On being very ambivalent about the dominance of social media
But first yesterday at City Diggers
The crispy skin pan-seared barramumdi came this time with equally crispy chips and salad. Excellent.
A long FB rant from Wednesday
For any who like to read and reflect, Four Corners offers a transcript. I found myself checkng the latest episode — which was brilliant — because I just saw a one minute grab aimed at maximum demonisation of the Zionist position.
“Agenda” is so often an absolute indicator of propagandistic intent! Shades easily into conspiratorial thinking.
I am not unsympathetic to the Palestinian cause, and loved the Four Corner program. But I am not a fan of loaded cherry picking and framing the result to amplify just part of what a great analysis had to offer — standard fare on the social media sites such as Insta or TikTok. My target in posts like this is in fact those aspects of social media which I see as actually or potentially dangerous.
Radicalisation by Internet really is a thing.
Watch the whole bloody thing, please!
TRANSCRIPT
JOHN LYONS, REPORTER: Is the brutal reality that Benjamin Netanyahu wants to continue this war for his own political survival?
EHUD BARAK, FMR PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: Look, I cannot penetrate his soul and tell you for sure, but it’s clear that he acts as if the main objective of this whole event is his survival. He understands that if fighting will have a pause for six weeks or two times six weeks, the Israeli republic will demand accountability in spite of the fact that there is no word in Hebrew for accountability. It was not needed in our culture, but the public will demand it and he might lose his role, the prime minister.
JOHN LYONS, REPORTER: The Prime Minister’s Office did not respond when we put these allegations to him. Mr Ben-Gvir and Mr Smotrich also failed to respond to our requests for comment.
It now appears that Netanyahu wanted to sow seeds of division between the hardliners who ruled Gaza and the more conciliatory Palestinian Authority, running the West Bank.
AMI AYALON, FMR HEAD OF SHIN BET: We did something very, very simple. We did everything in order to make sure that Hamas will go on controlling Gaza and Palestinian Authority will control the West Bank so they will fight each other.
JOHN LYONS, REPORTER: Netanyahu allowed Qatar to give massive amounts of cash to Hamas in Gaza.
AMI AYALON, FMR HEAD OF SHIN BET: So what we did with the permission of our prime Minister is to let Qatar to transfer a huge amount of money in cash, probably more than $1.4 billion, and to make sure that they will be able to send people to work in Israel and to achieve or to get intelligence if they need. By doing it, we increase the power of Hamas.
EHUD BARAK, FMR PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: That served Netanyahu who wanted to avoid any discussion of two state solution.
JOHN LYONS, REPORTER: So are you saying Benjamin Netanyahu deliberately boosted Hamas to try to prevent a Palestinian state?
EHUD BARAK, FMR PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: Yeah, sure. He deliberately and systematically even told on record, whoever wants to avoid the threat of a two state solution has to support my policy of paying protection money to the Hamas.
JOHN LYONS, REPORTER: Netanyahu maintains the Qatar money was to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. Having helped build up Hamas, Netanyahu has vowed to destroy it.
YEHUDA SHAUL, FMR ISRAELI ARMY COMMANDER: He fed the beast and it exploded in our face. If you base your national security strategy solely on force, then you need to win 24/7 forever.
END SECTION
But it went on:
JOHN LYONS, REPORTER: Is it possible that Hamas can be destroyed?
YEHUDA SHAUL, FMR ISRAELI ARMY COMMANDER: I don’t believe you can destroy Hamas with military force at all. The issue is this. Okay, if you want to destroy Hamas in Gaza, what you will have to do is forcibly displace more than 2 million Palestinians into Sinai. Go house by house, corner by corner, wipe out entire Gaza above ground, and then go from months underground. Tunnel by tunnel, suffer hundreds of casualties, if not thousands ultimately and maybe after a few years there won’t be Hamas and Gaza. But if you’ve done that, there’s going to be Hamas everywhere else.
END SECTION — That is one of the most powerful statements of the night — and I can’t fault it! The show went on…
TRANSCRIPT
JOHN LYONS, REPORTER: In a preliminary ruling, the court ruled said it was plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide. The ICJ ordered restraint. Another international court is investigating possible war crimes by both Hamas and Israel.
AMIRA HASS, OCCUPIED TERRITORIES CORRESPONDENT, HAARETZ: I’m so tired of the legal terms for things and legal definitions. And I know that for years Palestinians used to say genocide about almost everything, and I opposed it. I mean, when you kill so many families in one bomb and destroy so many families, you don’t have any chain, no, no chain, no memories left for the family and no chain of descendants for this family. You destroy culture, you destroy academics, you destroy schools, you destroy clinics. I mean, the reconstruction will take decades, decades
JOHN LYONS, REPORTER: Some members of Hamas have said clearly that we will try more. October 7th, they’re committed to wiping out Israel. What can Israel do to protect itself?
DALAL IRIQAT, PROF. DIPLOMACY & CONFLICT RESOLUTION: I think the answer is very simple. They need to end the Israeli military occupation. They need to grant the Palestinians back their rights, and they need to recognise that the Palestinians have a right to self determination, to freedom, to sovereignty, to end independence, to liberation, to being equally humans.
JOHN LYONS, REPORTER: Do you now fear for the future?
TZIPI LIVNI, FMR FOREIGN & JUSTICE MINISTER: I am worried. I am worried about the future of Israel. Yes, more than ever.
AMI AYALON, FMR HEAD OF SHIN BET: You cannot deter a person or a group of people if they believe that they have nothing to lose. We Israelis, we shall have security only when they will have hope.
JOHN LYONS, REPORTER: What’s the future for Palestinians
AVI DICHTER, CURRENT ISRAELI CABINET MINISTER: Supporting death will not bring you anything. If you don’t believe that the Jewish presence here between the Mediterranean and Jordan Valley is forever. You are going to lose more than you’ve lost till now.
ABDALJAWAD OMAR, ANALYST & LECTURER, BIRZEIT UNIVERSITY: we’re in a very bleak, very dark moment in our own history. But at the same time, I always think that from the depths of despair, from the depths of this darkness, we can always see some light. And perhaps there is some hope that we can reconfigure life in the holy land in a way that treats people equally, treats people with the humanity that they deserve.
JOHN LYONS, REPORTER: It’s often said that this conflict is impossibly complicated. Now even more so – after the atrocities of Oct 7 and horrors of its aftermath — trust is broken and animosities are greater than ever. But when you really listen to both sides, their aspirations have not changed.
The essence is this. Israelis want security. Palestinians want an independent state. If Israel agreed to end its occupation and Palestinians guaranteed Israeli security, then this most intractable of all conflicts could end.
Right now. It feels like we are light years away from that, but if something doesn’t give, then the horrors of October seven and the death and devastation in Gaza that followed are unlikely to be the darkest place to which this conflict sinks.
END OF SECTION
Now watch it again — all of it — and if you have not so far seen it, do so now.
Make sure you do watch it!
Concerned about the nature of many social media posts I am seeing
Mind you, the abuse of that meme technique is one of the dangers of the current social media landscape! We need far more subtle tools than that!
Thinkers outside the echo chambers
That’s what I have been seeking, and I have found some…
Sadly too many would react in such a negative way to that Z-word they would miss out on a most interesting conversation. “…rather than belting out our own opinions, maybe take a pause and listen to what other people are saying!” — Harris Sultan, Pakistani-Australian atheist at the end of that video.
Harris Sultan is an Australian ex-Muslim atheist of Pakistani descent. Harris moved to Australia at the age of 19 and was exposed to the big wide world other than his hometown of Lahore, Pakistan.
Memory: In 2008 I was interviewed by the Pakistani Spectator
Before TikTok, Twitter/X and Instagram reached plague proportions, threatening to kill sustained discourse and becoming for many people the primary sources of news and commentary.
… Do you think that these new technologies are effective in making people more responsive?
Yes, I do, but not always in a good way. I suspect people with prejudices sometimes have their prejudices reinforced by spending most of their time on sites they agree with. One reason I enjoy Arts & Letter Daily, for example, is that it places in front of me many articles I may not otherwise have sought out.
What do you think sets Your site apart from others?
I don’t think it is all that original really. I will quote a recent reader though, because if he is right I am very happy: I guess I like those that contain true things, that don’t hate or spread hate, that make me smile or make me think...Urbane and measured writing on a broad canvas from a retired Australian teacher. Gentle but uncompromising social commentary.…
Neil's Commonplace Book 
“JOHN LYONS, REPORTER: It’s often said that this conflict is impossibly complicated. Now even more so – after the atrocities of Oct 7 and horrors of its aftermath — trust is broken and animosities are greater than ever. But when you really listen to both sides, their aspirations have not changed.
The essence is this. Israelis want security. Palestinians want an independent state. If Israel agreed to end its occupation and Palestinians guaranteed Israeli security, then this most intractable of all conflicts could end.
Right now. It feels like we are light years away from that, but if something doesn’t give, then the horrors of October seven and the death and devastation in Gaza that followed are unlikely to be the darkest place to which this conflict sinks.”
The above pretty well sums it up.