While others have pointed out his pro-Hamas rhetoric, I would also point out that we don't actually know why he was detained. The Guardian is just citing speculation from an advocacy group friendly to him. The headline is technically accurate, but it could just as well read "journalist detained after eating cheerios for breakfast".
(ICE's lack of transparency is a valid, but separate, concern, and The Guardian could have at least attempted to contact them before publishing speculation.)
> While others have pointed out his pro-Hamas rhetoric
I refuse to accept these accusations by word-of-mouth. The White House is currently accusing former presidents of "pro-Hamas rhetoric" (which they never expressed).
It would seem to me that "pro-Hamas" is a meaningless cudgel used by the ruling party to justify mistreatment of those who oppose Israel.
It's not word-of-mouth, you can see his remarks about Hamas' Oct 7 massacres for yourself: "celebrate the victory", "how many of you felt the euphoria", etc.
That’s crazytalk. It sounds like something Pam Bondi would say but the other way around. If you celebrate a clear terrorist attack on civilians, you don’t have to be saying the name Voldemort (Hamas) out loud for everyone to see who you are.
How do we define a terrorist attack? Do we defer to the ICC, the ICJ, the US, the Knesset or the PLO?
Because if we apply that logic across the board, then the United States and Israel are both objectively complicit in internationally illegal war crimes. Any citizens that promote their legitimacy is trying to undermine global order, obstruct legitimate democracy and prevent criminal justice for organized terrorism.
Both sides have their faults, but I'm not willing to indict Hamdi for the same reason I don't accuse US citizens of being responsible for Abu Ghraib. It's not justice, just pugilism.
I agree with you on this 100%. Israel and the US are complicit in war crimes, especially of late. But I won’t believe for a second he wasn’t celebrating Hamas. I don’t want to associate with him in any way except defending his right to free speech.
> But I won’t believe for a second he wasn’t celebrating Hamas.
That's fine. But we can both agree that bigotry is not evidence of a crime. If we expanded this "I won't believe for a second" logic further, any number of Americans could be arrested for any reason. It's a slippery slope that you are making more slippery by making immaterial correlations. What you assume is not the same as actual rhetoric.
So yes, that necessarily includes when some alphabet soup agency makes a big show of having some mid-tier guy's door kicked in at 6am by a bunch of fed-cops for violating some law that HN loves.
You cannot quote a single part of the article you listed where he argues in-favor of Hamas, because he does not mention them at all. You are casting aspersions that do not exist, much in the way the White House has to resort to defaming former presidents instead of setting a morally-consistent example.
That's as ridiculous as claiming that any opinion about Baruch Goldstein is an opinion about Israel by-extension, whether or not his nationality is mentioned.
You're making a bad-faith extrapolation that most people know is desperate. If it was applied universally, you'd be crying foul too.
> I would also point out that we don't actually know why he was detained
That's always the way it works with secret police. The idea of due process of law and norm following is (1) expressly designed to provide assurances in cases like this and (2) being deliberately degraded and evaded by ICE and DHS at all levels.
Trying to make the story actually about bland journalism criticism is doing their jobs for them. To borrow your framing: your critique is technically accurate, but...
Right, which is why I called you out for bringing it up. Make your bland criticism of the Guardian in a journalism forum.
If the standard for criticizing clear ICE overreach (and yes, an unexplained detainment is very clear overreach for a department who are statutorily just supposed to be checking visas) becomes "You have to be able to prove that ICE was wrong before saying anything", then that simply makes them the secret police.
My point isn't really "no speculation is allowed", but that we should be honest about the assumptions we're making. The Guardian headline that kicked off this thread uses misleading wording to hide the assumption being made. It's fine to criticize ICE based on informed speculation if we're honest about it.
And my point, again, is that focusing on this particular criticism[1] seems like a transparent attempt on your part to deflect from the very serious story (ICE transparently harrassing "enemy" journalists without apparent cause) because, hey, maybe he failed to declare an agricultural product in his luggage. We don't know, amiright?!
It just doesn't seem to be a good faith discussion of the situation, and in particular it makes your position seem decidedly pro-secret-police.
[1] Which amounts, basically, to "Mildly sensationalist mid-tier news outfit used a sensational headline". It's boring.
I think the appropriate reaction would be suspicion, not jumping to assumptions. Speculation can be okay too, but we should be forthright about it, whereas The Guardian headline above tries to misleadingly pass off speculation as fact.
>... I mean it absolutely does. What on earth are you _supposed_ to do? Give the unaccountable secret police the benefit of the doubt?
Exactly. Even if this guy holds beliefs that aren't aligned with those of the US government, so what? That is not a reason to detain or refuse entry to a place that's supposed to embrace freedom of expression and of the press.
This is blatantly anti-democratic (small 'd'), capricious and just one more example of the current administration's attempts to destroy a free and open society.
Yet here you guys (@ajroos, @dlubarov, etc.) arguing about why the US government is abandoning the rule of law and trying to normalize authoritarianism and bad-faith governance. It doesn't matter why. It's wrong and evil on its face.
(ICE's lack of transparency is a valid, but separate, concern, and The Guardian could have at least attempted to contact them before publishing speculation.)