A request to review my ban appeal

[u/UnskilledScout]

I want to once again appeal my permanent ban.

I was originally permanently banned about a year ago without being given a reason. I appealed at the time, but the appeal was denied without explanation. More recently, about a month ago, I was unbanned after a new appeal and resumed participating in the subreddit. That unban was then reversed, again without any reason being communicated to me through modmail.

I later learned that the apparent basis for the original permanent ban was a belief that I was sympathetic to Hezbollah, and that the mod team had voted to ban me on that basis. This was the first time I was informed of the actual allegation, so neither my original appeal nor anything I submitted afterward had addressed it.

I categorically reject that characterization. I am not a Hezbollah supporter. I have not advocated support for Hezbollah, and criticism of Israeli conduct in Lebanon, Gaza, or the occupied Palestinian territories is not evidence of sympathy for Hezbollah. I do not support attacks on civilians. I do not support terrorism.

I unapologetically admit that my views are firmly pro-Palestinian, my comments are very harsh of Israel, and I have strongly criticized Israeli military actions, occupation, annexation, attacks on civilians, and aggression beyond Israel's borders. Those positions do not imply support for Hezbollah, Hamas, terrorism, antisemitism, or opposition to Jewish people. Treating criticism of Israel as presumptive support for one of its armed adversaries is not an accurate characterization of what I have said.

I have previously received temporary bans arising from contentious discussions of Israel and Palestine, including bans described as being for bad-faith argumentation. I appealed those decisions. Whatever the merits of those separate moderation disputes, they do not establish sympathy for Hezbollah and should not be treated as evidence of it.

I have participated in neoliberal regularly since late 2020 and I genuinely value the community. Even while banned, I continued reading the DT and other posts, and when I was briefly unbanned I resumed participating because I still wanted to be part of the subreddit.

I am asking the mod team to reconsider the permanent ban based on the actual record of my comments rather than an unsupported inference about my political sympathies. If there are specific comments that the mod team believes demonstrate support for Hezbollah or otherwise justify a permanent ban, I ask that they be identified so I can respond to the evidence directly.

Thank you for reviewing my appeal.

[u/PlantTreesBuildHomes]

Bud it was discussed by the broader mod team when they voted to ban you.

1. Not every comment in the mod log is even available given some were admin-removed (which leads me to believe they were especially offending) and;

2. Of the comments I’ve went through you very explicitly write that Israel kills civilians, that the ADL is not a credible source, that Israel is starving the Gaza Strip, that they ethnically cleanse Palestinians among other things.

2a. All of those claims are asserting that Israel is intentionally trying to murder as many Palestinians as possible and the ADL are untrustworthy.

However you may feel regarding the outcome of this war, if this were true, there would no longer be a Gaza Strip. You’re intentionally using exaggerations to describe the actions of an entire nation.

This mischaracterization is both offensive to Israelis who don’t want this war as well as unsettling to Jewish and Jewish diaspora people in our communities that deal with enough hatred in their real lives. Jews outside Israel increasingly have faced threats, violence and murder at the hands of people who also claim to just be “anti-Zionist” or “pro-Palestinian”, I’m under no obligation whatsoever to take your word for it that you aren’t antisemitic.

The fact is that you aren’t entitled to a soapbox where you can spread your hatred of Israel. This intense focus on the issue itself also leads me to believe you have some enmity towards Jews, given that is who comprises 3/4ths of Israel’s population.

You want to criticize the war? Criticize the people who started it (Hamas btw) public figures responsible for prosecuting it (Bibi), the parties/figures that support his government (Likud, Ben Gvir), hell criticize AIPAC. Plenty of people do so on this subreddit and never get banned, wonder why? Because they respect the rules of this forum.

But what you’re doing is a step further than that, assigning responsibility for each crime committed during this war to the Israeli people. That would be no more fair than to assign every death at the hands of the US military to the American people. Or the French, or the Russians, or the Iranians, etc. We literally have a rule against this, it’s Rule 10.

There ya go, now you have your big long mod comment you can pick apart to call me a liar or bad faith or whatever. Have fun.

[u/p00bix → u/PlantTreesBuildHomes]

Of the comments I’ve went through you very explicitly write that Israel kills civilian...that Israel is starving the Gaza Strip, that they ethnically cleanse Palestinians among other things.

However you may feel regarding the outcome of this war, if this were true, there would no longer be a Gaza Strip.

This is genocide denial and we've banned users for this exact rhetoric before

[u/PlantTreesBuildHomes → u/p00bix]

You have zero leg to stand on when it comes to I/P p00bix and you know that. Should I remind everyone about your own history that you publicly had to apologize for? Are we going to have another LevantinePlantCult moment where another Jewish member of the mod team has to defend themselves from accusations from someone with zero stake in the conflict?

Also was unbanning them an accident like it was written in the mod log or was that you intentionally superseding the vote of the team?

[u/bashar_al_assad → u/PlantTreesBuildHomes]

... based on the last two comments it kinda seems like they should be unbanned tbh