09
May
2007
20 Comments
Should Yoni continue posting with us? (Poll)
This website is meant to be for everybody and as controversial as things get, we try to be as reasonable and productive as possible. But to be so obviously offensive and racist (yes I will go this far – claiming that one race is superior over another, however indirectly, is still racist and the implications are in Yoni’s posts.)
So, this time the choice is yours to make. ONLY make a decision after you familiarize yourself with his posts, otherwise it wouldn’t be fair. Also, vote once.
[poll=6]
Join the Conversation
I don’t see racism in his posts? Can you highlight what you mean?
You can read it in the comments section, we made our views very clear there.
I voted with “no”. I make this public because I think it’s important, in a topic like this (vote of confidence), to stand behind your opinion with arguments. Surely, some of you made comments about this in Yoni’s posts but to underline this once more would be fair for Yoni and also for the right of free speech.
Before I start to declare my argument I want to add that there couldn’t be a free speech in a privat platform like a internet site (forum, blog etc.). Every owner has his/her own purpose with a site. Even this one. Although it is more or less limited to opinions which are against the comment-policy. Thus we all have to accept that we don’t have any right to post here if the host don’t like our stance.
I voted with “no” ’cause I think it is more useful if we still have Yoni’s posts here in order to discuss and refute them. The posts of Yoni are insofar as dangerous that they don’t proclaim openly their meaning, it’s more in a latent way. But this you hear all the time. Thus I think it’s important to discuss this here with mature and intelligent people who are capable to refute those theses.
Esra’a wrote:
On the one hand this is also a chance, as mentioned above. The important thing is that the readers also get to know the informative comments-section.
On the other hand everybody can make his comment (forum or a comment after a blog entry) even without a writing account. Thus if you (Esra’a) think that a writer don’t respect the rules here, than you’ve to kick him out. He still have a opportunity to promote his message.
so long,
Marten, who had been for three years an official of a board (and game) with more than 10.000 users.
Hi Marten, actually I think you mean ‘Yes’ with your vote…. as ‘No’ means, no he should not be posting with us.
This is not true. For any action we take – we HAVE to ask the Mideast Youth team before we approve of it. There are tons and tons of people here whose stance we don’t like – we never once tried to silence them. But what Yoni is doing is nothing useful – it’s just copy/paste from Israeli propaganda sites and this is NOT what I call intelligent dialog. I have another word for this and it’s called spam.
I don’t think any of you actually made an effort to read his posts, you just don’t like the idea of us kicking someone out because of a belief which is NOT WHAT WE ARE DOING. This is a racist issue – it’s an issue about Arabs being constantly insulted in posts with claims that Israel and Israelis are so much better.
Yoni is preaching ignorance here. When a person post something that says, Arabs are lazy and Arabs are stupid, while saying the exact opposite about the Jews, this becomes racism.
Ups, I meant “no”
With no doubt it’s racist if somebody proclaims that one race (what is this at all?) is better than the other. In this two posts he’s more quoting than writing on his own account. Thus the accusation of spam might be right, but I think that this rating is done because of the content. Thus we could subsume this as racist propaganda of a third party not of Yoni. It’s the questionless fault of Yoni that he starts those third party racist propaganda with word like “great article” and subsume it with very wrong conclusions. He isn’t critical and thus it seems that he shares this opinions. Then he can’t be a contributor to this blog upon the comment-policy. That’s right!
But this third party racist propaganda exists and if you want to change this (reaching the minds of the people) than you have here the possibility to change this with refuting and arguing. Well maybe not on the main site. Perhaps on a special anti-propaganda section. I don’t know
p.s.: I should change my vote from “no” (what was meant “yes”) to “yes, but on certain conditions. One proposal above.
The other proposal goes to Yoni: If you don’t share those opinions than you should clarify this more. Get more critical!
Thanks for clearing this up Marten. I am going to hope that Yoni reads this and understands that the copy/paste stuff should not be done if the article is so controversial, for controversial stuff you need to contextualize it and realize who your audience are, and we don’t take so kindly to baseless and shameful propagaanda – this blog requires you to put some thought into your posts instead of being just a tool of racist sites that spew nothing but hatred and insults towards the Arabs.
I don’t know. I think that everybody should address everything. By ignoring part of the things you get a restricted and thus misleading view on things. If this Sheikh said those things I think everybody can react to it what he thinks. Why shouldn’t Yoni place this here? It DOES exist and it DOES get publicized everywhere else. It’s better to ignore? Anyway, I’m already a bit disappointed from this site because I also saw that Howie wasn’t allowed to give his opinion here. And, if you EVER want to become the reflection of a free society then it is unthinkable that censure is applied. “Pro-Israeli” I am as well, you’ll find maybe 99% of the Israeli’s ‘pro-israeli’s’ – do you actually expect us to give up on our identity in order to be allowed to post here? I don’t get it, Esra’a…. I didn’t realize this :S
Tsedek, you don’t get the point.
I said it before and I’ll say it again – you do NOT have to give up anything to post here. What Yoni is doing is something, in my opinion, very disgusting.
You don’t go to a forum full of Arabs and say “Israelis are better than you for this and that reason.” You don’t imply that they are stupid and lazy and then expect us to consider you a moderate and someone respectful. If you show no respect towards others why should we allow you to use a platform in order to further racist ideas and hateful claims, especially if you NEVER contextualize it?
Everyone can post here – can you look around and tell me how many Israelis and Zionists there are? Plenty, in fact even the Iranians are being outnumbered by the Israelis who are very pro-Israel, but they are RESPECTFUL Israelis who share their experiences and thoughts …. unlike Yoni who just copies and pastes from hateful propaganda sites that imply really harsh things about Arabs.
Secondly I made a poll for a reason. I didn’t take action and as you can see Yoni is still posting with us, so I hope people will NOT assume retarded things about this website and its intentions. If we were so utterly biased we would have kicked him out a long time ago, but we are giving him a chance. We just want people to respect us and not insult us or claim that we are pieces of shit the way Yoni so often makes us feel.
You are seriously exaggerating this beyond belief without understanding at all how it feels like to be treated like this – I am so sick of it. I won’t take it from this website, if someone is implying that Arabs are retarded and incapable of doing what Israel has brought itself to do. I won’t stick around to watch him spam this site with nothing but copy/paste articles, you are REQUIRED here to only post thoughtfully and respectfully.
We kicked a Palestinian out because he didn’t play by the rules, why the fuck should we make an exception for Yoni, because he’s Israeli? So we can silence Palestinians who don’t respect others but Israelis can do whatever they want?
Sorry. You came to the wrong website if you think you are going to get special treatment for being Israeli. We are doing our best here to be as unbiased as possible and look at these fucking claims we are getting. Look around you for once and see how many Israelis post and comment and then come tell me they are being silenced. This is mideastyouth.com, not israeliyouth.com, okay?
Also you are so mistaken. Howie was more than welcome here – HE HAD AN AUTHOR’S ACCOUNT TOO. His arguments got refuted and this is why he left. Don’t dare assume that we banned him from this site- he left by choice. Why are you twisting this and making it seem as if we are kicking Israelis out?
If he had made constructive post with his own opinions about what the Sheikh had to say, then that is acceptable. What did Yoni do? Posts data on the literacy rate of Arab countries and Israel and posts an article that says Arabs are lazy.
If I post an article by a Jew calling Jews roaches, and post a stats of all the Palestinian children killed by the IDF and the settlers and leave no comment of mine. What would you think I am? Be fare and answer this question.
No, he left of his own free will because he refused to debate us. We have a thing called Archives take a look. Proof is there as to what happened. Don’t make false claims.
Israelis here are not anti-Israel. Some are pro-Israel on all accords and anti-Israel in regards to some issues. No one is asking the Israelis to give up their identity. If you think saying don’t be racist is giving up your identity, then you are messed in the head. Criticize the problem in the Arab or Muslims world without resort to racism. And post original material, no copy paste like Yoni.
Shall we start letting neo-Nazis post here then? How about racist Arabs? Ohhhh then you gona have a problem with that right? It’s only free speech if you are not insulting Israelis or Jews, but bring in the free speech issue when a Jew or an Israeli resorts to racism and bigotry in regards to Arabs and Muslims.
This site does work like a “free society”, your definition of free society is not the same as what free society is or should be. That’s the issue or you misunderstood the whole issue and came to a false conclusion.
Ohh… “Free” society doesn’t exist. You have relative freedom, that’s all. And that’ what this site is, we let Muslims, Christians, Jews, Arabs, Kurds, Persians, etc… post as long as they don’t insult or resort to racism. Is that so hard to do? Ever heard of constructive criticism?
Isn’t it funny how I can’t even leave a pro-Arab or anti-Israel (not anti-Jew) comment on most Israeli or Jew owned blogs, but here is a Arab owned blog and we are discussing this and people are going nuts.
This double standards is pissing me off.
No. I guess I’m the totally free expression (except for direct personal insults) type. I post on many forums where not only ‘zionists’ get systematically demonized, but even ‘jews’. ALL are posting there and I find such thing refreshing (even if I don’t like what they got to say).
(Even my own blog is infested with a racially right-wing anonymous who pisses me off, but I think deleting comments is like ignoring people with those opinions exist – and they DO exist).
I think I know how it feels like. I’m on a Moroccan/Dutch forum that gives me the feeling I’ve grown horns already and my reptile tail is showing thru my skirt. But would I pretend people (who don’t know me even) that see me like this don’t exist? They do. So, I address them.
Why don’t you engage Yoni in conversation about this? The “mirror-treatment” way?
I would not have done that….. (but I KNOW : it’s YOUR site so what I would have done is unimportant – just tell you so you know my reasoning)
He actually requested to be removed. We didn’t stop him because we knew that he would fill this site with much hatred.. unfortunately posters aren’t allowed to resort to that, but commenters are (and you see it from time to time) until it becomes a security threat (revealing personal information about posters, etc, will result in automatic deletion.) But no other types of comments were ever removed from this site. This is why I emphasize the fact that it’s truly for everybody – we never silenced a voice.
And for the record you are the one who inspired me to keep Yoni with us. You’re absolutely right in that we shouldn’t ignore these things if they exist in reality – let’s make this as realistic and practical as possible instead of being idealistic.
I value your contributions and I apologize for the harshness of my responses to you. I get really emotionally defensive with this site because it is my purpose, and I just want this to be a place that functions well enough to serve an actual good cause in our region.
Sorry if I came off as rude to you.
I know, and I like that. As long as you can talk about everything I think it serves a good cause. Too many walls and other restrictions invented by men to keep people separated exist already – it’s time to break down those barriers. No need to apologize
Also, I think, it’s very important that we can talk to eachother about the way ‘the other’ makes us FEEL. Many times we unintentionally hurt/insult/humiliate/etc. others without being aware of it.
This is not a question of free speech. Editors edit. They decide what is and what is not worthy of publication. If something is racist, then it is up to them to decide whether they want to publish it or remove it. I support removing Yoni. He might as well work for the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The only Arabs he finds agreeable are the ones who prostrate themselves before Israel and the United States.
I mean, of all the brave Syrian political activists, Yoni admires that kalb Farid Ghadry, Mr. Hasn’t-been-to-Syria-since-age-10-and-advocates-a-US-invasion-of-Syria-and-loves-Israel-soooo-much.
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