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Anybody else here dislike how beehaw is becoming a bit of a hub for the israel-palestine talk? (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by bermuda@beehaw.org to c/chat@beehaw.org

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I don't wanna dive super deep into this, but ever since the news broke it feels like this place has become a hub for shit-flinging from literally everybody about the topic. Sure, I've seen some nuanced opinions and some people attempting to have a normal human conversation, but I just dislike people using this particular instance as the "place to be" to continue this endless flame war. Isn't this counter to the goals of the instance? How many of us come here to argue like children about geopolitics?

Plus, a lot of the people I've seen pointlessly arguing about this have accounts from other instances... I've even seen one person post on their beehaw account, get flak for it, then switch to kbin for no reason.

And at the risk of sounding too conspiratorial, something definitely seems off about a lot of these comments. Maybe it's how a lot just seem to be infodumping. I dunno.

It's only been a few days. Maybe it'll simmer down. But I don't like the direction this is going.

Edit: I'm not recommending we censor political discussion, however in this particular instance I would say it's wise to take a step back and think about what we say to each other

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[–] Leafeytea@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I do get what you mean, but I would prefer that people do talk about it here where they believe it's a safer environment to discuss views than being exposed to a bunch of toxicity about it elsewhere as they try to make sense of how they feel about what is happening.

I have been reading a lot the last few days. I have seen a lot of pretty ignorant and awful comments, but also a great many that are spot on and some just brilliant. I think all things considered, the admins are doing a great job of allowing people to discuss this without just ban-hammering at first sight anything that is a bit tricky. (Creating the megathread is good move though, so thanks for that by the way...).

For my part, as someone who is now 58 yrs old, the situation in Israel feels like more of history repeating itself over and over. I have spent my entire life watching this kind of news play out. I have also lost many close friends from university who were Israeli and who were Palestinian; many of those had lost their entire families in either the war in Syria or in Lebanon. I had a lot of friends at AUB for example who never came back; During the Gulf War, I was still overseas and had armed soldiers on my campus escorting Israeli faculty for fear they might be attacked since we had received bomb threats at our campus for being "Jew lovers".... I share all that to say that I have some very, very strong opinions on what is happening.

But so do a lot of people here. How can you not?

I still think we are capable of having civil discussions and helping each other through living this moment in time. We have a far easier task doing that bit than anyone else directly experiencing the war and all which that implies.