GUEST BLOG: Pat O’Dea – The genocide deniers

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The Genocide Deniers
They are not who you think.

The pro-Labour Party website The Standard which has always been a safe haven for pro-Assad fascists and assorted Kremlin bootlickers.

Is now also a safe haven for genocide deniers.
At The Standard you can praise Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, you can deny the genocide in Syria, you can deny the genocide in Gaza, you can deny the genocide against the Uyghurs.
But dare to challenge these genocide deniers and you will be banned.

Videos you won’t see on a genocide denial website.

In an email exchange between myself and the editor of The Standard Lynn Prentice it was explained to me that the editorial line of The Standard, which is exactly the same as the Labour Party position, is that it is up to others to determine that genocide is being committed in Gaza.

Why is this important?

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In Ireland the oppostion parties forced a vote on the floor of parliament for the government to officially declare that genocidde is being committed in Gaza by Israel. The vote was carried when pro – Israel government MPs vacated the house costing the government its majority. Our ooppostion parties could do the same, that is if they weren’t genocide deniers themselves. That is whywe must have this argument out. And Challenge the Labour Party’s genocide denial.

The following are excerpts from an email exchange between myself and Lynn Prentice the owner and founder/Editor of the pro-Labour Party website The Standard.

[The UN International Court of Justice, the ICJ, is not the ICC. They are two different courts.
The United Nations International Court of Justice is where Israel is being tried for committing the crime of genocide. The ICC is where individual war criminals are tried, the ICJ is where countries and governments are triedl. this is just a small example of Lynn Prentice’s ignorance]

Me: Just as the evidence for climate change is undeniable, the evidence for genocide in Gaza is undeniable. 
Your precision is completely stupid. That sentence is what I call a stupid and false assertion of multiple facts. All in less than 20 words….
…..speaking as someone trained in Earth Sciences  – that is still completely deniable given a possible alternate theory and facts to back it…..
…..Similarly there is evidence that there may be legal genocide happening in Gaza at a actionable level – which is what the ICC [sic] decided when allowing the case initiated by South Africa to proceed. Israel’s lawyers will and did argue that it was neither an intentional act, and that they disagreed at the actions cited as proof were evidence of an act of genocide.
But the important thing, that you clearly haven’t understood, is that the ICC hasn’t made a determination nor judgement. They have simply allowed a case to go forward to determine if an accusation is the truth. Eventually that will be heard in substantive hearing and possible conviction or acquittal.
You are treating it as if making a accusation is all that is needed to convict a person or country. It isn’t.
The irony is that that you are then getting upset when incognito accuses you of violating our policy (basically by acting like a dumb-arse troll), when what incognito was doing was warning you that you are stepping  over the bounds of behavior that we allow on our site. if you didn’t change your behavior you can expect a summary judgement.
 So what in effect you are are doing from what I can see in this e-mail, and that incognito pulled you up on is that…
  • You are making assertions of fact that may or may not be the case.
  • You just dump links in as ‘proof’ where most of those links probably just offer opinion and bugger all verifiable facts (at a rough guess – I haven’t looked at them)
  • Are trying to assert control over behavior or other commentators, moderators, and authors about what they should think. Which I class as anyone doing that as simply acting like a complete loud-mouthed arsehole.
  • Postulate that single people like “IDF soldier ‘Chai Hamo'” speak for an entire nation. This is like saying that you speak for NZ – and implicitly for me. Neither of those are the case.
  • Have been putting words into the mouth of others – show else can I interpret your statement – “How could they possibly be offended by me mentioning the position they support?”. Because I’d bet that neither has stated that as being their ‘position’. Most likely they are simply disagreeing with you asserting it as being ‘fact’. In both cases it does simply seem like you are lying about something being fact – when in reality is just merely your (most likely) completely unsupported opinion.
Me: If a Holcaust denier came on this site and denied the Holocaust and I pointed out that they were genocide deniers, would Incognito be offended on their behalf?
Holocaust deniers would get roughly (and I do mean roughly) the same treatment. Other commenters and I will take a great deal of pleasure in tearing their opinions and purported ‘facts’ apart – and then postulating on motivations of the holocaust denier. If they just stated that the holocaust never happened as a fact without evidence, then the moderators would be all over them.
Think of it this way – if I just asserted as fact that you were  exactly same as a racist member of a lynch mob hanging a uppty nigger, or a many SS guards in a concentration camp, or a religious zealot burning heretics and suspected witches in the inquisition. Because that is just who you are.

Especially and even if  I offered as ‘evidence’ is just some unrelated random crap culled from the net about lynch mobs, SS camp guards, or the inquisition, and absolutely no evidence about what you actually think. I could manufacture this in minutes. By the sound of it, this is what you did and what incognito pulled you up on

Would you be offended? I am pretty sure that you would be. After 45 years on net forums I am very good at doing exactly this kind of attack. I do it occasionally for educational reasons on trolls to stay in practice. I could make that in a jiffy.
That is what we moderators would call a “pointless personal attacks”. Which is what you clearly have been doing. Incognito would be offended on your behalf and would spend time dragging me across the coals. Because I haven’t offered an argument nor any relevant supporting facts.
However, if I quoted this email as supporting facts and some of your comments. Then pointed to documented evidence  from people and organizations sprouting the same, ran an argument around it , and said that was my opinion that you were some kind of religious racist political bigot of a type we should be wary of and not listen to.
Then moderators would probably ignore it. It is stands as a debate and not a pointless personal abuse or attack.  Moderators would keep an eye on it in case it gets out of the bounds. Might warn about tone and boundaries.
In the latter case, my argument has a point with some evidence to support and an argument. It is not just simple made-up abuse by by someone too lazy for formulate an argument and to provide direct evidence related to the person.
Most importantly it has something that other commentators can pick at because I will have stated my opinion and my reasons to thinking that my opinion is correct. I am not claiming to be an all-seeing god or the only person in the world with the TRUTH! It is my opinion and here is why. Not “here is my ‘fact’ and you peasants are all wrong” – which is what you sound like.
BTW: Be careful what you wish for. There are way worse fates than a ban. I know them and I use them when I think they are appropriate and educational.
 I have a habit of taking the positions of unthinking fools like yourself and applying their stated positions against them when I have time.
In your case, purely for your educational purposes, I’d start looking at all of your comments and excising the irrelevant links (stating why). Enhancing all of your many false statements of fact with pithy comments about the minor deities and their pretentious bullshit (stating why), and then summarizing at the top my interpretation of what you actually said usually something like  [meaningless unsupported waffle – no content].
In short – I’d act just like you do. Which would be the point of doing it.
Cheers
lprent (still the local deity at The Standard)

 

Pat O’Dea is an activist and a Unionist.

9 COMMENTS

  1. I’m surprised to learn that The Standard still operates and that it may still have readers.

    …and gob-smacked at the vacuous stupidity of Prentice’s comment/non-argument regarding climate change.

  3. The genocide deniers are not who we think they are.

    Genocide denial is not a Right Wing phenomenon, it is a Left Wing phenomenon. The Right, especially the Far Right, accept the reality of genocide, indeed they make a fetish of it. There are many instances of the Far Right calling for genocide and celebrating it. The Right and Far Right don’t deny genocide, they justify it.
    Genocide deniers come from the Left and Centre of the political spectrum. especially from what I like to call the Far Centre. The phenomenon of genocide denial is not confined to the Far Centrists, but also found on the Far Left among what are commonly referred to as the ‘Tankies’.

    Anonymous Standard author and editor Bill, provides us a classic example of Tanki behaviour and genocide denial, including censorship of views and evidence that rebuts his Tanki dogma.

    https://thestandard.org.nz/heroes-2/#comment-1299116

    Another notorious Tanki editor and author at The Standard, is former general-secretary of the Labour Party, Mike Smith, who regularlly posts pro Kremlin propaganda, especially in support of the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
    https://thestandard.org.nz/denazifying-ukraine/

    The Far Left, The Far Right, The Far Centrists, all have something in common. What unites them is their denial of empirical evidence. Each have a dogma, a dogma that when the evidence conflicts with the dogma, they reject the evidence and stick with the dogma. The more extreme, they are in their Left, or Right or Centre dogma, the more they ignore and reject the evidence that contradicts their dogmatic views.

    These dogamatists, as Owen Jones likes to say, want us to ignore the evidence of our lying eyes.

    From Google:

    Empirical evidence is information gathered through direct observation or experimentation, rather than through theory or speculation. It relies on sensory experience and data collection to support or refute a hypothesis.

  4. By majority vote in parliament, Ireland has offically recognised that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

    Deputy Duncan Smith
    I move:
    That Dáil Éireann [the Irish parliament]
    …..agrees that the Israeli Government is carrying out a genocide in Gaza, and is responsible for mass displacement, famine, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity;

    https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2025-05-28/9/

    This is the story behind that story.

    Fine Gail is the ruling government party in Ireland, Sinn Fein the biggest opposition party in the Irish parliament, known as the Dáil. Against a reluctant governemnt, Sinn Fein called a debate and a vote on the genocide in Gaza in the Dáil. The government lost the debate and in the subsequent vote the Sinn Fein motion was carried

    We could do the same here in NZ only if it wasn’t for the fact that our biggest opposition party, the Labour party “position” is that there is no genocide in Gaza, that it is up to the international courts to make that determination, not parliament, not them.

    The Sinn Fein motion in the Dail on the genocide in Gaza, was carried.
    It was reported that a number of governement MPs vacated the chamber during the vote, It is hard to say why these government MPs did this, it could be two things, they either supported Palestine but didn’t want to be seen voting against their own government and party. Or they supported Israel but didn’t want to be identified on the permanent record as genocide deniers. it could have been both of those things. But the result was the motion was passed, and became the official position of the Irish Government, that Israel is committing the crime of genocide in Gaza this automatically triggers the genocide convention.

    Recognition of the crime of genocide by signatories to the Genocide Convention obligates them to act to prevent and punish the crime of genocide with all reasonable means at their disposal.

    New Zealand, like Ireland, is a signatory to the Genocide convention.

    We can do this.

    Every week for almost two years, we have marched and protested against the genocide in Gaza, we have written letters and signed petitions, all without shifting the New Zealand government’s position on the genocide in Gaza.

    If we want to do something meaningful for the people of Gaza change the government’s position, we first need to lobby and petition the Labour party MPs to change the New Zealand Labour party position on the genocide in Gaza.

    Getting our government to officially recognise that genocide is being committed in Gaza is the first step to getting them to do something about it

    Even in Ireland the movement against the genocide in Gaza, inside and outside of parliament, still has a lot to do.

    Fine Gael MEPs support the European parliament sending weapons to Israel against Sinn Fein objection

    https://sinnfein.ie/…/fine-gael-meps-vote-against…/

    (At least one Labour MP agrees with us).

    Labour’s Damien O’Connor goes against party policy in calling Israel’s actions in Gaza ‘genocide’
    RNZ
    https://www.rnz.co.nz › news › political › labour-s-dam…

    8 Dec 2023  
    A senior Labour MP stepped outside his party’s position in referring to Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide……

  5. Chris Trotter keeps trotting out the old saw that if the Israelis were serious about genocide, there wouldn’t be any Palestinians left.

    • Not only is Chris Trotter a genocide denier, by his own measure Chris Trotter is also a Holocaust denier.

      Chris Trotter, Lynn Prentice and Chris Hipkins say that it is up to the International Court of justice the ICJ to make a judgement that Israel is committing genocide, not them.
      By the time the ICJ judgement arrives it will not be a judgement it will be an autopsy.

      Liberal genocide deniers like Trotte, Prentice and Hipkins enable genocide. Without the liberal genocide deniers the genocide in Gaza would not be possible.

Comments are closed.