In 2020, the online news organization The Intercept revealed that HRW’s then-Executive Director, Ken Roth, accepted a $470,000 donation from a Saudi billionaire based on the condition that HRW would not use the money to protect the rights of the persecuted LGBTQ-plus community in the Middle East. 

Roth was compelled to return the donation after The Intercept report.

  • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Israel is neither trying to destroy Arabs nor Muslims, What they are doing is defending themselves against a hostile nation that declared war on them by slaughtering their civilians. Sometimes keeping themselves safe means annexing land, and a genocide this does not make.

    Israel’s intent is not to destroy any group, if that were their intent, they would have done it by now. They certainly have the capability. Their intent is to keep themselves safe from people who are trying to kill them and refuse to surrender.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Palestinians are a specific ethnic group. Interesting that you aren’t acknowledging that. And the majority of Palestinians that have been murdered were not part of Hamas.

      As far as calling Gaza or Palestine a nation, that’s laughable. When has Israel ever acknowledged their sovereignty?

      • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Palestinians are a specific ethnic group.

        No, Palestinians are Arabs.

        And the majority of Palestinians that have been murdered were not part of Hamas.

        Collateral damage is not genocide.

        As far as calling Gaza or Palestine a nation, that’s laughable. When has Israel ever acknowledged their sovereignty?

        Look up the definition of nation, I’ll wait. You seem to have it confused with statehood.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Nation:

          A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country.

          When has Palestine been organized under a single independent government?

          Also, ‘Arab’ is as much a single ethnic group as ‘European.’ Or even ‘Jewish.’

          Spain didn’t expel, murder and forcibly convert the Ashkenazi Jews. Because there weren’t any in Spain. It expelled, murdered and forcibly converted the Sephardic Jews. It was still genocide. I’m sure you’ll find that most Jews would agree on that point.

          • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Oxford dictionary:

            nation: a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.

            Also, ‘Arab’ is as much a single ethnic group as ‘European.’ Or even ‘Jewish.’

            Arab is a specific ethnic group that contains a lot of diversity/tribes. Jewish is a collection of several ethnic groups, and European is a region, not an ethnicity.

            It expelled, murdered and forcibly converted the Sephardic Jews. It was still genocide. I’m sure you’ll find that most Jews would agree on that point.

            I honestly don’t know enough about this part of history to weigh in. Was there intent to destroy Sephardic Jews, or was Spain under attack by them and defending itself?

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I notice you have absolutely nothing to say about what I said about ethnic groups. Is it maybe because that would mean that systematic murder and displacement of the Palestinian people would be a genocide just the same as the expulsion of Sephardic Jews from Spain?

              • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                If you’re going to murder thousands of civilians just be a monoethnicity, that way they can’t retaliate with without being genocidal! Modern nations hate this one trick.

                  • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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                    1 year ago

                    Why are Sephardic Jews an ethnicity but Palestinians not an ethnicity?

                    That’s how they’re categorized on Wikipedia.

                    I presumed that the various Jewish ethnicities had more genetic drift than Arabs due to the diaspora, but upon further reading I’m not sure that’s the case:

                    All Jewish groups were found to be genetically closer to each other than to Palestinians and Muslim Kurds.

                    It’s a good question. I suspect this ethnic classification is how they classify themselves.