Moved this here because I watched the rest of the video and he gets shitty at the end.

How do we get people like Norm to stop being credulous about flawed science and fucking bigotry.

His larger point with the video is more interesting but it gets lost in anti-trans shit at the end

  • trinicorn [comrade/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
    28·
    2 days ago

    I believe his stated position is closer to “we are not in a place where getting rid of israel entirely is remotely feasible and I don’t talk in hypotheticals” and that was like 10 years ago, idk if he’s addressed it head on recently. Now, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t advocate for the long dead 2 state solution or that he’s not wrong here, I think he is, but just adding a little more detail. He leans a bit heavily on international law in a way that I don’t think recognizes just how weak international law is.

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      He addressed it pretty head on in another interview. His thinking is, he’s an academic who is trying to study and explain exactly what international law says should happen, and what the law says is that Israel is a legitimate state, but it also says that all the actions that Israel is engaged in constitute a genocide and should therefore be sanctioned. This is his main disagreement with BDS, where he claims that BDS wishes to simultaneously condemn Israel on a legal basis, yet also go against international law by claiming that Israel is an illegitimate state.

      Obviously this line of thinking is very problematic and assumes that international law is 1. correct and 2. static. People have the right to say that the international law isn’t working and was established on an unjust premise of justifying the creation of an ethnostate because of the Holocaust. That doesn’t mean that it becomes hypocritical to use the same international law to criticize the Zionist project’s illegal actions, it just means that there are multiple dimensions (moral and legal) to the transgressions of the Zionist entity. I think Norm understands this point to some extent and limiting his scope to always siding with the law is more just a way to stay grounded and always having an undeniable basis for his arguments, even if they’re not fully there morally.