Israel Accuses Al Jazeera Journalist of Being Hamas Operative

speaker_hat@lemmy.one to News@lemmy.world – 177 points – Israel Accuses Al Jazeera Journalist of Being Hamas Operative
nysun.com

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The Israeli Defense Forces on Sunday accused a prominent journalist– who in recent months has reported regularly for Al Jazeera from Gaza – of moonlighting as a senior Hamas commander.

The Israeli Defense Forces have published photos they say were discovered on a laptop in Gaza that show Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Washah engaged in Hamas terrorist activities.

Neither Al Jazeera nor the Qatari government have responded to the Sun’s request for comment.

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while i tend to be on your side about this, i hate that link you gave for sealioning. it smacks of twitterati circlejerking. it's the kind of thing that shocked me when i joined mastodon: being called a "reply guy" for participating in a public conversation. casting doubt on unevidenced claims is an essential part of intellectually honest conversation.

The original source is a comic that demonstrates it fairly well, although the current definition is a bit broader. I look out for:

  • persistent questioning that diverges from the core of a discussion
  • focusing on pedantic claims
  • demanding ever-increasing evidence
  • placing an undue burden of proof on an individual or their claims ("undue" is the key word)
  • demanding evidence of a person's opinion
  • following someone from one conversation to another (thank goodness that rarely happens on Lemmy! On other platforms it can be terrible)
  • (of course) the illusion of civility and willingness to listen

i have often been accused of trolling, and while i do like to argue with strangers on the internet, i don't really think of myself as a troll (most of the time). i think i'm just intellectually honest, and demand others i share space with practice intellectual honesty.

i will say that i have found that just avoiding interrogatives is a great help in my "crusade". i will do everything i can to avoid answering direct questions as they are ALL TOO OFTEN bad faith, and i extend the same courtesy, almost never asking anything of my interlocutors.

but i feel that the entire topic of trolling is overblown and possible entirely fictional. it seems like a thought-terminating cliche or an ad hominem meant to not-deal with the substance of what is being discussed and attack the speaker.

i caught a 2-day ban for discussing whether people are owed genuine discussion about bad ideas under the accusation that i was trolling.

i'm starting to ramble and have already resisted the temptation to start over twice, so i'll leave this just reiterating that