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schraubd · 5 years

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On Israel's "60 Discriminatory Laws"

At a UN meeting commemorating International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Temple University Professor Marc Lamont Hill referred to the existence of "more than 60 Israel laws that deny citizenship rights to Palestinians just because they are not Jewish." It's one of those claims I've heard bandied about, in various formulations, many times, and I thought it was worth digging into a bit. The basic referent here, as far I can tell, is a list from the Israeli NGO Adalah (The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel), which compiles laws which "discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens in Israel and/or Palestinian residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) on the basis of their national belonging." The "or indirectly" matters quite a bit -- as Adalah confirms, while some of these laws represent explicit discrimination, "more often, the laws are worded in a seemingly neutral manner, but have or will likely have a disparate impact on Palestinians in their implementation." Now, one might think that my objection here is to the conflation of "direct" and "indirect" forms of discrimination. And to be sure, there is a very large difference between a law which says directly "Israeli Jews, but not Israeli Palestinians, are entitled to X" and a law which is neutral in form but happens to have a disparate impact on Palestinians. Likewise, not all of the entries on the Adalah list seem like fair play. For example, Adalah includes a 2010 law which offers certain perks to soldiers discharged from the IDF. It contends this discriminates against Palestinian Israelis because, unlike other Israeli citizens, they are not subject to mandatory military service. But they aren't excluded from military service either -- they just (unlike Jewish Israelis) have the option to forgo it (one could argue that this is a law which favors Palestinian Israelis at the expense of their Jewish co-citizens). So to characterize this law as one that Others are likewise shaky calls. For example, the law which increases the threshold for entering parliament is attacked as a means of seeking to squelch Arab political participation. And to be sure, it seems evident that one motive (though not the only one) for that law was the belief that, given deep fragmentation among Arab Israeli parties, it would knock out some of the smaller groupings. But if that was the goal, it backfired: Arab parties instead united under a Joint List and surged to become the third-largest party in the Knesset. In any event, to characterize that law as one which " den[ies] citizenship rights to Palestinians just because they are not Jewish" is more than a bit of a stretch. Still, it is absolutely fair to observe that "indirect" forms of discrimination nonetheless contribute in a very real way to tangible inequality. That's as true in Israel as it is in America; a focus on formal equality is manifestly insufficient to capture ways in which Palestinian citizens of Israel are disadvantaged in Israeli society. And it'd be unfair to accuse Hill of hypocrisy on this score, at least -- I have no doubt that he would, if asked, also deem American laws which are facially neutral but have a disparate impact on African-Americans as contributors to a racist American system. Nonetheless, something slick is happening here, and I think it's important to zero in on what it is. The phrase "laws that deny citizenship rights to Palestinians" is vague, intentionally so, but it certainly connotes more explicit forms of identity-based discrimination that mimic something like South African apartheid or American Jim Crow. Hill could rejoin that this isn't what he means by the phrase -- he intends to sweep more broadly, because unjust inequality isn't limited to cases which mimic South African apartheid. Fine -- but if that's the case, then we have to start asking whether a state having "60 laws" which are facially neutral but have a disparate deleterious impact on certain vulnerable minorities is comparatively abnormal. Put another way: if we adopted Adalah's standard for a law which "den[ies] citizenship rights" to a particular outgroup and applied it to America, how many discriminatory laws would we have? 20? 100? 1000? What about Poland? What about Cameroon? What about China? What about Kuwait? And so on. My strong guess is that, under this metric, having sixty discriminatory laws falls well within the normal range for countries of its size. To be clear, despite the verbiage above my argument isn't "whataboutism". It is perfectly fair to say that the existence of such laws -- even the existence of more of such laws -- in many other countries wouldn't justify them in Israel's case. And I'd agree with that. But -- and here's the "slick" part -- Hill is not trying to make the argument that Israel is common among nations in having laws which in effect disadvantage certain outgroups. He's trying to assert that Israel is unique in this respect, or at least uncommon. Speaking of "laws that deny citizenship rights" is meant to suggest that Israel stands out and beyond the pale -- so much so that we should support (Hill is explicit on this point) violent resistance efforts against it akin to that which the ANC employed against apartheid South Africa. What we have, in short, is a bait-and-switch. On the one hand, the rhetoric Hill employs is designed to give the impression of a narrower and more virulent set of wrongful conduct that is similar in form to apartheid and seems harmonious with a relatively aggressive set of responses. On the other hand, if you press him on the substantive meaning behind the rhetoric, he can fall back and say "no, no -- I'm talking about something much more expansive". But that class of wrongs is no longer in sync with the sort of remedies Hill is proposing -- unless he's willing to say that pretty much every country on earth should be subjected to violent insurgency on account of its failure to abolish laws which have a disadvantageous disparate impact on certain minorities in the state. And if even he is willing to ride that slope all the way to its slippery bottom, he'll find that few are willing to follow him down. A theoretical consistency is overshadowed by an known and accepted practical inconsistency; the mobilizing force of his remarks depends on preserving an intentional asymmetry between substance and rhetoric, between the actual content of the wrongs he's alleging Israel commits and the connotations implied by how they're described. It is not feasible to get widespread support for the proposition that every country should be targeted for a terrorist insurgency as a means of overturning its unjust practices. It is feasible to get widespread support for the proposition that a particular country (preferably someone else's) be so targeted. Again, the argument here isn't "well, if you don't criticize Romania and Sri Lanka for this, how can you criticize Israel?" I'm well aware that caring equally about everything is an impossible and unreasonable demand; people focus on what they focus on for all number of reasons. But there is a very large difference between arguing "this is a wrong we see everywhere, I just happen to focus on it in this particular place" and "this particular place stands out as wrongful in a way one doesn't see anywhere else." The former and the latter are different claims and demand different justifications. And likewise, I'm concerned about the rapidity with which people are beginning to argue that a claim of double-standards is just a way of kicking up dust. Yes, it's true that no functioning program of political or social action actually comprehensively applies to every "like" case simultaneously. No, that doesn't mean that patterns of disparate or disproportionate focus on a particular group never can give rise to an inference of discriminatory maltreatment (hell, that's the entire basis for looking askance at disparate impact!). Curtis Marez's limp argument that academic BDS targets Israel because, hey, "one has to start somewhere" -- as if the focus on Israel was a sort of random precipitation, as if the next academic organization over might just as easily look at China or Turkey or America -- is an insult to everyone's intelligence. Certainly, Hill understands this well in his case -- defending his friendship with and admiration of Louis Farrakhan (with whom he is far closer to than, say, Linda Sarsour), Hill contended that "Black people are the only people who are demanded to throw people away". Regardless of whether it is in fact true that this is only demanded of Black people (and I might respond with: "Hi! I'm a Jew! My people should talk with your people about our shared experiences on this dimension!"), would it really suffice as a response to reply by saying "well, maybe 'throwing away' open bigots is only demanded of Black people -- but it's still the right thing to do, and we should demand it everyone, so what grounds have you to complain"? In reality, it isn't an accident that such demands disproportionately fall on certain groups and not others, and that non-accidental non-proportionality does not exist outside of valid discourses about justice and equal treatment. In any event, we've strayed afield from where we started. In broad sweep, the move Hill is making is a similar play to that which I critiqued in my column on accusing Israel of "genocide". That allegation likewise attempts to harness the moral gravity of a narrow set of wrongs and apply it to something substantively much broader -- switching back and forth between the rhetorical force generated by the former (genocide as death camps) and the substantive sweep captured by the latter (genocide as "losing your culture"). The move only works if one consciously blurs the pivot, but that obfuscation is fair to call out. Here, it's paired with the more prosaic problem I identified with those omnipresent maps -- a failure to use consistent metrics across cases, such that the statement "laws which deny citizenship rights" doesn't mean "nothing short of explicit segregation or denaturalization" in Turkey and "any law which isn't arrived at through a perfect simulacrum of the Rawlsian original position" in Israel. The problem with the "60 laws" formulation isn't that there aren't valid objections to some or even many of the laws Adalah has in its database. Nor is it the self-serving (and transparently ridiculous) argument that Palestinians (whether citizens of Israel or not) face systematic and serious discrimination in Israel, much of which emanates directly from the Israeli state. The problem is that the move Hill is pulling relies on a set of disingenuous rhetorical tropes that deliberately mislead as to the content of the claims he's making. The substantive content of his claims absolutely establish that Israel commits wrongs -- but only within the normal bandwidth. That's a problem, because Hill needs to characterize Israel as especially evil, especially mendacious, especially corrupt, and especially worthy of revulsion. Why? Because he knows full well that the sorts of demands he wants to make -- a full boycott coupled with a violent military insurrection -- only fly if people believe he's talking about an especially horrible Other. And that's how you get a phrase like "more than 60 Israel laws that deny citizenship rights to Palestinians just because they are not Jewish." via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2Rl7T2F

#discourse #equality #Israel #Palestine

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punkwhodrinkstea-blog · 6 years

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Been a While and EA’s Dumb

Hey there… it’s been awhile. I would say I’ve been too busy to write here but that would be a lie. I have gotten lots done on my website and a few other minor things. But honestly I haven’t been very productive. I haven’t been feeling great lately and simply not feeling super motivated. During my slow time I finished an Anime my girlfriend suggest I watch… this was a year ago. The Anime was very intriguing at first but then had about 10 episodes at least which seems to slowly move the story. As much as I wanted to like this Anime, I just wasn’t hooked. As someone who does like to dedicated much time to watching TV I drifted away to watch shorter Anime because thinking about how long 64 episodes would take to watch opposed to 2ish episodes. I basically stopped watching it. But I knew I wanted to finish it so I started watching this Anime again and it would seem that I stopped watching just as things start to get really intense. I was quickly hooked and I couldn’t stop watching. I gave up so much sleep to watch this anime. I got very attached to the characters and I laughed when they laughed, cried when they cried… and now… now it’s over. I finished it and now I have a bunch of spare time back and my motivation to continue working on things. Just in case you’re wondering the name of the Anime it’s called “FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood”. It seems to be very popular in the Anime Subculture and I can see why. It’s very well done in every way. Sadly I don’t find the characters very relatable but at the same time I don’t live in the early 1900’s in a world where Alchemy exists. Shucks. Anyway I want to talk about this awkward uhhhh, thing, that game developers are trying.

So folks if you’re not a Gamer this may fly over your head but if you know anything about why the new Star Wars Battlefront 2 game got so much Hate. Then maybe you’d like more insight on this awkward situation.

This situation that happened with Star Wars Battlefront 2 was that EA (the game’s makers) put in a loot crate based progress system. So to upgrade your characters, unlock new things and level up, you open “Loot Crates” basically loot crates are bought with points that you get in the game and each one (depending on which loot crate) can have 3+ items inside. EA added microtransactions which means that players can pay real world money to open these loot crates. This is theoretically a good idea if done right. But EA screwed it up really bad. The purpose for allowing players to pay real money if they want is to help fund EA to make more post launch content for free (well sorta for free). This means the lazy rich people pay more money and they fund EA to make more content meanwhile the poor gamers don’t have to and yet everyone can still enjoy the new DLC. The system was suppose to be balanced so that players who have more time than money can play more and earn things that way. Meanwhile the players who have more money than time can throw some more money at the game and earn stuff that way. This isn’t good but it’s not too bad. Myself and most other gamers don’t think that a player should get anything that improves their characters by paying more money. The real problem began when we learned that it would take over 4 thousand hours to unlock everything in the game or a ton of money. This is a real shame because most people even the most dedicated gamers aren’t going to be putting 4 thousand hours into a more casual shooter (casual-ish). Also people don’t want to play that much Star Wars Battlefront 2 when you progress so slowly. It’s too bad because the actual gameplay and graphics and weapon balancing was super well done. I loved playing the beta and I really wanted to buy this game but then… EA ruined it.

The only thing that should be paid for in a video game should be new maps, levels and cosmetics. However players don’t want to pay over a hundred dollars on a game to get new maps in the future, it’s simply too much money. So EA tried the microtransaction system to use rich people to fund them. But like I said, they screwed up. Now Player’s do not mind paying extra money for things if the game is free. In the world of PC gaming there are hundreds of games that are free to play but you can use money to help level up faster or you have to pay for expansion packs and DLC. This isn’t frowned upon unless the game is considered “pay-to-win”. As the saying implies, it means that if you do pay you will have unlocked all the best gear and weapons giving you an unrealistic advantage over others. This quickly kills a game’s fan base.

Sadly we’re in this strange state where game developers sometimes seem to leave out certain content at launch and then try to get players to pay a little extra for it later or they make a game which really only has 60% of the content that it should and then sell the other 40% later over the course of a year. However due to how complex and big these games are getting we are actually getting more for our money then we used too… sorta. We get better graphics, bigger worlds and better optimized games but there is a decreasing in how much we get to actually do in these games. Less maps, fewer levels, less variety and often crappy stories. Finding a game with a good modern game with a good story is very difficult these days.

Sadly though these game companies need more money to fund these games. They are big projects with hundreds, even thousands of people making them and it costs a lot of money. So to try and make money we either need players to pay for extra content or they put in microtransactions and then some sort of incentive to get people to pay more. Here’s the problem with making players pay for new content. The issue occurs when some players buy the new content and some don’t, the servers are instantly split between those who paid and those who didn’t. Suddenly it’s harder to find matches or you get kicked when the server goes to a level you didn’t pay for. All sorts of crap happens and it’s annoying for everyone. Even those who do pay still have less players to play with than before the DLC was released. Everyone suffers and it slowly kills the game over time. The best thing that developers have done yet is to make new content come out a few days or a week early for those who have paid or make the content purely cosmetic. This way it can’t be Pay-to-win or exclude players. It simply gives them more freedom to customize their characters and stuff. Any money that the developers get from this can go directly into funding more content for the game and everyone is happy. Long story short. Don’t do what EA did.

A perfect example for microtransactions is a game I like called Heroes of the storm. This game is completely free to play and there is always new content coming out for it. But players can pay to unlock characters faster or get new skins and mounts but it’s strictly cosmetic and doesn’t give anyone an advantage over another. But that game is free. A better example would be OverWatch which was a paid for game which also had a loot crate system but for only cosmetics. Players liked this. Also in both of these games you can earn cosmetics for free but it takes a long time but it’s still there. So it’s actually hard to spot the difference between a player who has paid and one who hasn’t. It’s a wonderful thing.

Anyway I think I’ve rambled on enough about this and I’ve got other stuff to do and I hope to get more done tonight. Plus I need to at least try and catch up on sleep tonight. Peace out folks.

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