How not to get hired on Bay Street

[Yogurt Baron]

1 hour ago, Forever Curious said:

Fyi, the majority of people see through the fog of war, even in Canada and in fact Israel. 

 

52 minutes ago, Forever Curious said:

Not only is it not condemnable, it is in fact admirable and I’m so thankful to these students for giving voice to the voiceless.

I have no dog at all in this fight, honestly. I simply don't know enough about it to have an informed opinion, and if I don't know enough, I don't form an opinion. Generally, I'm three jumps to the left of anyone in this thread, so if you had a friend here, it would be me.

But, like...which is it? Do "the majority of people" agree with you on this issue, or are the people who agree with you "voiceless"? It can't be both.

I mean, obviously it's neither. One person in twenty agrees with you and all of them are really fucking loud about it. 

Also, I have really bad news for you about whether or not "the majority of people" can spell "Israel", much less having Big Feelings about it.

[Naj]

2 hours ago, chameli B said:

Some of the posts here are sickening and nothing these hateful posters say will negate the fact that they are horrible human beings who deserve nothing but contempt from society.

Which posts? Things have been relatively tame here. Let people speak, at the very least wait until someone says something truly outrageous before you start howling.

[BHC1]

For someone with the username “Forever Curious,” you seem very closed off to learning about opinions contrary to your own. 

I know you disagree with the view that the TMU letter was anti-Semitic, but do you understand why some people thought it was and felt deeply hurt by it? 

[Forever Curious]

1 hour ago, BHC1 said:

For someone with the username “Forever Curious,” you seem very closed off to learning about opinions contrary to your own. 

I know you disagree with the view that the TMU letter was anti-Semitic, but do you understand why some people thought it was and felt deeply hurt by it? 

My view is that that interpretation of the letter is racist and deeply founded in Zionist propaganda. Now, that is not to say anti-Semitism isn't an issue or that there aren't anti-Semitic events happening in relation to the conflict. I am also sympathetic to those people who have been indoctrinated to equate advocacy for Palestinians with advocacy for terrorists. But I can't just pretend that that equivalence isn't deeply rooted in and fueled by Zionist propaganda, decades of rampant Islamophobia, the war on terror, the military industrial complex, etc, or that that equivalence isn't preventing Palestinians from being heard or advocated for (and even worse, silenced entirely like in France or in this case, at an academic Canadian institution). 

Edited October 27, 2023 by Forever Curious

[myth000]

5 hours ago, Forever Curious said:

These are the  key points of the letter, not sure what I’m supposed to be so outraged by: (1) Israel is a settler colony and apartheid state, (2) condemning statements that minimize the colonialism at hand, (3) condemning organizations that have only condemned Hamas, and (4) Israel is ultimately responsible for the Oct 7th attacks, and that the attacks on Oct 7th are ultimately the product of Israel’s occupation and colonialism. 

Not only is it not condemnable, it is in fact admirable and I’m so thankful to these students for giving voice to the voiceless. I hope that other firms that feel this way speak out and expose themselves. What a dark time for the corporate legal profession. 

The real point in contention is "We stand in solidarity with Palestine and all forms of Palestinian resistance and efforts towards liberation".   To say this without condemning the recent murder of 1400 people smacks of support for mass murder to achieve liberation.  Modern norms promote non-violent resistance, mass rallies in support of Hamas or Palestine (without condemning Hamas terrorism) are not non-violent resistance as they are seen as tacit approval of Hamas. 

You sound like the kind of person I mentioned in my last post in this thread.  You are doing a better job than the TMU law students group framing the issues to appeal to adherents of liberal democracy.  But your apologetics will not be complete until you address the point of contention I noted above.

 

 

Edited October 27, 2023 by myth000

[Hegdis]

23 minutes ago, Forever Curious said:

 (and even worse, silenced entirely like in France or in this case, at an academic Canadian institution). 

Wait, if we are talking about the letter from the original post, how have the students been silenced?

Facing / enduring consequences for your actions is not the same as being “silenced”. Let’s not go down that road unless it’s really what’s happening here.

[BHC1]

38 minutes ago, Forever Curious said:

My view is that that interpretation of the letter is racist and deeply founded in Zionist propaganda. 

There's a lot to unpack here. I'm not really sure I understand how you came to this conclusion.

 

38 minutes ago, Forever Curious said:

Now, that is not to say anti-Semitism isn't an issue or that there aren't anti-Semitic events happening in relation to the conflict.

I appreciate you acknowledging this.

 

39 minutes ago, Forever Curious said:

I am also sympathetic to those people who have been indoctrinated to equate advocacy for Palestinians with advocacy for terrorists. But I can't just pretend that that equivalence isn't deeply rooted in and fueled by Zionist propaganda, decades of rampant Islamophobia, the war on terror, the military industrial complex, etc, or that that equivalence isn't preventing Palestinians from being heard or advocated for (and even worse, silenced entirely like in France or in this case, at an academic Canadian institution). 

I agree with you that advocacy for Palestine should not be equated with advocacy for terrorism. Palestinians deserve their own State, thought I hope you feel the same way about the rights of Israelis to their own State as well. 

 

What do you mean by "Zionist propaganda"? I agree with you that Islamophobia is widespread and wrong and that  Freedom of Expression is an important right that needs to be protected - especially for people with unpopular or minority opinions - but I otherwise don't really understand what you're getting at. 

[Anonymous]

20 minutes ago, Hegdis said:

Wait, if we are talking about the letter from the original post, how have the students been silenced?

Facing / enduring consequences for your actions is not the same as being “silenced”. Let’s not go down that road unless it’s really what’s happening here.

My full-service firm scheduled a meeting with me to speak about some of the pro-Palestine posts that I had made on my social media. I was essentially told not to post anything that goes against the firm's stance. I wouldn't say that's silencing but it's pretty darn close to it.

[Diplock]

Please bear in mind, if anyone is inclined to get offended by what I'm about to write, I have family directly impacted by what's going on over there (I'm being deliberately ambiguous) and the family that's impacted is on the other side of my natural inclinations regarding "right" and "wrong" in the broad sense of Middle East politics. So I have complex feelings here, and I've devoted some thought to the topic.

While there are some people who are genuinely devoted to anti-social positions (Antisemitism or Islamophobia and hated of Arabs, as case may be) I'm actually not quick to condemn even flagrantly offensive statements as emerging from hatred. And that's simply because the more obvious explanation is "my-teamism." I know others have suggested inattention, social pressure, etc. But I think my-teamism is a more pernicious and complex driving force. The truth is, there are very compelling reasons to support Israel and to view the Israeli struggle as the latest existential fight for the survival of Jewish people. Once someone is committed to that position anything that happens is viewed immediately through that lens. Similarly, there are very compelling reasons to be aghast at the consequences of Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands that has continued so long literally generations of stateless residents there are born into that occupation and bear their own children into it. And again, once someone is committed to that position anything that happens is viewed immediately through that lens instead.

I'm not trying to excuse, but I am trying to understand. And frankly, it's entirely fair to play armchair politics and simply dump on anyone who says or does something you disagree with, because I do that too. But when it comes to this particular conflict, everyone who really wants sustainable peace in some realistic form in the future realizes that getting there is going to require unimaginable levels of compassion and understanding to overcome historical wrongs and grievances. That work has to happen in the Middle East, of course, and our opinions on the Internet aren't truly relevant. But to whatever degree our opinions matter at all, it's ridiculous and hypocritical to imagine this work needs to happen over there, but we aren't able even here - in an incredibly low stakes environment - to put positions we disagree with in reasonable perspective. Instead, we take anyone who says something we find offensive and call them haters, racists, whatever-phobic. And once we've defined people we disagree with not as wrong but as reprehensible human beings who cannot be reasoned with...what's left? If we can't even do it here, what the hell do we expect in the Middle East?

So, I understand why people are outraged, and worked up to a boiling point. But despite my inclination to take offence where offence is due, I simply remember that innocent children are dying on both sides. If you are looking at dead children from one side or the other, it is entirely understandable to lose perspective with the issues on the side that just killed those children. We need to regain perspective, absolutely, because it's the only way to stop more children from dying. But I have a well of deep sympathy for people who just can't get there.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Diplock

[Forever Curious]

46 minutes ago, Hegdis said:

Wait, if we are talking about the letter from the original post, how have the students been silenced?

Facing / enduring consequences for your actions is not the same as being “silenced”. Let’s not go down that road unless it’s really what’s happening here.

It is when, as I've argued, what they've done is not deserving of those consequences. In fact, those consequences represent the very systemic racism I have been talking about. But even without going to that point, the university has condemned the statement and labeled it as anti-Semitic and intolerant. I'm sure that's just the beginning if the York University example is anything to go by. 

Edited October 27, 2023 by Forever Curious

[vital_signs]

16 minutes ago, Guest Anonymous said:

My full-service firm scheduled a meeting with me to speak about some of the pro-Palestine posts that I had made on my social media. I was essentially told not to post anything that goes against the firm's stance. I wouldn't say that's silencing but it's pretty darn close to it.

Interesting to hear about this, although very sorry that it has happened to you. I have some friends who are articling or are junior associates at the big Bay Street firms that are posting a lot of pro-Palestinian stuff in very public places. Have been curious if their firms are going to respond to it.  

[BlockedQuebecois]

39 minutes ago, Guest Anonymous said:

My full-service firm scheduled a meeting with me to speak about some of the pro-Palestine posts that I had made on my social media. I was essentially told not to post anything that goes against the firm's stance. I wouldn't say that's silencing but it's pretty darn close to it.

This isn’t silencing, it’s just another form of “actions have consequences”.

[Diplock]

I started out sympathetic to the "consequences aren't silencing" argument, but on reflection I think it's bunk. At least it's bunk as an absolute statement.

We can talk about reasonable consequences. We can even talk about unreasonable consequences. I can agree that consequences in a broad sense - "fair" or otherwise - are not the same thing as being silenced. And I think one side of this discussion is missing that nuance entirely, by trying to argue that if something shouldn't happen as a consequence then that alone proves someone has been silenced. However.

If we move to drastic enough consequences, I think everyone here will agree that at some point it does become silencing dissenting views. If someone is going to be jailed, or even risks being killed, for making statements against prevailing "appropriate" views, then we'd all call that being silenced. Which doesn't prove that's what's happening here, but it does prove that it's a question of degree, and absolutist statements like you aren't being silenced if can still speak at all but face "consequences" is also missing an important nuance.

I don't know where the line is, exactly. Obviously no one is being jailed or risking death, here, simply for stating views that some may find objectionable. But loss of livelihood and potentially an entire career also isn't a trivial consequence. At some point, there's a legitimate discussion to be had about exactly how much "consequence" does amount to silencing someone, in every real sense as we understand it.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Diplock

[Naj]

1 hour ago, myth000 said:

The real point in contention is "We stand in solidarity with Palestine Israel and all forms of Palestinian Israeli resistance and efforts towards liberation self-defense".  To say this without condemning the recent murder of 1400 4100 people, including 1500 children [death toll from October 7th to 20th(date when the TMU letter was published)], smacks of support for mass murder to achieve liberation. 

Disapproval of innocent civilian deaths goes without saying. As cringe as students generally are for calling on their educational institutions to take political stances, more so on an issue as dire and divisive as this conflict, it's pretty wild to effectively call them would-be terrorists in disguise for failing to preface with a condemnation that when flipped to reflect the other side would be a mere given, and therefore redundant to regurgitate. 

[BlockedQuebecois]

The line is well past loss of employment, which is something every decent human being agreed was settled when people started losing their jobs for yelling “fuck her right in the pussy” on live TV or espousing racist views. 

That principle is even more clear in relation to lawyers, who (barring disbarment) always have the right to hang their own shingle if their views have rendered them otherwise unemployable amongst polite society.

Nobody (of importance) is saying that LASL students or a lawyers at big firms should be jailed, killed, or have their tongues cut out. In the absence of the threat of such extreme consequences, saying “well actually some consequences are silencing” serves no purpose but to muddy the waters on the issue of whether the consequences reasonably contemplated by the participants in this discussion are “silencing”.

[myth000]

6 hours ago, Naj said:

Disapproval of innocent civilian deaths goes without saying. As cringe as students generally are for calling on their educational institutions to take political stances, more so on an issue as dire and divisive as this conflict, it's pretty wild to effectively call them would-be terrorists in disguise for failing to preface with a condemnation that when flipped to reflect the other side would be a mere given, and therefore redundant to regurgitate. 

Given my experience with law students in their personal lives, it really doesn't go without saying that they disapprove of innocent civilian deaths.  Many of them see any civilian deaths as justified in the larger scheme of things, the larger scheme for many being a religious one.  

Your attempt to flip the script is a red herring.  There are some privileges that come with being a recognized state, but these privileges also come with some responsibilities.   One of the responsibilities of the state apparatus of self-defense is to act according to the law, which in Israel does not allow the direct targeting of civilians.  People who support Israeli self-defense hence have the privilege of not having to preface their comments in support of Israel by saying they disapprove of the direct targetting of civilians.  Supporters of Palestine do not have this privilege because Hamas is not a recognized state and Hamas "law" allows the direct targeting of civilians and they do in fact directly target civilians as seen in the recent mass murder of 1400 Israelis.

[CleanHands]

I'm really not interested in getting too deeply into this, but I have to observe that obviously "disapproval of innocent civilian deaths" does not "go without saying" in the context of a statement saying that one supports "all forms of Palestinian resistance" in the immediate aftermath of a Palestinian political and military organization massacring over 1000 innocent civilians.

[Diplock]

As I noted earlier, I am very reluctant to stake out a position here, because (a) I don't want to deal with the reactions to any badly chosen word or turn of phrase, and (b) I barely know what I feel for certain anyway. But here's a question that troubles me, and that I've been wrestling with for quite some time.

Let us take it as assumed that Hamas targets specific civilians, takes actions aimed at causing civilian deaths, and that in the conflict at hand Hamas agents killed specific innocent civilians while they were looking at those civilians and chose to kill them for the sake of killing them.

Let us also take it as assumed that in Israeli airstrikes there are guaranteed to be numerous civilian causalities along the way. Those deaths include entirely innocent people, and children, who are just trying to shelter somewhere safe. Israel does not know the specific people who will die when they choose to bomb an apartment complex, but they do know that people will die and the know the body count will include children. It is a statistical guarantee.

My question is, what do we make of this distinction and how does it really matter? I find it easy to agree there is a great moral difference between the two actions on an individual level with reference to the people who take those actions. Anyone not acknowledging that moral distinction is failing badly at their analysis. The individual who chooses to kill a specific child while looking at that child is beyond redemption, whereas the officer who chooses to drop a bomb on a civilian target knowing children will die as bombing continues may be excused, by some forms of reasoning. As a wider scale question, when there are organized efforts aimed at large objectives, and someone orders those efforts knowing there will be a body count including numerous civilians and children...does the specific mechanism really matter so much anymore? I struggle with it. And anyone who doesn't...I don't know how to deal with them.

One thing I know for sure, if you feel I'm drawing a false moral equivalence, is this. Once we drill back down to a human level from the other side of the situation, there is no difference. There really isn't. If your child, or mine, was dead because someone chose to kill them, it doesn't matter if they were targeted as an individual or as a statistical abstraction. Whether shot while a monster looked them in the eye or bombed from above by a bureaucrat who determined that some dead children - which turns out to include mine - was an acceptable amount of collateral damage, dead is dead.

So we can agree, I hope, that on a human level from the perspective of the perpetrators, there is a vast moral distinction. While on a human level, from the perspective of the victims, there is none. Where I struggle is determining what, if anything, that means for analyzing the situation on a broad institutional level. And I don't know. I just don't know.

[myth000]

28 minutes ago, Diplock said:

So we can agree, I hope, that on a human level from the perspective of the perpetrators, there is a vast moral distinction. While on a human level, from the perspective of the victims, there is none. Where I struggle is determining what, if anything, that means for analyzing the situation on a broad institutional level. And I don't know. I just don't know.

I would argue that the perspective of a victim can vary depending on context.  If someone killed me because they hated my individual existence then I would thirst for revenge from the afterlife.  If I were killed as part of a genocide against my entire ethnicity, then I would thirst more for justice than personal revenge.  If I were an innocent civilian living near a terrorist base and was killed by an Israeli missile strike, then I would consider myself primarily a victim of my circumstances.  

Many people do not separate their individual, ethnic, and circumstantial identities like I do.  This lack of separation is probably why they thirst for personal revenge after an Israeli strike causes collateral civilian deaths.

[Diplock]

26 minutes ago, myth000 said:

I would argue that the perspective of a victim can vary depending on context.  If someone killed me because they hated my individual existence then I would thirst for revenge from the afterlife.  If I were killed as part of a genocide against my entire ethnicity, then I would thirst more for justice than personal revenge.  If I were an innocent civilian living near a terrorist base and was killed by an Israeli missile strike, then I would consider myself primarily a victim of my circumstances.  

Many people do not separate their individual, ethnic, and circumstantial identities like I do.  This lack of separation is probably why they thirst for personal revenge after an Israeli strike causes collateral civilian deaths.

I tried to avoid getting into this, but the subtext of your specifying that civilians "live near a terrorist base" is a variation on the "it isn't my fault for doing it but their fault for making me do it" argument. I'm not interested in those arguments because it's simply a version of what-aboutism that goes around in circles. What's relevant isn't determining who is most at fault for the existence of this conflict. What's relevant is determining the moral stance of the actions taken within the conflict.

People arguing on the Palestinian side think that living as a civilian within an occupying nation also puts civilians on the front line of the conflict and therefore it's Israel's own "fault" for creating the situation. Both versions of what-about are distractions from the ultimate issue and not any kind of reasonable moral position.

Note, in order to put the matter properly in context, I really don't think you should be imagining how you would feel after you're dead. Just imagine parents of dead children, and try convincing them the manner of exactly how their children were killed, and whether they were targeted as individuals or as a statistical abstraction, affects the responsibility of those who gave the order resulting in the inevitable death of children. Just try.

[Jaggers]

1 hour ago, Diplock said:

Let us also take it as assumed that in Israeli airstrikes there are guaranteed to be numerous civilian causalities along the way. Those deaths include entirely innocent people, and children, who are just trying to shelter somewhere safe. Israel does not know the specific people who will die when they choose to bomb an apartment complex, but they do know that people will die and the know the body count will include children. It is a statistical guarantee.

My question is, what do we make of this distinction and how does it really matter?

It is obviously hard to apply in practice (with no enforcement mechanism) but there's a generally accepted legal/analytical framework for this. A legitimate military target can be struck even if it will bring guaranteed civilian deaths, as long as the benefit of neutralizing the military target justifies the collateral deaths. While there's obviously not ratio you can just apply, there's a way of thinking about it. I actually disagree strongly with the way that Israel applies this rule in general and specifically in the last three weeks, and we've certainly seen comments that suggest many Israeli authorities have jettisoned attempts to consider/apply it in recent weeks (and on other occasions).

There is no similar framework for specifically targeting civilians. It's just not allowed, whether you're a state or anyone else. Hamas doesn't care, of course, but you'd think Canadian law students would. 

But of course, as you point out, none of this is any comfort to someone who has lost a child, parent, friend, neighbour or any other innocent person in the world.

 

[Mal]

There's a reason that using civilians as human shields is a war crime and arguing that Hamas' choices are not relevant to the moral choices facing the Israelis is an error. It is not "whataboutism" to properly frame a moral choice within the context. 

It is wrong to say intentional targeting of civilians is the same as collateral damage in the same way it is wrong to say that murder is the same as negligent homicide. As a criminal lawyer, I find it surprising that you cannot see the moral distinction between intentional and unintentional death. 

Israel has both a moral duty to minimize civilian suffering and a moral duty to defend its citizens. They can't simply decide to abstain from responding. Any discussion of what Israel should do must balance these competing claims. Any analysis of their choices has to contend with their available choices and their competing obligations. 

 

 

[Jaggers]

It seems to me that "we support all forms of Palestinian resistance" is the equivalent of "we support all forms of Israeli response", which means there are no principles that anyone should even try to follow. Which is a position I could never accept.

[CleanHands]

42 minutes ago, Jaggers said:

It seems to me that "we support all forms of Palestinian resistance" is the equivalent of "we support all forms of Israeli response", which means there are no principles that anyone should even try to follow. Which is a position I could never accept.

I can't get over the disingenuousness of the the people claiming that the statement didn't even implicitly support the Hamas attack, for this reason.

Any position that any group is justified in employing any and all tactics, without qualification, in any violent conflict is clearly immoral and wrong. This is basic shit that applies regardless of what the conflict in question is, or who the group being supported is. And the statement was made much worse by the context in which it was made.

Edited October 27, 2023 by CleanHands

[PhilosophyofLaw]

19 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

I can't get over the disingenuous of the the people claiming that the statement didn't even implicitly support the Hamas attack, for this reason.

One of the signatories of a similarly worded statement at York claimed that, by "strong act of resistance," they were merely referring to the bulldozing of a fence between Gaza and Israel.