Community anti-Israeli censorship

Question

My posts are routinely downvoted for not being inline with the official anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic stance of this forum. I've been routinely bashed, and on occasion even sanctioned by the moderators, for not supporting the "community" demands to continue defaming Israel and spread antisemitic misinformation, and for calling out those who do.

Now, not only are my posts being downvoted, they're being actively removed.

On other SE stacks, the "delete" button is usually reserved to spam posts, abusive posts, or posts that should have been comments. My answer is neither of these things.

Why was it deleted, other than the inherent inability of certain anti-Israeli users to accept the fact that Israelis may not be as bad as they want them portrayed??

Answer 1

Oddly enough, plenty of people come here to post complaints of exactly the opposite bias. Look at the questions on this meta. Thing is, maybe it's those downvotes are just representative of the community in general being fed up with users trying to hijack this site as a propaganda forum for this war.

Both sides' civilians are suffering greatly and both sides' governments have been up to rather questionable behavior. Few outsiders (well, except for "traditional" antisemites and Islamophobes, who certainly lurk around but usually get turfed rather quickly) wish ill on either group, but as soon one doesn't side with the "correct" camp: anti-this, anti-that.

(Mostly found by searching for "bias", sorted by recent and looking for the pro-Palestine complaints:)

Moderator deleted my answer for "[making] one side in an ongoing conflict look worse than the other"

My Q was deleted on a basis which I think it was biased, full of misjudgements

Will the moderators take steps to curb pro-Israel bias on this site?

Why questioning the existance of Israel, as is, is considered anti-Semitism?

Bias causing invalid answers to be upvoted and accepted

Moderator needs to stop moderating anything to do with Israel/Palestine

These are only recent ones, there are more.

And though you yourself definitely have potential when you answer/ask in a more neutral fashion, or on another topic, you are far from one of the lesser offenders in this league.

Another metric is to look at the lowest-scored questions on tg 2023-israel-hamas-war. These seem to be considered too pushy by the community (not all deserved that reception, some just rubbed people the wrong way, for whatever reason). Sure, a good deal of those badly-received questions are pro-Israel. But it's easy to see that they keep good company with questions from the "other side" that are perceived as too anti-Israel. Looking at their posters' scores, as of June 2024, also shows who has been temp-banned. Draw your own conclusions as to whether that supports the accusations of anti-Israel bias by moderators.

There are iirc about 3-4 really pro-Islam/pro-Palestine hi-reputation users. Sadly, while it would be interesting to hear from a more diverse group (yes, this site has a pro-West, pro-US, and yes, somewhat pro-Israel penchant), some of them just can't remain civil, esp. when it comes to antisemitism and are often out on long term bans.

Not that it is wrong to ban people for antisemitism, but well, sometimes one has the perception that the bans mostly head one direction.

Answer 2

If you wonder about my VTD there, I just agreed with this comment:

I don't see how this answers the question. Talking about attitudes in the 1940s and before (League of Nations), and offering no evidence about what Israelis or their supporters believe. It's just an attack on Palestinians and their supporters, which is off-topic. – Stuart F 9 hours ago

A better meta-tag would have been not-answering-the-question.

The most on-topic bit of your answer is this line:

I've personally never encountered anyone who'd say there were no Arabs at all.

I think the OP was not asking about personal anecdotes.

That's also a bit of a 'no true Scotsman'. The OP's question/quote was that

it is very frequent that pro-Israel people downplay the existence of a local population.

Downplay isn't the same as "at all". If you want to argue that the Q is vague, vote to close it. Don't answer with a fallacy based on a personal anecdote.

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You argue in comments that you're on-topic because you mention school education. YMMV. What people are taught in schools and what they believe may or may not correlate a lot. Many were though in schools that communism was good. That didn't help prevent its downfall in many countries.

Also, you didn't give any detail what Israeli schools teach about this. Yes, presumably they don't teach there were 'no Arabs at all', but that's not what the Q was really asking.

Are there public surveys to support or disprove this assertion?

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You also say in a comment addressed to me that

Also, you didn't give any detail what Israeli schools teach about this - are you for real? I quoted and highlighted the words!

I see two block quotes in your answer that aren't simply repeats of the bits of the OP's question followed by 'This!' type of agreement. One from the 1947 UN resolution and one from "Mandate for Palestine and Memorandum by the British Government Relating to its Application to Transjordan". Neither looks like an Israeli school book to me.

Yeah, you seem to argue that--indirectly--the full text of those documents is fully internalized and believed by Israelis, because those documents are presumably mentioned in some Israeli schoolbook. Big YMMV, speculation. It's like claiming the Communist Manifesto is fully believed by many Americans because it's often discussed in college there.

FWTW, perusing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textbooks_in_Israel#Teaching_the_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_conflict doesn't yield much hope that your zero-source appeal to Israeli textbooks would yield much on this topic if we actually read them. But anyhow, it's your job to improve your answer with something other than indirect speculation.

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As your addition attacking my answer. It's a pair of 'random blogs' published two mainstream Israeli newspapers. https://www.jpost.com/blogs/why-world-opinion-matters/are-arabs-the-indigenous-people-of-palestine-402785 https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/time-to-destroy-an-old-myth/ Yeah, it's the best I could do, and immediately that answer got downvoted. I guess some people only like to hear some things. And only press roundups on some topics but not others (even when no polls [are likely to] exist). There's a non-deleted answer that also says it's strange to ask about polls on this. Which is probably what the OP wanted to hear. (The title Q isn't strictly about polls, phrased just as 'How common' some claim is. I guess we know it's in some of the blogs in MSM Israeli press but not in their textbooks--because you assert the latter, and I found sources for the former.)

Answer 3

It's interesting for me that you think this forum is biased toward anti-Israel and antisemitic, that sounds to me maybe I was wrong and misjudged the moderators, and it is very possible after one of the users explained why my first question was treated such and such, in that case it was really my fault, at least to a great extent.

However, as @ItalianPhilosophers4Monica stated in his answer, "yes, this site has a pro-West, pro-US, and yes, somewhat pro-Israel penchant", so if your posts are deleted there you should seek the problem elsewhere. Let review your question here:

My posts are routinely downvoted for not being inline with the official anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic stance of this forum. I've been routinely bashed, and on occasion even sanctioned by the moderators, for not supporting the "community" demands to continue defaming Israel and spread antisemitic misinformation, and for calling out those who do.

here you have several points to say:

1. complaining about downvotes has nothing to say about moderations or even the general attitude of the community, as not every or perhaps even the majority of the community read all the posts, or react to them by upvote/downvote. I'm new here but not new to SE.

2. the reason for downvotes should be explained by the downvoters, some do give their reasons and many don't, but you are instead intention reading and judging the people who downvote (maybe hard to avoid it to be honest, I mistakenly do it occasionally as well) -- its arguably the downvoters' fault as well, since they declare a reaction but let people understand it the way they want, their UVs/DVs are not very useful indeed and maybe their absent is better than their presence?

3. sanctions by moderators I have nothing to say about, but I doubt if they have given you their reasoning to be "not supporting the community demands to continue defaming Israel and spread antisemitic misinformation, and for calling out those who do", maybe this is your translation of their explanation. You assume zero possibility for things to be somewhat different, being misunderstood by you. None of us here are infallible of any kind, so the possibility for us to misunderstand the others is probable, especially when we are extremely tired, angry, sad, or even happy. We should bear with each other, and I myself am no exception to this matter.

Now, not only are my posts being downvoted, they're being actively removed.

I have talked with several people of very different ideologies and beliefs, with no serious problem. What can make a serious problem is perhaps labeling, especially when the person being labeled rejects the attribute given to him/her but we again insist on it. Once I left SE some years ago for being engaged with a person, an Indian PhD student, who continuously insisted on Shia Muslims being Mushrik. To some extent avoiding labeling is so difficult, when believing in something is so deeply rooted in the person's belief structure. For example here users are frequently label Hamas fighters as terrorists, ignoring the news saying many civilian Israelis killed were indeed killed by the Israelis forces themselves, even seemingly on purpose. This is a labeling as well, if I as well have used such labelings in calling the pro-Israelis somewhat pro-criminals/genociders. People themselves should decide with respect to what audience saying something will be understood as annoying/wrong labeling. For example, in Israel you can easily assume Hamas/Iran forces terrorist and no one blame you for misusing the label, and the reverse is true in Iran when Israeli/CENTCOM forces are called terrorist. But here people are diverse, so maybe more caution should be taken so that a useful contribution and beneficial idea-sharing happens. I personally have learned a lot here, so to me it is worth to bear all such annoying labeling and still remain here, at least until now, but you can choose if that's OK with you either as well.

On other SE stacks, the "delete" button is usually reserved to spam posts, abusive posts, or posts that should have been comments. My answer is neither of these things.

Why was it deleted, other than the inherent inability of certain anti-Israeli users to accept the fact that Israelis may not be as bad as they want them portrayed??

I agree with you that questions/answers should be tolerated more in such issues. Maybe those who care about such issues can themselves probably improve/rephrase the question, for the main point to remain immune. For example I ask "why are you enemy to what I believe and all the believers like me, defending the enemies of humanity?", and they improve it by saying "why you disagree with the point I just said?" ... this might help both sides having said their points in a more calm atmosphere ...

my 5 (soapboxy) cents ...

Answer 4

This is to the moderators based on OP's question/issue:

If the Israel / Palestine issue and the resulting flak is so hard to moderate then consider:

• No censorship-Stop deleting/removing/hiding Q/A/C. If someone is over-the-top then suspend their ability to post. You have that right.
• Remove everything for x number of days as a cooling off period. 90 days? Then try allowing the subject matter again.

There are plenty of people on SE Politics with differents views than mine whose posts are well thought and are willing to explain their logic. These people are not the problem.

Then there are few people that whose logic and words are that Israel must no longer exist. From what I've experienced, these people tend to game the system.

I am tired of my comments and answers being deleted. This is being done by people deleting their questions that I may answer or comment that I respond to.

Answer 5

Community standards are shaped by the moderators. For whatever reason they have implemented the policies which don't send a clear message that antisemitism is not ok.

It can just as easily be a failure to appreciate the gravity of the situation or of their actions. It may not be, nor need not be, motivated by their personal animus.

Dig in your hills. Antisemitism is as old as the Western Civilization. Obviously it's back. It's a wild fire which the power that be are only willing to treat with fire prevention methods. It'll get worse before it gets better.