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Comment by AsyncAwait | Hacker News Reader

I find someone like Jordan Peterson to have some authoritarian tendencies for sure, but his fans would probably call them "strong opinions". That's fair, abet I doubt that generous interpretation would be extended to someone they disagree with.

Just notice how the IDW feels strongly about free speech, but when it comes to the issue of Palestine and specifically incentivizing disinvestment from Israeli occupied territory in the West Bank, they suddenly have less than nothing to say about it, not to mention the issue of U.S. States passing anti-boycott laws censoring BDS and yet crickets from the IDW.

Being selective in your concern for free speech and only criticizing one side seems hardly "intellectual" to me and I can't take it seriously.

P.S. While the IDW is not exactly defined, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_dark_web#Associat... has a decent list.

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"X has been silent on Y," is generally not a fair criticism. Not speaking about a topic is the norm, since time is finite and there are uncountable numbers of issues to discuss, even within a specific topic.

Except they know about the issue, were pointed to it multiple times, even by me and are always quick to proclaim that 'Israel has the right to defend itself'.

Dave Rubin for example has had several offers from some prominent left-wing commentators to debate the issue, among others, yet he's always busy or some other excuse.

Sam Harris definitely knows about it as well, (has even spoken about BDS itself, just not their censorship), Ben Shapiro too, yet besides "Israel has the right to defend itself", (which is not the issue), crickets.

This is not an issue like whether they have played Animal Crossing, this is an issue where several states already are in violation of the First Amendment, an issue, they claim, is above all for them.

This is wilful ignorance because it would require leveling criticism at some of the same people they usually praise, instead of the usual college students and Twitter mobs, that's the issue.

Do members of the IDW avoid criticizing Israel because they support Israel, or because they think criticizing Israel would make it too easy for their opponents to label them as antisemites?

I don't think there is any way of knowing, but I suspect different individuals listed on that page have different reasons and motivations for saying what they say and not saying what they say. I'd bet on Ben Shapiro genuinely supporting Israel, but some of the rest I'm not sure about (I suspect at least some of those on that list are genuinely antisemites. For instance: https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/ukip-candidate-carl-benja...)

Anyway my point is it's much easier to judge people based on what they say, rather than what they don't say.

> Do members of the IDW avoid criticizing Israel because they support Israel, or because they think criticizing Israel would make it too easy for their opponents to label them as antisemites?

That I do not know for sure, but isn't their trademark to speak openly regardless of what their opponents would label them as?

It's easy to attack college students. If they're afraid to criticism Israel, they can't claim to stand for free speech regardless of what they opponents think, as they often do.

> but isn't their trademark to speak openly regardless of what their opponents would label them as?

That's not clear to me, no. To be frank it's not clear to me the 'IDW' categorization has much worth at all if it includes people as diametrically opposed as fervent zionists and antisemitic neonazis. It's a very loose categorization at best.

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