It's not the job of a journalist to kiss the interviewee's ass and finish their sentences for them. That's not journalism, that's marketing and promotion.
The Jon Stewart interview is two people who don't understand Israel at all talking as though they're experts on Israel. Stewart didn't ask Coates a single difficult question or challenge his narrative in any way at all.
Dokoupil did his job and the fact that he's received so much backlash shows just how far journalism has deteriorated.
Coates thinks he's an expert on Israel because he took one trip sponsored by Palestinian activist organizations and openly admits that he was only there to hear one side of the story.
Thank you. I didn't really understand what I did to warrant a ban.
I’m old enough to remember George W. Bush arguing in favor of invading Iraq going “They’re violating 17 UN resolutions!” and the reaction from sane people was “Yeah? And Israel is violating 80? 90? We going to invade Israel too?”> Okay, but also not analogous. Bush used this as justification for invading another country that didn't pose a threat to the US.
Where Squid went off was the whole “UN doing nothing” thing. It’s pretty clear to me you MEANT nothing about 1701, but they are doing a lot of good humanitatarian work on the ground, you know, when Israel isn’t SHOOTING AT THEM.> I'm sure they are. They're just not doing what they're supposed to be doing with respect to 1701, and their failure to do so poses an existential threat to Israel. I'm sure you're aware that in recent days the IDF has uncovered both Hezbollah plans to carry out a 10/7-style attack but on a larger scale, and multiple instances of Hezbollah operating from positions within very close proximity to UNIFIL positions. Kinds looks like UNIFIL has basically been providing cover for Hezbollah.
And you know full well that the Lebanese are controlled by Hezbollah. Unless they want to plunge the country into another devastating civil war, they're not going to challenge Hezbollah.
This is hilarious. I have to provide evidence for what literally everyone knows is happening in the world right now? Okay, here we go. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-strikes-lebanon-after-hezbollah-hits-shebaa-farms-2023-10-08/ https://abcnews.go.com/International/hezbollah-rocket-attacks-northern-israel-spark-fires-destroy/story?id=111593691 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/13/isarel-military-lebanon-south-hezbollah-war/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-peacekeepers-confirm-existence-of-tunnel-from-lebanon-into-israel/ (This is a good one. UNIFIL found a tunnel from Lebanon into Israel back in 2018 and said, "We'll speak to the Lebanese authorities about it." Well done.)
The evidence is the fact that the UN has been stationed in southern Lebanon since 2006 and in that time Hezbollah has established bases all across the region, which is in direct violation of UN Resolution 1701, and now the IDF is coming across those bases and weapons caches within spitting distance of UN watchtowers. And even after Hezbollah declared war on Israel by launching rockets into Israel starting on Oct 8, 2023, those same UN peacekeepers have done nothing to stop them and have tried to prevent Israel from retaliating.
So although it was a rhetorical question, it really wasn't.
Typical. Can't engage in a discussion, huh? I'm guessing that's because you know as much about Israel as Coates does.
There are roads that both Israelis and Palestinians are prevented from using FOR SECURITY PURPOSES. That's the problem with Coates' perspective, he refuses to even ask how it got to this point. He just looks around, sees fences and soldiers acting as security guards and says, "This feels like apartheid."