How about military operations have a tendency to become indiscriminate throughout history? See Russia in Ukraine, USA in Iraq/Afghanistan/Vietnam, Great Britain virtually everywhere, etc., etc., for the last several millennium. I generally think the IDF is trying its best to deal with what it perceives as actual threats, but it’s not any more immune to scrutinization than any other military. And it’s certainly not antisemitic to do so, so throwing out accusations like blood libel is counterproductive.
I agree; that sort of talk is not true, not helpful, and not civil. It is gross and Islamophobic.
I think it is important to distinguish between government policy and what happens in the field.
Moderator Note
I realize that this is a very emotional topic for many, but things are definitely getting out of hand, especially (but not limited to) this post.
This isn’t the Pit. Please post accordingly. Treat all others with respect in this forum, no matter how much you disagree with them or their views.
I am going to temporarily close this to give everyone a chance to calm down. This thread will re-open either later tonight or tomorrow morning.
I also agree with that.
I’ve run into that sort of problem before on this board, and so I’ve tried to clarify my position. And then if the person is clearly ignoring my clarification, not responding to my follow-up and still misrepresents me…? Then what?
It’s a major hole in the rules, a loophole I see frequently. If someone is deliberately misrepresenting you, which is made clear when they are ignoring your clarifications, you can’t do anything about it. If you point out that they are misrepresenting you, that’s a personal attack. If you report them nothing will happen because this board doesn’t forbid lying about a person, it only forbids pointing out that they’re lying, which you have to admit is backwards.
I mean, you can Pit them and point it out, but that’s not going to make a difference.
The community is great and the moderators do a great job, but this is an unfortunate flaw that it can be hard to deal with.
You said “deliberately” in the first sentence there, but not in the second. Doesn’t that make all the difference? AFAICT, you can, in fact, point out that they’re misrepresenting you without it being a personal attack: maybe you figure it’s obvious that they’re doing it deliberately, but it seems like you’d be fine so long as you (a) limit yourself to discussing the post, and you (b) don’t add an explicit “and, uh, the poster is doin’ it deliberately!”
This is accurate.
Yes, it’s certainly okay to say, “I think you misunderstood me”. It’s also okay to say, “I didn’t say [their words], I said [your words]”. People misunderstand each other all the time, often in ways that matter to one party and not to the other.
That’s not addressing my point.
My point is that they can continue to do it and you have zero recourse. If they continue to misrepresent you, you can’t report them. In the past, I’ve been told that’s okay, it’s just “snark”. To me, it’s a form of trolling that’s allowed by the rules. I mean, it should be considered “bring a jerk” but unfortunately while that’s a great rule and a great basis for other rules, it’s vague enough that it’s hard to enforce at times.
Again, I don’t blame the mods. They’re faithfully enforcing what are bad rules.
You wrote: “If you point out that they are misrepresenting you, that’s a personal attack.” My response is: no, it isn’t.
Ah, okay. Yes, I agree. I accidentally left out the “deliberate” part.
Misrepresentation happens by accident all the time, I do it too. Heck, I just misunderstood you now. 
I should correct myself on one other thing. I said there is nothing you can do about it, and that’s not entirely true. You can put the person on ignore. I’ve found that’s my only option. It’s not a good one but it’s better than nothing. It’s literally ignoring a problem, but oh well. I’m happy that this issue that has been a real problem for me at times is at least not frequent enough that my ignore list is very long, at least.
That’s the point where I’ll sometimes say something like, “I think I’ve made my position as clear as I can, and at this point, I’m not sure we’re going to be able to communicate effectively with one another.” That’s all true, but there’s 100% some emotion behind what I’m saying, usually coupled with some super-judgy opinions, that I’m leaving out, because I don’t want to earn a warning.
Eh…sometimes. Walken_After_Midnight got thread banned for accusing Babale of repeatedly misrepresenting their posts here, granted with a little snark. The word deliberate was never brought up, but it was still deemed attacking the poster.
That was a lot of snark included and IIRC, she only quoted one post, but it was many, many posts that went into that decision.
Indeed.
I think it’s a very difficult, but also essential part of discussing this conflict to be able to link statements, imagery, descriptions, etc. to antisemitic tropes and sentiments that are ingrained in western culture. It is not accusing a poster of doing anything deliberate to say that their claim is a modern version of blood libel.
And there’s been logical, reasoned argument on both sides here in this thread.
And it certainly should not depend on whether it’s “true” or not. It’s something that reasonable people could disagree about. I hope no one here is unaware of the ways antisemitism has been imbedded in our language, idiom, and imagery over centuries. There’s no doubt in my mind that there is unconscious bias at play.
People do feel threatened by having their post called out as containing such language or imagery, but that does not mean it’s a personal attack.
It is possible to feel antipathy toward Israel or it’s actions, and to unconsciously draw on ideas, stereotypes, or tropes that are antisemitic. Being able to point that out is crucial for having a fair and reasoned discussion.
I would like to second that, also.
And to point out that when such a trope is particularly foul: the foulness makes it more necessary to be able to discuss it, not less. It’s the very depth of the problem that we need to be able to discuss.
Whether “blood libel” can fairly be attached, in general, to claims that Jews want to murder non-Jewish children for no good reason; or whether it ought to be restricted to its more specific original use, in which ritual practices were falsely alleged: that can certainly be argued about; and if the mods want to insist that, on this board, it can only be applied to the limited use, that’s up to the mods – though I think it’s excessive to give even temporary thread-banning for the broader use before it’s been announced that only the restricted use is permissible.
But I do think we need to be able to discuss the long historical context of the blood libel; and to point out how it may relate, even though it’s not identical, to current claims that Jews are entirely willing to kill non-Jewish children without having any reason other than cruelty to do so.
Yes, I’m aware that the statements being made on this board were meant to apply specifically to the IDF and the current situation. I don’t think they can be pulled entirely out of that context. Intent matters; but intent isn’t everything.