Indymedia lists working again

by JoeMc Tue Oct 23, 2012 11:02

Hopefully a fuller statement from the indymedia collective will follow. I would be particularly interested in knowing whether the posts "hidden" since March will be made available .

by JoeMC Tue Oct 23, 2012 11:59

It's still before noon , but the time given for my previous comment is 12:05. The clocks don't go back until next week I don't think.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Tue Oct 23, 2012 15:12

oh give us a f*cking break Joe!
We promised to get the lists back when tech problems were solved and we did. If we really were the evil Cabal you seem to think we are then why would we bother bringing the lists back at all?? It would make no sense to do so. Except of course if we weren't the people you try to present us as and we really do want to see more transparency back on the site whether anyone is asking us to or not.

-wageslave

by JoeMc Tue Oct 23, 2012 18:46

Come off it ,hold your horses, give us a break etc , wageslave . I know it's coming up to Halloween witches and broomsticks and all that , but when did I ever say that you are part of an evil cabal ?

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Tue Oct 23, 2012 19:23

Tomeile / JoeMc you have insinuated on many occasions that the indymedia as a collective were dishonest and were, as a group, systematically suppressing information on certain topics.

Are you publicly retracting that view now? I hope so.

In any case, I'll take this opportunity to try to clear the slate. In the past, some people have used the comment section on this site to insinuate that Tomeile / JoeMc is in some way a "stalker" and a "pervert". Following an investigation into these remarks, and despite requests for people to produce any evidence for these accusations, no concrete evidence has been produced to date that this slur is in any way true.

Indymedia would like to apologise on its part for allowing these unfounded comments to remain visible, or be perpetuated in any way through this site. As far as we are concerned, the poster going by the title Tomeile / JoeMc is neither a "pervert" nor a "stalker" and is currently a net positive and informative contributor to this site.

We are still somewhat concerned about regular editorial comments, personal comments aimed at the volunteers who work here, reposts of hidden material and other transgressions of our editorial guidelines engaged in by this poster.

However since the ratio of positive and informative contributions to transgressions of our editorial guidelines has improved, we take this as a positive sign and we hope that this trend will continue, and for now we will generally try to give the benefit of the doubt.

We hope he will consider doing the same.

-Wageslave

by JoeMc Tue Oct 23, 2012 22:07

I disagree with Wageslave on a number of issues, but would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the many times he has shown genuine fairness when moderating this site . Fair play to you wageslave - in a personal capacity .

Indymedia as a collective needs to address the linked issues of Islamophobic and Zionist spammers still being allowed publish on the site . Indymedia won’t grow until it becomes thoroughly partisan and ruthless in dealing with them . By not automatically hiding their posts on a site that explicitly bans racist posts , indymedia signals that , whatever the personal views of its individual editors, as a collective it doesn’t regard Islamophobia and Zionism as racist .

by Contrarian Wed Oct 24, 2012 00:29

It's good to see the lists back up again. In their absence, moderation had become even more inconsistent, capricious and biased than usual. Even though I disagree with his politics, Tomeile/JoeMc has been treated appallingly badly by the moderators and the apology is well due. A first for Indymedia Ireland, I think!! Perhaps the re-enabling of public scrutiny via the lists (clunky and user-unfriendly as it is) will encourage moderators to actually implement the editorial guidelines in a fair and unbiased manner.

As I have pointed out many times before, there is a disconnect between the editorial guidelines and the real-life behaviour of the moderators. The guidelines and the site policy use words like open, transparent, impartial, free, and encourage the submission of stories and comments by ALL readers. Indymedia claims to be an "open and democratic newswire" on which "we want to see and hear real stories, news, and opinions from users of the site around the country." Indymedia further declares that "Anybody can post a story, or a comment on a story to Indymedia,"

It would be more honest to add "as long as they conform to the officially approved set of opinions" which broadly speaking are anti-USA, rabidly anti-Israel, pro-Shell2Sea, pro the AGW hypothesis and virulently anti anything that smacks of the moderate left eg the Labour Party, Eamon Gilmore, Trade Unions and ICTU.

Posts conforming to the official consensus are moderated in accordance with the written editorial guidelines. However the unwritten rule is that posts which challenge that consensus are unwelcome and will be subjected to different (and of course far stricter) standards of moderation than comments that conform to the Indy consensus. Another unwritten rule is that extraordinary leniency beyond the guidelines will be extended to favoured contributors particularly when attacking unwelcome posters.

Lest there be any doubt, wageslave has ADMITTED (in a post to the list on 25th February) to applying different moderation standards to pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian posts. This is the classic example of the disconnect between what you say and what you do writ large.

Truly Indymedia has left "passionate telling of the truth" a long way behind. Passionate promotion of favoured causes would be more accurate. There are now 3 basic choices facing the moderation team.

1. Apply the editorial guidelines as they are written.
2. Modify the guidelines to reflect the actual practise where favoured views are tolerated even if blatantly breaching the guidelines and unwelcome comments are censored.
3. Continue the current policy of selective and biased enforcement of the guidelines.

What's it going to be, folks???

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Wed Oct 24, 2012 03:20

Here's the post exchange Joe Contrarian is talking about that occurred on our lists for all to see:

Yes I hid an unsubstantiated post which in my view was crafted to deliberately distort an incident between palestinian protesters and the Israeli army. When substantiation occurred I unhid it, despite the fact that I personally thought it was underhanded and a deliberate distortion of the facts. That seems pretty even handed.

Yes these days I sometimes just let known Zionists and trolls substantiate their own posts if they want them to stay up. It's more efficient than having moderators waste valuable time fact checking such posts. Should we have to run around checking all the dubious unsubstantiated stuff that gets posted here or should the onus be on people who post dubious assertions or unsubstantiated statements to do the work themselves if they want their post to remain up?

email exchange referred to by Joe follows:
--------------------------------------------------------

Well joe

The way I look at it, Israel/us are "goliath" here and the
palestinians are "david"
treating both david and goliath equally is not actually "being fair"
is it?

We have a lot of pro Israel hasbara shills who come here seemingly to
deliberately derail any threads discussing the actions of Israel
Often they present reams of slightly off "facts" which sound ok but
are not quite correct.
Wading through these posts is tedious at best and creates a lot of
work to properly fact check them. (which is likely the point!!)
After doing this for a while I wearied of it somewhat. Now, rather
than doing this for pro Israel shills, I now let THEM prove their
unsubstantiated statements. Much more efficient! ;-)
The pro palestinian voices have not yet earned this complete lack of
trust with me on this site.

I'm afraid this particular post fell victim to those two principles of
mine on this particular topic.

furthermore according to Haaretz:
"MK Ahmed Tibi (Hadash), who took part in the demonstration, said the
soldiers beat him, and singled him out with the intention of hurting
him.
"They moved toward me like an arrowhead. One of them reached me,
punched me in the stomach, smiled and took off," Tibi said.The
demonstrators said the clash began after the soldiers threw gas
grenades at the protesters. A few of the protesters, including Tibi,
needed treatment for smoke inhalation."

So.. firstly the palestian kids actions were in retaliation to the
heavy handed actions in the part of the Israeli soldiers to a peaceful
protest.

also according to Haartetz:
"We wanted to have a quiet protest, but the soldiers must have been
ordered to attack Arab MKs,"

and
"An Israel Defense Forces soldier lost an eye on Friday, after being
hit by a stone during a demonstration"

and
"The sources said that Knesset members and Israeli left-wing activists
always stand in front during demonstrations,
creating a buffer between the Palestinian protesters and the soldiers.
Palestinian youngsters take advantage
of this buffer to throw stones at the soldiers, from behind the front
rows, the sources said. "

IMHO The picture painted by all this is:
the palestinians tried to have a peaceful protest
the soldiers bullied the MK and fired gas both of which made the
protesters angry
some angry youngsters threw some stones at them in retaliation.
unfortunately one of the stones hit a soldier in the eye.

This is not an example of deliberate violent protest, but more like a
peaceful protest that got out of control after the soldiers goaded (by
attack on tibi)and fired gas at the protesters.
As such, the post is misleading.

I took it to be a deliberate attempt to spin the incident to present
the palestinians in a bad light and hid it using the david and goliath
principle as guidance.

The post implies "violent protest" by palestinians

The reality was a peaceful protest where a few angry kids broke rank
and retaliated by throwing a few stones after cynical and heavy handed
provocative actions by the Israeli army. A fluke shot hit an Israeli
soldier in the eye.

As such, this post is quite misleading. Your evidence proves it.

However since it was hidden as "unsubstantiated" and the actual loss
of eye fact has now been substantiated, I will unhide it.

However, no guarantees It won't be re-hidden as it is clearly an
oversimplified distortion of the facts in favour of the Israeli army
and against the palestinians.

rgds
wageslave

On 23 Feb 2012, at 23:09, Joe contrarian wrote:

Hi WAgeslave,

Unsubstantiated, eh? A quick google search yields
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/soldier-loses...60470

That good enough for you? Must every pro-Israel comment be
substantiated
beyond doubt while anti-Israel comments can be posted without the same
restriction? How about consistently applying the guidelines to ALL
posts?
Revolutionary idea, huh?

Regards,

Joe
On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 4:55 PM, wrote:

Oscailt 3.5 Automatic Notification
Date : Thursday, Feb 23 2012, 4:55pm
Action : hide comment 287977 performed by wageslave
Reason : unsubstantiated

--- Comment 287977 ---
Parent Story : http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=101375
Parent Story Title : [Limerick, Israeli Apartheid Week 2012] Bil'in
Organiser Iyad Burnat on non-violent resistance to Israeli Apartheid
Comment Title : Terminological inexactitude
Author : nit picker
Organisation :
Email :
Phone :
Address :
Related Link :
Time Posted : Wednesday, Feb 22 2012, 3:23pm
--- Comment Content ---
I'm not saying the Bil'in folk don't have the right to resist BUT
it's
hardly "non-violent" resistance when it resulted in an Israeli
soldier
losing an eye.

----------- End of comment 287977 Content-----------

by indyfan Thu Oct 25, 2012 00:26

"as long as they conform to the officially approved set of opinions which broadly speaking are anti-USA, rabidly anti-Israel, pro-Shell2Sea, pro the AGW hypothesis and virulently anti anything that smacks of the moderate left eg the Labour Party, Eamon Gilmore, Trade Unions and ICTU. "

Hmm...sounds pretty much like they are well informed and have their heads pretty well screwed on then!

USA is a police state military bully, Israel is an apartheid state, Shell to sea are RIGHT, AGW is accepted by nearly every scientist in the area at this stage, and the labour party, Eamonn Gilmore and the highly overpaid trade unionists are all a complete disgrace.

Good on you indy moderators for seeing things as they really are!!

by wanderlust Fri Oct 26, 2012 08:31

You are editorially entitled to carry articles with the political and economic slant that pertains to the concerns of the collective that maintains this website information service.

Your popular comments threads have contained a sharp diversity of views. People who disagree with your Israel and American perspectives have been able to argue with posters. As long as there are no discernable trolls and racist trojan horses the continual debating is healthy.

Continue with your fairly endorsable policies.

by Contrarian Sat Oct 27, 2012 13:39

@ Wanderlust:

Yes, indeed, you have nailed the distinction between editorial material, which is entitled to adopt any position desired by the collective and moderation of comments where it seems reasonable to expect that the site guidelines will actually be adhered to. And of course while I would agree that "the continual debating is healthy" sadly I must disabuse you of the optimistic notion that "People who disagree with your Israel and American perspectives have been able to argue with posters." As wageslave's comments above amply demonstrate, the people who disagree with the collective's perspectives on Israel and America will face a completely different and more hostile level of moderation (ok, lets call a spade a spade and label it censorship) and therefore are very often prevented from arguing with more conformist posters.

@Indyfan

You really don't get it do you? (Mind you I can see why you're obviously a "fan" alright!) You may well think USA is a police state military bully. You may even think Israel is an apartheid state, Shell to sea may well be RIGHT (IN CAPITAL LETTERS, NO LESS!) and you might think AGW is accepted by nearly every scientist in the area at this stage. For all I know, the labour party, Eamonn Gilmore and the highly overpaid trade unionists might all be a complete disgrace. But do you really want these views to be compulsory? Here or on any other platform? Are you not prepared to have your cosy consensus challenged by the odd contrarian point of view? What about the concept of a healthy debate where the marketplace of ideas will winnow the wheat from the chaff? Put it another way - are the views you so definitively express so feeble that they cannot stand up to a little scepticism and challenge? Or for your ideas to survive, must opposing points of view be ruthlessly suppressed?

@wageslave

First of all, thank you for exercising discretion in allowing this thread to remain open even though it is commenting on editorial policy. And thank you for supplying the full post exchange that contextualises my previous comment. It does tend to prove my central point though. Which is that the editorial practice does not conform to the site policy and guidelines as published. For example, Indymedia states on the website that : "5.6 The job of newswire moderation is the most politically sensitive of all. Members of this workgroup must demonstrate an ability to apply the editorial guidelines as objectively as possible..." You have admitted to a blatant lack of objectivity in your post above:

Yes I hid an unsubstantiated post which in my view was crafted to deliberately distort an incident between palestinian protesters and the Israeli army. When substantiation occurred I unhid it, despite the fact that I personally thought it was underhanded and a deliberate distortion of the facts. That seems pretty even handed.

Yes these days I sometimes just let known Zionists and trolls substantiate their own posts if they want them to stay up. It's more efficient than having moderators waste valuable time fact checking such posts. Should we have to run around checking all the dubious unsubstantiated stuff that gets posted here or should the onus be on people who post dubious assertions or unsubstantiated statements to do the work themselves if they want their post to remain up?

You are admitting that you apply different standards of moderation to posts from "zionists" than to posts from other, presumably more politically acceptable, contributors. How do you square this with the stated requirement to apply the guidelines objectively?? And if you are GENUINELY concerned about wasting valuable moderators time fact checking my posts, then I suggest you can really set your mind at ease. If you examine my posting record over the years, you will find that I have NEVER posted anything that is demonstrably factually incorrect. Plenty of opinion that you can debate and disagree with but not a single factual inaccuracy and I challenge you or anyone else to show otherwise. So if you're going to subject me to an exceptional moderation (censorship) regime at least have the honesty to say you're doing so on the basis that you don't agree with my opinions rather than chucking around allegations that I (or people like me) post unsubstantiated dubious assertions. You may rest assured that anything I post here will be rigorously fact checked by myself before I put it up. It has to be because otherwise the usual Israel haters would pounce on it and go "Aha! Lying Zionist, Again!" etc, etc.

As I have repeatedly said, it is beyond doubt (and you have admitted it) that the guidelines are not being applied in an objective manner, There are only two honourable and honest options open to the collective. Either change your practice to conform with the guidelines or change the guidelines to conform with the practice by explicitly banning pro-Israel posts. Your current policy which is to say one thing and do another is blatantly dishonest and contradicts every principle you claim to stand for as a news media organisation.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sat Oct 27, 2012 21:13

Your comments on site moderation have been noted.

I find it somewhat Ironic that a pro Israeli commenter is essentially telling me that I should "only follow orders" and not let my awareness of world events and my moral compass feed into my decisions.

By all means continue to post your pro Israeli "balancing" comments. But candidly, don't expect too much leeway from me.

This IS open publishing. However It was NOT intended to be a free platform for the dissemination of the pro apartheid propaganda and rhetoric of the Israeli state, or indeed any other such propaganda.

Moderators have some discretion in their interpretation of the guidelines. Guidelines are exactly that. Guidelines. They are meant to guide. They are not precise absolutes like a mathematical formula. We are expected to do our best to try to be fair. We are expected to balance these guidelines with our own moral compass. We are NOT expected to "just follow orders" blindly. If we make a bad judgement call, there are procedures there for discussion and reinstatement of posts. That's more fairness than you can expect on most websites.

Count yourself lucky. Most self respecting websites would not tolerate half the sly pro Israeli apologist drivel which we have little choice but to leave up here.

Tread carefully Mr Contrarian. In my opinion, I already give Israeli apologists like yourself far too long a leash. I'm sure that leash could be shortened.

Perhaps you are right that the guidelines need changing. Maybe we should add "Propaganda" as grounds for hiding? What do you think Mr Contrarian?

by wanderlust Tue Oct 30, 2012 03:15

This site was set up, developed and maintained by a voluntary collective of journalists who felt that mainstream media ignore and distort many issues at home and abroad. The collective members have openly declared views on certain issues like Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and the general drift of US foreign policy around the world. As an independent observer not linked to any political grouping I agree with wageslave that the Comments threads of the site have been more open to divergent views than several hard left sites elsewhere. Anybody can post here, but moderators are on the alert for trolls and militant opponents of key editorial positions. The pro-Israel position doesn't get the same welcome as the anti-Israel position in the moderation of threads, and I can understand that happening in a site that favours the Palestinians. Perhaps supporters of Israeli policies have their sites too; and preference is given in them to comments that favour Israel?

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Thu Nov 01, 2012 17:43

"Perhaps supporters of Israeli policies have their sites too; and preference is given in them to comments that favour Israel?"

nah, that would never happen! ;-)

by Contrarian Mon Nov 19, 2012 10:46

Have the lists "stopped working" again? I can't see anything on the list later than 7.22am on Friday 16th November.

As there have been a few very dodgy deletions since then that don't accord with the Editorial Guidelines, I'm sure you won't mind if I raise them on the site itself?

by Contrarian Mon Nov 19, 2012 11:37

@wageslave

Thank you for your reply. However, it raises more troubling issues than it answers.

Your comments on site moderation have been noted. OK, I'm glad they've been "noted." Now, is there any chance they could actually be answered. Principally the most basic one that moderation practice does not follow moderation guidelines. Either one or the other should be changed if the site is to retain even a semblance of objectivity.

I find it somewhat Ironic that a pro Israeli commenter is essentially telling me that I should "only follow orders" and not let my awareness of world events and my moral compass feed into my decisions. "Ironic," eh, wageslave? That I presume is some kind of reference to the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. You appar to be saying that because the Nazi foot soldiers "followed orders" with disastrous results, that somehow translates into a requirements for Indymedia moderators to disobey the site guidelines. This is a dodgy proposition for several reasons. The Nazi orders (I'm sure you'd agree - a lot of Palestinians mightn't) were BAD. The Indymedia guidelines are GOOD (presumably.) And after all, the Indymedia guidelines are set by Indymedia itself, so it's not like you're "only following orders" - the guidelines supposedly describe what you do - I'm just pointing out this is not actually the case.
(As a bit of a side issue, the "only following orders" defence generally implies an unwilling perpetrator who is forced to comply against his/her better wishes. Despite their protestations, it is now apparent that the vast majority of Holocaust perpetrators were willing participants and thought what they were doing was right. A read of BBC historian Laurence Rees's book "Auschwitz", where he interviews surviving members of the SS guard who were stationed there makes that quite clear.)

By all means continue to post your pro Israeli "balancing" comments. But candidly, don't expect too much leeway from me. I don't. Your bias is obvious. However, I'm not actually looking for "leeway" merely consistent application of the rules. That too much to expect?

This IS open publishing. However It was NOT intended to be a free platform for the dissemination of the pro apartheid propaganda and rhetoric of the Israeli state, or indeed any other such propaganda.Hmmm. You want "open publishing" and at the same time you want to restrict the range of people to whom its open? That's left liberalism for you I suppose. To paraphrase Voltaire: I disagree with what you say and I'll do my damnedest to obstruct you saying it. Not very noble, is it, wageslave?

Moderators have some discretion in their interpretation of the guidelines. Guidelines are exactly that. Guidelines. They are meant to guide. They are not precise absolutes like a mathematical formula. We are expected to do our best to try to be fair. We are expected to balance these guidelines with our own moral compass. We are NOT expected to "just follow orders" blindly. If we make a bad judgement call, there are procedures there for discussion and reinstatement of posts. That's more fairness than you can expect on most websites. Sure, I would entirely agree that the guidelines should be applied with discretion and intelligence rather than blindly or formulaically. It would be impossible to do otherwise when posts teeter on the edge of the guidelines and judgement must be applied. However, when a post falls squarely within the guidelines, surely no amount of discretion or "moral compass" should permit its deletion. Otherwise your much vaunted moral compass simply becomes a vehicle for shutting out the views of others whose moral compass points in a slightly different direction

Count yourself lucky. Most self respecting websites would not tolerate half the sly pro Israeli apologist drivel which we have little choice but to leave up here.

Tread carefully Mr Contrarian. In my opinion, I already give Israeli apologists like yourself far too long a leash. I'm sure that leash could be shortened.And I thought moderators were expected to be "objective." Oh, dear!

Perhaps you are right that the guidelines need changing. Maybe we should add "Propaganda" as grounds for hiding? What do you think Mr Contrarian?It seems like you've already done so without telling anybody. A post of mine was deleted today with the justification given being "zionist propaganda."

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Mon Nov 19, 2012 12:39

if you looked more carefully, your post was unhidden again then later re-hidden as it was a straight "copy and paste" (of zionist propaganda!)

copy and pasting is not allowed. (guideline 14)

Using such material to justify israeli murder of palestinian children and journalists with US supplied hi tech weaponry is pretty shitty behaviour too.

I won't take any more lectures on my moral compass from somebody who regularly posts propaganda to justify Israeli murder of civilians and children

by Interested - Readership Mon Nov 19, 2012 14:26

I have statistics site but no longer works.

Do we have any idea of the readership of say Indymedia Newswire or Indymedia Ireland latest comments.

Even a rough take....

by Contrarian Mon Nov 19, 2012 14:27

.... I DID look carefully. I saw the two hides, one for "zionist propaganda" and one for C&P of zionist propaganda. I couldn't see the unhide (though I could surmise its existence) as the lists appear to have been taken down again. I don't know the time of the unhide, the identity of the editors who made the decisions. I don't know whether the unhide was genuinely done because the first hide decision was clearly based on a wrong reason OR as a whitewash of the first hide to be swiftly followed by a (slightly) more defensible hide.

As for guideline 14, it does indeed prohibit straight copy and paste. However this guideline is not enforced against anti-Israel propaganda material - there are copious posts by "T" and the obnoxiously named "Zionism=Nazism" in the same thread which are nothing more than simple cut and pastes. These are allowed - mine is not - once more the guidelines are being applied in a non-objective manner despite indymedia's own claim that editors (censors) are expected to be objective.

Guideline 14 also encourages readers to post interesting material found elsewhere on the web with a short introduction explaining its relevance and giving a link to the source. I did this although my introduction was perhaps a bit brief. I shall re-write and repost to conform with your nit-picking censorship policy.

Finally, I do not justify "murder" - I justify and support legitimate self-defence. Israel is entitled to attack military targets in Gaza. Hamas is entitled to attack Israeli military targets in certain circumstances. It is not entitled to attack Israeli civilian targets - that is indeed murder (or attempted murder) Yet such behaviour is justified, minimised or even gloated over (cf "Elric") by posters here on Indymedia. If it's "shitty" behaviour you're looking for, perhapos you should re-orient that famous moral compass of yours.

by Zionism=Nazism Mon Nov 19, 2012 14:50

Israel is entitled to attack military targets in Gaza.
Hamas is entitled to attack Israeli military targets in certain circumstances

so Israel is allowed to attack anything it considers "military" in any circumstances

whereas Hamas is only allowed attack in "certain circumstances"??

~Well your bias toward the Zionists (a racist nazi-like political ideology) is clear

by Contrarian - [Hamas=War Criminals] Mon Nov 19, 2012 14:55

Israel is entitled to attack military targets in Gaza because Hamas (which rules Gaza) fires missiles from Gaza at Israeli civilians. I would have thought that qualification was perfectly obvious but I'm happy to clarify it for you.

by serf Mon Nov 19, 2012 16:00

Well current figures show that 50% of those killed by Israeli "surgical strike" attacks have been women and children.

This conflict was started when a child was killed at a football match by the Israelis followed by a drone murder of a member of the palestinian elected government.

The Israelis started this. Then they squeal "self defence" as their excuse for killing even more women and children, and a few journalists as well. Thats pure crap

And the reason they started this is probably to win an election. How fucking cynical

Do you support that Contrarian?

by Zionism=Nazism Mon Nov 19, 2012 16:16

The Zionist plan was always to expel Arabs and steal their land, - everything else is just a smokescreen to obscure their real aims - they even used to openly admit this before the Zionist State came into being.

Vladimir Jabotinsky was one of the leading and most influential of the earlier Zionists. The Jewish Terrorist gangs, Stern/Hagannah/Irgun etc, that were responsible for the attempted genocide of Palestinians from 1948 onward, now known as the Nakba, were followers of Jabotinsky's' ideology.

Jabotinsky was an admirer of Mussolini and also borrowed much of his philosophy from the NAZI's themselves.

http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/ironwall.htm
The Iron Wall - (We and the Arabs)
(1923)

Some of us imagined that a misunderstanding had occurred, that because the Arabs did not understand our intentions, they opposed us, but, if we were to make clear to them how modest and limited our aspirations are, they would then stretch out their arms in peace. This too is a fallacy that has been proved so time and again. I need recall only one incident. Three years ago, during a visit here, Sokolow delivered a great speech about this very “misunderstanding,” employing trenchant language to prove how grossly mistaken the Arabs were in supposing that we intended to take away their property or expel them from the country, or to suppress them. This was definitely not so. Nor did we even want a Jewish state. All we wanted was a regime representative of the League of Nations. A reply to this speech was published in the Arab paper Al Carmel in an article whose content I give here from memory, but I am sure it is a faithful account.

Our Zionist grandees are unnecessarily perturbed, its author wrote. There is no misunderstanding. What Sokolow claims on behalf of Zionism is true. But the Arabs already know this. Obviously, Zionists today cannot dream of expelling or suppressing the Arabs, or even of setting up a Jewish state. Clearly, in this period they are interested in only one thing – that the Arabs not interfere with Jewish immigration. Further, the Zionists have pledged to control immigration in accordance with the country's absorptive economic capacity. But the Arabs have no illusions, since no other conditions permit the possibility of immigration.

The editor of the paper is even willing to believe that the absorptive capacity of Eretz Israel is very great, and that it is possible to settle many Jews without affecting one Arab. “Just that is what the Zionists want, and what the Arabs do not want. In this way the Jews will, little by little, become a majority and, ipso facto, a Jewish state will be formed and the fate of the Arab minority will depend on the goodwill of the Jews. But was it not the Jews themselves who told us how ‘ pleasant’ being a minority was? No misunderstanding exists. Zionists desire one thing – freedom of immigration – and it is Jewish immigration that we do not want.”

The logic employed by this editor is so simple and clear that it should be learned by heart and be an essential part of our notion of the Arab question. It is of no importance whether we quote Herzl or Herbert Samuel to justify our activities. Colonization itself has its own explanation, integral and inescapable, and understood by every Arab and every Jew with his wits about him. Colonization can have only one goal. For the Palestinian Arabs this goal is inadmissible. This is in the nature of things. To change that nature is impossible.

...

Thus we conclude that we cannot promise anything to the Arabs of the Land of Israel or the Arab countries. Their voluntary agreement is out of the question. Hence those who hold that an agreement with the natives is an essential condition for Zionism can now say “no” and depart from Zionism. Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population – an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy.