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Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team

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  Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Sam Hartman <leader@debian.org> - 2020-02-19 16:20 +0100
    Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Matthew Vernon <matthewv@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2020-02-19 17:30 +0100
    Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <odyx@debian.org> - 2020-02-19 20:10 +0100
      Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not  the DC20 Team Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> - 2020-02-19 20:10 +0100
        Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not  the DC20 Team Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> - 2020-02-19 20:30 +0100
      Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> - 2020-02-19 20:10 +0100
        Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the  DC20 Team Jonathan Carter <jcc@debian.org> - 2020-02-19 20:40 +0100
        Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <odyx@debian.org> - 2020-02-19 20:50 +0100
      Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the  DC20 Team Anthony DeRobertis <anthony@derobert.net> - 2020-02-20 01:30 +0100
        Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <odyx@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 08:40 +0100
          Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the  DC20 Team Daniel Baumann <daniel@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 08:50 +0100
    Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the  DC20 Team Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana <phls@debian.org> - 2020-02-19 20:50 +0100
    Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <odyx@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 08:30 +0100
      Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 10:10 +0100
        Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not  the DC20 Team Michael Banck <mbanck@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 10:30 +0100
          Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 10:40 +0100
        Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2020-02-20 13:00 +0100
          Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the  DC20 Team Felix Lechner <felix.lechner@lease-up.com> - 2020-02-20 14:10 +0100
            Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the  DC20 Team Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2020-02-20 18:20 +0100
              Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not  the DC20 Team Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 20:00 +0100
                Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 20:40 +0100
                  Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not  the DC20 Team Tiago Bortoletto Vaz <tvaz@riseup.net> - 2020-02-20 21:10 +0100
          Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not  the DC20 Team Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 18:10 +0100
        Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the  DC20 Team Jack Warkentin <jwark@bellaliant.net> - 2020-02-20 18:00 +0100
        Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team micah anderson <micah@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 22:00 +0100
          Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 22:00 +0100
      Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 14:50 +0100
        Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the  DC20 Team Jonathan Carter <jcc@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 20:00 +0100
    Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not  the DC20 Team Dato Simó <dato@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 17:20 +0100
      Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not  the DC20 Team Roberto C. Sánchez <roberto@debian.org> - 2020-02-20 17:40 +0100

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#11494

Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org> writes:

> If you have 80-90%+ of parliament, from pretty much all parties, agree
> on something, then it *is* pretty much as uncontroversional as it gets
> there.

This is an entertaining example to use in a project whose mission is free
software.  I'm pretty sure that by that standard it's entirely
uncontroversial that Windows is the best operating system, that software
copyright has no social downsides, that software patents are a good thing,
and that proprietary software companies are a vital backbone of the
economy.

I can assure you, as a US citizen, that the idea that BDS is inherently
antisemitic is very controversial in the US.  Your beliefs about the
political consensus in my country are uninformed.  Political consensus in
the US is not well-represented by voting ratios in Congress, particularly
in the absence of a lot of complex context.

I will not try to tell you what the consensus is in Germany since I'm
obviously not qualified to do so.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)              <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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#11497 — Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team

On Thu, Feb 20, 2020 at 11:37:23AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org> writes:
> 
> > If you have 80-90%+ of parliament, from pretty much all parties, agree
> > on something, then it *is* pretty much as uncontroversional as it gets
> > there.
> 
> This is an entertaining example to use in a project whose mission is free
> software.  I'm pretty sure that by that standard it's entirely
> uncontroversial that Windows is the best operating system, that software
> copyright has no social downsides, that software patents are a good thing,
> and that proprietary software companies are a vital backbone of the
> economy.
> 
> I can assure you, as a US citizen, that the idea that BDS is inherently
> antisemitic is very controversial in the US.  Your beliefs about the
> political consensus in my country are uninformed.  Political consensus in
> the US is not well-represented by voting ratios in Congress, particularly
> in the absence of a lot of complex context.
> 
> I will not try to tell you what the consensus is in Germany since I'm
> obviously not qualified to do so.

The irony here is that he finds himself qualified to say that it's
uncontroversial in Canada, and then he cites a source that starts like this:
"Ontario’s legislature rejected the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS)
movement in a controversial vote..."

This thread is so much wrong.

Peace,

--
Tiago

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#11490 — Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Ian Jackson dijo [Thu, Feb 20, 2020 at 11:50:26AM +0000]:
> Ansgar writes ("Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team"):
> > I think the announcement by the organizers framed the conference as
> > being organized specifically to support the BDS movement, a movement
> > that is uncontroversially seen as antisemitic.  They could have chosen
> > not to frame the announcement this way, but they did not.
> 
> The BDS movement is not antisemitic.

*sigh*

I would love to invoke Godwin here. But, after coming back to the
issue (no, I do not think this content shouis relevant to
debian-project... And yes, I started writing this mail twice and
decided not to send it... But it still itches quite wrong... And I
have to reply, sorry)...

BDS is not antisemitic, but stirs antisemitism. Not by design. Not
because it is meant to. But as an unescapable side consequence.

Many among us (us == people with Jewish origins) have felt it. Many
people recognize Israel to be not-exactly-the-same-as-Jewish. But many
people don't. And I have seen BDS being (wrongly) applied to
businesses run by non-Israeli Jews in countries other than Israel.

Many Jews throughout the world and many Israelis stand firmly against
the many injustices the Israeli government carries out. But many
people does not understand the great distance between one thing and
the other — Why should they? Really, defining our nationality is a
difficult and thorny topic. It took me at least 25 years to come to
terms with who I am and not take strong distance against parts of it
(and I don't participate in any religious nor communitary aspects of
judaism in my country).

I won't chase my own tail anymore in this post. Let me just repeat
something that's as incontrovertible as can be, given that I have felt
it.

BDS is not antisemitic, but stirs antisemitism.

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#11489 — Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team

Hello Debian Community

Criticism of the BJP government of India is not considered to be anti Hindu.

Criticism of Myanmar because of their treatment of the Rohingyas is not 
considered to be anti Buddhist.

Criticism of Saudi Arabia because of their treatment of women is not 
considered to be anti Muslim.

Criticism of the government of China is not considered to be anti 
Confucianism, anti Taoism, ...  .

So why is criticism of the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis 
considered to antisemitism?

A BDS movement brought down the apartheid government of South Africa. 
The Israelis and their supporters are fearful that a similar BDS 
movement will bring down the state of Israel *as it currently exists*. 
Hence the desperate attempts by the Zionists to conflate criticism of 
Israel with antisemitism, the screed promoted by Felix being a case in 
point.

I would suggest that those of the Debian Community who are still 
following this *inappropriate thread* have a look at

https://www.ijvcanada.org/open-letter-from-canadian-academics-opposing-the-ihra-definition-of-antisemitism/

As I said, this thread is inappropriate on this list. But it is hard not 
to answer accusations of antisemitism by those fearful of the effects of 
the BDS movement. And before I am accused of antisemitism I will simply 
state that ever since I was in high school I have had good Jewish 
friends. None of them has ever had cause to believe that I am antisemitic.

Regards

Jack

Ansgar wrote:

> I think the announcement by the organizers framed the conference as
> being organized specifically to support the BDS movement, a movement
> that is uncontroversially seen as antisemitic.  They could have chosen
> not to frame the announcement this way, but they did not.
> 
And Felix Lechner wrote

> Please have a look at this report, especially the final page.
> 
>     http://bit.ly/TheNewAnti-SemitesReport

Jack Warkentin, phone 902-404-0457, email jwark@bellaliant.net
39 Inverness Avenue, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3P 1X6

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#11498

Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org> writes:

>>
>> The crux of my strong disagreement is here: as DPL, you just _framed_ the 
>> Montreal miniDebConf as a protest.
>
> I think the announcement by the organizers framed the conference as
> being organized specifically to support the BDS movement

You might think that but I think you should think again, or maybe read
again, that is just plain false.

> a movement
> that is uncontroversially seen as antisemitic.

[snip]

> And before people complain too much about BDS being antisemitic being
> controversial:

[snip]

> And because we are talking about Canada and Toronto: Wikipedia says that
> Ontario in 2016 passed a motion condemning BDS as well, because "The
> motion was necessary because of growing concern on Ontario’s university
> campuses where members of BDS movements have harassed and targeted
> Jewish students under the guise of free speech"[3]. The two largest
> parties supporting the motion held 82 of 107 seats at the time. So
> again pretty uncontroversial.

[snip]

>   [3]: https://torontosun.com/2016/12/01/ontario-mpps-reject-bds-movement/wcm/12c5c198-aa3a-459d-b34b-2c1d47c1475a

Amusingly, the article you are using to support your claim that it is
'uncontroversial' must not have been read by you, as it starts by
specifically saying it was a "controversial vote".

   Ontario’s legislature rejected the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS)
   movement in a controversial vote Thursday, with some MPPs saying it
   promotes hatred against Israel.

To speak to the specific resolution that you are talking about
here... it was *not* to say that BDS is antisemtic. The only thing
related to BDS with regards to that resolution was to reject the
"differential treatment of Israel" by the BDS movement. Differential
treatment is hardly "antisemtic".

In fact, in 2017 an EKOS survey showed that four in five Canadians (80%)
believe the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS)
on Israel is *reasonable*. That seems to suggest that it is just a tiny
bit more controversial than 'uncontroversial'.

Nevertheless, I completely agree with you: if you omit things that don't
support your position, then yes it does look very uncontroversial
indeed! Amazing how that works.

Are there *allegations* that BDS is anti-Semitic? Sure there are. Are
those allegations uncontroversial?  Hardly.

What I believe is uncontroversial is when you assert something that is
obviously not true on its face, it undermines any argument you might be
trying to get through.

Lets be clear, calling criticisms of Israel anti-Semitic detracts from
arguments against true anti-Semitism.

Making the claim that BDS is against all Jewish people because it
doesn't agree with everything that the state of Israel does is presuming
that all Jewish people share the same political commitments while
ignoring the reality that there are quite a few Jews who are extremely
critical of the state. This isn't hard to verify.

If you wish to debate this, then I think doing so somewhere other than
this mailing list would be prudent.

-- 
        micah

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#11499

micah anderson writes:
> Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org> writes:
>>> The crux of my strong disagreement is here: as DPL, you just _framed_ the 
>>> Montreal miniDebConf as a protest.
>>
>> I think the announcement by the organizers framed the conference as
>> being organized specifically to support the BDS movement
>
> You might think that but I think you should think again, or maybe read
> again, that is just plain false.

Dunno, if the organizers also invite talks from the "Palestinian
Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel"[1] it seems
more and more so.

  [1]: https://salsa.debian.org/debconf-team/public/mini/mtl2020/issues/24

> If you wish to debate this, then I think doing so somewhere other than
> this mailing list would be prudent.

Yes, maybe we should just have a GR whether Debian should welcome BDS at
Debian or not.

Ansgar

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#11485

[This will be my last message on this thread.
I go away on vacation tomorrow.]


>>>>> "Didier" == Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <odyx@debian.org> writes:


    Didier> The crux of my strong disagreement is here: as DPL, you just
    Didier> _framed_ the Montreal miniDebConf as a protest.

This is a case where perception is powerful too.
I perceived it as a protest.
Several others, including people involved in DC20 see it that way.

That in and of itself is a problem of perception.
Even that problem of perception is sufficient to negatively impact  the
people doing the work.
Even that problem of perception is worth solving.

I really hope that supporting our people doing the work at DC20 is
uncontroversial.
You and others think my particular proposed solution sucks.

Okay.
I gave enough flexibility that another solution can be chosen.
(I also gave enough flexibility that people can choose to do nothing.
I think that people who do perceive a problem here will hear nothing a
certain way, but I explicitly left that option.)

Personally, I don't think simply a statement would be enough.
I would hear actual effort spent to constructively make things better
louder than any words.
Whether that's in the form of isolating Debian as I proposed or taking
some positive constructive steps to help out the people working on DC20
explicitly to say  we support you, or something we haven't thought of
yet.

Even if I got it wrong, we could choose to spend all this energy
supporting each other rather than fighting.

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#11493 — Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team

Hi Sam

On 2020/02/20 15:44, Sam Hartman wrote:
> I really hope that supporting our people doing the work at DC20 is
> uncontroversial.

During DC19 I've spoken about this topic to dozens (as in, literally
dozens) of people who have approached me who care about DebConf and who
have contributed to it over the years. I can assure you that not a
single person has stated anything vaguely against the DC20 team or
against their work, in fact over and over people make it clear that they
like the DC20 and have stated words of support for them, even in the
cases where they don't support aspects of their government.

I can tell you with a great degree of confidence that support for the
DC20 team is entirely uncontroversial and it's really not worth spending
any time worrying about that specific aspect whatsoever.

-Jonathan

-- 
  ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀  Jonathan Carter (highvoltage) <jcc>
  ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁  https://wiki.debian.org/highvoltage
  ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋   https://debian.org | https://jonathancarter.org
  ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀  Be Bold. Be brave. Debian has got your back.

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#11486 — Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team

> If we force you, it is inherently distancing.  If you do it on 
> your own, it can be constructive.

This sentence is beyond the pale for a PL.

-d

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#11487 — Re: Request to Mini DebConf Montreal Organizers: Fight Israel not the DC20 Team

On Thu, Feb 20, 2020 at 05:03:50PM +0100, Dato Simó wrote:
> > If we force you, it is inherently distancing.  If you do it on 
> > your own, it can be constructive.
> 
> This sentence is beyond the pale for a PL.

How so?  The project, including various of its apparatus will ask people
to self-censor in the interest of community harmony.  If the request
goes unheeded or the situation escalates then more forceful measures are
taken, including expulsion.  How is this different, perhaps apart from
the fact that Sam recognized that escalation would not help in any way
and clearly stated that there would be no escalation if the Montreal
event team decided to ignore his request?

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
Roberto C. Sánchez

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