We, the admin team, decry all forms of settler-colonialism, and we recognize that Zionism is a pro-settler-colonialist position.

Therefore we propose that should no longer be accepting of any Zionist accounts on our instances.

Please upvote for agree, downvote for disagree.

Note: we only count votes by instance members of dbzer0 and anarchist.nexus, plus a few vouched-for external users.

Hi mateys, I’ve kept things simple in the above text, for brevity, but in fact it took the admin team quite a while to get to this stage. We have discussed the policy change extensively, and a variety of different perspectives emerged. I will attempt to sum them up below as best I can:

  • The “this isn’t that complicated” school of thought goes something like this: If someone is consistently posting comments that mirror Hasbara talking points (e.g. justifying the genocide in Gaza, consistently painting Palestinians as terrorists and Israel as the victim), then they should be instance banned. It’s just not acceptable for Zionists to be allowed on our instances.

  • The “slippery slope” / “purity test” school of thought is that banning people for having an “unpopular” political opinion would potentially mean banning half the fediverse, if more and more of these policies were enacted over time. To attempt to mitigate this we are keeping the scope of this rule as narrow as possible, and I also don’t think many of our users will be affected. Also, we typically don’t have frequent policy changes, and I have no reason to expect that to change moving forward.

  • Another important discussion point was “how do we decide whether someone is pro-Zionist or not?” We can’t always be 100% sure of someone’s true intentions, we can only go on what they have posted and that is subject to interpretation. I don’t feel there is an easy answer to this one, except to say that we would have to be pretty certain before issuing a perma-ban.

  • The “geopolitics don’t matter” school of thought is that trying to be on the “correct” side of every issue is kind of pointless because nothing that happens in lemmy chat forums will ever make an ounce of difference in the real world. Don’t bother moderating users over political/ideological differences, just let people argue if they want. While I can totally empathize with this sentiment, I can also see the case for taking a clear stance on this topic in accordance with our values and the overwhelming support for the Palestinian cause among our users. Personally, I am advocating in favor of the resolution.

Please add your comments below if you want to provide your own thoughts on the topic, or have any questions.

expiry: 7

  • TheObviousSolution
    47·
    18 days ago

    There’s a difference between neozionism, those that want to continue carrying out colonialist activities, and postzionism, those that don’t. If you don’t want to establish a difference between the two, you might as well ban the entirety of American users as well as many other countries. From the sounds of it, you want to focus on neozionist mirroring Hasbara talking points, so you should make the distinction. Otherwise I’m just going to assume you are picking the flip side of the same coin and are really trying to sneak an Israel shouldn’t exist stance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY

    Frankly, I don’t care whether it is Israel or Palestine, I just don’t think savagery is solved by savagery from the other guy, and there are plenty of Muslims that march along with plenty of Jews for peace in the region and for Palestinian rights without calling for the toppling the existing state and the bloodshed that would inevitably ensue from it.

      • TheObviousSolution
        23·
        17 days ago

        How many people are you willing to murder for that to happen? Is it the same or more that Netanyahu is willing to do so to make sure no trace of Palestine continues to exist?

    • PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      32·
      18 days ago

      Holy shit I had no idea, we almost banned the postzionist viewpoint in our haste! We only meant neozionism, gosh, can you believe how clumsy?! Close one!

      Personally I’ve always felt it was similarly unfair, how the postnazis get lumped in with the neonazis. The postnazis, all they wanted was the good parts of Nazism, the part where they’re just protecting themselves against very scary hypothetical threats.

      Legit what you sound like.

      “Zionism” as a word is now a symbol of extreme vulgarity, the kind of stain on a word that can only ever soak in through extreme, merciless bloodshed.

      Edit to add: fuck you.

      • TheObviousSolution
        23·
        18 days ago

        In other words, you won’t bother to inform yourself. Postzionism has a specific meaning. Postnazism is something you literally pulled out of your ass, unless you mean postnazi germany, which is actually a thing.

        Personally I’ve always felt it was similarly unfair, how the postnazis get lumped in with the neonazis. The postnazis, all they wanted was the good parts of Nazism, the part where they’re just protecting themselves against very scary hypothetical threats.

        So you have a problem with Post Nazi Germany, too? Blaming the country that prosecuted the war criminals, that’s what you sound like. Maybe proof read yourself before you rush off to strawman.

        I put mass murder as a bigger concern over the extreme vulgarity the fiction of religion can cause, and you get that “extreme, merciless bloodshed” when you promote removing any group of people from the map.

        Edit to add: Less fucking, more reading. Also, gotta correct myself, you might not have made postnazism up, because looking it up in several search engines seems to suggest it is at the very least commonly interpreted as a synonym for denazification. Great success with your strawman! …

        • PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          32·
          18 days ago

          LOL!

          You really do not understand the comment I made and what it says about yours. You can’t even find what’s satire and what’s sincere, and it seems like you thought about it enough to go do some web searches, lmao.

          • TheObviousSolution
            23·
            18 days ago

            So basically, you don’t even bother to do basic web searches, seem to consider that as some sort of exhausting activity to shame people for doing, and you treat everything as a joke. Makes sense, your argument came off as some sort of uninformed joke, I shouldn’t have assumed it was anything more. Thanks for clearing that up!

            • PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              41·
              18 days ago

              If any German, at any point once the details of their genocide became plain to see, said:

              “I’m not in favor of nazism, or neonazism, I am in favor of postnazism, and YOU must recognize the distinction or YOU’RE the intolerant dangerous one!”

              Any human being with a brain would see how absurd and disengenuous that is to say.

              Trying to give any cover whatsoever to the genocide happening is fucking nasty.

              Edit to add: really, fuck you.

              • TheObviousSolution
                23·
                17 days ago

                Not assuming anything this time around, thanks for your previous heads up! Haha, nice one!

                edit reply: Yep, sabotaging a conversation to try to have the last word by drowning out criticism instead of having a conversation based on reality does that.

                • PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                  22·
                  18 days ago

                  Yep, once I finally make the similarity unavoidable, it’s “you ackshually already told me you weren’t serious cuz you said LOL at my argument”.

      • TheObviousSolution
        11·
        18 days ago

        It shouldn’t, but it does.

        I love how honest your profile is, but given how all you do is call people weak losers who are just coping that should fuck off, maybe you could also add a note that mentions how you are the troll bait meant to get users mad in order to provoke an excuse for the modlog while you clearly get a pass. Y’know, since you are being so transparent already.