Ryan Girdusky clashed with British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan on Monday night.

CNN has banned a conservative commentator from appearing on the network again after he told a Muslim journalist “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” an apparent reference to the spate of exploding pagers in Lebanon that killed members of the Hezbollah militant group last month.

Ryan Girdusky made the comment during a heated debate with Mehdi Hasan, a prominent British-American broadcaster and an outspoken critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, on “CNN Newsnight” with host Abby Phillip.

The guests were discussing the racist jokes made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, which overshadowed former President Donald Trump’s rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday and continue to make headlines two days later.

As the debate turned fractious, Girdusky and Hasan sparred over whether the latter had been labeled an anti-Semite. “I’m a supporter of the Palestinians, I’m used to it,” Hasan said.

Girdusky replied: “Well I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.”

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305 points

I’m still flabbergasted that there hasn’t been more of an international outrage concerning those pagers.

The use of mines as an indiscriminate weapon are already frowned upon,

And here they are using them, scattered throughout a civilian population with absolutely no regard to who could be standing next to their target.

Un-fucking believable.

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39 points

What’s even crazier for me to wrap my head around is those pagers were a safer method for civilians than what they’ve been doing. They’re indiscriminately leveling city blocks killing thousands of innocents.

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54 points
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There has been minimal pushback to the Israeli apartheid regime and decades long genocide in Palestine. You think a few more deaths are going to inspire real international action?

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172 points

They bombed dozens of hospitals and orphanages across two countries and also started a starvation siege since that time.

There is no outrage left

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21 points

There is no outrage left

This really hit me. As in maybe it explains some things since the internet was created. It’s indeed so hard to keep up.

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12 points

It’s indeed so hard to keep up.

I know it’s different, but that reminds me of the Gish gallop.

“The Gish gallop is a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate attempts to overwhelm an opponent by presenting an excessive number of arguments, with no regard for their accuracy or strength, with a rapidity that makes it impossible for the opponent to address them in the time available.”

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69 points

There hasn’t been outrage because blowing up people with pagers is actually the most targeted thing Israel has done in the past year. Certainly a step up from killing hundreds of refugees to maybe take out one hamas guy.

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38 points

Accused hamas guy

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-6 points

Which pager strike in particular do you disagree with? AFAIK the targets were pretty open about their relations to Hamas and Iranian funded extranational militants.

IMO we should have just stopped giving Israel shells and rockets a long time ago and instead given them a very small amount of spec ops equipment like the pagers.

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36 points

They killed children in that pager attack. Which I guess is part for the course, so ya, nevermind, you might be right.

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40 points

Not mines, IEDs. It was an indiscriminate terrorist attack on a civilian population using improvised explosive devices.

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-26 points

Not improvised, and not on the civilian population, but you’re correct about the rest lol

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15 points

Not on the civilian population, other than pagers blowing up in public?

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-22 points

Indiscriminate it was not. It was hyper targeted at everyone in the command chain that got a beeper. It’s not as if they sold them through normal stores to the general population.

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26 points

Right, because pagers blowing up in public is not indiscriminate.

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29 points

They literally set off bombs in grocery stores and doctors offices. They killed a kid.

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6 points

It was indiscriminate and it was mass terrorism.

As of 22 September 2024, the death toll from the attacks was 42, including at least 12 civilian deaths. More than 3,500 people were injured.

At least 12 people were killed in the first wave of attacks, including civilians such as two health workers, a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy. The adult son of Ali Ammar, a Hezbollah member of Parliament was killed; Prime Minister Najib Mikati visited southern Beirut to pay his respects. More than 2,750 people were wounded. In the second wave on 18 September, at least 30 people were killed and 750 others were injured. One eye doctor at Mount Lebanon University Hospital reported that a number of those injured showed signs of something being blown up directly in their face, with some losing one or both eyes, while others had shrapnel in their brains. The Lebanese health ministry reported that 300 people had lost both eyes and 500 people had lost one eye as a result of the pager attacks. Other doctors saw severe hand, waist and facial injuries, reporting patients with fingers torn, hands amputated, eyes popped out of the socket and facial lacerations.

Health Minister Firass Abiad said the vast majority of those being treated in emergency rooms were in civilian clothing and their Hezbollah affiliation was unclear. He added the casualties included elderly people as well as young children. According to the Health Ministry, healthcare workers were also injured and it advised all healthcare workers to discard their pagers. On 26 September, Abdallah Bou Habib, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister, confirmed that most of those carrying pagers were not fighters, rather civilians like administrators. Qassim Qassir, a Lebanese expert on Hezbollah, said the attacks mostly struck civilian workers, leaving its military wing largely unaffected. An unnamed source said 1,500 Hezbollah fighters were taken out of action due to injuries, with many blinded or having lost their hands.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_pager_explosions

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-27 points
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indiscriminate terrorist attack on a civilian population

You’re describing what the Palestinians did to Israel on 10/7, and have continued doing this entire time, when they launch rockets at Israeli population centers.

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11 points

That’s also bad. Both of the sides are bad, and the Palestinian civilians are caught in the crossfire.

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21 points

population centers

Why does one side have population centers and the other human shields? It’s wrong regardless.

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3 points

Say what you want about Americans, we have yet to respond to a terror attack with fucking genocide.

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10 points

I didn’t realize that HAMAS was as large an organization as the Israeli government and armed forces.

We’re also talking about a completely different country from Palestine that had nothing to do with any part of any of these conflicts, and even then, an indiscriminate terrorist attack on Palestinian civilians wouldn’t be justified by HAMAS’s terrorism. That’s like saying that the US bombings on Iraqi civilians are justified by Al Qaeda’s attack on the WTC on 9/11.

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1 point
Removed by mod
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2 points
*
Removed by mod
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8 points
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This is a genocide on an incarcerated population, within an Apartheid State, founded on Ethnic Cleansing

Ethnic Cleansing is fundamental to Zionism

Zionism’s aims in Palestine, its deeply-held conviction that the Land of Israel belonged exclusively to the Jewish people as a whole, and the idea of Palestine’s “civilizational barrenness" or “emptiness” against the background of European imperialist ideologies all converged in the logical conclusion that the native population should make way for thenewcomers.

The idea that the Palestinian Arabs must find a place for themselves elsewhere was articulated early on. Indeed, the founder of the movement, Theodor Herzl, provided an early reference to transfer even before he formally outlined his theory of Zionist rebirth in his Judenstat.

An 1895 entry in his diary provides in embryonic form many of the elements that were to be demonstrated repeatedly in the Zionist quest for solutions to the “Arab problem ”-the idea of dealing with state governments over the heads of the indigenous population, Jewish acquisition of property that would be inalienable, “Hebrew Land" and “Hebrew Labor,” and the removal of the native population.

Settlements and Occupation

Israel justifies the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.

This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice.

The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:

Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:

While the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements

The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.

The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence. Settler violence sometimes precedes instances of official violence by Israeli authorities, and at other times is incorporated into them. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.

Apartheid Evidence

Amnesty Report

Human Rights Watch Report

B’TSelem Report with quick Explainer

Visualizing the Ethnic Cleansing

Peace Process and Solution

Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution

How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution

‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe

One State Solution, Foreign Affairs

Historian Works on the History
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40 points

It was a terrorist attack. We must condemn all terrorist attacks

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14 points

We must condemn all terrorist attacks

At this point it’d probably be less work to praise them when (if?) they don’t commit any…

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6 points

Every day Israel doesn’t commit an atrocity, they get a cookie.

Fortunately, I like cookies, cause it looks like I’m going to be hanging onto them for a while.

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-11 points

Pretty clear from the footage and lack of civilian casualties that the collateral risk was very low though

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-25 points
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Yeah no, the exploding pagers and radios, which were from an intercepted supply specifically for Hezbollah, was far more targeted than anyone could reasonably ask for.

Like yes, Israel’s overall actions in Gaza and Lebanon have been horribly ruthless and against civilian well-being. And there is the broader context of Palestine. But this is what you’re outraged by?

If everything between bombing Hezbollah and targeted attacks like the pagers/radio are off the table, like what would you actually do if a non-governmental military was indiscriminately firing hundreds of rockets into your cities for an entire year? Seriously, how would you actually respond if you were in the leadership position?

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19 points

Idk dude, generally things like booby traps are considered illegal in part because they’re not selective. Like if someone breaks in and you kill them with a gun it’s self defense, but if it’s a booby trap then we view it differently. Disguising bombs as typical civilian items seems pretty messed up.

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-8 points
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Did you forget that every “responsible” western power(Edit: Ottawa treaty) the US and Ukraine (who was a signatory of the Ottawa treaty) also has an arsenal of anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines which are specifically meant to be hidden and disguised? Quite literally booby traps with long-lasting risks for civilian lives. Many children have lost their lives due to mines, yet they are still deemed acceptable in war.

Anything that risks civilian lives is pretty messed up. But even compared to the mines being used in Ukraine, the pagers/radios were far more targeted and posed less risk to civilians.

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17 points

No dude, it’s pretty reasonable for me to ask that they don’t kill children with IEDs.

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-7 points

Serious question, would you condone assassinating Putin with an IED even if several children were killed? Would it be better if they used a missile strike with 5x the civilian casualties because at least it isn’t an IED? Would it be better to do nothing and allow an opposing military force to continue bombarding your cities and your children with rockets and missiles?

I abhore the mass bombings and utter destruction Israel has wrought over the last year. It is beyond the pale. I would genuinely have prefered it if they could’ve taken out all of Hamas by blowing up cell phones in their pockets instead.

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-1 points
Removed by mod
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10 points

well we know who could be standing next to their target- another brown person in a majority muslim country. IE, nobody western supremacist racist pigs give a fuck about which is why there was no punishment and there will be no punishment against israel for any single thing they do. if it were gonna happen it would have by now. it’s not as tho once they get to that 300,000th dead palestinian suddenly the “rules based order” is gonna enact some of those “consequences for breaking the rules” on israel. not gonna happen. someone needs to dylan crooks netanyahu.

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-1 points

The conflict is not one based on racism, it’s literally based on religion and at least 3 groups of people in a small area using their religion to justify the murder of others. Full stop. Jews are not white. Jews who were expelled from Israel and became Europeanized are essentially genetically identical to the Jews that remained. Skin color is not race, but making this conflict about race makes that individual racist

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5 points
5 points

Wait… what?

I’m I reading that right?

12 people killed. 6 of which were 2 children and 4 healthcare workers.

But 2,800 wounded? So all of that wasn’t even about neutralizing targets, but maiming?

How many were set off? I have a hard time believing a 12killed : 2800wounded ratio…

EDIT: Google says bout 5000 pagers

CNN: reports 37killked but 3,000 wounded.

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-3 points

The only people who had those pagers were Hezbollah members. Hezbollah has been lobbing missiles into Israel, killing civilians including children and forcing an evacuation. They picked a fight, why should there be an expectation that Israel just sits back and takes it? Don’t get me wrong about Gaza, they have gone way too far there. But Hezbollah seems at least somewhat justified.

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4 points

The only people who had those pagers were Hezbollah members.

Did they have camera’s in them to know that? and also know about people in the surrounding area?

Hezbollah has been lobbing missiles into Israel, killing civilians including children and forcing an evacuation.

And you think this is the appropriate response to that?

I get the Israeli people are absolutely tired of this shit. But what makes them think that kind of response isn’t going to do anything other than bolster the other sides hatred/resolve?

As they indiscriminately kill more, they are recruiting more to the cause. When someone loses their kids/brother/father/home/etc. That just makes them having nothing more to lose, and join the war. People don’t want to fight. People just want to live their lives.

Israel is the one with all the weapons/tech/money in this. If the Israeli people are tired of this shit, they need to look at a leader who’s not going to perform actions that just increases Hezbollah’s and Hamas’s numbers.

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