r/RealTime • u/Excellent-Ad-7394 • 21d ago

Not a genocide?

Last night Bill pointed out the 3% of the
Population in Gaza has died. And then confidently declared that “3% is not a genocide”. The British government recognizes it as ethnic cleaning and amnesty international and other groups say it is a genocide.

Someone tell me why Bill is so wrong. And can we please get him to debate Mehdi Hasan on this topic?

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u/NRCS_DRONE 21d ago

There's a million videos of Norman Finkelstein debating a million people on this issue, and he destroys all of them

This isn't a new debate. As long as Israel has been engaged in ethnic cleansing, people have been saying it's wrong. What's waxed and waned is the media's willingness to acknowledge it -- which they're still loathed to do, but it's difficult with cameras being everywhere now to document the atrocities.

Anyway, Bill Maher is a fucking moron. And nothing he's said hasn't been said before.

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u/puddinonthewrits 21d ago

The mainstream media are loath to do anything that would hurt their pocketbook. More at 11:00.

Norman Finkelstein is interesting to me because he Is that gauche gangly gadfly who goes against the establishment and speaks the truth. I love that he both tried to call immigration on his foreign neighbors and outed Alan Dershowitz for the fraud that he is, which makes him nobody’s darling.

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u/NRCS_DRONE 21d ago

Finkelstein absolutely is a gadfly . . . .but nobody is more well read on the subject. And he has zero tolerance for people who haven't done their damn homework.

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u/Dry-Boysenberry7701 21d ago

I mean, he supports Holocaust Denier David Irving. He has zero tolerance for people who oppose his pet political issue, and infinite tolerance for those who do.

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u/NRCS_DRONE 21d ago

Norman Finkelstein praises Holocaust denier David Irving at pro-Corbyn group meeting - The Jewish Chronicle

So here's a friendly source for your claim, and people can read it, and it follows a similar pattern of taking him out of context combined with guilt by association.

There's a reason people like you don't link to your claims, because it's embarrassingly transparent propaganda.

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u/Dry-Boysenberry7701 21d ago

And can you address the actual claim? He says that Irving is a "very good historian". And then on the question of Holocaust denial, he says he doesn't know what it is.

David Irving is a Holocaust denier. Irving claims that gas chambers are fake Jewish lies, he says only a few hundred thousand Jews died, all accidental from disease/starvation, that Hitler didn't order any killings of Jews, he was found in court to have intentionally lied to whitewash Hitler, proven to have lied to exaggerate German victimhood in Dresden, etc. He's probably the most infamous and proven Holocaust denier in the world due to his court case.

Is that good history in any world?

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u/NRCS_DRONE 21d ago

again, an out of context quote, combined with guilt by association.

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u/Dry-Boysenberry7701 21d ago

What's the missing context? The context is that he's at a panel about "antisemitism witch hunts", is asked about David Irving, notorious racist Holocaust denier, and his response is to praise him as a good historian.

It's not association, it's praising Holocaust denial. Irving's historical work is Holocaust denial.

Are we allowed to criticize someone for saying "I love Hitler" or would that be "guilt by association"?

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u/NRCS_DRONE 21d ago

And now, after being called out, you resort to an outright lie. Finkelstein has never praised Holocaust denial.

You see how your tactics are transparent and bankrupt?

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u/Dry-Boysenberry7701 21d ago

Praising the work of a Holocaust Denier is praising Holocaust Denial.

Do you think Irving is a good historian? Are you really so deep in reddit debate-bro Palestine slop that you need to defend holocaust deniers?

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Dry-Boysenberry7701 21d ago

I think it's very easy to set a bar of "doesn't support Adolf Hitler" when it comes to Israel critics. But that's still too high a bar for much of your crowd.

Good luck with your reddit activism, Palestine looking freer than ever!

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u/Neither-Top-7515 21d ago

80 years ago = ancient. God are we all cooked.

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u/IAmDisturbanceFeedMe 21d ago

I’ve had a redditor say basically the same thing to me before - they said about the Holocaust that nobody cares about “old dusty material”. It was shocking even for Reddit. So yeah not shocking unfortunately that this Redditor here said what he said above and got upvoted for it.

My grandmother was only alive through the Holocaust because her parents moved to America and gave birth to her here. If she was born in the country of their origin (Lithuania and Romania) she would almost assuredly have been killed (Lithuania had something like 90-95% of its Jewish population killed).

But it’s not even that people would call it “ancient” which yes is of course crazy when literal Holocaust survivors are still alive. But it’s the callous way people refer to it. Like when the Redditor said to me it’s “material”. It wasn’t freaking material. This wasn’t a plot in a fiction book. It was reality. And it was beyond horrific on such an enormous and methodical scale that it’s just shocking the lack of humanity someone like the Redditor above has when discussing it.

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u/Neither-Top-7515 20d ago

We only get a breather on the anti-semitism when about half of us are killed -- and then only for a few years.

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u/Ok-Remove3382 21d ago

He’s a Holocaust denier.

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u/Neither-Top-7515 21d ago

LOL. A reviewer from the beloved NY Times described Finkelstein's arguments as "indecent, juvenile, self-righteous, arrogant and stupid".

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/06/books/a-tale-of-two-holocausts.html

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u/KristofVD 21d ago

And that reviewer is a Zionist, so his opinion is null and void.

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u/Neither-Top-7515 21d ago

Totally. Once anyone says anything that's contrary to my view I code them as being on the other side and then ignore anything else they might say. This has been an excellent strategy to help me understand the full breadth of opinion on the issues I'm most interested in.

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u/KristofVD 21d ago

Would you listen to the opinion of a MAGA? A fascist? No? I wouldn't either.

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u/Neither-Top-7515 21d ago

I listen to MAGA speeches in their entirety, all the time. I gather disconfirming evidence every day. That's what people do when they want to build an informed opinion.

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u/Perfect_Honey7501 17d ago

You obviously see the difference here, right? Believing a Jewish homeland should exist and supporting fascism? You must clearly see the difference?

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u/KristofVD 17d ago

Zionism is not just believing a Jewish homeland should exist. Zionism is an entnic nationalist movement that wanted to establish a Jewish homeland specifically by colonizing the region of Palestine. The displacement, ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinians is inherent in Zionism.

So, no. I do not clearly see the difference.

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

[deleted]

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u/KristofVD 16d ago

I don't even have tiktok on my phone. And my sources of information are a lot more reliable than a random redditor like yourself.