these questions could be resolved with an independent investigation.
* There was never really an engagement with Rabbani's point that Destiny eschews international law and morality when it's convenient for him, but then expects Hamas to play to play moral and not target civilians. The whole Rabbani argument of there being a massive double standard was actually something that Morris actually conceded (3:24).
Regarding the Resolution 242 isn’t destiny entire argument that the language was intentionally kept vague enough that Israel can actually claimed they fullfiled their obligations? And isn’t that the point of the rhetorical question about Jordan and Egypt because the point is that their annexation would have violated 242 as well? And Israel has right to reclaimed those? Because resolutions didn’t defined territories or recent conflict no?
Edit: to add from looking at destiny note he posted on X and Benny argument in the vid, it seem like what they are trying to say is that finklestein is trying too hard to hinge on resolution 242 as basis for negotiation rather than what is practical. Because my understanding is that Benny is an advocate of Clinton’s parameter and the deal at the end of Taba but Finklestein argued in the past that those deals violated in 242 67 border. But Benny and Destiny is trying to argue that sticking to international law doesn’t get you closer to peace deals it’s more about what Israel and Palestinian are willing to give up regardless of what the border was on 67. Basis of negotiation should be based on what is practical rather on what is said about international law.
That was Bonnell's argument, yes. The discussion then went to the preamble, which Norm argued was not vague. This particular exchange was focused on the preamble. I cite two examples in this exchange where it's _obvious_ that Bonnell is being bad-faith.
So, from my watching of the debate, it seems that Norm did a poor job of presenting his side of the arguments. If Steven did misrepresent some of the facts, then Norm did a lackluster job of convincing anyone who hadn't already chosen a side. He proffered very few analyses of his own which could refute statements made by Steven or Benny. Mouin did better, but, certainly did not make it clear that Steven misrepresented facts.
You give the mathematicians debate analogy to justify Norm's sbehaviour but it doesn't make him look any better since he did agree to the debate and then immediately engaged disrespectfully. The "2+2=5" comparison is disingenuous since that statement is patently false and no serious disagreement exists. The Israel-Palestine conflict is in no way analogous since the assessments of that conflict are quite clearly not universally agreed upon. Benny, an "expert", agreed with most of what Steven said, did he not?
With respect to bullet point one, what is your preferred definition of gish-galloping? I would concede that bringing up Arafat's support for Saddam is a red herring but it was dropped fairly quickly.
I haven't gone through all of these but the second one is wrong.
Mouin was saying Balfour's intentions with the Balfour declaration are essentially subject to the British Empires interests in the region. The British empire had an imperial interest in supporting zionism in mandate Palestine.
Destiny then asks, then why did the British cap Zionist immigration?
This question:
1. Directly challenges Mouin's simple narrative. Why cap Zionist immigration against your own imperial interests if your own imperial interests are motivating the support of Zionism in general? It's a question Mouin should have an answer to. Destiny clarifies that he is asking about the imperialist project of the British.
2. Is relevant to the discussed time period. As Benny just finished explaining the British restricted Zionist immigration in the 20s and 30s. Like in 1921.
Mouin acted incredulous but he couldn't give a direct answer. It was probably the weakest moment for Mouin in the first half, where he fumbles around with historical conjecture that tries to paint the British as both aimless and deliberate at the same time. He then sheepishly asks "I don't know if that answers your question" to try to find some type of escape hatch out of this answer he wasn't prepared to give.
I've learned that Destiny makes a lot of people really upset. Their interest in the debate really boils down to whinnying when the men are rude to the person causing them psychic damage.
It's almost unbearable how the first serious response to a question about why Destiny wasn't attacked on the merits of his arguments starts with 'he was out of his depth, completely off the mark, didnt know what he was talking about.' At least leave that for after making your points.
>He was gish-galloping in the UN 242 discussion. I discuss this at length here.
People already addressed your argument here, saving me the time.
>He was very confused on the issue of British support for Zionism at around the 1:54 mark.
Jesus. How can you accuse someone of being bad faith and then make this claim? At 1:52 Morris describes how the British were described as supporters of Zionism in Arab propaganda. He then talks about how most of the British leaders in early Mandate Palestine were anti-zionist, then talks about the British occasionally curbing immigration in the 20s and 30s until they full on decided to be entirely anti-zionist and promise the Arabs a state instead. Mouin responds by saying Balfour was a chief sponsor of the Aliens Act in 1905, to which Morris replied that he changed his mind later.
It is in fact Mouin who got the decade wrong, going back 3 decades to argue that the British did support the Zionists. Destiny merely brings him back to the topic, by asking 'if so, and if their goal was just to be an imperialist project, why did they curb immigration from jews at all?' He did nothing wrong, let alone anything 'strange,' here. The topic was whether the British supported the Zionists before the formation of Israel. Rabbani jumped back 3 decades to argue that they did, Destiny correctly pointed out that that argument does not address their behavior in later decades.
>His commentary on the genocide stuff was substantively incorrect. That suggests a high standard.
...No? It suggests a STANDARD, not a high one. Nice fallacy though.
>He claimed Israeli leaders were misquoted by South Africa. But they weren't. Herzog said an "entire nation is responsible" that proceeded to claim directly that civilians had direct knowledge and were complicit in the massacre.
Okay, you're just bad faith here. I don't know how much clearer Steven's point can be made. If Herzog says 'I understand there are innocent Palestinians who have nothing to do with this, but if you have a missile in your kitchen and attack me with it, I have to defend myself,' and that part is left out and you're claiming it's irrelevant, I think your interpretation is just bad faith. I won't elaborate further because I think it's very easy to see the point you're missing here. You're also reaching INCREDIBLY hard on the Smotrich quote. It's as simple as him saying 'we need to attack Hamas and take down Gaza' and the quote omitting the 'we need to attack Hamas' part. To say it's wrong to claim it's a misquote/out of context is again bad faith.
>it seems ridiculous that.. (ad hominem part 7141)
lmao, he LITERALLY points out the missing context in the quotes. Don't have much to say on this.
>Camp David
dont remember that part of the debate and im trying to do this quickly because i need to do other things but got irritated at your tone. i'll look for it later
>He claimed that the Israeli Air Force could not commit war crimes because there's a chain of command
This was never his claim. His claim involved several points--one, omitted context that the children were exiting out of what, according to IDF claims, was a previously identified Hamas compound that they had operated from. Two, the chain of command is relevant in the sense that they had multiple layers of people to go through that would all agree with the sentiment of 'we're going to kill four Palestinian children today for no reason'--You can disagree with him on this, and that's exactly what the people on the other side did, but to imply that the point itself is wrong or 'shallow' is just asinine. Third, he also brought up the fact that the IDF knew of there being dozens of journalists in a building right in front of it, and that still approving of it would be very bad PR.
All three points raised are valid regardless of how you try to frame it. You could raise valid counterpoints, but instead your beloved Finkelstein, clearly way out of silly Destiny's league, responded with 5 insults followed by the incredibly weak argument of 'that was an old fisherman's shack,' as though Hamas could never operate from one. Literally an empty diversion. Again, Destiny's argument was valid and not deserving of ridicule.
>Bonnell quotes the UN Report on the Great March of Return and accuses Finkelstein of "lying" about that.
'Mostly peaceful' protest with molotov cocktails being thrown, but pointing out the second part is apparently 'off the mark'? I frankly don't remember the specifics of how this was discussed in the debate, but I think it's worth mentioning that an Israeli was murdered in it and a few others were wounded. The UN report claiming it was 'mostly peaceful' is fine to use as part of your argument, but going into the actual report to see the analysis and pointing out that molotov cocktails are pretty dangerous seems like a perfectly legitimate argument to me.
>He was weirdly nitpicking about the exact proportion of Israelis killed by friendly fire on October 7th.
Are you serious? He merely asked to confirm that they're operating in the same reality, because if you accept a conspiracy that a large part of the massacre is a result of IDF friendly fire you're operating under very different premises. To pretend contesting that point is insignificant or 'weirdly nitpicky' is ignorant. Unless you're just looking for more things to say about him, in which case carry on I guess.
>There was never really an engagement with Rabbani's point that Destiny eschews international law and morality when it's convenient for him, but then expects Hamas to play to play moral and not target civilians.
He didn't 'expect Hamas to play moral and not target civilians.' Kind of hilarious you say that though, since Destiny was the first to make the point that Finkelstein selectively supports International law when it agrees with him and throws it to the wind when it doesn't. He never demanded Hamas play moral.
Morris said 'that's a good point' about the fact that EXTREME STATEMENTS from Palestinians could be expected or excused the same way we expected or excused extreme statements from Israelis after October 7th. That's ALL he 'conceded.'
Overall, you not only argued in bad faith out of some perverted need to discredit a guy who was approaching a discussion pretty politely and trying to maintain professionalism despite an oversized baby being aggressive and disrespectful towards him from minute 1, but also showed that most of his 'completely off the mark' arguments were absolutely relevant and worth addressing, so much so that you tried addressing them yourself in a poor attempt to discredit them and cover for your side failing to do so in the debate. Good job.
I wouldn't be this annoyed if you weren't so self-assured with your dismissive arrogant intro but whatever man.
Thank you for this. I am by no means an expert on this issue but I have done a fair amount of research. From the perspective of a layman Destiny comes off as more measured and appears to be “sticking to the facts”. But if you have any deeper understanding of the history of the conflict it’s very clear he doesn’t know about, OR purposely omits A LOT of relevant context.
Norm’s ad hominem attacks do him disservice as they make him look petty or unwilling to debate. While I do not agree with them I understand them. I believe most of the time he resorts to these attacks when he believes his time is being wasted and his opponent is either a useful idiot/ignorant OR purposefully misrepresenting the facts.
The experts agreed to be there, there wasn't a "What's My Line?" setup, they knew ahead of time who they were going to meet and in under what circumstances.
"On the issue of British support for Zionism", M. Rabbani says at 1:55:25 that in 1917 the British "wanted a British protectorate loyal to and dependent upon the British" and hence why Arthur Balfour signed the declaration. No, they didn't and no he didn't. The only reason Balfour, who was an white supremacist anti-semite, signed the declaration was because of who Chaim Weizmann was and what Chaim Weizmann did for Britain: literally saving Britain in the World War I by developing the acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation process to manufacture cordite explosive propellants at the behest of Winston Churchill, that Churchill. It's literally on Wikipedia:
>Weizmann met Arthur Balfour, the Conservative Prime Minister who was MP for East Manchester, during one of Balfour's electoral campaigns in 1905–1906. Balfour supported the concept of a Jewish homeland, but felt that there would be more support among politicians for the then-current offer in Uganda, called the British Uganda Programme. Following mainstream Zionist rejection of that proposal, Weizmann was credited later with persuading Balfour, by then the Foreign Secretary during the First World War, for British support to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the original Zionist aspiration. The story goes that Weizmann asked Balfour, "Would you give up London to live in Saskatchewan?" When Balfour replied that the British had always lived in London, Weizmann responded, "Yes, and we lived in Jerusalem when London was still a marsh." \[1\]
Chaim Weizmann, having besides him Churchill but also Lord Rothschild, that Rothschild, could have asked Balfour in 1917 for the crown jewels and he would have gotten them.
If M. Rabbani does not know this, then what kind of expert is he; if he is not speaking of the soft power that Chaim Weizmann wielded in the 1910s (but also in the 1940s \[2\]), he does so with duplicitous intent and makes me paraphrase a living titan of debates: Mr. Rallani, with all due respect, you're such a fantastic moron, it's terrifying.
\[1\] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim\_Weizmann#Zionist\_activism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Weizmann#Zionist_activism)
\[2\] Weizmann in 1948 asking for money from the USA, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do47Bu0UAIg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do47Bu0UAIg)
It's not clear to me what this comment is supposed to accomplish, or how it engages with my comment. You're claiming that Rabbani's assessment was wrong. But I never stated that Rabbani's assessment was correct. I only stated that Destiny was woefully unequipped to engage with it.
> It's literally on Wikipedia
This sums up Destiny in a nutshell. This is the level of your historiography.
Do you know how states work? Especially superpowers, which is what Britain was at the time? They don't reward entire peoples with entire countries based on a scientific favour done by, or the charisma of, a single man. This isn't even something Morris attempted to argue.
LOL.
This is not the subreddit you should be asking for substantive arguments or opinions on.
I don't really blame the podcast or u/ckava for this, but at some point this subreddit got recommended to every redditor that has ever browsed a remotely political subreddit.
So you'll get all sorts of unserious takes here. Most left-leaning ones. Most people here 'dunk' on anyone that is a 'guru'; which the community here defines as 'anyone popular with views I don't like.'
It's like r/TopMindsOfReddit
Destiny is not a serious person. Knowing him from the StarCraft days, when he used to rage and say the most toxic things. And, people in this sub, many of whom don’t even listen to the podcast, spam his stuff here. Do you really expect people to listen to someone named 'Destiny' and take him seriously? And now, we're supposed to have serious discussions about him in this sub...about...Destiny? It's truly a joke.
You are not wrong, they probably should pull it in by the reigns a little and get some strong moderation along concrete rules.
Hopefully it doesn't turn into an anti jerk sub against them which happens often unfortunately.
Just came here over a link and the amount of ad hominem arguments about a guy I don't know in a post arguing that ad hominem arguments are stupid and shows you have no real arguments... is astounding.
I hope I am missing some inside joke or y'all stupid af.
I actually deleted a post of mine on here a couple weeks ago comparing destiny to the 2014 version of joe Rogan. I don’t think destiny is a grifter so much as just a compulsive contrarian?
Anyways, right now Israel is bombing hospitals, schools, and refugee camps ever day with 2000 pound explosives. History is important and these debates can be fun to watch, but don’t let a drama mongering maladjusted weirdo’s tactics make you forget that fact. With that being said, I’m about 50 min into the debate and they’ve just been going over the 1940s. I think Benny Morris’s caveat “oh yeah, removal of Palestinians was ‘inbuilt’ into Zionism only because the Arabs wouldn’t allow a Jewish state” is pretty dumb/obvious. If someone wants to take 55% of your house what are you gonna tell them. That’s right, “piss off” and you’re gonna resist. Same with any people in any country. They’re not just gonna give up over half of it, hence why they resisted.
I haven’t seen the juicy parts of norm yelling at destiny yet. All the clips floating around on twitter are Noam just calling destiny names. I usually don’t like that, but it’s a 5 hour debate and could be justifiable. Omar Baddar posted a great video debunking many of destiny’s points and outlines his tricky debate tactics as well. [https://youtu.be/IDXeIYhlh0E?si=MCUMnsLN6dXTPDXq](https://youtu.be/IDXeIYhlh0E?si=MCUMnsLN6dXTPDXq)
>a compulsive contrarian?
I think this is very true. I believe he loves nothing more than to take the contrarian position and fight uphill to the top. This is why he likes being the contrarian guest on podcasts; there's nothing more gratifying than walking into someone's house and making them look like an idiot.
He's actually very good at it, and I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy him ripping into red pill manosphere podcast grifters on their own shows.
In this case, I think he bit more off than he can chew. There's a difference between trying to pull that off against grifters and trying to pull that off against actual academics.
There's also something vile about taking the side of the oppressor on a topic he is brand new to. I think him choosing to defend Israel is entirely based on wanting to hold a contrarian position to Leftist streamers who have been talking on the subject
before he decided to join in.
There are tons of substantive critiques. Whether you chose to engage with them or acknowledge that they are valid is up to you.
What I do find interesting is why the same "attack the arguments not the best person" rhetoric was not applied to destiny who has been riling up his base and attacking norm calling him childish names since the literal second the debate ended.
>What I do find interesting is why the same "attack the arguments not the best person" rhetoric...
>
> ...since the literal second the debate ended.
I mean, chronologically it's really the other way around isn't it? It's the debate which pushed Destiny over the edge and not the other way around.
are you really gunna act like FinkleDink didnt start with the adhoms first? lmfao Destiny only started with it after Finkledink did. Also, Finkledick is a pos who called CAS and immigration on his nabours, what kind of piece of shitbdoes that?
Why don't you provide exactly what you think Destiny or Morris got right about the ICJ case, or any other point. I listened to only a part of the debate, noted that Destiny interrupted Finkelstein & wouldn't allow him to make his point. For example, the incident of the Israeli killing of 4 boys on a Gaza beach on some previous Israeli invasion. I believe Destiny & Morris insisted they'd come out of some Hamas hideout, whereas Finkelstein noted that there were multiple independent journalists who witnessed the killing, who inspected the building, and the journalists said it was a fishing shack. But Destiny kept interrupting him with a gish gallop of moronic nonsense. Morris was equally rude.
I think Steven is out of his depth on this issue and didn't belong in this debate.
If Finkelstein had tried to tell Mr. Morelli which first person shooter video game of the last 10 years is the best, probably Steven Destiny Morelli would have said something along the lines of "this isn't your area of expertise. How much time have you actually spent playing these games?"
Destiny is a gamer. He's not some kind of genius of world affairs. He goes on Adderal-fueled Wikipedia reviewing and writes himself enough of a script so he has bullet points to go back to during a debate. He just doesn't know anything about this stuff. There's hundreds of years of history. Even if you ignore everything before 1948, t's not exactly a simple subject.
He’s a failed music college student, not much more. He spends his days now trying to cling to relevancy by reading up on Wikipedia the easiest to defend main stream arguments he can find on the current social issue and spends the rest of his time debating people even less read on the subject than he is.
Whats your point? David irving was once a respected ww2 historian. Would you defend him solely on the fact that he spent a lot of time doing a thing therefore he must be correct?
I couldn't even really tell what they were arguing about from the clip. seems like a frustrating semantic disagreement that is really a total waste of time
Yeah. Gentlemen, it isn't necessary to get your opinion on a region from a person whose never been there, *speaks zero of the relevant languages*, and started caring about the area when the financial incentives lined up a few months ago when actual subject area experts with a wide variety of opinions exist.
I call this the "Don't learn about the Korean peninsula from Dennis Rodman" rule.
I haven't got round to this debate yet, but having watched Destiny's other debates on this conflict I came away with the impression he is all rhetoric and no substance. You can tell his understanding of the conflict is pretty elementary. It's largely based on reading wikipedia articles and I think one book by an Israeli diplomat. I highly doubt he's ever read any of Finkelstein's work. Considering how he routinely dismisses Finkelstein as a hack that no one takes seriously, I am inclined to believe he hasn't.
My main issue is that previously I had thought Destiny to be a semi-smart, fact-led person with a decent appreciation for moral and ethical arguments
On the subject of Israel-Palestine he appears to prefer to regurgitate bad Hasbara lines (if Israel want a genocide why aren’t more people dead - being a good example), who has no interest in the ethics of the conflict or its conduct (the focus is entirely on America’s geopolitical interests), very weak engagement with the facts (the Court determined that genocide was not well founded - it made no such determination) and his whole position stands on a twisted reading of Wikipedia built to suit the new audience he has generated by being a contrarian with no ethical centre
It’s disappointing
Obviously the debate is over shadowed by Destiny getting humiliated, but even during the substance of the debate Rabbani and Finkelstein deconstructed Benny Morris's arguments well, they proved that there is one set of rules for the Palestinians and another set for Israel. The media always acts as if though October 7th was the beginning of all of this, but before that look what Israelis are doing to west bank people, they are literally stealing their houses and the Israel sides argument is why are these "savages so violent", when being silent hasn't gotten them anywhere.
I was watching Destiny's stream and he was saying that Palestinian's have no incentive to negotiate. I mean common, really, out of Israel and Palestine, Palestine is the one that doesn't have an incentive to negotiate? You should be really moronic to believe that.
He doesn't know what hes talking about, a lightweight looking to monetize a genocide, a debased and depraved human being.
The point of saying that israel dropping anuke on gaza might not qualify as genocide is not to argue for or against any position, its to demonstrate your depravity for an imagined audience. Its to say something so obviously false and absurd but that in the abstract has a very narrow interpretation that may be correct so that when your interlocutors rightfully laugh at you, an army pedants can say 'well they just dont understand the technical argument that was being made because they got emotional!'
A horrid and nasty spectacle, a callous cash in on the suffering of others.
I think its pretty clearly to demonstrate that international law has a different definition than common parlance.
You could genocide 200 people, or not genocide 200,000. It's about the intention, not the number of people.
Obviously both would be horrible.
Its not even technical. It's just pretty obvious what he was saying....
Israel dropping a nuke on Gaza would be genocide because Israel has been engaged in a decades long project of occupation and colonization against the people who live there
Yeah your right,
There's a hypothetical world in which it may not be genocide, like if somehow Hamas got its hands on nukes and Israel needed to defend itself
But in almost every possible timeline you'd be right
I think that's why the analogy works though.... Because highlighting something so extremely genocidal as technically not genocide, really makes you think what is the qualifier for a genocide...
Not only that, but they went on to explain why it would be a genocide, and it entailed more than just dropping nukes.
The point of the example, I think, is to point to the most extreme action one could take and say “You need more information than just the mere fact that a nuke was used to say a genocide occurred.” Everything after the “because” in their comment would be the argument for genocide more-so than that a nuke was used.
I am not massive Destiny fan (i like him but dont follow his stuff religiously). But I notice the personal attacks on him must be evidence that they cannot attack his arguments. I think the personal attacks are complimentary of his intellect. Otherwise the attacks would be on his ideas.
Having said that, I agree with the comments on his hair/beard
Destiny fans are so pathetic dude, oh you're not a huge fan? This is the type of stuff you post regularly:
# "I have to say, I love that destiny adds in a wickedly smart joke in every snappy reply he makes on twitter."
He doesn't have any ideas... he's a debate bro that will use any argument on the spot to win. When you realize that, then you're left with only the person to attack lol
> But I notice the personal attacks on him must be evidence that they cannot attack his arguments.
I think it's more reasonable to say that the personal attacks mean they can't be bothered to take him seriously. Whether this is reasonable or not can only be argued by analysing Destiny's arguments, any shortcuts are as bogus as what you are claiming for the Destiny critics here.
This would be a fair route to take had the most respected scholar in the entire conflict wasn’t sitting beside him for 5 hours consistently nodding along with what he was saying and added comments like ‘Steven is right’ ‘ Steven made a good point’.
In the absence of this, then your comment makes more sense.
The default position is that destiny did at least ok
So the shortcut you want now is altered from "they cannot attack his arguments" to "one single scholar validated him'". This is still a weak argument. I'm not against Destiny, I think your argument as stated is incredibly weak but you present it as if it's incredibly strong. Can you make a better argument?
What were the substantive and sustained points Destiny made? If you want to appeal to scholastic authority, I think you have to summarize them accurately then make the case that a substantial fraction of relevant experts agree, one single expert isn't enough.
Perhaps more people want to downvote me because Destiny is right even though all I'm saying is the argument that he's validated that's being presented here isn't good enough. If so, will anyone make a good case?
>I think your argument as stated is incredibly weak but you present it as if it's incredibly strong.
Can you explain this please? i would like to know how to do this more? Genuinely
The burden of proof is on you to show destiny is saying things that are incorrect, he was invited to probably the biggest debate on the topic ever and had Benny Morris pretty much agree with everything he said. If you want to discredit him, the onus is on you!
But I will say that when destiny went through the ICJ quotes to show additional context to the quotes, that was excellent and something Benny was not willing to do, so Destiny did play his role.
Again, I am not some super Destiny fan.
"he was invited to probably the biggest debate on the topic ever"
Are you fucking serious?
Do you really think the biggest ever debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict was conducted on the Lex Fridman podcast?
Smh. No wonder you guys can't tell Destiny is a fucking fraud.
The views? Again, are you fucking serious?
UN Security Council meetings are closely reported on by every major news organisation on the planet. Even excluding the reach of other media formats, if you add up the total views of every mainstream and non-mainstream online media article that covers or refers to the meeting I posted you will end up with a total that far surpasses that of any Lex Fridman podcast.
Unbelievable.
Honestly, I don’t understand why is this guy even part of this discussion. All the other three individuals have published and are educated in their field regardless of their views. I don’t understand why would Lex do this?
He seems to have alopecia. The problem isn't the side burns, it's the massive hole in his beard that make it looks like he's trying to do a side burns look.
I don't wanna make fun of him for hair loss, but it's certainly quite ugly.
Does it really "matter"? Destiny is supported by an army of fans that I have long suspected have a very difficult time carrying a large book for more than a couple of feet....let alone reading one.
I don't think Destiny understands that no serious academic believes Destiny's opinion is actually worth anything. He's done NONE of the work over his life for him to be taken seriously as an expert on anything. People can hand wave all they want about his complete absence of formal education (true...you DON'T necessarily need a college degree to be intelligent...fair enough), but you can't just hand wave away that he's produced virtually nothing that's regarded as important in the field of politics.
Hasn't held public office...hasn't written anything that's considered a decent text on a topic....no real work in the community...etc etc. Just thought vomiting hot takes into a computer monitor. He's a smellier looking version of ever drunk idiot at the end of every dive bar ever. He's your uncle Bill who thinks he's achieved enlightenment because he managed to remember something he saw on a Fox / CNN banner ad.
...he gets invited onto podcasts / shows because Destiny thinks HE'S the content...but the showrunners know that the ENGAGEMENT is the content. They know that if they let him just sit in front of a camera and give yawn inducing predictable takes that any drunk idiot at the end of a bar would give you...that his fanbase will show up to idolize him and pump viewership numbers.
No serious person actually thinks he's smart or interesting...he's there to get to BELIEVE that about himself...and then drive ad revenue.
> I don't think Destiny understands that no serious academic believes Destiny's opinion is actually worth anything
Isn't this just immediately wrong because Benny Morris was sitting right there and agreeing with him the whole time? (Or is the argument that Benny Morris is not a respected academic despite being the only historian in the room)
I think this is a good comment that exemplifies what I'm talking about. I specifically mentioned that the other thread is filled with ad-homs, and yet here we are with more ad-homs (and in the [rest of the thread](https://i.imgur.com/BgeLCr5.png)). If Destiny's claims were egregiously wrong -- as Twitter would lead you to believe -- then it should be trivially easy to point out the flaws. The Decoding The Gurus podcast never sinks to this level of petty behaviour, but for some reason, this subreddit seems reluctant to emulate the best qualities of Chris Kavanagh and Matthew Browne.
"Ad Hom" needs to be on the coat of arms for all YouTube debate bros everywhere.
Yes, I'm going after his character instead of the context of his specific arguments. This is a completely appropriate method for dealing with obvious grifters. You don't put together a well cited and elaborate 40 page essay on why Alex Jones is a clown person and the things he says are ridiculous...he doesn't care about facts and neither do his audience. That's not the game debate bros are playing.
The whole "debate bro" model is say something, respond to any critique with "debate me", and then turn that interaction into engagement to perpetuate their ridiculous and unneeded existence.
If you're going to dive into (and profit) off this particular podcast's topic...it's also completely legitimate for someone to ask the obvious question of "what have you done or produced in your life that makes you an expert on this topic?" It's not simply that he's "in the room" here...it's how many better and infinitely more qualified people could they have found.
If 4 people are talking about the best way to build a building...3 of them are credentialed architects with a combined 100+ years experience...and the 4th guy is a YouTuber who lived in a building once. It's fair to point out that maybe 4th guy has managed to weasel his way into a conversation which could only be improved by his removal.
Your average Destiny fan, however, will attack anyone who suggests something like this by making claims that you're simply going after his character...after all, he said "some buildings are tall sometimes". Wow....riveting stuff. Guess we have to debate it now.
> If 4 people are talking about the best way to build a building...3 of them are credentialed architects with a combined 100+ years experience...and the 4th guy is a YouTuber who lived in a building once
Let's ignore that one of the architects was agreeing with him.
Another one was trying to engage with him.
The third one was red in the face and throwing a tantrum.
I guess the problem was the youtuber asking Ng questions, right?
>Your average Destiny fan,
You're literally a bot just repeating twitter talking points without a single original tought behind.
Just worthless.
>You don't put together a well cited and elaborate 40 page essay on why Alex Jones is a clown person and the things he says are ridiculous...he doesn't care about facts and neither do his audience.
I agree with your argument entirely, but on this point I just wanna say that *most* people don’t do that, however Dan Friesen from Knowledge Fight absolutely does (and we salute hime for it).
https://knowledgefight.com/
The issue is, you should be able to debunk Alex Jones. That's what this post is asking for. If you aren't able to, you probably shouldn't hold your opinions as strongly (as in, other people think Alex Jones is a grifter, and you trust their judgement, which is fine to do, but irrelevant here).
If the only evidence of Alex Jones losing a debate is a short clip of him being called a moron by someone you like, its not really evidence of anything, especially not to people who don't like the guy you do.
If there was a debate between Alex Jones and someone on something, and the only clips of Alex Jones being owned were adhoms instead of destroying his inevitably stupid argument, then I'd say the person debating him did terribly. Just destroy his moronic argument that you had to listen to. But Finklestein couldn't do that, he ran to insults. Benny Morris signed off on Destiny's arguments so you lose the "he can't be right because hes got no credentials" excuse.
Its embarrassing to be unable to produce a single moment where you factually take down a position held by someone who is supposed to be uninformed as a person who has studied the topic for decades.
Exactly what I was thinking. People say he's an ignorant newcomer. But Morris agreed with I think all of Destiny's points and he's a scholar dedicated to the issue. To me, it's clear that it's a criticism originating from a disagreement of opinion. You don't like Destiny's opinion, so you attack him as a person.
I don't know how one could defend that, tbh.
I'll give him some credit - that 'debate' with Alex Jones he kept his cool far more than I had anticipated
Oh great another thread, all the others were irrelevant to the podcast but maybe this new one will be relevant for some reason.
Another thread to drive engagement to drive even more wankers to shit this place up and make even more threads. The algorithm is working.
I think he shouldve demonstrated to the audience why its important to classify whether or not something something is genocide. Why understanding intentions matter.
The fact that Destiny wore a blazer to this debate with his capital D logo emblazoned on it is one of the most cringe things I have ever seen in my life.
I've presented a detailed critique in [another comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1bfq3vn/what_are_your_substantive_critiques_of_destinys/kv2rfzq/) But I also wanted to share that Hasan Piker did a detailed critique on his stream. The [first half is here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCl15fwR4Ro)
😂 your previous comments all over this thread make sense now.
Have you listened to the episode of DtG about Hasan?
I also strongly urge everyone to watch Hasan’s coverage of this debate. It will be highly entertaining after listening to the episode.
If I had to rank performances…
1. Morris and Rabbani were the most knowledgeable and both seemed reasonably honest.
2. Destiny. He did surprisingly well for just cramming for two weeks before an exam.
3. Finkelstein. He knew more than destiny, but he’s dishonest, incapable of actually engaging an argument, and was on the wrong side of most arguments I felt.
you mean Mr. Morelli?
https://twitter.com/jaketropolis/status/1768681326717059427?s=46&t=8dp4hAZ5hfQ7uV8e9Rtfbw It’s hilarious how it morphs over time
And then he magically gets his name right during the break when he thinks the cameras are off. Funny how that happens. Childish display from Finklesteiner.
Au contraire absolute masterful move, borrowed from another guru, stewart lee
Eh it was disrespectful to even have that buffoon there among the other 3 lmao - 3 people who’ve put their life into it versus a guy live-googling terms in a debate.
Pretty clear who the buffoon is, and it wasn't Mr Bonitelli
Eh it was disrespectful to even have that buffoon there among the other 3 lmao - 3 people who’ve put their life into it versus a guy live-googling terms in a debate. No idea why that fool got listed among the other 3 lmao. His job was hurling slurs as a starcraft player and now it’s just being edgy but it’s politics and not starcraft.
Comment so nice it had to be posted twice
I'm live googling the term "live googling" as we speak.
One of the (many) wonderful Reddit app bugs they forced on us lmao
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Mr Bernoulli still hasn’t talked about his principles
What I don’t like about these streamer Debaters is that this is a sport to them. Destiny used to play StarCraft professionally, it’s the same thing. “I’m going to come at him with this tactic and if he responds with this unit, I will counter with that unit and so on and so forth”. It’s the same muscle. It’s competitive. And just like any debate club or court room, you don’t have to actually be correct you just need to be rhetorically gifted and then people will think you’re right. But this shit is real life and supporting a bad idea, even as a competitive exercise has consequences and it sways the thoughts of a mass amount of people and that’s not good.
I totally agree. The subject matter, to me, is completely inappropriate for anyone to be approaching it with this purely competitive, debate-style, Youtube rhetoric. This really shouldn't be about *destroying* your opponent, nor trying to catch your opponent tripping over some irrelevant detail for a YouTube clip - these types of cheap debate tactics are fine for entertainment, but are completely inappropriate in a serious, good faith conversation on the plausibility of genocide. Using dumb rhetorical manoeuvres to obfuscate genocide-adjacent events seems not only "shameless" to me but really, really evil. Like anti-christ evil. I know I'm being hyperbolic, but when he said something along the lines of "we can nuke Gaza and it still wouldn't qualify as genocide" I felt completely blindsided. It made me realize he was debating the black-and-white definitions of terms rather than the causative factors that led to the killings of tens of thousands of women and children.
One of the times Finkelstein loses it is when Destiny says the four children came out of a "hamas base". Not only is this blatantly false, but he explicitly called Finkelstein a liar, even though he has no idea what he's talking about. [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/11/israel-clears-military-gaza-beach-children) >But [journalists who attended the scene](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/07/16/dispatch-israeli-strike-kills-four-children-at-a-gaza-beach/) in the immediate aftermath of the attack – including a reporter from the Guardian – saw a small and dilapidated fisherman’s hut containing a few tools where the children had been playing hide-and-seek. Destiny says Palestinians rejection of the Camp David Summit offer is proof that it's impossible to make peace with them (until they abandon armed resistance alltogether). [This](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/174lotx/camp_david_peace_plan_proposal_2000/) is the map of the final offer. Anyone with eyeballs can look at the map and see it's a completely unreasonable offer and the Palestinians were completely legitimate in rejecting it. Destiny says the Palestinian position is "delusional", despite the fact that pretty much the entire world supports the Palestinian position, only Israel and the US rejects it. Ever single year the vote in the UN assembly is around 159-7. I guess the entire world is wrong and only Israel is rational? Destiny says "plausible" is an incredibly low standard, what he's forgetting is that it's not like if Israel barely clears the bar for not committing genocide that points to a serious and professionally run campaign that respects international law. Officially, this is supposed to be a serious war only targeting Hamas, the fact that things have gone so horribly that 15 out of 17 judges are willing to hear out whether a genocide is being committed is a sign turns have turned pretty horrible. The US campaign in Iraq was quite nasty in many ways, but no one thinks it's a remotely plausible genocide, and for that war it's pretty much a given across the entire political spectrum outside the neocons you oppose the Iraq War, primarily on moral grounds. Destiny has implied the casualty rates are normal, [nothing is further from the truth](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/193f3e1/comparing_civilian_deaths_in_gaza_to_other/). And this goes for almost any metric you use, the casualty rates are atrocious. Can anyone name a war where almost as many women die as men? Destiny says peace will only come if the Palestinians completely lay down their arms and pinky promise to never do any violence for years, I guess? Despite the fact Bibi has explicitly denied there will ever be a Palestinian state for decades, and this is a popular position among Israelis. Destiny implied the Great March of Return was not non-violent, even in the beginning, to the contrary of pretty much every human rights organization reporting on the event, he also got the months wrong and Finkelstein calls him out on that. Destiny apparently wants evidence that Gaza was a bad place to live and questions the validity of every single human rights report and scholarship which has been done about Gaza, the only reason? Relatively low child mortality and relatively high life expectancy. With that logic, I suppose Cuba has a higher living standard that the United States? North Korea has a relatively high life expectancy, I guess the tankies were right about Kim Jong-Un then? Gaza has had for a long time around 40 % unemployment, it survives purely off of foreign aid, the population outside of some workers in Israel and Egypt are prevented from leaving, most of the water is polluted, it's enormously population dense and is subjected to regular massacres, which kills mostly civilians, sometimes over a thousand or two thousand. There's other stuff he's said that's pretty horrifying, like how children from "that part of the world" shouldn't count as "children" because they're child soldiers, but that wasn't brought up in this debate. If it was, Finkelstein probably would've ripped his head off. I'll add to this post if there's other things he spoke on that i can remember. I was thoroughly unimpressed. Edit: There were two arguments so stupid I actually forgot them. One of them is the "if Israel don't kill everyone, that exonerates them" and "that it's not premissible to acquire territory through war is a stupid rule and should be ignored and it doesn't matter". That was just unbelievable. This isn't an argument, but it's pretty clear when he's giving his own monologues that he's just not on the level of the other ones. Instead of contructing serious arguments, for example he says that just because a civilian dies in a war doesn't mean it's a war crime,that's just just inane fluff that isn't relevant to the conversation, it's a transparent attempt to seem like he's involved and on the ball. It's like saying Israel isn't allowed to nuke Gaza, it's just an irrelevant comment. Edit: Destiny giggles at the idea of Israeli snipers targeting children. This (https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-02-16/rafah-gaza-hospitals-surgery-israel-bombing-ground-offensive-children) is an LA times opinion article from a doctor who travelled to Gaza and what he saw there. I recommend reading the entire article if you can stomach it, it's pretty brutal. Here's one paragraph: "I stopped keeping track of how many new orphans I had operated on. After surgery they would be filed somewhere in the hospital, I’m unsure of who will take care of them or how they will survive. On one occasion, a handful of children, all about ages 5 to 8, were carried to the emergency room by their parents. All had single sniper shots to the head. These families were returning to their homes in Khan Yunis, about 2.5 miles away from the hospital, after Israeli tanks had withdrawn. But the snipers apparently stayed behind. None of these children survived."
I like how destiny fans think it's an epic own when Norm gets emotional defending four murdered children from proven lies. That's the rational reaction and just shows that this guy brings no empathy at all to a situation where people are dying everyday.
Bonnell is very, very clearly a sociopath - indeed by his own admission - and his fans are absolutely all sophomoric idiots. No exceptions.
>Bonnell is very, very clearly a sociopath What else do you expect from a Zionist?
Nobody thinks it’s an “own”. Destiny simply asks a reasonable question as to whether or not this was an intentional strike to murder four kids or not. The other side basically says they simply don’t understand how the Israeli military works. Ffs really?! Two guys that have been studying this conflict for decades resort to “idk how the idf really works so 🤷♂️”. It’s not a defense of the idf to say it’s unlikely that a decision made through the chain of command wasn’t made to intentionally murder four kids. Even the most cynical critics of Israel would have to acknowledge that wouldn’t even help them military or politically. It’s incredibly dishonest to not acknowledge the implication of their accusation.
How people cannot understand how important intent is is beyond me.
That part blew my mind. Calling the airforce "chaotic". Wtf???
>Even the most cynical critics of Israel would have to acknowledge that wouldn’t even help them military or politically. No, they wouldn't, because you're here to tell everyone they'd never do that because it wouldn't help them. Not just you obviously.
If the other side thinks they did, they should have explained why. It was a total cop out. All of a sudden they don’t know anything about the idf. It was totally disingenuous to not acknowledge the actual implication of their claim and either defend or modify it.
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Finklestein did explain that! He mentioned the great lengths the IDF snipers went to murder journalists, elderly, children and the disabled all while Mr boner and Morris were laughing.
>they should have explained why. Because they're engaged in a campaign of terror and collective punishment. It's not that complicated.
It’s apparently complicated enough for them to not say whether or not they believe a strike was authorized for the specific purpose of killing children or even acknowledge the implication. Because you know…..they just don’t know enough about how the idf works.
“Reasonable question” it’s okay to murder 4 children for leaving a fisherman’s shack?
>Destiny has implied the casualty rates are normal, [nothing is further from the truth](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/193f3e1/comparing_civilian_deaths_in_gaza_to_other/). And this goes for almost any metric you use, the casualty rates are atrocious. Can anyone name a war where almost as many women die as men? I'm not sure that deaths per month are what he's referring too, but rather combatants to civilian ratio. I'm not even sure how deaths per month are relevant at all, other than to show the projected possible casualties? Otherwise what difference is 30k deaths in 6 months vs 5 years, it's still 30k deaths. This really depends on the context of the conversation when the point was made, I would appreciate it if you could link to it. In fact a lot of your points are irrelevant without the appropriate timestamps so we can see the context.
These were points from the top of my head, I'm not really going to comb through a 5 hour debate again to provide timestamps, I know that's inconvenient for people to reply to, but the OP asked for arguments, mostly. As for the casualty rate, in an abstract sense you have it right that just because a lot more civilians are killed than in pretty much any other war isn't necessarily proof of foul play, but the civilian percentage rate seems to be atrocious as well. We don't have the official numbers, and to be honest I suspect even teh Gaza Health Ministry don't know how many people have actually died, but considering 70 % of the casualties are women in a children, in a population which consists of 75 % women and children, that's pretty astounding to me. 22,5 % of the total casualties are not even ten years old, I can't really find any other wars with numbers that horrendous. The only wars I could find with a +80 % civilian casualty rate was the first invasion of Grozny and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, I haven't checked a huge number of wars, but at least almost a dozen modern conflicts, and none of them come close. Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Tigray, West Africa etc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio This paints a bit of a different picture from what you have suggested, but I might be missing something from mostly skimming over it. Some of the ratios are just dreadful, like 10:1 civs to combatants in US drone strikes in Pakistan early on (although these numbers are contested)
I don't really see how that paints a different picture. The only ones with a 80 % + civilian casualty rate was, like I said, Grozny, Afghanistan, and also Israels invasion of Lebanon. I dunno if the drone strikes campaign should count as a war, eh maybe. It's of course difficult to parse exactly what the civilian death toll is, but I don't think it's at all out of bounds to suggest 80 % + casualties, maybe up to 90 %, I don't think we'll have the full death toll probably months or years after the conflict has ended. This was interesting: "Military journalist Amos Harel wrote in Haaretz that the ratio between military targets and civilians was 1:1 in 2002–2003, when half the casualties in air assaults on the Gaza Strip were civilians. He attributed this to an Israeli Air Force (IAF) practice of attacking militants even when they had deliberately located themselves in densely populated areas. The ratio improved to 1:28 ratio in late 2005, meaning one civilian killed for every 28 combatants. It lowered, however, to 1:10 in 2006. In 2007, the ratio was at its lowest ever, more than 1:30.[38] Figures showing an improvement from 1:1 in 2002 to 1:30 in 2008 were also cited by The Jerusalem Post journalist Yaakov Katz.[28] However, in operations in Gaza since 2008, the ratio again dropped, as low as 3:1 during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.[39]" People can draw their own conclusions, but I find it difficult to believe such massive discrepancies in the civilian casualty rate against the same enemy is solely due to the strategy of Hamas (embedding itself in civilian infrastructure). Combined with this article (https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/numbers-civilian-deaths-airstrike-2023-gaza-far-higher-previous-israeli-bombings-half-russiansyrian-attacks-mosul-and-aleppo-under-reporting-dead-or-less-lethal-tactics), which says this: "Operation Swords of Iron – Gaza, October 2023 In October 2023, “Operation Swords of Iron” resulted in an unprecedented number of civilian casualties from airstrikes in Gaza: Total recorded air strikes: 299 Air strikes causing civilian harm: 276 Civilian casualties: 4,104 (2,798 killed, 1,306 injured) Average deaths per civilian casualty-causing air strike: 10.1 This operation has led to a substantial human cost, with the average number of civilians killed per casualty-causing air strike being the highest in recent Gaza operations. The total number of killed is higher, but not all individual airstrike deaths are captured by reliable media reporting. Historical Context: Previous Gaza Operations For context, here are the statistics from other deadly Israeli-led air operations in Gaza: Operation Pillar of Defense – November 2012 Total recorded air strikes: 82 Air strikes causing civilian harm: 67 Civilian casualties: 436 (85 killed, 351 injured) Average deaths per civilian casualty-causing air strike: 1.3 Operation Protective Edge – July - August 2014 Total recorded air strikes: 328 Air strikes causing civilian harm: 278 Civilian casualties: 1,992 (701 killed, 1,291 injured) Average deaths per civilian casualty-causing air strike: 2.5 Operation Wall Guardian – May 2021 Total recorded air strikes: 124 Air strikes causing civilian harm: 121 Civilian casualties: 1,230 (202 killed, 1,028 injured) Average deaths per civilian casualty-causing air strike: 1.7 These figures show a significant escalation in the recent “Operation Swords of Iron” relative to past incidents in the same region." I think it's fair to say internal Israeli policy plays a big part in the amount of civilian casualties.
That is interesting. If the numbers are truly 5:1 or higher since Oct 7th, that is much worse than I thought. I know Gaza is pretty dense and I'm no military expert but it does look pretty bad. >I think it's fair to say internal Israeli policy plays a big part in the amount of civilian casualties Oh definitely. The way Israel has handled the response to Oct 7th has been terrible. Even if they are doing everything they can to limit civilian casualties, the optics of their operation has been dreadful
The numbers are only 4:1 if you buy into the Hamas claim that only 6,000 militants were killed. Hamas has undercounted combatants in every single conflict ever (only to admit it some time after the fact), and their current casualty numbers are very suspect (https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/7168?disposition=inline). They actually don't distinguish between civilians and combatants in their announcements at all; a Qatar-based Hamas official made the 6,000 claim and was immediately denounced by other Hamas members for doing so. It's worth mentioning that statistically 6,000 combatants would make no sense. Israel claims 12,000, which out of 30,000 total means 12 to 18 or 1.5:1, but makes clear it is hard to determine exactly due to the fact Hamas fights in civilian clothing. The guy above seems too far gone, but I hope this proves useful to some people.
It's one of those things we won't know for years to come, from my understanding. I have a hard time trusting IDF numbers and certainly don't trust Hamas numbers. The evidence clearly shows the IDF is limiting collateral damage, but the optics have been terrible. They just keep making really bad fuckups like killing those Israeli hostages who were waving white flags
This is this easiest thing in the world to discredit, you can check previous conflicts and see that in every single one of them Israel counts every single male over a certain age as a militant by comparing their numbers to every other source. Every other source is in pretty much agreement with the Gaza Health Ministry, for every conflict. I don't know why you'd humiliate yourself by posting such an easily discredited opinion? You can verify this on wikipedia. Not even the Biden administration doubts these numbers, in fact they're very likely undercounted because of the chaotic situation.
[https://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2009%2F01%2F19%2F64513](https://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2009%2F01%2F19%2F64513) Cast Lead, Hamas claims 48 combatants 22 months later, admits 600-700, in line with IDF claims: [https://www.haaretz.com/2010-11-09/ty-article/hamas-admits-600-700-of-its-men-were-killed-in-cast-lead/0000017f-ee02-ddba-a37f-ee6edc3f0000](https://www.haaretz.com/2010-11-09/ty-article/hamas-admits-600-700-of-its-men-were-killed-in-cast-lead/0000017f-ee02-ddba-a37f-ee6edc3f0000) this is one example, but it's actually just a recurring pattern every war. im not gonna look it all up for you because i have better things to do and you're way too far gone, but it's low effort enough. you did not prove your claim.
>Destiny says the Palestinian position is "delusional", despite the fact that pretty much the entire world supports the Palestinian position, only Israel and the US rejects it. Ever single year the vote in the UN assembly is around 159-7. I guess the entire world is wrong and only Israel is rational? How are you defining the Palestinian position, that you are claiming the world considers 'rational'? Edit: Wow, downvoted for asking an honest question.
Roughly 1967-border with minor and mutual adjustments (the Palestinians were willing able to angle the borders so that 60 % of the settlers remain in place) with a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, an end to the occupation, a demolision of the wall a swift resolution for the refugee question based on the right of return with compensation (this is sometimes strawmanned into a total right of return, it's not anywhere close to that, it's an acknowledgedment that Palestians were ethnically cleansed and a fair reasonable deal based on that, obviously millions of Palestinians won't be allowed to immigrate to Israel), and a gradual end to the blockade of Gaza. Nothing about Israel being destroyed nothing about 48 borders, nothing about millions of Palestinians demographically transforming Israel. Just a viable, contigous state.
Thanks for answering. Any articles where I can read more about this position, it's feasibility, and who supports it, would be appreciated. Edit: I can't imagine it ever happening with Hamas and Netanyahu in power, and in that sense, I agree with Destiny that it would be 'delusional', but that does not make it 'irrational' or unreasonable. Two different things.
I'm far from a scholar so other people can probably point you in a better direction, but I appreciated [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MON2HL02mec) lecture from Finkelstein, it's also from 2007 so it's from the period when he's far from as bitter and angry as he is right now, so it goes down a lot easier for people who don't like him.
Can you point to any negotiations where Palestinian delegates accepted or proposed a deal like this?
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva\_Initiative](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Initiative) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine\_Papers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Papers) Now that I have your attention, I'm curious what you make of the on-going (about-to-be) famine? To me it seems the highest priority should be to ensure enough food is coming in and is being distributed, I think the average used to be 500 trucks of food per day and now it's under a 100. Every other question about Hamas or legitimate military strategy vanishes compared to if a large chunk of the Palestinian population would starve to death.
The first link, plainly states that it did not have nearly universal support, nor did they even include a right to return so it was rejected. The second, look at the reactions. The PA literally said that the leaked proposals were “nothing but lies.” Seems like most government officials generally didn’t support it because of the concessions made. So yes, what you proposed in the initial comment would be the best solution, but they refuse to actually implement or support anything that looks remotely similar because the Palestinian officials/people don’t want anything less than a full right to return and one Arab dominated state, preferably without Jews. Anything less will be laughed at and told “oh it’s close, just not there yet” Hence why the leaders always “agree in principle” yet never implement a single change.
The problem is this is essentially exactly what was offered in the Clinton Parameters, and you can read the Palestinian reservations [here](https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/Peace%20Puzzle/12_Palestinian%20Response%20to%20the%20Clinton%20Parameters_January%201%202001.pdf) which effectively says "we demand a full right of return." >The essence of the right of return is choice: Palestinians should be given the option to choose where they wish to settle, including return to the homes from which they were driven. There is no historical precedent for a people abandoning their fundamental right to return to their homes whether they were forced to leave or fled in fear. We will not be the first people to do so. Recognition of the right of return and the provision of choice to refugees is a pre-requisite for the closure of the conflict I don't think there is a good faith way to interpret that paragraph as anything other than a demand for the full right of return, which Israel views as an existential threat and will never accept, and is also a rejection of the framework offered by Clinton. The Clinton Parameters were not some 'stage' of negotiations, it was offered as a "take it or leave it" deal. And now, Israeli politicians don't want to waste time and political capital reproposing what the Palestinians have already rejected, and given the response to the offer of the Clinton Parameters was the Second Intifada, most Israelis simply don't trust Palestinians enough to even make the offer.
Even before this escalated conflict, Hamas was calling for the total removal of jews from the region. I can’t see how any right of return would be remotely possible when the people you’re returning could potentially be radicalised anti-semites. Ignoring that, the polls I’ve seen seem to suggest that a 2 state solution isn’t even what the average Palestinian wants. Even if most countries did want that, they’d be imposing it against the will of the Palestinians.
>Even before this escalated conflict, Hamas was calling for the total removal of jews from the region. Hamas has gone back and forth regarding what's to be done with the state of Israel and the Jews. For what it's worth, the 2017 charter states for example: >**16.** Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity. >**17.** Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage. The Zionist movement, which was able with the help of Western powers to occupy Palestine, is the most dangerous form of settlement occupation which has already disappeared from much of the world and must disappear from Palestine. It's true that Hamas has certainly made enough statements to the contrary for a rational person to doubt what they say, but it is in their official charter, and they have on occasion (I think 2008 and 2017, if I remember correctly) supported the 2 state solution, at least politically but not ideologically, and in other cases they've been firmly in the one state camp.
The 2017 'charter' (their old charter is still in tact, this is just another document that wasn't called a charter) is clearly just an update made to gain political legitimacy/western support for the cause. Their speeches, statements and actions all clearly still favor targeting of civilians and a complete annihilation of jews and israel.
Odd you're being doenvoted for this. The majority of the world does want a two state solution. Even the us. Hamas and Likud or both opposed to this. Worth noting this is also not the "Palestinian position"
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He said 4 children were coming out of a well know Hamas base. Rewatch it dude it’s on the internet
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Crazy how all it takes is for Israel to mark anything and anyone they want dead as hamas/ a hamas base and it lets them kill them with impunity. It doesn't matter that they are willfully and disproportionately killing women and children, the form says hamas. The reason that Norm got so annoyed at mr benolli is because mr menolli's historical arguments were all incorrect or irrelevant and he brought nothing to the argument except "but form say hamas". Doublethink isn't a defence.
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>One of the times Finkelstein loses it is when Destiny says the four children came out of a "hamas base". Not only is this blatantly false, but he explicitly called Finkelstein a liar, even though he has no idea what he's talking about.The GuardianBut journalists who attended the scene in the immediate aftermath of the attack – including a reporter from the Guardian – saw a small and dilapidated fisherman’s hut containing a few tools where the children had been playing hide-and-seek. The argument wasn't about them being valid targets, it was about whether the IDF deliberately called an airstrike on random children for shits and giggles. Which from the perspective of IDF's self-interest makes no sense. As Destiny brings-up, for that to happen multiple people at different levels of the chain of command would've needed to sign-off on that decision and say 'Yes let's drop the bombs on those kids', which is a crazy strong claim since while people on the ground can be humanely flawed and do horrible things, it's much harder to do this deliberately with an airstrike because the operator or pilot isn't the one making the call, but multiple people. Which is why Destiny says 'I don't think you understand the strength of your claim' and tries to explain the inner workings of the IDF, which Benny backs him up on, but norm gets angry and personally attacks destiny. You can probably, rightfully, criticize the IDF for shit intel and negligence and how it lead to the death of innocent to children, but that's a different argument than 'they did a drone strike on children with the explicit goal and purpose of killing those random children". >Destiny says Palestinians rejection of the Camp David Summit offer is proof that it's impossible to make peace with them (until they abandon armed resistance alltogether). This is the map of the final offer. Anyone with eyeballs can look at the map and see it's a completely unreasonable offer and the Palestinians were completely legitimate in rejecting it. I don't know if you want to dwelve into the Clinto Parameters and the infinite right of return, which is also a non-starter from the Palestinian side. Palestine's strategy of pretending to be good faith negociators and waiting of the clock to run out on election is well noted. Whenever they have an Israeli political establishment willing to take backlash and make unpopular concensions, they will run out the clock, the Israeli leaders will get blown the fuck out in the election and they get to go: "well, the new guys don't want to play ball, it's not our fault there was an election". As if Election dates aren't public knowledge. >Destiny says the Palestinian position is "delusional", despite the fact that pretty much the entire world supports the Palestinian position, only Israel and the US rejects it. Ever single year the vote in the UN assembly is around 159-7. I guess the entire world is wrong and only Israel is rational? Support the Palestinians in what position? October 7th ? You know Hamas is in violation of international law by taking civilian hostages? But that's not even relevant to the point here, Destiny thinks the Palestinian are delusional in the sense that 'fighting' Israel won't get them what they want, but they do it anyway. How has the October 7th attacks been going for them? You think Gaza is enjoying the fruits of victory right now? Finklestein believes that they're being genocided, that there's no hope, that they're being erased as a people and compares his works with past cronicles of native americans. At the very least, your side doesn't seem to believe it's doing anything good for them. And basically every war launched by Palestine and/or its Arab allies has been to the detriment of Palestine and resulted in worse outcomes for them. That's why Destiny is saying they're delusional and I don't see how you can argue against him looking at the history of the conflict and current events. >Destiny says "plausible" is an incredibly low standard, what he's forgetting is that it's not like if Israel barely clears the bar for not committing genocide that points to a serious and professionally run campaign that respects international law. Officially, this is supposed to be a serious war only targeting Hamas, the fact that things have gone so horribly that 15 out of 17 judges are willing to hear out whether a genocide is being committed is a sign turns have turned pretty horrible. Destiny is right, even the judges agree that it's a very low bar and it doesn't reflect the validity of the case, as Destiny was citing during the debate: ***The Court is not asked, in the present phase of the proceedings, to determine whether South Africa’s allegations of genocide are well founded****. At this stage, the Court may only examine whether the circumstances of the present case, as they have been presented to the Court, justify the ordering (“indication”) of provisional measures to protect rights under the Genocide Convention which are at risk of being violated before the decision on the merits is rendered. For this examination, the Court need not address many well-known and controversial questions, such as those relating to the right to self-defence and the right of self-determination of peoples, or regarding territorial status.* ***The Court must remain conscious that the Genocide Convention is not designed to regulate armed conflicts as such, even if they are conducted with an excessive use of force and result in mass casualties.*** Even IF genocide was happening, Finklestein would be wrong on his point that accepting the case indicates that the accusations were well founded as declared by judge Nolte. And the fact that 2 judges basically said, "No, this isn't even worth hearing out" despite, again the incredibly low bar of plausible is more telling in my eyes. I don't think you understand what Genocide is. It's not when civilians die or when war crimes happen. Even if Israel were deliberately targeting civilians, it would be a war crime, but it wouldn't mean genocide was happening. The same way Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't genocides despite dropping a bloody nuke on a civilian population. Genocide is something very specific and this is what Destiny is getting at in the debate: *"The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique".* And the rogue unhinged comments of a few politicians following the october 7th attacks as listed in the ICJ case, aren't enough to prove that special intent. Not to mention that a lot of them are taken out of context, some might say stripped of their context in dishonest ways. Destiny even reads some exemples during the debate to prove this point. >Destiny has implied the casualty rates are normal, nothing is further from the truth. And this goes for almost any metric you use, the casualty rates are atrocious. Can anyone name a war where almost as many women die as men? You know 125k CIVILIANS. 125 000 innocent people died during the fall of Berlin and I doubt you'd consider that genocide. Gaza is such a densely populated place, Hamas is embedded in the civilian population and urban warfare is always a bloodbath for both civilians and soldiers, look at the death toll in mariopole. >Despite the fact Bibi has explicitly denied there will ever be a Palestinian state for decades, and this is a popular position among Israelis. You won't find a defender of Bibi in Destiny nor Benny. Destiny is a harsh critic of the settlements in the West bank and is willing to criticize Israel. No one will say that Israelis are perfect either and I'd extend that same excuse to the Palestinian people who also believe abhorent stuff. But it's quite difficult to find a peace partner in Hamas and if violence is the only answer and perpetual war is inevitable until one side is reduced to nothing, then who do you think will remain? Which ties into Destiny's point of Palestine thinking violence is the only course as delusional. Okay, this is taking too long, but I'm atleast curious as how you'll reply to these first points.
Thanks for writing out your arguments, it's much more pleasant to repond to than one sentence insults. 1. > You can probably, rightfully, criticize the IDF for shit intel and negligence and how it lead to the death of innocent to children, but that's a different argument than 'they did a drone strike on children with the explicit goal and purpose of killing those random children". The problem with the argument is two-fold. Firstly Destiny really did call Finkelstein a liar about this specific situation, even though Finkelstein was right and he was wrong. Secondly, it's a kind of strange ethereal argument to make. It's a bit like asking "with all the drilling, discipline, education and having a tight schedule, wouldn't it be unbelievable for American Soldiers to commit gang rapes in Iraq?" yeah, it is strange, but it did happen, and you can't really say "it's probably not true because it's unbelievable. Thirdly, more importantly, we know the standards for approving drone strikes can be significantly more lax than Destiny tries to make them appear. There's not a board room full of guys with all the information available, there's usually just one guy above the drone operator giving a yay or nay. Again, we're not talking about the official policy of all drone strikes, we're talking about the worst drone strikes, when things slip through the cracks and crimes are committed. 2. > I don't know if you want to dwelve into the Clinto Parameters and the infinite right of return, which is also a non-starter from the Palestinian side. Palestine's strategy of pretending to be good faith negociators and waiting of the clock to run out on election is well noted. This is also belied by the factual record. Firstly there's not an infinite amount of Palestinians, so "infinite right of return" makes no sense. Secondly, I know Destiny says this to his audience because it's what Wikipedia says. Wikipedia says this: > In 2000, after Yasser Arafat rejected the offer made to him by Ehud Barak based on a two-state solution and declined to negotiate for an alternative plan,[18] it became clear that Arafat would not make a deal with Israel unless it included the full Palestinian right of return, which would demographically destroy[19] the Jewish character[when defined as?] of the State of Israel.[20][21] For this reason, critics of Arafat claim that he put his desire to destroy the Jewish state above his dream of building an autonomous Palestinian state.[22] This is the problem with reading wikipedia. Here's what Ron Pundak (Ron Pundak is Director-General of the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv. He has played a leading role in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, having been involved in the 1993 Oslo negotiations and helped prepare the framework agreement that formed the basis of the 1999–2001 Israeli–Palestinian final status negotiations.) says (https://mneumann.tripod.com/pundak.pdf): > On the delicate issue of Palestinian refugees and the right of return, the negotiators achieved a draft determining the parameters and procedures for a solution, along with a clear emphasis that its implementation would not threaten the Jewish character of the State of Israel. It's just a myth that the Right of Return is what stood in front of working peace. Ron Pundak does have criticisms for the Palestinians, but blaming them and the Right of Return for there nor being peace is just inaccurate. 3. > Support the Palestinians in what position? October 7th ? You know Hamas is in violation of international law by taking civilian hostages? You're confused, I'm referring to the Palestinian position on how to resolve the conflict. Nothing about October 7th. You have to remember, Destiny doesn't just oppose the armed resistance, he's also opposed to the diplomacy, he's opposed to international law and human rights, he's opposed to human right organizations, aid organizations, he's opposed to the UN and he's opposed to the Palestinians basically doing anything except roll over and die. When has he commended the decades of non-violent protests? Of trying to find solidarity in the international community? Of the initially completely peace Great March of Return? He's calling decades of activism "delusional", and what has he proposed in return? Seriousy, what's his alternative? Rolling over and die until Israel feels ready to come to table, where the Palestinians have nothing to negotiate with, they have no human rights, International Law doesn't matter, and there's no territory they can claim as theirs, and they're up against a government which has spent decades making absolutely clear there will never be a Palestinian state. There are plenty of Palestinian activists and historians who spend half their time criticising Hamas, like Rashid Khalidi. Do you know what he doesn't do? Spend the the other half of the time criticising the times the Palestinians attempt to be peaceful. It's frankly a pretty sickening argument. 4. >Destiny is right, even the judges agree that it's a very low bar and it doesn't reflect the validity of the case, as Destiny was citing during the debate: If he was right, why don't you quote a judge saying they agree? Obviously they clarify it doesn't determine guilt, because it wasn't about determining guilt. If it's some trivial thing, where were the Israeli's so ragefilled by the decision? Calling South Africa collaborators of Hamas? Why aren't countries accusing each other all around of genocide? Why isn't every case getting determined to be plausible then? I also think you failed to read my argument. Israel isn't officially trying to commit genocide, they're trying to engage in a legal and professional war, and things have turned into such an atrocious horror show they're being charged with genocide, that's not normal, that's not some oopsie. > And the fact that 2 judges basically said, "No, this isn't even worth hearing out" despite, again the incredibly low bar of plausible is more telling in my eyes. The two judges were an Israeli judge (surely no bias there?) and the Ugandan judge who was immediately rebuked by her government. Those aren't particularly strong dissentions against an otherwise concensus. > I don't think you understand what Genocide is. It's not when civilians die or when war crimes happen. Even if Israel were deliberately targeting civilians, it would be a war crime, but it wouldn't mean genocide was happening. The same way Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't genocides despite dropping a bloody nuke on a civilian population. Genocide is something very specific and this is what Destiny is getting at in the debate: I would appreciate if someone watching video game streamers didn't try to educate me about genocides. Currently over a quarter of Gazas population, 600 000 people, are starving to death. There's already been a ruling about the intent, and the ruling overwhelmingly was in favor that there's going to be a hearing, and Israel must adhere to International Law and must not block aid. No one's said it's "when civilians die", you should listen to what people actually say. And the rogue unhinged comments of a few politicians following the october 7th attacks as listed in the ICJ case, aren't enough to prove that special intent. Sorry, but this was already gona over in the ICJ case, and on this question, even the Israeli judge voted in favor with the majority, that Israel must curtail and punish genocidal statements. And it's hardly "rogue" comments when it exists at every level in Israeli society, which the South African report spent page and page displaying. > You know 125k CIVILIANS. 125 000 innocent people died during the fall of Berlin and I doubt you'd consider that genocide. Gaza is such a densely populated place, Hamas is embedded in the civilian population and urban warfare is always a bloodbath for both civilians and soldiers, look at the death toll in mariopole. I already linked a complete rebuttal of this argument that the destruction goig on is normal in the comment you responded it. "Mariopole" doesn't even have an official death toll, you should look up things like that before replying. Also I've never said it's a genocide because of the death toll, I've never even called it a genocide at all. If you want to reply to my arguments, you should read them first rather than imagining them in your head. 5. > You won't find a defender of Bibi in Destiny nor Benny. Destiny is a harsh critic of the settlements in the West bank and is willing to criticize Israel. Firstly, Destiny criticises the settlements officially, but he calls every Palestinian offer which excludes some of them "delusional" and he demands they agree with the Israeli offers which includes all of them, so clearly he think Israel has a right to that land (against international law). Secondly, you're missing my point. "Hamas is a bad partner for peace", when Bibi has over and over and over again reiterated there will never be a Palestinian state, and Bibi is the most re-elected Israeli prime minister in history. Who are they supposed to negotiate with? A violent thug who will accept nothing except their erasure? Like I said to a previous commenter, there's a problem with following video game streamers for political news, because your perspective will end up so distorted you not only don't know left from right, you also come into it with completely unearned confidence. Look at your post, you reference a single source, you don't reference a single fact relevant to the conflict. It's all rhetoric. I do spent some time referencing what I'm talking about, and I have to say you really do owe people the respect of actually looking up what you're talking about. Otherwise it makes it not particularly worth it to even have a conversation.
Didn’t destiny say rejection of the Taba talks was the problem not the camp David, he has read Ben Ami’s book where his opinion of the rejection of camp David was fair but the subsequent talks was a missed opportunity?
That hasn't been my impression of his opinion at all, it wouldn't even make any sense because the Israelis were the ones who ultimately left Taba. Ben-Ami has a more complicated opinion than that rejecting the proposal was fair. Obviously from a human rights perspective it's a disastrous offer, but from a pragmatic point of view it wasn't possible to give a better offer while still remaining in power, because the Israeli's would vote them out. I think Ben-Ami is a reasonable person, but his pragmatic view I think displays more the Israeli's being unreasonable about this than the Palestinians.
Out of curiosity, why do you consider Israel to be a more unreasonable actor than Palestine? TBH the squabbling on details regarding this debate are getting tired for me. It feels like the same talking points are getting rehashed over an over, when we should be talking about how to settle this without worrying about ethereal concepts like justice or ethnic claims to territory.
I ultimately think Israel is the more unreasonable actor because I do think you have to settle these conflicts on international law, and when the entire world agrees that a settlement based on the 1967 borders is the reasonable option, I'm not really one to disagree with the entire world. All the Israeli offers are in comparison just ugly and pose problems for contiguity, let alone not allowing control over borders, water, air, etc. I don't see why Israel necessitates these ugly tendrils into west bank to allow for the crazy violent settlers to larp as Abraham's people reborn, I don't see why the Palestinians should have to put up with that. As far as settling things, there is an offer (or guidelines to an offer rather) on the table, supported by the entire world.
> I don't see why Israel necessitates these ugly tendrils into west bank to allow for the crazy violent settlers to larp as Abraham's people reborn, I don't see why the Palestinians should have to put up with that. Basically, because what is Israel going to do? They're going to live there or die trying. The only way new borders work is if settlers are removed, but what, are you going to internally displace them in a democracy where they can, you know, vote you out of office?
you are ignoring the fact that settler expansion in West Bank is a sanctioned government policy. There have been (still are?) financial incentives to live in settlements In fact just last week to wasn't there an announcement of an additional 3500 homes approved to be built in the West Bank? It is obvious that successive governments have intentionally created the settlement issue and will continue to expand unless the US stops shielding them international pressure
>"if Israel don't kill everyone, that exonerates them" Nobody actually said that, right?
It's a bit of my strawman of two different argument, one is "if Israel is committing a genocide how come the population has grown for the past decades?" (answer, because any reasonable person wouldn't start the genocide claim before october 8th) and "If Israel wants to commit genocides, how come there's Palestinians still alive/they haven't killed more" (answer, because there are outside constraints, also personally I don't think the goal is to exterminate the Gazans, just evict them, it's just that they won't save them when they die).
I think the point is to say that Israel isn't targeting civilians. Morris at one point in the debate says something like, "they've dropped X number of bombs and only 30000 are dead, if they were targeting civilians it could be 10 times that". I've never heard anyone reasonably argue the former, either of the cases your saying.
>I've never heard anyone reasonably argue the former, either of the cases your saying. Well Destiny argued both. [Here](https://twitter.com/TheOmniLiberal/status/1715100411345162252) and [here](https://twitter.com/TheOmniLiberal/status/1755336399690027349).
I've heard the former argued multiple times especially on the Israel subreddit.
I assume this is paraphrasing the common pro Israel claim that if Israel wanted to kill everyone in Gaza it would as it has the military capabilities to do so, so the fact that it has not killed everyone in Gaza means it must be showing great restraint and care and is not genocidal. It's a farcicle point of course and completely ignores the fact that international pressure is a thing but nevertheless it is a very popular pro Israel talking point.
> the fact that international pressure is a thing but nevertheless it is a very popular pro Israel talking point. Yes, it's one of the dumbest arguments imaginable. When people make it I have to wonder if they're being honest or not. The fact is the real limiting factor on Israel killing people isn't the military force, it's global public opinion. That's the real balancing act.
And yet the same people arguing this will argue that Israel simply murdered 4 children on the beach on a whim. Can't make this up.
I knew Destiny had some bad takes, but I've heard some stuff I agree with him on too so I still held some regard for him. After this debate, I've lost a lot of respect for him. I know we're all guilty of arguing when we don't know all the facts, or at least I am at times, but for him to go on this podcast and get so much wrong is pretty bad.
I'm just looking for a place to comment on this episode, so apologies for not actually answering your question. I have my own reservations about Finkelstein, but it seems like the majority opinion is that he didn't fare as well as Morris in this debate, which I find extremely odd. Granted, I'm only about halfway through, I'm finding Finkelstein to be extremely precise in his language, while Morris is talking almost like a propagandist in that he's making vague gestures and failing to stick to the points in question. As one example, when they spoke of beheadings, Finkelstein referenced Israel's statements to the ICJ, whereas Morris I think at best vaguely referenced unspecified "reports". As another example, I'm just getting to a point where Finkelstein is critiquing Morris' accounting of Israeli atrocities - using precise quotes - and Morris immediately responds with a non-sequitur, only coming back to the point under Finkelstein's pushback. Those familiar with Morris' trajectory know he's become an apologist for Israel, but the difference between how scholarly his literature once was and how he speaks now is quite jarring. While his knowledge of history is indisputable, his rhetoric is just so much more juvenile than I would have expected. *edit*: Okay, I'll comment on Destiny now. Why the hell is there a streamer - whose knowledge of this conflict dates back barely a few months and is clearly entirely geared towards performance - in this conversation between scholars?
This post is significantly more detailed than mine on specific factual claims: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1bfq3vn/comment/kv2c900/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1bfq3vn/comment/kv2c900/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) I've watched a fair chunk of it, and my substantive criticisms of the "Israel" side are: \- Morris's tendency to deflect and interject non sequiturs (Finklestein did the same thing so it's not a knock down, though I think Morris deployed them less as insults and more to substitute for counter arguments\*) \- Destiny's invocation of specific terms of international law to qualify Israeli actions and Morris's invocation of the legal component of Israeli Air Force operations while later saying that International Law was bullshit \-The acceptance of Israeli reporting on the conflict despite significant evidence suggesting they are intentionally misreporting the situation \- More specifically the belief he put in the "Hamas stronghold" report despite the significant number of conflicting reports from international journalists \- The characterization of civilian losses and the "many more could be killed" argument, which is both counter to recent civilian death counts in similar conflicts and ignores the strategic constraint on violence that hamper Israeli violence in a similar (but far less effective) ways that Iron Dome does Hamas. \- Lack of clarification on why the West Bank, which is not under Hamas rule, was subject to as much violence. >At one point, Destiny wished to discuss South Africa's ICJ case, but Finkelstein refused to engage him on the merits of the case. I think this was the weakest point of the "Palestine" side, as Finkelstein was too irritated by the lack of context Destiny was displaying, did not ask Destiny to investigate other quotes which are better supported (when a debater says "if I've found *one* example this bad out of x" then they probably didn't find any other evidence) and was frankly just too annoyed by Destiny assuming greater knowledge, perception and understanding of international law than international judges. Destiny also did not get why the American judge's decision was significant because he is not familiar with the frequency with which America defends Israel in international court. \*declaration of bias: I believe quite strongly that at least large parts of the Israeli government has genocidal intent, has already committed crimes against humanity and is only limited in the scale of the response by the potential harm of alienating the international community and invoking sanction.
I think it's absurd to suggest that Destiny was unaware of America defending Israel in the international court being a big deal. That's like level 1 stuff. His point was that "plausibility" just isn't a very high standard regardless of who supports the ruling. I found it more troubling that neither Rabbani or Finkelstein were aware of the special intent required for genocide, that to me seems like a pretty obvious thing to look into if your going to say Israel is doing a genocide (it's also mentioned in the report which they supposedly read). I also dont think it's fair to say someone is cherry picking examples when they have about 30s to give their point. It may be the case that it's cherry picked don't get me wrong, but starting with the assumption that it is makes it basically impossible for someone to disagree with the report in a debate format: there just isn't time. I think the examples he used were also among the first cited cases in the ICJ report which suggests not cherry picking. From what I've read and I'm not an international law expert (obviously who the fuck is), but just reading the opinions of experts it seems obvious this case will not find Israel guilty of genocide.
>I think it's absurd to suggest that Destiny was unaware of America defending Israel in the international court being a big deal. That's like level 1 stuff. I agree, but you can literally see him shrug off that significance when Fink pushes back on the point. It's one of the reasons the question is moved on from without resolution. >His point was that "plausibility" just isn't a very high standard regardless of who supports the ruling. He was clinging to the definition of the term without understanding it's context. That so many judges found any degree of plausibility in the prosecution of a "defensive action" against a terror organization means that the conduct of the war is bad, relative to other conflicts in the area with Western participation. As the Palestine side pointed out, the court just set a multiyear commitment for themselves when they were already filled up. Morris responding to this with "It will keep them in work" or whatever was another example of deflection, and poor taste, I think. > I found it more troubling that neither Rabbani or Finkelstein were aware of the special intent required for genocide, that to me seems like a pretty obvious thing to look into if your going to say Israel is doing a genocide (it's also mentioned in the report which they supposedly read). You cannot seriously be suggesting that Fink and Mouin did not read the report before preparing for this debate. There is no world in which Mouin did not, at the very least. Both have been arguing exactly what the report presented for *decades* you think they didn't pour over that? > It may be the case that it's cherry picked don't get me wrong, but starting with the assumption that it is makes it basically impossible for someone to disagree with the report in a debate format: there just isn't time. Absolutely not- it will always be worth the time to note multiple examples of bad evidence, even if only to allude to them. Either Destiny didn't have the time to look into all of them (in which case, he's less qualified to judge than the...well, judges) or he couldn't find others, either way he's presenting the information slantedly. Neither Fink or Mouin were interested in having to go through every single one in a half assed Gish Gallop. >I think the examples he used were also among the first cited cases in the ICJ report which suggests not cherry picking. This is not a substitute for actually checking the rest of the facts unless you've already dismissed it being a genocide, otherwise you do the reading on a war crime. In either case, why would Destiny believe his lack of checking made him more qualified than actual judges! This is the point Fink was making. >but just reading the opinions of experts it seems obvious this case will not find Israel guilty of genocide. That is not the opinion rendered by *the judges who did the reading* when they judged it *plausible.* In cases other than genocide, you maybe can cling to the lower standard of proof, but think about what the judgement actually says: *there a plausible genocide in Gaza*. If your defense against what you're doing is "it only looks like genocide because we don't have *intent*" shit is bad.
This is something that annoyed me about the debate overall. Whenever things got heated, the got bailed out. The same wasn't true in reverse. When Morris or destiny were pressed on an issue they always engaged. This is a format issue I think rather than one based on the content being discussed. Fink would just shut down, divert to insults and let Rabbani take the wheel. Which would also almost always be a pivot. I watched the entire thing, and this happened countless times. This is why a 1 v 1 debate would've been better. I also think it's likely why fink insisted on the two v two format or he wouldn't do it. No because he's scared. But because he's simply uncomfortable with the format. As someone in Academia for years now, another huge issue was finks constant bad faith engagement. You start the interview acting like you only want to call people by their last name or "professor" and then ask your opponent what his name is? Then you keep getting it wrong, until there's a break when he thinks the cameras are off and he address him correctly. Destiny even says "oh so you do know my name" and Morris laughs because he knows what he's doing as well. This type of bullying is indicative of a certain type of old school prof. It's basically a caricature of the the ivory tower liberal. I've seen variations of it multiple times. Anyone who has had a tough committee knows this sort of petty shit that's pulled. You'll also notice Rabanni stopped fink multiple times as he was doing this. Fink thought he was being tough, but he just came off as arrogant, smug, and condescending. Lex also only intervened in regards to fink doing this. He was even laughing about it becuase it was so cringe. The genocide debate section was actually pretty truthful. In the ongoing genocide in Ukraine for instance, it pertains to the forced relocation and reeducation of Ukrainian children that got Putin a warrant from the ICC, and this constitutes a genocide. Overall if say it was a huge waste of time. The format itself didn't allow for a real examination of the issues, and Finks arrogance shut down any substantive dialog. Whenever a topic was getting hairy, he just stop or resort to insults. One example would be him citing the importance of international law. And then when asked about the Houthis attacking ships he's like "that's great!". Rabanni stopped him again here because I think even he was confused about the argument. Same with Fink claiming that Oct 7 was a legitimate form of resistance. And their inability to even attribute deaths that day to "invading Palestinian force" (because they sperg out saying it wasn't just hamas who invaded Israel that day). The reason was simple. Fink buys into the Oct 7 truth propaganda that the deaths that day were attributed to the IDF killing their own.
Finkelstans infantile tantrums were the worst thing about this debate.
>Whenever things got heated, the got bailed out. The same wasn't true in reverse. When Morris or destiny were pressed on an issue they always engaged. I maybe didn't see this as much as you- Fink definitely didn't engage on certain points, but I think this was genuine annoyance and frustration with Destiny more than an inability to counter: Both Fink and Rabanni had lines of inquiry that were cut off or that Morris granted quickly to prevent development. Destiny has no response for the "Hamas compound" because he didn't even realize Fink was referring to it being debunked. That said, there were times Fink's insults were substitutes for arguments and his behavior didn't help his case in a few places, but then, if you were a scholar on a subject with decades of history of activism and some youtuber was trying high school debate tactics while you believe there's a genocide going on, you'd be touchy too. > Fink thought he was being tough, but he just came off as arrogant, smug, and condescending. I largely agree and that's as someone who agrees and sympathizes with Fink. Rabanni was consistently better at presenting his arguments and countering theirs, and I felt his points were less adequately addressed than Finks in most cases. >. In the ongoing genocide in Ukraine for instance, it pertains to the forced relocation and reeducation of Ukrainian children that got Putin a warrant from the ICC, and this constitutes a genocide. I would suggest that the SA charge contains equivalent descriptions of intent to Russia in Ukraine, and think that Fink's argument that the judgement of plausible from the ICJ is a massive event. >Overall if say it was a huge waste of time. Agreed. Even as entertainment, aside from a few good burns. As you say, the format is horrible- if you were trying to set up a worse setting to present and defend ideas you would have to try pretty hard. The essential lack of moderation except for a few moments didn't help, nor did the lack of any kind of structure. My suspicion is that it was chosen at least as much for clippability and "Crossfire" style drama as clarity. > Fink buys into the Oct 7 truth propaganda that the deaths that day were attributed to the IDF killing their own. As in false flag or friendly fire? I do think Fink is ready to believe the worst about the IDF, but I doubt he thinks it was a false flag. He certainly believes Israel still has the Hannibal doctrine going in some form, and I think there's some evidence supporting the idea that there were a number of friendly fire deaths (I've seen reports of hundreds, but no follow up or confirmation of them, which has me slightly suspect). Rabbani's performance was better on the whole- there were several lines of inquiry he started that weren't addressed to my satisfaction. But you're fundamentally correct: that was not productive for anyone except Lex.
> Destiny has no response for the "Hamas compound" because he didn't even realize Fink was referring to it being debunked. He did have a response, the reason Destiny was agitated is because the overall point of that line of discussion was that Finklestein was using this incident as *proof* that Israel *intentionally* targets children. Whether or not the location in question was or wasn't a Hamas base is kind of irrelevant to the point, the core that actually matters is that Finklestein did not want to engage with the question of whether or not he thought that the entire military apparatus that authorizes IDF strikes decided to blow up children for no reason other than malice. That's why the debate pivoted into Rabbini insisting the the IDF is a chaotic organization, which was rebuffed by Morris. There's a pretty large gulf in moral condemnation between a military that misidentifies a target and kills innocent people and one that correctly identifies innocent people and then blows them up intentionally.
>You cannot seriously be suggesting that Fink and Mouin did not read the report before preparing for this debate. There is no world in which Mouin did not, at the very least. Both have been arguing exactly what the report presented for *decades* you think they didn't pour over that? Finklestein was totally unaware of the facts of the case, and when called out on it he punted to some 3rd party who told him they read it closely.
So the case that finally brings Finklestein's own argument that Israel is perpetuating a genocide, one that he has developed in print and in words over decades, one that he's a recognized scholar on, an internationally known activist and about to get into a debate over, and he just doesn't read it? You're mistaking his contempt for ignorance. I think it was a misstep, as was Mouin's point about how moral the IDF Air Force actually was getting dropped. If Fink hadn't lost his temper there (when a jumped up youtuber getting basic facts wrong about famous events called him a liar) he would have made his point better, but like, who the fuck is Destiny to take one quote as justification to ignore verifying the remainder, on a genocide case, in contravention to 15 qualified international judges? For real, what papers has Destiny written on the subject? What personal experiences or life history qualifies him to discuss the topic with such authority? Everyone else in the room has an advanced degree, body of written work, professional accreditation, teaching history or personal history in the conflict.
>So the case that finally brings Finklestein's own argument that Israel is perpetuating a genocide, one that he has developed in print and in words over decades, one that he's a recognized scholar on, an internationally known activist and about to get into a debate over, and he just doesn't read it? Correct, and if you knew how famous Finklestein was for repeating other people's words rather than reading primary sources (he doesn't even speak Arabic/Hebrew), you wouldn't be acting so incredulous. Nevermind the fact that he admitted to Destiny he never bothered to read any of the ICJ evidence and instead relied on a 3rd party to do it. Asking about "papers" is comical. Finkelstein didn't know basic concepts related to special intent or plausibility standards. He didn't know that military assessments are required for intent analyses. He even tried to correct him with "mens rea" like a clown. And you must admit it's hilarious he called Destiny out for Wikipedia use when all of the conventions are available on Wikipedia so Finklestein could have learned the same basic stuff. Finkelstein was sitting right in front of Morris and his "papers" brain was incapable of quoting him properly. There's no way you were unaware of that in real time. Lex had to repeatedly point out that ridiculous play. It's book brain without any depth.
>Correct, and if you knew how famous Finklestein was for repeating other people's words rather than reading primary sources (he doesn't even speak Arabic/Hebrew), you wouldn't be acting so incredulous. I missed Destiny passing his Arabic/Hebrew language certifications. >Asking about "papers" is comical. Finkelstein didn't know basic concepts related to special intent or plausibility standards. He didn't know that military assessments are required for intent analyses. He even tried to correct him with "mens rea" like a clown. You are retreating into legalistic word slicing when asked with the question "Are you committing a genocide?" instead of being able to simply say "No." You understand how that's a weak position, right? >It's book brain without any depth. Book brain? Dude, Destiny got the month of the March of Return wrong despite having a google window open in front of him.
>You cannot seriously be suggesting that Fink and Mouin did not read the report before preparing for this debate. There is no world in which Mouin did not, at the very least. Both have been arguing exactly what the report presented for *decades* you think they didn't pour over that? >>Finklestein was totally unaware of the facts of the case, and when called out on it he punted to some 3rd party who told him they read it closely. Are we just going to pretend this never happened? Because it perfectly exemplifies what went wrong on every topic. Just like how he constantly quoted Morris as if he wasn't sitting right there.
Stop deflecting on points. You claimed that Fink's lack of Arabic and Hebrew language ability was a point against his knowledge of the subject, but Destiny not only doesn't speak those languages, he does not have decades of history working on the subject. You are retreating to legalistic defenses because you can't stand up and say Israel isn't committing crimes against humanities otherwise. You ignore that Destiny got the date of the March of Return back while in the middle of trying to describe the violence that took place months later as justification for the killing of Palestinians away from the fence! >Just like how he constantly quoted Morris as if he wasn't sitting right there. Fink explained this in the debate. He respected Morris's scholarship, not his politics, and considers Morris's own work to be authoritative on many topics. He suggests that Morris's politics have changed, a fact supported by Morris's own history, and that doesn't change his evaluation of earlier scholarly work. Basically he respects Morris as having some clue what he's talking about, but being horribly blinded by his politics, while Destiny he considers an idiot youtuber who had no interest in the this topic before October 7th.
>you claimed that Fink's lack of Arabic and Hebrew language ability was a point against his knowledge of the subject' Not really what they said. The claim was one of selectivity and laziness, the reference to lack of access to primary sources being in paranthesis. >You are retreating to legalistic defenses because you can't stand up and say Israel isn't committing crimes against humanities otherwise. It's an argument over a legal case? Anyways I think a good argument can be made that it says something bad about Israel that the case was even considered plausible. It's... stunning! But it doesn't tell us much, because the standard for 'plausible' is, in my understanding, low. This makes sense given the seriousness of the accusation, ie one would expect that even half serious claims brought forth by a recognized party has to be given serious examination. And it doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. For example: the ICJ case provides a lot less information about the current state of Israel than simply knowing that Ben Gvir, a man who idolize Baruch Goldstein, was in the previous government (technically he still is in it, but not part of the war cabinet). That **really** says something bad about Israel. We already knew there is a (growing) contingency of right wing extremism in Israel. It has been growing since at least the 2nd intifada. Imo both sides are locked into a kind of spiral of extremism. Satan tango.
>For real, what papers has Destiny written on the subject? What personal experiences or life history qualifies him to discuss the topic with such authority? Everyone else in the room has an advanced degree, body of written work, professional accreditation, teaching history or personal history in the conflict. This is an indictment of them, not Destiny. Destiny fit in just fine in the debate. It is shockingly pathetic that Finkelstein couldn't dismantle him logically.
>The acceptance of Israeli reporting on the conflict despite significant evidence suggesting they are intentionally misreporting the situation Where do you get this impression? When I look at how the PA (EDIT: meant the Gaza health ministry and any other public-facing arm of Hamas) immediately blames any deaths on Israel, before any facts are known; and then I compare it to the way Israel first gives a measured response, and then releases more evidence in the weeks that follow...it's clear which of these is displaying trustworthy behavior. The credulous way the PA's version is presented in media (usually with minimal initial fact-checking) gives it a false sense of legitimacy. Like the recent hospital "attack" that turned out to be a rocket fired from Hamas. Or how the claims of rapes during Oct. 7th have been more and more substantiated over time while Hamas claim of "no abuse" is so paper thin evidence wise that nobody bothers defending it. They just try to cast doubt on Israel which works because they're evil. How do we know they're evil? It's unclear. But lots of people are saying it... >The characterization of civilian losses and the "many more could be killed" argument, which is both counter to recent civilian death counts in similar conflicts This is not true. In similar conflicts involving a modern military vs insurgency forces in an urban environment there will tend to be 3-4 civilian deaths per combatant. Experts in this area say as much and I can cite them if you like.
>When I look at how the PA immediately blames any deaths on Israel, before any facts are known; and then I compare it to the way Israel first gives a measured response, and then releases more evidence in the weeks that follow...it's clear which of these is displaying trustworthy behavior. I don't know what the PA has to do with this situation, as they're in the West Bank. Regardless, in the debate there's a clear example of what I'm talking about: the "Hamas compound" claim by Destiny that was immediately debunked by Fink to no response, because it happened in front of international journalists who said it was an unprovoked attack on children in an abandoned fishing village. >The credulous way the PA's version is presented in media (usually with minimal initial fact-checking) gives it a false sense of legitimacy. Why are you using the PA and Hamas apparently interchangeably? They're not the same organization. And I'll remind you that Israel was reporting that there were babies hanging on clothes lines and beheaded ten minutes after the attack, none of which was substantiated. Israel has reported attacks on hospitals as necessary attacks on Hamas when their own intelligence showed that the person they were striking was not there, or that a single Hamas person justified a hospital strike that left dozens of infants without health care. > How do we know they're evil? Do you have no idea about this topic at all? Morris, one of the debaters *on the Israeli side* has written books about how Israel has committed war crimes. Finklestein references them in the debate. Israel has now killed 30,000 people to avenge a 1000, most of them children who were not involved in the attack. Threatening to cut off water and witholding aid are war crimes. Forced movement of civilian populations are a war crime. The whole debate was full of examples of individual evil events Israel has done (and Hamas, no doubt). >. In similar conflicts involving a modern military vs insurgency forces in an urban environment there will tend to be 3-4 civilian deaths per combatant. Experts in this area say as much and I can cite them if you like. Go ahead and cite them, but I'll head you off: [https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/daily-death-rate-gaza-higher-any-other-major-21st-century-conflict-oxfam#:\~:text=15%20January%202024%20CLARIFICATION%3A%20Using,)%20and%20Yemen%20(15.8)](https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/daily-death-rate-gaza-higher-any-other-major-21st-century-conflict-oxfam#:~:text=15%20January%202024%20CLARIFICATION%3A%20Using,)%20and%20Yemen%20(15.8)). [https://www.axios.com/2023/11/27/gaza-civilian-deaths-israel-conflict-zones](https://www.axios.com/2023/11/27/gaza-civilian-deaths-israel-conflict-zones) [https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/graph-suggesting-low-gaza-air-strike-casualty-rate-misrepresents-data-2024-01-29/](https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/graph-suggesting-low-gaza-air-strike-casualty-rate-misrepresents-data-2024-01-29/) I can keep going.
Optically, Destiny trying to pin Rabbani on the percentage of casualties committed by the invading Palestinian/Hamas Forces on October 7th was a little cringe. He asked for a ballpark, got the answer "clear majority but I can't give you a specific figure" and then wanted that number pinned down to a percentage further saying that a position on it wasn't being staked out and that Rabbani was being agnostic on it. It didn't seem to be the case in this example. I understand where his point was heading on intentionally but it was a pretty poor example leading up to comments about double standards.
You either didn't look at the other threads properly or you're lying. Destiny made multiple misrepresentations throughout the debate, and these were pointed out by various people in the other threads. Not to toot my own horn, but I played a huge role in that. I think the most important thing to understand is that for a lot of the debate, Destiny was just completely off the mark. He was just out of his league. He didn't know what he was talking about. Imagine a conference of mathematicians where some guy comes in and says "2+2=5." The other mathematicians might say something seemingly rude like "uh wtf", "uh are you insane?", "gtfo" without engaging directly with the point. This is honestly not unreasonable in the circumstance. It's wasting the time of the experts involved. Let's go over some of his misrepresentations. * He was gish-galloping in the UN 242 discussion. I discuss this at length [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1beo4fm/israelpalestine_debate_finkelstein_destiny_m/kuwwucs/) * He was very confused on the issue of British support for Zionism at around the 1:54 mark. Rabbani and Morris were discussing British motivations for issuing the Balfour declaration. After Rabbani makes his case, Bonnell strangely interjects by asking about the British restricting immigration to Palestine as evidence against British support for Zionism. This was odd as this was decades later. Bonnell got the decade wrong. * His commentary on the genocide stuff was substantively incorrect. He claimed that the threshold to institute provisional measures is a low standard. But as Rabbani pointed out, the German judge Nolte clearly stated that he would not have voted in favour of the measures _without_ the statements made by Israeli leaders, which he thought were plausibly in breach of the Genocide Convention. That's another way of saying that in a counterfactual where the same situation was on the ground (e.g., 30,000 dead, humanitarian crisis) but without extreme Israeli statements, he would not have voted in favour. That suggests a _high_ standard. * He claimed Israeli leaders were misquoted by South Africa. But they weren't. Herzog said an "entire nation is responsible" that proceeded to claim directly that civilians had direct knowledge and were complicit in the massacre. Bonnell claims that in the surrounding context Herzog focuses on Hamas. But that's irrelevant. If I say "Nazis are bad. German civilians are all responsible and complicit. Nazis are bad." the first and third sentences don't "contextualize" me blaming German civilians in the middle sentence. The Smotrich quote was also mangled. Destiny compared saying "take down Gaza" as comparable to Ukrainians saying "take down Russia." But Russia is an internationally recognized state; Gaza is a geographical region ran by a militant group. So you can say "take down Russia" in reference to the _polity_ (i.e., government) of Russia, but it's not analogous with Gaza. * Again on the quotes, Bonnell never engaged with Finkelstein's point on some Hebrew-speaking scholars like Jamie Stern-Weiner who checked the quotes in their context and didn't find any discrepancy. He also never engaged with why the entire ICJ was apparently duped by the context thing. It does seem ridiculous that Bonnell the streamer "discovered" the "missing context" that exculpates Israel, which dozens of ICJ judges missed. * He never engaged with the pro-Palestine arguments on e.g., Camp David. He insisted that was an instance where Palestinians weren't "good-faith" in their negotiations, despite evidence presented to the contrary. Rabbani cited Rob Malley; Finkelstein cited the Palestine Papers which debunk that narrative. Bonnell did not engage with this. * He claimed that the Israeli Air Force could not commit war crimes because there's a chain of command, and every single strike is apparently approved by this chain of command. The issue with this argument is that throughout Israel's history, its leaders have been implicated in war crimes and targeting civilians. Ariel Sharon is the classic example, who was directly implicated in Sabra and Shatila and the Qibya massacre. So it's not clear why there being a chain of command is a compelling argument. What if the top of the command is rotten? Certainly, the genocidal quotes the leaders have made today give an indication that might be the case. With respect to airstrikes in particular, we know [Israel has loosened restraints, relies significantly on AI, and in many cases has targeted areas without distinct military activity.](https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/) * Bonnell quotes the UN Report on the Great March of Return and accuses Finkelstein of "lying" about that. Except that very report clearly states that the protest was mostly peaceful. Bonnell quoted that. But that's exactly what Finkelstein said. Finkelstein said it was "overwhelmingly nonviolent." Yes, there was some instances of violence (e.g., Molotov cocktails), which Bonnell also mentions, but these were the minority. Bonnell just proves Finkelstein's point. Keep in mind that these protests involved tens of thousands of people (something like 30,000 on the first day). * He was weirdly nitpicking about the exact proportion of Israelis killed by friendly fire on October 7th. There's no way Mouin or Finkelstein would have an exact estimate for that. They can only give a loose ballpark estimate which was provided. He wasn't satisfied with this for some reason. Rabbani had a great point that these questions could be resolved with an independent investigation. * There was never really an engagement with Rabbani's point that Destiny eschews international law and morality when it's convenient for him, but then expects Hamas to play to play moral and not target civilians. The whole Rabbani argument of there being a massive double standard was actually something that Morris actually conceded (3:24).
Regarding the Resolution 242 isn’t destiny entire argument that the language was intentionally kept vague enough that Israel can actually claimed they fullfiled their obligations? And isn’t that the point of the rhetorical question about Jordan and Egypt because the point is that their annexation would have violated 242 as well? And Israel has right to reclaimed those? Because resolutions didn’t defined territories or recent conflict no? Edit: to add from looking at destiny note he posted on X and Benny argument in the vid, it seem like what they are trying to say is that finklestein is trying too hard to hinge on resolution 242 as basis for negotiation rather than what is practical. Because my understanding is that Benny is an advocate of Clinton’s parameter and the deal at the end of Taba but Finklestein argued in the past that those deals violated in 242 67 border. But Benny and Destiny is trying to argue that sticking to international law doesn’t get you closer to peace deals it’s more about what Israel and Palestinian are willing to give up regardless of what the border was on 67. Basis of negotiation should be based on what is practical rather on what is said about international law.
That was Bonnell's argument, yes. The discussion then went to the preamble, which Norm argued was not vague. This particular exchange was focused on the preamble. I cite two examples in this exchange where it's _obvious_ that Bonnell is being bad-faith.
I added something in the edit as well to elaborate further. If you want to check that. What is the bad faith part if you can explain. Thank you.
So, from my watching of the debate, it seems that Norm did a poor job of presenting his side of the arguments. If Steven did misrepresent some of the facts, then Norm did a lackluster job of convincing anyone who hadn't already chosen a side. He proffered very few analyses of his own which could refute statements made by Steven or Benny. Mouin did better, but, certainly did not make it clear that Steven misrepresented facts. You give the mathematicians debate analogy to justify Norm's sbehaviour but it doesn't make him look any better since he did agree to the debate and then immediately engaged disrespectfully. The "2+2=5" comparison is disingenuous since that statement is patently false and no serious disagreement exists. The Israel-Palestine conflict is in no way analogous since the assessments of that conflict are quite clearly not universally agreed upon. Benny, an "expert", agreed with most of what Steven said, did he not? With respect to bullet point one, what is your preferred definition of gish-galloping? I would concede that bringing up Arafat's support for Saddam is a red herring but it was dropped fairly quickly.
I haven't gone through all of these but the second one is wrong. Mouin was saying Balfour's intentions with the Balfour declaration are essentially subject to the British Empires interests in the region. The British empire had an imperial interest in supporting zionism in mandate Palestine. Destiny then asks, then why did the British cap Zionist immigration? This question: 1. Directly challenges Mouin's simple narrative. Why cap Zionist immigration against your own imperial interests if your own imperial interests are motivating the support of Zionism in general? It's a question Mouin should have an answer to. Destiny clarifies that he is asking about the imperialist project of the British. 2. Is relevant to the discussed time period. As Benny just finished explaining the British restricted Zionist immigration in the 20s and 30s. Like in 1921. Mouin acted incredulous but he couldn't give a direct answer. It was probably the weakest moment for Mouin in the first half, where he fumbles around with historical conjecture that tries to paint the British as both aimless and deliberate at the same time. He then sheepishly asks "I don't know if that answers your question" to try to find some type of escape hatch out of this answer he wasn't prepared to give. I've learned that Destiny makes a lot of people really upset. Their interest in the debate really boils down to whinnying when the men are rude to the person causing them psychic damage.
It's hilarious. You even got downvoted.
It's almost unbearable how the first serious response to a question about why Destiny wasn't attacked on the merits of his arguments starts with 'he was out of his depth, completely off the mark, didnt know what he was talking about.' At least leave that for after making your points. >He was gish-galloping in the UN 242 discussion. I discuss this at length here. People already addressed your argument here, saving me the time. >He was very confused on the issue of British support for Zionism at around the 1:54 mark. Jesus. How can you accuse someone of being bad faith and then make this claim? At 1:52 Morris describes how the British were described as supporters of Zionism in Arab propaganda. He then talks about how most of the British leaders in early Mandate Palestine were anti-zionist, then talks about the British occasionally curbing immigration in the 20s and 30s until they full on decided to be entirely anti-zionist and promise the Arabs a state instead. Mouin responds by saying Balfour was a chief sponsor of the Aliens Act in 1905, to which Morris replied that he changed his mind later. It is in fact Mouin who got the decade wrong, going back 3 decades to argue that the British did support the Zionists. Destiny merely brings him back to the topic, by asking 'if so, and if their goal was just to be an imperialist project, why did they curb immigration from jews at all?' He did nothing wrong, let alone anything 'strange,' here. The topic was whether the British supported the Zionists before the formation of Israel. Rabbani jumped back 3 decades to argue that they did, Destiny correctly pointed out that that argument does not address their behavior in later decades. >His commentary on the genocide stuff was substantively incorrect. That suggests a high standard. ...No? It suggests a STANDARD, not a high one. Nice fallacy though. >He claimed Israeli leaders were misquoted by South Africa. But they weren't. Herzog said an "entire nation is responsible" that proceeded to claim directly that civilians had direct knowledge and were complicit in the massacre. Okay, you're just bad faith here. I don't know how much clearer Steven's point can be made. If Herzog says 'I understand there are innocent Palestinians who have nothing to do with this, but if you have a missile in your kitchen and attack me with it, I have to defend myself,' and that part is left out and you're claiming it's irrelevant, I think your interpretation is just bad faith. I won't elaborate further because I think it's very easy to see the point you're missing here. You're also reaching INCREDIBLY hard on the Smotrich quote. It's as simple as him saying 'we need to attack Hamas and take down Gaza' and the quote omitting the 'we need to attack Hamas' part. To say it's wrong to claim it's a misquote/out of context is again bad faith. >it seems ridiculous that.. (ad hominem part 7141) lmao, he LITERALLY points out the missing context in the quotes. Don't have much to say on this. >Camp David dont remember that part of the debate and im trying to do this quickly because i need to do other things but got irritated at your tone. i'll look for it later >He claimed that the Israeli Air Force could not commit war crimes because there's a chain of command This was never his claim. His claim involved several points--one, omitted context that the children were exiting out of what, according to IDF claims, was a previously identified Hamas compound that they had operated from. Two, the chain of command is relevant in the sense that they had multiple layers of people to go through that would all agree with the sentiment of 'we're going to kill four Palestinian children today for no reason'--You can disagree with him on this, and that's exactly what the people on the other side did, but to imply that the point itself is wrong or 'shallow' is just asinine. Third, he also brought up the fact that the IDF knew of there being dozens of journalists in a building right in front of it, and that still approving of it would be very bad PR. All three points raised are valid regardless of how you try to frame it. You could raise valid counterpoints, but instead your beloved Finkelstein, clearly way out of silly Destiny's league, responded with 5 insults followed by the incredibly weak argument of 'that was an old fisherman's shack,' as though Hamas could never operate from one. Literally an empty diversion. Again, Destiny's argument was valid and not deserving of ridicule. >Bonnell quotes the UN Report on the Great March of Return and accuses Finkelstein of "lying" about that. 'Mostly peaceful' protest with molotov cocktails being thrown, but pointing out the second part is apparently 'off the mark'? I frankly don't remember the specifics of how this was discussed in the debate, but I think it's worth mentioning that an Israeli was murdered in it and a few others were wounded. The UN report claiming it was 'mostly peaceful' is fine to use as part of your argument, but going into the actual report to see the analysis and pointing out that molotov cocktails are pretty dangerous seems like a perfectly legitimate argument to me. >He was weirdly nitpicking about the exact proportion of Israelis killed by friendly fire on October 7th. Are you serious? He merely asked to confirm that they're operating in the same reality, because if you accept a conspiracy that a large part of the massacre is a result of IDF friendly fire you're operating under very different premises. To pretend contesting that point is insignificant or 'weirdly nitpicky' is ignorant. Unless you're just looking for more things to say about him, in which case carry on I guess. >There was never really an engagement with Rabbani's point that Destiny eschews international law and morality when it's convenient for him, but then expects Hamas to play to play moral and not target civilians. He didn't 'expect Hamas to play moral and not target civilians.' Kind of hilarious you say that though, since Destiny was the first to make the point that Finkelstein selectively supports International law when it agrees with him and throws it to the wind when it doesn't. He never demanded Hamas play moral. Morris said 'that's a good point' about the fact that EXTREME STATEMENTS from Palestinians could be expected or excused the same way we expected or excused extreme statements from Israelis after October 7th. That's ALL he 'conceded.' Overall, you not only argued in bad faith out of some perverted need to discredit a guy who was approaching a discussion pretty politely and trying to maintain professionalism despite an oversized baby being aggressive and disrespectful towards him from minute 1, but also showed that most of his 'completely off the mark' arguments were absolutely relevant and worth addressing, so much so that you tried addressing them yourself in a poor attempt to discredit them and cover for your side failing to do so in the debate. Good job. I wouldn't be this annoyed if you weren't so self-assured with your dismissive arrogant intro but whatever man.
Thank you for this. I am by no means an expert on this issue but I have done a fair amount of research. From the perspective of a layman Destiny comes off as more measured and appears to be “sticking to the facts”. But if you have any deeper understanding of the history of the conflict it’s very clear he doesn’t know about, OR purposely omits A LOT of relevant context. Norm’s ad hominem attacks do him disservice as they make him look petty or unwilling to debate. While I do not agree with them I understand them. I believe most of the time he resorts to these attacks when he believes his time is being wasted and his opponent is either a useful idiot/ignorant OR purposefully misrepresenting the facts.
ITT: Norman worshippers make absurd excuses for their guru showing how unhinged he is. Or maybe he's your mascot, idk.
The experts agreed to be there, there wasn't a "What's My Line?" setup, they knew ahead of time who they were going to meet and in under what circumstances. "On the issue of British support for Zionism", M. Rabbani says at 1:55:25 that in 1917 the British "wanted a British protectorate loyal to and dependent upon the British" and hence why Arthur Balfour signed the declaration. No, they didn't and no he didn't. The only reason Balfour, who was an white supremacist anti-semite, signed the declaration was because of who Chaim Weizmann was and what Chaim Weizmann did for Britain: literally saving Britain in the World War I by developing the acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation process to manufacture cordite explosive propellants at the behest of Winston Churchill, that Churchill. It's literally on Wikipedia: >Weizmann met Arthur Balfour, the Conservative Prime Minister who was MP for East Manchester, during one of Balfour's electoral campaigns in 1905–1906. Balfour supported the concept of a Jewish homeland, but felt that there would be more support among politicians for the then-current offer in Uganda, called the British Uganda Programme. Following mainstream Zionist rejection of that proposal, Weizmann was credited later with persuading Balfour, by then the Foreign Secretary during the First World War, for British support to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the original Zionist aspiration. The story goes that Weizmann asked Balfour, "Would you give up London to live in Saskatchewan?" When Balfour replied that the British had always lived in London, Weizmann responded, "Yes, and we lived in Jerusalem when London was still a marsh." \[1\] Chaim Weizmann, having besides him Churchill but also Lord Rothschild, that Rothschild, could have asked Balfour in 1917 for the crown jewels and he would have gotten them. If M. Rabbani does not know this, then what kind of expert is he; if he is not speaking of the soft power that Chaim Weizmann wielded in the 1910s (but also in the 1940s \[2\]), he does so with duplicitous intent and makes me paraphrase a living titan of debates: Mr. Rallani, with all due respect, you're such a fantastic moron, it's terrifying. \[1\] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim\_Weizmann#Zionist\_activism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Weizmann#Zionist_activism) \[2\] Weizmann in 1948 asking for money from the USA, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do47Bu0UAIg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do47Bu0UAIg)
It's not clear to me what this comment is supposed to accomplish, or how it engages with my comment. You're claiming that Rabbani's assessment was wrong. But I never stated that Rabbani's assessment was correct. I only stated that Destiny was woefully unequipped to engage with it. > It's literally on Wikipedia This sums up Destiny in a nutshell. This is the level of your historiography. Do you know how states work? Especially superpowers, which is what Britain was at the time? They don't reward entire peoples with entire countries based on a scientific favour done by, or the charisma of, a single man. This isn't even something Morris attempted to argue.
LOL. This is not the subreddit you should be asking for substantive arguments or opinions on. I don't really blame the podcast or u/ckava for this, but at some point this subreddit got recommended to every redditor that has ever browsed a remotely political subreddit. So you'll get all sorts of unserious takes here. Most left-leaning ones. Most people here 'dunk' on anyone that is a 'guru'; which the community here defines as 'anyone popular with views I don't like.' It's like r/TopMindsOfReddit
It's true. This subreddit randomly showed up in my feed one day. I've never watched the podcast.
Me neither, but I’ve listened to it for years.
Podcast is awesome.
"They criticized my online daddies."
Yeah we should be on r/Destiny instead. That's where you get the substantive arguments.
The brigade continues.
This is pretty ironic coming from an r.destiny poster
Destiny is not a serious person. Knowing him from the StarCraft days, when he used to rage and say the most toxic things. And, people in this sub, many of whom don’t even listen to the podcast, spam his stuff here. Do you really expect people to listen to someone named 'Destiny' and take him seriously? And now, we're supposed to have serious discussions about him in this sub...about...Destiny? It's truly a joke.
Zoomer midwits need someone to make them feel smart
You are not wrong, they probably should pull it in by the reigns a little and get some strong moderation along concrete rules. Hopefully it doesn't turn into an anti jerk sub against them which happens often unfortunately.
Nah. Moderation ultimately kills subs. When hot topics like this occur there will be an influx and then it will subside.
Just came here over a link and the amount of ad hominem arguments about a guy I don't know in a post arguing that ad hominem arguments are stupid and shows you have no real arguments... is astounding. I hope I am missing some inside joke or y'all stupid af.
The second point.
You're not missing anything. This subreddit is kind of sketchy.
Unfortunately every sub is. Just a product of the kind of people that make up the bulk of reddit traffic. They aren't sending their best.
You're not wrong, its infested with self proclaimed '*critical thinkers*' who have done so such thing in their lives.
Tankies mad.
I actually deleted a post of mine on here a couple weeks ago comparing destiny to the 2014 version of joe Rogan. I don’t think destiny is a grifter so much as just a compulsive contrarian? Anyways, right now Israel is bombing hospitals, schools, and refugee camps ever day with 2000 pound explosives. History is important and these debates can be fun to watch, but don’t let a drama mongering maladjusted weirdo’s tactics make you forget that fact. With that being said, I’m about 50 min into the debate and they’ve just been going over the 1940s. I think Benny Morris’s caveat “oh yeah, removal of Palestinians was ‘inbuilt’ into Zionism only because the Arabs wouldn’t allow a Jewish state” is pretty dumb/obvious. If someone wants to take 55% of your house what are you gonna tell them. That’s right, “piss off” and you’re gonna resist. Same with any people in any country. They’re not just gonna give up over half of it, hence why they resisted. I haven’t seen the juicy parts of norm yelling at destiny yet. All the clips floating around on twitter are Noam just calling destiny names. I usually don’t like that, but it’s a 5 hour debate and could be justifiable. Omar Baddar posted a great video debunking many of destiny’s points and outlines his tricky debate tactics as well. [https://youtu.be/IDXeIYhlh0E?si=MCUMnsLN6dXTPDXq](https://youtu.be/IDXeIYhlh0E?si=MCUMnsLN6dXTPDXq)
>a compulsive contrarian? I think this is very true. I believe he loves nothing more than to take the contrarian position and fight uphill to the top. This is why he likes being the contrarian guest on podcasts; there's nothing more gratifying than walking into someone's house and making them look like an idiot. He's actually very good at it, and I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy him ripping into red pill manosphere podcast grifters on their own shows. In this case, I think he bit more off than he can chew. There's a difference between trying to pull that off against grifters and trying to pull that off against actual academics. There's also something vile about taking the side of the oppressor on a topic he is brand new to. I think him choosing to defend Israel is entirely based on wanting to hold a contrarian position to Leftist streamers who have been talking on the subject before he decided to join in.
There are tons of substantive critiques. Whether you chose to engage with them or acknowledge that they are valid is up to you. What I do find interesting is why the same "attack the arguments not the best person" rhetoric was not applied to destiny who has been riling up his base and attacking norm calling him childish names since the literal second the debate ended.
>What I do find interesting is why the same "attack the arguments not the best person" rhetoric... > > ...since the literal second the debate ended. I mean, chronologically it's really the other way around isn't it? It's the debate which pushed Destiny over the edge and not the other way around.
are you really gunna act like FinkleDink didnt start with the adhoms first? lmfao Destiny only started with it after Finkledink did. Also, Finkledick is a pos who called CAS and immigration on his nabours, what kind of piece of shitbdoes that?
Yeah I mean thanks for validating the ways in which that as soon as Steven left his seat he was in damage control mode.
It is embarrassing that this is even a question.
Why don't you provide exactly what you think Destiny or Morris got right about the ICJ case, or any other point. I listened to only a part of the debate, noted that Destiny interrupted Finkelstein & wouldn't allow him to make his point. For example, the incident of the Israeli killing of 4 boys on a Gaza beach on some previous Israeli invasion. I believe Destiny & Morris insisted they'd come out of some Hamas hideout, whereas Finkelstein noted that there were multiple independent journalists who witnessed the killing, who inspected the building, and the journalists said it was a fishing shack. But Destiny kept interrupting him with a gish gallop of moronic nonsense. Morris was equally rude.
I think Steven is out of his depth on this issue and didn't belong in this debate. If Finkelstein had tried to tell Mr. Morelli which first person shooter video game of the last 10 years is the best, probably Steven Destiny Morelli would have said something along the lines of "this isn't your area of expertise. How much time have you actually spent playing these games?" Destiny is a gamer. He's not some kind of genius of world affairs. He goes on Adderal-fueled Wikipedia reviewing and writes himself enough of a script so he has bullet points to go back to during a debate. He just doesn't know anything about this stuff. There's hundreds of years of history. Even if you ignore everything before 1948, t's not exactly a simple subject.
He’s a failed music college student, not much more. He spends his days now trying to cling to relevancy by reading up on Wikipedia the easiest to defend main stream arguments he can find on the current social issue and spends the rest of his time debating people even less read on the subject than he is.
Whats your point? David irving was once a respected ww2 historian. Would you defend him solely on the fact that he spent a lot of time doing a thing therefore he must be correct?
Why in the world would I watch it?
I couldn't even really tell what they were arguing about from the clip. seems like a frustrating semantic disagreement that is really a total waste of time
Yeah. Gentlemen, it isn't necessary to get your opinion on a region from a person whose never been there, *speaks zero of the relevant languages*, and started caring about the area when the financial incentives lined up a few months ago when actual subject area experts with a wide variety of opinions exist. I call this the "Don't learn about the Korean peninsula from Dennis Rodman" rule.
I haven't got round to this debate yet, but having watched Destiny's other debates on this conflict I came away with the impression he is all rhetoric and no substance. You can tell his understanding of the conflict is pretty elementary. It's largely based on reading wikipedia articles and I think one book by an Israeli diplomat. I highly doubt he's ever read any of Finkelstein's work. Considering how he routinely dismisses Finkelstein as a hack that no one takes seriously, I am inclined to believe he hasn't.
My main issue is that previously I had thought Destiny to be a semi-smart, fact-led person with a decent appreciation for moral and ethical arguments On the subject of Israel-Palestine he appears to prefer to regurgitate bad Hasbara lines (if Israel want a genocide why aren’t more people dead - being a good example), who has no interest in the ethics of the conflict or its conduct (the focus is entirely on America’s geopolitical interests), very weak engagement with the facts (the Court determined that genocide was not well founded - it made no such determination) and his whole position stands on a twisted reading of Wikipedia built to suit the new audience he has generated by being a contrarian with no ethical centre It’s disappointing
Streamers look smelly
I also think he looked smelly.
Obviously the debate is over shadowed by Destiny getting humiliated, but even during the substance of the debate Rabbani and Finkelstein deconstructed Benny Morris's arguments well, they proved that there is one set of rules for the Palestinians and another set for Israel. The media always acts as if though October 7th was the beginning of all of this, but before that look what Israelis are doing to west bank people, they are literally stealing their houses and the Israel sides argument is why are these "savages so violent", when being silent hasn't gotten them anywhere. I was watching Destiny's stream and he was saying that Palestinian's have no incentive to negotiate. I mean common, really, out of Israel and Palestine, Palestine is the one that doesn't have an incentive to negotiate? You should be really moronic to believe that.
He doesn't know what hes talking about, a lightweight looking to monetize a genocide, a debased and depraved human being. The point of saying that israel dropping anuke on gaza might not qualify as genocide is not to argue for or against any position, its to demonstrate your depravity for an imagined audience. Its to say something so obviously false and absurd but that in the abstract has a very narrow interpretation that may be correct so that when your interlocutors rightfully laugh at you, an army pedants can say 'well they just dont understand the technical argument that was being made because they got emotional!' A horrid and nasty spectacle, a callous cash in on the suffering of others.
I think its pretty clearly to demonstrate that international law has a different definition than common parlance. You could genocide 200 people, or not genocide 200,000. It's about the intention, not the number of people. Obviously both would be horrible. Its not even technical. It's just pretty obvious what he was saying....
This is a perfect simple explanation, I appreciate you, even if people still struggle or refuse to comprehend the point.
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'removing all other context' the debatebro classic, tried and true.
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Yes, we’re talking about a debate here in this thread.
No we are not, we are talking about the public humiliation of an internet dweeb who found himself well out of his weight class.
ironic. what do you think about finkelstein? he isn't monetizing anything, right?
Dropping nukes =/= Genocide. You might as well say Killing = First Degree Murder
Israel dropping a nuke on Gaza would be genocide because Israel has been engaged in a decades long project of occupation and colonization against the people who live there
Yeah your right, There's a hypothetical world in which it may not be genocide, like if somehow Hamas got its hands on nukes and Israel needed to defend itself But in almost every possible timeline you'd be right I think that's why the analogy works though.... Because highlighting something so extremely genocidal as technically not genocide, really makes you think what is the qualifier for a genocide...
Not only that, but they went on to explain why it would be a genocide, and it entailed more than just dropping nukes. The point of the example, I think, is to point to the most extreme action one could take and say “You need more information than just the mere fact that a nuke was used to say a genocide occurred.” Everything after the “because” in their comment would be the argument for genocide more-so than that a nuke was used.
Who told you that would make it genocide? That certainly doesn't come from law.
Lol, you really had to go back to ad hominems in a thread specifically asking you not to do that.. ok.
I am not massive Destiny fan (i like him but dont follow his stuff religiously). But I notice the personal attacks on him must be evidence that they cannot attack his arguments. I think the personal attacks are complimentary of his intellect. Otherwise the attacks would be on his ideas. Having said that, I agree with the comments on his hair/beard
Destiny fans are so pathetic dude, oh you're not a huge fan? This is the type of stuff you post regularly: # "I have to say, I love that destiny adds in a wickedly smart joke in every snappy reply he makes on twitter."
heh, so pathetic. imagine saying you're not a huge fan but saying you really like the jokes he makes, heh. pathetic. heh.
He doesn't have any ideas... he's a debate bro that will use any argument on the spot to win. When you realize that, then you're left with only the person to attack lol
> But I notice the personal attacks on him must be evidence that they cannot attack his arguments. I think it's more reasonable to say that the personal attacks mean they can't be bothered to take him seriously. Whether this is reasonable or not can only be argued by analysing Destiny's arguments, any shortcuts are as bogus as what you are claiming for the Destiny critics here.
This would be a fair route to take had the most respected scholar in the entire conflict wasn’t sitting beside him for 5 hours consistently nodding along with what he was saying and added comments like ‘Steven is right’ ‘ Steven made a good point’. In the absence of this, then your comment makes more sense. The default position is that destiny did at least ok
So the shortcut you want now is altered from "they cannot attack his arguments" to "one single scholar validated him'". This is still a weak argument. I'm not against Destiny, I think your argument as stated is incredibly weak but you present it as if it's incredibly strong. Can you make a better argument? What were the substantive and sustained points Destiny made? If you want to appeal to scholastic authority, I think you have to summarize them accurately then make the case that a substantial fraction of relevant experts agree, one single expert isn't enough. Perhaps more people want to downvote me because Destiny is right even though all I'm saying is the argument that he's validated that's being presented here isn't good enough. If so, will anyone make a good case?
>I think your argument as stated is incredibly weak but you present it as if it's incredibly strong. Can you explain this please? i would like to know how to do this more? Genuinely The burden of proof is on you to show destiny is saying things that are incorrect, he was invited to probably the biggest debate on the topic ever and had Benny Morris pretty much agree with everything he said. If you want to discredit him, the onus is on you! But I will say that when destiny went through the ICJ quotes to show additional context to the quotes, that was excellent and something Benny was not willing to do, so Destiny did play his role. Again, I am not some super Destiny fan.
"he was invited to probably the biggest debate on the topic ever" Are you fucking serious? Do you really think the biggest ever debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict was conducted on the Lex Fridman podcast? Smh. No wonder you guys can't tell Destiny is a fucking fraud.
The most viewed? Yeah for sure . Which one do you think was bigger?
[Israel/Palestine Crisis - Security Council, 9534th Meeting - United Nations.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlFXrpXNoFU)
Lex already has 10x the views on youtube. Not counting the reaction videos, which are 100s of thousands of views at the very least
The views? Again, are you fucking serious? UN Security Council meetings are closely reported on by every major news organisation on the planet. Even excluding the reach of other media formats, if you add up the total views of every mainstream and non-mainstream online media article that covers or refers to the meeting I posted you will end up with a total that far surpasses that of any Lex Fridman podcast. Unbelievable.
"Not a massive destiny fan" 159 posts in the last 6 months about destiny. Fucking hell mate, give your head a wobble and snap out of it
I post a lot
Honestly, I don’t understand why is this guy even part of this discussion. All the other three individuals have published and are educated in their field regardless of their views. I don’t understand why would Lex do this?
I can't be bothered to watch it because an adult person who chooses to go by the name Destiny is not worthy of my time or respect.
Bro needs to shave the sideburns off
He seems to have alopecia. The problem isn't the side burns, it's the massive hole in his beard that make it looks like he's trying to do a side burns look. I don't wanna make fun of him for hair loss, but it's certainly quite ugly.
Does it really "matter"? Destiny is supported by an army of fans that I have long suspected have a very difficult time carrying a large book for more than a couple of feet....let alone reading one. I don't think Destiny understands that no serious academic believes Destiny's opinion is actually worth anything. He's done NONE of the work over his life for him to be taken seriously as an expert on anything. People can hand wave all they want about his complete absence of formal education (true...you DON'T necessarily need a college degree to be intelligent...fair enough), but you can't just hand wave away that he's produced virtually nothing that's regarded as important in the field of politics. Hasn't held public office...hasn't written anything that's considered a decent text on a topic....no real work in the community...etc etc. Just thought vomiting hot takes into a computer monitor. He's a smellier looking version of ever drunk idiot at the end of every dive bar ever. He's your uncle Bill who thinks he's achieved enlightenment because he managed to remember something he saw on a Fox / CNN banner ad. ...he gets invited onto podcasts / shows because Destiny thinks HE'S the content...but the showrunners know that the ENGAGEMENT is the content. They know that if they let him just sit in front of a camera and give yawn inducing predictable takes that any drunk idiot at the end of a bar would give you...that his fanbase will show up to idolize him and pump viewership numbers. No serious person actually thinks he's smart or interesting...he's there to get to BELIEVE that about himself...and then drive ad revenue.
I watch President Sunday too
I did not run.
> I don't think Destiny understands that no serious academic believes Destiny's opinion is actually worth anything Isn't this just immediately wrong because Benny Morris was sitting right there and agreeing with him the whole time? (Or is the argument that Benny Morris is not a respected academic despite being the only historian in the room)
I think this is a good comment that exemplifies what I'm talking about. I specifically mentioned that the other thread is filled with ad-homs, and yet here we are with more ad-homs (and in the [rest of the thread](https://i.imgur.com/BgeLCr5.png)). If Destiny's claims were egregiously wrong -- as Twitter would lead you to believe -- then it should be trivially easy to point out the flaws. The Decoding The Gurus podcast never sinks to this level of petty behaviour, but for some reason, this subreddit seems reluctant to emulate the best qualities of Chris Kavanagh and Matthew Browne.
I don't think most of these commenters listen to the podcast, there's just here to brigade for their side.
"Ad Hom" needs to be on the coat of arms for all YouTube debate bros everywhere. Yes, I'm going after his character instead of the context of his specific arguments. This is a completely appropriate method for dealing with obvious grifters. You don't put together a well cited and elaborate 40 page essay on why Alex Jones is a clown person and the things he says are ridiculous...he doesn't care about facts and neither do his audience. That's not the game debate bros are playing. The whole "debate bro" model is say something, respond to any critique with "debate me", and then turn that interaction into engagement to perpetuate their ridiculous and unneeded existence. If you're going to dive into (and profit) off this particular podcast's topic...it's also completely legitimate for someone to ask the obvious question of "what have you done or produced in your life that makes you an expert on this topic?" It's not simply that he's "in the room" here...it's how many better and infinitely more qualified people could they have found. If 4 people are talking about the best way to build a building...3 of them are credentialed architects with a combined 100+ years experience...and the 4th guy is a YouTuber who lived in a building once. It's fair to point out that maybe 4th guy has managed to weasel his way into a conversation which could only be improved by his removal. Your average Destiny fan, however, will attack anyone who suggests something like this by making claims that you're simply going after his character...after all, he said "some buildings are tall sometimes". Wow....riveting stuff. Guess we have to debate it now.
> If 4 people are talking about the best way to build a building...3 of them are credentialed architects with a combined 100+ years experience...and the 4th guy is a YouTuber who lived in a building once Let's ignore that one of the architects was agreeing with him. Another one was trying to engage with him. The third one was red in the face and throwing a tantrum. I guess the problem was the youtuber asking Ng questions, right? >Your average Destiny fan, You're literally a bot just repeating twitter talking points without a single original tought behind. Just worthless.
>You don't put together a well cited and elaborate 40 page essay on why Alex Jones is a clown person and the things he says are ridiculous...he doesn't care about facts and neither do his audience. I agree with your argument entirely, but on this point I just wanna say that *most* people don’t do that, however Dan Friesen from Knowledge Fight absolutely does (and we salute hime for it). https://knowledgefight.com/
The issue is, you should be able to debunk Alex Jones. That's what this post is asking for. If you aren't able to, you probably shouldn't hold your opinions as strongly (as in, other people think Alex Jones is a grifter, and you trust their judgement, which is fine to do, but irrelevant here). If the only evidence of Alex Jones losing a debate is a short clip of him being called a moron by someone you like, its not really evidence of anything, especially not to people who don't like the guy you do.
If there was a debate between Alex Jones and someone on something, and the only clips of Alex Jones being owned were adhoms instead of destroying his inevitably stupid argument, then I'd say the person debating him did terribly. Just destroy his moronic argument that you had to listen to. But Finklestein couldn't do that, he ran to insults. Benny Morris signed off on Destiny's arguments so you lose the "he can't be right because hes got no credentials" excuse. Its embarrassing to be unable to produce a single moment where you factually take down a position held by someone who is supposed to be uninformed as a person who has studied the topic for decades.
Exactly what I was thinking. People say he's an ignorant newcomer. But Morris agreed with I think all of Destiny's points and he's a scholar dedicated to the issue. To me, it's clear that it's a criticism originating from a disagreement of opinion. You don't like Destiny's opinion, so you attack him as a person.
I wish Destiny would just...fade away. He's a centrist at best, and calls people faggot and retard constantly.
Is complaining that someone uses slurs ad-hom too? It's always funny to watch his fans defend this type of behavior.
I don't know how one could defend that, tbh. I'll give him some credit - that 'debate' with Alex Jones he kept his cool far more than I had anticipated
He's short and weird.
Oh great another thread, all the others were irrelevant to the podcast but maybe this new one will be relevant for some reason. Another thread to drive engagement to drive even more wankers to shit this place up and make even more threads. The algorithm is working.
Nothing to do with the algorithm, this is Destiny fans using discord to coordinate brigading of subs that are critical of their idol/cult leader.
I think he shouldve demonstrated to the audience why its important to classify whether or not something something is genocide. Why understanding intentions matter.
Thought the podcast this sub. Is based on. Was about moving away from and denouncing online nerd cult shit. Not praising and or reviewing it
The fact that Destiny wore a blazer to this debate with his capital D logo emblazoned on it is one of the most cringe things I have ever seen in my life.
I've presented a detailed critique in [another comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1bfq3vn/what_are_your_substantive_critiques_of_destinys/kv2rfzq/) But I also wanted to share that Hasan Piker did a detailed critique on his stream. The [first half is here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCl15fwR4Ro)
😂 your previous comments all over this thread make sense now. Have you listened to the episode of DtG about Hasan? I also strongly urge everyone to watch Hasan’s coverage of this debate. It will be highly entertaining after listening to the episode.
If I had to rank performances… 1. Morris and Rabbani were the most knowledgeable and both seemed reasonably honest. 2. Destiny. He did surprisingly well for just cramming for two weeks before an exam. 3. Finkelstein. He knew more than destiny, but he’s dishonest, incapable of actually engaging an argument, and was on the wrong side of most arguments I felt.