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...
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.
> 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
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.
>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.
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...
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-...
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.
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.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/24/middleeast/palestinians-h...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/23/idf-in...
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...
Admittedly blowing up the entire van was probably wrong in retrospect.
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.
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.
As far as I know this was the result of the IDF's own investigation so there's some conflict of interest
Here's the latest Wikipedia entry on the event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Central_Kitchen_aid_conv...
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...
> 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.
If BDS didn't work, they wouldn't be trying to ban it.
Here's the thing, fighting this in court would be extremely politically inconvenient for a lot of people.
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 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.
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.”
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.
> 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.
>> peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs
What is going on here?
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.
> 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.
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.
Unfortunately Israel itself seems opposed to this. Part of the reason they are authoring their own demise in my opinion.
That's a strange way to put it.
If I move into your house without your permission, and let you sleep on the floor in the crawlspace, would that be called 'giving you a place to live'? What if that were coupled with regular beatings, and/or starving you?
1) Jews were always a part of historical Palestine. Sometimes more and sometimes less but were always present. Around 1900, 50 years before the formation of Israel, there were about 50k Jews (about 10% of the population). You can see it especially in cities like Safed, Tiberias and Jerusalem which were Jewish centers.
2) Jews that came later largely bought their way in, rather than forced Arabs out. There were violent clashes but usually it was friction between the populations, and not outright conquest.
3) The forceful expulsion of population came as the result of the 1948 war which was opened by Arabs and not by Israel.
So to correct your analogy, the Arabs here are like a violent HOA which doesn't like the new group of residents who bought their way in. They fight and they lose. Tough luck, right?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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...)
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.
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?
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.
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.
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."
…yes, they do.
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
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.
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.
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)
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.
China, Russia, Iran, etc would definitely benefit from pouring fuel on this topic.
Not sure why you think only one side does it.
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.
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?
Well that sure seems a bit tautological.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 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.
I agree. The trouble is that not discussing it at all is not a solution either.
> it comes down to the ratio of "intellectually interesting" (quote from your first link) comments, and those that engage with them in good faith, versus all the yelling and condemnation, right?
I wish it were that simple but I don't think it is.
> Too many good-faith comments that don't go with the thread mainstream get flagged and dead
I don't think there's a "thread mainstream" here. I think the community is deeply divided.
If you (or anyone) see good-faith comments getting mistreated in this way, we'd appreciate links so we can take a look. Sometimes we restore those comments, other times we find that the comment broke the site guidelines and thus should stay flagged. But we always look, and usually also have enough time to reply.
> I realize I'm shouting into the wind
Not at all! We're interested. We just don't necessarily have good answers.
So, sending it to page 4 quick-like has too many downsides? I am not an expert in community management, I'm interested to understand why.
> 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!
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.
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?
Emailing is the way to make sure we see something.
> 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.
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').
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.
"Is it accidental or intentional that all privacy related posts are biased towards individuals having a right to privacy?"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Auschwitz isn't in Germany, it's in Poland. Unless I'm misunderstanding your question?
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).
I think we're well past that now, though.
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.
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.
[1]: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/704833/tablets-shat...
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.
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") .
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.
David Ben-Gurion was the founder of Israel and its first Prime Minister and he confirms that: "They are nearly all good-hearted, and are easily befriended. One might say that they are like big children." David Ben-Gurion in Igrot (Letters), Tel Aviv: Am Oved and Tel Aviv University, Vol. I, 1971
And how come those pogroms didn't make those Zionist-Jews more empathetic to suffering and persecution? Instead they had the exact same racist and supremacist attitudes as the europeans they were complaining about.
"The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim in Hebrew] and for those there is no value." - Weizmann, quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.
> The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project in Palestine (1900s), were not suffering from the trauma of the Holocaust (it was decades before) and did not suffer from any meaningful antisemitism
Ben-Gurion himself was witness to pogroms in Poland. Does one need to be murdered or violently attacked to "suffer antisemitism"?
Every group is capable of and, in fact, exhibits racist attitudes. Hannah Arendt observed and commented on the racial hierarchy among Jewish Israel's when attending the Eichmann trial, with the European immigrants having higher socio-economic status than the native, darker-skinned Jewish population. Jews are no different than any other group, ethnic or otherwise.
And, FWIW, Jews are hardly the only ethnic or religious (or mixed ethnic-religious) group which has maintained a distinct identity across millennia and within larger populations, or found itself displaced and then displacing others. In fact, the Middle East has many such groups. The insistence on distinguishing and rationalizing Jews as being peculiar in this and similar regards is a distinctively European cultural obsession, though many regions around the world have their own "Jews" that play this perpetual "other" cultural role.
Again, collective punishment is wrong[1]. Full stop. There's no need to build a complex, racist, colonial narrative as a way to characterize Jews, Israelis, or Zionists as the bad guy in the unfolding Gaza crisis. There's zero need to make recourse to centuries of history to deduce what's wrong with Gaza or even how it came about. The left's oppressor-oppressed modality perpetuates prejudiced, reductive, racist thinking no less than other modes of reducing people to caricatures, and in the end just an excuse to malign or elevate people on a whim. Zionists emigrating from Europe to Palestine to flee persecution... bad. Salvadorians and other populations chain migrating to the US to flee persecution or economic hardship... good. But these assessments can and will flip on a dime.
[1] At least in the modern Westernized ethos, though it seems this judgment re the legitimacy of collective punishment or collective blame is sadly, demonstrably precarious.
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."
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 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 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.
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.
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...
You might want to provide the source for this. (The phrase is not directly googlable.)
"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
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.
It’s disgusting, and it works to prevent people from saying anything publicly.
Fervent supporters of Israel believe all sorts of nonsense about support for Hamas in the west. It functions as a kind of whataboutism.
The Islamophobic contingent of American society loves a good conspiracy theory about muslims controlling the media though.
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.
> 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...)
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?
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?
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.
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?
>requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel
I don't really see any responses to any of the questions I have raised.
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.
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_...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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...
"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)
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.
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...
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
Or would they just find another way to argue?
(This is of course, if they believed in it to begin with. Some just pretend.)
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.
The hypocrisy is stunning.
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.
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
Turns out most law in western democracies was largely for show
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?
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.
So answer the question with your solution.
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.
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.
Although having way more food/distribution points might help reduce the violent mobs.
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.
It's a solution. What do you suggest?
"Not X!" is a copout.
Unfortunately for that perspective, finding a good solution means diving in and understanding the conflict from the Israeli perspective.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Go ahead and have the last word. I will read it carefully.
I'll refer you back here for guidance on the matter:
I'll refer you back here for guidance on the matter:
The only difference between then and today is that Jews have an army. People like you hate that.
Anyways, no serious proposals from you, it seems. I'll refer you back here for guidance on the matter:
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.
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.
Sounds like "traveling gaza" is your preferred source over "traveling israel". No difference. Well, there's some differences... There aren't any foreign journalists in Gaza and the "truth" is certainly not a strong point in reporting lines from Islamist controlled war zones.
I certainly trust Reuters and AFP over a YouTuber, yes. Their local journalists have a track record of professionalism, they aren't activists under control of the Hamas. Besides, are you honestly proposing there's any kind of regime in control of Gaza right now..?
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.
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.
I believe that capturing POWs is fairly common when at war.
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.
That seems like a massive exaggeration.
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.
Hamas, not Gazans. Nice play with language.
> hostages,
The thousands of Palestinian "administrative detainees" held without charge in Israel, are not hostages?
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?
So saying they're Gazans covers all the groups, it doesn't say all Gazans, just that the ones doing it are Gazans.
"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.
No, it's not all Israelis. It's the IDF (IOF) under instruction from the maniacs in charge.
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...
Also support for one group does not imply that all supporters take up arms in solidarity with said group.
So don't do this "what's the solution??" while tens of thousands are being killed and starved.
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
> *Apart from implying that civilian Gazans are responsible for the hostages
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/19/middleeast/gaza-neighborhood-...
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.
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.
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.
Arafat and the PLA/PLO, let's be clear, were responsible for many terrorist atrocities. But let's not forget, their softening, and efforts at the negotiation table, put the Israel far right in a tough spot. Questions were really starting to get awkward - "Arafat is negotiating and making concessions, so why isn't Israel?"
That's when Netanyahu and his buddies decided that Israel needed to start supporting Hamas, because Hamas was more hardline than the PLO. And their rise would make it easy to deflect blame away from Israel for being unwilling to explore the peace process.
Israel 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.
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...
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...
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.
What has that gotten them? Turns out, there's no diplomacy with the terrorist regime of Israel
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).
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.
You still answered with a negative, not a real answer.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
"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...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/middleeast/hamas-un...
Some non-profits (like Oxfam) are very against it as a purely anti-western reflex.
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.
".... 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.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-finances-fighter...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/middleeast/hamas-un...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/middleeast/hamas-un...
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.
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?
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.
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!
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?
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.
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_...
This cannot be reconciled with the meaning of the slogan "from the river to the sea". (Wikipedia claims that the slogan is used by both sides of the conflict, citing a JSTOR article I can't access; but I have only ever seen it used by Hamas and their supporters.)
Per Wikipedia, Hamas does not recognize Israel as of their most recent 2017 charter, and "called for a Palestinian state on all of Mandatory Palestine" in 1988.
While I'm sure that many Palestinians do not support Hamas and desire to co-exist with Israel, I see no good reason to suppose that this is any more common than the other way around.
> Israel is unwilling to have a two state solution, they always desired all of Mandatory Palestine
There is ample evidence to contradict this — enough that I can look it up on the fly. Were it true, for example, the Knesset would have had no need to pass a resolution declaring this to be their current position, barely a year ago. Netanyahu also claimed in 2015 to want a two-state solution, and of course there are other Israeli political parties with warmer attitudes towards Palestine.
The reason they might currently feel differently seems pretty obvious to me, even though this is a topic I rarely ever think about.
David Ben-Gurion, 1937
There is no contradiction.
"From the river to the sea", in English, means something different from "at the river and at the sea".
> ... 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."
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."
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...
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.
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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_...
oh I think I know why, everyone knows why...
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
You probably wouldn't feel that way 1945.
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.
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.
>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:
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 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
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!
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 don’t know anything about the impetus for the Oct 7th attack was, but you have to wonder why.
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)
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.
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
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‘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.
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.
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.
And then they used it to one up everything the world has seen in that region in recent past.
It seems like only Israel has agency in the middle east, why do you think it is so?
Why do you think they targeted the US for 9/11? Because they "hated our freedoms"?
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.
Notable Israel offered Gaza to Egypt as part of the Camp David Accords and Egypt didn't want it.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/01/israels-female...
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.
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.
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 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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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/
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……….?
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."
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...
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.
When do you switch from saying "yes these people are great for flip-flopping" to "no these people are terrible don't vote for them", and how do you say it in a way that gets through people's subtlety filters and doesn't make it look like you're flip flopping yourself?
If we want to use Gaza as a political tool to achieve some political aim (ie get my guy elected), that will be in conflict with doing something to help Gaza. Because in most countries, doing something meaningful is likely going to require cooperation between politicians from different parties. And it’s hard to get people to cooperate if you don’t plan on sharing the credit.
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...
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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!?!?
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 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
The point is that you were told this was the inevitable consequences of such actions and yet chose to ignore it. That's probably the kind of mea culpa they're looking for.
Predicting the future is notoriously tricky, but pretending like this outcome was in any way unlikely is extremely disengenuous.
We could equally say that this overreaction by Israel was entirely predictable - and inevitable - after Hamas’s murderous rampage on Oct 7. And to take hostages and not return them? What did they think Israel would do? Capitulate to Hamas’s demands, thereby encouraging Hamas to do the same thing again every few months when they want treats? Invasion was perhaps the only option the Israelis had. Hamas played chicken, using their own civilians as human shields. And Israel called their bluff. To the death of tens of thousands of innocent lives.
The heartbreaking part is that I agree with you. I feel like this conflict is inevitable. And it’s the civilians on both sides - but especially Gaza - who are bearing the brunt of misery as a result.
What on earth do I have to be sorry about? Of course their murderous rampage through Gaza happened after October 7. Even with the benefit of hindsight I’m not sure what better options Israel had.
I just wish they’d pull out and let the rebuilding begin. This conflict won’t be healed with more blood.
What both ways are you talking about? GP is arguing on behalf of those who were called antisemites because they stated “international community should rein in Israel to prevent them to commit atrocities because of rage”, and your response seems to be “well atrocities were given because Hamas”.
This is exactly why this “mea culpa” rings hollow. People who apparently condemn the reaction will tumble on their own arguments to excuse the same actions.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Designating someone as a "bad person" and then focusing on punishing them is simple and feels good. It's just not effective.
...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 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.
I would guess they are mainly cells of self playing pianos by now with some expatriot spokesmen.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But this is happening right now and the majority underage population starving to death right now is on Israel‘s watch.
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.
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"
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ?
> 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."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_German...
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 .
Israel and Ozzy Osbourne were born on the same year. People that were born after Ozzy, can no longer return to their birthplace, because it is now Israel and they are besieged in Gaza.
The 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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_of_non-Islamic_plac...
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?
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.
> 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.
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.
Can you see how this makes no sense ? Why create so much pain and suffering ?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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_...
One reason Israel gets so much attention in the US is that US taxpayers are underwriting the war; both by selling arms and by defending attacks on Israel. So in other words, every tax paying US person who works is working hard every day to further genocide. It is a bitter pill to swallow, and highlights the contradictions and hypocrisy of US foreign policy.
My tax dollars are not as clearly implicated in the wars in Sudan, Ethiopia, Syria, Myanmar, or the various other genocides.
Most of the weapons used to kill civilians in Gaza are payed for by American taxpayers. US citizens bear a large responsibility for what is going on there.
> But why are the hutis getting a free pass for the 800 000 tustis they genocided 25 years ago? How comes they're not constantly reminded of what they did? Those who committed these atrocities, including regular citizens, are still alive today.
The world stood by and let that genocide happen, and we appear to be standing by and letting this one happen too
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.
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.
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”!
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
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.
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)...
The expectation back then was you should kill Nazis and Japanese until they surrender without any conditions. Hamas always puts conditions on releasing hostages.
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
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.
Think harder
"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.
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.
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]
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".==
Really, nothing we see now is inconsistent with the most obvious explanation: which is the spiral of violence. None of it, as far as I can see, requires your conspiratorial belief that "all Israelis really wanted is to eliminate all Palestinians".
I'm not entirely sure, maybe they did it to give people a narrative to distribute? I just know what they are doing now, which is forced starvation and violence without warning. The exact thing people warned about before the conflict started.
Why would you forcibly starve a population of civilians if your goal wasn't to eliminate them? Why have they blocked outside journalists from entering Gaza for over 600 days if they weren't trying to hide their actions? Starving civilians in an area where you control the airspace and coastline isn't a "spiral of violence," it is a war crime.
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...
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.
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."
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211133201/netanyahus-referen...
[1] - https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/So...
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...
---
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...
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 not "lifted shortly after". It was lifted after several weeks, when the Biden administration pressured the Israeli government into doing so.
South Africa has no moral authority given that it refuses to arrest Putin.
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.
Can you link to that video? I want to see it.
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
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.
(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.
Around 20% of Israelis are Muslims and they have full rights and get to vote, so no its not an apartheid state.
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.
No one with an Israeli passport is allowed to visit Area A of the West Bank, regardless of their ethnicity.
One case is an assertion of sovereignty (whether we agree or not), the other case is apartheid.
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.
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.
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.
https://old.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/v8s88z/ara...
https://www.quora.com/Why-can-t-Israeli-Arabs-live-in-Israel...
Sounds like you have more than enough to get started.
Or maybe stay with reddit and quora. Up to you.
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.
words have no meaning, only emotion
Israeli apartheid is a system of institutionalized segregation and discrimination
in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and to a lesser extent in Israel proper.[a]
("Israel proper" refers to the borders of Israel as recognized by the majority of the international community,
which excludes East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip.)
This system is characterized by near-total physical separation between
the Palestinian and the Israeli settler population of the West Bank,
as well as the judicial separation that governs both communities,
which discriminates against the Palestinians in a wide range of ways.
Israel also discriminates against Palestinian refugees in the diaspora
and against its own Palestinian citizens.[2][3][4][5][6]
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.
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.
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.
No sanctions, no political pressure, no stop to selling weapons. What is France doing, in practice, to help the situation?
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.
And honestly, if it had been my daughter raped and killed at a music festival, I'd have done worse.
And by the same proportion, what would be the justified reaction of Palestinians to Israel now if they had the means? Complete nuclear annihilation?
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.
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?
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]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Both the US and Israel would have been better off not reacting at all than this.
It is true that the US often acts like an imperialist monster. That doesn't make other similar behavior acceptable.
- 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
- 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.
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...
Btw. it's not any prettier with hard-core Israel supporters either. Fair is fair.
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..."
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).
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.
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
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?
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?
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".
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
I guess this has been less obvious for those living or growing up in a country that closely allied to israel.
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.
Which start? There are so many in that conflict.
> - Israel has been illegally occupying, enforcing apartheid, committing war crimes for decades.
So did the other sides. For outsiders, it's very hard to know what's really going on in that region; so many history, so many details, so many emotions, so many abuse and killing... It's a chain of reactions and counter-reactions which is going for over a century. Don't assume that everyone can know everything.
Israel was also very good at manipulating the Western World and building on their collective guilt. Even if a politician knew what was going on, it would have been political suicide to speak out too much about this. Even now, it's a delicate topic. And people still blindly spreading hate against all Jews, while it's mainly the fault of some factions, is also not really helping the cause here.
> - I don't hear any apology about the above
Apologize for what? At the end of the day, there are all trapped in a situation where they have very little control.
"Both sides, X and Y, are bad" requires as a prerequisite that X is in the set of "bad". Doesn't matter which of X and Y are government policies in Israel or Palestine.
Now, if the comment you'd replied to was saying "it's all X's fault, Y is innocent", then "we've all seen Israel's true face now" would be a reasonable response.
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.
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".
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.
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.
So yes, those world leaders are as guilty as Israel, they enabled this for years.
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.
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)
I can see destroyed buildings on Google Maps. :(
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.
Do you have a source for this?
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.
Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis.
They’re not in the war zone taking an unbiased sample.
They’re in a hospital receiving critical but patients after triage
Inherently, their statistical sample of war injuries is biased. It’s a textbook example of the survivorship statical bias!
This is all I’m trying to say: not that their observations are false or that children aren’t being shot, but that they’re not in a position to draw accurate conclusions about what goes on outside the walls of their hospitals based on information they receive inside its walls. They certainly can’t draw conclusions about the motivations of IDF soldiers from the information available to them.
This logic applies to both sides, of course, and to all similar scenarios.
A random example are the Russian claims of having destroyed ‘X’ instances of ‘Y’ weapons system when Ukraine got less than ‘X’ delivered. The reason is simple — they’re not lying — they just counted the decoys they also blew up!
It’s war. It’s messy. Information is hard to interpret.
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.
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. ...."
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.
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.
They come from Palestine. They're not going to willingly allow themselves to be deported to Jordan, as you want.
Whereas the 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?
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.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/28/nx-s1-5482881/israel-gaza-gen...
EDIT: The BBC also reports on the same subject:
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...
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.
No, they often get flagged off pretty quickly.
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.
I think we know what the answer would be. Because we know that, how can what you say possibly be true?
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.
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.
This guy wanna make his country great again right now
UNRWA, WFP, etc. You know, the ones with decades of experience in Gaza and other war zones with sites, warehouses, and all the other infrastructure necessary to support a population under siege.
The one that has a unique definiton of 'refugee' that doesn't correspond with UNs the normal definition of the term? Where many of the staff work for Hamas? Where their schools teach children to be martyrs? The one many countries have halted funding for because of this?
If you want the UN, fine, UNHCR, the normal UN refugee agency.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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?
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.
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.
> 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.
* 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.
That won't happen due to the USA. So in practice the answer to "How will the Gazans eat?" is "They won't."
Leaving aside the horror of the thought, the only way to stop Israel's assault on Gaza with a military force is to summon one more powerful than the IDF. There are only a few nations in the world that have a military that could take on the IDF - the US, Russia, China, I'm not sure who else. None of those countries are even remotely likely to invade Israel to stop the IDF from massacring the Palestinians. Why would they? What would be in it for them?
Even in WWII, Germany was not invaded to save the Jews from the Holocaust. That was a fortunate and welcome side-effect. But if the Nazis hadn't also invaded all their neighbours, and the Soviet Union, they could have well gone on and exterminated all the Jews in Europe unimpeded.
It seems unlikely that the IDF will do anything to an international peace force operating in Gaza (not Israel) under a combined lead of France and the UK.
Anyway, it would exactly only take one country - the US - to stop shipping weapons (to credibly threaten to stop) to bring this to an end so fast that you can‘t even finish breakfast.
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.
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
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.
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
https://x.com/Osint613/status/1950181269972656328?t=4tWSy4m6...
https://x.com/HamasAtrocities/status/1949444566165405731?t=M...
Also original UN plans called for hundreds more distribution sites.
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.
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.
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.
yes, because it’s not like access to Gaza has historically been controlled by a terrorist group. Hang on, wait a sec…
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.
The outside world can still observe the consequences regardless of who's shaking the table.
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.
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.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-backed-aid-grou...
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 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.
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 ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_German...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It was also the US-Marshall Plan (not the allied) and it was also for Europe not for Germany.
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.
Dang wrote a comment today explaining our thoughts about this story:
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.
Is this referring to the Hamas Charter? Suspect it is a typo and you meant to say both sides.
Hamas presents new charter accepting a Palestine based on 1967 borders (2017)
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.
"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.
America wont let anyone else intervene.
Hamas does not want to step down, they want to kill all the Jewish people. They are very clear about this.
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.
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...
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 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.
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.
Must be some nasty stuff if you claim that Gaza children starvation is a media conspiracy fueled by BBC and Unicef.
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!
The New York Times has just admitted the child on their cover was already ill: https://x.com/nytimespr/status/1950311365756817690?s=46
It also could be that Israel propagandists send them to journalists to discredit any other valid evidence of starvation, which is more than abundant
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.
churchill•6mo ago
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.
leosanchez•6mo ago
Wait for few more hours to be thankful.
churchill•6mo ago
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.
johnisgood•6mo ago
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.
churchill•6mo ago
johnisgood•6mo ago
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.
speakfreely•6mo ago
forty•6mo ago
Well, them and Israeli far right who have been able to stay in power so far.
antonvs•6mo ago
LorenPechtel•6mo ago
josephg•6mo ago
I’ve caught flak from both sides for saying so. Some people seem deadset on making an enemy of nuance.
csallen•6mo ago
aqme28•6mo ago
josephg•6mo ago
> 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.
vharuck•6mo ago
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.
aqme28•6mo ago
vharuck•6mo ago
sneak•6mo ago
Look at how many Americans clamor for the mass murder of enslaved Russian teenagers.
zahlman•6mo ago
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.
elihu•6mo ago
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.
Cyph0n•6mo ago
ainiriand•6mo ago
Cyph0n•6mo ago
It is also much simpler to do this than qualify each and every statement by enumerating the list of good or bad countries :)
insane_dreamer•6mo ago
mupuff1234•6mo ago
fahhem•6mo ago
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.
mandmandam•6mo ago
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...
avoutos•6mo ago
pfannkuchen•6mo ago
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.
churchill•6mo ago
pfannkuchen•6mo ago
tim333•6mo ago
churchill•6mo ago
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.
h4ck_th3_pl4n3t•6mo ago
Der_Einzige•6mo ago
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.
churchill•6mo ago
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.
selimthegrim•6mo ago
geysersam•6mo ago
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?
oezi•6mo ago
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.
geysersam•6mo ago
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.
achierius•6mo ago
geysersam•6mo ago
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.
oezi•6mo ago
It usually easy to bash the west, but still I don't see anybody else doing much better.
avoutos•6mo ago
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.
1. https://www.bbc.com/arabic/articles/c9de3x3g41yo
zahlman•6mo ago
?????
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.
rixed•6mo ago
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.
zahlman•6mo ago
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?
rixed•6mo ago
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).
starik36•6mo ago
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.
ImPostingOnHN•6mo ago
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.
starik36•6mo ago
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)?
ImPostingOnHN•6mo ago
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
starik36•6mo ago
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.
snapplebobapple•6mo ago
DoodahMan•6mo ago
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...
starik36•6mo ago
avoutos•6mo ago
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.
Aunche•6mo ago
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.
elzbardico•6mo ago
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.
Aunche•6mo ago
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.
solidsnack9000•6mo ago
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.
t-3•6mo ago
somedude895•6mo ago
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.
TFYS•6mo ago
BriggyDwiggs42•6mo ago
elzbardico•6mo ago
Israel would need to use their nukes to be more efficient. But this would severely damage the real estate potential of the strip.
avoutos•6mo ago
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.
DaveExeter•6mo ago
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
YeGoblynQueenne•6mo ago
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.
sneak•6mo ago
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?
buyucu•6mo ago
msohailshah•6mo ago