um, Kos did. :-)

So is this Markos' decision or one that is being pushed while he is away??

It's a Zionist plot, I tells ya!

But wait -- doesn't the shergald/Ben Heine/area 51/nativealien/sockpuppet brigade already claim that The Zionists run DKos? Does that make this a Zionist coup and an anti-Zionist coup at the same time?

This is utter bullshit.  Hunter is now openly threatening to ban people for posting opinions critical of Israel.  He does it based on a criterion they cannot possibly control: whether or not they have uprated some new incarnation of someone Hunter has previously banned.  The fact is, of course, that for such a person to post at all they must do so in secret.  So no one uprating them could possibly know.  Thus, the only way a person can be safe is to not uprate ANY pro-Palestinian comments (or, presumably, any other comments Hunter might disagree with).

This, at least, explains why people who criticize Israel face sudden banishment for any violation of the rules, but those who attack Palestine do not, even if they are extremely abusive, such as constantly changing the tags on diaries they dislike.  

...because it makes a valid point - how are we amongst the rabble to know who is a shergald sock puppet and who isn't?

I also have a pretty big problem with the insinuation that the subject might become off limits. I don't support a lot of what gets said in the Palestinians' defense, and I certainly am no shergald fan. But I think Hunter is going way too far here. It is troubling.

Banning is permanent. He does not get to keep posting here. Not as a woman. Not as an Irishman. Not as a canadian. Not as a midwesterner. Not as any of his fake identities. No dice.

It is that simple, and the rule applies to everyone. You get one shot, and after that you're done. That's been the rule for as many years as I have been here, on all sides of every issue and argument, so I sincerely hope people aren't going to start pretending to be surprised and shocked about it now.

It won't be considered an outing. It's an arbitrary procedure...

in the last two hours. The evidence is indeed concrete, and definitive, and unconditional. I have been able to track his sockpuppets through a number of methods, and they are indeed all quite firmly tied to 'Zilly'. I banned one of his incarnations yesterday, and I banned three more of his accounts today.

If you do not want to be known by the company you keep, I would strongly suggest you keep different company. He has been either lying to each of you about this behavior, either through omission or flat untruth -- in which case you should each rethink your relationship with him -- or some of you have been lying to me.

I'm obviously going to presume the former and not the latter, but I strongly suggest that you assume the same thing. You are his fellow bloggers: you're going to be branded by his actions, like it or not. If you want some advice from someone who knows full well what it's like to be involved in a group blog, I think you need to have a talk and decide between you what, if anything, you are going to do about it.