The guy in the video is Dr Ofer Cassif, who is explicitly antizionist. Search Ofer Cassif on youtube, you will see that he has spoken against Israel on Middle East Eye, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now, Majority Report and many other news networks. He was born in Israel and has devoted his life to ending the Zionist project. He helped South Africa take Israel to the ICJ.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/11/who-is-israeli-mp-ofer-cassif-why-is-he-backing-south-africa-at-the-icj

Editing my post to include that there have been many posts in support of Ofer Cassif on hexbear in the past. Even the beloved SeventyTwoTrillion wrote a news post about Ofer Cassif.

https://hexbear.net/search?q=ofer%20cassif&sort=TopAll

[–] bbnh69420@hexbear.net 33 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ty for the background, how does this change his words in the attached tweet?

[–] dead@hexbear.net 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

People seem to say "critical support" as a joke a whole lot seem to never actually use critical support. I don't agree with everything he says. You can say that you don't agree with some things that he says and still appreciate that he has taken serious actions against Israel.

I don't agree with Norm Finkelstein about his anti-transgender beliefs but we still recognize that him as a prominent antizionist figure.

I watched the video and I see that Ofer Cassif says "We condemned totally condemned the massacre which took place" and he keeps using the word "We". It seems to me that he is using a metaphoric "We", (I don't think metaphoric is the right word). He's using "We" to say that the general public said that they condemned Hamas. He doesn't say "I condemn Hamas", he said "we condemned" as he is setting up a comparison. He is setting up a comparison. In his next breath, he says that what the Israeli government is doing to Gaza is far worse. He calls the Israeli government fascist. Then he says "I place the blame on the Israeli government". Why does he say "we condemned (oct 7)" but then he said "I place the blame on the Israeli government"? Because in the former instance he was expressing the opinion of the broader public and in the latter, he is saying his own beliefs.

[+] destroyamerica@lemmygrad.ml 31 points 4 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] dead@hexbear.net 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

He starts by saying "I want to put the current situation into context", meaning he is creating a hypothetical. "As everyone knows" is a part of the hypothetical, meaning that he is expressing the beliefs of the general public. And by general public, I mean that it was a popular opinion among Americans that Hamas needed to be condemned. It's hard to judge his tone because of his accent, but if you pay attention to the way that he is speaking, when he is speaking about the general public beliefs in the terms of "we", he is speaking in a very slow and dull way, which in my opinion seems mocking. But as soon as you begins to talk about Israel's attack on Gaza, the pace of his words picks up very quickly and he's more punctual with his words and he seems much more interested in what he is saying. This is all part of a larger comparison where he concludes that he places the blame on Israel.

[–] commiewithoutorgans@hexbear.net 15 points 4 months ago

If any of this is truly what was "intended" by the speaker, then that's just horrible speaking and that person shouldn't be allowed to speak at such events. Unbelievably terrible method of making a point. A sarcastic tone, and even a strong and clear one, is not a rhetorical tool that serious people should use, let alone to condemn genocide.

[–] bbnh69420@hexbear.net 13 points 4 months ago

Sure, ok