By Alice Cuddy BBC News, Jerusalem
The call to Mahmoud Shaheen came at dawn.
It was Thursday 19 October at about 06:30, and Israel had been bombing Gaza for 12 days straight.
He’d been in his third-floor, three-bedroom flat in al-Zahra, a middle-class area in the north of the Gaza Strip. Until now, it had been largely untouched by air strikes.
He’d heard a rising clamour outside. People were screaming. “You need to escape,” somebody in the street shouted, “because they will bomb the towers”.
I did correct myself in that I only share his feelings as being persecuted. I clearly don’t know who is a minority in this debate and it was wrong to assume so.
If you look at the actions of Western media and governments, it’s pretty clear who is the minority. Palestinian activists have become much more vocal because they’re the minority, and no one is standing up for Gazans.
Regardless, you are not being persecuted, by saying so you’re trivializing those that are.
I said only on Lemmy.
I actually empathized with the man. I think he should be allowed to express himself without being persecuted EVEN THOUGH I THINK HIS OPINION IS WRONG.
It came out wrong because of my talk of minority.
I think you need to look up what it means to be persecuted
I agree with your statement and would retract the use of the word “persecuted”, as it is a matter of severity.
Being ostracized in a Lemmy debate clearly isn’t persecution. It is a lack of pluralism or tolerance. Something you can criticize, but definitely isn’t something anyone owes anyone else here. It’s more of a matter of civility.