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Total number of comments: 11 (since 2010-01-14 20:48:03)

Yaniv Reich

Website: http://www.hybridstates.com

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  • The case against circumcision
    • Yaniv Reich August 7, 2011 at 11:11 am

      You make the very simple mistake of confusing my comments on (some of) your specific arguments with "advocacy" for a "barbaric procedure". My comments were nothing of the sort, as I think a rereading of what I actually wrote will make clear.

      As for the Dutch association statement: this is perfectly consistent with what I referenced that specified the benefits and costs, and determined that it was scientific unclear what makes sense from a strict perspective of reducing morbidity and mortality. I'm not sure what your particular affinity is for the Dutch medical association, but I encourage you to consider other sources as well, such as the World Health Organization (link to who.int

      Finally, the points about integrity of the body and child rights are fundamental, and I agree wholeheartedly. But as you will see in my original comment, these issues were not my problem with what your article.

    • Yaniv Reich August 7, 2011 at 11:00 am

      Folks, don't make the mistake of confusing a more accurate description of the science with advocacy for attacking children's genitals. I was responding very specifically to the health arguments that the original author made. I also said very clearly that the true cost/benefit of the procedure is subject (still) to scientific uncertainty. And I didn't say anything about child rights, although they are of inherent and essential importance and are moreover critical to the debate. When making comments on people's arguments, it's always a good idea to make sure you are responding to what they actually said, not what you imagined they think.

    • Yaniv Reich August 5, 2011 at 12:07 pm with 12 replies

      I appreciate your effort to cast a critical light on the accepted wisdom around circumcision. This is an argument I am sympathetic to. But your essay is filled with several misleading if not false statements.

      First, the issue of circumcision and STDs. This is my main problem with your piece. You write:

      "Circumcision reduces your chance of catching an STD" - Again, Europe and common sense are our allies. Why is it that in uncut Europe, STD rates are lower than in circumcised America? Regardless, are infants at risk of catching STDs? Shouldn't decisions about how to practice safe sex be left to grown men? Condoms and responsible sexual choices prevent STDs, not genital mutilation."

      While it is undeniably true that "condoms and responsible sexual choices prevent STDs", the scientific evidence is very strong that circumcision causes a reduction in HIV infections. The best studies are a set of three randomized, controlled trials from Africa, each of which was stopped mid-way for ethical reasons because the evidence was so overwhelming that HIV infection rates are reduced by circumcision. In particular, the results of all three studies suggested that circumcision causes a roughly 55% reduction in HIV infections. Of course, getting circumcised and having the knowledge of this might make you more likely to engage in risky behavior, which would work against the beneficial effects, but the biological case is perfectly clear and widely accepted (Wikipedia has a good discussion and list of references: link to en.wikipedia.org
      In other words, male genital mutilation *does* reduce your chance of catching HIV.

      Also, your comment about how many infant fatalities happen each year due to circumcision is meaningless without data on uncircumcised children to which we can compare the 100 fatalities. For example, circumcision reduces urinary tract infections (link to adc.bmj.com
      some of which kill infants each year. How does this number compare to the 100 fatalities from botched circumcisions? Well, we are not entirely sure (the study just cited concludes circumcision might only make sense for kids at high risk of urinary tract infections because about 2% of boys suffer complications of infection of hemorrhage from circumcision, what you call "highly risky"). The point is that the issue is significantly more complicated than your discussion suggests.

      There are good arguments against (and for) circumcision. We don't need to mischaracterize the evidence in order to make (either) point.

      It's always nice to have critical discussion around the conventional wisdom. Thanks for the article.

  • Internet killed the hasbara star
    • Yaniv Reich June 8, 2010 at 5:51 pm with 4 replies

      At the risk of self-promotion, I wanted to add another important contradiction to the list (from (a post in the Hybrid States blog).

      The first official reports that hit the Israeli papers claimed that activists had brought guns, which was cited as evidence of their violent intentions. This assertion was based on an argument about the caliber of bullet casings found on the ship, which Israeli navy officials claimed they didn't use.

      Days later, after this claim had been repeated all over the world, including by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren in the NY Times, an interview with the Israeli commando who claims to have killed six activists makes plain that he (at least) was using 9mm bullets.

      Thus, the only evidence given by the IDF that the activists had guns was debunked by their own commando's statement. Since then, I have not heard any additional statements from the IDF press office or from Israeli officials about activists bringing guns, this unsubstantiated bit of hasbara slowly fading from the official story.

  • Questions Ethan Bronner could have asked
  • At Yale, Judge Goldstone faces down his accusers
    • Yaniv Reich January 28, 2010 at 5:07 pm

      Great example, Marc B.

      It would be useful, I think, to generate a large list of such comments about the efficacy or desirability of boycotts.

      One of my personal favorites, which I wrote about in a blog post called "Israelis seek the destruction of Great Britain", was when ministers and Knesset members responded to the UK's possible initiative to simply label West Bank produce with calls for a UK boycott.

      Chutzpah knows no bounds. But it does provide us BDS supporters with excellent material.

    • Yaniv Reich January 28, 2010 at 11:58 am

      Thanks, I hope you enjoy the blog.

    • Yaniv Reich January 28, 2010 at 11:57 am with 1 replies

      I agree that apartheid as practiced in Israel/Palestine is harsher than anything seen in South Africa. To clarify, however, apartheid is more than a term applied to South Africa. It is a particular crime against humanity enshrined in the 1973 Convention on Apartheid, whose definition (updated in 2002) can be summarized as follows:

      "Inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity (including murder, extermination, deportation or forcible transfer of a population, imprisonment, torture, etc), which are “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” (Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court).

      It is very difficult to see any possible interpretation of this definition that would exculpate Israel of the crime of apartheid.

    • Yaniv Reich January 28, 2010 at 1:16 am with 6 replies

      Hi Phil, I asked the question about apartheid, having recently re-read its legal definition and having been stunned (yet again) at how similar it was to the current state of affairs in Israel/Palestine.

      As you note, his response was telling. He highlighted the segregated road system as a feature even worse than apartheid South Africa. And though he did argue slightly against the use of the term because of its emotionality, he seemed to do so only on the basis of practicality. When I pressed him a bit about whether or not its currently so controversial simply because we are still early in the debate, he agreed. I got the distinct impression he had chosen his legal battle and war crimes were it.

      Thanks for the excellent, and extraordinarily quick, post on the event.

      Oh, and it would have been nice to meet you.

      Yaniv Reich from Hybrid States blog.

  • From Hebron to Yad Vashem: Jewish Sorrow Justifying the Sorrow of Others
    • Yaniv Reich January 14, 2010 at 5:36 pm with 1 replies

      Thanks for this article.

      On my most recent visit to Yad Vashem, I too had spent the previous couple days in the occupied West Bank---Hebron, Bethlehem, and the Deheisha refugee camp, in my case. It was a remarkable transition to make from the shadows of the segregation wall, the video camera-clad military towers, the checkpoints, the system of ID cards to the absolutely stunning presentation inside the museum.

      As you know, the main hall of the new Yad Vashem is organized chronologically, so one is first exposed to the increasing oppression of the 1930s before one arrives at any of the death camps and mass graves.

      For me the most unsettling and terrifying impression was that of the similarities between the Jewish ghettos of Germany, Poland, etc., and the current system of de jure apartheid that one witnesses on any trip to the West Bank. The walls, the concentrated and deliberate poverty, the discriminatory system based on identity, the growing desperation.

      Of course, by late 1940 the Nazi regime had shifted somewhat and embarked on the quick liquidation of Europe's Jews. To compare the current situation in occupied Palestine is emphatically not to accuse the Israeli government of the worst Nazi crimes. It is, however, to recognize the alarming degree to which modern Israel has recreated the depressing, oppressive conditions faced by Germany and Poland's Jews in the late 1930s.

      We should know better, precisely because we as a people have suffered the same.

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