Remove political references from the repository #270
Conversation
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@tothambrus11 At the moment, I am busy with exam sessions at school and cannot respond in detail. Thank you for your interest in the library and for the compliments on it. If I can, I will provide a more detailed response over the weekend. In the meantime, if you wish to add any other questions or material, feel free to do so. The same goes for the members of your team. I want to clarify that the banner is not meant to divide but to foster a debate among civil individuals, as I gather from your message. I am open to modifications or even removal it, provided they are well-detailed and justified by accredited sources. Thank you for your understanding and see you soon, |
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Hey @scinfu , I'd like to explain why the banner you chose is problematic and what adverse effects it has. I asked my boyfriend to write from his perspective as he is more involved in this issue, and his background is more relevant to discuss this topic. Here’s what he wrote: I'll explain my background, the relevant historical context, the recent attacks, the current war in Gaza, the rise of extremism, and the legitimacy of the Israeli government. I won't address certain topics like settlements, land rights, or apartheid claims here, as these are lengthy discussions that don't directly impact the current conflict's dynamics. If you want to read more, I’ll include links that go into further details at the end. First, I’ll introduce myself. I grew up in Haifa, a mixed city with Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Druze communities. This diverse environment exposed me to a wide range of perspectives. During my mandatory conscription, I served as a prison guard in a facility for convicted terrorists and individuals under administrative detention, providing me a unique view of the conflict's complexities and extremism on both sides, including the relatively unknown phenomenon of Jewish terrorism. My heritage is Jewish European, which is relevant because Israel is deeply divided along ethnic, religious, and cultural lines. Some Historical Context and Its Impact on Israeli Society: The Israel-Palestinian conflict has its roots in the 19th century, with many different events shaping its development. Importantly, Israel has faced existential threats since its establishment, influencing its current policies and societal attitudes. The 1990s Oslo Accords aimed for peace but led to tragic outcomes, including the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the suspicious death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Oslo-Accords). The accords were followed by the Second Intifada (2000-2005), a period of intense terror with unimaginable levels of indiscriminate violence by Palestinians against Israeli society (https://www.britannica.com/topic/intifada). Daily attacks, including suicide bombings, killed and injured thousands. Israeli society is deeply traumatized with scars that persist to this day. I personally witnessed the bombing of bus line 37 in Haifa on my way home from primary school (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haifa_bus_37_suicide_bombing). In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip, evacuating all settlers and military presence. Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections—the last elections held—and violently took over Gaza in 2007. They executed their opposition, rejected the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority, and enforced Sharia law with brutality akin to ISIS (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp). Their charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews, perpetuating ongoing conflict and violence. Despite numerous attempts at peace negotiations, persistent violence, political instability, and mutual distrust have prevented progress. Many Palestinian leaders reject Israel’s right to exist. Slogans like "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" explicitly call for Israel's elimination and the expulsion of Jews. The October 7th Attack and Its Impact: The horrors of October 7th were unprecedented. Mass murders, executions, abductions, and rapes occurred at the Nova festival and in Kibbutz Be'eri, among other locations (https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s1gwdnawt). Hamas exploited Israeli charities to gather information for the attack. These charities, based in Israeli kibbutzim near Gaza, helped Gazan children receive treatment in Israeli hospitals and welcomed the children’s families to live in the Kibbutz during the treatment period. Tragically, these families provided Hamas with details about security measures, which were then used in the attack. At the time of writing, over 100,000 Israelis are displaced, with dozens of towns completely destroyed. The Following War in Gaza: The main reason for the immense destruction in Gaza is Hamas’s use of civilians, children, schools, and humanitarian organizations as shields, forcing the Israeli military to take actions that harm civilians. These tactics result in civilian casualties, often misrepresented by Hamas to inflate numbers and blame Israel. Israel is not genocidal or evil; it is a country at war with an opponent that exploits international law to gain support. If Hamas did not fire rockets from schoolyards or store weapons in hospitals, Israel would not attack these locations. Israel shares human rights values and depends on the West for prosperity and defense. Israel has made mistakes, and some individuals have committed acts of violence that are illegal under Israeli law and deeply immoral. However, claims of genocide are factually incorrect. The ICC has pursued cases against both Hamas and Israeli leaders, but the allegations differ significantly in intent and actions. The ICJ has yet to find proof of genocide, emphasizing that most civilian deaths result from Hamas's weaponization of civilians. Detailed information on these legal proceedings can be found in the official documents from the ICC (https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state) and ICJ (https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240524-ord-01-00-en.pdf). The Rise of Extremism and Government Legitimacy: I actively promote peace, liberalism, and democracy in Israel. I participated in protests against the judicial overhaul, drawing parallels to the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israeli_judicial_overhaul_protests). These protests were met with violent suppression, yet they showed Israeli democracy's resilience. Most Israelis see the current government as illegitimate. The majority of liberal and democratic Israelis oppose the authoritarian extremists gaining power, threatening Israeli society's core values. Despite challenges, Israel is still a functioning democracy with an independent judiciary. However, the rise of extremism, initially fueled by recent terror attacks, is now also fueled by global movements like BDS. The government uses these movements as propaganda, fostering a siege mentality that strengthens extremists and undermines peace efforts. The isolation of Israeli society from the West, as seen in Belarus (2020) compared to Ukraine (2014), would lead to a similar failure in resisting an extremist government. With Western support, democratic forces in Israel can succeed, but seclusion from the West will marginalize the liberal society and empower authoritarian extremists. Having BDS propaganda on your page without context is harmful. It strengthens extremists and blocks the path to peace. Support liberal Israelis and promote a nuanced understanding of the situation. Support liberal Palestinian voices to encourage compromise and peaceful coexistence. Misrepresenting the conflict exacerbates suffering on both sides and hinders the path to peace. If you want to include a banner that promotes peace here’s a link: https://peacenow.org.il/en I hope that you understand the perspective of my boyfriend and me. If you want to ask further questions, or discuss it more in depth, let me know. Links:
Some more relevant sources you can check: An Israeli newspaper that accurately represents current events and offers high level analysis https://www.haaretz.com Palestinians that share their view (some in Arabic):
Israeli activists (some in Hebrew, some in Arabic):
Other: |
This PR addresses an issue that came up in our university software project team in the Netherlands regarding the political reference found within the readme.
First of all, thank you for developing and maintaining this library, we audited many HTML parsing libraries and we found this one the best, from usability, ease of installation and well-maintainedness perspectives.
We have an Israeli team member in our team, and he was strongly opposed to using this library because of the BDS promotion. I myself usually stand very far from politics, but I wanted to dig a bit deeper to see why he was opposing so much, even though he is very much advocating against the war between Palestine and Israel.
I found that BDS, aside from being an advocate for peace and boycott of Israel in the war, is criticized for misinformation, cherry-picking information, antisemitism and others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sanctions#Criticism
Because of this, I feel/speculate that many people, especially Jews and people from Israel or just fighting against misinformation and against antisemitism (who of course also might have a distorted world view) are strongly disliking the BDS, even though they have the same intent and best interest to arrive at peace.
Because of this, we had to have an unfortunately bit heated discussion about this in our team (all of us not being fully aware of the exact political situation). My Israeli teammate was strongly opposing using this library as in his eyes, it promotes misinformation.
We as a team believe that the authors of this library acted from their best interest, and displayed the BDS banner from their best interest for advocating human rights and peace. I suppose no political party, movement or organization can be perfect and not have any controversy around it. I don't have the wisdom of knowing whether there is a better, non-controversial movement that advocates for peace that could replace the BDS banner but until someone finds one, I would recommend removing the political references from the library's main page because as of now, even though the core intent behind it is nice, the banner for BDS is inappropriate for an HTML parsing library.
We believe that while supporting peace is important, separating controversy and politics from professional life and technology is important, as it causes the like-minded people to be divided, and might cause conflicts within the team, or if they want to avoid conflicts and having a proper argument to understand each other's perspectives they might make the team accept to use a library that is not as good and well-maintained as this one.
For now I would recommend to remove all political references from the repository, and possibly later add back some links or banner that somehow captures the pure intent of the authors of promoting peace without causing controversy between people who also stand for peace.