I see an increasing number of politicians taking the position:
"I supported Israel's government's actions when they first attacked, given the goals of destroying Hamas' leadership and freeing hostages, but now that it has turned into a brutal siege with mass civilian casualties on a horrific scale, I'm strongly against their actions." E.g. Macron, Angus King, and many people I know personally.
And I think we need to say "Great!" The dumbest reaction is "screw you, you were for Israel's invasion and you're an asshole." Movements that want to grow should accept people who change their minds when the situation changes, they get new data, or they learn a new perspective.
While I agree it's very important to welcome people who changed their minds, there are a few things that still annoy me:
- the situation was actually very clear from the start
- Israel has been illegally occupying, enforcing apartheid, committing war crimes for decades. You always ignored it.
- I don't hear any apology about the above, nor any indication that these people won't return to their default stance of pretending all is well in Palestine as soon as the bulk of the killing stops.
Was it clear? Did we always ignore it? Not convinced at all. All was and is not well in Palestine, but one thing I know, it ain't cut-and-dry, and Israel going all Hamas on Palestine doesn't make it so either.
Yes, it's perfectly clear and always was. One country is illegally occupying territories outside its borders, illegally annexing them, transferring their civilian population there, ethnically cleansing the natives, enforcing apartheid against those who remain, using its soldiers to protect its citizens when they engage in pogroms against the natives, periodically bombing them, stealing their water, destroying their crops- all while enjoying full diplomatic and military support from the West. Those who resist are deemed "terrorists", condemned and vilified, and are "eliminated", together with any civilians, women and children who happen to be in the way.
This has been going on for decades while the Western media ignores most of it, reporting acts of resistance and terrorism from the oppressed side as if they were motivated by ideological hatred, and in general depicting the situation as "complicated"- a position you're now repeating without a second thought.
There are other facts on the ground which go the other way, you just choose to ignore them. Like the fact that one side has offered a two-state solution, the other has refused it. Or that one side is much more democratic than the other. That one side has been openly and proudly promoting exterminating the other side wholesale for much longer, and much more vocally than the other side. You could use an LLM to come up with more examples, then verify accuracy yourself. But then what would be left of your comfortable illusions of clarity?
> Like the fact that one side has offered a two-state solution,
True. Hamas has offered this since 2017 [1] but Israel has never honestly offered it. And it's practically impossible anyway at this point with all the illegal (under international law) settlements in the west bank, supported by the IDF. Something you wouldn't do if you were trying to move toward a "two state solution", but something you would do if that was just talk intended to delay any implementation of Palestinian human rights in Israeli occupied territory while finalizing a drawn out campaign of ethnic cleansing as fast as you think the US will allow.
Yeah, it's Israel which "never honestly offered it", while Hamas, who always maintained that Israel has no place in the middle east, does offer such a solution in this proposal, while curiously not mentioning Israel at all, only that they shall take the whole of Jerusalem. But the article helpfully infers that this elision means Hamas would clarly accept Israel's right to exist. It just reeks of honesty...
Wow that supposed "both sides" facade really vanished pretty quickly didn't it? Not even a performative condemnation of Israel's constant onslaught of home demolitions and illegal settlements.
How so? Since I made it clear that I see both sides as responsible for the mess, it should be evident that I don't agree with Israel's excesses any more that with those of Hamas. (And anyway, even if I would have spelled out the obvious, you just revealed you would have auto-magically labeled my admission as insincere). All I wanted to show is how much truth-twisting side-pickers have to engage in to maintain their comfortable illusion of clarity.
Btw. it's not any prettier with hard-core Israel supporters either. Fair is fair.
Most of the ones listed above. Basically abusing their power in the region. Like all powers have done since the dawn of time. (Let's not try to imagine what would happen if Hamas would somehow get the upper hand either - shudder). Does this mean I should start taking sides with those who have been chanting "Death to Israel, death to America" for generations and declare that they were right after all? Not at all.
And what about Israel's right to exist? Maybe this is what you were referring by "interesting choice of words" - to some, Israel is itself an excess which needs to be corrected. If the self-appointed "corrector" is American, I will remind them on how their country was founded, the genocide of the native peoples, and how maybe now's the time to return it all to their rightful owners and head back to wherever their ancestors have come from. Lemme tell you, they don't like this line of reasoning. Especially if they're that special kind of Israel-hating American Jew: where would they go to, Israel?!? Now we're back to square one!
And the same argument can be applied to pretty much any people. We all descend from migrants who elbowed their way into territories where others were already present, and who, in turn, forced their way into the lands of even more ancient populations, ad-infinitum. Sure, it happened a while ago, but who's to say where the line should be drawn? Usually, self-interest: "the statute of limitations applies to me, but not to the Jews of Israel"; or "yeah, I'll throw the first stone, I have no qualms with that, all is kosher in my corner of the world..."
>If the self-appointed "corrector" is American, I will remind them on how their country was founded, the genocide of the native peoples, and how maybe now's the time to return it all to their rightful owners and head back to wherever their ancestors have come from. Lemme tell you, they don't like this line of reasoning.
Isn't this just a tacit admission that Israel is committing genocide like the American colonists did? Americans who are alive today at least have the excuse that they weren't around at the time and didn't actually commit the genocide, but the Israelis dont even have that excuse- they're doing it right now
> Let's not try to imagine what would happen if Hamas would somehow get the upper hand either - shudder
This level of cognitive dissonance here is absolutely bizarre to me.
We are watching israel perpetrate a genocide, ethnically cleansing Palestine and Palestinians. israel is cheering it all on, just like you said. The imagined thing you're shuddering at is happening to a different ethnic group and country than you imagined. How about a shudder for Palestinians? They are just as much people as israelis.
> And what about Israel's right to exist?
And what about Palestine's right to exist?
We have means of dealing with this sort of situation, but it requires israel realizing they are a party to the conflict, not the judge of it, and stepping back to let the established international bodies decide things. You know, like they did in order to get created in the first place? That would mean they had to stop the genocide, and they have refused to do so at every available opportunity (including right now).
Is this reply supposed to convince me that it's all Israel's fault and that the Palestinians are hapless and blameless victims? Because this is what I was disagreeing with. Yes, I agree that Israel should pull back, this is not going anywhere good for any of the parties involved. And yes, I shudder for the Palestinians caught in this - at least those who don't bear some of the responsibility, of which I'm convinced there are plenty. As I shudder for future Israelis who will pay a dear price for this continuous escalation. And I can sadly not see any likely solution to this impasse either.
> And yes, I shudder for the Palestinians caught in this - at least those who don't bear some of the responsibility, of which I'm convinced there are plenty.
Your convincing would be nice, but the judges in this matter are the relevant international bodies, not you or I or israel.
The relevant international bodies have decided that collective punishment is illegal, so regardless how much culpability israel personally feels innocent Palestinian civilians must bear, it is still a war crime. Any related complaints israel has ("human shields! this is hard!" etc) can be submitted, with evidence, to the same bodies for judgement, but that doesn't justify further war crimes.
The relevant international bodies have also decided that many of the other atrocities israel regularly perpetrates in Palestine should be criminal, and made them so. Thus, regardless of any justifications real or imagined, those further atrocities are still war crimes.
If there is to be sustainable peace in the region, it must start with the cessation of war crimes. Then the relevant international bodies can address Palestine's right to exist, which is equal in all ways to israel's, because Palestine is a country equal to israel, and Palestinians are people equal to israelis.
Do I foresee that this will happen? Of course not: every indication, including direct quotes from them, is that israel wants domination and ethnic cleansing, not equality and sustainable peace.
What's more interesting to me is that folks who support Israel often act as though their audience hasn't heard all these arguments before, and have't been passively absorbing pro-Israel propaganda for most of their lives. At least for those of us in the US, almost all we heard growing up about Israel was couched in sympathetic and positive terms. It's not as though there's a lack of Zionist perspective in a country where all the recent heads of state and political party leaders have been ideological Zionists.
How can we ever have a good faith argument if you believe anyone that says something supportive of Israel has been indoctrinated to do so "most of their lives"?
On October 9, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “We are imposing a complete siege on [Gaza]. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we must act accordingly.”
If that was not clear, Netanyahu said "remember what amalek did to you". If you know anything of what was done to the amalekites, you know this is a genocidal statement.
The statements of ministers in netanyahus cabinet and generals showed very well the intent going into this conflict. They are still adhering to it.
That was shortly after the Oct 7 massacres, and the total blockade was lifted shortly after.
"Remember what amalek did to you" is about remembering evil. The same statement appears at Yad Vashem, for example, yet no one has accused the Holocaust museum of calling for a genocide of the German people.
Except for under the ceasefire there has been no point in the conflict where enough supplies and food has gotten in. There is an acronym, SWEAT-MSO, Sewage, Water, electricity, academics, trash, medical, safety and other. It is a framework to assess the needs of the civilian population to, among other things, avoid having them join a resistance.
Israel has bombed all those things.
Your statement of Amalek is disingenuous. Netanyahu would not say anything that does not have plausible deniability. I think it is important to look at how his words were interpreted. Shortly afterwards there were at least two clips (one of which was use by south Africa in their ICJ deposition ) of Israeli soldiers (lots of them!) going to Gaza singing about destroying the seed of Amalek and "there are no uninvolved civilians".
The thing about genocidal statements is that most people committing genocide are not at outspoken av Gallant and Ben-Gvir.
given that Israel expanded their borders repeatedly, poisoned village wells, and considers the genocidal periods of the Nakba (their "independence holiday") something that's illegal to mourn... yes. yes it was always clear. the playbook has been the same since 1948.
If that's your criteria this is equally true on the other side of this conflict. Even predating the Jewish exodus from many Arabic nations.
The primary difference between them is that the side which openly shouts for genocide doesn't have the means that the side that at least doesn't openly shout for genocide has. (By openly I mean the majority of the people, not select extreme individuals. Some of whom are in positions of power.)
I'm not going the route that it's okay to want to genocide a peoples because of things that were done to them by another group of people. Because if that's your way of viewing this conflict, then Israel has more than enough to point at to 'justify' their genocide.
And I'm not going to excuse calls for genocide with "well, they don't have the power to, so who cares". Because all these routes lead straight to hell. You can't even begin to resolve the conflicts between these peoples.
This conflict isn't nearly as cut-and-dry as say Russia-Ukraine, and it benefits no one to pretend it is. Ukraine never invaded Russia, nor did it commit any terrorism against them. This isn't the case between Israel and the Palestinians.
Between 1968-2023 over 3500 acts of terrorism were committed by the Palestinians against Israel. Of which the vast majority (Between 70-78% depending on if you count purely civilian targets), targeted civilians.
You can argue for a long time which side committed the most heinous acts, but neither side is anywhere close to "clean".
So who are those people with guns in between Egypt and Gaza for the past decades? Or blocking Gazan fisherman from fishing for decades?
The Zionists leave a settlement in northern Gaza and call that "leaving Gaza".
The Zionists brought this on themselves when they decided to take over Gaza in 1967. 33 of the victims of the Zionist aggressions in 1967 were those brave US Navy sailors on the USS Liberty that the Zionists killed then.
Operation Protective Edge, Israel's most recent assault on Gaza, left thousands of Palestinians dead and cleared the way for another Israeli land grab. The need to stand in solidarity with Palestinians has never been greater.
Besides this, notice how they're implying that having left a region of Palestine (even if that were true, which isn't) means that no Palestinian from that specific region has a right to attack them.
As if no Ukrainian had a right to attack Russia besides those in the occupied regions.
As if no American except Californians would have a right to fight if California were occupied by a foreign power.
> - the situation was actually very clear from the start
Which start? There are so many in that conflict.
> - Israel has been illegally occupying, enforcing apartheid, committing war crimes for decades.
So did the other sides. For outsiders, it's very hard to know what's really going on in that region; so many history, so many details, so many emotions, so many abuse and killing... It's a chain of reactions and counter-reactions which is going for over a century. Don't assume that everyone can know everything.
Israel was also very good at manipulating the Western World and building on their collective guilt. Even if a politician knew what was going on, it would have been political suicide to speak out too much about this. Even now, it's a delicate topic. And people still blindly spreading hate against all Jews, while it's mainly the fault of some factions, is also not really helping the cause here.
> - I don't hear any apology about the above
Apologize for what? At the end of the day, there are all trapped in a situation where they have very little control.
"Both sides, X and Y, are bad" requires as a prerequisite that X is in the set of "bad". Doesn't matter which of X and Y are government policies in Israel or Palestine.
Now, if the comment you'd replied to was saying "it's all X's fault, Y is innocent", then "we've all seen Israel's true face now" would be a reasonable response.
Fair enough, I'm getting into the weeds a bit and left some things unsaid.
What I'm referring to is a rhetorical technique deployed to get people to simmer down and accept the status quo. Folks who support Israel know they can't get people to be 100% behind Israel anymore, so the fallback position is "it's complicated, the Palestinians don't seem like great people either so I'm not going to go out of my way to support them". That leaves the ruling class foreign policy establishment to run the horror show the way they like without any troublesome democratic meddling.
If you want to see an example from a historical genocide, just look at what the Turkish government writes about the Armenian genocide.
> "it's complicated, the Palestinians don't seem like great people either so I'm not going to go out of my way to support them"
People are complicated, anyone saying otherwise is also selling you propaganda.
Hamas in this case (and I do mean Hamas not Palestinians in general) were explicitly genocidal, mellowed a bit, and are currently back using explicitly genocidal goals.
Hamas were just fine with targeting civilians, have been for ages. Hamas are also weak, which is the biggest difference between them and the IDF. That power disparity makes it easy and obviously necessary to condemn the big strong force that's damaged or destroyed approximately all buildings in Gaza, and killed 2-14% of the population depending on whose estimate you follow. Some governments (e.g. Germany) do still find they need to say "well Hamas started it!", but overwhelmingly the international consensus is "I don't care who started it, we need to stop it".
This "complication" or messiness is real, but the implication is the opposite it is claimed to have. That it makes further civilian violence on either side more understandable, or less easy to judge.
Both countries fomented war for decades. On civilians.
Israel by tacitly/actively letting Israeli citizens illegally "settle" land that was not theirs, and the violence, theft and worse those settlers imposed on Palestinian civilians.
Those actions would be considered acts of war, if done against any stronger actor.
And Hamas fomented war with its responses and atrocities against Israeli civilians.
But this "complication" is of a kind that makes it even more egregious for either side to claim any moral high ground for continued harm to the other side's civilians. Making genocidal type starvation of an entire territory's civilian population even less acceptable. If that is even possible.
It’s fine to accept your mom or your neighbor changing their mind, but I think we should be skeptical of politicians changing their mind and consider what hidden, calculated motives they may have for changing it now, when they had plenty of information to reach the same conclusion over a year ago.
Then what does winning actually look like today? Sure. Run against these people and support their political opposition in the next election. But take the win on the short term and get food to Gaza.
It feels more likely that if you push the message "yes, this is great" for the short term win they get elected again next term.
When do you switch from saying "yes these people are great for flip-flopping" to "no these people are terrible don't vote for them", and how do you say it in a way that gets through people's subtlety filters and doesn't make it look like you're flip flopping yourself?
If we want to use Gaza as a political tool to achieve some political aim (ie get my guy elected), that will be in conflict with doing something to help Gaza. Because in most countries, doing something meaningful is likely going to require cooperation between politicians from different parties. And it’s hard to get people to cooperate if you don’t plan on sharing the credit.
I do think cooperation and letting bygones be bygones for the sake of progress are important.
But I don't think it's right to frame it as "get my guy elected" vs "help Gaza". Does decrying them on social media mean they will flip flop again and be pro-gaza massacre? Even if that's the case, it's "get someone elected who will avoid Gaza-like tragedies in the future" vs "help Gaza now" which isn't black and white. Also, these people cooperated to enable the massacre in the first place...
Israel's real enemy won't stop and won't surrender until that country and it's people don't exist. They have taken the innocent civilian's of Gaza / Palistine / whatever you want to call the area hostage. They are also so ingrained into the region that resources are literally siphoned from humanitarian sites like hospitals into deep tunnels beneath; as just one example of reporting I'm inclined to believe is credible, even with the mutual atrocities both sites are carrying out.
What would winning look like from a moral and ethical standpoint? Liberating the people of that region from the violence and suffering. Return them to a functioning society with social and civic infrastructure. Fully deny major violence and terrorism in the region for LIFETIMES to the point that the hate and anger finally cool off enough for people to move on.
...
Winning is going to require a multi-generational investment in humanity by humanity. It's going to require the buy in of the people on the ground. It's going to require a United Nations coalition and boots on the ground from interests in that region who want to raise everyone above the hate. Also the afflicted country will need to be an absolute DMZ for that entire time. Membership in the UN peacekeeping organization the only military service allowed (and then likely in other countries).
Getting from here to there? Even less popular than the hugely unpopular war(s) anywhere else in the world. Don't ask me how anyone could do it, those skilled in the art of diplomacy have tried for longer than my lifetime and probably longer than your's and NOTHING has stuck.
There are subfactions, both among the Jewish and the Muslims, that do better if the problem isn't solved and goes on forever, but there is very little in-faction policing: If anything, atrocities make them stronger. There is no peace while the criticism to the other side quiet in-faction criticism. You need people that want peace to be in charge, but what leadership wants is victory. Nobody that believes in human rights is going to like the costs of victory
> Israel's real enemy won't stop and won't surrender until that country and it's people don't exist
Funny, this seems to be a pretty accurate description of Netanyahu's current position. He understands that he exists politically only as long as he can keep the war going. So, of course there is going to be no end to the 'war' against Hamas, even though it has transformed into mass genocide of civilians using starvation.
I don't believe any part of my statement endorsed or supported the leader of that country either.
I offered a supposition for what real peace might look like in the region. One component of which is a peace keeping force that is not too close to the action, but also not from so far away as to be entirely insensitive or invasive themselves.
Understood. My point was that the current state is entirely of Israel's choosing. At this point, there is no functional Hamas resistance left in Gaza. There is no need to starve people by restricting aid and then gunning down desperate civilians when they try to get the meager food aid that trickles in.
Israel has lost all moral superiority at this point and probably alienated an entire generation across the globe. All so that Bibi can cling to power a bit longer.
you bring up an interesting point, in that after two years of war, almost none of the pre-war hamas leadership is left alive. why is hamas refusing to surrender even though all of it's higher leadership is dead? it should be clear that the "axis of resistance" wasn't coming to help on oct 8th itself, and two years later iran and it's proxies are toast. yet hamas opts to continue fighting, at this point it looks like a suicide cult that wants to drag civilians down with it for the purpose of martyrdom
>why is hamas refusing to surrender even though all of it's higher leadership is dead?
How's an organization supposed to surrender when all of its leaders have been assassinated? Who's going to walk up to an IDF emplacement while claiming to lead Hamas? How would such a death-defying individual prove that they had any actual significance to Hamas?
the recent talks in qatar suggested that even though disorganized, enough of a hierarchy still exists within hamas to negotiate. the main complaints from the american side was that hamas seemed to be inconsistent / fractured in their demands, outside of forcing the israelis to return to pre-war status-quo via a ceasefire that protects hamas rule
It's entirely possible there's no longer any single person in charge in practice, but rather a bunch of more or less individually operating cells - each with their own leader.
Imagine you are a 19 year old in charge of some Hamas survivors. Let’s say you want to surrender.
1. Would it even mean anything? It’s not like you or anyone else has the control to stop everyone else. And Israel will use any attack as a sign of bad faith and ignore the surrender.
2. Would it improve anything for your people? If Israelis are intentionally starving babies, there is no reason to think they will stop the genocide just because the militarized part has given up. Have you even heard any news of Hamas even fighting back recently or has it all just been killing civilians?
All a surrender would do is get you tortured for information and executed for no gain.
ironically only indian and pakistani news really report on the IDF casualties / hamas attacks, make of that what you will (IDF journalism blackout backfiring, news bias, maybe south asians love telegram war footage, etc)
What Netanyahu is doing in Gaza to Palestinians is broadly popular in Israel. The "opposition" coalition leader has made genocidal statements about Palestinians and there's no reason to think his leadership would be any better. This is a society where people directly benefit from ethnic cleansing and have spent decades already justifying it to themselves to get to this point. It's not going to be an easy fix of replacing one guy and focusing on him misses all the institutions that were constructed to facilitate genocide.
Wait, didn’t they launch 6500 rockets on Israel civilians in the 8 months before October? How doesn’t that moot your point, attacking while in a peace period?
When you use a phrase like "genocidal rhetoric", I assume that you consider certain comments to be wrong and bad. From that perspective your question could be generalized to "what's the best way to respond to wrong and bad comments on this site?" Keeping in mind that "bad" here doesn't just mean the comment is badly written—in internet jargon, it means the commenter is bad.
Curiosity doesn't exclude wrongness or badness—it's interested in it. How did this comment (or person) get so wrong and bad? Could that change? Is there a response that could pull them out of wrongness and badness into rightness and goodness? Why do most of my (<-- I mean any of us, of course) attempts to do this fail so badly? Is there a more effective way to respond? Might there be something interesting here beyond wrongness and badness?
That's the spirit we're trying for on this site, so that's the answer to your question.
If I ask myself what other approaches are possible, there's one obvious option, and that is to crush/destroy/defeat the wrong and bad argument (and person) utterly. This is the desire to kill the other person (if only metaphorically (and maybe not always so metaphorically)), and thus establish rightness and goodness over wrongness and badness.
So the "accepted way" here is to listen to the other and dance with them, rather than killing them (or their position). Dance rather than war, if you like.
Is there a third option? I'm not sure. When I look inside myself, I can find the listen/dance option (or one could say give-and-take), and I can find the kill option. But I'm not sure I can find a third.
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Edit: reading this the next day, I think the word 'dance' could have trivializing associations (e.g. let's just dance rather than deal with violence and tragedy). I don't mean it that way. I mean something like moving and changing in response to each other. If anyone can do that in response to the other, even just a little, then one's self becomes a place for at least a modicum of change.
As someone who abandoned rightness/wrongness 9+ years ago (except in the idea of alignment with the cosmos), I can say that "genocidal rhetoric" doesn't necessarily imply rightness or wrongness. There exist language patterns that indicate a perspective that, when culturally carried and compounded for years, has the effect of cultivating behaviors that lead to extinguishing a people, whether intentional or not. This is genocidal rhetoric.
As for options as to what to do with it, I find this useful for finding more.
I appreciate you dang and the culture you are trying to cultivate, but I think in a genocide civility politics are inappropriate. I'm jewish, and I am certain that "raising questions" about whether jews should live or die or are intrinsically evil terrorists would not be allowed on this site. For balance, this should be accorded equally to palestinians, who are in fact being killed mercilessly in line for food by Israeli forces and US mercenaries. pg in fact has been loudly talking about the genocide, which I appreciate.
I will try to be less flippant in my comments. Nonetheless, it is a lot of work to cut through genocidal lies that are often supported (at least in editorials if not in actual reporting) by the mainstream media. The north of Gaza has been nearly obliterated and still these guys get to cast aspersions justifying the annihilation of a people.
> "raising questions" about whether jews should live or die or are intrinsically evil terrorists would not be allowed on this site. For balance, this should be accorded equally to palestinians
What are examples of such comments not being flagged and/or moderated? I'd appreciate links. Such comments are unacceptable by any interpretation of HN's guidelines, and the only reason we wouldn't crack down on them (same as with antisemitic comments of course) is if we didn't see them.
> I think in a genocide civility politics are inappropriate
I'm not talking about civility and stopped using that word years ago. Shallow words like civility or politeness don't reflect how we think about moderation. (I listed a few past explanations about that below*, if anyone wants them.)
What are we looking for? Not sure I can answer that better than I did in the GP comment. We want people to listen to each other, because of the two available options—listening and killing—only listening is compatible with the core value of the site.
I know it's a provocation to use the word "killing" in this context, and obviously I mean it metaphorically, but I think it's accurate. When people stop listening and seek to destroy the other's argument/position/view, killing energy is the quality that shows up. I don't think it takes too much emotional self-awareness to feel this, nor too much self-honesty to admit it.
That is the dynamic behind weaponized internet comments. It's easy to deny, because the genre itself is so trivial, and so are the weapons (snark, tropes, etc.). But one need only sense into the feeling level and it's no longer so trivial—in fact, it's all there.
This explains the distinctive mix of rage and pain that flares up when one reads a comment fired against one's position, and also the distinctive mix of...let's call it righteousness and triumph that flares up when a comment is fired in favor of one's position.
Perhaps it would be less provocative to use the word "war" rather than "killing" for the non-listening option, but I'm not sure that abstraction is beneficial in describing this. It creates distance from the reality inside ourselves, and room for denial and evasion.
Regardless of what the best names are, we want the listening option, because the alternative is just more destruction.
(Needless to say, I'm not talking about you here, I'm talking about all of us.)
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* Here are a few posts touching on how we stopped thinking in terms of 'civility'...lots more can be found in HN Search if anyone cares...
how are refugees from russia and germany colonizers? are venezuelan refugees colonizing america by your logic? if the zionists aren't the colonizers, but allied with colonizers, then who is the backer? the ottomans? the british? the french? the russians? what prevented the palestinians from allying with outside powers if the israelis were doing the same?
when you claim colonizers, you're just making an excuse for the repeated strategic errors that the palestinians made, and will continue to make, that led them into this humiliating situation.
You're touching on a very true point by saying that the high-level ideas, like ancient homelands or Marxist theory, create a lot of argument that in the end seems to distract people from the obvious reality, which is the mass slaughter of civilians, many of them children.
In reality, the challenge remains, what is a better solution from the Israeli perspective? If the proposed alternative is they all pack up and leave or dissolve their government, there is 0% chance that will happen.
It may be in the interests of someone to kill a witness to a murder, but it's up to law and society to stop them. Likewise I am sure plenty of genocides have been in the interests of the victors, but it is up to law and civlization to stop them. What I am not sure about is that it is truly in Israel's interest to be known forevermore as one of the racial exterminators in mankind's long and fraught history.
Calling Jews “colonizers” of their historical homeland is ridiculous, not to mention that about half of Israeli Jews fled there from Arab countries, not from Europe.
Sources from the early Zionist movement are replete with discussion of colonization. It's only now when the connotation (not the reality) of the term has changed that Israel supporters try to pretend it never happened.
Apartheid South Africa’s real enemy—the ANC, the liberation movements, the “terrorists”—wouldn’t stop and wouldn’t surrender until white minority rule and its entire system didn’t exist. They had taken the innocent Black civilians of South Africa hostage. They were also so ingrained into the townships that resources were literally siphoned from humanitarian sites like churches and schools into hidden safehouses and underground networks; as just one example of reporting that many at the time were inclined to believe was credible, even with the mutual atrocities both sides were carrying out.
What would “winning” look like from a moral and ethical standpoint? Liberating the people of that region from the violence and suffering. Returning them to a “functioning society” with social and civic infrastructure. Fully denying major resistance and insurgency in the region for lifetimes—to the point that the hate and anger finally cooled off enough for people to “move on.”
Winning would require a multi-generational investment in humanity by humanity. It would require the buy-in of the people on the ground. It would require a United Nations coalition and boots on the ground from “responsible” countries who wanted to raise everyone above the hate. And of course, South Africa would need to be an absolute DMZ for that entire time—no armed liberation movements allowed, only peacekeeping forces sanctioned by the “international community.”
Getting from here to there? Even less popular than the hugely unpopular interventions elsewhere in the world. Don’t ask me how anyone could do it—those skilled in the art of diplomacy had tried for longer than my lifetime and probably longer than yours, and NOTHING had stuck.
———
wait; that’s not what it took.
It took the abolishment of apartheid; colonisation and oppression, peace was achieved. Your framing is flawed , it is framed as equal sides. Not the reality a colonial apartheid state.
south africa is not a good analogue since it's fate is different from that of palestine, and you are making this obtuse analogue to stir up feelings of decolonisation as a sort of nationalism
Think you are missing the point. This wasn’t an analogy about the actors , but rather the framing.
During apartheid , and towards the end plenty were making arguments for gradual control ; gradual processes which just would have further perpetuated oppression. I was highlighting the similarities to that. We also had people saying the ‘blacks’ just want to ‘kill the whites’ and it would result in violence.
Your mapping of roles is completely incorrect, Indians cannot be the Zionist since they were an oppressed minority and did not have power. Equating Afrikaners to ottomans / British is incoherent.
You, and the original comment completely ignores the power imbalance as was the case in apartheid South Africa. This framing further perpetuates oppression and is a way to prop up the apartheid state.
I won’t post all of the evidence here confirming that Israel functions as an apartheid state. Numerous reports exist that describe and draw the comparison.
> During apartheid , and towards the end plenty were making arguments for gradual control ; gradual processes which just would have further perpetuated oppression. I was highlighting the similarities to that. We also had people saying the ‘blacks’ just want to ‘kill the whites’ and it would result in violence.
If you are then making comparison to modern times instead of colonialism, then still not really applicable to gaza since gaza was not occupied Oct 7th. Therefore, Israel (colonization conspiracies aside) had no interest in gaza except for security.
I do believe the apartheid example / comparison makes sense when thinking of the west bank, and I do believe myself the west bank is experiencing settler colonization and apartheid conditions along that settler boundary.
If you do not believe that zionists in palestine were an oppressed minority until the mass immigration in the 1930s and the failed arab revolts, I suggest you restudy the history. Palestine would have easily ended up like Uganda if the Palestinians hadn't made strategic errors / failed their invasion of the newly declared state of Israel.
The Orwell link is a great read, and part of it suggests that both decolonization and underdog-centered pacifism are forms of nationalism. Here is a quote that I love, heavily relates to the troubles in ireland and some reactions to the current gazan war:
"But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of the western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough."
My concern is the politicians are suddenly flip flopping because they realize in the short term Israel is close to exterminating the entire population of Gaza. Perhaps they will let a pittance of food aid through to prolong the genocide so Netanyahu can stay in power. I have little confidence in US leadership actually having a change of heart now.
it's worth noting that joe biden lied about trying to get a ceasefire, as we now know. So it's worth being skeptical, though of course I agree that ultimately what matters are results.
Do you have a source for your claim? The Biden administration did present a ceasefire plan <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Gaza_war_ceasefire>. If not that, then I don't know enough about the situation to find what you're referring to.
The Biden administration also kept publically decrying the situation in Gaza while also promising full support and increasing weapon shipments to Israel. Saying one thing and doing the exact opposite over and over again.
But in the scenario above, is this necessarily flip-flopping? Saying "Israel deserved a chance to protect itself, but now that they are going way overboard, it's time for some tough love instead" seems reasonable to me, and doesn't imply any kind of changing one's mind.
Would it help to think of them as partially being mirrors rather than people? Needing to win elections means they can't push too hard against whatever's popular just because they might not like it.
I would buy that argument if they followed the popular will more often than the "monied will". Most of the western ruling class having financial interests in weapon production through investments in the MIC drives government-level support for Israel's war on Gaza, while Palestine has had popular support for much longer than the current conflict.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Cane and stick. Politician who come over to your site get the cane, those who continue to support Netanyahu get the stick. Always give cornered animals a way out unless you want to have them put up more fight than you want.
This is the smart thing to do if your goal is to build a broad movement that achieves effective change in the real world. When serving emotions and looking edgy to your viewers online is more important than stopping the genozide then you should go the vindictive route and purity-test each person joining your side. Pragmatism is not selling well online, the crowd wants to see blood.
That means usually ot serves well to take such unappologetic stances with a grain of salt, while they sound strong, they are not usually effective positions for a broad societal movement. That btw. doesn't mean you have to forget any politicians positions earlier in this conflict. That's what I meant with "We can walk and chew gum at the same time". Makw the movement broad and keep track who was on your side early on.
I know this is a trivial thing to point out in the context of such a discussion but the expression you want is "carrot and stick". A cane is a kind of stick that you can also hit with, the verb "to cane" means to hit someone with a stick.
Thanks for the correction. English is not my first language, in German the equivalent is "Zuckerbrot und Peitsche" (sugar-bread and whip) I must have somehow made the mental leap from "sugar" via "sugarcane" to "cane" and completely forgot about the carrot.
It's not principled in the least. Politicians knew what they were supporting from the onset, but society at large was supposed to act like they ostensibly usually do and just start putting Israeli flags in their social media profiles after the media spammed out 'they're just defending themselves' and ran appeals to emotion enough. That didn't work, so politicians are swapping their public positions.
And this is important because what usually then happens in these scenarios is that there will be some token vote about ceasing shipping bombs to Israel which are then being dropped on civilians en masse, and it'll fail by 51/49, but the Senators who voted for it will be the ones who are up for elections in 2026. And as soon as they get back in power, they'll go back to cheering on Israel, while the next group up for election in 2028 will suddenly start taking a 'principled stance', with the net result that we can just manage to fail the next vote by 51/49 again as well.
Now - if these sort of motions start actually passing, then I'll happily eat crow. But, in general, this scenario has played out repeatedly in various forms, and it never changes.
So let's make the assumption that all politicians flip-flop in their opinions, depending on what the popular opinion is these days.
Given that assumption: If our goal is to get politics to take a tougher stance on a foreign government does it really matter that much how they arrived there?
I get it, I too would love my politicians to hold principled humanitarian values and I know it doesn't feel good and it is certainly not ideologically pure, but those are the politicians we got now, if they come over at our side we could just welcome them with a knife hidden behind our back. We can always vote them out of office next time anyways, what we need now is their representation and vote.
IMO this mixes up two issues (genocide in Gaza and the wrong people in political office) and tries to solve both. But one of the issues has a different urgency than the others and I am afraid by purity-testing too hard a broad movement against Netanjahu is delayed.
If you don't want a specific politician vote for someone else next time and ensure there is a viable alternative when you do. That means you have lists who flip-flopped and try to tackle those who can be easily replaced first. But it is a separate problem.
Reread what you're responding to. The point is that there will be only lipservice and exploitation of voters. No tougher stances will be taken, except in public rhetoric, which is meaningless.
How can you expect your politicians to “lead” if they have such an inability to not only see the actual facts on the ground, but lack the elementary foresight to see what’s going to happen?
This shit wasn’t something that’s been kept a secret, it’s been widely widely documented for nearly 20 months. The base the politicians claim to represent have been literally screeching about this for over a year, and yet nothing?
If a politician can’t even denounce genocide, how can someone expect them to fight for them?
So lets say you have twi buttons and you can only press one:
A) Your movement gains the support
of a politician who flip-flopped
and now would vote in laws that
help ending the conflict and/or
easing the humanitarian situation
The price is literally just doing
nothing and you can talk bad
about the politician once they
were useful for the movement
B) You don't get that vote, but you
pretend to keep the movement pure
from an ideological standpoint.
The price is potentially not
passing needed legislation.
Don't get me wrong, I like neither option and whether I personally would chose A or B depends a lot on the specifics. But purely from a "we want to achieve tangible political goals"-position the former is superior.
If this is a false dichotomy (it might be), tell me.
It’s not about someone changing their mind when there’s new evidence. The evidence was already there, it was being live-streamed and talked about since the beginning.
The vast majority of the politicians in America receive funding from AIPAC. They know what happens when they deviate from their supplied talking points, and right now the public outcry has grown to the point where those same politicians who would say they “want Palestinians free of Hamas” while those same Palestinians were being wholesale slaughtered for nearly two years, are now suddenly changing their tune.
They are not trustworthy full stop. And they should not be granted the forgiveness while they consistently either openly endorsed the actions of Israel by either words or voting to send more weapons to kill Palestinians
I'm in the same camp tbh. I think Israel should not be putting all of Gaza under siege. It's not moral. This will also not work because the Hamas doesn't care about Gazans. It's also not helping Israel (other than some internal politics between Netanyahu and his right wing extremists).
Totally agree on people need to be able to change their minds based on new data and as the situation changes. I'm personally constantly trying to evaluate that. You do need to keep in mind though that data coming out of Gaza is still to a large extent controlled by Hamas. There is definitely a humanitarian crisis but it's amplified by Hamas for obvious reasons (trying to force Israel into stopping the war and allowing it to recover Gaza). Hamas is also benefiting from the crisis and it's actively fueling it. It also needs to have enough food for its fighters to keep going.
Technically from an international law perspective a siege is legal as long as civilians have a chance to leave. Israel can legally lay siege to Gaza city and the northern Gaza strip as long as it allows civilians to move south. This isn't working because the civilians don't want to move, or are forced to not move, or can't move, or have no place to really go to, so it's just not a good idea.
Another thing you're missing IMO is that some of the people attacking Israel here aren't generally in the camp of supporting Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas or use force to free the hostages. If your starting point is either denying Oct 7th or trying to somehow excuse Hamas or even support Hamas then you are not in the same camp as these politicians and you'll never be.
For the people who genuinely care and want to see an end to the war and a path forward, we need to find a way to get Hamas to yield. If there was a path that could get us there from an immediate ceasefire and end to the war I'd get behind it. It's not clear that path exists. In the absence of this path then Israel can and should do better to aid civilians but the war is not going to end.
You are framing it as if the problem is Hamas and the existence of Hamas.
Isn't the existence of Hamas only strengthened by the war, by the actions of Israel ?
I would argue that the October 7 attack was highly beneficial for the expansionist plans of Israel. Highly beneficial for Netanyahu, who now can stay in power under martial law instead of fearing prosecution for his previous crimes.
Hamas will not magically cease to exist when Palestinians are treated like that.
Imagine the amount of hate that is brewed against Israel again right now. Would you ever forget or forgive if as a child you were starved, and witnessed endless horrors ? Your city in shambles, rubble and blood everywhere, death and misery wherever you look at ?
Let's quote Netanyahu himself in 2019, at a party meeting:
> Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy — to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."
How do you not see this as circular reinforcement?
Hamas justifies it's attacks by pointing to Israel, and Israel justifies it by pointing to Hamas.
Things like Hamas still holding 50 hostages, rockets still being fired into Israel etc.
Israel will not magically stop when Hamas still exists.
> Imagine the amount of hate that is brewed against Israel again right now. Would you ever forget or forgive if as a child you were starved, and witnessed endless horrors ? Your city in shambles, rubble and blood everywhere, death and misery wherever you look at ?
And so do attacks like October 7th. Of course Israelis want to get rid of Hamas. The majority of Israelis don't want to genocide the Gazans, but like you pointed out, Netanyahu and his goons do.
> The majority of Israelis don't want to genocide the Gazans.
According to a recent poll:
Nearly half (47 percent) of respondents agreed that "when conquering an enemy city, the Israel Defense Forces should act as the Israelites did in Jericho under Joshua's command – killing all its inhabitants."
82 percent of respondents supported the expulsion of Gaza's residents
56 percent favored expelling Palestinian citizens of Israel
These are very, very different situations. You are comparing nations and cultures that have be living side by side for thousands of years to a 77 year old state (Israel) occupying territory that has been Palestinean for thousands of years.
Israel and Ozzy Osbourne were born on the same year. People that were born after Ozzy, can no longer return to their birthplace, because it is now Israel and they are besieged in Gaza.
Not really Palestinian to be fair. Jewish, Greek, Roman, Islamic, Ottoman, and finally British, in that order. Palestinians then started a war of aggression to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state, and then lost that war. You can not lose what you never had. If you want to talk about occupying, why is the al-aqsa mosque built where it was, if not for trying to erase native ties to the land?
Native ties? Who the do you think the Palestinians are? Did they just appear one day and occupied Palestine?
The Palestinians are the natives of Palestine. They literally have direct ancetrial ties all the way back to the original Hebrew occupants.
Like many people, they've been occupied, mixed, and they've adopted the religions and customs of their occupiers. That doesn't mean they've not been inhabiting the land for centuries.
Are they less deserving of their ancetrial homes simply because European colonists decided they wanted a religious ethnostate?
My family has ancetrial ties to Britain, do I get to go there and kick out someone from their home because of my ancetrial ties?
Heck I likely have Roman ties, do I get to go to Italy to reclaim my birthright?
> If you want to talk about occupying, why is the al-aqsa mosque built where it was, if not for trying to erase native ties to the land?
The second temple was destroyed in 70 CE and the first Al Aqsa mosque was likely built in 600s. What is your argument here? Both religions share a common lineage so it's not unusual that Islam would revere the same location as an older religion with the same origin story.
You are forgetting the Natufians, residing in the Levant from 15,000 to 11,000 BC. Should we revive the Natufian identity and claim the land ? They are the OG Levantians after all.
Can you see how this makes no sense ? Why create so much pain and suffering ?
They just had a working state with working institutions that carried on, prussian, protestant bureaucracy carrying on even after the die hard nazis had died out.
Islamic culture is unable to produce these institutions .
I mean I was trying to show that the Germans don't suicide bomb busses in Kaliningrad even after their own much worse version of the Nakba. In general, most losers of wars, especially of wars of aggression that they themselves started, don't spend then next century suicide bombing and turning down deals that they deem beneath them. They take what they can get and get on with their lives, being productive and improving the future for their children.
You're confusing hatred for Palestinians with hatred for Gazans. Most Israelis do not hate Palestinians. There might be some. There's definitely a lot of hate to Gazans after Oct 7th which is understandable. As to the "what are we supposed to do" part- What are they supposed to do? How would you navigate this better after Oct 7th given the setup/hostages etc.?
Israel has officially said many times they are not targeting civilians but they are targeting Hamas. Israel is even arming Palestinians that oppose Hamas: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyn2m9yk0vo - "Netanyahu confirms Israel arming clans opposed to Hamas in Gaza"
So Israel is certainly not universally saying that everyone in Gaza is Hamas and the official Israeli position is one of separating the uninvolved from Hamas.
There is a lot of nuance here. Some Israelis, including soldiers, do consider the entire Gaza population to be complicit in Hamas' crimes. A large number of Palestinians support Hamas, support the Oct 7th attack on Israel, and there are even "civilians" who participated in murder and looting on Oct 7th and in abuse of hostages. Some hostages were held by "civilians". Hamas makes it intentionally hard/impossible to distinguish between a civilian and a combatant and they report all their deaths as civilian deaths.
The devastation of large swaths of the Gaza strip is real. But not all of Gaza is devastated. There are still some parts of Gaza city that are not. You can't tell and media will show you the parts that are not. You can notice however how the narrative magically switches from "Israel destroyed all the hospitals" to "injured people treated in hospitals from some IDF attack" as is convenient without people for a second questioning how the hospitals are still functioning despite Israel supposedly having bombed them all to the ground. We also had images early on in the war that told us "everything is devastated" but yet the IDF keeps toppling more buildings (that supposedly according to the media were already all bombed a year ago). The various UN groups still have buildings, warehouses, etc. In Gaza.
There's little doubt Gazans are suffering a lot in this war. But they're definitely staging a lot of stuff as well. Anything to manipulate public opinions is game. Truth is not a requirement. They've shared images from Yemen and Sudan claiming those to be Palestinians. They misrepresent other medical conditions as starvation. Check out: https://gazawood.com/
Now I'm not naive, both sides are pushing a narrative, the Palestinians are actually suffering, but it's not as clear cut as you're trying to paint it either.
Who benefits and who loses from news of "starvation in Gaza"? Hamas benefits. Israel loses. If you look you'll find images out of Gaza of people trying to make a buck by selling aid packages in the markets. How many times since the war began have we heard about famine and starvation? The truth is likely somewhere in the middle. There are likely poor people or people who can't fight with the others that steal aid who are doing badly. There are people who can afford to or who use violence to procure food for themselves (e.g. Hamas). There is certainly not an abundance of food and certainly whatever is available isn't the most nutritious.
Gazans have and do use civilian infrastructure extensively for military purposes. They booby trap houses. They have tunnels running everywhere.
I was willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt on this before the 2024 World Central Kitchen Aid convoy attack. That really made me re-evaluate what Israel's general standard level of carefulness is, and how much they weigh the balance between avoiding noncombatants when pursuing military targets. And there have been multiple other incidents since then in which international aid workers have been targeted, whether purposefully or accidentally. There's no way to attribute that to Hamas militants pretending to be civilians or sheltering in proximity. I don't believe that any of those incidents would have happened if the Israeli military were applying an appropriate standard of care in target selection, which in turn inclines me toward believing almost any other claim about civilian casualties.
I also think unless they want to kill or evict all two million Gazans, Israel's #1 priority in this conflict should be convincing Gazans that the Israelis are the good guys and Hamas are the bad guys. No matter how you spin it, they are failing at this, and they're using the wrong sort of weapons. It's merely sowing seeds for another three generations of unshakable hatred. That is not at all good for Israel but it might be just fine for Benjamin Netanyahu.
I'm going to agree with you the standard of carefulness has been at times pretty low. If it moves and looks like it might be Hamas - shoot it. I was also not happy about that incident and others. There were also plenty of friendly fire incidents (where soldiers were killed by other soldiers) and the incident where hostages were killed by other soldiers. The level of "discipline" in the IDF isn't what it used to be and definitely the mood in Israel in the early days of the war was of revenge (though the military is not supposed to be thinking like that).
The other side of this coin is when you fight this kind of fight, in a dense urban environment, where combatants intentionally blend with civilians, and use any imaginable tactic they can to attack you, and put weapon stashes in civilian homes, and tunnel entrances etc. Where the enemy may even want to increase civilian casualties on their side, and when you have infantry and armor fighting day in and day out with no sleep and under constant pressure. You are going to have more of these incidents. There might be some at the margin that are actually war crimes but many are just what happens in this kind of war and in this specific scenario.
I'm not going to judge those people when I'm not in their shoes. Including the people who ordered the strike on that convoy. I am Israeli (who hasn't lived there in a long time, but I served in the distance past in the IDF) and I have spoken to people who have been in Gaza. So I know targeting an international aid group is not who we are. I also know that if it was decided that they were Hamas then they'd get obliterated, so that part is not a surprise.
The other thing I do know for sure, is that Hamas started this war and that Israel can not accept Hamas in Gaza after the war and it can not accept Hamas holding hostages after the war.
I'm not sure I see what Israel can do here in terms of Gazan perception of Israel or why it even matters. Many Gazans hate the Hamas but they have no control.
Thanks, that's a very reasonable comment on a sensitive subject, and I appreciate that.
I don't disagree with you. But because this is a predictable result, it's also part of the calculus that Israel has to weigh as part of the choice to deploy its soldiers in those positions in the first place.
I do think that Israel doesn't have to be fighting this fight; instead it could be playing the soft power game in Gaza much better, and it's barely even trying to. In my opinion the carrot almost always works better than the stick, and Israel should be throwing a Marshall plan at Gaza, literally truck-tons of money making Palestinians rich and happy, under the one condition that they turn over the hostages and any Hamas militants who don't surrender. All that would cost pennies compared to the costs of waging war (and the eventual rebuilding, and the next century of anti-terrorism policing, all of which Israel will undoubtedly be footing the bill for). Instead Israel is choosing to stir the pot in the West Bank at the same time, removing any chance of getting the Palestinian Authority as an ally against Hamas, and burning through what was left of the post-WW2 international goodwill that got it statehood in the first place.
It's understandable and predictable but I think it's still deeply mistaken, and very sad for me to watch.
I do think that Israel doesn't have to be fighting this fight; instead it could be playing the soft power game in Gaza much better...
What makes you think that?
You mention the Marshall Plan, but the Marshall Plan worked in part because of Germany's unconditional surrender and the Allies complete assumption of control of Germany. If Israel wanted to follow the same game plan, they would have to do what they are doing, until Hamas was utterly defeated militarily.
It's important to recognize that Germany's surrender was not conditioned on any aid or support or anything else. Imagine if the Marshall Plan had been started prior to Germany's defeat -- it would only have prolonged the conflict.
It's a straightforward conclusion from research on the dynamics of grievance-fueled violence. Basically, unlike Nazi Germany, the strength of Hamas is proportional to how many aggrieved civilians there are. Every airstrike that kills one fighter creates two more down the road, out of the aggrieved survivors. I'm pretty sure Hamas understood this and launched the Oct 7th attack with the goal of provoking the harshest possible reaction, and Israel played right into their hands.
Their strength in armaments almost doesn't matter; even if every tunnel is collapsed and every rocket launch site obliterated, even if a ceasefire is reached and the hostages returned, even if Hamas leadership capitulates, you still end up with two million angry people swearing revenge for the injustices they've suffered.
There are two stable equilibria that this can settle into: no grievances, or no surviving civilians. I think the former is the only hope although Israel is making all the wrong moves. I am sure there are right-wing hardliners who would push for the ethnic cleansing route, but most Israelis are peace-minded moderates who would never forgive that option, and so I really think that result would eventually collapse the state of Israel from the inside out, doing more damage than any Hamas rockets ever could.
There was a ton of money thrown into Gaza: "agencies spent nearly $4.5 billion in Gaza, including $600 million in 2020 alone. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, aid to Palestinians totaled over $40 billion between 1994 and 2020." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_Palestini...
This is not a problem that has a money solution. At least not at this point. One big misunderstanding of the "west" is that everyone wants the things that "they" do. Like a nice car, house, money, Costco, Walmart. Doesn't work like that.
Oddly enough the Palestinian Authority is siding with Israel in that Hamas can not control Gaza after the war. They just made a statement to that effect. The PA depends on Israel, Israel supports the PA, the Palestinians don't always like the PA. The PA is arguably happy with the IDF going after Hamas and PIJ in the West Bank in places like Jenin ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenin_Brigades ) because Hamas wants to overthrow the PA just like it did in Gaza. The Israeli government makes a bit of a show of being against the PA while actually knowing very well it needs the PA and collaborating with the PA on security. OTOH the current government does not want the PA to get control of Gaza.
The "west bank" problem right now is that the extremists amongst the west bank settlers have more or less free reign by the government to attack Palestinians (and sometimes other Israelis). This is a result of Netanyahu's brittle coalition and the war. The Israeli right wing has always wanted to make sure there can not be a two state solution. What they still haven't quite wrapped their heads around is that they will instead have a one state solution. Really that would appear to be the only solution of sorts. Oddly enough the international community is still stuck in this "two state solution" despite it being completely unacceptable to both sides in this conflict and having proven to not work.
I don't think it's really worth going into the fine details here, because I'm sure we've both done our respective research on this, but I do again appreciate that you keep presenting reasonable responses on a charged topic.
$40 billion over 26 years does certainly sound like a lot of aid money, but it works out to just around $300 per Palestinian per year, which is, I think, not even enough to counterbalance the economic damage that Israel imposes on Palestine (and especially Gaza) through movement restrictions and trade barriers and blockades. It certainly pales in comparison to the budget of the Israeli military (which, admittedly, obviously has more on its plate than just Palestine, and couldn't be entirely repurposed towards aid). At any rate it's not in the realm of what I contemplate as a Marshall plan approach.
And for it to work, that aid all has to come prominently stamped "courtesy of your friends in Israel". International aid from other sources can improve living standards but doesn't build much goodwill with the neighbours.
This is a widespread misunderstanding; there is no border anymore between Gaza and Egypt, as it was occupied by the IDF in the first year of this war.
So unless Egypt went to war, there was nothing they could do.
And even before this war, the peace treaty gave Israel big control over the Rafa crossing. They have a camera and watch everything going in and out, and can ask for extra searches if they don't like what they see.
And in all, it's just for individuals, not cargo. Whatever cargo goes through, there is just a limited amount that requires prior approval from Israel.
So Egypt really doesn't have any power over the situation unless they are willing to risk a war, which they can't win.
> I do think that Israel doesn't have to be fighting this fight; instead it could be playing the soft power game in Gaza much better, and it's barely even trying to.
That would normally be a great plan, however, that doesn’t work with an enemy like Hamas. It doesn’t work with a people so thoroughly indoctrinated by Islamist extremists for decades. It’s something that us westerners just don’t comprehend readily.
It’s challenging to know what solution would work that doesn’t end up being as brutal as the Islamic countries often are to their own citizenry.
The wars in Yemen and Somalia are just as terrible as in Gaza but with 10’s of times the number of people and a fraction of the world aid Gaza gets. It shows what happens when those governments aren’t in strict control.
It’s also why almost every non-Islamic state in the Muslim world ends up being brutal military dictatorship. Hussein’s Ba’athist (atheist) party survived by being more brutal than the religious extremists. But in the west we think we can bring democracy or prosperity to such cultures and that it’ll flourish. The US spent trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan and decisively lost. Hundreds of thousands of people died and nothing changed.
Hamas literally kills and tortures any dissenters to gain power and to retain it.
Hamas infiltrated every Mosque in Gaza and installed their own clerics where they indoctrinate children from the youngest age that destroying Israel, killing Jews, and being a jihadist martyr is the loftiest goal.
Hamas isn’t shy about this either. Their original charter reads:
> The Motto of the Islamic Resistance Movement Article Eight
> "Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model to be followed, the Koran its constitution, Jihad its way, and death for the sake of Allah its loftiest desire."
It states its goal is to not rest until the Quranic prophecy is fulfilled:
> the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to realize the promise of Allah, no matter how long it takes.
> The Prophet, Allah's prayer and peace be upon him, says: 'The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,' except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews.' (Recorded in the Hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim)."
I watch videos from Gaza and hope and pray that the Palestinians there will realize that Hamas cares nothing for the lives of their children or them. Only for their ideology. Then perhaps Israel can do what you suggest.
Israel is in a tough place. The easiest option for them would to become what many people claim they already are and become right wing religious extremists on par with the Arab dictators. However, even now most Israelis don’t want that I believe. They’ve returned the Sinai to Egypt in the past. They withdrew from Gaza. What they got was Oct 7th.
> however, that doesn’t work with an enemy like Hamas
Except that it was the currently Israeli government to prop up Hamas power in the Gaza strip in order to de-legitimize the other (non terrorist) Palestinian political authority the PLO.
It's very convenient to have a terror organization as your counter party when you want to crush any hope for a two state solution.
In fact, the current Israeli government and intelligence helped Hamas fund and arm itself. And they knew about a huge terror attack coming and did very little to prevent it or defend their own people.
Even if Netanyahu illicitly provided some support to Hamas as a counter to the PLO, Hamas still was voted in with a majority vote and then took over complete control of Gaza and indoctrinated the people to their extremist views.
I agree the current Israeli government should have continued working with the PLO. Netanyahu has been a terrible leader for Israel. However they didn’t create Hamas either.
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan also indoctrinated children like crazy, but fortunately it only took a few years of friendly exposure to American occupiers (and lots of chocolate) to undo the damage, and by the 50s they were waving American flags and wearing blue jeans. Israel will have a lot more work to do with almost 80 years of grievances piled up against it, but as they say, the second best time to plant a tree is today.
Some people accuse Israel of being a colonizer. I disagree. The proof that Israel is not a colonizer power is that every colonial power understood much better than Israel how to control a hostile foreign population. The trick is that no society is truly homogeneous, so you find a dividing line and split them along it, and richly reward the side that sides with you.
Israel needs to provide as much help as possible to Hamas' opposition, and undermine their state power. It can do that relatively easily because it can shelter dissidents and their families out of reach of Hamas, amplify their stories, and make Palestinian voices the most prominent ones that denounce Hamas. It can sponsor a government in exile and work to grow their legitimacy. It had a perfect chance to do so with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank but so far Israel has almost completely blown it.
I don’t know what to say to you. For everyone else, please look up the settlement videos pre Oct 7. They are made by Vox, Vice, probably even more credible outlets like the BBC. Basically they build suburbs literally inside the West Bank, and connect them through super highways so Israelis don’t even feel the difference between living in Israel or knee-deep inside Palestine (20-30min drive from Jerusalem to an illegal suburb in the West Bank).
Israeli government is relentless with this. Those suburbs are incentivized with subsidies for the settlers, more so than people inside Israel itself.
Oct 7 was horrifying, but for a nation that wants to expand out and build suburbs inside Palestine, it was a lose-win situation. Oct 7 was a loss, but now they don’t have to pretend about building those suburbs anymore. They can just say “each home is on top of a Hamas tunnel”, and boom (literally), clear lot for new housing.
Anyway, the deed is done. All other discourse on this thread is between Israeli apologists and just about everyone else that is not morally bankrupt.
Last but not least, everyone apologizing for Israeli, please save your faces. Please. IDF does not even allow foreign journalists into Gaza. That’s all you need to know. But again, I believe the apologists are no longer trying to save face. It’s an insidious “well, what needed to be done, needed to be done”. Beyond immoral.
——
Prayer is in order, as I don’t know what else anyone can do (it’s all be done).
My hope is the Israeli people at the very least prosecute war crimes internally just for the purity of their own soul, and educate their future generations on a modest truth, that being - “we Israelis in 2025 could not find a better solution, and may you never seek a solution we sought in those dark times. May you be better, for we sinned on a scale the bathroom mirror in the morning won’t allow us to forget”.
Before my words are twisted, let me make it clear I am pacifist. I have to literally turn away whenever scenes from Gaza are shown. I don’t support Hamas or the IDF. I believe Hamas commits child abuse by indoctrinating young Palestinians into terrorism. It’s literally a carbon copy situation of black gang violence that’s perpetuated by gang culture (Chiraq, Chicago gang violence). Yeah, believe it or not, teenagers are impressionable and vulnerable everywhere in the world, stop radicalizing them. Hell, we can’t even stop the kids from entering the manosphere here in America, they’ll gravitate right to Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan.
The children cannot fight an endless fucking war, and that is what both the Israelis and Palestinians are doing to these children. It’s child abuse on an epic scale.
Now, in America, we’ve got some sense not to virtually nuke Chiraq, but over there in the Middle East, they have no qualms about bull-dozing the problem.
Aren't your standards for morality of target selection unrealistically high? I don't think US had a better one in any conflict it participated. It went as far as defining "enemy combatant" as anyone within blast radius. War is brutal and messy. Atrocious things always happen. It's very hard to take any moral stance except blaming the one who started killing and waiting till the matter is resolved. It's not perfect, but this world is very far from perfect in every aspect.
Maybe? Maybe not. I'm not an American and my statement is no stronger than condemnations I have made throughout my life about the US' conduct throughout the War on Terror (in both the Bush and Obama years and beyond). I believe that drone-bombing weddings in Pakistan creates more terrorists than it kills, and that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake from day one. I believe the war in Vietnam (and the bombing of Laos and Cambodia) was an atrocity and without it there would have never been a Khmer Rouge. I also decry the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the firebombing of Dresden, but I am more willing to accept that that kind of murderous excess can happen in a total war for survival against a near-equal.
What I am sure of is that Israel's situation is not a war against a near-equal. The kind of rules of engagement I'm talking about are par for the course in peacekeeping operations, and there's no reason Israel cannot be employing them. Israel is shooting fish in a barrel, and if there's not enough time for them to double-check their homework on a missile strike then they have plenty of time to wait for a cleaner opportunity to take a shot. More importantly, I think that being extremely delicate is not only a moral imperative but a strategic one. Realistically, bombs dropped on Gaza can do more damage to Israel than to Hamas, both by causing fresh grievance in Palestinian hearts, which is the sustenance on which Hamas feeds for support and soldiers, and by gaining them sympathy abroad. I've been watching this happen in real time and it's playing out like clockwork, and I am sure that Israeli strategists see it too. But I also think Israel's loss is Netanyahu's win, and the stronger Hamas gets, the more justification Netanyahu has to push things further. So I see a feedback loop playing out in which Netanyahu and Hamas are on the same side, buffing each other while Israelis and Palestinians both lose.
(It also goes without saying that I also, obviously, denounce Hamas and the Oct 7th attacks, just like I denounce Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Un, Putin, and other villains. But I rarely see any point wasting breath on that kind of denouncement, at least not until I meet someone who thinks otherwise.)
Fair enough. Personally I don't believe taking life is ever moral, but I accepted that the world doesn't share my morality and I don't anticipate it's going to in my lifetime.
E.g. 56 percent of Israeli Jews polloed favored expelling Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Nearly half (47 percent) of respondents agreed that "when conquering an enemy city, the Israel Defense Forces should act as the Israelites did in Jericho under Joshua's command – killing all its inhabitants.
Interesting that you link to gazawood.com - the site is very cagey about who runs it, at least in its About Us page. However on its donation page aimed at Israelis it proudly advertises itself as a hasbara site. If you're trying to do hasbara here, at least have the decency to cite somewhat credible sources.
I'm not blind to the realities of Israel having blocked some aid and the realities of living in a war zone. I'm sure the Palestinians are suffering and I wouldn't want to live in Gaza these days. Israel will and is exerting the maximum possible pressure. However it is not starving the population.
You are blind to the Hamas' control of the narrative coming out of Gaza. You are also blind to the Hamas' ability to impact the situation and to their absolute control of any word coming out of the mouth of a "hospital director" or a "journalist" who are either Hamas or operating under the threat of death, torture, and violence to themselves and their families if they don't say what they're asked to say.
The article is an interview with: "David Satterfield, who served during early months of war, says dangerous transport routes, looting by desperate Palestinians severely hinder ability to pick up and deliver aid"
... "UN trucks repeatedly looted, including by thousands of desperate Palestinians, unsure when they and their families will receive their next meal."
"UN trucks repeatedly looted, including by thousands of desperate Palestinians, unsure when they and their families will receive their next meal."
"Moreover, looting carried out for purposes of commoditization will also dissipate because the value of assistance in the marketplace will drop due to the rise in supply."
So Palestinians are stealing food from other Palestinians to make a buck.
"Satterfield said “there’s no question” that the terror group has worked to take “political advantage and certainly some physical substantive advantage out of the aid distribution process.”
Hamas operatives have made a point of “flaunting” their presence at aid sites in a message to Palestinians that the group has no intention of ceding its role in the distribution process."
I'm sure you also wouldn't like a person who completely accepts that Izrael is starving the population of Gaza, both the reality of it and everything about it.
>David Satterfield, who served during early months of war
So we should not trust "hospital director" or "journalist" with scare quotes as they MIGHT be Hamas, but happily take IDF soldier's words as truth. The transparent bias is laughable.
I guess also that Israel forbids aid airplanes to take air footage of Gaza because Hamas bends the light to make it seem like IDF is committing war crimes. How devilish of them.
The nuance of all you wrote is missing the context in which it is written:
Israel is a settler-colonial white supremacist occupation and reporting on the "nuance" of how that situation has evolved over 76+ years without acknowledging Israel has no right to exist only serves the genocidal occupation of Palestine. We need to abolish all white supremacy projects, including those from Zionist entities.
> What are they supposed to do? How would you navigate this better after Oct 7th given the setup/hostages etc.?
The real answer is 19th century warfare in the tunnels where all of Israel's tactical advantages disappeared.
But instead they cowardly ordered 2,000 lb bombs that didn't accomplish any of their stated goals and killed their own hostages. Instead they designated everyone in Gaza as a terrorist and killed their own hostages when they managed to escape because everyone has the same Semitic phenotypes (awwwwkwaaaard). Instead they put their freshman IDF conscripts on social media to claim any dissent of the military strategy was incitement against Jewish people's right to exist. On the social media front, I'm not sure what's more embarrassing, getting paid to do that, or not getting paid to do that.
try some empathy. if you were conscripted to fight, i don't think your mom would approve of your "19th century warfare" plan. she would want the air force to drop the bombs if there was any improvement to your odds of coming home. she would smack you on the head and say there is nothing "cowardly" about avoiding unnecessary danger
I see what you're saying, IDF soldiers were trigger happy to kill surrendering Semites that were the hostages they were looking for, because their mom said its not cowardly to avoid unnecessary danger.
Thanks for redefining that term, its the substantive comment we needed. I apologize for my chauvinistic idea that avoiding masculine altruism during an actual war to accomplish the actual stated goal might be internationally seen as cowardly.
It’s near impossible to explain to some that 50k dead is equivalent to nuking a place. See, everyone is like “well it’s not like we’re nuking the place” … well actually, that’s … actually what it is.
Hiroshima was 80k dead? How do you achieve a Hiroshima without the blowback of using a Nuke? Heh. You can get the same causality count minus the Nuke fan-fare, IDF lunch special (a bomb sandwich).
LOL 51% of Israelis gave Palestinians a 0 out of 100 score rating of their humanity, according to PCPSR and the Times of Israel poll: https://pcpsr.org/en/node/989
"When asked about the level of humanity of other side, Palestinians gave Jews an average score of 6 out of 100; Jews gave Palestinians an average score of 14. 51% of Jewish Israelis gave Palestinians a score of zero, and 71% of Palestinians gave the same score to Israelis. One percent of Palestinians gave Israeli Jews a score of 80 or higher, and 2.7% of Israeli Jews scored Palestinians in this range. This question could reflect respondents’ perception of the inherent qualities of the other side, or their assessment of the other side’s behavior, or both."
Here is some older (pre-Oct 7th) but maybe more "color":
I think the most salient takeaway is that sentiments between the groups mirror each other. Here's the exact language from the PCPSR:
> Mirror image negative perceptions: Israeli Jews and Palestinians hold near-mirror images regarding the current war: a majority on each side views the other as seeking to commit genocide; each side believes it is the worst victim in the world, and on each side, a large majority believes the other lacks humanity.
I think Israel is disproportionately responsible for the atrocities in this war, given that it's militarily ascendant. But the two groups are about the same in terms of sentiment, which bodes poorly for any future peace in the region (and plays into Israel's standard refrain, i.e. that peace is structurally impossible because Palestinian extremist groups would reward peace with violence (much like how Israeli extremist groups reward peace with violence)).
This is also in your interest, since you can always make your substantive points without it and it will make your comments more persuasive.
edit: I appreciate that you edited that bit out of your comment, but once there are replies, you should make it clear how you edited it. Otherwise you deprive the replies (like this one) of their original context.
Why is an entire comment like his with solid evidence flagged because of 1 mild line, but the parent comment is itself a baseless 1-liner flamebait with zero effort to substantiate but is allowed to stay up? That's not even the worst - some usual suspects are literally using Nazi rhetoric to engage in denial or justification of Genocide, but they get a pass. The line is drawn at "swipes and flamebaits"? Pro-Genocide ? Fine. No swipes and flamebaits tho!
I agree that the parent comment was a bad HN comment. But it didn't clear the threshold for a mod reply. If we tried to reply to all bad (for HN) comments, we'd run into impossibilities: (1) we'd have to post 10x as many replies, which we can't do; and (2) we'd run to a buzzsaw of "why do you reply to this bad thing and not that other bad thing over there".
What made the difference between that comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718039) and the one I replied to (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718268) was the pejorative 'you', snark, and name-calling in "You Zionists are really not even putting any effort into your hasbara anymore." (this line has since been edited out by the GP commenter). That is a dividing line where we can post mod comments because (1) there aren't so many such posts, so it's feasible, and (2) attacks like that have a particularly bad effect on threads.
> Pro-Genocide ? Fine. No swipes and flamebaits tho!
I hear you, but these two things are on different levels. To explain what I mean, let's assume that I completely agree with you on this topic. Ok? We agree that genocide is wrong and bad—far more than somebody being snarky in an internet comment, right? So wtf is wrong with the mods if they penalize one and not the other? Is "pejorative 'you', snark, and name-calling" worse than genocide? Of course not; only a monster would say so.
The answer is that we're not trying to exclude wrongness and badness in the comments here. I know that sounds bad, but suppose I said "the mods' job is to decide what's true and good and then impose it on everyone else". You wouldn't want that, right? what if we disagreed? Certainly the community as a whole would not want that.
Rather it's your job (i.e. the commenters) to work that out through discussion and argument. The mods' job is to try to keep that discussion and argument respectful* between the players. When we see people crossing that line, we respond. Otherwise we don't respond, even when someone says something which we feel is both wrong and bad, because it's not our place to impose that on the community.
>The answer is that we're not trying to exclude wrongness and badness in the comments here. I know that sounds bad, but suppose I said "the mods' job is to decide what's true and good and then impose it on everyone else". You wouldn't want that, right? what if we disagreed? Certainly the community as a whole would not want that.
It has been classified by israeli holocaust scholars as Genocide, by israeli human rights groups as Genocide, by the United Nations as Genocide:
but one still has to painstakingly debunk Nazi style propaganda every single time? It's much easier to spread lies than it is to debunk them. Often such posts contain some half truths filled with a bunch of lies, the debunking of which requires knowledge and effort while the fabrication of lies requires zero effort. By the time you debunked the obvious lies, the propagandist has already spammed 10 more comments denying or justifying Genocide with the exact same rhetoric and arguments that Nazis use to deny or justify the holocaust. That's a losing game.
Something also tells me that this won't be equally applied as it's claimed to be applied. I just can't imagine that ycombinator would allow the exact same rhetoric from literal Nazis to justify or deny the holocaust ever happened or that jews inflated or made up the number of victims of the holocaust.
Take the exact same scenario for which that comment got nuked:
A: "Some lazy and evident Nazi lies to justify a Genocide/Holocaust - The problem aren't the Nazis, the problem is the resistance of the Warsaw Ghetto who refuse to be subjugated by our glorious German Reich"
B: " *Here some evidence with sources that debunks your narrative with quotes from your own people.* You Nazis don't even put any effort into your propaganda anymore"*.
Strangely B is treated as the ultimate sin because of one mild line despite being a small fraction among concrete evidence, but somehow that still justifies the nuking of the comment. And it's not just that interaction, but the overall obvious pattern of quick and dirty lies that are spammed with low effort but don't result in any disciplinary actions, while others report that they have been throttled for arguing against Genocide.
I'm not accusing you personally by the way, I'm sure it's brutal keeping up with all of this, but many people have observed these and similar patterns and it's a terrible look. Some people seem to forget that incitement to Genocide is an actual crime.
"Incitement to genocide is a crime in the USA primarily due to its adherence to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This international treaty, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, defines genocide and related acts, including "direct and public incitement to commit genocide," as punishable crimes.
The United States ratified this Convention in 1988 and subsequently enacted the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987 (also known as the Proxmire Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1091). This act incorporates the provisions of the Convention into U.S. federal law, making it a federal crime to commit, attempt to commit, conspire to commit, or directly and publicly incite the commission of genocide.
Therefore, under U.S. law, anyone found guilty of direct and public incitement to genocide can face severe penalties, including imprisonment."
"Whoever directly and publicly incites another to violate subsection (a) [the genocide offense] shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
”I just can't imagine that ycombinator would allow the exact same rhetoric from literal Nazis to justify or deny the holocaust ever happened or that jews inflated or made up the number of victims of the holocaust.”
They allow it because they are human. Not everyone can actually believe a genocide is happening whilst also being defended by what many would consider educated professional peers. See, it’s unbelievable, so have to forgive people who are truly bewildered (”this can’t really be happening, can it?”). It’s really happening , and HN is suffering from the fog of war that an ongoing atrocity creates. If I punch you hard enough, you may not actually perceive what just happened in the contemporaneous. It’s intellectual and moral shell-shock.
Reality check:
Your world is not just software and a first world country with a nice economy, and neighbors and countrymen that would neeever do anything wrong. Your world is full of a lot more sin, believe it.
When they allow the journalists to finally enter Gaza, where reporters will fly a simple $500 drone over Gaza, we’ll see all of our world.
HN calls outa lot of bullshit, and there’s no way that virtue should be put aside for this obvious genocide.
I think us Zionists are pretty consistent and what we are saying agrees with the objective reality. It's the anti-zionists who are cherry-picking and can't form a coherent argument other than "colonialism" or something and are excusing the agency of Hamas and the Gazans.
It's true that Netanyahu is and was opposed to a Palestinian state and that dividing the Palestinians between Hamas and the PA was strategic in that regard. However he misjudged Hamas as not having motivation or ability to attack Israel. A by the way is that since 2007 Israel has attacked Hamas in Gaza and Hamas attacked Israel as well so it's not exactly like they were pals. It was more of the devil we (thought we) know kind of situation.
But there is a previous there which is the failure of the Oslo accords due to Hamas' suicide bombing campaign on Israel. Hamas bombed the peace process to death (alongside with hundreds of random civilians) and also directly cause the rise of the right in Israel and the change of opinion in the Israeli public from accepting the idea of a two state solution to a belief that Israel can not accept that solution. Dividing the Palestinians as a strategy came after the Palestinians showed Israelis that living side by side is impossible. And if the Israelis needed further proof we got the Oct 7th attack.
It's also worth mentioning that short of re-taking Gaza (which we see is not simple) Israel didn't really have a lot of choices once Hamas took and established itself in Gaza. Maybe the right thing to do was to retake Gaza immediately in 2007. I'm sure the world, including you, would scream bloody murder occupation if that happened. Otherwise there's not a lot that could have been done. The civilian aid that made its way into Gaza and Hamas' hands was also a result of international pressure on Israel under the idea that if there was some sort of stability/prosperity in Gaza that would lead to peace. What happened in practice is Hamas channeled all of that into its military efforts and we see where that led us.
>Hamas bombed the peace process to death (alongside with hundreds of random civilians) and also directly cause the rise of the right in Israel and the change of opinion in the Israeli public from accepting the idea of a two state solution to a belief that Israel can not accept that solution. Dividing the Palestinians as a strategy came after the Palestinians showed Israelis that living side by side is impossible.
Why would the Israelis support Hamas if they were the faction that was attacking them? Wouldn't it have made more sense to support the PA even more?
Your quotes are not in the article cited, which does say though that
> According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
These terrorists, yield? Already faulty logic. Their proclaimed goals and historic record show that will never happen and their budget for violence knows no limit.
It's as tough as desalinating water, but removing the civilians from the terrorists must happen. Otherwise the result will either be genocide of the 'salt water', or of the 'plants' the salt in that water is bent on destroying.
What is an acceptable plan for reaching the result of the civilians on both sides being safe? This is a political question, but it is one all must consider; at least as it informs our own votes where we reside.
I'll give you my honest opinion here and a criticism of Israeli government all at once. Israel should have moved the Palestinians civilians into Israel proper, e.g. the Negev. It should have created refugee camps for them there and provided them with all the support/aid while it went after Hamas. They'd be able to filter the people going in, make them surrender their weapons etc. No tunnels, no weapons caches, etc.
It's a very tough one to swallow for Israelis. I'm also not positive it would have worked. But I think it would be worth a try.
I think in the beginning of the war there was some thought of Egypt playing that role but it was pretty clear that wasn't going to happen.
The problem is throughout the war Israel had no appetite/desire to own the problem of Gazan civilians. Israel intentionally left that part to Hamas and the UN and at no time during this conflict has controlled any piece of land with Palestinian civilians.
>I'll give you my honest opinion here and a criticism of Israeli government all at once. Israel should have moved the Palestinians civilians into Israel proper, e.g. the Negev. It should have created refugee camps for them there and provided them with all the support/aid while it went after Hamas. They'd be able to filter the people going in, make them surrender their weapons etc. No tunnels, no weapons caches, etc.
It should have simply returned the refugees to their land. But then they wouldnt be stateless individuals, they would have (minimal, as second class subjects) rights, and present a greater challenge to settlement like those in the west bank. Ultimately this is a settlement project, and distracting from that, and the right of those refugees in gaza to return to their land, is the ultimate point of the conflict.
The return of the so called 1948 refugees to Israel is never going to happen. Other wars from the same era had a lot more refugees and nobody returned anywhere.
Just like the Jewish refugees from Arab countries or Europe are not returning there either.
It the Palestinians are stuck in 1948 over the war they and the Arabs started and lost they're never going to get anywhere. They had a chance when Israel was established to be equal citizens and they decided not to take it. It might be tough, it might not be "just", but that clock is never turning back.
The sad thing is how Palestinians and Arabs treat those people. Everywhere else in the world refugees were taken in. But other than Jordan all Arab countries have decided to just keep those people as refugees for eternity. Including the Palestinians, and Gazans, who treat the refugees like second class people.
All your arguments and justifications sound so hollow in the face of starving palestinians in Gaza being shot while lining up for humanitarian aid.
The thing being stuck in the past seem to be your arguments.
But this is happening right now and the majority underage population starving to death right now is on Israel‘s watch.
When the Nazis were driven out? I hope you mean when the USSR fell, because Poland was under their control for about 45 years. The Red Army entered Poland in 1944.
How many Jewish refugees did the allies take in WW2? This was literally a talking point used by antisemites to demonize Jews (the refugees nobody wanted) in the 1930s. And now the same talking points are being used in the same way by Jewish supremacists (most of whom are Christian by the way) to demonize Palestinians in 2025.
First of all, most of the Palestinian families in Gaza come from Israel. They lived in what is now southern Israel until 1948, when they were driven out in an extremely brutal Israeli military operation (Operation Barak).
Secondly, comparing the Palestinians to Nazi Germany is absurd and grotesque. The Palestinians are an oppressed people who were driven out of their homeland by an invading force in 1947-48, and who have lived in squalid refugee camps ever since. Since 1967, they have lived under direct military occupation by the very people who originally expelled them from their homeland, and are subjected to a racist regime in which their land is slowly taken away, piece by piece. The Palestinians have no country, no passport, no sovereignty, no rights.
Comparing them to the citizens of an industrialized power that tried to conquer Europe is insane.
In 1947, arabs refused the UN partition plan and decided to wage war against jews ( which accepted that plan) to remove them from the map. They were 100% certain to be able to do so, and nobody bet a penny on the jews winning at 1 vs 10.
They never stopped trying to do so since that dat, with the latest example being 2 years ago, on october 7.
Now you can try to blame it on the jews on X, but HN is an educated forum. Those kinds of arguments won't fly here.
"In 1675, the native tribes of New England refused to accept a partition of the land, and decided to wage war against Christians (who accepted the plan) to remove them from the map. They were 100% certain to be able to do so, and nobody bet a penny on the Christians winning at 1 vs. 10. They never stopped trying to do so since that date. Now you can try to blame it on the Christians on X, but HN is an educated forum. Those kinds of arguments won't fly here."
I'm sure you can find ten reasons why my above little story is wrong. They're the exact same reasons your little story is wrong. To name a few:
1. The Zionists / Europeans were trying to colonize Arab / Native American land. They were the aggressors in a very fundamental sense. Asking for the native population to "partition" the land amounts to demanding that they cede part of their homeland to you.
2. The conflict has nothing to do with Judaism or antisemitism. By framing it in that way, you're trying to draw a connection to the Holocaust and the history of persecution of Jews in Europe. But in this situation, the Zionists just happened to be Jewish, but that was totally irrelevant for the Arab population of Palestine. What the native population cared about was that an outside group - it didn't matter who - was trying to come in and take over the land.
3. And contrary to your framing, the Zionists were the group that held the upper hand, for a whole number of reasons that apply across the colonial world. In Palestine, they weren't some little oppressed minority. They had more resources, better education, were better organized, and had the backing of the imperial rulers of Palestine, the British.
4. The Arabs were the underdogs in the 1948 war. This runs completely counter to Israeli national mythology, but the fact is that the Israelis had a larger, better trained and better equipped army. They had military training from the British. They had funding from a significant foreign base of donors. They were able to purchase large amounts of weaponry from Czechoslovakia. The Palestinians themselves never stood a chance against the Zionists / Israelis. The Arab states only intervened after the Zionists had begun carrying out mass expulsions and other atrocities against the Palestinian civilian population. From the point of view of the Arab world, they were attempting to save their brothers from vicious foreign colonizers. You present it as if "the Jews," by which you actually mean the Zionists in Palestine, were in a fight for survival. But that's like saying that a guy who walks into a bar and starts punching people wildly is in a fight for his own survival. It might be true, but he got himself into that situation.
If they had done this they would be accused of ethnic cleansing as well as genocide. the negev isn't an altogether welcoming place, any death natural or otherwise that happened there would be blamed on the jews as proof and it would be an even bigger PR disaster. Egypt and the sinai would have a similar problem. Even Trump's recent suggestion of temporary resettlement to a populated area has been met with calls of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Most of the supposed supporters of the palestinian people don't care so much about their fate so much as they hate Jews and love the easy cudgel they make for attacking jews.
Putting that aside, no one, not Hamas, not the Israeli public, not Netanyahu, and certainly not the IDF, not any neighboring countries, not the wider world believed the war would drag on this long. Everyone thought it would be over fairly soon. Hamas probably didn't think there would be a war because israel itself was on the brink of a civil war, the Israeli public with their strong belief in their military might thought the war would be over before the new year and the IDF and politicians (BN included) likely had a similar belief, that A) Hamas didn't have an apatite for a long war, and B) the IDF would be able to quickly return the hostages. Everyone else also believed in the might of a stronger more organized force against a much weaker force that supposedly also had to care for their own people.
Instead Hamas showed they had no concern for their own people, and they had significantly deeper fortifications than the israeli security establishment knew about. So here we are almost two years later, and no end in sight.
Still it would be better for civilians even if not any better from PR standpoint. Also with some of the civilians filtered out Israel might have easier time acting boldly against Hamas in Gaza.
I remember a lot of people predicting it would lead to this from the start. The response was often along the lines of “If you don’t support Israel’s invasion, you are pro-Hamas.”
If those people had a come-to-Jesus moment, great. That said, they probably owe an apology to the people they demonized as supporting terrorism.
How about this response: "Denying Israel the right to protect themselves can't help but strengthen Hamas and won't bring anything other than more suffering to all parties. Israel will do what they need to do, all we can do is hope they will stop short of sinking to the same levels as Oct 7 perpetrators, even though historically it's unlikely, and even though Israel being dragged deeper into that murderous rage pit is exactly what Hamas aims for."
I don’t recall many people denying Israel’s right to protect themselves against Hamas (I’m sure some did). The concern was them using it as an excuse to perpetrate the Palestinian genocide they wanted all along. That is what we now see. Your comment seems to use the familiar playbook of equating Palestinians and Hamas to muddy the waters.
It is a pretty clear echo of the US’s response to 9/11. People were considered traitors if they didn’t support a full military invasion and occupation. In the end, that was clearly the wrong move.
Why not go the extra step and accuse Israel of false-flagging Oct 7th attacks themselves? It's a widely encountered trope and by now a lot of supporting evidence has been "unearthed". That would make you feel even more righteous in your separation of the good from the evil. And wouldn't that feel sweet?
After all, your magic mirror tells you what "they" wanted all along. The biggest proof? The fact that the IDF would always announce in before when they would make a strike. The fact that they did this proves that they were pretending that they don't want to make more victims than necessary among the Palestinians. Which shows that they were trying to hide something else - that they wanted to eliminate all of them. It all makes sense, yes.
In this comment, you invent a conspiracy and apply it to me in order to have something to attack. You even used scare quotes to make it extra bad.
These performances kind of prove that you know the facts aren’t in your corner. The BBC video you are commenting on refutes your point about IDF always warning civilians before strikes:
==“I witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces shooting at the crowds of Palestinians," Anthony Aguilar told the BBC. He added that in his entire career he has never witnessed such a level of "brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population".==
But still, why did they usually do it (if not always), if all they wanted really is to eliminate all Palestinians? I guess it will remain a mystery for the ages...
Really, nothing we see now is inconsistent with the most obvious explanation: which is the spiral of violence. None of it, as far as I can see, requires your conspiratorial belief that "all Israelis really wanted is to eliminate all Palestinians".
I'm not entirely sure, maybe they did it to give people a narrative to distribute? I just know what they are doing now, which is forced starvation and violence without warning. The exact thing people warned about before the conflict started.
Why would you forcibly starve a population of civilians if your goal wasn't to eliminate them? Why have they blocked outside journalists from entering Gaza for over 600 days if they weren't trying to hide their actions? Starving civilians in an area where you control the airspace and coastline isn't a "spiral of violence," it is a war crime.
That's what stands out to me the most, when they change their mind that means everyone else was always right.
Blaming all of Israel's chosen military strategy on Hamas invading at all is just weird. Like, there should really be a mental evaluation of everyone that repeated lines like that. Like seriously, trawl the entire internet for those people's screennames.
Those who wield power in Israel have calculated that they can do whatever they want at this moment and that they will enjoy functional impunity.
I repudiate what they are doing, but I do not disagree with their calculation. I can imagine no scenario where any foreign power tries to actually stop them.
There are numerous clips of Rabbis openly promoting the extermination of Palestinians.
They use the story of Amalek from the Torah.
One of the Rabbis I watched recently said "when you kill the first child it breaks your heart [...] then you start to enjoy it."
_Many_ Rabbis are demanding that animals, children, women and unarmed males be "erased." IDF soldiers are bragging about killing and raping civilians on social media. One IDF soldier was complaining he hasn't shot any children under 12 yet.
I've seen the video on Twitter but no confirmation that it was actually an IDF soldier -- Grok claimed it was authenticated as such but when further challenged said it was a South African satirist. I don't know one way or the other but again cannot find any confirmation. (But I'm aware of plenty of other unspeakable horrors committed by IDF soldiers and similar horrible things said.)
As for Netanyahu ... the Overton window in Israel has shifted far to the right so one can say in those terms that he's a "moderate", but I think it's a bit of a semantic game. His behavior is extreme, regardless of the fact that the behavior of the whole damn country is extreme.
South Africa's genocide case against Israel [1] is chock full of quotes from high level Israeli officials, including Netanyahu. Check page 59. Obviously much more has been said since that claim was filed, but the nature of genocidal rhetoric is such that you can't get much more extreme. Netanyahu himself repeatedly referenced the biblical tale of Amalek [2] which reaches its climax with this passage [3] : "Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."
He didn't reference that particular passage about Amalek though, he just said "Remember what Amalek did to you". And it was pretty clear from the context of his speech that he was talking about Hamas and their invasion, not regular Gazans.
His office pointed out that the same phrase appears at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, as well at a memorial in The Hague, in reference to the Nazis. Of course they're statements about remembering Nazi atrocities, and not calls to genocide the German people.
If you genuinely believe he wasn't appealing to genocide, then here's a sampling of the rest of the Israeli leadership - who generally speak more directly.
---
President of Israel: "It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved. It’s absolutely not true. … and we will fight until we break their backbone."
Minister of Defense: "[We are] imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly."
Minister of National Security: "To be clear, when we say that Hamas should be destroyed, it also means those who celebrate, those who support, and those who hand out candy — they’re all terrorists, and they should also be destroyed."
Minister of Energy and Infrastructure: "All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world."
Minister of Heritage: "We wouldn’t hand the Nazis humanitarian aid”, and "there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza."
---
This is also far from the most extreme. See the "motivational speech" sponsored by the Israeli Army on page 64. [1] I will not quote it because it makes the above seem like softball. And these were things all said more than a year ago - they have only become more radical with time. Their rhetoric isn't ambiguous and neither are their actions. So many people don't realize how the West will be seen when the future judges us, though I think more are starting to realize.
1. There’s no quantifier for “civilians”, so this is just a vague statement that some number of civilians support Hamas.
2. There have been many sieges throughout history, surely they weren’t all genocides? It was also lifted shortly thereafter. Or are you interpreting “human animals” as all Gazans rather than Hamas/PIJ/etc? If so why?
3. This is problematic but still not genocidal, since Hamas supporters are not a group of the sort that genocide can apply to.
4. Context was removed to make it sound as if “they” might mean Gazans. The preceding sentence was “We will fight the terrorist organization Hamas and destroy it.”
5. Not involved in the military.
6. Not any sort of leader.
We do see explicitly genocidal rhetoric from leaders of Hamas and other enemies of Israel, though.
GP asked for proof of "numerous clips of Rabbis openly promoting the extermination of Palestinians". If there are numerous, he should be able to post some.
South Africa has no moral authority given that it refuses to arrest Putin.
That would be correct if Israel didn't routinely do the exact same war crimes they are committing right now in Gaza for the past 20 years. It's depressing to say, but what Israel is doing right now is nothing new. It's par for the course and each 2 to 3 years you see the same war crimes in gaza, like clockwork.
So yes, those world leaders are as guilty as Israel, they enabled this for years.
Movements that want to grow should accept people who change their minds when the situation changes, they get new data, or they learn a new perspective.
The situation hasn't changed. The data is the same going back years. It's healthy to be cautious of people who join a movement under false pretenses like that.
If they learned a new perspective, that's great! I just wish it didn't have to come to personally witnessing such brutality to gain a new perspective...
Israel has been blockading the Gaza Strip by air and sea for 18 years. The Gaza Strip is, as far as I know, the only place in the world whose fishermen can't fish in the full extent of its territorial waters. This has been true since way before Oct. 7th 2023.
There are IDF troops on the Egypt side and a Egypt was forced under military threat to a sign a treaty allowing Israel to veto what comes and goes from the Egyptian side.
In the West Bank, whose Palestinian population is administered by an organization that fully collaborates with the Israeli occupation and does not engage in armed struggle, Israeli repression continues unabated (statelessness, restriction on freedom of movement, expansion of Jewish-only colonial settlements, arbitrary detention under Israeli military law, etc.)
Sure, maybe if Hamas surrendered there wouldn’t be a blockade, specifically, but given the example of the West Bank right next door it’s hard to imagine that repression wouldn’t continue in some form.
Ah yes, the west bank, where they have a leader who's graduate thesis is in holocaust denial[0] and where they incentivize murdering innocent civilians[1].
Until these things lose popular support among the west bank, I don't have a ton of sympathy. Yes we can get into tracing back the chain of causation -- these people grew up in an echo chamber and they had no outside source of information, and Israeli soldiers likely killed family members of theirs unfairly when they were little, so of course they're going to say things like Death to Israel [2] and have a countdown timer until when they want to genocide the entire country [3]
(These examples actually stem from Iran, where most of the funding for Hamas comes from)
But don't you think it's a little unfair to only defend one side with fatalistic determinism? Israelis are treated as humans who are making horrible decisions. Mahmoud Abbas is treated as a poor innocent bystander who is just the product of his environment, so of course he's going to think those things. I think he's a human too, and he has made very bad decisions too.
Somehow western people always forget this stuff, but luckily the religious fanatics just love to do religious fanatical things, so it makes it easy to point to examples.
That’s a pretty salient fact when you have the might of such a military on your side.
I find it funny how I am at the same time supposed to accept that Palestinian (leaders) are all terrorists and also that Israel justifiably act equally terrible.
The whole point of being a respectable state is to not commit crimes (and kill family members „unfairly“).
Indeed. Israel is free to act as barbaric as (or if we do the simplistic math of "the conflict started October 7 2023", 633x more barbaric than) Hamas butchers, but when they do so, they can't go around claiming the moral high ground...
Or, they can go around and do so, but their claim would be as valid as Hamas' claim to morality...
>The Gaza Strip is, as far as I know, the only place in the world whose fishermen can't fish in the full extent of its territorial waters.
well, you're leaving out the UK wrt French fisherman invading, thus depriving them of the full extent of their territorial waters. And Ukraine's territorial waters have been curtailed.
but the only place I can think of that's similar to what you're talking about would be the Houthis. I guess they do have free navigation in their territorial waters, and turns out they make great neighbors! https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3071vp2d8yo I guess nothing can go wrong!
It's hard to describe to people who don't have family there, but this exactly. The goal is similar to American "manifest destiny". They want to, through whatever means necessary, displace (at best) the existing Palestinian population and take their land.
From my perspective, they handed over control of the region and have had countless opportunities since the handoff to occupy the land permanently had they so chosen. Couldn't it just as easily be argued that they no longer trust sharing a border with them?
I feel like it would have been harder to get this far without international support had the Oct 7th attack not happened. I don’t know about you, but I’d be a bit more lenient if you’re trying to rescue civilian hostages.
I don’t know anything about the impetus for the Oct 7th attack was, but you have to wonder why.
Israelis voted in a government 20 years ago just to pull out from Gaza and give them their autonomy (which Gazans used to swiftly vote in Hamas, and that was the single and last time they had elections since). Saying Israel was interested in that land is disingenuous.
Israel definitely wants the West Bank (and the Golan Heights), it didn't demonstrate the same interest in Gaza. Which isn't that strange considering there's very little value in the land itself.
They were content with the Palestinians keeping to themselves in that corner of the land. At least that's what it looked like between 2005 and 2023. That isn't to say they had no designs on it further in the future, they might have had plans to annex it after fully claiming the West Bank. (Or at least certain groups within Israel)
This description of Israel’s interest in Gaza does not match their behavior. They have spent millions even billions of dollars terrorizing the population that lives there. They wouldn’t do that if “[t]hey were content with the Palestinians keeping to themselves in that corner of the land”. At the very least Israel saw that land valuable as a place to keep a population oppressed and terrorized, in other words, as a concentration camp or a ghetto.
Their behavior post October 7th, 2023 - the deadliest day for Jews since the holocaust - is very different than before that date. You couldn't expect Israel to keep its hands off approach, could you?
Expect or not, I think it would have made all the difference.
It seemed like a historical, Nelson Mandela scale opportunity with all international, regional and domestic & Palestinian winds in Israels back.
And then they used it to one up everything the world has seen in that region in recent past.
The way I see it is that Palestinians have been fighting for civil rights since 1948 with dismal results. This fight has included violent and non-violent tactics, and the verdict on the non-violent tactics is pretty clear, that it only results in more violence and less civil rights for Palestinians.
Oct. 7 was not only the most deadly day for Jews since the holocaust, it was also the most deadly day for Zionists since the conception of Zionism. Whatever Israel did after Oct. 7 was not to protect Jews, but to protect Zionism. The very same ideology which has stripped Palestinians of their civil rights. And because Zionism is a foundational ideology of Israel, I would expect them to behave exactly the way they did. But I also see Zionism as a fundamentally immoral ideology which should not be a policy of any state. So from a human rights perspective, the right thing for Israel to do since Oct. 7 (as well as much earlier) was to admit defeat, grant Palestinians civil rights (including the right of return and reparations for past wrongs), and abandon Zionism as a policy. Later they could file criminal charges, or have a special tribunal punishing the perpetrators of oct. 7, maybe even as a part of a peace treaty which also grants Palestinians civil rights.
I am not naïve, and I know Israel was never going to do that. That is where international laws should have kicked in which were supposed to pressure Israel into doing the right thing, by doing stuff like sanctions and boycotts. International law, however, failed spectacularly.
EDIT: to prevent misunderstanding, when I say Zionism I mean the belief that Israel should be a Jewish supremacy state on Palestinian lands, like I explained here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718838
The Palestinians are largely looking for the destruction of Israel, not "civil rights". The "right of return" (meaning the inflow of millions of third, fourth and fifth Palestinian descendants from neighbour Arab countries) is their - and the Arab's world - tool to dismantle Israel (there's a reason Arab countries don't grant citizenship to those Palestinians despite residing there for over 50-70 years).
There are no civil rights in Gaza, but that's not because of Israel - that's because Hamas is a fundamental, radical and totalitarian Muslim organization which is right next to ISIS in their methods and beliefs.
The suggestion that Jews admit defeat, hand their heads to Hamas and the likes and ask for forgiveness does not resonate as sane. It's like suggesting a rape victim to move in with the family of the perpetrator and look for reconciliation. The Palestinian and Jewish populations are not compatible with each other and I see no path to coexistence under the same governing body. These populations are too far apart on any conceivable metric.
Luckily Israel took the opportunity to do just about the opposite of what you suggested and aggressively dismantled the Iranian ring of fire that surrounded it. Lebanon and Syria have been transformed, Iran caught a massive blow and any dreams of breaking Israel by force must be a distant past now. The Middle East will have to accept Israel, and by the looks of things this is where it's going. If you haven't been to the region you'll never understand the collective Middle Eastern mentality that despises weakness and worships victors.
I really don‘t like the tone and implication of your post. When you say stuff like “the collective Middle Eastern mentality that despises weakness and worships victors”, “The Palestinians are largely looking for the destruction of Israel”, and “The Palestinian and Jewish populations are not compatible with each other”. You are generalizing over a large population with varying views, and makes you look like a bigot and a racist.
I‘m gonna answer your strongest points on material grounds though, and ignore your more racist stuff.
> The "right of return" (meaning the inflow of millions of third, fourth and fifth Palestinian descendants from neighbour Arab countries) is their - and the Arab's world - tool to dismantle Israel.
That is a) just your opinion, and b) irrelevant in the context of human rights. The Palestinian were unjustly expelled and they have a right of return under international law. Israel had no right to expel them in the first place, the expulsion was a historic wrong, and for justice to resume they are owed the right of return as well as reperation. Whatever that does to Israel’s demographics is a non-concern in the context of international humanitarian law. If such a right were granted and it would result in Israel no longer being a majority Jewish state, that would simply be a new reality we would have to deal with. Minority rights are a thing that international law also guarantees, and surely Jewish Israelis should be happy living is a minority in a land which guarantees their rights as such.
> The suggestion that Jews admit defeat, hand their heads to Hamas and the likes and ask for forgiveness does not resonate as sane.
We have been here before, and yes, this is the sane option. Rhodesia admitted defeat to the terrorist organizations ZANU and ZAPU, South Africa to the ANC, The French Algerians to the FLN (which was probably more brutal than Hamas). And outside of settler colonies we have South Vietnam admitting defeat to the Viet Cong. Brutal regimes which owe their existence to the oppression of others like Rhodesia, Apartheid South Africa, French Algeria, and South Vietnam are frequent targets of terrorists, those same terrorists often become the ruling power post liberation, and the settler (or otherwise the beneficiaries of the past oppression) most of the time are able to live just fine under their new rule without the systemic oppression. In all likelyhood, even if Hamas were to rise to power in a post-apartheid Israel state (which honestly is rather unlikely) chances are they would not be able (nor even willing) to exert the kind of oppression onto a hypothetical Jewish minority in such a state.
IMHO discounting the cultural differences at the core of Arab societies compared to Western societies is racist, but to each his own. See how Alawits and Druze are faring now under the new Syrian regime - made of former ISIS members, no less. Imagine what they'd do to Jews if they just had the chance (indeed, Arabs mass expelled Jews from their countries after the formation of Israel; what do you expect those to do?).
I think your other, bigger mistake is to equate Israel to the colonialist adventures of Africa's past. That's complete misunderstanding of Israeli psyche and source of strength (and indeed you are talking about Israel in an overriding manner, as if it's not their choice on how to solve this).
While colonialists in Africa could always turn back to Europe and the white world (and many did), Jews in Israel don't feel nearly the same. Colonialists didn't flee anything, they just came looking for a better future or an adventure. Jews came to Israel to form a homeland. Jews have an undisputed connection to the land through countless artefacts and written history, while colonialists never had that in relation to Africa. Jews have nowhere to return to; where would they go, back to Auschwitz? To the pogroms of Russia, Ukraine and Poland?
Jews are ready, willing and able to fight to the end and currently possess the strongest military in the Middle East (and probably in Europe) by far.
The combination of technology, economy, psychology and resilience means Israel could easily outlast any other Middle Eastern country (which are artificial entities to begin it, a result of Sykes-Picot agreements).
And, indeed, look: Syria is out, Lebanon is hanging on the brink of another civil war, Jordan is there just thanks to monarchical oppression (where are their civil rights?), Iraq is a failed state, Saudis want Israeli technology and good favors, the GCC are all in bed with Israel (other than Qatar and Kuwait), Iran is on its knees, Egypt is thirsty and illiterate. Who's left, other than perhaps Turkey (but then they have their business with the Greek which are very close to Israel)?
I've had many such discussions on the internet but not even once did I encounter someone offering that Israel disposes of its F35, nukes and security apparatus and hand the keys to ISIS/Hamas terrorists. There's a first time for anything.
> IMHO discounting the cultural differences at the core of Arab societies compared to Western societies is racist, but to each his own.
We're not discounting cultural differences. We're just discounting your claims regarding cultural differences.
> ...you'll never understand the collective Middle Eastern mentality that despises weakness and worships victors.
From the content of your arguments, I get the feeling that this statement is pure projection.
> I think your other, bigger mistake is to equate Israel to the colonialist adventures of Africa's past. [...] Jews have nowhere to return to; where would they go, back to Auschwitz? To the pogroms of Russia, Ukraine and Poland?
GP never said that the Jews should leave. In reference to Africa, he said "those same terrorists often become the ruling power post liberation, and the settler (or otherwise the beneficiaries of the past oppression) most of the time are able to live just fine under their new rule without the systemic oppression."
> I've had many such discussions on the internet but not even once did I encounter someone offering that Israel disposes of its F35, nukes and security apparatus and hand the keys to ISIS/Hamas terrorists.
GP said Israel should surrender their oppressive political system, not their weapons.
If Israel, the state, had interest in the West Bank it'd have annexed it already. There is a group, admittedly growing as a result of the processes happening in the Israeli society, which is very interested in the West Bank. But it was never the official position of the state.
West Bank should have went to the Palestinians following the Oslo accords, and it partly did, but that all came to a halt with the deadly suicide attacks led by Hamas on Israel.
Another opportunity was in 2000 Camp David accords, but that too ended with the second Intifada.
A third opportunity came in the form of the Israeli disengagement from Gaza. Had it been a success story - the Palestinians building their own little Singapore in there, as the world was willing to pour in infinite capital - it would have pushed forward another such a move in the West Bank. But alas it ended with Hamas swiftly coming to power, years of rocket attacks on Israel, then October 7th and the rest is history.
I doubt the Israeli public will ever give the Palestinians anything, at this point; any time a concession was made, Israel found itself in a worse and worse security situation. The great Israeli-Palestinian peace attempt over the past three decades failed miserably.
These populations simply will not coexist, for great many reasons - religious, cultural, historical, tribal, and external.
There’s a case that it was darker than that. The IDF is arguably the best army of its type in the world.
Yet the level of incompetence demonstrated when Hamas took the hostages was beyond incompetence. A retired general hopped in his car and rounded up a bunch of troops to extract his daughter. No officers were present in the area.
It seems weird that a military that had 3D mapping and monitoring of a region allowing it to detect and target concealed Hezbollah artillery in buildings somehow was caught flat footed. It’s weirder that there hasn’t been any commentary about this in an age where every decision made is analyzed to death.
There has been some commentary. For instance reports of rising levels of intense military activity on the border, sent by IDF female spotter squads on the border for months, were ignored by command centers. This was explained as “chauvinism” - crippling incompetence if true.
>It seems weird that a military that had 3D mapping and monitoring of a region allowing it to detect and target concealed Hezbollah artillery in buildings somehow was caught flat footed. It’s weirder that there hasn’t been any commentary about this in an age where every decision made is analyzed to death.
Yeah. "Weird." Kinda like how it was weird that a music festival was moved to be next to a military base that was the target of an operation that one of the greatest signals intelligence powers in the world "didn't know about" over a couple of years of planning.
Weird that the IDF moved into the crowd instead of evacuating the festival. Weird that there were photos of massive numbers of bombed out cars that were disposed of before any forensics could happen. Kinda weird that IDF copters and tanks opened fire indiscriminately (or, sometimes, targeting Israelis due to Hannibal doctrine).
Really "weird" operation all around. Seems like it really didn't have to happen the way it did.
Why did Israel unilaterally withdrew its military forces from Gaza and dismantled its settlements in 2005? It gave them what they wanted, and look what it got in return. Murderous terrorism.
I'm having trouble understanding the notion of "permanent military occupation of Gaza before 2005". Just out of interest, who occupied Gaza before 1967? And who before 1948? And who before 1920?
It's very doubtful the US will bomb Egypt over that, it didn't even bomb Egypt when it was directly involved in wars with Israel. Currently the Egyptians are in violations of the peace agreements with Israel over stationing military forces in Sinai, yet no bombs are falling.
Generally I think they targeted the US because of Islamist Ideology.
Islamism links conquest and imperialism to a proof of the religious validity of Islam.
Once the West has begun its control over Arab countries the idea in the 1920s has emerged where the reason why Islam lost its prominence is because they lost the "true" islam. Therefore the solution is to return to medieval Islam, similarly to fascism nostalgia to the Roman/German empires.
In that context, even the fact that the United States exists as a cultural force and influences arab teens to wear jeans is a major threat. Don't be naive that it is all over Palestine, Islamism started prior to the existence of Israel.
>Generally I think they targeted the US because of Islamist Ideology. Islamism links conquest and imperialism to a proof of the religious validity of Islam.
You don't have to speculate. You can actually just look at what the bombers stated the purpose of their attack was. It wasn't part of a conquest; it was an attempt to punish us for our history in that region, with a very specific policy of ours mentioned explicitly by many of the masterminds of 9/11.
The only Islamist movement seeking conquest in recent history was ISIS, which is why a lot of their attention was spent expanding their caliphate into their neighbors' territories rather than launching quixotic attacks at the US on our soil. I'm not including ISIS-K in this assessment, as they glow more than Langley.
I don't need to speculate, I can read the ideological foundations behind the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafism, the Islamic Republic etc.
One part is rejection of modernism and romanticism of a fantastic past similar to fascist movements. Other is anti-colonialism, but only in the context of european colonialism, not muslim colonialism, which is fine. Because of the aforementioned romanticism to the middle ages, part of any Islamist project is creating a Caliphate, and it is easy to see in Islamic history that these were boundless.
The reason Palestine may be important for them is that according to their perception, while european colonialism is a humiliation, there is no greater shame than the existence of Israel, as it is no some vast British Empire, but rather a nation built by refugees and therefore weak by definition, thereby enhancing their defeat, which in their mind has religious implications. As Islam is a conquering religion, and their conquests are a proof of Allah's power.
I think many people have their own personal revelation where they come to believe what Israel is doing is not self-defense but rather genocide. For me that came in the 2008/2009 Gaza offensive where they inflicted roughly 100 deaths for every Israeli who was killed in the initial attack. The Freedom Flotilla incident in early 2010 where they murdered the aid volunteers in international waters only further solidified my opinion.
Historically, any nationalist project on behalf of any group requiring large migration for it to work led to a removal and replacement of some group with another. United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, failed ones like Rhodesia...there's really no counter-example I can think of.
Regardless of where you land, I don't think anyone can look at what's going on in the middle east and think things are going fine - or ever were.
Perhaps, if we ever decide to act globally, we shouldn't permit any more migratory nationalist projects - they seem to be inherently problematic.
Both China and Russia have claimed parts of other countries using the tactic of moving in their people to then use that as an excuse to annex or overtake those parts.
Crimea for Russia as an example, but this is also true for other former Soviet states.
With China it's been Bhutan, India, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Japan. In addition to their claims over Taiwan or their excuse to (culturally) genocide the Uighur in China).
That is ignoring Africa as a whole, where conflicts are far more common. To name a recent example, over 50,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed by Islamists in the past 16 years. The world is far more bloody than most people seem to realize. The world peace has only been a peace in a relative sense.
>Both China and Russia have claimed parts of other countries using the tactic of moving in their people to then use that as an excuse to annex or overtake those parts.
>Crimea for Russia as an example, but this is also true for other former Soviet states.
In Crimea, the proportion was 3 Russians for every Ukrainian for most of the time since at least 1897:
Before 1954, Crimea was officially part of Russia, so it makes sense (Khrushev transferred it to Ukraine for infrastructure reasons).
Not sure what happened when the number of Ukrainians dropped from 24% to 15% between 2001 and 2014, I'm not aware of any mass migration during that period (independent Ukraine). On the contrary, the total population contracted from 2.4 mil to 2.2 mil (both Russians and Ukrainians).
I guess my advocacy is to identify it as a social pattern and then come up with some kind of global treaty against it similar to the geneva conventions. It'd take years, there'd be lots of negotiations, people way smarter than me would opine. I certainly don't have all the answers.
I can entertain the plausibility of this form of nationalism not being a catastrophe but I can't think of any times it worked out well.
On a personal note, I harbor particularly harsh judgement on my own nation, the USA, on this front. Unfortunately there's no way to unroll hundreds of years
It's not completely in-use. The motivation for the entire state of Israel's existence is that the Jewish people need a homeland or else they will keep getting persecuted. That rules out a Muslim-majority state with a lot of Jews in it.
Given the demographics of Jewish people outside of Israel, it's hard to disagree with. When you consider the early years of Israel, and how many wars were started to run the Jews out of it, it's even more well-supported.
The best hope for a lasting peace was with the Oslo accords. They were torpedoed by the Palestinians themselves, who were unwilling to accept any kind of compromise that maintained a Jewish state.
Not saying Israel is innocent, but the idea that so many people seem to have that the region would be happy-go-lucky and peaceful for Jewish people if not for the war is hopelessly naive.
Speaking as a Jewish person I feel like our odds of survival are much better in the diaspora. And the way Israel is behaving is not doing us any favours in the long term.
Most of my family died in the Holocaust and the ones who made it escaped with nothing. They would not have made it out but for the generosity and compassion of a handful of people.
But despite that I still stand by my statement. Especially in the nuclear age. History does not repeat but it does rhyme. And in 2025, Jews aren't the ones clawing for an exit visa. I'll leave it there because I don't feel the need to argue this point further.
> Jewish people occupied the entire region long before Islam existed or Islamic Arabs took it over?
And other peoples occupied the region long before judaism was an idea in some shepherd's preaching.
The problem with this logic is, where do you stop. At what point do you declare "these people were the special first ones and anyone before them doesn't matter"?
Much less the mental gymnastics required to believe that which human owned which land in 500bce is relevant to how to deal with things in 2025.
It's not that we should ignore history, it's absolutely worth understanding how we got to the current position, but we shouldn't privilege it over the lives and wellbeing of actual people living right now.
So if a rapist “changed” their mind on consent do we just let them go because we need more feminists?
Please do not confuse changing your mind with innocence. It’s all well and good to change your mind but accountability is still required.
Remember the movement grew despite them and will certainly flourish without them. Nothing will strengthen the movement more than to see these leaders brought to justice.
Tens of thousands of people have been murdered because the justice latency of Western politicians is too damned high.
The justice latency won't ever be what it needs to be until we jail our own war criminals, and that is never going to happen if we congratulate them when we should be prosecuting them.
I would not talk about state leaders and governments as "changing their minds". Maybe they respond to pressure; maybe the state interests change. But whatever the case, what matters is actually stopping the genocide. If their "change in mind" helps that, that's enough for me right now.
However I would rather see and applaud actions than words. Words are easy. I can also do words, but a president or government have power. In the meantime, has anything changed in Israel being supplied weapons to commit said genocide? That matters more imo than what a president or prime minister says. Hopefully things go that direction and actions do follow.
There is no reason to believe that what you've described happened since those politicians knew about the "situation change" many months before the change in position, so they don't deserve the charitable acceptance
Eh nuance. Accept anyone who can accept they were wrong. But it has to come with that understanding, that they were wrong. Growth and understanding are great. "I love bombing civilian populations, I just hate the consequences of bombing civilian populations" is not the amazing support that people on the ground are looking for. Gotta attack the why. Why would you support killing civilians who pose no threat to you in the name of defense.
Its been the common theme of anti war sentiment for the better part of a century. "Never Again". "Lest We Forget". etc. What was all that holocaust remembrance for if not to get ahead of and prevent situations like this (While Gaza doesnt have a lot to do with the holocaust in totality it sure looks like a Warsaw Ghetto).
Its kind of useless to get people along for a single issue, ending the genocide in Gaza, but for them to not understand why the things that lead up to the genocide in Gaza are bad also. Mobilising a military, into a civilian area, that has been trained from birth to resent the people in that space, that they own that space, told that the government will support them killing civilians, is going to cause this. Supporting that action is bad actually. Wanting that military, in that area, is something an Asshole would want.
This, but further more, there are 100s of comments about "the genocide" here, but almost none about what Israel should do. They have a neighbor who just committed a huge act of terror and whos standing installed political party calls for the elimination of the country. They live in a region where their ethnic group has essentially been wiped out systematically in all neighboring countries.
So, "Stop the genocide" and then what? Build a bigger fence? Wait for the next episode? Im generally interested if anyone has an opinion that goes beyond leave Gaza alone and considers Israelis dilema.
Israel should have captured terrorists without destroying the whole city and killing random people. Don't know if it was possible though but it is the obvious answer.
I’m having trouble distilling the essence of your message in a way that leaves us with any common moral ground.
Would you agree that “an eye for an eye” type justice is undesirable? Because it seems like you are advocating for genocide as a response to the oct attack, going well beyond “eye for an eye”!
Boiling it down to a catch phrase does it no justice. The war is being fought in a urban area, with an armed forced who refuses ceasefire and has repeatedly said it wont rest until all isrealis are dead. Again, my comment is, if you want them to stop fighting, what would you have them do next? Im not being rhetorical.
How does this country claim to be any better than Hamas butchers, when they can't conduct a war where their bullets and bombs hit defenseless children? They've been saying "oops, that was a mistake" so many times that it's obvious their operating procedure is "drop the bomb here and we don't care about civilian deaths".
Or they use the excuse that terrorists are hiding under hospitals and schools, so dropping bombs on these things are perfectly acceptable. In my book that's morally indefensible and makes them not very different to Hamas butchers.
Or if you can accept that, maybe crashing planes into the WTC towers is acceptable too (and what about a military target like the Pentagon)...
You would say the same about any group that did the same things to you as the Israeli have done to Palestinians. Answer this: will these actions by Israel decrease or increase the number of people who think that way? Even if they kill all the Palestinians and get rid of the threat in Gaza, they'll just create more, deeper and stronger hate against themselves in the region and the world. If at any point in time they lose the support of the most powerful country on earth, they'll be in huge danger and they can only blame themselves for creating that danger.
What? Outside of like maybe WW2 Germany, no serious country does official press run where they say "The only good x is a dead x". Especially so about private citizens of the enemy country. It constantly feels like Palestine is never held responsible for their actions because theyre getting pummeled so badly on the field.
Defeating your enemy before they can launch another deadly attack is a lot different than genocide or ethnic cleansing. Jesus was talking about personal relationships in that saying, he wasn't running a government or military. Presumably he had a different view on what should happen to the Roman occupiers when the Kingdom of God came, as can be seen in other parts of the Jewish and Christian scriptures.
The problem is Israel treated the entire Gaza population as indiscriminately sheltering Hamas, partly because Netanyahu retains power by keeping conflicts going, and party because the right-wing Jewish extremists want to claim all the land.
What moral people want is to give Israel the same leeway the allies had in WW2. Nothing more, nothing less.
The expectation back then was you should kill Nazis and Japanese until they surrender without any conditions. Hamas always puts conditions on releasing hostages.
I agree. That doesn't make the bombing of Tokyo and Dresden moral acts. War is atrocious by definition.
What is different this time is that most of the west has forgotten what it actually means to be at war and they pontificate from their armchair.
Combine that with the fact that it is generally easier to have empathy for the side that you perceive to be the victim or on the side of justice, and most people truly cannot comprehend how so many Israelis would support their right wing war policies.
I don't think one has to justify the killing of innocent civilians in order to at least try to put themselves in the shoes of people who have been born in Israel and have lived their lives punctuated by the fear of their family or friend being blown up in a bus bombing.
Most people in the west will just not entertain the thought exercise. They'll just dismiss it as "well they invaded Palestine and stole their land", as if this is a justification for suicide bomb attacks or raining rockets over Israeli cities.
I think our collective inability to accept the situation on the ground and push for a compromise is fueling the violence.
Hamas has a strategy where they can leverage their population acceptance of martyrdom in order to gain more and more victim points in their master PR strategy.
Israel feels more and more isolated internationally and they react by giving everybody a big F U and doubling down on their own extremism.
I often hear "Jews should just go back to Europe" as if that is an actual solution.
I believe that if this was any other conflict that didn't involve Jews (e.g. Turks and Kurds) most people would be cheering for peace or they'd be indifferent.
But this conflict has the right mix of inflaming ingredients. There is white colonial guilt and guilt of racism, there is the association of Jews with global capitalism, and associating Jews as "being white".
To be clear, my take is not that since there are other wars like in Sudan, Israel can do whatever they want. All wars should end and every day they continue is a tragedy.
My point is that if one wants to help bring this conflict to an end, one should not put Israel in an impossible position and demand that they simply cease to exist because they "are not native to the land" or similar arguments that people make nowadays.
It's much more effective to pressure Israel to avoid war atrocities if one understands their point of view, their condition and what it means to be under existential threat.
In order to do that you don't have to deny the same to Palestinians.
For some reason most people seem to only reason by taking one side
There are numerous reports that IDF does what it can to root out Hamas among the general pop. They call people before strikes, they distribute leaflets
Their actions shows a general disrespect for human life and human rights.
"Numerous reports" might claim what you say, but actual reports of countless genocidal atrocities contradicts them I guess. It is my belief that they don't care and never cared.
This statement and the most of the ones above are the same canned response.
My numerous reports are more numerous than your numerous reports and some version of the solution is stop being evil.
Its disappointing, given even with a direct ask for a considered answer everyone confidently gives one that dosent even respect there is a two sided problem.
>> This, but further more, there are 100s of comments about "the genocide" here, but almost none about what Israel should do.
They should do what all other countries do when they are attacked: defend themselves and not seek to take the attack as an opportunity to invade their neighbours.
You want an example? Look at the recent India and Pakistan crisis, and the Thailand and Cambodia crisis that is only now being resolved. In both cases there was fire exchanged, war was on the brink, then it was held back and reason and peace prevailed. The countries in question won't be best friends, they won't like each other, but they're not bombing the shit out of each other, levelling each other's cities to the ground and ethnically cleansing their populations.
The difference in Israel-Palestine of course is that Israel has the upper hand militarily and by many orders of magnitude so it doesn't have to make peace. It can afford to bomb the Palestinians for as long as it likes, it can afford to ethnically clanse them even at the risk of ethnic cleansing turning into genocide, it can afford to impose a medieval-style siege on Gaza where no food goes in and no Palestinians come out, it can afford to do anything it likes and nobody can stop it, certainly not Hamas with its risible military ... I can't even say "strength"; weakness is more appropriate. The redoubtable Islamist terrorists fight with their grandfathers' hand-me down AK-47's from "terror" tunnels (that have to be called that to sound even vaguely threatening).
The maddening thing is that exactly because Israel has such overwhelming military superiority -and not just against Hamas, but also against Lebanon, Syria, Iran sorta, everyone around it- they can absolutely make peace if they wanted. Its enemies would surely prefer that to having to fight Israel. Even Hamas' founders once resolved to make peace with Israel and what did Israel do? It assassinated them [1].
It is clear that Israel has convinced itself, as a nation, over multiple governments and generations, that its best interests are served by making constant, total war on its neighbours. Israel doesn't want peace.
But, to answer your question: that's exactly what it "should" do; make peace. That's the only way to not make war.
Yassin on several occasions proposed long-term ceasefire agreements, or truces, so called hudnas, in exchange for Israeli concessions. All such offers were rejected by Israel. Following his release from Israeli prison in 1997, he proposed a ten-year truce in exchange for total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza and a stop to Israeli attacks on civilians. In 1999, in an interview with an Egyptian newspaper, he again offered a truce:[41]
We have to be realistic. We are talking about a homeland that was stolen a long time ago in 1948 and again in 1967. My generation today is telling the Israelis, 'Let's solve this problem now, on the basis of the 1967 borders. Let's end this conflict by declaring a temporary ceasefire. Let's leave the bigger issue for future generations to decide.' The Palestinians will decide in the future about the nature of relations with Israel, but it must be a democratic decision.[41]
It was shortly after once such truce offer, in January 2004, that Yassin was assassinated.[42]
His second in command was also assassinated for the same reason. Can't find the article now.
The Cambodia - Thailand conflict is more like Gaza pre-10/7. Cambodia shot some rockets, killed some innocent Thai, and Thailand responded with overwhelming firepower. Same as when Gaza used to shoot rockets and kill civilians, then get destructive counter attacks from Israel.
The equivalent of the current Israeli-Palestine war would be Cambodia breaking a ceasefire to kill, torture and rape 1,000 civilians, and took hundreds back as hostages.
I'm sorry but your argument is defeated by the reality that there was a Hudna on October 7th, and Hamas broke it with a brutal attack killing and kidnapping hundreds of civilians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_7_attacks)
An interesting thing in this case then is to see how these mind-changers are treating the people who called it correctly from the beginning. Is there any mea culpa, any contrition for the lives they could have saved by acting earlier? apologies for the protestors they attacked, the movements they painted as antisemitic? Anything learned for the future. We all had the same information after all.
Personally I don’t see it being a case of one side of protesters being “right” and “wrong”. I just think Israel should have pulled out an awfully long time ago. They went too far, have done too much damage and the calculus doesn’t make sense any more. I have no problem with the initial invasion of Gaza to stop Hamas and get their people back. I’m not sorry for saying so, or holding that position after Hamas gave them such a clear casus belli. But it doesn’t seem to be about that any more. There’s been too much bloodshed. Something needs to change.
I’m not sure what you’re looking for. An apology? For what, exactly? For being told there are antisemitic people taking advantage of this conflict to hate on Jews? There are.
> I have no problem with the initial invasion of Gaza to stop Hamas and get their people back. I’m not sorry for saying so, or holding that position after Hamas gave them such a clear casus belli. But it doesn’t seem to be about that any more.
The point is that you were told this was the inevitable consequences of such actions and yet chose to ignore it. That's probably the kind of mea culpa they're looking for.
Predicting the future is notoriously tricky, but pretending like this outcome was in any way unlikely is extremely disengenuous.
We could equally say that this overreaction by Israel was entirely predictable - and inevitable - after Hamas’s murderous rampage on Oct 7. And to take hostages and not return them? What did they think Israel would do? Capitulate to Hamas’s demands, thereby encouraging Hamas to do the same thing again every few months when they want treats? Invasion was perhaps the only option the Israelis had. Hamas played chicken, using their own civilians as human shields. And Israel called their bluff. To the death of tens of thousands of innocent lives.
The heartbreaking part is that I agree with you. I feel like this conflict is inevitable. And it’s the civilians on both sides - but especially Gaza - who are bearing the brunt of misery as a result.
What on earth do I have to be sorry about? Of course their murderous rampage through Gaza happened after October 7. Even with the benefit of hindsight I’m not sure what better options Israel had.
I just wish they’d pull out and let the rebuilding begin. This conflict won’t be healed with more blood.
What both ways are you talking about? GP is arguing on behalf of those who were called antisemites because they stated “international community should rein in Israel to prevent them to commit atrocities because of rage”, and your response seems to be “well atrocities were given because Hamas”.
This is exactly why this “mea culpa” rings hollow. People who apparently condemn the reaction will tumble on their own arguments to excuse the same actions.
The "mea culpa" you're looking for rings hollow because I - and others - aren't sorry.
As I said, what do I have to be sorry for? For not condemning Israel after Hamas murdered and kidnapped hundreds of their civilians? Should I have condemned them for doing everything they could to bring their kidnapped people home?
Its lazy and incredibly selfish to condemn others for making hard choices when you don't know how you would have acted yourself. Me? I still can't answer the question of how I would have acted differently if I were in charge of Israel when October 7 happened. If I was president, and a bunch of armed militants came into my country, murdered our children and kidnapped hundreds of people, I can see myself sending my soldiers out with orders to bring them home.
Would you have done any different, if you were Israel's president? If so, what?
If you would have done the same thing and sent soldiers in, your condemnation rings pretty hollow.
On your hypothetical, do I woke up as Israeli president on Oct 7 2023? Because if that’s the case, then yes, maybe I would do the same, although most likely I would be ousted for not being bloodthirsty enough.
But in a less unrealistic scenario, if I were by chance, to be president of Israel, I would try first to dismantle illegal settlements and defuse conflict to avoid, for example, 2023 being the deadliest year for children in west bank way before Oct 7.
Any hypothetical scenario that doesn’t engage on what the Israeli government can do before Oct 7, is pretty much a scenario where you are representing an occupying and murderous regime, so likely you will behave as those who represent murderous regimes do.
> Its lazy and incredibly selfish to condemn others for making hard choices when you don't know how you would have acted yourself
No, it's how our world improves.
I, personally, do not have to be a perfect paragon of morality and justice and righteousness in order to condemn other people for doing immoral and evil things.
Also there's a huge difference between "a week after the attacks" and "12 months after the attacks". Humans, pretty much universally, will justify/excuse reactions based on immediate rage and anger and hurt and forgive people who did it... assuming they, you know, stop doing it.
Would I personally have sent soldiers in or done any of the other things? No idea. I certainly hope not, but there's no way to prove that. It's like asking if I would have bought a slave if I lived in 1800s texas or 150 ce rome. There's no real way to answer the question, but the important part is that it would still be wrong if I did it.
We can quibble about how wrong it would be, and more usefully, what the punishment should be for doing so, but none of that changes the fact that it's wrong.
And as a general take on the whole israel-palestine thing, yes, hamas has done any number of awful immortal crimes. So has israel. The difference is that israel has a lot more power over palestine than hamas has over israel.
Sure, maybe the 8 year old did in fact kick you in the shin and spit on you. I still expect the adult to act with a higher moral standard.
I'm pretty sure Hamas went into this expecting Israel to respond with war crimes, it was probably the reaction they were going for with the kidnappings. What I don't understand is how Hamas thought that they could take advantage of it (if not for the betterment of the Gazans, for themselves)?
It was clear to me and many other people from the first days after oct 7 that the actions taken by israel in gaza did not align with their stated goals, and that genocide was the likely outcome.
I hope people changing their view of it now will reflect on at what point they could have seen that, and what prevented them from seeing it, and what prevented them from taking seriously the people who did see it. Does everyone hold the belief that everything was fine until two days ago? I don't think that's a very strong position.
If I could invent a time machine to be in charge of Israel on Oct 7, I'd try to make the time machine travel further to the past...
If somehow I quantum-leapt into Netanyahu (shudder) on Oct 7, I'd tell the military to not bomb civilians indiscriminately. The bloodthirsty barbaric hardliners of the Israeli government/society would've called me/him a pussy and done a coup d'etat, either real or de facto, and I/he would've ended up in prison for the corruption.
At least if it was Quantum Leap, I could leap out.
Yeah its a horrible situation, and I too am grateful I wasn't Netanyahu on Oct 7.
> If somehow I quantum-leapt into Netanyahu (shudder) on Oct 7, I'd tell the military to not bomb civilians indiscriminately.
They didn't bomb civilians indiscriminately. But they also didn't hold back when Hamas used civilians as human shields. (Eg Hamas put military bases underneath hospitals).
Would you have held back, even if meant more of your soldiers dying? Even if it meant you might not be able to behead Hamas, or bring your people home? (Leaving Hamas alive means risking October 7 happening again.)
FWIW, I don't think there's any right answer here. Just lots of wrong answers. Its weirdly symmetrical - the Palestinians also - only - had lots of wrong answers in reaction to the encroachment of Israeli settlers. The whole situation is horrible.
> Leaving Hamas alive means risking October 7 happening again.
If someone killed your family members (especially the innocent ones) and walked around with impunity and an air of moral superiority, how much revenge would be in you?
> But they also didn't hold back when Hamas used civilians as human shields.
No they didn't, so in my view they lose any right to claim that they're any better than the barbaric butchers they're fighting.
> They didn't bomb civilians indiscriminately.
Oh please, wake up, and finally admit you're accepting their lies and are lying to yourself. Oh wait, I apologize, you're right, they didn't bomb civilians "indiscriminately", they used an algorithm to figure out whom to bomb: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
> B. said that the reason for this automation was a constant push to generate more targets for assassination. “In a day without targets [whose feature rating was sufficient to authorize a strike], we attacked at a lower threshold. We were constantly being pressured: ‘Bring us more targets.’ They really shouted at us. We finished [killing] our targets very quickly.”
> He explained that when lowering the rating threshold of Lavender, it would mark more people as targets for strikes. “At its peak, the system managed to generate 37,000 people as potential human targets,” said B. “But the numbers changed all the time, because it depends on where you set the bar of what a Hamas operative is.
> If someone killed your family members (especially the innocent ones) and walked around with impunity and an air of moral superiority, how much revenge would be in you?
Oh I’m sure a lot. But I’d like to think I wouldn’t take that anger out by gunning down innocent civilians in the street like Hamas did.
> any better than the barbaric butchers they’re fighting
I never said they were. Why do we have to pick a team here? Israel put Palestine in an untenable situation and they reacted with an evil act of terrorism. And then Israel reacted to that with a brutal bombing campaign that’s left tens of thousands dead, cold and hungry. We probably both agree more than we disagree here - it’s all barbaric butchery. Both sides have acted with reckless indifference to the death and destruction they’ve caused. And sadly I don’t see any path out.
The only “team” I’m on is that of the civilians on both sides of this conflict, who have bled and died for no good reason. Especially that of the civilians in Gaza who have paid a heavier price in bloodshed, rubble and hunger. It’s horrible all round.
Israel was launching air strikes before noon on October 7, killing hundreds of people with those strikes that day alone. Israeli news reports on Sunday morning variously mentioned 800 strikes and more than 16 tons of munitions dropped on the Gaza Strip.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/we-are-at-war-netanyahu-says-a...
On October 8 they cut all imports to Gaza, and cut off the electricity and gas supplies to the entire civilian population. That was probably a war crime by itself, as collective punishment. Palestinian hospitals reported being overwhelmed by Sunday morning. Netanyahu said civilians should all leave Gaza - without opening any exits - and promised to inflict an unprecedented price in response to the attacks.
...Except I clocked Israel as having genocidal ambitions within days of Hamas' attack, right about the time their generals started talking about cutting off power and water to the entirety of gaza.
I have imagine I am both less informed and more naive than any of these politicians. I don't have to applaud them when they spinelessly slither with the prevailing political winds.
hamas could surrender tomorrow and end any pretense or cover for the "genocidal ambitions". you are being incredibly racist towards palestinians by infantilizing them and suggesting that hamas doesn't have any agency or responsibility for this war or it's effect on innocent civilians.
I think you are putting too much weight on the organization rather than the idea and collective it represents. From a very westernized idealized perspective.
Hamas is not this all encompassing high communication stable organization able to surrender tomorrow.
Hamas, or rather the idea, is instead made up of everyone who had a family member, relative or friend killed by Israel wanting to live a good life without the threat or pain of past actions.
One group of a loosely connected collective surrendering won’t materially change the situation on the ground.
that is the main point for me. There are a lot of claims, yet almost no verifiable data. With smartphones everywhere and having seen how war is documented say in Ukraine (and also how the propaganda lies are made there), i believe practically no claim until there is a video for it. For example the news of shooting near aid distribution centers come almost every day. How come nobody has recorded it? Especially with Hamas flying a bunch of drones there, they would undoubtedly have made such footage and published the footage around the world.
It’s more likely that Israel was given free rein for the timeline they wanted from the global order. Let’s say they asked for a full two years, where countries were basically under a gentleman’s gag order.
Two years is enough time for the deed to be done, say whatever you need to say now, it doesn’t matter. You see that Israel has allowed aid in all of a sudden according to this contrived timeline. It’s not different than a teacher letting a bully beat down a kid for a solid 10 minutes and jumping in after with a “ok that’s enough now”. Such an actor is complicit.
I’d urge people read Marin Luther King’s words on inaction.
It’s really not. France and England are suddenly realizing the genocide, and Israel has decided that now is the time aid gets to come in. Trump just admitted there is starvation in Gaza. It’s pretty coordinated. It’s an easy ask, “we just need 14 months of silence plus or minus, then whatever”.
The "suddenly" is likely because Trump took office and started making noises about paving Gaza over to build resorts. It was much easier for these countries to look the other way when the US was notionally holding Netanyahu's leash.
The U.K. didn’t even have the same government 14 months ago. Completely different party in power. The degree of coordination you’re talking about is not just unlikely but fantastical.
Dropping 500+ lbs indiscriminately on civilian populations does not need new data.
War crimes have been perpetrated from extremely early on. What's happening now is just a continuation of what was happening at the start. It's better that there is some change but lots of groups, politicians and countries cannot expect genocide to be forgotten.
Realistically we are nowhere close to any of this being resolved or even stopped so I'm not even sure there is anything yet changed.
Except these politicians weren't sharing their opinion, they were making a calculated statement and deliberately refusing to acknowledge all evidence to the contrary for years. As an example, selling weapons to a country that will use them to commit war crimes violates US law. So the Biden administration claimed they had seen "no evidence" of Israel committing any war crimes. A ludicrous statement to anyone bothering to pay any attention at the time. Now we know that was a lie (actually we knew it then)
So is someone like Matt Miller who spent more than a year repeating genocide propaganda redeemed now? Of course not. These people have no principles at all, and their words are meaningless. Ww must be mindful of their actions.
It's good to be honest about all the horrors going on in the world, not just when they're committed by jewish people (I'm not jewish btw).
For example there are recents vids of syrian muslims going door to door in villages in Syria and asking people if they are muslims or of the Druze faith: those answering they're from the Druze faith are shot on the spot.
This qualify as war crimes too to me.
But you don't get to read much about it in the mainstream media and many NGOs (not all) who are very active when it's about helping palestinians are keeping totally quiet on the subject too.
I see much more outrage about what's happening to palestinians then what's happening to Druze people.
Why is that? How comes it's so selective?
Similarly: the western world is constantly reminded of colonialism. But why are the hutis getting a free pass for the 800 000 tustis they genocided 25 years ago? How comes they're not constantly reminded of what they did? Those who committed these atrocities, including regular citizens, are still alive today.
And somehow we should pay because our great-great-great-great-grandfather was a colonialist?
It's that dual standard, that highly selective outrage, that is very hard to stomach for me.
BTW I don't recommend watching the vids of syrian muslims executing Druze people: it's hard.
The main reason is that Israel is materially supported by the West, so Westerners feel morally responsible for what it does.
It has little to do with whether the perpetrators are Jewish or not[1]. There were gigantic protests against the Iraq war, whose main perpetrators (e.g. Bush) were not Jewish.
1: I edited this from "nothing" to "little". I concede it might have something to do with anti-Semitism, because there is some non-zero group of people whose opposition to Israel is purely motivated by anti-Semitism, but I don't get the sense that they're the majority, at least among Westerners.
The current Syrian government is also supported by the west, just not to the same degree and not as publically. Myanmar is basically not mentioned at all in the Western press, nor Sudan or Libya or anywhere else war crimes are regularly taking place. I'd guess that the reason for Israel being in the media so much is that there are many more Palestinians and Jews than Rohingya or Burmese or Druze or Syrians in Western countries.
That’s not the reason. Almost certainly people feel a strong reaction, then when asked why it’s selective reach for a plausible answer. “Israel is supported by the west” is plausible.
What's this denial based on? Would you consider "Israel is part of the West" (rather than "supported by") to be more credible (and different enough to distinguish)?
If you have quality news sources you hear about these things all the time (e.g. Economist).
One reason Israel gets so much attention in the US is that US taxpayers are underwriting the war; both by selling arms and by defending attacks on Israel. So in other words, every tax paying US person who works is working hard every day to further genocide. It is a bitter pill to swallow, and highlights the contradictions and hypocrisy of US foreign policy.
My tax dollars are not as clearly implicated in the wars in Sudan, Ethiopia, Syria, Myanmar, or the various other genocides.
Most of the weapons used to kill civilians in Gaza are payed for by American taxpayers. US citizens bear a large responsibility for what is going on there.
> But why are the hutis getting a free pass for the 800 000 tustis they genocided 25 years ago? How comes they're not constantly reminded of what they did? Those who committed these atrocities, including regular citizens, are still alive today.
The world stood by and let that genocide happen, and we appear to be standing by and letting this one happen too
Which Palestinians has Israel been a racist project to? The Israeli Palestinians that make up 20% of the population? Or the ones living on the other side of the border? I'm not sure it's only about race.
And that kind of myopic, self indulgent, genocidal/racist/apartheid -apologist tone, trying to obfuscate plain truths...
that pretty much sums up much of the responses on this forum, and the US tech sector (or at least its managers) in general.
Leaving aside the moral bankruptcy, it also displays a stunning and fundamental ignorance of the flow of history. How many of you will end up having to pretend, 5 years from now, that this wasn't your online username, just to be allowed to function in "polite society".
It also shows how much of a self-deluded echo chamber you live in, not realizing how completely such genocidal apologist propaganda has been debunked & discarded amongst the wider population - even within the US.
It all smacks of the apocryphal saying of Marie Antoinette of "let them eat cake", weeks before she has a load taken off her shoulders
Israel has been an apartheid state for decades. This has nothing to do with Hamas. Anyone who is "changing their mind" now, hasn't - it's merely no longer socially acceptable to support naked indiscriminate brutality.
In 1961, South Africa defended its use of apartheid by using Israel as an example of acceptable apartheid state. In 2022 (and 2024), South Africa again called Israel an apartheid state. They're kind of the authority on it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_apartheid
If the distinction you're making is only that the apartheid is applied mostly in Gaza and the West Bank, I'd say that misses the forest for the trees.
If you talk to any Muslim that lives in Israel (which I have), you will realise that they only have full rights in theory.
Arabs with Israeli passports are routinely searched and investigated by intelligence agencies, and in the occupied areas Arabs WITH Israeli passports are not allowed to visit certain areas (multiple sources online, including the recent Louis Theroux documentary). This is the very definition of an apartheid state.
I'm not sure what you mean. I'm saying that the reason that Arabs with Israeli passports are not allowed to enter certain areas of the West Bank is because no one with an Israeli passport is allowed to enter those areas.
> What I pointed out is that there are areas within Israel where Arabs with an Israeli passport cannot enter.
Actually you said
> in the occupied areas Arabs WITH Israeli passports are not allowed to visit certain areas
But in any case, since you also said "multiple sources online" perhaps you can link one so we're talking about something concrete and not just vague insinuations.
By occupied areas I did not mean Area A of the West Bank, I meant settlements considered "Israel".
It is trivial to find more sources than the one I already mentioned, there is a very very long wikipedia article as a starting point. I'm afraid you do not care about seeing what is going on, you care about dismissing opposing opinions.
You did not link to a Wikipedia article. Unfortunately I do not have the resources to watch Louis Theroux's documentary, which I'm sure is full of his characteristic dry takes.
Normally if one was trying to make a point supported by sources, one would list the source and the extracts that support the claim, so please do so. I'm not inclined to continue to try to drag it out of you.
I don't welcome your assumptions about my empathy on a topic that hasn't been the point of discussion in this subthread, or how I come across.
Continue dragging it out of me ? You said that you are too busy to watch a documentary which portrays how the actual situation is there and the mentality of the settlers. I guess you're too busy arguing on hackernews.
Okay then, read a few sentences of the wikipedia article. Or should I spoonfeed them to you ? Okay, sure:
In a 2007 report, UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine John Dugard said, "elements of the Israeli occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law"
On 21 March 2022, Michael Lynk, the UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, submitted a report[180] to the UN Human Rights Council stating that Israel's control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip amounts to apartheid, an "institutionalised regime of systematic racial oppression and discrimination."
In 2020, the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din said that Israeli treatment of the West Bank's Palestinian population meets the definition of apartheid under both Article 7 of the 2002 Rome Statute
On 1 February 2022, Amnesty International published a report, Israel's Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity,[203] which stated that Israeli practices in Israel and the occupied territories amount to apartheid
Want more ? Read the damn article and the sources yourself. And not random reddit or quora posts. I'm done here.
Your proof of apartheid was supposedly "in the occupied areas Arabs WITH Israeli passports are not allowed to visit certain areas". That's the claim that I'm challenging. Sorry if you thought I was discussing something else. If so then I can understand why you'd be confused.
How can it be apartheid state with 1/5th of its population being non-Jewish and having strong anti-discrimination laws? They don't count people living in Gaza and West-Bank who want and/or try to kill them as their own and why would they? What "being apartheid state" even means?
Israeli apartheid is a system of institutionalized segregation and discrimination
in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and to a lesser extent in Israel proper.[a]
("Israel proper" refers to the borders of Israel as recognized by the majority of the international community,
which excludes East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip.)
This system is characterized by near-total physical separation between
the Palestinian and the Israeli settler population of the West Bank,
as well as the judicial separation that governs both communities,
which discriminates against the Palestinians in a wide range of ways.
Israel also discriminates against Palestinian refugees in the diaspora
and against its own Palestinian citizens.[2][3][4][5][6]
I see. So people who call it apartheid basically believe that places like Gaza are parts of Israel despite Israel having no administrative power there nor effective police presence.
Let's skip those places for a moment. What are the signs of apartheid in Israel proper? I don't have access to the sources listed. Just one or two things off the top of your head would be a lot for me.
if it can be an occupation with no troops on the ground, a genocide with no meaningful way to destroy a people, colonialism by the original inhabitants and not motivated by capitalism, it surely could be apartheid without racism and with equal rights
Not a massive fan of Israel, but I can't see any other country reacting in a different way to Oct 7th. The Hamas attack has to be one of the dumbest strategic moves ever made.
You mean reacting with war crimes, crimes against humanity, attempted genocide? This without even mentioning the fact that, given Israel's ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine, a military attack to Israel was entirely justified.
Ok, by this logic you're justifying whatever Hamas did, since many, many daughters of Palestinians and Gazans have been killed (and in some cases, raped) by Israel and Israeli soldiers for decades.
And by the same proportion, what would be the justified reaction of Palestinians to Israel now if they had the means? Complete nuclear annihilation?
I think if Palestinians had nukes (or Iran), they would have already done this.
Israel exists. That bell can't be un-rung. Palestinians could have got used to that fact and tried to build a nation, instead they want to kill Jews (and it is Jews, not just Israelis).
Israel doesn't have clean hands in this, and could have done better as well. I've not heard of mass rapes by Israeli soldiers, though.
> During the ongoing Gaza war, Israeli male and female soldiers, guards, medical staff have reportedly committed wartime sexual violence against Palestinian women, children and men[1][2][3][4] including rape, gang-rape, sexualized torture and genital mutilation.[5][6][7][8][9]
You escaped my question. I've asked you if by your own logic the October 7 attack was justified, and what would be the proportionate reaction to the ongoing genocide.
IF (and If is carrying a lot of weight in this statement) there is a genocide going on, then the victims should fight back by whatever means possible. This applies to any genocide - Jews in WW2, Rwanda etc,
And "if" there is only occupation, progressive annexation, pogroms, apartheid (in the occupied territories), destruction of houses and villages, of crops, periodic bombardments with thousands of civilian deaths, total blockade- and this goes on for decades with absolutely no recourse to justice (as we see, Western governments have troubles condemning Israel even for the total destruction of Gaza)? Then how do you think the victims should be allowed to fight back? How would you fight back if that were happening to you?
The US is not a moral standard worth an ounce of spit when it comes to war crimes, crimes against humanity and massive violations of human rights at scale.
It literally murdered 5% of Iraq's population in cold blood on the basis of outright lies.
What's everyone's thoughts on the GHF? They're the only way that food officially enters Gaza. IDF is not supposed to be immediately present at the distribution sites, and yet are shooting civilians. As are contractors hired by GHF. In fact there are cases of nationals joining IDF for the explicit purpose of shooting civilians, seemingly. There are movements to disband the GHF, but how else would Gazans eat?
Lets be entirely clear that the food crisis in Gaza is manufactured. There is enough food and medicines available and there are several organizations capable of dealing with the logistics of handling out the food, main one among them of course being UNWRA.
The only reason there is starvation in Gaza is because IDF is preventing aid from entering the territory and are refusing to let real humanitarian organizations work safely there.
So the answer to the question is: Israel must let food trucks into Gaza and let serious humanitarian organizations with decades of experience handle the logistics of handing out the food.
About 150-200 trucks needs to enter Gaza per day, that's a lot of trucks to inspect thoroughly, but not nearly infeasible.
"The only reason there is starvation in Gaza is because IDF is preventing aid from entering the territory and are refusing to let real humanitarian organizations work safely there."
This is not accurate to say the least.
Trucks do get in but Hamas and armed groups control the supplies and prevent a fair distribution
Every humanitarian organisation on the ground have said that these claims are false. What they HAVE claimed is that the gangs that are raiding aid are doing so with the support of the IDF:
This was the first result of many. I have heard these claims from many many sources for at least 6 months, despite having actively avoiding reading about Gaza.
Yeah, apart from everything else, the Israeli argument was not even logical: Hamas is stealing supplies to sell at inflated prices - so we have to restrict supply and ensure the prices inflate even more?
If your main source is aid organisations then be aware UNRWA employ members of Hamas and the staff at many others call for the death of Jews on their personal social media.
UNRWA being infiltrated would at least be theoretically plausible (even though Israel is lacking evidence even for that, apart from a small number of workers).
But this argument falls flat when essentially EVERY aid and human rights organization that operates in the strip is saying the same thing. (With the notable exception of one: The GHF)
Claiming that the ENTIRE global human rights system is engaged in a coordinated misinformation campaign against Israel is conspiracy theory levels of delusional.
Are you serious right now? Have you lost all sense of relativity here?
Nobody cares about what these employees say on their free time. If you collated the things IDF members say on social media about Arabs, it would not look any prettier. It's a complete non-sequitur and emphasizes how insecure you are over the actual righteousness of these actions.
If you check a map of Gaza and the GHF distribution locations, you will see that there are only 3 distribution points in entire Gaza. So in an area that hosts 2 million people.
What's more, none of those 3 points are in the 2 area's that are appointed by Israel as safe havens. So they are not where most Gazans live. Which means they have to travel long distances to get food, through an area where they are considered free game by the IDF.
> how else would Gazans eat?
Have more distribution points, distributing more food, and inside the area's where Gazans live
If the UN sent in peacekeepers the IDF would use them for target practice. It would be a total bloodbath.
Leaving aside the horror of the thought, the only way to stop Israel's assault on Gaza with a military force is to summon one more powerful than the IDF. There are only a few nations in the world that have a military that could take on the IDF - the US, Russia, China, I'm not sure who else. None of those countries are even remotely likely to invade Israel to stop the IDF from massacring the Palestinians. Why would they? What would be in it for them?
Even in WWII, Germany was not invaded to save the Jews from the Holocaust. That was a fortunate and welcome side-effect. But if the Nazis hadn't also invaded all their neighbours, and the Soviet Union, they could have well gone on and exterminated all the Jews in Europe unimpeded.
It seems unlikely that the IDF will do anything to an international peace force operating in Gaza (not Israel) under a combined lead of France and the UK.
Anyway, it would exactly only take one country - the US - to stop shipping weapons (to credibly threaten to stop) to bring this to an end so fast that you can‘t even finish breakfast.
> It seems unlikely that the IDF will do anything to an international peace force operating in Gaza (not Israel) under a combined lead of France and the UK.
Almost certainly true but it would be political suicide for either country to actually deploy troops to the area. Troops would be attacked either by Hamas or one of the other dozen terrorist organisations present in the area, some of which are allegedly backed by Israel. Any goodwill obtained internationally would evaporate as soon as the troops are forced to defend themselves and any goodwill obtained domestically would evaporate as soon as any troops died or were injured.
UNRWA, WFP, etc. You know, the ones with decades of experience in Gaza and other war zones with sites, warehouses, and all the other infrastructure necessary to support a population under siege.
The one that has a unique definiton of 'refugee' that doesn't correspond with UNs the normal definition of the term? Where many of the staff work for Hamas? Where their schools teach children to be martyrs? The one many countries have halted funding for because of this?
If you want the UN, fine, UNHCR, the normal UN refugee agency.
UNRWAs definition is different from UNHCR because it allows them to claim buildings in Gaza are ‘refugee camps’ and to claim refugee status for people who are safely resettled.
the GHF is a IDF front pure and simple. They get to control food going in. They get to blame "surges" at food lines for why the IDF had to open fire with tanks. Its all a farce.
Israel clearly isn’t above letting Gazans starve, so it seems like a viable option, even if not ideal. Perhaps air drops should be the way forward to supplement whatever on ground aid is actually delivered. I think the outside world needs to stop posturing on what Israel should do and just get aid there however possible.
The reports that i've seen for most of those instances are reporting shootings of people on the way to a GHF site and one shooting at the site at night.
are you being deliberately stupid? the GHF and Israel are the reason Gazans don't eat. Israel and America decided other food aid agencies were not allowed in to Gaza. There is food at the border waiting but being blocked by Israel and America.
If we assume good faith on the part of the Israelis, and believe that the GHF is genuinely an attempt to feed the civilian population of Gaza without food and money making its way to Hamas, it's clearly totally inadequate. There are too few sites operating for too little time; it's a recipe for chaos and panic. There's been countless reports of violence on way to the sites; the IDF has made several excuses for this, but even if we assume good faith on the part of the Israelis here too, the excuses aren't good enough: it needs to be taking proactive steps to fix the problem instead of denying, deflecting, and passing the blame.
It's a shame - if the GHF were being run well, it'd be a great first step in trying to win hearts and minds. But it's not.
The other extreme is that it's an elaborate ruse to, frankly, put Gazans in positions where the IDF will be able to claim justification for killing them. This seems paranoid, but no more implausible than the alternatives. The sites open at the crack of dawn, Gazans rush to get ahead of the crowds because there aren't enough sites, so they travel through the dark in areas controlled by IDF where movement is forbidden before daybreak; the IDF shrugs and says, "well, there were unknown targets travelling through off-limit areas in the dark, we had to neutralize the potential threat". And at the sites themselves chaos inevitably ensues - because, again, there aren't enough sites - and violence is deployed to keep the crowds under control.
But my suspicion regarding the GHF is that it's mostly just a half-assed attempt from Israel to try to get the international community off their back while they continue their siege effort to starve out the Gazans, and/or possibly a grift to enrich various friends of Bibi or Trump.
Does anyone still need testimonies like these to be convinced that Israel is systematically exterminating the Palestinians using kinetic force and starvation? We're past that point now. Making Gaza unlivable by carpet-bombing the strip, telegraphing mass murder in unambiguous statements at the highest levels of government, dehumanizing the Palestinians and silencing anyone who dares to speak up?
I, for one, am thankful this hasn't been taken down like any article remotely critical of Israel.
And this has eliminated the whole Western bullshit about human rights maximalism - it's just the same damn thing every time. Like the atrocities in the Congo free State, the Scramble for Africa, etc. the West will sponsor unspeakable atrocities overseas and then act shocked when they actually happen.
Many people in the West don't realize it, but Palestine will wreck severe damage on the West. Just like Gorbachev visiting a random store in the US and seeing insane abundance in a shop in the middle of nowhere while Soviet citizens starved, what killed the Soviet Union was disillusion; people at all levels realized that a system that couldn't provide its people the basics didn't deserve to exist.
That's what happening in the West: American GWOT veterans are still feeling disillusioned about what they went to do in Iraq & Afg. (and Vietnam, before it), and now their kids are seriously asking, "Are we the baddies?"
What's the point of this industrial capacity and wealth if all we do with it is bomb kids? No political system can survive disillusion, that is, the point where people across the spectrum start seeing their nation as hypocritical.
I think the thing that should have been a clear unambiguous sign (if nothing up to then were convincing enough) that Israel's intentions weren't just to defeat Hamas but cause severe harm to the civilian population of Gaza was when they blocked all food and aid into Gaza for months. I mean, why would you do that unless you want people to die?
Even the stated explanation that they wanted to deprive Hamas of the ability to fundraise by stealing food and selling it back didn't make sense. Food shortages would cause the market value of hoarded food to rise, thus helping Hamas. Flooding the region with food would collapse the prices and deprive them of a revenue stream.
The intention was clearly communicated from day 1. But Western governments willingly decided to provide diplomatic cover & military support - some to this very day - with the backing of the Western media apparatus.
"destroy Hamas" has become "kill everyone with Hamas sympathies" -- but you can be sure that every boy who can carry a gun, who has seen family members die, who is living the destruction and desolation, is itching for a chance to join the next version of Hamas (which may not be Hamas itself, but something else built on the same shouldering fires that burn when people are oppressed, bombed, and starved, repeatedly for generations. They're not destroying Hamas -- they're just creating a new one (if anyone survives).
The market value of hoarded food going up only helps Hamas if they are the one managing to do the hoarding - otherwise it actually works against Hamas (if there's another distributor)
Exactly. If Hamas is doing it, it's self-defeating. If Hamas isn't doing it then you're just starving people. Because the point is just starvation, nothing to do with Hamas.
BTW, all orgs (other than the lyin' IDF) says Hamas wasn't stealing significant amounts of aid (nowhere near the 10% claimed). Therefore it's clear starvation was the goal, not targeting funding or Hamas at all.
Even the IDF now admits it had no evidence of Hamas systematically stealing aid [0].
Yet the talking point - which attempted to justify genocide and never had a shred of evidence - will linger for years. I still meet people who think Saddam did 9/11, or that Afghanistan was connected.
I still meet many people who don't even know a third tower fell in NYC that day. When news media repeats a talking point that long, or ignores evidence that long, it makes a very deep impression on the type of person who takes things at face value a little too much.
For now. Eventually, the injuries your system takes over time grinds your gears to a halt.
And I can provide numerous examples: Portugal's colonial holdings (Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique) were unwound after the carnation revolution because the overseas wars were consuming 50% of the national budget while the Estado Novo at home was a corrupt, violent, authoritarian, corporatist state.
The Brits could not square a global empire while their countrymen were rationing food, etc. at home. That had to go as well.
Despite all the Cold War propaganda spread since the fall of the USSR, in 1991, the Soviet Union was still a first-rate military power, with 35k to 40k nuclear warheads and >150 divisions, totaling 3.4M troops. It could easily suppress any of those pro-democracy protests, and all the CIA's burrowing in the Sovbloc would come to nought.
But there was no longer anything worth fighting for. Even people within the Party infrastructure had come to admit that they'd been living for a lie, lying for a lie, killing for a lie-all that for a lie!
The Qing dynasty faced massive internal revolts (Taiping, Boxer), external invasions (Opium Wars), and technological stagnation. The empire resisted modernization too long, then tried too little, too late.
Overwhelmed by foreign powers and internal revolution (1911), it died because it could no longer defend the illusion of legitimacy.
In France's Ancien Regime, nobles were exempt from taxes while peasants starved; France had a bloated, corrupt court and massive debt (partly from helping America fight the British!), yet refused reforms.
Nazi Germany claimed to be defending “Western civilization” while practicing industrial genocide and totalitarian control over - wait for it - Europeans!
One contradiction doesn't bring down a political system, but it cascades, because a hypocritical system dives deeper into hypocrisy until it eventually collapses.
My god such a telelogical view of history and it smells like generated with ChatGPT and using a few prompts to try to textual style hide it.
Howard Zinn, Chomsky, and most other anti imperialist intellectuals viewed history similarly badly and are looking almost as stupid in retrospect as Fukuyama did with his claim that history has ended. For every example they bring up, there's 5 counterexamples that they didn't bring up because in some cases the evidence for the good they did is locked up in a spooks SKIF for the next 50 years - or in other cases they didn't bring it up because America just isn't allowed to be the good guy anymore if you personally took part in America doing bad things.
The amount of damage that folks like Marx did through making people believe in telelogical views of history ( i.e. "Capitalism is GUARANTEED to destroy itself due to internal contradictions") is colossal.
Shit bad regimes which are based on lies are now stronger than ever. I'm willing to bet $$$ that not only does NK exist in 50 years, but it's stronger than ever and even more authoritarian. AI literally locks in power structures and perfects them.
>AI literally locks in power structures and perfects them.
There you go advancing the same teleological theory of history you're supposed to be denouncing.
Like the saying goes, history doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes: when institutions, states, etc. behave in a certain way for an extended period of time, we can infer what their future will look like by studying similar examples from the past.
Yeah, sorry but that's wishful thinking. As long as the people in the West have a relatively high quality of life and political stability -relative to everyone else, that is- they will not shake the foundation of their national institutions. That is even more so the case when they see how everyone else fares, who doesn't live in the West.
In a sense, seeing what happens to Palestinians, Sudanese, Somalis, Syrians, Afghans, Lebanese, Pakistanis, etc etc, is a great motivator for the citizen of the EU, USA, and friends.
If you look, you'll notice that the major political flare point in the West these days is ... immigration. Who cares what happens outside our borders? Our main preoccupation is protecting our borders. Because we are convinced everything outside them sucks.
> And this has eliminated the whole Western bullshit about human rights maximalism
That's the truth. "Never again". Clearly our politicians do not believe in human rights or international law. What do they believe in? Democracy? I doubt it. Money? Western exceptionalism? More likely. Where do we go from here? Why would anyone ever take any moral argument from a western nation seriously ever again?
What we have learned again is that actions speak louder than words and that without action you can't achieve anything.
Western nations aren't doing anything nor are middle eastern governments, nor asian governments.
My takeaway is that the UN needs to be replaced with something without the 5 veto powers. Both Gaza now and Syria could have been prevented with peacekeeping missions if it weren't for the US and Russia and their vetos.
> Western nations aren't doing anything nor are middle eastern governments, nor asian governments.
On the other hand, middle Eastern nations and Asian nations are typically protesting loudly, they don't protect Israel in the UN, they recognize the Palestinian state, they don't sell weapons to Israel.
Edit: And this comment is flagged to hell, as well, haha. I guess saying that the systematic murder of civilians is bad is now a controversial opinion, lmao.
In spaces that were explicitly created with the intent of hosting civil, respectful discourse, it is always appropriate to insist the that discourse remain civil and respectful.
Part of civility and respect is not demanding that other people see things your way, or supposing that there is something wrong with them if the evidence available to them has not led them to the same conclusion as you. Another part is not ironically laughing because things don't go your way. Another part is not insisting that you are being persecuted for entirely innocent conduct in a way that ignores previously provided explanations for why that conduct was not considered innocent by others.
Honestly I find it kind of sickening how much people treat this conflict like picking a sports team. I’ve been saying that from the start - I feel for the civilians caught in the middle of this conflict, from both Israel and Gaza.
I’ve caught flak from both sides for saying so. Some people seem deadset on making an enemy of nuance.
I see your point, but it can also be frustrating when people “both-sides” every atrocity. It’s sort of like saying “All Lives Matter” at every police shooting.
It's less "both sides" and more "two of the four sides." There is Hamas, the weak but fanatical terrorist organization, the powerful and cruel ruling Israeli administration and military, the Palestinian citizens struggling to survive, and the Israeli citizens. The latter two are mostly not committing crimes against humanity¹. By the laws of war Israel signed into, civilians should be protected. Civilians are not parties in a war
1: The violent Israeli settlers, if certain accounts are true, are committing crimes against humanity. But you can't punish every Israeli just because they share nationality with a criminal. Just like we shouldn't starve Palestinians who live in the same area as Hamas.
I guess. But, the conflict in the middle east is insanely complex. Anyone claiming you can simplify the situation into "good guys" vs "bad guys" just doesn't understand the history of the region. Or they're lying about it, because they want a sports team.
> It’s sort of like saying “All Lives Matter” at every police shooting.
Eh. I hear that as a less articulate, more annoying way to say "I care more generally about police violence more than police violence against black people, specifically." Seems reasonable to me, even if people bring it up in an oblique way.
That’s how every war since the beginning of time has worked. Most people aren’t into mass murder until
you dehumanize the “bad guys” and make it a team vs team thing.
Look at how many Americans clamor for the mass murder of enslaved Russian teenagers.
Flagging or not flagging an article has no impact on the war. No matter how enthusiastic you are at your keyboard, you won’t stop those kids getting bombed.
And there are other reasons to flag an article like this - like some people would rather HN have less politics.
You've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly and badly in this thread, and you've posted 28 (!) comments, most of which have been doing this. That's way beyond the pale, so regardless of which side you're taking in the conflict, please stop.
People form beliefs and make judgments based on things they do not know, it is nothing surprising[1]. I would recommend reading the history of Israel (vs. Palestine, especially).
Yeah, Hamzah has been making lots of videos of IDF soldiers (and other Israelites) saying that they want all Palestinian children to die, and that their lives are worth more than Palestinians' lives.
I am not surprised by any of this, the media is probably controlled. They hear what the Government wants them to hear, which is this: they are the good guys.
[1] I do not claim to know everything either, which should be very obvious, but I try to postpone forming a judgment.
I feel it's not going to last longer. With the advent of modern, mass media, young people across the West can see for themselves and they're taking a side. More specifically, they don't want their governments funding genocide with their taxes. This cannot be made to go away, which is why Zionist activists and their lackeys are pulling out all the stops: no one expected the outburst of disgust at Israel's actions would get this severe, so they're in nonstop damage control mode.
That's why I say the war is already over. Hamas won. The Israeli public is too enraged by Oct 7 and it can't pursue a long term goal because it has to feed the need for vengeance. The only group that truly benefits from continued conflict is Hamas, everyone else is a victim of circumstance.
Israeli is implementing a final solution to the Palestinian problem, and that solution is...genocide!
Some might argue it's not genocide but simply mass-murder. That's an awful lot of mass-murdering going on.
The Bret Stephens hasbara is that it's not a genocide because of how slow the killing is. Obviously the IDF could dig in machine guns in hidden trenches, lure starving Palestinians with the bait of food, and gun down thousands at once.
The problem with that approach is that such a strategy would risk rousing the conscience of the world. It's much safer to murder a few hundred a day and have slow starvation take thousands.
While pictures of starving Palestinian children are evocative of the Holocaust, or at least of the end of the Holocaust when cameras were allowed into liberated concentration camps, the world seems not to have a problem with Holocaust 2.0
>About 2.5% of the inhabitants of Gaza have been killed in the ongoing war, constituting fewer than 0.5% of Palestinians worldwide.
My understanding is that the agencies in Gaza have not only lost their ability to tally the dead, but have not been tracking deaths where a corpse has not been located.
Not to mention that this is the tail end of a long process that began with the Nakba. The fact that theres a remnant refugee population that has been removed from their land and isolated to a small stateless fragment, is already in meeting with definitions of genocide. Bombing that remnant into the dust is underlining the issue.
Sure, it's been going on for a long time. Close to a million Palestinians were expelled (or fled) from Israel after its founding, and close to a million Jews were expelled (or fled) from various Muslim-majority countries around that time.
The former is known as the Nakba (as you highlight) and well known. The latter, not so much.
> Israel is systematically exterminating the Palestinians using kinetic force and starvation?
If this were the goal, they could do it in hours. Why is the body count so low given the duration of the war?
This isn’t rhetoric. It might be they want plausible deniability.
It seems to me however that everyone knows they aren’t really fooling anyone with their narrative, which really draws into focus: why aren’t they killing tens of thousands of Palestinians every day? They have the means, motive, and opportunity. They have the technology and are in position to do so.
They have not.
We know what systematic genocide looks like. This is mass murder, sure, but if they wanted to commit genocide, it would be done and over with by now.
Instead, they have killed less than 5% of the population of Gaza.
Israel kills as many Palesitinians as it thinks it can get away with. They have the means the kill faster, but they are mindful of the international backlash.
> Anyone still need testimonies like these to be convinced that Israel
You are operating until a false premise that Palestinians/Hamas are some sort of children and bear no responsibility for anything at all.
Where in reality, the war could have been over in 5 minutes if they released the hostages at any time during the past 3 years. It still can be over in 5 minutes if they choose to do that. But no, they will put as many of their own people in harm's way as necessary to get to the world opinion to be what it is. And literally no one, including you, is questioning that. But please, do tell me that hostages have nothing to do with anything or Netanyahu bad or whatever else you can cook up.
> while Soviet citizens starved
As someone who grew up in the USSR, I can assure you - no one was starving.
> what killed the Soviet Union was disillusion. People at all levels realized that a system that couldn't provide its people the basics didn't deserve to exist.
That is such a simplistic view of what happened. I don't think that the system cared what its people thought at any time during the existence of the Soviet Union.
> You are operating until a false premise that Palestinians/Hamas are some sort of children and bear no responsibility for anything at all.
Where in reality, the war could have been over in 5 minutes if they released the hostages at any time during the past 3 years. It still can be over in 5 minutes if they choose to do that. But no, they will put as many of their own people in harm's way as necessary to get to the world opinion to be what it is. And literally no one, including you, is questioning that.
Palestinians and Hamas are 2 different groups of people. Which 1 are you referring to when you say "they"? Only the Hamas can legally be punished as a result of Hamas's actions. Punishing Palestinians because you're mad at Hamas is a war crime.
Sure, technically. But to this day, majorities support Oct 7th attack, both in Gaza and West Bank.
That's like saying in WW2, we can't attack Berlin because there are innocent Germans who don't support Nazis.
So how exactly do you propose to fight Hamas in an urban environment when it's blending in to the population that largely supports them (and only put on a uniform during propaganda events like hostage handovers)?
> to this day, majorities support Oct 7th attack, both in Gaza and West Bank
Likewise, to this day, majorities of israelis support the israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
> That's like saying in WW2, we can't attack Berlin because there are innocent Germans who don't support Nazis.
There's a difference between collateral damage and the israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That said, the intentional firebombing of German civilians was arguably a war crime, so you're arguing against your point here. Indeed, the geneva conventions are partially motivated by the atrocities that occurred during WWII, with the aim of making sure they happened "never again".
> So how exactly do you propose to fight Hamas in an urban environment when it's blending in to the population that largely supports them
That's not my problem, but ethnic cleansing is obviously an illegal and wrong way to go about it. Still though, an answer to your request can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718080
> Israel is systematically exterminating the Palestinians
This would be the dumbest way to do this. It would take centuries to exterminate them at this rate. The genocide narrative makes no sense to any person with a brain.
Why’s it gotta be quick? Israel has them contained and holds every card. Its government could speed it up tomorrow if they wanted to, but that might look bad enough to lose them the support of the US and much of their population. Why hurry?
> I, for one, am thankful this hasn't been taken down like any article remotely critical of Israel.
?????
I am generally not at all invested in this conflict and I cede that I have very little information about what is going on, and it's been like that for me for decades.
But the information that is available to me, in the current context, from looking at HN, is: pro-Palestine and anti-Israeli sentiments are the norm in comment sections here; comments resisting this viewpoint are routinely downvoted and flagged; news stories about the conflict that make it to the HN front page (including this one) overwhelmingly are taking Palestine's side; and on occasions where I've tried to flag submissions that I felt were grossly uncharitable (making claims beyond what their evidence supports, and/or using inflammatory language) they have not been taken down (and I've only seen anti-Israel examples of such to flag).
At any rate, your comment is a polemic that appears not to even consider reasons why other people might see the issue differently, and implicitly shames people for not coming to a conclusion you consider obvious. That is not up to the standard I understood HN political discussion to expect.
(And since I have showdead on, I can see the replies to you that were flagged and killed. They are really not any worse from what I can tell, but they apparently have the wrong political polarity — the one you claim is endorsed, directly counter to the evidence available to me.)
P.S. Whoever downvoted and flagged this, please explain your reasoning. I am happy to consider your point of view.
If didn't downvote nor flag, but wanted to help you clarify your misunderstanding.
The vast majority of people across the world is in favour of the end of bombing and segregation, and against the regime that perpetuate it, if only because of empathy alone. And HN does indeed reflects this to some extent.
What the OP was alluding to when he said that pro palestinian view points were silenced is the more or less dissimulated support for the war and systematically misleading depiction of the situation in the mainstream news. To say nothing about the exceedingly harsh criminalization of dissent.
You might not be aware of it, if really you don't read anything beyond tech news, and I'm not going to blame you for that.
> pro palestinian view points were silenced is the more or less dissimulated support for the war and systematically misleading depiction of the situation in the mainstream news.
Definitely doesn’t reflect what I’ve seen in the mainstream media. Almost everyday at the top of the news are stories taken almost verbatim from Hamas’s Health Ministry or other arms. The stories have been routinely retracted by the BBC, NYTimes, Washington Post, NPR, etc after they’re later shown false.
Yesterday I saw the story that’s been in almost every major news publication showing an emaciated boy starving while his mother holds him with headlines of “Gazan children starving”.
The problem is the boys brother who is healthy and well fed was cropped or left out. The boy has muscular dystrophy. None of that was mentioned in most of the coverage.
Here’s the photo with the boys brother that I’ve only seen posted on X or Instagram posted by regular users:
The war has made it hard to get treatment for him, but that’s not listed in most of the articles.
It’s a clear yellow journalism piece. Of course those MSM outlets also make lots of advertisement money by posting such rage bait stories.
That’s what most people, and even politicians, end up seeing and then believing.
> To say nothing about the exceedingly harsh criminalization of dissent.
From what I’ve read a few violent protesters were arrested. Some student visas were revoked, etc. I’ve seen pro-Palestinian protests in person in the US and the UK going about quite freely.
> The stories have been routinely retracted by the BBC, NYTimes, Washington Post, NPR, etc after they’re later shown false.
Do any of these stories compare to the mainstream media's systematic lies about 40 beheaded babies? Or babies burned in ovens? Or systematic rape? Did the US President launder any of those lies long after they were debunked?
Were the stories about premie babies left to rot at Al Nasr true? Were the stories about Hind Rajab true? Were the stories about civilians being used as target practice while they try to get aid true? Were the stories about the IDF mass murdering a convoy of emergency vehicles and burying them in a shallow unmarked grave true?
Do Hamas have people in the BBC censoring stories they don't like? Did the NYT run huge stories by Hamas "journalists" with no experience and no evidence?
> Yesterday I saw the story that’s been in almost every major news publication showing an emaciated boy starving while his mother holds him with headlines of “Gazan children starving”.
You don't refute that the boy is starving. He's far from the only one. Gaza is in stage 5 of famine; the effect of which will be felt for generations - and you think a photo of a "well fed" (and horrifically traumatized for life) boy proves that they're actually fine??
Read the comments on your own link - they're absolutely vile and I won't repeat them here, but that you think this is making a good case for you is absolutely wild.
How many people have been murdered while trying to get aid in the past week? Are those stories lies too, even though they come from whistleblowers who were there; even though there's video of some of the incidents?
Sometimes I almost feel pity for the type of mind that can defend the perpetrators of these acts. But this is going on for 21 months (and 80 years) now. At some point - long past - you become fully complicit by defending this holocaust.
My refutation was implicit in the fact that the boy's condition appears to be genetic and that his brother appears healthy and well fed. His mother also appears not to be starving either.
> Read the comments on your own link - they're absolutely vile and I won't repeat them here, but that you think this is making a good case for you is absolutely wild.
I didn't link to those comments nor do I condone them. There's plenty of vile pro-Palestinian comments on X and elsewhere as well.
You also don't deny the veracity of the photo or the full story.
There is real starvation occurring in Gaza, but the IDF has also started scaling up aid and food including announcing safe corridors for UN aid delivery which I believe the IDF should've done sooner.
> Sometimes I almost feel pity for the type of mind that can defend the perpetrators of these acts. But this is going on for 21 months (and 80 years) now. At some point - long past - you become fully complicit by defending this holocaust.
You've convinced yourself it's a holocaust, despite the scales being 2 orders of magnitudes different in number and completely different in actions and intentions. Note it wasn't just 6 million Jews killed in the holocaust, but also 5-6 million Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, disabled people, and more. That's 2 out of every 3 Jewish people in Europe at the time.
Your distortions and semi-irrational accusations don't change the actual realities which are hard enough to estimate.
Estimates place the ratio of combatant to civilian death near to that of other urban wars. Most sources estimate a civilian to combatant death rate of 4:1 in Gaza, while Mosul was 4.7-6.1:1. That's despite Hamas leadership actively using civilians as shields.
There's worse confirmed famine occurring just hundreds of miles some estimates of 522,000 infant deaths due to starvation in Sudan in the last two years alone. Despite 10 times the numbers of people dying in Sudan, much less Yemen and Somolia, they're receiving only a fraction of the international aid or attention that Gazans receive.
Yet it's not sensational or in the headlines everyday, so who cares right?
It's a holocaust. You are promoting holocaust denial.
Look at the footage of Rafah: desolation as far as the drone can see. Even by the end of Biden's term, the majority of civilian buildings had been destroyed across the strip. 6 Hiroshimas, on a 12x12 mile square populated with over a million children.
> Note it wasn't just 6 million Jews killed in the holocaust, but also 5-6 million Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, disabled people, and more.
Christians, homosexuals, and disabled people have all been slaughtered by Israel as well - and hostages too. So what's your point?
> Estimates place the ratio of combatant to civilian death near to that of other urban wars.
You're missing the key piece of factual information there: IDF estimates. Other estimates put the ratio of civilian deaths an order of magnitude higher, and if there's any evidence whatsoever for IDF's claims of Hamas fighters killed I don't know anyone who's ever seen it. Feel free to present some if you have it.
> Most sources estimate a civilian to combatant death rate of 4:1 in Gaza
What sources are these? The IDF, Netanyahu, and Ben Gvir?
You're lying.
> That's despite Hamas leadership actively using civilians as shields.
Still no evidence for that claim whatsoever. Plenty of evidence of Israel doing it though - it's openly admitted, including in your own linked article.
> There's worse confirmed famine occurring just hundreds of miles some estimates of 522,000 infant deaths due to starvation in Sudan in the last two years alone.
Is Sudan surrounded by aid trucks sitting idle? And are both connected to Western interference?
> Despite 10 times the numbers of people dying in Sudan, much less Yemen and Somolia, they're receiving only a fraction of the international aid or attention that Gazans receive.
Somolia? ... Even if we ignore the problems with your figures (using IDF estimates, ignoring the fact Sudan is 25 times more populated than Gaza, longer time period, etc) - there are still at least three major problems:
One, Western powers are directly enabling, funding and arming Israel's genocide, which means we are complicit and have more of a responsibility to discuss and bring an end the situation as soon as possible.
Two, Western interference (esp the US and Israel) with Sudan, Yemen and Somalia is also responsible for no small part of their current problems, so the comparison is pretty rude.
Three, if the best argument you have in defense of slaughtering tens (more likely hundreds) of thousands of people is that more people are dying elsewhere, you're very far gone.
I wish you the best of luck finding your way back; it won't be easy but you really need to try.
>The vast majority of people across the world is in favour of the end of bombing and segregation
Should you not feel the need to evidence this?
> the more or less dissimulated support for the war and systematically misleading depiction of the situation in the mainstream news.
First, I don't see why I should conclude that that's what the comment was about. The part I quoted was:
> I, for one, am thankful this hasn't been taken down like any article remotely critical of Israel.
I understood this to mean "taken down from HN".
But I see nothing of the sort in mainstream news, either. The news coverage available to me is full of stories like the submission, and says rather little that would tend to justify Israel. If I search, for example, for coverage in the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) of the conflict, I find plenty of independent sources claiming that there is some kind of whitewashing going on (and none of the people making these claims seem to face any negative repercussions for doing so — as they shouldn't, since Canada is also pretty good on the freedom of speech thing), but then I look at the actual CBC articles I find and they're just... not as described.
The general sense I get is that people who characterize this as a genocide are upset that other people fail to accept this characterization by fiat.
> To say nothing about the exceedingly harsh criminalization of dissent.
Who has been imprisoned for merely expressing the view that this is a genocide, as opposed to being imprisoned for the usual disorderly, anti-social actions that typically get protesters (in general, whatever they're protesting for) imprisoned?
Notice that the question asked by this poll was a bit stronger than my claim (I believe one is more likelly to be in favor of the end of bombing than against Israel because advocating for peace is less damaging for one's reputation than voicing a more political stance, whatever that is).
We don’t need to be so productive on easy problems. Identifying something is genocide is easy. The harder problem is confronting people with the cold hard fact of “hey this is genocide, don’t write long bullshit posts about this”. Then the convo veers, and before you know it, you’re discussing HN rules and shit.
One interesting excuse I hear about slavery in America was that that’s just how life was back then, people didn’t know better. This is not true, as we know for a fact abolitionist knew what right and wrong was during those times. Even if it was only a small percentage of people that knew morality, it’s enough proof that that no American alive at the time lacked the human capacity to perceive it.
This is still true today. We know what’s going on here morally, and as a collective whole (8 billion people), we are collectively responsible. The moral standard does not change. It was wrong to murder people 2000 years ago, it was wrong to enslave people 2000 years ago, and all of that is still wrong today. Honest people knew it then, and honest people know it today.
No bullshit, please. Right and wrong is never a morally nebulous problem, it’s just an utterly strict standard to adhere to. It never changes. It’s an understated reason why many have no fear of God or have abandoned the concept entirely, not just because there’s no proof, but because even if there was, what a fucking moral standard to live up to (quite hard for humanity since the beginning of time).
> Does anyone still need testimonies like these to be convinced that Israel is systematically exterminating the Palestinians using kinetic force and starvation?
Before October 7, activists insisted that Gaza’s border restrictions were driven purely by hatred rather than any legitimate security concerns. That view was completely discredited by the attacks on October 7, so forgive me for being skeptical of similarly absolutist claims being made now.
To be clear, preventing famine should take far greater priority than intercepting a few more rockets with Iron Dome. The suffering in Gaza is undeniable. But I see Israel’s actions as driven more by indifference or strategic rigidity than by a calculated intent to exterminate.
Maybe that distinction doesn't matter to you, since it doesn't change how people are dying needlessly, but how we interpret Israel’s intent shapes how we respond. Backing Israel into a corner tends to make things worse, not better. That’s why the Biden administration’s approach of supporting military aid while applying diplomatic pressure was the only viable path to avoid even greater catastrophe.
Given the brutal blockade of Gaza, the continuous encroachment of settlers in the occupied territory, the continued refusal of a two-state solution, what exactly Israel expects to happen?
It is not like the Palestinians have F-35s and Abrahams tanks paid by the US in order to wage a proper war against Israel.
Israel, given its own history (google for Irgun, Stern Gang, Lehi, Hagannah, etc) should be able to predict the end result of its actions.
> Given the brutal blockade of Gaza, the continuous encroachment of settlers in the occupied territory, the continued refusal of a two-state solution, what exactly Israel expects to happen?
Are you implying that this "blockade" was unnecessary for security purposes? You're painting this as inevitable due to the circumstances, yet of the two regions, the one given more autonomy and decolonized was the one that attacked.
Nit: Congo free state and Scramble for Africa were pretty different as I believe most Europeans didn’t realize and/or accept that sub Saharan Africans are humans at that point. They had an extremely different exposure to them (level and type) than we have today, and I don’t think we today can say whether we would have reacted differently to the Africans immediately post mass scale contact.
Do people in the west today consciously consider Palestinians to be subhuman? I don’t think so? So this today is like much much worse actually IMO from a moral defensibility standpoint.
This is orthogonal to your point, I agree with your point.
I think your point has some merits, but ultimately, intent doesn't matter: action does. if the West keeps funding Israel's genocide in Gaza, then yes, it's because they believe the Palestinians are sub-human. Haven't you seen the outpouring of support for Ukraine since they were invaded? Yet, Western nations are funding (not overlooking, but actively paying for) something worse - a continuous, ongoing genocide - and it's supposed to be an oversight?
One reason to doubt that Israel is systematically exterminating the Gazan population is simply that the population is not decreasing or projected to decrease, which is to say, the excess deaths due to the conflict are not all that great relative to the natural rate of increase of the population.
Israel should be as aware of the statistics as anyone, especially when undertaking the systematic extermination of a population. If Israel actually intended this, don't you think it would go much faster, with the tremendous amount of ordnance that has been expended and the overwhelming military force Israel has in place? It just doesn't add up.
Who is it that you expect to be doing the counting? I've seen estimates of anywhere from 50k-500k dead, but nobody is sure because outsiders aren't being allowed to enter and the people inside have enough trouble staying alive and little time to be doing headcounts and statistics. Israel hasn't been releasing any numbers at all from what I can tell.
As someone who went to US high school in the 90s, a good 1/3 of our curriculum seemed to be "never again" studies of the holocaust and other genocides throughout history. Which makes it completely incomprehensible to me that suddenly "don't talk about genocide" has become the basically law.
What's worse is I actually feel openly saying "I don't support this genocide and I'm critical of the state committing it" is a risky thing to say in public. I wouldn't say it not behind a pseudonymous account without some level of plausible deniability. Even peak cancel culture wasn't quite so chilling.
It's also the area with the most clear manipulation of information on social media. The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web.
We've truly entered a dystopian age that seems completely unfamiliar from the exciting world of tech I wanted to be a part of decades ago.
> The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic"
FWIW the downvotes and flags in threads like this, including this thread, do seem largely organic to me, and well within the range of what one expects from a divisive and emotional topic.
People often use words like "clearly" in making such descriptions (I don't mean to pick on you personally! countless users do this, from all sides of all issues), but actually there's nothing so clear. Mostly what happens is that people have perceptions based on their strong feelings and then call those perceptions "clear" because their feelings are strong.
We do occasionally turn off flags in order to allow a discussion to happen because allowing no discussion to happen seems wrong. I've posted lots of explanations of how we approach this in the past (e.g. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
I strongly suspect that this "divisive" nature of the topic is precisely the illusion being created. That's exactly what I am challenging here.
In my non-online life I've known many vaccine skeptics, climate skeptics, crypto enthusiasts, extreme right/left-wingers, people with complex view of trans issues, divisions on BLM topics, gun fanatics, gun abolitionists etc, etc.
But the opinion around what's happening in Gaza right now doesn't fit into this category. Regardless of political opinion, outside of Zionists, I have not met anyone who will not, in private of course (for the reasons mentioned previously), agree that what's happening in Gaza is genocide and is not in the interests of the United States. The strength of the opinion can vary, but the general direction of opinion is consistent.
Another reason I added "clearly" is because, compared to say climate change posts that are often filled with climate denial comments, there are typically very few commenters engaging in any controversial discussions. Nearly all the top level comments are in agreement, the majority of the replies are as well. Compared to genuinely controversial topics which often do quickly devolve into impossible arguments.
There's also the broader issue that silence is not always a neutral position. When one side benefits much, much more from silence than the other, you can't simply shrug your shoulders and say "well it's controversial so let's not talk about it". In this case, silencing conversations about the genocide in Gaza is very beneficial to the state perpetuating this genocide and likewise very harmful to the people suffering from it.
The strategy is simple: make the topic appear to be more divisive than it is, which makes it easy to silence as "divisive and emotional", which is essentially the most desirable outcome.
It's just your social circle. Where I live (still USA) it's the opposite. I don't know a single person who doesn't think the Palestinian support isn't propaganda. It is for sure a controversial topic.
That is "I don't know a single person who thinks it is propaganda", or equivalently "everyone I know thinks it's real", yes? Triple negatives can be a pain to keep track of.
This is still unclear. The opposite of "what's happening is genocide" is not "support for Palestine is propaganda".
Do people around you think that the number of victims are manipulated? Or do they think that civilians were bombed and displaced, the infrastructure destroyed, the supplies stopped, but that's just fair game?
I live in Westchester County NY, quite possibly the living breathing heart of Reform Judaism in the US (outside the UES anyway). Plenty of genuine supporters of Israel here, even among the Gentiles. I try hard to avoid the topic even with friends. I don’t really want to hear a defense or denial of genocide.
You live in a bubble then, most people I know don't care very much about this issue. We have bigger issues to worry about, like our buffoon President & spiraling climate change.
The pro Palestine side has also given themself a pretty bad image, so it will take some very compelling evidence(which this video is not as it doesn't show anything clearly), to make this issue higher priority.
Other users have already made some good replies, but I want to add that this is an example of what I wrote about in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932851 (one's feeling of good faith decreases as the distance between someone else's opinion and one's own increases). The community is much bigger than people assume it is, and therefore contains a much wider range of backgrounds and views than people assume it ought to.
I believe this is the main factor that tricks readers into assuming that (legit) comments and votes on a story must be manipulated. It's hard to fathom how anyone could in good faith hold views so different from one's own, views that seem not just obviously wrong but monstrous.
Some people in my circle see “supporting the people of Palestine” as equivalent to “supporting the people of Germany during WW2”. In other words, until a total surrender , they see the deaths as justified and a necessary evil.
With respect, allowing political posts that clearly violate the HN guidelines will normalize such posts, incentivize them in the future due to karma, and attract the type of people that want to soapbox to the community.
If you want to understand how we think about and approach moderation of political stories on HN, probably the best set of explanations is https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... If you (or anyone) familiarize yourself with those explanations and then still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. But do please read some of that stuff first because the questions (and therefore the answers) are nearly always the same.
p.s. All that said, I appreciate your watching out for the quality of HN and I understand the concern.
I guess with polarizing topics it comes down to the ratio of "intellectually interesting" (quote from your first link) comments, and those that engage with them in good faith, versus all the yelling and condemnation, right? And there's some fuzzy line that you want the thread to stay on one side of.
I will freely admit my view may be too dismissive and that I should change my ways, but these kinds of threads almost never feel to me like the juice is worth the squeeze. In other words, that ratio I mentioned seems out of whack. Too many good-faith comments that don't go with the thread mainstream get flagged and dead, not enough people vouch for 'em (I'm sometimes guilty of that), and the amount of invective and judgment they're met with just seems to depend on how fast they got downvoted or flagged to oblivion.
I realize I'm shouting into the wind, and you have no obligation to change any of this for me. But I really do not see how this sort of thing is good for the site long-term. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there's a certain set that needs to scream about something every month or they start vandalizing less controversial threads and it's net positive to let them have their moment. Maybe I'll go write something that auto-hides threads for me when there's been a certain proportion of flagging and downvoting.
Anyway, you've got a tough job and do it with grace. No reply necessary, but thanks for all you do.
> these kinds of threads almost never feel to me like the juice is worth the squeeze
I agree. The trouble is that not discussing it at all is not a solution either.
> it comes down to the ratio of "intellectually interesting" (quote from your first link) comments, and those that engage with them in good faith, versus all the yelling and condemnation, right?
I wish it were that simple but I don't think it is.
> Too many good-faith comments that don't go with the thread mainstream get flagged and dead
I don't think there's a "thread mainstream" here. I think the community is deeply divided.
If you (or anyone) see good-faith comments getting mistreated in this way, we'd appreciate links so we can take a look. Sometimes we restore those comments, other times we find that the comment broke the site guidelines and thus should stay flagged. But we always look, and usually also have enough time to reply.
> I realize I'm shouting into the wind
Not at all! We're interested. We just don't necessarily have good answers.
> So, sending it to page 4 quick-like has too many downsides? I am not an expert in community management, I'm interested to understand why.
We're not experts either. It's not as if there's any foundation for this job other than just doing it, badly.
I'll try to explain how I personally think about this. One thing is clear: the core value of HN is intellectual curiosity so that's what we're trying to optimize for (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). I'd refine that one bit further by saying it's broad intellectual curiosity. There's also narrow intellectual curiosity, which has its place but isn't what we're trying for here. (And there are other forms of curiosity, e.g. social curiosity, which motivates things like celebrity news and gossip. Those also have their place but are less relevant here.)
What's the difference between broad and narrow intellectual curiosity? If you think of curiosity as desire and willingness to take in new information, then I'd say "broad" means wanting to take in new information about anything—whatever's going on in reality, the world, etc., because it's there; and "narrow" means wanting new information, but only about a restricted subset of things. That means there's an excluded set of topics—things about which one could take in new information, but for whatever reason, doesn't want to. Maybe it's too painful, for example.
What I'm saying is that the current topic is one of a few topics which are painful (and the pain shows up as anger in the comments), but which broad intellectual curiosity simply cannot exclude. If we exclude it, then we fail to optimize for what we're optimizing for. In that sense, not discussing it amounts to failing.
But discussing it also amounts to failing, because it's not realistically very possible for this community to discuss it while remaining within the site guidelines. It's too painful, too activating, and crosses too many of the red lines that past generations have left pulsating in all our bodies. That is why I said "I wish it were that simple but I don't think it is".
We can try to mitigate that through moderation ("please don't cross into personal attack", "please don't post flamebait", etc.), but those lines are particularly feeble in this case. There's little scope for those to land as neutral with commenters and readers. It too easily feels like we're adding to the conflict when we post that way.
Therefore this is a case where we can only fail, and all we can do is follow what Beckett said and fail better. Failing better is still failing and still feels like failing—there's no way out of that. I'm just pretty sure that the alternative in this case would be worse overall, even if it felt easier in the short term. It's always easier to go narrow in the short term. But we're in this for the long haul.
Thank you for your thoughtful response, that helps me understand more where the site leadership is coming from.
BTW the comment I linked above[0] has been flagged and is dead again, after I thought it had been restored. Did it violate site guidelines? Or did somebody come back in and flag it again?
> > these kinds of threads almost never feel to me like the juice is worth the squeeze
> I agree. The trouble is that not discussing it at all is not a solution either.
Not discussing it at all is certainly a solution. There are plenty of other fora where these issues can be discussed (Reddit and Twitter, off the top of my head). HN does not have to also take up that mantle.
> > Too many good-faith comments that don't go with the thread mainstream get flagged and dead
> I don't think there's a "thread mainstream" here. I think the community is deeply divided.
It's quite obvious that there's a thread mainstream. One perspective absolutely dominates the top level posts and replies. Top level posts with a different point of view have been flag killed very thoroughly. I would make a contrarian post (the type that HN normally loves) to try share my knowledge of the situation (which I bet is significantly deeper than 99% of the commenters here) but it's not worth it when I expect it to get instantly flag killed.
> If you (or anyone) see good-faith comments getting mistreated in this way, we'd appreciate links so we can take a look. Sometimes we restore those comments, other times we find that the comment broke the site guidelines and thus should stay flagged. But we always look, and usually also have enough time to reply.
But the discussion will have moved on by then. There are simply not enough moderator resources to moderate a discussion on this topic. That's not your fault, that's just the way it is, but it does lead to HN becoming a worse place.
> Is it accidental or intentional that all political posts on this war are biased towards one of the sides?
You are presenting a false dichotomy. It could be that the posts are a reflection of the reality of the situation (i.e. one of the sides is 'more wrong').
Why is it false? Either admins intentionally make only specific articles to appear, or they do not, i.e. it happens unintentionally/accidentally. What other options are there? If something happens it is either intentional or not.
Not sure what wrongness has to do with that either.
In the first case it reflects the political preferences of the admin, in the other it reflects the preferences of HN bubble. Either could happen independently of who is wrong and who is right.
I don't see a false dichotomy here and if there were posts against right to privacy that are flagged while posts for it were not (either with admin intervention or without) I wouldn't say "there is nothing to see here".
I would definitely prefer to see both sides of issue and I wouldn't flag posts against privacy, though not upvote it either.
If you think it's nice when media is biased towards what you consider to be right, and that's the point of your analogy, I disagree.
My guess is as with most emergent phenomena: both. Accidental that it happens in the first place, intentional that little is done to redress the balance. How could it be anything else?
It's hard for me to feel like these political flagfests make the rest of the site any better, while the rest of the site is what I find value in. If I want to witness mobs possessing massive standard deviations in knowledge and experience with the subject matter flamewarring each other, there are already a whole lot of places on the Internet I can go for that. It's the tech-and-genuine-curiosity-not-yelling part of HN that's the value prop for me here, and FWIW, for a sample size of one, threads like this do little to improve on that.
Of course I can hide this story and move on. But it's hard for me to believe that all the stress hormones flowing in the people reading and participating don't have some kind of negative knock-on effects on other, more peaceful threads.
you detached/flagged my comment from thread, shadow banned my account and disabled signup in my IP because I said something against them. That was "clearly" enough.
I'd need a specific link to say anything specific, but the general answer that we moderate HN based on the site guidelines, and those don't vary based on who you've "said something against".
Over the past few months, I’ve been dejected to see a large number of articles that were politics-adjacent, but otherwise thoughtful and topical, get flagged and remain that way. The mods told us that HN is not supposed to be a news aggregator. Begrudgingly, I accepted the justification, since fostering intelligent discussion in a diverse community can be incredibly challenging.
So… why were the flags on the article covering Hulk Hogan’s (tech-irrelevant) death turned off? The article was flagged, then inexplicably came back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44672329
And it's not the first time I've seen this happen with various news fluff.
I’ll be frank: I’ve had faith in the mod team in the past, but the lack of consistency is becoming offensive to me. Celebrity gossip is OK, but not most things ICE or Musk related for example, even when there's direct involvement from SV elites? I'm finding it hard to see the throughline here. What am I missing?
Turning off the flags on a story doesn't mean we want to give it front page exposure (and in that case, we didn't give it front page exposure). It allows people who want to discuss that topic to do so whilst not taking up front page space and also not drawing complaints from people who feel strongly that they want to discuss it.
We do the same thing with some of the politics-related topics you're talking about too. The primary consideration is always whether the story contains "significant new information", and another significant consideration is whether the discussion thread is of a reasonably high standard.
I concur: Sometimes I get downvoted when making what I thought were nuanced comments, but then after a few replies I realised that I had left a few things open to misinterpretation. A few corrections later... upvotes. That feels organic.
It's unfortunate and notable that whenever Israel hits the front page of HN and avoids getting flagged, the perspective is reliably anti-Israel.
It's worth recalling that confirmation bias, which we’re all prone to, kicks in hard on this topic. We are all subject to the tendency to notice and remember things that back up what we already believe, while tuning out anything that contradicts it.
With Israel, that often means people stick to sources and angles that reinforce their stance, whether pro- or anti-Israel, and dismiss anything that doesn’t fit their narrative.
It’d be a welcome change to see top comments or stories that challenge anti-Israel assumptions, not just confirm them.
Have you considered that your framing exposes implicit bias? It breaks posts down in a binary (pro- or anti-Israel) formation. It’s not that simple.
One can be deeply sympathetic to the millenia-long suffering of the Jewish people and even want them to have a homeland, and yet believe that Israelis are largely unconcerned with the welfare of Palestinian civilians. It’s also reasonable at this point to believe that Israel - for the last year, at least - is pursuing military action without a strategic goal or a long-term plan other than “encouraging voluntary transfer” of the civilian population.
To you, does the above paragraph immediately strike you as pro- or anti-Israel?
> One can be deeply sympathetic to the millenia-long suffering of the Jewish people and even want them to have a homeland, and yet believe that Israelis are largely unconcerned with the welfare of Palestinian civilians
And then extend that to believing Hamas are monsters, that whenever Palestine has--in modern times--had any power or leverage, it has used it to be a pest to its neighbors, and yet still believe that those people don't deserve to face starvation, bombing, economic ruin and forced displacement.
> are you saying that there is a scenario where it is legitimate for a person or group of people to believe that another group of people should be deserving of starvation, economic ruin, and forced displacement?
No, I'm saying the opposite. That you can be judgemental of Hamas and even suspicious of the motives of those claiming to speak for the Palestinian people while still condemning Netanyahu's tactics in this war.
I think the best thing you can say is that Hamas has a non-military arm that has provided enough social services that Gaza didn't collapse in economic ruin over the last two decades. The much more obvious thing to say is that Hamas has run a nihilistic campaign largely focused on the murder of Israeli civilians, and that they are Islamist in nature (and thus opposed to secular democracy). (I'll add my personal opinion that I hope many of them burn in hell for the calamity they've brought on Gaza.)
You are arguing for confirmation bias, unfortunately. It costs you nothing to understand Israeli perspectives. You don't have to agree, but you will elevate the discourse.
You (a) did not respond to my question and (b) now stated a claim that I'm arguing for confirmation bias without articulating an argument backing this new claim.
I would love to understand what you mean by my lack of understanding of Israeli perspectives. I talk to Israelis regularly. What perspectives do you believe I'm missing? If you're think I don't care about the safety and wellbeing of Israelis (and, to be specific, Israeli Jews), you'd be incorrect. I believe in Israel being a strong and prosperous state. If you think that means I should blindly ignore the fact that Israeli polls show that the Israeli public is unconcerned about the fate of Palestinians in Gaza and that this consequently leads me to believe Israelis are shortsightedly reducing their own security in the long term, then I wouldn't be able to agree with you. If you think I should similarly ignore that - under Bibi and Likud - Israel has deliberately acted against US policy to encourage the formation of a Palestinian state, and has created a defacto one-state reality which again reduces the security of the Israeli state, I wouldn't be able to agree with you either.
Solidly anti-Israel. Like "somewhat pregnant" there is no "somewhat pro-Israel". Either you believe that Israel has the right to exist, that its public statements are reasonably accurate reflections of its intentions, and that those goals and intentions are reasonable, and are thus pro-Israel; or you are anti-Israel. The rest is just decoration.
Polls about Israeli indifference to Palestinians is a non-sequitur.
Israel tells us all daily what its goals are and why, and how it intends to achieve those goals. Its actions then match those statements.
However, it is very difficult for most people, apparently, to listen to Israel and falsify its statements. Too much history, propaganda, false consensus, confirmation bias, and, frankly, anti-Semitism. Much easier for everyone to agree with each other that Israel bad, to attribute motives, to assume the worst, to believe Israel's enemies. Those people think it's reasonable to say something like "while I agree that Israel has the right to exist, that does not give them the right to commit war crimes and genocide."
Dang, how can you say for sure they are organic? Just because the downvoters appear to be human and seem not to be bots? Even if the dovnvotes came from human beings: Israel apologists are very organised. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett publicly emphasized the importance of Wikipedia as an information source and stated that Israelis should learn how to edit Wikipedia. Israeli Hasbara, also known as public diplomacy or pro-Israel advocacy, uses various strategies to promote Israel’s perspective on campuses and online.
On university campuses, examples include Hasbara Fellowships (training students to advocate for Israel), pro-Israel student clubs (organizing events and campaigns), social media trainings, resource support from Jewish organizations, and counter-actions against pro-Palestinian movements.
Online, Israeli ministries and affiliated organizations operate official social media teams, develop advocacy platforms and tools (like the Act.IL app), and use influencer campaigns, bots, and coordinated digital actions to shape public opinion. After October 7, 2023, civilian Hasbara initiatives on social media expanded rapidly, ranging from individual efforts to coordinated campaigns with governmental support.
So how can you say that this is a controversial topic and the dovnvotes are organic?
How is it controversial when 2mil. peope are being starved? When thousands of children have been killed by a country whose prime minister is a wanted war criminal?
I can't say for sure. What I said is that they seem that way to me, and are within the range of what one expects from divisive and emotional topics. That isn't proof (which is elusive if not impossible in any case), but is at least based on many years and god knows how many lost hours poring over this sort of data.
Incidentally, I was talking about downvotes and flags from every side of the conflict, not just the side you're talking about. I don't see a lot of difference there either.
For what it's worth, I think the current cadence of allowing one flamewar every 3-4 weeks on this topic is bang on, you're not censoring it and also not letting it take over the site. Nice job.
Thanks for demonstrating that at least one user feels this way. I wasn't sure.
Even if literally no one agreed, I still feel that not this topic is not an option, and I still think that could be derived from the first principle of the site (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), although I admit that the exact proof escapes me.
I do appreciate the hard work you and Tom are doing. This is an immense work you both are doing. Otherwise we wouldn’t have the quality we appreciate here. And I can understand the challenges to moderate a topic like Israel/Palestine.
it isn't a flamewar, it's one side flaming and flaming. allowing them to do that once a month while stopping them from injecting it everywhere all the time might be a good policy, but I don't get a sense I'm hearing both sides
there are plenty of pure "Israelis bad" comments, not downvoted. Can you point me to a "Palestinians bad" comment that's not downvoted? I don't mean this as part of the debate, I would just enjoy reading it, don't kinkshame me.
Not sure what kinkshaming is but fully on board with not doing it!
It's hard to respond without specific links. From my perspective, there are throngs of comments on both sides of this getting downvoted and flagged, mostly for good reason but not always.
FWIW, I think any "$large-group-bad" comment probably should be downvoted on HN. The world doesn't work that way, so any such comment is likely to be a pretty bad one (relative to what we're trying for here).
Are you familiar with Tal Hanan, an Israeli businessman and former special forces operative alleged to have run disinformation campaigns to manipulate elections in several countries? That activity was pre‑LLM. What concrete safeguards, audits, and transparency measures does this platform use to detect and prevent similarly professional manipulation?
We're a relatively small site. Though this thread is at the bigger end of what HN hosts, it's still manageable enough that when the two of us spend all day watching the thread and looking at the commenting, flagging and upvoting/downvoting, we can pick up evidence of manipulation and abuse quite easily. For example, we both independently noticed the user who was commenting/voting/flagging under multiple different usernames. It just looked weird. And it's easy to detect users who are driven by an ideological agenda from observing the patterns of their activity.
You have no idea how much we all value the effort you put into moderating HN!
It's one of the last bastions of large-scale intellectual discussion that hasn't be overrun by bots, teenagers, or trolls. Digg was destroyed, then Slashdot, and now Reddit is mostly AI spam.
Hacker News is a place where when I see spam, it looks obviously of place. And then an hour later... it's gone.
I think it is a mistake of moderation to treat this as any divisive topic. The division line here is support for genocide. Users which are in favor of genocide—no matter how they justify it—are clearly in the wrong, both morally, and probably legally, and should not be given any ways to influence the discussion here.
I think that argument is making an is/ought error. I'm simply describing how it is. Whether it ought to be that way or not, I leave to you and other commenters.
If you're looking for a popular vote on whether what's taking place in Gaza is a genocide, you would get very different votes in different places. For instance, in the USA, less than 40% agree with that take.
Yes, never again is right now and I am afraid to even say that under my real name because it would put my job at risk.
Watching a redux of the Warsaw Ghetto being livestreamed, watching children starving to death because of state military decisions, watching 500 pounder bombs being dropped on seaside cafes and ambulance medics being murdered. Never again is right now and I'm doing this, bitching pseudonymously. It is truly dystopian as you say.
Further, state influence campaigns using social media are well known, it is absolutely happening on this forum and all forums as you say. What to do? I have no idea but I know that those who suffer the consequences of speaking out against this, such as the tens of people arrested in the UK, are truly brave.
Never again is right now. One day everyone will have been against this.
For progressive, educated people, Holocaust education was a double-edged sword. It made us keenly aware that the belief in the need for the existence of a Jewish state came from centuries of European Christian anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust. Therefore, when Israel justified its actions as defense against an existential threat, I think Europeans and American descendants of Europeans felt very nervous about rejecting that justification, since historically we're a big part of why they perceive an existential threat to their people.
For a while people would label arguments against Israel as being against the Jewish people or the Jewish faith. That is, decrying how Gaza and the West Bank were formed were seen as anti-semitic arguments. It was essentially an argument that Israel is Judaism. Whereas mature people can usually argue against a behavior without arguing against a person or a group of people.
In so weaponizing "antisemitism" through unethical and immoral political attacks, it increases actual antisemitism and makes the term lose its importance. Meanwhile, 20k Hasidic Jews met in an arena in NYC to denounce what Israel was doing and that they don't speak for them. The sheer arrogance of a secular political regime claiming to speak for an entire people whom aren't citizens of their country and never agreed to this association.
A thought-provoking argument that I read recently was that Israel's relationship with the diaspora has undergone a fundamental shift in the last 20 years, largely tracking with demographics: it's no longer the case that Jewish life is primarily diasporic in nature, and Israel's growing impatience (and sometimes open disdain) for the diaspora tracks with that demographic reality.
I think this is an underrepresented factor in why Israel feels unilaterally emboldened in this conflict: there's no longer a statistically more liberal, secular, identifiably Jewish majority outside of the country that serves as a check on its actions.
It's become increasingly apparent that most accusations of anti semitism these days are a thin veil over genocidal islamophobia.
which isnt to say anti semitism doesnt exist or even that it isnt getting worse, just that most of the pearl clutching is being done by rather extreme racists who are pretty happy to see muslims exterminated.
That's what we were thought in school as well, but the actual history quite a bit more complicated than that.
Modern racial antisemitism and political Zionism were two modern political projects that grew from the same 19th century soil of nationalism and race theory. They did not agree with each other, but they converged, from opposite directions, on the same fundamental conclusion: that the Jewish people constituted a distinct, unassimilable national and racial body that could not coexist as equals within a European nation-state. Political Zionism did not adopt the idea of Jewish separateness from antisemites. It inherited this idea directly from traditional Judaism itself. The entire structure of Halakha (Jewish Law), with its dietary codes, Shabbat observance, and, most crucially, its powerful prohibition on intermarriage, was a system designed to maintain the Jewish people as a distinct, separate, and unassimilated nation in exile. This was the internal, self-defined jewish reality for millennia. Modern racial antisemitism took this existing reality of Jewish separatism and reframed it as a hostile, biological threat to the European nation-state.
The secular European Zionists looked at this situation and synthesized two ideas. Zionists accepted the traditional Jewish premise ("we are a separate people") and accepted the antisemite's practical diagnosis ("they will never accept us as equals"). They rejected both solutions, the religious passivity of waiting for a Messiah and the "liberal delusion"(as Zionists described it) of assimilation. Instead, they chose to take the existing identity of Jewish separateness and reforge it using the modern tools of European nationalism and colonialism. That's also why Zionists published scathing articles about assimilated jews whom they perceived as deluded, cowardly, and "self-hating" for trying to be part of a European society.
The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project in Palestine (1900s), were not suffering from the trauma of the Holocaust (it was decades before) and did not suffer from any meaningful antisemitism, which they also documented themselves ("the Palestinians are child-like and easy to befriend"). Zionist actions and attitudes were thus the direct, confident expression of 19th Century European settler colonialism, as evident in the writings of Herzl, Jabotinsky and co. Zionism was born in the same intellectual environment as the "Scramble for Africa" and the "White Man's Burden."
Their argument was not: "We are traumatized victims who need a safe space.", because if that had been the case they wouldn't have rejected the ugandan land they were offered - it was: "You Europeans have successfully conquered and colonized vast territories inhabited by inferior natives. We, as a superior European people currently without a state, claim the right to do the same thing as you". It was the logical, confident, and systematic execution of a European colonial project by a group that chose to see itself as a superior people with the right to displace and subjugate an indigenous population it viewed as inferior (i.e. the 'kushim' of Palestine). Those secular European atheist jews who, despite rejecting religion as superstitious and irrational, still saw value in it as essential myth-making tool to justify the dispossession of natives and legitimize their colonial zionist project by weaponizing those myths ("our God [which they as atheists didn't even believe in] promised this land to us") .
> The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project in Palestine (1900s), were not suffering from the trauma of the Holocaust (it was decades before) and did not suffer from any meaningful antisemitism
You're conveniently ignoring the Eastern European pogroms during the late 19th and especially early 20th century. Jewish immigration, in both number and origin, to Palestine not-so-coincidentally tracks the severity of the pogroms. And actually, during this time many times more Jews immigrated to New York than to Palestine. Immigration to Palestine didn't explode until the rise of Nazi anti-semitism.
Collective punishment is wrong. Full stop. Global civil society largely internalized this ethic, after millennia of accepting collective punishment as legitimate, in large part because of the experience of Jews in Europe. It's ridiculous to deny the history of how this norm came about no less than it is to deny that collective punishment has become the facial justification for Israel's war in Gaza.
You're conveniently imposing your misreading on that quote since it's clearly talking about the experiences of _those Zionists living in Palestine_ around 1900.
David Ben-Gurion was the founder of Israel and its first Prime Minister and he confirms that: "They are nearly all good-hearted, and are easily befriended. One might say that they are like big children." David Ben-Gurion in Igrot (Letters), Tel Aviv: Am Oved and Tel Aviv University, Vol. I, 1971
And how come those pogroms didn't make those Zionist-Jews more empathetic to suffering and persecution? Instead they had the exact same racist and supremacist attitudes as the europeans they were complaining about.
"The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim in Hebrew] and for those there is no value." - Weizmann, quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.
> The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project in Palestine (1900s), were not suffering from the trauma of the Holocaust (it was decades before) and did not suffer from any meaningful antisemitism
Ben-Gurion himself was witness to pogroms in Poland. Does one need to be murdered or violently attacked to "suffer antisemitism"?
Every group is capable of and, in fact, exhibits racist attitudes. Hannah Arendt observed and commented on the racial hierarchy among Jewish Israel's when attending the Eichmann trial, with the European immigrants having higher socio-economic status than the native, darker-skinned Jewish population. Jews are no different than any other group, ethnic or otherwise.
And, FWIW, Jews are hardly the only ethnic or religious (or mixed ethnic-religious) group which has maintained a distinct identity across millennia and within larger populations, or found itself displaced and then displacing others. In fact, the Middle East has many such groups. The insistence on distinguishing and rationalizing Jews as being peculiar in this and similar regards is a distinctively European cultural obsession, though many regions around the world have their own "Jews" that play this perpetual "other" cultural role.
Again, collective punishment is wrong[1]. Full stop. There's no need to build a complex, racist, colonial narrative as a way to characterize Jews, Israelis, or Zionists as the bad guy in the unfolding Gaza crisis. There's zero need to make recourse to centuries of history to deduce what's wrong with Gaza or even how it came about. The left's oppressor-oppressed modality perpetuates prejudiced, reductive, racist thinking no less than other modes of reducing people to caricatures, and in the end just an excuse to malign or elevate people on a whim. Zionists emigrating from Europe to Palestine to flee persecution... bad. Salvadorians and other populations chain migrating to the US to flee persecution or economic hardship... good. But these assessments can and will flip on a dime.
[1] At least in the modern Westernized ethos, though it seems this judgment re the legitimacy of collective punishment or collective blame is sadly, demonstrably precarious.
>Ben-Gurion himself was witness to pogroms in Poland. Does one need to be murdered or violently attacked to "suffer antisemitism"?
Poor old Ben-Gurion, he "suffered so much from antisemitism" in europe that it turned him into a bloodthirsty racist colonialist who had to engage in a bit of ethnic-cleansing and mass-murder of kushim as therapeutic treatment.
>And, FWIW, Jews are hardly the only ethnic or religious (or mixed ethnic-religious) group which has maintained a distinct identity across millennia and within larger populations, or found itself displaced and then displacing others. In fact, the Middle East has many such groups. The insistence on distinguishing and rationalizing Jews as being peculiar in this and similar regards is a distinctively European cultural obsession,
That's not a "European cultural obsession", it's literally just Jewish Law (Halakha). It's also what Zionist-Jews themselves relentlessly weaponize as myth making tool to justify their occupation of Palestine and to make themselves immune to any criticism, even while committing Genocide.
>Jews are no different than any other group, ethnic or otherwise.
Jews would disagree with you on this, their whole claim to the land and justification for colonization and occupation of Palestine rests on that notion of being different, being the "chosen people" which perfectly aligns with the supremacist zionist ideology which had no qualms about ethnically-cleansing Palestine from those they classified as inferior kushim. ("The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim in Hebrew] and for those there is no value." - Weizmann, quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.)
>There's no need to build a complex, racist, colonial narrative as a way to characterize Jews, Israelis, or Zionists as the bad guy in the unfolding Gaza crisis.
"There's no need to build a complex, racist, colonial narrative as a way to characterize Aryans, Germans, or Nazis as the bad guy in the unfolding Dachau crisis."
>The left's oppressor-oppressed modality perpetuates prejudiced, reductive, racist thinking no less than other modes of reducing people to caricatures, and in the end just an excuse to malign or elevate people on a whim. Zionists emigrating from Europe to Palestine to flee persecution... bad.
"The left's oppressor-oppressed modality perpetuates prejudiced, reductive, racist thinking no less than other modes of reducing people to caricatures, and in the end just an excuse to malign or elevate people on a whim. Nazis emigrating from Europe to Poland to flee persecution... bad."
> The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project in Palestine (1900s), were not suffering from the trauma of the Holocaust (it was decades before) and did not suffer from any meaningful antisemitism
I might be misreading you here, but it really sounds like you're claiming that antisemitism began and ended with the Third Reich. You're aware that's not the case, right?
I'm clearly specifying a subset of Zionist-Jews in a specific location at a specific time "The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project *in Palestine* ..." and the crucial part which you simply dropped in your quote "which they also documented themselves [i.e. their experiences with the natives of Palestine] ("the Palestinians are child-like and easy to befriend")"
I honestly don't get how one can read that sentence and come to that conclusion, but at least you already suspected yourself of misreading
that seems to be the abridged version, the exact quote I found says:
"They are nearly all good-hearted, and are easily befriended. One might say that they are like big children." David Ben-Gurion in Igrot (Letters), Tel Aviv: Am Oved and Tel Aviv University, Vol. I, 1971
The problem is your comment doesn't make much sense unless you come to the conclusion I did - who cares if they weren't traumatized by the Holocaust specifically (of course they weren't!) if they were instead traumatized by, say, pograms?
They were so "traumatized" that they became racist and supremacist?
"The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim in Hebrew] and for those there is no value." - Weizmann, quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.
Interesting behavior. One would assume that those horrible pogroms would have thought those Zionist-Jews the value of empathy, but they just seem to have taken it as instruction manual and have been applying it themselves for almost a century now.
The question of whether you can find third-hand (or even first-hand) accounts of Zionists saying or doing bad things doesn’t really have any bearing on the question of to what extent Jews faced persecution, or to what extent that persecution motivated the Zionist project.
Incidentally, the idea that persecution or trauma necessarily makes a person (or a people!) better is flatly untrue; anyone familiar with psychology knows that. And, after all, we can find lots of examples of Palestinians doing bad things too.
>The question of whether you can find third-hand (or even first-hand) accounts of Zionists saying or doing bad things doesn’t really have any bearing on the question of to what extent Jews faced persecution, or to what extent that persecution motivated the Zionist project.
True! Zionism was clearly a white supremacist colonial project inspired by european nationalism in teaching and writing either way.
>Incidentally, the idea that persecution or trauma necessarily makes a person (or a people!) better is flatly untrue; anyone familiar with psychology knows that. And, after all, we can find lots of examples of Palestinians doing bad things too.
Also true! Similarly, Norman Finkelstein describes in "The Holocaust Industry"[1]: "that the American Jewish establishment exploits the memory of the Nazi Holocaust for political and financial gain and to further Israeli interests. According to Finkelstein, this "Holocaust industry" has corrupted Jewish culture and the authentic memory of the Holocaust". Zionists pumped out Hollywood movie after movie to lecture the world on how their tribe's oppression has been so uniquely evil, just to turn around and oppress others in the exact same way once they gained power.
I lost 3 great uncles in WW2, one lost his mind to PTSD and drink, and my grandfather came back a different human forever changed. That they fought and died fighting Nazis only for America to adopt and support ethnonationalist fascism is beyond my comprehension and tolerance.
Germany refuses to speak up against anything Israel is doing. Hows that for cowed? Poor country has had a number done on them almost 100 years and now theyre done. For that matter all the western countries are done.
The problem is simple: conflicts like this are made into binary good vs evil arguments where the other side is bad and your side is good.
The reality is that both sides have legitimate concerns, and likewise, are doing very bad things. Intelligent and caring people get sucked up into this and can only echo their hate for the other side.
The exciting world of tech is designed to amplify the opposition but not to find consensus.
You are just heading into another set of abstractions. A third neutral path that still misses the most important factor. That human life and dignity is the overwhelming priority. A legitimate" concern is a very bad reason for death, injury, trauma and hunger.
Israel however does not wish to kill all Palestinians. It is not trying to kill all Palestinians in Gaza. It is not killing all Palestinian Arabs who are Israeli citizens. It is not trying to kill all Palestinians in the "West Bank" or in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
Killing people in a war is not genocide. The people in Gaza are provably not targeted (as a group) because they are Palestinians. The attacks on Gaza are directly related to the war that started by Hamas' attack (or we can even say attacks including previous attacks since they took power in Gaza). Each bomb that drops in Gaza has a military objective.
You can prove this pretty easily with a thought experiment, just have Hamas (and the other Jihadi organizations in Gaza) surrender, lay down their arms, and we'll see if any more Gaza civilians are killed.
Nothing justifies genocide. My (limited) understanding is that both sides want the destruction of the other.
I'm not a fan of terrorism, and I'm not a fan of theocracies either.
So here we are talking about the problem and I'm sharing an observation about the process of talking about the problem and you wish me great harm. For just sharing my observations.
You have no idea of who I am or what I actually support and you are ready to fucking stone me. Again, oh the irony of my original comment.
>I'm not a fan of terrorism, and I'm not a fan of theocracies either.
Israel's entire history is the history of "jewish-zionist terrorism"[1], from its founding to its expansion and the current genocide. If you're not a fan of "theocracies" then you should clearly hate Israel, because it's a settler colonial apartheid occupation that justifies itself using the hebrew bible which its own secular founders classified as useful myths.
Everybody knows what you're doing. It's liberal zionist apologia disguised by feigning ignorance. Why would you spam comment after comment on this topic if you have "limited understanding" as you admitted? And by chance you happen to regurgitate typical zionist talking points.
There is still an enemy and government on the other side of this conflict, which have a duty to their people to surrender. I don't believe surrender is in their vocabulary though so here we are...one side fighting and invisible enemy on the other.
> What's worse is I actually feel openly saying "I don't support this genocide and I'm critical of the state committing it" is a risky thing to say in public. I wouldn't say it not behind a pseudonymous account without some level of plausible deniability.
In the world I can observe (especially social media), the opposite is true; characterizing the situation as a genocide is normal and accepted, disputing that will get you shunned, and depending on who your friends are you may find yourself subjected to purity testing of that opinion.
Consider, for example, who does and doesn't get banned on Twitch for the things they say about this issue, and what their positions are. Or have a look around Fosstodon, or among FOSS developers on other Mastodon instances; "Free Palestine" is at least as common in bios and screen names as BLM support, while opposed slogans don't even exist as far as I can tell or would be unconscionable to use if they do.
Or consider for example this thread, which is full of people who agree with you, at least among the live comments.
> It's also the area with the most clear manipulation of information on social media. The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web.
Unfortunately the techno optimism that we grew up with has given way to the stark reality that it is now easier than ever to manage the truth and squash dissent.
Which, btw, is the exact opposite of what we thought the Internet would be: the democratization of truth and voices. Instead we've allowed a handful of media oligarchs to own and distort the spin landscape.
> Tangentially related, I never understood how the anti-BDS laws square with the first amendment
At my university, a portion of my dues went to funding BDS efforts (what expenses do they even have?) and I had no clear means to object to this. This was in Canada, but it seems to me perfectly fair to oppose that. That said:
> Most anti-BDS laws have taken one of two forms: contract-focused laws requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel; and investment-focused laws, mandating public investment funds to avoid entities boycotting Israel.
Substitute, for example, any domestic racial minority for "Israel"; does your opinion change?
> Is "Israel" a race or a country? Should a Canadian not be allowed to boycott the US?
The legislation described does not prevent boycotts, except by government contractors who have a duty to government policy and thus do not necessarily enjoy those protections (https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47986):
> Speech restrictions imposed by private entities, and government limits on its own speech, usually do not implicate the First Amendment.
As for public investment funds: you'll need to explain to me how saying that X may not invest in Y because Y is refusing to buy things from Z, causes Y to stop being able to refuse to buy things from Z (i.e., compels Y to buy things from Z).
If you want to not buy things from Israel, then... just don't. You don't need my money, or a private investment firm's, in order to achieve that.
> Speech restrictions imposed by private entities, and government limits on its own speech, usually do not implicate the First Amendment
How does this apply to the matter at hand? The restrictions on doing business are being imposed on (not by) a private entity, by (not on) the government. The government is free to do business with Israel if it so chooses
As a private entity doing business with the government, why is it permissible to boycott other countries or entities, but not Israel?
Moreover, why is this a state matter? What relevance is it to Kansas whether one boycotts a foreign country?
>How does this apply to the matter at hand? The restrictions on doing business are being imposed on (not by) a private entity, by (not on) the government.
>requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel
You originally asked how the provision holds up against the First Amendment. I showed how it is government contractors being restricted. Government contractors act on behalf of the government. I then showed how the First Amendment does not necessarily protect those who act on behalf of the government, because this is the government placing a limit "on its own speech".
I did not find anything about contractors in the link you provided and the excerpt did not apply.
Even if that were present, why should "Congress said so" have any meaning?
I am aware the judiciary has occasionally upheld the legality of such laws--just as they have upheld Civil Asset Forfeiture, Qualified Immunity, given us Citizens United, ended the Voting Rights Act, and sundry other decisions that will surely be judged well by future history.
Leftists spent years trying to pass "hate speech" laws and now that right is trying to pass "hate speech" laws leftists are clutching their pearls. It came back to bite.
Agreed, I think at the far end "left" and "right" turn more into a circle than a line: "people shouldn't be allowed to think this way!"
But, the trouble is, there's no right answer, only trade-offs. Personally I do prefer dialogue over "canceling." But I also recognize that can also basically allow for an intellectual "denial of service," so to speak. AKA "flooding the zone"
>>As someone who went to US high school in the 90s, a good 1/3 of our curriculum seemed to be "never again" studies of the holocaust and other genocides throughout history. Which makes it completely incomprehensible to me that suddenly "don't talk about genocide" has become the basically law.
I used to live right outside of Auschwitz. Been inside many times, and it's an absolutely harrowing experience - the scale of human suffering inflicted upon the people brought there exceeds almost any kind of scale. But similar to what you said, majority of that place is dedicated to "never again" messaging - so it must feel weird to go in, see the pictures of starving children inside the camp(those that weren't sent to the gas chambers straight away anyway), only to go outside and see images of equally starved Palestinian children and watch Natenyahu say "there's no starvation in Gaza". I feel personal discomfort knowing that the famous "those who don't remember history" quote is on a sign right there in Auschwitz, seen by millions of people every year, yet Israel is comitting genocide against the people of Gaza.
>> The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web.
Any topic related to this gets flagged within few hours. No doubt this one will be too.
I think there are a large number of people from the United States who would be looking for Auschwitz on a map in Germany rather than in Poland. For some reason it ticks me off when Germans persist in using the German names for Polish cities while at the same time I'm not upset at the Dutch for saying Berlijn or Parijs instead of Berlin or Paris. It's inconsistent.
It was peacefully inhabited by members of both german and polish people, before the concept of nation states existed. That's where these names originate from.
At the end of the middle ages the cities voted (by war not by a referendum) to be part of the polish kingdom, because the polish king promised lower taxes. It was a conflict between the bourgeoisie in the cities and aristocracy in the country like everywhere in Europe, not between nations. Note that the polish king was an elected monarch, so not even the polish king was polish by the modern meaning.
In the 19th century there were national movements among both nationalities. After the first world war, people voted to be part of Germany, because it was richer and also more liberal, that's why the referenda were suppressed by the polish government. The regions were also full of coal or an important harbour, which is why the polish government cared about them beside national reasons. These actions were used by the nationalistic socialistic german workers party and others to justify hostile actions against the polish people. The polish government also expanded a police station on foreign soil into a military base against international treaties. After they also conquered official city buildings like the postal office, This led to the city major of Danzig calling for a military intervention, which was then expanded into the second world war due to the intention of the german government.
During the war slavic (including the polish) people were subject to murder, expulsion and the story with the concentration camps. After the war the polish army then did the same to the german people, including in regions were a large majority was german, which had been part of german states for centuries and which should become part of Germany again according to allied treaties. The plans originated back to before the war and were only called an answer to the German crimes to the public. These actions were objected to by the western allies, but were backed by the Soviets, because in-turn they could do the same to the polish people without the polish government objecting. This situation was what Churchill coined the term iron curtain about originally.
A lot of today's germans which insist on calling this cities by their german names are people which used to call it their homes (and still do). Some polish names were also only coined after the war, or coined earlier for propaganda but were never used until after.
Regarding the extermination camps: in contrast to the concentration camp they were only build on conquered foreign soil, because they didn't want to have these barbaric things in their home country and feared that it would cause outcry and objection by the German people (it was a dictatorship after all).
> Even peak cancel culture wasn't quite so chilling.
Wait. What?
Are you trying to imply this was some kind of a real thing that happened?
Sarcasm on the internet doesn't always travel well, I can't tell if you're just using this fiction as a metaphor or trying to convince people it actually happened.
One of the more annoying things I've noticed as I've gotten older is just how well certain false memes spread through a society. If they're ultimately harmless, then it doesn't matter that much, but I don't think that repeating the meme/myth that there was or is a "cancel culture", much less one that could peak, is harmless.
The short, short phone typing reason is that people who use the term cancel culture are almost always using it to attack criticism, and the majority of those times, it's things that deserve criticism.
I'm not sure I can change the world or even the culture of a small internet message board, but I can at least push back on it when I see it.
>is a risky thing to say in public. I wouldn't say it not behind a pseudonymous account without some level of plausible deniability. Even peak cancel culture wasn't quite so chilling.
Peak cancel culture was much more chilling than this. People were fired for cracking their knuckles[0], businesses were targeted for selling tacos while White, not constantly virtue signaling at work would cast you as a racist since "silence is complicetness," etc. A moral panic not seen for decades.
Leftists made their bed, and now they get to lie in it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Those who pointed out the peak woke cancel culture lunacy were told they were racists supporting the status quo. Now you're being told you're antisemitic.
Exactly! That's so baffling and infuriating. They're living in an alternate reality at this point.
I was just looking at Raphael Enthoven's X account earlier and it makes me crazy.
Its almost like genocide is a secret taboo that people won't admit to. Because at some level the logic of it actually fits (if you accept a premise of ethno-nationalism). It's a form of logical insanity; but that is what war and fear produce.
Yeah cause clearly that's what was happening for the past 20 years prior to Hamas inflicting the largest casualty attack of Jews since the Holocaust, amirite?
And in waging urban combat, you designate combat zones, drop leaflets and roof knock bombs because you wanna maximize casualties, amirite?
First, i'll start by saying hamas was obviously not justified in what they did. then begin on your points:
1) re: urban combat and designations + leaflets: basically all of gaza has been designated a combat zone almost constantly - much like the hokey pokey, bits are put in and out on a whim. Much of the population have been displaced multiple times.
compare this to the speedy campaign waged against hezbollah or iran, where there was precision intelligence to bomb things out with minimal (not zero) civilian casualties. israel is capable of being precise.
2) roof knock bombs: omg - there are no roofs left to knock on (look at photos of gaza, seriously.), and even if there were, i think this "generosity" went out the window a few wars ago. tents don't have roofs to knock on. - don't pretend israel has been kind by "knocking" on the roof of people waiting in line to get water.
3) largest casualty of jews since the holocaust: I agree this is terrible, but is an arbitrary measurement. nobody seems to bat an eye that israel has 50x'd that terrible number, nor that they're inflicting very similar suffering to what the jews suffered in the holocaust (hunger and relocation at the very least being undeniable within gaza, intention to relocate the populace being disgustingly touted by certain groups).
I’ve seen hundreds upon hundreds of photos and videos of mangled, mutilated, slain children——literally streamed directly to me on Instagram. And now, we are all witnesses to starved children.
For you to essentially say it’s ALL FAKE is fucking DISGUSTING.
The fact that this website allows fucking genocide denial is insane.
I’m gonna say this from the bottom of my heart, go fuck yourself.
This line of argument misrepresents both the nature of genocide and the current reality.
First, genocide isn’t defined by whether all members of an ethnic group are being killed everywhere they live—it’s about intent and actions toward any part of the group “as such.” The fact that Palestinians exist elsewhere doesn’t negate what’s happening in Gaza. The UN and multiple human rights organizations have documented mass civilian casualties, deliberate targeting of infrastructure, starvation as a weapon, and systematic displacement. That pattern aligns far more with collective punishment than a surgical military operation against Hamas.
Second, invoking WW2 to justify killing civilians today is morally bankrupt. The world learned from WW2—that’s why the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law exist: to prevent states from repeating those same atrocities. “We did it in WW2” is not a defense—it’s an indictment.
Third, claiming Hamas could “end it all by surrendering” is naive at best, dishonest at worst. Hamas doesn’t control every decision civilians make—babies didn’t vote for October 7. Collective punishment violates international law, period. And 60% of Gazans allegedly supporting October 7? Even if that number were accurate (which is debatable given wartime polling), collective punishment is still illegal and immoral. Civilian rights don’t evaporate because of public opinion.
Lastly, the idea that a population “actively trying to kill you” justifies cutting off food, water, and medicine reveals a complete erosion of moral clarity. If that logic held, any state could commit war crimes and simply blame the victims for “supporting the wrong group.”
You can condemn Hamas and demand restraint from Israel. These are not mutually exclusive positions—they’re what civilized societies are supposed to uphold
>. so to out it in simpler terms, if a guy tries to kill me, i can defend myself, but NOT TOO MUCH - if the person wont stop fighting and I or someone else, say the police, has to use deadly force to stop him, then you claim this is “morally bankrupt”.
You can defend yourself, even killing your attacker. It would be morally bankrupt to then kill your attacker's entire family, or the neighborhood where he lived.
I don't really understand how this conflict has been dragged out for so long. It seems like with all the external global support, it should be possible to bring enough world leaders together to hammer out a peace treaty.
Current strategies of applying external pressure and protesting appear to be largely ineffective.
There's so many people who wield immense power and wealth, but they seem unwilling to take direct action to put a stop to this conflict, they just sit in the sidelines like low-agency players.
If there's a trusted neutral party that people could rally behind, then it would just be a matter of coordinating behind them and pushing a focused message of bringing all relevant leaders to the negotiation table in order to design a framework that builds towards peace in the area.
When you have nukes, you can do anything. The next 10 years will literally change the future of this planet, because Israel turned nuclear deterrence into "right to attack anyone and not face consequences". It's straight out of Russia's playbook, and many countries who thought they would never need a nuclear deterrence realize that they actually might need one. North Korea's dictatorship looks like a bunch of geniuses right now and it's sad and scary that giving the Israeli military zero pushback (and even encouragement from the US) will result in a nuclear arms race.
Israel will not be satisfied with anything less than the complete eradication of the Palestinian people. It is hard to make peace when one side is hell-bent on mass murder.
Hey, it’s “tactical resource limitation”. Don’t you know how to color war atrocities? To quote Netanyahu, “there’s no starvation in Gaza”. The motherfucker may as well just say “all ur base belongs to us”.
What did you expect? Israel has been expanding more and more into Palestine, murdering and displacing Palestinians who live there. Did you really think nobody would fight back?
Removal of occupants from West Bank and Gaza, completely, was always the overall goal here. Israel doesn't seem to care overly much how this occurs, but they're making it happen. The goal is almost reached.
There will be no Palestine. Egypt doesn't want the refugees. Jordan doesn't want the refugees. Qatar doesn't want the refugees. UAE doesn't want the refugees. Syria doesn't want the refugees. Lebanon doesn't want the refugees. Iran and Iraq don't want the refugees. America doesn't want the refugees. Europe doesn't want the refugees. Russia & China don't want the refugees.
When the fortnite-circle closes in Gaza and West Bank, where do you think these people will go? To a gigantic concentration camp? They'll fight -and die- first. Israel, and all of the surrounding nations are counting on this fact.
Palestine is done. Over. Finished. They have nowhere to go. They won't accept permanent incarceration. That leaves rebellion unto death.
That is the option the world has given these people. Do we help them? Move them? No. We condemn Israel's actions and blah-blah-blah.
Can you point out to any action about the removal of West Bank arabs? There are an estimation of 2.5-3 million arabs there.
There is actually a country for these people and this is Jordan. Since in '48 the arabs didn't accept the two state solution then, they are forced to live in a country which is not for them.
Also, could you please point out where are they refugees from? '48 is 77 years ago, how is the 2nd and 3rd generation are still refugees? There are no other people in the world who claim to be refugees in the 2nd and 3rd generation.
Well,I don't know about a population that have displaced and occupied/imprisoned for such a long time. I feel fine calling the refugees.
And don't try to claim Israel left Gaza in 2006
Area C is still under Israeli control, despite them promising to leave the are 30 years ago. And they keep on allowing new illegal settlements. Considering how much area was under the jurisdiction of settlements (well over 40% in 2010) the 22 new settlements in 2024 is potentially a huge land grab.
Yes, they learned an important lesson on how to deal with Western media from the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. There's a decent amount of exploration of this topic in the excellent book "Our American Israel".
BBC's Jeremy Bowen was on the Jordanian aid-dropping plane yesterday or day before.
"He was told by the Jordanians that Israel did not want our crew to film outside the plane's windows while he was onboard".[1]
Obviously why - then he'd be able to film the ... not decimation, but total destruction of some of the cities in Gaza that would provide evidence for the genocide.
Israel lobbied for restrictions on the resolution of satellite footage of the occupied Palestinian territories, so it tends to be a lot more blurred than images of anywhere else.
The current dictatorship in Egypt deals with the Muslim Brotherhood in the same way pro-US capitalist dictatorships dealt with communist groups. The Muslim Brotherhood is still very popular in Egypt, and in the last legitimate election won close to 50% of the vote. I don't support them but their views are generally closer to Christian Democracy/socialism than you'd think.
Fact is that Egyptians are opposed to this, just like most other people in Arab or Muslim majority countries are. Their government is authoritarian and just does what suits it best, which in this case is to appease the US.
It's always remarkable how people like you think egyptians are incompetent and incapable of taking actions on their own without a special western nation controlling them.
Well, that doesn't change the fact that Egypt is currently under a US-aligned dictatorship. I'm not saying it's under US-control, just that the current dictator stands to benefit by being in the good graces of the US...despite his people's demands.
Also I don't believe that Egyptians are incompetent and incapable, you're putting words in mouth. It's just easier said than done to remove a dictator from power, especially when the power structure is so entrenched. It took Syria over a decade of civil war to get rid of theirs...
We don't live in a Hollywood film. The French Revolution didn't take a month to transition to a republic...
Does some part of the Egyptian government have an interest in doing certain things entirely because of America's influence? Sure. Is that the only reason for their behaviour? Of course not.
I just want people to keep in mind that Egypt (and everywhere else) is full of humans who are just as smart or dumb, brave or cowardly, immoral or righteous, as any other country, and those humans are perfectly capable of deciding to do both good and evil things without blaming it on "america".
rany has given a good answer, but I also want to add that currently the Egyptians only control the Rafah crossing on paper.
In reality, Israel controls the crossing because they have occupied/seized the strip of land in Gaza that is adjacent to the crossing (Philadelphi Corridor). Here's a similar complaint from Egyptian media: https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/1234/550260/Egypt...
> The journalist told RSF that the threat came from Hamas members who were unhappy with his social media posts. A few days earlier, the reporter — who wishes to remain anonymous — had published a post criticising Hamas, which was facing strong backlash from local protestors exhausted from being subjected to the massacres committed by Israeli forces.
> Due to these threats the journalist deleted his posts, fearing for his safety. At least two other journalists have faced threats and physical attacks for covering the protests against Hamas, which lasted several days. “Detention centres and administrative offices in Gaza have been destroyed,” one journalist told RSF. “So now Hamas’ intimidation tactics consist of direct confrontations with journalists, and the journalists have nowhere to go.”
We are talking about international journalists not being allowed into Gaza. Your comment is about a local journalist being intimidated by Hamas members.
International journalists are generally allowed to report freely. If there was any intimidation they would be airing it nonstop.
I look up the first of those “human rights groups” and see that it’s explicitly a Palestine advocacy group with 38 employees. How’s this anywhere near objective?
They must have been referring to B'Tselem since they have 38 employees, but it's an Israeli organization headed by an Israeli human rights lawyer, Yuli Novak.
I assume the person you're responding to is not Israeli and has not been following this conflict very closely if they've never heard of B'Tselem.
I witnessed war crimes in Gaza just by watching the vidoes on Tiktok, Telegram and other sites. Israel is not even trying to hide the mass murder they are committing.
Criticizing Israel is in vogue but what's the solution?
Gazans still hold Israeli hostages, Hamas has publicly stated that more civilian deaths helps their cause [1], they're still fighting, the UN refused to distribute aid because they were getting attacked [2], and Israel unilaterally pulling out of Gaza and leaving them to govern themselves is literally what led to October 7th...
> Hamas has publicly stated that more civilian deaths helps their cause
The fact that Israel has no problem creating these civilian deaths is part of the problem. If you claim "human shields" you lose all credibly when you shoot nonetheless. It genuinely horrifying that you accept "well they made us kill all those kids".
This would be easy to see if you accepted the Palestinian people as, well, people.
> Again, what's your solution people?
Two states, stop holding a people in a perpetual refugee camp and you might be surprised and how much less they fight you. And, if you really have two states, then there's a framework for retaliation if it comes to that.
> Two states, stop holding a people in a perpetual refugee camp and you might be surprised and how much less they fight you. And, if you really have two states, then there's a framework for retaliation if it comes to that.
This was Israel's solution, its the other side that keeps rejecting this solution and has been rejecting it for many generations now.
So after 70 years of that it makes sense Israel are fed up with trying to ask for two state solution, because the other side will never agree that wont work, they have to solve it in another way.
> This was Israel's solution, its the other side that keeps rejecting this solution and has been rejecting it for many generations now.
Arafat and the PLA/PLO, let's be clear, were responsible for many terrorist atrocities. But let's not forget, their softening, and efforts at the negotiation table, put the Israel far right in a tough spot. Questions were really starting to get awkward - "Arafat is negotiating and making concessions, so why isn't Israel?"
That's when Netanyahu and his buddies decided that Israel needed to start supporting Hamas, because Hamas was more hardline than the PLO. And their rise would make it easy to deflect blame away from Israel for being unwilling to explore the peace process.
Israel didn't pull out of Gaza, it simply moved its people to the border and continued its subjugation. They bombed Gaza's airport and implemented a land and sea blockade where they controlled everything that went in or out (to the point where they put the Palestinians on a diet with calorie counting at one point). That's not pulling out.
The border with Egypt was controlled indirectly, Egypt is a puppet state of the US. For a moment it wasn't and suddenly they got a military coup and nobody stopped them in the name of democracy...
>They bombed Gaza's airport and implemented a land and sea blockade where they controlled everything that went in or out
Israel blockades the ports and bombed the airport because missiles and weapons used to kill Israelis are shipped in at those places. These weapons in Gaza are not being used for defense. They are there to kill Israelis, period.
Weapons still get in, and then shit like Oct 7th happens - again, not in defense of Gaza, it was purely out of hatred of Israelis. Palestinians used to strap bombs to children and blew them up just to kill a few more Jews. Now they collect them and use them as human shields when they launch rocket attacks against Israel.
Yeah, the ports are blocked for good reason. Maybe Gazans could have tried diplomacy instead of terrorism, but they elected Hamas with a charter of exterminating Jews instead. I'm not sure how anyone could think that leads to prosperity - it leads directly to what's going on now.
They do see them as occupiers, and occupiers are people.
Israel on the other hand sees them as "animals" that need to be ethnically cleansed or killed. The words of their democratically elected officials, not mine.
Satanyaho is the longest serving PM (+17 years). Says a lot about Israelis.
> 39% in Gaza supported the attacks by Hamas into Israel in October 2023 that triggered the conflict, 32 percentage points lower than six months earlier[1].
If 71% civilian supports some group, then it is not a terrorist group but a government, and using Gazans isn't an overreach.
Hamas claimed non-Hamas groups and some civilians held hostages. Some hostages were found in captivity guarded by "civilians". Groups like PIJ held hostages.
So what's a nice catch-all term for the above groups?
Well the solution certainly isn’t letting an entire People starve to death?
By the way, I don’t see criticism of Israel, but Israel’s current extremist government. I’d even argue that supporting Israel means opposing that administration.
No, that's a logical fallacy. I can be against something obviously wrong without offering an alternative action. In fact, this is a case of "something needs to be done, this is something, so this must be done". Wrong. Doing nothing—not starving Gaza—was also an option; one that the Israeli government decided against. They are responsible for the current situation.
> "They are responsible for the current situation."
Pretty sure the people responsible are the ones hijacking aid trucks and causing security problems in distribution areas. Hamas has a long history of misdirecting aid from the Gazan population; stealing, oppressing, punishing, exploiting, and that's from before the war as commonly reported by UN sources and humanitarian groups over the years.
"The solution is certainty not x" is not a solution. Saying "it's not x" is easy.
If you really believe that Gazans are being starved, then save them by coming up with a great solution for Israel. Let's hear what you think Israel should do.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that Israel has decided to starve out Gazans in order to end the war. You have the choice to save them by offering a better solution. What is it?
"Not X!" is a copout.
Unfortunately for that perspective, finding a good solution means diving in and understanding the conflict from the Israeli perspective.
It's not. I can be against the wrong thing because it's wrong. Following your line of argument, I could propose using eugenics to end inherited diseases and sterilise all affected. You disagree? Well, offer a better solution then! What is it??
So because it's a copout, let's go and do X which will make it impossible to then do Y and Z that may have been far preferable than X.
That's not a copout, sure, but what is it? I suppose the polite, technical term is "opportunity cost"? Kill tens of thousands of people: ensure you can never make peace with their relatives.
Occupying powers have a legal responsibility to provide aid to civilians in territories they occupy. They also have a legal responsibility to figure out the logistics. They also cannot commit war crimes. So the solution is for israel to do what they are legally required to do, and stop doing what they are legally proscribed from doing.
Everything else (hostage return, feelings of safety, etc) is:
1. Less important, and
2. Equally applicable to both israel and palestine
Finding a good solution means diving in and understanding the conflict beyond israel's perspective: There is simply no legal or moral justification for the atrocities we see here. None whatsoever.
This is a gross oversimplification. Hamas has used aid drops as attack points and military refueling opportunities. The idea that this conflict has a good guy bad guy and is simple has done more disservice to an outcome than almost anything else.
That is a valid opinion, and I also have an equally valid opinion, that it is a gross undersimplification. Our two valid opinions cancel each other out! :)
> Hamas has used aid drops as attack points and military refueling opportunities.
This may be true, or it may be false (israel forbids journalists from reporting from Gaza and often attacks them) but it is included in the "everything else" referred to in the above post. Nothing Hamas does detracts from israel's obligations I mentioned. That's why it's not a "gross oversimplification".
Besides, israel has been systematically using aid points as attack points.
That would probably require some serious infrastructure to set up secure food distribution points, which I'm assuming isn't easy because the locations have to change as the evacuation areas also constantly changimg. From the video it looks like they only have some berms and small fences so I'd imagine it's a dangerous security situation.
Although having way more food/distribution points might help reduce the violent mobs.
Do you realise how incredibly cynical you sound? We're not discussing the finer details of a logistical challenge here, but the fate of people starving to death. People that by and large are innocent.
Also: It'd require infrastructure that did exist before the IDF destroyed it. To feed people that weren't hungry before Israel blocked humanitarian aid. Don't reverse the guilt.
> If you really believe that Gazans are being starved
This is so disgusting. There is an endless flood of proof from reliable media all over the world. It's a fact, not a matter of belief.
> Let's hear what you think Israel should do.
A government with members that are publicly outspoken for a genocide in Gaza simply cannot be trusted on this issue. It's like letting the wolf pack guard the sheep pen and hoping they will handle the situation responsibly. They will not.
You want to hear my solution? Israel should elect new leaders that aren't as empathically crippled, allow foreign (and domestic) help into Gaza, stop all actions of war, and get into talks with Abbas. Israel should incorporate and take responsibility for Gaza as a part of Israel, following Herzl's vision of Israel as a pluralistic state. A one-state solution is inevitable if there is ever supposed to be peace.
But this isn't going to happen. Instead, Gaza is out for a long, slow death by attrition; Israel is once again going to build illegal settlements and occupy territory, and wage war against local militias.
Is it an eye for an eye or 10,000 eyes for an eye? It was the Hamas military that committed the first war crimes attacking civilians. Netanyahu is committing war crimes in response starving the entire population. That is unacceptable.
Maybe you place your trust in reliable media all over the world instead of random YouTube videos. Journalists are in Gaza right now, putting their life on the line to show you the ground truth—and you dismiss all that due to a channel called "travelingisrael"?
Sounds like "traveling gaza" is your preferred source over "traveling israel". No difference. Well, there's some differences... There aren't any foreign journalists in Gaza and the "truth" is certainly not a strong point in reporting lines from Islamist controlled war zones.
I certainly trust Reuters and AFP over a YouTuber, yes. Their local journalists have a track record of professionalism, they aren't activists under control of the Hamas. Besides, are you honestly proposing there's any kind of regime in control of Gaza right now..?
The Gaza Health Ministry is the main source of data you read about in Reuters and AFP. Hamas also runs a media office that provides official statements on airstrikes, casualties and other events. They have a history of suppressing and intimidating journalists, and they have a history of propaganda.
There are no foreign journalists in Gaza. The journalists you're referring to are Palestinian freelance journalists. Those journalists are working in a media landscape controlled by terrorists. For example they wouldn't be permitted to report back to Reuters about Hamas policing or regrouping.
> Criticizing Israel is in vogue but what's the solution?
At a minimum stop funding them, stop selling weapons to them, at an absolute minimum repeal the rules against boycotting them. Yes that wouldn't be a complete solution but it would be a step in the right direction.
> Ok. So you stop bombing. How do you get the hostages back?
I'm assuming "the hostages" you're referring to are the tens of hostages held by Hamas and the thousands of hostages held by israel. I've provided an answer to this question here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718080
> not a real answer
According to who? Seems like a real answer to me, and I'm not sure you're the grand supreme decider of real answers :)
How do you get the hostages back with the bombing?
Oh, you are going to say, "that's to prevent future fighters from capturing future hostages", I guess?
But wait, we know that today's bombings are making future fighters, so, really, what's the plan??
You know, the evening of the 9/11 I remember spending the whole night depressing, thinking "omg, now the US are going to wage war all around the globe, my son will grow up in a terrible place". Because how could the military behemoth answer in any other way? And sure enough, that's what happened.
After the 7th of October, I had similar thoughts: "omg, now Israel is going to act stupid and make Jews hated again".
I've lost friends who had to leave my country because of antisemitism. I've also had my life threatened by right wing extremist zionists. So at least take my words on this: The first and most natural answer to violence and hated is more violence and hatred, universally. If that's not what you want for the next generation make the first move to stop it.
>Criticizing Israel is in vogue but what's the solution?
Return the refugees to their land and disband the settlements (west bank too). Cash payouts for palestinian refugees to rebuild their homes whether returned to previously occupied lands or just needing to rebuild gaza itself.
After reintegrating the civilian population they can go on an anti hamas witch hunt. And Hamas can be put on trial at the hague next to bibi and gvir. Easy.
Hope some day Muslims (in all Arab countries) just accept the right of Israel to exist. Else, this attack/retaliation dynamic will continue for ever, with people taking sides from a blob of propaganda channels disguised in news platforms.
There's an offer from Hamas on the table for a total ceasefire and release of all hostages. The solution is to accept it. If at any point Hamas will break the agreement, Israel is free to attack again.
Some people seem to believe that eliminating the entire Gaza population is the solution. Either by deportation, or simply by killing all of them. There is a German word for such a solution, 'Endlösung'. We don't want that again.
This is actually a valid question*, although you probably won't like the answer.
One side will concede in a war if there are no gains to be had, and conceding will stem the losses. So at a minimum, the side that wants a victorious peace has to credibly promise not to kill the women and children of the other side. At the moment, Israel is unable to credibly promise that, and it's difficult to see how in the short term it can generate any such credibility. So external parties such as the US need to form part of the commitment mechanism. Under both Biden and Trump, the US has neglected it's responsibility to do that.
*Apart from implying that civilian Gazans are responsible for the hostages
Israel has been subjugating Palestinians and killing them for over 75 years. They're still killing Palestinians and stealing their lands in the West Bank too.
Why? It would be terrible politically for Israel to keep attacking Palestine if Palestine and hamas agreed to peace. All of the ambiguity of right and wrong would be gone.
But Israel does that constantly, because they say the peace that Hamas agreed to doesn’t count. And the peace offer that Israel is waiting for is basically every male over 16 handed over for interrogation as Hamas members, with the chances of survival for actual Hamas leaders being about none.
Almost like starting a war is risky, and that by doing so you should weigh the consequences of you losing that war. Why would Hamas leaders expect to survive this war? Are they so cowardly that they would genocide their people to escape justice? If the people of gaza are going to be sacrificed by the IDF, or sacrificed by Hamas, at what point do they turn on Hamas as the weaker of the two?
Do you think USA would agree to peace with Nazi Germany or Japan without being allowed to root out all the Nazis or Japanese extremists? WWII was ended in an extremely brutal way, but it did work and effectively ended the genocidal extremism in both Japan and Germany.
Criticizing Nazi Germany was also "vogue" at some point and sympathisers of the third Reich had similar justifications for "self-defense" against Jews.
Hamas is bad, but Israel has done much worse to Palestinians over the last 80 years. The mass murders committed by the Israeli forces are much bigger than anything Hamas has ever done.
The only real solution is for the rest of the world to treat Israel the way it should be treated: a genocidal entitiy comitting mass murder.
stop bombing, killing, and starving civilians for starters; the long-term solution is the two-state solution but you can't get there if the population is either dead or scattered (which is what Israel successfully did in 1948 and is now trying to finish it off)
So don't do this "what's the solution??" while tens of thousands are being killed and starved.
There are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilian "administrative detainees" who would love to know why you're not as concerned about them being held.
For everyone in this thread hoping for a "Marshall Plan" or other functional aid regime for Gaza, keep in mind that the Marshall Plan began with defeat. It was only with Germany's unconditional surrender that the Allies could establish security and make a plan for the future. Hamas has had many opportunities to surrender and hasn't taken them.
Hitler had many opportunities, as well; but chose not to. Surrender was not a choice the Allies could make for him or for Germany; and it is not a choice Israel can make for Hamas or Gaza.
one could argue, that with hamas de facto defeated and now rival gangs rising up to take power, israel could unilaterally ceasefire and hold elections for a new government to run the strip. hamas, if they pop up again, are disposed of with both domestic and IDF forces.
the main problem is that doing so would probably result in the death of the hostages. hamas wants to stay in power, even if gaza is reduced to sand, they will hold onto the hostages until their power, even over nothing but skeletons, is assured.
the IDF could continue to engage on hamas's terms, or it could make the heartbreaking decision to give up on the hostages and focus on saving the innocent gazan civilians.
Ultimately it's Iran's call who takes power in Gaza, as they've been funding various groups based on the willingness to engage Israel - for this reason the PLO originally fell out in favor of Hamas when it softened its stance.
Israels government doesn't care about the hostages. They could have saved all remaining hostages by just not unilaterally breaking the ceasefire earlier this year.
After all these atrocities, even with Hamas completely gone the hatred for Israel will remain. This war will not stop, only pause.
Imagine all the kids that are growing up in Gaza now, witnessing so much pain, misery and death. How on earth could they forgive Israel, especially as it continues to invade and occupy their territories ?
These are very, very different situations. You are comparing nations and cultures that have be living side by side for thousands of years to a 77 year old state (Israel) occupying territory that has been Palestinean for thousands of years.
Israel and Ozzy Osbourne were born on the same year. People that were born after Ozzy, can no longer return to their birthplace, because it is now Israel and they are besieged in Gaza.
The only path for peace in the Middle East is for Israel to get the same treatment Germany got after WW2. Israel has shown over many decades that it does not respect human life. The mass murders comitted by the Tel Aviv regime leave no other option.
There were also people in the German Realm, aiming for negotiations (July-Assassinations, Stauffenberg), but the allies made it clear early on that they don't wanted a peace deal, which led to less support among the conspirators.
It was also the US-Marshall Plan (not the allied) and it was also for Europe not for Germany.
Any comparison between the Palestinians and Nazi Germany is absurd. It's like comparing the Native Americans to the Nazis and asking, "Why didn't they just surrender to the European colonists? They chose to fight to the end, so it's their own fault."
IDF fired on World Central Kitchen workers April of 2024 so this, sadly, isn't surprising. At least more and more video is, finally, coming out vividly capturing these atrocities.
When they accidently shot those three hostages escaping that should have been the moment more people realized all this talk about acting on intelligence was just marketing.
On the other hand - when Israel struck the parking lot of that hospital a couple of weeks ago everyone was so confident that the IDF was lying when they said that there was a command bunker just underneath the entrance of the hospital.
Not only did that end up being completely true, but the IDF killed Muhammad Sinwar in that strike.
You understand that you just said "they're the monsters for using human shields, but not us for shooting through the human shields", right?
Make no mistake, its 100% a war crime to use civilians as human shields. But that doesn't magically absolve the IDF of also committing a war crime. And if they can't meet their military objectives without committing war crimes, maybe that's a sign. In any case, bombing a hospital to kill a terrorist is a very efficient tactic if your goal is to create more terrorists. If you learn nothing else from the UK's administration of Mandatory Palestine, learn that.
Not a lawyer, but my understanding is civilian casualties are not unlawful (according to international law) when the target is legitimate (on the theory that it is otherwise impossible to legally fight a war with an enemy that hides behind its citizens). To be clear this is not to say war crimes are not also happening.
That doesn't exonerate anything, though. It shows Israel's willingness to put innocent lives in harm's way to plug potential future threats before they form. Threats they are overwhelmingly capable of deterring during transit, urban warfare or border conflicts.
The doctrinal violence against civilian infrastructure (Dahiya doctrine) and the deliberate homicide of hostages (Hannibal directive) are inexcusable no matter how many military brass it kills.
> As a condition for joining the controlled tour, The New York Times agreed not to ... publish geographic details
> according to the Israeli military
> There are no known entrances to the tunnel within the hospital itself
> According to the World Health Organization, Israel has conducted at least 686 attacks on health facilities in Gaza since the start of the war, damaging at least 33 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals
> In other tunnels discovered by the Israeli military, soldiers have used Palestinians as human shields, sending them on ahead to scour for traps.
... You read this article as proof vindicating the IDF's version of events? ... Huh.
Just to clarify - are you referring to the tunnel which Israel built itself in the 80's [0]? The one which was admitted not to even connect to the hospital in your own article?
If so - were you aware that Israel built it?
Or have you been justifying the destruction of at least 33 hospitals, to us and to yourself, this entire time, based solely on that 'evidence'?
To echo the parent; it doesn't matter. It didn't matter 2 weeks ago when Israel killed 3 Catholics bombing a church.
The IDF's doctrinal destruction of civilian infrastructure and attacks on hostages are illegal under international law. If the target was entrenched personnel, then leveling a hospital reflects absolutely miserable trigger discipline on the IDF and their officer's behalf. It's not WWI anymore, if we can't agree on international accountability then we learn nothing from the horrors of our mistakes.
It literally does matter. International law literally makes this exact distinction. And the very article we're commenting on states as much.
>Under the laws of war, a medical facility is considered a protected site that can be attacked only in very rare cases. If one side uses the site for military purposes, that may make it a legitimate target, but only if the risk to civilians is proportional to the military advantage created by the attack.
If you want to argue it's illegal, you have to make an argument that it's not proportional vis-a-vis the colocated military infrastructure, because otherwise international law says it's fair play in both letter and spirit. If they were completely off-limits then everybody would co-locate their military and humanitarian infrastructure without much thought - and the end result of that game would be worse for everyone. That's why international law is the way it is. Civilian infrastructure cannot be allowed to be used as a shield for military infrastructure.
On that point - you would have a difficult time making a legal argument that hitting the edge of the parking lot (deliberately avoiding a strike to the hospital itself, and without doing significant structural damage to the hospital) to kill the Hamas #1 (at that time) was not proportional. If you want to make that argument with some other strike (like the church one) then go ahead - I'm extremely open to the idea that the IDF is crossing the line with many of their strikes - but that's a different argument than falsely saying that any strike next to civilian infrastructure is a war crime by default.
If you want to bomb 33 out of 36 hospitals you should need better evidence than a single photo of a tunnel near a hospital. One which Israel built themselves in the 80s btw [0].
And let's not forget that Israel were caught lying about such evidence on multiple occasions in the past. Remember "the list" that was actually a calendar? Remember the MRI room storing 5 guns - or was it 6? Only recently, we had this: [1].
All local and foreign doctors have consistently denied all such IDF claims. All we have is the word of the IDF (while countless UN, HRW, eyewitness reports etc say otherwise).
We know for a fact that Israel have repeatedly targeted medical personnel in their clearly marked vehicles, such as during the Hind Rajab incident; or when they massacred a convoy and buried them in a mass unmarked grave, then claimed that their lights weren't on to 'justify' it until a recovered phone proved otherwise [2].
And we know, without a doubt, who does embed military infrastructure under hospitals and beside civilians. Israel [3].
If you are a real person, arguing in good faith, I urge you to consider how badly you have been lied to. It's never too late to wake up.
Holding up war crimes as a positive examples really just illustrated how far gone Israels actions have gone past any normal standard.
There is also no independent verification so it's debatable what the actual facts are. The IDF have long ago lost any right to be believed without that.
Hind Rajab being used as bait to murder aid workers was kind of a tell also.
Or when they bombed all the hospitals [0], or targeted pediatricians and oncologists, and their families [1] for assassination.
Or leaving preemie babies to rot and be eaten by wild dogs at Al Nasr [2].
Or when they dropped over 6 Hiroshimas worth of explosives [3] onto an area roughly equal to a 12 x 12 mile square, populated with over a million children - in Biden's term alone.
There's a lot more. Suffice to say that anyone paying attention has known that the US, Israel, Germany, England and more have been propping up a genocide for quite some time now.
"....
At the WCK Welcome Centre, locally-contracted security personnel got on and into the trucks and the convoy
continued the journey to the warehouse. As the trucks moved away from the Welcome Centre, one locallycontracted security person on top of the trailer of the third truck fired his weapon into the air. This was clearly
visible in the UAV video, observed by the UAV operator and assessed by the Brigade Fire Support Commander to be
consistent with Hamas hijacking the aid convoy.
During the aid convoy transit to the warehouse the Brigade Attack Cell contacted CLA with concerns there were
armed individuals on the convoy. CLA attempted through various means to contact WCK, first directly to the
convoy, then to international WCK contacts. CLA eventually made contact with the WCK Headquarters in the
United States who, after multiple attempts, made text message contact via WhatsApp with a WCK member who
had gone ahead of the convoy to the warehouse. They replied that the locally-contracted security personnel had
‘fake guns’. WCK Headquarters replied to CLA that they had made contact with WCK in Gaza and would address the
gun issue when WCK completed the task. It was difficult to tie down the exact timing of this extended set of
communications; however, they appear to have continued after the WCK vehicles had already been attacked,
indicating a lack of awareness by CLA of real-time events.
Once at the warehouse, the aid trucks entered and the WCK vehicles joined up and parked outside along with the
locally-contracted security vehicle. At this point the UAV operator identified the original gunman dismounting from
the truck and joining with another individual identified as a gunman. Over the next ten minutes approximately 15-
20 people, including two to four gunmen, moved around the escort vehicles. During this period, the gunmen were
classified by the Brigade Fire Support Commander and Brigade Chief of Staff as Hamas. P ....
> The identification of the armed individuals on the convoy and near/in the WCK vehicles had not been done in a professional manner. The mindset involved in the decision making was wrong.
> It was inferred a number of times that not only had the gunmen associated with the WCK aid convoy exhibited tactics similar to Hamas, but that in fact ‘they were Hamas’.
> Head FFAM confirmed that only the video feed being used by the UAV operators was used to identify the
gunmen as Hamas.
You see an aid convoy - which you are 100% certain is a legitimate aid convoy, because they communicated with you - being escorted by armed security, and your response is to bomb the aid convoy? In what world is that justified?
It was “probably wrong” to kill 7 people in 3 different vehicles? How about when they did it again later in the year, and killed another 5 WCK workers? Crazy how it just kept happening.
Retired Maj Gen Yoav Har-Even described how the IDF's drone operators mistook an aid worker carrying a bag for a gunman, and then targeted one of the World Central Kitchen vehicles with a missile.
The IDF then described how two people escaped that vehicle and got into a second car, which was hit by another missile from a drone.
The military confirmed that there were survivors from the second explosion, who managed to get into the third vehicle - which was then also hit by a missile.
Agreed that bombing the 1st vehicle of aid workers was a mistake. Then bombing the 2nd vehicle was a mistake, and the 3rd vehicle bombing was also a mistake.
Sorry but there's zero point in providing justification for this. Even the IDF said "it was a mistake that followed a misidentification" and that it "it shouldn’t have happened" [1]. Everyone's in agreement on this point.
Executive Order 14046 was signed in 2021 to direct the OFAC agency to cut off Ethopia and Eritrea from the global financial system specifically for the mere allegation of causing famine to the Tigray people.
Specifically it targeted the entire ruling party, the head of state, representatives, their spouses, and their businesses, and the military, including former officials.
This doesn't require Congress, it requires the stroke of a pen.
Hamas is already economically sanctioned so I feel immune from criticism here. If the exact same standard was applied to Israel as EO 14046 levied, then it would practically affect the entire population of the country given the participation in the IDF.
But since only anti-semites believe Jewish people are tightly integrated in global finance, and that's presumably not true then this should be no big deal right?
Posting at the top to point out that if you saw the image of a starving child recently, you’re looking at images of a child with a genetic disorder and you should reconsider which media you consume.
You can also find more images of Mohammed al-Mutawaq, an 18-month-old with cerebral palsy, with his healthier sibling - which was cropped by the media to exaggerate claims of starvation.
If you see these or other pictures of starving children, you are looking at images of children intentionally being starved by Israel, and you should reconsider what you think of their methods and intentions.
Do you mean what non-viable positions? First and foremost the unrestricted right to return as this has the potential to end the state of Israel as a Jewish state if Palestinians become the majority population.
As a humanist, I consider the right of return to be undeniable. Given your logic, this would make the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state the unviable option. I've been of that opinion for some time now. Nothing to do with antisemitism as some might try to suggest - just the logical conclusion of a humanist position.
I'm heartened to see that more people are coming to this same conclusion. Talk of a 'two state solution' has always been a convenient excuse for more of the same as far as I am concerned.
In response to the dead response... (not sure why it is dead)
> Israel will not agree to a right to return
This government will not.
My view is that the Israeli state is failing through its own actions and at some point will experience regime change (i.e. a drastic change in government - possibly, or possibly not as a result of a democratic election). I expect that a new regime may not be Zionist (at least not in the exclusionary sense we are familiar with) and could well introduce something similar to South Africa's truth and reconciliation commission.
That type of government could very possibly recognise the right of return - possibly in some compromised form such as a willingness to pay compensation as has happened following other colonialist endeavours.
It is not just the government. The overwhelming majority of Israelis are opposed to what you're suggesting and there's no way to force them to accept it (they have nuclear weapons).
A global coordinated sanctions regime might work, like it did on South Africa, but that is pretty unlikely to ever happen because outside of Arab states, almost no country is opposed to Israel’s existence within its recognized borders. If Israel stopped actively oppressing/colonizing Gaza and the West Bank, opposition against them would evaporate, even if they remain an explicitly Jewish state and never grant right of return for the descendants of Nakba refugees.
Israel gave Arabs land larger than its entire current size in the quest for peaceful coexistence (Gaza, Sinai and you could count in West Bank in terms of PLO governance).
If I move into your house without your permission, and let you sleep on the floor in the crawlspace, would that be called 'giving you a place to live'? What if that were coupled with regular beatings, and/or starving you?
1) Jews were always a part of historical Palestine. Sometimes more and sometimes less but were always present. Around 1900, 50 years before the formation of Israel, there were about 50k Jews (about 10% of the population). You can see it especially in cities like Safed, Tiberias and Jerusalem which were Jewish centers.
2) Jews that came later largely bought their way in, rather than forced Arabs out. There were violent clashes but usually it was friction between the populations, and not outright conquest.
3) The forceful expulsion of population came as the result of the 1948 war which was opened by Arabs and not by Israel.
So to correct your analogy, the Arabs here are like a violent HOA which doesn't like the new group of residents who bought their way in. They fight and they lose. Tough luck, right?
> Around 1900, 50 years before the formation of Israel, there were about 50k Jews (about 10% of the population).
That's a funny starting point to pick, since 1900 was about ten years after the beginning of mass Zionist migration to Palestine. How many were there in 1880?
There's a difference between people moving into an area and a nation state moving into an area.
If you think think 1948 was started by the Arabs, you're obviously missing some vital context. Vital context, like 'A nation state started colonizing them without their permission'.
The colonization continued, with more land grabs at gunpoint for the next 80 years.
Israel will not agree to a right to return that might result in the destruction of its status quo. So even if you think that this would be the morally desirable outcome, it is not going to happen. How many of the people displaced during the Nakba are even still alive? We are not talking about letting people displaced a couple of years ago return, we are talking about people and their descendants that have been displaced generations ago, most of them have never lived in the place you want to let them return to. Make them a good enough offer to forfeit their right to return.
Israel is a Jewish state, but it's also a safe harbor for minorities. It is the only place in the Middle East where you can be openly gay or trans and not be killed for it (or Druze, as it turns out).
Even for Israelis that are against the current government and want to see equal rights for all peoples in the Middle East, there is an abundance of evidence to show that you don't get that without Israel.
Totally irrelevant deflection. How Israel treats Israelis inside the borders of Israel is really not what anyone's complaining about.
Yes, the fact that many Middle Eastern countries are backwards on gay rights is bad! This doesn't remotely address the question of whether Israel bombing cities to dust and starving their population is also bad.
Not irrelevant at all. There have been two periods of right to return, and they've both been causal in the current Israeli Muslim and Israeli Arab populations in Israel. If right to return includes voting rights, then it's likely that the voting population would ultimately legislate Israel to not be a Jewish state, and fundamentally shift the laws away from democracy and away from equal rights of Israelis. There are 50 Muslim majority countries and countless data points to reach such a conclusion, and this is fundamentally why an unconditional right to return will never happen.
tmnvix was advocating for the collapse of the only democracy in the region--tantamount to advocating for worse outcomes for more people (and likely to an actual genocide of the Jewish people, who evacuated predominately Muslim countries and populated Israel at its re-formation). There are still 50 hostages in Gaza that have been held for 514 days and counting.
In Yemen 39.5% of the population is undernourished and 48.5% of children under five are stunted. Nearby, in East Africa, the South Sudan death toll and starvation numbers also dwarf this conflict. Mysteriously, and predictably, the world is silent. But, an opportunity to put down Israel, it seems is unfortunately very popular.
> Ai'nt no other minority people have the guts to tell them where their ancestral homeland is or isn't.
That's just... not true. The Celts originated in Central Europe. If a bunch of people who identify as Celts (from Scotland, Ireland, etc.) moved to Czechia and tried to take it over from the people currently living there, a lot of people would oppose that.
I do not particularly think the Muslim conquest of half the world was a good thing, so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up.
History is not merely an epic struggle between Muslims and Israelis where one of those are the good guys and the other are the bad guys. It is possible that Muslims were in the wrong at some point in history, and that Israel is in the wrong now.
Ancient Hebrews, who Jews traditionally identify as the originators of their culture, lived in what is now Palestine during the Roman Empire, correct. However this is unrelated to the point that was being made.
The head of the BDS supports the expulsion and/or murder of all Jews in Israel.
Quote:
Omar Barghouti, the founder of the BDS movement, made that perspective clear: “Good riddance! The two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is finally dead. But someone has to issue an official death certificate before the rotting corpse is given a proper burial and we can all move on and explore the more just, moral and therefore enduring alternative for peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Mandate Palestine: the one-state solution.”
Barghouti also opposed a bi-national Arab and Jewish state:
“I am completely and categorically against binationalism … because it assumes that there are two nations with equal moral claims to the land and, therefore, we have to accommodate both national rights. I am completely opposed to that.”
He wants a unitary democratic state with equal rights for Jews and Arabs and the right of return for Palestinian refugees abroad and their descendants. Is that too idealistic to ever happen? Yes, probably. But it’s nowhere near what you’re claiming he says.
That's the "sanitized" version of what he wants. He actually wants the Jews gone, it's pretty obvious from the other words he has said, and especially from his outright refusal to condemn attacks.
He does not say this. He says he wants the end of the two-state solution; that is, he wants the entire area to be one state (in which people coexist peacefully).
> he claims the Jews will have zero rights
No he doesn't. He says they will have no national right; that is, they will not have the right to claim the land as the exclusive home of the Jewish Nation. They will still have civil rights as normal citizens like everyone else. In fact, let me paste the full quote, since you left off the clarifying explanation that immediately follows it:
> I am completely and categorically against binationalism because it assumes that there are two nations with equal moral claims to the land and therefore, we have to accommodate both national rights. I am completely opposed to that, but it would take me too long to explain why, so I will stick to the model I support, which is a secular, democratic state: one person, one vote — regardless of ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, and so on and so forth … Full equality under the law with the inclusion of the refugees — this must be based on the right of return for Palestinian refugees. In other words, a secular, democratic state that accommodates our inalienable rights as Palestinians with the acquired rights of Israeli Jews as settlers.
Someone from the Texas state government wanted to buy a $75 licence for my event planning software. Fine. Then they told me I had to sign an agreement that I wouldn't boycot Israel. Ridiculous. It's none of their business. I refused to sign it and didn't get the sale.
Those laws never made any sense to me from a constitutional or even a practical standpoint. What's being banned? Are they supposed to force you to buy things?
Texas requires contractors to certify that they're not boycotting Israel; Florida maintains a public list of companies that boycott Israel and prohibits state investment in them; in Arkansas, the law has been upheld in federal court after a challenge.
It's not supposed to make sense: lobbyists paid your politicians and now, you have to support Israel, or else...
There's nothing more to it. Israel knows that with access to Western weapons, it will reliably win every confrontation with the Palestinians, just like in Rhodesia or Apartheid South Africa. The only thing that did both regimes in was sanctions, or boycotts. I believe they literally studied these nations. So, they want to preempt any attempt at boycotting Israel, because it's the only way they'd ever face reckoning for all the unspeakable atrocities they've committed against the palestinians.
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Note that to meet this definition, the following conditions must be met (among others):
1. Intent to destroy must be present.
2. The intent must be to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.
3. The destruction can be serious bodily or mental harm, or it can mean creating conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of the group in whole or in part.
This means that:
- people that believe that genocide must be about a race is misguided (it can be about a nationality, and Palestinians identify as a nationality that is recognized by over 75% of the countries in the UN);
- the fact that there are Palestinians elsewhere (the West Bank and Jordan, as two examples) isn't relevant to deciding whether this is a genocide (since genocide can be about destruction targeted at a part of a group); and,
- there are many examples of Israeli ministers and government personnel stating goals that sound genocidal, which people interpret to affirm intent.
IANAL, and genocide is a legal term, so I am not weighing in on this with a personal opinion, but it seems reasonable that laypeople, at least, can read that definition and reach the conclusion that Israel is committing genocide. The fact that various genocide scholars (including Omer Bartov at Brown); the Lemkin Institute (named after the Lemkin who coined the term genocide); HRW; Amnesty; MSF; and other institutions have called this a genocide is also probably helping laypeople believe the claim.
Finally, there is not just a moral imperative but a legal requirement under the Geneva Convention to feed people. Article 55 states that an occupying power is responsible for this.
Thank you for your opinion (stated as a fact, I'll add) that Israel doesn't occupy Gaza. Can you please state your source for this belief?
To state why I believe Israel is occupying Gaza, I'll point out that Israel’s continued status as an occupying power has been affirmed repeatedly by the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and human rights groups. Do you believe all of these entities are incorrect?
What is your source to justify your claim (stated as a fact) that Hamas is diverting supplies and then selling them? Here [1] is a recent article in the NYT this week quoting two unnamed Israeli military officials saying Israel has found no proof of this claim despite Israeli officials repeatedly stating otherwise, and that the UN had been largely successful (via UNRWA) in feeding the Gazan population.
Hamas did steal from some of the smaller organizations that donated aid, as those groups were not always on the ground to oversee distribution, according to the senior Israeli officials and others involved in the matter. But, they say, there was no evidence that Hamas regularly stole from the United Nations, which provided the largest chunk of the aid.
This was utterly predictable. GHF is a mercenary front plan developed by Israel and implemented by the United States to displace UNRWA so they can starve Palestinians and draw them into zones that are easier to ethnically cleanse.
»If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?«
David Ben-Gurion, First Prime Minister of Israel
Come to your senses and end this tragedy, give the Palestinians their own sovereign state, and then hope that they can forgive what you have done to them!
This is simply not true, there was never any offer with acceptable terms. I am not going to repeat this here, this has been discussed countless times and you can easily find this if you want to.
All of the offers seem acceptable to me. In the first offer, the Jewish state was quite small. None of the offers were acceptable to Palestinians because they include a Jewish state.
Virtually all Arabs want to fight a war against Israel and destroy it. They view that land as theirs. The only reason there haven't been more wars is due to repressive Arab governments that have been willing to compromise.
This is nonsense, the Palestinians and Palestinian organizations - even including Hamas - have to varying degrees accepted or shown willingness to accept a Palestinian state that does not encompass all of Mandatory Palestine. Israel is unwilling to have a two state solution, they always desired all of Mandatory Palestine and saw any division plan only as stepping stone for further expansion in the future.
»On 2 May 2017, Khaled Mashal, chief of the Hamas Political Bureau, presented a new Charter, in which Hamas accepted the establishment of a Palestinian state "on the basis of June 4, 1967" (West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem).«
You mean the part where it says they did still not recognize the state of Israel or relinquish claims to all of Palestine? You overlooked the part in my comment where I said to varying degrees. Also to me that seems not too different from the position Israeli politicians had and some still have, we accept the partition plan but still desire to expand into all of Mandatory Palestine eventually.
> This is nonsense, the Palestinians and Palestinian organizations - even including Hamas - have to varying degrees accepted or shown willingness to accept a Palestinian state that does not encompass all of Mandatory Palestine.
This cannot be reconciled with the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea". (Wikipedia claims that the slogan is used by both sides of the conflict, citing a JSTOR article I can't access; but I have only ever seen it used by Hamas and their supporters.)
Per Wikipedia, Hamas does not recognize Israel as of their most recent 2017 charter, and "called for a Palestinian state on all of Mandatory Palestine" in 1988.
While I'm sure that many Palestinians do not support Hamas and desire to co-exist with Israel, I see no good reason to suppose that this is any more common than the other way around.
> Israel is unwilling to have a two state solution, they always desired all of Mandatory Palestine
There is ample evidence to contradict this — enough that I can look it up on the fly. Were it true, for example, the Knesset would have had no need to pass a resolution declaring this to be their current position, barely a year ago. Netanyahu also claimed in 2015 to want a two-state solution, and of course there are other Israeli political parties with warmer attitudes towards Palestine.
»Does the establishment of a Jewish state [in only part of Palestine] advance or retard the conversion of this country into a Jewish country? My assumption (which is why I am a fervent proponent of a state, even though it is now linked to partition) is that a Jewish state on only part of the land is not the end but the beginning.... This is because this increase in possession is of consequence not only in itself, but because through it we increase our strength, and every increase in strength helps in the possession of the land as a whole. The establishment of a state, even if only on a portion of the land, is the maximal reinforcement of our strength at the present time and a powerful boost to our historical endeavors to liberate the entire country.«
> ... the Palestinians and Palestinian organizations - even including Hamas - have to varying degrees accepted or shown willingness to accept a Palestinian state that does not encompass all of Mandatory Palestine.
you say
> This cannot be reconciled with the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea".
To which I quote
> "You can draw a straight line through two points, but that doesn't mean the line is actually there."
"The coalition agreements state that “the Jewish people have an exclusive right on all the land” between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It doesn’t mention the Palestinians."
> they could do this unilaterally and just withdraw
Which they tried in 2005 in Gaza. They evicted the remaining settlers in Gaza and unilaterally withdrew from Gaza.
Hamas won the first and only election thereafter and ruled in Gaza from that point on.
In the years during and after the pandemic, Hamas deceived Israel in the way it presented itself. An IDF report assessing the massive intelligence failure on Oct 7 reported [0], "Israel saw Hamas as a pragmatic movement with whom it could do business." That was a tragic mistake.
The opinion of the Israeli public towards the desirability (and feasibility) of a two-state solution has tended to vary over the decades depending on the actions of external Palestinian and Arab actors. After the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings of buses and restaurants starting around the year 2000 it went down. Two years after the Gaza withdrawal it was back up, with 70% support for the two-state solution in 2007, when there were peace talks. [1]
The mass killings and kidnappings that Hamas did in 2023 pretty much eliminated any enthusiasm for two states at present. A recent poll put Israeli opinion at 70% opposition to a Palestinian state.
That could change again. Israel is a democracy, and people vote depending on what they see. The idea that a Palestinian nation will ever encompass "the river to the sea," is a complete delusion. The idea that Israel will ever see peace and security by annexing the entire area of the former British Mandate is likewise a complete delusion. If Hamas can be defeated, if the Palestinian Authority can get more effective, less corrupt leadership, if Israel can get a parliamentary majority that is no longer dependent on right-wing parties, if ordinary Israelis can get a hint that Oct 7 is not something that will happen again, then there might be hope for peace.
> This cannot be reconciled with the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea". (Wikipedia claims that the slogan is used by both sides of the conflict, citing a JSTOR article I can't access; but I have only ever seen it used by Hamas and their supporters.)
It was literally Likud's electioneering slogan throughout the 70s. It's not just that it's been used by both sides - it was actually created by Israelis.
The UN General Assembly does not make legally binding decisions, they express majority opinions. Only the Security Council can make legally binding decisions. There is also the question whether the UN General Assembly even has the legitimation to suggest the partitioning of some land against the will of its population. There was an attempt to decide on this but that did not get the necessary votes. And even the partition plan was only accepted because several countries where pressured or incentivized to vote for it.
That cannot be. Hamas isn’t interested in a Palestinian state, they are interested in the destruction of Israel. Iran and all its proxies think this way. It is their raison d’etre. Giving them a state would not end the war.
France has a deep history and Macron doesn't want to do anything except raise the defense budget, because that's the best way to avoid problems: condemn violence but don't participate and stay alert.
There were zero dead Hamas leaders on Oct 8, but the ICC did nothing, and did not care. Not to mention there are living Hamas leaders in Qatar, today, and the ICC? Does nothing.
It's a court, not a military force. What do you suppose it should have done, send the special judge forces to Quatar to kidnap them?
The ICC is an institution that requires member nations to adhere to it. Concepts like these require mutual respect for a rule-based world order; an idea that seems to be lost on people like Trump, Putin, or the Quatari.
Yes, there's an ICC warrant out by for Netanyahu and Gallant.
Basically that just means that they won't travel to or even be invited to countries that would arrest them.
The same goes for Putin.
A lot of pro-Israel people just think the ICC is just a tool used by countries that hold a grudge against Israel and don't take it seriously (e.g. the Biden administration released a statement condemning the ICC when they announced they were seeking the warrants), so having more first-hand witnesses stating clearly that war crimes are happening is relevant.
Ideally we'd have journalists reporting these things, but Israel blocks those from entering Gaza too.
I expect the warrant against Putin will be the same ignored as a warrant against Netanyahu. Both Russia and Israel have certain bribing and soft power, but even ignored as a revenge. e.g. Polish prime minister and president jointly and proactively guaranteed Netanyahu entry to Poland even if on daily basis they belong to opposing parties which hate each other. A gesture which looks outright suicidal considering the Criminal Court and local geopolitics.
Very interesting choice of yours to omit the context, in which Hezbollah also drew his ire. Surely a coincidence and not a product of bias, though, right?
Good news, he isn't; he resigned in order to take his appointment as the Lebanese PM, in which capacity he was speaking in the article you linked. Any more thinly veiled ad hominems you'd like to throw around?
"international law" is, i don't know how to say this quite right, largely for show
when both sides seem to be willing and eager to order, participate in, and cheer for atrocities from leadership to the common people... I don't want to take ideological sides or tally up crimes to decide who to root for in millennia old conflict mostly over a single city
it's a terrible shame for the people who want to live together in peace, clearly there are not enough of them
If any other country than Israel was committing these atrocities, we would have by now sent in UN peacekeepers (or invaded, if they had resources of value, a-la-Iraq) to prevent what is clearly attempted genocide. Or at the very very least, pretty serious sanctions.
Well, maybe not. Did the UN send peacekeepers when Russia invaded Ukraine? Do they send peacekeepers to stop the war in Sudan? Intervening in an active war is not what peacekeepers are for.
Why are Palestinian refugees still in Gaza when the whole place is a war zone? Certainly some would stay, but mostly they are trapped.
Under the circumstances, for Gaza, having Israel as a neighbor is worse than having Russia as a neighbor. Even if enough food is shipped in to temporarily resolve the current crisis, people in Gaza won't be safe where they are.
So, here's a question that's rarely asked: which countries will accept refugees from Gaza? Obviously not the US with the current administration. Why not France, Germany, or other European countries?
According to Wikipedia, since 2022, Europe took over five million Ukrainian refugees due to the war. [1] This is more than twice the population of Gaza.
> Did the UN send peacekeepers when Russia invaded Ukraine? Do they send peacekeepers to stop the war in Sudan? Intervening in an active war is not what peacekeepers are for.
True. But what's happening in Gaza is not an active war. Its oppression of a civilian population by a powerful military force.
But certainly we've let other genocidal atrocities go by without intervening, such as Rwanda in '94. So you have a point there.
> which countries will accept refugees from Gaza? Obviously not the US with the current administration. Why not France, Germany, or other European countries?
Good questions. At this point as far as I know they can't even get out because Israel has closed the borders, much less apply for asylum. Also, countries accepting them as asylum seekers would be acknowledging that Israel is the aggressor. AFAIK France is one of the few countries that has said that Palestinians can apply for asylum.
> way way way, worse that Gaza are going on right now
Yeah, all those three are bad; Sudan in particular. I wouldn't say Yemen and Syria are worse than Gaza.
> You seem to only care about Israel.
The reason I'm screaming about Israel is especially because we (the US) are aiding and abetting it. If we were funding Sudanese rebels the way we're funding the IDF, and welcoming their generals to the White House like we do Bibi, I'be screaming about that too.
Nonsense. UN peacekeepers are observers deployed with the consent of both parties. They are not sent into active combat zones.
There is literally a genocide in Sudan right now with 25 million in extreme hunger. At least half a million children are dead. Yet we hear hardly any mention of it.
I see no Sudan flags on campus. No Sudan marches in the streets. No Sudan emojis in people’s Twitter handles. No solidarity with Sudan at music festivals.
You have to love the snark in here with "I was able to tell it would go this way from the beginning! I'm enlightened!"
Israel has been provoked and attacked many times. The cautious hope seemed to be a rehash of the previous times there's been strife, that doesn't necessarily mean it was a prediction but it was unclear how long Israel would push this. After the completely kneecapping Hamas some thought they'd be wrapping up. From a self-defense standpoint there just isn't that much more to gain, and they're burning away all the global political goodwill they had.
"Gaza Humanitarian Foundation chair Johnnie Moore accuses UN of 'playing politics' with Gazan lives, defends IDF and denies claims of mass casualties near aid sites, saying more people harmed in 24 hours of UN efforts than during weeks of GHF operations"
He also discusses the specific individual here:
"How do you respond to the claim from a former special forces operative who worked with your foundation, alleging that IDF troops shot and massacred Gazans coming to the aid centers?
“That’s a personal matter, and I’m limited in what I can say. This is not a credible individual, and these are not credible accusations. I’m more than confident we have a great deal of evidence to refute them.”"
"7/15/25 – The 4th Estate Sale: How American and European Media Became an Uncritical Mouthpiece for a Designated Foreign Terror Organization"
The report is from:
Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI)
Rutgers University Social Perception Lab
Headlines of key findings:
- Mainstream media spread hostile, and often unverified, narratives delegitimizing U.S.-backed humanitarian aid efforts in Gaza.
- Major media headlines cited Hamas-linked officials more than any other source – making a foreign terrorist organization one of the leading voices shaping news about GHF
- Unverified headlines triggered viral, conspiratorial social media posts, often amplified by foreign state media.
- GHF-related media coverage undermined trust in America while shielding Hamas-linked actors by inducing bias.
- Narrative backlash closely tracked U.S. operational success on the ground.
- The GHF’s competitors amplified Hamas-sourced claims to undermine U.S.-led aid efforts.
"NCRI assesses that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was not merely the subject of criticism, but the
target of a convergent narrative attack in which American and European media acted as a de facto
mouthpiece for a foreign terrorist organization. This environment systematically elevated Hamas-linked
claims, which were often unverified, uncontextualized, or outright false. Major headlines were repeatedly
exaggerated or framed to imply atrocity, often without source transparency or sufficient evidentiary
scrutiny."
UNRWA managed to distribute food without killing Palestinians, as did many other agencies. I don't see why GHF has to commit these frequent massacres in their aid distribution.
Right, except that all credible reports from the US government and senior Israeli military officials indicate there was never any large diversion of UN aid to Hamas. It was just a fog-of-war story made up by the Israeli government as a supposedly plausible reason to hermetically seal Gaza and prevent millions of civilians from receiving food.
Sources:
NYT: No Proof Hamas Routinely Stole U.N. Aid, Israeli Military Officials Say
This is not as clear as you say. "No proof" and "no evidence" doesn't mean it didn't happen. Hamas controls Gaza with an iron fist. They are the ones carrying guns. They have no qualms about torturing, threatening, executing anyone who doesn't tow the line.
Hamas didn't just steal all the aid and put it in its tunnels. Hamas exerted influence by controlling the aid and its distribution. It did also steal some of it. You are to some degree misrepresenting the Israeli concern. Israel isn't simply concerned about Hamas stealing all the aid, it is concerned both about stealing and reselling (which does happen) and about control of the aid as means of continuing to establish itself as the governing body of Gaza. The UN agencies have and do work with Hamas in Gaza since nobody can be in Gaza without working with Hamas.
The NYT article is doing some hair splitting:
"Over the course of the war, the Israeli military released records and videos purporting to show how Hamas has been exploiting humanitarian aid. The army also shared what it described as internal Hamas documents found in a headquarters in Gaza, which discuss the percentage of aid taken by various Hamas wings and dated to early 2024. But those documents do not specifically refer to the theft of U.N. aid."
"Hamas did steal from some of the smaller organizations that donated aid, as those groups were not always on the ground to oversee distribution, according to the senior Israeli officials and others involved in the matter. But, they say, there was no evidence that Hamas regularly stole from the United Nations, which provided the largest chunk of the aid.
A Hamas representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment." - I like that last bit.
Your Reuters article also says: "A State Department spokesperson disputed the findings, saying there is video evidence of Hamas looting aid, but provided no such videos. The spokesperson also accused traditional humanitarian groups of covering up "aid corruption.""
and:
"The study noted a limitation: because Palestinians who receive aid cannot be vetted, it was possible that U.S.-funded supplies went to administrative officials of Hamas, the Islamist rulers of Gaza."
"Satterfield said “there’s no question” that the terror group has worked to take “political advantage and certainly some physical substantive advantage out of the aid distribution process.”
Hamas operatives have made a point of “flaunting” their presence at aid sites in a message to Palestinians that the group has no intention of ceding its role in the distribution process.
However, Satterfield maintained that “the bulk of all assistance delivered by the UN and by the international organizations has gone to the population of Gaza and not to Hamas. Full stop.”"
These are not contradictory, Hamas controlled the aid, but still the bulk of it got delivered. The problem is the control they asserted. Israel has tried, via GHF, to take them out of the loop. Nobody is disputing that when aid was flowing in it did eventually end up reaching the people (who sometimes had to buy it).
Yes, I buy most of that, nothing is black and white. Hamas definitely controls Gaza and are the ones with guns, and certainly took whatever advantage they could and continue to. The commenter I was responding to just said "UNRWA gives the aid to Hamas" which I didn't find justified by any reputable source at all.
Many details on the ground are hidden in a fog of war and propaganda from all sides. I just think a couple measures of success of food distribution are to step back and ask, "are people able to get food without being killed on a daily basis?" and "is the population generally receiving food and not starving to death?". And it seems pretty clear to most of the world the answers to these are emphatically "No" since the time the GHF was put in control of food distribution, and when all established aid groups were blocked from providing humanitarian assistance.
Cutting off food supply drives up the prices, both causing mass starvation and providing a great opportunity for Hamas and other entities to resell food at huge profits. If there was more than adequate food instead, then nobody would be starving to death, and Hamas would not gain much benefit from reselling food.
I think the most common string of arguments is that Hamas steals all the food being brought into Gaza, causing extreme food scarcity. Then Hamas corners the market on all food, raises food prices with its monopoly, and extracts big profits from the rest of the Gaza population. The claim, in conclusion, is that well-intentioned aid organizations bringing food into Gaza to feed starving people are actually funding Hamas.
The argument has proven totally wrong, because as every single humanitarian organization that operates in Gaza has repeatedly warned in recent months, famine conditions are the direct result of Israel generally disallowing food and other aid into Gaza since March. Had Hamas actually diverted billions of dollars into their food storage tunnels, then logically they would've continued selling it at market price when demand is high now. But actually in reality, there's nothing to buy. [1]
The market solution to prevent Hamas from profiting off food is to first allow in enough food to Gaza such that babies are no longer starving to death, and to then bring in so much food supply that prices decrease until it's no longer economically profitable to resell food, because it's widely available. That solution is never brought up for some reason.
This is simply not true. The first part isn't true, people have gotten killed during UN related aid operations. The second part isn't true either, GHF has not committed "frequent massacres" during aid distribution. The single event I've heard about involving GHF directly is where there was a stampede in one of their facilities:
The IDF has used live fire for crowd control but there is zero evidence that it directly or intentionally attacked civilians. This is definitely a problematic practice but the exact causes and the number of casualties related to these events is unclear.
What has happened though is that Hamas attacks aid distribution centers, e.g.:
What's also true is that the UN and Hamas are doing their best to make sure the alternative efforts to distribute good to Gazans fail. Neither of these organizations actually care about Gazans. They care about their existence and power.
Hasbara means explaining in Hebrew. So guilty as charged of trying to explain what's going on. I'm not echoing any sort of official message.
What people here don't understand is that there is a war going on. In wars people get killed. The war and the condition of the Palestinian population is 100% the responsibility of their government, Hamas, that continues fighting and holding Israeli hostages.
Israel can not and will not let Hamas keep going. It is, as is appropriate, putting its citizen's safety as a first priority.
I have plenty of criticism of various specific actions of the Israeli government and military. But the big picture is still what it is. And in this big picture no other country, including the one you live in, would respond differently when/where it comes to securing the lives of its citizens. Let Hamas surrender, return the hostages, and then we can discuss the path forward. They are making the choices.
Netanyahu does not "support Hamas". Netanyahu did historically prefer Hamas to be in control of Gaza both for some sense of stability (vs. potential total chaos) and as a way of dividing the Palestinians between Hamas and the Palestinian authority. This has obviously turned out to be a big mistake but it's not the same as "supporting Hamas".
Since you're saying "70 years" that's sort of a sign you're approaching this from some sort of ideological perspective. The West Bank and Gaza were under Jordanian and Egyptian rule respectively until 1967, so about 48 years ago. I.e. your problem is with the existence of Israel in the 1967 lines and Jewish presence and rights in the region and you, like Palestinians, do not support a two state solution. I'll take your 70 years and raise 3000 years in this case. The Jewish people are the indigenous people of the region, not the Palestinians, and they have the historical rights.
EDIT: It's worth noting that Israeli governments have done a lot. They agreed to give the Palestinians autonomy as part of the peace agreement with Egypt. They were engaged in good faith efforts to resolve the conflict during the Oslo Accords. They allowed Palestinians to return to the west bank and Gaza from other countries as part of those accords, they allowed the establishment of the PA and gave it control of all the major cities, they allowed the Palestinians to establish a police force and armed and trained that police force (weapons that ended up being turned on Israelis). They withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and returned it to Palestinians.
What have the Palestinians done other than use more violence is the question.
> "The war and the condition of the Palestinian population is 100% the responsibility of their government, Hamas, that continues fighting and holding Israeli hostages."
No. Israel is an occupying power, and they're heavily restricting food and aid to civilians.
Collective punishment is prohibited by article 33 of the 4th Geneva convention. Starvation as a method of war is prohibited by article 54 of the additional protocols. Shooting civilians is a war crime.
Hamas is guilty of a lot of things, but they aren't forcing Israel to shoot and starve civilians. That's not a necessary part of Israel's war effort. It doesn't help defeat Hamas or make Israel safer.
Israel is not occupying the areas of Gaza where there are civilians in any meaningful way. If it was then the war would be over.
Israel is considered an "occupying power" in Gaza by some from a legal perspective simply because the status of Gaza was not fully resolved following Israel's withdrawal in 2005. I.e. because Israel withdrew unilaterally, not as part of an agreement, some consider it to still be the "occupying power" since 2005. However Israel is not present in Gaza, does not run Gaza, does not physically control Gaza, since 2005.
The current military situation is that Israel controls 65% of the ground, where there are no civilians, and the rest is controlled by Hamas.
Starvation of civilians is indeed prohibited. However siege is permitted as long as civilians can leave. So a siege of Gaza city or the northern Gaza strip would be permitted as long as civilians are allowed to leave that area. A similar example would be Mosul that was under siege while being controlled by ISIS.
Killing civilians in the course of attacking military objectives is not prohibited. Intentional killing of civilians for no military purpose would be a war crime. Israeli soldiers who intentionally kill Palestinian civilians for no military reason should be put on trial. Either way, the context is the armed conflict/war which is what Hamas started and is still pursuing. IDF soldiers are killed and injured in Gaza every day, this just doesn't make the news or Hacker News.
Israel has sufficient control that they can decide whether or how much food enters Gaza, and they have substantial control over the means by which food is distributed. (Aid organizations apply to them for travel permits so that they don't get attacked by IDF forces.) That's the relevant thing here, not whether they have 100% control on the ground.
Siege is permitted only so far as it doesn't leave civilians without food or vital supplies. Occupying powers may remove the civilian population to a safe place temporarily. I don't think "we asked them to leave and they didn't" is regarded as an acceptable middle ground. Starvation of civilians as a method of war was specifically one of the charges by the ICC against Netanyahu and Gallant. (That was based on things that happened earlier in the war.)
Besides, for several months recently, Israel blocked all food and aid into Gaza. The civilians had absolutely nowhere to go.
If similar war crimes happened in Mosul those should be prosecuted too.
I agree Israel has control over aid entering Gaza. I also agree that civilians should not be starved.
In recent weeks though Israel has allowed aid into Gaza but the UN has not been picking it up and distributing it. Israel brings it outside the area that Hamas controls and asks the UN to truck it in. Those trucks then get looted or the goods just sit there because the UN agencies refuse to pick it up. Some food recently had to be destroyed because it expired sitting on the platforms. Obviously Israeli soldiers can't truck the aid into Hamas controlled Gaza themselves.
I'm pretty sure "we asked them to leave but they didn't" is actually sufficient. How else is the population going to move?
Otherwise how exactly would a siege work? You're expecting the enemy to cooperate?
Anyways, I don't think a siege is workable here even if legal, and we can see why. There has been political pressure in Israel to at the very least prevent Hamas from controlling the aid.
It's true that Israel blocked aid for a few months. This was after the strip was flooded with aid during the previous ceasefire.
"Gaza kitchens warn food will run out in days after two months of Israeli blockade" (will run out in days - May 2nd). So at least a few days after May 2nd we know there was still some food available.
The GHF started distributing food on May 26th.
I don't know for sure what is the food situation in Gaza at every given moment. In theory the IDF says they have been monitoring it. So it's their word vs. Hamas. We also had people killed sitting in a cafe at the end of June so presumably there were some ingredients for that cafe to be open and serving customers. That's very anecdotal. I'm sure there are pockets of poverty, hunger and more. If you have money or the right connections you're probably getting food. The fair distribution of food within Hamas controlled Gaza isn't something the IDF has control of.
The UN has also refused to collaborate with the GHF and Hamas has been attacking the aid centers and the Palestinians that help deliver aid there. Yes, the setup is far from ideal, but Israel has a right to try and get Hamas out of the aid loop. At the very least there are other players here, not just Israel, to share some of the blame.
There's a war and a siege. I'm sure it's a great place to be.
The Warsaw Ghetto comparison is despicable. Jewish people in Warsaw weren't holding German hostages or fighting a war with the Germans. They didn't murder and kidnap German or Polish civilians. The situation in the Warsaw Ghetto was an order of magnitude worse than what Hamas is saying the situation in Gaza is. Hamas has a very clear option here, to surrender and release the hostages.
Israel is now delivering a lot more aid into Gaza. The Jews in Warsaw were sent to death camps.
Are you kidding me? I also have a video of a cat windsurfing, I'm sure it's in Gaza. The airdrops are totally ineffective as a method of distributing aid, but apparently pretty effective as whitewashing propaganda.
Any sliver of relief allowed by the IDF is under growing international pressure. Gaza is becoming a death camp, no need to send anyone elsewhere.
Restricting food to civilians has been a legitimate war tactic forever. It's called a siege. If this is unacceptable to Palestine, they need to return the Israeli hostages.
Israel is under no obligation to provide aid to their opponent in a war. Anybody suggesting such is transparently anti-Semitic. Nobody would ever make such a ridiculous claim if it were their own countrymen held hostage.
This type of comment betrays a lack of understanding of Iran’s desire to fight Israel to the last Palestinian. They’re both victims of Iran acting in ways that most of this thread doesn’t really seem to understand but the person you’re responding to does.
If someone came, stole your land, raped your women, killed the children, and occupied town after town, and then forced you and rest of the survivors into a town, built walls around you, imprisoned the whole city, didn't let you do anything, brought the most racist thing upon you, silenced your cried for help in the world, payed all media to portray you as animals and dehumanize you, and all of your acts of civil conduct by one of your friends Arafat didn't result in anything, then don't get angry like Hamas and don't play the only cards remaining for you since every thing else literally is taken away. Just stay so that they can kill all of you and erase you from the face of planet. (I'm not supporting Hamas, but do you see how this is made by a world that sees the whole Palestine as something to be removed? erased?)
This happened to a lot of people in WW2, basically no one who lost their land responded with something like October 7.
This is happening now to Ukraine and the way the respond is the correct way to respond, it's not blowing up schools, or music festivals or raping young women and parading their dead bodies around town on the bonnets of cars so people can spit on them.
The fact that people put all the blame on Israel for the situation is why this war will continue for a long time.
Source, decadent of people who's land was stolen first by Nazi's then by Soviets.
Israel is blamed in part because they hold all the power. If you read what the original Zionists wrote in private letters you would know it was their intent all along to take over all the land.
Hamas is a terrorist organisation, the IDF is a state. Of course the state should be held to a higher standard than a terrorist organisation, this is not me excusing what Hamas have done, but if you start justifying a state's actions with "a terrorist organisation has done the same" where does that end? US state actors hijacking and crashing a Russian passenger jet into the Kremlin?
Palestine barely has much of anything left. That might change at some point and it would be worth discussing what the actual actions of "the state of Palestine" are but at this point it doesn't really make sense to do that.
Do note that this does not mean it can't or shouldn't be a state. Somalia is self-sovereign even if it's kind of bad at doing that.
Israel tried to bribe Hamas into not attacking them, yes. Was that a bad plan? Should they not have tried to make life good enough for Gazans to not resort to terrorism?
A literal reading is that sowing division among Hamas and the Palestinian Authority would prevent a unified effort for Palestinian statehood. A more cynical reading would be to prop up the crazies to point at them and say, "look at what they're doing, they shouldn't be allowed to self-govern."
The heritage of both the Israeli people and the Palestinian people is steeped in literally thousands of years of history in that land. While one group, the Jews, were often displaced from it, it does not diminish the ties the Palestinian people have to that land. A land they cultivated and farmed for, again, thousands of years. Well before formal borders of any nation today were recognized.
We can nitpick on specific words and phrases, but the broader point still stands. These are human beings who are used for political aims, whose suffering is a means to an end, and it's all happening at the hands of people who do not respect human life. Whether you want to play partisan and choose the label of "Hamas" or "Israel" is up to you, but both are guilty nonetheless. It just so happens that one of those two parties has more resources at their disposal than the other to inflict profound misery and annihilation.
The PA, to this day, pays the families of terrorists who kill Israelis. They're not the good guy. Yes, Israel decided back then that Hamas can't possibly be worse so they gave them a chance. Keep in mind at that point in history, the PA had done far more harm to Israel than Hamas.
What I find interesting is that through all this suffering, Hamas hasn't surrendered and returned the hostages in return for it's own peoples peace. They should renounce everything they have done in my opinion and give themselves and the hostages back in return for and end to the conflict.
People will argue with me and say Hamas is some type of resistance movement against oppressors so they should "fight on", expel or Jews or whatever and that October 7 was fine, but Hamas don't even wear a uniform so the IDF has no idea who they even are, for all they know there actually is Hamas in those camps. This is already a violation of the Geneva convention:
The Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law dictate that combatants must distinguish themselves from civilians during armed conflict
The entire situation there is just a tragedy for the actual innocents wrapped up in it and it's a shame bigger men cannot seem to find their balls and do the right thing.
I don't see how this war is going to end by providing Hamas with more aid but it looks like they've set it up so the world needs to give them aid so their own children don't die.
That’s not true. It lasted 3 months, which was the entire duration of the agreed phase 1. Phase 2 did not begin because Hamas turned the hostage/body releases into a propaganda circus [1] and refused to accept modified terms for phase 2 that prevented this.
I don’t love either party’s behavior here, but there’s no need to mislead like this.
I still maintain that Netanyahu would gladly sacrifice hostages to keep the war hot. And that NYT article is a fascinating artifact in highlighting Israeli feelings of anguish while Palestinians are killed en masse.
I wish the dominant strain of Palestinian support online made room for people that are happy to condemn Netanyahu and his allies as atrocious, hateful, evil human beings and to condemn the clear excessive force the Israeli army is currently using but aren't willing to completely gloss over October 7th, aren't on board with protests against Israel on October 8th, and want to hold Hamas (and ultimately Qatar and Iran) responsible for their part in all this.
If people hadn't started accusing Israel (and Biden, somehow) of genocide basically on October 8, perhaps there'd be less debate right now. It's really frustrating to both feel that Israel can do no right (the pager attack, while obviously viscerally terrifying, had objectively incredible combatant/innocent ratios compared to literally any other way of prosecuting war, and it's the height of hypocrisy for people claiming that Israel should simply special forces snipe every Hamas fighter individually to criticize it) and at the same time fully agree that Netanyahu and the settlers are shithead monster assholes and that civilian casualties are now inexcusable, beyond a reasonable doubt.
> If people hadn't started accusing Israel (and Biden, somehow) of genocide basically on October 8,
People started accusing Israel, and its American sponsors, of genocide long before October 8; that Israel is engaged in s campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people has been the dominant position in pro-Palestinian activist circles for decades.
People started paying attention more after October 7, 2023, but that's not when the accusations began.
Sure, but I would say that the current dominant strain took form and its volume got cranked up very noticeably October 8. Which was not a great look, even to those sympathetic to criticisms of Netanyahu.
> Sure, but I would say that the current dominant strain took form and its volume got cranked up very noticeably October 8
So did the genocide itself, which has always been constrained by what Israel thinks they can get away with based on political conditions (mainly in the US, whose active military support, financial aid, and UNSC veto they want to maintain) and the available pretext’s they can hid atrocities behind.
I think we're talking past each other, which feels like the inevitable result whenever I try to engage in good faith on this topic with people that don't quite agree with me disproportionately more often than other topics. It feels like you'll have an answer for everything I could possibly say, which could mean that you're right, or it could mean you spend a lot more time than me having these conversations. It feels very tricky to ever criticize, even in small ways, any aspect of your movement, because there's always a reasonable, coherent reason that any critique should actually have been levelled at Israel, who's fault it actually is. It feels like there's absolutely nothing I could say to provoke you to listen, to hear my point, because you're already so confidently clear on 100% of all of this, and because your goal is to represent your movement's perspective, rather than to truly persuade and communicate. I think when you're (understandably) fervently convinced of your own righteousness, it's quite easy to shut down discussion and to experience it as successfully defending truth and justice.
Do you understand? I'm not, and at no point have I been, discussing or debating facts on the ground in Gaza. I'm making an effort to assume good faith. I am telling you about the experience of people that are "gettable" for your movement, people that largely agree that what's happening is abhorrent, but that are feeling alienated by the dogmatism, and you're telling me why dogmatism is correct. Iinot talking about what's correct, I'm talking about what's successfully persuasive.
Violations happened immediately[1]. Each phase was to be 42 days(6 weeks) not 3 months.
No, Israel & the US wanted a continuation via a modified version of phase 1 ceasefire rather than proceed to phase 2: securing exchange of Israeli captives but with the temporary cessation of military activities i.e., allowing them to resume.
Phase 2 as originally outlined & agreed would have been a commitment to a permanent cessation of military and hostile activities, withdrawal, and exchange of the remaining surviving Israeli & number of Palestinian captives[2]:
Announce restoration of a sustainable calm (cessation of military operations and hostilities permanently) and its commencement prior to the exchange of hostages and prisoners between the two sides – all remaining Israeli hostages who are living men (civilians and soldiers) in exchange for a number of prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza strip.
Moreover, Israel was supposed to send negotiators for implementation of phase 2 no later than the 16th day of phase 1(February 3rd) per the phase 1 agreement. Instead, Netanyahu met up with Trump, formulated their own agreement without any other mediators, and they delayed sending in negotiators until 2 days(February 27th) before phase 1 of the ceasefire was set to end with a "take it or else" approach.
I don't know that. Surrender what? Military control of the strip?
Top ministers in Israel have been very clear that population-level suffering and ideally expulsion is their goal. Meanwhile, West Bank violence has skyrocketed. And Hamas leadership is mostly dead already, anyways.
Yes and both sides need to surrender the idea that they aren't people worthy of life.
The religious leadership in the area needs to surrender and tell their people to surrender the idea that Jews are horrible people who deserve to be killed and all views to support similar ideas on the other side need to do the same.
Otherwise any aid provided to Gaza etc is just a temporary bandaid to the issue.
Trigger warning:
Hours later that day, a video emerged showing Louk's body,[28][29][b][c] partially clothed, with a significant head injury and blood-matted hair, being paraded in the streets of Gaza City by Hamas militants in the back of a pickup truck; they were exclaiming "Allahu Akbar" and were joined in the cheers by the people in the crowd surrounding the vehicle, some of whom spat on the body.[33][23][34][35] The video went viral,[2][36][37] becoming one of the first viral videos of the Gaza war.[36] It was released in a wave of videos of Hamas members parading hostages and bodies.[38][39][40] Photographs were also taken and circulated online.[29]
Plenty of Jewish people don't accept it. Many of the most dedicated and passionate critics of Israel are Jews. This is obvious, so let's not cross into unpleasant tropes.
> How do Jewish people accept the genocide going on right now?
Israel is predominately Jewish in religion and ethnicity, but Israel does not represent all Jewish people. While I am not Jewish, I would imagine some might find to conflation to be highly offensive.
It's obviously not all Jewish people, but there are unfortunately many Jewish communities who are very supportive of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Particularly in the US it's something that has allowed what is happening to continue almost exclusively unopposed. More generally the West has morally failed, so certainly not exclusive to any religion.
That the term anti-Semitism is constantly used to deflect or tar those objecting to Israels mass killing of civilians really is equally offensive I would suggest.
Really? Because the initial GP comment did not parameterize Jewish people which hold certain views. The GP comment just said, "How do Jewish people accept the genocide going on right now?"
> That the term anti-Semitism is constantly used to deflect or tar those objecting to Israels mass killing of civilians really is equally offensive I would suggest.
Ok? I nor anyone else at the time of this comment called the GP an anti-semite, so I am not sure why you feel compelled to mention this point.
The entire point of my initial comment was to bring attention to the attempt to paint entire, non-monolithic group of people with such a large brush. If you want to argue about the rhetoric used in pro-Palestinian vs. pro-Israeli online-discourse, then I implore you to find another comment. I imagine there likely some in this very thread.
On the first point of your reply I was agreeing with you, but also felt the need to expand to draw the distinction that a good many people of the Jewish faith actively defend the ongoing genocide and Israel.
On your second point, my follow up comment on anti-Semitism being weaponised feels wholly appropriate in this context. If you can bring attention to something you feel is directly relevant to the conversation I'm not sure why you would not allow me to do the same.
The person I was responding to was unlikely a pro-Israeli activist, so I am not certain why you felt compelled to mention your caveat. Are you implying that because pro-Israeli activist allegedly created the conflation that others are justified in perpetuating it?
I literally wrote that Israel does not represent all Jewish people. Yet, you beeline straight to mentioning pro-Israeli activist. It doesn't matter who created the irrational conflation or not. People need to stop perpetuating it.
It's absolutely critical context in a rhetorical environment where "antisemitism" has been drained of meaning. Not sure where your hostile reaction is coming from.
> How do Jewish people accept the genocide going on right now?
They were not expecting it. GHF has distributed enough food to Gaza that there should not be any starvation going on.
The Jewish people were not expecting the weaker people in Gaza to be unable to get food because the strong stole it, and got more than their fair share.
Is it really that hard? Go see the stats on how much food GHF distributed, then add in the UN brings in (which never stopped).
Then go look at photos of fat healthy people holding starving kids, and wonder how that's even possible. If you read interviews (and I have) you'll get your answer: the food is very unevenly distributed, the strong have stolen it from the weak.
The genocide is done in the name of the Zionist ideology, not Judaism, and Jewish people don‘t have to have any special opinion about it different from the rest of us. Zionists however have a lot to answer for, and they sure do need to find a lot of excuses if they want to keep their ideology.
If a Jewish person condemns the Gaza genocide, that just means they are human and follow the news and empathize with victims of horrible mass atrocities (like any normal person). However, if a Zionist (Jewish or not) condemns the Gaza genocide, while claiming to belief in the Zionist ideology, they are going to have to explain to me how on earth they can still call them self a Zionist during all these horrors.
You can't really use the word Zionist anymore because everyone has a completely different definition of what it means.
So you're going to have to define your particular flavor before using it.
To me virtually everyone on earth is a Zionist because it just means "having your own country", which is something almost everyone wants. I'm sure your definition is different.
To me Zionism is the settler colonial national project of Israel as a Jewish supremacy state on Palestinan lands.
If you support Israel as a Jewish supremacy state which denies civil rights to the Palestians that live there or were expelled (or descendants of expelled Palestinians) in 1947-1948, then you are a Zionist.
If you support a state called Israel which has equal rights for all its civilians (including Palestinians, and right of return for displaced Palestinians and their descendants, regardless of a whether you support a separate independent Palestine along the 1967 borders (as long as you recognize the right of return for the 1948 refugees to Israel), then you are not a Zionist.
I know Zionism comes in various flavors, including very extreme forms (such as Kahanism), and not all Zionists support the genocide done in their name. But as I understand it, no Zionist completely supports equal civil rights for all Palestinians, including the right of return and reparations for Palestinian refugees, because if they did support that, they wouldn’t be Zionists, at least not in my books.
So you should know that this definition of Zionism that you use was created by antisemities.
No actual Zionist uses this definition. It's also not a factual reality of how Israel started, Israel is not a settler project, it's not colonial, and it was not built on Palestinian lands. None of that is true. Zionism is Jews returning to their own land, not the land of others.
But I am well aware that people like to pretend it's true, (and then criticize it). If you spend a lot of time online you'll hear this definition over and over, and people actually start to believe it's real.
Israel already has equal rights for all civilians inside Israel. The people in the area not in Israel of course are not Israeli, and they were offered a state of their own, which they refused (multiple times).
> because if they did support that, they wouldn’t be Zionists, at least not in my books.
Tons of Zionists want that, they call them leftists in Israel, but they are also Zionists. They used to be far more numerous, but multiple Palestinian attacks have greatly reduced their numbers. (It's one of the ironies of Oct 7 that the Palestinians primarily killed those people advocating for a Palestinian state.)
The fact that you say "they wouldn't be Zionists" makes it quite clear that you don't actually know what Zionism is!
> Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in late 19th-century Europe to establish and support a Jewish homeland through the colonization of Palestine.
Brittanica:
> Zionism, Jewish nationalist movement with the goal of the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine.
Jewish Vioce for Peace (an Anti-Zionist organization):
> Zionism is a form of Jewish nationalism, and is the primary ideology that drove the establishment of Israel.
> The political ideology of Zionism, regardless of which strain, has resulted in the establishment of a Jewish nation-state in the land of historic Palestine.
Jewish center for justice (a Zionist organization):
> Zionism is the belief in the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland of Israel.
> Today, supporting Zionism means promoting the continued existence of a Jewish state and upholding the right of Jews to live freely in their historic homeland.
> The progressive movement for liberation and national self-determination of the Jewish people in our indigenous homeland, the land of Israel.
Zack Beauchamp (A journalist and a Liberal Zionist):
> Zionism is Israel’s national ideology. Zionists believe Judaism is a nationality as well as a religion, and that Jews deserve their own state in their ancestral homeland, Israel.
There is a varying degree in what these definitions call the land in question (Israel; Jewish ancestral homeland; etc.; I just call it Palestine) and where exactly that land is (1967 borders; Israel + occupied territories; Israel + Sinai + Jordan + South Lebanon + ect.). There is also a varying degree of how much rights to grant the indigenous population. Liberal Zionists want to grant them equal rights as a minority, while Kahanists want to expel them again in a Geoncide. But all Zionists agree that Zionism is a national project to maintain a Jewish supremacy state in Palestine.
A liberal Zionist would refute the description Jewish supremacy because in a democratic Israel all citizens should have the same rights. I refute that refutation on the basis that without the right of return for the 1948 refugees, Israel has artificially created a racial majority on lands that did not belong to them, and thus have created a supremacy through majority rule via a violent expulsion of the indigenous population.
That's an interesting point of view. If that is actually the goal of Israel right now, what if the Hamas executed all hostages on the spot, right now? Would Israel say "we have no more military objective, time to go home" or would they leash out in retaliation?
I think we know what the answer would be. Because we know that, how can what you say possibly be true?
> Mobile phone footage has emerged that appears to contradict Israel's account of why soldiers opened fire on a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck on March 23, killing 15 rescue workers.
> The video, published by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), shows the vehicles moving in darkness with headlights and emergency flashing lights switched on - before coming under fire. The PRCS said the video was obtained from the phone of a paramedic who was killed.
> The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially denied the vehicles had their headlights or emergency signals on.
There would be less scepticism if there weren't numerous examples of falsified incidents in the past.
Nonetheless, the point of "the boy who cried wolf" is not "wolves don't exist". Both sides have been caught lying many, many times but that doesn't mean you can just dismiss every claim.
Many have taken their cameras and recorded their children dying and families dying. And when you meet them, they will show you their dead on their phones like it is an injury of their hand. Quite surreal and I am out of words to explain it.
There would be less skepticism if mainstream news organizations were allowed into Gaza.
Do you think some of the world's top governments don't have intelligence on the matter? The UK foreign secretary is full of it when he calls this an atrocity?
> Do you think some of the world's top governments don't have intelligence on the matter? The UK foreign secretary is full of it when he calls this an atrocity?
The entire thrust of my comment was that evidence of potential current crimes shouldn't be discarded just because there has been a lot of lying in the past.
Targeting and detaining fewer journalists from reputable independent organizations would go a long way in reforging the foreign relations Likud has insisted on burning.
There is a lot of ideologically motivated flagging of comments from all sides. We're trying to go through and unkill reasonable comments, but it's a slow process. You could help by vouching the ones that are not breaking the guidelines, and also by not posting comments that break the guidelines yourself.
If the flagging is such that one point of view is represented ad nauseam and the other point of view is barely represented due to flagging pile on, then it's not actually contributing to discourse at all -- it's just an echo chamber. That does not fit in with what I find valuable in HN.
I wish you'd work with us as we try to do what we can to maximize the quality of the thread, rather than dismissing everything we've spent today doing as futile. Of course it's going to be futile when the very people who think they could make it better insist that it's pointless to even try.
Yes, there's a weight of sentiment in a certain direction about this topic. Equally, there are minority, nuanced perspectives that are important, and I've unkilled several of them today and turned off flagging powers on users who were reflexively flagging anything they disagreed with.
I'll continue to be online for most of the next 4-5 hours. I'd be very pleased if you were to contribute positively by sharing your perspective, and as long as it's within the guidelines I'll ensure it doesn't get killed by a flag pile-on.
Well-argued minority positions are often the most valuable on HN. Comments that just say the same thing everyone's been saying are by-definition uninteresting, even if they're in the overwhelming majority. Indeed, one of the most important reasons to allow topics like this to be discussed on HN is to give a voice to well-argued minority perspectives that can't be found elsewhere.
Thank you for unflagging some of the posts. I think that the discussion reads a lot better now. I sympathise with the difficult position that you're in but given the hostility here to hearing views from a variety of angles I'm afraid I don't think I'll be contributing much personally. I still think this topic makes HN a worse place to be and it doesn't have to take place here. There are plenty of more suitable venues.
Only in so far as it relates to Gaza and the Ukraine .. which tracks for a US based IT forum given the US political ties to all parties concerned and the cyber capabilities of almost all the parties (including the use of phone bombs wrt Hamas members, etc).
Sudan doesn't have a substantial US sub community nor much in the way of a cyber footprint (on a globally relative scale).
On the other hand, if you just feel like this isn't the site you want HN to be, I hear that and, yeah, sorry. It's kind of been this way since forever (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869).
That is a great quote, but we do know that it is "true" that Hamas started the war when they attacked Israel on October 7th and took many Israelis hostage :(
If any attempt is being made here to justify those horrible acts, the attempt is being made by the Israeli state, its army, and (since it's a democracy) its electorate.
Some believe the current attempt is unnecessary because attempts prior to October 7th had already succeeded. The evidence for this belief includes hard-to-fake numbers like both sides' cumulative death tolls.
Many more serious or cautious voices believe that nothing Israel could do after October 7th could retroactively justify it. But still an attempt is being made.
"Experts say that airdrops, another measure Israel announced, are insufficient for the immense need in Gaza and dangerous to people on the ground."[1]
"[T]he airdrops have an advantage over trucks because planes can move aid to a particular location very quickly. But in terms of volume, the airdrops will be 'a supplement to, not a replacement for moving things in by ground.'"[2]
The airdrops killed people when 1) the containers landed on occupied tents and, 2) containers landed in the water and people drowned attempting to retrieve the aid. Trucks can also delivery vastly larger quantities of aid substantially faster and cheaper than planes.
When Israel took out Iranian nuclear scientists they used a missile capable of targeting him and only him within a high-rise condominium, in short, with utmost precision.
And yet we are to believe that 60,000 innocent Palestinians have to die because Hamas uses them as human shields?
No. This isn’t good enough. Israel has the superior military and if it wants the moral high ground it is imperative that it protect civilian lives in its war against Hamas, anything short of that is what world leaders are finally admitting, GENOCIDE.
Ok I'm by no means a fan of what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza, but I'll play the Devil's advocate here.
- those missiles targeting those Iranian scientists caused more casualties than just the scientists
- those 60,000 Palestinians were not all innocent. Sure, most were, but a substantial percentage of them were Hamas fighters
Again, I don't agree with Israel's approach and in particular not the targeted starvation of the Gaza population, but it's good to keep all facts straight.
HN has always hosted a certain number of stories with political overlap, and the principles of how that works are pretty stable. I posted about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718396. If you (or anyone) want to understand how we approach this, I suggest reading that comment and some of the links there, and then if you still have a question that hasn't been answered, Tom or I will be happy to take a crack at it.
Why? There is a lot of cross over from companies profiting to our tech being used to execute this. We should not put a complete blind eye to atrocities being committed indirectly by all of us.
There doesn't have to be a tech angle for a story to be on-topic for HN. Plenty of stories on the front page at any time are not at all tech-related (e.g., articles about history, psychology, philosophy, literature, etc). The guiding principle is simply that it engages intellectual curiosity.
Something to keep in mind when listening to "first hand accounts" like this is that even if they're honest statements, everybody is subject to the fog of war and skewed statistics.
An example that came up a few months ago was a surgeon in a Gaza hospital making the honest statement to BBC journalists that he had seen dozens of children coming into the hospital near death with a "single shot" to a vital organ. He claimed they were purposefully "sniped" by IDF soldiers because in his mind it was "impossible" that they were all so accurately shot precisely once.
What he didn't see coming into his O/R were the children with multiple gunshot wounds... because they died. Conversely, a grazing wound from shrapnel is too minor to go to his well equipped hospital, because the hospital is overloaded and taking only the severely wounded. So he saw just the filtered subset of injuries that were very severe but just barely survivable, giving him the false impression that the IDF was going out of its way to snipe children with a single well-placed shot. (This isn't some random anecdote either, there were long articles circulating around the international media!)
From the surgeon's point of view, he saw only a subset of what's going on, and he drew a conclusion that wasn't actually supported by the evidence. The problem is that his point of view supported a popular narrative, was amplified, and nobody bothered to verify statistics because.. sss... that's hard in a war zone.
I'm not advocating for either side and support neither. I'm just recommending reading all articles related to the war with a critical eye.
There's a group signed letter by 99 American volunteer medical professionals stating:
Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis.
They’re not in the war zone taking an unbiased sample.
They’re in a hospital receiving critical but patients after triage
Inherently, their statistical sample of war injuries is biased. It’s a textbook example of the survivorship statical bias!
This is all I’m trying to say: not that their observations are false or that children aren’t being shot, but that they’re not in a position to draw accurate conclusions about what goes on outside the walls of their hospitals based on information they receive inside its walls. They certainly can’t draw conclusions about the motivations of IDF soldiers from the information available to them.
This logic applies to both sides, of course, and to all similar scenarios.
A random example are the Russian claims of having destroyed ‘X’ instances of ‘Y’ weapons system when Ukraine got less than ‘X’ delivered. The reason is simple — they’re not lying — they just counted the decoys they also blew up!
It’s war. It’s messy. Information is hard to interpret.
Regarding Russia there's also the phenomenon of inflating numbers at each step of the reporting chain, so suddenly a village reached by several soldiers, who subsequently died, turns into one that, on paper, was fully occupied.
This has caused issues on the Russian side, particularly in Ukraine's Kursk offensive, because troops moved in, assuming the territory is already taken, only to be ambushed.
They're medical professionals. Not IDF soldiers. [1]
65 doctors, many of whom signed the letter previously mentioned, also signed an opinion essay on the NY Times. There are CT scans in the article. [2]
The NY Times Opinion editor even chimed in to state they saw corroborating said images, consulted independent experts to attest the credibility of said images, and ultimately decided the 40+ photos & videos of children with gunshots to the head and neck were too horrific for publication.[3]
Note that my original argument isn’t that children weren’t being shot — they clearly are — I’m saying that the doctors were making the claim that they were being “sniped” by “single shots”. The basis for the claim was that they saw few if any kids with multiple gunshot wounds.
Yes… because those kids died and hence there is no point taking them to a hospital. They go to a morgue.
They’re not lying about the facts, probably, I’m just saying that their facts don’t support their conclusions.
There’s still zero evidence to support their claims. Publishing an editorial saying “trust me bro” doesn’t enhance their veracity. It is physically impossible for a rifle round moving at high velocity to cause the minimal injuries shown in those x-rays. Such injuries are consistent only with indirect fire, such as a round fired into the air falling back down and striking some distant innocent on the head at low velocity.
What’s shocking is that the NYT won’t admit they fell for a hoax but instead are claiming they have ironclad evidence of genocide yet they are just… sitting on it because it’s gruesome for their readers to see? If that’s true then it is a staggering moral failure akin to being an accessory to the crime. Fortunately thats’s not the case because it’s a hoax.
> What he didn't see coming into his O/R were the children with multiple gunshot wounds... because they died. Conversely, a grazing wound from shrapnel is too minor to go to his well equipped hospital, because the hospital is overloaded and taking only the severely wounded. So he saw just the filtered subset of injuries that were very severe but just barely survivable, giving him the false impression that the IDF was going out of its way to snipe children with a single well-placed shot. (This isn't some random anecdote either, there were long articles circulating around the international media!)
The source for that is the “pretraining” we all share: children generally don’t survive multiple gunshot wounds from military battle rifles. One… maybe, but not two or three to the chest… or anywhere really.
I mean, you can debate that point if you choose, but you’d have to make a convincing argument that children are more likely to cling to life with more gunshot wounds.
Ha - gets downvoted but with no comment - of how it is known or not.
Their would be propaganda and embellishment from both sides.
About sides making mistakes in war - such in WCK World Central Kitchen deaths - I recall that was US claim in the deaths in about the "collateral murder" video ( about 2010 ??) from WikiLeaks - it was a mistake - the photographers telephoto lens looked like a rocket launcher?
One data point is not enough to draw a line. But if you have two, three, dozens of data point... And the line points to the same thing over and over again.
This man is definitely not the only one who has come forward. At want point to do you actually take multiple witnesses and believe them?
Many aid agencies and other sources on the ground have also verified many of the claims, when journalists can't (considering they've been banned from entering). Are all the aid agencies lying too?
And sometimes, just sometimes, in this world of AI now, video evidence is accurate.
The world is imperfect, and so we go with the balance of probabilities.
And I'll confirm for you. There's a murderous genocide taking place.
How do you know that Hamas is not involved in these cases? You can not.
Also a high percentage of the said 50,000 killed would have to be Hamas terrorists.
Also, Hamas would be working overtime to make this new way of food distribution to fail.
Gaza people would not want to blame Hamas at ALL, since Hamas kills people who criticize them. This has happened in Past
In fact it is reported Hamas told Gaza people not to get food from the new distrubution places.
Hamas would also have to be guilty of genocide. In fact they have previously stated this in writing. Hamas is prepared to sacrifice Gaza people. Also Hamas committed genocide on October 7th
You appear to have ignored everything I said. I hope you don't mind if I return the favour.
I'll just end by saying that, to me, Israels actions in terms of Gaza over the last 2 years mean I do not differentiate those who carry out the actions from Nazi's (dictionary definitions). And that applies to those who support those actions. I've worded this carefully so you know that I do not refer to all Israeli's, because I don't. But it probably applies to you.
We do occasionally turn off flags in order to allow a discussion to happen because allowing no discussion to happen seems wrong
Many people have different views on whether this and other topics should have significant exposure and discussion on HN, but in this case it seems enough of the community sees the topic as important to discuss, that we need to respect that sentiment.
To add to what Tom posted, it's worth remembering that HN has always hosted a certain number of political stories, and that this question of how-much-is-too-much has been around as long as the site has (or since 2008 at least).
Maybe it's because Israel is viewed as a "modern"/"western" nation, and shouldn't be doing these kinds of things, whereas Sudan and Congo are not.
Hamas had it coming, but I'm not sure much can explain the starvation random children are experiencing, that they weren't before, except Israel trying to extract some toll on the Palestinian people.
I think anti semitism is more common than it appears on the surface level, even when people say "criticizing Israel isn't criticizing Jews in general", but a lot of it actually is. But that doesn't explain all criticism.
This sounds weird to say, but I'm actually okay with kids getting blown up in bombings if there were legitimate military targets there and no other choice. But starvation takes a long, concerted effort to effect.
I see an increasing number of politicians taking the position: "I supported Israel's government's actions when they first attacked, given the goals of destroying Hamas' leadership and freeing hostages, but now that it has turned into a brutal siege with mass civilian casualties on a horrific scale, I'm strongly against their actions." E.g. Macron, Angus King, and many people I know personally. And I think we need to say "Great!" The dumbest reaction is "screw you, you were for Israel's invasion and you're an asshole." Movements that want to grow should accept people who change their minds when the situation changes, they get new data, or they learn a new perspective.
While I agree it's very important to welcome people who changed their minds, there are a few things that still annoy me:
- the situation was actually very clear from the start
- Israel has been illegally occupying, enforcing apartheid, committing war crimes for decades. You always ignored it.
- I don't hear any apology about the above, nor any indication that these people won't return to their default stance of pretending all is well in Palestine as soon as the bulk of the killing stops.
Was it clear? Did we always ignore it? Not convinced at all. All was and is not well in Palestine, but one thing I know, it ain't cut-and-dry, and Israel going all Hamas on Palestine doesn't make it so either.
Yes, it's perfectly clear and always was. One country is illegally occupying territories outside its borders, illegally annexing them, transferring their civilian population there, ethnically cleansing the natives, enforcing apartheid against those who remain, using its soldiers to protect its citizens when they engage in pogroms against the natives, periodically bombing them, stealing their water, destroying their crops- all while enjoying full diplomatic and military support from the West. Those who resist are deemed "terrorists", condemned and vilified, and are "eliminated", together with any civilians, women and children who happen to be in the way.
This has been going on for decades while the Western media ignores most of it, reporting acts of resistance and terrorism from the oppressed side as if they were motivated by ideological hatred, and in general depicting the situation as "complicated"- a position you're now repeating without a second thought.
That's because you choose to look to only that one side of the story. Keeps things nice and tidy, it's true.
"That one side of the story" are the facts on the ground.
- One side is occupying the other's lands, not the other way around.
- One side has killed most people, not the other way around.
- One side has illegally annexed the other's territory, not the other way around.
- One side enforces apartheid, not the other way around.
- One side regularly destroys the other's villages, not the other way around.
- One side steals water, destroys greenhouses and olive groves, imposes blockades- not the other way around.
- One side is rich, organised, well armed, and has the full support of the West, not the other way around.
There are other facts on the ground which go the other way, you just choose to ignore them. Like the fact that one side has offered a two-state solution, the other has refused it. Or that one side is much more democratic than the other. That one side has been openly and proudly promoting exterminating the other side wholesale for much longer, and much more vocally than the other side. You could use an LLM to come up with more examples, then verify accuracy yourself. But then what would be left of your comfortable illusions of clarity?
> Like the fact that one side has offered a two-state solution,
True. Hamas has offered this since 2017 [1] but Israel has never honestly offered it. And it's practically impossible anyway at this point with all the illegal (under international law) settlements in the west bank, supported by the IDF. Something you wouldn't do if you were trying to move toward a "two state solution", but something you would do if that was just talk intended to delay any implementation of Palestinian human rights in Israeli occupied territory while finalizing a drawn out campaign of ethnic cleansing as fast as you think the US will allow.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/01/hamas-new-char...
Yeah, it's Israel which "never honestly offered it", while Hamas, who always maintained that Israel has no place in the middle east, does offer such a solution in this proposal, while curiously not mentioning Israel at all, only that they shall take the whole of Jerusalem. But the article helpfully infers that this elision means Hamas would clarly accept Israel's right to exist. It just reeks of honesty...
Wow that supposed "both sides" facade really vanished pretty quickly didn't it? Not even a performative condemnation of Israel's constant onslaught of home demolitions and illegal settlements.
How so? Since I made it clear that I see both sides as responsible for the mess, it should be evident that I don't agree with Israel's excesses any more that with those of Hamas. (And anyway, even if I would have spelled out the obvious, you just revealed you would have auto-magically labeled my admission as insincere). All I wanted to show is how much truth-twisting side-pickers have to engage in to maintain their comfortable illusion of clarity.
Btw. it's not any prettier with hard-core Israel supporters either. Fair is fair.
Ok, I'll bite. Which of Israel's "excesses" (interesting word choice) do you specifically condemn?
Most of the ones listed above. Basically abusing their power in the region. Like all powers have done since the dawn of time. (Let's not try to imagine what would happen if Hamas would somehow get the upper hand either - shudder). Does this mean I should start taking sides with those who have been chanting "Death to Israel, death to America" for generations and declare that they were right after all? Not at all.
And what about Israel's right to exist? Maybe this is what you were referring by "interesting choice of words" - to some, Israel is itself an excess which needs to be corrected. If the self-appointed "corrector" is American, I will remind them on how their country was founded, the genocide of the native peoples, and how maybe now's the time to return it all to their rightful owners and head back to wherever their ancestors have come from. Lemme tell you, they don't like this line of reasoning. Especially if they're that special kind of Israel-hating American Jew: where would they go to, Israel?!? Now we're back to square one!
And the same argument can be applied to pretty much any people. We all descend from migrants who elbowed their way into territories where others were already present, and who, in turn, forced their way into the lands of even more ancient populations, ad-infinitum. Sure, it happened a while ago, but who's to say where the line should be drawn? Usually, self-interest: "the statute of limitations applies to me, but not to the Jews of Israel"; or "yeah, I'll throw the first stone, I have no qualms with that, all is kosher in my corner of the world..."
>If the self-appointed "corrector" is American, I will remind them on how their country was founded, the genocide of the native peoples, and how maybe now's the time to return it all to their rightful owners and head back to wherever their ancestors have come from. Lemme tell you, they don't like this line of reasoning.
Isn't this just a tacit admission that Israel is committing genocide like the American colonists did? Americans who are alive today at least have the excuse that they weren't around at the time and didn't actually commit the genocide, but the Israelis dont even have that excuse- they're doing it right now
> Let's not try to imagine what would happen if Hamas would somehow get the upper hand either - shudder
This level of cognitive dissonance here is absolutely bizarre to me.
We are watching israel perpetrate a genocide, ethnically cleansing Palestine and Palestinians. israel is cheering it all on, just like you said. The imagined thing you're shuddering at is happening to a different ethnic group and country than you imagined. How about a shudder for Palestinians? They are just as much people as israelis.
> And what about Israel's right to exist?
And what about Palestine's right to exist?
We have means of dealing with this sort of situation, but it requires israel realizing they are a party to the conflict, not the judge of it, and stepping back to let the established international bodies decide things. You know, like they did in order to get created in the first place? That would mean they had to stop the genocide, and they have refused to do so at every available opportunity (including right now).
Is this reply supposed to convince me that it's all Israel's fault and that the Palestinians are hapless and blameless victims? Because this is what I was disagreeing with. Yes, I agree that Israel should pull back, this is not going anywhere good for any of the parties involved. And yes, I shudder for the Palestinians caught in this - at least those who don't bear some of the responsibility, of which I'm convinced there are plenty. As I shudder for future Israelis who will pay a dear price for this continuous escalation. And I can sadly not see any likely solution to this impasse either.
> And yes, I shudder for the Palestinians caught in this - at least those who don't bear some of the responsibility, of which I'm convinced there are plenty.
"And some of them, I assume, are good people"
here's your mask, you dropped it.
Your convincing would be nice, but the judges in this matter are the relevant international bodies, not you or I or israel.
The relevant international bodies have decided that collective punishment is illegal, so regardless how much culpability israel personally feels innocent Palestinian civilians must bear, it is still a war crime. Any related complaints israel has ("human shields! this is hard!" etc) can be submitted, with evidence, to the same bodies for judgement, but that doesn't justify further war crimes.
The relevant international bodies have also decided that many of the other atrocities israel regularly perpetrates in Palestine should be criminal, and made them so. Thus, regardless of any justifications real or imagined, those further atrocities are still war crimes.
If there is to be sustainable peace in the region, it must start with the cessation of war crimes. Then the relevant international bodies can address Palestine's right to exist, which is equal in all ways to israel's, because Palestine is a country equal to israel, and Palestinians are people equal to israelis.
Do I foresee that this will happen? Of course not: every indication, including direct quotes from them, is that israel wants domination and ethnic cleansing, not equality and sustainable peace.
Is this…is this victim blaming the victims of genocide?
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People flaggig this, but it's obviously meant as satire, and I assume it's meant to be though provoking.
Similarly natured antisemitic comments in the thread weren't flagged, so what was this one?
> one side has offered a two-state solution
Yes, Palestine. A 2-state solution means 2 equal states, without 1 bossing the other around, and with each being equally protected against the other.
> the other has refused it.
Yes, israel: not only do they refuse proposed 2-state solutions, they even refuse proposed ceasefires that could lead to peace.
> That one side has been openly and proudly exterminating the other side wholesale
Yes, israel is actually doing this.
> one side is much more democratic than the other
How does israel feel about the democratic votes held in the UN regarding their behavior? Does israel respect that democracy?
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You write as if you really really don't want to see that side of the story.
What's more interesting to me is that folks who support Israel often act as though their audience hasn't heard all these arguments before, and have't been passively absorbing pro-Israel propaganda for most of their lives. At least for those of us in the US, almost all we heard growing up about Israel was couched in sympathetic and positive terms. It's not as though there's a lack of Zionist perspective in a country where all the recent heads of state and political party leaders have been ideological Zionists.
How can we ever have a good faith argument if you believe anyone that says something supportive of Israel has been indoctrinated to do so "most of their lives"?
A good faith argument? Brother who is committing genocide against the Palestinians right now?
If you would kindly provide your definition of genocide, I will happily engage.
...because it's always the ones who only look onto one side of the story who conclude things are not cut and dry.
"free palestine" has been a refrain in my country as long as I can remember which is about 20 years.
I guess this has been less obvious for those living or growing up in a country that closely allied to israel.
On October 9, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “We are imposing a complete siege on [Gaza]. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we must act accordingly.”
If that was not clear, Netanyahu said "remember what amalek did to you". If you know anything of what was done to the amalekites, you know this is a genocidal statement.
The statements of ministers in netanyahus cabinet and generals showed very well the intent going into this conflict. They are still adhering to it.
That was shortly after the Oct 7 massacres, and the total blockade was lifted shortly after.
"Remember what amalek did to you" is about remembering evil. The same statement appears at Yad Vashem, for example, yet no one has accused the Holocaust museum of calling for a genocide of the German people.
Except for under the ceasefire there has been no point in the conflict where enough supplies and food has gotten in. There is an acronym, SWEAT-MSO, Sewage, Water, electricity, academics, trash, medical, safety and other. It is a framework to assess the needs of the civilian population to, among other things, avoid having them join a resistance.
Israel has bombed all those things.
Your statement of Amalek is disingenuous. Netanyahu would not say anything that does not have plausible deniability. I think it is important to look at how his words were interpreted. Shortly afterwards there were at least two clips (one of which was use by south Africa in their ICJ deposition ) of Israeli soldiers (lots of them!) going to Gaza singing about destroying the seed of Amalek and "there are no uninvolved civilians".
The thing about genocidal statements is that most people committing genocide are not at outspoken av Gallant and Ben-Gvir.
given that Israel expanded their borders repeatedly, poisoned village wells, and considers the genocidal periods of the Nakba (their "independence holiday") something that's illegal to mourn... yes. yes it was always clear. the playbook has been the same since 1948.
If that's your criteria this is equally true on the other side of this conflict. Even predating the Jewish exodus from many Arabic nations.
The primary difference between them is that the side which openly shouts for genocide doesn't have the means that the side that at least doesn't openly shout for genocide has. (By openly I mean the majority of the people, not select extreme individuals. Some of whom are in positions of power.)
I'm not going the route that it's okay to want to genocide a peoples because of things that were done to them by another group of people. Because if that's your way of viewing this conflict, then Israel has more than enough to point at to 'justify' their genocide.
And I'm not going to excuse calls for genocide with "well, they don't have the power to, so who cares". Because all these routes lead straight to hell. You can't even begin to resolve the conflicts between these peoples.
This conflict isn't nearly as cut-and-dry as say Russia-Ukraine, and it benefits no one to pretend it is. Ukraine never invaded Russia, nor did it commit any terrorism against them. This isn't the case between Israel and the Palestinians.
Between 1968-2023 over 3500 acts of terrorism were committed by the Palestinians against Israel. Of which the vast majority (Between 70-78% depending on if you count purely civilian targets), targeted civilians.
You can argue for a long time which side committed the most heinous acts, but neither side is anywhere close to "clean".
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> Israel left Gaza a long time ago
So who are those people with guns in between Egypt and Gaza for the past decades? Or blocking Gazan fisherman from fishing for decades?
The Zionists leave a settlement in northern Gaza and call that "leaving Gaza".
The Zionists brought this on themselves when they decided to take over Gaza in 1967. 33 of the victims of the Zionist aggressions in 1967 were those brave US Navy sailors on the USS Liberty that the Zionists killed then.
To anyone reading this, I recommend a 224-page book on the topic:
On Palestine
by Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, and Frank Barat (Editor)
Goodreads Rating: 4.27, 11,732 ratings, 1,588 reviews
Operation Protective Edge, Israel's most recent assault on Gaza, left thousands of Palestinians dead and cleared the way for another Israeli land grab. The need to stand in solidarity with Palestinians has never been greater.
First published May 7, 2015
The paperback is about $12 on Amazon.
Besides this, notice how they're implying that having left a region of Palestine (even if that were true, which isn't) means that no Palestinian from that specific region has a right to attack them.
As if no Ukrainian had a right to attack Russia besides those in the occupied regions.
As if no American except Californians would have a right to fight if California were occupied by a foreign power.
> - the situation was actually very clear from the start
Which start? There are so many in that conflict.
> - Israel has been illegally occupying, enforcing apartheid, committing war crimes for decades.
So did the other sides. For outsiders, it's very hard to know what's really going on in that region; so many history, so many details, so many emotions, so many abuse and killing... It's a chain of reactions and counter-reactions which is going for over a century. Don't assume that everyone can know everything.
Israel was also very good at manipulating the Western World and building on their collective guilt. Even if a politician knew what was going on, it would have been political suicide to speak out too much about this. Even now, it's a delicate topic. And people still blindly spreading hate against all Jews, while it's mainly the fault of some factions, is also not really helping the cause here.
> - I don't hear any apology about the above
Apologize for what? At the end of the day, there are all trapped in a situation where they have very little control.
Unfortunately this vacuous "both sides" claptrap isn't going to work anymore because we've all seen Israel's true face now.
Eh?
"Both sides, X and Y, are bad" requires as a prerequisite that X is in the set of "bad". Doesn't matter which of X and Y are government policies in Israel or Palestine.
Now, if the comment you'd replied to was saying "it's all X's fault, Y is innocent", then "we've all seen Israel's true face now" would be a reasonable response.
Fair enough, I'm getting into the weeds a bit and left some things unsaid.
What I'm referring to is a rhetorical technique deployed to get people to simmer down and accept the status quo. Folks who support Israel know they can't get people to be 100% behind Israel anymore, so the fallback position is "it's complicated, the Palestinians don't seem like great people either so I'm not going to go out of my way to support them". That leaves the ruling class foreign policy establishment to run the horror show the way they like without any troublesome democratic meddling.
If you want to see an example from a historical genocide, just look at what the Turkish government writes about the Armenian genocide.
> "it's complicated, the Palestinians don't seem like great people either so I'm not going to go out of my way to support them"
People are complicated, anyone saying otherwise is also selling you propaganda.
Hamas in this case (and I do mean Hamas not Palestinians in general) were explicitly genocidal, mellowed a bit, and are currently back using explicitly genocidal goals.
Hamas were just fine with targeting civilians, have been for ages. Hamas are also weak, which is the biggest difference between them and the IDF. That power disparity makes it easy and obviously necessary to condemn the big strong force that's damaged or destroyed approximately all buildings in Gaza, and killed 2-14% of the population depending on whose estimate you follow. Some governments (e.g. Germany) do still find they need to say "well Hamas started it!", but overwhelmingly the international consensus is "I don't care who started it, we need to stop it".
This "complication" or messiness is real, but the implication is the opposite it is claimed to have. That it makes further civilian violence on either side more understandable, or less easy to judge.
Both countries fomented war for decades. On civilians.
Israel by tacitly/actively letting Israeli citizens illegally "settle" land that was not theirs, and the violence, theft and worse those settlers imposed on Palestinian civilians.
Those actions would be considered acts of war, if done against any stronger actor.
And Hamas fomented war with its responses and atrocities against Israeli civilians.
But this "complication" is of a kind that makes it even more egregious for either side to claim any moral high ground for continued harm to the other side's civilians. Making genocidal type starvation of an entire territory's civilian population even less acceptable. If that is even possible.
Thank you for displaying the reason why it's so simple for Israels right-wing-factions to manipulate the public opinion.
It’s fine to accept your mom or your neighbor changing their mind, but I think we should be skeptical of politicians changing their mind and consider what hidden, calculated motives they may have for changing it now, when they had plenty of information to reach the same conclusion over a year ago.
Then what does winning actually look like today? Sure. Run against these people and support their political opposition in the next election. But take the win on the short term and get food to Gaza.
It feels more likely that if you push the message "yes, this is great" for the short term win they get elected again next term.
When do you switch from saying "yes these people are great for flip-flopping" to "no these people are terrible don't vote for them", and how do you say it in a way that gets through people's subtlety filters and doesn't make it look like you're flip flopping yourself?
Well, yea there’s a tension here.
If we want to use Gaza as a political tool to achieve some political aim (ie get my guy elected), that will be in conflict with doing something to help Gaza. Because in most countries, doing something meaningful is likely going to require cooperation between politicians from different parties. And it’s hard to get people to cooperate if you don’t plan on sharing the credit.
I do think cooperation and letting bygones be bygones for the sake of progress are important.
But I don't think it's right to frame it as "get my guy elected" vs "help Gaza". Does decrying them on social media mean they will flip flop again and be pro-gaza massacre? Even if that's the case, it's "get someone elected who will avoid Gaza-like tragedies in the future" vs "help Gaza now" which isn't black and white. Also, these people cooperated to enable the massacre in the first place...
Think about it from a logical perspective.
Israel's real enemy won't stop and won't surrender until that country and it's people don't exist. They have taken the innocent civilian's of Gaza / Palistine / whatever you want to call the area hostage. They are also so ingrained into the region that resources are literally siphoned from humanitarian sites like hospitals into deep tunnels beneath; as just one example of reporting I'm inclined to believe is credible, even with the mutual atrocities both sites are carrying out.
What would winning look like from a moral and ethical standpoint? Liberating the people of that region from the violence and suffering. Return them to a functioning society with social and civic infrastructure. Fully deny major violence and terrorism in the region for LIFETIMES to the point that the hate and anger finally cool off enough for people to move on.
...
Winning is going to require a multi-generational investment in humanity by humanity. It's going to require the buy in of the people on the ground. It's going to require a United Nations coalition and boots on the ground from interests in that region who want to raise everyone above the hate. Also the afflicted country will need to be an absolute DMZ for that entire time. Membership in the UN peacekeeping organization the only military service allowed (and then likely in other countries).
Getting from here to there? Even less popular than the hugely unpopular war(s) anywhere else in the world. Don't ask me how anyone could do it, those skilled in the art of diplomacy have tried for longer than my lifetime and probably longer than your's and NOTHING has stuck.
There are subfactions, both among the Jewish and the Muslims, that do better if the problem isn't solved and goes on forever, but there is very little in-faction policing: If anything, atrocities make them stronger. There is no peace while the criticism to the other side quiet in-faction criticism. You need people that want peace to be in charge, but what leadership wants is victory. Nobody that believes in human rights is going to like the costs of victory
> Israel's real enemy won't stop and won't surrender until that country and it's people don't exist
Funny, this seems to be a pretty accurate description of Netanyahu's current position. He understands that he exists politically only as long as he can keep the war going. So, of course there is going to be no end to the 'war' against Hamas, even though it has transformed into mass genocide of civilians using starvation.
I don't believe any part of my statement endorsed or supported the leader of that country either.
I offered a supposition for what real peace might look like in the region. One component of which is a peace keeping force that is not too close to the action, but also not from so far away as to be entirely insensitive or invasive themselves.
Understood. My point was that the current state is entirely of Israel's choosing. At this point, there is no functional Hamas resistance left in Gaza. There is no need to starve people by restricting aid and then gunning down desperate civilians when they try to get the meager food aid that trickles in.
Israel has lost all moral superiority at this point and probably alienated an entire generation across the globe. All so that Bibi can cling to power a bit longer.
Edit: Spelling
you bring up an interesting point, in that after two years of war, almost none of the pre-war hamas leadership is left alive. why is hamas refusing to surrender even though all of it's higher leadership is dead? it should be clear that the "axis of resistance" wasn't coming to help on oct 8th itself, and two years later iran and it's proxies are toast. yet hamas opts to continue fighting, at this point it looks like a suicide cult that wants to drag civilians down with it for the purpose of martyrdom
>why is hamas refusing to surrender even though all of it's higher leadership is dead?
How's an organization supposed to surrender when all of its leaders have been assassinated? Who's going to walk up to an IDF emplacement while claiming to lead Hamas? How would such a death-defying individual prove that they had any actual significance to Hamas?
the recent talks in qatar suggested that even though disorganized, enough of a hierarchy still exists within hamas to negotiate. the main complaints from the american side was that hamas seemed to be inconsistent / fractured in their demands, outside of forcing the israelis to return to pre-war status-quo via a ceasefire that protects hamas rule
I wonder why they're fractured in their demands... maybe it's that all the high level leaders are dead.
Someone is in charge. The person who could release the hostages?
It's entirely possible there's no longer any single person in charge in practice, but rather a bunch of more or less individually operating cells - each with their own leader.
Imagine you are a 19 year old in charge of some Hamas survivors. Let’s say you want to surrender.
1. Would it even mean anything? It’s not like you or anyone else has the control to stop everyone else. And Israel will use any attack as a sign of bad faith and ignore the surrender.
2. Would it improve anything for your people? If Israelis are intentionally starving babies, there is no reason to think they will stop the genocide just because the militarized part has given up. Have you even heard any news of Hamas even fighting back recently or has it all just been killing civilians?
All a surrender would do is get you tortured for information and executed for no gain.
ironically only indian and pakistani news really report on the IDF casualties / hamas attacks, make of that what you will (IDF journalism blackout backfiring, news bias, maybe south asians love telegram war footage, etc)
ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opD3hg0B8sM
What Netanyahu is doing in Gaza to Palestinians is broadly popular in Israel. The "opposition" coalition leader has made genocidal statements about Palestinians and there's no reason to think his leadership would be any better. This is a society where people directly benefit from ethnic cleansing and have spent decades already justifying it to themselves to get to this point. It's not going to be an easy fix of replacing one guy and focusing on him misses all the institutions that were constructed to facilitate genocide.
Replacing Bibi won't suddenly make Hamas stop working to kill Israelis.
Wait, didn’t they launch 6500 rockets on Israel civilians in the 8 months before October? How doesn’t that moot your point, attacking while in a peace period?
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Breaking the site guidelines like this will get you banned here. We've had to warn you about this multiple times before.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
What is the officially accepted way to identify genocidal rhetoric on this site?
The main thing to understand is that we're trying to optimize for one thing on HN and that's curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).
When you use a phrase like "genocidal rhetoric", I assume that you consider certain comments to be wrong and bad. From that perspective your question could be generalized to "what's the best way to respond to wrong and bad comments on this site?" Keeping in mind that "bad" here doesn't just mean the comment is badly written—in internet jargon, it means the commenter is bad.
Curiosity doesn't exclude wrongness or badness—it's interested in it. How did this comment (or person) get so wrong and bad? Could that change? Is there a response that could pull them out of wrongness and badness into rightness and goodness? Why do most of my (<-- I mean any of us, of course) attempts to do this fail so badly? Is there a more effective way to respond? Might there be something interesting here beyond wrongness and badness?
That's the spirit we're trying for on this site, so that's the answer to your question.
If I ask myself what other approaches are possible, there's one obvious option, and that is to crush/destroy/defeat the wrong and bad argument (and person) utterly. This is the desire to kill the other person (if only metaphorically (and maybe not always so metaphorically)), and thus establish rightness and goodness over wrongness and badness.
So the "accepted way" here is to listen to the other and dance with them, rather than killing them (or their position). Dance rather than war, if you like.
Is there a third option? I'm not sure. When I look inside myself, I can find the listen/dance option (or one could say give-and-take), and I can find the kill option. But I'm not sure I can find a third.
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Edit: reading this the next day, I think the word 'dance' could have trivializing associations (e.g. let's just dance rather than deal with violence and tragedy). I don't mean it that way. I mean something like moving and changing in response to each other. If anyone can do that in response to the other, even just a little, then one's self becomes a place for at least a modicum of change.
As someone who abandoned rightness/wrongness 9+ years ago (except in the idea of alignment with the cosmos), I can say that "genocidal rhetoric" doesn't necessarily imply rightness or wrongness. There exist language patterns that indicate a perspective that, when culturally carried and compounded for years, has the effect of cultivating behaviors that lead to extinguishing a people, whether intentional or not. This is genocidal rhetoric. As for options as to what to do with it, I find this useful for finding more.
https://thenightgarden.substack.com/p/the-story-state-action...
I'm curious how people think maintaining genocidal rhetoric is aligned with serving life, when it literally serves the destruction of a group.
I appreciate you dang and the culture you are trying to cultivate, but I think in a genocide civility politics are inappropriate. I'm jewish, and I am certain that "raising questions" about whether jews should live or die or are intrinsically evil terrorists would not be allowed on this site. For balance, this should be accorded equally to palestinians, who are in fact being killed mercilessly in line for food by Israeli forces and US mercenaries. pg in fact has been loudly talking about the genocide, which I appreciate.
https://x.com/paulg/status/1950180259636072737
I will try to be less flippant in my comments. Nonetheless, it is a lot of work to cut through genocidal lies that are often supported (at least in editorials if not in actual reporting) by the mainstream media. The north of Gaza has been nearly obliterated and still these guys get to cast aspersions justifying the annihilation of a people.
Google recently updated images of northern Gaza:
https://www.google.com/maps/@31.4956821,34.4752786,609m/data...
> "raising questions" about whether jews should live or die or are intrinsically evil terrorists would not be allowed on this site. For balance, this should be accorded equally to palestinians
What are examples of such comments not being flagged and/or moderated? I'd appreciate links. Such comments are unacceptable by any interpretation of HN's guidelines, and the only reason we wouldn't crack down on them (same as with antisemitic comments of course) is if we didn't see them.
> I think in a genocide civility politics are inappropriate
I'm not talking about civility and stopped using that word years ago. Shallow words like civility or politeness don't reflect how we think about moderation. (I listed a few past explanations about that below*, if anyone wants them.)
What are we looking for? Not sure I can answer that better than I did in the GP comment. We want people to listen to each other, because of the two available options—listening and killing—only listening is compatible with the core value of the site.
I know it's a provocation to use the word "killing" in this context, and obviously I mean it metaphorically, but I think it's accurate. When people stop listening and seek to destroy the other's argument/position/view, killing energy is the quality that shows up. I don't think it takes too much emotional self-awareness to feel this, nor too much self-honesty to admit it.
That is the dynamic behind weaponized internet comments. It's easy to deny, because the genre itself is so trivial, and so are the weapons (snark, tropes, etc.). But one need only sense into the feeling level and it's no longer so trivial—in fact, it's all there.
This explains the distinctive mix of rage and pain that flares up when one reads a comment fired against one's position, and also the distinctive mix of...let's call it righteousness and triumph that flares up when a comment is fired in favor of one's position.
Perhaps it would be less provocative to use the word "war" rather than "killing" for the non-listening option, but I'm not sure that abstraction is beneficial in describing this. It creates distance from the reality inside ourselves, and room for denial and evasion.
Regardless of what the best names are, we want the listening option, because the alternative is just more destruction.
(Needless to say, I'm not talking about you here, I'm talking about all of us.)
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* Here are a few posts touching on how we stopped thinking in terms of 'civility'...lots more can be found in HN Search if anyone cares...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41571382 (Sept 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36394992 (June 2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36244479 (June 2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30315409 (Feb 2022)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26427796 (March 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033173 (April 2020)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22713745 (March 2020)
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how are refugees from russia and germany colonizers? are venezuelan refugees colonizing america by your logic? if the zionists aren't the colonizers, but allied with colonizers, then who is the backer? the ottomans? the british? the french? the russians? what prevented the palestinians from allying with outside powers if the israelis were doing the same?
when you claim colonizers, you're just making an excuse for the repeated strategic errors that the palestinians made, and will continue to make, that led them into this humiliating situation.
You're touching on a very true point by saying that the high-level ideas, like ancient homelands or Marxist theory, create a lot of argument that in the end seems to distract people from the obvious reality, which is the mass slaughter of civilians, many of them children.
In reality, the challenge remains, what is a better solution from the Israeli perspective? If the proposed alternative is they all pack up and leave or dissolve their government, there is 0% chance that will happen.
It may be in the interests of someone to kill a witness to a murder, but it's up to law and society to stop them. Likewise I am sure plenty of genocides have been in the interests of the victors, but it is up to law and civlization to stop them. What I am not sure about is that it is truly in Israel's interest to be known forevermore as one of the racial exterminators in mankind's long and fraught history.
Are you familiar with Israeli settlers?
Calling Jews “colonizers” of their historical homeland is ridiculous, not to mention that about half of Israeli Jews fled there from Arab countries, not from Europe.
Tell that to these guys https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Colonisation_Associat...
Sources from the early Zionist movement are replete with discussion of colonization. It's only now when the connotation (not the reality) of the term has changed that Israel supporters try to pretend it never happened.
No-one is calling Jews colonisers. They're calling people who bulldoze their neighbours houses to create "settlements" colonisers.
Half of these people were born and raised in America or other countries yet it is their birth right because god said so?
Ludicrous behaviour whatever you want to call it.
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Think about it from a logical perspective.
Apartheid South Africa’s real enemy—the ANC, the liberation movements, the “terrorists”—wouldn’t stop and wouldn’t surrender until white minority rule and its entire system didn’t exist. They had taken the innocent Black civilians of South Africa hostage. They were also so ingrained into the townships that resources were literally siphoned from humanitarian sites like churches and schools into hidden safehouses and underground networks; as just one example of reporting that many at the time were inclined to believe was credible, even with the mutual atrocities both sides were carrying out.
What would “winning” look like from a moral and ethical standpoint? Liberating the people of that region from the violence and suffering. Returning them to a “functioning society” with social and civic infrastructure. Fully denying major resistance and insurgency in the region for lifetimes—to the point that the hate and anger finally cooled off enough for people to “move on.”
Winning would require a multi-generational investment in humanity by humanity. It would require the buy-in of the people on the ground. It would require a United Nations coalition and boots on the ground from “responsible” countries who wanted to raise everyone above the hate. And of course, South Africa would need to be an absolute DMZ for that entire time—no armed liberation movements allowed, only peacekeeping forces sanctioned by the “international community.”
Getting from here to there? Even less popular than the hugely unpopular interventions elsewhere in the world. Don’t ask me how anyone could do it—those skilled in the art of diplomacy had tried for longer than my lifetime and probably longer than yours, and NOTHING had stuck. ———
wait; that’s not what it took.
It took the abolishment of apartheid; colonisation and oppression, peace was achieved. Your framing is flawed , it is framed as equal sides. Not the reality a colonial apartheid state.
wait wait waittttttt
from your analogue, you are mixing things up.
- ANC = palestinian nationalists
- south african majority = palestinians
- afrikaners = ottoman / british
- other minorities, ex: indians = zionists
south africa is not a good analogue since it's fate is different from that of palestine, and you are making this obtuse analogue to stir up feelings of decolonisation as a sort of nationalism
www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/
Think you are missing the point. This wasn’t an analogy about the actors , but rather the framing.
During apartheid , and towards the end plenty were making arguments for gradual control ; gradual processes which just would have further perpetuated oppression. I was highlighting the similarities to that. We also had people saying the ‘blacks’ just want to ‘kill the whites’ and it would result in violence.
Your mapping of roles is completely incorrect, Indians cannot be the Zionist since they were an oppressed minority and did not have power. Equating Afrikaners to ottomans / British is incoherent.
You, and the original comment completely ignores the power imbalance as was the case in apartheid South Africa. This framing further perpetuates oppression and is a way to prop up the apartheid state.
I won’t post all of the evidence here confirming that Israel functions as an apartheid state. Numerous reports exist that describe and draw the comparison.
The link to Orwell……….?
> During apartheid , and towards the end plenty were making arguments for gradual control ; gradual processes which just would have further perpetuated oppression. I was highlighting the similarities to that. We also had people saying the ‘blacks’ just want to ‘kill the whites’ and it would result in violence.
If you are then making comparison to modern times instead of colonialism, then still not really applicable to gaza since gaza was not occupied Oct 7th. Therefore, Israel (colonization conspiracies aside) had no interest in gaza except for security.
I do believe the apartheid example / comparison makes sense when thinking of the west bank, and I do believe myself the west bank is experiencing settler colonization and apartheid conditions along that settler boundary.
If you do not believe that zionists in palestine were an oppressed minority until the mass immigration in the 1930s and the failed arab revolts, I suggest you restudy the history. Palestine would have easily ended up like Uganda if the Palestinians hadn't made strategic errors / failed their invasion of the newly declared state of Israel.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indians_in_Uganda
The Orwell link is a great read, and part of it suggests that both decolonization and underdog-centered pacifism are forms of nationalism. Here is a quote that I love, heavily relates to the troubles in ireland and some reactions to the current gazan war:
"But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of the western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough."
Israel has no apartheid . And they are majority minorities from other middle Eastern countries .
This is a common hasbara talking point/framing. Yet
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-y...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_apartheid
https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/04/27/abusive-israeli-policies...
My concern is the politicians are suddenly flip flopping because they realize in the short term Israel is close to exterminating the entire population of Gaza. Perhaps they will let a pittance of food aid through to prolong the genocide so Netanyahu can stay in power. I have little confidence in US leadership actually having a change of heart now.
Exactly. We are dealing with demons, anyone who thinks they’re actually changing is delusional
it's worth noting that joe biden lied about trying to get a ceasefire, as we now know. So it's worth being skeptical, though of course I agree that ultimately what matters are results.
Do you have a source for your claim? The Biden administration did present a ceasefire plan <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Gaza_war_ceasefire>. If not that, then I don't know enough about the situation to find what you're referring to.
https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/the-biden-admin...
The Biden administration also kept publically decrying the situation in Gaza while also promising full support and increasing weapon shipments to Israel. Saying one thing and doing the exact opposite over and over again.
Cite?
But in the scenario above, is this necessarily flip-flopping? Saying "Israel deserved a chance to protect itself, but now that they are going way overboard, it's time for some tough love instead" seems reasonable to me, and doesn't imply any kind of changing one's mind.
Would it help to think of them as partially being mirrors rather than people? Needing to win elections means they can't push too hard against whatever's popular just because they might not like it.
I would buy that argument if they followed the popular will more often than the "monied will". Most of the western ruling class having financial interests in weapon production through investments in the MIC drives government-level support for Israel's war on Gaza, while Palestine has had popular support for much longer than the current conflict.
Politicians respond to pressure.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Cane and stick. Politician who come over to your site get the cane, those who continue to support Netanyahu get the stick. Always give cornered animals a way out unless you want to have them put up more fight than you want.
This is the smart thing to do if your goal is to build a broad movement that achieves effective change in the real world. When serving emotions and looking edgy to your viewers online is more important than stopping the genozide then you should go the vindictive route and purity-test each person joining your side. Pragmatism is not selling well online, the crowd wants to see blood.
That means usually ot serves well to take such unappologetic stances with a grain of salt, while they sound strong, they are not usually effective positions for a broad societal movement. That btw. doesn't mean you have to forget any politicians positions earlier in this conflict. That's what I meant with "We can walk and chew gum at the same time". Makw the movement broad and keep track who was on your side early on.
I know this is a trivial thing to point out in the context of such a discussion but the expression you want is "carrot and stick". A cane is a kind of stick that you can also hit with, the verb "to cane" means to hit someone with a stick.
Thanks for the correction. English is not my first language, in German the equivalent is "Zuckerbrot und Peitsche" (sugar-bread and whip) I must have somehow made the mental leap from "sugar" via "sugarcane" to "cane" and completely forgot about the carrot.
Politicians represent your mum and neighbour.
Flip Flopping! Thank the FSM we have a stupid term for this, a critique that only seems to apply to people with a (D) next to their name.
I think when a politician takes a principled stance, we should applaud them and encourage them to continue on this path.
It's not principled in the least. Politicians knew what they were supporting from the onset, but society at large was supposed to act like they ostensibly usually do and just start putting Israeli flags in their social media profiles after the media spammed out 'they're just defending themselves' and ran appeals to emotion enough. That didn't work, so politicians are swapping their public positions.
And this is important because what usually then happens in these scenarios is that there will be some token vote about ceasing shipping bombs to Israel which are then being dropped on civilians en masse, and it'll fail by 51/49, but the Senators who voted for it will be the ones who are up for elections in 2026. And as soon as they get back in power, they'll go back to cheering on Israel, while the next group up for election in 2028 will suddenly start taking a 'principled stance', with the net result that we can just manage to fail the next vote by 51/49 again as well.
Now - if these sort of motions start actually passing, then I'll happily eat crow. But, in general, this scenario has played out repeatedly in various forms, and it never changes.
So let's make the assumption that all politicians flip-flop in their opinions, depending on what the popular opinion is these days.
Given that assumption: If our goal is to get politics to take a tougher stance on a foreign government does it really matter that much how they arrived there?
I get it, I too would love my politicians to hold principled humanitarian values and I know it doesn't feel good and it is certainly not ideologically pure, but those are the politicians we got now, if they come over at our side we could just welcome them with a knife hidden behind our back. We can always vote them out of office next time anyways, what we need now is their representation and vote.
IMO this mixes up two issues (genocide in Gaza and the wrong people in political office) and tries to solve both. But one of the issues has a different urgency than the others and I am afraid by purity-testing too hard a broad movement against Netanjahu is delayed.
If you don't want a specific politician vote for someone else next time and ensure there is a viable alternative when you do. That means you have lists who flip-flopped and try to tackle those who can be easily replaced first. But it is a separate problem.
Reread what you're responding to. The point is that there will be only lipservice and exploitation of voters. No tougher stances will be taken, except in public rhetoric, which is meaningless.
Yes it does matter!!!
How can you expect your politicians to “lead” if they have such an inability to not only see the actual facts on the ground, but lack the elementary foresight to see what’s going to happen?
This shit wasn’t something that’s been kept a secret, it’s been widely widely documented for nearly 20 months. The base the politicians claim to represent have been literally screeching about this for over a year, and yet nothing?
If a politician can’t even denounce genocide, how can someone expect them to fight for them?
So lets say you have twi buttons and you can only press one:
Don't get me wrong, I like neither option and whether I personally would chose A or B depends a lot on the specifics. But purely from a "we want to achieve tangible political goals"-position the former is superior.If this is a false dichotomy (it might be), tell me.
It’s not about someone changing their mind when there’s new evidence. The evidence was already there, it was being live-streamed and talked about since the beginning.
The vast majority of the politicians in America receive funding from AIPAC. They know what happens when they deviate from their supplied talking points, and right now the public outcry has grown to the point where those same politicians who would say they “want Palestinians free of Hamas” while those same Palestinians were being wholesale slaughtered for nearly two years, are now suddenly changing their tune.
They are not trustworthy full stop. And they should not be granted the forgiveness while they consistently either openly endorsed the actions of Israel by either words or voting to send more weapons to kill Palestinians
I'm in the same camp tbh. I think Israel should not be putting all of Gaza under siege. It's not moral. This will also not work because the Hamas doesn't care about Gazans. It's also not helping Israel (other than some internal politics between Netanyahu and his right wing extremists).
Totally agree on people need to be able to change their minds based on new data and as the situation changes. I'm personally constantly trying to evaluate that. You do need to keep in mind though that data coming out of Gaza is still to a large extent controlled by Hamas. There is definitely a humanitarian crisis but it's amplified by Hamas for obvious reasons (trying to force Israel into stopping the war and allowing it to recover Gaza). Hamas is also benefiting from the crisis and it's actively fueling it. It also needs to have enough food for its fighters to keep going.
Technically from an international law perspective a siege is legal as long as civilians have a chance to leave. Israel can legally lay siege to Gaza city and the northern Gaza strip as long as it allows civilians to move south. This isn't working because the civilians don't want to move, or are forced to not move, or can't move, or have no place to really go to, so it's just not a good idea.
Another thing you're missing IMO is that some of the people attacking Israel here aren't generally in the camp of supporting Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas or use force to free the hostages. If your starting point is either denying Oct 7th or trying to somehow excuse Hamas or even support Hamas then you are not in the same camp as these politicians and you'll never be.
For the people who genuinely care and want to see an end to the war and a path forward, we need to find a way to get Hamas to yield. If there was a path that could get us there from an immediate ceasefire and end to the war I'd get behind it. It's not clear that path exists. In the absence of this path then Israel can and should do better to aid civilians but the war is not going to end.
You are framing it as if the problem is Hamas and the existence of Hamas.
Isn't the existence of Hamas only strengthened by the war, by the actions of Israel ?
I would argue that the October 7 attack was highly beneficial for the expansionist plans of Israel. Highly beneficial for Netanyahu, who now can stay in power under martial law instead of fearing prosecution for his previous crimes.
Hamas will not magically cease to exist when Palestinians are treated like that.
Imagine the amount of hate that is brewed against Israel again right now. Would you ever forget or forgive if as a child you were starved, and witnessed endless horrors ? Your city in shambles, rubble and blood everywhere, death and misery wherever you look at ?
Let's quote Netanyahu himself in 2019, at a party meeting:
> Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy — to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."
How do you not see this as circular reinforcement?
Hamas justifies it's attacks by pointing to Israel, and Israel justifies it by pointing to Hamas.
Things like Hamas still holding 50 hostages, rockets still being fired into Israel etc.
Israel will not magically stop when Hamas still exists.
> Imagine the amount of hate that is brewed against Israel again right now. Would you ever forget or forgive if as a child you were starved, and witnessed endless horrors ? Your city in shambles, rubble and blood everywhere, death and misery wherever you look at ?
And so do attacks like October 7th. Of course Israelis want to get rid of Hamas. The majority of Israelis don't want to genocide the Gazans, but like you pointed out, Netanyahu and his goons do.
> The majority of Israelis don't want to genocide the Gazans.
According to a recent poll:
Nearly half (47 percent) of respondents agreed that "when conquering an enemy city, the Israel Defense Forces should act as the Israelites did in Jericho under Joshua's command – killing all its inhabitants."
82 percent of respondents supported the expulsion of Gaza's residents
56 percent favored expelling Palestinian citizens of Israel
https://archive.is/Fg4OX#selection-659.66-659.274
The Germans did, because they love their children more than they hate their enemies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_German...
These are very, very different situations. You are comparing nations and cultures that have be living side by side for thousands of years to a 77 year old state (Israel) occupying territory that has been Palestinean for thousands of years.
Israel and Ozzy Osbourne were born on the same year. People that were born after Ozzy, can no longer return to their birthplace, because it is now Israel and they are besieged in Gaza.
Not really Palestinian to be fair. Jewish, Greek, Roman, Islamic, Ottoman, and finally British, in that order. Palestinians then started a war of aggression to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state, and then lost that war. You can not lose what you never had. If you want to talk about occupying, why is the al-aqsa mosque built where it was, if not for trying to erase native ties to the land?
Native ties? Who the do you think the Palestinians are? Did they just appear one day and occupied Palestine?
The Palestinians are the natives of Palestine. They literally have direct ancetrial ties all the way back to the original Hebrew occupants.
Like many people, they've been occupied, mixed, and they've adopted the religions and customs of their occupiers. That doesn't mean they've not been inhabiting the land for centuries.
Are they less deserving of their ancetrial homes simply because European colonists decided they wanted a religious ethnostate?
My family has ancetrial ties to Britain, do I get to go there and kick out someone from their home because of my ancetrial ties?
Heck I likely have Roman ties, do I get to go to Italy to reclaim my birthright?
> If you want to talk about occupying, why is the al-aqsa mosque built where it was, if not for trying to erase native ties to the land?
The second temple was destroyed in 70 CE and the first Al Aqsa mosque was likely built in 600s. What is your argument here? Both religions share a common lineage so it's not unusual that Islam would revere the same location as an older religion with the same origin story.
You are forgetting the Natufians, residing in the Levant from 15,000 to 11,000 BC. Should we revive the Natufian identity and claim the land ? They are the OG Levantians after all.
Can you see how this makes no sense ? Why create so much pain and suffering ?
actually they didn't https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkssturm they heil-hitler-hamased to the bitter end.
They just had a working state with working institutions that carried on, prussian, protestant bureaucracy carrying on even after the die hard nazis had died out.
Islamic culture is unable to produce these institutions .
I mean I was trying to show that the Germans don't suicide bomb busses in Kaliningrad even after their own much worse version of the Nakba. In general, most losers of wars, especially of wars of aggression that they themselves started, don't spend then next century suicide bombing and turning down deals that they deem beneath them. They take what they can get and get on with their lives, being productive and improving the future for their children.
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You're confusing hatred for Palestinians with hatred for Gazans. Most Israelis do not hate Palestinians. There might be some. There's definitely a lot of hate to Gazans after Oct 7th which is understandable. As to the "what are we supposed to do" part- What are they supposed to do? How would you navigate this better after Oct 7th given the setup/hostages etc.?
Israel has officially said many times they are not targeting civilians but they are targeting Hamas. Israel is even arming Palestinians that oppose Hamas: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyn2m9yk0vo - "Netanyahu confirms Israel arming clans opposed to Hamas in Gaza"
So Israel is certainly not universally saying that everyone in Gaza is Hamas and the official Israeli position is one of separating the uninvolved from Hamas.
There is a lot of nuance here. Some Israelis, including soldiers, do consider the entire Gaza population to be complicit in Hamas' crimes. A large number of Palestinians support Hamas, support the Oct 7th attack on Israel, and there are even "civilians" who participated in murder and looting on Oct 7th and in abuse of hostages. Some hostages were held by "civilians". Hamas makes it intentionally hard/impossible to distinguish between a civilian and a combatant and they report all their deaths as civilian deaths.
The devastation of large swaths of the Gaza strip is real. But not all of Gaza is devastated. There are still some parts of Gaza city that are not. You can't tell and media will show you the parts that are not. You can notice however how the narrative magically switches from "Israel destroyed all the hospitals" to "injured people treated in hospitals from some IDF attack" as is convenient without people for a second questioning how the hospitals are still functioning despite Israel supposedly having bombed them all to the ground. We also had images early on in the war that told us "everything is devastated" but yet the IDF keeps toppling more buildings (that supposedly according to the media were already all bombed a year ago). The various UN groups still have buildings, warehouses, etc. In Gaza.
There's little doubt Gazans are suffering a lot in this war. But they're definitely staging a lot of stuff as well. Anything to manipulate public opinions is game. Truth is not a requirement. They've shared images from Yemen and Sudan claiming those to be Palestinians. They misrepresent other medical conditions as starvation. Check out: https://gazawood.com/
Now I'm not naive, both sides are pushing a narrative, the Palestinians are actually suffering, but it's not as clear cut as you're trying to paint it either.
Who benefits and who loses from news of "starvation in Gaza"? Hamas benefits. Israel loses. If you look you'll find images out of Gaza of people trying to make a buck by selling aid packages in the markets. How many times since the war began have we heard about famine and starvation? The truth is likely somewhere in the middle. There are likely poor people or people who can't fight with the others that steal aid who are doing badly. There are people who can afford to or who use violence to procure food for themselves (e.g. Hamas). There is certainly not an abundance of food and certainly whatever is available isn't the most nutritious.
Gazans have and do use civilian infrastructure extensively for military purposes. They booby trap houses. They have tunnels running everywhere.
I was willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt on this before the 2024 World Central Kitchen Aid convoy attack. That really made me re-evaluate what Israel's general standard level of carefulness is, and how much they weigh the balance between avoiding noncombatants when pursuing military targets. And there have been multiple other incidents since then in which international aid workers have been targeted, whether purposefully or accidentally. There's no way to attribute that to Hamas militants pretending to be civilians or sheltering in proximity. I don't believe that any of those incidents would have happened if the Israeli military were applying an appropriate standard of care in target selection, which in turn inclines me toward believing almost any other claim about civilian casualties.
I also think unless they want to kill or evict all two million Gazans, Israel's #1 priority in this conflict should be convincing Gazans that the Israelis are the good guys and Hamas are the bad guys. No matter how you spin it, they are failing at this, and they're using the wrong sort of weapons. It's merely sowing seeds for another three generations of unshakable hatred. That is not at all good for Israel but it might be just fine for Benjamin Netanyahu.
I'm going to agree with you the standard of carefulness has been at times pretty low. If it moves and looks like it might be Hamas - shoot it. I was also not happy about that incident and others. There were also plenty of friendly fire incidents (where soldiers were killed by other soldiers) and the incident where hostages were killed by other soldiers. The level of "discipline" in the IDF isn't what it used to be and definitely the mood in Israel in the early days of the war was of revenge (though the military is not supposed to be thinking like that).
The other side of this coin is when you fight this kind of fight, in a dense urban environment, where combatants intentionally blend with civilians, and use any imaginable tactic they can to attack you, and put weapon stashes in civilian homes, and tunnel entrances etc. Where the enemy may even want to increase civilian casualties on their side, and when you have infantry and armor fighting day in and day out with no sleep and under constant pressure. You are going to have more of these incidents. There might be some at the margin that are actually war crimes but many are just what happens in this kind of war and in this specific scenario.
I'm not going to judge those people when I'm not in their shoes. Including the people who ordered the strike on that convoy. I am Israeli (who hasn't lived there in a long time, but I served in the distance past in the IDF) and I have spoken to people who have been in Gaza. So I know targeting an international aid group is not who we are. I also know that if it was decided that they were Hamas then they'd get obliterated, so that part is not a surprise.
The other thing I do know for sure, is that Hamas started this war and that Israel can not accept Hamas in Gaza after the war and it can not accept Hamas holding hostages after the war.
I'm not sure I see what Israel can do here in terms of Gazan perception of Israel or why it even matters. Many Gazans hate the Hamas but they have no control.
Thanks, that's a very reasonable comment on a sensitive subject, and I appreciate that.
I don't disagree with you. But because this is a predictable result, it's also part of the calculus that Israel has to weigh as part of the choice to deploy its soldiers in those positions in the first place.
I do think that Israel doesn't have to be fighting this fight; instead it could be playing the soft power game in Gaza much better, and it's barely even trying to. In my opinion the carrot almost always works better than the stick, and Israel should be throwing a Marshall plan at Gaza, literally truck-tons of money making Palestinians rich and happy, under the one condition that they turn over the hostages and any Hamas militants who don't surrender. All that would cost pennies compared to the costs of waging war (and the eventual rebuilding, and the next century of anti-terrorism policing, all of which Israel will undoubtedly be footing the bill for). Instead Israel is choosing to stir the pot in the West Bank at the same time, removing any chance of getting the Palestinian Authority as an ally against Hamas, and burning through what was left of the post-WW2 international goodwill that got it statehood in the first place.
It's understandable and predictable but I think it's still deeply mistaken, and very sad for me to watch.
I do think that Israel doesn't have to be fighting this fight; instead it could be playing the soft power game in Gaza much better...
What makes you think that?
You mention the Marshall Plan, but the Marshall Plan worked in part because of Germany's unconditional surrender and the Allies complete assumption of control of Germany. If Israel wanted to follow the same game plan, they would have to do what they are doing, until Hamas was utterly defeated militarily.
It's important to recognize that Germany's surrender was not conditioned on any aid or support or anything else. Imagine if the Marshall Plan had been started prior to Germany's defeat -- it would only have prolonged the conflict.
It's a straightforward conclusion from research on the dynamics of grievance-fueled violence. Basically, unlike Nazi Germany, the strength of Hamas is proportional to how many aggrieved civilians there are. Every airstrike that kills one fighter creates two more down the road, out of the aggrieved survivors. I'm pretty sure Hamas understood this and launched the Oct 7th attack with the goal of provoking the harshest possible reaction, and Israel played right into their hands.
Their strength in armaments almost doesn't matter; even if every tunnel is collapsed and every rocket launch site obliterated, even if a ceasefire is reached and the hostages returned, even if Hamas leadership capitulates, you still end up with two million angry people swearing revenge for the injustices they've suffered.
There are two stable equilibria that this can settle into: no grievances, or no surviving civilians. I think the former is the only hope although Israel is making all the wrong moves. I am sure there are right-wing hardliners who would push for the ethnic cleansing route, but most Israelis are peace-minded moderates who would never forgive that option, and so I really think that result would eventually collapse the state of Israel from the inside out, doing more damage than any Hamas rockets ever could.
The only path to a sustainable peace is an unconditional surrender, and the equivalent of Nurenberg trials for the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv.
There was a ton of money thrown into Gaza: "agencies spent nearly $4.5 billion in Gaza, including $600 million in 2020 alone. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, aid to Palestinians totaled over $40 billion between 1994 and 2020." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_Palestini...
This is not a problem that has a money solution. At least not at this point. One big misunderstanding of the "west" is that everyone wants the things that "they" do. Like a nice car, house, money, Costco, Walmart. Doesn't work like that.
Oddly enough the Palestinian Authority is siding with Israel in that Hamas can not control Gaza after the war. They just made a statement to that effect. The PA depends on Israel, Israel supports the PA, the Palestinians don't always like the PA. The PA is arguably happy with the IDF going after Hamas and PIJ in the West Bank in places like Jenin ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenin_Brigades ) because Hamas wants to overthrow the PA just like it did in Gaza. The Israeli government makes a bit of a show of being against the PA while actually knowing very well it needs the PA and collaborating with the PA on security. OTOH the current government does not want the PA to get control of Gaza.
The "west bank" problem right now is that the extremists amongst the west bank settlers have more or less free reign by the government to attack Palestinians (and sometimes other Israelis). This is a result of Netanyahu's brittle coalition and the war. The Israeli right wing has always wanted to make sure there can not be a two state solution. What they still haven't quite wrapped their heads around is that they will instead have a one state solution. Really that would appear to be the only solution of sorts. Oddly enough the international community is still stuck in this "two state solution" despite it being completely unacceptable to both sides in this conflict and having proven to not work.
I don't think it's really worth going into the fine details here, because I'm sure we've both done our respective research on this, but I do again appreciate that you keep presenting reasonable responses on a charged topic.
$40 billion over 26 years does certainly sound like a lot of aid money, but it works out to just around $300 per Palestinian per year, which is, I think, not even enough to counterbalance the economic damage that Israel imposes on Palestine (and especially Gaza) through movement restrictions and trade barriers and blockades. It certainly pales in comparison to the budget of the Israeli military (which, admittedly, obviously has more on its plate than just Palestine, and couldn't be entirely repurposed towards aid). At any rate it's not in the realm of what I contemplate as a Marshall plan approach.
And for it to work, that aid all has to come prominently stamped "courtesy of your friends in Israel". International aid from other sources can improve living standards but doesn't build much goodwill with the neighbours.
But I agree with you on the rest of what you say.
Egypt also has a border with Gaza. Can't trade and aid come in via that route?
This is a widespread misunderstanding; there is no border anymore between Gaza and Egypt, as it was occupied by the IDF in the first year of this war. So unless Egypt went to war, there was nothing they could do.
And even before this war, the peace treaty gave Israel big control over the Rafa crossing. They have a camera and watch everything going in and out, and can ask for extra searches if they don't like what they see. And in all, it's just for individuals, not cargo. Whatever cargo goes through, there is just a limited amount that requires prior approval from Israel.
So Egypt really doesn't have any power over the situation unless they are willing to risk a war, which they can't win.
Yes, if you want the Gazans to develop warm feelings toward Egypt rather than Israel.
> I do think that Israel doesn't have to be fighting this fight; instead it could be playing the soft power game in Gaza much better, and it's barely even trying to.
That would normally be a great plan, however, that doesn’t work with an enemy like Hamas. It doesn’t work with a people so thoroughly indoctrinated by Islamist extremists for decades. It’s something that us westerners just don’t comprehend readily.
It’s challenging to know what solution would work that doesn’t end up being as brutal as the Islamic countries often are to their own citizenry.
The wars in Yemen and Somalia are just as terrible as in Gaza but with 10’s of times the number of people and a fraction of the world aid Gaza gets. It shows what happens when those governments aren’t in strict control.
It’s also why almost every non-Islamic state in the Muslim world ends up being brutal military dictatorship. Hussein’s Ba’athist (atheist) party survived by being more brutal than the religious extremists. But in the west we think we can bring democracy or prosperity to such cultures and that it’ll flourish. The US spent trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan and decisively lost. Hundreds of thousands of people died and nothing changed.
Hamas literally kills and tortures any dissenters to gain power and to retain it.
Hamas infiltrated every Mosque in Gaza and installed their own clerics where they indoctrinate children from the youngest age that destroying Israel, killing Jews, and being a jihadist martyr is the loftiest goal.
Hamas isn’t shy about this either. Their original charter reads:
> The Motto of the Islamic Resistance Movement Article Eight > "Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model to be followed, the Koran its constitution, Jihad its way, and death for the sake of Allah its loftiest desire."
It states its goal is to not rest until the Quranic prophecy is fulfilled:
> the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to realize the promise of Allah, no matter how long it takes. > The Prophet, Allah's prayer and peace be upon him, says: 'The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,' except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews.' (Recorded in the Hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim)."
I watch videos from Gaza and hope and pray that the Palestinians there will realize that Hamas cares nothing for the lives of their children or them. Only for their ideology. Then perhaps Israel can do what you suggest.
Israel is in a tough place. The easiest option for them would to become what many people claim they already are and become right wing religious extremists on par with the Arab dictators. However, even now most Israelis don’t want that I believe. They’ve returned the Sinai to Egypt in the past. They withdrew from Gaza. What they got was Oct 7th.
> however, that doesn’t work with an enemy like Hamas
Except that it was the currently Israeli government to prop up Hamas power in the Gaza strip in order to de-legitimize the other (non terrorist) Palestinian political authority the PLO.
It's very convenient to have a terror organization as your counter party when you want to crush any hope for a two state solution.
In fact, the current Israeli government and intelligence helped Hamas fund and arm itself. And they knew about a huge terror attack coming and did very little to prevent it or defend their own people.
Even if Netanyahu illicitly provided some support to Hamas as a counter to the PLO, Hamas still was voted in with a majority vote and then took over complete control of Gaza and indoctrinated the people to their extremist views.
I agree the current Israeli government should have continued working with the PLO. Netanyahu has been a terrible leader for Israel. However they didn’t create Hamas either.
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan also indoctrinated children like crazy, but fortunately it only took a few years of friendly exposure to American occupiers (and lots of chocolate) to undo the damage, and by the 50s they were waving American flags and wearing blue jeans. Israel will have a lot more work to do with almost 80 years of grievances piled up against it, but as they say, the second best time to plant a tree is today.
Some people accuse Israel of being a colonizer. I disagree. The proof that Israel is not a colonizer power is that every colonial power understood much better than Israel how to control a hostile foreign population. The trick is that no society is truly homogeneous, so you find a dividing line and split them along it, and richly reward the side that sides with you.
Israel needs to provide as much help as possible to Hamas' opposition, and undermine their state power. It can do that relatively easily because it can shelter dissidents and their families out of reach of Hamas, amplify their stories, and make Palestinian voices the most prominent ones that denounce Hamas. It can sponsor a government in exile and work to grow their legitimacy. It had a perfect chance to do so with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank but so far Israel has almost completely blown it.
I don’t know what to say to you. For everyone else, please look up the settlement videos pre Oct 7. They are made by Vox, Vice, probably even more credible outlets like the BBC. Basically they build suburbs literally inside the West Bank, and connect them through super highways so Israelis don’t even feel the difference between living in Israel or knee-deep inside Palestine (20-30min drive from Jerusalem to an illegal suburb in the West Bank).
Israeli government is relentless with this. Those suburbs are incentivized with subsidies for the settlers, more so than people inside Israel itself.
Oct 7 was horrifying, but for a nation that wants to expand out and build suburbs inside Palestine, it was a lose-win situation. Oct 7 was a loss, but now they don’t have to pretend about building those suburbs anymore. They can just say “each home is on top of a Hamas tunnel”, and boom (literally), clear lot for new housing.
Anyway, the deed is done. All other discourse on this thread is between Israeli apologists and just about everyone else that is not morally bankrupt.
Last but not least, everyone apologizing for Israeli, please save your faces. Please. IDF does not even allow foreign journalists into Gaza. That’s all you need to know. But again, I believe the apologists are no longer trying to save face. It’s an insidious “well, what needed to be done, needed to be done”. Beyond immoral.
——
Prayer is in order, as I don’t know what else anyone can do (it’s all be done).
My hope is the Israeli people at the very least prosecute war crimes internally just for the purity of their own soul, and educate their future generations on a modest truth, that being - “we Israelis in 2025 could not find a better solution, and may you never seek a solution we sought in those dark times. May you be better, for we sinned on a scale the bathroom mirror in the morning won’t allow us to forget”.
Before my words are twisted, let me make it clear I am pacifist. I have to literally turn away whenever scenes from Gaza are shown. I don’t support Hamas or the IDF. I believe Hamas commits child abuse by indoctrinating young Palestinians into terrorism. It’s literally a carbon copy situation of black gang violence that’s perpetuated by gang culture (Chiraq, Chicago gang violence). Yeah, believe it or not, teenagers are impressionable and vulnerable everywhere in the world, stop radicalizing them. Hell, we can’t even stop the kids from entering the manosphere here in America, they’ll gravitate right to Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan.
The children cannot fight an endless fucking war, and that is what both the Israelis and Palestinians are doing to these children. It’s child abuse on an epic scale.
Now, in America, we’ve got some sense not to virtually nuke Chiraq, but over there in the Middle East, they have no qualms about bull-dozing the problem.
You might be misreading the comment you're replying to. I agree with what you say.
Aren't your standards for morality of target selection unrealistically high? I don't think US had a better one in any conflict it participated. It went as far as defining "enemy combatant" as anyone within blast radius. War is brutal and messy. Atrocious things always happen. It's very hard to take any moral stance except blaming the one who started killing and waiting till the matter is resolved. It's not perfect, but this world is very far from perfect in every aspect.
Maybe? Maybe not. I'm not an American and my statement is no stronger than condemnations I have made throughout my life about the US' conduct throughout the War on Terror (in both the Bush and Obama years and beyond). I believe that drone-bombing weddings in Pakistan creates more terrorists than it kills, and that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake from day one. I believe the war in Vietnam (and the bombing of Laos and Cambodia) was an atrocity and without it there would have never been a Khmer Rouge. I also decry the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the firebombing of Dresden, but I am more willing to accept that that kind of murderous excess can happen in a total war for survival against a near-equal.
What I am sure of is that Israel's situation is not a war against a near-equal. The kind of rules of engagement I'm talking about are par for the course in peacekeeping operations, and there's no reason Israel cannot be employing them. Israel is shooting fish in a barrel, and if there's not enough time for them to double-check their homework on a missile strike then they have plenty of time to wait for a cleaner opportunity to take a shot. More importantly, I think that being extremely delicate is not only a moral imperative but a strategic one. Realistically, bombs dropped on Gaza can do more damage to Israel than to Hamas, both by causing fresh grievance in Palestinian hearts, which is the sustenance on which Hamas feeds for support and soldiers, and by gaining them sympathy abroad. I've been watching this happen in real time and it's playing out like clockwork, and I am sure that Israeli strategists see it too. But I also think Israel's loss is Netanyahu's win, and the stronger Hamas gets, the more justification Netanyahu has to push things further. So I see a feedback loop playing out in which Netanyahu and Hamas are on the same side, buffing each other while Israelis and Palestinians both lose.
(It also goes without saying that I also, obviously, denounce Hamas and the Oct 7th attacks, just like I denounce Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Un, Putin, and other villains. But I rarely see any point wasting breath on that kind of denouncement, at least not until I meet someone who thinks otherwise.)
Fair enough. Personally I don't believe taking life is ever moral, but I accepted that the world doesn't share my morality and I don't anticipate it's going to in my lifetime.
>You're confusing hatred for Palestinians with hatred for Gazans.
No, the post you are responding to is correct.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/24/video-jewish-e...
> You're confusing hatred for Palestinians with hatred for Gazans. Most Israelis do not hate Palestinians.
Hate is an emotion and hard to quantify; what's easier to measure are actions and intentions.
https://archive.is/Fg4OX
E.g. 56 percent of Israeli Jews polloed favored expelling Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Nearly half (47 percent) of respondents agreed that "when conquering an enemy city, the Israel Defense Forces should act as the Israelites did in Jericho under Joshua's command – killing all its inhabitants.
Interesting that you link to gazawood.com - the site is very cagey about who runs it, at least in its About Us page. However on its donation page aimed at Israelis it proudly advertises itself as a hasbara site. If you're trying to do hasbara here, at least have the decency to cite somewhat credible sources.
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I'm not blind to the realities of Israel having blocked some aid and the realities of living in a war zone. I'm sure the Palestinians are suffering and I wouldn't want to live in Gaza these days. Israel will and is exerting the maximum possible pressure. However it is not starving the population.
You are blind to the Hamas' control of the narrative coming out of Gaza. You are also blind to the Hamas' ability to impact the situation and to their absolute control of any word coming out of the mouth of a "hospital director" or a "journalist" who are either Hamas or operating under the threat of death, torture, and violence to themselves and their families if they don't say what they're asked to say.
Here's some coverage: https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-us-humanitarian-envoy-pans-... It's not super favorable for Israel but has some nuance that you're missing.
The article is an interview with: "David Satterfield, who served during early months of war, says dangerous transport routes, looting by desperate Palestinians severely hinder ability to pick up and deliver aid"
... "UN trucks repeatedly looted, including by thousands of desperate Palestinians, unsure when they and their families will receive their next meal."
"UN trucks repeatedly looted, including by thousands of desperate Palestinians, unsure when they and their families will receive their next meal."
"Moreover, looting carried out for purposes of commoditization will also dissipate because the value of assistance in the marketplace will drop due to the rise in supply."
So Palestinians are stealing food from other Palestinians to make a buck.
"Satterfield said “there’s no question” that the terror group has worked to take “political advantage and certainly some physical substantive advantage out of the aid distribution process.”
Hamas operatives have made a point of “flaunting” their presence at aid sites in a message to Palestinians that the group has no intention of ceding its role in the distribution process."
Israel is starving the population. Inability to accept that is inability to accept reality.
I'm sure you also wouldn't like a person who completely accepts that Izrael is starving the population of Gaza, both the reality of it and everything about it.
>David Satterfield, who served during early months of war
So we should not trust "hospital director" or "journalist" with scare quotes as they MIGHT be Hamas, but happily take IDF soldier's words as truth. The transparent bias is laughable.
I guess also that Israel forbids aid airplanes to take air footage of Gaza because Hamas bends the light to make it seem like IDF is committing war crimes. How devilish of them.
The nuance of all you wrote is missing the context in which it is written:
Israel is a settler-colonial white supremacist occupation and reporting on the "nuance" of how that situation has evolved over 76+ years without acknowledging Israel has no right to exist only serves the genocidal occupation of Palestine. We need to abolish all white supremacy projects, including those from Zionist entities.
> What are they supposed to do? How would you navigate this better after Oct 7th given the setup/hostages etc.?
The real answer is 19th century warfare in the tunnels where all of Israel's tactical advantages disappeared.
But instead they cowardly ordered 2,000 lb bombs that didn't accomplish any of their stated goals and killed their own hostages. Instead they designated everyone in Gaza as a terrorist and killed their own hostages when they managed to escape because everyone has the same Semitic phenotypes (awwwwkwaaaard). Instead they put their freshman IDF conscripts on social media to claim any dissent of the military strategy was incitement against Jewish people's right to exist. On the social media front, I'm not sure what's more embarrassing, getting paid to do that, or not getting paid to do that.
try some empathy. if you were conscripted to fight, i don't think your mom would approve of your "19th century warfare" plan. she would want the air force to drop the bombs if there was any improvement to your odds of coming home. she would smack you on the head and say there is nothing "cowardly" about avoiding unnecessary danger
I see what you're saying, IDF soldiers were trigger happy to kill surrendering Semites that were the hostages they were looking for, because their mom said its not cowardly to avoid unnecessary danger.
Thanks for redefining that term, its the substantive comment we needed. I apologize for my chauvinistic idea that avoiding masculine altruism during an actual war to accomplish the actual stated goal might be internationally seen as cowardly.
It’s near impossible to explain to some that 50k dead is equivalent to nuking a place. See, everyone is like “well it’s not like we’re nuking the place” … well actually, that’s … actually what it is.
Hiroshima was 80k dead? How do you achieve a Hiroshima without the blowback of using a Nuke? Heh. You can get the same causality count minus the Nuke fan-fare, IDF lunch special (a bomb sandwich).
since you are so noble, please volunteer for the ukrainian foreign legion, they could use a person of your virtue and honor.
please ignore their warnings of war being mechanized chaos and indiscriminate violence, unintentional causalities never happen in conflict
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_friendly_fire_incident...
> Most Israelis do not hate Palestinians.
LOL 51% of Israelis gave Palestinians a 0 out of 100 score rating of their humanity, according to PCPSR and the Times of Israel poll: https://pcpsr.org/en/node/989
I just think of hate as a very specific emotion.
"When asked about the level of humanity of other side, Palestinians gave Jews an average score of 6 out of 100; Jews gave Palestinians an average score of 14. 51% of Jewish Israelis gave Palestinians a score of zero, and 71% of Palestinians gave the same score to Israelis. One percent of Palestinians gave Israeli Jews a score of 80 or higher, and 2.7% of Israeli Jews scored Palestinians in this range. This question could reflect respondents’ perception of the inherent qualities of the other side, or their assessment of the other side’s behavior, or both."
Here is some older (pre-Oct 7th) but maybe more "color":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dPoDb81OiI - "Israeli Soldiers: Do you hate Palestinians?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=r5168ysQ2rU&t=37... - "Israelis: How much do you hate Palestinians?"
I recommend the ask project on Youtube for people who want to get a little less black and white opinions on these topics.
I think the most salient takeaway is that sentiments between the groups mirror each other. Here's the exact language from the PCPSR:
> Mirror image negative perceptions: Israeli Jews and Palestinians hold near-mirror images regarding the current war: a majority on each side views the other as seeking to commit genocide; each side believes it is the worst victim in the world, and on each side, a large majority believes the other lacks humanity.
I think Israel is disproportionately responsible for the atrocities in this war, given that it's militarily ascendant. But the two groups are about the same in terms of sentiment, which bodes poorly for any future peace in the region (and plays into Israel's standard refrain, i.e. that peace is structurally impossible because Palestinian extremist groups would reward peace with violence (much like how Israeli extremist groups reward peace with violence)).
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You clearly do think it's insightful, since you used one half of the statistic while omitting the other.
The rest of this reads as trolling.
The problem is not the narrative. The problem is Hamas.
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> You Zionists are really not even putting any effort into your hasbara anymore.
Please omit swipes and flamebait from your posts, as the site guidelines ask: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
This is also in your interest, since you can always make your substantive points without it and it will make your comments more persuasive.
edit: I appreciate that you edited that bit out of your comment, but once there are replies, you should make it clear how you edited it. Otherwise you deprive the replies (like this one) of their original context.
Why is an entire comment like his with solid evidence flagged because of 1 mild line, but the parent comment is itself a baseless 1-liner flamebait with zero effort to substantiate but is allowed to stay up? That's not even the worst - some usual suspects are literally using Nazi rhetoric to engage in denial or justification of Genocide, but they get a pass. The line is drawn at "swipes and flamebaits"? Pro-Genocide ? Fine. No swipes and flamebaits tho!
The rules permits posts that are incorrect or unsubstantiated, downvotes handles that. You can see the post was downvoted, so its working as intended.
The rules however do not permit personal attacks and name-calling. You can say the same things without the name calling or attacks.
I agree that the parent comment was a bad HN comment. But it didn't clear the threshold for a mod reply. If we tried to reply to all bad (for HN) comments, we'd run into impossibilities: (1) we'd have to post 10x as many replies, which we can't do; and (2) we'd run to a buzzsaw of "why do you reply to this bad thing and not that other bad thing over there".
What made the difference between that comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718039) and the one I replied to (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718268) was the pejorative 'you', snark, and name-calling in "You Zionists are really not even putting any effort into your hasbara anymore." (this line has since been edited out by the GP commenter). That is a dividing line where we can post mod comments because (1) there aren't so many such posts, so it's feasible, and (2) attacks like that have a particularly bad effect on threads.
> Pro-Genocide ? Fine. No swipes and flamebaits tho!
I hear you, but these two things are on different levels. To explain what I mean, let's assume that I completely agree with you on this topic. Ok? We agree that genocide is wrong and bad—far more than somebody being snarky in an internet comment, right? So wtf is wrong with the mods if they penalize one and not the other? Is "pejorative 'you', snark, and name-calling" worse than genocide? Of course not; only a monster would say so.
The answer is that we're not trying to exclude wrongness and badness in the comments here. I know that sounds bad, but suppose I said "the mods' job is to decide what's true and good and then impose it on everyone else". You wouldn't want that, right? what if we disagreed? Certainly the community as a whole would not want that.
Rather it's your job (i.e. the commenters) to work that out through discussion and argument. The mods' job is to try to keep that discussion and argument respectful* between the players. When we see people crossing that line, we respond. Otherwise we don't respond, even when someone says something which we feel is both wrong and bad, because it's not our place to impose that on the community.
(Btw I posted a bit more on this theme here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44719138)
* For practical purposes "respectful" means in keeping with the guidelines - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
> what if we disagreed?
Yes we should have long philosophical debates about whether starving and exterminating an entire people is genocide or not.
In fact, let's debate so long that it's over by the time we're done.
>The answer is that we're not trying to exclude wrongness and badness in the comments here. I know that sounds bad, but suppose I said "the mods' job is to decide what's true and good and then impose it on everyone else". You wouldn't want that, right? what if we disagreed? Certainly the community as a whole would not want that.
It has been classified by israeli holocaust scholars as Genocide, by israeli human rights groups as Genocide, by the United Nations as Genocide:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holoc... "I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/world/middleeast/israel-g...
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/un-special-c...
but one still has to painstakingly debunk Nazi style propaganda every single time? It's much easier to spread lies than it is to debunk them. Often such posts contain some half truths filled with a bunch of lies, the debunking of which requires knowledge and effort while the fabrication of lies requires zero effort. By the time you debunked the obvious lies, the propagandist has already spammed 10 more comments denying or justifying Genocide with the exact same rhetoric and arguments that Nazis use to deny or justify the holocaust. That's a losing game.
Something also tells me that this won't be equally applied as it's claimed to be applied. I just can't imagine that ycombinator would allow the exact same rhetoric from literal Nazis to justify or deny the holocaust ever happened or that jews inflated or made up the number of victims of the holocaust.
Take the exact same scenario for which that comment got nuked:
A: "Some lazy and evident Nazi lies to justify a Genocide/Holocaust - The problem aren't the Nazis, the problem is the resistance of the Warsaw Ghetto who refuse to be subjugated by our glorious German Reich"
B: " *Here some evidence with sources that debunks your narrative with quotes from your own people.* You Nazis don't even put any effort into your propaganda anymore"*.
Strangely B is treated as the ultimate sin because of one mild line despite being a small fraction among concrete evidence, but somehow that still justifies the nuking of the comment. And it's not just that interaction, but the overall obvious pattern of quick and dirty lies that are spammed with low effort but don't result in any disciplinary actions, while others report that they have been throttled for arguing against Genocide.
I'm not accusing you personally by the way, I'm sure it's brutal keeping up with all of this, but many people have observed these and similar patterns and it's a terrible look. Some people seem to forget that incitement to Genocide is an actual crime.
"Incitement to genocide is a crime in the USA primarily due to its adherence to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This international treaty, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, defines genocide and related acts, including "direct and public incitement to commit genocide," as punishable crimes. The United States ratified this Convention in 1988 and subsequently enacted the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987 (also known as the Proxmire Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1091). This act incorporates the provisions of the Convention into U.S. federal law, making it a federal crime to commit, attempt to commit, conspire to commit, or directly and publicly incite the commission of genocide. Therefore, under U.S. law, anyone found guilty of direct and public incitement to genocide can face severe penalties, including imprisonment."
"Whoever directly and publicly incites another to violate subsection (a) [the genocide offense] shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
Here’s a live video version of exactly what you described. The Sky News anchor is exhausted:
https://youtu.be/28B07vqKinI
It’s Rumsfeld level of denialism.
”I just can't imagine that ycombinator would allow the exact same rhetoric from literal Nazis to justify or deny the holocaust ever happened or that jews inflated or made up the number of victims of the holocaust.”
They allow it because they are human. Not everyone can actually believe a genocide is happening whilst also being defended by what many would consider educated professional peers. See, it’s unbelievable, so have to forgive people who are truly bewildered (”this can’t really be happening, can it?”). It’s really happening , and HN is suffering from the fog of war that an ongoing atrocity creates. If I punch you hard enough, you may not actually perceive what just happened in the contemporaneous. It’s intellectual and moral shell-shock.
Reality check:
Your world is not just software and a first world country with a nice economy, and neighbors and countrymen that would neeever do anything wrong. Your world is full of a lot more sin, believe it.
When they allow the journalists to finally enter Gaza, where reporters will fly a simple $500 drone over Gaza, we’ll see all of our world.
HN calls outa lot of bullshit, and there’s no way that virtue should be put aside for this obvious genocide.
You know why, everyone knows why, but we have to pretend its a mystery.
I think us Zionists are pretty consistent and what we are saying agrees with the objective reality. It's the anti-zionists who are cherry-picking and can't form a coherent argument other than "colonialism" or something and are excusing the agency of Hamas and the Gazans.
It's true that Netanyahu is and was opposed to a Palestinian state and that dividing the Palestinians between Hamas and the PA was strategic in that regard. However he misjudged Hamas as not having motivation or ability to attack Israel. A by the way is that since 2007 Israel has attacked Hamas in Gaza and Hamas attacked Israel as well so it's not exactly like they were pals. It was more of the devil we (thought we) know kind of situation.
But there is a previous there which is the failure of the Oslo accords due to Hamas' suicide bombing campaign on Israel. Hamas bombed the peace process to death (alongside with hundreds of random civilians) and also directly cause the rise of the right in Israel and the change of opinion in the Israeli public from accepting the idea of a two state solution to a belief that Israel can not accept that solution. Dividing the Palestinians as a strategy came after the Palestinians showed Israelis that living side by side is impossible. And if the Israelis needed further proof we got the Oct 7th attack.
It's also worth mentioning that short of re-taking Gaza (which we see is not simple) Israel didn't really have a lot of choices once Hamas took and established itself in Gaza. Maybe the right thing to do was to retake Gaza immediately in 2007. I'm sure the world, including you, would scream bloody murder occupation if that happened. Otherwise there's not a lot that could have been done. The civilian aid that made its way into Gaza and Hamas' hands was also a result of international pressure on Israel under the idea that if there was some sort of stability/prosperity in Gaza that would lead to peace. What happened in practice is Hamas channeled all of that into its military efforts and we see where that led us.
>Hamas bombed the peace process to death (alongside with hundreds of random civilians) and also directly cause the rise of the right in Israel and the change of opinion in the Israeli public from accepting the idea of a two state solution to a belief that Israel can not accept that solution. Dividing the Palestinians as a strategy came after the Palestinians showed Israelis that living side by side is impossible.
Why would the Israelis support Hamas if they were the faction that was attacking them? Wouldn't it have made more sense to support the PA even more?
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Whoa. I just replied to you upthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718657) before seeing this, but you really can't post like this to Hacker News and we ban accounts that do. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules.
Your quotes are not in the article cited, which does say though that
> According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The problem is Likud, which transferred money to Hamas and bolstered it in an attempt to divide the West Bank from Gaza Palestinians.
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These terrorists, yield? Already faulty logic. Their proclaimed goals and historic record show that will never happen and their budget for violence knows no limit.
It's as tough as desalinating water, but removing the civilians from the terrorists must happen. Otherwise the result will either be genocide of the 'salt water', or of the 'plants' the salt in that water is bent on destroying.
What is an acceptable plan for reaching the result of the civilians on both sides being safe? This is a political question, but it is one all must consider; at least as it informs our own votes where we reside.
I'll give you my honest opinion here and a criticism of Israeli government all at once. Israel should have moved the Palestinians civilians into Israel proper, e.g. the Negev. It should have created refugee camps for them there and provided them with all the support/aid while it went after Hamas. They'd be able to filter the people going in, make them surrender their weapons etc. No tunnels, no weapons caches, etc.
It's a very tough one to swallow for Israelis. I'm also not positive it would have worked. But I think it would be worth a try.
I think in the beginning of the war there was some thought of Egypt playing that role but it was pretty clear that wasn't going to happen.
The problem is throughout the war Israel had no appetite/desire to own the problem of Gazan civilians. Israel intentionally left that part to Hamas and the UN and at no time during this conflict has controlled any piece of land with Palestinian civilians.
>I'll give you my honest opinion here and a criticism of Israeli government all at once. Israel should have moved the Palestinians civilians into Israel proper, e.g. the Negev. It should have created refugee camps for them there and provided them with all the support/aid while it went after Hamas. They'd be able to filter the people going in, make them surrender their weapons etc. No tunnels, no weapons caches, etc.
It should have simply returned the refugees to their land. But then they wouldnt be stateless individuals, they would have (minimal, as second class subjects) rights, and present a greater challenge to settlement like those in the west bank. Ultimately this is a settlement project, and distracting from that, and the right of those refugees in gaza to return to their land, is the ultimate point of the conflict.
The return of the so called 1948 refugees to Israel is never going to happen. Other wars from the same era had a lot more refugees and nobody returned anywhere.
Just like the Jewish refugees from Arab countries or Europe are not returning there either.
It the Palestinians are stuck in 1948 over the war they and the Arabs started and lost they're never going to get anywhere. They had a chance when Israel was established to be equal citizens and they decided not to take it. It might be tough, it might not be "just", but that clock is never turning back.
The sad thing is how Palestinians and Arabs treat those people. Everywhere else in the world refugees were taken in. But other than Jordan all Arab countries have decided to just keep those people as refugees for eternity. Including the Palestinians, and Gazans, who treat the refugees like second class people.
All your arguments and justifications sound so hollow in the face of starving palestinians in Gaza being shot while lining up for humanitarian aid. The thing being stuck in the past seem to be your arguments.
But this is happening right now and the majority underage population starving to death right now is on Israel‘s watch.
Polish people got their land back when the Nazis were driven out. I'm sure that looked like it was "not going to happen" for a long time.
When the Nazis were driven out? I hope you mean when the USSR fell, because Poland was under their control for about 45 years. The Red Army entered Poland in 1944.
> Israel should have moved the Palestinians civilians into Israel proper, e.g. the Negev.
This is so silly. Israel is a tiny country. There are countless huge Muslim countries, none of which want to help Gazans.
How many German refugees did the Allies take in WW2?
How many Jewish refugees did the allies take in WW2? This was literally a talking point used by antisemites to demonize Jews (the refugees nobody wanted) in the 1930s. And now the same talking points are being used in the same way by Jewish supremacists (most of whom are Christian by the way) to demonize Palestinians in 2025.
First of all, most of the Palestinian families in Gaza come from Israel. They lived in what is now southern Israel until 1948, when they were driven out in an extremely brutal Israeli military operation (Operation Barak).
Secondly, comparing the Palestinians to Nazi Germany is absurd and grotesque. The Palestinians are an oppressed people who were driven out of their homeland by an invading force in 1947-48, and who have lived in squalid refugee camps ever since. Since 1967, they have lived under direct military occupation by the very people who originally expelled them from their homeland, and are subjected to a racist regime in which their land is slowly taken away, piece by piece. The Palestinians have no country, no passport, no sovereignty, no rights.
Comparing them to the citizens of an industrialized power that tried to conquer Europe is insane.
In 1947, arabs refused the UN partition plan and decided to wage war against jews ( which accepted that plan) to remove them from the map. They were 100% certain to be able to do so, and nobody bet a penny on the jews winning at 1 vs 10.
They never stopped trying to do so since that dat, with the latest example being 2 years ago, on october 7.
Now you can try to blame it on the jews on X, but HN is an educated forum. Those kinds of arguments won't fly here.
"In 1675, the native tribes of New England refused to accept a partition of the land, and decided to wage war against Christians (who accepted the plan) to remove them from the map. They were 100% certain to be able to do so, and nobody bet a penny on the Christians winning at 1 vs. 10. They never stopped trying to do so since that date. Now you can try to blame it on the Christians on X, but HN is an educated forum. Those kinds of arguments won't fly here."
I'm sure you can find ten reasons why my above little story is wrong. They're the exact same reasons your little story is wrong. To name a few:
1. The Zionists / Europeans were trying to colonize Arab / Native American land. They were the aggressors in a very fundamental sense. Asking for the native population to "partition" the land amounts to demanding that they cede part of their homeland to you.
2. The conflict has nothing to do with Judaism or antisemitism. By framing it in that way, you're trying to draw a connection to the Holocaust and the history of persecution of Jews in Europe. But in this situation, the Zionists just happened to be Jewish, but that was totally irrelevant for the Arab population of Palestine. What the native population cared about was that an outside group - it didn't matter who - was trying to come in and take over the land.
3. And contrary to your framing, the Zionists were the group that held the upper hand, for a whole number of reasons that apply across the colonial world. In Palestine, they weren't some little oppressed minority. They had more resources, better education, were better organized, and had the backing of the imperial rulers of Palestine, the British.
4. The Arabs were the underdogs in the 1948 war. This runs completely counter to Israeli national mythology, but the fact is that the Israelis had a larger, better trained and better equipped army. They had military training from the British. They had funding from a significant foreign base of donors. They were able to purchase large amounts of weaponry from Czechoslovakia. The Palestinians themselves never stood a chance against the Zionists / Israelis. The Arab states only intervened after the Zionists had begun carrying out mass expulsions and other atrocities against the Palestinian civilian population. From the point of view of the Arab world, they were attempting to save their brothers from vicious foreign colonizers. You present it as if "the Jews," by which you actually mean the Zionists in Palestine, were in a fight for survival. But that's like saying that a guy who walks into a bar and starts punching people wildly is in a fight for his own survival. It might be true, but he got himself into that situation.
If they had done this they would be accused of ethnic cleansing as well as genocide. the negev isn't an altogether welcoming place, any death natural or otherwise that happened there would be blamed on the jews as proof and it would be an even bigger PR disaster. Egypt and the sinai would have a similar problem. Even Trump's recent suggestion of temporary resettlement to a populated area has been met with calls of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Most of the supposed supporters of the palestinian people don't care so much about their fate so much as they hate Jews and love the easy cudgel they make for attacking jews.
Putting that aside, no one, not Hamas, not the Israeli public, not Netanyahu, and certainly not the IDF, not any neighboring countries, not the wider world believed the war would drag on this long. Everyone thought it would be over fairly soon. Hamas probably didn't think there would be a war because israel itself was on the brink of a civil war, the Israeli public with their strong belief in their military might thought the war would be over before the new year and the IDF and politicians (BN included) likely had a similar belief, that A) Hamas didn't have an apatite for a long war, and B) the IDF would be able to quickly return the hostages. Everyone else also believed in the might of a stronger more organized force against a much weaker force that supposedly also had to care for their own people.
Instead Hamas showed they had no concern for their own people, and they had significantly deeper fortifications than the israeli security establishment knew about. So here we are almost two years later, and no end in sight.
This war was always going to go exactly as long as Israel wanted to prolong it and nothing else stands in the way of this stopping.
Still it would be better for civilians even if not any better from PR standpoint. Also with some of the civilians filtered out Israel might have easier time acting boldly against Hamas in Gaza.
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1. I'm not talking about the West Bank.
2. There's plenty of Hamas in the West Bank. Some of the violence was the IDF proactively going after Hamas and PIJ in the west bank.
Reference to this "1000" number? Can you provide a breakdown between combatants and civilians?
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You've been using multiple accounts to post comments in the same threads and upvote yourself. That's abusive, so we've banned the accounts.
I remember a lot of people predicting it would lead to this from the start. The response was often along the lines of “If you don’t support Israel’s invasion, you are pro-Hamas.”
If those people had a come-to-Jesus moment, great. That said, they probably owe an apology to the people they demonized as supporting terrorism.
How about this response: "Denying Israel the right to protect themselves can't help but strengthen Hamas and won't bring anything other than more suffering to all parties. Israel will do what they need to do, all we can do is hope they will stop short of sinking to the same levels as Oct 7 perpetrators, even though historically it's unlikely, and even though Israel being dragged deeper into that murderous rage pit is exactly what Hamas aims for."
I don’t recall many people denying Israel’s right to protect themselves against Hamas (I’m sure some did). The concern was them using it as an excuse to perpetrate the Palestinian genocide they wanted all along. That is what we now see. Your comment seems to use the familiar playbook of equating Palestinians and Hamas to muddy the waters.
It is a pretty clear echo of the US’s response to 9/11. People were considered traitors if they didn’t support a full military invasion and occupation. In the end, that was clearly the wrong move.
Why not go the extra step and accuse Israel of false-flagging Oct 7th attacks themselves? It's a widely encountered trope and by now a lot of supporting evidence has been "unearthed". That would make you feel even more righteous in your separation of the good from the evil. And wouldn't that feel sweet?
After all, your magic mirror tells you what "they" wanted all along. The biggest proof? The fact that the IDF would always announce in before when they would make a strike. The fact that they did this proves that they were pretending that they don't want to make more victims than necessary among the Palestinians. Which shows that they were trying to hide something else - that they wanted to eliminate all of them. It all makes sense, yes.
In this comment, you invent a conspiracy and apply it to me in order to have something to attack. You even used scare quotes to make it extra bad.
These performances kind of prove that you know the facts aren’t in your corner. The BBC video you are commenting on refutes your point about IDF always warning civilians before strikes:
==“I witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces shooting at the crowds of Palestinians," Anthony Aguilar told the BBC. He added that in his entire career he has never witnessed such a level of "brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population".==
But still, why did they usually do it (if not always), if all they wanted really is to eliminate all Palestinians? I guess it will remain a mystery for the ages...
Really, nothing we see now is inconsistent with the most obvious explanation: which is the spiral of violence. None of it, as far as I can see, requires your conspiratorial belief that "all Israelis really wanted is to eliminate all Palestinians".
==why did they usually do it==
I'm not entirely sure, maybe they did it to give people a narrative to distribute? I just know what they are doing now, which is forced starvation and violence without warning. The exact thing people warned about before the conflict started.
Why would you forcibly starve a population of civilians if your goal wasn't to eliminate them? Why have they blocked outside journalists from entering Gaza for over 600 days if they weren't trying to hide their actions? Starving civilians in an area where you control the airspace and coastline isn't a "spiral of violence," it is a war crime.
That's what stands out to me the most, when they change their mind that means everyone else was always right.
Blaming all of Israel's chosen military strategy on Hamas invading at all is just weird. Like, there should really be a mental evaluation of everyone that repeated lines like that. Like seriously, trawl the entire internet for those people's screennames.
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Those who wield power in Israel have calculated that they can do whatever they want at this moment and that they will enjoy functional impunity.
I repudiate what they are doing, but I do not disagree with their calculation. I can imagine no scenario where any foreign power tries to actually stop them.
There are numerous clips of Rabbis openly promoting the extermination of Palestinians.
They use the story of Amalek from the Torah.
One of the Rabbis I watched recently said "when you kill the first child it breaks your heart [...] then you start to enjoy it."
_Many_ Rabbis are demanding that animals, children, women and unarmed males be "erased." IDF soldiers are bragging about killing and raping civilians on social media. One IDF soldier was complaining he hasn't shot any children under 12 yet.
Netanyahu is a moderate. He's not an "extremist."
I've seen the video on Twitter but no confirmation that it was actually an IDF soldier -- Grok claimed it was authenticated as such but when further challenged said it was a South African satirist. I don't know one way or the other but again cannot find any confirmation. (But I'm aware of plenty of other unspeakable horrors committed by IDF soldiers and similar horrible things said.)
As for Netanyahu ... the Overton window in Israel has shifted far to the right so one can say in those terms that he's a "moderate", but I think it's a bit of a semantic game. His behavior is extreme, regardless of the fact that the behavior of the whole damn country is extreme.
> One of the Rabbis I watched recently said "when you kill the first child it breaks your heart [...] then you start to enjoy it."
Can you link to that video? I want to see it.
Evidence please!
South Africa's genocide case against Israel [1] is chock full of quotes from high level Israeli officials, including Netanyahu. Check page 59. Obviously much more has been said since that claim was filed, but the nature of genocidal rhetoric is such that you can't get much more extreme. Netanyahu himself repeatedly referenced the biblical tale of Amalek [2] which reaches its climax with this passage [3] : "Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."
[1] - https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/So...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalek
[3] - https://biblehub.com/1_samuel/15-3.htm
He didn't reference that particular passage about Amalek though, he just said "Remember what Amalek did to you". And it was pretty clear from the context of his speech that he was talking about Hamas and their invasion, not regular Gazans.
His office pointed out that the same phrase appears at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, as well at a memorial in The Hague, in reference to the Nazis. Of course they're statements about remembering Nazi atrocities, and not calls to genocide the German people.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/pms-office-says-its-prepostero...
If you genuinely believe he wasn't appealing to genocide, then here's a sampling of the rest of the Israeli leadership - who generally speak more directly.
---
President of Israel: "It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved. It’s absolutely not true. … and we will fight until we break their backbone."
Minister of Defense: "[We are] imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly."
Minister of National Security: "To be clear, when we say that Hamas should be destroyed, it also means those who celebrate, those who support, and those who hand out candy — they’re all terrorists, and they should also be destroyed."
Minister of Energy and Infrastructure: "All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world."
Minister of Heritage: "We wouldn’t hand the Nazis humanitarian aid”, and "there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza."
---
This is also far from the most extreme. See the "motivational speech" sponsored by the Israeli Army on page 64. [1] I will not quote it because it makes the above seem like softball. And these were things all said more than a year ago - they have only become more radical with time. Their rhetoric isn't ambiguous and neither are their actions. So many people don't realize how the West will be seen when the future judges us, though I think more are starting to realize.
[1] - https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/So...
1. There’s no quantifier for “civilians”, so this is just a vague statement that some number of civilians support Hamas.
2. There have been many sieges throughout history, surely they weren’t all genocides? It was also lifted shortly thereafter. Or are you interpreting “human animals” as all Gazans rather than Hamas/PIJ/etc? If so why?
3. This is problematic but still not genocidal, since Hamas supporters are not a group of the sort that genocide can apply to.
4. Context was removed to make it sound as if “they” might mean Gazans. The preceding sentence was “We will fight the terrorist organization Hamas and destroy it.”
5. Not involved in the military.
6. Not any sort of leader.
We do see explicitly genocidal rhetoric from leaders of Hamas and other enemies of Israel, though.
Thanks for the context. Every other comment here is referencing the Amalek reference.
If he had nothing to fear, then what is stopping him clearing his name in court?
Even if he could somehow be guaranteed a fair trial, why would Israel send anyone to a court whose jurisdiction it never consented to?
GP asked for proof of "numerous clips of Rabbis openly promoting the extermination of Palestinians". If there are numerous, he should be able to post some.
South Africa has no moral authority given that it refuses to arrest Putin.
I don't know what specific rabbis the parent referring to, but Israel's PM has referenced the Amalek story:
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211133201/netanyahus-referen...
So they basically caught up with the rhetoric of the other side of the conflict?
That would be correct if Israel didn't routinely do the exact same war crimes they are committing right now in Gaza for the past 20 years. It's depressing to say, but what Israel is doing right now is nothing new. It's par for the course and each 2 to 3 years you see the same war crimes in gaza, like clockwork.
So yes, those world leaders are as guilty as Israel, they enabled this for years.
Movements that want to grow should accept people who change their minds when the situation changes, they get new data, or they learn a new perspective.
The situation hasn't changed. The data is the same going back years. It's healthy to be cautious of people who join a movement under false pretenses like that.
If they learned a new perspective, that's great! I just wish it didn't have to come to personally witnessing such brutality to gain a new perspective...
Pretty much my take. I thought Israel's actions were reasonable at first but out of hand now.
Israel has been blockading the Gaza Strip by air and sea for 18 years. The Gaza Strip is, as far as I know, the only place in the world whose fishermen can't fish in the full extent of its territorial waters. This has been true since way before Oct. 7th 2023.
Keep in mind that the Gaza Strip borders both Israel and Egypt.
There are IDF troops on the Egypt side and a Egypt was forced under military threat to a sign a treaty allowing Israel to veto what comes and goes from the Egyptian side.
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In the West Bank, whose Palestinian population is administered by an organization that fully collaborates with the Israeli occupation and does not engage in armed struggle, Israeli repression continues unabated (statelessness, restriction on freedom of movement, expansion of Jewish-only colonial settlements, arbitrary detention under Israeli military law, etc.)
Sure, maybe if Hamas surrendered there wouldn’t be a blockade, specifically, but given the example of the West Bank right next door it’s hard to imagine that repression wouldn’t continue in some form.
Ah yes, the west bank, where they have a leader who's graduate thesis is in holocaust denial[0] and where they incentivize murdering innocent civilians[1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abbas [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_...
Until these things lose popular support among the west bank, I don't have a ton of sympathy. Yes we can get into tracing back the chain of causation -- these people grew up in an echo chamber and they had no outside source of information, and Israeli soldiers likely killed family members of theirs unfairly when they were little, so of course they're going to say things like Death to Israel [2] and have a countdown timer until when they want to genocide the entire country [3]
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_Israel [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Square_Countdown_Clo...
(These examples actually stem from Iran, where most of the funding for Hamas comes from)
But don't you think it's a little unfair to only defend one side with fatalistic determinism? Israelis are treated as humans who are making horrible decisions. Mahmoud Abbas is treated as a poor innocent bystander who is just the product of his environment, so of course he's going to think those things. I think he's a human too, and he has made very bad decisions too.
Somehow western people always forget this stuff, but luckily the religious fanatics just love to do religious fanatical things, so it makes it easy to point to examples.
Israelis are making horrible decisions.
That’s a pretty salient fact when you have the might of such a military on your side.
I find it funny how I am at the same time supposed to accept that Palestinian (leaders) are all terrorists and also that Israel justifiably act equally terrible. The whole point of being a respectable state is to not commit crimes (and kill family members „unfairly“).
Indeed. Israel is free to act as barbaric as (or if we do the simplistic math of "the conflict started October 7 2023", 633x more barbaric than) Hamas butchers, but when they do so, they can't go around claiming the moral high ground...
Or, they can go around and do so, but their claim would be as valid as Hamas' claim to morality...
How can both be true?
1. Israel's 18 year blockade of Gaza is an effective mechanism to prevent weapons coming into Gaza
2. Hamas has been launching rockets into Israel for 18 years
#1 isn't true. Who says it is? Even the Israeli government agrees the blockade failed.
That's the main argument for the current obliteration of gaza.
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>The Gaza Strip is, as far as I know, the only place in the world whose fishermen can't fish in the full extent of its territorial waters.
well, you're leaving out the UK wrt French fisherman invading, thus depriving them of the full extent of their territorial waters. And Ukraine's territorial waters have been curtailed.
but the only place I can think of that's similar to what you're talking about would be the Houthis. I guess they do have free navigation in their territorial waters, and turns out they make great neighbors! https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3071vp2d8yo I guess nothing can go wrong!
Israel's response was obvious as soon as the attack happened. "Oh, looks like they've got that excuse they've been wanting."
It's hard to describe to people who don't have family there, but this exactly. The goal is similar to American "manifest destiny". They want to, through whatever means necessary, displace (at best) the existing Palestinian population and take their land.
Please explain to me what you mean.
From my perspective, they handed over control of the region and have had countless opportunities since the handoff to occupy the land permanently had they so chosen. Couldn't it just as easily be argued that they no longer trust sharing a border with them?
I feel like it would have been harder to get this far without international support had the Oct 7th attack not happened. I don’t know about you, but I’d be a bit more lenient if you’re trying to rescue civilian hostages.
I don’t know anything about the impetus for the Oct 7th attack was, but you have to wonder why.
Im not following this comment. Please say it again.
Israelis voted in a government 20 years ago just to pull out from Gaza and give them their autonomy (which Gazans used to swiftly vote in Hamas, and that was the single and last time they had elections since). Saying Israel was interested in that land is disingenuous.
settling the west bank breaking international law while claiming otherwise strikes me as disingenuous.
Israel definitely wants the West Bank (and the Golan Heights), it didn't demonstrate the same interest in Gaza. Which isn't that strange considering there's very little value in the land itself.
They were content with the Palestinians keeping to themselves in that corner of the land. At least that's what it looked like between 2005 and 2023. That isn't to say they had no designs on it further in the future, they might have had plans to annex it after fully claiming the West Bank. (Or at least certain groups within Israel)
This description of Israel’s interest in Gaza does not match their behavior. They have spent millions even billions of dollars terrorizing the population that lives there. They wouldn’t do that if “[t]hey were content with the Palestinians keeping to themselves in that corner of the land”. At the very least Israel saw that land valuable as a place to keep a population oppressed and terrorized, in other words, as a concentration camp or a ghetto.
Their behavior post October 7th, 2023 - the deadliest day for Jews since the holocaust - is very different than before that date. You couldn't expect Israel to keep its hands off approach, could you?
Expect or not, I think it would have made all the difference. It seemed like a historical, Nelson Mandela scale opportunity with all international, regional and domestic & Palestinian winds in Israels back.
And then they used it to one up everything the world has seen in that region in recent past.
The way I see it is that Palestinians have been fighting for civil rights since 1948 with dismal results. This fight has included violent and non-violent tactics, and the verdict on the non-violent tactics is pretty clear, that it only results in more violence and less civil rights for Palestinians.
Oct. 7 was not only the most deadly day for Jews since the holocaust, it was also the most deadly day for Zionists since the conception of Zionism. Whatever Israel did after Oct. 7 was not to protect Jews, but to protect Zionism. The very same ideology which has stripped Palestinians of their civil rights. And because Zionism is a foundational ideology of Israel, I would expect them to behave exactly the way they did. But I also see Zionism as a fundamentally immoral ideology which should not be a policy of any state. So from a human rights perspective, the right thing for Israel to do since Oct. 7 (as well as much earlier) was to admit defeat, grant Palestinians civil rights (including the right of return and reparations for past wrongs), and abandon Zionism as a policy. Later they could file criminal charges, or have a special tribunal punishing the perpetrators of oct. 7, maybe even as a part of a peace treaty which also grants Palestinians civil rights.
I am not naïve, and I know Israel was never going to do that. That is where international laws should have kicked in which were supposed to pressure Israel into doing the right thing, by doing stuff like sanctions and boycotts. International law, however, failed spectacularly.
EDIT: to prevent misunderstanding, when I say Zionism I mean the belief that Israel should be a Jewish supremacy state on Palestinian lands, like I explained here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718838
The Palestinians are largely looking for the destruction of Israel, not "civil rights". The "right of return" (meaning the inflow of millions of third, fourth and fifth Palestinian descendants from neighbour Arab countries) is their - and the Arab's world - tool to dismantle Israel (there's a reason Arab countries don't grant citizenship to those Palestinians despite residing there for over 50-70 years).
There are no civil rights in Gaza, but that's not because of Israel - that's because Hamas is a fundamental, radical and totalitarian Muslim organization which is right next to ISIS in their methods and beliefs.
The suggestion that Jews admit defeat, hand their heads to Hamas and the likes and ask for forgiveness does not resonate as sane. It's like suggesting a rape victim to move in with the family of the perpetrator and look for reconciliation. The Palestinian and Jewish populations are not compatible with each other and I see no path to coexistence under the same governing body. These populations are too far apart on any conceivable metric.
Luckily Israel took the opportunity to do just about the opposite of what you suggested and aggressively dismantled the Iranian ring of fire that surrounded it. Lebanon and Syria have been transformed, Iran caught a massive blow and any dreams of breaking Israel by force must be a distant past now. The Middle East will have to accept Israel, and by the looks of things this is where it's going. If you haven't been to the region you'll never understand the collective Middle Eastern mentality that despises weakness and worships victors.
I really don‘t like the tone and implication of your post. When you say stuff like “the collective Middle Eastern mentality that despises weakness and worships victors”, “The Palestinians are largely looking for the destruction of Israel”, and “The Palestinian and Jewish populations are not compatible with each other”. You are generalizing over a large population with varying views, and makes you look like a bigot and a racist.
I‘m gonna answer your strongest points on material grounds though, and ignore your more racist stuff.
> The "right of return" (meaning the inflow of millions of third, fourth and fifth Palestinian descendants from neighbour Arab countries) is their - and the Arab's world - tool to dismantle Israel.
That is a) just your opinion, and b) irrelevant in the context of human rights. The Palestinian were unjustly expelled and they have a right of return under international law. Israel had no right to expel them in the first place, the expulsion was a historic wrong, and for justice to resume they are owed the right of return as well as reperation. Whatever that does to Israel’s demographics is a non-concern in the context of international humanitarian law. If such a right were granted and it would result in Israel no longer being a majority Jewish state, that would simply be a new reality we would have to deal with. Minority rights are a thing that international law also guarantees, and surely Jewish Israelis should be happy living is a minority in a land which guarantees their rights as such.
> The suggestion that Jews admit defeat, hand their heads to Hamas and the likes and ask for forgiveness does not resonate as sane.
We have been here before, and yes, this is the sane option. Rhodesia admitted defeat to the terrorist organizations ZANU and ZAPU, South Africa to the ANC, The French Algerians to the FLN (which was probably more brutal than Hamas). And outside of settler colonies we have South Vietnam admitting defeat to the Viet Cong. Brutal regimes which owe their existence to the oppression of others like Rhodesia, Apartheid South Africa, French Algeria, and South Vietnam are frequent targets of terrorists, those same terrorists often become the ruling power post liberation, and the settler (or otherwise the beneficiaries of the past oppression) most of the time are able to live just fine under their new rule without the systemic oppression. In all likelyhood, even if Hamas were to rise to power in a post-apartheid Israel state (which honestly is rather unlikely) chances are they would not be able (nor even willing) to exert the kind of oppression onto a hypothetical Jewish minority in such a state.
IMHO discounting the cultural differences at the core of Arab societies compared to Western societies is racist, but to each his own. See how Alawits and Druze are faring now under the new Syrian regime - made of former ISIS members, no less. Imagine what they'd do to Jews if they just had the chance (indeed, Arabs mass expelled Jews from their countries after the formation of Israel; what do you expect those to do?).
I think your other, bigger mistake is to equate Israel to the colonialist adventures of Africa's past. That's complete misunderstanding of Israeli psyche and source of strength (and indeed you are talking about Israel in an overriding manner, as if it's not their choice on how to solve this). While colonialists in Africa could always turn back to Europe and the white world (and many did), Jews in Israel don't feel nearly the same. Colonialists didn't flee anything, they just came looking for a better future or an adventure. Jews came to Israel to form a homeland. Jews have an undisputed connection to the land through countless artefacts and written history, while colonialists never had that in relation to Africa. Jews have nowhere to return to; where would they go, back to Auschwitz? To the pogroms of Russia, Ukraine and Poland?
Jews are ready, willing and able to fight to the end and currently possess the strongest military in the Middle East (and probably in Europe) by far. The combination of technology, economy, psychology and resilience means Israel could easily outlast any other Middle Eastern country (which are artificial entities to begin it, a result of Sykes-Picot agreements).
And, indeed, look: Syria is out, Lebanon is hanging on the brink of another civil war, Jordan is there just thanks to monarchical oppression (where are their civil rights?), Iraq is a failed state, Saudis want Israeli technology and good favors, the GCC are all in bed with Israel (other than Qatar and Kuwait), Iran is on its knees, Egypt is thirsty and illiterate. Who's left, other than perhaps Turkey (but then they have their business with the Greek which are very close to Israel)?
I've had many such discussions on the internet but not even once did I encounter someone offering that Israel disposes of its F35, nukes and security apparatus and hand the keys to ISIS/Hamas terrorists. There's a first time for anything.
> IMHO discounting the cultural differences at the core of Arab societies compared to Western societies is racist, but to each his own.
We're not discounting cultural differences. We're just discounting your claims regarding cultural differences.
> ...you'll never understand the collective Middle Eastern mentality that despises weakness and worships victors.
From the content of your arguments, I get the feeling that this statement is pure projection.
> I think your other, bigger mistake is to equate Israel to the colonialist adventures of Africa's past. [...] Jews have nowhere to return to; where would they go, back to Auschwitz? To the pogroms of Russia, Ukraine and Poland?
GP never said that the Jews should leave. In reference to Africa, he said "those same terrorists often become the ruling power post liberation, and the settler (or otherwise the beneficiaries of the past oppression) most of the time are able to live just fine under their new rule without the systemic oppression."
> I've had many such discussions on the internet but not even once did I encounter someone offering that Israel disposes of its F35, nukes and security apparatus and hand the keys to ISIS/Hamas terrorists.
GP said Israel should surrender their oppressive political system, not their weapons.
If Israel, the state, had interest in the West Bank it'd have annexed it already. There is a group, admittedly growing as a result of the processes happening in the Israeli society, which is very interested in the West Bank. But it was never the official position of the state.
West Bank should have went to the Palestinians following the Oslo accords, and it partly did, but that all came to a halt with the deadly suicide attacks led by Hamas on Israel. Another opportunity was in 2000 Camp David accords, but that too ended with the second Intifada. A third opportunity came in the form of the Israeli disengagement from Gaza. Had it been a success story - the Palestinians building their own little Singapore in there, as the world was willing to pour in infinite capital - it would have pushed forward another such a move in the West Bank. But alas it ended with Hamas swiftly coming to power, years of rocket attacks on Israel, then October 7th and the rest is history.
I doubt the Israeli public will ever give the Palestinians anything, at this point; any time a concession was made, Israel found itself in a worse and worse security situation. The great Israeli-Palestinian peace attempt over the past three decades failed miserably.
These populations simply will not coexist, for great many reasons - religious, cultural, historical, tribal, and external.
There’s a case that it was darker than that. The IDF is arguably the best army of its type in the world.
Yet the level of incompetence demonstrated when Hamas took the hostages was beyond incompetence. A retired general hopped in his car and rounded up a bunch of troops to extract his daughter. No officers were present in the area.
It seems weird that a military that had 3D mapping and monitoring of a region allowing it to detect and target concealed Hezbollah artillery in buildings somehow was caught flat footed. It’s weirder that there hasn’t been any commentary about this in an age where every decision made is analyzed to death.
There has been some commentary. For instance reports of rising levels of intense military activity on the border, sent by IDF female spotter squads on the border for months, were ignored by command centers. This was explained as “chauvinism” - crippling incompetence if true.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/01/israels-female...
>It seems weird that a military that had 3D mapping and monitoring of a region allowing it to detect and target concealed Hezbollah artillery in buildings somehow was caught flat footed. It’s weirder that there hasn’t been any commentary about this in an age where every decision made is analyzed to death.
Yeah. "Weird." Kinda like how it was weird that a music festival was moved to be next to a military base that was the target of an operation that one of the greatest signals intelligence powers in the world "didn't know about" over a couple of years of planning.
Weird that the IDF moved into the crowd instead of evacuating the festival. Weird that there were photos of massive numbers of bombed out cars that were disposed of before any forensics could happen. Kinda weird that IDF copters and tanks opened fire indiscriminately (or, sometimes, targeting Israelis due to Hannibal doctrine).
Really "weird" operation all around. Seems like it really didn't have to happen the way it did.
Why did Israel unilaterally withdrew its military forces from Gaza and dismantled its settlements in 2005? It gave them what they wanted, and look what it got in return. Murderous terrorism.
Why was there a permanent military occupation of Gaza before 2005?
I'm having trouble understanding the notion of "permanent military occupation of Gaza before 2005". Just out of interest, who occupied Gaza before 1967? And who before 1948? And who before 1920?
Why did they build the settlements?
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The Gaza strip borders both Israel and Egypt.
Egypt operates their border by Israeli approval. Israel controls any imports to Gaza, and any people moving in or out, and has done so officially since 2007. Edit: https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1210897789/rafah-crossing-gaz...
And you think Egypt cannot decide to operate the border without Israeli approval?
It seems like only Israel has agency in the middle east, why do you think it is so?
Because the US regime changes or bombs any country into the dirt who challenges it?
Why do you think they targeted the US for 9/11? Because they "hated our freedoms"?
It's very doubtful the US will bomb Egypt over that, it didn't even bomb Egypt when it was directly involved in wars with Israel. Currently the Egyptians are in violations of the peace agreements with Israel over stationing military forces in Sinai, yet no bombs are falling.
Generally I think they targeted the US because of Islamist Ideology. Islamism links conquest and imperialism to a proof of the religious validity of Islam. Once the West has begun its control over Arab countries the idea in the 1920s has emerged where the reason why Islam lost its prominence is because they lost the "true" islam. Therefore the solution is to return to medieval Islam, similarly to fascism nostalgia to the Roman/German empires.
In that context, even the fact that the United States exists as a cultural force and influences arab teens to wear jeans is a major threat. Don't be naive that it is all over Palestine, Islamism started prior to the existence of Israel.
>Generally I think they targeted the US because of Islamist Ideology. Islamism links conquest and imperialism to a proof of the religious validity of Islam.
You don't have to speculate. You can actually just look at what the bombers stated the purpose of their attack was. It wasn't part of a conquest; it was an attempt to punish us for our history in that region, with a very specific policy of ours mentioned explicitly by many of the masterminds of 9/11.
The only Islamist movement seeking conquest in recent history was ISIS, which is why a lot of their attention was spent expanding their caliphate into their neighbors' territories rather than launching quixotic attacks at the US on our soil. I'm not including ISIS-K in this assessment, as they glow more than Langley.
I don't need to speculate, I can read the ideological foundations behind the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafism, the Islamic Republic etc.
One part is rejection of modernism and romanticism of a fantastic past similar to fascist movements. Other is anti-colonialism, but only in the context of european colonialism, not muslim colonialism, which is fine. Because of the aforementioned romanticism to the middle ages, part of any Islamist project is creating a Caliphate, and it is easy to see in Islamic history that these were boundless.
The reason Palestine may be important for them is that according to their perception, while european colonialism is a humiliation, there is no greater shame than the existence of Israel, as it is no some vast British Empire, but rather a nation built by refugees and therefore weak by definition, thereby enhancing their defeat, which in their mind has religious implications. As Islam is a conquering religion, and their conquests are a proof of Allah's power.
Egypt tries to keep the border sealed because Hamas supplies money and weapons to Islamic terrorists in the northern Sinai.
Notable Israel offered Gaza to Egypt as part of the Camp David Accords and Egypt didn't want it.
I feel like this has been the case for decades. It is very asymmetrical.
I think many people have their own personal revelation where they come to believe what Israel is doing is not self-defense but rather genocide. For me that came in the 2008/2009 Gaza offensive where they inflicted roughly 100 deaths for every Israeli who was killed in the initial attack. The Freedom Flotilla incident in early 2010 where they murdered the aid volunteers in international waters only further solidified my opinion.
Historically, any nationalist project on behalf of any group requiring large migration for it to work led to a removal and replacement of some group with another. United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, failed ones like Rhodesia...there's really no counter-example I can think of.
Regardless of where you land, I don't think anyone can look at what's going on in the middle east and think things are going fine - or ever were.
Perhaps, if we ever decide to act globally, we shouldn't permit any more migratory nationalist projects - they seem to be inherently problematic.
Both China and Russia have claimed parts of other countries using the tactic of moving in their people to then use that as an excuse to annex or overtake those parts.
Crimea for Russia as an example, but this is also true for other former Soviet states.
With China it's been Bhutan, India, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Japan. In addition to their claims over Taiwan or their excuse to (culturally) genocide the Uighur in China).
That is ignoring Africa as a whole, where conflicts are far more common. To name a recent example, over 50,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed by Islamists in the past 16 years. The world is far more bloody than most people seem to realize. The world peace has only been a peace in a relative sense.
>Both China and Russia have claimed parts of other countries using the tactic of moving in their people to then use that as an excuse to annex or overtake those parts.
>Crimea for Russia as an example, but this is also true for other former Soviet states.
In Crimea, the proportion was 3 Russians for every Ukrainian for most of the time since at least 1897:
Before 1954, Crimea was officially part of Russia, so it makes sense (Khrushev transferred it to Ukraine for infrastructure reasons).Not sure what happened when the number of Ukrainians dropped from 24% to 15% between 2001 and 2014, I'm not aware of any mass migration during that period (independent Ukraine). On the contrary, the total population contracted from 2.4 mil to 2.2 mil (both Russians and Ukrainians).
I guess my advocacy is to identify it as a social pattern and then come up with some kind of global treaty against it similar to the geneva conventions. It'd take years, there'd be lots of negotiations, people way smarter than me would opine. I certainly don't have all the answers.
I can entertain the plausibility of this form of nationalism not being a catastrophe but I can't think of any times it worked out well.
On a personal note, I harbor particularly harsh judgement on my own nation, the USA, on this front. Unfortunately there's no way to unroll hundreds of years
No, people just nee to learn to live alongside eachother ffs.
How does this work when a group wants to move in to an area that's already completely in use by another group?
Perhaps thinking about "groups" having exclusive control of large regions of territory is itself the core of the problem.
I think we can have that discussion when Israel decides or is being coerced that enough Palestinians have starved to death.
It's not completely in-use. The motivation for the entire state of Israel's existence is that the Jewish people need a homeland or else they will keep getting persecuted. That rules out a Muslim-majority state with a lot of Jews in it.
Given the demographics of Jewish people outside of Israel, it's hard to disagree with. When you consider the early years of Israel, and how many wars were started to run the Jews out of it, it's even more well-supported.
The best hope for a lasting peace was with the Oslo accords. They were torpedoed by the Palestinians themselves, who were unwilling to accept any kind of compromise that maintained a Jewish state.
Not saying Israel is innocent, but the idea that so many people seem to have that the region would be happy-go-lucky and peaceful for Jewish people if not for the war is hopelessly naive.
Speaking as a Jewish person I feel like our odds of survival are much better in the diaspora. And the way Israel is behaving is not doing us any favours in the long term.
> Speaking as a Jewish person I feel like our odds of survival are much better in the diaspora
You probably wouldn't feel that way 1945.
Most of my family died in the Holocaust and the ones who made it escaped with nothing. They would not have made it out but for the generosity and compassion of a handful of people.
But despite that I still stand by my statement. Especially in the nuclear age. History does not repeat but it does rhyme. And in 2025, Jews aren't the ones clawing for an exit visa. I'll leave it there because I don't feel the need to argue this point further.
I think it is not 1945 and comparing the people in Gaza with the Nazis is absurd.
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> Jewish people occupied the entire region long before Islam existed or Islamic Arabs took it over?
And other peoples occupied the region long before judaism was an idea in some shepherd's preaching.
The problem with this logic is, where do you stop. At what point do you declare "these people were the special first ones and anyone before them doesn't matter"?
Much less the mental gymnastics required to believe that which human owned which land in 500bce is relevant to how to deal with things in 2025.
It's not that we should ignore history, it's absolutely worth understanding how we got to the current position, but we shouldn't privilege it over the lives and wellbeing of actual people living right now.
So if a rapist “changed” their mind on consent do we just let them go because we need more feminists?
Please do not confuse changing your mind with innocence. It’s all well and good to change your mind but accountability is still required.
Remember the movement grew despite them and will certainly flourish without them. Nothing will strengthen the movement more than to see these leaders brought to justice.
Yep. "Always give your opponent a path to retreat".
Tens of thousands of people have been murdered because the justice latency of Western politicians is too damned high.
The justice latency won't ever be what it needs to be until we jail our own war criminals, and that is never going to happen if we congratulate them when we should be prosecuting them.
Why are we involved at all makes much more sense to ask and I think will lead people to the criminals faster.
Architects of this tragedy like Anthony Blinken should absolutely not be given the opportunity to whitewash their involvement.
It’s lazy and disingenuous to “both sides” this mess.
Problem is, beyond voicing some disdain no country seems to be willing to do anything at all towards what is at this point a blatant genocide.
No sanctions, no political pressure, no stop to selling weapons. What is France doing, in practice, to help the situation?
I would not talk about state leaders and governments as "changing their minds". Maybe they respond to pressure; maybe the state interests change. But whatever the case, what matters is actually stopping the genocide. If their "change in mind" helps that, that's enough for me right now.
However I would rather see and applaud actions than words. Words are easy. I can also do words, but a president or government have power. In the meantime, has anything changed in Israel being supplied weapons to commit said genocide? That matters more imo than what a president or prime minister says. Hopefully things go that direction and actions do follow.
There is no reason to believe that what you've described happened since those politicians knew about the "situation change" many months before the change in position, so they don't deserve the charitable acceptance
Eh nuance. Accept anyone who can accept they were wrong. But it has to come with that understanding, that they were wrong. Growth and understanding are great. "I love bombing civilian populations, I just hate the consequences of bombing civilian populations" is not the amazing support that people on the ground are looking for. Gotta attack the why. Why would you support killing civilians who pose no threat to you in the name of defense.
Its been the common theme of anti war sentiment for the better part of a century. "Never Again". "Lest We Forget". etc. What was all that holocaust remembrance for if not to get ahead of and prevent situations like this (While Gaza doesnt have a lot to do with the holocaust in totality it sure looks like a Warsaw Ghetto).
Its kind of useless to get people along for a single issue, ending the genocide in Gaza, but for them to not understand why the things that lead up to the genocide in Gaza are bad also. Mobilising a military, into a civilian area, that has been trained from birth to resent the people in that space, that they own that space, told that the government will support them killing civilians, is going to cause this. Supporting that action is bad actually. Wanting that military, in that area, is something an Asshole would want.
The phrase "Mowing the grass" was coined in like 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing_the_grass
Its like closing a ticket without addressing the root cause. Just gonna come up again.
>but now that it has turned into a brutal siege with mass civilian casualties on a horrific scale
Its been that(again) since the IDF got organized, late 2023.
> Its like closing a ticket without addressing the root cause. Just gonna come up again.
(Note, I agree with your post and is not criticising you.)
There is something poetic about making an analogy to Jira. It somewhats sums up the fatalistic emotional indifference among many to the genocide.
One could certainly argue about methods, but on October 8th, what options did Israel have except invasion of Gaza?
This, but further more, there are 100s of comments about "the genocide" here, but almost none about what Israel should do. They have a neighbor who just committed a huge act of terror and whos standing installed political party calls for the elimination of the country. They live in a region where their ethnic group has essentially been wiped out systematically in all neighboring countries.
So, "Stop the genocide" and then what? Build a bigger fence? Wait for the next episode? Im generally interested if anyone has an opinion that goes beyond leave Gaza alone and considers Israelis dilema.
Israel should have captured terrorists without destroying the whole city and killing random people. Don't know if it was possible though but it is the obvious answer.
I’m having trouble distilling the essence of your message in a way that leaves us with any common moral ground.
Would you agree that “an eye for an eye” type justice is undesirable? Because it seems like you are advocating for genocide as a response to the oct attack, going well beyond “eye for an eye”!
Boiling it down to a catch phrase does it no justice. The war is being fought in a urban area, with an armed forced who refuses ceasefire and has repeatedly said it wont rest until all isrealis are dead. Again, my comment is, if you want them to stop fighting, what would you have them do next? Im not being rhetorical.
How does this country claim to be any better than Hamas butchers, when they can't conduct a war where their bullets and bombs hit defenseless children? They've been saying "oops, that was a mistake" so many times that it's obvious their operating procedure is "drop the bomb here and we don't care about civilian deaths".
Or they use the excuse that terrorists are hiding under hospitals and schools, so dropping bombs on these things are perfectly acceptable. In my book that's morally indefensible and makes them not very different to Hamas butchers.
Or if you can accept that, maybe crashing planes into the WTC towers is acceptable too (and what about a military target like the Pentagon)...
> said it wont rest until all isrealis are dead
You would say the same about any group that did the same things to you as the Israeli have done to Palestinians. Answer this: will these actions by Israel decrease or increase the number of people who think that way? Even if they kill all the Palestinians and get rid of the threat in Gaza, they'll just create more, deeper and stronger hate against themselves in the region and the world. If at any point in time they lose the support of the most powerful country on earth, they'll be in huge danger and they can only blame themselves for creating that danger.
What? Outside of like maybe WW2 Germany, no serious country does official press run where they say "The only good x is a dead x". Especially so about private citizens of the enemy country. It constantly feels like Palestine is never held responsible for their actions because theyre getting pummeled so badly on the field.
> refuses ceasefire and has repeatedly said it wont rest until all isrealis [sic] are dead
Unfortunately, this is true of both sides, and one side seems much closer to accomplishing its goal than the other side.
> what would you have them do
The same question was answered here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718080
I guess if everyone in the region is ok with genocide as an option, the only thing Palestine’s doing wrong is losing.
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Defeating your enemy before they can launch another deadly attack is a lot different than genocide or ethnic cleansing. Jesus was talking about personal relationships in that saying, he wasn't running a government or military. Presumably he had a different view on what should happen to the Roman occupiers when the Kingdom of God came, as can be seen in other parts of the Jewish and Christian scriptures.
The problem is Israel treated the entire Gaza population as indiscriminately sheltering Hamas, partly because Netanyahu retains power by keeping conflicts going, and party because the right-wing Jewish extremists want to claim all the land.
What moral people want is to give Israel the same leeway the allies had in WW2. Nothing more, nothing less.
The expectation back then was you should kill Nazis and Japanese until they surrender without any conditions. Hamas always puts conditions on releasing hostages.
I agree. That doesn't make the bombing of Tokyo and Dresden moral acts. War is atrocious by definition.
What is different this time is that most of the west has forgotten what it actually means to be at war and they pontificate from their armchair.
Combine that with the fact that it is generally easier to have empathy for the side that you perceive to be the victim or on the side of justice, and most people truly cannot comprehend how so many Israelis would support their right wing war policies.
I don't think one has to justify the killing of innocent civilians in order to at least try to put themselves in the shoes of people who have been born in Israel and have lived their lives punctuated by the fear of their family or friend being blown up in a bus bombing.
Most people in the west will just not entertain the thought exercise. They'll just dismiss it as "well they invaded Palestine and stole their land", as if this is a justification for suicide bomb attacks or raining rockets over Israeli cities.
I think our collective inability to accept the situation on the ground and push for a compromise is fueling the violence.
Hamas has a strategy where they can leverage their population acceptance of martyrdom in order to gain more and more victim points in their master PR strategy.
Israel feels more and more isolated internationally and they react by giving everybody a big F U and doubling down on their own extremism.
I often hear "Jews should just go back to Europe" as if that is an actual solution.
I believe that if this was any other conflict that didn't involve Jews (e.g. Turks and Kurds) most people would be cheering for peace or they'd be indifferent.
But this conflict has the right mix of inflaming ingredients. There is white colonial guilt and guilt of racism, there is the association of Jews with global capitalism, and associating Jews as "being white".
To be clear, my take is not that since there are other wars like in Sudan, Israel can do whatever they want. All wars should end and every day they continue is a tragedy.
My point is that if one wants to help bring this conflict to an end, one should not put Israel in an impossible position and demand that they simply cease to exist because they "are not native to the land" or similar arguments that people make nowadays.
It's much more effective to pressure Israel to avoid war atrocities if one understands their point of view, their condition and what it means to be under existential threat.
In order to do that you don't have to deny the same to Palestinians.
For some reason most people seem to only reason by taking one side
Most voices are not calling for Israel to dissolve and have its Jewish residents "move to Europe".
This is the number one demand of Palestinians and the Iran axis in general.
Stop the genocide. Then, don't start the genocide. Not very hard. Do you really think there are / were no other options? Think harder.
There are numerous reports that IDF does what it can to root out Hamas among the general pop. They call people before strikes, they distribute leaflets
Think harder
Their actions shows a general disrespect for human life and human rights.
"Numerous reports" might claim what you say, but actual reports of countless genocidal atrocities contradicts them I guess. It is my belief that they don't care and never cared.
This statement and the most of the ones above are the same canned response.
My numerous reports are more numerous than your numerous reports and some version of the solution is stop being evil.
Its disappointing, given even with a direct ask for a considered answer everyone confidently gives one that dosent even respect there is a two sided problem.
>> This, but further more, there are 100s of comments about "the genocide" here, but almost none about what Israel should do.
They should do what all other countries do when they are attacked: defend themselves and not seek to take the attack as an opportunity to invade their neighbours.
You want an example? Look at the recent India and Pakistan crisis, and the Thailand and Cambodia crisis that is only now being resolved. In both cases there was fire exchanged, war was on the brink, then it was held back and reason and peace prevailed. The countries in question won't be best friends, they won't like each other, but they're not bombing the shit out of each other, levelling each other's cities to the ground and ethnically cleansing their populations.
The difference in Israel-Palestine of course is that Israel has the upper hand militarily and by many orders of magnitude so it doesn't have to make peace. It can afford to bomb the Palestinians for as long as it likes, it can afford to ethnically clanse them even at the risk of ethnic cleansing turning into genocide, it can afford to impose a medieval-style siege on Gaza where no food goes in and no Palestinians come out, it can afford to do anything it likes and nobody can stop it, certainly not Hamas with its risible military ... I can't even say "strength"; weakness is more appropriate. The redoubtable Islamist terrorists fight with their grandfathers' hand-me down AK-47's from "terror" tunnels (that have to be called that to sound even vaguely threatening).
The maddening thing is that exactly because Israel has such overwhelming military superiority -and not just against Hamas, but also against Lebanon, Syria, Iran sorta, everyone around it- they can absolutely make peace if they wanted. Its enemies would surely prefer that to having to fight Israel. Even Hamas' founders once resolved to make peace with Israel and what did Israel do? It assassinated them [1].
It is clear that Israel has convinced itself, as a nation, over multiple governments and generations, that its best interests are served by making constant, total war on its neighbours. Israel doesn't want peace.
But, to answer your question: that's exactly what it "should" do; make peace. That's the only way to not make war.
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[1] Sheikh Yassin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Yassin
Yassin on several occasions proposed long-term ceasefire agreements, or truces, so called hudnas, in exchange for Israeli concessions. All such offers were rejected by Israel. Following his release from Israeli prison in 1997, he proposed a ten-year truce in exchange for total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza and a stop to Israeli attacks on civilians. In 1999, in an interview with an Egyptian newspaper, he again offered a truce:[41]
It was shortly after once such truce offer, in January 2004, that Yassin was assassinated.[42]His second in command was also assassinated for the same reason. Can't find the article now.
The Cambodia - Thailand conflict is more like Gaza pre-10/7. Cambodia shot some rockets, killed some innocent Thai, and Thailand responded with overwhelming firepower. Same as when Gaza used to shoot rockets and kill civilians, then get destructive counter attacks from Israel.
The equivalent of the current Israeli-Palestine war would be Cambodia breaking a ceasefire to kill, torture and rape 1,000 civilians, and took hundreds back as hostages.
I'm sorry but your argument is defeated by the reality that there was a Hudna on October 7th, and Hamas broke it with a brutal attack killing and kidnapping hundreds of civilians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_7_attacks)
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What options did the Palestinian people have after the atrocities of October 6th?
An interesting thing in this case then is to see how these mind-changers are treating the people who called it correctly from the beginning. Is there any mea culpa, any contrition for the lives they could have saved by acting earlier? apologies for the protestors they attacked, the movements they painted as antisemitic? Anything learned for the future. We all had the same information after all.
What do you imagine that mea culpa to look like?
Personally I don’t see it being a case of one side of protesters being “right” and “wrong”. I just think Israel should have pulled out an awfully long time ago. They went too far, have done too much damage and the calculus doesn’t make sense any more. I have no problem with the initial invasion of Gaza to stop Hamas and get their people back. I’m not sorry for saying so, or holding that position after Hamas gave them such a clear casus belli. But it doesn’t seem to be about that any more. There’s been too much bloodshed. Something needs to change.
I’m not sure what you’re looking for. An apology? For what, exactly? For being told there are antisemitic people taking advantage of this conflict to hate on Jews? There are.
> I have no problem with the initial invasion of Gaza to stop Hamas and get their people back. I’m not sorry for saying so, or holding that position after Hamas gave them such a clear casus belli. But it doesn’t seem to be about that any more.
The point is that you were told this was the inevitable consequences of such actions and yet chose to ignore it. That's probably the kind of mea culpa they're looking for.
Predicting the future is notoriously tricky, but pretending like this outcome was in any way unlikely is extremely disengenuous.
That logic cuts both ways.
We could equally say that this overreaction by Israel was entirely predictable - and inevitable - after Hamas’s murderous rampage on Oct 7. And to take hostages and not return them? What did they think Israel would do? Capitulate to Hamas’s demands, thereby encouraging Hamas to do the same thing again every few months when they want treats? Invasion was perhaps the only option the Israelis had. Hamas played chicken, using their own civilians as human shields. And Israel called their bluff. To the death of tens of thousands of innocent lives.
The heartbreaking part is that I agree with you. I feel like this conflict is inevitable. And it’s the civilians on both sides - but especially Gaza - who are bearing the brunt of misery as a result.
What on earth do I have to be sorry about? Of course their murderous rampage through Gaza happened after October 7. Even with the benefit of hindsight I’m not sure what better options Israel had.
I just wish they’d pull out and let the rebuilding begin. This conflict won’t be healed with more blood.
>That logic cuts both ways.
What both ways are you talking about? GP is arguing on behalf of those who were called antisemites because they stated “international community should rein in Israel to prevent them to commit atrocities because of rage”, and your response seems to be “well atrocities were given because Hamas”.
This is exactly why this “mea culpa” rings hollow. People who apparently condemn the reaction will tumble on their own arguments to excuse the same actions.
The "mea culpa" you're looking for rings hollow because I - and others - aren't sorry.
As I said, what do I have to be sorry for? For not condemning Israel after Hamas murdered and kidnapped hundreds of their civilians? Should I have condemned them for doing everything they could to bring their kidnapped people home?
Its lazy and incredibly selfish to condemn others for making hard choices when you don't know how you would have acted yourself. Me? I still can't answer the question of how I would have acted differently if I were in charge of Israel when October 7 happened. If I was president, and a bunch of armed militants came into my country, murdered our children and kidnapped hundreds of people, I can see myself sending my soldiers out with orders to bring them home.
Would you have done any different, if you were Israel's president? If so, what?
If you would have done the same thing and sent soldiers in, your condemnation rings pretty hollow.
On your hypothetical, do I woke up as Israeli president on Oct 7 2023? Because if that’s the case, then yes, maybe I would do the same, although most likely I would be ousted for not being bloodthirsty enough.
But in a less unrealistic scenario, if I were by chance, to be president of Israel, I would try first to dismantle illegal settlements and defuse conflict to avoid, for example, 2023 being the deadliest year for children in west bank way before Oct 7.
Any hypothetical scenario that doesn’t engage on what the Israeli government can do before Oct 7, is pretty much a scenario where you are representing an occupying and murderous regime, so likely you will behave as those who represent murderous regimes do.
> Its lazy and incredibly selfish to condemn others for making hard choices when you don't know how you would have acted yourself
No, it's how our world improves.
I, personally, do not have to be a perfect paragon of morality and justice and righteousness in order to condemn other people for doing immoral and evil things.
Also there's a huge difference between "a week after the attacks" and "12 months after the attacks". Humans, pretty much universally, will justify/excuse reactions based on immediate rage and anger and hurt and forgive people who did it... assuming they, you know, stop doing it.
Would I personally have sent soldiers in or done any of the other things? No idea. I certainly hope not, but there's no way to prove that. It's like asking if I would have bought a slave if I lived in 1800s texas or 150 ce rome. There's no real way to answer the question, but the important part is that it would still be wrong if I did it.
We can quibble about how wrong it would be, and more usefully, what the punishment should be for doing so, but none of that changes the fact that it's wrong.
And as a general take on the whole israel-palestine thing, yes, hamas has done any number of awful immortal crimes. So has israel. The difference is that israel has a lot more power over palestine than hamas has over israel.
Sure, maybe the 8 year old did in fact kick you in the shin and spit on you. I still expect the adult to act with a higher moral standard.
I'm pretty sure Hamas went into this expecting Israel to respond with war crimes, it was probably the reaction they were going for with the kidnappings. What I don't understand is how Hamas thought that they could take advantage of it (if not for the betterment of the Gazans, for themselves)?
It was clear to me and many other people from the first days after oct 7 that the actions taken by israel in gaza did not align with their stated goals, and that genocide was the likely outcome.
I hope people changing their view of it now will reflect on at what point they could have seen that, and what prevented them from seeing it, and what prevented them from taking seriously the people who did see it. Does everyone hold the belief that everything was fine until two days ago? I don't think that's a very strong position.
Oh?
Help me understand this position. If you were in charge of Israel on October 7, what would you have done differently?
It sounds like there was some better course of action they could have taken that seems obvious to you. It’s not at all obvious to me. Please share.
If I could invent a time machine to be in charge of Israel on Oct 7, I'd try to make the time machine travel further to the past...
If somehow I quantum-leapt into Netanyahu (shudder) on Oct 7, I'd tell the military to not bomb civilians indiscriminately. The bloodthirsty barbaric hardliners of the Israeli government/society would've called me/him a pussy and done a coup d'etat, either real or de facto, and I/he would've ended up in prison for the corruption.
At least if it was Quantum Leap, I could leap out.
Yeah its a horrible situation, and I too am grateful I wasn't Netanyahu on Oct 7.
> If somehow I quantum-leapt into Netanyahu (shudder) on Oct 7, I'd tell the military to not bomb civilians indiscriminately.
They didn't bomb civilians indiscriminately. But they also didn't hold back when Hamas used civilians as human shields. (Eg Hamas put military bases underneath hospitals).
Would you have held back, even if meant more of your soldiers dying? Even if it meant you might not be able to behead Hamas, or bring your people home? (Leaving Hamas alive means risking October 7 happening again.)
FWIW, I don't think there's any right answer here. Just lots of wrong answers. Its weirdly symmetrical - the Palestinians also - only - had lots of wrong answers in reaction to the encroachment of Israeli settlers. The whole situation is horrible.
> Leaving Hamas alive means risking October 7 happening again.
If someone killed your family members (especially the innocent ones) and walked around with impunity and an air of moral superiority, how much revenge would be in you?
> But they also didn't hold back when Hamas used civilians as human shields.
No they didn't, so in my view they lose any right to claim that they're any better than the barbaric butchers they're fighting.
> They didn't bomb civilians indiscriminately.
Oh please, wake up, and finally admit you're accepting their lies and are lying to yourself. Oh wait, I apologize, you're right, they didn't bomb civilians "indiscriminately", they used an algorithm to figure out whom to bomb: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
> B. said that the reason for this automation was a constant push to generate more targets for assassination. “In a day without targets [whose feature rating was sufficient to authorize a strike], we attacked at a lower threshold. We were constantly being pressured: ‘Bring us more targets.’ They really shouted at us. We finished [killing] our targets very quickly.”
> He explained that when lowering the rating threshold of Lavender, it would mark more people as targets for strikes. “At its peak, the system managed to generate 37,000 people as potential human targets,” said B. “But the numbers changed all the time, because it depends on where you set the bar of what a Hamas operative is.
> If someone killed your family members (especially the innocent ones) and walked around with impunity and an air of moral superiority, how much revenge would be in you?
Oh I’m sure a lot. But I’d like to think I wouldn’t take that anger out by gunning down innocent civilians in the street like Hamas did.
> any better than the barbaric butchers they’re fighting
I never said they were. Why do we have to pick a team here? Israel put Palestine in an untenable situation and they reacted with an evil act of terrorism. And then Israel reacted to that with a brutal bombing campaign that’s left tens of thousands dead, cold and hungry. We probably both agree more than we disagree here - it’s all barbaric butchery. Both sides have acted with reckless indifference to the death and destruction they’ve caused. And sadly I don’t see any path out.
The only “team” I’m on is that of the civilians on both sides of this conflict, who have bled and died for no good reason. Especially that of the civilians in Gaza who have paid a heavier price in bloodshed, rubble and hunger. It’s horrible all round.
Maybe I would make a bad political leader but I think that responding to terrorism with total war is a bad strategy.
Its not total war. Its not Russia vs Ukraine. Gaza doesn't have an army.
Israel didn't take any actions until Oct 13. What actions 'from the first days' are you referring to?
Israel was launching air strikes before noon on October 7, killing hundreds of people with those strikes that day alone. Israeli news reports on Sunday morning variously mentioned 800 strikes and more than 16 tons of munitions dropped on the Gaza Strip. https://www.timesofisrael.com/we-are-at-war-netanyahu-says-a...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/08/israel-gaza-ha...
On October 8 they cut all imports to Gaza, and cut off the electricity and gas supplies to the entire civilian population. That was probably a war crime by itself, as collective punishment. Palestinian hospitals reported being overwhelmed by Sunday morning. Netanyahu said civilians should all leave Gaza - without opening any exits - and promised to inflict an unprecedented price in response to the attacks.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/08/middleeast/israel-gaza-attack...
What on earth does “no actions” mean to you!?!?
Yes we should encourage changing minds.
...Except I clocked Israel as having genocidal ambitions within days of Hamas' attack, right about the time their generals started talking about cutting off power and water to the entirety of gaza.
I have imagine I am both less informed and more naive than any of these politicians. I don't have to applaud them when they spinelessly slither with the prevailing political winds.
hamas could surrender tomorrow and end any pretense or cover for the "genocidal ambitions". you are being incredibly racist towards palestinians by infantilizing them and suggesting that hamas doesn't have any agency or responsibility for this war or it's effect on innocent civilians.
I think you are putting too much weight on the organization rather than the idea and collective it represents. From a very westernized idealized perspective.
Hamas is not this all encompassing high communication stable organization able to surrender tomorrow.
Hamas, or rather the idea, is instead made up of everyone who had a family member, relative or friend killed by Israel wanting to live a good life without the threat or pain of past actions.
One group of a loosely connected collective surrendering won’t materially change the situation on the ground.
Agency? Weak orgs does not have agency. You could claim Netanyahu has been running the Hamas nomination committee by bombs.
I would guess they are mainly cells of self playing pianos by now with some expatriot spokesmen.
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Imagine thinking they don't have any idea what it was. Truly a naive perspective.
I draw the line far before supporting genocide they should all be in prison.
>new data
that is the main point for me. There are a lot of claims, yet almost no verifiable data. With smartphones everywhere and having seen how war is documented say in Ukraine (and also how the propaganda lies are made there), i believe practically no claim until there is a video for it. For example the news of shooting near aid distribution centers come almost every day. How come nobody has recorded it? Especially with Hamas flying a bunch of drones there, they would undoubtedly have made such footage and published the footage around the world.
At the beginning of the Gaza war i put a bit of effort to calibrate for myself how much lying is there https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38751882
It’s more likely that Israel was given free rein for the timeline they wanted from the global order. Let’s say they asked for a full two years, where countries were basically under a gentleman’s gag order.
Two years is enough time for the deed to be done, say whatever you need to say now, it doesn’t matter. You see that Israel has allowed aid in all of a sudden according to this contrived timeline. It’s not different than a teacher letting a bully beat down a kid for a solid 10 minutes and jumping in after with a “ok that’s enough now”. Such an actor is complicit.
I’d urge people read Marin Luther King’s words on inaction.
That seems like a somewhat unlikely degree of international coordination.
It’s really not. France and England are suddenly realizing the genocide, and Israel has decided that now is the time aid gets to come in. Trump just admitted there is starvation in Gaza. It’s pretty coordinated. It’s an easy ask, “we just need 14 months of silence plus or minus, then whatever”.
The "suddenly" is likely because Trump took office and started making noises about paving Gaza over to build resorts. It was much easier for these countries to look the other way when the US was notionally holding Netanyahu's leash.
Yeah, pretty long leash, but still.
The U.K. didn’t even have the same government 14 months ago. Completely different party in power. The degree of coordination you’re talking about is not just unlikely but fantastical.
And yet this New New Labour has been enacting the exact same policies as the Tories before them. "Completely different" is completely wrong.
Dropping 500+ lbs indiscriminately on civilian populations does not need new data.
War crimes have been perpetrated from extremely early on. What's happening now is just a continuation of what was happening at the start. It's better that there is some change but lots of groups, politicians and countries cannot expect genocide to be forgotten.
Realistically we are nowhere close to any of this being resolved or even stopped so I'm not even sure there is anything yet changed.
Except these politicians weren't sharing their opinion, they were making a calculated statement and deliberately refusing to acknowledge all evidence to the contrary for years. As an example, selling weapons to a country that will use them to commit war crimes violates US law. So the Biden administration claimed they had seen "no evidence" of Israel committing any war crimes. A ludicrous statement to anyone bothering to pay any attention at the time. Now we know that was a lie (actually we knew it then)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/3/former-us-official-w...
So is someone like Matt Miller who spent more than a year repeating genocide propaganda redeemed now? Of course not. These people have no principles at all, and their words are meaningless. Ww must be mindful of their actions.
It's good to be honest about all the horrors going on in the world, not just when they're committed by jewish people (I'm not jewish btw).
For example there are recents vids of syrian muslims going door to door in villages in Syria and asking people if they are muslims or of the Druze faith: those answering they're from the Druze faith are shot on the spot.
This qualify as war crimes too to me.
But you don't get to read much about it in the mainstream media and many NGOs (not all) who are very active when it's about helping palestinians are keeping totally quiet on the subject too.
I see much more outrage about what's happening to palestinians then what's happening to Druze people.
Why is that? How comes it's so selective?
Similarly: the western world is constantly reminded of colonialism. But why are the hutis getting a free pass for the 800 000 tustis they genocided 25 years ago? How comes they're not constantly reminded of what they did? Those who committed these atrocities, including regular citizens, are still alive today.
And somehow we should pay because our great-great-great-great-grandfather was a colonialist?
It's that dual standard, that highly selective outrage, that is very hard to stomach for me.
BTW I don't recommend watching the vids of syrian muslims executing Druze people: it's hard.
> Why is that? How comes it's so selective?
The main reason is that Israel is materially supported by the West, so Westerners feel morally responsible for what it does.
It has little to do with whether the perpetrators are Jewish or not[1]. There were gigantic protests against the Iraq war, whose main perpetrators (e.g. Bush) were not Jewish.
1: I edited this from "nothing" to "little". I concede it might have something to do with anti-Semitism, because there is some non-zero group of people whose opposition to Israel is purely motivated by anti-Semitism, but I don't get the sense that they're the majority, at least among Westerners.
The current Syrian government is also supported by the west, just not to the same degree and not as publically. Myanmar is basically not mentioned at all in the Western press, nor Sudan or Libya or anywhere else war crimes are regularly taking place. I'd guess that the reason for Israel being in the media so much is that there are many more Palestinians and Jews than Rohingya or Burmese or Druze or Syrians in Western countries.
That’s not the reason. Almost certainly people feel a strong reaction, then when asked why it’s selective reach for a plausible answer. “Israel is supported by the west” is plausible.
What's this denial based on? Would you consider "Israel is part of the West" (rather than "supported by") to be more credible (and different enough to distinguish)?
Saudi Arabia, Egypt[1], Morroco, Jordan, and others have used American weapons to attack Yemen for 10 years now. [2]
No one ever says anything because there are no Jews to blame.
[1]: second highest recipient of US aid [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi-led_intervention_in_the_...
If you have quality news sources you hear about these things all the time (e.g. Economist).
One reason Israel gets so much attention in the US is that US taxpayers are underwriting the war; both by selling arms and by defending attacks on Israel. So in other words, every tax paying US person who works is working hard every day to further genocide. It is a bitter pill to swallow, and highlights the contradictions and hypocrisy of US foreign policy.
My tax dollars are not as clearly implicated in the wars in Sudan, Ethiopia, Syria, Myanmar, or the various other genocides.
They were implicated in Yemen.
> Why is that? How comes it's so selective?
Most of the weapons used to kill civilians in Gaza are payed for by American taxpayers. US citizens bear a large responsibility for what is going on there.
> But why are the hutis getting a free pass for the 800 000 tustis they genocided 25 years ago? How comes they're not constantly reminded of what they did? Those who committed these atrocities, including regular citizens, are still alive today.
The world stood by and let that genocide happen, and we appear to be standing by and letting this one happen too
On one hand, I agree that honesty is important.
On the other hand, this seems like whataboutism instead of honestly facing the truth.
> not just when they're committed by jewish people
Really skeptical that’s the filter that’s being applied here.
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Which Palestinians has Israel been a racist project to? The Israeli Palestinians that make up 20% of the population? Or the ones living on the other side of the border? I'm not sure it's only about race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel
Have you actually read the link you posted? There is like dozen different ways Arab population is discriminated described there.
And that kind of myopic, self indulgent, genocidal/racist/apartheid -apologist tone, trying to obfuscate plain truths...
that pretty much sums up much of the responses on this forum, and the US tech sector (or at least its managers) in general.
Leaving aside the moral bankruptcy, it also displays a stunning and fundamental ignorance of the flow of history. How many of you will end up having to pretend, 5 years from now, that this wasn't your online username, just to be allowed to function in "polite society".
It also shows how much of a self-deluded echo chamber you live in, not realizing how completely such genocidal apologist propaganda has been debunked & discarded amongst the wider population - even within the US.
It all smacks of the apocryphal saying of Marie Antoinette of "let them eat cake", weeks before she has a load taken off her shoulders
Israel has been an apartheid state for decades. This has nothing to do with Hamas. Anyone who is "changing their mind" now, hasn't - it's merely no longer socially acceptable to support naked indiscriminate brutality.
> Israel has been an apartheid state for decades
Around 20% of Israelis are Muslims and they have full rights and get to vote, so no its not an apartheid state.
In 1961, South Africa defended its use of apartheid by using Israel as an example of acceptable apartheid state. In 2022 (and 2024), South Africa again called Israel an apartheid state. They're kind of the authority on it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_apartheid
If the distinction you're making is only that the apartheid is applied mostly in Gaza and the West Bank, I'd say that misses the forest for the trees.
If you talk to any Muslim that lives in Israel (which I have), you will realise that they only have full rights in theory.
Arabs with Israeli passports are routinely searched and investigated by intelligence agencies, and in the occupied areas Arabs WITH Israeli passports are not allowed to visit certain areas (multiple sources online, including the recent Louis Theroux documentary). This is the very definition of an apartheid state.
> in the occupied areas Arabs WITH Israeli passports are not allowed to visit certain areas
No one with an Israeli passport is allowed to visit Area A of the West Bank, regardless of their ethnicity.
Yeah. And?
One case is an assertion of sovereignty (whether we agree or not), the other case is apartheid.
I'm not sure what you mean. I'm saying that the reason that Arabs with Israeli passports are not allowed to enter certain areas of the West Bank is because no one with an Israeli passport is allowed to enter those areas.
What I pointed out is that there are areas within Israel where Arabs with an Israeli passport cannot enter.
Areas outside of Israeli control where Israelis are not allowed to go is irrelevant when discussing about whether Israel is an apartheid state or not.
> What I pointed out is that there are areas within Israel where Arabs with an Israeli passport cannot enter.
Actually you said
> in the occupied areas Arabs WITH Israeli passports are not allowed to visit certain areas
But in any case, since you also said "multiple sources online" perhaps you can link one so we're talking about something concrete and not just vague insinuations.
By occupied areas I did not mean Area A of the West Bank, I meant settlements considered "Israel".
It is trivial to find more sources than the one I already mentioned, there is a very very long wikipedia article as a starting point. I'm afraid you do not care about seeing what is going on, you care about dismissing opposing opinions.
Well, I have found some sources and they say that Arabs with Israeli citizenship can live in Israeli settlements in the West Bank:
https://old.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/v8s88z/ara...
https://www.quora.com/Why-can-t-Israeli-Arabs-live-in-Israel...
Your sources are a reddit and a quora post ? Really ?
You just lost all credibility for any of your arguments.
Here, I found sources claiming that zombies can exist:
https://www.reddit.com/r/zombies/comments/x4yewj/are_zombies...
https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-zombie-virus-and-where-is-it...
You haven't linked your sources on the matter at all ...
I mentioned a documentary by a reputable journalist, and pointed you to the relevant wikipedia article which has 386 citations.
Sounds like you have more than enough to get started.
Or maybe stay with reddit and quora. Up to you.
You did not link to a Wikipedia article. Unfortunately I do not have the resources to watch Louis Theroux's documentary, which I'm sure is full of his characteristic dry takes.
It is the very first link when you google "israel apartheid wiki", are you a child? Because you certainly come across as one.
But then again a child would have some empathy towards the children Israel is starving.
OK, so I guess you're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_apartheid
Normally if one was trying to make a point supported by sources, one would list the source and the extracts that support the claim, so please do so. I'm not inclined to continue to try to drag it out of you.
I don't welcome your assumptions about my empathy on a topic that hasn't been the point of discussion in this subthread, or how I come across.
Continue dragging it out of me ? You said that you are too busy to watch a documentary which portrays how the actual situation is there and the mentality of the settlers. I guess you're too busy arguing on hackernews.
Okay then, read a few sentences of the wikipedia article. Or should I spoonfeed them to you ? Okay, sure:
Want more ? Read the damn article and the sources yourself. And not random reddit or quora posts. I'm done here.Your proof of apartheid was supposedly "in the occupied areas Arabs WITH Israeli passports are not allowed to visit certain areas". That's the claim that I'm challenging. Sorry if you thought I was discussing something else. If so then I can understand why you'd be confused.
You are challenging, yet you are refusing to read the sources of the wikipedia article, or watch the documentary.
You are challenged, not challenging anything.
OK, as you prefer. Thanks for persevering anyhow.
How can it be apartheid state with 1/5th of its population being non-Jewish and having strong anti-discrimination laws? They don't count people living in Gaza and West-Bank who want and/or try to kill them as their own and why would they? What "being apartheid state" even means?
I see. So people who call it apartheid basically believe that places like Gaza are parts of Israel despite Israel having no administrative power there nor effective police presence.
Let's skip those places for a moment. What are the signs of apartheid in Israel proper? I don't have access to the sources listed. Just one or two things off the top of your head would be a lot for me.
if it can be an occupation with no troops on the ground, a genocide with no meaningful way to destroy a people, colonialism by the original inhabitants and not motivated by capitalism, it surely could be apartheid without racism and with equal rights
words have no meaning, only emotion
Not a massive fan of Israel, but I can't see any other country reacting in a different way to Oct 7th. The Hamas attack has to be one of the dumbest strategic moves ever made.
Hamas is an exacerbating symptom, not a primary cause. A decades-long apartheid breeds fierce, brutal resistance.
You mean reacting with war crimes, crimes against humanity, attempted genocide? This without even mentioning the fact that, given Israel's ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine, a military attack to Israel was entirely justified.
After 9/11, the US invaded 2 countries, one of which wasn't even involved.
And honestly, if it had been my daughter raped and killed at a music festival, I'd have done worse.
Ok, by this logic you're justifying whatever Hamas did, since many, many daughters of Palestinians and Gazans have been killed (and in some cases, raped) by Israel and Israeli soldiers for decades.
And by the same proportion, what would be the justified reaction of Palestinians to Israel now if they had the means? Complete nuclear annihilation?
I think if Palestinians had nukes (or Iran), they would have already done this.
Israel exists. That bell can't be un-rung. Palestinians could have got used to that fact and tried to build a nation, instead they want to kill Jews (and it is Jews, not just Israelis).
Israel doesn't have clean hands in this, and could have done better as well. I've not heard of mass rapes by Israeli soldiers, though.
could have done better is the understatement of the century.
And how many rapes and to what level of systematicity do you need it to raise to your attention?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_and_gender-based_viol...
> During the ongoing Gaza war, Israeli male and female soldiers, guards, medical staff have reportedly committed wartime sexual violence against Palestinian women, children and men[1][2][3][4] including rape, gang-rape, sexualized torture and genital mutilation.[5][6][7][8][9]
If that's the case, the people responsible should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.
You escaped my question. I've asked you if by your own logic the October 7 attack was justified, and what would be the proportionate reaction to the ongoing genocide.
I don't believe there is an ongoing genocide. There is a shitty war in an urban environment.
You have again eluded my question.
IF (and If is carrying a lot of weight in this statement) there is a genocide going on, then the victims should fight back by whatever means possible. This applies to any genocide - Jews in WW2, Rwanda etc,
And "if" there is only occupation, progressive annexation, pogroms, apartheid (in the occupied territories), destruction of houses and villages, of crops, periodic bombardments with thousands of civilian deaths, total blockade- and this goes on for decades with absolutely no recourse to justice (as we see, Western governments have troubles condemning Israel even for the total destruction of Gaza)? Then how do you think the victims should be allowed to fight back? How would you fight back if that were happening to you?
Is it happening and then they fought back, or did they attack and it started happening?
The US actions after 9/11 have been established as a terrible example harming the US itself to the utmost.
Both the US and Israel would have been better off not reacting at all than this.
The US is not a moral standard worth an ounce of spit when it comes to war crimes, crimes against humanity and massive violations of human rights at scale.
It literally murdered 5% of Iraq's population in cold blood on the basis of outright lies.
Iraqi mothers still suffer the US' war crimes.
What's everyone's thoughts on the GHF? They're the only way that food officially enters Gaza. IDF is not supposed to be immediately present at the distribution sites, and yet are shooting civilians. As are contractors hired by GHF. In fact there are cases of nationals joining IDF for the explicit purpose of shooting civilians, seemingly. There are movements to disband the GHF, but how else would Gazans eat?
> but how else would Gazans eat
Lets be entirely clear that the food crisis in Gaza is manufactured. There is enough food and medicines available and there are several organizations capable of dealing with the logistics of handling out the food, main one among them of course being UNWRA.
The only reason there is starvation in Gaza is because IDF is preventing aid from entering the territory and are refusing to let real humanitarian organizations work safely there.
So the answer to the question is: Israel must let food trucks into Gaza and let serious humanitarian organizations with decades of experience handle the logistics of handing out the food. About 150-200 trucks needs to enter Gaza per day, that's a lot of trucks to inspect thoroughly, but not nearly infeasible.
"The only reason there is starvation in Gaza is because IDF is preventing aid from entering the territory and are refusing to let real humanitarian organizations work safely there."
This is not accurate to say the least. Trucks do get in but Hamas and armed groups control the supplies and prevent a fair distribution
Every humanitarian organisation on the ground have said that these claims are false. What they HAVE claimed is that the gangs that are raiding aid are doing so with the support of the IDF:
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-14/gaza-aid-looting-gangs-yasser-abu-shabab-israel-netanyahu-hamas
This was the first result of many. I have heard these claims from many many sources for at least 6 months, despite having actively avoiding reading about Gaza.
Looting also has a much lower incentive if you flood the now much tinier area where people live with more food, medical supplies, etc, than they need.
Yeah, apart from everything else, the Israeli argument was not even logical: Hamas is stealing supplies to sell at inflated prices - so we have to restrict supply and ensure the prices inflate even more?
There are videos of civilians storming Hamas warehouses and being shot and Hamas on aid trucks.
https://x.com/HilzFuld/status/1949860272820125701
If your main source is aid organisations then be aware UNRWA employ members of Hamas and the staff at many others call for the death of Jews on their personal social media.
UNRWA being infiltrated would at least be theoretically plausible (even though Israel is lacking evidence even for that, apart from a small number of workers).
But this argument falls flat when essentially EVERY aid and human rights organization that operates in the strip is saying the same thing. (With the notable exception of one: The GHF)
Claiming that the ENTIRE global human rights system is engaged in a coordinated misinformation campaign against Israel is conspiracy theory levels of delusional.
Are you serious right now? Have you lost all sense of relativity here?
Nobody cares about what these employees say on their free time. If you collated the things IDF members say on social media about Arabs, it would not look any prettier. It's a complete non-sequitur and emphasizes how insecure you are over the actual righteousness of these actions.
people exhibiting extreme racist bigotry should not be considered a trusted source venue on the homeland of those people.
The boxes weigh 44 lb. Imagine sick, injured, and starved people attempting to carry those.
Also original UN plans called for hundreds more distribution sites.
Flood the relatively tiny area, with enough deliveries directly to the right places and people, with more food and supplies than is needed.
No. It’s pretty well-established that even if the distribution were perfect, there simply aren’t enough trucks going in.
This is a white lie.
Here's two recent videos I have seen suggesting otherwise.
https://x.com/Osint613/status/1950181269972656328?t=4tWSy4m6...
https://x.com/HamasAtrocities/status/1949444566165405731?t=M...
If you check a map of Gaza and the GHF distribution locations, you will see that there are only 3 distribution points in entire Gaza. So in an area that hosts 2 million people.
What's more, none of those 3 points are in the 2 area's that are appointed by Israel as safe havens. So they are not where most Gazans live. Which means they have to travel long distances to get food, through an area where they are considered free game by the IDF.
> how else would Gazans eat?
Have more distribution points, distributing more food, and inside the area's where Gazans live
The ideal answer is the UN sends in peacekeeping forces to kick out the IDF.
That won't happen due to the USA. So in practice the answer to "How will the Gazans eat?" is "They won't."
If the UN sent in peacekeepers the IDF would use them for target practice. It would be a total bloodbath.
Leaving aside the horror of the thought, the only way to stop Israel's assault on Gaza with a military force is to summon one more powerful than the IDF. There are only a few nations in the world that have a military that could take on the IDF - the US, Russia, China, I'm not sure who else. None of those countries are even remotely likely to invade Israel to stop the IDF from massacring the Palestinians. Why would they? What would be in it for them?
Even in WWII, Germany was not invaded to save the Jews from the Holocaust. That was a fortunate and welcome side-effect. But if the Nazis hadn't also invaded all their neighbours, and the Soviet Union, they could have well gone on and exterminated all the Jews in Europe unimpeded.
Start with robust sanctions.
It seems unlikely that the IDF will do anything to an international peace force operating in Gaza (not Israel) under a combined lead of France and the UK.
Anyway, it would exactly only take one country - the US - to stop shipping weapons (to credibly threaten to stop) to bring this to an end so fast that you can‘t even finish breakfast.
IDF has attacked UN peacekeepers in Lebanon at least.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/10/1155551
> It seems unlikely that the IDF will do anything to an international peace force operating in Gaza (not Israel) under a combined lead of France and the UK.
Almost certainly true but it would be political suicide for either country to actually deploy troops to the area. Troops would be attacked either by Hamas or one of the other dozen terrorist organisations present in the area, some of which are allegedly backed by Israel. Any goodwill obtained internationally would evaporate as soon as the troops are forced to defend themselves and any goodwill obtained domestically would evaporate as soon as any troops died or were injured.
> how else would Gazans eat?
UNRWA, WFP, etc. You know, the ones with decades of experience in Gaza and other war zones with sites, warehouses, and all the other infrastructure necessary to support a population under siege.
> UNRWA
The one that has a unique definiton of 'refugee' that doesn't correspond with UNs the normal definition of the term? Where many of the staff work for Hamas? Where their schools teach children to be martyrs? The one many countries have halted funding for because of this?
If you want the UN, fine, UNHCR, the normal UN refugee agency.
Since when did the UN's definitions start mattering to Israel, all of the sudden? That's a new development I haven't heard yet, tell me more about it.
UNRWAs definition is different from UNHCR because it allows them to claim buildings in Gaza are ‘refugee camps’ and to claim refugee status for people who are safely resettled.
the GHF is a IDF front pure and simple. They get to control food going in. They get to blame "surges" at food lines for why the IDF had to open fire with tanks. Its all a farce.
Israel clearly isn’t above letting Gazans starve, so it seems like a viable option, even if not ideal. Perhaps air drops should be the way forward to supplement whatever on ground aid is actually delivered. I think the outside world needs to stop posturing on what Israel should do and just get aid there however possible.
The reports that i've seen for most of those instances are reporting shootings of people on the way to a GHF site and one shooting at the site at night.
> but how else would Gazans eat?
are you being deliberately stupid? the GHF and Israel are the reason Gazans don't eat. Israel and America decided other food aid agencies were not allowed in to Gaza. There is food at the border waiting but being blocked by Israel and America.
If Americans pressure the GHF to shut down, does the situation get worse or better?
The GHF is America.
If we assume good faith on the part of the Israelis, and believe that the GHF is genuinely an attempt to feed the civilian population of Gaza without food and money making its way to Hamas, it's clearly totally inadequate. There are too few sites operating for too little time; it's a recipe for chaos and panic. There's been countless reports of violence on way to the sites; the IDF has made several excuses for this, but even if we assume good faith on the part of the Israelis here too, the excuses aren't good enough: it needs to be taking proactive steps to fix the problem instead of denying, deflecting, and passing the blame.
It's a shame - if the GHF were being run well, it'd be a great first step in trying to win hearts and minds. But it's not.
The other extreme is that it's an elaborate ruse to, frankly, put Gazans in positions where the IDF will be able to claim justification for killing them. This seems paranoid, but no more implausible than the alternatives. The sites open at the crack of dawn, Gazans rush to get ahead of the crowds because there aren't enough sites, so they travel through the dark in areas controlled by IDF where movement is forbidden before daybreak; the IDF shrugs and says, "well, there were unknown targets travelling through off-limit areas in the dark, we had to neutralize the potential threat". And at the sites themselves chaos inevitably ensues - because, again, there aren't enough sites - and violence is deployed to keep the crowds under control.
But my suspicion regarding the GHF is that it's mostly just a half-assed attempt from Israel to try to get the international community off their back while they continue their siege effort to starve out the Gazans, and/or possibly a grift to enrich various friends of Bibi or Trump.
Does anyone still need testimonies like these to be convinced that Israel is systematically exterminating the Palestinians using kinetic force and starvation? We're past that point now. Making Gaza unlivable by carpet-bombing the strip, telegraphing mass murder in unambiguous statements at the highest levels of government, dehumanizing the Palestinians and silencing anyone who dares to speak up?
I, for one, am thankful this hasn't been taken down like any article remotely critical of Israel.
And this has eliminated the whole Western bullshit about human rights maximalism - it's just the same damn thing every time. Like the atrocities in the Congo free State, the Scramble for Africa, etc. the West will sponsor unspeakable atrocities overseas and then act shocked when they actually happen.
Many people in the West don't realize it, but Palestine will wreck severe damage on the West. Just like Gorbachev visiting a random store in the US and seeing insane abundance in a shop in the middle of nowhere while Soviet citizens starved, what killed the Soviet Union was disillusion; people at all levels realized that a system that couldn't provide its people the basics didn't deserve to exist.
That's what happening in the West: American GWOT veterans are still feeling disillusioned about what they went to do in Iraq & Afg. (and Vietnam, before it), and now their kids are seriously asking, "Are we the baddies?"
What's the point of this industrial capacity and wealth if all we do with it is bomb kids? No political system can survive disillusion, that is, the point where people across the spectrum start seeing their nation as hypocritical.
I think the thing that should have been a clear unambiguous sign (if nothing up to then were convincing enough) that Israel's intentions weren't just to defeat Hamas but cause severe harm to the civilian population of Gaza was when they blocked all food and aid into Gaza for months. I mean, why would you do that unless you want people to die?
Even the stated explanation that they wanted to deprive Hamas of the ability to fundraise by stealing food and selling it back didn't make sense. Food shortages would cause the market value of hoarded food to rise, thus helping Hamas. Flooding the region with food would collapse the prices and deprive them of a revenue stream.
The intention was clearly communicated from day 1. But Western governments willingly decided to provide diplomatic cover & military support - some to this very day - with the backing of the Western media apparatus.
Not the spanish government at least, now we are horrible aparently.
Yes, Spain, Ireland, and Belgium were/are outliers. I am generalizing because the vast majority are complicit.
It is also much simpler to do this than qualify each and every statement by enumerating the list of good or bad countries :)
"destroy Hamas" has become "kill everyone with Hamas sympathies" -- but you can be sure that every boy who can carry a gun, who has seen family members die, who is living the destruction and desolation, is itching for a chance to join the next version of Hamas (which may not be Hamas itself, but something else built on the same shouldering fires that burn when people are oppressed, bombed, and starved, repeatedly for generations. They're not destroying Hamas -- they're just creating a new one (if anyone survives).
The market value of hoarded food going up only helps Hamas if they are the one managing to do the hoarding - otherwise it actually works against Hamas (if there's another distributor)
Exactly. If Hamas is doing it, it's self-defeating. If Hamas isn't doing it then you're just starving people. Because the point is just starvation, nothing to do with Hamas.
BTW, all orgs (other than the lyin' IDF) says Hamas wasn't stealing significant amounts of aid (nowhere near the 10% claimed). Therefore it's clear starvation was the goal, not targeting funding or Hamas at all.
Even the IDF now admits it had no evidence of Hamas systematically stealing aid [0].
Yet the talking point - which attempted to justify genocide and never had a shred of evidence - will linger for years. I still meet people who think Saddam did 9/11, or that Afghanistan was connected.
I still meet many people who don't even know a third tower fell in NYC that day. When news media repeats a talking point that long, or ignores evidence that long, it makes a very deep impression on the type of person who takes things at face value a little too much.
0 - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/middleeast/hamas-un...
I mostly agree except the "no political system can survive disillusion" bit. In most of the examples you give the political system survived.
For now. Eventually, the injuries your system takes over time grinds your gears to a halt.
And I can provide numerous examples: Portugal's colonial holdings (Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique) were unwound after the carnation revolution because the overseas wars were consuming 50% of the national budget while the Estado Novo at home was a corrupt, violent, authoritarian, corporatist state.
The Brits could not square a global empire while their countrymen were rationing food, etc. at home. That had to go as well.
Despite all the Cold War propaganda spread since the fall of the USSR, in 1991, the Soviet Union was still a first-rate military power, with 35k to 40k nuclear warheads and >150 divisions, totaling 3.4M troops. It could easily suppress any of those pro-democracy protests, and all the CIA's burrowing in the Sovbloc would come to nought.
But there was no longer anything worth fighting for. Even people within the Party infrastructure had come to admit that they'd been living for a lie, lying for a lie, killing for a lie-all that for a lie!
The Qing dynasty faced massive internal revolts (Taiping, Boxer), external invasions (Opium Wars), and technological stagnation. The empire resisted modernization too long, then tried too little, too late.
Overwhelmed by foreign powers and internal revolution (1911), it died because it could no longer defend the illusion of legitimacy.
In France's Ancien Regime, nobles were exempt from taxes while peasants starved; France had a bloated, corrupt court and massive debt (partly from helping America fight the British!), yet refused reforms.
Nazi Germany claimed to be defending “Western civilization” while practicing industrial genocide and totalitarian control over - wait for it - Europeans!
One contradiction doesn't bring down a political system, but it cascades, because a hypocritical system dives deeper into hypocrisy until it eventually collapses.
I get that things are bad. But how do we fix it?
My god such a telelogical view of history and it smells like generated with ChatGPT and using a few prompts to try to textual style hide it.
Howard Zinn, Chomsky, and most other anti imperialist intellectuals viewed history similarly badly and are looking almost as stupid in retrospect as Fukuyama did with his claim that history has ended. For every example they bring up, there's 5 counterexamples that they didn't bring up because in some cases the evidence for the good they did is locked up in a spooks SKIF for the next 50 years - or in other cases they didn't bring it up because America just isn't allowed to be the good guy anymore if you personally took part in America doing bad things.
The amount of damage that folks like Marx did through making people believe in telelogical views of history ( i.e. "Capitalism is GUARANTEED to destroy itself due to internal contradictions") is colossal.
Shit bad regimes which are based on lies are now stronger than ever. I'm willing to bet $$$ that not only does NK exist in 50 years, but it's stronger than ever and even more authoritarian. AI literally locks in power structures and perfects them.
>AI literally locks in power structures and perfects them.
There you go advancing the same teleological theory of history you're supposed to be denouncing.
Like the saying goes, history doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes: when institutions, states, etc. behave in a certain way for an extended period of time, we can infer what their future will look like by studying similar examples from the past.
Yeah, sorry but that's wishful thinking. As long as the people in the West have a relatively high quality of life and political stability -relative to everyone else, that is- they will not shake the foundation of their national institutions. That is even more so the case when they see how everyone else fares, who doesn't live in the West.
In a sense, seeing what happens to Palestinians, Sudanese, Somalis, Syrians, Afghans, Lebanese, Pakistanis, etc etc, is a great motivator for the citizen of the EU, USA, and friends.
If you look, you'll notice that the major political flare point in the West these days is ... immigration. Who cares what happens outside our borders? Our main preoccupation is protecting our borders. Because we are convinced everything outside them sucks.
> And this has eliminated the whole Western bullshit about human rights maximalism
That's the truth. "Never again". Clearly our politicians do not believe in human rights or international law. What do they believe in? Democracy? I doubt it. Money? Western exceptionalism? More likely. Where do we go from here? Why would anyone ever take any moral argument from a western nation seriously ever again?
What we have learned again is that actions speak louder than words and that without action you can't achieve anything.
Western nations aren't doing anything nor are middle eastern governments, nor asian governments.
My takeaway is that the UN needs to be replaced with something without the 5 veto powers. Both Gaza now and Syria could have been prevented with peacekeeping missions if it weren't for the US and Russia and their vetos.
> Western nations aren't doing anything nor are middle eastern governments, nor asian governments.
On the other hand, middle Eastern nations and Asian nations are typically protesting loudly, they don't protect Israel in the UN, they recognize the Palestinian state, they don't sell weapons to Israel.
It was Yeltsin, not Gorbachev
> I, for one, am thankful this hasn't been taken down like any article remotely critical of Israel.
Wait for few more hours to be thankful.
Was flagged and restored just now, haha.
Edit: And this comment is flagged to hell, as well, haha. I guess saying that the systematic murder of civilians is bad is now a controversial opinion, lmao.
> I guess saying that the systematic murder of civilians is bad is now a controversial opinion, lmao.
No, but this mode of discourse is obnoxious and uncharitable.
> Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
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In spaces that were explicitly created with the intent of hosting civil, respectful discourse, it is always appropriate to insist the that discourse remain civil and respectful.
Part of civility and respect is not demanding that other people see things your way, or supposing that there is something wrong with them if the evidence available to them has not led them to the same conclusion as you. Another part is not ironically laughing because things don't go your way. Another part is not insisting that you are being persecuted for entirely innocent conduct in a way that ignores previously provided explanations for why that conduct was not considered innocent by others.
Honestly I find it kind of sickening how much people treat this conflict like picking a sports team. I’ve been saying that from the start - I feel for the civilians caught in the middle of this conflict, from both Israel and Gaza.
I’ve caught flak from both sides for saying so. Some people seem deadset on making an enemy of nuance.
I see your point, but it can also be frustrating when people “both-sides” every atrocity. It’s sort of like saying “All Lives Matter” at every police shooting.
It's less "both sides" and more "two of the four sides." There is Hamas, the weak but fanatical terrorist organization, the powerful and cruel ruling Israeli administration and military, the Palestinian citizens struggling to survive, and the Israeli citizens. The latter two are mostly not committing crimes against humanity¹. By the laws of war Israel signed into, civilians should be protected. Civilians are not parties in a war
1: The violent Israeli settlers, if certain accounts are true, are committing crimes against humanity. But you can't punish every Israeli just because they share nationality with a criminal. Just like we shouldn't starve Palestinians who live in the same area as Hamas.
I guess. But, the conflict in the middle east is insanely complex. Anyone claiming you can simplify the situation into "good guys" vs "bad guys" just doesn't understand the history of the region. Or they're lying about it, because they want a sports team.
> It’s sort of like saying “All Lives Matter” at every police shooting.
Eh. I hear that as a less articulate, more annoying way to say "I care more generally about police violence more than police violence against black people, specifically." Seems reasonable to me, even if people bring it up in an oblique way.
Ideology is basically the opposite of nuance.
That’s how every war since the beginning of time has worked. Most people aren’t into mass murder until you dehumanize the “bad guys” and make it a team vs team thing.
Look at how many Americans clamor for the mass murder of enslaved Russian teenagers.
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Flagging or not flagging an article has no impact on the war. No matter how enthusiastic you are at your keyboard, you won’t stop those kids getting bombed.
And there are other reasons to flag an article like this - like some people would rather HN have less politics.
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You've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly and badly in this thread, and you've posted 28 (!) comments, most of which have been doing this. That's way beyond the pale, so regardless of which side you're taking in the conflict, please stop.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
People form beliefs and make judgments based on things they do not know, it is nothing surprising[1]. I would recommend reading the history of Israel (vs. Palestine, especially).
Yeah, Hamzah has been making lots of videos of IDF soldiers (and other Israelites) saying that they want all Palestinian children to die, and that their lives are worth more than Palestinians' lives.
I am not surprised by any of this, the media is probably controlled. They hear what the Government wants them to hear, which is this: they are the good guys.
[1] I do not claim to know everything either, which should be very obvious, but I try to postpone forming a judgment.
I feel it's not going to last longer. With the advent of modern, mass media, young people across the West can see for themselves and they're taking a side. More specifically, they don't want their governments funding genocide with their taxes. This cannot be made to go away, which is why Zionist activists and their lackeys are pulling out all the stops: no one expected the outburst of disgust at Israel's actions would get this severe, so they're in nonstop damage control mode.
The problem is the modern mass deception. We keep seeing "evidence" that doesn't support the claims.
I only know the history, I do not know what exactly is happening today.
It is still sickening (in my humble opinion) that many people straight out tell him that they want children to die, but only Palestinian children.
That's why I say the war is already over. Hamas won. The Israeli public is too enraged by Oct 7 and it can't pursue a long term goal because it has to feed the need for vengeance. The only group that truly benefits from continued conflict is Hamas, everyone else is a victim of circumstance.
> The only group that truly benefits from continued conflict is Hamas
Well, them and Israeli far right who have been able to stay in power so far.
I hope what you're saying is true. But I fear that the ability of the genociders to control the narrative is still very strong.
Israeli is implementing a final solution to the Palestinian problem, and that solution is...genocide!
Some might argue it's not genocide but simply mass-murder. That's an awful lot of mass-murdering going on.
The Bret Stephens hasbara is that it's not a genocide because of how slow the killing is. Obviously the IDF could dig in machine guns in hidden trenches, lure starving Palestinians with the bait of food, and gun down thousands at once.
The problem with that approach is that such a strategy would risk rousing the conscience of the world. It's much safer to murder a few hundred a day and have slow starvation take thousands.
While pictures of starving Palestinian children are evocative of the Holocaust, or at least of the end of the Holocaust when cameras were allowed into liberated concentration camps, the world seems not to have a problem with Holocaust 2.0
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>About 2.5% of the inhabitants of Gaza have been killed in the ongoing war, constituting fewer than 0.5% of Palestinians worldwide.
My understanding is that the agencies in Gaza have not only lost their ability to tally the dead, but have not been tracking deaths where a corpse has not been located.
Not to mention that this is the tail end of a long process that began with the Nakba. The fact that theres a remnant refugee population that has been removed from their land and isolated to a small stateless fragment, is already in meeting with definitions of genocide. Bombing that remnant into the dust is underlining the issue.
Sure, it's been going on for a long time. Close to a million Palestinians were expelled (or fled) from Israel after its founding, and close to a million Jews were expelled (or fled) from various Muslim-majority countries around that time.
The former is known as the Nakba (as you highlight) and well known. The latter, not so much.
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> Israel is systematically exterminating the Palestinians using kinetic force and starvation?
If this were the goal, they could do it in hours. Why is the body count so low given the duration of the war?
This isn’t rhetoric. It might be they want plausible deniability.
It seems to me however that everyone knows they aren’t really fooling anyone with their narrative, which really draws into focus: why aren’t they killing tens of thousands of Palestinians every day? They have the means, motive, and opportunity. They have the technology and are in position to do so.
They have not.
We know what systematic genocide looks like. This is mass murder, sure, but if they wanted to commit genocide, it would be done and over with by now.
Instead, they have killed less than 5% of the population of Gaza.
Why is that?
Israel kills as many Palesitinians as it thinks it can get away with. They have the means the kill faster, but they are mindful of the international backlash.
> Anyone still need testimonies like these to be convinced that Israel
You are operating until a false premise that Palestinians/Hamas are some sort of children and bear no responsibility for anything at all.
Where in reality, the war could have been over in 5 minutes if they released the hostages at any time during the past 3 years. It still can be over in 5 minutes if they choose to do that. But no, they will put as many of their own people in harm's way as necessary to get to the world opinion to be what it is. And literally no one, including you, is questioning that. But please, do tell me that hostages have nothing to do with anything or Netanyahu bad or whatever else you can cook up.
> while Soviet citizens starved
As someone who grew up in the USSR, I can assure you - no one was starving.
> what killed the Soviet Union was disillusion. People at all levels realized that a system that couldn't provide its people the basics didn't deserve to exist.
That is such a simplistic view of what happened. I don't think that the system cared what its people thought at any time during the existence of the Soviet Union.
> You are operating until a false premise that Palestinians/Hamas are some sort of children and bear no responsibility for anything at all.
Where in reality, the war could have been over in 5 minutes if they released the hostages at any time during the past 3 years. It still can be over in 5 minutes if they choose to do that. But no, they will put as many of their own people in harm's way as necessary to get to the world opinion to be what it is. And literally no one, including you, is questioning that.
Palestinians and Hamas are 2 different groups of people. Which 1 are you referring to when you say "they"? Only the Hamas can legally be punished as a result of Hamas's actions. Punishing Palestinians because you're mad at Hamas is a war crime.
Sure, technically. But to this day, majorities support Oct 7th attack, both in Gaza and West Bank.
That's like saying in WW2, we can't attack Berlin because there are innocent Germans who don't support Nazis.
So how exactly do you propose to fight Hamas in an urban environment when it's blending in to the population that largely supports them (and only put on a uniform during propaganda events like hostage handovers)?
> to this day, majorities support Oct 7th attack, both in Gaza and West Bank
Likewise, to this day, majorities of israelis support the israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
> That's like saying in WW2, we can't attack Berlin because there are innocent Germans who don't support Nazis.
There's a difference between collateral damage and the israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That said, the intentional firebombing of German civilians was arguably a war crime, so you're arguing against your point here. Indeed, the geneva conventions are partially motivated by the atrocities that occurred during WWII, with the aim of making sure they happened "never again".
> So how exactly do you propose to fight Hamas in an urban environment when it's blending in to the population that largely supports them
That's not my problem, but ethnic cleansing is obviously an illegal and wrong way to go about it. Still though, an answer to your request can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718080
> Israel is systematically exterminating the Palestinians
This would be the dumbest way to do this. It would take centuries to exterminate them at this rate. The genocide narrative makes no sense to any person with a brain.
Why’s it gotta be quick? Israel has them contained and holds every card. Its government could speed it up tomorrow if they wanted to, but that might look bad enough to lose them the support of the US and much of their population. Why hurry?
I don't think the definition of genocide includes a time frame during which the whole group must be killed.
Actually, they are going pretty fast. Proportionally, it is going even a bit faster than the Darfur genocide.
Israel would need to use their nukes to be more efficient. But this would severely damage the real estate potential of the strip.
> I, for one, am thankful this hasn't been taken down like any article remotely critical of Israel.
?????
I am generally not at all invested in this conflict and I cede that I have very little information about what is going on, and it's been like that for me for decades.
But the information that is available to me, in the current context, from looking at HN, is: pro-Palestine and anti-Israeli sentiments are the norm in comment sections here; comments resisting this viewpoint are routinely downvoted and flagged; news stories about the conflict that make it to the HN front page (including this one) overwhelmingly are taking Palestine's side; and on occasions where I've tried to flag submissions that I felt were grossly uncharitable (making claims beyond what their evidence supports, and/or using inflammatory language) they have not been taken down (and I've only seen anti-Israel examples of such to flag).
At any rate, your comment is a polemic that appears not to even consider reasons why other people might see the issue differently, and implicitly shames people for not coming to a conclusion you consider obvious. That is not up to the standard I understood HN political discussion to expect.
(And since I have showdead on, I can see the replies to you that were flagged and killed. They are really not any worse from what I can tell, but they apparently have the wrong political polarity — the one you claim is endorsed, directly counter to the evidence available to me.)
P.S. Whoever downvoted and flagged this, please explain your reasoning. I am happy to consider your point of view.
If didn't downvote nor flag, but wanted to help you clarify your misunderstanding.
The vast majority of people across the world is in favour of the end of bombing and segregation, and against the regime that perpetuate it, if only because of empathy alone. And HN does indeed reflects this to some extent.
What the OP was alluding to when he said that pro palestinian view points were silenced is the more or less dissimulated support for the war and systematically misleading depiction of the situation in the mainstream news. To say nothing about the exceedingly harsh criminalization of dissent.
You might not be aware of it, if really you don't read anything beyond tech news, and I'm not going to blame you for that.
> pro palestinian view points were silenced is the more or less dissimulated support for the war and systematically misleading depiction of the situation in the mainstream news.
Definitely doesn’t reflect what I’ve seen in the mainstream media. Almost everyday at the top of the news are stories taken almost verbatim from Hamas’s Health Ministry or other arms. The stories have been routinely retracted by the BBC, NYTimes, Washington Post, NPR, etc after they’re later shown false.
Yesterday I saw the story that’s been in almost every major news publication showing an emaciated boy starving while his mother holds him with headlines of “Gazan children starving”.
The problem is the boys brother who is healthy and well fed was cropped or left out. The boy has muscular dystrophy. None of that was mentioned in most of the coverage.
Here’s the photo with the boys brother that I’ve only seen posted on X or Instagram posted by regular users:
https://x.com/razzajj/status/1948819116217008340
The war has made it hard to get treatment for him, but that’s not listed in most of the articles.
It’s a clear yellow journalism piece. Of course those MSM outlets also make lots of advertisement money by posting such rage bait stories.
That’s what most people, and even politicians, end up seeing and then believing.
> To say nothing about the exceedingly harsh criminalization of dissent.
From what I’ve read a few violent protesters were arrested. Some student visas were revoked, etc. I’ve seen pro-Palestinian protests in person in the US and the UK going about quite freely.
> The stories have been routinely retracted by the BBC, NYTimes, Washington Post, NPR, etc after they’re later shown false.
Do any of these stories compare to the mainstream media's systematic lies about 40 beheaded babies? Or babies burned in ovens? Or systematic rape? Did the US President launder any of those lies long after they were debunked?
Were the stories about premie babies left to rot at Al Nasr true? Were the stories about Hind Rajab true? Were the stories about civilians being used as target practice while they try to get aid true? Were the stories about the IDF mass murdering a convoy of emergency vehicles and burying them in a shallow unmarked grave true?
Do Hamas have people in the BBC censoring stories they don't like? Did the NYT run huge stories by Hamas "journalists" with no experience and no evidence?
> Yesterday I saw the story that’s been in almost every major news publication showing an emaciated boy starving while his mother holds him with headlines of “Gazan children starving”.
You don't refute that the boy is starving. He's far from the only one. Gaza is in stage 5 of famine; the effect of which will be felt for generations - and you think a photo of a "well fed" (and horrifically traumatized for life) boy proves that they're actually fine??
Read the comments on your own link - they're absolutely vile and I won't repeat them here, but that you think this is making a good case for you is absolutely wild.
How many people have been murdered while trying to get aid in the past week? Are those stories lies too, even though they come from whistleblowers who were there; even though there's video of some of the incidents?
Sometimes I almost feel pity for the type of mind that can defend the perpetrators of these acts. But this is going on for 21 months (and 80 years) now. At some point - long past - you become fully complicit by defending this holocaust.
> You don't refute that the boy is starving.
My refutation was implicit in the fact that the boy's condition appears to be genetic and that his brother appears healthy and well fed. His mother also appears not to be starving either.
> Read the comments on your own link - they're absolutely vile and I won't repeat them here, but that you think this is making a good case for you is absolutely wild.
I didn't link to those comments nor do I condone them. There's plenty of vile pro-Palestinian comments on X and elsewhere as well.
You also don't deny the veracity of the photo or the full story.
There is real starvation occurring in Gaza, but the IDF has also started scaling up aid and food including announcing safe corridors for UN aid delivery which I believe the IDF should've done sooner.
> Sometimes I almost feel pity for the type of mind that can defend the perpetrators of these acts. But this is going on for 21 months (and 80 years) now. At some point - long past - you become fully complicit by defending this holocaust.
You've convinced yourself it's a holocaust, despite the scales being 2 orders of magnitudes different in number and completely different in actions and intentions. Note it wasn't just 6 million Jews killed in the holocaust, but also 5-6 million Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, disabled people, and more. That's 2 out of every 3 Jewish people in Europe at the time.
Your distortions and semi-irrational accusations don't change the actual realities which are hard enough to estimate.
Estimates place the ratio of combatant to civilian death near to that of other urban wars. Most sources estimate a civilian to combatant death rate of 4:1 in Gaza, while Mosul was 4.7-6.1:1. That's despite Hamas leadership actively using civilians as shields.
There's worse confirmed famine occurring just hundreds of miles some estimates of 522,000 infant deaths due to starvation in Sudan in the last two years alone. Despite 10 times the numbers of people dying in Sudan, much less Yemen and Somolia, they're receiving only a fraction of the international aid or attention that Gazans receive.
Yet it's not sensational or in the headlines everyday, so who cares right?
> You've convinced yourself it's a holocaust
I'm not the only one who says it.
It's a holocaust. You are promoting holocaust denial.
Look at the footage of Rafah: desolation as far as the drone can see. Even by the end of Biden's term, the majority of civilian buildings had been destroyed across the strip. 6 Hiroshimas, on a 12x12 mile square populated with over a million children.
> Note it wasn't just 6 million Jews killed in the holocaust, but also 5-6 million Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, disabled people, and more.
Christians, homosexuals, and disabled people have all been slaughtered by Israel as well - and hostages too. So what's your point?
> Estimates place the ratio of combatant to civilian death near to that of other urban wars.
You're missing the key piece of factual information there: IDF estimates. Other estimates put the ratio of civilian deaths an order of magnitude higher, and if there's any evidence whatsoever for IDF's claims of Hamas fighters killed I don't know anyone who's ever seen it. Feel free to present some if you have it.
> Most sources estimate a civilian to combatant death rate of 4:1 in Gaza
What sources are these? The IDF, Netanyahu, and Ben Gvir?
You're lying.
> That's despite Hamas leadership actively using civilians as shields.
Still no evidence for that claim whatsoever. Plenty of evidence of Israel doing it though - it's openly admitted, including in your own linked article.
> There's worse confirmed famine occurring just hundreds of miles some estimates of 522,000 infant deaths due to starvation in Sudan in the last two years alone.
Is Sudan surrounded by aid trucks sitting idle? And are both connected to Western interference?
> Despite 10 times the numbers of people dying in Sudan, much less Yemen and Somolia, they're receiving only a fraction of the international aid or attention that Gazans receive.
Somolia? ... Even if we ignore the problems with your figures (using IDF estimates, ignoring the fact Sudan is 25 times more populated than Gaza, longer time period, etc) - there are still at least three major problems:
One, Western powers are directly enabling, funding and arming Israel's genocide, which means we are complicit and have more of a responsibility to discuss and bring an end the situation as soon as possible.
Two, Western interference (esp the US and Israel) with Sudan, Yemen and Somalia is also responsible for no small part of their current problems, so the comparison is pretty rude.
Three, if the best argument you have in defense of slaughtering tens (more likely hundreds) of thousands of people is that more people are dying elsewhere, you're very far gone.
I wish you the best of luck finding your way back; it won't be easy but you really need to try.
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>The vast majority of people across the world is in favour of the end of bombing and segregation
Should you not feel the need to evidence this?
> the more or less dissimulated support for the war and systematically misleading depiction of the situation in the mainstream news.
First, I don't see why I should conclude that that's what the comment was about. The part I quoted was:
> I, for one, am thankful this hasn't been taken down like any article remotely critical of Israel.
I understood this to mean "taken down from HN".
But I see nothing of the sort in mainstream news, either. The news coverage available to me is full of stories like the submission, and says rather little that would tend to justify Israel. If I search, for example, for coverage in the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) of the conflict, I find plenty of independent sources claiming that there is some kind of whitewashing going on (and none of the people making these claims seem to face any negative repercussions for doing so — as they shouldn't, since Canada is also pretty good on the freedom of speech thing), but then I look at the actual CBC articles I find and they're just... not as described.
The general sense I get is that people who characterize this as a genocide are upset that other people fail to accept this characterization by fiat.
> To say nothing about the exceedingly harsh criminalization of dissent.
Who has been imprisoned for merely expressing the view that this is a genocide, as opposed to being imprisoned for the usual disorderly, anti-social actions that typically get protesters (in general, whatever they're protesting for) imprisoned?
Evidence for "the vast majority of people across the world ...etc":
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/06/03/most-peop...
Notice that the question asked by this poll was a bit stronger than my claim (I believe one is more likelly to be in favor of the end of bombing than against Israel because advocating for peace is less damaging for one's reputation than voicing a more political stance, whatever that is).
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I don't know whether you are being sincere or sarcastic, but either way this is not a productive mode of discourse. If sincere:
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
If sarcastic:
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
We don’t need to be so productive on easy problems. Identifying something is genocide is easy. The harder problem is confronting people with the cold hard fact of “hey this is genocide, don’t write long bullshit posts about this”. Then the convo veers, and before you know it, you’re discussing HN rules and shit.
One interesting excuse I hear about slavery in America was that that’s just how life was back then, people didn’t know better. This is not true, as we know for a fact abolitionist knew what right and wrong was during those times. Even if it was only a small percentage of people that knew morality, it’s enough proof that that no American alive at the time lacked the human capacity to perceive it.
This is still true today. We know what’s going on here morally, and as a collective whole (8 billion people), we are collectively responsible. The moral standard does not change. It was wrong to murder people 2000 years ago, it was wrong to enslave people 2000 years ago, and all of that is still wrong today. Honest people knew it then, and honest people know it today.
No bullshit, please. Right and wrong is never a morally nebulous problem, it’s just an utterly strict standard to adhere to. It never changes. It’s an understated reason why many have no fear of God or have abandoned the concept entirely, not just because there’s no proof, but because even if there was, what a fucking moral standard to live up to (quite hard for humanity since the beginning of time).
> Does anyone still need testimonies like these to be convinced that Israel is systematically exterminating the Palestinians using kinetic force and starvation?
Before October 7, activists insisted that Gaza’s border restrictions were driven purely by hatred rather than any legitimate security concerns. That view was completely discredited by the attacks on October 7, so forgive me for being skeptical of similarly absolutist claims being made now.
To be clear, preventing famine should take far greater priority than intercepting a few more rockets with Iron Dome. The suffering in Gaza is undeniable. But I see Israel’s actions as driven more by indifference or strategic rigidity than by a calculated intent to exterminate.
Maybe that distinction doesn't matter to you, since it doesn't change how people are dying needlessly, but how we interpret Israel’s intent shapes how we respond. Backing Israel into a corner tends to make things worse, not better. That’s why the Biden administration’s approach of supporting military aid while applying diplomatic pressure was the only viable path to avoid even greater catastrophe.
Border restrictions: Blockade.
Given the brutal blockade of Gaza, the continuous encroachment of settlers in the occupied territory, the continued refusal of a two-state solution, what exactly Israel expects to happen?
It is not like the Palestinians have F-35s and Abrahams tanks paid by the US in order to wage a proper war against Israel.
Israel, given its own history (google for Irgun, Stern Gang, Lehi, Hagannah, etc) should be able to predict the end result of its actions.
> Given the brutal blockade of Gaza, the continuous encroachment of settlers in the occupied territory, the continued refusal of a two-state solution, what exactly Israel expects to happen?
Are you implying that this "blockade" was unnecessary for security purposes? You're painting this as inevitable due to the circumstances, yet of the two regions, the one given more autonomy and decolonized was the one that attacked.
Nit: Congo free state and Scramble for Africa were pretty different as I believe most Europeans didn’t realize and/or accept that sub Saharan Africans are humans at that point. They had an extremely different exposure to them (level and type) than we have today, and I don’t think we today can say whether we would have reacted differently to the Africans immediately post mass scale contact.
Do people in the west today consciously consider Palestinians to be subhuman? I don’t think so? So this today is like much much worse actually IMO from a moral defensibility standpoint.
This is orthogonal to your point, I agree with your point.
I think your point has some merits, but ultimately, intent doesn't matter: action does. if the West keeps funding Israel's genocide in Gaza, then yes, it's because they believe the Palestinians are sub-human. Haven't you seen the outpouring of support for Ukraine since they were invaded? Yet, Western nations are funding (not overlooking, but actively paying for) something worse - a continuous, ongoing genocide - and it's supposed to be an oversight?
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One reason to doubt that Israel is systematically exterminating the Gazan population is simply that the population is not decreasing or projected to decrease, which is to say, the excess deaths due to the conflict are not all that great relative to the natural rate of increase of the population.
Israel should be as aware of the statistics as anyone, especially when undertaking the systematic extermination of a population. If Israel actually intended this, don't you think it would go much faster, with the tremendous amount of ordnance that has been expended and the overwhelming military force Israel has in place? It just doesn't add up.
Who is it that you expect to be doing the counting? I've seen estimates of anywhere from 50k-500k dead, but nobody is sure because outsiders aren't being allowed to enter and the people inside have enough trouble staying alive and little time to be doing headcounts and statistics. Israel hasn't been releasing any numbers at all from what I can tell.
As someone who went to US high school in the 90s, a good 1/3 of our curriculum seemed to be "never again" studies of the holocaust and other genocides throughout history. Which makes it completely incomprehensible to me that suddenly "don't talk about genocide" has become the basically law.
What's worse is I actually feel openly saying "I don't support this genocide and I'm critical of the state committing it" is a risky thing to say in public. I wouldn't say it not behind a pseudonymous account without some level of plausible deniability. Even peak cancel culture wasn't quite so chilling.
It's also the area with the most clear manipulation of information on social media. The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web.
We've truly entered a dystopian age that seems completely unfamiliar from the exciting world of tech I wanted to be a part of decades ago.
> The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic"
FWIW the downvotes and flags in threads like this, including this thread, do seem largely organic to me, and well within the range of what one expects from a divisive and emotional topic.
People often use words like "clearly" in making such descriptions (I don't mean to pick on you personally! countless users do this, from all sides of all issues), but actually there's nothing so clear. Mostly what happens is that people have perceptions based on their strong feelings and then call those perceptions "clear" because their feelings are strong.
We do occasionally turn off flags in order to allow a discussion to happen because allowing no discussion to happen seems wrong. I've posted lots of explanations of how we approach this in the past (e.g. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
> a divisive and emotional topic.
I strongly suspect that this "divisive" nature of the topic is precisely the illusion being created. That's exactly what I am challenging here.
In my non-online life I've known many vaccine skeptics, climate skeptics, crypto enthusiasts, extreme right/left-wingers, people with complex view of trans issues, divisions on BLM topics, gun fanatics, gun abolitionists etc, etc.
But the opinion around what's happening in Gaza right now doesn't fit into this category. Regardless of political opinion, outside of Zionists, I have not met anyone who will not, in private of course (for the reasons mentioned previously), agree that what's happening in Gaza is genocide and is not in the interests of the United States. The strength of the opinion can vary, but the general direction of opinion is consistent.
Another reason I added "clearly" is because, compared to say climate change posts that are often filled with climate denial comments, there are typically very few commenters engaging in any controversial discussions. Nearly all the top level comments are in agreement, the majority of the replies are as well. Compared to genuinely controversial topics which often do quickly devolve into impossible arguments.
There's also the broader issue that silence is not always a neutral position. When one side benefits much, much more from silence than the other, you can't simply shrug your shoulders and say "well it's controversial so let's not talk about it". In this case, silencing conversations about the genocide in Gaza is very beneficial to the state perpetuating this genocide and likewise very harmful to the people suffering from it.
The strategy is simple: make the topic appear to be more divisive than it is, which makes it easy to silence as "divisive and emotional", which is essentially the most desirable outcome.
It's just your social circle. Where I live (still USA) it's the opposite. I don't know a single person who doesn't think the Palestinian support isn't propaganda. It is for sure a controversial topic.
That is "I don't know a single person who thinks it is propaganda", or equivalently "everyone I know thinks it's real", yes? Triple negatives can be a pain to keep track of.
Yeah, re-reading that was confusing. I mean that everyone I know thinks it is propaganda.
This is still unclear. The opposite of "what's happening is genocide" is not "support for Palestine is propaganda".
Do people around you think that the number of victims are manipulated? Or do they think that civilians were bombed and displaced, the infrastructure destroyed, the supplies stopped, but that's just fair game?
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I live in Westchester County NY, quite possibly the living breathing heart of Reform Judaism in the US (outside the UES anyway). Plenty of genuine supporters of Israel here, even among the Gentiles. I try hard to avoid the topic even with friends. I don’t really want to hear a defense or denial of genocide.
... it's not genocide.
You live in a bubble then, most people I know don't care very much about this issue. We have bigger issues to worry about, like our buffoon President & spiraling climate change.
The pro Palestine side has also given themself a pretty bad image, so it will take some very compelling evidence(which this video is not as it doesn't show anything clearly), to make this issue higher priority.
Other users have already made some good replies, but I want to add that this is an example of what I wrote about in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932851 (one's feeling of good faith decreases as the distance between someone else's opinion and one's own increases). The community is much bigger than people assume it is, and therefore contains a much wider range of backgrounds and views than people assume it ought to.
I believe this is the main factor that tricks readers into assuming that (legit) comments and votes on a story must be manipulated. It's hard to fathom how anyone could in good faith hold views so different from one's own, views that seem not just obviously wrong but monstrous.
>outside of Zionists
Well that sure seems a bit tautological.
Some people in my circle see “supporting the people of Palestine” as equivalent to “supporting the people of Germany during WW2”. In other words, until a total surrender , they see the deaths as justified and a necessary evil.
It's just your social circle. Everyone around me is vehemently anti-Palestine and pro-Israel. Friends, family, everyone.
With respect, allowing political posts that clearly violate the HN guidelines will normalize such posts, incentivize them in the future due to karma, and attract the type of people that want to soapbox to the community.
This post doesn't violate the site guidelines, nor does having it on HN's frontpage.
There's long precedent here, going back at least to 2008 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869). Here's a memorable (to me at least) case from 2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426.
If you want to understand how we think about and approach moderation of political stories on HN, probably the best set of explanations is https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... If you (or anyone) familiarize yourself with those explanations and then still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. But do please read some of that stuff first because the questions (and therefore the answers) are nearly always the same.
p.s. All that said, I appreciate your watching out for the quality of HN and I understand the concern.
I guess with polarizing topics it comes down to the ratio of "intellectually interesting" (quote from your first link) comments, and those that engage with them in good faith, versus all the yelling and condemnation, right? And there's some fuzzy line that you want the thread to stay on one side of.
I will freely admit my view may be too dismissive and that I should change my ways, but these kinds of threads almost never feel to me like the juice is worth the squeeze. In other words, that ratio I mentioned seems out of whack. Too many good-faith comments that don't go with the thread mainstream get flagged and dead, not enough people vouch for 'em (I'm sometimes guilty of that), and the amount of invective and judgment they're met with just seems to depend on how fast they got downvoted or flagged to oblivion.
I realize I'm shouting into the wind, and you have no obligation to change any of this for me. But I really do not see how this sort of thing is good for the site long-term. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there's a certain set that needs to scream about something every month or they start vandalizing less controversial threads and it's net positive to let them have their moment. Maybe I'll go write something that auto-hides threads for me when there's been a certain proportion of flagging and downvoting.
Anyway, you've got a tough job and do it with grace. No reply necessary, but thanks for all you do.
> these kinds of threads almost never feel to me like the juice is worth the squeeze
I agree. The trouble is that not discussing it at all is not a solution either.
> it comes down to the ratio of "intellectually interesting" (quote from your first link) comments, and those that engage with them in good faith, versus all the yelling and condemnation, right?
I wish it were that simple but I don't think it is.
> Too many good-faith comments that don't go with the thread mainstream get flagged and dead
I don't think there's a "thread mainstream" here. I think the community is deeply divided.
If you (or anyone) see good-faith comments getting mistreated in this way, we'd appreciate links so we can take a look. Sometimes we restore those comments, other times we find that the comment broke the site guidelines and thus should stay flagged. But we always look, and usually also have enough time to reply.
> I realize I'm shouting into the wind
Not at all! We're interested. We just don't necessarily have good answers.
> The trouble is that not discussing it at all is not a solution either.
So, sending it to page 4 quick-like has too many downsides? I am not an expert in community management, I'm interested to understand why.
> I wish it were that simple but I don't think it is.
If you have the time, I'd love to read more about this.
> we'd appreciate links so we can take a look
I didn't delve deeply, but here's one. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718264 In the future should I email?
> We're interested. We just don't necessarily have good answers.
Fair enough! Thank you for your patience and perseverance!
> So, sending it to page 4 quick-like has too many downsides? I am not an expert in community management, I'm interested to understand why.
We're not experts either. It's not as if there's any foundation for this job other than just doing it, badly.
I'll try to explain how I personally think about this. One thing is clear: the core value of HN is intellectual curiosity so that's what we're trying to optimize for (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). I'd refine that one bit further by saying it's broad intellectual curiosity. There's also narrow intellectual curiosity, which has its place but isn't what we're trying for here. (And there are other forms of curiosity, e.g. social curiosity, which motivates things like celebrity news and gossip. Those also have their place but are less relevant here.)
What's the difference between broad and narrow intellectual curiosity? If you think of curiosity as desire and willingness to take in new information, then I'd say "broad" means wanting to take in new information about anything—whatever's going on in reality, the world, etc., because it's there; and "narrow" means wanting new information, but only about a restricted subset of things. That means there's an excluded set of topics—things about which one could take in new information, but for whatever reason, doesn't want to. Maybe it's too painful, for example.
What I'm saying is that the current topic is one of a few topics which are painful (and the pain shows up as anger in the comments), but which broad intellectual curiosity simply cannot exclude. If we exclude it, then we fail to optimize for what we're optimizing for. In that sense, not discussing it amounts to failing.
But discussing it also amounts to failing, because it's not realistically very possible for this community to discuss it while remaining within the site guidelines. It's too painful, too activating, and crosses too many of the red lines that past generations have left pulsating in all our bodies. That is why I said "I wish it were that simple but I don't think it is".
We can try to mitigate that through moderation ("please don't cross into personal attack", "please don't post flamebait", etc.), but those lines are particularly feeble in this case. There's little scope for those to land as neutral with commenters and readers. It too easily feels like we're adding to the conflict when we post that way.
Therefore this is a case where we can only fail, and all we can do is follow what Beckett said and fail better. Failing better is still failing and still feels like failing—there's no way out of that. I'm just pretty sure that the alternative in this case would be worse overall, even if it felt easier in the short term. It's always easier to go narrow in the short term. But we're in this for the long haul.
Thank you for your thoughtful response, that helps me understand more where the site leadership is coming from.
BTW the comment I linked above[0] has been flagged and is dead again, after I thought it had been restored. Did it violate site guidelines? Or did somebody come back in and flag it again?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718264
Ah sorry I forgot to respond about that. Yes, I restored it but forgot to turn off the flags on it. I've done that now.
Emailing is the way to make sure we see something.
> > these kinds of threads almost never feel to me like the juice is worth the squeeze
> I agree. The trouble is that not discussing it at all is not a solution either.
Not discussing it at all is certainly a solution. There are plenty of other fora where these issues can be discussed (Reddit and Twitter, off the top of my head). HN does not have to also take up that mantle.
> > Too many good-faith comments that don't go with the thread mainstream get flagged and dead
> I don't think there's a "thread mainstream" here. I think the community is deeply divided.
It's quite obvious that there's a thread mainstream. One perspective absolutely dominates the top level posts and replies. Top level posts with a different point of view have been flag killed very thoroughly. I would make a contrarian post (the type that HN normally loves) to try share my knowledge of the situation (which I bet is significantly deeper than 99% of the commenters here) but it's not worth it when I expect it to get instantly flag killed.
> If you (or anyone) see good-faith comments getting mistreated in this way, we'd appreciate links so we can take a look. Sometimes we restore those comments, other times we find that the comment broke the site guidelines and thus should stay flagged. But we always look, and usually also have enough time to reply.
But the discussion will have moved on by then. There are simply not enough moderator resources to moderate a discussion on this topic. That's not your fault, that's just the way it is, but it does lead to HN becoming a worse place.
Is it accidental or intentional that all political posts on this war are biased towards one of the sides? Do you think it is the best option?
> Is it accidental or intentional that all political posts on this war are biased towards one of the sides?
You are presenting a false dichotomy. It could be that the posts are a reflection of the reality of the situation (i.e. one of the sides is 'more wrong').
Why is it false? Either admins intentionally make only specific articles to appear, or they do not, i.e. it happens unintentionally/accidentally. What other options are there? If something happens it is either intentional or not.
Not sure what wrongness has to do with that either. In the first case it reflects the political preferences of the admin, in the other it reflects the preferences of HN bubble. Either could happen independently of who is wrong and who is right.
A (rather clumsy) analogy to illustrate:
"Is it accidental or intentional that all privacy related posts are biased towards individuals having a right to privacy?"
I don't see a false dichotomy here and if there were posts against right to privacy that are flagged while posts for it were not (either with admin intervention or without) I wouldn't say "there is nothing to see here". I would definitely prefer to see both sides of issue and I wouldn't flag posts against privacy, though not upvote it either.
If you think it's nice when media is biased towards what you consider to be right, and that's the point of your analogy, I disagree.
My guess is as with most emergent phenomena: both. Accidental that it happens in the first place, intentional that little is done to redress the balance. How could it be anything else?
allowing no discussion to happen seems wrong
Could it actually be right?
It's hard for me to feel like these political flagfests make the rest of the site any better, while the rest of the site is what I find value in. If I want to witness mobs possessing massive standard deviations in knowledge and experience with the subject matter flamewarring each other, there are already a whole lot of places on the Internet I can go for that. It's the tech-and-genuine-curiosity-not-yelling part of HN that's the value prop for me here, and FWIW, for a sample size of one, threads like this do little to improve on that.
Of course I can hide this story and move on. But it's hard for me to believe that all the stress hormones flowing in the people reading and participating don't have some kind of negative knock-on effects on other, more peaceful threads.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that a few bad faith actors can kill any topic on the site simply by showing up and being unpleasant.
Seems like the existing mechanisms and moderation are designed to already handle this case to me. No?
We turn off flags in some (though not all) of those cases.
you detached/flagged my comment from thread, shadow banned my account and disabled signup in my IP because I said something against them. That was "clearly" enough.
I'd need a specific link to say anything specific, but the general answer that we moderate HN based on the site guidelines, and those don't vary based on who you've "said something against".
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Over the past few months, I’ve been dejected to see a large number of articles that were politics-adjacent, but otherwise thoughtful and topical, get flagged and remain that way. The mods told us that HN is not supposed to be a news aggregator. Begrudgingly, I accepted the justification, since fostering intelligent discussion in a diverse community can be incredibly challenging.
So… why were the flags on the article covering Hulk Hogan’s (tech-irrelevant) death turned off? The article was flagged, then inexplicably came back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44672329
And it's not the first time I've seen this happen with various news fluff.
I’ll be frank: I’ve had faith in the mod team in the past, but the lack of consistency is becoming offensive to me. Celebrity gossip is OK, but not most things ICE or Musk related for example, even when there's direct involvement from SV elites? I'm finding it hard to see the throughline here. What am I missing?
That story spent 9 minutes on the front page.
Turning off the flags on a story doesn't mean we want to give it front page exposure (and in that case, we didn't give it front page exposure). It allows people who want to discuss that topic to do so whilst not taking up front page space and also not drawing complaints from people who feel strongly that they want to discuss it.
We do the same thing with some of the politics-related topics you're talking about too. The primary consideration is always whether the story contains "significant new information", and another significant consideration is whether the discussion thread is of a reasonably high standard.
I concur: Sometimes I get downvoted when making what I thought were nuanced comments, but then after a few replies I realised that I had left a few things open to misinterpretation. A few corrections later... upvotes. That feels organic.
It's unfortunate and notable that whenever Israel hits the front page of HN and avoids getting flagged, the perspective is reliably anti-Israel.
It's worth recalling that confirmation bias, which we’re all prone to, kicks in hard on this topic. We are all subject to the tendency to notice and remember things that back up what we already believe, while tuning out anything that contradicts it.
With Israel, that often means people stick to sources and angles that reinforce their stance, whether pro- or anti-Israel, and dismiss anything that doesn’t fit their narrative.
It’d be a welcome change to see top comments or stories that challenge anti-Israel assumptions, not just confirm them.
Have you considered that your framing exposes implicit bias? It breaks posts down in a binary (pro- or anti-Israel) formation. It’s not that simple.
One can be deeply sympathetic to the millenia-long suffering of the Jewish people and even want them to have a homeland, and yet believe that Israelis are largely unconcerned with the welfare of Palestinian civilians. It’s also reasonable at this point to believe that Israel - for the last year, at least - is pursuing military action without a strategic goal or a long-term plan other than “encouraging voluntary transfer” of the civilian population.
To you, does the above paragraph immediately strike you as pro- or anti-Israel?
> One can be deeply sympathetic to the millenia-long suffering of the Jewish people and even want them to have a homeland, and yet believe that Israelis are largely unconcerned with the welfare of Palestinian civilians
And then extend that to believing Hamas are monsters, that whenever Palestine has--in modern times--had any power or leverage, it has used it to be a pest to its neighbors, and yet still believe that those people don't deserve to face starvation, bombing, economic ruin and forced displacement.
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> are you saying that there is a scenario where it is legitimate for a person or group of people to believe that another group of people should be deserving of starvation, economic ruin, and forced displacement?
No, I'm saying the opposite. That you can be judgemental of Hamas and even suspicious of the motives of those claiming to speak for the Palestinian people while still condemning Netanyahu's tactics in this war.
Oh, I apologize for misunderstanding you!
I think the best thing you can say is that Hamas has a non-military arm that has provided enough social services that Gaza didn't collapse in economic ruin over the last two decades. The much more obvious thing to say is that Hamas has run a nihilistic campaign largely focused on the murder of Israeli civilians, and that they are Islamist in nature (and thus opposed to secular democracy). (I'll add my personal opinion that I hope many of them burn in hell for the calamity they've brought on Gaza.)
You are arguing for confirmation bias, unfortunately. It costs you nothing to understand Israeli perspectives. You don't have to agree, but you will elevate the discourse.
You (a) did not respond to my question and (b) now stated a claim that I'm arguing for confirmation bias without articulating an argument backing this new claim.
I would love to understand what you mean by my lack of understanding of Israeli perspectives. I talk to Israelis regularly. What perspectives do you believe I'm missing? If you're think I don't care about the safety and wellbeing of Israelis (and, to be specific, Israeli Jews), you'd be incorrect. I believe in Israel being a strong and prosperous state. If you think that means I should blindly ignore the fact that Israeli polls show that the Israeli public is unconcerned about the fate of Palestinians in Gaza and that this consequently leads me to believe Israelis are shortsightedly reducing their own security in the long term, then I wouldn't be able to agree with you. If you think I should similarly ignore that - under Bibi and Likud - Israel has deliberately acted against US policy to encourage the formation of a Palestinian state, and has created a defacto one-state reality which again reduces the security of the Israeli state, I wouldn't be able to agree with you either.
Solidly anti-Israel. Like "somewhat pregnant" there is no "somewhat pro-Israel". Either you believe that Israel has the right to exist, that its public statements are reasonably accurate reflections of its intentions, and that those goals and intentions are reasonable, and are thus pro-Israel; or you are anti-Israel. The rest is just decoration.
Polls about Israeli indifference to Palestinians is a non-sequitur.
Israel tells us all daily what its goals are and why, and how it intends to achieve those goals. Its actions then match those statements.
However, it is very difficult for most people, apparently, to listen to Israel and falsify its statements. Too much history, propaganda, false consensus, confirmation bias, and, frankly, anti-Semitism. Much easier for everyone to agree with each other that Israel bad, to attribute motives, to assume the worst, to believe Israel's enemies. Those people think it's reasonable to say something like "while I agree that Israel has the right to exist, that does not give them the right to commit war crimes and genocide."
> Israel tells us all daily what its goals are and why, and how it intends to achieve those goals. Its actions then match those statements.
…yes, they do.
Dang, how can you say for sure they are organic? Just because the downvoters appear to be human and seem not to be bots? Even if the dovnvotes came from human beings: Israel apologists are very organised. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett publicly emphasized the importance of Wikipedia as an information source and stated that Israelis should learn how to edit Wikipedia. Israeli Hasbara, also known as public diplomacy or pro-Israel advocacy, uses various strategies to promote Israel’s perspective on campuses and online.
On university campuses, examples include Hasbara Fellowships (training students to advocate for Israel), pro-Israel student clubs (organizing events and campaigns), social media trainings, resource support from Jewish organizations, and counter-actions against pro-Palestinian movements.
Online, Israeli ministries and affiliated organizations operate official social media teams, develop advocacy platforms and tools (like the Act.IL app), and use influencer campaigns, bots, and coordinated digital actions to shape public opinion. After October 7, 2023, civilian Hasbara initiatives on social media expanded rapidly, ranging from individual efforts to coordinated campaigns with governmental support.
So how can you say that this is a controversial topic and the dovnvotes are organic?
How is it controversial when 2mil. peope are being starved? When thousands of children have been killed by a country whose prime minister is a wanted war criminal?
Edit: Corrected "not organic" => organic
I can't say for sure. What I said is that they seem that way to me, and are within the range of what one expects from divisive and emotional topics. That isn't proof (which is elusive if not impossible in any case), but is at least based on many years and god knows how many lost hours poring over this sort of data.
Incidentally, I was talking about downvotes and flags from every side of the conflict, not just the side you're talking about. I don't see a lot of difference there either.
For what it's worth, I think the current cadence of allowing one flamewar every 3-4 weeks on this topic is bang on, you're not censoring it and also not letting it take over the site. Nice job.
Thanks for demonstrating that at least one user feels this way. I wasn't sure.
Even if literally no one agreed, I still feel that not this topic is not an option, and I still think that could be derived from the first principle of the site (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), although I admit that the exact proof escapes me.
I do appreciate the hard work you and Tom are doing. This is an immense work you both are doing. Otherwise we wouldn’t have the quality we appreciate here. And I can understand the challenges to moderate a topic like Israel/Palestine.
it isn't a flamewar, it's one side flaming and flaming. allowing them to do that once a month while stopping them from injecting it everywhere all the time might be a good policy, but I don't get a sense I'm hearing both sides
It's definitely not just one side flaming. As evidence of that, I have no idea which side you're saying this about.
there are plenty of pure "Israelis bad" comments, not downvoted. Can you point me to a "Palestinians bad" comment that's not downvoted? I don't mean this as part of the debate, I would just enjoy reading it, don't kinkshame me.
Not sure what kinkshaming is but fully on board with not doing it!
It's hard to respond without specific links. From my perspective, there are throngs of comments on both sides of this getting downvoted and flagged, mostly for good reason but not always.
FWIW, I think any "$large-group-bad" comment probably should be downvoted on HN. The world doesn't work that way, so any such comment is likely to be a pretty bad one (relative to what we're trying for here).
Are you familiar with Tal Hanan, an Israeli businessman and former special forces operative alleged to have run disinformation campaigns to manipulate elections in several countries? That activity was pre‑LLM. What concrete safeguards, audits, and transparency measures does this platform use to detect and prevent similarly professional manipulation?
We're a relatively small site. Though this thread is at the bigger end of what HN hosts, it's still manageable enough that when the two of us spend all day watching the thread and looking at the commenting, flagging and upvoting/downvoting, we can pick up evidence of manipulation and abuse quite easily. For example, we both independently noticed the user who was commenting/voting/flagging under multiple different usernames. It just looked weird. And it's easy to detect users who are driven by an ideological agenda from observing the patterns of their activity.
You have no idea how much we all value the effort you put into moderating HN!
It's one of the last bastions of large-scale intellectual discussion that hasn't be overrun by bots, teenagers, or trolls. Digg was destroyed, then Slashdot, and now Reddit is mostly AI spam.
Hacker News is a place where when I see spam, it looks obviously of place. And then an hour later... it's gone.
I think it is a mistake of moderation to treat this as any divisive topic. The division line here is support for genocide. Users which are in favor of genocide—no matter how they justify it—are clearly in the wrong, both morally, and probably legally, and should not be given any ways to influence the discussion here.
I think that argument is making an is/ought error. I'm simply describing how it is. Whether it ought to be that way or not, I leave to you and other commenters.
I think one could very easily argue there is no genocide in Gaza, so this doesnt work.
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If you're looking for a popular vote on whether what's taking place in Gaza is a genocide, you would get very different votes in different places. For instance, in the USA, less than 40% agree with that take.
Here is a pretty reasoned take making the case for why its not a genocide: https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/im-a-war-scholar-there-is-no-gen...
I think its extreme to call anyone who disagrees racist.
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And how can you say it's not the opposite?
China, Russia, Iran, etc would definitely benefit from pouring fuel on this topic.
Not sure why you think only one side does it.
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Yes, never again is right now and I am afraid to even say that under my real name because it would put my job at risk.
Watching a redux of the Warsaw Ghetto being livestreamed, watching children starving to death because of state military decisions, watching 500 pounder bombs being dropped on seaside cafes and ambulance medics being murdered. Never again is right now and I'm doing this, bitching pseudonymously. It is truly dystopian as you say.
Further, state influence campaigns using social media are well known, it is absolutely happening on this forum and all forums as you say. What to do? I have no idea but I know that those who suffer the consequences of speaking out against this, such as the tens of people arrested in the UK, are truly brave.
Never again is right now. One day everyone will have been against this.
That’s the part that sickens me, if anyone says anything about the genocide, your livelihood is at risk.
It’s disgusting, and it works to prevent people from saying anything publicly.
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And there's some reason to believe there isn't a state influence campaign in favor of Hamas?
That would be easy to disprove, just let international journalists enter the area and film whatever is happening there. Israel won't let them.
Nobody wants to fund it.
Fervent supporters of Israel believe all sorts of nonsense about support for Hamas in the west. It functions as a kind of whataboutism.
For progressive, educated people, Holocaust education was a double-edged sword. It made us keenly aware that the belief in the need for the existence of a Jewish state came from centuries of European Christian anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust. Therefore, when Israel justified its actions as defense against an existential threat, I think Europeans and American descendants of Europeans felt very nervous about rejecting that justification, since historically we're a big part of why they perceive an existential threat to their people.
I think we're well past that now, though.
For a while people would label arguments against Israel as being against the Jewish people or the Jewish faith. That is, decrying how Gaza and the West Bank were formed were seen as anti-semitic arguments. It was essentially an argument that Israel is Judaism. Whereas mature people can usually argue against a behavior without arguing against a person or a group of people.
In so weaponizing "antisemitism" through unethical and immoral political attacks, it increases actual antisemitism and makes the term lose its importance. Meanwhile, 20k Hasidic Jews met in an arena in NYC to denounce what Israel was doing and that they don't speak for them. The sheer arrogance of a secular political regime claiming to speak for an entire people whom aren't citizens of their country and never agreed to this association.
A thought-provoking argument that I read recently was that Israel's relationship with the diaspora has undergone a fundamental shift in the last 20 years, largely tracking with demographics: it's no longer the case that Jewish life is primarily diasporic in nature, and Israel's growing impatience (and sometimes open disdain) for the diaspora tracks with that demographic reality.
I think this is an underrepresented factor in why Israel feels unilaterally emboldened in this conflict: there's no longer a statistically more liberal, secular, identifiably Jewish majority outside of the country that serves as a check on its actions.
It's become increasingly apparent that most accusations of anti semitism these days are a thin veil over genocidal islamophobia.
which isnt to say anti semitism doesnt exist or even that it isnt getting worse, just that most of the pearl clutching is being done by rather extreme racists who are pretty happy to see muslims exterminated.
That's what we were thought in school as well, but the actual history quite a bit more complicated than that.
Modern racial antisemitism and political Zionism were two modern political projects that grew from the same 19th century soil of nationalism and race theory. They did not agree with each other, but they converged, from opposite directions, on the same fundamental conclusion: that the Jewish people constituted a distinct, unassimilable national and racial body that could not coexist as equals within a European nation-state. Political Zionism did not adopt the idea of Jewish separateness from antisemites. It inherited this idea directly from traditional Judaism itself. The entire structure of Halakha (Jewish Law), with its dietary codes, Shabbat observance, and, most crucially, its powerful prohibition on intermarriage, was a system designed to maintain the Jewish people as a distinct, separate, and unassimilated nation in exile. This was the internal, self-defined jewish reality for millennia. Modern racial antisemitism took this existing reality of Jewish separatism and reframed it as a hostile, biological threat to the European nation-state.
The secular European Zionists looked at this situation and synthesized two ideas. Zionists accepted the traditional Jewish premise ("we are a separate people") and accepted the antisemite's practical diagnosis ("they will never accept us as equals"). They rejected both solutions, the religious passivity of waiting for a Messiah and the "liberal delusion"(as Zionists described it) of assimilation. Instead, they chose to take the existing identity of Jewish separateness and reforge it using the modern tools of European nationalism and colonialism. That's also why Zionists published scathing articles about assimilated jews whom they perceived as deluded, cowardly, and "self-hating" for trying to be part of a European society.
The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project in Palestine (1900s), were not suffering from the trauma of the Holocaust (it was decades before) and did not suffer from any meaningful antisemitism, which they also documented themselves ("the Palestinians are child-like and easy to befriend"). Zionist actions and attitudes were thus the direct, confident expression of 19th Century European settler colonialism, as evident in the writings of Herzl, Jabotinsky and co. Zionism was born in the same intellectual environment as the "Scramble for Africa" and the "White Man's Burden."
Their argument was not: "We are traumatized victims who need a safe space.", because if that had been the case they wouldn't have rejected the ugandan land they were offered - it was: "You Europeans have successfully conquered and colonized vast territories inhabited by inferior natives. We, as a superior European people currently without a state, claim the right to do the same thing as you". It was the logical, confident, and systematic execution of a European colonial project by a group that chose to see itself as a superior people with the right to displace and subjugate an indigenous population it viewed as inferior (i.e. the 'kushim' of Palestine). Those secular European atheist jews who, despite rejecting religion as superstitious and irrational, still saw value in it as essential myth-making tool to justify the dispossession of natives and legitimize their colonial zionist project by weaponizing those myths ("our God [which they as atheists didn't even believe in] promised this land to us") .
> The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project in Palestine (1900s), were not suffering from the trauma of the Holocaust (it was decades before) and did not suffer from any meaningful antisemitism
You're conveniently ignoring the Eastern European pogroms during the late 19th and especially early 20th century. Jewish immigration, in both number and origin, to Palestine not-so-coincidentally tracks the severity of the pogroms. And actually, during this time many times more Jews immigrated to New York than to Palestine. Immigration to Palestine didn't explode until the rise of Nazi anti-semitism.
Collective punishment is wrong. Full stop. Global civil society largely internalized this ethic, after millennia of accepting collective punishment as legitimate, in large part because of the experience of Jews in Europe. It's ridiculous to deny the history of how this norm came about no less than it is to deny that collective punishment has become the facial justification for Israel's war in Gaza.
You're conveniently imposing your misreading on that quote since it's clearly talking about the experiences of _those Zionists living in Palestine_ around 1900.
David Ben-Gurion was the founder of Israel and its first Prime Minister and he confirms that: "They are nearly all good-hearted, and are easily befriended. One might say that they are like big children." David Ben-Gurion in Igrot (Letters), Tel Aviv: Am Oved and Tel Aviv University, Vol. I, 1971
And how come those pogroms didn't make those Zionist-Jews more empathetic to suffering and persecution? Instead they had the exact same racist and supremacist attitudes as the europeans they were complaining about.
"The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim in Hebrew] and for those there is no value." - Weizmann, quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.
I responded to
> The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project in Palestine (1900s), were not suffering from the trauma of the Holocaust (it was decades before) and did not suffer from any meaningful antisemitism
Ben-Gurion himself was witness to pogroms in Poland. Does one need to be murdered or violently attacked to "suffer antisemitism"?
Every group is capable of and, in fact, exhibits racist attitudes. Hannah Arendt observed and commented on the racial hierarchy among Jewish Israel's when attending the Eichmann trial, with the European immigrants having higher socio-economic status than the native, darker-skinned Jewish population. Jews are no different than any other group, ethnic or otherwise.
And, FWIW, Jews are hardly the only ethnic or religious (or mixed ethnic-religious) group which has maintained a distinct identity across millennia and within larger populations, or found itself displaced and then displacing others. In fact, the Middle East has many such groups. The insistence on distinguishing and rationalizing Jews as being peculiar in this and similar regards is a distinctively European cultural obsession, though many regions around the world have their own "Jews" that play this perpetual "other" cultural role.
Again, collective punishment is wrong[1]. Full stop. There's no need to build a complex, racist, colonial narrative as a way to characterize Jews, Israelis, or Zionists as the bad guy in the unfolding Gaza crisis. There's zero need to make recourse to centuries of history to deduce what's wrong with Gaza or even how it came about. The left's oppressor-oppressed modality perpetuates prejudiced, reductive, racist thinking no less than other modes of reducing people to caricatures, and in the end just an excuse to malign or elevate people on a whim. Zionists emigrating from Europe to Palestine to flee persecution... bad. Salvadorians and other populations chain migrating to the US to flee persecution or economic hardship... good. But these assessments can and will flip on a dime.
[1] At least in the modern Westernized ethos, though it seems this judgment re the legitimacy of collective punishment or collective blame is sadly, demonstrably precarious.
>Ben-Gurion himself was witness to pogroms in Poland. Does one need to be murdered or violently attacked to "suffer antisemitism"?
Poor old Ben-Gurion, he "suffered so much from antisemitism" in europe that it turned him into a bloodthirsty racist colonialist who had to engage in a bit of ethnic-cleansing and mass-murder of kushim as therapeutic treatment.
>And, FWIW, Jews are hardly the only ethnic or religious (or mixed ethnic-religious) group which has maintained a distinct identity across millennia and within larger populations, or found itself displaced and then displacing others. In fact, the Middle East has many such groups. The insistence on distinguishing and rationalizing Jews as being peculiar in this and similar regards is a distinctively European cultural obsession,
That's not a "European cultural obsession", it's literally just Jewish Law (Halakha). It's also what Zionist-Jews themselves relentlessly weaponize as myth making tool to justify their occupation of Palestine and to make themselves immune to any criticism, even while committing Genocide.
>Jews are no different than any other group, ethnic or otherwise.
Jews would disagree with you on this, their whole claim to the land and justification for colonization and occupation of Palestine rests on that notion of being different, being the "chosen people" which perfectly aligns with the supremacist zionist ideology which had no qualms about ethnically-cleansing Palestine from those they classified as inferior kushim. ("The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim in Hebrew] and for those there is no value." - Weizmann, quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.)
>There's no need to build a complex, racist, colonial narrative as a way to characterize Jews, Israelis, or Zionists as the bad guy in the unfolding Gaza crisis.
"There's no need to build a complex, racist, colonial narrative as a way to characterize Aryans, Germans, or Nazis as the bad guy in the unfolding Dachau crisis."
>The left's oppressor-oppressed modality perpetuates prejudiced, reductive, racist thinking no less than other modes of reducing people to caricatures, and in the end just an excuse to malign or elevate people on a whim. Zionists emigrating from Europe to Palestine to flee persecution... bad.
"The left's oppressor-oppressed modality perpetuates prejudiced, reductive, racist thinking no less than other modes of reducing people to caricatures, and in the end just an excuse to malign or elevate people on a whim. Nazis emigrating from Europe to Poland to flee persecution... bad."
> The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project in Palestine (1900s), were not suffering from the trauma of the Holocaust (it was decades before) and did not suffer from any meaningful antisemitism
I might be misreading you here, but it really sounds like you're claiming that antisemitism began and ended with the Third Reich. You're aware that's not the case, right?
I'm clearly specifying a subset of Zionist-Jews in a specific location at a specific time "The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project *in Palestine* ..." and the crucial part which you simply dropped in your quote "which they also documented themselves [i.e. their experiences with the natives of Palestine] ("the Palestinians are child-like and easy to befriend")"
I honestly don't get how one can read that sentence and come to that conclusion, but at least you already suspected yourself of misreading
> "the Palestinians are child-like and easy to befriend"
You might want to provide the source for this. (The phrase is not directly googlable.)
that seems to be the abridged version, the exact quote I found says:
"They are nearly all good-hearted, and are easily befriended. One might say that they are like big children." David Ben-Gurion in Igrot (Letters), Tel Aviv: Am Oved and Tel Aviv University, Vol. I, 1971
The problem is your comment doesn't make much sense unless you come to the conclusion I did - who cares if they weren't traumatized by the Holocaust specifically (of course they weren't!) if they were instead traumatized by, say, pograms?
They were so "traumatized" that they became racist and supremacist?
"The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim in Hebrew] and for those there is no value." - Weizmann, quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.
Interesting behavior. One would assume that those horrible pogroms would have thought those Zionist-Jews the value of empathy, but they just seem to have taken it as instruction manual and have been applying it themselves for almost a century now.
The question of whether you can find third-hand (or even first-hand) accounts of Zionists saying or doing bad things doesn’t really have any bearing on the question of to what extent Jews faced persecution, or to what extent that persecution motivated the Zionist project.
Incidentally, the idea that persecution or trauma necessarily makes a person (or a people!) better is flatly untrue; anyone familiar with psychology knows that. And, after all, we can find lots of examples of Palestinians doing bad things too.
>The question of whether you can find third-hand (or even first-hand) accounts of Zionists saying or doing bad things doesn’t really have any bearing on the question of to what extent Jews faced persecution, or to what extent that persecution motivated the Zionist project.
True! Zionism was clearly a white supremacist colonial project inspired by european nationalism in teaching and writing either way.
>Incidentally, the idea that persecution or trauma necessarily makes a person (or a people!) better is flatly untrue; anyone familiar with psychology knows that. And, after all, we can find lots of examples of Palestinians doing bad things too.
Also true! Similarly, Norman Finkelstein describes in "The Holocaust Industry"[1]: "that the American Jewish establishment exploits the memory of the Nazi Holocaust for political and financial gain and to further Israeli interests. According to Finkelstein, this "Holocaust industry" has corrupted Jewish culture and the authentic memory of the Holocaust". Zionists pumped out Hollywood movie after movie to lecture the world on how their tribe's oppression has been so uniquely evil, just to turn around and oppress others in the exact same way once they gained power.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Industry-Reflections-Exploi...
I lost 3 great uncles in WW2, one lost his mind to PTSD and drink, and my grandfather came back a different human forever changed. That they fought and died fighting Nazis only for America to adopt and support ethnonationalist fascism is beyond my comprehension and tolerance.
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Germany refuses to speak up against anything Israel is doing. Hows that for cowed? Poor country has had a number done on them almost 100 years and now theyre done. For that matter all the western countries are done.
The problem is simple: conflicts like this are made into binary good vs evil arguments where the other side is bad and your side is good.
The reality is that both sides have legitimate concerns, and likewise, are doing very bad things. Intelligent and caring people get sucked up into this and can only echo their hate for the other side.
The exciting world of tech is designed to amplify the opposition but not to find consensus.
You are just heading into another set of abstractions. A third neutral path that still misses the most important factor. That human life and dignity is the overwhelming priority. A legitimate" concern is a very bad reason for death, injury, trauma and hunger.
My heart goes out to the people of Palestine, and I'm rooting for them. I'm not a fan of Hamas though.
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The film The Battle of Algiers shows this well.
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The Oct 7th attack on Israel is textbook genocide. Hamas wishes to kill all Jews in Israel. It indiscriminately slaughtered civilians. And worse:
https://thedinahproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/The-D...
Israel however does not wish to kill all Palestinians. It is not trying to kill all Palestinians in Gaza. It is not killing all Palestinian Arabs who are Israeli citizens. It is not trying to kill all Palestinians in the "West Bank" or in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
Killing people in a war is not genocide. The people in Gaza are provably not targeted (as a group) because they are Palestinians. The attacks on Gaza are directly related to the war that started by Hamas' attack (or we can even say attacks including previous attacks since they took power in Gaza). Each bomb that drops in Gaza has a military objective.
You can prove this pretty easily with a thought experiment, just have Hamas (and the other Jihadi organizations in Gaza) surrender, lay down their arms, and we'll see if any more Gaza civilians are killed.
Colonial invasion, occupation, genocide, ethnic cleansing and holocaust aren't really 'both sides' kind of issues.
However, every colonial invader, occupier, genocidaire and war criminal of the last few hundred years has done their best to flip the blame.
Some of them have been really, really good at it, and each learns from the previous efforts.
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Yeah? And you think that justifies genocide?
Nothing justifies genocide. My (limited) understanding is that both sides want the destruction of the other.
I'm not a fan of terrorism, and I'm not a fan of theocracies either.
So here we are talking about the problem and I'm sharing an observation about the process of talking about the problem and you wish me great harm. For just sharing my observations.
You have no idea of who I am or what I actually support and you are ready to fucking stone me. Again, oh the irony of my original comment.
>I'm not a fan of terrorism, and I'm not a fan of theocracies either.
Israel's entire history is the history of "jewish-zionist terrorism"[1], from its founding to its expansion and the current genocide. If you're not a fan of "theocracies" then you should clearly hate Israel, because it's a settler colonial apartheid occupation that justifies itself using the hebrew bible which its own secular founders classified as useful myths.
Everybody knows what you're doing. It's liberal zionist apologia disguised by feigning ignorance. Why would you spam comment after comment on this topic if you have "limited understanding" as you admitted? And by chance you happen to regurgitate typical zionist talking points.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir..."
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There is still an enemy and government on the other side of this conflict, which have a duty to their people to surrender. I don't believe surrender is in their vocabulary though so here we are...one side fighting and invisible enemy on the other.
> What's worse is I actually feel openly saying "I don't support this genocide and I'm critical of the state committing it" is a risky thing to say in public. I wouldn't say it not behind a pseudonymous account without some level of plausible deniability.
In the world I can observe (especially social media), the opposite is true; characterizing the situation as a genocide is normal and accepted, disputing that will get you shunned, and depending on who your friends are you may find yourself subjected to purity testing of that opinion.
Consider, for example, who does and doesn't get banned on Twitch for the things they say about this issue, and what their positions are. Or have a look around Fosstodon, or among FOSS developers on other Mastodon instances; "Free Palestine" is at least as common in bios and screen names as BLM support, while opposed slogans don't even exist as far as I can tell or would be unconscionable to use if they do.
Or consider for example this thread, which is full of people who agree with you, at least among the live comments.
> It's also the area with the most clear manipulation of information on social media. The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web.
Unfortunately the techno optimism that we grew up with has given way to the stark reality that it is now easier than ever to manage the truth and squash dissent.
Which, btw, is the exact opposite of what we thought the Internet would be: the democratization of truth and voices. Instead we've allowed a handful of media oligarchs to own and distort the spin landscape.
I would argue that we have democratized voices, the problem is that many of those voices want to lie, for the same reason that oligarchs want to lie.
Probably not going to find this one encouraging:
> A Columbia genocide scholar says she may leave over university’s new definition of antisemitism
> ... Hirsch, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, is now thinking of leaving the classroom altogether.
https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-antisemitism-...
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Tangentially related, I never understood how the anti-BDS laws square with the first amendment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Anti-BDS_laws_in...)
> Tangentially related, I never understood how the anti-BDS laws square with the first amendment
At my university, a portion of my dues went to funding BDS efforts (what expenses do they even have?) and I had no clear means to object to this. This was in Canada, but it seems to me perfectly fair to oppose that. That said:
> Most anti-BDS laws have taken one of two forms: contract-focused laws requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel; and investment-focused laws, mandating public investment funds to avoid entities boycotting Israel.
Substitute, for example, any domestic racial minority for "Israel"; does your opinion change?
> At my university, a portion of my dues went to funding BDS efforts
Surely you can protest that at the university and it is not a government-enforced policy?
> Substitute, for example, any domestic racial minority for "Israel"
Is "Israel" a race or a country? Should a Canadian not be allowed to boycott the US?
> Is "Israel" a race or a country? Should a Canadian not be allowed to boycott the US?
The legislation described does not prevent boycotts, except by government contractors who have a duty to government policy and thus do not necessarily enjoy those protections (https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47986):
> Speech restrictions imposed by private entities, and government limits on its own speech, usually do not implicate the First Amendment.
As for public investment funds: you'll need to explain to me how saying that X may not invest in Y because Y is refusing to buy things from Z, causes Y to stop being able to refuse to buy things from Z (i.e., compels Y to buy things from Z).
If you want to not buy things from Israel, then... just don't. You don't need my money, or a private investment firm's, in order to achieve that.
> Speech restrictions imposed by private entities, and government limits on its own speech, usually do not implicate the First Amendment
How does this apply to the matter at hand? The restrictions on doing business are being imposed on (not by) a private entity, by (not on) the government. The government is free to do business with Israel if it so chooses
As a private entity doing business with the government, why is it permissible to boycott other countries or entities, but not Israel?
Moreover, why is this a state matter? What relevance is it to Kansas whether one boycotts a foreign country?
>How does this apply to the matter at hand? The restrictions on doing business are being imposed on (not by) a private entity, by (not on) the government.
>requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel
I'm aware of what the law says. How does that justify such a law?
I don't really see any responses to any of the questions I have raised.
You originally asked how the provision holds up against the First Amendment. I showed how it is government contractors being restricted. Government contractors act on behalf of the government. I then showed how the First Amendment does not necessarily protect those who act on behalf of the government, because this is the government placing a limit "on its own speech".
I did not find anything about contractors in the link you provided and the excerpt did not apply.
Even if that were present, why should "Congress said so" have any meaning?
I am aware the judiciary has occasionally upheld the legality of such laws--just as they have upheld Civil Asset Forfeiture, Qualified Immunity, given us Citizens United, ended the Voting Rights Act, and sundry other decisions that will surely be judged well by future history.
Appeal to authority is not a convincing argument.
Leftists spent years trying to pass "hate speech" laws and now that right is trying to pass "hate speech" laws leftists are clutching their pearls. It came back to bite.
Agreed, I think at the far end "left" and "right" turn more into a circle than a line: "people shouldn't be allowed to think this way!"
But, the trouble is, there's no right answer, only trade-offs. Personally I do prefer dialogue over "canceling." But I also recognize that can also basically allow for an intellectual "denial of service," so to speak. AKA "flooding the zone"
That said, seems voters on both left and right oppose these laws more than support them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Public_opinions_...
>>As someone who went to US high school in the 90s, a good 1/3 of our curriculum seemed to be "never again" studies of the holocaust and other genocides throughout history. Which makes it completely incomprehensible to me that suddenly "don't talk about genocide" has become the basically law.
I used to live right outside of Auschwitz. Been inside many times, and it's an absolutely harrowing experience - the scale of human suffering inflicted upon the people brought there exceeds almost any kind of scale. But similar to what you said, majority of that place is dedicated to "never again" messaging - so it must feel weird to go in, see the pictures of starving children inside the camp(those that weren't sent to the gas chambers straight away anyway), only to go outside and see images of equally starved Palestinian children and watch Natenyahu say "there's no starvation in Gaza". I feel personal discomfort knowing that the famous "those who don't remember history" quote is on a sign right there in Auschwitz, seen by millions of people every year, yet Israel is comitting genocide against the people of Gaza.
>> The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web.
Any topic related to this gets flagged within few hours. No doubt this one will be too.
What was it like for you living Germany in that period?
>>What was it like for you living Germany in that period?
Auschwitz isn't in Germany, it's in Poland. Unless I'm misunderstanding your question?
I think there are a large number of people from the United States who would be looking for Auschwitz on a map in Germany rather than in Poland. For some reason it ticks me off when Germans persist in using the German names for Polish cities while at the same time I'm not upset at the Dutch for saying Berlijn or Parijs instead of Berlin or Paris. It's inconsistent.
The gift shop at Auschwitz sells refrigerator magnets underlining that it is a German concentration camp.
It was. But it is in Poland, where it always was, even though it was occupied at the time.
It was peacefully inhabited by members of both german and polish people, before the concept of nation states existed. That's where these names originate from.
At the end of the middle ages the cities voted (by war not by a referendum) to be part of the polish kingdom, because the polish king promised lower taxes. It was a conflict between the bourgeoisie in the cities and aristocracy in the country like everywhere in Europe, not between nations. Note that the polish king was an elected monarch, so not even the polish king was polish by the modern meaning.
In the 19th century there were national movements among both nationalities. After the first world war, people voted to be part of Germany, because it was richer and also more liberal, that's why the referenda were suppressed by the polish government. The regions were also full of coal or an important harbour, which is why the polish government cared about them beside national reasons. These actions were used by the nationalistic socialistic german workers party and others to justify hostile actions against the polish people. The polish government also expanded a police station on foreign soil into a military base against international treaties. After they also conquered official city buildings like the postal office, This led to the city major of Danzig calling for a military intervention, which was then expanded into the second world war due to the intention of the german government.
During the war slavic (including the polish) people were subject to murder, expulsion and the story with the concentration camps. After the war the polish army then did the same to the german people, including in regions were a large majority was german, which had been part of german states for centuries and which should become part of Germany again according to allied treaties. The plans originated back to before the war and were only called an answer to the German crimes to the public. These actions were objected to by the western allies, but were backed by the Soviets, because in-turn they could do the same to the polish people without the polish government objecting. This situation was what Churchill coined the term iron curtain about originally.
A lot of today's germans which insist on calling this cities by their german names are people which used to call it their homes (and still do). Some polish names were also only coined after the war, or coined earlier for propaganda but were never used until after.
Regarding the extermination camps: in contrast to the concentration camp they were only build on conquered foreign soil, because they didn't want to have these barbaric things in their home country and feared that it would cause outcry and objection by the German people (it was a dictatorship after all).
> Even peak cancel culture wasn't quite so chilling.
Wait. What?
Are you trying to imply this was some kind of a real thing that happened?
Sarcasm on the internet doesn't always travel well, I can't tell if you're just using this fiction as a metaphor or trying to convince people it actually happened.
This is hard to read as a genuine question so I'm not sure you'll get a genuine answer (if any response).
One of the more annoying things I've noticed as I've gotten older is just how well certain false memes spread through a society. If they're ultimately harmless, then it doesn't matter that much, but I don't think that repeating the meme/myth that there was or is a "cancel culture", much less one that could peak, is harmless.
The short, short phone typing reason is that people who use the term cancel culture are almost always using it to attack criticism, and the majority of those times, it's things that deserve criticism.
I'm not sure I can change the world or even the culture of a small internet message board, but I can at least push back on it when I see it.
>is a risky thing to say in public. I wouldn't say it not behind a pseudonymous account without some level of plausible deniability. Even peak cancel culture wasn't quite so chilling.
Peak cancel culture was much more chilling than this. People were fired for cracking their knuckles[0], businesses were targeted for selling tacos while White, not constantly virtue signaling at work would cast you as a racist since "silence is complicetness," etc. A moral panic not seen for decades.
Leftists made their bed, and now they get to lie in it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Those who pointed out the peak woke cancel culture lunacy were told they were racists supporting the status quo. Now you're being told you're antisemitic.
It was truly dystopian.
[0] https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-cal...
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Exactly! That's so baffling and infuriating. They're living in an alternate reality at this point. I was just looking at Raphael Enthoven's X account earlier and it makes me crazy.
Its almost like genocide is a secret taboo that people won't admit to. Because at some level the logic of it actually fits (if you accept a premise of ethno-nationalism). It's a form of logical insanity; but that is what war and fear produce.
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So i guess just go ahead and kill them all, amirite?
Yeah cause clearly that's what was happening for the past 20 years prior to Hamas inflicting the largest casualty attack of Jews since the Holocaust, amirite?
And in waging urban combat, you designate combat zones, drop leaflets and roof knock bombs because you wanna maximize casualties, amirite?
wow, a lot to unpack here.
First, i'll start by saying hamas was obviously not justified in what they did. then begin on your points:
1) re: urban combat and designations + leaflets: basically all of gaza has been designated a combat zone almost constantly - much like the hokey pokey, bits are put in and out on a whim. Much of the population have been displaced multiple times.
compare this to the speedy campaign waged against hezbollah or iran, where there was precision intelligence to bomb things out with minimal (not zero) civilian casualties. israel is capable of being precise.
2) roof knock bombs: omg - there are no roofs left to knock on (look at photos of gaza, seriously.), and even if there were, i think this "generosity" went out the window a few wars ago. tents don't have roofs to knock on. - don't pretend israel has been kind by "knocking" on the roof of people waiting in line to get water.
3) largest casualty of jews since the holocaust: I agree this is terrible, but is an arbitrary measurement. nobody seems to bat an eye that israel has 50x'd that terrible number, nor that they're inflicting very similar suffering to what the jews suffered in the holocaust (hunger and relocation at the very least being undeniable within gaza, intention to relocate the populace being disgustingly touted by certain groups).
Came across a map that shows the no-go / designated combat zones from the bbc:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/800/cpsprodpb/vivo/liv...
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I’ve seen hundreds upon hundreds of photos and videos of mangled, mutilated, slain children——literally streamed directly to me on Instagram. And now, we are all witnesses to starved children.
For you to essentially say it’s ALL FAKE is fucking DISGUSTING.
The fact that this website allows fucking genocide denial is insane.
I’m gonna say this from the bottom of my heart, go fuck yourself.
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This line of argument misrepresents both the nature of genocide and the current reality.
First, genocide isn’t defined by whether all members of an ethnic group are being killed everywhere they live—it’s about intent and actions toward any part of the group “as such.” The fact that Palestinians exist elsewhere doesn’t negate what’s happening in Gaza. The UN and multiple human rights organizations have documented mass civilian casualties, deliberate targeting of infrastructure, starvation as a weapon, and systematic displacement. That pattern aligns far more with collective punishment than a surgical military operation against Hamas.
Second, invoking WW2 to justify killing civilians today is morally bankrupt. The world learned from WW2—that’s why the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law exist: to prevent states from repeating those same atrocities. “We did it in WW2” is not a defense—it’s an indictment.
Third, claiming Hamas could “end it all by surrendering” is naive at best, dishonest at worst. Hamas doesn’t control every decision civilians make—babies didn’t vote for October 7. Collective punishment violates international law, period. And 60% of Gazans allegedly supporting October 7? Even if that number were accurate (which is debatable given wartime polling), collective punishment is still illegal and immoral. Civilian rights don’t evaporate because of public opinion.
Lastly, the idea that a population “actively trying to kill you” justifies cutting off food, water, and medicine reveals a complete erosion of moral clarity. If that logic held, any state could commit war crimes and simply blame the victims for “supporting the wrong group.”
You can condemn Hamas and demand restraint from Israel. These are not mutually exclusive positions—they’re what civilized societies are supposed to uphold
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Using your example:
>. so to out it in simpler terms, if a guy tries to kill me, i can defend myself, but NOT TOO MUCH - if the person wont stop fighting and I or someone else, say the police, has to use deadly force to stop him, then you claim this is “morally bankrupt”.
You can defend yourself, even killing your attacker. It would be morally bankrupt to then kill your attacker's entire family, or the neighborhood where he lived.
That is what is happening here.
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Ye it is surreal. Dunno what to add really. I might think pf something later...
I don't really understand how this conflict has been dragged out for so long. It seems like with all the external global support, it should be possible to bring enough world leaders together to hammer out a peace treaty.
Current strategies of applying external pressure and protesting appear to be largely ineffective.
There's so many people who wield immense power and wealth, but they seem unwilling to take direct action to put a stop to this conflict, they just sit in the sidelines like low-agency players.
If there's a trusted neutral party that people could rally behind, then it would just be a matter of coordinating behind them and pushing a focused message of bringing all relevant leaders to the negotiation table in order to design a framework that builds towards peace in the area.
America, AIPAC, all the democrats funded by AIPAC, all the Christion Zionist republicans... that is why this doesn't stop.
America wont let anyone else intervene.
This is not a "conflict" this is a massacre.
True, there is some hesitation deploying sanctions and peacekeeping troops to keep the Israeli state away from starving children.
> it should be possible to bring enough world leaders together to hammer out a peace treaty.
Hamas does not want to step down, they want to kill all the Jewish people. They are very clear about this.
When you have nukes, you can do anything. The next 10 years will literally change the future of this planet, because Israel turned nuclear deterrence into "right to attack anyone and not face consequences". It's straight out of Russia's playbook, and many countries who thought they would never need a nuclear deterrence realize that they actually might need one. North Korea's dictatorship looks like a bunch of geniuses right now and it's sad and scary that giving the Israeli military zero pushback (and even encouragement from the US) will result in a nuclear arms race.
Israel will not be satisfied with anything less than the complete eradication of the Palestinian people. It is hard to make peace when one side is hell-bent on mass murder.
"It is hard to make peace when one side is hell-bent on mass murder."
Is this referring to the Hamas Charter? Suspect it is a typo and you meant to say both sides.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/01/hamas-new-char...
Hamas presents new charter accepting a Palestine based on 1967 borders (2017)
Mass murder through starvation and shooting children at aid stations.
They prefer to call it mowing the lawn.
Hey, it’s “tactical resource limitation”. Don’t you know how to color war atrocities? To quote Netanyahu, “there’s no starvation in Gaza”. The motherfucker may as well just say “all ur base belongs to us”.
I can name four high ranking Hamas officials that were assassinated by Israel after proposing truces where they accept Israel as a nation.
Yassin. Jabari. al-Rantisi. The latest one is Haniyeh who opened up for a long term truce with Israel AND recognizing Israel as a state.
These are just the people from the top of my head. They were all killed within months of proposing long term truces with Israel.
Not nice people, but still people with power to make a change. Israel has shown again and again that negotiation should be done by force.
What did you expect? Israel has been expanding more and more into Palestine, murdering and displacing Palestinians who live there. Did you really think nobody would fight back?
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“Move the people out and then clean it up” Jared Kushner [0]
His investment firm got 2 billion dollars from the Saudis to invest in Israel.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nneWrllngAU
Edit: When he says Gaza waterfront property he means the natural gas reserves. [1]
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_the_Gaza_Stri...
Removal of occupants from West Bank and Gaza, completely, was always the overall goal here. Israel doesn't seem to care overly much how this occurs, but they're making it happen. The goal is almost reached.
There will be no Palestine. Egypt doesn't want the refugees. Jordan doesn't want the refugees. Qatar doesn't want the refugees. UAE doesn't want the refugees. Syria doesn't want the refugees. Lebanon doesn't want the refugees. Iran and Iraq don't want the refugees. America doesn't want the refugees. Europe doesn't want the refugees. Russia & China don't want the refugees.
When the fortnite-circle closes in Gaza and West Bank, where do you think these people will go? To a gigantic concentration camp? They'll fight -and die- first. Israel, and all of the surrounding nations are counting on this fact.
Palestine is done. Over. Finished. They have nowhere to go. They won't accept permanent incarceration. That leaves rebellion unto death.
That is the option the world has given these people. Do we help them? Move them? No. We condemn Israel's actions and blah-blah-blah.
Humanity makes me nauseous.
Can you point out to any action about the removal of West Bank arabs? There are an estimation of 2.5-3 million arabs there. There is actually a country for these people and this is Jordan. Since in '48 the arabs didn't accept the two state solution then, they are forced to live in a country which is not for them.
Also, could you please point out where are they refugees from? '48 is 77 years ago, how is the 2nd and 3rd generation are still refugees? There are no other people in the world who claim to be refugees in the 2nd and 3rd generation.
Well,I don't know about a population that have displaced and occupied/imprisoned for such a long time. I feel fine calling the refugees.
And don't try to claim Israel left Gaza in 2006
Area C is still under Israeli control, despite them promising to leave the are 30 years ago. And they keep on allowing new illegal settlements. Considering how much area was under the jurisdiction of settlements (well over 40% in 2010) the 22 new settlements in 2024 is potentially a huge land grab.
The use of the term "West Bank arabs" is already a racist dog whistle. They're called "Palestinians."
They come from Palestine. They're not going to willingly allow themselves to be deported to Jordan, as you want.
When there’s only 100,000 Palestinians left, Israel will announce that they accept a one-state solution.
For now they seem to accept the final solution though.
Israel does not allow international journalists in and it's fairly obvious why.
Yes, they learned an important lesson on how to deal with Western media from the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. There's a decent amount of exploration of this topic in the excellent book "Our American Israel".
New lesson is learned about tiktok and live streams
BBC's Jeremy Bowen was on the Jordanian aid-dropping plane yesterday or day before. "He was told by the Jordanians that Israel did not want our crew to film outside the plane's windows while he was onboard".[1] Obviously why - then he'd be able to film the ... not decimation, but total destruction of some of the cities in Gaza that would provide evidence for the genocide.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/clyj4gnzxgno
The destruction is fully visible in satellite footage. Associated Press has “before and after” comparisons.
Israel lobbied for restrictions on the resolution of satellite footage of the occupied Palestinian territories, so it tends to be a lot more blurred than images of anywhere else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyl–Bingaman_Amendment
I had no idea about this appalling law. It deserves to be much better-known.
So NYSE-traded Planet Labs PBC would be affected given their San Francisco HQ, and it could be higher resolution than this perhaps w/o that law?
For reference, link to the AP's reporting including satellite photos with before/after sliders (2023<->2025):
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-destruction...
(Disclaimer: I'm out of my depth on satellites, photography, and international relations... & almost everything really)
Wonderful. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be hiding much.
I can see destroyed buildings on Google Maps. :(
Unbelievable.. first time hearing about this.
I'd understand a delay for operational security; it is a war zone. However banned entirely?
Why is it reasonable for operational security? They're not Israeli satellites!
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Yes, Israel is the one currently banning international journalists from entering Gaza. Hamas has no reason to.
Why doesn’t Egypt allow journalists through the Raffah crossing? Or refugees..?
Because Egypt is under a US-aligned dictatorship at the moment. Most Egyptians are upset at their government about this.
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The current dictatorship in Egypt deals with the Muslim Brotherhood in the same way pro-US capitalist dictatorships dealt with communist groups. The Muslim Brotherhood is still very popular in Egypt, and in the last legitimate election won close to 50% of the vote. I don't support them but their views are generally closer to Christian Democracy/socialism than you'd think.
Fact is that Egyptians are opposed to this, just like most other people in Arab or Muslim majority countries are. Their government is authoritarian and just does what suits it best, which in this case is to appease the US.
It's always remarkable how people like you think egyptians are incompetent and incapable of taking actions on their own without a special western nation controlling them.
Well, that doesn't change the fact that Egypt is currently under a US-aligned dictatorship. I'm not saying it's under US-control, just that the current dictator stands to benefit by being in the good graces of the US...despite his people's demands.
Also I don't believe that Egyptians are incompetent and incapable, you're putting words in mouth. It's just easier said than done to remove a dictator from power, especially when the power structure is so entrenched. It took Syria over a decade of civil war to get rid of theirs...
We don't live in a Hollywood film. The French Revolution didn't take a month to transition to a republic...
"Aligned" is doing a lot of work here.
Does some part of the Egyptian government have an interest in doing certain things entirely because of America's influence? Sure. Is that the only reason for their behaviour? Of course not.
I just want people to keep in mind that Egypt (and everywhere else) is full of humans who are just as smart or dumb, brave or cowardly, immoral or righteous, as any other country, and those humans are perfectly capable of deciding to do both good and evil things without blaming it on "america".
rany has given a good answer, but I also want to add that currently the Egyptians only control the Rafah crossing on paper.
In reality, Israel controls the crossing because they have occupied/seized the strip of land in Gaza that is adjacent to the crossing (Philadelphi Corridor). Here's a similar complaint from Egyptian media: https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/1234/550260/Egypt...
Yeah, really no reason.
Because they really love unbiased coverage.
> The journalist told RSF that the threat came from Hamas members who were unhappy with his social media posts. A few days earlier, the reporter — who wishes to remain anonymous — had published a post criticising Hamas, which was facing strong backlash from local protestors exhausted from being subjected to the massacres committed by Israeli forces.
> Due to these threats the journalist deleted his posts, fearing for his safety. At least two other journalists have faced threats and physical attacks for covering the protests against Hamas, which lasted several days. “Detention centres and administrative offices in Gaza have been destroyed,” one journalist told RSF. “So now Hamas’ intimidation tactics consist of direct confrontations with journalists, and the journalists have nowhere to go.”
https://rsf.org/en/gaza-rsf-condemns-hamas-threats-against-j...
Sure but your post is completely unrelated.
We are talking about international journalists not being allowed into Gaza. Your comment is about a local journalist being intimidated by Hamas members.
International journalists are generally allowed to report freely. If there was any intimidation they would be airing it nonstop.
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Related, Israeli human rights groups are coming forward as well. The following is just one report:
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/28/nx-s1-5482881/israel-gaza-gen...
EDIT: The BBC also reports on the same subject:
https://search.app/1LP8A
I look up the first of those “human rights groups” and see that it’s explicitly a Palestine advocacy group with 38 employees. How’s this anywhere near objective?
PHRI was founded by an Israeli who served in the IDF, among other Israeli physicians.
There's nearly 200 citations in their report, citing a wide variety of Israeli and international media, medical journals, statements by the IDF, etc.
https://www.phr.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Genocide-i...
They must have been referring to B'Tselem since they have 38 employees, but it's an Israeli organization headed by an Israeli human rights lawyer, Yuli Novak.
I assume the person you're responding to is not Israeli and has not been following this conflict very closely if they've never heard of B'Tselem.
I witnessed war crimes in Gaza just by watching the vidoes on Tiktok, Telegram and other sites. Israel is not even trying to hide the mass murder they are committing.
Criticizing Israel is in vogue but what's the solution?
Gazans still hold Israeli hostages, Hamas has publicly stated that more civilian deaths helps their cause [1], they're still fighting, the UN refused to distribute aid because they were getting attacked [2], and Israel unilaterally pulling out of Gaza and leaving them to govern themselves is literally what led to October 7th...
1 - https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/11/middleeast/sinwar-hamas-israe...
2 - https://www.wfp.org/news/un-food-agency-pauses-deliveries-no...
Edit - I love it. Down votes instead of responding to this comment's question. Again, what's your solution people?
Edit 2 - is this really a good use of the flagging tool? Is this what HN is about?
> Hamas has publicly stated that more civilian deaths helps their cause
The fact that Israel has no problem creating these civilian deaths is part of the problem. If you claim "human shields" you lose all credibly when you shoot nonetheless. It genuinely horrifying that you accept "well they made us kill all those kids".
This would be easy to see if you accepted the Palestinian people as, well, people.
> Again, what's your solution people?
Two states, stop holding a people in a perpetual refugee camp and you might be surprised and how much less they fight you. And, if you really have two states, then there's a framework for retaliation if it comes to that.
> Two states, stop holding a people in a perpetual refugee camp and you might be surprised and how much less they fight you. And, if you really have two states, then there's a framework for retaliation if it comes to that.
This was Israel's solution, its the other side that keeps rejecting this solution and has been rejecting it for many generations now.
So after 70 years of that it makes sense Israel are fed up with trying to ask for two state solution, because the other side will never agree that wont work, they have to solve it in another way.
> This was Israel's solution, its the other side that keeps rejecting this solution and has been rejecting it for many generations now.
Arafat and the PLA/PLO, let's be clear, were responsible for many terrorist atrocities. But let's not forget, their softening, and efforts at the negotiation table, put the Israel far right in a tough spot. Questions were really starting to get awkward - "Arafat is negotiating and making concessions, so why isn't Israel?"
That's when Netanyahu and his buddies decided that Israel needed to start supporting Hamas, because Hamas was more hardline than the PLO. And their rise would make it easy to deflect blame away from Israel for being unwilling to explore the peace process.
> stop holding a people in a perpetual refugee camp and you might be surprised and how much less they fight you
Israel completely pulled out of Gaza for nearly 20 years. Allowed them work permits in Israel, didn't control the border with Egypt, etc...
Then October 7th happened...
Israel didn't pull out of Gaza, it simply moved its people to the border and continued its subjugation. They bombed Gaza's airport and implemented a land and sea blockade where they controlled everything that went in or out (to the point where they put the Palestinians on a diet with calorie counting at one point). That's not pulling out.
The border with Egypt was controlled indirectly, Egypt is a puppet state of the US. For a moment it wasn't and suddenly they got a military coup and nobody stopped them in the name of democracy...
>They bombed Gaza's airport and implemented a land and sea blockade where they controlled everything that went in or out
Israel blockades the ports and bombed the airport because missiles and weapons used to kill Israelis are shipped in at those places. These weapons in Gaza are not being used for defense. They are there to kill Israelis, period.
Weapons still get in, and then shit like Oct 7th happens - again, not in defense of Gaza, it was purely out of hatred of Israelis. Palestinians used to strap bombs to children and blew them up just to kill a few more Jews. Now they collect them and use them as human shields when they launch rocket attacks against Israel.
Yeah, the ports are blocked for good reason. Maybe Gazans could have tried diplomacy instead of terrorism, but they elected Hamas with a charter of exterminating Jews instead. I'm not sure how anyone could think that leads to prosperity - it leads directly to what's going on now.
Gaza doesn't want two states. It's in their charter. They don't accept the Israeli people as, well, people.
Added by Hamas. When was the last time Gaza had an election?
The last time Gaza had an election they elected Hamas, because they don’t see Israelis as people.
They do see them as occupiers, and occupiers are people.
Israel on the other hand sees them as "animals" that need to be ethnically cleansed or killed. The words of their democratically elected officials, not mine.
Satanyaho is the longest serving PM (+17 years). Says a lot about Israelis.
You can't tell the difference between innocent civilians and fighters who raped and abducted/killed people?
> Gazans still hold Israeli hostages,
Hamas, not Gazans. Nice play with language.
> hostages,
The thousands of Palestinian "administrative detainees" held without charge in Israel, are not hostages?
> 39% in Gaza supported the attacks by Hamas into Israel in October 2023 that triggered the conflict, 32 percentage points lower than six months earlier[1].
If 71% civilian supports some group, then it is not a terrorist group but a government, and using Gazans isn't an overreach.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/11/amid-the-cease...
> Hamas, not Gazans. Nice play with language.
Hamas claimed non-Hamas groups and some civilians held hostages. Some hostages were found in captivity guarded by "civilians". Groups like PIJ held hostages.
So what's a nice catch-all term for the above groups?
terrorists? extremist groups? combatants? there is a large jump from hamas -> the entire population, including innocent civilians.
If you say some people who committed crimes are say, Americans, it means those people are Americans. Doesn't mean all Americans.
So saying they're Gazans covers all the groups, it doesn't say all Gazans, just that the ones doing it are Gazans.
Well the solution certainly isn’t letting an entire People starve to death?
By the way, I don’t see criticism of Israel, but Israel’s current extremist government. I’d even argue that supporting Israel means opposing that administration.
> Well the solution certainly isn’t letting an entire People starve to death?
So answer the question with your solution.
No, that's a logical fallacy. I can be against something obviously wrong without offering an alternative action. In fact, this is a case of "something needs to be done, this is something, so this must be done". Wrong. Doing nothing—not starving Gaza—was also an option; one that the Israeli government decided against. They are responsible for the current situation.
> "They are responsible for the current situation."
Pretty sure the people responsible are the ones hijacking aid trucks and causing security problems in distribution areas. Hamas has a long history of misdirecting aid from the Gazan population; stealing, oppressing, punishing, exploiting, and that's from before the war as commonly reported by UN sources and humanitarian groups over the years.
I want to see the Hamas agents diverting food from a starving mass of civilians. They'd get ripped to shreds in the attempt.
they rip the civilians carrying the aid to shreds. it is easy if you have ak47 and the civilian doesn’t.
"The solution is certainty not x" is not a solution. Saying "it's not x" is easy.
If you really believe that Gazans are being starved, then save them by coming up with a great solution for Israel. Let's hear what you think Israel should do.
That is not how "don't do war crimes" works. It's incumbent upon Israel to find an alternative.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that Israel has decided to starve out Gazans in order to end the war. You have the choice to save them by offering a better solution. What is it?
"Not X!" is a copout.
Unfortunately for that perspective, finding a good solution means diving in and understanding the conflict from the Israeli perspective.
It's not. I can be against the wrong thing because it's wrong. Following your line of argument, I could propose using eugenics to end inherited diseases and sterilise all affected. You disagree? Well, offer a better solution then! What is it??
You can be against x, but if x will continue unless you do the hard work to provide an alternative, simply reiterating "Not X!" is unserious.
>You can be against x, but if x will continue unless you do the hard work to provide an alternative, simply reiterating "Not X!" is unserious.
To be clear, "x" here is short for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. An alternative to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine was provided here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718080
Before you respond there, please remember that while you and israel likely have opinions regarding alternatives, neither of you are the judge of them.
>> "Not X!" is a copout.
So because it's a copout, let's go and do X which will make it impossible to then do Y and Z that may have been far preferable than X.
That's not a copout, sure, but what is it? I suppose the polite, technical term is "opportunity cost"? Kill tens of thousands of people: ensure you can never make peace with their relatives.
Occupying powers have a legal responsibility to provide aid to civilians in territories they occupy. They also have a legal responsibility to figure out the logistics. They also cannot commit war crimes. So the solution is for israel to do what they are legally required to do, and stop doing what they are legally proscribed from doing.
Everything else (hostage return, feelings of safety, etc) is:
1. Less important, and
2. Equally applicable to both israel and palestine
Finding a good solution means diving in and understanding the conflict beyond israel's perspective: There is simply no legal or moral justification for the atrocities we see here. None whatsoever.
This is a gross oversimplification. Hamas has used aid drops as attack points and military refueling opportunities. The idea that this conflict has a good guy bad guy and is simple has done more disservice to an outcome than almost anything else.
> This is a gross oversimplification.
That is a valid opinion, and I also have an equally valid opinion, that it is a gross undersimplification. Our two valid opinions cancel each other out! :)
> Hamas has used aid drops as attack points and military refueling opportunities.
This may be true, or it may be false (israel forbids journalists from reporting from Gaza and often attacks them) but it is included in the "everything else" referred to in the above post. Nothing Hamas does detracts from israel's obligations I mentioned. That's why it's not a "gross oversimplification".
Besides, israel has been systematically using aid points as attack points.
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That would probably require some serious infrastructure to set up secure food distribution points, which I'm assuming isn't easy because the locations have to change as the evacuation areas also constantly changimg. From the video it looks like they only have some berms and small fences so I'd imagine it's a dangerous security situation.
Although having way more food/distribution points might help reduce the violent mobs.
Do you realise how incredibly cynical you sound? We're not discussing the finer details of a logistical challenge here, but the fate of people starving to death. People that by and large are innocent.
Also: It'd require infrastructure that did exist before the IDF destroyed it. To feed people that weren't hungry before Israel blocked humanitarian aid. Don't reverse the guilt.
Coming up with a solution sounds cynical to you?
It's a solution. What do you suggest?
> If you really believe that Gazans are being starved
This is so disgusting. There is an endless flood of proof from reliable media all over the world. It's a fact, not a matter of belief.
> Let's hear what you think Israel should do.
A government with members that are publicly outspoken for a genocide in Gaza simply cannot be trusted on this issue. It's like letting the wolf pack guard the sheep pen and hoping they will handle the situation responsibly. They will not.
You want to hear my solution? Israel should elect new leaders that aren't as empathically crippled, allow foreign (and domestic) help into Gaza, stop all actions of war, and get into talks with Abbas. Israel should incorporate and take responsibility for Gaza as a part of Israel, following Herzl's vision of Israel as a pluralistic state. A one-state solution is inevitable if there is ever supposed to be peace.
But this isn't going to happen. Instead, Gaza is out for a long, slow death by attrition; Israel is once again going to build illegal settlements and occupy territory, and wage war against local militias.
Your solution?
Is inside my reply. You’ll have to read it, I’m afraid.
Except your solution does not feed starving Gazans. What would you suggest Israel do to do that?
No. Not starving people is a bare minimum. A better solution would be literally doing nothing.
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How many Gazans need to die before it's mission accomplished?
You take it out on innocent citizens who are being used as human shields by those terrorists? Maybe there's a better way.
Is it an eye for an eye or 10,000 eyes for an eye? It was the Hamas military that committed the first war crimes attacking civilians. Netanyahu is committing war crimes in response starving the entire population. That is unacceptable.
Maybe they are not starving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQx1Qy5Z5fA
Maybe you place your trust in reliable media all over the world instead of random YouTube videos. Journalists are in Gaza right now, putting their life on the line to show you the ground truth—and you dismiss all that due to a channel called "travelingisrael"?
> "to show you the ground truth"
Sounds like "traveling gaza" is your preferred source over "traveling israel". No difference. Well, there's some differences... There aren't any foreign journalists in Gaza and the "truth" is certainly not a strong point in reporting lines from Islamist controlled war zones.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DMfBbO6Mb3I/?img_index=2
I certainly trust Reuters and AFP over a YouTuber, yes. Their local journalists have a track record of professionalism, they aren't activists under control of the Hamas. Besides, are you honestly proposing there's any kind of regime in control of Gaza right now..?
The Gaza Health Ministry is the main source of data you read about in Reuters and AFP. Hamas also runs a media office that provides official statements on airstrikes, casualties and other events. They have a history of suppressing and intimidating journalists, and they have a history of propaganda.
There are no foreign journalists in Gaza. The journalists you're referring to are Palestinian freelance journalists. Those journalists are working in a media landscape controlled by terrorists. For example they wouldn't be permitted to report back to Reuters about Hamas policing or regrouping.
> Criticizing Israel is in vogue but what's the solution?
At a minimum stop funding them, stop selling weapons to them, at an absolute minimum repeal the rules against boycotting them. Yes that wouldn't be a complete solution but it would be a step in the right direction.
Are you seriously asking for what's the alternative to the bombing of tens of thousands of innocent people because some hostages were taken?
If it's so obvious give your alternative.
Not the OP but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say not bombing civilians, in general, is a path exploring.
Ok. So you stop bombing. How do you get the hostages back? Do you just abandon them?
You still answered with a negative, not a real answer.
> Ok. So you stop bombing. How do you get the hostages back?
I'm assuming "the hostages" you're referring to are the tens of hostages held by Hamas and the thousands of hostages held by israel. I've provided an answer to this question here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718080
> not a real answer
According to who? Seems like a real answer to me, and I'm not sure you're the grand supreme decider of real answers :)
How do you get the hostages back with the bombing?
Oh, you are going to say, "that's to prevent future fighters from capturing future hostages", I guess?
But wait, we know that today's bombings are making future fighters, so, really, what's the plan??
You know, the evening of the 9/11 I remember spending the whole night depressing, thinking "omg, now the US are going to wage war all around the globe, my son will grow up in a terrible place". Because how could the military behemoth answer in any other way? And sure enough, that's what happened.
After the 7th of October, I had similar thoughts: "omg, now Israel is going to act stupid and make Jews hated again".
I've lost friends who had to leave my country because of antisemitism. I've also had my life threatened by right wing extremist zionists. So at least take my words on this: The first and most natural answer to violence and hated is more violence and hatred, universally. If that's not what you want for the next generation make the first move to stop it.
>Criticizing Israel is in vogue but what's the solution?
Return the refugees to their land and disband the settlements (west bank too). Cash payouts for palestinian refugees to rebuild their homes whether returned to previously occupied lands or just needing to rebuild gaza itself.
After reintegrating the civilian population they can go on an anti hamas witch hunt. And Hamas can be put on trial at the hague next to bibi and gvir. Easy.
Hope some day Muslims (in all Arab countries) just accept the right of Israel to exist. Else, this attack/retaliation dynamic will continue for ever, with people taking sides from a blob of propaganda channels disguised in news platforms.
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There's an offer from Hamas on the table for a total ceasefire and release of all hostages. The solution is to accept it. If at any point Hamas will break the agreement, Israel is free to attack again.
Some people seem to believe that eliminating the entire Gaza population is the solution. Either by deportation, or simply by killing all of them. There is a German word for such a solution, 'Endlösung'. We don't want that again.
This is actually a valid question*, although you probably won't like the answer.
One side will concede in a war if there are no gains to be had, and conceding will stem the losses. So at a minimum, the side that wants a victorious peace has to credibly promise not to kill the women and children of the other side. At the moment, Israel is unable to credibly promise that, and it's difficult to see how in the short term it can generate any such credibility. So external parties such as the US need to form part of the commitment mechanism. Under both Biden and Trump, the US has neglected it's responsibility to do that.
*Apart from implying that civilian Gazans are responsible for the hostages
Israel pulled out of Gaza for nearly 20 years... Then October 7th happened.
> *Apart from implying that civilian Gazans are responsible for the hostages
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/19/middleeast/gaza-neighborhood-...
Israel has been subjugating Palestinians and killing them for over 75 years. They're still killing Palestinians and stealing their lands in the West Bank too.
Why? It would be terrible politically for Israel to keep attacking Palestine if Palestine and hamas agreed to peace. All of the ambiguity of right and wrong would be gone.
But Israel does that constantly, because they say the peace that Hamas agreed to doesn’t count. And the peace offer that Israel is waiting for is basically every male over 16 handed over for interrogation as Hamas members, with the chances of survival for actual Hamas leaders being about none.
Almost like starting a war is risky, and that by doing so you should weigh the consequences of you losing that war. Why would Hamas leaders expect to survive this war? Are they so cowardly that they would genocide their people to escape justice? If the people of gaza are going to be sacrificed by the IDF, or sacrificed by Hamas, at what point do they turn on Hamas as the weaker of the two?
Do you think USA would agree to peace with Nazi Germany or Japan without being allowed to root out all the Nazis or Japanese extremists? WWII was ended in an extremely brutal way, but it did work and effectively ended the genocidal extremism in both Japan and Germany.
Criticizing Nazi Germany was also "vogue" at some point and sympathisers of the third Reich had similar justifications for "self-defense" against Jews.
To your edit: feed the people in Gaza, and don't commit war crimes. At this point Israel should be guaranteeing safe passage of food aid in Gaza.
Hamas is bad, but Israel has done much worse to Palestinians over the last 80 years. The mass murders committed by the Israeli forces are much bigger than anything Hamas has ever done.
The only real solution is for the rest of the world to treat Israel the way it should be treated: a genocidal entitiy comitting mass murder.
If more civilian death help Hamas why does Israel‘s government help getting more dead civilians?
stop bombing, killing, and starving civilians for starters; the long-term solution is the two-state solution but you can't get there if the population is either dead or scattered (which is what Israel successfully did in 1948 and is now trying to finish it off)
So don't do this "what's the solution??" while tens of thousands are being killed and starved.
>>> Gazans still hold Israeli hostages,
I believe that capturing POWs is fairly common when at war.
Capturing soldiers, sure, but that's not what happened.
The whole point of capturing soldiers is to keep them from returning to the field. You deny the other side fighters.
Hamas raped, murdered and kidnapped civilians.
There are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilian "administrative detainees" who would love to know why you're not as concerned about them being held.
Link to show hundreds of thousands of detainees in Israel?
That seems like a massive exaggeration.
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Those in power care only about their own power; everything else is expendable
For everyone in this thread hoping for a "Marshall Plan" or other functional aid regime for Gaza, keep in mind that the Marshall Plan began with defeat. It was only with Germany's unconditional surrender that the Allies could establish security and make a plan for the future. Hamas has had many opportunities to surrender and hasn't taken them.
Hitler had many opportunities, as well; but chose not to. Surrender was not a choice the Allies could make for him or for Germany; and it is not a choice Israel can make for Hamas or Gaza.
one could argue, that with hamas de facto defeated and now rival gangs rising up to take power, israel could unilaterally ceasefire and hold elections for a new government to run the strip. hamas, if they pop up again, are disposed of with both domestic and IDF forces.
the main problem is that doing so would probably result in the death of the hostages. hamas wants to stay in power, even if gaza is reduced to sand, they will hold onto the hostages until their power, even over nothing but skeletons, is assured.
the IDF could continue to engage on hamas's terms, or it could make the heartbreaking decision to give up on the hostages and focus on saving the innocent gazan civilians.
Ultimately it's Iran's call who takes power in Gaza, as they've been funding various groups based on the willingness to engage Israel - for this reason the PLO originally fell out in favor of Hamas when it softened its stance.
Ultimately it will be
A) Israel who takes power once the population has been exterminated down to a size they can manage.
B) the israeli regime will be overthrown with military force by an international coalition excluding the west.
Currently A seems more likely. It would not be the first successfully executed genocide.
Israels government doesn't care about the hostages. They could have saved all remaining hostages by just not unilaterally breaking the ceasefire earlier this year.
After all these atrocities, even with Hamas completely gone the hatred for Israel will remain. This war will not stop, only pause.
Imagine all the kids that are growing up in Gaza now, witnessing so much pain, misery and death. How on earth could they forgive Israel, especially as it continues to invade and occupy their territories ?
The Germans did, because they love their children more than they hate their enemies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_German...
These are very, very different situations. You are comparing nations and cultures that have be living side by side for thousands of years to a 77 year old state (Israel) occupying territory that has been Palestinean for thousands of years.
Israel and Ozzy Osbourne were born on the same year. People that were born after Ozzy, can no longer return to their birthplace, because it is now Israel and they are besieged in Gaza.
The only path for peace in the Middle East is for Israel to get the same treatment Germany got after WW2. Israel has shown over many decades that it does not respect human life. The mass murders comitted by the Tel Aviv regime leave no other option.
There were also people in the German Realm, aiming for negotiations (July-Assassinations, Stauffenberg), but the allies made it clear early on that they don't wanted a peace deal, which led to less support among the conspirators.
It was also the US-Marshall Plan (not the allied) and it was also for Europe not for Germany.
Any comparison between the Palestinians and Nazi Germany is absurd. It's like comparing the Native Americans to the Nazis and asking, "Why didn't they just surrender to the European colonists? They chose to fight to the end, so it's their own fault."
IDF fired on World Central Kitchen workers April of 2024 so this, sadly, isn't surprising. At least more and more video is, finally, coming out vividly capturing these atrocities.
When they accidently shot those three hostages escaping that should have been the moment more people realized all this talk about acting on intelligence was just marketing.
On the other hand - when Israel struck the parking lot of that hospital a couple of weeks ago everyone was so confident that the IDF was lying when they said that there was a command bunker just underneath the entrance of the hospital.
Not only did that end up being completely true, but the IDF killed Muhammad Sinwar in that strike.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/world/middleeast/gaza-hos...
You understand that you just said "they're the monsters for using human shields, but not us for shooting through the human shields", right?
Make no mistake, its 100% a war crime to use civilians as human shields. But that doesn't magically absolve the IDF of also committing a war crime. And if they can't meet their military objectives without committing war crimes, maybe that's a sign. In any case, bombing a hospital to kill a terrorist is a very efficient tactic if your goal is to create more terrorists. If you learn nothing else from the UK's administration of Mandatory Palestine, learn that.
Also the israeli military seems to be using "human shields" itself.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/24/middleeast/palestinians-h...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/23/idf-in...
Not a lawyer, but my understanding is civilian casualties are not unlawful (according to international law) when the target is legitimate (on the theory that it is otherwise impossible to legally fight a war with an enemy that hides behind its citizens). To be clear this is not to say war crimes are not also happening.
That doesn't exonerate anything, though. It shows Israel's willingness to put innocent lives in harm's way to plug potential future threats before they form. Threats they are overwhelmingly capable of deterring during transit, urban warfare or border conflicts.
The doctrinal violence against civilian infrastructure (Dahiya doctrine) and the deliberate homicide of hostages (Hannibal directive) are inexcusable no matter how many military brass it kills.
> As a condition for joining the controlled tour, The New York Times agreed not to ... publish geographic details
> according to the Israeli military
> There are no known entrances to the tunnel within the hospital itself
> According to the World Health Organization, Israel has conducted at least 686 attacks on health facilities in Gaza since the start of the war, damaging at least 33 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals
> In other tunnels discovered by the Israeli military, soldiers have used Palestinians as human shields, sending them on ahead to scour for traps.
... You read this article as proof vindicating the IDF's version of events? ... Huh.
If anyone wants to see the full story for themselves they can read it at https://archive.ph/giBjP#selection-1185.0-1189.43
You can literally see both the tunnel and the hospital entrance in the picture NYT provides.
Just to clarify - are you referring to the tunnel which Israel built itself in the 80's [0]? The one which was admitted not to even connect to the hospital in your own article?
If so - were you aware that Israel built it?
Or have you been justifying the destruction of at least 33 hospitals, to us and to yourself, this entire time, based solely on that 'evidence'?
0 - https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-israel-build-bunker-...
To echo the parent; it doesn't matter. It didn't matter 2 weeks ago when Israel killed 3 Catholics bombing a church.
The IDF's doctrinal destruction of civilian infrastructure and attacks on hostages are illegal under international law. If the target was entrenched personnel, then leveling a hospital reflects absolutely miserable trigger discipline on the IDF and their officer's behalf. It's not WWI anymore, if we can't agree on international accountability then we learn nothing from the horrors of our mistakes.
It literally does matter. International law literally makes this exact distinction. And the very article we're commenting on states as much.
>Under the laws of war, a medical facility is considered a protected site that can be attacked only in very rare cases. If one side uses the site for military purposes, that may make it a legitimate target, but only if the risk to civilians is proportional to the military advantage created by the attack.
If you want to argue it's illegal, you have to make an argument that it's not proportional vis-a-vis the colocated military infrastructure, because otherwise international law says it's fair play in both letter and spirit. If they were completely off-limits then everybody would co-locate their military and humanitarian infrastructure without much thought - and the end result of that game would be worse for everyone. That's why international law is the way it is. Civilian infrastructure cannot be allowed to be used as a shield for military infrastructure.
On that point - you would have a difficult time making a legal argument that hitting the edge of the parking lot (deliberately avoiding a strike to the hospital itself, and without doing significant structural damage to the hospital) to kill the Hamas #1 (at that time) was not proportional. If you want to make that argument with some other strike (like the church one) then go ahead - I'm extremely open to the idea that the IDF is crossing the line with many of their strikes - but that's a different argument than falsely saying that any strike next to civilian infrastructure is a war crime by default.
If you want to bomb 33 out of 36 hospitals you should need better evidence than a single photo of a tunnel near a hospital. One which Israel built themselves in the 80s btw [0].
And let's not forget that Israel were caught lying about such evidence on multiple occasions in the past. Remember "the list" that was actually a calendar? Remember the MRI room storing 5 guns - or was it 6? Only recently, we had this: [1].
All local and foreign doctors have consistently denied all such IDF claims. All we have is the word of the IDF (while countless UN, HRW, eyewitness reports etc say otherwise).
We know for a fact that Israel have repeatedly targeted medical personnel in their clearly marked vehicles, such as during the Hind Rajab incident; or when they massacred a convoy and buried them in a mass unmarked grave, then claimed that their lights weren't on to 'justify' it until a recovered phone proved otherwise [2].
And we know, without a doubt, who does embed military infrastructure under hospitals and beside civilians. Israel [3].
If you are a real person, arguing in good faith, I urge you to consider how badly you have been lied to. It's never too late to wake up.
0 - https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-israel-build-bunker-...
1 - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-16/israeli-video-claimed...
2 - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2z103nqxo
3 - https://mmnews.tv/every-accusation-is-a-confession-idf-repor...
Holding up war crimes as a positive examples really just illustrated how far gone Israels actions have gone past any normal standard.
There is also no independent verification so it's debatable what the actual facts are. The IDF have long ago lost any right to be believed without that.
that was definitely THE moment that shook my confidence in IDF's presumed professionalism; pretty unreal
Hind Rajab being used as bait to murder aid workers was kind of a tell also.
Or when they bombed all the hospitals [0], or targeted pediatricians and oncologists, and their families [1] for assassination.
Or leaving preemie babies to rot and be eaten by wild dogs at Al Nasr [2].
Or when they dropped over 6 Hiroshimas worth of explosives [3] onto an area roughly equal to a 12 x 12 mile square, populated with over a million children - in Biden's term alone.
There's a lot more. Suffice to say that anyone paying attention has known that the US, Israel, Germany, England and more have been propping up a genocide for quite some time now.
0 - https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countrie...
1 - https://abcnews.go.com/International/gaza-pediatrician-mothe...
2 - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/abandoned-babies-found-de...
3 - https://www.bradford.ac.uk/news/archive/2025/gaza-bombing-eq...
Need to be careful here ...
apparently Hamas in control of convey ....
".... At the WCK Welcome Centre, locally-contracted security personnel got on and into the trucks and the convoy continued the journey to the warehouse. As the trucks moved away from the Welcome Centre, one locallycontracted security person on top of the trailer of the third truck fired his weapon into the air. This was clearly visible in the UAV video, observed by the UAV operator and assessed by the Brigade Fire Support Commander to be consistent with Hamas hijacking the aid convoy. During the aid convoy transit to the warehouse the Brigade Attack Cell contacted CLA with concerns there were armed individuals on the convoy. CLA attempted through various means to contact WCK, first directly to the convoy, then to international WCK contacts. CLA eventually made contact with the WCK Headquarters in the United States who, after multiple attempts, made text message contact via WhatsApp with a WCK member who had gone ahead of the convoy to the warehouse. They replied that the locally-contracted security personnel had ‘fake guns’. WCK Headquarters replied to CLA that they had made contact with WCK in Gaza and would address the gun issue when WCK completed the task. It was difficult to tie down the exact timing of this extended set of communications; however, they appear to have continued after the WCK vehicles had already been attacked, indicating a lack of awareness by CLA of real-time events. Once at the warehouse, the aid trucks entered and the WCK vehicles joined up and parked outside along with the locally-contracted security vehicle. At this point the UAV operator identified the original gunman dismounting from the truck and joining with another individual identified as a gunman. Over the next ten minutes approximately 15- 20 people, including two to four gunmen, moved around the escort vehicles. During this period, the gunmen were classified by the Brigade Fire Support Commander and Brigade Chief of Staff as Hamas. P ....
https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/special-advisers...
> The identification of the armed individuals on the convoy and near/in the WCK vehicles had not been done in a professional manner. The mindset involved in the decision making was wrong.
> It was inferred a number of times that not only had the gunmen associated with the WCK aid convoy exhibited tactics similar to Hamas, but that in fact ‘they were Hamas’.
> Head FFAM confirmed that only the video feed being used by the UAV operators was used to identify the gunmen as Hamas.
You see an aid convoy - which you are 100% certain is a legitimate aid convoy, because they communicated with you - being escorted by armed security, and your response is to bomb the aid convoy? In what world is that justified?
And one of those WCK workers was in fact a rifle wielding Hamas member who had participated in Oct 7th.. as well as an actual bonafide WCK worker.
Admittedly blowing up the entire van was probably wrong in retrospect.
It was “probably wrong” to kill 7 people in 3 different vehicles? How about when they did it again later in the year, and killed another 5 WCK workers? Crazy how it just kept happening.
> And one of those WCK workers was in fact a rifle wielding Hamas member
As far as I know this was the result of the IDF's own investigation so there's some conflict of interest
That turned out not to be true.
Here's the latest Wikipedia entry on the event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Central_Kitchen_aid_conv...
Wikipedia is not reliable on the I/P conflict
Oh wait, except that's not true.
Retired Maj Gen Yoav Har-Even described how the IDF's drone operators mistook an aid worker carrying a bag for a gunman, and then targeted one of the World Central Kitchen vehicles with a missile.
The IDF then described how two people escaped that vehicle and got into a second car, which was hit by another missile from a drone.
The military confirmed that there were survivors from the second explosion, who managed to get into the third vehicle - which was then also hit by a missile.
By the end, all the aid workers were dead.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68742572
Agreed that bombing the 1st vehicle of aid workers was a mistake. Then bombing the 2nd vehicle was a mistake, and the 3rd vehicle bombing was also a mistake.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-01/israel-claims-targets...
In Dec 1 in 8 WCK workers were fired for Hamas ties
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/12/11/aid-group-fires-doze...
Even your link calls out that one of the vehicles that split from the convoy was carrying armed gunmen.
Sorry but there's zero point in providing justification for this. Even the IDF said "it was a mistake that followed a misidentification" and that it "it shouldn’t have happened" [1]. Everyone's in agreement on this point.
[1] https://x.com/IDF/status/1775290147426152931
> one of those WCK workers was in fact a rifle wielding Hamas member who had participated in Oct 7th
Source?
Executive Order 14046 was signed in 2021 to direct the OFAC agency to cut off Ethopia and Eritrea from the global financial system specifically for the mere allegation of causing famine to the Tigray people.
Specifically it targeted the entire ruling party, the head of state, representatives, their spouses, and their businesses, and the military, including former officials.
This doesn't require Congress, it requires the stroke of a pen.
Hamas is already economically sanctioned so I feel immune from criticism here. If the exact same standard was applied to Israel as EO 14046 levied, then it would practically affect the entire population of the country given the participation in the IDF.
But since only anti-semites believe Jewish people are tightly integrated in global finance, and that's presumably not true then this should be no big deal right?
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Posting at the top to point out that if you saw the image of a starving child recently, you’re looking at images of a child with a genetic disorder and you should reconsider which media you consume.
You can also find more images of Mohammed al-Mutawaq, an 18-month-old with cerebral palsy, with his healthier sibling - which was cropped by the media to exaggerate claims of starvation.
Here is a picture of Yazan, 2 (article from today): https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/un-agencies-warn-key-f...
Here is a picture of a child and others begging for food at an aid center (also today): https://www.npr.org/2025/07/29/g-s1-79039/gaza-children-star...
Here's Siwar Ashoura (14th May): https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjdznz727z8o
Here's what Ahmed el-Sheikh Eid, seven, looks like (4th of May): https://www.npr.org/2025/07/29/g-s1-79039/gaza-children-star...
Here's Osama, lying in a hospital (April 25th): https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gaza-malnutrition-children-blo...
If you see these or other pictures of starving children, you are looking at images of children intentionally being starved by Israel, and you should reconsider what you think of their methods and intentions.
> Here's Osama, lying in a hospital (April 25th)
Osama al-Rakab has cystic fibrosis. Again you should consider unfollowing CBC.
https://x.com/DahliaKurtz/status/1949802614507368958
> Here is a picture of Yazan, 2 (article from today)
Who also has a medical condition, and whose mother and father are very clearly not starving https://x.com/ApostateProphet/status/1764033775862698302. You should consider unfollowing Unicef too.
You should also reconsider what you consumes.
Must be some nasty stuff if you claim that Gaza children starvation is a media conspiracy fueled by BBC and Unicef.
I don’t think “no u” is an adequate response to the BBC and Unicef being exposed as Hamas puppets
Three words - Boycott, Divest, Sanction.
If BDS didn't work, they wouldn't be trying to ban it.
I agree with the means, one has to but economic pressure on Israel, but the BDS movement holds some non-viable positions.
Like what? (Honest question).
Do you mean what non-viable positions? First and foremost the unrestricted right to return as this has the potential to end the state of Israel as a Jewish state if Palestinians become the majority population.
As a humanist, I consider the right of return to be undeniable. Given your logic, this would make the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state the unviable option. I've been of that opinion for some time now. Nothing to do with antisemitism as some might try to suggest - just the logical conclusion of a humanist position.
I'm heartened to see that more people are coming to this same conclusion. Talk of a 'two state solution' has always been a convenient excuse for more of the same as far as I am concerned.
In response to the dead response... (not sure why it is dead)
> Israel will not agree to a right to return
This government will not.
My view is that the Israeli state is failing through its own actions and at some point will experience regime change (i.e. a drastic change in government - possibly, or possibly not as a result of a democratic election). I expect that a new regime may not be Zionist (at least not in the exclusionary sense we are familiar with) and could well introduce something similar to South Africa's truth and reconciliation commission.
That type of government could very possibly recognise the right of return - possibly in some compromised form such as a willingness to pay compensation as has happened following other colonialist endeavours.
It is not just the government. The overwhelming majority of Israelis are opposed to what you're suggesting and there's no way to force them to accept it (they have nuclear weapons).
A global coordinated sanctions regime might work, like it did on South Africa, but that is pretty unlikely to ever happen because outside of Arab states, almost no country is opposed to Israel’s existence within its recognized borders. If Israel stopped actively oppressing/colonizing Gaza and the West Bank, opposition against them would evaporate, even if they remain an explicitly Jewish state and never grant right of return for the descendants of Nakba refugees.
> ...almost no country is opposed to Israel’s existence within its recognized borders
Unfortunately Israel itself seems opposed to this. Part of the reason they are authoring their own demise in my opinion.
Israel gave Arabs land larger than its entire current size in the quest for peaceful coexistence (Gaza, Sinai and you could count in West Bank in terms of PLO governance).
> Israel gave Arabs land
That's a strange way to put it.
> Israel gave Arabs land
If I move into your house without your permission, and let you sleep on the floor in the crawlspace, would that be called 'giving you a place to live'? What if that were coupled with regular beatings, and/or starving you?
That's not what happened, though.
1) Jews were always a part of historical Palestine. Sometimes more and sometimes less but were always present. Around 1900, 50 years before the formation of Israel, there were about 50k Jews (about 10% of the population). You can see it especially in cities like Safed, Tiberias and Jerusalem which were Jewish centers.
2) Jews that came later largely bought their way in, rather than forced Arabs out. There were violent clashes but usually it was friction between the populations, and not outright conquest.
3) The forceful expulsion of population came as the result of the 1948 war which was opened by Arabs and not by Israel.
So to correct your analogy, the Arabs here are like a violent HOA which doesn't like the new group of residents who bought their way in. They fight and they lose. Tough luck, right?
> Around 1900, 50 years before the formation of Israel, there were about 50k Jews (about 10% of the population).
That's a funny starting point to pick, since 1900 was about ten years after the beginning of mass Zionist migration to Palestine. How many were there in 1880?
Forget 1880, lets talk about the Jewish majority at 0 AD.
There's a difference between people moving into an area and a nation state moving into an area.
If you think think 1948 was started by the Arabs, you're obviously missing some vital context. Vital context, like 'A nation state started colonizing them without their permission'.
The colonization continued, with more land grabs at gunpoint for the next 80 years.
Israel will not agree to a right to return that might result in the destruction of its status quo. So even if you think that this would be the morally desirable outcome, it is not going to happen. How many of the people displaced during the Nakba are even still alive? We are not talking about letting people displaced a couple of years ago return, we are talking about people and their descendants that have been displaced generations ago, most of them have never lived in the place you want to let them return to. Make them a good enough offer to forfeit their right to return.
Israel is a Jewish state, but it's also a safe harbor for minorities. It is the only place in the Middle East where you can be openly gay or trans and not be killed for it (or Druze, as it turns out).
Even for Israelis that are against the current government and want to see equal rights for all peoples in the Middle East, there is an abundance of evidence to show that you don't get that without Israel.
Totally irrelevant deflection. How Israel treats Israelis inside the borders of Israel is really not what anyone's complaining about.
Yes, the fact that many Middle Eastern countries are backwards on gay rights is bad! This doesn't remotely address the question of whether Israel bombing cities to dust and starving their population is also bad.
Not irrelevant at all. There have been two periods of right to return, and they've both been causal in the current Israeli Muslim and Israeli Arab populations in Israel. If right to return includes voting rights, then it's likely that the voting population would ultimately legislate Israel to not be a Jewish state, and fundamentally shift the laws away from democracy and away from equal rights of Israelis. There are 50 Muslim majority countries and countless data points to reach such a conclusion, and this is fundamentally why an unconditional right to return will never happen.
tmnvix was advocating for the collapse of the only democracy in the region--tantamount to advocating for worse outcomes for more people (and likely to an actual genocide of the Jewish people, who evacuated predominately Muslim countries and populated Israel at its re-formation). There are still 50 hostages in Gaza that have been held for 514 days and counting.
In Yemen 39.5% of the population is undernourished and 48.5% of children under five are stunted. Nearby, in East Africa, the South Sudan death toll and starvation numbers also dwarf this conflict. Mysteriously, and predictably, the world is silent. But, an opportunity to put down Israel, it seems is unfortunately very popular.
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Anti-zionism is not the same thing as anti-semitism.
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> Ai'nt no other minority people have the guts to tell them where their ancestral homeland is or isn't.
That's just... not true. The Celts originated in Central Europe. If a bunch of people who identify as Celts (from Scotland, Ireland, etc.) moved to Czechia and tried to take it over from the people currently living there, a lot of people would oppose that.
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I do not particularly think the Muslim conquest of half the world was a good thing, so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up.
History is not merely an epic struggle between Muslims and Israelis where one of those are the good guys and the other are the bad guys. It is possible that Muslims were in the wrong at some point in history, and that Israel is in the wrong now.
Ancient Hebrews, who Jews traditionally identify as the originators of their culture, lived in what is now Palestine during the Roman Empire, correct. However this is unrelated to the point that was being made.
Yawn. Everyone's tired of this by now.
Luckily you don't speak for everyone, even if you think you're entitled to act like you do. :)
Well you certainly haven't tired of it, but it's not working I can tell you that very frankly. :)
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What hate speech? What antisemitism?
Is it hate speech to criticize a country's policies or actions?
Once again, all I can do is yawn. Same playbook different day.
The head of the BDS supports the expulsion and/or murder of all Jews in Israel.
Quote:
Omar Barghouti, the founder of the BDS movement, made that perspective clear: “Good riddance! The two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is finally dead. But someone has to issue an official death certificate before the rotting corpse is given a proper burial and we can all move on and explore the more just, moral and therefore enduring alternative for peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Mandate Palestine: the one-state solution.”
Barghouti also opposed a bi-national Arab and Jewish state: “I am completely and categorically against binationalism … because it assumes that there are two nations with equal moral claims to the land and, therefore, we have to accommodate both national rights. I am completely opposed to that.”
He wants a unitary democratic state with equal rights for Jews and Arabs and the right of return for Palestinian refugees abroad and their descendants. Is that too idealistic to ever happen? Yes, probably. But it’s nowhere near what you’re claiming he says.
That's the "sanitized" version of what he wants. He actually wants the Jews gone, it's pretty obvious from the other words he has said, and especially from his outright refusal to condemn attacks.
If that’s obvious from other things he said, why don’t you cite those, instead of something completely different?
It seemed like a good summary to me.
I mean saying he wants the end of peaceful coexistence is not enough for you?
And he claims the Jews will have zero rights, and that's also not enough?
If you need more, well, I gave you his name, he has said lots of stuff.
Come on, you are badly misreading these quotes.
> saying he wants the end of peaceful coexistence
He does not say this. He says he wants the end of the two-state solution; that is, he wants the entire area to be one state (in which people coexist peacefully).
> he claims the Jews will have zero rights
No he doesn't. He says they will have no national right; that is, they will not have the right to claim the land as the exclusive home of the Jewish Nation. They will still have civil rights as normal citizens like everyone else. In fact, let me paste the full quote, since you left off the clarifying explanation that immediately follows it:
> I am completely and categorically against binationalism because it assumes that there are two nations with equal moral claims to the land and therefore, we have to accommodate both national rights. I am completely opposed to that, but it would take me too long to explain why, so I will stick to the model I support, which is a secular, democratic state: one person, one vote — regardless of ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, and so on and so forth … Full equality under the law with the inclusion of the refugees — this must be based on the right of return for Palestinian refugees. In other words, a secular, democratic state that accommodates our inalienable rights as Palestinians with the acquired rights of Israeli Jews as settlers.
"trust me bro, I'm psychic"
> The head of the BDS supports the expulsion and/or murder of all Jews
>> peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs
What is going on here?
See also:
https://apnews.com/general-news-be7a3c77beeb4b95bfbdf0b27ff7...
oh, the Zionists got that covered already: 35 US states have passed laws/executive orders prohibiting boycotts of Israel.
Someone from the Texas state government wanted to buy a $75 licence for my event planning software. Fine. Then they told me I had to sign an agreement that I wouldn't boycot Israel. Ridiculous. It's none of their business. I refused to sign it and didn't get the sale.
Arizona has a similar law regarding the Uyghurs. Every contact needs a clause that says no Uyghur "forced labor" was used.
That seems a rather different sort of declaration though? "I did not participate in this harm" vs "I will not speak against this group".
That is very different though.
The Texas example is: promise not to boycott a country that is currently committing genocide.
The Arizona example is: promise that you aren't benefitting from a current genocide.
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Those laws never made any sense to me from a constitutional or even a practical standpoint. What's being banned? Are they supposed to force you to buy things?
The latter. They effectively get exclusivity if they want.
How does that work?
Ah, this may require digging into the local politics of your US state and the particular law.
Here's the thing, fighting this in court would be extremely politically inconvenient for a lot of people.
Texas requires contractors to certify that they're not boycotting Israel; Florida maintains a public list of companies that boycott Israel and prohibits state investment in them; in Arkansas, the law has been upheld in federal court after a challenge.
It's funny how state rights are so important, but only for certain kinds of rights. The extreme rights.
It's not supposed to make sense: lobbyists paid your politicians and now, you have to support Israel, or else...
There's nothing more to it. Israel knows that with access to Western weapons, it will reliably win every confrontation with the Palestinians, just like in Rhodesia or Apartheid South Africa. The only thing that did both regimes in was sanctions, or boycotts. I believe they literally studied these nations. So, they want to preempt any attempt at boycotting Israel, because it's the only way they'd ever face reckoning for all the unspeakable atrocities they've committed against the palestinians.
The political opinions and political actions are what's being banned. You're free to silently buy whatever you want
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Other countries don’t enjoy unconstitutional protection from free speech activities in the majority of states.
In fact, no country enjoys that protection other than Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
Those laws aren't about free speech but about boycotting a specific country, if we want to be precise.
Then let’s be precise and look at how it’s been applied - https://apnews.com/general-news-be7a3c77beeb4b95bfbdf0b27ff7...
If money is speech, then boycotting is using said speech.
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The same genocidal and neocolonialism...
The UN definition is quoted here:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of the group; - Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; - Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; - Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; - Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Note that to meet this definition, the following conditions must be met (among others): 1. Intent to destroy must be present. 2. The intent must be to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. 3. The destruction can be serious bodily or mental harm, or it can mean creating conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of the group in whole or in part.
This means that: - people that believe that genocide must be about a race is misguided (it can be about a nationality, and Palestinians identify as a nationality that is recognized by over 75% of the countries in the UN); - the fact that there are Palestinians elsewhere (the West Bank and Jordan, as two examples) isn't relevant to deciding whether this is a genocide (since genocide can be about destruction targeted at a part of a group); and, - there are many examples of Israeli ministers and government personnel stating goals that sound genocidal, which people interpret to affirm intent.
IANAL, and genocide is a legal term, so I am not weighing in on this with a personal opinion, but it seems reasonable that laypeople, at least, can read that definition and reach the conclusion that Israel is committing genocide. The fact that various genocide scholars (including Omer Bartov at Brown); the Lemkin Institute (named after the Lemkin who coined the term genocide); HRW; Amnesty; MSF; and other institutions have called this a genocide is also probably helping laypeople believe the claim.
Finally, there is not just a moral imperative but a legal requirement under the Geneva Convention to feed people. Article 55 states that an occupying power is responsible for this.
You can very easily reach the opposite conclusion too. See https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/im-a-war-scholar-there-is-no-gen...
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I would not debase myself by causing the starvation of children.
Ah, I see, we must kill them all. Carry on then. Nothing to see here.
Almost 100 years later, and it is still being debated whether or not Holodomor was genocide.
And one could argue that Holodomor was less "intentional" than what is going on in Gaza now.
So, I don't think we'll get any official status on this anytime soon.
Israel is not an occupying power in Gaza, but rather a warring power. And Article 23 of the 4th Geneva Convention says:
".... are no serious reasons for fearing:
(a) that the consignments may be diverted from their destination,"
i.e. if the warring party believes the supplies will be diverted they have no obligation to supply them.
And that's what is going on here.
Thank you for your opinion (stated as a fact, I'll add) that Israel doesn't occupy Gaza. Can you please state your source for this belief?
To state why I believe Israel is occupying Gaza, I'll point out that Israel’s continued status as an occupying power has been affirmed repeatedly by the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and human rights groups. Do you believe all of these entities are incorrect?
Diverted to where? It is one city.
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Gaza is not one city. Hu?? And diverted to Hamas who then sell it.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-finances-fighter...
What is your source to justify your claim (stated as a fact) that Hamas is diverting supplies and then selling them? Here [1] is a recent article in the NYT this week quoting two unnamed Israeli military officials saying Israel has found no proof of this claim despite Israeli officials repeatedly stating otherwise, and that the UN had been largely successful (via UNRWA) in feeding the Gazan population.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/middleeast/hamas-un...
Oh ye thought "diverted" meant to another place. Anyway, I don't think Hamas can found it self by squeezing the citizens of Gaza for food.
"No Proof Hamas Routinely Stole U.N. Aid, Israeli Military Officials Say" https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/middleeast/hamas-un...
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There seems to be no evidence for that.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/middleeast/hamas-un...
Half true ... that there is no evidence ....
From the article ...
Hamas did steal from some of the smaller organizations that donated aid, as those groups were not always on the ground to oversee distribution, according to the senior Israeli officials and others involved in the matter. But, they say, there was no evidence that Hamas regularly stole from the United Nations, which provided the largest chunk of the aid.
This was utterly predictable. GHF is a mercenary front plan developed by Israel and implemented by the United States to displace UNRWA so they can starve Palestinians and draw them into zones that are easier to ethnically cleanse.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-backed-aid-grou...
The first video shots reminded me of the balcony scenes in Schindler's List.
»If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?«
David Ben-Gurion, First Prime Minister of Israel
Come to your senses and end this tragedy, give the Palestinians their own sovereign state, and then hope that they can forgive what you have done to them!
Palestinians have been offered a state 5 times starting in 1937. They rejected each offer.
They don't want a state of their own; they want to conquer Israel.
I don't see a solution. Maybe establish a somewhat repressive non-democratic Palestinian state?
This is simply not true, there was never any offer with acceptable terms. I am not going to repeat this here, this has been discussed countless times and you can easily find this if you want to.
All of the offers seem acceptable to me. In the first offer, the Jewish state was quite small. None of the offers were acceptable to Palestinians because they include a Jewish state.
Virtually all Arabs want to fight a war against Israel and destroy it. They view that land as theirs. The only reason there haven't been more wars is due to repressive Arab governments that have been willing to compromise.
This is nonsense, the Palestinians and Palestinian organizations - even including Hamas - have to varying degrees accepted or shown willingness to accept a Palestinian state that does not encompass all of Mandatory Palestine. Israel is unwilling to have a two state solution, they always desired all of Mandatory Palestine and saw any division plan only as stepping stone for further expansion in the future.
> ...even including Hamas
That is not true. Trivial to check on Wikipedia [1] and go to factual information.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Policies_towards_Israel_...
»On 2 May 2017, Khaled Mashal, chief of the Hamas Political Bureau, presented a new Charter, in which Hamas accepted the establishment of a Palestinian state "on the basis of June 4, 1967" (West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem).«
You cut the entire paragraph.
You mean the part where it says they did still not recognize the state of Israel or relinquish claims to all of Palestine? You overlooked the part in my comment where I said to varying degrees. Also to me that seems not too different from the position Israeli politicians had and some still have, we accept the partition plan but still desire to expand into all of Mandatory Palestine eventually.
> This is nonsense, the Palestinians and Palestinian organizations - even including Hamas - have to varying degrees accepted or shown willingness to accept a Palestinian state that does not encompass all of Mandatory Palestine.
This cannot be reconciled with the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea". (Wikipedia claims that the slogan is used by both sides of the conflict, citing a JSTOR article I can't access; but I have only ever seen it used by Hamas and their supporters.)
Per Wikipedia, Hamas does not recognize Israel as of their most recent 2017 charter, and "called for a Palestinian state on all of Mandatory Palestine" in 1988.
While I'm sure that many Palestinians do not support Hamas and desire to co-exist with Israel, I see no good reason to suppose that this is any more common than the other way around.
> Israel is unwilling to have a two state solution, they always desired all of Mandatory Palestine
There is ample evidence to contradict this — enough that I can look it up on the fly. Were it true, for example, the Knesset would have had no need to pass a resolution declaring this to be their current position, barely a year ago. Netanyahu also claimed in 2015 to want a two-state solution, and of course there are other Israeli political parties with warmer attitudes towards Palestine.
The obvious evidence that Israel is unwilling to have a two state solution is its non-existence - they could do this unilaterally and just withdraw.
Your claim was that they have always desired all of Mandatory Palestine. This clearly does not hold up.
The reason they might currently feel differently seems pretty obvious to me, even though this is a topic I rarely ever think about.
»Does the establishment of a Jewish state [in only part of Palestine] advance or retard the conversion of this country into a Jewish country? My assumption (which is why I am a fervent proponent of a state, even though it is now linked to partition) is that a Jewish state on only part of the land is not the end but the beginning.... This is because this increase in possession is of consequence not only in itself, but because through it we increase our strength, and every increase in strength helps in the possession of the land as a whole. The establishment of a state, even if only on a portion of the land, is the maximal reinforcement of our strength at the present time and a powerful boost to our historical endeavors to liberate the entire country.«
David Ben-Gurion, 1937
You can draw a straight line through two points, but that doesn't mean the line is actually there.
How many dots do we have to fill in? The next obvious one is settlement expansion, that certainly undermines the possibility of a two state solution.
Meanwhile, two comments up you say "This cannot be reconciled with the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea"." ...
Yes.
There is no contradiction.
"From the river to the sea", in English, means something different from "at the river and at the sea".
In response to
> ... the Palestinians and Palestinian organizations - even including Hamas - have to varying degrees accepted or shown willingness to accept a Palestinian state that does not encompass all of Mandatory Palestine.
you say
> This cannot be reconciled with the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea".
To which I quote
> "You can draw a straight line through two points, but that doesn't mean the line is actually there."
At what point in history has Hamas not used this slogan?
I don't care about the usage of the slogan. I care about what Hamas has represented regarding their acceptance of a partial Palestinian state.
Also, at what point in history has Likud not used this slogan?
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform...
https://archive.is/EYGLU#selection-423.0-423.184
"The coalition agreements state that “the Jewish people have an exclusive right on all the land” between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It doesn’t mention the Palestinians."
> they could do this unilaterally and just withdraw
Which they tried in 2005 in Gaza. They evicted the remaining settlers in Gaza and unilaterally withdrew from Gaza.
Hamas won the first and only election thereafter and ruled in Gaza from that point on.
In the years during and after the pandemic, Hamas deceived Israel in the way it presented itself. An IDF report assessing the massive intelligence failure on Oct 7 reported [0], "Israel saw Hamas as a pragmatic movement with whom it could do business." That was a tragic mistake.
The opinion of the Israeli public towards the desirability (and feasibility) of a two-state solution has tended to vary over the decades depending on the actions of external Palestinian and Arab actors. After the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings of buses and restaurants starting around the year 2000 it went down. Two years after the Gaza withdrawal it was back up, with 70% support for the two-state solution in 2007, when there were peace talks. [1]
The mass killings and kidnappings that Hamas did in 2023 pretty much eliminated any enthusiasm for two states at present. A recent poll put Israeli opinion at 70% opposition to a Palestinian state.
That could change again. Israel is a democracy, and people vote depending on what they see. The idea that a Palestinian nation will ever encompass "the river to the sea," is a complete delusion. The idea that Israel will ever see peace and security by annexing the entire area of the former British Mandate is likewise a complete delusion. If Hamas can be defeated, if the Palestinian Authority can get more effective, less corrupt leadership, if Israel can get a parliamentary majority that is no longer dependent on right-wing parties, if ordinary Israelis can get a hint that Oct 7 is not something that will happen again, then there might be hope for peace.
Y'all do want peace, don't you?
[0] https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bkd8rnrqkl
[1] https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/with-only-40-per...
> This cannot be reconciled with the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea". (Wikipedia claims that the slogan is used by both sides of the conflict, citing a JSTOR article I can't access; but I have only ever seen it used by Hamas and their supporters.)
It was literally Likud's electioneering slogan throughout the 70s. It's not just that it's been used by both sides - it was actually created by Israelis.
This is not true, even in their acceptance of THEIR land, they will not acknowledge or turn over their territorial claim to the rest of the land.
no one really believes such stuff anymore.
Israel really the invader according to UN and many other organization.
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counci...
and many other examples of how israel really ignored the internatinal law, the agreements it signed etc.
Um. The UN approved the original 1947 Partition Plan, which called for a Jewish State and an Arab state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_...
The UN General Assembly does not make legally binding decisions, they express majority opinions. Only the Security Council can make legally binding decisions. There is also the question whether the UN General Assembly even has the legitimation to suggest the partitioning of some land against the will of its population. There was an attempt to decide on this but that did not get the necessary votes. And even the partition plan was only accepted because several countries where pressured or incentivized to vote for it.
That cannot be. Hamas isn’t interested in a Palestinian state, they are interested in the destruction of Israel. Iran and all its proxies think this way. It is their raison d’etre. Giving them a state would not end the war.
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Many tech companies and startups are based in Israel. I’d argue this makes the topic relevant for HN.
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https://techforpalestine.org/
Isn't the Prime Minister of Israel wanted by the Hague?
He is, but many heads of state already declared they are going to ignore that should Netanjahu fancy a visit.
The hypocrisy is stunning.
you say "many" but other than "fotzenfrize" Merz who declared this?
France apparently allowed several times the suspect to fly over its territory without arresting him, for instance.
France has a deep history and Macron doesn't want to do anything except raise the defense budget, because that's the best way to avoid problems: condemn violence but don't participate and stay alert.
The US isn't a member of the ICC. Clinton signed it, but the senate never ratified the treaty.
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Hamas leaders are being killed faster then the ICC can get them. That is the ICC's fault of course.
There were zero dead Hamas leaders on Oct 8, but the ICC did nothing, and did not care. Not to mention there are living Hamas leaders in Qatar, today, and the ICC? Does nothing.
They are a joke.
It's a court, not a military force. What do you suppose it should have done, send the special judge forces to Quatar to kidnap them?
The ICC is an institution that requires member nations to adhere to it. Concepts like these require mutual respect for a rule-based world order; an idea that seems to be lost on people like Trump, Putin, or the Quatari.
Their bias against genocide?
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Yes, there's an ICC warrant out by for Netanyahu and Gallant.
Basically that just means that they won't travel to or even be invited to countries that would arrest them.
The same goes for Putin.
A lot of pro-Israel people just think the ICC is just a tool used by countries that hold a grudge against Israel and don't take it seriously (e.g. the Biden administration released a statement condemning the ICC when they announced they were seeking the warrants), so having more first-hand witnesses stating clearly that war crimes are happening is relevant.
Ideally we'd have journalists reporting these things, but Israel blocks those from entering Gaza too.
I expect the warrant against Putin will be the same ignored as a warrant against Netanyahu. Both Russia and Israel have certain bribing and soft power, but even ignored as a revenge. e.g. Polish prime minister and president jointly and proactively guaranteed Netanyahu entry to Poland even if on daily basis they belong to opposing parties which hate each other. A gesture which looks outright suicidal considering the Criminal Court and local geopolitics.
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So not related to 10's of thousands of civilian deaths at all?
re ... 10's of thousands of civilian deaths at all..."
Would be a large percentage of Hamas fighter s too.
So, collective punishment, further making the ICJ and ICC cases.
No, but deliberate exaggeration of number of civilian deaths
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Source please.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/14/lebanons-pm-designa...
Quote:
Referring to Israel, Salam said he would work to “impose the complete withdrawal of the enemy from the last occupied inch of our land”.
Hardly an unbiased choice to lead the ICJ.
Very interesting choice of yours to omit the context, in which Hezbollah also drew his ire. Surely a coincidence and not a product of bias, though, right?
It's fine for him to talk how he wants, it's not fine for him to be the person in charge of investigating Israel if he considers it to be the enemy.
And if he considers Hezbollah the enemy, he should not be investigating them either.
Good news, he isn't; he resigned in order to take his appointment as the Lebanese PM, in which capacity he was speaking in the article you linked. Any more thinly veiled ad hominems you'd like to throw around?
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A separate set of recommendations for anyone sincerely making this argument:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
The article gets some minor biographical details wrong but seems well supported otherwise, however it does describe Israeli roadblocks to the mission.
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"international law" is, i don't know how to say this quite right, largely for show
when both sides seem to be willing and eager to order, participate in, and cheer for atrocities from leadership to the common people... I don't want to take ideological sides or tally up crimes to decide who to root for in millennia old conflict mostly over a single city
it's a terrible shame for the people who want to live together in peace, clearly there are not enough of them
> "international law" is, i don't know how to say this quite right, largely for show
Turns out most law in western democracies was largely for show
You'd need a body enforcing them and I'm not sure if we really want the one world government.
...or they are not sufficiently well represented.
Yes. Some additional details for those interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court...
If any other country than Israel was committing these atrocities, we would have by now sent in UN peacekeepers (or invaded, if they had resources of value, a-la-Iraq) to prevent what is clearly attempted genocide. Or at the very very least, pretty serious sanctions.
Instead we're sending money and weapons to help.
Well, maybe not. Did the UN send peacekeepers when Russia invaded Ukraine? Do they send peacekeepers to stop the war in Sudan? Intervening in an active war is not what peacekeepers are for.
Why are Palestinian refugees still in Gaza when the whole place is a war zone? Certainly some would stay, but mostly they are trapped.
Under the circumstances, for Gaza, having Israel as a neighbor is worse than having Russia as a neighbor. Even if enough food is shipped in to temporarily resolve the current crisis, people in Gaza won't be safe where they are.
So, here's a question that's rarely asked: which countries will accept refugees from Gaza? Obviously not the US with the current administration. Why not France, Germany, or other European countries?
According to Wikipedia, since 2022, Europe took over five million Ukrainian refugees due to the war. [1] This is more than twice the population of Gaza.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_refugee_crisis
> Did the UN send peacekeepers when Russia invaded Ukraine? Do they send peacekeepers to stop the war in Sudan? Intervening in an active war is not what peacekeepers are for.
True. But what's happening in Gaza is not an active war. Its oppression of a civilian population by a powerful military force.
But certainly we've let other genocidal atrocities go by without intervening, such as Rwanda in '94. So you have a point there.
> which countries will accept refugees from Gaza? Obviously not the US with the current administration. Why not France, Germany, or other European countries?
Good questions. At this point as far as I know they can't even get out because Israel has closed the borders, much less apply for asylum. Also, countries accepting them as asylum seekers would be acknowledging that Israel is the aggressor. AFAIK France is one of the few countries that has said that Palestinians can apply for asylum.
> True. But what's happening in Gaza is not an active war. Its oppression of a civilian population by a powerful military force.
What? The government of Gaza, Hamas, is at war with Israel. Just because one side is weaker that suddenly turns them all into civilians?
There is no more Gaza government. Not to mention the fact that Gaza is for all intents and purposes a part of Israel, not an independent nation.
UN is suspect and in effective
Consider
Several UNWRA staff accused of participating in Oct 7 Attack
also reported UNWRA staffer held Oct7 hostage in their building
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> way way way, worse that Gaza are going on right now
Yeah, all those three are bad; Sudan in particular. I wouldn't say Yemen and Syria are worse than Gaza.
> You seem to only care about Israel.
The reason I'm screaming about Israel is especially because we (the US) are aiding and abetting it. If we were funding Sudanese rebels the way we're funding the IDF, and welcoming their generals to the White House like we do Bibi, I'be screaming about that too.
> we (the US) are aiding and abetting it
So because you think the US is involved, that's why the UN (which is not the US) should send peacekeepers?
yeah, the bit I wrote about the UN peacekeepers was offhand and inaccurate; the US imposes sanctions or invades
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Nonsense. UN peacekeepers are observers deployed with the consent of both parties. They are not sent into active combat zones.
There is literally a genocide in Sudan right now with 25 million in extreme hunger. At least half a million children are dead. Yet we hear hardly any mention of it.
Sudan is in the news literally every day.
But yeah, sadly, the world has never cared about Africa and the many who die there.
I see no Sudan flags on campus. No Sudan marches in the streets. No Sudan emojis in people’s Twitter handles. No solidarity with Sudan at music festivals.
You have to love the snark in here with "I was able to tell it would go this way from the beginning! I'm enlightened!"
Israel has been provoked and attacked many times. The cautious hope seemed to be a rehash of the previous times there's been strife, that doesn't necessarily mean it was a prediction but it was unclear how long Israel would push this. After the completely kneecapping Hamas some thought they'd be wrapping up. From a self-defense standpoint there just isn't that much more to gain, and they're burning away all the global political goodwill they had.
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.
We can only hope. But I'm not as optimistic as you.
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One war crime does not excuse another.
Why is there an Israel exception to politics on HN?
We have politics on HN all the time.
Dang wrote a comment today explaining our thoughts about this story:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44715823
because genocide.
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https://www.ynetnews.com/article/byodxibvgl
"Gaza Humanitarian Foundation chair Johnnie Moore accuses UN of 'playing politics' with Gazan lives, defends IDF and denies claims of mass casualties near aid sites, saying more people harmed in 24 hours of UN efforts than during weeks of GHF operations"
He also discusses the specific individual here: "How do you respond to the claim from a former special forces operative who worked with your foundation, alleging that IDF troops shot and massacred Gazans coming to the aid centers?
“That’s a personal matter, and I’m limited in what I can say. This is not a credible individual, and these are not credible accusations. I’m more than confident we have a great deal of evidence to refute them.”"
https://networkcontagion.us/reports/7-15-25-the-4th-estate-s...
"7/15/25 – The 4th Estate Sale: How American and European Media Became an Uncritical Mouthpiece for a Designated Foreign Terror Organization"
The report is from:
Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI)
Rutgers University Social Perception Lab
Headlines of key findings:
- Mainstream media spread hostile, and often unverified, narratives delegitimizing U.S.-backed humanitarian aid efforts in Gaza.
- Major media headlines cited Hamas-linked officials more than any other source – making a foreign terrorist organization one of the leading voices shaping news about GHF
- Unverified headlines triggered viral, conspiratorial social media posts, often amplified by foreign state media.
- GHF-related media coverage undermined trust in America while shielding Hamas-linked actors by inducing bias.
- Narrative backlash closely tracked U.S. operational success on the ground.
- The GHF’s competitors amplified Hamas-sourced claims to undermine U.S.-led aid efforts.
- False Gaza Atrocity Narratives Trigger Left-Wing Violence and Right-Wing Amplification.
"NCRI assesses that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was not merely the subject of criticism, but the target of a convergent narrative attack in which American and European media acted as a de facto mouthpiece for a foreign terrorist organization. This environment systematically elevated Hamas-linked claims, which were often unverified, uncontextualized, or outright false. Major headlines were repeatedly exaggerated or framed to imply atrocity, often without source transparency or sufficient evidentiary scrutiny."
The perspective you're not getting: https://ghf.org/updates/
- More than 79 million meals distributed to date (update from about a week ago, might be more recent ones)
UNRWA managed to distribute food without killing Palestinians, as did many other agencies. I don't see why GHF has to commit these frequent massacres in their aid distribution.
Because UNRWA gives the aid to Hamas, no fighting. GHF doesn't give Hamas power, Hamas attacks the GHF, Hamas shoots people trying to pick up food.
Right, except that all credible reports from the US government and senior Israeli military officials indicate there was never any large diversion of UN aid to Hamas. It was just a fog-of-war story made up by the Israeli government as a supposedly plausible reason to hermetically seal Gaza and prevent millions of civilians from receiving food.
Sources:
NYT: No Proof Hamas Routinely Stole U.N. Aid, Israeli Military Officials Say
https://archive.is/1bllc
Reuters: USAID analysis found no evidence of massive Hamas theft of Gaza aid
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/usaid-analysis-fou...
This is not as clear as you say. "No proof" and "no evidence" doesn't mean it didn't happen. Hamas controls Gaza with an iron fist. They are the ones carrying guns. They have no qualms about torturing, threatening, executing anyone who doesn't tow the line.
Hamas didn't just steal all the aid and put it in its tunnels. Hamas exerted influence by controlling the aid and its distribution. It did also steal some of it. You are to some degree misrepresenting the Israeli concern. Israel isn't simply concerned about Hamas stealing all the aid, it is concerned both about stealing and reselling (which does happen) and about control of the aid as means of continuing to establish itself as the governing body of Gaza. The UN agencies have and do work with Hamas in Gaza since nobody can be in Gaza without working with Hamas.
The NYT article is doing some hair splitting: "Over the course of the war, the Israeli military released records and videos purporting to show how Hamas has been exploiting humanitarian aid. The army also shared what it described as internal Hamas documents found in a headquarters in Gaza, which discuss the percentage of aid taken by various Hamas wings and dated to early 2024. But those documents do not specifically refer to the theft of U.N. aid."
"Hamas did steal from some of the smaller organizations that donated aid, as those groups were not always on the ground to oversee distribution, according to the senior Israeli officials and others involved in the matter. But, they say, there was no evidence that Hamas regularly stole from the United Nations, which provided the largest chunk of the aid. A Hamas representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment." - I like that last bit.
Your Reuters article also says: "A State Department spokesperson disputed the findings, saying there is video evidence of Hamas looting aid, but provided no such videos. The spokesperson also accused traditional humanitarian groups of covering up "aid corruption.""
and: "The study noted a limitation: because Palestinians who receive aid cannot be vetted, it was possible that U.S.-funded supplies went to administrative officials of Hamas, the Islamist rulers of Gaza."
Also:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-us-humanitarian-envoy-pans-...
"Satterfield said “there’s no question” that the terror group has worked to take “political advantage and certainly some physical substantive advantage out of the aid distribution process.”
Hamas operatives have made a point of “flaunting” their presence at aid sites in a message to Palestinians that the group has no intention of ceding its role in the distribution process.
However, Satterfield maintained that “the bulk of all assistance delivered by the UN and by the international organizations has gone to the population of Gaza and not to Hamas. Full stop.”"
These are not contradictory, Hamas controlled the aid, but still the bulk of it got delivered. The problem is the control they asserted. Israel has tried, via GHF, to take them out of the loop. Nobody is disputing that when aid was flowing in it did eventually end up reaching the people (who sometimes had to buy it).
Yes, I buy most of that, nothing is black and white. Hamas definitely controls Gaza and are the ones with guns, and certainly took whatever advantage they could and continue to. The commenter I was responding to just said "UNRWA gives the aid to Hamas" which I didn't find justified by any reputable source at all.
Many details on the ground are hidden in a fog of war and propaganda from all sides. I just think a couple measures of success of food distribution are to step back and ask, "are people able to get food without being killed on a daily basis?" and "is the population generally receiving food and not starving to death?". And it seems pretty clear to most of the world the answers to these are emphatically "No" since the time the GHF was put in control of food distribution, and when all established aid groups were blocked from providing humanitarian assistance.
Cutting off food supply drives up the prices, both causing mass starvation and providing a great opportunity for Hamas and other entities to resell food at huge profits. If there was more than adequate food instead, then nobody would be starving to death, and Hamas would not gain much benefit from reselling food.
What is your argument? That if Hamas could eat, nobody can?
I think the most common string of arguments is that Hamas steals all the food being brought into Gaza, causing extreme food scarcity. Then Hamas corners the market on all food, raises food prices with its monopoly, and extracts big profits from the rest of the Gaza population. The claim, in conclusion, is that well-intentioned aid organizations bringing food into Gaza to feed starving people are actually funding Hamas.
The argument has proven totally wrong, because as every single humanitarian organization that operates in Gaza has repeatedly warned in recent months, famine conditions are the direct result of Israel generally disallowing food and other aid into Gaza since March. Had Hamas actually diverted billions of dollars into their food storage tunnels, then logically they would've continued selling it at market price when demand is high now. But actually in reality, there's nothing to buy. [1]
The market solution to prevent Hamas from profiting off food is to first allow in enough food to Gaza such that babies are no longer starving to death, and to then bring in so much food supply that prices decrease until it's no longer economically profitable to resell food, because it's widely available. That solution is never brought up for some reason.
[1] ‘There is nothing to buy’: Gaza’s descent into mass starvation https://www.ft.com/content/e5d7bcbb-4c9d-47b8-b716-6bd58ad57...
This is simply not true. The first part isn't true, people have gotten killed during UN related aid operations. The second part isn't true either, GHF has not committed "frequent massacres" during aid distribution. The single event I've heard about involving GHF directly is where there was a stampede in one of their facilities:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/dozen-killed-stampede-g...
It's not clear what caused the stampede.
The IDF has used live fire for crowd control but there is zero evidence that it directly or intentionally attacked civilians. This is definitely a problematic practice but the exact causes and the number of casualties related to these events is unclear.
What has happened though is that Hamas attacks aid distribution centers, e.g.:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3kx9pwxwwo - "US aid workers wounded, says Gaza Humanitarian Foundation"
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-says-hamas-...
What's also true is that the UN and Hamas are doing their best to make sure the alternative efforts to distribute good to Gazans fail. Neither of these organizations actually care about Gazans. They care about their existence and power.
Each of those headlines can be summarized as: not speaking the official narrative hurts the official narrative.
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Hasbara means explaining in Hebrew. So guilty as charged of trying to explain what's going on. I'm not echoing any sort of official message.
What people here don't understand is that there is a war going on. In wars people get killed. The war and the condition of the Palestinian population is 100% the responsibility of their government, Hamas, that continues fighting and holding Israeli hostages.
Israel can not and will not let Hamas keep going. It is, as is appropriate, putting its citizen's safety as a first priority.
I have plenty of criticism of various specific actions of the Israeli government and military. But the big picture is still what it is. And in this big picture no other country, including the one you live in, would respond differently when/where it comes to securing the lives of its citizens. Let Hamas surrender, return the hostages, and then we can discuss the path forward. They are making the choices.
Why does netanyahu support Hamas?
All I see you do is make up excuses for what the Israeli government is doing and have done for 70 years or so.
Netanyahu does not "support Hamas". Netanyahu did historically prefer Hamas to be in control of Gaza both for some sense of stability (vs. potential total chaos) and as a way of dividing the Palestinians between Hamas and the Palestinian authority. This has obviously turned out to be a big mistake but it's not the same as "supporting Hamas".
Since you're saying "70 years" that's sort of a sign you're approaching this from some sort of ideological perspective. The West Bank and Gaza were under Jordanian and Egyptian rule respectively until 1967, so about 48 years ago. I.e. your problem is with the existence of Israel in the 1967 lines and Jewish presence and rights in the region and you, like Palestinians, do not support a two state solution. I'll take your 70 years and raise 3000 years in this case. The Jewish people are the indigenous people of the region, not the Palestinians, and they have the historical rights.
EDIT: It's worth noting that Israeli governments have done a lot. They agreed to give the Palestinians autonomy as part of the peace agreement with Egypt. They were engaged in good faith efforts to resolve the conflict during the Oslo Accords. They allowed Palestinians to return to the west bank and Gaza from other countries as part of those accords, they allowed the establishment of the PA and gave it control of all the major cities, they allowed the Palestinians to establish a police force and armed and trained that police force (weapons that ended up being turned on Israelis). They withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and returned it to Palestinians.
What have the Palestinians done other than use more violence is the question.
> "The war and the condition of the Palestinian population is 100% the responsibility of their government, Hamas, that continues fighting and holding Israeli hostages."
No. Israel is an occupying power, and they're heavily restricting food and aid to civilians.
Collective punishment is prohibited by article 33 of the 4th Geneva convention. Starvation as a method of war is prohibited by article 54 of the additional protocols. Shooting civilians is a war crime.
Hamas is guilty of a lot of things, but they aren't forcing Israel to shoot and starve civilians. That's not a necessary part of Israel's war effort. It doesn't help defeat Hamas or make Israel safer.
Israel is not occupying the areas of Gaza where there are civilians in any meaningful way. If it was then the war would be over.
Israel is considered an "occupying power" in Gaza by some from a legal perspective simply because the status of Gaza was not fully resolved following Israel's withdrawal in 2005. I.e. because Israel withdrew unilaterally, not as part of an agreement, some consider it to still be the "occupying power" since 2005. However Israel is not present in Gaza, does not run Gaza, does not physically control Gaza, since 2005.
The current military situation is that Israel controls 65% of the ground, where there are no civilians, and the rest is controlled by Hamas.
Starvation of civilians is indeed prohibited. However siege is permitted as long as civilians can leave. So a siege of Gaza city or the northern Gaza strip would be permitted as long as civilians are allowed to leave that area. A similar example would be Mosul that was under siege while being controlled by ISIS.
Killing civilians in the course of attacking military objectives is not prohibited. Intentional killing of civilians for no military purpose would be a war crime. Israeli soldiers who intentionally kill Palestinian civilians for no military reason should be put on trial. Either way, the context is the armed conflict/war which is what Hamas started and is still pursuing. IDF soldiers are killed and injured in Gaza every day, this just doesn't make the news or Hacker News.
Israel has sufficient control that they can decide whether or how much food enters Gaza, and they have substantial control over the means by which food is distributed. (Aid organizations apply to them for travel permits so that they don't get attacked by IDF forces.) That's the relevant thing here, not whether they have 100% control on the ground.
Siege is permitted only so far as it doesn't leave civilians without food or vital supplies. Occupying powers may remove the civilian population to a safe place temporarily. I don't think "we asked them to leave and they didn't" is regarded as an acceptable middle ground. Starvation of civilians as a method of war was specifically one of the charges by the ICC against Netanyahu and Gallant. (That was based on things that happened earlier in the war.)
Besides, for several months recently, Israel blocked all food and aid into Gaza. The civilians had absolutely nowhere to go.
If similar war crimes happened in Mosul those should be prosecuted too.
I agree Israel has control over aid entering Gaza. I also agree that civilians should not be starved.
In recent weeks though Israel has allowed aid into Gaza but the UN has not been picking it up and distributing it. Israel brings it outside the area that Hamas controls and asks the UN to truck it in. Those trucks then get looted or the goods just sit there because the UN agencies refuse to pick it up. Some food recently had to be destroyed because it expired sitting on the platforms. Obviously Israeli soldiers can't truck the aid into Hamas controlled Gaza themselves.
I'm pretty sure "we asked them to leave but they didn't" is actually sufficient. How else is the population going to move?
https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/siege
Otherwise how exactly would a siege work? You're expecting the enemy to cooperate?
Anyways, I don't think a siege is workable here even if legal, and we can see why. There has been political pressure in Israel to at the very least prevent Hamas from controlling the aid.
It's true that Israel blocked aid for a few months. This was after the strip was flooded with aid during the previous ceasefire.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2vz02e7g8o
"Gaza kitchens warn food will run out in days after two months of Israeli blockade" (will run out in days - May 2nd). So at least a few days after May 2nd we know there was still some food available.
The GHF started distributing food on May 26th.
I don't know for sure what is the food situation in Gaza at every given moment. In theory the IDF says they have been monitoring it. So it's their word vs. Hamas. We also had people killed sitting in a cafe at the end of June so presumably there were some ingredients for that cafe to be open and serving customers. That's very anecdotal. I'm sure there are pockets of poverty, hunger and more. If you have money or the right connections you're probably getting food. The fair distribution of food within Hamas controlled Gaza isn't something the IDF has control of.
The UN has also refused to collaborate with the GHF and Hamas has been attacking the aid centers and the Palestinians that help deliver aid there. Yes, the setup is far from ideal, but Israel has a right to try and get Hamas out of the aid loop. At the very least there are other players here, not just Israel, to share some of the blame.
It's very hard to believe YZF does not know these things. Gaza is looking more like Warzaw by the day.
I don't know and neither do you. Here's some claimed footage of a Gaza market these days: https://youtube.com/shorts/vwG5NjDj780?si=nVoR5hayUykTKz_F
EDIT: more recent images from Gaza: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-SinKRcVwQ
There's a war and a siege. I'm sure it's a great place to be.
The Warsaw Ghetto comparison is despicable. Jewish people in Warsaw weren't holding German hostages or fighting a war with the Germans. They didn't murder and kidnap German or Polish civilians. The situation in the Warsaw Ghetto was an order of magnitude worse than what Hamas is saying the situation in Gaza is. Hamas has a very clear option here, to surrender and release the hostages.
Israel is now delivering a lot more aid into Gaza. The Jews in Warsaw were sent to death camps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto#Treblinka_deport...
Are you kidding me? I also have a video of a cat windsurfing, I'm sure it's in Gaza. The airdrops are totally ineffective as a method of distributing aid, but apparently pretty effective as whitewashing propaganda.
Any sliver of relief allowed by the IDF is under growing international pressure. Gaza is becoming a death camp, no need to send anyone elsewhere.
Restricting food to civilians has been a legitimate war tactic forever. It's called a siege. If this is unacceptable to Palestine, they need to return the Israeli hostages.
Israel is under no obligation to provide aid to their opponent in a war. Anybody suggesting such is transparently anti-Semitic. Nobody would ever make such a ridiculous claim if it were their own countrymen held hostage.
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I'm sorry but committing genocide is wrong without scare quotes. There is no justification.
This type of comment betrays a lack of understanding of Iran’s desire to fight Israel to the last Palestinian. They’re both victims of Iran acting in ways that most of this thread doesn’t really seem to understand but the person you’re responding to does.
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If someone came, stole your land, raped your women, killed the children, and occupied town after town, and then forced you and rest of the survivors into a town, built walls around you, imprisoned the whole city, didn't let you do anything, brought the most racist thing upon you, silenced your cried for help in the world, payed all media to portray you as animals and dehumanize you, and all of your acts of civil conduct by one of your friends Arafat didn't result in anything, then don't get angry like Hamas and don't play the only cards remaining for you since every thing else literally is taken away. Just stay so that they can kill all of you and erase you from the face of planet. (I'm not supporting Hamas, but do you see how this is made by a world that sees the whole Palestine as something to be removed? erased?)
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This happened to a lot of people in WW2, basically no one who lost their land responded with something like October 7.
This is happening now to Ukraine and the way the respond is the correct way to respond, it's not blowing up schools, or music festivals or raping young women and parading their dead bodies around town on the bonnets of cars so people can spit on them.
The fact that people put all the blame on Israel for the situation is why this war will continue for a long time.
Source, decadent of people who's land was stolen first by Nazi's then by Soviets.
Only because they failed to do so.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakam
Israel is blamed in part because they hold all the power. If you read what the original Zionists wrote in private letters you would know it was their intent all along to take over all the land.
I'm not a Jew and we never planned any shit like that, nor did we parade any dead girls around in truck while people spat on the body.
Hamas is a terrorist organisation, the IDF is a state. Of course the state should be held to a higher standard than a terrorist organisation, this is not me excusing what Hamas have done, but if you start justifying a state's actions with "a terrorist organisation has done the same" where does that end? US state actors hijacking and crashing a Russian passenger jet into the Kremlin?
So you don’t recognize the state of Palestine?
Palestine barely has much of anything left. That might change at some point and it would be worth discussing what the actual actions of "the state of Palestine" are but at this point it doesn't really make sense to do that.
Do note that this does not mean it can't or shouldn't be a state. Somalia is self-sovereign even if it's kind of bad at doing that.
elected by the people of gaza with support from the population.
If you’re a citizen of the United States in particular, you might reflect for a moment in where this line of reasoning might lead.
The last election there was in 2006.
> elected by the people of gaza with support from the population.
Since we're cherry-picking, let me continue the sequence for you...
...propped up by Israel to be elected by the people of Gaza. [0]
[0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
Israel tried to bribe Hamas into not attacking them, yes. Was that a bad plan? Should they not have tried to make life good enough for Gazans to not resort to terrorism?
A literal reading is that sowing division among Hamas and the Palestinian Authority would prevent a unified effort for Palestinian statehood. A more cynical reading would be to prop up the crazies to point at them and say, "look at what they're doing, they shouldn't be allowed to self-govern."
The heritage of both the Israeli people and the Palestinian people is steeped in literally thousands of years of history in that land. While one group, the Jews, were often displaced from it, it does not diminish the ties the Palestinian people have to that land. A land they cultivated and farmed for, again, thousands of years. Well before formal borders of any nation today were recognized.
We can nitpick on specific words and phrases, but the broader point still stands. These are human beings who are used for political aims, whose suffering is a means to an end, and it's all happening at the hands of people who do not respect human life. Whether you want to play partisan and choose the label of "Hamas" or "Israel" is up to you, but both are guilty nonetheless. It just so happens that one of those two parties has more resources at their disposal than the other to inflict profound misery and annihilation.
The PA, to this day, pays the families of terrorists who kill Israelis. They're not the good guy. Yes, Israel decided back then that Hamas can't possibly be worse so they gave them a chance. Keep in mind at that point in history, the PA had done far more harm to Israel than Hamas.
What I find interesting is that through all this suffering, Hamas hasn't surrendered and returned the hostages in return for it's own peoples peace. They should renounce everything they have done in my opinion and give themselves and the hostages back in return for and end to the conflict.
People will argue with me and say Hamas is some type of resistance movement against oppressors so they should "fight on", expel or Jews or whatever and that October 7 was fine, but Hamas don't even wear a uniform so the IDF has no idea who they even are, for all they know there actually is Hamas in those camps. This is already a violation of the Geneva convention:
The Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law dictate that combatants must distinguish themselves from civilians during armed conflict
The entire situation there is just a tragedy for the actual innocents wrapped up in it and it's a shame bigger men cannot seem to find their balls and do the right thing.
I don't see how this war is going to end by providing Hamas with more aid but it looks like they've set it up so the world needs to give them aid so their own children don't die.
They've released like 80% of the hostages I believe? In exchange for ceasefires which were immediately broken by Israel.
That’s not true. It lasted 3 months, which was the entire duration of the agreed phase 1. Phase 2 did not begin because Hamas turned the hostage/body releases into a propaganda circus [1] and refused to accept modified terms for phase 2 that prevented this.
I don’t love either party’s behavior here, but there’s no need to mislead like this.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/world/middleeast/israel-h...
2 months but you're right, it wasn't "immediately". Bad memory on my part. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Gaza_war_ceasefire
I still maintain that Netanyahu would gladly sacrifice hostages to keep the war hot. And that NYT article is a fascinating artifact in highlighting Israeli feelings of anguish while Palestinians are killed en masse.
I wish the dominant strain of Palestinian support online made room for people that are happy to condemn Netanyahu and his allies as atrocious, hateful, evil human beings and to condemn the clear excessive force the Israeli army is currently using but aren't willing to completely gloss over October 7th, aren't on board with protests against Israel on October 8th, and want to hold Hamas (and ultimately Qatar and Iran) responsible for their part in all this.
If people hadn't started accusing Israel (and Biden, somehow) of genocide basically on October 8, perhaps there'd be less debate right now. It's really frustrating to both feel that Israel can do no right (the pager attack, while obviously viscerally terrifying, had objectively incredible combatant/innocent ratios compared to literally any other way of prosecuting war, and it's the height of hypocrisy for people claiming that Israel should simply special forces snipe every Hamas fighter individually to criticize it) and at the same time fully agree that Netanyahu and the settlers are shithead monster assholes and that civilian casualties are now inexcusable, beyond a reasonable doubt.
> If people hadn't started accusing Israel (and Biden, somehow) of genocide basically on October 8,
People started accusing Israel, and its American sponsors, of genocide long before October 8; that Israel is engaged in s campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people has been the dominant position in pro-Palestinian activist circles for decades.
People started paying attention more after October 7, 2023, but that's not when the accusations began.
Sure, but I would say that the current dominant strain took form and its volume got cranked up very noticeably October 8. Which was not a great look, even to those sympathetic to criticisms of Netanyahu.
> Sure, but I would say that the current dominant strain took form and its volume got cranked up very noticeably October 8
So did the genocide itself, which has always been constrained by what Israel thinks they can get away with based on political conditions (mainly in the US, whose active military support, financial aid, and UNSC veto they want to maintain) and the available pretext’s they can hid atrocities behind.
There is a relationship.
I think we're talking past each other, which feels like the inevitable result whenever I try to engage in good faith on this topic with people that don't quite agree with me disproportionately more often than other topics. It feels like you'll have an answer for everything I could possibly say, which could mean that you're right, or it could mean you spend a lot more time than me having these conversations. It feels very tricky to ever criticize, even in small ways, any aspect of your movement, because there's always a reasonable, coherent reason that any critique should actually have been levelled at Israel, who's fault it actually is. It feels like there's absolutely nothing I could say to provoke you to listen, to hear my point, because you're already so confidently clear on 100% of all of this, and because your goal is to represent your movement's perspective, rather than to truly persuade and communicate. I think when you're (understandably) fervently convinced of your own righteousness, it's quite easy to shut down discussion and to experience it as successfully defending truth and justice.
Do you understand? I'm not, and at no point have I been, discussing or debating facts on the ground in Gaza. I'm making an effort to assume good faith. I am telling you about the experience of people that are "gettable" for your movement, people that largely agree that what's happening is abhorrent, but that are feeling alienated by the dogmatism, and you're telling me why dogmatism is correct. Iinot talking about what's correct, I'm talking about what's successfully persuasive.
Violations happened immediately[1]. Each phase was to be 42 days(6 weeks) not 3 months.
No, Israel & the US wanted a continuation via a modified version of phase 1 ceasefire rather than proceed to phase 2: securing exchange of Israeli captives but with the temporary cessation of military activities i.e., allowing them to resume.
Phase 2 as originally outlined & agreed would have been a commitment to a permanent cessation of military and hostile activities, withdrawal, and exchange of the remaining surviving Israeli & number of Palestinian captives[2]:
Announce restoration of a sustainable calm (cessation of military operations and hostilities permanently) and its commencement prior to the exchange of hostages and prisoners between the two sides – all remaining Israeli hostages who are living men (civilians and soldiers) in exchange for a number of prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza strip.
Moreover, Israel was supposed to send negotiators for implementation of phase 2 no later than the 16th day of phase 1(February 3rd) per the phase 1 agreement. Instead, Netanyahu met up with Trump, formulated their own agreement without any other mediators, and they delayed sending in negotiators until 2 days(February 27th) before phase 1 of the ceasefire was set to end with a "take it or else" approach.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/24/middleeast/gaza-israel-de... [2] https://archive.is/c82OT
100% and full Hamas surrender is what they want and you know that. It's a war, not a picnic.
I don't know that. Surrender what? Military control of the strip?
Top ministers in Israel have been very clear that population-level suffering and ideally expulsion is their goal. Meanwhile, West Bank violence has skyrocketed. And Hamas leadership is mostly dead already, anyways.
Yes and both sides need to surrender the idea that they aren't people worthy of life.
The religious leadership in the area needs to surrender and tell their people to surrender the idea that Jews are horrible people who deserve to be killed and all views to support similar ideas on the other side need to do the same.
Otherwise any aid provided to Gaza etc is just a temporary bandaid to the issue.
Trigger warning:
Hours later that day, a video emerged showing Louk's body,[28][29][b][c] partially clothed, with a significant head injury and blood-matted hair, being paraded in the streets of Gaza City by Hamas militants in the back of a pickup truck; they were exclaiming "Allahu Akbar" and were joined in the cheers by the people in the crowd surrounding the vehicle, some of whom spat on the body.[33][23][34][35] The video went viral,[2][36][37] becoming one of the first viral videos of the Gaza war.[36] It was released in a wave of videos of Hamas members parading hostages and bodies.[38][39][40] Photographs were also taken and circulated online.[29]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Shani_Louk
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Plenty of Jewish people don't accept it. Many of the most dedicated and passionate critics of Israel are Jews. This is obvious, so let's not cross into unpleasant tropes.
> How do Jewish people accept the genocide going on right now?
Israel is predominately Jewish in religion and ethnicity, but Israel does not represent all Jewish people. While I am not Jewish, I would imagine some might find to conflation to be highly offensive.
It's obviously not all Jewish people, but there are unfortunately many Jewish communities who are very supportive of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Particularly in the US it's something that has allowed what is happening to continue almost exclusively unopposed. More generally the West has morally failed, so certainly not exclusive to any religion.
That the term anti-Semitism is constantly used to deflect or tar those objecting to Israels mass killing of civilians really is equally offensive I would suggest.
> It's obviously not all Jewish people
Really? Because the initial GP comment did not parameterize Jewish people which hold certain views. The GP comment just said, "How do Jewish people accept the genocide going on right now?"
> That the term anti-Semitism is constantly used to deflect or tar those objecting to Israels mass killing of civilians really is equally offensive I would suggest.
Ok? I nor anyone else at the time of this comment called the GP an anti-semite, so I am not sure why you feel compelled to mention this point.
The entire point of my initial comment was to bring attention to the attempt to paint entire, non-monolithic group of people with such a large brush. If you want to argue about the rhetoric used in pro-Palestinian vs. pro-Israeli online-discourse, then I implore you to find another comment. I imagine there likely some in this very thread.
On the first point of your reply I was agreeing with you, but also felt the need to expand to draw the distinction that a good many people of the Jewish faith actively defend the ongoing genocide and Israel.
On your second point, my follow up comment on anti-Semitism being weaponised feels wholly appropriate in this context. If you can bring attention to something you feel is directly relevant to the conversation I'm not sure why you would not allow me to do the same.
> I would imagine some might find to conflation to be highly offensive.
Yes, with the huge caveat that the leading architects of the conflation are pro-Israeli activists. Using Judaism as a human-shield.
The person I was responding to was unlikely a pro-Israeli activist, so I am not certain why you felt compelled to mention your caveat. Are you implying that because pro-Israeli activist allegedly created the conflation that others are justified in perpetuating it?
I literally wrote that Israel does not represent all Jewish people. Yet, you beeline straight to mentioning pro-Israeli activist. It doesn't matter who created the irrational conflation or not. People need to stop perpetuating it.
It's absolutely critical context in a rhetorical environment where "antisemitism" has been drained of meaning. Not sure where your hostile reaction is coming from.
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I am sorry, but I have no further interest in this discussion with you. This conversation will only grow more counterproductive.
I hope we can have better discussions on different topics in the future.
Take care and be well.
There are 194 other countries not lifting a finger either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Isra...
The US is a direct enabler, not a passive observer.
> How do Jewish people accept the genocide going on right now?
They were not expecting it. GHF has distributed enough food to Gaza that there should not be any starvation going on.
The Jewish people were not expecting the weaker people in Gaza to be unable to get food because the strong stole it, and got more than their fair share.
Can you present any factual basis for these completely wild claims?
Is it really that hard? Go see the stats on how much food GHF distributed, then add in the UN brings in (which never stopped).
Then go look at photos of fat healthy people holding starving kids, and wonder how that's even possible. If you read interviews (and I have) you'll get your answer: the food is very unevenly distributed, the strong have stolen it from the weak.
Which never stopped? Another wild claim.
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WTF? Between this and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42299743 and the fact that you've done this before with other accounts, I've seen enough to ban this one.
Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Its pretty unbelievable to see openly anti semitic comments like this on HN.
Replace "Jew" with "Black" or "Indian" and its obvious how discriminatory this comment is (if it is not glaring already).
I agree and am confident that the overwhelming majority of the HN community agrees as well.
The genocide is done in the name of the Zionist ideology, not Judaism, and Jewish people don‘t have to have any special opinion about it different from the rest of us. Zionists however have a lot to answer for, and they sure do need to find a lot of excuses if they want to keep their ideology.
If a Jewish person condemns the Gaza genocide, that just means they are human and follow the news and empathize with victims of horrible mass atrocities (like any normal person). However, if a Zionist (Jewish or not) condemns the Gaza genocide, while claiming to belief in the Zionist ideology, they are going to have to explain to me how on earth they can still call them self a Zionist during all these horrors.
You can't really use the word Zionist anymore because everyone has a completely different definition of what it means.
So you're going to have to define your particular flavor before using it.
To me virtually everyone on earth is a Zionist because it just means "having your own country", which is something almost everyone wants. I'm sure your definition is different.
To me Zionism is the settler colonial national project of Israel as a Jewish supremacy state on Palestinan lands.
If you support Israel as a Jewish supremacy state which denies civil rights to the Palestians that live there or were expelled (or descendants of expelled Palestinians) in 1947-1948, then you are a Zionist.
If you support a state called Israel which has equal rights for all its civilians (including Palestinians, and right of return for displaced Palestinians and their descendants, regardless of a whether you support a separate independent Palestine along the 1967 borders (as long as you recognize the right of return for the 1948 refugees to Israel), then you are not a Zionist.
I know Zionism comes in various flavors, including very extreme forms (such as Kahanism), and not all Zionists support the genocide done in their name. But as I understand it, no Zionist completely supports equal civil rights for all Palestinians, including the right of return and reparations for Palestinian refugees, because if they did support that, they wouldn’t be Zionists, at least not in my books.
So you should know that this definition of Zionism that you use was created by antisemities.
No actual Zionist uses this definition. It's also not a factual reality of how Israel started, Israel is not a settler project, it's not colonial, and it was not built on Palestinian lands. None of that is true. Zionism is Jews returning to their own land, not the land of others.
But I am well aware that people like to pretend it's true, (and then criticize it). If you spend a lot of time online you'll hear this definition over and over, and people actually start to believe it's real.
Israel already has equal rights for all civilians inside Israel. The people in the area not in Israel of course are not Israeli, and they were offered a state of their own, which they refused (multiple times).
> because if they did support that, they wouldn’t be Zionists, at least not in my books.
Tons of Zionists want that, they call them leftists in Israel, but they are also Zionists. They used to be far more numerous, but multiple Palestinian attacks have greatly reduced their numbers. (It's one of the ironies of Oct 7 that the Palestinians primarily killed those people advocating for a Palestinian state.)
The fact that you say "they wouldn't be Zionists" makes it quite clear that you don't actually know what Zionism is!
I looked at a couple of definitions of Zionism.
Wikipedia:
> Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in late 19th-century Europe to establish and support a Jewish homeland through the colonization of Palestine.
Brittanica:
> Zionism, Jewish nationalist movement with the goal of the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine.
Jewish Vioce for Peace (an Anti-Zionist organization):
> Zionism is a form of Jewish nationalism, and is the primary ideology that drove the establishment of Israel.
> The political ideology of Zionism, regardless of which strain, has resulted in the establishment of a Jewish nation-state in the land of historic Palestine.
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resource/zionism/
Jewish center for justice (a Zionist organization):
> Zionism is the belief in the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland of Israel.
> Today, supporting Zionism means promoting the continued existence of a Jewish state and upholding the right of Jews to live freely in their historic homeland.
https://jewishcenterforjustice.org/what-is-zionism-six-thing...
Zioness.org (a Zionist publication):
> The progressive movement for liberation and national self-determination of the Jewish people in our indigenous homeland, the land of Israel.
Zack Beauchamp (A journalist and a Liberal Zionist):
> Zionism is Israel’s national ideology. Zionists believe Judaism is a nationality as well as a religion, and that Jews deserve their own state in their ancestral homeland, Israel.
https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080010/zionism-israel-pales...
There is a varying degree in what these definitions call the land in question (Israel; Jewish ancestral homeland; etc.; I just call it Palestine) and where exactly that land is (1967 borders; Israel + occupied territories; Israel + Sinai + Jordan + South Lebanon + ect.). There is also a varying degree of how much rights to grant the indigenous population. Liberal Zionists want to grant them equal rights as a minority, while Kahanists want to expel them again in a Geoncide. But all Zionists agree that Zionism is a national project to maintain a Jewish supremacy state in Palestine.
A liberal Zionist would refute the description Jewish supremacy because in a democratic Israel all citizens should have the same rights. I refute that refutation on the basis that without the right of return for the 1948 refugees, Israel has artificially created a racial majority on lands that did not belong to them, and thus have created a supremacy through majority rule via a violent expulsion of the indigenous population.
Evidently Theodore Herzl was not a Zionist.
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That's an interesting point of view. If that is actually the goal of Israel right now, what if the Hamas executed all hostages on the spot, right now? Would Israel say "we have no more military objective, time to go home" or would they leash out in retaliation?
I think we know what the answer would be. Because we know that, how can what you say possibly be true?
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citation not needed. we have seen it all.
I haven't seen such a video, though I wouldn't be surprised if one existed. Let's stick to facts.
Facts are it and many more exist
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> Mobile phone footage has emerged that appears to contradict Israel's account of why soldiers opened fire on a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck on March 23, killing 15 rescue workers.
> The video, published by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), shows the vehicles moving in darkness with headlights and emergency flashing lights switched on - before coming under fire. The PRCS said the video was obtained from the phone of a paramedic who was killed.
> The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially denied the vehicles had their headlights or emergency signals on.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2z103nqxo
You can open the article and watch the video where they show two separate incidents.
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There would be less scepticism if there weren't numerous examples of falsified incidents in the past.
Nonetheless, the point of "the boy who cried wolf" is not "wolves don't exist". Both sides have been caught lying many, many times but that doesn't mean you can just dismiss every claim.
Many have taken their cameras and recorded their children dying and families dying. And when you meet them, they will show you their dead on their phones like it is an injury of their hand. Quite surreal and I am out of words to explain it.
There would be less skepticism if mainstream news organizations were allowed into Gaza.
Do you think some of the world's top governments don't have intelligence on the matter? The UK foreign secretary is full of it when he calls this an atrocity?
> Do you think some of the world's top governments don't have intelligence on the matter? The UK foreign secretary is full of it when he calls this an atrocity?
The entire thrust of my comment was that evidence of potential current crimes shouldn't be discarded just because there has been a lot of lying in the past.
I got my threads twisted and thought you were defending Israeli claims that the violence is necessary, and that Gazans were making it all up.
Targeting and detaining fewer journalists from reputable independent organizations would go a long way in reforging the foreign relations Likud has insisted on burning.
https://gulfnews.com/uae/israel-detains-second-reuters-journ...
https://www.tag24.com/topic/israel-war/american-journalist-j...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/haaretz-photogr...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-11/ty-article/ha...
https://truthout.org/articles/israeli-police-detain-palestin...
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Many of them not much older than two weeks.
This reeks like a massive failure of any content moderation process.
dang, what is up with factual, on topic comments being flagged en masse within two minutes of writing?
There is a lot of ideologically motivated flagging of comments from all sides. We're trying to go through and unkill reasonable comments, but it's a slow process. You could help by vouching the ones that are not breaking the guidelines, and also by not posting comments that break the guidelines yourself.
I think this is probably a sign that you shouldn't allow these posts on HN, despite the rationale posted by dang in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718396
If the flagging is such that one point of view is represented ad nauseam and the other point of view is barely represented due to flagging pile on, then it's not actually contributing to discourse at all -- it's just an echo chamber. That does not fit in with what I find valuable in HN.
I wish you'd work with us as we try to do what we can to maximize the quality of the thread, rather than dismissing everything we've spent today doing as futile. Of course it's going to be futile when the very people who think they could make it better insist that it's pointless to even try.
Yes, there's a weight of sentiment in a certain direction about this topic. Equally, there are minority, nuanced perspectives that are important, and I've unkilled several of them today and turned off flagging powers on users who were reflexively flagging anything they disagreed with.
I'll continue to be online for most of the next 4-5 hours. I'd be very pleased if you were to contribute positively by sharing your perspective, and as long as it's within the guidelines I'll ensure it doesn't get killed by a flag pile-on.
Well-argued minority positions are often the most valuable on HN. Comments that just say the same thing everyone's been saying are by-definition uninteresting, even if they're in the overwhelming majority. Indeed, one of the most important reasons to allow topics like this to be discussed on HN is to give a voice to well-argued minority perspectives that can't be found elsewhere.
Thank you for unflagging some of the posts. I think that the discussion reads a lot better now. I sympathise with the difficult position that you're in but given the hostility here to hearing views from a variety of angles I'm afraid I don't think I'll be contributing much personally. I still think this topic makes HN a worse place to be and it doesn't have to take place here. There are plenty of more suitable venues.
lol. Yeah what’s really valuable in HN is the onslaught of cheap marketing posts talking about AI. Not about genocide
Interesting. Can you point to some discussions about the Masalit genocide, which is currently taking place?
There's just the one mention, by one user, seven months past.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42356673
So it seems that genocide per se is not actually considered an important topic of discussion by those who frequent HN.
It’s almost as if an American centric board is upset that their tax dollars is funding genocide!!! Wow!
Are you really that daft?
Also I have to say, the argument that unless I say something about _every_ genocide, then only I can talk about genocide is astounding.
Free Sudan and Free Palestine. You happy now?
Perhaps you can run an LLM on your hardware and ask how dumb you sound.
Only in so far as it relates to Gaza and the Ukraine .. which tracks for a US based IT forum given the US political ties to all parties concerned and the cyber capabilities of almost all the parties (including the use of phone bombs wrt Hamas members, etc).
Sudan doesn't have a substantial US sub community nor much in the way of a cyber footprint (on a globally relative scale).
This article having flags turned off ain't organic either.
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Please don't post flamebait comments, regardless of how right you are or feel you are, and regardless of what other users are doing.
It just makes everything worse.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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I tried to address this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718396. If you read that and some of the links there and still want more information, I'd be happy to try.
On the other hand, if you just feel like this isn't the site you want HN to be, I hear that and, yeah, sorry. It's kind of been this way since forever (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869).
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It is said, that the first causality of a war is truth. We do not know what is true and what is not.
That is a great quote, but we do know that it is "true" that Hamas started the war when they attacked Israel on October 7th and took many Israelis hostage :(
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If any attempt is being made here to justify those horrible acts, the attempt is being made by the Israeli state, its army, and (since it's a democracy) its electorate.
Some believe the current attempt is unnecessary because attempts prior to October 7th had already succeeded. The evidence for this belief includes hard-to-fake numbers like both sides' cumulative death tolls.
Many more serious or cautious voices believe that nothing Israel could do after October 7th could retroactively justify it. But still an attempt is being made.
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Did the air dropping of food not work out?
It has not so far.
"Experts say that airdrops, another measure Israel announced, are insufficient for the immense need in Gaza and dangerous to people on the ground."[1]
"[T]he airdrops have an advantage over trucks because planes can move aid to a particular location very quickly. But in terms of volume, the airdrops will be 'a supplement to, not a replacement for moving things in by ground.'"[2]
The airdrops killed people when 1) the containers landed on occupied tents and, 2) containers landed in the water and people drowned attempting to retrieve the aid. Trucks can also delivery vastly larger quantities of aid substantially faster and cheaper than planes.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/gaza-starvation-israel-palestinia...
[2] https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-airdrop-humanit...
Nah dropping pallets on peoples heads isnt as effective as shooting up a crowd of hungry people with live ammo apparently.
It works fine but not at high scale. Just the math of lifting the heavy weight up is hard.
Some non-profits (like Oxfam) are very against it as a purely anti-western reflex.
Didn't last long at all. The whole problem is Hamas is taking the aid, not that it's not getting in.
No Proof Hamas Routinely Stole U.N. Aid, Israeli Military Officials Say
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/middleeast/hamas-un...
https://archive.is/1bllc
Source?
When Israel took out Iranian nuclear scientists they used a missile capable of targeting him and only him within a high-rise condominium, in short, with utmost precision.
And yet we are to believe that 60,000 innocent Palestinians have to die because Hamas uses them as human shields?
No. This isn’t good enough. Israel has the superior military and if it wants the moral high ground it is imperative that it protect civilian lives in its war against Hamas, anything short of that is what world leaders are finally admitting, GENOCIDE.
Ok I'm by no means a fan of what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza, but I'll play the Devil's advocate here.
- those missiles targeting those Iranian scientists caused more casualties than just the scientists
- those 60,000 Palestinians were not all innocent. Sure, most were, but a substantial percentage of them were Hamas fighters
Again, I don't agree with Israel's approach and in particular not the targeted starvation of the Gaza population, but it's good to keep all facts straight.
They killed a whole apartment block in which the scientist lived.
This has no business being on HN.
HN has always hosted a certain number of stories with political overlap, and the principles of how that works are pretty stable. I posted about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718396. If you (or anyone) want to understand how we approach this, I suggest reading that comment and some of the links there, and then if you still have a question that hasn't been answered, Tom or I will be happy to take a crack at it.
Why? There is a lot of cross over from companies profiting to our tech being used to execute this. We should not put a complete blind eye to atrocities being committed indirectly by all of us.
There doesn't have to be a tech angle for a story to be on-topic for HN. Plenty of stories on the front page at any time are not at all tech-related (e.g., articles about history, psychology, philosophy, literature, etc). The guiding principle is simply that it engages intellectual curiosity.
"Please ignore the live-streamed genocide being committed right now..."
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Something to keep in mind when listening to "first hand accounts" like this is that even if they're honest statements, everybody is subject to the fog of war and skewed statistics.
An example that came up a few months ago was a surgeon in a Gaza hospital making the honest statement to BBC journalists that he had seen dozens of children coming into the hospital near death with a "single shot" to a vital organ. He claimed they were purposefully "sniped" by IDF soldiers because in his mind it was "impossible" that they were all so accurately shot precisely once.
What he didn't see coming into his O/R were the children with multiple gunshot wounds... because they died. Conversely, a grazing wound from shrapnel is too minor to go to his well equipped hospital, because the hospital is overloaded and taking only the severely wounded. So he saw just the filtered subset of injuries that were very severe but just barely survivable, giving him the false impression that the IDF was going out of its way to snipe children with a single well-placed shot. (This isn't some random anecdote either, there were long articles circulating around the international media!)
From the surgeon's point of view, he saw only a subset of what's going on, and he drew a conclusion that wasn't actually supported by the evidence. The problem is that his point of view supported a popular narrative, was amplified, and nobody bothered to verify statistics because.. sss... that's hard in a war zone.
I'm not advocating for either side and support neither. I'm just recommending reading all articles related to the war with a critical eye.
There's a group signed letter by 99 American volunteer medical professionals stating:
Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis.
https://www.gazahealthcareletters.org/usa-letter-oct-2-2024
That’s precisely the letter I was referring to.
They’re not in the war zone taking an unbiased sample.
They’re in a hospital receiving critical but patients after triage
Inherently, their statistical sample of war injuries is biased. It’s a textbook example of the survivorship statical bias!
This is all I’m trying to say: not that their observations are false or that children aren’t being shot, but that they’re not in a position to draw accurate conclusions about what goes on outside the walls of their hospitals based on information they receive inside its walls. They certainly can’t draw conclusions about the motivations of IDF soldiers from the information available to them.
This logic applies to both sides, of course, and to all similar scenarios.
A random example are the Russian claims of having destroyed ‘X’ instances of ‘Y’ weapons system when Ukraine got less than ‘X’ delivered. The reason is simple — they’re not lying — they just counted the decoys they also blew up!
It’s war. It’s messy. Information is hard to interpret.
Regarding Russia there's also the phenomenon of inflating numbers at each step of the reporting chain, so suddenly a village reached by several soldiers, who subsequently died, turns into one that, on paper, was fully occupied.
This has caused issues on the Russian side, particularly in Ukraine's Kursk offensive, because troops moved in, assuming the territory is already taken, only to be ambushed.
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They're medical professionals. Not IDF soldiers. [1]
65 doctors, many of whom signed the letter previously mentioned, also signed an opinion essay on the NY Times. There are CT scans in the article. [2]
The NY Times Opinion editor even chimed in to state they saw corroborating said images, consulted independent experts to attest the credibility of said images, and ultimately decided the 40+ photos & videos of children with gunshots to the head and neck were too horrific for publication.[3]
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2025/4/16/israeli-so... [2] https://archive.is/w8q7a [3] https://archive.is/1fkOp
Note that my original argument isn’t that children weren’t being shot — they clearly are — I’m saying that the doctors were making the claim that they were being “sniped” by “single shots”. The basis for the claim was that they saw few if any kids with multiple gunshot wounds.
Yes… because those kids died and hence there is no point taking them to a hospital. They go to a morgue.
They’re not lying about the facts, probably, I’m just saying that their facts don’t support their conclusions.
There’s still zero evidence to support their claims. Publishing an editorial saying “trust me bro” doesn’t enhance their veracity. It is physically impossible for a rifle round moving at high velocity to cause the minimal injuries shown in those x-rays. Such injuries are consistent only with indirect fire, such as a round fired into the air falling back down and striking some distant innocent on the head at low velocity.
What’s shocking is that the NYT won’t admit they fell for a hoax but instead are claiming they have ironclad evidence of genocide yet they are just… sitting on it because it’s gruesome for their readers to see? If that’s true then it is a staggering moral failure akin to being an accessory to the crime. Fortunately thats’s not the case because it’s a hoax.
> What he didn't see coming into his O/R were the children with multiple gunshot wounds... because they died. Conversely, a grazing wound from shrapnel is too minor to go to his well equipped hospital, because the hospital is overloaded and taking only the severely wounded. So he saw just the filtered subset of injuries that were very severe but just barely survivable, giving him the false impression that the IDF was going out of its way to snipe children with a single well-placed shot. (This isn't some random anecdote either, there were long articles circulating around the international media!)
Do you have a source for this?
Apologies, it was The Guardian not the BBC: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/02/gaza-palestini...
The logic underpinning my comment is the Survivorship Bias: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
The source for that is the “pretraining” we all share: children generally don’t survive multiple gunshot wounds from military battle rifles. One… maybe, but not two or three to the chest… or anywhere really.
I mean, you can debate that point if you choose, but you’d have to make a convincing argument that children are more likely to cling to life with more gunshot wounds.
Putin, 2005: https://irp.fas.org/news/2005/04/putin042505.html
Xi, 2012 - (中华儿女) - Chinese Dream - https://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/spee...
Netanyahu - 2015 - https://www.wsj.com/articles/netanyahu-makes-final-plea-for-...
These 3 guys have been saying the same thing for a long time now, sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly... we should probably take better note.
Trump - 2025 - https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/07/president-trump-...
This guy wanna make his country great again right now
https://x.com/GHFUpdates/status/1949914470739771760
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surely it can be; why don't israel let journalists to enter gaza, so that many eyes will be there to see what is going on actually...
oh I think I know why, everyone knows why...
Ha - gets downvoted but with no comment - of how it is known or not. Their would be propaganda and embellishment from both sides.
About sides making mistakes in war - such in WCK World Central Kitchen deaths - I recall that was US claim in the deaths in about the "collateral murder" video ( about 2010 ??) from WikiLeaks - it was a mistake - the photographers telephoto lens looked like a rocket launcher?
One data point is not enough to draw a line. But if you have two, three, dozens of data point... And the line points to the same thing over and over again.
This man is definitely not the only one who has come forward. At want point to do you actually take multiple witnesses and believe them?
Many aid agencies and other sources on the ground have also verified many of the claims, when journalists can't (considering they've been banned from entering). Are all the aid agencies lying too?
And sometimes, just sometimes, in this world of AI now, video evidence is accurate.
The world is imperfect, and so we go with the balance of probabilities.
And I'll confirm for you. There's a murderous genocide taking place.
How do you know that Hamas is not involved in these cases? You can not.
Also a high percentage of the said 50,000 killed would have to be Hamas terrorists.
Also, Hamas would be working overtime to make this new way of food distribution to fail.
Gaza people would not want to blame Hamas at ALL, since Hamas kills people who criticize them. This has happened in Past
In fact it is reported Hamas told Gaza people not to get food from the new distrubution places.
Hamas would also have to be guilty of genocide. In fact they have previously stated this in writing. Hamas is prepared to sacrifice Gaza people. Also Hamas committed genocide on October 7th
You appear to have ignored everything I said. I hope you don't mind if I return the favour.
I'll just end by saying that, to me, Israels actions in terms of Gaza over the last 2 years mean I do not differentiate those who carry out the actions from Nazi's (dictionary definitions). And that applies to those who support those actions. I've worded this carefully so you know that I do not refer to all Israeli's, because I don't. But it probably applies to you.
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Dang addressed this today in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44715823
We do occasionally turn off flags in order to allow a discussion to happen because allowing no discussion to happen seems wrong
Many people have different views on whether this and other topics should have significant exposure and discussion on HN, but in this case it seems enough of the community sees the topic as important to discuss, that we need to respect that sentiment.
To add to what Tom posted, it's worth remembering that HN has always hosted a certain number of political stories, and that this question of how-much-is-too-much has been around as long as the site has (or since 2008 at least).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869
>>> No idea why these posts are allowed to flourish here
No, they often get flagged off pretty quickly.
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Maybe it's because Israel is viewed as a "modern"/"western" nation, and shouldn't be doing these kinds of things, whereas Sudan and Congo are not.
Hamas had it coming, but I'm not sure much can explain the starvation random children are experiencing, that they weren't before, except Israel trying to extract some toll on the Palestinian people.
I think anti semitism is more common than it appears on the surface level, even when people say "criticizing Israel isn't criticizing Jews in general", but a lot of it actually is. But that doesn't explain all criticism.
This sounds weird to say, but I'm actually okay with kids getting blown up in bombings if there were legitimate military targets there and no other choice. But starvation takes a long, concerted effort to effect.
The evidence has become overwhelming now. Genocide denial in Gaza has become equivalent to holocaust denial - just another racist trope.