‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]
bbc.comDoes 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.
How is it self-defeating? Hamas is able to continue fighting with the more aid they steal. By stealing aid they also increase the suffering in Gaza thus winning the propaganda war.
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...
> 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
> majorities of israelis support the israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestine
That is simply nonsense. Provide a link to a poll stating that. You can't.
> difference between collateral damage and the israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestine
More nonsense. You are just throwing out words. There is no ethnic cleansing. Palestinians are still there - no one is kicking them out. In fact, their population increased. And since there is no ethnic cleansing, your point is moot. What is happening is a modern war, door to door fighting - with collateral damage. The situation is grim.
> So how exactly do you propose to fight Hamas >> That's not my problem
Of course, it isn't. You just like to throw big words and feel good about yourself, while providing zero solutions to anything.
the problem with this issue is the israeli supporters largely argue in good faith and the palestine supporters largely argue in bad faith or ignorance.
> 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.
This talking point is very-much dated now.. Israel has said that they will not stop until Hamas is "eliminated". Netanyahu also threw in another condition to end the war: implementation of Donald Trump's plan to relocate Gaza's civilians [0]. So now I guess it doesn't end until ethnic cleansing is complete? That's lovely.
[0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-implementation-of-tr...
People will say all sorts of nonsense to detract from this one simple solution. And yet they won't do it. Because they don't really want the war to end. They want Israel to lose.
Exactly. From 1950-67 Jordan occupied the West Bank and Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip from 1959-67. At no point during this time was there any desire on part of the Palestinians to establish a Palestinian state.
The Palesinians don't want a state, they want no Israel.
I could on and on with historical examples, but it doesn't seem many here are interested in that sort of thing.
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.
> 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.
>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).
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.
It was Yeltsin, not Gorbachev
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
> 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.
From an outcome perspective there isn't much difference. Egypt and Jordan keep their borders ironclad shut, no middle eastern country is taking relevant numbers of refugees. None of them have been able to stop Iran from using Hamas and Hezbollah as proxies against Israel.
It usually easy to bash the west, but still I don't see anybody else doing much better.
Perhaps what most different about this conflict is the dearth of nations willing to accept refugees. Many if not most Gazans do in fact want to leave [1] (wouldn't you?).
The unsettling conclusion is that these nations are willing to let Palestinians live in dire conditions--conditions the world has no reservation against decrying passionately on cable news and social media--so long as Israel does not get a perceived "win." The West has adopted the Hamas mindset.
This is just untrue. Go look at what major Arab countries are doing right now, or look at how China is selling weapons to Israel. It's not on the same level as Western support, but it's still there.
What's untrue?
Most Asian and ME countries recognize Palestine, most European/Western countries don't: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of...
About Chinese weapons exports it seems we have different sources. From what I can tell Israels arms imports are dominated by US and Germany, with scattered contributions from other European countries.
Chinas arms imports to Israel are miniscule by comparison.
On the other hand I'm sure China provides a lot of components to Israels military industry, but that's a different question.
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.
Now you know all the antisemitism accusations were in bad faith, just to drown out any coverage of war crimes and suppress any opposition to the streamed genocide.
> 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.
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 haven't seen any proposal that seeks to punish regular Israeli citizens. Is there anything specific you're referring to?
No. I'm just saying we should remember that regular Palestinian citizens deserve the same compassion and support as the regular Israeli citizens.
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.
Ideology is basically the opposite of nuance.
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.
> 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.
> 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?
And the war would have to carry on centuries to maintain the current rate. If there is a subtle insidious plot to erode the population of Gaza over time, it is a huge flop.
The first mistake would be Israel's unilateral withdraw from Gaza in 2005, ethnically cleansing its own citizens from the region to make way for the Palestinians.
The population of Gaza has increased by roughly a million since then, which I must say isn't great for the Zionist plot.
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 don't think the definition of genocide includes a time frame during which the whole group must be killed.
> 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?
I disagree that intent does not matter when judging the morality of an action. I believe this is the supermajority view in the west. Which doesn’t make it right, of course, I just assumed we all thought that and if you don’t I’m not going to argue with you about it.
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..."
> 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.
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?
>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
This is the second time someone on HN has used this line as a "gotcha" to me and I honestly don't understand the mindset that leads to them thinking this is a good reply. Everyone should get to do genocide as a treat, and they haven't had theirs yet? Do they not realize that the genocide of indigenous Americans is widely seen as wrong and unacceptable? The genocide of American Indians inspired the Nazis; I guess it continues to inspire some Zionists to this day.
> Hamas advocates the liberation of all of Palestine but is ready to support the state on 1967 borders without recognising Israel or ceding any rights
In what way can this be read as 'honestly offering a two-state solution'? If one is not willing to recognise that there would be two (sovereign) states, it's not much of a two-state solution, is it?
I don't see Israel willing to recognize a Palestinian state, it's even threatening with consequences those who do. This doesn't prevent Israel from being recognized, does it?
Israel in 2025 is very hostile to a 2 state solution. However your original claim was "for decades", and decades ago the situation and politics were not the same
Forty years ago Israel had already annexed and settled East Jerusalem (Palestinian territory) and had started settling the West Bank. You cannot be in favour of the creation of a state and having good relations with your neighbour while annexing its territory at the same time. What has changed is that Israel is more of one mind and less afraid of saying what it really wants- which is everything, one way or another.
> 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?
There have been MANY proposals for two state solutions, from Israel and from the UN and from other third parties that both sides were willing to listen to, going back to 1937. In each case, they've been rejected by Palestinian leaders. After 88 years of rejected proposals, relentless violence from the Palestinians with no sign of stopping, and generations of young people indoctrinated with hatred, it's no wonder the current government has no interest in concessions.
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"?
How can you have a good faith argument if you create strawman arguments instead of acknowledging the point the person was making?
Everyone in the US and Europe has been indoctrinated to support Israel for most of their lives. That’s those who support Israel and those who don’t.
If you went to literally any school, or watched any television, in the US or Europe any time in the last 7 decades, every lesson taught, every broadcast made, that could have involved Israel was pro-Israel and pro-Zionism.
Not a single program or teacher has been able to share the viewpoint that religious ethnostates should not exist, or that the native Palestinian people didn’t deserve to be genocided to make room for one. If you expressed such a view, you’d be prevented from teaching or broadcasting. For decades.
Are you suggesting that if you are from the US, you are unable to form an opinion of the facts that are presented from both sides?
I did have to go to school some time ago, but I also gained access to the internet during that time that allows anyone to research both sides of a topic. There are tons of books available that provide descriptions from both sides.
Why do I have to be on one side or the other? Is it because of my push back against a specific side, you assumed I aligned with the other?
Are you a troll? Why do you keep willfully misrepresenting or twisting what others are saying into something slightly different?
My point, that from the 1950s through the 2010s, no one in the US or Western Europe has been presented facts from both sides, and seeking out facts from the "wrong" side would result in social, financial, and possible criminal penalties, was incredibly clearly stated.
Because of the way you keep twisting others' words, it seems pretty safe to assume you would side with the fascist religious ethnostate that's been committing a genocide for decades with the financing and approval of the US and EU state, military, financial, media, and educational apparatuses.
People who oppose fascism don't communicate the way you have communicated in this thread.
Its interesting that you did not quote any of my reply while accusing me of "willfully misrepresenting or twisting what others are saying into something slightly different". The goal was for me to make sure I understood what you are communicating.
It seems we agree. The internet was much more available 15 years again in 2010 than it was prior. Since then, unlimited opportunity has opened to research each perspective, and even share those with people across the world.
At no point in this thread have a resorted to name calling, I hope your day is better.
That's not what they're saying. They're saying that almost all Americans have been indoctrinated as such.
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.
Ah, diverting the argument whether killing innocents (hundreds of thousands and counting) is fine or not to an argument about what a word means... whatever helps you sleep at night.
Next you can argue that this number is wrong, and since you believe the number is lower, then... it's not a big deal.
Ironically, who introduced the phrase "good faith argument" in this yelling-at-each-other?
This is going to be difficult if we just assume my positions before allowing me the opportunity. What would be an acceptable number to you?
An acceptable number for me is 15027 civilian deaths.
A farcical answer for a farcical question (which is also deflecting from the actual issue).
You seem to want to have an argument about the borders of discussion, and are moaning that blah A, blah B, blah C, that some bored people on the Internet who are on "the other side" of the argument is doing is preventing you to have a discussion. You're having a "fight" but it's not even about the genocide ("Wait, what's a genocide!?! Define that!"), but about the terms of discussion.
If we can't agree on terms, how do we make sure we understand each other?
I want to understand what your expectations of Israel were after October 7th. I believe my questions have been very specific, but I realize you have no desire to have an actual discussion. Good day.
...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 at least the last 20 years as far as I remember.
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.
Occam’s razor suggests that he probably just meant what he said: that Israelis should remember the atrocities committed by Hamas and other attackers. There was nothing in Netanyahu’s speech, or even the Torah’s passages about Amalek, about “no uninvolved civilians”, so it seems like a stretch to say that Netanyahu deliberately conveyed that message as a subtext.
You say the chants occurred “shortly afterwards”, but wasn’t that in December? Whereas the speech you’re drawing a connection to was in October.
If we’re going to accuse people of the most heinous crimes, we should have much more solid evidence.
It would not be the first time palestinians have been called amalek. Considering other ministers hang out with people voicing those ideas, I am not sure it can be as easily dismissed. Ben Gvir had a portrait of Baruch Goldstein in his office who had those views.
There is about a month between the letter and the video clip being published, a little more from the speech. Someone even took the time to write a song.
Smotrich also invoked amalek, but he continued with "what Rafah needs is complete destruction". It is very clear what he meant.
Umm... it absolutely was cut and dry. 75 years ago a set of westerners came and occupied another country through massive, brutal and widespread violence all under the approval of western govt's that themselves felt massive guilt about the holocaust. The Israeli gov't pretended to give Palestinians rights all while calculatedly trying to suppress any legitimate form of gov't (read about Israels massive support of Hamas starting in the 80s because they believed they would have a tougher "negotiating position" against extremists... guess that backfired. They enforced apartheid, blockades, mass surveillance etc. naturally that resulted in resistance. Is resistance justified? Who cares. Is it a natural consequence of material conditions? Absolutely.
I have a friend who would say anytime someone brings up that "it's a complex issue": "They should just stop stealing peoples houses dude". This pretty much sums it up. Maybe if they stopped that a few decades ago this wouldn't have happened.
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".
The response to bring the hostages home should be: Yes. Bring them back to Brooklyn NYC or wherever they're from.
> - 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
What i was referring to. This guy provides a nice summary.
> 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)
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?
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.
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...
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hardly. If someone changes there stance, and makes real change, then it won't be lip service.
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.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.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."
I think the argument that the use of violence to defeat an enemy only serves to create more enemy doesn't hold water. There are plenty of historical examples where brute force was used to bring an enemy to submission and that was more or less the end. We can go WW-II or we can look at more recent examples like Al Qaeda or ISIS or Chechnya. There are many more.
No argument that the extreme right in Israel benefited from the Oct 7th attack. So far anyways. What exactly that means in terms of "expansion" remains to be seen. Isn't annexing the west bank and giving Palestinians Israeli citizenship the real solution anyways? Modulo trying to "convince" them to leave that's more or less the plan of the Israeli right.
There was plenty of hate towards Israel before Oct 7th. The hate that manifested in Oct 7th was more or less unprecedented. I can't say there is more hate now. Check out some Gaza school textbooks from before Oct 7th. They raise their kids on hate (in UN funded schools).
I also can't predict where things go from here. I think the shift that happened in Israel on Oct 7th is that Israel should not try to control or predict the intent of their enemies. Israel needs to take away the capacity of those opponents to attack Israel. You can see this in Lebanon where Israel is still hitting Hezbollah wherever they can. In the past Israel would worry about retaliation, now Israel is more worried about capabilities and is willing to deter retaliation through use of more force. Deterrence + removing capabilities.
In Lebanon you could argue Lebanese would object to Israel bombing their country but some are happy that Hezbollah is getting decimated. The Palestinian authority and some Palestinians are happy that Israel is going after Hamas and PIJ militants aggressively in the west bank.
Gaza is a very different story but they were also terrorized by Hamas. What things look like after the war - who knows. Hard to even say when this war ends and what that looks like. I would like to hope there is some better lives for everyone and peace but that seems very unrealistic. The western countries talking about a two state solution are smoking some good stuff.
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
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?
The Jewish people are the natives of Israel.
Some Palestinians have direct ties to ancient Israelites as well. But the Hebrew occupants were expelled by force, hence the spread out Jewish population. The story is not one of the Jewish people remaining in the region and converting to Islam. At least not for the most part.
The Palestinians are not less worthy because the Jewish people, refugees, returned to their historic homeland. They are less worthy because they chose to wage war against them and lost.
Let's zoom in on an example, Petah Tikvah:
https://escholarship.org/content/qt8md2t1k6/qt8md2t1k6_noSpl...
- The site of Tell Mulabbis is usually identified with the Casale Bulbus, which the Count of Jaffa handed over to the Hospitaller Order in 1133 CE together with the 'des moulins des trois ponts' (the mills of the three-bridges
- villagers from hills of Samaria repopulated Mulabbis during the 18th century (Yaʿari 1947, 244). Mulabbis figures on Pierre Jacotin's map, which was surveyed in 1799 (Karmon 1960, 168-170) Avraham Yaʿari claims that malaria and disputes with neighbouring nomadic tribes led to the abandonment of the village (Yaʿari 1947, 243-244)
- Both Jewish and Arab sources ascertain that Mulabbis was settled again by the Abu Hamed al-Masri clan, of Egyptian origins at some point before the middle of the 19th century.
- "Following Ibrahim Pasha’s campaign, Egyptian immigrants, headed by Abu Hamed al-Masri, settled in Mulabbis. It was a part of a larger wave of Egyptian migration to Palestine’s coastal plain.21 Ottoman cadestral (tapu) registers mention common Egyptian names, like ‘Abed b. ‘Abd al-‘Al and Musa b. Muhammad Bardawil, indicating that the village was mainly, if not solely, inhabited by Egyptian immigrants"
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7qb5r2mx
- In 1878, Mulabbis became the first village in Palestine to be acquired by Jews with the intention of establishing an agricultural colony in 1878, establishing the moshava (colony) of Petah Tikva on its lands
So you are telling me that the Jewish people that legally immigrated to the region, bought land from people of Egyptian descent that lived there, almost 200 years ago, don't have rights?
The Jews in Israel didn't kick anyone out of their homes before the 1948 war on them started.
Where do you live? What's your right to the land? If you are persecuted everywhere and in your tradition there is a strong and proven connection to Rome then yes, you can go back to Rome. Do you pray to go back to Rome? Was your family evicted by force from Rome? If I go digging in Rome am I going to find historical artifacts linking you to Rome? If you immigrated to Rome and bought property should we consider you to be a colonialist?
EDIT:
I don't look at my neighbor and say that because he's an immigrant he has no rights. I don't say Palestinians that lived in the region have no rights either. I do stand by the Jewish people being the indigenous people of the region. The only reason they were not there is that they were expelled by force and prevented from returning. They never left, in spirit, and they never gave up on wanting to return.
The height of hypocrisy is that European colonizers of the new world, with zero connection to it, who massacred the local populations wherever they arrived, cause them suffering to date, and who stole the land and resources they live on, are calling the Jewish people who have one of the clearest and strongest connections to their land, supported by rich historical and archeological accounts, who once they could, as refugees themselves with almost nowhere to go, immigrated legally to their land and bought it back, colonizers. That the Arabs who attacked the Jews and ethnically cleansed them from the region even before Zionism was a thing (In Tsfat, in Hebron, in Jerusalem), who attacked Israel on the day it was established even though it offered its Arab/Palestinian residents to become equal citizens ( https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/israel.asp ), who like the Hussein's in Jordan are often themselves colonizers, are somehow the ones wronged in this story and who deserve the sort of self determination as countries they never had before WW-I and WW-II.
Lots of words.
> Some Palestinians have direct ties to ancient Israelites as well. But the Hebrew occupants were expelled by force, hence the spread out Jewish population.
But dude, this is the only paragraph that matters. Israel is persecuting and stealing land from the descendants of the Hebrews all because they aren't the right race and religion.
The 47 partition and 48 war didn't happen because the Israeli settlers were behaving like doves.
And no, just having the same religion as ancient inhabitants does not magically grant you land. That's insanity as I pointed out.
Exactly the same as if a native American came to my home and demanded that I leave because this was their ancetrial land.
What happened in the 1800s was horrific, just like what's currently happening in Israel. It's not hypocrisy to see past genocides as wrong and identify a current genocide. You don't "get one" just because my ancestors did one. Nor do you "get one" just because your parents/grandparents/or great grandparents were subject to one.
You are always the villain when you murder people to steal their land.
At some point I'll give up on this thread but you're wrong.
The only reason I'm arguing the historical context is to counter the ridiculous argument of colonialism or the equally ridiculous revisionism about the connection of the Jewish people (ethnically and religiously) to the land.
Go back and check the history prior to 47-48. The migrants, and the native Jewish population, were under constant attack by Arabs. Not because the Jews "stole" anything. Simply because they are Jews. The "Yeshuv" back then, and now, acted in self defense. The security organizations that were formed were formed as a result of attacks on Jewish people. Attacks (read as massacres and ethnic cleansing) on Jews (native Jews who lives there forever, and migrants) predate Zionism. Jewish people either have been there forever, or were migrants that bought property, often developing areas nobody wanted to live in (due to swamps, Malaria etc.). The area was not as desirable as it is now, it was a disease ridden sh*thole which the Jewish people turned into an amazing modern country (compare to the surrounding countries).
The story of the peaceful native Arabs that somehow got forcibly displaced through some "occupation" is bogus. Never happened. The Arabs that got displaced got displaced during a war they started after they rejected the partition plan (that gave them like 98% of the land in the middle east and like 75% of the original "British Mandate" land that included Jordan). Because Jews and Arabs apparently can't live together (not because of the Jews) then the reasonable solution at the time was to create different political entities for those groups. The partition plan left a tiny sliver of the Levant to be a primarily Jewish state (that guaranteed the rights of minorities, and still does, unlike any Arab country) and a vast middle east to the Arabs. The Arabs wouldn't have that and decided they were going to just kill the Jews and take all the land. This is how we got here. Now the people that ended up as refugees in that war (and their descendant) still want to kill the Jews and take the land.
So sure, some Palestinian, who maybe has ancient Israelite blood in his veins, needs to live somewhere else because of this. If his people actually wanted to make this a win/win and cared about things like human rights and freedom maybe this wouldn't be the outcome. But he's not "rejected" from Israel because of his faith or ethnicity.
Re: Genocide. The word has become meaningless. According to the anti-Israeli killing a single Palestinian can constitute a "genocide" as per their interpretation of the legal definition. The simple truth is that Israel is not killing all Palestinians because of them being Palestinians. Or all Gazans for any reason. I.e. there is no genocide. There might be war crimes in Gaza but those are not comparable to what most people would consider genocide and particularly not comparable to the Nazis systemic murder of six million Jews in Europe. There was no war in Europe between the Jews and the Germans. There were no military targets. There were no Jews that were not a target because they lived somewhere else. If you seriously can not see the difference then you need to read more about the Holocaust. Assuming 60,000 Gazans have been killed (which we don't know but that's the number Hamas publishes more or less) that number is perfectly in line with what you would expect in this kind of war, about half or 30% being combatants is also expected. If we didn't have a war, there wouldn't be civilian casualties. If we didn't have a war we wouldn't see the scale of destruction we see in Gaza. A war has two parties and Israeli soldiers are dying and getting wounded every day and Israel proper is still occasionally getting attacked by mortars and rockets.
Take a look at what Russia did to Checnya, or to Mariupol, or with Assad to Aleppo and other Syrian cities. Take a look at what western countries did in places like Mosul. In terms of brutality and impact to population Gaza is far from the worse war we've seen even in recent decades. It's certainly the war with the most media focus though. Never has a terrorist organization gotten so much positive media in the west. Uninvolved civilians shouldn't need to suffer like this, but it's a reality of war, a war that the Palestinians decided to start on Oct 7th and are still insisting on continuing to fight. There is a fine line- If Israel does change course towards murdering the entire population of Gaza then that's a different story. So far this has not been the story - far from it. Israel is mostly applying the same standard of care as any other western nation, and way above that of non-western nations. Russia leveled Grozny to the ground and 80k people were killed in that war ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War#Siege_of_Gr... ) and nobody said the g word.
EDIT: Also worth adding the word genocide was being thrown around from about Oct 8th without much relationship to Israel's actions. The dilution of this word is doing a disservice to humanity. It is weaponized as part the war as a tool for Palestinians against Israel. I have to admit this is working very well. The various forces here that are pushing narratives seem to have been very well prepared for the Oct 7th attack. I'm not sure if the word genocide has been used previously in the conflict - that's also possible. Using the word is a lot more effective than trying to have a more nuanced debate ratios between civilians and combatants and what is legal use of force in war and what isn't and comparing to other conflicts. Hamas must have known Israel would respond with a heavy hand and that would result in large scale destruction and civilian casualties. They obviously understood the consequences of using civilian infrastructure and tunneling under civilians.
> 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.
It's a statement. Jerusalem is a lot less significant to Muslims than to Jews.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_of_non-Islamic_plac...
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.
> 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.
Yeah no, that's wrong on multiple levels.
It's not legal if there is no intention to ever let the civilians return - then you have forced displacement and ethnic cleansing.
But even just assuming it were - we can agree that "leaving" would mean actually leaving the besieged area and get out of danger, right? The IDF is laying siege to the entire strip, not just Gaza city. No one is leaving when they are being pushed - or "concentrated" as your defense minister lovingly put it - into ever-smaller areas inside the combat zone.
Israel has ordered civilians to leave northern gaza: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c299pl8j8w7o
Most of the combat is happening there as well.
Israel is operating three food distribution centers in the southern part of the strip but only one in the north.
"The IDF has been directing civilians towards the “expanded humanitarian area” in al-Mawasi, a narrow coastal strip of agricultural land that was first designated as a “humanitarian zone” in October.
The expanded zone now measures 60 sq km.
The IDF said the area includes “field hospitals, tents and increased amounts of food, water, medication and additional supplies”.
A satellite image captured on 8 May shows what appears to be a new field hospital which has been constructed in Deir al-Balah."
Clearly life in the "humanitarian zone" sucks. But a lot less than in northern Gaza. Despite the often repeated mantra that "nowhere is safe in Gaza" that designated humanitarian zone is significantly safer (and there's data that shows that).
The IDF is not laying siege to the entire strip. It's not even laying siege to Northern Gaza. It's air dropping food in northern Gaza (following pressure - but still). There are three food distribution centers in southern Gaza (and I think they've also seen less violence but I'm not sure). In the south there are armed Palestinian factions that are collaborating with Israel.
Anyways, I'm appointing you to the general in charge of the war from the Israeli side. Your goal is to return the hostage and defeat Hamas. I'm interested in what your plan looks like.
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.
The majority of underage population is not starving to death.
https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/I...
"Malnutrition has been rising rapidly in the first half of July and has reached the Famine threshold in Gaza City. Over 20,000 children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July, with more than 3,000 severely malnourished.11 Hospitals have reported a rapid increase in hunger-related deaths of children under five years of age, with at least 16 reported deaths since 17 July"
This is not good but it's a far cry from the entire population starving to death. I'm not even gonna go into the Hamas runs the hospitals (which is true) angle here, let's just accept this at face value.
For some other context: https://www.science.org/content/article/child-malnutrition-s...
"Reductions in international aid funding to fight severe malnutrition in children under 5 could lead to 369,000 additional deaths each year, a consortium of experts in nutrition and food systems has warned."
...
"shrinking budgets could cut off treatment for 2.3 million severely malnourished young children worldwide. Nearly half of the projected additional deaths stem from the loss of support from the United States, which has axed thousands of grants worth tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid since President Donald Trump took office."
Famine in Sudan and Yemen, nobody cares. Who is taking to the streets and posting daily to Hacker News about the 369,000 people who are really starving to death due to actions of the United States (in this example)? No. The interesting story is how Israel has to provide for the polity that attacked it and murdered, raped, and took hostage its citizens and keeps fighting and not surrendering. It's the 16 children that Hamas reports died from starvation that are more deserving of people's anger than the 369,000 preventable deaths. It's the 20,000 cases of malnutrition Hamas reports and not the 2.3 million.
Israel should do better but the attacks on Israel are not about that. This is why I'm arguing here. The point is not that Israel doesn't have responsibilities - it does. The point is that Israel is being singled out. The western countries that are pressuring Israel now have never met the bar they try to hold Israel to or even cared about meeting it in their own actions. Not to even mention the non-western players like Russia or China where the bar is set significantly lower.
Israel is, as it should be, accelerating aid delivery to Gaza given the objectively worsening conditions. The difference in Gaza vs other people starving all over the world is that it is at war with Israel and the populated areas are controlled by Hamas.
An interesting by the way is that Egypt has refused to allow aid trucks through Rafah once Israel took the Gazan side of the border, now they've changed their minds:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/report-most-aid...
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/world/38-emirati-humanitar...
Throughout the war Egypt was partly responsible for not allowing aid into Gaza.
Gazans are in a terrible condition. They are in this condition partly due to their ongoing war on Israel. Israel is still responsible but it can't be held solely responsible. The UN sabotaging the efforts to provide aid via the GHF. Hamas attacking aid centers and aid convoys while trying to maximize and use their own civilians suffering. All those have a fair bit of responsibility. Israel has a right to defend itself by defeating Hamas. Hamas is using their own people's suffering as a tactic to survive this war.
Gazans were also shot by Hamas while lining up for aid.
https://x.com/cogatonline/status/1950161590168252650
"While Hamas promotes a campaign of so-called “starving Gaza,” its terrorists are feasting underground."
I would much prefer that the war ends in Gaza. But the war is not ending with Hamas in power. All those people attacking Israel should offer some alternative course of action that ensures that Hamas can not retake Gaza, re-arm itself, and keep attacking Israel. Israel can not "separate" the civilians from Hamas because Hamas won't allow that. What is really happening is that the international and media attacks on Israel are fueling Hamas' determination to hold on and prolonging the war.
>Over 20,000 children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition
How many beds are available in what hospitals to treat malnutrition.
https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/...
>Who is taking to the streets and posting daily to Hacker News about the 369,000 people
Whataboutism
>Israel is being singled out.
Finally
>Israel is, as it should be, accelerating aid delivery to Gaza given the objectively worsening conditions.
International pressure has forced Israel to alleviate conditions somewhat. The only pressure being responded to is that of recognising a Palestinian state. And thats only threatening as it would conclude or at best pause the project of genocide.
>Israel is still responsible but it can't be held solely responsible.
Israel could immediately return Rafah, leave Gaza, remove settlers from the west bank, repatriate the refugees, return them to their land and investigate (civilly) the population for Hamas.
Much like how Russia could simply turn around and leave Ukraine today.
>What is really happening is that the international and media attacks on Israel are fueling Hamas' determination to hold on and prolonging the war.
"If only people would stop complaining about our ongoing genocide, we could hurry up and complete the genocide"
Taking in those refugees, or having them leave and go anywhere is deeply unpopular everywhere. Because those refugees, have a right to return. They have land to go to, it might currently be illegally occupied, but their claim is valid.
Letting Israel force those refugees into another country just guarantees the completion of their racist genocidal settlement project.
Its weird to imply that refusing to help force them from their land is somehow inhumane, when the inhumanity is being driven by the force that drove them off their land and will shoot them if they try and return.
"The clock is never turning back". I really don't care which state controls the land, the people have a right to return. Really the 2 state solution is a distraction from Israels obligations to these people.
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.
I don't think you know much about jewish history. Not even the very beginning, as in "where does this name come from".
All the rest follows. Really, you should start from the very beginning.
About israel, you're probably reading the pov of a fringe minority that only sounds plausible because people analyze the past in today's context. Israel was many times on the brinks of defeat in the multiple wars that followed. Only since the fall of the soviet union did it become clear they were here to stay and started to build unmatched military superiority.
I know a fair bit about Jewish history, given that I'm generally interested in history and am Jewish myself.
The "fringe minority" POV that I'm reading is the mainstream historiography on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the standard works by Israeli historian Benny Morris.
> Israel was many times on the brinks of defeat in the multiple wars that followed. Only since the fall of the soviet union did it become clear they were here to stay and started to build unmatched military superiority.
This is a completely false and indefensible take on the history. Israel showed massive military superiority over the Arab states in 1967, when it defeated them in a matter of days, and it has been backed by the world's top superpower since then. Israel has been the only nuclear power in the Middle East since the 1960s. Its closest brush with defeat was in 1973, but it still managed to turn that around (with massive American aid), and has never faced any serious military threat since. Israel walked all over Lebanon in the 1980s, and nearly every Israeli war since then has had the same character: they've almost all been wars against small militant groups, not even other states. The only exception was the recent war Israel initiated against Iran, but even there, all Iran could do was lob missiles from a distance while Israel pummeled Iran from the air almost unchecked.
As I said, a major part of Israeli mythology is the idea that Israel is the scrappy underdog that manages to pull off miracles. But that is really just mythology. The reality is quite different, and Israel has had a distinct military advantage in every conflict it has ever fought, going back to its founding.
the "new historians" movement isn't standard by any mean, and their work is tainted by ideology and ubris in every step.
It's easy now to say that israel had "distinct advantages". But in the context of the cold war, with a tenth of the soldier, fighting against 4 countries, completely surrounded, you'd have to be crazy to consider yourself having a clear advantage.
Jews that lived through the 1960s/70s period distinctly remember how every war had everybody wonder if israel would survive any longer.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
> It was also lifted shortly thereafter.
It was not "lifted shortly after". It was lifted after several weeks, when the Biden administration pressured the Israeli government into doing so.
It was Oct 9-21, so 12 days; I wouldn’t call that “several weeks”.
Ah, true.
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?
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...
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.
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.
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.
>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.
Israel wants the west bank and golan heights. Gaza is worthless, no one wants it. Israel tried to pay egypt to take it and egypt refused.
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)
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.
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.
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?
Because the gazans kept starting then losing wars against israel and getting occupied is what happens when you lose wars?
[flagged]
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.
That's still speculation.
>The reason Palestine may be important for them
When I said they did 9/11 over US support of Israel, I didn't mean that they did it because of Israel's occupation of Palestine. They did it because Israel is the inventor of modern terrorism (Lehi and Irgun, the head of the latter was even an Israel PM!) and has terrorized every single surrounding nation since its invention by the British over a century ago.
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.
Why did they build the settlements?
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).1897: Russians 33% Ukrainians 11% 1989 Russians 67% Ukrainians 25%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.
Or when Hamas surrenders ? It’s a war?
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.
Yep. "Always give your opponent a path to retreat".
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.
Yep, I agree that they should have stopped by now.
> 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.
Nah. Morality isn’t just for when it’s convenient. I find it kind of racist to liken Palestine to children. They know what they were doing when they went on a killing spree on October 7. Just like Israel did when they bombed peoples homes.
They're not a child in this analogy because they lack the knowledge of right and wrong, but because they lack power.
To relitigate this analogy, it is morally wrong for the child to kick you in the shin, but it's far more useful to worry about the actions the adults are taking because, again, they have most of the power.
Hamas had more than enough power on October 7 to murder and kidnap a whole lot of people. They also have the funding and power to build a network of tunnels under Gaza which has so far thwarted the IDF's capacity to find the kidnapped civilians and bring them home.
They're not all-powerful. But thats cold comfort to everyone who lost loved ones in the attack. They sure kicked Israel in the teeth.
Yes, obviously, but my point is that focusing on them, or even treating them as equal, is not the most effective way to actually solve the problem.
Designating someone as a "bad person" and then focusing on punishing them is simple and feels good. It's just not effective.
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!?!?
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.
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.
>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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think the number one demand from Palestinians at the moment is that food gets in and the bombs stop falling.
That's true now in Gaza, sure. But before 10/7, 85%+ of Gazans were in favor of killing Israeli civilians in Israel as a general policy.
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.
It is ironic that you are talking about canned responses (or questions).
>> 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.
______________
[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]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]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)
Beef up border security and fully embrace gaza as a prison camp. Oct 7th never would have happened if Israel didnt have a massive security fuck up
What options did the Palestinian people have after the atrocities of October 6th?
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.
[flagged]
I think we should give credit where credit it due in that the people in power in Israel is using the old holocaust as an excuse to commit another. The people in power do not 100% represent the people of a nation.
I draw the line far before supporting genocide they should all be in prison.
Imagine thinking they don't have any idea what it was. Truly a naive perspective.
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.
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...
[flagged]
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.
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?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_apartheidIsraeli 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.
No, because of the West Bank, where Israel DOES have control.
Through illegal military occupation of a foreign territory. Was WWII Germnau also an apartheid state because of their occupation of Poland and other territories?
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?
We could argue about who started (certainly it didn't start on October 7, if that's what you mean), but that's beside the point, I think. We can assume the the cycle of violence has been going on forever, with no clear initiator (or with an initiator on the losing side, for what matters).
Would you be relieved to know that they're taking your home and killing your innocent family because someone on your side did something bad before? Or would the sense of injustice push you to more violence against the other side? And how would you deal with the knowledge that the other side is actually gaining ground at each further round of violence, unilaterally deciding what's fair for them to take, and that even if you can swallow your pride and stay put, someone else from your side eventually break and provide more reasons for the next persecution?
Oct 7th wasnt justified because there was no way it could work. It was 100% doomed to make the lives worse for everyone in gaza. If it had a chance of working it would be justified. Alls fair in love and war after all, but just terrorism against an enemy as resolute as israel isnt war, its suicide. Palestine has every right to attack israel, their problem is that they cant.
True, Palestine can't win against Israel with its own forces. No military can, in fact, as the world's sole superpower is ready to defend it unconditionally and at all costs.
So the only way out is to force the West to change their mind and break their ties with Israel. I don't know if those who planned October 7 had in mind only to use the hostages to keep the West's attention on Palestine, or if they had already taken in account Israel's barbaric reaction. Somehow though, at an absurd price, it's working. The public image of Israel is compromised for decades, people are horrified, Israeli lobbies are exposed, the ICC has issued arrest warrants against the Israeli PM, the call for sanctions is louder every day, the images of a new genocide are on everyone's screens.
What is incredible is the straitjacket that the Israeli lobbies have put the Western leaders in: two years into a televised genocide the Western powers have barely started to condemn it in words, but still have failed to take any meaningful action. Of this, too, the people are taking notice.
> The public image of Israel is compromised for decades, people are horrified, Israeli lobbies are exposed, the ICC has issued arrest warrants against the Israeli PM, the call for sanctions is louder every day, the images of a new genocide are on everyone's screens.
Frankly, so what? The west cant abandon Israel because the second they do israel just turns to china and begins the actual final solution to their palestinian problem. If you think the israelis are mistreating the palestinians now just wait until you see what they do when theyre a full pariah state. End of the day geopolitical reality for western leaders is still probably that backing israel is better than the alternatives for them.
You think? I don't think so. On one hand because Israel considers itself a Western country and its people have deep ties with the West and care a lot about their place in it; on the other, because the pillars of the unconditional support Israel has enjoyed so far (deep historical ties, antisemitism and holocaust guilt, powerful political lobbies, religion) are difficult or impossible to replicate with China. Finally, China is not eager to pick military fights with the West- look at how useful they've been in helping Iran face a military attack from Western powers.
I know that you were probably exaggerating, but when you say: "just wait until you see what they do when they're a full pariah state", I need to remind you that full pariah states are routinely sanctioned, embargoed and bombed by the US and NATO allies for much less than Israel has been doing so far. So no, they don't want to go that way. If that were the way to have a free hand with Palestine, they might have abandoned the West long ago.
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.
Yes, I think we all realise that nation-building and intervening in foreign countries for regime change is a mistake, and what comes after is usually worse (Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan etc).
Unfortunately the citizens of these countries don't want to live in functioning democracies.
>Unfortunately the citizens of these countries don't want to live in functioning democracies.
That is utterly incorrect. They want to live in sovereign democracies with control over their own nations resources.
The USA and its allies do not want that, as they have - as a whole - designated themselves the "shepherds" of the "lesser cultures of the world". A viewpoint you have propagated.
Yes and this was incredibly evil and should go down in the history books as a crime.
It is true that the US often acts like an imperialist monster. That doesn't make other similar behavior acceptable.
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.
It's not even that. When Palestinians had widespread Arab support and their position was stronger, they kept on rejecting the two-state solution. Now, the situation is such that Israel can unilaterally get a one-state solution, so they're asking for a two-state solution.
> 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.
The West Bank tried diplomacy, the PA is Israel's puppet and doesn't stop the settlements and the violence of those settlers. Americans have died at the hands of that settler violence protected by the IDF and ignored by the PA.
What has that gotten them? Turns out, there's no diplomacy with the terrorist regime of Israel
They have never stopped launching rockets and suicide bombing Israelis, just to kill them, which is their stated goal. That isn't diplomacy.
The PA launches rockets?? That's a first-time hasbara line. Other groups, sure, even from the West Bank, but they're not in power and it's minuscule compared to the violence of the occupation. The settlers, with the IDF in tow, literally just killed a well-known documentarian and, a week or so ago, a US citizen, and that's just the recent ones that are known enough in the US to get coverage here. Do a google search and you'll see the ratio of Palestinians in the West Bank killed to Israelis injured shows that Israel isn't interested in diplomacy, it's interested in 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."
You're taking this way off the topic I was replying to about why the ports and borders in Gaza are blocked. It's because they are used to import weapons to kill Israelis (Jewish people).
But now you're moving goalposts and changing the topic because the truth is the people of Gaza want more weapons to kill more Israelis (Jewish people).
With this definition you might as well argue that bread is a lethal projectile that cannot be trusted in the hands of your neighbor. Gotta shut down the roads, and the borders, and the airspace, and the aid depots, and the trucks carrying aid, all because of weapons...? Some moving goalpost.
You are morally despicable if you cannot even acknowledge the issue with that. It has nothing to do with politics, you don't get to deflect the question because Israel's extremism makes you uncomfortable. We're gathered in this thread (with increasing frequency) because Israeli foreign policy leaves so much to be desired.
The parent is correct, regardless of how you or I wished it happened. Israel never pulled out, they crippled the Gaza strip because they wanted annexation more than peace.
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?
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.
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"?
Maybe your trust in people with titles and credentials is exaggerated.
Are you familiar with the concept of ad hominem? It a logical fallacy in which one does not refute an argument directly - e.g. that if there were mass starvation, we would see groups of skinny starving people, and not singular children with genetic disorders that make them skinny - but rather one argues against the person making the argument (e.g the person making the argument is "random" and not a news source).
No. Do not "have faith" in media. The media gets things wrong constantly. Worse, it prioritizes narrative consistency and consensus over factual truth or ambiguity.
> "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.
"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.
X is "What do Israelis do about the fact of an extremely hostile population of Arabs on their border who is dedicated to their destruction? Some are nice, sure, but most overwhelmingly want them and their children dead."
Ok, go. Two states? Palestinians overwhelmingly want one state. Build a wall? UN hates it. Leave them alone to do as they will? Israel ethnically cleansed Gaza... of Jews* and that didn't work.
What should Israel do?
"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
> What do Israelis do about the fact of an extremely hostile population of [Palestinians] on their border who is dedicated to their destruction? Some are nice, sure, but most overwhelmingly want them and their children dead...
Before we answer that: what do Palestinians do about the fact of an extremely hostile population of israelis on their border who is dedicated to their destruction? Some are nice, sure, but most overwhelmingly want Palestinians and their children dead.
Both of those concerns are covered at the link above, starting with the words, "Everything else...", because both of those concerns are less important than stopping war crimes and ethnic cleansing.
> What should Israel do?
Please take the time to read the post I linked above, and answer there, as it answers this question.
While you do that, consider expanding the question: "What should israel and Palestine do", since the 2 warring countries and their peoples are equal, have equal rights, and deserve equal protection.
Before we answer that: what do Palestinians do about the fact of an extremely hostile population of israelis on their border who is dedicated to their destruction? Some are nice, sure, but most overwhelmingly
Why before we answer that? Why not just answer the question directly? Again, Before we answer that is a diversion.
But ok, for the sake of argument, let's grant that Israel despises Palestinians and if Israel stopped the aggression then there would be peace and harmony and 2 states and the border could be as friendly and porous as between the US and Canada.
Nevertheless, Israel believes that if it stopped fighting, the Israeli people would be overrun and slaughtered. Since you earnestly want to save Palestinian lives, and that is more important to you than hating on Israel, you have to say something to stop the fighting. Right here and now you have the ear of the nation of Israel, so you say what?
So, again, if you have no more answer to the conundrum than repeating over and over Israel bad then you are unserious.
> Israel believes that if it stopped fighting, the Israeli people would be overrun and slaughtered.
So does every genocidal perpetrator. It is not a surprise that someone committing ethnic cleansing or genocide will attempt to justify it as self-defense.
Fortunately, as explained at the linked post above, a unilateral claim of self-defense is not a serious justification for ethnic cleansing and genocide.
> Right here and now you have the ear of the nation of Israel, so you say what?
'The ear of' the perpetrator of ethnic cleansing and genocide is an unserious concept. Did the allies convince hitler to stop his holocaust by 'having his ear'? If you think so, then now is a good opportunity for you yourself to suggest how you would convince israel to stop their ethnic cleansing and genocide. You have the ear of the nation of Israel! What do you suggest? Remember:
- All people are equal, so your proposal cannot prioritize israeli interests, needs, or safety over those of Palestinians, or vice versa.
- Ethnic cleansing and genocide are bad no matter what, and worse than anything else anybody can do, and thus stopping it is more important than israel's military or political goals.
- "We will stop perpetrating crimes against humanity if..." cannot legally be used as a bargaining chip.
- As a good heuristic: if your proposal is serious, it would likely be able to gain majority support in the UNGA.
Your serious proposal is eagerly awaited. If you have no more answer to the conundrum than repeating over and over violate international law, commit crimes against humanity then you are unserious.
> it would likely be able to gain majority support in the UNGA
LOL. The UNGA that in 2022 issued 15 resolutions against Israel versus 6 against Russia, 1 against North Korea and 0 against China who is actually committing genocide, and is comprised of 22 Arab Muslim nations among others who, like you, think this is eminently reasonable and not at all obsessive? They wouldn't know a solution if it bit them.
Well, if you had a solution, you would have stated it by now. War it is, then, even though people like you will completely unseriously call it genocide. You have a lot of company, unfortunately.
Your opinion of the UN, as one person of billions, is noted, and your sharing it is appreciated. That said, their credibility exceeds yours, so your judgement of them is a bit moot.
Now, if you have no more answer to the conundrum than repeating over and over, violate international law, commit crimes against humanity, then you are unserious.
Perhaps the UN has more credibility than I. And yet, the UN has not formally accused Israel of genocide. I could write a similar patronizing "Your opinion is noted, but people with more credibility disagree with you" but I shall not. You should then however, by your own logic, concede that your accusations are without merit. While Francesca Albanese, special raconteur on Palestine has accused Israel of genocide, the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Israel, Hungary, Albania and Argentina have officially lodged complaints over her overt anti-Semitic comments. She is not impartial, as is her mandate. Recently, the United States even sanctioned her, personally. She has credibility only with similar persons such as yourself.
Go ahead and have the last word. I will read it carefully.
Still no serious proposals from you, it seems.
I'll refer you back here for guidance on the matter:
Me? Oh, no. I think Israel is doing amazingly well under extremely difficult circumstances. No notes.
We likely saw the same language being used in support of the holocaust, both from the perpetrators and sympathizers. I like to think we're all for not repeating that. So, no serious proposals from you, it seems.
I'll refer you back here for guidance on the matter:
In support of the Holocaust, we saw people attacking Jews as we do today. We saw the Arabs of Palestine allying with Nazis to smear and attack Jews, as we do today. As today, we had their Western enablers, such as yourself, accusing Jews - oops, I mean Zionists - of all kinds of horrible things. As today, we saw genuinely intelligent people agreeing with each other that Jews are just the worst.
The only difference between then and today is that Jews have an army. People like you hate that.
I know, it's crazy how we see israel perpetrating a holocaust in palestine and justifying it with the same language germany used to justify theirs.
Anyways, no serious proposals from you, it seems. I'll refer you back here for guidance on the matter:
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.
>> "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.
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.
> 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...
So saying then >50% Israelis (conservatively) support starvation of Gazans is not an overreach.
Also support for one group does not imply that all supporters take up arms in solidarity with said group.
> 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.
Alright, so based on that logic then:
"Israelis have created a man-made starvation with particular emphasis on blocking baby formula and other life-saving essentials from Gaza."
I'm not saying all Israelis. Just following your logic.
Easy. It's a cheap generalisation, like "Israelis perpetuating man-made starvation in Gaza".
No, it's not all Israelis. It's the IDF (IOF) under instruction from the maniacs in charge.
> 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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
Wow that’s super unrelated to the comment I was responding to, was it in the wrong place by accident?
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.
Wow that’s super unrelated to the comment I was responding to, was it in the wrong place by accident?
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.
If more civilian death help Hamas why does Israel‘s government help getting more dead civilians?
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.
Criticizing Nazi Germany was also "vogue" at some point and sympathisers of the third Reich had similar justifications for "self-defense" against Jews.
>>> 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.
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.
There was a report released recently but you're not quite correct. The report said that the allegiance of the raideres could not be verified in majority of the cases. In the cases where they marked IDF as the cause it was due to the IDF picking the route or blocking their intended route. The IDF was not raiding the trucks or supporting the raiders.
Netanyahu claimed himself that Israel were providing weapons to the Popular Forces/ATF. Seemingly for the same reason they bolstered Hamas as the enemy of Fatah: the enemy of their enemy is their friend. That PF has IS connections doesnt seem to bother Netanyahu.
They are in control of many of the aid corridors especially around Gaza. Aid is only allowed through those corridors, and the PF (and other gangs) are raiding the aid trucks. Sometimes within reach of the IDF which stays passive.
Let enough aid come in, and there will be no money to be made from reselling it. If Hamas is stealing all the aid now as they claim, they will have more han enough for their forces already.
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.
> But this argument falls flat when essentially EVERY aid and human rights organization that operates in the strip is saying the same thing.
yes, because it’s not like access to Gaza has historically been controlled by a terrorist group. Hang on, wait a sec…
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.
If that was true then neither side would be allowed to comment. Likud is hardly sterilized of racist sentiments and politicians.
The outside world can still observe the consequences regardless of who's shaking the table.
The BBC is supposedly a neutral objective news source. Even if what’s you say about the IDF is correct (and knowing many Israelis it isn’t), nobody is asserting the IDF is a neutral objective news source.
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?
No. It’s pretty well-established that even if the distribution were perfect, there simply aren’t enough trucks going in.
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.
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.
> 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.
IDF has attacked UN peacekeepers in Lebanon at least.
The reason why they do that is because they know they have complete impunity. If Israeli attacks on the UN were followed by sanctions by major economies, the Israelis would think twice next time.
IIRC one of the third party partition plans involves a coalition of local governments staffing a neutral zone between Palestine and Israel. The issue for that plan is one of support (Israel doesnt like it, natch) and funding.
> 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.
What percentage of their staff works for Hamas? What's the proof they work for Hamas?
Israel has provided 0 proof, only allegations, and even then it's only a handful of people in an organization of tens of thousands. That's literally better than the ratio of rapist to citizen in Israel.
Numbers for proof: Israel claims 12 out of 30k (13k in Gaza), but the UN says only 9 "may have been involved". That's 0.1% of Palestinians in Gaza. There are 1.3k Israeli rapists in prison (not including the ones that fled the US to avoid prison) and 80% of rape allegations are closed without investigation. That's 0.1% of Israelis.
What do you mean by no proof? UNRWA has admitted that many of their staff members participated in Hamas attacks, they just dispute the amount. I’m sure you probably can guess it’s probably a large amount as the school systemically teach children to be martyrs - ie UNRWA openly supports terrorism - and you can easily confirm that for yourself.
I mean the provided no proof to anyone, UNRWA did their own investigation and said "maybe". That's not conclusive, that's "we can't prove otherwise and we want to still be let in". Little did they know Israel was going to attack them all anyway.
> UNRWA did their own investigation and said "maybe". That's not conclusive
OK. If I ran a supoposed aid organization and someone unjustly accused my staff of being terrorists, I wouldn't say "maybe" but you do you.
It's tough to investigate during an invasion and subsequent siege and genocide, no? Let in some western journalists and you'll get a lot of those facts that are currently hard to come by.
But there is no genocide. And the border control is due to the Hamas murder rampage.
The Palestinian refugee problem is fairly unique in the modern world to begin with.
Israel is arguably the last colonial state to be founded, at a time when colonialism was on the way out. The Israelis expelled a massive number of people into the surrounding countries, and have since refused to allow the Palestinians to return to their homes, which are inside what is now Israel. The Palestinians naturally want to return home, and the neighboring countries do not want to provide for millions of refugees created by Israel, so the Palestinians are in permanent limbo.
The obvious solution would be for Israel to allow the Palestinians to return home, and to pay for their resettlement. But Israel refuses to do that, because the entire idea behind Israel is that the country must have a decisive Jewish majority.
As for your various accusations against UNRWA, they're just a rehash of the standard Israeli propaganda against the agency. The actual reason why Israel dislikes UNRWA is because the existence of Palestinian refugees is a problem for Israel.
> The Israelis expelled a massive number of people into the surrounding countries, and have since refused to allow the Palestinians to return to their homes, which are inside what is now Israel.
A huge part of the Exodus was the Arab league telling Arabs to leave their homes in 1948 while they destroyed the new Jewish state, because they didn’t just want Jordan and the proposed second Arab state from British Palestine they wanted everything from the river to the sea, which probably would’ve destroyed all the jewish people (witness all the violence pre-1948 from Arabs to Jews). Meanwhile, contrary to arab nationalist claims, ben gurion asked Arabs to stay and peacefully join the new country which is why Israel is 20% Arab.
The other thing you’ve omitted is the greater number of Jews that were expelled from Arab states. you haven’t asked for them to be able to return either, but it’s probably not a good idea as they would be killed, as is typical for anybody who doesn’t follow or has left Islam in Arabic countries. Witness the current genocide against the druze people in Syria.
saying my points are a rehash of standard propaganda is silly: anyone can verify that we know UNRWA staff are members of hamas, that UNRWA facilities are routinely used by Hamas, that UNRWA schools teach children to desire to be martyrs and that UNRWA has a different definition of refugee than UNHCR. The very obvious solution is UNRWA should be disbanded.
> A huge part of the Exodus was the Arab league telling Arabs to leave their homes in 1948
That's a myth. It simply isn't true. Israeli historians have gone through the reasons why Palestinians left every town, and almost all of them were either expelled at gunpoint or fled in the face of advancing Zionist / Israeli forces. Only the wealthiest Palestinian families had the means to leave in advance, as they saw the war coming.
> ben gurion asked Arabs to stay and peacefully join the new country which is why Israel is 20% Arab.
This is such an absurd claim to anyone who is even remotely familiar with Ben Gurion's life and politics. Ben Gurion was one of the most important supporters of the idea of expelling Palestinians.
> The other thing you’ve omitted is the greater number of Jews that were expelled from Arab states.
They were expelled in the decades afterwards, as a consequence of the bad blood Israel created throughout the Arab world with the expulsion of the Palestinians. In any case, two wrongs do not make a right, and the treatment of Jews in the Arab world after Israel's establishment does not justify Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1947-48.
> you haven’t asked for them to be able to return either
If they want to, they should be able to. But they don't want to, so this is a moot point.
> they would be killed, as is typical for anybody who doesn’t follow or has left Islam in Arabic countries
This is a historically ignorant claim. Muslim countries were historically more religiously tolerant than Christian countries. That changed for the Jews in the Arab world for two reasons: the foundation of Israel and imported antisemitic ideas from Europe.
Palestine is actually a major counterexample to your claim about Muslim countries. There are many Christian Palestinians, and they have been very prominent in the Palestinian national movement (Edward Said was Christian, for example). If you've followed the news, you'll know that Israel has repeatedly bombed Christian churches in Gaza, which is why the Israeli government got into a row with the Pope recently.
> UNRWA staff are members of hamas
This is like saying that McDonald's staff are murderers. A tiny number of UNWRA staff (you can literally count them on two hands) were alleged to be Hamas members, out of 30k employees.
> UNRWA schools teach children to desire to be martyrs
The idea that Palestinians have to be taught by the UN to hate Israel is absurd. They hate Israel for the same reason Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto hated Germany. The UN does a remarkable job of instituting neutral education in that environment, and is constantly bending over backwards to appease Israel, including allowing Israel to review their educational materials and list of employees.
> The very obvious solution is UNRWA should be disbanded.
It's the obvious solution if you want to starve and immiserate the Palestinians.
> > A huge part of the Exodus was the Arab league telling Arabs to leave their homes in 1948 while they destroyed the new Jewish state, because they didn’t just want Jordan and the proposed second Arab state from British Palestine they wanted everything from the river to the sea, which probably would’ve destroyed all the jewish people (witness all the violence pre-1948 from Arabs to Jews).
> That's a myth. It simply isn't true.
What part? That the Arab league wanted full control of multiethnic Palestine? That they tried to stop Israel being created? That they intended to make Israel a warzone?
> > ben gurion asked Arabs to stay and peacefully join the new country which is why Israel is 20% Arab.
> This is such an absurd claim
It's history. "Ben-Gurion’s 1948 Speech to arab population"
> In any case, two wrongs do not make a right
So do you support a right of return for Jews to Arab states or not? How will you guarantee their safety?
> Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1947-48
There were no Palestinians in 1947 which you should be aware of before you discuss this topic. And Arabs in 1948 were not ethnically cleansed by anyone. Look at the population statistics.
> Muslim countries were historically more religiously tolerant than Christian countries. That changed for the Jews in the Arab world for two reasons: the foundation of Israel and imported antisemitic ideas from Europe.
lol. Arab violence against Jews was commonplace, much like it's still commonplace. You can look up cases of widespread violence from before Israel became independent very easily. Also the grand mufti aligning himself with Hitler. Hence partitioning.
> If you've followed the news, you'll know that Israel has repeatedly bombed Christian churches in Gaza.
They hit the facade of a church by accident, hit the facade, owned the error.
> A tiny number of UNWRA staff (you can literally count them on two hands) were alleged to be Hamas members
And admitted by UNRWA.
> UNRWA schools teach children to desire to be martyrs
The idea that Palestinians have to be taught by the UN to hate Israel is absurd.
> They hate Israel for the same reason Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto hated Germany.
Because they're brainwashed by Islamic extremism?
> The UN does a remarkable job of instituting neutral education in that environment
So you think wanting to be martyrs and kill jews is neutral?
> Including allowing Israel to review their educational materials and list of employees.
I suspect what you and I have seen wasn't reviwed by Israel and I bet you you know this.
> (disbanding UNRWA) is the obvious solution if you want to starve and immiserate the Palestinians.
They're already miserable. Hamas is stockpiling their food and charging them for it. UNRWA and Hamas need to go.
Do you support reintegrating Pakistan and India? Do you think Pakistan and India are legitimite states? Why or why not?
> What part?
That the Palestinians left on their own accord because the Arab League or whoever on their side told them to.
> lol. Arab violence against Jews was commonplace
No, it wasn't. It was much rarer than in Europe.
> They hit the facade of a church by accident, hit the facade, owned the error.
Ah yes, they've bombed every church "by accident" now.
> And admitted by UNRWA.
Actually, UNWRA was not able to confirm the Israeli government accusations, because the Israeli government refused to provide evidence. But you're tacitly admitting here that only a few UNWRA employees were ever accused of being involved with Hamas.
> Because they're brainwashed by Islamic extremism?
Because they live under military occupation. The Palestinian national movement was secular for decades, is multireligious, and not motivated by Islamism in any fundamental sense.
> So you think wanting to be martyrs and kill jews is neutral?
This has nothing to do with Jews. It has to do with Israel. Stop pretending this is 1940 Germany.
> This has nothing to do with Jews. It has to do with Israel.
I’ve mentioned a few times but reiterating you can easily look up massacres of Jews by Arabs prior to 1948. Arabs colonised the Middle East, their religious includes fighting Jews at the end of time, and they commonly hate anyone else existing in the area. Look at what happened to the Christians and Druze.
You can look up massacres of Arabs by Jews too. This has kind of been mostly forgotten in recent decades, but the Zionist movement carried out many terrorist attacks in the 1930s and '40s.
> Look at what happened to the Christians and Druze.
You know that Christians are a significant part of the Palestinian population, right? They suffered the same fate as Muslim Palestinians at the hands of Israel - mass expulsion, theft of their homes and property, and military occupation.
You’re comparing isolated cases of violence (mainly against the British who were an occupying power stopping Israel from accepting Jews) with Islam attacking entire Christian countries, including Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan.
There many things wrong here:
* Israel didn't exist yet.
* These weren't "isolated cases of violence." There were Zionist terrorist groups behind these campaigns of terrorism. Leading figures in the two most important Zionist terrorist groups were later elected Prime Minster of Israel.
* Zionist groups carried out many terrorist attacks on Arab civilians, not just on British forces.
* "Islam attacking entire Christian countries, ...": Are you talking about the 7th Century again? Why are we discussing the Eastern Roman Empire? I thought we were talking about the modern world.
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.
Refugee camps in Palestine are distinct from normal city blocks. They are extremely crowded areas that were never meant to be permanent. If Israel had allowed the civilian population that it expelled at its founding to return home, then the camps would not have become permanent. But Israel refuses, because the refugees are Arab, and Israel is an ethno-religiously defined country.
Refugee camps are permanent buildings and the only distinction is that they are called refugee camp for a made up definition of the term of refugee that is completely distinct from UNHCR, that’s how you know that these people are not refugees.
if you don’t know that these people are not refugees do more research on UNRWA and UNHCR and then stop telling people that they are refugees when they are not refugees.
gaza isn’t cramped you silly person, You can jump on TikTok or Instagram right now and see people having fun in cafés car dealerships and restaurants.
you could also confirm that Arabs in Israel which are 20% of the population have more rights than arabs in any Arab country - there are Arab members of Parliament talking to other members of Parliament in Arabic in Parliament. Meanwhile, Arabs in most other states can’t even pick their own leaders, be gay, or leave islam safely.
Is Israel, despite being more diverse than any other country in the middle east, the only ethno religious state you dislike or do you really hate the 22 arab states too (and presumably the 23rd arab state you are proposing)? Why is that?
> Refugee camps are permanent buildings and the only distinction is that they are called refugee camp
You can identify them from satellite images. They're extremely dense, squalid knots inside Palestinian cities that were never meant to be permanent.
> made up definition of the term of refugee
The Palestinians are refugees by any reasonable definition. They were kicked out of their homes by Israel, forced to flee, and have been stateless ever since.
> gaza isn’t cramped you silly person, You can jump on TikTok or Instagram right now and see people having fun in cafés car dealerships and restaurants.
Most buildings in Gaza have been leveled. You're like a person in 1943 who believes Nazi propaganda about how the Warsaw Ghetto is actually great.
> you could also confirm that Arabs in Israel which are 20% of the population have more rights than arabs in any Arab country
You're ignoring the millions of Arabs (called "Palestinians") who live under Israeli rule with no rights whatsoever. They can even be killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers with no consequences.
> Why is that?
You're so close to calling me an antisemite. Why not just say what you mean. And then I'll laugh in your face and inform you about my own background.
This may be difficult to fathom, but most people are disgusted by seeing Israel's mass murder of Palestinians. Calling people antisemites isn't going to work anymore.
[flagged]
> Yes because they're buildings.
You're not reading what I'm writing. They're visible as extremely dense areas, similar to the notorious "walled city" that used to exist inside Kowloon.
> They are not by UNHCR's definition.
They are actually refugees by the UNHCR's definition. Refugee status also applies to families of people who are expelled. The key element is whether their situation has changed so that they are no longer in exile, displaced, stateless, etc. The Palestinians are still all of those things.
> As discussed, Ben Gurion encouraged Arabs to stay and peacefully join the new state, which is a matter of history and evidenced by Israel's large Arab population. Arab leaders told their people to leave the warzone, which is also documented history. "no u" is not an adequate response.
This is just completely delusional. Of all the people you could have chosen to make this argument about, Ben Gurion is the absolute last person you should choose. He is on the record many times as having supported "transfer," which was the term used back then for what we would now call "ethnic cleansing." There are many quotes from him on the subject. Here is one from 1937, as translated by Benny Morris:
"We do not want to dispossess, [but piecemeal] transfer of population [through Jewish purchase and the removal of Arab tenant farmers] occurred previously, in the [Jezreel] Valley, in the Sharon and in other places ... Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out ... Transfer is what will make possible a comprehensive [Jewish] settlement programme. Thankfully, the Arab people have vast empty areas [in Transjordan and Iraq]. Jewish power, which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out the transfer on a large scale."
And of course, in 1947-48, he actually oversaw the mass expulsion of 80% of the Arab population of the territory that became Israel. Even after the war, Ben Gurion oversaw the passage of the "present absentee" laws that were used to continue expelling Arab civilians from Israel. The reason why there's an Arab minority in Israel today is because the expulsion was not complete. Without the mass expulsions of 1947-48, Israel would never have had anything remotely approaching a Jewish majority in the first place.
> lol I just showed you what Arabs are posting from Gaza about their lives and you're still pretending I haven't done that.
First, anyone who has seen any of the images coming out of Gaza knows that your whole "they're enjoying cafes" line is cynical and absurd. Over a thousand Palestinians have been killed at the food distribution sites, and yet hundreds of thousands of Palestinians continue to regularly risk their lives just to get small boxes of food. Second, the way you regularly refer to them as them "Arabs" instead of "Palestinians" is a dead giveaway that you're a racist.
> You're a deeply silly person that belives easily disproven conspiracy theories about Jewish people.
I'm Jewish, so you'll have to find a different line of attack.
> No I am not. Those arabs aren't in Israel. Those live outside Israel
They live under Israeli rule, surrounded by Israeli settlements and military checkpoints. They functionally live inside Israel. If you go there, the Israeli soldiers will even tell you that you are in Israel. That's how they see it.
> You are either racist or simply believe racist propaganda, which is fairly commom as a member of the far left. Your background doesn't change anything, identity politics are for the intellectually weak.
It's funny how you still want to continue the "you're an antisemite" line of attack, even knowing that you're talking to a Jewish person. You really don't have any better arguments.
> Of course they would be, but you made up those images.
Again, your cynicism is off the charts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Also my social circle.
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.
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.
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.
>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?
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.
I was making no comment on the flagging or moderation of posts, only their submission.
For example, more posts will be submitted that support the view that individuals have a right to privacy than the opposite ('more wrong') view.
You don't seem to be accounting for this outcome - no flagging or moderation, accidental or intentional, just a difference in the number of submissions for each view.
The sun doesn't rise by accident or design, it just rises.
But you replied to comment that specifically pondered about flagging and moderation. There are enough users (though still in minority) to submit and upvote the stories for the opposite view. There are comments supporting "wrong" view that survive. There is no downvote so the only way to suppress the submissions is to flag then and this is indeed what happens.
Political stories are usually getting flag enough by people who don't want politics on HN, people disagreeing with it/believing it's not good content and eventual mod interventions. So if "accidental" framing bothers you, I can rephrase.
Either mods are not intervening, and HN consensus is strong enough to overcome the flagging on this specific topic. I would expect more stories on main in this case, but it is an option (what I called accidental).
Alternatively, mods do intervene, either by manually unflagging some stories, or manually demoting some, but not all of them (what I called intentional). In this case I'd want to know what's the argument [1] for it
And the sun either rises by design of whoever designed our universe or because the solar system appeared by accident out of initial conditions of the big bang.
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".
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).
* (edit: what I mean is that there don't exist large bad groups in the world, except in the trivial case of groups whose definition has badness baked into it)
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.
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.
Might not be worth much but I just want to thank you for being willing to put in the work to make such discussions possible even though clearly (wink) the vast majority of comments don't want to have a discussion. I would have shut it down writing it off as too much work for almost no result.
I don't even want to comment on-topic because I already know nobody will seriously consider my point of view, but just downvote and attack me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nobody? It's in Iran's interest.
Iranian propaganda cant even convince the west that it was adhering to the IAEA deal.
The Islamophobic contingent of American society loves a good conspiracy theory about muslims controlling the media though.
Who said anything about controlling it?
And I'm not referring to Muslims in general, but the government of Iran. They're not trying to convince the world they're good guys. They're trying to convince the world that their puppets are on the side of good. Never mind the horror show that results wherever their puppets get control.
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.
Yep, that's a big part of it: a disengaging, large diaspora of secular Jewish-ish people who are thoroughly Westernized, open society ordinary folks who are mostly shocked by what's happening but don't have any familial, social, political, or economic influence.
I've been listening to Norman Finkelstein, Gideon Levy, The Salukie, Hamzah Saadah, and Corey Gil-Shuster for perspectives on what's happening inside and around the region.
He wrote it before the current conflict, but I'd also recommend Tablets Shattered by Joshua Leifer[1]. His book is where I first heard diaspora relations framed as such.
[1]: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/704833/tablets-shat...
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.
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.
The film The Battle of Algiers shows this well.
>>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).
> 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.
> 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.
>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...
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-...
--
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...)
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_...
> 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.
> 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.
> Are you trying to imply this was some kind of a real thing that happened?
I won't speak for GP, but it was very clearly a real thing (no "some kind of" qualifier necessary) that actually did happen.
I observed it to happen.
I observed it to negatively affect people I personally met and cared about.
I observed the creation of entire subreddits dedicated to the application of the technique, such as r/byebyejob which today has 650 thousand subscribers.
Wikipedia recognizes that it has happened (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture). (And this is despite that I would generally consider Wikipedia's coverage of political and cultural topics to be biased against me.)
I have been observing it for over a decade, longer than it had a name (if Wikipedia is to be believed, anyway — although of course one should naturally expect "cancelling" to have existed for longer than the "culture" around it). For just one example completely off the top of my head, consider the case of Dr. Matt Taylor, who was browbeaten into apologizing for wearing a shirt (which was a gift from a female friend) deemed "sexist" (for depicting women in outfits that wouldn't be out of place in a general-audience comic book) and further harassed after apologizing. I followed this story closely as it happened.
Aside from that, if you disagree with someone else about facts, please speak plainly. Phrasing like yours implies a level of disdain and disrespect that is well outside my understanding of how discourse is expected to work on HN.
> Wikipedia recognizes that it has happened
The main point I want to make here is the difference between what people said happened and what actually happened.
> I have been observing it for over a decade, longer than it had a name
Let's define what "it" actually is:
Someone receiving social shame/criticism with the stated intent to change behaviour.
If you look slightly more than a decade ago, it happened then also. And the decade before that. And the century before that. Pretty much as long as we have records with the appropriate level of detail, we can find examples of this.
So yes, people were publicly shamed in the last decade. They were publicly shamed the decade before that as well. There was absolutely nothing special about anything that happened "recently" other than some pundits deciding to invent a catch term and push a meme around the culture.
My issue is that the people who started this meme and pushed it the hardest, were doing so in an attempt to deflect or prevent themselves and their ideas from being criticized, and mostly they really deserved criticism.
It's certainly possible to be an "unwitting dupe" and continue to spread this meme, not knowing any better, but I'm not sure it's the most likely scenario.
As for your example, the evidence you've presented certainly makes him seem like an innocent victim of bullying him. I sympathize and wish it hadn't happened to him.
But you can't use this as some kind of statement to justify being against shame and criticism just because people use it immorally.
> Someone receiving social shame/criticism with the stated intent to change behaviour.
It was not simply "social shame/criticism". People lost their jobs for doing things that simply didn't reasonably merit such a consequence. In fact, they lost jobs for things that I don't think can reasonably be considered wrongdoing at all. Not only were they targeted on social media, but in high-profile cases the media ended up grossly misrepresenting their actions.
See also e.g. James Damore. I have read what he actually wrote. The large majority of accusations that were made (and are still referred to) about what he wrote, are simply not supported by a plain textual analysis. He was accused of expressing unacceptable ideas that he objectively did not express, and he lost his job because of it.
And then, well, perhaps you remember https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681 . Attempts at cancellation occurred in both directions there. Though it's worth highlighting that the joke was not directed at anyone (including the presenter) and not even intended to be heard by Ms. Richards, or really anyone besides the guy's (male) colleague. And the guy who made the joke is, in my mind, weirdly contrite about having done nothing worse than making a puerile joke in a nominally professional space, for a social purpose. (Also, everything would have worked out just fine if Ms. Richards had kept the story off social media and followed the procedure that had been outlined in the newly added Code of Conduct that was specifically provided to pacify people like Ms. Richards who had been unsatisfied with the atmosphere of the convention in previous years.)
> My issue is that the people who started this meme and pushed it the hardest, were doing so in an attempt to deflect or prevent themselves and their ideas from being criticized, and mostly they really deserved criticism.
Disagree, in the strongest possible terms, based on what I've actually seen play out in practice. When I saw these things happening on social media, and looked into the evidence, in the large majority of cases I found that the actions were blameless and the criticism ridiculous.
> It's certainly possible to be an "unwitting dupe" and continue to spread this meme, not knowing any better
To "not know better", I would have to be wrong.
I know that I am not wrong because there was an extended period of my life when I would spend hours a day examining the evidence. Cases like the one you find sympathetic were the norm, not the exception.
I don't remember more than a few cases because in large part I have tried to move on from that phase of my life. But I find it frankly insulting to be told that my personal experiences were not as I actually experienced them, and condescending to be described as "possibly an unwitting dupe" in a way that implies that this is supposed to be the charitable take.
So this is a complicated subject that's hard to cover in a hackernews text box and I do actually appreciate you taking the time to engage with it.
To briefly touch on your examples of Damore and "mr-hank", as you point out, the total consequence of Damore being shamed was... he got fired. That's it. Millions of people get fired every year, I think we can assume that not all of them are justified.
The point I actually want to make is that speech absolutely does and should have consequences. Free speech is a great principle to apply to a government creating laws, it's less great when you're trying to apply it to individuals associating with each other.
The "mr-hank" python convention example frankly seems incredibly minor. Someone got offended and complained and someone else apologized and then a whole bunch of people argued about how offended any person actually should be. Is this supposed to be some kind of a big deal? Like, I'm all in favor of a good pointless argument about the nuances of jokes vs offense, but a "cultural phenomenon" this is not.
The problem with talking about "cancel culture" as a real thing is that it is primarily used to attempt to shield people from legitimate criticism.
You brought up the Damore incident, and I don't think it's worth re-litigating the entire debate, but from my perspective, his speech was stupid and offensive enough that I wouldn't want to work with the dude. And more to the point, you shouldn't be allowed to silence my response to his speech.
Damore is "allowed" to say his thing. He didn't get arrested. It's not illegal. Instead, everyone else is allowed to respond to him. Some of that was articles calling him an idiot, some of that was apparently firing him. This is a good thing and I vehemently disagree with this idea that people's responses should be censored.
Even in the most high profile cases of online "cancelling", the consequences tend to be extremely minor. I'll quote from a relatively high profile example:
> In November 2017, comedian Louis C.K. admitted to sexual misconduct allegations and, as a result, his shows were canceled, distribution deals were terminated, and he was dropped by his agency and management. After a period away from show business, Louis C.K. returned to work in 2018 and won a Grammy award in 2022.
Do you think any part of this was unjust in some way?
The term "cancel culture" was always intended to be a pejorative, intended to shame and disparage the people involved in speaking out against those in power. Did it occasionally apply out side of that? Sure, but very rarely to any serious degree.
Look at, dunno, the whole "gamergate" thing where some dude spent years attempting to "cancel" a female journalist over made up allegations. No one started generalizing about an entire culture of anti-free-speechers or whatever. Instead it took people complaining about powerful people being sexist/racist for it to suddenly be an issue.
> The point I actually want to make is that speech absolutely does and should have consequences.
Nothing said by any of the people I'm talking about justified the consequences they suffered.
Nothing said by any of the people I'm talking about justified any negative consequences at all, in my personal opinion.
Of course, people are equally entitled to speak their own opinions. But laws against defamation are compatible with freedom of speech. And on the flip side, freedom of speech is a philosophical concept which stands independently from the First Amendment or any other law or constitutional provision in any country. Threatening people with the kinds of consequences observed is threatening their ability to speak freely.
The natural consequences of speech are a) change in others' opinion; b) more speech from others. If saying X could ruin my life, then it cannot plausibly be argued that I am actually "free" to say X.
James Damore should not have lost his job, because he said nothing wrong. Where people claimed he said something wrong, even on the occasions where they could point at something relevant, it simply did not make the argument that they claimed it did.
Again: I know, because I have read it (and the media coverage). It's also still available on his personal website, along with numerous archives.
> The "mr-hank" python convention example frankly seems incredibly minor. Someone got offended and complained and someone else apologized and then a whole bunch of people argued about how offended any person actually should be.
And people lost their jobs when they should not have lost their jobs. People were subjected to firestorms of social media "criticism", and had their names dragged through the mud, for no good reason.
> his speech was stupid and offensive enough that I wouldn't want to work with the dude.
There was nothing wrong with what he said. It was objectively correct, and it was objectively completely different from how others characterized it. They were objectively lying about what he said. I know this, because I read what he said, and I read what others said about what he said. Their characterizations were incorrect and they had no real justification for making those characterizations, except for ideological blindness.
There was nothing that merited him losing his job. If you don't want to work with him, that does not merit him losing his job. If you don't want to work with me, that does not merit me losing my job. If I don't want to work with you, that does not merit you losing your job.
> And more to the point, you shouldn't be allowed to silence my response to his speech.
Nobody did so, and nobody proposed to do so. If by some chance you are his former employer, terminating him was not a "response" that could be "silenced". In every other case, nobody is supposing that you shouldn't be able to think he's an idiot, or call him an idiot (since that wouldn't meet any reasonable standard of defamation, at least in the US). But they are supposing that he should not have lost his job.
> This is a good thing
No, it is not. It was fundamentally unjust. Being fired — and having everyone know why it happened — is a serious consequence that was not merited.
> and I vehemently disagree with this idea that people's responses should be censored.
This is irrelevant. Nobody's response was censored, and nobody proposed to censor responses.
Termination of employment is not speech. It cannot be "censored". It can, however, be called out as unjust, and cited as evidence of a trend of unjust extrajudicial punishment.
> Do you think any part of this was unjust in some way?
Yes; the part where his name was dragged through the mud and he lost business by the fiat of people more powerful than him (the agency etc., not by letting the market decide) even though his "misconduct" was nothing illegal and did not even result in any civil action that I'm aware of, although it did result in protests at his comeback tour (per the Wikipedia source). From what I recall, he proposed some sexual acts in an entirely reasonable context for doing so, in a highly self-deprecating manner, that his partners were not interested in, and he took "no" for an answer without a problem.
> The term "cancel culture" was always intended to be a pejorative,
Yes, because pejoration is merited. But they are the ones who decided to call it "cancelling" and to refer to its targets as "cancelled" (also "over") in the first place.
> intended to shame and disparage the people involved in speaking out against those in power.
They should be critiqued. The people they speak out against overwhelmingly are not "in power", as demonstrated by the fact that they commonly lose their jobs.
If the mere existence of an epithet to describe their unjust conduct, is "shaming and disparaging", then so is that conduct.
> Did it occasionally apply out side of that? Sure, but very rarely to any serious degree.
It happens constantly. I know because I have friends who would happily constantly show me new examples if I decided to spend the time listening.
> the whole "gamergate" thing where some dude
His name is Eron Gjoni.
Somehow, I can remember this despite not having had to think about it for years; yet eleven years later out of countless exchanges I've had to get dragged into, I cannot recall a single instance where someone on your side of the argument mentioned the name voluntarily or otherwise demonstrated awareness of it. I can recall numerous instances where I asked them if they know his name, and they all sidestepped the question.
Eleven years later it is consistently people on your side of the argument bringing up the topic, while proudly demonstrating ignorance of even the most basic facts of the matter. It is not Gjoni's original supporters having some "remember the Alamo" moment. They don't need to.
The "some dude" rhetoric is demeaning. So was the treatment of his allegations, which were a) severe; b) credible and reasonably evidenced; and c) not even remotely like the misogynistic nonsense maliciously and falsely attributed to him. I know this because I have read them. They are still publicly available, by the way. (Also, Zoe Quinn is not a "journalist", and never was.)
Gjoni was known at the time to have strong progressive values, and expressed those values before, during and after his post with the allegations. In fact, a significant portion of the claim depends on attempting to apply those progressive values fairly, and holding Quinn to her own standards. He shows more kindness and charity than I could imagine most people being capable of in the same situation.
His case is by any reasonable measure far stronger than that of any of the women who complained about Louis C.K. At least if we're presuming that men have equal rights, that their sexual consent is important, that people should generally be expected to meet the standards they apply to their sexual partners... again, the actual words are public information; you don't have to take my word for it. I am not linking them because I assume it will get my post automatically filtered. I have seen that happen elsewhere on the Internet. I suppose I take a risk simply by writing both names.
> Instead it took people complaining about powerful people being sexist/racist
This is not what happens. The targets are broadly speaking not powerful, and the allegations of sexism and racism (or anything else) are broadly speaking unfounded.
> Termination of employment is not speech. It cannot be "censored". It can, however, be called out as unjust, and cited as evidence of a trend of unjust extrajudicial punishment.
This is the key point of this argument and it boils down to the idea that freedom of association is somehow less meaningful or more able to be limited than freedom of speech. It's not. Even in a business context.
> If you don't want to work with him, that does not merit him losing his job.
If I'm his employer, then yes, this merits losing his job because it's literally the definition of why people lose their jobs. Because people don't want to work with them. Whether that's due to things they say or things they've done is irrelevant.
The thing is, speech matters. You can't arbitrarily separate the world into "speech" and "actions". The nursery rhyme about sticks and stones is incredibly untrue. Speech is the predecessor of actions and it tells you both what someone intends to do and what they want you to do.
If every single company in america signed some kind of agreement to never hire James Damore, or the federal government passed some kind of law forbidding his employment, then yes, that would be extreme and unjust. Instead he just got fired and had to interview at a new company. Hardly an existential crisis.
This again goes to my original point, Damore is in a fairly privileged position and didn't actually suffer that much, and yet we're supposed to use this as an example to justify silencing people.
The thing that gets frequently glossed over is that all of these situations where people are "cancelled" are merely reversions to a neutral position. Hiring someone, and by extension keeping them employed, is an action you take. Firing them is merely stopping that action. Same thing with inviting someone to come give a speech at your college or anything else. Cancelling the invitation is merely reverting to the original, neutral position where no action had been taken. It's not some kind of massive injustice if rescinds an invitation, no matter if that's to a party or to give a speech.
Gamergate is especially ironic since it was essentially an attempt to cancel someone that started all of it, it just turned out to be based on a ton of false accusations and then escalated into frankly criminal behaviour.
The whole purpose behind the "cancel culture" meme is an attempt to prevent people from reacting to speech. I think that's wrong and damn near evil. Speech can be incredibly impactful and being able to speak and act in opposition to it is sometimes the most important thing anyone can actually do.
Like most things in life, it turns out that why you're doing something actually matters quite a bit. There are people in this world who absolutely deserve to be "cancelled".
> This is the key point of this argument and it boils down to the idea that freedom of association is somehow less meaningful or more able to be limited than freedom of speech.
When I look up explanations of the concept of "freedom of association", I don't see anything about employers' rights to "disassociate with" employees by firing them. Rather, I see abundant discussion of employees' rights to unionize. Here's what my government has to say about it (https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/chec...):
> Freedom of association is intended to recognize the profoundly social nature of human endeavours and to protect individuals from state-enforced isolation in the pursuit of their ends (Mounted Police Association of Ontario v. Canada, [2015] 1 S.C.R. 3 (“MPAO”) at paragraph 54). It protects the collective action of individuals in pursuit of their common goals (Lavigne v. Ontario Public Service Employees Union, [1991] 2 S.C.R. 211 at page 253). It functions to protect individuals against more powerful entities, thus empowering vulnerable groups and helping them work to right imbalances in society (MPAO, supra at paragraph 58). It allows the achievement of individual potential through interpersonal relationships and collective action (Dunmore v. Ontario (Attorney General), [2001] 3 S.C.R. 1016 at paragraph 17).
An employer is a "more powerful entity" than an employee, inherently.
Cancel culture is used to pressure employers to fire their employees, for reasons that the employer doesn't even inherently care about but that would create a perceived risk to the business' bottom line, due to those applying the pressure. It is businesses receiving phone calls demanding that they shun the bad person, without any expectation that the business actually investigate the claim.
But the concept of freedom of association, too, extends beyond law. If you unjustly vilify me, that inhibits my ability to associate with those would would otherwise associate with me but for whatever it is you've convinced them of. (And vice versa, of course.)
> The thing is, speech matters. You can't arbitrarily separate the world into "speech" and "actions". The nursery rhyme about sticks and stones is incredibly untrue. Speech is the predecessor of actions and it tells you both what someone intends to do and what they want you to do.
This applies equally to those doing the cancelling.
> Because people don't want to work with them.
I am using my speech to explain why I consider it morally wrong to not want to work with them: because they haven't done anything that justifies that reaction.
> The thing that gets frequently glossed over is that all of these situations where people are "cancelled" are merely reversions to a neutral position.
Under capitalism, being unemployed is not a "neutral position".
> Gamergate is especially ironic since it was essentially an attempt to cancel someone that started all of it, it just turned out to be based on a ton of false accusations and then escalated into frankly criminal behaviour.
I already explained what is wrong with your understanding of the event in my previous comment.
> There are people in this world who absolutely deserve to be "cancelled".
There are people who deserve comparable repercussions for their actions. That is why the justice system exists.
> The whole purpose behind the "cancel culture" meme is an attempt to prevent people from reacting to speech.
No, this is not the purpose. I say this as someone who uses the phrase. Please do not try to explain my own intentions to me.
There is clearly no further discussion to be had here.
> No, this is not the purpose. I say this as someone who uses the phrase. Please do not try to explain my own intentions to me.
This may not be your intention, but these actions certainly do a lot to help the people whose purpose it is to silence criticism. That's my point. Intentions certainly do matter, but so do results.
> If you unjustly vilify me
The word "unjustly" bearing a whole lot of weight in this sentence. Do we agree that people can be justly vilified then? And then suffer the natural consequences of that? Because that's basically my point in a nutshell.
It's great to make the theoretical argument about "extra judicial justice" and "laws should be used to decide these things", but there's no practical way to adjudicate every single human interaction with written laws. It just doesn't work. Instead we have a system where people are allowed to speak their minds and other people are allowed to tell them to shut up. I wouldn't call it perfect, but I haven't heard much in the way of viable alternatives.
> Under capitalism, being unemployed is not a "neutral position".
Sounds like your issue is with capitalism, not cancellation.
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.
> 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.
It is not a meme or a myth. It has happened, has been happening for a long time, and is still happening. I have personally observed it to happen on many occasions, including ones that caused harm to people I care about.
It is disrespectful to dismiss that.
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.
True, there is some hesitation deploying sanctions and peacekeeping troops to keep the Israeli state away from starving children.
> I don't really understand how this conflict has been dragged out for so long.
Consider that even people on HN are replying to you with the kind of rhetoric that they are, on both sides of the issue, and then keep in mind that the world is full of people who feel even more strongly about it and don't feel at all restrained by HN commenting guidelines.
No, there is no trusted neutral party. There are many players involved who reject that concept on principle, who even consider that it would be suicidal to accept such a thing.
> 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.
Israel has been killing Palestinians, expelling them from their homes, and oppressing them for decades before Hamas even existed.
"Both sides" is like saying the Native Americans were at fault for resisting the European Colonists' (ultimately successful) efforts to take their land and exterminate them.
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?
“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...
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.
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.
and sometimes the information is just wrong.
As mentioned in media
"....A former Israeli prime minister has accused The New York Times of “blood libel” after the newspaper issued a clarification over the publication of a photograph of a child in Gaza whom the newspaper – and other media outlets – claimed was suffering “severe malnutrition”.
The New York Times admitted an error in publishing the image after it emerged the emaciated boy had been diagnosed with pre-existing health conditions. ...."
> 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.
This is quite suspicious. Needs to be further investigated? Conversely there are allegations of child solders down to 10 years old.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
What difference does that make for 'all the kids that are growing up in Gaza now'? If they're less than 77 years old (which I assume they are, being kids and all), Israel has been their (and many of their parents') neighbour for all of their lives.
International relationships and balances are created through centuries of cultural ties and exchanges. Don't you think it makes a difference if you know that you cannot visit the birthplace of your parents because it has been occupied ?
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."
but Arabs colonised the Levant from their native homeland in the Arabian Peninsula.
The Arabs did not replace the native peoples of the Levant. The Palestinians turn out to be even more closely related to ancient Levantine people (including ancient Israelites) than most Israelis are. Levantine peoples started speaking Arabic, the same way that Jews in ancient times stopped speaking Hebrew (except in religious contexts) and adopted Aramaic as their native language.
Not that any of this matters. What happened in the 7th Century CE is not relevant to the question of who the native population was in 1900.
> What happened in the 7th Century CE is not relevant to the question of who the native population was in 1900.
but it does. Jewish people have lived in the area for 3600 years, Arab Abs arrived 1600 years later, violently colonising the Middle East and North Africa Africa and violence in the name of Islam remains a global problem to this day.
Judaism hasn't even existed for anywhere near 3600 years, and most Arabs are just local people who started speaking Arabic in the centuries after the spread of Islam (much like the Jews stopped speaking Hebrew 2000 years ago and adopted Aramaic).
One of the weirdest things about this conflict is that the Palestinians are more closely related to the ancient Israelites than many (maybe even most) Israelis.
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.
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.
they called themselves Arabs before 1960. You’re probably aware of that since you keep commenting on this issue. Jordan is also Palestine which you should also be aware of before commenting on this issue.
And Israelis have only called themselves Israelis since 1948. But if someone were to go around calling them "Palestine Jews," you'd rightly suspect that person of antisemitism.
But Israelis aren’t an ethnicity, they’re Jewish and Arab and druze and Christian. if someone called Israelis Palestinian Jews, it would sound like they know very little about Israel, and think that most diverse society in the Middle East is an ethnostate - basically your standard online conspiracy theorist.
Whereas the people that call themselves Palestinians are trying to pretend Palestinian is an ethnicity and rebrand themselves from being Arab colonists.
The "Arab colonists" you're talking about are people whose ancestors have generally lived in the region for as long as they can remember. They were kicked out by people who had just arrived from Europe a few years earlier.
> people that call themselves Palestinians are trying to pretend Palestinian is an ethnicity and rebrand themselves from being Arab colonists.
That reminds me, isn't there some traditional eschatology that co-opted the word "semite" to similarly rebrand their colonial habit?
The word antisemitism was used many years before Israel existed. And arabs colonised the levant, Israel is easily the most successful decolonisation project in history.
Do you actually believe this stuff, or do you just say it to troll?
When there’s only 100,000 Palestinians left, Israel will announce that they accept a one-state solution.
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.
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.
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!
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:
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.
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
Exposed by whom? Israeli propadandists?
Even if one of the photos among many represents a child with some other underlying condition apart from malnutrition, does this mean that starvation in Gaza does not exist?
People getting shot dead trying to get food is also fake news?
What a repulsive person you are!
It’s not one child among many - this thread has already shown you three. if you’re not following the conflict closely, you should also be aware that children from other Middle Eastern conflicts and AI are also frequently used, as well as Pallywood style films scenarios where you can occasionally see behind the scenes (you mind find #mrfafo entertaining). You can also just look at social media from Gaza to see supermarkets, dessert stores, and comments like “we have no bread so we had to eat rice” which are hardly indicative of a starving population. Meanwhile, there are actual atrocities happening in Syria and Yemen, but it’s not on the news because Jewish people are not involved.
The New York Times has just admitted the child on their cover was already ill: https://x.com/nytimespr/status/1950311365756817690?s=46
One photo among many others, didn't say it was one child only!
It also could be that Israel propagandists send them to journalists to discredit any other valid evidence of starvation, which is more than abundant
> It also could be that Israel propagandists send them to journalists
Yes, it could be 3 instances of a false flag conspiracy, among many more instances, but it could be that the left hates Jewish people. What do you think is more likely?
> evidence of starvation, which is more than abundant
No. That's why they use disabled kids, kids in Yemen, and AI. Jump on Tiktk or instagram and look at the videos posted in Gaza. You'll see markets and cafes and car dealerships. People complaining "there's no bread so we have to eat rice" is evidence of a shortage of some foods. Not starvation.
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.
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...
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-...
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
I would not trust a Wikipedia entry to be correct.
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.
> one of those WCK workers was in fact a rifle wielding Hamas member who had participated in Oct 7th
Source?
Those in power care only about their own power; everything else is expendable
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.
The first video shots reminded me of the balcony scenes in Schindler's List.
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 same genocidal and neocolonialism...
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...
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...
Source?
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...
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.
[flagged]
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.
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...
"No Proof Hamas Routinely Stole U.N. Aid, Israeli Military Officials Say" 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.
Many tech companies and startups are based in Israel. I’d argue this makes the topic relevant for HN.
»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.
> 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.
> 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 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...
It seems telling that you were downvoted without any responses. I can't see anything objectionable in your position, and it appears appropriately argued and evidenced. I guess people just disagree with your worldview.
I did not downvote the comment - I never downvote anything - but the argument that Israel gave some kind of sovereignty to the Gaza strip in 2005 just does not match reality. Israel removed its troops from the Gaza strip but still maintained heavy control over it - control of border traffic, maritime blockade, airspace control, control over water, electricity, and fuel supply. You do not need boots on the ground if you have that much control over everything that go in or comes out of some region.
Also the sentiment of the population does not matter if the government does not want a two state solution or only on conditions unacceptable to the Palestinians. Read up on the details of the proposals.
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.
> ...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.
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.
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.
"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, 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.
Yes. Some additional details for those interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court...
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
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?
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.
Let's talk about colonization. The land of Israel, backwards through time:
21. Modern state of Israel 20. British mandate 19. Ottoman empire 18. Islamic Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt 17. Ayyubid dynasty 16. Christian kingdom of Jerusalem <-- this is around 1099 15. Fatimid caliphate 14. Abbasid caliphate 13. Umayyad caliphate 12. Rashidun Caliphate <-- right after Muhammad dies 11. Byzantine empire 10. Roman empire <-- founding of Christianity 9. Hasmonean dynasty <-- BC flips to AD 8. Seleucid empire 7. Empire of Alexander the 3rd of Macedon 6. Persian empire 5. Babylonian empire 4. Kingdoms of Israel and Judea 3. Kingdom of Israel 2. Theocracy of the 12 tribes of Israel <-- first Jews 1. Individual state of Canaan <-- earliest archeological evidence of people in what is today called Israel
But please say more about the vital context.
One of these is actively pursued in the context of the allegedly rules-based modern world, where this kind of colonization is a war crime.
"Israel is only the first target. The entire planet will be under our rule." -Mahmoud Al-Zahar
And I'm going to be the first man to jump to the moon.
> 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.
Those people are the ancestors of the modern-day Palestinians.
> Israel gave Arabs land
That's a strange way to put it.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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 latter. They effectively get exclusivity if they want.
How does that work?
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.
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.
The political opinions and political actions are what's being banned. You're free to silently buy whatever you want
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.
We can only hope. But I'm not as optimistic as you.
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
Reuters: USAID analysis found no evidence of massive Hamas theft of Gaza aid
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/usaid-analysis-fou...
Of course there's no proof, how could it be proven??
But what's undisputed is that it wasn't getting through. From the UN itself:
https://app.un2720.org/tracking/
Of what entered Gaza only about 10% made it where it was supposed to go.
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.
I never said they give *all* the aid to Hamas.
The thing is there's no relationship between Israeli actions and the actual food supply in Gaza. They were supposedly on the verge of starvation, Israel cuts off the supplies for a while while they shift over to the GHF and it isn't bring out your dead time? Gaza famine is the new wolf. Look at the real famines in the world (places like Sudan), look at Gaza.
>Hamas controls Gaza with an iron fist.
IDF controls Gaza lmao.
>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.
IDF is worried that if Hamas distributes the aid they might be seen as a government?
Israel doesn't like getting out humanitarianed by literal terrorists? That does sound embarrassing, but not embarrassing enough to literally kill people over.
>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).
If Hamas delivers the aid as it is intended to be delivered that is fine. The issue is starvation, not who gets the credit for ending starvation. Pretending otherwise is ghoulish.
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...
They keep warning. Israel cuts off supplies while changing strategies, nothing changes. That could not have happened if the original situation had been dire.
You claim there's nothing to buy but where's the evidence? They've managed to find another "starving" baby--once again, serious medical issues. As before, the relatives look fine.
And your "market" solution assumes there is a fair market. It can never work in the face of Hamas taking enough to cause scarcity.
I always wonder about these sorts of comments. If the people writing them found out the facts were different, would they feel dismay at how terribly wrong they were? Feel remorse?
Or would they just find another way to argue?
(This is of course, if they believed in it to begin with. Some just pretend.)
I made a very simple, testable claim there.
1) The claim was the situation was dire, starvation imminent.
2) Israel cut off the supplies while restructuring the system.
3) That didn't result in a bunch of bodies.
#2 is undisputed. Just look at the news about #1, I can not see this as reasonably disputed. That leaves only #3. Hamas doesn't show any inability to get their claims out, thus why in the world should I think there's a bunch of people dead of starvation.
If I'm breaking it down wrong, show where. If you disagree with any of the subpoints, show where.
If you believe the facts to be different, the expected mode of discourse on HN is that you provide evidence that the facts are different.
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.
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:
because genocide.
It will all stop when the terrorists return all the hostages.
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?
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.
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
[flagged]
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...
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.
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?
[flagged]
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.
[flagged]
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).
>>> No idea why these posts are allowed to flourish here
No, they often get flagged off pretty quickly.