World News @lemmy.world acargitz @lemmy.ca 11 mo. ago

Chilling effect': People expressing pro-Palestinian views censured, suspended from work and school

31 comments

I guess a lot of people lost sight of the ball.

Antisemitism --- or any bigotry --- is bad. We dare not tolerate it because it can lead to persecution and genocide.

Somewhere along the way people took that to mean that any criticism of the actions of the Israeli government, including accusations of genocide, was anti-semitism and had to be quashed.

And yes, Hamas leadership is also awful, bigoted, and wanting to genocide, just like the Israeli government.

But the everyday Gaza inhabitant doesn't deserve to be killed. Nor does the everyday rest-of-Israel inhabitant deserve to be killed.
- what if this criticism comes from fake news, half-truths, bigotry, or general incitement? at what point do u say free speech has its limits?
  
  You think the UN produces fake news, half truths and bigotry?
  
  That depends if it's your team or not, obviously
Funny how it’s possible to be pro-(insert group here) without being supportive of (insert OTT assholes who took charge of aforementioned group) ?

Like, it was possible to support America in 2018, without a tiny crumb of liking Trumpishness.
This is the best summary I could come up with:

According to three Ontario-based lawyers who spoke to CBC News, some employers and institutions have been quick to take action against employees or students, creating an environment in which many are afraid they will lose their jobs or face consequences to their education if they express a political stance in favour of one side — Palestinians — during this war.

Esmonde noted a Nov. 23 United Nations statement in which a group of UN special rapporteurs expressed alarm at what they say is a global stifling of critique of Israeli government policies or calls for a ceasefire, which they said "have in too many contexts been misleadingly equated with support for terrorism or antisemitism."

Last month, according to an official email seen by CBC News, George Brown College in Toronto put Bashir Munye, a culinary instructor, on paid leave while it investigated complaints related to one of his Instagram posts.

The last post on his account related to the war, made before he was put on paid leave, uses the phrase "From the river to the sea" and the words "genocide" and "apartheid" to describe Israeli government actions against Palestinians.

She pointed to a post by B'nai B'rith Canada, a Jewish community and advocacy organization that describes itself as a "staunch defender of the state of Israel" whose mandate includes combating racism and antisemitism, that went up about a week after the protest.

According to Esmonde, the labour lawyer with Cavalluzzo Law, assuming the employees are not part of a union, they would need to either sue Moxies for wrongful dismissal or make a complaint to a provincial employment standards officer if they wanted to challenge their termination.

The original article contains 2,243 words, the summary contains 278 words. Saved 88%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I definitely don't think being pro Palestinian warrants losing your job and all of that. Just as being pro Israel should not warrant it. But there's a limit. Are you being pro Palestine or are you screaming death to the jews. There's a big difference. Seems people get caught up in the heat of this extremely contentious issue and forget that neither side in this decades old conflict is without sin. People become extreme in their beliefs and go overboard. If you fuck around like that, well, you get what you deserve.
- People got censured for saying "killing Palestinians is bad" while not mentioning Jews once, simply because they didn't condemn Hamas.
  
  Oh for sure companies are going overboard. I just think it's way too contentious an issue for companies to go all in on one side vs the other.
  
  source?
- When the headline is about people being pro-Palestine, why do you immediately jump to the assumption that the people in question are being antisemitic?
  
  You sound like the kind of person who's causing people to be fired for opposing genocide.
  
  I mean thanks for proving my point. It's just such an insanity inducing topic that no one can have a conversation about it.
- I think it's the grey area where there is no clear line where the problem is. In the article there are cases where a line was considered crossed for using words like "genocide" to describe what Israel is doing and the much maligned "from the river to the sea" slogan (what people seem to forget is that it is a rhetorical inversion of the first article in Likud's foundational Manifesto).
  
  The slogan predates Likud. Likud was mocking it, not the other way around. Like 10 years difference if not more.
  
  It's always been genocidal and the original Arabic ends with "Palestine is Arab". 75% of Palestinians in Palestine use it that way. It was also Saddam Hussein's last words.
  
  It's also vaguely an allusion to the Song of the Sea which is a daily Jewish prayer. The song has a strong "drowning people" part.

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