Democratic Underground's Censorship Rules on Debating Israel

Repost from the old site.
I’ve had a lot of requests for the 149-page directory of hate sites that was referenced in my previous post.
The 149-page site is called The Hate Directory, and it is linked below. In general, it lists Holocaust Denial, anti-Semitic, White Supremacist and neo-Nazi sites (A lot of overlap there! Are there any anti-Semites on this Earth who are not also Holocaust Deniers?!)
I didn’t go over The Hate Directory with a fine tooth comb, but there were a few problematic sites on there. One of them is The Jewish Tribal Review.
The JTR is a very problematic site, but their fantastic critique of the Jews, running to 3,000 pages, When Victims Rule, is often well-worth the read and is not really anti-Semitic at all.
In other places, JTR is anti-Semitic. They criticize Jews for various things, but often don’t offer suggestions on what Jews should do instead of the critiqued behaviors. And in the news section, they just seem to go through the news listing any Jew who ever did anything bad and reprinting the article about him. What’s the point of that? Other than sheer bigotry.
Alabaster’s Archive is also linked as a hate site. This is an excellent site and 90% of it is not anti-Semitic at all. The articles are mostly about Jewish fundamentalism and the Israeli Rightwing, and most of them are written by Jews, often Israelis!
The Hamas webpage is also listed. Other than the Hamas charter, what exactly on the Hamas webpage (mostly just a collection of news stories from Palestine about Israeli transgressions and Palestinian resistance actions) is hate propaganda?
Here is a mail I received from the original poster describing the rules in DU about Jews and Israel:
Here’s an excerpted sample of Democratic Underground Israel/Palestine forum rules:
“If you feel great affinity to groups who are promoting hate in the Middle East such as Kahane, or Hamas; feel there is a Jewish conspiracy governing US foreign policy or control of the media; or believe supporters of Islam or Palestinian Nationalism are terrorists, then you are probably likely to be banned.
Do not discuss the truthfulness and/or stupidity of various religions. Do not assume you know what someone believes simply because they practice a certain religion. Do not make over-sweeping or stereotypical generalizations of any group or individual. This includes making statements, either overtly or subtly, which are Anti-Semitic or Anti-Muslim.
Please avoid posting “information” from overtly racist websites. A good, but not exhaustive, guide is Franklin’s Hate Directory. Posting from Whatreallyhappened, Chronwatch or Debka is specifically not allowed.
Please exercise extreme caution and sensitivity when using the words “anti-Semitism” or “Zionism.” There is a wide range of opinion on the meaning of these words. If you must use them, please make sure your intended meaning is clear. Do not use the term “Zionist” to mean “Jew” or “Israeli.”
[RL: This is despicable. I remember this from the Internet forums. Whenever we said anything about Jews, Zionist or Israel the disgusting, belligerent militant Jews on there would jump all over the post and demand that we put qualifiers in front of the nouns.
Jews? How about “some Jews”? Israelis? How about “some Israelis”? Israel? Do you think that Israelis are monolithic? They are not! So you may not “generalize” about them.
At that point, once all “stereotyping” and “generalization” has been banned, all debate on this subject becomes impossible. There’s more crap. Complaining about Israel or Jews? You must be “obsessed” with the Jews or Israel.
Well, Hell, we can focus on whatever we want! Anyway, most Jews are “obsessed” with their tribe and their state, so why can’t others be that way too?
Complaining about Israel but not about all other myriad shitty little countries (and shitty big countries) all over the world? Bigot! What nonsense. We can talk about whatever we want.
We don’t need to juxtapose every anti-Israel comment with a comment slamming Peru, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco or Colombia. Yeah! The world is full of shitty countries! And Israel is one of them!]
Do not use the term “Jew” to mean “Israeli”. Do not call Palestinians “terrorists” unless you are actually talking about people who blow up cafes or buses filled with civilians. Do not compare Middle East regional leaders and parties to Hitler or the Nazis. Use of these terms is considered inflammatory and should be avoided.
Do not call other members of this message board “terror apologist,” “Palestinian apologist,” “Israeli apologist,” “Nazi,” “Fascist,” “Sharonist,” “Likudnik”, etc.”
______________________________
The DU reporter notes: It’s notable that pro-Israel poster accusations of antisemitism, both overt and thinly-veiled, routinely go untouched. That’s of course fine, but any accusations of pro-Israel bias, blind support for Israel, hyper-sensitivity, or twisting facts to put Israel in the best light, are deleted, and often the author is never heard from again.
No announcements that a poster has been banned are offered. They just disappear. Often the “disappeared” are mentioned on Prosemite Undercover, where they boast of their successful efforts in a behind-the-scenes swarm attack to “tombstone” the Israel-critic. They even have a standard tombstone graphic with the legend “Here lies “insert name”.
[RL: I have spent some time over at Prosemite Undercover getting nauseous while reading about the nasty militant Jews and their deplorable behaviors. That is really a horrible site.]
A sample of the moderator’s (Lithos) views:
“Why these two distinctions are important is that there is a form of anti-Semitism where bigots use a stereotypical form of the term Zionist as a way to attack Jews. Zionism carries at some level a notion of struggle in much the same way as the real definition of jihad which is a word which also is abused and often serving as part of a code word for bigots.”
———————————–
“The reason why I will disagree with you about equivalencing post 9/11’s bigotry with the multi-millenia of anti-Semitism has to do with the complicated nature of bigotry against Jews versus the highly simplistic one in the mainstream against Muslims.
In contrast, Jews have had several thousand years of officially sponsored bigotry aimed at them.
[RL: Down with the Jewish Pogrom and Persecution Masochism-Fest!]
First there were many official pogroms against the Jewish religion by the Romans, Persians and the Muslims where they were blamed and accused of fomenting rebellion
[RL: The Romans “blamed” the Jews for fomenting rebellion because that is exactly what the Jews were doing – fomenting rebellion!]
and Deicide.
Later with the rise of nation states along ethnic lines, Jews being ubiquitous and for the most part culturally distinct from the host population were accused first of being unpatriotic and seditious to ultimately masterminds of a great cabal a la The International Jew and The Protocols.”
————————————
“I totally agree that 9/11 fueled the spread of many tailored answers designed to provide simple easily to digest answers to an extremely complicated reality and that this included a rise in anti-Muslim fear, but I also think that there are many examples out now where it fueled a rise in anti-Semitism.”
————————————-
“One problem that Israel has always had is a lack of resources, this includes political resources to affect policy and opinion. Given that their limited tool set includes a very strong and efficient military, it is not surprising they tend to rely on it when perhaps they shouldn’t.”
————————————
Poster writes:
“If Jews, Zionism, and Israel are coming up in 911 over and over it’s sure not the conspiracy theorists that are looking to make connections where there are not.”
Lithos responds:
“So, if a lie is repeated enough, it becomes true? Isn’t that the issue behind Bush’s claims of WMD? Isn’t this the primary complaint by the 9/11 truth side the government and media are repeating a lie? Your comment is absurd given your basis of assumption.”
————————————
“The focus on AIPAC and Israel has always been interesting in that people place such singular focus on AIPAC as being an influential lobbying group, but make no mention of other groups with far more influence on US foreign policy, namely the energy and defense concerns?
Why the focus when the ties, corruption and conspiracies to Iraq, Afghanistan, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Bin Ladin have far more to do with these groups than with Israel or AIPAC?
[RL: Chomskian, Western Leftist bullshit. See Jeff Blankfort’s articles on Chomsky and the Israeli Lobby for more. Blankfort is Jewish.]
About all Israel seems to be guaranteed by US policy is existence which results not from Jewish influence, but rather that of the Millennial Dispensationalist crowd.
[RL: This is a typical lie of those who are trying very hard to avoid the anti-Semite label. There is no Jewish Lobby! The Israeli Lobby is…just a bunch of…Christians! Jeff Blankfort has done a good job of tearing apart this nonsense. The Christian Zionists do very little lobbying for Israel, and that is what really counts, not their inner political views.
However, I recently received a mail noting that whenever the US criticizes Israel in the slightest, the White House gets bombarded with mails from the Christian Right telling them to knock it off.
So the Christian Zionists do have some influence, but observation shows that the influence of the Jewish aspect of the Israeli Lobby is greater, in particular the Lobby’s power in the US media, which strikes terror into the hearts of US politicians.]
Also, you find no issue that the original sources claiming Israeli involvement came from sites and operation well known and heavily associated with holocaust denial activities and the proponents of it?”
[RL: Logical fallacy! Holocaust Denier idiots of course blamed Israel for 9-11, therefore…what? Anyone who suggests Israeli 9-11 involvement is a Holocaust Denier? It can’t possibly be true, because the initial purveyors of the theory were a bunch of virulently anti-Semitic White Supremacist morons?]
————————————-
“As for sources, most of what is not allowed here for these types of biased thinking such as anti-Semitism sites are usually Paleo-Libertarian and generally Far Right in bent.
Of the Libertarian (where most of the anti-Semitic sites seem to be associated), the main reason they’ve garnered any coin among the left is that they are jealous/in competition with the Neocons for control of the Right and leftists are sometimes over-eager to believe “an enemy of my enemy is my ally” without realizing this other group is also an enemy.”
Update: I would like to point out that it is not only the Democratic Underground and the Liberal Underground sites that censor the Israel – Palestine issue. The same sort of pro-Israeli thuggery can be seen at the , or at least in the Arizona section anyway.
It’s actually often an overt conspiracy:
From an old webpage of the disgusting and foul brownshirts at the Jewish Internet Association:

Shut down offensive websites: If you spot an offensive web site — antisemitic, terrorist supporting, anti-Israel, or just hateful — you may be able to shut it down. By following simple procedures, you can determine who owns the site and what web hosting company is giving them access to the Internet.

Often the offensive site is not actually known to the web hosting company and is probably in violation of their rules of conduct. A simple letter of complaint can force the site to move, a considerable inconvenience and possibly the end of them. Haganah B’Internet, an online self-defense force, has prepared a site research How-to/Checklist along with other tools, advice and news on their website.

Please follow and like us:

3

20

20

20