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A problem with this essay is that it takes everything that a Jewish student says as true, when we don’t actually know if what they allege is true. There are no links to police reports and investigations, and no rigorous comparison of “Jewish student victimization” versus “Palestinian student victimization”. That is problematic because it allows a random anonymous Jewish student the power to change the discourse, because he can tell his story to the author who then writes it in the Atlantic. It’s doubtful that the author has as many Palestinian friends as Jewish friends, or considers everything a Palestinian student alleged to be true in the same way he does for Jewish students.
The piece in the Atlantic is… a story. It is written to persuade the reader. He omits things not part of his narrative, like that a Jewish organization was caught writing a hoax anti-semitic message at Stanford. Similar hoaxes have occurred at other universities: 1, 2, 3. Jewish groups love their hoaxes. If one of the only(?) people caught writing something antisemitic is Jewish, what then is the probability that the other writings and postings are by a Jewish student? We can’t ignore that there would be a strong motive to do this and that it has been done frequently before.
If there have been some altercations and insensitive comments which have victimized Jewish students at Stanford in the year 2024, I expect to see a video recording or audio recording, at the very least I would need it to be confirmed by two gentile witnesses who are not affiliated with Jewish organizations.
edit here’s a Twitter thread of alleged altercations at Stanford in which an Arab or Palestinian was victimized. Are these events real? Well, isn’t that the point — the author picks and choose which hearsay to post in his article. We need a clear breakdown of victimization rates, not more hearsay narratives.
Having commuted past the rival Palestine and Israel protest tents for most of their existence, I can say that the account in this story is hilariously overwrought and overdramatized.
Many people are anti Zionist to some degree. It’s not an extreme view. I guess if you’ve grown up in a particular bubble this might come as a shock to you as you enter the real world.
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We find it easy to relate systematic behavior regarding black street crime to HBD. It's entirely rational to generalize that analysis to other group behavior. A Jewish journalist writing a journalistic piece about Jewish oppression, particularly in the context of a political hot-button issue, based primarily on hearsay from Jewish witnesses should not be believed unless receipts are provided. It should basically be assumed that they are just trying to manipulate public opinion by spinning the truth, or outright fabricating it. It's the equivalent of crossing the street when you see a hoodlum coming your way.
It's only Jews that you'd be that paranoid around, to be clear? Or does every group get the same assumption of bad faith?
Can you point me to any article in The Atlantic where a white person is published agitating for his ethnic interests? It is a quintessentially Jewish behavior for them to leverage their connections in the media apparatus to spin a story of their own oppression in order to manipulate public opinion.
That's a dodge. I didn't ask about that. I asked if you make the assumption about every group.
Let's recap:
There's a story in The Atlantic where a Jewish person discusses anti-semitism. There are obviously lots of stories in The Atlantic where people of other ethnicities talk about prejudice against them: it's easy to find articles criticising anti-black racism, anti-Hispanic feeling, and so on. Here are two pieces by Asian authors criticising anti-Asian feeling, for instance. I assume I don't need to do the same with black authors; we all know The Atlantic published Ta-Nehisi Coates.
There are also Atlantic stories that are, broadly speaking, anti-woke, or which criticising identitarianism. The Atlantic publishes Thomas Chatterton Williams and John McWhorter, for instance. Here's an article criticising a form of black activism (I can't tell the author's race; would that count as black in the US?). Meanwhile here's an article by a black person talking about anti-black racism. If you're interested in white people specifically, here's Reihan Salam (who according to the US census is a white person) criticising anti-white rhetoric. Here's Conor Friedersdorf (clearly white) criticising hateful anti-white rhetoric.
You have asserted that the existence of an Atlantic article by a Jewish person criticising anti-semitism is evidence of "a quintessentially Jewish behaviour" to "manipulate public opinion". Well, I think it's true enough that Jewish people want for other people to not hate Jews, and that sometimes they write things to that effect. But there is nothing sinister about that, especially since the very same outlet publishes things by other groups asking people not to hate them! Black authors, Hispanic authors, Asian authors, and yes, even white authors also get published saying, "Please do not hate us as a group."
The objection I have is that you take something very obvious and understandable - a member of an ethnic group writing an article criticising hatred towards that same ethnic group - and, in a way that you apparently do not do with any other group, immediately assert some sort of pan-ethnic deceptive nature. Are Jews a race of lying manipulators for this? Well, by the same logic, so are blacks. And Hispanics. And Asians. And whites. Because they all publish pieces in The Atlantic criticising racial animus towards them. Jewish authors are not acting remotely unusually here - they are acting the same way as everybody else.
Yes, let's recap:
I am referring the very long history of largely Jewish-owned newspapers with Jewish-run editorial control publishing articles written by Jews which heavily relies on rumors and hearsay from other Jews to present one-sided on-the-ground accounts and narratives describing salient political conflicts in a way that is intended to boost sympathy for Jews and alert the public to anti-Jewish sentiment. Your response is an article written by this guy (he's white on the census!), and from this guy with 0 actual advocacy for white people, and you apparently don't think you're stretching here.
In contrast with how far you are stretching to attribute this sort of behavior to non-Jewish white people, the pattern of behavior I am referring to stretches back centuries. Take that 1921 news article where Jews are begging America to "save 6,000,000 in Russia", saying "6,000,000 Jews are facing extermination by massacre. As the famine is spreading, the counter-revolutionary movement is gaining and the Soviet's control is waning", (also an interesting statement, for others reasons).
Or the 1936 article, talking about "the European holocaust" well before the war.
Various articles exaggerating conditions - i.e. "6,000,000 facing starvation" in 1920, or "reporting" on the apparent expulsion of "6,000,000 Jewish families" from Russia in the 19th century.
Was there conflict between Jews and Russians or Ukrainians? Absolutely. But in hindsight we can see that this is not journalism, it's Jewish propaganda being presented as journalism. The accounts of conditions on the ground are a combination of truth, exaggeration, and falsehood published to spin a narrative. In hindsight we can acknowledge how stories about 6,000,000 Jews facing extermination in Russia was pure nonsense, but at the time this was the information the public had access to in order to understand the political situation.
Jews especially have the penchant- the means, motives, and opportunity, to relate "their side" of the story as "journalism".
To me this behavior is very obvious and understandable, but just because a pattern of behavior is understandable doesn't mean I can't adjust my priors and acknowledge what is just another chapter in the very long history of Jews presenting their one-sided account of a political conflict as "journalism."
You didn't include any of that in your comment, so obviously I didn't respond to it. What I was responding to was the long record you have here of taking any instance of Jews writing anything, whether about Jews or not, and insinuating that it's evidence of some malevolent racial character. I asked whether you jump to the same overblown conclusions regardless of the ethnicity of the author - and in my judgement, you don't. It is a unique fixation on Jews.
I repeat: what we have here is an article by a Jew criticising anti-semitism. I have pointed to articles by Asians criticising anti-Asian feeling, by black people criticising anti-black feeling, and, yes, by white people criticising anti-white feeling. (Even if you don't count Middle Easterners as white, Conor Friedersdorf is undoubtedly white and he was criticising racial rhetoric that attacks or vilifies white people for perfectly innocent behaviour. It counts.) If a behaviour is carried out identically by pretty much every racial group, then it hardly seems to be something unique to Jews.
You might want to argue that specifically white identitarianism is not published, whereas other racial groups can publish identitarian content. This is true to an extent. The Atlantic probably wouldn't publish e.g. outright black nationalism of the same kind as white nationalism, but it does tend to publish explicitly pro-black-identity black authors more than it would white authors. That's a hypocrisy. It's just hard to see what if anything that has to do with Jews.
(As a side note here, I would gently remind you that Theo Baker's article isn't advocating for Jewish nationalism or anything like that either. It is just a straightforward piece against anti-semitism. The thrust of the article is not to advocate for special privileges or carve-outs for Jews - not the way that e.g. black authors openly advocate for reparations and other special privileges - but rather just to say "please stop attacking us". It is purely defensive.)
But this is what you always do - anything a Jew says is evidence of the sinister racial character of Jews, no matter how innocuous the thing, or no matter how much people of other cultures do the exact same thing. You cite "the very long history of Jews presenting their one-sided account of a political conflict as "journalism"" as if it isn't completely normal and expected for anyone's account of a political conflict to favour their own side. Hamza El Boudali's account of the conflict at Stanford is completely one-sided. Political tribalism is a human constant. Jews and Palestinians are no different to, say, pro-life and pro-choice journalists.
What we don't have is an ethnically Chinese-owned major national newspaper with a Chinese chief editor publishing reports from a Chinese journalist (in fact, a mere Sophomore who only is being published because of his Chinese parents who have connections in the industry), which selectively cites hearsay and reports from Chinese witnesses to "report" on a political conflict involving Chinese nationalism and ethnic Chinese interests on one side, and their political opposition on the other- and trying to pass that off as "objective journalism."
What you are talking about- "an article by a black person criticizing anti-black feelings" is not all comparable to the long-standing pattern of behavior I am identifying- a vertically integrated propaganda apparatus which presents ethnic advocacy as journalism.
I'm sorry but this is just absurd, Theo Baker's article is advocating for Jewish nationalism by writing propaganda for the benefit of the Jewish nationalist side of the conflict. It is not "purely defensive." It is offensive. They are framing the conflict and using their influence to present one side of that conflict while claiming an objectivity that doesn't exist. @coffee_enjoyer pointed out the ways in which this article is one-sided. This is not defensive this is how they have always sought to wrangle control of public opinion. They are the only ones who operate in this way to this extent in the United States.
I certainly agree that political tribalism is a human constant. How do Jews engage in political tribalism? By exploiting their ownership and connection over sources of information. This is how they operate. This it not how blacks or Arabs operate in the United States, they get patronized in various ways but they don't steer the ship.
I'm not actually familiar with the entire American media landscape, but certainly if you look beyond America, there are plenty of Chinese-owned newspapers, some intended for general consumption and some that specifically appeal to members of the Chinese diaspora. But again, so what? I'm not even sure what you're talking about now. I thought we were talking about The Atlantic, and The Atlantic is not a newspaper. Now, I'm sure you can find in Western media, if you look, articles by ethnically Chinese people that are sympathetic to the PRC, but that's just what we ought to expect.
You return to this "vertically integrated propaganda apparatus". That's a conspiracy. Let me present an alternative hypothesis - you are likely to find Jewish authors independently, without any particular coordination or malice, writing things relevant to them, which, yes, includes concerns about anti-semitism. There doesn't need to be a grand plan or a racial animus to explain the observations that Jews oppose anti-semitism and that Jews tend to be pro-Israel, and that writing by Jews in the media sometimes touches on those themes.
You say that this "presents ethnic advocacy as journalism", but as I said, The Atlantic is not a newspaper. Theo Baker's article is not presented as neutral journalism - The Atlantic doesn't even do that. It's an opinion piece, and its editorial line - anti-semitism is bad, Stanford students are being unfairly hostile to Jewish students, Jewish students are legitimately afraid - is not concealed. Baker's perspective is obvious.
Is this 'advocating for Jewish nationalism'? I mean, it is taking the strong view that being a Zionist or supporting Israel shouldn't be reason to be bullied or harassed. Is that Jewish nationalism? It relates to the Jewish nation, I suppose. Baker makes zero attempt whatsoever to convince people of Zionism, or to argue that people should be supportive of Israel. He actually is moderately sympathetic to concerns about Palestine, and regularly presents his preferred goal as being open and free dialogue, diversity of opinion, and so on. If this is Jewish nationalism, it's a really poor effort. I mean, read the damn thing. This is his position:
This doesn't read like Jewish or Israeli nationalism. This reads like, "The world is complicated, it's not all black-and-white, so please acknowledge that there's nuance here and don't attack or harass Jewish students." That is a plea for tolerance and understanding.
Now, sure, the article is written to influence public opinion - that is by definition true of all articles. That is the point of any article. There is no visible unique Jewish malice here.
Look, if all you were saying was, "For so-and-so historical reasons Jewish are disproportionately present in media and journalism" (which is true), and "Jews tend to care about Jewish issues, such as anti-semitism or Israel, more than other people do" (also obviously true), and therefore "media and journalism tend to give greater prominence to anti-semitism or Israel than they would otherwise" (seems a reasonable conclusion), I'd have no issue. I myself regularly complain about the media's monomaniacal focus on Israel - a brief comparison between October 7 and the invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh is instructive, where Western countries were hugely-focused on Gaza while ignoring the other, much more successful genocide occurring on the other side of the Middle East. The obvious reason for that is that lots of Americans care about Israel whereas not very many Americans care about Armenia, and yeah, that probably has to do with the fact that there are lots of American Jews and Jews are a historically successful group in America. They have a louder voice. Meanwhile there aren't that many Armenians in America, and they're a less wealthy group, so even if they wanted to, they would have a hard time telling their story.
But that's not in fact what you're saying. You are saying, as far as I can see, not just that Jews tend to be interested in things that affect Jews, but that Jews are this inherently untrustworthy manipulative group who should be automatically assumed to be lying unless there is strong evidence otherwise, and you specifically attribute this to 'HBD', i.e. some racial difference inherent to Jews.
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The relationship between crime rates and HBD is much less clear cut than the relationship with income and academic performance. Genetically highly similar populations have huge variation in crime rates around the world, which suggest that environment (particularly enforcement, obviously) plays a major role.
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