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.

During the horrors of European colonization, governments had vested interest in treating indigenous peoples in their colonies as sub-human, and they sponsored whichever scholar to portray them as such. So I think it is very natural that we today view Europeans of the past as extremely racist bunch (their governments certainly were). But do wonder how many regular people were influenced by the racist frenzy of their governments. My guess is probably about as many as in Europe today.

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’ll speculate as to why the GP probably didn’t consider that others may view it differently. It’s because this issue, like many issues in history, have no two sides. There’s one correct answer, so all other viewpoints are basically not worth considering.

It’s a genocide! There.

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...

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...

Source?

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.

As far as I know this was the result of the IDF's own investigation so there's some conflict of interest

> 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.

However, every colonial invader, occupier, genocidaire and war criminal of the last few hundred years has done their best to flip the blame.

Some of them have been really, really good at it, and each learns from the previous efforts.

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.

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 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.

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.

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?

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") .

It’s disgusting, and it works to prevent people from saying anything publicly.

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?

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.

What people here don't understand is that there is a war going on. In wars people get killed. The war and the condition of the Palestinian population is 100% the responsibility of their government, Hamas, that continues fighting and holding Israeli hostages.

Israel can not and will not let Hamas keep going. It is, as is appropriate, putting its citizen's safety as a first priority.

I have plenty of criticism of various specific actions of the Israeli government and military. But the big picture is still what it is. And in this big picture no other country, including the one you live in, would respond differently when/where it comes to securing the lives of its citizens. Let Hamas surrender, return the hostages, and then we can discuss the path forward. They are making the choices.

Turns out most law in western democracies was largely for show

So answer the question with your solution.

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.

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?

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.

Israel‘s intention was always clear to those of us that listened to what Israeli politicians and generals were saying at the time, and also to the Palestinian victims of those words and actions. But regrettably few listened to those words and actions and many of the world leaders allowed this to escalate into where we are today rather than intervening at any time, as they are bound to do by the genocide convention.

I am glad that you have changed your mind, and now see the horrors and the crimes for what they are. Hopefully we will both see those responsible brought to justice in a court of law for their horrendous crimes.

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.

This is the problem.

I fear many Jewish people hide their utter hatred for Palestinians behind this callous shrug off, as in, “well what are we supposed to do? They are either a terrorist or sheltering for one”. Low key callous, but truthfully, murderous.

The lies are so incredible, that one might even believe Gazans are staging the world’s greatest photo shoot of starvation and devastation. Make up, lighting, props, casting, and everything. They even casted Israeli soldiers, straight from Israel. Quite the production, eh? It’s a sick world.

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.

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.

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.

Yeah, all those three are bad; Sudan in particular. I wouldn't say Yemen and Syria are worse than Gaza.

> You seem to only care about Israel.

The reason I'm screaming about Israel is especially because we (the US) are aiding and abetting it. If we were funding Sudanese rebels the way we're funding the IDF, and welcoming their generals to the White House like we do Bibi, I'be screaming about that too.