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Comment by candiodari | Hacker News Reader

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Can you please provide links?

It's hard for me to believe that your "Arabic" version is genuine. But if that's just me being naive, then I'd like to understand the truth, but I need actual evidence for that.

So if there are genuine headlines like that on Al Jazeera, it should be trivial for you to provide a couple of representative links that we can run through Google Translate to verify?

Here you go. https://www.aljazeera.net/news/liveblog/2023/10/7/%D9%82%D8%...

Really was not hard to find.

So, for instance:

"تواصلت الاشتباكات بين القوات الإسرائيلية ومقاومين فلسطينيين بمواقع داخل إسرائيل، وذلك مع دخول اليوم الثالث من عملية طوفان الأقصى التي أطلقتها كتائب عز الدين القسام التابعة لحركة المقاومة الإسلامية حماس ضد الاحتلال الإسرائيلي..."

"The clashes between the Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters continued at locations inside Israel, as the third day of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation launched by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas against the Israeli occupation proceeds..."

1. "مقاومين فلسطينيين" (Palestinian resistance fighters): The term "resistance fighters" conveys a sense of legitimacy and heroism to the Palestinian combatants, compared to more neutral terms like "militants" or "combatants."

2. "الاحتلال الإسرائيلي" (the Israeli occupation): This phrase inherently carries a negative connotation and frames Israel as an occupying force, which is a viewpoint that aligns with Palestinian narratives and is contentious in international discussions.

3. "عملية طوفان الأقصى" (Al-Aqsa Flood operation): The operation's name itself, invoking the Al-Aqsa mosque—a highly symbolic and emotive site in the conflict—suggests a righteous or justified struggle, further aligning the narrative with Palestinian perspectives.

These choices in vocabulary serve to frame the conflict in a way that emphasizes Palestinian resistance against an unjust "occupation," aligning closely with the Palestinian viewpoint and potentially eliciting a sympathetic response from Arab audiences.

This framing influences how readers perceive the events, creating a less neutral, more partisan view of the conflict.

https://www.aljazeera.net/news/liveblog/2023/10/7/%D9%82%D8%...

This language makes it extremely difficult to have a conversation about the conflict. Everything Israel does is framed as nefarious and evil.

That’s a lot less incendiary than your first example. As a simple point of fact, Israel is occupying territory whose inhabitants do not want them there and are not given a right to vote. What term would you consider more accurate?

Your last point seems to be unawareness that the name given is Hamas’ official name for that operation. Using it in the quoted sentence seems very similar to, say, reporting that U.S forces attacked Houthi rebel positions in the sixth month of Operation Prosperity Guardian. Whether or not you like the term, it’s the official name and it’s reasonable to expect readers to be familiar with it.

The great thing about the pro-Palestinian position is that it's super easy to understand. Zionists settled land that wasn't theirs and stole it. Easy. Simple. Wrong.

That it's wrong doesn't matter to most people. "Occupied land" has a specific, legal definition that in no way applies to Israel or Gaza, and probably does not apply to the West Bank. And, see, already I'm losing this discussion: with just a single misused word "occupation" you - perhaps unintentionally - sewed misinformation that needs to be unwound even assuming you have a good faith interest in doing that. Most anti Zionists are simply not interested.

So, yes, words matter. If you repeat that Israel has "occupied" territory "illegally" long enough in the media, people like yourself will accept it as true without really understanding what it means.

> That’s a lot less incendiary than your first example.

I don't know what you're taking about. This is my first contribution to the thread.

You saw that words matter, what term do you prefer? I asked for that but got three paragraphs of accusation of being “pro-Palestinian” and being told that I’m misusing a word but not what the correct term is. I suspect this is at least in part due to the conflation with the question illegality in your third paragraph: use of the term is well established but there’s considerable debate over whether it was ever legal or still is.

Here, for example, note that use of the term occupied is established enough to be used in official UN documents:

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies...

Similarly, the ICRC uses presence rather than trying to make complex judgements about the relative merits:

https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/634kfc....

You know, we had an interesting discussion about Land Day a while back when you were accusing me of being an Islamist. I am saddened to see this regression on the issue of occupation/“pending final status determination”

I'm not really reading an actionable critique there.

It is true under international law though.

This is not purposefully, Arabic is the main language of the people living in the regions, the Arabs. Just because they're catering to that out and giving news accordingly to the local demographics, bringing speakers from there doesn't make it their viewpoints. If you want to accuse someone of pushing agenda then Western media outlets and outlets that pushed the "40 babies beheading" stories is more factual.

They're the same speakers. They just lie about their message in English.

You have made this assertion several times but without sources. Can you provide links to examples supporting this claim?

See my other post in this thread. Not sure how I link to a specific post.

Sources, please.

Here's a random description of sources, with an illustration of what's happening right at the time I'm posting this, in a not particularly important news item.

https://www-aljazeera-net.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_t...

(yes, this strange URL is just Google translate translating the arabic frontpage of Al-Jazeera. Don't worry, they're not going to stop the double speak)

https://www.aljazeera.com/

Here's my take:

Arabic: https://www-aljazeera-net.translate.goog/news/2024/5/6/%d8%a...

Proudly declaring that Hezbollah attacks the Golan Heights of Israel with "booby-trapped drones". One might point out that booby trapping weapons is illegal under international law and a serious warcrime. A warcrime that even Russia, who see no problem with white phosphorous and poison gas, refuses to commit in Ukraine. Why? There's no telling who will be killed by booby trapped weapons (Booby trapped weapons legislation is about that will explode on impact, then explode again or otherwise injure people when it's getting cleaned up or examined. Because civilians might clean up weapons, or children might find them, this is a big no-no in international law)

The whole article is about using 10 different sources to brag how effective the attack was, and it just keeps and keeps going on about that. It mentions various sources, each more far fetched than the last, how "these types of rockets" cause enormous damage, death and injuries. It has no mention of this being a response to Israeli attacks, nor does it have any mention that Israel made a counterstrike.

It concludes by actually stating that the military campaign by Hezbollah is about to defeat the IDF.

English, same news event:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/13/lebanons-hezbollah-...

In this, the "booby-trapped" part is gone, they are reporting it, pretending to be neutral about it (as opposed to in arabic, where they are anything but neutral) and the whole article starts trying to cause doubts about whether the attack happened at all.

Prominently featured in the article is that the Isreali military states no injuries where reported, and all the sources are suddenly gone. Instead, there is focus on that this is a "tit-for-tat" attack, that was really Israel's fault.

In other words, the article focuses on how this was a totally ineffective attack, that was justified because of Israeli killings in Lebanon, that absolutely does not merit any kind of counterattack.

In case you're wondering, Israeli press reported the same event:

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-05-06/ty-article-li...

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-800017

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s1joamlmc#autoplay

Summary:

1) 30 rockets (al Jazeera and Hezbollah reported many drones)

2) NO details, no statements from Hezbollah

3) it hit a town, Metulla, not a military base, either zero (Haaretz, Ynetnews) or two (Jerusalem Post) persons wounded, both civilians. The town, by the way, is in the foothills of the Golan heights at best, it is very much not actually in the Golan heights. But it's very close to Lebanon.

3) The IDF executed a military counterstrike, against military targets (which means Hezbollah launch sites)

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