Isn't accusing a poster of being a "libeler" a personal attack?

[raventhief]

@Jonathan_Chance

Ibn-

I’ve reviewed the post in question, both at the time and again today. My initial - and ongoing - belief is that the post labelled others as libelers and not you. The Second Stone used the word ‘libeler’ to describe others commenting on an outside column. The rest of his post is a straightforward dissection of the arguments in the thread and would certainly fall under the ‘posts not posters’ concept.

To be clear, this is the post in question, right? Where he directly calls a poster a libeler? I have bolded the bits in question.

@The_Second_Stone

Originally, you said Hedges had an excellent reputation. Now, when one of the usual libelers of people critical of reporting unfavorable things about Israel comes up with the usual sort of scurrilous insults to his character, you decide to change your mind.

You say you question my judgment. So be it. I’d be offended if you thought I judged things the way you do. Yours always interprets away any criminal activity of the government of Israel by attacking the credibility and judgment of others, all others, respected or unknown.

So what do I think of your judgment? I don’t respect it. In fact, I’m in contempt of it because of the way you dismiss anything that doesn’t agree with you and join in the piling on of the libeling. I want to make clear, I’m criticizing your judgment, not you personally.

First you assert that no such activity as Hedges had reported, but you did not yet know about existed. You answered my question as to whether your “no it is not” referred to legality or the machine gunning by saying the machine gunning never happened.You had and have no evidence to prove that it didn’t except a bizarre belief that the IDF couldn’t possibly do such a thing, putting aside everything human beings know about armed conflict and atrocities. You choose the believe the libels of someone whose consistent record on the SDMB is to libel people critical of Israel. When confronted with the Hedges report, you conceded (which you now take back) that he was generally reliable, but he was wrong here (not maybe he was wrong, but wrong) due to poor observing. **When the poster you mention collects all the libels around the internet about Mr. Hedges, **collected for the people who have been embarrassed by his reporting, you fully credit that, even though it is, on its face motivated to smear. I put in several reports of similar incidents, and you poo-poo each one as not being exactly the same or corroborated. Even though they are mostly the same. No such report is going to be corroborated by anyone you would ever put credence in because if they corroborated, you would put the in your unreliable column as you always do. No report from a family or non-famous witnesses would get the slightest credence from you, as we have seen you dismiss them.

You then dismiss Mr. Hedges Pulitzer credentials as meaningless. It is not a stamp of truth, but it is stamp of professional excellence, something the people libeling Mr. Hedges don’t have. **There is a reason that I have not responded in years to the poster you have referred to. He is a one sided advocate and a libeler on behalf of Israel. **

Israel has blockaded the citizens of Gaza. Israel has objected to any nation recognizing a government in Gaza. Israel collectively punishes in Gaza, destroying whole buildings to get to one person. Israel shoots at ambulances. Israel bulldozes homes and protestors. Israel affords none of the people killed or deprived of property any kind of trial. Israel bulldozes the homes of relatives of suspected terrorists without trial. Israeli attacks kill thousands upon thousands. Israel blames this on an organization they label as criminal (Hamas), and then claims that Hamas is supported by the people and properly elected, but refuses to recognize as a government and insists, apparently correctly, that no other government in the world should recognize it as a real government. Based on the criminal tying of Hamas to the people, Israel bombs the people. And you deny this is genocide. That is your right.

You’ve made clear my judgment means nothing to you, but I judge you to be someone who is only an advocate in an argument, not someone open to being persuaded. You’ve taken the side of the rich and powerful and the authoritarian oppressors. History shows this is usually the profitable and winning side.

You’ve denied genocide here, I want to make clear that I consider that no different than a Holocaust denier except that in this case there are thousands of prospective deaths and that Holocaust deniers are usually deeply mentally disturbed. You are clearly not suffering from mental illness. I call it willful blindness.