Comment by runarberg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by runarberg | Hacker News Reader

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From your own source:

> and the journalists who had resisted pressure from Hamas in Gaza were then confronted with Israeli propaganda accusing them of working for Hamas. Journalists are often the target of smear campaigns and threats, and several Israeli politicians have called for Gaza’s journalists to be punished.

EDIT: I’ll do your job for you. Here is an actual secondary source reporting on the press freedom inside Gaza back in 2015

https://theconversation.com/why-hamas-still-relies-on-violen...

The evidence they have (your RSF source does not cite any evidence):

> In a June 2014 poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), 67.9% of Gazans (sic) said they could not criticise the Hamas authorities without fear.

Perhaps it is right that there is lacking press freedom in Gaza, and that Hamas is at some fault for that. But since Oct. 7 this is all irrelevant because (as your own source states) Israeli suppression of news from Gaza is overwhelming.

First, I just did what you asked for. You said I needed to prove Hamas does not allow freedom of the press. Well, proven, you even bloody agree. Now, of course, you change subject, and blame Israel for supposedly lacking press freedom. Which is not what you were arguing about. You were arguing Hamas allows press freedom.

You do this after pointing out that if one country lacks press freedom, that doesn't make it OK for another to lack it too. Great.

You are not fairly discussing this issue. Not that that wasn't already clear. Everybody knows what hamas is and what they do. NOTHING excuses their behavior, and it is not comparable to what Israel does by any moral measure. Not in press freedom. Not in anything.

Second, this is false moral equivalence. Hamas beats up and even kills journalists to get them under control. Israel "pressures". Some Israeli (NOT the Israeli state) have "smear campaigns" (ie. a few posts on twitter) about those journalists. Some Isreali politicians call for the justice system to go after those journalists, but the justice system doesn't actually do that. And even if it did, it STILL would be VERY far from what Hamas does. There is no moral comparison possible.

Hamas suppress the press "problem" by what any honest human being calls "murder". Just like they solve any other problem.

What Hamas does, obviously IS INFINITELY WORSE than what Israel does, to the point that comparisons are absurd. This is equating what the Taliban does to girls' education (ie. bomb school, poison students, massacre their own people, send in the police to beat students) with the denial of the "right" for teachers to wear headscarves. Whatever your opinion about both issues, they are totally incomparable.

First, I just did what you asked for.

Except you didn't, actually. You were asked to support a specific claim that you made:

Any journalist that reports something they don't like gets a beating, and if they persist, they're killed.

You were asked point blank by user @Pfhortune -- but you ducked to the side, and put out some noise about there being lots of people with guns walking around. You were then asked again by @runarberg -- but the article you dug up still didn't support this claim -- referring only to a vague "pressuring" of journalists by Hamas, and threats to collaborators. But nothing about specific cases of journalists being routinely "beaten, and then if they persists, killed" (per your words) for saying stuff Hamas doesn't like. Meanwhile the same article mentions far more worse abuses by the IDF (which has apparently killed some 147 journalists since the start of the current massacre in Gaza -- some specifically targeted, some killed incidentally).

In other words -- it looks like you're basically making stuff up here. If you'd care to convince us otherwise, you're going to have to do a lot more than 5 seconds of Googling.

Here is the link again, perhaps you can read it:

https://rsf.org/en/country/palestine

From the article:

(about PA and Hamas journalism)

> Content is subject to political control ...

> In the West Bank, where journalists were already the victims of abuses by both the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli occupying forces ...

(about PA and Hamas actions against the press)

> With arrests, violence, destruction of equipment, legal proceedings and denial of accreditation, practicing journalism was already difficult before 7 October 2023 ...

Of course, then the article does what everyone keeps doing and blames Israel for all of it. Despite Israel STILL allowing even Al Jazeera to operate (and before you post the bullshit "they closed it", no they didn't: they closed the Al Jazeera CABLE CHANNEL in Israel. Al Jazeera journalists are still operating freely in Israel, as is plain to see on the frontpage of Al Jazeera, not that I expect you not to make yet another false accusation, but the reality is that you just can't receive Al Jazeera on cable in Israel anymore)

In other words, I stand by my claim "there are no independent journalists in Gaza, Hamas won't allow it". And I won't respond further.

Plus, frankly, I hope people still remember the incessant claims from leftists how Soviet press was totally free to report whatever they wanted. You're not the first making this totally absurd claim and nobody with minimal intelligence is fooled.

So you have no support for your claim that journalists "beaten, and then if they persist, killed", then.

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