Amira Hass is on a tear

Amira Hass is a leading journalist (with Gideon Levy) at Ha’aretz. “Amira Hass is the only Israeli journalist who has lived in the West Bank for 30 years and has a deep understanding of the Palestinian experience.” The article Amira Hass Speaks on Gaza Slaughter by Jewish Voice for Labour (Scheer Post) includes an embedded video that is age-restricted.[1]

I hadn’t seen the video, but I found it highly unlikely that there was really age-restricted content there. It seemed much more likely that YouTube’s algorithms saw Amira’s name alongside “Gaza” and noped right out of there, applying restrictions to make sure as few people watched the video as possible.

• When I clicked the video to see it on YouTube. I was informed that “YouTube is blocked”.
• I removed the query arguments, one by one, but I still couldn’t open the video.
• When I opened the base url (without the query arguments) in a new tab, it worked.

You know what? YouTube seems to be blocking referrals from Scheer Post. It blocks not only on the query argument, but also on the HTTP_REFERRER in the request. That is very much enforcing an agenda, but it’s also utterly unsurprising. We do not live in a free information environment. The U.S. corporations and government—entwined as they are—control the narrative ruthlessly.

When I finally got to the video, it was a Democracy Now! interview, from New York City, with journalist Amira Hass. There was absolutely no content in there that would be considered worth blocking or age-restricting in anything but an authoritarian Empire where YouTube is an arm of the State.

Her words were, of course, deeply unnerving, but that is reality. There were a few fleeting images of children being dug out of rubble—they were still alive, though.

Finally, the video is embedded from my site below. It’s still age-restricted but not blocked, if you click through.

Israeli Journalist Amira Hass: How Can the World Stand By and Witness Israel's Slaughter in Gaza? by Democracy Now! (YouTube)

Below is the second, longer part of the interview. This second part was, mysteriously, not age-restricted at the time I originally added the link to a draft, but it’s age-restricted now. As with part one, I can’t see a reason why this video should be age-restricted, unless it’s for the disturbing subject matter. If that’s what triggers age-restriction, then more than half of the news videos on YouTube would have to be age-restricted.

Israeli Journalist Amira Hass, Daughter of Holocaust Survivors, Calls for Gaza Ceasefire Now by Democracy Now! (YouTube)

These two videos include an incredibly good interview. Amira Hass discusses honestly how Hamas made a “distinctive blow” militarily that they don’t have any follow-up for. I’ll cite at considerable length from the transcript. She puts it much better, with more emotion, and with more gravitas than my words could.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: In the piece, you write about your father, who would tell you as far […] back as 1992, he himself a Holocaust survivor, when you return from Gaza, he would say, quote,

“True, this isn’t a genocide like what we went through, but for us, it ended after five or six years. For the Palestinians, the suffering has gone on and on for decades.”

[…]

AMIRA HASS: Look, I mean, in 92 […], it was — we could say that it is not genocide. I want to say, I mean, I don’t — as I explain over and over again, I prefer not to talk now, not to dwell into definitions, but to describe the situation. Of course, in ‘92, in comparison to today, it was like a benign occupation in comparison to today, to what’s going on now.

“Look, Hamas proved to be very resourceful when it comes to the military operation. They knew how to neutralize Israeli surveillance facilities, how to neutralize the shooting, automatic shooting. They knew where the military bases were, etc. So they were very resourceful, in a way that I could have said impressive, if not for the atrocities that were committed later. And the atrocities were committed. And I know that it’s not the time to tell Palestinians to pay attention to this, because Israel’s revenge is a hundred times more bloodier, but still there were atrocities.

“So I feel there is a tremendous contradiction between the planning of the immediate military operation and what comes aftermath — what is the aftermath, because, for example, the civilian now — the civilian face in the West — in Gaza. If they knew they have such an operation, and they knew that Israel will retaliate ferociously, then why, for example, they did not even — I didn’t know — take care that people have water? I don’t know. I mean, if they can arrange to have so many weapons, they must have also prepared for assisting the civilian population, their civilian population. But I see that this, from what I can tell, from far, I don’t think — I don’t see that this has happened.

“I don’t think that Hamas can be erased. It can flourish outside of Gaza. But I don’t understand its political plan right now. Do they want to liberate all of Palestine, so it doesn’t matter if it will take 50 years, 80 years, and at the cost of lives of Palestinians and Israelis, that I don’t know who will return to the country? Who will live in this destroyed country, if this is the plan? If the plan is political, immediate political, is it worse to ask, demand the release of present Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, and the cost is so much? I think I know some prisoners in jail now. I don’t think they’ll be happy to be released, thanks to the death of thousands or tens of thousands of Palestinians.

“So, right now I see very — militarily, a very apt organization, that indeed gave Israel a very distinctive blow. But I don’t see that there is a political viable position that comes with it. That’s me now. I don’t know. I mean, we are waiting, because just war, just war, just bloodshed, where will it lead us to? Where will it lead the Palestinians to? Now it’s very difficult for people to criticize Hamas. There is a lot of support. But is it a political — does it have a political, logical, human perspective? I don’t see it.”

“Every Palestinian who is killed today in Gaza is registered in the Israeli-controlled population registry. Palestinians are not registered in a separate one. It’s Israel which controls. If a person is not registered, he is there — if a newborn is not registered in the Israeli registry of population, then the newborn does not exist. Israel controls still today. Palestinian Authority is obliged to give every name of a newborn and every change of address to Israel for validation of this change. So what is not responsible? It’s part of Israel. I mean, Israel controls the whole country, controls the people, decides how much water they have, what is the economy they are allowed to have. If they don’t go to universities in the West Bank, Israel decides. Israel decides about every detail of these people. So, what’s happening now is not Israel’s responsibility?”