Mehdi is a great journalist and speaker. He doesn't jump the gun. One of my favourite debates from him is on Intelligence Squared, on the conflation between anti-zionism and anti-semitism, from 2019:
His point is obviously to try and downplay what is happening in Iran, otherwise he could have just actually be a journalist and figure out what is happening in Iran to prove or disprove the reports.
There is zero journalistic integrity to be found in his post.
"Western media" is not an organization it's a description of a group. Trust should be connected to organizations or businesses.
This is such a dangerous manipulation technique that uses the output of one media source like Fox News as an attack on the reputation of all. CNN and the BBC have reported on Israel's offensive and the massive suffering and death multiple times.
Mehdi Hasssan worked for Al Jazeera which is funded by Qatar and is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood with a very specific political agenda. You'll notice they barely are covering the Iran News
That's like saying that Hamas and the IRGC aren't affiliates because they're from different religious sects. What binds them is an interest in political religion and a shared antipathy to the west.
> Interesting that the same western media outlets which spent two years nonstop questioning and disputing and refusing to accept Palestinian death tolls out of Gaza, even when they were backed by human rights groups and monitors like Airwars and studies in The Lancet, are totally fine uncritically accepting totally unsourced and huge, huge numbers out of Iran.
Note that this works both ways: "Interesting that the same western media outlets which spent two years nonstop covering Gaza are totally fine not even having a single article about the massacre committed by the islamist iranian regime. And, no, before the trolls descend, of course I'm not questioning that lots of innocent people have been killed in Gaza.".
And "Interesting that the same protesters who spent months protesting on US and EU campuses for Gaza are not protesting to defend the protesters massacred en masse by the iranian regime. And, no, before the trolls descend, of course I'm not questioning that lots of innocent people have been killed in Gaza".
We don't know if the numbers are true but we're literally talking about half the death in two years in Gaza in a few days in Iran. I don't know if people realize the level of horrors we're talking about here.
The crucial difference is that the US is in no way supporting Iran but was and is heavily supporting Israel. So a protest in the US to stop that support is wortwhile. A protest to stop non-existent support is pointless.
Sure, but you can understand why US citizens and European citizens don't feel the same urge to go out and protest something that their taxes don't directly contribute to.
> You can still protest to signal support for usa to keep its hardline stance on Iran or to increase measures.
If you care about the wellbeing of Iranian people, you have to acknowledge that a "hardline stance" of sanctions also contributes to their suffering. I'm not sure why you'd expect to see people out on the streets asking for more of that.
> You can also protest to make sure the horrors aren't forgotten and to signal to those suffering in Iran that they aren't alone.
True, but as a citizen you have much less moral responsibility to protest that than a situation your government and taxes are supporting. Which probably explains why you don't see as many people out on the streets about that.
I'd say it's also tricky in such situations to protest and not have your protest co-opted to justify aggression. Chomsky made this point on Iran: "Suppose I criticise Iran. What impact does that have? The only impact it has is in fortifying those who want to carry out policies I don’t agree with, like bombing."
> Sure, but you can understand why US citizens and European citizens don't feel the same urge to go out and protest something that their taxes don't directly contribute to.
The point i was responding to was whether such protests [for Iranians] are pointless, and i asserted there can certainly be a point to them.
Different people care about different things. I doubt the "tax dollar" explanation for Gaza protests because they seem just as popular in countries that dont provide aid to Israel, and people seemed to care a lot more about Gaza than say Iraq, despite much much more tax dollars going there and much more people dead. Nonetheless people are going to care about different issues to different extents for whatever reason and I'm not objecting to that.
> If you care about the wellbeing of Iranian people, you have to acknowledge that a "hardline stance" of sanctions also contributes to their suffering.
I do not have to. Or more specificly such sanctions have complex impacts and it can be unclear what the overall net result is, especially over the long run.
Sanctions against Iran of course do not solely have to do with the human rights situation and are also being applied for various geopolitical reasons.
> I'd say it's also tricky in such situations to protest and not have your protest co-opted to justify aggression. Chomsky made this point on Iran: "Suppose I criticise Iran. What impact does that have? The only impact it has is in fortifying those who want to carry out policies I don’t agree with, like bombing."
That sounds like a long winded way to justify not caring about atrocities when doing so would be inconvinent. Quite frankly i find that morally rephresible.
If you only care about human rights when its politically expedient to do so, do you really care about human rights?
> That sounds like a long winded way to justify not caring about atrocities when doing so would be inconvinent. Quite frankly i find that morally rephresible.
> If you only care about human rights when its politically expedient to do so, do you really care about human rights?
I don't really see how you reached that conclusion from the quote. He's not saying it would be inconvenient, he's saying such an action could lead to a worse outcome for the people of the country. If he didn't care about their human rights, and was happy for them to be bombed, he'd go ahead and do it. You might disagree with his reasoning, but it's not showing lack of care.
Well to take it literally the quote is "policies I don’t agree with".
It raises the question, is it really because he cares about the people of Iran, or is it because he has preconcieved notions of what policies he likes and dislikes and is trying to post hoc justify his views.
It seems a really hard position to justify on the facts. The death toll from these protests has already surpassed most armed conflicts. And the human rights abuses are hardly limited to just the deaths. I think at some point if you just stand around and do nothing while gross violations occur, you become complicit.
It is always different when a foreign group kills children/starves over extended time like Israel did to Palestinians, as opposed to a dictatorship (think Syria before its revolution succeeded or Iran right now) kills their populace. Syrias civil war cost 600-800k lives by many figures. It is difficult to cover civil unrest or civil wars within the same group, vs. genocide or wars between nations. Think just of how hard it is to cover Israel/Palestine given Israel's ban on journalism and a free press covering Ghaza. Now imagine a nation as big as Iran where the state controls the media. How do you expect accurate coverage in a matter of days
You both have been breaking the site guidelines badly. We ban accounts that do that. Please don't do it again.
Also, please don't use HN for nationalistic/ideological/religious flamewar (or any flamewar). It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
You both have been breaking the site guidelines badly. We ban accounts that do that. Please don't do it again.
Also, please don't use HN for nationalistic/ideological/religious flamewar (or any flamewar). It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
