Israeli “Peace” discussion groups, common
pitfalls and how to recognise them.
By Mary Rizzo • May 13th, 2009 at 14:19 • BY MARY RIZZO Discussion groups are the salt of activism and networking. Even newspapers and magazines such as Newsweek and the NYT have realised that comments blocks of blogs are probably just as relevant to the discussion as the article itself.
So, we all have to know the best ways to get the most out of these situations and one of the key things to do is to avoid the pitfalls of letting Gatekeepers and Trolls dominate discourse and deviate the issues.
What they are "there to do" (in my view) can be divided into several branches:
1) Isolate opinions that are not to their liking, and in our case, ones that directly cite Israeli responsibility. These opinions are "imposed" as being off topic, irrelevant, beyond the pale, etc. The opinion is then discarded very rapidly and the gatekeeper cuts to a very routine "attack the person who did that", leading to point two:
2) Ostracise people who point out the inconsistencies of the arguments of those who are spreading Hasbara (pro-Israel propaganda, often masked as being moderate or seeing that both sides have equal responsibility for the conflict). No one wants to be in the position of the isolated person, and many will not find others who defend them, so this is usually the most effective mechanism they use to keep all issues only where the Gatekeeper wants them. It also creates divisions within the group, which is useful in establishing new (or initial) leadership roles, all of them informal, but very much used.
3) Lead discourse into areas where there is no risk of bringing up difficult or uncomfortable issues, which would invariably exacerbate the weakness of the Gatekeeper's position.
The role is generally NOT assigned, but it is often the person or persons who post the most often and speak in the plural "We think this issue has been covered", who speak making global assumptions about the group, "No one is listening to you", and the insinuations that behind the scenes you are disapproved of, therefore, the person has a position of authority that is recognised (but undemonstrated) and it implies you are in a minority and others who are too busy or shy would like action to be taken, but delegate it to another. They often will point out in a very general way to “rules of conduct”, (such as treating others with respect), which are broad, vague and certainly not even related to what is going on or to the actual discourse that is being made. I call this “rule smokescreening”, since they insinuate that agreed-upon rules are being violated and that is a way to cover over all of the uncomfortable arguments. Most of those pointing out the rules (often by reposting them in the heat of a discussion), by the way, are actually the most frequent violators of them! They do this almost always to Pro-Palestinians who they consider “extremists”, (differently from the “good Palestinians” who tow the line that they like to call “moderate”), even though there is nothing extreme in them at all besides extreme disgust at injustice.
The Gatekeepers often (always, actually) misquote, take out of context, manipulate your and other comments and imply that you personally are not acting in an orthodox or appropriate way, while they are certain they are behaving correctly. They believe you are not onto what they are doing, but they need to be exposed. They also will deny they are doing it, which makes it more interesting. One very interesting example of what they do is to refer to “banned members” who will serve as an example. On many boards, which I will illustrate more in detail below, the banned person’s entire history of intervention is wiped out. Only those who assiduously participate may even remember the content or context of the interventions, but the name of the banned person remains as the “evil uncle reminder”, soPalestine Think Tank
pitfalls and how to recognise them.
By Mary Rizzo • May 13th, 2009 at 14:19 • BY MARY RIZZO Discussion groups are the salt of activism and networking. Even newspapers and magazines such as Newsweek and the NYT have realised that comments blocks of blogs are probably just as relevant to the discussion as the article itself.
So, we all have to know the best ways to get the most out of these situations and one of the key things to do is to avoid the pitfalls of letting Gatekeepers and Trolls dominate discourse and deviate the issues.
What they are "there to do" (in my view) can be divided into several branches:
1) Isolate opinions that are not to their liking, and in our case, ones that directly cite Israeli responsibility. These opinions are "imposed" as being off topic, irrelevant, beyond the pale, etc. The opinion is then discarded very rapidly and the gatekeeper cuts to a very routine "attack the person who did that", leading to point two:
2) Ostracise people who point out the inconsistencies of the arguments of those who are spreading Hasbara (pro-Israel propaganda, often masked as being moderate or seeing that both sides have equal responsibility for the conflict). No one wants to be in the position of the isolated person, and many will not find others who defend them, so this is usually the most effective mechanism they use to keep all issues only where the Gatekeeper wants them. It also creates divisions within the group, which is useful in establishing new (or initial) leadership roles, all of them informal, but very much used.
3) Lead discourse into areas where there is no risk of bringing up difficult or uncomfortable issues, which would invariably exacerbate the weakness of the Gatekeeper's position.
The role is generally NOT assigned, but it is often the person or persons who post the most often and speak in the plural "We think this issue has been covered", who speak making global assumptions about the group, "No one is listening to you", and the insinuations that behind the scenes you are disapproved of, therefore, the person has a position of authority that is recognised (but undemonstrated) and it implies you are in a minority and others who are too busy or shy would like action to be taken, but delegate it to another. They often will point out in a very general way to “rules of conduct”, (such as treating others with respect), which are broad, vague and certainly not even related to what is going on or to the actual discourse that is being made. I call this “rule smokescreening”, since they insinuate that agreed-upon rules are being violated and that is a way to cover over all of the uncomfortable arguments. Most of those pointing out the rules (often by reposting them in the heat of a discussion), by the way, are actually the most frequent violators of them! They do this almost always to Pro-Palestinians who they consider “extremists”, (differently from the “good Palestinians” who tow the line that they like to call “moderate”), even though there is nothing extreme in them at all besides extreme disgust at injustice.
The Gatekeepers often (always, actually) misquote, take out of context, manipulate your and other comments and imply that you personally are not acting in an orthodox or appropriate way, while they are certain they are behaving correctly. They believe you are not onto what they are doing, but they need to be exposed. They also will deny they are doing it, which makes it more interesting. One very interesting example of what they do is to refer to “banned members” who will serve as an example. On many boards, which I will illustrate more in detail below, the banned person’s entire history of intervention is wiped out. Only those who assiduously participate may even remember the content or context of the interventions, but the name of the banned person remains as the “evil uncle reminder”, soPalestine Think Tank
