geneva_convenience

Because the "Arab brothers" have been colonized by the West since Sykes Picot. Do people literally not know history? Since when do bordering countries get to decide what happens to another country anyways? "Arab leaders" are doing it isn't a defense. It's a deflection mechanism.

Just admit that Russia and China are obedient to Israel like America and don't care about human rights or international law and move on. They just put their stamp of approval on the genocide of Palestine.

The concept is weird too. Like if Belgium, Spain and Switzerland would have the moral authority to decide what happens to France because they are next to it. While they are actively helping France's enemies.

WOW. You're here for the attention. And look at that 2 sentence comment.

The reason why this smear against Chomsky originated, and why it is still prominent today, is mostly out of outrage regarding his scepticism of the mainstream media, his demand for higher standards of evidence to be met before he believes their conclusions, and the way that he has consistently attempted to teach the wider public to be similarly sceptical of mainstream Western narratives for his entire career. They zero in on the one or two occasions where Chomsky turned out to be wrong in hindsight to attempt to delegitimise him and his wider methodology, while ignoring the balance sheet where these methods resulted in him being vindicated on dozens of other occasions - where they themselves were, by their own standards, the so-called “genocide deniers.”

Sometimes these allegations get so ridiculous that Chomsky is called a “genocide denier” for what others have said. Spread as common knowledge among people who just repeat what they’ve heard others say, is the idea that Chomsky “denied the Rwandan genocide”. In actual fact, Chomsky himself has said almost nothing on the Rwandan genocide. He wrote a preface to one book by someone else who denied the Rwandan genocide in that book. The author, Edward S. Herman, a frequent collaborator with Chomsky, was a bit of a kook who, while being a solid critic at times, had bizarre opinions on seemingly random things. This included a twisted narrative of the Rwandan genocide, and a denial of Srebrenica. But Chomsky’s preface to his book merely approved of his broader thesis regarding the political usage of the term “genocide”, and did not say anything about Hermann’s mistreatment of the Rwandan genocide.

In correspondence on the matter, Chomsky made it clear that the only thing he approved of in the book was its broader thesis regarding the usage of the term “genocide”, and that he disagrees with the examples that Hermann used to argue for it. He explicitly acknowledged that Srebrenica involved 8000 deaths, which is in line with official estimates on the death toll, and said that 1 million were murdered in Rwanda, which is actually a substantial overestimate over the most commonly used ones. Chomsky’s main concern as a media critic was simply with how genocide denial is completely normalized in the much more numerous cases where it’s committed by Western nations and their allies, and are in fact mainstream, supposedly ‘respectable opinions’ to hold, yet a massive media furore was concocted around it when Hermann did the same from the left. He simply seems to have not wanted to get dragged into the game of ritualistic, performative denouncements of certain historical events that have been designated as what he called “Holy Causes” of Western status quo intellectuals. Chomsky could certainly be accused of poor judgement for having contributed that preface to his friends’ book, but to call him a “genocide denier” by association is clearly a stretch.

The other significant instance of Chomsky’s alleged genocide denial is in regards to the Bosnian genocide. Chomsky employed a similar style of scepticism to the mainstream media narrative regarding genocide in Bosnia as he had during the Cambodian Genocide – scepticism that was at times healthy, and at times a bit much. The evidence coming out of Bosnia was of higher quality and abundance than that which had been coming out of Cambodia two decades earlier, and he failed to adequately adjust for that fact. For example, he doubted the veracity of one particular photo of Bosnians in a concentration camp which was prominently featured in the Western media. While he was right to be cynical of their intentions, the photo was genuine. Key context for this is that an article questioning the veracity of this photo – which, at the time, was not nearly as clear as it later became – was published in one tiny Marxist newspaper in Britain. In response, ITN, who had originally published the photo, sued this newspaper into oblivion for libel. They won the case, which resulted in the end of the newspaper and ruined the lives of its editors, who had not actually even written the article themselves. Chomsky saw this as a ridiculous attack on freedom of speech – a multi-million dollar media company silencing criticism, wrong as it may have been, from a tiny hobbyist publication. This affair clearly negatively polarized him into clinging onto the notion that the photo was fake, when it obviously wasn’t.

However, aside from this photo affair, Chomsky did not actually deny the events of the Bosnian genocide themselves – so him being accused of being a denier is quite interesting. For example, in 1994 he wrote in a book that Bosnia was “approaching genocide”, something you couldn’t imagine someone who is characterised as upholding the Serbian nationalist genocide denial narrative would ever say. And in 1996, he actually argued that the USA had not done enough to stop the Bosnian genocide, in contrast with the image it was peddling of fake concern for Bosnians. He literally argued that the US should participate in UN peacekeeping operations. So clearly, he wasn’t even actually against US intervention – rather, he just believed that it should be carried out under the much more neutral framework of a UN operation, rather than the NATO one that actually ended up happening.

And he has explicitly acknowledged the facts of the Srebrenica massacre, contrary to what some believe. The idea that he denied it was spread by a libellous interview in the Guardian, published in 2005. This article used the headline of: “Q: Do you regret supporting those who say the Srebrenica massacre was exaggerated? A: My only regret is that I didn't do it strongly enough." The Guardian had to admit that so such question was even posed to Chomsky during the interview. In actual fact, what he had said was that he regrets not defending another author who had planned to release a book denying the Srebrenica massacre – not because he agreed with her, but rather because he is a free speech absolutist who simply believes that she should have had the right to publish her work on the matter, even if it is wrong. In the same interview, the interviewer claimed that Chomsky had written the word “massacre” in regards to Srebrenica in quotes in order to imply that it had never happened - something that he had never actually done, and which she invented. In actual fact, the interview was not about Srebrenica at all, aside from that one mention of it in regards to the publication of someone else’s book, and the interviewer had edited it and even outright fabricated portions of it in an attempt to make it look like Chomsky denied it.

Chomsky does not use the term “Bosnian genocide” or “Srebrenica genocide”, though he does acknowledge the facts regarding the atrocities. His reasoning for not specifically calling Srebrenica or Bosnia as a whole genocides, past the one time he almost did, is because, as I explained earlier, he simply does not often utilise the term, and has a very high standard for when it should be used, which he applies very consistently. You can disagree with this – I do too – but that’s not the same thing as actual denial of the events themselves, which is what those who call him a “genocide denier” are clearly implying. He also said that Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia, likely was not involved in the Srebrenica massacre. While I don’t believe this to be the case myself, as there is plenty of evidence that Serbia supported the Bosniak-Serb separatists who carried out the massacre, his position is nonetheless a valid one to hold. The International Court of Justice ruled that Serbia itself was not directly responsible for Srebrenica, and had only failed to prevent it, so his position on this is actually, if anything, the most mainstream one you could hold, as it’s in line with the ruling of the most important international court case to date on the matter. Milosevic himself died before he could be individually tried for the crime, and I think it’s unlikely that he would have been convicted for it, as Serbia had already previously been found not guilty of the crime by the ICJ, and he was its president. Again, Chomsky’s position on Milosevic’s personal responsibility here is not one of denying the events – it’s rather one that is quite reasonable for someone to hold, even if I disagree. His personal guilt is not some objectively settled matter for which you can accuse someone of having committed some sort of unforgiveable slight if they think it’s overblown.

So clearly, the idea that Chomsky is a “Genocide denier” regarding Bosnia is not based on an assessment of his overall stance on the matter, on his opinion regarding what actually happened in the broad sense, but rather from outright slander, and from him having some reservations regarding much smaller things, like the veracity of a singular photo. If someone is to marked as a “Genocide Denier” and thus basically an unperson for life, whose thoughts on anything should be discounted, just because they stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the authenticity of one single photograph depicting a wider event that they do actually acknowledge happened – then what the fuck does “Genocide Denier” even mean aside from “I’m looking for literally any reason to delegitimise this person’s broader body of work, so I’m going to laser focus in on this one instance in which they were wrong and blow it massively out of proportion.”

BE wrote a pretty long response to someone claiming Chomsky denied the Bosnian and Cambodian genocide which was interesting, it's underneath the pinned top comment. I'll copy it down here:

Debunking all of you liberals trying to use a magical term ("genocide denial") to attack arguments you do not know how to actually refute on their merits: The narrative goes that Noam Chomsky denied the Cambodian and Bosnian genocides, and also sometimes that he denied the Rwandan genocide.

The very charge of “genocide denial” is inherently very loaded; it’s an offshoot of the term “holocaust denier”, with the implication being that supposedly “denying” these genocides, regardless of any context, is exactly the same as denying the Holocaust, an event in the past which is one of the most well documented and evidenced historical occurrences ever. So it’s an inherently loaded and delegitimizing label, and one should be sceptical of it and analyse such claims, rather than taking them at face value and repeating them just because others have said such things about Chomsky.

Such labelling can be quite problematic, as it’s often utilised to attempt to silence those who question the evidence, or lack therefore, for claimed genocides that are said to be happening in the present. One recent example of this is with widespread claims of there being a “Uyghur Genocide”, with millions of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China, having been either put into concentration camps, murdered, or both. Yet years after these claims first surfaced, nothing even resembling sufficient evidence for such lofty claims has ever been provided. So in lieu of this evidence, the strategy, both when the claims first surfaced and still now, has been to shout down those who question the notion that such mass killings of Uyghurs are occurring by declaring them as “genocide deniers.” So those who claim there to have been a genocide have not, by any measure, provided adequate, verifiable evidence for their case, and yet still, the label is very liberally employed for cynical geopolitical reasons.

Such is the case with the “genocide denier” label for Noam Chomsky.

Firstly, it’s important to note that Chomsky has consistently critiqued the very existence of the term “genocide”, as he considers it highly politicised term that is rarely ever used in an objective manner and that it doesn’t serve a particularly useful purpose aside from that. For that reason, he is usually very reserved with the term, and the only cases where he’s used it consistently, without qualifications, is in regards to the Holocaust and the Native American genocide. So Chomsky does not often call events “genocides” not because he denies that the actual events occurred, but rather as a sort of protest against the use of the label itself, and its wide employment as for political purposes. He thus has a very high bar for evidence and severity before he will call something a genocide. This is fundamentally different to actually denying the events themselves, and is often wilfully mischaracterised by those looking to discredit Chomsky due to conflicting political views as being tantamount to him denying the events themselves. It is interesting how the term “genocide denial” has been manipulated from its original basis in Holocaust denial to the point that it now encompasses basically meaningless semantic disagreements like this, because Holocaust denial is entirely based around denial of the events themselves, rather than just semantics about applying a specific term to them. So it’s clearly quite a dishonest attempt to do mental gymnastics to draw an equivalence between the two for the purpose of delegitimising a political opponent. Secondly, it is important to remember that decades ago, when Noam Chomsky is accused of having engaged in ‘genocide denial’, the mainstream media had an effective monopoly on the dissemination of primary source evidence regarding contemporaneous events, which made it very difficult to form any sort of objective assessment regarding what was actually happening, as you invariably were operating off a very limited selection of information that was handpicked by the mainstream media to highlight – which almost invariably meant them trying to push a narrative on international events that favoured Western foreign policy aims.

Imagine how different the public’s understanding of the Gaza Genocide would be without the internet. Without smartphones with video and photo capabilities. Without social media. Without journalists within Gaza having any reliable means of communication with the rest of the world. If what information was chosen for dissemination was instead dictated by Israel itself, and by large global media outlets like the New York Times and BBC. Everything would certainly be totally different, practically unrecognisable. In the age of social media and the prevalence of the internet and smartphones, the mainstream media no longer has the monopoly over information that it did before. The reason that we know so much about the Gaza genocide and have such an absurd trove of evidence for it, practically as the events themselves are occurring, is specifically because of this. If the same events had instead happened 30 years ago, it would have taken years, or perhaps even decades, for the whole truth regarding these occurrences to be unravelled.

This was the environment that Chomsky was operating in when he was assessing the genocides in question.

These can be most clearly demonstrated by Chomsky’s contemporaneous skepticism regarding the mainstream media narratives on the Cambodian genocide. The context for this was that this was the mid-1970s, and the Vietnam War had just recently ended. Chomsky originally came to prominence as a political commentator in the 60s and early 70s for his skepticism regarding the American mainstream narrative about the Vietnam war, and once that war was over and the Khmer Rouge took over in Cambodia, the same sort of narrative started being employed regarding Cambodia. In work that Chomsky contributed to regarding the Khmer Rouge, he critiqued the willingness of the mainstream media to make and accept claims regarding the Khmer Rouge committing genocide on relatively flimsy evidence, when they were, at the time, based almost exclusively in anecdotal accounts from refugees that were chosen to be highlighted by the mainstream media. He contrasted this with their previous blanket silence regarding the American atrocities in Cambodia that preceded the Khmer Rouge’s ascent to power. At the time, this was a reasonable position to take given the relative lack of accessible and available evidence to prove the scale of the atrocities, and the clear bias of the outlets that were disseminating this evidence, and that had been pushing the conclusion of genocide practically from long before it would’ve been possible for them to have seen any evidence of crimes on that scale having occurred.

This is not “genocide denial” in the slightest. Chomsky merely did not accept very firm and far-reaching conclusions that were being made for clear geopolitical reasons at a time when there was insufficient evidence available to back them up. That later on, it became clear that the mainstream media’s conclusions had been closer to the truth than the available evidence had suggested, does not mean that Chomsky’s very rational contemporaneous scepticism can be retroactively condemned just because now you have the benefit of hindsight, as someone with the internet at your fingertips who knows precisely what happened because it’s now been studied for 50 years.

In the 80s, once it became much clearer what had actually happened, Chomsky adapted his position, acknowledging the atrocities and even once referring to them as “Pol Pot’s genocide” directly, which is quite a lofty bar for him, given how reluctant he is to use that word without qualifications. Interestingly, the Western geopolitical line shifted in 1979 after Vietnam invaded Cambodia, and the US government and media actually DEFENDING the Khmer Rouge, showing just how absurdly cynical their claims were, and only justifying Chomsky’s contemporaneous scepticism more.

If you are to use this term, “genocide denial”, then it has to actually be useful – and it’s certainly not useful if what it means is simply questioning the idea that genocide is presently happening in situations where is a massive lack of sufficient evidence for such claims. It is clear that accusing Chomsky of this charge in regards to Cambodia is not honest, and stems entirely from outrage that he assesses the quality and quantity of evidence for mainstream Western geopolitical narratives rather than uncritically accepting them.

The rest of the Arab countries are aligned with the US (and thus Israel) as they always have been. Only Iran and Yemen aren't.

Abstain = vote in favor. Because they know the resolution will pass if they don't oppose.

Silence is consent here. This is some DNC tier weaksauce excuse.

Can't you just replace the radio? Or is it one of those custom fits

Train stations have hella cameras

Curious did you join through joinlemmy.org or did someone recommend you an instance?

Try explaining a teenager what federation is and which server they should select. Find out how long they last

There are no teenagers on Lemmy the technological barrier to entry is way too high.

How about you write a comment without prefacing it with .ml .ml .ml all day

Lot of aspiring young rappers in China it seems

I'm a bit surprised that Quallcom doesn't have a custom XR3 chip yet and Valve used the Snapgdragon8 Gen3

Let's not pretend Europe didn't know this from the start. The only purpose it could serve is as a pretext to drop Ukraine support.

I tried it but it was way worse than DDG.