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[–] 6 points 2 days ago (1 child)

please explain explicitly how i’m being misleading.

Sure. My understanding of events is that Ethan both publicly and privately (with Hasan, based on Hasan's comments) was much more critical of Israel, even if he was never anything better than a lib zionist in terms of his positive positions. He poses as a lib zionist now but I think you and I can agree that his current attitude isn't a deluded Brad Lander-style belief in "an Israel with equal rights" (complete nonsense, just different nonsense), but instead is a pathetically "disguised" attitude of wanting to kill all Arabs. But just as importantly for evaluating Hasan's bad decision (and I agree it was a bad decision), Hasan personally evaluated Ethan as being open to his arguments for more progressive politics and the show was very much oriented toward Hasan's misbegotten attempt to educate him.

I don't think I can really convince you that there is anything to this point other than pure hallucination and wishful thinking (and I agree some wishful thinking is involved), but we have on the show Klein weeping on camera seeing the murder of Palestinian children and imaging it in relation to his own kids (which is an extremely normal way to frame an empathetic response), so it makes sense to me if that's not a totally aberrant behavior on his part why someone might think that he was learning or could be reached.

I will repeat that I think Hasan severely lacked due diligence in investigating other matters in Ethan's history, probably the most grotesque example being the thing with the Boston Marathon bombing survivor (which really should be disqualifying for being a public figure all on its own).

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  • [–] 11 points 2 days ago*

    he absolved ethan of everything he did because ethan’s brand was that he was no long the slur guy so in the name of “redemption” hasan chose to move forward in business. the boston bombing thing, the slurs, their time in israel, all of it was public knowledge but that was ignored. i don’t believe this narrative that hasan just didn’t know, that he didn’t research hard enough to know his business partner sucked shit, the podcast was an active attempt to rehabilitate him. i’m still not sure how it was oriented towards antizionism, why would he dodge a perfect chance for educating ethan on the differences between china/taiwan and israel/palestine if that were so? progressivism is a nonsense term, as we know. i think you’re treating hasan with kid gloves, like he just bumbled his way into this rather than being an active participant. i especially resent the implication that the facts i was stating were as fabricated as the dog story and “didn’t correspond to reality”, but i agree, i also don’t think i can convince you of my position here

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