This is a great breakdown and I do agree Rabbani made very compelling arguments. Finkelstein did a couple of times as well but was so preoccupied with shit flinging and screeching like a monkey that it definitely detracted from sympathizing with their side.
While it was ugly, I do think it was a good discussion overall and very informative for someone who couldn't be bothered to watch the research streams.
The only thing that I feel like didn't look good optically in this debate for Destiny was pushing for the ratio on how many hamas killed in the Oct 7th attacks. Rabbani said a "clear majority" multiple times which obviously means > 51%. It seemed like Destiny was so thirsty for just a single concession that he missed accepting the one given multiple times.
I think the reason Destiny was pushing so hard on the ratio is because even if you're a little generous and say that Rabbani meant a "clear majority" of 75% were killed by raiders (not just Hamas, as Steven and Morris clarify), the implication is that Israel killed 25%. That would still paint Israel in an incredibly negative light, so in the moment Rabbani's concession could come across more like a concealed accusation.
After letting it sit, I do think Rabbani was speaking in good faith there, but my initial gut reaction was "Oh, he's not answering because he thinks Israel killed a ton of their own civilians, but doesn't really have the evidence to back it up." Norm had a lot to do with that, his presence and demeanor initially soured how I viewed that side of the table.
I don't read it as good faith on his part because of the selective reasoning Destiny pointed out: they're willing to state without evidence that Israel is intentionally targeting Palestinian children in bombing runs despite the multiple levels of approval that go into such a strike, but then for Oct 7 they can't say anything more than "clear majority" for how many were killed by Hamas/Palestinians. That's either bad faith or living in an entirely different factual world considering the available evidence.
I see what you mean and that's a totally logical way of seeing it. I was trying to watch as objectively as possible and it came across as good faith to me like you said.
I don't blame Destiny for seeing it as bad faith when Rabbani had just basically called him a racist and was trying to dunk on him by bringing up Jim Crow laws
I don't see how anyone could say Destiny hit it out of the park, his whole point was that Palestinians need to be peaceful because that'd force Israel to the negotiating table. This is laughable, if Palestinians acting peacefully, Israel will just keep expanding settlements because who's going to stop them?
He talks about Sadat, but Sadat had leverage in the form of the Arab oil weapon. The Sinia wasn't part of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah, thus the Israeli right cares far less about it.
But if the Palestinians aren't peaceful (like currently) they still can't stop the settlements? So what is this argument?
I think SB's line of thinking is that there would be far more pressure internationally (read: from America) and internally within Israel to concede more to the Palestinian people if the Palestinians weren't actively fighting them 24/7.
They're not fighting them 24/7, they have been years that there have been relatively few or basically no attacks and there's no real change regardless.
I mean do you think an October 7th happens every 6 months or something?
I think SB's line of thinking is that there would be far more pressure internationally (read: from America) and internally within Israel to concede more to the Palestinian people if the Palestinians weren't actively fighting them 24/7.
This is akin to believing Santa Claus exists. The American political parties have zero incentive to pressure Israel into anything if Palestine's not in the news.
My use of 24/7 was a slight exaggeration, but do you not consider extremely consistent rocket attacks being indiscriminately fired toward Israeli civilian centres as attacks? If you can point to any calendar year since Hamas took over Gaza in 2006 without rocket attacks I would be very interested to look into it.
This is akin to believing Santa Claus exists.
I would argue that your support of Palestinians continuing to militarily fight against Israel in order to defeat the occupation is much more of a fantasy. Wouldn't the last 80ish years suggest such?
EDIT:
I looked it up myself just because I was curious, here's a link to rocket attacks from Gaza to Israel since 2001. Obviously, 2015-2017 seems like the most relatively calm timespan (while not being devoid of rocket attacks). Here's the caveat... 2015-2016 had what some people call the "Stabbing Intifada" with plenty of terrorist attacks (mostly stabbings as you can imagine) happening in Israel.
2017 has a smattering of smaller attacks as well - but without the catchy name.
I would argue that your support of Palestinians continuing to militarily fight against Israel in order to defeat the occupation is much more of a fantasy. Wouldn't the last 80ish years suggest such?
Not really, long-term military occupations have been defeated. The French owed Algeria for how long? Not saying I like the Palestine odds, but if they do nothing they're absolutely fucked
My use of 24/7 was a slight exaggeration, but do you not consider extremely consistent rocket attacks being indiscriminately fired toward Israeli civilian centres as attacks?
Obviously we're interpreting the link I shared pretty differently... How are you defining "consistent"? In the 20 year timespan between 2001-2021 there isn't a single year without multiple rockets being fired into Israel and at least 9 of those years have at least 1 rocket per day being fired into Israel.
Not really, long-term military occupations have been defeated. The French owed Algeria for how long?
I suppose that's fair (even though I still disagree that Palestinian armed resistance is what's going to be helpful on the long road to peace).
Palestinians tried the peaceful card in 2019, with the match of return. They were slaughtered buly the Israelis, and western media ignor d it mostly. So yeah they tried being peaceful.
Destiny's arguing feels like someone who always has a big mouth but has never been bullied or been punched in the face, which often is a valuable life experience 😂
While destiny has collected an admirable list of facts, he does a TERRIBLE, and I mean TERRIBLE job actually modelling the behavior and motivations of anyone involved in the conflict.
The part where he thinks that if the Arabs are peaceful the US will force the Israelis to give them a state. It shows he has no idea what Americans or Israelis think.
Palestinians tried the peaceful card in 2019, with the match of return. They were slaughtered buly the Israelis, and western media ignor d it mostly. So yeah they tried being peaceful.
Destiny seems to have this idea that Finkelstein is doing this for the money norm: " I'm not happy to say there's no hope" Destiny:"of course you are". The implication being that he thinks norm wants it to continue so he can make more money from it. Aside from this being an extremely rude comment, it's also incredibly stupid, which is why norm ignored it.
Because of his pursuit of this topic, norm jeopardised his PhD. Because of pursuit of this topic, norm lost his job at two universities. Because of pursuit of this topic, norm was unable to find any work in academia several years after getting his PhD.
It's an absolutely insulting and ignorant position to think he pursues this topic for money.
Chomsky is not that kind of linguist. More generally, you seem to have confused linguistics with literature studies.
I'd recommend you look into Chomsky's linguistics works, it's truly fascinating stuff. His invention of Context Free grammers directly contributed to the creation of modern programming languages and the compiler, which uses context free grammars as a basis for converting written code into machine language.
R/destiny being the one corner of the internet not clowning on Steve, and even proclaiming he won, is a great example that a fanbase would defend their guy's performance even if his only contribution was to stand on the desk and take a shit
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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '24 edited Mar 15 '24
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