The Daily Kos has censored a statement from a leader of the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, with the comment
Edited. Information being conveyed to Americans from designated recognized terrorist groups is not allowed on the site. Thus, it has been deleted and the user is banned.
We strongly disallow messages to be conveyed to the site from such groups. The writer has been banned and any user who does it in the future will be banned.
mcjoan
What a high-minded thought!
But wait:
In the 1970s and '80s, the ANC was officially designated a terrorist group by the country's ruling white minority. Other countries, including the United States, followed suit.
U.S. has Mandela on terrorist list
So, apparently, had the Daily Kos existed in the 1970s and '80s, you would have been banned from it for quoting Nelson Mandela. Possibly you still can be: as recently as nine months ago, he was still designated a terrorist!
Aftermath of the Church Street Bombing of 1983, which Nelson Mandela, according to his book, "Long Walk to Freedom," approved of from prison.
Anyway, these are the words from a designated terrorist organization that dKos does not want you to see:
I am from the Palestinian armed resistance to the Occupation. I am opposed to violence against any civilians, whether they are Palestinian or Israeli, Muslim or Jewish. I hate fighting, but when soldiers invade our homes, our land, and our lives, it is our duty to resist them, to resist the theft of our water, our self determination, and our dignity. We are human just like you. We want to live, to have families, a normal life. But if we must fight to our death to protect what is ours, our land, the future of our children, we are ready to do so.
I invite you to look at maps and statistics of this conflict over time. I lament the killing of innocent people on both sides, but the tremendous disproportion of land and water rights, civil liberties, and civilian casualties on the two sides is undeniable. The international community calls us terrorists, but we would welcome any objective international presence to bear witness to what is happening here and come to their own conclusions. Is beating unarmed children, medical workers, and even internationals not terror? Is taking advantage of lulls in violence—when the press isn't watching—to accelerate expansion of settlements in land and water rich areas not a crime?
Palestinians have coexisted harmoniously with Jews in the past, and we are ready to do so again. After all, Jews are our brothers and sisters, people of faith just like us. As our party Fatah has said many times before, we are ready to live in peace with Israel if there can be a just and viable resolution to the issues of borders, distribution of water, settlements, Jerusalem, and the refugees. These are our conditions, and they are also our rights.
Chilling, isn't it? Probably the multiple references to water is what gets some people's knickers in a wad: we're not supposed to know, in America, that a third of Israel's water comes out of the West Bank.
I guess the idea of the accused being allowed to argue in their own defense is no longer a progressive ideal.
Do what you feel.
I only hope that I can be judged by the quality of my critics. :-)